The only question I have left then is, how do I do it?
I can't just tell them my problems and ask them to turn me to stone. They won't do it. Twilight has incredible naïve faith in the power of harmony and friendship to solve everything. To be fair, pretty much everything she's come up against so far, that's exactly how she solved it, so I can see where she gets that idea, but... I'm the spirit of disharmony. Nopony's going to be able to solve my problems with friendship and harmony. Those are, in fact, the reason I'm having problems. If I didn't have friends I wouldn't feel bad about betraying them and I wouldn't hate myself and I wouldn't worry about hurting them if I turn evil, and honestly every part of not having friends sounds better except for the part where now that I've had them I'd rather die than live without anypony caring about me ever. I mean, Tirek was right, when you think about it. It is a weakness. For me. For the ponies it's a strength, but they run on harmony. For me, having friends is killing me, but I want it so badly that even though I know it's killing me I don't want to give it up.
I'm more resilient than that, of course. Sooner or later, if I don't do anything about it, my self-preservation instincts will kick in and make me decide that friendship isn't really all that, and at that point, I'll hurt them. I know their weaknesses even better now than I did before. I know how to destroy each and every one of them, so they'd never be able to wield harmonic power against me or anyone else, ever again. The last time, I just turned them against their elements, but their elements aren't what they live for. I know who they are as ponies now, not just exemplars of their elements, and I know how to destroy them.
No. I don't want to think about this. I don't want to think about how easy it would be to do it. They're my friends. I don't want to hurt them. I don't want to fall.
That's why I need them to turn me to stone. But if I just asked them to do it, the way I just asked the Tree, they wouldn't, because they'd be certain they could save me with friendship and harmony, right up until the point I turn on them all and I make Applejack's temper uncontrollable so she hurts a family member gravely in a moment of rage, and I make Rainbow Dash miscalculate where the ground is and break her back so she'll never fly or walk again, and I—
No. I already said I wasn't going to think about that. I don't want to do it. I have to stop myself before I do do it, and thinking about it is exactly the wrong thing to do.
So. Can't just ask them. I have to make them think they have to do it.
The obvious way to do that is to make them think I've already turned evil. Don't do anything to hurt them, I don't want to hurt them, I want them to stop me. But unleash a good old storm of chaos on everypony else. Make it rain frogs! Turn flowers carnivorous! Turn the sun dark purple and the moon bright yellow! Teach houses to roller skate! Swap the minds of foals and their parents! Make rabbits think they are dragons! Oh, the things I could do, if I cut loose!
That would convince them that I've betrayed them, again, and that their only choice is to turn me to stone. Twilight said she didn't want to do it because she isn't even sure the Rainbow Power can be used against one of the key bringers without breaking it, but I'm pretty sure she's wrong. Celestia broke the Elements by turning them on a fellow Bearer, with anguish and disharmony in her heart, and forcing all six of them to operate for her by inflicting the power of Order on Harmony. Harmony comes about from wanting to do the right thing, from more or less spontaneously choosing to work together out of a desire for shared happiness. When you do what you don't want to do, what you hate doing with every fiber of your being, what you will never forgive yourself for, because you believe that you have to do it to maintain things the way they "should" be or to remake the world in the image you believe it should be in... that's Order at work, not Harmony. And Harmony doesn't like being forced by Order any more than Chaos does. Creating disharmony to save the world is Order's job, or sometimes mine, and either way it's inimical to harmony, and that's how the elements broke.
If I make my friends hate me and believe I betrayed them (again), they could use Harmony against me with clear consciences. Maybe... maybe not Fluttershy. Maybe it would cause her pain. But not like the pain Celestia suffered from banishing Luna. Fluttershy doesn't care about me the way Celestia cares about her sister; how could she possibly? I'm not her family. I have no family. The closest I ever had to family were Celestia and Luna, and they turned me to stone with no regrets. So how could Fluttershy possibly care more than they did? She'd be sad, but she'd get over it and forget about me. I already know that Pinkie pretends I'm her friend but would take me down in a moment if she thought I was threatening her other friends. Pinkie has no loyalty to me, she just likes some aspects of my chaos. (And, apparently, sleeping on top of me like I'm a mattress. Maybe she'd regret turning me to stone for that reason, but probably not any others.) And Twilight might claim to be my friend but she still hates chaos, so really when it comes down to it she hates me, so she won't have any regrets. Ditto Rarity. The other two make no secret of the fact that they don't even consider me a friend in the first place.
