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// Rainbow Dash -- Nightmare 
// Story: Projected Nightmares 
// by bearcat 
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  Drifting to Dash's memory was a cold wind, a windowless cave, and more sharp objects than she had seen since the civil war. She couldn't see anything yet but the war part seemed to have caught up since she was chained down to a wooden plank.

Except that wasn't a civil war it was … something else.

Her mind too fuzzy to make sense of her circumstances, she concentrated on breathing but everything tasted like some chemical that seemed familiar and alien at the same time. A hot, fetid wind blew over her as a clank of a heavy door opening sounded in front of her somewhere. A pink blob carried a painfully bright light source in to the room which looked sort of like a war torn version of Redheart's surgery room. Blood, forgotten bits of flesh, and lots of rust covering everything that wa not one of the surgical implements.

Rainbow, who was laying on her left side, squinted into the light to find Pinkie Pie walking towards her, a giant grin on her face. "Dashie!" the pink blob said, still a little fuzzy looking. A white blob slithered from behind Pinkie to rush up to Rainbow, and begin carefully unhooking her chains. Dash saw a wide eyed hunger in the white nurse that didn't seem right, but while she was getting upset, she wasn't sure what to be scared of. Yet.

Pinkie's voice interrupted Dash's worries about Redheart with worries about Pinkie. "You ran so far, Dashie I thought I'd never find you! I thought I would have to fast forever. I had to promise something to Redheart here just to use her fun room."

Her front legs free but still numb from the chain's weight, Dash was not ready for the sudden upheaval as Redheart slammed Rainbow Dash against the wall, desperately shoving the now struggling forelegs into locks that held her hooves well above her head. Too late she remembered ... something that she had forgotten again. About Pinkie, and this room. Doesn't matter anyway I just need to get out. Any way I can.

Dash bit down on Redheart's shoulder as hard as she could, and felt the muscle soften beneath her fear powered teeth ... and in return felt the nurse bite back with equal fury at the base of Dash's neck. As Dash's mouth finally gave out, Redheart let go, brushing her lips along Dash's long neck, breathing hotly across her face, and drew back to give that wild eyed, licentious look again to Rainbow Dash.

There was blood on the nurse's lips, which she slowly licked clean. Redheart's hooves now held Dash's head, and Dash saw the white ears prick to rock hardness and point straight at Dash's left eye. Again, the tongue went slowly, lasciviously across those white lips.

"Now Reddy." Pinkie's effervescent voice interrupted. "She's not ready yet. You know we'll have to soften the meat a little bit." Redheart glared angrily at the restrained blue mare, and drew back. Making eye contact with Pinkie, who had picked up a scalpel and was wearing the most serene expression, the white earth pony slithered back out as quickly and silently as she had come in.

The wall mounted cuffs were just barely low enough that Dash could touch the floor, but it was a stretch, and she was not suited to stand bipedally for long. But she could still feel her front hooves up there. They hurt.

"How about we start, then, Dashie?" Pinkie's expression slowly shifted as she walked towards Rainbow Dash, from the serene look of a pony enjoying a beautiful sunset, through the appetence of a drunken colt watching an under dressed all-mare broadway musical, to the ravenous look of a starving pony who thought her source had left and gone forever.

Dash could almost remember what this was going to feel like, Like she'd died before. Been under the knife before. But she didn't have any scars, did she? Even knowing what was coming, Dash screamed as the scalpel roughly, carelessly carved the flesh off her left haunch.

Pulling back now, Pinkie squealed with delight like a school filly, holding a flap of bloody meat and hide in her hooves. "Your cutie mark, Dash! I've always wanted your cutie mark Dashie oh isn't this wonderful?"

Through the tears, Dash saw a look of an innocent filly reach Pinkie's face. Dash suddenly thought this was an opportunity, though she couldn't have explained why for the life of her. Which would be drained shortly, she know deep inside but she asked anyway. "Pinkie. Where's the battery? Aren't you going to electrocute me?"

The pink blob danced in a quick circle, and setting the hunk of pony flesh on a nearby rusty table, added "And the adrenaline isn't here so if you pass out I need to wake you right away because you'll never sleep again. Stay right there, Dashie! I love you!" And out she ran, leaving the light hanging, rocking disconcertingly as her passage disturbed it.

