Canterlot Academy Trials

Deeper within the mind dungeon…

“To your left, Priestess!” Wyvern called out as he slung blue fireballs that he blew into his hands and cast them off into the groups of flying griffons, burning them and causing them to disappear into flames.

Priestess used her grimoire to cast various cursed spells. One of which involved creating puddles of black slime that exploded and eroded the cognitive griffons away. “I’ve got it. They mean business don’t they?”

“Understatement of the fuckin’ year,” Wyvern called out as he blocked the sword attack of a nearby griffon with one claw, and punched them with the other. “We need to get closer to her but they’re cramping our style. What’s the plan, Priestess?”

The pegasus mare flipped through her spellbook until she found something that she deemed useful for their current predicament. “I got it. Zeta.”

“What??”

“Swoop in on my mark, Wyvern,” Priestess held her hoof in front of herself and summoned what looked like a purple sigil with the letter ‘Z’ inscribed in the middle of it. “Go.”

“Alrighty!” At her request, Wyvern spread his wings and flew into the middle of the griffon army…

ZZZZ!

While the griffons were distracted, a swarm of locusts appeared, and chewed their way through the griffon horde, leaving them with swollen blisters and severe pain in their fur/feathers that rendered them unable to fight. Given that they were mere conjurations of Gaea’s imagination, they were a lot weaker than real-life griffons and were easily overtaken as Wyvern dove his way in and tackled Gaea’s inner self.

“I have you!” he shouted upon taking her down to the invisible floor of the mindscape. “There’s nowhere left to run! You’re only delaying the inevitable!”

Even while she was down, Gaea’s mental version of herself refused to back down and kept up her ego. “Hah! Why should I? That dunderhead of a pony and his slut of a mom don’t deserve any sympathy!”

“...what?” Wyvern came down off of his rage, and took a moment to process what he had just heard.

Priestess did the same thing, landing in front of them with a confused expression behind her veil. “Whose mother are you referring to?”

“Since you’re clearly just some dream demons, I may as well tell you: Nebula’s mom is a complete skank who--”

EEEEE!

With the sound of a music note exploding into the air, Nebula stepped forward with the bandages on his face.

“...that’s enough.”

“Oh? He’s in my dream?” Gaea’s inner self cackled, “This is just too ri--HRK!”

Out of nowhere, and despite being unable to see, Nebula grabbed the griffon in his magical levitation grip, raised her into the air, slammed her against the floor, and slammed her into the nearest wall where he’d proceed to approach her, ‘staring’ her right in the face with his completely bandaged eyes.

“...I…I have had it,” Nebula muttered with a cold, shaky fury, “You’ve done nothing but disrespect me, my friends. And my family. I have held onto my patience for far too long with someone like you. You’re repulsive.”

“...B-b--”

Nebula tightened his grip, choking her so hard that feathers flew off of her body which prevented her from speaking. “...You want to bring me down to your level? Well here I am. Firstly…keep my family out of your beak before I tear it off of your face myself. Secondly. Want the truth? Here it is: After my dad was killed by Chrysalis, my mom became manic. Unstable even. She turned to prostitution in our hometown of Thrace just to emotionally satisfy herself after losing him. Everyone that knew in my hometown never let me live it down. They made joke after joke, bullied me, never left me alone…”

Wyvern Blue watched as his friend forced the griffon into a wall of the mindscape and whispered to Grimrose. “...How did he even get in here? Should we do something?”

“...His blood must have mixed in with the ritual from one of my other pages,” she explained as she skimmed through her book. “...That’s why he’s here with us. But…no. Atomic needs to vent. Let him.”

And vent he would.

“They would say things like, ‘Your mom’s like the local hot-air balloon’ or ‘I’m gonna pay her for a ride next’. At the age of 7, I couldn’t process any of this and it drove me to ask her questions. As it turns out, even though my old man was in the Royal Guard, we were flat broke because he hadn’t served for very long. Mom could only manage to make extra money by selling herself. But you know what? I never judged her for it. Because I knew that she was doing all she could for me despite losing dad. We ponies have it rough too, you know. It’s not all sunshine, rainbows, and songs…”

Gaea simply stared at him with wide eyes before looking away, unable to process what it was she was hearing…

“So you know what I did…?” Nebula asked rhetorically with a slight chuckle before raising his voice, “You wanna know what I did?! I refused to let it get to me. I buried that shit and put on a smile. No matter what I heard behind my back, no matter what rumors were spread about me and my mom…I never gave in to despair.” He stopped for a moment, sighed, then continued. “...but maybe. Just maybe…I should’ve been more honest with myself. Instead, I ran from my emotions…and now, here they are, biting me in my ass.”

After another pause, he suddenly cocked an abnormally unhinged smile on his face.

“...Guess I should thank you, Gaea,” he remarked, “I guess you somehow figured it all out and tried to use it against me. But only now do I remember what it feels like to actually feel anger…frustration…things Tungsten taught me were a natural part of our internal makeup. And now I see why. But before I leave, I want you to see…see exactly what you’ve done to me. And feel that anger.”

“...Eh??! N-no!” Gaea squealed out of fear as she watched Nebula grab the bandages on his face…and rip them off with his bare hooves. “I’m sorry! I don’t wanna--!”

The end result was a disturbing image: Two pitch-black pits of empty despair where his eyes used to be that bled as Nebula laughed, slowly succumbing to madness.

“...Well…isn’t this what you wanted?” he mumbled in an ironic tone, then raised his voice as he used his magic to force her head to look at him directly, “Look at me! Come on! You should be happy! I’ve been disfigured by your sick prank! Don’t you just love what you’ve done?!”

“N-NO! PLEASE!” she screamed in terror as she tried to close her eyes to keep herself from looking at him, “D-don’t hurt me! I’ll never do it again!”

But he refused to allow her to blind herself to the evil she caused. Nebula went as far as forcing her eyelids open via magic. To the point where she couldn’t even blink! “Look at me! Marvel at your work, Gaea! You did it! Are you happy now?!”

“NO! I didn’t mean…AUGGGHH!!”

POOF!

“AGHHHH!!”

In the real world, Gaea’s…we’ll call it a nightmare--had caused her to squawk and awaken after stirring for so long. The griffon awakened in a cold sweat in her dorm bed, hyperventilating as she clutched the blankets in a fetal position…

The end result also caused Nebula, Rose, and Blue to be forcefully ejected from her mind and return to their bodies in the real world where they’d remain asleep until morning…

All they could do now was wait and see if their efforts bore fruit by the time the sun came up.