Pinkie Pie: Dream Fighter

by Waxworks

Dreams...

Back in her room again, Pinkie was left to be bored, thinking about all the thinks she had seen and done that day. She had caught a dream, ripped it in half, and been prey to its weird design. Did it being broken affect the type of dream it was? It was certainly a nightmare, but it was a weird nightmare. Weirder than usual. Was that her fault?

She tried to think about how she had first discovered this ability, back to when she had grabbed it in her teeth. The sight of the dreams had come first, and she had watched them make the twins cry in the night, but after that, when she had first bit one…

No thought made sense as to why.

She really needed to talk to Princess Luna. Pinkie sat back, and waited.

Her hoof healed in time. During her stay in the hospital she avoided the dreams. She let them come, she let them make life miserable, and she sat in silence, waiting until she could leave. When it was good enough and she got the okay from the doctors, she immediately hobbled on out of the hospital and went straight to Twilight’s castle!

She pounded on the door with her cast. “Twilight! I need you to send a letter for me!”

Spike answered the door, puffing from the exertion of running all the way across the castle. “What… is it, Pinkie? It sounds urgent.”

“It’s super dee duper urgent! I need to talk to Luna about dreams!”

“Princess Luna? What’s going on?”

“Okay, well,” Pinkie launched into a long-winded explanation of everything that had happened up to the current moment, including the time several weeks ago when she first noticed she could see the dreams, but she included an explanation of the recipe she was baking at the time. When she started talking about the twins, she went off on a tangent about the way the twins played with their toys, how Pound Cake wound use his wings to mess with things while Pumpkin Cake would use her horn to keep it out of reach. By the time she was only a quarter way into the story, Twilight found them, Spike laying defeated on the floor while Pinkie spoke.

“Twiliiiiight, help! I don’t know what she’s talking about, but it’s something about dreams! She’s been poking dreams and playing with them, and I don’t even understand. Please make her stoooop,” he pleaded. Twilight looked up at Pinkie, who kept babbling on about all of her experiences, what she thought about them, and her interpretations of the different pieces of dreams she had been in.

Twilight held up a hoof. “Pinkie! Please! Stop!” Pinkie stopped mid-sentence, quivering. “Now, please, what’s this about dreams?”

Pinkie held up a hoof and smiled wide, then started her whole monologue all over again. Twilight waved both hooves frantically. “No, no! The short version!”

“Short version? Oh! Why didn’t you say so?” Pinkie coughed into her hoof. “I can see dreams and eat them and I don’t know why.”

“See dreams…? Eat them? What?”

“I know! It’s super confusing and I need some help, so I want you to send a letter to princess Luna!”

“That’s… that’s a good idea. Okay.” Twilight pulled a small bit of parchment out of somewhere. Nobody seemed surprised that she would just be carrying parchment and a quill, and she swiftly drafted a letter. She held it out to Spike who breathed on it, and the letter was on its way.

“Phew. Thanks, Twilight. It’s been crazy. It’s what broke my hoof, you know.”

“I heard about that. You fell off a roof. You never fall off roofs.”

“I know! But there was a dream floating about up there, and it looked like it was turning into a nightmare, so I couldn’t let the poor pony inside have a bad dream, so I jumped up, climbed up, and ate it right up!” Pinkie clapped her hooves together. She winced from the pain.

“You ate it, then you fell asleep-”

“And dreamed it!”

“And dreamed it. It was just a normal dream?”

“I mean, yeah! With weird things going on and crazy, surreal landscapes and stuff all over! You know.”

Twilight shook her head. She ushered Pinkie inside and sat her at the cutie map. Tiny versions of clouds floated about in the facsimile of Equestria. The ones near Las Pegasus were raining. Pinkie stuck her hoof underneath and giggled. “This thing never ceases to make me laugh, Twilight!”

“Pinkie, focus! This is serious!” Pinkie sat up straight and scowled as hard as she could. “You’re exhibiting behaviors unknown to Equestria. Nopony except the princess of the moon has ever shown an aptitude for dreams, much less an earth pony! Something strange is happening to you, and we need to figure out if it’s dangerous!”

“Pffft! I’m not dangerous! I’m Pinkie!”

“I could argue that makes you the most dangerous,” Spike mumbled. Pinkie laughed. Twilight slapped him on the back of the head.

“In any case, Pinkie, you said you were stopping the dreams from reaching the Cake twins?”

