I stepped through the door after Luna, appearing in an orchard of apple trees, “Huh, 3 guesses as to who’s dream we’re in now.” I looked to my aunt, “So this is where the Tantabus ran off to?”

“Correct, we’re now in Honesty’s dream…. This is also an element we are familiar with. We lied to everyone, especially to those that mattered the most to us, including ourselves, and we believed those lies.” Luna said, looking around the Orchard until she spotted an unnaturally large apple hanging off a tree branch in the distance, Apple Jack standing next to it, shining it, “Ah there she is, now let us hope that we can prevent the Tantabus from ruining this dream as all.”

I nodded, noticing all of the pain I was feeling from the fight with Shadow Bolt was gone, “Hey, question.” At Luna’s acknowledgement of my words I continued, “How am I all healed up? I mean, I have a good healing factor, but not even that well.”

Luna chuckled, “Christopher, this is the dream realm, nothing is truly there, of course the saying, ‘mind over matter.’ came from somewhere and holds much weight in this realm. Truly as long as the main participant of the dream believes in such a thing it is true…. That even holds so for death, so do try to not die in any of these dreams.”

I cocked my head in thought, “So, I’m healed up because we’re in a different dream and I haven’t taken damage here yet though? Alright, a little convenient but I’m not complaining.” I stretched, my tail twitched at the strain I was putting into it, the muscles happy to get the tension out. I gave my wings a couple of test flaps before wrapping them back around me, “Still though, it feels like this is real.”

“That, is on your end dear nephew, you could easily not want it to feel real and it would be so, after all you are connected to the girls as much as I am, and you are able to leave your mindscape due to having two other presences there to make up the difference.” She explained before starting to walk through the Orchard towards Apple Jack, “However, knowing the feel of your own body can be more useful than allowing yourself to feel nothing. We allow ourselves to feel like ourselves in the dreamscape.”

I followed a little ways behind her and shrugged, “I’ll take your advice on that. so you owned the elements of Honesty and Loyalty, what other ones did you wield?” Luna didn’t answer me, opting to stay quiet, and I could guess why, it was after all, a reminder of her biggest failure.

We were getting close to the farm pony who was proudly shining the large apple, however Luna stopped me when 3 more ponies I recognized stepped out from behind the trees, they also caught AJ’s attention.

“Well, Ah was just comin to get y’all, so what do ya think of the apple mah tree grew? I’m sure as the day follows the night that it’ll win us a prize.” AJ said with a proud smile.

“That abomination? Ah’m disappointed in you Apple Jack, lying ta us like that.” Granny Smith said, “You couldn’t’ve done this by yerself, ya must’ve had help from some unicorn.”

Apple Bloom had tears in her eyes, “How could ya big sis? Ya know we only do things the earth pony way, and ya lied, you promised you wouldn’t anymore.”

Big Mac nodded, “Eeyup, especially after that time all those years ago.” The bulky red farmer drawled on.

“A… Ah, don’t know what yer talkin about, I ain’t lyin, I did this by mahself with no help from no one but me!” She said, trying to defend herself.

Granny closed her eyes shook her head in shame. The siblings doing so as well, “And look, all that lying has made yer apple turn rotten and that rotten apple will poison the orchard.” Their eyes opened, revealing nothing but a pitch black pit.

Apple Jack turned around to see that her apple did in fact rot and it in turn rotted the tree it was connected to, which then in turn started to rot everything around it, the grass, the other trees, the few birds that were in the area started to melt to a point but didn’t die. Hell, even the air and sky felt rotten, all the while AJ was stunned onto the ground with her family chanting over her, “You lied, accept it. You lied, accept it.” Over and over, AJ was crying until she eventually stood up, “Yer right, I did ask for a unicorn’s help. I made our orchard rotten.” she said quietly, falling into believing the lies were truths.

Her family smiled a little too widely for my liking before embracing her in a hug and fading away into dark smoke that flowed into her being. Slowly she began to change, her fur turning a much deeper orange, nearly red, her eyes glowed a sickly green as rotting wood formed around her hands, forming into sharp claws, the same happened to her hooves, though they took on the appearance of paws. Her ears also elongated and had rotting wood form over them, making them look more like wolf ears. Once her transformation was done she let out a sigh of relief, “Oh, that is much better and what an interesting form… a timber wolf-pony hybrid.” She shrugged, “It matters not to me, now lets see if this host has enough power for me to use.” She held up a clawed hand, darkness with a green outline swirled around it.

“Hold on now.” I said, finally deciding that now was the time to step out of the shadows, “Don’t do something you’ll regret.” She turned to me, giving me a dead panned stare.

