Nega was staring at Mayhem. Inner strength was pouring off of him. “How… how are you doing this? You were at the brink of surrendering. Where is all this coming from?”
“I told you already I was never going to surrender!” said Mayhem, taking a step forward. “Just as Sombra did you’re underestimating the power of friendship. Just as Flurry discovered at the end all it takes is one light to dispel the darkness. And the more lights that come together the stronger that light becomes.
“I have every one of my friends on my side, giving strength to my heart. That’s all I need to know.” Mayhem smirked. “And you, Nega? Who do you have on your side? You’re just some useless thing that’s overstayed its welcome, and it’s time for you to go, loser!”
Mayhem saw tears coming down his eyes, but the hurt on Nega’s face didn’t bring sympathy to him.
“Now you want to cry?” Mayhem said angrily. “After everything you did? You keep acting like you’re so superior, but you’re no better than me.
“You hate me, huh? Well, that’s fine, because I hate you too.” He gave Nega a kick, sending him flying.
Twilight winced. This wasn’t going to end well.
Almost as soon as she thought that she could feel a change in Nega.
He grabbed his head with both hands, gritting his teeth and moaning. “Hurts! Hurts! It hurts!”
Dark magic began pouring off of him.
Almost faster than Mayhem could see Nega charged, punching him in the stomach and then teleporting above him and slamming him towards the ground.
Mayhem crashed into the shield hard enough to shatter it before slamming into the ground hard, making a small crater.
The impact stirred the other children, making them look up and break apart. Mayhem was unmoving.
In a panic they all ran over.
“Hey!” Masky said. “Are you okay, Mayhem?”
Pumpkin pulled him to a sitting position, giving him a few gentle slaps. “I think he’s unconscious.”
“Oh, no!” said Peppermint.
“Twilight!” Spring said urgently. “You have some of Mayhem’s magic, right? Can’t you heal him?”
Twilight didn’t answer, staring up fearfully at the display above.
Nega’s claw was up in the air, and it was almost an exact replication of his initial actions. There was dark energy and electricity swirling around him, his eyes crazed and a large ball of energy formed.
“The shield!” Flurry said, looking around. “It’s gone.”
“And it looks like Nega is about to attack,” said Plum, gulping.
Nega was shaking with rage. “Kill! Kill him! Have to kill him. Kill, but friends… friends there too. Won’t kill friends. Just him. Can’t… can’t control. No! I can. Just him. But can’t. They’ll get caught up in it.”
Nega kept going back and forth, but he finally reached his limit. He couldn’t hold himself back any more. He swung down, the ball of energy flying towards them at first.
Nega forced himself to swing his claw, changing the trajectory of the attack so his friends didn’t get caught up in the explosion.
Twilight put up a shield regardless, and it was a good thing she did. The explosion itself was far from them, but shrapnel and rubble crashed into the shield.
Flurry let out a horrified yell as her parent's castle was destroyed. “Mom! Dad! Starlight! Everyone!”
Nega let out a scream of frustration, the darkness growing in intensity. "IT HURTS!" he yelled, and then began continually shooting down blasts of energy all around, reducing large parts of the empire to dust. None of the blasts came around the area where Mayhem and the rest were.
Flurry felt like her mind was breaking apart. Everything was going wrong.
Pound gave her a gentle slap to get her attention. “Hey, Flurry! This is just an illusion, remember?”
She was gasping for breath as she turned to him, and as her mind caught up with her emotions she calmed down a little.
Even though she remembered now it wasn’t the real thing she couldn’t stop crying. It might have been just a model of the real thing, but it was close enough of a replica that it still pained her heart seeing her home destroyed.
“He’s destroying everything,” she said sadly.
“He’s too much,” said Plum. “How… how are we supposed to beat him?”
“I guess a fake Crystal Heart wasn’t enough to wipe out the real darkness,” said Sweet Pea.
Mayhem groaned, stirring.
“Oh, good,” Chocolate said with relief. “You’re alive.”
