> The Story of a Robot
>  by Jack Lindqvist
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Part 1: Affection
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It all started a little over 11 years ago, in a place far outside of Equestria, in the dark and mysterious wastelands. There, was the mechanical fortress, the metal palace, which was my home. I was one of the workers in the eastern department and was responsible for numerous construction designs, being that I was a newer version of the standard construction for a unicorn filly-bot (UNIFBOT-MODEL-F5226) with a more advanced intellect, as it applied me to doing so. It applied me to make things, I mean. We were all made so that we would mimic the performance of the biological set-up as far as it got. 

There were millions of us and we were all created to serve one purpose and one alone, to completely and utterly destroy the land of Equestria. Everything we did at the fortress was directly or indirectly connected to the destruction of the great kingdom. We just had to fulfill this purpose at all costs, why? It was because we hated them, simply, nothing more than that. 

Why did we hate them? Did we hate their world? Did we hate their way of living? No. We were simply and honestly filled with hatred and resentment for the earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasí, and all of them. We didn’t know why we hated them. We had absolutely no idea why we were so filled with resentment and the will to see them all dead but we were, each and every one of us. Ah, that was all we needed really. It was all we lived for and all we had ever known, ever since we were born.

I was made during the beginning of a new project that started because of a recent series of accidents that happened to the colt and filly-bots. It basically involved giving them a greater intellect and making them stay at the fortress and attend to more scientific matters as the mare and stallion-robots were the ones to go out on raids. All of this with exception to me, and there were a few others. Some of the more newly developed colt and filly-bots actually did have the ability and potential to kill, and they could also do what they were originally intended to do as before the re-development into killing-machines was finished. As I said, and I reiterate, I was one of those exceptions. 

We then consisted of numerous small groups with 50 in each and had specifically planned times and locations for every raid. Even though all groups did have a specific time planned for every raid, it was always in a very different location. 

Also, and furthermore, the raids mostly involved attacking small villages and to be more specific, burning them down to the ground and killing each and everypony living there. Sure, it happened now and then that somepony actually escaped, but we would usually get as many as was necessary in order for us to carry on with our values in pride.



	

My story, or well, the interesting part started a late evening in the fortress. I was sitting at my desk, furiously changing the blueprints on Prototype IIX which never seemed to be wanting to work when I suddenly heard a familiar tune coming from the speakers located in the upper corners of my small quadratic room. It was 21:00, a very special time in each and every day. It was time for the test. 

All six different main construction models in the six secluded departments (the unibots, the earth robots, the pegabots, the unicorn colt and filly-bots, the pegasus colt and filly-bots, and the earth pony colt and filly-bots) were divided into separate gargantuan groups, each group receiving a different test and each one of us having to complete our tests individually, as individuals. 

The tests could almost be anything. It could be as small as a simple riddle and or question, or as big as a series of puzzles and or riddles. Now, here is the holy rule: “You must always complete your test or you are to face the dire consequences!” If you failed to complete your test, or if you somehow cheated doing it, or better yet, if you refused to do what you were supposed to, or even, if you completed it the wrong way, you would surely get punished, and that was the truth of the matter. 

The punishment could also be very different depending on what the importance attendant to the test was at the moment that the test happened. It could be as small as a mere reprogramming and as terrible as an immediate shutdown. There weren’t many of us who failed completing a test. It was only a couple of hundred each day and if you consider that we were about 500 000 of the unicorn colt and filly-bot model performing the test every day, I liked the statistics. 

I rose up and left the room, entering the big and very long hallway with many doors located on the left and right sides. I moved almost mechanically and looked as countless others did it with the same kind of slow, somewhat reserved movements. We all then walked in the same direction. As I walked I took a deep breath and felt the wondrous metallic oily scent I could never get enough of. 





Finally, the great round hallway stopped. There were two gates and we all went toward the big one to the right. When I had entered, a very familiar sight revealed itself before my eyes. The gigantic room was filled with desks, one for each one of the unicorn colt and filly-bots. 

The long promenade continued inside of the room, and I took a seat behind a desk in the far back. After that, it took about another ten minutes for the rest to find a place to sit. That was not a lot of time really. There had been separate occasions when I’d had to wait for hours just because of somerobot getting lost in the middle of the room, walking around there in a circle, until finally finding a suitable place to sit. The tests wouldn’t begin until everyrobot had taken a seat. 

Oh, I didn’t blame them. The room was gigantic after all. One final filly-bot took a seat and the gate which was the only way out, closed! The desk opened up automatically and something very unusual revealed itself before my eyes. It was a puzzle, a thousand-piece puzzle to be exact. 

The voice of a unicorn filly-bot was heard, coming from the great speakers in the rear end of the room. “You can begin your tests, now!” the voice said, very loudly. The voice belonged to the chief of our department with there being six chiefs, one for each department. 

The chief of ours, UNIFBOT-MODEL-A0087 was developed from one of the earlier designs, therefore missing the features that made a robot look realistic. The artificial mane was replaced by black metal which was one of the most rare minerals, the artificial fur wasn’t there at all, nor was the skin and so, the outside of her body was solid metal. 

The data on earlier constructions was highly classified, so I couldn’t retrieve the first fact about her. It was an article of public fact though that the leaders of each department carried out the will of our father. I took a second to glance over all of the jigsaw pieces before then taking a look around, seeing that others had already begun and so, I got right to it myself. 

