It was getting closer and closer and closer to my wedding day, and I was getting nervous, the various adventures the girls have been going on in the meantime haven’t helped so to occupy myself I finished up Shy’s sanctuary, to which all of the animals that lived at the cottage before hand or visited moved in, giving the town its first official ‘Zoo.’ I also took some of the times that the girls were away to try and track down Starlight Glimmer, having her running around was keeping me up at night, whether I would tell the girls that or not was an entirely different matter. I’ve had no such luck in finding her though, but my leads have managed to make me meet up with the girls while they’re out on friendship missions from time to time so that’s neat.

However, them going on their own adventures by being called by the map didn’t mean I wasn’t getting caught up in their shenanigans from time to time. The first snowfall of the year was nearly completely ruined thanks to Rainbow and her antics. She tried to convince me of all people to stop the cold and snow from coming in. Of course I refused, but Rainbow being Rainbow was stubborn and went through a whole bunch of means to try and convince me until she finally gave up and went straight to the Weather Factory to sabotage the snow section of the factory.

Funnily enough she succeeded and that portion of the factory only just recently got fixed, which meant in the meantime, yours truly had to go around and induce snow falls all over Equestria for about a week, I’m still exhausted from that. Hell, I was miffed at Rainbow for it for a while, mostly because her reasoning was that she didn’t want Tank to go to sleep. But after heavy explanations from myself and Shy, Rainbow finally accepted it not before shedding tears with everyone save Twilight, AJ, and Myself. Twilight was just confused to why everyone else was crying, mostly Pinkie as Rarity is a drama queen and Shy is textbook definition of empathetic.

With Pinkie stated she was crying because Twilight wasn’t crying, to which Twilight pointed out that AJ and I weren’t crying either. Pinkie’s retort being that AJ cries on the inside, AJ confirming that. And that I’m so emotionally broken that only strong emotional stimuli will really make me cry. Which, while just being so bluntly stated hurt, I had to admit she was right.
So Tank is currently in hibernation along with a majority of all of our pets.

Another crazy shenanigan that I was caught up in, well really everyone was by the end of the night, I just had the unfortunate luck of being engaged to the source of it this time around. I had to deal with Discord’s jealousy of Shy getting a new friend in Tree Hugger. Tree hugger was…. The equivalent of this world’s hippie and I’m not 100% sure if pot existed in Equestria but she would be the biggest pothead on the planet if it does. Mind you, despite that, she was a very nice pony who cared about nature, so I saw why Shy connected with her so much and I had no problems with her being friends with Tree Hugger.

Discord on the other hand was not taking it well at all. He made a scheme to try and make Tree Hugger reveal that she had some alterior motive or wasn’t as nice and calm as she seemed to be. Mind you his scheme involved bringing a sentient booger called the Smooze to the Grand Galloping Gala to one up Shy, who brought Tree Hugger. Needless to say it did not go well, the Smooze as it turns out loves to eat metal and shiny things, and being… you know in the palace garnered a lot of that until Discord locked him in an armor closet causing the slime to grow in enough size to swallow everyone in the ballroom.

That was enough to make me put my foot down, literally and I froze the slime in place so it couldn’t grow anymore, careful to not freeze the ponies stuck inside him. However Tree Hugger asked me to unfreeze him and let her talk to him, I obliged and it worked, calming the Smooze down and shrinking him to a manageable size. However this just pissed Discord off more and he pick up Tree hugger by her collar, ripped open a portal to a sock puppet dimension and was threatening to throw her in.

However, Shy stopped him, wondering what his issue was. To which Discord angrily explained the she was replacing him with some boring nothing pony and he felt hurt. That, personally made me laugh, to which he looked at me and I explained that she wasn’t replacing him, she just made a new friend, she can have more than one. After all he’s not jealous over me or the other’s so what makes this any different?

He thought about it for a moment before admitting I was right and apologizing to Shy and then was forced to apologize to Tree Hugger, after that the night actually went quite swimmingly.

And now we’re here… gathered in Rarity’s kitchen discussing how they’ve all been having the same nightmare about an inky blob infecting them turning them into evil versions of themselves.

“That sounds eerily like Luna getting possessed by the nightmare… I think we should contact her.” I suggested.

Twilight nodded, “Spike, can you send a letter to Luna?”

The drake was already rolling up a scroll, “Way ahead of you Twilight.” He held the scroll up in his hands before blowing his green fire over it, sending it off to the princess of the night.

“And now we wai-” I was cut off by Rarity’s door being slammed open.

“WHICH ONE OF YOU IS HAVING THE NIGHTMARE?!” Luna asked, clearly panicked.

