//------------------------------// // Dream's Deep // Story: Blueblood's Ascension Part III; or, Even Alicorns Have Dreams // by MyHobby //------------------------------// Luna erected a swift, one-sided shield. The hydra’s middle head smacked into it less than a second later. “Get them out of here!” She pushed the shield back, and the hydra with it. The other heads were catching wise, however, and were circling around. Lightning Dust fired a bolt of lightning at the leftmost head, which shrunk back. “That trick’s not gonna work every time,” Rainbow Dash said. She hefted Pinkie Pie onto her back. “Help me out.” “We can’t carry them all.” Lightning dumped Vinyl, Lyra, and Mandible between her wings. “We need some sort of miracle.” The hydra hissed air through its vacant nostrils. Lightning shouted into the air. “Hay! I said we need some sort of miracle!” She shrugged. “That usually works in the movies.” “Run!” Rainbow Dash leaped aside as a head bit the space she’d just been standing in. She looked over her shoulder at Rarity and Braeburn, who lay in reach of the snapping jaws. “Grab ’em! Drag ’em or something!” Lightning reached out with her magic and scooped them up. Her knees wobbled. “Whoa. Not used to this whole multitasking thing, Dash.” “Duck!” Rainbow Dash bucked her back legs and hit the hydra on one of its snouts. “Did you miss the part where I told you to retreat?” Luna said. “Be gone!” “We can’t go anywhere.” Lightning Dust blasted the hydra with a burst of wind. “If we carry just a couple, it’ll leave the other to get mauled.” “Then we stand together!” Luna cracked the ground with a mighty stomp. “Join me, sisters in arms. We face the hydra united!” The three of them held their ground, faces set in stone, as they stared down the hissing Neverdead hydra. Two horns glowed, and three sets of wings extended. Rainbow Dash’s ears perked up. “Hear that?” “Don’t get distracted, Dash,” Lightning said. “No, behind us.” Rainbow Dash looked back. “Oh.” “What is it?” Luna asked. “Bad news.” Lightning Dust looked back as well. Her jaw dropped. “Oh.” “What are you—” Luna joined them. “Oh.” With the doors to Tartarus blown wide open, Nightmares poured through the opening like a sea of darkness. They swarmed towards the downed airship, the mountain passes, and the unconscious ponies lying before a hydra. “Cuss,” said Lightning Dust and Rainbow Dash. The hydra tilted its heads. The middle head rose into the air and hissed. It was joined by the heads immediately next to it, and then the outermost heads. The air was filled with hisses and rattles as the hydra shook its neck bones. The rattling was answered. Out of the mist crawled a herd of Neverdead creatures. Manticores, chimeras, wolves, big cats, cockatrices, a quarry eel… all those and more. The Nightmares and Neverdeads regarded each other for an eternal moment. The Nightmares screamed as the bone monsters charged. It was an incomprehensible melee between the two armies of monsters. Luna took to the sky and dragged Rarity and Braeburn with her while the hydra was distracted. “Go!” Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust split, each carrying their burdens. They circled around the edge of the large valley in front of Tartarus, staying out of the greater portion of the fighting. Lightning scanned the roiling mass of combatants and cringed. “That wasn’t the miracle I was hoping for.” Flash Sentry stumbled out of the prison. He looked over the carnage with a gaping mouth. He brushed a hoof through his mane. He hid behind a rock and started to wrap up his broken wing. “Stupid.” He bit the gauze, snipping off a length. “Stupid.” He leaned back against the rock. “Stupid.” The gauze roll ricocheted off a nearby boulder. Flash slumped over. “So stupid!” He’d forgiven her. He had. He’d decided to forgive her long before he was certain she’d been Nightmared. She was sorry, and she was forgiven. That’s all there was to it. Except it wasn’t. “I wanted to be the hero, just this once.” He stood up and flung a stone. “Is that too much to ask!? To be her knight in shining armor!? Just once!?” “I think you mean Knight in White Armor.” Flash spun. He came nose-to-nose with one of Blueblood’s robotic servants. Its emerald eyes glowed green. He stumbled back and collided with another robot. He squared his hooves and pivoted his head. There were twenty of the Automated Servants, all of them with their built-in laser-eyes trained on him. “Lasers eyes come standard,” Soarin said. “Weird, huh?” The Nightmared