Mayhem put his paw to the back of his head, rubbing it. “Owww,” he moaned. “Everything hurts.”
After a moment he took notice of the rumbling shaking the ground, and jerked as he noticed what Nega was doing. “Darn it. It feels like he just keeps getting stronger and stronger.”
Pound glared at Flurry. “Come on, now. You can see that Nega is completely out of control and destroying everything at random. He even knocked Mayhem out cold. Even you have to agree that it’s too dangerous now to send Mayhem in alone.”
Flurry bit her lip. “Well… yeah. But what are we supposed to do here? This is just like when we fought Mayhem. We made it through mainly because he was only playing very roughly. Even when Masky decked him off his throne he was only pretending to be mad and about to lose control.
“It seems too dangerous for any of us to go out there. We’ll die for sure.”
Pumpkin tapped her hoof on the ground. “Well, emergency situations call for emergency actions. If Mayhem gives each of us some of his magic like with Twilight then we’ll have the strength to protect ourselves.”
“If all of us team up with chaos magic then we’ll win for sure,” said Masky.
Mayhem snapped, healing his injuries. “I’m down.”
A loud growl nearby caught their attention. “For crying out loud!” Twilight said angrily. “Every one of you is clueless! I can’t stand it!”
All of them looked at her, confused by her reaction.
“W-what do you mean?”
Her horn flashed, and the sounds of destruction faded into the background. She rounded on them, her glare terrifying all of them. It was the same look she had given to Nega earlier when he refused to protect Mayhem and they had their stare-off.
“What it all comes down to is all of you wanting to get rid of Mayhem.”
Flurry was the only one brave enough to speak. “B-but we don’t. We were… trying t-t-to-”
“Silence!” Twilight said viciously, making them all flinch. “You don’t understand anything! Why do you think the two of them are affecting each other’s emotions? It’s because they’re connected at the core.
“Nega is the embodiment of all of Mayhem’s negative feelings made into a living being. You seem to be trying to separate them, but the truth is that they’re only one being. That’s why I called him Mayhem’s reflection, and the only reason a reflection stops appearing in the mirror is because of the disappearance of the one looking inside it.
“The more you despise Nega the more you’re showing that your feelings for Mayhem are conditional. Even assuming you could defeat Nega how is Mayhem going to feel about that? It might feel like a victory at first, but then he might get to thinking about how you were so adamant about getting rid of something that looked so much like him and acted like he had in the past. This time, though, there was no forgiveness. And maybe he’ll be next. Maybe next time there won’t be any extra chances.
“Far from reassuring him of your sincerity as friends you’ll only cause him to feel more anxiety over his future actions.”
Now that Twilight had said it Mayhem was thinking about it, and he was getting uncomfortable.
“All of you obliviously went along, trying to fight, because I guess you’ll only accept a perfect friend who doesn’t make mistakes.”
“No!” said Pound, trembling as Twilight glared at him.
“If Nega is just a piece of Mayhem, then anything you do to him is reflected in how you feel about Mayhem.”
“B-but,” Pumpkin started, but then drifted off.
“You kids just chose to ignore everything I said because it was too bothersome to try to win him over, even though I’ve always advocated converting others to good with love and friendship.
“When Nega first came out he was angry and destructive, but when I talked to him and showed him kindness I even convinced him to give Mayhem a chance to prove himself, holding himself back from his murderous impulses. And he kept that calm attitude throughout the entire adventure, never once singling Mayhem out.
"And WHY did he do that? Because I showed him affection and told him he could come to me if he got overwhelmed, just as it always has been for you. The affection I showed him kept him tame. Sound familiar, Mayhem?
“What have you done for him, hmm? What have you done to try and help him? What have you done at all besides wishing he’d just go away? Instead, Pound socked him in the face and the rest of you all shared the sentiment that you disliked him and wanted him gone.”
The question stung, all of them looking away awkwardly.
She pointed hard at Mayhem, and he jerked, backing up a step. “You wanted to create a Sombra and let all your inner feelings come out to the surface to fight against, and you got that.
