Dissonance: A Hidden World

by Braininthejar

Chapter 56: The Darkness

For a moment Twilight expected to be blown away. In a blink of an eye there was only magic, the stone walls writhing and shifting under its touch, the alicorn statues rearing, momentarily alive. A blazing pillar of light hit the circle and for a moment the energy being inside it disappeared.

The prongs of the array turned red hot, but they held, grounding the excess power - for all the spectacular display Twilight only felt a wave of heat and pressure.

And then the red star fell, striking the circle. Twilight briefly saw a hint of long fangs and feathered wings, then the light exploded outwards, leaving only a swirling ball of color in the center.

Twilight strained against the pull of the array, but found herself still trapped. Around her, her friends likewise struggled to no visible effect.

Meanwhile the creature in the circle started taking shape. It was a mix of colors, shaky and uneven, three forms superimposed over each other into a rough shape of an alicorn. When it spoke, three voices echoed through one another.

“I feel great.”

“A lie.”

“The curse of Obsidian has been lifted. I can finally lie, now that I no longer need to.”

Applejack managed to turn her head slightly towards Twilight. “So… what is he? A god?” she asked, squinting at Indigo’s radiance.

“Yes, he is,” confirmed Twilight. “When Indicina performed the first Splice, she accidentally pulled him into this world, and-”

“The array tore me apart!” finished Indigo, his voice echoing in an angry roar. “The insolent mortals reached for my power without understanding or caring what it was! Made me a piece in their demented war. I was trapped in pony forms, too broken to even know what I was. By the time I recovered…”

Indigo hesitated, his eyes flashing and dimming. “You bound a piece of me to Hate!” he hissed. “Cost me thousands of years!”

“I didn’t know,” he replied to himself, shaking his head. “I was her, angry, grieving… It was not my fault! You sealed yourself away and left me!” he finished, rearing and stomping his hooves. Purple sparks of energy crawled over the floor, grounding themselves on the prongs of the circle.

“Twilight…” whispered Rainbow Dash. “What’s going on?”

“I think…” Twilight looked towards Indigo, who kept shaking and changing colors, engaged in a hissed argument with himself, “He’s not done merging yet.”

“The power is growing again,” said Rarity, looking nervously along the beam of power projecting from her Element. “If you have any ideas, better use them now.”

“I’m trying,” replied Twilight. She redoubled her efforts to break free and managed to shift a couple inches to the right. The power holding her was not a solid cage, but more of a constant pull. It’s like being sucked in, she thought. But then, why am I not being sucked forward? Her magic senses were nearly overwhelmed, but now that she took a moment to think calmly, she could feel something stretching in front of her like an invisible net. She leaned forward, pulling down with her horn, trying to redirect the beam from her tiara and strain the barrier. If I can just reach the circle and hit it, I might be able to-

Then Indigo’s eyes regained focus, and the barrier solidified so rapidly, Twilight was stopped motionless like a fly stuck in amber.

“No,” he said, walking out of the circle and using his magic to flip several switches on the surrounding devices, causing the array to shift and reconfigure. “No more delays. No more distractions. You will stay here trapped until the second Splice occurs, and the Elements will be undone.”

“But… why?” asked Fluttershy. “We’re not the ones who hurt you.”

“Yes!” piped in Applejack. “They’re already gone, and you’re back together. Why are you doing this?”

Indigo turned to look at her. “Because I’m no longer content to suffer in silence. I have seen the world through pony eyes, and now I know what I must do. You’re a mistake. You all are.”

“What?” Applejack asked with a raised eyebrow, not understanding.

Indigo’s eyes glowed brighter as he focused on the earth pony. “You are pathetic, all of you. With your mortal vices and mortal ambitions. You are unworthy children of Gaia. I can’t believe she decided to abandon me, just to give her life to you… but that is a mistake that I can now fix.”

Applejack’s eyes widened. “You can’t be serious…”

“I am, and you can feel it,” replied Indigo. “Whenever a mortal creature dies, its soul returns to Dissonance. In order to see Gaia again, all I need is for all you mortals to die.”

“We’ll stop you!” shouted Pinkie Pie with a defiant grin.

“You won’t,” replied Indigo. “You’re trapped. Your allies are either dead, incapacitated, or too far to help you. The very reason why I brought you here today was to power the Splice with your magic, to avoid lengthy charging. And either way, I am complete now. Nopony can match my power.”

“You didn’t remember your own advice, did you?” asked Pinkie Pie.

Twilight was focused on Indigo, just like everypony else. But right at that moment, she felt a small shift in the magic. Looking forward, she noticed the spiral mosaic on the floor blurring ever so slightly. Something was transforming the rock beneath the array.

“Which one?” asked Indigo. He had no eyelids to squint, but the lights of his eyes narrowed into slits. “I gave you plenty of lessons these past weeks.”

“The very first one,” replied Pinkie. “The first time we met, you said that the real Elements would always find the way, no matter what.”

Indigo seemed to relax. “I did. But I assure you, you can’t do anything now.”

Pinkie met his eyes. “I’m not sure I even could. This has been a horrible week for everypony. You tricked us all, and got lots of our friends hurt…or killed. It’s really hard to find something to laugh at here, unless you have a really sick sense of humor. But you know what?”

There was a soft sound of something moving, barely audible over the noise of the power build up. But Twilight was prepared, and knew what to look for this time - the floor was definitely stretching, and the devices surrounding the array moving out of their positions.

“The joke is on you,” said Pinkie. “You betrayed everypony. And now that you're whole again…you are alone.”

Indigo’s eyes brightened slowly. “I don’t need any…pony. And you have noone to help you either. All your friends and allies have been accounted for.”

Pinkie Pie pouted. “What if I listened to your advice and made new friends?”

There was a loud crack. Indigo heard it, but by the time his head turned, half the floor had broken, causing the control panel to fall underground. Things shifted out of place, and then the first cable snapped. Magic exploded out of control, a stream of multicolor sparks gushing out of the broken conduit, filling the chamber with a haze of dazzling light. Suddenly the pull of magic trap disappeared, the Elements retreating from the circle and reactivating their defences.

“What!?” shouted Indigo. “Who!?”

His answer was the sound of music, a carnival theme played so out of tune it made everypony’s skin crawl. The array broke, and then the other instruments started melting like wax, bubbling and changing colors.

Indigo’s eyes blazed with anger and sudden understanding. “YOU!”

There was a sound emanating from the walls, like a soft chuckle, but somehow reverberating across the whole temple. "Well, yes. It is ME. I'm actually quite miffed that you forgot about me. I like to think I'm pretty memorable."

Pinkie Pie reared and swiped her hoof in front of her eyes in a dramatic gesture, sending two glass discs flying into the corner. When she uncovered her eyes, they were matching pools of bright blue.

“You think you’re smart, but I’m smarter than you! I’m Pinkie Pie, the Element of Laughter, and when I laugh, darkness laughs with me!”

She fell on all fours and conjured a blue bubble of force, just before Indigo’s magic washed over her. Blue and purple flames exploded in all directions, turning the chamber into a furnace. Indigo’s wings stretched into strands of magic that pierced through what was left of the floor. With a roar, he pulled, yanking Discord out of solid rock, but before he could get a more secure hold, six beams of magic struck him simultaneously.

“How dare you!” he roared, dropping Discord to form his wings into a shield. The draconequus snapped his fingers and disappeared before the magical inferno could consume him, returning to reality behind the Elements, then snapped his fingers again, bringing what was left of the ceiling down on Indigo.

Indigo coiled tightly, taking the blow, then swung his wings wide with an inarticulate roar. Twilight managed to form her friends’ powers into a shield, keeping them safe as the stone around them exploded into chunks. A column of deep blue light shot up and disappeared through the ceiling above.

“It isn’t over…” echoed the threefold voice.

Discord snapped his fingers, and the dust and rubble disappeared, leaving the chamber slightly bigger and filled with the smell of lavender. "Well, that escalated quickly..." he mused, stroking his goatee.

Everypony looked up.

“What just happened?” asked Rarity.

“He ran,” said Applejack. “We almost got him.”

“We need to go after him!” shouted Rainbow Dash, spreading her wings and charging up. Discord just snapped his claws, and suddenly they were all above the mountain, suspended in the air until they could activate their own magic to keep them airborne.

Pinkie looked askance at Discord. “You could’ve done it a little bit earlier…”

Discord scowled. “No I couldn’t, as a matter of fact. You don’t know how hard it was to get in there without getting sucked into that circle.”

“Girls?” said Applejack. She was looking upward, her orange eyes open wide, her ears drooped. “We have a big problem.”

She didn’t really have to say it. Her friends were already staring at the same thing. Above them the sky was torn open, a gash stretching across it like a bizarre aurora borealis made of blue mist and alien stars. Twilight’s mind flashed back to the day her adventure started, when the sky was ripped open above the fake Ponyville, Verba descending upon it to retrieve the bearers, as everything around them disintegrated.

But this is the real world, she suddenly thought in a panic. She looked around frantically, expecting to see the surrounding mountain tops to start crumbling any second, but though the snowy slopes were tinted blue by the unnatural lighting, nothing drastic had happened…yet.

“He’s not ready,” said Fluttershy, putting a comforting wing on Twilight's withers. “He’s…confused.”

“You mean his mind is still in pieces?” asked Rarity.

“Yes,” confirmed Fluttershy. “He hasn’t quite put himself together yet. And a part of him hates violence.”

“Indicina,” said Twilight, nodding.

“That’s why he put us in a death trap, rather than just turn us to ash or something,” continued Fluttershy. “He didn’t need to destroy the Elements now. I don’t think they’d find new bearers in time to stop him. But that way he didn’t need to… bloody his hooves. I don’t think he realised why he did that.”

“He won’t be so soft next time,” said Rainbow Dash. “We need to get to him fast, before he’s done.” She looked towards the starry void behind the tear in the sky. “The red star is gone, but he’s there somewhere, isn’t he?”

“I concur,” said Discord. “We need to hurry. Much as I like chaos, it’s just not the same if there is nothing else there. Indigo unmaking reality would really put a damper on my weekend.”

“How did you even…” said Applejack to Pinkie, pointing a hoof at Discord.

Pinkie Pie shrugged. “I just remembered what Obsidian said about how Discord changes with the world. I figured if he was no longer as nasty as before, then he might want to have a friend, and it worked.”

Discord snorted. “Oh, admit it, Pinkie Pie. You just needed a card up your sleeve.”

“That too,” admitted Pinkie Pie. “I could feel there would be a surprise at the end, and I had to be ready. But I wasn’t thinking that far ahead when I started talking to you. I really was curious if you’d want to be my friend.”

“Wait,” interrupted Twilight. “The missing gun charge! You used the pattern gun to break the sealing gem, didn’t you? That’s why you flooded the palace with custard!”

“Yes, she did,” admitted Discord. “And it left me with a headache out of this world. That’s another reason why I came so late,” he added, his head splitting in two as he spoke, and then coming back together with a wet slap.

“So,” asked Rainbow Dash, “Discord is a friend now?”

The draconequus considered the question. “Well, technically…”

“Oh, stop it,” said Fluttershy. “Pinkie Pie was honest with trying to be friends with you. If the laughs you had together weren’t genuine, she wouldn’t have awakened, would she?”

Discord looked at her pensively. “Now, if you put it that way…”

Twilight looked at Pinkie’s blue eyes. “When did you?”

Pinkie smiled. “Just before we went to rescue Fluttershy. I can’t believe none of you noticed, with the kinds of crazy stunts I pulled there.”

Applejack tapped Twilight with a hoof. “Is it just me, or is that thing growing?”

Everypony looked back at the sky.

“It’s supposed to be shrinking,” said Twilight. “That’s what happened after the first Splice. I think that’s enough catching our breath, girls. We don’t have much time.”

“We can’t just rush in there,” said Rarity. “Knowing…both the ponies Indigo was, he must have some traps prepared.”

“We can’t afford to wait either,” said Twilight. “Discord, could you take us back to the caves for a moment? There is one more thing we need to do.”

Discord rolled his eyes. He was wearing a red elevator colt uniform. With another snap, the seven found themselves back in the ruined sanctum.

"Third floor: religious art, electronics, funeral accessories."

Immediately Twilight turned around and galloped out the door into the main chamber. Three bodies still lay there.

Twilight’s horn flashed with a bright light, and Enigma’s remains were encased in a sarcophagus of pale purple crystal. She turned and did the same for Pierce. “That will have to do for now,” she said. She then picked the unconscious form of Bluebonnet, careful not to jerk her even as the protective cocoon of magic remained active around the mare. “We need to put her somewhere safe. Let’s go back to the Crystal Empire."

***

They found the Empire on highest alert. As the eight appeared in front of the pillars marking the city gate, there were over a dozen guards there, half of them changelings. The guards formed behind the barrier hastily, brandishing their weapons.

One guard, a visibly shaken lime green crystal pony, planted the end of his spear in the ground, pointing the tip towards the arrivals. “Stop! Iden…identify yourselves!” he demanded.

“It is us, the Elements of Harmony,” said Applejack.

“You can clearly see it,” said Rarity. “Has something happened?”

The guard relaxed a bit, but didn’t withdraw the spear. “Yes… yes, your Majesty. There were… things outside the barrier, trying to get in. One tried it here. It looked like you, but it talked strangely.”

“We confronted it,” said a changeling guard next to him. “It was no changeling.”

“Then it looked like my grandma,” continued the guard. “And talked like her. But she’s been dead for years… and then it got angry, and suddenly there were claws, fangs and flames, something out of a nightmare.”

“Chimeras?” suggested Rarity. The Elements looked at each other.

Twilight felt cold sweat on her back. “I was wrong. We have no time at all.”

“Let’s move then,” said Rarity. She stepped to the edge of the barrier, looking over the heads of the guards at a small group of changelings flying towards them. “Maska?” she called.

The officer landed at the front of the group and bowed. “Your Majesty?”

Rarity nodded at Twilight, who levitated the prone form of Bluebonnet through the barrier. “We’re leaving the doctor with you. Keep her safe, and don’t disrupt the spell if you can help it. It will be better for her if she sleeps for now.”

“You’re going back to the fight?” asked Maska.

Rarity nodded. “There were some complications. We need to…” she looked up at the torn sky. “Go to Dissonance and save everyone. Please do your best to maintain the barrier until we come back.”

Maska straightened her posture and saluted. “Yes, your Majesty!”

No more instructions are needed, thought Twilight. If we don’t come back, nothing she can do will make a difference.

***

Bluebonnet was dreaming. She knew she was. She was vaguely aware of her body being transported, shapes of ponies and changelings passing over and around her. But where she was right now was her lab in the castle dungeon. Or was it her bedroom? She took a closer look at her surroundings and conceded it was both; her bed was right next to a row of tables, and a cabinet containing notes from her previous experiments extended seamlessly into her private bookshelf. Metal tools and glass containers were everywhere.

Why am I here? she thought. The answer crystallized as she looked at the central table. Her brain was there, buzzing with spinning wheels, nested in a tangle of cables.

Something was done to me, she pondered as she examined the thing. It’s not that her brain looked odd - it was a dream after all, and she was an engineering genius. But there was something in it she didn’t recognize, like some outside tinkering had been done on it.

What is this? She took a screwdriver in her teeth and poked at a small component hidden behind the wiring. A memory flashed, of her and Obsidian breaking into the labs, overcoming the first line of protection spells. Obsidian moved with certainty, finding and disarming the security systems as if he knew where to look. And just when she was about to comment on his progress… the tip of his staff flashed red light into her eyes. As she was compelled to follow, Obsidian dropped the pretense of looking for traps, leading her into a chamber where they stored the…

Neural reconfigurator. We used it to protect our soldiers during the siege of the Empire. I didn’t remember it being returned to the labs. Then again, I was preoccupied. Is this what he did to me? Deep programming? How would he know how to operate it? Or… was it pre-programmed? Then he’d just need to strap me in and press a few buttons…

She withdrew, and the screwdriver dropped out of her mouth, winking out of existence as it became irrelevant.

What did I do? What did he make me do!?

The answer came back in another flash, her modifying the pattern gun, adding a circuit that turned its power back upon itself when a remote was activated. Then her standing with the others in the cave…

Enigma…I killed him.

She saw the whole scene inside the tangle of wires - her pressing the button, speaking the phrase that would’ve been a warning to her target, but with the target being Guilt, it was one calculated to make him freeze up for a precious split second, denying him a chance to react even if he felt the energy building up.

Was it though? I could’ve rigged the trigger instead, to explode when he shot it. Why overcomplicate things so? to make his last emotion be regret over what he did to Tourmaline? He deserved it, but… Stone. Evening Embrace. It was her doing, wasn’t it?

“There were some complications. We need to…go to Dissonance and save everyone. Please do your best to maintain the barrier until we come back.”

She didn’t remember the context of the words. They must have been spoken in the waking world some time before. They made things click into place.

They worked together. It was all a trap. The girls went into a trap, and now everypony might die. What is going on? What did they do?

She looked back into her brain, then turned around, her eyes searching frantically all over the lab, but there were no more clues.

What did they do!?

She tried to wake up, and for a moment felt her real body, but then found herself pushed back, as if by an invisible membrane.

Why can’t I wake up? Did they do something to me? They used me, manipulated me into killing… and now I’m trapped! I need to get out of here, find out what’s happened and help them. But how?

***

The Elements of Harmony were standing in the air, suspended on a disc of solid power. Below them stood the top of the Nevercrest mountain. Above, an endless void visible inside a giant rip in the sky, already stretching almost to the horizon in both directions.

“How many chimeras do ya think have already gotten in?” asked Applejack to nopony in particular.

“It depends on whether Indigo sent them on purpose,” replied Twilight. “There might be just a bunch, or there might be an army.”

“I don’t think he’d bother creating life,” said Discord. “It’s not really his style, from what it looks like. But with how Dissonance responds to him, he doesn’t really need to. He just needs to be angry, and with the threshold damaged as it is…this is a night where nightmares walk among ponies.”

“Enough,” said Rainbow Dash. “It’s time to put an end to this. How do we do it?”

“We fly in, find Indigo and defeat him,” said Twilight. “Much as I’d love there to be a less insane solution to all this, it’s not like we could return his lost love to him.”

She looked towards Discord. “Discord, stand closer to us. I want you inside the barrier with us.”

Discord raised an eyebrow. “Why so? I’m a creature of chaos. I’m pretty sure I can navigate Dissonance without harm.”

“The Dissonance, yes,” agreed Twilight. “But we know we’re flying into a trap. And there are things waiting for us that could harm even you. You won’t be able to help if you’re taken out by an ambush.”

Discord pouted, but landed on the disc next to Twilight. “I think you’re underestimating my power. But have it your way. You’re the wise leader here. Even if all of this wouldn’t have happened if you saw through Obsidian earlier. Seriously, how hard can it be to question somepony who cannot lie?”

Twilight ground her teeth, and was about to say something, but just as she opened her mouth, Pinkie Pie pushed between the two. “Please don’t do it now, you two.” She turned towards Discord. “We’re new at the really tricky villains here, okay? The worst we’ve had so far was Chrysalis replacing Cadence at the wedding, and we all totally fell for it. Now let us focus on what we’re supposed to be doing here.”

Twilight sighed. “You’re right, Pinkie. Let’s go. Everypony, focus.”

One after another, the gems started glowing brighter. As the spell was completed, the Elements were suspended, weightless, inside a bubble of iridescent color. With a push of Twilight’s thought, the orb sped into the sky, the magic of Dissonance trailing abstract shapes upon the surface as they pushed through the blue mist.

“We’re in,” said Rainbow Dash. “So, where to now?”

“That way,” said Pinkie Pie, pointing with her hoof. “I can feel his power that way.”

Twilight looked in the same direction, and pushed. The sphere swerved, or so she thought - the shifting lights outside gave her nothing to relate to.

“Not quite,” said Discord with a scowl. “You’re very used to four dimensions, aren’t you?”

“That’s… a good point, actually,” said Twilight. “Pinkie, perhaps you and Discord could navigate us? It will be easier than explaining things to me right now.”

“Okie dokie,” replied Pinkie with a reassuring smile. “I’ve never tried that either, but my Pinkie sense will point me where I need to be.”

“Don’t you worry,” said Discord, leaning over her. “It won’t take long. Time is relative here, and the whole universe wants to know how this ends!”

He put a lion’s paw on Pinkie’s shoulder, and suddenly the colors outside the sphere started shifting faster. Even though there was still no sense of direction, Twilight knew that they were moving at great speed, perhaps the fastest they’d ever had without teleporting. She braced herself, reinforcing the bubble with all her power, her instincts warning her that it wasn’t safe to fly like this. Soon she felt the energy outside the sphere growing stronger and more focused.

“He’s here,” she said.

“Yes, I can feel him too,” said Rarity. “He’s so much like the rest of this realm that he fades into the background, but you just can’t hide that much power… suddenly I’m a little less sure about what we’re doing.”

“Brace for impact!” shouted Pinkie Pie.

They all did, and a second later, all was whiteness. Discord, dressed in a form-fitting red uniform, swayed and grabbed an outer wall of the bubble for support. Pinkie shook her head sideways, and the sphere swerved out of the beam that was peeling off its outer layers. It pushed out of a bank of blue fog, revealing a giant, round shape in front of them.

“What is this thing?” asked Applejack.

“A fortress,” said Discord. “He did prepare.”

The castle was enormous, much bigger than it would’ve been practical for any real structure, white towers and battlements extending in all directions. It was also a sphere, the fortifications and rooftops bending at awkward angles to turn the whole thing into a spiked ball of spires. One of the bigger ones was still glowing from the first blast, and now starting to to charge up again.

“That’s what I talked about!” shouted Twilight, as Pinkie drove their sphere into another dodge.

“I admit this would’ve hurt,” said Discord. He snapped his claw, but the tower resisted his magic. He snapped it again, and a giant wedge of cheese collided with the fortress like a crashing spaceship.

The bizarre castle did not budge. It fired again, and this time Pinkie barely got out of the way.

“It’s been built to resist magic!” shouted Twilight. “It couldn’t survive here otherwise.”

“Well, resistant is not the same as immune!” replied Dash. “We need to hit it harder!”

“Right,” nodded Twilight as she started charging up. Everypony contributed, though Pinkie kept controlling their flight, following her supernatural intuition to plot an erratic course that kapt them out of reach when the castle towers fired another beam.

“Not very creative, that one,” remarked Applejack, happy that the sphere kept its own idea of up and down, saving her stomach from the effects of sudden maneuvers.

“It’s just the first line of defense!” replied Twilight. “Focus!”

The power built up, swirling in rainbow colors. Twilight aimed at the tower that fired the last shot.

“Wait!” shouted Dash. “What if it sucks our magic in like the last time?”

Twilight hesitated, but then fired her spell. A rainbow beam struck its target, breaking apart a tower into a cloud of stone chunks that scattered, weightless into the void surrounding the fortress. “It didn’t absorb Discord’s attack,” she explained. “It’s probably hard to set up a draining trap in a place build of nothing but magic.”

“Don’t get relaxed just yet!” shouted Pinkie, as two beams came their way. “Discoooord!”

She pulled the sphere into a dodge that ended up turning them upside down. Not good enough; the sphere had no flat side it could turn away from the strike, and it was still too big to fit between the two beams. Discord snapped his talons, and the Elements shrunk, along with their bubble, the beams passing them on both sides.

“Thanks!” shouted Pinkie, turning them back towards the target, allowing Twilight to fire again.

Discord waved his paw dismissively, and the sphere returned to its old dimensions. “It’s nothing. You could do better.”

“I could, but Twilight needs my power, and I’m piloting the thing,” replied Pinkie. The sphere accelerated and flew closer to the fortress, making it harder for the remaining towers to aim at her.

“I think only the big ones shoot,” said Twilight, charging another blast. “Either the rest is just for show, or they maintain the passive defences.”

Another shot. Another tower reduced to a cloud of flying rubble. Another beam fired by the fortress, almost striking the Elements. The shots were getting more focused, but with each tower lost, the attacks dwindled in frequency, not intense enough to strain the barrier protecting the six mares.

Soon it was over, the side of the giant castle stripped of its most powerful defenses, the Elements approaching the battlements to look for an entrance.

“You know, this looks a lot like Obsidian’s tower,” said Rarity.

“It was his home for millenia, even if he hated it,” said Fluttershy.

“And now he turned it into his hideout?” asked Rainbow Dash. She looked down at the battlements, and pointed a hoof at what looked like a small door. “I think I see an entrance, down there.”

“It makes sense,” said Twilight, “although…”

“I know what it is,” said Applejack. “Look at those walls, the ones with the tallest spires. Don’t they look like they could move around the whole thing?”

They saw it too. Now that they could get close enough to examine the surface in detail, the multi-level structure of the round fortress looked like a giant astrolabium.

“It’s the Void Passage,” said Twilight finally.

“That isn’t good, I take it?” asked Discord.

“Not at all,” said Pinkie Pie. “I couldn’t take you there earlier, but it was the place where Obsidian tested ponies who wanted to be Elements. It made dreams to make them show they deserved it, or…”

“Dispose of them,” finished Twilight. “This here was just a warm up. All of Verba’s tricks are waiting for us there.”

“We’ll have to fight Verba too?” asked Fluttershy, her wings folding and unfolding in frustration.

Twilight took a big, calming breath. “We have no choice but to go in.” She deliberately turned away from the door Dash was pointing at, and gathered the power of the Elements again. She then shot at one of the rooftops, between the spires, maintaining a beam until the heavy stone tiles gave way, revealing a dark emptiness inside. Her beam twisted, and pulled, widening the hole enough that they could fly inside without dispelling their protective bubble. Bracing themselves for what was to come, the six ponies and the draconequus disappeared inside.

***

Bluebonnet had tried everything she could think of, to no avail. She had already managed to deduce that the Splice must have happened, and the power of the Dissonance was released upon the world.

This is a logical explanation of my current state. I’m trapped here, because I’m being actively sedated. They’re making sure I’ll stay asleep. But it isn’t a dreamless sleep as it should be, because even if my mind has shut off… my soul is touching Dissonance directly. Nopony in the world will have a dreamless sleep today.

The implications made her hair stand on end. She turned around, expecting at any moment to see a shadowy shape emerging from a corner of the room. Then, when nothing came, she thought of all the other ponies that could be asleep now, many of them already frightened, hiding in the ruins of what just weeks before were their homes.

“Everypony is in danger while I’m trapped here,” she said aloud, looking in vain for a solution among the lab instruments she now knew not to be real. “I’m in danger here. I put everypony in this mess, and now I can’t even help them!.”

She inhaled deeply as desperation took her. Then she screamed, as loud as she could imagine herself screaming.

“Somepony, help me!”

The voice echoed, much longer than it should have in the confined space. Seconds passed and nothing happened.

And then, from the darkness in the corner sounded a familiar voice.

“I’m here, doctor.”

Comments

[Dawn Flower]

Okay, since we're in the endgame now, I just want to make sure that I'm correct about the fate of each of the Shattered:

Arrogance: Unspliced, de-powered, and held prisoner in the Crystal Empire.

Envy: Soul permanently bound to a pile of sludge in the sewers.

Guilt: Unspliced and permanently killed by a hypnotized Bluebonnet.

Hate: Unspliced, had his power removed, and killed permanently by the Mane Six.

Deception: Killed permanently and replaced long before the story began by Indicina.

Vengeance: Unspliced and killed permanently by the Mane Six.

Also, is Twilight now the only Element that hasn't awakened?

[Braininthejar]

10142387
More or less:
Arrogance: yes
Envy: yes
Guilt: not unspliced, but killed, and braindead, possibly permanently
Hate: unspliced, incinerated by the power that had been bound to him
Deception: suffered catastrophic mental breakdown before the story began, and Indicina picked up and absorbed what was left.
Vengeance: unspliced by the Mane SIx and killed by Obsidian
Twilight: yes.