Luna Nightmare

"Oh look. I think we solved it...?" Daring prodded the door handle, looking up at the green sign.

"Fire escape." Rainbow Dash read aloud. "Sounds like it, yeah."

"Be prepared for anything." Daring stood to one side of the door, clear of the way should something bust in. Rainbow took the other side, waiting for a signal.

Daring nodded, and Rainbow turned the handle and swung the door open. Light flooded in.

Natural, pure, and white sun light.

Daring peeked. It took some time for her eyes to adjust, but when they did-

"Wow. Some dream Princess Luna has." she said, and sighed.

Rainbow raised an eyebrow questioningly, then took a look for herself- and gaped at what she saw.

Miles and miles of white snow. Dunes rose and fell across the whole field, reflecting sunlight into their eyes.

"Great. Just... Great." Rainbow's shoulders sagged. "Guess we're supposed to keep going?"

Daring was silent for a moment or two. "Eeeeyup." she said a few seconds later, and trotted into the snow. Rainbow sighed again, and followed.

*

Twilight finally allowed herself some time to stop and catch her breath. More of the shadow ponies were closing in on her. She charged up her horn again, and the blast that followed took out the entire front row. She could feel the power draining out of her with each attack- but the shadow ponies kept coming back.

She fired off another blast, and kept running. There was light in front of her. A little odd looking as it lacked the warm tint of the sun, but none the less comforting considering she spent the last hour in complete darkness.

Now she had a target to run for, time seemed to pass a lot faster.

The light was quite bright from the other side, and all she could see was white when she leaped out of the door. She looked back- the shadow ponies weren't behind her anymore. She let out a sigh of relief.

She sat down in the cold, and looked around, confused.

"Snow..." she muttered, scooping up a hoofful of it. It was cold, but she was just glad that Nightmare Moon's minions don't come this far. Her horn sparkled, and the snow around her cleared to reveal the green grass underneath.

She lay down on her stomach, allowing her legs to rest and her magical energy to recover. Her breathing soothed, and she closed her eyes. Getting tired while sleeping. She never thought that was possible.

She lay there for quite a while- she lost track of time. But when she looked up she for the first time noticed hoof prints in the snow. She was about to follow them when a cold blast on the back of her head made her jump and shudder at the same time, and growled as she heard Pinkie Pie giggle, preparing another snow ball.

*

"Seems like a city. Not big, but there it is." Daring said, peering through binoculars. She looked at Rainbow when she heard no reply, to find her looking a little incredulously at her.

"What?" she asked.

"You found binoculars." Rainbow Dash said.

"Thanks for stating the obvious." Daring started scanning the area again.

"In the middle of snow covered no-where."

"You may not have noticed, but I was being sarcastic earlier."

"You found binoculars in the middle of no-where. How do you even do that? How in the hoof is that even possible!?" Rainbow Dash asked. A few minutes ago they were just trudging through the snow, when Daring suddenly stopped and dug a one meter deep crater in the snow. She re-emerged with a pair of perfectly functional binoculars and a baseball bat.

"Instinct." Daring said simply, although Rainbow suspected there was more than that.

"And the baseball bat."

"Yes."

Rainbow sighed. Too many freakin wonders.

"Got a few guards up ahead." Daring tucked away the binoculars into her jacket pocket. They were both lying in the snow, observing the small city up ahead.

"Reckon we're supposed to go in there?" Rainbow asked.

"Probably. It's quite chaotic in there though." Daring handed her the binoculars.

"This keeps getting weirder and weirder." Rainbow said, scanning the city. "What do you think is causing this?"

"Luna having another headache?"

"Mmm. Still... " Rainbow watched as the ponies in the city flew in virtually every direction. Well, not much more flying than tumbling... But they were everywhere, pegasus or not. Along with them were a bunch of random stuff, ranging from sofas to taxis.

"Yeah. I have no idea." Daring said. "But we need to get in. The guards won't be much of a problem, but the gravity in that is..." she stopped mid-sentence, hearing a sudden displacement of air behind her. She whipped around, leaning to one side, her baseball bat ready to strike.

The snowball hit the dune she was hiding behind and disappeared into the snow. Pinkie Pie let out a disappointed moan.

"Oh. Hey guys." Rainbow said casually. The group that approached included Pinkie, Twilight, Applejack, Derpy and the Doctor.

"We left Fluttershy behind, didn't we?" Twilight counted the numbers, and sighed.

