“Oh my.”
Fluttershy stared at Luna, trying to force herself to believe everything she had been told. It wasn’t easy. Especially since Luna’s face was made out of bark.
“Yes, it is quite a large amount of information to deal with all at once,” Luna said, “and for that I apologize.”
“Oh, no.” Fluttershy shook her head. “It isn’t like any of this is your fault. I just can’t believe that all of this is happening.”
“Me either!” Spike said. He had curled up in a corner of the room on a makeshift moss bed. He couldn’t sleep, but he nonetheless enjoyed the brief respite.
“It is a rather unprecedented situation,” Luna said carefully. “Unfortunately, you will have to remain here for the time being. I have been exploring the possibility of enabling the rescued ponies to move from dream to dream, but it is quite risky. We will only use that in the case of an emergency.”
“We shouldn’t have to worry about that,” Spike added. “We’ve got everything under control.”
“I do not know if I would go that far,” Luna said, scowling at Spike. “While we have certainly done a capable job of dealing with the situation, we are hardly in control.”
Spike sat up, either oblivious to or ignoring her glare. “Well, yeah. You know what I meant. I’m just saying that I’m doing pretty well so far. We’ve already rescued half of the element bearers, so we’re well on our way to busting our way out of this spell!”
“Who else do you have to rescue?” Fluttershy asked.
“Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie are our next targets,” Luna said. “Obviously we would like to rescue Twilight as well, but she is too deeply entwined in the spell. We need to weaken it by releasing more ponies before we can attempt to free her. Unfortunately, we do not know where either of them are. We were hoping that you would be able to tell us.”
Fluttershy blinked. “You need my help?”
“Spike cannot enter anypony’s dreams unless he can find them in the waking world,” Luna explained. “Of course, if we cannot locate them, we can simply free other random ponies from around town, but my analysis indicates that the spell is stronger surrounding the element bearers, and as such freeing them will weaken the spell more quickly.”
“You mean that Spike is actually next to my body?”
“Yup!” Spike nodded. “I propped myself up on one of your pillows so I won’t be so stiff when I wake up. Hope you don’t mind.”
“No, no, it’s fine. Anything that will help you,” she said. “You said you needed to know where Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie are?”
“Yes, that would be quite helpful,” Luna said.
“Well, I don’t have any idea where Pinkie would be, but I think Rainbow Dash was going to make sure there weren’t any clouds hanging around Town Hall that would block the sunrise through the windows. I would think that she would be around there somewhere.”
“I sure hope she didn’t fall asleep on a cloud,” Spike said with a sigh. “I guess I’d have to find a ladder or something. What do I do if I can’t find her?”
Luna thought for a moment before answering. “In that case, I would recommend going to the nearest pony that you have already released and re-entering their dream so that we can discuss the best course of action. Though you should also start noting the locations of other ponies around Ponyville in case we may want to begin freeing them as well. In any case, you cannot spend too much time running around the waking world.”
“I’ll try to keep it quick.” Spike gave Luna a thumbs-up.
“Good. It is time that you got on your way.”
“Already?” Spike sighed. “I was hoping I could relax for a bit longer.”
“Our dream time is plentiful, but it is not infinite,” Luna said. “And even if it were there is no guarantee that the Nightmares will sit by indefinitely. We cannot slow down now.”
“Fine, fine,” Spike grumbled. “Unless Fluttershy wants me to stick around for a bit longer.” He glanced expectantly in her direction.
“I would like to have some company for a while longer…” Fluttershy said, “but if Luna thinks you need to go, you probably should. I know it won’t really be fun to be stuck here, but the sooner you break the spell, the sooner we’ll all get out of here.”
“Okay, I guess I’ll get going. See you later, Fluttershy.”
“Good luck, Spike.”
There was a poof, and he was gone.
Fluttershy stared silently at the spot where he had been sitting. It was like he had never been there.
“I guess that you probably have to go too?” she asked.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Luna answered. “However, there is something I must discuss with you first.”
“Leave it to Rainbow Dash to fall asleep on a cloud,” Spike grumbled. “At least she wasn’t floating out in the middle of the sky someplace.”
He grunted as he hoisted himself up the vines that covered the back wall of the Town Hall. The underside of the cloud was so dark that he had very nearly missed it completely. It was lucky that not even being under the thrall of enchanted sleep could prevent Rainbow Dash from snoring like a sawmill. Now he just had to get to her without anything noticing.
He paused as he finally rose to the same level as the cloud. It was just far enough from the wall that he wouldn’t be able to reach. Not that reaching out would’ve worked anyway; he would fall asleep as soon as he touched her and fall to the ground. Presumably that would wake him up. He couldn’t rely on the cloud either; he’d fall right through it.
Maybe I could get her off the cloud somehow. He thought. Lasso her and drag her down, maybe? But then I’d need to take the time to go find rope, and if I lassoed her wrong I might choke her or something. Maybe I could get a stick and pull her closer to the wall…
He kept climbing and reached the roof of the first floor of the building and flopped over, panting heavily. After spending so long not having to worry about fatigue, the sudden tiredness felt as if someone had dumped a mattress on top of him. He pinched himself. Now was not the time to fall asleep. Out here, time was short. Short enough that he probably didn’t have time to rig up anything fancy to drag Rainbow’s cloud closer.
