The Equestrian Manhunt

by Shadic Midnight Blitzer

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Violence, Minecraft, Princess Celestia, Crossover, Twilight Sparkle, Anthro, Main 6, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Death, Alternate Universe, Other, Thriller, Original Character, Comedy, Profanity
Length: 35652

After making the error of mistaking the world they fell in to be VR Minecraft and then killing his friends, Dream is now running for his life. Can he escape the Hunters, Equestria, and beat The Ender Dragon? Or will he be sent to prison to rot?

Please Read The Following Story First Before Sending A Dislike, Because I Know How The Dream Fanbase Works And I Don't Need More Toxic Dream Stans Destroying Me Lol

After lighting some fireworks and achieving his victory in ‘Minecraft Speedrunner vs 4 Hunters GRAND FINALE’, Dream was left craving for more. But what could they do? A consolation match to see if he was worthy of going against 5 Hunters? Jump right into the next series and invite someone else like Techno? Whatever their next move was, Dream knew there was so much more they could do. 

His answer would come in the most unexpected way when he and his friends got sucked into an unknown world. Believing it to be VR Minecraft, Dream and the Hunters started a round of Manhunt, eventually leading up to him killing his friends. But while everything seemed well with the Hunters respawning, this would set a chain of events that would lead Dream to become the most wanted creature in Equestria. 

Will Dream be able to fight off both the Hunters and Equestria long enough to get kill the Ender Dragon, and find a way to escape? Or will he be doomed to rot away in a prison for the rest of his life, if not worse? 

Cover not owned by me

(1) This Story Was Featured As Of 2/10/21 9:36PM
(2) Hit 100 Likes As Of 2/17/21 1:22AM

Published 2021-02-10 16:20:00 UTC
Last updated 2021-09-16 13:40:04 UTC

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Author's Note

The Following Contains Spoilers For the Ending of 'Minecraft Speedrunner vs 4 Hunters GRAND FINALE'. You Have Been Warned.

The Following Is A Fan-Based Parody. Minecraft Manhunt and the Dream SMP are owned by Dream himself, and MLP: FiM is owned by Hasbro. Please support the official release.

Also according to Fimfiction statistics, only a small percentage of people who’ll read this story are actually tracking this story, so if you end up enjoying this story, considering commenting, liking, and tracking this story. And if you’re really interested in hearing more about this story, its updates, and about other stories, considering following me, it’s free and you can always undo it later.

Also, feel free to subscribe to the likes of Dream, Sapnap, BadBoyHalo, Antfrost, GeorgeNotFound, and those from the Dream SMP like Tubbo, Technoblade, TommyInit, Wilbur Soot, Ranboo.

Enjoy!

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Chapter 1: Start Game

“Oh! I’m safe, I'm safe!”

As a group of friends laughed and celebrated the return of one of their members in an ancient portal room, a splash of water was suddenly heard above a staircase. Mobs nearby suddenly spun to look for the source of the sound, but upon seeing nothing they continued their usual business. The celebration though came to a halt as the group of people inside the stronghold realized something dreadful.

Somebody had followed them inside. And it wouldn’t take a genius to tell who was going to knock on their door pretty soon.

“Dream’s here!”

“Oh! He’s in, he's in!”

“He’s in the stronghold!”

Armor and tools clattered against each other as they were being equipped by the four hunters inside. It was time. The end was here. They just had to stay calm, focus, kill the target, and take their prize. Throughout the entire war, they had been on the offensive, always pinning Dream only for him to escape. But now he had nowhere to hide. If he was to get to the End Dimension and kill the Ender Dragon, he would have to go through them first. But with their enchanted diamond gear and swords in hand, they were confident in their victory. There was no way that he was going to go through them. At least, not with his life.

They heard a voice, very clear and very close, almost as if it was on the other side of the wall. The hunters could nearly hear him grinning, smiling at his assured victory as he began to speak.

“This. This is my little speech, I did one during the Grand Finale last time, this is mine here.” The voice said, causing three of the hunters to shiver. They remembered how they had become even more stacked than before, with full diamond gear, and that they had trapped the End spawn, only for a simple TNT trap to blow them into the void. They had been so close, and yet they lost. No, they couldn’t let that happen for a second time! They tensed up with their weapons, preparing for their inevitable clash with their ancient nightmare. They will win!

“There’s one, in a trillion billion scenarios, and this is the one where I’ll win… and… I don’t know… I’ll... I’ll be lighting lots of fireworks when I win :) ” The voice said, silently laughing. One of the hunters frowned, before giving his response.

“Then we’re going to win then.” A hunter said, determination filling his voice. A gasp suddenly left his lips as he noticed a very familiar energy approaching. Dream was directly behind the wall they were standing at!

“He’s on the other side of the wall!” The person yelled before their souls were filled with dread when they heard the familiar sound of TNT sizzling behind the wall. Yelping in fear, the hunters raced across the room to the other side, just when the explosives ignited, destroying the wall and leaving their positions exposed. As they recovered from the shock of the explosions, one of them turned their gaze to where the wall used to be, just in time to see a green-hooded figure coming from the corner, with a firework loaded in a crossbow.

Before he could even react and give out a warning, a barrage of multi-colored death was unleashed upon them, barely giving the hunters any time to release a cry of pain before their lives were extinguished from their bodies. Now reduced to just spirits, they heard the shout of victory as their killer began to celebrate.

“LET’S GO! LET’S GO!” The hooded creature yelled, his voice cracking due to how loud he was yelling as he began to place the Eyes of Ender inside the portal frame, activating the ancient structure and quickly jumping through. “OH MY GOSH! LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

The hunters could only look in dismay as they were taken into a third-person view, seeing their target entering The End Dimension where he was already making a bridge towards the nearby landmass. “YESSSSSSSSSS!” After completing the bridge and jumping onto the endstone that made up the End Dimension, he began to load his crossbows as he began to blow up the various End Crystals that were positioned on top of massive obsidian pillars. Within a matter of minutes, the Crystals were all but gone and the Dragon’s health was dangerously low.

The dragon, almost as if it realized the peril it was in, perched itself on top of the center pillar on the ground and began to spew its deadly magical breath over the ground. The hunters, still spectating the battle, prayed that the dragon would be able to throw Dream high into the air and kill him through fall damage, but it was to their great disappointment when the hooded figure positioned himself under the dragon, bashing its head with a diamond axe, before finishing it off with a final barrage of arrows and fireworks.

The war was over, the dragon’s tyranny had been finished, and the score was settled.

3:2

Dream, The Speedrunner of Minecraft, Had Just Won The Manhunt Series Against 4 Hunters.

The truth was though, all of this both did occur and did not occur. As the four hunters and one speedrunner begin to laugh over a voice call in their respective rooms across thousands of miles, the truth becomes clear. This was all a game. All the mobs that died along the way, all of the mass destruction that occurred, the thievery, the murder, all of that was just fake. The Endermen would never get freed from the almighty Dragon because they simply never existed in the first place. And these two sides were never enemies in the first place, but rather friends wanting to challenge each other.

This was the beauty of gaming. There were no limits when it came to what one could do. Nobody could be held accountable for whatever actions they did that would otherwise get them in trouble in the real world. One could be running away for his life and live in fear, but that fear would always be fake, and once they exited that virtual world they were in, they were greeted with the relief that it was just a game. They were free to do anything they wanted to basically.

So it didn’t surprise anyone when Dream posted a video asking the viewers what he and the hunters should do next, because, in all honesty, there was no risk playing it again. It was fun, it was addicting. And everybody knew it because they were all addicted to it as well. Who wouldn’t be when there are epic soundtracks in the background, intense half-heart moments and insane 500 IQ plays?

Everybody knew that Dream was one of, if not, the most popular Minecraft channel as of 2021, with over 17 Million Subscribers and counting. He had started with just a few thousand, but after studying the youtube algorithm for many years, he began to accumulate a base where he would eventually leap into the skies the moment he began to post videos like ‘Cursed Minecraft’, ‘Unsolved Minecraft Mysteries’, various mods, and his most famous creation: ‘Minecraft Manhunt’.

Minecraft Manhunt consisted of one of Dream’s closest friends trying to stop him from killing the Ender Dragon, which in Minecraft is when a Speedrun usually ends. The game first began with GeorgeNotFound, and while the two were nowhere close to the level of skill they were now, a fanbase had already been growing. With the introduction of Sapnap, the difficulty would only increase. The fanbase would be greeted with one of Dream’s most iconic moments when he was able to teleport away at the last second after George killed Sapnap in the End and dropped an Ender Pearl to him, ultimately leading him to his victory.

Dream would eventually gain so much popularity and strength that he would begin competing in Minecraft Championships, becoming very skilled at minigames such as Parkour and PvP. Soon a friendly rivalry would grow between him and Technoblade, the best PvP person at the time, ultimately leading to the famous Mr. Beast Challenge. And while Dream had lost to Technoblade, his popularity would continue to grow. Nobody questioned just how good he would get in his own game, where he’d perform feat after feat, trap after trap to outsmart the hunters. Sure there were moments where the hunters would outsmart Dream like when BadBoyHalo trapped the spawn point in the End with lava, but every single time Dream did pull a clutch move, it would only cause the fanbase to increase even more.

Things would become even more intense once the Dream SMP was opened. It started as a Minecraft server that was intended to be just a regular survival game, but it had become the most popular Minecraft narrative the internet had seen, introducing the likes of Wilbur Soot, Technoblade, TommyInnit, Tubbo, Fundy, and so many other characters. Many songs, animatics, drawings, stories, and other things would become based on this popular series. To say that the fanbase was addicted to what Dream and his friends have done is an understatement. They adored Dream, and they loved how he and his friends interacted each time they met with each other.

So when Dream and his friends began to discuss what they might end up doing in the future, the crowd was putting all of their attention on the video, writing their comments as to what they should do. Things like a consolation match, adding the fifth hunter, or putting a twist to the series were mentioned, causing the fanbase to become hyped. The possibilities were endless, and there was so much that Dream and his friends could do. Maybe they might add Technoblade and see how well he’ll perform in Dream’s turf? Maybe they’ll start a Manhunt in the Nether dimensions? Whatever the answer would be, nobody will know as it has yet to happen.

One creature did though.

Within the attic of a small cottage, a figure peered into a small screen as he watched the final moments of the video dubbed ‘Minecraft Speedrunner vs 4 Hunters GRAND FINALE’. A smile appeared on his face as the gears inside his head literally began to turn themselves around. The chaos was magnificent, especially when this green Teletubby called ‘Dream’ was able to kill the other four Teletubbies with fireworks.

“Oh, what a marvelous way to go! And with style too!” The figure said. Yes, he was aware that they weren’t called ‘Teletubbies’, that was another thing entirely, but he always found it amusing when the ‘Piglin’ guy roasted Dream by calling him that only to panic when DreamXD appeared. The idea of somebody having canonical access to such an overpowered state surprised the figure greatly, considering that Dream could simply use XD’s power to escape the prison he was currently in.

“Not in real life! Oh, that would be terrible. I mean in the Dream SMP!” The figure said out loud-

...

-.-

“No seriously he could! I could show you a video where he does just that! It’s non-canon yes, but it’s certainly amusing how he could escape that easily if he wanted to. Reminds me a bit of myself.” The figure said, before frowning upon hearing no response. “I know you’re there-”

“Discord! Are you talking to yourself again? You know how wild Pinkie can get if she found out you could quote on quote ‘break the fourth wall’.” A sweet tender voice yelled from downstairs, though it could barely pass as a small whisper. The staircase creaked as someone walked up the stairs, and soon the lights were flicked on, revealing a rather strange creature hunched over. He was made of several different animal parts and was the embodiment of chaos itself. The one who turned on the lights turned out to be a butterscotch anthro mare with a pink mane and beautiful blue eyes. She was wearing a simple pair of white clothing, which made it hard to notice the white bunny who was currently hiding in her pocket.

“Ah c’mon Fluttershy! Can’t I have a little fun annoying the ‘narrator’?” The chaotic creature asked with a pair of pleading eyes while doing a swift movement with his hand that caused the screen to be yeeted outside an open window, never to be seen again.

“No. I don’t know whether this ‘narrator’ exists, but please, if they do exist I think they’d prefer you not to interrupt their quote on quote ‘storytelling’. ” (THANK YOU) Fluttershy said as she began to sweep the dust from the floor, only for the Draconequus to snap his fingers and cause several brooms to appear and do the work for her.

“Pwease Fluttershy? You know how boring this place can get whenever you leave the house!” Discord pleaded, literally swapping his eyes for a pair of cute puppy eyes. After feeling the draconequus’s stare for far too long, the butterscotch pegasi caved into his demands.

“Alright Discord, you may. Just don’t go too far.” Fluttershy said, before feeling the massive snake-like creature bring her into a hug.

“Oh thank you, Fluttershy thank you! You don’t know how happy you’ve made me! I promise to only speak in fourth-person when necessary.” Discord yelled happily, hugging the poor pegasi until her bones began to pop, releasing a huge amount of tension within them and causing her to feel a shiver through her spine.

“J-just… d-don’t hug me… too hard…” The butterscotch mare said, gasping for air as she began to feel dizzy after being tightened that much. “A simple thank you would be enough. Now be on your best behavior… I have to go to Canterlot soon to attend one of Twilight’s Friendship Council meetings…” The mare said as she tried to walk down the stairs only to nearly trip down the entire flight. If it weren’t for Discord’s quick thinking to throw her his hand and have it become sentient to pull her back, she probably would’ve ended up going to the nurse at this moment.

“Why don’t I transport you there my dear?” The draconequus asked as he quickly opened a rift in the space-time continuum and connected it to where the meeting was going to be held. Quickly making an insta-cook toaster and putting some slices of bread inside, by the time Fluttershy was able to reorientate herself, Discord already had the portal and a bag of lunch ready for the mare.

“Thank you Discord, I appreciate it. Promise to not make any mischief when I’m gone?”

“Promise!”

“Then we’ll see each other tomorrow,” Fluttershy stated as she stepped through the portal, and already the sounds of welcome and friendly chat were beginning to appear on the other side by the time the Lord of Chaos closed it. For a moment there was just silence until Discord lifted two fingers behind his back.

They were crossed.

Oh no…

“Guess what time it is! Chaos time! And I know just the thing to do to liven up this place!” Discord said as he snapped his fingers, a computer appearing in front of him as he began to furiously type. “Time to code something to give ‘them’ something very fun to try!” The draconequus said with enthusiasm as letters and numbers from the screen began to float away with wings attached to them. It didn’t take very long for the Lord of Chaos to finish what he was doing, and after giving some final touches and sending it away, he summoned a recliner and a bottle of chocolate milk, always making sure to drink the glass first before dowsing on the actual liquid.

“Things in Equestria will soon become very, very, interesting.” Discord said, a smile creeping across his face. He let out a fake evil laugh, but it still felt good. Sure, he learned his lesson about bringing villains back all at once to give Twilight a challenge, but she never mentioned bringing five very chaotic creatures to the table to have some fun. At least they weren’t trying to be evil like the others.

Hopefully, things won’t go out of hand like last time.

Hopefully.

“So I want to thank you four again for participating in another round of Manhunt.” A young voice by the name of Dream said with a smile. A groan could be heard from the other side of the voice chat from one of the hunters.

“Ugh! I’m still so disappointed!” A second voice by the name of BadBoyHalo said, before flipping his attitude. “But congrats, you did well… I still can’t believe that you won just because of some stupid fireworks!”

“And then you had to rub it in our faces when you told us that you foreshadowed it.” A third voice popped in who was called GeorgeNotFound.

“Who knew fireworks could be that OP?” The fourth voice by the name of Sapnap muttered, seemingly wanting to hit something over.

“I think Technoblade used it in the ‘Red Festival’ a while back when he executed Tubbo. He always carries a crossbow with a huge amount of fireworks whenever he fights. ‘AERIAL BOMBARDMENT’ he says.” The final voice by the name of AntFrost spoke up. The rest of the hunters groaned. They had completely forgotten about how lethal Technoblade made those colorful weapons become in the Dream SMP. Nobody would be spared from his barrage of fireworks.

“We should pay attention to everything a bit more carefully next time. You said you crafted the fireworks? How?” BadBoyHalo asked Dream who couldn’t help but laugh.

“I used the flowers you said were going to for my funeral and added gunpowder and paper to the mix!” Dream yelled out, having completely lost his ability to maintain his laughter, the sound of him falling off his chair echoing through the voice chat. The rest of the hunters were unsure as to whether they should laugh at Dream’s misfortune, or freeze with dread.

They decided to do both. After laughing at Dream, BadBoyHalo went silent.

“Argh! We had you on the ropes and it just took you some… flowers!? To kill us!? Dang it, you muffin-head!” BadBoyHalo let out a groan of frustration when he realized how Dream had yet again fooled them all.

“Well to be fair, the Instant Damage Potions were too OP, even compared to rockets.” Dream added as he began to lift himself from the ground and reposition his chair.

“Yeah, next time remind me to brew up a batch to destroy you the next time we have a Manhunt,” AntFrost added, smiling when he remembered how in the last Manhunt he was able to kill Dream by luring him into a Desert Temple before destroying him with just two Instant Damage potions. One was much better off facing rockets than splash potions.

“Speak of Manhunt, what are we going to do next Dream?” George asked Dream who remained silent, before responding.

“I just received an anonymous link talking about a program that’ll ‘Make Manhunts More Fun’. Something about making things more realistic.” Dream said as he went into the Discord app and shared something with the Hunters. Sapnap was the first one to receive the link, and upon reading the entirety of the contents he raised an eyebrow from his side of the voice chat.

“Huh. Looks a lot like VR Minecraft. But with better control and functions?” Sapnap asked out loud as he continued to read the link, which came from an unknown user from Reddit.

“And look! If you go down the list of new items, it says it’ll add new enchantments and potions to the mix!” BadBoyHalo added before releasing a gasp of excitement. “Hey! We could use this as a fun Manhunt idea! It’ll spice up the game, don’t you think, Dream?”

“Sure it sounds cool, but is it safe to use?” AntFrost added, causing the entire group to think about it.

“Well, I’ve found various good things in Reddit. Most of my tricks come from there. And considering how big and complex this program seems to be, this person must’ve put in a lot of dedication for us. Let’s just try it. If our computers go bust I’m buying you all new computers.” Dream added. The Hunters had been skeptical, but upon hearing the promise of a new computer they decided to just go along with it.

“Then what are we waiting for! Let’s start this thing!” Sapnap announced as he and the rest of the five friends pressed their download buttons at the same time. For a moment all seemed to go well until their computers all simultaneously shut themselves down, leaving them with just their voice chat on.

“Dream?”

“Yeah George?”

“You are going to buy us new computers right?”

“Yes, George. Why would I be lying to you guys?”

“Ok, just making sure cause our computers crashed.”

“...I could see that George. Don’t worry it’s probably one of those massive programs that completely remodel the computer’s code so that it would run properly. Nothing to worry.” Dream said, only to feel the ground starting to shake.

“Uhm guys? Do you all feel that?” BadBoyHalo asked.

“Feel what- oh now I feel it. Earthquake?” AntFrost asked as all of them simultaneously began to feel not only the ground shaking but the air itself.

“This is not good.” Dream added, only to notice parts of his room turning black.

“Uhm guys? Are you starting to feel dizzy or it’s just me? Cause right now the room is going black and I’m having a headache.” Sapnap groaned before the sound of him collapsing onto the floor was heard.

“Sapnap- Oh I feel so tired…” George’s voice trailed off as he also went unconscious.

“What type of program does this sort of thing!?” BadBoyHalo yelled out before yawning as he too fell onto the ground.

“I don’t know… You got any ideas, Dream?” AntFrost asked before he collapsed onto the ground as well. Dream could only stare at his surroundings, which has now been replaced by a void of pure darkness. He began to feel tired, and while he knew he was alone with all of his friends having gone unconscious, it didn’t hurt him to say one thing out loud.

“I don’t know.”

And with that, the void completely enveloped them and everything went black.

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Author's Note

Warning: The following chapter has various characters being introduced, and while I've tried my best, I feel there might be some weak points. So if there's anything off you find about any characters in this or future chapters, please comment down below so that I may address it and maybe incorporate it should I edit this story. I want to make things as perfect as they can while avoiding various errors like the 'Purple Unicorn Syndrome'. So some advice would greatly be appreciated.

The following chapter may also have moments that might unsettle some people so please take note that when it comes to Dream and his friends, most of their interactions are acted, and would definitely not be done in real life (Ex. Dream blowing up a nation or Dream's Friends Hunting Dream IRL would never occur). Some moments are references to previous videos made by Dream and his friends, and thus anything that is written here or done in their videos should not be taken seriously, given that everything is just a game.

And games aren't meant to be taken seriously.

I want to thank you guys for supporting this story. Even though I'm a bit saddened that there are some people who chose to try and pull this story down with their dislikes, we've managed to push through.

Now sit back, grab a glass of water, and enjoy the episode.

And upon either ending or before starting the story, it'd be recommended to watch these two clips for better knowledge. They're the same event but in a different format. Also please support anybody who I use their videos here. Whether it'd be Dream, an animator, or one of those guys who likes taking clips out of the original video/stream.

And if you're confused as to where the links are, you have to click/press on the numbers.

