Harmony Theory

by Sharaloth

Chapter 36: The Old Story

There is a strange trend I have noticed among Bearers of the Element of Magic. Starswirl, Sunset Shimmer, Starlight Glimmer, Trixie, even myself. We all share one interesting characteristic: before we encountered the Elements we were terrible as friends. Whether this took the form of intellectual self-absorption, as with myself and Starswirl the Bearded, or manifested in manipulative and sociopathic tendencies, as it did with Sunset and Starlight, we were each essentially alone in the world. The exception to this would appear to be Flurry Heart, whose short tenure as Bearer of Magic was nevertheless preceded by many years of good friendships. Determining Princess Celestia’s disposition prior to acquiring the Elements is, of course, impossible with any degree of accuracy. However, if my hypothesis on the nature of Nightmare Moon and Celestia Nova is correct, then I can say with confidence that she, too, fits this pattern.

Regardless, touching the Elements invokes a transformation in us. Sometimes this is a dramatic and rapid one, as with myself and Sunset Shimmer. Sometimes it’s more subtle, as with Trixie. In every case we have changed to become better friends. This would clearly be a change for the better, but with the extent the Elements are capable of altering a pony I find this judgement impossible to be certain of.

What can it mean, though? Perhaps to harness the Magic of Harmony the Bearer of Magic must also know what it is to be without harmony. We must understand what it means to be alone, so that we can strive all the more to work with the other Bearers. Perhaps it is in that reaching out that we initiate the Magic of Harmony, and that without such experience we would not understand what it was to do such a thing. To allow others to become part of us, and us a part of them, and to become greater for it. I find this idea both logical and comforting. Which is precisely why I do not, cannot, trust it.

Furthermore, the one modern exception, as noted above, is a strong indication that this fanciful explanation is not the case, and that something deeper is in play. Something still hidden from me. Another piece missing from the puzzle that is the Elements. I can only hope it’s not an essential one.

-From the fifth section of Harmony Theory by Twilight Sparkle

Chapter Thirty-Six: The Old Story

He sighed. He had been hoping to have some more light conversation for a bit. In truth, he wanted to stall as long as possible. Even after a week of thinking over what he would tell her, he still felt like he needed more time to prepare a better explanation. Or at least one less likely to make her hate him. As it was, though… Well, he’d known it was coming. Might as well bite the bullet and get started. “Long, long ago in the magical land of Equestria, there were two sisters.”

“Spike–” Star Fall began, impatience and exasperation in her voice, but he held up a claw to stop her as he continued the old story.

“One, the elder, brought forth the sun to make the day, while the younger raised the moon to create the night. Together they ruled Equestria equally, keeping the land in peace and harmony. However, as the years turned into centuries and their kingdom weathered many challenges, it became clear to the younger sister that they were not equal in the eyes of their subjects. She saw that the ponies they ruled loved the day: living and playing and delighting in the warm light of the sun. Yet they disdained the night: sleeping it away and lighting candles to ward against her darkness. She grew bitter and jealous, enraged that the ponies whose dreams she protected would so spurn her in favor of her sister. She kept her anger a secret, letting it fester in her heart to become an obsession, until finally she plotted to overthrow her sister and bring forth night eternal.”

Spike paused for a moment, gauging how well Star Fall was listening. She was watching him closely, her ears flicking as she began using her prodigious mind to put together the pieces he was giving her. He wondered how much of what he was saying she’d already heard from Dash or the others. He hoped she had heard something, at least. It would simplify things.

He took a deep breath and continued. “One day, she refused to lower the moon and allow the dawn. Her sister pleaded with her, but she would hear none of it. Finally, it became obvious the two would have to fight. The younger sister knew she couldn’t overcome the elder on her own, however, for they were equally matched in power. So she drew upon the darkest magics and called out for aid. Her cry was answered by… something. It could be thought of as a kind of cosmic parasite, perhaps. Or it might have been a fragment, a shadow, of some greater being. Maybe it was just the sister’s dark wish given form. Whatever it may be, it came from beyond, from the darkest places between the stars, and this Nightmare found in the younger sister a willing and eager host.

“Filled with hatred and scorn, the younger sister took the dark powers given to her and transformed herself into a new being: the wicked Nightmare Moon. She attacked her sister, striking her down, then began a destructive rampage throughout the land. Ponies cowered in fear of the long night and the terrible demon unleashed on them, crying out to be saved by the princess of the sun. The elder sister heard their pleas, and though she was hurt terribly by both the blow she was dealt and the betrayal of one she loved dearly, she knew she could not let the destruction continue. So she called upon their greatest weapon, one they had before only wielded together: the Elements of Harmony.

“Using the Elements, the elder sister banished the younger, sealing her into the moon. For a thousand long years, there she stayed. For a thousand lonely years, the elder ruled alone, and yearned for the return of the younger. For a thousand peaceful years, the Elements remained untouched and inert. Until, on the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars aided in her escape, and Nightmare Moon was free once more. This time would be different. This time she did not merely injure her sister, but turned the tables on her and locked her away in the heavens. Yet the elder had foreseen this, and had set in motion the one thing that could see Nightmare Moon stopped, and her sister redeemed.

“Six ponies braved the dangerous Everfree Forest, seeking the lost Elements of Harmony. They faced many trials in their journey, growing closer together with each challenge met. Finally, they found the Elements, but only as Nightmare Moon did as well. All seemed lost, until their leader, Twilight Sparkle, realized that in overcoming their trials her new friends had shown they possessed the traits necessary to wield the Elements, and that she herself held the one to make them all complete: magic. Together, they unleashed the full power of the Elements, more than the great sisters had ever been able to master, and with it they cleansed the Nightmare from the younger sister, and more than that, they healed the wound envy and spite had carved in her heart.

“With that, the elder sister was released, and she reunited with the younger in forgiveness and friendship. The younger once again took her place as a princess and ruler of the night. The six heroes stayed together and had many adventures, and all was well in the magical land of Equestria.”

He stopped, taking a minute to stand and stretch his injured leg before grabbing a glass of water. Star Fall waited for him in silence until he’d sat down again. “Except,” she said, once he’d taken a drink. “All was not well, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t.” He snorted, little jets of green fire flicking out of his nostrils. “There were invasions, attacking monsters, and crazy ponies galore. Most importantly, though, decades after Luna was freed from one Nightmare, we were faced with another. This time it was Celestia who was corrupted.”

“Celestia Nova.”

He nodded. “She didn’t act like Nightmare Moon at all. Didn’t want to bring eternal day or anything like that. She did want to destroy the world, but the thing was, she was planning to rebuild it after it was gone. She claimed she was going to create a utopia, without fear or pain or death. A world where there was no want or suffering at all.”

“Sounds nice. Except everyone would be too dead to see it,” Star Fall said.

Spike shrugged. “That’s what we all thought. She didn’t consider it as big a problem as you might think. Umbra’s undead army? Yeah, she’s cribbing that one from Celestia Nova’s playbook, except when Celestia did it she literally brought back the dead to fight for her. There was even this awesome battle between Twilight and Starswirl the Bearded that I barely got to see any of.” He was still disappointed in that, but the Elysian Dragons had needed his leadership. In any case, he was wandering off-topic. “It’s no wonder after that people started thinking of her as a goddess. Doesn’t really matter, though. What matters is that we beat Celestia Nova too, and we discovered that it wasn’t Celestia’s fault she got infected with a Nightmare. It turned out that Twilight had been studying them. She’d actually created one in her lab, and it was accidentally set free.”

Star Fall let out a gasp. “Don’t get too far ahead,” he warned her. “There’s more you have to hear.”

“Twilight Sparkle created–”

“Yes,” Spike cut her off. “Please, just listen. Twilight had created that Nightmare, but she never told me how or why. I think it had something to do with a creature called a Tantabus, but I didn’t look into it too deeply. She put the research away, then sealed the Elements, and that was it. She stepped out of the spotlight and I barely saw her once a year for over a hundred years. She would show up when there was a crisis, or to negotiate peace, or whenever one of her great grand-nieces and nephews got married or died. I figure she was living life as a normal mare, making friends, doing science and magic and pretending she wasn’t an Alicorn princess. When I saw her she seemed… content.

“All that changed with the lead up to the Schism.” His eyes narrowed as he cast his thoughts back to that terrible time. “Royalists and rebels fighting in the streets, blood spilling as they became more and more irreconcilable. Every attempt at conciliation Celestia and Luna tried was only met with outrage from both sides. Finally, when their faces started appearing on opposing banners and their words were twisted to suit the needs of the demagogues who were firing up the populace, they saw that they were making the problem worse. They decided the only course was to get themselves away from the world. Whether that was the right decision? Well, I think it wasn’t, but it wouldn’t be the first world-breaking mistake they’ve ever made. Anyways, they transcended to the heavens and left the running of Equestria to the one mare they trusted most: Twilight Sparkle.

“She tried. Oh, how she tried. Like Celestia and Luna before her, however, she only succeeded in dragging out the conflict, entrenching it in the minds and hearts of a new generation. Bloodshed begat bloodshed, and before we realized what was happening the entire world was poised above an ocean of red. All the while, Twilight begged and cajoled and screamed for the two sides to stop and listen to her. Until one day she stopped pleading and started threatening.”

