A/N: I'm back, finally. Just like Ben's I have rewritten my side of the story. I hope you enjoy!
Prologue
All was silent in the Night Dimension ever since Wizeman was defeated, but soon, Nightmare and Nightopia began to reform and some of its original content, nearly lost before the tyrant's defeat, returned. Nearly destroyed locations, like the Nightmare Plaza, rejuvenated. The old castles of each realm returned with their inhabitants, and Nightopia and Nightmare were equal in strength, size, and power. As the World of Dreams began its recuperation, a new, but familiar dreamer started her journey into Nightopia.
Chapter 1:
It was a gray, snowy day and Bellbridge High students were heading out of school. Winter holidays finally arrived, and kids were jubilantly jogging back to their houses.
"See you Raya!" Maria called back to her friend. Maria Taylor was a year 12 at BHS. She was heading over to the middle school where her brother attended. She trudged across the street through the slush and snow, walked up the path dodging several groups of friends, and approached the entrance of the school, where Will, and his friends sat around a bench.
"Hey, Maria," Jake, an American friend of Will greeted in a seductive manner, winking.
"Hello, Jake," she sighed.
"Hi Maria," Andrew, another friend greeted timidly.
"Hey, Andrew," the elder teen smiled kindly.
All of Will's other friends greeted her, and she smiled back at them. "Maria, may I go to Jake's place to hangout tonight? It's Friday, and it's not like I have to do homework," Will pleaded.
"Sure," she sighed. Will grinned, and stayed with his friends. Maria left, and walked back home alone.
After walking for a few minutes, Maria finally reached her house. She stepped up the stairs, pulled the house key out of her pocket, and opened up the front door. The girl entered her house, took her jacket and boots off, and scurried upstairs to her room where her computer sat. She opened up the laptop, and turned it on to check how her new articles and compositions were going on her blog. Nice compliments, and some small critiques appeared in her notifications. Maria let out a big yawn, releasing the tensions of a big day full of tests. She decided not to spend too long on her computer, and take a nap before her dad got home.
The teen set her laptop back on the nightstand, and curled up into her comforter. As she quickly drifted off; a scene of a childhood memory from when she was in primary school filled her mind:
Her mother was in her old bedroom, sitting in a chair, reading Maria a bedtime story, and the woman was laughing kindly, but slowly it turned into a cynical deep low snicker. The lady's eyes turned from blue to red, and the room faded to darkness.
All that Maria thought was, "Oh no."
Mrs. Taylor, gradually transformed into three-or-so shadowy creatures, which darted at Maria. The teen's instincts kicked in, and she began sprinting away from the monsters as fast as she could. Just as the girl contemplated giving up to the quickly approaching threat, a bright, warm, blinding light evaporated the creature, and she escaped into the light.
As she dashed to the source of this positive, welcoming energy which came with the light, the glow began to fade into a vast plaza with an enormous, elegant castle. Around the plaza seemed to be the remains of other buildings which deteriorated over a long time.
"Am I still sleeping?" Maria asked herself, since she certainly felt like she was awake, and very conscious. She took a few steps and turned around to confirm she had complete, conscious control of her body. The girl looked up, and now saw a hazy, dark red fog covering some of the road. After pondering what was behind the fog, the teen refocused her curiosity to the beautiful, ancient structure beside her. With nothing stopping her, she turned, and headed inside.
The first thing Maria noticed when she entered the castle was how old it was. Lots of the marble that made up the building was cracked and broken, but Maria found it breath-takingly beautiful. Many hallways parted off the foyer, but instead Maria chose to climb, up a flight of thin spiral stairs. After reaching the top, she found a hall that led to two black doors, but dismissed it for another hall that glowed slightly indigo. She walked down that hall expecting to find a door, but was met with a dead end.
"Well, that was pointless," Maria thought to herself, but as she began to walk away, her hands emitted a white light, and the dead-end disappeared. The hallway faded away, and replacing it was the cramped cave with a moss-covered floor. There seemed to be only one way out, down a little slope and through a small hole in the rock with light pouring out. The teen cautiously slid down the path, and crawled through the tight hole, and had to squint as she pulled the rest of her body out of the hole due to the bright, moonlight? A bright full moon illuminated the white stone of the cliff she climbed out of. She slowly got up as her eyes adjusted, noticing a clear path that scaled the cliff from where she was. Maria slowly walked up the path around a bend, and up the cliff where she approached two double doors which nearly blended into the cliff face. "Hmm… Two double doors. This is very strange, and I don't know what's behind them, but where else is there to go?" Maria thought.