She wasn’t too far away. If he aimed properly, he could land right on top of her. Her pegasus magic would keep them both on the cloud, and if he missed or rolled off, he’d wake up when he landed. It would hurt, but at least he could try again.
He lined up his jump and hoped that Rainbow Dash wouldn’t be too angry if he sprained one of her wings when he landed.
“Here goes nothing.”
He jumped.
Luna scowled as she watched her analysis spell begin to read out its results. At the very least, her theory seemed to be holding. If the spell was siphoning the same amount of energy from Pinkie and Rainbow that it was from the other element bearers, freeing them would weaken the spell enough that breaking it outright was a real possibility. Unfortunately, that was the only good news.
The spell was changing. Whether by a conscious decision on the part of the Nightmares maintaining it, or through some automated process, magic was being siphoned from the spell. And she had no idea what all of that magic would be used for. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be long before she found out firsthand.
She gritted her teeth. If only her sister were here. The dreams themselves were her domain; she could examine them to her heart’s content. But the spell seemed to be draining magic not only out of the ponies, but out of itself. At first she had thought that the magic was being used to power the spell that kept everypony trapped. And she was right. But it was evident that that was hardly the whole story.
A large portion of the magic was being used for something else entirely, something that she could not recognize. But despite the fact that it wasn’t being used to power the spell, it didn’t seem to be going anywhere. All she knew for certain was that it wasn’t dream magic. Celestia could have doubtlessly pointed her in the right direction.
There was only one place left to go for information. The absolute last place she wanted to look. The chance of gaining any useful information was slim to none, but perhaps if she were careful, something would present itself.
She turned around.
Behind her, trapped in their magical cells, were the Nightmares.
She could’ve made the containment spells resemble nearly anything, but due to her rather analytical mood and no small amount of bitterness, each Nightmare was enclosed in an enormous specimen jar. As Spike had cracked their hiding places open, she had been waiting. Before they could reformulate themselves or call for help, she had dragged them out. The process had been distressingly easy. If not for their obvious antagonism, she would’ve been almost embarrassed by the ineptness of their escape attempts.
She wrinkled her nose, wondering how she let herself be forced into a position where this interrogation was the ideal course of action. Hopefully they would be just as incompetent at withholding information as they were at escaping.
Don’t forget, you cannot trust anything they say. You must trick them into revealing things without even realizing it. And be careful not to reveal anything yourself…
She stepped through the barrier she had set up to prevent them from seeing her at work. To someone not familiar with Nightmares, it would have been easy to mistake the makeshift prison for a set of science experiments of some sort. Each Nightmare simply appeared as indistinct smokey blurs, floating in the center of their cells. There were small differences in color and texture, but on the whole they were so similar that if not for the order it would’ve been nearly impossible to tell them apart.
As she approached, the blobs shifted, aware that she had come closer. A face formed out of the shapelessness and a hollow voice came out.
“Hey, look who finally decided to pay us a visit. It’s really pretty boring back here, you know.”
“Save me your complaining,” Luna snapped. “I am not here to discuss your accommodations.”
“They’re pretty awful,” said another Nightmare, in a voice nearly identical to the first one.
“If you had not attempted to conquer my nation, perhaps I would have been more inclined to be hospitable,” she said coldly. “Just what do you hope to accomplish, anyway?”
“Well, you just said that we were trying to conquer Equestria,” another Nightmare said. It sounded so similar that only the direction of the voice told her that it was different. “That pretty much speaks for itself, doesn’t it?”
“You’re certainly doing an excellent job of that,” Luna said. “After all, it took a dragon and an alicorn princess to begin rescuing ponies from the grasp of your spell. It is true that the dragon is a mere child, and that the Princess herself is actually trapped in the spell as well, but still. At least you were not foiled by an infant. That is something, I suppose.”
The Nightmare at the front of the line spoke up. “Are you just here to make fun of us, or did you want something?”
“She’s here for information.” The voice came from the opposite end of the line. The sound itself was indistinguishable from the others, but its tone was so sharp and confident that it sounded like a different voice altogether. “And we have no reason to offer her any.”
“You are in no position to act haughty,” Luna said, already beginning to regret her decision to deal with the Nightmares.
“And you’re in no position to act like you’ve got the advantage,” it answered. “It is true that our spell couldn’t quite catch the dragon, and you used him to interfere with a couple of ponies. But you seem to have forgotten that while they’re conscious now, they’re still trapped. And so are you.”
Luna walked slowly over to the Nightmare’s jar and tapped her hoof on the glass. “It seems I am not the only one.”
“What, you think that you’re winning just because you stuck us in these bottles?”
