DECEPTION

by Christian Harisay

Chapter Eleven - Nopony Think About Draconequui

Spike sat by himself on the front porch of the library, slouching with his arms crossed on his knees. He’d been staring at the ground until he’d memorized the texture of the walkway, and kept staring until it all became a blur.

Much like what he felt his life had become.

He had woken up that morning expecting to be immobilized by sorrow, only to find that his misery hadn’t made him feel like curling up into a ball and weeping like it used to. It was just ‘there.’ He’d gotten used to it by now. The revelation hurt, but it was just the dull ache of a wound that had been ground numb, and the feeling persisted as he trudged through his daily routine: make breakfast, plod through his chores, conceal his resentment towards Pinkie as she moped around without any attempt to contain her sullen disposition, then smolder with envy as Twilight coddled and cooed her after her latest bout of self-loathing with the same old ‘you’re not a bad pony, you’re my friend, and I care about you because you’re worth something’ spiel he’d heard her give dozens of times by now, and finally go find someplace secluded to sulk when the rest of Twilight’s circle of friends arrived to regurgitate the same platitudes all over again.

So while Twilight, Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Applejack gave each other makeovers whilst trying to convince Rainbow to also slather her face in mud, he sat alone on the front porch in the late afternoon, brooding over the coming night and its own routine. Avarice would drag him through the sewers and into some poor, unsuspecting pony’s house, whom Avarice might or might not incapacitate with excessive force, depending on his mood. They’d argue, Avarice would shut him down and insult him some more, then dump him in the shower to do it all over again the next night.

Mug, feud, cry, repeat, Spike dourly thought.

It was all a blur now. Jealousy by day, guilt by night, and he was having a hard time making distinctions between them anymore. He couldn’t even remember how he had gotten in bed the previous evening. He knew he had bitterly wept in the shower until he was too exhausted to cry, and then the next thing he was fully aware of was waking up in bed with his all-too familiar burdens. He felt like there was something in his memory about Twilight, but he couldn’t recall anything specific, or even if anything had gone on between him and his lifelong friend.

A scowl began to form on Spike’s face as his thoughts turned even darker. If anything did happen, it was probably just Twilight giving me the same shallow, overly-polite concerns again.

His ear frills twitched at the sound of hastily approaching hooves coming up the walkway. Spike looked up to see Rarity. Her saddlebags were slightly lopsided and her mane still had the frazzle of a comb hastily drawn through her hair before she trotted out the front door.

“Good afternoon, Spike,” Rarity greeted him as she slowed to a stop in front of Spike, panting slightly. “I hope I’m not too late, am I?”

“Hi, Rarity,” Spike replied, depleted of the usual gusto that came from being in Rarity’s presence. “Kind of. The others have been here for almost an hour now.”

“Oh, well… fashionably late, then?” Rarity answered as she tried to put on a coy, partial smile. “I apologize for my tardiness—work, special projects, magnum opus, lack of sleep—you know, the usual.”

“Yeah, I know,” Spike muttered.

Rarity straightened her posture, standing slightly taller. “But on the bright side, I have splendid news: I finally finished!” She smiled triumphantly. “So save for my scheduled appointment with Fancy Pants tomorrow in Canterlot, I’ve no other work-related matters that need my immediate attention.”

For some reason, an twinge of inexplicable loathing came over Spike when Rarity brought up her appointment, but it passed as quickly as it came.

“That’s great, Rarity,” he said, his enthusiasm all but absent.

“It is, isn’t it?” Rarity replied. “I cannot recall having ever worked so hard on such a strenuous endeavor, but it was more than worth it for the end result. I don’t want to spoil the details, but the final products are just absolutely gorgeous!”

“Yeah,” Spike absentmindedly replied. “I know... they’re beautiful.”

“You know?” Rarity echoed. “I’ve been keeping those designs more closely guarded than I have my diary… You haven’t been sneaking into my shop to steal a peek at them, have you?” Rarity asked with an expression of equal parts sly wit and scrutinization.

“What?! No! I mean… I…” Spike sputtered, blinking rapidly. “I mean I know they’re sure to be beautiful! ‘Cause, you know, you worked so hard on them… and you always make such beautiful things when you put your heart into it.”

Spike’s panic abated somewhat as he tried to force the memory of Avarice admiring the fine textures of the most beautiful dress he’d ever seen out of his head.

“I’m sure they’re breath-taking, Rarity. And I hope I’ll get to see you wearing them. Whatever you’ve made, I’m sure it’d look even more amazing on you.”

“Aw… thank you, Spike,” Rarity said, clearly pleased. “You always have the nicest compliments.” She leaned in closer with a coquettish little smirk. “Play your cards right, and you might just get your wish.”

A smile began to tug at the corner of Spike’s mouth.

“Now then, shall we go inside?” Rarity asked. “I think it prudent not to delay tonight’s mission with Pinkie any longer.”

And then Spike’s smile vanished.

“Oh, yeah… that.” Spike mumbled as he got to his feet, looking back at the door as he scratched the bandage around his head nervously. “You’re really doing that tonight, aren’t you?”

“I certainly hope so. Poor Pinkie has suffered from her nightmares for long enough now, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, but...” Spike momentarily looked back at the front door. “It’s something else.”

Rarity tilted her head. “What?”

Spike closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Rarity… may I tell you something?”

Rarity responded with a friendly little smile. “Of course. What’s on your mind?”

At the gentle behest of Rarity’s query, everything that Spike wanted to say flooded into his mind.

You cruel, fickle mistress, do you have any idea what you’re doing to my heart?!

Hey, if you get the chance, think you could tell Twilight something for me?

I’m sorry, Rarity… I’m so, so sorry…

I want you…

See, there’s this dragon named Avarice…

I’m sorry, Rarity! Please forgive me!

He’s my evil half, used to just be stuck in my head, but he got out somehow…

Oh, so now that you have the time, you feel like talking to me?

I need you...

He’s behind all the thefts, forced me to be his accomplice, and he’ll kill you all if I talk.

Some friend you are.

PLEASE say that you need me, too…

“Spike?”

The little dragon shook his head and blurted the first alternative that came to mind.

“Be careful.”

Rarity craned her neck back in confusion. “Of… what?”

Spike gulped. “The dreams you’re going into. I’ve never been in them myself, but I understand they can be pretty dangerous. So… just be careful.”

Rarity peered back at him quizzically. “Okay… is that it? You know, we’ve been training for this night for over the past week. I think we’ll be okay.”

Spike shook his head. “No, Rarity, it’s… alright, you really want to know?” He looked Rarity squarely in the eye. “I don’t like that spell, and I don’t think you should let Twilight use it on you, but I know I can’t convince you to opt out because you want to help Pinkie, but… This whole thing started after Twilight went into a shared dream with Pinkie. That’s not just it, though. Twilight hasn’t been the same ever since she started using that spell, either, especially with me. Things were really tense between us for a while, but then after this happened,” Spike pointed to his bandages for emphasis, “she’s been way nicer… almost too nice, but she’s still really distant, like she’s afraid of me. And she’s gotten really obsessed with her research of that spell, she’s passing out from exhaustion every night, she’s burning through pain-killers, and... sometimes I can even hear her talking to herself.”

Rarity cocked an eyebrow at him. “What? You never engage in the art of soliloquy?”

“In what?”

“Talking to yourself.”

“Yeah, but that’s for stuff like ‘Hey, I wonder if I need to go grocery shopping.’ I’m just talking to myself. But with Twilight… I don’t know! It’s like she’s talking to somepony else when there’s nopony else with her!

“Something bad happened to Pinkie, something bad has been going on with Twilight, and I’m worried to death that something bad might happen to you, too. And I’ll be the one tonight who has to wake you all up, so if something goes wrong, I won’t know until it’s too late.”

Spike sniffed, his words becoming strained. “If something bad ever happened to you, and I was there but powerless to stop it, I… I...”

Spike slumped his shoulders, letting his head fall as he closed his eyes, overcome with anxiety.

“I don’t think I’d ever be able to forgive myself.”

Rarity just stared in silence at Spike for a few moments. She put a hoof to her chest.

“Oh, Spike,” she gently replied as she put a hoof on his shoulder, “you truly are a very noble little dragon. You know that, right?”

Spike chanced a glance back up at Rarity, who looked right back at him.

“I am afraid you’re correct about one thing. Come Tartarus or turmoil, I’m going into the dream with the girls to free Pinkie of whatever it is that’s been tormenting her...”

Spike looked away in dejection.

“But if it means anything to you, I promise I’ll be extra careful tonight, just for you.”

Spike took in a deep breath and his muscles relaxed slightly, but he still didn’t look back up at her. Rarity put a hoof under his chin, and gently lifted his head back up as she craned her neck down to meet him at eye level. Spike looked away, but Rarity continued regardless.

“And I know this may seem a bit passé, but I sincerely apologize for my dreadful behavior towards you as of late. I may have been under a terrible amount of stress, but that’s no excuse to mistreat a friend the way I have.”

Spike still wasn’t looking at her.

“I have a proposal for you, Spike. As I said earlier, I’ll have plenty of free time after this business deal is finalized, so how would you like it if I spent some of that time with you?”

Spike’s full attention returned to Rarity in an instant.

“I’ll certainly have the bits to spare, so a deluxe day at the spa for us is certainly in order. Celestia knows I have a lot of built-up tension I need to release. Then perhaps we could share a meal together, or visit this special place you know of in the meadow, where it will be just the two of us.” Rarity moved in a little closer, her voice becoming soft and sincere. “Do you think you’d like that?”

Spike responded with the first smile he’d worn in over a week. “I’d love it.”

Rarity returned with a warm smile of her own. “I thought you might.”

Then she reached out and ruffled his crest, giggling at the fiery blush that burned his face. Rarity began to trot past him, only to look back at him as she came to his side.

“Well then, shall we go join the others?” Rarity asked, motioning her head towards the door.

“Wha… oh, you go on ahead. I’ll be in after a minute,” Spike responded with a dreamy expression.

Rarity nodded. “Very well. I’ll see you inside,” she said, then turned, trotted up to the door, and gave it a hearty knock.

“Come in!” came an earnest and instantaneous reply, and Rarity entered the library.

- - - - - -

“There you are!” Twilight stated with an exasperated albeit relieved tone. “I was beginning to worry something might have happened to you.”

“A thousand apologies for my late arrival,” Rarity said as she hung her saddlebags on the nearby coat rack, then turned to face her friends. “Though I hope I haven’t—”

Rarity gasped at the sight of them. The five were seated amongst a pile of throw pillows and cushions, and all of her friends save for Rainbow Dash had a thick coat of mud applied to their faces. Fluttershy and a somber Pinkie already had cucumber sliced placed over their eyes.

“You… started the make-overs without me?!”

“Well, if ya’ hadn’t taken so darn long to get here, that wouldn’t have been a problem!” Applejack retorted.

“But we’re glad you’re here now,” Twilight interjected. “Now do you think you could help convince Rainbow to join us?”

“It’s really not so bad, Rainbow,” Fluttershy said.

“Yeah it is!” Rainbow protested. “Why are we even bothering with this?”

“Pinkie wanted this slumber party, Rainbow,” Twilight stated. “Besides, think of it as a chance to meditate before tonight’s battles.”

“But that’s just it! Why can’t we just jump into a dream right now and save all the frilly slumber party stuff for after we kick Discord’s butt out of Pinkie’s mind?” Rainbow shot back.

“Because this fight is going to be a mental one, Rainbow. Remember?” Twilight reminded her. “You’re going to need to focus, and to do that, you need to relax first.”

“So quit being a big baby and slap some darn mud on your face!” Applejack interjected.

Rainbow scowled, getting right up into Applejack’s face where the two glowered at each other, but Rarity stepped forward before the situation could deteriorate further.

“Girls, please. This is no way to behave before undertaking a concerted effort. Besides, there are more graceful ways to achieve compliance from somepony.”

Rainbow scoffed. “Really? You, the queen of makeup, hair-curlers and frilly-filly stuff, think you can get me of all ponies to cake my face in make-up mud?”

Rarity simply put on a clever smile, took the bowl of green mud up in her magic, and began applying it to her face. “I could if I challenged you to a dare as to who could apply the most of this to their visage.”

Rainbow fell silent, her expression stiff. Rarity just hummed sweetly to herself as she finished applying a single layer of her mask.

“Come now, darling… surely you don’t wish to concede a challenge to Queen Frilly-Filly, reigning sovereign over the proud nation of Fabulous, do you?”

Rainbow flew up to Rarity, yanked the basin of silt out of her telekinetic grasp, and dunked her head straight into it, twisting her neck back and forth like she was bobbing for apples. When Rainbow did lift her head back up, her smug grin of triumph was clear even from underneath the thick globs of mud dripping down her face.

“Your turn, your highness,” Rainbow challenged.

Rarity just put on a little smirk. “Oh dear, it looks as though you’ve won.”

Rainbow’s eyes went wide, then she put her scowl back on as she landed on the ground several paces away and crossed her forelegs. Rarity’s devilish smile grew even more devious.

“Now then, would you care to accept my challenge as to who can style their mane with more glamour?”

“Don’t press your luck, sister,” Rainbow grumbled, scrunching up her face

Rarity just chuckled as she joined the rest of her friends. “Now then, may I get a pair of cucumber slices? And Applejack, could you please not eat them all?”

“Hey, can ya’ blame me?” Applejack asked through stuffed cheeks. “They’re good!”

Applejack nudged Rainbow with the bowl of fruit slices. The pegasus reluctantly took one, tossed it in her mouth, and began chewing, her hard expression becoming more content.

“Don’t worry, Rarity, we have more than enough. I had Spike buy plenty since I knew all of us would be over for the night.” Twilight said, then put a hoof to her lower jaw and scratched it pensively. “Speaking of Spike, did you run into him? He went outside a while ago, but he hasn’t come back in.”

“Hm? Oh, yes, he’s still outside. We talked a little, and he said he’d be in momentarily.” Rarity answered as she sat down next to the morose Pinkie.

“Oh? What did you talk about?” Twilight asked.

“Oh, we just caught up, is all,” Rarity said, waving a hoof before turning her attention to Pinkie. “And how are you holding up, dear?”

Pinkie said nothing, just drew in a long breath of air and released it as a heavy, burdened exhalation.

Rarity wrapped a comforting foreleg around Pinkie’s shoulders. “You need not despair any longer, darling. Soon, we shall defeat that which ails you, and your nightmares shall be vanquished. Isn’t that something worth smiling about?”

The muscles in Pinkie’s face tightened. “I’m sorry, it’s just… I need time to think. Gotta focus, like Twilight said.”

Rarity frowned a little. “Just don’t get lost in your thoughts, alright?” She patted Pinkie compassionately, then lay down on her back into an arrangement of soft pillows “Speaking of meditating before tonight’s dream, I need to relax a little myself.”

“Actually, that reminds me," Twilight said. "Where were you?”

“Oh, yes, my apologies. I was preoccupied with finishing my latest designs, and the time escaped me until I was through. But they’re completed now, and save for my meeting with Fancy Pants and Fleur in Canterlot on the morrow, I need not worry about them further.”

Twilight’s expression grew flat. “That’s why you’re late?”

“Fashionably late?” Rarity tried to suggest with her same coy smile from earlier. “Don’t worry, dear, there was no way in Equestria that I was going to miss out on this.”

Twilight sighed. “Fair enough.”

“So you’re finally done with that big project?” Fluttershy asked. “I bet that must be a big relief for you”

“Oh, good heavens, it is,” Rarity responded.

Fluttershy scooted in a little closer. “So, I know you’ve been keeping them really secret, but… may I kinda-sorta ask for a little, tensy-wensy little description of what they look like? I mean, if it’s okay with you, that is...”

Rarity put on a slight grin. “It is, but… perhaps sometime later? Like Pinkie said, we need some time to relax.” She looked over at Rainbow and Applejack, who had started their own small competition to see who could shove the most whole cucumber slices into their mouth. “Well, some of us would find it expedient to relax...”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be. Tell you what; I’ll give you a little peek before my trip to Canterlot tomorrow. Alright?”

Fluttershy smiled. “Alright.”

Twilight scooted in between Fluttershy and Pinkie. “Come on, we can brush each other’s manes while these masks exfoliate our skin.”

Rarity delicately placed two slices of cucumber over her eyes and allowed herself to sink into the plush beneath her. What with finishing her work and finally getting to bring the smiles back to Pinkie’s face, today was shaping up to be a most excellent day, indeed.

Tomorrow’s business meeting was destined to be more of a formality than anything else. Her work was sure to terraform the conventions of high fashion as Equestria knew them, and she would receive so much fame and fortune that the mere thought of how much money she would make made her feel kind of dirty… She loved feeling that kind of dirty.

Rarity could only begin to imagine the heads she’d turn and looks she’d inspire wearing her masterpiece: awe, wonder, jealousy, infatuation, that speechless expression Spike would surely have from seeing her as effulgent as a goddess…

That was another thing: despite him trying not to show it, she knew Spike must have felt nearly as bad as Pinkie looked, and she was partly to blame for that. So making amends with him and seeing the tiniest flicker of that spark in his eyes was another burden she was more than glad to be relieved of.

Rarity grinned as she thought back to that adorable blush which always overtook his face whenever she ruffled his crest. She didn’t do it very often, but she knew he really liked it when she ruffled his crest.

Maybe there would be another chance for that the next time they’d get to spend some time together. And while her latest creations might be far too pristine and elegant for something as simple as a modest day out and about the town, she still made a mental note to wear something nice for him, like one of her more pragmatic sun dresses, or that fire ruby he—

Rarity’s blissful little train of thought came to a screeching halt.

Did… I just inadvertently ask Spike out on a date?!

- - - - - -

Spike let out a euphoric sigh, welcoming the feeling of weightlessness as he put his hands over his fluttering heart. He had almost forgotten how it felt to smile like this, but the joy could not be more welcome. Rarity’s words still echoed in his head like a beautiful symphony, and his cheeks still simmered from the lingering flush. It felt like an immense weight had been lifted from him, and he could finally breathe again.

“Wipe that smile off your face. It doesn’t suit you.”

All of Spike’s burdens fell back down upon him like the moon had fallen from orbit and crash-landed on his face. His smile decomposed into a scowl. He glared up at a branch above the entrance. Avarice just smirked back at him.

“That’s better.”

In spite of himself, Spike’s glower became even more resentful. “For someone who doesn’t like being seen, you sure don’t put enough effort into getting lost.”

Avarice just chuckled. “You know how much I love ambush tactics. Staying out of sight suffices well enough. ”

“Is that what you call lounging around in the open?” Spike spat.

Avarice took a moment to look around his surroundings with the indifference of a housecat on a windowsill. “Ponies aren’t a natural prey species to aerial predators, so they rarely look above their heads.” He smirked. “Sure makes my life easier.”

Spike let out an exhale between an exasperated sigh and an irritated grumble. “Is there a reason you’re here now?”

“Yeah.” Avarice nodded. “To ruin your good mood.”

Despite his rising anger, Spike couldn’t help but hold back a smug expression of his own. “Well, you were wrong.”

“Oh, I can’t wait to hear about what,” Avarice replied, resting his lower jaw on his fist.

Spike was smirking now. “Rarity. She does care about me.”

Avarice merely returned with a flat expression.

“You wanted to know when Rarity would want to spend time with me? Well there’s your answer,” Spike pointedly said, indicating the front door.

Avarice sighed. “Look, Spike, from one criminal to another, you need to be able to realize when someone else is running a con.”

Spike crossed his arms and humphed, looking away.

Avarice shifted, facing Spike directly. “Remember when I said ponies use camaraderie as a means of controlling others? Rewarding ano ther’s interest with just enough reciprocation to placate their emotional needs is something ponies will do if another pony seeking their affection ever begins to lose interest. That’s the exact same tactic grifters use when running a scam. Investors getting antsy? Pay them back a paltry return of their investments when they start getting wise, but just enough to keep them paying in. In reality, all their combined funding has accomplished nothing more than purchase the head of the scheme a nice private mansion with a matching yacht out in the Bahamares.”

“I didn’t think you’d have a problem with that,” Spike growled.

“I don’t, but considering it’s an exploitation of systems you still adhere to, it’s certainly a problem for you, and it’s cons like that which Rarity is a more proficient artist at than she is anything else.”

Spike looked away in irritation. “You’re full of crap.”

“No, you’re full of denial,” Avarice responded. “That back there was her offering to throw you scraps after she’s finished the meal. That’s how she is, Spike. She’ll lead you on if it gets her what she wants, and give back only when it’s convenient for her. You’ll put up with someone like me in the name of your misplaced love for her, but you’ll never be anything but an item—a ‘friend‘—to her.”

“Shut up! You don’t know her, she’s not like that.”

“She exploited your feelings to con your out of a fire ruby that was supposed to be a gift to yourself,” Avarice stated flatly. “And what did the so-called Element of Generosity give you for your largesse? A kiss?” Avarice snorted. “The prices for exotic street mares aren’t that outrageous. You’d probably have to fork over a queen’s ransom just to get Rarity to s—”

“DON’T TALK ABOUT HER LIKE THAT!” Spike roared.

Avarice snarled and pounced Spike, driving him into the hard ground and forcing his mouth shut with a grip of cold iron.

“You are terrible at this whole keeping secrets thing. Should I set fire to the library right now just to make sure no one inside heard you?”

Spike’s eyes went wide, and he began struggling against Avarice’s grip. The larger dragon just chuckled derisively.

“Relax, they’re too busy fawning over Misery to concern themselves with your business. Besides,” Avarice said as he released Spike from his grasp, “all my stuff is in there.”

Spike backed away and rubbed his sore snout, then put his scowl back on. “Are all dragons as resentful towards ponies as you are?”

Avarice shrugged. “Probably not. But only because they have the luxury of not being stuck around them long enough to despise them… like I’ve been.”

A thought suddenly occurred to Spike. “So if dragons only ever live by themselves, then how could they possibly have...” Spike’s voice faltered, and he looked away as the blood began to rise in his cheeks. “You know… young.”

Avarice snorted. “Finally decided to ask me that one?” He smirked like a devil. “Well Spike, when a mommy dragon and a daddy dragon love each other very much—”

“Not that!” Spike blurted. “I, um… I already know… that part...”

Avarice’s expression dripped with toxic condescension. “I know you know… I’ve seen all your memories of the surreptitious studying you did to piece it all together, because there was no way Twilight was going to tell you after you asked her that one question...”

Spike’s face ignited with a molten blush of humiliation. “I was just a whelp, okay?! I really didn’t know!”

Avarice chuckled. “Still didn’t keep her from instinctively bucking you in the face when you asked. See? You’ve had to put up with abuse from ponies for your whole life.”

Spike’s countenance was still on fire from embarrassment, but he managed to harden it into something more stern. “That’s beside the point. How are dragons supposed to reproduce if they’re as antisocial as you?”

Avarice chuckled again. “The maredrake wants to know more about what it’s like to be a real dragon. Alright, I’ll oblige. The method through which dragons court each other is simple: we imprint.”

Spike raised an eyebrow. "And that is..."

“A simple process through which dragons of opposite genders come together in order to sire the next generation. Obviously dragons don’t need anyone else in their lives to be complete, but we don’t live forever, and perfection unfortunately requires more genetic diversity than can be accomplished through asexual reproduction. So whoever or whatever created us left us with imprinting. Long story short: one dragon sees an ideal specimen of the opposite sex, they court, they screw, dragoness lays a clutch of eggs, and the two stay together just long enough to guard their young until they hatch. Then when the whelps are old enough to look out for themselves, which thankfully doesn’t take long, all parties depart, never to see each other again, and can focus on what matters, like amassing their hoards.”

Spike stared at Avarice, feeling like he’d just been splashed in the face with a bucket of water, followed by the bucket. And the bucket was made of plate lead.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. Simple as it is elegant, isn’t it?”

Spike just stared, unamused. “That’s stupid.”

“No, what’s stupid is mistaking the biological urge to mate for love. Then again, only an equine mind could invent something as insipid as love,” Avarice sneered.

“And only a dragon would be cruel enough to abandon their own children soon after they hatch,” Spike spat.

“And only ponies would consider fostering dependence as compassion!” Avarice shot back. “For the entire time that you were following the migration, did you see a single tit to suck on?”

“What does that have to do with anything?!”

“No, you didn’t, not until your masters showed up to reclaim their runaway investor!”

“Because they care about me!”

“Because ponies have bought into their own con!” Avarice snarled. “To the point that it’s ingrained into the genetics of their lowly flesh! Seared into their weak minds! You would sacrifice your life for them, but even if you were on the brink of death, Rarity would STILL consider you as nothing more than just a ‘friend’, even if it were only to give you the petty consolation of not dying alone!”

Spike shook in fury. His claws balled into blunt weapons, ready to strike, but his seething resentment was too great to form a retort, so the two just stood there for a time, sparring with the daggers they were glaring at each other. Several turns passed before Spike broke the silence.

“You know what, fine. You go feeling however you want. Nothing I say is going to change that.” Spike shoved his way past Avarice towards the front door. “So bask in your own glory alone, because this conversation is over.”

Spike reached for the door handle, only to have the tip of a mighty tail block his path.

“You know, we really need to have a talk about this whole ‘not concealing your emotions’ problem you have,” Avarice said, his nonchalance back in full.

Spike was still fuming. “Twilight’s going to start wondering if something’s wrong if I stay out here any longer. I kind of matter a lot to her.”

“And your equine master might get inquisitive if you barge back inside with such a foul demeanor, especially when you were grinning like a love-conned school colt just a minute ago. Gotta keep everyone involved in the friendship scheme ensconced in a haze of complacency,”

“Well, looks like we’ve got a dilemma on our hands, don’t we?” Spike quipped.

“Spike?” Twilight called from inside, making his blood grow cold like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Avarice left out a dark, subdued chuckle. “Seems we do… Why don’t you go offer Rarity one of your luxurious back-scratches? Scammers love it when investors shower them with commodities. Maybe she’ll even ruffle your crest again.”

Even though Spike loathed granting credibility to anything Avarice ever suggested, the idea was rather pleasing.

“So put on that stupid smile the ponies love to see,” Avarice said sardonically as he lifted his tail, allowing Spike to pass. “Just don’t try anything bold simply because all the girls are together. I’ll be keeping in touch.”

Avarice dug his claws into the walls of the library, then grappled his way up into the foliage, disappearing within the thick canopy. That left Spike once more by himself, staring at the front door like it was the edge of a high diving board.

“Spike, is everything alright out there?” Twilight asked.

“Y-yeah, everything’s fine,” Spike replied. With one last gulp, he reached out, opened the door, and stepped inside.

Twilight all but sighed in relief at the sight of Spike. “There you are. I was starting to get a little worried about you.”

“Nothing to be worried about,” Spike said, not meeting her eyes.

“Really? Then, who were you talking to?” Twilight asked.

Spike went stiff from the buckets of ice water that suddenly replaced all the blood in his veins. “N-nopony!” He blurted, blinking rapidly. “Nopony at all!”

From her throne of pillows, Rarity adorned a clever smirk. “Brushing up on the art of soliloquy, dear?”

“Yeah,” Spike replied with a gulp, glad for a cover, “you could say that...”

Twilight inspected him quizzically. “Spike, is everything alright? You look rather tense...”

“Everythings fine, I just...” Am dying inside to warn you about the sociopathic dragon that crawled out of my head, but he’ll kill you if I do. “I wanted to ask Rarity something.”

