Dreamwalker Dash

by Fluttercheer

Chapter 9: A Symphony of Threat and Terror

.

As Rainbow Dash stepped onto the grounds of the friendship school at night, the air was permeated by the presence of something that was ominous. The towering building loomed in front of her, blacker than the nightsky, the dark windows indistinguishable from the rest of the structure. Rainbow Dash sucked in air through her closed, gritted teeth as she ventured forth.

Patches of fog wavered over the inner courtyard. Howling preceded a stiff, cold breeze that blew over Rainbow Dash's body and flung her mane and tail violently to the side. Rainbow Dash shivered and it wasn't from the drop in temperature. The tiny light of a candle she was carrying with one wing was protected from the wind by a tightly shut door at the front side of the lantern that contained it. Rainbow Dash braced herself and took the path to the left.

The inside of the dorm building was pitchblack. Holding the lantern in a tight grip, Rainbow Dash moved from door to door and checked if they were closed and locked. Under a few of them, a thin line of yellow light shone out into the corridor. Startled noises and whimpering could be heard behind those doors when Rainbow Dash pulled at the handle.

As she was finished with her task and had found all of the doors locked, Rainbow Dash took up position in the middle of one of the corridors and focused on her surroundings. She stood completely still and listened into the silence. As a dull sound of something falling occurred, her head yanked around. A complaint and some bickering followed, emerging from one of the students' rooms.

“So you aren't here.” Rainbow Dash breathed a sigh of relief. At least the students who stayed at the school during the semester were safe. She left the dorms and locked the building again.

The courtyard looked the same as before. But the serenity of the moonlit place in the middle of the school grounds felt treacherous to Rainbow Dash. The moon's light did not reach into all its corners, so she decided to still check in the few remaining shadows. Behind a tree, she was sure of having found a trace of what she was searching for. But upon taking a closer look, the tiny, black shreds between the blades of grass were nothing but crumbs of a piece of chocolate, that a student who sought silence and solitude must have eaten there. Rainbow Dash picked up the crumbs and dropped them into one of the trash cans that were spread out over the courtyard.

A sharp howling let her blood freeze and caused her to turn around swiftly. “Hello?” It wasn't the wind this time. She couldn't tell where the howling had come from, but it had been very loud, so it happened close by. Rainbow Dash looked over the entire courtyard, but saw nothing. If her prey would leave one of the few spots of shadow, she would notice it immediately thanks to the moon's bright light. But in this moment, just when Rainbow Dash felt secure and advantageous, a stray cloud in the sky became a traitor and blocked the moon. Rainbow Dash let out an intense curse. And as if something was taking the advantage for itself, she heard a sound a second later.

Thin and pointy, it was clicking somewhere in the courtyard. Like the tip of a pencil had been tapped onto a hard surface. Silence followed, but it wasn't for long until the sound happened again. Closer, but still not traceable. As it happened a third time, it seemed to be farther away again. Something was playing a game with her.

“Who is there?” Rainbow Dash shouted into the darkness, even though she knew the answer. The thing responded with another clicking. This time it sounded like it was right next to her and Rainbow Dash jumped. Her instincts told her to fly for the tree she had just examined, but her body was stiff. Frozen from fear.
Click. Click. Click.

Each occurrence of the eerie sound was followed up with a few seconds of silence, but these pauses became shorter and shorter now. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Soon, the sounds came from all corners of the courtyard, combining themselves into a symphony of threat and terror. A symphony played by an orchestra of sharp claws. Rainbow Dash would never admit this but, in this moment, she felt like wetting herself.

Then the sounds were suddenly over. The orchestra had stopped playing and the courtyard lay in serene silence like before. The stray cloud moved away and gave free the light of the moon. Rainbow Dash's agitated and tormented nerves calmed down. She needed a few minutes until she could move her limbs, then another few minutes before she gathered the courage to trot across the courtyard. Shivering at the prospect of what awaited her, she entered the empty school building.

The door fell into its lock behind her and the echo that reverberated through the corridors made her twitch. The bang had been loud enough that the thing must have heard it. All of her senses were on high alert. She expected to hear something clicking, but the corridors stayed quiet. Gulping, she moved onwards, beginning her search in this all-encompassing darkness.