“No, but I’m sure you’ve realized that none of your comrades have noticed your absence.” She paused, just long enough to give the Nightmare a chance to answer. It didn’t. She began to walk down the row of jars, glaring at each Nightmare as she passed. “No one has even realized that we are picking your spell apart. At this rate it won’t be long before it collapses completely.”
One of the Nightmares snorted derisively. “You aren’t gonna have the time for that! It’s not gonna be much longer until—”
“Be quiet!” snapped the confident Nightmare at the end of the row.
“Until what?” she prompted.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” the confident Nightmare said.
“Very well.” Luna shrugged and turned her back to the Nightmares. “Perhaps I will come back later and see if you feel like being more helpful.” She flicked her mane before stepping through the barrier.
For a split second, Spike thought he had missed his mark. He exploded through a cloud and continued to fall. But he didn’t hit the ground. He looked down, searching frantically for something to grab onto, and saw that there was no ground to land on. Instead, there was an endless expanse of blue.
“GAAAHHHHHHoof.”
He found himself facedown in something soft and pillowy. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what Rainbow Dash was dreaming about.
“It’s a good thing that dream clouds are denser than the real thing,” Spike muttered as he sat up and made sure he wasn’t anywhere near the edge. “I wonder what else she dreamt up—” He froze as he finally looked at his surroundings.
If he hadn’t known better, he would’ve thought that the entire world had been ripped to shreds and scattered among the clouds. Chunks of earth hung in the air like islands. Sections of forest floated next to twisted pieces of buildings and sidewalks. Between them, he could see a wide expanse of blue that he first assumed to be sky, but the more he stared, the less sky-like it looked. Rather than a single flat blue, it was patchy and shimmered in the breeze. It gave him the feeling of being underwater, or perhaps that the sky was an enormous patchwork blanket.
In the open spaces, multicolored clouds drifted like hunks of cotton candy, forming into springy clumps before dissipating. He looked down at the cloud he was standing on. It was bright pink and glowing slightly shifting under his feet like a cloud of ink in a bucket of water. Then he realized that it was only half the size it had been a moment ago.
“Whoa!” He spun around, searching for something else to jump to before it dissolved completely. He headed towards a nearby planetoid, jumping from cloud to cloud. As he grew closer, he could see the real shape of the island he approached. Rather than a single piece of earth, it was a long ribbon of ground with a path running down the middle, as if someone had peeled up a sidewalk and surrounding grass, balled it up, and thrown it away. Now it formed a loose knot in the air.
He stepped carefully onto the piece of the path that looked the most level. As his feet touched the ground, a momentary dizziness washed over him, as if he had suddenly been spun around and immediately put back in his place. The cloud he just stepped off looked uneven, as if it had turned slightly as he left it.
The path, at least the bit of it immediately in front of him, looked surprisingly nondescript aside from the fact that it floated in an infinite void. It was cobblestone, flanked by a few feet of grass, the occasional park bench, and two rows of lampposts. Despite the dream being bright, he could see a halo of shimmering light around each one.
Oddly, the light seemed a bit too solid; he could clearly see the border of where the light reached; like each lamp was generating some sort of field. Each globe was just large enough, and the posts close enough together, that the borders touched each other. He stared for a few minutes, trying to figure out what purpose they served, but he couldn’t come up with anything.
Spike meandered slowly down the path and the old cliche about it being “...too quiet” floated to the top of his mind. For a world that supposedly existed within Rainbow Dash’s head, things were almost nonsensically serene. The only movement he could see were the gentle dissipation and reforming of the clouds and the slow rotation of the various pieces of earth.
“Great, Rainbow Dash is probably asleep or something. I’m gonna have to check every one of these things, aren’t I? It’s going to take me forever to find—”
He heard a woosh in the air behind him. He spun around just in time to see a psychedelic trail of light blast past him, followed closely by what looked to be dozens of gray streaks. The colorful smear in the air was obviously Rainbow Dash, but the other things… he could barely even tell what they were. Nightmares, probably, or monsters being controlled by one. He didn’t know how many. They were all moving so quickly that they started to blur into each other. If he squinted he could just make out the vague shapes of wings.
Rainbow Dash wove between the clouds as if she were flying an obstacle course, showing no fear of the creatures chasing her. In fact, she barely seemed to acknowledge that they were following her at all. Even as she darted around the islands and they began to cut closer to her, she barely paid attention to them.
Leave it to Rainbow Dash not to be afraid, Spike thought. I guess I should try to keep up with her until I can figure out how to get her to land.
He hopped onto a nearby cloud and followed after her.
This would be so much easier if Twilight were here. Luna thought. She has a much better head for charts.
A pattern of lights hovered in front of her, forming the shape of a graph she had generated with her analysis of the dream. Specifically, it traced the amount of energy being drained out of the dream and into whatever it was the Nightmares were planning. The amount was increasing steadily. She put a red X on the graph. That was the point where, if the energy continued to drain at the same rate, there would not be enough to maintain the spell.
Whatever was going to happen, it would almost certainly happen before that point. In dream time, it would come out to the equivalent of about four days. It was incredibly unlikely that they would wait so long. She put another mark at the halfway point. For the time being, she would assume that things would come to a head by then.