“Oh?” Rarity craned her neck up, peeling one of the cucumber slices off of her eyes to look directly at him. “Something more on your mind?”

Spike gulped again. “I just, wanted to ask...” I know this sounds odd, but if we were about to die, would you accept my love? Is that what it would take? “May I give you a back-scratch?”

Twilight started eyeing him more seriously. “Spike...”

“Oh, it’s alright, dear,” Rarity said, waving a hoof. “If a gentlecolt humbly wishes to pamper a lady, I see no quarrel in that.” She rolled over, belly down, propping up her head underneath one of the pillows she had just been lying on. “Yes, Spike, you may.”

Spike’s smile returned, and with that little flutter back in his heart, he made his way over to Rarity. He put his claws on her shoulders, gently prodding the tense muscles under her soft coat. With an idea of where the knots in her flesh were and her skin made a little more pliable by his delicate kneading, he began to massage her shoulders with one hand with he traced up and down the length of her spine with the claw tips on the other.

“Oh… ooh… oooo… that’s niiice...” Rarity cooed in content.

Spike couldn’t help but grin like an idiot as Rarity melted like butter from the touch of his claws, the unicorn all but purring as he worked his magic.

“Scammers love it when you shower them with commodities.”

Avarice’s words echoed through Spike’s mind. He tried to force the thoughts away, to focus on Rarity and her lovely sighs, halfway between a hum and a moan. Recollections of the spiteful conversation persisted, turning his smile into another mask.

- - - - - -

All six mares stood in a circle, testing the weight of their equipped saddlebags. Twilight scratched her chin with the tip of her quill as she looked over the list before her.

“Let’s see… makeovers, check. S’mores and hot chocolate, check. Idle chit-chat, including but not limited to innocuous gossip and coquettish talk about colts, check. Exchanging short stories in lieu of more ghastly tales, check. With all the prerequisites complete, that just leave on last item...” Twilight looked up intently to the pony in front of her. “Help Pinkie.”

Pinkie tilted her head down, trying to hide behind her mane. She took a deep breath of air, heavy with trepidation, before letting it out. “It’s really time for that, isn’t it?”

“Heck yeah, it is!” Rainbow exclaimed, taking to the air. “No more nightmares, no more Discord, no more sadness! I could not be more pumped to do this!”

Pinkie didn’t break eye contact with the floorboards.

“C’mon, Pinks, I thought you’d be more excited about this,” Rainbow said, landing again and nudging Pinkie. “What gives?”

Pinkie gulped. “I’m… just scared, is all...”

“The only pony who should be scared is that discount Discord messing up your head,” Rainbow said, voice full of barely-restrained anger.

“No, not just of him… of...” Pinkie closed her eyes. “Nevermind, it’s not important.”

Rarity peered at Pinkie. “Come now, dear. Doesn’t take a perseptive pony to know when you’re holding something back.”

“Really, it’s nothing,” Pinkie tried to say with a forced smile, but her sullen visage would not allow for even the most insincere of grins.

Applejack let out an impatient sigh. “Look, Pinkie, ya’ ought to have learned by now that you can trust us. If ya’ got something to say, ain’t nopony better to say it to than us.”

Four nods in agreement followed. Pinkie conceded.

“Alright you want to know what I’m afraid of? I’m afraid of you all,” Pinkie reluctantly admitted.

“But… why?” Fluttershy asked.

“I don’t know what you’re going to do, but we’re all going to be diving into my dreams. With all that’s happened, you just might come face-to-face with the very worst parts of me. I’m afraid that what you might find will just make you all hate me.”

Rainbow Dash exhaled a heavy, disgruntled huff. “Pinkie, do I need to remind you what you told us about your nightmares, or what we encountered the last time we were in a dream together?”

Pinkie answered by recoiling and letting out a tiny whimper, trying to further conceal her face behind her mane.

“No, you don’t,” Rainbow continued, “and yet we’re still here, ready to dive head-first into Tartarus to pull or friend out. We aren’t going to let you suffer any longer, Pinkie.”

“B-but—”

“Rainbow’s right, Pinkie,” Twilight said as she stepped forward. “We’ve seen you at your absolute worst for over a week, and we still aren’t ever going to give up on you. I promise, there’s nothing we can encounter tonight that will make us hate you. I think I speak for all of us on that.”

Twilight looked to the rest of her friends, and they nodded in agreement.

Pinkie dared to peek up from behind her cover. “Pinkie Promise?”

“Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a cupcake in my eye,” five voices lilted in return.

“In my—OW!” Twilight cried out as she shoved her hoof into her open eye again. “I never get that part right...”

Pinkie took in one last breath. “Okay...” she whispered.

Twilight nodded, determined, and turned to her assistant. “Alright, we’re ready. Do you have everything in order, Spi—Spike?”

Twilight tilted her head in bemusement. Spike was staring at Pinkie with a hard, indecipherable expression, like his face was made of jagged stone. His expression never changed, but his grip on the water bucket and pocket watch were becoming more fierce with each passing second.

“Spike?”

“Hm?” Spike responded, turning to her.

“Do you have everything ready?”

“Mm-hm,” he unenthusiastically hummed, holding up both items for emphasis.

“Okay. We’re finally going to do this. Would you wake us up six minutes after our eyes close, please?"

Spike responded with a perfunctory salute.

Twilight’s inquisitive gaze held on Spike for a second, but she had to put that aside as she turned back to her friends. “Spike’s ready. Are we?”

All of them save for Pinkie nodded, then lay down on their barrels in a circle, propping their heads up on small throw pillows.

Are you ready too, Reason? Twilight asked as she laid down herself.

I was severed from your consciousness ready, she replied.

Twilight’s horn sparked to life, and its magenta glow encompassed them all. Twilight felt a delicate prod against her nape, and turned to see Pinkie with her hoof already held out. She smiled, and reached out to hold Pinkie’s hoof with her own. Not a second passed before Rainbow’s hoof joined the clutch, followed shortly by Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rarity. Only then did Pinkie relax enough to close her eyes and let herself succumb to Dreamscape.

Twilight couldn’t help but smile, even as the familiar feeling of cognitive suppression overtook her and reality faded away.

- - - - - -

Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack…

Twilight’s eyes shot open, only to realize that she couldn’t see. Immediately she lit her horn. Blaring, purple-tinged light illuminated her surroundings.

She found herself sitting in a passenger car, alone: without the company of her friends. In their place was an encompassing, ravenous darkness, lurking behind every feature that her light could not reach.

Even over the grating wheels, her heart now thudding in her ears and sudden gasps of hyperventilation, she could hear the low, rumbling growl of loneliness in her ear, feel its sharp, poisonous teeth rake across her now clammy and sensitive skin…

“Whoa, hey, would you turn it down?” a deep, irritated voice asked from behind her.

Twilight whipped around. Sitting two row behind her on the opposite side of the car was another pony, holding up a hoof to shield his eyes from Twilight’s blazing illumination spell.

“Do you mind?” the stallion reiterated again, slightly annoyed.

“S-sorry...” Twilight stuttered and dimming the light.

“That’s better,” remarked the stallion, putting his hoof down. “Thanks.”

Twilight let out a little gasp as the after image cleared and she got a better look at her fellow passenger. The bass guitar at his side was new, but otherwise, he looked the same as he did the first time she saw him in her shared dream with Pinkie; same long mess of a mane, same mass of a scraggly beard, same nametag, same spacesuit…

“Sanders? But… what are you doing here?” Twilight’s eyes went wide with urgency. “Have you seen my friends?!”

“Nope, sorry. Maybe they’re further down the line. Luckily for you, that just so happens to be where we’re headed.” Sanders gave her a knowing smirk.

Twilight gulped a little. “What’s further down the line?”

Sanders wry little smile evolved to a mischievous grin. “The belly of the white whale.”

Twilight was about to question further, but an approaching light up ahead caught the corner of her eye, and her ears picked up the faint, distant sound of somepony else talking.

“...eclipse is when the moon passes in between...”

Twilight reached out to the matrix with her mind, and caught nothing but an ominous, swift-approaching maelstrom, through which attempting manipulation would be like trying to make sculptures from clouds caught in a tornado.

That will be problematic, Reason muttered.

As the train car approached the light, the voice was becoming clearer.

“Sometimes they can have a strange effect on people, and makes them do things they wouldn’t normally do.”

Twilight braced herself as the car passed into the light. They emerged into a massive, open and homely room, and Twilight saw that she was in fact not sitting in a passenger train, but a trolley car. The cheerful trill of its bell rang as it exited the tunnel, stopping in front of the cavernous room’s sole occupant: a giant octopus of behemoth proportions, the mere sight of which made Twilight reel.

The octopus turned to the trolley, giving it a massive, affable smile. “Oh, hey, Bells!”

The trolley responded with another ring before the octopus turned away to address the otherwise empty room. “Gee, I hope our friends in magic land are doing okay...”

With that, the trolley started back up towards another tunnel, filled with flickering light. Twilight was struck with a sudden, overwhelming sense of foreboding with each twist and turn. After one last swing around a tight bend, the trolley rode out into the open fever dream.

“Oh, no…” both Twilight and Reason moaned.

The train tracks stretched through a twisted landscape warped into impossible shapes: blivets, penrose traversals, and mobius strips as far as the eye could see. In some places, the environment disappeared and reappeared as though viewed from a kaleidoscope. Floating masses of earth obscured the sky of shifting spectrums, which, Twilight noted to her immense chagrin, held the same unholy union of a sun and moon as her habanero omelet fever dream.

Squealing feedback reverb filled the air as the trolley passed a burning castle, revealing a mountain drenched in blood, atop which a mastodon was chugging out a progression of heavily distorted power chords from a guitar that was shooting lightning.

Behind her, Sanders had begun to play along to the tune with the percussive thump of his detuned bass. He only got a few measures in before the entire trolley rocked as something crashed through the ceiling. From the plume of dust rose the three-jawed stag-bull, glaring death at Sanders.

“You’re deathbound, goat-killer!” the stag-bull roared through heaving breaths.

“OH SH—”

Sanders was cut off, dodging into the open aisle of the trolley as the stag-bull hurled an entire bench at him. It struck the back of the streetcar with enough force to tear open a giant hole. Sanders jumped through and galloped off into the mad world with the stag-bull once again in hot pursuit.

That left Twilight alone on the trolley to witness the pandemonium around her. Grotesque creatures were either running about in panic or beating the snot out of each other. As Twilight watched, a creature resembling a malformed teddy bear punched another being next to it, and the being exploded. The bear turned and smacked another grotesque, and it exploded too. The teddy bear looked up at Twilight, then at its fist, then hit itself in the face. The bear itself exploded.

The trolley drove into another tunnel that glowed an angry red. Twilight’s ears perked up to the sound of a distant whistle echoing through the cave as the trolley accelerated towards the exit. The railroad tracks extended over a truss bridge into another tunnel, from which black smoke billowed and the lamp of an oncoming engine grew steadily closer.

Twilight gasped and made a break for the hole in the back of the tram. The trolley was already on the bridge when she leaped out the impromptu exit and landed on the tracks. She could feel the rumble of the other train underneath her hooves, hear the chug of steam as it grew closer, but she didn’t dare look back as she galloped as hard as she could in the opposite direction.

The tram and the train collided at the midpoint. The resulting explosion shook the bridge so violently that Twilight fell to her hooves. The bridge cracked in half, leaving Twilight to hook her forelegs around the nearest wooden crossbar and hang on for dear life as the center gave out and both engines plummeted into the ravine.

Twilight flinched and shut her eyes from the blast of heat that erupted from the secondary explosion as the steam train’s furnace blew, extinguished seconds later by the torrents of water from the cracked boiler.

Several seconds passed before Twilight dared open her eyes to observe the wreckage. She gasped, the sight stealing the warmth from her She lit her horn and teleported down to the crash site, where she could only stare at the twisted remains of the steam engine with an open, terror-stricken gape.

Bent cylindrical smokestack; gears like the exposed mechanisms of a pocketwatch; buckled, tarnished chrome finish.

Twilight… Twilight, we need to go find our friends, Reason said, but she went unheard.

The smashed remains of the clock that used to compose the engine’s face told the time of death as 3:43. The crushed side of the engineer’s cab still clearly showed ‘No. 9’ on the side.

Twilight…

Her breathing had gone shallow and her hair stood on end. The train was coming to a perfectly scheduled stop in front of her on the vacant station platform of Mobil Avenue…

TWILIGHT!

The unicorn jumped as Reason yelled her name
.

We have to find the girls, Reason said, her tone more calm now that she’d gotten Twilight’s attention.

Twilight’s eyes were still welded to the wreckage. No matter how terrifying the sight, she couldn’t turn away.

“It’s the same train from limbo...”

I know. That’s why we need to regroup with our friends. They’re more than likely in serious danger, too.

Twilight nodded, still staring in dismay at the wreckage. “Where do we start?”

Twilight felt a strain in her neck and a twinge in her hooves as Reason prodded her from the inside to get moving.

Let’s try to get our bearings from the top of the mountain that isn’t drenched in gore. Just as long as we go somewhere else. Anywhere else except for staying here.

Twilight finally turned away towards the closest mountain, ascending with a series of precise teleportations. Off in the distance, a flying vessel was blasting the bizarre creatures below with its cannons. The spacious vehicle crudely resembled a pirate ship, in but the most rudimentary sense of the word: the vessel was poorly constructed from junk that was primitively welded together, and it boasted an extraneous, ridiculously superfluous number of laser-light sails…

- - - - - -

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

Rarity counted backwards in her head, then opened her eyes. To her chagrin, her situation had still not changed: the matrices were still a raging hurricane of psychosis, next to impossible to manipulate, and there was still a shipful of slovenly savages ruthlessly gunning down the bizarre inhabitants of the fever dream below her. And worst of all, she was still tied to the front of said ship.

Alright Rarity, new plan.

Rarity adjusted as best she could, took a deep breath, opened her mouth, and…

“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!”

“Oi!”a thick, cockney voice roared from somewhere up on the deck. “One’a you boyz tell the ‘eadpiece to SHADDUP!”

There was a scurry of heavy boot steps from above, then something leaned over the balcony. Rarity found herself face to face with a brutish creature that vaguely resembled a green, hairless gorilla, but with beady red eyes, a smaller nose, cheekbones so pronounced it looked like its skull was trying to rip through its skin, and an absurdly over-pronounced philtrum that lead down to a huge mouth with two long tusks protruding from the lower jaw. And it just happened to be dressed like a pirate, that shoved a metal pipe into Rarity’s face.

“Oi! Captain says shaddup!”

The monster-gorilla-pirate’s retched smell reached Rarity’s dainty nostrils, and it took all her willpower to not vomit. It reeked like hundreds of pounds of moldy cheese boiled to a congealed slop in a dumpster full of curdled sweat on a sweltering summer day.

“Ya, dat’s what I thought! Now keep ya pipes shut or I’ll use yer hair ta polish me boots!”

Somewhere in Rarity’s brain, the Indignance Pressure Release Valve blew a gasket, boiling everything around it into a rage. She telekinetically swatted away its weapon and glared unbridled spite back at her captor.

“How DARE you threaten me with your repulsive pugnaciousness, you putrescent, lumbering, bellicose palooka!”

The pirate just stared at her like she’d hit him over the head with a thesaurus.

“Uh… SHADDUP!” the pirate yelled, shoving his grimey pipe back into her face.

“What did I just say, you jingoistic dunce? How would you appreciate having filth pressed into your hideous visage?” Rarity lit her horn again yanked on pipe, ripping it away and shoving it into the face of its former owner. “See, not such a merry exchange now, is it?!”

“Oi! Give dat back!” the pirate yelled, trying to pry the pipe back.

She snarled and pulled back with redoubled strength. Her aura tightened its grip wherever it could find purchase, wrapping around a small lever in the handle…

A sudden explosion shot out from the end of the pipe, knocking the pirate back onto the deck and out of sight. Rarity screamed in surprise, and stared wide-eyed at the weapon.

Sweet Celestia, these brutes made cannons PORTABLE?! she thought, staring in horror at the weapon.

“Whoa, whoa, hold up!” the same thick voice from earlier bellowed.

The roar of the ship’s engined died down, and the entire vessel came to a standstill. Rarity heard slower, heavier boots approaching. Her heart thudded against her ribcage.

“Oh, you’ve really gotten yourself into it now, Rarity,” she moaned as the boots arrived at the rail, and an even bigger, darker, more odorous pirate wearing a tricorn leaned over the rail.

“Stay back!” Rarity demanded, pointing the weapon at the captain. “I’m armed, apparently!”

The captain just let out a gruff chuckle. “Put dat thing away lass, less you prefer ta let a shoota’ do da talking instead o’ settling this like civil folk.” The captain brandished an even larger cannon than the hulking mass Rarity was holding. “B’sides, mine’s bigga.”

Rarity conceded, and lowered her weapon with a gulp. “Is… is your crewmate in good health?”

The captain let out a hearty laugh. “HA! Ya kiddin’?! Ya blew his ‘ead clean off! Standin’ on his corpse right now, ‘s-mattera fact.”

Rarity felt herself go numb.

“I was gonna shoot ‘im meself for gettin’ snubbed by some pony, so betta you done it. I don’t talk wit’ nobody who ain’t killed somebody first. So, ya got some beef you wants to settle?”

Rarity took a deep breath to compose herself. It’s just some horrific nightmare you’re trapped in right now. Once I regroup with everypony and defeat Discord, I can put this whole mess behind me. She cleared her throat to address the shipmaster and amicably as she could.

“Well, Sir, it would seem that under unfortunate circumstances beyond my control, I have come under the numerous sails of your vessel. As this is not congruent with my desires and I fear my presence here would pose serious danger to myself and your crew, I humbly request you change course to the nearest available port that I may depart and leave you and your ship in, uh, ‘peace.’”

The captain smirked back at her. “I be disinclined to acquiesce to yer request.”

Rarity’s mouth fell open. “What?”

“Means ‘no.’”

“I know that, but why?”

“Well, y’see, we be in da business of pillagin’ and plunderin’, and goin’ outta our way ta see some pony home ain’t good for dat model. But I’s be thinkin’ there be labor laws where you’s come from, and yer mates back home would raise a ruckus if we’d had you onboard unsafely, and then they’d try and give us crap about it, and then we’d hafta shoot ‘em, and I think yeh don’t want dat neither. So I’s thinking we make you a temporary part o’ da crew to ensure you gets all da safety benefits that come with workin’ aboard, and then we’ll letcha go on yer merry way after we done softenin’ up them blokes down there. A’ight?”

“But—”

The captain growled and hoisted up his massive weapon.

“Well, I certainly see the wisdom in your proposed compromise,” Rarity reluctantly admitted as she tried and failed to locate the codes for the pirates in order to erase them from the dream.

“Great!” the captain remarked. “Now, as to yer new occupation… I’m thinking… DA SHIP’S HEADPIECE!”

Rarity’s voice all but disappeared. “What?”

The captain laughed again, then reached down to pick up the green blood-soaked hat from Rarity’s victim and slapped it onto her shaking head.

“Welcome to da Scurvy Gits, love!” the captain jovially bellowed, then turned back to his crew. “Full speed ahead, boyz!”

Rarity was too discombobulated to rip the soiled and vile hat from her crown. The engines roared back to life, and as the ship shot off through the sky, Rarity screamed again.

“GIIIIIIIIIIIIRLS!!!”

- - - - - -

“Oh my! What’s going on? Why are you all running?” Fluttershy desperately asked the panicked ponies stampeding all around her. Bodies slammed against her, forcing her to run alongside them lest she be trampled. Buildings blurred past her vision, and everypony’s screaming combined into a single deranged note.

She looked to a stallion running next to her. “Um, sorry, but what’s going on?!”

The stallion turned to her, glaring in disbelief with the eye that wasn’t a button. “Just run!” he screamed, disappearing into the galloping throng ahead of her.

The buildings around her looked like Ponyville, only they were more closely packed together, and far more drab in the ruddy orange light. Was it a fire? She tried craning her neck to see and nearly lost her balance. The houses, despite only being a couple stories tall, still blocked out the sky. Their overwhelming presence bottled the panicked herd into one narrow street after another. Just when their overbearing aura became too much to bear, Fluttershy began to spot gaps between them.

Her slight relief was shattered by a deep, blood-curdling howl rising over the panicked crowd. The screams tripled in strength, and Fluttershy was nearly swept off her hooves again as the stampede surged forward. She tried to calm down and focus, to tell herself that this was just a dream, but her legs continued to scramble frantically beneath her. Whatever had howled had come from behind her, and it had sounded big.

Suddenly, the buildings disappeared, and Fluttershy could breathe again as the crowd's pressure dispersed. She turned, gasping, as ponies flowed around her.

The sun hung low on the horizon, glaring angry red-orange light across the landscape. The light added an intimidating aura to the forest surrounding the village, so twisted and misshapen that it looked more like an enormous briar patch. Fluttershy squinted back at the village.

An enormous, dark shape swept through the buildings, looming the height of over four ponies above them. Wherever it moved, the screams intensified to a fever pitch

“What are you doing?! RUN!” screamed a voice next to her, and she turned back just in time to see a mint green mare with an eggbeater pegleg running away from her into the forest. She turned back as stallion whose mane was composed entirely of wire bristles whipped past her.

“SHE’S GONNA EAT MEEEE!” he screamed as he too disappeared into the forest.

Eat? She?! Fluttershy looked back at the giant mound moving with a swift, predatory gait through the buildings, and realized it was covered in shaggy hair. Silhouetted pitch-black against the furious sun, an enormous canine head rose above the buildings, something helpless and struggling held in the end of its long muzzle. The giant wolf flung its head back, tossing the small, helpless thing into the air, and opened its jaws. For one very long, awful moment, it hung suspended in space, and even over the roar of the crowd, Fluttershy could hear a distant, wailing scream. Then the helpless being fell into the awaiting maw, and the enormous jaws snapped shut. Fluttershy watched, to her absolute horror, as a small, wriggling bulge slid down the enormous predator’s throat.

The colossal she-wolf, even bigger than an Ursa Minor, let loose a deafening howl that froze the very marrow in Fluttershy’s bones. The wolf licked her chops as she lowered her head, then turned towards Fluttershy. Her legs locked up in paralyzing terror, unable to tear herself away from the most evil yellow eyes she had ever seen in her life. In a hoarse growl that had only the barest tinge of what might be something feminine, the giant predator uttered a single word:

“DESSERT.”

Then the wolf bounded towards her. Something in Fluttershy's brain told the rest of her to move, but the rest of her wasn’t listening. She could not tear herself away from the wolf’s burning gaze. The wolf bounded again, clearing more rows of houses and landing just in the outskirts of the town, the earth trembling beneath her. The part of her brain that demanded action screamed even louder, but all she did was twitch. The wolf grinned as she held her gaze and leapt again.

Time slowed as Fluttershy took in the sheer enormity of the wolf. Her massive paws were bigger than a wagon. Her powerful legs stretched upward like redwood trees. Her evil glowing eyes burned with a ravenous glee. Her enormous gaping maw was lined with razor-sharp dagger teeth. Just as Fluttershy gazed into the abyss of the wolf’s throat, she felt her stomach turn to lead and her blood turn to ice.

Her wings opened of their own accord and thrust down. Fluttershy suddenly realized she was rocketing up towards the sky. Self-preservation had finally kicked in, her wings pumping harder than they ever had in her life.

The wolf beneath her growled, snarled, and leapt. Before Fluttershy could react, the wolf snapped its jaws shut on her tail and yanked her back down to the earth.

Fluttershy shrieked and flailed helplessly. Her life flashed before her eyes as she plummeted towards death, towards—big, spiky trees! Wood slammed against her side. Her world was a blur punctuated by gunshot cracks as she crashed through the canopy to the forest floor.

The ground delivered one last punch to her barrel, knocking the wind out of her. She lay still, groaning in pain. A thousand thoughts and sensations assailed her at once as she tried to get her breath back.

Dear Celestia, this hurts.

Did I break anything?

What happened? Where am I?

My tail is free, but where is the wolf?

Owwww....

Where is the wolf?

I think I broke something…

WHERE IS THE WOLF?

Something massive shifted on the ground behind her, then emitted a half-whimper, half-growl. Fluttershy scrambled to her hooves and turned around just in time to see the she-wolf hauling herself back on her paws off of the myriad of broken tree trunks and shattered branches beneath her. The wolf groaned in pain as she opened her eyes, looked at Fluttershy, and snarled.

Fluttershy turned and pelted into the forest, branches whipping her face and pulling her mane. Her heart pounded in her ears. Behind her, the giant wolf barked and howled, her immense bulk snapping the thick branches like they were rotten twigs.

Fluttershy galloped until her lungs burned, her throat went raw, and her hooves felt like lead weights. The wolf was gaining more ground despite her attempts to outmaneuver it. She was reaching her breaking point.

A gargantuan rock loomed out of the forest in front of her, split straight down the middle with a crack just big enough for her to fit into. Fluttershy darted towards it with every last ounce of her strength. Fluttershy didn’t dare look back as a gust of hot breath tousled her tail.

Fluttershy rocketed into the crack. Pebbles and dust showered her as the wolf slammed into the rock, and she collapsed onto her rear, coughing and shaking. The wolf snarled as she began to claw and bite at the stone. Fluttershy scooted backward, wedging herself as far into the stone as she could. The whole time, the wolf continued to scratch and bite at the rock.

The only thing she could see was the wolf’s enormous jaws snapping at her, the massive canine teeth shutting over and over again. Her heart raced as the snarls and barks threatened to blow out her eardrums. Cold sweat ran down her body as she stared into the wolf’s horrible glowing eyes, burning with anger and gluttony.

After what felt like an eternity, the wolf finally stopped, settling for glaring at her through the crack. Then some sort of realization lit in its burning eyes. The she-wolf pressed the end of her enormous snout to the crack and breathed in deep. Fluttershy whimpered in fear as she felt a cold swiping at her sweaty coat. After several sniffs, the wolf looked back at Fluttershy.

“YOU HAVE FRIENDS...”

Fluttershy’s body locked up in paralysis again. The wolf grinned like a devil.

“FIVE TO BE EXACT. ANOTHER FEATHER-BRAIN, TWO HORN-FACES, AND TWO MUD PONIES. SO IF YOU’RE GOING TO HIDE IN THERE LIKE A COWARDLY LITTLE SNACK, I’LL JUST GO HUNT THEM INSTEAD.”

Fluttershy was wracked with horrible visions of the wolf consuming her friends.

“MAYBE I’LL BRING THEM BACK HERE SO YOU CAN WATCH AS I FEAST.” The air rumbled with the wolf’s malicious chuckles. “I’LL BE SURE TO LET YOU KNOW IF THEY TASTE AS DELICIOUS AS THEY SMELL.”

“NO!”

The wolf’s amused gaze turned to shock as Fluttershy gave her a maximum overdose of The Stare.

“You will do no such thing!” Fluttershy yelled as she trotted from the small cave to glare right into one of the wolf’s quivering eyes. “Thinking you can eat helpless ponies with friends and families just because you’re bigger than them? You make me SICK! If you EVER eat another pony or so mention as mention my friends, I will end you! DO YOU HEAR ME?!”

The wolf shook as it stared back at Fluttershy with fearful eyes. Moments passed where the only sounds to be heard was their heavy breathing and the distant booms from a thunderstorm of gunfire getting closer to the town. Finally, the wolf answered.