He lay down, stretching out on the floor and closing his eyes as the awful scene played once again in his mind’s eye. “I was there when it happened. She’d managed to get the leaders of the two factions to the negotiating table for the thousandth time. They were doing nothing but spitting insults at each other. This was it. Once they left the room the killing would begin in earnest.”

~~~

The room had been designed to provide the best possible view of Canterlot. Windows covering 270 degrees of the circular walls and a good portion of the floor allowed a stunning vista that overlooked everything from the tiered streets of the city proper to the soaring spires of the castle. The room itself jutted from the side of the mountain the city was built upon, though considerably nearer its peak. It had been meant originally as a dining room for visiting dignitaries, and had hosted ambassadors and rulers from across the globe as they sampled Equestrian delicacies and marvelled at the beauty of its capital. This day it served a grimmer purpose.

In place of candle-lit dining tables there was a single, long table shaped like a thin oval. On one side, horn and wings adorned with a wealth of jewellry, sat Prince Spark Ring, ruler of the Crystal Empire and leader of the Royalists. On his right was his chief advisor, the unicorn mage Silverglow, her face hidden in the shadows of a deep cowl. To the Prince’s left crouched the hulking form of Warmaster Gunnar, leader of the Griffins. There hadn’t been a chair that could comfortably seat the huge warrior, but when offered a cushion he had refused. A refusal that worked in everyone’s favor as sitting on the floor actually put him at eye level with the seated ponies in the room.

On the other side the leaders of the Free Ponies Alliance glared back at their noble enemies. In the center was First Speaker Heavy Tread, a bulky earth pony who wore his rural upbringing openly with his farmer’s overalls and woven-straw hat. On his left was Blue Spring, a brilliant pegasus lawyer and chief architect of the legal system used in the Rebel territories. To the Speaker’s right, staring hungrily across the table at the Warmaster, sat the pale form of Princess Teneral, the next Changeling Queen.

At the head of the table sat Princess Twilight Sparkle. She wore no sign of her station, disdaining pomp and posturing, for she needed none of it. They all knew who she was, and knew who she represented. That alone should have given her the undivided attention of all present. Should have made them hang on her words and take her suggestions as sage wisdom. Instead, it merely meant that they weren’t shouting at her specifically.

Spike sat next to his oldest friend, officially as a neutral representative of the Elysian Dragons to witness the proceedings. Unofficially, he was moral support for Twilight, and would back any proposal she favored with the might of his people. The need for neutrality was a pain, though, and his jaw strained from the effort of keeping his mouth shut. He knew if he let it open, it might not only be words he used to scorch the delegates. They’d been here for two hours already, and he had known from the first minute that this meeting would end as all the others had: in failure.

“Furthermore, we demand you return the land stolen from the nobles!” Prince Spark Ring said, slamming his hoof on the table hard enough to make his jewels rattle.

“Stolen!” the First Speaker roared in exaggerated incredulity. “You can’t steal somethin’ that was yours to begin with, you puffed up fool!”

“Ha! The unlettered dirt-scrabbler calls me a fool?” the Prince sneered at his opposite. “I suppose it only makes sense. You were voted into office, after all. That makes you the lowest common denominator of your little rebellion. Though I must say, I didn’t think you’d take ‘lowest’ and ‘common’ so literally!”

“Yeah, keep laughin’,” the Speaker replied, flexing his heavy muscles. “We’ll see how funny it is when you’re laughin’ out the other side of your face!”

“Ponies! Please!” Twilight cried out. “Name-calling and insults help no one here.” The two leaders settled back into their chairs, but they didn’t break eye contact with each other as Twilight talked. “Now, First Speaker, you know as well as I do that your Alliance has taken possession of all castles and noble manors in your territory. Those are, in fact, property of the nobles who owned them.”

The Prince crowed with delight. “Ha-ha! See, I–”

“However,” Twilight cut him off, glaring at her multiple times-great grand nephew. “You, Prince, know that you weren’t just referring to those manors! While the nobility oversaw the lands, they only held them in trust for the ponies of Equestria. The manors and their immediate grounds are the only things you have claim to.”

“Those manors were abandoned,” Blue Spring said, giving the Prince a stone-faced but clearly antagonistic look. “By law and tradition, that voids any claim their former owners would have to them.”

“They were driven out!” the Prince rejoined, turning his nose up at the lawyer with a disdainful sniff. “Left to wander the earth and depend on the charity of others! I’m sure no compassionate court would deny refugees their own homes.”

“A compassionate court’d string ‘em up by their ears and put us all outta their misery,” the First Speaker muttered loud enough for everyone at the table to hear him clearly.

“What was that?” the Prince snapped, hopping up in his chair. “What did you say?”

“Everypony just calm down!” Twilight said, waving her hooves for attention. She turned first to Blue Spring, then the Prince. “First off, that law doesn’t apply when the owner is forced out under duress. Secondly, the displaced nobility are hardly ‘wandering the earth’. Most, I’ve heard, have purchased new homes in the north, if they didn’t have second or third houses there already.”

“Purchased?” Teneral’s pale carapace shimmered like mother of pearl as she shifted forward in her seat. “Is that what you ponies call it when you evict one family and install a different one you like better? In that case we can justly say the Alliance more than fairly ‘purchased’ the properties in question.”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “Prince, is this true?”

He opened his mouth to respond, but his advisor held up a hoof to stop him. “All those who gave up their homes to those fleeing the depredations of the rebellion have been properly compensated, Princess,” Silverglow said. “Whatever the Changelings say is only a part of the truth, remember that.”

“They lie,” Gunnar growled out, his voice deep enough that it could be felt through vibrations in the table.

“And Griffins don’t?” Teneral scoffed. “I, for one, am all too suspicious of your generous offer of aid to the Royalists. Tell us, Warmaster, what do you get out of it?”

“A chance to wipe your kind from the world,” Gunnar rumbled in response.

“This gets us nowhere,” Twilight said. “Let’s return to some actual business, please.”

“Perhaps we should turn the question around,” Silverglow said, ignoring Twilight. “What do the Changelings get out of joining the Rebels?”

“Yes, please,” the Prince said, grinning like he’d scored a decisive blow. “Care to answer, Princess.” He spat the title like it was poison on his tongue.

“Oh, there’s no secret there,” Teneral said, letting out a laugh that sounded harsh and buzzing in her doubled-over voice. “We’ll help the Alliance throw off the yoke of noble rule, and they’ll love us for it.” She grinned, the sight of her fangs making the ponies across the table flinch back.

Gunnar, however, was not intimidated by such a display. “You see,” he said. “The Rebels side with creatures that will feed on them. They openly admit it to be their intention.” He shook his head. “Madness.”

“Madness, is it?” Teneral snapped at him, then leaned to the side to direct her words at her companions. “We Changelings merely feed on love, something ponies have an abundance of and give away gladly. What do the Griffins eat? Oh yes, meat.” She stared daggers at the Warmaster. “In fact, I’ve heard it said they think pony meat is a delicacy! I wouldn’t be surprised if they promised to feed the Griffins your foals.”

“Hold your wretched tongue, leech!” Gunnar reared up so that the crest of feathers on his head was pressed against the ceiling and his talons were held aggressively out in front of him. If Teneral was intimidated, she didn’t show it. Instead she spread her iridescent wings and licked her chops, crooked horn flickering to life with Changeling magic.

“Both of you back off!” Twilight shouted. “This is a peace summit, for crying out loud!”

“Yes, violence at this point is uncalled for,” Blue Spring said. Teneral gave the lawyer a sidelong look, then doused her horn and folded her wings. Gunnar glared at her through narrowed eyes, and was just beginning to ease back down when Blue Spring spoke again. “However, my colleague brings up a very good point. Just who are you feeding to your Griffin allies, your highness?”

The room erupted into noise. Gunnar slammed his claw down on the table, talons digging almost completely through the thick wood. Prince Spark Ring leaned so far forward he was almost climbing onto the table as he spat in Blue Spring’s face. Heavy Tread took the opportunity to get nose-to-nose with the prince and begin hurling extremely creative insults as fast as he could come up with them. Silverglow’s horn blazed with her namesake as she wove a spell intended to clamp the First Speaker’s mouth shut. Her concentration was interrupted as Blue Spring expertly flipped a pen across the table and into her horn. The fact that the pen also hit her eye and made her cry out in pain and anger only seemed to brighten the lawyer’s smirk as he rubbed off the prince’s spittle. A moment later they were all bellowing at each other, talking so fast and so loud that no sense at all could be made in the noise. To the side, Teneral simply laughed, no doubt drinking the chaotic emotions of those around her like a thick milkshake.

Spike watched all this, and felt the bottom fall out of his stomach as he realized that this was it. There would be no going forward, no new peace deal that could eke out another half decade where ponies wouldn’t be killing each other. He would love to blame the failure on the delegates behaving like children, but he knew that wasn’t true. All of the people in this room were as mature as he was, and if they had come in with even the slightest hope of forging a new peace they would be working towards that goal right now, regardless of how they saw each other.

No, the reason they were squabbling and screaming like foals was that they never had any intention of making peace. This meeting was a farce, serving only to let them say they tried, then pin the blame for its failure on the other side being too stubborn or too arrogant. Twilight’s last, best hope had only become the pretext for war.

“Celestia, why did you leave me with this?” The whispered words were almost lost in the din, but Spike caught them anyway, turning to look at her. She was slumped in her seat, forehooves on the table and her head hanging between them. Her wings sagged at her sides, limp feathers brushing the floor. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, tears glistening from between her eyelids. “They never listen to me. I try and I try and I try, but it’s like they hear less every time I talk.”

“Twilight,” Spike said, reaching out a claw to comfort her. A spark leapt from her horn, and Spike had to bite back a yelp as it hit him, hot enough to singe his draconic scales. Twilight didn’t even notice.

Energy built around Twilight, invisible but palpable. “They don’t listen. They won’t listen.” Twilight’s eyes opened, her face twisted into an expression that Spike had seen on it only a few, terrible times before: hate. “I’ll make them listen.”

Power exploded from Twilight, a magenta wave that swept through the room. The table shattered into a million fragments, and then those fragments were further rendered into a trillion tiny splinters that were themselves ground to dust as the one-time Princess of Friendship unleashed her fury. The delegates were wrapped in immutable bands of magic, then thrust through the wide windows that melted away to let them past. Only Spike remained within the room, and he was wondering if it was safer to take his chances with the long fall outside.

“This ends now,” Twilight growled. She strode towards the windows, the cooling glass hanging like icicles from the frames. The delegates she held were pushed further away as she walked, and when she came to the edge of the room she didn’t stop. She stepped out into thin air without using her wings, the magic holding her up so efficient that there was no burst of light or sparkle of magenta to show it was there at all. Wind howled around them for a moment, then stilled to a dead calm. All over Canterlot the falling snow came to a halt in the air, flakes suspended in place like a photograph.

The leadership of nations squirmed in her grip, but could do little else as they faced the long fall to the streets of Canterlot. Of them, only Heavy Tread had no way to save himself from the drop, but all of them knew that if Twilight didn’t want them using their wings or horn, then they might as well not have them at all.

“Auntie?” Prince Spark Ring called out, fear and confusion mingling in his shaking voice.

“Quiet, all of you,” Twilight commanded. “I’ve had enough.” She stepped closer to them. Tongues of black flame licked up her horn, dripping obsidian sparks and devouring the magenta glow of her magic. “I won’t let this go on. This time you will not ignore me. This time you will listen!”

Spike crept along the windows, getting a better view of his friend and the delegates. Twilight took a long moment to meet the eyes of each of her prisoners, letting them feel the full measure of her anger. “You are going to stop this petty bickering. You are going to sit down and negotiate a treaty in good faith. Then you are going to go home and make sure it sticks! You will stop the raids and the troop buildup and the propaganda and the slander! You will make reparations and you will return refugees to their homes! You will have diplomatic relations and you will visit each other and you will shake hooves and smile for the cameras when you do! You don’t have to like each other, but you will damn well live in peace and harmony and let everypony else do the same! Am I clear?”

There was a long, cold silence as the delegates stared at their captor. For a moment, a shining, hopeful instant, it looked like it was going to work. Then Silverglow spoke two words that ruined it all: “Or what?”

Twilight turned all of her ire on the mage, her wings trembling with the effort of holding in her emotions. “Or we see how big a splatter you make.”

“You won’t,” Silverglow said, and there was no fear in her voice or her eyes as she held Twilight’s furious gaze.

“You want to try me?”

The mage gave a slow nod. “Yes.”

Twilight’s mouth opened to spit a reply, but none came. They hung helpless in the air, a testament to Twilight’s power, but with Silverglow’s challenge that power had become empty. She had nothing.

Teneral laughed. “Oh, you had me going for a moment there, Princess!” She flicked her tongue out a few times like a snake scenting the air. “Mmm. Rage and frustration, bottled up and aged for years. Not my favourite wine, but it has the most wonderful bouquet. Helplessness, on the other hoof, is wretched in every aspect and spoils even the best vintages. You, oh mighty Twilight Sparkle, are the most helpless mare I’ve ever met. No wonder I never liked you.”

“I could crush you like the bug that you are,” Twilight snarled from between clenched teeth. Spike flinched in shock at that. He’d never heard her talk that way before.

“But, as the mage said, you won’t.” Teneral laughed again. “I wondered why Mother made me learn all about you. About how you think and how you feel. Now I know. You care about us, all of us. Even Changelings and Griffins and Dragons and all the rest. We’re all your little ponies, aren’t we? You care so much and so deeply that it would break your very identity to kill one of us. Twilight Sparkle would never hurt a soul, after all, no matter how much she pretends she’s going to.”

“I’ve done worse than ‘hurt’ before,” Twilight replied in a rough whisper. “And maybe saving the lives of thousands is worth having yours on my conscience. Have you thought of that?”

Teneral regarded Twilight for a long moment, the eyes of everyone on the confrontation between the two of them. For all the worry Spike saw in the Changeling, she might as well have been the free one and Twilight the one bound. “Oh yes. Have you?”

Twilight blinked in surprise. “What?”

“Have you thought about it? Really thought about it, I mean, and not just as a gambit to make me take this little temper tantrum more seriously.” Twilight frowned and Teneral chuckled. “I think you have, and that’s exactly why you won’t go through with it. Let me explain it aloud, for poor, slow Gunnar’s sake.” She gave the Griffin a coquettish smile, which he returned with a feral glare. “So! You crush me to paste, thus enraging my people and certainly winning you no friends in the Alliance. You might force the others to sign a treaty, but after what you did nopony is going to believe it’s worth the paper it’s written on. Nothing is accomplished, and we go to war anyway.”

Twilight dropped her gaze, and Teneral grinned. “Except this time, you’re no longer a neutral force. You’ve tacitly sided with the Royalists, and with what you’ve done there’s no way you’re getting the Alliance back to the bargaining table. Except that not even the Royalists will treat with you, since you’ve threatened to do the same thing to them. The only thing you could do is display your power, to crush a few more of us. Many more. You’d have to make both sides more afraid of you than they hate each other. But, ahh, that is such a steep, slippery slope to tread on. Once you’ve made fear your power, you have to keep it going. If you let the fear fade too much then, oh, suddenly ponies are doing things you don’t want them to. Perhaps they start wondering if you would really do it again? You can’t have that, it would take you right back here. So you’ll have to make another demonstration. And then another, and another and another.”

Twilight flinched with every repetition. The anger was gone from her face, and in its place was a growing fear. The black fire faded from her horn and the bindings holding the delegates loosened, though not enough to drop them. Spike wanted to call out, to defend his best friend. Yet he knew that Teneral wasn’t lying. He wracked his brain for something, anything to do. He came up blank. All he could do was watch it play out.

“If you kill me here, you can have what you want, Princess,” Teneral continued. “All it will cost you is everything. Everything you are and everything you’ve ever wanted to be. You can be Twilight Sparkle, beloved Princess of Friendship, and be utterly powerless in the face of war. Or you can be the Tyrant Alicorn, and rule the world from atop a mountain of corpses. If the latter is what you want, then hail to the queen. I’m sure Celestia will be proud.”

Twilight seemed to fold in on herself, her eyes downcast and staring blankly.

“Auntie,” Prince Spark Ring called out into the stillness. “Could you please bring us inside now? It’s very cold out here.”

“What’s it to be?” Teneral asked. “Saviour or destroyer? You can’t be both.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Twilight shook her head. Then her magic sparked and the delegates were floated back into the ruined dining room. Only Teneral remained, hovering in place as Twilight’s bonds dissolved into fading sparkles of magenta light. She spoke to Twilight then, her words quiet enough that Spike had to strain to hear them.

“Mother was right about you,” she said.

“I just wanted to stop the killing,” Twilight said, her voice dripping with wretched despair.

“Of course you do. We all do, in the end. But you can’t. The wheels of this war have been in motion a long time, and even if you had slaughtered everyone here it wouldn’t have made a difference. Heavy Tread and Spark Ring might think they’re in charge of their nations, but they’re just riding a wild beast.”

“You’re right there with them.”

Teneral paused to reflect on that, then shrugged. “Yes. But better to ride than to be trampled underhoof. This beast won’t spare you because you claim neutrality. Everyone’s going to have to choose a side or be crushed. Everyone but you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re immortal, an Alicorn. You’ve been given power over the sun and moon. You’re the only one who can stay above this conflict. When the dust settles, when the beast has slain itself, you’re the only one who will be able to pick up the pieces of this shattered kingdom and put it back together.”

“I don’t want it to break in the first place!”

“Something has to break,” Teneral said. “Either the kingdom or you. Saviour or destroyer, Twilight Sparkle. Choose one. And, please, if you’re going to make threats, be sure you can follow up on them. When your bluff gets called like this, you lose all credit you may have had. It’s sickeningly pathetic.”

With that, she flew back inside and rejoined her fellows before the three of them quickly made their way from the room. They would be leaving for the south immediately, racing the Royalists to make the first declaration of war. Twilight Sparkle stayed outside, standing on nothing as she stared into the middle distance and thought about what had been said.

Spike called out to her, but she didn’t respond. She stayed there, still as the grave, for hours. For all those hours Spike stayed with her, watching over her as she sunk deeper and deeper into herself. Finally, as the time came for her to bid the sun and moon switch places, she stirred.

“Choose one,” she said. Then without a single glance back, she spread her wings and took off into the dusking sky.

