Crashing through the woods at break-neck speed, the two unicorns, one pegasus, one dragon, and one temporary unicorn all ran for their lives from the encroaching purple goop. Making it back to their waiting friends, Twilight did not stop to acknowledge the looks of shock and confusion on Applejack's or Rainbow Dash's faces, she only slammed hard into the earth pony's side to force her to start running as she shouted for them to move. Rainbow took to the air just as the stuff came up behind them.

They were barely able to keep a few pony-lengths ahead, what was once a sluggishly slothful sludge now had charged at them with all the force of a very gross looking bull.

Instinctively they all ran back towards the town, but through her panic Twilight began to worry if that was the right decision. If this stuff was chasing them, what would happen once they reached Ponyville?

“Shiny,” she shouted to her brother as he ran alongside her. “Maybe we should try running in another direction, we don't know what it could do if it hits town!”

“I know Twily,” he yelled back, not slowing down. “But just keep running, I'll think of something!”

The two pegasi zoomed over head, frantically trying to find a place to perhaps move those of them on the ground out of the path of the stuff. A very careful look behind her told Twilight that the goop was now not only covering the entire floor of the forest, but now climbing the trees as well, coating everything in sight with its milky, sickly-grape coloring.

So outrunning it wasn't doing a very good job at solving anything, and evading it by hiding above wouldn't help either, and it especially would do nothing to warn the town of this stuff's path of destruction and how it was now – thanks to them – directly in the center of it.

Rainbow and Flyer Fry took turns swooping down to catch each of them in turn, Shiny waving his lieutenant off of him to direct his attentions to Twilight first. Rainbow Dash grabbed Applejack quickly in her hooves and they shot off ahead to Ponyville most likely to deposit the earth pony as well as warn the town.

Spike was still atop her back, and Shining Armor at her side, but there was one member Twilight could not see around them, Discord.

Another flash of a look back found him falling behind again, galloping in a zigzag pattern to evade the stuff that was just close enough to take great waving lunges in his direction. It seemed to be getting awfully aggressive as Discord attempted to keep from being covered.

A burst of both annoyance and fear shot through her as he only barely dodged another wave of purple goo. Twilight let out an exhausted groan but nevertheless did want to help him. She grasped him in her magical aura, helping him to sprint even faster so that he was at least caught up with them.

“Lovely trick, now how about you stop playing around and teleport us back to town?” His question was out of breath but still filled with deflected fear.

“I want to be sure that we can get it away from heading into town,” she called back. “Maybe if we can lure it somewhere---”

“That's not going to do anything!” he shouted back aggressively. Flyer Fry swooped down again, this time with the intention of rescuing her, but she shook her head and bumped Spike upwards for him to catch.

“No, Twilight! I can help!” Spike called from the pegasus's hooves. He struggled and kicked at Fry who was losing his balance the more Spike resisted.

“Restrain him, Lieutenant! Get back to Ponyville and then come find us!” Shining Armor ordered. But just as Fry was beginning to fly away, Spike appeared to actually bite the pegasus, who dropped him with a shout.

Spike hit the ground hard then started running as well, but he was running the wrong way. Twilight watched him, giving a cry of protest that the dragon didn't seem to hear or in any case acknowledge. In her hurry to get Spike to safety she hadn't noticed her hold on Discord had been slipping, and that the stuff was nearly upon him. But from his vantage point apparently Spike had.

Twilight did not have a second to react, one moment she saw Spike make an angled leap from a rock to the side of a tree that had not been gooified, and then land directly behind Discord to push him out of the way of another wave of the stuff. Discord shot forward and slightly to the right of Twilight. Her stomach lurched with disbelief as she paused for the briefest moment, halted by her fear for Spike.

In shoving Discord out of the way, the wave had caught him. Maybe Spike had tripped, but that didn't matter. The purple goop was already enveloping him, covering Spike and drowning him until only the tip of his outstretched claw was visible. A clawed hand that had been reaching out for her, but she wasn't fast enough.

Angry, hot tears welled in her eyes. No, this was not happening. Spike did not just get swallowed up by that stuff, no way no how. In her frantic efforts of disbelief she was not fully able to grasp the concept, but she did notice that Flyer Fry had evidently been desperate to save some pony, and so both he and her brother were no longer with them. All thoughts of some sort of plan to get it away from Ponyville were dropped immediately, Twilight tried with all her magical might to grasp onto Spike beneath the ooze, to find him with her mind along with herself and Discord to teleport them all back home.

Maybe it was her adrenaline, her fight-or-flight or mother bear instincts, but with a mighty wrenching flash she landed hard onto the floor of her library, with Discord and – thank Celestia – Spike beside her.

