Ponystuck

by confoundtheseponies

Chapter 40

"This is bad, isn't it?" I ask, while Golden sips his tea thoughtfully. "I mean, now that Ember's on their side..." I pause as he holds up a paw.

"It would be bad, yes, except for two important factors." He smiles at me unnervingly. "One, we have a reality canon. It is now an inescapable truth that the King those hapless fools are fighting is more than capable of withstanding their combined power, and then some. They cannot destroy it. Ever. Two, even if Ember manages to find his way back here... I'll kill him." He shrugs as I frown at his confidence. "Come now Silver, don't make that face. I'm more than capable of handling an idiot like Ember should the need arise." He pours himself a fresh cup of tea out of a nearby cloud and lies back into his chair. "Now, let's get on with things, shall we?" He prepares to leap into his story-telling, when both of us jump in surprise as a sharp, polite knocking comes from the entrance to the study.

“…Who’s that?" I ask nervously, to which Golden shrugs. "...Should we answer it?"

"OK, you just sit there a minute," Golden says, rising to his feet and marching cautiously towards the door. Pausing for a few seconds, he reaches towards the handle and throws open the door, revealing a sight that neither of us expected to see. "You... you're..." Golden breathes, his expression frozen in shock. "You're that..."

"Hey! I'm Pinkie Pie!" A bright pink pony, clad in deep blue clothes and wearing a ridiculous hat, smiles at us maniacally. "And I just know," Pinkie adds, equipping a large halberd from her sylladex and narrowing her eyes menacingly, "that the three of us are going to be the best of friends..."

As I look into the eyes of this brilliantly pink party pony, I finally understand what it is to be afraid.

***ACT 4 ACT 2***

"Damn it," Ember complained, as he nursed his injuries pitifully. "How the hell are we meant to kill that thing?"

"I don't suppose you've noticed, Ember," Comet replied immediately, "but this is what is commonly referred to as the 'losing team'. But fear not, for that makes us the underdogs. And the underdogs always triumph!" He paused. "That said, this time I think we may really just be the losing team."

"This is why you and Twilight were meant to come up with a new plan!" Celestia cried in frustration. "Where even is Twilight?"

"She took Diamond and Acapella on a magical mystery tour," Luna said. "Whether or not we have any chance to win, this is our final battle. It made sense to get as many God Tiers as possible." She spared a look at Star Swirl. "...We don't want to lose anyone else."

"Stop worrying about me," Star Swirl protested. "Just because I'm not God Tier doesn't mean I'm automatically going to die." He sighed, looking off into the distance, where the King was making his way towards them. "But really, what are we going to do? None of us have the firepower to stand up to something like him."

"I've been thinking about this for a while now," Mild said, causing everyone to jump back in surprise. Most of them had forgotten about him completely. "And I think the easiest way to make this problem go away is to ignore it. Let's just head to where Silver and Discord have run off to. They've just thrown their trump card away by sending it down here, so we need to take advantage of things by striking them while they're defenceless!"

"I like your plan for its brazen backstabbery and sheer dickishness," Comet nodded approvingly, "But while we're waiting for Twilight, we're going to have to deal with that thing sooner or later. Besides which, we don't actually have a plan for what we're going to do when we reach Discord, do we? Have any of us ever managed to even injure him in a fight before?"

"We've never all faced him at once before," Luna pointed out. "I don't see how he could defeat all of us at once. The numbers are on our side, and he no longer has the element of surprise."

"Sure, OK," Celestia said, teleporting them all several miles away before the King became threateningly close. "How about we wait until it really is just us against those two before we start saying things like that? We can probably keep running away like this indefinitely, but it is a bit of a pain. How long is it going to take for Twilight to kill those two?"

"I wonder," Comet said thoughtfully.

***

"OK, here we are," Twilight announced, as she, Diamond and Acapella stepped into the large chamber in the centre of Acapella's planet. "That took too long to find. Why can't your quest bed be on top of the planet like everyone else?"

"Well, I'm sorry that my planet is so inconvenient for you," Acapella retorted. "Honestly, you'd think it wouldn't take any time at all for a hero of Time to do anything."

