Ruining Harmony 2: Pillars of Harmony

by Artaelian

First published 28th of April, 2017

"Wake up, Applejack. Equestria awaits!" Sixty years have passed since the events caused by the time travelling Ulysses, and the world is now a different place. But how did it get this way? And where are her friends?

"Wake up, Applejack. Equestria awaits!"

Sixty years have passed, but that fateful day where the six friends faced down the time travelling Ulysses, something went wrong.
Now Applejack has awoken, her friends are missing, her only source of help is the returned Discord, and worse, if she can't figure out what went wrong and stop Ulysses, even the stalemate will have been for nothing.

But what are the pillars of Harmony? What does she have to do with them, and how exactly can she bring an end to Ulysses alone, when the last she saw him, he had malformed and became twisted by the time magic he was using?

Chapter One: Wake Up, Applejack

“Wake up, Applejack.”
The voice pierced a haze around her mind. She wasn’t sure who she was, what the voice was, was that even her name? And for that matter, why did she refer to herself as she? What was its opposite?
“Wake up, Applejack.” the voice was a bit louder now, as if it were closer.
Wake up? What did that mean? Wasn’t she? What was its opposite?
“Wake up, Applejack, Equestria awaits!”

She opened her eyes to a haze. Her green eyes blinked the mist away and saw a soft orange and yellow room. She was upon a table like thing, which seemed to be a hastily improvised bed, but there were warm patches at her sides. Once the mist blurring the room was gone, she looked a bit more immediately around her, and found there were more patches of warmth on her body, in addition to the ones underneath her. They were attached to cables and wires which reached out to machines, at which a strange tall creature stood, it had the legs of a lizard and goat, arms of a lion and eagle, a long snake like in its curvature and flexibility for a body, a head of a pony and horns of a deer and goat.
It did look rather odd and unnatural, but she found herself frozen in place, as if something wasn’t quite right. The creature turned to glance at her, and smiled.
“Oh good, you’re awake, I was getting a bit worried.” it spoke in a male voice. Again she found herself questioning how she knew what a male was, and her confusion seemed to show on her face as the creature picked up on it.
“Don’t worry, it’s natural after what we had to do to save you that you would be wondering what anything is,” he said, approaching slowly, enough to move the cables and wires from her, “I am able to tell you what happened and why you are here, but first, a drink.”
He snapped his fingers and a glass of chocolate milk appeared in its hand, which he put before her. Cautiously, she drank it down, and felt the cool liquid fill her.
“Right, before anything else, try speaking, it has been quite some time since you last got to say anything to anypony.”
“Who,” she coughed, her voice was scratchy sounding, even despite the drink, “who are you?” she asked.
The creature helped her up, again offering her a drink which she took, finding this time it was a different liquid. He smiled, and slowly led her to some stairs.
“I’m Discord, and I’ve been keeping watch over you, keeping you safe for some time. It is a long story.”

In the room at the top of the stairs, she noticed that there appeared to be a farm and small village set up within the room. How this was possible, she chose not to question, after all Discord had made water and other drinks out of the air, so a whole village within the confines of a room would be nothing to him, right?
She hoped that logic would stand on its own without her needing to keep it up in her mind. Discord meanwhile was looking at her, rather intently, though saying nothing. What was his plan? As she began to wander, with Discord ever watchful, she saw statues of ponies of all shapes and colors, each seemed to be doing their own thing. In the air were statues of ponies with wings, while ones with horns mingled among ones that looked, well, normal.
“Ah don’t understand.” she stated. Discord only sighed.
“Is nothing familiar?”
Applejack looked around again. Now he questioned her, there was something about the village. Mainly the farm. Of all the things to include, why the farm? What purpose was there for a farm, which had real crops and trees being fed by water, when the residents of the village were statues which would never eat the stuff grown. And for that matter, why were such terms and ideas in her head, what was a farm?
She thought for a moment, a farm was where ponies worked to grow food. How she knew that she wasn’t sure but to her mind, even in its current state, it was as if she just knew, deep in the core of her being, what a farm was for. There was a moment of understanding, something had happened to her, and she had no memories, but there was someone who knew why and he was watching. She looked to Discord, confusion etched into her glance.
“Ah want answers, you promised.”
“Of course, in these times, betraying ponies would not do.” Discord replied.

The top floor held another machine, which had a seat in it and more wires, but crucially, a helmet. She looked to it, and to Discord, who stood looking at it, silently. He pointed to it, and his calm face showed concern.
“This machine will restore your memories. Sixty years ago, thanks to myself and the technology of this country, we were able to catch you and your memories. But, no matter how you feel of me once they are returned to you, please, remain calm. I have been protecting you from harm all these years, so please,” Discord actually lowered himself to look at her, “please don’t be angry or upset at my presence.”
She was confused by this, but slowly nodded. Turning to the machine, she walked to it and sat on the chair, shivering as Discord placed the wires on her head, followed by the helmet.
“The buzzing will be normal by the way, it's just the machine using the power supply.” Discord said.
Sure enough, there was a click and an instant buzzing sound. The helmet flickered and a display appeared. For a moment she was confused, seeing the scenes before her. There were two ponies, which appeared as colored blobs, followed by a green one, then a red. A flicker, things were more defined now, and she was looking at the ponies who had been blobs before, but this time, there was a small yellow pony held by one of them. A flicker, and she saw a field of apple trees, the green mare and red colt from before beside her, they were all upset. A flicker, she was in a place with building taller than the trees, and she felt sick, but there was a rainbow that had exploded in the sky.
A flicker, this time she was racing a blue pony who had wings and a rainbow mane. A flicker, she was in the home of a purple pony with a horn, and a white one also with a horn, there was a tree in the window. Flick. Discord was there, but he seemed, well, bad, as if she hated him. Flick. Now she was seeing another pony, a blue stallion this time with a horn and black material on his body, he was disfiguring, and she screamed physically as bones that couldn’t, shouldn’t exist tore out of him.
And it ended. Discord removed the helmet and wires, and left more water near her, which she drank.

After ten minutes of silence, she looked up at him.
“I see you recall events before the moment.” Discord replied.
“Ah promised not ta get angry or nothin’,” she spat out, “but git talkin’, how’d ya get free again?”
Discord sighed, and pointed at her.
“Your last memory, the last one you saw. I could watch them while waiting for you to wake up, I saw what you saw.”
“Ulysses.” Applejack muttered.
“Sixty years ago, you and your friends risked your lives to reclaim the Elements of Harmony and free the world from him. You failed. Before you could do anything, he fatally struck you all down, and in his imbalance with time magic, he begun to destroy the world.”
Applejack remained patient, mostly now out of shock rather than anger at Discord. They had died? But she was still alive.
“But in the moment, when the normal harmony of the world is chaos, it awoke me, and well, changed me. I am Discord, spirit of disharmony and chaos. In a world where chaos is harmony, harmony becomes the new chaos. I used what little remained of my true powers of chaos to manipulate the time distortion, I rescued you six, stole back the elements and arranged for you to be brought to these strongholds to revive you.”
Discord held his arms out, and Applejack marveled. This was how she was still alive, to bring somepony back from the edge of death must have taken a lot of power, and a machine bigger than she had expected, but she was proof it worked. Discord however wasn’t done speaking.
“But the world has changed in sixty years, Applejack. Even I couldn’t defeat Ulysses, I could only contain him. As I fought, seven souls came to my side, and with them, we sealed him away.”
“Well that’s alright then, ain’t it? He’s sealed, ah’m alive, and the others are too right?” she smiled.
“If only things were that simple. The seal could only contain him in one spot, and it’s failing,” Discord snapped his fingers, and the room they were in changed to a castle balcony, looking out towards the land. Applejack adjusted for a moment and recognised the landscape as being Equestria, but something was wrong, in the distance was a huge sphere of glowing colors, and seven flickering lights, “there is the seal. But its failure is just the tip of the iceberg of problems. The reason I looked after you the most, Ulysses can still reach and interact with the world from within the barrier. He has taken your friends. I do not know if they are alive or dead, just they are now inside the barrier, and whatever state they are in, he is using them to push back. If he had you, the world would be dead now.”
Another snap of the fingers, and they were back in the room with the memory machine.
“Alright, so things are bad, so why wake me?”
“I need you to help. I know I have no right to ask of this considering the last time we met, I turned you against your element and friends, but I cannot do this alone. The sages of Irvest, and the seven souls maintaining the pillars need you. I need you to save Irvest, and show the seven souls that there is still hope yet of defeating Ulysses once and for all. Can you help me, please?” Discord got on his knees.
Applejack blinked. She certainly hadn’t expected him to do that.
“So the alternative is to do nothing and we all die?”
“Not right away thankfully, if you say no, I could find another way to keep him sealed, but it would be like trying to stop a burst dam with tape.”
She sighed, looking around the room for a moment as she thought.
“There’s no way Ah’m letting him get free and do as he pleases, ah’ve a score to settle, one sixty years in the making!”
“That’s the spirit! There isn’t a rush just yet, get your bearings in Irvest and seek out the other strongholds your friends were in. While of course they aren’t there now, Ulysses did something to the sages of this country, without them, one of the seven strongholds will fail.”
Discord opened a doorway to the outside. Slowly, and blinking in the midday sun, Applejack walked outside.
The place she had been in was like a stronghold in itself, though tower shaped. It pulsed a faint orange as she looked to it, before turning her attention to the area around it. Nearby, about ten minutes walk away was the city of Port Equis. The tall white conical tower had black marks in it, and damage, and the city seemed to be in a state where the damage had been left. She couldn’t see much change however, and so she turned to Discord.
He was gone, he had left at some point without saying a word, which made her sigh. With nothing else to do, she began the walk into Port Equis.

Author's Notes:

So here we go. While the first story wasn't too successful, having little to no views, it was only ever going to be a starting point to further stories in the series.
I wasn't originally going to go with this one, but the one I really wanted to do second just needed more time and thought to get to a standard I would be happy to present to you all. Especially now I have to do this alone. My editor did take a look, but only to tell me in the original draft where I was going wrong. See I knew something was wrong in the previous draft but I needed someone with an outside view.
The scene that changed was the bit where Discord takes Applejack to the second floor. The original draft saw him put her through trials to get her moving after all those years of being still, but my editor pointed out it stood out in stark contrast to the rest and felt more like I was describing events in a video game.

I'll end this note here, but it should be clear where in the first story this one branches from. There were a lot of potential timeline splits set up in that story, and this is the off the eights branch point near the end.

Chapter Two: Broken Irvest

The port city of Port Equis hadn’t changed much to her eyes in the sixty years. The buildings looked like they always did, as if they had been painted but the salty sea air nearby had then decided soon after to cover them in salt water. It was an eternal battle between the city and the sea, though the port itself no longer used ramshackle wooden buildings, having changed to stone ones even as she and her friends had prepared to go back to Equestria all those years ago.
It was, Applejack decided, rather comforting. If indeed sixty years had passed, then the almost timeless Port Equis was welcome. She would even have a place to stay as she adjusted to the changes that had taken place elsewhere.

Her path took her past the central government office of the city, which had ended up as a tower some time before she had even heard of Irvest. The builders it seemed were never happy to just stop, the next layer had to be just a bit smaller than the one below, though eventually, they had got to the point where the next part of the building wouldn’t have even been big enough for rooms and stairs, and had given up. Before this white building, ponies of the city were staring at the hills nearby, making her wonder what it was they were looking at. She chose one at random, a unicorn with deep green fur, and a set of eyes that were both golden, though one was more to do with the bulb behind the glass than being natural, and steam came out in small puffs from the side of the device.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Yeah, uh, what’s everypony staring at?” Applejack asked.
“Oh that’s simple, the stronghold on the hill,” the unicorn mare pointed, “an hour ago there was a bell sound from it and the whole thing lit up orange like it is now.”
Applejack glanced at the stronghold, the grey stone building looked like a needle driven into the landscape, but there was indeed orange lights around the edges of it that pulsed. And there had been a reason that she hadn’t noticed it before, it was in the direction she had come from.
“Well shucks, that’s where I was an hour ago.” she commented.
There were gasps, and the crowd, which had paid her no attention took a step away from her all at once. That was unsettling, had she said something wrong? She looked to each face, getting more and more nervous at the stares.
“Well I’ll be,” came an old, frail voice from the steps of the government building, “seems I need to bring you up to speed.”
Applejack turned to this voice, and resisted having to take a step back, as she looked at the old man that Captain had become.

Captain had become the current governor of Port Equis in the sixty years she had been in the stronghold, the previous one she had known about, his name escaping her, had sadly died in his sleep of natural causes some time ago. Applejack felt sad for him, he had been a nice stallion, helped her and her friends who were strangers in Irvest.
Captain sat opposite her, maps of the world before her. While there were many countries, which she was assured had changed in the time, mostly due to Ulysses, she focused on Irvest and Equestria, the two that now shared the same problem of, well, Ulysses.
Irvest had a great canyon through it now, that simply hadn’t existed before, which split the southern half of the island from the northern half, the only thing that had survived the split was the mountain of the sages, which sat in the middle of it. Port Equis had been the only town or city on the island to escape any effect of the split.
It turns out Irvest owed the fact it hadn’t sunk beneath the sea to Discord and the Sages. They had quickly repurposed parts of six strongholds to hold back to time vortex which was unmapped. When she asked why this was, Captain explained the time vortex still moved, while it was contained, it just followed whatever purpose it had been created for.
The strongholds, she was then explained to, had once held her and her friends, in a star shape. Applejack’s was the only one of two in the south of the island, and there was another nearby.
She made a note to ask the locations of the others, to search for any hints of her friend’s fates, and looked to Equestria. It had changed even more than Irvest had, the seal where Ulysses was contained marked and seven bigger strongholds stood in a circle around it, with Discord’s castle being the eighth point.
Applejack wasn’t explained to as to why strongholds, but she did note the eight each had names, most of which she instantly recognised; Canterlot, Cloudsdale, Appleloosa and Ponyville. Once cities and towns, they had become part of the few surviving settlements and resisted the time vortexes and time corruption being unleashed by Ulysses even as she and Captain sat and spoke.
It was a lot to take in, and when Captain fell silent, she looked to the maps. This was a very different world she had woken up in, so different she barely recognised it. Was this what her and her friend’s failure had done? How bad would the world be had they failed to stop Nightmare Moon or Discord?
“There is some other things I should probably mention, details you weren’t told before and wouldn’t have known.” Captain cleared his throat.
“More? Ah don’t know, this is already a lot to take in.” Applejack muttered.
“I know, but there have been other threats to the world. Some ponies named Cadence and Shining Armor tried to get married, only for the Changelings and their Queen to cause problems. Sad that, they beat the Changelings off, but it tore the pair apart. And barely six months later, King Sombra reappeared in the north of Equestria. Well, nopony stood in his way as he marched down, Discord hasn’t stopped him yet because it gives a slight diversion now and then to Ulysses.”
Applejack had no clue what a changeling was, or who King Sombra was either, but Captain wasn’t done.
“Then Tirek broke free from Tartarus, he and Ulysses fought as Tirek sought a strong source of magic, and the raw power of time drew him like a moth to a candle. No one to this day is sure what happened, Tirek made it to the seal, went through and that was the last anypony saw, all we know is, Ulysses continued on as if Tirek hadn’t been a threat at all.”
“What kind of monster did me and my friends fail to stop.” Applejack sighed, hanging her head in shame.
“Oh I don’t think Ulysses could take on Tirek, only Alicorns can. Real alicorns, not jumped up children playing with things and forces beyond their understanding. Its likely Ulysses cheated and sent Tirek elsewhere in time to avoid the fight.”
Somehow, this didn’t make Applejack feel better. She gasped when the building shook, and hurrying to a window with Captain, she looked to the horizon. Beyond the sea, a black pillar of cloud rose.
“Applejack, Ulysses is looking into this time zone, he is aware of you. Be careful!” Discord’s voice filled the room, sounding strained as if he were fighting Ulysses.
“Captain, Ah need the locations of the other strongholds here in Irvest, Ah need to get any clues as to what happened with the others.”
Captain nodded, returning to the map, he rolled it up for her.
“The nearest is to the east of Port Equis, it was where Pinkie Pie recovered. The locations of the others are kept a secret from us all here, the sages will know where they are,” he pointed at the east, “once you have your clue, head to the center of the island, Goldwing should be able to tell you where to go from there.”

