Elementals of Harmony

by FanOfMostEverything

Up and Down, Over and Through

Twilight wasn't flying per se. She was just standing there, kept aloft only through sheer contempt for gravity. Ditzy found it vaguely insulting. She couldn't quite her hoof on why, though...

The pegasus dismissed the thought. She had more important concerns right now, like the assortment of very unpleasant spells the ethereal being was preparing. The planeswalker had reentered reality with her mana reserves refreshed, so it was the work of a moment to erect a shimmering energy bubble around her and her daughter. Speaking of whom... "Dinky, hold still."

The filly complied and felt a weight settle on her head. "What's this?"

"A special helmet," answered Ditzy, ignoring the hiss and spit of magic trying to pierce her barrier. "It'll keep you safe while you help me take down Twilight."

The young unicorn beamed. "You're gonna let me help fight a monster?"

Her mother grimaced. "I don't like it, but I'd be a foal to refuse. Focus on keeping her from doing anything, okay?"

"I'll do my best."

"It's all I can ask for."

The duo turned their attention back to Twilight. The glowing being was attempting to burrow through the thin field with a continuous beam of energy. She wasn't making any visible progress, but mark her words, she would breach the flimsy barricade. Eventually.

Ditzy gestured towards the ray. "If you would?"

Dinky nodded, then clenched her eyes shut in focus. The reddish-gold lance of energy fell apart like the fuse of a firework, collapsing in a line of blue sparks from its far end to its point of origin at the Bearer's distended horn.

The elder blonde smiled proudly. "Well done, Muffin." With that, the bubble popped and its creator became invisible.

Twilight sneered. "You think I can't still see you?"

"Stands to reason," came the reply, a few inches from the entity's ear.

"Wha—" The altered unicorn turned just in time to get another hoof to the face, this one glowing white. She was slow to shake it off. It wasn't whatever magic Ditzy had put on her hooves. Oh, that stung, sure, but it hadn't done any lasting damage. No, it was simple confusion that stalled her. After all, the pegasus's magic seemed to be coming from ground level, and yet there she was—

"Right behind you." The magic elemental took a sucker buck to the back of the head, the region flaring in cold heat like concentrated peppermint oil.

Turning, Twilight saw only a grey blur in her peripheral vision. "How are you—" Another blow, this one to the spine. "This shouldn't be—" A gut shot that would've knocked the breath out of her had she had any. "At least let me finish—" A swat to the rump as painful as it was awkward.

"ENOUGH!" A spherical blast wave surged out from the living spell, promising a painful demise to all who came in contact with it.

It abruptly vanished to the sounds of a triggered whoopie cushion and a giggling filly.

Before the glowing creature could focus on this new insolence, she found herself at the center of a coordinated assault that shouldn't have been possible for just one mare. Nonetheless, strikes came from every conceivable angle and a few others besides. Twilight's entire body felt consumed in harmless but painful frozen fire.

She managed to a put a stop to the onslaught by effecting a change too subtle to notice until it was too late. With a thought, she rendered her body gelatinous and sticky. An instant later, another blow landed, but it couldn't take off afterwards. The transformed pony grinned down at her assailant, now trapped hoof-deep in her breastbone. The planned gloat died on her lips as she took it in. "What."

It had the right color scheme in general, grey and yellow, and it was the right sort of shape if you didn't look too closely. However, whatever it was, it really couldn't be mistaken for a pony unless moving very fast and/or seen only peripherally. Even as Twilight stared at the curious thing, it crumbled apart, as much from the weight of her scrutiny as her aura of ruinous energy.

As the last few flakes of the phantasm faded away, the shimmering equinoid gave a frustrated snort. "Enough tricks."

"I thought you were all about tricks."

Twilight released a savage pulse of electricity, filling the area around her with deadly voltage in less than an eyeblink. Aside from the smell of ozone, nothing seemed to happen.

"Ventriloquism spell," noted Ditzy's voice.

There was a moment of brilliance amidst the twisted mare's building rage. It would be the work of a moment to grab the output matrix and pull, yanking the pegasus by the audio conduit and into her hooves.

That was the theory. The execution went as planned, save that it sent the wrong Doo flying towards her. Eyes wide, Twilight noticed how the conduit had been threaded through Dinky. She also found herself locked in place until the filly landed on her face and grabbed on with all four legs. Then the younger unicorn started chanelling antimagic into the mutated unicorn's forehead.

