//------------------------------// // Episode 24 - H of Reason // Story: My Little Rider: Friendship is Joker // by lilAngel //------------------------------// Fireworks fountained into the air, turning the sky over Ponyville into a riot of colour and light. Their source was a belltower, burning like a candle. It could have been a disaster, a bomb set off by a villain who called himself the Master of Questions. But standing on the rooftop, the Champion of Hope had wrapped the tower in her magic and directed all the flames towards the sky. She had even used the bombs as ingredients to make a painting on the sky, conjuring fireworks in an amazing show of talent. Only Rainbow Dash wasn’t fooled. She didn’t believe that this new Champion could be a real hero, regardless of what incantation her Gaia Memory declared. She knew that this Champion wasn’t what she appeared to be, through a mix of both instinct and logic. For one thing, a real hero would help the existing Champions of Harmony, not race against them and try to show off in the middle of a crisis. And after Hope had supposedly vanquished the Master of Questions, he was back only a couple of days later to cause more havoc. The most frustrating thing, the thing that made Rainbow Dash grind her teeth in anger as she flew back towards the last place the Master of Questions had been seen, was that Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy insisted it wasn’t worth investigating this mysterious new Champion. Rainbow Dash hadn’t stayed around long enough to hear their reasons, because she knew they were wrong. A pony who had raced against her, gone so high into the sky that it was hard to breathe, and then vanished into thin air. That kind of trickery made it clear she was a monster rather than a friend. The Questioner wasn’t on the fountains this time, but standing on one of the upper balconies of the Library, gloating at the ponies below. This time, Rainbow Dash didn’t interrupt him, but tapped her Element into its slot again. She could transform after they’d heard the question, and she would be first to save the day. That presumably was why Twilight and Pinkie were just watching as well, deep in thought as they tried to solve the puzzle. “…there runs a fountain crystal clear, where golden treasure doth appear. My riddle leads to a foolish quest, but smashing the fort will show–” “I got it!” Rainbow Dash called out, and every head in the square turned to look at her, “Everyone give a cheer, because your number one hero, the Champions of Harmony are going to save the day! Twilight, arrest that villain, I’m going to clean up the bomb.” “Wait!” Twilight called after her, but Rainbow Dash was already rushing away through the sky. “No worries,” Dash grinned triumphantly and spoke over the magical link between them, “We don’t need to listen to the next four clues, because I already know the answers. You read plenty, but today I’m being the bookworm.” “Stop!” the Champion of Hope called out, as Rainbow Dash got close to her destination. A cluster of barrels stood there, with neatly wrapped parcels on top that could only be explosives. There was even a ticking clock. The other Champion had got here first, and Rainbow Dash growled angrily. She was sure nopony could have solved that riddle before her, but here she was, a runner-up again. “I’m going to stop the bombs!” she yelled, “You’re not going to hog the glory this time!” “Do you even know how to defuse a bomb?” the other Champion called back, sounding less certain than she had before. Just listening to her, Dash could have imagined she was talking to a young filly, “You don’t know what you’re doing, you could cause a huge explosion!” “Better than waiting for the crowd to get here so you can claim the glory! I saw you, you were just waiting until you saw me.” “Fine. I like being a hero. I like being able to put the costume on and get free drinks. Is that really so bad?” “It is if you’re just after the glory!” Rainbow Dash snapped, “Being a hero is about saving the weak, not what you get out of it. And you can’t go around claiming to be the fastest pony in Equestria, because that’s me!” Then she paused, listening to her own words. “Pot, kettle?” the younger Champion smirked, “Sounds like you learned a valuable lesson, if you’re not too stubborn to accept it.” “Right. But you’ve had the glory for days. It’s my turn to save the day today.” Rainbow Dash charged towards the barrels, trying to think what she could do. She didn’t know anything about bombs, or timers. This should have been Twilight’s specialty, but for some reason Twilight still wasn’t here. Still, she could grab the whole lot and fly it high into the sky, where nopony would get hurt. “No!” the other champion shrieked, and dashed to intercept, hitting Dash hard in the flank and sending her flying across the courtyard. “It’s not just the glory. If you tamper with that without knowing what you’re doing, it could be a disaster!” “It’ll be a disaster if we do nothing,” Rainbow Dash wrenched her rival’s helmet off in the struggle, trying a few half-remembered wrestling moves to pin her to the ground. “You’re actually trying to stop me saving the day? Wait…” Rainbow Dash hesitated in confusion. On the ground in front of her was a young mare, young enough she could still be called a filly without causing offence. She had a rose-red mane in long braids, and her coat was powder pink. With the armour coming off now, it was clear she was an earth pony. The last thing Rainbow Dash had expected. “Leave her alone!” an angry voice roared from the other end of the alley. Dash turned her head and saw the Champion of Hope barreling towards them, wings flapping to eke out any extra speed she could manage. Rainbow Dash tried to dodge, but the newcomer lashed out with two hooves, striking her flank hard enough to have her doubled up on the ground. It was so much harder to fight without the armour provided by the Elements of Harmony. “What?” she coughed as she pulled herself back to her hooves, “There’s two…? How can you be in two places?” “Let me ask the questions,” the newcomer snapped. “How did you solve Questioner’s riddle before we did, and what do you think you’re doing attacking her?” “She’s trying to stop me defusing the bomb!” Rainbow Dash answered, still without a clue what was happening around her, “Are you the real Champion of Hope? Then she’s an impostor, something created by the Question Memory or something?” Both of the armoured mares answered, and Rainbow Dash realised that the voices weren’t quite the same. Just close enough that you couldn’t be sure which one you were listening to when they were booming out over a big audience, but up close and with both speaking at once it was easier to distinguish the accents. Not clones or anything, then, but Dash couldn’t think of any other options. “No, neither of them are real,” the Questioner answered from the rooftop, “Both are simply mirror images, to deceive the credulous citizens, and allow me to complete my diablous plan in peace!” “Don’t –” one of the Champions of Hope, the earth pony whose armour was half off, started, but then seemed lost for words. “Here’s a question for you,” Rainbow Dash asked angrily, “When did you stop rhyming? There’s something wrong here, and I’m gonna keep on asking the right questions until I get an answer.” But even while she spoke, she was watching the two Champions. She half expected one of them to interrupt the conversation and boost the Questioner up above the clouds again before Dash could respond. Well if she did that this time, it would be clear which was the real Champion of Hope, and she would also have an unobstructed chance to get the bombs out of the way. But neither of them moved. They weren’t ready to attack the Questioner at all. “Wait, you really work for him? That doesn’t make sense, cos then there’s no way he’d be dumb enough to tell me. It has to be a bluff, to get us to turn on each other, right? Which of you’s the real Champion of Hope?” “There is no real one,” this time the interruption came from Twilight Sparkle, speaking before the swirls of magic had even faded as she teleported in. “I’m sorry Bright, we thought that Rainbow Dash would learn more and maybe start to control her ego if she had to solve this one herself. So she doesn’t know what you told us last night yet.” “Wait, you know? Why didn’t you…” Rainbow Dash couldn’t finish the sentence. Her memory was already presenting treacherous images of her storming off, refusing to listen to her friends. “You said there was nothing to investigate!” “No, I said there’s nothing to worry about. We already put the clues together and challenged these girls while you were doing your own investigation in the Gaia Library. No, Pinkie didn’t tell us, but I know you were at her home, and I can’t think of anything else you’d want her for. That’s how she already knew they weren’t dopants, I guess.” “So what are they?” it was the obvious question. Twilight didn’t answer immediately, trying to think of the exact right word. Most