Metall Kant sat in his chair, flicking at the feather of his quill with a glowing claw. He could still feel Mørket deep inside of him, growing, festering, like a wound deep in his soul...It scared him, and he knew that it would inevitably come forth once more.

However, that was not the only thing rotting deep inside of him. His jealousy bolstered the power of Mørket with its tendrils of greed and hate, as he wondered continuously why his love had been torn away from him...While a child who had come to this world out of his own selfish need for escape found new love. After years of defending Equestria and serving Vita-and her daughters-why would the world tear his love away from him? Why was he cursed by time?

And why was love the way to the Seventh Element of Harmony? How would love solve anything? All it had brought him was pain and misery, and this new darkness deep inside of him, that grew like a weed and clung to all he came in contact with, like a poisonous virus, jumping from one host to another...

"Maybe," he muttered to himself in delirium, "Maybe...Maybe it's time we put that love to the test..."

"But will there be enough time?" He asked his quill.

"Yes, yes, there's time before I must depart with Celestia to speak with Lycarieous Lupae, yes..." He explained to his quill.

With a small smirk, he closed his eyes, and reached his mind out for the source of the disruption in the world, where a boy's conscience had been split unevenly, and then cleaned on one side, with the debris being shoved into six receptacles of mind and soul...

With a sigh of victory, Metall Kant plunged his mind deep into the mess of confusion, and started the same test that he had endured at his time of being Chosen...

Peter smiled as a joke was made, and watched as everyone cracked up in laughter. He felt...Detached, almost like he wasn't really part of the scene before him...

"Hey, I don't feel so good..." Peter mumbled. Everyone at the table stopped laughing, and threw him quizzical glances from around the table.

"Uh, Peter?" Rainbow Dash asked softly. "What the buck did you just say?"

Everyone murmured in agreement, and Peter tried to make the tricky sounds that just seemed to elude his tongue once more.

"Do you feel alright, Peter?" Rainbow Dash asked with a raised eyebrow. Peter shook his head, and Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes with a sigh. "If you die again, I'm going to bucking kill you..."

Peter winced as the world went fuzzy. He held a hand up to his forehead, and suddenly, the weight of his hand became too much for his neck to support as he fell back onto the floor, and the world went dark around him.

Peter opened his eyes to darkness. He blinked a few times, but couldn't see anything past the darkness. He lay on his back for a few moments, and simply blinked, unable to register what was going on.

Finally, he became aware that he was on his back. In this case, it means that he realized that he was laying on something solid. With a gulp, he pressed his palm to the...Ground, and pushed himself up.

After a few failed attempts, Peter struggled to his feet, and looked around. A single light glowed in the distance, and he decided to walk towards it.

As he walked, he became aware of a sound, and a sensation. He couldn't place it, but it was different from his feet hitting the ground. It sounded like...

"Rain," he muttered. "It's raining..." He stopped walking, and held out his hand as he let a drop of rain hit his palm. "Shit, it's raining!" He cried out, and he ran forward, towards the light.

And towards the wooden door of the manor before him.

He barreled through the door, and collapsed, panting, to the ground. His soaked clothes created a small puddle, and, with a sigh, he pushed himself up.

The door slammed behind him, and a towel was thrown into his arms.

"I see you haven't been totally incapacitated," a voice muttered. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed..."

Peter took a shuddering step forward, and looked to the chair by the fire. He held the towel in his arms, his mind not registering what was happening.

"You're supposed to dry yourself with that, you know," the voice said helpfully. Peter nodded, and quickly dried himself off, before walking up to the chair, and cautiously edging around it.

"My name is Metall Kant," the pony in the chair stated matter-of-factually "You're dreaming. It's required for me to tell you that, unfortunately, as this trial was made by my superior, and I can't change the rules..."

Peter shook his head in a confused way, and rubbed his neck with the towel. "I'm sorry, what? I'm dreaming? And what trial? Your superior? Who are you?"

"I am an Elder. While this may seem somewhat...Underwhelming to you, I assure you I'm a being of ultimate power."

"Uh-huh," Peter responded with a raised eyebrow. "Well, what trial am I going through? Are you going to ask me questions? Am I going to be thrown into the fire?"