*

Iris's footsteps were gentle, but failed to be silent as they echoed around the giant hall in Canterlot. His body was white, and his mane an electrifying emerald. Just an ordinary earth-pony- except for his eyes. They were deep aqua blue, and slowly turned into green approaching the pupil. Not normal, admittedly; but neither were his powers. His eyes allowed him to perform magic that not even the best of unicorns could have ever imagined.

But it was also weak, in a way. The magic he performed were mainly instincts, therefore he couldn't strategize what spells to use in combat. He knew very few that he could just pull out and use, but once he knew how to do them he could do them again. Unicorns like Twilight had a range of usable spells, but he only had about five. Not bad for an earth-pony, should he say so himself.

He got up the steps leading to the princess's sleeping chambers in a brisk walk, not wasting any time but not hurrying either.

"Princess Celestia..." Iris bowed as he entered the chambers. "Duty calls?"

"Yes, Iris." Celestia said, gesturing at the sleeping ponies on the ground.

Iris raised an eyebrow. "Should I awaken them?" he asked, although he sensed that wasn't it, since the princess was perfectly capable of waking a few lazy ponies- and, is that Luna?

"No. Of course not. I need you to use your eyes and look into their dreams. Report what you see." Celestia got straight to the point.

"I'll try my best, princess... But my capabilities are limited." Iris said warily.

He tapped in, closing his left eye and concentrating on his right. The world around him twirled, and he was in.

Except...

He stomped a hoof into the snow. "Well that was a disaster." he said, quite angry at himself.

Instead of watching the dream, now he was in it.

*

"Should we wake him...?" Rarity raised an eyebrow after Iris simply collapsed to the ground, snoring quietly.

"No. If we do from the outside, it's going to make the dream unstable. So... He has to kill himself in the dream."

"Maybe we should've briefed him on the dangers before we sent him in...?"

"This I agree with you my dear subject." Celestia sighed.

They heard a song being hummed at the door way, and turned their heads.

A light blue alicorn popped round the corner. She had a brown mane, with dark blue applied to the tips. In her hooves were a tray of muffins and a few cups of lemonade.

"I came to watch Iris work~~" she sang, right on tune but with terrible lyrics.

"Princess Ally..." Celestia sighed. "This is serious business, and we need to be quiet."

"Oh, right." Ally said, but her mood didn't dim the slightest.

"Appreciate the lemonade. Well decorated muffins." Rarity commented.

"Ah!" Ally exclaimed with glee. "You must be Rarity! I've heard a lot about you..."

"You have? I mean... Well yes... I..."

"You might want to take those muffins away before-" Celestia started the warning, but was far too late.

Derpy suddenly woke, and tackled the tray of muffins.

"That is not good." Rarity made the statement as Derpy gobbled down the muffins.

*

The earth rumbled.

"Hear that?" Daring frowned.

"Ye-e-e-e-e-e-e-s-s-s-s...." Pinkie said, vibrating with the ground.

The Doctor sighed. "Looks like Derpy got woken up from the outside... The dream's getting unstable. Now we have even less time..."

"Come on ya fellas, we gotta get move'n!" Applejack said, and started for the city.

"Yeah. We really have to." Rainbow said, looking behind her at the snowy plains. Except, it was replaced by a huge canyon- and it was still getting wider.

"Really, now? We have a huge crack in the earth chasing us?" Daring rolled her eyes, then punched at the air above her. "AWESOME!"

Rainbow leaped into the air, her wings spread wide. She glided over the galloping ponies, keeping an eye on the crack. They could hear it now, rocks tumbling down the steep slope as it advanced, snow pouring down the side along with dirt and other debris. One fall down that and it's wake-up time.

"Come on girls!" Rainbow cried. The edge of the cliff was dangerously close.

"Woah.... What's this now?" Daring wobbled a little, feeling suddenly a little dizzy.

"Luna's waking up! Come on Princess Celestia... Notice... Come on!" the Doctor urged.

*

Celestia took another sip out of the glass of lemonade. She almost dropped the glass when she heard Luna groan.

She panicked for a second or so, but quickly shot a spell at her and knocked her back to sleep again.

Wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead, Celestia sat back down again.

*

Suddenly all signs of gravity disappeared, and they floated into the air, hooves away from the ground. And now the ground disappeared from underneath them, collapsing into a giant canyon. Oxygen seemed to leave too, and they were left with empty lungs and without words. Rainbow's wings failed, and with her momentum she tumbled forward. Snow was everywhere, flying and floating.