He seethed, and raged, watching the orange mare, the only one denied to him by that mismatch snake. How dare he be denied? She was beyond reach for the moment, and a bone hoof sat under the time vortex that was growing in Irvest. He would see where she went, and he would capture her.
He calmed down. Once, he had a plan. Use the Elements of Harmony to make himself the alicorn he should have been at birth, but those six just had to stop him using them. It mattered not, he would recover them, and keep those six from them this time. He looked at his body, it had long twisted and broken, it no longer resembled the unicorn he had once been, but a skeletal mockery of, well, it was rather impossible to say. Not even his head looked equine anymore. He watched as she headed to another stronghold, the time nails that blighted Irvest’s landscape. Where once the countryside had been a wonder, the strongholds now stood in contrast to it, and mocked it.
The only good thing had been the trapped time vortex he had placed to try and break through the barrier and into Irvest. While it had failed, he had tricked that big red centaur into going through it, in the promise of a fight for the raw power of time. The fool had fallen for it, saving him any effort, and now he sat there within it, he could feel, wandering and forever searching for freedom.
He grinned. It mattered not. One thing did.
“Applejack.” his other, now former hoof, reached towards her image, this hoof now looked like the claws of a dragon, but the designer had put three on the same arm.
“I will get you, Applejack, and you will sleep.”

Author's Notes:

At the time I wrote the first Ruining Harmony, I barely did anything with Irvest. It was also around season two, and there were so many villains to come in the show.
This chapter is the start of me exploring Irvest more, while I wrote everything about it and never used it all in the first story, this one will detail the island and how it has changed. You also get to see how the other three villains play into the story now, so while its alternate universe, the events of the show still played out somehow, and will be a sub-theme explored as the story progresses.
Rather exciting yes? And the cliffhanger, I know this story has a Dark tag, but it should be a bit clearer now, or you may think anyway, at how that tag plays into things. There's no bad things, I'm not going to pull gore or horror stuff on you all suddenly.
I hope you'll come back for the next chapter. Until then, take care.

Chapter Three: Awoken Laughter

Applejack ran through the streets of Port Equis, the local residents were in turmoil and outright panic at what had appeared on the horizon. Foals had stopped playing, businesses came to a halt, any ground vehicles slowed and stopped moving. Every pony in the city had just, stopped. It would be unnerving, if she could afford the time to stop and look. She didn’t, but she at least afforded the thought of what was going through their minds.
It had been long ago when she had learnt what Ulysses had done, and how dangerous he could be. He wasn’t an ancient all powerful being like Nightmare Moon and Discord, he was just a normal pony who had ambitions far greater than what life he had been born into.
And in its own way, that made him more dangerous. Time was not going to be on his side, he would fighter harder than immortals to keep what he had gained. As she ran towards the stronghold Pinkie had once been in, she wondered how the rest of Irvest and even Equestria were reacting to it. For sixty years, Ulysses had been an idle threat and now he was very much active.

Indeed, Discord stared from his castle at the black pillar. The seal had broken slightly from the force of it, but not enough to free Ulysses completely. His gaze turned to the see-all spell he had cast to keep an eye on Applejack, and he smiled at the urgency this change had caused. Sitting back, he cleared his throat.
“All Pillar masters, report in.” he said calmly.
“All good in Canterlot.”
“Same for Friendship Falls.”
“An’ Appleoosa.”
“Crystal Empire going strong, we’re under a fresh attack by Sombra, but no change there.”
“Cloudsdale almost took a direct hit by that thing.”
“Manehatten reporting, the fracture seemed largest at the bay nearby.”
Discord froze. The stronghold the last voice had suggested was the focus of the fracture in the barrier was the Bloodpact stronghold, the most vital one.
“Report your status Bloodpact stronghold.” he called out, trying to keep his voice calm. It was all too easy to get angry about this, and it wouldn’t do, not when he had a vital role in the world now.
But several minutes passed in silence, and he could feel the fear from the other six voices, though it went unsaid, that the Bloodpact Stronghold had fallen and their mission would soon fail. Then a cough.
“We took a big hit here, the bloodpact pillar is functional, but barely. The black pillar is coming down right on top of us, if we can’t stop it soon, the stronghold will fall.”
Discord took several deep breaths. Then for good measure and old times sake, pushed his hand into another world and poured strawberry sauce into the rain clouds.
“Alright,” he said, seeing the chaos the sauce caused, “I’ll see what I can do.”
His eyes wandered back to Applejack.
“We need to get her moving faster.” he hummed.

It took Applejack an hour to leave Port Equis again and make it to the next stronghold. She paused to look at it, and the crafted balloon statues outside. There even seemed to be a lot of plastic which long decayed flowers came in at the foot of the stronghold, ponies had lain flowers at some point for the pink mare inside, either in the belief she was dead, or just as a sign of respect. With some care, she approached the doors and pushed them open, which they did with a creek.
Inside was a mess, and the first thing she saw was the memory restorer she had been put in, clearly each one had been put for her friends too. Hadn’t Discord suggested she could get their memories in turn from them? It was worth a try she guessed, approaching the machine, she saw a single button flashing, which she pressed.
From the machine a screen appeared and lowered to her head height, flickering into life, and Applejack saw Pinkie’s memories, from her earliest moments after being born, to moving to Ponyville, and then, sadly, to the confrontation with Ulysses.
Pinkie, as she could guess, had stood beside Rainbow Dash, to the left, when Ulysses attacked. He raised the ground to six platforms, and Applejack flinched as she saw Pinkie notice her own platform had been broken, and she fell head first to the ground.
“Oh goodness,” Applejack looked away, unable to watch what happened next or how Pinkie had been brought to Death’s door, “poor Pinkie Pie, I can’t imagine what that was like.”
The screen flickered again and it drew Applejack’s attention to it. She watched as Pinkie opened her eyes and stood up, looking around the room somewhere downstairs. This time there was sound.

“Where am I? Who… am I?” Pinkie said slowly. She looked down at her hooves. There was no help for her, and she just sat there for a while, before she began to wander around, looking for anything that could tell her who she was at the very least.
She found it in the room up above the one she had woken up in. There were cards, lots of them. Each was signed from someone to a Pinkie Pie. That must be her name, she was the only one here after all, wherever here was. It took her another hour before she grew bored of the cards and wandered up the next flight of stairs, and saw the strange machine. Spotting the chair, Pinkie sat on it, screaming when it began to work, and held her in place before she could run away to safety.
Then her life memories played out, and she calmed down. At the end, she was crying.
“How am I alive? My neck!” she looked around, where she had hoped for answers, she had got them, but now lacked the most important one.
And then she wasn’t alone. There was a brown unicorn standing before her, utterly transparent. Pinkie froze.
Run, please! He’s coming for you! You saved me once, now I have to save you! The ghostly unicorn shouted. But he clearly was too late, as black mist rose from the floor.
Pinkie backed away, trying to find any way out. But the mist was between her and the door.
“The first fallen hero awakens,” Ulysses chuckled, “six of you fell, and six of you I shall take, to restore what was robbed of me.”
Pinkie screamed.

Applejack looked around, sensing she wasn’t alone. Standing behind her, silently, was Discord. He had watched with her, and he looked sad.
“I should have felt her wake up. But such is Ulysses’s planning, he had used the fifty years to find the spells I had placed around all of you, and he kept them from activating when Pinkie Pie woke early.”
“Ya can’t blame yerself, Ulysses is mortal, he’s got a lot to lose, he will be planning ahead all the time.” Applejack tried to reassure him.
“And that’s the thing, Applejack, he has a lot to lose, so to ensure he has more of a chance, he’s reached across time itself. Thankfully he’s too weak to change the past, but he can see every possible future, and right now, you have him scared. He’s seen that you will fight him, and you will end him, he’s attacking a vital stronghold in Equestria to break free before you can even find what has kept him alive and what he’s trying to achieve.”
Discord handed a pendant to Applejack, fixing it around her neck.
“This will let you move around faster, it contains a fraction of my former power. You can’t teleport around with a stomp of the hoof, but you’ll be able to walk and run faster, and, importantly, it will hide you from his sight. The next stronghold is to the north west of here, in the Glittering Vale. It was where I brought Rarity.”
Applejack nodded.
“One question though, how did you save Pinkie from certain death?”
Discord smiled, not a mocking or joking smile, but a warm smile.
“Quite possibly the best thing about Irvestians, they’ve learnt to replace every part of the body. And with a strong enough spirit, a pony in Irvest can even survive injuries that should kill them right away.”
“So she’s got a metal neck.” Applejack looked less impressed.
“Yes, there was enough of a connection from brain to body to not outright kill her, just be minutes away instead of under a second, they just carefully removed the bone and put a metal replacement, and there you go. That may also be why she woke first, she didn’t really die.”
Applejack shivered. She hadn’t liked the idea of replacing body parts with metal and steam powered ones, and she didn’t dare ask what had to be replaced on her body, if anything. She decided to turn and walk to the door.
“But keep in mind, Applejack, Ulysses exists across time now, he’s mortal and yet, time is very much his ally, and our enemy, be fast.”
She didn’t need to be told twice, but she did need a map, and with all haste that the pendant Discord had given her, she ran back to Port Equis.

When she returned to the city, life had returned to some normality, with one eye very much kept on the black pillar that lingered on the horizon. Applejack went in search of the home she and her friend had been given in Irvest, knowing that Twilight hadn’t returned to Equestria with everything.
It was a street called Two Roses Way that their home had been on, the street remained the same as it had been when she had last seen it, with one exception. The front of the home had been redecorated and had, at some point, become a memorial to her and her friends. She saw carved representations of her, Rainbow, Pinkie, Twilight, Rarity and Fluttershy, each beside a carved flower, and the clouds painted black with the piercing eyes of Ulysses. She shivered, it was a carving, but that gaze was one she’d never quickly forget. The door, she found, was open, and there now sat a guestbook in the hallway.
It had been turned into a small museum of sorts, and as she wandered from room to room in search of a map, she saw dummies that had been coloured and placed as how each of them would have been. Rarity had even been placed working on a sewing machine!
“That’s some good detail.” she smiled.
Her own dummy was in the kitchen, looking at plans to the farm she had ran when in Irvest, a plaque noted the farm was still run in the way she had established since she had left to fight Ulysses. It was all good having the trip down memory lane, but she hurried in search of Twilight’s room.
Located at the top floor, the fourth, Twilight had turned a library into her bedroom, to none of their surprise. Books had been placed here where she had made gaps, but on the table was a folded map of Irvest. Twilight had left it there before they returned to Equestria, having decided she had enough books which showed Irvest. It was an opportunity Applejack wasn’t questioning. Simple chance had seen the map left behind, and now she needed it. Glancing at it, she noted the north road out of Port Equis split in three at the bottom of the Mountain of the Sages, and she would need to head west to make her way to the Glittering Vale.
With renewed determination, she left the home behind one last time, and headed north, towards the Mountain of the Sages.

Author's Notes:

Those seven unnamed voices aren't random. There's no clue intentionally so the characters speaking can be revealed later in the story. One though may be very obvious. If you want to guess, let me know in the comments.

Chapter Four: The Glittering Vale

Applejack had barely got out of Port Equis when there was a rumble in the ground. She froze, of course she knew all about earthquakes, but there was one thing she also knew about Irvest, it never got any. She turned her attention skywards and flinched as the black pillar had reached higher, revealing it to be a beam of energy. It arced and began to fall back down to the planet.
To her horror, it spread wide and struck Irvest across one side of the Mountain of the Sages. The ground shook more and more until there came a light from the mountain itself which pushed the beam away.
It relieved her to know the sages had put the barrier that had once been around Irvest, though she guessed in the sixty years, there had been little need to keep it up with Ulysses inactive within a different containment spell.

It wasn’t for an hour before she could see what had happened when the black pillar struck Irvest. One entire side of the Mountain of the Sages had collapsed, and there was a lot of solid ground now missing, or in some cased, floating, around the impact area. With her map now at least somewhat incorrect, she regardless turned north-west and headed on to the Glittering Vale.
Discord had contacted the sages to find out what had happened. From his perspective, the Bloodpact Stronghold had been under attack by it, and then the pillar had just suddenly altered course. Goldwing, the oldest sage still alive, had been the only one to respond to him, and suddenly it became clear what Ulysses was doing. The attack on the Bloodpact Stronghold had been just phase one, with the backing of the sages in Irvest, Ulysses had weakened them from Equestria where they would have still felt safe, before redirecting it to Irvest at them. They had been too weak to stop it, and it was only by luck that Goldwing had survived, putting the barrier up once again. It wouldn’t stop the Stronghold being effective, but for the next three hours, as the successors to the fallen sages were brought in, Bloodpact was out of operation.
He tapped a talon against his chair. Three hours may as well have been an eternity, even in a state of low operation, there was now enough of a gap for Ulysses to begin poking at, and Ulysses rarely did one thing without having some sort of plan ready and waiting. This had been a cover for his real plan.
But what bothered Discord was that he had no idea what it was.

Applejack moved fast thanks to the pendant given to her by Discord. A trip to the Glittering Vale should have taken a fortnight easily, but she was moving as fast as a motor vehicle the Irvestians favoured over their own hooves, and as such, she was there at sunset. But she paused at the edge of the place, as it had been affected by the black pillar.
Irvest had lost some land she knew, but the attack had split the Glittering Vale in half. Once there had been a river that ran through the city and vale itself, but the yawning canyon had removed it, and some buildings even tilted toward it.
What was also clear was that Ulysses had attacked more than just the Mountain of the Sages, he had struck at the Stronghold that Rarity had been placed in. It wasn’t destroyed, and if this was by design or intent, it now floated in the air.
“Well that’s just great, how do Ah get to it?” she grumbled as she walked to the city.

Glittering Vale itself was still in turmoil from the black pillar, ponies running around to help those out of collapsed buildings. Such was the state of emergency, no one paid her any attention as she wandered in. The city had been a sight she had seen many times when the world hadn’t got so crazy. Marble stone made up everything, and they inlaid all the stones with gems, so that at all times of the day, somewhere in the city glittered. It was how it got its name.
Applejack wasn’t noticed by anyone until she came across a unicorn mare, who happened to be looking up as Applejack got near. She waved to Applejack, catching her attention.
“I know who you are, you’re Applejack, one of the six who tried to stop Ulysses sixty years ago.” the mare said.
“Ah, yup, that’s me.” Applejack replied, rubbing her head.
“I’m Diamond Core, what brings you here so soon after he attacked our city?” Diamond asked.
“To be honest, that,” Applejack pointed at the Stronghold, “I need to see what Ulysses is up to, but it's only in there I can find out.”
“Well, that’s going to be difficult, since it's now flying. But if you're alright with it, I can spare a moment and take you to it.”
Applejack blinked. Even with all the destruction around her, some random mare was going to drop everything to take her up to the stronghold? There had to be a catch.
“What’s in it fer you?”
“For me?” Diamond pretend for a moment to look hurt, but when Applejack didn’t change her deadpan look, she sighed.
“I want somepony to avenge my sister. That blast may not have killed her, but I saw what it really was, corrupted time used as a weapon. My sister could be anywhere in history and I’ll never see her again, I want Ulysses to pay for it. So are you coming? Or are you just going to talk and wonder how to get to the Stronghold?”