"So now it's my fault?" Twilight asked incredulously, stamping her hoof on the ground in frustration. "Get on that bed and let me stab you, already."

"Hey, let's all calm down a little," Diamond said, as Acapella walked calmly over to her quest bed and lay down. "This is just to make all of us stronger, right?"

"Oh, sure," Twilight said, summoning a large, ominous quill from her strife specibus and twirling it around thoughtfully. "No hard feelings." So saying, the quill leapt forwards and stabbed into Acapella, who died instantly in a shower of blood. Its job complete, the quill promptly vanished.

"... well, that's good to hear," Diamond said happily. "So... I guess it's my turn next?"

"Yeah," Twilight agreed. "Your turn next."

***

"If you think you can stop me now, you're even more stupid than you look," Golden says, leaping towards Pinkie Pie armed with several thousand knives. Unphased by the ridiculous scale of the attack, Pinkie simply closes her eyes and steps forwards into the storm, which explodes into a cascade of steel and noise. It ends, and all that remains is Golden and Pinkie, both completely unharmed. "...So you're taking this seriously," Golden says. "That's good. It'd be boring for me if you went down in a couple of-" he breaks off as Pinkie jabs a rifle into his stomach, and is sent flying away from her as she fires. As he struggles to get back onto his feet, she rushes into him and fires several more shots at point blank range, before tossing the rifle away and grabbing a sword from her strife deck. I can only assume that she either has some kind of specibus that allows her to use multiple weapon types, or she simply has many different specibi. I'm not sure which is the most ridiculous.

"If you think you can hurt my friends any more, you're even more stupid than you look," Pinkie says in a voice which is little more than a whisper. A quiet, terrifying whisper. In the face of such cold determination, Gulden’s response seems far more foolish than brave. He laughs.

"So that's what all this is about? All of reality is at stake, and you're fighting because you want to protect your friends?" He and Pinkie are suddenly standing in a large field, swords locked in combat. "How much more selfish can you get?" He lunges towards the Bard, only for her to dodge around him, switch weapons, and launch a missile into his face.

"You don't have any right to say that to me," she says calmly, leaping into the air and swinging her katana down towards Golden, who barely manages to get up in time to block the swing. "You just want to be able to control everything!"

"Is that what I'm after?" Golden asks. Pinkie pauses uncertainly, and is knocked to her feet as Golden seizes the opportunity to strike. "I only ever wanted one thing, you know." The field disappears, and the two are now on a rocky platform in an underground cavern, pits of lava far below them. "A happy ending. That was it." Suddenly possessed by rage, he charges forward, keeping Pinkie off balance as he forces her towards the edge of the platform. "And then it gets taken away. For what reason? For what reason?" With a final strike, he sends her falling into the lava, as she struggles to fly back around to the platform. "Something as stupid as inevitability," Golden mutters, changing their environment once again. This time, I recognise it as being the surface of the Battlefield, untouched by war. "There's nothing I can do to change what happened. It's all just... set in stone, immutable." As he gets to his feet and turns to face his enemy, I begin to feel that, even with all of her tricks and cunning, this is a fight which Pinkie Pie cannot hope to win. "Unless..."

"So now who's being selfish!?" Pinkie cries, the sky suddenly illuminated with lights as a hundred thousand missile launchers go off at once, arcing their way towards the Heir of Rage. "You're just trying to get a happy ending for yourself, without caring what happens to anyone else!"

"I guess," Golden says quietly, as the missiles draw closer and closer. "But now that I have the reality canon, fixing everything that happened to me is just a matter of time. Even if I have to tear apart the entire Universe to make it happen," a flash of light, and suddenly Pinkie and Golden take each other’s places. "There's nothing you or anyone else can do to stop me!" Golden roars, as the missiles complete their journey and collide with the startled Bard. The Battlefield fades away, returning to the study, and Golden collapses on to the chair. "Silver," he says after a few moments, "we've got a lot of work to do." I nod, but freeze as Golden is sent flying by hundreds of thousands of bullets. We both turn and stare at their source, gasping in surprise to see Pinkie Pie holding a machine gun.

"Even so," she says, panting from exhaustion, "even so, I can't let you destroy everything..." Tossing the machine gun aside, she grabs another large halberd. "I absolutely can't let that happen!"

