Within The Nightmare: Side Stories from the Living Nightmare universe

by Autum Breeze

Time Troubles part 1 Sombraverse: An Odd Occurrence

I hum the tune to the song Twilight sang the day she became an Alicorn to myself as I walk through Ponyville.

“Morning, Princess Stellar,” Davenport calls from the front door of Quills and Sofas.

I smile, waving back and continue on my way.

Things are going great. Derpy and Rich returned from their honeymoon a few days ago and the happy family couldn't be... well, happier.

Suddenly I stop, grabbing my head. My horn is throbbing. Somepony’s using a really powerful spell.

At once, I sense something is wrong. Powerful spells are not something normal in Ponyville. Explosions, monster attacks from the Everfree Forest, ponies bursting into random musical numbers, those are normal. Power spells, despite the town being the home of three Alicorns, one of whom raising the moon and another is pretty much the embodiment of magic, are not the norm.

Turning, I figure out where the spell is coming from by how much my horn pulses. The pulsing is strongest in the direction of Twilight’s castle.

Without hesitating, I turn into a cloud of stars and shoot off towards the castle.

Twilight isn’t reckless. Sure, she will practice with new spells, but she does it in safety, in a room in her castle meant for such things. The fact that I can feel this spell and just how powerful it is so easily means either she lost control, or somepony else is casting powerful magic in her castle. And, if it’s somepony else, this cannot end well.

I’m at and inside the castle within seconds, due to the fact the guards Twilight had gotten to protect the castle are all fast asleep. A quick check with my magic had revealed something worrying. They were asleep because of a Sleeping Spell. Somepony knocked them out on purpose and, realizing this, I flash across the cold floors towards the Map Room.

I slip under the door just as I feel another pulse. Become a pony again, I see some weird thing that looks like a ball cut in half above the map. Twilight and Spike are being sucked into it.

Without bothering to question what’s going on, only knowing the my big sister and kinda cousin are having something happen to them they clearly weren’t wanting, I turn into a cloud of stars again and shoot up, just slipping inside the thing as it closes.

Becoming me again is a lot more confusing than normal, though. The three of us are spinning in some kind of light-blue thing. The energy around me is strong, really strong. It’s raw energy.

“Where the hay are we?” I cry as I manage to grab onto Twilight’s tail.

“Stellar?!” Twilight cries, glancing back at me over her shoulder as she has her forelegs wrapped tightly around Spike. “What’re you doing here?!”

“I think we’ve more important things to worry about right now!”

Spike shouts as we’re blinded by a white light.

When the light fades I can see nothing but sky around us and the ground VERY far below.

Quickly, I let go of Twilight and start flapping my wings, stopping my fall within moments.

Looking down, I notice Twilight is still falling... and screaming.

I roll my eyes. Dash was right. Twilight does keep forgetting she has wings at times.

Zipping down, I call out to her and indicate to my wings.

She takes a second, before getting my point and opens her own, regaining her station in the air moments later.

Spike, however, keeps falling. Twilight lights her horn right before he’d hit the road and we come down to land next to him as she lowers him to the ground gently.

At once, Twilight turns to me. “Stellar, what were you thinking? You could’ve been hurt!”

I look down, pouting. “I was thinking that my big sister and cousin were being sucked into a weird thing and tried to save them?”

She sighs, shaking her head.

It’s only now, though, that we look around and notice all the cloud structures around us, along with all the pegasi flying through the air or standing on clouds chatting to each other.

“Cloudsdale?” Spike says, looking confused. “Starlight doesn’t even have wings. Why would she come here?”

I blink, before frowning at the two of them. “Wait. Starlight? You don’t mean that Starlight Glimmer you told me about? The one who took all the Cutie Marks of the ponies in her village, forcing them to be the same?”

Twilight nods to me. “The same. She used some kind of spell and it seems to have led to here. As for your question, Spike,” she turns to the little reptile, “I dunno why Starlight would come here. But it seemed she could fly with just magic. Keep your eyes open, both of you. We don’t know what she has planned—”

Twilight’s cut off as a blur of blue and rainbow colours shoots passed us all, right through where we were standing, causing all of us to jump.