If I made them think I've turned evil again and I'm out of control and I don't care about friendship anymore... they'd do it. They'd turn me to stone and forget about me.
But I don't want that, either. The thought of hurting Fluttershy even to save her, to make her think I don't value her friendship when I value it so much I'll destroy myself to save her from me... no. I can't bear that, I can't. It would be just as bad as the thing I'm trying to save them from. Well, not just as bad, because if I actually do turn evil I'll crush the six of them first and make it impossible for them to use their power against me, and if I'm just pretending I won't do anything to directly harm any of them and I'll stand there and let them do it... but still. I can't stand the thought that Fluttershy would turn me to stone and think I don't care about her friendship and that I betrayed her... again. The only way I can face the thought of being trapped with myself for another eternity is if they still care about me, if they know I allowed them to do it.
But I can't tell them why I want them to do it, and if I left a note behind confessing all this and telling them why I made it look like I was betraying them and why I tricked them into thinking they had to turn me into stone... they'd feel really bad about having done it. I mean I think they would anyway. I mean, I hope so. I'm pretty sure Fluttershy would regret it. Mostly pretty sure.
Maybe Pinkie too. Maybe.
And besides, they have the power to un-stone me too, so if they found my note they'd just release me and then we're back at square one.
So there's a famous old story, commonly attributed to Aesheep of Minos, about a bunch of mice who are scared of a cat. So they all get together, and one of the smarter mice comes up with the brilliant idea of tying a bell around the cat's neck, so it will jingle when the cat approaches and the mice will know to run away. And that's all well and good and all, and all the mice are enthusiastic about it and think it's a great plan, until one old mouse points out the obvious: who will bell the cat?
In Minos, this was a story about ridiculous, impractical plans, and the moral of the story was supposed to be, no matter how great your plan sounds, it has to be something you can actually do. In Equestria, however, they like to tell a modified version involving a team of heroic mice stepping forward and taking the job because harmony and protecting the herd and whatnot.
But neither of these are how it would go, if the mice were a modern, sapient society. What would happen is, as soon as all of the mice agreed that this was the right thing to do, the safe thing, the harmonious thing to do... they would assign the jobs to whoever in mouse society has the task of doing dangerous things. The Mouse Police. The Mouse Army. The Royal Mouse Guard. Something like that. And those mice would have no choice. The order that sapient societies insist on building themselves around says that if it's your job to do a thing, you have to do it. In pony society, cutie marks and the philosophy of harmony ensure that most ponies with a job signed on for it voluntarily and enjoy doing it, even if sometimes they don't enjoy certain aspects of it.
Royal Guardsponies might occasionally have to arrest a friend. They wouldn't like doing it, but they'd do it, if the friend broke the rules in such a way that pony society says they need to be arrested. They wouldn't have to hate their friend to do it. They'd feel bad about doing it, but not bad the way Celestia felt bad about banishing Luna; Celestia wasn't following a law there, she had no higher power she was obeying, no judgement but her own to rely on. She knew that it was all, entirely, her decision to act, and her responsibility for the consequences. Royal Guardsponies who arrest a friend can take refuge in the fact that it was just their job, and it was the decision of ponies higher up than themselves, and their friend knew the rules and broke them anyway so it's their friend's fault. They can still like their friend, they can still consider them a friend, they won't forget about their friend moldering in the dungeons of Canterlot (or, more realistically, a prison outside the city)... but it won't hurt them like it would have if the friend personally betrayed them and they had to make the decision, themselves, to take their friend down.
It's the job of the Elements of Harmony to bell cats, on behalf of the mousy pony herds of Equestria.