Metall Kant chuckled, and waved away Peter's raised hand. "No, no, no, nothing of the sort. Instead, you must go down into the basement of this manor, and kill all the beasts there."

Peter smiled incredulously. "What is this, Maplestory? World of Warcraft? A fucking quest in an, in an...RPG?"

Metall Kant shook his head. "If you fail, you will die in your dream...And out of it. You are in the Realm of Trials, a place within the Realm of Dreams that can only be accessed by the Leaders...Only Drom Mester can fully access the Realm of Dreams...But that isn't of your concern. So, go, and use your abilities as a dreamer to defeat the beasts. If you were being Chosen as an Elder, the weapon you choose now would be your weapon as an Elder. But, it will just be one of the many weapons you may one day wield, as the master of the Element of Harmony, and the Seventh Element of Harmony..."

Peter sighed. "Okay, whatever. I'll go kill the fuckers." With that, he went to find the basement, chuckling to himself.

Weird-ass dream...Well, I've never had a real lucid dream before, where I can control it, so I might as well go through with this, killing all those things...How did I fall asleep anyway? Ah, screw it, I won't think of it...Ah, here's the basement."

He pushed open the weathered wooden door, and walked down the stairs.

"You must create your Dream Weapon now, boy." Metall Kant's voice rang out. "And remember: You can never see Rainbow Dash again if you don't succeed here."

Peter's heart almost stopped. While it was a dream, and it was definitely a lucid dream, the idea of it coming between him and the cyan Pegasus-and their child-enraged him.

Just as he decided upon what weapon he would use, the same kind of beast he had seen in his short death appeared. With a roar of rage, he drew the newly created blades from their holding spots on his back.

As the Blades of Exile sang through the air, he marveled at how the blood sprayed from the beast seemed to create a bubble around the blades.

With a spin, he lopped the beasts' head off, and drew the chains, and blades, back to his hands.

He slammed the Blades down onto the next one, and mutilated it more than it already had been, splitting it directly in half. Next, he sent the right blade singing through the air to to cleave another beast's head off, and once more to kill another.

"This is too easy," he muttered. "It's obviously a dream, it's so easy," he continued, as he effortlessly killed more and more beasts.

About twenty minutes later, he placed the blades back on his back, and turned to walk up the stairs.

The world vaporized around him, as he was thrust into a world of rocks and hills, and his Blades of Exile disappeared.

"Good. You can manipulate your dreams. Now, let's do the next step...When you can't control your dream, and you must adapt to the world...You have one sword, one shield, both of your choice. Begin."

With a flash of light, a silver shield emblazoned with a Triforce, and the Master Sword materialized in front of him.

"Freakin' awesome," he whispered as he grasped them. More beasts appeared around him, and he effortlessly slaughtered them.

"It's all a dream," he muttered to himself. "How is it a trial if it's just a dream?"

Suddenly, he was plunged into darkness. The sword and shield became unbearably heavy in his arms, and a circle of beasts approached him. He struggled to raise them off of the ground, but he couldn't. He got the sword up a tiny bit, but only by about a half a foot. The beasts slowly approached him, and he made a snap decision to lose the shield.

As the shield clattered to the floor, he grasped the sword with both hands, and swung it in a wide arc. He missed the first beast by a few inches, yet sliced the second beast's face open. Blood spurt out of the wound, and the beast collapsed to the ground. With a roar of effort, he sliced at the next beast, and cut its torso horizontally. He felt his strength quickly leave him, and sliced in desperation. Only three beasts left, and he missed his target, and his lack of muscles and stamina caught up to him as the blade went flying out of his hand, and clattered to the hard earth a few feet away.

Panting and sputtering, Peter stumbled towards the Master Sword, trying to put some distance between him and the beasts. However, as he did, one raked his leg, and he fell to the ground with a cry of pain.

"Help!" He cried out immediately. He felt blood flowing from his wound, and felt claws scrape at his back. Hot tears streamed down his face as he furiously clawed his way forward, trying to escape, trying to live...

"I win," a dark, horrifying voice rumbled. As horrible laughter echoed through the world, Peter clawed forward even more frantically, sobbing and hyperventilating as he tried to escape not only his death, but the voice that echoed behind him.

However, as a bright light enveloped his body, he didn't have to escape anymore.