//------------------------------// // Mind Games: Legion of Nightmares // Story: Labyrinth of Madness // by Speven Dillberg //------------------------------// Legion of Nightmares Luna pushed herself up, and looked around. To her dismay and relief, she was alone. She wiped away at her tear-stained face and sighed. It was one thing to live with the memories, but being forced to relive them was another thing entirely. Still, sitting here on her tail would do nothing. All around her was nothing but empty space, so she levitated her flail before picking a random direction and started walking. She was quickly rewarded when she came across one of the group. As she approached though, she realised that something was very wrong. Thomas sat on the ground, one of his legs out in front of him. He was not wearing his duster, but a collection of torn cloth that served to preserve his modesty. His Pip-Boy was damaged, the glass screen riddled with thousands of cracks. The leg he held out was bent at an angle that was certainly not natural, and his complexion was pale and sickly. He looked half-starved, and his face was covered in bruises, one of his eyes swollen shut. He glared at Luna as she got closer. “Oh. It’s you,” he spat. “Come to finish it?” he asked harshly before breaking into a coughing fit. Thomas was quick on his feet. He looked around and was met with nothing but darkness. “Well great,” he muttered. As he looked around, he heard the sounds of someone sniffling to his left. He quickly headed in that direction, determined to find the source. Thomas was quick to find it, but that didn’t mean he liked what he saw. “Luna?” he whispered. “What happened?” The broken mare flinched at his voice. Her mane was devoid of magic, and her tail had been cut off, leaving not even a single strand of hair. Her horn had been snapped off at the base, and one of her wings had been crudely hacked off. What was possibly the worst was what had been done to her cutie mark. On both sides of her flank was a mass of scar tissue, each one where the crescent moon once rested. Someone had gone and skinned her, likely while she was still conscious, skinned her and taken her mark from her. She lay there, trying to make herself smaller. “Forgive me, master,” she muttered. “I didn’t mean to cry.” “Thomas, what happened? Who did this to you?” The man laughed before coughing again. “What happened? Oh that’s real funny, Nightmare.” “N-Nightmare?” Luna asked, taking a step back in shock. “Yeah, Nightmare Moon. That’s who you are.” Luna couldn’t believe her ears. That demon had been vanquished, destroyed by the Elements of Harmony years ago. She looked at her chest, and was horrified at the armour she saw covering it. “No,” she whispered. It was identical to - no, it was the very same armour that Nightmare Moon wore. And now she was wearing it. “M-master? Why are you calling me that?” Luna shuffled back a bit as he stepped forwards. “Please don’t hit me,” she whimpered. “I’m sorry Legate.” Thomas’s mind ground to a complete halt at that last word. “L-Legate!?” he choked out. Luna didn’t seem to have heard him. “Please Legate Mercurius, I’m sorry.” Thomas reached out with a hand but stopped. He was no longer wearing his Saturnite Fist but a Ballistic Fist, just like Caesar’s Praetorian Guard. His eyes travelled up his arm, which was now encased in heavy gauge, dirty-gold steel. On his chest he wore a stylized breastplate, just like the one he had taken from Lanius’s corpse. His boots, his gloves, even the cloak he hadn’t noticed before, it was all identical to everything once worn by the Monster of the East. The armour wasn’t the only thing that was the same as Nightmare Moon. He coat had turned a deep violet, and her mane and tail were now more like the deep void between worlds than a clear night sky. Even her cutie mark had reverted to how it had been after the demon had taken control of her body. “I’m not falling for this again,” Thomas warned her. “W-what?” Luna asked, still in shock, “Yeah, last time you broke my damn leg,” the man replied angrily, gesturing at his damaged limb. “What is it this time, witch? My arm? My neck? No, that’d be merciful, wouldn’t it?” Luna couldn’t, didn’t want to believe what she was hearing. What had happened? Why was Thomas so badly injured? She looked around the cave, only to find that it had changed. The walls, instead of rough rock, were now made up of smooth stone bricks, and the direction she had come in had iron bars blocking the way. “You gonna pump me full of radiation instead?” Thomas asked savagely. “You wanna watch me throw up my own intestines and die? Is that it!?” “Please, Legate, don’t be mad at me,” Luna sobbed. “I didn’t mean to make you upset.” Thomas could only gape at her. This wasn’t Luna. The Luna he knew was a forceful, headstrong mare who would do everything she could to hurt someone if they hurt her. This mare was a broken wreck, a mere shadow. What had happened!? “Don’t call me that,” he growled. “O-of course, Master,” the broken mare stammered. “Don’t call me that either!” he shouted, making the distressed pony in front of