Daydream Believers: Reality
In all honesty, having a reality warper at your side was… more than a little unnerving, once you really stopped and thought about it. With just a thought, they could utterly change something, anything, in ways normal magic simply couldn’t. Seeing the Moondog work in dreams was one thing, but every now and then, it would make some casual comment about this or that and the Eschaton would be reminded that, just possibly, that mind-melting thing it just did might be possible in the real world, too.
Of course, then the Eschaton remembered that it was on his side and all of his worries melted away.
Well, most of his worries. There were still the usual ones about big, important events, and no matter what, he just couldn’t shake them. He tried to tell himself that he had surprise on his side, that there was no way Luna knew what was coming. He was so close, on the edge of the final leap, and yet, and yet, he couldn’t get himself to just go and do it. Stupid nerves. He could do this. He knew he could. He had a practical goddess at his side. Even Astral seemed ready to get him out the door as quickly as possible. So what was the problem?
As the Moondog churned through his spells, refining them and polishing them, the Eschaton kept trying to hype himself up for this. He was going to rule Equestria and do it effortlessly. But something kept holding him back, keeping him from committing. What he really needed was for someone else to give him that last little push, but his acolytes seemed content to sit around and let him make all the plans. Just because it’d been that way before didn’t mean he wanted it that way now.
Come on. Come on. He could do this.
In the middle of the latest spell refinement session, the Moondog abruptly turned to the Eschaton. “So when’re we gonna head out?”
“I’m… kinda wondering that, too,” Astral said, raising a hoof. “We’ve been at this a while and I sorta just want to get it over with.”
“I… I don’t know,” admitted the Eschaton.
“Oh? And why don’t you know?” The Moondog flowed onto the ground beneath his legs and looked up two-dimensionally from the floor. “C’mon, what’s eating you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wow, there’s a lot you don’t know, isn’t there?” (Astral clapped a hoof to her mouth.)
Where, exactly, did this needling come from? What purpose did it serve in the Moondog’s spells? Motivation, probably. Somepony reacted badly to getting heckled and strove to improve themselves, thereby ridding themselves of nightmares. A bit roundabout, but it could work. Already, the Eschaton was thinking, if only to shut the Moondog up.
After fruitlessly bouncing his thoughts around for several long moments, he admitted, “I… I guess I’m just… scared.” He internally winced at the phrasing; it just didn’t do for the acolytes to see him even brushing up against emotions like that. He was strong, he didn’t get scared. “I don’t know how the dice will fall.”
“Oh, come on, don’t worry about it!” the Moondog said with a cocky grin. “We’ve got this in the bag already.”
“Seriously,” added Astral. “I already know what’s going to happen: we’ll all get what we deserve.”
“Do you really think so?” For perhaps the first time, the Eschaton didn’t feel entirely reassured by the Moondog’s mood (or Astral’s agreement with him, for that matter). Dreams were its domain, but would his spells be good enough? The whole plan depended on them. He hadn’t been able to test them. For all he knew, they’d fizzle out once they encountered anything physical. Like air.
“Look, I don’t know if you’ve noticed…” the Moondog pulled itself up off the floor while shrinking down to the size of a fly. Whispering in his ear, it continued, “But for being alicorns, the princesses are kinda crap at fights.”
The Eschaton scoffed. The very notion of that was absurd. The princesses moved the celestial bodies, the ways they could be overpowered were few and far between. Like the time when- No, they were overpowered then. Well, how about- No, that time, too. Or maybe- Or- Or…
…Huh.
“C’mooooon,” whispered the Moondog as it plumped back to regular size, “do it do it doooo iiiit. You’re as ready for this as you’re ever gonna be.”
Well. He had to do it sometime or other. Might as well get it over with. And if the spells he’d prepared weren’t up to snuff yet, well, he’d just pull back. “Fine,” said the Eschaton. “Let’s do it. Now.”
“Finally,” groaned Astral.
A quick second of setup, and soon the circle of acolytes, with the Moondog’s help, was tugging at the fabric of the dream in ways that seemed to be impossible, even for a dream. Mainly because they were impossible; with luck, the dream wouldn’t be able to take it and would break, revealing-
One last push from the Moondog and unreality split open. A hole ripped itself apart in the space before them, revealing a distorted version of the room in which the Eschaton was sleeping. Sensations slipped through; the scent of the floorboards, the wet warmth of the air, the sounds of the creaking house… All exactly as he remembered it. That was reality. It had to be.
“Allllrighty then,” the Moondog said, rubbing its hooves together. “Here I go. See you all on the other side! Especially you, Astral!” It slipped through the rift right before it melted shut.
The Eschaton’s emotions went into overdrive. It was in a haze that he dismissed the acolytes, saying he’d contact them later. He slipped out of the dream realm so smoothly he could barely remember waking up, but suddenly he was staring at the ceiling of the bedroom in the rundown house he’d “convinced” Baronetess Felicity, a small-time noble in the ludicrously distant southwest, to “lend” him. A far cry from the cool, calming atmosphere of the dream, the real world was sweltering, almost too hot to sleep in, but he managed. He quickly pushed himself up.
