//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: New Life // Story: The Mistress of Dreams // by McPoodle //------------------------------// The Mistress of Dreams Chapter 2: New Life The panic-inducing lack of any feeling whatsoever gradually faded, leaving in Spike a sense of bone-tiredness, like he had been running for days without rest. The next sense to return was temperature, a feeling of intense but soothing heat. It reminded Spike of the dragon migration he had followed a few weeks before the Dragon Emperor had declared war on ponykind. He had discovered that soaking in lava was a dragon’s favorite way to relax. Just like now... The little purple dragon’s eyes popped open. Seeing that he was lying in a tub full of bubbling lava, he stood up and looked around. He appeared to be in a pony sauna, but with two important differences: it was sized for a baby dragon, and it was a lava sauna. From somewhere outside the room, he heard the murmur of voices. The room’s light source, a glowing glass globe suspended from the ceiling by a chain, was swinging wildly back and forth, causing strange shadows to be cast upon the walls. The dragon carefully climbed out of the spa, landing on a mat made of pumice stone. After shaking as much of the molten rock off of him as possible, he reached for what looked like a terrycloth towel. It turned out to be made out of asbestos instead. One wall of the exotic bathhouse was made up of polished obsidian, allowing the dragon to get a look at himself. He was unnerved by seeing what looked like a fat spot of blood sitting right between his eyebrows in his reflection, but by brushing it away he discovered that it was only lava. He then took a few moments to study himself. Spike knew that he was not really Spike, but a figment of Twilight’s imagination, from an earlier dream when she really needed him, and that he had somehow achieved self-awareness. Nevertheless, he felt himself to be Spike. “Lookin’ good, Spike! Lookin’ real good!” he said, apparently speaking the first words that sprang to his mind. “Another donut! Extra sprinkles!” He sighed. “I’m a walking stereotype.” The dragon exited the small room containing the sauna, looking for answers. He passed through a small magical wind tunnel, which served to keep the searing heat of the sauna contained, and turned a corner into a locker room. Like the sauna room, it was sized to a creature of his size. And it was occupied, by nearly a dozen baby dragons the same size as he was. All of them were wearing clothes. The purple dragon ducked back into the wind tunnel before he could be seen. He felt an intense and irrational shame at being seen unclothed. Quickly, he dashed back into the sauna room to tie the asbestos towel around his midsection. It was as he was doing this that he suddenly realized that he was wearing a pair of slick black gloves. He wiggled his claws in confusion. If it were not for the evidence of his eyes, he would not believe that he was wearing gloves, so little did he feel them. And they would have to be very special gloves indeed to survive a dunk in molten lava. Curiously, he lifted the edge of one glove up with a claw. He jerked that paw out of sight in fear of what he had seen. The paw under that glove was not made of matter, but rather of reddish-pink magic. Experimentally, he slapped his paws together. They felt real. The dragon quickly waddled back into the locker room. He saw dragons there of all sorts of colors, but they were all engaged in putting on or wearing the exact same costume: tall black raincoats with high collars, the same kind of black gloves Spike already wore, and a black slouch hat. The coats were so long that they dragged on the ground as the dragons walked. As for the hat, in most cases it was pulled down low enough to obscure the eyes from view. No other items of clothing were worn, especially not shoes. Over the coat was placed a large gem suspended from a heavy golden chain. The shape and color of this gem was different for each dragon. Spike was taken aback by the sea of black. As a comic book connoisseur, he knew that while a lone hero was permitted to dress in black, a large group of black-clad characters only meant one thing: In this dream, he was one of the bad guys. “Sso!” one of the dragons remarked, “the pony dragon decidess to rejoin uss normal dragonss!” She spoke in a country accent, but with quite a bit of sibilance. Her gem was shaped like a cluster of three apples. In appearance, her scales were red, with pink spines and orange eyes. What little of the dragon’s underside that showed under the raincoat was pale yellow. “Yeah, sure, whatever,” the purple dragon said noncommittally. With a sigh, he