The orange glow from the candle inside the lantern only created a small circle of light around her. Merely a second passed between the lantern lighting up the immediate spot in front of her and her hoof stepping on it. Not enough time to react to a sudden attack once she saw claws trailing through the air or the feet of the monster she hunted right now appearing in her vision. If it was close to her, it had all it needed for a successful, preemptive strike.

The darkness worked against her in finding her way through the school corridors. A long trot through the agonizing silence that the near solitude in the building created strained the teacher's nerves. Rainbow Dash felt like she was about to burst. “Why is Twilight thinking that I'm the most qualified to hunt down this freakish monster? Why can't the Pillars or Luna do it instead? They have all the strength and powerful magic for this. I'm just a pegasus.” In her fear, Rainbow Dash had forgotten her high self-esteem and confidence. And worse than that, for the first time in her life, she didn't care about it.

After wandering through the darkness like a lost soul in search of a better place, Rainbow Dash finally braced herself and entered one of the classrooms. The silence inside was suffocating. While she at least could have heard the wind from outside when she was in the corridor, now even that was gone. The silence wrapped itself around her head like cotton, drowning out all her senses. Only her fear remained and pounded ever stronger in her chest.

The floor was littered with books. The evacuation of the school had to happen fast, that's what they were telling her. Carefully, Rainbow Dash set her hoof down between the books. She distracted herself by pondering how Twilight would react if she damaged even just one book while making her way through the room and a smile flitted across her face.

Between the desks, the floor was free. Dash increased her tempo as she moved past them to the back end of the classroom. “Getting this over and done with as fast as possible,” she uttered into the black void around her. No one was there to hear her, except for the wooden desks whose shapes menacingly towered around her in the faint light of her lantern, but it made her better to speak her thoughts out loud. “I shouldn't be here.”

Rainbow Dash took a turn after she passed the last row of desks. She gave the remainder of the room a quick check, then hurried back to the front through the other small corridor that was formed by the desks. This classroom was clean and having determined that, she left it quickly. As she closed the door behind her, the thought of locking it crossed her mind. Locking all the rooms she checked would give the monster less space to hide in. Unfortunately, none of the doors inside the school building had any locks. Rainbow Dash sighed as she proceeded.

The second classroom offered the same impression as the first one. A deafening silence and books strewn about. Twilight and Chancellor Neighsay had done their best efforts, but the panic during the evacuation was more than evident. Yona's detailed tales about the skinwalker had kept the entire student body in a tight grip. The only difference to the first classroom was that some of the desks here were tilted and broke the pattern. Rainbow Dash could not tell whether panicking students had moved them when they left or if the monster she was hunting had caused the disorganization. Neither did it matter to her, the room was empty like the first one, she had to close it and move on.

None of the other classrooms were much different. Rainbow Dash wasn't sure if she felt relief or dismay over the fact that she couldn't find the monster in any of them. Her fear, the silence and the darkness became combined into a blur as she went on and checked one classroom after the other. The dull, monotonous feeling only lessened again as she opened the door to the headmare's office, the last room on this side of the building.

It was brighter than the others, as the moon shone into it through the large window behind Twilight's desk. With one glance, Rainbow Dash could tell that no one was here. Only the other side of the desk was escaping her view, but a quick look behind it confirmed that no one was there, either. Rainbow Dash took in a deep breath as she left the office again with a pounding heart, the search getting to her. She turned around and plucked the key ring off her back. Twilight's office stored files with sensitive information and even some of the school's financial assets, so it had a lock, at least one place that she definitely wouldn't have to check twice.
The other side of the first floor consisted almost solely of one large room: The cafeteria. Attached to it was the kitchen, equipped with enough capacities to prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner for more than fifty students, at least half of which stayed in the dorms during the ongoing school year, and as such not much smaller than the cafeteria. The only other rooms were a small lounge for the kitchen staff and a corresponding set of toilets. Rainbow Dash chose the hardest of these options as the first one.

Already as she did the first step into the cafeteria, Rainbow Dash could feel that something wasn't right. She could not see nor hear any abnormalities, but there was a palpable feeling of wrongness in the air. She wasn't alone anymore, that was something Rainbow Dash could feel as much as she could feel that the temperature was suddenly lower than normal. Her lantern trembled as she began to shiver with cold. But she forced herself to go on, the task that had been assigned to her was too important to run and flee, so she stepped inside fully. This one step brought a sense of oblation over Rainbow Dash, like she had just sacrificed herself for the greater good of the friendship school and its students. There was no doubt, what was in here was able to kill her.