As the living spell flailed in pain and panic, Ditzy whispered smugly into her ear. "I'm not as dumb as I look, Twilight. Before, you caught me off-guard and exhausted. I've passed out three times in the past twenty-four hours, twice from mana exhaustion. But now? Now that you've been kind enough to give me a breather outside of time and space, I'm feeling fresh and dewy. And while you've been distracted, I've been tinkering with this paralysis spell of yours. And the best part?"

"She had assistance."

Twilight stopped thrashing, despite what felt like a even-hungrier-than-usual parasprite trying to eat its way to her brain. Pain was easily ignored when faced with the impossibility now before her. With Dinky distracted, she was able to transpose herself and get a better view. Of course, that left the filly unsupported in midair, but another flying pony quickly caught her, though it wasn't her mother.

Nightmare Moon smiled at her fellow aberration, foal in tow. "Hello, Twilight Sparkle. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

---

Moments earlier...

The true test of any immortal being is boredom. Each develops his or her own defenses against it. Quite a few revel in the continual excitement of insanity. Others cultivate civilizations as a mortal would care for a pet or a houseplant. And some, usually when presented with no other option, take up meditation.

After a millennium of lunar exile, Luna had become very good at meditation. She'd also become quite skilled at insanity, but that didn't seem particularly constructive at the moment. Instead, with her body immobilized, she decided to wander the corridors of her own mind, contemplating her possible courses of action.

At the moment, her mental avatar was lying on the idea of a grassy knoll beneath a night sky that was technically more real than the one above Equestria. The alicorn nibbled at the concept of grass, ruminating as she ruminated.

"Out of ideas?"

Luna started, scrambling to her hooves. "Who is there?" This was her place of utmost privacy, her sanctum sanctorum. Who else would dare enter? Who else could?

"Oh, relax. Hard as it may be to believe, I mean no harm. I just thought we should take this opportunity to talk."

The princess thought she recognized the voice, but... No. No, that was impossible. "Show yourself!"

"Well, since you asked so nicely." A patch of air dimmed into visibility, forming itself into a taller, blacker, snootier alicorn. She bore a wry grin. "Hello, Luna."

The redeemed pony backed away from her dark alter ego. "No. This is impossible. You shouldn't exist anymore."

"And yet here I am." Nightmare Moon's smile broadened. "I'd like to think that we're a sufficiently rational being not to question the evidence at hoof."

"You do not speak for me!"

The dragon-eyed mare sighed. "Look, we clearly have some trust issues to work out, but right now, I need you to believe me when I say that I'm as sane as you are.

Luna considered this for a moment. "I fear that that says more about me than you."

"Look, I really don't want to cause eternal night or banish Tia to the sun or rule over ponykind with an iron hoof or any of that other nonsense. I've seen the wonders of the modern world through your eyes. I've seen how the ponies of today love the night. I heard the joyous hymns the stars sang to celebrate our return. Why would I want to throw all of that away for another millennium lost to hubris and imprisonment?"

Luna eyed her counterpart suspiciously. "Then why are you even here?"

"As I said, I felt we should take the opportunity to talk. You can't hear me when your attention is directed outward. At the very least, you deserve to know that I'm still here."

"Fine, you're here. Anything else?"

"Princess?"

Both moonponies turned to face the pegasus, surprise hidden beneath near-identical masks of regal composure. As one, they said, "Ah, Ditzy Doo. What brings you here?" Luna then directed an incredulous glare at an amused Nightmare Moon.

The planeswalker chose to ignore their antics. "Long story. The point is, I'm trying to undo Twilight's binding spell, and you should be the easiest to free."

"Oh?" inquired both princesses. Luna scowled at the synchronicity. "Stop that!"

"We're largely one and the same. Our actions are going to match up on a fairly regular basis."

"But, but you... I... we... Ugh!" The smaller alicorn pressed her face into the imagined turf.

Nightmare Moon brought her attention back to Ditzy. "You were saying?"

"Um, right." The grey mare coughed into a fetlock as she collected her thoughts. "It all hinges on how you've been on both ends of the Elements of Harmony. If we use that contrast of Bearer and Target as a lever, it should pry off your bonds like a stubborn jar lid."

The helmeted princess nodded. "That would likely work, yes. How do we go about employing this lever?"

