Chapter 10: A True Nightmare Night
Perspective: Edgar Worthington
Location: Ponyville Outskirts, Equestria
Date: October 30, 2025
Well, several days passed without incident…and by that I mean no one got hurt too badly. Let’s see, notable points these last few days…well, I don’t think the cashier likes me anymore. Yea, don’t ask me what possessed me to do that, couldn’t honestly tell you. On the plus side though, it turns out the restaurants here all throw out their waste oil, so we got a huge supply of oil for me to turn into biodiesel. I think Flash thinks I’m insane, hoarding all this oil that to him seems useless. Glad he let me take it regardless! Let’s see, what else?
Oh! On the 28th, Eddy went to the shed to help solder that broken air sensor thingy on the generator. Twilight grabbed the soldering iron and burned her hand accidentally, and Eddy reprimanded her pretty harshly. I bet she was just curious, didn’t see the need to yell at her. Thankfully, it was a minor burn; she had let go quickly. I swear I don’t know what's going on with that guy. Yea he yelled at her, but why did he even bother? Does he care? Bah, I digress.
Moving on, Jonathon informed us that day that the carbon build-up was pretty bad, but thanks to Sword Smith’s help, they would have it running by the end of the day. That’s right; Sword Smith, the grumpy cynical mare…helping! That’s like Eddy being nice to strangers, it doesn’t happen often/at all! She still isn’t very trusting of us, but she seems to have relaxed a little bit, at least around Jonathon anyway. By Midday, they cranked over the motor, and it fired right up! It was exciting to see the old machine come back to life, and even more exciting was the fact that there would finally be some God-damn A/C in the house! I don’t know what it is about that house, but with the windows closed, I bake alive in there!
On the 29th, Twilight was finally able to record a host of observations of our tech actually working. Up until that point, there was no power, so all the devices in our house were inoperable. Not today! She was particularly amazed by all the things electricity could do, mentioning at one point it was ‘almost as versatile as magic’. While the others showed off all our stuff, I slaved away in front of the garage making biodiesel. I swear that stuff is time-consuming to make! Luckily, we have the ingredients for a huge batch. I didn’t use them all, but I did make like 50 gallons of the stuff so I wouldn’t need to make more for a while, or started to anyway. There this step where you have to let it sit so that the biodiesel and contaminants separate, then pull the contaminants out. I’ll do that today, but I’ll have to make it quick.
Twilight has requested assistance today in preparing for a holiday tomorrow called ‘Nightmare Night’. From the way she explained it, it sounds very similar to Halloween, an observation she (obviously) wrote down. I have to hand it to her, the woman-err, mare does her job quite well, leaving no observation un-noted. But anyway, we had to head into town today to decorate the whole place and set up games and stuff for the event.
“Edgar, that truck full yet?” Jonathon called from the garage entryway. What am I doing right now you ask? Fueling up of course; the truck was almost empty! Since I now had the fuel to use it, why wouldn’t we take the truck into town? Twilight offered a ride in the chariot, but I think the other guys and I will stick to the ground for now. She’s meeting us near the Town Square.
“Almost!” I replied. “In fact, tell everyone to get their sorry behinds over here, we’re heading out.” Jonathon’s head disappeared back through the doorway. I removed the nozzle of the 10-gallon gas can from the filler neck, and set the can aside. The truck needed 15 gallons to fill up; I was pretty low! Everyone piled in, and with the turn of the key and a pull of the gear selector, we were off.
The ride over was, as always, uneventful. As we approached town, I slowed down. The townspeople had gotten busy, as was apparent by the amount of work already done. A fair amount of decorations were already up. An interesting thing about the decorations was their color; while there were plenty of carved pumpkins, skulls, bats, spiders, etc., the prominent colors weren’t black and orange, but rather black and varying shades of blue. Also peculiar were the black unicorn heads everywhere, along with reptilian-like turquoise eyes everywhere. Well, it’s a question for later.
As we pulled up, the familiar scene of everyone hiding behind stuff played out again. Seriously, this was getting old real fast! Hell, even Eddy wasn’t laughing anymore (Jon told me what happened the first time the truck rolled into town). Instead of parking off to the side, I maneuvered the pickup around the stalls and entertainment and stopped right in the middle. Shutting the engine off, I climbed out of the truck and stood on the bed; I was ending this today.
“See?” I called out to the townspeople. “It’s just a pony-less carriage. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Unfortunately, this still didn’t quell their fear very much; they popped out of their hiding places, some even dared to venture out, but they all kept their distance from the machine.
