Dreambert watched as Antasma darted into Bowser, his fist making contact with the koopa's skull in a fast, deadly motion. He could see the bat king breathing heavily as he slowly advanced on his dazed target. He tightly grabbed onto Bowser's horns, hoisted him up to his feet and hit him again, harder than before. Dreambert couldn't take this, luckily for Antasma, almost all of the guests had fled out of the castle, and the others staying at the castle had been taken back upstairs to safety.

"Antasma, calm down!" Dreambert tried to reason. Antasma's head snapped back in Dreambert's direction. His eyes had flickered a bright red as he glared harshly at the prince.

"I AM CALM!" He shrieked back. Dreambert opened his mouth to try to call to him again when a voice interrupted him.

"There is no use trying to reason with him. He's been overtaken by a lingering memory."

Dreambert turned to see a Pi'illo master standing behind him, more specifically, the one whom he had ordered to remove Antasma's memories.

"What?"

"You understand how... stubborn Antasma can be at times. I wasn't able to remove all of his memories with him resisting as much as he had," He crossed his arms, "Which is why I had wanted to convince him into it willingly rather than have him as terrified as he was." The Pi'illo said.

Dreambert's gaze flicked back over to Antasma, who was still throwing punches at Bowser.

"But why would that cause him to act so violently?"

"The memories he managed to keep happen to be the ones that have affected him the most. We had to put a block on them so that he'd never recollect any of them while conscious but... they can be triggered if he experiences certain things. At the moment it seems to be the one of Bowser's betrayal. When something like this happens, he loses consciousness and can temporarily revert back to his old personality. He'll only stay like this for a few minutes, however. He'll collapse and have no recollection of anything he did while overtaken."

Dreambert watched as Antasma continued to pummel the koopa, who was trying his best to keep conscious but eventually was unable to cope with his aggressor and passed out, falling over with a loud thump. Antasma grabbed him by the horns again and dragged him out the front gate of the castle. Moments later a loud splash! sounded from just outside the building. The bat king came hovering in shortly after, looking a bit dazed before his eyes flicked back to their normal golden color. He swayed a bit before he fell face first onto the stone tile. Dreambert hesitantly hovered over to Antasma, careful in case he were to wake with the same blind anger he had just moments before. When the prince reached Antasma, he shook him gently, earning a tired groan from the nightmare. His eyes were shut, Dreambert shook him again. No response this time. He was completely out. The prince sighed.

"Take him back to his room," He told one of the castle's workers. Antasma was then hoisted up over the attendant's shoulders and half carried, half dragged up to the top floor, where Pi'illo Castle's residents stayed. Dreambert sighed and glanced over to the Pi'illo master who had followed him.

"How often will this happen?" He asked in a nervous voice.

"Not often. Though it shouldn't have happened tonight. Perhaps his desire to protect the princess had fueled his episode."

Dreambert looked back over to Peach, who had been taken to a safer area in the room after she had refused to leave. She didn't seem at all shaken about what she had just witnessed, but worried.

"I'm grateful that Antasma got rid of Bowser but... is he going to be alright? I'd just gotten used to his new self," She said, with her gaze on the Pi'illo master.

"He will be back to normal when he wakes. The most he should have is a headache. Do not worry yourself, you should get back to your room." He said with a smile.

The Pi'illo master glanced back over at Dreambert.

"Antasma seems to have dumped Bowser into the moat outside. You should have someone bring him back to the Mushroom Kingdom before he regains consciousness."

_+_

Antasma awoke to bright sunlight streaming through the only window in his room. Quite unwelcome at the least, as it merely caused his head to throb. He looked around, someone had put him back in his room and dumped him on his couch. He let out a quiet hiss. He disliked sleeping horizontally, and this probably was only making his headache worse than it should be. He was much more accustomed to sleeping upside down, given he was a bat, after all.

He sat up, causing him to feel a sudden soreness shoot through his arms. He didn't remember much from the previous night. He was only able to recall up to the point where Peach kissed him on the cheek. His face flushed a deeper purple as he purred quietly at the memory before pushing himself completely off the couch. He glanced around his room once more, nothing very impressive. Much of it was similar to the hotel rooms, though most of the furniture was a rich purple color with his signature tri-spiked trimmings. There was an iron hook where the bed should be, nailed onto the ceiling. He would hang there to sleep. It was only a placeholder though. He had asked Bedsmith to build him something a bit less... ugly. He wasn't sure if the bedmaker was able to build what he had asked for, but it was better than the ugly ornament he was currently using. The replacement he had ordered was similar with the hook, though it had a disk at the base where a sheet could be attached to allow him to wrap himself up. He found it uncomfortable being uncovered while sleeping.

