After the promised few minutes went by, the cloud’s lining changed from red to a dull yellow, and Nightmare found herself falling into the center. Realizing what was happening, she blinked once.

White walls stared at her from all angles. She looked about, trying to figure out where she was at the moment, and what surprises the draconequus had in store. As she looked about the large room, some white lockers and shelves met her vision on the walls. The center of the room had four pillars and a holographic terminal in their center. “Discord, if this is what I think it is, I may never give you a nightmare for the next year. Or until you piss me off again.”

She stood up and made her way over to a locker. ‘Pistols. Huh.’ A futuristic white and grey workbench sat between the pistol locker and another labelled one. She made her way over to it. ‘Rifles. Even better, but let’s see what else is about.’ She made her way around the room, finding more lockers and two doors. The lockers were repeats of the first two along with a pair labelled ‘Shotguns’ and a large case labelled ‘Heavy weapons.’ One door lead to ‘Explosives storage’ while the other was locked, a big red padlock on the door’s electronic lock.

As she circled the room one last time, a voice intruded on the peace. “Intruder detected in armory. All hands, repel intruder.”

The exit door’s lock flashed green and opened wide. Nightmare lit her horn and jumped behind a pillar as she cast an invisibility spell, fading from sight. After thirty seconds, a pair of white and black armor-clad bipeds scrambled into the room, weapons drawn. “Find the intruder!” one called out in a scratchy voice. She got a good look at the marking on their armor, a black hexagon with a small wedge cut out at the bottom and a pair of yellow marks on the left and right that followed the black down. Four more bipeds joined their comrades and started scouring the large room.

Nightmare looked the pair over. ‘He didn’t… he actually did! I completely owe him for this one!’ She smirked, but none of the bipeds noticed, due to her invisibility. As they crept along, she made her way over to one of the 'Shotgun' lockers and unlocked it.

One of the bipeds stopped and held a hand up to its ear. “The intruder’s not here. Not sure how it got away, but it just vanished.” The biped paced a bit. “Roger. Moving out to sweep nearby.” He pointed to one of them. “Make sure to let Engineering know to keep a close eye on our Eezo Core. We have to get back to base.”

He pointed to two others. “You two stay here in case the intruder comes back. If I don’t hear you radio in every two minutes, we’re coming back and you both better be dead, else you will be.”

The two saluted, their bodies trembling slightly before the leader and remaining three bipeds filed out. Nightmare thought, ‘Oh, this is rich! I can’t believe I get to take on Cerberus!’ The remaining two bipeds posted themselves outside, at the armory’s entrance, constantly scanning the passageway.

Nightmare’s hoof popped open the locker and a half-dozen different weapon models greeted her vision. She scanned the weapons, looking for a particular one. ‘Blast. They don’t have the Venom. I really enjoyed its cluster grenades. Maybe it’s in the other locker.’ She quietly shut the locker and locked it again before moving to the other and opening it. A few different models greeted her vision, but she remained disappointed. ‘They’ve got the Wraith and the Claymore, and yet they don’t have the Venom. Hilariously incompetent indeed.’ She telekinetically picked up the pair of aforementioned shotguns, a sleek bronze trimmed model and a green and black, bulky brick and cast an invisibility spell over them, too.

She made her way over to the 'Rifles' lockers and did the same, picking out only one model, the rare and very angrily red M-76 Revenant Light Machine Gun. She pouted as she did so, though. ‘They didn’t have the Saber or the Spitfire, but those are hard to find, even in Mass Effect.’

‘Three guns and nowhere to store the–’ Thinking quickly, she stepped behind a pillar and out of sight from the entrance. She let her invisibility spells fall and examined herself. ‘Sweet Celestia. Discord, you’ve outdone yourself.’ Her fur was black, but this armor was somehow even darker than her fur. There was a hole on each side where her wings rested against the armored plates, and the top of each wing was covered in a strong fabric the same color as the armor. Along her sides and across her back were a total of six slots for weapons.