“Well, that’s a shame Edgar,” Eddy said. “Here, let me try. *Ahem* What the Hell is wrong with you people? Is everyone afraid of rocks in this town as well or what?”
“That thing isn’t a rock,” came a meek response.
“Yea, but guess what the two have in common? They’re both inanimate objects!*Knocks on back of Pickup to prove point* Being scared of this thing is like being scared of a rock, or a leaf. Do you have any idea how fucking retarded you all look right now?”…*Sigh* 'God damnit Eddy.' Well, looking at the pros here, Eddy’s plan worked like a charm. Most ponies had a look that seemed to combine residual fear, anger, and a hint of embarrassment into one expression. How Eddy didn’t get lynched for literally insulting the entire town I’ll never know. He didn’t even seem to care; he just waltzed right up and through the crowd to get out of Town Square, and to the spot where Twilight had told us to meet her. Acted like nothing happened!
After apologizing to everyone and moving the pickup, we caught up with Eddy and Twilight.
“About time you showed up,” Eddy jabbed playfully.
“Wouldn’t have been a problem if you hadn’t been an idiot,” I retorted. I turned my attention to Twilight. “So, what needs to be done today?”
“Well, I was just about to help Applejack with setting up her stand,” she began listing. “I think the ponies in charge of the pumpkin catapults could use some help, as well as the spider toss. The decorations in that box *point to box* need to be strung up, and if you check around, there might still be some odd jobs here and there that need completing.”
“Right, then let’s get to it,” I said.
2 hours later
I sat on the ground, overlooking the finished Town Square. A mild cool breeze from the North was blowing, causing the banners and dangling spiders to sway gently in the wind. The unobstructed early-afternoon sun shone on the serene landscape. To my right, Eddy was lying down, hands behind his head, eyes closed. To my left, Jonathon and Mike were sitting like I was, enjoying a break after completing their tasks.
“It’s…nice here, really peaceful and quiet,” I commented. There was a round of ‘yep’ or ‘mhmm’ from the guys. “Sometimes, I really…you know, wish we could stay here.”
“I know what you mean Edgar,” said Jon. “Sometimes I think the same.”
“No wars, no you-know-what’s, no…problems,” said Mike. “In fact, I think the only one who doesn’t like it here is Eddy.”
“I never said I hated the place,” Eddy replied. “Just the inhabitants; they’re annoying as hell sometimes and untrustworthy all the time.” I sighed, as I’m sure everyone else did too. We would argue with him, but what’d be the point? “It is rather pretty here though, especially at night. It’s almost a shame we can’t stay here, but we need to save our guys back home.”
“Save them from what, darling?” came a voice from behind us. That manner of speaking made it clear Rarity had asked. Quickly turning around revealed Twilight and her friends standing behind us. ‘Way to go Eddy…’
“Nothing, they just got themselves in some trouble, that’s all,” said Mike, quickly covering for us. ‘Nice save man! I’ll let you do the bullshitting from now on.’ “Was there something you ladies needed?”
“We were wonderin’ if y’all like ta come an have lunch with us,” said Applejack. I would have said something, but our rumbling stomachs answered for us. We accepted their offer, and followed the group to their regular picnic spot, a nice grassy hill just outside of town. It was a nice place, just as quiet and cool as where we were previously. After helping set up the blanket and all the food items, we dug in. As I’ve come to expect, all the food was vegan, but it was good so there were no complaints from me.
“So,” Rarity asked. “I must know; what kind of costume are you wearing to the party?”
“Actually, we don’t have costumes,” Jon answered. Rarity suddenly spit out her tea and looked straight at us. “Nothing at all? Oh dear, this simply will not do!” she said more to herself than anyone there. She was mumbling something about ‘there’s still time’ and ‘must take them in’. I looked at the rest of the mares for answers. They all just gave us tired smiles; a sign that she does this often.
“Rarity,” Eddy said in an exhausted tone. I think he was just tired of dealing with ponies today, and wasn’t in the mood to deal with this. He did manage to draw Rarity’s attention tough. “It’s alright, we don’t want costumes.”
“But there’s still time to make some fab-”
“Rarity.” She stopped talking. “Please. Thanks, but no thanks.” Her ears drooped, a look of sadness now overtaking her features.
