Projected Nightmares

by bearcat

Rainbow -- Silent Dream, now with screaming

Rainbow Dash's head hurt. She could hear several voices, all a little muted but at least one stallion and as her mind slowly returned to her, she thought she recognized some of the mares around her. She was under a light blanket, and thought probably sleeping on a cloud. But just cloud flooring, it hadn't been fluffed into bedlike softness.

Applejack her mind said, with no further explanations. Pulling open an eye she saw giant magical lights along a ceiling that seemed impossibly far above her. Try as she might, Dash could not remember ever seeing that ceiling, let alone when she went to bed.

When had she gone to bed, anyway? A weeklong instinct to not be caught asleep when the horrible dream returned, caused Dash to snap upright. She was inside a large building made of cloud, and her friends were around her, most seated on the ground with their back to her. Fluttershy and Pinkie pie were facing inward.

Pinkie's mouth opened as she grinned and gasped at once. Fluttershy was looking around trying to silently get somepony's attention but everyone was too busy staring at the empty atrium. The building still didn't look familiar but Rainbow Dash felt certain she'd failed. Addressing Jack's gray ears, she asked "So, we all got kicked out then? Like AJ but too soon for it to be useful?"

It was fluttershy who responded first. "No, dash you're still alive. Well, in the dream I mean. You just went into shock or something."

Jack's voice echoed off cloudy displays in front of him. "I believe that was a simulated heart attack, or possibly stroke. Fear induced not damage as shock would be." But Dash noted the disbelieving look that the veterinarian pony gave the alicorn who was still not looking at them.

Seeing him as an alicorn finally brought it back. "Still asleep!" But the sudden burst of noise made Dash uncharacteristically nervous and she didn't finish the thought out loud, glaring askance at the corners and crannies of the large room. Haven't failed them yet, I can still find my ... thing.

Twilight looked over her shoulder, deep worry folding her ears down. "I totally get why you passed out in that restroom but where did you go? Everypony went through the doors and you never came out. After about ten minutes of proving you weren't on either side and weren't in any of the segments we just went on hoping we could find you."

Forgetting her prior nervousness, Rainbow Dash practically shouted at resident wizard. "The door?!? You just walked through the broken and shattered door and didn't hear a peep from me shouting in the tunnel below it before the giant pony eating caterpillar chased me into utter blackness where I almost broke both my front legs? How in the HAY did you walk through the door after me?"

Twilight Sparkle was gritting her teeth, and Pinkie was almost crying. It was Pinkie's voice Dash heard, even though the normally bright party pony was darkly mumbling at her hooves. "The door was still there, Dashie. I walked in last to make sure I wouldn't have to look you in the eye in case that started bothering you again but the door,"

Here Pinkie Pie did look up at Rainbow Dash, and Dash couldn't second guess her pain. "OK. Sorry, OK Pinkie? That's just not what I saw." Her frustration turning to anger, she leapt into the air and looked around for her prize. She didn't see anything like the elements of harmony stand anywhere, but all the display cases were made of opaque cloud rather than clear glass.

Dash didn't see the frantic waving from Fluttershy, but she did see a shadowy gryphon materialize and swoop at her, talons extended. As Dash was frantically losing altitude she glanced at her attackers face but could only see a steel plate that didn't seem to have any eyeholes.

She felt the air shift as the gryphon overshot her by inches, saw her light blocked by its passing, but when she landed she saw no sign of it. Of her friends, Fluttershy and Jack were looking up, but her wingless friends were either looking out, or in the case of Pinkie and Twilight, looking only at her.

"You totally saw that, right? Big scary armored gryphon?" Dash was not going to be accused of hallucination again. Of course RD, the thought to herself all of this dream is technically a hallucination.

Jack answered first, as he stood up. "No, Dash. We here on the ground did not. That is why we must use the stairs."

Fluttershy explained as the group warily began to move towards the staircase. "It only appears to those in the air. It might be this floor, Jack thought maybe it was guarding something here. He tried attacking it directly but it was so strong it started to drive him out of the shared dream and so he dropped back down and crouched until it went away." the yellow pegasus nervously looked at the impossibly high ceiling before speaking again. "That's what he said he thought, anyway. Do you know what it might be guarding?"