Craning her neck around, she spied where her cutie mark of a white cloud on a purple splotch normally was, was a painted version of the same marking. She stepped forward and something bounced against the armor on her barrel softly. A matching helmet hung from a strap and she quickly donned it, sliding her horn through the hole provided as the helmet’s base sealed itself with the rest of her armor with a small hiss. Her mane and tail flowed freely from them as if she wasn’t wearing anything. A bubble around her flashed and turned transparent as her personal kinetic barrier generator activated.

Before she could be spotted again, she attached the weapons to three of the slots on her sides.

“No sir. Nothing yet,” came from the door.

‘And that’s my cue to go invisible again.’ After fading from sight, she raided the 'Pistols' lockers for a suppressed pistol. ‘Start out silent, go loud when I’m found or bored,’ she reasoned. It found its home on her last slot on the side.

‘Alright, time to check out the big guns.’ She stepped over to a case labeled 'Heavy Weapons' and popped it open. Looking over the boxes and tubes inside, she thought to herself, ‘Flamethrower? Nah.’ Nightmare passed over a bright yellow box. ‘Rocket launcher? Eh, if it’s not here, then fine.’ A grey and green tube was skipped. ‘Cain? Ohhh Peee.’ A yellow and black, almost beehive-shaped gun was skipped over. ‘Organic laser-thing? Ew.’ A slightly wriggling, flesh-colored tube was ignored. ‘Grenade launcher? Banish me, please.’ A grey box was almost shoved out of the way. ‘Chain lightning gun? Eh.’ The largest black box was carefully moved out of the way. ‘Black hole generato- Found it!’ Nightmare hefted a large, long white tube from the case and unfolded it. Four black fins protruded from its cardinal directions, and four tubes between them glowed blue. It steamed as it powered up. It was large enough that even folded up, it took up the last two slots in her armor, straight across her back.

‘The Cryo Blaster. Luna always complained how weak it was, but she never knew how powerful it could be.’

She looked to the unlocked 'Explosives storage' door and sighed wistfully before bringing the suppressed pistol out.

As she neared the entrance, a pair of checkboxes next to the words ‘Primary: Escape the Cerberus Cruiser’ and ‘Secondary: Escape undetected’ flashed in the top-right corner of her vision. She paused a moment to think it over. ‘Stealth is a secondary objective. Technically I’ve already been detected. Still, it says the objective is good. I’ll try stealth first, then.’ Her invisibility spell fell as the guards checked in a second time. ‘Invisibility spells are cheating when I’m armed like this. I’ve always enjoyed a good handicap.’

v>^^^>v<^>v

“No sir. Still nothing here.” The pair were looking down different hallways, weapons at the ready.

She raised the pistol and aimed it at one as she readied to pounce on the second. Executing her twin maneuver, the pistol ‘piffed’ twice into the first guard’s helmet and into the skull as Nightmare’s horn gored the second’s neck from behind. The first guard dropped like a sack of potatoes and the second struggled and gasped for air as he quickly bled out.

“I’ve got two minutes until I’m found out, so I’ve gotta move,” she spoke to no one in particular. Picking a direction, she started down the hall quickly.

As she neared the first intersection the voice from earlier blared, “Intruder detected. Intruder nearing Eezo core. All hands repel intruder.”

The secondary objective ticked with an ‘X’ and turned red. “Well so much for that.” She replaced the suppressed pistol on her armor and floated out her pair of shotguns. “Going loud!” She yelled, diving into the intersection. To her left was one Cerberus soldier, and the bronze-plated Wraith recoiled once, the bang echoing down all four corridors as the trooper’s body hit the ground, sans one leg laying nearby, blood pooling from both wounds. She scanned the hallway to the right and saw as a bulkhead hissed shut, sealing that passageway off. The passageway straight ahead was already sealed, the door’s lock glowing an angry red. Forced to go the way the trooper lay, she headed straight toward the cruiser’s drive core.

