The Curse of Discord

by Creative Charmer

Chapter 18: Confronting Bedlam

Author's Note:

I've decided, after all this time, to finally and officially finish this story! I don't know how many, if anyone else, is left who wants to see it finished, but I really don't want to leave this incomplete any longer, because, sometimes, it's about closure, and if I can make even one person happy by completing this, it'll be worth it~

The tension was palpable as the five ponies and Spike gradually approached the hovering seat of power for Bedlam, sitting high up above their heads.

“So…what exactly is the plan?” asked a worried Spike.

“Well, we can’t fight ‘er, obviously, so we’ll jus’ havta try talkin’ tuh Twilight again!”

“Umm, not to rain all over your plan, Applejack, but that plan hasn’t exactly been working so well lately,” Rainbow responded, her tone as unsure as her statement.

“I’m afraid I have to agree with Rainbow, dear. I mean, how do you think things can go differently this time?”

Applejack stopped walking, now sporting her own irresolute expression. “Honestly…ah’m not sure how it’ll go,” she turned her gaze upwards towards the still cackling Bedlam atop her throne. “But Twilight wouldn’t give up on us, and there’s no way in Tartarus ah’m ever gonna give up on her! We still gotta try!” she declared resolvedly, with the others voicing their agreements just as earnestly.

Sitting high atop her perch, Bedlam surveyed the surrounding landscape, feeling ever so giddy at it all being quite to her liking. Off to the west, the water from Ponyville’s nearest river was congealing into massive quantities of gelatin, flying up into the air, and dropping onto Ponyville like bombs, splattering gelatin everywhere and wrecking the town. Opposite to that, in the east, the trees of Whitetail Woods were marching into town, whipping at ponies with their roots, tearing apart buildings, carts, and stands, and terrifying all creatures they came across. Similarly, in the south, dangerous animals and plants from the Everfree Forest were stampeding into town, bringing ever greater dangers to the citizens of Ponyville, something Bedlam didn’t even need to create: just needed to push them out of the forest to where they could cause far greater chaos and destruction…

Those were the three directions that Bedlam could currently see from atop her throne, but she didn’t need to look everywhere: because she already knew that calamity could be found anywhere and everywhere outward from where she sat, as well as upwards in the sky, where clouds of varying colors and patterns, from hot pink to wavy rainbows to plaid, raining down all manner of unordinary and hazardous materials, from jagged ice cream cones to flaming snowballs to live piranhas. Chaos was ramping up throughout all of Ponyville and beyond its borders—just the way Bedlam liked it…

Bedlam cackled as she watched over this personal world of her own vile desires, and never ceasing to take humor from it in whatever way she felt.

“Yes! Ha ha! It’s all going so well!” she proclaimed jovially as she sat herself sideways on her throne, her rubbery snake body conforming to the shape of the seat. “But, if it all goes so perfect for too long, maybe I’ll get bored? HA! Not likely!” and Bedlam continued her wicked chortling, her legs kicking around in the air as she did so. “Besides, it’s only a matter of time before those ponies come and try to ‘stop me’,” Bedlam stated mockingly, using finger quotes as she did so. “Well,” she uttered with a more sinister tone, “I can’t wait until that come to try…” she finished, smiling the evilest of smiles one could witness…

Just as Bedlam desired, the five ponies and Spike stood directly below her, at the base of her hovering throne, looking up directly at the maniacal draconicorn. All looked ready and adamant in confronting the villain (Fluttershy, not so much), and now it seemed they were just waiting for whoever it was to call Bedlam out.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Rainbow Dash asked, feeling impatient. “We’re here; we just need her to come down so we can get our friend back!” the resolute Pegasus declared, punching her forehoof into her other.

“Ah know, Rainbow!” Applejack responded as she glared up at Bedlam. “Ah just gotta…make sure we do this right.”

“What do you mean?” asked Rarity.

“Ah mean…remember when we tried talkin’ tuh Twilight before she finished changin’? it stopped workin’! An’ ah don’t think tryin’ to talk Twilight back to her normal self is gonna work this time, either!”