Applejack of course chose to go to the Stronghold. Diamond Core had a small paraglider which had somehow survived undamaged in the blast. Loading it with fuel, the two mares climbed aboard and set off.
“This thing is awesome, it even has weapons should I need to defend myself.”
“And do you?” Applejack asked.
“It sometimes happens, there’s some dangerous things living in the clouds to the west.”
Ahead, the floating island that now was the home of the Stronghold could be seen, along with something circling around it and towards them.
“Oh great, looks like Ulysses isn’t going to let you get to this one so easily. Hang on, I’ll get rid of it.” Diamond Core stated.
Looking ahead, Applejack could see there was indeed something heading towards the paraglider. The body was pony shaped, the head a mix of griffon and dragon, with legs and appendages a mix of all three. It didn’t need wings for some reason, as it flew without them.
It held its appendages out and formed spheres which it threw towards them.
Diamond Core kept calm, shooting them with the gun until they popped out of existence again. She turned her attention when the coast was clear to the thing Ulysses had sent, but despite direct shots, it continued to make spheres and throw them at the paraglider.
“I think it’s throwing spheres of time at us, it wants to send us to another point in time.”
Applejack felt useless as Diamond Core turned about and kept shooting at the spheres, then desperately attacked the thing again. The second volley ripped through the smoke and dissipated it, giving them a clearing to land.
“Well that was new, a creature made of cloud, throwing spheres of time.” Diamond Core chuckled, with Applejack noting it sounded like a chuckle someone held in when they weren’t sure they were going to get out of a situation alive.
The paraglider landed with a bump after this, allowing Applejack to climb out.
“I’ll wait here for when you’re done. Take care in there, Applejack.” Diamond smiled. Applejack simply nodded and headed for the door.

The inside of the stronghold was an off-white color, Applejack noticed, with a hint of blue and purple. The memory machine stood in the center of the floor, suggesting to her that it was random which way the strongholds were laid out. Choosing to investigate, she headed downstairs and saw what Discord had placed inside to start triggering memories in Rarity when she awoke. There were small piles of gems scattered about, along with ponyquinns and dresses on them.
Under other circumstances, Applejack would use it to point out how flat Rarity’s interests were, but she turned to the stairs and returned to the memory machine, pressing the single flashing button to see what memories Rarity had been given back.
There was interestingly, no first moments of life memories for Rarity. No seeing the world through fuzzy eyes that had yet to adjust to seeing the world in the first place. Instead Rarity’s first memory was that of fuzzy toys. A lot of fuzzy toys. On and on the memories went, past to how she got her cutie mark, meeting Twilight, and then running for their lives that day.
How long ago had it been? One thing Applejack couldn’t recall was how long it had been since they fled Ulysses and then returned to be defeated. She shrugged it off, a question for another time if the memory didn’t return itself.
Focusing, Applejack watched how Rarity met her end in the battle with Ulysses. The unicorn had fallen from a platform shortly after Pinkie, but this had only broken her leg, leaving her to limp. Panting and desperately trying to buy time that had ran out, Rarity cast her glance over her other friends, the barely breathing Pinkie Pie, who’s very movements suggested death was just a moment away, Twilight Sparkle who was crumpled in an unnatural way against a wall, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had dislocated wings, though how they both suffered other than that was different, Dash had long cuts across her barrel and flank, while Fluttershy’s front half was in a different direction of positioning to her flank. And Rarity had even seen Applejack, bleeding heavily but somehow still standing.
“Applejack! We have to get away!” Rarity cried out.
“Ah ain’t runnin’ like a coward.” the memory Applejack spat back, stumbling as Ulysses laughed and swatted her aside. The memory showed she had cracked her skull against a large rock, and she stopped moving.
Rarity herself looked on as Ulysses approached.
“No more harmony, no more friends. You are alone. You fool. I gave you a world where you could have been queen, a world that was yours! And you walked away.”
Ulysses lifted Rarity by her neck.
“I have no time for fools and weaklings. I have my true life waiting for me.”
Rarity felt cuts across her belly, not deep to remove organs, but enough that she could feel the blood run down her legs. She passed out from the pain.

Rarity stirred awake to a soft blue glow. There was only one memory, the sudden pain and feeling of blood. And yet the dull pain across her belly suggested she wasn’t dead. Regardless of not knowing anything else, she was happy to be alive, when the odds had been against her.
Slowly she stood up and looked around. The lack of memories, even her name, was disturbing, but she decided she really wanted a drink more. She soon located a source of water, drinking enough to satisfy her.
Seeing stairs, and nothing else around her other than the water and where she had woken, Rarity headed up the stairs, seeing the gems and dresses. They seemed familiar, but she pressed on, they had no memories to them, not that she knew anyway.
The third floor was where she saw the large machine, and somewhere to sit. As soon as she did, it dropped something over her eyes, and she gasped. Memories began to play and filled her mind, and in minutes, she recalled everything, even why her only memory made sense.
“Okay, I’m guessing by this machine, Sunshine Blaze didn’t let me die at the very least, and I’m back in Irvest.” Rarity hummed.
“But the others, poor Applejack. Stubborn even to the end. I can guess the only reason Ulysses did a poor job on seeing me off was because he didn’t see me as worth his time.” Rarity sat again. Her mind kept returning to the sight of her friends.
“Until I have the answers to what happened to them, I can cry for missing friends, but I won’t accept I saw them all die.”
The shadows moved, and Rarity stood quickly. From the corners of the room, the eyes of Ulysses stared at her, and formed a shape, part pony and part dragon.
“They did die. And I messed up with you,” he sneered, “but that works in my favour.”
Rarity turned to run, but Ulysses was already behind her. His hoof touched her head.
“Sleep.”
Rarity collapsed to the ground, asleep.
“Two down. Four to go. Then, Discord, I’ll make you regret everything.”

Applejack shook her head. Then she took off her hat and tapped it. There was no indication her skull was now metal, but at the very least, it had answered how she had met her end at the battle against Ulysses. She thought for a moment as to why her own machine hadn’t shown it, but if she had knocked her head, it was likely she couldn’t even recall being the last of her friend aside from Rarity to still be facing Ulysses when all hope had been lost.
With nothing left in the stronghold, Applejack returned outside, and with Diamond Core, headed back to the Glittering Vale.

Chapter Five: Strike on the Sages

Applejack and Diamond Core arrived back to the Glittering Vale city, to find it in much the same state as when they had left. It made Applejack cringe as she saw ponies of all kinds being pulled from the rubble of buildings, and beside her, Diamond Core sat on the ground.
‘She’s going through how Ah felt when Ah saw Ponyville all them years ago.’ Applejack thought, seeing the devastated look on Diamond Core’s face.
“My home, he’s all but broken the city.” Diamond Core muttered, looking to be on the verge of tears. Applejack put a hoof on her shoulder and said nothing. This made Diamond Core look at her, but any tears that were threatening to burst and flow ceased. It was clear, without words, that Applejack was telling her to be strong for those who needed her to be in that moment, there would be time to vent the frustration, anger and sorrow later.
Diamond stood up and slowly set about moving rubble of a nearby building. True to the namesake of the Glittering Valley, even the rubble shone from the number of gems within the marble.
Not wanting to stand around and look useless, Applejack set about helping Diamond. Ten minutes in and they found an old mare, her legs grazed and bleeding, but no serious and lasting injuries. There was word that not so many were being found in such situations, but what surprised Applejack was one fact. There were no fatalities as yet. Despite the earth splitting power of the black pillar, no pony had died, and she was thankful for such a small mercy.
But with the power he had, why had Ulysses held back? Applejack cast her gaze to the Mountain of the Sages. Irvest was a large island, a trip from Port Equis to Edingcolt in the north could take eight hours by vehicle on road, and in effect was four separate countries united as one by the four Sages. The mountain therefore had been the logical seat of power, visible from every part of the island, and the temple, as the Sages had once been religious rulers from each of the united countries rather than what they presently were, stood at the top on a plateau that had been made from the top
This temple had crumbled, she now noticed, and a weak, golden beam shone from the only tower that still stood in defiance of the black pillar that was still attempting to strike Irvest to no current avail.

The barrier that held Ulysses out, when she had last walked the island, had always been maintained by four giant magic filled spheres atop the towers. The sages never told anypony how they worked, and they never left Irvest, they didn’t want to risk Ulysses capturing someone and learning how the barrier worked. She had seen it stand for six years to great effect, and she figured it must have stood for years before she had come here with her friends. But in the sixty years she had been in the stronghold, the barrier had been dropped. Clearly Ulysses had taken advantage of it, and it had been hastily restored before he could destroy Irvest and make it nothing more than rocks just below the sea. But to see only one tower and one sphere working bode ill. And that was when Applejack came to a conclusion that she had no doubt some in Irvest had worked out by now, and by sunset, everypony on the island would know.
The black pillar had been focused on the Sages, a strike to try and stop them preventing Ulysses’ plan of destroying the island. The rubble that was the Glittering Vale stood testimony to his plan, he had clearly assumed all the Sages were dead and had moved to the second part of the plan, but he had failed.
“Discord, Ah don’t know if you can hear me, Ah need to know where to go next.” she said.
There was a snap of someone snapping talons together, and there was Discord. Or his head at least.
“So sorry, Applejack. This is a recording. I’m having a bit of a tough time in Equestria. This automated message is to tell you, from,” there was a pause and the tone changed to a more electrical sounding voice, “The Glittering Vale,” another brief pause and Discord was speaking again, “that you need to head north to,” pause, “Edingcolt,” pause, “travelling on foot would not be advised, if at all possible, take one of their delightful vehicles, the faster the better. I will reply to you when I can.”
And a beep preceded the disappearance of Discord’s head. Applejack sighed as she headed to find Diamond Core again, and wondering what Discord was doing.

Discord was busy, and sweating. He rarely felt fear, he could count on one paw how often he felt it. This was the third such time. Equestria was in a bad situation, the black pillar striking at the Bloodpact Stronghold, regardless of his solutions to stop it, and to add to it, it arched off its attack and headed to Irvest. He felt the Bloodpact Stronghold weaken, as the Sages were taken by surprise.
And Sombra had just launched his most aggressive attack yet on the Crystal Empire and the Stronghold there.
“I’ve never been one to fear, not really. Well, twice before,” he sighed, “but it looks like I’ll need a miracle right now to turn this situation around.”
He glanced towards the seal, watching as cracks began to form in it. Ulysses was just seconds from breaking free. And there was a light.
Discord rubbed his eyes, the light was different to the maelstrom of conflicting magic, but it was there. There was somepony insane enough to get close to the seal! He watched as the light left the ground and flew into the forming cracks, and a scream echoed across the land.
The black pillar ceased, and the cracks that had been just seconds from uniting and freeing Ulysses healed up. Discord’s jaw dropped. What had he just witnessed was what he needed. He thought for a moment of who could dare to get that close, and grinned.
“Oh so that’s where you went. Well, I won’t approach you, Ulysses will blame me for that, and if you’ve found something I can use later,” Discord grinned, “just watch yourself. Now, back to Applejack.”
Discord waved his hand and watched what Applejack was doing. There would be a dull moment soon with her he hoped, then he could go mess around with Sombra for a bit of rest and relaxation after that bothersome moment.

Diamond Core was too busy helping her city recover to be able to help Applejack, but the mare had at least pointed her in the right direction. Just south was one of the airfields in Irvest, which would have been fine, or hoped to be fine at least. It took Applejack an hour of walking, taking in the countryside views of Irvest, a sight she hadn’t seen for a long time. There were more villages now she noticed, all small places, but each had an Equestria feel to them as she passed them by, the steam released by their vehicles and powered devices were at least hidden and not on show as the rest of the object in question was made around it.
The airfield had suffered slightly, she found on arrival. Nothing major, but there were broken windows, and fortunately for her, most of the aircraft had been outside at the time, so the only roof section that had collapsed had done so on to the ground. But what amazed her was how the pilots were all too willing to fly her to Edingcolt.
“Are ya kidding? Your a heroine, stood up to Ulysses. I mean sure that didn’t end too well, but it slowed him down at least.”
“I’ll take ya to Edingcolt faster than any of these others, or I ain’t Lighting Strike.”
And those were just the polite ones she decided to recall. In the end, she had decided on having Lighting Strike fly her there. She had decided him because his aircraft was small and had weapons, if Ulysses tried to attack again, then at least they wouldn’t be defenceless.
“Alright,” Lighting Strike, a pegasus, fired up the engine, “can I ask what you need to go to Edingcolt for?” he asked.
“Ah’m trying to find the places my friends were.” she replied.
“Oh I see, that makes sense you’d want to see where they were buried. Or stored. I don’t know the right term. But hey, going to see where the famous Rainbow Dash was taken to sixty years ago, she was your best friend right?” he asked, smiling.
Applejack just nodded. It wasn’t easy to know she was still alone, when Ulysses had her friends, and less so when she recalled what he had even tried to do to Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.
The aircraft set off, and in minutes, the ground was far below.

Chapter Six: Edingcolt

Lightning Strike’s aircraft took just two hours to fly from the Glittering Vale to Edingcolt, and from the air, Applejack was given her first view of the city. She had never personally gone to the city before, but it was settled on high hills, all the streets and homes were made of the same drab grey coloured stone.
Like Port Equis, Edingcolt had plenty of buildings that spewed heated steam into the air, and with the wind, most of the steam formed a permanent grey cloud above the very center of the city, with most eventually dispersing after a time around the edges. The lower homes she could see were home to Earth ponies and Unicorns, while the pegasi took the homes closest to the top of the hills. And on the highest hill was a castle.
“See that castle?” Lightning Strike asked.
“How could Ah miss it?” Applejack replied.
She was right, the castle seemed to have the stronghold she was waiting for attached to it, the newer stone a contrast against the darker stone of the castle.
“Back when Irvest was four separate countries, that was the seat of the royal family of Acchiam. When he comes back here, the Sage Starry Skies lives there, he can see the entirety of the area he is expected to take care of.”
“But ain’t ya afraid he was killed by the black pillar strike?” Applejack asked.
Lightning Strike didn’t reply.

The news when they landed was indeed grim, and ponies gathered around the town square to debate about it. Debate in this sense meant shouting, getting angry and breaking up small fights. But there was no changing the news. Ulysses’s attack on Irvest had done a lot of damage, a canyon now split Irvest almost in half just at the base of the Mountain of the Sages, and it went from the Glittering Vale in the west to Altremis Forest in the east, a span of around five hundred and seventy miles. And the strike, having focused on the sages, had utterly damaged the temple they typically resided in.
The four sages always trained ten students, each in a rank order, should anything happen to the Sage, the first student would take over. If something happened to the Sage and first student, then the second would become the new Sage in their place and so on. Ulysses’s attack had killed three Sages, and of their students, none had survived. The only Sage to survive was Goldwing, because she had been returning, even her students had all died in the attack.
And the count of dead only worsened when the rest of the temple and cities in the path of the strike were taken into account. The toll was very high, and there wasn’t even an early estimate.
“This can’t be happening.” Lighting Strike muttered.
“It is though,” Applejack was in shock herself, “Ah need to get to the stronghold.” she added.
As she began to leave the shocked crowd behind, she could hear wails of dispair, yells of anger and chanting. Ulysses had made a lot of enemies, but when he could harm others without being near, what hope did they really have?

The castle was open when Applejack got to it half an hour later, finding a direct path to the stronghold attached to it. The door of it was similar to what she had seen twice already, and the inside was no different, save for Discord being there.
“Ah, there you are Applejack, I was waiting for you.” he said with a smile, the fact his voice didn’t stop or change tone told her it really was him.
“All but one Sage is dead, and their students are also dead.” She replied.
“I know. There was nothing I could do. Irvest is going to need time to heal, but fortunately, I think I have a solution.” Discord tapped the memory machine, which was in the middle of the room.
“You see, the original idea of these strongholds, of all of them, was to strike at Ulysses in a way he could understand but never prevent, fear. The great equalizer of mortals. As each of you awoke and regained your memories, the plan was for the towers to shine across time to him, even if they didn’t exist and no one else could see them, to let him know the end was coming. But with just you left, I think I can adjust their use and give Goldwing needed help.”
Applejack had already figured it out before Discord could say anything.
“Yer gonna change them to strengthen the barrier around Irvest, as if the other three Sages were still there.”
“It won’t be too hard, Ulysses was basically being kept out by Harmony. It explains why I couldn’t find this place when I got free after a thousand years.”
She watched as, without another word, Discord rose through the ceiling and disappeared. That left her alone with the memory machine.
Rainbow had been her best friend and sporting rival, it was going to be difficult to watch her memories, but Applejack still activated the machine to watch.
It played through her early life memories, including the rainboom, and what she saw and thought when Ulysses attacked Equestria over sixty years earlier. And then the final moments before they were beaten played.

