Nightmares of The Past: The Tantabus Saga

by Hclegend

Rating: everyone
Tags: Main 6, Princess Luna, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Original Character, Adventure, Crossover
Length: 3454

Set during the evens of Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep, Princess Luna has to find and expel the tantabus before it escapes the dreamscape and causes havoc throughout Equestria. She's not facing it alone however...

Set during the evens of Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep, Princess Luna has to find and expel the tantabus, a being created of her own guilt. She's not facing it alone however...

Season 5 Episode 13 Spoilers. As a side note, this is kinda a alternate version of it. It still loosely follows the main plot of the episode but... Well that'd be spoiling the fun now, wouldn't it? :pinkiehappy:

Published 2015-07-12 01:00:02 UTC
Last updated 2015-07-12 01:00:02 UTC

If Princesses Dream of Magical Sheep, What Do Magical Sheep Dream Of?

Nightmares of The Past: The Tantabus Saga

As the sun set over Ponyville, a plan was being devised in the Castle of Friendship. Within the crystalline walls, seven mares and a dragon were discussing how to defeat the tantabus, a parasitical creature that fed on the dreams of ponies, changing them into horrific nightmares. They were also preparing to travel to the realm of dreams, where it existed in order to contain it.

"Are you sure that we can't help Luna? I'm sure that with our combined abilites, the tantabus will not last long against us." the lavender Princess of Friendship, Twilight Sparkle asked, hoping to help take down the creature.

"Sadly no, although your concern is much appreciated." Princess Luna replied, shaking her head. "This is my problem and my problem alone. It would be wrong of me to put you through any more pain."

Rainbow Dash's raspy voice spoke up, as she got comfortable into her bed. "Don't worry Princess Luna, if you need any help, you can just call upon the fastest Pegasus in Equestria to help you kick that tantabus's flank!" she bragged, earning a eye roll from the other mares in the room.

"At least one of you isn't worried." Luna said, giving a small smile to the cyan mare.

"Oh! Oh! Oh! I'm not worried about the dream eating bug! If it's hungry, I'll give it some cake so it can be happy and maybe I could throw a dream party and invite you all!" Pinkie Pie nearly shouted, bouncing in her bed from excitement.

"While the thought is appreciated Pinkie Pie, the tantabus only feeds on a pony's dreams. It cannot eat cake." Luna said rather matter-of-factly, causing Pinkie's grin to falter.

"Oh..."

A yawn came from another one of the beds, occupied by the orange earth pony Applejack. "Come on girls, we gotta stop horsin' around, because ah dunno about ya'll, but ah'd like to get some sleep." she bluntly said, shocking the other members of The Council of Friendship for a moment.

"Applejack is right everypony. Even if she was quite... upfront about it, we should be getting to sleep. The sooner this tantabus is taken care of, the sooner I can get back to my dreams about Flash Sentry." Twilight said, not realising what she just admitted to for a moment before blushing. The others giggled at her little slip up.

"Do not worry Twilight. I have seen much worse than your dreams about Flash Sentry. Although I do find it weird what you do with that weather vane..." Luna started before shaking her head free of the thoughts.

"Agreed. Let's pretend that never happened and get some rest. Goodnight everypony." Twilight, still red as a beet replied before giving a yawn. The other tired mares followed suit, soon the room was filled with adorable snoring sounds as they drifted off into the dream realm, leaving Luna to follow suit.

Rising near the ceiling, Luna was soon surrounded by a white light as part of her horn was soon covered in a ethereal thread. This thread quickly escaped it's spiral prison as it split off into six, each one heading towards a sleeping pony. With this, Luna would be able to interact with them in the plain and hopefully take down the tantabus before it could cause any real damage.

As a white orb originating from her horn entered the ivory fashionista, another orb, this one pink also entered her, seemingly unnoticed by Spike (Who was reading the latest Power Ponies comic behind a intellectual looking book.)

Rarity "Awoke" to a variety of sentient dresses floating around her dreamscape, completely unaware of the tantabus who had already infected her dream. As she approched one of the dresses, the parasite infected it, transforming it into a horrific clothing creature, causing Rarity to run away screaming before she shot it with her magic, causing it to dissipate. Unfortunately, more dresses were coming after her and she was surrounded. Blasting another one of monstrosities, the dress inflated before exploding in a flash of light to reveal Luna.

"It is here." Luna stated to no one in particular, before a unfamiliar male voice shocked both of them.

"Good. I was hoping I didn't have to jump into more dreams than I had to." it spoke, before appearing in a flash of pink light, much like Luna's entrance.