“You again? And you’re healed, fantastic.” She got into a stance that had her arms hanging freely but she was balancing on her left leg with her right pulled up, “I’m guessing you’re going to fight me?”

I shrugged, unfurling my wings, readying into my fighting stance that was very loose in form, I had no guard and my arms were hanging down to my side, however, my hands were constantly tensed waiting for any and every action, “Only if you make me, you could easily just leave.”

“Unfortunately you’ll have to force me.” She said growling.

“Yeah I figured, so, you gonna move first or shall I?”

She smirked and moved towards me quickly, her speed was nothing as it was when she possessed Rainbow so it was easy to follow her. When she kicked downwards at me I was able to block it easily enough, however the blow put a massive crater into the ground beneath me as I was pushed down, “Damn, that's a heavy blow.” I grunted out.

She smirked, jumped back with the leg that was still on my arms only to bring down the other with even more force, making the crater larger, “I may not be as fast as Shadow Bolt but I think Timber Jack packs more than enough punch… or kick to take you out.”

I grunted, straining some against her strength, before I took a deep breath, “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, the only reason you were able to get ahead of me as Shadow Bolt was because you could outspeed me, however…” There was a flash of blue as my tail slammed into her side with enough force to send a shockwave throughout the area, splintering any trees close to us and knocking down the rest in a wide radius. The force of the blow sent her sailing into a huge rock that was several hundred of feet away, to which she was imbedded in.

I walked to her slowly, cracking my neck and rolling my shoulders, “However, now I’m faster than you and I can actually use some of my strength against you since you seem to be able to handle it.”

She looked at me with wide eyes, “What in the…” She pulled herself out of the rock and stood up before me, rage clearly showing in her eyes.

“What? You really think last time was me doing anything? Like I said, you gained the upper hand because you had speed, and even then I was going easy on you.” I told her, trying to rile her up, luckily it was working.

“I… you! I’m going to start beating you now.” She simply said before throwing a flurry of heavy punches at me, each I easily blocked or countered, “How are you doing this?! I’m in a body of an element user and I have the princesses power!” She shouted at me, switching to throwing in kicks with her punches, making the blows even heavier but slower.

I was still blocking and countering, “See, here’s the thing about that, you cause nightmares to corrupt the elements so it makes them fundamentally weaker, and you’re only a fraction of Luna’s power. You’re lucky to be as strong as you are.” I took on a serious look, “Now I’m going to ask you one last time, are you going to leave my friend or am I going to have to force you?”

She scoffed, obviously not taking my words to heart, “You force me, no I don’t think so.”

I sighed before using my wings to blow her back from her barrage, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I lifted my tail high as she was still in the air, wrapped it around her ankle and slammed her hard enough into the ground to shatter it completely around us, once the dust settled TImber Jack was knocked out cold, “That was too easy.” I said with a disappointed sigh, quickly the Tantabus left AJ’s body, it returning to normal, the Tantabus however had a more defined form to it, now very clearly looking like a pegasus silhouette with thick strong legs. Once more it turned and hissed at me before ripping a portal out of AJ’s dream, thus leading everything else to return to normal.

I heard hoof steps as Luna walked up next to me, “You handled that rather well and quite quickly we might add.”

I looked over to her, “I wasn’t in the mood to let her get going, there was a lot of power there that she could have tapped into that would have been very difficult to deal with and I just did not want to do so.”

Luna nodded, “We would have done the same, Tia was one to hold back and let the enemies fight. Now onto the next.” She held up a hand forming another door.

Apple Jack woke up with a start, “Woah nelly….” She rubbed her head.

Spike spoke to her, “Oh, good to see you’re awake, do you wanna play some scrabble with Goldy and I?”

She shook her head, “Sorry Spike, but I got a might bad headache.”

He shrugged, turning his attention back to the game, “Fair enough, Rainbow is downstairs getting some water if you want to join her.”

AJ gave her thanks as she got out of bed and made her way down to the kitchen. She saw Rainbow sitting at Rarity’s dining room table with a glass of water and some head ache pills. She grabbed her own glass and filled it with water, sitting across from the pegasus and taking a couple of pills herself.

“Chris slam his head into your nightmare version of you too?” Rainbow asked.

AJ shook her head, “Slammed me into the ground with his tail. Shattered the ground too… he’s mighty strong.” Rainbow just nodded silently and the two girls kept drinking their water, waiting for the next pony to join them. It didn’t take long for just that to happen as Rarity entered the kitchen, smiling happily before grabbing a glass and filling it with some water for herself, though not grabbing any headache pills.

