//------------------------------// // Dark World Forgotten Chapter, "DD's" story. // Story: PONY POV SERIES SEASON 8: FINALE! // by Alex Warlorn //------------------------------// Pony POV Series Dark World Forgotten Chapter Optional Canon. Oh hello, I don't exactly get many visitors here. Call me DD. There's plenty of company in Oblivion, but nobody has their heart in anything, literally. And you can't just magically grow one again from nothing, it doesn't work that way. I guess I do look strange, even compared to all the strange things in this place. I bear a stronger resemblance to my half-brother, Distortion, who also never existed and was in another time line, than to my half-sister. That is, I more closely resemble dad's side of the family. Though I do mostly have mom's color scheme. My name? It's... it's been so long I've actually forgotten it, sorry. Doesn't really matter anyway, I mean, the name of somepony who never existed? How more meaningless can you get? What brings you all the way here? You want to hear my story? It doesn't really change anything, heh, but if that's what you want, it would be really rude for me to say no when you came all the way here. There's not much to tell, but I'll share what there is. Get comfy. Dad always wanted to bring out Mom's 'inner crazy', but he never seemed to do it right. She'd end up acting like a robot, treating chaos like something to organize and categorize, or she'd just turn super powerful. They say doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is a big sign of insanity, and dad was crazy. But ponies are complex, really complex. You can never be quite sure what tiny factor is gonna blossom into a completely different outcome! And Dad had, if nothing else, a lot of tries on his hands, even if the final outcome was rigged. Mortals and gods all know the final absolute outcome is always set in stone. Everything begins with Other Grandma, and everything ends with Dad's Mom. She's all around us you know, every rock, every shard of frost, every drop of the ocean of chaos, everything here is actually her. That gray earth pony form, or that giant quasi-draconequus rising out of the ocean appearance? They're both just sock puppets. She is everything here. Sorry about getting off track. But yeah, since I'm here, you can guess that in one timeline, dad did it right, once. Yeah, I heard how Nightmare Mirror and Nightmare Manacle were vexed that Discord never married their mortal selves but in one cycle married Smarty-Pants! But even when Dad finally got out Mom's inner crazy like he wanted, she wasn't, ya know, lightning-flashes evil laugh evil. More like crazy-eyed, huge grinning, hair frazzled. She could still spawn some random changes to reality though... That those parts of her brain had finally rebelled and dethroned the ruling class that had oppressed them for so long! Dad had chosen to focus completely on Mom that time, the only other he really gave any focus to was my half-sister. Then Mom made up the difference on her friends. You never did see so close a group of giggling lunatics. There was no sense to the world anymore, so why should they bother being sensible themselves anymore? Choices were silly to fret over when stepping out your front door could led you underwater on the other side of the planet as likely as your back lawn! Grayed out colors were out, painfully bright neon-colors were in! Big half-sister was JELLY of me when I hatched. Of course I kept turning her knifes, clubs, and flails into rubber and foam. Death is very permanent and predictable, which dad hates, I never understood in the least why that should ever happen around him! Not-Mom said it had to do with him being careless, thoughtless, and sloppy. Despite being totally insane, Mom was Mom, and she was excited to see me improve. This was the world I'd been born into after all, as far as I knew, dad had liberated ponykind from the shackles of sanity and order, and had restored Equestria to its true natural chaotic state. I didn't understand why all the fuddy-duddies like Queens Tiamat and Cadence were resistant to freedom and happiness. Then there was Uncle Spike... he took soooo long to turn around. Dad insisted he was the 'straight man.' But I got him to embrace chaos eventually, after several hundred years... and he couldn't have been more grateful... Auntie Rarity and Uncle Spike practically bounced around the solar system making dragon-pony hybrid babies. They might have gotten attention, because then the Imperium showed up to 'purge' the entire planet... And us and the fuddy-duddies teamed up to show them that we weren't about to be pushed around by a buncha self-important bullies! By the time I was done with them their space marines were giggling, their rifles firing pies, fish, cottage cheese, foam balls, rubber balls, plush wombats, and face paint. And their 'exterminatus' missiles were exploding happy faces on planets instead of blowing up the planets! And dad... acted weird... he kept insisting that I spend time with him, a lot, he looked scared whenever I told him I had 'somewhere else to be.' And when I wasn't with him... he refused to tell me what he'd been doing. The changelings (shiny white bug ponies with sapphire eyes) attacked me on sight. Why? I mean, they've done that before, but it was more outta principle. Now they sure were angry about something! But they called me mean names for daring to ask what it was, how rude! And Mom... she told me that she kept hearing little voices in her head, she was used to that by now, she was crazy after all, but this voice was different somehow. Like it kept flipping between being your bestest best friend ever, a domineering mommy, and a self-righteous bully. The Valeyard... Oh him. I really thought he was nice. Thought. Looks can be deceiving. He was always so nice around me. He asked me so many questions, he wanted to know everything about my magic, how it worked, what the limits were, how it differed from my big-sister and Dad and Mom. Then he used some kinda fancy-smancy mind control artifact on me. He had me attack my auntie, uncle Spike, Mom, Dad... All I could do was what he wanted me to do and nothing else, I was his puppet, his slave. Like I was his plaything. What kinda monster does that to ponies? The Valeyard was going to make everything all orderly and calm and neat and clean and boring and stuff! The horror! The horror! Oh yeah and, "Oh nothing much, I'm going to use you to conquer the universe, no big deal!" I had to do everything he wanted, whether I liked it or not. "There's something unique about you, something I can't pin down: I hate that. But your hybrid magic lets you perform tricks that neither of these 'gods' can do on their own. I am curious why it manifested in you, and not in that yellow mental patient." I wanted to tell him to never call my sister that, but he hadn't told me to, so I couldn't. Mom, Dad, Big Sister, Fuddie-Duddies Tiamat and Bahamut, were all together to save me. Where was Fuddie-Duddie Cadenza? I... I really really really really really really really really really don't want to talk a whole lot about it! The Valeyard played me like a video game. He'd just hide out in his TARDIS that nothing could get through and have me attack my friends and family. He might as well have been controlling me from another universe. He used my magic in ways I never imagined, and I hated it. "Ha! Power is always wasted on idiots who dress themselves up and call themselves gods! It's about time it was given to someone who deserves it!" Mom was tough, but she was out of her league, Uncle Spike got her out of there. Fuddy-duddy Tiamat... together with Bahamut they were able to overpower me with brute force, but that wasn't all. Tiamat, she's got five brains, all working towards the same goal, for a fuddy-duddy she was more clever than she looked! All together, they were able to keep me, or rather the Valeyard using my magic and my body hard pressed, but this was causing things to get bigger and bigger. More powerful spells, bigger fireballs, at the rate we were going, we were gonna blow up the world! "Not that I'm not enjoying seeing you wear yourselves out on my account, but I believe this requires my personal touch, after all. I taught her everything she knows." The Valeyard sneered through me, "IDIOT! Too bad I'm using her powers with everything I KNOW!" "Yes yes, beautiful semantics, but seriously Valley, we're both partial to Equus, wouldn't we both rather NOT have it blown up if we could help it? I mean, putting a planet and all its life back together is suuuuuuuuuch hard work!" Dad finished in his best lazy voice. "Oh please, you're ASKING to fight me by yourself WITHOUT help from the two power houses? You keep finding new ways to show me how stupid you are!" "So what's your complaint? Isn't it dumb for you to point out how dumb I'm being?" "Because, stupid, I know you're too stupid to EVER back out of a scheme even when somepony points out how stupid it is!" "Excuse me, but you forget our say in this!" Bahamut said breathing a tornado of ice at me at the edge of the planet's atmosphere. I twisted space around so the attack came right back at him, but he just ate it. "Come now, after we're done with each other, the survivor is BOUND to be weakened, perfect chance for you two to strike at full strength and end this right?" Dad said. The fuddy-duddies looked at each other, and withdrew. "Be safe Tea-a-Mat," Dad whispered. "Too bad you never taught her any mind magic, or she might have been able to turn this little trinket around me... scared she'd use it on you?" "No, I was scared she'd turn out like me." Why would Dad say that? Then the Valeyard began having me zap tommy gun style, zapping with one hand's pointer claw, and rearing back and zapping with the other in an endless 'old one-two' barrage. Each one a different type of energy, wave-length, the whole electromagnetic spectrum and then sideways! Along with types of magic I'm pretty sure haven't been invented yet! Zapzapzapzapzapzap! "....HAHAHAAHHAA! Isn't it late in the game to be feeling sorry!?" "Much too late," Dad sighed as the Valeyard used my magic to zap the different parts of dad's body in every element on the periodic table one at a time! Then the six lights of the Elements of Chaos zoomed up from the surface and hit Dad and restored him to his prime. "TADA!" Dad struck a pose, and got hit by the petrification barrage again, and exploded into confetti, being just a balloon decoy. Real Dad then popped up behind a piece of cloth painted like that part of the universe. The Valeyard cackled. "You think your adorable little parlor tricks have ever scared me? Then color me impressed, because it proves you're an even bigger idiot than I ever imagined possible!!!" Dad's frowned. "... 'Parlor tricks' you say? ... " Dad cracked his knuckles. "What do you think this is? Las Pegasus? If you think I'm some birthday magician, then you have your head buried deeper in the sand than I ever imagined." I actually felt the Valeyard change color at those words, his teeth gritting. Words gurgled in his throat he was so angry. The spells the Valeyard threw at my dad didn't even have names, because I think he was creating them as he went along, 'Destroy Discord' spell, 'Seek Out Discord's life and snuff it out' spell, 'Discord pukes out his guts that then beat him up' spell, all of them made explicitly to affect Dad!! Dad threw out every performance he knew, twisting time and space which the Valeyard made me twist right back. Discord playing 'tag!' with me as he pranced along through the cosmos, and me following right behind him! The deer Fuddy-Duddies on the moon gave us all nice waves as we passed. We ran among plant creatures with jewels for eyes, octopus people with spikes everywhere, and lizard people who insisted on wearing clothes even though their naughty bits were internal (I think), I mean, how silly is that? Then we ran along the surface of a very angry distant star. The Valeyard blew it up for telling him off. Poor star. Then came these giant metal planets with skulls for faces that the Valeyard bisected for getting in his way, and by him, I mean he used my body and my magic to do it for him. "Is this your whole plan Discord? Just play keep away until she wears out? I'll just take her back, wait a million years for her to recharge, travel back in time to this moment, and then we start all over again! Since you're so concerned about Equus, maybe I will just blow it up! It was the Doctor who was sympathetic for it, NOT ME!" 'Oh no!' I thought in horror, thinking of my family and friends. What I didn't know, and so the Valeyard didn't know: In the third level basement of Sugar-Tesseract Curve (you should really try their tub-cakes!), Auntie Pinkie Pie began spraying the Valeyard's blue box with pink paint using a splatter gun with a paint tank on her back. Why was she doing that? = Fly Octo Fly/Ebb & Flow [Final Boss] by Off The Hook - Splatoon 2 = Auntie Happy Pie says she can 'speak pink' meaning she can speak to anything as long as it's pink, so Auntie painted the Valeyard's blue box pink so she could speak to it! Valeyard's blue box had a gizmo that made it teleport somewhere else whenever it was attacked, but painting wasn't an attack right? Vandalism? What's that? If Auntie Happy Pie wants something to be pink, then it's pink, them's the rules! Well, the closest to rules as we get! So Auntie Happy Pie began telling the box all about everything she knew about the color pink, and stuff that was pink, that wasn't attacking right? She knew lots and lots of stuff about that... Auntie Happy Pie talked and talked! It didn't hurt the box, but she sure did confuse it so it couldn't just teleport away! "You morons actually think you have muscle to damage her?! Tirek himself couldn't pound these doors in!" "I'm not going to damage the box, I'm going to step inside!" "Idiot. You'd need a transmat beam 50 million times stronger than anything ever constructed to even have a snowball's chance of getting in here!" "... Oh me, oh my, where could I hope to find power to augment a teleportation spell by 50 million?" Dad said flatly with narrowed eyes. What was that thing that manifested right behind him for a moment? I couldn't tell. "Moron, do you think I'd just sit there and have my toy do nothing? You really are an idiot." "Get a load of this!" Dad pulled out a wide screen TV, playing one of Uncle Ponythulu's unreleased snack-ercize (snack-exercise) VHS, showing Uncle Ponythulu in a magenta speedo making bodybuilder poses to 'one-two! One two!' while taking a bite out of a cookie every few poses with this face tentacles. "It's-it's, too absurd!" The Valeyard stammered, unable to take his eyes off the outer concept. "Credit to the Doc', he was better at handling absurdity than you." The Valeyard pushed a button, "Too bad for you I'm always prepared!" Outer-Concept Filter Glasses appeared over his eyes. He made me punch through the TV and grab Dad, and began... forcing me to rip his existence to pieces, causing his body to dissolve into little bits of chaos magic. "Goodbye Discord!" 'Dad' pulled at a zipper on him, and he split open to reveal... Dad as a girl? "Actually, the name's Eris, but thanks for the praise." Valeyard hollered. "A DETACHMENT?! You've never-!" "Guess I'm able to comprehend something besides me has inherent value, what a concept, HAHA!" Real Dad said, hiding behind a mundane cardboard mountain photo of space, (did Dad just repeat a trick... for me? I've never seen him do that.). Having powered up the teleportation spell by 50 million, he teleported inside the TARDIS. Eris said as she dissolved, "Well, it was fun while it lasted... live life what ya can." And she broke down into chaos magic. Inside the TARDIS, Dad appeared in front of the Valeyard, who was still holding the old Atari joystick. "I wonder how much of your loser father's power you burned up with that trick," Valeyard sneered. Dad has a dad? Whao. (Sure I know that NOW but not back then!) "Too bad I'm not telling," Dad said. "By the way, fun fact, as long as we're in the TARDIS, neither of us can harm the other, you went through all that trouble for nothing, nya-nya!" "Do you have any idea how inconsistent that rule is?" Dad rolled his eyes. "You're one to talk about inconsistency!" "Yeah... but that's kinda my job. If squids in salt-shakers can get around that rule, then so can the master of breaking rules!" "And you forgot I have infinite regenerations of myself now." "... You never get it do you boyo? I'm a concept, my blessings are mine to take back if you betray my mission statement... " "That would scare me if you had one. As if you haven't hurt those close to you for fun!" "... You're right, and I'd be a hypocrite, except," and there was the sound of crunching. "I am very hypocritical." - Things were fine and dandy for a few centuries after that (if you don't count that epic war with Grogar we had for a bit, I don't), but I'm told happy times don't make for interesting stories. But then, things started to get weird, not Dad's fun weird, but 'what's going on?' weird. Mom, Uncle Spike, and my Aunties, all began to act weird. Dad sent me and big sister to live with Auntie Screwball and cousin Mad Tiara. But then we heard from Kitsune-News how there were new Fuddy-Duddies who were gonna destroy the world once and for all and they were gonna start with Dad! Me and Big Sister don't agree on a lot, but loving Dad is definitely one of them! "Sorry Dears, Master Discord gave orders, you two are to stay out of harm's way no matter what," Auntie Screwball said sadly as she was holding a baseball bat and Mad Tiara was holding a mace. "Please just stay here until it's over." She begged us. Going through Auntie Screwball and Cousin Mad Tiara when all they were doing was keeping us from fighting the bad guys because Dad told them to... It wasn't fun. Not at all. They only stopped when they couldn't move anymore. "I promise, we'll fix you back up after we beat the Fuddy-Duddies and save Dad!" The castle was trashed, its legs were blown off. The the dirt maids were all beat up, so were all the monsters, so was the Legion of Spare Minions. They all looked like they hadn't really fought back. But... I hadn't... I couldn't have... I didn't... I never would have imagined, the new Fuddy-Duddies... was Mom and the others... and the funny little gray pegasus always going around outside the castle. Big Sister flew to the rescue, Uncle Spike smashed her into a wall. I couldn't fight my family! Even if she's gone Bad Crazy! So I did the only thing I could, I got between them and Dad. "Out of the way _________ Sparkle!" Tears were in my eyes. "Mom, I won't let you hurt Dad!" I used myself as a shield, what did you think I was going to do? Attack her? "What's wrong with all of you? Auntie Pearjack?" "THAT AIN'T MAH NAME!" My vision got misty. Then I realized, it was so obvious. "You're those evil clones Cadenza made aren't you?! What have you done with my real family?!" "They weren't evil. And neither are these ponies." "Dad?" I asked, confused. "Those clones weren't evil. And these are the real ponies." "You're saying mom was a clone?!" "I AM NOT A CLONE!" ... The purple pony, Mom, said. "And this monster killed Cadence!" That was what happened to her? But why would Mom be upset about that? "SHE WAS TRYING TO KILL HIM!" "He attacked her when she was trying to talk to me!" "SHE'D HAVE DONE THE SAME!" (What are you waiting for, get rid of that thing.) Huh? What was that? I didn't know it at the time, but as a demi-draconequus (like demi-Alicorns) I could sense both the physical and spiritual planes at once. Which meant that say, if a spirit said something rude to Fluttercruel, she could punch them in the face. "... What do you mean 'get rid of'?" Mom whispered. (What do you THINK I MEAN?! Just Love and Harmony blast through that mistake!) What mistake? What thing? What was that weird voice? It sounded like Mom's, but not. "________! That's enough!" Dad said. "Cadenza... she was trying to save her friend. Twilight Sparkle," Who was that? Mom? "I surrender." Dad teleported in front of me. "Just turn me to stone and get this over with." "DADDY STOP!" Big Sister still struggled from where Uncle Spike had her pinned... This wasn't the good kind of insane. I was so confused! My closest family were all acting like horrible strangers to me! "This ain't a trick," Auntie Pearjack said confused. "Formation girls!" Mom, Aunties, and the gray mare all together, and symbols started to glow on their bodies and they floated, and laser beams connected between them forming a six pointed star and Mom's eyes glowed white. A beam of rainbow light shot out from my family and made a beeline right for Dad! I tried to pull Dad away, to teleport him away, but he wouldn't let me. Dad, why? So I did the only thing I could. I wasn't able to cover Dad completely, he kept pushing me away. "_________ NO!" He shouted. But I was able to cover him partially with one arm as the tornado of rainbow light struck us. Petrification rose up starting with Dad's legs and up his body and down his arms, and it reached my right arm over his head, and I saw it turn to stone. It was like burning and freezing at the same time, an absolute sense of wrongness that tidal waved against my inner chaos. The stone spread until it reached my shoulder, when the tornado of rainbows dissipated like a burst balloon. My family and the gray mare looked at me stunned and bewildered. Big Sister Fluttercruel, that Uncle Spike had still been holding down with one of his giant claws... her torso was stone... She opened and closed her mouth but her lungs were stone, her Element of Chaos was keeping her alive (or maybe the petrification's natural transitions into the parts still flesh and blood, I don't know). She tried to claw, to move, to shout, but her entire body weighted her down, all she could do was cry. What kind of evil magic was this? "BIG SISTER!" I tried to go to her... but I tripped and fell, I heard the huge "SLAM!" behind me, I saw my arm, still in its clutching pose, weighted me down, heavier than heavy, it was like I was dragging along a house. My family and the gray pony in particular looked shocked... at what I'd done, what had happened to me, what had happened to my sister, it was all too overwhelming I think. But more than that, they were looking behind me. Dad petrified... except of his head. "Well, this is relatively new," Dad said looking down at his petrified body as best he could, of course he'd be able to speak. "Oh! Fluttercruel! ________! Twilight! I'm your enemy! Not them! How could you?!" "It was an accident!" Mom said dismayed. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to," the gray one side. "We did what we had ta," Auntie Rainbow Zap said, not looking anypony in the eye. "Maybe we can use the Chaos Elements to heal her?" Rari-Plenty said. "Do we even still have those anymore?" Rainbow Zap asked. "MOM! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO DAD?!" I shouted, wishing I could stand tall, but my stone arm made that impossible. "BECAUSE HE'S AN EVIL VILLAIN AND MADE US ALL CRAZY!" "YOU'RE THE ONES WHO ARE ACTING CRAZY NOW!" "_______, I know this is hard for you to accept, but I really do deserve this, and worse," Dad said. "I've tormented and manipulated everypony here, and their friends and family, and their friends and family, ad infinitum." "I don't believe you. You're nothing like that!" Tears flowed. "Can't you all see that you're not acting like yourselves?!" "I know how you feel dear," Auntie Happy Pie said sadly. "But this is who we are without your dad's magic messing with our heads." I snorted. "Then I'd say you're better with it!" "You don't know what you're talking about young lady!" Auntie Rari-Plenty said. I felt smaller under her steel gaze, not her 'GIVE! GIVE! GIVE!' attitude that had always made her fun to be around. Balloon races with Happy Pie (we raced by jumping from one balloon to the next). Rainbow Zap's anti-gravity stunt shows and staring contests with Uncle Ponythulu. All of Pearjack's delicious pear dishes (she says she got the recipes from her mom's cookbook). The ribbon Auntie Apple Bloom gave me she said belonged to her mom. Uncle Spike's nonsense poems he learned from Zecora the Friendly Witch when she was still alive (and the time he stretched all around the world). Mom's magic lessons. And Rari-Plenty taking with her on the visit to Dragon Lord Garble, so her and Spike's foals could learn more about their heritage. Apparently they were visiting Fuddy-Duddy Tiamat as a 'trust exchange' thing or something. All of this, looking at these mares, it was like all those happy times happened with somepony else. With no warning or reason (finally something normal again), Dad's throne slid out of place, and a stone pedestal rose up, holding a scroll. "What's that?" Happy Pie asked. "Something to destroy the world," Dad warned. "Why do you have something like that Dad?!" I asked. "I didn't say it was mine." Mom didn't listen and lifted the scroll in her magic and opened it up, reading it. "This is a spell for reversing time... right when Discord's rampage started! Girls! We can undo everything! None of this has to have happened! Nothing has to... " Mom's eyes slowly focused on me. "... have happened." The others were now all looking at me too. It was actually more scary than when they were all angry. Were they looking at me like a sick dog that had to be put down? Like somepony trapped on a burning ship they couldn't rescue? I wasn't sure... Instead, my eyes locked on Mom's. She stared at me like our eyes were physically glued together. (Twilight? What are you waiting for? Undo this whole mess. This is what we've wanted from the beginning.) "This... isn't just my decision... this is an entire world... So many hippogriffs, Zebracorns, the Jewel Dogs, the White Hive, none of them would exist... " (CADENCE WILL BE ALIVE!) "Twilight, who are you talking to?" Rari-Plenty asked, but Mom didn't answer her. Dad looked ... Dad, tired, sad, worn out. "But... she wouldn't want lots of ponies erased just for her... She... She wouldn't want ... She never hated ________. (I don't hate it either, because there's nothing to hate. That thing is a mistake to be corrected, nothing more, nothing less. Don't ruin your chance at a life and happiness over it. It's just a blob of chaos magic and half your DNA. Why should YOU have to look after THAT MONSTER'S spawn?) "... She's never hurt or bullied an innocent creature... She kept Fluttercruel from doing horrible things, she gave Fluttercruel a friend... Discord's insanity didn't MAKE ME love her..." (Oh please! The only reason you remember anything you did while brainwashed is to give you more motivation in destroying the bastard!) Mom's eyes widened, and asked in rising awe. "What did you say?" (Twilight, erase the damn overgrown tumor!) Mom dropped the scroll. "I can't." The voice like Mom's, but not Mom's said, (Oh I was so selfish back then, refusing the greater good for my own desires.) Pearjack shook her head like she was coming out of a daze. "Twili', Discord wasn't lyin' when he said that scroll there is for destroyin' the world!" "I guess he meant his world?" Happy Pie suggested. "No, I mean all of you," Dad said. (Well, this is stupid, and annoying. Sorry Twilight, that was rude of me. I should have known better, it's my fault, not yours. I should've known that given all the corruption on this time your thinking would be addled like this, I'm so sorry.) That was when Nightmare-Mom appeared. It wasn't like teleportation. A portal gate appeared, a buncha rocks appeared, like the side of a mountain, with a wooden door with a iron pull handle that swung open. And out came, a Alicorn who looked like mom... covered in white armor, with a flaming mane and tail. She didn't even look at us, like we didn't exist, she only looked at Dad and Mom. My Uncle, Aunts, and the gray mare were just like me... wondering what the flipping Tartarus was going on around here!!!!! Dad chuckled. "Having to appear in your own body this time Nightmare Eclipse? No corpse possession for you? I guess that's what happens when you have a bloodless revolution." Nightmare-Mom said flatly. "Enjoy that, because it's not happening again, I'll make sure of it." She shook her head in that 'fake pity' sort of way. "Though Really Discord, creating another spawn? Did you think using a failed scheme twice would save you?" Dad sighed. "She was never part of any scheme." "And still with the lies. I thought you'd have learned your lesson when I got rid of that thing, Proportion?" Dad frowned. "His name was Distortion." Who was that? "Whatever, but that was foolish of me, I should have known you wouldn't learn anything. Write this down Spike: 'Dear Princess Celestia, admitting your own follies is part of becoming a better pony.'" "Why would I put that down?" Uncle Spike said. "I wasn't speaking to you," she said like she was talking to a fax machine. Dad said to Nightmare-Mom, "She can be useful to you, please, spare her." "You have got to be kidding!" I shouted. "Dear, I'm the evil villain of this story and I've done evil things. Go with your mother." "GO with me?! Where?! What are you talking about?!" Mom shouted. "And who and what are you?!" Mom asked Nightmare-Mom. Nightmare sighed and held a hoof to her forehead. "What a mess. Remember Twilight, mistakes are always bound to happen one way or another, keep calm, you can still do this, you've done it before and you can do it again," she said to herself. She then looked kindly at Mom. "Okay, let's try again. Twilight, I know I look scary, but this is to scare the bad guys. You need to understand that none of this is real except you, me, and Discord. The rest of this? Just a replay of events to punish Discord for everything he's done. I defeated Discord, and created this replay of events to punish him for everything he's done. Normally everything goes how it did, but on occasions, every hundred or so cycles, little bugs creep in that I need to fix. You never married Discord, you never had a foal with him. That didn't happen. Everything else here is just pre-recorded events being played back, none of it is real." I was so stunned at what I was hearing I couldn't even speak, this monster who looked like my mom... telling me I wasn't real? Mom's friends... all reacted the way anypony would react at hearing what they just heard. They spoke all at once, it was a clashing chorus of shouts of defiance and incredulousness. The gray mare looked heart broken. Big Sister was trying to scream something. Dad just looked away, and instead looked at me... I'd never seen him look so sad. "Then who is she based on?" Mom asked. "Excuse me?" Nightmare-Mom tilted her head. "________, who is she based on? You said before this is all just a pre-recording, like an enchanted comic. You said ________ didn't exist when this all really happened, and her existence is just a glitch so her actions have to be based on somepony else's." "Well, it's trying to fill a void with nothing to work with, so it likely pulled random things from everywhere." "... That would make sense if her actions were completely erratic, but they aren't." "It's just going by the basic frame word of 'child love mommy' that isn't hard to program, magical pet games do it all the time." "_________! Listen carefully, answer everything I ask truthfully. Why do you think I'm your mother?" "Uh... Because you are?" "No, seriously, objectively, what proof do you have at this very moment to testify or witness?" I shuddered at Mom's words... was she disowning me? "... Because for starters, that's what you, Dad, Uncle Spike, and Aunties have told me my whole life... I have your eye colors, well, yours and dad's... I have your mane pattern even if it's different colors... My cutie mark has stars like yours... My magic I guess acts like a mix of yours and Dad's you said... I remember you and Dad raising me... Is that enough?" "Why did you shudder just then?" "... I'm scared you're asking because you want to disown me. You suddenly hate Dad... You... YOU DID THAT TO HIM!" I pointed at Dad petrified from the neck down. "You did that to Fluttercruel!" I pointed at Fluttercruel, helpless with her torso petrified, why didn't she just smash it and regenerate or something? I didn't mention my petrified arm... I knew it was an accident. "...And why does that scare you? Why are you so terrified of me disowning you? Not because of what happened, but why does that IDEA scare you?" "... Because if you disown me, then Dad might, all my family might... And I'd be all alone, with nowhere to go..." "And you don't want to be alone?" "No!" "Why?" "Because it hurts! Because it's scary, not having anypony to lean on, nopony to trust... Like how Dad says he was lonely before he met all of you..." Everypony but Dad, big sister, and Nightmare Mom looked shocked at that. "How old are you?" "Nine hundred, and sixty-nine years... " "When is your birthday?" "The 12th of Waffles." "How old are you?" "I just told you Mom, nine hundred, and sixty-nine!" "Was checking to see if you'd have a different answer." Mom looked at Nightmare-Mom. "A glitch wouldn't be consistent, a glitch wouldn't be able to give coherent answers, let alone explain their answers, and then explain the feelings behind those answers." Nightmare-Mom sighed, and looked at Mom with pure pity. "I'm sorry Twilight, this thing has completely twisted your thinking, I know you'll be upset, but please understand it's for your own good." "HEY!" The gray mare said, "Discord is evil, but his fillies haven't done anything wrong! You shouldn't punish them too!" Nightmare-Mom acted like she didn't even hear her. I'm sorry if this all sounds confusing, it was confusing, none of us had any real idea what was going on. "Don't be so quick Twilight," said a voice like Fluttercruel's, but softer, kinder, more nice. A yellow shadow with a pink mane grew out from Nightmare Mom's shadow, with a horn and butterfly wings with platinum barding. "Fluttershy?" Rainbow Zap gasped in shock. Rari-Plenty repeated confused and worried. I can read lips, I saw Fluttercruel silently mouth 'Mommy?' Nightmare Whisper said, "Twilight, we have Flutternice, wouldn't she like a sister? We could help her reject her evil nature too." I saw Fluttercruel's heart break and she mouthed, 'Who's Flutternice?' Dad covered his mouth (with his ears) as if he just realized something horrible when he heard that. He looked at me, scared for me. In his eyes, I actually saw a puppy with my colorings, being given to mad scientist ponies, next to a dark pink and yellow puppy with scars all over her. "NO PLEASE! There's no need for that! She'll behave! She's a good girl!" Dad said suddenly. "Like Tartarus I am going with a mean version of Mom saying me and my family are all illusions!" Nightmare-Mom rolled her eyes. "This is pointless. One, Fluttershy, you got to Flutternice young. Two, this thing is obviously one of Discord's little braindead stooges, like Fluttercruel, or the Tiaras. Third, I'd be insane to let that disgusting parasitic mass of cancer cells into my stable!" "Oh! Oh! I'm sorry Twilight, it was stupid of me." "Don't say that about yourself Fluttershy, you're the nicest pony I know," she hugged the shadow. The shadow of Fluttercruel's mom just slipped back inside her... WHAT THE HECK?!?!!??! Are we missing half the movie? "THIS IS INSANE!" Mom shouted. "I want to punish Discord, not _______! You can't just pop in here and expect everypony to do what you want! I won't erase ________!" "Sorry Twilight, it's clear you've gone insane. I'm sorry I didn't see it before. I could have helped you. But once you become one with me again, you'll be fixed." "MY MOM LOVING ME IS NOT CRAZY!" I snapped. "YER SAYING WE'VE ALL GONE THROUGH THIS OVER AND OVER, EVERYPONY'S GONE THROUGH THIS OVER AND OVER, JUST TO SPITE DISCORD?!" Pearjack roared, getting her thoughts together. "Not quite like this, this is the closest I've gotten to a no kill run... I didn't expect the Valeyard to make a move on _________." "AND CADENCE?!" Twilight snarled. "I did that... several cycles ago, doesn't change that I did it, Eclipse copies and pastes it." Mom's eyes widened in horror. "You shut up. You're supposed to be all stone now." An anti-chaos muzzle appeared on Dad's mouth. Nightmare Mommy said, looking down on me with the contempt reserved for the stupidest creatures, "You're like dragon eggs that haven't hatched yet, that's just common sense. That's the difference between you and my friends. They HAVE been hatched. You? This whole timeline is nothing but a mass of potential and flux, how can anything here be said to have hatched? You're just looking for justification to your own emotional state. Typical anti-intellectual swill." Nightmare Mom sighed. "If I just kill you you'll just possess somepony. And sadly Discord and Fluttercruel don't look to be in positions to be used as weapons to destroy you. "So I'm going to do the time honored Equestrian tradition, I'm going to dump you in another universe and you'll become somepony else's problem." Another portal gate appeared behind me, seemingly made out of high tech weapons. I took one step forward, then I got blasted in the gut, and went flying into the gate. - The world I got 'dumped' in was horrible. I've had nightmares that were nicer. An Equestria locked in a futile war. King Sombra was alive turning ponies (like Cadenza, and a white unicorn and Alicorn I didn't know) into crystalized 'willing' slaves. A creature called Nightmare Moon had apparently sealed off Equestria from the rest of Equus to keep the horrible things from spreading, and ponies had become brutal, ruthless, violent, and merciless just to survive and had formed an alliance with the changelings. That was not old Auntie Apple Bloom. And... there was an evil version of Dad too, turning ponies into fallen draconequi, or to use the proper term 'demons.' Including... including Mom and my Aunties... They'd be turned all gray and dull, then pushed into a lava pit, and come out now transformed into fallen draconequi, with parts of their soul missing, the good parts. You think I'd fit right in, even if the ponies would attack me on sight... But it didn't take the demons very long in the least to realize I wasn't one of them, it was like a body recognizing a virus. I may have been a draconequus, but my chaos magic was very different from theirs. In fact, they sort of stank like a cross between Great-Cousin Ponythulu's family, and the Pain Fiends (don't ask). It took them even less time to decide to rip me to shreds and toss me into their flaming lava demon blender, I didn't know what was down there, but I knew that whatever came out wouldn't be me anymore. What kind of monster does that to people? I put up a fight, or I like to think I did, but it was seven against one, even if... if I had more experience than my 'aunts' in this timeline, I was still no match for this mockery of my father. I'd fought my dad before, but now I think he'd been always holding back. It didn't help that I was fighting weighed down by one stone arm. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw existence fade out like an old photograph, and I saw a shape like a murky shadow covered bat with glow white eyes... and a sadistic grin on its face that was impossible to not see. And nopony could see it but me. It sat back, and seemed to enjoy watching me be hurt. I was going to lose. But chaos is random, chaos is unpredictable, chaos does things when you least expect it, and Dad taught me that chaos is the underlying force of the universe. So I wasn't thinking 'that's random' when another version of Auntie Pearjack showed up. She appeared out of a portal and slammed into the demons. She had both wings and horn, and draconic green eyes. She wore barding polished like mirrors, covered in emerald jewels carved like eyes. Her metallic wings folded open and a blinding light shined, the demons screamed, covering their eyes, some were crying. The shadowy bat shape snarled and screeched, and flew right at Nightmare-Pearjack, fangs and claws all pointed right at her. Those eyes weren't just for show I think, as Nightmare-Pearjack didn't have to even turn around. She teleported out of the way, and the bat flew right into the fake of my dad. The bat's fangs and claws actually pierced his flesh, fake dad was in shock. The bat's smoke and shadow fell away like ripped cloth, showing a white bat with red eyes, more reptile than mammal. Nightmare-Pearjack folded her metal wings so the light from them all hit the bat all at once, piercing right through it, the force knocking it over the horizon. "Pst. The Blank Wolf wouldn't have fallen for that." It was the most pointless, and completely useless question in the world, but I blurted out, "What was that?" "Bar-Bat-os... A sadistic bully. Meant to clean up messes, but instead likes watching wounds fester." Most of the demons were still in pain over what Nightmare-Pearjack had shown them. Except the one that used to be this world's Pearjack. - 'Nightmare-Pearjack' (As she calls me) Let me take over for a bit here. "Time ta show ya why the Four-Eyed-Pony was a loser Batmare villain!" Demon of Lies Me stabbed at the gem eyes on my barding... she scratched them... but Ah didn't go, 'AAAAAAH! MY EYES!' like she was countin' on me to. Good thing Ah've had plenty of time to cover my weaknesses. She's right, having a buncha eyeballs on yer body would give ya a whole buncha weak spots. At least with their focus on me, they weren't focused on 'DD'. "You think you're clever?! YOU'RE AN IDIOT!!" She summoned a horde of Cockatrices from every direction, staring straight at me from every angle... And nothing. "WHY!? YOU CHEAT!" "Don't go callin' me a cheater! Ah told ya, Ah'm a Nightmare of TRUTH... that means ya can't go twistin' mah TRUE form." That half-soul spliced and diced mishmash that used to be a version of me let out a stream of cusses that would've had sailors blushin'. "Ah've spent millions of years fightin' Draconqui, ya got a few decades of experience, ya thought ya could take me on?!" Truth be told, if Ah had to take'em all on in a straight up fight, Ah wouldn't be able to boast this much. Ah got lucky, best possible type of match up Ah could face. The Gallery and me, we always fought as a herd, and we always had numbers on our side. If Ah stay, Ah lose. Fightin' an army of fallen draconequi was a great way to have a really bad day. Ah had to end this fast and get out of here before they got their act together! Ah show Lies Me the truthful reflection of what she is... pieces of Applejack, most of 'em missin', and then glued back together into this mass of chaos and bad memories in the shape of a fallen draconequus. She screams. 'Ah know yer watchin',' Ah send out all magic like. 'The thing that made all these fallen draconequi, and the boss of this world's Discord... Ah WILL mess ya up someday... even if it's the last Ah do, and Ah don't lie.' Before these twisted messes can rush us all at once, Ah grab 'DD', and using a portal made just to take just the two of us (no way was Ah lettin' ANYTHIN' from this place spread into the larger multiverse), Ah get'er and myself out of there, she blacks out. - "DD" Ah woke up, hearing Nightmare-Mom shouting, so much for it all being a bad dream. "WHY DID YOU BRING HER BACK HERE APPLEJACK?!" "... Lemme ask ya Twili', what if them monsters went and learned from her how to pass into other world lines? What if she survived on that world, and came back later as a super invincible badass? Wouldn't it be better to take care of her now?" Looking back, what she said wasn't a statement, it was a question, it didn't have to be probable or factual. "Did you forget that when you're hurt I'm hurt too? How could you be so selfish?" "Don't worry Twili', Ah used my real body, Ah'm not stupid." "Oh, sorry Applejack, that was rude of me!" Opening my eyes, and seeing that thing with my mother's face, all I could say was, "I am so sick of looking at evil versions of my family." When I focused on everything else, my heart became a black void. Equestria was ... destroyed, nothing else to it. In place of chaos was a blasted landscape and ruins as far as I could see. I didn't see Sky Ocean anywhere! Where were the sea ponies? Why would anypony want to hurt them? Nothing out there was moving, the castle had been blown to pieces, I was in the throne room again, with no ceilings or walls. I saw a small purple "mountain" nearby... It was really Uncle Spike, I'd never seen him so big, but he wasn't moving. There was a motionless white and purple draconic 'mountain' next to him... There were shapes scattered about the throne room and the castle ruins, not moving: a gray and blond shape, an orange and blond shape, and a blue and rainbow shape. "Ya sure were busy while Ah was gone," Nightmare-Pearjack said. Nightmare-Mom smiled. "Don't worry Applejack, we pulled through!" She looked at... was that Fluttercruel's mom? She had wings and a horn, and was big as the happy gold and silver statues in the gallery (how'd I know the statues are happy? They told me so!). Her cutie mark was one big butterfly. She was wearing pretty barding... she was laying on the floor, she wasn't moving. "She appeared right out of Fluttercruel's shadow, don't ask me what that was about... She sure put up a fight to protect that... thing. She actually forgave everything he did," Nightmare-Mom snorted, "As if she had the right to forgive all he'd done to others!" Dad sighed, "She was always too kind." My heart skipped a beat, DAD WAS ALIVE! "I wasn't asking you," she hissed. Nightmare-Mom kicked Princess Fluttershy's shape. "Stop!" Dad begged, so Nightmare-Mom just kicked Princess Fluttershy's shape again, harder. "Dad!" I dared run over and hug him with my good arm. He was still stone from the neck down. "__________, you shouldn't have come back! Get away! Leave this worldline and don't look back!" "No!" "I order you!" "I won't obey!" Dad... tried to hypnotize me into abandoning him... But I'd taken lessons in resisting that sort of thing since the Valeyard. "Ha! I knew you didn't care about her! Not really! Why else would you try to brainwash her!" "Shut up!" I said to Fake Mom. "I'm going to beat you and I'm going to fix everyone!" "So you'll make it so they can't have kittens? Okay," Fake-Mom sneered. = Wild Arms 4 - That is Where the Spirit Becomes Certain = I had a moment of inspiration, and I used Auntie Rari-Plenty's golem creation spell to animate my stoned arm, it began to glow with purple runes, lines, and symbols like blueprints. I made a fist. = The Beast - Evangelion = I punched her in the face, sending her sailing into the ruins of chaos capital Ponyville. I teleported in front of her and punched her in the face again, sending her skidding into the ruins of Sweet Rock Acres. She conjured a fire golem the size of a mountain, I dumped forty days and forty nights worth of rain on it in four seconds! With her all wet I called down the lightning! There was one shape I hadn't seen though. "Where's Mom?!" "Right here," Fake-Mom tapped her own head. "My REAL mom!" "Also right here. Time should have reset already but there seemed to be a glitch. Time for debugging!" I turned into pixels, and I saw a buncha Pac-Mares coming at me from every direction on a cubed plane... thankfully I redirected the delete commands to a dummy file of me, and restored myself to normal. I conjured a box within a box within a box, etc, crushing down on Fake-Mom, distorting space so she couldn't just teleport out. "Failsafe Spell," she said simply, shattering my boxes, and letting gravity do the rest on the boulders I'd placed on top. She looked up in time to blast the boulders to shards, which distracted her from me ramming her in the head with my body briefly turned to solid metal with the magnetic propulsion of a freight train. I thought that was the end as her body fell on its side, not moving. But then a skull, brain, muscles, skin, fur, horn, all grew back on the spot... Like mom could. She stomped a hoof even as she got up... and the ground I'd landed up shot up like a rocket, so did another tower of ground a bit besides me, but it shot up into a portal... that open up bright above me, I was crushed flat. If I had slipped into the spirit world in time. Fun fact, as a demigod, I can freely move between the physical and spiritual planes, though I did have to be TAUGHT how to do it (big sister didn't put much effort into learning how). Doesn't help much when fighting beings that exist on both planes at the same time... like fallen draconequi or Angels who can shift what plane they're on, but it still made for a good quick escape. Then I was blasted on all sides by floating magic wands designed to cross into the spiritual plane... these wands weren't cheap or simple to make... I'd never seen so many before. I was forced back into the physical universe... the streams crossed... resulting in a very very very big 'ka-boom' that might have ruined Uncle Ponythulu's good china. I summoned a sword in every limb with a different magic (including a 'magic-eater' sword Sis kept locked in her trunk she got as a trophy from war with Tambelon), and charged before the fallout had even finished falling. Mom taught me everything she knows, I know how she fights, and I won't lose to her stupid counterfeit! Our whole fight? Forget it. I'm not giving Nightmare-Mom anymore note that I have to! She kept erasing stuff again and again, I'm not making more stuff to be read about her. I don't really care much for the epic battle stuff anymore, you can only do those so many times before they get boring. But suffice to say, we eventually ended up back at the throne room with Dad... "_________! Don't try to just outfight her! She'll just reverse time each time! But she normally possesses a body rather than appearing in person for a reason! She-" "Enough." And the anti-chaos muzzle appeared on Dad's face again (I don't know who got it off the first time). Which meant Dad was going to tell me something she didn't want to know. Don't outfight her? I had been fighting this as an epic battle... And I don't care about epic battles. - 'Misterioso' Madoka Magica Rebellion - Think. If she's like Mom, then she has an Element of Chaos inside her that's the real seat of her soul. She said... she said Mom was inside her... Which means Mom's spirit in there... she said this had happened time and time again to hurt Dad... so all the versions of Mom from before are in there too? I shifted to the spirit world, and I teleported randomly around Fake-Mom. I cast a divination spell on the spiritual plane, 'Find My Mother!' and a light shined inside Fake-Mom. Bingo! I conjure a horde of Smarty Pants dolls that all tackle her at once, they don't stand a chance, but they'll distract her for a split second, and that's all I need as a spirit to get behind her! Why did she go to the trouble of possessing someone instead of coming herself? Why would she not want me to know that? She was vulnerable somehow. She wouldn't have a body to escape to, maybe she couldn't cheat death by reversing time if her real body died. "Mom! Hold on! I'm going to get you out!" I reached into the villain, I felt lost in there, but I found Mom! Right away! I began to pull her out, it was like pulling somepony out of tar, but I was like an industrial crane! And, having pieces of her assimilated soul torn out was not doing Nightmare Eclipse's concentration any favors! "No! Stop it! Help!" I'm sorry to say, I really did enjoy hearing this monster afraid. "SORRY I'M LATE!! She was really troublesome!" I hear Fluttercruel's voice and look up, and see her, my heart leaps with joy to know my sister is alive! "FLUTTERCRUEL!" I shout. I'm so happy that I don't think about the giant double ended black sword she has, Sis' has always had a thing for blade weapons even though I never let her use them on innocent ponies until she got a clue in our early days. Then she stabbed me. "Nope, not me, I smashed her to pieces!" Then I notice, her cutie mark is a heart made of curved swords. "I SAVED YOU AUNTIE!" She cheered. "Good job Flutternice... You're a very very good filly. This shows you can better yourselves even if you are an evil pony at heart." "Yes Auntie!" She smiled and nodded. "__________!!!!!!" I saw dad tried to mouth with the muzzle. Meanwhile, me? I felt it for the first time, well, the only time, since it's never gone away. The emptiness, the hollowing, the disconnection from everything and everyone. The feeling of being a stranger to your own memories and your own feelings. Feeling it growing like a cancer inside me. And seeing the black hands reaching out from the stab wound. "Let's go Flutternice," Fake Mom said, "Now that that thing is being erased, Twilight would have had no reason not to reset events earlier... So it's best we go, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash must be wanting to add to their collection already." "Yes Auntie!" "And Flutternice... thank you... you saved me." She hugged Flutternice with her wings. This pony who had just murdered me with my sister's face. Who could do that? She looked back at Dad. "I guess you get to remember two extra children who never existed that you can remember dying before your eyes over and over again forever. ENJOY IT!" She hissed with more venom than those two words should have ever been able to hold. "It's nothing less than what you've done to countless others, now you can experience it countless times..." The two didn't even LOOK at me as they left through another portal gate. I tried to follow, but the hands/claws/tentacles wrapping themselves around me made me fall... I felt them pulling at my soul, my existence... I was being torn from EVERYWHERE... I felt like I was LEAKING MYSELF! Leaving only an empty shadow. I KNEW I didn't have much time... I felt myself becoming colder, more empty, and as I did, I remember what Fake-Mom said, once I vanished, Mom would have destroyed the world... I don't want to believe that... But I wouldn't be there to find out. I'd heard what Fake-Mom said... Dad had had another kid another time around that no one remembers but him... hurting forever... Maybe it wasn't the right thing, maybe it was the stupid and selfish thing... but I didn't want my legacy to be adding to Dad's torment... Like I said... after the Valeyard... I took lessons... Dad taught me everything, Mom taught me everything, I heard everything I could... about mind magic... Dad's mind was a chaotic storm, it should have been impossible to affect... unless you were part of the storm, unless you'd been born from it. Before I was pulled away into nothingness completely... I touched dad's head, and I used my swirlie eyes... "My memories that'll only cause you pain? From your brain, I now drain." And my light broke apart... and my shadow, what remained of me, was pulled into grandma like gravity pulls rocks to the ground. - And... you know the rest I think at this point. You were there after all... maybe it was a hundred cycles later, maybe a hundred million cycles later, I can't tell, time has no meaning in Oblivion. Remember the big fight between Tirek and Nightmare Eclipse? The rainbow of darkness took the shape of a centaur colt. I saw a look on Tirek's face I'd never seen before, and he hugged the rainbow of darkness. Then there was an explosion of inverted colors, and there stood Tirek and the Rainbow of Darkness, now one entity. This combined being was as tall as a mountain, their aura glowing the colors of the Rainbow of Darkness, with the Concept Killing Spear the size of a train in one hand. I'd never seen Nightmare Eclipse SCARED like that before. Wasn't her longest fight, but it was definitely the most intense one Nightmare Eclipse ever had! Another version of Mom got wise, thanks to herself, only able to appear in that cycle because it was the last one... so many crazy things happened in that last cycle... And what it was that took down Nightmare Eclipse... was six pony herds, most from across time, space, and reality, combining their magic... But what REALLY defeated her... was her parents, AS HOUSE PLANTS, restraining her for one moment... and her parents daring to stand against her... shook her long enough for her to be blown away, and her to get what she did to my mother. Wish I could feel some satisfaction, joy, or pleasure, or something at that poetic justice. It's strange, those foals, the ones in funeral garb with a bright colored something or other each? I know they're the part of magic that grants ponies the power of black magic, dark magic, whatever you want to call it, I could never keep them straight anyway. But they were around before the cycles started... they were around before Princess Amicitia's sacrifice created a better timeline without erasing the other one... Which means, even if the spirits of dark magic that exist RIGHT NOW in that reharmonized timeline came from her... they DIDN'T come from her in THIS ... dark world, well, light world now thanks to Queen Libra, Auntie Rari-Plenty should have picked a more straightforward Alicorn Name if you ask me. Which means, even if the spirits of dark magic came from Amicitia in THAT branch of time... they must have come from SOMEWHERE ELSE in this world line, since Luna becoming Nightmare Moon is still part of our history BEFORE the cycles... This making you insane with confusion yet? I guess it's just a mystery for the ages then. So I gotta ask... why did you come here? Why did you ask all this? I'm pretty sure you knew most of it already. (Daymare Mirror's Notes: Ah think that... well, even if ya can't feel happy 'bout it, that at least it'll give ya SOME kinda comfort, maybe make you feel a little less empty, to know that somepony remembers, and it matters to them... ) Don't tell Dad please... he has enough regrets, enough pains, enough guilt. I don't want to add to the pile. Besides... being the empty husk of a demigod's existence... I get to work with grandma a lot... A guide for lost souls looking for the nearest rock farm where they can find her avatar... In this ghostly, empty frozen place. And... thank you for the visit. (Daymare Mirror's Notes: Yer welcome... if ya'll excuse me... Ah've got a little sister to infect with my essence to turn into a new Nightmare Mirror.) Good luck. Another Possible Time So I take it that scheme didn't work out? Still... you're not her, not really... You don't owe her anything, not after what she did to your sister... so why come here? (Princess Veritas Equestria: Because darlin', forgotten or not, empty shadow or not... Ah'm rememberin' for a friend who isn't here to remember... that's the key to friends, family, and memories, to pass them before we go on our way.) Thank you. = Nanaka 6/17 Ending Credits Music =