I looked at my aunt, “All of them.”

Spike raised his hand, “Except for me, don’t know why but I’m grateful for it.”

“I’m not either Auntie Luna!” Goldy said happily.

“Good good, we are glad to hear that, what about you dear nephew are you also suffering from nightmares?” She asked, curious to see if it was just the elements.

I shook my head, “No, but that’s mostly Ixis’ doing, according to her the inky mass has tried to enter my mind but she’s been deflecting it.”

Luna sighed in relief, “Good good, we assumed that it would go after the elements and those close to them.”

We all looked at her in confusion, “Wait wait, you mean, you know what that thing is?!”Rainbow asked the lunar princess.

She nodded somberly, “Yes… it is our shame. It is a creature called the Tantabus, we created it to plague us with nightmares when we sleep during the day to atone for our sins as Nightmare Moon.”

I sighed, walked up to my oh so wonderful aunt and smacked her upside the head, making everyone else gasp, “You’re an idiot.”

Luna’s eyes were wide as she rubbed the side of her head, “Pray tell for what?”

“You created an intelligent entity that causes you nightmares and grows to make sure you keep having them, of course it was going to escape into the dreamscape eventually. What's worse is you did this after everyone’s forgiven you. Take it from me, hating yourself for something that happened ages ago is pointless, no one remembers save for the one person who is as old as you and no one this day and age cares let alone thinks that low of you.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose, “Look, Luna, we love you, all of us, it’s fine, but you need to love yourself, take it from the world's biggest hypocrite.”

She blinked at me, surprised I’d be so straightforward about it, “We… suppose you are right, however we still need to stop the tantabus less it reaches other ponies’ dreams we fear if that is to come to pass it shall escape the sleeping realm and enter the real world.”

AJ confidentiality smiled at the princess, “Alright, what do ya need us to do yer highness?”

Luna nodded, “We need you all to sleep, in circle preferably so we can connect you all to a more accessible and micro dreamscape.”

“Sleep, is that all? I do that in my sleep.” RD said.

“Well, yeah, I’d sure hope so Dashy.” Pinkie said, confused by what her friend meant.

“Anyways, I do have some room on my upper floor to have a us do just that.” Rarity said.

“Excellent, follow us and we shall get everything set up.” Luna led the way upstairs to a large circular room, its like everyones house was larger on the inside, she conjured up 8 beds for us to sleep in, Goldy climbing in mine.

I looked down at her and then over at Spike, “Hey, can you actually keep watch over Goldy, she doesn’t need to be apart of nightmares.”

The young drake nodded, “I’d be happy too, why don’t we play some marenopoly.” He asked my daughter, who looked up at me and I nodded for her to go on ahead to which she quickly scrambled over to the older dragon and quickly sat next to him. It was adorable, her little crush, it was like watching Spike all over again.

“Alright, knock us out pretty dream queen.” I smirked at Luna.

She rolled her eyes but smiled nonetheless, “As you wish.” I saw her horn glow one moment and then the next I was in the mindscape that Ixis resided in, speaking of.

“Hey you, haven’t seen you up here for quite some time. I was beginning to get lonely.” She said with a warm smile.

I shook my head, shaking the daze from my mind from the sudden knock out, “Hey Ixis… I’ll be with you in a moment.”

“Unfortunately a moment we do not have to spare.” A familiar voice said.

“Princess Luna, what a pleasant surprise, it’s good to see you once more.” Ixis greeted the princess.

“Indeed, same to you Lady Ixis, we assume you know why we are here?” She asked the former queen of dragons.

“I do, that inky black mass you call the Tantabus.”

“Correct, we would love to stay and converse, however…” She trailed off, gesturing to me.

“I know, take him, I’ll stay here and keep his mindscape safe.” Ixis explained sitting on the couch that was perpetually here, and crossing her legs.

“Guess she’s meditating, alright so who are we dream hopping to first?” I asked Luna.

She thought about it for a moment, “To the one who would be the easiest to corrupt.” She summoned a door that was light blue and had Rainbow Dash’s cutie mark emblazoned on it.

I cocked an eyebrow, “Really she’s the easiest to corrupt, loyalty?”

She looked at me, her eyes cold, “We were loyalty as well, one can be too loyal to themselves and their way of thinking nephew, it is a perversion of what loyalty should be.” She stepped through the door, leaving me behind, to be fair I wanted to say something but what could I? I sighed and followed her through.

Once I stepped through I was transported to a hellish burning landscape, buildings were crumbling, the sky was blood red and it looked like the sun was disintegrating, and there were black things fluttering everywhere a rainbow streak knocking them out the sky, “Looks like we were too late, the Tantabus must already be here.” I said, getting ready to go join the fight

Luna held out a hand to stop me, “Nay, this is how Loyalty’s dreams always are, she’s, as the youngsters say, an adrenaline junkie.”