Knowing that Spike was – if not completely safe – at least safely away from that stuff allowed Twilight to give herself a few seconds to take a breath. Discord appeared to be doing the same from her right side, but the unicorn's eyes were trained on her unmoving baby dragon.

After only three deep breaths, Twilight stood and stumbled over to him. Spike had been mostly cleaned off of the purple goo, although traces of it still clung to his scales. Patches of that same discoloration were forming on his body, and his tiny breaths were labored in his unconscious state.

“Spike,” the unicorn's intended whisper came out a ragged cry as she lost her battle with holding back her tears. She reached out her hooves, but they hovered over him, shaking as she couldn't tell where she could place them.

“I wouldn't do that, you might get it on you,” she heard Discord say from behind her. She didn't turn her head or even give any indication that she had heard him. When he slowly came to sit beside her, she did not turn to look at him. Twilight kept her unblinking eyes upon her poor little assistant.

“I must commend you, you got him out without bringing the whole lot of it along with him,” she could hear the attempt at a compliment, maybe even some reassurance. But Twilight was not in the mood. She wanted no words of commendation, no words at all that weren't telling her if Spike was going to be alright.

“There's still some runoff, but not enough to start attacking us...” he trailed off as she continued to ignore him.

“I would most likely look for some pony though, to help clean him off more carefully.”

The memory came slowly back to her through her paralyzing worry, the memory of Discord saying... something about the stuff, something that indicated he had known what it was.

She turned directly on him then, standing protectively and subconsciously between him and the unconscious Spike. She glared accusingly at him, her voice sharpening more so than it had ever done before.

“How did you know about that stuff, did you know what it was doing? What's going to happen to Spike?” her questions were tinged with the pain that fear of the unknown always brought forth. She didn't have the answers, and that was never a good position for Twilight to be in.

Discord looked taken aback by her harshness, but he at least looked like he understood the reasoning behind it. “I-I've dealt with it before, yes. No, I didn't know what it was doing, and... I'm not sure,” he answered all three questions in order, his voice dropping in volume along with his gaze at the end of the final one. He couldn't seem to keep eye contact with her worried, yet still accusatory glare.

“It's not exactly easy to guess what will happen, it's unpredictable for each pony that gets in its way.”

“But you've seen it before, it was something from Tartarus,” Twilight stated her question. Now that she had Spike at least back home and she was no longer running for her life, her mind was a bit clearer. She remembered how the waves had seemed to converge specifically upon attacking Discord, and how the stuff hadn't actually done anything until he had spoken, until he had made his presence known...

“More than that, it was something from Tartarus that remembered you,” she expressed her realization with a new found energy, one that quickly formed back into anger with Discord's look of recognition. The same look he had given the stuff when they had come upon it.

“That's why it was acting that way, why it was targeting you so specifically, I had no idea that it was so sentient,” for a moment she considered the possibilities of this... stuff actually having a consciousness, but then rounded back on Discord. “Why was it targeting you?”

Discord's eyes had gone back to the little dragon on the floor, amazingly Twilight could actually see some concern there, and again he avoided looking to her.

“It was a very, very long time ago, thousands of years. I never would have imagined that it could actually have a memory that lasted that long.”

“What did you do to it, Discord?” she asked, her temper flaring even more. This was most definitely not the time for his roundabout wordplay games.

“It's not exactly what I did to it – well sort of – but what I did for it as well,” he was still beating around the bush, and Twilight was now fighting the urge to beat him around a bush.

Discord seemed to sense this and - with hesitance - continued after a defeated sigh. “I created it,” he admitted, waiting a moment for her to take that in before adding to that loaded sentence.

“Harmony had it in her head that coming down here to live with the mortal ponies was a 'bad idea', but we both knew how much she couldn't stand to do something for them. She couldn't be down there even though she wished she could and all that, but anyway... then she made your little princesses. Two little alicorns made for the sole purpose of taking over her job and to be able to live here and be a part of your world.”

“I know all of that Discord,” Twilight kept her words very measured, trying not to scream at him to get to the point.

“Well... I saw that she'd done that and I thought to myself 'pfft, I can do that!'. I didn't know at the time she was dying due to giving her energy to make them – or even how she made them really – but I figured I'd give that a go too. She made her some Order beings, I'd try my hand at a Chaos being.”

“And that was the end result?” she asked disbelievingly. “That stuff?”

“Something went wrong,” he was beginning to sound annoyed at having to bring up his past failings, but at this moment Twilight could not care less, this could be integral to helping Spike, or helping the town. “I don't think I had all the facts. Not like there was a book or anything on 'how to make baby spirit beings'. So what appeared down here instead of an actual creature was a puddle of pure chaos energy. That's what that is. It has enough sentience to know that it is meant to spread chaos, but nothing else.”