Only two more soldiers found her on her trek to Engineering and were killed before she made it to the engineering section of the cruiser. As she peeked around the corner, a wall of lead erupted into the opposite wall, followed by the thump and hiss of a rocket launcher firing.

‘Shit! They’ve got an Atlas! Guess I’ve their attention now! It’s time to bring out the Cryo Blaster.’

Nightmare telekinetically lifted the blaster and unfolded it. The four tubes glowed a much brighter blue as the weapon’s power up sequence completed. Its barrel started steaming again, like something very cold was exposed to the air. She backtracked to a different intersection and made her way around to a different entrance. Currently looking at the main entrance were fifty Cerberus troops.

In the rear were two stark-white Atlas assault mechs, piloted by a pair of engineers, towering over the others with their cannon arms trained on the main entrance. Their orange canopies provided their pilots an unsurpassed view of the battlefield. An armored Dragoon stood on top of each Atlas, his omni-lashes dangling from his palms boredly. Directly out in front were two dozen Guardian troopers, holding their massive Titanium-alloy shields in front of themselves as protection. Between the Guardians and the Atlases, were a dozen Engineers setting up automated turrets. In each of the corners, high up in their nests, were four pairs of Nemesis snipers, their red optics looking for the intruder. Nightmare’s helmet picked up a few distortions, picking them out as Phantoms.

Nightmare whistled softly to herself. ‘Wow. They really did pull out all the stops. Now I kind of wish I had brought the Cain. It’d make short work of this defense.’ She telekinetically held down the Cryo Blaster’s trigger and charged the blast for a few seconds as she brought her Revenant out, the machinegun folding out to twice its original length. As soon as it was fully charged, she herself charged through the second entrance, releasing the blast right into the line of turrets, as the Revenant constantly spat rounds at them.

As the frozen orb struck a turret it exploded, coating everything nearby with a strong cryogenic frost. The turrets started to seize up, but the Guardians and troopers took the worst of the blast, many freezing solid and falling to the ground. The frozen Cerberus troops struck by the Revenant’s rounds tended to shatter into pieces more often than not, and Nightmare took to the air as the turrets froze up, soaring over to the first sniper nest and her shotguns fired once. One Nemesis was missing its head, the other found itself having a hard time holding a sniper rifle with just one arm and was quickly kicked out of the nest. As the Nemesis fell, Nightmare launched into the air at a second nest, repeating her performance against its occupants.

In ten seconds, two of the four nests were cleared and the Cryo Blaster was ready to fire again. She reloaded her shotguns and the Revenant before taking aim at the Atlas mechs this time, their bulky frames slowly turning to bring their weapons to bear. “Freeze!” she called out, releasing her cryo blast into them, taking wing again, toward the third sniper nest.

One of the Dragoons called out, “What?” as the blast struck true, freezing them both solid and they hit the ground hard, smashing into pieces. The mechs’ barriers held up, preventing them from freezing. The high pitched whine of a cannon spinning up brought Nightmare to her next predicament, she’d not taken out the turrets.

She’d be pinned down soon if she couldn’t take them out! The Revenant spat shot after shot into the six turrets, only disabling one and destroying another. She made it to the third sniper nest before the remaining four turrets hit her armor’s barriers enough to drop them. Relieving the nest of its occupants, she waited a few seconds for the Cryo Blaster and her barriers to charge slightly. Releasing a smaller blast, she hit the four turrets again, and she took off to the last nest.

A warning went off in her helmet as the mechs launched two missiles at her. She sacrificed her Wraith shotgun to set them off prematurely, telekinetically slamming it into one missile, then what was left of it into the other. Reloading her Revenant again, she trained it on the nest and riddled one of the snipers’ heads so full of holes that it just fell apart. The Claymore dispatched the other one easily enough and she took refuge one last time to reload her guns and let her barriers recharge completely.