***

"So," Acapella said as the newly risen Witch of Blood came to rest on the surface of the Battlefield. "What did I miss?"

"Nothing much," Mild replied calmly. "Celestia was getting bored of teleporting us all over the place, so Comet went to slow the King down." He yawned. "That was a couple of hours ago on our end, so I guess the King's been walking this way for a couple of weeks. Sucks to be him, I guess."

"Isn't that really weak and cowardly of us?" Acapella asked.

"Oh, yeah, definitely. But what can you do?" Mild said. "None of us can even scratch that thing. Only Ember's tried it, but if even that didn't work then there's definitely nothing we can do." He sighed dramatically. "I guess no matter what I do, I always end up on the losing team." He paused as he saw Acapella eyeing him curiously. "...What?"

"I was just thinking that maybe it's your fault," Acapella said brightly. "Like some kind of bad luck charm. So maybe if we killed you, or tricked Discord into taking you back, you'd bring bad luck to their side and we'd win?" She kept her composure for a full minute before breaking into fits of laughter. "Oh, you should have seen your face," she said happily. "Priceless. Absolutely priceless."

"You're welcome," Mild said glumly, turning his attention to the slowly approaching King.

"... hey, Mild?"

"What." He was not in the mood for joking around, and made it painfully obvious to Acapella by treating her to a glare utterly devoid of any emotion whatsoever.

"I... I'm glad you're back on our side," Acapella said quietly. "Summer and Destiny are dead, but... but everyone else is still with us now. Uh, except for Silver, but since we have Diamond..." she trailed off. "So... thanks, I guess."

"Why are you thanking me? I'm only here because I got kicked out of their team and there's no way I could kill all you idiots by myself," Mild said coldly. "Do me a favour and don't try to be my friend." To his annoyance, Acapella walked over to him and patted his head condescendingly.

"You're not evil, Mild," she said. "Just a bit stupid sometimes."

"Thanks," Mild said grumpily.

***

"You're sure you're OK with this?" Twilight asked one more time, as Diamond sat down on her quest bed.

"Why are you asking me if I'm OK with it?" Diamond asked. "You just stabbed Acapella without thinking about it."

"That was different. You haven't been annoying me," Twilight said. "Besides... uh... this is kind of hard to ask, but..."

"What?" Twilight looked away sheepishly.

"What happens to Silver if you ascend?" Twilight eventually asked. Silence passed for a few moments. "When we ascend, our dream selves and our real selves combine. But in your case... you have one real body, but two dream selves. One of which is Silver."

"... well, nothing will happen," Diamond said confidently. "That or she'll just vanish. This would be one less problem to worry about. So there's no problem, right?" She paused. "... Twilight?"

"Yeah, I'm sure that's right," Twilight said brightly. "It's not really my place to worry about it, I guess. This is a personal matter, after all." Diamond shrugged.

"Whatever, let's just get this over with." With that, she lay down and closed her eyes, waiting for what she hoped would be a quick and painless death.

***

"I'm telling you, it was nothing like that!" Acapella protested as she and Luna marched in one direction while Celestia carted Mild off in the other. "We were just talking!"

"That's great," Luna said loudly. "Just do it in private from now on."

"Are you even listening to me!?" Acapella shouted, glancing around to make absolutely sure that Comet hadn't noticed what was happening. She'd never hear the end of it if he had. "There is absolutely nothing going on, and frankly I feel disgusted that you would even suggest something like that."

"Sure, sure," Luna soothed unhelpfully. "Don't you worry about it. In any case, we have bigger problems than that. I assume that Mild told you about how Comet was sent to stall the King?"

"Yes," Acapella said, suddenly pausing and glancing back to where Comet was standing. "Uh... shouldn't he be doing that now?" Luna sighed.

"Uh, yeah, funny story about that. Turns out the King is learning. I don't know what stupid prototyping is doing it, but he's learnt to negate the effects of Comet's Timey thing. So he's back up to full speed. So, instead, Ember and Celestia are going to try and trap him in some kind of Spacey thing." Luna paused for effect. "Of course, if it learns how to break through that, we're going to have to go back to running... or stand and fight."