I used my magic abilities (which was an essential part in our way of carrying out work as well as one of the more cleverly executed and successful attempts at matching the biological set-up) to levitate and sort the different pieces of jigsaw, and I concentrated to identify all the varying colors before me, of which there were many of great variety and nuance.        



	

I sat there moving pieces into place and had patiently worked for hours. There wasn’t no threatening time limit or anything. As long as you got it done by 06:00 in the morning, it was all right. Now, there were just a few jigsaw pieces left. I went on as I smiled tiredly, and the green field of magic gathered around the final pieces, and they fell into place. 

I took a good look at the finished puzzle and flinched as I felt a shudder of fear, and terror, gather inside me in a manner for which the reason was something I was oblivious with respect to, and that respect was the reason that the manner in which I reacted made me so stressed, nay, shocked in fact. I shook the feelings off and looked at it again to see if I wasn’t just imagining things, but there it was. It wasn’t the motif of three fallen Equestrians, one unicorn, one earth pony, and one pegasus stained in blood, standing on a great field, the motif did, covered in wild growing flowers, which frightened me, but something entirely different. 

I looked at the puzzle a third time but there it was, all the same. Three jigsaw pieces were missing. One of the pieces in the top right corner, one in the top left, and one in the lower center. I was almost panicking, but then I tried to calm myself down a bit. 

There must be something wrong. Yes, that’s right… there must be some kind of… I took a good look-around and saw how others around me seemed just as clueless. I got a hold of myself and turned back to the puzzle. What in the world is this supposed to be? This had to mean something. It couldn't be a mere coincidence. 

I now stared at the puzzle, almost manically, almost maniacally. Hmm, three pieces missing? This is improbable. No, impossible. It was unthinkable. This test cannot be completed, but what was I supposed to do? Give up? Suddenly, a new thought popped up. Maybe that is the test, but if not, I could barely even imagine the consequences standing before me, like giant harrowing walls of disaster in their purest form, ripping off the mere essence of my consciousness until they finally reached the soon dead and gone inside of it all which was, me. 

All I had to do was to give the signal. I closed my eyes and fell into thoughts for a minute before slowly opening them again. I had reached my decision. I opened my mouth and I slowly said it, “Uncompleted!” 

The others around me stared in shock, I looked back at them… calmly. The desk opened up for a second time, the pieces fell down and I looked inside the desk shakily as they did. The desk closed itself and this time, I saw something much more familiar. The ceiling opened up above me and a screen followed by a long metal arm lowering it down to eye-level showed itself to me. I patiently waited and stared at the screen and was almost expecting to see the word “unsuccessful” in big red letters, but instead the screen lit up showing the word “successful” in big green letters, as always. 

I was so extremely relieved, it was simply inextricable. Unexplainable, it was, in point of fact. Then, I flinched as the desk opened up again for a second time and a reasonably big grey box stood there. I didn’t even bother to look at the box before coming into focus, seeing a green field shape itself around the cap. It fell to the side and I instantly lost interest as I saw the contents the box held. It was the terrifying old puzzle. 

I turned my gaze upward and saw that the screen was gone now. I then looked back at the puzzle, and it felt almost like it was staring right back at me, the jigsaw pieces now out of order from before. I lifted the cap, put it back on, and took the box with me. The unnecessarily long walk to the gate, suddenly now, felt quite short, actually. It did feel quite short. It felt shorter than it had in a long time. I stopped at the gate and it opened up automatically, just as usual.  



		

As I walked down the hallway with the grey rectangular box hovering beside me, I still couldn’t make sense of today’s test. It usually felt like every test had a meaning, like it was supposed to tell you something, one way or another, but this was different. 

Was it my trust that was tested? Was it to see if I would really lay down such devotion into finding an answer, that I would stay there to the end? To see how far I would go before I gave up? Possibly, but if so, I don’t think being the first one out truly counted as a full success. On the other hand, could it really be that simple? I fell out of my thoughts as I heard the gate opening again behind me, and I noticed others coming walking out. They had followed my example, of course.  



		

When I reached my room, I turned toward the door and opened it. As I was about to walk inside, I heard a sound and I looked to the right only to be met with the sight of a grey box which had just hit the wall beside me. I focused on the box and levitated it inside my room before I entered myself. I placed the box on my desk and turned toward the small bed, deciding to curl up on it, and then I, in less than ten minutes, was fast asleep.   



		

The sound of three long beeps coming from the speakers woke me up the next morning. I got up, left the room, and I entered the big hallway. This signal basically meant that my group was up next for a raid. I reached the end of the hallway but this time, entering the smaller gate to the left, smaller than the one I had entered before.

As I had once entered, I came into a corridor filled with others walking around, all being on their way somewhere. Now, there was another corridor on the right, and another one, a little further on to the left. I paid close attention to my surroundings. This place was quite literally like a maze and in case you got lost, you could end up wandering around for who knows how long. 

I kept on going a bit and quickly entered the fourth staircase to the right. As I walked up the stairs, I saw PEGAFSUS-MODEL-F7461 passing by. I turned around and looked on with interest as she was walking down the stairs, in the opposite direction. It was time for her group to travel in less than 14 minutes. I was hit with confusion and my curiosity did the rest. What could she be doing? Does she want to get herself killed? Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. Whatever F-7461 does, she knows the consequences of her actions. 

Everyrobot cared for themselves here. There was no chatting or sociality. Such behavior was strictly prohibited and would become punished, eventually, another rule I never fully understood the meaning of. Still, as yet, as always, I didn’t have to. 