The fiend she was hunting did not show itself immediately. Her eyes tried to pierce the darkness as she cautiously set one hoof in front of the other, which proved to be useless, but it also wasn't necessary to confirm what was here. The school had been evacuated and the dorms were under lockdown, so there was only one possible candidate for the presence she could feel in the massive cafeteria.

“Black. Long and scrawny legs. A head like a wolf, but without ears. Small, yellow eyes. No tail. A mouth full of sharp teeth. And a skin like a reptile,” Rainbow Dash recalled the description she had been given.

After a few minutes that were uneventful, a circumstance that only strained Rainbow Dash's nerves even more, she stepped on something and yelped in pain. The sharp intrusion she could feel in her hoof overpowered her fear and made her sit down instinctively. As she shone her lantern at the spot, she could see small, black objects of a longish shape sticking in the floor. Another one of the strange objects was sticking in her left forehoof. Blood was welling out at its sides and as she grabbed it and pulled at it, a small fountain of blood squirted from the small slash wound it left behind.

Rainbow Dash stared at it, horrified over the blood that kept leaking. If this made her slower..... She didn't get around to finish the thought. Suddenly, something heavy tackled into her back and she fell over. A screech that came from a throat of demonic property tormented her ear drums, like the sound alone was made of sharp claws that sought to incapacitate her. Rainbow Dash was being pressed onto the floor by a body that felt scrawny, but seemed to possess the strength of three stallions. An arctic-cold breath touched her neck and Rainbow Dash's heart constricted. She had stepped into a trap.

Rainbow Dash struggled and tried to kick her hindlegs to free herself, but the monster held her entire body in a tight grip and kept her pressed down on the floor so much that it was painful. Rainbow Dash stopped struggling and exhaled sharply. She could not fold out her wings, either, something that might have helped her by giving the skinwalker a surprise slap with her left wing to hopefully distract it enough that its grip becomes less tight. Her right wing was still holding the lantern.

Above her, sharp teeth came closer to her face. Rainbow Dash opened her eyes and moved her head slightly to look in front of her, the only movement she could make. The cold breath of the monster chilling her face, she focused on the situation and let her thoughts race to find a solution.

She could not throw the monster off of her, it was too heavy for that. Her legs were locked in place by the otherworldly thing, even her forelegs squeezed between her chest and the floor. They began to feel numb now. Her left wing was folded in and the weight on top of her made it impossible to expand it. Her right wing was holding the lantern. She was able to move it, but she couldn't risk that the light of the candle went out. Losing the lantern would mean that she was doomed, even if she would manage to throw the monster off of her and run away. This thing could see much better in the dark than she would ever be able to, without a light, it would catch her unprepared at the next opportunity. There was only one thing left she could do. A sacrifice, but in this situation, she could afford making it.

Rainbow Dash moved her head again, as she felt the teeth of the monster almost touching the skin of her cheek. She turned it to the right and away from the monster, then lifted it as high as she could and tilted it to the left again, until her ear was near the jaws of the monster. Rainbow Dash noticed that it stopped for a moment, taken aback by the unexpected movement or maybe pondering if it should accept the “gift”.

Rainbow Dash knew the decision was made when she felt the excruciating pain of the monster digging its teeth into her left ear and starting to feast on it. Rainbow Dash clenched her mouth and eyes shut, waiting until the moment when she would become used to the pain. Losing one ear was easier to deal with than a hole in her cheek. Warm blood trickled down the remains of her ear and at the side of her head, providing some relief from the cold breath of the monster. And now it had stepped into her trap.

Rainbow Dash tensed the muscles in her forelegs and stemmed against the monster's body as soon as she felt its grip becoming looser. In the same moment, she kicked the monster's abdomen with one of her hindlegs and thrust her left ear deeply into the mouth of the skinwalker. With a painful tug, she felt the rest of her ear getting torn off as the teeth of her captor clenched down by instinct. Rainbow Dash couldn't see it, but she could imagine how a torrent of blood was gushing down the monster's throat right now. With a bit of luck, too much blood at once.....

