//------------------------------// // Chapter 32 // Story: Ponystuck // by confoundtheseponies //------------------------------// "Is this a bad time?" Discord asked, appearing from behind a tiny pebble. "I do hope I'm not interrupting anything." He grinned a slow, wicked grin. Silver and the others leapt backwards in surprise, any anger with each other buried beneath sheer terror. If Discord took any notice of this, he didn't show it. "Hey Silver, how's it going?" The look he gave her, although horribly warped, was disturbingly recognisable. "I..." Silver didn't want to believe it. This monster was not Golden. There was no way that was actually a thing which was true. And yet she knew that it was. "... Golden?" "You're more of a purple colour, actually," Discord replied. "And I know you're happy to see me, but do try to remember your verbs." Clasping his hands together, he advanced towards the group in an unnervingly happy fashion. "Well, what are we going to do now?" Star Swirl and Luna exchanged bemused glances. "What... what do you think we're going to do?" Luna asked tentatively. Discord shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not the brains of this operation. I thought we were going to fight Mild and evil Silver, but by the time I got there you'd all ran back here. Did something go wrong?" No one responded. No one dared to. Discord frowned, a little disappointed. "Oh, I see, the silent treatment. I die for, what, two hours, and suddenly I'm out of the loop? Is that it?" "Golden, you..." Star Swirl began, pausing slightly at the cautionary glare that Comet gave him. "Uh... you didn't notice what happened on Skaia?" "No, can't say I did," Discord said simply. "Although I do remember a lot of exploding and burning and screaming." "... huh," Star Swirl said, unsure of how to bring up the rather uncomfortable topic of Golden's recent descent into his current state. "Say, Golden, do you... do you feel any different?" Comet was shaking his head at Star Swirl rather vigorously, but was ignored. "Not really. Why would I?" Discord asked, waving his claw around absently. Then he happened to catch sight of it, and stared at the appendage with intense curiosity. "Oh, right, I forgot about that." He looked down at his chest, where the curious purple shape looked back at him. "It's weird; I don't really know what I am now. I thought you were meant to magically know what your title is or something, aren't you?" He looked up at Luna, and was greeted with the rather surprising sight of a bow pulled back and aimed right at him. "W... what!? What are you doing?" The others reacted to Luna with similar cries of confusion, who simply held her ground. "Golden, I'm going to ask you a question, and I want a simple answer," Luna said, her voice shaking slightly. The bow remained firmly held in place, however. "Are you on our side, or not?" "What? What kind of a question is that!?" Discord protested, stopping himself just before he took a step towards Luna. Something told him that would be a bad idea. "I know I'm not much to look at right now, but I'm still me! Why would you even think otherwise?" "Because two of our friends just died as a result of a gog damn planet dropping on them. Who did that, I wonder?" Discord opened his mouth, but decided against saying anything. "Those two friends, as it happens, include the only pony that can save Celestia, so I am really not in the best of moods right now." Luna shook her head. "So, I'm going to ask again. Are you on our side, or not?" For a few minutes, Discord was silent. Was Luna serious? Did she really think he would betray them? How could she... how dare she, or anyone else, question him! He was their friend, and now they were turning against him! When at last Discord spoke, his voice shook with rage. "If you're going to make me choose, then I may as well choose the winning team," Discord said, before darting forwards and stabbing Luna with his umbrella. Pulling it, and an alarming amount of blood, back out of the startled Witch, he grabbed hold of the Paradox Gate that Luna dropped before hopping back behind a pebble and vanished. For the next few minutes, very little was achieved that wasn't panicking or dying. *** This world looked like any other. This was to say, it looked like every other world. Large tracts of land from completely different planets flanked each other, joining seamlessly along their curiously straight edges, as if this world was some bizarre photo album. Some of the areas, Applejack recognised - behind her she could see the misty forest of the Land of Secrets and Lies, and off in the distance was a large golden tower from Prospit. Something clicked in her mind. Prospit, falling. Specifically, falling onto her. "So