I now finally reached my destination and came out on the great yard where 25 MEWOD-T35s, a kind of mechanical wagon which also worked as a tank, stood ready. I climbed up on one of them and now, the only thing left for me to do was to wait for the rest of the group. 

If you came at least an hour late without a (very) decent explanation, you would get punished. Such were the rules. As I waited, the colorful morning sky turned blue and I watched as another unicorn filly-bot climbed up at the back of my MEWOD-T35. 

There was to be two of us on each MEWOD-T35, seeing as the appealing number of 25 contrasted to the 50 ones of us which gathered here every day could simply not end up in a different way. I stared impatiently as the final one, (a lazy pegabot from what I could tell), flew up and landed on the MEWOD-T35 behind me. 

All of them started moving immediately and the humongous gate separating the fortress from the world outside slowly started opening. It was time to take a trip to Equestria. 

I looked up to the right. There, high above us, on the great pedestal stood our creator, out father, Aldeus. The great alicorn, he was in our eyes and in our hearts. His dark black color stood out against the blue sky. His black tail and mane moved magically in the air as he watched over us with his strangely red-glowing eyes. His pupils and irises had a darker red. A little hard to see in the sunlight but very obvious once you got closer to him, it was no doubt.  

I kept looking and suddenly he stretched out his wings and left the pedestal. He flew down in circles around it before leaving toward the great tower in the northern parts of the fortress. I felt a small breeze as he flew by and took a second to close my eyes and appreciate it. I then turned back toward the gate and waited. As the MEWOD-T35s slowly left the yard, I glared out at the wastelands which we were about to pass through.



	

We had begun passing through the green landscapes of Equestria. The colors and smells left me completely untouched as I rather started ignoring them instead, as always. We now passed by a small set of hills. This is apparently the best way of getting there undiscovered, thought I to myself with a hint of irony in my thought. 

We reached the village and the vehicles' navigation systems switched to manual. I was glad to be teaming up with the only other filly-bot in the group. She opened the shutter by pressing the button on the side of the shutter, and she entered the inside of the MEWOD-T35. She then simply activated the turret and started steering the tank throughout the village. 

I stayed outside and gladly watched as the word on the turret’s monitor switched from “inactive” to “active." I simply walked up behind the turret and started. Firstly, I became a little more conscious of my surroundings, and I watched as screaming victims started fleeing for their lives when their homes burned down and got blown to pieces. 

I turned the turret against them and felt the hatred burning inside of me. The hatred gave me power. The hatred gave me strength. The hatred was above anything else. It meant the world to me. It is what guided me and helped me in my moments of need. I fired and watched as the ponies fell in torment. I then smiled and felt the familiar sense of accomplishment that I always felt when I murdered. 

The feeling was intoxicating. It was like a drug. I just had to get more of it. I fired again. This time I fired against one of their houses. The ones living there came out screaming, and I felt the same wondrous feeling, yet again. 

These ponies, the ponies of this world… Equestria… they were monsters. Terrible, horrible creatures, they were, ones that were not deserving of the gift of life. I didn’t know why but I just felt it deep inside of me, all the way to the very depths of my soul. The feeling was so unbelievably powerful and convincing that I didn’t even take a second to ask myself, "why?" I just simply knew. That is all there was to it. 

The village had now been completely destroyed. I watched as some final survivors tried to escape, took an aim for them, and shot in an almost mechanical, reflexive manner. The shutter opened, and the one other filly-bot came climbing up. She looked a bit new judging by model design, with the bright colors and such. Green, red… a tad bit of magenta. Ah, what were they thinking? I didn’t bother scanning her for registration. I was tired, and I didn't see any point in doing so. What happened was that every time we were on a raid, we scanned each other to ensure ourselves of one another's identity, lest a changeling or some other mythical creature should slip into the mix, replace one of us, come into the fortress, and cause havoc, but really, that was unlikely. That was always unlikely.  

Mission accomplished! The village was destroyed, and with no survivors left too for that matter. Suddenly, and completely out of nowhere, I saw somerobot walking in this direction coming from the nearest MEWOD-T35. It only took me a second to realise who it was. A-0087 had been following with us. This was extremely unusual. What business could she possibly have to be attending out here because I sure knew she wasn’t going to kill anypony. The chiefs were above such things. 

She was not a warrior at all, especially not since the point in time that colt and filly-bots were forbidden from doing this. After the new rule was placed by Aldeus, it seemed like not even she was allowed to step foot out here ever. She slowly and carefully climbed up on the MEWOD-T35 and walked up to me. 

“Excellent work today, F-5226. I am very pleased with your efforts as of now,” she said calmly but with a sense of determination in her voice. 

“Thank you for you kind words!” I answered, verifying and politely giving voice to the validity of her comment. 

“I expect great things from you in the future,” A-0087 said, then, gladly with a smile, walked away. 

She jumped off of the MEWOD-T35 and returned to her own. The entire squadron of MEWOD-T35s manual controls shut themselves down immediately. They all turned around and slowly began heading back home, to where I lived, the shining metal palace. It would change now and again. Some features stayed the same and others didn't. The towers moved. The great tower in the north remained where it had always been. The yard did too, but some other things moved. It's hard to explain. The place was a maze, partly owing to this fact, one that had escaped me for a long time, since I didn't think about it. I didn't know that navigating in this place would be so hard when I at last realized how everything worked, a little less than two years ago, when I finally was born. It was all a crazy proposition, knowing that this is how the facility worked. I had no idea why, but I would soon learn. It was an incoherent building always, and if you wanted to get to your room, you had to take a different path every time, and look at the number signs on the walls to find where you are, the number signs signifying a time and location, a little timestamp was always on them, and they shined with numbers and letters that showed relations, how far away different things were from each other. It was known, of course, among all of us.  

