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                   The Nightmare Without                   
                       -by Dihinner-                       
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                         Prologue                          
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Prologue
A cool breeze drifted through the foggy forest. A single ice blue eye gazed at its surroundings. All around it small animals were shaking in terror.
Most would think they were intimidated by the owner of said eye. Although the owner had a rather menacing appearance, being entirely black with a red collar that looked like a gaping, bloody maw around its head. Its head was small and pitch black with a substance that looked like smoke that billowed out of the entire right side of its head and most of the left, leaving its eye and part of where its jaw should be uncovered. On each side it had two rather long arms with a three fingered hand at each end and three small spikes about half way up the forearm. At the tip of each shoulder it had two streamers of smoke, similar like the kind atop its head but black like the rest of its body instead of white. The lower part of the creature body looked like a torn cloak that was carved out of the darkest of shadows, torn in multiple places and a ridged tail like thing facing backward. Its legs however, were usually non-existent except when the creature decided to rest or watch from a distance. When they were being used however, they looked like nothing more than round black stilts that got thinner the closer to the ground they got. With the added height it brought the creature to exactly eight feet tall.
The creature was certainly a sight to behold, despite being barley under five feet tall. But the animals still shivered in fear as the creature passed through the meadow on the new moon night. All the animals in the meadow had one thing in common, however different they might appear.
Every single one of them was locked in a horrific nightmare. Which were caused directly by the mere presence shadow being.
The dark being mentally smirked at the pale red aura of fear drifted off them and drifted through the late night air like smoke and wrapped around the dark creature. Its eye blazed a brighter blue as more and more fear was leached off the animals and absorbed by the creature.
This was the fourth and hopefully final night of gathering fear from animals, which the creature fed on. The clouds around the now moon parted, revealing the moon in all of its pale silver glory. The creature gazed up at the moon and smiled, despite having no visible mouth, anything watching could tell it was a smile that held no warmth, only the coldness of the air around it. That fact brought grim satisfaction to the creature's mind, for its plan was starting to set into motion.
Suddenly, a bright moon ray descended onto the grass just a few feet away from the shadow creature, blinding it for a very brief moment. When the light cleared it revealed none other than Princess Luna herself. Luna stared at the creature for a moment before trying to communicate to it.
“I presume it is you who is causing the unnatural rise in night terrors?” she asked.
The shadowy being continued to stare at Luna, like she was nothing more than another creature that resided in the meadow. Luna found the creature slightly disturbing, mainly due to how it looked like an old black cloak with the jaws of a predator around its neck like a trophy of some sort.
“Can you understand me?” asked Luna again, unsure what exactly the creature was. Never before had she seen or heard of anything that even remotely resembled it.
“I can understand you perfectly, Mistress of the Night,” said a harsh voice that sent a slight chill down Luna’s spine, “what an honor it is to speak with you at last.”
Luna continued to stare at the creature, unsure if it was the source of the disembodied speaking or another being entirely. Again, Luna asked if it was the shadowy being who spoke.
A harsh sound echoed throughout the meadow again, which was soon accompanied by the voice again, “yes, it was I who spoke to you, Luna.”
Luna stared menacingly at the creature some feet away from her, most would be thoroughly intimidated by the stare, the creature, however, and was not. ‘How does this creature speak?’ Luna thought to herself when she noticed that there was no mouth on it. After thinking about it for a moment, she decided that is was some form of telepathy or something similar to that. Finally, Luna spoke to it again, “who are you?”
To her surprise, the creature bowed to Luna and spoke again, “I have many names, Princess Luna, The Nightmare, Lord of the Shadow, and Bringer of the new moon. You however, can call me Darkrai.”
Luna still stared art this ‘Darkrai’ and asked it one final question, “why, exactly are you here?”
Darkrai gave a Luna a menacing smile, “why, to do none other than plunge the world in eternal darkness. You, of anyone should know what I mean.”
Luna stared at the creature in shock, the way it had stated that so calmly had disturbed Luna. “Try as you may, Darkrai, you will never gain control of the moon or the sun to create your ‘eternal darkness’.”
Darkrai gave out an even more disturbing cackle, “My dear Princess, plunging the world into eternal night is not my plan in the slightest, no.” Darkrai’s grin became even wider before Luna discovered it was never really there. Darkrai seemed to have noticed Luna’s realisation and its stilt like legs formed to make him at least two feet taller than Luna. The white smoke drifting out of Darkrai's head suddenly became a dark red as Darkrai continued to smile.
Suddenly the entire world became dark except for the white smoke and the single left blue eye of Darkrai that filled Luna’s vision.
“My plan it to plunge the world into a never ending Nightmare.”