The monster started coughing and the grip of it became even weaker. Luck was on her side. Rainbow Dash stemmed herself up once more and added another kick. Grabbing her opponent's face with her right hoof, she shoved the skinwalker off her head and finally regained full control of her body. What remained of her left ear was burning and felt hot, but Rainbow Dash ignored the pain and pressed on. Teeth clenched, she grabbed the lantern tighter and galloped for her life, towards the exit of the cafeteria. The coughing continued behind her, she was safe, for the time being. Rainbow Dash burst through the door and fled down the corridor. As her eyes caught a glimpse of the stairs that led to the second floor right next to her, she took a sharp turn to the right, bumped into the banister and continued her way up, fueled by the desire to get away from the monster as fast as she could and by imaginary teeth that were reaching for her flank.

Arrived on the second floor, Rainbow Dash forced herself to slow down. She turned around and gazed down the stairs into the impenetrable darkness that spread out below her. Her attentive ears could not hear any clicking on the wooden stairs. The silence gave her relief. The monster didn't know where she was now, it was impossible it could tell the direction she had chosen with its coughing fit. But it would search for her as soon as it had recovered. And, despite that it had no visible ears, it could hear. She had to go unnoticed, at least, until her injury was taken care of and she had calmed down.

Rainbow Dash peered up at her left ear, unable to see it, but able to detect it by its throbbing pain. She needed a mirror and some bandages. Fast. Rainbow Dash gulped, increased the grip around her lantern and ventured forth into the darkness of the second floor that surrounded her on all sides.

The infirmary was at the very end of the corridor. On the way there, Rainbow Dash had listened sharply and twitched at every single, minor sound. Now she was sitting on a table, door closed and locked and additionally barricaded with crates of unpacked medical utensils. The bleeding of her ear had nearly stopped, after her shaking hooves clad it into pressure bandages. Rainbow Dash was still shivering from head to hooves. The circulating thoughts in her head told her that she had to go out there again soon, but she hesitated. She had fought against changelings in the past, but this skinwalker monstrosity was something else. Changelings never tried to consume your flesh.....

Rainbow Dash shook the thought away, emitting a whimper as her ear started to throb again, and got down from the table. It couldn't be long anymore. This had to be over soon. She had seen and confronted the monster once already, so this entire task couldn't take too long anymore.

Pushing herself into action, Rainbow Dash removed the crates from the door and braced herself. The monster was not out there, during the entire time of nursing her wound, she hadn't heard a single, clicking step in front of the infirmary's door. She was still safe, for now, and the fact the monster hadn't been here meant it still didn't know where she was now, that it was still searching for her. It gave her an advantage, if she could find the monster first and surprise it..... Rainbow Dash closed her eyes, took a deep breath and unlocked the door.

The classrooms on the second floor delivered no results. She had been through a couple of them, all of them showing the same chaos, but all of them also empty. If the monster even was up here on the second floor, maybe it was hiding itself now, the thought crossed Rainbow Dash. If that was the case, the skinwalker would be easy prey from here on out. But was her pitiful escape really enough to leave an impression like that? The thought soothed her, but she doubted it.

Rainbow Dash was still pondering this question while entering the next classroom, as she heard something stir at the back of it. Quickly, her head yanked into the direction the sound had come from, even though she couldn't see anything. Something had moved and then suddenly froze as she entered. She heard breathing, clear and distinctive in the otherwise complete silence around her.

“W-Who's there?” Rainbow Dash asked, loudly. “Show yourself, you coward, and come to finish what you started!” The yelling made her feel brave, but Rainbow Dash didn't know if it would be enough to calm her nerves in the long run.

Something scraped over the floor. A desk moved a few inches forward, as the creature that hid in the darkness bumped into it. In her mind, Rainbow Dash saw the skinwalker suddenly cowering in fear behind that desk. A mental picture that was completely baseless, she had given the monster nothing to be afraid of her, but it gave Rainbow Dash more confidence.

“Come out right now or I'm pulling you out of there!” Rainbow Dash shouted. Anger was vibrating in her voice now, as her lost ear entered her mind again. She could hear the monster shiver in the darkness. Where the fear of the skinwalker suddenly came from was something she had no clue about, but Rainbow Dash was eager to use it to her full advantage. “OUT OF THERE NOW OR I'M GETTING YOU!” she screamed.

The monster jumped, knocking the desk over. It stood still for a few seconds, before it hesitantly scurried to the front. The face Rainbow Dash stared into as her candle lit it up was not the face of a skinwalker, though.

