My Little Slasher: Freddy vs Jason

Well, Freddy thought to himself, this certainly wasn't what I was expecting. Not at all.

Freddy had been sitting in a seemingly endless blackness for what felt like forever. All things considered, he had been expecting a bunch of burning pits, maybe some lava, or even a woman with a Venus fly-trap for a head. He certainly hadn't been anticipating complete inky nothingness.

"Alright," he called into the darkness, "you can stop with this shit now! I've seen scarier shit in the nightmares of six year-olds, Old Scratch!" In truth, Freddy was a little freaked out by the infinite nothingness that surrounded him. Perhaps ironically for a man who kills people in their dreams, Freddy had always been a bit scared by intense darkness. Given who the Hell he was, it was more than a little disconcerting when he saw a set of lights appearing on the horizon. They looked familiar in a way...

"Dream Portals..." Freddy said under his breath. At this point he didn't actually care if they were Dream Portals or not, he was just excited that there was something new to look at. You know, instead of varying shades of black. Using his arms and legs, Freddy made swimming motions towards the lights. Before he reached them though, he saw a large blue horse with a horn and wings walk out of one of them. He knew what they were: a fellow Dreamweaver. From the horse's demeanor, they had either just successfully turned a good dream into a nightmare, or spared someone from the horrors of a nightmare, probably while giving them some bullshit mini-speech about their life choices.

Regardless of which it was, he had his way out. After the horse-thing had moved on to another dream, Freddy continued his ethereal 'swim' to the portals. He looked all around when he finally reached them, and chuckled. So many new nightmares to make, so little time...

Rarity had been having a fairly nice dream so far. She knew it was a dream because she was able to think the materials she could only hope of one day using into existence. Materials like Changeling Silk, Snow Fox Fur, and Molted Dragon Scales. It was all going so wonderfully, this little imaginary version of the Carousel Boutique. Then she heard something she hadn't really been anticipating: the door opened.

She turned, and started her usual greeting, but she was cut off by some kind of cackling. It was deep, hoarse, and almost demonic in nature. If she didn't know better, Rarity would've thought that her dream was being invaded by some otherworldly being. No, she thought to herself, it's probably just the dream world doing the usual thing of messing with me. And besides, Princess Luna is the only being who can enter dreams, so what have I to worry about?

Then things started to...change. The materials she'd been working on were fading away as she tried to continue working with them. When they returned, they were some kind of blue, rubber-like substance. The cackling came back now, more malicious than it was before. Her nerves were starting to get to her at this point. What on Earth could be making that dreadful laughing?

Suddenly she heard a scream from upstairs. Rarity ran up the steps, but just before she reached the top, she was greeted with one of the most disturbing sights she thought she would ever see.

Sweetie Belle was standing there, but she looked...wrong. Rarity wasn't quite sure how to describe it, but there was something about Sweetie that just looked off. Her mane and tail were flat, not their usual fluffiness, and her coat looked like a dull steel instead of bright cream. Rarity was starting to hyperventilate at this point, the sense of dread she got from looking at this dream version of Sweetie was crawling all along her back like an insect, and she swore that the boutique was changing, too.

Rarity felt her heart skip a beat when this dream Sweetie- no, this nightmare Sweetie- opened its eyes. At first, they looked normal, but then the pupils started to get larger and larger, until the whole of the eyes were nothing but blackness. As Rarity started to back away, she heard the nightmare Sweetie call out to her.

"Sis no!" the nightmare Sweetie said, almost sounding scared. "Don't go! Don't leave me here! Please!"

Rarity felt like her heart was going to explode out of her chest as the fake Sweetie continued to talk. There was no 'almost' about the fear in its voice anymore- this creature was genuinely scared about something. Rarity watched, horrified, as a darkness came up behind the dream Sweetie, and a large, clawed paw came down and snatched her up. There was screaming, and then silence. Despite her best efforts, Rarity's curiosity got the better of her, and she went the rest of the way up the stairs. She could hardly breathe when she saw the scene laid out before her.

There was blood, more than there should have been in a pony's body, almost completely coating the walls and floor in thick redness. In the middle, barely five feet from her, was the body of the dream Sweetie. It was completely dismembered; its guts were spilling out from four large cuts on its belly; its head was twisted the completely wrong way; its legs were either broken in ways that shouldn't even be possible, or torn off and left just out of the poor creature's reach. Its mane and tail had also been completely removed, with blood pouring from the now skinless areas of its head and rear. Rarity felt like she was going to puke. Steeling herself for whatever this nightmare had in store, Rarity slowly trotted over to the corpse.