‘One spare heat sink for the Revenant, and I’ve still got five for the Claymore. I think that I’ve got one more good blast out of the Cryo Blaster before I need to reload it.’ Nightmare smirked. ‘Let’s go make ice sculptures of those Atlases.’

Grinning, she hopped the small concrete barrier at the nest’s edge and picked up speed. The Cryo Blaster unloaded it’s last shot and she set it back into place as the blast snap-froze the turrets once more. The Revenant chewed through two of the turrets, one falling over and shattering like glass. Her shotgun kicked once and one of the remaining two turrets exploded into ice chunks and slammed into the other, cracking it. The mechs were still trying to bring their weapons to bear when Nightmare herself slammed into the final turret, her body weight easily shattering the cracked surface and the turret burst to pieces.

“Alright. That went a lot better than I expected it would!” she cheered, taking to the air again. She circled the mechs and brought out her Cryo Blaster again, popping the extra-large heat sink out and replacing it with a new one. The Blaster chirped indicating it was reloaded and recharging.

As she circled, the air distorted in a pair of sniper nests. Both cloaked Phantoms took aim at the flying intruder before them. With an unspoken signal, both Phantoms’ hand blasters fired, the first overpowering Nightmare’s barriers. The second tore through part of her armor, cutting a gouge in her right hind leg. The Phantoms dropped down to ground level in anticipation.

Nightmare cried out in pain, “Damned Phantoms!” before picking up speed and diving through the door she’d entered from. Limping along a few steps, her barriers recharged and craned her neck around to check her wound. After a cursory examination, she found the blaster bolt went through her armor, only grazing her leg. “That was stupid of me. How could I have forgotten the damned Phantoms!”

A step rang loudly nearby. Nightmare’s head shot up and she grabbed her pistol from its slot. “Come out, come out, wherever you are. I only want to slice you…” rasped down the hallway.

Nightmare shuddered at the creepy voice. “I don’t remember Phantoms being this creepy.” She aimed all her weapons down the hall, where she’d just come from. Her only warning was a slight shimmer in the air before being tackled by a Phantom. Her weapons dropped as her horn struck the floor in the tussle.

Nightmare grunted. “Get… OFF!” she yelled, flailing her hooves. A hoof caught her near-invisible attacker’s head, snapping it back roughly. The Phantom suddenly appeared and dropped to the floor, her sword clattering to the ground. She didn’t get up as Nightmare recovered and snagged her pistol.

“That’s one of you,” Nightmare growled as she shot the downed Phantom’s skull twice. “There’s at least one of you to get yet.” She raised her voice, “I know you can hear me! You never do leave me alone, do you?”

The second Phantom watched her sister-in-arms fall easily to the bulkier pony. She watched as Nightmare scooped her weapons back up and made her way back to the main entrance. She held up a hand to her ear. “Intruder making its way to Eezo Core main entrance.” ‘Let’s see how you handle a pair of those mechs, mutant.’ She walked away, making her way back toward the mechs the way she’d come.

A blast fired its way through the entrance, slamming into one of the mechs as Nightmare charged through the entrance as best she could, taking wing once through. The mechs launched a pair of missiles, Nightmare deftly dodging them before they slammed into the wall behind her.

“Blast, how did they know?” Her Revenant spewed round after round into one of the mechs’ legs, destroying it. The Atlas fell over helplessly before the pilot ejected. Nightmare’s shotgun kicked once, and the pilot’s body slumped to the ground, a rather large hole in his chest where a lung would be. The Revenant clicked dry as soon as she turned it on the second Atlas. She holstered it, planning on reloading it when she got to cover.

As she swooped past it toward a nest, the remaining Phantom leaped off the Atlas’s top, sword in hand. Nightmare caught the shimmer as it barreled into her. “Damnit! Not again!” The Phantom’s free hand gripped Nightmare’s left wing, wrenching on it hard.