proceeded to the only closed locker. He entered his birthday on the combination lock, which revealed his custom-issued villain costume. His gem was in the shape of a large reddish-purple six-pointed star surrounded by five smaller white ones. Based on the shapes of their gems, Spike was able to identify several more of the dragons in the room as being tied to his friends. Rainbow Dash’s dragon was female, reddish-pink in color with orange spines and purple eyes. Vinyl Scratch’s dragon was also female, colored charcoal gray with lighter gray spines and pale yellow eyes. Strangely, there were two male dragons with Pinkie Pie’s cutie mark around their necks: a light green one with a paler green belly and oddly off-centered pale purple eyes, and another that was a uniform color of slate gray. There were no dragons here for Fluttershy, or for... “Come along girls,” a familiar but cold voice called out. “Your mistresses are awakening.” The ponies found themselves in what was obviously a hospital room. They were all in separate beds, surrounded by the smells of strong antiseptic chemicals, the sounds of heart and respiration monitoring machines, and the feel of heavy sheets and blankets over their lying bodies. At least at first, they were too weak to lift their heads, so they could only clearly see the top half of their room. At one end of the room was a wide door, and at the other end was a set of tall windows covered with dark blue drapes. The blind pony in the bed swiveled her ears left and right, taking in the sounds of the hospital ward around her in a mixture of awe and terror. What am I doing on the outside? she asked herself. I dunno! the mental voice of Vinyl Scratch replied. Put me back in charge! I can’t! her other voice replied. “Did...did we get ‘im?” the yellow earth pony asked. She immediately noticed that she no longer had the tiny “chipmunk” voice she had when she was shrunk. “Are we back ta normal?” “Oh, I do wish to sincerely apologize for that mishap,” a rather distinct voice told them from the doorway. “Assume your positions, girls,” she was then heard to instruct a group of creatures too small to see from the prone ponies’ vantage points; they scampered around the room on scaly feet. “Rarity?” asked one of the creatures. “What happened to my claws?” Rather than answer the question, Rarity’s eyes darted to a point on the ceiling, where a black glass globe sat. A look of what might have been fear flitted across her features. “Rarity!” the purple unicorn exclaimed, using her magic to remove her covers. “I knew I was forgetting somepony!” She noticed that this act was a lot harder than normal for her, and felt very different than how telekinesis was supposed to feel. “In the flesh, darlings,” ‘Rarity’ said, walking down the aisle that separated the two rows of beds the others were in. She was wearing a lab coat made of pearlescent silk, with much of her mane pinned up in rolls on the top of her head. “Although we can stop with the role-playing.” Her steps were made somewhat awkward by the motions of a purring creature circulating around her legs at a fast clip. “I’m sorry I skipped out earlier,” she explained, “but I received word of a Consie attack on the Number Three mine. Turned out to be a diversion for the main assault on the data network, which introduced a rather nasty bug into the Dragon Emperor, as you all witnessed. That’s why I had to cut the dream short. And just before you were about to win the simulation.” Standing on her back in a manner quite familiar to the other unicorn was a small female dragon. The dragon was grayish-purple in color, with a white neck and pink spines. She was wearing a long black raincoat and a slouch hat. She was standing stiffly on the white unicorn’s back, her glazed pale green eyes staring at nothing. For some reason, it was impossible to look into that dragon’s eyes for any length of time without being overcome by a nameless terror. At chairs located next to each prone pony’s head, more tiny coat-wearing dragons climbed up from the ground, gazing at the ponies without saying a word. They did this in a way that frankly seemed impossible to Spike, resting one claw on the seat and then swinging up to a sitting position in a single movement. Spike tried and failed to do the same, before sheepishly climbing up the rungs of the chair. He noticed that none of the ponies except Rarity seemed to pay these dragons any attention, something he was very familiar with in his daily life. “‘Skipped out’?” the cerulean pegasus asked. “‘Bug’? ‘Simulation’? What’s going on around here?” She attempted to hover out of her bed to a get into an intimidating altitude, but was shocked to discover that her wings