Ruining Harmony 2: Pillars of Harmony

by Artaelian

Chapter Eleven: Demon of the Bloodpact Stronghold

Sunshine Blaze was too old to climb the tower quickly these days. With the rough plan of the stronghold in mind, Applejack climbed the stairs, watching as ponies rushed about the lower floors, gathering anything of importance and those left behind. This made climbing the first ten or so floors are more difficult than needed.

It was around the twentieth floor that she attempted to contact Discord, to no avail. Whatever was at the top now had isolated her. Still, she pushed onward. Who could say what she would face, everypony just called in a monster. Eventually, she reached the top floor, and saw the Bloodpact Pillar.
The Bloodpact Pillar was, well, a pillar of stone in a circle. If a stallion or mare lifted their forelegs up, they could be rested upon two grooves that ran along the top, and a diamond sat between them. It pulsed weakly as if the source of magic running into it was draining.
“So that’s a pillar huh? Supposed Discord made similar ones just with the elements.” Applejack shrugged.

She approached the pillar and placed a hoof on it. The black cloud pushed her into the air and threw her. She skidded along the floor and caught herself from falling off the sides. Grunting as she pulled herself back up, she came face to face with Ulysses.
“I finally have you, Applejack. Now this world will fall under my control once more.” he grinned.
Ulysses was barely whom he once was, though she couldn’t see much, it was clear he wasn’t a pony anymore. One of his forelegs was more dragon like than it had been. The rest was obscured by the black cloud.
“Ya got nuthing.” she snapped back.
“We’ll see.” Ulysses chuckled, disappearing into the cloud.
Above the pillar, the cloud took a new shape, a serpentine body, with a pony head, a goat and deer horn, a griffon talon, a lion paw, a goat leg and a dragon leg. It was a pure dark cloud mockery of Discord.
It screamed at her, and she fell to the floor to cover her ears. As she stood when it ceased, it was already casting a spell from both the griffon talon and lion paw.

Applejack jumped over and aside as the magic spheres impacted the ground where she had been. Keeping her distance and circling it, she spared a glance at the pillar. The pillar was missing its diamond, and she smiled. Somewhere within the cloud, the diamond was being used to power it. After its next attempts to harm her, she jumped and hoped she would jump to the diamond. She missed however, and saw as she flew through the black cloud that the diamond was in the head.
“Shoot, how am Ah supposed ta get that high?” she asked herself, circling it once more. The obvious flaw of the strongholds was apparent now, the cloud had the pillar, the only object around she could jump from to strike the diamond from it. All the while, more and more spells were thrown at her.
When she could Applejack spared a glance at how the spells behaved upon impact. She noticed they caused a small explosion rather than a massive all destructive one, and the idea came to her.
She held her ground as the cloud threw another spell at her. Before it struck the ground she jumped. The explosion gave her an extra push and she sailed towards the head. The cloud wasn’t expecting this, if it had a face, she had no doubt it would look shocked. She hit the diamond clear of the cloud and it disappeared for a moment.

The diamond itself hovered in the air where it had flown, before it was once again surrounded by the cloud as it reformed. The cloud screamed again, and grew extra limbs. One appeared to be the limb of a Diamond Dog, and the other of a rabbit. Still keeping her distance, Applejack watched as the head reformed around the diamond.
This time, the cloud threw magic spears at her as well as the spheres. Each exploded on impact with the ground, but the spears went higher, to prevent her just doing the same. Applejack watched how it threw each, forming a plan as she did so. It soon became clear the spears took a little longer to explode, and they moved faster than the spheres, giving a small gap where she could jump ahead of one detonating, then using a sphere impact to finish the push.
Bracing herself, that’s exactly what she did. She flew through the air as a spear detonated, getting near a sphere just as it did the same. This time however, she grabbed the diamond with a hoof, and forced it back on the pillar.

Something from within the pillar reacted. Where before the diamond had glowed dim, her forcing the diamond back into place caused a brilliant light to glow. The cloud, which had lost form by her taking the diamond back, shrieked as it swirled. The light from the pillar destroyed it bit by bit, before finally, the light simply turned it into nothing.

Across Equestria, the light from the Bloodpact Stronghold glowed brilliantly. The seal which had once again come close to collapse around Ulysses returned with vigor. Within, Ulysses winced and howled in pain, as the bond of blood did its job once more against him. His dragon leg slowly began to flake, and he scowled in the direction of the stronghold.

Discord likewise saw it, and grinned.
“Well done, Applejack. That’s brought us another day or two to fix the rest at least.” he muttered.
“But you know, there is still a lot wrong with your world.” he said to himself. The first Discord glanced at a mirror.
“Yes, I know,” he waved his hand, “but don’t pretend you're better than me just because you befriended a yellow pegasi with butterflies on her flank.” the first Discord scoffed.
“That yellow pegasi showed me what I had missed all my life. And you should have learnt that lesson too, if Ulysses simply did not exist in your world, like he doesn’t in mine.” the second Discord responded.
“True. But I must thank you for all the help you have provided so far. Such a stroke of genius to try and simply erase Ulysses! And if Applejack succeeds in restoring the other pillars, well, that’s the end of that.”
“You wish,” the second Discord sighed and shook his head at his counterparts perspective. The first Discord clearly assumed he understood friendship, but could never get it, “all you will do is erase him from that branch of time he created. There are still eight others, and each could then in turn affect mine. The rainbow power they share is strong, but in his current state, Ulysses is the bull in the time china shop.”
“This rainbow power, no chance of lending even a bit of it?” The first Discord asked, his tone suggesting they had shared this conversation before, but he knew the answer.
“If it was something that was mine to lend out, I would. Alas, it isn’t, but trust me, what we have created together,” the second Discord stopped cryptically.
The first Discord looked up to some point above his throne room.
“What we have created, a power that shouldn’t exist to even oppose time itself. Rest assured, I’ll be destroying it the second this is done.”
With a wave of his talon, the second Discord disappeared, leaving the first to ponder.
Seven souls he had gathered to keep the pillars active. Not all had been out of friendship, just two had. It hadn’t mattered at the time, nor now if they were all still alive. Discord closed his eyes and mused.
“One the traitor who turned back to the light, one the friend betrayed whom stands with his mortal foes, one the kind soul saved by the forest fae, one the spurned friend who seeks forgiveness, one the brother who failed to stop the foe of life, one the mare who never met those who should be friends and the one who followed in the family steps. They protect us all with the God of Chaos from he who broke time for selfish gains.”
It was a simple rhyme that had turned up at some point within the past forty years, though Discord didn’t know where it had first been spoken. He rather liked it, it praised him indirectly and made him realize something.
That he found it more enjoyable to protect ponies rather than torment them.