him push herself further away. “Forgive me! Please!” Luna screamed, tears pouring down her face. A glance was enough to tell the man that this was far from the first time she had bawled her eyes out. “I didn’t mean to anger you, I promise!” “Just stop!” Thomas shouted. “Please,” he said through gritted teeth, forcing his volume down. Luna nodded and got to her hooves shakily. Thomas glanced and inwardly sighed when he saw that they were relatively undamaged. His confusion only grew, though, when she turned around and knelt down on her front legs. “What the hell are you - ” “A-aren’t you going to... to... use me?” Luna asked, sadness and worry filling her voice. Thomas put a hand to his eyes and turned away. “Oh for - turn around!” he ordered. “You just gonna ignore me now!?” Thomas yelled as Luna turned around in confusion. “Fucking bitch,” he muttered. Luna was feeling terrible. This was not Thomas. No, it looked like him, it sounded like him, but he was broken inside. She knew what that sounded like, and he was a man hoping for freedom, no matter how it came. “You gonna go eat a few more foals?” the man asked angrily. “Huh? You fucking monster?” Luna’s eyes widened and she took a look around her. To her shock, horror and disgust there were a dozen mangled corpses on the other side of the bars, each of them belonging to a foal. She suddenly became aware of the overpowering taste of blood in her mouth and tears of horror began to wash down her cheeks. “What’s the matter bitch, were they too chewy for you?” Luna ignored his words, instead wiping at the tears. They weren’t the only thing she wiped, though, something she realised when she pulled back a blood-soaked hoof. “No,” she muttered, watching as some of the blood dripped off. Thomas turned around and muttered to himself, his head in his hands. “No no no, what the fuck is going on, what the fuck...” “What’s wrong Master?” Luna asked timidly, wiping away at her tears. “I said don’t call me that!” he snapped. “Call me Thomas!” “B-but you forbade me,” she replied nervously. “T-the last time I called you that you t-took away my horn.” He stopped. He turned around. Then he looked away. He couldn’t bear to look at her. He couldn’t stand to look at the mare that he had broken, that he had destroyed, that he had essentially killed. “C-can I... have it back?” Luna asked, looking at him with tearful eyes. “P-please?” Horrified, Thomas reached into his armour. He numbly grasped the thin, spiralling horn and pulled it out, tears filling his eyes. “No...” he whispered. Luna closed her eyes and hung her head. “Are you just here to mock me? To make me think that the mare I loved is still in there?” Thomas asked. “I know she’s not. You can’t trick me. Not anymore,” he finished, trailing off into a sob. Those words were like daggers through her heart. Whatever tortures Nightmare Moon had inflicted on him were nothing compared to that, to being tricked into thinking that the one you loved was in your reach and having it ripped away as a cruel joke. Part of her wanted to scream out “I am here!”, to tell him how she felt. But another part of her knew that he wouldn’t believe a word, that he would dismiss them as lies and deceit. “Kill me.” Luna was torn from her brooding. “Fucking kill me,” Thomas repeated angrily. “At least this way I can see Luna again.” Thomas’s entire world was comprised of the damaged horn he held. Everything else didn’t matter. The only thing that did was the broken symbol of power, of everything Luna was, that he was holding. Now he knew why she was so submissive. Now he knew why she looked at him the way she did. He had taken away the one thing that had given her any real power, a sense of self after having her cutie mark removed, and he treated it like a goddamn trophy. Luna was dead. He knew that now. The pony sharing the tent with him was not her, but a ghost, an echo. An empty shell, everything that made her who she was had been beaten, raped or removed to transform her into this submissive wreck. He hated seeing her like this. He hated himself, for doing this to her. But the horn in his hands, it offered a way out. A way to end both of their agonies. “At least let me rest in peace when you’re done,” Thomas growled. “What you did to Twilight and her friends, no-one deserves that, especially not them.” Luna didn’t want to know. All she knew was that she wanted to leave this place. She took a step back and her hoof nudged her flail, forgotten about this whole time. In it, she saw much more than a simple weapon. She saw escape. Escape for them both. “Thomas, hold still,” she commanded. She would have retched at hearing Nightmare Moon’s voice again, but she had something much more important to do. “You’re gonna do it?” the man asked, looking up in disbelief. “You mean it?” Luna grabbed her flail in her magic before closing her eyes. She tried to block out the sound of his death, of the meaty thud that the flail made as it gave him what he wanted. She couldn’t, but took solace in the hope that he was somewhere better. She took a deep, shuddering breath and concentrated. She felt the magic