//------------------------------// // The Nightmare // Story: Heat Death // by ScottTrek //------------------------------// “Good morning Twilight, watch’a doing?” “Good morning Spike. I’m trying to figure out how to repair a self-perpetuating psi-ion weave.” “Sounds horrendously complicated.” Spike said, looking up at the 3-d hologram suspended above Twilights desk. Spike frowned as he followed the lines of energy back as they converged at into the centre. “What’s that in the middle? It looks angry.” “Nothing you need to worry about Spikey, would you mind bringing me some coffee? This is quite important and I need to concentrate.” Spike’s feet pattered out of the room. Twilight chewed on a quill and contemplated the problem in front of her. “Hmmm, maybe if we tried using a tachyon beam as frame we could keep the initial psi strings up long enough……” “TWILIGHT!” Spike yelled from elsewhere in the house. “There’s a giant metal spider attached to the ceiling!” “Oh excellent! What he doing?” Twilight called back. “……He’s sort of flickering?” Spikes voice said, thoroughly perplexed. “Could you knock the wall down so he could get through here?” “What? Have you lost your mind?” Spike stormed back into the study. Flapping his hands at Twilight, whose gaze remained fixed to the hologram in front of her, “Break the wall down? How precisely am I supposed to accomplish that?” “I’m lucid dreaming Spike.” Twilight said, stopping the animated Spike in his tracks. “Just grow bigger and make a hole in the wall large enough for Forge to get through.” There was a few moments of dead silence before there was a humongous crash and splinters came flying past Twilights face. A dinner plate sized hand appeared in her peripheral vision and placed a coffee mug on the table. “So… this is a dream?” came a deep, resonant voice. “Yeah, afraid so.” Twilight said, sighing slightly. “Sorry.” There was another few seconds of dead silence. Before Spike eventually replied, “Anything else I can get you?” Twilight smiled, a single tear forming in one eye. “The Library should be housing my memories now, I made a list of things that might be pertinent.” A long scroll materialised in Spikes hand. “Hold on I’ll get Shuffle Pie to help you.” A pinkish red colt materialised next to Spike. He had the iconic Pie family candyfloss hair and a cutie mark of a deck of cards. “WOAH! Spike!” Shuffle exclaimed, grinning ecstatically, “You’re so tiny!” “I’m the size of an elephant…” Spike replied, raising a scaly eyebrow. “I know, right?” Shuffle said, throwing both hooves in the air. “ Anyhoo, let’s a get those memories for Twilight before that space monster breaks loose and murders her in real life, that would totally suck!” Spike and Shuffle exited into the now unfathomably large library, every few minutes or so Shuffle would whizz back through with a pile of parchment. On the ninth delivery he announced that Forge was moving. There came a buzz of electricity and hiss of hydraulics Forge scuttled through the demolished wall. “Appropriate form,” Twilight commented taking a moment to inspect Forges arachnid body. Since we’re weaving a web…sort off.” “Sub-unit chassis correlation was unintentional.” Forge replied, “This unit was merely attempting to reduce CPU usage on Twilight unit’s brain. Neural stress is already extremely high.” “Ok well, what’s the situation out there?” Spider Forge projected his own hologram next to Twilights. It was similar but angry, red fractals were forcing themselves out from the centre. Twilight bit her lip anxiously, the WCS had already broken through nearly half of the existing barriers. She forced her survival instincts down as a pang of fear cut through her, if she woke up she’s start panicking again and probably fry both herself and Forge. “I have managed to stall the progress of the WCS for the time being. My attempts at manipulating your magic have been highly erratic,” Forge explained, “This however has kept the WCS from adapting for the time being” “Good work.” Twilight replied. “Well I’ve worked out how to repair the prison, but the problem is implementing it.” Twilight took a big swig of coffee, it tasted good. At least she thought it tasted good. What did coffee even taste like? “Ok so Luna was able to trap the WCS the first time round by sealing it in a perpetual nightmare, and that worked as a prison because the WCS was essentially trapping itself, looping around and unable to concentrate. Understand?” “Affirmative.” “But in order for it to work it had to affect the entire of the entity at once, Luna killed herself to make it work. I could theoretically fix it but the damage is so widespread I couldn't fix enough before the WCS noticed. And if it noticed it would know exactly how to negate what’s left of the prison.” “Catch 22.” Forge said solemnly. “Any attempt to fix the situation will make it worse. Is there no way to distract the WCS?” “Not for long enough.” The silence that followed was deafening. The two worked the trans-spatial equations over and over, looking for something, anything, which would give them a foothold. Eventually a small warning beacon began pinging on Forge. Twilight poked her head out from her mountain of parchments and looked over. “It’s nothing.” Forge said, trying to distract Twilight by running another holographic simulation. “Forge…” “……………. Whilst scanning I noticed an anomalous reading in the Nightmare Zone, as in more so than usual. The ratio of left to right spin in ambient sub-atomic particles has been steadily shifting to left spin. The alarm indicated that the probability skew has far exceeded any possible natural explanation. If we come under attack we are worse than defenseless.” Twilight shut her eyes and murmured. “Nightmare Zone…Nightmare Zone……” Suddenly her eyes snapped open. “IDIOT TWILIGHT! Ohh this is good! This is really good. Forge, I have an idea!” ********************************** ************************************* “Well what do you think?” Twilight said bouncing excitedly, having explained her plan in breathless gasps. Forge considered Twilight’s plan for a moment before replying. “Logically speaking I calculate a 37% success chance.” Twilight looked down-trodden for a moment, 37% is not great no matter which way you looked at it. “However,” Forge continued. “Factoring biological tenacity alone adds at least other 25% to that calculation. Let’s do it.” **************************** ********************************************** (Back in the real world) Forges warp engines thundered into life, magic drawn from Twilights body being drawn in to augment and amplify the field. At the same time Forge started rapidly shutting down all sensory equipment. “Warp One, Warp two, Warp Three.” He transmitted down the line into Twilight. Meanwhile the WCS paused for a moment, when Forge stopped trying to hold him back a new psychic presence had entered his beachhead into the physical world. It was evoking a sensation that it had never experienced before. It…. Recognised this this entity? “Remember me?” Twilight snarled, through her psychic projection. WHOOOOMPF Forge lurched in space as the psychic backlash blew through him. Even at maximum insulation every circuit was resonating as Twilight and the WCS minds clashed. The WCS was by definition the most dangerous being that had ever existed but Twilights mind power was truly a force to be reckoned with. His hull shuddered again, “Warp 7, Warp 7.5, Warp 8, Warp 8.1…” Maintaining a static warp bubble at this magnitude was pushing his battered body to the extreme, only his lighting fast adjustments to the field generators were keeping him from undergoing total spaghettification. Twilight’s mindscape hammered against the WCS, twisting and developing almost as fast as the WCS could adapt. Each of them probing and grasping in a furious maelstrom, both seeking to control and subjugate the others will. The WCS should have had the advantage over Twilight; not only was it older and more powerful than Twilight but unlike Twilight there were no intimate places or memories for it to exploit. However the fury with which Twilight fought was like nothing the WCS had ever seen before. Every time it lunged into a weak point, some grief stricken memory or past trauma, to use to its advantage Twilight would turn it around and use the pain to lance back with an unstoppable knife blade of emotion. So engrossed was the WCS with this epic battle of wills it didn’t notice that how the fabric of space-time was vibrating and buckling as Forges magically augmented warp field continued to build in power, exactly as planned. “Warp 9.8, Warp 9.9, Warp 9.99, Warp 9.995. Charge complete.” Warp field in place Forge activated his particle emitters, which had been charging with magic at the same time. A dozen beams of nameless particles lanced down from Forge; skewering the WCS, pinning it to its prison and pulling the immense warp field down with them. Twilight’s mind leapt back from the fray, reintegrating with her body before letting loose an apocalyptic energy blast, simultaneously Forge began spinning the particle beams, as the beams intersected they dragged the warp field through itself, folding and refolding space-time. Twilight blinked herself awake and grinned. From within Forges warp bubble she watched as the shear from the rapidly compressing warp fields dragged the space-time fabric of the Nightmare Zone with it and funneling into the WCS pocket warp bubble. Within the bubble Luna’s prison and the Nightmare Zone were being superheated by Twilights immense magic blast and melding together. The WCS thrashed violently to escape, once again the nightmares were exerting their vice like hold over it. Once again it its mind was driven into a deep, dark pit that could never be escaped. Once again it recoiled from horrors that no other being that had ever existed could possibly comprehend. And this time… This time… This time it was worse. On the outside Twilight watched as the boundaries of the Nightmare Zone finally collapsed inwards. Normal space-time hit the shear and rebounded, collapsing both warp bubbles. Forge began furiously venting the extra energy while Twilight inspected the prison. In a reversal from before the perfect sphere had dull red colour in contrast against the comforting blackness of normal space. Placing her ear against its frictionless surface she could hear the faintest, unending scream. “Good riddance to the both of you.” Twilight huffed, kicking the prison. Forges moved forward, grabbed the prison and pulled it through his main cargo hatch. “Do you require a minute to compose yourself?” Forge asked, “Or shall we begin boarding procedures immediately?” “Boarding?” Twilight squeaked as she looked to where Forge was indicating. Hanging in space above them, illuminated their ambient glows, was a vast metal hull that dwarfed even Forge. “The Valkyrie." Twilight breathed, “I’m finally home.”