It was only a few weeks after the events of the Summer Sun Celebration, and earlier in the day everypony had still been joyful over the re-sealing of Nightmare Moon. But Ponyville only got a short respite, and now the town was in chaos again. Ponies were running in every direction in the streets, collecting and distributing all the buckets of water they could find as a dozen mysterious fires raised a plume of smoke above the town. At the same time, just as many people were screaming and running away from the conflagrations, which proved ultimately fruitless when there were fires in every direction.
One place that was calm was the Golden Oak Library. There was no fire in there, and it wasn’t a major source of water either, so the panicked herds in the streets saw no reason to open the doors of the once-great institution. It wasn’t entirely empty, though. There was a timid pegasus mare sitting in the middle of the room, flinching and cowering under the librarian’s desk every time there was a shout from outside or the distant crash of falling masonry. Two of her friends – one unicorn and one earth pony – paced anxiously back and forth, not entirely sure why they were there.
“Why are you hidin’ in the library and not putting those fires out?” Applejack barked as she completed another circuit of the room. Fluttershy just ducked further under the desk, saying nothing.
“The same reason as you, I suspect,” Rarity glared back, “This isn’t a normal fire, so many buildings consumed at once in different parts of the town. It felt like there’s some evil influence growing, and my instinctive response was that the Elements of Harmony might be needed to restore peace.”
“If that’s right,” Applejack turned her head away as she said it, managing to convey that she wasn’t quite sure even if her own instincts had brought her here, “Then there needs to be six of us. We ain’t got six. Rainbow Dash is trying to gather a whole bunch of weather ponies to see if they can call up a waterspout, and that Twilight’s gone back to Canterlot and left –” She was cut off in a burst of magenta light, and suddenly Twilight Sparkle was right in front of them, balanced precariously on the edge of the desk.
“Sorry I’m late,” she gasped, “I only just–” and then the unexpected fatigue of teleporting all the way across the country, combined with the slight misjudgement of her destination, caused her to slip and land heavily on the floor. It took way too long for her and Fluttershy to pick themselves up from a tangle of bruised wings and hooves, and Applejack was already getting impatient.
“Right,” she announced as soon as she thought everypony might be paying attention, “Twilight, you must’ve heard there’s fires all over the place. I don’t know if there’s some magic evil mare behind this but we need to…”
“The Princess called it a dopant,” Twilight interrupted, “It’s created by a magic crystal called a Gaia Memory, that works the same way as the Elements of Harmony. It’s fascinating, but I haven’t got time to –”
“Right,” Applejack produced a long, slim crystal from her saddlebags and held it up, “You stab the pointy end into your flank, right? I keep feeling that’s the way to –”
“HONESTY” an echoing, almost musical voice came from the crystal, cutting off the two mares from their back-and-forth interruption of each other. Fluttershy hunkered down under the desk again, eyes darting between her friends.
“NO!” Twilight shouted at almost the same time, “If you do that, you turn into a dopant too. I think. We need to use two together, so the power of the Memories balances each other out. That’s where the Harmony comes in –”
“Enough!” Rarity strode between the two of them, “This is taking too long, both of you. Stop interrupting, stop second guessing, and you don’t need to tell us every detail right now. Just how do we use these things?”
“With this,” Twilight produced a thick belt and secured it around her abdomen, a buckle with a couple of tubes on resting on her flank. Tubes just the right size to take the long thin crystals that were the Elements of Harmony, as Twilight quickly demonstrated by inserting her own violet crystal. “It’s called the Driver.”
“JOKER” the crystal announced. Around them, the world shimmered like the reflection in a pond, and out of nowhere Fluttershy and Rarity had identical Drivers on their hips.
“Hey, where’s mine?” Applejack protested, before the sense of urgency made her back down.
Rarity brandished her Element of Generosity, the slim magenta crystal glittering in the light as her magic turned it dramatically over and over. She knew that she was wasting valuable seconds by posing, but that was better than letting her friends see her pause as she looked at Twilight’s driver, checking which way around the Elements were supposed to go.
“Should I…” Fluttershy mumbled, still unsure about how this was supposed to help fight fires or save all her friends. But everypony who knew her well was confident she’d be ready when they really needed her. She fumbled with the pink crystal, looking between it and the Driver nervously for a second or two. Then as quickly as they had appeared, both of their Drivers had gone.