of the ones that came to mind could be taken as an insult by somepony. “Actors,” the pegasus Champion of Hope answered eventually. “It’s all just a show. Mal here was getting pretty upset that nobody wanted to cast him, they all said he was too over the top and melodramatic. He’s so good as that kind of villain, but most writers only put a character like that in comic books, not in the theatre. And we’re all friends, we came up with this idea of putting on our own show. A new kind of theatre, where the audience might not know that it’s a performance. They enjoyed it, though.” “Yeah,” Twilight grinned, “Everyone cheers when the Champion of Hope saves the day. Even more than they did for us. Not because they’re a better Champion, but because the monsters and disasters they fight against are simple, something the mare in the street can understand without exposing the tip of a trail of secrets. A plot everypony can understand and cheer along to.” “So it’s all fake?” Rainbow Dash was kind of disappointed, “You’re a celebrity, not a hero?” She didn’t get an immediate answer, because by that point the timer on top of the barrels had finally run down, and the air was torn by a tremendous boom. The barrel tops burst open, and fireworks fountained into the sky in a hundred different colours. One boom after another, echoing across the town’s rooftops. Over the bangs, it was just possible to hear the cheers from their audience, who had ended up one street over. Rainbow Dash’s mouth hung open in shock for a moment. Streams of sparks and bright flashes filled the air, changing the colour of the sky behind them so they were visible even in daylight. “They’re just fireworks?” Dash couldn’t believe it, “So this is really just a show? Wait, Mal? As in Malapert Storm?” “You’ve heard of me?” the Questioner answered, sounding just as surprised. This time, his voice was very different. Still a rich baritone, but without the grating edge and echo effects. “Well, yeah. You might not have got big roles, but you’ve been in a couple of shows, and you’re good enough that I’d remember your name, and watch out for you in something else. You were awesome in The Taming of the Stallion last summer, at least twenty percent cooler than the old timer they replaced you with. What happened?” He responded with a long sigh, and busied himself taking off his cloak and mask. “It’s his name. Everypony remembered it as ‘Malevolent’ or ‘Malice’ or something. Almost everypony knows someone named Mal who’s a real jerk, so the name got that kind of association. And of course, kids called Mal are likely to get picked on at some point, so maybe it perpetuates. And then if anypony tells their friends that Mal’s had a good performance, they’re just as likely to pronounce it ‘Male part’, which doesn’t lead to good word of mouth. We’ve been friends since school, we tried to help him, but the directors said the name is a big deal. They won’t put him in a starring role because they’d have ‘Mal’ in big letters, and when the public started talking about him they kicked him off anyway, for bringing the show into disrepute. It’s crazy.” “You can say that again,” Dash grumbled, “I was looking forward to more of your shows. You really get into the character, making those over the top speeches believable.” “Never more than today,” Twilight pointed out, “He really sold it. And a show like this, there’s no posters with his name on.” “Maybe you’d like to see how we do it?” The pegasus offered, “Our apology for stealing some of your limelight. I’m Chroma Bright, by the way, I don’t think we’ve met? My day job’s at the rainbow factory, and I get kind of restless not having a real excuse to practise flying fast, that’s why we had the chase over the rooftops.” “Rainbow Dash,” she offered a hoof to shake, “But you probably know that already. I’m not exactly cut out for keeping a secret identity.” Mal and Wildflower Garden, the young earth pony Champion of Hope, were happy to show Twilight and Rainbow Dash how they had organised the Champion of Hope show. Chroma Bright was busy flying over the rooftops, guiding the crowds from one site to another, while Dreamspinner, Perfect Pitch, and Elegance handled most of the show. “Don’t you need to be there?” Rainbow Dash asked Mal as they trooped up the steps to an otherwise unremarkable attic, “Or is there more than one Master of Questions as well?” “Oh, that’s Dreamspinner’s trick,” Wildflower shrugged, “I’m not sure how she even does it, really. But she’s got this invention where you can record an image. Like, we do the show once and she watches it, and then she can engrave what happened on a special crystal, and when you shine light through it the same image appears in the air.” “That’s how I flew straight through him? He wasn’t really there?” “And that’s why I couldn’t improvise when you interrupted,” Mal pointed out, “The crystal just went on showing the same thing we recorded. I so wish I could have reacted to you.” “So it’s like a scrying mirror that displaces the image in time as well as space?” Twilight speculated, “I really want to have a look at the spells behind that one.” “Hey, I think they’re nearly back at the bank!” Wildflower cut in, “We need to be ready. Can you do it?” “I got this,” Mal grinned, and walked over to the keyboard in the middle of the room. With the instrument, and all the paraphernalia arranged around it, this was certainly a room dominated by someone who loved their music. “You’ll love this,” Wildflower nodded to Twilight, “It’s Perfect’s toy really, she made it with a variation of some of the tech Dream was using. I don’t understand any of it, but this is awesome. Show them, Mal?” “Yeah, I think we got time. This is Perfect’s baby, but there’s a free slot. Say something?” “Why?” Twilight predictably answered. Mal pressed a note on the keyboard, and “Why?” came out from the amp beside it, in Twilight’s voice. He pressed another key, and the same “Why?” repeated in an impossibly high-pitched tone. “It takes a short recording,” Mal explained, “uses it as an instrument. Perfect was amazed when she first got it working. She calls is a ‘sample’, says it’s going to be the future of all music.” “It’s not very musical,” Rainbow Dash commented, but still wasn’t sure why they were even bringing this up. Then Mal flipped a small switch beside the keyboard, and tapped another key, at the low end of the scale. “Hero!” It was Mal and Chroma Bright’s voices speaking together, but with a bit of an artificial echo added on. Twilight furrowed her brow, wondering why the voices like that sounded so familiar, and then she gasped as she got it. “Smart, huh?” Mal grinned, “I’m switching it over now, so the sound will come out of the speakers Elegance placed on the bank roof, rather than here. It should be loud enough you can hear it through the window, though.” Wildflower was already peering out of the skylight, watching for some prearranged signal. Then she saw it, and Mal’s hooves descended on the keyboard. Pressing two notes together, and then another, and another, and another, speaking the same phrase at a dozen pitches in harmony. “He–He–He–Heeero!” the choral voice echoed across the rooftops, quiet in the distance but easily recognisable. “So that’s how you did that,” Twilight grinned, “I have to admit, when you said you were just actors, I wondered about that. But this is a pretty neat way to give the impression of a real Gaia Memory.” “A what?” Mal furrowed his brow in confusion. “Don’t worry about it,” Twilight shrugged, “I think you’re doing a great job here. And your show doesn’t hurt anyone, so it’s not a problem for us. We can’t really tell you anything about the real monsters, because if it was widely known we suspect there would be more of them terrorising Ponyville. But maybe if we need to mobilise the public, clear an area or something, that’s a job you could certainly help us with.” “Of course,” Wildflower grinned, “Helping out a real hero would be so awesome.” “Though if it comes to clearing an area,” Mal interjected, “Maybe I would be the more appropriate character for the job.” They nodded, and Rainbow Dash grinned to see an echo of a character she remembered from one of his stage appearances. There was an echo of an explosion, and a huge spiral plume of dust rose up to the east. Even through the skylight, the spreading cloud was visible in the sky. “That’ll be the cider warehouse on the river, then?” Rainbow Dash mused, “What are you doing for the grand finalé?” “You got a good eye, to pick out buildings from this far away,” Mal clapped Rainbow Dash on the shoulder, hoping that in some way he could pay her back for the compliment on his acting before. He never knew quite what to say when it came to talking to a fan. “And you never did explain,” Twilight said, “How you managed to spot that second riddle before us. It took me a minute to get it, but you were already racing off. Is there some clue I missed? You can’t have known the meaning of –” “No, I knew the answers already,” the pegasus grinned, “I told you, I did