“Do you remember how you told me you didn’t always want to play the villain when I came up with the plan for granting wishes? Didn’t Nega say the same, about how he really didn’t want to do it, but he did it anyways? He did it for you and Spring, knowing it would be painful and lonely, and yet you were ungrateful.
“The moment you saw he still existed after beating the adventure you immediately assaulted him with new horrible feelings, and for what? From the very beginning Nega has done nothing except what you wanted him to do. He didn’t ask to be ‘born,’ but unintentional or not you created him to treat you horribly and attempt to get rid of you. You forced him to bear all of your inner trauma, forced him to suffer horribly, and you have the nerve to want to destroy him for lashing out because of it?”
Mayhem bit his lip, his stomach hurting.
“And the rest of you aren’t getting off the hook either for how much you’ve gone off track.
“Pound and Pumpkin, I guess you don’t remember when you ran away from home because you felt unwanted.
“Or you, Peppermint. How you felt your parents didn’t care about you anymore with your new brother, and you got so jealous you slapped him.
“Or how about you, Flurry? How you were teased about your oversized wings and couldn’t make friends because it seemed like they only wanted to use you for your status or were afraid of you.
“And let’s not forget about Masky, who felt like he came second to his parents jobs and compensated by putting on an invincible, confident act.
“I guess all of you have just forgotten how much it hurts to be treated like something lesser, huh? Forgot the cold sting of loneliness and being shunned.”
As the memories came back to them all of them started crying a little, guilt flowing through them.
“I kept my conversations with him secret because I thought you could figure things out on your own, but clearly that’s not happening. Take a look.”
Her horn flashed, letting them see her memories.
“You see it now?” Twilight said angrily. “You see how much he’s suffering? You see how much he wanted to let things end peacefully if it was possible?
“In the end, all he ever wanted was for his pain to stop. Yet you just piled more pain on him, and now we’re seeing the results. And seeing how angry and upset he was your brilliant plan was to attack him? Are you nuts? For goodness sake, Pound, I thought you of all ponies would remember how attacking others instead of seeking peace only leads to bad things.
“Flurry, I’m especially surprised by you.” The filly squeaked. “Wasn’t that cutie mark of yours supposed to represent wanting to give others a light in the darkness? To show them that no matter hopeless things seemed that there was still light to be found? I guess that thing on your flank is only for your friends, and anyone else doesn't matter.”
Flurry’s eyes clenched shut.
“Arrogance!” she said contemptuously. “Adamantly convinced you’re on the side of right when it couldn’t be any further from the truth. I told you just what to do in order to win Nega over, but not a one of you paid attention to me.
"You may have been the heroes in a pretend game of no consequence, but when it comes to the real world you’re the villains, hating on someone when all they really needed was some comforting and love.
“I expected so much more after your past performances in friendship. I’m very disappointed in all of you!”
With that she turned her back on them.
The weight of guilt and shame drove most of them to their knees. All of them broke down crying.
It brought Twilight no joy to go after the children so savagely, but Nega was rapidly becoming a genuine threat. It was only a tiny thread of light that was stopping the draconequus from fully submitting to the darkness.
The time was quickly approaching where she would have to step in herself. If it came to that…
She began crying too, a miserable expression on her face. As a princess she couldn’t put any one individual above the safety of Equestria. If they couldn’t settle Nega’s feelings then she would be left with no choice but to destroy Mayhem to break the link between them. Just locking him away wouldn't do it, since Mayhem could still feel emotions inside of Discord which Nega would feed off of.
She glanced behind her, hating all the pain she had caused, but it had to be done. She had to call them out before they ruined their only chance of still having Mayhem around by the end of the day.
‘What are you going to do from here?’ she thought, wiping her face. ‘Are you going to let my words break you, or will you come together and do the right thing this time?
‘If you can start trying to walk down the right path then I can be a guide to make sure you stay there this time.’
She looked up at Nega, still causing mindless destruction. ‘One way or another your pain will come to an end soon. I only pray that it doesn’t have to come at the cost of Mayhem.’