(1)
(2)

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Chapter 2: The Journey Begins

“I must say Twilight that this Friendship Council Idea of yours has hit off very well!” A silver-white unicorn said, using her magic to levitate a cup of tea to her mouth. She had beautiful blue eyes and a curly violet mane. She wore a fluffy blue coat around herself as well as a light blue scarf. “It’s been… how long? Ten to eleven months since you were coordinated? I must prepare the proper clothing for the anniversary of your coronation then!” The white unicorn exclaimed, quickly making a notepad and a pen appear in front of her where she began to write down some ideas. Her name was Rarity, a well-known fashion designer who became one of Twilight’s closest friends ever since the then-Celestia’s student came to Ponyville.

“Yeah! I can’t wait for that party!” A pink mare with blue eyes and a poofy mane exclaimed, hopping around the room’s walls. She wore a blue and yellow dress as well as a pink skirt. She had some balloons tied up around her waist, making her jumps last longer than usual. Her name was Pinkie Pie, a hyperactive pony who loved creating and attending parties. She lives in Sugarcube Corner, a pastry shop that had become her home after moving from her rock farm many years ago. Her parties and delicacies were some of the best in Equestria, and she knew how to make everyone smile.

“I can have the critters sing a song at the party if you want,” Fluttershy said, having been inside the room since Discord dropped her off. Suddenly a white bunny popped out from one of her pouches, causing the butterscotch pegasi to let out a very quiet gasp.“Angel! What are you doing here!?” Fluttershy yelled at the small bunny, who simply shrugged and began ignoring Fluttershy at all costs. He was a rebellious bunny, and it usually took entire minutes to tame him for just a few moments.

“Well if that’s the case, then we best announce this plan soon. Me an’ ma family gotta prepare the food in time, and we’ll probably have to edit our schedule as teachers.” An orange mare said with a Southern Accent. She had blonde hair and a cowboy hat on top of her head, and her eyes were apple green. She wore a checked black and red shirt and blue shorts. Her name was Applejack, part of the massive Apple Family that stretched all over Equestria, and one of the many owners of Sweet Apples Acres, the best apple farm and cider producing company. What she said at the end was true. Ever since Twilight had founded the Friendship School, all of her friends had become teachers there. Though it had a rough early start when it clashed with the Board, Friendship was soon allowed to be spread to other nations as well, which planted the seed of future harmony through the various distinct races.

“Hey! Maybe I can invite my team to do a performance and then finish everything off with a Sonic Rainboom!” A cyan pegasus with a raspy voice proposed. She had a rainbow mane, magenta eyes, and a blue Wonderbolt uniform. Her name was Rainbow Dash, the fastest flier in all of Equestria and part of the famous group of fliers called the Wonderbolts. She along with the rest of the girls were part of the Elements of Harmony, a group of ponies tasked with protecting Equestria using the Magic of Friendship. Ever since Nightmare Moon returned from the moon, they had all faced various trials and prevailed, ultimately leading to the coronation of Twilight and her job as ruler of all of Equestria. Whenever one of them needed help, the rest would be there, and whenever Equestria was in danger, they would face the threat down until they won.

“That all sounds like a wonderful idea girls!” Twilight Sparkle exclaimed, lifting herself from her chair. She was a purple alicorn said, who by now easily overtook each of her friends by a few noticeable inches. Twilight wore a purple royal dress, a royal crown with a star at the center, and various amounts of gold jewelry around her body, due to her status as ruler of Equestria. “If all of you are on board with this, then we could start preparing immediately! I probably would’ve hesitated at first, but considering that there have been no major problems since my coronation, I think we can start right away! Right Spike?” Twilight asked as she turned around to see a purple on a chair beside the royal throne chair. He had green eyes, a green underbelly, and a gold medal around his neck. He smiled when he heard her address him.

“Yep! While things have been a tad difficult when it came to maintaining peace and friendship between our neighboring nations, thanks to the help of your Royal Advisor, me, things have been relatively calm. At least you won’t have to stress yourself on preparing, managing, and attending the various meetings you’re required to. I easily can help you with those.” The purple dragon said as he flew down towards the girls. Long ago when Twilight was still a filly, Spike was born from an egg after a nearby Sonic Rainboom caused Twilight’s magic to go into a frenzy, and from there he had been like a little brother to her. Apart from that, he became her assistant to her, which helped once Twilight became the sole ruler of Equestria and Spike became her Royal Advisor. While it was true that Celestia and Luna would pop in once in a while to help, as of now it was up to Twilight, Spike, and their friends to manage and protect Equestria, and they’ve been good at it.

“Thanks, Spike.” The purple alicorn said, smiling at the young dragon. “Hopefully when the celebration arrives it doesn’t become a hotspot for a new group of villains to come and begin stomping things around.” The purple alicorn stated, causing Spike to laugh out loud.

“Oh, Twilight! I don’t think anything can go wrong at this point!” The purple dragon said, laughing. When he noticed that nobody else had joined him he frowned and gave a confused look at the girls, who looked at him with disapproving looks. “What?” Spike asked, confused as to their sudden shift in tone.

“Spike. Don’t you remember whenever one of us says that ‘Nothing bad is ever going to happen, something does occur?” Rarity asked, causing him to blink as he began to think back to all of his memories.

“That- oh… oh… I jinxed us didn’t I?” Spike asked, his eyes had widened as he realized what he might’ve unintentionally unleashed. Rarity was starting to nod when suddenly Pinkie Pie’s body began to shudder, flipping everyone’s attention to her. Spike began to sweat as he noticed all of this, especially when Rarity turned back to face him once again.

“Yes. Yes, you did.” Rarity said, sighing as she went towards the pink mare and tried to hold her in place, only to begin vibrating herself. The white mare was forced to let her go, and the party pony continued to vibrate rapidly. “Alright Pinkie! What’s the doozy this time?” Rarity asked as Pinkie Pie continued to shake until she was able to calm herself down by pressing her nose with her hoof, if just for a moment.

“The Pinkie Sense doesn’t work like that Rarity… it doesn’t tell me what, but it can tell me where.” The party pony explained before her body began to shake and twitch again. Twilight soon stepped near Pinkie Pie, using her magic to slow down her twitching and help her friend calm herself down. Even so, Twilight could feel the subtle motion of her magical aura vibrating because she was shuddering.

“Then where is this doozy coming from Pinkie? The last time you had a doozy this big was when I tried to reject the concept of the Pinkie Sense, and apparently, that was big. So where Pinkie is this new doozy coming from?” The purple alicorn asked, becoming very concerned at not only her friend’s safety but of Equestria’s as well. Considering that Spike had just perhaps jinxed the arrival of a new threat, it could be anything from the hydra in the Everfree Forest to a threat unlike anything that they’ve ever faced, even greater than all the villains combined. Before any answers could be given though, a massive wave of magic swept through their bodies. The entire castle began to shake as if an earthquake was passing, and it continued for a good amount of time before slowly subsiding. Something very big must’ve occurred to release this magnitude of magic. Finally, the party pony gave the answer they’ve been anxiously waiting for.

“Everfree Forest Twilight! Everfree Forest!” Pinkie Pie yelled, shaking once more before finally stopping. This news however caused everyone to release a gasp of fear.

“But that’s near Ponyville! Our home! We gotta go to Ponyville this instant! What if it’s one of those major threats and it comes and kidnaps everyone or ends up destroying the town!” Applejack yells, visibly shocked and terrified. Even though they’ve all faced various villains of various dangerous degrees, it doesn’t make facing another threat all that easier. “Twilight! Use your magic or somethin’ and teleport us there!” Applejack yelled out to the stunned alicorn, who quickly began to make preparations for the jump.

“You got it! Girls, get close to me, we’re going to Ponyville.” Twilight said, all of them standing up and holding their hands together. The ruler of Equestria spun to face her dragon assistant, who continued to remain stunned. “Spike! Spike!” Twilight yelled, causing the young dragon to jump out of his trance and face towards her. “Stay in the castle and make sure nothing bad happens. We’ve got work to do and if somehow this ‘doozy’ ends up being a threat that reaches to Canterlot I want you to defend it.” Twilight ordered, to which the purple dragon answered by saluting her.

“You got that Twilight!” Spike said as he placed some distance between himself and the girls so that when they teleport he doesn’t accidentally get sent with them. Twilight smiled at him before turning to her friends.

“Let’s do this!” Twilight yelled as she began to power her teleportation spell. A purple ball of magic began to form and expand from her horn, eventually engulfing the six of them, but to their surprise, as the orb began to dissipate, they were still in the room.

“...Well… that was unexpected…” Spike muttered, looking in surprise as he saw Twilight panting as if she used up most, if not all, of her mana resources. “I think the magical wave might’ve disabled your ability to do powerful spells at this point Twilight…” Spike said after thinking what could’ve caused her teleportation spell to fail.

“I can see that Spike…” The purple alicorn muttered, clearly displeased with herself. “Welp… Change of plans! We’re going to have to take the long route! Spike! Send a letter to the nearby train station and tell them that I and my friends are going to take a train towards Ponyville pronto!” Twilight ordered as she and her friends reorganized themselves and began to head out towards the main exit of the castle.

“You got it! Though why not ask the former Princess for help?” Spike replied as he began to quickly write up a message to the conductor before sending it away with his dragon breath. He pulled up a second scroll to write down a letter when Twilight stopped him.

“No. That won’t be necessary. As ruler of Equestria, Celestia and Luna have placed full confidence in us. We’ve proven ourselves time and time again to be able to defend Equestria and maintain peace, and this time will be the same. If this problem becomes too much to handle though, then you may write the letter, but for all we know it could be something minor that just me and my friends can take care of. Thank you for thinking about that though Spike, but I think we can take care of it.” Twilight said as she returned towards Spike and hugged him.

“No problem… I just don’t want anything bad happening to you ok?” Spike said with a worried look.

“It’ll be fine. We’ll see each other soon!” Twilight yelled as she and her friends soon headed out the castle, the large doors closing behind them, leaving the main throne room empty and silent. The young dragon looked at the doors where his friends went through before sighing.

“Hopefully I didn’t jinx something very bad…” Spike muttered out.

“Hopefully.”

Out in the middle of a gigantic forest, a bird began to hop over to a figure on the ground, only to be scared away when it began to stir. Soon it began to move, one finger at a time, then a muscle twitching. The soft breaths from the sleeping creature began to become more pronounced until suddenly the creature’s eyes began to open. After blinking for a few moments, the figure suddenly began to lift itself, placing its hands and feet firmly on the ground before pushing itself up.

“Ugh… my head…” The figure let out a groan of pain as the sudden movement had caused its mind to feel disoriented. Looking around its surroundings it saw nothing but a dense forest, and it soon started to become confused, scared, and terrified at where it was. “W-Where am I… Where am I!? George! Sapnap! Bad! Ant! Where are you guys?!” Putting its hands up around its mouth to try and increase the volume of its yells, the creature began to move, going into a sprint as it began to run through the forest. Upon entering another clearing though, it tripped over a twig, falling over near a body of water. Upon picking itself up, a stunned look swept over its face as it looked into its reflection. His eyes were green, his hair was light brown, and his skin was light. He was wearing a green hoodie, black hand gloves, greyish blue pants, and black shoes. A mask was positioned on the side of his face, and upon taking it off, he noticed the familiar smile imprinted on the front.

“T-This… this can’t be real…” The figure said, looking at the mask while trying to remember his name. What was it? Clay? No… wait… was it? Another name appeared in his head, feeling more natural. It was-

“Dream…. Dream! Where are you!?”

Another voice began to shout nearby him. The young green-hooded man spun around, soon seeing another person running towards him. He had brown hair and light skin. His shirt was light blue with a red and white rectangle in the middle, dark blue pants, and black shoes. A pair of goggles sat in front of the newcomer’s eyes. For a moment the two stood still, studying each other, trying to recognize each other, before the realization kicked in and they raced towards one another, hugging one another in joy.

“George!”

“Dream! You’re here!” George yelled in excitement, glad to see his best friend again. George began to look around as he noticed something off. “Hey Dream! Where’s Sapnap? Bad? Ant?” George asked, looking around. Before Dream could respond they heard another voice.

“Over here, guys!”

The two men turned around to see another figure approaching him. His hair and eyes were black, and he had a darker skin tone. He wore a white headband around his head, a white shirt with a fireball symbol, black pants, and checkerboard-patterned shoes. Immediately the two men recognized the newcomer, smiling at him.

“Sapnap! You’re here!” George said as he rushed towards him and extended his hand towards their friend. Sapnap simply raised an eyebrow at him and began to laugh a bit.

“What. No hug for me?” Sapnap asked jokingly, extending his arms outward. George let out an embarrassed laugh as the two friends hugged each other as well. “Good to see you too Dream,” Sapnap said as he looked at the green hooded figure.

“You too Sapnap. Where’s Bad and Ant though? Have you seen them?” Dream asked Sapnap, who shook his head.

“They must be in another area, but they’re bound to show up,” Sapnap said until they heard a bush nearby shaking. The trio of friends began to walk towards it and looked quizzically at the bush until suddenly two figures popped out from it.

“SURPRISE!”

“GAH!”

The trio of friends suddenly screamed in terror as they saw what seemed to be a literal demon from hell popping from the bush. The creature wore a black and red hoodie with grey gloves and had a literal spear-like tail coming from the back. He also wore a halo on top of his head. The creature behind him seemed to be a light brownish anthropomorphic cat, but the three were too distracted to notice him. The trio was simply terrified at the ‘demon’ in front of them until it let out a familiar voice.

“Heh. Got ya, you three muffin heads.” The demon-like creature said, letting out a laugh. The trio of friends looked in shock before letting out one name.

“Bad!?”

“What’s up everybody! Like my new look?” BadBoyHalo asked, smirking at the three men who were still reeling from the shock. Upon hearing no response from Dream, George, or Sapnap, Bad simply sighed. “Huh. I think I probably scared you a little too much.” The demon-like figure said, before turning towards the anthropomorphic cat. “You still have issues getting used to that form Ant?” Bad asked, to which the furry creature frowned, clearly displeased with its new form.

“Yes.” Ant responded with a dull expression, crossing its arms as it looked at the ground in silence.

“Well keep getting used to that form. Because I think I know what’s happening to us. Any guesses?” The black-hooded figure asked Dream, Sapnap, and George, who slowly began to recover from their shock.

“I… uhm… well considering that you two don’t look like that in real life… I presume we’re in a… a videogame?” Sapnap guessed, to which BadBoyHalo smiled.

“You’re correct Sapnap! And since these are the avatars we use in Minecraft, we must be in VR Minecraft!” Bad yelled, before facing Dream and smiling. “I guess the little program you found worked!”

“I’m not so sure about that. These trees… they don’t look like regular Minecraft trees.” Sapnap muttered out loud as he examined one of the nearby trees. Its trunk looked like it would’ve belonged to the Warped Forest Biome in the Nether, however, its leaves meant that it was from the ‘Overworld’.

“It’s probably a texture pack that this game can use,” BadBoyHalo explained, causing Ant to speak up.

“Is this even a game? Like this feels much more realistic than a regular VR headset. Like if this was a VR game, wouldn’t we be able to quit when we want simply by taking off the headset?” Ant asked, demonstrating his reasoning by trying to take off an invisible headset, which would’ve caused his avatar to disappear, but there was no headset, to begin with, and thus Ant remained with them still. The rest looked at Bad for answers, who shifted nervously as he tried to find an answer.

“Well then… uh…” The demon-like figure began to ponder on Ant’s logical question, before coming up with a solution. “Ah! I know! It’s like in the ‘Matrix’! We’re just plugged into a video game, and I’m sure that when we finish our objectives here we’ll be able to return home.”

“Then what would be our objective then?” George asked BadBoyHalo. Before the black-hooded figure could respond, Sapnap suddenly pointed into the distance, screaming.

“Look out!”

The five of them turned around to see a monstrous creature stepping out of another bush. It had the head of a white chicken, yet the rest of it was replaced with the tail of a snake, while also sporting green sickly wings. Sapnap’s shouting had caused the hybrid to turn around, revealing its red eyes. And it immediately began to run towards them.

“It’s a cockatrice! Everybody run!” BadBoyHalo yelled as the five of them began to run through the thickness of the forest, the cockatrice in hot pursuit. As they continued to run through the dark biome, Sapnap suddenly had an idea and began to laugh. “What’s so funny!?” Bad yelled at the black-haired person who continued to smile.

“You cursed Bad!” Sapnap jokes, causing the rest of their companions to laugh along with him. It took Bad a few seconds to understand what Sapnap was implying, and he immediately frowned.

“I did not!”

“Yes, you did!”

“DID NOT”

“DID TOO!”

“WELL, IT’S NOT THE TIME THEN SAPNAP!”

“Guys! Look out!” George yelled as he, Dream, and Ant pulled on Sapnap and BadBoyHalo’s clothing, saving their lives as the two arguing people realized that they were on the ledge of a cliff. The two arguing players had not realized that they were about to fall, and while it didn’t look steep enough to kill them through fall damage, none of them were keen to find out how realistic this ‘game’ they were playing was.

“Thanks… but the cockatrice is now going to corner us!” BadBoyHalo yelled. Sure enough, said creature sprung out behind them, staring at Ant with its red eyes. The anthro cat saw nothing out of the ordinary until he looked down.

“My legs!” Ant yelled as did the rest when they noticed Ant’s furry legs had begun to turn into stone. The petrification was rapid, with stone quickly covering his waist, stomach, chest, and arms, leaving just his head which was also rapidly turning into a statue. “HELP!” Ant yelled as now half of his face was becoming petrified. Dream spun around towards Sapnap and pointed at the cockatrice.

“Roast him Sapnap!” Dream yelled. It took Sapnap only a few moments to remember a memory from long ago, when he, Dream, and George were playing a challenge video in Minecraft where they could only see one chunk. The black-haired man grinned as he pulled some black sunglasses onto his eyes, held up his hand near his mouth as if he was using a microphone, and stared at the cockatrice as he began to shout at it.

“YOU’RE UGLY YOU’RE DUMB YOU’RE STUPID YOU’RE SMALL”

As Sapnap began to throw hurtful words after hurtful words, the cockatrice’s morale began to drastically lower. Even when it tried to petrify Sapnap as well, his word severely injured the hybrid emotionally, especially when it was being called ‘Ugly’ and ‘Stupid’. George quickly joined with Sapnap in roasting the poor animal that by the time they ran out of ideas to call the cockatrice it was crying. Ant’s body was no longer petrified, and while he felt he should be celebrating, he felt bad for the cockatrice. Suddenly Sapnap closed in on the chicken with a grin.

“LET’S BURN HIM!” Sapnap and George yelled as George picked up two stones from the ground and struck them against each other. A spark was activated, touching the cockatrice and causing it to catch on fire, much to the two’s glee.

“YEEEEEEEES!” Sapnap yelled in victory.

“Kill him Sapnap kill him!” George yelled out as the cockatrice began to run around the forest, trying to find a source of water to put out the flames. Grabbing a rock from the ground, Sapnap threw it at the chicken hybrid, the pebble head-shooting the chicken and making it drop unconscious, leaving it to burn until its health dropped towards 0 and becoming dust and ash.

“Was that necessary?” BadBoyHalo asked as George and Sapnap began to cheer as they continued to roast the now ‘cooked’ chicken.

“I know it was trying to turn me into a statue… but I have to agree with Bad… you kind of pushed it too far.” Ant said, frowning at Sapnap, before realizing something and causing his frown to become even more pronounced. “But then considering that you killed everybody’s pet in the Dream SMP and also killed Dream’s pet parrot in the last Manhunt we did… it’s not a real surprise anymore.” Ant said, causing Dream to have flashbacks to when he lost Spirit, a horse he loved in the Dream SMP, the unnamed parrot that was shot by Sapnap in their last game, and another parrot that he lost when it collided with an ice block. Dream immediately frowned but kept it to himself. Instead, he decided to change the subject, since he felt the direction they were going was starting to become… uncomfortable to say the least.

“Say Bad. How did you know that it was a cockatrice in the first place?” Dream asked, to which Bad both smiled and frowned at the same time.

“Well, me and Skeppy were playing RLCraft as part of a youtube video, and let me tell you, it was not fun. We died so many times without making any progression, and while I don’t think we encountered a cockatrice in that video, I did some research and it turns out it does spawn in RLCraft. Don’t remember which biome, but this kind of proves my point that we’re in a VR Game of Minecraft.” BadBoyHalo said, smiling. “See! Told you I was right!” Dream and the rest simply nodded at his exclamation.

“I think we were talking about objectives before right?” George asked, to which the rest confirmed by nodding. “What would it be then?” The blue-shirted male asked. The group of five friends began to think until Dream came up with the answer.

“Defeating the Ender Dragon. When the Ender Dragon is defeated, the exit portal would appear, and thus our ticket out of this game.” Dream said, and the rest nodded in agreement until Sapnap had his idea.

“But wait! The owner of this pack said that it was for Manhunts as well! So apart from defeating the Ender Dragon, killing Dream might be the best option! It’d be the quickest way out of here!” Sapnap yelled out to the rest. Bad, George and Ant nodded in agreement as well, seeing Sapnap’s thinking.

