Revenge of the Nightmares

by Commander_Pensword

Settling In

William slowly followed Luna up the staircase, but he had to stop when Luna stopped in front of a door. Luna looked back at him and then at the door.

“Here shall ye sleep while in the castle,” She responded, using her horn to unlock the door. “I hope they gave you a key to keep with you while you stay, you may lock your door when you see fit, but my sister and I do have master spells for all the locks,”

William only nodded his head as he walked into the room, or at least tried to, only to walk into the right wing of Luna, which she had extended to block the doorway. “Yes Princess?” William spoke, wondering if their was something else that needed to be said before he could enter the room.

“I know I have said this before, but until I can convince my guards to let you drop the titles, you need to call me Princess in the castle, in any court settings refer to me as Princess Luna, outside of the court, and in this tower, please call me Luna,” She looked at William fully in the eye. “You and I have experienced enough that I feel we can speak to one another on a more level ground,” She turned her head and looked back into the room. “We both survived the Nightmares,” She finished and finally folded her wing to her side and let William into the room.

As soon as William entered the room, he heard the wooden door shut and lock. He turned around in fear of being trapped, only to see Luna standing in front of the door. “Sit on the bed.” Her voice was showing that she was not asking, it was not an order, but a heavy request of one who needed to get something off her mind. William however still gulped and slowly moved to the bed. As soon as he sat down Luna walked into the middle of the room and sat down on the floor. “We discussed this in the forest already, but, tell me more about this, My Little Pony show. We have the time now to fully discuss this.”

William only looked at Luna and nodded his head once. “For one thing, The show has shown Your return.” This made Luna to actually cringe but William moved on speaking, hoping that she would know more. “However, that caused the fans of the show to begin to, well, respect, love you like they would a friend,” He actually smirked a little, “For one thing, you win every poll your name appears in,”

“Excuse me?” Luna looked up in shock. “They saw my form of a monster, and my poor attempts at my first outing to Ponyville,” She paused, “Yet, they respect me?”

“Well, it might be as well, that a lot of the fans, the older ones of the show, they are night owls, some stay up late into the night.” He looked at Luna and laughed when she blinked and tilted her head.

“They think I play games? That I am a gamer?” She asked him, she only smirked after William nodded his head. “I prefer to write astronomy books, and read in the library. Although I do not mind a board game, I must say my sister might be good at our version of the game called chess but I am a bit better at it,” She had a look of pride.

William only smiled. “Well, I am not that good, I play chess myself, but I cannot remember the last time I won a game. Though I think your rules might be different.”

“That may be,” Luna spoke, “But I can teach you how to play, though there is a game that I do not care for.” She looked to the wall. “It seemed my time with the War of the Moon, caused somepony in the past to make a chess version of my sister and I’s battle.” She looked at William. “The nobles all love to play it, but I abhor it, as they seem to think I shall always play that counterpart.”

William realized he was reading the rather stoic body language of the lunar princess as he realized just what she was getting at. “I can play Nightmare Moon, so we both may learn this court game.” He had a feeling, no, he knew this was a game of the court, he looked at Luna sadly. “I shall do my best to help.”

Luna looked up in shock and confusion before shaking her head. “It seems you and I can read each other better for the moment since I foolishly gave it my all.” She looked down. “I just fear you might try Unicorn Magic or try to fly if you are not careful,” She looked down in shame. “What you have in your head is dangerous. You have my memories, my feelings, my emotions on certain subjects,”

William only looked at Luna. “So do you, I feel you were able to block out a lot of things when we had that discussion but,”

He was interrupted by Luna, “No, I saw the images of your tests, I saw the pictures, what you read, your feelings on the aftermath of the two bombings.” He looked at him. “I could feal your fear of those weapons, the fear that you knew as a historian,” She stopped speaking as she looked at William, “Do not fear, I shall let thee know a secret,” She leaned in a little, her voice tickling his ear in a strange form of magic, “My sister, if you are worried, does not fear you, nor your world, I saw that fear as well,” She smiled before speaking again, “Because you are just children trying to work with something that she has had worked with for over a thousand and a half years.” She leaned back but smiled at the slight fear in Williams eyes.

“So,” he started, “You, you can defend yourselves from most of what we have?” he paused. “Wait, what about bacteria? On both sides or both ways?” he was thinking now of War of the Worlds, only to blink in confusion at Luna’s laughter.

“Oh, don’t worry, the Nightmares made sure that you wouldn’t be able to harm us in that manner, besides, we are different bodies, I doubt things that affect us would affect you,” She paused, “But I did tweak some things while you and I were one, so nothing would happen anyway, I do not want us to be destroyed by disease.”

