As she delved back into the dream, she found herself back in the infirmary. ‘I wonder what class Discord made me,’ she thought. ‘I imagine my magic is equivalent to biotics, so I’m probably what… a Vanguard? A Sentinel?’ In response to her thought, her omni-tool flashed and her HUD changed. Instead of what she expected for a Mass Effect skill upgrade window, she got a completely different menu. It showed an outline of herself and her weapons, and had various points on each which could be highlighted.

‘What is all this? I don’t remember anything like this in the Mass Effect games…’ At a whim, she chose her wings. Another window popped up showing three upgrade trees. ‘Strength, elasticity, size?’ Nightmare blinked incredulously. ‘I can make my wings bigger than they are now? How is that even an advantage?’ She hovered over the aforementioned upgrade, looking for a clarifying description and found none.

Snorting, she closed the wings window and moved on to her legs. Like her wings, strength was a shared option, but toughness and acrobatics were the other trees. In the horn window, strength, efficiency and spell power were the three trees to choose from. Each weapon had its own upgrade tree, ending in one of two special effects that could be unlocked.

The final choice in the window highlighted a bubble around the other parts of her. She called it up and confirmed that it was indeed her barrier upgrade and fitness menu. She looked over the three trees, barrier strength and health, recharge rate, and damage resistance. ‘So, when I upgrade my barrier, it also upgrades my health? How does that even work?’

She took a look at the main window and saw that she had a three points unassigned to spend. She put a point in barrier strength/health, wing-strength and horn-efficiency.

After closing the skill tree menu, another popped up, showing what abilities she had at her disposal. She scanned the names and started laughing maniacally. ‘Oh sweet Celestia. I’ve got Warp, Dark Channel, Overload, and Stasis Ammo. For passive skills I’ve got Spirit of Nightmares. Oh, and an unassigned skill slot.’ She lifted a hoof and tapped the unassigned slot, and a new window opened, displaying a new list of skill types.

‘Hm… I’ve got some good skills as it is now, between Dark Channel and Warp, that’s a good combo. I can even use Overload instead of Dark Channel to set up electric bursts… I’m missing a good sustained power or unique ability. Let’s fix that.’ She tapped ‘Sustained powers’ and a third window opened. ‘Tech Armor, Fortification, Barrier… I don’t qualify for Defense Matrix, Devastator Mode or Hunter Mode, so they’re out. I could pick up Bloodlust, but that’s more for melee damage.’ Nightmare hummed thoughtfully as she brought up the ‘Unique powers’ window. ‘I could pick up Tactical Cloak, Biotic Sphere, Sentry Turret, Havoc Strike, Flamer… What’s Black Hole Singularity or do? I’ve never heard of that one. Nor have I heard of an Omni-Hammer.’

She called up Black Hole Singularity’s window and read its history. “Adepts on Omega made a startling breakthrough with the Singularity technique. By adapting the skill with the user’s omni-tool, the singularity is tweaked slightly, giving it immense mass upon creation. Unprotected enemies and those without Mag-Boots are sucked in before being violently crushed. Skill may be evolved to detonate upon expiration.” Nightmare whistled loudly.

“Whew, that’s a doozy, definitely. Now, let’s see what this Omni-Hammer’s all about.” She then brought up the Omni-Hammer’s window and read its history aloud, “In the Attican Traverse, a single Krogan scientist managed to create an improvised warhammer using disposed-of Omni-blades.” Nightmare looked at the little hammer icon, as if trying to visualize the original weapon in its position and shook her head. “After going on a two-hour rampage with his newly-acquired hammer, he was finally arrested once he collapsed of fatigue and blood loss, and the warhammer was confiscated.” She snorted dismissively.

“Afterwards, this skill was created by a team of Asari, Salarians and Turians for the war against the Reapers’ ground forces based on what little remained of the Krogan scientist’s notes, along with the media footage.” That part at least made some sense to her. “This hammer, while lightweight for its size, is unwieldy, but far is it from fragile. Those unique enough to use this skill tend to take care of their forged Hammers, and only forge a new Omni-Hammer when their current one finally breaks or is otherwise lost. One small clan of Krogan use a unique variation of these Hammers exclusively, and to be given one by the clan is a sign of true brotherhood with them.” She blinked twice, reading the description a second time.

She opened her mouth, speaking to herself again, “Omni-Hammer it is. Singularity is Singularity. Whether it crushes enemies in the middle or lifts them helplessly, it’s kind of wimpy.” Nightmare double tapped Omni-Hammer with her left forehoof and it occupied the remaining slot. She was startled as a hiss released from her opposite foreleg. Part of the panel popped off and another weapon hardpoint was revealed, glowing the same shade of orange as the Omni-Hammer in the skill’s picture did.