“So, how do we stop it?”

“You don't. Nothing can,” he said. “At least nothing on Equus could. When Harmony had seen what I'd made and how it was rampaging across this plane, she forced me to capture it and seal it away in Tartarus. I figured it might one day escape the prison bubble I'd put it in, but I couldn't have guessed it would make its way back here.”

“So it remembered you, and how you sealed it away,” Twilight said flatly. “It was trying to get at you.”

“Yeah, I didn't think it would have enough of a brain to form the idea of revenge either.”

Discord may have looked back at her, but Twilight had turned from him and sat back down beside the slowly breathing little dragon. Her anger was dissipating, but her fear remained.

“So what can we do for him?”

“Like I said, I'm not sure. If I had my full powers back, I might be able to fix it. The ponies that got caught in it were all affected differently.”

“But it was all bad, wasn't it? Was it permanent?”

She didn't need to look back at him, his reluctance to answer made her not want to hear a response.

Just then, Twilight's friends burst into the library, all five of them converging around her and Spike, with Discord allowing himself to be shoved aside, separating him from her.

“Twilight, we flew back to get you but you'd disappeared. I figured you might have been able to teleport,” Rainbow Dash said, all of them looking just as worried as she was as they all noticed Spike. “Is he gonna be ok?”

The fresh batch of tears were held back by Twilight only by her will. “We don't know,” she said as clearly as she could. She found Fluttershy among the faces of her friends. “Fluttershy? Can you do anything?”

Fluttershy was already crying, not able to hold back her tears for even a second. “I... I don't know. Maybe some pony should go and get a doctor. I'm just- I don't--” she whimpered into incoherence.

Twilight managed to pat her pegasus friend on the shoulder, somehow comforting her instead of feeling like she needed some comfort of her own. “It's fine. Some pony go and get a doctor,” she looked around and met Rarity's gaze. She had been staring unblinkingly at Spike's small form, but when Twilight's question was asked she looked back up and nodded.

“Maybe some pony can find Zecora too, she might now of some kind of... herbal something that could help,” Pinkie suggested.

“Good idea, “ Twilight said somehow managing to give her friend an actual smile. It was short-lived however.

”I just hope she's here in Ponyville. I ain't gonna brave a trip outside Shining Armor's shielding spell to find her,” Applejack added.

This caught Twilight's attention. “Shiny's doing a shield spell, why?”

“You haven't been outside yet, have you?” AJ asked in a tone that told her that she was not going to enjoy what was outside.

Rarity and Pinkie Pie had already exited to find the mentioned ponies to help Spike, and Twilight followed them while trying to mentally prepare herself for whatever she might find.

Her mind had not prepared itself enough. It was almost a good thing that Cloudsdale now hung so low over Ponyville, because incredibly Shining Armor was able to encompass both of the towns in his enormous magical bubble. It shimmered with a light red, almost magenta glow, holding back the ever-encroaching wave of purple goop.

The stuff made from pure chaos was moving slower now, although not as slowly as it had done before it found Discord. It obviously knew that Discord was hiding in Ponyville, but it was having trouble seeking him out due to Shiny's protection spell. It was growing to slowly cover the big pinkish dome, and Twilight just stood there watching it. There had been so much to fear, so much to be anxious about these past few weeks and especially now that apparently her body was now shutting itself off from it all to spare her sanity, she was numb to it. It did not give her any clarity about what they should do, but at least she wasn't running around in a panic, like some of the other residents.

It was several long, tense minutes of silence for the three remaining ponies in the library. Applejack had gone to find her family in the hope that they were safely inside the protective barrier, leaving Discord alone with Twilight and Rainbow Dash to watch over the still unmoving Spike.

When Fluttershy and Rarity finally returned with a doctor, the flurry of activity pushed the pseudo-unicorn off to the side once again, where he remained a good distance away from the others.

He had watched Twilight stand over Spike’s body when she had re-entered the room. She hadn’t looked at him, hadn’t said anything, eyes trained fully in front of her, though far away. The unicorn looked positively numb. He didn’t blame her for it. He had known all of this was affecting her, taking its toll on her positive pony outlook and innate need for everything to turn out fine for every pony. Even for a pony who believed the right answers could be found even in the bleakest of circumstances, this would certainly qualify and justify as an over load.