~~~

“Teneral,” Star Fall said, recognizing the name. “The last Changeling Queen.”

Spike nodded. “Torn to pieces by Umbra in the middle of her own hive. Clearly, there was a grudge.”

Star Fall closed her eyes for a moment, wings twitching as she thought about what she’d learned. “Twilight is in the Deep Power. I know that. She saved me from Umbra. But Nightmare Moon, Celestia Nova, and what you described sounds like Twilight beginning to use Ashfire… You’re implying that Twilight became Umbra. How can that be?”

“It’s… a bit more complicated than that.” He shifted, scratching idly at the edges of his leg brace as he thought about the next part. In truth there was both much more and very little left to this story. He could have given her the facts within ten sentences, perhaps a few more added to answer the inevitable questions. For someone like Gamma he wouldn’t have bothered telling all of it, just laid out those cold, cruel facts. Star Fall deserved more than that, though. She deserved the whole story. She deserved the chance to understand the full hidden truth of Nightmare Umbra, and consequently, of Professor Twinkle Shine.

“We’ve got time,” Star Fall said. “What happened next?”

“Well, next there was a war. Royalist against Rebel, nation against nation, father against son, sister against sister, blood enough to spread across the entire world.” He frowned as the memories surged up in his mind. He could still hear the screams, feel the blood running down his claws. He clenched those claws into fists to force the sensation from his mind, trying to focus on the tale that had to be told. “I tried to stay out of it. Hid on Elysium. That worked until one side or both decided they couldn’t let a nation of Dragons just sit on the sidelines. Then it was fighting and running and hiding for… a long time. I didn’t hear from Twilight much. At all, really. I know she was there when Labyrinthia fell, not that it did much good. I know she saved thousands of civilians caught in the path of the war. There was always word of her doing great deeds, protecting the innocent. Always somewhere else, though. Always in some distant part of the world.”

He shuddered. “You can’t imagine what it was like, Star. You’ve seen fighting, and you’ve imagined war to be fighting writ large, but that’s not really what it is. It’s huddling in a basement with all the foals of a village, hearing bombs go off and the shouts of soldiers as they raze the town above, and knowing that if any of those little ponies cries out too loudly then those soldiers will be coming in with fire and guns. It’s wondering if the clouds on the horizon are an unscheduled rain shower or a battery of lightning artillery, and knowing that to get it wrong will get you and everyone around you killed. It’s pitying a wounded soldier who just sits and stares at nothing with a terrible hollowness in his eyes, then looking in the mirror and seeing an echo of that same emptiness in your own. There is no safety, no reprieve, only running with nowhere to go, and then fighting when the running stops. And every day the anger at it all builds and builds until all you feel is hate, and the only satisfaction you have is unleashing that hate on anyone who makes themselves a target.”

Star Fall’s eyes had softened as she listened to him. He couldn’t meet them anymore, though. “You were just trying to survive,” she said, blessed pony empathy pushing her to comfort him.

“So were a lot of the ones I…” He took a steadying breath and another drink of water, draining the cup. His mouth still felt dry. “As bad as it was for me, I can’t imagine what it was like for Twilight. She had so much power, but Teneral’s cruel choice kept her powerless. To be fighting for your life is hell enough, to be kept from fighting while so many died right in front of her? Knowing that she could end it, if only she was willing to do what was necessary.” He snorted. “It’s probably good that she stayed away from me. I would have told her to do it. I would have demanded that she strangle the leadership of both sides until they were brought to heel, and damn the consequences.”

“In the end she chose to intervene, right?” Star Fall said, leaning forwards a bit, ears perked and wings open partway in anticipation. “Umbra.”