"We'd need to bring representatives of the two concepts together as one," reasoned Ditzy. "I... guess you two could just hoofshake?"

"Worth a try." Nightmare nudged her other self. "Come on, Lulu."

"No."

"This is no time for foalishness."

"Everything I hated about myself is back and she's disturbingly similar to the rest of me."

The darker night princess frowned, a hint of her old haughtiness creeping into her voice. "The distilled essence of your darkest aspects is willing to step forward and rescue your sovereign nation, and yet you are not. There, that is a difference between us. One you seem to be embracing."

Luna brought her face out of the dreamsod. "But—"

"But what?" barked her other self. "This is Equestria's time of need. This is a chance to be a true hero to your people. Are you really going to spend this crisis wallowing in your own self-loathing, or are you going to pony up and act like a monster-bucking moon goddess?"

The smaller princess brought herself to all fours. "You're right. It's time to put away the past. To kick pity to the curve and move beyond the regrettable. WHO IN OUR NAME DOST THOU THINK WE ARE!?"

Nightmare Moon grinned and stuck out a foreleg. "Hoofbump!"

"Hoofbump!"

Wisely, Ditzy had backed out of Luna's mind before they made contact.

---

The scintillating mare gawked at the alicorn. "No. No. This isn't possible. We purified you. We harmonized you."

The Mare in the Moon grinned at some private joke. "And yet here I am. Terror of the Night. Regent of Lunacy. Her Caliginous Majesty. You cannot dispute the evidence of your eyes, Twilight."

"Can't I? You're just another illusion!"

"Am I?" The goddess pointed with one starmetal-shod hoof.

Twilight followed the extremity to her motionless friends. Luna was nowhere to be seen. "Alright, so you're an illusion and an invisibility spell on the real Luna."

Nightmare Moon sighed, then smirked knowingly. "Isn't it nice to be so confident in the face of a conflicting reality?"

The scintillating pony glared, the energy around her roiling all the more ferociously. "Shut up! You're not real! Stop mocking me!" Her horn shined like a newborn star and unleashed a blast of noonday sunlight.

After it passed, the dark alicorn hovered unscathed, her young passenger's horn still aglow after nullifying the attack. "Are you quite finished? I'm not used to being the sane one. I haven't a clue what the proper protocol is."

That tore it. With an incoherent scream, Twilight charged the princess. Nightmare Moon simply descended, allowing the frenzied unicorn to pass her overhead as she helped Dinky dismount.

The filly looked at the boogeymare with a mix of fear and awe. "A...are you gonna gobble me up?"

The pitch-black princess gave a surprisingly warm smile. "No, little one, no gobbler I. Luna and I are like two sides of the same coin. I'm not a monster." She winked. "I'm just the better looking one."

This got a bit of laughter, though it was quickly interrupted by a gasp. "Look out!"

"Hmm?" The alicorn registered the angry purple missile racing towards her. "Oh." Eyes shining, Nightmare Moon waited patiently. When Twilight was within a few feet of her, the distorted pony was driven into the ground like she'd been swatted.

"You know what one of the best things is about sanity?" the moon princess said casually. "The ability to make plans that aren't terrible."

Twilight struggled, barely able to twitch. "Urgh..."

"You see, when you're crazy, ideas like 'turn into a thorn to enrage a manticore' or 'frighten a bunch of ponies with scary faces on trees' seem like they might actually work. You know, because you're crazy. On the other hoof, when you're sane, then you opt for rational strategies that actually have a chance, like 'pin your indestructible opponent in a high-intensity gravity field.'" Nightmare Moon looked at her captive piteously. "One of the many reasons why insanity doesn't suit you, Twilight."

The living spell said nothing. Instead, she simply vanished.

The alicorn facehoofed. "Ugh. Fix problem first, then monologue. And I say Tia has a flair for the dramatic..."

"You can fix her?" Dinky asked hopefully.

"I can certainly try." The princess looked around nervously. "But first, we need to find her again..."

Any attempts to do so were preempted by a sudden, blinding burst of light.

---

Ditzy was beginning to panic. As she'd anticipated, freeing Luna had been fairly easy. The transformation into Nightmare Moon had come as a surprise, but it was probably symbolic of her acceptance of that part of herself. Or something. She had neither the time nor the inclination to ponder symbolic underpinnings right now.