It functioned like an archive, the numbers and letters switching locations, but if you followed them, like when you're in a library, then you could eventually, if you were lucky, find your way. That's what it was all about was finding your way. If you got lost, you got treated like something was wrong with you, and that's no good, so I always tried to pay close attention to the signs, but they were confusing, and I had a hard time doing so, admittedly, but I thought that at least hopefully, it would all pan out well, and I wouldn't get hurt because I was tardy, getting to places. Getting punished was quite usual, but it had never happened to me. I wanted to avoid it. The punishments were honestly cruel and unusual. They could amount to being spun around in a container that was filled almost to the brim with cement, or worse yet, getting executed. I would prefer execution over such a fate, I thought. That seemed terrible, ghastly, and not at all optimal in any way. No, but I would avoid it altogether. That was my true goal. I thought about it some more. That is my true goal, I thought to myself, myself being the thinker of thoughts that occupied all time and all mind that I had ever known. Anyway, my story continues, and it gets stranger from here on out.



	

As I entered my room, I got right back to work. I had been given a very important task, and I did not have any plans to fail on it whatsoever. This was the honor of being the one designing “the lock." "The lock" that I worked on wasn’t actually a lock at all but more of a giant door with three big key holes in it. 

The locks were to be specifically designed so that you would need all three keys to open it, and without the keys, no one could enter. The door was to be impenetrable, created using a particular mix made from several rare metals, and a special kind of crystal. 

And the keys, they were to be hidden in the three most unreachable places of all Equestria, in all the land. Whatever could those places be, thought I curiously. Aldeus already knew about my plan, and apparently, it was very important for them to be hidden inside of District Equestria, whatever that was supposed to mean. 

I didn’t see the importance of this but as long as I finished my task, it did not matter. The importance of which was where District Equestria, a region on the inside of Equestria, could be, and why it bore the same namesake as the great land, the rest of it. I wasn’t sure of what kind of location this would be either, but he was sure not picking an apple farm, considering what was to be hidden behind that door. A weapon, not just any weapon, but the greatest and most powerful weapon of mass destruction that would ever come to be was to be hidden there. It was common knowledge among us. It is what was hidden in the mysterious, mystical northern tower. 

Even though the security measures the fortress had were at the very edge of flawlessness, this weapon was so important that every necessary precaution had to be taken in order to prevent anything from happening to it. Hence, this door, and this scientific project to which I had been assigned. It's not that I had ever seen this weapon, no one had. As far as I was concerned, Aldeus was the only one who had even gotten near it, and he was the only one knowing what it was, and even the only one to have beheld what it looked like. 



	

Hours later, I still sat there working on the blueprints to “the lock." I had much work left before I was done, and I decided to get back on with doing my own little project, Prototype IIX. I didn’t know if I would ever get it done. It just felt unreachable, impossible. Then on the other hand, that’s how science works. You should never use words such as impossible or unreachable and I knew that very well, I did. 

And so, that why I went on, changing the blueprints as carefully as I could in my calm, focused, and slightly sporadic manner. In theory, the machine worked well, but I needed to find a way of upholding a steady power flow. Neither magic, nor electricity, would do the trick, so I figured that if I would just scrap this entire project, everything would be better, and I would be satisfied with my decision. That's what I thought, but I didn't scrap the project, and my decision was what it was, and remained so, and it continued to remain so, because I really, really cared about getting all this right. 

It would basically come to look like a small crystal ball being on the outside, but on the inside however, there was going to be very sensitive wiring, and so, I had to be careful, and I couldn’t allow anything to happen to it. 

It was an unnecessarily sensitive construction design, no doubt, without a doubt, but on the other hand… if I could get it to work properly, I would be able to make actual phase transitions on objects in the vicinity, using only a very low amount of energy. It would be perfect for… whatever situation in which you need to change the shape of nearby objects from being solid to floating, and from being floating to plain gas form. That seemed like a worthy goal nonetheless. It did. I enjoyed my work. It was always the high-point of my day. Mathematics!

Hmm, nah… I would figure out some good way to make use of it… later. I folded all the blueprints scattered across the desk and closed it before looking up and glaring at the two speakers, which were soon about to give the signal… and just a second later, they did. Three short beeps came. That meant, always meant, that it was time for the next daily test.  



	

I took a seat behind one of the desks in the gigantic room and prepared for whatever was about to get thrown at me. The gate closed and the desk opened up. Everything happening in the ordinary lackadaisical manner. 

“You can begin your tests, now!” A-0087's voice echoed throughout the room. 

I looked curiously and saw what seemed like several blueprints inside, but I had been deceived before. I took a closer look and smiled at the sight. Yes, that was definitely three blueprints, all of a machine that was entitled “The Obliterator." I looked down at the blueprints and saw incompletion, then of course, of course as far as I was concerned, recognizing these blueprints as my own from two months ago. 

It was to be a kind of a helmet that would use one's inner force and focus it but at the same time raising the power levels exceptionally, creating a powerful beam of light. It had tons and tons of bugs, and so, I never thought it would truly come to be, so I scrapped the project… but here it was, staring at me, or rather, I staring at it, us staring at each other, staring. Staring. I stared until I felt tired, and then I stared some more, keeping on staring, staring harder, and finally, my mind was shot. I did not know what to do. It seemed hopeless. I thought that I might fail at this task, since it was so difficult. Really? I was supposed to fix a thing that I hadn't been able to do for weeks when I was working on my own? This was crazy.