Rainbow flew as fast as she could as Twilight was flung by Ulysses toward the ground. She could feel the grip of magic at her legs and wings, trying to slow her down.
“Ngh! NO! You won’t win!” Rainbow yelled.
But the magical grip was too strong. Rainbow could only watch helpless as Twilight hit a boulder, her back breaking in half. The grip got stronger and held her in the air, pulling her toward Ulysses. He was laughing.
“You are losing, first Pinkie, then Fluttershy and now Twilight Sparkle. What good are these then? You claim to be fast, to do anything, but you failed three friends now. So, all they are good for is this.”
Rainbow screamed in pain as the grip pulled in opposite directions against her wings,and she felt them pop and break. When she could scream no more, she felt Ulysses let them go, and her wings drop, to her side, though so damaged she couldn’t directly feel them.
“How does it feel to be worthless?” he gloated.
“I dunno, you tell me, flankhole.” Rainbow spat. She had lost three friends and her wings, but she wouldn’t let him take her pride. He sniffed.
“Defiant to the end.”
Ulysses threw her at the ground. This didn’t kill her, but she lay there, watching a foot come toward her, and everything went dark.

Discord was there to comfort Applejack as she tried not to be sick. Of all the memories so far, that had been by far the worst to watch, let alone with the sound of Rainbow’s wings being broken.
“H-how,” she gulped for air, “how did she survive?”
“Well that was a lot more difficult than for the rest of you,” Discord swayed his hand, “I had to bend time myself to grab her at the last second before his foot crushed her. But she suffered a lot of internal damage. As for her wings, they were beyond saving.”
Applejack sighed, it had been obvious from what she had witnessed that Rainbow had lost her wings.
“If Ah know Irvest though, there was a replacement?”
“Oh yes,” Discord smiled, waving his paw Applejack got to see what Rainbow Dash looked like now, her coat was its normal light blue, but where there had once been matching coloured wings, there was now a box on the middle of her back, and copper and brown fabric wings, “she got the first prototype for new, natural feel wings. What surprised me, unlike the rest of you, she was still awake sixty years ago. No memories, but she took flight as soon as she woke from the operation, utterly unaware she wasn’t flying with her natural wings. I had to make her sleep soon after, so the internal injuries had more than enough time to heal.”
Applejack glanced back at the memory machine. There was one more memory she knew, Pinkie had another when she woke, so did Rarity. She pressed the button and watched.

Rainbow looked at the room around her. She was on a cloud, which something in her mind told her it was fine and safe. Yawning she stood up.
“Where am I?” she asked. She wasn’t bothered about who she was, but where she was seemed more important. Slowly she explored, finding there were various items on clouds that dotted the room, some she had to fly to, not questioning why the box that was embedded into her back made noises and released steam as she did so.
The items were just photos, and she could see in the reflection, each had her in them. The biggest cloud was filled with photos of her with an orange filly with a purple mane. She didn’t know who this was, but they seemed to idolize her with how they looked.
“Alright, I don’t know where I am, but at least I know who to find and ask about who I am.” Rainbow smiled.
The next floor had a machine in it, and a door outside. She considered just heading outside, but there was something about the flashing buttons. She pushed the bigger one first.
“I knew you would push this one first,” Discord’s recorded voice met her, “this machine will give you back all your memories, just press the smaller button and sit in the chair. Stay calm no matter what, and everything will be answered.”
Rainbow stood still for a moment after the recording finished. She glanced at the door,
“And no,” the recording began again, “I’ve expected you to debate just heading out that door. If you try before getting your memories back, you’ll find the door locked. I know how impatient you can be.”
Rainbow Dash groaned, pressing the smaller button. She would sit in the chair, staying calm as it secured a hat on her head and began to replay her memories back to her.
Thirty minutes later and when she found herself free and heard the door unlock, Rainbow remained sitting there.
“Alright, so I’m an awesome mare, fastest flyer, got my wings torn out, doesn’t explain these, but until I saw them, I was sure I was fine,” she flapped the mechanical wings once, “And if I’m fine, then my friends are, and they’ll follow me as I go kick Ulysses’s flank for destroying my awesome wings!”
She flew at and out the door.

Looking at Discord, Applejack noticed he was shaking his head.
“She woke up just before you, and she is the reason I realized Ulysses had been capturing the others. Rainbow Dash is such a hardhead, she flew through the seal in Equestria to fight Ulysses before I could stop her.” Discord sighed.
“Eh, I’m sure she’s alright.” Applejack grinned.

Alright was putting it mildly. Ulysses knew she had entered the seal, and currently, she was asleep, but as for actually having her, it was like owning a set of keys you knew were somewhere in your home, but you couldn’t find.
Rainbow, put simply, had gotten lost. And after a few days of flying, with her wings getting harder to use, had found a cloud. To the mare herself, it had only been a few minutes since she set down to nap and rest, unaware that to Ulysses and the world outside, six months had passed since she awoke and flew in a rage from Irvest, across the sea, across Equestria and into the seal, flying for a further six days before her nap.
Ulysses had no doubt she would awaken from it soon and finally find him, where he intended to destroy her new wings, and any part of her body that could give her control of any further replacements. He would break her pride and will before he ascended.

Author's Notes:

So apparently, FIMFiction has a paragaph count now, and it keeps telling me I have too few. And that's on an estimated 2,017 words in this chapter. I wonder how people who write chapters of just 100-900 words feel about this change?

Chapter Seven: A Glimpse of the Future and the Forest

Chapter seven: A Glimpse of the Future

Applejack wandered back to Edingcolt itself after seeing Rainbow’s memories. She mulled over what she had learnt so far, from her own memories and those of Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Rainbow Dash. How had they underestimated Ulysses so badly? And how was he so strong that he could fight alicorns to a stalemate?

There were just two friends to watch the memories of, but with Discord not having said what she should do next, Applejack was stuck in Edingcolt until a direction was given. Which left her seeing the reaction to the tragic news spreading amongst Irvest’s native population. Normally peaceful, Applejack couldn't help but notice weapons of war now started to appear as she wandered, from airships fitted with cannons, to weaponry that were fitted to the backs of stallions. War for Irvest was very different, as she had learnt.

Without the Elements of Harmony, any idea of peaceful or bloodless conflict had never come to be in Irvest. Instead of pies or water balloons, they had weapons which could break through to the brain or heart, or even just tear holes in a stallion over five miles. Irvest was founded in such conflict, and in their endless steam-age progression, while rarely called upon, such weapons were refined to be more accurate and faster killing.
But what hope did they have against a foe who could twist time to his will?
She didn't jump as Discord coughed beside her, sitting in the air.
“So sorry about having to vanish, but I needed to fix up the strongholds you have been to, I can help you from here on however.” Discord smiled.
“Ah need ta ask, what’ll happen if Ah lose this battle?”
If Discord wanted to joke about, he didn't. Instead he remained silent for a moment, before sighing.
“The other me warned how to the point you can be, very well, I will show you why this is a battle we can't afford to lose.”

A snap of his talons and Applejack could see the moment she was struck down a second time by Ulysses. While he was just a giant shadow, she could see the glee in his eyes. Above, the sun and moon raced toward each other in the sky, colliding and raining death in fire and stone on the world.
And then there was nothing but Ulysses. He had become the only living creature on the world, as it boiled in the fire that once made the sun.
“This is just the worst case, but the other timelines where you could lose are no better.”

The next snap of Discord’s talons returned her to the present. She was shaking slightly, but Discord placed a paw on her torso.
“This is not a fight you are to face alone. Myself and the Stronghold protectors are in this with you, Applejack. We will win together, or fall together. You must now activate the rebirth stronghold Fluttershy was taken to, in Altremis forest. Brace yourself, for this is by far the most sickening set of memories you will see.”

She was surrounded in a glow, and on it fading, she was facing the stronghold at the forest’s innermost clearing. It would have been Fluttershy’s idea of heaven, lakes to house fish, trees for the birds and other animals, and not a moment passed without them all making noise. While she faced the stronghold, Applejack couldn't help but be curious as to why such a place existed in Irvest. She turned from it and began to wander.
Her hope of finding a city or town were dashed however, as in an hour of walking in a circle, she found nothing to tell her there was anypony living near the place. She sighed, and turned back.

The interior of the stronghold was similar to Fluttershy’s colours, a soft pastel yellow with a soft pastel pink, decorated with flowers and statues of animals. There seemed to be far more care and attention to detail taken with this place, compared to the others, as if Discord had been mourning a friend. The memory machine was located on a floor below where Fluttershy had clearly lain as she was rescued from death, and recalling Discord’s words, Applejack was almost reluctant to watch. But she had no choice, it was clear the memories were vital and to play a part in what Discord had planned. She found the machine and pressed a button, watching Fluttershy's life from birth to the time they lived in Irvest sixty years earlier. It was all normal, and then the memory of the battle began to play.

She watched as Pinkie hit the ground with a thud. Overcome with grief, she ignored the battle, flying to her fallen friend, crying. She didn't care for the moment that Ulysses was laughing at her, how could she? Pinkie looked a mess, mud and fresh blood staining her coat, but against the odds and how she lay, Pinkie was breathing.
Slowly she turned to look at Ulysses, or the twisted form he had become. Never had she felt such rage. Without thinking, she grabbed a rock and flew at him, the rock in an outstretched hoof. This struck him, the rock tore through barely holding flesh and making Ulysses cry out in pain, before swatting her out of the sky. His limbs snapped her spine, but as she fell to the ground with just as sickening a thud, where she would see her own wings and flank before passing out, she smiled. It may not have been much, but it was something the others could work with, to avenge herself and Pinkie Pie.

Applejack was shaking again, she was getting to do this far too often now. But of all the memories this one had been important. Rarity, herself, Twilight and Rainbow hadn't even been aware that rock had done anything to Ulysses, a weakness they had never known to use. But what was next? Fluttershy had to have been saved, and taken by Ulysses,so she had to keep watching.

The room was cool, she noted as she woke up. She had only known heat for so long, its absence was new and exciting. She stood from it, and looked around. Something about the room made her happy, the figures were leading her somewhere too. With curiosity born of a lack of memories, she followed how they pointed, locating a machine down some stairs. More sat around it, pointing at the machine and the chair, so, she sat to see what would happen.
A screen dropped down before her, playing memories that quickly returned to her mind, and making her the shy and, very sick, mare. Her back and been broken so badly, but how was she alive?
The ground began to collapse under her, she only had enough time to scream, before a black void claimed her.

Applejack shook her head. She was now so used to how the Irvestians could repair broken bodies that she didn't question how Fluttershy had been saved. But Ulysses had made a show of taking those he could, why was he so quick and less showy when it came to Fluttershy?
“Discord? Where do Ah go next?” She called out.
There was a faint snap of talons, and a portal appeared before her. She didn't know where it would lead, but the sudden sense of urgency in Discord’s actions suggested he would be sending her to where Twilight had been. The only place she could think of would have been either back at Port Equis, or with the sages. Taking a deep breath, Applejack walked through.

Rainbow had stopped to listen to the voices that spoke in the mists. She knew it wasn't in her head, as if she covered her ears and chanted, she couldn't hear them anymore. There was one voice that seemed to address her, the loudest of them all.
“Listen, and listen well, mare of rainbow mane and blue coat, to the tale of the fall of Akyrun. Four decades after the fall of Discord, Akyrun was confronted by friends of true strength, loyalty and honesty. Slain, as only befits the termination of a demon, he vowed to return once more when one who becomes twisted by time wrecks havoc on the world. You must warn others, lest Akyrun slay the world.”
Rainbow mulled over the words, something she did more since Twilight had convinced her to give reading a try. And spoke.
“This Akyrun is just copying a story I read once. I forgot what its called though, but still, no props to the guy for being unoriginal, it's just lame.”

Author's Notes:

Had to write this on my ipad. It was not fun to do that. But nevermind.
The next few chapters will give more insight to the history of Irvest, before the Irvest section of the story wraps up.

Unlike Ruining Harmony, RH2 was never going to be as long because its focus is on one character, rather than multiple like the first story. This was on purpose however, I work better when the focus is like this.

Chapter Eight: Goldwing

As Applejack had expected, Discord’s portal took her to the Temple of the Sages. Or rather, the collapsed ruin of it. The marble building had fallen in on itself, and what had once been a shining peak on the top of the mountain for all of Irvest to see, now barely stood higher than the plateau that had been made atop the mountain to fit the formerly massive building.
Monks of the temple wandered aimlessly, moving only enough rubble to recover either a body or an injured pony. None paid her any attention as she walked along. The monks never did, they had been failed Sage Students that, rather than return home a disgrace in their minds, vowed to never speak again. They moved through the remainder of their lives as shadows of their former selves. It was, to Applejack, rather sad. They could have become farmers, or other productive citizens of society, and instead chose a life constantly in regret and shame.

Standing at the fore of the recovery was a white mare, now greatly aged over sixty years. A pegasus, she still wore gold horseshoes, and gold jewel mounts on her wings. This was the sage Goldwing, who had been a calm and kind sage even sixty years previous, and the youngest of the time, at eighteen. She looked to now be nearing her eighties, and yet she stood, calm and composed despite what had befallen the temple and Irvest.

Goldwing turned to Applejack, the only sound of hooves as she approached, the monks had taken their vow of silence serious, not a sound was made even by their hooves.
“Applejack, I had expected one of you to awaken and head here in search of Twilight Sparkle.” Goldwing now even sounded like an old mare. But she smiled anyway.
“You must have a lot of questions, there is a tent set up for me to sleep in, come, I shall have drinks prepared for us and we can talk there.”

The tent really was basic, to Applejack’s surprise. She had expected the tent to be a canvas home, but beyond the tent flaps, there was just a crude hay bed and a bell. Goldwing rang this and set it down, sitting on the bed. She watched Applejack expectantly, so, she followed suit, sitting on the ground beside the bed. There was going to be much she would learn.
“I have no doubt by now, Discord told you of what happened sixty years ago, you will have seen all but the memories of Twilight Sparkle, and it is my duty to take you to her chamber, to see them, but in due time.”
The tent opened as a monk silently pushed a tea set, with steam billowing from the teapot. Appleack couldn’t explain how this had been pushed along the ground without making any noise, it defied logic. Goldwing took a cup and the teapot, pouring tea out for herself.
“I know only some of you bothered to learn Irvest’s history when you last walked, sixty years previous, but the situation we face is because of Irvest’s past. Ulysses is not the first to have meddled with time, or the dark powers that once called this land home.”

“Equestria as you know it was founded over a thousand years ago, ponies forced from another land by the Windigoes. But Irvest, Irvest was founded and forged in wars the world has never seen the likes of. In the darkest past, when the found countries that were to become Irvest fought, there was a stallion of Eikrya, Akyrun. He lost his family, his wife and child, to war. And so, he vowed to find a way to save them, to rip them from their fates.
And he succeeded, Applejack. He tore them from the moments of death and placed them to the present. But Death does not like his quarry being stolen. Time and again, Akyrun and Death fought for the souls of those Akyrun cared for. Each time Akyrun tore them from the point of death and returned them, more of what made them who they were was ripped from their very souls, until in the end, he returned soulless husks. And it made him enraged, that in the end, Death had won, a tiny piece at a time.”