why ain't Ah dead yet?" Applejack said aloud, her voice echoing around her in a strange and unexpected way. Perhaps, on some level of her subconscious, she already knew the truth. "You are," Summer's voice informed her, and Applejack span around to meet the pegasus before recoiling backwards in surprise. Summer was standing in front of her, as if nothing had happened, although something was quite clearly wrong. Her eyes were solid white circles, and she wasn't blinking. "And so am I. It was quite dramatic, so I guess I achieved one of my goals before dying." "We're... we're dead?" Applejack looked around her. Two dead crocodiles skipped past them, holding hands and whistling merrily. "This ain't exactly what Ah expected." Summer shrugged. "Hey, don't complain. This isn't so bad." Summer gestured a hoof over the nearest cathedral. "Let's go explore." And with that, she took off into the sky, with Applejack following close behind. "Is there any way for us to get back?" Applejack asked, as they soared above rivers of blood and oceans of knives. "Dying doesn't normally seem to stop anyone from coming back in this game." "True," Summer said. "Our dreamselves and our waking selves are all dead, which means we can't do anything at the moment. But if either of those selves were taken to our quest beds, then we might be able to come back." She thought for a moment. "Although, your dreamself was blown up, mine is in a different incipisphere to everyone else, and both of our waking selves are buried at the heart of a giant crater in the side of the Battlefield. I don't know how high our chances of ascension actually are, but I wouldn't bother holding your breath." "And there's no other way to get out of here?" As if offended, the skies above the afterlife took a definite turn for the purple, and the two ponies passed through a large field of huge wooden doors. "Not to my knowledge," Summer said. "In case you cared, we're in a dream bubble. There's thousands of them, each containing the memories of those who reside in the afterlife. We can travel between them, with a little effort, but outside of the bubbles we don't actually exist." "... and how did ya find that out?" Applejack asked, although she was beginning to notice a connection between asking ponies how they knew something and bad things happening. Everyone, it seemed, had something to hide. "You're about to find out," Summer said. "Look over there." Applejack looked, and the sight which greeted her almost brought tears to her eyes. Nestled between a mountain of cake and a towering Palace of Heart, was a small patch of what could be considered 'normal countryside'. And right in the centre was a tiny group of buildings that Applejack hadn't seen in what felt like years. Ponyville. Now that the constant excitement of Sburb wasn't in the way, and she was being confronted with what she had left behind, Applejack began to feel extremely homesick, even as they drew closer to Ponyville. Suddenly she was remembering everything that would have happened if she hadn't begun to play the game, and all of the ponies that she wouldn't see again. "Hey, are you OK?" Summer asked. "Ah'm fine," Applejack muttered, as they descended onto the ground just outside of the town. "Ah was just thinking." Any further discussion was interrupted by the appearance of two of the happiest dead ponies that Applejack had ever seen. "AJ! Summer!" Destiny called. "Rainbow and I were just talking about you!" *** "Urgh..." Hurling large sections of warship in every direction, Mild slowly freed himself and Silver from the pile of rubble which they had woken up beneath. "That was stupid." Pulling apart a wall and cautiously stepping out into the light of Skaia, Mild froze at the sight which greeted him. "Oh, wow." At this reaction, Silver pushed herself past him so that she too could be suitably impressed. They found themselves precisely on the edge of a crater that spanned beyond the horizon, removing what must have been approaching an entire quarter of the Battlefield in the process. Scattered within the crater were colossal chunks of golden stone, although they were tiny compared with the mass that had caused the devastation. Without their prison beneath the warship, Silver didn't doubt that both she and Mild would have been killed. It was funny how things turned out. "Well," Silver said. "It seems that being on the wrong end of a pop culture reference has finally paid off." A thought occurred to her. "Hey, so... where's Golden?" Mild gave her a panicked expression, before taking flight and glancing around. Silver flew up to meet him. "Any sign?" Mild shook his head. "This is bad. We need to find him and explain what's going on quickly, before he takes off with his