Nightmares and Harmony

by Starpony999

The Best Polisee

They were too late.

Apple Jet and Twilight Swish swooped down to save their friends. AJ managed to catch her sister before she hit the ground and Twilight Swish managed to save Rarity. Each of the unicorns managed to cushion their own fall just enough to prevent any serious injuries. Fleur, however, appeared to have twisted her front right ankle.

"Uff!"

"Everypony okay?" Apple Jet asked once she and her sister had safely landed. She quickly 'wooshed' to each pony's side, inspecting them in mere moments. Fleur was the last pony to be visited, and AJ was quick to spot the injury. "Fleur! Your ankle! Can you walk on it?"

"Oh, it's fine." Fleur waved her friend off as she properly lit her horn with light spell instead of with a simple telekinesis spell. "Happened all the time back in Cloudsdale." She pointed upward. "We do seem to have a problem though." The double-take appeared to have resulted in all six mares landing in a dark cave. The way they had fallen in had caved, so flying everypony back up was out of the question.

"I suppose we will have to explore the cave," Dawn said, her tone indicating that while she tried to stay optimistic, the truth of the situation was starting to get to her.

Fleur began to lead the way, having spotted a glimmer of light from one direction, when she went to place her hoof back down and immediately cringed with pain. After a second, she added, "I take zat back."

"Do you need me to carry you?" AJ asked.

"No. Zat will not be necessary. I am a model, we are used to walking with three hooves."

Most of the ponies gave her a questioning look, but since Dawn had already begun down the path Fleur had started towards, no pony took the time to actually question her about it. So they began their trek on hoof throughout the cavern. They didn't have to look far, however, for the glimmer of light turned out to be a clear exit not far from where they had landed.

"Aw yeah!" Rainbow Zap cheered, running as fast as she could towards there.

Fleur, however, was faster and by use of teleportation put herself right between the perceived exit and the dashing mare. "Stop!" She cried, bracing herself for impact.

Thankfully Rainbow stopped just inches from the yellow mare.

Dawn stepped forward to confront the pink-maned pony. "Why?"

Fleur didn't have time to respond; it was too late. They had been awakened. A large swarm of bats seemed to explode from the 'sunshine-and-rainbows' opening. Rarity yelped as a specific one got a little too close. The bats all had beady red eyes and sharp fangs. As soon as they realized it, Dawn and Twilight called out loudly, "Vamponies!" And began to try to escape the swarm with their friends.

Dawn blasted some of the bats with her magic, causing them to fall to the ground and de-transformed, but it only hindered their walk. The bats began to form a cyclone around the group, their flight path too swift and too wide to traverse through. It pushed smaller and smaller until the six ponies were tail to tail with each other. Suddenly in a smooth wave of darkness, the batts transformed into pony-like creatures--the only thing that kept them from being described as actual ponies were their blood-red snake-shaped eyes, their batty wings, and their menacing fangs. The color of their coats and hair had a large range, but their consistently dark shade only assisted in striking fear in the six visitors. Some of these vamponies hovered in the air where their bat forms had been, while others stood in a circle around the intruders. No pony dared moved; they were all thinking the same thing: we're toast.

Finally, one of the vamponies stepped forward. She was a mare with a royal blue coat and a fiery red hair. "Well, well, well, look what the mutt dragged in." Her voice was ruffled silk. "It's the rabid ponies that destroyed everything."

"I didn't drag them in, Calleen!" A hovering vampony interrupted.

"I wassn't talking about you, Theemudd." She exclaimed indignantly. "It's an expresssion!"

"Excuse me mademoiselle." Fleur interjected, "what exactly did we ruin?" She used her hoof to gestures to her fellow ponies.

"Our job, our lifesstyle, our freedom, that'ss what." Calleen answered, predatorily walking around the ponies. "It wassn't that bad at first, you poniess didn't sseem to mind our protection." She sneered. "But you jusst had to go and make up sscary sstoriess about uss vampss. SScare the foalss into fearing uss.

"Yess, they were jusst sstoriess like one could tell about a unicorn or a pegasuss, but the kidss believed them!" Enraged, the mare took to the air in a single flap. "It began small." She stopped hissing as her anger grew. "Teens throwing the occasional piece of garlic or a stone with a threatening message." She flew close to Twilight, whispering in her ear. "We never undersstood the garlic, we only avoided those because of the ssmell."

The purple pegasus jumped back in surprise at the closeness.

Calleen flew above the ponies. "But it grew until vamponies were openly mocked and physically hurt. Nopony did anything about it. Even our fellow royal guards laughed at us. We were forced to go into hiding, far away from the ponies, until our princess redeems us."

"Your princess doesn't happen to be a tall, dark alicorn with the night sky as a mane...does she?" Dawn asked, treading on eggshells.

"Yess." Calleen gave the pink pony a severe but questioning look. "How did you guesss?"

"Well, there is an evil alicorn attacking Equestria right now, and she's wearing very similar armor to yours." Dawn explained.

"Are you calling our Princesss evil?" Calleen asked as she landed on the ground. She got real up close and personal with the unicorn.

Dawn backed away. "Maybe?"

Calleen's extended wings began to glow a faint pinkish-red. The glow began to sparkle, and all six girls instantly recognized it as magic, similar to a unicorn's.

