Ruining Harmony

by Artaelian

Twilight Truth part one

The hospital made Rainbow Dash nervous as she walked along the clean white corridors. Her only relief was that she wasn’t a patient there. She walked up to the desk, behind which stood Nurse Redheart and the doctor on duty. Rainbow looked down to her neck, checking that she still had the goggles around it.

Twilight hadn’t been willing to part with the goggles, after having learnt where Sunshine Blaze had come from. It confused her why he had come to Equestria, but the recording in the goggles had hinted at it. Sunshine Blaze hadn’t come to cause problems, but was chasing somepony who could be causing problems. Why still wasn’t clear, but the unicorn had shown up at least once in the last few days.

Rainbow Dash stood patiently at the desk, while Nurse Redheart finished the quiet conversation with the doctor. He simply nodded his head in her direction, said a few more words, then walked into a room. Nurse Redheart approached, and smiled.

“How can I help you today Rainbow Dash?” she asked.

“I, um, I came to see how that pegasus Twilight and Applejack brought in is doing. And to give him these.” Rainbow replied, pointing a hoof to the goggles around her neck.

“We’ll make sure those aren’t carrying anything that could hurt his recovery before giving them to him,” Nurse Redheart said, taking the goggles as Rainbow passed them over, “as for how he’s doing, he’ll make a recovery. His progress is amazing, barely a day and all the burn marks are gone. We don’t understand how that is even possible. But, he doesn’t seem like he wants to wake up. It could be a sign of a serious head trauma.”

Nurse Redheart stood aside as Rainbow Dash tried to look in the room Twilight had said she’d find Sunshine Blaze in. The doctor was there, checking on him. As she watched, the doctor lifted a wing and seemed to be checking under it.

“Your friends didn’t notice he had a serious wound. It was covered by a wing, and we even found why it wasn’t bleeding so badly. The wound it seems was inflicted only to cause internal bleeding. If the doctor hadn’t opened the wound more, it would have been missed.” Nurse Redheart informed Rainbow Dash.

“It’s good that he’s alive. Twilight has a lot of questions for him when he’s out.” Rainbow Dash smiled, looking at Nurse Redheart.

“Yes, well, there is something you need to tell Twilight Sparkle,” Nurse Redheart paused, looking around, “last night, somepony came to ‘see’ him. A fishy dark blue unicorn, he didn’t give his name. I lied to him to make him leave, he believes Sunshine Blaze was about to die during the night, he seemed happy to hear that. We’ll let you know when he can leave, but it may be best to protect him if you don’t want that unicorn turning my white lie into the truth.”

Rainbow Dash was pale. She repeated Nurse Redheart’s words in her head, and made the connection. The dark blue unicorn that had turned up the night before must have been the same one the goggles had recorded as attacking Sunshine Blaze, and he had not so subtly come to the hospital, either to finish the job or make sure it had been done right.

Her eyes fell on the sleeping orange pegasus in the room. Who exactly was he?

--
Twilight jumped in surprise at the loud bang against the door. Why did Rainbow Dash do that? It was usually the windows she crashed into or through, but why did she never slow down enough to open them first?

The door swung open, with a very annoyed looking Rainbow Dash standing in the doorway. She shook her head, entered the room and kicked the door closed behind her.

“So how was he?” Applejack asked.

“He’s fine. They’re amazed at how fast the burn marks are gone, he’s going to make a full recovery, provided he wants to wake up.” Rainbow Dash replied.

“Good, when I come back from my portal, we can ask him everything we need to know.” Twilight stated, trotting to the basement.

“There is one other thing,” Rainbow Dash said, which made Twilight stop in her tracks, “someone came to see him last night.”

“Oh? Who was it?” Twilight questioned, getting ready to hear that Sunshine Blaze wasn’t as kind or innocent as Applejack had made him out to be.

“You remember the recording in his goggles? He was attacked by a dark blue unicorn. And Nurse Redheart said it was a dark blue unicorn that came to see him. She said he seemed happy when she lied and told him that Sunshine Blaze wouldn’t live to today.” Rainbow answered.

They all fell silent.

--
Sunshine Blaze opened his eyes slightly, as yelling from somewhere nearby reached his ears. His eyes fell on his goggles, and he smiled. He sat up, and watched the commotion outside of the room, as he picked the goggles up and placed them upon his head.

The nurse and a doctor were both holding back a sea blue earth pony. He was a sight in himself, one of his legs looked metallic, and little puffs of steam rose from a small pipe in the side, it had been made of various objects and looked as if it had been quickly thrown together by someone who put up cheesy little objects on display at every holiday. There was a metal plate which covered the left side of his head, and burn marks to the face along it suggested that it had been made to stay there in a very painful manner. The eye that should have been there, to match the dark brown on his right had also been changed for a metallic one. While the right eye glared at the nurse, the left eye’s blue glow fell on Sunshine Blaze.

The nurse and doctor lost their struggle to hold this earth pony back any longer. He pushed them both aside, and kicked the door, the glass pane shattering as he did so, and his rough voice finally could be heard.