‘Spirit of Nightmares seems like a logical choice next to explore. What extra passive bonuses do I get?’ She tapped the skill and it opened yet another window. ‘Power damage, power recharge, mostly. Good.’

‘Alright, let’s get out of here.’ Nightmare stood, checking over her weapons. Reloading her Revenant’s last heatsink she thought, ‘Last heat sink for the Revenant, I’ll have to go get more. Might as well head to the armory to pick up another weapon too.’ She walked to the exit, the door opening as she neared it. She returned to the armory, a significantly easier task with nothing actively trying to kill her.

She stepped over the two bodies laying outside the armory’s entrance and into the room. The Explosives Storage room was open. Nightmare smiled devilishly. “They do say that any problem can be solved with the right amount of high explosives…” she said as she entered the storage room. Her jaw dropped as she looked at the empty shelves. “W-what? How can they be empty?” Her ears folded back and she sagged. ‘I was so looking forward to using those…’

Dejectedly, she returned to the main armory. After restocking her heat sinks for her current weapons, she telekinetically popped all the weapon cases open and brought their contents before her one case at a time. She examined the pistols before returning them. ‘Nah, I’ve already got a suppressed pistol. I’m good there.’ She floated the shotguns over to herself, exchanging the Claymore out for a much lighter Eviscerator. ‘The Claymore’s only got one shot per heat sink, while the Eviscerator’s got three. Wish I still had that Wraith…’

She returned the shotguns to their case and looked over the remaining rifles. ‘Why are both assault rifles and sniper rifles in the same case? That makes no sense!’ Nightmare sighed. ‘I’ve already got the Revenant. I suppose I should get a sniper rifle, then.’ She returned the assault rifles to the case before looking at the remaining weapons. ‘Let’s see. There’s the Viper semi-automatic, the Mantis single-shot, the Incisor burst-fire rifle, the Indra fully-automatic… Nah.’ She tapped a hoof to her chin thoughtfully as she returned the four rifles to their homes. ‘The Kishock harpoon gun, the Krysae that shoots explosive ammo, the Raptor also semi-auto, the Collector sniper rifle…’ “No. Not that one. It’s a little too fleshy for my tastes.” And the fleshy gun wriggled as Nightmare deposited it back into the case, looking the last three weapons over. ‘They have a Javelin, but not the Spitfire? Jeez. There’s also the Widow and the N7 Valiant. I never cared for the Valiant or Raptor.’ A grey and black rifle with a couple red stripes adorning its side, floated back into the case alongside a white rifle with yellow markings.

‘Alright, just the Kishock, Krysae, Javelin, and Widow left. The Kishock shoots literal flash-forged harpoons.’ A short black rifle sat down on the bench nearby. ‘The Krysae shoots explosive ammo.’ A green and grey, rather-abstractly shaped rifle set down next to it. ‘The Widow’s just a high-powered anti-materiel rifle.’ A long, light grey rifle joined the pair. ‘And finally the Javelin’s a very high pressure water gun with a thermal scope.’ She walked over to the bench and sat down in front of it.

She spoke aloud to herself, “With the Cryo Blaster freezing targets, the Kishock would be nice for delivering devastating blows to bigger targets, but shattering several in a row with the Javelin or Widow would make for a much easier time handling groups of enemies…” She floated the Krysae back to the case almost sadly. The Kishock joined it. “Alright, so I’m down to the Widow and the Javelin. The Javelin’s got better stopping power, can penetrate armor and cover better than the Widow, and has that scope that shows an enemy you can hit, even though cover. The Widow holds more ammo and should reload much faster… Against mooks like those Cerberus troopers, one shot from either rifle puts them down.” She debated between the two rifles for a minute more before the Widow was returned to the case and the Javelin rested on one of her weapon hardpoints.

She took one look at the bench she sat at and noticed a full assortment of weapon modifications lining its sides. She pulled her weapons out and set them out to be modified, her omni-tool assisting in slotting the chips and threading the barrel attachments with ease. ‘Hm… remove these panels, slot new compartments in…’ The Javelin was upgraded with extra ammo compartments and a high-velocity barrel, further increasing cover penetration and damage capability. ‘Thread this onto the barrel’s end, make sure it’s snug.’ The Eviscerator got a high-velocity barrel as well, providing the same upgrade, as well as an internal choke upgrade to increase accuracy. ‘Strip the internal heat distribution system and replace it with this more efficient version…’ The Revenant got a magazine upgrade and a cover piercing mod, giving it cover penetration like the Javelin originally had. ‘Snap the scope onto the top rail and secure in place.’ The suppressed pistol took on a scope. Satisfied, she returned her weapons to their hardpoints and walked out into the hall.