When she was barely a foot from it, Rarity could scarcely believe her eyes. The fake Sweetie's head turned back round. Its dead, empty eyes looking back at her as blood poured from them. Then it spoke.

"Why?" it asked, the blood now pouring in thin, steady streams like tears instead of regular blood. "Why didn't you help me? Why didn't you save me? Why?"

Rarity was speechless. Even more terrifying than the nightmarish version of her little sister in front of her was its voice. It wasn't how it had been; it wasn't Sweetie's voice anymore.

Now it was more akin to that demonic cackling she'd heard earlier.

Rarity watched in horror as the talking corpse morphed into something completely different. It wasn't Sweetie anymore. It wasn't even trying to be Sweetie anymore.

The creature before her was massive. It stood on two legs, and had a face that, shall we say, not even a mother could love. Its skin was peeling in all different directions, leaving holes revealing the muscles underneath. What was even more terrible was that it seemed to have a truly garish fashion sense. It wore a green-and-red striped shirt of sorts, torn-up khakis, soot-covered dress shoes, and a large, brown fedora. Its right paw had four long claws hanging from its fingers. It was almost like the claws had been tacked on with some kind of glove.

Then it returned to its maniacal, demonic cackling.

"Wh-what a-are y-y-you?" was all Rarity could manage to say.

The monster didn't reply. Instead, it brought the claws up to its midsection and drug them across. Rarity could barely keep from puking at the sight of what the claws revealed. Thick green slime began pouring from the creature's gut, and worse yet, maggots began falling out from it as well.

The monster returned to its cackling. The demonic laughter cut through the air of the now shadow-laden boutique like a knife through butter. It was moving towards her now. Rarity could only stare, petrified with fear, as the creature approached ever closer.

Luna barely had time to regain her senses after she left Scootaloo's little nightmare, assuming it could even be called a nightmare. Really? Scootaloo was afraid of chickens that looked like her? Strange little filly that one.

Returning to her Hall of Dreams, Luna felt a wave of fear echoing out through it. She followed it, expecting that somepony was having a very bad dream indeed, for such a strong feeling of fear and terror to wash over the dreamscape. Perhaps it was a filly dreaming of clowns, or a parent dreaming of losing their foal, or-

"Well this is unexpected," Luna said as her senses fixed onto the source of the fear. It was one of the Element Bearers' dreams that the fear was coming from. Stranger yet, it was coming from Rarity's dream. Something felt off as she walked through the portal into the young fashion mare's nightmare.

When she emerged, she saw something...incomprehensibly scary.

Rarity was slowly shuffling backwards, away from...something. Some kind of creature was haunting her. Luna could feel the power radiating from it as it marched towards Rarity. This was not right. Luna was the only one who was supposed to be able to traverse the dreamscape, and yet this creature was not a nightmare born of Rarity's subconscious, but rather an entirely independent entity. Maybe it was a piece of the Tantabus that had managed to avoid destruction? That was the only logical explanation.

Luna galloped towards Rarity, taking a place in front of her to shield the young mare from the monster infesting her dream.

"HALT, FOUL CREATURE!" Luna shouted in her Royal Canterlot voice, hoping to intimidate the monster into leaving just by her presence. 'WE ARE PRINCESS LUNA, AND WE WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS TERRORIZING OF OUR FRIEND!" Luna was fairly confident that would do the trick. It had worked on the nightmarish beings from the dreams of the other Element Bearers, so why wouldn't it this time?

The monster continued its advance. It barely even slowed down for Luna to shout at it the first time.

An low, unnerving laugh echoed from the monster.

"WE SAID," Luna restated, "HALT! YOU SHALL NOT TERRORIZE OUR FRIEND ANY LONGER, MONSTER!"

"Watch this," the creature responded. It raised a long, clawed paw up , and sliced off two fingers from its other paw. Thick black sludge began sloshing out of the stumps, and Luna found it hard to keep her composure. The fingers then simply...regrew. Like corn stalks after the winter.

Both mares were completely immobile at the sight of the monster's blatant disregard for Luna's commands. There was no doubt in Luna's mind that this creature had been a part of the Tantabus. Only that being had been able to defy her commands, so it was only natural that a creature born from it would have the same capability.

Before she could give it much more thought though, the monster lunged at them. Its huge claws connected with Luna's face, leaving a sizeable set of cuts along her snout. While she was disoriented, Luna saw the monster then bring its claws around to attack Rarity. Just before the claws connected, Rarity screamed for a split second, and then...

Nothing...

The dream had ended.

She was back in her Hall of Dreams.

Somehow though, Luna had a feeling that she hadn't seen the end of this...demon.