The Nightmares she had captured clearly weren’t expecting to be held indefinitely, so whatever was coming had to involve her own dream being invaded in some fashion. Perhaps that was what they were gathering the power for; the standard effects of the spell hadn’t been able to imprison her completely, so they had gathered power for a special subspell. Or perhaps they were planning to do something to Spike. He was the only one who could escape, after all.
I will have to inform him. He needs to know that time is limited. As for those… —she glanced at the Nightmare jars— I will have to try to get more out of them later.
Spike bounced from cloud to cloud as he followed the race. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that that was what it was. He had seen Rainbow Dash be chased, and he had seen her in competition. She flew differently in a race than she did in actual danger; she was more precise and more calculated. The more he watched, the more obvious it was that she didn’t seem to even realize she was in danger. Or at least, not from the race itself. The intensity with which she flew indicated that she wanted to win at all costs.
Now he just had to find a way to get her to stop.
He had no idea how to go about it. Keeping up with her was difficult enough. He had called to her, but she either didn’t hear him or didn’t feel like answering. Once or twice he had managed to get fairly close, but every time he did one of the Nightmares would veer just off course enough to blow through whatever cloud he was trying to use as a stepping stone, knocking him back down to the clouds below.
“How am I supposed to catch her?” He grumbled as he dusted himself off after a fall. :It would sure be great if I could fly—” He wobbled suddenly as the cloud under his feet suddenly shifted. “Whoa!” A lump of cloud was rising directly beneath him. He stumbled backwards, thankfully onto another cloud. Then he saw why he had fallen. “Of course,” he muttered.
“At least I did not appear behind you this time,” Luna said apologetically.
“No, but you almost made me fall!” Spike said, gesturing to the cloud-filled abyss below him. “It’s a good thing there are so many clouds.”
“Yes, it is,” Luna said. She sunk into the cloud and reappeared beside Spike. “In any case, I apologize for the inconvenience, but we do not have time for pleasantries. I have information to give you.”
“Lay it on me!” Spike said.
“I have continued my analysis. I will not bore you with the details, but suffice to say that the Nightmares are gathering up magic for a purpose unrelated to maintaining the spell. It is probable that they intend on using the additional magic to capture one of us, possibly even both of us. And I can say with a high degree of certainty that it will occur soon. We do not have a great deal of time to work with.”
“R-really?” Spike asked. “How much time do we have?”
“In dream terms,” Luna paused, deciding just how conservative of an estimate to make. “Between a day and a half and two days.”
“Oh,” Spike said quietly. “Um… exactly how long is that compared to what I’ve done so far? It’s kind of hard to keep track of time in… you know....”
“Yes, a frame of reference would be helpful,” Luna thought for a moment. “Let’s take Fluttershy’s dream as an example. You spent approximately forty hours in her dream.”
“And we barely have that much time?” The color drained out of Spike’s face. “I have to free Rainbow Dash and then find Pinkie and free her too and I only have two days to do it?” He clamped his claws together to keep them from shaking. They kept shaking anyway.
“Spike, do not get nervous. Just because Fluttershy’s dream took that long does not mean that this one will. Rarity’s dream took only twenty-seven hours. Applejack’s took only sixteen. The Cake Twins’ dream took less than twelve hours. It is entirely likely we have plenty of time.”
“And if we don’t?”
“I am currently working on a contingency plan. Rest assured that I will inform you as new information comes to light. At the moment, I just wanted to let you know not to dawdle. We are not yet desperate, but we cannot waste our time either.”
Spike nodded seriously. “I see. So, do you have any suggestions about how to get Rainbow Dash down? I’m pretty sure that if I can get her to stop flying around for a minute I could get her out, but I have no idea how to do that. It’s like she’s in the middle of a race, and it’s almost impossible to get her to stop racing.”
“Hmmm…” Luna sank into the cloud and emerged from a nearer one. “If that is the case, it seems like the best course of action would be to end the race. That would cause her to stop racing, would it not?”
“Well, yeah, but how am I supposed to do that?” Spike asked. “It’s not like there’s gonna be a finish line or anything. The Nightmares aren’t going to make the race something she can win.”
“Perhaps ending the race is not the right way to put it,” Luna said thoughtfully. “A race can be stopped without ending it.”
“That’s true, but it’s not like I can just disqualify her,” Spike grumbled as he hopped to a new cloud. “All of the rules only exist in her head, you know?”
“It does present quite a conundrum,” Luna’s head made a bobbing motion as if she were trying to shrug. “Unfortunately, aside from trying to disrupt her in some fashion, I do not know what advice to give you.”
“Great.” Spike threw up his arms. “I’m supposed to figure out a way to catch the fastest pony in Ponyville? And it’s her dream so she’s probably even faster! At least when Applejack was running all over the place she stayed on the ground.” He turned away from Luna and watched Rainbow Dash as she spiraled between the floating islands.