One of her more pressing concerns were the other five immobilized ponies. With no convenient dichotomies to work off of, her attempts to dispel their bonds had failed to make any progress whatsoever. That meant that the planeswalker had to resort to Plan B: Psychological triage. Seeing one of their best friends twisted into a surreal parody of herself was traumatic enough, but being rendered utterly motionless by her, then left to rot? Yeah, that wasn't going to end well for anypony's sanity.

Applejack and Rarity were easily coaxed into meditative fugue states, both more shocked and bored than crazy. Pinkie Pie had apparently undergone something similar on her own initiative. Probably. At the very least, her mind wasn't in her body, but a residual aura of black magic was. Ditzy had thought it best not to investigate further.

The pegasi were more troublesome. As the grey mare could attest, mobility was an essential part of the pegasine identity. For any winged pony, total involuntary paralysis was even more traumatic than having those wings removed. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had both descended into blind panic by the time Ditzy had snuck towards them. Now it was all she could do to keep them from going permanently insane. Actually, that was more than she could do. Simple numbers were against her: she just couldn't maintain two minds of such instability by herself. Not indefinitely.

The blonde was on the verge of employing something powerful enough to draw Twilight's notice when she became aware of another mind. It wasn't equine, that much she could tell, but beyond that she couldn't make heads or tails of it. Well, not without reducing the lifespan of her friends' sanity severalfold.

I will attend to Fluttershy. The telepathic message held an oddity for a mind-to-mind communiqué: an accent. More specifically, the exaggerated enunciation that comes from suppressing an accent. How Ditzy was getting that impression, she couldn't say.

She could, however, reply. Who are you?

Does it matter? Without my assistance, you will lose both of them shortly.

The planeswalker bit her lip. Fine. But if she goes mad—

I would never be able to forgive myself.

So long as we're on the same page. Ditzy felt the strange presence envelop the remains of Fluttershy's psyche, then shifted all of her attention to Dash. The speedster's mind was beating itself to a pulp against an unresponsive cage of flesh and sorcery. This wasn't going to be easy...

---

Dinky rubbed her eyes, trying to get her vision clear as fast as she could. She couldn't help stop Twilight if she couldn't see anything!

"Are you alright, Dinky?" Until now, the filly never would've thought she'd be glad to hear the voice of Nightmare Moon. Of course, she would've never expected to hear the Mare in the Moon speak with such worry.

"I'm fine, I just can't see!" Stupid Twilight with her stupid sneaky spells...

"I can restore your vision. Remove your helmet and it will only take a moment."

The young unicorn moved to comply, but paused moments later. "Sorry, but I really shouldn't take this off. It's keeping me safe."

"A few seconds won't hurt," insisted the alicorn. "Please, hurry!"

Dinky shook her head. "Nuh uh. Besides, everything's getting clearer."

Was... was that a growl? That was definitely a sigh. "Very well. I think I've spotted her above us. I'll pursue her."

The filly was able to make out a black blob rising towards the heavens. She waved in its general direction. "Good luck!"

Twilight sighed beneath her disguise. Stubborn little foal. She was lucky that her mother just happened to have some trinket that made magic avoid her like the plague. Hmm, a plague. That might get her. No, no, there would entail far too great a risk of collateral damage after she convinced the rest of Ponyville that there was no reason to be worried. Thankfully, that would be easier. If she couldn't talk them into it, she could just make them feel safe. Not like Little Miss No-Magic down there.

The distorted unicorn realized she was woolgathering. And still ascending. "Oops." She went back to a more reasonable cruising altitude as she continued to think. A shout in her third ear reminded her of what she'd been doing after her blinding spell.

It was an interesting question: How do you stop a deity? There was the brute force approach, but destroying the moon would likely do more harm than good. Twilight could've tried binding the Nightmare again, but if she broke free once, she'd probably be able to do so again. And, of course, no matter how the elemental approached the problem, she'd have to sneak it past Dinky Doo. Fortunately, the filly's mother had been kind enough to offer a suggestion. It was just a matter of distracting the foal long enough to shunt the alicorn into nonexistence, place an "I'm still here" dummy for Celestia's connection to her sister, and create an illusion for herself.

Don't worry, Twilight transmitted. I'll have you back in time to raise the moon.

She couldn't help but give a satisfied smile as she listened to the furious, profanity-laden reply.