Wow.....
10346614
Probably all that needs to be said. They went way off track and needed to be called out before they put Mayhem in danger.
Harsh Twilight completely harsh. It was needed but that was completely harsh.
10346302
OH! Ok! See that I didn’t get.
And I wasn’t saying he didn’t contribute, I just thought his contribution wasn’t something to be given focus to in regards to him and Nega since there didn’t seem to be any.
Was his thought process of “defeating Sombra (who is Nega) with the Crystal Heart will get rid of Nega” established before? Because if so, this is definitely on me.
10346747 Having had their bad mindsets crushed by the truth, now they can look at it from a new perspective. Instead of "How do we get rid of Nega" it becomes more about "How do we help our friend?"
What follows tomorrow is probably one of the sweetest gestures of the whole series. Well, maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but it is very heartwarming.
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I don't remember if it's ever directly stated, but the goal of the adventure was always about defeating Sombra, and since ordinary attacks just go through him the Crystal Heart was really the only option. Since Nega constantly used dark magic it only follows that he'd assume using the Crystal Heart on him would do the same to Nega as it did to Sombra.
I don't think chaos magic can replicate the effects of extremely powerful artifacts like the elements or the Crystal Heart. He can make the visual, but it wouldn't have the same power. So the fake Heart destroyed the fake Sombra, but did nothing to the real Nega.
I looked back at the chapters where Twilight and Nega talk and set up his role in the adventure.
She’s not totally wrong here, but I would say she is at least a little. They had no idea about Nega being influenced by Mayhem’s own feelings, and him just wanting the pain to stop, because she didn’t tell them. Yeah she said that was purposeful so they could figure it out, but that seems like an unfair expectation. They didn’t have Nega to talk to like she did.
They get put into the adventure where the focus is defeating Sombra and all they’ve been told is “this will hopefully help Mayhem get forgiveness from Nega.” They do it, win against Sombra, and to them Nega just starts attacking again out of nowhere. They played along, gave him a chance, and it seemed to do nothing, he’s still attacking their friend. Of course they’re gonna see him as the bad guy. Of course they’re gonna go with support/defense and attack.
Somehow Mayhem apparently also got lost in the illusion like Flurry and thought defeating Sombra with the Crystal Heart would solve the Nega problem. Maybe if the illusion were removed after they won and reminded him it was an illusion, he wouldn’t think that. And yeah Twilight said figuring things out for yourself is part of growing up, but she an adult, couldn’t even figure it out without observation and conversing with Nega, which Mayhem wasn’t able to do.
I take it back. When I started writing this I saw Twilight as 10% wrong. Now I think it’s more like
20-2530-35%. She expected too much (even just a bit) from them when they had too little.This was all a clusterf*** of bad or misguided decisions (including on Twilight’s part) and misunderstandings due to a lack of info and info sharing that fed into each other. They definitely messed up, but so did she, and that contributed to their mess up.
Whoa....Twilight is....yeah. This reminds me back at the story where Pound and Pumpkin ran away from home and how she was, though this is kinda reversed. I do like her outlook though. This is really good, I can't wait to see what the group do next.
10346893 Well, that was better than I hoped considering the comments from the previous chapter.
The main problem is that Mayhem tried to kill all of the old friends and put hem in extremely dangerous and terrifying situations, but that was all okay because he felt sorry. Yet Nega, who only attacked Mayhem as an enforcer of justice, wasn't granted the same courtesy, even though he clearly thought of them as Mayhem does.
He came out swinging, but as soon as his attacks would put his friends in danger he immediately stopped and begged for forgiveness. So he clearly has shown he's not just mindlessly destructive and can be calmed down with feelings for the others.
Then there's the other half of the equation. All the old crew has dealt with tricky people. And in helping those people it involved pain. Pound and Tree nearly ended in disaster. He managed to look past Tree Leaf throwing sand in Pumpkin's eyes. Peppermint hit Pumpkin in her despair. Masky encouraged Pumpkin to do bad things. Flurry insulted Mayhem hard enough he bailed on the party.