my homework. I read you know, just not the kind of books you focus on.” Twilight just looked blank. “The magazines,” Mal groaned, “I didn’t think anypony would get it so quickly.” Then seeing Twilight’s continued confusion, he turned to her and explained, “When I could get a role in an actual theatre, there was this magazine, ‘Limelight’. They had a thing with interviewing people who do well in smaller roles, trying to predict the next big stars. I got an interview, and even got to write a little column about what it’s like playing different theatres, how much they differ backstage. But there was this person on the letters page who kept on getting my name wrong. And he did kind of… riddles, I guess. Rhyming insults really, using Ponyville landmarks as a metaphor to insult me. It was weird, but I never quite forgot them, and then I used some of his to inspire the clues for today’s treasure hunt.” “Yeah, I remembered those,” Rainbow Dash strutted proudly, “I was wondering if these attacks were the original rhymer going a bit further to make everypony listen. I think not many cared enough to try and understand his original letters, so he could have been angry about that. I never thought it would be you, though.” “I think they’re doing the showdown at the clocktower,” Wildflower called from the window, “Come watch!” All the ponies gathered around the small skylight, and saw a pegasus flying a tight spiral around a tower in the distance, rainbow light trailing out behind her. “That’s an awesome light show!” Rainbow Dash gasped in admiration, “It’s like she’s a real alicorn with a magical aura. How did you do that?” “It’s just coloured smoke,” Wildflower shrugged, “With fireflies in it to light it up. Emptying a jar of smoke behind her as she flies. Dreamspinner made them, but we all know how to use them now. I think she stuck one of them to a firework, to make the trail you were chasing the first time we met.” “I wondered about that,” Twilight giggled just a little, “Even with you switching roles so everypony plays to their strengths, it would be incredible for you to outrun Doubledash. Even most fireworks wouldn’t be able to match her speed, so I really want to ask Dreamspinner what spells and chemicals she’s using.” “Yeah, we’ll introduce you after–” Mal stopped with a gasp of surprise as the fireworks on the tower went off. It really seemed like the helix of coloured smoke was a magical cage of some kind, channeling an explosion upwards into fireworks. But this time when the glowing streams of colour reached the top of the arc, they blossomed like flowers in the evening sky. A pink burst, and then a green, a blue, and a yellow. One bloom after another burst brightly enough to bathe all of Ponyville in coloured light. Even the ponies who’d seen sketches of what the display looked like were impressed by the actual spectacle. As the seventh and eighth rainbow colours exploded, it seemed the show still wasn’t over. Each firework sent out a second chrysanthemum of colour, in the exact same place as the first, and then a third set of coloured blooms. But before the spectacle could get boring, the third explosion of each colour sent coloured trails of six similar shades out, turning into six subsidiary bursts, and each of those sent a dozen coloured trails raining down towards Ponyville even as the next colour started its final burst. “I hope those aren’t going to be hot enough to start fires when they land,” Twilight muttered cautiously, always with one eye on safety, “They seem to be burning right down to the ground.” “No, don’t worry,” Wildflower grinned, “Dream was worried about that too. They’re…” and she took a quick look at the notes pinned to the wall beside her, “luminiferous crystal fragments. Bits of rock that glow for a minute after they get hot.” “Oh, I read about those, but I’ve never seen one. Clever.” But she wasn’t sure about the reassurances when she heard a scream from the next street over, and another in the distance. “But everypony doesn’t know that. They could still worry those who see them land, and we don’t want your show to cause trouble. And even a small fragment could break a window or something if it’s travelling fast enough. Maybe we could double-check there’s no–” Twilight interrupted herself by leaping back as a shard of glowing crystal neatly punched right through the roof and embedded itself in the floor at her feet. “Woah,” Wildflower gasped, “That’s not supposed to happen. I hope nopony’s going to get hurt, Dreamspinner must have made a mistake in the calculations.” “Bit more than a mistake, I think,” Rainbow Dash growled, kneeling to grab the shard out of the singed floorboards, “I think we have a real problem.” She held it up for them to look at more closely. A piece of azure crystal as long as the width of her hoof, with copper and silver spikes protruding from one end and a large letter ‘G’ engraved on the side. There was no way it could be anything other than a Gaia Memory. “What’s that?” Mal seemed mystified, “I spent three hours packing crystals into those barrels, and I sure didn’t see any like that.” “Well, we’ll have to hope there’s not any more like this,” Twilight muttered ominously, “They turn ordinary ponies into rampaging monsters, causing all kind of destruction.” “What? We’ll collect them all. They’re safe to touch, right?” “Yeah, just don’t stab yourself with the tip,” Rainbow Dash answered, “But this isn’t some game any more. If there’s real Gaia Memories, this is our job. I said we should have investigated earlier.” “They know it’s no game,” Twilight snapped, “And this isn’t a time for pride. Either this is the only one that’s a real Memory, which makes it incredibly likely that we’d pick it up, or there’s more out there. And if there’s more, we need as many hooves on the street as possible, collecting them and rounding them up. We can’t afford to have even one of these become a dopant, and if every one of those crystals was replaced, then we could be facing a mass invasion. We need all the help we can get.” Before Rainbow Dash could even reply, Twilight closed her eyes, concentrated a second, and left a pony-shaped shadow of pink light in the air for a second as she teleported away to deal with the crisis. “Right,” Rainbow Dash turned to the two other ponies, and kicked herself mentally for not asking them herself, “Can you get all the Champions of Hope in on this? It’s just picking up crystals, right? And bring them back to us. If you see a monster, then you can use that keyboard thing, you can shout all the way around town, right? Do whatever you have to do, get the message to one of us as quickly as possible.” Fluttershy couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw a shooting star bury itself in the ground right in front of her. She dived behind a rain barrel, and peered out nervously as the fireworks continued to stream down in a shower. Pinkie Pie was a little more inquisitive, and walked over to the little molehill of dirt kicked up as the crystal hit the soft earth. She dug it out in an instant, and held a golden-amber Gaia Memory up for her friend to see. “A Gaia Memory?” Fluttershy gasped, and then looked up at the coloured streaks all over the sky, “There must be hundreds of them!” “I think it’s a fake,” Pinkie answered, “It doesn’t look right. But even if it is, we have to find out who’s doing this, and why.” “It can’t be Chroma Bright, can it? She seemed so nice! I thought this was just a show!” “Twilight!” Pinkie tapped the Element of Laughter into her collar, so the others could hear her voice throughout the city, “The fireworks have turned into –” (“I know!” Twilight’s disembodied voice interrupted, “This is a job for us, but I think we’re better off not transforming. Six Champions, we can cover a sector of the city each. The Champions of Hope are going to help too, they don’t know who put the Memories in their fireworks. We just have to gather up every last one as quickly as we can, so it’s the number of helpers that matters.”) “Got you!” Pinkie hurried off down the street, looking for anywhere one of the crystals could have landed, and digging them out from walls and from flowerpots with equal ease. Fluttershy was still nervous, but she headed off in the opposite direction doing the same thing. “Citizens of Ponyville!” the voice came from everywhere at once, loud enough to overpower all other conversation. “This is the Champion of Hope. This time your Champions will need the help of everypony to thwart the plans of the dark sorcerer, Discord. This is a plan even more insidious than the machinations of the Questioner, so we ask you please, do the right thing and don’t ask any more questions. Help us to find the crystals that have fallen from the sky. We need all of them. Don’t touch them, just let us know where they are. The Champions of Harmony are going to be all over the city, and I’ll be there too, so if you saw a crystal land, remember where it was and tell a Champion. Thankyou, everypony, and good luck.” In a farmyard on the outskirts of