“Yeah, that could work! We just have to kill Dream- wait where’s Dream?” George asked as the rest looked around their surroundings until BadBoyHalo noticed Dream far into the distance who was singing/yelling a line.

“Running away I’m running away!”

“He’s getting away! Guys let’s go get him!” Bad yelled as he went into a sprint, the rest of them following in pursuit of Dream.

And thus the Manhunt officially began its first phase with the Hunters chasing Dream through the thickness of the forest.

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Author's Note

Warning: The following chapter contains some disturbing scenes. It is advised to understand that while Manhunts are written in a fun and exciting way from Dream's perspective, there's more than one side to the story. The final scene is designed to depict a moment of terror and fear. Because unlike Dream or the Hunters, who view everything here as a game, and to us who view this as a fictional story, everything that occurs here to the 'third-party' is real.

And thus, the final scene is meant to show what this 'third-party' thinks whenever something like this occurs. An acknowledgment of their point of view. Such a scene may or may not occur again, though an attempt will be made to make sure it occurs as little as possible should it be the case.

This scene was a byproduct of trying to pack as much emotional charge into the story, as you can see from the numbers. During any video, Dream adds on music to create an atmosphere, and today I'll be attempting to do the same. Every single time a number appears, it's recommended to press/click the number in the Authors Notes to create the atmosphere. It's not necessary (and when it comes to the final scene it makes things more scarier), but it's helpful to know what the atmosphere is. If it says 'pause', pause the video where it is and jump right back to it when it says 'resume'. 'Commence' and 'End' are self-explanatory.

This is an experimental test to see if adding music to the story is a good idea or ends up being a lengthy process. So comment down below if this works, though I'm expecting PC users to have an easier time as they could open the links in other tabs. I tried to time beat drops and endings of songs to the text, but it also depends on how slow/fast a reader can read, so I'm interested to hear the results.

I'm sorry if this chapter causes discomfort. This story is meant for 13+ audiences, unlike MLP's 6+ audiences. But then yet again, if you think about it, if somebody were to set eternal night and you knew that it would cause famines that would ultimately kill everyone on the planet, you'd be full of fear. The same thought process of realism will take place in the final scene.

So take a seat. This story, just like Manhunt, is a Thriller. So don't be surprised if you find yourself on a rollercoaster of emotions.

Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety.

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(7)/(7)/(7)

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Chapter 3: The Murder

Commence (1) -

“Oh Dream~...”

“C’mon we just want to talk.”

“LEAVE ME ALONE!”

The sound of heavy footsteps echoed through the forest as Dream continued to run through the dense vegetation of the Everfree Forest. Close on his tail was George, Sapnap, Bad, and Ant, also known as the Hunters, who showed no signs of stopping the chase.

“We just wanna talk Dream,” Sapnap said as he was the closest behind the green-hooded person. Ducking under a branch, Dream immediately pulled it back before letting it go, causing Sapnap to slide on the ground to dodge it. George though, who was behind Sapnap, did not see the branch coming and thus felt it slamming against him.

“OW! My face!” George yelled as he collapsed onto the ground, momentarily dazed. Ant, who was behind George, immediately tripped over George’s leg, causing the anthropomorphic cat to take a hit and roll onto the ground. Bad managed to jump over the two and continue the chase along with Sapnap.

“Dream! You’re making this much more difficult than it needs to be! We just need to kill you and we’ll return home!” The demon-like creatures yelled as he dodged another branch that had been pulled by Dream.

“No! Leave me alone!” Dream yelled with desperation, turning his frightened gaze at them for just a second. This turned out to be a mistake as when they went into a clearing, Dream turned around and saw that he had only a few feet left before he would fall into a massive gorge, which contained a toxic goo pit at the bottom. He was running too fast to slow down, not that he could with the hunters chasing him. Luckily there seemed to be some stone platforms ahead to jump on, however they seemed incredibly unstable. Taking a deep breath and an incredible risk, Dream leaped forward onto the first stone platform, and like expected it began to fall downwards due to the sudden change in balance.

“He’s getting away!” Sapnap yelled as he tried to follow Dream, only for Bad to pull him back just in time, as the platform that the fire-shirted hunter had targeted soon collapsed into the toxic pit.

“We’re going to have to take the long route.” Bad muttered, before turning his gaze to Ant and George who were slowly arriving. Bad smiled at each of his companions as he formulated a plan. “Hey Ant! You get us some resources while me, Sapnap, and George pin him down ok?” The black-hooded figure asked. Ant nodded as he walked towards the nearest tree.

“Alright!” The anthropomorphic cat said before blinking in realization. “Wait… this is going to hurt me ri-”

“Just do it already Ant!” George yelled at the furry figure, causing Ant to let out a sigh of resignation before pulling his hand back.

“This is going to hurt.” He muttered to himself, and against his better judgment, punched the tree.

Pause (1) -

Commence & End (2) -

Resume (1) -

“Oh dear…” Bad silently said to himself as they all heard the earth-shattering scream. “Ugh. Should’ve told him that in RLCraft you can’t punch trees.” The demon figure said as he and Sapnap took the long route, with George following behind them. Sapnap simply raised an eyebrow at Bad after hearing his muttering.

“Seriously Bad?”

“What? I thought we’d still be able to punch trees like in Minecraft!” Bad protested, trying to defend himself from Sapnap who simply rolled his eyes as they continued to run.

“You just said a while ago that the cockatrice came from RLCraft which implies that things here are going to be much more realistic than in Minecraft. Speaking of Minecraft, I don’t know how we’re going to open up our interface to craft and swap tools.” Sapnap stated.

“Pin Dream first, worry about getting wood, crafting, and whatnot later. We usually end up finding a village anyways, and if getting wood is impossible at this point, then all we have to do is find a village with a blacksmith and then kill Dream after he runs out of hunger. Speaking of him, where did he go?” Bad asked as they looked at the gorge and falling stone pillars, only to see Dream barely hanging onto one. The scream had disoriented Dream long enough to cause him to trip, and now he was holding on for dear life on a very unstable platform, with the toxic pit below him.

“Yes! Die Dream die!” Sapnap yelled as he and Bad stopped running to focus on seeing Dream struggling to get back up. George, who was right behind them, smiled as he saw their target slowly losing his grip.

“Yes yes yes yes! Sapnap! Throw a pebble at him or something!” George yelled, causing Sapnap to grin as the light-blue-shirted figure handed him some stones that were on the ground.

“One pebble coming right up!” Sapnap yelled as he pulled his arm back before throwing the pebble high into the sky. As it began to fall in an arc, it hit the platform Dream was hanging onto, the force and extra weight from the small stone being enough to cause the unstable platform to fall forward, bringing Dream down with it.

“YES!” The hunters yelled as they heard Dream’s desperate cries as he fell with the platform until he eventually disappeared.

“Welp. That was easy.” Sapnap said as George began to compliment on his throwing skills. Ant soon came up crawling towards them, his hand swollen from punching the tree.

“Ow… ow ow ow ow… Ow…” The anthropomorphic cat continued to let out painful sighs before completely collapsing onto his stomach. “I-I think my scream distracted him enough to fall towards his death right?” Ant asked hopefully, smiling when he saw the hunters nod at him. “Good. I-I’m going to sleep now.” The brown cat said before falling into a deep sleep. The hunters began to celebrate their quick victory, except for Bad, who felt something was off.

“Wait… why didn’t the game end already? Is there a way to read chat?” The demon-like figure asked, to which Sapnap and George responded with a shrug. “Then how do we know that Dream isn’t-”

Before Bad could finish his sentence, a massive pop sound shook the air as they saw a green-hooded figure being shot high into the air. Looking over the edge, they saw the remnants of an air bubble condense back into the toxic pit, which could only mean one thing.

“Dang it! Of course, he was lucky enough to land on one of those bubbles and get shot right back into the air!” Bad yelled out as he and the hunters looked back up into the air to try and find where Dream was. While they couldn’t see where their target was, they certainly could see the tips of some buildings nearby. “Wait, guys! There’s a village there! He’s going to go to that village! We have to get there first!” Bad yelled as he and the other two hunters picked themselves and ran towards the general direction of the buildings, leaving Ant alone to rest.

High in the air, the Speedrunner looked around its surroundings as the force that had propelled it upwards continued to push him higher and higher. Suddenly realizing that he’ll need to find a safe area to drop to or he’ll die of fall damage, Dream looked around and was surprised to see a village nearby. But tools and armor would be pointless if he died, and thus it was to his relief when he saw that the roof of the village was coated with hay. Taking his chances, Dream extended his body just when the propelling force below him was turned down, and soon he began to fall towards the ground. Barely gliding over the forests, fear overtook him as he was now above the town. Would it be enough to break his fall? Taking a deep breath, he prepared himself by positioning himself feet-first above a building, closing his eyes as he prepared for the possible shock he’ll receive due to the extreme pain he’ll go through.

End (1) -

Commence (3) -

The moment his feet touched the ceiling it immediately caved in, causing Dream to continue falling into the building. By sheer luck though, the building turned out to be where the town kept its wheat, and the green-hooded figure soon fell into the piles of hay. That didn’t mean that he was free of pain though. His legs suddenly felt numb as did the rest of his body. A wave of pain signals swept through his system, causing him to release a cry that was drastically reduced as his body soon went into shock. Barely pulling himself out of the piles of hay, he began to crawl towards the door. He was unaware of the fact that if he had been shot into the sky a second longer, his legs would’ve completely shattered, which would have resulted in his death. But just because he was spared of such fate didn’t mean that he was in a better position. Though his mind was now being clouded by the shock, Dream knew that he was in pain, tremendous amounts. If he was going to have any chance of surviving against the hunters, he would have to find something to beat them back.

Using a nearby hay bale to prop him up, Dream slowly opened the door, giving himself time to reposition himself so that he wouldn’t fall. Taking a look at his surroundings, Dream noticed several things. For starters, there was the shadow of a massive city hanging on a mountainside far in the distance. Next was a barn, which overlooked the town he was in by being positioned on a nearby hill. Both options seemed great to potentially go into, however they were also far away, which meant they were out of the question for the nearly crippled person that he was.

“Where can I go… where can I go?” Dream thought to himself as he looked around, only to find a massive castle made out of pure crystal, with a banner extending high into the sky. A crystal star was positioned upwards from the castle as well, and many of its non-crystal features were made out of gold or were coated with it at least. And it was very close, as the house that Dream crashed into just so happened to be the closest one to the castle. But even so, Dream knew that with his nearly crippled legs the journey might take forever. But he also knew that if he didn’t go now, the hunters might arrive first, and while they might not find him at first, they’ll definitely check the castle and all the potential loot inside.

“Better get in that castle and loot it before they do…” Dream thought to himself as he began to use the wall to slide himself closer to the castle. When the edge he was sliding against was finished, he took a deep breath before falling on all fours, slowly crawling himself towards the castle. It easily took 10 minutes to reach the door, but by the time he reached the gates, he was pleased with himself. A few steps more and he’ll be inside.

“Wait! I think I see Dream! And he looks pretty injured!” A voice yelled out. Dream spun around and to his horror, he saw three figures coming right at him. Even though they were pretty far away, he could tell that they were most likely Sapnap, George, and Bad. They were still hunting him, and they wanted to kill him. Limping away, Dream opened the door. Barely fitting inside, Dream slammed the door shut and locked, just when one of the hunters slammed themselves into the door.

“OW! My shoulder!” Bad yelled in pain, holding himself in pain.

“Don’t worry, he’s limping, he must be low on health. Let’s try to find an entrance to this place.” Sapnap said as he looked up to one of the nearby windows. “You think what I’m thinking George?” The fire-shirted person asked with a grin. George simply smiled.

“Let’s get in through that window!” The blue-shirted figure said as he, Sapnap, and Bad began to work together to try to reach and break the nearby window.

Meanwhile, Dream was slowly limping through the castle grounds, looking for anything that could be of use. Food, Weapons, Armor, just about anything could be useful, but the castle was much bigger on the inside than outside. Even after searching for various minutes, each one being another moment where the hunters could break-in, things didn’t seem to improve.

For a moment Dream thought about giving up. There were just no other options. He was at his limit, his entire body was aching from pain, and upon hearing the sound of glass cracking, he only knew he was delaying the inevitable.

“Just one more door… if this fails… then I’m screwed…” Dream thought as he limped towards another door. Its contents would decide his entire fate and whether or not he would survive. Closing his eyes, Dream pushed the door open just when he heard the glass shatter.

“Oh Dream~! We’re coming to get you~!” The sound of George’s taunts echoed through the castle, only to be muted the moment Dream closed the door behind him, his eyes still closed. Taking a deep breath, he opened them, only to have the most happiest shock in his life.

Pause (3) -

Commence (4)

“YES! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!” Dream cried out in pure happiness as he just examined what his eyes were seeing. It didn’t matter if the hunters heard him anymore, they were already screwed before they knew it. In front of him was an armor set made out of pure diamonds, along with various tools out of similar quality. Opening up various chests he found was tons of food, iron, diamonds, gold, and a few healing potions scattered around. The only logical answer as to why there was so much stuff here was that this was the armory and it specifically held all the loot in this castle. Immediately grabbing the chest plate, a familiar GUI appeared in front of him, with nine empty slots. The moment he slipped the chest plate on him, another GUI appeared, this time with his inventory slot, 2x2 crafting area, and his armor slots, one of them being occupied by the diamond chest plate. Pulling a potion from one of the chests, he was able to identify it as a Regeneration II potion, which he immediately drank. His health bar flicked for a moment before fading away, which kind of made sense given that he’s not supposed to normally know how much damage he received, the only indicator being the actual pain.

“Oh dear, Dream found some stuff, should we go in?” George asked from the other side of the door.

“Even if he got armor, it’ll be pointless considering he probably took a lot of fall damage. Let’s go get him!” Bad yelled as he slammed himself into the door, only to yelp in pain. “ACK! Now my other shoulder hurts!”

“Leave it to the professionals Bad,” Sapnap said as he cracked his knuckles and neck, before pulling his arm back. With a firm punch, the door came down, but so did their hopes as they saw Dream, clothed with a full set of diamond gear, looking perfectly healthy, and with a diamond sword in his grip.

“Oh guys~! Come out to play~!” Dream said with a soft but menacing voice. The hunters could take it and they immediately began to run away, jumping out of the window they broke into, not caring about the soft pain they felt upon falling onto the ground. Their top priority right now was to run away.

End (4) -

Commence (5) -

Past a long bridge over a small lake stood the gigantic building known as the School of Friendship. While today was the day off with the teachers being absent, that didn’t mean that it was empty. In front of the school grounds was a peculiar group of six students who were currently eating their lunch.

“So it’s been like a year I believe since we’ve quote on quote ‘graduated’ from The School of Friendship, am I right?” A blue griffon with yellow feather tips asked, laughing as he knew what he said was untrue.

“Well, Twilight did say that one semester wasn’t enough. Not that I’m complaining considering we’ll be with each other for a few more years.” A light green earth pony remarked, chuckling at the griffon’s rhetorical question.

“Even if we did graduate after saving Equestria from Cozy Glow, I bet we’d still stay together, just with more time being spent talking with each other rather than studying.” An orange female dragon with purple spikes said.

“Yonna agree. School of Friendship is very nice. Would not leave it nor Yona’s friends!” A brown yak with two pink bows said, stomping her feet on the ground.

“The School of Friendship will always be my favorite place! There are stairs! Straws! Stairs! Friends! Did I say stairs already?” A pink hippogriff asked, much to her friends’ amusement.

“Yes, you did Silverstream.” A cyan changeling said before pulling up a rather large book. “Anyways, who’s ready for the upcoming semester test. Gallus?”

“Sort of.” The griffon said, waving his claw around. “Honestly I find it a bit hilarious when you guys were rather surprised when I quote Chapter 12 from Twilight’s class all those years ago. Close second to that day was when we tried to skip class. Right Sandbar?” Gallus asked as he turned to the green pony.

“Yeah. I think when Ocellus turned into Rarity and did an impression of her was my highlight of the day.” Sandbar said as he pointed to the changeling, causing her to blush a bit from the compliment.

“Well, changelings are good at mimicking other creatures in terms of appearances, but it kind of gets harder if you don’t know how your target acts.” Ocellus noted before turning to the orange dragon. “How about you Smolder? Are you ready for the test?”

“Same level of preparedness as Gallus I guess,” Smolder said, stretching her wings from time to time. “How about you two?” The dragon asked Yona and Silverstream.

“Yona always prepared to smash the test!”

“Same level as Yona I guess!” The hippogriff squealed in delight. “So what do you want to do?” Silverstream asked in excitement.

“I guess we could go to Sugarcube Corner to get some cupcakes.” Gallus offered. “How does that sound?”

“Nice!”

“Great!”

“Yona likes cupcakes!”

“Yay! Cupcakes!”

“Alright!” The other five said. There was no denying that the sweets in that pastry were one of the best. While they wouldn’t deny that their food from their cultures was good, nothing could beat the food served in that store.

“Welp it’s a deal! Cupcakes here we come!” Gallus exclaimed as the six students began to walk towards the main center of Ponyville, only to hear some disturbing sounds of laughter, screams, and things clanging against each other. “Uh… what’s that noise?” The griffon asked. The rest simply shrugged as they hid in the corner of a nearby house and peered around it.

End (5) -

Commence (6) -

“Oh come here, guys!”

To the six student’s shock, they saw a green-hooded figure with diamond armor running through the streets with a diamond sword in hand. They could also three see figures ahead of the chaser who were screaming and running in fear and terror.

“Please… Please! Leave us alone!” One of the figures yelled as he tripped over a crate, destroying it and spilling its contents. Apples scattered around the floor, but it didn’t deter the diamond-geared maniac from chasing them.

An orange suddenly flew through the skies and hit the armored figure straight in the face, causing him to turn around while putting up a mask, which deflected the second incoming orange.

“You got nowhere to run~!” The masked figure said with a malicious voice, causing a black-hooded person to drop the third orange he held and turn away into a sprint. Seeing that they were getting out of their view, the Student Six moved to the corner of a different house to see what was occurring.

“Why are we doing nothing guys? Shouldn’t we, IDK, report this to the princess?” Sandbar asked, to which Smoulder shrugged.

“This is kind of normal for me, considering how chaotic things are in the Dragon Lands. Though I agree that something needs to be done.” The dragon replied before turning to Silverstream, Ocellus, and Yona. “You three can go ahead to warn the professors. Me and Gallus can stay behind. We’ve seen these types of events frequently in our lands. Right Gallus?”

“Yep. Griffonstone isn’t the best place around, and you usually see many street fights occur there. This is normal to me, even though I do admit this is kind of disturbing. But we have to stay to know what’s going to happen here and where that masked figure is going. If he’s a threat we’ll likely need to know his positioning once he… deals with those three… so we’ll have to stay.” Gallus said, before turning to Sandbar. “Your choice if you want to stay or not.”

“I… I think I’ll be staying here in case he decides to attack you guys. Even though you two are already strong by yourself, your attacks are based on slashes, which I doubt would work effectively against an armored person. Yona would’ve been the best in the case of brute force, but…” Sandbar turned around only to see that Yona, Silverstream, and Ocellus had already gone to report to the authorities. “... well she already left, and I wouldn’t want to put her in danger, so I guess I will have to do.” The earth pony said.

“Well, just warning you that things might become bloody soon,” Gallus said as he, Smoulder, and Sandbar proceeded to move to a different house to spy on what was occurring.

“You got nowhere to hide!” The green-hooded figure yelled as he slashed his sword, slicing one of the figure’s arms and causing it to bleed. With pain being the only thing on its mind, the figure yelped as he soon fell onto the ground, crying in pain.

“I think you’ll have to look away, Sandbar,” Smolder said, no longer able to hold up a poker face. Now she had become extremely worried, and the sight only filled her with guilt. “I think we should’ve gone ahead to save them… but I think this… thing… far exceeds our capabilities… perhaps all of us staying together would’ve been the best choice.”

“Yeah, and blast this thing with the Elements of Harmony. But even if we could theoretically take him on ourselves, I don’t think we’d make a dent in his armor.” Gallus said while making a fist with his claw. They should’ve just all stayed around, but he also didn’t want to have his other friends see what he'd seen so many times. It just felt wrong to him, but now it seemed it was going to be a terrible mistake. He turned around and saw Sandbar looking extremely nervous, looking away from the scene. “Cover your ears to bud. Cause you’ll be hearing-”

End (6) -

Resume (3) -

Before the blue griffon could even finish his sentence, they heard an air-shattering scream, which shook everyone to their core as they heard the pain and agony transferred within it. Smoulder and Gallus looked aghast as they saw that the masked figure had done it. A sword was embedded deep into his prey, and out of the corner of his mask, the two could see a sickening grin as the armored figure began to twist the sword inside. By the time his other two prey arrived in the fallen one’s defense, they could see that he was already dead.

“He’s dead!” One of them panicked out loud, before gasping in fear, as he saw an arrow pointed straight towards him. “Uhm… look here! We can talk this out-” He never got a chance to finish as an arrow was suddenly embedded into his chest, killing him on the spot and causing his corpse to fall backward.

“So are you.” The masked person said, looking at the final standing figure. A tense moment passed, before the last one suddenly clutched his chest, which had been sliced, blood already leaking out. A gust of wind suddenly formed, and it was clear that the armored person had swiftly struck the last target so fast that it went unperceived until it was too late. The final figure began to trip backward, before falling onto the ground, and in an instant, their bodies suddenly turned into dust.

