"A bad dream? Seriously?" Arden said opening his eyes to see dark hallways leading to a humongous silver door with a silver moon engraved on it. These hallways were illuminated by both the moon and torches with blue flames, the carpet on the floor was blue with silver drawings. "Listen, if you're trying to make an entrance don't identify yourself in such a manner. Try to be more subtle."

No response came, so Arden let out a sigh. "Okay, I'm either dreaming or once again I've been teleported somewhere else. My money is on the first. Let's meet this visitor." He said to himself, Arden's voice echoed through the halls just like the sound of his steps. When he reached the door it opened by itself, revealing a throne room where there was a huge banner with the image that looked like the profile of a unicorn with blue eyes. Beneath such a banner there was a black thone decorated with sapphires.

"Welcome, our little subject. We are the rightful ruler of Equestria, Nightmare Moon. Bow before our might!" The black alicorn with feline sapphire colored eyes said while keeping her position on the throne. "Now please introduce yourself. We have never seen a creature such as yourself, please tell us what you are."

"What do you...oh..." Arden said looking at himself, his blue body was gone. He now looked like some sort of creature made out of the black smoke with white forearms and white hooves, he also noticed that the necklace he promised himself not to take off under any circumstance was gone. "Can't I just have a stable body?! Moon, I have no idea as to what I am right now and I don't feel like introducing myself since I think you just want to turn me into a puppet." Arden said crossing his arms and staring straight into her eyes, the mare was wearing some sort of black and blue battle dress.

"A brave one. Aside from looking strange, it has some guts. So...what should we do with you?" She said scratching her chin as she inspected Arden from top to bottom. "From what I can see you've been with that detestable princess wannabe. So you should be an incredible pawn once I break you." She said with a grin that sent shivers down Arden's soul.

"B-before you do that I want to try something." The Nightmare raised an eyebrow at the request. " So please tell me if this story rings a bell," Arden said stepping forward and reaching the center of the room. Once there he focused on another video he seen heard before. If he recalled correctly, it was made by a group of animators known as Duo Cartoonist. If what he remembered was right, the video's name was inspired by a song of the same name made by an independent musician called Ponyphonic. The song's and video's name was 'The moon rises.'

"Just listen to this." He said closing his eyes. Focusing on his memories, the melody started to play. Opening his eyes, Arden saw his memory of the animation had begun to materialize in front of him. 'Heh...I'm good then.' Then the voice of the figure constructed started to echo through the room.

(Use this to see what Arden is remembering)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2PCNKlddJY

Once the song finished Arden turned back to the dark mare and saw her mouth agape, "Thank you! Thank you! I'll be here all week folks." Arden said making a bow as if he was saluting an audience. The black mare shook her head at that before glaring at Arden.

"I don't know how you could even know of such a representation of our tale but...congratulations. You have officially angered us. Now we are going to create your worst nightmare right here and now."

"But aren't you the ruler of nightmares? Doesn't that place you at the top of all nightmares?" Arden said with a smirk which made Nightmare scoff and charged a magical beam. She then proceeded to shoot him with it. Arden didn't even bother to dodge as the beam went straight through him. The smoke that composed his torso had moved out of the way letting the beam pass through. "Oh...it seems I’m an ethereal being right now. So I guess I can do whatever I want."

"You think that's all we can do?! You arrogant fool!" She said making her mane made out of stars expand and give form to a hydra, a manticore, and a pack of wolves made out of wood. "Get him!"

When the creatures rushed towards him, Arden's body dispersed and enveloped all of the creatures. As his body reformed, leaving the creatures behind, they were replaced by adorable little critters. The dark mare stared at the dark mist creature that just undid her illusions. "What are you?"

"I'm something you created," The mare stared at him with her pupils shrinking. "I am a dreamer made lucid, therefore I control this place. Now, you've shown me how you dream. Let me show you how I dream."

Saying that as he opened a smile Arden snapped his fingers and the entirety of the world that surrounded them disappeared leaving only them alone in an empty dark realm. "Now let me begin!" Arden said bowing to her.

"Now let me begin!" She heard from the creature before her that was now bowing. Whatever it was, it had control over its dreamscape once again, which could pose a threat to her and her host now. Nightmare took a defensive stance and prepared her magic in case it decided to attack her. The problem is, that in this place, an attack could come from any direction. "A bit too dark for me, let's balance this shall we?"

With that, the creature raised its head and reached forward almost as if grabbing something unseen by her. Then it brought its hand near its head, took a deep breath and blew the clenched fist. A golden light began to pour out from between its fingers, it took a weird stance and tossed whatever it was on its hands. A small sphere of light flew through the empty space before it blew up taking the shape of a dragon made out of golden light. The entire space was taken over by the light.

"Every single thing has its counterpart, to light...darkness. Look behind you." The fog creature said to her, she slowly turned back and saw a pitch black dragon with white eyes staring at the golden dragon. "When two opposites collide there are two possibilities: the first is conflict." With that, both dragons started to fight each other, tearing at each other's flesh and using their elemental breaths of light and darkness at each other.

