It was a sunny day in Cloudsdale as the large crowd waited in front of the Wonderbolts training center waiting to hear who was able to make it into the prestigious group this time. In the small group of cadets that was standing next to the stage stood an overly confident looking cyan Pegasus who knew her name was going to be called. Rainbow Dash, easily identifiable by her namesake mane, performed much better than all the other cadets and knew that Captain Spitfire saw something in her. The crowd got silent as Spitfire got on stage and headed toward the podium. She reached it and took a moment to clear her throat before addressing the cadets and the waiting crowd.
“Ladies and Gentlecolts,” she began in a loud but professional voice, “we are all gathered here today for a very special occasion. Standing before you are twenty talented cadets who have been training non-stop for a week to become part of the glorious Wonderbolts.” The crowd cheered before quieting down for Spitfire to continue. “Unfortunately, only three of these aces will be allowed to don the suit and become part of this elite family. I shall now call the three who have shown that they are above the rest in both terms of skill and awesomeness.”
Another Wonderbolt flew in and landed next to Spitfire. On his back was a box that contained three pairs of the famous Wonderbolt Goggles. The Wonderbolt took the box into his wing and waited for the honorees to come up. Spitfire turned her attention towards the cadets as she started to speak off the list of the three who had made the cut.
“First graduate and newest Wonderbolt is,” Spitfire paused for a moment for dramatic effect before continuing. “Wildfire!” The crowd roared as a tan mare with a burning tire cutie mark walked up on stage to accept her official goggles as Spitfire hushed the crowd to announce the next graduate.
“Next,” Spitfire continued after the crowd finally got silent, “is a mare that has shown a real unique style. The second graduate is Derpy Hooves.” The crowd once again roared as a blonde, gray mare with yellow wall eyes clumsily flew on stage next to Wildfire to get her pair of goggles. The cheering died down once Spitfire started speaking again.
“Last, but definitely not least,” Spitfire began with a voice that had more pride than before, “is a mare who really proved herself to be above all others in all manners of skill, awesomeness, and radicalness. The third and last newest Wonderbolt is none other than,” Spitfire paused as she watched everypony hold their breath in anticipation. After waiting ten seconds, she announced the finale graduate. “Twilight Sparkle” she yelled as the crowd went wild. Twilight flew on stage next to Derpy, her horn seeming to be missing and instead a pair of lavender wings at her side. Rainbow Dash looked astonished as she tried to voice her opinion.
“How is that even possible?” Rainbow asked as everypony suddenly turned toward her, their eyes began to glow a dark shade of red as the sky started to take a more crimson hue.
“Because,” They all said simultaneously, “you are a failure.” The cloud underneath Rainbow Dash disappeared causing her to start plummeting down towards the earth below. She tried to open her wings to get out of the fall, but to her horror her wings were missing. Rainbow started to scream as she continued to fall, the ground below getting closer and closer with each passing second. Rainbow waited for the inevitable impact with the ground, but it never came. She opened her eyes to see that Twilight had flown down to save her. Twilight carried Rainbow to the ground which Rainbow was, for once, glad to be on. Rainbow then noticed she now had a horn which caused her to start laughing….
Luna admired her handiwork from a distant cloud as Rainbow Dash trotted off with Twilight, a smile now on her face. Luna chuckled to herself as she left Rainbow Dash’s dream bubble to go back into the dream valley. Luna had come at just the right moment; Rainbows dream turned nightmare had really gotten out of control quickly. Luna continued to patrol the dream valley, looking for any indications of a nightmare in the works to fix. As she peered into different dream bubbles, she saw many different scenes; Twilight meeting Star Swirl the Bearded, Lyra walking on two legs with odd appendages on the end of her fore hooves, a young brownish stallion with gray stripes finding something in a cave with a white griffin, Derpy eating an endless supply of muffins, among other pleasant looking dreams.
As Luna got deeper into the valley, she noticed a distorted looking bubble off in the distance. This one seemed much different. A very dark aura surrounded it and it was impossible to see anything within it. Luna quickly galloped toward it, fearing that somepony was stuck in a very strong nightmare. When she arrived at it she saw that it was much darker than she thought, its aura matching Nightmare Moon in terms of darkness. Luna hesitated for a moment, unsure if it could even be one of her loyal subjects’ dreams. She knew that on very rare occurrences, a dream from another world would manage to make it into the valley. Luna also knew she could not take the risk, because if it was one of her loyal subjects in there then they were in the nightmare of a lifetime and could damage them for life. With that knowledge, Luna jumped into the bubble, unsure of what to expect on the other side of it.
