//------------------------------//
// Chapter XI 
// Story: The Spirits of Harmony 
// by TinCan 
//------------------------------//

The sun stood alone at the peak of a blue heaven. Below, a carpet of churning stormwrack hid the ground beneath from view. Here the air was eerily calm, but on every side, towering walls of cloud loomed, twisted into a cylinder by howling, raging winds.

It was the eye of a hurricane.

And Rainbow Dash was going to ride it.

She wasn’t sure how she’d gotten up here in the first place. She was sure it didn’t matter. Here was the chance of a lifetime! How long had it been since the international branch of the weather patrol had even allowed one of these monsters to get anywhere near Equestria? Not since before she was born.

Everypony said it couldn’t be done. You might as well ask an earth pony to plug a volcano or a unicorn to duplicate the sun as expect a pegasus to tame a hurricane at the height of its power, or so the conventional wisdom ran.

Then again, everypony had said the same about the Sonic Rainboom. Rainbow smirked, stretched into a glide and began flying toward the eyewall.

Just as she was about to enter the storm, everything went dark. the pegasus veered off and looked about in confusion. The sun had vanished from the sky as if somepony had turned it off with a switch. Instead of a bright blue sky, a dark, star-studded abyss stretched above her. The moon sat in the sun’s place, shining its pale reflected light across the cloudscape. Before Rainbow Dash could register just how bizarre this was, a shadow swept across the disk of the moon and resolved into an enormous face with eyes of blank white luminescence.

“RAINBOW DASH,” the face thundered.

“I, ah, yeah?” the pegasus replied, perplexed but only a little bit frightened. She went into a climb so she wouldn't have to crane her neck so far back to face the thing at the top of the sky.

“WHAT DO YOU KNOW OF THE PERFIDIOUS FIENDS WHO CALL THEMSELVES ‘ALCHEMISTS?’ ” the face asked, spitting the final word with obvious distaste. Dash could’ve sworn she’d heard that voice somewhere before.

“Um...” the pony stalled, caught flat-hooved by the question. “I think one of the Daring Do books was about them? Yeah! Daring Do and the Alchemist’s Atelier! I read it last month.”

“THEN YOU UNDERSTAND THE THREAT THEIR EXISTENCE POSES TO EQUESTRIA AND THE VERY HARMONY OF THE WORLD?”

Rainbow looked askance and scratched the back of her head. “No, not really. Daring Do is adventure, not fantasy. Alchemists are all long-gone. See, it turns out it’s a only a trick by this gang of—”

“NO SPOILERS!” the face boomed. “I SEE YOU ARE JUST LIKE ALL THE REST. FINE THEN! ARISE AT ONCE AND ONE OF OUR SERVANTS WILL GUIDE YOU AND YOUR SAND-IN-THE-HEAD SKEPTIC FRIENDS WHERE THEY OUGHT TO GO. PINKIE PIE WILL JOIN YOU ONCE WE HAVE FOUND THE REAL CULPRIT.”

“Rise?” Dash said, squinting at the shadowy face. “How much higher can I—wha? Aaugh! Help!”

While she had been looking upward to converse with the startling visage, Rainbow Dash hadn’t been paying attention to where she was flying. At that moment, she entered the eyewall of the hurricane unprepared and instantly lost control. Winds buffeted her on every side as she tumbled blindly through the pitch-dark storm. The dense clouds clung and wrapped around her, pinning her wings and legs. Far below the ground was approaching fast, and she wouldn’t see it until it was too late, if at all.

Dash screamed, but no sound came out, or it was lost in the fury of the hurricane.





“Rainbow. Rai-i-inbow! Wake up, dear!”

The sensation of falling ended abruptly as Rainbow Dash felt something cold, unyielding and perfectly flat beneath her. She opened her eyes to find herself lying on a chilly marble floor. The fluffy comforter from her bed was tangled around her body. Dash extricated her front hooves and rubbed her eyes.

“Whazz goin’ on?” she mumbled, not entirely sure this was real. She was in the middle of a bare room, fancy-looking in spite of its emptiness. There were no windows and no furniture except a few light fixtures on the walls. Three of her other friends, Rarity, Applejack and Fluttershy, were standing over her, all looking varying degrees of tired, disheveled and anxious.

