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// Chapter Sixteen:Decayed Kindness 
// Story: Ruining Harmony 2: Pillars of Harmony 
// by Artaelian 
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Applejack had quickly learnt the reports of mass decay of plants, and even animals (she had gagged to see zombie squirrels running around, and fortunately none of them were interested in her), were true. If not for the fairies she was now paired to, she had no doubt she would have died within minutes from the toxic fumes hanging in the air at the first floor alone.  Even the water was somehow decayed, more black and sludge like than what it normally was. If she saved this stronghold, she knew for certain the cleanup operation alone would likely take years, and that would be before dealing with the zombified creatures.


The lighthouse was much like the Bloodpact in layout, a single set of stairs lead from bottom to top, and she had learnt the very light the stronghold gave out was caused by the glow of the element at the top of the lighthouse.  Pausing at the nineteenth floor, Applejack looked up for a moment. She couldn’t see the top of the lighthouse from where she was, but she wondered how much of the design had been made before the reconnection with nature that the Manehatten ponies had made.  It did seem very much like that the addition of plants, animals and water features had come later, and the fact a stronghold was required had simply been a good excuse for well, a bucking massive lighthouse.


Pressing on, Applejack saw why Vax had been forced back after the twentieth floor.  The twenty-first floor didn’t just hold rotting plants, but new plants that fed the decay and spewed it into the air.  Even with two fairies, it became hard to climb each floor.  She could tell her fairies were struggling to cope, if even one couldn’t manage any further, her death was assured, it was going to be more a question of how painful it would be.


And then, the decay stopped. This confused Applejack, but each floor she past after thirty was normal, no decayed plants, just creatures scared at the sudden abandonment, and the sense of loss of creatures that must have ventured downward to find out why, only to never return.  Hundreds of eyes (that she could see) stared at her. She shivered, but ignored them and pressed on, she had to make it to the top.


It didn’t take long, fortunately for her to reach the top of the lighthouse once the decay was gone, and the fairy twins with her had recovered from protecting her from the decay they had faced.  The top was, well, a lighthouse, the Element of Kindness sat on the thing that spun to shine the light out into the night.  She was no seastallion, she didn’t know what it was called.  But there was something wrong.  Normally, the stronghold had Ulysses waiting to say how he would capture her, and set a time corrupted version of her friend or Discord on her. There was nothing here, nothing to suggest the stronghold had fallen. Carefully, she approached the element, and touched it.


There was a sense of overwhelming sickness, that made Applejack collapse from touching the element, and the laughter of Ulysses.
“I may be unable to project myself for now, but I have many tricks to show how futile your quest is. Stand, fool, and look upon my glorious world.”
Applejack ignored his harsh voice for a moment, and made sure the fairy twins who had come with her were fine. They took to the air, checked each other, and spun around. There was the sound of bells as they spoke, and a shriek from them at what they saw. Slowly, Applejack stood and gasped.


Outside the lighthouse, Equestria was ash and fire, burnt rocks, and there were hints of ambling, mindless corpses.  The sky rained fire and was the colour of blood. The lighthouse itself had decayed yet stood, despite the lack of any other on the landscape, but Manehatten was gone, there wasn’t even a hint of where it stood.  And where the Element of Kindness had been, there now stood a zombified Fluttershy.  There were no feathers on her wings, her skin and fur barely hung to the bones, her mane was far longer and glazed eyes stared at her.  Applejack hated to take any good from the sight, but at least there were no open patches of decay and organs hanging from it.  A small mercy however, as she stared at the dead eyes of the soft spoken pegasus.
‘Don’t fall for it! It is a future not yet here, we can stop it!’ a small voice spoke into her mind.  Applejack assumed it was the voice of one of the fairies, and so nodded.
“Giving up at the first sight of a dead friend? My, how boring! Though I get how horrible it is to see a dead friend walking like they were still alive. I once dreamt my own mo-” Ulysses paused, “nevermind, the thought of seeing her the same way. Will you give up?”
“No, ya sick freak! And no fight either! Ah’ve had it to the back teeth with ya!”
She didn’t think until later how, well, kind it was that she had spun and bucked her legs at the animated corpse. It had crumpled and ended the illusion, and showed how weak Ulysses was becoming because of her and Discord’s plan.


She had expected a long fight against the dead Fluttershy in the future, but now she saw, Ulysses was so weak, he could barely maintain an illusion to scare her if she did anything. The element of Kindness, once the illusion was removed simply spun and she watched as it powered the lighthouse once more, and of course, the beam of its power aimed right at Ulysses. Applejack relaxed for a moment.
“Ah know one of you spoke ta me.  Ah don’t mind which of you, but thank you both fer getting me up here,” she said to the twin fairies, “now, its up ta the both of you if you join me from here on, but Ah won’t rush yer choice.” she smiled, heading back for the stairs.
The fairies lingered for a moment, before they followed her.


At the bottom of the lighthouse, Forest Breeze broke into a smile as he heard the fans intended for the circulation of air to keep the animals alive, began to work once more, pumping out the now harmless decay from the lighthouse.
“She did it! The Lighthouse of Kindness is saved.”
Applejack herself turned up not too long after, having seen the decay starting to disappear with no illusion or harmful magic to cause it. She had worked out on the way down that the reason for the thirty floors being affected, rather than all of them, was the same as the illusion, and Ulysses had likely spread himself too thin with both spells in his current situation.  Forest Breeze ran to her and wrapped a hoof around her in simple joy.
“Yeah, it's saved, yer welcome.” Applejack grinned.
“It’s more than that though, look.” Forest Breeze turned as he heard the random pony speak.
In the distance, the other strongholds began to shine again, in one go Applejack seemed to have saved them all.
“I’ll be the son of a mule, they’re all safe!” Forest Breeze couldn’t believe his eyes.
“Not yet they ain’t,” Applejack said, “Ulysses over exerted himself, but he’ll be back. And when he does, the remaining ones are gonna fall.”
“So what will you do next?” Forest Breeze asked.
Applejack thought for a moment.
“Ah think, if ma friends and ah are gonna live here, Ah’ll need to see the other cities, so they know what changed.” Applejack grinned, and begun to walk away, her mind set on the home of the friend that had united her and the others that Summer Sun celebration so long ago, Canterlot.

Discord sighed as he heard the voices of the other stronghold protectors come in as Ulysses was for now, thrown back to the seal.  He felt a pounding in his head, very weak, as the weakened Ulysses even now attempted to break back out.  But there was something else there.  He could feel Ulysses, but Ulysses was not alone. Curious, Discord approached a mirror and waved a paw over it, the mirror begun to show the black and purple within the time corruption itself.
“I stare into the abyss, but what stares back.” Discord mused as he looked in.