Luna emerged on the other side of the bubble to find herself in a weird looking room, its floor a series of black and two greenish circles and seemingly no kind of roof, just emptiness. On the outer green circle were thirteen doors, each having its own strange design. Luna felt chills go down her back as she noticed that there were no edges to this nightmare, just emptiness continuing beyond walkable distance. She felt as though there was a strange presence nearby, not one of the dreamer like she usually felt. This presence felt darker, but at the same time it was very faint. Luna just sighed and decided that the only way to find out exactly whose nightmare she had stumbled into was to go through one of the doors that surrounded her. Looking at the choices in front of her, Luna picked one that seemed to be the least threating which was the one with stacked purple rectangles of varying sizes. As she went through, Luna was enveloped by complete darkness for a moment before exiting through another door of the same design in a whole new area.
As Luna started to look around at her new surroundings, she noticed that this part of the nightmare was rather strange. She seemed to be walking on some kind of invisible surface, the only thing that she could see below her a tribal image of a red creature, which looked kind of like a monkey with its hands up, slowly drifting to the right. Scattered around was what looked like weird bipedal creatures made up of a wide variety of colors, all of which had round, shield shaped heads and carried a shield their hands. As Luna walked towards one, she noted that it did not move a single muscle, almost as if they were some kind of statue. She got in front of the creature and tried to communicate with it.
"Greetings...uhhh...being. May we ask as to what you might be, and...where we might be?" Luna asked the towering figure as nicely as she could. After waiting a few seconds and getting not even a twitch from the large figure, Luna just backed away from the strange figure and ventured on onto what seemed like an endless horizon of darkness. As she walked on, Luna saw varying formations of the weird, unmoving creatures. Each one that she saw gave her a very unsettling feeling, not like they were going to attack her, but rather that something was very wrong. Luna started to quicken her pace after seeing a rather large formation of the creatures, continuing this quickened pace until seeing a strange formation of black, oddly shaped black and purple pillars. Curious to this new object in front of her that seemed a little more inviting than the unmoving inhabitants of this nightmare, Luna walked up to the pillars and brought her hoof up to it. Instantly she saw a blinding white flash that blinded her for a second.
When Luna opened her eyes, she saw she was now in a pitch black area with only a small white ladder in the distance. Starting to get a little more paranoid, Luna decided to try to go up the white ladder to hopefully end up in a much more bright and cheerful place. She took one step forward and suddenly her vision turned to static for a microsecond, causing her to jump and let out a small eep. After catching her breath for a moment, Luna braced herself and took another step with the same static entering her vision. This confused Luna greatly, but decided it must just be part of the nightmare. Luna continued to take cautionary steps toward the white ladder until she hit what could only be described as an invisible wall. Getting even more puzzled than before, Luna pushed her hoof against this unseen force blocking her from what could be her salvation from the very unnatural darkness that currently surrounded her. She thought for a moment about what to do when she suddenly remembered that she was able to teleport. Focusing her mind on the white ladder, Luna activated a teleportation spell which engulfed her in a muffled flash. When she opened her eyes, Luna saw that she was now in front of the ladder which when she went to grab it was once again blinded by a bright flash of light.
Author's Note
I will be honest, it has been a while since I was last able to play the game (long story with that one), but I have started to play it again and have been researching the wiki like crazy to make sure I got the facts right. This game I one I have always loved ever since a accidently found it and I was amazed that no one (at least to my knowledge) has even tried to do this yet. So if you see and mistakes or discrepancies in the story, please tell me and I will fix them as quick as possible. Thank you and as a PS: Some cool cover art for this would be awesome but alas I know no artists of the art variety, so if you want to help then please do message me or something like that. PSS: Pre-Readers of this part, Who I must thank, are Dr. Colgate and Theirum.
Luna slowly opened her eyes, expecting some kind of emptiness or horrible scene to be in front of her. Instead, she was surprised to see that she was in a forest with 8-bit graphics. She looked down to see that she too had become an 8-bit avatar. Squeaking in delight, Luna couldn’t believe how much everything looked like an old PES game; even the bright cheerful eight bit music seemed to be coming in from nowhere. In fact, was almost just like the game Equestriabound. Glad to see that the nightmare had turned into some kind of dream, Luna happily trotted forward forgetting all of the previous dream experiences. After walking to the right for a bit, because as she knew very well that these kind of games progressed by going right, most of the time. Luna came to a small hut with a single door. Luna saw that there was no other way to go, other than through the door. She opened the door with her pixelated magic and walked through it.
The music increased in volume as she got into the building. A quick look around and all Luna could see were a red rug, a small tree to her left, and a staircase heading down. Excited that she had made it to, what she believed was, the first dungeon of this game-dream world. She quickly headed toward the stairs and descended them. As she started to descend the stairs, she noticed the music had changed from the upbeat melody to a more eerie and dungeon-y one. Quickly noticing that she might be at a disadvantage due to not having a weapon, Luna used her magic to summon a small sword as well as appropriate attire for the part.