“I HEAR YOU...”

Whatever terror was in the wolf's eyes burned away with the resurgence of its infernal hate. Fluttershy gasped, only then realizing her folly of stepping outside the safety of the cave.

“I JUST WON’T OBEY!”

The wolf lunged forward, head-butting Fluttershy into the rock wall. She fell ungraciously to the ground, crying out on impact. The wolf brought its paw down upon her, knocking the wind out of her and leaving only her head exposed.

The wolf growled as it craned its head down to glare at her. “I’M GOING TO CHEW YOU NICE AND SLOW FOR THAT, LITTLE SNACK. SAVOR YOUR EVERY MUSCLE, RELISH IN YOUR EVERY DROP OF BLOOD.” The monstrous beast began to laugh. “BUT I’LL KEEP A LITTLE PIECE OF YOU. I’LL WEAR YOUR PELT LIKE JEWELRY, SO YOUR FRIENDS WILL TAKE ONE LOOK AT ME AND KNOW EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU.”

Something snapped inside Fluttershy’s mind. Whatever fear she had felt was swept away by a tidal wave of boundless rage. She gritted her teeth and growled as its scourging heat flowed through her body. It turned her resolve into the cruel edge of a diamond, her bones into adamantium, and her muscles into corded steel.

The wolf yelped in surprise as Fluttershy pushed against its paw. She lifted its oppressive mass and tossed it aside, making the wolf stumble. She spread her wings and kicked backwards against the ground, sending her rocketing up straight towards the wolf’s face.

Fluttershy’s forehoof connected with the side of the wolf’s jaw, sending it sprawling on its side. She felt like she had just punched a slab of iron. She didn’t care. White-hot rage coursed through her, and her mind could only think one word: destroy.

She dive-bombed the wolf again as it tried to lift itself off of the ground. Her forehoof connected with the wolf’s cheek, slamming its head back down, and she pummeled the side of the wolf’s head with thunderclap blows. Just as she was about to deliver a knockout punch, one of the wolf’s massive forepaws knocked her away.

Fluttershy tumbled through the dirt, kicking up dirt and grass. She shook her head and leaped from the fifty-foot-long trench her body had dug through the soil.

Her eyes met with the wolf's as it got back on its paws, and the air itself lit aflame. They charged, one with an angry howl and the other with a shrieking war cry. A small, detached part of her mind knew this would be a fight to the death.

It was no longer clear who was predator and who was prey. Fluttershy would try to go for an opening only to get pummeled into the ground by a massive paw or knocked out of the air by the tail. The wolf would try to bite Fluttershy only to snap at empty air before receiving a hammer blow in return.

Though Fluttershy was faster, the wolf’s sheer size blunted the power of her strikes, and she was beginning to tire while the wolf showed no signs of fatigue. The wolf pressed the advantage, forcing Fluttershy on the defensive. More and more often, the wolf’s paws and tail connected with her. The snapping teeth began to miss her by inches rather than feet.

Fluttershy still had an ace up her sleeve. The fight fuelled her anger, building it up inside her until she had enough burning rage to unleash her attack. The wolf charged Fluttershy, only to meet the fiery beams of destructive energy that erupted from Fluttershy’s eyes.

The smell of burning hair filled the air as the wolf howled in agony. The apocalyptic lances hammered the wolf into the side of the castle-sized rock, pinning it into place and searing flesh and fur.

On the verge of being roasted alive, the wolf hooked its jaws around the edge of one side of the big crack in the mountainous rock and strained with all its remaining strength. It broke a cottage-sized boulder off in its mouth and hurled it at Fluttershy.

Stars exploded in Fluttershy’s vision as she was blindsided by the massive rock. Then the stars quickly gave way to blackness.

Slowly, the blackness parted for a dim light and a weight so crushing she could barely breathe. Fluttershy tried to push against the weight, but a sudden wave of agony coursing down most of her left side put a stop to that.

Her left wing and foreleg throbbed with bruises. Her left eye was swollen completely shut. She braced herself against what she could only assume was the ground and pushed as hard as she could. The light increased a little as the massive boulder shifted against her efforts.

Frustration, anger, and adrenaline gave Fluttershy one last surge of super strength, and she heaved with all her might against the rock. The giant boulder turned over on its side. Fluttershy felt a split-second of relief, and then the wolf’s giant paw pushed the boulder out of the way.

The wolf’s fur had been completely burned off from half of its face to the shoulder, and the skin beneath was blackened and charred. It stood trembling from exhaustion and pain, holding a paw in the air to avoid putting weight on it. The wolf was able to stand, but Fluttershy no longer had the energy to move. All she could do was squirm feebly in the dirt.

The wolf bent her enormous head towards Fluttershy until its lips were mere inches from her face. Fluttershy could do nothing but watch in horror as they parted in slow motion, revealing the massive canines. Then its mouth opened, revealing the fleshy cave inside and the insatiable abyss of her throat.

Fluttershy screamed and instinctively held up her hooves for protection as the teeth rushed for her, but it was no use. The terrible jaws closed in around her, enveloping her in darkness.

Fluttershy shivered in disgust as the quivering, slimy tongue slid across her body. Then it began to pull her in. She gripped the wolf’s teeth as hard as she could in one last desperate effort to save herself, but it was too late. The gigantic tongue dislodged her, then dragged her screaming into the wolf’s mouth.

She was helpless to do anything as the wolf had its way with her, savoring her, tasting her, and even going so far as to give her a few cruel squeezes between its teeth. She tumbled about its mouth like a rag doll in a washing machine until she came to a rest back in the center of its tongue, staring forlornly at the wolf’s throat.

“DOWN YOU GO....”

Fluttershy’s surroundings lurched as the wolf tilted her head back. She lay helpless as she drew nearer to the wolf’s throat, fleshy tastebuds sliding against her body. The back of the tongue dropped, the esophagus widened, and the tonsils recessed as the whole throat opened to receive her. She saw the massive uvula swaying and bobbing over the abyss, bidding her goodbye.

Just as she was about to slide over the edge, she managed to get her quivering legs underneath her. Right when she reached the critical point at the precipice of the wolf’s gaping throat, she jumped. Fluttershy smacked into the wolf’s uvula, and she clung to it like a drowning mare clutching a life buoy.

“HURRRRGGHHH!”

The wolf’s choking retch was deafening. The flesh all around her convulsed as the gag reflex sent a violent tremor throughout the wolf’s body. A blast of hot, humid air rushed past her from below, but she did not dare to look down.

The uvula flexed and bucked as more deafening retching erupted from the depths. She scrambled as the uvula slipped through her hind legs, and managed to haul herself up the fleshy appendage, her muscles burning with abuse. The wolf gave another almighty dry heave, and she slipped back down, her hind legs flailing helplessly in empty space.

Fluttershy looked down at a convulsing, heaving tunnel of muscle and slimy tissues fading away into complete blackness. A flap of cartilage burst out of the side of it, and under it was another tunnel from which a blast of hot air assailed her as the wolf gagged again.

The wolf’s uvula tensed up again, eroding Fluttershy’s grip. She tried with all her remaining strength to hang on, but it was no use anymore. The massive uvula slipped through her legs, and for a second she hung in empty space. Fluttershy fell into the wolf’s throat with a piercing scream.

Powerful muscles forced the breath from her lungs, cutting off her scream. She desperately grabbed the flap of cartilage that covered the wolf’s windpipe and clung to it, making the wolf choke. Fluttershy tried to scream again, but her breath was completely gone; she could feel her own ribs creaking from the colossal pressure. Her vision began to dim and flicker.

Just as she was about to pass out, the wolf’s throat opened up and the most violent retch yet made all the flesh around her tremble. Looking back into the infinite blackness below, she heard a sound like whitewater rapids. She realized in horror and disgust what was about to happen, and she closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see the inevitable.

A raging torrent of vile, putrescent filth slammed into Fluttershy, sweeping her out of the wolf’s throat and back up into its mouth. The disgusting current carried her across the convulsing tongue and back out into the open air, where she slammed into the ground and lay helplessly as nauseous liquids poured over her like a reeking waterfall.

Finally, the broiling hell abated, and she gasped for air. She heard coughing above her, followed by another small retch, then a thud. The ground shook with a massive thump as the gigantic wolf collapsed. Fluttershy wiped the slime off of her face and opened her eyes.

She nearly threw up at the sight of the steaming pool of bile, soaking the lifeless forms of some two dozen ponies. The enormous wolf lay right behind her, its breath coming in wheezing rasps. Blood oozed slowly from its wounds, pooling around its body. Its massive tongue lolled on the grass. Half-lidded, its yellow eyes stared at nothing in particular.

Slowly, it dawned on Fluttershy that the wolf was dying. Her laser vision blast had, in fact, dealt the wolf a mortal blow. It had just taken time for it to succumb to its wounds.

Fluttershy slowly got back up onto her aching limbs. She trod painfully up to one of the wolf’s eyes. The massive orb centered and focussed on her.

For a brief few seconds, the dying fell light in its eyes was rekindled by boundless, helpless, infinite rage. The wolf said nothing, but its breathless gasps slowly turned into wheezing snarls. Fluttershy coldly looked on.

The fire in the wolf’s eyes could maintain itself no longer. Their evil yellow light flickered, then faded. Fluttershy heard a great whimpering sigh as the light died completely. Its eyes stared away into nothing, glassy and dull.

Fluttershy felt she should say something. She tried to find the words to adequately address how this was the most evil entity she had ever seen in her life. But then she felt that acknowledging its terrible deeds would be giving it too much credence. She stood there, wrestling with her emotions, until they finally coalesced into a simple phrase.

“Serves you right,” she spat.

Then she turned away to see Twilight standing right behind her, her eyes wide and her jaw hanging open in shock.

“Dear Celestia…” she said, “Fluttershy, I…”

Twilight never got to finish her sentence. Fluttershy collapsed to the ground, sobbing hysterically. Twilight rushed to her side, hoping the comforting hug she gave her friend could make up for her lack of words. Fluttershy hugged her back fiercely, and continued to weep.

They remained in their embrace, unaware of a hooded blackbird made of sackcloth and ash as it circled overhead.

- - - - - -

Rainbow Dash zipped through the perilous skies, fighting against the thrashing turbulence blowing in several directions at once, and pulling shearing maneuvers around the floating masses of land drifting haphazardly through the air.

She swerved up as a mountainous form rose up from below her, only to feel the pull of gravity shift towards the landmass. She furiously beat her wings, careening over the obstacle and dodging several more as they closed in around her.

A spray of water droplets hit her in the face as she swept past a waterfall pouring between two landmasses on a collision course for each other. She sputtered and wiped as much as she could from her eyes just in time to avoid crashing into another island headed right for her.

Rainbow saw an opening to a clear sky off in the distance and doubled her efforts to escape, adrenaline pumping through her wings as she flew through the shifting chunks of hovering earth. With once last forceful thrust, Rainbow shot out from the mass of rocks.

She turned to look back at the formations orbiting around each other, then let out a holler of delight and relief, performing a small corkscrew to celebrate her small victory.

Rainbow’s whoop turned to a groan drowned out by a chorus of screeches. Creatures vaguely resembling pterodactyls were swarming en masse from the structures she’d just escaped. They were all barreling straight for her, open mouths eager for a pony snack.

Rainbow twisted around to fly from the predators, but stopped dead in her tracks. Another massive construct, this one made from layers upon layers of scrap metal, was flying straight towards her at break-neck speeds. Waves of glowing projectiles shot from the flying hunk of metal at supersonic speeds towards her, followed by a cacophony of rapid-fire thunderclaps.

She screamed and flew down, instinctively covering her head with her forehooves. The metal vessel flew right over her as its hailstorm of bullets ripped through the swarm of pterodactyls. A shrill chorus of pained screeches pierced the air, many of the creatures falling injured or dead into a thick forest below.

Rainbow looked back up a the metallic vessel as it flew off a ways, then swerved to its right for another pass. She realized that what had resembled a soaring garbage dump was actually a giant ship. It flew from blazing jets of fire spewing from turbines at the ends of massive cylinders, leaving Rainbow to wonder why it needed so many sails.

An enraged shriek from below cut her thought processes. An injured pterodactyl had flown up from the trees below to within feet of Rainbow Dash.

A gunshot rang out in off in the distance. Neon blood spewed from a multitude of fresh wounds in the creature’s torso. It let out a scream of pain as it fell back down into the forest.

Dash looked up at her would-be savior to caught sight of Rarity tied to the bow of the ship, with a filthy pirate hat crammed onto her head and holding what crudely resembled a cannon in her magic.

“RAINBOW DAAAAAAA” Rarity desperately screamed as the ship rocketed past.

“Rarity!” Rainbow gasped, and took off like a bullet after her friend.

The pegasus quickly closed the gap between her and the ship as it rocketed towards a small town off in the distance. She flew over the blistering drafts of the engines, trying to reach the bridge.

Several creatures dressed as pirates operated what Dash assumed to be weapons all over the vessel. One of them spotted her, shouted to its nearby crewmates, then they all aimed at her.

Dash lurched to the side to evade the swarm of bullets. She swerved this way and that, dodging all the oncoming fire, but her defensive flying began to put more distance between her and the ship. She grunted and furiously churned her wings, fighting for every inch of sky en route to her target.

On the deck, a larger pirate loomed into view, glaring over the rail at her. Then he grinned, hoisted a cannon with a belt of rockets loaded into it, and fired.

Dash careened off-course to avoid the missile. It detonated right where she had been, now thirty feet away. The explosive force knocked her out of the air, and she put her hooves to her ears, screaming from the ringing pain as she fell from the sky.

Rainbow saw a line of fast-approaching trees through the blur as she tumbled. Right as she passed through the canopy, she regained control, angling out to the ground and skidding to a halt along the forest floor.

Looking up through openings of the leafy ceiling, she caught glimpses of the pirate ship as it sailed off into the horizon. Rainbow growled. She’d been flying blind since entering the dream without seeing hide or hair of her friends; to encounter one only to instantly lose her again made her blood boil.

The incessant ringing in her left ear wasn’t making things any more pleasant, either. She clocked the side of her head, trying to loosen what felt like a clog, only to end up holding her head in her hooves, cringing in pain.

When the feeling of forks in her skull had passed, she tested her wings again, readying herself for flight. She remembered catching sight of a small nearby town, presumably a warped mockery of Ponyville, that the ship was headed for before she got shot out of the air. As much as she hated to admit it, she probably wouldn’t be able to take on an entire ship of monster pirates at once. But if they were headed for the town, they were probably intent on ransacking the place, and preoccupation with their task might give her a chance to sneak up close and free Rarity.

Rainbow flexed her wings, ready to shoot back into the skies when what was left of her hearing caught the sound of a familiar series of screeches. She looked back up and saw more swarms of pterodactyls circling like vultures overhead. They were too big to follow her down into the forest, but if she flew above the leaves and they spotted her, they would surely give chase. And even if she could avoid them all the way to town, if they chased her all the way there while screeching like that, it would ruin her chance at stealth.

Rainbow let out a dissatisfied grumbled. “Looks like I’m grounded for now,” she muttered, then took off galloping through the woods.

Trees zipped past her as a blur as Rainbow galloped. Then they passed at a casual pace. Then she was passing them at a snail’s crawl. The world stretched out in front of her, until the next tree was on the edge of the horizon.

Rainbow skidded to a halt next to a tree with low hanging branches, and the infinite distances compressed back to normal. She blinked in surprise, then took off galloping even harder. The forest began to visibly stretch again: more earth was gathering under her hooves faster than she could gallop across it.

She galloped until she was out of breath. She slowed to a stop, and the perspective from which she saw the forest once again returned to a deceptive normal. Rainbow leaned up against the closest tree to catch her breath, only to back away a moment later, staring in a stupor at the low-hanging branches: it was the same tree she’d stopped next to the first time. Looking back, she spotted a line of skid marks in the dirt. She’d hardly moved twenty feet from where she landed.

“What the hay?” Rainbow muttered as she slowly backed away, confusion and worry building up in her brain as she distanced herself from the tree.

Wait… distance…

Rainbow realized she was actually further away from where she was just a moment ago. With newfound vigor she turned tail and started to gallop in her original direction again, and the forest began to distend once more. She stopped in her tracks, and the forest compressed itself again.

She stood there for a moment, trying to make sense of the situation.

So if I go too fast, the forest stretches to keep me in place? she thought.

Rainbow put an experimental hoof forward, shifted her weight, then slowly relocated her other hooves to what amounted to a single step. She looked around again, and found she had moved accordingly. She tried again, a little faster this time, and found the forest did not react. Spurred by success, she kept up the pace until she was moving through the forest at a casual trot, as fast as she could move through the forest before it began taking counteractive measures against her. Still, she kept looking to and fro, trying to remain vigilant of anything that might be lurking among the trees and to make sure she was still actually moving.

Rainbow’s ears flattened in agitation. Rarity’s being held captive by a bunch of gun-crazed pirates while the rest of my friends could be in just as much danger, and here I am, trotting through some forest, looking at the tree—

Rainbow’s sour thought process came to a halt when she caught sight of a mirror nestled between two trees, only now visible as she was walking past. Its reflection made her to do a double take.

The image showed Rainbow standing amidst a cluster of five trees: two between her and the mirror, three on her other side. Two trees were located on either side of her rear and two were at her middle, leaving the last tree behind her head. The placement of the trees had the effect of framing two vertical spaces through which Rainbow could clearly see the rest of the forest in the background.

In the spaces between the two trees closer to the mirror, where she should have been able to see herself, she saw only the trees and the distant forest behind her. And on the tree between her and the mirror, which should have been obstructing most of the view of her sides, she saw part of her barrel and her wings, shifting as they twitched.

Rainbow shifted forward and back experimentally, watching as her reflection mimicked her every move perfectly. Different parts of her went in and out of view, like looking at an object moving behind a gate of bars, except in some places, the spaces between the bars showed only open air, and in others, the she appeared to be over the bars that should have been concealing it.

On a whim, Rainbow looked around at the rest of herself. The parts of her body that were not appearing in the mirror when they should have been were entirely gone. Rainbow saw only her rear, cut off at the hip, revealing a cutaway of her lower digestive tract, muscles and veins alongside bones.

“AAAAAAH!!!”

Rainbow screamed in terror and bolted forward into the air. Her heart rate jumped up several dozen beats per minute in mere seconds as she reexamined herself, hooves frantically checking herself, now whole again.

Fear overrode her thoughts, and Rainbow took off like a bat out of Tartarus, screaming past the trees as fast as her wings could carry her. She dodged a crooked tree to her left, pitched to avoid a sinister-looking tree to her right, and flew between the forked trunk of a tree in front of her. Then she dodged another crooked tree to her left, pitched to avoid a sinister-looking tree to her right, flew between the forked trunk of a tree in front of her, dodged a crooked tree to her left, pitched to avoid a sinister-looking tree to her right…

Logic started ringing alarm bells in her head, making Rainbow lurch to a stop in mid air. She looked back at the last few series of trees she had passed, only to find that there were only the two, with the terrifying mirror not that far away.

Rainbow looked back to the forked tree in front of her. Just then she heard frantic screaming and something crashing through the branches behind her. Before she could turn around, somepony crashed right into her.

Rainbow Dash looked back, and came face to face with another Rainbow Dash, wearing an expression of undiluted fear that mirrored her own.

“AAAAAAH!!!” Rainbow screamed again, flying backwards from her doppelganger and through the fork in the tree. She hardly even noticed a blip in her vision as she passed the split: she was too busy screaming as she crashed through the branches of a crooked tree to her right and a sinister-looking tree to her left…

Rainbow collided into something in midair as she flew back. Another burst of fear and adrenaline shot through her as she whipped around, only to find herself facing yet another Rainbow Dash, wearing an expression of shock that quickly melted into one of undiluted fear that mirrored her own.

“AAAAAAH!!!” Rainbow’s doppelganger screamed in terror, instinctively flying away from her and through the fork in the tree directly behind her. As soon as she passed the division, the other Rainbow disappeared, leaving nothing but the breeze of her momentum and an echo of her scream to indicated she ever existed at all.

A spark of insanity met the tinder of accumulated fear gripping Dash’s heart, roaring into a brush fire that consumed all in an inferno of panic.

“Screw this!” Rainbow thrust her wings down, tore through the foliage above, and bolted over the tops of the trees. Whatever pterodactyls that did spot her didn’t even bother to give chase: there was no way they could have even tried to keep up as she screamed all the way to town.

Rainbow never slowed down until she’d reached the settlement. She ground to a halt, then slumped up against the wall of the closest building, putting a hoof to her heart as she tried to catch her breath. The forest still surrounded her on all sides, waiting. She closed her eyes, trying to regain her composure. Even under the darkness of her eyelids, all she could see was her own internal organs and another version of her vanishing into nothingness.

Even at rest, her pulse began to pound again, her breathing shallow and frantic. Rainbow tore open her left saddlebag and ripped out her totem. She held it up to the light to check its tell; the prism, resembling a cross between lightning bolts and fire, shone clear.

The warm, calming sight of her totem's tell ebbed through her, dissolving away all the hysteria and paranoia that had crystallized in her veins. Her hyperactive breathing slowed, and her tense muscles relaxed. Within a minute, she was more at ease than she had been since falling asleep. Even as the nightmare raged around her, she could take solace in her own little bubble of tranquility. She looked down at her totem, smiled affectionately, and pulled her cherished gift into an affectionate hug.

Rainbow stood back up, ready to face the nightmare again. She moved to put her totem back into her saddlebag. Halfway there her hoof froze, and with a second thought, she lifted the golden chain over her head and set the pendant to rest around her neck. She took one last second to admire it, and cracked a small, wry dimple at the sight.

Rarity was right, Rainbow thought. This does look good on me.

Rainbow carefully trotted to the edge of the building, and peeked around the corner. As she’d expected, even though the buildings loomed ominously overhead, Rainbow had reached this dream world’s blasphemous equivalent of Ponyville. Also just as she’d suspected, in the center of town hovered the ship of her pursuit, though town square itself seemed to be much farther away than it should have been. Oddly enough, the village was rather quiet; eerie, for a chaos-warped Ponyville being invaded by trigger-happy pirates. Rainbow strained her ears. She could hear distant crashes from further in, presumably from the pirates kicking in doors and dragging out whatever they could carry, but the sounds of screaming ponies or gunfire was strangely absent. It sounded like there was a commotion occurring from deep within the forest, but whatever might be going on, it was much farther away than Rarity. Unless it was to rescue her friends, there was no way she was ever going back into that forest again.

A sudden scream put Rainbow on high alert. This one was close… Very close. And very familiar.

Without so much as a moment to think, Rainbow darted into town.

- - - - - -

Applejack’s day had been, if she had to describe it in one word, eventful. If given the creative liberty to summarize it, she’d say it was crazier than a lunatic stuffed into a barrel full of nuts and then kicked down a hill.

First she had woken up in her bed as though it was a normal day: she felt the rejuvenation of a good night’s sleep, the sun shining, and the scent of fresh apples permeating the air. Yet a check of her totem revealed that she was still in a dream. Her hair had been on end as her skin felt like it was crawling ever since she had gone downstairs to find that her family had been replaced by automatons.

She had skirted around the dining room and snuck out the front door. One look outside revealed that the idealistic summer morning peeking through the windows had been a facade. The picturesque orchards of Sweet Apple Aches were gone, replaced by a thick, overgrown forest glowing like embers in a coffin from the light of the red sky overhead. She chanced a look up, finding herself under a sun held in the coils of a great serpent.

Applejack had attempted to correct the madness through manipulation, if for nothing but to fix her home, but one look at the dream code had made her realize she’d more easily thread a needle while on the back of a bucking bronco. Her next thought had been to find the rest of her friends, guessing they must have also started the fever dream in their own homes as well. Getting to Ponyville, however, had meant having to trek through the warped Sweet Apple Acres.

What should have been a pleasant trot alongside apple trees that were her pride and joy instead felt like a trek through the Everfree forest, with heaps of the nonsensical nuances of the dream world. On the way to town, she had needed to escape living, predatory plant life, avoid being trampled by behemoths so monumental that their spindly legs dwarfed even the tallest of the trees, and figure out how to progress forward when she had ended up in part of the woods that seemed to be teleporting her at random. One moment, she’d be trotting along, the next she’d be in a completely different place than where her next step should have taken her.

There was also the group of colts on a jutting wall playing billiards as though it was mini golf, the flying squid that was bouncing back and forth between the trees like a pinball in a field of bumpers, and the shaking covered wagon that was billowing vapor, from which a crazed stallion dressed as a lumberjack and who stank of soggy mushrooms had burst from as she passed to go stomping off into woods.

Soon after, she had wandered into a clearing, where the fiery light of the sky ominously illuminated a lone, poorly pruned tree standing in the center. It was guarded by a metal sign that had a picture of a skull and crossbones and said “DO NOT TOUCH!” She certainly wasn’t going to, but then a stallion in a space suit came galloping through the clearing at breakneck speeds, followed closely by a raging three-jawed stag-bull tearing through everything in its path. The stallion brushed past her, and she didn’t even have enough time to sidestep the stag-bull before it headbutted her off to the side and into a pile of sawdust. She accidentally inhaled some, and got sent on a raging hallucinogenic acid trip involving a yeti.

Applejack had regained conscious some time later with an unspeakable headache, a parched throat, a bad case of the munchies, and a banjo in her forelegs. She had managed to stumble through the rest of the forest without much incident, even though she felt like she had an axe sticking out of her skull.

She had picked up the pace when she heard the cacophony of distant, thunderous howls like a timberwolf so loud that she had felt the earth under her hooves vibrate. Applejack cleared the trees and stepped out under an orange sky just in time to see a titanic wolf the size of a dragon crashing through a thick, tangled bramble outside of a town that looked like Ponyville, if Ponyville had been constructed by deranged gothic architects.

Applejack happened across a white, metallic capsule shaped like a cone partially embedded in the ground. It had an open door, so on a whim Applejack checked inside, and had found a single seat and a myriad of technological doohickeys that she couldn’t even fathom the purpose of. To her good fortune she had also found some water and provisions. Her hunger and thirst could be ignored no longer and she couldn’t have consumed them any faster, only for her to have to fight to keep them down when she had seen two legs of a dead goat sticking out from underneath the wreckage of the strange vehicle.

She had made it into town, only to find it abandoned: the giant paw-prints going straight down the middle of the streets left no imagining as to why. She was just about to check for any sign of her friends when a flying pirate ship made of poorly welded scrap metal flew overhead, blasting the buildings below to pieces with bizarre and powerful cannons.

Applejack had tried to stay out of sight by darting through the alleys on her way to where her friend’s homes would have been, but a small landing party had spotted her, given chase, and had been pursuing her ever since.

That was where Applejack found herself now: in the dark alley of a twisted version of her town that she was now only vaguely familiar with, trying to catch her breath and get her bearings while listening in on a pack of monsters dressed up as pirates who were trying to hunt her down.

“Where’d dat pony go?” one of the pirates off in the distance yelled.

“Dunno. How’s we s’posta find ‘er in dis shantytown?” another asked.

“Screw it, let’s jus’ fill da place wit dakka an we’ll pick ‘er corpse from da rubble!” proclaimed a third.

“Nah, wait, wot if der be sumthin’ good inside dat ya shoota might break?”