I don't have to make my friends believe the only way to stop me is to turn me into stone. I just have to convince the leaders of ponykind that for the things I've already done, I should be turned into stone. This wouldn't be all that hard, considering that I'm almost universally hated among ponies, if it weren't for Celestia. Celestia's a near-absolute monarch; she takes the opinions of her little ponies into consideration, so she won't look like a tyrant, but in the end she does what she wants. She unilaterally decided to give me the slap on the wrist of "town arrest in Ponyville" as my punishment for my betrayal, and when the fact that this was obviously ludicrously biased in my favor led the ponies of Ponyville to shun me and treat me like week-old garbage, and I got sick of it and fled to the moon, thus breaking my parole... she basically just let me out of it. Told me to do community service instead, and that was it.
Celestia must feel guilty for turning me to stone the first time. I don't know why else she wouldn't have thrown the book at me. (Possibly fearing I would eat it.)
It doesn't matter what every other pony in Equestria thinks if Celestia thinks different. Even Luna, technically her co-diarch, defers to Celestia most of the time. And Celestia doesn't seem to want to punish me. Obviously she too has been drawn in by the idea that Twilight can fix everything with friendship and harmony, and she doesn't want to go back to the days of making harsh decisions herself. She'd rather dump them on Twilight. But politics isn't a realm she can shoot rainbow lasers at, or have Twilight do it, and Celestia will do things she doesn't want to do if she fears the political consequences of not doing them.
So I either have to convince Celestia that she should order the Bearers to do what I know they have to do, or I have to convince Celestia that there will be civil unrest if she doesn't do it regardless of what she might want, and I know which avenue sounds more fun. Hey, I'm plotting my own self-destruction here, I can at least enjoy stirring up a little chaos in a good cause on my way out. Besides, Celestia's stubborn. She won't change her mind about thinking I can be redeemed if I hurt her feelings – she gave me another chance after I stood there and let Tirek throw her in Tartarus. It might take the same level of effort to convince her that she should order Twilight and pals to stone me as it would take to convince them.
I've hurt Celestia enough for one lifetime. She gave it back to me more than she got, in the end, but still. I don't think I could call her a friend, not anymore, but I don't want to make her think I've betrayed her again, either.
So. All I have to do is get enough ponies, with enough power and loud enough voices, riled up against me that they'll demand that Celestia have the Bearers turn me to stone, and she'll have to do it to pacify her citizens. It's perfect. Celestia will do it to stop civil unrest, Twilight will do it because Celestia told her to, and if Fluttershy balks because she promised me, I'll just tell her I release her from my promise and I'm willingly accepting my punishment, and then she'll do it because Celestia told her to, too. Then they won't hate me and they'll feel sorry for me and they'll feel bad for what they did, but not bad enough to undo it, because they'll all believe it was what I deserved under the law even if they don't like doing it to me because I'm their friend. Assuming they even care. I'm pretty sure Fluttershy will care, though.
And then—
It doesn't matter what happens to me, then. They'll be safe. Twilight's an alicorn and if I'm right about how the Rainbow Power works... the six of them will be around, enforcing the will of Harmony, for a very long time. So if I break, and I decide that I hate them all and I want to destroy their world and laugh while they cry, it won't matter because I won't be able to do it.
...and maybe they'll care enough to actually come talk to me, sometimes. About something other than how sorry they are. I got so sick of Celestia's worthless apologies, but I wouldn't mind listening to a friend come talk to me and distract me from how awful it'll be...
No. Stay focused. It doesn't matter how awful it'll be, because I deserve it. I know that. If I lose my nerve, if I decide to go with what my selfishness tells me to do for my own sake and not what I know I have to do for Fluttershy and the others... I know them too well. If I break, if I go back to being the bad guy, I could destroy all six of them so easily. I can't do that. I can't do that to them. I hate myself for even thinking about it.
I have to do this for Fluttershy. Even if it hurts her, it's for her own good. She should never have tried to make friends with me. She should have known I'd betray her eventually. But she doesn't learn. Even now after I've already done it, even now after Applejack more or less flat out told her that I can't be anypony's friend because I'm disharmony incarnate, she still believes in me. If I go bad again, she'll never see it coming. I have to protect her from that.