“We really appreciate the sentiment though, maybe another time,” I said. This seemed to cheer her up a bit. Soon the conversation started up again, and everyone was having a good time, even Eddy, and more surprisingly Fluttershy, participated in the conversation. We shared stories, traded tidbits about our lives, small talk really. But it was nice. Nice until-
*RING!* One minute we’re talking, the next this random alarm clock bell starts ringing. Pinkie reaches around and pulls out an alarm clock out of seemingly nowhere! Upon silencing it, she says: “Whoo, time to see Dashie!”
“…Uhh, what just happened?” I asked.
“Oh, Rainbow Dash gets released from the hospital today,” says Fluttershy.
“Do you wanna come with? Huh, do you do you do you?” Pinkie asked excitedly, bouncing around like a caffeinated rubber ball. I looked at the others, who shrugged and said ‘I guess we can go’, or something like that. Well, Eddy technically said ‘I’m getting dragged along for this anyway, so we might as well go’, but it means the same thing coming from him. So off to the hospital we went.
I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?
Perspective: Jonathon Burley
Location: Ponyville Hospital, Equestria
Date: October 30, 2025
“Twilight, this time you’ve gone too far!” The cyan-coated mare yelled at her. Poor Twilight just stood there, speechless and confused like the rest of us. Let’s back it up, shall we? We come to visit, we walk into her room, Rainbow Dash suddenly gets mad…does that make any sense?
“I know you’re into all the smarty-pants science-y stuff, and I know you like to experiment, but this is taking it too far!”
“W-what do-”
“Look at them!” she roared, pointing to…Mike? Me? I think she’s pointing at us, the humans anyways. “Look what you did to them! Do those ponies look normal to you? Do they!?”
“But they’re-”
“No buts Twilight. What did you do to them?” She sounded incredibly pissed off; either Twilight’s genetically experimented with stuff before, or Rainbow is just hot-headed. Either way, we’d need to set a few things straight; and by the look of things, we’d better do it fast!
“Uhh, Rainbow Dash?” I asked, trying to wrench her focus from Twilight. Thankfully, it worked.
“Thank Celestia you can still talk,” she said. “What did Twilight do to you?”
“I believe you’re misunderstanding here. You see, several days ago, Twilight attempted to create a-”
“Wow, I didn’t know we came here to tell a multi-hour epic of how we got here,” Eddy jabbed.
“Shut up Eddy! *Ahem* well long story short, we’re not ponies.” Rainbow Dash looked at us carefully, as if trying to piece together what we were. After about half a minute of studying us, she spoke.
“Minotaur?” she asked hesitantly, as if unsure of her answer.
“Not really.”
“Diamond Dog?” she said, eyes narrowing slightly. For a second, the image of the ghastly creature flashed in my head, followed by the burn site that used to be near our house.
“No,” I answered solemnly. “We’re humans Rainbow; we’re not from anywhere in Equestria.”
“No way, you’re all just pulling my wing!”
“I finally got that spell I was telling everypony about working,” Twilight was finally able to say. “They really aren’t from here.” It was quiet for a while. I suppose the news that aliens came to see you out of the hospital would rattle anyone up. So we kind of just let that sink in for a little bit. Well, most of us did anyways…
“That’s incredible, weren’t you being released today?” Eddy asked. She nodded. “Well then get your ass out of bed and let’s go!”
“H-hey! What’s your problem, bub?”
“My problem is that I was dragged over here, there are bad memories associated with this place, and Edgar won’t give me the keys to the truck so I can get out of here. Answer your question?”
“Bad memories?” Mike asked.
“I distinctly remember Rarity opening the Gates of Hell and almost throwing us into them. ‘I’ll destroy you’ is what I think she said, no wait, screamed. But enough of that, let’s get going already.” He exited the room shortly after. I think Dash wanted to say something to him, but he left before she could. Her slight anger dissipated after a little bit though, and she returned her focus to Twilight, albeit much less furious this time.
“So they’re really not from here?” she asked. Twilight and the rest shook their heads. “I guess I’m…sorry…about that Twilight. I thought you seriously messed somepony up!”
“No harm done,” and with a make-up hug, all was forgiven. It was sweet, and I’m glad Eddy was outside, or he would’ve made some snarky remark to ruin the whole thing.
“Let’s get you home,” said Twilight.