William just stared in confusion. “You know about bacteria and viruses?” He shook his head as he laughed. “You gotta hospital of a standing that I am familiar in Ponyville, I just,”

Luna just smiled. “Just because our homes look like they belong in the old ages of your world, where knights rode on horses and your people battled dragons.” She paused, “You, have dragons in your world?”

William shook his head. “No, they are just myths, funny thing, is that they appear in every single culture of our world. The one constant we have in all cultures, both ancient and modern, is dragons it seemed.”

Luna only smiled as she realized what was going on. “Well, this is interesting, tell me, do you have any other myths?” She paused and blinked. “Well, maybe not, you know about Pegasi, and Unicorns, and a lot of the monsters that live in our world.”

William nodded his head. “Would be interesting to see, how, I, this entire world, is a myth, a world of fiction for me.”

Luna nodded her head. “Yet we know nothing of your world, the only thing we have even close to your form is a Minotaur, and even then they are rare and come from outside of the borders of Equestria.” Luna spoke while looking around the room. “I think we have had enough talking for the moment. I feel that you should unpack and setup yourself for your stay in Canterlot castle.” Luna got up and moved to the door. “Once again, please, while this is a golden cage for you, please know that my tower you are free to explore, except for my chamber, the tower has a library at the bottom of the tower full of Equestrian literature and laws, for you to read.”

William however stopped Luna before she left the room, her magic on the door to open it. “Luna.” he began, actually liking the idea of calling one by a name and not a title, “Why, did you call Blueblood a Baron?”

Luna actually turned around and looked at him with curiosity before her eyes widened. “Ah... your world calls him Prince Blueblood.” She smiled a little. “That is because Prince is his first name, his rank is a Baron, it causes confusion at times when he uses his first name as a rank.” She smiled a little. “Only an Alicorn can be a true royalty... or direct marriage and family.”

“Oh,” William spoke as his mind took hold of that information before blinking in realization. “That means, that,”

He was cut off by Luna who finished it. “Twilight Sparkle is royalty by being sister to Captain of the Guard Shining Armor, but any foals or colts that she has will not inherit that royal title, but they will become charges of the Everfree forest, which is the land deeded to her by Celestia, Baroness Twilight Sparkle.” Luna smiled, a look William knew she knew more about something then she was telling. “However, I must take care of some items, sunset is in three hours, then you should get something to eat again.” She looked at the rucksack. “I shall leave you be, as you can get to it on the floor, that is your items and while I want to know what is in it. It is your personal effects and,” Her eyes dipped down. “The only things you can call your own.” She turned around without another word and left the room, the door closing with a thud, but the door remained unlock.

William looked around the room, and felt his entire body act like some burden had moved to his back. He looked around the room deciding to study it, not wanting to get to his rucksack just yet. He got up and walked away from the four post bed. If he recalled the style was called a Princess Bed, only it was shaped more for a pony, and male by the way the colors were. He saw a part of the wall that was curved, their was a curtain covering a entrance to what he felt was a balcony for the room, he saw that going from the door to left, following the curve, was the balcony. then the next set of furniture was the bed, past the bed was another door, most likely to a restroom he hoped, as the next item was a large wooden wardrobe, then next to it was a desk, with of all things a mirror over it. There was a rather inventive means to his different anatomy, a wooden crate with an overstuffed cushion on top of the crate for him to sit on. He saw a chest, and then back to the door, everything else was bare stone, with a lantern hanging in the middle, and candles on the desk, all unlit at the moment. He looked around once more. “Fantastic.” he muttered, moving to the wardrobe and opened it to see it empty. He sighed and left it open to place his limited clothing, he noticed a mirror on the back of one of the doors and blinked. He saw there was a lot of drying blood on the front of his ACU uniform, most likely from his bloody nose.

He moved to the desk and noticed that it was more like a writing desk, in that the materials were stored in the lid of the desk, or rather, underneath it. He lifted up the lid on well oiled hinges and saw parchments, ink, and feathers to write with. He smiled as he picked up a ring with three keys on it, that was laying on top of the parchment stack. He smiled and closed the lid, he would have to try his penmanship later on while he was here. He blinked before shaking his head, he was actually thinking of picking up a hobby for his stay here, this one thought left him more nervous and worried than any other.

He did enjoy the highly polished finished wood, the top area after the hinge was flat with a bit of a fancy wooden alcove build above the flat area to allow inkwells and quill pens to stay from rolling down the small inclined surface, at the bottom another smooth and polished edge was in place to keep parchment from falling off the desk. He grinned at being able to use something others would call antique, and here, in this world, was just a normal writing surface.