“She lives for the thrill… makes sense, so what do we do now?”

“Now? We wait.” She said, sitting on a pile of rubble.

I groaned, “Of course… so, what are those?” I asked looking up in the sky, at the strange black creatures.

She also looked up at the creatures, “Those? They are changelings, they possess the ability to change into any pony… any creature they see fit. Their queen tried to take over canterlot several years ago, before you came to Equestria.” She paused and I rolled my hand, gesturing her to continue, “It was during Cadance’s wedding, the Queen, Chrysalis is her name, trapped our dear niece in the crystal caverns deep in canterlot mountain. She took her form and proceeded to use it to take her place in her wedding, the only reason her invasion failed is because young Twilight Sparkle, knew that something was amiss with her old foal sitter and Chrysalis made a fatal mistake of trapping her within the same cavern as Cadance.

They escaped and made their way out of the caverns and exposed the imposter for who she was. Our dear sister had her flank handed to her as Chrysalis was feeding off of Shining Armor’s love for Cadance, the changelings feed off of love, and it made her strong enough to catch Celestia off guard.”

I nodded, following along, “And I’m guessing the girls stepped in and beat her with the elements?”

Luna shook her head, “Nay, twas actually Cadance and Shining Armor sending out a shockwave of pure and concentrated love strong enough that the changelings couldn’t eat it and it forced them out of Canterlot, flinging them back to the badlands.”

“Well that’s… neat, though I have one question, because I noticed one major thing about that. Where were you the entire time? Everything you told me had no evidence of you being there whatsoever, I know you wouldn’t have let Chrysalis get away with attack Celestia let alone locking Cadance away.”

She looked away from me, “We… were asleep. We were catching up on my rest for the ceremony, but when we awoke it was long past the invasion let alone the ceremony, we were only around for the reception. Tis another reason we created the Tantabus, to keep us in a light slumber so we are weary of any looming threat during the day.”

I sighed, opting to stay silent as we waited for the Tantabus to show up. Thankfully we didn’t have to wait long as rather suddenly the scenery changed to a luscious green field with happy daisies humming a cute tune. Luna and I stood up, looking for the Tantabus, we found it floating in the sky nearby Rainbow, who was laying on the ground screaming in terror at the change in her dream.

The creature in question looked like a blob of clear night sky dotted with stars and outlined by pink. It ‘looked’ down at the chromatic mare, seemingly pleased with it’s handy work and looked like it was about to take off.

“NO! I’M TOO AWESOME FOR A DREAM LIKE THIS! I AM RAINBOW DASH THE AWESOMEST AND FASTEST FLYER IN EQUESTRIA!” She yelled out in frustration, this catching the Tantabus’ attention. Quickly, it crossed the distance from where it was at to Rainbow and engulfed her in a sphere of darkness.

“Luna…. Uh what is it doing?” I asked.

Luna stared at what was happening with wide eyes, “No… it can’t be…”

Slowly beams of darkness broke out of the sphere, cracking it apart until it shattered open completely, revealing a much taller Rainbow Dash, or what I thought was Rainbow Dash. Her coat turned midnight blue with her hair and tail turning pitch black as the color drained out of it. Her pupils becoming slits as her scelera turned a light shade of pink, making it look like her irises faded into them. Her wings also changed, becoming much larger than they were, her feathers sharpening into dagger points along with her teeth as she screamed out in pain and fear. Finally, the very last thing to change was her cutie mark, the cloud turned just as black as her hair and the rainbow lightning bolt split into 3 separate bolts each one a varying shade of gray.

I took a step back, even in a dream I could feel a surge of magic explode out from her, I looked to Luna for an explanation. The night princess was about to say something until a voice, that sounded like rainbows but much deeper and had way more power behind it interrupted her, “Ah, Luna, I was wondering when you would show up. Oh and you brought someone new… who might you be creature?” She paused, waiting for an answer, I was willing to give her one but she held up a hand silencing me before I could, “Ah, now I know, this one’s memories told me who you are, and your magic is very familiar, I’ve tried to invade your dreams before but something always kept me out, now…. Now you’ve come to me.” She said with a wicked grin.

“What? What is going on?” I asked, confused, worried, and slowly getting pissed.

The Tantabus possessed Rainbow chuckled, “Oh, did the princess not tell you what her nightmare was? Oh ho, that is wonderful then this will be delicious news to tell you. Your sweet auntie made her nightmare her getting repossessed by the nightmare that took her over and getting defeated by this one and her friends.” She said gesturing to herself.