“But what else can we do?” queried a worried Fluttershy. “The only other thing that worked was hurting Twilight,” she turned up towards Bedlam as well. “And I really don’t want to do that to Twilight, even if she is Bedlam now…”

“Ah know yer feelin’, Fluttershy…but if worse comes tah worse…we’ll havta do whatever it takes to help Twilight.”

Though nobody outright agreed with Applejack, none were quick to argue against her. After all, what other choices were available? How much could they do? Only so much, with five ponies and one baby dragon. But, they had to do what they had to do. No more time could or should be used in delaying the inevitable: Bedlam needed to be confronted, and she needed to be confronted now.

Applejack turned back up towards Bedlam, and, not hesitating, shouted as loud as she could, “HEY! YOU UP THERE! GIT DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW! WE’VE GOT SOMETHIN’ TUH SAY TUH YA!” Applejack sounded so steadfast in her bellowing that it felt all the more disheartening to see her expression recede upon the instant appearance of Bedlam directly in front of the Earth pony’s face not even a second later.

“Well, my little ponies? What is it you wanted to discuss?” Bedlam asked quite sinisterly as she stuck her faced close up to Applejack’s, twirling a single dragon finger around the top of her hat’s brim. Absent again was her more jokey, silly side, and that served to make her look and feel more apprehensive than ever before.

For several seconds, Applejack felt unable to speak, paralyzed by the beast which stood before her, unflinching in her own knowledge and abilities that placed her far above these puny ponies. But, slowly but surely, Applejack regained her composure, took a deep breath, and returned Bedlam’s expression with her own glare.

“We came…fer Twilight.”

“Sorry, she’s not here at the moment; may I take a message?”

“Don’t play games with us!” yelled Rainbow Dash in a fury.

“And don’t reuse old jokes! That’s just hackneyed!” Pinkie Pie, sounding almost as angry as the pegasus.

“Oh, I’m quite certain I can do whatever I want,” Bedlam uttered as she slithered around through the air above the ponies and Spike. “After all, why shouldn’t I? Just look at all this glorious chaos!” she proclaimed jovially as she poofed up a pair of glasses for herself, along with a pointing stick and easel with a graph, “As you can see by this graph, there has been a 100 percent increase in disasters, terrified ponies, and tons of fun for me!” she laughed again as she poofed away the objects. “It’s all so fantastic! Now why would little ol’ me want to so much of a buzzkill (she said as she turned into a pony-sized bee with her face) to get rid of all that?”

“Because we know the real Twilight is still inside you! And she’d never want all of this!”

“Yeah, Twilight’s our friend!”

“She’s as good as can be!”

“And super fun to be around!”

“The smartest pony we know!”

“And she’d never hurt anypony!”

“Oh, that’s so sweet,” Bedlam replied as crocodile tears formed around her eyes, her making a tissue box appear so she could use it. “The kind of words to make somepony—not sure whether to laugh their brains out (the top of her head opened to have her brain spring out like a jack-in-the-box before receding) or make them be sicker than sick (her entire body turning green whilst she covered her mouth)! I mean, seriously!” Bedlam shouted, those last words uttered with noticeably more ire than the words before. “After all that’s happened before, you really think that all this useless talking would work now?” Bedlam proceeded to poof up sock puppets of Twilight’s friends around her. “You think it will be like…” Bedlam started, herself now mimicking the voices of the ponies and Spike when she talked through their respective puppet, albeit each voice sounding like her own voice imitating each creature in an insultingly exaggerated manner.

“Twahlight! We’re friends! That meyens sayin’ it over an’ over again will fix ever’thang!”

“Yeah, Twilight! Friendship is totally cool and awesome! So you be awesome and remember how awesome it is to be friends with us!...awesome!”

“Daaarling, you simply must understand that you are quite the dear friend to us all, and faaarr too good a pony to allow yourself to be controlled by that clearly more powerful Bedlam, daaarling.”

