Chapter 32
Chapter 32
Ethan’s entire body was wracked with pain so intense that if he hadn’t long ago developed a system for compartmentalizing it and experiencing it in separate intervals then he’d have passed out again. Currently he was hiding behind what appeared to be the targeting range in the Citadel’s bailey as the Nightmare taunted him and threw fireballs at his position.
Ever since her rouse had been revealed the woman’s features had become much more aggressive and alien, her eyes turning black with bright yellow pupils. Her hair swirled around her like an angry storm cloud and she’d donned a suit of chiseled black armor.
After the first round of pain had passed he’d awoken here and the Nightmare had seemingly decided to ‘play’ with him until she got bored with her games and finished the job.
“I really don’t see how you got so feared Ethan, honestly, this is pathetic,” the woman shouted at him. Ethan’s only response was to cringe down further behind cover as another fireball slammed into it.
“It’s times like these that I really wish I didn’t have a habit for getting kidnapped and captured,” he murmured. “I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this up...”
The target that he’d been hiding behind was completely engulfed in flames and Ethan scampered away before he could be consumed as well. Another blast of fire hit the ground three feet to his left and Ethan dove away before another could impact beneath his feet. As he landed he sprang to his feet, only to be met halfway up by a lashing kick to the jaw that sent him tumbling to the ground, landing on his back.
The Nightmare chuckled as she advanced on him. “You know Ethan, if you had just accepted my offer, then this wouldn’t be happening right now. Sombra would be dead, Twilight would be free to some extent, and your family wouldn’t die.”
Ethan growled something under his breath and tried to rise again only to find the Nightmare’s heel on his throat.
“Oh no, you’re not going anywhere until you submit,” the Nightmare told him.
“Why not just kill me?” he choked out around her boot.
“Because my dear boy, it’s more fun to hear you scream in the back of my head as I do terrible things,” Nightmare replied with a smile. “I remember Little Lulu’s screams and pleads very well. I wonder, will you be able to top them?”
“Shove it up your-” Ethan began but was cut off as she kicked him in the face.
“Now now, no foul language Ethan. What would Cassandra think if she heard you cursing like a sailor?” the woman asked with a sneer.
“Probably that you should get your boot off of my husband’s face!” a familiar voice shouted from behind them. Nightmare began to turn but only made it halfway before the eagle head of Old Glory slammed into the side of her face and sent her sprawling to the ground. “Bitch!”
Ethan stared at his wife’s face as she bent down and offered him her hand. He gingerly took it and allowed her to pull him to his feet. “Cassie? How... how did you get here?”
Cassandra shook her head. “I’m not really here, I’m acting as your mind’s subconscious mental defender. Essentially, I’m here for when you’re not enough.”
“So... the one I put in charge of keeping my mind safe is my wife?” Ethan asked, still confused.
“To put it simply, yes,” Cassandra answered.
“That’s... kind of hot actually,” he replied. Cassandra sighed and passed him a .45 submachine gun that she drew from within her duster.
“Let’s just dust this bitch so you can help Twilight,” the woman said, though her tone was surprisingly gentle.
“I think I can agree with that,” Ethan replied as the Nightmare rose to her feet, the half of her face that had been torn off by the eagle slowly returning to its normal form.
“Ah! So finally a worthy challenge!” Nightmare exclaimed with a grin as she drew a sword. “I wonder how long you’ll survive against me you’re nothing but the last ditch efforts of a mewling little brat but I imagine that-” She was cut off by a sudden hail of bullets from the .45 that Ethan was cradling.
The bullets streaked out of the barrel, slamming into the woman’s face and shredding her skull and the brain beneath. “Oh no, I think that you’re just about done talking!” Ethan shouted as he walked forward, still firing into the body that had yet to fall. “You’ve spend most of my first visit to Equestria making my dreams a living hell! I say NO FUCKING MORE!”
To his surprise, the headless body began to sprint towards him, a silver sword extended in its grasp. Despite the bullets being expended into the thing’s body and broken cranium she managed to make a good pace and brought the sword down in a shining arc, only to be met halfway by the shaft of Old Glory.
“Oh no you don’t!” Cassandra shouted, shoving backwards with the shaft and causing the Nightmare to stumble backwards. However as it did so the woman’s head healed itself and Ethan was forced to reload.
“Hahahaha, that tickled a little,” Nightmare said with an evil laugh. “Now, which should I kill first; the subconscious or the acting idiot? Oh... the possibilities!” She was apparently so caught up in those ‘possibilities’ that she failed to notice the two humans talking to each other.
“Um... Cassie...did you bring anything more powerful than this?” Ethan asked Cassandra worriedly as he hefted the .45.
“Yes,” Cassandra answered simply as she reached into her duster pocket and somehow pulled out a fully assembled Red Glare before handing it to Ethan.
“How did you...”
“We’re in your head,” she answered rolling her eyes. “Doing things like that is easy.”
“Alright...that makes sense... I guess,” Ethan replied as he shouldered the bulky contraption.