The Moondog was standing at the foot of his bed, looking surprisingly natural for the environment. And for the first time since he’d seen it, it was annoyed. “Oh, wow!” It slapped at a mosquito. “It’s so hot, humid, buggy, and annoying out here! I can’t believe I didn’t leave dreams before!”
“You’ll get used to it,” laughed the Eschaton as he climbed out of bed. You better, he thought. “It’s not so bad.”
“Easy for you to say.” The Moondog’s mane flicked out and swiped at another mosquito.
It’d worked. It’d worked. The most important part of the plan, and it. Had. Worked! The Eschaton fought the urge to stare. The moment he’d only dreamed about (fnah fnah) for years, and it had just… happened. Now, step two… “How do you feel?”
“Honestly?” The Moondog stretched its wings to their limit, then stretched them another two feet. “Pretty much exactly the same as before. A little muffled, I guess. Definitely excited for what we’re about to do.” It grinned at him, and the light went ting off its teeth in spite of a lack of light.
The Eschaton nodded numbly. He’d expected some small amount of change, not for the Moondog to stay exactly the same. Idle thoughts of his conquest began forming and flitting across his mind. If things kept going this well…
He yanked his mind back to the present. He was pre-hatch chicken-counting. “Now, use the spells I taught you. Do they work?”
The Moondog rolled its eyes and flicked a spark from its horn at a corner. Immediately, a circle of dirt formed in the floor as the floorboards pulled away; a tree sprouted up, maturing from sapling to fully-grown in seconds. “Does an alicorn poop in the woods?” it asked.
Although the answer to that was “only rarely” — when the princesses went on camping trips — the Eschaton knew what it meant. (Obviously, its colloquialism spells had some kinks in them.) Still, it was almost too good to be true. You got paranoid if you stayed in dreams too long, and they could feel very real in the hooves of a master. Just in case, the Eschaton walked up to the tree, walked around it, examined it from all angles. It was a beautiful tree, all right, with no flaws. The bark was gnarled, the branches swayed, light dappled the leaves in just the right way. Real as life. Real as everything around him.
Yet, that paranoia remained. What could he try that couldn’t be mimicked in a dream? What could he try…
“And believe me, this ain’t the half of it,” the Moondog continued. “Just as easy as the real deal. I could do it all day.”
Taste. No dream of his had ever had taste. The Eschaton looked up; an apple was hanging from the tree’s lower branches, just outside of reach. Slowly, carefully, disbelievingly, the Eschaton telekinetically plucked the apple and brought it down. It felt like an apple. He examined it. It looked like an apple. He sniffed it. It smelled like an apple. He bit into it.
It tasted like an apple. In fact, it was the most delicious apple he’d ever tasted.
“So?” the Moondog asked, grinning. “Are we ready to knock some power-hungry idiots off the pedestals they’ve put themselves on?”
“Yes.” The Eschaton grinned back, sweet juice dribbling down his chin. “We are.”
Teleportation was so neat. The Eschaton just told the Moondog where he wanted to go, and bam. He was there, no effort on his part. Quick, easy, perfect.
“-and I swear to Twilight, just what the heck is up with distance? It’s, like, a thing defined by a lack of things. Like, see, this place is here, this place is there, and the more things you can put between them, the more distance there is. Why do we have to jump through all these hoops to get around it? We should-”
As long as he could put up with the Moondog’s whining. Who knew constructs were so fussy? Probably to be expected, once it got out of its comfort zone, unfortunately. Although- “Moondog, would you please remain silent unless I address you or ask you to speak?”
And just like that, the Moondog was silent. It didn’t shut up, continuing to make big, elaborate gestures as its mouth moved; it simply didn’t make any noise while doing so. Acceptable.
The Eschaton turned to his destination. The average-sized house that technically qualified as Baronetess Felicity’s manor sat before him. It was late at night, but he knew she stayed up late. He’d never liked her and he had no more use for her, so she might as well be his first victim. He strode forward, phasing through the doors when he ordered them intangible. Just as easy as everything else. Yes, this was-
The Moondog puffed into existence ahead of him, holding up a sign. And everything’s SOLID out here. How does THAT work? The Eschaton glared at it; the Moondog shrugged and vanished.
In spite of the late night, an oil lamp was still flickering in the living room. The Eschaton wasn’t surprised to find Felicity there. The mud pony was hunched over a book (the Eschaton couldn’t make out the title), so deeply invested she didn’t hear him enter. Some ponies just couldn’t see what was right in front of their faces. The Eschaton cleared his throat.
Still looking at her book, Felicity groaned. “Look, you really should knock first this late,” she said. “And I just got the kids to bed, so I’m sorry if-” She looked up and her expression turned into a grimace.
The Eschaton grinned. “Hello,” he said.