The world finally became pitch black once more before a blinding light erupted everywhere, illuminating Darkrai once more before he disappeared into nothingness. A chilling voice echoed throughout Luna's mind before the bright evening sunset awoke her.
“Make sure you tell your sister that i'm waiting. I hope she's not scared of the dark."
Author's Note
well, just a little side project on an idea bouncing around in my head.
if this does pick up, just remember that this is #4 on my to do list.
i still have to work on Raptor, Live and Let Die and Four Man Cheeseburger Apocalypce along with editing Bionies.
hope you enjoyed.

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                          Dreams                           
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Dreams
A light fog had enveloped the town of Ponyville. Throughout the entire day there had been multiple reports of strange dreams. All of which had the same odd feature.
All of them apparently had a dark, slender being watching them from a distance throughout the dream. Some also reported that their dreams got stranger whenever something seemed to approach the dark being.
The local librarian, Twilight Sparkle, was currently looking through countless books for anything that may have a connection to the being or the sudden strangeness of the dreams. Unfortunately, all of her previous efforts have ended in failure. Twilight sighed in annoyance.
‘Why can’t I find anything about this? This can’t be the first time something like this has happened,’ Twilight thought worriedly, ‘surely the Princesses know what this problem is.’
With that in mind, Twilight began writing a letter to Princess Celestia asking about the strange figure and if anything like this has happened in the past.
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“Rise and shine Luna, it’s about time you wake up and, smell the ashes.”
Luna bolted upright in her bed and stared around the room for the source of the sound.
“You won’t find me in here, Luna,” the voice echoed from the hallway.
“Who are you?” demanded Luna.
The voice chuckled, the sound was distorted by the echoes, “Why, you’ve forgotten me already? I don’t know if I should be insulted or concerned that you’ve forgotten by name.”
Luna’s eyes narrowed as the name of the owner of the voice burned in her mind, “Darkrai, the one who wishes eternal darkness.”
All the shadows across Luna’s room shifted towards the wall Luna was facing and formed the shadow of Darkrai.
“Ah, so you did remember me. Well, now that that’s cleared up, I have a proposal for you,” said Darkrai.
“And that would be?” asked Luna, with slight worry in her voice.
If he had a mouth, Darkrai would be smiling, “My proposal is for you to join me in ruling the eternal nightmare. With no one protecting the dreams of the weak minded ponies the world will be ours for the taking.”
Luna stared at the shadow, unable to respond for a moment. Finally, she gathered her words and responded with a cold, “no.”
Most would be taken slightly aback from such a blunt refusal for such a massive offer. Darkrai however, was no stranger to his offers being refused.
“Very well, Luna,” a hint of mockery was in Darkrai’s voice as he said her name, “I suppose I must do my mission alone. So be it. Just know that if you do in fact, reconsider my offer you will not be given a second chance.”
“I will never turn against my sister. Not now, not ever,” responded Luna coolly.
A brief flicker of darkness causing Luna’s senses to become disoriented for a moment enveloped the room.
“Very well, I see that you have been purified from your inner darkness and have no wishes to fight your sister. After all, who would want to do that after the momentous failure last time,” said Darkrai, “what a shame.”
All the light in the room slowly dimmed and Darkrai phased out of the wall and was face to face with Luna. He grinned darkly as he raised his right arm and a pulsating orb of shadow formed in it.
“I regret doing this to you, Luna. Truly, I do. But, I can’t leave any loose ends to my plan.”
The shadow orb began to pulsate faster and slowly started to spin towards Luna as she charged up her horn to try and defend herself from the incoming attack.
“The night may not have lasted forever, but the nightmare will,” said Darkrai as the orb of shadow launched from Darkrai’s three fingered hand.
Luna fired a short burst of dark blue magic at the shadow orb, making it burst into small, black particles. Darkrai smiled slightly.
“I see you have some fight in you,” Darkrai raised both of his hands and a beam of pure shadow launched from them, “En guard.”
Luna responded with Darkrai’s attack by creating a beam of darkness of her own. The two beams of shadow collided and pitch black sparks flew across the room. Darkrai’s ice blue eye narrowed slightly as he increased the power he was putting into the dark pulse and Luna did the same with her navy blue beam.
After a brief moment Darkrai stopped channeling power to his beam and side stepped to the left to avoid Luna’s.
“Quite impressive I must say,” said Darkrai, “your power may rival the deity of space, most impressive indeed.”
Luna glared at Darkrai as he stood there (despite not having legs) and responded with, “If my power rivals your deity of space, why can’t I crush you where you stand?”
Darkrai snickered slightly before all out laughing his head off. It took him a moment to calm down and told her, “Luna, my dear, go right ahead with that. I honestly couldn’t care less if you struck me down in your own bedroom.”
Luna narrowed her eyes, something wasn’t right. Darkrai should at least show some concern at the possibility of being obliterated.
