Ruining Harmony 2: Pillars of Harmony

by Artaelian

Chapter Three: Awoken Laughter

Applejack ran through the streets of Port Equis, the local residents were in turmoil and outright panic at what had appeared on the horizon. Foals had stopped playing, businesses came to a halt, any ground vehicles slowed and stopped moving. Every pony in the city had just, stopped. It would be unnerving, if she could afford the time to stop and look. She didn’t, but she at least afforded the thought of what was going through their minds.
It had been long ago when she had learnt what Ulysses had done, and how dangerous he could be. He wasn’t an ancient all powerful being like Nightmare Moon and Discord, he was just a normal pony who had ambitions far greater than what life he had been born into.
And in its own way, that made him more dangerous. Time was not going to be on his side, he would fighter harder than immortals to keep what he had gained. As she ran towards the stronghold Pinkie had once been in, she wondered how the rest of Irvest and even Equestria were reacting to it. For sixty years, Ulysses had been an idle threat and now he was very much active.

Indeed, Discord stared from his castle at the black pillar. The seal had broken slightly from the force of it, but not enough to free Ulysses completely. His gaze turned to the see-all spell he had cast to keep an eye on Applejack, and he smiled at the urgency this change had caused. Sitting back, he cleared his throat.
“All Pillar masters, report in.” he said calmly.
“All good in Canterlot.”
“Same for Friendship Falls.”
“An’ Appleoosa.”
“Crystal Empire going strong, we’re under a fresh attack by Sombra, but no change there.”
“Cloudsdale almost took a direct hit by that thing.”
“Manehatten reporting, the fracture seemed largest at the bay nearby.”
Discord froze. The stronghold the last voice had suggested was the focus of the fracture in the barrier was the Bloodpact stronghold, the most vital one.
“Report your status Bloodpact stronghold.” he called out, trying to keep his voice calm. It was all too easy to get angry about this, and it wouldn’t do, not when he had a vital role in the world now.
But several minutes passed in silence, and he could feel the fear from the other six voices, though it went unsaid, that the Bloodpact Stronghold had fallen and their mission would soon fail. Then a cough.
“We took a big hit here, the bloodpact pillar is functional, but barely. The black pillar is coming down right on top of us, if we can’t stop it soon, the stronghold will fall.”
Discord took several deep breaths. Then for good measure and old times sake, pushed his hand into another world and poured strawberry sauce into the rain clouds.
“Alright,” he said, seeing the chaos the sauce caused, “I’ll see what I can do.”
His eyes wandered back to Applejack.
“We need to get her moving faster.” he hummed.

It took Applejack an hour to leave Port Equis again and make it to the next stronghold. She paused to look at it, and the crafted balloon statues outside. There even seemed to be a lot of plastic which long decayed flowers came in at the foot of the stronghold, ponies had lain flowers at some point for the pink mare inside, either in the belief she was dead, or just as a sign of respect. With some care, she approached the doors and pushed them open, which they did with a creek.
Inside was a mess, and the first thing she saw was the memory restorer she had been put in, clearly each one had been put for her friends too. Hadn’t Discord suggested she could get their memories in turn from them? It was worth a try she guessed, approaching the machine, she saw a single button flashing, which she pressed.
From the machine a screen appeared and lowered to her head height, flickering into life, and Applejack saw Pinkie’s memories, from her earliest moments after being born, to moving to Ponyville, and then, sadly, to the confrontation with Ulysses.
Pinkie, as she could guess, had stood beside Rainbow Dash, to the left, when Ulysses attacked. He raised the ground to six platforms, and Applejack flinched as she saw Pinkie notice her own platform had been broken, and she fell head first to the ground.
“Oh goodness,” Applejack looked away, unable to watch what happened next or how Pinkie had been brought to Death’s door, “poor Pinkie Pie, I can’t imagine what that was like.”
The screen flickered again and it drew Applejack’s attention to it. She watched as Pinkie opened her eyes and stood up, looking around the room somewhere downstairs. This time there was sound.

“Where am I? Who… am I?” Pinkie said slowly. She looked down at her hooves. There was no help for her, and she just sat there for a while, before she began to wander around, looking for anything that could tell her who she was at the very least.
She found it in the room up above the one she had woken up in. There were cards, lots of them. Each was signed from someone to a Pinkie Pie. That must be her name, she was the only one here after all, wherever here was. It took her another hour before she grew bored of the cards and wandered up the next flight of stairs, and saw the strange machine. Spotting the chair, Pinkie sat on it, screaming when it began to work, and held her in place before she could run away to safety.
Then her life memories played out, and she calmed down. At the end, she was crying.
“How am I alive? My neck!” she looked around, where she had hoped for answers, she had got them, but now lacked the most important one.
And then she wasn’t alone. There was a brown unicorn standing before her, utterly transparent. Pinkie froze.
Run, please! He’s coming for you! You saved me once, now I have to save you! The ghostly unicorn shouted. But he clearly was too late, as black mist rose from the floor.
Pinkie backed away, trying to find any way out. But the mist was between her and the door.
“The first fallen hero awakens,” Ulysses chuckled, “six of you fell, and six of you I shall take, to restore what was robbed of me.”
Pinkie screamed.

