Projected Nightmares

by bearcat

Twilight -- Demented Dreamland Pt 1

so they entered the realm of Dementia.

Although actually there wasn't any distinct change as the left the jungle proper, except that once they were in the clearing, the humidity went way down. Rarity moaned a bit about her mane, fearing that a static charge would completely disrupt her fashion sense. Dash offered her professional assistance by saying "I can discharge the field by shaking you until a cloud forms, then strike it until the lightning is spent. Of course you'll get rained on again and lightning is loud that close but we just repeat the process until the clouds are all shaken out of you."

Rarity didn't even look over her shoulder to see Rainbow's sarcastic smile. "Sounds ever so pleasant. Remind me to hire you when I need to send my customers to the competition and never see them again."

The inside of the hut was dark, so without getting much closer Twilight wouldn't know what to expect inside. Presuming it was small, she did not draw her sword, but instead mentally prepared a shield spell without drawing power. The screaming startled her into engaging the spell, however.

But it was actually quite muted, and as the distant scream of pain died away, Twilight had time to question how large the inside of the hut actually was. Fluttershy crawled out from behind Applejack and asked if it was over.

Applejack said "That sounded more like a pony, than ol' Jack in either o' his forms." She didn't look scared, Twilight decided. But she didn't look too confident either. And how did Twilight look, she wondered. No mirror and none of her friends were looking at their erstwhile leader.

Rainbow Dash lowered her goggles, and after glancing around them briefly, nodded to Twilight. "After you." Gee, thanks girlfriend. But this time she prepared an older style of shield spell, that would form a giant bubble around the whole group. And with that she stepped through the hut's door.

And found she was standing on a concrete landing, which was at the base of a stairwell that ascended up into a gently climbing tunnel. There were strips just below the ceiling on both sides of the tunnel that were glowing brightly except they flickered as if the spell was in the process of failing.

"That don't look foreboding, none." Was Applejack's comment, the first of the group as they gathered inside the "hut."

Twilight still felt dumbfounded and it might have shown through, she realized, as she spoke her thoughts. "How in the hay does it go up from inside a hut? I know we're sort of asleep except dreams are supposed to make sense, aren't they?" She turned to her best friends for answers.

It was Fluttershy who, after about three tries, managed to express a reasonable opinion on this. "But the hut isn't supposed to be seen as a dwelling. It's sort of a wall between rooms. The room that Jack built is a depressing forest of ancient and forgotten trees, and the shadowy figure built a room with, well. Hmm." She looked at the badly lit ascent shook her head in dismay. "That place up there. So the concrete, and the hut, and the dry clearing are the layers of a good wall as go from one room to another. Dreams are supposed to be all about the symbology."

Rainbow Dash looked back and forth a few times between the tunnel and her fellow pegasus, and asked "So, does the tunnel go up because he thinks he's better than us, or because it's true that he's stronger than us?" She lifted her goggles and watched Fluttershy for any further clues.

Fluttershy only shook her head. Rarity took up the slack, saying "It hardly matters Dash, does it? We're pretty sure we need to go up there to free Jack or at least get away from the awful rain." And with that, began climbing the stairs, calling behind her "Twilight can you spare a shield spell if I scream for mercy? I can't put that thing up without a lot of thought about how they're constructed."

Twilight ditched her previous prepared spell and re-thought her shielding so the first thing she'd do, was cast full protection on Rarity. Hopefully one of these spells will actually get used or I'm going to feel like a fifth wheel pretty soon.

Twilight walked close behind Rarity, and while the tunnel was a little to narrow to comfortably fit two ponies they could stagger themselves so Rainbow Dash's head was next to Twilight's ribcage, and likewise Applejack's nose, just a few inches from Twilight's own tail, was next to Dash's ribs. Fluttershy seemed to prefer walking straight down the center but Twilight was glad that it hadn't yet taken a lot of coaxing to get her to keep up.

After less than a hundred steps, the tunnel flattened, and it a dozen strides more tripled in width. With no light strips on the ceiling it seemed a little darker but Twilight didn't worry until the wall to their right lit up with an image of a centipede larger than any of them crawling quickly across it.