A loud rumble shook the ship, followed by screeching and a voice calling out over the intercom, “Starboard hull breach detected along decks two, four and six. Decks depressurizing. Starboard engines unresponsive. All personnel to escape pods. Automated emergency landing protocols initiated.”

The cruiser’s hall lighting flickered before going out, bathing the area in darkness and the ship shuddered again. Nightmare’s helmet flickered, flipping into night-vision mode. The voice called out over the intercom again, “Starboard hull breach detected along decks two, four and six. Decks depressurizing. Starboard engines unresponsive. All personnel to escape pods. Automated emergency landing protocols initiated. Drive Core offline. Life Support offline. Reserve power siphoned to remaining engines for emergency landing.”

Nightmare whistled. “Well, I know where the high explosives went, then.” Instead of taking a right down to engineering, she took a left, toward the bridge. Five minutes went by uneventfully as she crossed the seemingly-abandoned ship, seeing blood or bodies of soldiers that she’d never killed strewn about haphazardly. ‘I’m not alone here, something killed these guys. I just hope it won’t try to kill me.’ As she neared the next corner, she stopped, just poking part of her head around to make sure that there wasn’t an ambush ahead.

When she reached the Command and Control section of the ship, the first hallway’s white walls were stained with blood, and some kind of flesh had spread along the ceiling. As she was inspecting it, Nightmare noticed the fleshy substance was climbing down the walls almost imperceptibly slowly.

As she closed in on the Officers’ Bridge, she noticed something written on a wall, written in blood with a Cerberus trooper’s body laying underneath. ‘Go for the limbs. Hack them to pieces. That’s the only way.’ Examining the trooper’s body closer, she saw he’d been impaled with inch-diameter spikes. ‘Almost like it was from…’ She yanked one out of the trooper’s body and examined the two foot-long spike. ‘It can’t be… if this is what I think it is, I take back what I said about Discord.’

She checked the map at the next intersection and the Officers’ Bridge was just around the next corner, to the right. The automated voice came over the intercom again, bearing a different message. “Unknown pathogens detected in atmosphere in Command and Control. Quarantine lockdown initiated. Staff are advised to watch for symptoms of disease.”

Thoroughly frustrated, Nightmare stomped a hoof. “Oh come on! Really! Just as I get here it starts? Of fucking course it does.” She vented her rage, stomping a nice dent into the floor for a few seconds, before a screech down the left hallway broke her concentration.

What was left of a trooper shambled down the hallway. On top of each shoulder, a green limb ending in a spike protruded, giving the trooper four arms. It screeched again, an unholy roar, as if noticing her, before sprinting at her, raising its spike-arms menacingly.

Nightmare, startled by its original scream, hesitated for a second before leaping forward, ducking under it’s spike-arms as she used her superior mass to knock it to the ground. A single hoof stomped down and popped its head like a grape, but the mutated trooper kept struggling. She grabbed her Eviscerator shotgun and put a shell into each of its spike-arms, severing them. After that, she put her final shot into its legs from the side, severing both legs. It gurgled from the stump on its neck before going still.

Nightmare removed her helmet and scraped the blood and gore off the visor before replacing it. “Great. Necromorphs. Just what I always wanted to see. Before I go any further, I’m making an Omni-Hammer. I’ve got this inkling feeling that I’ll need it.”

She stepped off the freshly re-killed trooper and back into the intersection, holding her left hoof up in front of her, she activated the Omni-Hammer skill. The little tool set to work flash forging a hammer for her. As it worked, the tool flashed several directions and positions to hold her hoof into her HUD to help the forging process along faster. After the task completed, the tool beeped loudly and it shut off, the hammer dropping to the floor. The hammer itself glowed bright red-orange from the heat, with a blunt tip on one side, and a spike on the other. She lifted the hammer, comparing its size to herself. The shaft was almost as long as she was tall, its head coming to rest level with her muzzle. On her HUD, the skill turned grey and a timer of one day started ticking down.

Nightmare whistled appreciatively as she hefted it in her telekinesis. She strapped it to her leg and it folded up to be as long as her leg, its heat siphoning off into her armor. “That’s a big hammer. Well, there are some big bugs to squash, so it’s appropriate.”

After chuckling at the mental image for a moment, she shook her head. ‘Time to get busy then. This quarantine won’t lift itself.’ Her HUD updated, adding a new sub-objective under her current one, labelled ‘Release Quarantine Lockdown.’ She stalked forward while reloading her shotgun, looking for the bridge. Her HUD bleeped once, highlighting a door farther down the hallway on her right.

