-EQUUS, THE CRYSTAL EMPIRE, CRYSTAL CASTLE: LUNA’S RESIDENCE-

With a flash of Luna’s horn, both she and Chrysalis suddenly appear within her personal residence; courtesy of Princess Cadence.

“Nice place. Although you went overboard with your moon based decorations.” Chrysalis says with a smirk.

“As they sayeth now a day: Shut up.” Luna replies with a deadpan expression.

Chrysalis chuckles, “So, how do we go about this?”

“Thou may use our bed to rest upon. Once thy changeling hath fallen asleep, and enter the dream realm, we shall enter thy mind via the aforementioned landscape.”

Chrysalis rolls her eyes, “So in modern terms: I go to sleep, you do your job. Got it.”

Luna lets out an annoyed grunt as steam leaves her nostrils, “Quite…”

……….

Chrysalis was now positioned on Luna’s bed while the dark alicorn fires up her horn and says:

“When thou art ready, we shall cast a spell to render thee unconscious.”

Chrysalis smirks, “My my, Luna. Do we have some sort of fetish that I must know about?”

Luna stares at Chrysalis with a momentary glare, saying: “Thou art seriously making a joke at such a time?”

“Eh, what can I say? Humor is something I like to use when I’m about to do something I might just regret,” Chrysalis lies down and rests her head upon a pillow, “I’m ready.”

“Remember, Chrysalis, this is just a dream. No matter what happens next thou must keep thy composure so as to not eject us from thy mind.”

Chrysalis nods in response as Luna performs her spell and renders the former changeling ruler unconscious. The dark alicorn lies down next to the changeling and comments:

“Now for us,” And so, with a simple flash of her horn, Luna is also rendered unconscious as she enters her night time domain: The Dream Realm.

---

-THE DREAM REALM-

LUNA POV:

‘Alright, we simply need to find Chrysalis’s door; the entrance to thy mind.’

All around the dark alicorn was a realm of silky streams of light and stars. In addition, various doors were present on either side of a marble paved pathway, to which Luna was currently treading upon.

As she passed by, Luna could see the doors to familiar entities that she had some form of relation with in the real world. She passed by Cadence, Shining Armor, Flurry Heart, and even Tempest Shadow’s door which were etched into the doorframe of their own unique design.

‘Tempted as we art to check on our friends and allies, we must keep focused and continue onward to Chrysalis’s mind.’

The alicorn’s hooves let loose clopping sounds as she traverses the dreamy landscape on the path as she then comes to see a very unique door.

‘Huzzah! That must certainly be her door. But… It looks so peculiar, yet it is definitely resemblant to her all the same. We art also curious as to how she managed to hide her mind from us for so long.’

As was mentioned, Chrysalis’s door was emerald green with swirls of black mixed in. However, the door frame itself was incredibly unusual as it had the faces of changelings etched onto it. Most notably was the fact that on the very top of the doorframe lies the facial image of Chrysalis, but accompanied by two other unknown individuals. At least, unknown to Luna herself who raises a forehoof to her chin.

‘Could those two be the individuals Chrysalis spoketh of? We believe thy names were: Echo Silhouette and Chrysella…’

She pushes those thoughts aside and places a forehoof onto the door, forcing it open.

‘We hath arrived and art ready to lend thy aid, Chrysalis.’

---

-DREAM: CHRYSALIS-

CHRYSALIS POV:

‘And here I am again… hello darkness, my old friend. I see you’ve brought that annoying black fog with you as usual…’

Chrysalis puts a forehoof to her head.

‘Look at me, I’m talking to myself now…’

She lowers her hoof and starts to take in her surroundings.

‘The same as always, I can’t see a blasted thing! Where in the world is, Luna?! The sooner we get this dream dealt with, the sooner I can-”

Her eyes shoot wide open as a bipedal form starts to draw ever closer. Chrysalis backs up in fear as this entity who was currently donned in an unknown golden armor with a blue cloak, approaches her. With every step the being took, their orange hair swayed to and fro while the clanking of their armor emits with every step. Most notably was the light-blue flashing light that was let loose by the being’s armor.

‘No… no… I-it’s y-you… why are you approaching me? This never happened in my dream before…’

Chrysalis falls onto her flank, lowers herself to the floor completely, and attempts to crawl away with a horrified expression.

‘No! Stay away from me, Yharim!’

The form of Yharim simply remains quiet as the entity then conjures forth a very particular blade and threatens to cut Chrysalis down where she currently crawled upon.

One couldn’t help but to feel sympathetic towards the former Queen of the changelings as she continues to crawl away with tears now flowing down her eyes; even begging for this imitation of Yharim to stop his approach.

The figure now stood over the changeling with its large blade overhead as Chrysalis looked over her shoulder with eyes of absolute dread. Chrysalis couldn’t explain it, and despite never actually encountering Yharim in the real world, something about The Jungle Tyrant’s imitation just yelled for her to get away. She had always been afraid of his name alone, but to see him in person, despite being an imitation, was all the more frightening.

She raises a forehoof.

‘P-please… spare me…’

Yharim’s armor clanks, and the weapon he held over his head starts to come crashing down with the force of the arm that raised it.