Dash slapped her goggles down, and as Twilight drew power carefully, Fluttershy behind them all called out "There's nothing there. It's just a painting. A moving painting but it's completely flat." Dash nodded and raised her goggles to watch the centipede appear to walk into the ceiling and disappear.

"Nope. Not foreboding at all." was Applejack's comment, aimed at the edge between flickering light strip and gray blank concrete wall. All the mares gasped but didn't move when the same centipede "crawled" down the other wall. "Ah think we should just mosey along, girls."

Twilight had never used many destructive spells, but was desperately constructing a fireball spell in her head for whenever they found the mad pony responsible for such 'decorations'. Thus it was that she nearly fried the hair off Rarity, still in the lead, when a giggle echoed from behind them.

As the three meter diameter fireball exhausted its extremely limited summoned fuel, Rarity got back up off the floor and whirled around, possibly to scold Twilight for not being more careful. But Twilight couldn't see it, didn't hear what her friend might have said.

Breathless, high pitched and fast, it had been the laugh of a witch, who expected to see her vengeance unfold before her. Twilight was hyperventilating. She almost blasted Rainbow Dash when the blue pegasus started shaking Twilight.

"Hey! Twi! Listen Twilight we're all still standing. Rarity has a light spell prepared and Applejack is here with her hoof grenades and it's all cool. What happened to your shiny sheen huh?" All the while Dash was gently shaking the wizard mare by the shoulder, as if to wake from a deep slumber.

Twilight might still have never heard, but a tiny part of her mind insisted there had been no scraping. No sudden pain, no sickle cutting limbs off. Twilight eventually decided it had just been a recording, not unlike the centipede. Meant to disrupt and dismay.

As color slowly returned to her conscious mind, Twilight turned sheepishly to her occasionally terrorized friend. "I'm sorry if I seemed unfeeling, Dash. These nightmares are horrible but it's so easy to forget what it's like when you've managed to forget what terror is like."

Rainbow Dash nodded vigorously. "Yeah, I know. I know but you're not in it, yet. Not yet and this time you won't be alone, alright?" Dash looked around to make eye contact with the other four. "So we'll keep going together. You going to be OK?" Dash looked Rarity over, and finding no burn marks asked "Is Rarity going to be OK? Wicked cool fireball by the way. I'm impressed."

Rarity grinned a little nervously and said "Dear if you want to forget about shielding me I can probably do OK on my own." She quickly brushed he coat into place, as if it had fallen out or otherwise taken direct damage, but Twilight didn't doubt the fashionista could still feel the heat disparity. "Not even any soot. I wonder, can you cast ice?"

As the group started walking, Twilight nodded, and waxed eloquent about destruction. She might never had noticed the glazed looks around her as the mere act of explaining something she was skilled and experienced with was quite calming. But the pathway widened again, only the new part of the path was a black, bottomless pit on either side. Fortunately there was a sturdy looking rail on either side.

What seemed more foreboding was that the path itself was now made out of deeply textured rubber, and was moving at a fair clip. "A conveyer belt?" That was Applejack's outburst.

But Rainbow Dash thought it was almost reasonable. "So long as it supports ponies it would get you where you're going, faster." She started to step onto the belt, then turned back to Twilight. "Err, hey why don't you hover your blade so it'll already be drawn in case something nasty floats up around the railing." Turning fully around, she addressed herself to Fluttershy now. "And get ready to grab a pony. That way with Pinkie still missing we'll only have to lose one more if this thing is rigged to kill us all."

Rarity flung her mane dramatically, indignantly responding to Dash with "That's so comforting, darling! So glad I can be such a burden to your careful plans!"

Girls, thought Twilight but she didn't say anything, rather she drew her sword and levitated it above her head, straight up. It meant shielding spells would be quite complicated to cast on a moment's notice but maybe, she thought, a good offense will prove to be the best defense.

Dash wasn't phased by the unicorn's tone, telling Rarity "Hay I'm just saying the only way forward is across an untested bridge and only two of us have wings, alright?"