Nightmare cried out and the pair fell to the ground. The Phantom ended up taking most of their combined weight and was knocked out. Nightmare stood up and noticed the unmoving Phantom. “Got you this time!” Nightmare reared up and brought her entire weight down on the Phantom’s skull, crushing it like a grape. Afterward, she looked back to her wing, wrenched from its socket under her armor. “Can’t fly. Guess I’m making my last stand on hoof.”

She turned to the sole remaining Atlas as it tried to bring its cannons to bear, before charging it. As it turned toward her, she skirted around its side, making sure to keep away from its front. Even though the Cryo Blaster was ready to fire again, she couldn’t get to a safe distance without being shot at by the mech.

‘What can I do to get to beat this Atlas? A Claymore shotgun, a suppressed pistol and a Cryo Blaster that I can’t use without hitting myself. Ah, I know!’ She turned and charged between the Atlas’s legs as quickly as she could. The mech tried to take a step and crush her between its legs, but it wasn’t quick enough. Breaking into as much a gallop as she could, she cleared the mech and released a cryo blast at it before skidding painfully to a stop on her hurt leg. She turned and brought her other weapons to bear, looking at the results. The blast froze the mech’s protective canopy and its cannon arm. Her pistol fired twice and the canopy shattered, the second bullet striking the pilot in the neck.

Her shotgun kicked once alongside her pistol and the cannon arm fell to the ground, discharging in her direction. The plasma bolt it shot sailed past her and blew a hole in the wall near the drive core, as the mech toppled over.

“Alright, now that that’s over… I’m getting out of here.” Nightmare made her way toward the other end of the ship, stopping off at the infirmary to stock up on medi-gel.

Looking over her armor, she thought of an omni-tool appearing, and to her surprise it did! “Awesome. At least I’ve got an omni-tool. Now I can hopefully get past any locked doors, and get the Tartarus out of here.” She touched her omni-tool to the medi-gel container, and it registered in her HUD that she’d picked up two units.

“Alright, how do I use this stuff? Shepard made it look so easy…” As she spoke, the words ‘User wounded, apply medi-gel?’ along with the options ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ appeared on her HUD, floating a scant few inches away from her head. She lifted a hoof and tapped the option marked ‘Yes.’ The option ticked and a hiss sounded from her armor. Her leg stopped hurting as badly and her wing’s sharp pain ended, reduced to a dull throb.

“Alright, now to put my wing back in place.” She removed her helmet, noticing the HUD remained in her vision. Searching with a mirror for a seam in her armor to remove the chest piece, she found two clasps, right under each wing, and a seam that ran around her barrel and back to her rear. Telekinetically, she snapped both clasps out of place and the piece on her back hissed, popping free. The other piece dropped straight down and clanked on the floor. She took the time to sit down and look over her wing. ‘This is gonna hurt, but if I want to be able to fly in the near future, I’ve gotta do this…’

She telekinetically felt for the wing-joint. ‘Yeah. Definitely gonna hurt to put back in place.’ The wing’s joint was completely out of its socket. She gripped the joint and with a grunt that turned into a small scream, snapped it back into place.

She rested for a few minutes, letting the new pain wear off, before donning her armor again. She raided another medi-gel container for more of the precious healing liquid.

Just as she felt like dozing off, she blinked.

v>^^^>v<^>v

Nightmare groaned as she sat up. She was back in bed and the sun shone through the window. She stood and stretched, her spine and neck popping loudly before a sigh escaped her lips. “That was an excellent dream. I’ll have to thank Dissy for it when I get back.”

After a quick cold cereal breakfast, she made her way out of the cottage and took off, opening the portal to the Realm again.

v>^^^>v<^>v

A navy flash bounced all over the Realm’s interior, signaling Nightmare’s arrival. She flew through the Realm, looking for Discord. Before she spotted him, she noticed the realm looked far less orange than she remembered, and green was now the dominant color. She whistled loudly. “Wow, Dissy. Never thought you’d be the workaholic.”