“Spike, I know it seems impossible, but if anyone can figure it out, it is you. You have already done so much; we cannot give up now.”
“Right…” Spike mumbled, as if he was only half paying attention.
“Spike?”
He didn’t answer, his eyes were still glued on the race. Oddly, his gaze didn’t follow Rainbow Dash, but rather the dark shapes that she competed with.
“Ahem.” Luna’s head poked out of the cloud immediately in front of him. “I hope that your silence is because you have had an idea and not because you’ve given up.”
“I think I may know how to catch her. I have no idea if it’ll work, but it’s something.”
Luna smiled. “Now that is more like it. Do you require anything else while I am here? Given our situation I should really be taking care of some other matters.”
“No, I’m good. Well, not that good, but there’s really not much else you can help me with now. You know, since you’re just a head and all. If I need anything I’ll call.”
“Very well. I wish you the best of luck.”
“Thanks. You too.”
Luna sunk into the cloud and disappeared. Spike turned his attention back to Rainbow Dash.
“I really hope this works, because I don’t have any other ideas.”
Luna tried not to look at the countdown that was running at the corner of her analysis. As much as she wanted to trust Spike, it was evident that he would not be able to do everything himself. He would probably be able to get Rainbow Dash out, but beyond that, there would be no time. She would have to bring the other ponies into play.
The portal system would make that easier; all she had to do was locate the pony whose dream she intended to send them into. Aside from manually checking every dream in the spell, the only way to find Pinkie Pie would be to get that information from the other ponies. Unfortunately, no one had the slightest clue where she might be.
Hopefully Rainbow Dash will have the clue to her location that we require, Luna thought. Using the spell to determine the general locations of everypony in relation to her own physical location in Ponyville wasn’t too difficult. But outside the spell, most of the ponies were completely indistinguishable from one another. She could make out the two massive beacons of magic that were her sister and Twilight, but aside from them, the variations in the spell were so miniscule that she could barely distinguish between them.
And those were just the nearby ponies. As they grew further and further away, they grew even more indistinct. If Pinkie happened to be on the far side of town, Luna would barely be able to see her. The only way to tell would be to poke herself into their dreams far enough to identify them, and there was no time for that. Even under normal circumstances Ponyville was home to nearly a thousand ponies. Due to the Summer Sun Celebration, there would be several times that number.
No, their time would be far better spent on something else. If nothing else, Pinkie would have to wait, and they would focus their attentions on freeing other ponies. Or, if it came to that, they could put all their eggs in one basket and attempt to free Twilight or Celestia. It was a long shot that such a thing would even be possible, but it was better than searching fruitlessly for Pinkie’s hiding place. But of course, even then, there was the backup plan to consider.
I will have to pay Rarity a visit, she thought.
“Gah!” Spike dropped like a stone for several seconds before landing facedown in a cloud with a dull flumph. He lay prone for a moment before pulling his face out of the indentation it had made and releasing a growl of frustration. “Ugh, I was so close!” He punched the cloud, but his fist barely met any resistance, rendering the gesture unsatisfying.
With every failed attempt, he became the slightest bit more certain that his plan would work… if he could only manage to actually do it. He needed to end the race. Ending it normally was out of the question. Even if he could somehow set up a finish line, it was doubtful that Rainbow Dash would acknowledge it. Fortunately, there was another way to end the race. A race had to have at least two persons racing against each other. He couldn’t catch Rainbow Dash, but the shadows she was competing with weren’t quite as swift. And more importantly, they weren’t as wary about flying close to the clouds or islands. A good jump and he’d be able to grab one and knock them right out of the race.
In theory, anyway.
In practice, every subsequent jump had gotten him closer, but he hadn’t yet managed to actually grab hold of them. He needed to get just a bit higher. Unfortunately, his options were rather limited. The clouds didn’t stay in place long enough, and most of the islands didn’t give him the height he needed. Fortunately, there was at least one that did, and he headed towards it.
It was almost perfectly spherical, like a tiny planetoid covered, oddly, with a sprinkling of lampposts that made it look like a pincushion. But he wasn’t concerned about that. He was only interested in the tower that jutted out from the surface. It looked like a clock tower and a lighthouse had been tangled up in each other, zigzagging into the air. Climbing it would be a hassle, no doubt, but it was tall. In fact, it was taller than the island itself was wide. And the angle at which it jutted out over the void made it a perfect launching point.
He took a running jump from his cloud and towards the planetoid, aiming carefully to avoid spearing himself on the lampposts. As he passed through the spheres of light that surrounded the lampposts, a curious sensation washed over him. It reminded him of the feeling of walking from a cold room into a warm one, like so much light had been drawn to the lamp that he could feel it. As he continued to fall, the sensation vanished as quickly as it came.
He half expected to topple downwards, but as he touched down, he realized that as far as the dream was concerned, “down” was toward the center of the island. If Twilight were here, that would drive her crazy, he thought. I’m pretty sure that’s not how gravity works. He shrugged and headed towards the tower.