As she neared the door, a screeching sound shook the wall on the right and the doors opened. A single Nemesis, followed by several Cerberus Officer-Centurions backed out the door, firing into the room. After the last officer had cleared the door, it slammed shut and one of them slammed an armored fist into the control panel, smashing it. Nightmare dropped into a crouch, stealthily nearing them in the darkness.

“Damnit! What the hell happened in there?” The Nemesis shouted.

Several of the officers exchanged looks before one responded, “Your guess is as good as mine, ma’am.”

She relaxed her grip. “That’s better.” She sighed before continuing, “The Illusive Man’s gonna have my head for this if we can’t contain it.”

Nightmare took stock of their state. She looked at the gathered officers, whose armor all had dents and holes in them from the fight. The only one who didn’t have any damage was the Nemesis, but her rifle was scratched all over and the scope and stock were missing.

“So what do we do now?” one officer asked, tossing his rifle away, inadvertently toward Nightmare. She lost the answer as his rifle clanked on the floor and broke into pieces.

After the pieces settled, she looked up to see them headed her way. The Nemesis spotted her first and called out, “Intruder!” The rest of her compatriots lifted whatever weapons they had.

Nightmare, in response stepped forward, lifting all of her weapons out into ready positions and speaking, “Are you sure you want to do this? I can see most of your weapons are falling apart at the seams, as well as your armor is.” She kicked a piece of the broken assault rifle laying on the ground off to the side before bringing her new Omni-Hammer in front of one side of her helmet as if she were holding it with a pair of hands. “I’m all for letting you pass unhindered, but I don’t mind fighting either, if you really want to try me.”

The Nemesis held her hand up and lowered her rifle. She looked at the veritable arsenal pointed in her direction before turning back to her compatriots. Only one had his weapon up, but she received more than a few nods from the others. “We never saw you. You never saw us.”

“Who are you again?” Nightmare smirked under her helmet and stood off to the side, returning all of her weapons excepting her shotgun and hammer to her armor.

“Exactly.” She motioned forward and the group quickly moved past Nightmare and down the hallway away from her.

‘Well, that was easy. Bet they forgot about the quarantine. Back to work.’ She walked up to the door the group had come from and pulled her helmet off. Pressing an ear to the door she heard several screams filter through the metal before she pulled back and donned her helmet again.

She pulled out the Javelin, unfolded it, and peered through its scope at the door. Though she couldn’t see into the room, dozens of shapes highlighted, showing what she feared would be in the room. The room was packed with bodies and necromorphs. Several seemed to be going to each corpse and reanimating it as one of their own.

‘Shit. I can’t waste time unless I want to fight everything in there,’ she thought. ‘Fuck it. I’ve got plenty of ammo, I can just go in guns-blazing this once if I need to.’ She looked to the smashed control panel. ‘Looks like I need to knock.’

She spun around and bent her forelegs, taking all her weight on them. She curled in her hindlegs, before lashing out at one of the double-doors violently. Her hooves met the metal, and she felt it bend quite far. She repeated the her action on the door again, knocking the door from its tracks, and sailing into the room. She turned around and looked at the door as it sailed.

“Knock knock!” She called out as the door hit the ground, impaling a corpse with a screech. Her telekinesis grabbed the other door, and she heaved herself against it. It noisily screeched into the wall, giving Nightmare enough room to enter. She looked up to see another walker, like the one earlier, charging her, along with two others.

She didn’t hesitate this time as she brought her hammer to bear, swinging horizontally at the first’s head. Its spike arms and head were liberated from its body with one swing. The body continued forward unhindered as Nightmare stepped up and used her weight to knock it over. She stomped down on its chest and swung the hammer again, this time at its legs with the spiked part. They were separated and it quickly went still. Her Revenant spewed lead, floating to the second’s legs and severing them both with a hail of fire before moving onto its head and arms.

After the arms had been severed from both of them, her telekinesis grabbed them. She turned her eyes on the third necromorph-trooper, before her horn surged with power. The four torn limbs flew and impaled their target’s chest, momentum carrying it to the far wall, where it was stuck, screaming and struggling.

As she stepped off her first kill, she took stock and brought the rest of her weapons back out. Seven unnoticed necromorphs growled as they stood. Nightmare smirked as she sent each of her weapons after one, and a few seconds later, the room was clear. Consoles and monitors lined the walls, except where the doors were. From where she’d entered, there was a door caddy corner from it, and what looked like an emergency sea-landing exit in the ceiling.