“Well hello you two, I see Chris went to you two first?” She asked, although it was more redundant than anything.

Rainbow nodded, her head still throbbing, “Yeah, kicked the crap out of Shadow Bolt.” AJ grunted in agreement.

“Oh you two fought him? Well I suppose that makes sense, I have vague hazy thoughts of him fighting a pegasus and an earth pony… though it looked like a timber wolf too.” Rarity said, humming to herself in thought.

“Yeah, that was Timber Jack, tha Tantabus called it that. Wait a minute, did ya two not fight?” AJ asked.

Rarity looked shocked, “Not at all darling… hm how about I tell you about my dream?”

“Alright, where are we now?” I asked, looking around, noticing that we were in the throne room of what looked to be in a modified version of Canterlot Castle.

Luna looked around, confused, “We believe we’re in Generosity’s dream… we’re interested in how she got corrupted.” At my questioning look she explained, “The Tantabus is already here, but it doesn’t seem like anything is amiss, we are not quite sure how Generosity could be corrupted as it was wielded by Celestia all those years ago.”

I shrugged, “I have some ideas, but let’s see if we can find Rarity before jumping to conclusions…. I just really hope I don’t have to fight this time.” I lead the way this time, walking out the throne room and down the main corridor.

“Do you have an idea as to where we are heading, nephew?” Luna asked me.

“Yeah, I know ponies’ hearing is better than humans’ but my hearing is better than yours. There’s some commotion coming from the dining area. Glasses clinking, forks and knives moving against one another and plates. Some small chattering, shuffling of clothes and hooves against the floor.” I told her.

She stayed silent and flicked her ears towards the direction of the dining area, “It’s faint but we can hear it.”

I quickened my pace now that she knew where we were going, as we got closer the commotion got louder. I nodded to Luna, getting ready for a possible fight, I kicked the doors open and the commotion stopped completely, everyone in the room looking at us. However, the only one who caught my attention was who was sitting at the head of the table. Rarity was definitely possessed by the Tantabus her coat instead of being wight was a dark gray, nearly black. Her eyes were still blue, just slitted, which contrasted the two prior where their eye colors changed completely. Her mane still kept the purple that it was but it was more full and much longer, with a white streak going through it. Her cutie mark was still 3 diamonds but it had magic sparkles around them.

She gave Luna and I a smile, a warm one at that, “Christopher, Princess Luna join us please.” She said waving her hand, summoning up two more chairs, relatively close to her.

I looked at Luna, but she just shook her head, so I did what any smart person would do and I took a seat, I was right next to her on her left and Luna took a seat to her right, “My most esteemed guest, welcome Prince Christopher and Princess Luna!” Rarity said. The guests who were just faceless nobles bowed and had a vague noise of words that sounded like greetings.

I gave them a warm, albeit concerned smile and a curt nod, Luna did the same before turning to Rarity, “Lady Rarity, We’re sure you know why we are here?”

She gave us a wider smile, “Quite so, it is to rid me of the Tantabus correct?”

“Indeed it is, and since you aren’t talking as if the Tantabus is in control…” Luna lead on.

“I made the Tantabus submit to my will, I will admit that the power is very intoxicating, and I would be remiss to let it go, after all with this power I could have everything I ever wanted easily, no more struggling for the recognition I rightfully deserve.” She said with a sparkle in her eyes.

Before Luna could speak up again I cleared my throat, “Rarity, you’re one of my closest friends, which is really surprising to myself because I didn’t think we’d have much in common, but outside of my fiancees, Lyra, Bon Bon, and Twilight, you’re the person I’ve had the most interaction with and get along with. The others are a given since sister in law and again fiancees. So I’ll be straight up as one friend to another. You’re being dumb, you may love the high society life but you also enjoy working for it and the enjoyment the hard work brings. That’s why you and Apple Jack are friends despite your plethora of differences. You both appreciate hard work and respect one another’s work ethics. You would find an easy win hollow and empty since it would prove nothing of who you are and how well you can push yourself.

The ‘recognition’ you’d receive would be just as empty, it would either be out of fear or them brown nosing, and you would despise it. So do the right thing and just let the Tantabus go, it’s not right for you. You can do just fine without it.” I told my friend.

Rarity looked at me intensely before sighing as her stature shrunk, her hair and coat returned to normal and her eyes slitted, “I suppose you’re right Christopher, I’m sorry friend, I know you wanted a host but he’s correct, I need to gain my fame and recognition through my own power, I thank you for your generosity however.” Rarity said, giving a genuine smile at the Tantabus.