Pinkie ran over to lay a hoof on Rainbow Dash's right shoulder, and with her other leg pointed out across Dash's snout to a point three quarters of the way to the ceiling. "I think it's that shelf up there!" But then remembered her promise to not make Dash frightened of her, and stepped away to point again. "Sorry Dashie. But there's a ledge or a shelf or something."

As Rainbow Dash looked, seeing a small balcony perhaps three meters by one, with a box of some sort taking half the space and a door left slightly ajar demarcating the other half, Rainbow heard Jack's reply as he calmly lead the group. "There are other ledges too, Pinkie."

As Dash examined the column of cloud that made up this single room, she considered where she would hide, or protect her most valuable trinket. Aerial maneuvers would be needed. Even with that guard. Especially with that guard. Gotta be quick, or you're just not me.

Rainbow Dash looked again, and saw a square box protruding from the very highest point of the ceiling, highly obscured by the bright lights that surrounded it. "There." Dash pointed.

Everyone looked up. Fluttershy promptly fainted.

"Are you sure darling? Or do you mean there's a trap door just above it?" Rarity was straining her eyesight to see through the glare as she spoke.

"No trap door." Dash replied. Now she knew what Applejack had felt when she saw the giant worn out barn in the middle of the desert. It all made sense, now. She was sure of it. "See if I were to plan around there being an I Hate Fliers guard, I'd make sure you had to fly to get there. So there's probably triple plated steel inside the roof of that tiny room. The way in," She glanced around at the ledges. Probably the highest, but maybe just for fun it would be the one below, on that wall over there. "The way in is you climb onto the ledge, hooves still on the ground, and face the doorknob. If you're not facing the doorknob you're not really on the right ledge. Then you dash in. 'Cuz that's me, Dash." She paused for a winning smirk. "And open the door and then slam it shut behind you. Your hooves are again on solid ground so the guard goes away. Problem solved you just have to zoom back extra fast."

Rainbow Dash's confidence evaporated as the group crowded near a door. No pony was opening it. They all looked nervous. Dash followed suit and crouched down in case something rushed them.

It was Rarity who explained their apprehension. "When we were dragging you to the eighth floor we found closed doors to be, well, rather untrustworthy."

"She means monsters will often wait on the other side." Twilight elaborated. Suddenly her form was colorless and indistinct. If this was a spell, Rainbow hadn't seen one like it. But Jack turned from the door, hoof on lever, and saw Twilight's determined look, and her odd gray aura.

His reaction was to grunt and duplicate the spell on himself. "Shield spells in place, everyone? Opening now." And so saying, he opened the door.

There was a landing on the other side, not unlike the unlit landing Dash had let herself out of to be chased by an empty wheelchair. Everypony gave the empty landing a thirty second long look to be sure, then the shield spells were dropped and everypony filed onto, and up the stairs.

"New Spell, huh? Haven't seen you use that one before." Rainbow said, having run to the second spot just in front of Twilight.

Their hooves echoed in the column of cloud. Over the top of that noise Twilight tried to speak up saying "Yes Jack taught me not long ago. Much better than the one I knew during the invasion, this one dissipates thaumaturgical energy as well as slowing to nearly a stop any physical attack."

Dash thought that's what the old one did too, but didn't comment for fear of sparking an all night long discussion about the nature of thamaturgical discharges and their slowings.

The group repeated their bunching up, waiting, stepping out technique when they got to another landing. This looked like a large hallway, but a cursory glance showed no other rooms. The group went around the circle, and found some walled off sections with things like typewriters in them, but no doors to other rooms. "Cubicles" Applejack explained. "So they can shove the office workers into tighter spaces and get more ponies into their leased floorspace."

Rainbow Dash shuddered but that was the thought of working every day inside, away from the wide open sky. Rarity took one glance into the next cubicle they passed, and declared it "Simply dreadful." To which Applejack nodded solemnly.

Up another flight, and this time on the far side, across hundreds of workstalls, or cubicle as Applejack said the Manehatten ponies called them, was a door. Not waiting for the old ninnies to bunch up and yank the door open she rushed out onto the ledge and tried to stare into the light, looking for her suspended safe room.

