Joe struggled to stand up. He had difficulty moving his body. It was heavy and resistant. When he finally got on his hooves, he groaned as he noticed the feverish pain in this head. Joe looked around but couldn't make heads or tails out of his surroundings. He could not tell if he was inside or outside and his vision remained blurry no matter how many times he tried to blink them into focus.
Joe tried to remember how he got here, wherever ‘here’ was. However, he couldn't recall any details. He didn't remember ever having ‘gone’ anywhere. Had he been here this whole time? Was this where he lived? Joe trotted forward in hopes that the movement would clear his head, or at least his vision. But no matter how long or far he traveled, he felt like he was going nowhere. The blurry, unfocused world seemed to drift on forever. It was a void shrouded in a bizarre mist that glowed with all colors and none.
“Where… Where am I?” Joe spoke allowed if only to hear the sound of his own voice. The fact that he could still speak granted him a quantum of solace. The sound of his voice echoed out into the eternal void. When the echo faded, another voice spoke out in reply.
“Good evening, Donut Joe.”
Joe’s spine froze and tensed. The sound of his real name spoken by a voice that never spoke the name before filled Joe with apprehension. He desperately looked around to find the owner of the voice, but there was nopony to be found.
“My name is Con Mane!” Joe shouted to correct the disembodied voice.
“No, I’m afraid that right now, your mind in an open book. I can see everything: your innermost thoughts. Your desires. Your fears. Your past. Your triumphs. Your failures.”
The voiced lingered on the last word with extra breath. Joe’s heart was pounding. He felt like an amoeba underneath a microscope. The entirety of the strange world was like a massive eyeball, constantly looking at him, into him. Joe’s mind raced with panicked paranoia.
“You don’t know anything!” Joe fought for control over his mental agency.
“Don’t I?” The voice laughed in amusement.
There was a new sound. Joe could hear the unmistakable sound of approaching hoofsteps in the distance. He looked around but could not pinpoint the direction the hoofsteps were coming from. They were getting closer. And as they drew closer, Joe could hear another sound accompanying the hoofsteps. Each normal sounding clop was accompanied by a clang. The metallic thuds rang loudly throughout the void. The hoofsteps were very close now. Joe quickly turned his head to where he could now tell the sound was coming from. A figure was approaching Joe, emerging from the blurry mist. He couldn’t make out any details, but the figure was definitely making the metallic clangs with each step. He could make out some sort of robe draped around the pony’s shape. Atop the pony’s crest, looked to be the silhouette of a long curved horn.
“Griffons, Ponies, Changelings, just forms of life, each as stupid as the other. I am a member of DISCORD” The shadowy pony hissed in a harsh, raspy voice.
The figure came to focus. Joe could see the front hooves that were replaced with metal prosthetics, the curved red horn and the green and red eyes with purple smoke billowing from the sides.
“What are you doing here!?” Joe yelled out. His blood boiled in anger as he remembered the agony he faced at the hooves of the pony before him.
“The NLR are fools.” The dark Unicorn continued, “I offered them my knowledge of the dark arts and they refused. So did all the other nations. Now they will all pay for their mistake!”
Joe’s headache became worse as confusion pounded it like an anvil. “No! You can’t be here! You’re dead!”
“How does it feel, Old Horse?” a new voice interrupted Joe’s fury from behind.
Joe reeled around to find another pony standing behind him. It was a large Earth pony with monochrome coloring. He had a grey coat and a grey mane. He watched Joe from behind grey, lifeless eyes. Joe instinctively backed away.
“I watched you die.” he cried out, “I refuse to believe this is real!”
The grey pony continued, “The first stab won’t kill you. Nor the second. Not even the third. Not until you crawl over here and you kiss my hoof!”
“No!” Joe yelled out in a blood fueled rage. He raised his hoof and flew a punch that could shatter bones straight towards the grey muzzle. But then Joe withheld the attack when the grey pony suddenly changed.
Standing before Joe was a yellow pegasus wearing a black wide brimmed hat and a black cape.
“You know, Con.” The Pegasus spoke theatrically, “Life in the Griffon Nest will not be the same without you.”