The tinyness of the island made the short walk a surreal experience. His eyes told him that he was headed downhill; the island was so tiny that no matter where he was it was like standing on top of a hill. But as he went, it felt like he was walking across level ground. The combination was so disorienting that he was almost glad to start climbing the tower. At least then “down” stayed in one direction rather than shifting as he walked.
The back-and-forth shape of the tower slowed him, but only slightly. As he clamored to the top, he watched the race zipping back and forth through the clouds. He couldn’t predict exactly what path Rainbow Dash would take, but he knew that the Nightmares would follow her path, only without her precision.
He kept his eyes glued on Rainbow Dash as she swerved around a distant island and blasted straight towards him. He carefully stepped to the edge of the ledge and braced himself to jump.
Rainbow Dash flew forward, going so fast that Spike was almost certain that she would crash straight through the tower. But at the last possible second, swerved again, turning nearly on a dime and zooming off in the direction of another island. The shadows attempted to replicate the feat, but their momentum carried them forward, and they somehow skidded in the air like a wagon taking a turn too sharply. The group slowed as it changed direction, very nearly halting completely as they neared the tower.
Now or never, he thought.
He leaped from the top of the tower, aiming just ahead of where the group was headed. His head spun; his body couldn’t decide whether to follow the gravity of the planetoid, or the more generic gravity of the rest of the dream. Whichever it was, it took him straight towards the Nightmares.
Spike clamped his arms around a shadow as he fell through. It felt like nothing he had ever felt before. He could tell that something was in his grip, but it was indistinct and nebulous and shifted under his grip. It was like hugging a cloud or a beanbag chair. But whatever it was, he somehow managed to keep hold of it as he fell toward the ground.
Then he felt himself fall through the light of the lampposts. The Nightmare, which despite its formlessness had remained a single entity, began to dissolve like a drop of ink in a bucket of water. The thing hissed as it began to dissipate, the sound slowly dying like the sound of air pouring out of a balloon. By the time Spike hit the ground, it had nearly vanished. A few smoky wisps floated in the air for a moment before a gust of wind carried them away.
Spike stared at the empty space where the Nightmare had been seconds before, unsure whether he should consider himself lucky.
“Well…” he mumbled, “at least I don’t have to worry about trapping them anywhere after I catch them.” He smiled. “I think this is gonna work. And I’ll have time to spare!”
“So we are going to put the plan into action, then?” Rarity asked, a lump in her throat. “I had thought we would’ve had a bit more time.”
“I hoped that would be the case as well, but unfortunately it has become clear that our time is more limited than I first thought.” Luna sighed. “Do you remember what we discussed earlier?”
“Of course,” Rarity said with a nod. “I suppose you need me to talk to Spike now?”
“It is not quite that urgent,” Luna said. “Currently I believe that Spike has time to finish working through the dream he is currently in. Once he completes that dream, then will be the best time to put the plan into motion. I thought it would be best to inform you now so that you can prepare for your conversation.”
Rarity absentmindedly shoved the dress she had been working on to the side. “Yes, I will have to think over how to present the argument to him. I want him to be safe, after all.”
“Yes, not to mention that if our portion of the plan fails…”
“...he will serve as our last resort.”
“Precisely. I do not think it will be too difficult to get him to understand the situation, but I do think that you will have an easier time getting through to him.”
“Y-yes,” Rarity mumbled. “I will, of course, do my best. Even if the situation were not so desperate.”
“Good. I will return when it is time to implement our plans. Thank you for your assistance.”
“Think nothing of it, Princess. It is the least I could do.”
Luna smiled and nodded before vanishing.
“Gotcha!” Spike managed to latch onto another Nightmare and dragged it through the light of the lamps. The sensation of it dissolving under his claws was immensely satisfying. He rolled as he landed and came to a stop at the foot of one of the lampposts.
“Nine down, one to…” he paused. “Or was that ten?” The shapes were so vague and ill-defined that he couldn’t quite make them out. He was pretty sure that he had taken nine jumps, but he was also pretty sure that on a few occasions he had managed to drag down more than one Nightmare at a time. It was hard to tell. Whatever the case, there was only one left, and it was a big one. He cracked his knuckles and prepared to climb the tower for a final time. No sooner had he gotten to his feet, then he heard a sound behind him.
He turned around, and to no surprise whatsoever found Luna’s head poking out of the ground.
“We’re not out of time already, are we!?” he asked, a shiver of fear running down his spine.
“No, no, it is not that. You still have roughly half of the allotted time to work with,” she answered.
“Whew!” He sat down again, figuring that he had earned a few minutes of rest. “So what are you doing here, then? I thought you weren’t going to show up again unless I ran out of time or got Rainbow Dash free.”
“I thought I should check on your progress. Have you found a method with which to release Rainbow Dash?”
Spike nodded proudly. “I sure did! As a matter of fact, I’m almost done. I’m pretty sure that once I knock that last Nightmare out of the air, we’ll be good to go.”
“I am glad to hear that,” Luna said with a smile. “As you are so close to completing this dream, I suppose I ought to inform you of what will come after.”