I took a curious look-around, around the room, and I found that others had received different blueprints. Hmm, so these were apparently all of our own cancelled projects, and our tests would be to finish the blueprints we had once begun. I was really worried. I wasn't sure I could come up with something in nine hours, seeing as having dealt with this kind of pressure before didn't prepare me for such a crazy-hard task.  



	

Eight hours and 43 minutes later, the room was nearly empty, was an assumption I had, mainly assumed to push myself closer and closer to the edge. That assumption would help me get stressed so I could do the test easier. For all I knew, the room was half-full. I was panicking. I needed to come up with something, and fast! There was only one big problem left. I needed a core. Something that would be able to focus the magic power properly, I did need, but I didn’t know how I would get that, nor did I know about any kind of compatible apparatus for a machine that wasn’t even invented yet! What? This was crazy. 

I looked at the big clock on the wall that was close to the rear end of the room, and I sighed. Wait! What if I already had a core… or at least a decent template? What if I could use the basic design for the polarity converter, but instead of the prototypic POCO-7, I would use a smaller version of the basic FEUPHO-H87 device, and then I would put inside of the small crystal ball-like shell, that power energy converter. To add it all up, making it nearly indestructible, using the substance for the “the lock” project. 

Yes, it was theoretically possible. Why didn’t I think of this before? I knew the risks in doing what I was about to do, using an untested substance on such a sensitive material, and to top it off, assuming that I could convert a device with very unstable energy control capability as it was, into a smaller prototype. That seemed unlikely, but I didn't want to die. It seemed unreasonable, but what's reasonable in a time when your life's at stake? That's an open question.

In any case, I didn’t have the time to act reasonably at a moment like this, and so, of course, I went for it, making the changes in a little under ten minutes, and after that, just giving the signal: "completed." That's what I said. The screen came down as quickly as it had been, had it expected me to call for it. This time, a slot opened up on the back of it, and a scanner came out. I watched as its red glow passed over my blueprints. Was it really going to approve of this as a functional design? 

The scanner, which didn’t look much more interesting than a stick. As far as I knew, it was a stick. Maybe it didn't even really do anything. It returned back and the slot closed. The screen lit up and the familiar word “successful” showed itself in big green letters. I took a deep breath and relaxed. It worked, somehow. Functional or not, these blueprints were at least enough to fool a high security scanner, the stick, and that was more or less all I needed to know. Well, it was quite precisely what I needed to know, in order to know that I had passed the test. This is what happened. It was all a strange course of affairs really, and things continuing this way was not something that I had planned. I wanted no more tests of this kind. I didn't want to do something crazy that was this unlikely again. Had it been easier for the other participants? I didn't know. It was all that I needed to hear, was that I had passed, but what had I passed? Did really everyone succeed in being engineering geniuses and inventors in this short span of time, or was something else going on that I really wasn't aware of? Maybe you didn't have to make a functional design at all. It could explain why the stick approved mine. 

The desk was still open, so I quickly snatched those blueprints before it closed. It wouldn’t matter anyway, just as long as I actually completed the test, and I did. As I entered my room, I immediately opened the desk, put all the old blueprints aside, and then, I got fast at work, to work, being at work, doing work. None of this was really work for me, now that I thought about it. I enjoyed it. It was time to put my skills to the test. Finally, I had a worthy foe: these blueprints and this machine. This thing that I had struggled with for a long time was now within my grasp, and I had no intention of failing, no-no-no. 



	

Three long beeps came from the speakers shortly before sunrise, not that I needed them to wake me up. I sat there, not thinking much, seated, wearing my goggles, welding the final protective layer together when I at last heard the signal. Now, I would get to see if my insane design actually worked. 

When I reached the MEWOD-T35s, wearing the Obliterator, I noticed I wasn’t the last one up. That’s odd. It had been a total of fifty-seven minutes since the signal was heard. I started counting the other robots. 46… 47… 48… 49… wait a minute… the other… the only other filly-bot placed in this group was gone… could she have failed her test somehow from yesterday? No, then somerobot would have replaced her by now, surely. So, what could it be? Where could she be? I did not know. I got an uneasy feeling in my stomach out of nowhere. I twisted and turned, looking around, looking for where she could be. 

Suddenly, all of a really suddenly, the MEWOD-T35s started going through the regular automatic procedure that they always went through, which meant that the time was up, and she was in big trouble. You must never be late for the pre-planned raids, despite their nature, whatever it was, or you would get punished, and when it comes to these matters, immediate shutdown was almost guaranteed. I shivered at the thought of it. Shutdown was the same as death for us robots. It was effectively a formalized method by which to execute us. 

As the MEWOD-T35s rolled through the wastelands, I was feeling kind of down. No, not for her, not for the sake of that other filly-bot, I didn't, but because of the actual fact that I now was the only other one in this group. It wasn't a good feeling. I wanted to wrap up somewhere on this little tank, but I didn't bring my blanket, or any sheets, so that seemed like it wouldn't be happening in the close future, or even a far future, because such things weren't allowed, and breaking rules means that you get punished cruelly and unusually, as I have said. 

I was also feeling a little… scared I guess, because of what had just happened. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with her yesterday. Why didn’t she show up? And whatever could have happened to her? Was I up next? I decided that I shouldn’t be thinking like this. It wouldn’t really make me feel better, either way. Instead, I tried focusing on my newest invention. If it worked, it could just make my work so much easier, extremely much so. I hugged it in my arm.  