“Sort of,” he replied. “Twilight was given two choices, and she decided to take a third one. I didn’t find out what she was doing until after Canterlot fell.”

~~~

The ruins of the mountain still smoked and smoldered far behind him, the embers of the dead capital lighting the encroaching night with a hellish red glow. It had been burning for days now, and he wondered if it would ever go out.

He’d spent days in that ruin. His scales were coated with a layer of greasy ash and his claws were ragged from digging through burning wood and crumbled stone and other things that his conscious mind shied away from thinking about. His efforts had not been in vain, and his prize was even now hidden under thick blankets in the back of the cart he pulled resolutely away from the corpse of his first home.

Every step was a strain, his tired limbs moving like leaden weights. The harness, made for ponies, dug into him and chafed against his scales. It didn’t hurt, but it made everything awkward and he had to be careful not to break anything as he dragged the cart and its cargo north.

He was so focused on moving forward, that he didn’t notice that he wasn’t alone until the cart jolted as someone landed on it. He twisted around, hissing in warning and straining the harness to near breaking. Then he saw who it was, and suddenly his heart was in his throat. “Twilight?” he called out, holding back a sob. A part of him wanted to scream at her. A part of him wanted her to hug him and tell him it was all going to be okay. Most of him, though, just wanted to collapse and sleep for a century. He did none of these things, instead staring at her and seeing the destroyed city reflected in her wide eyes. “What are… are you ok?”

She stood on the cart, staring back towards Canterlot. Her mane was a dishevelled mess, dark circles clearly visible under her eyes. Soot stained her coat, tarring some of her feathers near black. “I couldn’t save them, Spike,” she said. There was a distance in her voice, a deceptive calm that imperfectly masked the true depth of her sorrow. In her wide eyes, however, he could see a manic gleam. “They baited me away from the city. By the time I knew what was happening, the mountain had already begun its collapse.”

Spike tugged at the harness, getting tangled in his haste to pull it off. “Didn’t you leave any–”

“It was full of refugees,” she continued, speaking over him. “Canterlot was neutral. It was supposed to be safe. I promised them it would be safe.”

“Nowhere is safe, Twilight,” he said, walking up to stand beside her on the ground.

She nodded. “I knew that, but I told them it was anyway.” She tilted her head, studying the flames. The movement was too quick, an almost bird-like twitch. “Who do you suppose did it? Canterlot’s the symbol of the old diarchy, so I’d be inclined to say it was the Rebels, but the amount of fire makes me think Phoenixes were involved.”

“Does it matter?”

She took a moment, then shook her head slowly and sadly. “No.” Her gaze jerked down, and she stared at her hooves for a long moment. “It doesn’t matter who threw the spell. It’s my fault. I could have stopped it all before it began. If I wasn’t such a coward.”

Spike felt a twisted, angry part of himself nod in enthusiastic agreement. Still, he wanted to support his clearly suffering friend. “You’re not a killer, Twilight.”

She let out a harsh bark of a laugh. “Of course I am, Spike. The first important thing I ever did was kill somepony and replace them with somepony I liked better.” Spike stared at her in confusion, unsure of how to respond to that. Twilight looked back to the ruins of Canterlot and continued speaking in tones of bitter self-reproach. “A few deaths. A thousand, maybe? Would that have been enough, Spike? A thousand lives in exchange for millions? It’s such a simple equation, so hilariously unbalanced. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Couldn’t even find the strength for one.”

She fell silent, and there they stood for a long moment, he looking at her and she looking at the end of her dreams. “Sit down, Twi,” he said, finally. “Take it… take a rest. I’ll find us someplace to hide until it’s over.”

She let out another laugh, humorless and ravaged. “It’s going to be over alright. Soon. But I won’t be hiding.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?” A thrill of ugly expectation went through him. Had she finally decided to throw her neutrality away? Had this been her wake-up call?

The gleam was back in her eyes. “Spike, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Who?” he asked. In response, the ash that coated Twilight came alive. It peeled away from her body in a grey cloud that boiled and whirled around itself before streaming in a dark line to land before them, and just like that there was another pony with them. She stood on the road, backlit by the burning city; a tall, ashen silhouette that looked like she had just stepped out of the burning pits of Tartarus. Wings spread from her back, and a long, pointed horn crowned a head held high in haughty contempt. Her mane flowed in defiance of the wind, a spectral veil through which a distorted world could be seen. Her eyes blazed with malevolent power, and as her gaze fell on him he could feel the hatred behind it like a physical blow. He scrambled back, dropping low and letting out a growl of challenge. “What is that?”

“She is me. My Nightmare,” Twilight answered.

Spike’s gaze whipped to his friend. “What?! Like…”

Twilight nodded slowly, then seemed to think better of it and shook her head. “Yes. And no. She’s not like Nightmare Moon or Celestia Nova. They were wild and uncontrolled. Atavistic. My shadow is bound to the purpose I have given her.”

He felt a chill go down his spine. “What purpose?”

“To End The War. Forever.” The Nightmare’s voice was like an icicle being jammed in his ears. It hurt to hear it, and he flinched involuntarily under its weight.

That statement hung in the air for a long moment before Twilight spoke again. “I’ve already shown I’m not capable of stopping the factions from fighting each other. And the things I’d have to do to myself to make me capable of it would just end up turning me into another Sombra. And since there’s no one around capable of sealing me away for a thousand years, that’s not an acceptable outcome. So the question arises, what if there were somepony else to take up that role? The factions aren’t irreconcilable, really. They just lack something to unify them. And Equestria has never been more united than in the face of a dire threat.”

“So you just created an Alicorn?” Spike couldn’t decide who he should be staring incredulously at, the monster or its master.

Twilight allowed a small chuckle. “She’s not an Alicorn.”

“She sure looks like one to me,” Spike said, slowly rising from his fighting crouch.

“Perceptions,” Twilight said, her voice thick with irony, “can be misleading. You see a pony with wings and a horn and you think ‘Alicorn’. But is that really all that word means? No. She’s powerful. Terribly powerful. But for all that power she’s not connected to the cosmos like the princesses are. I… it would be too dangerous to give her that kind of ability.”

“Dangerous?”

“She’s made to be a villain, Spike.” Twilight didn’t look at him as she talked, nor did she look at her creation, which glared imperiously at the both of them. Her voice was still distant, so much so that now he couldn’t tell what she was feeling behind her calm words. “And she’s not a robot. Even I don’t know what she’d do with access to Alicorn magic.”

“I Would Crash The Moon Into The Earth And Cleanse This World Of The Pathetic Worms That Crawl Upon Its Surface,” the Nightmare snarled. Her voice felt like it was coming from his very bones. It rattled the cart and sent the dust of the road rolling in liquid waves away from her.

Twilight’s lip curled in a wry smile that seemed far too pleased for the sick terror that the Nightmare’s threat inspired. “See? Dangerous.”

Spike felt like the ground was crumbling away beneath him. “How, Twilight? How could you create something like this?”

“It wasn’t easy,” Twilight said. “I made her body out of blood, ashes, bones and Ashfire. All our friends from Ponyville are part of her. Shiny and Cadance too. She has their abilities, their experiences. They’ll make her strong. Stronger than any mortal pony could hope to be. And the best part is that she can absorb the souls and remains of the dead, becoming stronger with every pony that falls! Her mind, her consciousness, was built on mine, anchored to a part of my soul. I gave her most of my memories, along with all the anger, all the rage, and all the hate that I ever felt in my heart. I sealed it all together with her purpose. One all-consuming drive to be the villain that will force Equestria to unite.” She smiled again, proud of her work. “Unlike the rest of us, she knows exactly what she’s here for.” She finally looked to Spike, and the smile fell from her face at his horrified look. “Oh, you didn’t mean ‘how did I make her’, you were asking ‘how could I make her.”

“It’s an abomination, Twilight!”

She nodded soberly. “Yes, but she’s the best hope we have to end this war, Spike.”

“My Purpose Will Be Fulfilled,” the Nightmare growled.

Spike just fell back on his haunches, too tired and numb to fight Twilight’s stubbornness. The truth was, he would take any chance to end the war, even if it came from a monster. “Why show me?”

“I need your help, Spike.”

“With what? Destroying the world? No thank you, Twilight. Count me out.”

“I don’t… you don’t have to help with that. I just need you to take a letter.”

“A letter?” He couldn’t have heard that right.

“Yes, I need to send a letter to the leaders of the factions.”

“Twilight, I don’t–”

“Please!” He looked into her eyes, and saw the sadness and desperation in their purple depths. “Spike, please do this for me. They won’t believe it if it comes from me! I won’t ask you anything else. You can go and… and find a deep cave to hide in! Yes, that’s good. Find a place where nopony will find you and hide this deep under the earth.” She touched the blankets that hid the cart’s cargo. “Hide it and guard it with your life and I won’t ever bother you again, but please, please, please do this one last thing for me!”

He held her gaze for a moment before dropping his eyes and sighing. He couldn’t look at the Nightmare, and he couldn’t look at her. He knew he shouldn’t help her. She’d created a soul-eating monster for crying out loud! Yet, he could see the desperation in her, and felt it mirrored within himself. “Okay,” he said, giving in. “This one last time.” She smiled at him as her horn lit, and suddenly there was parchment and a quill in his claws. “What do you want me to write?”

“I want you to tell them that you’ve discovered a new evil,” Twilight said, her wings and tail twitching as she paced back and forth on the cart. “A creature so dark and powerful that she threatens all of Equestria. No, the whole world! I want you to say that this creature is the real reason that the princesses left, that they had to go to combat her, but they could only hold her off for a time. Tell them that their war is causing this creature to get stronger, that the more they fight the more powerful she’ll become. Tell them that they need to come together to face her, or everyone will lose.”

“Alright,” he said, long practice allowing him to turn her rambling words into a coherent plea. “I guess you want it to tell them to go to you for help, right?”

She shook her head. “No. No, they have to deal with her on their own for now. Tell them I’ve fled the world in grief after Canterlot’s fall. It won’t be a lie.”

Spike frowned at that. “Where are you going?”

“It’s complicated,” Twilight said. “I would have had to leave soon anyway. I’ve put things off for too long as it is, hoping the war would be over. Now, after this?” She glanced at the ruined city, shuddering. “I can’t stay here anymore. It doesn’t matter, I’ll be watching the world. Once they realize the threat and stop fighting long enough to talk to each other about her, then I’ll step in. They have to make the decision to come to the table themselves, though.”

“Okay. Is there anything else you want me to add?”

“Oh! Yes. Almost forgot. Tell them that this threat isn’t just some monster or evil pony. Tell them that this time their enemy is a Goddess. Tell them they face Nightmare Umbra.”

~~~

“If only they’d listened,” Spike lamented, sighing.

“They did take Umbra’s threat seriously,” Star Fall said, putting down the pen she’d been using to take notes. “Documents survive that talk of efforts to contain or eliminate her.”

“Yeah, individual efforts. The cure for Umbra is a united front, not piecemeal, factionalized endeavors.” He shrugged. “Some of the plans had merit, but without cooperation none of them would have ever borne fruit.”

Star Fall’s eyes narrowed as an idea came to her. “Would one of those plans involve the Chains of Tartarus?”

Spike let out a short laugh. “Oh, them. Yeah, that was one of the better ones. I know the Professor was co-opting the idea for her own purposes; I saw a small length of the chain in her room at the Palace before I left. I bet she even told the truth about what they do, give or take.”

“Give or take?”

“They aren’t called the Chains of Tartarus for no reason. They were originally used to imprison the Tartarus Dragons. Worked really well for that until Tirek found out how to break them and released the Dragons on Equestria. Umbra’s got Twilight’s memories, so she knows how to break out of them too. So even if you do manage to catch her with them they won’t be able to trap Umbra for very long.” He considered the ancient artifacts for a moment. “They will hurt her, though, and weaken her. You can use them to fight her if you have enough of them.”

Star Fall jotted down a quick note, underlining it twice. “We’ll talk about that later. For now, let’s continue with your story. The Professor, tell me where she comes in. She’s part of Umbra, but separate. How?”

