The dreamscape loomed around me. In the immediate vicinity, were colorful stars that blinked in and out of existence as their owners fell asleep and woke up. The most concerning thing however was the massive collection of dark spheres that congregated in the middle of this star cluster.

I didn't need to brush against one to know what was happening inside them.

I floated aimlessly around the malignant congregation, hoping for a clue that I couldn't see in the waking world.

I was almost ready to give up when an anomaly caught my eye. While literally every other star bled darkness, one, near the very "top" of the organization was a bright and cheery pink.

Of course I had my suspicions about who this belonged to. But I wouldn't act unless I was very sure.

I spent a rather long time, trying to gaze into its light, hoping to glean some sort of information about its owner without alerting them. As was fairly common in dreams, what images I could see didn't make sense without the context of the full dream. Sighing to myself, as nothing was allowed to be easy. I girded myself, and lightly brushed the surface.

A dark stallion alone in a black tower. Wait, no, not alone. Accompanied by, things. Objects shaped like ponies. Objects that moved like ponies. Objects that were ponies.

I recoiled in disgust.

This stallion did not consider his fellow ponies to be his equal. He considered them objects to be owned and used as he saw fit.

The light deep inside my heart howled with righteous rage.

With a snarl, I grasped the orb with both hooves.

"Maggot." I growled once I materialized inside the dream. The tower was just as I had seen on the outside, except inside was far more telling. The whole world stretched out underneath, black crystals covering everything, a clear declaration of whom the world belonged to.

"Oh. Luna." The stallion all but purred, his voice sweet and smooth as silk. "I was wondering when you'd come. I can't wait to break you."

"Break me?" I all but laughed. "Nay, cur. Your reign ends here."

The Moon rose like a headsmare's axe, high outside the tower,. The metaphysical might of the real Moon shining into the dreamscape.

"Hm. No." Sombra chortled.

And suddenly the dream went wrong.

The true light of the moon suddenly sported distant black dots on its surface. A silver mare screamed with anguish in my head, my hooves instinctually clasping my ears.

"Run along little light. The true darkness has things to do." Sombra purred.

"Gah!" I sprang up in my tiny tent. I panted, slowly realizing I was once again surrounded by the comforting sounds of ponies in a war camp.

Numbly, I reached out with a familiar spell.

"I am fine." Came the comforting silver bell. "I was merely surprised he was able to attack so easily."

"Is there any lingering corruption?"

"No. I have burned it all out. But take heed my champion, this mortal is not chosen, but that will not stop him from taking me."

"I understand."

"Then you know what needs to be done."

I let the spell fade as the silver bells fell silent. Sombra's fate was sealed the moment the first village stopped communicating, but now it was personal.

Still breathing heavily, I lay back onto the cot. There were scant few who could fight back in a dream. Fewer still with such ease. No, I had to be clever to win this.

But how?

While I at least had a clear goal, I needed to tend to whatever wounds he had left. So once more I closed my eyes.

My personal dream space was typically a recreation of the Everfree Castle. Lovingly maintained like a prize garden. Recently however, it had fallen to the wayside as more important matters kept cropping up, leaving some of the foliage to grow larger then it was meant to. On top of that, Sombra's attack did more then I realized, as minute black crystals had sprouted over everything. Not enough to seriously hamper my mental state, but if I were to neglect them they would swiftly become a problem.

It took me hours to clean up the corruption, giving me a relatively mindless task to do while I debated with myself on what to do about Sombra.

Could I ferment a slave revolt? No, I didn't have the time and the mind controlled slaves were too strict on their fellows anyway. Could I call in Cloudsdale for support? No, we didn't have the food stuffs to wait for more then a few more days, much less weeks for the city to get into position. Could I sneak into his palace and use Lunar Majesty to remove his head? No, he most certainly had a trick up his sleeve, and if I were to be forced to wear a helmet...

I shivered.

As the last crystal lay in my hoof, a small idea formed. Coming in like a ship in the night. As I thought more and more about it, the idea grew into a wild whirlwind that no sane pony would be able to expect. It was risky, but I didn't have the time to wait for anything else.

And if I could pull it off...

With a final grimace, I destroyed the final crystal. Soon I vanished from my own dream altogether.

The dreamscape was relatively unchanged, or at least free from immediately noticeable changes. I looked around, searching for a particular type of dream. A black one caught my eye. A brief flight brought me over to it, and I wasted no time gently caressing its surface.

"Not this one." I muttered, turning away from the former slave's nightmare. It didn't take me long to find another black dream. This one was also crystal infested. It didn't take me long to search the war camp, but most of the nightmares nearby were indirectly the result of Sombra, and thus they wouldn't work. I had to resort to traveling in ever widening circles, searching for the correct sort of nightmare.

It took me several hours to find a suitable dream. A colt, hundreds of miles away in the waking world. He was ignorant of the horrors that were taking place in the wider world, all he knew was that the Legions were protecting him and his home city. The exact details were irrelevant to him. But he suffered from the terrors normal colts and fillies his age suffered from. Fear of the dark, fear of snakes, fear of spiders, fear that the filly he liked didn't like him, things of that nature. And that made his nightmare perfect for my purposes.

I quietly appeared behind him as the darkness seemed to press down with an oppressive weight. The sandy colored colt shivered as he curled into a fetal position.

"Enough." I commanded, my horn glowing a bright silver. The darkness screeched in pain, surprised by my interference. The colt's head snapped up to the sound of my voice, quickly zoning in on my presence.

"P-Princess?" he stammered.

"Never forget young one, that no darkness is endless, and that the light will always return." It wasn't my cleanest resolution for a nightmare, but it seemed to do the trick and time was of the essence. The colt mutely nodded, and just seemed content to huddle in on himself as I turned towards the darkness that pushed itself against the corona of my light. "You however;" I snarled, reaching out with my magic, suddenly grabbing something solid in the darkness. It screeched in surprise again, not expecting me to deal with it directly. It knew I could destroy it instantly. But if I did, the dreamer would learn nothing, and would be vulnerable to infestation of the same sort of nightmare.

But again, time was running out; and I had given the colt something to grab onto. All he needed to do was internalize it.

The nightmare was firmly in my grasp as I left the colt's dream, dragging it writhing and thrashing with me.

Now back in the greater dreamscape, I tightened my grip on the abhorrent creature and brought it level with my face.

"Take me to your master."

Next Chapter: Chapter 18 The Memories Part 9 Estimated time remaining: 16 Hours, 30 Minutes