The two ponies stared at the pink creature that had suddenly infiltrated the dream. It was rather short, only coming up to approximately Rarity's barrel, somewhere in size between a foal and a full grown mare. This creature also sported two protrusions from the bottom of it's round body, which were red shoe-like feet ending in points. It also had to stubs for "Arms" and oval eyes that covered most of it's face. It also wore what appeared to be a ebony baseball cap on the top of it's head. Although it was hard to see due to being on it's back, there appeared to be a crimson blade upon it's back, although they couldn't see much more than that at the moment.

The creature looked at the two mares. "What? You never seem a Dreamwalker before?"

"Although I have met several dreamwalkers before, that was far before my banishment to the moon. I thought there were none left besides me." Luna replied to the pink creature, before he gave a nod of recognition.

"Ah, so we're on the same page then? Evil dream parasite that threatens the entirety of your world and you wish to stop it?"

Luna nodded back. "Indeed fellow protector of dreams. I am Princess Luna, guardian of the night and one of the four princesses of Equestria. You are?"

"Stardust, descendant of Kirby, the legendary Star Warrior, protector of the Fountain of Dreams and heir to The Monado." he replied, removing the sword from his back to reveal the entire thing to the two mares. It was mechanical looking, almost if it came from the future, with a glass circle near the hilt of the blade. It glinted in the dreamscape, its crimson colour contrasting with Stardust's pink body. "Of course, I only wield it in the dreamscape. The real Monado has been lost for millennia." he explained, before looking around at the surprisingly patient dress monsters politely waiting to attack the trio of unlikely warriors.

"Ah right, we have a tantabus to hunt down, don't we?" he said, before hurling his blade towards a group of the creatures, catching them all by surprise before they dissipated into nothing, leaving Luna and Rarity to remember why they were here before they started blasting dresses with their magic. Sadly, none of them turned out to be the tantabus.

"We must have missed it while we were distracted by our... Unexpected guest." Luna said, making Stardust blush slightly.

"Whoops..."

Rarity gave a smile to the two dreamwalkers. "Oh it's no problem darlings, you did make my nightmares disappear, so you have my thanks." she then pointed a hoof towards a bricked up window. "I think it went that way. Those bricks do NOT fit in with the rest of the rooms decor."

The unlikely duo nodded as Luna opened a doorway that led out of the dream. "It was nice to see you again Rarity. May your dreams be plesant." Luna said, before hopping through the door, with Stardust following suit. After they went through the door, it shut and vanished, leaving Rarity and a lot of cloth from the dresses that were defeated.

"Well, might as well make some use of this dream then." She muttered to herself before calling upon a table with a sewing machine placed on top of it as she started to create a new dress out of the remains.

As the two exited the door warp, they found themselves in Ponyville, with several mutated cakes threatening the populace.

"The tantabus must have already corrupted this dream. Our dilly-dallying cost us some ground, but I'm sure we can catch up to it." Luna said, before opening another door to exit the dream with. She was about to leave, when she noticed Stardust just standing there.

"Aren't you coming?" She asked impatiently, "Time is of the essence!"

"So we're just going to leave this dream infested with nightmares? That doesn't feel right to me Luna." Stardust said, while removing his blade from his back. "You go on ahead, I got this one."

Luna simply nodded in response before closing the door behind her, leaving Stardust and a veritable army of cake monsters to defeat.

"This is going to be sweet."

As Luna entered the next dreamscape, she wondered how far behind she was from the tantabus. Her question was answered when she came across Fluttershy... Being petted by a large bunny.

"I've seen worse." Luna muttered to herself, careful not to attract any attention to herself. Fluttershy did seem to be enjoying this dream after all... However weird it may be.
Unfortunately, the peace was ruined by the tantabus warping into the dream. Since Luna was distracted by looking at anyhthing but the scene that was happening in front of her, the tantabus managed to corrupt the mega bunny, turning it into a discorded mess of a creature. Fluttershy understandably freaked out at her bunny suddenly becoming a monster, which finally caught Luna's attention.

"Curses! The tantabus strikes again!" Luna thought to herself before grabbing Fluttershy and placing her on top of a nearby tree, saving her.

"Phew. Oh thank you Princess..." Fluttershy sighed in relief as the tantabus warped through the birdhouse, escaping Luna's grasp. Luna followed suit, without even saying a word to Fluttershy, leaving her alone. Fluttershy was surprised by this turn of events until a gnawing sound got her attention. The former bunny was gnawing the tree she was standing on to get her back down to it's level.

Fluttershy smiled in mischievous glee, as the monster suddenly transformed into Rainbow Dash... Who had kept the enlarged size.

