The Secret Nightmare Wars

Throughout the lands of Equestria, parts of each and every kingdom have one particular area that few ponies would dare to explore. The Everfree forest is one such place of mystery and paranoia for the people of Ponyville. But hidden deep within this forest, shrouded in the cover of eternal darkness, there lay the ruins of a castle that once was home to the legendary elements of harmony, but now contained an even more mysterious secret; a race of ponies that partake in a top secret mission that is of vital importance to the safety of not just Ponyville, but all of Equestria.

Though they have on rare occasions been witnessed, few clear facts are known to the common folk about the true nature of the bat ponies, so most that claim to have knowledge base their assertions on either ancient legends or recent rumours. Some say that they are not of this world, but are in fact cursed mystical creatures that are created by the same dark forces which turned Princess Luna into Nightmare Moon, still finding a new way to spread their dark infection.

Some say that they do not physically exist to begin with, but are instead mere illusions created by Princess Luna. This particular conspiracy theory suggests that she never truly was redeemed from being Nightmare Moon, and instead is now acting behind closed doors to spread a lurking fear until such time comes where she can gain enough power once again to not just overthrow Princess Celestia, but destroy the elements of harmony that foiled her initial plans for resurrection. There are even those that go so far as to suggest that she kidnaps fillies in the dead of night to brainwash them into becoming her dark servants and build her army for the impending takeover.

Few ponies beyond Princess Luna herself knew the real truth behind the existence of the bat ponies. In her mind, it was better to keep any conspiracy theories and rumours as baseless as possible. She knew that ignorance was, in this case at least, the easiest way to keep the people of Ponyville feeling like they were living in safety and security. In the dead of night, a couple of days after Twilight Sparkle had been crowned the new Princess of Friendship, Luna secretly snuck away from watching over the dreams of other ponies and flew deep into the Everfree forest. She had no time to waste, as the longer she took on her little diversion, the more time there was for the citizens of Ponyville to notice her absence. Flying as close as she could to the forest canopy, Luna discretely descended into the ruins of the castle where she had been freed from the curse of Nightmare Moon many years prior.

Folding her violet wings behind her back, she walked up to the edge of the broken throne and dipped her head forward, pointing her long horn at a small jewel on the top rim. Closing her eyes, she cast a small beam of magic to shoot directly into the gem, causing the throne to shudder violently and begin to shift forward, revealing a long, pitch black passage way that lead beneath the ruins. Before entering, Luna quickly scanned the room behind her to ensure that she was not being followed. It was unlikely that any pony was brave enough, or stupid enough as some would describe it, to run into the Everfree in the dead of night. Most ponies were afraid to even go near it during the day, save for the mystical zebra Zecora who made her home there. Still, she could never be too careful, as it could spell disaster for the whole operation should she be seen to be entering this passage way.

With nopony else around that she could see, she slowly descended into the tunnel, which was only just wide enough for her to fit through at all. Once she was in the tunnel, there was no room to turn back until the end. The tunnel itself was pitch black, with a seemingly endless amount of twists and turns that would lead any pony who didn't know where they were going to either become hopefully lost or give up in frustration at the constant dead end paths.

Not only this, but the passage was deathly silent to the point where the drop of a pin would sound louder than a dragon's roar. This gave the whole place such an eerie atmosphere that it would prey on a pony's mind until the pressure of their own thoughts became so great that they would bolt out in terror.

To Luna herself, however, the passageway had become just as familiar too her as the surface of the moon was for the past millennia. She had always enjoyed the peace and quiet of the night so much more than the hustle and bustle of the day. If there was any sort of positive experience she could take away from her banishment to the moon, it was that somewhere inside of her, deep down she did enjoy the blissful silence of what many would consider a barren and lonely environment. Now that she was free from the grips of Nightmare Moon, she could enjoy the quiet nights of Equestria all of her own accord.