“Yona not needing to be pulled out. Not be mad at Yona, Professor Dash. Please no more screaming a Yona.” The entire body of the yak was shaking as she stepped towards her teacher in a slow tempo.

“Yona?!” Rainbow Dash brought a hoof on her face and slowly let it glide down over her mouth, groaning and eyes wide from disbelief. “What are you doing here?! Didn't the headmare give you clear instructions to stay inside the dorms? And how did you even get out?”

“Please not be mad at Yona,” the yak student repeated again. She ducked her head. “Yona lockpicked. Yaks good at lockpicking with their horns. Please, not be mad.”

Rainbow Dash's eyes became furious. “You gotta be..... Do you even have any idea how dangerous it is here in the school right now?!”

“Yona knows, skinwalker old yak legend. But Yona needed book from classroom. Yona forgot, not able to do her homework without it.” She gave Rainbow Dash an apologetic, sheepish smile.

“All of that for a book?! Do you think Twilight..... the headmare, cares more about some freaking book than the lives of her students? What were you thinking to make such a DUMB thing?!”

Yona twitched at the short raise of her teacher's voice. She didn't say more and stared at Rainbow Dash, frozen in place. Faint tears were in the corner of her eyes.

Rainbow Dash kept her strict expression for a few more seconds, before she sighed and shook her head. “That was a really dumb thing to do,” she repeated, calmer now. “This thing could have sliced you to pieces..... Just look at my ear!”

Yona perked up again, not from joy, though. In the dim light of the candle, her eyes fell onto the bloody bandages that were wrapped around what remained of Rainbow Dash's left ear. Her mouth opened wide as she gasped in shock. “Yona didn't know!” she shouted. “Yona sorry, should have fought skinwalker herself! Yona knows monster better than Professor Dash!” A genuine, sad look of regret built on Yona's face. “Professor Dash should be hiding and Yona take out skinwalker..... Maybe even Yona's fault why it's here.....”

Rainbow Dash sighed again. “No..... It's my task. You go back to the dorms, I'll bring you there. Do you have your book now?” The teacher rolled her eyes.

“Yona has.” The yak nodded.

“Fine. Then follow me.” Rainbow Dash turned around and motioned for the exit of the classroom. Yona trotted closely behind her, head still ducked and eyes locked onto Rainbow Dash as she closed the distance between them.

“And no lockpicking this time once you are back, the school isn't a–” Rainbow Dash started a new sentence as she stepped out onto the corridor, but couldn't finish it. The yak behind her rammed into her with the full force of her heavy, massive body, pushing her further out into the corridor. Rainbow Dash got knocked to the floor by the weight and one horn of the yak barely missed her face. She turned onto her back and tried to get up, but found herself immediately pinned down. Horrified, she watched as Yona's eyes, her mouth, her ears and even her nostrils emitted a cold, blue glow. It spread out and engulfed her entire body and as the glow had vanished, the black body of the skinwalker towered above her.

Rainbow Dash didn't waste time and gave the monster a hit into the face. It emitted a low howl as its head got yanked to the side, but there wasn't any effect beside this, the grip of the skinwalker did not become weaker. But Rainbow Dash's position worked in her favor this time. Driven by fury and by fear, she let her forehooves come down on the face of the monster over and over again, while holding the lantern in a tight grip with her wing. The skinwalker was still physically stronger than her, but Rainbow Dash's fear gave her unknown strength.

As she finally felt the grip loosening, Rainbow Dash immediately seized the advantage and knocked her opponent off of her. She grabbed the beast while it was paralyzed for a moment and dragged it towards one of the windows. “How about I give you some flying lessons?” she mocked her prey. “Let's see what you can still bite off if you land face forward on the courtyard.” Before she could push the skinwalker through the window, though, the monster regained some control. It threw its head back, hitting Rainbow Dash's injured ear. Rainbow Dash shrieked from pain and surprise and stumbled back.

While she still recovered from the pain, the skinwalker lunged at her and its fangs bit deep into her left shoulder. It immediately distracted Rainbow Dash from the throbbing pain in her ear. She felt trails of blood run down her foreleg. Rainbow Dash lashed out with her left forehoof and grabbed the monster at its throat. Her other forehoof pressed against the monster's face, she tried to force it to release the bite. When it didn't budge, Rainbow Dash started to punch the eyes of the skinwalker.