“Oh… my…” The two students couldn’t believe their eyes. He had… done it… he had killed them in cold blood… No… they needed to run! If he had no mercy on these three and easily struck them down, what would occur if he spotted the-

Their sudden movement to back away from the hooded figure suddenly caused him to spin around, sword in hand and barely poking Gallus’s neck. The griffon’s eyes teared up from the pressure of the sword on his neck. Would this be it? Would this be the way he’ll go?

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!”

The armored figure suddenly began to trip backward when Sandbar, out of sheer desperation and anger from seeing Gallus being threatened, kicked the armored figure straight in the stomach, and while the armor protected him, his kick still caused a tremendous amount of knockback. Seeing an opportunity, Smoulder flew up to the figure and shot out flame after flame of fireballs from her mouth, many of them missing but still causing the figure to back away. Eventually, though, their energy was rapidly exhausted, causing them to pant and become tired. Would this be their final moments?

The sound of grass being disturbed got closer, and they nearly felt a gaze looking down at them. They all closed their eyes. If they were to go, well, at least they’ll be going together. Then suddenly there was nothing. They heard nothing. They felt nothing. They saw nothing. Somehow, they knew that they were still alive, as they were still breathing, and their hearts still pounding. But the only thing that they began to hear, was this:

End (3) -

Commence & End (7) -

リ𝙹ʖ𝙹↸||

Author's Note

Hello everybody!

I honestly felt that this chapter gave me the most difficulty, I just couldn't find a good entrance, and even now I think it has some pretty weak points. It honestly could be better in an edit, but for now, this shall do. Though I have to admit, this might be my most weakest chapter. I hope to improve things in the future though. It's just that it was hard to tackle this. I think I redid this chapter three times.

I think more interesting scenes should come in the future. But right now it's just developing the beginning which is getting me. But that's how a good story starts off good. The beginning. I hope the last part makes sense as does the entirety of this chapter. Might end up slowing down production speed so that I can have more time organizing the chapters. Cause I felt this chapter was the most messy one.

If you guys have any tips, tell them to me. Like if a chapter could/should be split in two and expanded, grammar and story errors, etc.

Thank you for all of your support! We hit 110 likes right now! Let's keep soaring through the skies!

リ𝙹ʖ𝙹↸||

Chapter 4: Nobody

“We’ve arrived at Ponyville. Enjoy your stay, happen, Princess!”

As the conductor waved them off the train before pulling away from the station, Twilight Sparkle and her friends began to survey their surroundings. Ponyville, the town that they had called home for years, appeared empty. Tumbleweeds bounced through the deserted streets, and a cold drift of air swept through the land.

“What happened here?” Twilight asked out loud, feeling a sense of dread. The party of six began to walk through the main street, the only sound being silence.

“Maybe everybody’s waiting to host a party for us!” Pinkie Pie said enthusiastically, bouncing alongside her friends while holding up a cyan balloon. “I hope whoever planned the party did it well! Do you think it will be Cheese Sandwich? It’d be so fun to see him again!” The pink mare had a grin that stretched from ear to ear. Nobody commented on how Pinkie Pie seemed to be crushing on the party stallion. Given the current atmosphere they were in, there was no time to open a discussion about it. The air just felt… wrong to them. Almost foreign, as if something very corrupted and dark had occurred in their home.

Then, they felt and heard the noise.

Commence (1) “But Nobody Came” Creepy Ambient Remix (13+) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hzO_W6mgzA&t=22s&ab_channel=NickNitro

The eerie silence, the lack of life, the feeling of desperation, and the faint whisper of a line of words they couldn’t hear, all of it along other things swept through their minds, causing the six to freeze instantly, literally for Pinkie as she was frozen midair in one of her jumps.

“I’m scared…” Fluttershy whispered in fright, her body trembling as their pace began to drastically slow down. Their bodies pressed against each other, to make sure nothing crept behind them. Rainbow and Applejack had their fists ready to punch while Rarity and Twilight had their magic prepared.

“Girls, if something bad occurs, we’ll have to work together. Our magic reservoirs are still weak after the magical feedback, and we don’t know how physically strong this potential threat can be. So everypony, keep your guard up.” Twilight said out loud, a hint of fear in her voice. Rainbow Dash grinned at her though.

“Don’t worry Twi! I think I alone can handle the threat, and with all of us combined, nothing can stop us!” The cyan pegasi said, lifting Twilight’s hand in the air as a sign of victory. The Princess of Friendship smiled as she lowered her hand.

“Thanks Rainbow. I just want to take precautions, that’s all.” Twilight said before she suddenly felt as if she bumped into somebody. Her body immediately stepped back, which left her knocking into her friends and causing all of them to fall onto the hard ground. When Twilight looked up, all she could see was a masked figure staring right down at her. The eyes of the painted face turned red as the static only increased in sound. It was becoming louder, louder, even louder as the figure began to shorten the distance between them. Her body suddenly tense up, her mind was going into a frenzy. Fear, just unexplainable fear, controlled every fiber of her body. The thought of dying suddenly passed through her head, it was nearly crippling. She closed her eyes, expecting the worst.

Then, before what she feared could occur, the sounds suddenly vanished, along with the presence of being stared down. Opening up her eyes, she realized that the figure, he was just gone. Disappeared without a trace. Twilight immediately lifted herself, just in time to hear her friends groaning in pain as they began to rise.

“Ugh… my head… what just happened?” Applejack asked, her cowboy hat having tipped in front of her face. She soon fixed it before helping Rarity up by grabbing her by the arm.

“T-Thanks darling… I… I don’t know what happened… but… it felt terrifying!” The white unicorn exclaimed, her body shaking in fear. Fluttershy wasn’t in a better condition compared to her, her body completely frozen in fear, making her unable to get up. It wasn’t until Rarity began to softly tap her shoulder when Fluttershy began to respond, and even then she had trouble rising. She spoke no words, her face showed no expression. “Fluttershy, anything wrong?” Rarity asked, looking worried at their shy pegasi friend. Suddenly they heard Rainbow Dash yelling for them.

“Girls! Come here quick!” Rainbow Dash yelled out, flying in the air with her wings. Twilight and the rest immediately raced towards the speedster as Rainbow Dash continued to guide them through the town, through the narrow streets, until they eventually reached their destination. And immediately the rest let out gasps of fear and terror, as Twilight could only mutter a few words out loud.

“Oh… my… “

The purple alicorn was too shocked to even finish her sentence, shock gripping her soul as she looked in front and saw three of her former friendship students laying on the ground, their bodies twitching from time to time, but otherwise, their bodies showed no signs of life. Immediately Twilight rushed towards the nearest one, who was Gallus, and began to furiously try and jolt him conscious again.

“Gallus! Can you hear me!? It’s me! Twilight!” The Princess of Friendship yelled as she began to shake his body, softly slapping his face from time to time, and opening up his eyelids, only to gain no response. With the minor exception of his chest lifting and lower from time to time, which signaled his breathing, he would’ve otherwise passed off as dead.

“Any responses from the other two?” Applejack asked as she began to inspect Sandbar’s fallen body. Rainbow Dash, who was looking over Smolder, shook her head.

“Nothing. Other than some soft breaths and random twitching… I… I don’t know what happened!” Rainbow yelled out, flapping her wings as she began to lift herself into the air. “The only one who could do something like this would be King Sombra and his fear spell, and I don’t see any shadows. Heck, I don’t see any figure leaving this-”

Rainbow’s voice suddenly cut itself off as something clicked in her mind. Applejack and the rest looked at her with worry as her hands began to shake, forming into fists. A snarl appeared on her face as she began to float herself down, still in the air though, as if she was ready to take off.

“Rainbow! Did you figure out something?” The cowgirl asked the Wonderbolt member, who suddenly looked at her with a serious expression.

“It was him,” Rainbow said with a single sentence of silent anger.

“You mean the Mr. Masked Figure we saw before?” Pinkie Pie asked, looking up to Rainbow Dash. The cyan pegasi simply nodded silently.

Applejack suddenly pulled Rainbow towards the ground with a lasso, causing her to grunt in confusion as she tried to escape.

“Hey! What gives!?” Rainbow Dash yelled as she tried to escape from the tied piece of rope around her, but Applejack persisted in keeping her on the ground.

“I know that look! You were about to go after him weren’t you?” The cowgirl said, pulling as hard as she could, as Rainbow began to flap her wings fiercely, wind blowing into AJ’s face.

“Obviously! He hurt our friends! Look at them! They looked as if life had been sucked out of them! He needs to pay! He’s the threat! He’s the anomaly!” Rainbow yelled, her wings now flapping hard enough to reach a speed of a hundred miles if she was unbounded by the orange mare holding her.

“And he nearly knocked us off when we first came here! And he was going easy on us! If you go alone he can do the same thing he did to you, and we wouldn’t know where you’d be! What if you encounter him in the Everfree Forest and he knocks you out! You’d be at the mercy of all the creatures of the forest! I can’t let you leave and risk having you being eaten by a Timberwolf! Rainbow stop please!” Applejack yelled fiercely. Rainbow continued to struggle, but upon processing what her friend had said, her wings began to slow down, until she ultimately stayed on the ground, remaining silent.

“Twilight! What just happened!?” A new voice yelled out. The group of six friends turned around and saw a light purple unicorn with a dark purple mane approaching them at a fast pace. She wore a purple dress and had a set of glasses in front of her face. She looked at them with a face of worry, as she glanced towards the fallen students. Behind them were the familiar faces of Silverstream, Yona, and Ocellus, who went around her, before freezing and releasing gasps of shock as they saw their friends on the floor.

“Sandbar!”

“Gallus!”

“Smolder!”

The three girls tried to rush towards their fallen friends, but the light purple alicorn swiftly used her magic to hold them in place.

“Girls! You can’t go near them, otherwise you might hurt them.” The mare said, her eyes remaining fixed on Twilight, who sighed.

“Hey Starlight… I think it’s safe to say it would’ve been better to see each other in better circumstances…” The Princess of Friendship stated. The mare in question nodded solemnly.

“I heard what Silverstream, Yona, and Ocellus had to say. There was a brawl here, between a masked figure and three other creatures. Sandbar, Smolder, and Gallus stayed behind to see what would occur next, while these girls next to me went to find me to report what occurred. Soon after though… we heard a scream… I don’t know what occurred apart from what they told me, but seeing their friends on the ground… it was nothing good.” Starlight said, which made the ruler of Equestria shiver.

“Would murder fall into ‘nothing good’ or ‘extremely bad’?” Rainbow Dash asked, causing the rest to stare silently at her as Rainbow pointed towards something on the ground, a liquid that was spreading down the slope.

Blood.

“I… I think it doesn’t take a genius to guess what occurred to the three figures the students are mentioning.” Rainbow said, which prompted Twilight to tentatively ask the most logical question.

“Then… where are the bodies?” Twilight asked, which caused Rainbow’s eyes to dart around, looking for any sign of a blood trail, but finding none.

“I… I don’t know… but point is, things were violent enough for blood to be drawn. And… oh dear look at Gallus’s neck.” Rainbow said with a shocked face as she pointed at Gallus’s neck. A visible line of blood was slowly dripping from his neck, and immediately Twilight and Starlight cast their magic to make three stretchers.

“Hospital. Now.” Twilight ordered, her voice trembling. All of them who were present began to prop Smolder, Gallus, and Sandbar onto the stretchers, before carrying them away. “We need to give them medical treatment, fast. Especially to Gallus. We don’t know how deep that wound is. And for all we know… he could be… let’s not say that word right now…” Twilight said with dread. All she knew was that whoever was behind the masked face must be the culprit, otherwise, who would be?

Twilight began to think about the other villains she and her friends had faced in the path. Discord, the God of Chaos, was dangerous not because he killed, but because his chaotic actions simply caused mayhem. He just wanted to have fun, like an energetic child, without consequences, only that there was such a thing as consequences from them, but he didn’t realize it. If somebody stood in his way, he simply swayed them away, made a joke, maybe corrupt them, but never explicitly hurt them. Nightmare Moon was more brutal, attacking her sister, wanting to make the night eternal, trying to attack Twilight and such. But given the circumstances, everything can be passed off as desperation. Both Celestia and Twilight were obstacles to gaining what she thought would occur, adoration, by making the night eternal. Such action, if it ever did occur, would bring the horrible fate of the world slowly dying from hunger and coldness. But apparently, she never realized this, and if she did, she only cared about the ‘adoration’ she got from those near her. ‘The Ends Do Not Justify the Means’ is something Twilight began to realize when it came to each villain, but in the end, they always never went towards that final step. Chrysalis wanted to conquer Equestria because she wanted to gain love for her citizens to feed on, and when the Changelings changed, she was enraged because the ancient traditions of her kind were wiped and replaced by Equestrian ones. However, for the most part, she simply trapped ponies, she never killed them. Tirek was betrayed by his brother when he tried to impress his father by trying to take over the nation, and while he did attack brutally, he did so because his opponent was as strong as he was. It was just him and Twilight, and if anybody stood in their way, welp it was their fault if they got blown up. Any deaths would’ve been indirect and accidental in his case. Cozy Glow had misinterpreted what friendship was and given that she was a child, she couldn’t do much apart from manipulate everything. King Sombra, the worst when it comes to enslaving the Crystal Empire and trying to rule Equestria, did just that. Enslave. Nothing else. He used fear to sway others, and it seemed like he never killed. Pony of Shadows? Yeah, he just wanted recognition by the Pillars who misjudged him, and again, a youngster. Starlight? Misguided.

Twilight soon realized that unless she was missing key information, every single one of the villains they faced never killed anypony. Ever. They did some horrible stuff but never killed. Her friends could’ve been killed by the Legion of Doom when they were captured, but they never did. They just imprisoned them.

The mysterious masked figure though, scared Twilight. He showed no mercy and no hesitation to kill anybody. He was dangerous. He already killed three supposedly, knocked down her students, and nearly attacked them as well. Why didn’t he do the same thing to them as he did to the others? Hiding behind a mask certainly didn’t help him, as it all made it clearer that he was hiding something.

And with that something clicked into Twilight as she continued to haul the students on their stretchers. Something that she knew was dangerous, but if nothing else was done, worse could occur.

He needed to go to Tartarus.

∷ᒷ!¡ᒷ∷ᓵ⚍ᓭᓭ╎𝙹リᓭ

Author's Note

From now on I'll be trying to post new chapters every Wednesday. If for some reason I'm unable to post, then wait till next Wednesday, I'll try to do my best to stay consistent. Anyways, sit back and enjoy

∷ᒷ!¡ᒷ∷ᓵ⚍ᓭᓭ╎𝙹リᓭ

Chapter 5: Repercussions

Commence (1) On Queue 2

“Augh… my head… ack-! Nevermind it’s my hand…”

As the anthropomorphic cat known as AntFrost began to lift himself from the ground, a sudden ‘BOOM!’ shook the entire area, causing him to fall over. He let out a hiss injured hand found itself supporting his body weight, which caused a good amount of pain to enter his mind. Falling onto his back, the AntFrost began to take deep breaths as he tried to recall what had occurred a few moments ago. BadBoyHalo had asked him to punch a tree, and…

“Dang it Bad!” The cat yelled out into the heavens, cursing Bad internally for causing the pain he was feeling in his hand. The loud ‘BOOM!’ shook the area he was in again, making AntFrost more angrier than before. “Alright! NOW WHAT!?” The anthro creature yelled as he lifted himself back onto his feet, growling towards the source of the noise, when he found himself staring at the face of a serpent’s head, or rather, heads.

Taken aback at what he was seeing, Ant began to walk backward to get a better view, and doing so confirmed his worst fears. Standing in front of him were four long swampy-green snake-like heads, all connected to a single body. It was enormous, the size of a dinosaur, and it looked straight at him, which Ant could only deduce to one thing:

“I’m going to be his dinner soon if I don’t get out of here!” The anthro cat panicked, his eyes turning to pinpricks. Before the hydra could get any closer, Ant let out a scream of terror as he pushed his feet as hard as he could, trying to run as fast as possible. Soon the hydra began to give chase, and despite its rather large body, it was able to keep up with the furry creature. So many near misses occurred as Ant nearly tripped over rocks, roots, and had various branches nearly knock him right back onto the floor. He could only run.

He soon stepped into a huge clearing, and he noticed that he was no longer being chased by the hydra. It seemed that it was afraid of venturing outside of its habitat, which would be the massive forest that he and the rest had spawned in when they first entered this world. Letting out a sigh of relief Ant began to walk forward, seeing a village in the distance. His excitement rose until the adrenaline inside of him fell enough for him to start feeling the pain coming from his hand. Unable to decide as to whether it was broken or not, Ant decided to walk towards it, seeing the town as a viable opportunity to find food and resources.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something green move in the background. He turned around, expecting to see some type of monster, or maybe even the hydra again, but found nothing. Scratching his head he looked in confusion at where he was staring at, but soon lost interest.

“It can’t be Dream right? The rest would’ve still been hunting him down, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be him after all, given that we don’t have a good record of killing him off early that much. Always the damn dolphins, always!” Ant thought to himself, remembering how in every single Manhunt Dream would escape certain death using the speed gained from dolphins. It was just so annoying, especially when the rare occasion where he would steal their dolphins.

The pain from his hand reminded the furry creature of his priorities. Even if it was Dream, Ant doubted that he’d be able to put up much of a fight, since, in a previous Manhunt, Dream punched Ant to death. Now imagine trying to fistfight with just one hand. And that’s not considering that Dream was able to break away long enough to get some tools, weapons, armor, etc. Nope, what Ant had to do was to heal his broken hand, and the village seemed like an ideal place for him at the time.

“Hmm… maybe there’s some villagers I can find! Oh! Imagine if we can find a librarian villager and trade with it for Protection IV books! That’d make us soooo OP!” Ant thought to himself, remembering how he and the Hunters dominated Dream after getting Protection IV. Unfortunately, they soon got portal-trapped in the Nether Roof, which forced them to kill each other to leave. Perhaps they can do some overpowered trick that only failed because of specific circumstances.

Upon entering the village though, Ant began to notice how quiet it was. It almost felt lifeless. Walking down the main street the trend would only continue, which began to creep out Ant.

“Did I somehow walk into an Abandoned Village, because it almost certainly feels like it… damn… hopefully, it's not the case, otherwise I won’t be able to defend myself that much. Wait… is that a hospital?” Ant asked himself internally as he looked and saw a rather colorful hospital. While he was certainly happy that he found a hospital, he became confused. “Wait. Villages don’t have hospitals. And they don’t have buildings like these.” The cat thought to himself as he looked around and saw that the buildings in the village looked nothing like Vanilla Minecraft Villages. There was even a massive castle for crying out loud! “Perhaps this is part of some of the mods Bad was talking about… something about RLCraft or something like that. Whatever, if this village is abandoned I’m certain they wouldn’t mind me… borrowing some healing items, and if not, at least I can get some more direct help.” Ant said to himself as he began to head towards the front doors of the hospital.

The moment he opened the doors all that he could see was chaos. Nurses rushing around everywhere, doctors screaming for order, it was just a mess. He opened his mouth to ask a question, and his voice was silenced by the huge amount of noise around him. Instead, he decided to go around the hospital by himself, the doctors and nurses completely ignoring and even being unaware of his presence.

“So apparently there’s hospital villagers? Are they even villagers? They’re probably NPCs. They also look like ponies for whatever reason.” Ant thought to himself, noticing the distinguishable how their snouts, ears, and tails looked like that of a pony. Suddenly Ant found himself getting knocked onto the floor by another figure, falling onto his back.

“Oh! I’m sorry!” A feminine voice said. Ant looked up and saw a white nurse with pink hair lowering her hand to grab his paw to pull him up. Before he could even warn her though, the anthropomorphic cat felt a sting of pain coursing through his body as the nurse pulled on his injured arm, causing him to hiss and the nurse to reflexively flinch. “Are you hurt here? Sorry! Let me pull you up with your other hand.” The nurse said as she quickly switched to his other hand and pulled him up. Now on his feet again, Ant tried to soothe his injured hand but it was futile, so instead, he tried to distract his mind by asking the nurse a question.

“Who are you? What’s happening here?” AntFrost asked as the nurse began to walk away, making sure that he was still following her.

“My name is Nurse Redheart. We’ve recently had a medical emergency going around here, but I think I can take a second to heal your hand.” Redheart replied as she pulled up a medkit from a nearby desk they walked past and began to tend to Ant’s hand. “May I ask your name, how did you cause this injury, and also how did you end up all the way here from Abyssinia?” The nurse asked, causing the furry creature to blink.

“I guess the NPCs in this Minecraft world are way more advanced than I thought.” The anthropomorphic cat thought to himself. “Don’t know what Abyssinia is, but hopefully I can get away without too much suspicion?”

“Oh! My name is AntFrost!” Ant replied, only to shift nervously as he saw the nurse raise an eyebrow.

“Ant Frost?”

“Yes, AntFrost.” The anthro cat replied, letting out a nervous laugh. “I know right? A bit ironic that I’m a cat and yet my name starts with Ant.” His eyes shifted nervously, hoping that his explanation wrapped things up well. Redheart slowly nodded.

“Alright… Now can you tell me the cause of the injury?” The nurse asked as she finished bandaging up his hand within a few moments. Out of the corner of his eye Ant was able to see a health diagram of his body. His hand was displayed in yellow, which supposedly meant it was injured, however as the bandage began to do its work, it turned green, his empty heart containers filling themselves up. Upon realizing that he had to answer the question, Ant let out a nervous laugh.

“I punched a tree.”

A dead silence suddenly sprung between the two, with the nurse just simply giving him a dumbfounded look. She tried to speak, make sense of what he just said, only to find nothing.

“I-I… I…. I-...!”

“Nurse Redheart, your presence in Room 4B is required.” A male voice said. The two turned around to see a doctor who was holding a clipboard, gesturing to Redheart to come with her. The mare, still stuck in her confusion, took a long time to respond, resulting in the doctor clearing his throat to grab her attention. “Remember that the kids are in Room 4B Redheart.” The nurse blinked and gasped in panic.

“Oh, I’m sorry! I’ll be going there right now!” The white mare said before following the doctor, before glancing at AntFrost for one last time. “Hope to cross paths with you soon Ant.” The nurse said before the two turned around the corner and disappeared.

“See ya soon I guess!” Ant yelled after her, before turning around towards the doors and heading out. The anthro cat found it fortunate that nobody was perturbed by his appearance, and considering that Redheart mentioned Abyssinia, he presumed that they thought that he came from there. “Perhaps some research about that place could help me. But in the meantime, time to find some supplies. Maybe I can mine some diamonds for my friends. Diamond gear would easily scare Dream away.” AntFrost thought to himself as he opened the doors and left the hospital. “Hope whoever is in the emergency room is fine.”

Looking around, Ant noticed the large castle that he saw before when he first entered the village. When he saw the broken window though, he became perturbed. “Did nobody notice the broken window before? Let me check what’s inside and then tell them whatever I found.” Ant said as he walked towards the main door and tried to push them open, but was unable to open up. He tried the reverse, but the result was the same. Looking up at the broken window, AntFrost sighed. “Welp, hopefully nobody notices me climbing through this window.”

Using his cat-like reflexes, AntFrost climbed up towards the window before jumping through, landing with a nearly silent ‘thud’ as he began to look around his surroundings. He could see that doors were left hanging open, items were scattered around. The anthropomorphic cat stepped through one of the open rooms to discover what used to be an armory room, now looted and just a mess.

“If Dream had gotten here first, he’s probably so overpowered by this point.” Ant thought to himself as he looked around the room, opening chests and finding barely anything of use inside of them. Anything that could’ve been useful was gone, most likely looted by Dream. The only things that Ant could find that was a set of iron tools, some bandages, and nothing else.

“There’s gotta be something else in this castle that I can find.” The furry creature thought to himself as he headed outside of the room and began to search deeper into the castle.

“What did I do?”

The green-hooded figure known as Dream began to pant after running for half an hour deep into the forest. He didn’t care if any mobs tried to hurt him, he was highly geared and probably near unkillable at this stage. He just needed to get away, get away from the scene.

The speedrunner couldn’t help but chuckle. He was near-invincible at this point and could easily go to the Nether, craft some Eyes of Ender, and beat the Ender Dragon. So why did he feel like his life was still in danger?

A mental image played through his head, causing Dream to hold himself in pain. Those eyes. The eyes of both his friends and those that he bumped into. Pure fear and terror. Were those the eyes that would’ve been on Tommy’s face if his exilement and psychological torture by Dream occurred in real life? All thoughts, just reduced to the simple ‘flight or fight response. Just imagining it again caused Dream a massive headache he didn’t want to deal with.

“They’re probably NPCs… everything that occurs here is fake… so why are these things bugging me? It’s just like what happened when they first began to chase me. This place is supposed to be a game, and yet I ran away as if my life is in real danger! What’s going on here?” Dream thought to himself as he recovered his breath and slowly began to walk through the dense forest. His perturbed face returned to a more neutral one as he sighed. “Whatever. I’ll figure this out when I leave this place. I shouldn’t be in this dilemma. This is all a game. Period. No more questions asked. Now… how will I widen the gap between me and the Hunters more than I already did?” The diamond-covered figure asked himself, before noticing a patch of nearby flowers in the distance. A smile crept through his face, and a memory of how the last Manhunt ended played itself across his mind.

“Yes… perfect. Fireworks! Even if the hunters somehow obtain better gear than what I have, which is doubtful, nothing can beat the power of fireworks! Let me grab an entire stack of them!” Dream thought as he walked towards the fields of blue flowers and began touching one of the flowers. A chill went down his spine out of nowhere, but he simply ignored it as he began to break the entire field. Soon a sizable chunk of the field was now within his inventory, and Dream couldn’t help but let out a smile, forgetting everything that occurred in the past, and only focusing on victory.

“I’m pretty sure that this world might have so much overpowered stuff that I can loot. If I’m to win, I’m going to have to take everything and leave the Hunters with nothing.” Dream thought to himself as he looked into the distance, a small castle sitting on the side of a mountain just barely visible. “If this mod has taught me anything, it’s that castles bring overpowered loot. Maybe in a few days I’ll go there, but first, I think I’m going to stay in this forest and see if there’s any way I can get quick access to the nether right now. Maybe kill some mobs along the way.” The masked person said with a smile, walking deeper into the forest, unaware of a strand of green fur falling off from him.

!¡ꖎᔑリᓭ

Chapter 6: Plans

“Are they going to be alright?” Twilight Sparkle asked Nurse Redheart. She, her friends, and the remainder of the Young Six were sitting near the beds where Gallus, Smolder, and Sandbar were laid on. They had been here for hours now, watching their friends recover and the monitors track their heartbeats. The place was silent and devoid of happiness. Even Pinkie became a bit serious, and while she’d tried to lighten their moods, she eventually went silent as well.

“They’ll be alright. The cut in Gallus’s neck was thankfully not deep enough to cut through his jugular vein, so he and the rest should be alright within a few days.” Redheart said, which caused Twilight to let out a sigh of relief. “I’m afraid though that there’s a chance that they’ll have to go through psychological treatment should they be going through trauma.” The white nurse said, causing the Princess of Friendship to frown. The purple alicorn simply looked at the fallen forms of her students in sadness.

“I just wish there’s something that I could do…” She mourned out loud, as she began to blame things on herself. Rainbow Dash flew up to her and lifted her face.

“Look Twilight. This isn’t your fault! This is all of the Masked Demon! We sh-”

“You do realize that his name isn’t ‘The Masked Demon’, right? That’s something Pinkie Pie would say.” Twilight corrected, trying to smile at Rainbow but unable to do so. The cyan pegasi shrugged.

“Who cares what his name is! The point here is that if you want to do something, then why don’t we try and imprison the guy who did all of this! He’s a threat to all of Equestria and if we don’t do anything to stop him he’s going to cause more destruction!” Rainbow Dash stated, only for Applejack to pull her down towards the ground.

“I agree with you Rainbow, however, we’re seriously unprepared. He clearly shows no hesitation to hurt and kill anyone. He even threatened the lives of Gallus, Smolder, and Sandbar. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to need everybody on our side.” Applejack said.

“But isn’t this like… against Friendship? Like shouldn’t we give him a chance to redeem himself?” Rarity asked. Applejack sighed and simply shrugged as she tipped her hat.

“Look, unless Gallus, Smolder, and Sandbar say otherwise, I believe that they’d tried to reason with this creature, only to be knocked out. Friendship isn’t going to help, just like how we tried repeatedly to reform Tirek, Cozy Glow, and Chrysalis. Especially Chrysalis. If there’s any possibility to reform this creature, we’ll need to make sure that he’s not out in the open, threatening anybody.” Applejack said.

“Then… I guess we’re doing this then? We’re going to be tracking down this creature?” Twilight asked, uncertain if this was truly the correct action, though deep down, she knew it was necessary. He needed to go to prison. She was just unsure if everybody else was on board with risking their lives to hunt down this target. Luckily for her, everybody nodded. “Then I guess we’re going to do this. Rainbow! Head out to the Dragonlands and inform Dragon Lord Ember what’s occurring. Meanwhile, I and the rest of the girls will be going back to Canterlot to inform everybody of this creature on the loose. Every nation must be informed about this… this threat… and upon capturing the creature we’ll have to put it into prison.”

“Yes, Twilight! I can’t wait for when I punch his face with my hoof! He deserves it for hurting our friends!” Rainbow Dash said bravely before flying out, performing a Sonic Rainboom that was visible for miles as she headed out towards the Dragon Lands. The rest of the Mane 6 simply looked at Twilight for any orders.

“Since the magical feedback is still weakening my magic, you girls will go ahead and search Ponyville for any other signs and clues while I’ll teleport to Canterlot to have Spike write some letters. I might even have to contact Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. They’ll know how to deal with this.” Twilight said. Applejack and the rest of the Mane 6 nodded, with Fluttershy being more shy than usual.

“You got that Twilight. If the creature comes back here, we’ll make sure that it never comes back.” Applejack said while grabbing a lasso. Twilight smiled softly at them.

“Stay safe.” The purple alicorn said as she began to power her horn, the space around the tip of it flickering as her teleportation spell grew. Her face showed a strained look as she struggled to teleport with the magical feedback having weakened her, but with a final push, the mare disappeared in a flicker of light, having successfully teleported back to Canterlot.

“Well, we’d better start searching. Detective Rarity will lead the way.” Rarity said as she quickly placed a detective jacket on top of her regular clothes, along with a hat with a red feather, before they left the hospital to try and find some clues.

After having cleared out an entire field of flowers, Dream continued to venture deeper and deeper into the forest, his confidence at an all-time high. Now, all that he needed for some fireworks would be some paper and gunpowder. The masked figure began to think about what other things he might end up needing.

“With all of these things in my inventory, maybe I should create an Ender Chest! I’d need to get Obsidian and Eyes of Ender to do that though… maybe I can find a backpack or bundle to expand my inventory then? Does that even exist in this mod?” Dream thought to himself, before blinking as he saw something through the thick leaves of the forest. Pushing the leaves away, the masked figure began to walk towards what he thought was a structure in the distance. Entering another clearing, he was surprised to see a small hut, decorated with some tribal things. He was about to ignore it until he heard the familiar sound of a brewing stand brewing a potion.

“No way… is this the mod’s version of a witch’s hut? Well, considering the castle gave me so many good things, let’s just loot this place too.” The masked figure thought to himself as he leaped through an open window. His eyes focused on the large cauldron in the center of the hut, an unknown substance bubbling inside of it. Dream found himself becoming disgusted by the sickly green liquid.

“For all I know it could have rotten flesh inside of it!” Dream spoke out loud, only to hear the sound of footsteps. The masked figure instinctively panicked, forgetting that he had diamond armor, and decided to grab a few pouches that were on a nearby table, before flinging himself out of another window. He didn’t even wait to see who was coming, he just ran. It might just as well be the hunters for all he knew.

Meanwhile, an anthropomorphic zebra wearing some leather clothing stepped into the hut. She grabbed a nearby cauldron spoon to stir the substance. Her hand instinctively reached towards the table to grab an ingredient, only to find nothing. Confusion spread across her face.

“This is weird. Why all of a sudden my pouches have disappeared?” The healer asked herself before sighing. “Guess I’ll get some supplies- wait, my bag of bits is gone, what an awful surprise!” The zebra exclaimed in shock to herself as she noticed that various other pouches that were full of materials were gone. “...”

The zebra doesn’t take any hesitation to slam her head against the table.

“Welp. That failed.” George said as he, BadBoyHalo, and Sapnap found themselves sitting in the middle of nowhere. After the traumatic experience of being cut down one by one by their former friend, the three had respawned in the forest, albeit in a different location than where they started with.

“Obviously,” Sapnap said, rolling his eyes. Their plan to take out Dream early on had failed, which caused him to feel disappointed with himself. The black-hooded figure next to them simply slammed his fists onto the ground.

“Dang it! Like, why diamond armor!? How are we going to win against him now!? We can’t punch trees, he probably looted the entire village, he’s too overpowered! There’s nothing that we can do against him!” BadBoyHalo yelled, before smashing his head against the dirt.

“Like I’m sure we can think of something,” George said hopefully, before scratching his chin as he remembered something, or rather, someone. “Wait, where’s Ant? I don’t think he died yet.” George commented, which caused the other two to think. They practically left him after he went unconscious after his failed attempt to punch a tree. And since he wasn’t with them, was he still out there, fighting Dream or gathering resources?

“Well, wherever he is, he’ll have a hard time fighting against Dream. Even if Dream left some things unlooted, I doubt he’ll be able to get anything more than iron gear.” Sapnap stated, before lifting himself. “Whatever is the case, we have to stay determined. I’m sure we’ll figure out something.” The fire-shirted man stated. Bad lifted his head from the ground and nodded, smiling with determination.

“Yeah! We’ll think of something that Dream will never imagine, and we’ll destroy him! Just like how it only took Ant two Potions of Harming to bring him down, we’ll find a way to make his diamond gear useless!” Bad stated, before realizing something. “Hey! Why don’t we go to the village he looted?”

“And why would that be a good idea? We already guessed that he’d loot every single building.” George replied, only for Bad to shake his head with a grin.

“Yeah! But he’ll never be able to take the villagers! Think about it! The fastest way right now to gain items quickly is to do villager trades, and I’m pretty certain that it’ll only take us a few days to reach some very high-tear things like Protection IV Books, Diamond Gear, and more! And you know what’s the best thing? He can’t use the Nether Portal trick on us again!”

“But he won’t need to use the Nether Portal trick on us. If you’re right that it’ll take us some days to get overpowered like he is, he’ll already have probably returned from the Nether by then.” Sapnap said before they began to hear Bad laugh.

“If I know anything about RLCraft, it’s that the Nether is nearly impossible to go through in that mod. Heck, even Dragon Armor, the most strongest Armor in RLCraft, makes no promises in saving somebody there! RLCraft is designed to be super deadly! He’ll be bogged down long enough for us to find his Nether portal and wait for his return! He won’t be enchanting his items because he’ll be overconfident! We’ll be able to do a Catch-22 and destroy him!” Bad exclaimed. The two other hunters nodded with a smile, finding his plan very good.

“Well then, what are we waiting for!? Let’s go get some villager trades!” George said as he and the rest of the Hunters began to try and find their way around the forest, hoping that they’ll find the village again and begin their master plan.

A TV screen flickered, showing everybody’s positions and what they were doing. A lone draconequus sat in a dark room, observing everything while feeling regrets.

“I didn’t expect things to go downhill like that.” Discord thought to himself, thinking about the pain that Smolder, Sandbar, and Gallus must’ve been going in the hospital bed. “All I wanted was for them to stay isolated in the Everfree and deal with the monsters there, not find Ponyville and hurt the students.” The Lord of Chaos let out a sigh. “Like, what can I do? I’ll have to wait for Twilight and her friends to call on me to help them, as otherwise if I suddenly arrived and said I’d helped, they’d get suspicious of me. I’ve already failed them one with the Legion of Doom. I don’t want to lose my friends because of this.”

Discord snapped his fingers, and the TV, instead of turning off, grew two legs and ran up the wall before disappearing in a vortex. He let out a soft smile, before frowning yet again.

“I don’t know what I’ll do. Wait until I’m called on? Help Dream, the Hunters, or nobody? If I’m going to help anybody, I think I might end up helping the Hunters and the Mane 6. Yeah, I’ll do that.” Discord said as he snapped his fingers again, and unbeknownst to the Hunters, their position was changed upon entering deeper into the Forest, in a way so that when they’d enter into the next clearing, they'd find themselves onto the tracks of Ponyville.

“And only that. That’s right now the only way I’ll interfere. I’ll help by indirectly balancing stuff. Twilight and her friends will probably help the Hunters. I just hope that the Hunters won’t begin to destroy things. I’m the Lord of Chaos, not the Lord of Destruction. Also if they’d somehow continued their trek without losing hunger, they would’ve stumbled upon this cottage, and I wouldn’t want to risk Sapnap killing some of her pets, thinking that they were food.”

Discord found himself mentally playing some events from a different series. One that was named by the creator of the server. The Dream SMP. Discord loved the action and chaos that occurred, especially when Technoblade joined the fun and started to bring everything into anarchy, or when Bad created the BadLands and found The Egg. Discord also remembered seeing the Pet Wars, and how Sapnap was the cause of so many pet deaths.

“That guy… he’s as powerful as Dream in a way. A powerful PvP player. Always trying to go in for the kill, and always the most aggressive. I just hope that his aggressiveness doesn’t become a problem though.” Discord thought as he recalled more events of the Dream SMP.

“Like, I might end up having to help both Dream and the Hunters. I know what they’re capable of. I’m going to have to keep them sane… otherwise… who knows what’ll happen then?” The Lord of Chaos thought to himself, playing back some memories. Again, with how Sapnap started the Pet Wars, BadBoyHalo becoming possessed by The Egg, and Dream… and Dream…

He didn’t want to think about what would happen if Dream went insane and decided to target Equestria itself. He knew that much of The Dream SMP was scripted, much like how his world was scripted, but Discord also knew that there was a difference between knowing something and feeling it. Already, just thinking of the pure destruction that one man could cause had begun to frighten the Lord of Chaos, which he found to be ironic, given that the Mane 6 and everybody else were frightened during his reign over Equestria and Ponyville when he was not yet reformed.

It was just recently that Discord had begun to think about how many things could’ve gone wrong. The Legion of Doom would have easily killed Twilight’s friends, and it would’ve been all his fault for forming it in the first place. Friendship can solve many problems, but unfortunately, with the inclusion of those whose SMP counterparts believed nothing in friendship, but in war, would Friendship still save the day? Or will it be the first and final time where Friendship would collapse under the power of War?

“As long as I can keep their sanity, Equestria will be safe, but the moment I fail to do that…

who knows what’ll happen…”

Author's Note

Oh no, Discord beginning to realize the error he's made. Will he decide to help Dream to speed up his progress and lower the chances that he'll go insane, or will he help the Hunters by balancing the hunt for Dream?

Hope you guys liked this chapter. I couldn't really find any music to play here though, since the mood constantly swung left and right. Maybe only during chases it'll be done, or entering a new environment.

Also, I wrote this story immediately after publishing the last chapter to see if it was better to start early or during the middle of the deadline. Next week there might be a chance that this story doesn't get published because of another project, but hopefully, I can do it still.

↸∷ᒷᔑᒲ

Author's Note

(Edit): This chapter has been updated due to a comment that somebody posted, and this is an attempt to correct some errors. If more errors get pointed out in future chapters, they'll be updated, and if this chapter still has some flaws, expect some changes over the course of time.

The following chapter contains violence and death, because a story that covers Minecraft Manhunt and the Dream SMP isn't complete without those dark red tags, unfortunately, as much as I try to avoid them.

Thank you everybody for supporting this series, this week has been a wild one, as I updated both KOBK (A Hunger Games OC Story) on Monday and uploaded a new story yesterday, so if you feel bored while waiting for the next update, feel free to read them.

Anyways, sit back, play some Cat and Mellohi Discs from Minecraft, and enjoy.

↸∷ᒷᔑᒲ

Chapter 7: Dream

“Welp. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing good to get here.” Ant murmured himself as he ventured through the various corridors of the castle. Nighttime had fallen, and while he had found some interesting items, for now, he found no purpose with them. “Maybe if Bad was here he could explain this.” The anthropomorphic cat said while holding a golden ring with a purple gem. He knew it had some sort of importance due to the amount of energy he felt being emitted, but unfortunately for him, he had no idea how to use it. Was it something you actively wear like a piece of armor or something you add to a weapon? Or neither?

“Anyways, I might as well try to sleep. Hopefully, the one advantage about this mod is that we can sleep even if others aren’t using their beds.” AntFrost said to himself as he began to search the castle for a bed, but the more he thought about it, the less his sentence made sense.

“I know that the creator of the mod pack said that everything would be hundreds of times much more realistic with twists and such, but… isn’t this a bit too over the edge?” Ant thought to himself before an idea came up in his head. “I know! With NPCs, there’s always going to be a limit in how many unique lines they say before they run out. Yeah! I’ll just continue talking to them, and if they end up running out of lines and repeating the same thing, then I’ll know this is a game… unless of course, the AI is so advanced that they’ll generate infinite lines… or maybe this is not a game… eh. We’ll see.” Ant said to himself as he opened a room and found a large purple bed. Pulling himself onto it, the anthropomorphic cat let his sleep take him, feeling his eyes close, before darkness overtook him as he began to sleep.

“What you have told us is troubling Twilight, and I’m glad you chose to bring us back to Canterlot the moment you realized the severity of this situation.” A tall blue alicorn with a black tiara stated as she looked down at Twilight. Beside her was an even taller white alicorn, who had a golden crown. Both of them wore regal clothing, their hair waving in an invisible wind. They wore serious and worried faces, though they still tried to remain friendly to the Princess of Friendship.

After leaving Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle quickly went ahead to contact the previous rulers of Equestria. They arrived within a few moments, and while they were excited to see Twilight again at first, upon giving them tea and giving them as many details she could to them, they soon realized the gravity of the situation.