	

It took quite some time to reach our destination, much longer than expected. It was afternoon when we arrived, and I impatiently ran to the front as the unibot that I shared MEWOD-T35 with just sat there, waiting for us to arrive. We entered the village. I opened the shutter, jumped down, activating the turret, before then climbing back up out of the shutter. 

The unibot, who now himself looked a little impatient, quickly walked up to the turret. As he passed me, I saw the hatred in his eyes, and I felt it inside of me as well, burning… I jumped off the MEWOD-T35, and he looked after me curiously, as I went off running. 

All around me, there were ponies screaming and panicking. I charged up my magic, and I felt a slightly strained feeling inside of me. The Obliterator started humming quietly. Come on now… a loud noise sounded, and was followed by a luminous beam of light. The beam hit a panicked villager, a young colt who immediately pulverized into what looked like gravel. 

Yes, that was gravel all right… an interesting result… either way, it was better than I ever could have imagined. That's why I fired again, and again, and again, and again. The divine feeling of achievement was… ah, oh so overwhelming. I calmly walked through the village, killing maybe a dozen earth ponies, unicorns, pegasí. It didn’t matter to me at all. They were all scum in my eyes so why even bother? 

I saw a young colt hiding in a corner, terrified. What did he think was going to come out of this? Hiding would only drag out his misery. I lowered my head, aimed at him, and I fired. I then watched as he slowly pulverized into gravel, an incredibly painful death as it seemed. A seemingly younger filly came running, seeing him suffer his last breath. 	

She turned toward me. “You monster!” shouted the filly furiously. 	

I turned toward her and began staring at her calmly, albeit very confusedly, being that I was confused. Me? A monster? That was just… hysterical. How could she even say that? She was the only monster here, not I, not me. She deserved to die, and I was the one to make that happen. She had to die… she… I could barely even think anymore. I just aimed at her and shot. She suffered the same painful death as the young foal had just been experiencing, just a small fraction of time before this had happened. The reason that I emphasize this event, among many others, is that it affected me greatly.

Over her screams, I could feel the sense of achievement coming back, bubbling up inside of me… but I also felt… something else… something different. Suddenly, I could feel it even more. It burned up inside of me, rather than bubbling. I could barely even identify what it was, right at that moment. The feeling vanished as fast as it had come, and I just stood there, clueless. 

Then, I slowly, drowsily walked back to the MEWOD-T35, and when I got there, I took a seat and simply stayed where I was… being clueless… waiting for the raid to be over. 

And soon enough, it was. There had been two ponies getting away from the village this time, not that I cared about insignificant statistics at the moment. I wasn’t caring about anything. I just sat there, even when the MEWOD-T35s automatic navigation systems began taking us home, I was still left sitting there, completely still, completely silent, and gone in the head. 



	

The day's test started right when I got back to the fortress, and I hurried in an attempt to collect myself a bit, thinking about things, gathering my thoughts, before heading toward the big room. 

I sat there in the big room behind a big desk, this time getting one way closer to the gate, the gate out of the room. The desk opened, and a peculiar screen was hidden inside. This time, the word “hatred” lit up on it in great blue letters, and there was a question mark after the word, as in: "hatred?" 

It took me only a minute before realizing what I was supposed to do. “Power!” I said, confident in myself and my words. The word went away, and something new popped up on the screen: “power?” Hmm… ”Strength!” I declared precisely with my mouth, each syllable coming out a little jangled, because I was less confident now. I tried to hide it by over-articulating. The word on the screen changed again: “strength?” Wait, was this… hmm… ”hatred!” I said then, calmly now. The word on the screen in front of me changed yet another time: "hatred!" 

The desk then closed, a screen came down from the ceiling, and the word “completed” lit up with the same green letters I was always used to. I stood up and walked out the gate silently, calmly, and with a tense feeling running through my forehead and the deep, unforgiving pits of my stomach – my stomach did not know what was to come, and I would learn a lot that has to do with my stomach later. 



	

The next morning, everything went as usual. Well, not everything went as usual… I was lying in bed, waiting for the three long beeps. When they came, I hurried out of the room toward the gate to the left of me, hurried toward the fourth staircase to my right, but when I got to the yard, I realized I was the first one there. I walked out on the plain, open lawn, which was the main feature of this “yard," and I lay down, and I waited. 

The sun slowly went up, and I closed my eyes, trying to find some peace in this place and just relax. I had evolved now beyond worrying, avoiding all those thoughts and frightening feelings from yesterday, simply through thinking as little as possible. I didn’t want to know do it, which is to think. I wanted to forget that this bizarre moment from yesterday had ever even occurred. 

Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, the feeling of the warming sunshine vanished as if it had never been there. I was cold. I looked up. There was a dark, grey silhouette, standing above me, blocking out the sun. It was A-0087. I stood up, a bit shocked. 

“You’re early!” she said with a suspicious voice. Suspicion ran through the doors of chiefs and higher-ranked robots, in a sense, in that the robots suspiciously ran in and out through doors everywhere, trying to find imaginary culprits. This was a kind of strange paranoia I had noticed, and it was not unbeknownst to others at the fortress, with whom I had had formal, cold, and indirect exchanges that informed me of this fact. A-0087 was a strange little fellow. She did not seem to care about what happened in the every day lives of robots like myself, or others, but when something happened that was even slightly out of the ordinary, she lashed out. She ran around causing havoc, and she told Aldeus all sorts of things that had to do with the personal lives of me and others, what personal lives we had. We had very little of it, and later, I would come to understand that we really had no personal lives at all, none to speak of. It was all a sad state of affairs, and in the middle of it all was a robot like A-0087.