Joe was breathing heavily. His thoughts spiraled out of control. Joe shut his eyes tight and shook his head to fight against the confusion. When he looked again the Pegasus was gone.
“Well, I have some bad news. Your father’s dead.” Joe said. Or was it Joe that said it? It was certainly Joe’s voice but the words this not come out of his mouth.
“Who did it? Tell me!”
More voices erupted from the void. They assaulted Joe from every direction. He could neither run nor hide from their relentless onslaught.
“He was stickin his muzzle where it didn’t belong. And if you keep snooping around, you’ll end up just like Strange Ways.”
“You have finally lost your mind, Captain. One does not simply slay a Dragon!”
“Drop the phone, Con Mane, or I’ll tear out your throat! You think hiding behind a table is going to protect you? Your the one pinned against the wall. Now stay still like a good little statue!”
“He pays me. My sister, Cloudchaser, lost her job at the Canterlot weather patrol. Doing this is all I could do to support us.”
“Autopsy shows she died of critical heart failure brought about by overstimulation of the brain’s fear receptors. She literally died of fright.”
“What are these things? They’re everywhere! Get away! Stop! No!”
“STOP!” Joe screamed at the top of his lungs. He was huddled on the floor with his hooves covering his head and ears in a futile attempt to block out the tormenting voices. His breathing was heavy and erratic. Tears flowed from his eyes.
“What’s the matter, Joe?” politely asked the first disembodied voice, “Can’t bear to face the mistakes of your past? Or is it that you are afraid of it? No. It’s clear to me, Joe. What you are truly afraid of is yourself.”
Joe’s head jerked up at these words. He could see another Stallion standing in the mist across the void, another Unicorn. The pony was shrouded in darkness. Although the shadow was all Joe could see, it filled his mind with pain and sorrow and terror.
The shadowy Unicorn repeated those last words with a velvety voice, “What you are truly afraid of, is yourself.”
Joe fell back on his haunches and crawled backwards away from the Shadowy Unicorn, unable to tear his gaze away. “No. Not him. Please. Not him! Keep him away from me!”
No matter how far Joe tried to scuttle away from the shadow, he did not make any distance. If anything the shadow was growing larger, more powerful, more intimidating. The shadow erupted in laughter. It was a laughter that shattered Joe’s very soul and petrified his heart. And it grew louder still.
Joe shouted at the shadow, “I’ll never forgive you, do you hear me? I’ll never forgive you!”
“I’m not the one who needs forgiveness, Con Mane.” said the shadow calmly, “When you cannot even forgive yourself.”
“I did all I could--”
“It wasn’t enough!”
“But it wasn’t my fault!”
“You didn’t finish the job!” the shadow’s voiced rose to a thunderous bellow. The weight of the accusation fell on top of Joe and crushed him. He lowered his muzzle to the ground and gave in to his agony. His face was entirely awash in tears.
“Yes! I’m sorry! I’m sorry, it was all my fault! I couldn’t stop it, I… I was powerless! I couldn’t save her! I couldn’t save anypony!”
“You couldn’t bear the weight of your own sin!”
“I know! Why’dya think I ran away!? I couldn’t bare to live the rest of my life in a nightmare!”
Joe felt something resound inside him. A wave of clarity rippled from deep inside his chest. A light from somewhere within him tore through his anguish. His body no longer felt heavy. Joe stood up. He could feel heat radiating from his chest. It was a warm, comfortable heat that cradled him like a Hearth’s Warming fire. A serene blue light shined from Joe’s chest. The emanating glow surrounded Joe in a cocoon of serenity. The mist that obstructed and blurred Joe’s vision wafted away. The shadowy figure of the Unicorn dissipated. Joe found himself floating in a beautiful starry sky. The stars danced around the skies like fireflies. The colors that swirled around Joe were dreamlike.