“We’re up in Canterlot, sugarcube,” Applejack explained. “Jes’ popped in one by one. I was first.” The farm pony pointed to a sign on the room’s wall next to a pull-cord and a reinforced metal door.


Canterlot Palace Designated Long Distance Teleportation Arrival Zone #2
Keep room clear at all times
Incoming visitors, please wait for processing
In case of emergency, pull rope
ENJOY YOUR VISIT TO THE PALACE!


Dash stood, stretched her wings, and regarded her friends. They’d clearly all been transported right out of their beds too. Fluttershy was in her nightgown, Rarity had her eye mask tucked above her horn and Applejack, well, she still had her old stetson somehow. It wouldn’t surprise the pegasus if AJ slept in that thing.

“Any of you know who the hay did this and why?” Rainbow asked, yawning at the end.

“Ah-nope,” said Applejack. “Thought I’d had my share of weirdness for the day when Apple Bloom brought that note home from school, too.”

“I have no idea either,” Rarity admitted, “but we should probably wait for Twilight and Pinkie before we go wandering off.”

“Oh, um, Twilight’s already here and Pinkie won’t be here for a while yet. She’s got to do something else,” Fluttershy said, not liking to contradict her friend.

The other three ponies all looked at the quiet pegasus. “You know what’s up, Shy?” Rainbow asked.

Fluttershy hesitated. “I thought I did. None of the rest of you had dreams? Maybe it was just a coincidence.”

“No, I did,” Rarity said, “but I don’t think it had anything to do with this. Some pushy VIP dropped in on the boutique unexpectedly, and I suggested as tactfully as possible that she visit some other time. There were all these deadlines I was trying to meet and she only wanted to talk nonsense about old myths anyway.”

Applejack doffed her hat to scratch her bed-head. “Shucks, I don’t hardly ever recollect dreams. Ain’t got time with how hard I work all day. ...Ah, no offense, y’all.”

Dash tried to remember what she’d been dreaming, but it was all slipping away. “I was about to be even awesomer than usual, but then suddenly I’m spoiling one of the Daring Do stories for somepony. Nothing about getting sleep-teleported to Canterlot.”

Fluttershy pawed the floor, sorry she’d brought it up. “It must have just been an ordinary dream then. Never mind.”

Unwilling to sit around in the metaphorical dark, Dash went over to the door and pulled on its heavy iron ring. It didn’t budge. She began banging a hoof against the frame.

“Rainbow, manners!” Rarity chided. “The sign said to wait. We’re guests at the palace, not invaders.”

“Manners? We got dragged out of our beds and across the country in the middle of the night! You don’t do that to a pony and then make her wait in a closet with no explanation!” Rainbow Dash complained. “I don’t care if the princess herself did it, that’s all kinds of rude.”

Rarity rolled her eyes and tried to tame her only-slightly-unruly mane with magic. “At least let me get presentable before you break down the door.”

Unwilling to wait another minute, Dash tugged the emergency cord. A bell chimed somewhere outside the room. “Hey, anypony out there? Let us out! Or, uh, in?” She shouted, then pressed an ear to the door. After the bell’s echoes died, Rainbow could hear constant sounds of commotion, but they all seemed to be coming from far away. “I don’t think there’s even anypony on duty out there.”

The four friends began to grow worried.

“This is outrageous!” said Rarity. “Every time I’ve been here, the guards and palace staff were impeccable. I wonder if something’s the matter?”

“I’m sure they have a good reason,” Fluttershy said. “What if they just needed to get us away from where we were?”

Applejack gulped. “Ya mean like maybe they stuffed us in here for our own safety? I don’t like the sound of that. Is somethin’ bad going down back in Ponyville?”

Dash rejoined the trio, spread out the comforter on the floor and flopped onto it. “Well, it looks like we’re not going anywhere, nopony’s showing up to answer our questions and I know I’m not getting back to sleep. What should we do?”

The other three ponies joined her on the blanket, glad to have someplace to sit other than the cold marble floor.

“Maybe you should tell us what you saw in your dream anyway, Fluttershy,” Applejack suggested. “Pinkie and Twilight still ain’t here, like you said, so it might be our only clue as to what in tarnation’s happening.”

Fluttershy looked flustered, but nodded. “Um, well, alright. I hope it’s not too... weird. At first it was like an ordinary day, except the trees were made of jelly and all the animals’ eyeballs were on fire. It seemed normal at the time so...”