7:00p.m.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Rainbow stretched her wings by doing a few loops and tricks in the air. They were pretty impressive, at least from the point of view of a being that can’t fly. I don’t know, maybe Pegasi thought those were easy tricks, but they were cool to me anyways. We got to the Town Square and parted ways. An incredible thing happened there; when we started the truck, a few ponies jumped, not expecting the noise, but otherwise no one ran in fright! I guess insulting their intelligence worked…'I've said it once and I'll say it again: God damnit Eddy!'
Anyways, here we are at home, some of us doing a few things, but mostly just lazing around. Eddy was glad for power, and was out in the garage ‘juicing up his baby’, as he put it. Am I the only one who thinks that sounds weird? The work on the power grid is done, and the bullets holes were plugged with some mysterious hardening goo they gave us. Not sure what it is, but it worked! All that remains to do now is to fix the windows, which Twilight said could be done. She asked why they were so reinforced though, which gave us a hard time, but Edgar came up with the ‘genius’ idea that Eddy was paranoid, which she immediately accepted. Heh, sorry Eddy, but it was too good an excuse to pass up!
The house was nice and cool, thanks to the generator working again. Sword was a big help with that, she helped in cleaning and reassembly. Did a decent job of it too. She seems a lot less hostile these days, no longer threatening to ‘beat me into the ground’. She even told me what happened after a while; that the place she worked at closed down, and she had to find work elsewhere. I kinda feel bad for her; she seemed to be pretty good with mechanical stuff, judging by how fast she picked up on the explanation I gave her of the generator. I’ll have to remember to thank her later, but for now, I’m totally beat!
“Hey guys, I’m heading to bed,” I called out. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight Jon,” came a series of replies. With that, I climbed the stairs, checked that everything on the second floor was locked down (old habits die hard), and went to bed.
Tomorrow night was going to be interesting. No doubt about it.
Perspective: Same (Jonathon)
Location: Town Square, Ponyville, Equestria
Date: October 31, 2025
7:30p.m.
We pulled into town very slowly, headlights on and foot on brake the whole time. The streets were thick with children (or foals, I believe) running around going door-to-door. I was currently sitting in the bed of the pickup. Why, you ask? Well, it would appear that foals are not as reserved as their parents, and got really close the ‘cool white beast with glowing eyes’. They even asked if they could ride in it like I was doing, so I helped them up. By the time we reached Town Square, we had picked up one or two (more like 20) hitchhikers, much to their amusement.
After looking around for a bit, we found a nice little patch of space not being used for anything, and parked there. The Square was alive with lights, music, and games. Ponies dressed as pretty much everything roamed the streets. Hell, there was even a pony dressed as a chicken, literally pecking at the candy!
“Alright kiddos, we’re here,” I called out. The foals disembarked in a fit of giggles and laughter, each finding its own creative way to jump off the bed.
“Thanks mister!” A little colt in a pirate costume said. I smiled and waved back. After they had dispersed, the humans climbed out of the cabin. Wearing normal clothes to a Hallow- err; excuse me, a Nightmare Night celebration kinda sucked, not to mention it made you stand out. Nevertheless, it should still be fun.
“Good luck trying to do that with your Model X,” Edgar said as he climbed out of the driver’s seat.
“Good luck running your truck when there’s no more biodiesel,” Eddy shot back. They both mock-glared at each other, before breaking into a grin and chuckling.
“There’s the Eddy we know and love,” Mike said. “Not grumpy and pissy.”
“Hey, I’m not ‘grumpy and pissy’ around you guys.”
“I know, but you’ve got to learn to lighten up around others. Go out there, play some games, socialize!”
“…”
“Come on Eddy, at least try!”
“Fine alright, I’ll try. Happy?”
“Very.” Mike finished that with a cheeky grin. So we split, each heading to a station to mingle in the crowd and just have a good time. I discovered that I utterly suck at spider tossing, but at least I could bob for apples (you should’ve seen Edgar try. Hilarious!).
Eventually everyone rallied up and started heading off in the same direction. Confused as to why everyone was leaving, we followed.
“What do you think’s happening?” I asked.
“It’s the candy offering to Nightmare Moon,” a mare answered behind me. The group eventually ended up in this courtyard. It was mostly empty, a flat grassy ground surrounded by strange, dark-green trees. In the middle of the space however, sat a statue. It was tall and imposing, not to mention expertly crafted. It seemed to depict a unicorn-wait no, it also has wings. It depicts an Alicorn, one with an evil grin, sharp teeth, and reptilian eyes. She seemed to be wearing armor of some sort.