“...and ya see? He’s awake now, I call visitin’ hours! Now sod off the both o’ ya!” he shouted back at the nurse and doctor.

“Really captain? Must you be such a hooligan? We aren’t in Irvest you know, they don’t accept this behaviour in Equestria.” Sunshine Blaze said, looking unimpressed.

“Eh, the gits wouldn’t let me come see ya. Enough about me anyway, how’s yer mission goin’?” the captain asked.

“I’m in a hospital, no idea how I got here, I still haven’t found him yet, and he’s after the Elements of Harmony still, how do you think it’s going?” Sunshine Blaze quipped.

“Fair ‘nough,” the captain looked back at Nurse Redheart and the doctor, as they got up out at the corridor, “so me ‘n’ the crew wait fer ye?” he asked.

“Yes. Now, I think you’d better leave. You haven’t made a good impression, and if they all knew where we come from, they’d chase you away and probably do something very bad to me.” Sunshine Blaze warned, looking away from the captain and to the nurse.

“Whatever ye say lad.” The captain said, grinning as he left, but stopped long enough to wrap a leg around the nurse, whispering something to her that resulted in a hoof to his face, and a lot of laughter as the captain left the hospital. Sunshine Blaze shook his head, and begun to think of how best to explain who he was.

--
“Anyway,” Rainbow Dash broke the silence, “I asked Nurse Redheart to tell us if anypony else that seems unusual comes by to see him. After all, the unicorn turned up, who’s to say the unicorn can’t disguise himself, or is working alone?” she stated.

“Good idea Rainbow Dash. Now, if you all want, you can stay up here. I’m sure my portal won’t take long.” Twilight said, smiling as she walked through the door to the basement.

As Twilight descended the stairs, the sound of hooves behind her indicated that her friends were joining her, rather than remain upstairs in the library. She walked up to the last portal which held a picture of her in it, and took a deep breath.

There seemed to be a pattern with the portals as each of her friends had gone through, except for Rainbow and Pinkie Pie, who’s portals had been made from them having already been sent to an alternate future. Three of them had alternate futures behind their portals, while Fluttershy and Applejack had been sent to the past. If the pattern was right, she thought, her portal would also lead to a past event the voice was trying to change.

Looking back to her friends and smiling, Twilight stepped through the portal.

The five friends stood and looked at Twilight’s portal, eagerly hoping she returned quickly. They acknowledged Spike as he entered. Spike meanwhile, glanced around the room looking for Twilight.

“She’s already gone through?” he questioned.

“Yes, Spike.” Rainbow Dash answered.

“Nurse Redheart stopped by, a sailor stopped by to see Sunshine Blaze. They seemed to know each other. Thought she’d want to know.” he said, looking at Rainbow Dash.

“Well, it’ll have to wait until she returns. Hopefully that won’t be long.” Rarity stated.

They all fell silent again.

--
Twilight stared in shock at the scene she was met with. Around her, trees burned, even with heavy rain that should have extinguished them, they raged as though freshly started on a sunny day. The ground felt hot and stung at her hooves.

There was no indication of where she had ended up, all there was, for as far as she could see, a scenery of destruction.

Just before her, laying on the ground was a unicorn, his previously white coat now had patches of crimson and black all over, sometimes mixed. He was barely breathing and clearly in a bad way, and beside for him, there was no life around.

Twilight slowly walked over to him, the crackling of burning trees replacing where the sound of birds singing should have been. When she got within ten feet of him, the colt weakly opened his eyes.

“Someone came to finish me off for him?” he said.

“What? I just got here, I... I don’t know what’s going on,” Twilight said, “is there any way I can help you? What wounded you?”

“You’re a kind mare, I’ll give you that,” the colt stopped to cough, and took a few raspy breaths, “if you could, help me get back to Canterlot, that’s all you can do for me.”

“But if you tell me what injured you, I can help! I know a lot of magic.” Twilight explained, hoping to be of more help than supporting the colt while he walked.

“Nothing on this planet can help me anymore. It was folly to think we could defeat him, he is too strong, and my friends paid for my arrogance with their lives,” he coughed again, attempting to stand up while Twilight wasn’t helping him, “I have no doubt a mare like yourself would have learnt healing spells, but even then, there is nothing can be done about curses.”

As the colt spoke, Twilight begun to think, piecing what little information she had together to work out where she was. She looked at him, very few white patches of his coat remained. He had mentioned that someone strong had done this to him, and his friends. Suddenly, it clicked.

“Are you by any chance, Fireshot?” she asked.

“Indeed I am, not that my fame will do me any further good.” he tried to laugh, but coughed more violently this time, and any progress he had made in getting up was lost as he collapsed to the ground once again.

“But, when my friend Applejack last saw you, you were going to fight Discord, didn’t Celestia and Luna turn up and help?” she asked.

Fireshot looked up at her, with a mix of pain and surprise on his face.

“Another one of you from the future?” He coughed a short defeated laughter. “No, they’re off to some failed retrieval. If they’re lucky, they won’t make it back to see Equestria become all but ruins.” He relaxed as best as he could with the pain he was in, head on his forehooves, looking down, and murmuring “and it’s all on my hooves.”