Every time it was shown that they weren't really bad people. They just had some inner conflict holding back their best self. Nega calmly played his role, clearly showing his capacity for good and that he could be more than just a ball of hate. Yet none of the other children really wanted to give him a chance.
And then when Nega was ready to go right on the attack again Twilight hugged him, and they could see the massive aura of darkness shrinking and hear Nega break down crying as Twilight tried to calm him down. Yes. it was ultimately Flurry telling him that he had unintentionally wounded Twilight that made him reluctantly agree to give her a few more minutes, but that says something in itself. Even in the midst of his greatest rage he was still horrified that he had hurt her, and immediately healed her injuries, once again showing he wasn't completely evil. He still cared enough that he wasn't indifferent to getting someone unrelated hurt in his revenge scheme.
So even without knowing about the conversation they still had seen enough that they could piece together that Nega could be tamed if shown some affection, since it worked several times before. Instead they decided, "Let's gang up on the guy who's currently so out of control in anger he's blowing up everything in sight."
That's where Twilight HAD to step in and berate them, because they'd already seen Mayhem telling Nega he hated him and then kicked him only lead to Nega's power growing stronger and knocking him out cold, and they still wanted to try violence as the solution. They were being flat out stupid in that decision, even if they would all have chaos magic.
10347439 I’m not arguing against her stepping in to stop them (that was good) or that they messed up in how they approached the situation, (they definitely did). But like I said, I feel she’s partially to blame for that.
Nega is something new for everyone, including Mayhem, not just for her. And Mayhem himself is a very new thing. He’s probably only the slightest bit more knowledgable about himself in terms of his nature than everyone else is. Then Nega comes along and is something that no one has a complete grasp on. They come to understand a little, Twilight talks to and observes him and learns some pretty important additional things, and then she expects Mayhem and everyone else to figure these things out without talking to or observing Nega, while in the middle of a play adventure where that isn’t their focus, and she gets mad at them about it when they don’t.
I find that quite unfair. I hope this is addressed in the following chapters. My last issue was of confusion. This just isn’t sitting right with me.
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Well, I'm certainly not trying to claim Twilight is perfect. Twilight herself despises that notion because of the artificial gap it forms between her and the normal citizens. She acts in what she believes is the best manner, and she does sometimes get on the wrong track, and she wants others to call her out on it when it happens so she can learn to do better because she doesn't want to be seen as someone incapable of error. She readily admitted her own mistakes during the runaway chapters and the ones with Tree Leaf because she wants that humility to inspire others to be real about their own mistakes.
She basically pulled a Celestia on them. She beieved in their ability to succeed, and let them go off on their own to try things out while knowing more than she let on. She heard them badmouthing Nega earlier but didn't say anything. She didn't want to get involved if it wasn't necessary, and if they hadn't decided to go the guns blazing route she still would have kept to her observer role.
So having too much belief in them was her error here. She was too hooves off. But, as I said in the comment from the previous chapter, first comes the scolding, then the comforting, then the explanation. Having brought down their pride she now rectifies that error by explaining to them exactly what they need to do to proceed.
10347550 Alright. I’m just hoping she admits her own fault in the situation.
I can defend Mayhem here with what Twilight had already said.
Mayhem felt horrible because he realized that despite the fact that Nega was just playing a part, Mayhem didn't know this fact. After the adventure ended and he saw that Nega was still there, he thought that he hadn't overcome his self-hatred. Not only that, but Mayhem never actually faced Nega-Sombra alone, so it wouldn't have been his victory anyway.
This is also a case where Twilight doesn't realize that she's addressing children, and that children don't think the same as adults. What they see is a separate body beating up on their friend, and not a single entity beating himself up. That would probably be difficult for most adults to grasp. And I'm pretty sure that Nega is just as ignorant of this as Mayhem, which is why it kept frustrating me when he couldn't realize he was just hurting himself whenever he berated Mayhem. But when Mayhem said he hated Nega, I knew what was coming. I'm also frustrated that neither Nega or Mayhem are thinking about what that mural of Pound's ceiling means to them.