“Of course.” Joe realized. He reached a hoof into his shirt and pulled out the source of the magical glow. In his hoof, Joe held a sapphire pendant that was still wrapped around his neck with a gold chain. The exposed Lucid Dream Jewel shined with the most brilliant light, but it did not strain Joe’s eyes. It was all a dream, Joe realized. And if this was a dream, then he could control it. Joe touched the crystal to the tip of his horn and concentrated.
“You don’t have control over anything!” the voice of the Unicorn shadow contested with no weight in his voice.
“Shut up.” Joe said.
The voice tried to speak again but it was nothing more than a whisper that fell on deaf ears. Joe continued to focus his mind solely on the crystal.
“What’s going on? Why isn’t it working?!?” said the first disembodied voice Joe heard; the voice that Joe could now easily recognize.
“You think you can just scare me away, Nightfeather? You’re the one who’s dreaming. And I think it’s about time I wake up!”
The crystal sprung to life. The starry landscape was flooded with the sapphire light. As Joe floated peacefully in the light, he closed his eyes and allowed his consciousness slip away into what felt like sleep.
Joe’s eyes opened wide and he jolted awake. His mind was still in a cloud from waking up. The last vestiges of some sort of dream that Joe could no longer recall slipped from his mind. The last thing he remembered was crashing while trying to escape Larry and the Lunar Guard. Joe tried to get up but was stopped by leather straps that constricted all four of his legs. He was strapped to some sort of table that was tilted upright. Joe felt some sort of device strapped to his head. He looked around the room. He made out the walls of what appeared to be a very large room. Sitting in front of Joe was a large ring shaped contraption. A figure stepped into Joe’s view and stood before him. Nightfeather’s face was contorted in a strange combination of frustration and curiosity.
“My congratulations to you, Mr. Mane.” Nightfeather said with sour deadpan, “Nopony has ever been able to escape the Nightmare Machine like that. You are a formidable opponent.”
“Where am I?” Joe asked, still feeling slightly drowsy.
Nightfeather smiled, “You are still in the weather factory, my friend. Where your brain has been wired to the Dream Gate.”
“But why go to the trouble, huh? Why not just kill me?”
Nightfeather chuckled. He flared his dark blue wings with a dramatic flourish. “The members of your curious profession are few in number. But with the help of my machine, you have been recognized, Donut Joe. Otherwise known as Con Mane. A member of Equestria’s Mane6. I had always thought that Celestia’s secret team of assassins was just a myth.”
Nightfeather reveled in his own amusement. He trotted over to the side to a nearby Lunar Guard and took from the Batpony Joe’s mechanical wings. Joe looked down to the floor with a sudden lump in his throat. The cloudcrete factory floor now looked to him no stronger than tissue paper. Even if he could escape, he would just fall through the floor.
“What interesting wings of yours.” Nightfeather mused with delight as he messed around with the wires and servos. “I too have a new toy, but one considerably more practical.” He gave the wings back to his subordinate and turned to face the giant ring, raising his hooves in adoration. “This is a magical portal, designed to rip the very fabric of reality. With it, I can enter the Dreamscape from anywhere in the world.” He paused to deliver a smarmy smile to Joe. “Or in some instances, I can even tear a portal to any particular spot on the moon. Home of the Nightmare Dreamscape. Here, I shall show you.”
Nightfeather waved a command to somepony beyond Joe’s field of vision. He could hear the humming of a machine being powered up. The antennas atop the large ring sparked to life. Electricity arced between them. The electricity followed the outer contours of the ring. The sparks jumped across the cavity from one side to the other. Soon several strands of lightning were being fed into the cavity converging on the center. The image of the warehouse on the other side of the ring rippled and contorted. Reality itself was warping within the ring along with the electricity which spiraled into a whirlpool. The convergence in the center grow into a sphere of sparking light and the sparking and humming of the machine grew ever louder. The light expanded to cover the entire length of the ring. The light collapsed in on itself and the ring became like a window.
Through the ring Joe could not see the far wall of the warehouse. Instead, beyond the ring was a desolate landscape comprised of grey rock. Floating above the grey earth, in a sky blacker than night, was a bright blue planet. Over the humming of the Dream Gate, Joe could hear a loud, crackling hiss. Then, some of the dark patches of dirt began to move. The shadows slithered together and converged. The shadowy entities rose from the ground and took shape. The dark creatures all billowed like clouds and yet dripped like ink. Hundred of tiny, beady, yellow eyes formed in the pools of hissing darkness. The eyes all looked straight at Joe, bobbing and slithering.
The table that Joe was strapped to suddenly lurched. The table followed along a track that led right to the Dream Gate. As Joe inched closer and closer to the Dream Gate, the nightmarish landscape beyond it grew more expansive and the chatter of the Nightmare Creatures grew more hungry.
“This is the Nightmare Dreamscape, Mr. Mane.” Nightfeather explained, “It is through these glorious creatures that Princess Luna became Nightmare Moon. And then when I had the fortune of channeling the Nightmare forces myself and earning me my own Nightling slave, I realized that this power could be mine!”
Joe was barely listening to Nightfeather. His attention remained fixated on the realm of darkness that stood before him. He could not take his eyes away from the growing number of Nightlings that all hissed and beckoned him to their cloudy ink contrails. He could hear their whispers in his mind, tantalizing him with dark thoughts and poking at his fears and insecurities. He could feel a cold sweat moistening his body.
“I think you’ve made your point, Nightfeather, thank you for the demonstration.”
Nightfeather sneered. “Choose your next witticism carefully, Mr. Mane for it may be your last. The purpose of our two previous encounters is now very clear to me. I do not intend to be distracted by another. Enjoy your new home. I wonder if they’ll kill you, or turn you into one of their own? Nightmare Joe. Has a sort of ring to it.” Nightfeather laughed heartily.
Joe’s heart pounded in protest. He was close enough to feel the icy chill of the moon’s surface on his face.
“You expect me to talk?” Joe said in a failed attempt to sound obstinate.
Nightfeather laughed again at the pathetic display. “No, Mr. Mane, I expect you to die! There is nothing you can talk to me about that I don’t already know.”
Joe could now taste the lingering moondust on his tongue.
“You’re forgetting one thing: if I fail to report, Princess Celestia will attack the NLR herself!”
“I’m sure she will be most successful” he dismissed the threat.
Joe could now smell the Nightlings’ ranid breath.
“But she knows what I know.”
“You know nothing Mr. Mane.”
Tiny tendrils of cloud ink were reaching out of the gate towards Joe’s face. Joe wracked his mind for anything that could help him.
“Operation: Moonfall for instance!”
Nightfeather didn’t reply immediately. He was well beyond Joe’s field of vision. He could hear him whispering in discussion with one of his guards. He eventually responded with, “Two words you may have overheard which have no possible meaning for you or anypony in your organization.” He didn’t sound too sure of himself.
Joe was eye to eye with a Nightling. He jumped at the lead.
“Can you afford to take that chance?”
Joe was so close to the gate that he could barely make out the edges of the ring. He closed his eyes tight and prayed with clenched teeth. Suddenly the moving table lurched to a halt. There was dead silence. Joe could no longer hear the humming and sparking of the machine nor the hissing of the Nightlings. Joe opened his eyes and in front of him he could see the weather factory wall on the other side of the Dream Gate, the Nightmare Dreamscape and its creatures nowhere in sight. The table came back to life and moved along the track away from the ring. Nightfeather shifted into Joe’s view.
“You are quite right, Mr. Mane. You are worth more to me alive. Now then, you have had a long night. Perhaps it is time for you to go back to sleep?” Nightfeather stepped in front of Joe, lifted his hoof and yanked the Lucid Dream Jewel off Joe’s neck. “And I’ll be taking back this pendant for safe keeping as well. It does belong in the royal vault, after all.”
The machine started back up and hummed once again. Joe could feel the helmet strapped to his head vibrate softly. His thoughts became muddled and his eyes grew drowsy.
“No. Stop. What are you doing? What are…” Joe fought against the sleep, but his concentration waned into nothingness and his vision succumbed to restful darkness. As Joe faded back into a world of sleep, the last thing he saw was Nightfeather’s wicked smile.
“Pleasant dreams, Con Mane.”