I looked at Luna incredulously, “Are you serious? You… you know what, that’s not important right now.” I turned my attention back to the Tantabus, “I’m guessing if I asked you to leave her body nicely you won’t?”

“That is correct.”

“Alright, guess I’ll have to beat you out of her… really don’t want to but you’re kind of forcing my hand.” I got into my fighting stance, “Luna, can you back me up?”

“Nay, dear nephew, if you fight her while she is in possession of Loyalty it could shock her awake, and potentially cause the Tantabus to reach the real world whilst still in possession of her.” She said.

I groaned, “Ok, so what do I do then, nothing?”

“We did not say that, you very well can fight her, but our assistance is out of the question, we shall be concentrating on making sure she doesn’t wake up.”

I nodded and cracked my neck, “Alright, sounds good, alright Tantabus Possessed Rainbow Dash, get ready because here I come.”

She got into a classic MMA stance, with her legs apart and fist raised to the sides of her head, “Come on, lets see if you can knock me out of her, she has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to martial arts. Oh, and please, call me… Shadow Bolt.”

I rolled my eyes and ran at her, cracking the ground under my feet at take off, she did the same. It was not but a few seconds before we closed the gap between one other. She threw a punch that hit me square in the jaw, luckily it didn’t have much power behind it. Unfortunately it was faster than even I could keep up with. My surprise left an opening wide enough for her to follow up with a flurry of punches.

“What’s wrong, too fast for you?”

I grunted, managing to find a break between the punches to throw my wings up in front of me, protecting me from the blows. I slowly began to build up my magic into my wings before I covered them in ice spikes. She noticed this and stopped punching, jumping away quickly before I could pull off anymore tricks.

“Maybe…” I said, unfolding my wings, once again entering my battle stance.

She looked upset, “Ugh, I forgot that you could use ice…” She smiled, “However, that doesn’t matter if you can’t keep up with me.” She blinked out of existence.

I was surprised but I held my stance, remaining as calm as I could, keeping my guard up before a twig snapped, drawing my attention to the left of me but even with advanced warning a hoof slammed into the side of my head, sending my flying across the hild, slamming into a tree, splintering it and causing it to crash down on me. I quickly got up, tossing the tree off of me. However before I could fully recover I was grabbed by my horns and slammed into the ground, while I was still eating dirt, she grabbed my tail and quickly started spinning around, grunting at the effort of lifting me and spinning me, but not letting it deter her in the slightest she flung me high into the air, spiraling hard enough to where I couldn’t open my wings and right myself. I cursed the situation silently.

Even if her hits didn’t do much damage they were still too fast, she could easily wear me down with pure speed alone. I was fast but this suped up Rainbow was beyond anything I could ever hope to reach. I heard laughter up above me cutting off my train of thought, oh please don’t tell me she’s going to do what I think she’s going to do. I felt something hard slam into my back sending me careening into the ground and I hit hard, hard enough to create a small crater.

I laid there for a few seconds before standing up, noticing that I did have cuts and scrapes on me, “Ok this is getting annoying, she straight up hammered me into the ground… too fast way too fast. Maybe….” I slowly poured my magic out from every inch of my body, the air cooling I just hoped she wouldn’t notice and that this works like I’m planning on it.

I heard some rocks roll around to my right, signaling Shadow Bolt’s arrival. Once again she tried to go for kicking me only to have her hoof completely encased in heavy ice as she got within 2 feet of me, “W-What?! The air wasn’t even cold around you!”

I smirked and rubbed my jaw, “You thought I was going to keep letting you knock me around, that first kick hit me in jaw, hurt something fierce. And the air was cold, way below freezing actually. Just your natural pegasus resistance to cold added on to the increased magic you have due to being born from Luna’s magic and her being an alicorn meant that resistance was put up to max. Doesn’t mean I couldn’t freeze you though.” I cracked my knuckles and walked up to her, “Now…. it’s my turn.”

Her face twisted into a look of terror and she tried to get away but the large ice block holding her hoof down stopped her. I got close and reared my right fist back a magic circle forming around it, “Diamond Fist of the Ice Dragon.” Quickly my fist was encased by hyper cold and nigh unbreakable ice that I slammed square into her stomach, before forming another around my left fist and bringing it forward into her chest, “Ice Dragon’s Hailing Wrath!” I yelled out, hitting her with a barrage of punches, the block of ice keeping her still so every time she got flung back she would bounce back adding more power to my hits. I kept this up for about a minute before I was ready to finish this, I reared my head back, snow and ice swirling around my forehead, “Ice Dragon’s-”

“ENOUGH!!!!” She roared out, the force of her magic flaring staggering me, lightning flying off her body, shattering the ice that was encasing her hoof, “THAT IS ENOUGH!!! I thought I’d be able to put you down without this but it seems I overestimated the strength of this one.” She had a look of pure malice in her eyes before an evil grin spread across her face, “You’d better pray I decide to end you quickly, but I’d hold my breath if I were you, because I’m going to enjoy ripping you to shreds.”