The unicorn doctor attempted to scrape and peel off the excess purple gunk from Spike’s scales, with Fluttershy not far away to see if she could help while still whimpering away. Pinkie had returned with a zebra - no doubt the one she had mentioned - and they hovered near the dragon as well. Twilight was forced to move away from him while they worked, Rarity sitting by her side, one foreleg over the purple unicorn’s shoulders and the other hoof over one of hers. Rainbow Dash was on Twilight’s other side, looking from Twilight to Spike every so often, but more often than not at the floor. She didn’t seem to be comfortable with providing comfort even to her friend, choosing instead to sit close but still not close enough to embrace Twilight. There was something they actually had in common.

It was getting far too crowded in the room for Discord.

He considered for a moment going outside, but he knew now what waited out there for him to see, and it wasn’t much better than the sight inside. The pseudo unicorn found his way up the library’s stairs without so much as a glance from the ponies assembled let alone a reprimand. From the small loft he could still see them if he had any inclination to, or he could look out the window at the smoozey stuff that was hell-bent on getting at him through any means its surprisingly functioning brain could come up with. He avoided both as best he could. This dreadful feeling consuming him at the moment was only magnified by seeing them, or hearing them. Keeping himself separated from it was the only thing that slightly worked to ease it. As much of an outsider as he was, strangely enough this was the first time he really, truly felt it.

Every once in a while Discord would catch a sentence or two from them down there, though he tried tuning them out. Twilight had been able to explain what had happened, his own role in the incident, and what that stuff was and what exactly it did.

Discord heard hoof steps coming up the stairs and for a split-second he thought for some reason it might be Twilight. He took a moment to consider whether or not that would be a ‘hope’ or a fear, but either way, he was wrong. Of all ponies he had anticipated (and there weren’t many) he hadn’t expected the one to come looking for him to be Rainbow Dash.

He’d had a pillow over his head, the only thing Discord could find to cover both his eyes and ears. She’d pulled it from his grasp with her teeth and just stared him down for a moment. When he had gotten to his hooves she looked back down towards the group below, their voices still barely louder than a whisper.

“Hiding out?” she asked him, with the hollow ghost of a mocking tone impeded by the gravity of their situation (situations). “Can’t stand to see it either huh? Or can’t take the guilt?”

Hmm, guilt… well there was something he just knew about in passing.

“I don’t think I understand your meaning,” he answered with a bit of defensive edge.

“How about the fact that Spike’s down there seriously hurt, and Ponyville and Cloudsdale might get eaten by a big sludge monster that broke outta Tartarus because you wanted to be a total dip-cord?”

“I think the ponies that survived the last time it was around started calling it the Smooze,” he said in an attempt to avoid the subject.

“I don’t care what it’s called, this is a mess and this time there’s no way you can deny you made it.”

“You could give me a break, I already know all that. Plus I did almost die today as well.”

“Yeah well, who’s actually the one maybe dying right now? Oh right, the dragon who apparently saved your butt. So forgive me if I don’t send some sympathy your way right now,” she said.

Discord didn’t give any sort of retort for a long moment, and as much as he’d like to have given Dash a jibe back, she wasn’t exactly wrong. He knew it too, he hadn’t even realized what Spike was doing until afterward. The magnitude of it only hitting him when he, Twilight, and Spike had all come to rest on the library’s floor.

He could have been killed if it hadn’t been for Spike, and in this clumsy, magically-inhibited temporary form that really meant something.

“But you ponies, you’ve been mortal all your lives. You know all about dying. Me, I’d never given it a second thought before this ‘lesson’. Or a first one, come to think of it. I’ve always simply been ‘too important’, ‘too crucial’ to kill no matter how much some of my enemies wanted to.”

Though he was turned away from Rainbow Dash, he could feel he still had her attention, though neither of their postures gave much comfort to their little chat.

He thought again about Spike’s foolishly noble gesture, and the same question rose up inside Discord, one that he had repeated in his mind the last hour or so, and only now escaped his mouth.

“That little dragon may have actually sacrificed himself for me… why?”

Rainbow’s tone sounded a bit caught off guard by the sincere confusion in Discord’s question. “I… I dunno, that’s just the way Spike is. I guess he saw that you were in trouble and no pony else had. It sounded pretty brave of the little guy, gotta really admire that about him,” She made a sad chuckling sound. “Heh, now that’s some loyalty.”

Discord actually found himself sort of agreeing there. It appeared Spike was much more the pony boy he had appeared.

Thinking about it - talking about it with the pegasus - it gnawed at him again, and again he wasn’t able to keep his thoughts to himself anymore.

“When I think about if I would have done the same thing for him, and I’m forced to answer ‘no’…” Discord trailed off, the sensation overwhelming him yet again with sharing that little piece of information. He managed to turn his head to look at the blue pony, who was looking back at him as well. Her look was only slightly less judgmental than it had been.