She moved to the other door, her omni-tool unlocking and opening the door easily. She looked about the room as the door shut behind her. Her objective marker lit up on a still running terminal on the room’s far side.

She started moving, toward the terminal until something landed on her back.

Nightmare cried out and panicked, galloping forward. She heard more than felt something trying to tear into her armor. As she came to the room’s far side, she skidded to the side before rolling, trying to crush whatever was riding her.

As her weight pinned the offending rider to the floor, she completed her roll and was back on her hooves. Instead of the necromorph she expected, a Phantom greeted her vision, slightly more flattened than the previous Phantoms she’d encountered.

Her pistol put two bullets in the Phantom’s skull, making sure it was dead. Afterwards, she walked over to the terminal and pressed a few buttons on it. The robotic voice came over the intercom, “Quarantine lockdown lifted. All staff exercise caution until otherwise noted.” The objective ‘Release Quarantine Lockdown’ ticked green and disappeared.

Nightmare sat down, sighing. “Well, I take back what I said about you, Discord.” She yawned before blinking.

v>^^^>v<^>v

A navy flash signaled Nightmare’s return to the Realm. Nightmare immediately took stock of the Realm’s state, surprisingly finding it more stable than it usually is, only roughly one of every three dreams anything but pleasant.

‘I swear, Discord is doing this just to make me look bad,’ Nightmare thought. Speaking of Discord, he was nowhere to be seen so she called out, “Discord? You still here?”

Something tapped her shoulder causing Nightmare to loose a loud yelp before hopping away. As she turned, she noticed Discord was the culprit. Only, he didn’t look quite right. His beard and the tuft on his tail were bright red, he had a white umbrella under one arm, and he was covered in blue polka dots. “I figured you would be showing up about now. So, what’s up?”

“What’s up? What’s wrong with you? You’re covered in polka dots and you’ve got a red beard!” she cried out.

He looked himself over before tisking once. “Oh dear, I seemed to have sunned myself too long.”

Nightmare shook her head. “Anyways, I had one question. In the dream you made me, why did you cross the Mass Effect and Dead Space universes?”

He waved a finger at her. “Spoilers, my dear. All that crossbreeding happened for a reason. So, where did you leave off?”

Nightmare shot an unamused glare his way. “Weren’t you watching? I just shut down the quarantine.”

“Which one?” Discord raised an eyebrow.

The sound of a hoof striking its owner’s face rang clearly through the realm. “Dear lord. I’m going to kill you if you’re serious.”

“Now, why would I be serious?” he asked, scratching his back with the umbrella with his eyes shut. The icy stare that he received when he looked back to her cowed him slightly. “Alright, serious time.” He held up his paw. “I swear there are no more quarantines.”

Nightmare relaxed slightly. “You still didn’t answer why you mixed them. You could give me a hint.”

He sighed, seeing no fun way out of the situation. “Alright. I’ll only say two words. Necromorph. Reaper.”

Nightmare took a step back, ears folding. “You’re kidding. You’re kidding, right?”

“You’ll find out.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively and disappeared.

Nightmare sighed, taking wing and looking over the Realm. “Great. Now that mental image is gonna be stuck in my head. How the hell am I supposed to beat a necromorph reaper?”

“A what reaper?” A voice asked off to her left.

Nightmare looked over to the voice’s owner, finding an grey, wall-eyed pegasus. Her mane and tail had turned silver since they had met, but some of those strands still held their original yellow. “Oh, sorry Ditzy. Just mulling over a challenge Discord may have set up for me. The hint he gave me was ‘necromorph reaper’ and I’m stumped.”

Ditzy hummed in thought for a moment before taking wing and joining Nightmare in her patrol. “You got anything to make it extremely hot or cold? How well would a necromorph reaper work in space?”

Nightmare shook her head. “I dunno. But it’s Discord, so it may just work because of how it shouldn’t.”

Ditzy chuckled lightly. “Fair enough!” They lapsed into silence for a few minutes before entering an area of the Realm that childrens’ dreams seemed to appear, and Ditzy spoke up again, “Seems like this is my stop. Have a good shift, Nightmare.” She waved and took off.

Nightmare waved back and responded, “You too, Ditzy.” Beating her wings a little harder, Nightmare sulked for the rest of her shift, a small part of her mind desperately trying to figure out a viable strategy.

Author's Note

CDR says murder everything. I think that’s a swell idea, CDR. That kind of was the original plan, too.

I also… took a day to create an actual class that Nightmare could viably use in Mass Effect 3’s Multiplayer. Which is totally fun ~~and not at all bullshit~~. But seriously. It’s a blast to play, especially when you’ve got a good group of friends and can take on the higher difficulties.