A Nightmare On Canterlot High.

"Pixel, we're all going to bed, would you give that Tales From the Crypt Pinball a rest?" Sunset Shimmer said over a barrage of incessant cackles, screaming, squishing noises, and insufferable puns of the Crypt Keeper as Pixel Resolution clattered and hit the flippers of the pinball table, the others at Twilight's had set a bunch of sleeping bags around in a circular pattern around the couch, which folded out into a bed. This bed was for Twilight given that it was her house, though she insisted someone else should get it. "No Twilight, it's your house, you should get the bed." Sunset had told her when she prepared to lay on a sleeping bag with her "emblem'' aka cutie mark.

Reluctantly she agreed and shared the bed with Flash, though he slept in his sleeping bag at the foot of the bed like a pet, not snuggling her, as some suspected he would. Everyone else opted to stay in their bags circled around the fold out, save for The Dazzlings, who opted to sleep in the reading chairs with foot stools. Rarity, as she lay herself down beside Brandon's bag asked the three sirens.

"Darlings, surely those chairs can't be good places to sleep in." She said as Adagio stretched out on the fabricated but still mostly wooden chair and covered herself with a single fleece blanket.

"Don't worry about, we've slept on rocks on the oceans of...back home."

"Not to mention park benches on our first few nights here." Sonata added before curling up like a cat on her chair as she yawned. Rarity shrugged and got nice and cozy in her sleeping bag and had to admit it, though they definitely changed since they last met, these girls were tough. The young adults drifted off one by one to their dreams, or at least tried to mainly due to...

"The Morgue the...merrier!" The Crypt Keeper in the pinball game said cackling happily as Pixel racked up a million on the...fast goring. He hit the flippers as a multi-ball barrage came at hit, he sent them all into the Crypt Keeper's head, causing him to cackle and laugh again and a gain with glee as the lights and chimes rang out through the otherwise silent reading room.

"Pixel for fuck's sake! Stop playing that fucking pinball and go the fuck to sleep!" Gilda said throwing her throw pillow at him. She could weave cusses like a silk worm when someone pissed her off. She glared her yellow eyes at him angrily as she prepared to unzip her bag and wail on him if he refused to listen. Pixel adjusted his shades, one lens round and green the other square and red and held the ball in a flipper.

"Come on Gilda, I'm about to beat my high score." He said releasing the ball and sending it at the thunder cracking bumpers near the top, he then was faced by a bunch of angry eyes of the others as they looked up from the table, annoyed glares that wanted so badly to get some sleep and not fear their dreams for once. reluctantly, Pixel let the ball go down the gutter of the pinball machine and it ended his game. "I'm sorry every one, I'll just...go to bed now." He said and unlike the others who stayed in close proximity to each other and seemed almost; content, almost cozy and snugly being so close to each other as they slept, Pixel parked himself in his sleeping bag under the silent and unplugged machine and was all by himself. Maybe he felt like he didn't deserve to be so close to the others as a reprimandation for being obnoxious with the pinball, maybe it was a choice to simply be his solitary self as he lay with the flippers and bumpers of the table above him. He sat away from the others on a farther side of the reading room at the bookstore/branch library/ at Twilight's house.

They didn't know it, but what they had done, was something of an influence of their roots as magical ponies. One such guest to this party was about to learn this the hard way. The reading room grew deathly silent, only the shadows from the street light outside and the soft snores of so many people gathered to sleep in one place. Invisible to any eyes save magical ones, a soft blue aura floated from the sleeper's, this aura linked them all together as they dreamed, it was like a magical shield. One that blocked any notions of nightmares from forming in their minds as they slept. A black shadow from outside slowly slithered like a snake through the window, before emerging as the form of a man. A man with a hideous deformed face with chunks of burned flesh torn from the sinew of muscles on his cheeks and chin, a red and green sweater, a long black coat covering it, and a dirty worn hat on his head. Then those all too familiar bony hands with those blades growing painfully out of the finger bones as he reached out to the nearest dream he could see playing in Rarity's mind.

She was having afternoon tea with some starlets she'd made new outfits for. 'A bit of worms in those krumpets before I really drive it home should make this interesting.' "Freddy" said as he reached a claw out to the golden mini version of her dream, just a single cut with his claw would turn it into a black as night frightmare. Then he'd kill her, slowly and painfully with a good long swipe, he reached out and...