---

Ditzy slumped and heaved a sigh of relief. Getting Dash into a preservative dormancy had been remarkably like getting a certain stubborn filly to go to bed. Fortunately, that meant that the bubble-flanked mare was uniquely qualified for the job. She sent a mental missive to her mysterious partner. Dash is stable. How's Fluttershy?

Calmed and content. Now that they are taken care of, we must address the next issue.

Twilight?

Precisely. I shall assist the lady of the moon and your daughter. Keep worrying at the others' restraints. I am confident that you will find a weak point.

Wait, you never told me who you were!

There was an impression of a smirk. Isn't it obvious? Who else could so easily calm such a skittish pony?

Ditzy spotted a white dot streaking towards the struggle. She gave a smirk of her own. Good luck, Angel.

Yes. I am.

---

Twilight gave a contented sigh. She'd really needed a chance to calm down and clear her head. Nopony could be expected to think straight with that much rage in her system. Now she was back to her reasonable, rational self, and she could reasonably, rationally remove the impediments to keeping Equestria safe. With fire.

Her measured, even-tempered pyromania was interrupted by an unfamiliar magic signature. The twisted mare looked up, finding herself the target of a steep dive. She examined the diver, raising the former site of an eyebrow. "You're joking. You're joking, right?"

Judging by the unwavering plunge, Angel wasn't.

Twilight sighed. "Honestly, it's like they keep forgetting what they're dealing with." A whisper of power, and the rabbit's vegetable vestments unravelled, leaving naught but bunny.

He shifted position, going headfirst rather than lead with his now nonexistent lance.

The living spell took a moment to process the sheer chutzpah on display. "Okay, I have to respect that." Another bit of magic, and the lagomath vanished, sent on a collision course with Fluttershy's bed. "Not saying it's smart, but definitely respectable." She turned, spotted a more familiar magic, and moved towards it.

---

Ditzy bit back a scream. No matter how she analyzed or approached it, she couldn't find a single flaw in the magic that kept the Bearers motionless. Protection effects on protection effects. Double Bösium indestructibility reach-arounds. Enough hexproofing that any further magic slipped off of the array like water off a duck's back. It was the most durable, comprehensively tamper-proof spell complex she'd ever seen. No surprise, really. This was Twilight she was dealing with...

The pegasus facehoofed as realization struck. If she couldn't attack the magic, she could always attack the magician.

This point was emphasized when everything turned ruddier than normal. Ditzy sprinted way just before an explosion charred where she'd been standing.

"Darn," huffed Twilight, hovering lazily. "And here I was hoping we could wrap this up nice and neat." She glared at the grey mare. "But no, that would require you to cooperate, and we can't have that, now can we?" Golden energy played along her horn. "Oh, and trying to use my friends as cover isn't going to help you. As you just saw, I don't have to use flashy trajectory attacks."

Ditzy took off an eyeblink before a sphere of necrotic energy would've consumed her. "Twiight, please, you don't want to do this."

"Don't tell me what I want!" The altered unicorn took hold of the leylines around the planeswalker. Ubiquitous trickles of magical energy, they were no thicker than a hair, obviously nowhere near as powerful as the main vessels of magic of the world. Still, they could be woven into an invisible, inescapable cage, then filled with enough power to make them explosively overload.

At least, in theory. In practice, they responded to her manipulation with a bit of halfhearted twitching. "What?"

"Dinky isn't the only one who knows countermagic." Between her forehooves, Ditzy held a cerulean orb. Within, glowing lines of light twisted and glimmered. "Furthermore, she hasn't had the chance to experiment with variations on the theme."

"What did you—" Twilight cut herself off. It was obvious. Impossible, but obvious. The pegasus had somehow contained her spell and was going to use it against her. She'd just have to preempt it. Her glowing eyes turned black as the space between stars as she readied an attack on the foalish pony's very mind.

Then she was interrupted by a white-mana-engorged leyline wrapping itself around her head like a blindfold.

As the unicorn screamed, her concentration ruined, she felt more of the turgid energy pathways close around her. The tendrils burned, froze, ached with a hundred different flavors of excruciation. Then they exploded, which made their embrace seem pleasant by comparison.

As smoke wafted from her iridescent form, the mutated mare reflected on the myriad differences between immortality and invulnerability. Once she could see clearly, her adversary was nowhere to be found. A quick search for Ditzy's magic resolved that. Twilight slowly, deliberately walked towards the impertinent pegasus, every step tinting the air with colors not found in any rational universe. Oh, that mare would suffer for this. She would suffer.