“Yeah. While I know you two are on retirement, I’ve learned from a friendship lesson that there’s nothing wrong with calling your friends for help.” Twilight stated, remembering one of her first lessons when Applejack tried to do the Apple Harvest all by herself, only for things to go south when she began to experience sleep deprivation. “While me and my friends would’ve tried to solve this problem alone… I don’t think this is one we six could solve alone… ” Twilight remarked.

“Perhaps. While this is certainly the first verified case of a villain… disposing of living beings… it could be possible that others had done similar things, or would’ve done, but it was never recorded.” The white alicorn said. “However, I do agree that you and your friends cannot face this threat alone. Not because I doubt you could, but because in the small chance that things go south, Equestria might end up losing you all, which is something I won’t let happen.”

“Then what can we do Princess Celestia?” Twilight Sparkle asked. “Like we can’t simply let this threat roam around and potentially cause more chaos, destruction, and… death. Do you two have any ideas?” Twilight asked. For a moment the air was full of silence until the other alicorn spoke.

“I might have an easy solution to that.” The blue alicorn said, smiling softly at Twilight. “As Luna, Princess of the Night, I can peer into dreams and help those who go through nightmares. Needless to say, I never always had this ability, as I only gained it after my thousand-year return. If I had obtained this though during Equestria’s waring period against the other nations, I would’ve used it to extract intel, and perhaps even psychologically lower their morale. Thankfully, I never had to go through that path, but if you so choose I could at least peer through this masked creature’s mind to see if they’re a threat or not. I promise you though, that unless there’s no other option, I’ll never try to psychologically affect their mental state. Such a thing could lead to unforeseen consequences that we don’t want to find out.” Luna said. Twilight looked at the Lunar Princess with a shiver. Should she allow this, or should she not?

“I… Hmm… Well… “

“Twilight, do not stress yourself over wondering if you should accept my sister’s plan or not. You have all night to think about this, as well as every single day when nightfall approaches.” Princess Celestia said, seeing that her former student was starting to stress herself out a bit. The purple alicorn simply sighed as she looked at the ground.

“Well it’s just a hard decision to make… it just feels… wrong for some reason…” Twilight said, feeling stuck. She went silent for an easy five minutes as she began to pace around the room until she finally approached Luna, who stood patiently waiting for her. “Princess Luna?”

“Yes?” The Lunar Princess replied. Twilight Sparkle looked away for a moment before turning her eyes straight at her.

“You… You have my permission to use your dream-walk on the masked creature. I would like to know who he is.” Twilight said, though she still sounded unsure of herself. Luna simply nodded.

“Then let us hold hands as I prepare the spell.” The Lunar Princess stated as both Celestia and Twilight Sparkle grabbed her hands. Closing her eyes and concentrating on her power, a small flicker of light began to form from her horn, increasing in size before engulfing them all, forcing the rest to shut their eyes.

Upon opening them again though, they found themselves in the open night sky, stars twinkling in the dark purple background. But they weren’t just stars. Upon taking closer inspection, Twilight could see all of her friend’s dreams, as well as other ponies. Luna quickly tapped the purple alicorn’s shoulder to pull her attention away, but from the corner of her eye, the Princess of Friendship could see three similar nightmarish dreams, which undoubtedly were coming from Gallus, Smolder, and Sandbar.

“Given that they were in a coma, I’ve tried to enter their mind, but I’m afraid their current mental state makes it impossible for me to do it with my current mana reservoirs.” Princess Luna said after noticing that Twilight’s attention was on the three corrupted dreams. All of their magic was being limited by the magical feedback, and while it would eventually subside, it still annoyed them as it prevented them from taking proper immediate action.

Eventually, the star/dream bubble they had been looking for settled right in front of them. The Lunar Princess let out a heavy sigh as she looked at Celestia and Twilight.

“Prepare yourselves for whatever you may see. It can be anything from a regular dream to a nightmarish world that rivals any other.” Luna said as she focused her energy onto the star, which expanded and enveloped them, taking them inside the dream. “Remember, unless you make yourself known, our target won’t be able to see you,” Luna added as color began to fill the landscape.

As they finished entering the dream, they saw a land decorated with grass, flowers, structures, and buildings. Using her magic, the trio was immediately pulled to another area, where they saw the back of their target. He was geared with a diamond helmet, leggings, and boots, and a chest plate that they weren’t able to identify. He looked into the distance as he saw two figures.

The first had yellow hair and blue eyes. He wore a red and white t-shirt and beige jeans. He looked very young, probably the age of a teenager, and he wore a face full of victory. The second had blonde hair and blue eyes. He wore a dark green shirt and blue jeans. The two laughed with each other, and the calming sound of music was heard.

“Look sister. They’re both very young. I believe they’re no older than 18.” Celestia remarked, to which Luna nodded, though holding a serious look.

“I hope he doesn’t decide to use his sword on them,” Luna commented, pointing out the sword that the figure was holding. He stared intently at the two teenagers, and most importantly, at the thin circular objects that the one in red and white was holding. The Princesses simply stared at him, wondering what he was thinking, before the scene changed. The land began to evolve. Black walls were being erected, and soon a large flag began to wave in the air. Two groups of figures stood in front of each other. Three of the figures they immediately recognized, that being Tubbo and Tommy on one side, and their target on another. Besides the two youngsters stood a man with brown hair and light brown eyes, and an anthro fox. All of them wore a blue, black, white, and red uniform. They had tired eyes, as if they had gone through an intense battle, looking at their foes with defiance.

On the other side with their target stood two other figures. One had brown hair and wore a pair of goggles, and another had black hair and black eyes. The three wore the same mysterious armor that the Princesses weren’t able to identify, but unlike the first vision where their target only wore a chest plate of it, their bodies were now covered in a full set of it. The armor had a purplish glow, as if magic was running through it.

The man from the youngsters’ side walked in front of his group, taking a deep breath before he began to give out a speech.

“Independence, or death. If we get no revolution, then we want nothing. We would rather die, than give into you and join your SMP, Dream.” The man said, identifying their target by the name of Dream. And while they found his speech to be empowering, they found themselves asking some questions.

“SMP? What’s that?” Twilight asked. Celestia shrugged as Luna tried to formulate an answer.

“Perhaps it’s their way of saying ‘Kingdom’ or ‘Empire’.” The Lunar Princess offered. Twilight and Celestia thought about it for a moment and agreed that ‘SMP’ probably is a synonym. The man pointed towards the ground, bringing the princesses attention to a block made of red sticks, with the words ‘TNT’ inscribed at each side.

“You can blow up one piece of TNT in our door all you want. It means nothing to us.” The man said, almost with a smirk. Before they could say anything about the events they were seeing, Dream simply ignited the TNT with a flame arrow, smiling at the revolutionaries. As the defenders calmly backed away, they continued to look at Dream defiantly, with a type of pride and bravery that would rival any Royal Guard Pony. That is, until the block of TNT suddenly released a burst of energy, destroying the ground beneath it…

… and revealing more TNT.

The defenders suddenly screamed in fear and panic as a chain reaction took place, the entire ground blowing into the air as more and more TNT were ignited by each other’s blasts. They all ran to the water, diving straight into it in hopes of protecting themselves from the blast. Upon resurfacing though, it was to both theirs and the princesses’ shock upon seeing the place that they called home was gone, destroyed, and blown up.

“H-He… He….”

“He destroyed everything,” Celestia stated as she finished Twilight’s sentence, looking with shock and even a bit of anger towards Dream. Already he showed actions that would equal that of deeds that various villains had done, and there was probably more in store. The thought of a device able to destroy everything shook Celestia like that, her mind drifting to that of Equestria and her homeland. If this ‘Dream’ repeated the same thing in Equestria…

… she didn’t even want to think of how many ponies would get injured or possibly even die.

The scene was once again changed. The one before took place during the day, but right now nightfall had arrived. The two groups were once again near each other, but this time Dream and Tommy were on a wooden bridge, talking to each other.

“Let me just clarify something, Tommy.” Dream said as he walked towards the young boy, smiling under his mask. “If you win, we grant L’Manberg independence.” The green-hooded figure said, to which Tommy nodded. “But, we will still recognize it as part of the Dream SMP.” Dream said. Both Tommy and the man from before seemed to agree to this deal. “However, if I win, L’Manberg will lose its independence and it’ll be reintegrated into the Greater Dream SMP. Remember, this duel you made was your idea, Tommy, so no pressure if you win or lose.” The masked figure said, causing Luna and Celestia to gasp.

“He wouldn’t,” Celestia said with a sharp breath. Twilight looked at her old mentor with a worried expression.

“What’s happening?” Twilight asked as Dream and Tommy began to walk from each other, back to back, holding what seemed to be a bow in their hand.

“Dream is challenging Tommy, a child, to a duel. A duel to the death I presume. It was a custom that used to exist in Equestria that was banned a thousand years ago, where an offended pony would challenge another to a duel. These usually lasted until somebody yielded or when… death was achieved… and now Dream is doing this. To a child.” Luna said with a heavy breath as the man counted down the number of paces the two participants had to walk from each other. He had a worried expression, worried not only for losing the nation’s independence but also potentially Tommy. Was the boy… his son?

“Ten paces… FIRE!” The man yelled, prompting both the child and the masked figure to turn around. Tommy was able to shoot first, the arrow flying just over Dream’s head. The child dipped into the water, just when Dream fired his shot, which flew over Tommy’s head, though not before he needed to dodge yet another arrow soon after as the boy fired back. The young teenager began to swim under the bridge as Dream prepared another shot. The moment his head appeared above the water, the masked man fired again, as did the child, their shots narrowly missing each other. It seemed that it was down to whoever shot next would win this deadly duel.

Time slowed to a crawl as Dream aimed at the boy who was swimming beneath the bridge. The Princesses looked at the masked figure, hoping that he missed his shot so that the young boy could stay alive. With no warning, Dream suddenly let go of the arrow, which spun in the air and was aimed directly at the kid’s heart as he resurfaced from the waters. Tommy could only look in horror as the arrow was just a few inches from his chest. There was simply no time to think. No time to dodge. With a sickening thud, the arrow embedded itself in his chest, right where his heart was. His expression was that of pure shock, pain, and agony. The Princesses could only watch in horror as he tried to scream in pain, but already his life was being pulled away, as his eyes began to flutter and close, his body limping, before he crashed right back into the waters he came from.

The Princesses could only watch in silence as the aggressors began to cheer, even in the face of a child being murdered. The man who gave the order for the match to begin, and presumably the head of the revolution, simply covered his mouth in shock and grave disappointment, not at the child, but at what had just transpired.

“It has been settled.” Dream said, those four words somehow causing the Princesses to go into a fit of rage. He acted as though this was just a business gamble, not as if a child had been killed. His next words would replace their anger with confusion as he began to walk away. “Now Tommy, I’m expecting Mellohi to be given to me. As soon as it is, we will cease-fire and we will revoke-”

Before the masked figure could finish his statement, they heard the child’s voice resonating from a distance. Not as if he had become a ghost, but as if he just simply was from a far location. It shocked the Princesses again in a different manner. They were happy to hear that Tommy wasn’t dead, confused as to how he could’ve survived, and still angry that Tommy had to die. Did he have a limit on how many times his life could be taken away from him? The Princess also noticed that the body that was once Tommy had vanished. Had he truly been resurrected?

“No Dream no-no. Can we go in a call for one second, just for one second? This is our war.” Tommy’s voice said. Dream nodded, but apparently, this sentence had infuriated the other man who began to storm away. The Princesses anger turned back to the man. Why didn’t he go into the duel and not the young boy? Perhaps it was because it was never meant to be. Dream did say that Tommy had brought the idea up in the first place. Perhaps the man was thinking that the youngster was being too reckless, and thus it cost them the war? Still, they believed the man should’ve given the youngster some credit for trying.

“That boy… that boy… Fundy let’s go we’re going back.” The man said as he began to climb the hill up, motioning the anthropomorphic fox to follow him. “Eret is officially barred from entering our nation.” The man said as he passed by another who wore black glasses, who simply gave him a neutral expression.

“Understandable.”

“And you smell and are bad. And I’ve never liked you anyway. And your voice isn’t even that good. You just sound like me and Technoblade had a bad child.” The leader of the revolution said, causing everybody from Eret to Fundy to start laughing, despite many of them being on opposite sides of the war.

“Who’s Eret anyways Luna?” Celestia asked as he stared at the man who wore sunglasses. Luna simply stared at her.

“I can’t view thoughts from other creatures, especially with this magical feedback! I can’t control what Dream is dreaming, only help ponies through their nightmares. But if I must infer, he probably betrayed them, which might explain how the revolutionaries weren’t wearing armor if he stole it from them.” Luna said, causing Twilight to blink.

“He betrayed them?” Twilight asked. The Lunar Princess simply shrugged.

“Again, I can’t tell. If I decided to look through Dream’s internal thoughts and not his dreams, then maybe I could figure it out. But it’s safe to say that he knew them given that wearing their uniform, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he did end up betraying them.” Luna said, causing Twilight to become disappointed. If this was true, then it was bad news. Friends are supposed to be with each other, and hearing that Eret had potentially betrayed his friends for who knows what caused Twilight to become a bit angry.

Before she got a chance to put in her own few cents, the scene changed to that of Tommy, who was standing in the middle of the fields at night, seemingly nowhere near the place the duel took. It came to them as a surprise that Tommy and Dream were communicating telepathically through this ‘call’ they were having and without any visible spells. This also came to them as a surprise, in a different way.

“Wait… why are we looking at Tommy? Isn’t this dream supposed to be about… Dream?” Twilight asked. Luna thought about it for a few moments before shrugging.

“Perhaps he’s dreaming from a third point of view much like we are? This is still his past, at least, I think so. The ‘Dream’ within this dream is still acting as violent as the one who ki- on second thought, I’m starting to rethink what you said, Twilight.” Luna said, causing Twilight to blink.

“What exactly?” The Princess of Friendship asked, to which Luna sighed.

“Those he killed in Ponyville might have the same ability that Tommy has, which is to resurrect themselves. This means that death to them is meaningless to them, which might explain why Dream killed them in Ponyville. They wouldn’t be hurt in any serious way, I think, as they’d come back to life, so I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow they popped up again. So in other words, his crimes aren’t as big as we think they are, if we assume he killed them knowing they’d come back… which is twisted in itself.” Luna stated, causing Celestia to frown.

“He still threatened Sandbar, Gallus, and Smolder, and did kill Tommy, a child… I believe this is something we’ll have to look into with a closer eye.” Celestia stated. “Even if this is fake, surely his personality must be real, as I can’t imagine everything being fake. Life isn’t something that can be scripted.” Celestia said.

“Well then, let’s just carry on with the dream shall we?” Luna said, convinced by Celestia to keep them in the dreamworld to study Dream, while Tommy began to telepathically(?) speak to Dream, again this bit confused the Princesses. Tommy looked like he was talking to just the air, but they could still hear Dream’s response, so… was it telepathy in the first place?

“I’ll do this for L’Manberg. I’ll give you both of the discs if you let us have our independence. Cat and Mellohi.” The child said as he began to walk through the dense woods, still communicating with Dream. There was no response, as it was clear that Dream was thinking about the deal, and it also became clear to the princesses that these two items that Tommy was giving up must have meant a big deal to him if they were to be bartered for L’Manberg’s independence.

“That is… a very, very interesting deal. That’s very selfless of you, those are your discs.” Dream’s voice said as they echoed through the air back from the duel site. Tommy simply sighed as he continued to walk.

“For L’Manberg ya know? For Wilbur, for Tubbo… Not for Eret… Those two discs Dream, from our war.” The kid said as he began to reach the main area of the small urban area that was probably the Dream SMP, the kingdom etc.

“I think this is what Dream was thinking about at the start of the Dream. The war they’re talking about must’ve been correlated to these discs, and given how Dream acted in the beginning, he probably lost that war.” Celestia remarked.

“And he’s just giving them up? That’s… that’s very kind of Tommy.” Twilight said with a sort of pride in the boy. Even though this world did seem violent, with friendships being broken and people betraying and attacking one another, friendship could and still prosper.

“I’ll grant you technical independence for the two discs, which would mean no war, but we will consider you as part of the Dream SMP-”

“No that’s just you being deluded,” Tommy said, soured on the point that L’Manberg wouldn’t have an official independence, and it would be more like a commonwealth or proxy nation.

“We won’t fight you unless we have a really good reason. We won’t go into your grounds unless we’re allowed…”

“And you’ll respect us, basically independence,” Tommy said as he passed by Eret, whom he frowned towards, confirming that he had betrayed him and that he was no longer a friend to him. Taking a sigh and pressing a hand to his forehead, Tommy began to talk to another person, one that they instantly recognized.

“Tommy, what was negotiation- where are you? We’re in L’Manberg.” Wilbur’s voice rang as the youngster walked into a small house on the side of a hill. The young teenager let out a sigh before smiling.

“Wilbur I… I secured our independence.” Tommy said with a grin, causing Wilbur to go silent in shock as he processed what he was hearing.

“Y-You… you what?” Wilbur asked as other citizens of the nation joined the call and began to ask questions. “How did you do it?” The man asked as Tommy met up with Dream and pulled out his discs before handing them over, his hands shaking as they were pulled from his grasp and handed to his worst enemy. But it was worth it. The green-hooded figure simply smiled before leaving as Tommy’s friends continued to ask him questions through the call.

“I gave him the discs Wil,” Tommy said with a smile.

“You gave up the discs!? All of them!?” Wilbur yelled in shock, with a hint of sadness for Tommy’s loss, but also proud of the boy’s action. With a simple yes from Tommy, Wilbur became ecstatic as he began to praise the young boy. “My right-hand-man TommyInnit! What the- you… get over here! You have the declaration of independence yeah?” Wilbur asked as Tommy confirmed. “I need a book! To write a new declaration of independence-”

“It doesn’t matter that we don’t own anything right now, cause we own something more than any physical item: Freedom,” Tommy said with a smile, as the citizens of L’Manberg began to rejoice their independence through their mental call. The sight of the youngster smiling, even if he had just given up some of his most prized possessions, touched Twilight’s heart.

“I think it’s safe to say that this kid is very nice right? Giving up everything he had to save his country.” Twilight said to the two princesses. “I think we can both agree that if Tommy were to have come to Equestria it would’ve been much better compared to Dream and all the chaos he’s caused.” The Princess of Friendship stated. “How much time do we have in this dream Luna?”

“Dream has a few more hours to go, so we’ll be sticking around to see what happens next. Honestly, it feels like we’re watching one of those ‘films’ rather than an actual past.” The Lunar Princess said before turning to Celestia. “What’s your opinion about him, sister?” Luna asked.

“He reminds me of Twilight if Equestria went through a more chaotic path. I wouldn’t be surprised though that Tommy’s the hero of this world.” Celestia noted. “I still feel terrible about Dream killing Tommy, even if it was just a temporary death. I want to know how that system works though. Can you look into his memories, Luna?” Celestia asked, which caused Luna to frown.

“I’m not so sure. Who knows what types of troubles might appear if I did that… How about this? Since Twilight was the one who accepted my offer to enter the dream world in the first place, why not let her decide?” Luna asked. “It will cut off some amount of time as I’ll have to use more magic, but we’ll be able to get an explanation about that system.”

This time though, Twilight began to smile enthusiastically.

“Wait! I have an idea! Why don’t we go and check his memories before he came to Ponyville! That way we can clarify this whole mess already!” Twilight said, beaming at her brilliant plan. Luna blinked before smiling at Twilight.

“That should work, after all, I’m in his mind right now… so it should work in theory,” Luna said as she began to power her horn, concentrating on the most recent memories, only for her horn to fizzle out. “Well… that wasn’t supposed to happen,” Luna said.

“Perhaps because you’ve never tried it before?” Celestia asked, only for Luna to shake her head.

“I already did this multiple times sister, like with Sweetie Belle, by making her see events that she wouldn’t have known about. Perhaps they’re a non-magical race and thus I’m limited in my options?” Luna offered, but she didn’t find her explanation satisfactory. Wouldn’t it make it easier to view not only his dream memories but every single bit of it? Or was she right in that assumption?

“Can you still check on the memories when we end his dream?” Twilight asked, only to cause Luna to shake her head.

“I’d need to be in contact with him, as that’s more like a mind-reading spell, which requires being close to whoever you want to cast it on. I can still try looking at anything related to his dream though.” Luna stated.

“Then please do that sister, we do need answers,” Celestia ordered politely. Nodding at her older sister, Luna began to charge her horn again, this time finding the magic flowing much more strangely, perhaps because she was more accustomed to doing this specific thing. However, upon looking back, she frowned.

“Alright, I found some things, which may not settle down with you guys,” Luna stated, before continuing. “In this world, there’s this sort of thing called… ‘canon lives’. If you die in some type of important event you lose a canon life. If you die by falling or drowning or anything not related to something important, it doesn’t count. Even collateral deaths don’t count. But apparently, this was not Tommy’s first canon death.” Luna stated, causing the other two princesses to raise an eyebrow.

“Canonically? Not his first? W-what do you mean Princess?” Twilight asked, to which the Lunar Princess needed to power another spell to check another scene related to the dream.

“Remember how Eret might’ve betrayed L’Manberg? Well, he did by taking them to an underground bunker in the promise of giving them something that would turn the tide of the war… only for it to be a trap where Dream and his allies slaughtered them.” Luna finished, quickly causing Twilight and Celestia to gasp. He did betray his friends.