"First, you disown us, then you enter our house, now you are threatening our princess?" Her eyes flashed. "You asked for this." A blast of red magic flew out and zapped each individual mare. It instantly transported them to another room, where they sat completely alone.

Not long after, Calleen appeared in the room with Fleur.

"Guess who's the lucky mare to have the leader of the vamps herself as the torturer." The vampony laughed. Her wings glowed as she placed an illusion in front of the unicorn.

Fleur was in shock at what she saw. It was her birthday, the day she was born. The young filly was placed in a cloud basket, the nurse hadn't even bothered to notice the tiny horn on the filly's face. Suddenly, she was falling. No longer was it just a motion picture, Fleur could actually feel the wind in her mane, she could actually feel gravity's tug on her. She was actually falling. She could see the ground rushing up beneath her as she free fell. Being an earth-ground pony in a family of pegasi was a part of her life, but she had always had a fear of heights. During her foalhood, there was many a time when somepony would momentarily forget little Fleur de Shy was not a pegasus. Right now, the unicorn was living her fear.

However, despite the fear, Fleur was able to turn her attention back to the other mare in the room, although the butterscotch pony could see neither the vampony nor the housing. "Calleen, why are you doing zis?"

"Isn't it obvious?" The leader responded, her voice seeming to come from everywhere at once thanks to the illusion. "You forsake us, then barged into our home uninvited, and completely insulted our princess. I already told you this."

"Neither I, nor my friends, ever forsake you," Fleur replied back, canceling the scream caught in her throat.

"Not you specifically, but the rest of you ponies-"

"Not to mention we didn't know zis was your house. The ground just gave way beneath us and zen trapped us in here."

"That's still no excuse for-"

"Also, have you ever stopped to zink about what happened to your princess? Why she never defended you?"

Calleen hesitated. "She left..." Noticing her mistake, the vampony quickly covered it up. "On a very important trip."

"Your princess was once ours too, a zousand years ago, but she was corrupted. For her transgressions, she was banished to ze moon. Now, she is back, and she is planning to rule ze land wiz an iron hoof, never letting the sun rise again."

Calleen was taken aback. She had never thought of that. In her surprise, she stopped her magic, momentarily freeing the unicorn from the illusion. "So?" The vampony asked, her voice wavering.

"Whezer you are nocturnal or not, ze lack of sun will mess wiz your sleep schedule. Many of the plants we eat will die wizout ze sun's light."

"And if I'm a carnivore?"

"The animals you eat will eventually die off from lack of their food." Fleur desperately tried not to picture Calleen eating innocent animals.

Calleen's facade dispersed as she fell to her knees. "No, no, Princess Luna would never do this." She whimpered.

Fleur walked over and placed a hoof on Calleen's shoulder. "The truth is sometimes hard to hear, but it needs to be told never-ze-less."

"You could've just taken it all back, apologized and asked for mercy. But you didn't. You risked your life. You've could've angered me further into doing something worse." Calleen listed, confused. "But you spoke what you believed to be the truth."

"As zey say in Prance, l'honnêteté est la meilleure politique."

Not understanding Prench, nor wanting to admit she didn't understand it, Calleen admitted something else. "I guess what you said earlier would explain why it's six a.m. without any sunlight." She stood up to flap her wings and shake off any dust. "I'll call of Theemudd and the others. I suppose your friends don't deserve to face their biggest fears." Her wings glowed for a minute before she transported herself and the unicorn back to the previous area, where the other five already were along with Theemudd.

"I apologize for the... inconvenience I cause you." Calleen ignored the grunt from Rainbow. "Although I can't say I completely trust you. That's why I'm sending Thermudd here to follow you."

Theemudd looked at his leader, surprised. "I..I am?"

Calleen growled.

"I mean, of course I am! And I will report any lies to Captain Calleen."

"Glad to see you've decided to address me properly, Private." Calleen's voice held a slightly sarcastic tone.

The stallion whimpered briefly before turning the attention off of his foul. "This way ladies, the official exit is over here."

They were escorted by the male vampony out of another tunnel. It was quite obvious from their vantage point on the side of a hill that they were closer than they had been before. The moment they were out of the tunnel, however, Theemudd shot up into the sky and seemed to vanish. Deciding to find out something else before investigating the supposed invisibility spell used by the vampony, Dawn asked her fellow ponies if they knew why they had been freed.

Fleur, after a little persuading, recounted what had happened when they had been taken to their individual rooms.

"I can't believe you did that," Dawn commented, surprised. "Honestly, I was on the verge of begging for mercy before we were saved."

"What was I supposed to do? Lie? Zat would've made matters worse in ze end."

Dawn had to agree with that thinking, and she kept to herself for a while, mulling things over.

Her thoughts were later interrupted when the fillies noticed a swish of what appeared to be lightning across the sky.

Author's Note:

And the chapter size has practically doubled! Other than Dawn, I think Fleur is my favorite character. Well, maybe not as much as Rainbow Zap. RZ is 20% cooler than RD

Comments

[Comickook]

Again, excellent job on this latest chapter. The action, exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up are all quite well done in all the right places. I particularly liked the little details of Fleur's background as well as the implication that she might be this universe's future bearer of the Element of Honesty. I mean, the detail of the Elements getting switched instead of just the tribes is a great detail . The obvious effort to make the trials a bit more original AND more challenging is great too.

I'll very certainly be looking forward to more of this, but will also be quite willing to be patient.