---

Dinky frowned. Nightmare Moon had gone up until she was barely visible, then just vanished from sight. Then Twilight had reappeared, but the filly hadn't been able to tell what she was doing, or even if she was doing anything. She just kind of stood in one place for a while, then turned back around and headed for... oh no. "Mommy!"

The filly galloped forward, Dinky Sense guiding her. She soon saw her mother on the wing, but any relief was short-lived, given the horror on the mare's tail.

Something, noted Ditzy, had definitely changed after that last spelljack. Before, Twilight's attacks had been coherent expressions of arcane power. Now she was just hurling chunks of the raw, caustic mana that surrounded her without bothering to shape it into anything else. Risking a glance, the pegasus saw that the furious being had apparently grown several additional appendages, the better to chunkhurl with.

"I am going to erase you from time itself!"

And then there was the voice. It was a chorus of Twilights, each expressing her own unique spin on anger, from cold malice to psychotic fury. It was kind of creepy.

So was the combination of screams, groans, and sighs the warped pony made when her latest blob of protomagic winked out of existence halfway to Ditzy. "I will make your insufferable spawn watch you die a thousand deaths!"

"Uh huh." The pegasus landed next to her daughter, gave her a wink, and answered, "You know, you keep making all these promises, but I've yet to see you do anything constructive."

The elemental's face literally twisted into a mask of fury, her features distorting themselves along with the rest of her body. "I will tear off your wings and drive them through your eyes!"

Dinky whimpered. Her mother brought a comforting wing over her. "It's okay, Muffin. As long as we're together, she can't hurt either of us. She's just a big ol' bag of wind."

Twilight grinned. Though her body continued to roil and stretch, there was a worrisome lucidity in her eyes. She spoke with a single voice. "Oh, I think not. There's one thing, ONE. Thing. That I think you'll find is going to have a very, very major impact on the two of you." The maddened creature began a maniacal laugh, her form strobing through colors at furious speeds as it lost what little cohesion it still had. She began to diffuse like ink in water, her cackle echoing from all directions.

"What is she doing?" cried Dinky.

Ditzy hesitated, scarcely able to believe her senses. "She's... she's trying to become one with the magic of the entire world. She's trying to become Equestria!" As if to underscore the point, an ominous and familiar groan briefly drowned out the spreading elemental's mad mirth. "And she's breaking the world in the process."

"What do we do?"

"If I—" The pegasus stopped, disbelief giving way to horror. "N-no."

"Mommy?"

"She cut me off." The mare slumped onto her rump, staring vacantly. "She's in the mana. She is the mana. I... I can't do anything."

The filly glared. "I can."

The laughter redoubled at this simple declaration. The Sparkle chorus, now rather out of sync, crowed, "anAnd just what do you think you can do?do"

Dinky Doo did not speak her answer. She performed it. She took hold of the vast stores of magical energy she had let lie dormant, fearing catastrophic misuse in her unpracticed hooves. Now she didn't care. It didn't matter if she flubbed up a super-mega-ultra-gigantospell; the world about to end anyway. Overglow after overglow encompassed her horn as every last drop of magic was forced into a single spell, a single thought, a single word:

No.

The light around her horn collapsed to an infinitesimal point at its tip, then burst out in a beam thicker than Celestia's wingspan. The assault plowed through Twilight's amorphous form like wet tissue paper and kept going. Behind her, it collapsed again, then split into countless thin rays of energy, each streaking to a seemingly random point in the sky where it pierced some invisible scrap of invasive magic.

After what felt like an eternity, the spell faded, the afterimage still glimmering in Ditzy's eyes. The primary mass of magic, now with a large hole blasted through its middle, drifted towards the immobile Bearers, collapsing into a lavender blob. The lump reshaped itself into a familiar tiara-adorned pony.

Dinky was broken out of amazement at her own achievement by a high tinkling crunch. She looked down and saw that the flower on her necklace had shattered. "Aww..."

Her mother ruffled her mane. "W-well, easy come, easy go." The pegasus's voice shook a bit with sheer relief. "Come on, let's go check on Twilight."

The filly was quiet for a moment as they moved towards the overwhelmed mare. "I really did that?"

"You did, Muffin."

