I Prefer the Term Freelancer

by One of the Crowd

Nightmares suck

Chapter 5: Nightmares suck

***Back to Isaac (sort of)***

"Alright, first things first find the door" Isaac said to himself a he looked around the barren landscape that surrounded him. Unfortunately for him though the door he was looking for was nowhere in sight. The only things visible were rocks, a lake, and a rock shaped like the pyro from TF2. Knowing full well that this was a dream Isaac tried to call up a map to find the door, however no matter what he tried it wouldn't appear before him.

"Why wont this work" He grunted between each word as he repeatedly snapped his fingers. The pyro rock began to shift and move bits and pieces of if fell off revealing the actual character under it. The pyro started moving toward Isaac who's back was turned toward the psychotic arsonist. Raising the ax above its head Isaac snapped his fingers one more time and a crossbow materialized in his hands before turning to the pyro and firing a bolt through it. "Whoops, that was not medicine" Isaac said in a horrible German accent before the pyro disappeared into a puff of smoke. After that the lake started to shimmer, and Isaac realized that was his way out.

"Oh right,fire goes out in water so I would jump in to find the door. Why can't it just appear instead of making me run through my own dream," Isaac then made other materials he would need appear before him including a checklist of the materials to ensure he didn't miss any. He quickly ran through the list checking off everything he had which included a crossbow, knife, scuba gear, parachute, and among other things a robotic t-rex with death lasers of death. Putting on the scuba gear Isaac jumped into the lake taking everything with him aside from Timmy the t-rex who would stay back and guard Isaac's head from trespassers, god help Luna if she visited him.

Isaac went out a door that looked like it belonged in a fallout game to enter a long hallway filled with a multitude of doors. Isaac's first stop for the night would be Silver's dream to get her actual opinion on the contract that the group had taken. Isaac had the entire hallway memorized when he noticed that some new doors had taken the place of Silver's.

"Oh, right the ponies, it should just be seven more doors down than usual" Isaac said to himself as he walked further down the line. He began to think that having a private conversation with a few of them might be a good idea especially pinkie. Finally walking up to a tribal looking door Isaac grabbed the handle and opened it to enter a strange hut. Silver was obviously dreaming about her time back in her tribe when Isaac had walked in, but Isaac didn't want this to go back to that day her dreams always do. Shaking his head of the thought Isaac went further into the shaman's hut to see that a group of zebra's were dragging her out. "Like hell they are" Isaac said as he lined the crossbow up to his eye. "Steady, steady" He said as he pulled the trigger making the tribals disappear into a puff of smoke.

"STAY BACK DEMON" Silver cried as she saw her former tribe disappear around her. This happened quite often in her dreams when Isaac would come and speak to her. Luca had similar dreams from time to time whenever they weren't extremely lewd, and had Isaac Isaac doing... Never mind you don't need to know about that other than Isaac can't do half of those things in reality. Knowing that Dreamers almost never realize they're dreaming until specifically told Isaac went straight to what he wanted to talk about.

"Silver, It's Isaac remember. You've been traveling with us for a little over a year now. I want to talk about the contract we took though so please cut the crap," Silver looked at Isaac in confusion before remembering that she was in fact in a camp with the human before her. She rubbed the back of her head before giving a sigh and saying "Sorry," before asking what he wanted to talk to her about.

"I want your opinion on everything Silver, I mean your actual opinion not what I think it is" The zebra looked up at him before begining.

"Well the purple one seems to be uncomfortable around you, as if she wishes to say something but can't find the right moment, the one in the hat seems to look at you as if you are everything she hates for some reason, and the pink one seems to become really sad whenever she sees you, the others however seem to be extremely happy to see you, I think that you need to tell me why they are acting like that." Isaac looked at the zebra a minute as that didn't answer any of his questions. However he figured that she'd keep her opinion to herself until he told her so he began at with his arrival in Ponyville and told her about all the trouble he had to deal with there.

"...so after that I finally decided it was time for me to go lest someone else tried killing me"

"Why do you believe it was intentional, From what you've told me you drank out of a cup and rumors got out of hand"

"I believe it's intentional because pinkie was always scared of me and would run off, and twilight knows perfectly well I only drink out of that one glass to avoid those types of mistakes. Silver, They almost killed me" Isaac looked into the zebras eyes which seemed to be somewhat annoyed at him.

"What about when Flam almost killed you, or Luca, what about Sombra. You don't hate any of them."

"That's different they-"

"It's not different all of them hurt you by mistake, so why not give them a chance"

"You...uh...you have a point, don't you?"

"I have to make sure you are healthy, it's my job and hate is detrimental in that sense"

"Thanks Silver, oh you didn't answer my question though."

"This is going to be a tough contract if it really is that thing," And with that Isaac proceeded back out of the door into the hallway when he looked over to a pink door with three balloons. Sighing to himself Isaac walked into through the door and entered what appeared to be an empty version of ponyville.

