//------------------------------// // Fin // Story: Nightmare // by Blackdrag-rose //------------------------------// Allen Keller moaned as the sunlight hit him square in the face and rolled off his couch, hitting the ground hard and knocking himself awake. He reached up to rub his head and noticed something strange, his arm was pale colored and his hand was back. He got up and, expecting to all over on his rear end, he was pleasantly surprised, not to mention disturbed, to find his old legs and worn out shoes back. He looked down at himself and found that his human body had returned in all of its glory, which was void of the azure armor he had been wearing as Nightmare Moon. Not only that he noticed that the police brace he had been wearing, and destroyed with Nightmare's powers, was back where he had last seen it on his leg. As far as he could tell he was human again, without so much of a drop of Nightmare's powers coursing through his veins. He looked up at the television and watched as Twilight Sparkle, powered up by containing the powers of four alicorns, gave Tirek the beat down that caused shock waves throughout the entire fandom. It was almost as if everything that had happened in the last few days had simply been a dream, one that had started out sweet and had swiftly turned into a terrifying nightmare. As he thought about Tirek he wondered where his housemate Christen ended up, as he had assumed the form of his ponysona Prince Shimmering Glory just a few days after Allen had become Nightmare Moon. Allen moved to where Christen's room was and opened the door, finding a well kept bed, a neatly stacked bookshelf, and a desk that was clean, but there was no sign of anybody else. It was quite possible that Christen was already at work and wouldn't be home for some amount of time, but that idea was quickly dashed when he noticed that Christen's phone was sitting on the center of his desk. The man never went anywhere without his phone, so he knew that something wrong was going on and needed to figure out what that was. Or, that would have been his plan if he hadn't heard a pounding on the front door of the house and someone shouting his name, followed by the sound of the door being busted down. In a matter of seconds he was surrounded by heavily armed police officers, a swat team that just happened to be led by a women who looked at least twenty-two years old. "Allen Keller, you have committed crimes against the United States and her people," the swat leader said, moving behind him and wrapping his wrists with handcuffs, "crimes that include kidnapping, intent to cause mass genocide, and terrorism by leveling several buildings in Las Vegas. What say you in your defense?" Allen just stood there, dumbfounded by the fact that everything from his dream had somehow been real, but instead of the police looking for characters from a television show they came for him. Now he was being arrested, which meant that whoever had been King Sombra, Queen Chrysalis, the ponies that followed them, and even the demon Tirek, were likely being rounded up as well. As he failed to answer the swat leader she simply waved her hand and the police gathered him up, pulling him into the police van that he had been trying to avoid for the last few months. All his hard work, he now realized, had been shattered the moment that he had taken on the mantle of Nightmare Moon and as the doors closed behind him he silently wished that none of it had ever happened in the first place. -------------------------------------------- Christen stirred the moment that a gentle wind blew across his face, causing him to pull his head up and open his eyes to find a shocking sight laid out in front of him, the beautiful land of Equestria. He pulled up his hands to rub his eyes and made sure that all of this was real, when he realized that his hands had been replaced by long white furred legs that ended with silver armor that resembled the ones Princess Celestia wore all the time. His body was the same large body that he had seen on Celestia, while he had a pair of large white pegasus wings growing out off his back. He cast a look towards his forehead, finding a long white colored unicorn horn and a short platinum colored mane hanging in front of his eyes. Resting on the ground near him was a set of silver battle armor, like the ones that Shining Armor and the royal guards wore, but on the side he noticed a grey shield that was surrounded by three shimmering stars. He had, in essence, become the spitting image of his ponysona Shimmering Glory. "Its good to see that your awake," a voice to his right said, causing him to turn and find Princess Celestia standing there in all her glory, "I was afraid that the pressure of taking on Tirek's magic could have potentially destroyed you, but you have proven me wrong yet again my friend." "Is this really Equestria?" Christen asked, wondering if this was all a dream. "It is my friend," Princess Celestia replied, draping a wing over him as she somehow helped him onto a standing position, "You did it! You somehow overcame Tirek magic and reversed the magic that had brought us to that world, returning us to our home. Welcome home Shimmering Glory." It was at the moment that Shimmering and Christen were one and the same, neither one giving any ground as they settled in perfect harmony with each other. As Equestria was Shimmering's world Christen was more than happy to let the stallion have control, knowing that the two of them would experience the world of friendship together until the day they died. "Its good to be home," Shimmering said, pulling his helmet over to him as he gazed upon the world of Equestria with his bright open eyes and envisioned all the adventures he would have in the future.