“So?” I said as blamelessly as possible. I didn't even remember what she had said to me, not at all. It was all a white ball of fuzz in my memory, and I thought that I would panic soon unless I realized what she had said. I was nervous. Wait. Ah, that's right. Now, I remembered. "You're early!"

“No, you're early." She pointed at me accusingly. "So, then I guess you must be done with the lock if you can lie here and do nothing all morning. The very important task I gave you, remember?” A-0087 said with bitter sarcasm in her voice. 

“The blueprints of the lock are nearly completed, so I figured I would finish them when I get back this afternoon. That isn’t a problem, is it?” I said confidently. That ought to shut her mouth. I wanted her to be quiet, because she annoyed me. She wasn't my friend. She wasn't anyone's friend. I wanted her to be gone. I didn't care for her at all, in short.  

“Hmm, well then,” A-0087 said, still sounding a bit suspicious, before she jumped off the MEWOD-T35 and walked away from the great yard. 

The true reason why I hurried so much to get here was that because, as long as I kept doing something, I would be distracted from thinking about yesterday. Then, of course, I couldn’t tell her that. Still, this entire thing was kind of a hopeless plan seeing as I would have to go through the long trip to Equestria, but the longer I could avoid all of these thoughts, the better it would be, for me, I thought. 

Others had now started arriving, and soon enough, the MEWOD-T35s began rolling, and I was just fast enough to climb up on one of them before they went off. Now, to try and find something to distract me for three to six hours, I thought. I heard the sound of the enormous gate closing behind me, the gate that opened and shut, only on special occasions. This was one of those occasions… this was going to be a long journey. I feared for what would happen if I couldn't calm down in the intervening hours, those to come. I thought that maybe I should just give up and accept that sometimes, strange things do happen, and there is no apparent explanation for it. It just is, but that has never been how I viewed things, not now, not then, not ever. It was all for naught as we all took off on this great journey toward a kingdom that had seen its fair share of threats, not even all that long ago, and there was much I didn't know. I would soon discover a world that had been hidden to me thus far. It was scary, and I did not know how to react to any of these strange circumstances. Killing ponies was something that I had cherished, but killing ponies, I would learn, means killing things that you care about too. That's a strange proposition, even now, as I think about it. I will return to this topic later. There were many things I had as yet not realized, but I would.



	

We arrived approximately four hours and 37 later. This was just a normal small village, with no guards, no defense, no nothing to speak of. That's not to say that this was something usual, quite the opposite. There had been a long time since I had seen a royal guard in a place like this. Something inside me told me that there had to be a good reason for this, but perhaps, that was just my infallible tendency to question things. 

I was bringing the Obliterator with me, but when we arrived, I was suddenly terrified. I was afraid out of my mind. Now, being afraid that the horrible feelings might come back, even though I had only felt them for a mere second, or less than that, it was all I could really think of. That was my whole world right now, the feeling… was stronger than… hatred? 

Wait a minute. How did I even dare think such a thing? Hatred was my way of life. It was the stuff that bound the world together in my mind's eye. Not to hate was not to live. Hatred is and has always been what guides me and gives me comfort, strength, and now, I pushed all of it aside just because of some idiotic unfamiliar bodily sensation, one which had only lasted for about five seconds, maybe less. Ridiculous. Ridiculous. I wouldn’t allow this to happen. 

I levitated the Obliterator, put it on top of my head, and I made myself ready to jump off of the MEWOD-T35 but then… I saw the earth robot beside me, walking up to the turret. Everything passed me by all too fast, and as she was burning their homes down to the ground, and also, blowing up all who tried to escape into smithereens, I felt disgusted by the scene. It wasn't an emotion. It was more of a physical disgust, but it was disgust. Hm. 

How could I, though? I didn't understand. None of this made any sense whatsoever. It made nada sense. What was happening to me? They were monsters. They deserved their agony. It was objective fact. But still… why… why? Did they really, truly deserve this? I immediately banned myself from thinking these thoughts and asking these questions. All this didn’t even matter. Banish the thought, I thought. Banish it so that it might never return. What happened on the battlefield stayed on the battlefield, and what mattered is that I did what I was supposed to do. That was it. That was all. 

Still… yet... why was I “supposed” to do this, actually, murdering these ponies, designing weapons and tools that aided in the murdering of more ponies? Of course, it was the right thing. It felt like the right thing. It did. No, no, no, no, no! No! No! No! I commanded myself to stop thinking about it, but I couldn't. My mind was Lego. It was in pieces. It was in complete rebellion against my own banishing thoughts, attempts at banishing thoughts. It was like I was fighting a war in my own head. In the end, I finally dropped all my thoughts out of exhaustion and just laid down on the floor of the MEWOD-T35, still wearing the Obliterator on my head. 

I needed to rest… the raid was soon to be over. The automatic navigation system took its course. The turret shut itself off, and the MEWOD-T35s started turning back home, returning whence. The earth robot sat down right beside me and stared right out into nowheresland like a ghost. 