“Why, exactly do you not care about meeting your end here, Darkrai?”
Darkrai chuckled again, “Why am I not afraid? Well, Luna, it’s because this isn’t real.”
The room flickered for a moment, causing Luna to briefly wonder just how powerful Darkrai was.
“This is all just a dream.”
A brilliant explosion of light enveloped the room along with Darkrai’s quiet chuckle.
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Luna silently walked through the walls of the castle. All morning she had heard the disembodied voice of Darkrai. As hard as she tried, she could not seem to ignore the Bringer of the New moon’s words. She had asked Celestia and the guards why none of them had tried to aid her when Darkrai invaded her quarters. All of them said they heard nothing out of the ordinary. It was Celestia who simply told her that it was just a bad dream.
Luna scowled, it was too coincidental to have a bad dream about the same creature, which she had never heard of before, that gave her a name and spoke of a deity of space. Most importantly was its threat. Luna grimaced as Darkrai’s words filled her head again.
“The night may not have lasted forever, but the nightmare will.”
This stuck Luna as odd, how can one have a nightmare without it being nighttime? ‘Maybe I am thinking too much into this,’ thought Luna, ‘Darkrai could simply be an obscure memory of Nightmare Moon.’
“Oh I assure you, Luna, that I am not a twisted manifestation of you hatred and jealousy. In fact, I think you might be a twisted version of me.”
Luna froze and slowly looked out of the window. The sun was shining outside.
A menacing chuckle echoed through the hallway, “I may be a creature of the night, but that doesn’t mean I can’t come out during the day.”
Darkrai emerged from the wall and faced Luna.
“Hello again, I see that your sister has doubts about my existence.”
“Don’t you tell me what my sister does and doesn’t believe,” Luna said darkly.
Darkrai floated over to Luna, the smoke like substance being omitted out of his head billowing in the non-existent breeze.
“I can say whatever I want. You should learn to respect your elders,” said Darkrai.
Luna laughed sarcastically, “Do you think I will believe that you are older than me? I’ve never heard of you in all my three thousand years of life.”
Darkrai laughed, “I wouldn’t be doing my job properly if you’d heard of me. Only four others truly know about my existence.”
Luna’s eyes narrowed, “And who, may I ask, are these other four?”
Darkrai turned away in disgust, “I will not tell you the names of the two fools who bested me in the Dark Crater. I will, however, inform you of the pathetic being known as Cresselia, the banisher of nightmares.”
There was a tone of pure hatred at the mention of this ‘Cresselia’ but Luna asked who the fourth and final being was.
Darkrai smiled, “The final being is nothing short of a god,” he put emphasis on god, “I not only tricked her, but I also managed to trap the deity of space herself, Palkia, in my eternal nightmare a mere four weeks go.”
Luna’s expression became slightly worried. Of course, Darkrai may be lying about imprisoning this Palkia, if she even existed, but, there was also a chance he was being truthful. And that was something had to take seriously.
“How, exactly, did you imprison Palkia in you nightmare,” asked Luna, fearing what the answer might be.
“Ah, Palkia was tricky. She was much more resistant to the nightmare than her brother, Dialga. It took much longer than normal to trap her and I could only do it then after she was defeated by the two fools,” said Darkrai, “I tricked her into thinking the fools were causing a space distortion that was out of her control. After a few days of her failing to fix the distortion, I put two thoughts in her mind. The thoughts were the names of the two who prevented the collapse of the tower of time, my first attempt at ruling.”
“This is not you first attempt at this?” asked Luna.
Darkrai’s face turned angry, “The first time it was a fluke. The only two who could stop me had ‘heroically’ sacrificed themselves to the destruction of their time and thus, saving the current one. Unfortunately, Dialga saw fit to return one of them to the saved timeline and the other to the newly recovered temporal paralysis timeline. If not for that, I would be siting upon my throne atop the destroyed remains of Temporal Tower, watching Dialga slowly decent into madness.”
Luna slowly began to back away as the shadows slithered across the floor and walls towards Darkrai, who was slowly becoming more and more frantic.
“But I can’t rule atop my throne of darkness because of those blasted chosen ones! Now I’m stuck here in a land of mutant Ponyta*s and there is nothing I can do about it unless I can reopen the dimensional gate*!”
The room was almost entirely engulfed in darkness as al but Darkrai’s chilling blue eye was visible. Luna tried to teleport out of the room but she suddenly felt magically drained. She stared at Darkrai as his deep panting echoed throughout the room.
“Did you think you could just run away?” his voice was flat and monotone, which Luna found even worse than his frantic raving. “I have plans for Luna. Very good plans with no chosen ones anywhere,” Darkrai’s eye flicked across the room as if it was looking for something.