Twilight didn’t worry. She could feel the weight of a second crystal fading into view in her Driver at the same time the other two disappeared. So this thing could allow her to use the power of two elements at once, that was exciting in its own right. She reared up and used a hoof, rather than her magic, to twist the switch that connected the Driver’s two tubes. When they were set at right angles to each other like that, it looked kind of like she was wearing a metallic letter ‘W’ on her flank. Confirming that she was acting correctly, the two crystals spoke again. The added harmonies seemed to add to the air of authority in the voice, and the sound seemed to fill the room.
“LAUGHTERᏔJOKER!” sparks of magical energy curled around Twilight, and she could feel the power of the two elements filling her body. A sphere of dazzling light formed around her, bright enough to make everypony avert their eyes.
Applejack was the first to open her eyes, and the sight before her was both amazing and bizarre. The pony in the centre of the room was clearly a Champion of Harmony now, dressed in blue and violet armour that looked both more imposing and more streamlined than that of the royal guards. For once she was lost for words, and there was silence in the library until Rarity found her tongue.
“Pinkie? What are you doing here? Twilight was just–” but it seemed nopony could finish a sentence without being interrupted in this morning’s panic.
“I know, it’s amazing, isn’t it?” Pinkie babbled excitably, “I was just carrying a bucket of water and then suddenly I’ve got this weird crown thing, except it’s on my flank. And as soon as I pushed my Gaia Memory into it, we’re all here together!”
“Huh?” Fluttershy mumbled, confusion overruling her normal reticence, “Why is Twilight speaking in Pinkie’s voice?” Then the armoured pony turned around, and both Fluttershy and Rarity joined Applejack’s dumbfounded silence. The Champion was both familiar and strange, with a thin band of silver and gold braid running right down the centre of her face and body. Her coat, her mane, even the brightly coloured metal panels of the armour, were starkly different on the two sides. It was like something you’d see in a funhouse mirror, and yet she was standing right in front of them. The right half of Pinkie Pie, joined to Twilight Sparkle’s left.
“This is kind of weird,” Twilight was the first to recover from her shock and interrupt Pinkie’s babble, “But I feel so powerful, I can’t even describe it. I wonder if this is the sum of our two strengths, or if earth–”
“Less talk, more fighting evil!” Pinkie cut in, and this time nobody had anything more urgent to say. The strange hybrid warrior ran towards the door, stumbling only slightly as they both tried to run but chose slightly different paths around the furniture in the way.
Twilight initially worried that sharing half of her body with Pinkie would be like running a six-legged race. But it seemed either of them could run as normal, and it was only when they tried to do different things that she ended up in control of only her left legs. Running with this more powerful body turned out to be a more interesting experience, and they could leap effortlessly over the carts at a crowded intersection.
(“This is awesome!” Pinkie Pie couldn’t stop babbling about how much she was enjoying the experience, especially after discovering that the two ponies could hear each other’s thoughts and she didn’t need to waste breath speaking.)
(“Just so long as we get there in time,” Twilight muttered in response, “We’ve got a potentially possessed pony to deal with.”)
She needn’t have worried, though. Seconds later Pinkie vaulted them over a wing of a burning building and they were perfectly placed to see a huge stallion kick through the back wall as if he was knocking over a sandcastle.
The arsonist was the size of a horse, and his coat had a texture like rough-cut stone. Red fire glowed through the cracks in the armour, and he was surrounded by an intense heat haze. He stopped for a moment and growled at them, before striding off towards his next target, fires blazing in the cracked ground wherever his hooves had touched.
“Stop!” Twinkie yelled, both halves acting together.
(“We’re thinking of ourself as Twinkie now? Whose idea was that?”)
(“I don’t know, but I love it!” Pinkie inwardly squealed in excitement, “I’ll stop this guy, leave it to me!”)
It wasn’t easy to tell who was making the decisions in the heat of the moment, but the half-and-half champion of Harmony leapt at the blazing monstrosity and struck hard with their forehooves. They had the strength of two ponies combined, plus the power of the driver itself, multiplied by the enhanced strength of an earth pony; rocky skin cracked at the first touch, and chunks of red-hot gravel scattered across the alley.
The monster roared in pain, but its discomfort rapidly turned to rage as it turned around to face them. Where its flank was injured, liquid magma flowed up to the surface and hardened, and in a second it looked as strong as ever. It was possible there could be words in the sounds it was making, but it was more like the screeching of some wild beast. Then it flexed its muscles, and flames rippled around the whole surface of the creature. Twinkie swung at it again, knocking off more igneous gravel, but yelped and jerked her burned hoof away.
(“Yow! Be careful, that’s my hoof!”)