Ponyville, a lone stallion picked up a crystal. This far out, he could hear the amplified voice filling the streets, but he couldn’t make out what it was saying. He could see the streaks of colour pelting the rooftops, though, and he could see the tip of a lilac crystal protruding from the soft earth. “Cider,” he read the slogan beneath the large letter ‘C’ engraved on the Memory, “There’s a Cider Memory now? Well, why not, I suppose.” then he dropped it onto a cobbled path and stomped down with one powerful hoof. The crystal shattered, and burning fragments of metal wire and glass skittered across the stones a short distance. He bent down and looked at the broken shards for a few moments, before shrugging and getting back to his hooves. “I guess they’re going to need me again,” and with that he produced another Memory from his saddlebag, and squeezed the switch. He was already speeding along the road towards town as the transformation completed, and didn’t miss a step when the metal plates enclosed his body. “NASCAR!” Applejack had gathered five Gaia Memories in just a few minutes, and dropped them into her pack. She’d been outdoors to watch the firework display, so had seen three come down. The fourth had visibly burned the grass in somepony’s garden as it landed, and the fifth a bystander had directed her towards. She wondered if she might actually grab more Gaia Memories in one night’s work than she had destroyed in half a year of fighting. It didn’t make any sense for them to come down like this, but even one of them falling into innocent hooves would be one too many, so they had to collect them first and worry about the cause later. Then she saw the first monster of the night. A giant golden shape with six hooves and a horn, that was glaring at her and stomping one forehoof on the ground. She barely had time to tap her own Element in the collar twice before the creature charged, a cloud of thick yellow smoke rising up from giant nostrils with each snorted breath. Applejack had to dive out of the way, she couldn’t fight yet. But as she picked herself up and prepared to catch the Driver when Twilight teleported it to her, she could see another monster farther down the same street. Twilight Sparkle was having a problem of her own. Headcanon was an avid reader, and visited the Golden Oak Library most days. But he was also a little eccentric, and liable to obsess over whatever caught his attention. It was easy to imagine he was the kind of colt who would become a dopant, so Twilight edged slowly towards him, not wanting to give him any ideas until she was close enough to snatch away the Memory on the ground in front of him. “Heya, Miss Twilight,” it seemed like she wasn’t good enough at moving quietly on the cobbles, “You want this thing? I heard the voice.” “Yes. Yes, please. Just toss it over, be careful not to cut yourself on it.” Twilight gasped with relief. Headcanon had only got his cutie mark a month before, it would be terrible if he lost it again so soon. He scraped away a little more dirt from the half-buried crystal, and gave it a solid kick in Twilight’s direction. It only got halfway there, though, before it turned around and rushed straight towards the young pony. First Twilight thought somepony had grabbed it with their magic, but the glow was exactly the same purple as the Memory itself, and reminded her that every one of these had left a glowing trail in the air as it fell down from the firework display. Something was controlling these. Headcanon ducked reflexively, and the streak of light flew over him. But it curved in the air and came right back. “Keep it away from your flank!” Twilight called, and tried to grab it with her own magic. She couldn’t catch it, it just slipped out of her grasp every time, but Headcanon proved himself more athletic than she would ever have expected. Twilight was aware of her collar glowing, flashes of distress from Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rarity. But she didn’t have time to help them now. “Right!” Headcanon got to his hooves, looking at the Memory as it flew head on towards him. This time he didn’t duck or dive, he reared up and swung his forehooves to snatch the Memory out of the air. Twilight wanted to praise him for his quick thinking when his hooves came together and the strange glow in the air stopped. Now there was just a young stallion holding a Gaia Memory. And then, to her horror, the Memory burrowed into the flesh of his leg like a worm, and flashes of light pulsed through his body as his eyes went wide in fear. “TROUBLE!” “No!” Headcanon gasped, but that was the only word he could get out as his coat turned grey-black and sprouted swords and spears like a rash. Applejack ducked and rolled, and kicked a couple of barrels into the path of the monster coming towards her. They didn’t seem to be too interested in her, though, she was just another pony in the way. They were more interested in fighting each other right now. One that seemed to be made entirely of curved blades was shedding them like a porcupine’s quills, sending one blade after another to slice the tentacles off an amorphous blob monster that was trying to strangle him. While they were distracted, Applejack could grab one more Gaia Memory from the ground. But then there was another monster leaping for her, one that looked terrifyingly familiar. A horse-sized shape covered with feathers swooped down from the sky, and as it came closer feathers fell off, streaking towards the ground. Applejack covered her face with her hooves, not even having a chance to hide. “STEAM: MAXIMUM DRIVE!” A chorus of explosions echoed across the square as the lethal feathers collided with a solid wave of steam in the air above her. She looked up to see a Champion clad in metal standing up on his hind legs, holding a giant sword before him. “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he grunted, “These things are worthless, the whole battle is a hoax.” “You’re back?” Applejack asked without thinking, then realised she was stating the obvious. She always felt she was the one saying dumb things around this stallion. It was like anger made her stumble over her words, and state the obvious or ask dumb questions. It wasn’t just anger because he was their enemy, either. She was starting to realise that he’d saved her from a rampaging dopant more than once, and she needed to show him that she was the stronger one. It was understandable she was a bit tongue-tied with her family’s pride on the line. She turned to deliver a scathing comeback, but the monsters had already moved on. “Hey girls,” she held one hoof on the Element of Honesty in her collar as she spoke, even though it wasn’t, strictly speaking, necessary. She hadn’t quite got the hang of all the different things that the crystals could do as well as her friends. “Looks like Nascar’s back, and he’s got his sword again.” The response from the others was a chorus of dismayed moans. They’d seriously thought that the self-proclaimed Champion of Justice would at least be disarmed. “An’ that’s not the worst of it. I just got attacked by a Bird monster. You think this thing might be returning the Gaia Memories that we already broke somehow? I couldn’t stand it if–” “Don’t think like that!” Pinkie Pie interrupted, grunting mid-sentence as she delivered a firm roundhouse kick to the Marvel Dopant menacing her. “Remember, the girls were all smart enough to give it up in the end, and they’re doing their best to get over it. If the Memory was somehow restored, they’d never use it again. And they sure as heck wouldn’t attack you!” Then she turned around to face the dopant menacing her, and levelled a party cannon at the charging face. It wouldn’t hurt the creature, she knew, not without the power of the Driver, but it might be distracting enough to let her reach a safe space. The alleyway was filled with streamers, confetti, and a flying cake. Much to Pinkie’s surprise, the dopant staggered back, staring cross-eyed at a chunk of frosting on its nose. And then with a pop like a bursting balloon, the body disintegrated, and the Marvel Memory shot out. Button Mash was lying on the ground now, stunned. Pinkie checked him over quickly, and found no sign of the scars a Gaia Memory normally left. But even while she was checking, another of the numerous dopants rushed up and grabbed the fallen Memory, before scurrying off. “Hey, Twilight,” she called through the telepathic link, “Everypony! Try hitting the dopants. Kick them, or whatever. They’re weak as soap bubbles, and just hitting them or confusing them might make the Memory come out.” “Already got that!” Rarity called back, but kept her full attention on the boutique below her. She was looking down from the top of the stairs as one dopant after another rushed in. If she hit them with a levitated mannequin, they would stagger and leave their Memory lying on the ground. She wanted to go down and help them, or to retrieve the Gaia Memory they all seemed to be looking at, but there was never time before the next