Twilight Sparkle (or what remained of her) floated dismally through her home. Spike was upstairs in his little bed, fast asleep and apparently troubled by unpleasant dreams. Other than this, the library was quiet and desolate. For a pony who hadn’t seen the point in social interaction for a good chunk of her life, suddenly not being able to communicate with anypony felt like torture. All she could do was watch and listen and...

...read?

That was it! The rest of Princess Celestia’s letter was still down there in the basement; Twilight had taken it with her when she went to go check on the Element of Magic. Celestia had suspected early on that Twilight might have summoned up some spirits; maybe her mentor had written advice for what to do in this situation!

Twilight zipped back to the basement, going right through the door. Halfway down the stairs she came to a sudden halt.

Voices. The spirits were back.

“What a crazy night, huh sis?” Concord drawled from below. “Verse breaks Pinkie’s friend, then while I go catch that mangy poet again, you’re saying some big princess came and stole her meaty part? Did the rest of her stick around at least?”

“She went outside, but she came back. She’s in the stairwell listening to us right now.” The filly, who had appeared irritated and standoffish before, now sounded more depressed than anything.

“Oh, sweet,” Concord exclaimed. “Hey there, c’mon back down!” he called up the stairs. “I got Verse here again, just like I said I would! It’s not my fault that big white pony ran off with your mortal coil, alright? Don’t pin that on me when you tell Pinkie about me. Just stay here with us for now, okay?”

Hesitantly, Twilight descended the rest of the way to the basement. She honestly wasn’t sure what more these spirits could do to her, and anyway, just to have somepony... something acknowledge her presence was heartening. Concord and his ‘sister’ (did spirits even really work like that?) were standing in the middle of the room. Weird black-and-white striped spines that hadn’t been there before poked out through the filly’s wavy mane. In a corner of the room, the one called Verse sat, smiling off into space, tapping time on one hoof and moving his lips in noiseless recital.

First things first: Twilight hovered over to the table where the crown had once sat. There was the letter, right where she’d left it! ...Right how she’d left it too, alas; rolled up into a tube. She somehow managed to move her viewpoint inside the missive to at least see the visible bit of the letter’s inner surface, but because of the way the scroll was rolled, all that was exposed was the princess’s letterhead. She tried to shrink herself even further and travel inside the spiral of the paper, but not enough light penetrated the sturdy parchment for her to read. Defeated, Twilight miserably flowed back out into the room. Would everything go wrong for her from now on?

While Twilight tried and failed to decipher the scroll, Verity and Concord continued conferring. “So we’ve got two-thirds of the things we need to get this pony back in and on her feet. Where’s her body at right now, Ver?” the stallion asked the filly.

“The royal palace, in the infirmary.”

Concord laughed. “Aww, nuts! Guess I should’ve gone with Fortuna and that Desserts lady after all. That’s a long way away. ...Hey Verse, can you zap us up to the palace like you brought me back here?” He called over to the preoccupied unicorn-spirit.

“Who travels alone with his eyes on the heights,
Though he laughs in the day time oft weeps in the nights;

For courage goes down at the set of the sun,
When the toil of the journey is all borne by one.

He speeds but to grief though full gaily he ride
Who travels alone without love at his side.”

Twilight could almost see the gears turning inside the gray earth pony’s head as he tried to interpret the poet’s reply. “Um, I guess that’s a ‘no,’ or maybe a ‘whatever, do it yourself,’ ” Concord decided. “Okay, okay, what other options do we have?”

“Canterlot may be reached by hoof, train, and flight. The palace itself is open to direct magical teleportation within specific un-warded areas.” Verity piped up. Twilight noticed the blue filly seemed perfectly willing to answer her brother’s queries without the recalcitrance she’d shown Twilight or Luna.

The spirit stallion shifted from one hoof to another, looking doubtful. “That’s all good, but which way is the best?” he said. “We’ve got no money, we don’t know anypony, I promised not to use my powers and I wanna get this done really soon so Pinkie doesn’t get the wrong idea.”

Verity tried to let the fullness of reality flow through her with a response, but instead she only sat there with her mouth hanging open. That wasn’t the sort of question she was meant to answer. It was all airy and probabilistic and future-oriented. She slumped in disappointment.