“So Dream killed Tommy right? Was there any official reason for doing this?” Celestia asked as Luna cast another spell, this time panting a bit as trying to view his memories while casting the dream spell was certainly tiring, especially with the magical feedback.

“Well, considering that this was a revolution, Dream might’ve decided to take an extreme measure. I don’t know how this connects with the incident we’ve seen, but it seems that he has no problems taking lives if he finds a legitimate reason to do so.” Luna answered, which caused Twilight to ask a different question.

“How many canon lives does Tommy have anyway?” Twilight asked, as Luna simply sighed.

“He…

…

… He only has one left Twilight.”

∷ᒷ⍊𝙹ꖌᒷ↸

Author's Note

It'll take some time for us to finish the dream world, so I think the best course of action is for you guys to comment some ideas down in the meantime, since for a few chapters it'll be related to Celestia, Twilight, and Luna commenting. Of course, I'll try to make each chapter interesting, but I'd appreciate it if you guys took the time to start generating ideas for when we come back to the living world, like what would be their course of action after leaving, what will the Hunters do, Dream does, etc.

Now sit back, relax, and enjoy this next chapter!

∷ᒷ⍊𝙹ꖌᒷ↸

Chapter 8: Revoked

The Princess of Friendship looked at Luna with a stunned face, before looking at the young boy with sadness.

“J-Just one?” Twilight asked, hoping that Luna was wrong. The Lunar Princess silently nodded though, which confirmed her worst fears.

“Yes. The moment Tommy dies, he’ll be gone forever.” Princess Luna solemnly stated. Celestia simply stomped her leg upon hearing this, angry at Dream for

“And Dream has three lives, Tommy’s prized possessions, and he destroyed L’Manberg. I hope that they’re able to prosper and end up beating Dream.” Celestia commented as the scene behind them changed. The three princesses turned to see a massive crowd, as well as a stage where Tommy, Wilbur, Fundy, and a few other guys were on. The L’Manberg flags waved in the background, and Wilbur Soot walked up to the podium which had a microphone.

“Tonight is the inauguration. We’re not just deciding who wins tonight, we’re also inaugurating the winner. When we have announced who wins, the winner comes up here to this center, sits over here, and we listen to their first decree as president. This is the first L’Manberg election, and I have with me the election results of the four parties: SWAG2020, POG2020, COCONUT2020, and SCHLATT2020.” Wilbur said, which caused the crowd to let out an uproar, anxious to see who would be winning.

“Wait. Election? So L’Manberg isn’t a monarchy?” Twilight asked in confusion. Celestia simply shrugged.

“Apparently not. Not that Equestria is a monarchy either, since we’re more of a diarchy and such given that we have multiple rulers.” The white alicorn responded. “I do find it interesting that the name ‘President’ sounds such a humble title compared to King or Emperor,” Celestia said to which Luna nodded.

“The system that L’Manberg has chosen seems quite interesting to be honest. I wouldn’t find it hard to imagine that under different circumstances a republic or something would’ve been formed in Equestria.” Luna stated as they turned to hear Wilbur declare the percentages.

“I hope Wilbur can win. While I don’t think nothing bad should happen should he and Tommy lose the election, it’d still feel pretty bad to be rejected by your own country to be its leader.” Twilight stated as Wilbur resumed his announcement.

“With 9% of the vote, being… 20,000 people or so, in 4th place… is Coconut2020.” The brown-haired man said. Immediately Fundy began to celebrate until he realized his party was in dead last, but trying to save face he and a blonde hair girl began to celebrate anyways. To them, 20,000 people sounded more than what they had anticipated, and they rejoiced in that small victory, even if overall they had lost. The three princesses couldn’t help but laugh a bit upon seeing this scene unfold.

“Well, at least they aren’t complaining though,” Twilight said with another giggle as the people on the podium began to make some funny jokes before Wilbur continued with his announcements.

“With 16% of the votes, coming in third place… is Schlatt2020.” Wilbur soot said. Silence stood in the air for a moment as the two remaining parties, which consisted of Wilbur Soot and Tommy versus a man in a black tuxedo and black glasses looked at each other.

“Who’s Schlatt anyways?” Twilight asked once more.

“I think it’s that guy,” Celestia stated, pointing to a white anthro wooly ram with long curved horns. He seemed neutral to being placed in third, almost as if he was hiding a trump card behind his back. Before long Wilbur began to finalize his speech.

“In 2nd place, with 30% of the popular vote… is... “ There was a moment of pause as the anticipation only grew as Wilbur continued to elongate the silence. “... lead… by… the party leader Quackity.” The man said with a smile as Tommy instantly began to celebrate and the suited rival known as Quackity simply shook his head.

“We won! We won!” Tommy began to chant as Wilbur tried his best to interrupt him.

“Please stop celebrating. Please stop celebrati- he ain’t going to listen to me, is he?” Wilbur asked with a deadpan as Tommy just continued to celebrate in the background. “Tommy calm down. You… you need to hear this.” The victor of the election said, which caused the young boy to slowly calm himself down in confusion. “Two nights ago on the night of the election, after the announcement of Schlatt2020 and Coconut2020… Quackity made a deal with the leader of Schlatt2020, Mr. Jschlatt. Quackity said that no matter what happens, he would pool Swag2020’s votes with Schlatt2020 votes.” As Wilbur stood in silence, the alicorns soon realized what was happening.

“Wait… so Schlatt had 16%, Quackity had 30%, and Fundy had 9%, which means that Wilbur must have 45%... but if you add 16+30 that equals 46%! OH NO, THEY’RE GOING TO LOSE THE ELECTION!” Twilight screamed out. At the same time, Wilbur had announced the coalition government’s victory, causing Tommy to open in his mouth in shock as Quackity and Jschlatt began to celebrate while the other competitors and audience were surprised by the turn of events.

“Meaning that tonight on Tuesday, the 22nd of September, 2020, Schlatt2020 has been inaugurated,” Wilbur said, sealing the deal and causing Jschlatt to celebrate harder than ever. The brown-haired man looked towards the anthro ram, let out a sigh, before picking up a smile. “Mr. Schlatt, it was… it was… I want to say it was an honor competing against you… “ Wilbur said with a hint of sadness, before stepping aside. “Now step up to the podium and deliver your inauguration speech.”

As Wilbur began to walk off the podium, the wooly ram known as Jsclatt simply looked intensely at Tommy with a small stare.

“Tommy. Get. Off. My. Podium.” Jschlatt said, nearly threateningly as if he had a sudden surge of power coursing through his veins. His aggressiveness shocked Celestia, Luna, and Twilight.

“I am starting to think something terrible is going to happen soon,” Luna said as Quackity forced Tommy to jump off the podium since it was no longer his but the coalition’s podium. Tommy, holding a shocked face, moved into the small crowd as Wilbur tried to calm him down.

“We’re citizens now Tommy, let’s listen to Schlatt,” Wilbur said calmly as he and his runner sat down along with everybody. Jschlatt stepped in front of the microphone, smiling, before letting out a chuckle.

“Well…

… That was pretty easy.” The anthro ram said, smiling to Quackity who let out a soft laugh. “And you know what I said? The day I got unbanned from the Dream SMP. The day I said I was running an election (that I won by the way)...” Turning his gaze towards the audience and at Tommy, he simply let out another smile. “I said things were going to change.”

“I looked at every citizen of L’Manberg in the eyes and I said ‘you listen to me…

This place will be a lot different tomorrow.’”

.
.
.

“Let’s start making it happen.”

Staring right at Tommy and Wilbur, who both looked at each other, Jshlatt let out another laugh before stepping closer to the microphone, stretching his back and making him appear more taller and intimidating than before. A red glint flashed through his eyes as he opened his mouth.

“My first decree… as the president of L’Manberg…

… THE EMPEROR! OF THIS GREAT COUNTRY!...

IS TO REVOKE!

THE CITIZENSHIP!

OF WILBUR SOOT!

AND TOMMY INNIT!

GET EM OUTTA HERE!

YOU ARE NO LONGER WELCOME!”

With that nearly half of the crowd suddenly sprung up, revealing their crossbows before loading them up and pointing them at Wilbur and Tommy.

“Run Tommy run!” Wilbur yelled as he suddenly yelped in pain as an arrow shot from the podium landed on his back and instantly started to catch his clothes on fire. Tommy, not needing a second time to be told, instantly began to sprint, dodging the incoming hail of arrows that follow them.

“I hope they can run away,” Celestia stated with worry as they continued to flee. Twilight, though equally worried, started to become confident as the two escapees began to drink a potion before turning invisible.

“Look! Now they can escape!” Twilight said enthusiastically before her smile dropped upon realizing that the arrow that had lodged itself on Wilbur’s back was still visible. “Wait… no…” Before they knew it, one of the attackers released a perfect shot that hit Wilbur again, causing his body to become visible again before he splashed into the water, dead.

“Oh no! Wilbur-”

“He lost his second canon life as well,” Luna said, continuing Celestia’s statement with a frown. “Now both Tommy and Wilbur only have one canon life left… and while it wasn’t done by Dream specifically… this is still bad news…” The Lunar Princess said while Jschlatt began to congratulate Punz. As the princesses watch Tommy go into an underwater entrance and flee through a secret pathway, Jshlatt continues his speech.

“Until further notice, Wilbur Soot and TommyInnit are merely a memory of L’Manberg. A relic of the past. A reminder of the DARKEST era this country has ever seen and I guarantee you all, dear citizens…

Tonight…

That changes.”

“We’re entering into a new period of L’Manberg… a period of prosperity! Of strength! Of unity…”

As Jshlatt and Quackity began to joke around about something about donkeys(?), the three princesses looked in silence as Tommy huddled in his small secret bunker and began to shake in fear.

“I’m still wondering why we’re seeing Tommy’s perspective instead of Dream. First off, if Dream really does hate Tommy, why concentrate on him so much? And since Dream isn’t anywhere near Tommy, how is he able to see these events?” Twilight asked, which caused Luna to shrug.

“I don’t know. The second one is the most confusing to be honest, which makes me still believe that this is just fake. What do you think sister about either point that Twilight had brought up?” Luna asked, which caused Celestia to think about it.

“Well, maybe they’re more like rivals? If one is completely beaten, then what goal would the other have? Hmm… maybe this is just a product of his dream, and most of these events aren’t true? Like the election happened, but what happened with Tommy after might be just his mind creating things on the spot.” Celestia offered, though she was more concentrated on the shock by the turn of events, especially with Jshlatt’s self-proclamation as the Emperor of L’Manberg and Wilbur’s second canon death.

“Well, there’s just simply a lot of things we don’t know. But one thing for certain that things are just going to go downhill for Tommy” Luna stated. The three princesses thought about theorizing something when suddenly they froze when they heard somebody’s voice echo through the air.

“Where’s Tubbo?” Jshlatt’s voice rang out, still being broadcasted by the microphone. The three Princesses froze. Was he planning to go on and take Tubbo’s second canon life as well and leave the three with only one life each? To their surprise, they heard Tubbo, not talking with a scared voice, but with one of enthusiasm.

“I’m right over here!”

“Tubbo… get up here! Get up to my podium!” Jschlatt said, almost with a nice demeanor, as if Tubbo was his long-time friend and not Tommy’s.

“Is… IS TUBBO BETRAYING TOMMY!?” Twilight yelled out in shock. This was further increased when Wilbur began to scream from wherever he was.

“Tubbo’s betrayal! I didn’t know you were capable of such a thing!” Wilbur yelled as Tubbo presumably got onto the podium where Jschlatt began to address him.

“Tubbo. As my secretary of state… as my right-hand man! I need you to do something for me Tubbo.” Jschlatt’s voice rang.

“What is it, Mr. President?” Tubbo asked. If the Princesses had been at the podium watching there instead of Tommy, who was climbing a tower to spectate the scene from afar, they would’ve seen the anthro ram giving a cruel grin.

“I need you to find Tommy, and I need you to bring him to the door, and rumor has it, he’s somewhere around. Perhaps… on top of a building?” Jschlatt said as he turned around and stared directly at Tommy from far away. “Bring him to me.” The anthro ram said. Tommy, without taking a second guess, jumped off the tower and placed a water bucket, which broke his fall much to the princesses’ surprise, and he began to run away.

“S-So… this is it? Tubbo has betrayed Tommy like Eret did before him?” Twilight asked, her voice coming out only as a whisper. Luna simply sighed.

“While I hope this isn’t the case… I’m afraid there’s that possibility that their friendship has been strained to say the least, if not broken. I hope this is just a lie… otherwise, I can’t help but imagine how Tommy must be feeling.” Luna stated with a sad look.

“And with nobody supporting him… who’s to say Dream doesn’t come in and takes their final canon lives?” Celestia said, which caused all of them to shake. If that were to happen, it would be the end for the two major pioneers of L’Manberg.

“The only thing we can do now…

… is hope for the best.”

ℸ ̣ 𝙹∷リ ↸𝙹∴リ

Chapter 9: Torn Down

“Wilbur, we got to go!”

As Tommy began to run on top of a line of train tracks, the three princesses continued to spectate the entire scene. The young teenager had barely been able to escape from both Jshlatt, his nation, and his own best friend, and the princesses could only watch as he continued to run away.

“I feel that the pace of this dream has gotten a bit slower hasn’t it?” Celestia said out loud. “Not that I don’t care about what’s happening, but it is a noticeable difference, from perhaps leaps in days to now continuous cuts of the same day.” The Solar Princess quickly added, so that she wouldn’t offend Twilight or Luna.

“Given that these are more recent events that probably ended up having greater impact, that might be the reason we’re viewing these events for much longer durations. While this is good to understand what’s occurring at that moment, I’m afraid it might end up cutting us short right before we see what Dream was doing before coming to Ponyville.” Princess Luna stated.

“Can’t you speed the dream up?” Twilight Sparkle asked. Luna shook her head.

“Doing so would interfere with this dream more than we already are, which might cause Dream to notice our presence. While this isn’t a problem in itself, should Dream end up trying to kill us, I’m unsure of what would happen should one of us receive a fatal blow within the dream realm. Again, in very dire cases I’ve seen ponies experience fatal dreams, especially after the Changeling Invasion and all the nightmares it produced, and still wake up fine, but I’m not sure if the same would apply for us. There’s still so much I need to learn about my abilities and their limits.” The Lunar Princess explained. Celestia simply sighed.

“Well, let’s just keep our heads low and hope that Dream’s dream can pick up the speed.” The white alicorn said as Tommy finally found Wilbur and they began to run together.

“I was completely speechless Tommy. I… I could not say a word. I was literally in silence!” The brown hair man said as the young boy in red and white began to yell in anger.

“THEY F***ING KICKED- WILBUR THAT’S OUR NATION, I GAVE- I GAVE MY DISCS FOR THAT NATION!” Tommy roared as he stopped for a moment and began to stomp on the ground. The princesses, though perturbed by his sudden harsh and inappropriate language, found themselves sympathizing for him, as not only did he give up his discs to help L’Manberg gain its independence, but now it was all for nothing as they were being kicked out from their home. Wilbur simply sighed as he walked over to Tommy.

“Look, Tommy. We’re unwelcome in the Dream SMP’s Land and we’re unwelcome in L’Manberg… we’re literally in the wilderness now. We gave up literally everything for L’Manberg. We gave up friendships, we gave up alliances with some of the most powerful people, and everything we’ve earned in that sacrifice has been lost in one moment.” The former leader of L’Manberg said as he began to pull Tommy with him. The princesses stayed silent but then realized that Wilbur wasn’t going to say anything else. No uplifting speech, no words of encouragement, nothing.

“He doesn’t know what to say anymore,” Twilight said with sadness as they watched Wilbur and Tommy build a hole in the side of a mountain with what little tools they had brought with them. After standing in silence for a few moments as they began to turn their hole into a small little base, Tommy simply turned around to Wilbur, eyes full of tears.

“Do we fight people if we have to?” Tommy asked. Their friends were all enemies now. Everybody in the Dream SMP, from both Dream and his allies to even Tubbo, were now their enemies. Wilbur simply sighed before letting out a forced laugh.

“Tommy we need to defend this F***ing hole dude! We gotta defend this man!” Wilbur yelled, again causing the princesses to shudder due to the usage of inappropriate words.

“I honestly feel somebody should teach them to not curse,” Twilight muttered.

Meanwhile In The Depths Of The Everfree…

The trio of hunters laid on the ground, drifting in their thoughts, when suddenly BadBoyHalo jerked himself from his sleep.

“FINALLY, SOMEBODY UNDERSTANDS!” The demon-like figure yelled, causing Sapnap and George to suddenly wake up from their dream with a startled expression before they both frowned at him.

“BAD! WHY THE F*** DID YOU WAKE US UP!” Sapnap roared, causing Bad to spin around and begin yelling back.

“LANGUAGE!”

“YOU STARTED IT!” Sapnap yelled before the two began to fight each other and bump heads. Suddenly George began to run past them as he screamed in fear.

“RUN AWAY!” The light-blue shirted figure yelled in panic, causing Sapnap and Bad to turn around and see a pack of wooden-like wolves rushing straight towards them. Screaming in fear along with George, they began to run away as they disappeared into the thickness of the forest.

As the two former citizens of L’Manberg, Wilbur suddenly said something that piqued their princesses interest.

“YOU got Schlatt back on this server!” Wilbur yelled, pointing a finger at Tommy and causing the young boy to freeze. Twilight, Celestia, and Luna blinked upon processing what the former leader of L’Manberg was saying.

“Wilbur, you're the one that called the election.” Tommy countered, causing the man to growl a bit and raise his voice.

“I called the election to consolidate power! Quackity is the one we-”

“Wilbur you are the David Cameron of the Dream SMP, you called this election to try and show your own power, and now look at us!” Tommy yelled, causing the man to freeze. “We can’t turn on each other Wilbur! We lost Tubbo, we lost everyone, Nihachu, your son, George… everyone.” The young boy stated, tears falling from his eyes.

“So… So they brought everything onto themselves right?” Twilight asked. “Like Tommy bringing back Jschlatt was more of an accident, but Wilbur…?” The purple alicorn looked at the brown-haired man. Already she could see something… wrong… stirring within those calculative eyes. Celestia simply sighed.

“It seemed that while Wilbur and Tommy were indeed the rightful rulers of L’Manberg after the war, something occurred that caused Wilbur to try and reaffirm that belief, and things only spiraled downwards after that,” Celestia stated. Suddenly, they heard a familiar voice shouting through the megaphone in the distance.

“PEOPLE OF L’MANBERG… and TommyInnit and Wilbur Soot… eh once we find them and expel them from our great nation!” Jschlatt's voice rang through the air, causing both Tommy and Wilbur to shudder. “The sun rises on another chapter in our country’s history, the next page of the textbook, that children will be reading till the end of time…”

“I reckon our nation needs to expand!” Jschlatt yelled, causing the three princesses to stay in silence as they continued to hear Jschlatt’s speech. “I reckon we’ve done our country a great disservice… I reckon… we take down the walls.”

Sounds of protest immediately began to ring as Jschlatt continued to press on his speech. There was simply nothing to prevent him from doing anything he wanted. He was president, no, he was the Emperor of L’Manberg. He had the power, and all had to obey.

“EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY! ALL CITIZENS OF L’MANBERG ARE REQUIRED TO HELP TEAR THE WALLS OF THIS COUNTRY!”

The scene shifted Wilbur looking at the black walls of L’Manberg, tears falling down his eyes as it slowly began to tear away.

“They're… oh my god... “ Wilbur said as he fell onto his knees. Tommy kneeled beside him, the two former citizens of L’Manberg forced to watch their country change.

“Look away, Wilbur-”

“No I need to- I need to watch this…” Wilbur said, cutting Tommy off as they continued to watch the destruction of the walls, the structure that had stood against Dream during their independence war. Twilight couldn’t help but watch in sadness as everything that Tommy and Wilbur had was slowly being torn down, while Celestia and Luna solemnly lowered their heads.

“This was… This is a huge part of my- I just need to watch- It’s not a case of…” Wilbur cut off his voice as the two noticed in the distance the familiar figure of an anthropomorphic fox using a pickaxe to tear down the walls. The droplets of tears soon became a slow stream of sadness. “My son- MY SON IS TEARING DOWN THE WALLS IN FRONT OF ME! The walls I built to keep him safe! I promised him I could give him a life- L’Manberg my unfinished symphony!” Wilbur began to cry and sob out loud as Tommy did his best to calm him down, patting his back as they watched all former friends and family members destroying their nation under the orders of Jschlatt. Twilight began to tear up at the same time.

“S-So… T-They lost everything right?” Twilight asked out loud, the pain that Wilbur must have been feeling at that moment seeping into the young princess and causing her to release a few tears of her own. Her sympathy for them caused her to feel their pain, even if this is just a moment from the past, and even if they never knew each other at all. Celestia came up and wrapped a wing around Twilight’s back as they watched Wilbur and Tommy leave with a heavy face.

“They’ll make it out of this Twilight. Good things happen to heroes Twilight.” The Solar Princess said, trying to calm Twilight down. The dream began to quicken its pace, images passing by at a fast speed, each with a unique depiction. From Tommy entering a house and ‘borrowing’ some stuff to riding a horse and encountering and escaping from Quackity. Eventually, the dream began to slow down until it began to resume a normal pace with Tommy and Wilbur back in their small base.