“You.” Her face dark, Felicity slammed her book shut. In spite of his best efforts, the Eschaton had never been able to fully submerge her ire towards him and what she claimed was his freeloading. At times he feared that, if he interacted with her for too long, she’d break the spells on her by pure contempt, realize what was going on, and make a break for Canterlot. “What do you want?”
“To remake the world anew,” intoned the Eschaton.
“Yeah, and I want a million bits, but that ain’t happening, either,” Felicity snorted.
“Are you so sure about that?”
“Yeah. Pretty sure.” She got off her chair, a little larger than he remembered, and glared at him. “Seriously, what do you want?”
What was so hard about ponies abiding by the script? The Eschaton had this all laid out, and the first pony he met was trying to be snarky about it. Fine. “To show you this.” He gestured outward.
Felicity recoiled as wisps of purple smoke began twining together from every corner of the room. They quickly coiled around each other, gathering into the shape of an alicorn. Then they fully condensed and the Moondog turned its eyes on Felicity.
“What in Luna’s name-” she gasped.
“Hi there!” chirped the Moondog, waving. “I’m a rebel, a mare on the edge with nothing to lose! And I will not let The Stallion tell me what to do, dude!”
“Won’t let The Mare tell you what to do,” the Eschaton muttered. Add “dramatic speeches” to the list of things the Moondog should never, ever do.
“I know what I said,” the Moondog said innocently.
“Uh…” Felicity looked back and forth between the Eschaton and the Moondog. “What,” she said flatly.
The Eschaton quickly cleared his throat. “The power at my hooves is quite extraordinary,” he intoned. “Allow me to demonstrate.” Pointing at Felicity, he turned to the Moondog. “Turn her to stone,” he declared.
“What.”
“That escalated quickly,” the Moondog said, raising an eyebrow. But its horn sparked and, just like that, Felicity’s body was hard and gray and pockmarked. Perfect.
“She needs to be an example,” the Eschaton said airily.
“An example of what?” asked Felicity.
“…-!” Catching himself from answering at the last moment, the Eschaton stared. Felicity was petrified, true, but- “She’s still moving,” he hissed. She was looking even angrier, too, and now that thick skull could headbutt through a portcullis. Needless to say, he was growing a little panicked. “Pray tell, why is-”
“Well, you just told me to turn her to stone, and I did,” the Moondog said defensively. “What, is she not supposed to be moving?”
“If somepony doesn’t tell me what’s going on,” snapped Felicity, “what’s going to be moving is my hoof into your neck, and it’s going to do so very fast.” She reared and banged her hooves together, making a sound like angry boulders colliding.
“Render her inanimate!” the Eschaton certainly boomed authoritatively rather than shrieked. “Render her-”
The Moondog rolled its eyes, bzzt, and Felicity froze. “Look, if you wanted that, you should’ve said that in the first place.”
Stupid, stupid machine. Literally. Nothing outside its operating parameters. He was going to have to use exact words every single time he wanted it to do something. Still, better than the alternative. Ignoring the Moondog for the moment, he walked up to Felicity. He didn’t know whether or not she was aware of anything, but if she was, he wasn’t going to waste this opportunity. “You will not be missed,” he whispered to her. “Goodbye.” And he tipped her over.
At least, that was the plan. The statue being solid stone, it was quite heavy. The Eschaton planted his hooves and pushed; nothing, not even the slightest budge. Repeated shoves yielded no better results. Stupid rock. He could’ve tried bucking it but, well, he didn’t feel like spending the night combing the room for the shattered remains of his hooves. Even if the Moondog could help him.
Better vent his feelings some other way, then. He grabbed the oil lamp Felicity had been using, raised it-
“Hey, hold up.” The Moondog wrapped its tail around his leg and he couldn’t budge an inch. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Burning this house down.” The Eschaton attempted to wiggle his hoof so the lamp would fall, but the Moondog’s grip was too tight. “I don’t want to see it again.” When he attempted to dislodge the lamp with magic, another tendril poked from the Moondog’s tail and plucked it from the air. “I don’t want to see anything related to that stupid mare.”
For the briefest of instants, the Moondog’s eyes narrowed and it glanced at the ceiling, then it was all smiles again. “Oh, c’mon,” it said. “Don’t waste your time on that. Set this up-” It slapped Felicity. “-in the middle of the town square. You know, as an example, like you said. Then we can get to the real reason I’m here.”
The Eschaton took another look at Felicity. As fun as burning the place down would be… “I suppose you’re right. Come.” He hurled the front doors open and strode into the night. “We have a nation to conquer.”
The next few days blurred together, almost like they never happened at all. They might as well have not; Equestria crumbled before the Eschaton like chaff as he directed the Moondog. Cities and towns fled before him and armies fell. He whistled minions out of thin air on a whim, won over hearts and minds where dashing charisma would suffice, enslaved them by magic where it would not. Reality itself was molded and casually bent to his will. It was astonishingly easy to rework the Moondog’s magic into something that could work outside of dreams. Of course, it had to be, for someone as smart as him.