“Isn’t that Rainbow Dash?” Spike asks.

I look in the direction the blur is headed, seeing it heading towards what I can make out as three other pegasi on a nearby cloud.

“Did Rainbow Dash look really young to you?” Twilight asks, her voice filling with uncertainly. “And, I didn’t see a Cutie Mark.”

Focusing my sight more, I can make out the pegasi a bit more. Two of colts that I don’t know and the other is Dash and... What? She doesn’t have her Cutie Mark? And... Sweet Celestia, is that Fluttershy? Why are they so young? Where’re their Cutie Marks?!

“With this,” Spike’s grim voice pulls me from my thoughts and I look to see him holding a scroll.

Quickly reading it, I notice it looks familiar, but not in a good way.

Mama took me on a tour of Canterlot Castle shortly after I got out of the hospital and she’d shown me around the Starswirl the Beared wing. She even showed me a spell Starswirl had made that let you go back in time, but it wasn’t very good as it lasted too short a time, so I hadn’t thought much of it.

What worries me is this spell looks A LOT like that one, but different. Starlight must have changed the spell somehow. Question is, why and would reason could she have for being in Cloudsdale when Rainbow and Fluttershy were still fillies without Cutie Marks?

“Come on. Let’s go!” Spike’s voice pulls me back out of my thoughts and I see him putting the scroll with the spell in his backpack as he starts to walk away.

“Go where?” Twilight asks, voicing my thoughts.

“To watch the race,” the dragon replies. “I don’t wanna miss the Rainboom.”

He drops through the clouds the moment he steps off the raods, Twilight pulling him up with her magic.

I however, am suddenly feeling excited. The Rainboom? As in, the first Sonic Rainboom? Dash has only done it on occasion since she told me about it, but, if this is the past, could this be the day she performed her first Rainboom? I’m going to get to see Dash’s first Rainboom?!

Once Spike is on Twilight’s back, we hurry to where we can see fillies and colts gathering, it obviously being where the race is going to start.

When Fluttershy waves the flag to start the race, the colts and Dash zoom off, causing Fluttershy to spin and fall off the cloud she was standing on, towards the ground.

Twilight and I both move to fly and save her, but a tug on my left wing stops me and I glance back with narrowed eyes at Spike, seeing he has a claw on my wing and another on Twilight, stopping both of us from flying.

“Oh, whoops,” Twilight grins, then chuckles.

I glare at both of them. “Fluttershy’s falling to her death and you’re laughing?!”

Both of them blink, before Twilight shakes her head. “Stellar, we’re in the past. You remember how Fluttershy told you she fell from the clouds but was saved by butterflies.”

I nod, still wondering why we’re standing around when Fluttershy’s falling.

“Well, did she ever say a pony that looks like you or I saved her from falling before the butterflies caught her?”

I blink, then slowly shake my head.

She nods. “This event is very important, Stellar. If Fluttershy isn’t saved by those butterflies and on the ground when Dash makes the Rainboom, she won’t get her Cutie Mark. So, if you go and save her now...”

“She won’t get her Cutie Mark?” I ask, which is answered with a nod. I frown, looking down. “Okay.”

I don’t like just leaving Fluttershy to fall and, even if I know the butterflies will save her, it doesn’t make me wish any less to go and stop her from falling myself.

We turn out attention back to the race. Dash is pulling down, her speed increasing.

Suddenly, my eyes pick up something. Frowning as I focus, my eyes widen as a pony that looks a lot like how Twilight and the others told me that Starlight Glimmer pony looks floats out from a cloud near where Dash just passed, her aura glowing around her.

As Dash flies by, she fires a beam of her magic at her, just a second before Dash makes the Rainboom, causing Dash to halt in the air.

Looking to Twilight with worry, we get off the cloud and hurry towards where Starlight is.

She can’t stop the Rainboom! If the Rainboom doesn’t happen, Fluttershy will never learn how good she is with animals. Applejack won’t go back to her farm and stay in Manehatten. Pinkie won’t become the happy pony I know her to be. Rarity will never become the fashion-wise mare I met. And Twilight... Oh no! Twilight will never pass her exam and become Auntie Tia’s student and Spike will have never hatched!