own ideas of right and wrong." Urgently, Mild took out his laptop and attempted to contact the wayward Heir. [psychoticDeceiver began pestering eclecticSage] PD: Hello? ES: Oh. It's you. ES: Why are you talking to me? PD: What? Why wouldnt I be talking to you? ES: ... ES: Do I have a choice in this? PD: Uh... PD: I think were on slightly different wavelengths here. PD: Youve ascended, correct? PD: So we need to regroup. Get over here and I can explain everything. ES: Yes, that's what I meant. I'm automatically evil now, right? ES: And now I just have to go along with it and be on your team for no reason other than because that's what I'm meant to do? PD: Uh. PD: Maybe youre taking a while to adjust? PD: In the future youll be a lot happier about our arrangement, and the sooner you get over here the sooner I can do whatever I do to convince you. ES: Perhaps I don't want to be on your team. PD: ... uh, then... whose team would you be on? ES: I've had enough of teams. They're boring. ES: I may go solo for a while. PD: No, wait! ES: Hm? What does it matter to you? ES: Oh... right. ES: I almost flattened you beneath a planet. ES: You're scared of me. PD: Wait, this conversation is going in entirely the wrong direction. ES: Shut up. ES: Just stay where you are. ES: If I change my mind then I'll come and find you. ES: ... come to think of it, even if I don't change my mind I'm sure I'll come and find you sooner or later. PD: ... ES: In the meantime, have fun without me. [eclecticSage ceased being pestered by psychoticDeceiver] "Well?" Silver asked, as Mild captchalogued his laptop. His face seemed a whole lot greener than usual, although that could have been the light reflecting off of his cloak. "I think," Mild said slowly, "that he could have responded more positively to that." "Oh dear," Silver groaned, shaking her head in despair. "OK, you stay here and hold the fort. I'm going to go clean up the mess you've made." *** "To die, a God Tier player's death must be either heroic or just," Silver explained. "For instance, if Mild died then his death would almost certainly be permanent." Luna had finally recovered from her fatal wounds, and now the only pony of any cause for concern was Celestia. "Getting stabbed out of nowhere by an insane psychopath is hardly what I'd call heroic." "What about if Golden died?" Star Swirl asked. Silver glared at him. "If Discord died, then I should think it would count as just," Silver replied. Golden was gone, she had decided. There was no hope for him now. It was easier to think about it that way. "So anyway, what's our next move?" "Well, according to Sparkles, this session's going to be taking a turn for the worse pretty soon," Comet said. "We need to get out of here. I don't much like it, but even if she hadn't started the Scratch there's not a lot we could do. I mean, Prospit literally crashed into the Battlefield. All of it and the Reckoning's drawing to a close. I don't think a legion of gods could save Skaia now." "We also need to do something about Celestia," Twilight pointed out. Silver and Comet glanced over at the pony in question, who waved happily at them. "We probably have time to get her to the quest bed on LOWAF, but..." She glanced upwards at the recent addition to the skies of LOPAD - a large crystalline structure around which thousands of bright lights were circling, that was gradually approaching the distant shape of Skaia. "If we ran into trouble then she might face a fate worse than death." Comet nodded. "The smartest thing to do would be to play it safe. We need to focus on getting back to your session, where we can use your Space quest bed." Assuming, of course, that it hadn't been used already. It occurred to Comet that Discord had been running riot in Twilight's session for all the time that he had been away. Anything could have happened in that time. "OK then," Diamond said. "But first we need to get the Paradox Gate off of Discord, before he escapes. Assuming we can even catch him, I don't know if we're powerful enough to stop him, but the alternative is that we die anyway. Is that OK with everyone?" "I suppose it'll have to be," Star Swirl said, in a tone that made it quite clear that he wasn't OK with the plan. "Does anyone have any idea where he'll be?" "Yeah," Comet said. "I've got a hunch." *** "Hey, Golden." Silver Edge ignored the murderous look that Discord gave her as she approached, sitting herself down beside the lonely god. Below them, the expanse of the Land of Souls and Spirit stretched out for immense distances. From this height, the planet felt completely empty. "I knew you'd be here somewhere." Discord gave a short, hollow laugh. "What happened? Did you decide that you couldn't accomplish anything in an