But now was not the time to be relaxing. As soon as she made it to the bottom of the tunnel, she sparked another flare of magic that struck a large crystal directly above her, sending a tidal wave of illumination shooting across a vast array of brightly coloured crystals. Just as the last crystal had lit up, as if on cue, her specialist warriors swooped in from the caverns ahead. The bat ponies were all uniformly coloured with a stone grey coat and violet purple highlights flowing through their short manes, tails and wings. Each individual pony was covered in a specialist set of violet armour, crafted in secret by specialist forgers who swore an oath of silence to Princess Luna herself.

Their spike-crested helmet was designed to match the shape of their leathery wings, while still allowing space for their tall, ruffled ears to be exposed. The superior hearing of the bat ponies was essential to their survival in the pitch black, despite their eyesight being better than most ponies in the presence of a low light source. Their helms were connected at the back to a long segmented back plate that helped maintain good articulation of their wings in flight. Their twin pairs of spiked hoof sabatons served a similar purpose in keeping their natural abilities unhindered; In this case allowing them to still cling tightly to the rocky walls of the caves while hunting their prey.

But the key piece in their armour set, the part that held everything together, was their wide breast plates that connected at the base of their neck and fit around the top of their front legs. The edges of the breast plate curved into two pairs of serrated tips, providing protection around their most vulnerable areas should they encounter any creatures capable of physically injuring them. But physical injuries were the lesser threat on their missions; a large, midnight blue magical orb was fitted to the centre of each breast plate, providing a magical item that could be enchanted against the magical threats that they were tasked with fighting against to begin with.

The squad of ten bat ponies bowed down before Princess Luna, folding their large, leathery bat wings behind their backs as they fell into rank.

“Arise, my children” said Luna in a soft but firm voice. “What is your progress report?”

The lead pony at the front of the squad, named Phantom Shadow, stood and looked up towards the Princess, removing his helmet to reveal his curved Mohawk mane style. Like most bat ponies, Phantom's mane style was the primary part of his appearance that made him distinct from the other bat ponies, aside from his cutie mark of an eclipsed pair of bat wings over a violet purple coloured moon.

“My Dear Princess Luna,” Phantom greeted in a wispy, yet well spoken voice. “We are currently stuck at a stalemate with the nightmare forces. We are desperately trying to conserve the remainder of the magic you have given us to prevent the nightmare forces from manipulating our fears. But I am sad to report that in the last month we have already have had five ponies that have been quarantined so that they do not end up bolstering the nightmare forces...”

Phantom took a deep breath before he continued. What he was about to ask was not an easy question to say. “...I mean no disrespect to you, Princess Luna. But we need to have more of your magic to bolster our forces if we are to succeed in this war. The nightmare forces are growing pickier with the fillies that they kidnapping, making it increasingly difficult for us to counter their efforts and keep hidden to the fillies so to not reveal our identities. I dread to think what will happen should they actually successfully possess a filly like they once-” Phantom paused for a moment, choosing his words carefully to avoid giving reference to Nightmare Moon, knowing that it was a sensitive issue for Luna. “-did before our creation.”

Phantom watched a pained look spread across Luna's face and braced himself for the response. “I understand your predicament, my child.” Luna sighed, but still maintained a soft tone of voice. “I know you wish to keep the citizens of Ponyville safe from the nightmare forces as much as I do. But alas, the situation I am in prevents me from aiding you as much as I have in the past. I am sure that you are aware of the recent coronation of Princess Twilight Sparkle?”

“The rumour has spread, Your Majesty.” Phantom replied. “However I do not know any of the details. I knew that Twilight has achieved quite significant victories over the threats to Ponyville, so there was no doubt she was Princess Celestia's student for a reason. I must admit though, I never quite expected her to reach this level of power!”

“Neither did I,” Luna said, the smile briefly returning to her face. “She has most definitely surpassed all expectations thus far, but this does mean that I can no longer afford to take such risks of absence like I did during the wedding of Princess Cadence and Shining Armor. Should events of such bad timing come to pass again, the risk of being questioned or even discovered because of my absence would be much too great.”