“Thou shall not harm her, fiend!”

---

Having arrived just in time, Luna fires off a powerful beam of magical energy which makes contact with ‘Yharim’ and sends him flying away. Then, with a thrust of Luna’s wings she disperses the black fog that clouded the local area and reveals a dark realm all around them. Only where their battle was about to take place had any form of light while the outskirts of this makeshift arena was absolute darkness.

Luna runs over to Chrysalis and puts herself between the fearful changeling, and the recovering imitation of Yharim.

“Be gone, foul nightmare! Ye shall not haunt her dreams any longer! So declares The Mistress of The Dream Realm!”

‘Yharim’ simply remained silent as he now stood at full posture after recovering and readied his blade for combat.

“Very well then, on guard!” Luna roars out as she conjures forth a particular scythe and runs towards her foe. The blade portion of the scythe itself resembles a white crescent moon while the rest of the weapon was a pole of darkness.

Luna hops into the air and roars out as she crashes her weapon onto the colliding blade wielded by ‘Yharim’. The two engage in a physical struggle with crossed blades as Luna then flaps her wings, hovers off of the ground, and kicks ‘Yharim’ with her left hind leg before letting loose yet another powerful beam of magic. However, her opponent lifts his right hand and suddenly disperses her attack by unknown means. In addition, ‘Yharim’s’ mysterious armor simply shrugs off her kick as he then grabs Luna’s right hind leg, slams her into the floor, lifts her up and spins around before letting loose his grip, causing her to be sent flying away.

As this conflict goes on, Chrysalis could only watch on in horror as she was still stunned by the fearful form of Yharim.

Flapping her wings, Luna catches herself after being thrown away by the dream version of Yharim. However, before she could say anything the figure suddenly teleports right in front of her and goes to swipe at her with his blade.

[CLINK]

She was just barely able to react, but Luna fortunately brought forth her scythe in time and blocked the attack. Unfortunately, she didn’t see the follow up as ‘Yharim’ clenches his other hand into a fist and strikes Luna across her face. While Luna was dazed from the strike, the imitation kicks her with its left leg and sends her flying away a short distance. She once again catches herself, but a powerful barrage of blasts follows suit and collides with Luna’s form.

“Thou shall not defeat me in The Dream Realm! Raaaaaaw!”

A powerful surge of energy is let loose by Luna and her eyes turn vibrant white as the energy itself forms a magical barrier all around her. This in turn shields her from the magical barrage of projectiles.

“Enough of this nonsense, foul cretin!” Luna floats into the air, but something is very different about her as a strange aura surrounds her form, “Yharim… thou might very well be a powerful foe in the real world, however…” She then extends both of her forehoofs in opposite directions and enforces her Canterlot Voice, but the strange aura from before seemed to completely consume her as well.

“This is OUR domain! Thou art but an imitation of thy true self, a mere nightmare! Nothing more! We cast you out of this dream, nay, ALL of The Dream Realm! By the decree of Nightcrawler, be gone!”

A blinding flash of white light emanates from Luna’s form as it then spreads outward. The light soon consumes all individuals present as it not only shatters the imitation of Yharim, but disperses the darkness that once surrounded the makeshift arena. This light also causes Chrysalis to shield her eyes and force them shut as the dream itself begins to shift chaotically.

……….

Chrysalis slowly opens her eyes and was shocked to see that she was now positioned on a lushful green hill overlooking a large meadow. It was currently nightfall and Luna’s celestial object shined down upon the changeling. A cool breeze blows through Chrysalis’s ‘mane’ and causes it to flutter in the night wind. Her green slitted eyes move upwards and she gazes upon Luna’s lowering form as if the alicorn had just left the moon itself.

Chrysalis could only stare on in shock as she was barely able to form a single word, while Luna landed besides her. In truth, so many questions went through Chrysalis’s mind and she certainly didn’t know why this dream, or nightmare, was different from the others. Why was there an actual form of Yharim? In the past, she could only ever hear his voice over the black fog, not see him.

With this in mind, Chrysalis questions:

“W-what happened? Why was he actually there this time? I’ve never actually seen him before, but I could tell it was him.” However, the former changeling ruler’s eyes widen as she notices that Luna herself was also confused by what had happened.

“Luna, are you alright?” Chrysalis questions.

“We… we art not sure what happened in the final phase of the battle.”

“What do you mean? You made all of that happen, didn’t you? You created that ‘Yharim’ just so you could fight him, right? I assumed you did...”

Luna was absolutely baffled by what had just happened as she tried to recover her composure. Then, she takes a breath and responds:

“We art incredibly confused, this was far different from any other dream. We recall fighting Yharim, but at the very end of the conflict, we changed. Something about him caused something within us to… snap.”

Suddenly, Chrysalis seemed to realize something as she replies:

“Wait, you said a name before you performed... whatever you just did. You referred to yourself as someone else.”

Luna’s eyes widened, “W-we did? Wait, was it Nightmare Moon?!”

“Yes and no, Luna. You called yourself: Nightcrawler.”

Next Chapter: Chapter 7 - Dream Aftermath. Estimated time remaining: 20 Hours, 37 Minutes