One evening in Ponyville, Dustin, Blaze, Alistair, Zyphon, Domino, and Fievel were on their they back to their place. They went inside, and Zyphon locked the front door.
"Boy, what a day huh, guys?" Dustin asked with a yawn.
"You said it," Alistair stretched his arms, "All that work at Sweet Apple Acres and Sugarcube Corner sure can be a handful."
"I'll be sleeping like a baby tonight." Blaze concluded, as they headed for their rooms.
"Likewise." Domino cawed, as he flew to his makeshift nest up on the ceiling.
"Goodnight, guys." Fievel said, as he went into a little mouse hole.
"Goodnight, masters." Zyphon bid them a goodnight, as he was ready to power down.
So the three bid each other a goodnight and went to their respective rooms for a well deserved sleep, knowing tomorrow was going to be another day.
Meanwhile at the Princesses former castle, Ebon who was reading a spell book in the castle library smirked, "Yes. It's perfect," he snickered before calling out, "Johan, Omaddon, get in here!"
The chaos duo ran into the library and saw him, "You called, sir?" Johan inquired.
"Indeed I have." Ebon nodded.
"What is it?" Omaddon asked.
"You know how to stop an army?" Ebon asked.
"How?" Omaddon asked.
"You take out it's strongest member." Ebon answered.
"Brilliant, but how're you going to do that?" Johan asked curiously.
"And who're you going to do it to?" Omaddon wondered.
"Dustin Bowers," he answered, "Take him down, and the others will practically be broken without him."
"But sir, what about Alistair?" Johan warned him.
"Don't worry when I'm done with Dustin he will be next."
"But how're you going to take him out alone?" Johan asked, as Ebon answered.
"By attacking him where the others cannot help him."
"Where's that?" Omaddon rubbed his head curiously.
"In his mind," Ebon explained, as he got into a meditating position, "See to it that the serpentine do not disturb me, and that goes for the both of you too."
"Yes, sir." the bowed their heads and took their leave.
"All right, Dustin. Let's see just what's behind that subconscious of yours." he finished getting into his meditating form, and started concentrating as dark magic started surrounding him.
Suddenly a ghostly shadow apparition of Ebon's pony self left his body and flew out of the castle before heading into Ponyville.
It found its way into Dustin, Alistair, and Blaze's place as it dove right into Dustin's body. Upon entering him, Dustin started looking distressed in his sleep.
Deep in his mind, Dustin woke up in a dark void that was just empty with only smoke shrouding the floor, "Huh, what's going on?" he looked around seeing nothing around him, "Hello?!" he called out, only to receive an echo.
He suddenly heard a noise and spun to see nothing. He shook it off as he started to walk only to see something up ahead, "Who's there?"
"Hello, Dustin." out from the shadows came Ebon.
"Ebon?!" Dustin gasped.
"Who did you expect, King Sombra?" he asked rhetorically.
"What're you doing here, and why do you have your body back?" Dustin demanded, as he got into a fighting stance.
"This is merely a manifestation of my former body inside your subconscious." he explained.
Dustin grew confused, "What, we're inside my mind?"
"Correct."
"How did you get inside my head, and why?!"
"Just a little spell, and the reason being is I'm here to show you just how much of a failure you really are." Ebon mocked him.
"I'm not a failure!" Dustin shouted, as he ran to attack him only for Ebon to vanish causing him to miss.
Ebon reappeared behind him, "You don't see it now, but first how about a little flashback?" Dustin was confused, and suddenly found himself fading into darkness.
He opened his eyes and saw he was in his old bedroom, but it looked much bigger to him, and didn't have all the stuff he decorated it with, 'This is my room, but it's all different.' he thought to himself.
"Dustin." a female voice spoke up.
'That voice, it can't be.' he thought before he saw his bedroom door opened, and entering was a woman.
The woman was beautiful with long scarlet red hair, blue eyes, and wore a light blue sleeveless blouse, and violet pants, "Morning, sweetie." she smiled.
"Mommy!" he gasped, but realized his voice sounded much younger.
'Yes I remember, this was the day mom passed away, before it all happened.' he thought.
"Come on, Dustin, you don't want to be late for school." his mother Bianca said.
"Yes, mommy," the words came out his his five year old mouth, but he mentally thought with his teenage persona, 'I remember mom drove me to school that day.'
It flashed forward to his mother driving up to the school building, "All right, sweetie, this is it. You behave yourself ok?"
"I will, mom." he answered, as he leaned forward and kissed his mom's cheek before leaving, "Bye, mom. I love you!" he raced for the school.
"Me too, Dustin!" she drove off.
"But then it all happened." Dustin said to himself as he flashed forward to seeing his mother in a hospital bed looking very injured, with both Ross and Darius surrounding the bed, with Dustin crying.
"Mommy!" he cried.
"Dustin," Bianca smiled as she reached out to touch his face, "Dustin, you are very special to me. Always remember that." she shed a tear before her heart rate stopped.