The Tantabus that now had a unicorn horn and even more defined features and a more solid body shape ‘looked’ at Rarity and then at me and Luna before turning away and ripping through the fabric of the dream and heading to the next dream.

“Huh she didn’t growl at us this time, do you think?” I asked Luna.

“It might be, only time will tell, hopefully at this end of this It will be reasonable.” She said to me before diverting her attention to Rarity, “Now, it is time for you to wake up and join the others so the Tantabus can not escape back into your dream.” With that, Luna waved her hand and we were thrust into the void between dreams where we saw the Tantabus looking around for it’s next escape route.
Luna was ready to take the opportunity and attack as her horn glowed a sinister maroon color but I held up a hand and stopped her, “Nephew what do you think you are-”

“Hush I have an idea.” I floated over to the Tantabus, not waiting for Luna’s response. The Tantabus of course didn’t notice me until I cleared my throat, causing it to turn and look at me with eyes that seem to be made of star stuff. It ripped a hole in the in between ready to escape before I called out to it, “Wait! Wait, I just want to talk, if you even can without a host.”

The Tantabus stopped and turned its head back towards me, “Can….. not….. Weeeeeellllll…..”

I blinked, genuinely surprised that it could talk at all, “Uh… huh…. Ummm. Right I wanted to know why you’re doing this?”

At that the Tantabus turned to face me completely, head tilted, “.....Why….care? …. Try….. des…..troy….”

I rubbed the back of my head sheepishly, “Yeah sorry about that, but you’re kind of targeting my friends, but I noticed that last time with Rarity, you didn’t his at us like you normally do, which means there's something more underneath all this hatred and rage.”

It had what I assumed was a look of surprise, it’s kind of hard to tell when it’s face was mostly just stars in a vague shape, however she pondered what I said before responding, “Want…. To…” The Tantabus was cut off as a beam struck it’s shoulder, tearing straight through it. It wailed in pain before looking passed me, hissing, and retreating into its tear.

I turned around and glared at Luna, “Damn it, why did you have to do that, I was getting it to talk.”

Luna scoffed, “Do not be fooled by it nephew, the Tantabus was based off the Nightmare, it is a master manipulator and will stop at nothing to get it’s prize.”

I growled, looking away before taking a deep breath, “Whatever, let’s just go to the next dream.” I didn’t look back at Luna as the next door, a purple one with stars on it appeared before me, “Huh, figured she’d be last, guess It’s not trying to pull punches.” I opened the door, ready for a fight.

As I stepped through the scenery changed to a massive expanse of a world filled with shelves upon shelves of books and arcane letters floated around the place, the only light coming from the millions, if not billions of candles and lanterns lining the shelves and floating in the air. As I looked around I noticed that something was already off but not from the way the area looked, I got the distinct feeling that this is how the dream was before.

No what was wrong was that like Rarity before hand, Twilight was already possessed and waiting for us with a devilish smirk. I started to back up slowly before bumping into Luna who had just stepped out of the doorway, “Oh, sorry nephew we did not see you there.”

I didn't even have time to dodge before I smelled the iodine in the air as a super charged bolt of magic lightning raced past my shoulder and slammed into Luna’s forehead and subsequently her horn, sending her flying into a bookshelf that was a good couple of hundred feet away, burying her under a literal mountain of books.

“Ok, you aren’t happy, noted.” I said, quickly looking back at what I call Midnight Sparkle, “So… can we finish our conversation?” I barely had time to finish my question and throw up my wings to block the incoming spell, which harmlessly bounced off my wings, though it did reflected and hit a passing by bookshelf and made it turn completely into ash.

“Hooookaaayyyy guess not.” I peered over my wing’s three thumb claws, quickly ducking back down as 5 more spells came hurtling towards me, luckily they were still regular spells so not much damage if any was imparted onto me.

“Gah, this is useless, why are you so resistant to my magic?!” She yelled out, not ending her barrage of spells, in fact it seemed to grow into a more fierce tirade.

“I mean, you do have the memories of Twilight Mother loving Sparkle, smartest pony this side of Canterlot, you tell me!” I shouted over the explosion ringing in the distance from the reflected spells, which paused briefly. That caused me to look once more over my wing, I was greeted by a devilish grin from Midnight Sparkle.

“Interesting theory, let’s test it out shall we.”

Ok now I was confused, “What theory?”

Midnight now had a larger orb of swirling magic forming around her horn and to smaller ones in her hands, “Oh, just that more power should be able to get past those defenses of yours.” She fired of the beams of condense magic in a pose that would have amused me if the giant magic beam of death wasn’t hurtling right at me.