She grasped some indentations in the doors, and pulled them, neither one budging. "Guess I have to try harder," she shrugged. The girl once again grasped the indentations, and pulled back with her full body weight. As she pushed with her legs, the doors clicked, and she fell backwards as the doors slowly opened themselves. She crawled back as the doors threatened to scratch her legs. Taking another moment to take in her surrounds, she looked down the path that lay behind the doors, which gradually darkened, but she could make out the beginning of a staircase which lay at the end.
Maria got back up, and paced through the doors. As she passed under the archway, the doors began closing behind her making her want to run back out, but she suddenly felt a comforting feeling coming from up the stairs begging her to follow. She mindlessly began following the strange aura, and began trekking up the stairs.
"Am I almost there, wherever 'there' is?!" Maria furrowed her eyebrows in determination and began walking faster, but soon, she was startled as an aquamarine light blinded her. She carefully opened her eyes to see that the steps had ended.
Before her there was a circular room. At the center was a pedestal with a baseball sized pearl which reflected the blue, aqua, and purple light radiating from the walls and a shallow pool of water. Maria began walking into the room along the small peninsula which led to the majestic pedestal.
"This pearl must be important if it's a room like this," she thought, looking at the shallow pool surrounding her. She suddenly felt that same comforting aura she felt earlier radiating from the orb.
"Come closer," a voice echoed through the room. The voice sounded almost musical mixed with the sound of trickling water from the waterfall-like fountains on the walls.
Maria looked at the pearl where the voice seemed to resonate from, and carefully reached out. As her finger were about to graze the surface, she suddenly stopped. "What if this is some sort of trap like you find in a tomb?" she thought to herself. But once again, the voice responded, "Don't worry. I don't bite."
As she rested her hand on the orb, the orb began to lift into the air. Wisps of blue and silver light began to burst out of the sphere and spread through the air amorphously. After a few seconds, the light began to form a humanoid shape, and then with one last burst of light, turned into a jester like creature with ram-like horns.
"Hello there!" the creature greeted cheerfully. It looked up and down its body with its indigo, blackhole eyes. "I'm Twylight."
"Uh, my name's Maria," the girl replied, thoroughly intrigued by the mystical creature before her. "May I ask, what are you?"
Twylight smiled and responded, "I'm a nightmaren. I'm a creature created by Wizeman in order to steal ideya from humans and conquer Nightopia."
Maria backed away cautiously, having heard, "steal...from humans, and conquer". "And may I ask, where am I? All I remember is going to take a nap, and suddenly appearing in this dream-like world."
Twylight looked around, and began looking anxious. "This is, I think, Nightopia, maybe Nightmare, or is it the World of Dreams? It is either Nightopia, Nightmare, or the World of Dreams, or some sort of combination."
Maria started feeling anxious in response to the unclear answer. "You're not sure? You seemed so sure about what you are, and you're clearly from here."
Twylight clearly seemed to hear annoyance in her tone, and began pulling their limbs into a fetal-like position. "I really don't know. It's quite complicated," she replied softly.
"Can you explain?" Maria requested.
"I'll try," the nightmaren sighed. "I'm a creature who was made to cause humans nightmares. The details aren't really clear, but I think that's the gist."
The teen expected a longer, more in-depth explanation, so she began asking more questions: "What do you mean by unclear?"
Twylight was silent for a second, but soon replied: "I don't really have a lot of memories. All I have is very unclear surface level memories, except for a few things."
"And what are those few things?"
"I have two other counterparts," they began. "Together, we form another nightmaren, that was so powerful, that Wizeman, our creator couldn't control us, so he broke us up, and we are now separate beings." It sounded like Twylight was finished, but as Maria began to reply, Twylight began again. "I carry the ability to transform into other creatures, and the ability to teleport."
"You can transform and teleport?" Maria questioned. Twylight nodded. "Show me," the girl stated.
An indigo gem on the jester's forehead began to glow, and the nightmaren's body turned to light, like before. The light then shaped into a very a human shape and with one last burst of light, a dreamer with silver hair appeared before her.
Maria was amazed at the transformation, and gazed up and down the nightmaren's new form. "Like it?" Twylight asked.
"Like it, it's amazing! I never thought that I'd ever see anything like it," she replied.
"Then let me show you my teleportation." This human version of Twylight poked the air next to her, and abruptly, a huge portal appeared.
As the two were about to go through the portal, Maria felt a nudge against her shoulder, and heard someone saying, "Wake up Maria, time for dinner."
"I'm coming," Maria mumbled, but she didn't mumble it in the dream world, but she mumbled in her normal body. "This is weird." She thought to herself, but then she heard Twylight reply, "What's weird? You fading?" Then, she fully returned to reality, and groggily got up from her nap, nearly falling as she got up from her bed.