“I feel---” he paused again, trying to think of the correct word for something he did not recall feeling all that often. He turned his hoof in a circle as he wracked his brain, as if the gesture might will the right term forth.

A frustrated groan escaped him before he finally broke down and just asked, “What’s the opposite of pride?”

“Uh, shame?” Rainbow raised an eyebrow.

“Sure, yes, that works. Shame!” he pointed to her triumphantly, victorious for a millisecond before the weight of the shame fell back down upon him.

“You feel shame, like for real?” Rainbow Dash sounded genuinely surprised. “Wow, I mean you should totally be feeling that way, but… can’t say I thought I’d hear you of all ponies be ashamed about something.” Her surprise did not soften her face all that much, but at least the judgment had toned down more.

“Sorry, but you know it’s no good telling me all this, even if it’s just cause I’m the only one up here. I just don’t think you can hide up here forever. You gotta come down eventually and face what’s happened, and face what you did to make it happen. Ya know?” She sounded slightly awkward, like she hadn’t come to fill the role she was now serving. It was not exactly expected by Discord either - and no less awkward - but oddly enough he felt as though he had needed it.

“The more I see of these ponies the more I am convinced that I would never make a good one, I don’t have what it takes,” he was now mostly speaking to himself, for out loud the words somehow sounded more finite. Something had begun forming in his mind spurred on by Spike’s actions, Dash’s words, Twilight’s tears and numb expression… it was a combination of things really.

It was a crazy idea forming, something he would never have considered unless things felt just about this level of hopeless and he was at this level of shame.

“I feel like a coward, and that makes me feel miserable,” he shook his head, standing and walking past Rainbow now. “…and I don’t think I can take that anymore.”

Discord didn’t look back to see if Rainbow Dash was going to say anything more, he didn’t even look back towards the little dragon who had saved his life. He found Twilight in the midst of the other ponies, and for a moment he thought maybe he should say something to her beforehand.

As he approached though, he thought better of it and made to turn and leave without her seeing him, freezing when she lifted her eyes and met his. Her look was still mostly hollow, but now a question was coming to light there, as if the sight of his face was pulling her from a fog.

She started to come closer, the question forming in her mouth, but Discord was already backing away. He made it out the door and started for the edge of the bubble. He could see the Smooze still attempting to encompass the shield and cause it to falter. To get at him.

Maybe if Twilight hadn’t seen him she would have stayed behind. He might have gotten away clean even with her spotting him. There was a chance she wouldn’t follow.

“Discord, what are you doing?”

Of course there wasn't. No chance at all. He was counting on that. Avoiding her – and making a show of it – was the only certain way of getting her curious enough to come along.

The temporary pony had begun his trot to the edge of the shield to find some small place, just one little bit that wasn’t covered in Smooze to make his escape. Twilight had caught up with him though, teleporting in front of him to halt his pace.

“If you're going to give me a lecture or attempt to talk me out of what I have planned, then I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed.”

“What kind of plan involves you running for the town border when all this is happening?” she asked in quite an unnecessarily accusatory tone. “Because I know you haven't decided to run away and leave us all here to die or be … smooshed.”

“Smoozed,” he corrected her quickly. “And just where did that faith in your dear friend Discord disappear to with that question, Ms. Sparky? It so happens that I do have a plan.”

“Then you were just going to execute this plan by yourself, without me... or some pony else to help,” she had tried backtracking after saying the word 'me'. It would be quite adorable to hear her stumbling over phrasing like that if he wasn't attempting to strengthen his resolve for this plan about eighty five percent of him was trying to find some alternative to.

“Well, you would be my first choice,” his tone shielded the alarm bells going off in his head, the ones telling Discord that neither of them might survive this.

Discord ignored them, and put on a fairly good show of confidence in his opinion, while still refusing to completely reveal the particulars of his plan just yet. She was coming along, Twilight would find out soon enough.

“If you trust I know what I'm doing, then by all means, I'm sure I might need your help.”

“Now that you are probably right about,” Twilight said firmly as she stepped aside. They made it to the edge of the bubble, and had to search for a solid five minutes before they finally found a large enough opening free of Smooze.

“Would you do the honors?” Discord gestured with a hoof towards the shimmering light red edge of the shield.

Twilight made a small opening just large enough for them to wiggle through one at a time, and for just long enough for them to slip past. The bubble closed shut with a small tuneful sound, trimming the split ends off of Discord's tufty tail. Now was not the time to stop and look at the damage however, for the instant he had crossed the barrier, the Smooze began to sense him and change course.

Twilight sprinted alongside Discord as they both raced towards the hidden entrance to the gates of Tartarus. Both pony’s breaths were short and fast, both hearts pounding as they tried to stay just far enough ahead of the Smooze to not be consumed by it.