He sighed and moved to Rucksack, he saw that till he could get a proper bookcase, he might as well hide his books and whatnot in the Wardrobe, he saw a small lock on the door as well. He did smile as he took the keys and began to look for the key that might lock and unlock the wardrobe.

He began to unpack and move the pistols into the writing desk, while clothing and the box of books were placed into the wardrobe. He blinked as he heard a knock on the door, and feeling that the castle was safe spoke up as he folded the blood stained blouse, having put on a new one for himself. “Come on in. Doors unlocked.” He called out before returning to placing more items away.

William turned back towards his ruck and froze in shock at seeing something he did not expect. He didn’t have any time to do anything, as the Pony began to actually look around his room. He looked at the bed and sniffed, for some reason this one action caused a pit to form in William’s stomach. After even looking into his wardrobe, having pushed him aside with one of the leathery bat wings. The guard turned back to face him. “I understand you just arrived, but starting tomorrow, I shall be teaching you how to maintain your room to Lunar Guard standards. You have weapons in your room, but no locks, I shall get you a spear locker moved up here.” He turned around to move to the door, but stopped when William moved to the door before him.

“What,” William was shocked at how low his voice was, “Do you mean, Lunar Guard? I am a resident of the Un,” He stopped when the Guard began to laugh, a deep baritone sound.

“That may be true, but you were on the front lines with a nightmare.” He moved to a saddlebag. “I have a scroll drawn up by the General of the Lunar Guard, along with the regulations that allow us to do this.” Here the pegasus of the night stopped and looked at the human. “You are the second being to have walked away from the grip of a nightmare, many others have openly taken their curse and power, letting their dark hearts become darker.” He shivered. “There are stories of lost towns in the wild forests of the last battle of Nightmare Moon and Celestia. Towns that the Nightmares took over to use the chaos to take control of the Nation.” The Pegasus stopped and looked right at William. “That is why we have the laws, The Lunar Guard, and in direct front lines, the Lunar Special Forces are both charged with the protection of Equestria from the forces that go bump in the night, and you, have first hoof experience, hence, and seeing as your nation is in communication silence, we can and will take you on as a recruit.” The pegasus stopped and looked around the room. “Consider yourself with an honorary rank of an Officer, let’s see if you fully earn it.”

The Pegasus left, leaving the saddle bag for him to go through. William sighed and left his unpacking undone as he moved to try and look through the saddlebag. He took the bag into his lap and sat down on the cushioned crate. “Let’s see what you got for me.”

The saddlebag was full of Equestrian documents, and he knew they were written in a language that he shouldn’t even be able to read, yet he mind was telling him exactly what it was he was reading. He blinked and mentally filed away an experiment with Luna, to see if she could read english.

He did remember that earlier, Celestia had entered the room to drag the two of them into talking Equestrian. He wondered, would, or could English become, for a while, a secret code system? he smiled a little as he sorted the scrolls.

He took the next hour or was it two? He was not sure how long it took to finish going through the information, which was brief. It had a rank system with drawings of the different ranks. He also had his conscription papers as well. The way they read it sounded like, he stood up suddenly as an idea passed through his mind and he began to grin widely. He moved to put the scrolls he had been reading into the desk and began to finish storing his stuff.

It turned out that yes, it was everything. He even put the rucksack on the ground and crawled into it, He had a funny feeling that the rucksack, he felt that he might have crawled his entire body into the rucksack. He realized that meant that he could fit more items into the sack later on. He crawled out of the ruck and sat there on the ground in shock. He could end up being a walking equipment train. If the Nightmares were able to gather more. One Rucksack could supply an entire soldier for months on end. He closed his eyes and put his face into his hands in fear and a sick feeling in the bottom of his gut over just how effective the Nightmares could have been, and still might be if they ever captured him.

He got up from the stone floor after thinking for maybe twenty minutes and slowly made his way towards the balcony, and fresh air. he stepped onto the balcony and blinked as his location allowed a good view of the world, as well as the setting sun. He blinked as for a second he thought he heard singing but it was there on the wind and then gone.

He slowly leaned on the railing of the balcony and watched the sun as it continued to set, and strangely he found he could watch the sunset without the sun hurting his eyes. He was amazed at that, and figured it might be something with magic, maybe it was the balcony, he would have to test that out later on by being in the grounds. He stopped and shook his head, that would mean having to be with one of the Princesses, still it would be interesting to ask them some more questions.