By the time he reached Canterlot, it had long since been evacuated, so thoroughly nopony remained to even dirty up the streets. He marched to the castle with his head held high, his pet reality warper at his heels. He found the throne room instinctively, like the castle had been made specifically for him.
The Eschaton slouched over the throne lazily, staring upwards contentedly. He could fall asleep like this, after conquering the nation. Who would’ve thought thrones were this comfy? He stretched languorously, arching his back and-
He flinched as the Moondog manifested in front of the throne and coughed at exactly the wrong time; his attention was diverted and his back collapsed once gravity took over. It was growing more and more under his control, but every now and then, there was still a little nagging problem that reminded him he wasn’t done just yet. Why was it even coughing? It didn’t need to. Anyway, the Moondog coughed. “So, um, Your Great Almighty Wonderful Eminence, sir,” it said (at least it had the title down), “we’re done for now, so I was just, y’know, wondering if I could get back into dreams and top back up again. I don’t have unlimited power, much as you’d like to think so.”
“Yes, yes.” The Eschaton waved a hoof at the Moondog. “You may go.” It had long been said: “Do not call up that which you cannot put down.” Well, if worse came to worst, he had a plan to put the Moondog down: keep it in the real world until it exhausted itself to death. Simple. Easy. Perfect. Not that it mattered; it’d do whatever he said. “But I may call on you again soon, so be ready.”
“Neato burritos.” The Moondog saluted. “Adios, estulto.” And it was gone.
Silence, calm and clear. There was something unnaturally soothing about it. True silence was hard to get in cities, yet here it was. And the Eschaton had made it so. It would need to get louder in the future, but for now, he could-
The door to the throne room burst open and a gray pegasus courier flew into the room. She slid to a stop in front of the throne and brushed some of her blonde mane out of her crossed eyes. “Message for you, sir!” she chirped. “From the princesses!” And she threw a scroll in his face.
On another day, perhaps the Eschaton might have… reacted to such irreverence. But those last three words — from the princesses — made absolutely everything better, and so he let it slide. After that phrase, he could get his horn sawed off and not care. (Besides, the Moondog would restore it.) Undoubtedly the princesses were ready to negotiate as best they could with him holding all the cards. Waiting with bated breath, he unrolled the scroll. But instead of the pleas for mercy he was expecting, he saw only one word.
Psych.
The Eschaton frowned and lowered the scroll. “Tell me,” he demanded of the courier, “what is the meaning of this-”
But the courier was gone. In her place was Princess Luna, still wearing the courier’s outfit. She smiled mirthlessly, and all along the walls, every pony in every stained-glass window turned their eyes on the Eschaton in hateful glares.
“Hello,” said Luna, her voice colder than ice. “You are intruding.”
The Eschaton jerked awake, gasping in fear. His heart was beating out a drumline against his ribcage, his limbs were shaking, and his entire body was plastered with cold sweat. He felt like he’d been running a marathon for hours on end. Even his vision was swimming. His gaze darted around in a panic, but he only saw the room Felicity had given him. The room he’d abandoned three days ago. Or- was it four? No, three. But, wait- Except- Maybe-
Already, his memory of the past few days was growing hazy. Or- had it really been days? Or had it just felt like it? He could remember dominating Equestria, but he couldn’t remember how, only vague ideas and concepts. Almost like it’d never happened at all. And why hadn’t he sought out his acolytes? The implications were… unpleasant. Propping himself up, the Eschaton squinted into a certain corner. There was no tree there. Never had been.
Groaning, he dragged a hoof down his face and stared up at the ceiling. A dream. Everything, everything since the Moondog had “entered” reality had been a dream. And maybe- He chomped on his tongue and winced at the pain. At least he knew this was reality. But everything else… Stars above, what had happened to that dream? He’d been lucid, and then… what? How had it all slipped away from him?
He’d been afraid of something like this. Getting so wrapped up in dreams that he couldn’t tell them from the real world. But he’d thought it’d be gradual, a slow melding of reality and mind, not this abrupt. Maybe he’d just gotten confused on the nature of the dream. It wasn’t really his acolytes he was working with, just projections of them made by his mind. Maybe. Was that even possible? It didn’t seem so. Unless…
That figure right at the end. That couldn’t have been Luna, could it? The real Luna? That had always been a risk and her presence would certainly explain a lot. But he’d taken every measure he could to avoid detection. There was no way she could find him, right? The Moondog was keeping quiet — his own spells were seeing to that — so…
No. It wasn’t Luna. Couldn’t have been. She’d’ve caught him by now. Maybe it was just his own mind, playing tricks on him, spitting out his fears back at him. It had all seemed so real because… Well, he wasn’t sure. He must’ve just stopped being careful somewhere along the line. In any case, he was safe, as were all his secrets. In spite of the seeming reality of the dream, Luna was not here. He had nothing to worry about.
Except his sweat. Ugh. He bundled up his sheets to wipe his face down, but Luna passed him a towel. Muttering his thanks, he dried his face. It didn’t help that much; his coat still felt sticky and the air didn’t smell clean. A shower was desperately needed when morning came. A shower and some thinking. Why was progress on the Moondog so dang slow? Did he need to hit the books again? …Nah, he already knew everything he needed. No, he just needed to get a bit more clever.
