I groaned, resisting the urge to facehoof. "'Foalish?' Seriously? There goes any respect I had left for you, Discord."
A mug charged at me, literally brimming with tongues of orange flame. I ducked, and the mug soared overhead, finally halting a few feet away. Another mug launched itself at Sarah, but a barrel covered in a mint-aura slammed it and several others out of the air.
"Nice shot," I called to Lyra, smacking another to the side.
"Pie!" She shouted, pointing with a hoof. I sidestepped the pastry.
More mugs and flaming pies converged on us. Sarah was sitting down in the center of the group, refusing to move or help in any way. The griffon was busy avoiding his own enemy army of tumbleweeds. Lyra was struggling with her magic, and mine still hadn't begun to regenerate. We couldn't run- Sarah wasn't cooperating. We were outnumbered and tiring, a fact emphasized by a flame licking the top of my head.
A mug Slammed into the side of my head, making sparks appear before my eyes and nearly deafening me with a high pitched ring. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the griffon get beaned by a flaming pie. Lyra was drained of magic and fender off the enemy with a broomstick in her mouth.
We're not gonna make it, I thought despairingly. Not in this condition.
Then, just as I was about to fade into blackness, an enormous purple flash filled my vision, shocking me awake. I saw the mugs and tumbleweeds get blown away by the blast. I rose unsteadily to my hooves, and turned to see Twilight and her friends.
"Heh," I said shakily. "Almost cliche, your timing."
"It's good to see you too," She replied. "Now grab Serene and the griffon. Everypony else is out, and I don't know how long that spell will last."
I nodded, rousing the griffon from the pile of now inanimate tumbleweeds. Sarah though... She wouldn't let me touch her, let alone pull her along. She'd just back away from me, like a kicked puppy from the kicker. We couldn't even get her to come with us. Only Lyra could get through to her at all, and in the end, we could only get her on the back car of the train, as far away as possible from me.
("Hey," I heard Lyra ask Twilight. "Didn't the train get, like, flipped over off the tracks?"
"Don't worry. I managed to get it in working condition, with a few spells."
If she could move a gigantic train on her own, then there was no way I'd get in a fight with her.)
Several hours after dark, the train arrived in Ponyville. Spike was waiting at the station with a whole bunch of animals, which, after a few minutes, I guessed were pets of the others. Most of them had to return to their homes to check on family and stuff, leaving me, Lyra, Sarah, Risk (I'd learned the griffon's name on the train) with Twilight at her library.
"So... what exactly did you want to show us?" I said, looking around. The place had cleaned up nicely since my little tornado in here. Felt like years ago, even though it was roughly a month or so.
"I guess you've noticed by now the difference in Serene's attitude, right?" She said, checking a bookshelf.
"Well... yeah," I said, my face reddening. "All my fault."
"Not entirely. You remember how you felt when you were under Sombra's and Discord's control. It's like that, except... Well, it's the equivalent of your one-stallion siege mindset. Full-blown backwards." She explained, removing a book by magic.
"Whoa whoa whoa, hang on a second there," I stopped her. "'Under their control?' As in, they brainwashed me?"
"I guess that's one way of putting it. You weren't totally yourself."
I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my chest. All those things I did, ponies I hurt, things I said... They weren't all my fault. I remembered the emotions and thoughts were mine, I did feel and think some of those things, but... That wasn't my way of expressing or showing them. Those horrible things I did were me, but not me me. Still, I was partly responsible. I had to pay some consequences, but I'd bring those up later.
"Sorry. You were saying?"
"Right. Well, we tried to remove his influence from you once before, but we both know how that turned out." She said, opening the book and removing the tiara she wore that one time before, for the fight against Sombra.
"What, did you guys have a fight?" Risk asked.
"Eh, kinda. I tore her library apart in a mini-cyclone." I admitted sheepishly.
"That was you?" Lyra said, mouth agape. "I'm STILL getting pages of Flankspeare's plays out of my gutters."
"'Flankspeare?'" I groaned. "You've gotta be..."
Twilight cleared her throat. "As I was saying, that didn't work because in order to clear out the influenced personality, memories of the pony's real personality have to be available to replace them. None of us really knew you well enough to know how you really are. You did seem to know Serene, at least better than most of us. And if she really is your marefriend from back home, then you definitely know her better than we do."
"Alright. So what do I have to do?"
"Only the wielder of an Element of Harmony can cast the spell, so I'm going to have to cast the spell. You keep a hoof on the element and concentrate on the Serene you remember. Okay?"
"Uh, I think I can see a problem with that." Risk interjected. "She's not exactly... here."