Applejack looked around, sensing she wasn’t alone. Standing behind her, silently, was Discord. He had watched with her, and he looked sad.
“I should have felt her wake up. But such is Ulysses’s planning, he had used the fifty years to find the spells I had placed around all of you, and he kept them from activating when Pinkie Pie woke early.”
“Ya can’t blame yerself, Ulysses is mortal, he’s got a lot to lose, he will be planning ahead all the time.” Applejack tried to reassure him.
“And that’s the thing, Applejack, he has a lot to lose, so to ensure he has more of a chance, he’s reached across time itself. Thankfully he’s too weak to change the past, but he can see every possible future, and right now, you have him scared. He’s seen that you will fight him, and you will end him, he’s attacking a vital stronghold in Equestria to break free before you can even find what has kept him alive and what he’s trying to achieve.”
Discord handed a pendant to Applejack, fixing it around her neck.
“This will let you move around faster, it contains a fraction of my former power. You can’t teleport around with a stomp of the hoof, but you’ll be able to walk and run faster, and, importantly, it will hide you from his sight. The next stronghold is to the north west of here, in the Glittering Vale. It was where I brought Rarity.”
Applejack nodded.
“One question though, how did you save Pinkie from certain death?”
Discord smiled, not a mocking or joking smile, but a warm smile.
“Quite possibly the best thing about Irvestians, they’ve learnt to replace every part of the body. And with a strong enough spirit, a pony in Irvest can even survive injuries that should kill them right away.”
“So she’s got a metal neck.” Applejack looked less impressed.
“Yes, there was enough of a connection from brain to body to not outright kill her, just be minutes away instead of under a second, they just carefully removed the bone and put a metal replacement, and there you go. That may also be why she woke first, she didn’t really die.”
Applejack shivered. She hadn’t liked the idea of replacing body parts with metal and steam powered ones, and she didn’t dare ask what had to be replaced on her body, if anything. She decided to turn and walk to the door.
“But keep in mind, Applejack, Ulysses exists across time now, he’s mortal and yet, time is very much his ally, and our enemy, be fast.”
She didn’t need to be told twice, but she did need a map, and with all haste that the pendant Discord had given her, she ran back to Port Equis.

When she returned to the city, life had returned to some normality, with one eye very much kept on the black pillar that lingered on the horizon. Applejack went in search of the home she and her friend had been given in Irvest, knowing that Twilight hadn’t returned to Equestria with everything.
It was a street called Two Roses Way that their home had been on, the street remained the same as it had been when she had last seen it, with one exception. The front of the home had been redecorated and had, at some point, become a memorial to her and her friends. She saw carved representations of her, Rainbow, Pinkie, Twilight, Rarity and Fluttershy, each beside a carved flower, and the clouds painted black with the piercing eyes of Ulysses. She shivered, it was a carving, but that gaze was one she’d never quickly forget. The door, she found, was open, and there now sat a guestbook in the hallway.
It had been turned into a small museum of sorts, and as she wandered from room to room in search of a map, she saw dummies that had been coloured and placed as how each of them would have been. Rarity had even been placed working on a sewing machine!
“That’s some good detail.” she smiled.
Her own dummy was in the kitchen, looking at plans to the farm she had ran when in Irvest, a plaque noted the farm was still run in the way she had established since she had left to fight Ulysses. It was all good having the trip down memory lane, but she hurried in search of Twilight’s room.
Located at the top floor, the fourth, Twilight had turned a library into her bedroom, to none of their surprise. Books had been placed here where she had made gaps, but on the table was a folded map of Irvest. Twilight had left it there before they returned to Equestria, having decided she had enough books which showed Irvest. It was an opportunity Applejack wasn’t questioning. Simple chance had seen the map left behind, and now she needed it. Glancing at it, she noted the north road out of Port Equis split in three at the bottom of the Mountain of the Sages, and she would need to head west to make her way to the Glittering Vale.
With renewed determination, she left the home behind one last time, and headed north, towards the Mountain of the Sages.

Author's Note:

Those seven unnamed voices aren't random. There's no clue intentionally so the characters speaking can be revealed later in the story. One though may be very obvious. If you want to guess, let me know in the comments.