He dropped the towel over the side of the bed; Luna was gracious enough to return it to the bathroom. Angry, tired nothings leaked from the Eschaton’s mouth as he rolled over in bed and pulled the blankets up. Maybe, if he was lucky, he’d fall asleep again and would actually be able to shape the dream the way he wanted to. You know what, just for tonight, he’d indulge. He’d make himself ruler of Equestria for a few hours, if only to pretend. And since he was pretending, he wouldn’t need to make it plausible how he got there. No Luna, no Moondog, just him and-
His eyes snapped open and he rolled onto his back to gape at the mare standing at the foot of his bed.
“Hello again,” said Princess Luna. She was just standing there, like she’d always been there, like she belonged there. “You are not dreaming this time.” Her teeth were flat, but her smile was still impressively sharklike.
Out of desperation, the Eschaton bit his tongue again. Still painful. He looked to one side. Several bat-winged night guards, their pupils occasionally flashing in the dark, flanked him, pointing their weapons at him. Pikes were rather menacing when you realized how much force could be put behind them. He looked to the other side. More guards, more weapons with pointy bits. He slowly reached up and touched his horn. A suppressor ring was already tightly secured on it.
“You are hereby under arrest,” continued Princess Luna, “for conspiracy to commit treason against Equestria and her lands, and for the attempted kidnapping and mental enthrallment of my daughter.” The entire room tensed up, the pike points getting just a little closer, the guards standing just a little taller, Princess Luna’s smile showing just a little bit more teeth.
Gulp. The Eschaton meekly raised his hooves. “I surrender,” he whispered.
“So, Mom? How’d it go?”
“Wonderfully. Most wonderfully. Oh, how I have missed bombast!”
“Uh…”
“Dreams do not count, for bombast is the norm. No, I am referring to the real world, where it takes time and effort to set things up, and so a dramatic shock to the system is far more meaningful.”
“Oh.”
“The guards were… a tad resistant to my methods, I will admit, but they came around when they saw the results. There are precious few times when you get to surprise somepony like that. And I hope, to all the stars above, that you were wearing my form in the dream, or else my one-liner would have been slightly nonsensical.”
“I mean, yeah I was, that’s what we discussed, but can we get back to-”
“Yes, of course. The Eschaton was found without a fuss and came quietly. He is currently in jail, awaiting-”
“Oh no. I don’t need to be a witness in a trial, do I? All those ponies staring at me…”
“…Heavens, no. He has already stated his intent to plead guilty and is awaiting arraignment. I have placed various charms on him to prevent him from using dream magic while he is imprisoned, and-”
“You have? Huh.”
“If you intend to make any further impression on him, you yourself shall be unaffected in his dream. But remember: you are not the arbiter of this matter. Do not traumatize him, no matter how much you may wish to do so.”
“Why would-? Oh, pfft. Those spells he tried on me? Yeah, they were nothing. No, I wasn’t gonna do anything like that.”
“Good. Felicity and her family are unharmed and remain of sound mind. We are still rounding up the remaining cultists, but expect to…”
The Eschaton slouched in his chair in the interrogation room. He’d only been waiting for five seconds and he was already bored. Most ponies, he assumed, would not recognize this as a dream, since they lacked the skills for lucidity. But the Eschaton was not most ponies, he reminded himself. No, even with his access to dream magic restricted, he could pick up on seemingly minor details — the extreme black of the shadows, the slightly hollow sound everything had, the way his prison jumpsuit didn’t itch all over and was actually quite comfy — and identify them as the work of a sloppy dream sculptor. And while Luna was many undesirable things, sloppy was not one of them, leaving one certain being as responsible.
He’d been duped. Thoroughly hoodwinked. He’d been tricked, backstabbed, bamboozled… And he couldn’t even bring himself to get that angry about it because the Moondog’s dream had been flawless, nearly indistinguishable from reality. Whenever his memories of the dream were clear, the Eschaton could only recall real things. The smell of fire. The subaural rumble of a panicked stampede. The orange of Celestia’s last sunrise. Canterlot’s pennants whipping in the tempest. The taste of an apple. The Moondog could duplicate taste. Was that even possible? Even Luna herself would be impressed by a dream of that level of detail. He couldn’t have known.
It didn’t make him feel any better.
“Whup! Wrong setting,” a certain construct said from nowhere and everywhere. “Just lemme…” Absolute blackness fell for the briefest of instants; when it vanished, the Eschaton was sitting in a giant presentation hall, surrounded by ponies wearing the same jumpsuit as him. On stage, a pony in guard armor was saying something the Eschaton didn’t bother to listen to and waving around an envelope. The Eschaton sighed; this was going to take forever.
The presenter’s words suddenly shifted from white noise to clear. “And the Oscolt for Best Supporting Epicene goes to…” She pulled a sheet of paper from the envelope and squinted. “…Moondog.”