(“Have you got any better ideas? Does this thing come with any special magical attack stuff, like making us fireproof?”)
(“How about magic?”)
Twilight focused her will through her horn, wondering if she could still use it while she was only half a unicorn. It was amazingly little effort to lift a fallen block from the blazing building’s wall and hurl it towards the dopant. Pinkie blathered needlessly in their head about how weird it felt, how she’d never used magic before. But the sensation was strange to both of them; whether the earth pony’s enhanced strength was applied to telekinetic lifting as well, or whether it was just the driver making the two of them stronger in every way, a hunk of stone larger than herself felt as light as a feather. While the dopant was still reeling from the impact, another block wreathed in a banded blue and magenta aura slammed into the back of its head.
For a while it looked like they were winning, and the thing’s fiery aura died down a little with every strike. Then it managed to dodge just once, gaining enough thinking time to change its tactics. The giant horse gave a growl of concentration, and fire spread out from its hooves, the ground becoming white hot. Twinkie’s next shot shattered harmlessly against a sudden miniature volcano, and the monster was thrown into the air, where its weight didn’t seem to stop it gliding on a cloud of smoke and steam.
(“That’s not fair!” Pinkie protested)
(“Nopony said it would be fair. You concentrate on running, I’ll throw rocks at him and try to knock him down.”)
It was easier said than done. The flying dopant could easily cross over buildings that were both intact, and too tall for even a super-strong double pony to leap over. And now there was an incandescent monster in the sky, anypony who wasn’t already helping to fight fires was in the way pointing and gawping. Some were even trying to take pictures as Twinkie surged past. They attracted their own crowd of curious onlookers, those who had time to notice the chimeric pony.
(“Can you maybe grab his legs and pull him down?” Pinkie suggested. She didn’t have the experience with magic to attempt it on her own just yet)
(“He’s dodging too much. Maybe if we were two unicorns able to coordinate our magic, but…”)
(“We can practise that later. Right now, we need to get that dopant out of the sky!”)
“Hey!” a familiar voice called from their right, “You’re fighting that monster on your own? Wait… you’ve got a horn, Pinkie?”
“Power of the Elements,” Twinkie explained, turning to glance at Rainbow Dash without slowing down. The rainbow-maned pegasus stared in shock as she saw Twilight’s half of their face, and soared into a stationary cart with a loud crash. It only took her a moment to catch up, though.
“Can I do that too? With my Element? I could catch up to that thing no problem, but I already found out I can’t kick it. Thought maybe a few weather ponies could call up a deluge to damp the flames if he stays in one place long enough. But if I had magic too…”
“Good thought,” Twinkie decided together, “We’ll have to stop a second to give you the driver, but…” but as Twilight’s hoof went back towards the driver, thinking she would have to switch off the driver in order to pass it over, the Element of Joker leapt out right where she could catch it. They saw a ghostly driver shimmer into being on Dash’s flank, and realised they probably didn’t even need to stop. “Fine. Stick your Element in the tube.”
“LOYALTY!”
Rainbow Dash complied in a characteristically showy manner. She pulled out her Element and tossed it into the air in front of her, darting forward suddenly to swipe her hip out and catch it in the driver. At that point nopony knew quite what would happen, but the change went as smoothly as they could have imagined.
“LAUGHTERᏔLOYALTY!”
For an instant Twilight Sparkle was running in thin air, then dropped into a fortuitously placed hay cart. Below the left half of the armoured champion crackled with arcane fire for a second, as she changed from lavender coat and purple metal armour to pale blue with iridescent crystalline plates.
“It teleports me to where Rainbow Dash is?” Twilight muttered as she watched them vanish into the distance, “Need to remember that. Make sure not to do this when she’s higher off the ground.” Then the exhaustion of the last few minutes fighting finally hit her, and she fell asleep in her pile of hay.
(“Hey! What just happened?” Rainbow Dash sounded panicked in her thoughts, but knew she’d be able to present her normal confidence and bluster before she said anything out loud)
(“Don’t worry Dashie!” She couldn’t make out where Pinkie’s voice was coming from, but that wasn’t the biggest issue right now, “The two of us are a single Champion of Harmony!”)
(“What does that even mean?” Dash glanced down at her running hooves, and saw one her usual colour and one with a familiar pink coat, “We’re stuck together?” It was a real effort not to panic, but as soon as she glanced up again she saw that they were still chasing the monster that had set half the town ablaze. “Okay, let’s beat that jerk to a pulp, then you got to tell me what the hay is going on.”)