stallion stared at Flash with wild eyes. Froth collected in the corners of his mouth. His mane was burnt and unkempt. He staggered on his hooves. “I’m alone now.” “Soarin…” Flash twisted his body to give the golems a smaller target. “Soarin. It’s me, Flash. Your old buddy from the Guard.” “Yeah, I know you.” Soarin scraped a hoof along the jagged rocks. “You took them away from me.” “Who?” Flash shook his head. “No, no. I didn’t take anypony from you.” “You did. You helped. Now I’m alone.” Soarin gazed around the battlefield. “So alone.” Flash extended a hoof to the alicorn. “Listen to me, Soarin. You’re not alone. We’re here to help you.” “You’re here to stop me!” Soarin hissed. “You’re here to make sure I’m alone!” “Think of something besides being alone!” Flash flinched as the robots snapped to attention. “Think about Derpy and Dinky.” Soarin tilted his head. “Who?” “Your girlfriend. Her daughter.” Flash lowered his hoof to the ground. “They have to miss you just as much as you miss them. I’m sure of it.” “I don’t…” Soarin’s eyes crossed. “I can’t…” “You aren’t alone, not really.” Flash Sentry breathed a sigh. “Not as long as you can remember your family.” “But…” Soarin sucked in air. “I…” “Oh, please. You’re both alone.” Nightmare Entropy flashed into existence on a throne of melted, sticky suckers. He pulled a blue one from the armrest and popped it into his mouth. Flash shook his head. “What?” “You’re alone,” Nightmare Entropy said. His mouth stretched in an unnatural grin. “You’ve been abandoned. You can’t protect your princess because you hate her.” “I don’t hate her!” Flash yelled. “I couldn’t—” “Then why didn’t you go to her?” Nightmare Entropy leaned forward and pulled a string out of Flash’s ear. It kept coming for a long time. “Why did you run? You didn’t even let her apologize.” “She doesn’t have to!” Flash said. He turned his head in an attempt to watch each of the robots, Soarin, and Nightmare Entropy all at once. His chest heaved. “I’ve already forgiven her. She doesn’t have to apologize!” “You don’t actually believe that,” Nightmare Entropy said. He spun the string around in his hands, playing cat’s cradle. Twilight's face appeared among the knots. “You think she’s abandoned you. You don’t want anything to do with her.” “I. Love. Her.” Flash folded his ears against his head. “And I’ll stay by her side. No matter what.” “Like you did just now?” Nightmare Entropy pulled a single string and caused Twilight to vanish from the cradle. “Good job, there, Lover-boy.” Flash’s heart caught in his throat. “You don’t actually want to forgive her. Not after all the hurt she put you through. Not after the way she treated you.” Nightmare Entropy shook his head and tutted. “You know she doesn’t deserve it.” “It doesn’t matter if she deserves it or not.” Flash shut his eyes. He could hear the artificial ponies turning towards him, magic humming in their torsos. “What matters is what I’ve decided.” Flash’s shoulders slumped. “I’ve decided to love her. Regardless.” Nightmare Entropy blinked. He giggled. “Wow, this guy’s a real downer. You know what to do, Nightmare Storm. Clean up the mess.” Soarin blinked cloudiness from his eyes. He focused on Flash and nodded. “As you command, Nightmare Entropy.” He lifted a wing. “Robots, open fi—” Celestia dropped from the sky and drove Soarin into the ground. A golden shield appeared around her and Flash, blocking the green death-rays shooting from the servants’ eyes. Another spell from her horn sent sunbeams tearing through half of the robots, which then turned to slice the rest in half. She stepped to the side and looked down into the crater she’d created. Soarin was unconscious and battered. “He’ll be fine for now. We have a prison break to deal with.” Flash looked across the field at the Neverdead hydra. Several royal guard pegasi were buzzing around it, battering its heads and drawing it away from Luna and the others. They were airlifting their sleeping friends to a safe mountaintop. “Um.” Flash looked up at the princess. “Turning point?” Celestia smiled. She steadied her rear hooves and flicked her tail. “Let’s hope so.” “Yes, yes, yes. Hope, hope, hope. Such naïveté!” Nightmare Entropy’s sucker throne disappeared in a red cloud. He snapped his fingers and a foil appeared in his talon. “En garde, mon Capitaine!” Celestia gripped the sword in her telekinesis and bent the point back towards Nightmare Entropy. “You know, I thought you’d reformed.” “Ha!” Nightmare Entropy crossed his arms. The foil slithered