'Dah!!! What the Fuck!?' He said as he flinched his hand away from her, he looked and now could see the aura ring now a bubble that covered the sleepers entirely. He knew what this was, it was a relic of his time in Equestria, the equine prey he often hunted had used it to elude both him in their sleep and the monsters who hunted them in the daylight as well. there had to be a stray here somewhere.

Pixel found himself standing in some kinda sub basement, a vault deep under some house, it looked so familiar somehow, like he'd seen it someplace before. He walked past the dingy old table with the iron candle stick and stacks of ancient books on top, and nearly felt his heart stop when he rounded a corner and found himself looking at a stone casket. It was ancient, dusty, and....there was a green banner over the it and written in purple letters was.

"Yeeehhahahah! hahahah!" A cackling laughter echoed as the lid flew open and out from it popped a decrepit ghoulish figure, it was him! The Crypt Keeper! "Hello Boils and Ghouls! And Welcome back to our favorite slain show..." He paused holding a microphone to a crowd gathered behind it, the crowd consisted of traditions Lugosi like vampires in black capes and shiny gold medallions and pressed suits, their skin fish belly white and hair slicked back and oiled. Several full moon werewolves, and dry bandaged up mummies all gathered in the crowd, a macabre gathering of ghoulish ghastly beings.. They collectively replied with a loud,

"CAN YOU SURVIVE THE CRYPT?!" And the Crypt Keeper then came up to Pixel and placed his bony, old hand on his shoulder, and cackled again.

"Well, it seems we have a late comer in our final round, tell me good sir what's your name?" He said holding the mic to Pixel and he was only too happy to tell him.

"Pixel Resolution my host with the ghost." Pixel said happily taking the mic from the bony tanned hands happily.

"Hey junior leave the crappy word play to me will ya?!" The Crypt keeper said as she took the mic back. "It's good you showed up when you did too, for you see it's been a rough three rounds here at can you survive, we take you now to our special guest correspondent, The Springwood Slasher himself, Charles Fredrick Kruger!" What he saw next, suddenly made the mood change for Pixel, Freddy Kruger stepped out from behind a black curtain from behind the stage with a mic in his own claws.

"I'll tell you what Crypty, tonight's competition's been a...killer on the contestants." He said this as the first of the black curtains rose behind him, the sight almost enough to make Pixel puke. Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna were dead. Hung by their necks over two podiums, their eyes where glassy and empty staring out to eternal emptiness, their tongues flopped out of their mouths and where fat and purple, their faces had gone blue and their lips black. Bellow them, their best male friend Mr. Discord the school janitor was sobbing away in his hands, crying and mourning such a horrible way to go.

"As you can see, the school team was not so good at the trivia round, and their chances of winning where left...dangling by a thread! HHAHA HAHAHAH!" Freddy and the Crypt Keeper cackled at this...Pixel shut his eyes and tried to remind himself 'It's only a dream.' The next curtain rose and behind where three families, The Pie farmers and the cakes (who were like a second family to her) and Pinkie, Hondo Flanks and Cookie Crumbles and their daughter Rarity, and Twilight Velvet, her husband Nightlight, and Twilight Sparkle. One second glance, Pixel realized that the Pies, Cakes, and Rarity's parents...Where in tanks of water...dead. Drowned and sunk to the bottom like a grim version of a dunk tank, their clothes soaked and floating in the water as blood leaked from their eyes and noses. People sink to the bottom when they drown without life jackets, Your body fills up with water and it's taken to the bottom, to lay and wait until the day the sea shall give back all her dead for the final judgement. Pixel could see the empty, almost ...broken stares that Pinkie and Rarity had at seeing their parents drowned in tanks of water, though her parents survived, Twilight was equally as distant at seeing this, People don't always immediately start breaking down and sobbing when they are faced with the lose of those close to them, grief affects us all differently, especially when the loss is as sudden as it seemed here; though for the most part, our initial reaction is turn inward, shut down, and not even acknowledge that our loss is real, whether your're eight or thirty eight, people often tell themselves that the one they lost will be back soon.