Even though she was worse off than I was she flashed out of existence once again, or so I thought because she was still standing in front of me. Wait no… she was to the left of me, no the right, no behind, no the corners… what was… my eyes widened as I realized what was happening. She chuckled, telling me that it was too little too late before her and her after images all dashed towards me, I flared out my magic as much as I could but as they got within the 2 foot threshold the disappeared only leaving one in front of me, facing away from me. I blinked before I felt thousands of blows land on me all carrying the strength and force of a lightning strike that was thrown by Zeus himself. I fell to the ground hard, my scales and skin scorched.

Shadow Bolt sighed and turned to Luna who watch the entire scene with wide eyes, though she was very clearly struggling holding Rainbow’s dream together, “And now for you Luna. I get rid of you, I have free reign until I gain enough power to leave the dream world.” She said with a cackle.

I coughed, slowly pushing myself up, “I… I wouldn’t count on it yet…” I staggered as I stood up, the charred bits of my body cracking open.

Shadow Bolt turned around and looked at me, “What but… how?” She looked surprised, but that surprise quickly turned into rage, “How are you still here?! You should be awake by now at the very least if not dead, don’t you know if you die in the dream you die in real life?!” She yelled at me.

I laughed weakly, “Yeah, maybe so… but it’ll take a lot more than that to kill me… I’m sure you can rummage through Rainbow’s mind, I made a promise to them about me dying.”

She furrowed her brow, obviously calling up whatever memory I was talking about, “Oh no… That’s impossible… that’s defying the reaper himself, you can’t do that.”

I growled, “I don’t care, I can and I will. Like I told them, and like I’ll tell everyone who ever tries to kill me. I’ll die when I’m good and ready to die.” I shook myself off, the cracking parts of my body falling away showing unburnt flesh, hey I can shed I just resist it, that doesn’t take too much energy, what does take a surprising amount of energy is forcing myself to shed, especially in specific spots even if this was a dream. “Now… like I said, it’s my turn.” I gathered my magic energy once more before sending out a shockwave of magic, “Ice Dragon’s Frozen Time; Max Power.” I said as I slowly walked up to Shadow Bolt, I reared my head back again the last little bit of my magic building up around my forehead, encasing it in the same ice the diamond fist is made out of, “Ice Dragon’s Calling Bell.” I slammed my forehead into hers. I walked past her and made my way to Luna, waving my hand, canceling out Frozen Time.

Luna looked down at me with surprise, “Christopher what are you?”

I pointed at Shadow Bolt who was unconscious on the ground, “I took care of it.” Slowly Rainbow shrunk, her wings softened and shrunk as well and her colors were back to normal along with her cutie mark. The Tantabus however looked like it gained vague pegasus shape to it, but it was still more of a blobby mess. It turned its ‘head’ towards us and hissed before ripping a hole open to whoever’s dream was next.

“Is she going to be alright?” I asked Luna, referring to Rainbow.

She nodded, sighing as she could relax, “Yes, once we leave her dream she’ll most likely awaken, at worst she’ll have a headache.”

“Ok, where to next?” I asked.

Rainbow Dash sat up with a start before groaning and clutching her head as a migraine settle on her, “Man… that hurts.”

“You ok Dash?” Spike asked.

Rainbow nodded and looked at him, “Word of advice…. Never get into a fight with Chris… he hits like a… well a dragon.”

“Well, I’d assume so, do you want to play Trouble with us?” The drake asked.

Rainbow swung her legs over the side of her bed, “Nah, I’m gonna get some water and some pills for this headache, this is worse than my hangovers.” She groaned as she walked out the room.

Spike shrugged resuming his game with Goldy, however in another bed a certain farm pony was tossing and turning.

Author's Notes:

Yo Yo Yo, is ya boi, kingdom, back at it again wit dem story updates. Anyways, I'm super excited for these next couple of chapters this was an idea I had running around my head for quite some time now, and really only just recently was I able to put it to paper, however there is some news I need to address, I made a blog about it too so if you wanna read it here, https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/856740/updates

But Long story short, due to future things that I've decided, I'll be changing the story to mature. If you want to keep reading make sure to change your settings, if not, thank you for keeping on this cray ride.