"Mom! MOMMY!" Dustin cried, as Darius and Ross held him back and tried to get him out of the room so not to see his mother in this state.
The room faded as Dustin back in his regular age gasped, "No!"
"Yes," Ebon's voice echoed, as smoke surrounded Dustin, "That did happen. She died all because it was her job a spirit warrior. If it wasn't for that fact she probably would still be alive and with you."
"No, that's not true!" Dustin shouted.
"Isn't it?" Ebon tempted, "Being a spirit or dark warrior means putting your life on the line, and your mother did just that leaving you and your father alone!"
"Shut up!" Dustin tried to drown his voice out.
"What's the matter, Dustin, afraid to face the truth? Because it's all true. And just as your mother died in battle, someday soon you will meet the same fate the longer you continue to pursue this path of goodness like she did."
"I don't believe it!" Dustin cried.
"Oh, don't you? Then perhaps you require to see more of what will make you change your thoughts." Ebon said, as memories started appearing.
He saw a flashback of when he, Alistair, Alice, Alicia, Dean, and Burai were on a mission when he and his friends were ten to eleven years old. They had run into some shadow soldiers and fought them. Dustin was having fun while fighting them, and fired his spirit gun up at a hanging large pipe to drop on some of the shadow soldiers, only for it to roll down hill on a rock pile heading straight for Alice who was fighting two shadow soldiers.
"Alice, look out!" Alicia screamed.
Alice gasped as she saw the large pipe rolling right for her and would squash her. Burai, acting quickly flew in and saved her.
"I remember that day. I almost cost Alice her life because I was careless." Dustin said to himself, as he saw his conversation with Darius and Burai, with both looking disappointed in him.
"Dustin, what were you thinking?!" Darius asked firmly.
"I-I was..." he tried to find an answer, but had nothing.
"Not only were you reckless, but you put Alice in danger." Burai put in feeling equally disappointment.
"I was only..."
Darius held his hand up to silence him, "Dustin, I care about you like a grandson, but you need to take being a spirit warrior seriously. Your mother would not want to see you like this."
Dustin looked crushed hearing about that, and fell silent, "We'll discuss this later. You may go now." Darius dismissed him, and Dustin left the room saddened.
Older Dustin watched in guilt remembering how he almost got his friend hurt, "Painful, isn't it?" Ebon's voice asked.
"I learned from that mistake and was never again reckless like that!" Dustin retorted.
"Oh, really, have you already forgotten how you left yourself open to this?" Ebon asked, as Dustin looked back into another memory Ebon was bringing up.
He saw him and Alistair during their first time in Equestria fighting Pythor and Skales who hypnotized the two into attacking the girls, and were forced to fight each other for the amusement of the serpentine.
"No, not this again!" Dustin cried, as he remembered.
"Yes. You and Alistair foolishly fell victim to the Hypnobrai hypnosis and became a puppet to attack your pony friends, and your best friend as well."
"No, stop!" Dustin cried, as he was forced to constantly watch his past self fight Alistair against his will while Alistair did so as well.
"You fell victim to hypnosis because you were weak, and you still are." Ebon mocked him.
"I'm not weak!" he screamed.
"Hard to back that up with all these failures and disappointing moments." Ebon said, as he continued to show more of Dustin's mess ups during the course of three years since he and Alistair returned to their world.
Dustin watched helplessly as he saw certain memories of him slipping up or making mistakes on the job, along with Ebon feeding false words to him using the voices of his friends to put him down and lower his confidence. He even went far as to using the voices of the ponies and the princesses to further bring him down. He dropped to his knees and cried from all the mind rape Ebon was delivering onto him.
Outside his mind, Dustin was throbbing around before he fell out of bed with a thud. Hearing that, Alistair, Blaze, Zyphon, Domino, and Fievel came in and saw him on the floor thrashing about.
"Dustin!" Alistair called, as he and Blaze ran over to try and calm him down.
"Come on, man. Snap out of it!" Blaze tried shaking him awake, but to no avail.
"He's not waking up!" Alistair told Zyphon in worry.
"Let me try something." Zyphon lifted his index finger up, that popped open revealing a syringe. He stuck it into Dustin's arm and injected him with a substance causing him to calm down.
"What was that about?" Domino asked.
"A panic attack?" Fievel asked.
"I wouldn't think so. He's been fine all day as we worked." Blaze noted.
Alistair put a hand on his friends shoulder, and gasped as a dark essence surrounded his hand before he removed it from Dustin, "What was that?" Zyphon asked the dark warrior.
"I'm feeling a dark essence radiating off him, but it's not dark energy like mine. Rather it's like dark magic." he explained.
"Magic?" they asked collectively.
"Yeah."
"This can only be Ebon's doing." Zyphon said.
"But what's he doing to him?" Blaze asked.
"I don't know, but we got to tell Twilight about this now. Come on!" Alistair ordered, as Zyphon picked his master up, and they left their place to head for Twilight's wondering if she could help him.