“I think… I think we should speak to the blade.” TommyInnit stated, causing Wilbur to lift his arms in an ‘I don’t care’ attitude, while Twilight, Celestia, and Luna wondered what Tommy meant by ‘The Blade’.

“Ok fine. Speak to him, get him on this call, I will listen but I am not speaking to him, you’re doing the talking.” Wilbur stated as he went into the base, tired, fatigued, and torn apart by what he had seen.

“What do they mean by ‘The Blade’?” Twilight Sparkle asked as Tommy began to touch the side of his ear as if he was adjusting something. Luna and Celestia simply shrugged, but instead of addressing that question, they decided to focus on something else.

“Sister, do you agree with me that this ‘Wilbur Soot’ has been acting a bit aloof recently?” Celestia asked, causing Luna to raise an eyebrow. “Like first of all, the whole ‘consolidation of power’ is making me wonder what happened before the election, but most importantly, I think he’s slowly breaking apart right?” Celestia asked. Luna simply sighed.

“I believe so. I turned into Nightmare Moon due to jealousy, and being kicked out of the very same country you built would have massive consequences… I’m afraid that Wilbur might end up going astray to a more darker path like I did… I wonder what Dream is doing at this very moment. Within this time, I mean. We haven’t seen him at all.” Luna stated, causing Celestia to nod.

“Yes. This is very strange. Perhaps Dream has changed his course of action and is keeping his word in not meddling with L’Manberg, though given the new regime change and Jschlatt wanting to expand the nation’s borders, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dream ended up siding with Tommy and Wilbur. But then, if that ends up with him becoming a good guy, suddenly the Ponyville Incident begins to sound more like an accident than an intentional action. If two good guys end up fighting, then there’s no evil side, just a misunderstanding.” Celestia stated.

“Well, we shall see what course of action Dream will take. If he ends up leaning towards the path of good and justice, then we will find him, yes, but to correct errors and make sure he’s ok. But if he ends up leaning towards the path of evil, destruction, tyranny, and chaos, I’m afraid we’ll have to resume our original plan to capture him for trial.” Luna stated as they watched Tommy standing, his demeanor suddenly haven changed from a frown to a smirk.

“Hello Techno,” Tommy said out loud, and after a long period of silence, they suddenly heard a slightly deep voice echo through the air.

“Hello.”

Author's Note

The Blade has arrived :)

Also, I created a new youtube channel, which you can find by typing my name 'Midnight Blitzer'. Right now there's just a small intro video, but if you like my content, you can check it out, or check my other stories.

Very Important Question: Should I go at a slow pace (gives the most information about the Dream SMP but it'll take various chapters) or go at a fast past (only major important events like The L'Manberg Festival, etc.)

I already have a chapter in advance that makes as a good conclusion for 'The Day of the L'Manberg Election', but I want to see what you want me to do, since I also want to quickly return to the main action.

My info is based on Tommy's streams, so I wonder if I should continue writing about that stream (like day by day) or again, the major events. You guys choose.

ᒷᔑᓭℸ ̣

Author's Note

Hello everybody! I have some news to tell.

If you've checked the comments section from the last chapter (you can still do it if you want), you know that I've begun to become... a bit tired when it comes to posting chapters for this story. Not that I hate this story, but I feel that I need a small break. Not to mention that I have to constantly deal with trying to make this story as good/perfect as it can be while also trying to make it fun for me to do.

So, as of right now, I'm going to be taking a break for a bit. However, just because I'm not going to be posting chapters here doesn't mean I won't be busy. Because I think it's time I finally get an editor. Of course, this isn't the first time somebody asked me to be my editor and visa versa, but at the time I believed that I could do this alone since it was just for fun. But right now after seeing some things, I think it's time to finally get one.

I want you guys to do your best to point out any errors you think there might be within this story, as well as what route should this story take place. Even if I don't end up getting an editor, I still want to hear your true opinion about this story and such.

If you do want to become my editor, then the only real requirement is that you're a good critic and would be able to edit the chapters well. Everything else would be like additional points to your resume, like knowledge on the Dream SMP etc. And also that you're willing to edit the eleven chapters that exist. Who knows, maybe we might end up having to compress multiple chapters together, or just make some minor changes.

As of right now, I'm going to move to another project to cool off a bit, which would probably be the first story I created on the site, which you can check out, and I'll try to finish it so that I can begin chopping things off the 'to do' list.

Anyways, this is Midnight Blitzer, taking a break from this story for a bit. And when I come back, expect things to go pretty fast for this story.

ᒷᔑᓭℸ ̣

Chapter 10: East
“Hello.”

The princesses stood still as they heard the new foreign voice travel through the air. As usual, they began to search around, trying to find the person who spoke, but much like how Tommy was able to speak to Dream after the duel despite him being in a completely random location, the same occurred here. They could only hear the voice, but not see the person.

“So I heard you want to join us,” Tommy said out loud, as he entered the small base to look through his items.

“Well I heard there was a possibility of like, thwarting democratically elected governments and I was like ‘Oh man! I’m up for that!’” The voice by the name of Techno said. Tommy nodded before sighing.

“Wilbur is a bit sensitive right now. All the Americans have turned on him. And I hate to break it, but you are american, Technoblade.” The young boy said. The princesses could all sense as if the voice shrugged.

“So… what do they mean by American and Europeans? I think they’ve mentioned those things quite a lot, so it must be important right?” Twilight Sparkle asked as she took a moment to step out from the scene and ask Luna the question. “Also, would I be right to assume that this ‘Techno’ is an… anarchist based on what he currently has said?” The young alicorn added. Luna and Celestia pondered on this question, bogged down by their own questions.

“Perhaps the name ‘American’ and ‘European’ is just like we categorize ‘Unicorn’ and ‘Pegasi’. It seems the people of this world are united, but at the same time divided by culture and territory.” Luna stated. “As for Techno being an anarchist, it’s a strong possibility.” The Lunar Princess added on, before frowning. “Though like I said before, this dream is starting to elongate a bit too much for comfort. I expected Dream’s dream to quickly jump from important event to important event, or at least jump to moments related to him, but no, we’re stuck at this rather slow pace.” Luna said, to which Celestia nodded in agreement.

“Yes. This is starting to get a bit slow, but perhaps this information is necessary to understand future things. I do agree that it would be preferable that the dream begins to pick up steam. We only have a few more hours in this dream realm after all.” Celestia replied. Thankfully, as if on cue, the dream picked up the pace, showing Tommy and Wilbur talking to each other about ‘making a barracks’ and Tommy confirming that they’d want Techno on their side. By the time the dream had slowed down to a reasonable pace, Tommy was once again outside their small base, shuffling his iron armor and taking a deep breath.

“Technoblade, I’m going to come and get you and you’re going to stick by my side.” The young boy said, before spinning around as he heard Wilbur call for him. The princesses turned around and were certainly surprised when they saw the former leader of L’Manberg decked out in diamond armor. Considering that he just died, it was understandable that he was wearing protection out of fear of losing his last canon life. To their surprise, the man began taking off his armor and giving it to Tommy.

“Tommy… be careful. The wound is fresh, the area is hot, they’re looking for you…” Wilbur said as Tommy gave a silent ‘thanks’ to Wilbur, before becoming a bit shocked as the man gave him a small hug. “I believe in you man. You’ve been the best right-hand man I could ask for.” The brown hair man said, before Tommy jumped onto the horse and began to ride back towards L’Manberg. As the scene quickly changed, the three princesses saw Tommy continuing to ride his horse, but now in L’Manberg territory, the young boy having just given some commands to Techno on their plan to escort him back to the base.

“So, follow you and go east?” The voice asked as the red and white-shirted teenager simply blinked.

“Uhh… Whichever way I’m going… I’m not quite sure which way is which.” Tommy admitted as he let off a soft laugh while trying to maintain his seriousness.

“So you’ll be to the east when I come?” Technoblade asked. Yet again the three princesses could see Tommy blinking as he struggled to know which way was which.

“Is east to the left?”

“I- You’re the one who brought us ‘east’” Technoblade said, while Wilbur began to groan through ‘the call’.

“East is to the right, Tommy,” Wilbur said with a groan. Twilight simply did a face hoof.

“Alright, I swear if Tommy says-”

“A-Alright I’ll be on hard west- no, I mean north Techno,” Tommy said, causing Techno and Wilbur to begin laughing hard while the three princesses did a collective face hoof.

“That’s not left or right!” Twilight and Wilbur yelled, nearly at the same time. This caused Luna and Celestia to begin snickering as well as they saw the situation unfold.

“Confidence is not being inspired within me right now.” Technoblade simply stated. “I CAN’T GO UP! I HAVE NO WINGS!” The male voice yelled while also laughing out loud. Tommy soon dropped from his horse as he began to enter a ruined building.

“Techno I’m here! Log in Techno, log in!” Tommy yelled, before becoming confused as he looked around and saw no signs of the person he was supposed to escort. The male voice simply began to laugh.

“I’M NOT WHITELISTED XD.” The voice said, causing the young boy to go into a fit of panic.

“OH, YOU SON OF A B*TCH YOU SCREWED ME OVER!” Tommy yelled, causing the three princesses to flinch at his language again.

“Wait no I’m probably on my alt.”

“AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!”

Twilight, Celestia, and Luna could only blink as they watched the chaotic scene unfold, and despite the curses being thrown around, they all couldn’t help but facepalm and laugh at the same time, not really noticing some glaring details about this world and just focusing on the funny parts.

“Lemme just change accounts.” The male voice said, and soon the chaos resumed once again as Tommy rushed to try and find the man once again.

“Techno, I’m behind you!” Tommy yelled just as he went into a clearing, letting the princesses see who was ‘Technoblade’. At first, all they saw was the back of the figure. The first thing that they noticed was his red cape that had the letters ‘OF’ inscribed in gold. The next thing they noticed was the golden crown placed on top of his head. And as he began to turn around, the princesses could see that his face was that… of a pig?

“Wait… what?” Twilight asked out loud as Technoblade immediately began to follow Tommy. As Tommy began to encounter and run away from various people, the three princesses continued to ponder on who this ‘Technoblade’ figure was.

“So… he’s a royal swine?” Luna said out loud. “Like I know we have Fundy who’s a fox and Jschlatt who’s a ram, but Technoblade being a hog does put the cherry on top of the cake of strangeness in this dream right?” The Lunar Princess quickly added, before blinking.

“I guess so. Where he got that crown and what it represents is a mystery. This world is very strange indeed.” Celestia stated, before letting out a soft laugh. “And yes, I do understand what point you’ve stumbled upon Luna. Let’s refrain from calling Technoblade by any pig-related words alright?” Celestia offered before they continued to spectate Tommy and Techno running away from L’Manberg. Soon they heard Wilbur’s voice through the call, and he didn’t seem as happy as he was before, if he was even happy to begin with given that he was expelled from L’Manberg not too long ago.

“Techno, I swear to god if you’ve been in kahoots with jschlatt this whole time,” Wilbur stated, causing Twilight to immediately widen her eyes.

“Don’t tell me that Techno is going to end up being another person who’ll betray them just like the rest did!” Twilight said with a frightened voice. Technoblade simply laughed out loud.

“Would I ever do that to you?” Techno asked.

“Potentially, you’re quite a big fan of winning,” Wilbur stated, his suspicion about Techno’s loyalty always increasing. Technoblade simply laughed it off before saying something that both calmed Twilight down while increasing her nerves a bit.

“I’m a big fan of anarchy, is what I am a fan of, ok?” Techno replied as he continued to follow Tommy.

“Well, at least that answered that question, though now that we know that Techno is an anarchist, it raises a new question on what if Tommy and Wilbur manage to get back their country. Would he still ally himself with them or would he betray them?” Celestia asked out loud, which caused Twilight to sigh.

“I just don’t want Tommy to suffer more. I just wish that we could’ve been there to help him ya know?” The purple alicorn stated, while Wilbur continued to interrogate Technoblade and his loyalties, when Tommy spotted something in the distance that caused him to halt.

“Uh oh,” Tommy whispered as he spotted a heavily armored person in the distance, who stared right at the child. He wore a black sweater, white pants, and a red, yellow, and black mask. He also wore the elusive black armor, which shimmered with a faint purple aura. It didn’t take long for the Princesses to remember who he is.

“Wait… He was in L’Manberg during the execution right!?” Twilight yelled as she realized that this was the very same person who immediately sprung up the moment Jshlatt gave the order to hunt Tommy and Wilbur down. The masked figure raised a crossbow before firing at the two, and it looked like a repeat of Tommy’s duel death was about to occur as time slowed to a crawl, only for the arrow to bounce harmlessly off of his diamond chest plate.

“Ponk knows! Run Technoblade! I think I’ll need to kill him.” Tommy said as he rushed towards Ponk with his horse, diamond sword in hand as the two began to duke it out. Luna simply smiled at the sight of Tommy able to overpower not just any figure, but an ally of Dream.

“Good thing that Wilbur gave him that diamond gear right?” Luna stated before quickly noticing some glaring things. “I don’t think Ponk even has a weapon of his own other than his crossbow, and given that he’s only wearing a chest plate, I think Tommy can win,” Luna said, before noticing Celestia’s frown. “What’s the matter, sister?” Luna asked as the Solar Princess simply sighed.

“Tommy said that he’ll need to kill Ponk… and even though they all have multiple lives… it just sounds wrong to hear a child saying that he’ll need to kill somebody,” Celestia stated as Tommy began to dominate Ponk, forcing him to flee into the water, but still trying to engage the youngster with his crossbow. Both Luna and Twilight gave no response to Celestia, but they all agreed with her point. This world that the dream is about is just too violent.

“Technoblade where are you!” Tommy yelled as he disengaged and jumped onto his horse to find the crown-wearing-anthropomorphic-pig.

“I’m to your east!” Technoblade yelled, only for Tommy to go into another state of anxiety.

“That doesn't mean anything to me!” The youngster yelled before jerking his head to dodge an incoming arrow from Ponk, who still tried to attack Tommy. The princesses could tell that Technoblade was starting to get tired and a bit annoyed at Tommy’s lack of orientation and direction.

“LOOK AT THE SUN! You see the direction where the sun is? It’s the other way!” Technoblade yelled as Tommy tried to go into that direction, only for an arrow to lodge into his side.

“Ok, Ponk has got to go. I told him to go, and he ain’t going.” Tommy stated as he began to rush Ponk as they heard Wilbur’s voice echo.

“Kill him, Tommy, kill him,” Wilbur commanded as Tommy backed Ponk into a small pool of water, charging him with his sword. The masked figure tried one last attempt of defiance by shooting at the horse, causing it to shake in pain, but it remained standing and soon a swift sweep from Tommy’s sword ended the fight as Ponk’s stuff scattered around his dead body before it dissolved into nothing but dust.

As Tommy began to scavenge and take Ponk’s items on Wilbur’s orders, while arguing with Techoblade on which direction was east, left, the sun, and the moon, and the lack of understanding of math, the three princesses could only look solemnly at Tommy. They weren’t mad at the kid for killing Ponk, rather, they were saddened. Saddened that this world was so violent that it forced younglings to kill to save their own lives, to make decisions that would be heavy for a man, much more for a child. And as the moon began to rise and Techno continued to argue with Tommy, they could only think of one thing. If Tommy could not only manage to beat Jshlatt, but also Dream, whether peacefully, through war, or by any other means, they could have a chance of making sure that violence never touched their world ever again, or at least in the magnitude it has now. But right now, they were…

Not Free Yet.

ᓭℸ ̣ ᔑℸ ̣ ⚍ᓭ

Author's Note

A chapter? What does this mean!?

Well sadly it doesn't mean I'll be spamming chapter after chapter soon. This chapter was actually written because (1) I nearly thought Dream escaped after Idol_Laharl_Chan commented Techno's recent stream and (2) it's TheFrozenWarrior's birthday, so here's ya gift.

Kind of occupied in a bunch of stuff, and one of my requirements to continue doing this is when Dream escapes prison, because ya know, don't want to get anything wrong.

Theoretically, I could continue things with just this, but again, busy with other things, other stories. But hey I might come back here after freeing myself up.

Anyway I hope you guys enjoy this short chapter.

ᓭℸ ̣ ᔑℸ ̣ ⚍ᓭ

Chapter 11: Status

As the three princesses continued to play through the scenes, their view suddenly began to flicker as Luna’s magic began to die down. The Lunar Princess simply shrugged as she began to power down her dream walking ability.

“Well it seems like today’s shift through his dreams is over. My magic’s dying down due to prolonged use and thus we’ll soon be back in the throne room.” Luna said as the colors began to fade away. Twilight however found herself a bit unsatisfied with the answer.

“Can we come back tomorrow and see if he has more memories that we can see?” Twilight asked. Celestia simply nodded to her while putting on a smile.

“Of course Twilight. Though since our tour here is done, we must now figure out what we should do with this ‘Dream’ fellow.” Celestia stated as they soon found themselves back in the throne room. Immediately the three placed serious faces as they began to talk about the delicate subject. “From what we saw he is no stranger to hurting or even killing children as seen with the Young Six and Tommy. He is a threat to Equestria already that must be contained soon or else somebody else will get hurt.” The alicorn said.

“Not to mention that he already blew up a nation once. If his main goal is to destroy Equestria, things can become pretty terrible soon if he gets all the materials he needs.” Twilight said nervously, images on how Canterlot and Ponyville had been destroyed from multiple confrontations appearing in her mind, causing her to become unsettled as she realized this new one might end up doing it on a larger scale than ever seen before. Luna however seemed to be the most focused on her thoughts.

“Considering that his world has canon lives, perhaps the bodies, which weren’t found, belonged to people from that dimension.” The Lunar Princess said. “If so, we might be hearing reports of multiple foreign people being sighted, and from there we will be able to ask them what happened before they arrived.”

“But then how will we be able to find them? It’s not like one of them is sleeping in the Friendship Castle whom we can talk to.” Twilight said. Celestia simply shrugged at her statement.

“Maybe yes or maybe not. Either way we must immediately notify the public about this event and help them stay alert. If you want I can do that while you and your friends investigate everything for clues we might’ve overlooked.” The Solar Princess said, causing the purple alicorn to smile and hug her.

“Thanks. Hopefully we’ll be able to finish this quickly before anybody else gets hurt.” Twilight said as she slowly began to charge her energy before disappearing from the room. The two sisters sighed before looking at each other.

“Welp. Seems our little retirement plan is going to get thrown out of the window for who knows how long.” Luna stated. The white alicorn simply shrugged.

“Well it does seem to be the case. Anyway we must prepare ourselves, the sun is probably going to rise and we’ll need to be ready to face the entire populace and tell them before news from Ponyville brings panic onto the streets.” Celestia said as she grabbed her crown and placed it on her head.

Far away in the Everfree Forest, Dream laid on the ground after having dozed off. The Speedrunner had attempted to find a lava pool nearby to create a Nether Portal, however after searching for hours he had eventually succumbed to his sleep. Rubbing his eyes, Dream yawned as he extended his arms.

“Huh. Never expected to be dreaming about the Dream SMP. It felt kind of strange seeing things through Tommy’s POV, but hey, a dream’s a dream if ya ask me.” The Speedrunner said as he stretched his back, only to feel something feathery behind him. “Wait… what was that?” Dream said as he looked back only to see a green feathery wing behind him. Turning around, he realized that he had a set of wings on his back. Thinking he was dreaming, the Speedrunner rubbed his eyes again, feeling how his face felt different but not thinking too much about it, and looked back again, this time not seeing the pair. Shrugging it off as just a hallucination, Clay simply stood up and began to walk, feeling some weight on his forehead appear on and off.

“Well that was strange. Anyway, what was I doing yesterday? Oh right, searching for lava pools… I don’t think this forest would have any though… Maybe I should get out of this place.” Dream said to himself before feeling something staring behind him. Turning around he let out a gasp as what seemed to be a cross between a lion, a bat, and a scorpion come out from the trees and lunged at him. With the manticore nearly on top of him, the best thing that he could do was dodge as he took a step back, only to be surprised as his body weight suddenly shifted and he launched himself a huge distance from the beast. Turning his gaze back for a moment, his eyes shot wide open as he saw the pair of wings appear on his back again.

“Wait… I have wings!?” Dream yelled to himself only for them to disappear again, causing him to fall onto the ground. Seeing his prey on the ground, the manticore jumped into the air for a killing blow. Trying to take his sword out as quickly as he could, he suddenly felt something on his forehead active, his body tingling with unknown forces as his sword came out of his pouch and struck the manticore in the face, producing a slash across his cheek. The sword immediately dropped onto the ground as he felt the power vanish, but quickly changing to his bow he fed an arrow into it before firing with expertise, killing the manticore with one shot.

As he walked over to pick up his sword, he noticed a pool of water nearby. Nervously walking towards it, Dream looked at his reflection only to be stunned as he saw himself.

“Wait…” Dream said to himself in complete shock as he saw a green pony with his hair color looking back at him, a mask covering its face. A pair of wings and a horn flickered constantly in the mirrored image, almost as if his body had not been able to decide if he was either, both, or neither.

“I’M A PONY!?”

“WHAT!?”