The fangs released her shoulder after three punches. Now putting both her forehooves at its throat, Rainbow Dash pushed the monster, that was now writhing in pain, away from her. As she had enough space for greater maneuvers, Rainbow Dash got up on her hindlegs. She kept holding the monster in a tight grip at its throat, jumped and slammed her back hooves into its stomach. Her lantern fell down and shattered on the floor. The light around her grew dimmer, but she could still see the monster. The attack caused it to smash against the window. Cracks appeared in the glass, but it didn't shatter. With a last concentration of her muscle strength, Rainbow Dash slammed into the monster. The window gave way. For a short moment, Rainbow Dash could see the skinwalker floating in the moonlight above the courtyard, then gravity pulled it down and she heard an impact a few seconds later.

Rainbow Dash swayed. Panting, she sat down next to her broken lantern to rest. The candle's light was still glowing weakly. Before it could go out, Rainbow Dash picked it up. Holding it protectively in her hooves, Rainbow Dash waited to regain her breath and for the pain in her body to lessen enough that she could move again. She looked over to the window. Her eyes focusing on the moon in the nightsky, she listened for sounds from below.....

The skinwalker's body lay where it was supposed to be. Aided by the moonlight and the tiny light of the candle that was left, Rainbow Dash looked upon the mangled body. One of its legs had been broken and completely turned around by the fall and a pool of blood had collected under its body. Rainbow Dash sighed in relief before she turned around and looked up to the moon.

“It's over,” she said. “I won.”

In response to her proclamation of victory, the moon flickered. A black silhouette appeared on it. It became bigger as it flew closer. At the same time, the entrance of the dorms opened and Hyper Sonic set hoof onto the courtyard. She came steadily and in a brisk tempo towards Rainbow Dash.

“Hey!” the young pegasus filly greeted her. “You really got it, didn't you?” Admiration filled her voice.

“Of course I did!” Rainbow Dash crossed her hooves. “Nothing but an easy task for me.”

“An easy task, huh?” Hyper Sonic teased her, playfully. She looked up at Rainbow Dash's injured and still bandaged ear and smirked. But the expression left her face soon and was replaced with concern. Some guilt shone from her eyes.

The bandages around Rainbow Dash's ear bulged. They ripped and fell off, revealing a complete and unscathed ear. Rainbow Dash grabbed the bloody bandages from the side of her face and tossed them casually onto the ground, where they disappeared a second later. As Hyper Sonic directed her eyes onto Rainbow Dash's shoulder, the bite marks that were left there by the skinwalker disappeared, as well. The wounds healed instantly and new skin and hair grew over them. The blood vanished from her coat and it returned to its pristine condition.

Finally, Hyper Sonic looked into Rainbow Dash's eyes, now wearing an apologetic and relieved smile. “The skinwalker went a little far.....” she commented on the injuries Rainbow Dash had sustained. ”Do you feel alright?”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and came closer. “D'uh! I'm Rainbow Dash, I lived through harder injuries without even flinching!” She reached out and ruffled through her young trainer's mane. The mare could still feel an afterglow of the pain, but she hid it expertly.

Hyper Sonic lowered her head slightly and laughed. Everything was okay, as far as she could observe. Giving her creation, the skinwalker, so much free will had been a risk, but everything had turned out fine in the end.

As Hyper Sonic looked up again, Luna was landing next to her and Rainbow Dash. “Congratulations, Rainbow Dash,” the night princess spoke. “This was your biggest challenge yet and you passed with flying colors.” Her lips curled up as she looked into Rainbow Dash's face. “Even though you barely used your wings for this test. Which made it all the more impressive. I am glad you decided to continue your training.”

“Yeah, very funny,” Rainbow Dash ignored the joke, her voice becoming more unsteady now. “That thing could have killed me, though. You saw what it did to my ear!”

“Oh, no,” Hyper Sonic objected. “I wasn't making the skinwalker that strong. I only gave it as much strength that an adult pegasus has a good chance of defeating it. And I was watching it the entire time, if it would have gotten anywhere close to killing you, I would have made it vanish instantly.” She gave Rainbow Dash a look of confidence and reassurance.