Twilight couldn’t speak for Discord, but at the moment she could feel her heartbeat in her ears. The Smooze was gaining on them, but at least they had been able to lure it away from Ponyville.

“So this is your plan?” she shouted at him as they continued to run, frantically searching for the telltale signs of the magical protection around the entrance. “We get it to chase us out of town, and then what?”

“Not you, me,” Discord emphasized as they slowed to continue their search. “It’s chasing me, and once we get to the entrance, I’m going to try to get it back inside and then seal the gates.”

“You know if you had just helped Princess Celestia when she asked you this wouldn’t be happening, but I guess this is a much more direct way of showing how all this might affect you.”

Even in the face of eminent danger Twilight could not help giving a lecture to the former-draconequus.

“Do you have to do this now?” he shouted back at her as they sped up again, making a hairpin turn to the left and then down straight through what appeared to be solid rock. When they emerged they found themselves in a long underground tunnel. The Smooze not far behind, they continued to run lower and deeper into the earth. The tunnel seemed to stretch on forever.

There were no torches to light their path, so once they had left the natural light of the tunnel’s mouth both unicorns lit their horns and just kept running. Twilight’s beam of light was a bit stronger than Discord’s, but she chalked that up to just her being a pony for longer, and having more experience with using her horn in that fashion.

After what seemed like hours of exhausting running and continuing downwards, they eventually made it to a place where the walls had some form of illumination. Twilight was relieved when she saw the magically-made balls of light lining the walls of the tunnel, her energy was being depleted enough as it was with all the running, she didn’t want to drain it any more with an extra spell. She had to save it for helping Discord seal the gate.

It was only when they could finally hear the growls of the three-headed dog Cerberus that Twilight began to wonder about that. She was still fairly in the dark when it came to this plan of his, but perhaps she could give him a pass as they were running for their lives.

The three pairs of eyes found them all at once, and the giant dog growled again as they approached. Twilight slowed to a stop, trying to think quickly of a way to show the beast that they were no threat. Where was one of Pinkie’s balls when she needed them? This could certainly be counted as a ‘ball emergency’.

Amazingly Cerberus seemed to remember her, he lowered his enormous heads for her to scratch, which she obliged - though only after a few confused seconds - and he rolled over to have his belly rubbed.

Discord looked on impatiently as she quickly tried to appease the guard dog, his eyes scanning the space and possibly growing as frantic as Twilight felt. They could both hear the glorping sound of the Smooze as it advanced.

Once Cerberus had moved aside for them, Twilight stood with Discord at the hugely menacing gates to the prison of the most evil beings that had ever walked on Equestrian - or any country on Equus - soil.

“Alright, you might want to start opening it about now,” Discord prompted her with more than a hint of worry and - possibly even fear.

Twilight stood before the gates as they loomed above her, waving slightly as if she were looking at them through a haze. There was almost no difference in the bars of the barrier and the negative space between them, they were so dark, only the slight shimmer and the strong sense of its magic radiating towards them. The unicorn was frozen, panicked and unsure of how to proceed.

“Celestia brought you here once before didn’t she?” the other somewhat-unicorn asked her briskly from slightly behind her.

“Yes, but… She never actually opened it, we only discussed--- I just need to remember how to do it,” Twilight said.

“There’s no time to do it the right way, if it’s already weakened it’ll just bust open if you hit it hard enough!”

“But we don’t want to risk any other creatures escaping,” Twilight said. “… and why aren’t you helping?”

Through her panic she was able to glance back at him with a small bit of annoyance. It was more than a fair question. If he was in such a hurry why wasn’t he lifting a hoof to open the gate?

Surprisingly instead of an eye roll or some sort of retort - as Twilight had been expecting from him - Discord’s face fell, his eyes moving away from hers. “I… I can’t.”

“What?” Twilight asked. “What do you mean, you can’t? of course you can, you’re the only being with power ancient enough to seal it up again, you should be able to open it as well.”

Now Discord looked like he really did not want to say what he was thinking, still holding that hint of… was that regret?

“Yes, I do - or rather - I did. I don’t have full use of my powers right now, remember?” he reminded her, still not meeting her gaze. “When they did this to me they locked my powers away somewhere up in this tiny brain where I can't reach them. So, I can’t even try.”

“So, that’s why I’m here?” Twilight asked much quieter than she had been previously, her mind already ahead of her, clicking the pieces together to only-now form the image that was Discord's line of thinking, and it wasn't a picture Twilight liked.