The inner musing of his mind distracted him as the moon rose and so, he was shaken back to reality with fear and a bit of jumping in surprise when Princess Luna landed on the Balcony, she looked concerned for a moment before smiling as William held a hand to his chest over his heart and was breath heavily from the fright. “I see thou art at peace here, and willing to drop,” She blinked a little and continued. “your guard to allow one as I to sneak up on you.” She opened one of her wings and beckoned him to walk forward, she placed a wing around his back and used the other wing to point to the sky. She opened her mouth but a yawn took hold and before William could do anything, He found that Princess Luna was swaying and then fell more and more against him. The surprising shift in weight against him so suddenly cause him to stumble and step back only to stumble and fall onto his back while Luna fell ontop of him. His hand pressing against her side, her wing covering his body. It was here that he realized just how big an Alicorn could be, and this was the little sister. William knew that standing up, he had to look up to Luna, her head, one head taller than him. That made Twilight about the size of to his chest area. He didn’t even what to think of the size of Celestia in that case. He was getting tired already of trying to keep Luna from falling fully ontop of him and crushing him. She was heavy just from the size she was.

He heard the door of his room open, the guard must have heard the noise. He was in the dark, and he was losing feeling in his legs as they were pinned under Luna’s stomach area. He feet he felt were exposed, Suddenly their was shouting, muffled by the wing of Luna over him, which he would later on admit might have been comfortable, but at the moment oppressive to all but the silence, he could hear his own breathing, but he felt almost as if he was in the night sky itself. In fact he thought he could see the stars, and then the balcony, and, oh there was that Guard that talked to him earlier that dropped that bombshell he was going to be conscripted into the Equestrian Military, what is he doing in Luna’s sky?

He blinked as he realized he was able to breath, Luna’s weight was off him and his arms collapsed like jelly to his side as he began to shake a little. The guard shouted something to another pony and he was enveloped in a purple like glow as he was lifted up and placed on top of the bed. He blinked as he realized that Twilight Sparkle was in the room, along with Rainbow Dash, and, was that Spitfire? He thought he caught a look of Princess Celestia’s mane but it was gone. He blinked as the Guard, the rank he saw denoting him as a Sergeant Major looked down on him.

“What happened?” He asked, his tone stating it was a command question.

“I do not know Sergeant Major, one moment she acted like she was going to show me some of her stars and then,” he didn’t have to finish as the guard now was smiling and laughing a little. William must have shown confusion clearly on his face as the guard spoke moving his bat wings.

“I was wondering when she was going to fall asleep,” he looked around, prompting William to look around, Twilight, Rainbow, and Spitfire had all left, in fact the only ponies left were all wearing Lunar Guard armor, “You see,” he began again, “She’s been up three days now, and with that little stunt she pulled on you.” William felt the bat wing poke him, he realized that they were strong, and they can hurt when used to poke something, “She exhausted herself. She should be able to lower the moon in the morning, but after that, she is going to be sleeping all day, So,” He looked around. “I’ll get you some guards to show you around, you got a meeting with Princess Celestia tomorrow, hopefully some more... presentable uniforms will be ready for you by then, but you are to be with the Princess while she meets with the Military Diplomate from the Griffin nation.” He looked at William right in the eye. “Baron Blueblood appears to have leaked your position to them, and they are throwing a fit that Equestria is getting an unfair advantage with an alien.” The guard turned to the room.

“All are dismissed.” He turned to William. “Get some sleep,” He left the room, and William to his own amazement, slipped into a nice peaceful rest, at least it started out peaceful.

Author's Note:

Well, this is compared to the last chapter, a speedy one, Hope you all enjoy it.

Comments

[Spacecowboy]

Another decent chapter. Wonder what Luna and/or Celestia has to say about the Lunar Guard forcibly drafting him into their ranks.
And I'm going to take a stab that Luna is the romance. xD I love it when she gets some focus, and you've done a good job overall with this so far.
Looking forward to the next chapter.

[Allyboy]

nice job

[V-Pony]

Methinks Luna's got her eye on William, eh?

[amiamera]

Ok, this partly confuses me. I'm hoping that the conscription will be addressed by one of the princesses because they have essentially impressed him into service against his will. It's one thing to have an exchange, it's entirely another to take over someone and force them to serve. That was part of the reason the war of 1812 happened with the British impressing American sailors. Technically, he should have some immunity to the laws as he is not an Equestrian citizen, which is a key point that has been made multiple times. Oh well, I'll continue reading and see if this is addressed or an annoying plot hole.

[brax001]

So hes a guest one second than the next hes forcefully enlisted what happened to the whole golden cage and being a foreign diplomat? I dont like this youve made him so weak and everything else op we cant even damage their armor and hes a door mat peace im out.