Projected Nightmares

by bearcat

Twilight -- Dream, Jack's forest

Rainbow Dash had said after a couple minutes that Pinkie probably wasn't coming back the way she went. Fluttershy was hard to convince and Twilight wasn't making it any easier for the group but AJ wanted to find Jack and Rarity pointed out that the group was going to have to wade into the unknown to look for him anyway. "So we can just add Pinkie Pie to our laundry list of scavenger hunt items."

They stepped out and found the ground was covered with wet moss deep enough to leave everypony's fetlocks dripping. The sea green moss covered everything, hanging from the trees and obscuring individual tree limbs.

Dash was making faces as she hovered above them. "Eew the air is heavy with water. It's like trying to swim in a soup mix."

Fluttershy tentatively floated up a few feet, nervously looking every which way. After a dozen wingbeats of not being struck down by horrible nasties she took a deep breath, and looked back to her remaining companions. "Do you know which way, Twilight?"

Twilight shook her head, then looked around. She thought that the door would probably face the correct direction but dreams didn't seem to work the way she had heretofore expected they would. None of them were wilderness enthusiasts so looking for deer tracks and following those wasn't likely to help. The sunlight filtering through the canopy looked like late evening but there was no guarantee the sun even moved here. She called out to the braver of the two pegasi. "Dash would you mind flying straight up, see if you can get above the trees? If there's a town or something I bet that's the direction we need to go."

Dash grunted her disapproval before accelerating straight up. Shortly after, Rarity grunted too, lifting a dripping hoof away from the ubiquitous moss. Suddenly it was raining, the raindrops coming from the air without benefit of clouds. Leaves fell from where Dash had just been, and now a branch came crashing down with a slightly muffled warning of "Oops sorry. Falling branch everypony."

While waiting, Twilight listened for sounds of larger mammals. Or lizards, as they could be troublesome too. But all she heard were a few small insects, and the occasional burst of raindrops somewhere as an incredibly slight breeze would cause the moisture in the air to surpass the muggy atmosphere's ability to hold it any longer.

The trees themselves didn't even provide any clues, as they were widely and evenly spaced. Not as precisely as if it was an orchard, but far more orderly then anything she'd seen in the Everfree Forest.

Presently there was a crackling as three large branches came crashing down from impossible heights, their arrival preceded by another localized rain shower and followed by a blue pegasus.

Rainbow Dash stopped to hover as soon as she was lower than most of the branches, but she was used to shouting across open sky so Twilight didn't have difficulty hearing her. "Can't see any buildings but you guys would not believe how tall these trees are! Two hundred meters for some of them! Anyway." She pointed in what to Twilight looked like a random direction. It would be about forty five degrees to the right of their heading if the group had gone straight after crossing the door from Luna's dream station in the desert. "There's a column of smoke that way, but it's a long ways off. That's the only thing at all I can see."

It was slow going because of the deep moss that held every drop of moisture from the frequent rain showers but over the next few hours the group never got fatigued, nor hungry. Nor, Twilight noticed, did the level of illumination ever change.

Conversation drifted among the ponies at various times. Without Pinkie, of whom there still was no sign, the party wasn't as upbeat or talkative as it could have been. Rarity pointed it out once, saying "This just isn't as much fun, slogging through mud and muggy raining moss, as it would be if Pinkie was here to make fun of the cloudless rains."

From above, Dash harrumphed. "You look good with your hair falling straight like that. But to be honest she just looks kinda creepy that way." Rainbow Dash did a mid-air shimmy shake that got Rarity and Applejack even wetter, so they both stopped to shake the worst of the water off. "Oh? Oops, sorry. I'd offer to rainblow you dry but in here I think it would just make you wetter."

While that didn't get a laugh, or even a proper chuckle, it did create a smile on Twilight's face, and Rarity looked up from the moss to grin at Twilight, probably remembering the first time she'd met Twilight who had just been rainblown dry and indeed her mane had looked a mess.

Twilight asked Rainbow to go up again to double check their heading, and later when she thought they should have arrived by Dash's explanation but hadn't she asked Fluttershy. Not because Dash would lead them astray but she seemed to be getting angry with the low hanging branches. Fluttershy took a lot longer but her methodical flight left her not much wetter coming back then she'd been when she left.