away as it took the form of a snake. “So did Discord, but I managed to convince him to let loose again.” “What?” Celestia lifted a hoof and lowered her head. “You’ve been possessed by a Nightmare.” “Nope,” Nightmare Entropy said. “Just a bad dream.” The boulder beside Flash and Celestia came to life. It swung a rocky fist at the pegasus. He rolled beneath its legs, while Celestia kicked it across the valley. It smashed against a mountainside. “Rock monster! Ooh-ahh!” Nightmare Entropy danced around, clicking his nails in time. “Rock monster!” Rocks all around groaned and crackled. Boulders of all shapes and sizes stood up. They tramped towards Celestia and Flash. “I think you’ve taken your previous victories for granite, Celestia.” Thunder rumbled as Nightmare Entropy wrung a rain cloud between his fists. He stretched it like it was made of rubber. “Let’s rock and roll your corpse home!” He let the cloud fly like a rubber band. Celestia vanished in a golden teleport, causing the cloud to explode against the biggest rock monster. The giant toppled and split into fragments. Nightmare Entropy clicked his tongue. “You have a bad habit of being hard to hit.” Celestia bucked his head from behind. His eyeballs popped out of their sockets. “I have a worse habit of hitting hard!” He ran his hands along the ground, searching for his eyes. He snarled. “That wouldn’t have worked if it wasn’t funny.” Celestia kicked him with her front legs. “You’ve poisoned my friends, harmed my subjects, and threatened my kingdom! I’m not trying to be funny!” After a moment, she realized that she was just hitting an inflatable Discord punching bag. She spun this way and that looking for her opponent, but found nothing. “Strange,” Nightmare Entropy said. “I’m having a laugh.” Rock monsters surged against Celestia. Flash rode on one’s back, pounding helplessly against its head. The princess dodged and weaved, but couldn’t land a good blow in the close quarters. “You’re funny. I’m laughing. We’ll have a blast.” Nightmare Entropy appeared on the mountainside. He looked up at the vast bowl-like dormant volcano. “We’re about to have a real, honest-to-goodness blast.” He leaned on his knees and watched them struggle against the monsters. “So tell me, oh princess, how do you plan to get out of this one? Who’s gonna save the savior?” A blue hoof tapped his shoulder. He turned, and got a face-full of sand. Luna grinned at him. “Thou art a blackguard and a fool.” Luna pushed him over with a small tap. “We shall enjoy tearing your Nightmare apart.” Nightmare Entropy’s eyes closed, and the rock monsters tumbled apart. Luna knelt before him with a glowing horn. “To arms, sister.” “Yes. Of course.” Celestia gave her sister a nuzzle. “Nice timing.” “You as well.” Luna tilted her head towards where the Royal Guard was fighting the Neverdead hydra. “We wouldn’t have lasted much longer.” “Soon we can imprison these Nightmares again, and all can be well.” Celestia growled. “All will be well.” “It won’t be a simple battle,” Luna said. “With Discord, it never is.” “It’s more than that.” Luna’s eyebrows lowered. “He is possessed by Shadowfright.” Celestia found herself at a brief loss for words. “Shadowfright’s dead.” “Not anymore, if he ever was.” Luna glared at Nightmare Entropy. “He is very much alive.” Flash slipped up beside them. “I’m coming.” “Nay,” Luna said. “We need you to keep a lookout, in case the Nightmares decide to take advantage of two unconscious princesses.” At his crestfallen expression, she added, “We trust you to do the job, Centurion Sentry.” He nodded. “At your command, Your Majesties.” Luna and Celestia locked gazes. “Together, we will guard the night,” they said, and promptly fell asleep. Blueblood hit something hard. His chest boiled with agony. He didn’t realize he had stopped falling until the gritty sand pressing against his cheek became wet with tears. He opened his eyes and saw Scorpan casting a spell on the ground. The Wrong Alicorn turned with a manic grin. “Ah, good. You’re here. I was afraid you’d miss the show.” For the first time, Blueblood noticed Scorpan’s cutie mark: Three pairs of scissors. “Scorpan,” the ex-prisoner said, “is derived from the same root word that brings us scorpion. ‘To cut.’” Scorpan fluttered his bat-like wings. “And I aim to cut deep.” Blueblood gurgled. “Pardon? I couldn’t hear you over the sound of you dying.” Scorpan tilted his head as his eyes went wide. “Don’t worry, it won’t take. Not with that Neverdead spell on you. You get