hour or so, so you may as well die right now?" It would have been threatening if he hadn't looked so depressed. Silver shook her head, more for her own benefit than for his. "You're not going to kill me, Golden. I'm not the one you're angry with." She didn't fail to notice the iguana corpses that were scattered at the foot of the cathedral on which they were sitting. "I'm just here to let you know that it's not over until you decide it's over." "What does that even mean?" Discord asked. "There's no meaning to what I do anymore. And why should there be? Why can't I just be, for the sake of being?" He reached out a hand, which was immediately filled with a very startled looking rabbit. "I don't see the point in trying to achieve something as ultimately pointless as winning a game." "I'm not trying to win a game," Silver said. "I'm trying to achieve something real. Something that will last." She took out her own Paradox Gate, and compared it with the one that Discord had stolen. "Do you know what these are?" "They're teleporters," Discord said. "You can use them to teleport anywhere in the three sessions that all of us are from." Silver nodded. "True, but that's not all you can use them for. Not if you know what you're doing," she said. "If you have a strong enough power supply, you can break through walls that would otherwise be impossible to breach." Discord was listening now. "What walls?" Silver smiled. She knew that she'd won now. "Walls that surround the thing which binds our sessions together. The reason why the three sessions are so closely knit together." She pointed a hoof at the dice in the middle of the Gate, in all its popamatic wonder. "And if we can get to it, we can take control our destinies." Discord was quite for a while. "And you and Mild have a plan, I assume?" Discord asked. "You do know how it can be done, right?" Silver grinned. "Absolutely. But it will only work," she added, spinning her Gate around herself, "if we have your cooperation." *** "OK, so, here's what happened," Rainbow began, after everyone had gotten reacquainted. "There's just the four of us on LOTAF, fighting off agents and underlings and everything. I guess Echidna and Derse must have both realised we were in kind of a tight spot or something, since suddenly they really stepped up their games." A loud explosion rocked the temple where they were sitting, but no one paid any attention to it. "And when I say the four of us were fighting, I mean three of us, but with a fourth member who refused to fight. Although I did hide behind Fluttershy more than once so her armour could actually be used for something." "So, when did it all go wrong?" Summer asked. "It was going fine, except that we were all getting tired. I knew we had to do something or we'd never survive long enough for you guys to get back to us. So, this is what I did..." *** "Ember, keep an eye on Fluttershy. I'm going to give these guys something else to worry about." Rainbow soared upwards, surveying her surroundings. Soldiers were approaching from all angles, although most were being swatted aside by the powerful underlings. You had to be careful around the soldiers, though. They were weak, but clever. Unleashing a gust of wind that arced viciously around and through the nearest ogre, Rainbow sent it careering backwards onto the next wave of enemies. She was coping, for now, but the recent development of her Breath powers did little to slow the learning curve. She needed to do something a little more permanent to the enemy supply. Hey, Rainbow. Rainbow blinked, shaking the voice out of her head. Now was not the time to be hallucinating about ghost-Rarity. Don't ignore me! This isn't easy, you know! "Urgh, what do you want?" Rainbow asked, dashing forwards in time to blast a Marble Wyvern out of the sky. It shrieked uselessly as high pressure winds tore through its fragile wings and sent it crashing onto a platoon of soldiers far below. I was just going to say, you could stop the underlings by killing the denizen. Or at least, disorganise them. "Oh, yeah? And how do you suppose I do that?" Rainbow said. "I don't even know where she is!" She's in the palace of Space. Just go ahead and take her out, it'll help in the long run. "You're not going to shut up if I don't, are you?" Rainbow sighed, before turning back to her friends. "Hey, Ember! Acapella! I'm going to go and take out Echidna!" "I don't think that now's the best time!" Acapella shouted over the noise of the battle. "Can't it wait until after we're not fighting off the best part of everyone?" "Not really, no!" Rainbow shouted back. "I only need about ten minutes!" "I don't know if we can wait that long!" Acapella replied, her cane giving out an endless supply of black eyes