Pinkie nodded. A tiny version of Cloudsdale floated idly by her face, her eyes followed it while she spoke. “Yeah, they were waking up every night crying from nightmares. Specifically Pumpkin Cake. So when I first saw one of the dreams, I though I could do something about it! I mean, if I didn’t help them sleep well, what kind of godparent would I be?”

“That’s very commendable Pinkie. How did you stop the first ones? You just ate them?”

“Oh, pfft, no! I couldn’t even touch the first few. My hooves go right through them! It’s only my head that I can hit them with. I bit one in half a few days ago!”

Twilight scribbled all her notes down on a sheet of parchment. Her inkwell rattled as she filled up the quill, and she mumbled the words to herself while she worked. “...bit one… in half. Huh. So what are these dreams about?”

“They’re just dreams, Twilight! Each one is different. The ones I saw trying to get the Cake twins were usually about sweets, and ponies that frequent the place. They dream about their parents a lot, with funny melting faces and too many teeth and jutting jaws and overwhelming sugars. You know, normal dreams.” Twilight and Spike looked at each other, a little frightened.

“Uh huh… normal dreams. What about the one you bit in half?”

“Oh, that one was weird! I was in the hospital, but there were tiny little men made of inky letters, and they were marching down a neverending hall. Then a giant face popped a balloon, and I got blown away!”

Twilight’s quill scribbled frantically. “This is so strange. Every one of these dreams was lucid? You remember them clearly?”

“You don’t remember your dreams, Twilight?”

“Not all of them, and not this clearly. Usually some details are spotty and foggy, like I don’t know what was going on. It sounds like you’re completely lucid for these.”

“Well, I am eating them, you know.”

“I wonder if that has something to do with it. I’ll need to ask Princess Luna when she arrives.” Twilight looked up at Spike. “Nothing yet?”

“Nothing-” Spike was interrupted by a belch. He coughed up a letter which Twilight caught and unrolled. It was in the Moon princess’s horn writing.

“Twilight, dreams appearing for earth pony? On my way! -Princess Luna.

“Finally! She’s on her way! She should be here very soon if she teleports. If not, it’ll take a few.”

Thankfully, Luna thought the situation was as concerning as Twilight did as she appeared in the middle of the room in a sparkling flash. She looked around the room frantically, immediately rushing over to Twilight. “Twilight, I got here as soon as I could! Explain in detail everything that has happened!”

As Twilight explained what she knew, Pinkie interjected with seemingly irrelevant details that nonetheless, Luna listened to with rapt attention. Details like the shape of the lettermen, their color, the face in the doorway and whether it was a pony or something unrecognizable, and the facial features of Mr. and Mrs. Cake when they changed shape. Despite Twilight’s insistence that it was pointless, Luna appreciated every detail and thanked Pinkie for them.

“That’s all we know, princess. Pinkie waited this long to tell you because she didn’t understand it at first, but now that she’s eating and tearing apart dreams, we need your guidance. What is happening?”

“This is unusual to say the least, you are correct about that. Pinkie should not be seeing these dreams and should certainly not be able to interact with them.” She put a hoof on the cutie map in thought before whirling on Pinkie Pie. Her head was held high and her mouth set tight. “Pinkie Pie, do you remember anything strange happening to you before you started seeing dreams? Did you have a weird dream?”

Pinkie looked up from the table at suddenly being addressed. She started, then tilted her head as she tried to remember. “It was a lot of weeks ago. I don’t remember. I heard a tinkling sound, thought Pound Cake was out breaking some of the glassware so I crept out and found my first dream. That’s all I remember!”

“This is strange and dangerous. I do not know who is responsible, but I suspect foul magicks at play here. Somepony is doing this to her,” Luna said. She took Pinkie’s head in her magic and twisted it back and forth.

“Have you seen any ponies in the dreams that you capture, Miss Pie? Anypony memorable?” Luna’s magic encompassed her head, and Pinkie giggled.

“That tickles!”

“Focus, Miss Pie, if you please.” Luna looked her in the eyes and she swallowed.

“Okay, okay.” Pinkie’s face scrunched up as she thought back to the past several weeks. All the dreams and nightmares she poked, prodded, and accidentally ate, but she couldn’t think of anything that stood out. She shook her head. “Nope! Nothing! Nopony repeatedly shows up in the dreams I’ve eaten!”

“What about your own dreams, Miss Pie?” Luna asked. She lifted Pinkie’s chin again, looking deep into her eyes. “Do you remember your own dreams?”