“Alright, kiddo,” Rainbow Dash responded. “Not like I would expect you would try to kill me. But still. The eart part wasn't funny.” She looked over at Luna and her voice rose with concern. “You said that injuries in a dream physically affect the body. So, what is this going to do to my ear?”

Luna smiled at the anxious pegasus mare. “Not much, do not worry, Rainbow Dash. Your brain told your ear that it's gone, but it takes a while for the flesh to necrotize. In the worst case, if a dream injury like this lasts for a few hours, the affected body part only starts to decay and some pieces that are already necrotized have to be scrapped off by a doctor to save the rest of it. But they usually grow back with time.”

Rainbow Dash turned white under her coat. She looked for any traces of a joke in Luna's face, but there weren't any. “S-Seriously?”

“Yes, Rainbow Dash. But there is no concern in your case. During this dream scenario, barely an hour passed in the waking world, and this was not enough time for your ear to start its decay. It will be perfect and healthy once you wake up, just like you know it. For your shoulder.....” Luna cast down her eyes and looked at it, guessing Rainbow Dash's next question. “It will hurt slightly for a little while longer and there might be tiny, internal bleedings, but nothing that would require treatment.” She looked back into her face. “You will be perfectly okay, Rainbow Dash. Remember, all of these dreams are just training scenarios. Neither I nor Hyper Sonic will ever seriously endanger you. It is important that you are prepared for the dangers of real nightmares, however, so we cannot be too gentle with you, either.” Next to Luna, Hyper Sonic nodded with a stern face.

“Okay, then.....” Rainbow Dash answered the explanation. “But I hope the next training session won't be as crazy as that one.” She gave Hyper Sonic a smirk. “You got wild ideas, kiddo.”

Feeling that the tension was gone, now that Luna had confirmed that Rainbow Dash would be fine, a determined and proud expression appeared on Hyper Sonic's face. She narrowed her eyes at the older pegasus and stuck out her tongue.

“We will see,” Luna commented enigmatically on Rainbow Dash's request. “I do not know what our young lucid dreamer has in store for you and neither have I made own plans for the next training scenario. For now, though, it is time to rest. The night is far from over, but the training today was especially exhausting for you, Rainbow Dash. You will need a much longer, peaceful sleep tonight.”

Hyper Sonic turned at Luna and frowned.

“I'm still okay,” Rainbow Dash told the princess. “I feel good enough for another scenario tonight!”

Luna closed her eyes and shook her head in a slow tempo. Her cheerful demeanor from a few minutes ago had changed. “No, Rainbow Dash. It is important not to strain the mind of a new dreamwalker too much. You are only a pegasus. You need rest.”

Rainbow Dash and Hyper Sonic gave each other puzzled looks.

“We will see each other again in the next night,” Luna continued. “Until then, sleep well and rest up. This night was a special challenge and you need to recover, Rainbow Dash.” Having said these words, Luna took off and flew upwards. She wrapped her wings around her body and disappeared in a bright flash of light. A second later, Rainbow Dash disappeared. For a split-second, she could see Hyper Sonic waving at her, then she woke up in her own bed.

Rainbow Dash sat up and rubbed over her head. It was like Luna said, she indeed felt a little pain in her left shoulder. But not enough that she would be concerned about it. Her ear was hurting a little bit, as well, but a quick check with her hoof confirmed that everything was okay with it.

Rainbow Dash lay down again and turned to the other side of her bed. She was not feeling exhausted yet, nor more tired than it was to expect during the night, yet Luna had ended this training session earlier than it would have been necessary with the time that was left. The alarm clock on her nightstand showed that it was just a little past midnight. To her own surprise, it dawned on Rainbow Dash that she would have liked to continue and do more in this night.

“Maybe there really is something about all this dreamwalker business.....” was her last thought before she fell asleep again.

Comments

[Anon E Moose]

Well, that was a suitably terrifying scenario

[Bronycommander]

Nicely done! Worth the wait! I imagine Rainbow's pretty resistant to pain

[THERDSTORYWHISPERER]

Great chapter!

[Fluttercheer]

10639375

I truly hope you are right. For some reason I always struggle with writing horror, even though I have a huge passion for it, but this chapter feels like I finally did something right in that genre.
Thank you for reading!

[Fluttercheer]

10639429

Trust me, I have thought about switching the rating to T for a few times now. Not because of what happened so far, but because of what is going to happen in the story. But I will not change the rating until a certain point is reached.