The audience burst into applause. The Moondog, wearing a fancy prison-orange dress, ran forward and jumped onto the stage. It dropkicked the presenter back behind the curtain and snatched the statuette from the air. Stepping up to the lectern, the Moondog crowed, “You tolerate me! You really, really tolerate me!” It wiped a tear from its eye. “I’d like to thank everyone I’ve met in my entire life. My mother Princess Luna, Princess Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Lyra Heartstrings-”
The Eschaton set his jaw and averted his gaze from the stage. This was an obvious psychological tactic set up by Luna. Mere constructs didn’t — couldn’t — gloat like this. It was so outside normal operating parameters he could barely imagine it. Was the Moondog just running through a script Luna had injected into it? Probably.
“-my aunt Princess Celestia, Catskill, Photo Finish-”
What was the point of all this, really? He’d lost, he’d been fooled, and nothing would change that. Did Luna really need to write out a fake speech reminding him of that? It was so childish, so immature. (Although the method was a little creative, he had to admit.)
“-Iron Phalanx, Trenderhoof, Fleur de Lis, Swan Dive-”
And it was even cowardly. Luna wasn’t doing this herself, but instead hiding behind a construct for it? Pfah. Her power was the only reason the Eschaton was scared of her, a stupid bully with a grenade. If they were on the same level, though… Hoo, boy, she would not last long.
“-Grubber, Cadance, Williwaw-”
And on top of all of that, brevity was not this thing’s strong suit.
“-and, of course,” the Moondog said finally, “the stallion of the hour, the Eschaton.” It gestured towards him, grinning the grin of an incredibly sore winner. A spotlight turned its gaze on him; he flinched and held up a hoof to block out the light.
A second later, the light was gone and he was back in the interrogation room, the Moondog already sitting in the chair across from him. “Anyway, back to business,” it said. It wore neither uniform nor regalia, but still tried to speak with some kind of authority. The Eschaton did his best to ignore that it was actually pulling it off; there was no way some machine could be more commanding than him. It leaned forward a little, its hooves steepled together and its elbows on the tabletop. “So. This is a new one. Never been part of an attempted dimensional merging before, especially not such a badly botched one.”
The Eschaton stared at it, his face blank in spite of the emotion behind it. After how thoroughly he’d been played, he wanted nothing more than to scream at it, than to rip that stupid machine down to its most basic spells. But if he got angry, it was going to win, and the Eschaton couldn’t let that happen. He was going to remain quiet and let everything it said bounce off him. No satisfaction for it.
At least, that was the plan. But the Moondog grinned like it’d just received the biggest birthday present of its life. “Oh, wow. You think I’ll be intimidated by the silent treatment? I guess, knowing you, that shouldn’t surprise me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he snapped, against his better judgment.
It was mind-boggling how punchably smug the Moondog could look. “Oh, I think you know. Or, y’know, maybe you don’t. ’Cause I was going to ask you, ‘what were you thinking?’, but the simplest answer is that you weren’t thinking.”
“Not thinking?” the Eschaton yelped. Didn’t yelp. He didn’t yelp, no matter what it sounded like. He straightened up. “Have you seen what I can do?” Straining at his metaphysical bindings, he pushed at the dream. Space twisted around his hooves and thin bolts of fire danced up his legs. It was all he could manage at the moment, but against the spells of Princess Luna, of all ponies, it was impressive. “Do you think that I could do anything like this if I didn’t-”
“Uh-huh.” The Moondog flicked a wing through the air between them, almost contemptuously, and the Eschaton’s efforts were destroyed like a house of cards in a tornado. It didn’t even flinch. “I mean, you’re not bad, but I’ve seen teenagers better at this than you. When you were unbound, too. Besides, your skill at oneiroturgy isn’t what I’m talking about.”
It clicked its tongue. “See, you know what I am, but I don’t think you really understand it. Lemme ask you something: how long have you been studying dream magic? Me, I’ve been at it for two years.”
For several long moments, all the Eschaton could do was stare. Two years? Two years. It made sense, now; it must’ve had help from Luna. There was no way he could be defeated by something that wasn’t even a toddler. He grinned. “Two years?” he sneered. “Is that all?” He chuckled, shaking his head. “I’ve been learning dream magic for six years, even before Luna returned. Three times the experience you have. Don’t think you can match me.”
But the Moondog’s only action was to feign surprise, and to do so deliberately badly. “Six years?” it asked, its eyebrow going up like a drawbridge. “You were asleep that long?”
“N-no, I-”
“Well, then, it hasn’t been six years, has it?” The Moondog slouched back in its chair, hanging a leg over the back. “It’s been, what, a third of that, max? Unless you’ve been sleeping way more than you should.”
“I… I suppose it’s only been two years, if you want to be pedantic about it,” huffed the Eschaton. It was technically accurate — in fact, it was probably closer to only a year and a quarter, if he was being honest — but who did this automaton think it was, lecturing him?