“I—” Pinkie opened her mouth to reply and slammed it shut again. Thinking back, she couldn’t remember the last time she had a dream in the past few weeks. She couldn’t think of her own dream before the time she’d eaten one of the ones she’d seen. “I can’t remember…”

Luna released Pinkie’s chin and turned away. “It’s as I thought. Somepony has done this.”

“Done what?” Twilight asked. She had her quill and parchment out and was scribbling notes down.

“I believe it is a dream-eater that has taken hold of Miss Pie.”

“A dream-eater? Those don’t exist.”

“They are not physical creatures but made entirely of magic. Somepony has cast a spell to create one, and it is inside Miss Pie. I do not know why.”

Pinkie poked at her stomach, then her mouth. “Is it something I ate?”

“This is not something you ate, Miss Pie, but something this creation is going to eat.” Luna turned back and looked over the three assembled creatures. She loomed over them, head held high and regal. Her twinkling mane swirled darkly, starlight sparkling within. “The Dream-Eater will consume your dreams first, which is what it was doing. Every dream you had at night was consumed by this creature, which is why you remember nothing, more than usual. No dreams of cakes or sweets or cinnamon rolls… nothing but darkness. I could not help because I do not see the dream.”

“But… my sugar-coated candyland...” Pinkie whined. “I’d only eaten a quarter of it.”

“And now the Dream-Eater has consumed the rest. When it got bigger, its influence spread, allowing you to consume the dreams of others, which it also devours. You experience them yourself, but the Dream-Eater gains nourishment from your actions. Your benevolent habits to protect the twins have made this all the worse for you, Miss Pie.”

“Oh nooooo… I didn’t mean it! How do I get rid of it?” Pinkie bonked herself on the head with her hooves. She tilted her head sideways and bopped the upper side as though trying to shake it out her ear. “Come out of there!”

“We will need to go inside you to remove it, Miss Pie.” When Pinkie opened her mouth, she sighed. “No, Miss Pie. This creation is magical. We need to go inside your mind; specifically, your dreams.”

“You need to go in my dreams? Isn’t that dangerous? …oh.” Pinkie slumped as she realized what all that meant and connected the dots. “Because it’s gonna try to eat my dreams.”

“Yes. Come, there are rooms in the castle. We must prepare, and we will need everypony’s help. Spike, please prepare tea.” Luna ordered. With a small salute, Spike ran off while the others walked.

A soft bed, a hot cup of tea made to help sleep come, and a cozy comforter should have made sleeping easy. Pinkie tossed and turned on the mattress, trying her best to reach her dreams, but nothing came. She felt it arrive but trying to sleep just made her excited when sleep was approaching, and she found herself waking back up. She was just about to give up and go find Princess Luna and ask for a sleeping spell when Twilight was shaking her awake.

“Pinkie, wake up!” Twilight called out. Her hoof shook her back and forth, rousing her from sleep.

“Wh-wh-wh-whaaa?” Pinkie exclaimed as she bolted upright. She was surrounded on both sides of the bed by Twilight and Princess Luna, with Spike peering over the end of the bed. “What happened? I don’t remember any dreams, did you fix it?’

“Unfortunately no,” Princess Luna said. “I cannot catch the dream before it is devoured. The thing is too powerful. To accomplish our goal you will need to devour the dream yourself, keeping it from the dream-eater so that we can enter it and meet it there.”

“Devour…? Oh. Okay… sorry I can’t dream properly.” Pinkie looked defeated.

“You have nothing to apologize for, Miss Pie. This is not your doing but the dream-eater’s. But you do need to come with us, we must find a dream out in the town and collect it there. You will have to catch it and eat it, as you have done for the twins.”

“Okay, but I don’t wanna eat somepony’s pretty candyland dream, I only wanna eat a nightmare so that somepony can have a good night, that’s the one thing we gotta do!” Pinkie said, holding up a hoof.

“Acceptable agreement, Miss Pie,” Luna said. “Now come, we must hunt.”

Luna strode regally out the door followed by a bounding Pinkie and Twilight, carrying her quill and parchment. Spike lagged behind, shutting the castle door behind them as they made their way into Ponyville.

Comments

[Clawfoot]

Love how you are able to keep Pinkie Pie's innocence even during such dark times.

[Waxworks]

9344406
Well, thank you.

[Addymarie]

Why's twilight such a Jerk in your stories? This isn't fitting for her like at all.

[Kowhaifan]

11296348
Yea I agree, she hit spike!