I tend to be pretty generous with the "Everyone" rating. Age ratings like these exist to protect children from "things they shouldn't see" (even though children will ignore ratings and read/watch such material anyway if they want to), but what children shouldn't see is an arbitrary measurement created by adults and so I often don't agree with age ratings. I push the "Everyone" rating as far as I can because I want to entrust children with more things and because I don't want to pamper children, as I know that the average child can handle so much more than what most adults give children credit for.
Age atings solely exist because adults like to belittle children and because they do not understand what children can take. This is a system that generalizes children and makes assumptions about them and that never reflects what children are mentally capable of.
I argue that belittling children and not letting them freely choose what they wish to read and watch is more unhealthy for the mind of a child, than if a child reads about an adult subject matter and processes what they saw. Because assuming that seeing such things will scar childrens' minds or that it will traumatize them makes children mentally weaker and prevents them from unfolding their full potential, by being kept away from the things they need to see in order to mentally grow and to become mentally stronger.
Age ratings are a system that artificially, based on the assumptions and fears of adults/parents, limits the potential of children and keeps them weak. It's a system that is designed to keep children weak and I am not in support of it.

I currently struggle with deciding when the right moment has come to switch "Dreamwalker Dash" to a T rating. I intend to write this story far darker than all of my previous writing has been, but at the same time I am not sure yet if the description of any event that will happen in this story will be intense and detailed enough to draw a line and increase the rating.
Another reason is that "Dreamwalker Dash" is a multi-chapter story. Ratings across chapters differ strongly and a single rating on top of the story can't properly reflect the nuances of maturity or darkness in a long story with multiple chapters. In a story like this, the assigned rating should be a summary of the story's individual chapter ratings.
I have the overall plot in my head and set in stone, but there are some decisions that aren't made yet. There is one event where I might draw a line and bite into the bitter apple of an increased rating, but I will only be able to see this clearer once I get closer to this point of the story and have made up my mind about how far the event will go. Until then, I'll leave the rating at "Everyone".

[Fluttercheer]

10639444

She is. As a Wonderbolt and an athlete who keeps herself to strict training and who likes to push herself, Rainbow Dash definitely has a higher pain tolerance than most ponies have.
Thank you for reading!

[Fluttercheer]

10639685

Thank you!

[Bronycommander]

10640016
You're welcome! Keep up the good work!

[Fluttercheer]

10639999

It was worth the wait

I can't put into words how important this part of your comment is to me. "Dreamwalker Dash" has been absent for a long time again, when I did not expect this would happen, but saying that the new chapter was worth the wait shows me that you didn't mind the long wait and that you will still support the story.
Thank you for saying this, that's what I need to keep my confidence about this story and to soothe my fears about its reception after the long waiting periods for updates its readers had to go through. Thank you.
.

I was scared because there was no sign of life in this fic

I was scared myself about the future of "Dreamwalker Dash", as I first suffered from persistent writer's block, then a fail with another project and then other (successful) projects covered up the story and kept me so busy that I nearly forgot about it for a couple months, all while I didn't know if the writer's block would persist if I attempted to keep writing it. After getting some other writing projects out of the way that were planned for last year, I am now finally able to continue.
I don't anticipate any further delays with this story, but if you want to make sure to stay informed about its progress and development, you should have the story in a bookshelf and check the option "View Tagged Blogs" in the bookshelf's settings. During the hiatus, I kept informing about the story 's condition in tagged blog entries.
.

I'm glad to see another chapter, and I liked this challenge and I want to see what else awaits Rainbow Dash.

A lot awaits Rainbow Dash. And a lot also awaits Hyper Sonic, perhaps even more than what awaits Rainbow Dash. You will see everything of it. Updates are planned to happen weekly again from now on.

Thank you for reading!

[THERDSTORYWHISPERER]

10640017
You’re welcome!

[Fluttercheer]

10640061

Thank you! And since you like Luna and Rainbow Dash being together in a story, you might also want to read this story of mine, one that is rather hidden:

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/226500/3/napowrimo-2014-a-compilation-of-pony-tales/day-3-haunting-for-two-part-1

It's a much older piece of writing, so the grammar and other technical aspects of it aren't on the same level as my writing of today. But in terms of ideas, style and suspense, it's still one of the best stories I have written.