“Go offer some candy Eddy,” Edgar said snickering. He pointed to the statue, which the foals (and that pony in the chicken costume) were now gathering around and depositing their candy at. “After all, it’s tradition for the little ones to do so.”
“Funny,” he deadpanned, before smirking. “Especially coming from the youngest in the group.”
“True, but I don’t have any candy.” Edgar pointed to the few pieces in Eddy’s hands.
“Some kid offered it to me; I couldn’t exactly say no,” he retorted. “*Sigh* well, I’m not going to eat it. Might as well do something with it.” He walked over towards the statue, and stood before it. He extended his hand when-
“HAHAHAHAA!” Dark storm clouds rolled in, lightning cracking within. The howls of the wind grew stronger. A dark presence came down near the statue. The foals screamed. The ponies (and that one zebra) backed away. The presence approached the statue. Eddy…just stood there, unamused…
‘Fuck Eddy! Is it too much to ask for you to just play along for once?’ “I am pleased with your offering; so pleased, that I may just eat it, instead of eating you!” The mare (whom I assumed was Nightmare Moon) bellowed. Eddy gave her a level stare in response.
“Great, here’s your candy. We free to go?” he asked. Nightmare leaned in until she was very close to his face. “Mortal, do you not know who I am? I am the evil Nightmare Moon!” Thunder cackled through the clouds as she said that.
Eddy looked at her incredulously. He turned his head slowly, looking at the crowd before him. He looked at us, but all we could do was shrug our shoulders. Was he really expecting something? He returned his gaze to the mare before him, before throwing his arms up in exasperation.
“That’s it!” he cried, and wheeled around to face the crowd. “This is the scariest thing you could come up with!? A black Alicorn with tor…no. No. No. No…You’re all a bunch of racists! Is it cause she’s black!?” ‘…well that was completely unexpected. Sadly, he did have a point; the only black pony here is the evil one.’
“I can’t believe this,” he continued. “I’m guessing Celestia’s the good one hmm? This just takes the fucking cake.” There was a blinding flash behind Eddy, revealing Luna after the glow had died down. She looked thoroughly befuddled.
“Human, art thou not afraid of us?” Luna asked.
“Not in the slightest,” Eddy replied. “You’ll have to do much better than that.” At this point, the crowd began to move back in, whispering things like ‘does he know?’ and ‘do humans even feel fear?’. Even the little ones came back. Luna pondered for a moment.
“Show us then,” she commanded.
“What?” Eddy replied.
“Show us what ‘truly scary’ means to you.”
“Sorry, but unless you can read minds and somehow let everyone see it at the same time, that’s not happening.” She stood there, a grin slowly creeping up on her face. Eddy face-palmed. “Right, you and your magic.”
“Go on human, imagine something truly horrifying.” ‘Sorry Luna, but there’s no way Eddy’s gonna agree to that. You may as well-’
“Alright.” ‘Like I was saying, never…wait what?’ “I think I’ll imagine a little story, a scary story for a ‘scary’ night, would everyone like that?” The ponies eagerly nodded, sitting down on the grass. ‘I never thought Eddy would agree with this, maybe he’s finally opening up? Could it be true?’
“Let’s see,” he began. “I’ll include a few humans-” ‘Aw look at that, he’s including us in there too!’ “-eight of them, to be exact.” ‘…Eight?’
“I’ll throw in some human weapons. And let’s not forget some monsters, to make it really scary.
“Let’s add some serious conflict in there, and some action.
“Let’s set the story two years ago, on our home world.
“And let’s throw in some betrayal.”
The ponies cheered, oblivious to the mounting distress of the human audience members. To them it sounded like a hell of a story. We knew better. I fearfully cast my gaze over to the left, meeting with Mike’s and Edgar’s. I knew, and they knew. They knew the reason I felt cold and sweaty, the reason for the lump in my throat, the reason for my heartbeat pounding in my ears.
“Eddy?” I wheezed out, my throat unexpectedly and suddenly quite dry. “You…you sure you want to tell this story?”
“Aw come now Jonny, don’t spoil the fun,” he said with a wild grin. “Let’s do this princess!” Luna placed her hand atop Eddy head, and her horn began to glow. Eddy closed his eyes, but the wicked grin never left his face. Forming adjacent to Eddy, a thin disk of soft light began to form, an all-too-familiar landscape appearing within. This was not a story. This would not be pleasant. This was a very real memory of an event that happened two years ago, the day the trusting side of Eddy was locked away forever.
This was the day he almost died.