and ruptured kidneys to the advancing soldiers. "Just hurry back!" And then Rainbow was gone in an explosion of colour and sound. Sonic rainbooms were so much easier when you could control the atmosphere. Reaching the palace of Space in a matter of minutes and diving into the temple without taking the time to slow down, Rainbow narrowly dodged between pillars and iron grates as she descended through the palace in record time, throwing herself into the temple of Echidna. "Alright Echidna, I hope you've made your peace, because I've got no time to waste!" Rainbow roared as the denizen opened one eye sleepily. Seeing no one but Rainbow, it then closed after a moment's thought. Rainbow growled. "Oh, if that's how you want to play it then fine by me!" Equipping her lance and diving through the air towards the denizen, Rainbow closed her eyes and rapidly accelerated towards her victim. On reflection, closing her eyes was not a brilliant decision and she found herself swatted aside with the force of a train driving into a brick wall. Or, more accurately, a train driving into another train. Ignoring the terrible pain in her wings, Rainbow desperately tried to get herself under control before she crashed into the temple wall, barely managing to do so before she needed to dodge another swing of Echidna's tail. "You are a fool to challenge me alone, Rogue!" Echidna said, as she caused the entire chamber to shake and crumble around Rainbow. This wasn't going so well, Rainbow realised. "How do you expect to win?" A boulder narrowly avoided crashing into Rainbow's head, as the ceiling above the chamber began to break apart. Rainbow, do the Windy thing. "What?" Rainbow asked with a bemused expression, although she didn't have anyone to aim it at. Do the Windy thing. "I don't know any Windy thing," Rainbow said. Rainbow do the Windy thing. "I don't know what you're talking about!" Rainbow protested. "I'm not going to suddenly be able to do the 'Windy thing' just because you keep tell me to!" Make it blowy and gusty. "What the hell are you talking about?" Rainbow practically yelled into the air. "I can make wind and stuff, but how is that going to help?" Just do it. "But-" Do the Windy thing do the Windy thing do the Windy thing. And then Rainbow suddenly did the Windy thing. *** "I don't suppose you'd be willing to hand that Gate over, would you?" Silver Heart asked, causing both Discord and Silver Edge to jump back in surprise. They were sitting on the edge of a cliff, but fortunately they could both fly. "Only you seem to have a monopoly over the Monopony boards, and it's hardly fair." "Yeah, what she said," Comet agreed, as he and Twilight followed Silver towards their two opponents. "Let's be honest here, neither of us has time to waste fighting with each other." "True," Discord said. "But then, Silver and I could just leave, and take both Gates with us." "Well, yes," Comet admitted. "I suppose that's technically true. But where would be the sport in that?" Twilight covered her face with her hooves. "OK, final chance for appealing to your better nature, are you going to hand it over or not?" Silver Edge glanced warily between Discord and Silver Heart, until Discord sighed. "Now, listen, it's not that I don't want to give it to you..." he paused. "Oh wait, yes it is." Suddenly the MAP disappeared from his paw, and a triumphant future Comet teleported away. "Wait, what the-" Before Discord could react, Luna and Star Swirl emerged from their hiding places with arrows and lasers aplenty. Suddenly Silver Edge was by his side, and activating her Paradox Gate before that too was taken by time-travelling thieves, and the two disappeared. The remaining ponies stood and paused for breath. "Well, that was a success," Comet reasoned. "Back in a minute." With that, he vanished a minute back in time, and immediately reappeared with a Paradox Gate in hoof. "Sometimes, I love predetermined outcomes." Twilight shook her head. "I wish that once, just once, we could have a plan that didn't rely on being stupidly lucky." *** Whirling huge boulders around the chamber, Rainbow's Windy thing was somehow more powerful than it had ever been before. She had control over everything in the chamber, and Echidna could do nothing except provide her with more ammunition. The denizen was being battered from all directions by an endless torrent of stones and huge slabs of ancient text, until finally - with a scream that could be heard across LOTAF - she dissolved into an ocean of grist, the sheer volume of which pushed Rainbow out of the chamber and back up into the palace. "Wow." Rainbow sat in shock for a few seconds. "That was badass." Yes, yes, well done. Now, get out there and help the others! "Oh right, yeah." There