Applejack found herself enthralled with this. She didn’t have Twilight to ask, but she at least knew, she hadn’t heard this story before. But regardless, the story seemed tragic. She stayed silent, hoping Goldwing would say more.

“After many brooding years, Akyrun sought to find a better way, a way to save those he loved from death forever, and perfectly this time. But such a way could never be found. And with how time worked, he could never spend any more time with them, not without destroying the world. His sorrow turned to anger, anger at a world that had cost him so much. And Akyrun found power, power to break time. Discord knows what happened next better than anyone.”

If Discord was interested, he didn’t show, leaving Applejack to wonder what he had to do with Akyrun. Sighing, Goldwing shook her head slightly.
“Discord saw the chaos Akyrun could cause as he became a demon, and so, broke him, taking the small and still slightly stable core as a servant to do his bidding. After Discord was brought down by the Equestrian princesses, Akyrun began to pull his fragments back together, and it was a thousand years ago, on the shore of Irvest, that mortals attacked him to save the world. And so, from that war, Irvest united under the leaders of the four countries, who vowed to become like nomads, living for those they served, and having no worldly possessions. A tradition that remained, one sage, for each country of Irvest. Even now, I must find new students to prepare for this life from across Irvest, regardless of the tragedy.”
Slowly, Goldwing stood and trotted off, and Applejack knew there would be nothing else she could learn for today, she didn’t even know where Twilight’s restoration chamber was.

At around sunset, a pair of monks approached Applejack, and in silence, led her to one of the few tents unoccupied. A makeshift bed had been set up in it, and she was at least thankful for it, laying down. She spent the rest of the evening watching the sun set below the horizon, though it had a strange aura around it, one of the outcomes of her and her friend’s defeat.
In her dreams, she dreamed of the old days, of working the apple trees with her family, having fun with her friends, all in the days before Ulysses had turned up and destroyed it all with his ambition to become an alicorn.

In the morning, she left her tent to find most of the rubble had been cleared away. Standing and observing was Goldwing, her face wrinkled in the look of a mare who was bothered that she was too frail now to help, as her bones could be broken so easily. She heard Applejack approaching and turned around.
“Good morning, Applejack. Did you sleep well?” she asked, the worry in her face gone, if for a brief moment.
“Ah slept like a foal, anything Ah can do ta help?” she asked.
Goldwing shook her head, and returned her attention to the beginnings of the repair work. After a moment, she sighed.
“I sent three Monks out with notices to the countries of Irvest that now lack a representing Sage. They each carry a scroll, which details what will be expected, and that I will personally oversee the training, before I can seek out my successor,” she glanced sideways at Applejack, “I am old, and my student died here because of Ulysses. I must find a new student to train to replace me one day.”
“Ah wanted to say, isn’t the monk thing a bit, troubling?”
“You mean the fact they are so ashamed they make a new personality by sharing it with others who failed? It was Sage Ground Rock who kept it going, but, perhaps I can convince the new Sages to end it. Some things must change.”

They stood in silence for a few minutes, before Goldwing spoke up again.
“I suppose it is time to tell you, of those minutes, when I met Discord, and learnt of your fate.”
Goldwing turned to Applejack, a frail hoof raised which she placed on Applejack’s head. There was a gasp from Applejack, as she witnessed the memories Goldwing had lived through.

Goldwing stood besides three other ponies, another pegasi, a unicorn and an earth pony. They were looking at the horizon, toward Equestria. Despite its distance from Irvest, and not being visible, there were signs of the battle, the sky darkened and pulsed. And it spread further and further. Goldwing knew, deep down, things were not going as Sunshine Blaze had expected, and that the end had come.
A final pulse and something changed. There was a feeling rippling through the air like a shockwave, of broken stone and a primal force freed. And the sky changed from red to the old blue colour. At the zennith, the sun and moon parted ways, the moon lowering back to the horizon, and quickly sinking back beneath it. Natural order was being restored.
“This makes no sense,” Ground Rock spoke, rubbing his head, “we could feel Ulysses was winning, but now?”
“I know,” the unicorn spoke up, “he has been temporarily weakened by this primal force. Did Equestria have a way to combat Ulysses that we were not aware of?”
“I doubt it, I spoke with Twilight Sparkle a number of times, Equestria knew almost nothing of Irvest, if anything, they viewed us as barbaric. So they could not have been prepared.” Goldwing replied.

They all turned to their left as there was a pop. Before them stood a Draconequis, and the six bodies of the Element bearers, each in a very bad shape.
“There’s no time, we need to save them for my rather hasty plan to work.” the Draconequis stated.
“And why should we listen to you?” Ground Rock asked.
“Oh dear you do so remind me of a captain I once met. Grumpy fellow, all I ever did was try to help him. Story for another time,” the Draconequis waved its paw as if this was to be understood, “but please, if they die, then we all will die. I have just seven days to get my plan into place to buy us time.”

Applejack’s vision returned as Goldwing put her hoof back down, the mare was smiling.
“Come, it is time for you to see where we protected Twilight Sparkle, and how Ulysses managed to get her.”

Chapter Nine: Twilight's Moments

The chambers that had held Twilight Sparkle from certain death were unlike the rest Applejack had so far encountered. Rather than a tall stronghold rising high above the landscape, it had been built into the Mountain of the Sages out of sight. It was also largely incorporated into the daily running of the Temple that had recently been destroyed, with halls dedicated to books, chambers for sleeping and eating, among other things.
Applejack wasn’t sure why it had been so accessible compared to the rest, which made the fact Ulysses had captured Twilight all the more strange.

Goldwing led Applejack through the various corridors and halls, each maintained a white marble colour as they descended further into the mountain itself. That was until the first chamber. The first real chamber used to keep Twilight alive and recover was a purple colour, and held nothing to jog her memory, no memory machine to give the memories still missing back or even the bed. Instead, it was a ring of electrical devices powered by crystals. It still hummed with power in its low power state, and the middle of the floor was open so the machine could point into the chamber below, the one with the bed and where Twilight had rested.
This resting chamber was like the rest, save for the colour. But the bed seemed larger than Applejack expected.
“Discord had clear instructions for Twilight. The machine had to do more than just keep her alive, and heal her wounds. It had to show her what Princess Celestia had intended for her to learn all along.” Goldwing stated.
“That’s a tall order.” was Applejack’s simple reply. Goldwing nodded.
“Indeed, but we tried anyway. From across Irvest, memories friends made were recorded on the gems and brought here, then put into Twilight’s head for her to see and learn.”

Down further they went, to the room that should help jog Twilight’s memory, the room a faithful recreation of Canterlot, complete with library and photos of those she knew. Until Applejack saw her memories, she would have no idea if it had worked first. But there were scorch marks around the room, which were very much out of place. Goldwing said nothing however, and lead Applejack to the chamber where Twilight’s memories were stored.
Without prompting, Applejack approached the machine and touched the button to watch. Memories from her birth to arriving to Irvest played out, as did the letter she spoke to Spike as a comfort before returning to Equestria. Applejack held her breath as she watched the battle.

Twilight stared as Fluttershy’s body hit the floor, making her the second to fall to Ulysses. She wanted to break down, to cry. Two of her friends were dead, and she was just as angry at Sunshine Blaze as she was Ulysses. Sunshine Blaze had asked them to go to their deaths, as if their lives were worthless in this game of cat and mouse between the two brothers. There was still Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Applejack to depend upon however.
“Rainbow! We need to distract him, we can’t stop him like this, not without the Elements!” she shouted.
“One distraction, coming up!” Rainbow Dash replied, flying as fast as she could to try and draw Ulysses away from the rest.
“Applejack, Rarity, get to Pinkie and Fluttershy, and run, me and Rainbow will follow you soon.”
The two nodded, but whatever Twilight had planned next, she never got to do. One of Ulysses’ newly malformed limbs grabbed her, squeezing tight. He pulled her up to his face.
“I deny you a proper funeral, all of you! Their bodies and your own shall decay here where I may gloat to your bones forevermore!”
With that, Ulysses snapped her horn, the pain was blinding, but more importantly, as he threw her toward a crumbled wall, she knew there was no way to prevent her death. Twilight watched as Rainbow Dash tried to save her, surrounded by the black aura of Ulysses’ magic. Then the pain from her body as it broke in parts with the impact. Twilight’s vision tunneled, as her final sight was that of the cutie mark upon her flank.

Out of the memory for the moment, Applejack tried not to be sick. She had seen how Twilight had looked in Rarity’s memory of events a few minutes later, but to see it from Twilight’s own eyes, and the sense of peace, it felt wrong to her.
“There is more you must see, Applejack. Hurry.” Goldwing encouraged.
Applejack nodded and steadied herself, pressing the button once more for the next sequence.

Twilight awoke. She only recalled her name, which was somewhat satisfying to her, for some reason. Around her machines buzzed and one in particular was beeping in a constant three second pattern. She didn’t know what it meant, but it didn’t matter. There were two doors, one was locked and the other open. Focusing on the hunger in her body, she headed to the open door, where she found the recreation of Canterlot, though in her state, she just thought it looked like a nice room, and beyond, she found the memory machine.
As it had for the others, it strapped her in and replayed the memories. Once Twilight stepped free, she no longer felt hungry. A glance at her flank confirmed it was where it was supposed to be now, and in the dark screen, she could see her horn was still purple, but very much metallic.
“Okay, so, Ulysses killed me, somehow I’m still alive,” her horn glowed, and she lifted a stone up off the ground. Dropping this magic, she focused on the machine, surrounding it in a lilac glow. She balked at something and stepped away from the machine as fast as she could, “Discord helped make this? But how? I-I don’t understand, Discord’s evil! And yet.”
Her voice trailed off. Discord was evil yes, but so was Ulysses. Two evil beings that could be fighting, and Discord being how he was, likely wanted something really good to finish Ulysses off.
There was some hoofsteps behind her. Glancing back, Twilight saw a stallion approaching.
“Oh um, I don’t know who you are, but I could do with something to eat.” she asked, the stallion wore monk robes.
He said nothing as he got closer. Twilight saw an odd mark on his robes.
“No food for those who will die so Ulysses can be free and turn the world to paradise!” the robes were thrown back, and Twilight dodged out of the way of several magic attacks, as the feed cut out.

Applejack blinked, her face blank as she stared at Goldwing. Goldwing sighed and turned her back on Applejack. When an explanation didn’t seem to be coming, Goldwing hummed as she prepared to speak.
“Thirty years into Discord’s plan, when the Pillars of Harmony truly contained Ulysses and rendered him unable to act on the world without great cost to his magic, a few Irvestians formed a group. They believed if they killed you six, then us sages, they hoped Ulysses on being freed would spare them and give them the lands they desired. We tried to catch them, to contain them. But it wasn’t until two years ago that we finally contained them all. But then they revealed to us a truth. Ulysses had already broken free regardless, and taken Pinkie Pie. In offering, they had got in here without our knowledge and stole away Twilight Sparkle.”
Goldwing sagged, and now her posture reflected her age.
“I am sorry. We have done nothing but failed the world.”
Applejack put a hoof gently on Goldwing’s side.
“Hey now, ya didn’t and couldn’t have known. At least there’s still me. Ah’m not sure what use Ah’ll be, but now Ah’ve seen all my friend’s memories. Ah’m not sure how those will help, but Ah’ll have to ask Discord when Ah next see him.”

Discord was watching. He smiled as Applejack comforted Goldwing. His next part of the plan would come into effect. With Applejack sent off, she could get Ulysses to break the barrier properly, this would weaken him enough for the strike that would end him.
As he grinned, black tendrils leaked from the barrier in the direction of the strongholds. Discord jumped when yells of fright came from each stronghold.
“Strongholds, report in, what’s wrong?” he asked.
Silence. Then a shriek of rage.
Discord’s stomach dropped.

Chapter Ten: Bloodpact Stronghold

“So you have seen now, Applejack, how Irvest and we Sages have failed the world. Twilight Sparkle was the first to return and she was stolen from under our muzzles.” Goldwing looked dejected, unable to look Applejack in the eye. Applejack was unable to respond for a moment, but she placed a hoof on Goldwing’s shoulder.
“Ya didn’t fail anypony. How could you have known what was gonna happen?”
“But we should have, we should have never let our guard or the barrier down. If we hadn’t, there would be six of you facing off against Ulysses.” Goldwing sighed.
“Yeah ‘cus that worked so well sixty years ago.” Applejack couldn’t help but be sharp with that comment.
“Come now, Applejack, surely you don’t believe that.”
Applejack took a deep breath and let it go slowly.
“We faced him in the throne room he made, and that battle went well. But he was just faster when we tried to get the elements back, that was our downfall.”
“So don’t depend on them,” Goldwing looked sideways at Applejack, “if that’s what caused you to fail last time, then don’t depend on them. Discord’s plan depends far too much upon them, but there must be another way.”
Applejack again remained silent. Discord hadn’t mentioned what he had done with the Elements of Harmony once he had escaped again and set about trying to be better than Ulysses, and while she had listened and worked with him so far, she had no doubt this was to prove a point, that he, the very god of chaos, could best anything that he wished. She was sure once Ulysses was gone, it would be Discord himself that would become a problem for the world once more.
“You must go, Applejack. Discord will know soon that you are done here, and he will take you to Equestria.” Goldwing smiled. Applejack nodded.
“Thank you, for everything, Goldwing.” she said, lingering for a moment before she turned and left. Goldwing looked up, as if she expected to see Discord and speak with him, but she looked at the ceiling, for several minutes she waited, but when it was clear Discord had no intention of turning up, she sighed, and left, setting about the task of rebuilding Irvest’s ruling power.

Applejack strode back out among the ruins of the Sages temple, to the midday sun. She sighed, the hows and why of them being in the Irvest strongholds made sense, but there was still little answers as to why Ulysses had taken her friends. There was a reason, he had never acted without a purpose, from taunting Rainbow Dash to trying to show himself as being superior to Twilight, Ulysses had an ego and he was the type who liked to inflate it himself because no one else would.
Discord popped into existence before, and without speaking, he grabbed Applejack and popped back out. She stumbled in the throne room he had set up in Equestria.
“Whut in tarnation?” she muttered as she shook her head.
“Something’s gone wrong, Applejack,” Discord pointed at a map which showed the locations of the strongholds he had set up in Equestria, each was a point in a circle around where Ulysses was trapped, “just minutes ago, all strongholds ceased communication and all I heard was screams. I don’t know what’s going on anywhere.”
Applejack looked at Discord, and his face filled with fear troubled her. What was he not telling her that would make him, an immortal feel fear? He rightly feared the Elements of Harmony, but he was using them.
“Discord, what are you hiding from me?”
Discord blinked once, then twice, and deflated. He pointed at the map.
“Seven strongholds exist around Ulysses. Much like the ones in Irvest, they were set that way for a purpose. In Irvest, the recovery the rest of you went through was also directed at Twilight, since despite looks, she suffered the worst and without your friendship, she would have died regardless. In Equestria, they hold back the destruction of time itself at bay, using the very things Ulysses tried to take and caused the rip in time.”
“The Elements of Harmony.” Applejack muttered.
“Correct,” Discord nodded, “in six, they are set up and use the natural magic within them to hold back the threat to Harmony itself, while the other two have different purposes, the most crucial is the Bloodpact Stronghold. Without it, the Elements would be unable to focus on Ulysses.”
“Alright then, you can send me there right? Ah’ll go sort it out.”
Discord went to say something, but stopped.
“I trust you, Applejack. You may not do the same, but we need each other right now, or the world will end.”
He held his talon out and snapped his claws. Around Applejack, the world distorted.

When the world returned to normal, she found herself in a courtyard. For a moment, she wondered if Discord had returned her to Irvest, as the buildings were white marble and didn’t look much out of place to Port Equis. There were even steam powered carriages, planes, ponies who had lost limbs had steam powered replacements, but beyond the city itself were the familiar fields of Equestria, there was even the mountain with Canterlot upon it.
Though Canterlot had clearly changed, in her time, the tallest spire was known to be where the princesses slept. It was now dwarfed by another white spire, though there was a black cloud surrounding it.
Turning back, she saw the Bloodpact Stronghold stood in the middle of this strange city, it too was white marble, with gold embedded on the surface in Irvestian style. At the peak was another black cloud, and she gulped.
“Discord, can ya hear me? Are the strongholds supposed ta have black clouds at their peaks?”
“No, Applejack,” Discord replied, his voice was faint however, “but something is interfering with my magic, that must be the cause. Get to the top and find out. And be safe.”
Applejack took a long breath, and set out to the stronghold.

When she finally navigated her way to the base of the Bloodpact Stronghold, there was a frenzy of ponies running and flying about, carrying the elderly or anything of value away. Among it all was an elderly orange pegasi with turquoise mane. Applejack’s heart skipped at the sight of the signature goggles, with toggle on the side. She hurried over to him.
“Now is everything out of the top six floors? That monster is going to bring the stronghold and the bloodpact pillar if we can’t figure out a way to stop it.” he questioned some young stallions before him.
“Yes sir, but how can we fight it? To do so would be to destroy everything.” one stallion replied. The pegasi looked up at the top of the tower.
“I don’t know how he got corrupted by the time corruption, but if we don’t act, that will be just as bad. I will have to go up there and try to fight him.”
“Is that really you, Blaze?” Applejack asked as she got closer. This made the pegasi blink and look in her direction. He stared as if he had seen a ghost.
“Applejack? Is that really you?” Sunshine Blaze asked right back.
“Yer darn tooting it is. Woken up and raring to kick the flank of Ulysses fer trying ta kill me.”
Sunshine Blaze chuckled, pushing the goggles over his eyes. He toggled the switch on the side and seemed to be content with what he saw, as he pushed them back up.
“It really isn’t safe here though. Ulysses has really got us this time. I give it about an hour before the monster at the top brings the stronghold down. With the Bloodpact Pillar gone, it won’t take too long for him to get out of the seal and end the world.”
Applejack looked up, then looked back at Sunshine Blaze.
“Ah think we have some time fer me to be told what this here pillar does.”

Sunshine Blaze sat in the lobby of the Bloodpact Stronghold. Before him was a map of every floor, with floor number. Applejack could see that the stronghold consisted of around forty floors, the pillar being at the very top of the tower and exposed to the air.
“When Ulysses and Discord met,” Blaze began, “they struggled for control of the elements, and you six. Discord was close to failure when he got you six set up in Irvest to recover, but things changed, as I met him. I explained to him that it was my fault you had all been defeated, and I hadn’t really understood what I had asked. He didn’t blame me, but he told me there was a way I could help. Since I am related to Ulysses, he could use my blood link to my brother to finally pin him in place. And so important it was that Discord even ensured that there would be living relatives should I pass during all this time.”
Sunshine Blaze nodded at the stallions that she had seen him talking to earlier.
“Those three are my eldest, Steam Cloud, Summer Drizzle and Night Whisper. I have a daughter or two too.”
“You’ve been busy.” Applejack nodded.
“Had to be. Discord made it clear how vital it was to keep the bloodline going if it was required. Five foals, five extra chances should things go wrong now and again. But looks like it was all for nothing.”
Sunshine Blaze pointed at the part of the map showing the pillar.
“Every day I have to be at the pillar to give some of my life to it. Its barbaric, but its the only way. And now, I can’t get to it, none of us can. That thing up there could break it once the last bit of life energy is gone, and everything we’ve worked for will be torn down.”
“Wait, you have ta give yer life for this?”
Sunshine Blaze nodded.
“Pegasi age normally, but we typically live around to one hundred and twenty. When we last met, I was barely twenty-two years old. And with this stronghold to maintain, I may be eighty-two, but I have age significantly more, I have the body of a pegasi that is one hundred and eighteen.”
Applejack gasped. Was this happening to all the strongholds? Were ponies dying to help Discord keep Ulysses at bay for another day? She felt angry and disgusted by this revelation, the look was clearly reflected in her face as Blaze held a hoof up.
“It is just this stronghold, and Discord made it clear what the cost would be before I agreed to it. But if we could just use the pillars against him, just once,” Blaze shivered, “Ulysses is keeping the barrier up now just as much for his own safety as it is for our own. We’ve had the ability to close the time rip for a few decades now, but just as we did, that was when the sages informed us that Twilight Sparkle was stolen. To take that shot now would be to kill her and the others in the barrier.”
“So that’s why.” Applejack muttered. It didn’t help that Dash had flown into it of her own volition, worsening the situation.
“I don’t know what we can do though, unless I’m at the top for that shot, and the others aren’t in the seal, we’re helpless.”
Applejack stood up, a look of determination in her eyes.
“Show me the way up. Ah’m going to fix this.”

Chapter Eleven: Demon of the Bloodpact Stronghold

Sunshine Blaze was too old to climb the tower quickly these days. With the rough plan of the stronghold in mind, Applejack climbed the stairs, watching as ponies rushed about the lower floors, gathering anything of importance and those left behind. This made climbing the first ten or so floors are more difficult than needed.

It was around the twentieth floor that she attempted to contact Discord, to no avail. Whatever was at the top now had isolated her. Still, she pushed onward. Who could say what she would face, everypony just called in a monster. Eventually, she reached the top floor, and saw the Bloodpact Pillar.
The Bloodpact Pillar was, well, a pillar of stone in a circle. If a stallion or mare lifted their forelegs up, they could be rested upon two grooves that ran along the top, and a diamond sat between them. It pulsed weakly as if the source of magic running into it was draining.
“So that’s a pillar huh? Supposed Discord made similar ones just with the elements.” Applejack shrugged.

She approached the pillar and placed a hoof on it. The black cloud pushed her into the air and threw her. She skidded along the floor and caught herself from falling off the sides. Grunting as she pulled herself back up, she came face to face with Ulysses.
“I finally have you, Applejack. Now this world will fall under my control once more.” he grinned.
Ulysses was barely whom he once was, though she couldn’t see much, it was clear he wasn’t a pony anymore. One of his forelegs was more dragon like than it had been. The rest was obscured by the black cloud.
“Ya got nuthing.” she snapped back.
“We’ll see.” Ulysses chuckled, disappearing into the cloud.
Above the pillar, the cloud took a new shape, a serpentine body, with a pony head, a goat and deer horn, a griffon talon, a lion paw, a goat leg and a dragon leg. It was a pure dark cloud mockery of Discord.
It screamed at her, and she fell to the floor to cover her ears. As she stood when it ceased, it was already casting a spell from both the griffon talon and lion paw.

Applejack jumped over and aside as the magic spheres impacted the ground where she had been. Keeping her distance and circling it, she spared a glance at the pillar. The pillar was missing its diamond, and she smiled. Somewhere within the cloud, the diamond was being used to power it. After its next attempts to harm her, she jumped and hoped she would jump to the diamond. She missed however, and saw as she flew through the black cloud that the diamond was in the head.
“Shoot, how am Ah supposed ta get that high?” she asked herself, circling it once more. The obvious flaw of the strongholds was apparent now, the cloud had the pillar, the only object around she could jump from to strike the diamond from it. All the while, more and more spells were thrown at her.
When she could Applejack spared a glance at how the spells behaved upon impact. She noticed they caused a small explosion rather than a massive all destructive one, and the idea came to her.
She held her ground as the cloud threw another spell at her. Before it struck the ground she jumped. The explosion gave her an extra push and she sailed towards the head. The cloud wasn’t expecting this, if it had a face, she had no doubt it would look shocked. She hit the diamond clear of the cloud and it disappeared for a moment.

The diamond itself hovered in the air where it had flown, before it was once again surrounded by the cloud as it reformed. The cloud screamed again, and grew extra limbs. One appeared to be the limb of a Diamond Dog, and the other of a rabbit. Still keeping her distance, Applejack watched as the head reformed around the diamond.
This time, the cloud threw magic spears at her as well as the spheres. Each exploded on impact with the ground, but the spears went higher, to prevent her just doing the same. Applejack watched how it threw each, forming a plan as she did so. It soon became clear the spears took a little longer to explode, and they moved faster than the spheres, giving a small gap where she could jump ahead of one detonating, then using a sphere impact to finish the push.
Bracing herself, that’s exactly what she did. She flew through the air as a spear detonated, getting near a sphere just as it did the same. This time however, she grabbed the diamond with a hoof, and forced it back on the pillar.

Something from within the pillar reacted. Where before the diamond had glowed dim, her forcing the diamond back into place caused a brilliant light to glow. The cloud, which had lost form by her taking the diamond back, shrieked as it swirled. The light from the pillar destroyed it bit by bit, before finally, the light simply turned it into nothing.

Across Equestria, the light from the Bloodpact Stronghold glowed brilliantly. The seal which had once again come close to collapse around Ulysses returned with vigor. Within, Ulysses winced and howled in pain, as the bond of blood did its job once more against him. His dragon leg slowly began to flake, and he scowled in the direction of the stronghold.

Discord likewise saw it, and grinned.
“Well done, Applejack. That’s brought us another day or two to fix the rest at least.” he muttered.
“But you know, there is still a lot wrong with your world.” he said to himself. The first Discord glanced at a mirror.
“Yes, I know,” he waved his hand, “but don’t pretend you're better than me just because you befriended a yellow pegasi with butterflies on her flank.” the first Discord scoffed.
“That yellow pegasi showed me what I had missed all my life. And you should have learnt that lesson too, if Ulysses simply did not exist in your world, like he doesn’t in mine.” the second Discord responded.
“True. But I must thank you for all the help you have provided so far. Such a stroke of genius to try and simply erase Ulysses! And if Applejack succeeds in restoring the other pillars, well, that’s the end of that.”
“You wish,” the second Discord sighed and shook his head at his counterparts perspective. The first Discord clearly assumed he understood friendship, but could never get it, “all you will do is erase him from that branch of time he created. There are still eight others, and each could then in turn affect mine. The rainbow power they share is strong, but in his current state, Ulysses is the bull in the time china shop.”
“This rainbow power, no chance of lending even a bit of it?” The first Discord asked, his tone suggesting they had shared this conversation before, but he knew the answer.
“If it was something that was mine to lend out, I would. Alas, it isn’t, but trust me, what we have created together,” the second Discord stopped cryptically.
The first Discord looked up to some point above his throne room.
“What we have created, a power that shouldn’t exist to even oppose time itself. Rest assured, I’ll be destroying it the second this is done.”
With a wave of his talon, the second Discord disappeared, leaving the first to ponder.
Seven souls he had gathered to keep the pillars active. Not all had been out of friendship, just two had. It hadn’t mattered at the time, nor now if they were all still alive. Discord closed his eyes and mused.
“One the traitor who turned back to the light, one the friend betrayed whom stands with his mortal foes, one the kind soul saved by the forest fae, one the spurned friend who seeks forgiveness, one the brother who failed to stop the foe of life, one the mare who never met those who should be friends and the one who followed in the family steps. They protect us all with the God of Chaos from he who broke time for selfish gains.”
It was a simple rhyme that had turned up at some point within the past forty years, though Discord didn’t know where it had first been spoken. He rather liked it, it praised him indirectly and made him realize something.
That he found it more enjoyable to protect ponies rather than torment them.

Chapter Twelve: Stronghold of Clouds

Applejack was left tired from having to put so much energy into jumping around. Slowly, she trotted down the stairs once more, quickly meeting the elderly Sunshine Blaze and his children. They helped her the rest of the way down, where she was met with cheers and a meal.
“I’m not sure how you did it, Applejack, but all power was restored to the stronghold at the same time we heard that thing scream. But now, now we have to keep this plan rolling without Discord to help.” Blaze smiled.
“Who said I was gone?” Discord asked, poking his head through a hole in the air. His eyes came to Sunshine Blaze, who shivered.
“That thing up the top of the stronghold, it looked like you, I could only assume,”
“Oh I see,” Discord narrowed his eyes, but his focus was towards the seal, “he’s toying with us now. He’s showing what he wants to turn us all into, corrupted and time broken things. And as much as I’d like for Applejack to get rest, there simply isn’t time.”
Discord snapped his talons, and Applejack felt the energy from the food and expelled in the fight return to her. She stood once more and looked at Discord.
“Ah need more than what Ah have, these things could have the elements within them.”
Discord nodded, snapping his talons again.
“I’ve given you the lightness of a pegasi, minus the wings of course. But don’t overdo it, it has limited uses before you must rest and let the ability restore itself. Now, shall I teleport you to your next location?”
“Surely it can’t be that hard to get around Equestria fast.” Applejack smiled, hoping she could see the landscape, maybe even wander to Ponyville.
“Applejack,” Discord didn’t look whimsical, he looked serious, as if his life was on the line, “Ulysses could still break out within hours. It would take you that long to get to one location. Teleporting you is the only way.”
She sighed, and nodded. The next snap of his talons distorted the world.

In the moments she was particles, moving rapidly to her next destination by the power of Discord, Applejack saw something. It was a blue pegasus with a rainbow mane, flying against black headwind and the piercing eyes of Ulysses. There was nothing else to Ulysses, just his eyes. And the laughter.
“Foolish pegasus, come to die!”
“Not today flankhole!”

The world returned to normal, and she shook her head. Around Applejack, earth ponies and unicorns had come to a stop, staring at her as they realized who she was. There were mutterings among them, but Applejack paid them no attention. Instead she looked around for the next stronghold. She didn’t know what this city was, but there had to be a clue.
Nearby was a fountain of white marble. Atop it were pegasi in flight, in what looked like flight suits, goggles covering their eyes. It took her a moment to realize, they were statues of the Wonderbolts.
“What the hay? When did Cloudsdale come to the ground?” she spoke.
Somepony walked to her side. She looked at the tired and old eyes of Soarin.
“It didn’t.” he pointed behind her and up to the sky.
Turning, Applejack got her first glance at the stronghold. While very much a structure of stone, it was done in a flowing step, with the features reminding her of the grace and randomness of a cloud. Indeed, there were clouds at wide flat areas of the stronghold, at prominent sites all up it. From here, pegasi were hurriedly clasping gems to earth ponies and unicorns, then pushing the clouds down to the ground where they fell apart, giving the riders a softer and very short landing.
The stronghold, she noted, was being abandoned.
“Ah need ta talk to somepony.” she looked at Soarin.

Soarin led her to the base of the stronghold, where facing away at the doors was a griffon. The griffon hadn’t seen her yet, but Applejack flinched at the voice, and the very memory of who it was.
“Alright ya dweebs, get a move on, the rest can clear the upper floors, just clear out the lower then lock me inside. I didn’t want my reunion to go like this, but I gotta kick some flank, even at my age.” Gilda snapped, the pegasi around her running around and doing their best to carry out orders.
“Gilda? How are you in charge of a stronghold?” Applejack asked.
Gilda turned around. She was indeed older, but given that griffons lived twice as long as ponies, she was more middle age than pensioner. She snorted at seeing Applejack, and rubbed the scars across her face.
“Went to give Ulysses a piece of my mind soon after I had heard he had killed you six. Got my flank handed to me and was saved only thanks to Discord stepping in and doing what I couldn’t. Then he told me you all survived, but barely, so I promised to help to avenge Dash.” Gilda answered, turning back to the stronghold.
“Alright then, Ah can’t say Ah like ya too much after the last we met at the surprise party Pinkie threw ya,” Applejack noticed that Gilda had winced at the mention of it, either the memories reminded her of what she had done wrong, or the memory of Pinkie Pie still disturbed her, “but ya did the right thing. Ah’m sure Dash’ll forgive ya, but Ah got to get up there and stop this here stronghold falling.”
“Not gonna happen appleflank,” Gilda glanced sideway, “it's my stronghold to protect, my nest, I’m going to go up there, kick flank and take it back, while you can sit your flank here and watch.”
“You’ll get yourself killed.” Applejack stated.
Gilda huffed, glaring at Applejack. And deflated.
“I walked away from my friendship with her. I decided to be alone, than to make friends with the new friends she made. And look what that did. If it had been seven of us against Ulysses instead of six, then none of this would be happening.” Gilda looked at the ground, suddenly a very different griffon to the brash and headstrong one she had been just seconds before.

