• Published 30th Dec 2011
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Human - DannyJ



The Human of legend has been released, and the Brotherhood makes its move.

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Chapter 26: Spirit of Harmony

"But the princesses had mercy, and the spiders were so few, and so pitiful. Their way of life already destroyed, the home they once knew gone, and their two attempts and taking a new one both foiled. Though they had done terrible things, the spiders were desperate, and only wanted some place in this world to live.

Princess Celestia looked down at these poor creatures, and showed them kindness. She took them far north, to the mountains, knowing that the prejudices of ponies after the war would lead to them being hunted down, were she to give them asylum in Equestria, and the general public was informed, for the most part, that the Legion had been eradicated completely.

Let this record show the truth of what really happened, so that when Equestria is ready to forgive, and let the spiders back into their country with open arms, that they can learn not of the cruelty and ruthlessness of their princesses that led to spider genocide, as the censored history books will let you believe, but of their mercy and kindness, that gave even Equestria's enemies a second chance.

Because there are always better alternatives than death and war."

-Princesses' mercy, extract from The Truth of the Spider Legion, by Cpt. Shining Armor, all copies currently held in Canterlot Royal Archives Vault 4K.

***

"Morning, Chains!" Gold Coin said cheerfully, "After last night, I'm feeling refreshed. Did you sleep well? What about Sliske? I'm assuming she was with you all night."

Chain Mail grumbled.

"She was. And I caught herpes."

"...What?"

The captain continued on past Gold Coin, leaving the business pony to just stare at him in confusion as he left.

"No way..." he said to himself, "He didn't...I hope he didn't..."

He was beginning to feel a little ill.

"Ewww...Chains...Why would you even?"

***

"Seriously!" Gold Coin insisted, "I swear it's true! Chain Mail and Sliske fucked and she gave him herpes!"

Soft Spoken laid back on his bed in the doctor's office and shivered.

"I always knew there was something off about that captain...Damn creepy xenophile..."

Dr. Cornelius walked over to them.

"Everything checks out," he said, "You're free to go, Mister Spoken. Just try not to get yourself hurt again too soon. That armour's medical systems are rather badly damaged, and they were hardly miracle workers to begin with."

"Thank you, doctor."

The lab coated spider watched the two of them closely as they left.

***

"No, I mean it!" Dr. Cornelius whispered, "The alien and your captain were screwing all night. At least that's what I heard. She's got a demon's body now! An infected one! That's just plain unhealthy."

Luna blanched.

"Why did you feel the need to share that?" she groaned, "Doctor-patient confidentiality used to mean something..."

"Thank you for your concern, doctor. Don't worry about a thing. We'll sort it out," Celestia promised.

Dr. Cornelius nodded, and then scuttled out the room again.

"...What are we supposed to do?" the older sister asked.

"Don't look at me!" Luna replied, "I have no experience in cross-species relationships! Ask Spike."

***

"Really? That's messed up," Spike commented, "And before you say anything, princess, it was totally different with me and Rarity, because I am not a diseased demon space ghost. And I never actually did anything with her. Much as I would have liked to."

"Shhh!" Celestia replied, looking over her shoulder at the rest of the snow covered village, "Don't say stuff like that too loud! I don't want to it to get around that Chain Mail and Sliske are doing it!"

"What was that princess?" asked Spike, "I can't hear you over the wind!"

"I SAID I DON'T WANT IT TO GET AROUND THAT CHAIN MAIL AND SLISKE ARE DOING IT!"

Explodey walked out from behind a nearby building, and gave them an odd look.

"Chain Mail and Sliske are doing it? Good for them! Never knew they had it in them!"

***

"Explodey?"

The unicorn looked down to see Mystic Chant in his way.

"Oh, hi Mystic!" he said cheerfully, "Have you packed up yet? Arcelio says we might be staying the night at the monastery!"

"Yeah, but I wanted to ask you a question. A few of the spiders were saying that Mr. Chain Mail and Sliske were 'doing it'. What does that mean?"

"Well, I'm glad you asked! Has your father given you the talk about how foals are made yet?"

"My school did," Mystic recalled.

"Well it's that!"

"Oh."

The colt was rather under whelmed.

"And Mr. Chain Mail and Sliske are doing that?"

"Yep!"

Mystic raised an eyebrow.

This requires additional research.

***

"MR. CHAIN MAIL!" Mystic shouted as he walked into the bunk, "IS IT TRUE YOU AND SLISKE ARE GOING TO HAVE A FOAL?!"

A vein popped on the captain's forehead.

"Fuck my life..."

***

Second tried to open his eyes. Unfortunately, one of them would not, that being his organic eye. His artificial one was still functioning, at least so far as he could see out of it, but even that he couldn't really look around with. There was something covering his face too, and he found himself unable to breathe.

Damn it...

He grabbed at his face and pulled. It was painful, but seconds later he ripped off a mass of melted pink plastic that used to be his mask. It made him look...human, again. Now it was gone.

His skin was screaming at him, but the pain stopped quickly enough. His healing factor took care of it, repairing the damage, at least up until he was only as wounded as he always was since the zombie serum was injected. The burns from the Mages' Guild would never go away, so long as he carried the plague to help him command the zombies.

The zombies which weren't even around anymore, and pretty much functioned independently. He was beginning to think zombifying himself was a stupid idea.

"Where am I?" he muttered.

Well, by the looks of it, a burned out laboratory.

That's when it came back to him. Anger. The battle. Blackspire Research. He had set the place on fire with his mutated blood in an attempt to kill the phantom that menaced him. Looking just to his right at a roughly humanoid corpse, charred and black, he smiled.

"Now where are the others...?"

He pulled himself back to his proper height and strode through the hole in the wall. In the room beyond, he found yet more fire damage, suggesting it had spread. The bodies of the Four Horses were not present, while Anger's still was. And no-one had bothered to wake him. So that ruled out a team coming in here to collect bodies. The Four Horses probably got out okay.

Commander Steroid Abuser was less lucky, as evidenced when Second nearly tripped over his severed head.

"Ewwwww..."

He backed away from the remains of the commander, and his foot clanged against something metal. He turned around and looked down at it, seeing a suit of warped power armour lying before him. Its occupant had not worn a helmet, so he could clearly see the skinless, blackened skull of the mare who'd once worn it, limply resting on the floor.

Second sighed.

"Silver..."

There was a moment of silence. He just stared down at the dead mare, still in her armour.

Then he frowned and kicked it.

"Silver! Stop sleeping on the job!

He bent down and placed two fingers on the skull. Immediately, a speck of red appeared where he had touched it, and it spread out across the skull, growing into flesh, which then grew skin and a coat over the top, forming a pony head. The head immediately sprouted a long white mane before opening its eyes.

Silver sucked in a deep breath of air, as if she had just surfaced after nearly drowning. She stared around her in bewilderment.

"What happened?! Where am I?!" she shouted.

"Where you are, is Blackspire Research, where SOMEONE, not naming any names here, decided to selfishly go die on me, and leave me to fight the personification of my own anger all alone. I had to burn down the fucking lab! I had melted plastic dry on my face! My robot eye is malfunctioning! And then along came you, little miss 'oh look at me, I'm going to sacrifice my own life to protect an immortal superpowered deity and it'll be all poignant and shit', with your useless power armour and your ability to intercept incoming sharp objects! Real fucking good work there!"

Silver stared up at him.

"Hey, sir? FUCK YOU. If you just brought me back to shout at me some more, then I'd rather just stay dead! At least then I got some peace!"

She laid her head back down on the floor and simmered angrily.

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you? Did you ever think about me down here though? Surrounded by these fucking yokels pretending to be civilised! Do you want to know why I don't just bring back every single one of my dead soldiers like I just did to you?"

Silver looked over to him again.

"Because they're all completely drop-dead retarded! They get killed by the fucking hundreds, because they're useless! And idiots like that deserve to stay dead! And if their own idiocy doesn't kill them, then it falls to me to do Charles Darwin's job for him, like in the hotel with Water Treatment! You are one, single, solitary pony I've met so far with any degree of competency or value, at least who's on my side. Do NOT go getting yourself killed for stupid reasons, and that's an order!"

The pegasus tried to think of something to say, but Second was already storming out the lab again. She struggled to try and get up, but the power armour's systems had failed. Without the appropriate programs running, this armour was impossible to move in without a significant degree of effort. It was a chore to even take it off like this.

Her mane fell in front of her eyes. She tried to blow it out the way, but then looked more closely at it.

"Why is my mane white now?!" she called out.

Second walked back into the room, this time carrying a giant knife.

"Wasn't it always white?"

He knelt down next to her and stuck the knife in the armour. It pierced surprisingly easy, but stopped short of Silver herself. He began to cut the armour open.

"No! It wasn't!"

"Then what colour was it?"

When the cut was large enough, Second stuck his fingers between the two halves and wrenched the metal apart, tearing the upper part of the armour off and freeing Silver to move some more.

"Are you seriously telling me you don't remember what colour my mane was?!"

"I really wasn't paying attention. A lot of stuff's been happening, in case you didn't notice."

"Why did you make my mane white?!"

"That's what I thought it was! Shut up! If you don't like it white then you can dye it!"

Enough of the power armour was ripped off now that Silver could crawl out of what remained of it. She looked herself over for any more differences in physiology, because apparently Second recreated her body from memory rather than what she was actually like. She was glad he got the cutie mark right at least. Coat was still the same too.

"...Did I always have muscles like that?" she asked.

"I don't know," said Second, "Ask Thug Lyfe. I'm sure he'd be able to tell you."

He tossed the knife over his shoulder and began strolling around the room again. Silver followed him with her eyes.

"...Sir, about Thug Lyfe-"

"Not now, Silver."

The human reached down and pulled two damaged weapons from underneath some wreckage, the flail that War had used and the scythe belonging to Death. He tossed the flail over to her, and she caught it by the handle in her teeth.

"First thing's first. When Anger attacked he came busting out of a vault that no-one knew about, and before I killed him he was raving about Project Atom or some such. We need to see what's in there."

***

"Morning," Chain Mail said curtly as he stepped into line with his friends.

Legionnaire Arcelio stood in front of them. They were just waiting on the princesses now. Normally the captain was the one to lead the others ahead, but this time he, his friends, and the princesses were the ones waiting to be escorted, so he just stood besides Soft Spoken at the end of the line and looked around him distantly.

His friend was staring at him. Chain Mail noticed, and looked the old stallion in the eyes.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing," Softy replied.

"It must be something. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Hey, I'm not looking at you," Softy said defensively, "Certainly not judging you either, no siree."

Chain Mail advanced on him.

"If you have something to say, grandpa, say it."

"I heard about your herpes."

"Please tell me you-"

"And also about relations with certain nameless demonic alien mares."

The white earth pony groaned.

"I am never going to live this down, am I?" he muttered, "SLISKE!"

"What?"

The dark mare who had been standing at the other end of the line trotted over to their end. The others all looked on curiously too.

"Could you please tell Softy that we didn't sleep together, and that you didn't give me herpes?"

Sliske raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, Chain Mail is right. I'm not the one who gave him herpes."

"But he does have herpes, right?" asked Gold Coin, inserting himself into the conversation.

"Yes. Yes he does."

Chain Mail tried to speak up to explain himself, but Mystic interrupted.

"Did he give you herpes? "

"Hmm..." Sliske replied, "I don't think so."

"You don't think so", Explodey prodded, "But it's a possibility?"

"Lots of things are possibilities. Unlikely, but still possible. I certainly would be upset if Chains did give me something."

Chain Mail felt betrayed.

"Guys-" he began.

"So you did sleep together?" said Gold Coin.

"I never said that," Sliske answered.

"Look, you don't have to lie to us," said Softy, "As damn creepy as that is, I have seen worse."

"What's wrong with their relationship?" asked Explodey.

Gold Coin snorted.

"You mean aside from the fact that one of them's not even a pony, but some inequine thing that just sort of...looks...like one..."

Explodey didn't change his expression. Gold Coin blinked.

"Okay. Point taken."

"I AM NOT SLEEPING WITH SLISKE!" Chain Mail shouted, blushing deeply, "SLISKE, TELL THEM!"

"Yes, dear. Chain Mail is not sleeping with me."

Explodey grabbed Chain Mail and pulled him into a hug that would have choked the captain to death if he still needed oxygen to live.

And yes, he did this in spite of the armour.

"IT'S OKAY, CAPPY!" he shouted over the wind, "YOU'RE WITH FRIENDS NOW! FRIENDS WHO WON'T JUDGE YOU FOR YOUR BIZARRE TASTE IN MARES!"

Regardless of the fact he didn't need air, Chain Mail still found it unpleasant to be without, and was gasping for breath and kicking about, trying to throw the unicorn off.

"Let me go, Explodey, you fucking jackass!"

Chain Mail stood up on his hind legs and began walking backwards, while Explodey clung to his neck and swung back and forth from it like a pendulum. They nearly both fell over, but they were caught in a soft, golden glow.

Princess Celestia's magic pulled them both apart and floated them besides each other in the air. The captain fidgeted awkwardly, while Explodey hung upside down in the magical field and looked up at her.

"What is going on here?" Luna asked as she came up the steps behind her sister too.

"Oh, just a good old scuffle between friends, your majesty!" said Arcelio as he approached, "Have you brought along the elements?"

Luna gestured to a pair of saddlebags she was carrying. With her magic, she opened them up and floated out four stone balls and one golden necklace with a gem shaped like Gold Coin's cutie mark.

"Very good! We're all here now by the looks of it too! If you're ready, it's time we made our way up to the monastery! The Harmonites await!"

***

The vault turned out to be a giant freezer. Oh sure, there was lab equipment and terminals and tables and chairs underneath the ice. But that was it; everything was covered in ice. Like none of it was relevant.

The thing with the most prominence though was undoubtedly the shivering green unicorn with the blue mane, strapped to a giant metal table to the left side of the room. His eyes were darting back and forth, and his breath was visible in the air. He noticed them.

"H-h-h-help me..."

Second looked down at him curiously. His eyes searched for the pony's cutie mark, half expecting it to be a map with a pin in it, and the other half expecting it to be a number three in French script. Instead, he found a radiation hazard symbol.

"Who are you?" he asked.

The pony closed his eyes and winced, giving the impression that he was desperately trying to remember.

"N-Nuclear Anomaly!" he answered, loudly, "C-Can you g-get me out? It's f-f-freezing in here!"

The human remained wary, but nevertheless, a quick wave of his hand released the pony from his shackles, and Nuclear Anomaly rolled sideways off the table.

"Now that I've released you, I want some answers. Where did you come from, and what are you doing here?"

The unicorn nodded, and crawled back onto his hooves again. He began to explain as he slowly limped towards the vault exit, his rescuers just behind him.

"I-I was b-b-born in this vault, s-several days ago. I th-think I'm cloned from s-somepony, but I don't know who. That red m-monster. He was m-my guard."

They had crossed the threshold back into the empty room outside the vault door. Finally out of the cold, Nuclear Anomaly collapsed back onto his knees, and rolled over onto his side.

"He wasn't...the one who made me...though..."

Second stood over the pony and looked down at him with concern.

"Who made you then?"

"It was...some kind of...mutated human, I guess? He was a bit like you...but he was short, and green, and he had these pointy ears, and he-"

"Creativity."

Second turned away from the unicorn and threw his arms up in the air.

"FUCK!"

He slammed a fist into the closest wall, smashing right through it. He leaned up against that same wall as he groaned.

"Why? Why can't I catch a break? All I want is to work on my super secret project in peace. I want to get to work on Pandora! Why do these people keep making my life difficult?"

He pulled his fist out of the wall, and turned again to lean his back against it as he slid to the floor.

"These Pantheon dickheads won't stop until I'm tearing my own hair out..."

He buried his face in his hands and laid there against the wall. Nuclear Anomaly continued to shiver by himself on the other side of the room.

Silver shrugged, and went over to her boss to comfort him.

"Are you okay, sir?"

"No, I'm not. Because I know, sooner or later, that I'm going to have to confront Creativity. And he..."

Second pulled his hands away from his face, and tilted his head back. A look of slow realization crossed his features, gradually moving into horror and fear.

"He called me..."

Now Silver was worried too.

"What did who call you sir?"

"He called me Howard! Sexuality did it first. They addressed me by first name. And...even though they were working for the Pantheon...it was Conscience and Ambition who first suggested to me the idea that there was a meta narrative. And then my brother..."

Second stood up again.

"I've been a fool."

"Sir, what's wrong?"

"Layers, Silver! This meta thing goes deeper than I thought. There are far more layers of meta fiction within meta fiction. The core movie, about me versus the Elements of Harmony. Then the meta movie, made by the new Studio B, explaining me as an animator for the original show who got stuck here, but which never mentions me by name according to my brother. This is the level that hallucinations are acting upon. They're characters in this meta movie..."

He turned to Silver, and began to smile.

"But there's a third. This story about the Pantheon of B making a meta movie, my brother coming to warn me, and the hallucinations addressing me by my real name and initially suggesting the possibility of a meta narrative when they would all be part of that meta narrative are all indicative of a third layer of meta fiction. There are at least two fake versions of the Pantheon of B, both lower on the hierarchy than whatever is controlling them..."

Silver blinked.

"Well...then what are we going to do about it, sir?"

"I'll tell you what we're going to do, Silver. We're going to keep digging. I will stop at nothing to find the big boss responsible for all this. And when I meet the highest authority, I am going to kill them."

***

The ponies could not help but admire the architecture as they entered the grand monastery of the Harmonites, and looked at the large open hall before them. Celestia had called it a repurposed temple of demon worship, built by the heathens of long ago. Now, it was home to the elusive spiders, the very last of their kind, studying and learning in secret, of the values of friendship and harmony.

On the walls, there were carvings. It was clear from the way it was cut that there were once different murals underneath, likely those of the demon worshiping builders of the temple, but they had been smoothed over by the new residents and changed into different images.

Arcelio bowed, and went ahead to fetch the monks. The princesses idly stood in the middle of the room, as did Mystic Chant, but the rest all were drawn to the murals on the walls of the grand hall.

Soft Spoken and Chain Mail stood side by side as they looked upon an elaborate carving depicting the original war between Equestria and the Legion. On the left side of the mural, one could see a volcano, and a great demonic beast trapped within it, as villages of spiders gathered around the base, farming and hunting animals.

Moving right, the volcano could be seen erupting, and the villages dropping dead. Demons crawled out, and the spiders could be seen taking to longboats and moving across the ocean. Around the middle of the mural, they land on Equestrian shores, and one odd image depicted demons and spiders fighting side by side against the ponies.

Gold Coin meanwhile stood on the other side of the room, looking at a different one. This carving didn't depict a series of events or tell a narrative, but was instead one static image, of a pair of rainbows forming a double helix and rising up to the moon, while six spiders and six demons stood at the bottom of it on a rocky island, in the centre of a raging storm in the middle of the ocean.

Explodey and Sliske though had found the most interesting image, depicting an army of spiders, Atlanteans and changelings under attack from some almost indescribable monstrosity that took up half the picture. And in the middle of it all, facing the diverse crowd of creatures, a human riding on the back of a dark alicorn, drawing his arm back as if preparing to whip them with the long metal chain trailing through the air behind him.

Sliske noticed words beneath the carving, and pointed them out to Explodey excitedly. They both bent down to get a better view of it, and backed away to get better light. It was in Equestrian, but the script style was ancient. It was a title for the carving;

"The Rider and the Four Armies..."

The ponies all turned around suddenly at the sound of the new voice. Standing at the far end of the great hall were six relatively small spiders covered in robes of grey or faint blue. The lead spider's robes were actually purple.

"What you all see on these walls, is the story of the old Legion, and how the Harmonites came to be."

The ponies gradually returned to the centre of the room where Celestia and Luna had been standing, as the rest of the spiders moved across the great hall to meet them.

"Long ago..." the head continued, "There was an eruption. The Great Eruption, it was known as. Our homelands to the west, mighty Arachnia, had been a home to billions. But the spiders are a dark people. We have evil in our souls. We are not born good, and corrupted, as ponies are. We are born to murder and destroy, and we must overcome our own natures to become better. The demons, they know this. It's why we are so susceptible to possession. Our hearts are more open to that darkness than most. And in Arachnia, we fought long, bloody wars against the demons."

The two groups finally came face to face, and the ponies could see the spider elders up close. The old spider in the purple robes smiled.

"Eons ago, the spiders learned that you needed good to conquer evil, but the problem was, that we were never that good ourselves. It wasn't light and dark in our war, it was all shades of grey. But the early spiders did not believe that there could only be evil in the world.

"They searched all of the kingdom, and all their neighbouring kingdoms, and brought together those purest of heart and those most virtuous of spirit. The original Elements of Harmony, who ended the war in favour of the spiders, and put an end to the darkness in our lands, by trapping the monster who menaced us in the volcano. And thus ended the reign of the demon king Beelzebub, who would later be succeeded by Tirac."

"But there was the eruption, wasn't there?" asked Gold Coin, "Arachnia was destroyed."

The Harmonite nodded.

"The demon kings have a strict line of succession. A new leader is chosen when they destroy the previous one. Beelzebub himself took power by slaying Lucifer, who came before. The demon king had the most power. But Tirac stole that power by destroying him, which he did by erupting the volcano that we had imprisoned our enemy within, and taking the land of the spiders with it. After his defeat in the Eclipse Crisis, Tirac could have been succeeded by another, younger demon as well, had they been able to kill him. The fact that he is still their leader proves that any would-be challengers must have failed, though we do suspect that Qramstarflokrinhir may one day take his throne."

"So your country was destroyed...and you went to war with Equestria?" said Soft Spoken.

"To find a new home, correct. The demons had not even been intending to wipe us out. We were collateral damage, in the demons' own civil war. But we had lost everything regardless. Our spirits were weak, and we were desperate, and we allowed our inner darkness to overcome us thanks to that. The Legion did a terrible thing, fighting the Equestrians of long ago. And worse than that, the tidal destruction."

"Moving the moon," Chain Mail clarified.

"Indeed. The images you see on the walls, of the demons fighting with the spiders, is metaphorical. It represents how the Legion of the time surrendered to their darker sides, and put to use their knowledge of Harmony to create its inverse. For we knew, that although we needed the purity of true Harmony to fight demons, mortals were another matter. We drew on our own inner darkness that we had allowed to fester, and channelled their power into five necklaces and one crown, cast from platinum, to create Harmony's darker twin."

The other spiders behind the leader looked visibly uncomfortable as he described them.

"Deception, Treachery, Cruelty, Greed, Misery, and the sum of all of them, Death. Together, they formed the Elements of Conquest. Unlike precious Harmony, where magic grew from friendship and virtue, the derivatives we crafted fed on our darkness. And by then, our inner darkness had run so rampant, that we were a force to be reckoned with. In one fell swoop, the moon was pulled out of its regular orbit, the ocean tides went wild, and we had wiped out your coastline. And thus began our war."

"And how, after all that, did anypony let your ancestors get away alive?" asked Gold Coin, "All the history books say that your people were wiped out in a barrage of dragon fire for your crimes."

"We showed mercy."

Everypony looked to Celestia.

"The war continued for two years after their initial appearance, that's true. But it didn't end in a needless slaughter. When the spiders were beaten back, at their most vulnerable, their leaders finally overthrown and most of their remaining military helpless, we said 'stop'. Me, and my sister, and Twilight, and her friends. We realized we had to better than them. Most of all though, it was Fluttershy that brought us to our senses. She told us that we were supposed to be good, and that everyone deserved a second chance."

"And a second chance we were given," the Harmonite said, "Even after all that, the princesses here took us north, took us to this mountain, once home to worshippers of the very demons that had tried to destroy us. We cleansed it, and settled here.

"It was our second chance, and the mercy we were shown inspired us. We were reminded of what we were before. Of how it was our good sides that helped us against the demons, not the darkness we tried to weaponize in our war against the ponies. The Harmonites were born, making our home in the monastery here, and we spent one thousand years in this snowy land seeking our redemption, and trying to reconnect with that side of ourselves."

The ponies found that they had nothing to really say to that. It was that awkward period of silence, as the two sides just stood there, neither saying anything, that Explodey decided to interrupt.

"Where did Arcelio go?"

"He wanted to make a dramatic re-entrance," said one of the Harmonites at the back.

"...What?"

"You'll see."

And indeed they did. At the far end of the hall where the Harmonites had emerged from, so too did Arcelio, now covered in dark grey armour all over, instead of just his main body. He stood on his four back legs, so that they could see a red cape trailing down behind him. He walked slowly, and deliberately over to them, the metal of his armour clanking on the stone with every step, and dropped back onto all eights as he stood before them.

The lead Harmonite sighed.

"Might I introduce High General Arcelio, leader of the Spider Legion..."

"Yes, we've met," Gold Coin replied, uninterested.

Only a slight portion of Arcelio's face could be seen, but he was clearly offended.

"Aren't you the least bit impressed?" he asked, "I have secretly been the head of the entire Legion this whole time!"

"Not really," Gold Coin answered, "The village is just as small as before, and we're here to see the Harmonites, not your legion, so you're not really that much more important to us than when you were just our escort."

Arcelio spluttered.

"I- But- Wasn't the reveal at least a little surprising?"

"No. I think it's actually rather stupid and contrived. Why did you feel the need to hide this from us again?"

"Because-"

"Come to think of it, if your weird spider religion is all about learning the virtues of the elements of harmony, then isn't this in breach of that? You know, being a deceptive act, and everything? Doesn't seem very honest."

"And that's why the high general is not an official Harmonite monk," the purple robed spider said quietly.

And that's how Gold Coin, corporate executive and regular earth pony, made the high general of the Spider Legion cry.

***

The Four Horses of the Apocalypse were all laying in their beds in the infirmary of Blackspire Research, on the bottom floor of the building. They laid in a row before Second, all still unconscious from the beating they had received at the hands of Anger the previous night.

A unicorn doctor was reading data from a clipboard at the foot of War's bed, while another was reapplying the safety spell to prevent him setting his own bed on fire with his mane.

"Are we ready yet?" Second called.

"Yes, sir."

The human turned back to the bed behind him, where Nuclear Anomaly laid, wrapped up in blankets. Three other doctors were gathered around him, two of them talking to each other about the tests while levitating their own clipboards, and another adjusting some monitoring equipment in preparation for hooking it up to their newest patient.

"We'll soon get to the bottom of this," the head doctor to Second's left promised, "Just need a small blood sample, and we can run it against the database and find who our friend here was cloned from."

The human nodded, and the doctor pulled a syringe and trotted up to the bed. The other three moved aside to make room. To Second's right, Silver watched in morbid curiosity as well.

"This won't hurt a bit," the doctor assured, "Just please try not to struggle for me, okay?"

Nuclear Anomaly nodded in understanding.

"Good."

He tensed as the needle pierced his foreleg, just by his shoulder. There was an ominous sizzling sound.

"...That doesn't sound good," the unicorn said, frowning.

He tried to remove the blood sample, but that turned out to be a mistake. The syringe filled with a glowing green liquid, and it instantly melted through the plastic and began to spill on the floor. Without coming into contact with wood, nothing set on fire this time, but it still made that hissing, sizzling noise and let off fumes.

The doctor stood completely still, staring down at it. Had he not been holding that with his magic, he could have melted his face or hooves off. Second meanwhile looked down at the substance too, and then held up his own forearm to stare at the slightly green veins he could see in his wrist.

"...We're gonna need a bigger lab."

***

"...I won't lie, ponies, these next few days will be the most gruelling of your entire lives."

"I doubt that," Softy muttered.

The spiders had led them out of the spacious entrance hall, and the group were now following them through a series of dark, candlelit corridors. The ceiling was really high, and every few steps or so they'd pass a small alcove where the spiders had stored some sacks or crates, or in one instance a giant vase full of grain.

"We speak only the truth," the head Harmonite continued, "These exercises will kick your ass and make you cry for your mothers. But if you can survive them, if you can endure, then you will become something much more than mere mortals."

They emerged into another hall. This one was small, about the size of the barracks they had stayed in last night. The most interesting feature of the room was that in the middle of it, a semicircle of six plastic folding chairs awaited them. They were all facing a small wooden podium and an easel holding a giant pad of paper. The front page of it read "QUALITIES".

"Please, everypony take a seat," said one of the lesser Harmonites as the others all stood behind a different chair, sans the lead spider who stood by the easel.

Gold Coin looked around warily as he took his place.

"Is this our training? Or is this an Alcoholics Anonymous meet?"

"Ahem. I believe it is time that formal introductions were made."

The purple robed spider scuttled up to the podium to speak to the ponies.

"My name is Elder Agostinho. The five other Harmonites in the room with us, going from my left to my right around the circle of chairs, are Cassian, Quintillus, Julius, Regulus, and Seneca. You may recognise Seneca as the one who led the exorcism the previous day, and Julius and Quintillus as the two who assisted him."

"So..." Chain Mail said awkwardly, "What are we doing?"

"TRAINING!" Agostinho bellowed, "You six are the foulest, most gutter-mouthed, argumentative, mean-spirited, self-loathing, dysfunctional group of idiots that the elements of harmony have ever chosen as their avatars. Oh, you'll use them, because they've chosen you. But you need to be friends for that to work. Proper friends. And before you can become friends, you have to start with actually liking each other."

He gestured to the easel.

"So let's start with some positives. Each one of you must list one good trait about Gold Coin. Starting now."

"What?" the yellow earth pony said, taken by surprise.

"Mr. Spoken, you first!" the elder urged, "One good thing about Gold Coin!"

"Ummm..." the old stallion struggled, "Uh...He...He makes for a good debate. I can have a disagreement with him, and he can defend his views."

Gold Coin gave him an odd look.

"That's good," said Agostinho, "Mystic?"

"He saved me when my dad went crazy..." the unicorn mumbled.

The Harmonite looked to Explodey now.

"He can be understanding at times. When he's not shouting at or insulting everypony, he sometimes has some good advice."

"Well..." Gold Coin began.

"Great! Sliske?"

"He killed an alicorn."

"Doesn't count," said the Harmonite behind Sliske's chair.

"Okay...Uhh...Let's see...Well, to be fair to him, when he found out that the god that his mysterious evil cult worshipped was, in fact, evil, he seemed to take it pretty well."

Gold Coin glared at Sliske, who shrugged nonchalantly. As Chain Mail was the only one left, he decided to give his answer.

"Gold Coin is very committed to his morality and the greater good," he pointed out, "His entire reason for helping the Brotherhood originally was that he thought it'd be best for Equestria, and when that turned out to not be the case, he was immediately willing to fight against Second."

Agostinho nodded sagely.

"Now," he said solemnly, "In the same order, each of you list out a negative trait of Gold Coin's."

"You're so stupid that you couldn't tell that history's greatest monster wasn't actually a messiah."

"You sweat all the time, and smell bad."

"You're extremely unattractive, and have a terrible physique for your age and racial background."

"You shout, scream, and yell obscenities at the most inappropriate times."

"You're a douche and nopony likes you."

Gold Coin stared at the other five, shocked by the sheer speed of how quickly they came up with all that.

"I...You..." he spluttered, "Fuck you guys too!"

The elder sighed.

"We've got a lot of work to do..."

***

"SAMPLE STABALISED," the synthetic voice of the supercomputer reported, "HUMAN DNA ACQUIRED."

A large transparent beaker almost the size of Second himself sat on the table in front of him and the other researchers. Inside, a single drop of green blood that the human had donated had now expanded to encompass half the container, and was thrashing about violently inside, almost as if alive and trying to smash its way out.

Tubes and testing equipment were attached to the beaker and its lid. Most led back to the supercomputer attached to the wall behind them, which was now displaying all manner of graphs, charts, diagrams, figures and research articles it was pulling up copies of to consult.

On the table right next to it, an identical beaker with identical monitoring equipment was hooked up to an identical supercomputer on the opposite wall. That one contained a blood sample not from Second, but from Nuclear Anomaly. From looking at it, you would never have been able to tell.

"Sir?" said Silver, "I'm completely lost. What's going on here again?"

"Shit's fucked up and weird, so we gots to 'splain it with science."

There really was no response to a sentence like that.

"All ready?!" shouted the assigned leader of the research team, "And...Synchronise!"

The supercomputers both started pulling up data from each other. Graphs were ran against graphs, figures against figures, and all test data was compared, analysed, and speculated on in the span of minutes.

Then, the words came up on both screens in all red capital letters, as the synthetic voice read them out in case of blindness or illiteracy.

"FORTY THREE PERCENT MATCH."

Second slapped his own forehead.

"As the exasperated porn director said to the racist unicorn actor, fuck this gay earth."

***

"Honesty exercises will help you get to know each other. What you need to learn here is absolute trust. I want each of you to reveal to the rest of us one secret that you've never told anypony before."

The elder looked around the group.

"Explodey. Let's start with you."

"Umm..." the unicorn pondered, "Oh! Sometimes, at night, I have vivid dreams that I'm a detective in a crime drama story, and at the end of it, I find out that it was really a split personality of me that did it!"

"That makes a disturbing amount of sense..." Gold Coin commented.

"Mr. Gold Coin, why don't you share a story with the group?"

"Kay..."

He rubbed his chin as he thought of something to contribute.

"...When I was a colt, my family took me to Manehattan to learn business skills from some relatives out there. I pretended like I was really slow and didn't get it, so that they'd have to take longer to teach me, because I was secretly stealing their expensive champagne and selling it cheap in an underground gambling den I stumbled on. I made almost three hundred bits before I had to go home and give up the business."

"Wow!" said Mystic, clearly impressed, "That's cool!"

"No, it is not cool, it is very, very bad," Soft Spoken chastised, "And shame on you, Goldie. You're a bad influence."

"What? I was asked to share a secret! That's mine. I'm not ashamed. I'm not even sorry. The bits I made kept me entertained for months."

"Might you want to share something, Mr. Spoken?" asked Agostinho.

The old stallion sighed.

I guess it's time...

"Well...I don't think there's anypony still alive today, save the princesses, who was around to remember my days as the ambassador of Tramplevania..."

***

"Is it good news?" asked Second hopefully, "Tell me it's good news."

"Depends on what you think of as good news, I guess," the researcher answered.

He levitated a clipboard and a rolled up scroll in front of him.

"Now...For a start, how many chromosomes are humans supposed to have?"

"...How many does it say I have?"

"Sixty."

"Not that."

"Well, bad news first then. On the off chance you ever encounter one of your own kind again, you're no longer able to have children."

Second sighed.

"On the bright side though," the researcher continued, levitating the scroll up, "You now can have children with all of these..."

He unfurled the scroll, which turned out to be massively long. The unicorn held the top of it in the air, while the roll hit the floor and rolled across the lab, past Silver, and right out the door. Second grabbed the scroll and started reading through it.

"...You couldn't have organised these alphabetically?"

"We pretty much wrote them down as we thought of them."

Second pulled a pair of reading glasses out of an inner pocket and began to read through the massive list, skipping large sections and skimming it as quickly as possible.

"...What the flying fuck is a kappa?"

"Oh, now that's a long story..."

"And a...wait...windigoes? Seriously?"

"Yep."

"They have actual bodies?"

"Sorta. They're extinct now though, so it's a moot point."

"...Minotaurs?"

"Eh..."

"...Domestic piranha?! How is there even such a thing?!"

"Ummm..."

"A fucking desert cactus?!"

"Theoretically-"

Second tossed the scroll behind him.

"I'm going to stop reading these now. My brain hurts. Silver, you've got a sixty minute break. I'm going up to the roof to wallow in despair and self pity. Don't interrupt me."

The human stormed out of the room angrily, smashing a fist into the wall as he left just to emphasise his displeasure.

"Ah...I'm never appreciated..." the researcher bemoaned as he magically rolled up the scroll again.

"I know that feeling..." Silver agreed.

She paused.

"Can I have that?"

***

"...And then I stomped on his throat," Softy finished, "And...yeah. That's why there are no vampires anymore."

All the others, including the princesses and the spiders, were staring at him in abject horror.

"It's always the quiet ones..." Chain Mail muttered.

"That's also why I swore off violence. I don't let myself get involved in conflicts, because I don't trust myself. I thought I wasn't the kind of pony that'd hurt others, even in anger. Not like other ponies. Then after that day...after my cousin died...I realised that I'm not above that. Forget about being the same as other ponies, though. I was worse than other ponies. I don't think even Helsing ever completely massacred his enemies like that..."

He closed his eyes.

"I had nightmares for years afterwards. I've carried that with me ever since. And now I just...try not to think about it. I went to a dark place there, and I'm never going back."

"...Damn, Softy," said Gold Coin, "And all this time I've been thinking of you as that harmless old guy who tags along with us. You're fucking scary."

"I'd never do anything like it again!" the old stallion protested, "I swear, I've never another incident since that day!"

"But you still did it, right? And that's terrible. You are an awful, awful pony, and you should feel bad."

"Goldie!" Chain Mail chided.

"HE'S RIGHT!" Softy cried, "I DON'T EVEN DESERVE TO BE HERE!"

He curled up in a ball in his chair and buried his face under his hooves. Everypony angrily glared at Gold Coin.

"What?" he asked, "I was being hyperbolic. I thought it'd be funny."

"You are not funny," Explodey bluntly stated.

"Oh, and you are?"

Soft Spoken continued to remain curled up in a ball. The Harmonite behind his chair tapped him on the shoulder lightly, and gave a concerned look to the rest of them.

"I think he's gone into a state of shutdown. A remorse-induced coma, if you will."

"Bullshit. There's no such thing," said Gold Coin.

"Oh, but there is, little pony," Agostinho replied, "Sadly though, the only known cure is for another to make a confession of something just as bad or worse. But what are the odds that we could even find-"

"I'm responsible for multiple genocides!" Sliske called out.

Softy immediately sat up again, so that he could join the rest of his friends in staring at Sliske.

"What?"

"Oh, damn it!" Chain Mail shouted, "Now you're going to have to explain to them like you did to me! We're going to be here all night now! Thanks, Sliske. Thanks a bunch."

***

Silver smiled to herself as she read through her list. Off to the right, there was a dinging sound as the door opened and rang the bell. She looked over to see a purple unicorn mare with an orange mane trotting over to her.

"Hey, Silver!" she said as she hopped up into the chair next to hers, "You weren't kidding about the mane. How did that even happen?"

"Second did it. Accidentally. I think."

A very tall and very thin unicorn stallion appeared next to them, dressed in a simple shirt and bow tie, and giving them a cheerful grin as he levitated a small notepad and a pencil in front of him.

"Hello, ladies! What can I get for you?"

"I'll have a tea and a salad," Silver answered, "Glade, what about you?"

"Umm..."

The other mare picked up the menu on their table with magic and studied it.

"...I'll have a tea as well, and also a cheese and tomato sandwich, and...I think one of the muffins too."

The waiter smiled and nodded, before leaving. Glade turned back to Silver.

"Are those weird to have together?"

"What, muffins and a cheese and tomato sandwich? I'd argue no more so than some of your other combinations."

"Hmm," the unicorn grunted, "So anyway, what's up with you, Silver? I haven't seen you in days! Did you really join our lord and master in assaulting the capital?"

"I did," Silver answered, unable to keep the pride from her voice, "In fact, I was the sole survivor of the attack. Second called me the only competent pony he's ever met."

"Ooh...Now that's a compliment, especially coming from a human."

"And, get this - He was planning to execute Commander Bullseye when next he saw him, without knowing he'd already died and been replaced, so he named me his successor."

Glade let out a small gasp.

"You are possibly looking at the new captain of the Knights of Man."

"Oh, Silver! That's wonderful!" Glade exclaimed, "Oh! Wait. Does this mean you'll be moving out of our apartment?"

"What? Why would I do that?"

"Well...I imagine you must be getting a higher pay grade now...Probably don't need a roommate anymore. You could go get your own place..."

"Oh," said Silver, "I...didn't think about that..."

The two sat in awkward silence for a minute.

"So...What are you reading, Silver?" Glade asked.

She picked up the list with her magic and floated it over to her side of the table.

"Oh, it's...something I picked up while I was with sir in Blackspire Research. He's suffering some mutations lately, and is no longer able to reproduce with his own kind if he ever met any again. But he can with any species on that list."

Glade raised an eyebrow.

"Let me guess. You're looking through this hoping to find 'pegasus' somewhere on the list, right?"

Silver sunk in her chair and hid her face beneath the table.

"Girl, have I ever told you that you've got strange tastes?"

She returned to looking through Silver's list.

"Wow. A hydra? Really?"

"Oh, it doesn't even matter!" Silver complained, emerging from beneath the table again, "It's not like he ever notices me! I've been around him two days already, and he still hasn't picked up on anything! I'm not even being subtle about it!"

"Well..." said Glade, "Be even less subtle. If he doesn't get it, make him get it. March right into his room as say, 'can I sleep with you?'"

"I tried that."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"And he still didn't get it?"

"He got me a dog basket."

Glade smirked, and covered her mouth with a hoof.

"I'm sorry," she giggled, "I know I shouldn't laugh, but that is pretty funny."

"Two teas, a small salad, a cheese and tomato sandwich, and a muffin," the waiter from earlier listed as he placed a tray with their orders on the table.

"Thank you," both mares said in unison.

"So what now?" asked Silver as she tried to pick up the tea with a hoof, "...Damn it, I think they gave me the wrong cup..."

"You've got mine. Hold on."

They switched tea cups so that Silver could now slip a hoof around the handle and lift it.

"Anyway," Glade continued, "God or not, this guys sounds dense as all hell. If I were you, I'd just drop any pretence of subtlety altogether. Next time you see him, jump him."

"Really?" said Silver, "You don't see any way that could go wrong?"

"If there's a problem, I'm sure he'd let you know. But it's clear to me that nothing short of that is going to make him get a clue. Where is he now?"

"Wallowing in self pity on the roof of Blackspire."

"Definitely sounds like the perfect guy."

"Hey, shut up!" Silver responded, "You don't know anything about Lord Second!"

"Okay. Tell me about Lord Second then."

"Well, he...umm...He's very...He gets angry a lot...Smashes things all the time...Uh...Drinks often...Occasionally gets solemn and contemplative. I've heard him mention his family a few times. But he takes a lot of pride in his work! Especially when he's...um...killing things..."

Silver and Glade sat in silence for another half a minute.

"Oh, and he eats ponies."

"Why are you attracted to him again?"

"I DON'T EVEN KNOW!"

***

"I need to step in here," Agostinho announced, "Because it needs to be properly stated. You are all awful, awful ponies. Do you know who the original Elements of Harmony were? A magical student, an apple farmer, a dress maker, a weather manager, a pastry chef, and an animal caretaker.

"And who are the Elements of Harmony this time? A foal, a stallion who murdered a village, a former member of an evil cult, a soldier, an inequine spawn of the very evil you're attempting to destroy, and the most notorious war criminal in the history of the galaxy. If you're meant to be the greatest representation of the virtues of Harmony, I'm almost convinced that there's no good left in the world."

"Yeah? Up yours too," Gold Coin shouted back.

"Hey, don't be rude to the spider guy!" Chain Mail ordered.

"He was rude first!"

"He was trying to make a point!" Explodey added.

"Your face is a point!"

"Well that may be true, but you're still ugly!"

"SILENCE!" Agostinho bellowed.

The argument immediately ceased.

"Okay, you idiots asked for it. Exercises in the snow. NOW."

***

After an hour of pacing on the roof of Blackspire Research, occasionally punching dents in ventilation equipment or knocking over scaffolding, Second was beginning to calm down.

"Okay," he said to himself, "Deep breaths. In...and out...There we go...I'm calm. I'm calm. So calm. Not even going to get angry at the stupid Pantheon and their stupid mutations."

He approached the door leading into the stairwell.

"Everything is going to be fine..." he reassured himself.

He reached down to grab the door handle, when it suddenly swung open, and the metal door slammed into his forehead.

"AHHHH!" he cried out, "Son of a bitch!"

"Sir?! Oh, I'm sorry! Did I hurt you?!"

Silver emerged from the stairs and began to move towards him, but he held up a hand to stop her and shooed her away, while clutching his forehead with the other.

"Fine! I'm fine. Fuck. I HATE when that happens!"

Now's the moment. Make your move!

"Look, sir-"

"This isn't healing! Why the fuck isn't it healing?!" Second shouted, "I think I'm going to get an actual bruise there!"

"Sir."

"I am going to have a big brown bruise on my forehead!"

"Sir."

"This shitty thing is-"

"SIR!"

"WHAT, SILVER?!"

The pegasus steeled herself.

"I just wanted to tell you-"

She was interrupted by an ominous sizzling sound, and a little drop of green that appeared on the human's forehead.

"Ah, damn it..." he said, "Silver, I'm sorry, whatever it is will have to wait. I need to contain this situation somehow. My blood can literally be weaponized, so I don't want to be bleeding all over the place..."

Before she could stop him, he sprinted over to the edge of the roof and leapt off, disappearing from view.

Silver stared up at the sky.

"Hey, Pantheon? Or whatever higher power controls this world? I don't like you."

***

"Fifty push-ups! Now!"

After ascending through the upper levels of the temple, the ponies had once again emerged onto the snowy blankness of Mt. Celestia. Only now, they were even higher up, standing on a huge stone platform sticking out the side of the mountain.

In the middle of it, there was what appeared to be a mausoleum, with an open door. It looked to have been the resting place of some important demon worshipper once, but it had been emptied out and left.

Despite the fact that they were now far above the village of New Arachnia, they had still not reached the peak. They had assumed that the monastery was on the peak, but apparently not.

"Are you fucking serious?"

"Mr. Gold Coin, do not question the wisdom of the Harmonites," Celestia chided.

"You heard the zombie princess," Agostinho agreed, "I want all six of you exercising right now."

"Why? What would that even accomplish?" Gold Coin pressed.

There was a loud cracking, as another Harmonite lashed a whip right near Gold Coin's hooves.

"Do it," the whip-wielding spider commanded, "Or we will break you."

The six of them all looked at each other briefly, and shrugged. They stood in a line together, and all crouched down to begin. Agostinho, the Harmonites and the princesses stood in a line before them.

"Okay, go!"

The Harmonites watched curiously as Gold Coin immediately faltered and failed, and Mystic followed soon after. Soft Spoken was next, but Chain Mail, Sliske and Explodey seemed to be doing fine, and continued with no regard for their fallen comrades.

"...This is a failure in the making," Agostinho said after less than three minutes, "I can't work with this, princess! Look at what you've given me!"

One of the blue robed spiders jumped right up in his leader's face.

"Are you suggesting, Elder Agostinho, that there is no chance of harmony between these ponies?"

"I am, Brother Seneca!"

Brother Seneca then immediately drew a sword out from under his robe and sliced off all eight of the elder's legs in two swipes.

"AGH! Curses! I had forgotten!"

Seneca stood over the legless body of the elder, closed his eyes, and crossed his chest with one of his legs.

"Harmony forgive you, friend."

He then drove the sword through Agostinho's head and killed him, leaving a trail of yellow spider blood in the snow.

The ponies all stared in shock at Brother Seneca, as he then began to pull the robes off the dead elder and put them on himself.

"...What the fuck was that?!" Chain Mail shouted, "Seriously! What the FUCK just happened?!"

"The scriptures are very clear," another Harmonite explained, "He had given up on the idea of your redemption and the possibility of harmony. It is a fundamental tenet of our beliefs that that potential exists in every living being, aside from demons. To give up on the idea of your redemption is the ultimate sin, punishable by death. Elder Seneca still has hope for you. He shall continue your training for now, and later, we shall eat Agostinho's body in his memory and honour."

They all looked to Celestia and Luna in unison, both of whom shrugged with their wings.

"NO," Gold Coin shouted, "Fuck. That. I am NOT hanging around here any longer! You things are fucking disgusting, and scary as shit! I'm not going to stay more than twelve seconds in a place where what you just did is considered socially acceptable! You're all fucked in the head, and the world would be a better place if you were all killed by dragons!"

Elder Seneca sighed.

"Looks like we have to do this the hard way..."

The spider that threatened them before cracked his whip near their hooves again.

"EXERCISES CONTINUE!" the new elder screamed, "THIS TIME, FIVE HUNDRED!"

***

"Hey, Dr. Ball Licker?"

The unicorn sighed, as he addressed Lord Second.

"It's Boot Licker, sir."

"Not anymore it isn't."

"Of course, sir."

"I've calmed down now, and I want to hear the rest of that report. Nuclear Anomaly especially. What's his deal?"

Dr. Boot/Ball Licker floated up a clipboard in front of him and looked between it and Second.

"...Well, there are minor differences, but we're pretty sure we know who he's based on. This pony is a modified clone of a Secopolis pony, one of your creations called Explodey McGee."

Second blinked.

"Uhm...what?"

"Your blood and that of this Nuclear Anomaly fellow had a forty three percent match. It's only forty three because it has been modified. Project Atom appears to have been an attempt to clone Explodey McGee but...improve on the design, so to speak."

"Fucking WHAT?!"

"And that's why the match is only forty three percent rather than an even fifty, like Explodey should-"

"HOW THE FUCK DOES EXPLODEY HAVE A FIFTY PERCENT MATCH FOR MY DNA?!"

Second had screamed at the doctor so loudly that his mane had blown back and his glasses came loose and hung down his face. Stoically, he readjusted both so that they were as before.

"Well, I would have thought that the obvious answer is-"

"NO. I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE ABOUT TO SAY, AND NO. I CREATED EXPLODEY THE SAME WAY I MADE THE REST OF YOU CUNTS. I WROTE WORDS ON SOME PAPER. AND NOTHING ELSE."

"Well..."

Dr. Ball Licker struggled to think of something to say.

"Look, sir, I don't know what to tell you. The unicorn has a fifty percent match for your blood. How? I don't know. Especially if what you say about how you created him is true. But that's the situation. And Nuclear Anomaly is his clone brother or something."

Second placed a finger and a thumb on his forehead, and closed his eyes.

"...I know I'm going to regret this, but what's the other fifty percent of Explodey a match for?"

"Doesn't look to be anything, actually. Mostly a generic genetic jumble. No real match for any individual pony on our DNA database, and do remember that the database was made to be the most comprehensive one of its kind to ever exist."

"Right...That's one positive at least..."

Second paused.

"There aren't any other ponies in that database with traces of my DNA, are there?"

"Nothing's shown up on an immediate search."

"Good. This problem looks to be contained to just these two. Though they're still a problem..."

The human began pulling his hair.

"I should never have made that fucking unicorn...I think his existence must be the biggest screw-up I've ever made. If he's got even some of my capabilities, or even just the fucking potential for them, then he's more dangerous to me than all the alicorn princesses and hallucinations combined."

Second reached down to his side, hoping that the holster was still there. He had changed clothes so many times over the last few weeks that he sometimes forgot exactly what he had with him. To his delight, he found it was still there, along with the revolver he had chosen for it.

Holding up the handgun, he tapped the tip of it with a finger. From that point outwards, a gold coating spread over the surface of the gun, until it covered it. He looked over to the doorway of the lab and spotted a knight standing guard.

"You!"

The guard was surprised as Second tossed the golden revolver over to him.

"That's now got infinite ammunition and has no need to reload. It's also been magically treated to inhibit Explodey McGee's healing factor. I want you and a squad of knights to find him, wherever the fuck he is, and blast him with it repeatedly until he stops living."

The knight saluted.

"Yes sir!"

***

"Okay. Twelve minute break."

The six ponies all gasped in relief and collapsed in the snow together in a pile. Elder Seneca scuttled away without another word, leaving them panting in exhaustion. Across on the other side of the platform, he vanished back inside the temple with the princesses and the other monks.

"I can't...take much more of this..." Softy gasped, "These spiders are going to kill us..."

"Agostinho was right..." Gold Coin agreed, "They're kicking our asses here! In fact, I think this Seneca guy is actually worse!"

"Five hundred push-ups in a row..." Explodey panted, "I think I've found the one area where conventional physics still apply to me..."

"And he wants us to do more!" Mystic complained, "I can't do any more! I'm tired, Softy!"

"We all are, Mystic..."

Sliske groaned.

"Guys?" she said quietly, "We can't do this. I think this may actually, literally kill us. These spiders are insane. They need to be stopped."

"Well yeah, that's a given," Chain Mail replied, "What can we do though? We need them to unlock the elements of harmony. We're the only hope Equestria has. We need these guys and their friendship training to make this work."

From the other side of the pile, Gold Coin raised a hoof and lazily slapped the captain across the face.

"Ow. That was uncalled for."

"You're a fucking idiot," the yellow earth pony stated, "In fact, we all are! What the fuck are we doing here?! Friendship training? Are we really, seriously doing this?!"

"Yes," Softy answered, "We are doing this. Because we need it. Agostinho said himself. We argue too much. We need to find harmony for the elements to work. We need to be true friends."

"We are true friends!" said Explodey.

"...What?" asked Chain Mail.

"Yeah, come again?" said Sliske.

"Guys, I'm with Goldie here; why are we even listening to the spiders?"

The other five all looked to each other momentarily, before turning back to Explodey, who had climbed to the top of the heap of bodies.

"They just shout a lot at us, and tell us that we aren't really friends and that we hate each other. And why do they think that about us? Because we shout at each other? Because we argue? Well, they're shouting at us and arguing too! And they consider themselves experts on this. The spiders said that we need to be real friends for the elements to work for us, but...the way I see it, aren't we already?"

"Well, I don't know..." Chain Mail replied, "I mean...Remember back in Canterlot? When Sliske said that she hated me?"

"But I don't anymore," said Sliske, "I don't hate any of you. I find you annoying, I think most of you are pricks, but honestly? There's no other sentient beings in this galaxy that I'd rather spend my time with."

"This is what I mean!" Explodey continued, "We just argue, because I think that's who we are! We're friends. We're just not friends who always get along. But we stay together, because I think really, we want to. Goldie, for all the times you've gotten angry and argued with us, have you ever actually wanted to leave, and do something else? Find more agreeable ponies to hang out with?"

"...No."

"And Chains, what about you? Don't you like us really, in some sense?"

"Well, definitely," he said without hesitation, "All of you...I never really had close friends before. Work friends, maybe. Drinking buddies. But I like to think I'm closer with all the rest of you. It's only been a few days we've known each other, but it's like I know you all."

"I've had close friends before," said Softy, "Thing is, that was all when I was young. I outlived most of them. Everything was lonely for a time. But you kids, you're alright. You remind me of that time. I guess you could say, I've gained a new lease on life since I left that mansion."

"And I just think you're all really cool!" Mystic added.

Gold Coin pulled himself out of the pile of fallen ponies and stood up properly. The others gradually hauled themselves up too.

"...You know, you're right, Explodey," the business pony announced, "This whole thing is stupid! Of course we're friends! We don't need this fucking training, and we don't need these fucking pretentious, cannibalistic spider monks!"

"YEAH!" the others all cried in unison.

"I say, we prove the strength of our bonds together, by giving these old bastards a collective kick in the nuts! WHO'S WITH ME?!"

"YEAH!"

"LET'S SIT DOWN QUIETLY AND PLAN HOW WE'RE GOING TO DO THIS!"

"YEAH!"

***

The human sat back in his chair and sighed. He had just finished changing again into yet another replica of his old outfit, complete with yet another new long coat. He wasn't sure why, but that was the look he kept reverting to when his new ones kept getting destroyed, maybe because that was the one he came into Equestria with. Complimenting it was another new skin mask and mechanical eye to mask his hideous deformities.

"I hate my life..."

A bottle of whiskey floated across the hotel room and into his waiting hand. He leaned back and took a long swig of it. Once finished, he looked to that hand, where a large, misshapen lump of gold was melded to his knuckle. He ran his fingers over it gently.

"...Till death do us part..." he recited.

"AM I INTERRUPTING SOMETHING?"

Howard didn't flinch as he heard the distorted, offsetting voice of the demon. Not even as the room began to tint an ominous red, and there was a flickering effect coming from somewhere behind him. He merely remained in his chair, and placed the whiskey on the small table in front of him.

"Qramstarflokrinhir."

"LORD SECOND."

"Are you here to bring me what I asked for, or was that dream just my imagination getting out of hand, and you're here because you think you can take me?"

The demon laughed.

"NO. THE DREAM WAS REAL, AND WE HAVE SHARED CONTACT. I AM HERE TO DELIVER THE TOME ON DEMON LORE, AS PROMISED."

There was a rumbling sound as the demon walked forward across the hotel room. Second turned his head slightly to face his new visitor, looking over his should at him.

Qramstarflokrinhir was not the most obscenely huge creature he had ever seen, as that was a title still held by Spike, but the demon was definitely larger than he was expecting. He was taller than the room itself. His legs were bent so much that his knees were nearly touching the ground, and he was hunched over too. His back was scraping the ceiling, and so were his horns, even though he was bowing his head as well.

He reached forward towards Second. He held a normal sized book between the tips of two razor sharp claws, both of them several times the length of his actual fingers.

"Thank you."

Second plucked the book out between the claws. Qramstarflokrinhir let go, though he still left a scratch mark on both covers.

Flipping the books open, Second began to read the contents page.

"I trust there were no issues..." he muttered as he skimmed the page.

"NONE."

Second frowned as he looked the page over. A snap of his fingers, and a pair of reading glasses appeared in his hand, which he put on immediately.

"No harm was done to Ponyville, or its residents?" he asked casually.

"NO DEMON SO MUCH AS TOUCHED A PONY WHILE THERE. WE ENTERED THE TOWN, AND TOOK THE BOOK. NOTHING MORE."

"That's some suspiciously specific wording," Second commented.

He continued to study the book, still not actually looking Qramstarflokrinhir in the eye.

"Tell me then. The demons apparently didn't do anything to harm the ponies. But did any kind of harm happen to them through other means, either while you were there or some time before or after?"

Smoke billowed from the demon's nostrils. It was irritated that it had been found out.

"DURING THE LIBERATION OF THE BOOK, PONYVILLE WAS COINCIDENTALLY OVERRUN BY AN INFESTATION OF THE UNDEAD."

Second smiled grimly.

"Completely coincidentally? Be honest with me now."

"I...MAY HAVE ACCIDENTALLY TRODDEN ON THE FENCE KEEPING THE CREATURES OUT OF THE TOWN."

"I knew it," said the human, finally looking the demon in the eye, "I fucking knew it."

"I REMIND YOU, THAT I WAS NOT THE ONE WHO PUT THE UNDEAD THERE. THOSE WERE A CREATION OF YOUR OWN."

"So they were..."

He put the book down on the table and removed the glasses.

"That will be all. You're dismissed."

"THANK YOU."

Qramstarflokrinhir immediately burst into flames and burned to ashes in a matter of seconds, leaving only his dusty grey remains in his wake.

"...What a freak..."

***

"I'm just concerned," Celestia explained, "You're pushing them very hard..."

"Trust me, I know what I'm doing," Elder Seneca insisted, "These are the disciplinary techniques passed down through generations of spiders. Their effectiveness and necessity is no question."

The princess sighed.

"If you really think so..."

"HEY, SPIDER GUY!"

Celestia, Luna, Seneca, and the other three Harmonites all snapped their heads around to face Gold Coin, who had just burst through the door into the temple.

"It's Sliske!" the earth pony exclaimed, "Her demon came back! She went fucking crazy on us! Explodey's trying to hold her with his magic inside the mausoleum, but he's getting brutalised in there! We need another exorcism!"

Seneca looked to the other three, and nodded. They all rushed past Gold Coin and headed outside. The others soon followed.

Once outside, Celestia looked over to the mausoleum. Soft Spoken and Chain Mail were desperately trying to hold the door closed while it rattled against them, and Mystic was just around the corner from them, huddling against the wall of the tomb and shivering either from the cold or from fear.

The spiders moved as quick as they could, making a run for the mausoleum. Seeing them coming, Soft Spoken and Chain Mail moved aside and opened the door for them. Elder Seneca approached at the same time.

Inside, he saw Sliske snarling and lashing at a bloodied, but already regenerating Explodey, who winced with every strike. Seeing the door open, he stepped back out, using his magic to hold the struggling demonic mare.

"Don't worry, we shall handle this!" Seneca promised, "Harmonites! Prepare for the traditional exorcism!"

The Elder stood before the doorway and held two arms to the sky, while the other three went inside the mausoleum and began dancing around Sliske.

"And now we say the holy phrase-" Seneca began.

At that moment, Explodey's magic released Sliske, and instead grabbed the spider elder. He yelped in surprise as the unicorn casually tossed him into the mausoleum with Sliske and the other spiders, and slammed the door behind him.

Seconds later, Sliske jumped through the walls in her intangible form before becoming solid again, and locked the door tight with a spell of her own.

"LET'S TORMENT THE SPIDERS INSTEAD!" she roared.

"BOO-YA!" Gold Coin shouted at the magically sealed tomb, "HEAR THAT, YOU GERIATRIC OLD FUCKS? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ALL THE PUSH-UPS THAT WE'RE NEVER DOING!"

Celestia and Luna both stared, mouths agape at what they had just witnessed. The Elements of Harmony, having gone on a quest to learn the magic of friendship from an order of mountain-dwelling monks, had locked the monks in a small building and were now congratulating themselves for it.

Meanwhile, High General Arcelio walked up next to the two of them, one of his eyes twitching as he looked on at the sight.

"...I think it's time we pulled out the big guns," he said quietly.

***

The doors to the lab of Blackspire Research's main lab burst open suddenly, and a confident human strode into the room.

"All right, you bunch of foul smelling, perma-virgin nerds, enough of the bullshit!" he shouted, "I want all efforts taken off of Nuclear Anomaly right now. We can worry about him later! I want my own projects taken care of!"

He reached into his coat and drew a dossier file.

"Ball Licker! Over here!"

"What is it, sir?" asked the unicorn.

THWACK!

"OW!"

Second had just smashed the dossier over his head.

"You deserved that."

"Of course, my Lord!"

The human dropped the files on the pony laying on the floor.

"Read these. Those are my specifications for Project Pandora. Also included you will find a few files on its sister project, which I like to call Project Beacon, and a few of the people that will be involved in this. Most notably, I want you to look at files 3Q, 19G and 17K. Because those are who you're doing this for."

"Yes, my Lord! Of course, my Lord!"

The doctor scrambled to pick up everything and ran off to start reading through his newest assignment, leaving all his assistants alone in the room with their god-emperor.

"And what are the rest of you inbreds staring at? Back to work!"

***

"Ow! Ow! I'm sorry!"

"Yeah, me too!"

"Me three!"

Celestia magically dragged six ponies along with her by their ears as they followed a pathway towards the very peak of Mt. Celestia, higher than even the monastery itself. Luna stood by her side, wanting to help but unable to do so without a horn of her own anymore, and Arcelio and some extremely indignant spider monks led the way ahead.

"Don't lie to me!" the princess thundered, "You aren't sorry! Any of you! You're all a bunch of childish little foals acting up because you're not getting your own way!"

"It's not about getting our way! Ow!" Softy explained as he unwillingly followed the princess, "It's about the redundancy of this exercise! We don't need this! We've decided, we're friends already, and we can be friends, and be the Elements of Harmony, without all this training!"

"That is admirable," Luna commented, "But you must understand. Even if you are true friends now, you must still realise your virtues, and you must still come to understand which of the elements all six of you embody. So far, only Gold Coin and maybe Sliske seem to have definite traits that can be tied to an element. We need to realise the potential of the rest of you."

"And that is why we are all heading to the summit, old chaps," Arcelio explained, "You've resisted the Harmonites attempts to educate you, so now you must be taken before our true leader."

"True leader?" Chain Mail echoed, "Isn't Elder Seneca supposed to be in charge?"

"I am but the Harmonites' earthly guidance, as Agostinho was before me," the purpled robed spider replied.

"Yes," another continued, "The Harmonites all follow a higher being than us."

"...Who?"

"You shall see, when we reach the peak..."

***

Silver nudged the door to Second's hotel room open. Inside, she saw him and Thug Lyfe conversing. She paused for a moment to listen in.

"...So can you?" asked the human, "Can you do this for me? This was your true purpose. Your reason for being."

"Yeah...I can do it," the gangster answered, "Y'all ask me for help in this...Project Pandora...I mean, I don't understand none of that science shit, nigga. But imma help where EVER I can. You and me are homies, y'know?"

"Thanks, man."

"A'ight. Respect."

The door opened properly, as Silver jumped back. Thug Lyfe stood before her, surprised to find her there. Meekly, he saluted her.

"Ma'am."

He passed by without saying anything more, and Silver proceeded into the room. When she did, she found that Second had already sat down in his chair again and was picking up another whiskey bottle.

"Sir?"

"Hello, Silver..."

"...Are you alright? Is something wrong?"

Second smiled weakly at her, before turning back to his whiskey bottle.

"Just feeling a little drained. I'm lacking confidence. My enemies are bigger and more numerous than I thought they were. To tell you the truth, I'm feeling a little outgunned."

"But, you're an elder god! I'm sure you can stand up to whatever it is that you're afraid of."

"I'm not afraid of them," he clarified, "What I'm afraid of is what happens if I fail. And from what I've seen, failure is very likely."

"I'm sure it's not as bad as you think, sir."

"You don't know who my enemies are..."

"The Pantheon of B, right?"

"Worse."

That gave Silver pause.

"...What then?"

"Can't say. Not yet. Suffice to say, we've got dark days ahead."

"...Sir?"

"Silver, the Pantheon want me to do a bad thing. And I fully intend to do it. Nuclear Anomaly and Anger were a message. Thing is, the Pantheon is subject to higher power as well. Other versions of themselves, in a way. I don't know how deep the rabbit hole goes, really. It's a great big meta-fiction clusterfuck, and I don't know if I can really actually manoeuvre around most of it enough to enact my plan."

"And what is your plan?"

"To kill my tormentors. Just not in a story way. Not on their terms. I'm not letting them decide how they die, or what my fate is."

He turned to her again, giving her a piercing stare.

"Don't worry about me, though. I'm feeling down now, but I will win. I have never doubted my own ability for even a second. Because my advantage is in my strategy. I can plan. I can be creative. I'm smart. And I swear to you, I will move Heaven and Earth if that's what it takes."

***

The Elements of Harmony reached the top of the path and looked over the top of the mountain. Up here, there were a few boulders off to one side, a small mural and altar on a raised platform to the other, and all the rest of it was snow. Not really much of interest.

Gold Coin snorted.

"So where is this true leader of y-"

The very ground around them shook as something huge landed in the snow before them. Something scaly, and lizard-like.

The ponies all gasped.

"OH CELESTIA, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!" Gold Coin shouted, "ALL THIS TIME, THE TRUE LEADER OF THE HARMONITES WAS A DRAGON!"

He breathed in deeply.

"Oh, wait a minute. That's just Spike! My bad. Sorry guys, false alarm!"

Spike raised an eyebrow at them.

"What are you guys doing up here?" he asked.

"What are YOU doing up here?!" Softy countered.

"Yes, that's a VERY good question!" Arcelio pressed.

"Oh, get off my back! I was feeling claustrophobic inside your stupid buildings, and they aren't comfortable to sit on either."

"I cannot believe this!" Seneca complained, "You were feeling uncomfortable, so you decided to just park yourself here in our most holy of holy grounds?!"

"If you'd rather let an irritated dragon who might have a cold hang around in your highly flammable, wooden village-"

"No! That's fine!" Arcelio interrupted, "The Harmonites are just kidding around! You're free to stay here however long you want! Just please don't destroy us all, Mr. Giant Dragon Person."

"My name is Spike."

"Yeah, that's what I said."

The Harmonites were less than pleased with this new arrangement.

"Grr..." Seneca grumbled, "Fine...Let's just continue this anyway. Harmonites! The summoning!"

The four spiders scuttled around Spike, who backed up so that he was almost sitting on the pile of boulders instead. The six friends, the princesses and Arcelio both stood by and watched as the Harmonites formed a semicircle around the altar on the raised platform.

"And now, we call!" Seneca shouted to the sky, "Harmony, come guide us!"

"GUIDE US!" the other three chanted.

A ball of light appeared above the altar before the spiders. They all backed off of the platform, as it became brighter and brighter. They shielded their eyes as they looked upon it, as did all the other mortals present, but even Spike and the two alicorn sisters had to flinch slightly at the brightness of it, as it exploded outwards in a blinding flash.

And when they looked back, they were all left stunned.

The six slightly transparent forms of Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Applejack lightly stepped forward off of the platform and onto the snowy ground. It was only then that all present recognised that the mural behind the altar was a depiction of their cutie marks, and each pony stood before their respective icon.

Twilight was the first to open her eyes and look upon the group, and she immediately broke into a warm smile. The others followed suit.

"Oh...It's been such a long time..." she said happily, looking both to the princesses and her not-so-little dragon assistant.

Spike was trying to hold back tears. He wasn't doing very good at it.

And meanwhile, Mystic leaned in really close to the older brown stallion next to him.

"Softy," he whispered, "I see dead ponies."

END.




















Author's notes:

There. I put the main six into the story. Are you happy now?

This chapter took longer thanks to several issues going on at home that I had to take care of. Nothing serious. I just had to deal with those things first. It's all sorted now, and hopefully we can resume our regular schedule soon. If you're wondering about my thoughts on the season three opening, my most recent blog post addresses it, among other things.

You may have also noticed that I changed the regular description to make it seem more immediately obvious that it's a comedy. I'm pretty sure a good number of my dislikers are people who read that old description and assumed that this whole thing is completely serious. When in fact, it's not. Human is ludicrously silly, but you'd never guess it from the description on Equestria Daily.

Anyway, there's your bloody chapter. Now fuck off and let me write the next one.

I'm just kidding, I love you all really.

Next Chapter: Reunions.

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