one came in. “And they seem to be fighting over Gaia Memories. Like they need all of them. But some are more valuable than others, the ones in my shop are walking past each other’s Memories sometimes to get at one green Memory.” (“That could be useful,” Twilight’s voice cut in, “I’ll be right there, see if we can find out which Memory is so desirable to them. If we can work out what they want, then maybe we can find a way to stop them.”) “The Memories come out without breaking, too,” Rarity added, in case anypony else hadn’t noticed that yet, “So somepony else is just going to pick them up.” “Then we get to them first,” Twilight answered simply. Then her horn lit up, and a swirl of pink magic caught one of the Trouble Dopant’s missiles out of the air. Twilight was angry now, angry at herself for not understanding what was going on. Just when she’d thought she had a handle on how Gaia Memories worked, something happened that was completely outside what she expected. That made her angrier than anything else, so maybe she threw the projectile back a little harder than she should have done. In any case, the dopant returned to normal, the Memory shooting out of Headcanon’s hoof. Twilight leapt forward to grab it before another dopant could beat her to it, or before it could embed itself in some other innocent pony. But she was a little too eager, and as she landed on it the Memory split apart with a crack. The metal teeth caught fire as they bounced across the cobbles, and some parts of the crystal itself were reduced to black, molten mess. “Wait,” Twilight spoke to the others again, “I think I got this. These aren’t Gaia Memories. Or they are, but they aren’t crystals. They’re just glass, like the Engine Memory I managed to analyse. So the glass Memories aren’t as strong, these ones aren’t even close to the ones we’ve seen before, but whoever’s distributing these things can make them so much more easily. It’s like a mass produced cake, in bakeries that make gallons of dough at once and then cook a hundred moulds. It’s faster, and cheaper, but they’ll never be a patch on one of Pinkie’s hoof-made treats.” Then she looked around. She was alone for a moment. And even if they knew that these Memories were fake, they could still cause harm to innocent ponies, and they were certainly causing panic. She knew that she had to do whatever she could to solve the puzzle, and at the moment there was one clue that was easily within reach. She concentrated, and teleported into the Carousel Boutique. Rarity was looking out from the top of the staircase, as three dopants fought over a glowing green shape on the ground. Twilight snatched up the dopants and threw them apart, but while she had to divide her attention between three enemies it seemed she didn’t have enough force to make them revert to normal. She ducked under an attack from one with a forest of tentacles, and called up to Rarity: “You ready?” She whipped the Driver out and snapped it around her neck, then deflected the dopants’ attacks with magic while using her hooves to take the Joker Memory out of her collar and slide it into the device’s left slot. “JOKER!” the crystal called out. Rarity dived back into her bedroom, where her body would be safe, before pressing the lever on the side of her own Element. “GENEROSITY!” In the main part of the boutique a sphere of light formed around Twilight Sparkle, and when it faded there was an armoured pony with a horn large enough to make any unicorn envious, with a purple coat on the left shading to white at the right side of her body, and a mane in a stylish braid of magenta and violet. “GENEROSITYᏔJOKER!” With their magic powers massively enhanced by the Driver, as if they were multiplied rather than simply added, they could pick up three dopants with ease and bang them against the walls until the Gaia Memories were ejected. GenerousJoker grabbed all three Gaia Memories, as well as a couple of others that were already scattered around the room, and smashed them together. Their combined magical power could easily conjure a little heat, reducing the Memories to a ball of blackened, molten glass. Only one was left, but there was another dopant at the door already. (“Quick, grab the Memory!” Rarity gasped over the telepathic connection within their shared body) (“I got it!” Twilight answered) As one, they erected a barrier to keep the dopant out, and snatched up the Memory from the ground. Their eyes went wide as they read the word on the side of it. The Memory they were holding was Generosity. They looked down, and they could see that the glass was the exact same shape and colour as the Memory currently resting in the driver on their breast. But they couldn’t stop to think, because the monster at the door had charged straight through their barrier, ignoring it completely. They reached out with their combined magic, the greatest unicorn power in Equestria, and grabbed the monster to fling it away. But the dopant just kept on coming, shrugging off their attack as if it was a breath of wind. GenerousJoker glanced to the left and then threw the fake Generosity Memory to the ground. The dopant hesitated, visibly looking at both the fake Memory and the real one, unsure which to pursue. In that moment, the Champion’s magic draped a whole rack of clothes over the monster’s head. It might be able to ignore their magic, but it surely couldn’t ignore a significant weight of fine fabrics. And it couldn’t ignore a solid kick in the flank, with both hooves. They might be a primarily magical Champion, bearing the power of two unicorns, but doubling the physical strength of two ponies added together, regardless of their tribe, created a strength that anypony would do well to respect. The dopant collapsed to the ground, revealing the rear end of No Sell, his head still wrapped in a dozen silk dresses. The Memory flew out, and GenerousJoker picked it up before anypony else could get to it. “Zero,” they read the name aloud, “That one would be a pain to deal with if it was a real Memory.” (“More importantly,” Twilight took the discussion back inside their head, “Why is there a fake Generosity Memory? Are these duplicates of Gaia Memories that actually exist? And how could they have been created if whoever is doing this clearly doesn’t have the real Generosity Memory to base their fake on?”) (“Can we call it the Element of Generosity?” Rarity replied, “I don’t like thinking of our power as… being the same thing as the monsters we fight.”) (“It really is the same kind of power, though,” Pinkie Pie joined the conversation, “It’s just that we can control it instead of it controlling us.”) (“No, I think the Elements of Harmony really are different. More powerful, maybe. That would explain why they’re all drawn towards that single Memory. These fake Memories don’t have the same time to grow into their hosts, they rampage right away. So it just makes them crave more power, more Memories, even if they don’t understand why. It’s not corrupting your darkest feelings, it’s just taking over.”) “What…?” No Sell had finally managed to extricate himself from the tangle of fabrics, “How did I get here?” “Did you pick up one of those crystals from the fireworks?” GenerousJoker was speaking with two voices in harmony, but it was Twilight’s curiosity choosing the words, “How did it feel? Did it change your emotions?” “I didn’t touch it!” the stallion seemed pretty certain, “The Champion told us not to. But it came flying towards me, burned like a hornet’s sting, and then… I was running down a corridor, trying to reach a light. It felt like a dream. And then I was here, tied up in all these beautiful clothes. I hope you’re not going to ask me to pay for the damage.” “Don’t worry,” this time the double unicorn answered with just Rarity’s voice, “That’s kind of what we were expecting. I can always repair any that have been torn.” (“Pinkie?” Twilight turned back to the telepathic communication while Rarity quickly assessed the state of her wares, “Do you think we’ve got enough information to look up what’s going on here? Do you think there’s a real dopant behind these things?”) (“I don’t know. Could be. I’ve found a quiet space now, so we can try if you want.”) A quiet space in this case was a stockroom at the back of a shop. Both of the owners had become pseudo-dopants, and seemed to be sleeping normally after a hit with the Party Cannon. That wasn’t normally what happened when Pinkie threw – or fired – a party, at least for a couple of hours. But right now she thought it was probably the best for them. She didn’t touch anything in the store room. She just needed a place out of the way, where she could dive into her dream space. She couldn’t help giggling as she looked at some of the items on the shelves, though. This was a very special kind of novelty and gift shop, and Pinkie also made a mental note to come back here some time to buy birthday presents for some of her friends. She couldn’t wait to see their faces. But right now, she had work to do. She closed her eyes, and sank