He exited his room to be greeted by Dreambert, who was looking up at him with a skeptic expression.

"Do you remember anything from last night?" He asked.

"Only up to thee point vhen Peach kissed me... then I voke up on the couch in my room." He replied. He didn't know why Dreambert would ask something like that, nor why he would know about his memory loss. It made him wonder what had happened last night and why he couldn't remember any of it. Antasma continued downstairs to exit the castle only to find a crew of construction workers hurriedly repairing a giant hole in the castle's ceiling. He could only stare wide-eyed at it, wondering if it was really something real. Dreambert tugged at the back of his shirt.

"Don't worry about it, you had nothing to do with it." He said. Antasma looked down at the prince and nodded, still wide-eyed. He didn't want that hole there. It bothered him a lot.

He tried his best to move around the construction that was going on and made his way out of the castle.

Antasma spent most of the day completing favors for others and amusing tourists. Almost immediately after he left the castle he had been asked by Brickle to smash some heavy rocks that had piled up, and later had been pulled over to Dozing Sands to get rid of an overabundance of monsters that apparently had been affecting construction. He had tried to relax a bit at Wakeport, though he merely ended up running a bunch of errands for busy tourists. Some of them decided it would be a good idea to try and pet him, given he had fur. It resulted in a lot of swatting and hissing; he'd never let someone do that to him in public, much less a stranger. And when he had gone to the Blimport to get away from people, they had asked him to repair one of the broken engines on a blimp. Antasma couldn't figure out how they knew about his experience with machinery, though he didn't want to question them. The end of the day though came to a very pleasant close. He was able to show Peach the deeper reaches of Somnom Woods, and even take her to the very bottom of the pillared area. Not many things grew there, mainly bioluminescent plants since the area was barely touched by light. Much of the terrain was filled with water, it had been that way since before the Dark Stone incident. It was a very popular boating area then, and by some miracle, the boats remained in perfect condition and appeared nearly untouched by nature. Or at least the ones crafted by the Pi'illo Masters were.

Antasma had taken Peach almost all the way around both the river and the high pillars before they decided to head back to the castle. It was late, so they decided it would be best to just get some rest. They were heading home the next day anyways. Antasma couldn't help but feel almost a void in his chest at the thought of her leaving, but she'd visit again, right? If not, he could always take a trip over to her kingdom.

_+_

Bowser sat angrily on his huge bed as dozens of his minions tended to his wounds. They weren't so extreme as to need so many people tending to them, but Antasma had hit hard enough to make him bleed. He'd earned himself a black eye and lost a few teeth, as well as having visible claw marks across his face and chest where Antasma had slapped him with his claws unsheathed. Kamek was at the other side of the room yelling about something- he wasn't listening to the old magikoopa at all though. It had been a few hours since he'd woken up, and the constant attention from his medics was starting to grate his nerves.

The one thing that made him even more mad than the unwanted attention was the fact that he had been beaten to a pulp to someone he had shown up, and he had been beaten in front of a crowd. Not to mention Antasma was completely unlike his normal self. Why was he so intent on protecting Peach? And the way he glanced back at her... he didn't like it one bit.

Bowser pushed himself off his bed and barged through the minions frantically telling him he wasn't well enough do to work yet. He was still determined to capture the princess, and his plan was sure to work this time. He tried to shove his soldiers back onto the airships, only to have them tell him for the second time that he's too badly injured to try this again. Letting out an angry huff, he called on the residual power from the Dream Stone incident to materialize a fleet of minions who would actually do as they're told. He hadn't told anyone that he'd kept some of the Dream Stone's power after inhaling it, and his minions could only stare in shock as he boarded the ship. He'd be prepared for anyone who would try to stop him this time.

Hey, sorry for the late update! I just wanted to get over with school and finals before posting more.

I promise the Antasma/Peach/Bowser won't go into a love triangle don't worry.