were completely unable to lift her body. “And what happened to my wings?” The white unicorn rolled her eyes. “You forgot to turn your unit on, dear,” she said, walking over and reaching behind the pegasus’ back. With an audible click, a low hum began to emerge from under the coat of the pony’s back, and she slowly began to rise into the air. “I’ve got a switch on my horn!” exclaimed the DJ pony in the bed next to the purple unicorn’s. “Why do I have a switch on my horn?” “Glasses, Pon-3,” ‘Rarity’ prompted the other white unicorn, quickly moving into position to keep the pony out of view. The blind pony gasped, then dived for the table next to her to find the signature glasses that kept anypony from seeing the gruesome cause of her condition. “Thanks, Rarity,” she said as she put them on. “Please, please everypony, it’s not ‘Rarity’,” the white unicorn insisted with growing concern. “The dream’s over.” Spike noted that the last sentence was addressed to the black globe on the ceiling as opposed to anyone in particular. “Where are we?” the magenta-colored earth pony asked, sitting up to look around her. “And why do I have this odd feeling like there’s a hole in my head?” “Well, you are missing something,” said the pink earth pony from the next bed over. “Hey wait a second...” “What are you doing outside of my head?” the two pinkish mares asked each other in unison. Ah, so that’s why there were two of them! Spike thought to himself, as the two dragons with balloon-shaped gems hopped into position. “Oh, this doesn’t look good,” the pony with the lab coat said with a shake of her head. “This doesn’t look good at all!” The dragons raised their ungloved claws into the air in unison; claws that shimmered and glowed with magic. The colors of their nails were the same colors as the magical auras of each pony they were matched with, something that Twilight had once cast a spell to allow Spike to see: white for Rainbow Dash, red for Applejack, light blue for Vinyl Scratch and a different shade of light blue for Pinkie Pie and Pinkamena. He realized that his own claws were the color of Twilight’s aura. “Rarity, are we...awake?” asked Pon-3. “Of course you’re awake!” ‘Rarity’, or to be more accurate, Florlet exclaimed. “I told you I ended the simulation. Is...is there something wrong with your memories?” “Rarity, you called me Pon-3,” the unicorn asked her. “Why didn’t you call me Vinyl Scratch?” “Well, you haven’t answered to that name in decades,” Florlet answered with some hesitation. “You said it was tied to some rather bad memories.” “And what about us?” the magenta mare asked, gesturing at the pink one beside her. “How long have we been two separate ponies?” “Since...since shortly after you were born,” ‘Rarity’ replied, getting more and more flustered. “It’s...it’s just the roles you were playing, the two sides of the historic Pinkie Pie.” She walked towards the plain blue drapes. “Look, I’ve got to show you something, something I hope will cause you to remember who you really are.” And with that, she flung the curtains aside with a hoof. The vision outside that window was initially incomprehensible to the six mares (and one dragon). It was dark outside, but the darkness was full of glowing squares and spots of light. The squares were arranged in a rectangle, and were soon realized to be the windows of a large tower reaching up into the heavens. The hospital room must have been part of another such tower, as it was clear they were dozens if not hundreds of ponyheights above the ground. Flying between the towers at dizzying speeds were spotlights, each attached to some sort of enclosed flying chariot. Not a single pegasus could be seen pulling any of them. “Now, dragons,” the white unicorn ordered, while the ponies were all distracted. “Restore!” At this instruction, the other dragons plunged their claws into the heads of their ponies, causing them to suddenly freeze in place. The claws seemed to pass into their heads as if they weren’t real, leaving no visible wounds. The only one left unaffected was the purple unicorn, and she was so enraptured by what she was seeing that she had yet to notice what had happened. That was because her dragon was frozen in place, looking incredulously over at Florlet. “You, too,” ‘Rarity’ coldly addressed him. The dragon looked in horror at his claws, and then back up at the unicorn, who was gazing intently at him. Spike caught a distinct note of regret in that look, and a feeling that the black globe was somehow responsible. A sort of terrible knowledge seeped into him across that gaze, and with a mix of fear and resignation, he copied the motion of the other dragons, and brought the final pony under his control.