leave her system, becoming a concentrated mass in the base of her horn. When she was finished she knew that the resulting explosion of magical energy would obliterate everything within a mile, but she didn’t care. Now, she was truly vulnerable. Now, she could die. Thomas pulled the horn from Luna’s neck, gently resting her lifeless body on the ground. “I am so sorry,” he sobbed. “Please, please forgive me.” As he did his best to control his breathing, he rested the tip of the slick spike against his throat. One thrust. One thrust, and it would all be over. He grunted in pain as he fell over, the indigo spike in his throat not budging. As he lay there, bleeding out with his conscious thoughts abandoning him, he saw Luna’s restful face. The last thing to go through his mind before he knew nothing was that, for some reason, she seemed... happy. Luna panted, though only part of it was due to exhaustion. She had to remain conscious. If she blacked out before the deed was done, there was a chance that her magic would return to her, forcing her body to heal, robbing her of peace. She screamed as the flail connected with her skull. She tried to smile, but her jaw had been fractured by the first blow, making it impossibly painful. Her vision was nothing but blurs, but she could still make out the steady trickle of blood that was pouring down her face, forming a puddle on the ground. Her flail connected again, and her vision shifted. For a moment there was no dungeon, no iron bars, but a cave, dark and empty. She dismissed it, though, as her mind playing a final trick on her, and again she was in the dungeon. Another blow, another false image. She nearly ignored it again, but paused. Why a cave? Surely she deserved something much worse, lava and torture. What tortures could a cave possibly hold? She struck herself again, and this time the cave stayed. She dropped her flail. Had she done it? Was she dead? It had certainly taken a lot less time than she had been expecting. She looked around, her vision clearing as she released her magic. As her body healed, she realised that weight was lifted from her. A glance told her that Nightmare Moon’s armour had vanished, as had the horrible twisted form of her body. Instead of relieved, she was confused. Why? How? When? As those three questions bounced around in her head, something made itself known. It did so by a sound, a sound like breathing but at the same time not. Ignoring her healing wounds and repairing sight, she shakily headed towards it. What she came across was infinitely worse than the broken man in the cell. Thomas’s thoughts came back to him, and the first thing he realised was that he was in unbearable pain. As he tried to move, he figured out the source, the spike that had somehow wound up embedded in his throat. As he reached a hand up to try and grab it, it disappeared. As the man tried to scream, he was dimly aware of a voice. “Stay still!” it said. He tried, but the pain was too much. Things were not helped when the owner of the voice decided it would be a good idea to stab him in the neck with a small syringe. Right in the raw, bloody, gaping and incredibly sensitive wound that the spike had made. Something forced him into a sitting position. As his body adjusted to this maltreatment, he realised who it was. “L-Luna?” he stammered, his voice rough and scratchy. “Is that you?” “Oh Thomas!” she cried. She started nuzzling him, soaking his face with her tears and half-dried blood. “I was so worried!” “What... what happened?” he asked. “The last thing I remember is...” His eyes widened. “Oh god. Did I --” “Thomas, whatever you saw was not real,” Luna said reassuringly. “It was all a trick, a horrible, horrible trick designed to push us over the edge.” There was a pause as she pulled herself from him to compose herself. “It worked, Thomas. It worked on both of us.” “I tried to kill myself.” Thomas made the statement calmly. He raised a hand to his throat and hissed as he touched the raw flesh. “How did she know?” he asked. “How did she know what would push us over the edge like that?” “She must be able to get into our minds. She knew what to say to anger Scarlet.” Luna leaned in again, resting her head on Thomas’s shoulder. “Not even our minds are safe from her, Thomas.” “It’s okay, Luna, it’s okay.” He caressed her face gently, doing his best to soothe the mare. “We’ll get through this. I promise.” “She will pay, Thomas. She will pay for what she made us - MHMM!” Luna’s eyes bugged out as she was cut-off mid-rant by a second tongue in her mouth. “Luna, calm down,” Thomas said when he pulled away, looking at her seriously. “We get too emotional, we stop thinking straight. We stop thinking straight, we make mistakes. We make mistakes, we die.” His expression eased into a gentle smile. “Okay? Just stay calm, and we’ll get through this. Okay?” Luna just stared at him for a moment. To say Thomas was surprised when he was pounced on by several hundred pounds of lustful pony princess would be an understatement. To say that he returned her affection just as vigorously would likewise be an understatement.