“Umm…yes…umm…please be friends…umm…with us…Twilight…umm…please…”

“Parties! Fun! Yippee! Fun! Friendship! Fun! Hooray! Fun! Cake! Fun!

“…and I’m here, too!” which was all that came from the Spike puppet, which greatly irritated the real Spike.

Bedlam dissipated the puppets, placing her hands on her snake body’s midsection. “I think you get my point,” she uttered in an irked tone. “You think all your happy, fancy, friendship-y words can fix what’s happened: BUT…THEY…CAN’T!” she shouted right into the faces of Twilight’s friends, managing to frighten them all back a bit. “You can’t do anything to help her. You can’t do anything to stop me! Because I am me, and you are all you; and no amount of ‘caring about friends’ will ever change that!” Bedlam finished with bolts of lightning flashing across the sky as she did so.

Twilight’s friends stood motionless, their collective faces aghast at the words and the powers of the malevolent draconicorn. After several seconds, Rainbow turned her gaze around at her friends, seeing fear amongst all of them (especially Fluttershy). But when she looked to Applejack, the frozen eyes that stared back at Bedlam felt greater fear than any of them, which served none too well in bringing up the spirits of this pegasus. It was in this moment in particular that even Rainbow Dash couldn’t muster the willpower to stand up to this most wicked of creatures.

Bedlam herself looked around at the faces of the six petrified creatures before her, and the most impious of grins spread across her face. “Well, it would appear you’ve all smartened up at last. You know there’s nothing to be done. I’ve won, and you’ve all lost,” Bedlam said as she rose up into the air and landed back on her throne. “After all, that’s what Twilight had already known for a while, and why she gave up, so now you’d all best do the same, and start getting used to the new world order of Bedlam!!” she bellowed to the heavens, with multicolored lightning bolts coming down around her.

“But I’d enjoy it better without any of you around anyway, so…” Bedlam then snapped her fingers, and three considerably large brooms appeared next to the ponies and Spike, and immediately began sweeping them away from the throne, much to the dismay of the collective friends.

As they were all swept off and out of sight of Bedlam, she turned her gaze forward, her elongated smile as unnerving as ever, and let out a slow, sinister chuckle, as her ideal world continued on all around her, just as full of chaos, destruction, and misery as she saw fit…

Twilight’s friends collapsed in a heap just outside of Ponyville, with the brooms disappearing once their work had completed. One by one, the ponies and Spike clambered out of the pile and started getting back upright, all feeling dazed from that whole unpleasant experience.

“Ohhh…I’m glad I haven’t eaten anything for a while,” Pinkie Pie said as she walked around dizzily.

“Ugh…” Rainbow Dash uttered exasperatingly. “I can’t believe we just let our butts get kicked all the way out here!”

“Well, I can!” Rarity responded in her own galled tone. “That Bedlam is just so…so…I can’t even think of the right word to use, but I know it exists!”

“And we can’t let her get away with this! We’ve got to go back there and try something else! I don’t care how strong she is!”

“But what can we do?” asked Fluttershy. “She’s so strong…and smart…and we can’t use our Elements on her without Twilight,” Fluttershy said touched her own Element, looking quite despondent.

“I know! I know! But we just can’t give up on Twilight! She never gave up on us before! And she never would! No matter what that Bedlam says!” Rainbow turned her head to Applejack. “Right, Applejack?”

Applejack was sitting on the ground, not facing Rainbow Dash or any of her other friends.

“Applejack?” Fluttershy asked worriedly.

“Applejack? What is it?” Rarity added in the same tone.

After a few more seconds of silence, Applejack spoke, “…maybe she’s right…” she uttered in a noticeably dispirited manner.

“Who’s right?”

“Bedlam…maybe she’s right…”

“What??” Everypony else exclaimed.

“Bedlam’s just…so powerful…” Applejack turned her head partly back to her friends. “She’s got Twilight…she’s got ‘er crown…she’s got…everything…” Applejack hung her head down low.