Rainbow Pie leapt into the air, not giving a second thought to a name that seemed to come so naturally, and then found that her wings seemed as nimble as ever. There was a sense of being more powerful, if that was even possible. Pinkie’s part of their shared mind was already used to the increased strength, but it was all new to Rainbow and she could feel her friend’s amazement and exhilaration.
(“The Elements of Harmony are actually these things called Gaia Memories,” she tried to get in at least the basics of the explanation as quickly as possible, “But there’s evil Gaia Memories as well, and one of them turned that pony into a monster. Working together we’ve got earth pony strength and pegasus flight powers, as well as both our special talents, so we should be able to knock him out, and then we take the Memory somewhere safe so Twilight can study it.”)
(“Well I can catch up with it no trouble,” Rainbow Dash couldn’t help boasting a little, though she was fully aware both of them could feel how hard she was pushing herself to get closer to the flaming pony’s unpredictable combination of kicks and rocket jumps, “You can throw it a party, maybe? Hey, we could pretend that thing’s a piñata! Or have you got a talent you never told us about, making weapons or something?”)
There was a moment’s silence in the Champion’s shared mind. Rainbow Dash knew she’d gone too far, making what she’d intended as a joke come out more like an insult of her friend’s talent. Pinkie wasn’t offended though, she could feel the intent behind Rainbow’s words. As long as they were connected like this, it might be impossible to say the wrong thing.
(“I can think of something we can use as a –”)
(“You’re joking! We can’t seriously…”)
(“If we’re so much stronger, then maybe –”)
(“Not until we have no other options. Let’s try the piñata thing.”)
Treating the rampaging monster like a punching bag seemed surprisingly effective. They had Rainbow Dash’s wings and flying speed, so as soon as the thing paused a moment without dodging they were on it. Then a two-hoofed kick sent chunks of hot stone raining down on the buildings below. They kept on beating it, with strength greater than any pony who ever lived breaking away one layer of rock after another. Pinkie knew already that they just needed to keep kicking, and not give it time to try any dirty tricks, or to regenerate its molten hide.
Dirty tricks like lashing them with its tail, which almost seemed to be made of liquid fire. They were slammed back against the wall of a house, which cracked with the force of the blow. The armour must be more substantial than it looked, because though their body felt bruised they didn’t suffer any serious injury. Unfortunately, Rainbow Pie was still stunned long enough for the dopant to give a roar of rage at the sky, and dive into a café to start yet another fire.
“Why’s he so angry?” Rainbow Dash found with some relief that she could still speak, and that sharing half of her mouth with Pinkie didn’t affect her voice at all. Speaking in your own head was fine, but some sentiments needed to be voiced aloud, “That guy seriously needs to chill out.”
(“I think the Gaia Memory amplifies negative emotions and feeds off them, or something. So it’s made his hate so powerful that he can’t feel anything else,” Pinkie explained, though she only had a vague sense of the knowledge she’d somehow gained from Twilight. But saying it made it more obvious to her just what a terrible thing that must be. “Wow, that’s really bad. We need to show him what it’s like to have fun again.”)
(“No, Pinkie, that’s crazy –”)
(“We’re doing this!” the tone of the thought left no room for argument)
Rainbow Dash tried to hold back, to argue that they should do something else, but to be honest she didn’t have any better ideas. And with their minds so close together, Pinkie’s enthusiasm was even more infectious than usual. She used her skill with her wings to rush straight at the dopant and then swoop round it, a couple of dizzying plunges. It lashed out at them again, trying to singe their wings, but couldn’t react fast enough to get a clear shot. Then it saw the bipartite pony taking a momentary breather in the doorway of a house, where they couldn’t dodge so easily.
Sunlit Plain felt a momentary pang of satisfaction in knowing that the annoying hero couldn’t get away this time. It was a satisfaction he’d been missing, in all the homes of his enemies that he trashed. But then the Memory inside him crushed even the tiniest flicker of happiness, allowing him to feel only anger. But as he came closer, they turned to face him holding something huge that he didn’t recognise. From their pose, he could only assume it was a weapon of some kind.
To any observer, it might have seemed like Rainbow Pie was suddenly in two places at once, if only for a fraction of a second. Those who’d seen Pinkie’s party cannon before recoiled as they recognised it, but it was ornamented with more of the same glittering blue metal that made up her armour, and looked a lot less friendly. And as she levelled it at the monster, Rainbow Dash seemed to be inside the weapon, with her armour configured to make her fit more snugly. And then the illusion was broken. The air around the monster was filled with streamers, glitter, balloons, and cake, while a rainbow as bright as a thunderbolt went straight through the centre.