"Wow." Dinky beamed. "Best day ever!"

Ditzy chuckled. "I don't know about that." She paused by Applejack, nudging her a little. "Up and at 'em."

There was no response. The blonde frowned. With Twilight very decisively dealt with, the bonds on the other Bearers should've ceased to be, and after that the fugue state should've been undone with pretty much any physical stimulus. "Applejack?" Still nothing.

The young unicorn frowned. "Is she okay?"

"Oh..." Both turned. Twilight was shakily getting to her hooves, her eyes still glowing. "She'll be just fine." She stumbled, then managed to stand. "Juuuust fine."

Ditzy stepped forward. "Twilight, please, it's over. Whatever this crisis is, you can fix it without cracking the plane in half."

"You don't know that!" shrieked the purple mare. "You can't know that! None of us can! I have to be sure!" Shaking and twitching, she looked around and grinned. "And I know how." Her eyes grew brighter, the Tiara of Magic following suit.

As the other Elements began to light up, the planeswalker struggled to grasp the madmare's logic. "You're just going to blindly use the Elements and hope they fix everything?"

"No! I have a very specific target in mind, Miss Spellcasting Pegasus!"

Ditzy pointed a hoof at herself. "Me? Seriously?"

Twilight rose into the air, her friends following suit. "Yes! You should not be! You're obviously the harbinger of a greater catastrophe! But if I cleanse the world of you, then you! Can't! Make it! HAPPEN!"

"Pinkie Pie can cast spells too."

"Huh?"

The Elements activated, launching a magnificent rainbow of magic into the sky. Most diffused out in a beautiful display of light as it healed the fresh wounds in the structure of the plane. But a small amount went back down, slamming into one mare with enough love and tolerance to crush a freight train.

As the display faded, Twilight looked at the Doos with a blend of horror and guilt. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." She fell on her face.

After a pause, Dinky piped up. "Did... did Miss Twilight just use the Elements on herself?"

"She didn't mean to," answered Ditzy, "but yes."

"Freeze!" Several armored pegasi landed around the pair. "Royal Guard! Nopony move!"

---

Harmonic Restoration 1WW
Instant
Exile target permanent. That permanent's controller may return a card in his or her graveyard that shares a permanent type with that permanent to the battlefield.
The Elements of Harmony do not kill. They correct that which was not meant to happen.

Comments

[That_one_guy]

...Oh, my.

[DreadedCandiru2]

Wow. Just. Wow.

And now for the wrap-up.

[krahe]

That was awesome! Damn, I don't even have enough words for describe all awesomeness of this fic!
And Gurren Laggan reference? Buck Yeah!

[kajisora]

welllp
my guess was wrong

[Lithl]

You're right. It's time to put away the past. To kick pity to the curve and move beyond the regrettable. WHO IN OUR NAME DOST THOU THINK WE ARE!?

OURS IS THE HORN THAT DOTH REGULARLY PIERCE THE HEAVENS!

Between her forehooves, Ditzy held a cerulean orb. Within, glowing lines of light twisted and glimmered.

Is that...

Twilight cut herself off. It was obvious. Impossible, but obvious. The pegasus had somehow contained her spell and was going to use it against her.

Yes! Spelljack, so much fun. Right up there with Commandeer and Desertion.

She looked down and saw that the flower on her necklace had shattered. "Aww..."

Using up all the mana from a Mox Lotus? On a single spell? Impressive, I must say.

[garfan]

I hate when writers do that kind of stuff to the main characters for their own characters.

[Chyre]

"Freeze!" Several armored pegasi landed around the pair. "Royal Guard! Nopony move!"

That last line.

[Princess OtakuGeek]

The Elements aren't just some mindless magic tool like a hammer that you can bring down on anyone you see fit. They are a purification tool with a mind of its own.

[son_of_heaven176]

6402886 ?

[garfan]

7434095 Derpy's a nice character, but I can take or leave her as some major hero or her being given extra powers. But I can't stand stories where one of the Mane 6 go bad or are corrupted and doing to make your character look good upset me

[Alchemystudent]

Ok, nic se of the elements and the fact that Twilight seemed to actually want to lose

[UrsaMajor]

Did Dinky just pull a Numidium? I'm so proud.

[Teraunce]

"Pinkie Pie can cast spells too."

Twilight.exe has suffered a critical error. Please reset Twilight.exe to fix.