“I… uh… ya got a point...”

As they talked, Applejack quickly peeked around the corner into a parallel street. It was empty of pirates, so she darted towards a looming house directly across from her for better cover, and hopefully some high ground to plot her passage through town, only to grind to a halt.

Just in front of the porch, leading up to a front door with a symbol of a mobius strip on it, was a small puddle of water. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary about the puddle: the water was clear and placid, and there weren’t any weird creatures swimming around in it. For all intents and purposes, it was the most normal thing Applejack had seen in the dream since leaving her bedroom.

It terrified her beyond words. Never before had Applejack faced anything that left her stricken with such foreboding, overwhelming dread, that made her stop dead in her tracks, that made her hair stand on end, than this puddle before her.

“Hey! I think I ‘eard dat pony run down dis way!” yelled one of the pirates, and a scuffle of approaching boots began to thud her way.

“Horseapples,” Applejack cursed under her breath.

She skirted around the puddle like it was an abyss that lead straight to Tartarus and slipped through the unlocked front door. She closed the door quietly behind her, turned back to the interior of the home, and froze.

Applejack stood on a lone platform in a massive room of gray stone: far more spacious than the humble little cottage should have allowed for. Multiple sets of stairs ran all along the walls, floor and ceiling, leading to balconies that were either level, sideways, or completely inverted. Some of the stairs even had another set of stairs underneath them, with railings perpendicular to those on the set above them. Scattered all about were many doors, each numbered with archaic pegasi numerals, save for the one directly across from her, which had the same symbol of a mobius strip as the main entrance.

Applejack had only one thing to say.

“Nope.”

She turned back to the door she had just entered, an ‘I’ carved in relief on it. Applejack opened the door to step outside, more willing face the armed and dangerous pirate monsters than this madness. Instead, the door opened into another room just like the one she had just been in, with misaligned stairs and doors on every surface.

“What in the hay?!”

Applejack stood on the threshold of the door, staring bewildered at her surroundings. To her left, she spotted a balcony bereft of stairs on its side, where she saw another Applejack looking at something to her left.

“AH!”

Applejack yelped in shock, backing away from the door. One of her back hooves slipped off the edge of the platform behind her. She scrambled forward in panic. When all four of her hooves were back on solid ground, she started whipping her head back and forth, taking in her surreal surroundings with pin-pricked eyes. She spotted a door on the ceiling that wasn’t open before.

Applejack looked back at the door in front of her. Its other side also had an ‘I’ stamped onto it. With the gears in her mind spinning, she took a tentative step back towards the entrance, looked back up at the door behind her, then shut the one in front of her.

The echo of a door slamming shut behind her made Applejack jump. She whipped around, and sure enough, the door was shut. Now that she was getting some idea of the mechanics of her situation, Applejack tentatively reached out and opened the door in front of her.

The door on the ceiling opened in synch with the one in front of her. She gulped, then reached over the threshold. An orange foreleg emerged from the opening. She shook her extended leg, and the hoof on the ceiling waved back.

Even though she’d been expecting it, Applejack shivered. She looked back to the open door in front of her, and walked through.

Applejack looked around at her surroundings, now flipped to their side. She took note of a previously inaccessible stairway that lead from the door she had just exited to another door with the numeral ‘II’ grafted onto it. Then she looked back at the door with the same symbol as the one on the front door, now on its side and on the wall to her right. The stairs and pathways that lead to in originated from a door with the number ‘XV’ stamped onto it.

So I’ve gotta find my way through fourteen more doors, Applejack though with a sigh. Unless I could find a close enough spot that I could jump to it from...

She put a hoof to her chin as she pondered. If I tried jumpin’ from any-which-way, would gravity pull me back down to my hooves, or would I fall to whichever wall is really the floor?

Applejack went stiff and her hoof shot back down to the floor when she realized that if that latter was true, then technically being on the ceiling meant she had a long way to fall.

DON’T JUMP.

Applejack jerked her head down, focusing only on the floor directly beneath her hooves, and began to trot down the closest adjoining stairwell.

After entering and exiting every door in correct sequence, Applejack finally reached the door with the same symbol as the one she had entered. She breathed a sigh of relief, ready to put the whole disorienting experience behind her. She opened the final door, and a breeze of air brushed past her. Never had Applejack been so happy to see those imposing buildings loom over her, or to catch the distant stench of the rancid pirates.

Applejack cantered out the door, down the porch, and promptly stepped in the puddle.

She twisted under the dark, deceptively deep water and began to kick, struggling to break the surface, but something was pulling her down. Her legs began to burn, and her empty lungs screamed as her veins pumped acid, but her salvation only stretched farther and farther away. Then something closed in around her, and everything went black.

The ravenous vacuum inside her lungs clawed her chest. Her heart pounded in panic, further exhausting her scant air supply. A hiss of rushing water met her ears, and the water inside her confinement began to drain away, leaving a bubble behind. Applejack gasped for the air without a second thought, least of all for the pungent smell of fish it bore. She sputtered when several stray droplets of saline water found their way to her tongue, making her spit.

The pungent flavor of the salt water made Applejack pause. She prodded the interior of her cell, and felt a hard shell underneath a thick layer of soft flesh.

The dread Applejack had when she first saw the puddle came crashing back down on her with the vengeance of a tsunami.

The muscles around her moved, and a widening sliver of light poured in through an opening crack, shedding light on her surroundings. Applejack sat in encased in a bubble of air atop a giant clam on the bottom of a sandy ocean floor. Before her was a creature of her worst nightmares. Its smiling face like a fireworks display was a stark antithesis to her visage of dread.

Applejack was face-to-face with a sea pony.

“Oh my gosh, Applejack!” exclaimed the sea pony, then turned to address the surrounding reef. “Hey everypony; Applejack is back!”

The reef burst to life, and in an instant, a teeming herd of sea ponies had swarmed the paralyzed mare, their combined smiles blinding and barrage of greetings deafening.

“Welcome back, AJ!”

“Bless Poseidon, where have you been?”

“We’re so glad you’ve returned, Applejack!”

“How long has it been since we last met?”

“Wait!” One sea pony swam in front of the rest with a fin held up. “There’s only one way to properly welcome our old friend back...”

If the sea ponies had been smiling before, their manic grins tore their faces in half.

“ENCORE!”

At that, the herd of sea ponies zipped off into separate choreographed circles. Neon spotlights lit all around, bathing Applejack in colors lights. Music filled the air, and the sea ponies began to sing.

“SHOO BE DOO! SHOO SHOO BE DOO...”

Applejack drew in a deep, protracted breath of air to replace the one she hadn’t realized she’d been holding until then. With muscles stiff and blood frozen in terror, Applejack finally responded.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!”

A violent splash came from above, and seconds later the bubble around Applejack popped. She didn’t have time to regret exhausting her last breath on a scream of terror before something grabbed hold of her and she began to rocket towards the surface.

“Wait, don’t go!” the sea ponies cried after her. “We need your help to deal with the shark vikings!”

She broke through the waves, and there was a brief feeling of vertigo as she floated weightless before falling undignified to the ground. Applejack would have kissed the earth if she hadn’t been busy gasping for air again. Something prodded her side, and she brushed her sopping wet mane out of her eyes to see her hat being offered back to her by a cyan hoof.

“You're welcome,” said Rainbow Dash.

Applejack was on Rainbow in an instant, forelegs like a noose of friendship as AJ pulled Dash into one of the tightest bear-hugs she’d ever given her.

“Whoa, easy!” Dash protested, trying to pry enough of Applejack off her to breathe. “I still gotta make sure it’s you.”

“What?” Applejack asked, pulling back.

“That stupid coded phrase Twilight told us to ask if we ever got separated to make sure we’re not some double-agent projection or whatever… Okay, it’s probably not so stupid now, but still… alright: ‘It’s a bright, cold day in April...’”

“Twilight and her checklists, ” Applejack muttered under her breath, rolling her eyes a little. “Um… oh! ‘And the clocks are striking thirteen.’”

Rainbow smirked. “You totally owe me now.”

Applejack didn’t even reply; she just pulled Dash into another hug.

“Hey! Only the first one is free!” Rainbow whined, looking around in unease. “Don’t you go getting all sappy on me.”

“I don’t care, Rainbow.” Applejack said, her face in Dash’s coat. “I ain’t seen any o’ you girls since we got into this nightmare. You’re a sight for sore eyes if ever there was one.” Applejack looked up at Rainbow, smiling a little. “Besides, ain’t nopony looking. I can get as sappy as I want.”

Rainbow checked to ensure the were indeed alone, then she smiled and hugged her friend back with a slight nuzzle. They stayed like that, enjoying each other’s company for a moment of peace in a truly crazy world.

“So… what was all that going on with the sea ponies?” Rainbow asked.

“NOTHING!” Applejack blurted as she reeled back, her eyes wide.

“Really?” Dash cocked an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Weren’t nothing. Nothing at all.” Applejack looked away to her left.

“Reeeally?” Rainbow smirked once more, beginning to chuckle as she moved in for the kill. “You’re scared stiff of sea ponies?!”

Applejack’s ears flattened and her face turned red, prompting Rainbow to burst out laughing.

“Applejack is afraid of sea ponies!” Rainbow howled, holding her gut. “The mare who’ll bull rush a swarm of changelings is utterly terrified of sea ponies!”

“Yeah. Horrified. Traumatized even. I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Rainbow wiped a tear from her eye, her laughter finally subsiding. “Oh, I know what I’m going as next Nightmare Night.”

Applejack exhaled an exasperated sigh. “Yeah, hardy-har-har. So have you seen any of the other girls, or is it just us two?”

Rainbow’s expression turned all business. “Yeah. I saw Rarity.”

“You did?!” Applejack blurted, her eyes going wide. “Where is she?”

“Ya seen that hunk of junk pirate ship with all the monsters on it?” Rainbow asked, to which Applejack nodded in reply. “Those jerks have her tied to the front like she’s some figurehead. I followed them here, but they tried to shoot me outta the sky, so unless we suddenly end up with some kind of army to take them on, we’ve got to find a way to sneak up to the ship and free her.”

Applejack nodded again. “Right. But those creatures were chasin’ me before I ran into you, so we’d better hurry and get outta here before—”

Applejack was cut off with the “cha-chick” of several firearms being armed.

“Well, look what we gots ‘ere,” one of the pirates grinned from behind the sights of his gun. “More ‘eadpieces.”

Another of the pirates gave a dark chuckle. “Alls that ruckus yous was makin’ made ya nice an’ easy to find. Hey, maybe if we get a tickle from what had ya’ laughin’ so ’ard, maybe we won’t pummel ya as much b’fore we drags ya back to da ship.”

Applejack glared at Rainbow Dash. “Any bright ideas now, chuckle-bucket?”

“Uh… wanna see if we can get the sea ponies to help us?”

Applejack glowered at Rainbow, but then the ground began to tremble under their hooves. Both mares looked behind them as the puddle roiled and bubbled.

“What be that?” one of the pirates declared, looking around in confusion.

Rainbow grabbed Applejack around the barrel and bolted into the air just as a geyser of ocean water erupted from the puddle, followed by a monolithic viking ship the size of a frigate bursting forth from the ground like a leviathan breaking the waves. It fell back upon waters that now partially submerged the twisted town, crushing the pirates like chicken eggs underneath a fallen redwood tree.

The shocked mares looked back down at the emerged vessel. The subsiding whitewash revealed a teeming company of anthropomorphic sharks. Their bodies rippled with powerful muscles underneath runed armor, and their faces and scalps flowed with such an abundance of hair that they made yaks look like zebu in comparison.

One of the viking sharks looked up and saw Dash and AJ hovering in the air. He gasped and pointed towards them, calling back to the command deck of the ship.

“Shipmaster! Behold!”

From the rear of the enormous vessel rose the largest, most heavily armored, and hairiest of all the sharks. He looked up to the sky and gasped in kind.

“Strike me with Mjolnir!” the shipmaster exclaimed. “Kneel warriors, for we are in the presence of the Rainbow Mare!”

Reverence overtook them all as every single shark fell to one knee and bowed their head.

Rainbow stared in utter bewilderment. “Uh… what’s going on?”

The Shipmaster raised his head. “The Codex Regius speaks of a great winged horse that soars like thunder and whose flight is infused with the power of the Rainbow Bridge of Valhalla.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “What, you mean like my Sonic Rainboom?”

Excited murmurs rippled through the battalion of vikings, prompting the shipmaster to rise.

“What is thy name, daughter of Sleipnir?” he asked.

“Um, Rainbow. My name’s Rainbow Dash.”

The shipmaster raised a massive warhammer up to Rainbow. “Lady Dash, Daughter of Sleipnir, we of the Razorfin clan swear our swords and shields to you in an oath of fealty!” A universal uproar was bellowed in kind from every shark onboard.

“Just what in the hay is goin’ on?” Applejack looked up to ask Rainbow, only to see a mischievous smirk growing on her face.

“I think we just found our army,” Rainbow said with a devilish grin.

Rainbow puffed out her chest, addressing her personal army with as much gusto and bravado as she could muster. “Honorable warriors of Razorfin, do you long for action and hunger for blood?”

A vigorous uproar answered her.

“Then I have a task for you! In the center of this village is a vessel of savages who have pony-napped my dear friend, Lady Rarity, whom I must retrieve to purge this world of chaos! Will you follow me into battle that I may rescue the fair maiden and escort her to safety?”

The shipmaster raised his hammer. “We shall!” Another wave of roars followed in agreement.

Rainbow swooped down and dropped Applejack on the deck on the ship. “Then take my friend, Lady Applejack—”

“Hey, don’t you think you can start goin’ ‘round calling me ‘lady’, missy!” Applejack riposted.

“Just play along—Take Lady Applejack aboard this mighty ship, and follow me!” Rainbow flew up and the bow of the ship, then turned with a cocky grin. “And try to keep up.”

“We will follow thee, Lady Dash, to Ragnarok itself!” The shipmaster turned to his crew. “Warriors! Prepare for battle!”

A swell of deafening war cries exploded from the shark vikings, and they scurried into formation. The movement revealed a quintet of vikings near the back, armed not with mere steel but weaponized instruments, like rockers straight from Hel. Oaken gears began to shift and creak, unveiling a set of monolithic speakers, prompting a frantic and vain search from Applejack for something to stuff into her ears.

The shipmaster took the rudder and grinned. “Bards! Strike an appropriate tune!”

A thrum of dual guitars filled the air with volumes to make eardrums scream for mercy as the bass and drums thumped with the boom of a legion of thunder. Dash grinned in spite of the feeling that her cochlea were about to explode, and shot towards the center of town, rainbow trail following in her wake. Just then, the fifth and final member of the band raised a microphone to his mouth and screamed in bloodlust as the music reached a shredding peak. All the sharks began to headbang, swinging their hair around in rapid circles like windmills, generating a torrential wind that caught the sails with the force of a hurricane. The ship tore off like a bat out of Tartarus, crashing through buildings as it followed Rainbow Dash into town like a faithful attack megalodon.

- - - - - -

Over the submerged crater that used to be Town Hall, the captain of the Scurvy Gits looked over the bow of his ship. The rest of the crew was still wading and swimming through the waters, clambering back onto the ship with whatever ill-gotten gains they could carry before the sudden flood forced them to cut their looting short.

The captain squinted as he looked in the distance; the distant war anthem, crashing waves, and buildings being smashed drew ever closer. He gripped the rails tighter and couldn’t help but smile a little.

Another pirate decked out in a plethora of tools with a macaw perched on its shoulder and a massive screw sticking out of its skull thumped up behind the warboss. “Oi, Captain!”

The captain turned. “Aye, Mista Screw. You got’s word on da ship?”

Mr. Screw nodded. “Aye, Captain. Ship be in tip-top shape. Engine’s primed, floata pads calibrated, shoota’s locked an’ loaded, an’ I only had ta patch seven breaches in da hull this time.”

The captain nodded in approval. “Good... but...” The captain looked Mr. Screw dead in the eye, deathly serious. “How be da sails?”

“Flawless. Notta hole in all thirty-seven of dem.”

The captain sighed in blissful relief. “Coudn’ta asked for betta. We’s gonna be needin’ them.” He turned back in the direction of the uproar. “Can ya feel it, Mista Screw?”

Mr. Screw nodded. “Aye, Captain. There be a fight comin’. Grey Wolves, methinks by da sound of it.”

“Dun matter if they humies, pointy ears, bots, or da bugs. Livin’ an’ dead alike will bow to da Scurvy Gits at da might of our dakka.”

The bird on Mr. Screw’s shoulder cawed. “Bawk! Gun ‘em down!”

“Aw, you’s such a good parrot,” Mr. Screw affectionately cooed, then pulled a handful of cracker crumbs from one of his many pockets and served them to the parrot while scratching its head.

The captain tightened his grip on the rail with one hand as the other stroked the massive rocket launcher slung around his shoulders in anticipation. “Maybe when we can get some more headpieces so da headpiece can have some friends.” The captain leaned over the rail to address the ship’s organic ornament. “How ya like da sound o’ that, headpiece?”

Rarity, who had gone unacknowledged since her last conversation and was still equipped with the scrapyard shotgun and the soiled-beyond-redemption tricorn didn’t even look at her addresser.

“Rot in Tartarus,” she toxically hissed through gritted teeth.

Mr. Screw’s face lit up at Rarity’s curse. “Rotten tartar sauce? That sounds delicious!”

Rarity growled in exacerbation and rolled her eyes so hard that her irises nearly disappeared up inside her skull, ensuring that she didn’t notice the two ponies creeping up on the ship from a nearby roof.

Twilight squinted up at hulking mass of floating scrap metal that vaguely resembled a pirate ship. She caught sight of something that stood out from the cobbled eyesore commandeered by monster gorilla pirates and gasped.

“Fluttershy!” Twilight whispered as she ducked back down out of sight and pointed at the seafaring scrapheap. “Look! We found Rarity!”

Fluttershy peered over the ridge of the roof, caught sight of Rarity, then went still.

“Alright, Fluttershy, get down. We can’t let them to see us.”

Fluttershy didn’t move a muscle.

“Fluttershy?” Twilight prodded.

The pegasus remained motionless.

“Fluttershy!”

She remained statuesque.

Twilight peered over the top of the roof again. Mr. Screw was turning their way. Twilight gasped, then yanked Fluttershy back down into hiding. She waited for a second, then Twilight peered over the top of the roof to check in they had been spotted. None of the pirates were looking in their direction. Twilight afforded herself a quick sigh of relief, then turned back to Fluttershy. The pegasus was still stiff, staring off into the middle distance.

“Fluttershy, are you okay?” Twilight asked as she put a gentle hoof on Fluttershy’s shoulder.

Fluttershy gasped, flinching at Twilight’s touch. “Oh, yeah, I just… I...”

She choked on her words, looking away again. Whimpering through gritted teeth, she shut her eyes against a fresh wave of tears. Twilight pulled Fluttershy into another embrace, brushing a sympathetic hoof over her sodden, blood-streaked mane.

“I have a plan to free Rarity, but I’m going to need your help. Can I count on you, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy pulled away, sniffed, ran a filthy and cracked hoof across her runny nose, then nodded.

“Okay...” she whispered.

Twilight smiled and gave Fluttershy a reassuring shake of the shoulder.

“Good girl.” Twilight looked back in the direction of the ship “Alright, here’s the plan: I’ll teleport onto the deck of the ship and cast a shield spell around myself to draw their fire. While they’re distracted, you go to Rarity and use your laser eyes to cut through her shackles. When you’re done, call for me, and I’ll teleport the three of us as far away as I can, and then we can go find the rest of the girls. Alright?”

“Alright...” Fluttershy mumbled.

“It should work as long as they don’t see you coming, but we need to hurry before whatever is making that racket gets here. So let’s just signal Rarity, and we’ll do this.”

Twilight lit her horn, then created an aura in the shape of a small arrow in front of Rarity’s face. She snapped to attention and jerked her head in the direction the arrow pointed. Twilight waved, then moved to put a hoof over her mouth to direct Rarity to keep quiet.

“IT’S A BRIGHT COLD DAY IN APRIL AND THE CLOCKS ARE STRIKING THIRTEEN! NOW GET ME DOWN!!!” Rarity shrieked.

Every pirate on the ship went on alert. The captain looked over the portside bow to the roof Twilight and Fluttershy where hiding on, then pointed a stubby finger at them.

“MORE PONEHS!” he roared.

Twilight ducked back down into cover as a barrage of bullets and rockets were shot her way. She growled and clawed at her own face, while Fluttershy began to hyperventilate.

“What are we going to do, whatarewegoingtodo?!”

“I don’t know, I’m thinking!” Twilight yelled, but concentration proved difficult with the litany of gunfire and the bombastic noise that vaguely resembled music becoming even louder.

The noise of a jetstream ‘whoosh’ came from overhead. Twilight looked up, and gasped at the familiar rainbow trail streaking through the skies.

“Rainbow Dash?”

The pegasus screeched to a halt in mid-air, whipped around, and caught sight of Twilight and Fluttershy. Her face lit up, but then her smile vanished as the sound of shredding metal started to make Twilight’s ears hurt.

“Quick! Get out of Razorfins' way!” Rainbow cried out.

“Who?”

Twilight snapped her head back to the sound of the buildings on the opposite side of the clearing being smashed to pieces. She yelped, teleporting herself and Fluttershy to the rooftops across the pavilion, giving Twilight a clear view as the pirates' vessel was brutally jackknifed by an equally massive viking ship commanded by sharks. The force of the attack rammed the pirate ship through several establishments, including the one Twilight and Fluttershy had just been on, knocking all the pirates off balance before both ships ground to a halt.

A moment passed, and an orange hoof rose to pull up a tremulous Applejack, lurching over to the rails of the Razorfin ship. Her tongue lolled out from her mouth as her eyes swam about in her head.

“Bud I wasch tall ‘nuff ta go on tha’ ride, Granny!” Applejack slurred, then disgorged the contents of her stomach over the side.

Onboard the pirate’s ship, the captain got back on his feet, spotting Dash hovering nearby.

“YOU! I rememba’ you!”

The captain looked back and forth between Rainbow and the vikings. He put two and two together, then with an aggressive growl he hoisted his massive rocket launcher onto his shoulder and fired a round at the pegasus.

The artillery shell only made it halfway to Rainbow before the shipmaster of Razorfin raised his warhammer. The runic markings etched across it glowed electric blue, then a lightning bolt shot from the weapon’s crown, striking the rocket and detonating it in midair. The shipmast then bared his phalanxes of teeth, pointing his hammer as a gavel of accusation at the captain.

“You DARE accost Lady Dash, barbarian?!”

The captain whipped around. “An’ what’s it ta you, chum-breath?!”

The palpable aggression emanating from the horde of pirates made Twilight’s gut twist in apprehension, but with a start she realized that she had gone forgotten with the arrival of Razorfin.

“Fluttershy, now’s our chance! We need to get Rarity and escape before this gets ugly!”

Twilight teleported herself and Fluttershy to the bow of the pirate ship. Twilight grabbed onto one of the many protruding hunks of scrap, then looked back at Rainbow and mouthed ‘get Applejack.’ Rainbow saluted, then zipped under the ship back around to Razorfin’s vessel.

“What kept you?” Rarity hissed.

“Long story,” Twilight whispered, attempting to pry off the thick shackles holding Rarity in place. “We need to get you out of here before they start fighting!”

Meanwhile, topside, the commanding officers of both sides continued to harangue each other as the bloodlust of their respective crews began to rise.

“You retched curs are beneath feeding to barracuda!” scorned the shipmaster.

“Dat’s some big talk fer’ a bloke who’s boss of a ship WIT ONLY ONE SAIL! ”

Twilight growled in frustration at the tenacity of the metal holding Rarity in place. “Fluttershy, I need your help!”

“O-okay...” Fluttershy whimpered, then squinted her remaining functioning eye, focusing her laser into a narrow beam that slowly began to cut through the binds.

The shipmaster turned to his army. “Warriors of Razorfin, it is the will of The Asagods we vanquish these ignoble brigands! For with their blessing of Lady Dash, the Rainbow Mare, we shall—”

The shipmaster was cut short when a thrown skull collided with the side of his head.

“Oi, dat be da deck of a ship, not da stage of a theater, ya sod!” the captain heckled. His merry band of miscreants all howled in laughter, and he began to chuckle as he turned to face them. “Hey, ya’ boyz think I cud git him ta start quotin’ Hamlet if I threw him a fish?”

Another uproar of guffaws followed. Then an arrow shot off the captain’s tricorn, carrying it all the way into one of the pirate ship’s many sails. Dead silence fell like a sudden winter upon the Scurvy Gits. Even Twilight and Fluttershy had stopped for a moment: they could feel the pervasive tension reach a breaking point.

Twilight looked to Fluttershy, then to Rarity, then back to Fluttershy, beforeall three redoubled their efforts to break the pearly unicorn loose.

The captain put a hand to his bald head in surprise, then looked back at the Razorfin clan. The shipmaster was lowering a crossbow with a condescending smirk. The captain turned around and reached out to retrieve his apparel, only for the arrow to burn into flames, burning a hole in the sail.

The captain’s right eye twitched.

“You’ve dun it now...” the captain growled as he turned, his voice low and dangerous. He whipped around and pointed a thick finger at the closest tricorn-bedecked war boy in the lot.

“OI! TIMMY! C’MERE!”

The war boy in question reeled back at the command, then looked around in bewilderment. Timmy gulped, then scampered up to the war boss.

“Oi Cap’ain?”

The captain never ceased to glare bayonets at the shipmast of Razorfin Clan, so he didn’t even look at Timmy when he raised his fist and punched him in the face with such force that Timmy flew across the deck, his hat suspended in the air for a moment. The captain caught the hovering tricorn with his outstretched hand, then slammed it onto his own head and pointed his rocket launcher at the shipmaster.

“You’ll rue da day ya crossed Captain Blacktooth an’ da Scurvy Gits!”

Twilight was starting to panic. “Fluttershy, we need to hurry!”

Fluttershy’s beam was wavering, cutting in and out. “I.. I can’t! I...”

Rainbow Dash flew up, holding an Applejack that was as limp as a wet sack of potatoes.

“I’ve got AJ!”

“Naw, ‘m fine, I was jus’ hav’n a beer… or twelve...” Applejack mumbled.

The shipmaster grinned with malicious hunger as his warriors roared their war cries and the bards began to churn out a deafening progression of violent power chords. “Valhalla awaits us, Razorfin! Hel starves for these savages! WE SHALL SEND THEM TO IT!”

Captain Blacktooth growled as the multiple sights of his rocket launcher flipped into view... except all of the iron sights, red dot sights, laser sights, and various other sights had been replaced by little sails that had a target cut out from them. Every last one of The Scurvy Gits bellowed the most sacred word in their tongue.

“WAAAGH!!!”

The cacophonous crack of several hundred firearms discharging at once clashing against an entire thunderstorm’s worth of lightning split Twilight’s ears. It wasn’t until the ringing in her ears had subsided that she realised she and all her friends were now screaming, and Fluttershy had started to sob hysterically again. Wounded cries of anguish came from both sides, dampened under the blaring distortion of viking death metal.

Twilight attempted to undo the last of Rarity’s bonds, but her fumbling hooves refused to do anything but remain shoved into her ears, and the blasts of the ongoing war above were causing such dissonant vibrations in her horn that she couldn’t even wield her magic adequately.