Sunlit Plain didn’t know what to expect. He certainly wasn’t ready for being in the middle of what seemed to be a whole party flying through the air. But as he narrowly managed to avoid a pie in the face, he remembered the last time he’d seen that cannon. He hadn’t thought much about it at the time, it had been a little thing in the corner of the room, not a glittering red and blue monstrosity that looked like it could decorate a city. He hadn’t even asked what it was for at the time, because the whole office had been decorated moments before he arrived. He’d come into work hungover again, half an hour late, and suddenly everyone was leaping out and yelling ‘surprise’. That had been an incredible day for him, and even more amazing that the whole group had managed to meet their deadlines,but every single pony had found time to come over and give him a thoughtful present. Not major things, but he still had the paperclip holder from Paper Wait, and probably many of the others too. Tiny trophies in recognition of the little things he’d done to make life easier for others through the year.
That’s when he realised that he’d been letting anger cloud his judgement too much. He’d made mistakes, and he’d had three chances to keep his job. People noticed the things he did, both good and bad, but all he could think about in his anger was the times someone hadn’t said “thank you” right away, or the days his friends were rushed with their own work. Straight away, he could feel the Magma Memory burning in his flank, the flame-decorated letter ‘M’ that had replaced his cutie mark stinging as if a giant hornet had bitten him. The rage in his mind grew again, showing him a parade of all the worst moments, images of other ponies treating him the way he sometimes thought he deserved. A party on one day couldn’t make up for a whole career of people taking advantage of his good nature, borrowing his paperclips rather than going down to stores just because he hadn’t got into the office yet. He could feel the fever washing over him again, poisoning every positive emotion until all that was left would be revenge. And they would deserve it too…
The whole stream of thoughts, happy memories and then the Gaia Memory taking over again, took less than half a second as he spun amid the turbulence from the decorations. A rainbow shot right through him, colouring the air around him in a prism of every imaginable colour, and then as he looked upwards along it, there was a pony speeding towards him with both hooves outstretched, faster than he could possibly see. A rainbow-maned pegasus, decked out in red crystal armour with rainbows wreathing the iridescent edges of each plate. And the largest piece right in the centre of her forehead, lowered like a charging buffalo. Magma could have shrugged it off, reconstructed his skin from liquid rock after any amount of damage. But in that instant he was fighting against the unnatural influence, not channeling his bile.
Rainbow Pie slumped to the ground, exhausted by whatever that attack had been. party decorations rained down all around them, as did fragments of rock that were fading now from white hot to merely red hot. Sunlit Plain hit the ground hard, a grunt of pain escaping his mouth and a long, dark red crystal being thrown free of his rump as if dislodged by the impact. There was a distinct ‘plink’ sound, even above the rest of the debris landing, as the Gaia Memory shattered in the air.
The street was filled with decorations now, and many of them had even managed to hang on nearby buildings. The whole scene was still illuminated by the afterimages of the brilliant rainbow, and a circular band of colour like a ripple in the sky was quickly expanding from the point where it had struck the dopant.
When it became clear that the fires had been quashed, a lot of the heat simply evaporating as soon as the magic behind them was broken, it seemed like a perfect excuse for a party. Pinkie Pie didn’t even need to suggest it. It was just as well, as she was on the far side of Ponyville right now, where she’d been running when Twilight first put on the driver, and had somehow got her hoof wedged in a water bucket. She eventually decided that finding a second bucket might be easier than taking the first off, and would make a pleasant tapping sound as she danced, so she was willing to be a little late for the celebrations. It sounded like the party was in full swing, anyway.
When Twilight Sparkle woke up in a pile of hay, she found that everypony wanted to offer her a drink. That wasn’t surprising, as everyone knew she was somehow related to the mysterious pink and blue pegasus who’d saved the day. It did, however, make it more than a little difficult to explain to her friends what exactly the dopant had been, and how they needed to be on the lookout for more appearing. Eventually, she settled for handing out five notes reminding them to meet her at the library early the following morning. She’d have to sleep there anyway, she didn’t have the energy to teleport all the way back to Canterlot tonight, so she might as well take advantage of the facilities.
Amidst the joyous celebrations, though, nobody noticed that Sunlit Plain had disappeared soon after making his initial apology to everypony. In the morning, there was a half mug of stale cider on the bench where he’d been sitting, and what almost looked like bite marks in the timber. The bite of something with very, very large teeth…