"Ohhh Dashie! Up here!~" Fluttershy called to her larger than life friend, attracting her attention as she flew up to eye level with Fluttershy...

Soon after Luna left, Stardust arrived in Fluttershy's dream. Looking around, he was surprised by how... intact the dream was. He heard some snoring sounds and looked upwards to see Fluttershy and a large Rainbow Dash snuggling rather adorably in a tree.

"Nope. Not touching that one." He thought to himself, before slashing a hole within the dream using his sword, making a warp point to the next dream before leaping out and leaving that strange scene alone.

Both Luna and Stardust had caught up with the tantabus in the next dream, meeting each other on a apple farm.

"Y'know Luna, for a dream, these seem fairly... Tame." Stardust mentioned, while meeting up with the slightly tired alicorn.

"Yes, these dreams are usually not full of dangers and nightmares. Except when a parasite of my own creation gets loose and threatens all of Equestria..." Luna sighed as she felt a poking sensation in her side.

"Aw come on Luna. We all make mistakes. I once accidentally put the Star Rod back into the Fountain of Dreams without realizing that a nightmare wizard was sealed inside of it." Stardust replied, trying to cheer Luna up.

"I guess my puffball friend. I just wish I didn't have to put so many ponies through this."

"First; that's racist." Stardust said jokingly. "It's Kirby, not puffball. Secondly. you should stop being so hard on yourself. I mean, we've all made mistakes, haven't we?"

Luna gave a deadpan stare, "You've never turned into a creature of pure evil who wanted to plunge the world into never-ending darkness and kill all life on the planet, have you?"
Thankfully for that awkward conversation, the tantabus had finally turned up into Applejack's dream and started killing the apple trees within it.

"Oh no you don't!" Stardust fired a green wave from his blade that seemingly homed into the tantabus, causing it to reel back in pain. Rather than attack more apple trees and possibly getting itself defeated right then and there, it decided to skip this dream entirely and escape through a hole in a trunk of one of the trees.

Stardust and Luna stared in disbelief.

"Well... I got a good shot on it at least." Stardust tried to salvage the situation, but failed.

"You do realise that now that it knows it's threatened, it'll get through dreams even faster now, right?" Luna deadpanned.

"Well... Er..." Stardust gave up trying to think of a retort and slashed open a portal to the next dream and leapt through it, leaving Luna behind for a moment before she followed suit, leaving a somewhat confused Applejack.

"Erm... Ah'll take it."

Arriving in the next dream, Luna saw Stardust's face, which was frozen in fear.

"Stardust, are you okay?"

No response.

"Stardust?"

He just pointed at the scene before him.

"We are such happy flowers, we will now sing for hours..."

Luna's jaw dropped.

"Please don't tell me this is the nightmare where Rainbow Dash dresses in style. That was a experience I never want to see again."

Rainbow Dash had her head buried in the ground, trying in vain to ignore the saccharine scene before her. She couldn't block it out, it just kept getting clearer when she tried.
Pulling her head out of the ground, she saw the two dreamwalkers and flew over to them "Please make this stop! Look at this! It's AWFUL! I CAN FEEL MY COOLNESS MELTING AWAY!" before collapsing on the ground and breaking down into tears.

"Luna?"

"Way ahead of you. Let's never speak of this again."

"Agreed. Let's go before I get the urge to burn this place down."

"Indeed."
A door opened and the two simply walked out of that nightmare, leaving Rainbow Dash to suffer.

As the two were travelling to the next dream, Luna spoke up. "This should be the last dream. Let's hope that the tantabus hasn't gotten powerful enough to escape and we can neutralise it before it starts doing some REAL damage."

Stardust nodded in acknowledgement as the final dreamscape unfolded before them.

It was a library, with books as far as the eye could see, all sorted in a complex but efficient system.

Luna chuckled to herself. "Twilight hasn't changed a bit."

Stardust just marvelled at how much was going on for a dream. There was sentient books flying to and from the central desk, automatically sorting themselves in as others landed next to the lavender book horse sat there, ready to be read.

Said purple pony princess looked up from her book to see the two dreamwalkers approching. "Oh hello Luna and... Er..."

"Stardust." he said, before it got too awkward.

"Stardust. You find the tantabus yet?"

"Sadly no, Twilight. We have seen it a few times, but it seems to be hiding from us at the moment." Luna explained, causing Twilight to frown slightly.

"Oh, that's a shame. This is a really nice dream too."

The conversation was interrupted by a screeching noise. Twilight turned behind her to see that three of the books were heading straight for her.