Behind them, Applejack growled "Suits me just fine. I can pert near leap that chasm anyhow." Turning an angry eye towards Fluttershy, she nearly shouted at the meek pegasus "If'n we fall, you catch Rarity and keep outta my way, right?"

Twilight saw the yellow pony was at the verge of tears and had already dropped to the ground while nodding quickly. Girls, be careful she thought again.

But she didn't have to say anything out loud. From everywhere and nowhere came that giggle again, and a very distant scraping as of a blade grinding against stone. And then, song. It was off key and almost tuneless but the words were easy to follow.

"Imagining that you are here with me // I'm always falling down // and coming for you now. // Lost my mind, are you calling me?"

Everyone looked at the bridge. Twilight and Fluttershy looked behind them. From in front of them, came a groan of misery that was interrupted by a yelp of pain. Then, finally the tunnel was plunged again into silence. No one could decide what do to, but from behind them came a series of clanking noises, many seconds apart but jumping vast distances each time. The lights, as inadequate as they were, were noisily shutting off until the only illumination came from the bridge and sections beyond it.

Rarity cast a light spell. Twilight almost shouted out to extinguish it, but she held her breath and realized that again, old rules weren't being applied here. Rarity was fine.

They all were fine. If you discounted racing hearts and saucer plate eyes.

Again, the singing. "So, how can it be? The color of the world turning dark on me." The cackle came afterwords this time.

Voice trembling, heart in her throat, Twilight said "OK girls I think we just need to move forward with this." Various strategies danced in her head, but she thought about the constant change to her shield prep strategy and dropped the notion beyond suggesting "A pegasus on either end so Dash you first Fluttershy you last." She couldn't bring herself to look behind her to see if that's at all how they lined up.

Single file for no clear reason, they stepped onto the conveyer belt and were whisked away. Once they were all standing on it, the ponies in the rear walked up stand in a close line again. To their right the wall was replaced with a mirror. After a minute or whatever (thought Twilight, who could barely pay attention to holding her sword upright let alone guessing how fast they were going on how much time was passing) the mirror stopped and it was plain stone again.

Now there was a mirror to their left, but they didn't show up in it. Their saddlebags, Dash's goggles and Twilight's sword were visible but the ponies themselves were not. The writing was quite visible however.

Written in a red, dripping substance that might well have been blood, it said "Losing my reflection" The next set of mirrors showed the ponies but they all looked like piles of lint. The message on this mirror was "...and my clarity."

"Right welcoming." Was Applejack's only response. Twilight fought the urge to blast the accursed pseudo mirrors just to see them crack open and stop showing such foul mockeries. Applejack finished her thought by saying "Ah said it afore, I'll say it again. Tain't natural for a mirror to have a mind of it's own."

Then the whole group was dumped unceremoniously on their noses as the conveyer belt disappeared under the concrete that was not moving. None of them were expecting this and Twilight almost forgot about her levitation spell. Fortunately no one was speared with her supposed confidence despite the pigpile of ponies.

When everypony was standing again, Twilight found they had reached a poorly lit landing with a solid wall in front of them and identical passages going both directions. Also, the conveyer belt had just stopped and was now rolling back towards their point of origin.

The wall in front of them was far from blank. It had illuminated silhouettes, basically the opposite of shadows. Five of them, all identical, depicting something bipedal, perhaps a conventional diamond dog, slowly, mechanically raising and lowering an arm holding something pointy that pointed downwards. The shape was lost as it overlapped with an upside down pony.

Twilight tried to shake off the creepy vibes crawling up her spine by analyzing the imagery. "You know, since all we see is an incomplete outline and only a single moveable joint, this might not be saying what I think I'm seeing. Or something."

Rainbow Dash watched the arm disappear into the chest of the pony shape. "Given the interior decorations to date I think it's safe to say that's an advertisement for pony sacrificing services.

Rarity managed to find a moment of humor by suggesting the company's slogan. "We help your cruel demigod be less angry with you starting at only ninety bits per pony."

"Hacksaws not provided" was Dash's somewhat inscrutable finale.