Equestria; a journey with equines

Chapter 2

Thanks for the memories 

The door to Fluttershy's cottage glows purple and swings open. Celestia stood in the doorway, smiling. At least, until she saw me. Her smile dissipates the instant she sees me. Her eyes change.

"Princess?" asks Twilight, she can see it too. The seething hatred in her eyes.

I take the full force of Celestia's death glare, the malice and seething hatred radiating from her normally benevolent eyes.

Even though the glare is directed at me, 'Shy and Twilight were cowering behind each other, shivering violently. I, on the other hand, am not affected in the slightest. Trust me, teenage girls are worse.

"Umm...Why are you staring at me?" I say, smiling sarcastically.

"YOU MOCK ME!?" I regret the sarcasm.

Before I could protest, her horn glows brightly and there's a flash as illuminate and brilliant as the sun. Except there's no warmth.

...

I am in complete darkness, I can't see anything and it's unpleasantly cold. My stuff is still with me, so I use my iPad to pierce the shadow.

The area around me remains cloaked in an impenetrable wall of shadow. The brightness of my iPad could not penetrate the dark.

"Damn magic." I say aloud. I really regret the sarcasm.

I trudge in the direction I'm facing, groping around in the pitch blackness. I find a surface, might be a wall.

The wall is made of stone and is damp and uneven, I think I'm in a cave of some kind. I continue trudging along, keeping my left hand on the wall at all times. This technique always works in hedge mazes, why not now?

I play music to pass the time, the cheery tune of Pinkie's 'smile, smile, smile' echoes of the surrounding wall of darkness. I smile, despite the unnerving circumstance I'm currently in.

The surface that I'm running my hand along changes. It feels like wood, and there's a handle. I have found a door. Further groping in the darkness leads to the door opening with a loud creak. Typical. I shut the music off before entering, paranoia is eating at my mentality.

The room on the other side of the door is illuminated by various wall torches evenly spaced across faded grey stone masonry. The light is fairly faint, but I can still make out details in the room.

 I am in a large hall, worn and ripped tapestries hang from the ceiling and cracked and crumbling statues are spaced out along the faded red carpet path.  On the other side of the room is a large, heavy wooden door.

My footsteps echo around the room as I cautiously make my way to the other side of the room, until I reach the faded carpet path, where the echoes stop. Silence has never felt so disturbing.

I must be in some sort of ruin, the state of disrepair that absolutely everything is in reinforces my conclusion.

I reach the door, I pull at the large iron ring. The door doesn't budge an inch.

I try and try to no avail, something is keeping this door shut.

Darkness descends.

This time my iPad works in faintly lighting up my surroundings, all of the torches had gone out. Wisps of smoke float up into the air from where the flames were.

I try the door again, and again, and again. I'm in full panic mode now, with no way but back. I turn around.

"Fuck"

Hovering above the carpet, ominously, was a smoky mass of blackness. I think I recognise it, if so, I'm kinda screwed.

"Well that's no way to greet your master." a voice says from inside of my head.

The mass floats towards me.

I try to get away, only, my body wont react. I'm just stood here, doing bugger all, while this thing floats towards me.

"I am not a thing, I'm the essence of evil" Oh shit, I was right. "I am Nightmare"

I'm screwed.

The voice continues to verbally assault my mind, the Nightmare floats closer.

Closer.

Closer.

It stops right in front of me, hovering.

"Your soul is mine." Wait, my soul?

The black miasma that is Nightmare engulfs my body, forcefully seeping through my skin and into my body, into my mind, and probably my soul too. That, and it hurts like nothing I have ever felt.

The pain overwhelms my mind, my vision fades into inky blackness and I go limp.

...

"surrender now, before I start getting forceful." the voice in my head threatens.

"You already got forceful. When you ate me!"

"Fool, I didn't eat you, I POSSESSED you. And now you will be mine."

"Never!" I couldn't think of anything better to say.

"Then I will pick apart your memories, find everything that makes you suffer, and torture your soul until you give in."

That does sound very intimidating, I really don't like my memories. I don't think  I could handle such emotional onslaught. I...

My life quite literally flashes before my eyes as I re-experience everything in my life up to now. The Nightmare skips over the brief happy moments and focuses on my suffering and agony. It uses my imagination against me, using my vast knowledge of suffering and war to cause me additional pain.

The agony that I'm in easily exceeds that of the possession process. Each memory burns into my mind with the heat of a thousand suns and the force of a atom bomb. The pain is behold overwhelming and it won't stop, until I surrender, until I let it win. I WILL NOT LET IT WIN.

I'm bombarded again with more thoughts and feelings that could boil the blood of the average man. But I wasn't average. The agonising pain doubles against me. I torment is too great, I've got to give in, I surren...

It stops.

It had found my deepest intentions and desires, my desire to make everyone that had caused me suffering to be maliciously tortured and destroyed. It was an attitude to life that I had locked away, for good reason.

The Nightmare withdraws, it's grip on my mind fades. I retaliate to its past onslaught. I flood the Nightmare with the fantasies I had locked away for so long, the pure hatred I have for this petty excuse for a villain is unlike anything I have experienced before.

The Nightmare squirms against my psychological grip, to no avail. It's suffering, greatly. That's all I want right now, to see it endure worse than it inflicted on me. I double and re-double my strokes upon my foe. It writhers and screams against my attack.

"Enough"

The Nightmare dissipates from my mind, it flees from my body. Its metaphorical tail between its legs.

I stop it.

I grip the entity with my mind. Its powerless against my will.

"Thanks for the memories."

I possess the Nightmare.

...

I awake on the cold stone floor of that room I was in before. Power courses through my body uncontrollably.

There's an explosion.

The doors that had been giving me so much trouble disintegrate before me. I smile, I possessed the Nightmare, I have its power and it has NOTHING.

Manic laughter fills the room, it's good to be back.

After my fit of psychotic laughter, I proceed through the the archway that once had doors and into the next large room. It was the very room where Twilight had turned Nightmare Moon back into Luna. I guess that means I'm in the everfree forest.

...

I make my way through the everfree, back towards Fluttershy's cottage. I wanted to pick up where I left off, just before I was so rudely interrupted. The power coursing through my body weakens as I start thinking about 'Shy. Damn.

Well nevermind, maybe the power was only temporary. Which is a shame.

I arrive at Fluttershy's cottage at dawn. The animals are all still asleep and the peaceful sounds of nature fills the air. I can definitely see why she likes it here.

I knock on the door, loudly.

There's some faint noises from inside, the animals around the cottage are waking up too. Oops. I door swings gently open to reveal a fairly bewildered Fluttershy.

"Hi, sorry to wake you up so early, but I am in desperate need of your assistance."

She just stares.

"Hello? Fluttershy?"

She snaps out of trance as soon as her name is spoken. Almost like magic, except it's not. She looks at the floor briefly before speaking.

"Celestia said she banished you to Tartarus. How did you get back?"

"Tartarus? So that's what that big black cave under the everfree ruins is, well I walked through a door into the old palace where I met Nightmare."

She gasps upon hearing that name.

"Nightmare tried to possess me and hurt me lots until I retaliated and possessed him instead. Then I walked out the door and found my way here."

She faints, so much for really simple language.

I carry her up the stairs and put her on the bed to recover.

"Fluttershy!? Are you in here?"  A voice from downstairs calls put.

I walk done the stairs to find Twilight stood in the doorway. She looks at me with absolute terror. Crap, what did I do?

Clang!

 I hit the floor. Damn frying pans.

...