Phantom's heart sank, but he still kept his respectful tone when addressing Princess Luna. “I understand, Your Majesty. Is there truly nothing you can do to aid the remainder of our forces at all? We will do nothing less than our absolute best to conserve the powers until you are next able to see us”

Princess Luna knelt down to Phantom's level, closed her eyes and cast a spell, summoning a stream of magic that shot into Phantom's blue crystal breastplate orb, before splitting into multiple beams to enchant the rest of the squad. “Fear not, my children. I shall not be abandoning you completely. I have complete faith in your skills to adapt to your change in situation in this war against the nightmare forces. While I will not be able to refresh your magic nearly as often, I will still return to see what you have achieved in my absence.”

Phantom looked up at Princess Luna with a refreshing wide eyed enthusiasm. “Thank you so much, my gracious princess. I promise that you will not be disappointed by the results the next time you visit us. Oh, and one more thing-” Phantom added. “I wish you all the best for helping the new Princess Twilight Sparkle find her footing as a mentor to many new ponies in Ponyville.”

Luna chuckled before turning to leave. “You never know when the opportunity for something magnificent will reveal itself to you!” With that last bit of reassurance, Luna extinguished the light and set off back up the passage way.

Turning to the rest of his squad, Phantom spoke fresh commands “Now that we have refreshed our magic, let’s not waste any time and head back to base for a plan of action. We don't know how long we can preserve Luna's gift, so let’s make the most of what we have.” The rest of the bat ponies saluted in acknowledgement, before opening their eyes wider to initiate the crimson glow that aided their echolocation in seeing around in the dark. Spreading their wings, they followed Phantom's lead and swooped off down the tunnels.

Their main base of operation was not far from the entrance, but still required knowledge of how to navigate the cave system to find it without getting lost. The bat ponies clicked their tongues against the space between their two front fangs, vocalising a high pitched squeak alongside it as their form of echolocation to find particular subtle land marks that marked the way in the pitch black darkness.

A few minutes later, they shifted into single file and landed in front of a pair of tall but narrow double doors, where a pair of guards stood next to each other, awaiting their return. Phantom bowed in front of them and clicked out a specific pattern of echoing squeaks. The guards nodded, recognizing the correct pitch and tone of the password delivery, before turning round and pushing open the doors to a wide circular room that housed the majority of the bat pony population. A large, round wooden table was built around a stone pillar stump in the centre of the room, with a variety of weapons, enchanted items and beds at the far back built into the rock face for the bat ponies to sleep in shifts, ensuring that all ponies were well rested while still being able to answer the call to action at a moment’s notice.

A female bat pony, named Banshee Mist, removed her helmet and shook the side drapes of her hair loose, while still keeping most of it tied up in a top knot. In a similar vein to Phantom, Banshee's cutie mark was of a pair of black fangs over a wavy dark mist, reflecting her speciality in combat against the nightmare forces.

She walked up to Phantom and asked him, with a sense of urgency in her otherwise soft voice, “well then, what is the plan going forward from here?”

Phantom shook his head. “That's what we all need to discuss together. We have a big challenge ahead of us, so I think it's best that we all pitch in ideas to work out the best plan.”

Phantom walked to the far end of the room and vocalised his clicking password towards three stone gates between the bed spaces. With a visible shudder, the stone gates slowly slid down vertically into the ground, revealing short hallways which led to three smaller chambers where the rest of the bat pony population made their home when off duty. With many of the bat ponies now waking from their slumber, they quickly flooded into the room and crowded around the round table in the centre. Phantom himself stood in the centre of the table, with Banshee and the rest of his squad encircling the front row of the table, looking directly up at him.

Including Phantom's squad, there were a total of fifty adult bat ponies that were directly involved as part of Luna's secret service to combat the nightmare forces, with a further twenty who were either young fillies or care givers who looked after them until they were old enough to start training. Few resources could be wasted on using magic to train the rookies, so most were used as reconnaissance scouts to take on smaller animal possessions rather than full fledged rescue missions.

“Thank you for joining me, everypony.” Phantom began. “I will be straight with everyone; the news that I bring you is not the ideal that I had hoped to bring to you all. I'm sure you are all familiar with the pony Twilight Sparkle, the student of Princess Celestia. As of this week, she has now ascended and become an Alicorn, officially being crowned as Princess Twilight Sparkle!”

An audible gasp of surprise erupted from the crowd, quickly devolving into a restless chatter about the implications of a new princess on the surface. Phantom cleared his throat to bring attention back to him again.

“Because of this, Princess Luna will not be able to restore our magic armour nearly as often as she has done in the past. With the nightmare forces now capturing fillies in the middle of the night, I don't need to tell you how much of an increased pressure this will be to conserve our magic.” Phantom tried to keep his voice as calm as possible. The gravity of the situation had to be acknowledged, but a panic stricken clan of bat ponies wouldn't help anyone.

“As such, we will need to think of new ways to rescue these fillies while still preserving as much magic as we can. The day our magic runs out will be the day we are no longer able to drive the nightmare forces back without any inherent magical abilities of our own. I am therefore making this gathering an open forum to work out the best method of dealing with our current situation.” Phantom took a deep breath, bracing himself for the onslaught of questions. “So without further ado, what does everyone have in mind?”

The bat ponies all looked at each other in confused silence for a moment. They were so used to doing missions on a routine that the thought of having to change their style never crossed their minds. But before long, a bat pony with a lightning bolt tail and cutie mark of a bat pony in a sonic dash hovered up above the crowd and spoke up.

“It's obvious that our missions are going much too slowly!” The bat pony cried. “We need to skip all this stealth nonsense and dash right in there and blast the infections out in no time at all!”

“Don't be ridiculous!” Another wide-eyed bat pony yelled in response. “That would just risk making mistakes and being seen by the fillies! I say we hypnotise the fillies and make them walk back home on their own!”

“And let them wander through the Everfree forest alone?” Yet another from the crowd yelled out. “Why fight the forces at all and just distract them long enough to release the fillies?”

More and more comments were thrown into the fray; quickly devolving into a deafening debate that was so loud Phantom could hardly hear himself speak.

“Please, everyone, calm down!” Phantom tried to yell above the crowd to call order. But the crowd was too absorbed in the debate to pay attention.

Banshee gritted her teeth to try and keep herself calm. But the sheer chaos was just too much for her to stay quiet about. “Will every pony just SHUT THE HAY UP!!!” She bellowed at the top of her lungs, her powerful voice echoing throughout the whole cave system. The bickering instantly stopped as every pony turned their heads towards Banshee in surprise.

Banshee took a deep breath and climbed up onto the alongside Phantom. “Now that I have everypony's attention.” She said calmly. “Despite our race being fixated on a single goal, I know full well that we all have a vast array of special talents that relate to our ongoing war against the nightmare forces. We may have been born from chaos, but Princess Luna freed us so that we could overcome the nature of our birth!”

“Banshee, what are you-” Banshee cut off Phantom mid sentence by shushing him with her hoof.

“Trust me, I have a plan” she whispered to Phantom before turning back to address the crowd. “I know you all have different ideas for straddling the line between offence and defence, not just for the fillies’ sake, but for ours as well. But as we all know, desperate times call for desperate measures. So I suggest that to reduce the strain on Luna's magic, we put the kidnapped fillies to sleep and those among us with the best talents for stealth will personally fly the fillies back to Ponyville.”

Phantom stepped in front of Banshee to intervene. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?!” he snapped “I know you mean well, but what do you think will happen if we are seen by the parents of Ponyville? Think of the implications it could have for Princess Luna!”

“I know how much of a risk it is, Phantom.” Banshee retorted. “But like I said, desperate times call for desperate measures. It's a risk we have to take if we are to save these fillies at all!”

Phantom opened his mouth to object, but no words came out. As much as he resented the idea, he knew in his heart that it was the best method. “All right, you win.” He sighed. “We all know each other’s special talents, so I don't need to tell everyone what their priorities should be. With the next group of kidnapped fillies, they will be personally flown out of the Everfree forest. But I cannot stress enough that we MUST be careful! It will undermine all of our efforts if we are discovered.”

Banshee breathed a sigh of relief before climbing down off the table. “Thank you, Phantom.” But before the bat ponies could return to their chambers, the sound of terrified screams and cries flooded through the caves. The nightmare forces had struck again, so it was time to put their new plan into action for the first time.