“You still have the portion of my power that I gave to you. You’re the only one around here who has any chaos magic at the moment, and the only one with the power ancient enough to seal the gates for good.”

Twilight was coming to a conclusion, a conclusion that was making her heart jump into her throat and her vision unexpectedly blurry. She did not need to ask the question in her mind because she had already figured it out. Sometimes her intelligence betrayed her, and this was one of those times.

“Then… why are you here?”

“I’m the bait. I’m the one the Smooze is after. If it follows me into the gates, then you can seal it away and you won’t have to worry about it anymore.”

“But… but that doesn’t make any sense,” Twilight’s voice quavered. She tried to play dumb, for she must be mistaken. Discord couldn’t possibly be planning what she thought he was planning.

“Oh what fun is there in making sense?” he half-joked. The smirk he gave her was only a shadow of its former self. “You’d better get a move on, it’ll be here any second.”

If Twilight’s heart had been in her throat a second ago, it had fallen straight down into her stomach. So he had come here with this intention all along. He never planned to leave here with her.

“But, Discord… why-”

“I know I know, unbelievably out of character,” he answered her without really knowing what she would ask. “But it will be all better this way. The Smooze won’t bother you anymore after I’m gone, and your friends can stop worrying about you, and you don’t have to deal with me.”

Twilight found herself frozen again, and this time it seemed to have a hold on her mind as well as her body, for she couldn’t find the right words to say, or even the wrong ones for that matter. He must be joking, she searched his face for some tell that he was joking. His face had lost that ghost of a smirk, which really killed that theory. If it was a joke, it was a cruel one.

“Discord, you can’t be serious,” the unicorn all but whispered now. The magnitude of what he was trying to do seemed to have robbed her of her voice as well. “If-if you’re banking on making it to the other side, to that other plane, that won’t work. There’s absolutely no chance of you coming out, not the way you are now.”

“Oh, I did not hold any high hopes for that,” Discord said, his voice calmer now maybe in some sort of attempt to make this all seem okay, and Twilight felt furious at him for using that same knowing, superior tone he always seemed to have. But if she was so angry with him, why couldn’t she stop these tears from forming, threatening to overflow?

“But…” she was prepared to say it, though it was useless, for he knew Discord must have known that this would spell his end if he actually went through with it. So she asked something else. “What about the balance? Chaos and Order?”

Discord's eyes wandered the cold, dirty, underground chamber once more before finding her again, seeming to choose his words carefully.

“Let’s see Celestia handle that one. She always seems to find quick fixes for things, doesn’t she?” he said. “And if you don’t hurry up than it won’t matter.”

Twilight finally found a way to move her legs that were somehow now made of led. Discord had moved to stand right next to the gates, and slowly - still half in a daze of disbelief - she made her way to stand next to him.

“You really don’t care what happens to you?” she asked him. Discord hadn’t been able to look her in the eye for a while, but she made him then. Twilight gently turned his chin to face her.

He was trying to keep that poker face, as if this were just another discussion they were having back in his main hall. Twilight didn’t know if she found that honorable or amazingly stupid. Both seemed appropriate to fit him at the moment.

“I was going to land myself in there one way or another,” he said. “This way you all get what you want. The ponies of this world have never cared for me, and maybe it’s because I never cared for them. Not sure who initiated that, but perhaps I never bothered to learn about their ‘bonds’ because I did not know the strength of them.”

Twilight thought she could hear it in his voice, and see a glimmer of it in his eyes, that same sincerity that had made her trust him back when she found him that first time in the forest… that had made her heart go out to him.

“They’re still not that much to write home about, mind you. They can be petty, hold grudges, and they aren’t all very bright. Though I suppose that could be said of any beings to an extent. But I suppose there are some good points.”

He probably meant for that smirk of his to emphasize his words, and possibly ease her worry. He did not bank on it making her feel worse.

“I do - I suppose - think I am beginning to see what all the fuss is about you ponies. That spirit you have, that will to continue and come together, I suppose that is admirable. You never seem to give up with out a very good effort. I suppose that’s something worth preserving.”

Twilight tried so hard to smile back, though she didn’t know how it came out looking. It sounded like he might have really actually learned something. Why did it have to come so late?

“Plus they do have you in their ranks, boosting their numbers.” he added.

“You’re really going to do this for every pony?”

“Not all of them,” Discord answered her with a pointedness that was difficult to misinterpret. “Most likely they won’t know I did this, and they probably wouldn’t care if they did.”

“You know that's not true, if they knew--- and is it so hard for you to admit that you do care about that? About us?” Twilight asked through her tears.

“I see their worth,” he said. “You, the Pony Boy, those others that tolerated me, they might. I doubt you are the majority, but if you are a sampling of ponyhood I’m willing to do what needs to be done. And it would be getting done much quicker if some pony would hurry up and open the bucking gate.”