“As far as I know, she was always part of Umbra. I didn’t meet her until the aftermath of the Schism when she came to me for help.”

~~~

The storms had been battering the mountains for days and showed no signs of stopping. Thunder roared loud enough to be heard even in the deepest depths of his cave, and he huddled under a blanket half ruined by how his claws shook and clutched at it with every rumbling blast. Every time he heard one of those crashing peals, he thought it was going to be another earthquake. The last one had nearly buried him, and he felt so weak, so sick and frail that he knew if he got trapped he might not have the strength to dig himself out.

A cache of gemstones clinked as a particularly powerful thunderclap shook the mountain. He looked to them with a wary hunger. He hadn’t been able to keep anything down for days, and while he was starving, he wasn’t willing to chance his stomach. Nor was he able to let himself drift into sleep. He knew that as sick as he was, if he fell asleep he might not wake up for a century, if he woke up at all.

He rolled over, turning away from his gems and groaning at the effort it took. He had never felt so weak before, not even as a baby Dragon. He stared up at the ceiling of this deep cavern, feeling his heart labour and his lungs strain with every beat and breath.

In the darkness, two globes of light shone: white-within-gold-within-black. It took him a long moment to understand what he was seeing, and when he did, the fear he should have felt just wouldn’t come. “Umbra,” he wheezed out.

“You Are Dying,” the Nightmare said. It was a dry observation. There was no concern in her voice, no compassion.

“Good… to see you… too.”

The eyes watched him for some time, then winked out. He waited for something to happen, and there in the darkness he heard a sound like a sigh, and another like sand running through an hourglass. Then a spark of golden light shone out, blinding him even though it couldn’t have been more than a candle’s glow. A pony’s face was illuminated by that glow, a familiar one.

“Twilight?” He had to be delirious. In his feeble vision it looked like Twilight’s coat had turned white.

“Oh, Spike!” She lay a comforting hoof on his brow. It was white too. “You need to eat.” Her voice, at least, was as it should be. Yet he could hear a strange undertone in it. The more he thought about it the less it sounded like Twilight at all.

He slowly shook his head. “Keep throwing up.”

Her eyes tracked to the basket of gems, then back to him. Without another word she turned and left, leaving him in pitch darkness once again.

Spike lay in wheezing, shuddering fear. How long, he couldn’t say. It could have been hours, it could have been seconds. Then, suddenly, he realized she was back, and she’d dropped a steaming something next to him. “Eat,” she commanded. He turned his head to the unidentifiable heap. It smelled amazing. His mouth watered and he somehow found the energy to stretch out his neck and take a bite. Hot juices flooded over his tongue, an explosion of delicious flavor unlike anything he’d ever tasted before. He tore a piece off, his teeth cutting easily through, and swallowed it down.

He was two more bites in before he realized that what he was eating was meat. Seared, hot, juicy meat. A part of him wanted to gag in revulsion, but the rest of him was starving and would take anything. He tore into the carcass with abandon, savaging it down to the bone. By the time he was done he was feeling stronger. Still weak, but his heart was beating steadily and his breath came easy. He knew he was not going to die. With renewed strength, though, came a renewed understanding of what he’d done. He turned his gore-splattered face to the pony who’d brought him the grisly meal and watched patiently while he’d torn it apart. He could see her better now in the light of her horn, and saw that his eyes had not betrayed him: she was a snowy white Alicorn with a golden mane and ice-blue eyes. Save for her coloration, and the blank coat where a cutie mark should be, though, she was identical to Twilight. “Who are you? Why did you feed me… that?”

“The process that your body uses to convert gemstones to energy used to operate on ambient magic, but that’s no longer an option. Now, it needs regular infusions of chemical energy to maintain itself. The densest, most readily available source of that energy is meat. Add to that the fact that Dragons are naturally carnivorous, well...” She sighed, looking sadly at the remains of the animal he’d eaten. “Basically, you have to eat meat to live now.”

Spike groaned, fighting a wave of hunger as his body enthusiastically responded to the thought of more meat. “That answers one question,” he said. He swallowed and looked directly at her. “Now for the other. You’re not Twilight.”

She flinched as if he’d struck her. “I’m a part of her,” she said. “Or I was. I’m–”

“Umbra,” he cut her off. “You’re Umbra.”

She dipped her head, hiding her eyes behind the ruler-straight bangs he had come to associate so much with his oldest friend. “No. Not entirely, at least. I’m what she was meant to become.”

“What do you mean, ‘meant to become’?”

She raised her head again, though she didn’t look at him, staring instead into the darkness of the cave. “What becomes of the goddess of war when the war is done? With peace re-established, Umbra would be left with no purpose. She’s a being built out of hate, it would only be a matter of time before she started acting on it. To forestall that, I–” She winced hard, sucking in a breath through clenched teeth before relaxing again. “That is, Twilight created a second being, nested within Umbra. This being would emerge during peacetimes, subsuming Umbra’s mind and allowing her to live a normal life.”

“You.”

She nodded. “Me.”

“So you just switch places with her?”

She shook her head. “No. It’s not that simple. We share a consciousness, we were both built from the same piece of Twilight’s soul. We’re the same person, just…” She trailed off as she struggled to find the words to explain. “We don’t switch places, she becomes me, and I become her.” Her ears drooped. “At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.”

He caught the implication in that sad statement. “What went wrong?”

“I failed. The war is over, but Equestria’s never been more divided.” She stomped a hoof in anger, her eyes changing for a moment to Umbra’s before returning. “Everything was going so wrong! They didn’t care about me, even as I was annihilating both sides! All they cared about was killing each other!” The anger fled from her face, replaced with a look of stricken horror. “I… I was going to kill them all. I was going to rip Equestria itself to pieces. If Twilight hadn’t stepped in…” She swallowed hard, wings shaking slightly. “She stopped me. She stripped away the majority of my… of Umbra’s power and used it to separate the armies. But… but she was too distracted, and she made a mistake. Or maybe it was on purpose, I don’t know. Either way, she didn’t just take Umbra’s magic, she took all magic.”

Spike lay there, his heart pounding as he realized the implications of that. “That’s why I’m so weak.” She nodded. “Oh no! The other Dragons!”

“Dead,” she said. “Too big to support their own weight. Any creature that survived by magic is the same. The ones who just used magic for sapience lived, but… but most of them are mindless animals now.” Spike looked again to the carcass he’d fed on. There were no feet left on it, so he couldn’t tell if it had had hooves or not. Bile rose in his throat as he realized it could have been someone just a few weeks ago. “Ponies, Zebras, Diamond Dogs, Griffins,” she looked at him, “small Dragons. All of these survive and maintain their intelligence, but I can’t even guess what other effects the loss of magic will have.”

Spike tried to sit up, but his body failed him and he flopped back to the ground. “She has to reverse it! Put the magic back!”

“It’s too late, the damage is done.” She sighed. “To the world and to me. Because the war is over but Equestria is not united. Umbra’s purpose is not fulfilled, but there is no war for her to end. Thus she and I are both awake when it was only ever supposed to be one at a time.”

“Yeah, that sounds real bad,” Spike snarled at her. “Not as bad as sucking all the magic out of the world, though!”

“I’m sorry!” she screamed, tears glistening in the light of her horn. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way! I messed up! I messed up bad! But I can’t fix it and now I’m stuck and I don’t know what to do!”

Spike stared at her. He saw the fear and anguish in her eyes, the guilt eating at her from within. He saw the face of his best friend as she reached out to him for help. Then he closed his eyes and turned away, refusing to acknowledge the sobs that echoed in the cave as the hornlight went out.

He expected her to leave then, but she didn’t. She stayed and she cried until Spike’s exhaustion caught up with him and he fell asleep. When he woke it was not in darkness. A small fire had been lit next to him, the stripped carcass of a pig roasting over it. He almost refused the offering, but his stomach rumbled and he knew he wasn’t strong enough to starve himself. On the opposite side of the fire lay the white Alicorn, body rising and falling with the soft breath of sleep.

Half the pig was a charred mess, and the other side was underdone, but he ate it all the same. Once he was done he experimentally tried munching on a sapphire. To his great relief the gem went down easily, and he felt the usual flare of warmth in his belly as his body converted it into magic. He tentatively stood up, and while his head spun from dizziness for a few seconds he didn’t collapse in abject weakness.

Feeling assured that he was on the mend, Spike took another look at Umbra’s other half. She twitched and whimpered in her sleep. He wanted to hold on to his anger at her, coveting that spark of outrage at what her existence had brought. So he turned away from her and, taking his basket of gems, he left her by her guttering fire.

Time passed. He tried to hunt for himself, but at first he proved rather pathetic at it, his efforts not helped by the endless storms that pounded the mountains. Every day when he gave up on finding his own food, though, he found a fresh kill roasting in his cave. He would have found the charity insulting if he wasn’t too hungry to care. Finally, he managed to recall all the hunting stories he’d read in books or heard from other Dragons, and caught something of his own. Just a lone goat, but more than he’d had before. He thought he’d have trouble killing and eating the creature, but one look in its eyes and he knew that any intelligence that might have once inhabited it was long gone. After that, long-neglected instincts made everything easy.

Days turned into weeks, and then to months.

His strength never fully recovered, but little by little he grew used to being weak. He made slow progress on converting the rough mountain caverns into a home, adorning it with figures and furniture carved from wood and stone during the long, vicious storms. He left the caves themselves in their natural shape; he knew his fire could mold the rock to his will, but he didn’t want to try the limits of his weakened magic yet.

Throughout it all, the white Alicorn stayed close. She didn’t speak to him, or even show herself often, but he knew she was there. He could hear her sometimes, her sobs echoing from deep within the caverns of his home. He stopped up his ears to those cries, but as time went on and the storms abated he found himself less and less able to ignore her.

Finally, under the first cloudless blue sky in a year, he realized his anger had faded. It wasn’t gone –it would never be gone– but its biting edge had dulled. He knew that he could finally face her with sympathy. He went deep into the caves, to the cavern where she had found him. He heard her long before he got there. She was not crying this time, though. Instead she was talking. Arguing.

He paused at the entrance to the cave, looking in. She had placed a light-spell high up, illuminating the entire chamber. In its glow he could see the nest of leaves and woven grasses she’d been sleeping on pushed up against a wall. A stone-ringed cooking fire burned with a sullen orange glow near the middle of the cave, with a pot of vegetable stew set above it, bubbling and forgotten. Near the far wall stood Generosity, close to the opening of the secret room he’d been carving out before magic had been torn from the world.

The Alicorn was slumped at the foot of that statue, shivering and twitching as if in seizure. Her eyes changed as she spoke, becoming the gem-like blue of the Alicorn or the luminous white-within-gold of the Nightmare depending on who was speaking. Spike stepped into the cavern, but neither of them noticed him, too intent on their schizophrenic debate.

“It Is But Empty Gestures And Weak Sentimentality!” the Nightmare hissed. “Enough! I Must Leave This Pit. My Purpose Cannot Be Completed From Hiding.”

“That ‘purpose’ is impossible!” the Alicorn snapped. “Just look at what happened! Look at how many have died!”

“The Wretched And The Faithless Matter Nothing To Me. I Am The Scourge Of Nations.”

“The nations are gone. Shattered! There’s nothing left to be scourge of!”

The Nightmare paused at that, then snarled. “No. There Are Herds Yet. Even Now They War With Each Other, Killing Over Scraps Of Land And Water. I Will Reveal Myself To Them. They Will Unite To Face Me Or Burn. Thus Will My Purpose Be Realized.”