into a deep dream. The shelves were replaced by bookshelves, or rather books whose arrangement implied the existence of invisible shelves, in roughly the same formation. Thousands of books, millions even, stretched off into the far distance. She whispered that she was ready, sure that the connection between the Elements of Harmony would carry her words to all of the others, and then waited. It wasn’t long before Twilight’s disembodied voice came from the air. “Keyword: Fake Memories.” As soon as she said it, Pinkie only had to nod and the books were whirling through the air around her, spinning and sorting until a much smaller number remained. “Sixteen thousand, four hundred and twelve results,” she announced. “Keyword: Fireworks,” Twilight added more confidently. Again, the books spun, and the number was pared down dramatically. Still not by enough, though. “Nine hundred and seventy-three results.” “Keyword: Today,” Twilight offered, “We’re allowed to do that, right?” “No…” Pinkie mumbled, trying to make sense of the feelings around her. The books were moving again, being filtered down to just the relevant ones, but the books that didn’t match were being added back in just as quickly as they were removed. There was somepony else in the Gaia Library again, and interfering with her ability to do a proper lookup. “No, something’s wrong with the Library, it won’t let me do that. I think it’s only temporary, though.” “I think we need to look more at those fireworks,” Rainbow Dash’s voice cut in, “I mean, I know it’s a firework now, but I still never found anything that can fly faster than me and Flutters as DoubleDash, Even for a firework that’s strange, so I think there’s been something strange in there all along.” “Could be true,” Twilight admitted, “I thought there was no danger because it’s just a performance, not a real villain. I never even thought to look if the real Gaia Memory distributors were using the special effects to conceal something more sinister. I should have trusted your instincts a bit more.” “And been better at separating my worries about not being the fastest from my worries about the bad guy. I only looked at this Champion of Hope as a suspect, instead of an ally, but if I’d talked to them sooner we might have a better idea what kind of thing we’re looking for here.” “You’re right, though. A firework that can out-race you almost certainly has a strong magical component. Maybe even a prototype of whatever system was used to spread these fake Memories around. So if we look at the fireworks, maybe they’ll give us a bit of a clue. I’m trying to think what else we could look up, but I’m drawing a blank.” “Oh, I got one,” Rainbow Dash’s pride was clear in her voice; she’d managed to outdo Twilight Sparkle, just a little, in both literary knowledge and lateral thinking today. “Keyword: Theatre!” The books flew away, leaving just a few hanging in the air in front of Pinkie. One of them had the distinctive crystallised cover that denoted a Gaia Memory user, while three others had what looked almost like Gaia Memories fused to the cover, but not actually fused with the books themselves. “Eight matches!” Pinkie declared, “One Memory User, and three pseudo-Memories.” But before she’d finished speaking she was struck by a barrage of books, streaming past as if thrown. The ones she’d selected were knocked out of the air, and returned to their incorporeal shelves along with all the others. “Can you take the Memory user?” Twilight asked. Sometimes that was possible, but sometimes Pinkie needed a more detailed lookup before she could touch the book she’d found. So it didn’t worry any of the others when Pinkie said no. Maybe she could have explained more, but she didn’t want to tell them just yet that she wasn’t the only one able to access the Gaia Library. “We must be able to find it,” Twilight mused, “We know plenty about what the Memory does now, we’ve just got to work out what it is. Assuming that the real dopant you found is actually behind all the fake ones, of course. Maybe–” She was interrupted by Applejack’s voice over the telepathic link, no words but just an irritated growl. “What’s wrong, AJ?” “The Nascar guy gave us the answer, I just didn’t recognise it. It’s all about a show, a performance, and a fake. New Lookup! Keyword: Hoax Memory.” “One match!” There was a rush of eliminated books returning again, but Pinkie already had her hooves on the one she needed, and she wasn’t going to let it go. As she quickly read the few pages that were legible in this book, she saw another pony glaring at her. A pony who could have been her double, except for the colours. It sent chills down Pinkie’s spine to see eyes just like her own glaring in anger, but she didn’t let herself get distracted. She knew that just like each one they’d fought before, it would be a disaster for somepony if the dopant wasn’t defeated. And the book told her enough to know this was the case. Mal stepped back in surprise when an unfamiliar pony flew in through the attic’s skylight. But it didn’t take him long to recognise one of the many forms of the Champion of Harmony, with both wings and a horn this time. “You’re a real alicorn?” his eyes were wide with surprise, “I thought you six just switched roles, like Chroma and the girls.” “It takes more than wings and a horn to be an alicorn,” Raridash corrected, “And we’ve all got our own talents, we like to make sure we got the right ponies for the right job. But we got double the flexibility, because two of us can be a single Champion of Harmony!” “Right. I think we’re doing pretty well, anyway. The girls have gathered dozens of these weird crystal things, I’m keeping tabs on them from here.” “There’s a problem, though. We found out who’s the real monster behind all this, and it’s your friend Dreamspinner. Plus, any of these fake dopants who aren’t cured tonight will die at dawn. So we need a different plan.” “Just tell me what I need to do, I’ll pass it on to the others. We’ll save Dreamspinner for sure, I got all the motivation I need for this scene.” Applejack was on the edge of the town again, so the dramatic debate between Dreamspinner and The Questioner over the loudspeakers was mostly incomprehensible. She could hear that neither of the actors was willing to break character though, portraying the Questioner as an evil genius who wanted to control Ponyville, but who would stand on the side of right if the town was going to be destroyed; and Dreamspinner was now Smoke and Mirrors, an evil clone of the Champion of Hope. She just wanted to put on a better performance. She wanted to impress everyone. And she was determined that her ‘pets’ would gather all the pseudo-Memories, allowing her to put on a display more beautiful even than that which the monsters, with all their power, had been able to create. There was even a monologue about the day Trixie had come to town, and Dreamspinner had seen fireworks more stylish than her own for the first time. Ever since then, she had been looking for any way to become better at her craft, and when the Merchant offered her a legendary amulet, she had jumped at the chance. “She’s describing you as just a storekeeper, selling her the tools she needs to put on a show,” Applejack spoke at last. The Champion of Justice turned on the spot, surprised she had been able to get so close without him noticing. “But what’s your real reason? You wouldn’t put on a show like this without some plan, would you?” “No,” he shook his head, and began to walk away. “You think you’re doing the right thing,” she continued, “So you have to have a reason. You always tried to convince us before. If you won’t tell me what the plan is this time, does that mean you finally realised you’re the villain here?” “Nope,” he repeated, “Just I know you wouldn’t understand. The Gaia Memories bring out any pony’s talents, and make them even stronger. They make us better, ready for the future. But, not everypony is ready yet, so we have to find the ones who are. The pseudo-Memories that Hoax creates should be able to tell us who has enough self control, but if anypony loses their mind and rampages, the Memory will disintegrate at dawn, so there’s no lasting damage. I just watch, keep an eye out for the ones strong enough to take control, and then I’ve got a gift to offer them in the morning.” “Except when those fake Memories disappear, so will their users,” Applejack snapped angrily, “We’ve already seen proof of that. So if you’re standing in the way of our plan, then this time I really have to beat you. No playing around now.” “I wish I knew where you could get this information from,” his voice was suddenly a whole lot more serious. Even under the growling of engine noises, it was possible to tell that he was angry. “They never told me that, but you’ve been right so far. And I don’t go with a plan that has innocent ponies die. So, have you got a plan?” “It’s already started,” Applejack grinned, “I don’t like the things you’re doing, I don’t like the way you work, but I do prefer it when we’re