“To hay with this!” Rarity screamed She slammed the muzzle of her shotgun against the last of her cuffs and fired.

Rarity cried out in pain as the blast obliterated the welds around the shackle, shaking her formerly restrained left forehoof to the bone and causing her to fall. Twilight bolted forward and caught her by the wounded hoof, eliciting another anguished howl.

Twilight screamed and flung Rarity unto the nearest rooftop. She skid over the tiles and was just able to catch the edge of the drain with her rear hooves. Rainbow flew over to the roof, dropped Applejack next to Rarity, then flew back to Twilight.

“I need to let Razonfin know where we’re going!” Rainbow yelled over the gunfire.

“What?! No! We need to get out of here!”

“They’ve sworn and oath of fealty to me! They can help us!”

Twilight grit her teeth. “Argh, fine! Tell them to meet us at the library! But hurry!”

Rainbow nodded, then zipped around both ships, approaching the shipmaster from behind. Boarders from both sides had invaded the other’s vessel, combining the ship-to-ship battle with melee combat. Rainbow flipped in midair and bucked the face of a war boy charging the shipmaster from behind, sending the pirate over the rails.

“Shipmaster!” yelled Dash. “We have freed Lady Rarity and must depart that we may purge this world of its chaos!”

The shipmaster nodded. “Aye, Lady Dash!”

“When you have finished, we will have regrouped at a library made from an oak tree on the edge of town! You can find us there!”

“A haven of knowledge grown from a sapling of Yggdrasil...” The shipmaster grinned. “A novel concept! I like it!”

“Will you and your warriors fare on your own?” Rainbow asked.

The shipmaster reached out and yanked Dash out of the way of an incoming rocket, placing her behind cover.

“We can, Daughter of Sleipnir! We of Razorfin fear not death, for we know the honorable are awaited in the grandest halls of Asgard!”

Dash just stared for a moment, in awe of the shipmaster’s conviction.

“For your loyalty, I shall carry your fallen to the gates of Valhalla myself,” Dash swore.

The shipmaster gasped, a flame of humility and honor sparkling in his eyes.

Dash smiled, looked over the shipmaster’s shoulder, then screamed. “LOOK OUT!”

A war boy pounced towards the shipmaster, bellowing his creed. “WITNESS ME!”

The shipmaster whipped around and swung his mighty hammer at his attacker. The pirate took the full force of the blow and went flying clear off into the distance.

Rainbow scoffed at the dispatched pirate. “Mediocre!”

An explosion rocked the two off balance.They looked in the direction of the blast, where Captain Blacktooth stood in a clearing on the ship surrounded by fallen sharks with his rocket launcher in one hand and a warhammer of his own in the other.

The shipmaster furrowed his brow at his enemy, then braced to charge. “Fly now, Lady Dash! Take your friends and do what you must, but this fight is mine!”

Rainbow nodded. “Celestial speed, shipmaster!”

Rainbow zipped away from the battle as the opposing commanders charged each other, landing on the rooftops next to Twilight. “Alright, we’re good! Let’s go!” Rainbow took back to the air.

“Rainbow, wait!” Twilight called out. “Rarity can’t gallop with her injuries! You’ll need to carry her!”

Rainbow rolled her eyes, the flew to Rarity and smirked at her as she pulled the unicorn into her forelegs. “Hold on, Lady Rarity!”

Rarity just raised a confused eyebrow before Dash took off. Twilight and Applejack galloped after them, leaping across the rooftops with Fluttershy making up the rear. The five fled until they had reached the elevated ground to the location of the Golden Oaks library.

Twilight had never been so happy to see her home, nor could she have been more overjoyed to see it unscathed by the insanity around them. Twilight lit her horn, teleported them all to the front door, and tore it open. Her friends darted inside without a word, then Twilight zipped in behind them, then through her full weight at the door, slamming it shut. Twilight held her breath for a moment, her back flat against the entrance, lest an exhalation shatter the scene.

Every book was stocked neatly upon the shelves, exactly where each one needed to be, with a little patch of dust here and there where Spike had gotten lazy and thought she wouldn’t notice. Twilight took a deep breath, and the heavenly smell of residual sap and stale, dusty book bindings blessed her nostrils. She sighed in relief and slid to the floor, slumping up against the entrance.

Applejack swayed on her hooves, her face drained of color. “I’mma be sick...” she mumbled, then scurried up the stairs.

Dash watched her go, then turned back to the other three. Her eyes darted from one to the other, then an expression of horror overtook her face.

“Has anypony seen Pinkie?”

Rarity just shook her head in dismay. Fluttershy didn’t even respond.

Twilight sat up. “No… I ensured the library was made from completely encrypted code to make it a safe house, so she was supposed to show up here. We were all supposed to show up here.” Twilight huffed. “Fat lot of good that ended up doing...”

Rainbow zipped from room to room, kicking each door open and calling out Pinkie’s name, only to receive no answer.

“She’s not here!” Rainbow flew back, skidding to a halt in front of Twilight. “We have to go back out there!”

Rarity slowly pulled the sordid tricorn from her head and nudged it to the side of her discarded shotgun.

“Before we go anywhere, I need to get… this… washed out...” She gestured at the chunky, visceral gore oozing down her head and neck, then began to limp towards the stairs.

Rainbow gawked. She growled, then flew right up behind Rarity.

“Pinkie Pie is still lost out there in that nightmare, and you want to take A BATH?!”

Rarity whipped around to glare at Rainbow. “Do you have any idea what this filth I am soaked in is?!”

Rainbow sniffed the air, and reeled back at a stench like mold, sweat, and iron. “No...”

“NEITHER DO I!” Rarity shrieked, then turned, whapping Rainbow with her tail as began to stomp up the stairs with as much indignance as she could muster with a three-legged gait.

Rainbow snarled, then flew higher up on the stairs, blocking Rarity’s path.

“So that’s it then? Miss prissy going to go fix her hair and makeup while her friend suffers alone in a chaos-twisted fever dream!? Really showing where your heart stands!”

Twilight gasped. “Rainbow! Don’t—”

Rarity scoffed. “Oh, and you’re one to talk! Now that you’ve got your own mob of fanatical chauvinists, I bet you’re enjoying gallivanting about however you wish!”

“Girls, please!”

Rainbow showed her muzzle right up into Rarity’s face. “At least I’m actually doing something useful instead of being some helpless damsel in distress!”

“STOP FIGHTING!!!”

Tense silence engulfed the foyer. The quarreling mares looked away from each other to Fluttershy, glaring at them with her teeth bared. Seconds passed, and her reprimanding glower melted into a pained grimace: a bomb on the verge of tears.

“This isn’t going to help anything,” Fluttershy explained, her voice quivering. “We have to work together, so no fighting… don’t fight... please…”

Rainbow and Rarity remained fixed in place, like foals caught with their hooves in the cookie jar. Moments passed, where the only sound to cut through the silence was Fluttershy’s irregular sniffling. Rarity’s throat hitched, her eyes beginning to waver with contrition. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.

“I killed one of them.”

All eyes present were on Rarity. Rainbow’s disconcerted expression asked for a response more than words ever could.

“I killed one of them… the pirates,” Rarity repeated with more dismay. “I couldn’t fix the dream to get myself out of trouble, so I screamed for help. One of them shoved that—” she pointed her wounded hoof at the shotgun on the floor “—right in my face, told me to shut up. He just… made me so angry. I yanked it away, pointed it back at him. He tried to take back, it misfired…”

Rarity stared off into the middle distance. “The captain just laughed when I asked what happened, like it was all just some cruel joke. I tried to negotiate my release, but he just made me an involuntary part of the crew, then slammed the dead pirate’s hat onto my crown.”

Rarity looked back at Rainbow Dash, her eyes brimmed with tears.“That’s what this is,” she strained, pointing to the goop, “the liquefied remains of some pirate monster’s head.”

Rarity tore her afflicted gaze from Rainbow, redirecting them to the steps as she moved to pass the transfixed pegasus.

“You’re not the only one...”

Rarity stopped before carrying herself up a single flight. She looked back down at Fluttershy, who was fighting not to withdraw completely behind her sullied mane.

“You’re not the only one here who’s killed someone today.”

Not a word was spoken. Fluttershy whimpered, then flicked aside her clumped and tangled mane—still damp with saliva, blood, and vomit—to reveal her beaten and bruised face and the swollen lids of her left eye.

“Giant wolf… tried to eat me...”

Fluttershy’s ears folded against her head. She let out a pained whine like a beaten puppy, then her legs gave out from under her. She collapsed to the floor, forelegs covering her face, her mane a filthy curtain from behind which she began to sob.

Rarity just stared in pity, then descended the stairs and approached the weeping pegasus. She sat down in front of her, gently stroking her exposed pastern. Rarity learned in a little closer and spoke, her voice tender.

“This isn’t just your blood, is it?”

Fluttershy took a heaving breath, shuddered, then shook her head, her face still hidden.

“Do you think you would feel a little better if we cleaned it off?”

Fluttershy sniffled, then nodded.

Rarity nudged Fluttershy with her muzzle, then took her gently by the hoof to pull her back to standing. Fluttershy wiped away her tears, then began to follow Rarity up the stairs, her eyes to the ground and her squalid mane and tail dragging across the floor. Rainbow drifted away without a word as they climbed the stairs, passing her on the way to the bathroom.

“Wait!” Rainbow blurted, landing behind the two. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did to you, Rarity, and I didn’t mean to make you upset, Fluttershy.”

Rainbow looked away, rubbing one foreleg with the other. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, shamefaced. “Just… I’m sorry.”

Rarity stood next to Fluttershy, only seeing Rainbow through her peripheral vision. Moments passed in silence as she regarded the penitent pegasus.

“I forgive you,” Rarity meekly answered. “And I apologize too. I had no right to lambaste you, Rainbow, with such wanton calumny, or to make you, Fluttershy, so upset with my cruel words.” She swallowed, then waited a moment the regain control of her voice. “And thank you, everypony, for going out of your way to rescue me.”

Rainbow returned with a brief, weak smile. “Hey, you’d have done the same for me.”

“I would… I just wouldn’t have employed vikings. Probably.” Rarity glanced back towards the bathroom door. “We won’t take long. The second I’ve cleansed myself, I’ll be ready to go back outside.”

Rarity lead Fluttershy the rest of the way to the lavatory, slipped through the door, and quietly shut it behind them.

Rainbow watched them go, concerned eyebrows bunched together and her demeanor solemn. Without even looking at Twilight, Rainbow glided back down to the foyer, sat on the wooden floor, then slumped over to one side and leaned against the nearest set of bookshelves.

Twilight stood, made her way over to Rainbow, and put a compassionate hoof on her friend’s shoulder.

“Are you okay, Rainbow?”

Dash took in a sharp breath and her face scrunched up in frustration.

“No Twilight, I’m not okay,” she replied, terse. “I screwed up. I screwed up bad.”

“No, you didn—”

Rainbow cut her off with a raised hoof. “Don’t, Twi. You were right freakin’ there. I screwed up. My friends were in serious danger, and I’m at their throats for it.”

Twilight waited for a moment to let Rainbow breathe before she responded.

“But you still made it right.” Twilight sat next to Rainbow and put a foreleg around her. ”This has been hard on all of us.”

Rainbow breathing became laboured and her voice strained. “All this to help Pinkie, and we don’t even know where Pinkie is! How am I supposed to fix her problems when I can’t even get my own act straight?” She shut her eyes in dismay, her voice low and disquieted. “Rarity, Fluttershy… We all could have died out there...”

Rainbow’s eyes snapped open. In an instant Rainbow was in the air with her muzzle inches from Twilight’s, eyes wide and pupils shrunken.

“What happens if you die in a dream?” Rainbow hurriedly asked. “Can you die in these dreams? What if that old mare’s tale is true?! Could Pinkie have—”

“No, Rainbow. You won’t die in real life if you die in the dream.”

Rainbow’s mouth gaped open in horror as her face turned ashen. “But you can still die...”

Twilight grimaced. “If the worst happens, then you’ll just wake up, like you would with any other nightmare. Which,” she added before Rainbow could get a word in, “gives me reason to believe that Pinkie is still out there, alive. If… she were to have woken up, then Spike would have given us the kick and we’d be back in the conscious world.”

Rainbow stared at Twilight for a moment, her head shaking in disbelief. “You knew all this, and you didn’t tell us?”

“I...” Twilight paused, “I told you all it was going to be dangerous. That’s what the training was for. I just didn’t think it would be this bad. I’m sorry.”

Rainbow looked down, sighed, then flew off into the kitchen.

“Hey, where are you going?”

Rainbow flew back in with a tray of ice cubes, a plastic bag, and a dish towel.

“How much time do we have left?” Rainbow asked.

Twilight opened up her saddlebag and glanced at her pocketwatch. “About an hour and ten minutes.”

“Are the Elements here?”

Twilight lit her horn and pulled The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide off the shelves and opened for Rainbow, revealing all six of them.

“I thought it would be ironically fitting. This place is secure, after all.”

Rainbow looked down at the tray of ice cubes in her hooves. “Fluttershy’s gonna need something to reduce the swelling in her eye. These should help… I know from experience. Soon as we’re all good, we head back out there,” she said, then flew upstairs to the bathroom door and gently knocked upon it with a hoof.

“Hey, it’s me.” Rainbow waited for a second before being bid to enter. She closed the bathroom door behind her, leaving Twilight alone in the foyer.

The lone unicorn sat back down on the floor, exhaling a burdened sigh. “Well, this has been one big catastrophic hodgepodge since it started.”

I noticed, Reason dryly commented. But surely you must have expected something like this. You were at ground zero when this ordeal with Pinkie first detonated.

“I was. But I could have never imaged things would go this badly.” Twilight let out a listless laugh. “I suppose this is what we get for jumping head-first into a dream with the most inscrutable pony we know while she’s currently in dire straits, with four other ponies who all live in a town where everypony is crazy.”

She says to her split personality.

Twilight huffed, coy. “Spoken like a true native.”

Reason chuckled. Touché. So what are we going to do to find Pinkie?

Twilight looked at the window. Its still drapes and the silence of the library belied the demented carnival outside.

“Spread out enough to cover as broad an area as possible, but not too far that we get separated again. Or we can try locating her through the spell matrix: maybe we’ll have more luck if the six of us are focusing on the same thing at once.” Twilight looked away from the window and began to make her way to the fiction shelves. “But all that is moot until we get back out there again. In the meantime, we should this time to recuperate. This is a mental battle, after all, so we need to relax to clear our mind.”

And what do you propose to do for that?

Twilight pulled the last book from the Daring Do series off the shelf.

“What else?”

Reason chuckled. Brush up on the best parts again before the new one debuts tomorrow?

“You know it,” Twilight said as she laid down, curling her legs underneath as she got comfortable in her favorite spot by the center table. “So, which part do you want to retread: the academic parts where Daring is delving into the oldest and most obscure of Equestrian myths about worlds beyond the stars, when she starts tying them together with the common thread of a collective of archmages, or when she’s piecing together the broken portal?”

Actually, let’s read the part where she opens the gateway. Reason giggled. For as boring as Rainbow thought reading about recorded legends was, the look on her face when it finally paid off was priceless. I still laugh whenever I think about it.

At the recommendation, Twilight opened Daring Do and The Gyroscope of Time, flipped through the pages to the last third, and began to read, her worry and anxiety slowly stripping away with every word as Daring Do used the ancient gyroscope that was fabled to have belonged to the mythical sorcerer Lord Hypnos. She disappeared, then reappeared in the circular ruins of a parthenon with alien constellations decorating the ceiling. Daring realized she had been transported to a completely different world, and excitedly flew from the ruins to the world outside… only to find the remains of a dead world; broken structures of a ghost city that stretched from one end of the horizon to another; rolling, barren hills of a endless wasteland; a dark sky that housed a bloated red sun and rings made from fragments of shattered moons.

Somehow, she knew the whole world had nothing to share but sights like the one before her. Where once lush jungles and forests thrived, only ashes remained. Where vast oceans teeming with life once pooled, only endless salt flats remained. Where verdant fields and meadows once thrived as blessings of summer, only plains of death remained. And numerous sleepless cities, once home to millions, now each existed as a necropolis of a dead race.

Daring Do had expected a vast new world to explore. What she got was a vast, empty graveland.

The inexorable tethers of gravity pulled her down to the curved roof of the pantheon. With tears in her eyes and an aching void in her heart, Daring slowly pulled off her helmet and placed it over her chest in solemn memory of all the strangers she never knew.

Twilight’s brow furrowed. The melancholy passages of seeing a dead world for the first time always enraptured her, but now they struck an even more poignant chord on a personal level. She exhaled, and pressed her forehead to the pages.

Are you okay? Reason asked.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine, just… give me a minute...”

Twilight focused on the smell of the ink and paper of the book in front of her, on the feeling of the oak beneath her, on the distant hiss of water pressing and pouring through the pipes to and from the bathroom. She thought of Fluttershy, Rarity, Rainbow and Applejack, now relatively safe. She thought back to the last time they were all together in good cheer: during the water wars after her first shared dream with Pinkie.

Twilight allowed herself a contented sigh. For the briefest of moments, she really did feel as though everything was just as it had been before, and that she really just was in her library, reminiscing without a care in the world about past events shared with those most precious to her.

The hair on the back of Twilight’s neck began to tingle. Twilight’s contented visage faltered with that uneasy feeling of somepony’s eyes boring into her. She huffed as she got back to her hooves and turned around.

“Alright, ready to go back outsi—AAAH!”

A rainbow blur blasted open the bathroom door at Twilight's yelp and gasped.

“Oh, horse apples!” Rainbow exclaimed.

“What?” an alarmed Applejack asked.

“One of those things from outside got in!”

Rainbow dive-bombed into the foyer, screaming her war cry with a rear hoof extended to deliver a flying kick straight to the projection’s face. It sidestepped in the blink of an eye and Rainbow slammed into the ground. She swept around with a low kick to knock it off balance, but it jumped back. Rainbow lunged again, grunting with exertion and attacking the stranger with a flurry of flying hooves, but the projection dodged each one with ease, and with every strike Rainbow hit nothing but air.

“Rainbow, stop!” Twilight called out.

Rarity darted out of the bathroom with her wet mane still draped over an eye, then screamed in terror, her alabaster face going even more pale than usual. “HIM AGAIN?!”

“Rainbow, STOP!” Twilight demanded, lighting her horn and catching Rainbow’s hooves in her telekinetic grasp. Rainbow struggled, but Twilight stepped between the two. “Take it easy; let me talk to him.”

Twilight sighed in exasperation, putting a hoof to her face. “This place is supposed to be secure… how did you get in here?”

The thing-pony just shrugged.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Of course....”

Just then, Applejack stumbled across the threshold behind Rarity, looked over the railing and did a double take. “What in tarnation?!”

Twilight looked up at them. “Rainbow Dash, Applejack… meet the thing-pony.”

“Whoa, wait; what?!” Rainbow yanked her hooves out of Twilight’s arresting magic. “That’s the thing-pony?!” She looked back and forth between Twilight and the thing-pony, confusion tumbling out of her mouth. “But… how… what… why… I… uh...” She scratched the back of her head with a hoof. “Okay...”

A terrified “Eep!” made Twilight look back up at the bathroom door.

“It’s okay, Fluttershy. He’s harmless, remember?”

A wet, trembling, pale fuchsia mane made its way past the corner, followed by creamy fur and a trembling aqua eye. With a cautious pace, ready to bolt in the opposite direction at a moment's notice, Fluttershy peeked out from behind the threshold to chance a glimpse of the thing-pony.

With one fluid motion, the thing-pony twisted its head around to stare at the timid pegasus with its distant, expressionless gaze. Fluttershy squeaked in terror and vanished from sight.

“Don’t be afraid, Fluttershy,” Twilight reassured. “He won’t hurt you.”

“Yeah, he’d better not,” Rainbow growled.

With even more reserve, Fluttershy edged back out from her hiding place to endure the cold, ghostly eyes of the thing-pony, which hadn’t even moved or reacted as it regarded Fluttershy with the utmost indifference.

Fluttershy crept out from the bathroom. She locked eyes with the thing-pony, then went stiff. She wilted, then retreated behind Rarity and mumbled something. Rarity nodded, replied with a delicate assurance, then turned to Twilight,

“His staring is making her uncomfortable.”

Twilight cleared her throat to get the thing-pony’s attention. The projection’s head swivelled back around to meet her with its glassy, vacant stare, and the ripple of unease that Twilight always felt in the thing-pony’s presence along with it.

Applejack spoke up, breaking the unsettling silence. “So, uh, Twi, what did you mean when you said this place was supposta be secure?”

Twilight looked up at Applejack, as eager to divulge the details of her logistics as she was to sever eye contact with the thing-pony.

“Since the library is supposed to be encrypted, nopony except for me can manipulate this structure. So Discord, or any projection for that matter, shouldn’t be able to alter or enter it.”

Applejack scratched her chin with a hoof. “So, if this place is supposta be a safe-haven from projections and whatever consarned things are out there—” she pointed a curious hoof at the thing-pony “—how’d he get in?”

I can only speculate at the moment, answered Reason, but my best guess is that if we’re the only ones who can manipulate the library, then either Twilight’s subconscious must have somehow unintentionally granted him access, or whatever entity in her subconscious that manifests as the thing-pony is capable of bypassing our security measures.

Rainbow, Rarity, and Applejack stared at Twilight, awaiting a reply.

Well, aren’t you going to give them that explanation, Twilight?

Twilight jolted. “Oh, um… I don’t know; my subconscious probably brought him in.”

Rarity put a hoof to her temple. “Wait, so, is this place secure, or isn’t it?” Her eyes went wide, and she gasped. “The library hasn’t been compromised, has it?!”

“No!” Twilight blurted, held her expression, then looked off. “Probably...”

Rainbow huffed and kicked the air. “Great. We’ve piddled away half our mission time, and all we’ve got to show for it is some blank-faced, owl-headed pony-thing—”

“Thing-pony,” Twilight interjected.

“Whatever!” Rainbow barked. “The point is that Pinkie is still missing!”

Reason mentally prodded Twilight. I have an idea.

“What?” Twilight asked aloud.

Rainbow cocked her head to the side to stare inquisitively at the unicorn. “What?”

“Oh!... U-uh...” Twilight stammered with a sheepish grin. “Could you give me a second? I think I’m getting an idea.”

Her friends just looked at each other in uncertainty as Twilight took her conversation into her head. Talk to me, Reason.

Okay, so what if we had some direct link to track down Pinkie through the dream code?

Twilight frowned. How are we going to get that? The chaos of the matrices is making them virtually impossible for us to manipulate.

Who said anything about manipulating? We’ve already got something that’s native to the dreamscape right here… something that’s already breached an encrypted area…

Twilight’s eyes grew wide and her mouth fell open.

Rainbow took notice and flew in close, eager for an update. “What? Got an idea?”

“Yeah,” Twilight spoke as she took several steps forward. “If it can get through my firewalls, maybe the thing-pony can navigate the roils of the fever dream outside to help us locate Pinkie.”

A collection of gasps rose from everypony else present, and all eyes fell upon the thing-pony. Even Fluttershy had come out of hiding to stare hopefully at the eerie projection, waiting with baited breath for affirmation of any kind.

Rainbow flew right up into the projection’s face, her eager eyes doing their best to pop out of her skull.

“Is she right? Do you know how to find Pinkie?!”

The thing-pony didn’t flinch when Rainbow flew within inches of its face. It didn’t even blink as it looked at her, considering her with unwavering inscrutability.

Twilight pulled a book from one of the shelves and began to flip through the pages as she trotted up to the thing-pony.

“You met her once, in the dream where Prance was being mangled like Ponyville outside is by Discord,” Twilight explained as she flipped to a page with an illustration depicting the stained-glass window of the spirit of chaos being defeated by the six of them, then pointed to the pink pony in question. “Do you remember her? She’s the most cheerful and friendly pony you could ever meet, but right now she’s in terrible distress, and we need to find her to get rid of what’s causing her these terrible nightmares.”

The thing-pony tilted its head to the side as it studied the image without a trace of familiarity.

“Please,” Twilight pleaded. “You have to know something...”

The thing-pony looked off in the distance, eyes ever vacant and unblinking. The spindly tufts of its ears twitched to and fro, as if listening to a tune only it could hear. All its muscles seized up at once, becoming even more still than usual. It held the pose for a moment, then two, then three. Not a single breath was taken by the mares as the awaited a response, a reaction, anything from the mute creature.

The thing-pony looked Twilight dead on, sending the same unwelcome wave of chills through her. Then, to her overwhelming surprise, it did something it had never done before.

The thing-pony nodded.

Twilight’s eyes nearly ejected themselves from her head. “You have?!” Twilight teleported inches in front of the thing-pony's face. “Can you take us to her?!”

The thing-pony nodded again.

Another blast of light later and Twilight had teleported all of them to the front door.

“Show us! We—”

Twilight went silent when she realized she was talking to the empty space where she had expected the thing-pony to be. Closer to the center of the foyer, in its exact same spot a few paces from where Twilight had left Daring Do and The Gyroscope of Time, stood the thing-pony, still peering through Twilight with its empty orbs.

Twilight’s lips parted, forming noiseless words as her jaw fell open. She lit her horn again to recast the teleportation spell. A burst of magenta light obscured the thing-pony from view. A split second later the sparkles dissipated, revealing an undisplaced thing-pony, still staring back with its emotionless void.

“My magic has no effect on him...” Twilight breathed in a stupor.

“Figure out why later!” Rainbow snipped. “What matters is he knows where Pinkie is, so we need to suit up and get back out there!”

Twilight nodded. “Rainbow is right. Everypony: status report!”

Rainbow’s eyes sharpened. “Just say ‘go,’ and I’m there.”

“Wha—? Oh.” Applejack pawed at one of her ears with with a hoof. “My hearing ain’t all back yet, but I’ll be fine.”

Rarity looked at Fluttershy, then back to Twilight. “Fluttershy’s left eye is still partially swollen, her lacerations have been cleaned but need bandaging, and my left forehoof isn’t in the best condition for galloping.” She futily blew a dripping tassel of her mane out of her eyes. “And we’re both still wet.”

Twilight couldn’t be helped to hold back a smirk. Ordered processes were kicking her brain back in gear with a bullet-pointed checklist. She loved her checklists, but the one that ended with ‘Defeat Discord’ and ‘Save Pinkie’ was a checklist that she wanted to invite back to her home after hours.

“Alright: Fluttershy needs patching up and Rarity needs a splint.” She looked up at Rainbow. “There’s a first aid kit in the medicine cabinet.”

“On it!” Rainbow saluted, then zipped back towards the bathroom.

“We’ll need our saddlebags if we’re headed back outside,” Twilight said, looking to Applejack.

“Gotcha.” She nodded, then turned tail to gallop up the stairs.

Twilight turned her attention to Rarity and Fluttershy. She lit her horn and surrounded them in her aura as the clatter of rummaging sounded from upstairs. Water droplets began to peel away from the soaked coats of both mares, forming globules that hung suspended within Twilight’s magic. When all the residual fluids had been extracted, Twilight flicked her head and cast the rinse aside just as Rainbow reappeared at the top of the stairs with a spacious case of medical supplies.

“Hey, catch!“ she called, then tossed the kit over to Twilight.

The unicorn caught it with her magic, and in a blink of an eye had pried it open to swaths of gauze and cotton swabs that danced through the air. She withdrew a splint which she floated over to Rarity, then a bottle of rubbing alcohol that was surrounded by a swarm of white tufts as soon as the lid was ripped off.

“I’m sorry, Fluttershy, but this is going to sting a little.”

Fluttershy nodded in submission, stiffening for the coming burns. A moistened cotton swab drifted over to a particularly nasty gash across her left shoulder, then pranced over the torn flesh with a series of delicate hops. A sharp inhalation came from Fluttershy as she grimaced and her muscles clenched in protest, but despite her pained quivers, she remained obediently still. As soon as the sterile ball of cotton had finished bounding across the gouged skin, another swab followed behind, cleaning and drying the wound. Hot on its heels came the glow of Twilight’s horn, sealing the wound as best she could.

Rainbow and Applejack galloped down the stairs and skidded to a halt, each packed down with sets of saddlebags. Rarity stood to meet them, testing the structural integrity of her splint.

“How’s the leg?” Applejack asked.

“It leaves something to be desired, but this will suffice for now.” Rarity floated her stylish satchels off of Rainbow’s back, opened one, and began to rummage through its contents. “Thank you, by the way,” she added as she found the items of her search: a brush and an elastic hair-tie.

Rainbow just peered and her with a flat stare. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” Rarity laconically stated as she loosely combed her mane over her right ear and bound it to the hair running down the back of her neck with a scrunchie, letting her mane drape over her shoulders as she wrapped her tail into a loop. “I wouldn’t be of much use to anypony if my hair was getting in my face and obscuring my vision, would I?”

Rainbow pursed her lips and let out a contemplative hum. “Touché.”

But Rarity had stopped paying attention to the exchange: she was looking past Rainbow and Applejack to the foot of the far bookshelves with distant eyes and a conflicted expression. Rainbow and Applejack took note and looked to where Rarity was staring at her inherited shotgun, lying next to its former owner’s blood-drenched tricorn.

Rainbow and Applejack looked back at Rarity, eyes wide and breaths still. Rarity fixed her eyes on the brutal weapon as though it were a thousand yards away, heedless of her friends’ apprehension. She blinked. Her eyes went back into focus, and her expression hardened. Her horn ignited, and the shotgun rose from its resting place, drifting over to its new master.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack parted to let it pass. It twisted to and fro in the air as Rarity mulled over its every detail and feature, from its crude, primitive design to its every little dent and blotch of filth. She pointed the muzzle up towards the ceiling, then pumped the forestock, ejecting the remaining shells into the air, where she caught them with her magic.

Fluttershy was watching Rarity now as well. Even Twilight had paused in tying the icepack over Fluttershy’s eye to observe the scene. Rarity finally looked up from her shotgun to the eyes of everypony staring at her.

“Four shots left.” She loaded the massive rounds back into the firearm and slung it over her back.

“Rarity.” Twilight stepped forward. “You know we’re going to use the Elements against Discord, right?”

“Consider it an addendum to Plan B,” Rarity replied, steeling herself. “I’m ready.”

“Okay.” Twilight nodded, then turned to Fluttershy. “Everypony else is ready. Are you?”

Fluttershy looked away, becoming rather interested in the wooden panels of the floor. “No, not really,” she mumbled. “But you still need me, whether I’m ready or not, don’t you?”

Twilight nodded, her gesture solemn. “Yeah, we all do. I’m sorry it had to be this way.”

“It’s alright, it’s not your fault.” Her eyes drifted back up to her friend, and she offered the weakest of hopeful smiles. “Besides, we’ll all be awake in an hour, won’t we?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, right, of course. Safe and sound, back in my library, and then we can all snuggle up together with another round of hot cocoa… with marshmallows.” Twilight answered with a nervous smile, once again feeling the cold, electric needles of the thing-pony’s hollow eyes puncturing her skin.

She turned to look at the projection, met its gray eyes, and got a feeling of vertigo from the abysses of its unfathomable vision. She gulped and willed herself to look towards the book on the table. With her horn aglow, her copy of The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide floated from off the table, across the library, and into her waiting saddlebag, where she placed it snugly next to her totem, then latched it shut.

Twilight looked to the thing-pony. “Are you ready?”

The thing-pony nodded.

Twilight’s pulse quickened and her nostrils flared, an action mirrored by all of her friends. “Alright then,” she proclaimed as she lit her horn again and swung open the front door, “lead the way!”

The thing-pony tilted its head forward, then began to stroll at a casual pace towards the front door.

The tension all the girls had dissipated as they watched the thing-pony make their way towards them with a dragging, lethargic, bipedal amble.

“HEY!” Rainbow barked. “We’re in a hurry, so move your scrawny flanks!”

“Rainbow, don’t be so rude!” Twilight scolded, then looked to the thing-pony. “But seriously, this is an emergency, so could you take us to Pinkie as expediently as possible, please?”

The thing-pony stared at Twilight for a moment. The next thing any of them knew, there was a great “whoosh” and a powerful gust of air that forced them all to close their eyes. When they opened their eyes again, the thing-pony was gone. The five of them looked outside: the thing-pony was already a dozen yards away, sprinting at inequine, breakneck speeds.

The five scampered out the door in hot pursuit. Their breathing became ragged and their limbs burned as they desperately tried to keep up with the thing-pony as it swept past obstructions and vaulted over obstacles with the skill of a parkour runner and the speed of a howling wind.

“How did… he learn… to run that fast?” Applejack asked between gasping breaths.”And on only two legs?”

“Don’t know...” Twilight panted in reply. “But I… have a… sinking suspicion… of how… he’d answer… if you asked...”

On and on they galloped, further from the safety of the library and the distant thunder of screaming, gunfire, explosions, and shark viking melodic death metal.

- - - - - -

It was dark all around, and it was cold: so very cold. The mirthless chill in the air poked pin-pricks into her lungs with every quivering breath, and the frost on the ground gnawed without respite at her rump in spite of her warming presence.

She had awoken into the dream here, with nothing but the totem in her saddlebags and the omnipresent black to keep her company. She tried calling out for somepony, but her first query was swallowed by the shadows, and still echoes answered the rest.

Her head had begun to spin and claws more terribly frigid than the freezing air had begun to dig into her heart. She had finally reached out with her mind, fearfully prodding the biting darkness, only to have instantly yanked herself away, screaming at the horrors lurking outside. She had wept until she had run out of energy to cry, leaving her to do nothing but sit there, corroding in her own dread until her tears had frozen to her face.

She had wished she could just die there—cold, alone, and miserable. Anything would be better than having to suffer the agony of what awaited her outside, and then to wake back up in a world next to the closest friends she’d ever had, but could now no longer be with.

After this, they wouldn’t want to so much as speak of her again.

A distant thrum jostled her out of her defeated stupor. She held her breath and strained her ears against the silence. A muffled, rhythmic beat pounded off in the distance, and it was getting louder. As the percussive thumping grew more voluminous, it was joined by a polished bleat, then by a swell of a quivering, sinister melody.

Vertigo and dread overtook her as an abyss opened up in the pit of her stomach. More than anything, she wished she could be hurled into whatever unspeakable depths it lead to, never to be seen or remembered again.

The end was upon her. And just to rub it in, they were making it a big musical.

The deafening click of a monumental latch twisting open forced her ears flat against her head, then the creak of massive doors opened to a column of blinding light. She flinched and shut her eyes with a pitiful whimper. She wished they would just shoot her on the spot, but she already knew this wasn’t how the game was meant to be played.

She stood on numb legs, trembling from cold and horror. Resigned to her inevitable fate, Pinkie Pie dragged her hooves out from her cell into the waiting end.

Pinkie crossed the threshold of no return, holding a foreleg up to her eyes as she squinted through the burning pillars of light blazing down upon her. Her ears twisted back as the roar of a thousand voices beat upon them. She peered out from behind her measly cover and finally got to see her surroundings.

Pinkie stood on a colossal stage, larger than a ballroom floor, with the unrelenting gaze from dozens of spotlights in the house locked upon her. Behind her, a monolithic stone wall stretched from one end of the horizon to the other, without break or blemish in the uniform structure of bricks save for the ingress back to her little cell. Beside it, rows of towering rock hammers stood guard as imposing sentinels. To her right was a gigantic podium where an all-too familiar mass of diseased and inflamed neurons were self-replicating into an even more numerous swarm. It was her only visible company on stage, but Pinkie was far from being alone.

The vast expanse before her was filled with a sea of faces, each one belonging to featureless, hairless ponies bearing identical empty eye sockets and open mouths caught in a silent, dreadful scream. The multitude writhed en masse in an open stadium build to seat an innumerable legion: not an inch of free space was to be found. The grotesque horde went mostly unnoticed for the guests of honor.

Twilight, Rainbow, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Applejack all stared up at Pinkie with identical expressions of consternation, while the thing-pony just stared. Pinkie looked back with more dismay than all of her friends combined, gritting her teeth as air came to her in trembling, heaving breaths.

Rainbow bolted straight for Pinkie, only to recoil in pain as she smashed into an invisible wall. Distortions rippled through the air as she bounced back towards her friends. They surrounded her in concern as Twilight looked back and forth between Dash and the transparent shield separating them from the stage.

The music grew with intensity. The mass of neurons had formed into a behemoth wyrm, looking down upon the lone figure on stage from the seat where it judged with ceaseless scrutiny. Pinkie grimaced one final time, then fell to her haunches as the intro quickly lead into the first verse.

A lone spotlight broke away from Pinkie to a grody, bloated mare wearing a powdered wig and a thick blue robe that it used to glide down from the crest of the wall to the stage below, where it turned to address the neural wyrm in cantare.

“Good evening, your Majesties!

For your pleasure, the court does so please

Display the accused, prostrated by your divinity,

Who was caught red-hoofed with A SMILE...”

There was a deafening uproar of disgust from the crowd.

“Smiling like a real, authentic pony.

Now it’s time to prove she’s guilty.

“Call forth the witnesses!”

The morbid attorney dispersed into the dark as the spotlight left her. The beam darted up to the precipice of the wall with four other lights, one each devoted to a lavender grimoire, a gamboge snake wound from a rope, a treacherous cerulean wind, a niggardly alabaster straight jacket, and a hulk of creamy quills. The five surrounded Pinkie Pie, circling like sharks, scorning her with their scrutinies as each one passed behind her, their voices a chittering swarm of devils.

“I always said everypony in your town was crazy.

But you’re the paradigm of two-faced, unhinged insanity!”

“Stubborn, linear cognizance?”

“Cocky, brazen impertinence?”

“Pretentious, ostentatious elitist?”

“Quivering, milquetoast truculence?!”

“Just say everything will be okay if you can grin just partly.

So once more lie to my face, and throw us another party!”

There was an uproar of equal parts outrage and vindication from the faceless audience as the witnesses morphed into swarms of the same infected neurons, each cell skittering away in a lopsided skirr as they fled the stage. A series of bombinate wobbling noises came from the force field as Rainbow fruitlessly pounded her forehooves against it, but Pinkie couldn’t even muster the strength needed to lift her head and look up at her. Pinkie’s distant eyes were locked to an indiscriminate part of the stage as pieces started to tumble from the wall, first as sand, then as pebbles, stones, and finally jagged rocks that formed an igneous, austere golem resembling a decapod crustacean with legs like pick-axes. When it spoke, it did so with a voice that left every muscle in Pinkie’s body paralyzed.

“Thou little twit

Thou art now in it

Thou shouldst have listened to me

When I hadst said that life is not a party

BUT NO!”

The rock monster slammed its spiky legs into the ground as it got right up in Pinkie’s face, who was trembling with the effort to not look back into its beady eyes.

“Alas, thou art doing great

Being indistinguishable from a pony or an ape.”

The rocks looked up at the leviathan in the judge’s seat.

“I pray, grant me a day, your Majesties,

And I can whip her back into shape.”

Another deafening cacophony rose from the audience as the rocks sank back into the wall and Twilight pulled Rainbow away from the shield. Pinkie couldn’t hear what Twilight was trying to yell over the audience as her hoof went back and forth from tapping her temple to pointing at the shield, but she wasn’t paying attention to them. The spotlights had dimmed and the deck lights activated, casting her elongated shadow against the wall. She could feel a writhing mass of slimy tentacles squirming within every inch of her. Pinkie was shaking as if from hypothermia; she didn’t even need to look back to know it was him.

The shadow of Discord chortled down at her.

“What’s wrong, Pinkie?

Not yourself lately?

I suppose it’s just as well

That you’ve lost your way to tell

Yourself from your charade

Since your masquerade became unmade.

So go and smile for everypony.

And I thought laughter made you happy.”

The spotlights relit, and Pinkie’s shadow disappeared with a malicious cackle. Rainbow was pounding upon the shield with the force of a thunderstorm as Twilight tried to corral her, each of their faces tensed. The judge’s podium creaked in strained protest as the wyrm leaned over it, peering at Pinkie with soul-piercing scrutiny.

”HOW DO YOU PLEAD?”

Pinkie sniffled. She didn’t even bother to wipe away the tears dripping from her eyes. Her breath caught on the cracked surface of her dry throat. When she replied, she did so with a pitiful, quivering timbre as she sung her somber part.

“Crazy

Off of my rocker,

I am crazy.

Larks aren’t as looney.”

“Everypony already knows I’m guilty

So just do what you have to do to me!”

Pinkie’s last note rung through the bitter air, making the leviathan contort and convulse in response. A ripple ran down its center, then its upper half violently split in two. One of the gigantic appendages turned white as a face and horn sprouted from the top. A fiery mane billowed from the back of its neck as its eyes glowed with all the wrath of sunspots. The orchestra kicked back into overdrive, distortion cranked up to eleven, and with an infuriated, demonic roar from a dragon-toothed mouth like the maw of Tartarus, Princess Celestia began to deliver the final decree.

“THE CASE AGAINST THE DEFENDANT IS INDISPUTABLE...”

The second head arose, dark as the night sky with a mane like a mass of doomed stars swirling around the black holes of her eyes. Princess Luna snapped her vicious jaws and continued with the next line.

“WE SEE NO NEED TO DELIBERATE!”

A scaly claw with muscular fingers ending in razor-sharp talons rose above the desk. It smashed down upon the podium, obliterating the judge’s stand into thousands of splinters, revealing the long necks of Celestia and Luna conjoined onto the single body of a hydra. The second claw stepped over the hill of debris, and the divine monstrosity began pulling itself closer towards Pinkie.

“EONS TO OUR EXISTENCE, AND WE HAVE NEVER BEFORE

LOOKED DOWN UPON SOMEPONY SO DESERVING OF SCORN!”

Pinkie was frozen in place, staring up at her executioner with her mouth open in terror, eyes wide and pinprick pupils bleeding with abject dread. as the hateful goddesses craned their necks down to snarl at her.

“THE WAY YOU LIE AND PRETEND

TO YOUR MAGNIFICENT FAMILY AND FRIENDS

WILL EXPUNGE US OF ALL MERCY

WHEN WE ADJUDICATE!”

Overwhelming instinct had taken over Pinkie. She darted backwards into her cage and pressed her back flat against the wall, never once tearing her eyes away from a sight both too glorious and terrible to behold as they glared back into her den, snarling with bared teeth.

“SINCE, MY LITTLE PONY,

WE HAVE LEARNED YOUR WORST FEAR,

YOUR SENTENCE IS TO BE REVEALED

BEFORE THOSE YOU HOLD MOST DEAR!”

The Sisters turned to the ravenous crowd, and exclaimed their verdict.

“TEAR DOWN HER WALL!”

Every voice in the faceless herd roared with vindictive glee, and began chanting with rapturous bloodlust. “Tear down her wall! Tear down her wall! Tear down her wall!”

The royal abomination began to tear at the narrow opening to Pinkie’s enclosure with feral claws. The music of the infernal orchestra was disrupted by the sound of a glass biodome shattering into a million shards, and a second later Pinkie was all but tackled as Rainbow collided into her, scooping her up in protective forelegs and snarling back at the blasphemous mockery with equal ire.

“Tear down her wall! Tear down her wall!”

Another second passed, and a sharp pop and a blinding flash of magenta light brought Twilight and the others into the cold, beleaguered cell, forming a protective circle around Pinkie.

“Pinkie, it’s just like in Prance!” Twilight yelled over the unified riot’s chanting and the grunting of the divine monstrosity ripping apart the wall. “Everything outside is a creation of your subconscious!”

“Tear down her wall! Tear down her wall!”

A sizable chunk of the wall was ripped from its place, leaving the six of them vulnerable. The Sisters roared with predatory rage, lifted a mighty claw, then brought it down upon their prey.

Twilight lit her horn. A bubble shield covered them in an instant. The crushing attack smashed down upon the shield, making Twilight wince and her force-field erratically sputter.

“Tear down her wall! Tear down her wall!”

“Pinkie, please! Only you can put a stop to this!” Twilight pleaded.

Another vicious claw smashed against the shield. Twilight cried out in pain as her protective spell began to crack.

“Twilight! Elements!” Rainbow blurted.

The unicorn grit her teeth and ripped open her saddlebag, tore the Elements out and urgently flung each around the neck of her friends while she slammed the tiara down on top of her head. The monster lifted a claw for the killing blow. The Elements began to glow a searing white as they released a blinding explosion of magical energy. The blast crashed into the holy abomination with the force of a tsunami. The shockwave ripped across the stage, sweeping over the stadium and uprooting every grain of the wall, reducing it to dust and ashes that buried them under an avalanche.

Twilight waited a moment before opening her eyes. The scalding light burned into her retinas faded to darkness, the shield buried underneath the cold rubble. Even over the ringing in her ears, Twilight could hear the echoes of the zealous mantra, fading like ghosts ripped from the body.

“Tear down her wall! Tear down her wall! Tear down her wall! Tear down her wall...”

The six mares remained under Twilight’s shield, like refugees in a bomb shelter. Their nerves and muscles were still tense, waiting with bated breath for another attack, but nothing disrupted the carpet of ash blanketing the shield. No sound but Pinkie’s erratic gasping broke the eerily placid silence.

Twilight forcefully dispersed her shield, shoving aside the ashen remains that threw off a plume of dust in the shape of a halo when it hit the ground. The curtain of the powdery cloud settled to unveil that the entire amphitheater and every projection it in had been obliterated, leaving nothing behind but a barren, desolate landscape under a burning sky: the one place in a dream world consumed by chaos that had been given peace through the dark tranquility of death.

Pinkie tore herself from Rainbow’s protective grasp and broke through the circle of her friends. She staggered a few steps into the dusty fields, trembling as she looked off into the distance, past the hill that was once Celestia and Luna, and over the low inclines that had been the stadium teeming with spite. Her neck stiffened, not daring to look back. Pinkie's trembling increased, she choked back a heart-wrenching sob, and she took off in a desperate sprint away from her friends, leaving a trail of tears in the parched ashes.

“Pinkie, stop!” Twilight teleported in front of Pinkie, but the distraught mare shoved past her.

Rainbow shot past Twilight, grabbing Pinkie around the neck. They skidded to a halt, Pinkie still struggling to break free from Dash’s hold.

“Oh no, you don’t! You have any idea how much trouble we had to go through just to find you?”

“No… can’t… J-just p-please... please let me g-go!” Pinkie stuttered as she struggled in vain to break free again.

Rainbow tightened her grip. “Nuh-uh! We’ve already jumped into Tartarus, and so help me Celestia, we’re not leaving without you!”

“N-n… n-no u-use… W-we… w-w-we c-ca-n’t...”

“Can’t what, Pinkie?”

Pinkie whipped around to pitifully look at Dash with the sunken eyes of a mare who had lost it all.

“WE CAN’T BE FRIENDS ANYMORE!!!”

Dash reeled back, stunned. Her grip loosened, allowing Pinkie to pull away. She fell to her haunches, then collapsed into the ashes, weeping like a widow.

“I-it’s ov-ver… You kn-know ev… everything...”

Everypony gathered around Pinkie, looking down on her with unrestrained pity. Twilight circled around, got down on all fours, then put a comforting hoof on Pinkie’s neck. She swatted Twilight’s hoof away and whined in pain as she pulled her limbs in even closer around herself, sobbing ever onward.

Twilight lay in shock for a moment. She looked back up at her friends. Each of them bore the same expression of worry and uncertainty as Pinkie drifted further away from them.

“Pinkie...” Twilight’s own voice was shaking. “Pinkie, what was that? Is that how you think we feel about you?”

Pinkie just kept crying.

Twilight couldn’t restrain herself, wrapping a hoof around Pinkie’s neck. “Pinkie, we love you. Everything we’ve worked for the last week, everything that we’ve gone through in these dreams, we took upon ourselves to endure because we care about you.”

Pinkie didn’t even look up at Twilight as she spoke.

“Hey, Twilight,” Rainbow called, “Discord showed up as Pinkie’s shadow again, and we just finished blasting everything else here to kingdom come, so shouldn’t the Elements have fixed everything by now?”

“Still alive...” Pinkie muttered.

The five of them looked down at her.

“Come again?” Applejack asked.

Pinkie snorted, then wiped her dripping muzzle with a foreleg. “H-he’s still alive… I can feel him...”

Twilight looked back up at her friends. Rarity looked back with anxious apprehension. Fluttershy was looking in every direction across the wasteland in alarm. Applejack looked at Twilight with knowing resolve, and Rainbow was already tensing back up into attack mode.

“Well, I’d hate to keep him waiting,” Rainbow growled, then shot back up into the air. “DISCORD! I know you’re out here! Show your ugly face, you coward!”

A cloud of dust erupted from right next to them as a figure lurched up from the ashes. The six of them yelped in alarm and jumped back. The air was filled with an energetic whine as the Elements charged again, but then the dust settled and Twilight got a look at their target.

“Stand down!” she ordered. “It’s just the thing-pony...”

The thing-pony shook itself like a wet dog, kicking up another dust cloud in the process, then shook out its drab clothing. Not once during the routine did the thing-pony express a single emotion, its hollow eyes even more spectral than the dead landscape.

“Geez, be more careful next time, would ya?” Dash said to the thing-pony. “We almost blasted you!”

“Yeah, well I don’t think we’ll have to worry about him, considering he just survived a blast that reduced everything else in a one-mile radius to particulate matter.” Twilight looked at the inscrutable projection. “So you’re completely immune to magic, aren’t you?”

The thing-pony just shrugged.

Twilight sighed. “Figures… Well, you still helped us find Pinkie, so, thank you. From all of us. Sorry about not keeping you from getting covered in dust, but, you know... you’re immune to magic, and all...”

Rainbow landed next to Twilight. “Hey, Twilight, if the pony-thing—”

“Thing-pony.”

“Whatever. If he survived getting blasted by the Elements, what are the odds of them not affecting Discord, either?”

Twilight frowned. “I don’t know. But there’s one way to find out...”

Rainbow Dash grinned with her cocksure defiance. “Oh, believe me; I intend to find out…” She looked back over the sweeping wastes. “But how are we going to find him?”

Twilight put a hoof to her chin. “Hey, we’ve still got the thing-pony. Maybe he can track Discord, too. But we need to remain vigilant. The last thing we want is to—”

An explosion of ash and dust tore apart the hill that had been the remains of the alicorn hydra. From the cinders emerged the roaring, necrotic head of the monstrous Celestia. Charred flesh clung to blackened bones and the eyeless sockets of her skull burned with plasma. It bared down towards the girls with an open mouth and a sea of teeth, making the mares scream in horror. Her claw burst up from the sterile ground with a camera held delicately in its fingers.

Click!

A burning flash of blinding light seared their eyes, making them cry out in pain and stumble back with hooves over their faces. When Twilight was able to see again, her breath caught in her throat and her blood quickened.

Discord was tossing off the carcass of the monster Celestia like the costume it used to be, and it turned back into ash when it fell to the ground. He was fiddling with the camera, bringing up the recent photos. The little screen on the back lit up, and his face became aglow in awe. With the reverence of a new father seeing his firstborn foal for the first time, Discord tugged at opposite corners of the screen to enlarge the image.

“It’s… perfect...” Discord whispered, showing the girls the picture of their collective, horrified faces.

A blue bolt slammed into Discord’s face. There was a nauseating sound of tearing as he stumbled backward, the dropped camera turning to smoke as it hit the ground.

Rainbow Dash hovered in the air, her face on fire with fury and bloodlust. “You have NO IDEA how long I’ve been waiting to do that!” She spat, only for the red in her vision to clear. She got a look at the result of her attack on Discord, and her anger faltered.

Discord had been all but decapitated by the strike. His head dangled off the back of his neck by only a shred of skin, revealing the clumped swarms of diseased neurons beneath. He balled his fists, then aggressively leaned towards Rainbow Dash for a rebuttal, giving her an even closer view of the mangled stump.

“You’ve been waiting a—hold on...” Discord held up a talon for pause, then grabbed his head, flipped it back upright, and rammed it back down upon his neck with a sickening squelch. “You’ve been waiting a grand total of six days; five if you’re only counting since the last time we met. Less than a week is hardly a tale of a life-long vendetta for swarthy revenge, Dashie.”

“DON’T CALL ME THAT!” Rainbow screamed, her face going red.

“Aw, but she gets to call you that,” Discord pouted in false dejection, motioning towards Pinkie. “Why don’t I get the same luxury? I am a part of her, after all.”

“Shut up!” Dash riposted. “You’re just a bad nightmare that needs to be snuffed out! Don’t you dare even try to pretend you’re anything more!”

Discord chuckled deviously. “Is that all you really think I am? Some Saturday morning cartoon villain that you can just ‘defeat?’ Pinkie herself has taken ownership of me and what I am: a creation of her subconscious. So in a way, I’m an integral piece of the very same friend that you’ve shared your laughter and tears with.”

He grinned with a devil’s condescension. “So what exactly are you fighting for: Pinkie, or your perception of her?”

Rainbow just stared back, at a loss for words.

“Enough!” Twilight barked, stepping forward. “If you think that mind games or some overblown show-trial will ever get us to change what we think of Pinkie, then you’re sorely mistaken!”

“Wait, you actually think that was...” Discord’s insidious vissage cracked. He wrapped his paw around his gut, pointing at Twilight and howling with laughter at her. “Oh, soldiering on with your crusade in spite of your ignorance… You girls will never cease to assume me!”

Rainbow growled and looked back down at her friends. “Screw this guy! Let’s just blast Discord and get this over with!”

“Aw, you mean you don’t want to learn what all of this is really about?” Discord asked with the same tone of mock sadness. “We could sit down and have a lovely little chat on the matter...”

Discord snapped his fingers, and an eyeblink later the seven of them were seated around a felt-top table.

“Perhaps play a little game of cards in the meantime...”

Discord snapped his fingers again, and a deck of playing cards materialized in front of him, with a hoof already dealt to each occupant at the table.

“And lest we not go without refreshment...”

Discord reached deep into an armpit and extracted a wine bottle, which made Rarity wince. Discord uncorked the bottle, and Fluttershy perked up when a bulldog dressed in a little tuxedo emerged halfway from it.

“Good evening, sir,” the bulldog addressed Discord with a thick accent spoken through floppy jowls. “May I be of assistance?”

“I hope so,” Discord replied, then turned to the others. “Ladies, go ahead and let Princeton here take your orders.”

Rainbow Dash leaned forward, looking at Princeton with daggers behind her eyes. “Sure; I’ll take Discord’s head on a platter.”

Discord sighed. “Nevermind, Prince ol’ chap. Seems last call was an hour ago,” he said, pressing the cork to the dog’s crown, pushing him back into the bottle and shoving the bottle back into the oxter realms from which it came. Then he looked at Twilight with a reluctant business face. “So this is the way it’s going to be, isn’t it?”

“Sorry Discord, but—” Twilight cut herself off, leering across the table at Discord with confident condescension. “Actually, you know what? No. I’m not sorry at all.”

Discord sighed again, bowing his head in resignation. “If that’s how you want to play...”

Discord reared up his hind legs and bucked the table. It slammed into Twilight, knocking the wind out of her. Discord sprang upright, grabbing Pinkie telekinetically and flinging her screaming at supersonic speeds off into the horizon.

“PINKIE!” Dash cried out, darting after her.

Twilight wheezed, clutching her gut. Discord loomed over her, seized the table, then brandished it over his head.

“And that leaves your squad of six Elements down to...” The table above Discord’s head morphed into a massive golf club. “FOOOOUR!”

Discord swung the giant club at Twilight. A burst of adrenaline shot into her system. She lit her horn and cast a tight shield around herself. A spider web of cracks burst across Twilight’s shield upon impact.

“Aw, now you’ve made me have to call a mulligan!” Discord groaned, pulling back for another swing only for a lasso to rope him around the horns and yank him down into the dust.

“Don’t even think about it, ya’ hodgepodge, good-fer-nothin’ varmint!” Applejack growled through gritted teeth, pulling the other end of the rope around Discord’s mismatched wings.

Discord laughed. “Think you can wrangle me, bumpkin? ‘Cause this ain’t my first rodeo!”

Discord yanked back against Applejack, tearing her off his back. Fluttershy and Rarity lept forward in an attempt to tackle him back to the ground, but he just knocked them aside, sending them tumbling through the dust. With Applejack still hanging onto the rope by only her teeth, Discord began to thrash his neck around, using Applejack as a flail to smash against Twilight’s shield.

Twilight dispersed her shield to grab Applejack with her magic. Discord swung his neck around, slamming the two of them together. The battered Applejack couldn’t hold on anymore, and the they tumbled lopsided across the dust.

Applejack groaned, stumbling over her own hooves as she tried to get back on all fours. Discord loomed over her with a snide, condescending grin.

“Looks like you came in second place again, AJ! Now are you going to ditch town to wallow in your shame like last time?” Discord reached out to grab her with his claws, only to get blocked by Fluttershy,

“Don’t you dare touch her, you bully!” she yelled, glaring at him with as much of The Stare as she could muster with only one eye.

Discord went stiff, then laughed at her. “You need both eyes for that, Ms. Sensitive!” Then he hacked and spat in her open eye.

Fluttershy cried out and darted back, trying to rub the offending phlegm away. Applejack charged forward for a tackle. Discord caught her with the claws of his reptilian leg and slammed her to the ground. Rarity lept at Discord, twirling in the air to bludgeon his face with the broadside of her shotgun. Discord grabbed Fluttershy by the tail and swung her into the attacking unicorn, sending them both tumbling to the ground. Twilight charged up a concussive shot and fired. Discord snapped his fingers, and Twilight teleported in front of her own attack spell. In impacted her right in the face, and she fell to the ground, the world swimming before her eyes.

Discord chuckled victoriously over the fallen ponies. “All too easy.”

A blue, hypersonic projectile shot across Discord’s face, colliding with such force that his head was ripped off at the neck. The trailing jetstream exploded in the girls’ ears, and the dust cloud kicked up by the wake turbulence forced them to shut their eyes. The haze settled to reveal an enraged Rainbow Dash, setting Pinkie down to snarl at Discord’s severed head.

“You can’t get rid of me so easily!” Rainbow challenged.

Discord growled back at her. “Let me give you a piece of my mind...” A blazing inferno erupted from Discord’s severed neck and shot towards Dash, slamming into her with a rocket-powered headbutt. Discord’s body snapped its fingers and appeared right alongside its head, grabbed the neck, then swung his own head like a club in an arc back down on Rainbow.

“You are getting to be a real headache!” Discord yelled as he smacked Rainbow with his own weaponized face.

The dirty hit sent Dash to the ground. Discord pinned her underhoof, then reattached his head to his neck. “Always so valiant,” he sneered, reaching out to claw her forehead with a talon. “Well you won’t be after I’m done with you...”

The thunder of a gunshot blasted across the wastes. All eyes turned to Rarity; smoke was rising from the barrel of the shotgun pointed at Discord’s face.

“Keep your wretched claws of her, you filthy mongrel!” Rarity shouted.

Discord smirked. “You don’t have the guts.”

“Are you willing to find out?” Rarity contested.

Discord just laughed. “If you did, you’d have already done it,” he remarked, then turned back to Dash.

“I’m warning you!” Rarity challenged, but Discord paid her no heed, turning away to leer over Dash.

Another shot was fired. The outermost pellets grazed Discord’s shoulder, gouging open the flesh. Discord winced, then glowered at Rarity.

“Now that we’re through with the foreplay,” he growled, holding his talons above Rainbow. Lightning arced from the tips of his claws and struck Rainbow full-force. She screamed.

The thrum of lightning was met with another explosive thunderclap. Discord let out an otherworldly shriek of pain, clutching the remains of where his left arm used to be.

Applejack stood on her hind legs, aiming Rarity’s shotgun at Discord, her hoof around the trigger. “Rare might be too civilized to do something so brutal, but I sure as heck ain’t!”

Discord snarled at her. He snapped the fingers on his remaining hand, then appeared behind Applejack. She had just enough time to turn around to receive a haymaker punch right to her face that sent her tumbling across the dust.

A sizzling buzz cut through the air as a laser beam carved into Discord’s back. He roared in pain, whipping around to glare venomously at Fluttershy, who returned the leer in kind with a nuclear reaction burning in her remaining eye.

“I said, don’t you dare touch my friends!” she growled.

Discord let out a rumbling hiss—an amalgamation from multiple furious beasts—as his arm regenerated. His muscles tensed, then he pounced at Fluttershy with a cacophonous roar. He was halfway to his target when Rainbow tackled him from the side, making him veer off-course just enough to miss. He whipped around to swipe at Rainbow just as Applejack lassoed her around the torso and pulled her back to safety. Fluttershy blasted Discord with her eye laser again. He roared and swung at her only to get his punch deflected by Rarity, using her whirlwind combat style to keep him at bay while Fluttershy blasted him from over her shoulder.

Discord held out his talons, and bolts of electricity arced from the fingers as he pointed his lightning claws at Rarity. Applejack lassoed him around the wrist and pulled his arm across his chest, redirecting the lightning blast into the ground. Rainbow grabbed the other end of the rope and flew a tornado around Discord, tying his arms to his body.

“Now, Twilight!” Rainbow cried. “Blast him now!”

Discord looked up, alarmed. Twilight, who had forgone the melee since Rainbow had reentered the fray, had used the time to recharge the Elements. Each gem began to glow again as their signature collective whirr grew louder. He snapped his fingers. An explosion of light forced them all to cover their eyes. When they looked back up, Discord was gone, the rope once tied around him falling in coils to the ground.

Twilight felt the ground stir beneath her hooves. She looked down right as Discord burst up beneath her, striking her lower jaw with such a ferocious uppercut that several teeth chipped. Her nerves became alight with agony and her vision blurred with stars and tears.

A cruel claw jabbed into her forehead. The electric torment of her pain vanished, leaving only the fire. Not of agony, but an alien yet all-too familiar feeling hate directed at her friends: a bitter loathing of unfathomable depths that she’d not felt since Discord did the same thing to her in the first dream she’d shared with Pinkie, telling her to loathe her friends for their every incorrigible flaw and detest every fiber of their being for it.

Hate the stubborn, linear Applejack.

Hate the cocky, brazen, impertinent Rainbow Dash.

Hate the pretentious, ostentatious, elitist Rarity.

Hate the quivering, milquetoast, truculent Fluttershy.

Hate the immature, sporadic, delirious, disingenuous, pathetic Pinkie Pie.

Hate them all. Despise them all. Loathe them all.

Twilight heard somepony off in the distance screaming, getting closer. A second later, she felt Discord ripped away, and the feelings of imposed rancor along with them, leaving Twilight feeling both hollow and filthy. She fell back to the dunes of ash, kicking up a choking plume upon impact, and all the physical pain she had felt from Discord’s attack came crashing back down on her, making her cry out.

She writhed in the dust, vision blurred, ears ringing, and body agonizing. Somewhere past her pain, she heard somepony crying and the wet smacks of hooves beating a bloody face. Twilight strained her eyes, wiping away the tears and forcing herself beyond her injuries. Her vision cleared to the sight of Pinkie once again holding down Discord as she assaulted him.

“You… ruined… EVERYTHING!!!” Pinkie screamed in a voice born of antipathy and despair.

Discord growled and caught her hoof, blocking her attack as he scowled back at her. “I ruined nothing but your childish ignorance, Pinkie! Who are you to blame me for your suffering when I’m just a creation of the secrets which you keep locked up inside that miserable head of yours?”

Twilight slowly forced herself back to her wobbly hooves, lighting her horn and looking down in concentration. With a little bit more magic, she had the Elements fully recharged. She looked back up at Pinkie, who was still wrestling with Discord.

“Pinkie, get out of the way!”

Pinkie shook her head. “No! Discord is part of me; you need to blast both of us!”

Twilight’s throat hitched from a sudden dry spell. Pinkie’s logic made too much sense to discredit. Her mind went into high gear again as she rapidly contemplated as many possible outcomes as it could.

She’s right… but what will happen if I use the Elements on Pinkie, too? Will it cleanse her of the anomaly like Luna was of Nightmare Moon? But these are just our projections of the Elements; will they work the same way? Will they even work at all? Or will they do to her what they just did to the stadium?

Discord snarled and got back up on all fours, shaking Pinkie off and coiling to pounce Twilight. Pinkie tackled him back to the ground, then looked at Twilight with tear-streaked eyes.

“Now, Twilight! Blast us now!”

Twilight stood locked in a stalemate of indecision.

Worst case scenario is she wakes up, Reason said.

Discord stood, taking Pinkie up with him. Twilight held her breath and shut her eyes tight, then unleashed the power of the Elements. Beams of energy shot from each jewel, engulfing both Discord and Pinkie in a sphere so bright that it burned through the skin of Twilight’s eyelids. The combined power of the Elements overloaded onto their targets, and there came another deafening blast at detonation. A gust of wind kicked up a rolling cloud of dust,and charred soot forcing Twilight to cover her muzzle.

Twilight stood utterly motionless in the ashes of the wake, flicking her to try and regain her hearing. She dared not move, lest too sudden an observation of the aftermath deny them of victory.

“Oh, come on!” Rainbow yelled.

A pit opened up in Twilight’s stomach.

Discord was laughing.

Twilight ripped open her eyes. Discord was standing in a crater of charcoal, pointing at Twilight and howling in derisive laughter as Pinkie backed away from him. The wounds from Pinkie’s bludgeoning were still regenerating, but the full power of the Elements hadn’t laid a scratch upon him. They hadn’t even messed his hair up.

“Oh, you had me going there for a moment!” Discord laughed. “To think how you thought your stunt could have had an effect on me!”

“But… how… why...” Rainbow stuttered, “You should be dead! Everything else in the stadium got reduced to dust, why aren’t you taking a dirt nap with it?”

Discord chuckled. “Pretend solutions for pretend beings. Those aren’t the real Elements of Harmony, just Twilight’s projections of them.”

Discord scooped up Pinkie, giving her a noogie as she screamed and struggled in vain to break free. “I, however, am a projection of a very real part of your dear Pinkie Pie. In this world, your imaginary jewelry is hardly worth more than a fancy light show.”

Discord irreverently tossed Pinkie to the ground in front of Twilight. She caught Pinkie with her magic, setting the shaken mare on all fours. Pinkie darted behind Twilight, cowering like a little foal as Discord focused his derision on Twilight.

“Do you really think that every adversary you’ll come to face will fall before you because ‘friendship?’ And how exactly do your scorched earth, ‘take-no-prisoners’ artifacts figure into that? Are you really so creatively inept that you can’t figure out how to resolve your conflicts without pulling some magic mumbo-jumbo out of your rear end to effortlessly wipe away all your problems?”

“Now then, seeing as how you’ve had your go,” Discord cracked his knuckles with the sound of a slew of clown horns being honked, “it’s my turn...”

“Not so fast Discord!” Twilight interjected. “We’ve still got Plan B!”

Fluttershy, Rainbow, Applejack and Rarity all looked at Twilight. She met their glances with a knowing look, and they nodded in response.

“Wait,” Pinkie said, “what’s ‘Plan B?’”

Twilight lit her horn, and the six of them disappeared in a burst of light. reappearing at the edge of the wastes. Twilight took off, galloping like mad back into town, looking back over her shoulder as she screamed:

“RUUUUUUN!!!”

The five gave chase, galloping after Twilight as she fled back into the warped and imposing Ponyville. Pinkie caught up to Twilight, despair acid-etched onto her face.

“I thought you said you could fix this!” Pinkie bemoaned.

“I can,” Twilight answered, “but we need to get back to the library first! Discord won’t be able to interfere with us in there!”

Twilight craned her neck back when Rainbow suddenly flew into front of her face.

“I can’t believe you blasted Pinkie like that back there!” she spat.

“I didn’t want to, but Pinkie’s right: her projection of Discord is rooted intrinsically to her, so if the Elements were working properly, it should have just purged her of the anomaly like Luna was of Nightmare Moon!”

Yeah, add that to the list of things that didn’t go as planned! Reason interjected.

Applejack galloped up next to Twilight. “So if we need to get back to the library so badly, why didn’t you just teleport us all the way there?”

Twilight looked to her to answer. “The matrices of the dream are still too chaotic to perform a teleportation that far; I was only able to get to the edge of where the Elements pacified the code. And even if I could, in order to encrypt the library, I essentially had to remove it from the rest of the dream, so the only way in or out is through the front door. It was the only way to ensure Discord couldn’t interfere if we had to resort to Plan B.”

“So what do we do for Plan B?” Pinkie asked.

“I’ll tell you when we get inside. Just keep galloping, we’re nearly there!”

They weaved through the eerily quiet streets and dark alleys before they skidded around a corner and caught sight of the library once more. Twilight felt a wave of relief and a rush of adrenaline course through her, and she bolted towards the front door of her home, the one safe place in the nightmare.

The ground trembled with a sudden, violent rumble. Twilight was nearly shaken off her hooves by a legion of vines as thick as trees, each covered in razor-sharp ridges and thorns the size of a pony’s leg, erupting in a ring around the library. The ends of the monstrous bramble curved in on themselves, forming an impenetrable dome around the oak tree.

The six stood in front of the briar prison, gawking.

And ANOTHER item for the ‘gone wrong’ list! Reason growled.

The air rumbled with a familiar disembodied laugh. A sudden wind rustled their coats. They whipped around as Discord appeared behind them in a burst of light.

“And where do you think you’re going?” he said with a smirk. “To the one place in the dream I can’t give my personal touch? Well, good thing the rest of the world, including the area on the borders of the library, is mine to control. Now then...” Discord held out his talons, and lightning began to arc from his spindly fingers. “Where were we?”

Twilight leaned over to Applejack without taking her eyes off of Discord. “If Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Rarity all help, do you think you can do that trick you did in the dojo?”

“Uh... maybe?”

“That’ll have to do!” Twilight lit her horn. A shield appeared around them, and then Twilight teleported outside, leaving her alone with Discord. “I’ll hold him off!”

Discord snickered as Twilight got between him and the rest of her friends. “Your gung-ho drive really is amusing. You know that, right?” Discord huffed. “And yet you still know nothing about why we’re really here. Why do you even bother?”

Twilight glared back at him. “Remember what I said when we defeated the real Discord? Friendship is always worth fighting for.”

Discord tsked in response. “And yet none of you have answered my earlier question: are you really fighting for you friends, or your perceptions of them?” He grinned sadistically. “So why don’t we see if we can elucidate this little conundrum after we poke inside and pick them apart?”

Discord snapped his fingers. More branches sprouted from the bramble dome and arced down towards the shield protecting the five. Twilight spun around with horn alight and slashed the attacking branches with a blade of magic. She twisted back around and launched the thorns back at him. He raised his hands and the projectiles halted mid-air, then they turned and shot straight back at Twilight. She lept into the air and the wooden spikes embedded deep into the ground where she had just been standing. Twilight caught the lodged branches at a slight angle with her hind legs, crouched, then pounced at Discord with her horn on fire.

Discord twisted off to one side and swiped Twilight out of air. She caught him around the neck with a magic lasso as she tumbled to the ground and yanked, slamming him down with her. Discord hissed and darted slithering across the ground towards her.

She fired a blast at Discord. He dodged and coiled his serpentine body around her. She squirmed as he constricted around her, acid shooting into her veins as the air was squeezed from her lungs. Stars burst in her vision as Discord’s tail wrapped around her neck. He opened his mouth, barring his singular fang, dripping with toxic chaos.

Twilight’s horn burst to light. She disappeared from Discord’s asphyxiating hold and reappeared behind him, shooting him in the back of the head with a spell. He lurched forward and roared as Twilight fell to the ground in a heap.

Twilight groaned as she pulled herself back onto her hooves, then looked back at her shielded friends.

“Please hurry!”

“Almost got it!” Applejack called back. “Jus’ hold him off a li'l—LOOK OUT!”

Twilight turned around just in time to see Discord looming over her, his paw raised to strike. She dodged to the side just as his mighty attack crushed the earth where she had been standing, causing a small earthquake. Discord glared up at the airborne unicorn, and snapped his fingers.

Twilight cried out as she landed. The solid ground beneath her hooves had been turned to ice. Her legs flailed about as she desperately attempted to remain upright. Discord spun and whipped Twilight in the face with his tail. Her face burned with the sting of the attack, then another surge of pain obscured her eyesight with white-hot stars as her skull slammed into one of the houses behind her.

Discord sneered in disregard, then turned away, redirecting his aggression at Twilight’s friends. Twilight stumbled forward and yanked at the aetherial lasso still tied around Discord’s neck with as much strength as she could muster, adding an electric shock. Discord stumbled back as his muscles seized up.

He snapped around, glaring daggers at Twilight. Literally. Slews of knives shot out from his eyes at Twilight. She yelped and dodged through the window into the house.

Twilight peeked back outside at Discord. Her pupils shrunk to pinpricks at the sight of Discord reaching behind his back and pulling out the same belt-fed rocket launcher he’d used against them in her first dream with Pinkie. He grinned at Twilight with a maniacal glint in his eyes and fired a warhead at the safehouse.

Twilight yelped and cast a shield around herself. The rocket detonated on impact, turning the entire building into a house of cards, burying her. She dispersed her shield, casting aside the cards only to come face to face with the manic draconequus, holding a flush of clubs.

“Looks like my hand—” Discord reached into the ace of clubs and pulled out the center symbol, which turned into a mace in his claws “—BEATS yours!”

Twilight cast another shield around herself as Discord swung his morning star down at her. The force field crackled on impact, but remained standing. Discord took to the air and fired his rocket launcher at her. Twilight teleported away from the explosive just before it detonated against her shield, turning it into a kiddie pool.

Discord spun around and took another swing at her before she had enough energy to teleport again. She just barely summoned another shield in time to keep from taking a club to the face. Twilight rolled out of her shield away from another rocket, leaving her shield to be morphed into a giant agave plant.

Discord laughing in dementia as Twilight skirred about, completely on the defense, magic getting weaker by the second. One explosion came too close for comfort, knocking Twilight into the small hill of cards and leaving her ears ringing. Discord swept over her, swinging his mace down for the killing blow. In desperation, Twilight grabbed one of the cards in her telekinesis and held it in front of her in a futile attempt to protect herself.

There was an ear-piercing ring as the club struck Twilight’s card, then shattered to pieces. Twilight opened her eyes, and flipped the card over to inspect her savior. She smirked as she flipped her ace of spades back around to face Discord.

“Spades beat clubs!” Twilight triumphantly boasted.

Discord leered, then smirked. He held out a claw, and the pile of cards began to tremble. Twilight looked back as every symbol of a spade tore itself from its respective card and hovered in the air over her like a flock of skarmory. Twilight’s ears folded back against her head as she gulped.

Discord chuckled. “Now to flush your fleeting sense of victory away.”

Discord flicked his wrist, and every airborne spade shot at Twilight. She twisted and contorted to avoid them all as they embedded into the pile of cards around her, leaving her without any room to maneuver.

Discord chuckled as he stood over the weary Twilight, then pointed his rocket launcher right at her face.

“Farewell, Twilight Sparkle. It’s been a blast.”

Twilight groaned and rolled her eyes, but then something else caught her attention: the pile of cards was rustling again. Discord noticed it too, because he looked to the remains of the card house just as every diamond suit in the pile became aglow with a cornflower blue aura, then ripped itself from each respective card. They all hovered in the air for a moment, then snapped into an assault formation pointed directly at Discord. He only had enough time for his uneven eyes to bulge half way out of his head before the swarm of diamonds attacked, knocking him away from Twilight and pummeling him into the ground.

Twilight looked over to her friends. The five of them stood around a newly created cellar door that had been crafted directly into the ground. Rarity stood apart from the others, gleefully leering at Discord with her horn glowing the same aura of blue.

“Enjoy the irony, you demented loon!” Rarity heckled.

Twilight afforded herself a smile. “You girls are the best!”

She lit her horn and appeared several feet over Discord’s head, landing on it with all fours and smashing it back into the checkerboard pavement. She smirked victoriously, then teleported over to her friends.

“Alright, now let’s do thi—”

Twilight was cut off when she felt her horn ensnared by magic, tugging her towards the shield, making her look outside. Discord had pried himself off the ground and had the aetherial lasso, still around his neck, in paw. Their eyes met, and she could feel the heat of the animosity that had burned away his elation.

Discord stood and yanked on the lasso. Twilight was swept off her hooves and crashed into the shield with such force that it shattered. Another tangle of gnarled and thorny branches encased her friends as Twilight soared through the air and into Discord’s waiting paw. Fingers clenched around her barrel and claws dug into her sides. Twilight lit her horn to escape. Discord licked his talons and pinched her horn, extinguishing her magic.

Discord skewered Twilight with his leer. Her hair stood on end as the air started to buzz with the thrum of electricity.

“You’ve been a detriment for far too long, Twilight!” Discord hissed with escalating sadism. “Now it’s time to alternate our current state of affairs!”

Discord's talons lit up, and thousands of volts of electricity surged through Twilight all at once. Every single hair felt like it had been lit on fire, licking her skin with arcing flame. Every muscle spasmed as every pathway on her nervous system turned to barbed wire. Her organs convulsed like bags of worms. Every bone felt like splinters and the marrow inside writhed in their calcium coffins.

Twilight’s brain was a pincushion of railroad spikes. There was no room to concentrate on magic or any thoughts but agony. So all she did was scream.

The lightning suddenly cut out. Twilight went limp, gasping for air as her limbs dangled. She felt like she’d been ripped apart cell by cell in an instant, then put back together just as quickly, but without all the pieces in the right places. Adrenaline worked in overdrive to clear her mind. The second she could form a cohesive thought, she lit her horn for a desperate counter-measure.

Then the electricity ripped through her again.

Every limp muscle seized up as the current ensnared her every fiber. Her bones turned into quills that tore at her entrails. The electric storm defused her ability to think and stole her ability to move. All she could do was feel, and all she could feel was pain. Her muscles were eroding, refusing to follow orders from a limbic system beyond her control. Panic set in, and she screamed.

“Stop! No—AGH! STOP! PLEEEAASE!”

To her surprise, the torture did stop, and Twilight collapsed in Discord’s hold. Everything hurt more than her everything had ever hurt before. Her innards felt pureed, sloshing about in a sack of seared skin that had gone clammy with frightful sweat. Her lethargic and threadbare muscles refused to move, even if she was capable of sending anything more than feeble commands to them through nerve pathways that had turned to rust. There in the clutches of her enemy, she could not have felt more vulnerable than if she lay splayed and vivisected upon the table of a depraved sociopath.

She felt a claw under her chin lifting her head. Even her eyes were too weary to look away when she met Discord’s own, leering at her with penetrating disdain when he spoke.

“Answer me this, Twilight Sparkle: would you have stayed your hoof and refrained from unleashing the Elements against me if I had just asked nicely?”

Twilight was silent for a moment. Her ears slowly folded back against her head, her mouth fell open, and her pupils shrunk to the head of a needle loaded with a lethal injection.

Discord scowled with indescribable hate. “That’s what I thought.”

The third charge of electricity ravaged her defeated body. She nearly blacked out from the inrush current alone. Twilight screamed. She screamed in agony and despair until her voice broke and the blood vessels in her throat began to rupture. Her vision began to darken. Somewhere in the universe of torment, Twilight found herself in a precious little bubble of memory. She thought back to the Ponyville water war, a mere ten days ago, It all felt so distant now: the last time she and all of her friends had been happy together, filled with laughter, harmonious.

Somewhere off in the distance, there was the buzz of an energized beam and the cracks of severed foliage. Discord looked up, and a blue aura shoved his head into the end of a metal pipe.

BOOM!

The thunder clogging Twilight’s ears died with the pops of several residual sparks, leaving a ringing echo in them. She felt herself slip from her restraints and was swept away in an oddly euphoric sense of weightlessness. Something punched her entire body, from her skull to her tail. She cried out and flinched at the impact, then rolled onto her side and whimpered. She heard a ‘thunk’ and felt the vibrations through the ground as something landed right in front of her face, followed by an acrid stench.

Twilight cracked her eyes open. Her vision swam, and whatever she could see was blurred by a veil of tears. She blinked and saw Rarity’s shotgun lying in front of her, black wisps wafting out from the muzzle.

Then Discord hit the ground in front of her like a fallen tree. She gasped at the headless corpse, still twitching in places, flesh dripping from the ragged stump.

Twilight strained to look up at the library. A gaping hole had been cut from the enclosure of branches that had trapped her friends, some of the ends still glowing red from the heat of the lasers used to cut them. Rainbow, Applejack, and Fluttershy stared with various mixtures of disgust, shock, and horror. Pinkie was curled up in a ball behind Rarity, who stood quivering, her head turned away and her eyes clenched shut, but not tightly enough to keep the streams of tears from leaking out of them.

“Get inside before I have to look,” Rarity ordered with a haunted voice.

Twilight groaned as she tried to get back on her hooves. She grit her teeth, but her muscles had all the strength of pudding and her body had become lead. Her legs gave out from underneath her, and she fell to the ground, panting.

Rarity’s shaking became worse, and she grimaced, choking back a sob. “GET IN!”

Applejack shoved Rainbow and jerked her head at Twilight. Rainbow nodded, then zipped out of the briar dome and landed above Twilight, scooping the spent unicorn up in her forelegs.

“Come on, let’s go—”

A massive paw back-handed Rainbow off Twilight, sending the pegasus tumbling away. Twilight fell back to the ground, then the air was forced from her lungs as the same limb slammed her down, trapping her.

The headless body of Discord loomed over Twilight. Even without eyes, she could feel it glaring at her with the utmost contempt. The projection shoved its gnarled, open wound into Twilight’s face and hissed out a rumbling growl at her, making the unicorn recoil away as she was sprayed with globs of ichor. It raised its talon, and the air filled with the terrifying cackle of lightning.

A pale blur slammed into the headless Discord, ripping him off Twilight and sending him flying into the distance. The newcomer skidded to a halt next to Rainbow Dash, three legs on the ground and one foreleg in the air for balance. Even through the blankets of numbing pain, Twilight felt the distinct queasiness of empty eyes bearing down on her.

Posed over Dash was the thing-pony, looking at Twilight with the blank expression it always had. Rainbow looked up at her fellow savior and gasped. The thing-pony looked down at her, then over at Twilight, and back down to Rainbow again. The pegasus’s eyes lit up; she bolted to Twilight, picked her up, and made a break for the cellar door.

Discord got back up on all fours. He snapped its partially-regenerated head to the fleeing mares, bellowed in fury and charged them. The thing-pony looked back at the enraged draconequus, then took off for the exit.

Fluttershy darted into the cellar, followed by Applejack, who grabbed the helpless Pinkie and horror-stricken Rarity and pulled them into the shelter. Rainbow skidded inside with Twilight, followed immediately by the thing-pony, sliding across the ground and into the safe room like a runner stealing home. Applejack slammed the cellar doors shut just before the roaring Discord caught up to them, plunging them all into darkness.

The interior of the cellar was cramped, carrying a slight echo as the mares shifted in the ubiquitous black. There was a rustling of fabric followed by the chinks of rummaging, then Applejack broke the silence.

“Anypony got a light?”

There was a light buzz of charged energy as Fluttershy’s eye lit up. Applejack held a kerosene lantern out to her, and she lit the gas with a tiny burst. Applejack set the lantern down in the center of the safe room, casting a dim light upon the ponies along the walls.

A solemn Applejack sat in between Fluttershy and Rarity, both of whom quivered. Fluttershy whimpered, too desensitized to cry, and Rarity stared off into the infinite distance. Pinkie had retreated to the furthest corner and curled into a ball with her back to everypony. And a hardened Rainbow sat next to a shaken Twilight, her exhausted legs pulled as close to her trembling body as she could, her every labored breath shuddering with sobs.

The thing-pony was the thing-pony.

Applejack reached into one of her saddlebags, withdrew a canteen, and passed it to Twilight. She didn’t even notice it being offered to her. Rainbow reached out and grabbed it, then wrapped her other forehoof around Twilight, easing her back.

“Here, drink up,” Rainbow tried to say as gently possible, but her own voice was thick with strain.

Twilight took gradual sips from the canteen as Rainbow held her like a mother with her sick foal. When she’d rehydrated sufficiently and had stopped shaking like she had hypothermia, Twilight leaned forward, supporting herself on quivering forelegs.

“Th-thanks, g-girls… and y-you.” Twilight looked at the thing-pony. “Thank you, t-too.”

The thing-pony looked back at Twilight. In the dim cellar, the glow of the lantern was mostly absorbed by the fur and feathers of its head, whilst the firelight dancing across its pale face and soul-dead eyes made it look even more like an omen than it already was.

Even through her wracked nerves, addled thoughts, and traumatized emotions, Twilight could feel the minute, inner squirming that swept through her like walking into a spirit whenever the thing-pony laid eyes on her. Yet despite the minor unpleasantries, it was something familiar: something solid. In its own bizarre way, it was comforting, something that assured her it was all just a dream.

Something that wouldn’t torture her with thousands of volts of electricity.

“Are you still up for Plan B?” Rainbow asked Twilight.

“Y-yeah, just… give me a minute...” Twilight answered.

“Why bother?” a quiet voice mumbled through the darkness. All the girls looked over to Pinkie, who had unfurled enough to glance over her shoulder.

“Why even bother trying to help me?” Pinkie asked with a torn voice as she turned to face her friends. “All of you have suffered so much because of me. I mean... look at all of you! All of you jump into a dream with me, and look—” Her voice seized up, and she choked back a dry, painful sob. “L-look what my subconscious does to you.” She hung her head. “Maybe I deserve this.”

Rainbow’s face scrunched up. “Are you bucking KIDDING ME?!”

Before anypony could stop her, Rainbow had gotten within a leg’s length of Pinkie’s face. “We knew the risks when we signed up for this! I never backed down, even knowing what you did while thinking about me! You saw what Discord did to us. What makes you think he won’t do worse to you? Your mind is tearing itself apart, and so help me Celestia we are not leaving this dream until we fix it! You hear me?!”

Pinkie was too startled to respond. She didn’t even move when Applejack stepped forward to put some distance between her and Rainbow.

“Easy there, Dash,” Applejack sternly instructed. “Yellin’ at the poor girl ain’t going to solve anything.” Applejack turned to Pinkie. “Temperaments aside, Rainbow’s right, sugarcube. Knowing everything you’ve been going through, ya’ can’t just expect us to sit by and let you try and weather this storm by your lonesome. You’d sooner get Fluttershy to turn her back on a sick animal than you’d get us to leave you.”

“Wh-what?!” Fluttershy stammered. “I… I-I’d n-never...”

“My point exactly. And the point is, we’re stickin’ through to the end. We’re so committed to this that even Twi’s weird owl-pony thing showed up to lend a hoof.”

Pinkie looked at all of her friends, each with varying degrees of wounds, both emotional and physical, but with resolve no less intense. Even the thing-pony was looking at her, albeit with an expression harder to read than a blank page. Pinkie slumped back against the wall and pulled her knees as close as she could to her barrel.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, her quivering voice barely above a whisper.

Twilight stood and, with some effort, trudged the short distance across the cellar, and sat down next to Pinkie with all the grace of a dropped sack of flour. She slowly opened her saddlebags, withdrew her pocket watch, and gave it to Rainbow.

“Give us fifteen minutes. Don’t give us the kick without warning me first, and wait a few seconds before you start playing the song if you have to wake us up early.”

Pinkie’s eyes dilated. “We’re going into another dream?”

Twilight lit her horn. “Sorry, Pinkie. I have to find out what’s causing all this.”

Pinkie’s eyes flooded with dread. She tried to respond, but couldn’t communicate anything more than horrified squeak. Without another attempt at words, she whipped around and scrambled up the wall, towards the cellar door.

Rainbow zipped up after her and grabbed her around the barrel. “Are you CRAZY?”

“Of course I’m crazy!” Pinkie shrieked back. “I’m out of my bucking mind insane! Did you not see my trial ten minutes ago?!”

Applejack bit Pinkie’s tail and, with a mighty twist of her neck, yanked Pinkie back down. She struggled, but Rainbow still had a grip on her, and Applejack planting her forehooves on the desperate pony’s shoulders rooted her in place.

“Shoot, Pinkie, you were always crazy,” Applejack said with a sad smile. “Like Dash said, the problem is you’ve caught the kind of crazy that’s chewin’ up all your insides.”

Pinkie thrashed as a third pony reached out to take hold of her, but only to take her by the hoof. She eventually lost the energy to resist, and when her head fell, she saw a lavender hoof still holding her own. She mustered the strength to look back up and met Twilight’s eyes, still radiating the same concern, empathy, and reassurance they’d given her ever since that stormy night when she had finally confessed everything.

Pinkie exhaled, closed her eyes, and bowed her head in submission. Twilight’s magic touched her, and Pinkie went limp, lost in the vast fields of slumber. Only then did Rainbow let go of Pinkie, who slid to the floor like a rag doll. Rainbow dutifully adjusted the unconscious pony as best she could, laying Pinkie on her side and straightening out her tangled legs. When she finished, Rainbow stepped back, and all five of them just stared at Pinkie in the uneasy, choking silence.

“What in Celestia’s name is Pinkie keeping in her subconscious?” Rarity quietly asked.

“Unfortunately, there’s only one way to find out,” Twilight replied, laying next to Pinkie and frowning at her slightly. Even in sleep, Pinkie’s face was a stone of sadness.

“Yeah, well, you're gonna have to make it quick,” Applejack interjected. “This here reality pocket we’re hiding in ain’t perfect, so ya’ only got so much time to find what’s causin’ poor Pinkie all this suffering.”

Twilight looked up at Applejack, doing her best not to sound more alarmed than she was. “Can you give us the whole fifteen minutes?”

“Maybe, if we’re really lucky, but that’s stretching it like taffy in a tug-o-war game.”

Rainbow growled in frustration. “Because we can’t ever have anything be easy for us, can we?”

“Friendship isn’t always easy.” Twilight looked back down at Pinkie. “But it’s worth the effort… It has to be...”

Rainbow’s face contorted. “I’m coming with you.”

“Rainbow, you can’t—”

“You can’t just expect me to let you get even closer to the thing that’s making Discord appear in Pinkie’s mind alone! There’s no way you can think I’ll abandon you! Not after....” Rainbow’s voice seized up, leaving her sentence unfinished.

Twilight smiled with reassurance as best she could in her weakened state. “You’re not abandoning me, Rainbow, you’re going to make sure Pinkie and I are safe here. If this enclosure is compromised, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Applejack are going to need as much help fending off Discord as they can get. And you wouldn’t want to feel like you abandoned them, would you?”

“I...” Rainbow began to speak, but looking back and forth between Twilight and the rest of her friends left her too flummoxed to say anything. She exhaled heavily and hung her head.

“If it makes you feel any better, it’s highly unlikely that the second dream will be as dangerous as this one. The entire dream is going to be built with the same kind of encryptions I used to make the library in this dream, so Discord won’t even be able to manifest.”

Rainbow didn’t answer, but her expression of defeat softened. Twilight nodded, then looked back down to Pinkie. She made the mental processes to light her horn, but something stopped her: thoughts of electricity agonizing her on a molecular level; torture; utter helplessness; being alone…

Don’t be afraid, Twilight, Reason said. So long as you have me, you’ll never be alone.

With that little bolster, Twilight activated her magic, and casting Dreamscape for the second time.

“Hey, Twi.” Applejack prodded the unicorn’s side, then tipped her hat towards her. “Best of luck to ya’.”

Twilight smiled. “Thanks, AJ.”

“May Celestia smile upon you, Twilight,” Rarity said.

Fluttershy sniffed then looked up with a plea in her eyes. “Stay safe.”

“I will. And thank you.”

Rainbow had regained enough of her voice to bid farewell. “I’ll try and hold off reducing Discord to ash until you two get back, so we can all do it together.”

Twilight couldn’t help but chuckle a little. “That’s the Rainbow Dash I know.”

On impulse, Twilight looked over to the thing-pony. It said nothing, nor made any acknowledgements to her. It just stared, eerie as ever.

Twilight looked back at her friends, savoring their company for one last moment. She laid her head down, and felt Dreamscape begin to take her away.

“See you girls in fifteen minutes.”

Twilight shut her eyes, and her world became darkness.

Author's Note:

...

The God-Emperor of man can describe better than anything anyone could ever say or feel about this finally getting updated.

Before anybody asks the obvious question, here are the four reasons this took so long. The first is that the way this was written, where all of the mane six are separated at the start of the dream obviously meant we had a lot of ground to cover. The second is I took a considerable amount of time off from working on this to complete The Harisay Brothers review of Equestria Girls. The third is that I've had several metric fucktons of shit going wrong with my life over the last year and a half, from depression over the fate of our EQG review, to hating my last job so much my philosophies have started turning nihilistic, and a whole slew of other problems I don't feel like talking about right now.

And the forth is that we're lazy fucking procrastinators.

A year and a half... and we come back with what I feel is the weakest chapter thus far. When writing the outline, what the Mane Six would have to get through was left completely open, sort of as an experimental creative writing exercise... and clearly that was a mistake, since we ended up with a bunch of scenes that are thousands of words long yet are only barely related to each other. We'd intended to have all of Pinkie's issues wrapped up in this chapter, but again, we'd ended up writing so much that we have to divide all our ideas for one chapter into two. Again. Like we've down for every chapter we've written since chapter two.

At least the next one won't be bogged down with as much bullshit as this was is. Hell, if all goes according to plan, chapter twelve will have one of the most awesome things you'll have ever seen in a fan fiction ever... whenever the fuck it gets released.

Toddles. I'm going to send this shit to EQD and then be depressed.

- Christian 'Doing It Wrong' Harisay

Comments

[Trevor12300]

I hope the next one will start focusing a lot more on Spike again, I also can't wait until the girls find out about Avarice (if they ever do)

[mrsupercala]

holly shit half life 3 confirmed right her people.

[Christian Harisay]

7273677 Sorry, but next chapter is going to focus on wrapping on Pinkie's conflict. But from chapter after next to there on out, the central conflict is going to be on the opposition presented by Avarice.

7274758 See, it's funny because we fucking suck at releasing things regularly...

- Christian 'Sober And Irrelevant' Harisay

[mrsupercala]

by the way i spoke to Gabe and he said you get a free crowbar singed by Gordon freeman or at least the actor that voices him in episode 3.

[Trevor12300]

7274968 Can't wait, I don't know why but Spike's problem is a lot more interesting to me, not trying to say that Pinkie,s isn't interesting either though, I just think Spike's is a lot more interesting.

[RoboRed]

A year and a half... and we come back with what I feel is the weakest chapter thus far.

Are you fucking kidding me? This was great! A bit longer than I would have liked, but man...this was equal parts dark/hilarious/horrifying/emotional/awesome. Viking death metal sharks? A Pink Floyd "The Wall" reference? The tribulations that Rarity and Fluttershy had to go through? The pirates? And this in particular:

“OI! TIMMY! C’MERE!”

The war boy in question reeled back at the command, then looked around in bewilderment. Timmy gulped, then scampered up to the war boss.

“Oi Cap’ain?”

The captain never ceased to glare bayonets at the shipmast of Razorfin Clan, so he didn’t even look at Timmy when he raised his fist and punched him in the face with such force that Timmy flew across the deck, his hat suspended in the air for a moment. The captain caught the hovering tricorn with his outstretched hand, then slammed it onto his own head and pointed his rocket launcher at the shipmaster.

-had me absolutely rolling.

It may have been a year and a half, but this was a great comeback. I really hope things are going better for you guys now, and I can't wait for the next update.
Also, I still haven't watched Inception, so mlehh...

BTW, a couple times I noticed some sentences with missing periods:

A burning flash of blinding light seared their eyes, making them cry out in pain and stumble back with hooves over their faces. When Twilight was able to see again, her breath caught in her throat and her blood quickened

“Now that we’re through with the foreplay,” he growled, holding his talons above Rainbow. Lightning arced from the tips of his claws and struck Rainbow full-force. She screamed

Discord leered, then smirked. He held out a claw, and the pile of cards began to tremble. Twilight looked back as every symbol of a spade tore itself from its respective card and hovered in the air over her like a flock of skarmory. Twilight’s ears folded back against her head as she gulped

Also about that last one regarding Skarmory - nice imagery, but I don't think that all the readers are going to know what a Skarmory is.

[StainlessKey]

It's alive! This is one solid chapter, I can only hope won't be waiting 18 months for the next one I'm really hope life will get better for you. It's nice to have you back.

[Patata1312]

This story is awesome!!
And is also awesome that you continue it!!!!
I thought you werent going to update anysoon!!!

[Christian Harisay]

7278522 The reason I feel this chapter is weaker than the other ones before it is mostly because the focus is so scattered. In the outline for this chapter, literally everything from the point were they enter the dream to when they run into Discord was left completely open, so every single scene with each of the Mane Six was basically a creative writing experiment, left up for grabs to whoever got around to it (read: meaning I ended up writing every single one except for Fluttershy's scene). However, the result ended up being an eclectic cluster-fuck of a bunch of events that are only just barely related to each other, and the verbose monument it ended up spawning pushed resolving Pinkie's issues back another chapter. (It also used to be about eight thousand words longer; the biggest cut of which was Fluttershy's fight, which was twice as long.)

It's not that I think this is a bad chapter, I just think it suffers from not really bringing closure to anything and lacking a consistent tone. Compare it to chapter four, which has a very limited number of consistent themes of isolation and loneliness, yet to this day we still think is the best entry to date because it focused so heavily on making the reader feel trapped in limbo with Twilight.

Still, it is somewhat gratifying that you found enjoyment. Pinkie's trail being an unrepentant ripoff homage to The Wall just seemed like the perfect way of framing how degenerate her self-destructive subconscious has gotten while also hinting at what it is that's causing all her problems. Fluttershy's fight with the wolf was Brian pitting her against something that he felt was the antithesis of her character, as the result was a sadistic predator. The orc pirates was actually a bit of a fan love-letter to Brian, since the Scurvy Gits are actually an army he plays in Warhammer 40K, and their specific hilarious, violent insanity is daily routine. And the shark vikings were something that when i thought of them, I was laughing so hard to myself I decided I had to include them.

By the way, in case anyone is wondering, this is what the music they play sounds like:

Thanks for pointing out the punctuation errors; they have now been corrected. Also, thanks for reading, commenting, and for having the patience of a saint. We're already working on the next chapter, so God willing it won't take as long to write as this one did.

And in the meantime, here's a link to Inception on Solarmovie. You can watch the whole damn thing right now. Lord knows you'll have enough time to watch it while we work on the next chapter...

- Christian 'Prefered your previous profile image on acounts of it having 100% less Flash Sentry' Harisay

[RoboRed]

7282496
Eh...fair enough. I'll give you that. But it was still adventurous and highly entertaining.

I'll have to set some time aside to watch that.

- Christian 'Prefered your previous profile image on acounts of it having 100% less Flash Sentry' Harisay

Calm your pants, dudebro...I'll be picking out a new one for the month this week. (I'd have picked the new one today if I wasn't so Forza-obsessed)

[Blue_newt]

Did you just... Update? So the story lives? Will you be releasing regularly now?

[RampantArcana]

All the sharks began to headbang, swinging their hair around in rapid circles like windmills, generating a torrential wind that caught the sails with the force of a hurricane.

Definitely my favorite part. I couldn't help but imagine them as the old cartoon Street Sharks turned into a metal band.

I actually liked the premise of the chapter. Having everyone split up dealing with their own problems really gave me a feel for the dream world. Dreams are nonsensical on a good day, and this is a disturbed Pinkie Pie's dream, riven with chaos, insanity, and peril. I don't think there was a single scene I explicitly disliked.

However, lots of those scenes feel like they are missing the polish that was present in earlier chapters. Little things bothered me. For example, whenever the Norse death metal sharks (oh god I can't stop smiling at that) interact with Rainbow, she drops into a super serious formal mode of speech with little of her characteristic flair for awesome. It momentarily breaks the suspension of disbelief and is allowed to persist in more than one scene to slip into another reference for us to Witness.

Now I can rationalize that Rainbow might be swept up in the moment imagining she's in an adventure like a Daring Doo book, but she doesn't geek out about it, privately nor openly. No one calls her out on it, so I'm forced to take it at face value. It feels like a missed opportunity to remind us that we're continually reading about Rainbow Dash and not railroading our way through. Maybe even a slip up halfway through in some of her call to arms/tactical withdrawal dialogue would pull me right back in, but it wasn't there.

A small nitpick, but lingering enough to leave me typing out two paragraphs about it. Like I said, lacking some polish and in several other areas as well. It doesn't break the chapter, but it's there.

I was entertained by the majority of the Discord fight. He's definitely taken the kiddy gloves off. I do notice he's quite a bit more physical this time with lots of punching, backhanding, etc. It makes me wonder if this is intentional as a reflection of Pinkie; he seemed so much more playful with his fighting style way back oh so long ago. Lots of his anger seems quite directed toward Twilight as well. Mere frustration with the largest threat or is Twilight going to have a bad time the next level down?

Regardless of how you feel the chapter turned out or whatever flaws there might be in it, I was quite entertained. But seriously... 40k... It took half my morning to remember where we left off and half my afternoon reading this one. It's a marathon that keeps getting longer! Even I balk at that and I openly tell my friends I feel disappointed when I read less than 10k words outside of work every day. Maybe some logical breaks to split things up a bit? I can see an easy one right where the girls start following the Thing-Pony. The others aren't so easy...

But please don't stop writing or cut things short based on that. I need to know what's wrong with Pinkie... Now please.

[Christian Harisay]

First and foremost, sorry to everybody for taking over two weeks to get back to you. Been busy with work, writing the next chapter, and trying to find fucking anyone who can teach me how to record music. Now onto the business of things...

7279879 Thanks, it's good to be back. And I sure as Hell hope it never takes this long to write another chapter again.

7280568 That's sort of our thing: doing what nobody expects us to do, because we're a bunch of weirdos. I can only imagine the squees that were to be had by you and StainlessKey when the update popped up in your messages.

7282557 Yeah, I might not feel as good about this chapter as I have about the rest, but for all it's flaws, I still think it has it's moments.

Be sure to make the time to watch Inception when you get the chance. It's so fucking good that it inspired a brony with one of the most abysmal typing speeds of anyone whoever sat down at a computer to write a MLP fan fiction destined to be several hundred thousand words long that rips off the premise of said film. (Which is also by Christopher Nolan, same guy who made Momento, The Prestige, Interstellar, and The Dark Knight trilogy.)

It's cool. I've just been known to have adverse reactions when exposed to Flash 'Satellite Love Interest of the worst kind' Sentry. (Seriously, I want to wring that walking Ax Body Spray commercial through the Thrasher's Abattoir.) Your new one is fine. I'm okay with Sunset, even if I'm not at all complacent with the Equestria Girls spin-off. She's at least more than a one-dimensional character now. (Unlike... you know...)

7285424 DECEPTION lives. I've got the core details and plot points mapped out all the way to the end, and I have every intention of seeing it to completion. Working on the new chapter now, in fact. Unfortunately, I can't say with any certainty when it will be completed. Old cycle used to be about four months between updates, and while I'd like to shoot for a time frame like that, I just can't say for certain, especially given that we're going even further into the realms of 'things we've never done in the story before,' though it'll be more focused than this one. Hopefully.

7285663 You always write the best comments, Rampant. Makes me smile just seeing you pop up in my notifications.

Admittedly, the viking sharks that listen to melodic death metal and drive their ship by windmilling had me laughing pretty damn hard, too. Having each of the mares struggle against some form of peril was the major focus of this chapter, but I'll get more into that in a minute.

It's funny that you should note nobody calling out Rainbow Dash on so heartily jumping into the role that Razorfin cast her as, since she actually does get called on it. Twice. First when Applejack objects to being called 'Lady Applejack' and Rainbow whispers back "Just play along," and then when Rarity snaps from the stress and accuses Dash of enjoying having her own personal army of "fanatical chauvinists."

However, I don't blame you for missing those subtle little details; there are a lot of subtleties in the story, some of which I still don't think anybody has picked up on, like Twilight's 'tell' or why Avarice sung 'La Donna e Mobile.' That, and it's probably hard to notice those things when they're minute points in a biblically behemoth mountain of words that are longer than entire stories on this site. Fuck, there are books in the Old Testament that aren't as long as chapter eleven.

And that brings me back to the chapter structure and what you had commented about there feeling like a lack of polish. Every individual piece of conflict the girls faced wasn't scripted in the outlined and was treated as a creative writing exercise. The problem is that a most of that conflict each the girls has to face takes place only in their scene, with little connectivity to the other scenes, and even less impact outside that scene after it was resolved. A stark difference between all the other chapters before it, where the series of events are tightly interlocked and almost always serve to establish a later event. So even if the individual scenes were engaging and well written, the eclectic nature of this chapter means those scenes don't mesh as well together.

This chapter sort of has the same problem that episode 100 and the season five finale did, where too much attention was devoted to a collage of barely-related events, and the over-arching plot was just and excuse to parade such events... Granted, I still think what we wrote is WAY fucking better than either of those episodes: the later being almost fascinating in how much a cluster-fucked mess it was, and the former being a straight-up irresponsible, disappointing piece of shit.

Your observations of Discord are quite keen, so props to you for noticing. Yes, the Discord projection's increased malice and violence are supposed to be indicative of Pinkie's mental state. There are a lot of clues sprinkled throughout Discord's interaction with the Mane Six as to what he is, but since I'm the writer I can't tell whether or not they're too obvious or too obscure for the average reader to pick up on. If nothing else, it'll probably inspire a whole lot of 'holy shit, I didn't notice that before' moments for anybody who goes back and re-reads the Discord-centered segments after it's revealed what is actually causing Pinkie's nightmares and dysphoria.

Speaking of which, without giving too mush away, all of Pinkie's issues will be resolved in the next chapter. The poor mare and her friends are finally going to get some much-needed catharsis... but yeah; Twilight is going to have a really, really bad time in level two...

To be perfectly honest, I was seriously thinking about breaking up this chapter into at least half a dozen chapters of only a few thousand words each and just released them periodically every week until I'd posted them all. Come to think of it, that would have given it way more exposure time on the front page... maybe even the feature box...

And I can now only conclude I didn't take that method because I'm a fucking idiot.

Still, it's good to know that this story still has some of it's audience left even after being gone for a year and a half. In FimFiction time, that's got to be like a band not releasing a new album for almost twenty years... I'm looking at you, At The Gates...

... Don't hate me, At The Gates! I fucking love you! Don't ever leave us metalheads like that again!

- Christian 'At least had a more successful comeback than Duke Nukem' Harisay

[NotSoWickedWitch]

Just found and finish the chapters so far. I'm just, wow. This story is amazing.

Pinkie, Spike, and Twilight’s internal struggles in this story are just uh, I love this! Can't wait for the next! I'm on the edge of my seat!

[Christian Harisay]

7644213 Well, thanks. Glad you enjoy it as much as you do.

Since a lot of the conflict takes place in dream states, all of the characters' struggles had to be internal ones. I feel that's what keeps the story consistent and solid through its multiple shifting tones; even when you have one of the characters reaching the frayed edges of their sanity in one chapter, and a battle between orc pirates and shark vikings in another.

Pinkie's crisis should be resolved by the next chapter; hopefully its conclusion will be a satisfactory one.

- Christian 'Well, since I'm doing all the work here by myself...' Harisay

[NotSoWickedWitch]

7657090

Also, congratulations! This story, with little to no errors, is now included in the Good Grammar Directory, under Adventure. Thank you for the beautifully written edition to our library!

derpicdn.net/img/2014/2/18/555917/medium.png

[Christian Harisay]

7712296 Inclusion into the Good Grammar Library? Splendid! That $500+ I've pissed away for the talents of professional editors finally amounted to something that might net at most another three likes! Huzzah!

*looks at that picture*

i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/415/209/3b4.png

- Christian 'Give me a minute, I need to think about this, God damn it!' Harisay

[Blair]

Tell me this story isn't canceled, this has become my new favorite fanfiction on the site. I loved watching Inception.

[Christian Harisay]

8289112 It's not. I'm well on my way into the next chapter, but there is a lot of ground to cover. It'll probably be broken up into several parts, but I want to finish it all first and then release each part a few weeks from each other.

It also doesn't help that I've been dumping most of my free time into Overwatch, and that I'm the only one who even cares about this story anymore, let alone bothers to keep writing it.

- Christian 'Looks like I have to do everything myself...' Harisay

[ShadowXper]

Plz continue I want to know what happens to spike

[Christian Harisay]

8877477
DECEPTION will continue... eventually...

- Christian 'The young man struggles on and on...' Harisay

[SpyPony]

I am so excited for this story to continue... I absolutely loved the movie Inception and I cannot wait for this fic to come to its conclusion.

Cheering you on, man. I want you to know that there's someone here that believes in you.

[Teron Gorefiend]

9882207
Same :)