Applejack saw guilt in her. She was wracked by that single ‘what-if’ scenario for sixty years, and it had eaten her up. Discord had taken Gilda, and given her a purpose, to finally fight for her friend, even indirectly, to give her and their friendship a second chance, if they succeeded. Applejack wasn’t sure if Discord had done the wrong thing, but it remained to be seen at all. Slowly, she placed a hoof on Gilda’s shoulder. Gilda turned her head back to look directly at Applejack.
“Ah need to know more of what’s up there.” she stated. Not asked. Asked implied she would stay put.
“Its Rainbow Dash. But she’s all black and screaming like a beast. I just know Ulysses has twisted her to bring this stronghold down.”
“No, it's not her,” Applejack shook her head, “before Discord sent me here, I fought a, something, up at the top of the Bloodpact Stronghold. It appeared as Discord, but he was fine. Whatever it is up there, it's what Ulysses wants to turn the real Rainbow Dash into. And ya can’t fight it alone.”
Gilda blinked, then closed her eyes, beginning to shiver, either in rage or fear of what the future could be. The shaking would slow to a stop, then, she slowly opened her eyes.
“Let’s come up with a plan to kick flank.” she muttered, her voice filled with determination.

Chapter Thirteen: The Pillar of Loyalty

Gilda had quickly located the plans for the Stronghold itself, and unlike the Bloodpact Stronghold, the Stronghold of Loyalty (she had been as original in naming as Rainbow Dash) worked far differently. The mechanisms ran right to the ground floor, in her own words, this was to pick up and feed the loyalty between those whom lived in the tower to the element itself at the pillar.
But Gilda had also quickly pointed out that the beast at the top had spread through this mechanism, and it was likely there would be dead ponies, griffons and other creatures lining the halls, stairs and rooms. This made Applejack shiver, she should have been faster!

And much like the outside, the inside of the Stronghold was random. A set of stairs didn’t always lead upward, but Gilda showed the route they would be taking.
“There’s a fast way up there, even with my old age, we’ll encounter some of the mechanisms along the way, but more or less, we’ll advance up the stronghold and be at the top in half an hour.” she grinned.
“Ya sure yer up to it?”
“I’m not letting you go alone,” Gilda narrowed her eyes, “I owe it to Dash, and I’m gonna send that twisted version of her to Tartarus.”
“Alright then, let’s not waste any more time.” Applejack began to walk to the stronghold, allowing Gilda to catch up. At the doors, the pair pushed them open together, and were faced with the sight of what the beast at the top was doing.

On the walls were large circles, which Applejack quickly worked out were the mechanisms of the stronghold. From them, thousands of lines led directly upward, though at the moment, black clouds puffed from the circles, fed by sticky black goo running down these lines. And there were ponies and griffons, presumed dead, wriggling and crying for help. Applejack bit her lip, knowing she couldn’t help them, not right there and then. But hundreds of eyes stared at her, struggling to pull themselves up from the black void that was still trying to pull them in.
She hurried instead after Gilda, the pair avoiding as the black clouds tried to grab them from all sides. The stairway at least narrowed things down, giving them a chance to breath from the mad dash they had just done.
The next few floors were the same story, the claws of the cloud even pulling tricks to try and grab them both, or leaving a clear path to tempt Applejack into trying to save those still alive. If there was one thing Applejack was thankful for now, it was the very randomness she had dreaded about this place. The Bloodpact stronghold had been designed in an orderly manner, with only one direct way to the top. Gilda it seemed, had insisted on their being many ways up and down, so instead of eighty floors, they faced an eighty floor climb with no fewer than five landings. It was still technically the same distance travelled, but it zigzagged more than wound around in slow sloping circles.

Halfway up, Gilda held Applejack back, a look in her eyes.
“Tell me, how do you know Dash is fine?” she asked.
“Back in Irvest, Discord had me watch the others memories. Ah saw Dash being headstrong and flying into the seal to get to Ulysses.” Applejack replied.
Gilda didn’t react, not right away. She blinked a few times, and closed her eyes. She counted under her breath, a talon raised and closed as she shook it. With a calming breath, she lowered the talon and stared back up the next flight of stairs, each quickly becoming steeper and shorter.
“I’d seen somepony stupidly fly toward the seal many years ago,” Gilda finally began speaking, “I had asked Discord what happened, and he told me not to worry about it. If he knew.”
“He knew. It was what Dash did that alerted him to the fact that Ulysses was stealing the others one by one.”
Gilda again seemed to hold back her rage.
“I knew Dash could be headstrong, cloudbrain better be okay after all this.” she sighed, starting the climb back up the stronghold.
“Ah think it's time Ah knew, how do these here Strongholds work?”
“It’s simple, the mechanisms are key, they pick up on the aspect the element embodies, the more of it, the better. Only those with the most loyalty toward anyone can live in here, seems horrible I know, but it's what works best. The city itself, both in the air and on the ground also are surrounded by smaller mechanisms, which fill with the strength of loyalty, should a mechanism node go off for some reason, the orbs from those mechanisms can be fetched and temporarily replace it while it's being fixed.” Gilda replied.
“Do all the strongholds work like that?” Applejack asked again.
“I’d call you a bookworm except this is pretty important. But only this one needs the mechanisms. By itself, loyalty is not strong enough to fill the air to keep the element going. I’m not sure how the rest work, I know the Bloodpact one is pretty brutal, Sunshine Blaze has already shaved off decades of his life, you know he should have died at a hundred and forty? Now he’ll be lucky to reach ninety.”
Applejack shivered. She didn’t need to be told how many years of his life Blaze had given up just to try and defeat his brother. Slowly, Applejack walked to a window, looking out across the landscape of Equestria. The power of the Bloodpact stronghold itself seemed so weak on its own, as if Ulysses would overpower his younger brother with ease at any moment.
“Let’s not waste anymore time.” she turned away and headed up past Gilda. The griffon smiled and began to follow with her.

It took another ten minutes before they finally reached the top of the stronghold, the black cloud swirling around the pillar. Now and again there were flashes of ruby red light, trying to pierce the thick haze and failing, it even looked as if the very Element of Loyalty itself were calling for help.
“Still you fight,” Ulysses spoke slowly, more measured and his voice no longer full of certainty that things were going to go his way, “why? This world is mine, why do you fight me apple farmer?”
“Cus while ya have my friends, Ah ain’t alone, and Ah ain’t fighting for just myself.” she huffed.
“Still this notion of friendship. Is friendship and harmony that important? Can you not see how dull each day is, being the same? You are not living. Give in to me, I will give this world what life really should be.”
“Buck you, Equestria is fine as it is!” Gilda shouted.
“I see you have brought the puppet that Discord placed here. Very well, fight for your worthless friendship and harmony, the world shall be mine no matter what.”
The black cloud began to swirl, dragging the Element of Loyalty into the air. It rested in the chest of the shape it took, that of Rainbow Dash. It, like the one she encountered before screamed once it had taken shape.
“Ready for this, Gilda?” Applejack asked.
“I was born ready.” Gilda licked her lips.

The Dark Dash rushed at them, both Gilda and Applejack rolling out of the way. It spun around in the air, aiming at Gilda first, despite their plan. Applejack stared and shook her head.
“Shoot, Ah planned for it to come after me.” she grumbled as Gilda flew narrowly ahead. It was clear what Ulysses had done, with Gilda nearby, he was aiming to kill the one Discord had picked to control this stronghold, so even if the beast fell, there would be no way to make the pillar operational again anytime soon.
Instead, Applejack ran as best she could after them, helpless whenever the Dark Dash grabbed Gilda who kicked herself free. She recalled all the times she had to make Rainbow stop flying for whatever reason, and when the moment presented itself, she lined herself up with the pillar, ran and jumped off it. She sailed in the air, and managed to tackle the Element of Loyalty free.
The beast screamed, losing its shape. Applejack struggled with the Element as it was tugged back by the beast, and attempted to get it to the pillar. She failed as seconds from the pillar, the beat threw her backwards and reclaimed the Element, once more reforming into the shape of Rainbow Dash. This time, spines formed on the front of the wings.
“I don’t like the look of that.” Gilda muttered.
The Dark Dash screamed, and spread its wings. Both Gilda and Applejack found themselves running in opposite directions from projectiles.
“Gilda, we need to stop it.”
“Tell me something not so obvious!”
Applejack sighed, and attempted to run back at the pillar. The Dark Dash anticipated she would do this, and had already aimed the second volley at her to prevent her getting the Element back out.
Though being made of cloud made the beast a literal airhead. In its focus on Applejack, it had stopped tracking Gilda, who had taken flight to aim herself and where the element was with the pillar. Gild flew as fast as she could, through the beast and slamming the element back onto the pillar.

The effect wasn’t immediately apparent. The Element of Loyalty spun for a moment before it began to spin at such a speed it was a blur. The top of the stronghold flashed a red colour and the beast was slowly torn apart, screaming in pain as light of harmony broke it apart. With a final loud scream, it dispersed into the air. Gilda shook her head as she stood up and slapped a talon against the pillar. A beam of light shot toward the seal, and grew in intensity as it pulled something out.
“What was that?” Applejack asked.
“I don’t rightly know, just Discord’s plan involves doing what you just saw.” Gilda replied.
Applejack trotted closer to the edge closest to the seal, and saw something happening. There was a green flame, and it was starting to spread thickly around the base of the seal, the green heat from it going directly up rather than pulling into a sphere.
“Ah meant that.” she spoke back.

In his castle, Discord stared at the appearance of the green flame, and tapped the paw against his chair. He seemed bored, but his eyes betrayed his true thoughts, that of curiosity.
“Just what are you up to?” Discord muttered. Pulling a chart from the air, he glanced at it, and where the words ‘END OF THE WORLD’ were right next to an arrow, it suddenly moved, and seven days that didn’t exist before filled the gap.
“Whatever you just did, whelp, bought us a lot more time than I expected. Now, which way should I send Applejack? Ponyville? No… I know the perfect Stronghold next, about time she caught up with that tree she loved so much.”

Chapter Fourteen: A Time to Relax

Applejack and Gilda were still atop the stronghold of loyalty. Whatever the green flame was, it had done something besides be there. The other strongholds noticeably lightened up, not enough to match the one they were on or the Bloodpact, but enough to know something had changed. They looked at each other.
“I wish I had answers, but I’m just as much in the dark as you are.” Gilda shrugged, turning to lead Applejack back down.
“Only Discord could know then,” Applejack responded, “Ah need to talk to him.”
“Follow me then, we all had rooms for direct conversation.”

The room wasn’t large, and barely fit both Applejack and Gilda inside. On one wall, facing a chair, was a picture of Discord, but what surprised Applejack was the fact it was simple. He wasn’t dressed like a king or emperor, it was just him, as he was. And the frame was just a brown wood, there didn’t even appear to be nails, and certainly there was no decorations. It just felt wrong that Discord, who could do what he wished, had opted for something so simple. She raised an eyebrow at this, but Gilda didn’t notice. Instead she sat on the chair.
“Stronghold of Loyalty to Discord, are you there?” Gilda asked.
There was a moment of silence, as if he wouldn’t answer, or couldn’t.
“I’m here, well done on recovering the Element, to both of you,” Discord’s picture began to move and blink within the frame, making Applejack gasp, “and whatever happened at the base of the seal has bought us a lot of time to sort this mess out.”
“Don’t play dumb, Discord, Ah know yer not saying what you know.” Applejack replied.
The picture Discord looked hurt, then sighed.
“Oh of course I do, I know a lot, but like Celestia, I have to choose what you all know as well, because sometimes, ignorance is bliss, but what I can hide from Ulysses is a tool to strike him and the time corruption down.”
“Start explaining.” Applejack narrowed her eyes.
“I can’t. Because it’s going to save a life if you remain ignorant of what it was you saw or why we have seven days to stop Ulysses.”

Applejack lay on a bed. It had been too long it felt since she had just relaxed, and not ran about, watching waking memories of her friends or fighting whatever tricks Ulysses conjured to bring down the strongholds she had helped save. And it had been hours since she yelled at Discord, stating he hadn’t changed, he was just the same evil working to be the only one in town.
A part of her felt bad. Discord hadn’t risen to her or shouted back, instead he had looked hurt and remained silent, even letting her storm out in her anger. In the hours, she had thought over his last words careful. It would save a life to remain ignorant of what she had seen. And what if he was right? Whoever he had at the very front of the seal had bought her the time to relax like she was, so maybe it was best she didn’t know yet.
And yet, there was something she couldn’t shake.
“Ah need to know.” she stated.
But do you? She thought. What if by going and finding out, it causes Ulysses to bring down the strongholds? You know he will stop at nothing to see it happen.
She hated how honest her thoughts could get sometimes, but she yawned and rolled to her side. Before she knew it, she was asleep.

“Other strongholds, report in.” Gilda spoke, still in the room. She had been trying for hours now to get through to the other strongholds that hadn’t been freed by Applejack, with no success. Only stubborn pride kept her trying.
She was again met by silence. And then a chuckle. She froze as she recognised it.
“Ulysses!”
“Hello griffon. Don’t worry, that trick with the green fire Discord pulled off had kept me trapped, I can’t sadly kill you where you are.” Ulysses hissed in a mocking chuckle.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Simple, I’m offering a trade. Bring down that stronghold yourself, I’ll give all Griffons and Rainbow Dash immunity. Not a single worthless feather will be harmed on any of you as the rest of this world burns.”
Gilda shivered. She had learnt from Discord that Ulysses had many tricks, like striking deals, or offering not to cause harm to those who would help him. She shook her head.
“Really? Genius, if the world is burning, we’ll burn even if you give us immunity from the destruction you want.”
Ulysses sighed.
“Your mother was a proud griffon, wasn’t she? How did she die now? Oh that’s right, she wanted you to live in a world where the sun and moon were back on their normal path, like the old days, so she came to fight and kill me.”
“I’m not listening.”
“Don’t kid yourself, you have ears you can’t plug up featherbrain. And she died, I tore every bone out of her wings, strung her up on the walls of my castle, and left her. You would see all griffons suffer that fate?” Ulysses hissed.
“If I side with you, we would burn as this world burned regardless. You offer me a slow death or a slow death as I feel every feather and tuft of fur melt and my skin boil. Go crawl back into the abyss you monster.” Gilda spat.
Ulysses continued to hiss as his influence left the room. Gilda gasped for breath for a few moments as the dark pressure he exerted left.
“Discord, come in.” she muttered.

She saw a swirling mess of obsidian stone, torn banners, ripped carpet, smashed statues and full body armor, all floating around a blackness. It wasn’t clear what it was she was seeing.

Applejack!
The voice was lost among the malstrom of raw time energy. Was she dreaming? Or was this real? She hit herself in the leg, and felt nothing. A dream then.

Applejack!
It was a familiar voice, and she could picture the prismatic blur, but it was different to the one that first called her. Looking around, she felt as if multiple sets of eyes stared at her.

APPLEJACK!
They cried as one, and she knew them. Twilight, Dash, Pinkie, Fluttershy and Rarity. Where were they? She looked around ever more frantic.

Look ahead, Applejack, please, Twilight Sparkle stated, look at the vortex, can you see what we’re seeing?
She narrowed her eyes, and in the very center of the dark energy, she saw three points of light, each an alicorn. Two were familiar.
“Ah see Celestia and Luna, but Ah don’t know who the third is.”