to live with your death for a good long time. You might even live through today. Maybe.” Scorpan patted Blueblood on the head. “You see, unlike your oath, my curse on you is not reliant on me being a prisoner of Tartarus. Your great-grandfather was stupid like that. I suppose he was working with what he had all those years ago, alone against my army of Nightmares, but still so stupid.” Scorpan kicked an empty shackle. “These chains can’t hold me without prisoners. There is nothing you can do anymore.” He threw back his head and laughed uproariously. He stopped in an instant. “You can’t even die properly.” Blueblood groaned. He lifted a hoof. Fur fell away, revealing dry bone. “Ah. There we go.” Scorpan nodded with jerky movements, like a puppet on loose strings. “Welcome to my army of Neverdeads. You know, I could never get the others to do as I commanded. Seems living death makes people and animals uncooperative. Fair enough. However, if you defy me I’ll be forced to kill you again.” Scorpan’s left eye twitched. “Just harder this time.” Scorpan’s horn lit with a dark, terrible glow. He shot a beam at the floor and drew a ragged outline. “When I wake this sleeping super-volcano and rain fiery death on all Equestria, it will be a very hard death, don’t you agree?” Blueblood situated his four bony legs beneath his body. Hot air whistled through his rib cage as Scorpan drilled. His horn glowed. “Come…” Scorpan looked over his shoulder. His mane and beard were singed from the rising heat. “Come again?” “To…” Scorpan rolled his eyes. “You really need to work on you enunciation—” “Life!” Blueblood sent a spell towards one of the chains. A come to life spell. The same spell that brought him to ascension. The same spell he’d practiced and honed for ages. His last resort. The chain looped through the air and snagged Scorpan’s hoof in its shackle. The Wrong Alicorn jerked back in surprise. “What!?” A laser burst from Scorpan’s horn and sliced the chain in half. He snickered. “Fool. Without prisoners to satisfy your oath, these are mere chains!” A harsh spell cut through the rock just above Blueblood’s head. “You’re more trouble than your amusement is worth!” Redheart pulled Blueblood out of the way as a molten rock crashed into the ground. She stood between Scorpan and Blueblood. “You—you just stay back! I’m warning you!” “Warning me?” Scorpan smiled with a crooked, toothy grin. “Warning me against what?” “It—it would go against everything I stand for to hurt another.” Redheart bit down hard on her lip. “I’ll break my own oath to save Blueblood.” Scorpan finished cutting a chunk out of the ground. The air shimmered as the mountain rumbled. “Oh really? And what can a little mare like you do?” Scorpan lowered his head and charged at Redheart. Her horn flickered. His ankle twisted around. He screamed as he tumbled. She winced and deliberately didn’t look at his dislocated hoof. “How do I cure him!?” she screamed. “How!?” “You…” Scorpan coughed up phlegm. “You saw his grandfather. If he dies, he’ll stop being a Neverdead.” He laughed. His laughter echoed through the entire cavern. The mountain roared from within. “This volcano will erupt and take every last pony with it!” He gasped for breath even as laughter took him again. “You with it! Him with it! I will blot out the sun with a cloud of ash! I will inhabit the Nightmares of every pony! Equestria will be a wasteland with me as its king!” Redheart’s jaw dropped. “You’re sick.” “And you’re dead!” Scorpan shook with laughter. The floor fell out from beneath their feet, and fire rose up to greet them. Celestia and Luna stood before a small, baby-faced draconequus. He played with a pile of letter-faced blocks which, though he knocked them down and built them back up at random, always seemed to spell out “Friends.” “You know,” he said in a voice very much like Discord’s, though higher-pitched, “I hate structure.” They looked around. Straight lines. Mathematical equations. Perfect rows of corn. Clothes that were of the same design, but which held a rainbow of colors. A sun that slid by at a constant rate and a moon that followed at an even pace. Clocks. Ticking, clicking, tocking, knocking, ringing, pinging, clanging clocks. Clocks everywhere. “So this is Discord’s Nightmare.” Luna lifted an eyebrow. “I expected scarier.” “This is absolutely horrifying,” the young draconequus said with a level voice. “All the powers of chaos at my disposal…” He flicked his current tower of blocks. It tumbled, and the letters lined