Honestly, I wish I could say I dodged in time, I wish I could say I countered it or swallowed it, or something else as equally badass, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case, I got hit, full force and it hurt… a lot, like a hell of a lot, not physically mind you, ok that too, but less so than what Shadow Bolt did. No, this was tearing apart my internal magic bit by bit, hell I could hear Ixis screaming and I wasn’t even inside my own head anymore. Fortunately the pain faded as the beam died down.

Midnight looked surprised that I wasn’t ash, “Huh… that is impressive guess i have to put in more power than I originally thought.” Once more she gathered the magic but the orbs were very easily 3 times in size.

I looked at them and paled slightly before I sighed in deeply, “You wanna have a beam fight fine.” I dug my heels and my tail into the ground for support gathering as much magic as I could, “Hyoryu no….” Midnight fired off her magic, it tearing straight through the ground, barrling at me at an impressive pace, I quickly and I mean quickly countered, “HOKO!!!!” I shouted as my roar launched my own ‘beam’ at her’s stopping it in its tracks, slowly but surely pushing it back, unfortunately due to being in Twiggy’s body she had more than enough power to spare, pouring more energy into it, causing it to push my roar back.

I groaned internally as I dug deeper, my legs and my tail, along with my wings flapping to give me more force, thankfully it worked wonders and quickly pushed it back into my favor on this little battle of wills.

Double unfortunately she had Twiggy’s memories which meant she knew I was vulnerable to dark magic and knew how to cast it, so when I say I felt my roar being eaten away by dark magic I meant I felt my worst nightmares come rushing back to me as I was slowly losing this fight, my will draining from fear or PTSD I don’t know but it sucked, until I heard a voice from above cry out, “THIS IS FOR OUR DICK!!!” and a small blast could be seen fired at Midnight, impacting her, distracting her from out little fight, “NOW, DO IT NOW!!!!” Luna cried out.

That shook me out of my stupor as I got down on all fours, dug into what extra magic I had left, and a good chunk from the dream realm, though I didn't know it at the time, and fired off something that was still very experimental given by only having an english name, “ICE DRAGON’S PERFECT….” I shouted, getting Midnight’s attention.

“Noooooo…. NO NO NO!!!!!” But it was too late for her.

“ROOOOOOAAAAARRRRR!!!!!” What followed could only been said to have enough destructive force to level a city 23.89 times the size of Diamond City, the largest city on Equis, easily. Needless to say the Tantabus was blown clear out of Twilight and the dream.

I fell to the ground, absolutely exhausted, I rolled and looked at Luna who was also laying on the ground, “Please tell me you didn’t name your horn, ‘My Dick.’”

Luna chuckled and coughed, “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Twilight, like 2 of the others before sat up bolt right, sweat on her brow, she looked around seeing her younger brother playing scrabble with her niece and getting trounced by said Kirin.

“How did you even know dactylion was a word, I bet Twilight doesn’t even know what that is!” Spike exclaimed.

“It’s the tip of the middle digit of the hand, you would know that if you paid attention during study time instead of reading comics.”Twilight spoke up, gaining their attention.

Spike rolled his eyes, “Well excuse me if learning about the anatomy of a gran sea goliath emperor cucumber is super boring, despite sounding super cool.”

Twilight just snorted in response, “Where are…”

“Downstairs, kitchen, water, headaches.” Spike said, returning to his game, playing a word only to be immediately countered and shouting out in frustration.

Twilight ignored the going ons of those two for the time being and headed downstairs to meet the rest of her friends that were awake, “Hi, how were your dreams?”

“Got headbutted into next week by something that could keep up with a god powered me, so ya know… kinda ego draining.” Rainbow said nonchalantly picking up her head before slamming it back onto the table, letting out a groan of regret.

“Got mah pride rightfully walloped mahself, sucker packs a mean grapple and slam combo.” AJ said, slumping into the chair.
“Oh, mine was fine darling, had a bit of a chat came to see that the power wasn’t for me, how about you?” Rarity asked her purple friend.

Twilight sat at the table looking at the earth pony and pegasus with understanding in her eyes yet when she looked at rarity it was slight envy, before it vanished with a sigh, “Had a magic battle.”

The three looked at her wide eyed, “And he won?” Rainbow asked, now fully sitting up.

Twilight nodded, “Though not without help from Luna.” she explained with a slight smirk.

“Well, that is most certainly unexpected, just how powerful is Christopher?” Rarity asked, and at that Twilight did not have an answer for

Author's Notes:

I SPOKE TOO SOON... things got a lot worse in my life real quick, it's whatever though. Imma keep writing... it clears my head, vents my issues.

So, here's the song that would've played if he fought Rarity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtKCNJmARF0