Chapter 7
Moving carefully, I made my way back to where I believed my friends were. I didn’t have a solid plan yet, but I didn’t know if I had the time to just sit around and think up one.
Up ahead, I could see the form of Anarchy as she laid on a throne that was suspended in the air, seeming to be waiting for someone. Probably Lance and the others.
Floating above her were my friends, all encased in what looked to be crystals. Great, that makes things complicated. Going to have to do this on my own it seems.
Getting closer to her, I crouched down and looked up at her as she laid back, dropping grapes into her mouth one at a time.
The Element of Loyalty began to vibrate against my chest, like it was trying to get my attention.
“What?!” I hissed, sitting down and looking down at it. It kept vibrating, pulsing lightly as it did so. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do!”
As if it was annoyed, it vibrated even harder and flashed faster. I frowned at it and shook it hard, “you’re going to have to be more clear here! I’m not a super smart mare!”
It stopped glowing and vibrating, seeming to give up. Then it began to glow brightly as an image flashed in my mind.
“... Oh, that’s what you’re trying to tell me? How the fuck was I supposed to get that from vibrating and glowing?!” I hissed, shaking it hard again. It just vibrated hard for a second. “Yeah, I got it! Geez.”
Now having an idea of what to do, I stood up and stretched, then made sure my saddlebags were attached properly. With a groan, I stepped out of my hiding spot and walked towards the Queen of Lust and Chaos.
“Whoa!” she exclaimed upon seeing me, a wide grin appearing on her face. “You’re alive?!”
“Unfortunately, I am,” I said with a smirk as I stopped walking, squaring up with her as she laid on her throne.
Then she noticed the Element, “Ah, found my home did you? Enjoy the museum?”
“Shit was gross,” I commented, shaking my head.
She just laughed, sliding off of her throne and slithering through the air till she was standing in front of me. “What do you plan to do? Use the Elements to banish me? Turn me to stone? Destroy me?”
I scowl, as I did not like the idea I’d been given, not my usual style. “No, I’m going to use them to help you.”
“Ha!” she laughed, the world around us shaking and starting to melt. “Help me? That’s a new one. Tell me, why do I need help?”
“I saw your room, the pictures and newspaper clippings,” I said, causing her eyes to twitch.
“Going through others personal things? Aren’t you a… naughty lizard pony,” she said, looking to become a bit unhinged.
I bit my lip as I followed the directions of the Element, knowing I probably didn’t stand a chance against her chaos magic on my own. “Well you kinda dropped me right by your house, so that’s your fault,” I said, which did not help the situation. “I read your diary-”
Her tail wiped out and slapped me across the face, hard. But I didn’t let it throw me away as I held my ground. Slowly, I turned my face back to her as she fumed above me, smoke seeming to pour off of her body.
“I don’t know what it’s like to go through anything like that, but-” I began, but her eyes flared with anger as she raised her hand, about to snap her fingers. “Wait! Just fucking wait you crazy bitch!” I roared, catching her a bit off guard.
“Look,” I began, glaring up at her, “I can’t be all nice and shit, and I can’t approach this situation with the grace it deserves. So fuck you, I’m going to be blunt and you’re going to listen to me!” She just blinked at me, not seeming to know how to react to me. “So put your fucking hand down and listen!”
Slowly, she lowered her hand and crossed her arms. “Go on then.”
Taking a breath, I planted my feet and prepared to get hit again. “You got raped, and that fucked you up. Got your brain all fucked up and made you take it out on others. I don’t get it, but I ain’t judging you there. What I will judge you for is that you are hurting people, like my friends! And you tried to kill me!”
I stomped up to her and flew up, putting my face right in hers, “have you stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, the reason you’re still like this is because you are actively avoiding fixing it? We’re in fucking Equestria, where magic fixes almost anything! You don’t have to be like this!”
“Wise words from a stupid reptile brained pony,” she said with a growl, clearly angered by my words. She raised her hand and prepared to snap her fingers.
Ah shit, this backfired… Screw listening to the Elements, I’m doing this my way!
Moving as fast as I possibly could, I shot forward, taking her hand in my hands, wrapping my claws around her thumb and fingers.
“What are you-” she started, but with barely any effort, I ripped her thumb off of her hand. As she started to scream, I twisted all of her other fingers backwards, breaking them.
Before she could react, I spun my body, slamming a fist into her face and flying down to her other hand. She tried to pull it from my grasp as she tried to snap her fingers. But I just grabbed her whole hand in mine and held tight, preventing her from moving her fingers.
“Don’t!” she screamed, but I just twisted, breaking her wrist. With a roar of agony, she tried to pull her fist from me, but I held tight and twisted harder, completely destroying her wrist and hand.
The large Draconequus screamed in absolute agony as I dropped to the ground and grabbed her legs, and with a heavy heave, I lifted her up and slammed her backwards, slamming her face first into the ground.
Breathing hard and rapidly, I jumped into the air, performing a front flip and slammed down on her back, causing her to go rigid.
“Fuck!” I yelled, jumping off of her and holding my chest, the pain only getting worse.
“You psychopath!” She screamed, dragging herself up and holding up her ruined appendages, “What the hell?! You guys are supposed to not be violent like this! You broke my hands!”
“Yeah, I did,” I coughed out, turning to face her as I held my chest. “Because you weren’t listening. I can see why they sent you to the moon.”
She growled as she flashed, her hands reforming themselves slowly.
“Wait, but I-”
“I don’t have to snap my fingers to do magic on myself, retard!” she screamed, standing up fully, now back to normal.
“Uh…” I said, smiling sheepishly up at her. “I may have overreacted when I broke your hands, for that, I apologize.”
“Kinda late for that,” she said in a calm voice as she raised her hand.
The Element around my neck began to glow again, vibrating against my chest. Shut up, I know I screwed up by not listening to you.
She snapped her fingers, causing me to close my eyes, waiting for whatever she did to take effect. But after a few seconds, nothing happened. Opening them, I saw her looking at me in annoyance.
“Damn it!” she growled, snapping her fingers over and over again, “Celestia put that damn spell on the Elements! That fucking bitch!”
“Oh… that’s convenient,” I said with a relieved sigh. Then I smiled sheepishly, “I guess I didn’t have to break your hands…”
She just glared at me as she stomped up to me and grabbed the Element. She tried to yank it off my body, but it wouldn’t budge. “Fucking gay magic!”
“So, ready to listen to me?” I asked, but she just stepped back and punched me in the face, hard.
I stumbled back a few feet, vision spinning as I came to a stop, blinking at her. “I’m going to-” I started to yell, but the Element vibrated again. “Grrr, fine. Doing this your way.”
“Are you talking to the Element?” she asked, stomping towards me again. “They don’t speak, dumbass.”
“They do in their own way,” I countered, reaching into my saddle bags and taking out the five gems within it. “Now step back! Or I’ll Elements of Harmony your ass!”
This caused her to stop as she eyed me suspiciously, then took a few steps back. “Wait… can you use them all by yourself?”
“Eeyep!” I yelled, bluffing out my ass.
I couldn’t tell if she believed me, but she didn’t make a move towards me, just crossed her arms.
“Good,” I said, flying up above her head and looking down on her. “Are you going to let me help you?”
“I don’t need help, especially from the likes of you,” she said evenly, grumbling to herself.
“You do need help. According to your diary, you were the happiest when you were on your meds, but the moment they wore off you went right back to acting like this. And now you got unlimited power, and its just making you worse.”
“No, it’s making me the best me I can be,” she countered, throwing her hands out wide. “I’m the motherfucking Queen of Lust and Chaos, bitch! Ain’t no one above me!”
“But are you happy?” I asked, following the guidance of the Element around my neck.
“I’m very happy,” she said with a smirk, flying up to meet me, slithering around me again. “Sweet talking isn’t going to win me over, lizard girl. Know what will though?”
“What?” I ask, watching her carefully.
“A good fuck,” she said with a wink.
I just roll my eye and elbow her in the snout, but she just frowns and flashes away, appearing in front of me.
“You’re no fun,” she grumbled.
“I ain’t fucking ya, crazy bitch,” I spat out, glaring hard at her. “You’ve done plenty of that in your life, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah, you’d think that, wouldn’t you!” she suddenly screamed, coming unhinged out of nowhere. “I’m the Queen of Lust! And I’ve only had sex with TWO people! TWO! FUCKING TWO!” She flew towards me, slamming her face into mine, our eyes closed as we stared each other down. “Discord was the best thing in my life, and they took him from me! He made me forget about my rapist! Made me forget those months in that shipping container!”
The area around us shifted into a forest, a dirty shipping container down below, hidden in camo netting.
I had no response to this, as this all kind of came out of nowhere.
“You think I’m happy?! You think anyone in my situation can be happy?! The only time I’m happy is when I’m making other people suffer like I did, or when I’m with Discord! And he’s gone now, which just leaves hurting others!”
“But,” I started, searching my mind for the best way to respond. “You don’t have to be this way… we have ways to help you here. There’s a doctor back in town who specializes in mental shit. She can help you, if you let her.”
“Impossible,” she snapped back, slithering around me and squeezing tight. “I can’t be helped at this point. I’m too far gone, that’s evident by my friends abandoning me and banishing me to the moon.”
I coughed loudly as she compressed my chest, but I chose not to fight back, yet.
“I want to help you,” I choked out, trying my best not to react just yet to her squeezing me.
“Bullshit, you just want to win,” she hissed, applying more pressure.
“Yeah, I do!” I yelped out, the pain starting to grow. “But I also want to help you get better! I’ve never gone through what you have, but my mom has gone through some horrible shit! So I can sympathize with you!”
Finally, she stopped squeezing, but continued to glare into my eyes. “Okay, lizard pony, how do you think you’ll help me?”
“You’ll have to trust me,” I coughed out. “If I tell you, the half of you that likes this will stop me.”
She seemed to consider this as she let me go suddenly, dropping me towards the ground. My wings flared out and caught me. Hovering there, I coughed violently a few times, my chest feeling absolutely terrible.
“Fine, you have one minute. If it looks like you’re about to betray me, I will kill you,” she said, her face a mix of emotions. Then, in a much quieter voice she adds, “please, don’t betray me.”
“Yeah, I won’t,” I groan, then point to my friends. “I need them out for this to work.”
With suspicious eyes, she raised her hand and snapped her finger, causing the crystals around my friends to disappear. They all started to fall, but caught themselves. Except Dude, who started to fall to the ground, but used magic to catch himself.
I waved them over, and as they neared, I held up the Elements. “Okay, let me get you guys up to speed, we need-”
“We heard,” Roxxy said, catching me off guard. “We were in crystal, but we could still hear and see everything.”
“You’re hardcore, as always,” Dude said, giving me a nod of approval.
“Thanks,” I chuckle, then look back to the Elements. “So, we need to figure out who gets what.”
“Are we even able to wield them?” Nightstreak asked.
“One way to find out!” I yelled, tossing the Elements at my friends. As they flew towards them, they began to glow and shot towards each of them.
“Ouch!” Dude yelped as one slammed into his chest; Element of Magic.
“Oh shit! I’m worthy!” Nightstreak exclaimed as one wrapped itself around his neck; Element of Laughter.
Flippy Dew let out a panicked scream as hers attached itself to her; Element of Kindness.
“Of fucking course,” Roxxy grumbled as the Element of Honesty picked her out.
Summer Breeze smiled a bit as hers reached her; Element of Generosity.
“Huh… Honestly didn’t think that’d work,” I admitted, looking at my friends sporting their new Elements.
“So does this mean we’re the new Bearers of the Elements?” Nightstreak asked, smiling awkwardly.
I shrug, “I guess it-”
“Tick tock,” Anarchy said from behind my friends, looking impatient.
“Right!” I exclaimed, flying over to Dude and whispering into his ear. His eyes went wide as I leaned back. “Doable?”
“Uh… sure?” he said, glancing at the Draconequus behind him.
Carefully, we flew over and surrounded her.
She growled and looked right at me. “If you try and-”
“Shut up, I’m not going to betray you. We’re going to help you, I promise,” I snapped back, trying to sound reassuring.
This didn’t help her, but she didn’t try to stop us.
Dude looked unsure as his horn began to glow, causing all of our Elements to start to glow. Slowly, a rainbow spread out from his element and spread to all of ours, forming a circle around Anarchy.
Her face began to waver as she seemed to be losing her nerve.
Just as she started to raise her hand to snap her fingers, a rainbow shot out and slammed into her, wrapping around her. She screamed and fought against it, her eyes looking at me with hatred as she appeared to believe I betrayed her.
The rainbows completely wrapped around her and raised up higher into the sky. The area around us began to fade away, being replaced by the Everfree Forest and the cabin. A scream was heard from within the rainbow cocoon, then a bright flash that caused all of us to turn away.
Looking back, I saw the rainbow cocoon was slowly lowering itself back to the ground. Slowly, we followed after it, landing on the ground around it as the rainbows began to unwrap.
Once they fully pulled away, they revealed just a simple mare, who heavily resembled Anarchy, just in an Earth pony form now. She lay on the ground, not moving.
“Eh… is she… dead?” Summer Breeze asked, looking at her cautiously.
Flippy Dew took a step forward, leaning closer and frowning, “I think she’s dead.”
“I’m not dead,” the mare groaned, sitting up and looking herself over. “... You turned me into a pony?”
“I mean,” I started, raising an eyebrow, “we used the Elements to remove your Chaos magic. I guess it also turned you into a pony.”
“You took my chaos magic?!” she exclaimed, trying to cast a spell or something, but nothing happened. She closed her eyes and began to shake violently.
Then she looked right at me. I waited for her to let me have it, saying I betrayed her, or just be mad in general.
“Thank you…” she finally said in a small voice. A look of relief came over her face as she hugged herself. “I can’t hurt others if I don’t have that magic…”
I stepped over to her and kneeled down, holding a hoof out to her, “you good now? The mental shit gone?”
“No, it’s still there,” she admitted as she took my hand. “But you’ll help with that, right?”
“I will,” I confirmed, giving a hard nod as I pulled her to her hooves.
She looked around at all my friends, looking a bit sheepish as she reached up and played with her mane. “So… I’m sorry for, you know, inflicting chaos on you and shit.”
“Not frogi-” Dude started to say, but Flippy Dew slugged him in the shoulder hard. “Erm, I mean, all's forgiven.”
“As long as you actually let others help you,” I add, getting a nod out of her.
“I can promise to try, but you need to know, doctors back on Earth had no luck helping me,” she warned, but I waved her off and slapped a hand down on her shoulder.
“Trust me, we’ll get you fixed up, Calypso is an amazing doctor and therapist. She helped my mom after all.”
Annabel smiled at me, then her eyes went wide as she lowered herself to the ground in fear. “Oh no…”
“What?” I asked, raising my eyebrow in confusion.
“Shayla?!”
“What are you all doing here?!”
My eyes also went wide as I turned around and saw the Princesses, Lance, my parents, and all the other adults.
“Oh… hey everyone,” I said with a little wave, smiling awkwardly.
The crowd just stared at us, confusion on all their faces.
“I’m assuming Anarchy wasn’t here?” Lance asked, looking around. Then his eyes landed on the mare behind me. “Shit!”
“Get back, Shayla!” Jero screamed, jumping forward and pointing a strange device at the cowering mare.
“Stop!” I screamed, jumping between him and Annabel.
“Shayla, move your ass!” My mom yelled. “That’s Anarchy!”
“I know!” I yelled back, flaring my wings wide. “We helped her!”
“Are those the…” Lance said, finally taking note of the Elements around our necks.
“Yes! We used the Elements to take her powers! But she gave them up willingly!” I yelled, fibbing a bit on that last part. They don’t need to know the full truth here.
“Step aside, we still have to deal with her!” Jero yelled, the device still in his hands. “We’re going to trap her in this rune so she can’t hurt anyone else.”
“Stop you fucking idiots!” I roared back, my friends running up and forming a wall between Annabel and the others. “She’s been hiding something from all of you! The real reason she’s acted the way she did in the past.”
“There’s no excuse that could cover what she’s done,” Lance stated, not looking to want to negotiate.
My mother looked between us and the crowd around her. She growled and stepped forward, stomping towards me.
I shrank back a bit, ready for her to lay into me. But instead, she stepped up to me and got next to me, turning to face the others.
“My daughter may not be the smartest mare,” she said, getting a frown out of me. “But her heart is always in the right place. I say we listen to her and then decide on what to do.”
“Thanks, Mama,” I said, a tear threatening to fall out of my eye.
She just gave me a smile and a nod.
“I guess…” Lance said, frowning as he looked at us. “... we can hear her out.”
Jero lowered the device, not looking convinced.
“I think this’ll be easier if we can all view my memories,” I say, looking at Celestia.
The large Alicorn smiled at me and gave a nod. “If you believe this is the correct path, then I will help.”
I smile at her and give a nod. “Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”
My mother chuckled and slugged my shoulder as the Princess walked into the middle of the group.
“Does everyone agree with this course of action?” She asked, scanning the gathered ponies. Everyone looked reluctant but they all gave a nod of agreement.
Celestia’s horn began to glow as she cast a spell, causing everyone to be pulled into my mind.