Noticing Verity’s reaction, Twilight slid closer to the pair, a faint glimmer of an idea hatching in her mind. I know what you should do, Twilight imagined whispering into the filly’s blue ear, which twitched in response. Just take my advice and everything will be fine.

Could this be true? Verity recalled how her previous encounter with the princess turned out before she overwrote it. Why should she listen to another limited, ignorant, deceitful pony? Then again, Twilight Sparkle was used to being Inside. Perhaps she could offer some helpful insight?

Verity reviewed the events of the unicorn’s life in the twinkling of an eye. A childhood and adolescence spent in the acquisition of knowledge, using her limited perception to its fullest in order to understand the world around her. A futile but noble endeavor; the spirit approved. Then, only a couple years ago, her studies were interrupted by a command from above: “Go and make some friends!” It was completely outside Twilight’s experience.

...And yet, she had done it! She moved among strangers and grew close, intertwining their lives together. There were other ponies who shared her joys and sorrows, who put themselves in peril for her sake as she did for theirs. Between them rested a power emanating from deepest Outside, beyond even Verity’s vision; the manifestation of harmony her brother called the “Big Six.”

This interconnection between separate beings was something that Verity hadn’t ever really experienced close-up until now. It seemed extremely useful. She wanted to know what Twilight had in mind, but Verity found it harder to simply read Twilight’s unspoken thoughts and intentions from the ether, now that the pony had been sundered. Remembering her lesson from earlier in the day, she raised a hoof in the air.

“Hey, uh, watcha doing there, Ver?” Concord asked. “Need better reception?”

“I want to ask Twilight a question.”

Yes! Twilight thought, doing a little loop in the air out of joy. You don’t have to raise your hoof to talk to me. Just ask away!

Verity lowered her hoof with a snort at the sheer arbitrariness of it all. “What do you want us to do?”

Okay, remember how you rewound or undid time or whatever it was when Luna found you down here? Twilight began.

Concord swung his head one way and then another as if expecting to see the former pony floating around the ceiling somewhere. “Is she telling you something?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I wanna hear too!” the older pony whined. “Tell me what she’s telling you... um, please?”

“If you could do that again, but—” Twilight continued, then stopped in surprise. She could’ve sworn she heard her thoughts echo in the room. The voice was a bit higher-pitched, but otherwise sounded exactly like hers. “Did I actually say that aloud? I can talk again?”

“No.” Verity said.

“But then how—”

The same instant Twilight thought the words, she noticed that Verity’s mouth opened and spoke them aloud, sounding almost exactly as Twilight would have.

Concord laughed and stamped applause. “That’s amazing, Ver! You’re so talented!”

“O-okay,” Twilight and Verity said. “But listen, I need you to do that thing you did to Luna before, except I want you to say that I never messed with the Element of Magic, that I never summoned you all here, that Luna never even sent it to me!”

At the princess’s name, Verse fell silent. He turned to look across the room at Verity, a flicker of interest in his eyes.

“Ver, what are you two talking about?” said Concord, looking shocked. “What did you do? Didja... did you tell a lie?”

“The lamp hummed:
‘Regard the moon,
La lune ne garde aucune rancune,’ ” said Verse, and then laughed at a private joke.

“Yes,” Verity replied, looking guilty. “Luna was shaking me and yelling at me and saying I didn’t tell her the truth. Spike got mad at me for doing what he asked and so did Cherilee, and they each called me a liar too.” Tears welled up in her eyes.

Her brother sidled up to her and put a leg around her shoulders. “It’s okay, Ver. Just because two ponies and a dragon say it doesn’t make it true. Lots of good folks get misunderstood. It ain’t their fault.”

“Excuse me,” Twilight interjected through Verity, “You really need to listen to me! If you can just tell a tiny little lie one more time everything will go back to the way it was! None of this has to happen!”

Concord looked disapprovingly in a direction Twilight wasn’t. “Now don’t you start too!” he scolded. “Can’t you see how much they hurt her? The Big Six oughtta treat ponies better.”

Verity leaned against Concord and buried her face in her hooves as her pent-up emotions overflowed. “It’s true!” she wailed. “I told a lie and the universe just broke itself to make it true! I marred harmony! I ruined everything!”

Her brother held her close and tried his best to stroke her mane without getting stabbed on the spines. “Shh... hush. You (ow!) didn’t ruin anything. We’re all (ouch!) still here. Nopony can just break the (eep!) universe. You know what I think happened?”