The Moondog nodded. “Yeah. I do. Because, see, when I say I’ve been doing this job for two years… that’s nonstop. I’ve spent a grand total of about sixty-eight hours outside of dreams ever since the day I was created. Not exaggerating. Outside of that, I barely let up. I’ve never needed to rest. I live dreaming. And you know what else? Half the time you spent studying? Just learning the basics? I had that down pat before I even knew I existed.”
The Eschaton and the Moondog looked at each other. In spite of himself, the Eschaton tried running through that, trying to figure out how it’d work. Babies were stupid little things; they didn’t know anything. Ponies had to spend years just learning how to speak. Okay, the Moondog was a machine, but did that really make-
Wait. Luna had built it to make good dreams. And if basic dream-sculpting had already been built into it…
Right as he got it, the Moondog leaned over the table, growing just enough to loom over him. Nothing else in the dream changed, but he suddenly felt very powerless, like even his limbs were out of his control. It was… maybe possible… that he’d underestimated the Moondog. Vastly.
“I was born better than your best,” continued the Moondog. “Since then, over two years — two full years — I’ve kept improving myself. Quite literally constantly. I know how to do things that you can’t even imagine. Last night, I made a dream so good you couldn’t tell it from reality. We’re not just not in the same league, I can’t even see your league from mine. The stars in your heavens are the sands beneath my hooves.”
As it spoke, the darkness peeled away. The Eschaton had an impression of being surrounded by interobjects of trees and skyscrapers before the setting switched as quickly as a slide. A seabed with luminescent anemones. A mountaintop beneath three moons. A desert with auroras in its sands. A city built over a colossal whirlpool. A violet valley with a many-bridged river. All this and more, scene after scene appearing just long enough for him to get an impression before getting yanked away. Any one of those would have pushed limits of his skill, but they came and went like shuffled cards.
And the Moondog refused to pay this display of bravura any attention.
“Now, I don’t know what you thought you could accomplish with those amateur hour spells, but I’ve dealt with things far worse than you. Been doing that since day one. I’m the reason monsters hide in the closet rather than roaming freely. I’m the bane of the boogeymare’s existence. I’m the one who flattens the bumps in the night. And buddy, you’re looking pretty bumpy right about now.”
It was almost with a thud that the interrogation room returned. The Moondog didn’t look any different, but some intangible quality about it had changed, and now, all the Eschaton wanted to do was get away from it. To think that he’d even entertained the idea, the possibility, of controlling that. But no matter how much he tried to push, his legs wouldn’t work. All he could do was stare at the being in front of him and pray to be ignored.
“But, listen,” said the Moondog. What the Eschaton had mistaken for a voice of overconfidence was now one of quite literally absolute control. “Keep to yourself and I’ll let the courts handle you. If you ever get out, leave everyone else alone and I’ll leave you alone. Just, you know, if you ever think about mucking about where you shouldn’t be in the dream realm again…” It smiled a viper’s smile. “I’ll be around. Okay?”
The Eschaton’s nods were short and quick, going up and down by an inch several times a second. It was all he could manage. “O-okay.”
“Okay.” And the Moondog was gone and the Eschaton was alone.
His whole body shook as he drew his legs close to himself. No. No. No. Never again. He- No. Just how deluded had he been? From the very beginning, the Moondog had clearly been sapient, and in his arrogance, he’d missed it. Or had it- had she made him miss it, to toy with him? Casually nudging his attention away from the suspicious parts of her behavior, turning evidence that his plan was doomed to fail into something that was no big deal, watching with glee as he made a fool of himself, over and over and over. Maybe it was both.
His chest felt like it was constricting; instinct overtook logic and the Eschaton took deep, gulping breaths he didn’t need. Even leaving aside Moondog’s sapience, he was… Well. He wasn’t outmatched. An expert sprint flier didn’t outmatch a newborn pegasus; simply having them compete was laughable. He’d spent so long comparing his skills to novices that he’d forgotten that he was only above them by a few steps. If Moondog wasn’t on par with Luna, she was close. And he’d tried ordering her around, binding her to his will. It didn’t matter that he’d failed miserably. He’d drawn her attention to him on purpose and practically spat in her face. Merely physically imprisoning him was the peak of mercy.
And of cruelty. He needed to run. He needed to hide. But you couldn’t hide from your own mind and Moondog was always lurking on the other side of awareness. Just like he’d wanted to do. Funny how things could look when you flipped them around.
Lucidity began slipping away. He didn’t bother holding onto it; it’d only leave him alone with his thoughts, running amok and mutating and growing more terrifying in their implications by the second. Even the night terrors that would come for him would be a mercy compared to this. Slouching over the table, shaking, he let his consciousness fray as his fears overtook him.
And yet, for some strange reason, the Eschaton had no nightmares. In fact, it was the most peaceful night’s sleep he’d had in ages.
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"How To Traumatise Someone With A Good Night's Rest"
-By Moondog
Poor bastard never stood a chance. I'd say Moondog beat him at his own game, but he was never even a player.