Before Twilight could react, one of the books was disintegrated in a bolt of magic, and the other to were torn apart by a flying blade. As the blade returned to Stardust's hand, the trio was worried.

"It seems that the tantabus has infested inside my dream as well." Twilight said, sighing slightly as she did. "I don't know what more I can do to help you two."

"It isn't of your concern Twilight. Please enjoy the rest of your dream." Luna said, forcing a smile on her face as the tantabus finally appeared.

Unlike the other times it appeared however, it was just floating there. As if it was waiting.

"I think it know's it's ran out of dreams to infect for now." Luna said, prompting the tantabus to suddenly jump into Twilight, causing her to scream in pain as her body was engulfed by the nightmare force.

Luna and Stardust were speechless.

Whilst the two were completely unable to do anything due to shock, the tantabus was turning lavender as it slowly took the form of Twilight. Getting up, the psuedo-alicorn's eyes formed before giving a glare to the duo. After doing that, it wordlessly fired a bolt of magic into one of the bookshelves, causing a tear in the dreamscape to form.
"It's trying to escape!" Stardust exclaimed in horror.

"Not if I can help it!" Luna shouted, before diving after the tantabus Twilight before it could fully go in, causing both to become lost within the tear of the dreamscape.

After what felt like forever, the two finally landed on solid ground. Said ground seemed to be a circular arena, surrounded on all sides by a ever changing backdrop of space.

It was the final destination of this journey and Luna was not about to let all this effort be for nothing.

Charging towards the tantabus, it put up a purple shield, easily deflecting Luna's attempted assault on it causing Luna to be throw to the far side of the arena.

"Tantabus, you are a being created of my own power and guilt, yet you have caused suffering to others as well. This cannot be forgiven. Prepare to die." Luna stated before launching a powerful magic bolt at the Twintabus, shattering the shield in a single blow and causing it to fly backwards several feet.

After recovering from the attack, Twintabus went on the offensive, fireing several different spells from it's horn in rapid sucession. Luna was caught off guard by the sudden change in tactics and was peppered with shots, downing her temporarily.

Twintabus sauntered towards Luna, seeming to savour the moment. It finished approching Luna, a smug grin plastered across it's muzzle.

"Well, well Luna. Seems like your guilt finally caught up with you." it spoke in a blend of Twilight's voice and Nightmare Moon's, seeming to mock her for her biggest failure.

Charging it's horn, Twintabus prepared to finish off Luna, as she was still helpless from the barrage earlier, as well as all of the dream hopping she had done.

"Goodnight Luna. Pleasant dreams." Twintabus said in the most mocking tone it could manage. Luna closed her eyes, charged her horn and said one thing back.

"Gotcha."
Luna threw up a mirror spell just as Twintabus fired the attack, causing the spell to reflect back to the caster. Twintabus was torn asunder as it's body dissipated, leaving Twilight's body behind.

Luna approached the youngest alicorn and put a hoof on her chest. She felt the signs of life. Twilight wouldn't even remember this, let alone feel any ill effect from blasted with such a powerful spell.

"Luna! Twilight! Are you two okay?" Stardust shouted as he slowly descended onto the arena, spinning his blade like a helicopter to slow himself down. After landing, he saw Twilight's unconscious body and feared the worst.

"She'll be fine. I bet she won't even remember this in the morning." Luna gave a smile to Stardust, the first genuine one since being reformed after she was blasted by the Elements of Harmony.

"So... Now what?" Stardust asked.

"I think our journey is done Stardust. Thank you for your help tonight."

Stardust blushed.

"If it's alright with you Luna, I'm going to return to the waking world, knowing that the dreamscape is safe. Happy travels!" Stardust gave a wink before fading out of the dreamscape.
Luna soon found herself fading from the dreamscape as well.

Luna awoke in a bed, which was strange considering the last time she was in the real world, she wasn't sleeping in a bed.

It was still nighttime, and the Elements of Harmony (Plus Spike) were snoring away peacefully, their dreams free of worries and nightmares.

Getting out of bed, Luna trotted to the balcony to gave upon her night sky.

Looking up, she saw many stars up there. With her eyes trained to spot the different colours from hundreds of light years, she could see thousands of red, blue and orange stars in the sky.

There was one star that caught her attention however.

To the unassuming eye, it was like any other star. But to Luna's trained eye, she saw a pink star.

"Is that why he's called Stardust?"

Author's Note

Well, that happened. Hope you enjoyed this really screwy version of Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep!
:pinkiesmile: 'Cus I had a blast writing it! Until next time!