Then several things happened in quick succession. First was a foreleg, ending in bony tentacles each with a sharpened hoof, erupting from the wall she was bolted to, and wrapping around her muzzle, holding her mouth shut tightly. Then there was a voice like the buzzing of bees, again coming from a place that she was sure couldn't have the room to house a speaker.

"Rainbow Dash, I must ask an uncomfortable thing of you. Please hurry and do this thing." Then the hoof  -- she would eventually realize it was a hand, just like, say, Spike had -- slid down to the base of her jaw.

Where had she heard that line before? Dash replied "Uncomfortable is having a pony you thought was your best friend steal your cutie mark with a scalpel. What do you want, monster?"

The hand slid farther, warmly gripping her throat. "Look right. What do you see?" She glanced, and saw something that chilled her blood, then froze it in place. Gilda, her schoolmate from so many years ago, here. Also, dead. Feathers pulled out from her right wing, left foreleg burnt to a blackened stump. Again, the bees buzzed. "Look left. What do you see?"

This time she saw a blue pegasus, standing on just her rear legs, her forelegs high in the air. Bolted in place, just like hers she thought, but then realized her head was somehow lower than this whole mare's body. The strange mare was looking to her left, at the lantern, and the still empty doorway. Her mane was in shadow, but she thought she made out several colors ... and her own cutie mark!

It was her! She was ... bolted to the wall to her own left? She tried to move, but the new Rainbow Dash whipped her head to what she now assumed was the body of dead Gilda, and hissed at her. "No don't you'll give us away too soon"

But at that the door whipped open, and in ran Pinkie with a cart, filled with many rattling "goodies" that from this lower angle, Dash couldn't identify and didn't really want too.

The blue mare looked coolly at the pink mare, who was hefting a bone saw. "Dashie I just want to say I won't miss you when you're gone. Because you're not going anywhere! Do you see your old schoolmate over there? She's going to be your roomate again once I stuff you both isn't it just the best thing you've ever heard of? Except the tiny bottle of liquid helium in here but really what's cooler than that?"

The party pony had reached the false Rainbow Dash, who hefted herself on the cuffs to lift her hind-legs and lay them against Pinkie's sides. "Silly party pony" Dash heard herself say. Does my voice sound like that, though? It doesn't from inside my head. "What makes you think" At this, the blue pegasus closed her hind-legs in a scissor motion which quickly drew the pink mare against the blue belly, and there was locked in place, face against chest. "Think I would want to leave this? Hmm?"

Dash sort of wanted to be sick, but as her current body was a corpse, she wasn't sure if that would even work. If Spike can explode twice, I should be able to puke once. But she held her peace, gratuitous violence and bad acting notwithstanding.

Meanwhile the pony of torture parties tried to pull free, but found those hind-legs too sure in their grip. Even poking a hoof into the still bleeding wound where a cutie mark was moments ago, elicited no reaction from the still cool, detached pegasus. "Dashie!" Called Pinkie, "What's going on, Dash? Why won't you let me go?"

The blue mare examined her catch carefully, before proclaiming "You're right, poppet. I don't want you here after all." And with a brisk contraction of un-pony strength, Pinkie's back snapped, and she collapsed to the floor. "Silence!" she called, but the real Dash noticed that her body was making eye contact with herself, and anyway Pinkie hadn't said anything, although she was starting to whimper now.

Dropping to the ground, over the top of Pinkie as if it had all been consensual, the blue mare shook her wings free, then into place at her side. She cast her gaze about the small room, and found nothing for a moment, until a white glow snaked into the room, stopping five meters from the false Dash.

It was vaguely pony shaped but was not Redheart. It was just a shadow, albeit one made of glowy bits. After the two standing equines stared each other down for a few seconds, the false Dash said "I see." And stepped on Pinkie's shoulder, eliciting a loud shriek from the pink mare as her fore half twisted and crunched independently of her back half.

The terror that the shadowy figure elicited in Rainbow Dash was indescribable. But momentarily it was followed by pain, as the light it was giving off exploded around her, burning her borrowed corpse body to ash.