Somepony whistled, and they all turned to look at a white earth-pony with an emerald mane. They looked into his eyes, and instantly their world started to swirl, as if being absorbed into the eye. Colors shifted here and there, and they lost their orientation- it felt like being dragged through the air at sonic speed. Blood rushed to their limbs and away from their bodies- but as soon as the sensation had started, it was gone, and they were left panting on the snow fields.

"Celestia... She did... It..." Doctor Whooves said.

"Wha... What happened...?" Daring looked around. There was the white colt again.

"We owe you a mighty lot but... Who are you?" Applejack asked.

"Iris. But we don't have much time, now do we? I'll get to know you all once the job is done. Celestia sent me. Now... You were headed for the city I take it?"

"Yeah...." Applejack began, but the ponies were thrown into the odd state again. Once their vision cleared, they were right in front of the city gates.

"Damn... Something is preventing me from getting us in directly. Ah well. We're here." Iris rubbed his right eye.

"Thanks for the ride...?" Rainbow didn't know what to say, so kicked open the gates. Wasn't too hard. Wonder where the guards went.

"I'm sorry... What?" Iris stared at the chaos in the city. "Sure it's safe?"

"Let's find out!" Daring and Rainbow yelled together, and jumped in.

"Whooaah!!" Rainbow began floating in one direction, while Daring started in the other. They stretched their wings, but it barely made a difference.

"Hmmm. Corrupt gravity. I think each pony will be attracted in one particular direction... Let's hope none of us is 'up'." Doctor Whooves said, observing the struggling pegasi.

"We do have to go through this, right?" Iris asked.

"Well, we could go around it... But that really isn't an option as it'll take too long." the Doctor said.

Iris sighed. "Good luck everypony." he said, then stepped in.

His stomach turned, and he was flying to the right. He was flying, but it felt more like falling. He quickly found the direction he was falling in, and prepared for a landing. His hooves touched the glass of a building, and went right through- looks like his direction is more to the upper right. He tumbled into a wall, and slowly got up. He stared at the ground in front of his face, and looked up at the window he broke through. Shattered glass was on the floor, so the gravity thingy only applies to the ponies- otherwise it's still normal.

Climbing out into the open again, he found himself almost completely lost his sense of direction, for it not the gates that they entered through were not too far away. He looked around him.

The buildings don't seem to be constructed normally. It seems there are six gravity points and directions, and there are buildings built on the basis of each of those six, creating a town that twists and turns at every street. The whole place is like a normal city that got wrapped around itself.

"Girls...?" he heard Twilight call.

"Over here! Is everypony alright?" Applejack yelled from somewhere else.

"We're OK! This is FUN!" Iris didn't have to listen to the voice to know who would say that.

"How do we meet up?" Rainbow asked.

After a period of silence in which they listening to the sub-conscious ponies slam into buildings, Twilight spoke. "We don't. We can't."

"Wow. I'm actually not surprised." Rainbow said. "I don't think anything will be weird after this."

"Get through the city, we should be fine once we're out." the Doctor said, but they could all hear the unease in his voice.

"Go on." Daring said.

"Problem is going through... I doubt Nightmare Moon doesn't have any minions here."

The city rocked, shaking the buildings and sending cracks scattering up their sides. It stopped.

"Excellent timing." Iris sighed.

"Thanks."

"RUUUUN!!!" Pinkie screamed.

Iris quickly looked in the opposite direction in which they're supposed to be heading, and gaped at what he saw, temporarily forgetting it's a dream.

"I'll hold them off!" he yelled.

A thunderous roar rippled across the city, spreading the cracks on the buildings even further.

Slowly marching down the city was an army of shadows, dark mist twirling around the shadow ponies as their universal march made the earth(er, dream?) tremor. They all had evil grins spread across their faces, anticipating the moment they are given the order to paint the city red, their eyes glimmering with glee as a massive blade of dark energy swept through the air and severed a skyscraper in two. The building tumbled down to the ground and vanished behind a cloud of grey ash. Laughter echoed throughout the whole army.