“What do you want?” asked Luna fearfully. Darkrai wasn’t mentally sound, who knows what is going on inside that small black head of his.
Darkrai suddenly became completely visible, “What do I want? I’ve already told you Princess Luna.
“I want to engulf the world in an eternal nightmare. And there is nothing you can do to stop me.”
With that, Luna suddenly felt the feeling of falling. Just as she tried to try and fly, she felt a strong shock go through her body and she awoke in her room. She stared in the room in disbelief as she kept on asking herself if it was a dream or if it was real. A cool voice whispered in Luna’s mind.
“It was just a dream, Luna. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t real.
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Twilight sparkle groaned in annoyance as she tossed another history book into a growing pile on the library floor. This was the fifth history book she had read from start to finish and there was nothing about an entire town having strange dreams with a dark figure observing from the distance.
Twilight sighed, ‘Maybe this was the first time anything like this has happened,’ she thought to herself as she looked out of a window. Suddenly, she bolted upright as she saw something on top of a rooftop.
The figure was entirely black with a blank white face and something that looked like a red tie. Its two stilt like legs made caused twilight to wonder how it kept its balance. It’s two arms with what looked like black smoke drifting off of them gave it the illusion that it had at least four arms, two coming out of its shoulders and another two out of its back. Twilight stared at the creature before turned its head in her direction, causing her to duck down out of sight. After a moment, Twilight looked out of the window again only to find that there was nothing on top of the rooftop.
Twilight blinked in surprise, ‘Where’d it go? And more importantly, what in Equestria was that thing?’
Author's Note
* Ponyta: a light tan unicorn like creature with a flaming mane and tail. 's a pokemon.
*Dimentional gate: a method of traveling through space and time. the only creatures known to be able to disable one are Dialga, Palkia and Darkrai himself.
ok, don't expect many updates. i am currently in a duel of the dead with another author for Live and Let die.
please leave any possiable coments below.
P.S. oddly enough, this started about a week before the sudden rush of pokemon fics.
did i accedently trigger something?

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                        STORYBOARD                         
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STORYBOARD
Storyline: The Nightmare Without  
Plotline
Day 1: strange dreams reported all across town. A brief appearance from Darkrai watching from atop a building. Luna starts to worry what’s real and what’s a nightmare after multiple ‘waking ups’ and decides to confront Darkrai again, only to have him blast her away and teleport to Ponyville.
Day 2: dreams become stranger and reports of mild nightmares. Darkrai confronts Luna again and tells her how she’s helpless against the future nightmares. Ends with Luna first to fall into the never-ending nightmare.
Day 3: dreams now becoming full-fledged nightmares and it is becoming harder and harder to awake from them. Twilight tries to ask for aid in the problem, only to learn that Luna has fallen and ends with Darkrai’s inner monologue.
Day 4: nightmares are starting to get more and more terrifying, specifically Fluttershy’s nightmare about killing something. Twilight finally meets Darkrai, who feigns innocence and blames the source of the nightmares on another being.
Day 5: Twilight & co go out to find the being Darkrai blamed the nightmares on while he directly attacks Celestia. The two have a fight but Darkrai ultimately defeats her but lets her have one last day before causing the nightmare upon her.
Day 6: ponies of the town have stopped waking up all together and Darkrai makes a public appearance to tell them of their ultimate fate and unleashes a Dark Void on all present. He also decides to trap them all in the same nightmare so they can all suffer together and destroy their trust. Ends with Darkrai’s inner monologue.
Day 7: Twilight & co try to escape the nightmare but must be careful because they are almost always under Darkrai’s watchful eye. After a brief struggle, they are sucked into Darkrai’s psyche and try to locate his greatest fear.
Day 8: searching Darkrai’s mind, they come across a frightening being (Giratina (altered)) and it offers them some help in exchange for a reflective surface when Darkrai’s defeated. After stumbling across some memories, it’s revealed how Darkrai was sent to Equestria and introduces Palkia and Cresselia.
Day 9: after getting out of the memories, Twilight & co finally confronts Darkrai and Giratina’s purpose is revealed as well as Darkrai’s fear. The two fight briefly before Giratina pulls them out of Darkrai’s mind and defeats him, causing the nightmares to finally end.
Day 10: epilogue: as promised, Twilight & co creates a reflective surface as Giratina wished and are finally relieved that the Darkrai threat is finally over and celebrate. During the celebration, Giratina (altered) comes out of the reflective surface along with Dialga, Palkia and Arceus. Ends with Arceus thanking his son (Giratina) and going to find Twilight & co for letting them cross into Equestria.
Author's Note
well, this is how i envisioned this to go, before cancellation due to writers block and sheer lazyness
NOTE - this was written at 12:49 am on 24/03/2013