Discord’s gruffness at the end betrayed him; Twilight could tell plainly that this was as hard for him as it was for her. He had lowered her hoof from his face, but he had not yet let it go.

As she looked straight at him - straight into those crazy, infuriating, wonderful eyes of his, Twilight found herself wanting to provide him some sort of comfort, show him some sign that she cared… that she would care that he was gone.

In that moment Twilight wanted to do the one thing she never thought she would, but had never really forgotten. She wanted to return that kiss he gave her what felt like ages ago now. It surprised her how much she wanted to.

She was not able to do so however, for that was when Discord pushed her forward to perform the spell as the Smooze came oozing in, barreling down on them.

Twilight had to concentrate, to tap into that power that Discord had given her, but that hadn’t had much practice with. As her mind found the place where she had buried that weight in the deepest recesses of her magical knowledge, she remembered why she had been so afraid to use it, or even to attempt to learn how.

This power scared her; it was something wild and untamable. The unicorn had to use most of her strength to keep it in-check, to not allow it to come out in full force all at once, for she didn’t know what that might do to her.

Holding back the geyser of power she could feel bubbling up, trying to funnel it into a more manageable portion, Twilight felt her horn glow and concentrated harder.

Risking a look at her horn, Twilight could see that the magic coming forth was a different color. Instead of the usual magenta of her natural power, this chaos magic gleamed a bright, electric blue.

It was no good trying to keep it reigned in, for the energy Twilight was using to keep it tamed should have been going into actually focusing on opening the gates. There was nothing for it, she would have to let go. Twilight would have to give in to this power and pray that she could keep it from doing any harm.

Slowly, gently sliding her mental block aside, she let the magic have more and more leeway, and eventually let it consume the facets of her conscious self.

As much as she tried to keep it slow, once it felt a way out, the magic burst forth, eager to fill every crevice of Twilight with its power. Every nerve ending in the unicorn’s body seemed to be vibrating as wave after wave of the chaotic power radiated through her, and as she held on tight, trying to direct it.

Twilight was raised up into the air by the force of the power, and the bolt of bright blue light shot directly at the gates of Tartarus, melting away as opposed to unlocking like any normal, non-magical gateway.

Twilight barely had enough self-awareness to see Discord run in, or the Smooze chase after him. As the last of the amorphous goo passed the barrier, Twilight focused to shoot another beam of ancient chaos magic to close the gate, forging a new seal that would – with hope – refrain from weakening as the old one had.

Her deed accomplished, the purple pony now fought against the power that was still barraging her mind and body with its intensity. Now that it was over, she tried to force it back to the place where she had kept it locked within herself, but it seemed very reluctant to go back now it had been freed.

As she was attempting to hold onto her own mind and not give in completely to the chaos, Twilight felt the gentle touch of a hoof on her shoulder, something that she remembered occurring in a situation similar to this once before. It was a tether that Twilight could hold on to, to pull her back to the shore and away from the all-encompassing sea of power that was intent on consuming her.

A trio of howls in the distance alerted Twilight to a successful return to herself. They grew in volume as she floated back down to the ground; and she hadn’t noticed that her eyes had taken on the same bright hue as that magic until after it had faded. The hoof that she felt was still there, and once Twilight had more control over herself, she could remember who had once offered the young pony such a gesture.

“P…Princess?” she tried to speak, but she was still recovering from the force of the magic, and the energy it had taken to put it back in its place.

“I am here, Twilight Sparkle,” came a voice from behind her. The wrong voice, not the princess she had been expecting.

She turned to see not Celestia, but Princess Luna. The dark-furred alicorn was observing her with an impressed – yet also concerned – eye.

“You were able to seal the gate so quickly, and able to keep the magic of the ancients almost completely under control,” Luna stated. “Yet another event that demonstrates your skill and your magical abilities.”

“But Princess Luna, wha-" Twilight tried speaking again, but was silenced by the princess as she raised a silver-shoed hoof.

“There will be time for questions, now you must be still and rest. The danger has now passed. You have done wonderfully. Rest now young Twilight, you have most certainly earned it.”

As much as she wanted to protest, the pony’s magically, emotionally, and physically drained body did not seem to need to be told twice. She all but collapsed onto the ground, having her fall softened by the princess’s wing. She now fought to keep herself awake, she wanted to be sure that the gate was sealed, she wanted to know why Luna was here instead of her sister, and she wanted to know what had become of Discord…

The pull to close her eyes and lean against Luna’s comforting embrace was too great however, and before she could say any more the unicorn had fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep.