//------------------------------// // The Fear // Story: Shattered Harmony: True Terror comes In Packs // by NightmareTRXY32 //------------------------------// All she could do was hide under her bed sheet. Something wasn't right, Twilight thought. There was a eerie stillness in the air right now. Home was starting to become more like a deathtrap every night. She started shaking again, she hadn't done that in years. Her nerves were getting the better of her right now. There were times she had to hold her breath, even in her own bedroom. It was enough to make any other pony crack under the pressure immediately. She let out a quiet sigh. "This creature is really starting to get to me,", Twilight thought to herself. That thing is out there.. waiting for me. Hiding in the darkness, waiting to make its move. I can feel it. The fear is like a blanket covering me in the dead of night. What am I going to do? Twilight thought to herself. What was it going to take for her and her friends to survive the night? Oh Celestia, I wish there was a way I could just banish it to somewhere far far away, even maybe another galaxy. Then again it would become someone else's nightmare. Oh why did this have to happen at all, She thought to herself. She couldn't sleep, she could feel a tenseness in the air. Twilight couldn't stop dreaming about those bodies back on that planet. She didn't tell her friends that while they were checking things out, she used a spell to go back in time and see for herself what had happened. It was a magic spell that let her go back mentally while keeping her body in their reality. She had learned of it from the most unlikely source, Discord. She watched in horror as she witnessed the events of LV-426 unfold. She saw the colonists get infested by the Facehuggers, she watched as the Colonial Marines that were sent in weeks later, fight for survival against overwhelming odds, and she witnessed something she never thought she'd see. She watched in the past as Celestia and STARSWIRL visited this planet during one of their tests of the Magic Mirror. She always wondered why Celestia was so cautious at times. Her thoughts though came straight back to the Xenomorph now. It was consuming her every thought. This thing was never going to leave and her friends alone. Twilight started to feel afraid, afraid of going to sleep and finding that monster hovering over her. She couldn't shake it off. In her dreams, her nightmares, it would run her down every time. She felt like she was losing her mind. And it was all because of the darkness that surrounded her bedroom, and the fear that had crept into her heart and her mind. It was going to be the same every night now. She was heading for another psychotic episode like the time she went crazy over the want it needs it spell she cast on her Smarty Pants doll. Only this ten times worse. Twilight tried to close her eyes and get some sleep. But she swore she could hear it in the darkness. A low hissing noise. The hiss of a living nightmare. When she woke up the next morning her bed was wet from the cold sweat she endured during the night. " Are you ok, Twi?", Applejack asked her as they met in the hallway. Thats an understatement Applejack, Twilight thought to herself before she spoke what was on her mind to the earth pony. "NO.", Twilight said bluntly. " I couldn't sleep last night. Not with knowing that thing is out there lurking in the darkness." She said with a sigh. " It'll be ok, We'll find that thing and rid ourselves of it for good." AJ tried to lift Twilight's spirits, and it seemed to work for a bit. When they entered the kitchen they were shocked to see Starlight collapsed on the ground with something attaching itself to her face. Whatever it was, it had finger-like appendages wrapped around her face and a tail coiled around her neck. Moments later the thing fell off, and she seemed fine. That's when Twilight realized that the nightmare was not just what was lurking in the darkness of her castle. It was developing inside her friend. The question was now a matter of more than just surviving the night. It was making sure that the rest of her friends survived as well. She also realized that the Xenomorph that followed them back and was stalking them, was a Female. The Bitch is back....... and the fear is relentless. Everyone was getting ready to eat breakfast when Starlight started complaining about her chest. She began having violent convulsions, knocking over her plate in the process. "What's wrong Starlight!?", Twilight asked in a panicked tone. "UGHHH, My chest.." Starlight let out. As soon as she heard that Twilight immediately flashed back to what she saw in her dream. Oh god, she thought. Not this. She got the sinking feeling that there was nothing she could do to save her friend from such a grisly fate. Twilight couldn't do anything but stand there with the others and watch in horror. Thats when it burst out of her chest. A Chestburster Alien. Before the creature could find a place to hide, Twilight killed it with a bolt of magic. That thing that was on Glimmer's face earlier was a face hugger. And there was only one pony that could answer her questions and relieve her fear. And he was sitting in a Canterlot prison cell right now. " Watch for any more of those things Applejack, I need to go to Canterlot to see an expert." Twilight teleported herself to Canterlot to meet with Princess Celestia to tell her of the dire news. And with that, she was gone in a blink of an eye. As soon as she got there, Celestia was just coming out of the main hallway. " Good morning Twilight, so nice to see you.", She said. The look on Twilight's face worried her, though. " I need to speak to that Wayland pony.", Twilight said. " Why?", Celestia was curious as to why Twilight wanted to talk to him. " Something from that planet came back before us and is stalking my friends. and I believe he knows what it is and how to deal with it.", She said with an underlying tone of rage. And with that Celestia took Twilight down to the Catacombs. As soon as they neared his cell, Mr. Wayland looked up to see Twilight staring him in the face. " Ah, Ms. Sparkle, it's nice to see you again.", he said rather sarcastically. " Something came back through before we did.", She told him " You must mean her.", Peter said with a smirk. He said it with such reverence. Why would he admire something so horrible? Then it dawned on her. A man in his position saw it as something that could be utilized, possibly as a weapon. But he had to also know that there was a remote possibility that it couldn't be controlled. But for right now all she wanted to know was what she was dealing with and ultimately how to kill it. " What the hell is it.", Twilight looked at him and felt like crushing his skull with a single magical thought. But she needed answers, and she'd get it out of him somehow. " She's a Xenomorph Queen.", he answered. "And a perfect specimen.", she could tell he seemed to admire the damn thing by the way he was talking about it. " How do we kill it. ", she needed to know this if she was to save her other friends. " You think I'm going to just cough it up like that?", he sneered. She could feel the contempt growing inside herself, She levitated him off the ground for a moment and began using her magic to crush the life from him. as soon as he turned light purple she stopped. Twilight turned around and left the cell, she decided to let him think about how close he was to death before she made herself stop from killing him. She didn't want to become like Sombra and gain some sadistic pleasure from torturing him. But there was a part of her that wanted her to do it, to break his spine and leave him in constant pain, and to relish in that pain. But her patient side won out. She released him from the grip her magic had on him. And yet there was a voice in the back of her mind that started to speak. "You wanted to do it Twilight, you were so close to snuffing out his life for being so arrogant."The voice was a bit distorted. It sounded like a combination of her own voice, but the resonance sounded like Sombra's as well. "Your not real," she muttered under her breath. "Oh, I'm real my dear, and we'll come to embrace each other by the time this is all said and done." It spoke with such confidence. The voice had been with her ever since she had first experimented with dark magic all the way back when Sombra had first returned. She had never understood why she was so adept with Dark magic and she had never even read any of those kinds of spell tomes. She had just picked it up like it was nothing. What Twilight didn't know at that time was that her parents weren't really her biological family. They had found her as a foal and just decided to raise her as their own flesh and blood. Twilight would find out that her real father was locked away in Tartarus and that he'd been trying to escape for years just to reconnect with her. He had been banished back during Equestria's middle dawn era, shortly before the reign of the Two sisters and just after the end of the last Three Tribes war. No pony had ever told her that she wasn't normal for a unicorn, only that she was " adept" at magic and that it was her special talent. There was a reason for that. Trixie had worn Twilight's father's amulet during their fight and the Princess of Friendship had never realized that the amulet was her rightful heirloom and property. Her father was known by a simple name back in those days. His name was Thanatos. And she'd meet him sooner than she would realize. After all of this trouble with the Xenomorph was taken care of. She would come to know her true legacy. IT was enough to shatter the world. And with that, he sat back down on his prison cot. Twilight knew she wasn't going to get anything else out of him. She informed Princess Celestia about what happened to Starlight when they were getting ready for breakfast this morning. She returned to Ponyville to check on her friends. What she came back to was an utter shock to her system. All of her friends were suspended from the walls by some kind of Resin. There was Large leathery Egg like objects sitting in front of them. She snuck over to where AJ was and freed her from the substance restraining her to the wall. They made their way to the rest of her friends and freed them. Twilight stopped and watched as one of the objects started to open. She could see something alive in there wriggling around. She shot blasts of magic at as many of the 'Eggs' as she could, destroying them in the process. When they all turned around the came face to face with The Xenomorph Queen. She told her friends to start running for the door. Maybe the daylight would blind these things. She could only hope for something like that to even happen right now. She knew she had to keep her composure, she was the Princess of Friendship after all, but then that she was one of the most powerful Alicorns in existence compared to Luna or even Celestia, she also knew that Equestria was going to be encountering dark times ahead. She could feel it deep down in her essence. What she didn't expect was how much this ordeal was going to test, and unfortunately, break her sanity. This one event would test more then her sanity, it tests her resolve as well. There was a dark storm forming on the horizon. Somewhere in the vast reaches of the galaxy was a world called Sanctuary. For millennia the Forces of Light and Dark battled for the control of that mortal plane. One could count Equestria as an unknown extension of that world, among numerous others. It was said that the many worlds among the stars were made during Anu's battle with the Seven-headed Dragon Tiamat. And that seven key events would bring about the return of the seven Evils that once made up the seven heads of the Dragon. There are Seven Lords of the Burning hells. Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal were the Three Prime Evils. Azmodan, Belial, Andariel, and Duriel were the four lesser evils. It was said that a specific event would cause them to be reborn into the world, yet it was never specified which world they would be born anew into. That world would be Equestria. And Twilight and her friends would be the only ones to prevent their madness from consuming their world. At least that would be how it was supposed to play out it. She didn't find herself or the others consumed by the most absurd thoughts or actions. In the coming week, She found herself being distracted by a certain Cellist that was performing in Canterlot. Or the fact she would almost certainly be nearly consumed by Dark magic. Magic that she excelled at almost way too easily. Almost as if she had been born with the power to control darker forces than she'd ever dreamed of. Twilight Sparkle would gain another title afterward. Twilight Slade.