//------------------------------//
// Night 2: Pony- Wait, the Moon? 
// Story: The Dream Wars 
// by Revan 
//------------------------------//

Luna had planned to make the dreamscape different from time to time, but she had also intended the nightly competition to stay based in Ponyville, only moving to other dreamscape locations occasionally.

Which was why she was currently struggling to change the dreamscape, which, for some reason, was stuck on being a piece of the terrain on the far side of the moon. But no matter what she, or the ponies in the dream, tried, the landscape kept morphing back.

"Why isn't this working?" Luna asked as a rhetorical question, releasing some of her frustration at the stubbornness of the dreamscape.

So everypony was surprised when someone - or something - answered.

"Why, because of me, of course." A tall mare suddenly materialized out of black mist, her visage one that everypony - especially Luna - had hoped never to see again.

Rainbow Dash's eyes blazed with fury. "DIE!!" she raged, streaking towards the mare at an impossibly fast speed.

The mare swiftly leaped into the air, unfurling her wings just as Rainbow flew straight through where she had just stood moments before, plowing a massive furrow deep into the regolith that composed the lunar soil. She swiftly used her magic, a massive rock falling out of nowhere and impacting, causing a large crater to form. When the dust cleared, there was no sign of Rainbow Dash.

Everypony was frozen in shocked silence for a moment. Scootalo shattered the silence with a scream.

"YOU MURDERER!!!" Scootalo then suddenly began to transform, her body swelling in size, her wings disappearing. The mane and tail faded, and a long tail of skin, muscles and bone shot out. Her head expanded, stretching out in every direction, her teeth increasing in number and size, becoming shaped like steak knives. Her back legs increased in length and strength, the front limbs reshaping into small arms with two claws on each hand.

Finishing in just a few seconds, Scootalo let out a deafening roar, charging at the mare with great speed.

The mare smiled, a dastardly, cunning, mocking smile. Her magic flared, and a massive spear, made of tungsten and capped with a deadly needlepoint, came out of nowhere, impaling Scootalo through the gut, the point sticking out of the other side. Scootalo let out a cry of pain, collapsed onto her side, and laid still.

This time, the Doctor broke the stunned silence. "You just went too far, Nightmare." A flash of light appeared, and suddenly there were eleven more stallions standing there, each with the same coloration and cutie mark, but with different hairstyles and outfits. They spoke in unison. "You mess with one of us, you get all of us!!"

Then any faint semblance of calm vanished. Everypony charged towards the Nightmare, screaming incoherently with bloodlust. The Nightmare summoned her own forces. "ATTACK!!" she commanded, and the battle commenced.





Everywhere one looked, there was chaos. Spike had transformed into an adult dragon, his fiery breath like napalm. He torched columns of opponents, his breath so powerful that it carved channels into the moon's surface.

Derpy was cornered by a squad of the Nightmare forces. She took a deep breath and a blinding flash of light occurred. When it passed, a creature somewhat similar to the one Scootalo had become stood there, with four claws on each hand, one of them opposable. A dark grey color, it also had armor plates on its back, and feathers on its forearms that were a strangely blonde color. Its yellow, somewhat lazy-eyed eyes narrowed, and another deafening roar, somewhat different in acoustical quality, echoed across the landscape.

Twilight morphed into her human-pony hybrid form, garbed in a set of black robes. She summoned two small, cylindrically shaped objects. She grasped them, igniting their purple blades and charging into the fray.

Fluttershy summoned a swarm of Parasprites, which attacked the shadows, eating in a frenzy like it was free, all-you-can eat cherry vanilla ice cream day. Prince Big Mac unleashed a hail of apples that pummeled the Nightmare forces.

Many other things were going on, with everypony contributing to the fight against the Nightmare forces. But the real action was overhead, where Luna and the Nightmare clashed, locked in a magical struggle of wills over the control of the dreamscape.

Unnoticed in the prevalent chaos, Scootalo stirred, her near-miraculous healing factor already beginning to staunch the massive internal blood flow.

"Surrender, Nightmare!!" Luna called out, her magic beams aimed vehemently at the Nightmare.

Scootalo rolled onto her stomach, the movement leaving her in the typical tyrannosaur resting position. She grunted in pain, resting there for a few moments.

The Nightmare dodged, and summoned magical blasts of her own, which Luna dodged. "Never!"

Scootalo opened her eyes, seeing that the Nightmare and Luna were getting closer to her position. She pushed off the ground with her small forearms, getting unsteadily back on her feet.

"You cannot win", Luna stated, her magic spewing into a beam of blue light.

The Nightmare countered, her black-blue magic forming into a beam of its own. The two beams collided head-on, resulting in a magical showdown, which soon ended at an essential stalemate, each flare of magic from one matched by an equal flare from the other.

"No, I shall win, because I will always come back", the Nightmare taunted. "You are weak, Luna, and you will fail. Equestria will be mine!!"

Scootalo drew on what little energy she had left, and lunged upward, her powerful jaws snapping shut on the Nightmare.

"AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!" the Nightmare screamed in pain and surprise. Scootalo refused to open her mouth, knowing that that would allow the Nightmare to escape. Instead, she shook her head around, like a terrier shaking a rag doll.

And everything dissipated, the dreamscape vanishing as the minds of the ponies were released back into the waking world.