"But we don't stand a chance," Acapella said. "Not that it matters for most of us since we're God Tier, but... even so."

"You're right, we don't stand a chance," Luna agreed. "But the more we fight, the stronger we become. And because we don't stay dead for long, the current strategy is throwing ourselves at the King over and over again to get as much experience and climb as many tiers as possible."

"So we're just going to get killed over and over again so that we're in better shape to fight Discord?" Acapella asked, to which Luna nodded. "Well then, nothing to worry about, right?"

***ACT 4 ACT 2 INTERMISSION***

In another Universe, in another age, two princesses sat in silence. It was a warm summer's night, and the troubles of a distant Sburb session were of no concern to the two winged and horned earth ponies. Well, maybe that wasn't entirely true.

"I had another nightmare last night," Luna said. "As ridiculous as it sounds." Celestia spared a look of concern at her sister, before turning her attention back to her Sudoku. "You know, where I keep remembering what happened in those last few hours?"

"Yes," Celestia said. "You've told me many times. And the extent to which I care about it decreases every single time." Scribbling out a mistake in annoyance, she looked up at her sister again. "How many times do I need to tell you? Stop dwelling on the past. It doesn't help anypony. All it does is hurt you."

"I know that," Luna said. "I just... just..." she trailed off, but that was fine since Celestia knew exactly what she wanted to say.

"It's fine," Celestia said. "It's fine, and it's perfectly understandable. But you have to move on, or you'll never be able to forgive yourself." A few minutes of silence followed.

"...It wasn't just that, this time," Luna said eventually. "I... I dreamed about what would happen to us, here and now, if... if we failed all those years ago."

"What?" Celestia frowned in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"What if," Luna pressed, "What if there's no guarantee that something will happen just because it happened in the past? What would happen to us?" Celestia pretended to think for a moment.

"Don't know, or care," she offered. "Does it matter? We can't do anything here anyway. Worst case scenario, we all get wiped from existence without enough time to say 'oh bugger'." It almost made Luna laugh to hear her sister talk in such an unrefined manner, but that was how she was whenever they discussed their past. "Luna, stop worrying. It won't do you any good, or change anything. We just have to have faith."

"I know," Luna said. "I do have faith."

"Well then," Celestia smiled. "Nothing to worry about, eh?"

***END OF ACT 4 ACT 2 INTERMISSION***

"Heh... not bad..." Golden pants, after narrowly avoiding a flurry of attacks. "But don't think for a minute that you've gained the upper hand here."

"Hm?" Pinkie's eyes narrow, and a thin smile appears on her face. "If I didn't know better, Discord, I'd think you were getting confident." She takes a step forward, axe in hoof. "But of course, you understand that I'm not just any old God Tier pony, don't you?"

"Is that so?"

"You know that I'm a Bard of Void," Pinkie says, taking another step towards the Heir. "You know that I'm leagues and bounds beyond anyone else on my side. That's why you've been fighting so hard against me." Now it is Golden who smiles, much more widely and menacingly than Pinkie Pie.

"Oh? Have I really been fighting that hard? I suppose you must have me up against the ropes. In which case..." For the first time in the entire fight, Golden retrieves his weapon from his strife deck rather than conjuring a weapon with magic. "Allow me to show you what happens when I get serious."

***

You have advanced one (1) God Tier! You achieve the title of 'Nostalgia Drive' and receive a microwave, a Fiat Bravo, and a lifetime supply of scones!

"I have to wonder," Comet said as he narrowly dodged his 42nd death and the ground behind him exploded, "just how useful these extra tiers really are."

"Quit complaining," Acapella shouted over the noise of the battle. "My last tier just gave me the ability to sound exactly like Cliff Richards."

"Who the fuck is Cliff Richards?" Comet shouted back. If Acapella had an answer for him, he didn't hear it, which was mainly because he was occupied with having his 42nd death.

"I'm also a bit concerned that this isn't achieving anything," Luna said. "We've been going all out against this guy for ages and nothing's happened yet. I don't think the Universe is even bothering to check if we're doing any damage."

"Stop overreacting," Celestia said, as a single giant fist crushed her into the ground, killing her instantly.

"Will do," Luna said a few minutes later as her sister picked herself up from the crater she had been left in. "Why don't you do something Spacey already?" Celestia nodded bitterly, warping space around the King and teleporting him a fair distance downward, trapping his legs inside the Battlefield. Meanwhile, a cry rang out simultaneously from Comet on one side of the King and Star Swirl on the other.

"Loving Heart - Double Spark!!" They cried in unison, as two giant laser beams bombarded the King from opposite directions. The King roared, although it was difficult to tell if this was due to pain, frustration, or whether he was simply yawning. As the two Heroes of Time collapsed, the King slammed his many fists into the ground and shattered the surface of the Battlefield, allowing him to tear his legs out of their rocky prison and stand up once more. To Luna's eyes, it seemed as if the edge of one of his many thousands of decorative spikes was beginning to wear away a little, but it could have been the way the light was hitting it.

"You've got to be kidding me," Luna sighed dramatically. "This is just too much. Far, far too much."

"I suppose it's only fair, really," Celestia said. "Most of us are immortal. We can keep going forever if we need to, so to counter that the King is so powerful that unless we keep going forever we're never going to beat him."

"Stop justifying this," Luna said. "We don't have forever to do this. We need to stop Discord and Silver right now." Celestia shrugged.

"Can't do anything until Twilight gets back, so we may as well keep fighting."

"Won't that just tire us out unnecessarily," Luna asked as she unleashed a volley of arrows into the King from impossible directions. "And isn't that exactly what Discord wants?"

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't," Celestia said. "What else would you have us do?"

"I just don't think we should be fighting when it might not even be necessary," Luna said, her eyes quickly darting to the side to check on Star Swirl. "...You know."

"You're worried that the longer we fight, the more chance there is of someone screwing up and Star Swirl getting killed permanently as a result," Celestia summarised. Luna paused, and then nodded slowly. "Isn't he meant to be the one worrying about you?"

"I can die and come back again. He's the one who's most at risk."

"You know he wouldn't want to be a liability to you like this," Celestia pointed out. "He cares about you enough for that. He'll fight to the death if he's doing it to save you." Luna gave her an odd look.

"Is it me or are you becoming more mature and rational over the course of this adventure?" She asked. Celestia winked.

"Well, who knows? What's important is that we get this mess cleared up, so you two can go back to being cute together," Celestia said, smiling evilly as Luna's face turned bright red. "Is that OK with you, sis?"

"...Fine," Luna said. At that moment, the two ponies were reminded of the situation as both of them were crushed instantly with one large mace, highlighting the dangers associated with shipping during critical moments.

***

"Twilight? I'm still here. Swing the damn quill already," Diamond complained, opening her eyes and looking up at the winged unicorn in front of her.

"I just... I feel like this is something that we really shouldn't do," Twilight said nervously, unable to look Diamond in the eyes. "We don't really know what we're doing..."

"It's fine," Diamond said confidently. "Now kill me already." Twilight nodded, but made no attempt to murder her friend. "... Twilight?"

"What is Silver, to you?" Twilight asked. Diamond paused, a little taken aback by the question.

"Uh... how do you mean? She's me. Only with different interests. And different eye colour. And a different special talent but the same cutie mark. And..." Diamond thought about what she was trying to say. "I guess I've always known her, despite having never really talked to her. I mean, we lived together. Or, rather, we took in turns living the same life."

"What about the other Silver?" Twilight asked. "Silver Heart?"

"That Silver is..." Diamond looked away. "She's someone I look up to, and someone I respect, of course. I kind of wish I could be more proactive like she was. Why are you asking, anyway?"

"I was just trying to think, who is more like Silver Heart out of you and Silver," Twilight said. "You're Silver Heart's post-scratch version. Or pre-scratch. It doesn't really matter because those are the same thing in our case." Diamond nodded. "Whereas... what could Silver Edge be?"

"I think she's a splinter of the original," Diamond said. "The only reason Silver Edge exists is because Silver Heart wanted to come back in the new Universe that she was creating." She had thought about this before, and it had made her very depressed. "But all she's doing is helping Discord to destroy it. Silver Heart would never do something like that."

"You're missing the key point," Twilight pointed out. "She's doing it with Discord. In one way or another, those two are still together like this."

"Are they?" Diamond asked. "I don't think Silver Edge is really anything more than a shadow of who Silver Heart is. I'm sure she's nice enough once you get to know her, but... I feel like neither me nor her are exactly who Silver Heart was. Neither of us can be who she was."

"I thought about that much by myself," Twilight admitted. "But that leads me onto what I'm worrying about, which would be... suppose that, if you ascended, both of you combined together? What would happen then?"

"I'd go back to having a split personality, I guess," Diamond said.

"Or, your personalities would fuse?" Twilight suggested. "Maybe... maybe together you'd be who Silver Heart was?"

"...So that's what you're worrying about," Diamond realised. "Huh. Stop worrying about it, is my advice. If that happens then you're just trading me in for another ally while removing an enemy. There's nothing to worry about. Not that I think that'll happen, and I would be against it if I did."

"I just wonder if you'd be an ally," Twilight said. "... but you're right, nothing's going to come of worrying about it." She prepared her quill once more. "One last time... are you sure about this?" Diamond nodded without hesitation.

"Just do it," Diamond Heart said, before closing her eyes for the last time.

***

"You idiot... you think this... ah... this can... make me give..." Even if she was trying to kill Golden, and even if I would probably have been next, I am unable to harbour any grudge against Pinkie Pie as I listen to her pitifully denying her defeat. "This... argh... I can't..."

Pinkie Pie struggles to hold onto what remains of her consciousness, even her boundless energy seemingly spent by the battle. Golden stands over her, still gripping onto one of the many swords that stab into every inch of Pinkie's body. He has been silent for a long time. I wonder what he could be thinking about, and what to make of what he said during their battle. All he wanted was a happy ending with the pony he cared about. Not me, of course, but Silver Heart. The real Silver. I wonder if even his power can bring her back from the Scratched session. And I wonder, if he is unable to save her, what he will do next. Am I going to be a last resort, or a target for his anger at inevitability? Frankly I don't know which I would prefer. But, looking at the silent Heir brooding over his victory, I feel that I want to help him achieve his goal. Just as I think that I should say something to him, he speaks up.

"Silver," he says, and I snap to attention. "I've got a new idea." With that ominous statement, he releases his grip on the sword and walks over to me, and the table on which the typewriter and an assortment of other devices exist. "This canon doesn't work how we thought," he muses, picking it up and walking around the room with it. "Despite the apparent cannon pun, it's not a weapon for affecting reality."

"Then what is it?" I ask quietly, a strange feeling of dread passing over me. "What are you going to do?"

"It's not a weapon for affecting reality; it's just a concrete record of what happens to reality. You could say that it reflects the state of reality itself." He laughs joylessly. "Honestly, all this time we've wasted when the answer is so easy."

"Don't..." Pinkie manages, causing myself and Golden to both stare at her in shock. The party pony has risen to her feet, and is slowly stumbling towards us with sheer willpower, the swords vanishing away into nothing. "You don't understand... ah, what you're dealing with... you think you know what'll happen?" She almost laughs, but her face freezes as she gasps in pain, clutching at her ribs with one hoof. "You don't know anything. If you... you do that... you might not live to regret it... but it'll still hurt like hell."

"Noted," Golden says, clearly uninterested in continuing this game any further. "Anyway. As I was saying," he releases the type writer with both hands, letting it clatter to the floor, as he equips his most powerful axe and smiles grimly. "Oops," he says, unable to hold back the sheer joy in his expression as Pinkie attempts to charge forwards before collapsing pathetically onto the ground next to me. "I think my hand's slipping," he says smugly, as he swings his axe down onto the type writer with all his might, cleaving it into

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"Now... now you've really gone and done it."

***END OF ACT 4 ACT 2***

Comments

[Isshiki Kotonashi]

Oh, shit...

...So how about that new Namco High game Hussie's purportedly helping making with Shifty Look?

[BarrenBaron]

I said this wouldn't end well

[journcy]

Shit! Fuck! Chapters! More! Need!
Also, I'm glad we finally got to find out where Pinkie'd been for the entire story.
Only now she's dead, I guess.
You really love killing off the Mane Six, don't you?