“Isn’t it obvious? I find another dream and hop in.”
“Actually, no,” Luna said. “No matter how quickly you complete this dream, you will almost certainly not have time to complete another dream. No, there is something else you must do.”
Spike cocked his head to the side. “What are you talking about? What else would I do?”
“As I said, regardless of how quickly you make your way out of this dream, you will probably have no time to enter another before the Nightmares put their plan into action. When you are finished here, I will use the portal spell to bring all of the available ponies into the next dream and we will work to continue freeing others from within. We are all trapped in the spell anyway, so we do not risk as much. You, on the other hand, have the potential to get away.”
“Not this again!” Spike’s voice was harsh. “I told you before, I’m not abandoning everypony to get stuck in the spell while I run away!”
“While I admire your desire to stay and fight, from a purely strategic standpoint, doing so would not be a good course of action.” Luna’s voice was unnaturally calm; she was clearly forcing herself to keep it level. “If you are trapped here permanently as well, our chances of victory are reduced to nearly nothing. Three of the four princesses of Equestria, as well as all the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, will be trapped, with no means of informing anyone else concerning what has occurred. Cadance and Shining Armor are the only ones who have any chance of accomplishing anything, but only if they receive the news soon and know what they are up against. You are the only one who can give them that information.”
“Or I could stick around and beat this whole thing right now!” Spike snapped. “Wouldn’t that be the best thing to do?”
“It would be, if our chances of success weren’t so small.” Luna sighed. “Spike, I know you want to remain here and save everypony, but it is important that we prepare for other eventualities.”
“But—”
“I do not have time to debate this at the moment,” Luna interrupted. “At least not right now. For the time being, worry about saving Rainbow Dash. When you have done that, then we will discuss the best course of action.”
Spike opened his mouth to answer, but instead he just mumbled, “Fine.”
“Good. I will see you later.” Luna sunk back into the ground and was gone.
I should not have bothered, Luna thought as she re-emerged in her own dream. I have probably thrown off his focus. It could have waited until he was done. Then again, it is important that he be aware of the plan ahead of time; it saves us the time arguing about it later. Once he thinks it through, he will understand. I hope.
She fidgeted as she stared at the preparations she had made for the spell. She had already double and triple-checked it, then checked again just to be sure. The idea of checking it again crossed her mind, but she decided against it. If she stared at it any longer, she would likely start seeing problems where there were none. No, there were better ways to spend her time. Or at least, more useful ways. Talking to the Nightmares again would hardly be better than anything.
She approached the Nightmares as confidently as she could, given the circumstances.
“This is your last chance,” she announced. “If you feel like being helpful, I may be able to help you escape the worst of my sister’s wrath upon your eventual defeat.”
“Oh, aren’t we confident now,” one of the Nightmares snapped. “You still think that you’re going to win, don’t you?” She heard a noise that sounded a bit like a laugh. “You’re the one who should be offering to help us.”
“I think not,” Luna said. “Even if I did have any degree of confidence that you could be victorious, I would hardly consider helping you even for a moment. I am not in the habit of assisting those who wish to conquer the nation I am sworn to protect.” She snorted derisively. “Though I can understand why you would require my help. I can hardly imagine how you would even go about conquering anything.”
Another voice spoke up, the confident and authoritative Nightmare from before. “Spare us the intimidation, Princess. I know that you are fully aware of how powerful we can be.”
“I remember perfectly well how much grief you caused during the wars. However, I also remember that your powers, while impressive in a certain capacity, have some limitations.”
The Nightmare in the jar twitched, but said nothing.
“I will acknowledge that putting an entire town, including three princesses, to sleep and trapping us within our dreams is a masterful feat of magic, but you cannot reach outside those dreams.”
“We are well aware of our limitations,” the Nightmare said.
“Yet all you have managed to achieve so far is to trap us all in our dreams, and nothing else. It is an impressive feat, I admit, you really have not accomplished a great deal. So far, the extent of your machinations has resulted in” —she paused for dramatic effect— “mildly annoying a few ponies by delaying the Summer Sun Celebration. It hardly seems worth the trouble.”
The nightmares trembled in their jars, not out of fear, but out of frustration, like they were dying to answer her criticism, but refused to.
“And even if it were your aim to terrify, even then you disrupted your own plans. Back in the time of the wars, you were capable of leaping from dream to dream, riding across Equestria in a wave of fear. Yet for some reason you have created a spell that has trapped you every bit as effectively as it trapped us. You cannot even move from dream to dream yourselves, and you are the ones who created this spell!”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about!” one of the lesser Nightmares sneered.
“Hush,” snapped the confident Nightmare. “Do not tell her anything.”
“Your spell is a meaningless gesture!” Luna continued. “It takes an incredible amount of effort to maintain, yet it does nearly nothing and you can barely maintain it. I may be an expert in the magic of dreams, but at least I realize that dreams are but a reflection of waking life. Dreams can be powerful, but that power lies in their ability to change reality. And you cannot manage that. You may be able to trap us in our dreams for a while, but the real world lies outside your reach, and it always will.”