“What did you do?!” Twilight demands as we fly up, all three of us glaring at the unicorn floating in the air.

She just smiles at us and not in a nice way. “You are about to find about?”

I hear a noise and feel a pull of magic. I look up in time to see that thing I saw above the map appearing directly above us.

Before I can warn Twilight, a wind pulls from within it, pulling us all in.

We drop out of what I now realize is a time stream, dropping onto the ground, Spike and myself landing on the ground itself whilst Twilight lands in one of the thrones surrounding the map.

“I don’t know what Starlight’s up to yet,” Twilight’s voice says Spike and I get up and I shake my head to clear it, “but we better figure it out, before it’s too late.”

I blink, frowning at what I’m seeing, before I gulp as Spikes, “Uh, Twilight? I think it already is.”

Something has clearly gone wrong. The castle... it... it’s gone. It’s just... not here anymore.

“Uh, Twilight? Where’s your castle?” Spike says just what I am thinking.

“The map pulled us back, but whatever Starlight did in the past changed things here.”

“But why?” Spike asks as I fly over to the throne closest to Twilight to look at the map.

Something weird's up with it. The Crystal Empire covers half of Equestria... and why does it look all dark and gloomy?

I half listen as Twilight says something about Starlight changing Starswirl’s spell (pretty sure we’d already figured that out, or is the five-year-old smarter than Celestia’s Personal Student right now), before saying we have to find her friends, my other sisters.

Well, this is unexpected.

I gasp, stopping and looking around.

“Stellar?” Spike asks, stopping and glancing back. “What’s up?”

I look back at him. “I heard Moonie.”

“Who?”

What did I tell you about that name?

My eyes somehow widen further and I look to Twilight. “Twilight! I can hear Moon— I mean, Nightmare!”

Twilight’s eyes widen and she hurries over, worry in her expression. “Are you alright? Do you feel off? Is she taking control of you?”

“Oh, please, princess. Stop being so over dramatic.”

My eyes widen, whilst Twilight and Spike frown in confusion. That was my voice and my mouth had moved, but I hadn’t said those words.

“Moo—Nightmare?” I ask, feeling really weird talking to somepony I can’t see that I know is inside me who could very well answer me with my own mouth. “Did... did you just talk with my mouth?”

“Yes, you fool. How else would those words have left these lips?” I feel myself snort-chuckle. “It’s not like you would say them.”

Okay. This is officially the freakiest thing that’s ever happened to me, and that is really saying something.

Twilight eyes widen as she seems to catch on, before she glares. “Nightmare, don’t you even think about taking over Stellar! How in Equestria are you even able to speak through her? Luna said you gave yourself up to keep Stellar alive.”

I feel myself frown in annoyance as I look to the larger Alicorn. “Yes. However, something bad has clearly happened to Equestria. I know there is some kind of great imbalance in the Harmony of our world.”

“And just how do you know that?” Spike asks, glaring at me... I mean Nightmare, I mean... This is very confusing.

Nightmare uses me to scoff. “As I told Luna and I know she told you all, I said that, to even be given a chance of freedom again, even in the smallest of ways, the very world would need to be out of balance in a way it cannot be.” My foreleg indicates around us. “Trust me. Something is very wrong with Equestria, or else I would not be speaking to you through Stellar right now.”

Twilight glares at... okay, I’m just going to say she just glares, because this is doing my head in, for several moments, before looking away. “Fine, Nightmare. But give Stellar back control of her body.”

My lips smirk. “I never took it away. I am merely using her to speak. I will not stop her from doing anything she wills herself unless it would be problematic.”

“Like that fills us with confidence,” Spike glares.

Nightmare shakes my head, tutting. “I do believe we were going to find the rest of the mares you worked with to defeat me, Twilight Sparkle, so that we can figure out what is going on, are we not?”

Both of them glare, before we head off towards Ponyville, Nightmare giving me control of my body again as we walk.

I would be wary, foal. If there is enough Disharmony that I am as strong as I am, you’d best be on your guard.

I can’t help feeling she’s right.