In Equestria, ponies would tell their bad behaving foals about the Nightmares, the ponies that ate dreams and turned them into nightmares that tormented the children, or something about the Archangels, that were habiting the clouds above the heads of the pegasi, commanding a giant kingdom there. With the time, those stories were forgotten and everypony never questioned from where did the legends came from. The legends said that before the war between Nightmare Moon and Celestia, each one of them created a new race of ponies. Nightmare Moon created the Nightmares, making them the most remarkable warriors of the world, while Celestia made her Archangels the most pure of the creatures. Both races hated each other, and would do anything to destroy each other. Those were stories that didn't make sense for anypony, and were only used for entertainment of lovers of fantasy and mythology, such as Twilight Sparkle.
Twilight sat by her table, flipping the pages of an old book that she had borrowed from the Crystal library, drinking a sip from her coffee, absorbing the information that was written there. She smiled and heard the quick footsteps from Spike coming downstairs.
"Twilight!", Spike screamed.
The purple alicorn sighed and rubbed her brow.
"Yes, Spike?" She asked.
"A letter from Princess Celestia!" He said, handing her the letter.
Just as Twilight's magic wrapped around the paper, a loud explosion was heard and a big earthquake started. Twilight and Spike struggled to keep up, but the tremor only got worse, until five seconds later, it stopped. Twilight got up, only to hear ponies screaming around. The purple pony ran outside to find a big fire hole in the middle of Ponyville, with three ponies silhouettes coming out of it. Twilight's eyes widened in dread as a black alicorn mare with her horn cut in half, a burning, long mane, cooper colored eyes and a scar crossing her face raised from the portal. She had a stern expression, and other two ponies followed her. The right one had a more crazy expression and was a pegasus like pony, but what scared Twilight the most was that She seemed to have her whole body was made of fire, as well as her mane and tail. Her golden eyes shined through the sunlight, as she looked deviously at her two companions. As for the third one, looked like a shadow, but with purple blurs for her mane, tail and eyes. The alicorn one looked at Twilight, realizing that she was an alicorn as well.
"What ARE you?" Both Twilight and the mysterious mare asked in unison.
The dark alicorn coughed and smiled warmly at the Friendship Princess.
"I'm sorry, I should start with my name," The mare stopped as her two friends joined her.
"My name is Midnight Nightmare. These two are Fireboom," Midnight motioned to the fire made mare. "And this one is Moonlight Shadow." She pointed to the blur of a pony, as it took the form of a black mare with purple mane, tail and eyes.
Twilight looked quite surprised at the approach of the strangers.
"I... Uh... I am Princess Twilight Sparkle, and... Uh... What are you?", Twilight asked.
"Well... We're Nightmares." Midnight answered Twilight.
It was impossible, but it is right there. Nightmares were just legends. It couldn't be a prank, it was too real. Twilight stepped back from the creatures, afraid of the terrible dreams they could cause. Midnight noticed that move and mostly, she tasted Twilight's fear, but tried to fix the dread they caused.
"Wait! Don't move away!" Midnight said. "Look, we need help."
Twilight felt confused. Why would such powerful beings need help?
"With what, exactly?" Twilight asked hesitantly.
"Whelp. Let me get you into what is happening..." Fireboom spoke for the first time, flying at an demonic speed upon Twilight.