up to spell “Friends.” “And I can’t even mess up this bunch of kid’s toys.” Celestia glanced around the dreamscape, attempting to discern a way to break the Nightmare, while Luna sat beside the young draconequus. “Discord,” Luna said, “why do you dislike what the blocks spell out?” Discord picked up a block and threw it. It clattered to the ground a few meters away. “’Cause they don’t care about me.” He kicked the blocks to punctuate every sentence. “They don’t care about what I want! They don’t care about what I need! And you know what? Who needs them anyways?” He crossed his arms and hovered in the air. “I care about what I want. And I don’t need them or anypony. I got me covered.” Celestia sniffed a cornstalk. “Yes, that is of course why you allowed yourself to be possessed by a monstrous alien.” “Oh, Celestia,” Shadowfright’s voice boomed. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!” The sky darkened. The corn transformed into a shadowed, misty, giant bramble patch. The tick, tock of the clocks grew slower, deeper. The sun turned red, and the moon turned sickly green. Straight lines became jagged. The blocks were swallowed into uneven ground. A gray cloud loomed over the princesses. Two eyes, glowing a sinister purple, appeared. A beak formed, snapping at them from afar. A crackling laugh grasped at their hearts and chilled their spines. Shadowfright filled the sky of the dreamscape. “This ends now!” Celestia jumped into the air and beat her wings furiously. She charged at the mighty Nightmare with her horn aglow. Shadowfright smirked. A vine shot out of the ground and wrapped around Celestia’s rear legs. She was dragged into the bramble patch kicking and screaming. Luna stayed at Discord’s side and fired a moonbeam from her horn. Halfway it changed from silver to green, and vaporized into a fine mist. Shadowfright shook his head. “I control this world, Luna. You dreamhopping prowess is nothing to me.” Brambles surrounded her on every side. Discord started to wander off, his face the picture of boredom, but she wrapped a leg around his neck in a tight hug. “I have faced Nightmares and won, Shadowfright. I have faced you and won. I am the Mistress of the Night, the Keeper of Dreams, the Watcher in the Stars. I will protect my little ponies… and apparently this draconequus… from every bad dream that comes their way.” Shadowfright shook his head. “Luna, Luna, Luna… I am Discord now. I have his body. His magic. His skill. I have added it all to my own. All he has now is”—he pointed a pseudopod at the little Discord—“that.” Shadowfright barked out a harsh laugh. “With the power of the Nightmare combined with the might of Chaos, there is nothing to stop me. Simple as that.” “What’s simple,” Luna said, “is that Discord can defeat you easily.” She leaned down to whisper in the draconequus’ ear. “All you must do, Discord, is face your real fears. Then you will see that what he tells you is all a lie.” “So?” Discord turned away from her. “Why should I care?” Luna sneered. “You should care that the fate of the world is in the balance! You should care because every last pony who calls you friend is in danger! You should at least care that you are now a prisoner of a tyrant!” “And that’s different than before how, exactly?” Discord turned his nose up. “Prisoner of Celestia, prisoner of Shadowfright, what’s the dif?” “We gave you freedom—” “To twiddle away my days in tea parties and staying out of trouble. Bleh.” Luna snorted steam. “And being a child stuck in your own Nightmare is far better!?” Lightning struck between them. “I’ve had enough of this,” Shadowfright said. “I have a world to conquer!” A new tingle ran down Luna’s spine. “Besides,” Shadowfright continued, “this isn’t really Discord’s Nightmare. Not anymore.” A row of brambles parted. The world grew red hot. The air grew stifling. Luna shielded her eyes away from a blinding light. With her shrunken pupils adjusted, Luna lowered her hoof. A tall, white alicorn faced her. Her mane was alight with a rainbow of roaring flames. Her body was adorned with golden armor which seemed just this side of molten. Her eyes were harsh and draconic. Her smile betrayed a sinister set of fangs. Celestia opened her mouth wide with crazed laughter. “The day shall last forever!” “Not Discord’s Nightmare at all,” Shadowfright said. “It’s yours.” Flash Sentry stood sentinel over the princesses. His eyes flickered to them as they stirred. Celestia hissed in pain, and Luna moaned in fear. He gritted his teeth