Pointing in exactly the direction they'd been going, Fluttershy said "Uhm, the smoke column is over that way." Although Twilight couldn't actually make out anything past 'smoke' she could follow the hoof.

Twilight levitated her tachi in front of her, but left it close enough she could grab it with her teeth in case something tried wrestling it from her magical grip. Within minutes of travel there was sounds of a fight ahead.

Specifically grunting and flesh slapping against flesh. Of metal weapons there seemed to be none. It was the same two voices, which sounded like twilight like sergal voices but of course with no words she couldn't be sure of much beyond that it was a lower register than any pony she knew.

There was a line of bushes acting as a wall, and using xìnxīn she parted a viewport through them. Two sergals, clearly exhausted, fought tooth and nail in front of a thatched roof hut in a clearing. Think smoke drifted lazily from the hut's chimney.

Neither sergal looked like Jack, being both white of limbs as well as chest, with one having a deep red fur across his back, and red feathers across the haunches, with the other one having dark gray in the same place.

It was actually fascinating and a little bit creepy to the quadrupedal mare to watch a veritable martial arts exhibition between two strong, well trained bipeds with five fingered, clawed hands trying to grip, rip, and kick each other for minutes at a time. Rainbow Dash stood next to Twilight and lowered her goggles, but did not immediately comment.

After a quarter minute she said quietly "That red one might be Jack? Not real sure about it but I can tell the gray one is our problem boy. Looks like a squid with the head where the waist should be." Lifting her goggles she turned to Twilight who was still watching the proceedings with trepidation. "Another thing they're both shades, or puppets or something. Not the real puppet master and not just a simple phantom."

Applejack crowded up behind the pair to whisper "So do we go in hooves flashing or what? If'n one of them is Jack he needs our help."

At that point the gray one, that Dash thought was the interloper, stopped, and turned to look into the bushes, straight at Twilight. His maw split in an unhealthy grin, the tongue lolling out far enough to reach his chest, so it seemed. His hands were at his sides, and the red sergal stopped to assess his opponent's reaction.

But rather than look for the watching ponies, he simply leapt, arms outstretched to grab the gray sergal. Contact was made, the gray sergal began to fall backwards, his eyes never leaving Twilight's, but the tackle was ineffective.

The gray sergal wasn't there anymore. The red one, sweat dripping from around the transition between fur and feather, saliva running out of his panting mouth, laid on the empty ground, holding his chest up by his elbows but otherwise looking quite defeated. He turned to the group of ponies, and spoke. "Your rescue mission is perhaps unfortunate but I will not pretend I had him anywhere I wanted him. Jack will be inside the hut but be properly warned." His breath slowed a little, deepened a little, and he drew his knees under his belly to support his weight as he continued. "When you leave the forest you leave his mind, and enter the realm of the shadowy figure." Now the red sergal rolled onto his right side and curled into a fetal position. Looking Twilight right in the eyes he finished with "I know not his plans else would I play better than raw strength and brute fighting 'til we both tired." Eyes closed now, the sergal drew several ragged breaths, and said "You will find Jack chained and unconscious. Farewell and good luck pony friends."

When the red and white sergal, apparently a direct puppet of Jack's, drew one last breath, exhaled, then faded from view. The ponies were alone again.

Rainbow Dash was almost shaking. "What happens when you walk into someone else's dream? Twi I don't want to get dismembered again!" She had grabbed onto Twilight's shoulder and was shaking her.

Clearly her nightmares were more violent and more personal than mine. This is so unlike her.. Without moving her body, she levitated xìnxīn toward the pegasus. Dash's eyes followed the proffered handle but she did not otherwise respond. Aloud, Twilight explained "Its name means confidence."

Dash took a deep breath, and dropping to all fours she buried her face into Twilight's side just behind the shoulder blades. "If the insane Pinkie shows up and starts cutting me into pieces, you have to take my place so I don't have to wake like that." She rotated her head a little so she could make eye contact with Twilight. "Okay?"

"Okay." Twilight knew that it likely would never come to that. Either they would drive the impostor back, and nopony would be dismembered, or by treachery or brute force Rainbow Dash would endure what could not be stopped. But right now the too often injured pony needed a friend to stand beside her.

Twilight levitated her blade into its scabbard, and Rainbow Dash wiped her tears and made an end of her sniffles to stride beside Twilight. The others followed, and they entered the realm of Dementia.