was no rest for the wicked, Rainbow supposed. Picking herself back up again, she shot off into the sky at four times the speed of sensible. Fortunately, it seemed that Rarity's plan had worked, as the underlings seemed to be much less interested in attacking. If anything, they seemed rather bored. Of course, the threat wasn't dealt with yet. Soldiers were still advancing below Rainbow, and removing the underling threat was sure to bring Mild or Discord down to investigate. "Is everyone doing OK?" Rainbow asked Rarity, which was followed by a few awkward moments in which it wasn't entirely clear whether or not Rarity was still there. Well... none of them are dead yet. That was reassuring. Silver is holding Fluttershy at axe point, though. "Wait, what!? How did she get to Fluttershy?" Although it wasn't strictly possible, Rainbow accelerated even faster in response to this development. That's a long and unnecessary story. The point is that she has, and obviously Ember and Acapella can't do anything. "Man, I leave those two for ten minutes, and this happens." Rainbow sighed wearily. "OK, I can handle that. She's going to kill Fluttershy at the first sign of anything, Rainbow. "Yeah, I know," Rainbow laughed slightly. "Silver won't know what hit her." *** "So how did you die?" Summer asked, only for Destiny to silence her with a mumbled 'shoosh'. "She's getting to that," Destiny admonished. "Don't you have any appreciation for proper story pacing?" Summer blinked. "Never heard of it." *** "Don't feel bad," Silver Edge soothed in as unpleasant a way as possible, as Ember and Acapella were surrounded by soldiers and disarmed. "There was never anything you could do." Fluttershy whimpered slightly, causing Silver's axe to drop another centimetre closer to her. "Fluttershy, I told you about that. If you so much as quiver, this is going to be over before it even gets started." "Silver, I get that you have some unresolved issues," Acapella said, attempting to reason with the unicorn. "Like, maybe we were all a bit on edge around you because of the whole 'shared body' thing. None of us really knew what the deal with it was, so maybe we just sort of avoided you." Silver gave her an odd look. "And that wasn't very nice of us, and I'm sorry about that. But you're not really letting us make amends here, are you?" "Acapella, I don't," Silver began. "And I mean this in the nicest way possible, but I don't really care if you like me or not. I'm not killing you all because you don't like me. That would be childish. I'm killing you because otherwise you'll stop me and my plans, and that's not something I want to happen. You're the means to an end, that's all." "Then why are you doing that to Fluttershy?" Ember demanded angrily. "She's not going to stop you!" He paused, and his face grew pale. "Ah, wait, that came out wrong!" "Ember, no one cares," Silver said. "Like I said, means to an end. If Fluttershy's life is on the line then neither of you two are able to lift a hoof to stop me." Suddenly, noise and light came from the area which had previously occupied Fluttershy, and the axe swung down heavily. At the same time, Silver flew upwards as Ember smashed his hammer into where she had previously been standing, while Acapella rushed towards the pile of pony where Fluttershy had been knocked. Almost immediately she realised what had happened. Rainbow had flown into Fluttershy, knocking her away from Silver just in time to save her from being killed by the axe. Unfortunately, that meant that Rainbow wasn't quite far away enough to escape, and the axe had carved a large gash into her flank. After glancing behind her to make sure that Ember was coping, Acapella set about trying to stop the bleeding. Meanwhile, Ember was busy venting the built-up bloodlust that he had been gathering since being captured. Spires of earth leapt out of the ground and skewered tanks and soldiers, arcing towards Silver who narrowly dodged between them. Switching to his bombkind abstrata, Ember tossed a Schwarzschild's Revenge towards Silver. She dodged again, but it was difficult to truly escape the blast radius of an exploding black hole. The earth which had been forced upwards was shattered by the explosion, raining down onto the disoriented unicorn as she fled from the attacking Prince. Once again equipping his warhammer, Ember swung the weapon into the falling splinters of rock, knocking them towards Silver. A few of them actually hit, causing the Sylph to crumble into a heap on the ground before she finally managed to transportalise away. Pausing for breath, Ember made his way back to where Acapella, Rainbow and Fluttershy were waiting. As he approached however, Acapella looked up and shook her head. Rainbow was dead.