What she found in her impetuousness was the ledge she was standing on, was made of a delicate, forgotten cloud. Not the dream cloud that the earth ponies were safely walking on, but water vapor that dissipated under the pressure from her hooves. As she fell, the cloud railing that had been at the edges of the now missing ledge clattered together like steel, and fell with her, making her evasive maneuvers very difficult as the angry faceless gryphon materialized to come for her blood.

But bashing the gryphon's face aside with a railing bought her enough time to brake and land at less then bone crushing speeds. Crouched as flat as she could make herself she looked up. The room was empty again. From three floors above, Applejack's strong voice carried down to her. "You alright sugarcube?"

Nothing a long hot bath couldn't fix. And a massage from Soarin while we're dreaming. Which, oh wait, we are. Standing slowly she found her legs and wings to be intact. She called up as loud as she could "Still here guys. Sorry about that, I got carried away. Does any pony see a door up near the lights?"

Pinkie's voice didn't carry as well, being an octave higher than Applejack. "No Dashie no door. Be careful I'll wait at the staircase landing for you." Dash wanted to call back for not to be alone, but hopefully Jack would think of that. Buddy system and all that.

The staircase didn't seem to match the one she came up with the group. The flights met at obtuse rather than right angles, and she had already trotted up five flights, more than enough to be above where she had come out before. Dream physics not real ones. But just as she was beginning to despair of ever seeing a doorway, she arrived at one. Twilight Sparkle was sitting so as to hold the door open with her rump.

She looked bored to tears. "Hello Rainbow." the light purple mare said flatly. Standing to let Dash through, she said "There's ... been a problem with Pinkie. But I don't think you'll have to worry about her now."

Rainbow's skin was crawling at the flat way her friend was speaking. "What? Like she got killed and is awake now?" Rainbow was letting her nervousness move her hooves faster, and was ahead of Twilight now. But the unicorn was plodding along like whatever she had seen made the whole endeavor a useless and wasteful ritual that she had no desire to complete.

Twilight didn't respond with more than depressed looks at her hooves when pressed for details. But both mares stopped suddenly when around the corner came Pinkie's bounding form. The earth pony stopped and stared incredulously at the unicorn. "Twilight! I thought you were a floor above!"

For a long moment, the unicorn said nothing. Rainbow Dash risked a look back, and saw the same flat expression but her eyes were clearly pinned to the party pony's face. Finally Twilight said "No I'm here. Are you sure you're OK though?"

Remembering the licentious look she typically got from her nightmares, Dash looked quickly between the two mares. In Pinkie's eyes was pain. In Twilight's eyes was that disconnect. Like she's been hurt so bad she won't let anything else in because it would hurt too much. what did she see? was the thoughts running through Rainbow's head.

Trying to back away from the slowly closing pair of ponies, Dash exclaimed "No. You're not making me do this."

"Do what, Dashie?" Pinkie asked, but never looked away from the unicorn approaching her.

"Make me choose between one of you. I know one of you isn't real but I'm not going to make guesses here about which one. You. Pinkie. Are you Pinkie Pie?" As she spoke, her rump hit the inner wall. There were tables to either side of her now, making a leap to one side difficult. She'd have to know, before she acted.

Pinkie turned her nose to face Rainbow Dash but her eyes were locked with the disassociated unicorn in front of her. "I'm real, Dash! She must not be real. Are you real, Twilight?"

Twilight raised her right hoof, a shiny steel band clasped just above the coronet band. "Oh, I'm quite real." There was a snick of steel as a blade rotated out, to extend her hoof's reach by half a meter. Plunging the blade into Pinkie's chest, the unicorn said "I'm just not Twilight Sparkle."

And as Pinkie stood there, choking as her dream life faded, Twilight turned, and now held the look of ravenous hunger as she smiled at Dash.

Applebuck the fake gryphon thought Dash as she flew away fast enough to leave a rainbow contrail. In this tight a space it was hard to not bump into the wall or those cubicles or anything else, but around the next corner she saw a broad, open staircase that lead up. The Gryphon was in the center, already flying fast for the narrow space Dash was cutting through. Up the half spiral stairs and nearly bumped into her friends, Twilight first. They can't see it, so, Dash folded her wings, and plowed into the crowd trying not to break any bones.

She was hyperventilating again. On the ground, albeit five or six stories up, the gryphon disappeared into a wall above Rainbow Dash. Giving a report is as short of sentences as she could, she explained that Pinkie would be awake. Hearing there was a false Twilight possible following up the stairs, the real Twilight and Jack cast their shield spells again.

Dash could see the door. It had a simple lever for a doorknob. The room would be big enough for a small mare like herself to turn around, but probably not fully stand up. It would have to do. "You guys hold that thing off. I'm getting my prize and will just jump straight down."

With a running start, Rainbow leapt into the air, and flew for all she was worth. She could see a streak coming from her left, and Dash knew it would be tight. Foreleg out, slamming down the lever and the door swung a little bit. Still with a lot of forward momentum she smacked the door open with her other foreleg and barely made it in. In fact as she stood she realized her tail was about half it's previous length. Just hair. But those were the pretty hairs, doggonit. I like green.

At the far end, Nearly at her nose, was a poster. Faded, dog eared, like her favorite Wonderbolts poster, but this was of the six lobed Elements stand. On a hook just below that, was a pair of goggles. "So, like. The goggles stick to you? How does this represent my Dream element?" Inside her head she said to herself I guess it doesn't matter. Just so long as it makes the fake ponies go away.

Putting tho goggles on, she shouted to her friends. "Got 'em go! Go!" And with that made utmost haste for the way down. This time the gryphon ripped her left wing off, but she was low and slow enough that the sudden fall didn't break her legs. Yep. Blunt instrument. Different than sharp. Wish I didn't know that.

Waiting on the floor for what felt like an eternity, the group all rushed up to her. She lowered her goggles, mostly to show them, but now she could see through the glass to the Wonderbolts paraphernalia inside, and the 'cloud' walls looked like steel and concrete.

And through those goggles Dash saw a sergal, running four legged rather awkwardly, approach her and look sternly at her bleeding wing stump. Raising her goggles she saw the slate gray alicorn. Up or down she saw Fluttershy crying profusely. "Look we just need to get back to Luna's mind, OK? My legs work I can get through this just for crying out loud everyone lets go."

One mad dash later, the group emerged onto the city street. Still running everyone tried to remember the way back. As when they entered there was a deep keening that blew through the city streets. And through her goggles she saw the concrete in front of her being replaced by clouds. Realizing there were only seconds before the wave approaching them met their galloping hooves Dash shouted "Jack Fluttershy the earth ponies they're replacing the cloud with real clouds." And skidding to a halt told the nearest unwinged friend to climb onto her bleeding back.

It was Rarity, who was wincing at the thought of laying on all that blood. Applejack had already obligingly climbed up Jack's back, Twilight was precariously balanced on a straining Fluttershy, and Rarity had a hoof over Rainbow's back. "Eew. Are you sure darling the streets all loo" at which point the wave reached the group and she fell.

Halfway into the cloud below Rarity was struggling to keep that hoof over Rainbow's blood soaked back. "No rush, hon' wouldn't want you to stain something" Dash said through gritted teeth. But one of the stronger casters levitated her onto Dash's back. And with that done, they walked. Carefully.

Finally they reached the train engine, and on solid steel again the passengers climbed down. At the helm of the metal beast Jack pushed levers and the train began to flow backwards, still with no visible track but no time of zero G weightlessness either. Then he drew an imaginary X on the floor, and said "I have anchored us to this train. We will return here when next we travel together." Lifting his head from the floor, he examined the exhausted mares. "We should wake for breakfast now. So."

Pinkie was in Twilight's dining room eating cookies and toast with Spike. Dash thought she looked none the worse for wear, but did have a great big smile when Rainbow ran up and threw her hooves around the party pony's neck.

"So, did you get it Dash? Did you run off the fake Twilight oh hi Twilight did you know there was a fake you in that dream? I can see Dash why you don't like having those kinds of dreams that really hurt even after I woke up at least for a little while but Spike fixed some tea and toast and I found these cookies I hope it's OK I ate them Twilight if not I'll get you some more at work today smile Rarity I'm not a ghost you look like you've seen a ghost or something." Pinkie swallowed the last of her tea, and deliberately laughed at nothing in particular. "See? Not a ghost because ghosts if you remember disappear when you laugh at them."

Everypony laughed at that idea, and at the party pony's antics. After a leisurely breakfast they all went their separate ways, having gotten most of a night's worth of good sleep.