fighting on the same side and not against each other. Just promise you’re not going to try and kill Dreamspinner.” “How did you know…” he started, and then gave a giant mechanical shrug, “Sure. What’s the plan?” Applejack just pointed towards the centre of Ponyville. There, the Champion of Hope was running towards them at a full gallop, carrying dozens of pseudo-Memories in two saddlebags thin enough that the glowing crystals were easily visible. As she came close, she threw one of the bags to Applejack, and the two split up to take different paths into the Everfree Forest. As they ran, the evening air was filled with the screams and roars of a hundred fake dopants or more, charging down the road behind them. The Champion of Justice wasn’t sure what was going on, but he decided to stick closer to Applejack. “You’re luring them out to somewhere isolated,” he guessed, “Somewhere you can fight them without worrying about any getting separated from the group in all the streets and alleyways.” Applejack didn’t answer, the frenzied run had her out of breath, as she didn’t have the option of keeping her legs still and relying on magical wheels to carry her along the road. As they entered the Everfree, the road became an irregular dirt track, and a massed crowd became a hundred individuals each following their own paths between the trees. But before too long, Applejack and the Champion of Justice found themselves surrounded by more dopants than they could count. It was a small clearing, with a solid wall of swords, tentacles, and teeth around the edges, as well as illumination from a dozen different colours of glowing magic. “Aww, hay!” Applejack cursed, “At least Fluttershy and Rarity were supposed to be here with me. I must have got here quicker than we planned, or I didn’t get to the right clearing we agreed on.” “Was this the plan? I thought you were going to split up the fake dopants so each of you could take on a dozen or so.” “No! I’ve got all the fake Elements of Harmony in here, and two of the real ones too. The fake monsters can sense them somehow, they’ll follow the fake Elements even if they’re out of sight inside a shop, so when we split up they all follow me. But the girls were supposed to be here to make sure we can finish the job. I don’t know if I can buck fast enough to knock all of these out before I’m buried in tentacles.” “Fine,” the red stallion grumbled, “I’ll deal with this lot, but you owe me.” He reached into the back of the heavy metal armour, and produced the weapon known as the Engine Blade. “Wait! I know you’re fast, but fast enough to take on so many enemies at once? And you can’t use a sword, they’re not even real monsters. They’re just regular ponies who had those crystal things attack them. We can’t do anything that’d maybe hurt them.” “Don’t worry,” he answered, “I’ve been learning new tricks too.” He pulled his own glass memory out of the hilt of the sword, and Applejack momentarily noticed that it seemed a little more ornate than the one they’d destroyed a few weeks before. But he didn’t flip the switch this time, just put it into a pocket near the collar of his armour, and pulled out another. This one glowed a faint blue, and was in two parts. It looked something like a fob watch, with a Gaia Memory and its usual connector as the fob, but the letter ‘T’ made to look like a pair of hands emblazoned on the back of a transparent watch. He slammed the long thin piece into the hilt of his sword, and the glow of the watch part started to throb, maybe in time with the user’s pulse. “TIME!” the memory called out, a booming melodic voice but with an eerie echo that seemed to come before the original sound. “I said don’t use the–” Applejack started, while Nascar lashed out with a single hoof to catch the first of the glass dopants under the chin. “3…” the Time Memory pulsed, and started to glow with red light. A sound like a ticking clock echoed across the clearing, and the watch dangling from the end of the sword seemed almost like a pendulum as it swung back in the opposite direction. The Champion of Justice kept the sword held high, but struck with two hooves, one after another, as the horde of monsters got closer. “2…” Another tick, another swing of the pendulum. The light from the strange watch was orange this time. A second seemed to take forever to pass as the main body of the enemy force charged into the clearing. There were dopants everywhere now, though Applejack managed to knock one away by kicking out with both hind legs, and the Champion of Justice got another. “1…TIME START!” The Champion felt the time energy flowing into his body as the Memory ticked, and everything around him became a blur. He lashed out at another glass dopant, felling it without effort. He danced through the massive crowd, striking with his hooves and with the sword hilt, but not using the blade in deference to Applejack’s request. She was probably right, he couldn’t rely on the pseudo-Memories to protect the host’s body. The Time Memory trailed slowly through the air, like he was dancing in treacle, and the green light that trailed behind it gave the whole scene a disturbing glow. He tried not to be too distracted by the scene around him, because the Memory’s power was limited. Still, he had more time than his enemies did, and after he kicked them they seemed to drift through the air in slow motion around him. Glancing over he saw that Applejack was still stretching out, legs extending towards a glass Diamond Dopant in a slow, graceful kick that had started before the Memory called ‘1’. In the same time, the Champion of Justice had struck twenty opponents, and now one more. They hadn’t all reverted to normal, most were still reeling. Their fall was just as slow as any attempts they might make to counterattack, and it wouldn’t be until the Time Memory’s effect ended that he could see how many of them had returned to normal. As he fought, he was counting the ticks of the Time Memory in the back of his mind. When he heard twelve, he banged two more glass dopants’ heads together and then turned around in the middle of the group he’d already beaten. He knew this was an incredible power, being able to strike at so many enemies at once, but it came with a high cost in energy. “TIME UP!” the Memory called out, in time with the next tick. Normal motion returned in a blur. Dopants, host ponies, and pseudo-Memories flew through the air in all directions in a sudden burst of chaos. The Champion of Justice was just fast enough to catch the Nascar and Time Memories out of the air as the amount of energy he had used caused his own transformation to end, and he saw Applejack’s hooves finally connect with the Diamond Dopant behind her, shattering the monstrous shell like glass. He would have stood no chance of fighting if he’d exposed his identity. But as he reverted now, he was staggering with exhaustion in the middle of a crowd of others who had all just lost their own involuntary transformations. There was no way Applejack could judge which one had been her protector in this battle. There were still more than a dozen glass dopants in the clearing. But even exhausted, even without his transformation, he was strong enough to kick them until they went down and shed the glass memories, and Applejack could take care of a good share of them now they weren’t overwhelmed by the rush. Both had a tough decision to make, between collecting the pseudo-Memories or simply smashing them, but before long the clearing was filled just with bruised and moaning ponies without any real casualty. The Champion of Hope skidded to a halt in another clearing, the sounds of battle audible a furlong or so through the trees. It was then that the dopant following her realised it was alone. The Champion turned around and glared angrily from behind the mask. But the dopant was just as enraged. “You tried to steal my thunder?” she snapped, in a voice even deeper than the Questioner’s imposing baritone. “And now you’ve stolen my stunt team?” “Nopony’s stolen anything,” the Champion of Hope had a different voice too, complete with an echo added by the headset microphone at her ear. As she spoke, the fragment of Dreamspinner’s consciousness that wasn’t overwhelmed by the dopant nature was trying to recognise which of her former friends was behind all the effects today. “We just realised that the fake monsters follow the fake Elements of Harmony instinctively, without thinking about it. But we figured you’d go for the Champion of Hope first if it looked like there was a choice of two mobs to run with. Unless you were dumb enough to stay in the city when everypony else left, and Twilight Sparkle was watching in case you tried that.” “So you separated me from my army. Clever, I should have known you’d keep on thinking in puzzles and riddles. That’s just like you, Chroma. But that’s another reason I followed you rather than the Champion of Harmony. Our battle’s just going to be a show, and I’m the one calling the shots. I won’t hurt you too bad though, just enough that