Nightmare Banishers

The Filly Devourer

Spike was disguised as a sweet innocent filly by Luna’s magic. He was in a fake dream world that the average pony would not tell the difference between it and a real one. His job was bait for a living nightmare that codenamed the Filly Devourer. It got this name from its preferred food source. He, his wife, and her sister grimly discovered this pest from the incoming reports of parents found their fillies were dead in the morning. They only would feel remorse for filly families and tried to kill this living nightmare as soon as possible. After the new victim, Luna made her mission to monitor every of the next likely victims. She quickly saw it was a light pink clown mare with a long free flow mane. It used its sweet charisma lured fillies to its realm before eating their souls.

Fortunately, Luna cast a massive, powerful spell that strongly lured this living nightmare to this trap. It was a waiting game, for the pest took him as her bait. Least, he had a bouncing ball to bounce off the alley wall to pass the time by. Meanwhile, Luna sneaky took a few pictures of his filly disguise without him knowing. She kept them in their family photo book for memories. After her camera spits them out of its slot, she teleported them out of this dream.

In a short while of bouncing his ball off the wall, his bouncing ball suddenly bobbed strangely. Its velocity made it go further in the maze of alleys. Spike raised one of his eyebrows in the direction that his toy went.

”Finally,” He thought as he stood up on all four with the glace of a newborn pony that started to figure to walk on their legs. With a few nasty falls and the pace of a drunken pony, he managed to make it to the labyrinth entrance of back alleys. “I never get used to walking on all four. Despite I’m frequently disguised as a pony,”

Luna watched his husband enter into the deeper alleys as she was in the sky to look for any signs of the Filly Devourer. Despite the apparent labyrinth of passages that it used its powers to create, she didn’t see any more signs of it. When Spike tried to return to his past spot, an old red brick wall came up from the ground and blocked him.

“Mom, mom, mom!” He cried in distress as he hit the wall with his forelegs in a useless attempt to break it. “I definitely need a fucking Oscar for this performance,” He thought, acting his role. He suddenly heard a crown wagon horn before a masked crown mare picked Spike up and placed him in the wagon. Then she tightly grabbed around his chest to prevent it from falling off.

Spike was speechless from what had happened to him. His mind was overloaded with a mix of emotions. He covered his head with one of his forelegs to block the debris that was kicked up from wagon movers. His ears were heavily assaulted with loud and cheerful carnival music. Meanwhile, Luna followed them from the sky. The portal that was made of light blue and yellow balloons suddenly appeared in front of them. The wagon went through it without any resistance. Luna quickly flew into it before it closed and disappeared from existence.

The fake dream world started to collapse because Luna was not here to support it with her magic. It slowly went away like a decaying leaf.

After exiting the portal, Luna saw herself at the entrance of the circus. Unfortunately, this circus was not the fun kind that she firmly remembered. The pony corpses were impaled on the entrance rusty fence’s tips. Their blood ran down poles like goo—the decreased filly in the ticket booth dressed in a carnival worker. Lastly, the flashing sign was at the top of the booth with ‘Pinky Happily Carnival.’

“Nighthaze! Ahggh!” Spike screamed in pain as his regular voice overpowered the creeping circus music. After hearing her emergency code name and his cries for help, Luna flew into the sky and cast her husband’s location spell. In a few moments of sensing around the area for his life aura, she found him at the farthest part of the tents and carnival games maze. With the spell guiding, she went in the direction of Spike as fast as possible.

“Hold on, honey. I’m coming!” Luna thought to herself.

Meanwhile, Spike was tied down on a dartboard with two oversized play darts in his body.

“Ooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, f……” Spike, excruciating, tried not to cuss at a small colt that threw the third dart in one of his eyes. It was stuck in his eye socket as his blood ran down from a new wound.

“Bullseye!” The colt with the proudest look on his face. The masked candy monster in a carnival worker outfit took out all of the darts in Spike and gave them back to the young player. Spike’s phoenix necklace healed his wounds after every round that brat played.

“How many rounds until you die, oversized lizard?” The foal acquired with a determined expression, seeing his target’s wounds healing themselves.

“You’re too young to be married to her. Also, she is a deadly living nightmare too,” Spike brutally honestly acquired, staring at him.

“Thanks for your comment. Do you still not recognize me? I’m sure that you have my missing pony poster at your palace,”

“Nope. I haven’t seen you before. Plus, I never see your poster nether,”

“Oh, then I have to show you my past life form,” The colt acquired with a nostalgic tone before transforming into a young adult version of himself.

“Jack Box, how?” Spike inquired with an awed expression as he immediately recognized him now.

“My sweet wife found me by her heart. Then She immediately changed my life to outstanding as fuck from a hellhole that I sadly called home. Anyways, I’m going to kill you now. Prince,
“ Jack Box replied with a happy smile before transforming into his living nightmare. Then he pulled out a heavy crossbow with a bomb bolt out of his jack in the box body bottom.

“Why and how you become a living nightmare, Jack?” Spike asked with an unbelievable expression as the nightmare aimed its weapon at his chest. Jack didn't answer his question and was about to pull the trigger without any hesitation. The Foal Devourer suddenly came out from somewhere and teleported Jack with her before a dark blue magic fire spell hit the area. The spell’s projective slammed into the ground and scattered flames. The carnival game stand and candy monster instantly caught on fire and burnt into a pile of ashes. It didn’t have a chance to do anything.

Meanwhile, Spike was not affected by flames due to being a dragon. Luna grabbed and held him like a newborn foal before he fell to the ground.

“Good timing, honey!” He exclaimed with a smile on his face while warmly staring at his wife.

“Did the living nightmare cheap toy hurt you?” She inquired with a protective tone, checking every inch of his body for any injuries.

“Y……..,”

“We ain’t done with you guys yet,” Jack Box stated with a pissed-off expression after firing his weapon at Prince. The bolt, painful, pierced and buried itself inside of Spike’s body. Its tip started to beep and repeatedly flashed red. Spike tried to pull it out with all of his might. However, its barbed end made it impossible to do that.

“We hope that you guys have an exploding and frostbiting night, bye-bye,” The foal Devourer cheerily said in a sing sang voice as she forcedly bucked Luna into a portal that led to unknown.

Luna and Spike freefell from the sky while a nasty blizzard batted their bodies with its snow. Its cold quickly zapped their life out of them, more specifically Spike. A few moments later, the bolt that was in his body exploded.

An unknown amount of time passed by.

“Princess Luna, What happened to you!” One of the Crystal Empire guards that guarded the front doors of Cadence’s palace acquired with a terrified look. Luna was covered entirely with Spike’s frozen blood. She tightly wrapped a newborn Spike with both of her wings while holding him with a foreleg.

“Foal Devourer……,” She replied blankly as she opened doors up and walked into the palace.