Bolting straight up with a yell, I sent a certain changeling flying across the room, and awoke a certain earth pony. I was too busy breathing hard and clutching a shaking police baton in my hand to notice the concerned stares that my wife and daughter gave me, even as the other occupants of the house piled into the room as fast as they could.

"Mark? Are ya okay?" Scootaloo asked, and yelped as I quickly brought her into my grip, sobbing for the first time in a while.

"Clear out, something's wrong with Mark right now." Judy had to yell, pushing everyone except AJ and Apple out, while I just held Scoots against my chest.

Needless to say, she was one confused as fuck kid at the moment.

'Daddy?' Apple asked, putting a hoof against my knee.

'I don't want to talk about it...' I replied, stroking Scootaloo's mane as if I stopped, it would disappear.

'Talking about it will help, and you know it.' She told me, narrowing her eyes a little.

'You're right... It's just... Jesus Christ.' I sighed, and after a moment let Scoots go.

"God... You know how you see something that scars you for life?" I finally said, my voice cracking slightly.

"Yea?" Judy and AJ replied, the former crouching down in front of the bed as I sat there, two fillies in my lap and a mare rubbing my back with her hooves.

"I had that kind of nightmare..." I muttered, putting my face in my hands.

"Who was in it, besides you?" AJ asked, not letting up the gentle assault on my back.

"That's the thing." I bitterly laughed, wiping my nose. "It starred me, Scoots, and..."

At that moment, Rainbow Dash decided to pop in with Duffy; probably called over by someone in the house.

And I almost shit myself.

"Get the fuck away from me!" I yelped, falling off of the bed (sending Apple flying again), my hands scrambling to get to the M4 I have taped to the underside of the bed.

"Woah! She's not going to hurt you!" Judy yelled, holding her hands up as I freed the weapon and got my back against the wall. Later, I would come to wonder how the fuck she knew German, but dismissed it as my body language telling her.

"Stay the fuck away from her!" I growled, not even bothering to raise the butt to my shoulder to properly aim. Dash was about to say something, but the flick of the safety lever going straight to fully automatic shut her up.

"Easy." Duffy said, holding his arms out in a non-threatening manner. "Look, I'm taking her from the room. Nice and slowly, so don't shoot." After he finished, he lead the bitch away, and I only released my grip when I heard them going downstairs.

"Now... What the fuck was that all 'bout?!" AJ finally said a moment later. I took a moment to respond, rubbing my head.

'Apple, are you able to project memories and the like? Too bloody afraid to voice them.' I asked.

'I'm a changeling, daddy. Anything to do with the mind is somewhat natural to me.' She replied, rolling her eyes as her horn flared a sickly green color.

The next several minutes saw Judy, Scoots, and AJ watching the nightmare I just had from my point of view.

"Ah... Ah don't know what to say..." AJ managed to studder as I glared a hole in the floor. Scoots herself was brimming with tears, while Schmidt looked on from the doorway.

"You know she wouldn't do something like that, Mark." He said, making me glare at him.

"You know what's hilarious?" I spat. At his raised eyebrow, I continued. "I could snap one day and do the same fucking thing!"

"What do you mean?" Judy quietly asked.

"I'm EOD. Not as taxing as SEALs, but the mental strain is hard to put up with." I sighed, putting my head to my knees. "Even though I've been here for roughly five years, the time I spent in Afghanistan is taking it's toll on me now. Now, I'm more than likely PTSD's bitch."

"Don't go an' say that, Sugarcube." AJ tried telling me.

"You don't get it, AJ. And I honestly hope that you won't." I sighed. "For one," I started, pointing at the three humans who were standing near me (Duffy came back up without Dash), "you all, with the probable exception of Schmidt, don't know what I've had to do."

"Tell us, then." Duffy grunted.

"I've had to kill Taliban. You did too, but this is different. I've had to watch children weep as their fathers lay in a pool of their blood. I had the stress of life or death weighing down on me as I risked my fucking life to make sure some shitty ass street didn't become a

---

bloodbath.

"Risk my goddamn life over some ass of a Commanding Officer, save the fucker, and get punished for it!" I added, throwing the M4 across the room in disgust.

Dawn took that moment to appear, frowning heavily as Lunacae did, too.

"We have a problem, Mark." They said at the same time.

"Lay it on me." I grunted.

"It's... Discord. Before getting stoned again, he put a spell on you." Dawn started.

"Then get rid of it." I spat, frowning.