"I'm sorry, why did I say I would hold them off again?" Iris said to himself, then closed his right eye. His pupil narrowed, concentrating on the front line of shadow ponies. His eye glowed blue, and a thin beam fired off from its center. The beam hit the ground in front of the shadow ponies harmlessly- but the harm part hadn't come yet. It suddenly expanded, taking in a ten meter radius, the light swallowing the ponies. It faded, and the ponies weren't there anymore- in fact, the only thing left behind was a huge cave dug into the ground. The ponies behind the front line gingerly avoided the sudden geological change, but their blood-thirst failed to fade.

Iris spotted something in the center of the army- a center spot, with shadows and mist swirling and eating at the air, surrounding something he couldn't quite see. He squinted, trying to make out what was being protected by the dark mass.

Suddenly the shadows left that spot, unwinding and heading straight for him in the form of a spear.

Iris's eyes allowed him to see things in a slower frame-rate should he wish to do so- but even with time in his hooves he barely avoided the spear- it grazed his cheek, but the ease of which it flew through the air bothered him the most.

The spear flew back, and joined the mass again. Iris caught site of somepony in the center before the spear completed the dark mass and Nightmare Moon was once again shielded from view.

"Buck, buck, buck..." he muttered. Squaring off against Nightmare Moon on his own? He never thought royal duties would call for this... He barely imagined it as a kid.

Evil laughter echoed off the tall concrete and glass buildings. The shadows retreated then dispersed, and Nightmare Moon rose from the center of the army, her wings beating steadily and lifting her off the ground. She hovered over the army, watching as it all unfolds.

Twilight was still heading out of the city when she heard the laughter. The easily recognizable, evil laughter. She turned around, her teeth bared, and spotted the mare of darkness hovering in the air miles away.

"GIRLS!!" she yelled. "GET BACK HERE!"

"Oh, good Celestia. Reinforcements." Iris said, looking at the ponies now charging back into battle. He heard a swishing noise, and moved just in time as a blade cut through the building like scissors through paper and almost took him too.

Iris's side of the building started creaking and groaning, struggling to keep standing. But having half its support structure sliced off made the struggle futile.

Iris galloped to the left, where the other half of the building was. He leaped and landed, but realized this part was tilting to the side, about to fall over. He looked back, but the other half was already sinking bellow the ashes. He tried to teleport, but for some reason he couldn't.

"This just sucks." he said, then felt a pair of hooves dig into his side. The shaking building left his hooves, and he was flipped into the air, watching buildings, shadows, and light flash before his eyes. He felt those hooves again, under his armpits and lifting him into the sky. The building he was on earlier fell over to the side, knocking down another.

"Reinforcements have arrived." Spitfire grinned, her wings flapping, keeping them both aloft.

"How did you know...?"

"Celestia called us. Fluttershy woke up, and informed her on the situation. Apparently Nightmare Moon wants a full scale attack on your pony friends?"

"Technically they aren't my friends yet, I've known them for like ten minutes..."

"Blah, blah." Spitfire said, annoyed. "Get ya to the ground first. Then us wonderbolts can work our magic." she winked, lowering Iris onto the streets.

"Good luck Spitfire!" Iris called after Spitfire's trail of lightning clouds as she sped off.

"Rapidfire, you take the Shadowbolts on the right. Fleetfoot, cover us from the left. Soarin, with me." Spitfire commanded, flying through the air. The wonderbolts divided, and flew to their designated targets, with Spitfire and Soarin heading straight for Nightmare Moon.

A blade of dark energy swiped across at them, and they avoided it narrowly by performing tumble turns.

"Three Shadowbolts... Behind us!" Soarin yelled.

"Bring 'em down." Spitfire said, her wings twisted and she curved dangerously towards the ground. She pulled up just before she could hit the ground- but the less skilled Shadowbolts trailing her slammed right in, fading into mist.

On the ground, the situation was getting a lot trickier as the ponies tried to cut a clean path to Nightmare Moon.

"Darn these things-" Applejack fired an apple from a small hoof-held canon. "They just won't go away!" she groaned as she was tackled, and fell onto her back. The shadow pony was about strike again, when a dark blade cut right through it.

Applejack looked around, confused. The blade that had swept through was different. It was dark blue, and it shimmered with the stars, should it be night time. Somehow it was comforting to see it, and Applejack wondered if she was being mesmerized.

More shadow ponies charged forth, but were easily knocked back into the crowd as the blue shadows continued their relentless yet graceful attacks.

A dark blue hoof encased in silver stomped on the ground, and sent a shiver running down the spines of the shadow ponies.

Princess Luna narrowed her eyes, and her shadows curled around her, ready to strike again.