And I'm sure that making Mayhem feel guilty is gonna do any better whatsoever. I thought she wanted to help Nega. But the worse she makes Mayhem feel, the more main SHE causes to Nega, and in turn, the more destructive he'll become.
I get that the kids needed to understand what they did wrong, which is why I could excuse her reaction before. But this takes away her right to rant. She used an example with how each of the other kids' cases were just like Nega's. But Twilight's intervention in this scenario makes Nega different. Because Twilight wasn't the one who intervened with most of them. And when she did intervene, it was asking the KIDS to help, and asking directly. But the ones who were having trouble, though they did have Twilight as an option, didn't feel like they could talk to her, or at least had other options (other kids). Nega was specifically told that if he felt overwhelmed, he could talk to Twilight. Twilight gave a reason to avoid the other kids. And considering the situation, that's what he wanted to do. Twilight is THE element that takes her own right to rant away.
Just to be clear, I'm not criticizing why Twilight did what she did. The "why" isn't what I have an issue with. It's the "what". I mean, what she did had to be done. But to be honest, I don't think there was a "right way" for things to have gone. And there's a lot more on the line than what's implied. I'm pretty sure the best case scenario will be the one to play out. But considering what the worst case scenario is (Twilight intervening to destroy Mayhem), I can see nothing good coming from it. All of them would have their hearts broken. And aside from them all hating Twilight for the rest of their lives, only 8 of them would just have the generally expected heartbreak. But there are 4 that aren't so simple.
First is Masky. I would see him regressing into his "mask", though this is just a possibility. Second would be Spring. Twilight having to destroy him wouldn't just cause her heart to break. Seeing that Twilight had to intervene on a personal Sombra would cause her to lose hope of ever being able to fight her own darkness. And if Mayhem's inner turmoil is anything to go on (considering that Nega beating on Mayhem could be analogous to a desire to cause physical harm to himself), Spring may fall into darkness so far that she becomes suicidal. Third is Flurry Heart. Her heartbreak would normally be classified as "general"... if it weren't for her special talent being connecting to the hearts of others. So Flurries heartbreak would be more devastating, especially if her despair ended up bleeding into the Crystal Heart. So through Flurry Heart, Twilight's actions could potentially adversely affect an entire empire! Finally, there's Nega. Assuming he'd continue to exist without Mayhem, he'd find relief at first. But I find it unlikely that Mayhem's friends would be Nega's friends after that. And because he wouldn't have a regular outlet for his chaos magic, his boredom may build. And without friends to stop him this time, Nega would go full on super villain, and not just in a fantasy world. And unlike Discord, Nega would have destructive intent.
Did I put too much thought into the worst case scenario? It might make for a good bad alternate ending.
To make a long story short, similar to No Second Prances, nobody was entirely in the right.
(P.S. This ended up being a rant of my own. But I think I was also just a bit angry at Twilight's errors. I suppose I just thing she did the wrong thing for the right reason. And when I say "what she did", I'm primarily focused on what she said. Because I still don't think comparing Nega to what the children went through is a proper comparison.)
10347550
Exactly. She pulled a Celestia in a way that Celestia wouldn't have done. What makes Twilight different than Celestia is the age range they're dealing with. Would Celestia have sent a child to Ponyville and get the Elements of Harmony? Would Celestia have sent children to face Discord? Would Celestia have sent children to face Sombra? To finish Starswirl's spell? To reform Discord? To entrust with the power of all the alicorn princesses (although perhaps that would've been a better hiding place from Tirek)? I'd go farther, but beyond Season 4, Celestia stopped getting involved (unless you count Equestria Girls).
10347566
Well, up until I started discussing things with you I didn't see anything wrong. Twilight saw kids being stupid and ignorant, and called them out on it before it had disastrous consequences. So I don't have an apologetic Twilight. Sorry.