The clash produced new elements to the scenery. The dark dragon's blood created the dark night's sky while the blood from the golden one created its stars. The torn flesh from both beings combined created comets and galaxies, as the clashes between their elemental attacks created planets.

"The other possibility is coexistence." The creature said as both dragons got away from each other. From her point of view both dragons were at a stalemate, but of course, she was just waiting for the usual outcome to come by. 'Of course the light is going to win...it's typical for every single pony in this kingdom.' She thought to herself waiting for the creature to continue whatever it was doing. 'But we have to say...this is rather beautiful.'

"Another thing that can emerge from these possibilities is something very special. Something unique, something that only manifests to those who actually seen all the facades from one another, in times of peace and conflict." She heard as both dragons appeared to approach each other, Nightmare was waiting for the golden one attack and finish the heavily wounded dark one. However, both of them stopped once only a few inches was between them and stared at each other. Suddenly both of them opened their wings and took flight, as she braced herself for another fight between the two.

What she witnessed however confused her, they soared through the air in synch in what could only be described as an aerial dance. "That is love." The voice from the fog creature said from her side making Nightmare jump away from it. "And this can lead to something new: life." As he said that both dragons collided and mixed up into a sphere of light and darkness, from it beams shot in all directions hitting the planets that suddenly grew vegetation, water, animals and so forth. Suddenly she saw that both she and the creature were no longer among the stars, but on the ground.

"Look up." It said to her pointing to the sky, hesitant she glanced at the sky to see enormous ponies made out of stars dancing through the skies. 'What is this thing?! Why is he showing us this?!'

"Now..." The creature said snapping his fingers once again and returning to the scenery from before his demonstration. "...what do you think?"

"...what do you think?" Arden asked with a smirk on his face. 'Hopefully she learned something from this.'

The mare turned at him glaring daggers. "You think you can scare us? You are more arrogant than we thought!" She said once again taking her place on the throne and assuming the pose of a queen. 'Er...I don't think she learned anything from that...but that aside...how can she be so beautiful yet called a nightmare?' Arden thought to himself as he sighed due to her attitude.

"You may have regained control of the dreamscape, but you will not wake up until we say so. Therefore, You will be trapped here until you die!" Hearing that Arden started to think as he scratched his chin. 'Now that's a problem...she said she’s a Nightmare. Maybe I can call a Baku? That would either scare her off or kill her. It's worth a try.

"Then I'll just call a Baku and make it devour you," Arden said with a smile, the reaction he got from the mare made his suspicions be confirmed.

"D-don't you dare bring t-those things close to her! I-I won't let them hurt her!" The dark mare stuttered. 'Is she referring to Celestia's sister? Is she trying to protect her host and protect herself? No...she wouldn't cry if that was the case...huh...I wonder...' The mare began to charge a beam once again. Arden raised his hand and her magic was dispelled. "What?!"

"This is my kingdom," Arden said with a serious tone. His mind was his domain therefore here he was king. "So off my chair jester. The king sits there." The mare let out a horrifying scream as she disappeared into the moon. Soon after he woke up.

Arden opened his eyes and saw the familiar library still in the dark. Looking up at the clock he saw that it was around five AM in the morning. 'Well, my internal clock still works as usual. I should contact Celestia.' Arden said picking himself up, then he headed to the kitchen and lit up a candle. Then he headed to a desk that had a bunch of quills and parchment placed on top of it.

"Dear Celestia,

I am sorry to contact you so soon but I fear I might need some help. For you see Nightmare Moon tried to take me over last night, but luckily I drove her away. But I fear she might try to do this again since I seemed to have angered her. So I would really appreciate it if you could send somepony to maybe put some mental wards on me or something of the sort. Because according to what Nightmare said she needs to break the victim before forcing her will into the victim's mind.

Another topic I would like to discuss is Nightmare's motives for taking over your sister, do you have theories? Because I believe to have stumbled into something. But in order to see if it holds I need to know if there is any written record or tale about a creature called Baku. I would also like to see them if at all possible.

There is no need to worry though, it would seem that in my mind, I am still king.

Thank you for the patience and for your time.

Your Friend Arden Sila."

With that Arden folded the piece of paper and held it on top of his ring, as a colorful flame appeared and burned it to cinders. Then he went to the couch and sat down to wait until the letter was answered or dawn came and he could visit Rarity for the job offer.

(Two hours later)

*Rattle, Rattle*

The sound of the doorknob twisting woke Arden up, he fell asleep while waiting for the response, "Coming." He said yawning and putting his shirt back on. The rattling got worse, as he approached the door, "I said I am coming. Sheesh."

When he unlocked the door the ratling stopped but it didn't open. 'What the?' Arden then opened the door. The last he saw was a blue canon placed right at his doorstep and the last thing he heard was this:

*BOOOM*

"SURPRISE!"