and continued to watch the battle in the valley. Nightmare Entropy giggled. Flash narrowed his eyes. “This is insane,” he muttered. “I can’t just—” His eyes spied Lightning Dust and Rainbow Dash tucking their friends in between the boulders. He put a hoof to his mouth and gave them a sharp whistle. Rainbow looked up first, spotted him, and tugged on Lighting’s wing. They gave the area a quick look-over to be sure it was clear of monsters, then flew over, Dash on Dust’s back. Rainbow Dash waved. “Flash! How’s Twil—” “Fine for now,” he said. He wanted to wash those words off of his tongue. “I need to get into this dream.” Lightning Dust hovered back a pace. “Whoa, really? You think you can help the princesses? Isn’t this their thing?” “It doesn’t matter if I can help them,” Flash said. “I need to help them.” “Hay! Cool your jets!” Rainbow Dash pushed him back with both forelegs. “It’s not gonna do anypony any good to get yourself killed!” “Yeah, I’m in enough trouble without assisting in Suicide by Nightmare.” Lightning touched down and folded her wings. “Can’t you help in other—?” “I have been beaten down, bruised, broken, battered, blamed, and betrayed.” Flash Sentry shook his mane. “I am bound and determined to give the Nightmares a little taste of their medicine. Twilight is safe for now, so that leaves it my job to keep the other princesses safe.” He nodded to Lightning. “Including you, Your Highness.” Lightning shrugged. “And right now, the mother of all Nightmares is fighting for survival. If it wins, the world is doomed. If we don’t fight back, we’re all gonna be sucked in.” Flash Sentry bopped his hooves together. “I think we can do something. Even something little could turn the tide in the princesses’ favor.” “So you wanna send us into a Nightmare to be creepy-monster bait.” Rainbow Dash flicked an ear. “Right.” “Something like that,” Flash said, waving a hoof. “But, you know, nobler.” A hiss and a rattle issued forth from the Neverdead hydra. It was plowing through Nighmares on its way towards Tartarus. The Royal Guardsponies were having difficulty keeping it pinned. “And what happens when that thing reaches us and we’re all asleep?” Rainbow Dash said. “We won’t all be asleep.” Flash pointed at her. “You’ll be awake.” Rainbow Dash squinted. “I’m injured.” “I have a broken wing. Checkmate.” Flash puffed his chest out and turned to Lightning Dust. “So? We gonna save the world or what?” Lightning Dust’s eyes flickered from Rainbow to Flash. “Eh, why not?” He lay beside Luna and pulled the sandbag out of her grip. He handed it to Lightning. “On your mark.” Rainbow Dash put a hoof on Lightning’s shoulder. “This is super-stupid.” Lightning Dust shrugged. “Yeah, but you got a better idea?” Celestia shrieked. She sat up, her eyes bloodshot, and lay back down in the space of a second. Luna growled into the dirt. Nightmare Entropy chuckled to himself. “Fine,” Rainbow Dash said. “But don’t let him get killed.” Lightning Dust sucked in a breath. She let it out slowly as her brow furrowed. “’Kay. Let’s do it.” Flash Sentry opened the sandbag. Flash Sentry and Lightning Dust were in the Unencumbered Unconscious. Lightning looked down with a gasp and tottered. Flash caught her before she could fall. “Holy cow,” she said. She looked around and saw dreams gleaming all around like stars. “Are we in space?” “Um…” Flash let go of her as she found her footing. “Maybe? Let me know if you see a Nightmare.” “How’s about a hundred Nightmares?” Flash turned around. Whereas before a Nightmared dream was easy to pick out of the stars, it being red and roiling while the others were white and twinkling, now there was a sea of red stars. They were all connected by streams of blackish-reddish smoke, flowing and wriggling and feasting on visible Fear. The connected Nightmare spread with every moment, swallowing up more stars in its trail through the Unencumbered Unconscious. “My gosh…” Flash Sentry’s knees trembled. “He’s seeping into other dreams…” “All at once,” Lightning croaked. “To create his army of Nightmares.” The star at the center of the maelstrom of Fear was pitch black. Flash indicated it with a wingtip. “That one. That’s at the heart. That’s our destination.” “You—” Lightning coughed. “You sure this isn’t Suicide by Nightmare?” Flash narrowed his eyes. He spread his wings, which both worked just fine inside a dream, thank you very much, and flew. “Trust me.” Lightning Dust gulped down the frog in her throat. “Oh, gosh it is. He’s gonna get himself cussing killed.” She soared after him. “Hay, just so we don’t die with stuff hanging on our chests, I’m sorry about almost killing your girlfriend.” Flash Sentry blinked. “You what!?” “Look, I was trying to impress the Wonderbolts so I totally created a tornado to bust a few clouds and I guess maybe your girlfriend got caught in it.” Lightning smiled, though neither of them were convinced by it. “So, sorry?” “Ah.” Flash hovered above the web of Nightmares. “You’re forgiven. I guess? Everything turned out alright, right?” “Kinda.” Lightning Dust slumped in midair. “Not really.” “Well, um…” Flash reached towards the core Nightmare. He hesitated. “I forgive you. You know, I had no idea that was you. You could have kept it a secret before going into this especially-difficult fight where we need to trust each other.” “Well, that’s kinda why I said it.” Lightning Dust gave him a lopsided smile. “Plus, confession’s good for the soul and stuff. I feel better after saying it, at least. No dark cloud hanging over my head.” She looked up at the Nighmare web. “Except, you know, that one.” Flash Sentry glared at the center. “I guess I’ll try to remember that.” He touched the star. Lyra bucked another Lyraling in the face. The fiftieth Lyraling, she was sure. “These things just keep coming!” Vinyl smashed two into the floor and wiggled their heads like vinyl disks. “Maybe it isn’t a Nightmare anymore. This is pretty cathartic.” “I dunno.” Mandible walked up beside Lyra and pointed his horn at Lyralis. “This is all pretty creepy to me, still.” “Hay. Buddy.” Lyra gave him a sideways hug that squeezed him just a bit too tight. “As long as I got confidence, as long as I got friends, we got this.” Lyralis snarled at them. She paused. She blinked. She looked up. She smiled. “We got this,” Lyra said. “I think.” Lyralis flew into the air. The skies turned from their usual blank white to dark red. An enormous buzzing filled the air. “Bow before your new ruler, pony scats! Shadowfright the Forgotten!” A sinister, beaked face appeared out of the sky. Shadowfright’s beak opened wide, and a horde of changelings poured out. “Fear! Fear is your entire world now!” Lyralis grew in size, surrounded by a ruddy glow. The changelings were so numerous and tight-packed that it seemed they were a single, massive monster. Mandible clutched Lyra tight. “I think that’s the single scariest thing I’ve ever seen.” Lyra squinted at him. “But you’re a changeling.” Vinyl Scratch pulled her sunglasses off. Both lenses were broken. She tossed them to the side. “Heartstrings, I’m starting to think there’s some things even changelings won’t do.” Pinkie and Braeburn held each other close as the wind picked up, sending stinging sand into their faces. The hot sun above turned blood-red, and was soon half-covered by billowing black clouds. “I don’t understand!” Pinkie said. “You beat the Nightmare! We’re together!” Rarity yelped and released the Night Terror. It hovered in the air while it took on a reddish sheen. It grew, hissing with delight all the while. “At last! He has returned,” it whispered. “Who!?” Pinkie shouted. “Who’s returned? Who wants to hurt us!?” “The King of Nightmares,” the Night Terror said. “Shadowfright!” Shadowfright appeared in the sky, his glowing purple eyes the only thing visible through the sandstorm. Pinkie Pie held onto Braeburn as tight as she could. They inched their way towards Rarity, until they were a leg’s length away. Pinkie reached out. “Hold on, Rarity! Grab my leg! We’ll all be lost together!” Rarity crawled towards Pinkie. She reached out and grasped hooves. “Pinkie, there’s nopony else I’d trust to get me lost in just the right way!” They huddled together in the middle of the storm, hoping against hope that they could wait it out. “You’re all fools!” Shadowfright said. “You think there’s hope? You think you can stand together? I am your worst Nightmare. I am your deepest, darkest secrets! I am your hidden desires! I hold you in my clutches! You can’t help yourselves from doing my bidding!” Pinkie Apple-Pie and Braeburn Apple kissed for a long time. Rarity hugged Pinkie even as she rolled her eyes. “And I’m the fifth wheel again, naturally. Que sera, sera.” “You can’t escape!” Shadowfright’s face appeared at the top of a cyclone, with the three little ponies at the bottom. “I am everywhere! I am in everything! I am in your very thoughts! I will spread Fear until it blankets the continent!” His glowing eyes glinted like amethysts in fire. “And you—yes, you!—are next!”