everypony knows I’m not to be trifled with. The only question left is what to call myself. Mistress of Shattered Hope, maybe. That sounds a suitably villainous name, to demand tribute from the city. I’ll have more fame that the Questioner ever had.” “Are you finished?” the Champion chuckled, “You got two things wrong there. First, I’m not Chroma Bright. And second, we’re not going to give up without a fight. You think we’re powerless?” she reached back to her saddlebags, and held up a hoof with a Gaia Memory in her fetlock, posing dramatically. The Hoax Dopant tried to guess how long it would take reinforcements to arrive from the sounds of fighting, and concluded that she had enough time to make one more retort and still finish the scene. “Don’t come unarmed to a battle of wits,” she sneered, “You know those glass dopants are fake, but you should be able to work out that I have real power. There is no way you can face me, Chroma. And I recognise you in an instant. Not just because you’ve got the version of the costume with wings, or because you were flapping them to gain speed as I chased you. But because you’re the only one fast enough to get this deep into the forest, and the only one dumb enough to try.” With the comedy roast done with, it was time for the climactic battle. She pulled the Memory out of her flank with the firework-sparkling magical aura that this form seemed to bestow, turned it around, and then inserted it again. “HOAX!” the Memory called out, and the deformed horse-like blob that gave no hint as to its nature was sucked in and twisted like threads in a loom, ending as something closer to a giant armoured knight, with a slitted iron mask over her face and not one but two giant swords, whose edges glowed with fire and ice. The most distinctive feature, though, was a golden crown that clearly conveyed her desire to rule over others. But even as the Hoax Dopant took on her battle form, the Champion of Hope was taking off the mask to reveal a pony Dreamspinner hadn’t even spoken to before. She threw the Gaia Memory into the air, and reared up to catch it as it fell down again. “LOYALTY!” “I told you, I’m not Chroma. I can run faster than you, but I can think faster as well. And I’m pretty sure we’ll beat you in a fight.” Rainbow Dash glanced down at the Driver on her breast as the air shimmered and another Element appeared in its slot. She just had time to complete her boast before the transformation kicked in: “And you know what? I think I’m a better actor than you as well. Not to mention at least a hundred percent cooler.” “LAUGHTERᏔLOYALTY!” A blinding burst of light, and a half-blue, half-pink pegasus was standing there, eyes narrowed and ready to fight. Their armour was a mixture of the colours of their eyes, but still incorporated parts of the costume they’d borrowed from the Champions of Hope. The whole ensemble gave the impression of mighty powers combined; it would really have impressed the audience, if there had been any. But all around them now were mechanical soldiers, all with swords or even cannon of their own. “Oh, a real Champion,” Dreamspinner laughed, but her augmented voice was a little shaky now, as she wasn’t sure she could actually win this battle. “But by the time you face my crew, I’ll be long gone!” Rainbow Pie charged towards the Dopant, but a couple of mechanical soldiers stepped in to block their path. (“Get the party cannon out,” Rainbow Dash yelled inside their shared mind, “I’m not letting her get away!”) (“What are these things, even? Giant chess piece monsters? I’ve never seen anything like them, I don’t know how to fight them.”) (“You know the name of her Memory, don’t you? No hesitation!”) (“Yeah, it’s Ho… oooh, yeah, let’s do this.”) The Hoax Dopant turned at the edge of the clearing to watch the the first wave of minions attack the Champion of Harmony. A couple of pawns blocked their path, while the more powerful figures rained down fireworks and explosions. And then a figure flying out of the clouds of smoke, in armour of pink, purple, and white. They sped straight through the second rank of hoax warriors without slowing down, and the dopant turned to run. “We’ve seen through your trick, Hoax. Are you ready for some real fireworks?” “LAUGHTERLOYALTY: Maximum Drive!” a melodic voice called out, and then the air around Dreamspinner was filled with shooting stars in a million different colours, as well as streamers, banners, and even flying cupcakes. Her mouth fell open, and she remembered. Remembered putting on a firework show for her family, and how she felt happier than she ever had before when she saw their smiles. How she’d loved telling stories to her younger cousins, but the wide-eyed grins when she illustrated a story with flashing lights around the puppets gave her more joy than she could ever describe. The triumph she felt every time she surpassed herself, and conjured some new display to delight the fans. Even when Trixie had put on a firework show, and she’d been inspired by everypony’s amazement to try even harder, and to try mixing chemistry and magic in a new way. It had always been about the smiles of the audience, and their amazement. When she’d gone searching for new ways to make her display more spectacular, that was when things had started going downhill. Then it hadn’t been about the smiles anymore, and she’d lost sight of creating something with her friends. When the Champion of Harmony had chased her fastest shooting starburst, she hadn’t realised that the crowd were cheering for both of them. She’d only cared about being the best. She’d given up on her original motivation, making everypony happy, in favour of just making a bigger and more dramatic show. “Go on then,” she whispered, though she was sure nopony else could hear over the spectacle, “Let’s give the show a happy ending.” She turned her head again, and saw a pony racing towards her faster than she could even comprehend, in a blaze of rainbow light. The Hoax Memory jumped out of her flank as she rejected the darkness in her heart, and the rainboom shattered the magical crystal as easily as if it was just glass. Some time later, in the Golden Oak Library, the combined Champions of Harmony and of Hope were talking over what had happened. Twilight Sparkle had her typewriter out, and was already on the third page of her report to Princess Celestia. “All of the so called ‘glass dopants’ returned to normal,” she spoke slowly as she typed, focusing intently, “With the exception of one pony reported missing after that night, who may or may not have been involved. None of those affected by the pseudo-Memories have any recollection of the evening’s events.” “Like me,” Dreamspinner looked down at her hooves, unable to meet anypony’s eyes, “the last couple of weeks are a complete blur. I was so bothered about making a better show that I didn’t listen to my friends’ conversation, only the bits that might help my plan. It was like that was the only thing that matters.” “That must be the most evil thing you could do to anypony,” Wildflower gasped, “I’m glad you don’t feel like that any more, it must have been terrifying.” “I didn’t even realise. I hurt my friends, and I didn’t notice.” “It’s a story we hear too often,” Twilight Sparkle explained, “The Gaia Memories take your darkest emotion and amplify it, until it pushes out every other part of your mind.” “We need to ask, though,” even Pinkie Pie wasn’t sounding cheerful today, “Where did you get it from? Do you know the name of the stallion who’s been selling them?” “No, I’m sorry. He was huge, and red, but that’s about all I remember.” “He knows we’ll probably stop the dopants by now,” Twilight guessed, “So he’ll only talk to potential customers in his own dopant form, to make sure they can’t recognise him. I wish I knew what’s going through his head.” “Well, look on the bright side,” Rainbow Dash forced a smile, “Mal’s going to be on the stage again. Turns out there was all these rumours that he helped the Champion of Hope to seal away her evil clone, and I heard theatre directors are already asking him to take a role.” “Funny how things work out,” Chroma Bright chuckled, “You wouldn’t have anything to say about those rumours, would you Pinkie? You seem to know everypony in town, so it wouldn’t be hard to put the right word in the right ear.” “Well… maybe I just get a bit over-excited and tell everypony when I hear a good story. It’s great being able to share for a change, even if it’s not entirely one hundred percent true. I especially liked the bit about the Champion having to sacrifice her powers to seal the clone, that’s super dramatic.” “Means we can still get an occasional free drink,” Wildflower shrugged, “As long as anypony remembers us. Who knows, maybe the Champion of Hope will have a reprise someday. But best not to overdo it.” “Yeah,” Dash grinned, and posed like a teacher giving an important lesson, “Just remember, it’s how good you are that matters. If you’re entertaining people, it won’t be worth any less just because somepony’s faster.”