The train rolled on, winding it’s way north. In a lonely sleeper car three mares slept quietly sharing a bunk. Surprise and Z-978 slept nose-to-tail circling little Diane who twitched restlessly in her sleep. Deep in the filly’s dreams, a past that really never happened pursued her relentlessly like some predator in the night.
“Cupcake dear,” the malicious changeling stallion with no real name of his his own smiled at the little filly, “You have to look older than that. It’s hard enough to get ponies to love an ugly little bug like you as it is…”
“You’re not real,” the little filly cried as she hid in her hole of room.
“I’m as real as every trick you ever turned, Cupcake,” the stallion grinned widely, “I’m certainly more real as anything you ever shared with that dirty monkey friend you remember so fondly.”
“No, we beat you! Me and Charlie! We left you in the dream!” the filly shook her head violently.
“You mean the dream he never woke up from?” Nopony chuckled maliciously, “Who really outsmarted who there, Cupcake, dear? Now seriously, can you make yourself a little older? Daddy wants to play, and it’s awkward enough with you looking like, well you, but I’d feel better if you could at least look like a grown up pony. Come on, you know you used to like this…”
Diane felt bile rise in her throat as shame and desire fought their old familiar battle, “You, you were only a dream! You were just a dream that Luna put in Charlie’s head after he got hit by that train!”
“You mean like your precious ‘mommy’,” Nopony laughed as he coyly circled behind Diane, “Now there’s a pony I wouldn’t mind tapping. Not that you’re not fun, Cupcake, you just can’t do a really good Pinky Pie. I know you tried.”
“NO!” the filly bucked hard, causing nopony to dissipate into a blackish nightmare shadow, “Me and Charlie beat you! We beat you… and we escaped… and…”
“And what?” the shadow taunted, “Does it rhyme with Charlie died anyway? I cut a deal with the text remember? I get his fate, he got mine. You really thought you were so clever, didn’t you? How clever did you feel when you woke up, and he never did?”
“Shut up!” Diane screamed, “You’re wrong! Surprise brought him back! She brought back Z! You’re gone! You’re not real!”
“ENOUGH!” with a stamp of her regal hoof, Luna banished the fiendish dream, “Little one, I am sorry, I am so very sorry. You need to wake up now. You’re family needs you. And you will need them.”
As sleep retreated Diane awoke to the soft sound of helpless sobbing. Slowly she remembered where she was. She was on a train with her mom and her sister. She was going on a trip with her mom’s sister Pinkie Pie and her friends. They were going to see the Crystal Empire and the new baby princess. Why was Z looking so broken? Why was her mom weeping with her face buried in Pinkie Pie’s mane?
“Celestia’s going to send a chariot to the next stop to take you back to Canterlot, she could hear another voice, her mom’s sister’s friend Princess Twilight, outside their room, “I am so sorry. I know it’s not much consolation, but they have the pony responsible, and he will face justice.”
“Z, wh- what’s wrong?” Diane asked in a tiny voice and the rail car went deathly silent. It seemed even the rattle of the tracks could only whisper.
“Diane, honey,” Surprise fought desperately to stay strong, if only for the sake of her adopted daughter, “There’s been a fire… I don’t know how to tell you this…”
“He’s gone,” Z said in a hushed monotone.
“What? Who’s..” and then it hit her, the truth hit her square in her little gut, “No! You’re wrong! He can’t be dead! Discord made him unbreakable! You’re wrong!
“Your Uncle died a hero,” Pinkie Pie bowed her head, “Nopony will ever call him a monster again.”
“H-how… what happened? What could possibly kill Train Wreck?” the little changeling shrank back, the world suddenly becoming a very scary place, “He can’t die! What could possibly kill Uncle Train Wreck!?!”
“A lunar guard apparently held some kind of sick grudge against ponies marrying outside their own tribe… and herds in particular,” Princess Twilight walked in with her head bowed, “He set fire to your bakery. When the fire spread into the building next door a little filly got trapped inside…”
“Wintergreen?!?!” Diane's mind spun in horror.
“I think so,” the Princess nodded sadly, “Your uncle went into the fire and used his own body to shield her. Any other pony never would have made it… But he did… or would have…”
“It was that mean pony who was mad at Z-978’s big brother at the train station,” Z’s voice boiled with seething hatred, “He was a cowardly pony! He waited until Train Wreck got hurt saving a little filly and then he pushed Train Wreck back into the fire!”
“The entire building collapsed!” Surprise couldn’t hold it in anymore, “That stupid, ugly, little bastard of a pony dropped a building on my Charlie!”
“No,” Diane shuddered with a sudden revelation, “There’s no way! There’s no way Stormy Night could kill Uncle Train Wreck!”
“Wait a minute,” Surprise cocked her head with sudden realization, “You know that pony?”
“He wouldn’t recognize me, I was being a grown up changeling at the time,” Diane admitted, with distaste, “He… he was weird, even for one of my johns. He always wanted to play weird games where he rescued the innocent maiden from the evil monster, sometimes it was a dragon, sometimes it was a manticore… what was important to him was always that the damsel… appreciated him…”
“Whatever Celestia sentences him to will be too good for him,” Pinkie Pie glowered.
“This pony will be lucky if he lives to stand trial,” Z buzzed with anticipation of imagined vengeance.
“Z, honey” Surprise swept her sister into a tight, much-needed hug, “You know Charlie wouldn’t want that.”
Hearing her mother use THAT name, her uncle’s ghost name, suddenly made it all too real and the little changeling was lost in tears for a long time before her voice could make words again. When she once more found her voice she spoke, “No, it couldn’t have been Stormy Night. That stupid buffoon was never even a threat to ME! Uncle Train Wreck was too smart to be killed with blind luck! Discord chose him for a reason! You weren’t there, but I’ve seen what he can do! Even when he was just a half blind, hairless monkey tied to a chair! He saved me, when he was the one who needed saving from me! He doesn’t fight because he doesn’t need to! He beat Mr. Nopony while he was tied to a chair! There’s no way that stupid, mouth-breathing bat pony could set a trap that Charlie would fall into! I’VE SEEN WHAT HE CAN DO!”
The little filly was lost to another long fit of sobbing and beating the wall of the train for a long time, when suddenly she remembered her dream, “He’s back. No. No no no no no NO!”
“What is it honey?” Surprise faught back her own building hysteria to comfort her daughter, “What do mean?”
“Mr. Nopony,” saying the words sucked the hope right out of the little changelings heart, “I thought we had beaten him. I thought we had escaped and left him to die. I should have known. I should have known when I woke up and he didn’t.”
“Mr. Nopony isn’t real,” Surprise cooed soothingly, “He was only a part of Charlie’s nightmare. He’s just a boogie pony.”
“So were you mom,” Diane shook her head and closed her eyes against the horrible truth, “He escaped. He made a deal with the text and he got out. The boogie pony is real…”