Resuming Duties, Night 1

by auctor

3. Battling

As the beam faded, Vaermina’s pony form looked somewhat stunned, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

The six mortal ponies floated slowly back to the ground. The young purple unicorn with the tiara was slack‐jawed, “It didn’t work?”

The Princess of the Night explained, “All Equestria’s magic couldst not slay her ilk, yet the Elements have exacted her faculty a‐weaving ponies’ dreams.” The princess’s horn lit up, “We shall descry what rift she gainèd entrée wherethrough we may banish her.”

Vaermina stood up, shaking away the daze from the rainbow blast. The dream overworld shifted around all the parties, and now they were on a barren plain, alongside the millennium‐unmaintained wall that marked the border of the ponies’ dreamland. A rip in the irreality of the dream realm was torn through a broken gate in the decayed wall.

Being here with a selection of Equestia’s champions was not a circumstance Vaermina found desirable. Allowing the ponies to gather had been a serious mistake. She set off a concussive blast, knocking everybody down and, more importantly, scattering them across the plain.

Vaermina took flight, and looked towards the gate she’d long ago shattered to get here. The moon princess was running towards it; so was the purple one, from the other direction and more distant. Vaermina fired at the princess, but a violet shield materialized to deflect her shot.

Vaermina turned her attention to the unicorn, and encased her in a shell, which the unicorn immediately blasted at, slightly weakening it. Vaermina could feel her magic: surprisingly powerful, but wielded inexpertly. Unexperienced, and apparently ignorant of dream magic. The battle would be over before she broke free, so Vaermina paid her no more attention.

Vaermina took aim at the Dream Princess again. Somewhere off to the side was a shout, “Don’t you dare!”, and Vaermina was blinded by a faceful of concentrated sunlight. She summoned a retroreflector in the path of the beam, and was gratified by a scream at its other end. It took her a few moments to regenerate her retinas, and in this time something wrapped itself around her head.

Once she could see again, Vaermina blasted at the other dream‐walker, but her shot flew wide as her head was jerked to the side at the last moment. Vaermina snarled and put an enforced nudity charm on herself, which tore apart the exquisitely crafted gem‐encrusted bridle that was to blame. (This was both the first time she’d used such a charm in this world, and the first time she’d used it on herself instead of the object of one of her nightmares.)

The Princess of Dreams was getting alarmingly close to containing the rift. An incongruously beautiful scarf tried to wrap around Vaermina’s neck, but she ignored it to take aim at the princess once more. The scarf tore asunder as it touched her, but her shot was disrupted by a prismatic blur filling her vision. She spun with the blur, and it resolved itself into the small blue pegasus. Vaermina struck her wing joint, and the pegasus yelped and spiraled to the ground. Vaermina stopped her spin, and noticed the smaller white pony leading the larger one towards the shell holding the purple pony, but right then a lariat caught her leg and yanked her downwards. She snapped the rope, but had lost too much height to pull out from the dive, and she hit the ground and went tumbling across the plain.

When she came to a stop, there was a yellow pony in front of her, cowering from the fighting. Ah‐ha. If she could get into the mind of one of these ponies, then she could unravel this mess from there. And this was clearly the most fragile one. She hissed and bore into the pony’s gaze. The pony wasn’t letting her in. All else came to a halt as the contest between them began.

Let me in. Blue‐green eyes stared back at her.

Let me in! The pony’s eyes remained placid and limpid.

Vaermina couldn’t believe it. Her eyes were watering. This was impossible!

Vaermina blinked.

The action immediately resumed. “Surprise!” the pink one called out as she popped up out of nowhere, and sprayed her with Super‐Sticky Celebration String. Vaermina kicked the pony, which sent her sailing away, calling out “Look ma... I’m flying...” as she disappeared into the distance. A pair of wing‐gloves landed on Vaermina but instantly shredded into tatters.

Now the orange pony was closing on her, so Vaermina attempted to take flight, but the flailing shreds of the gloves were disrupting her wings’ airflow. She tried to pull them off, but the string spray was gluing them to her wings like rubber cement. Vaermina snarled and burned the string away, but then found herself facing the rear end of a ranch workhorse; a pair of hooves smashed into her, sending her flying straight at the repaired gate the night princess was holding open.

She started to fly to the side, but translucent purple chutes instantly popped into place, funneling her trajectory right through the portal back to Quagmire.

---

Luna grabbed several boulders from the barren waste and levitated them over to the portal, stacking them to entirely cover the passageway.

The full moon flared like the sun for a moment, and the pile of boulders blazed with heat, turned soft, and sagged together while Luna shouted, “Ne’er return!”

The indigo‐coated alicorn panted heavily as those two words echoed across the plain. Once the echoes faded, the silence was broken only by crackly ‘ting’ noises from the cooling lava‐welded rock.

After several seconds the mood was broken by a voice behind her. “That — was — awesome!”