“You would not be the only one surprised, Nightie,” a feminine voice replied. Looking down, she saw Luna standing next to the missing draconequus.

Discord looked immensely proud of himself. He bowed before speaking, “Well, since Chaos usually is my full-time job, I like to take pride in my work.”

Both ponies snorted at that as Nightmare came in for a landing. She landed nearby and walked over to the pair. She opened her mouth, but Luna beat her to the punch. “So, you asked to help with the nightmares, and then you go and sleep!” She pointed a hoof at Discord as Nightmare’s ears pinned back. “Even when he promised he would, he followed through.” Luna shook her head. “I expected him to goof off, not you!” Luna levelled a glare at her.

Discord defended her, “To be fair, Lulu, she was nearly asleep on her hooves as it was.”

Luna sighed. “I suppose it could not be helped, then. I hope you had some peaceful rest, Nightie.”

“Peaceful isn’t the word I’d use,” Discord replied, snickering.

“Oh, so you were watching the entire time, Discord?” Nightmare asked, quirking an eyebrow.

Luna snorted. “Of course. Once it got good, he would not stop watching!” Discord rolled his eyes. “Alright, I watched too. You did wonderful for one against fifty. I liked the part where you almost got killed twice by those Phantoms.”

Nightmare shrugged. “It happens. Those invisible devils seem to always get the better of me.”

Luna chuckled. “Too true. Anyways, I was here to see how it all went last night. From the looks of things, Discord worked overtime. Good job, Dissy.”

The mentioned draconequus bowed and a baseball stand filled with fans that looked all like Discord clapped and throw flowers. “Ah yes, you're too kind! Too kind!” He turned to Luna. “My pleasure, Princess. Be sure to mention this to little Twily, would you?”

Luna nodded before embracing Nightmare. “We really have to catch up, when there’s little work to be done for the Realm.” She released Nightmare before embracing Discord. “Bye Nightie, see you later Discord.”

After releasing Discord, she waved goodbye and took off. A bright blue flash signaling her departure. Once she was sure Luna was gone, Nightmare socked Discord in the shoulder. “You totally did all that work just to get her to yell at me, didn’t you?”

Discord nodded sheepishly. “Yep.”

Nightmare grinned. “You cheeky bastard. I love it.” She moved closer before continuing, “Though, I’m totally going to get you back for that.” He paled slightly at that.

Before he could slither away, she wrapped him in a crushing hug. “Thank you, thank you! Thankyouthankyouthankyou! I love the Mass Effect universe!”

Discord blushed, not expecting this response to his craft. “Y-You’re welcome. If you love it so much, why not keep the dream open for you to continue when you next sleep?” Discord suggested, trying to free himself.

“Good idea!” She released him and jumped backwards into a flying loop. “Goodness, I’ve not felt this refreshed in decades!”

He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “Well, I ought to get back to Equestria.” He floated the holographic window back over to Nightmare. “Thanks for letting me borrow that. It was more useful watching you than anything.”

Nightmare looked at the monitor she’d been given. Somehow it had butter stains on it.

Discord chuckled. “Sorry, you do make a pretty good action hero! What goes better with watching an action movie than popcorn?”

Nightmare shrugged and spoke, “Fair enough.”

Discord rubbed his paw and claw together nervously. “I ought to get back. Got plans with Fluttershy today.”

“Fluttershy, the… yellow one, right?” Nightmare questioned.

“Yeah, that’s her.” Discord turned around and took off.

“See you later, then! Thanks for the dream!” Nightmare waved Discord off.

“Back to the grind. Though I do feel damn good.” Nightmare stretched again before taking off deeper into the Realm of Dreams.

Author's Note

As of right now, there’s gonna be a gore warning. There’s two games being crossed into one universe, and one of them gets a little messy. Okay, a lot messy.

Oh man. Came up with this one while writing the prologue and chapter 1 for Science, Magic, N’ Jolly Cooperation!

Some of chapter two has been written already, as well.