Nightmare Fuel / The Lost Element

You like Nightmare Faces? How about six?

Even though The Lost Element stays very true to the source material's original tone and message, that does not mean things don't ever get dark. Really dark.

Before Time Began to Flow

• The prequel story to The Lost Element is oozing with this trope. The entire story is told from the perspective of Equestria's first overlord, who originally roamed the world when it was consumed by all manner of darkness and shadowy monsters. By the time he corrals the evils of the world into an enchanted sack and guides the world into its first steps, he becomes a de facto Villain Protagonist and suckers naive seekers of power into being exposed to the Miasma and becoming his disciples in time. And that's not when he's using the Miasma on random visitors For the Evulz! When the people finally rise up against him, he slaughters countless human warriors by the hundreds, if not thousands, until he finally collapses in exhaustion surrounded by mountains of corpses in a sea of blood. Even worse, while left severely weakened after being captured, the people of Equestria cannot kill him, regardless of whatever methods they try. The best they can hope for is to lock him away.
  • The Stinger reveals that his power is growing with every passing night and that the chapter takes place dangerously close to the modern day. And he is convinced that his escape from the depths of Tartarus is nigh!

The Lost Element

Volume 1

• One week after his arrival in Equeestria, James is forced into hiding out in the Everfree Forest by a vengeful Diamond Tiara. While he does have the foresight to arm himself with a knife and affixes a pot lid to his arm as an improvised shield, his lack of any real camping or solo exploration leaves James woefully unprepared for the trek. Considering the very real probability of encounters with Timber Wolves, Manticores, and one lurking hydra in a swamp, it is a wonder that James survived his first day out there with little incident.
  • And then as night begins to fall, he stumbles upon an unsuspecting lost little filly in the forest with a candy corn-hued mane and tail, a magnifying glass cutie mark, and glowing yellow beacons for eyes. For anyone who had been with the fandom in its early days, especially right around the time The Lost Element was first making the rounds, you knew where this was going.

Volume 2

Volume 3

• Mortal Chaos, full stop. Easily the most controversial chapter in the entire story, the sheer horrors James forces Discord through are numerous and exceedingly graphic.
  • The moment when James encounters the discorded projections of the Mane Six in his subconscious during "Sudden Death" where they merge together to form a horrifying chimera creature is so fucked up that it provides the page image above.

Volume 4

• In "Homo Pinkius", all is going well after Pinkie Pie accidentally turns herself human for a day in the middle of winter. Then she eventually goes ice skating with James and promptly falls through thin ice. Instead of it being a comical case of he popping back up in a block of ice, she surfaces shrieking in pain and panic and is in very real danger of drowning in freezing water.

Volume 4. 5

• James gets shanghaied off a train by Celaeno and her crew. Granted, they meant no harm, but going into that scenario blind the first time is jarring.

Volume 5

• Battle of the Purple Tide. Arguably the single most harrowing chapter since Mortal Chaos, this is the point where the gloves come off as the Equestrian militia learns once and for all that War Is Hell.
  • The way the Zerg Rush methods used by the enemy army are hauntingly described where the tightly compacted mass of Hollows, who outnumber the militia 16 to 1, move like a literal ocean that could wash over them like a literal tide of purple.
  • In what is likely a freak occurance, James witnesses an arrow graze Gilda's face. It claims her left eye.
  • After spending the entire war able to go to town on the Hollows with minimal resistance due to the emperor needing James alive, this battle subverts expectations out of nowhere when James ends up seprated from Ember and Rain Shine. Specifically when a Hollow strikes him down with a war hammer to the back of the head.
    • A dose of Realism-Induced Horror sets in as well once James regains consciousness where he provides an acute description of symptoms caused by a skull fracture including more specific symptoms to convey which lobes in his brain have been damaged. Previously all but untouchable in battle, James is now the most vulnerable he has ever been and is surrounded by the enemy.
  • Rain Shine and Ember's responses to James being struck down are equal parts awesome and horrifying.
    • Rain Shine is the first to feel James fall. In response, she goes Nirik. This ends up working out for the best since this results in Rain Shine razing the enemy army and rapidly thinning out their numbers.
    • Ember's response is decidedly more memorable as she actually physically reaches James. Upon finding him down and assuming he's dying, Ember unleashes a rage that goes from scary to outright disturbing. Combining an almost feral rage with constant vocal weeping, Ember protects the fallen human while subjecting her spear to so much abuse that it finally breaks before tearing into her enemies with her bare hands. James describes vivid depictions of Ember ripping her enemies limb from limb, tearing them in half down the middle, and even one case where she crushes a Hollow's armored head in her jaws. Just imagine the bloodbath had they been actual human soldiers.
    • Ember is so lost in her rage that she nearly ends up burning Shining Armor alive when he arrives to help. The rampaging Dragon Lord has to be physically restrained with magic, all while she continues to madly snarl and claw at the ground to get free. Being faced with very concept of losing James broke her.