“You’re picking now to question things?” the woman asked with an annoyed sigh.
“Hmm... good point,” he said as he locked onto the Nightmare with the scope and pulled the trigger. “Suck rocket bitch!”
The first salvo of rockets hit Nightmare in her newly reconstructed head, throwing her end over end through the air in a spiral of blood and what Ethan was pretty sure were curse words although it was hard to hear over the sounds of the rockets impacting. It seemed like they were longer then any that he’d heard before and if it wasn’t for the fact that he was still in immense pain, he’d probably let up just for the opportunity to increase his vocabulary.
As the smoke cleared Ethan saw, much to his dismay that the Nightmare was still standing, although her black armor looked significantly more dented than before. Even worse, she started to clap. “Heh heh heh, very nice. Although I’m afraid that it wasn’t-”
“Eat napalm!” Ethan roared as he loaded a pack of incendiary rockets into the tube and jerked down on the trigger.
“Fu-” was all Nightmare had time to utter before thirteen blasts of fiery explosive pain consumed her and she was beaten backwards by the pure force.
“DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!” Ethan chanted as rocket after rocket slammed into Nightmare’s body. He continued to chant and pull the trigger even as the drum clinked empty. The woman’s blackened and burned body lay prostrate on the ground, unmoving.
The man let the Red Glare fall to the ground as he reached to his hip, surprisingly finding his shocksword there for the grasping. With a menacing smile he began to stalk towards her, his icy blue eyes blazing with hate and anger.
“I’m not just going to kill you,” he growled. “I’m going to do to you what you did to me, I’m going to torture you!” he snarled.
A dark chuckle came from the Nightmare as she pushed got back to her feet, the silvery blade in her hand once more. “You believe you can hurt me? Ha! Ethan Smith, to me you are nothing but a tool, a child’s toy that I will discard once I have what I want.”
The man let out an enraged roar before he charged the woman, swinging his sword in a deadly arc at her throat. She batted it aside with ease and brought her blade slashing down at his chest.
He recovered in time to deflect it away and sidestepped to gain a better angle only to find his approach blocked by her blade which was stabbing for his eye. Ethan ducked below the stab, and brought the electrified blade lashing sideways across her throat.
Blood spurted in his eyes, forcing him back as he frantically wiped away with his free hand. To his horror, and continued annoyance, the Nightmare began to chuckle despite the hole in her throat. “He-eh-he-eh, very nice,” she said, her voice coming out at a disturbing gurgle. She then stepped forward quickly, slashing at the still distracted man, slicing open his cheek. “However-I don’t think that you’ll be able to heal from that quite as well as I was.”
Ethan’s free hand instinctively rose up to his cheek to feel the blood even as he tried to move away, but something about the Nightmare held him in place as her sword surged towards his chest. At the last second he managed to break free, and rolled to the side, rising just in time to deflect a downward swing from her blade.
He kicked out with his leg, hoping to unbalance her, but the Nightmare daintily leapt back, away from the kick. Luckily, it still partly accomplished Ethan’s goal and he was able to get back to his feet. Without hesitation he charged her, his blade slashing this way and that in a controlled pattern.
Unfortunately Nightmare seemed to know the pattern as well and he found himself being blocked or parried at his every offense. Not only that, but as their blades clashed, she seemed to take control of the pattern, and within a few moments it was Ethan who was on the defensive once more.
“You really thought that you could defeat a millennia old being at swordfighting?” Nightmare inquired with a raised eyebrow as she sent a deathstroke straight for his heart. The man countered it, barely and leapt back, panting.
“I guess-it was pretty stupid,” he gasped in between pants.
“Very,” she assured him with a wide grin. “Do you give up now Ethan?”
“Fuck you!” he shouted.
“My, how very original,” Nightmare said sarcastically with a roll of her eyes.
Ethan growled something under his breath, and charged at her again, his sword nothing but a faintly hissing blur. The Nightmare rolled her eyes again and batted away each of his swings without breaking a sweat.
“Face it Ethan, even in your own mind you are helpless,” the woman taunted him. “Even your subconscious has fled before my might!”
The man fell out of his battle rage to notice that she was right, Cassandra was nowhere in sight. It was in that moment of distraction that Nightmare brought her blade down and it sliced into Ethan’s shoulder in a spurt of blood.
He fell to his knees, unable to remain standing. “Ah, how nice, you’re on your knees before me. Yes, this is the way things are meant to be,” Nightmare said with a wide grin. “Don’t worry little Ethan, I’ll take good care of you in here. You’ll be able to watch as I kill Twilight and Celestia. You’ll be there as I rape your wife and torture your children. Tartarus, I might even let you take over for the first one of those last two, by then you’ll be insane enough for it not to matter!” she crowed with a maniacal grin.
The man brought up a mouthful of blood, and spat it at her feet but she just chuckled before bending down to plant a kiss on his bloodstained lips. “Oh yes, you are mine, in every way Ethan. No matter how you deny it, you’re looking forward to our time together, admit it.” she almost gently stroked his face, the sharp nails on the ends of her fingers leaving a new trail of blood across it as they traveled. Ethan winced and tried to pull away but found that he was unable to move anything but his head.