Applejack jolted awake, as the door to the room she was sleeping in was opened. Gilda stood there, looking weary, as if she hadn’t rested for many hours.
“Lansakes! Ya look like death!” Applejack hopped off the bed.
“You need to go to Manehatten, we may have gained seven days, but that doesn’t mean Ulysses is resting. There’s a train leaving in the hour, you’ll be on it, in a sleeper car. Rest while you head there, but you need to be in Manehatten by sunrise tomorrow.”
Applejack wanted to question why there, and ask so many more questions, but Gilda looked in no state to answer or entertain having the plans she had set delayed. Applejack nodded slowly.
“Just show me where the station is.”

The station was on the outskirts of the ground level of Cloudsdale, and unlike the train station of Ponyville she remembered, this one had multiple lines, each heading a different way. One, to the Crystal Empire, was listed as out of service. She didn’t know why this was, but the question she wanted to ask, if Ponyville still existed, was answered by the time table board. It was listed on the route to Canterlot. She trotted with her ticket to the platform that would take her to Manehatten, where in silence, the staff got her on board and directed to a sleeper car.
“Wish Ah could see Ponyville. Wonder how Mac and Bloom are doing.” she smiled, this quickly turned into a sniff as she fought back sudden tears.
“Ah wish Ah could’ve seen Granny Smith one more time too.”

Chapter Fifteen: Manehatten

Applejack stared out of the window as the train sped towards its destination, outside she could still see the other strongholds and the clouds at the top indicating that Ulysses hadn’t yet lost. But the lack of change to them gave her no clue how bad or good the situation was now.
And then there was the dream. Was it really her friends, calling out to her from where ever they were? And the three alicorns, just who was that third? Discord, Sunshine Blaze and Gilda had made no mention of Ulysses taking a third alicorn, and as far as she knew, the princess of love was still around somewhere.

She sighed, Discord being quiet hadn’t helped either. The draconequis had remained that way since they argued at the top of the stronghold of loyalty, and she was depending on him breaking first so she could get some answers. Looking ahead of the train, she saw another stronghold looming in the distance and getting closer. It would be another hour before it passed the train on the left side and disappear amongst the tall buildings she recalled Manehatten had. It was somewhat comforting to see the city had been unaffected, unlike the Ponyville she recalled when she had last seen it.
She shivered. Sixty years since she had last seen her home. How different was it now? It clearly hadn’t been important enough for a stronghold, otherwise Discord no doubt would have sent her there by now.

The train came to a stop and she trotted off, looking around. The station and streets of Manehatten looked the same, but there was something not quite right. Ponies, Griffons and other species all walked around, talking to each other, and other creatures. Some had birds, cats, dogs or even rabbits upon their backs. Applejack shook her head. The Manehatten she knew would have abhorred such things, the ponies preferring fashion above all else. But rather than ask anypony for answers, she headed to the information booth, and located, rather quickly, an information brochure on the stronghold itself. Sitting down, she turned the first page, and gasped. The sight before her was impossible, surely. But yet it still was. The face of Forest Breeze looked back up at her.

The walk to the stronghold itself wasn’t difficult, and the closer she got, the more she saw that the creatures with ponies changed to fairies and flutterponies. She recalled the last time she had seen Forest Breeze, he was under a curse by Discord, held at bay by a fairy that had stuck with him to keep said curse from killing him. But now he was helping Discord, was that still there? The stronghold itself, the Lighthouse of Kindness it was named, loomed overhead and the streets around it were full of activity and ponies heading away. Once or twice she was stopped by police, who took a few minutes to realize who she was, and simply let her continue in awe that she was even alive. There was an evacuation, she realized, as the stronghold was made safe.

“Okay, that’s everypony out of the lighthouse,” Forest Breeze muttered, “now, Vax, what are you seeing in there?” he asked.
There was silence as around him, guards waited for the fairy to reply. Vax soon flew toward Forest Breeze and made sounds that were alike to small bells as it spoke. Whatever Vax said, Forest Breeze looked concerned.
“Really? All the plants and trees are liquefying on the ground? How is that even possible? Just what is up there?” he cast his gaze to the cloud at the top of the stronghold.
“Sir, I still say we should call in an airstrike.” one guard stated.
“You forget Ulysses hates pegasi, whatever that thing is, I have no doubt it was created to cause as much harm to any that get close. Beside, an airstrike might damage the pillar and the element, we can’t afford to lose either. Just what to do.”
He hummed, barely registering the hoofsteps approaching on the empty street. By his command, a five block radius of the stronghold now stood empty, there remained just himself, Vax and six guards.
“Ma’am, you can’t be here, this is temporarily a restricted area!” another guard said, turning to the hoofsteps.
Curious, Forest Breeze turned to look at who had remained behind, and blinked. Vax fluttered over to the orange mare, as if examining, before fluttering back and speaking.
“Really now? Applejack? One of the heroes Ulysses defeated sixty years ago and was spared by Discord?”
“Yeah yeah, rub it in ya womanizer, just how the hay are ya still around?” Applejack grinned.
“You remember that huh? Come, I suspect we both have stuff to discuss.” Forest Breeze grinned back.

Applejack had spoken first, telling him of what had happened in Irvest and the two strongholds she had been to so far. Forest Breeze and the guards seemed to have their moods lifted by her tale that the Bloodpact Stronghold and Stronghold of Loyalty were safe.
“And I hope by your arrival, the Lighthouse of Kindness is the next to stand firm. But now, for your questions.” Forest Breeze smiled, awaiting the first.
“How are ya still paired to Vax? Didn’t Discord remove the curse?” Applejack asked.
“He tried. But I approached to aid him, even though we were enemies, far after he became Harmony aligned over Chaos. He can’t remove it, but he’s promise to try if the order of the world is returned to harmony, he had no more interest in causing harm to the world.” Forest Breeze answered.
Applejack didn’t believe that for a second.
“How are ya still so young? It's been sixty years!”
“A side effect of being partnered to Vax. Many ponies are taking up partnering with fairies now, it grants a small dose of immortality. Not true immortality, but well, I’m a hundred years old now, and have the body of a twenty year old. Who knows how long I’ll live, but Vax assures me even if Discord removes the curse, I’ll still have this crazy long life. And being near immortal has made me realize, trying to be, well, a sleeze to mares, isn’t something I want to be remembered by.”
“Ah see. So, tell me what made you put aside yer differences with Discord. And don’t say it's to stop Ulysses, Ah ain’t falling for it.”
Forest Breeze blinked, then sighed. He shook his head and looked around.
“I’m a hero from a time long forgotten, Applejack. So forgotten all anypony knows is Celestia and Luna stopped Discord long ago. But a hero always looks for the next wrong to right, the oppressed to free. I couldn’t give a rat’s flank about Discord and if he’s changed or not. Right now, he’s fighting the same evil I want to stop too. And that’s the truth, if Discord wasn’t trying to stop Ulysses for good, I would still be trying anyway.”
Applejack watched Forest Breeze for a moment, the fairy Vax circled around his head slowly. She nodded.
“What can ya tell me about the stronghold itself?”

She was shown a plan, much like how she had seen the others so far. Unlike the Stronghold of Loyalty, the Lighthouse of Kindness was more of an exhibit to celebrate Manehatten’s most recent unity to the nature that the city had long ago pushed out in favor of concrete and fashion. It also only had one way to ascend the stronghold, a single set of stairs from the bottom to the top, where the pillar was protected, in lighthouse style, from the nearby coast and the all too common storms that rolled in from the sea. What Applejack realized, this would put her in close confines to the beast placed there.
“Vax went in, as you probably saw. This beast, whatever it is, has decayed and destroyed everything inside. At the twentieth floor, Vax had to abandon the observation as the decay became too strong even for him. We have no idea how to get up there or what form this beast takes.” Forest Breeze sighed.
“Ah’d put all my bits on it being a twisted parody of Fluttershy, it is the element of Kindness up there right?” Applejack asked.
“Indeed. So what are you planning to do?”
“Ah need some way ta get through all that and face the beast of the stronghold.”
“You’ll never make it alive.” Forest Breeze quickly retorted.
“Vax,” Applejack glanced at the fairy, still idly floating around Forest Breeze, “is there anything you or the fairies can do to help?”
Vax fell still, Applejack wasn’t sure if the fairy was looking at her or not. There was the sound of a bell and Vax flew off, returning with two others and speaking in a near jingling chime.
“Vax says these two are twins, unbound to any pony. One fairy isn’t enough to combat the effects of the decay, but there may be a chance if you bind yourself with them.” Forest Breeze translated.
“So Ah’d be like you?” Applejack asked.
“It’s be like me, or let this stronghold fall.”
She thought.
“And they’d have ta be with me forever?”
“They have some freedom, but yes, once bound, your lives are connect, they’ll live only as long as you do, and die with the same final breath as you. Its sad, but hey, your crazy idea may see all three of you live to be three hundred years old or more. It's a risk worth taking all things considered.”

Applejack had agreed. She had expected the binding process to take ages. Instead, both twin fairies flew through her. It felt hot and her barrel still felt as if it burned slightly. But the twin fairies now flew around her, slightly orange in colour. She had then learnt they would only state their names to her when they felt she had really earned the right to hear them. Forest Breeze had only learnt Vax’s name, he said, so early because he had faced Discord and lost, making him worthy to know it right from bonding, but there were many fairy-bound ponies who still didn’t know their fairy’s names.
With tentative steps, Applejack and her fairies entered the lower floor of the stronghold, into the least worst zone of decay. She breathed the rotting smell of plants and gagged, but found nothing else happened.
“Alright, seems we’re good to go,” she glanced at the stairs, “lead the way.” she grinned.

Chapter Sixteen:Decayed Kindness

Applejack had quickly learnt the reports of mass decay of plants, and even animals (she had gagged to see zombie squirrels running around, and fortunately none of them were interested in her), were true. If not for the fairies she was now paired to, she had no doubt she would have died within minutes from the toxic fumes hanging in the air at the first floor alone. Even the water was somehow decayed, more black and sludge like than what it normally was. If she saved this stronghold, she knew for certain the cleanup operation alone would likely take years, and that would be before dealing with the zombified creatures.

The lighthouse was much like the Bloodpact in layout, a single set of stairs lead from bottom to top, and she had learnt the very light the stronghold gave out was caused by the glow of the element at the top of the lighthouse. Pausing at the nineteenth floor, Applejack looked up for a moment. She couldn’t see the top of the lighthouse from where she was, but she wondered how much of the design had been made before the reconnection with nature that the Manehatten ponies had made. It did seem very much like that the addition of plants, animals and water features had come later, and the fact a stronghold was required had simply been a good excuse for well, a bucking massive lighthouse.

Pressing on, Applejack saw why Vax had been forced back after the twentieth floor. The twenty-first floor didn’t just hold rotting plants, but new plants that fed the decay and spewed it into the air. Even with two fairies, it became hard to climb each floor. She could tell her fairies were struggling to cope, if even one couldn’t manage any further, her death was assured, it was going to be more a question of how painful it would be.

And then, the decay stopped. This confused Applejack, but each floor she past after thirty was normal, no decayed plants, just creatures scared at the sudden abandonment, and the sense of loss of creatures that must have ventured downward to find out why, only to never return. Hundreds of eyes (that she could see) stared at her. She shivered, but ignored them and pressed on, she had to make it to the top.

It didn’t take long, fortunately for her to reach the top of the lighthouse once the decay was gone, and the fairy twins with her had recovered from protecting her from the decay they had faced. The top was, well, a lighthouse, the Element of Kindness sat on the thing that spun to shine the light out into the night. She was no seastallion, she didn’t know what it was called. But there was something wrong. Normally, the stronghold had Ulysses waiting to say how he would capture her, and set a time corrupted version of her friend or Discord on her. There was nothing here, nothing to suggest the stronghold had fallen. Carefully, she approached the element, and touched it.

There was a sense of overwhelming sickness, that made Applejack collapse from touching the element, and the laughter of Ulysses.
“I may be unable to project myself for now, but I have many tricks to show how futile your quest is. Stand, fool, and look upon my glorious world.”
Applejack ignored his harsh voice for a moment, and made sure the fairy twins who had come with her were fine. They took to the air, checked each other, and spun around. There was the sound of bells as they spoke, and a shriek from them at what they saw. Slowly, Applejack stood and gasped.

Outside the lighthouse, Equestria was ash and fire, burnt rocks, and there were hints of ambling, mindless corpses. The sky rained fire and was the colour of blood. The lighthouse itself had decayed yet stood, despite the lack of any other on the landscape, but Manehatten was gone, there wasn’t even a hint of where it stood. And where the Element of Kindness had been, there now stood a zombified Fluttershy. There were no feathers on her wings, her skin and fur barely hung to the bones, her mane was far longer and glazed eyes stared at her. Applejack hated to take any good from the sight, but at least there were no open patches of decay and organs hanging from it. A small mercy however, as she stared at the dead eyes of the soft spoken pegasus.
‘Don’t fall for it! It is a future not yet here, we can stop it!’ a small voice spoke into her mind. Applejack assumed it was the voice of one of the fairies, and so nodded.
“Giving up at the first sight of a dead friend? My, how boring! Though I get how horrible it is to see a dead friend walking like they were still alive. I once dreamt my own mo-” Ulysses paused, “nevermind, the thought of seeing her the same way. Will you give up?”
“No, ya sick freak! And no fight either! Ah’ve had it to the back teeth with ya!”
She didn’t think until later how, well, kind it was that she had spun and bucked her legs at the animated corpse. It had crumpled and ended the illusion, and showed how weak Ulysses was becoming because of her and Discord’s plan.

She had expected a long fight against the dead Fluttershy in the future, but now she saw, Ulysses was so weak, he could barely maintain an illusion to scare her if she did anything. The element of Kindness, once the illusion was removed simply spun and she watched as it powered the lighthouse once more, and of course, the beam of its power aimed right at Ulysses. Applejack relaxed for a moment.
“Ah know one of you spoke ta me. Ah don’t mind which of you, but thank you both fer getting me up here,” she said to the twin fairies, “now, its up ta the both of you if you join me from here on, but Ah won’t rush yer choice.” she smiled, heading back for the stairs.
The fairies lingered for a moment, before they followed her.

At the bottom of the lighthouse, Forest Breeze broke into a smile as he heard the fans intended for the circulation of air to keep the animals alive, began to work once more, pumping out the now harmless decay from the lighthouse.
“She did it! The Lighthouse of Kindness is saved.”
Applejack herself turned up not too long after, having seen the decay starting to disappear with no illusion or harmful magic to cause it. She had worked out on the way down that the reason for the thirty floors being affected, rather than all of them, was the same as the illusion, and Ulysses had likely spread himself too thin with both spells in his current situation. Forest Breeze ran to her and wrapped a hoof around her in simple joy.
“Yeah, it's saved, yer welcome.” Applejack grinned.
“It’s more than that though, look.” Forest Breeze turned as he heard the random pony speak.
In the distance, the other strongholds began to shine again, in one go Applejack seemed to have saved them all.
“I’ll be the son of a mule, they’re all safe!” Forest Breeze couldn’t believe his eyes.
“Not yet they ain’t,” Applejack said, “Ulysses over exerted himself, but he’ll be back. And when he does, the remaining ones are gonna fall.”
“So what will you do next?” Forest Breeze asked.
Applejack thought for a moment.
“Ah think, if ma friends and ah are gonna live here, Ah’ll need to see the other cities, so they know what changed.” Applejack grinned, and begun to walk away, her mind set on the home of the friend that had united her and the others that Summer Sun celebration so long ago, Canterlot.

Discord sighed as he heard the voices of the other stronghold protectors come in as Ulysses was for now, thrown back to the seal. He felt a pounding in his head, very weak, as the weakened Ulysses even now attempted to break back out. But there was something else there. He could feel Ulysses, but Ulysses was not alone. Curious, Discord approached a mirror and waved a paw over it, the mirror begun to show the black and purple within the time corruption itself.
“I stare into the abyss, but what stares back.” Discord mused as he looked in.