“Ha!” the lesser Nightmare crowed. “And what makes you think that we care about the real world?”
“Silence!” The lead Nightmare’s voice shouted. “Can’t you see she’s only trying to provoke you? She knows full well that she is not the one who holds the advantage and she is trying to weasel some sort of information out of you. Do not answer any more of her questions. Do not say anything.”
With that, the space was silent.
“Very well.” Luna shrugged. “In that case, I will take my leave.” She vanished behind the veil.
The Nightmares were silent for a few seconds.
“I think that went well,” said one of the lesser Nightmares. It still lacked the authority of the head Nightmare, but the stupidity seemed to have gone out of its voice.
“Yes,” the head Nightmare said quietly. “It certainly did.”
Spike crouched at the top of the tower, occasionally shaking his legs to keep them from falling asleep. He had thought that that couldn’t happen in a dream, but apparently it was possible. The final Nightmare was talking quite a while to fly near enough for him to dive at it. It had already come close, but he hadn’t wanted to risk jumping and missing. He would wait until he had a clear shot.
He braced himself. Rainbow Dash was approaching, faster than she ever had. The Nightmare was close behind her, easily twice the size any of the others had been. At the speed they were going, they couldn’t not get within range. As a matter of fact, Rainbow Dash was flying so quickly that even she wouldn’t be able to turn away from the tower in time. And she didn’t. At the last possible moment she banked to the side, just barely missing the tower as she flew.
Spike jumped. The Nightmare had to follow her. If he didn’t catch it now, who knew how long it would be before they flew past again? The world slowed down as he fell. It almost felt like he were drifting towards the Nightmare as it glided along. Then everything sped up as he landed on its back.
It dipped beneath him for a moment, but rather than dropping like all the others, it stayed airborne. Spike grabbed madly, trying to get a grip on anything that would keep him from falling. He dug his arms into the Nightmare’s body, not quite sure of what he was even holding on to. The nightmare didn’t seem to even notice him. At the very least it made no attempt to shake him off.
He glanced up. The force of the air against his face made his eyes water. Ahead of him, he could barely see Rainbow Dash as she darted between the clouds. Occasionally the dark shape of an island would fly by. He squinted against the wind. The Nightmare was obviously avoiding the islands. Or rather, the light from the lampposts that protruded from the surface of each block of land.
Now he just needed to get it into the light.
He swayed his weight from side to side. The weight was just enough to force the Nightmare to bear to the side. It was also enough for the Nightmare to respond. It began to bounce as it flew, as if it were on the surface of a rough sea. Spike clung tightly, trying to tow the Nightmare toward one of the lights. As they struggled, Rainbow Dash drew further and further ahead.
The Nightmare ignored Spike for a moment as it focused its attention on the pegasus and tried to catch up. Spike leaned to the side and felt the Nightmare begin to drift. The opening only lasted a few seconds. The Nightmare caught up to Rainbow Dash and once again it was trying to shake Spike off.
It has to keep up with her. If it gets too far away, it probably risks her breaking out of the dream. I just need to hold on long enough…
He held on tight and kept his eyes peeled. The Nightmare began to twist under him again. It would only a be a few minutes at best before his claws gave out. If he didn’t bring it down quickly, he didn’t know when he would get another chance. He looked ahead. The small planetoid with the crooked tower loomed ahead of them.
It’s now or never.
He waited, watching carefully as they charged toward the tower. On every other pass, they had come so close and so quickly that it looked like it would be impossible to avoid crashing it. He saw Rainbow Dash bear up to the side, right past. That was his cue.
Spike leaped from the Nightmare’s back, keeping a tight grip on the Nightmare with one of his claws. The Nightmare twisted beneath him, but he held on. It didn’t fall, but its flight was knocked to the side just enough that it clipped the edge of the tower. Everything spun as Spike and the Nightmare tumbled forward and down. They very nearly made a full orbit around the planetoid as they fell. He could feel them passing through the layer of thick light put out by the lampposts.
The Nightmare didn’t vanish, but as they fell through the glow he could feel it start to come apart, beginning to dissolve. Bits of darkness flew off of it as they crashed to the ground and skidded to a halt. Spike rolled clear, his breath knocked out of him. The Nightmare writhed as its edges corroded away, fading into the air.
Spike was frozen as the Nightmare turned toward him. If the light hadn’t been enough to destroy it, he didn’t know what he would do. A dark face formed out of the miasma for just long enough to glare at him. Then the Nightmare collapsed in on itself with an ugly hiss, unable to maintain its form any longer. The darkness that made up its form broke apart as if an unseen force was tearing it to shreds. A moment later it was gone.
“Whew.”
Spike sighed in relief and flopped onto his back. The world still felt like it was spinning around him. As he relaxed, he could feel the dream settling around him.
“Spike?” He opened his eyes to see Rainbow Dash’s upside-down face staring inquisitively at him. “What the hay is going on?”