“The storm isn’t going away. Without the ability to get around it, the herds will never unite, no matter how many threats you make.”

“They Will Find A Way. I Will Give Them No Choice.”

The Alicorn gasped. “They’ll die!”

“Then That Is Their Fate!” A hoof slapped the ground. It might have been meant as a defiant, angry gesture, but with the two wills warring for control of one body it became something more akin to a drowning pony floundering for something to buoy them up.

The Alicorn let out a sob. “Haven’t I done enough already? I’ve already betrayed everything my friends and I stood for, everything we fought for! Can’t I just stop killing now? I’m supposed to be the Princess of Friendship for–”

“I Am Not Twilight Sparkle!” Umbra roared. Spike’s stomach turned at the ferocious hate that filled the Nightmare’s voice, the otherworldly weight of it throwing him to the floor.

“Spike?”

He took a few steadying breaths then looked up. The Alicorn was on her hooves, all signs of her previous distress gone. She looked at him with concern and compassion, and for the first time it really hit home that she was a person, and not just a mask used to hide the evil of the Nightmare.

“I think it’s time we had a talk,” he said, pulling himself upright.

She hesitated, seeming taken aback. “I… don’t know…”

A flash of annoyance made him frown, but he pushed the emotion down. “Look, you’re clearly having issues. You’ve been sulking down here for a year, feeling sorry for yourself. I understand. I get it, really. The world’s messed up and it’s all your fault.”

Her entire demeanor changed to haughty arrogance as her eyes shifted to Umbra’s. “I Am Not The Architect Of This Catastrophe.”

“Does that even matter?” Spike shook his head. “At the very least you had a part in it. And considering you’re Twilight Sparkle’s brainchild, designed specifically to avoid this crappy post-apocalyptic mess we’ve got going on, well, I’d say your failure means a lot of this is on you. But it’s been long enough. Umbra is right, it’s time to get yourself out of this cave. Not to terrorize the world or anything like that, but to help it. To make amends.”

The Nightmare snorted in derision, then retreated to leave the Alicorn facing him again. “But what do I do, Spike? How do I even begin to make up for what happened?

“You can’t.” She recoiled from that answer, but he could see her accept it in the squaring of her shoulders and the way she kept her wings closed. “But just because it’s impossible doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. You’ve still got magic, you can start by helping everypony deal with losing theirs.”

She dropped her gaze to the floor. “I can’t. I wish I could.” Then her head snapped back up, the Nightmare in control. “I Am No Nursemaid, To See To The Squalling Needs Of Weak Remnants Of Greater Ponies.”

“I wasn’t talking to you!” Spike glared at Umbra. “I’m talking to… the other one!” The blue returned to the Alicorn’s eyes. “Look, this is gonna get confusing. Do you have a name?”

She made a small, noncommittal gesture. “I was supposed to choose one for myself. When I… When Twilight was designing me, though, she thought of me as ‘Corona’. I guess that will do for now.”

“Okay. Corona,” Spike said. “You’re supposed to be a real pony, right?”

“I suppose so,” she replied, frowning.

“So, if you want to make up for everything, that’s the first thing you’re gonna have to realize. You’re a real pony, but Umbra isn’t. She’s just this thing that Twilight made to scare everypony into behaving. You don’t need to kowtow to her every whim, because you, the real pony, are more important than her.”

Her frown deepened. “But… I am Umbra. What she wants is what I want.”

Spike paused, thinking over what he wanted to say, how he wanted to guide her thoughts. Despite how much she looked like his friend, and how often she seemed to forget she wasn’t Twilight, he already knew that the two of them didn’t think alike. When he finally spoke, it was with a careful, even tone that encouraged her to consider his words deeply. “You’re the pony, Umbra’s the monster. I know more than I care to about the monster, I want to hear something about the pony. I want to hear about you. If everything had gone to plan, what would you have done?”

“I would have disappeared into society, blended in.”

“Yeah, but how? What kind of life would you want to live? If it all went perfectly, what would you spend that life doing?”

Her gaze turned inward as she considered it. “I would be doing magic, of course.”

“There’s a lot of ways to do magic,” Spike said, leaning forward as he saw a sparkle of something important deep in her eyes. “What would you be doing with it? Are you a researcher? A scientist? Do you use your magic to entertain, or is it strictly for serious purposes? Are you a warrior?” He worried she would latch on to that one, but she showed no reaction as he went on. “Or a politician, or a businesspony? Do you use your magic to build great buildings? Do you explore distant lands? Do you look into the past, or do you predict the future?” He sat back on his haunches, crossing his arms over his chest, still watching her discover herself for the first time. “Whatever you do, it’s going to have magic. I guess, deep down, the question of what you want to do is really the question of who you want to be. So, Corona, who do you want to be?”

“I want to be…” Her eyes lost focus, staring into some mental abyss he could only guess at. “I want to be a teacher.” The statement was like a revelation, lighting up her face. “I remember going to classes when I– when Twilight was young. The teachers, the good ones, they had such passion for their jobs. They weren’t just giving us facts and figures, they were giving us a way to build our future! And of course there is Princess Celestia, the best teacher of all. Without her, well, I wouldn’t even exist. I want to be the pony at the front of the class, giving knowledge out to eager students. I want to teach them magic, like Celestia once taught… me.”

Spike smiled. “Well, what do you know? At least one magic’s not gone.”

“What?” He pointed to her flank. There, still sparkling in its newness, was a cutie mark. A blackboard with a magic circle chalked onto it. She stared at her mark for a long moment, then looked back to him, wonder and excitement writ large across her features. “I–”

That was all she got out before Umbra tore control away from her. Eyes went from shining with joy to burning with rage in an instant. The new cutie mark distorted, morphing into a heart of thorns pierced through with a dark sword. “No!” The word struck at the world like a lash, cracking stone and sending shivers through the mountain. “I Am Not A Teacher! I Am A Destroyer! My Purpose Lies In Ending War, Or Ending The World. I Do Not Educate, I Annihilate! This Delusion Of Normalcy Is Unacceptable!”

“The war is over!” Spike shouted. “Your time is done, Umbra, it’s Corona’s turn now!”

She glared at him, and he could feel her attention like cold spikes piercing his scales. “You Think Me The Weaker Half? I Am No Mere Monster, Spike.” She reared back, spreading her wings. Shadows spilled from her feathers as strange, wormy shapes writhed under Corona’s flesh. “I Am Nightmare Umbra! I Am Hate And Rage And Power! I Harbour Uncounted Souls Within Me, And Their Collective Will Is Worth Only A Paltry Fraction Of My Own. You Imagine I Am Weak Because I Was Given My Purpose, While Others Must Stumble Blindly Into Their Own. You Are Gravely Mistaken.”

“Corona!” Spike called out, leaning against the ethereal wind that blew like a hurricane gale from the Nightmare. “Fight her!”

Umbra’s eyes turned blue for a moment. “I can’t!”

“You’re stronger than you think! Twilight made you to take over from her! Use that! Do what you were meant to do and put her to sleep! Be the pony you want to be, not the one she does!”

“You Seek To Poison Me With Your Words. You Will Find Me Immune To Their Venom.” Umbra’s eyes cleared again, Corona coming to the fore. Instead of triumph or effort, though, he only saw desperation in them. “It’s true! I’m trapped halfway, Spike! She can’t shut me out, but so long as her purpose is unfulfilled, she can’t sleep! I don’t have her drive, I’ll never win a battle of wills! But… but there may be another way!”

The power pouring from Umbra stopped, leaving the air thick and gelid. The Nightmare tilted her head to the side. “Continue.”

“The problem is that Equestria is shattered,” Corona continued. “For the purpose to be complete, it has to be united again. That’s not going to happen any time soon.”

Umbra let out a low, bestial growl. “That Is Not My Concern.”

“But I’m immortal,” Corona said quickly. “Or, at least, unaging. With everything as it is, both halves of Equestria won’t even have the possibility of uniting for a long time. Centuries, maybe. But what are centuries to me? I can wait.”

“My Patience Is Not Eternal.” Umbra said, though she seemed to be considering it. “Nor Does It Extend To The Interminable And Fickle Efforts Of Diplomacy.”

“I’ll handle the diplomacy,” Corona said, and Spike heard a surge of confidence in her voice. “I can help both sides along, get them united on either side of the barrier storm and then…” She trailed off for a moment, and the look she gave Spike was an apology. “Then we start the war again.”

“What?” Fire spurted from Spike’s mouth in his shock, unable to believe what he was hearing.

“Yes!” Umbra cried, drawing the word out into a sibilant hiss.

“Then Nightmare Umbra returns. Only this time I’ll be there, inside the ranks on both sides, guiding them to unite against the greater enemy. Equestria will stand united and the purpose will finally be completed.”

“Corona! Think about the last war! The misery and the death! Think about how it all ended! Do you want to do that all over again?”

“No, of course not!” Corona replied. “But this is all I can think of. This is the only thing Umbra will wait for.” She gave him a weak, hopeful smile. “Besides, this time will be different. I’ll make sure it’s different.” Spike could only shake his head. Corona’s gaze drifted away from him, turning inward again. “I’ll need a free hoof to work. I can’t be second guessed or hurried. Even under ideal circumstances it will take a long time, and through it all I must appear… normal.”

“Very Well,” Umbra said. “I Will Retreat Into My Mind. I Will Only Bring Myself To The Fore When My Power Is Needed, And To Prevent Threats To This Plan.” Her eyes burned like suns. “But Be Warned, I Will Be Watching.”

With a scream, Umbra’s power was withdrawn. It collapsed into the shared Alicorn body, sending light and shadow writhing all around her. Then it was done, and Corona lay shivering on the ground. Slowly she got her shaking under control, then stood. She took deep breaths, soothing her racing pulse. Finally, when she was ready, she looked to Spike. “I’m sorry,” she said.

He sighed. “But you’re still going to go through with it, aren’t you?”

She nodded. “I have to.”

“It’s a mistake,” he said, shaking his head again. “The same one Twilight made.”

“Well if Twilight Sparkle wants to fix that mistake, she’s welcome to come down from her heavenly bucking throne anytime she wants!” Spike was taken aback by the vehemence and loathing he heard in her voice. Corona’s features cleared a moment later. “Sorry. It was Twilight’s mistakes that brought us all here. I’m just… we’re all just trying to do the best we can with what she’s left us.” The hopeful gleam returned to her eyes. “Will you help me, Spike? You showed me what I wanted to be, let me discover my own purpose. I would really like you to come with me.”

He regarded her for a long moment. She was changing before his eyes. Subtly at first, but accelerating. Her wings were disappearing, her face shifting. Spots of color were growing on her coat, a rich vermilion that changed to a deep ochre as it hit her mane and tail. In moments he was looking at a different pony entirely, yet he felt like no matter what disguise she took he would know her. That look in her eyes hadn’t changed, and it was uniquely her own. “If you want help becoming a teacher, then I’d love to,” he said. “If you need me to pitch in with putting civilization back together, then you can count on me. But if you’re just setting it all up to give Umbra another war? Then I’ll give you the same answer I gave Twilight: No. I won’t be a part of that.”

“I understand,” she said, though she looked a little sad. “I will need help with all that. With becoming a teacher and rebuilding civilization, I mean. If I promise that what you do won’t be part of the plan, though, you’ll help?”

“I will.”

She smiled. “Do you think… that perhaps we could be friends?”

“I think…” he trailed off as he thought hard about the answer. Once, long ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated, but too much time and blood had passed him by for it to be so easy anymore. “I think that we can be. Right up until you start a war for Umbra. Once you cross that line?” He shook his head, the implication clear.

This seemed to satisfy her, and her smile gained strength. “Then it’s time for me to get out of this cave. Will you join me?”

“Not yet,” he said. “I’ve got to find a way to hide and protect that first.” He gestured to Generosity.

She looked to the statue, eyes widening as if she had forgotten it was there. The moment her gaze touched the necklace, a shudder went through her. It was gone in an instant, but for that moment he thought he saw stark terror in her eyes. “Yes. Absolutely. That’s more important. Once you’ve done that, though, come and find me.” She grinned. “It’ll all work out in the end, you’ll see. I’ll set this world right again, Spike. Just watch me.”

~~~

Star Fall’s pen moved furiously across the page. Sheets covered in notes littered the bed around her. Spike watched her work, patiently waiting for whatever follow up questions she could ask.

His story was basically done. He could talk for hours about how he helped the nascent Solar Kingdom in those difficult early years, or how he’d travelled to the nightlands and taught the Republics how to raise Dragons. Both were done at the Professor’s side, though she wore different faces and different names. Eight hundred years was a long time to know someone, and he had stories galore of their adventures. Corona kept her promise to Spike, though, and he’d never been part of her maneuvering the two sides of the Everstorm towards conflict. So he had little more of substance to say.

“Corona,” Star Fall said, setting her pen aside. “Interesting.”

“I’ve mostly called her whatever name she was using at the time,” Spike said. “And, more often than not, ‘Professor’s worked just as well.”

“No, it’s thematic,” Star Fall said. “I can almost see what Twilight Sparkle was thinking when she named them. Umbra and Corona. The complete being might well be called ‘Eclipse’. Which is what, legendarily, happened at the Schism.”

Spike had thought along similar lines in the past, but nothing had ever come of it. “Do you think it’s significant?”

“Only in that Twilight has a lot to answer for,” Star Fall replied, frowning. “I already knew that the Professor’s been manipulating the Kingdom and the Republics since the beginning, but this? There are theological ramifications to this, Spike. I wouldn’t call myself particularly devout, but even I can feel my faith reeling. Twilight Sparkle created Umbra. Twilight Sparkle caused the Schism. And she did it by accident? Why aren’t we worshipping her in every temple?”

“That’s probably the Professor’s influence at work,” Spike said. “She… discouraged Twilight cults from forming. I’m surprised she let the religions centered around Celestia and Luna flourish, actually. They never wanted to be worshipped either.”

“I understand that,” Star Fall said, waving a hoof dismissively. “She wanted to recreate the war that led to the Schism. Religious opposition was a driving factor there. But the animus towards her creator? That’s more important.” She started scribbling new notes, mumbling to herself.

Spike watched her, waiting for her to come up for air before he spoke again. “You’re taking this fairly well, Star. You were such a big fan of Twilight Sparkle, I was kinda expecting more… hurt? Rage? More something.”

She stopped, staring blankly at her notes for a moment before looking back to him. “I’ve been hurt already, Spike, when I found out who the Professor really was. I was angry when I saw her in the Everstorm. When I found out you knew all along, and hadn’t said anything, I was both. I expected that when this moment came and it was all laid out, I’d be hurt and angry all over again. You know what? I’m not. Because since then I’ve been tortured by Charisma, lost my hoof, then had Max Cash come back from the dead to kidnap two of my friends along with what might be the most powerful weapons in existence. This isn’t even mentioning the crap I expect to be dealing with in order to get the Senate to listen to me. Comparatively, finding out my idol stands on a broken pedestal just doesn’t rate a strong response.”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Spike said, chuckling.

For the first time in the conversation, Star Fall graced him with a smile. “Honestly, everything you’ve said just makes things a whole lot clearer.” She stretched out, joints popping after hunching over her notes for so long. “For instance, I now know why Twilight Sparkle’s been watching me in the Deep Power. Though I don’t know why she’s there in the first place.” She gave Spike a questioning look.

“The Professor told me that she’s keeping Celestia and Luna from drifting away,” he said, shrugging. “I asked, but she said the details weren’t part of the memories Twilight gave her.”

Star Fall let out a thoughtful hum. “Any other holes in her memories you know about?”

“The Elements,” Spike said. “After I found out I couldn’t move Generosity, I asked her about it. She knows some basics about them. The same as me, really. Twilight left everything else out. Except she’s also really, really afraid of them.”

Star Fall nodded. “That could be useful. Any others?”

“Not that I know of.”

Star Fall gathered up her scattered notes, shuffling them all into a neat pile. “Spike, I know this couldn’t have been easy for you. I just want you to know that I appreciate you being honest with me. I understand why you didn’t say anything before, and while I still don’t like it, I forgive you. When the time came you didn’t hide it, and that means a lot.”

“You deserved to know, Star,” Spike said, feeling a weight lift off him. “Though the big question I’ve got is: what now?”

Star Fall was silent for a long moment, reclining on the bed. “You know, I’ve always thought of the Destroyer as this unknowable force. She was a Goddess, if an evil one. A divine power, inscrutable to mortals. Hell, until I knew about Twinkle Shine being Umbra, I didn’t even consider that she might have a mere pony’s goals and motivations. Now? Now I understand. Now I can predict her. I may not know how to stop her, not yet, but I already have an idea to make her work in our favor.”

She let that statement hang in the air for a moment, then turned and flashed Spike a grin. “But to answer your question…” She reached under her pillow and drew forth another stack of notes and a book. A book he had seen before, a long, long time ago. “Now you’re going to check my translations. I had to paraphrase everything because of the no-copy spell, and I need to know if I’m actually getting the gist of it.”

He returned her smile and levered himself off the floor. “Checking Old Equestrian homework? Today really is a trip down memory lane.”

“I hope you’re not rusty,” she said, adjusting her position to give him room to lean on the bed. “Our lives could depend on getting this right, and there’s words in here you never taught me.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“Like this one,” she said, sliding a sheet over to him. It had a scrambled bit of text that he presumed was copied from the book, then the same word phonetically spelled out in Solar. It took a moment, but as soon as he sounded it out in his head he went still and cold. “Spike,” she said, noting his distress. “What’s ‘Discord’?”

Comments

[Malandy]

Story time! And a lot of things start to come together!

Hmm... Perhaps the Elements are gonna retrieve themselves from Umbra? Getting their memories back?

Yeah, Discord wasn't mentioned until the very end. More story time in the next chapter?

Cool to see how you tie in everything, even stuff that happened after you started writing the story!

Spark Ring reminds me of Blueblood, when he called Twilight "Auntie".

[nothing_to_see_here]

Here's a question.
How do you beat something that is nearly a god?
Simple.
Unleash another god on it and run for cover.
Honestly between Cash, Umbra, and the war, Discord may be useful. Possibly he could be what Umbra wasn't... Or he may just make it rain chocolate milk and make everything go insane as revenge for the second statuification.
My money is on the latter

[Madd the Sane]

7830744 I think we saw Discord in the Deep Power, even repairing it when Umbra started fighting Star.

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

I'm dissapointed. Seriously then where the heck id Cadence!? She is an immortal alicorn as well so where the buck is she. Sorry but she makes more sense being umbra then Twilight splitting herself.

[Chaosreverent]

7830849
Reread the prologue , it states that Cadence is a winged unicorn with some pegasus magic, not an alicorn.

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

7830872 missed that, sigh another big mistake. I think I'm done. Great idea, loved the concept but can't support this anymore.

[Fwelin]

7830772
At this point, I would not be surprised if everything was caused by Discord, in order to get the elements and the alicorns out of the picture for good.

If he was somehow influencing the original factions into unavoidable war to get Celestia, Luna, and Twilight to leave (by subtle mind magic, hypnotized plants, or maybe even a country-wide chaotic influence), it would explain why he didn't seem to be an obvious problem despite all this chaos (even after five of the bearers died), and Discord is the only unaccounted-for being we know of that has the power to interfere in the Deep Power like that. Plus, if that WAS him, his only action there was to keep Twilight from waking.

I could be wrong, and if I am, I'll probably be debunked next chapter, but I think it would explain a lot.

[Mr cold ghost]

I slowly reread each chapter to get up to the new chapters and it was worth It!

[RoboRed]

Now we're finally getting somewhere in this story.

SO,
- Umbra was really a desperate (possibly last-ditch) effort from Twilight. A construct posing as the face of evil, designed to get everyone to unify and stop fighting each other. Unfortunately, this plan failed.
- Twilight removed magic from the world to prevent Umbra from overdoing things before whisking herself away to "prevent Celestia and Luna from drifting away" (whateverthehell that means) and attempting to still remain as uninvolved as possible.
- Corona is a part of the construct meant to blend in during peacetime (presumably after "mission accomplished"), but is now just blending in because things have been knocked down several pegs since Umbra was de-powered. She has been playing on both sides in various guises for centuries to try to lay foundations for peace when war and Umbra inevitably returns.
- Spike has also been helping both sides stay aloft over time, but still has largely stayed uninvolved.
- This millenium-old problem will never end until all sides unite in true Harmony. That's the bare-bones success condition.

Well, you've managed to get me interested again. Let's...let's see where this heads.

[Merula]

Oh wow, lots of plot twists in this chapter!

[Alondro]

7831007 So what it all boils down to is... Twilight screwed up. Again.

Worst Princess, Twilight. You've earned it.

[KMCA]

7830895 I've seen you saying that a lot lately, like once a month.
I'm surprised you're still here after the reveal with Cash.

We've gotten most of the back story. No one quite wins the bet on who/what Umbra really is, I didn't get Cash either. Thank god I had no money in bets. Discord still is a wild card as is Max Cash in some ways.

I'm not even working on theories with them at the moment. I need to see where things go from here before I work more theories.

[Crimson Dawn]

Yea Twilight is really disappointing. I kind of like this though as it shows her many flaws.

I am still hoping to see more history on the other bearers but I am not sure if we will.

[Aatxe360]

7830920

Nah. The thing is with Discord is that he, by nature, cannot have plans. Plans are something that would belong to Order, or Harmony, in this instance. Oh, he's powerful and he does have wants and ambitions, but most of what canon Discord I have seen is mostly just putting himself and others into situations so others react.

For instance, if he really wanted revenge for being turned to stone, he could have just turned the Diarchs into stone before they realized he was released. For his powers to work, his victims have to be his audience and woe to them if give up and stop looking for a solution that isn't the Elements. This might just be why he does have a penchant for involving himself with the Bearers. They're his only rivals that he could affect even if he can't touch the Elements themselves. When he was introduced, the Bearers were technically just introduced to the Elements and weren't quite fine-tuned, so to speak.

Discord is terrible at long-term planning. Even with the plant seeds that invaded Ponyville that were created and dropped by him, however, the Sisters never cleaned up after their confrontation. Therefore, I'd blame the Sisters for not being suspicious of something used against them by Discord.

Blaming everything on Discord is a cop-out.

7831007

- Twilight removed magic from the world to prevent Umbra from overdoing things before whisking herself away to "prevent Celestia and Luna from drifting away" (whateverthehell that means) and attempting to still remain as uninvolved as possible.

What? Where'd you get that? I was pretty sure Umbra/Corona was at fault for the reducing the world's magic quotient via the Storm between the nations.

Also, The Sisters wanted nothing more to do with the world so they cut their souls off from the world too hurt to see it continue down the path it was heading. Twilight left to keep them tethered so they could rejoin when Harmony was re-established.

[RoboRed]

7831422

“I… I was going to kill them all. I was going to rip Equestria itself to pieces. If Twilight hadn’t stepped in…” She swallowed hard, wings shaking slightly. “She stopped me. She stripped away the majority of my… of Umbra’s power and used it to separate the armies. But… but she was too distracted, and she made a mistake. Or maybe it was on purpose, I don’t know. Either way, she didn’t just take Umbra’s magic, she took all magic.”

[Aatxe360]

7831428

Alright. Conformation as Corona has no reason to lie. My mind kinda skipped over that as being part of the blame-game culture and the confusing pronoun discussions between Umbra/Corona/Twilight(?). They talk as separate and themselves together and apart that it's hard and not that hard to understand which is referring to which, if you know what I mean.

Corona wasn't going to 'kill them all(or was she?)' it was Umbra...? And I can see Corona as a fail-safe mechanism if Umbra tried to get out of hand. Is there a fail-safe to the fail-safe? The creator, I guess. And Spike.

See where I'm going? They are two separate completely entities...yet...not. Individuals can get to a point to want to 'kill someone.'

I'm still confused what happens to Umbra ultimately when peace and Harmony are restored. If she'll cease to exist, what about Corona? Has Twilight absolved herself of responsibility for creating Umbra? Did Twilight really take a third choice by making a monster to be her proxy?

[Fwelin]

7831422
Even putting aside AUs, there are many valid interpretations of Discord that do not involve an inability to plan (especially given S4E01/2). Him having a affinity and predilection towards chaos does not imply that he literally unable to conduct the long game when he feels a direct (and more chaotic) approach might not work, especially after he's already been defeated twice due to him not taking his foes seriously enough.

Now, this fic seems to follow the show's canon at least up to the S5 finale, so it's not very likely that he's behind everything, but I think it would fit the missing pieces extremely well if it turns out he was.

[cheesegal]

Hmm, I should probably look at my notifications before going to bed, (see's there's a new chapter of harmony theory, eyes pop out, jaw drops, fan girl gasp) welp, I'm not getting any sleep tonight!

This is my favorite story

[ChaosDX1]

I've always liked Umbra. Mostly because she wasn't Max Cash. She's a freakin' kitten compared to pile of sentient, toxic goop.

But safe to say I like her even more now! Even if she is still somewhat terrifying.

[Kabasue]

Well that explains a lot!

Also I really dig the Umbra/Corona concept

[Star ShaDe]

Mmmm, Discord. Oh how I've missed you.

Glad to finally have some of my suspicions realized and put into words.
If my theories are correct as they were here. This will be a most interesting story yet.

[Lithl]

7830772
I didn't remember that, but it looks like you're correct:

The Deep Power bucked and whirled as the two powers clashed. Star Fall screamed, her voice lost in the cacophony of opposing, alien powers.

"Enough!"

The voice –deep, commanding and most certainly male– silenced the shuddering of the Deep Power in an instant. Umbra's Ashfire magic vanished, and her eyes went wide in shocked confusion. Twilight's protection vanished as well, and Star Fall looked over to find her once more curled up between Celestia and Luna, asleep to all appearances.

The stillness lasted only another moment, then a great force rent the Deep Power in two. It was like the universe itself had been cut by some impossible blade, the break clean and sharply defined with Star Fall on one side and Umbra on the other. A new force moved through the lights, repairing the damage their battle had wrought. It slowly became visible in its actions, a sinuous shape, with long claws that were at once powerful and delicate in their work. Star Fall could barely comprehend what she was seeing, and before she could start to make sense of any of it, the unknown power took hold of her and roughly ejected her from the Deep Power.

That said, it's probably possible for the alicorns (and Discord) to leave the Deep Power. They just don't want to.

[EverfreeSparkle]

The pieces have fit together surprisingly well, confirming or refuting many prior suspicions I had. We now know who Umbra is, how she was created, what her motivations are, where Twilight Sparkle fits into all this, and the true fate of Equestria. Quite a satisfying chapter if I do say so myself.

However, a few questions still remain: What, exactly, are the statues? How did they come to life? Why did they come to life? What part do the elements play into this? Did Twilight find her friends' souls and put them in the statues-- as she seemed to have dabbled in soul magic while creating Umbra -- or are they purely constructs of magic with her friends' memories gained from some complicated time-scurrying magic?

And just what is Discord's stake in all this? Is he truly Cash, but broken from the lack of magic, or is he in hiding and using Cash as a puppet because he is weak from the schism? If he is in fact weak or broken, is he planning on using Cash to activate the elements, restoring magic to the cracked and shattered world, or something more sinister?

Anyway, this chapter is amazing, this story phenomenal, and your world-building is simply exceptional. I truly cannot wait to see where you take us next on this riveting ride!

[Blaster M]

Well, that's a big reveal. I had this pinned down way back in the storm confrontation.

As for the Changelings, I was hoping to see a post-S6 tie-in, considering how well the fic seems to stay updated despite the timegaps. Like, did the Schism cook away their ability to generate love? Did Chrysalis come back and retake the hive before then? Easy ways to explain how the Changelings became parasitic again.

[Gildomar]

And this is what happens when an Ozymandias gambit veers off path. Interesting to see, because the few stories/movies/etc. that I've come across that have tried it have always worked.

Corona getting her cutie mark was a nice heartwarming moment though.

[cheesegal]

This was a great chapter. It was nice to get some back story about umbra
I'm still confused about what happened to cadence and flurry heart though, shouldn't they also be immortal?

[mrk]

Wonderful! Things begin to come into focus.

[Crack-Fic Casey]

I just want to point out this was started sometime around season two and it's still cannon-compliant.

[Mr-DenDen]

Going to try to call it: Max Cash is either a part of Discord OR Discord himself

[Bobby23]

Great chapter, see you for the next one.

[MLai]

7830895
Of all the things this Alt Univ story does to the MLP setting, it's the contention that Cadence is a pseudo-alicorn that finally gets your goat? Really?

I can still remember the outrage over the introduction of Cadence. Ppl wanted to do much more to her than just take away her alicorn immortality.

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

7834598 It's part of it. Frankly Cadance being Umbra would be a better choice then Twilight splittting herself. It would tie with Sombra, show another error in what Twilight had planned, would still care for the Royal Family and Umbra's twisted mark match hers.

[Cherry delight]

Noooooooooo
I've FINISHED THE CHAPTER
NOOOOOOOOO
but seriously
Love it

[Twisted Entertainment]

So. One of the biggest questions of this fanfic will finally be addressed.

"Where is Discord?"

I started reading this a year ago, and since then it has kept getting better. I SO look forward to what you have planned for the next chapter.

[Lurks-no-More]

7837235
Personally, I believe that Max Cash is, maybe, an attempt by a pony to remake himself into Discord. Or perhaps something that's to Discord what Umbra/Corona are to Twilight, tapping into the Elements. Or something weirder; perhaps a manifestation of the Elements themselves, which if we're to believe Twilight's ramblings in Harmony Theory, are a lot more powerful and sinister than they seem.

Whatever he is, he's clearly working for, by, through or with disharmony, which might actually be the power behind the Elements. After a thousand years of more or less peace, Nightmare Moon comes back, the Mane Six pick up the Elements, and suddenly the world is awash with monsters and villains and strange threats again.

[kihutaja]

From the prologue:

"Do not say [Discord's] name," [Luna] hissed. "He should not be given the honor of such recognition."

"His name is a concept, Luna. I can't very well ban it," Celestia chided, careful to keep her voice neutral.

Looks like Celestia was wrong...

[Gildomar]

Just reread the story (again), with parts in some chapters more clear now with this info, like the parts where Umbra was in Ponyville.

Also, I find it interesting that Cash is unintentionally doing what Umbra and Corona have been trying to do for centuries: uniting the two sides to deal with a monumental threat. Umbra probably wouldn't be too pleased if that was pointed out, since that's what she's supposed to do.

[Madd the Sane]

7832993 Cadence, at least, was a winged unicorn, not a true alicorn. As for Flurry Heart: she could just be a very powerful winged unicorn (Celestia has been known to be wrong before).

[son_of_heaven176]

7830895 why not? With almost every good pony fic I find, you're in the comments. What's turning you off here? Cadence?

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

7842842 yeah and the reveal on who Umbra is. An Alicorn Cadence would fit better in that role. Oh and the reason Tia and luna quit.

[Derpmind]

I've never liked these kinds of backstories. I still think this chapter is excellent, and I did enjoy reading it, but this kind of backstory just never sits right with me. Whether it's characters I know or ones who only show up on screen long enough to set the stage, it always seems like the instigators back themselves up into a corner of their own making, and then choose the worst possible way out. "Stay completely on the sidelines or become a mass murderer" is a patently false dichotomy, but even just the inaction or failures that would let the situation get so dire in the first place is hard to swallow. But that's just me complaining about the type, and not really about this chapter or this story. This is very suitably Epic and all that stuff, so good job with it.

[son_of_heaven176]

7832302 Ozymandias gambit? What's that?

[Sharaloth]

7843311 Ozymandias, a character from the comic book 'Watchmen', basically tried the same thing that Twilight does here. Russia and the US were on a seemingly-inevitable course to world war, so he created an otherworldly threat that would force them to work together, or at the very least turn away from fighting each other. Whether it worked or not is up for debate.

[Gildomar]

7843311 Yeah, what Sharaloth said. I definitely recommend the comic, given it's a great deconstruction of the superhero genre, especially as it relates to politics, psychology, and societal problems. There's a reason that it appears on Time's list of the 100 greatest novels of the 20th century.

[son_of_heaven176]

7843321 Oh. Thanks.

[Silentwoodfire]

If HE gets involved, it's going to get heavy.

[Peridance Glow]

I usually don't read the actual chapters because I'm a weirdo whose really only interested in the book Twilight wrote but damn, am I glad I read this one. That was a Fucking epic backstory bomb!

[Booster Spice]

Does this mean that a Dragon without ambient magical field that only eatsmeat and no magic gems would themselves lose all mgical abilities, such as fire breath, intelligence, and life? As in, Spikes a thousand years old. Stops eating gems and he rapidly becomes a thousand year old normal being, which isnt usually condusive for health?

[cheesegal]

7846502 a fellow cheese lover! hi!

[Longtooth]

7860197
To be fair, the first mention of a 'missing juvenile dragon' is way back in Chapter 8. It was even treated as important enough that the King himself called a council meeting for it. There are other references to Boomer throughout the intervening chapters, as well. Including Cash asking his henchmen about their 'little passenger', who they were keeping sedated. It's not like Boomer wasn't forshadowed, the author clearly had this planned and was setting it up for some time.

While I agree that it would have been cool to watch Cash slowly corrupt Boomer, I don't think the pacing of the story would have allowed it. Also, this way he basically just kidnapped a kid of the right age and disposition, drugged him up, then preyed on his instincts. It speaks to how callous Cash is with the lives of others.

I think Boomer's appearance and demise was supposed to be as much a shock to us as it is to Spike, but it certainly wasn't an asspull. The signs were all there, but we, like the characters, just didn't put them together.