“Yes.”

“That’s right; you got a second chance. Just remember this and never ever lie ever again, okay?”

“Okay,” Verity said, wiping her eyes and nose. Suddenly she threw back her head and screamed. “NO! AAAARGH!! LISTEN!”

Concord released the filly and stared at her wide-eyed.

“That was Twilight,” she explained.

“Well we’re listening. What is it?” Concord bent over to pull a few spines out of his forelegs with his teeth.

“Verity, I need you to say that I never summoned any spirits. All sorts of awful things are going to happen otherwise. Please!”

Her brother shook his head. “She just said she wouldn’t lie anymore! The universe might really break this time. And why do you want us gone so bad? I would’ve never met Pinkie if you never summoned me.”

“Because your buddies Fortuna and Just Deserts are trying to overthrow the government!” Twilight made Verity shout. “They’re the ones who froze my body in place, then they stole my Element of Harmony and said they were going after the princesses! It’s going to throw the whole world into chaos! We have to stop them!”

The gray pony shrugged. “It’s just spirit stuff, like we do all the time from Outside. I’m sure they know what they’re about.”

Rage and frustration manifest differently when one lacks blood pressure to raise or vision to cloud with red mist. Twilight’s perspective bounced around the room like a ricocheting bullet. Her mistake could doom the world, and all she had to rectify it were these... idiotic spirits! They didn’t care about ponies, or harmony, or anything! She had no idea what Verity or Verse actually wanted, and Concord just went on and on about...

Twilight came to an instant halt.

“If you don’t help me stop them, Pinkie will never forgive you.”

Concord looked like he’d been struck. “R-really? No, that’s not true! Pinkie wants to be friends with everypony! She likes me!”

“Why don’t you ask Verity what Pinkie thinks of you right now?” Twilight slyly asked.

“Fine!” Concord said. “You tell her, Ver! Pinkie likes me, she’s just a bit scared because she knows I wasn’t a pony before this morning. Right?”

Verity looked into Concord’s eyes but said nothing.

“C’mon! Tell her!” he insisted, red-faced and growing frightened.

The filly slowly shook her head. “No lies. Pinkie Pie is terrified of you. She thinks you’re an evil alchemist.”

“What!?” her brother cried. “How? Why? What happened?”

“Spirit power. Punishment. Just Deserts convicted her of seducing you and changed Pinkie’s thoughts,” Verity said, answering the last three questions in order.

Twilight felt a certain grim satisfaction to finally discovering what had happened to Pinkie. She also felt a bit ashamed, not having been able to tell her friend wasn’t herself when she burst into the library that evening.

Concord fell back on his rump, staring blankly at the floor and trying to process what he’d just learned. He was a spirit of peace! Everything was supposed to work out around him! All the beings he touched got along! Why did everything have to fall to pieces now? What did that justice spirit think she was doing?

Twilight moved in for the kill. “Concord, listen to me. We can help each other. Pinkie had her mind scrambled by an evil spirit before, and I saved her. Only a powerful magician who is also a close, intimate friend can separate the foreign, imposed thoughts from the real ones. There’s nopony else who fits that description but me. Get me back into my body and help me get the Element of Magic back from those other spirits. If you do this for me, I’ll bring Pinkie back to normal, and she’ll be so happy! And when I tell her I couldn’t have done it without the help of a certain good spirit...”

The look the stallion gave the empty air around him was so pathetically grateful and full of hope Twilight actually felt guilty about how she intended to zap him back ‘Outside’ (wherever that was) the first moment she was able.

“Deal,” Concord said, standing back up with a look of resolve. “But I’m a spirit of peace. I can’t fight, especially not against family, and Verity’s just a witness and Verse... Verse is all kinds of unreliable. What can we do?”

The disembodied unicorn gave the matter a brief stack of thick thought. They needed to get to Canterlot as fast as possible to head off the other spirits and get her body. Luna’s teleportation magic was the best way to do that, but Pinkie thought Concord was an alchemist, and feared him. Luna thought the same, and would be just as hostile if she knew them to be spirits. If anything happened to Verity, Twilight might never be able to make herself known to anypony ever again. In light of this, there was only one course of action that she thought had a chance of success.

“We’re going to give the ponies exactly what they want.”