"I FUCKING HATE YOU" Isaac heard yelled from somewhere further into town. The voice sounded really familiar but he couldn't place it as it was distorted. Isaac knew full well that this was going to be a nightmare he had to face as he had done so many times before for his friends. When he finally reached where the yelling had some from he saw pinkie cowering near a pile of ash with a rather large burned looking creature.

"OI, HOW ABOUT YOU PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE" Isaac yelled. The creature turned toward him and Isaac realized that the burned creature was him. "Jesus, I heard about fighting with yourself but this is ridiculous" Isaac then pulled his crossbow back out and took aim when the burned version of him charged toward him. Isaac fired the bolt and it entered the nightmares shoulder but it kept going and tackled Isaac to the ground. It started to beat on his head as hard as it could in hopes of causing as much damage as possible. For Isaac the pain was excruciating because this wasn't his dream so his mind felt everything.

"Get off of him" Pinkie said as she tried to pull off the Demented Isaac. It smacked her away before getting off the now bloody and bruised Isaac. It slowly walked over toward her and snapped its fingers making a torch appear in its hand.

"Know you will see just what its li-GAH" The evil Isaac let out a howl of pain as the real Isaac slashed its back.

"I might hate her, but I'm not a monster like you" Isaac said before burying the knife he had brought into the nightmares head. The evil version of Isaac turned into a puff of smoke and Isaac dropped to his knees before asking "You alright pinkie?"

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine"

"Good, now can you fix me, this is your dream so I can't do anything aside from kill monsters and force you to wake up." After a minute Pinkie finally realized that this was of course a dream as she remembered Celestia stopped Isaac from being burned. Quickly Pinkie thought really hard and Isaac's body went from bloody and beaten to perfectly ok. "Thank you, now about that demon me..."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean for any of this" Pinkie said in a quite voice with her hair staying straight and depressing. Isaac wanted to be angry, he wanted to tell her exactly what he thought about this but before he could he saw that everything around him was becoming dark and more bleak when he realized she actually meant it.

"Pinkie, you almost got me killed by your negligence, I almost died because of you."

"I know I deserve you hating me"

"You didn't let me finish, I almost died because of you and your right I did hate you for a long time but after seeing that I know you regret what happened. I'm not saying I forgive you, I'm just saying that I'm willing to forgive over time" The darkness around started to fade away when Pinkie's ears perked up and she asked

"Really"

"Yeah pinkie, really" The darkness faded away entirely as the town then began to have random streamers and various ponies began to appear. Pinkies mane poofed back out to its usual uncontrollable mess as she began to bounce up and down with excitement over the chance she could fix things with Isaac finally. Isaac's job here was done for now so he quickly made his exit to try and have a conversation with a few of his friends before he dealt with sparkly or the racist. Coming up to a round wooden door that was slit in two. "Hope butters is having a good dream, I do no want to see what her nightmares are like"

Upon entering the door Isaac was in Fluttershy's cottage with the shy Pegasus standing beside another version of him with a tray filled with toast. She looked over toward him and nodded and put the tray the table in front of the dream Isaac as if this was completely normal.

"Deciding to visit me in my dreams Isaac," She said before walking back into the dream cottages kitchen.

"Just wanted to chat with you, what's with the other me here" Isaac asked as he took a piece of toast only to realize he couldn't eat it.

"I figured you'd remember how you started calling me Butters instead of flutters like everyone else"

"Oh right this was when I came over for breakfast and you made toast and had like a hundred different types of butter, I still want to know why you had that much butter" Fluttershy pressed a hoof over Isaac's mouth before shushing him.

"You don't need to know"

"It's sexual isn't it" Isaac said. The Pegasus's face turned from it's normal yellow to a red-orange color as he asked that question before she stammered.

"M-Maybe, you want to-"

"Fluttershy I'm Dating Luca remember"

"Oh yeah, I should of tried when I had the chance"

"What was that"

"Nothing" Fluttershy quickly added to erase any suspicion of what she said. After that Isaac and fluttershy went over the good times they had before Isaac left. One such time was when Isaac ambushed a manitcore that was about to make fluttershy lunch because she was to scared to do anything. Isaac ended up in the hospital for a week with fluttershy by his side constantly saying sorry and him saying it was fine. Eventually though a doorway opened up and out stepped princess Luna.

"Isaac, fluttershy my sister and I would like to have a word"

Author's Note:

Chapter five already. I actually have no idea when this fic is going to end to let you all know now considering that I am mostly making this up as I go along. I do have an ending don't worry but really when I reach that is up for debate and I do have other fics I'd like to start writing soon ,but I don't want to take on more than I can handle. Anyway as always thank you for reading and let me know what I can do to improve.

Comments

[Mr Good Guy]

This is an interesting story, but work on your grammar and punctuation. Also, break up your sentences more, and work on your pacing, don't stuff so much information into a whole paragraph....