“All two years of plotting my revenge, one year of subjugating myself to that moron Sombra. It’s finally coming to fruition!” She exclaimed with a wide smile as she continued to stroke Ethan, almost as if he were a dog. “You know, I spent six months setting up that war between the griffins and the hippogriffs to unbalance the world, and you come along and manage to screw that up.” She slapped him, her nails leaving new jagged lines. “But it’s okay because now I’ve got you all to myself and the griffins are scared shitless of you!”
“God damn, you talk too much,” Ethan groaned.
“Coming from you, I suppose that I should take that as a compliment,” Nightmare said with a chuckle before her boot shot up and smashed into his nose, breaking it in a cascade of blood. He jerked his head back but was otherwise immobilized. “So Ethan Smith, do you surrender yourself to me?”
Ethan was about to open his mouth when he noticed a faint shimmer behind her. His eyes narrowed. “Maybe... first, I want you to tell me something.”
“Oh, and what would that be?” Nightmare asked with a smirk.
“I’d like to know how it feels to have wasted your last four minutes of life monologuing,” he said with a sneer. The Nightmare’s face contorted in confusion before Cassandra ran out from behind her, grabbing Ethan by the collar and pulling him away from the other woman. Before Nightmare had a chance to react further she was suddenly engulfed by a raging white explosion, in the background the man heard something that sounded like an angelic choir singing hallelujah, though that could’ve just been the mindrape and the concussion.
Cassandra let him fall from her grip and he landed on the hard concrete of the bailey with a thud.
He looked over at the spot where the Nightmare had once been, now all that remained was a large singed spot on the asphalt.
“Is? Is she dead?" Ethan asked, Cassandra nodded. "Well, Halle-fucking-lujah!" The man said with a grin before asking. "So what... did you hit her with?”.
“Holy Frag Grenade,” Cassandra replied simply as she held up the cross shaped pin. “How else do you kill a demon?”
Ethan stared at her for a moment before grabbing her arm and pulling her down into a passionate kiss. “I fucking love you Cassie!” He said once he’d released her.
“You realize that I’m not Cassie right?” the woman asked.
“You look like her,” Ethan countered with a shrug.
‘Cassandra’ shrugged. “Now, it’s time for you to wake up, Twilight is counting on us.”
“Right... need to save Sparky’s cute purple ass before Sombra does something evil,” the man said with a tired sigh. “So... how do I leave this place?”
“Simple, you just wake up,” the woman said with a kind smile.
Stats
Page generated in 0.039 seconds
Total duration
1,040 users online
101,024 hits today, 2,561,572 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Damn right I'm awesome!
Oh, those Holy Frag Grenades!
fuckin Holy Frag Grenades!!!!! Easily one of the best Easter Eggs ever!!!
So does that make him a narcissist if he kissed 'Cassie' who is a projection of his own subconscious? Anyway, as awesome as always ed.
I'd have voted for the 'nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to make sure' option, but holy frag grenades work too
fc01.deviantart.net/fs44/f/2009/132/f/1/Fallout_3___Orbital_Strike_by_Nova225.png
3070076 i have to agree here
Oh yeah. Cassis and Ethan fuck up the nightmare.
Oh, and I'm very disappointed you didn't use the line 'Halle-fucking-lujah' ed. Very disappointed.
Should've been Fawkes.
As glad as I am to see them being mentioned, Ethan did bring one with him to real Equestria. The one used here was a dream sequence, so he still has the real one. I have been waiting for him to use it since Chapter 1, and I am excited to see it used again, this time, with an audience!
3070596
Fixed, I forgot about that since it was 2:30 by the time I finished
3071232 Sombra will not know what hit him
3070091 the only thing that sucks about them is you only get three.
3070091
Amen. Oh Weird West, what fool plays New Vegas without you?
3070182
I was kind of expecting Liberty Prime to be honest.
3071820 Two Words. Console Commands.
3075634 Don't get those on a 360. buuut you do get save editors on a PC.
3070193
Goddammit! My procrastination of reading this chapter has caused me to have my idea already taken! You good sir suck and rock at the same time!
I called this earlier. Also, would love to see Sombra reacting to the death of a being that was only sealed by the elements getting killed by "THIS ONE DAMNED MORTAL", as some would put it.
3110903
That would've worked too
in the background the man heard something that sounded like an angelic choir singing hallelujah
I will be damned if this is not a Worms reference.
3071232 i don't think we where even aware he had it in the first chapter
When fighting a ancient evil the only solution is this. Holy. Hand. GRENADE!
3070182 there's nothing better then overkill
Best Deus Ex Machina EVEEEERRRR!!!!!
somehow this made me think of a Diskworld book, i think it was "Thud!" where Commander Vimes was being influenced by an ancient entity known as "the following dark". he finally got rid of it with the help of his "inner watchman", wielding a lantern.
Yeah, how else?