"The Family game night...how I love traditions..but enough of that...our new comer will have to face the trials of the house of horrors that old bone boy here calls home, tonight. Will the gamer geek have what it takes? Stay tuned and we'll find out!" Freddy said with a final laugh as the "show" went to break.

He was in a special green room, the kind you'd find on any other production, only no one died on those. He sat in front of the mirror, telling himself none of this was real, he'd had nightmare where he was aware they were only nightmares and yet couldn't get his brain to listen and wake up even though he wanted too. The green room's door opened and HE entered. Once Pixel was amused by his antics, but then again, once they had been only Robert England in makeup and nothing more. "I know you're there." He said not turning around in his seat. Freddy only chuckled softly and placed the bone and steel claws on his shoulder and pressed into the fabric, hard enough to feel it, but not enough to cut....yet.

"I'm not gonna kill you...yet." He said softly scratching the fabric of Pixel's shirt, "I was going after your little friends tonight, but it seems their roots are closer in this world than I thought...For you see, this form is only an inspiration I took from your world to take and make my own." The entity said in Pixel's ear with a hiss.

"Who are you? What are You?' He asked flinching softly at the cold breath on the nape of his neck.

"I'll answer a few questions for you...no strings, no bull shit...for the first few, so let me start by introducing myself. I come from the other side of the universe linked with this one. In Equestria, I was a monster that fed on the dreams and souls of the little young-lings, because of how darn tasty they are, but I found your kind...just as good, maybe better!" He said with as much enthusiasm as someone who found a new place to eat at. "You may know this form as a movie monster, well I saw and I liked what I saw. I took the form of the one your kind calls Freddy Kruger and its been...effective for me." Freddy said as he placed the claws on the mirrored glass and scratched it with a loud metallic screech.

"Did you really kill those people out there?" Pixel asked as he sat almost unfazed by the fact that he was alone with a monster, using the image of another to kill people. The danger just as real as any of the films this thing had came from. Freddy only laughed and put his hands behind his back, his long black coat tails fluttering softly.

"No, I couldn't get to those people you saw in the dream world, and adults...bore me. Though the one that looks like the princess who nearly destroyed me back in Equestria would be almost as satisfying as killing the real deal. No lies though, not even from me. Their all just manifestations I cooked up by looking into your little brain, had to did through a bunch of useless fluff though." Pixel threw his hands up to his head as if he could almost still feel those claws poking coldly like slimy worms feasting on his brain after death. "The things your friends did tonight, the way they sleep as we speak together with each other for protection, its a tactic their ancestors used to survive. A relic of the herd behavior that they used to protect each other from entities like myself." He said clicking his claws and holding them close to his face and growled angrily.

"They hold a sleepover tonight and you compare us to a herd of horses?" Pixel asked still scared for his very life in spite of the things he was saying.

"You know damn well that it exists!" Freddy shouted before slashing just inches from Pixel's face. "You wanna know how I got to you? Your not a pony boy, you other self would never be allowed to herd with them back on the other side of the mirror, because your a Griffin on the other side. A big, dumb, quick to anger, and slow to reason Griffin, and ponies don't like griffins one bit." He said running the claws across his cheek softly with a cackle. "You and I...back where we come from, are not well liked by them. Just look at how even here, the magic and protection their bonds form, it rejected you because of the griffin blood that runs in your veins." He said scratching and drawing some blood from his chin. "Keep that in mind for me will ya? Now I'm afraid tonight's show has been...cut short." He said making another cut on his ear which stung and burned like hell. "Be seeing you all real soon." Cold voice said as the room faded away into blackness before Pixel woke up.

"Hey Pix, Breakfast is ready." Sunset shimmer said poking her head under the pinball table Pixel had camped out under when the dawn had finally come and everyone who had slept so close together was refreshed after the best sleep many of them had in a while. They sat in places around the reading room helping themselves to french toast and bowls of cereal, laughing and enjoying the morning like great friends. Not Pixel, he barley ate anything, he was too shaken up from what happened to him. He didn't dare tell Rarity, Pinkie, or Twilight what his mind had cooked up for their parents, or what it had done to their Principal and Vice Principal, some dreams are better left unmentioned for the benefit of the ones you consider friends.