“Applejack! You can’t mean that!”

“But it’s true, Rarity!” Applejack refuted as she turned around entirely. “After all that’s happened! Everything we’ve done! Bedlam still ‘as Twilight! Nothin’ we said could work…nothing we did…Celestia an’ Luna couldn’t stop ‘er…Discord couldn’t stop ‘er…” Applejack’s behind slumped back down on the ground as her head tilted downwards once more, tears beginning to form in her eyes. “This whole time ah thought, if we jus’ believed in Twilight, she could fight back against Bedlam…but…maybe she’s jus’ gotten too strong for even us to git through tuh Twilight…”

“You mean…you’re giving up??”

“But you can’t!”

“Ah’m sorry…” Applejack looked back amongst the eyes of her friends, seeing them all looking almost as lost in despair as she herself was. “This whole time, ah’ve tried tuh take the place of Twilight tryin’ tuh motivate everypony an’ do whatever it takes to save mah friend…but, now that she’s trapped inside her own body by that…monster…ah jus’ don’t see any way outta this…”

During Applejack’s speech, her friends all sat down around her, all looking to be feeling as she was now: complete and utter hopelessness. Maybe Applejack was right? Maybe it was all for naught…it was just so hard for any of them to believe that after everything they’ve all been through together, that anything could tear apart their friendship—and, in a way, it was their own friend who did so…

All together the six friends sat in their collective dejection as the world around them continued in its anarchy, it all appearing that Bedlam had won, and won quite overwhelmingly…a fact that had brought ever more melancholia amid the ponies and Spike, was shown by the tears present on each and every face amongst them.

Pinkie Pie sniffed as tears formed around her eyes. “That…nasty old…Bedlam…”

“Nasty is too kind a word for a beast like her,” Rarity added, her mascara running down her face.

“All those horrible things she said about us,” Fluttershy said as she wiped away some of her own tears.

“And what she said about Twilight,” added Spike, albeit in a more maddened tone.

“Yeah,” Rainbow responded, sounding quite irate herself. “Like Twilight would ever give up on us…or anything!”

“Yeah…” Applejack said, though she herself sounded the most down out of all of them.

Suddenly, her ears perked up.

“Wait; what did you say?”

“Huh?”

“That thing you said about Twilight givin’ up! What exactly did you say?”

“I said that Twilight would never give up on us or anything.”

“Huh…” Applejack went, and the look of a pondering mind was present in her face.

“Applejack? What is it?” asked Rarity.

Though she didn’t reply for several seconds, Applejack’s face soon lit up,” That’s it!”

“What’s it?” Everyone responded simultaneously.

“Twilight! That’s the reason she hasn’t been able to beat Bedlam!”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s not that Twilight hasn’t been believing in us; it’s that she’s hasn’t been believing in herself!”

Nopony looked to be understanding what was meant by Applejack’s words, so she explained further.

“Twilight’s always believed that we all could do anything we can tuh help ‘er, but after everything she’s done that she blamed ‘erself for, she never tried tuh believe she could stop Bedlam on ‘er own!”

“You mean…she lost her confidence in herself?” Fluttershy replied.

“Exactly!” Applejack said back as she stood up on all fours.

“So what are we going to do?”

“We’re gonna head on back there and let Twilight know that no matter ‘ow strong Bedlam is, Twilight can beat ‘er! Now who’s with me?”

“I am!”

“Me three! I mean too!”

“You’d better believe I’m with you!”

“Hear hear!”

“Let’s do this!”

“Let’s show that Bedlam what happens when she messes with our friends!!” Fluttershy bellowed angrily, much to the shock of the others. Upon noticing her outburst, Fluttershy gently lowered herself back onto the ground, cleared her throat, and said, “Yes, I’m with you!”

“Then let’s git goin’, ev’rypony!” Applejack proclaimed, and she dashed back in the direction of bedlam’s throne, with all her friends behind her.

“This time,” Applejack thought, “That Bedlam is goin’ down…”