"It's not that simple." Lunacae butted in. "Chaos magic is a tricky, and elder, magic to use. Not even we can dispell the spell placed upon thou." She explained. I just sighed and thunk'd my head against the wall.

"What am I looking at here, then?" I asked.

"We only detected it when thou had fallen into slumber." Lunacae explained. "It will give thou horrible nightmares, all of which go against thy Elements of Harmony."

"You already had Loyalty's." Dawn said. "She betrayed her most diehard fan for some sick regulations that don't exist. I made sure of it when they did exist, they were eliminated as quickly as possible."

"So, who am I having next, then?" I asked, slowly getting to my feet. I was still shaking like a bitch, but AJ and Judy helped keep me steady.

"We can't tell. For all we know, the next will be Applejack. Or Twilight. Maybe Fluttershy." Dawn sighed, starting to pace. "All we can tell is that whoever's next in your nightmares, it will place the seeds of distrust into your mind. Rainbow Dash will have to work hard to regain your trust, because you will subconsciously hate her until she does."

"But if I'm actively trying to keep myself from hating her, won't that quicken the process?" I asked. Dawn shook his head.

"Chaos magic doesn't work like that. I'm not even going to pretend to understand it, but I can assure you, it's impossible to do that." He said. "Mentioning her won't set you off, but as soon as you look at her and hear her voice, you'll want to kill and or maim her."

"Jesus Christ..." I muttered, before looking at Duffy. "You might want to go warn Dash, or else she'll pop up in the morning and I'll end up putting a bullet into her."

"On it." He said, leaving. I sat down on the edge of the bed and stared out of the window, looking at the moon.

"'Tis beautiful, isn't it?" Lunacae asked as the others awkwardly left, save for Apple. AJ muttered about getting something to snack on.

"I can see through Celestia's and Luna's act." I said. "And since you're doing an entirely different thing, you don't count."

"What doth thou mean?" She asked, narrowing her eyes a little.

"Moving the sun and moon around the planet." I said, twirling an index finger for effect. "Sure, it is plausable that Luna moves the moon, but Celestia cannot move the sun. No matter how powerful she is, it just won't work. Simple physics. She would have to be able to move trillions of tons of flaming gas."

"Then what does thou thinketh they do?" She asked.

"Celestia could very well rotate the planet, which I think she does. Luna, with the moon, may actually be just that." I explained. "And there's another hole in your legacy; you could not survive on the moon, because you bloody well need oxygen to survive. There's almost no atmosphere to speak of on the moon, so that whole 'banishment to the moon' story is bullshit."

I don't know why, but she started chuckling.

"Somepony figured it out." She whispered. "Thou art entirely right, of course. Celestia didn't actually banish us to the moon, rather she banished us to a room that was an exact copy of the surface of the moon."

"That right there is more believable." I muttered, lighting a cigarette and sucking on the end. "Want a light?"

"What does thou mean?" She asked, curious to the glowing death stick in my mouth.

"Would you like a cigarette?" I clarified, offering one out to her. When she nodded, I eased the filter into her mouth and put her lips around the brown part. "When the other end lights up, breath in through the filter." I told her, flicking my lighter and lighting the end. She did as I told, and coughed a little.

"Now, breath the smoke out." I continued, watching as smoke billowed forth from her nostrils.

"I'm not sure how nicotine is with equines, but it's highly addicting. You're gonna have to ask Anon for more, when you get back." I added after a moment. I knew for a fact my Multi-verse self was dating the ex-Nightmare beside me.

"What doth this cigarette do?" She asked, using her magic to hold the cancer stick in place.

"It's a stress reliever that I used. Since I had to go through nicotine withdrawl a while back, I was an asshole for a while, but now that I have it again..." I trailed off, content to just look at the stars.

"Well, we must get back to the castle." Lunacae said after a while, rising off of her flanks and nodded to me. "We bid thee farewell."

"Until next time, ma'am." I said with a salute, before she flashed out of existance. When she was gone, I stomped out the still burning filter, and swept it under the bed for later disposal.

'Can I have one?' Apple asked as I sat back down.

"No. There are not enough ways to say 'no' to that question." I sighed. "This stuff's gonna take my lifespan down a notch, because it's pretty much filled with toxins these days."

'Then why do you smoke them?' Apple asked in confusion.

"Because it's a good way to deal with stress, rather than drink my liver to death." I muttered, lying back down and staring up at the ceiling.

I knew that I wasn't going to get sleep for a while, but I didn't care.

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