Let it be known there is literally no place Derpy Delivery Service cannot reach.
10647702
yea, this was a case study in "delusions of gradure" on a macro scale.
Daaaaaang, that is such an amazing power-gloat. I love it!
Each and every chapter of this is an inspiration to read. Thank you.
10641033
I like that idea.
The Eschaton never had any cahnce at all and he payed the price for his hubris. Moondog wasn't even all that subtle at moments and he never caught on.
And another chapter makes me wish I could upvote a fic more than once.
64.media.tumblr.com/380f7eeed0843efa9315b7b967d1b0c0/bf1e7f67b6a70f7d-10/s640x960/7136d443cc3644a76bebd4e8447759787c03def2.png
10647702
r u kidding me? the game was rigged at the start...
10638676
What chapter did that happen in again?
Just wanted to let you know you seem to be missing a couple words here.
That aside, this was another excellent chapter of one of this site's best fics!
Hmm this one could evolve into something VERY VERY much traumatic for Moondog, as the only way to escape the situation is to stop existing...
Astral is best minion.
This was hilarious.
And this was awesomely scary. Amazing.
Let it not be said that Moondog is unmerciful.
Probably not only caused some immeasurable amount of nightmare production with that speech, but then made sure they got stomped out with nary a quiver on Eschaton's end.
Also, you coined A Phrase there, Rambling Writer. Etymologic cookie for you!
The most terrible fear is knowing something can happen without a doubt, but then being forced forever waiting for it to happen regardless. He now has a perfect knowledge of how hubris, and the understanding that it is only by Moondog's grace he yet lives... Which is perhaps even more terrible.
Astral gets top marks for her assistance!
I am Astral in this scene
I like you're style
Yeah you do
That last one really pissed off everyone in that room
Oh I like that one
10647822
Right, it's an awsome line
Said it before and I'll say it again, utter disgrace to the name.
Excellent chapter! It was wonderful seeing Eschaton being defeated—without him even taking his plans into the real world! The scene where it took him at least two paragraphs to realize that Luna was right next to him in his room was gold.
I also liked how Moondog made it clear that he is not a match for her and Luna...but still made sure he wasn't traumatized with nightmares.
Sweet lord. I'm pretty sure there is never anything I don't like about Moondog. Everything she pulled was perfect, down to the last thought.
And I'm gonna join a bunch of others and say that this:
is probably one of the best things I've ever heard. GREAT show!
Wow as moondog said he is just as deluded as his equestria girls clone
Damn, that was amazing! The setup was perfect, the grand reveal perfectly timed, and then when it all fell apart for the baddie...
But as everyone else has said, the high point was when Moondog underlined the sheer gap between her and him. As far as lines representing such a gap, I don't think anything is ever going to top
"The stars in your heavens are the sands beneath my hooves."
Definitely keeping track of that line.
10648194
Agreed
10647700
Yep.
10648090
Also agreed.
This is the sort of line that epics are built around.
And that is my favorite line. Bravo.
Well that was a fun arc.
I look forward to what u come up with next. Like perhaps Starswirl wanting to conduct experiments on the Tree and Moondog?
With the last couple of chapters names I was expecting a certain song to be used as a meme.
Given astra effectively handed herself in and moondog was looking for helpers, as she has a unique skill set and has redeeming features it would make sense to give her “community service” as part punishment for her involvement
Well, Eschy. On thine own petard, beest thou hoist.
Brilliant work. The royal sisters may not have the best combat track record in recent years, but they are creators at heart, not destroyers. Better yet, they are creators who can make things greater than themselves. Celestia has Twilight. Luna has Moondog. Do not fear the craftsmare's hammer. Fear what she will make with it.
Holy sh*t I just realised that the name for this story shortens to https! And it was after I remembered Tantabus Communication Protocols was TCP! And Aunthood issues is AI! How did I miss all of those except TCP?
10650626
Good question. I also never noticed that.
Silly thought. If moondog had wanted to, and was allowed to, couldn't she count as a cosmic horror?
10655456
Not really. It lacks several of the criteria to be one.
Like everyone said, that quote was awesome and frightening at the same time.
The Eschaton never stood a chance against Moondog and was being played by her the whole. He should've listened to Astral, but his hubris blinded him from the truth.
Wow, at first I was thinking if it'd be too easy for Moondog to beat Eschaton, therefore making it a boring story. Yes, it's indeed easy, but the story is nothing short of wonderful, and in-depth. I'm impressed.
As the series keeps going, it becomes more and more challenging for the author, for there are fewer and fewer challenges that match Moondog's capabilities. And once Moondog becomes an over-powerful character, the story becomes intolerable. So far, so good, though. Maybe just consider it an over-reacting warning.
Yup, that was bad--- (Hey!), for real though, I'm loving the story.
Thats an absolutely perfect ending.
Honestly, this makes me want a redemption arc for him, where he realizes how screwed up the things he wanted were. Maybe let him join the Dream Guard when it becomes a thing, so he can ACTUALLY learn dream magic and use it for good rather than evil