“Luna; level ten warrior ready for duty!” she announced to herself with a small smile as she got to the bottom of the green staircase which was a green platform with two doors to her right. In the middle of the platform was a tree flanked on both sides by a rock. Knowing that dungeons in old RPGs always had all kinds of twists and turns, Luna knew that either way would work. After a quick eenie-meanie, she chose the door closest to her and went through it to be met with another platform with a tree to her right and a staircase going down to her left. Looking over the edge of the platform, Luna saw another platform decorated with yet another tree, two doors, and what looked like her first enemy. The enemy looked like a small bipedal black figure with one large pinkish eye in the center of its ‘head’. Getting very excited, she quickly bolted down the staircase and slashed at the weird figure, causing it to suddenly flash red before disappearing with a satisfying beep sound.
“Nothing can stop Warrior Luna!” Luna yelled as she held her blade in the air in a heroic pose before looking behind her at the two doors. With a quick thought, she decided that the left door seemed the best way to go and proceeded to open the door with her bit magic before walking through the door. Upon exiting on the other side, Luna immediately noticed that there were two rows of filing cabinets, one to her immediate left and more forward of her as well as a strange lack of enemies. She couldn’t help but wonder exactly what type of dungeon this was; she had never seen such a strange layout with so little enemies in any of the vast amount of games she had played. Shaking it off as part of whomever ponies dream she was in, Luna ventured forward down a staircase that was to the far right of the platform she was on. Game logic did state that the boss was almost always at the lowest level of this kind of dungeon.
Her venturing continued for a while, her excitement slowly deteriorating as she noticed that doors seemed to lead into areas that she had already been in and somehow connected even though they appeared to be too far away to do so. After a while she reached a platform that was new, as it had a weird looking blob ghost thing. Raising her sword up to attack it, Luna quickly noticed that it didn’t even try to attack her. Taking note that it must be a non-hostile creature, she put her sword down and trotted up the stairs behind it cautiously. After what seemed like an impossible amount of stairs, Luna reached the platform on top which once again had a tree and a single door. This was definitely a new platform though which meant that this might lead to the boss. Readying her sword, Luna burst through the door to be met with one large and four small very bright neon colored things carrying strange neon swords. Taking no chances, she quickly slashed all of them, the small ones taking one hit and the large one taking two.
Interestingly, the large one actually dropped a small silver coin which Luna took with a small ding sound. With a quick thought, she settled on the fact that this must have just been a mini boss otherwise she would have been whisked away; although Luna was starting to doubt her gaming meta-knowledge had any power here. That thought made her think of another good point, whose dream was this exactly? First, she was in a weird empty room with only doors, then a weird empty plane with creepy statues creatures, then some kind of invisible maze, and now an 8-bit world that didn’t make any sense. Whoever’s dream this was, she had to find out soon because she was beginning to get rather creeped out, and that was saying something for her. Seeing no other way out besides the way she came in, Luna departed the strange castle wall like area and started to look around the dungeon maze again for some kind of boss character.
After another few moments of exploring, Luna knew she had finally found the boss level. In front of her on the platform were weird mushroom looking things that did not attack her, and seemed to be blocking a door. Quickly slashing them down to gain access to the door, she rushed into the door as the music suddenly changed into a strangely more emotional version of the music she had been hearing. Looking around her, Luna saw four pyramid looking things, two of the mushrooms, and, most likely, the boss she had been looking for. The demonic looking being was just walking around though; it didn’t try to attack her which confused Luna greatly.
“Uhm… excuse me foul beast, but are you the boss of this dungeon?” Luna asked the demon creature in her best heroic voice, which was at this point a little faulty. After a few moments of waiting with no reply, Luna concluded that it looked enough like a boss to be one, so she quickly slashed at it until it stopped flashing red and disappeared with a strange sound, leaving two of the silver coins and a weird looking egg behind. After taking the coins, Luna inspected the weird looking egg in front of her. It was yellow with black stripes on it and it was giving off a rather dark aura. Luna slowly brought her hoof to the strange looking egg until she made direct contact, which caused a sudden blackness to overtake her.
Author's Note
*This chapter has been crunch edited by LogicIsFail4199 and has not received his seal of approval.
That should say it all. Finally got back into Yume Nikki and was able to finish this chapter, which was one of the main reasons I started it. FC World is a confusing part of the game which I actually got lost in while trying to map out how Luna was going to move through. After getting lost five times, I just decided to use the map from the wiki. I also played the FC House music while writing to try and inspire me and plus the music is catchy. There might not be much this chapter, but what can you expect from this kind of part. Please do voice anything you want to, I love criticism, both good and bad so please do point out any flaws or discrepancies or even anything you actually like. And thanks to LogicIsFail4199 for pre-reading though I still cant get his seal of approval. Thank you for your time
GravGear