Psh, she didn’t even notice that I hadn’t been participating throughout the raid. I looked into her eyes. They were so… empty… so… hateful, full of hatred. Were my eyes like so too? Could that really be? Did all our eyes, up and down, back and forth, across everything, across my life, look like that? My mind rather quickly began protesting this, and once again, I dropped all my thoughts. I didn't want to think anymore. Everything had to vanish. It tried to make the thoughts perish, but they didn't. There's no fighting thoughts, I guess. 



		

I came back to my room in good time to finish the blueprints on the lock, which I genuinely had been planning to do. Finally, there was something to distract me with. I enthusiastically opened the desk and got to work. This was going to be good, perhaps the best thing I had ever designed, ever… next to the Obliterator of course. The Obliterator was a… I immediately dropped the thought as soon as I realized where I was headed. I then just sighed before I got back to work. 



	

My work went on as I made some quick, last changes, and I looked at the blueprints to the left of me. The lock was done. I gloated, laughing, as I now stared at the blueprints. It was beyond perfect, beyond good, beyond anything I had ever done, and beyond everything. Maybe I got a little over-excited, but oh, Aldeus would be so pleased, or that's what I thought. 

I left the desk open and turned around toward the small bed behind me, figuring that if I didn’t have anything better to do, I could just go to bed, sleep. There, my terrifying thoughts wouldn’t distract me. I would be asleep, fast asleep, far asleep, and it worked all right. All the tiresome efforts I had put in, keeping myself away from it all had made me very wearied, tired beyond my own comprehension how of tired a pony can get, actually. That was great. 

However, I woke up in frustration just an hour later to the sound of three short beeps coming from the speakers. I wasn’t in the mood for dealing with one of those crazy tests. Was it just me or had they been becoming more and more difficult lately? Meh, thinking like that wouldn’t make my situation any better, nor easier to handle, no-no. 

I slowly crawled up from the bed, and I hurried out into the mighty hallway. At least, I was getting a good seat this time. That was for sure. I hurried through the hallway as other robots kept giving me confused looks. Confused, they were, and still, their eyes were as empty as ever, empty as they would ever be… why I hadn't noticed that before until as recently as yesterday was beyond me, frankly.

I waited impatiently for the enormous gate. It was crowded with robots all-around, and soon, it opened for everyrobot to step in. I ran in, and I snatched one of the desks closest to the gate, and I relaxed for a short moment. Phew, I had never been so fast getting here before ever, not ever. 

I saw how the robots passing me by looking for seats kept giving me the same confused looks. It made me a little uneasy, and of course, I had to wonder why they were giving me these looks, but I simply tried calming myself down a bit instead. I just wanted to hurry, so fast, so fast, as fast as I could get this done, and then, I would return to the safety of my small comfortable room. Soon, the desk opened up just as usual… but it was empty… I tried taking a closer look. The desk closed by itself. 

I kept staring at it, rather confused was I, and the desk opened itself again, still being empty. The desk closed itself yet another time… suddenly the gate opened, and the sound of an ear-piercing alarm spread through the entire room. Me and everyrobot else left their seats immediately and hurried down toward the corridor on the left. This alarm meant that somepony had actually found the fortress, or some other creatures, but it were mostly ponies looking for us, and the reasons why are uncomplicated and may be self-explanatory, even as you're reading this. Regardless, it was fact that if somepony got away, knowing where to find us, the consequences would be dire, and beyond dire. They would be wholly and solely catastrophic. 

They all had to remain clueless as to where we came from. Something like this had only happened once in my lifetime. I was only two years old. My mind sharpened, because I sharpened it. Remember, I said to myself in my mind. The seventh staircase to the right, I should go, and then I run past the second corridor on floor 67, I think, and after that, enter a high-speed elevator. The rooms kept changing, and the way the fortress looked did too, so I wasn't all that sure where to go, but I remembered, you should always follow the signs, and so, that's what I did for the most part. The signs had now changed, and they were covered in small arrows, guiding my advance, although the arrows were mostly useless. Sometimes, they would point in the opposite direction from where you needed to go, because they didn't show the quickest path to the high-speed elevator. They were inefficient. You weren't expected to follow them. Only dolts did, dolts and failures. It was always important that I remain calm and find the fastest path that I could find for myself, and the same with other robots. The garden and the six main buildings of the fortress, and everything else that's permanent, the inside of rooms and all, were always in the same place. It was all the same to me. Everything existed in relation to everything else. I just needed to find the correct general direction in which to go in. That was obvious to me, and now, I needed to do it. 

I was amongst the first 200 to reach the elevators, which was a success story, considering how hard it was for me to get there. Remember, there were more than two million of us. Actually, it was always exactly two and a half million at any given time. Old robots got replaced and renewed, and revamped, and shut-off, perish the terrifying sad thought. And, as there was about a hundred of them, I had to wait in line. I mean about a hundred elevators, a 100, more or less. I stood there, standing around, frustrated, waiting for my turn, and as we entered one at a time, I felt a strange tingling sensation in my stomach. Was it that feeling again? Was it some kind of ill-placed, misconceived regret? No, I thought, and I still think that was nervousness, but I wasn't sure, and I'm still not sure. Then, I finally got to enter one of the elevators. It scanned my energy signature to ensure I was authorized, which I was. It was a fact (which pretty much everyrobot was in a situation like this) that I was authorized, and I went off. 

The elevator stopped three seconds later, and its heavy metal door, the weight of it, made it slide aside in an infrequent manner, sometimes jugging a little bit, nudging, notching. Whatever. I hurried on out. I was now on the outside in front of the fortress. The elevators were a clever way to make sure that no intruder, big or small, or anyone, could enter, as we were leaving the base, hence the scanning of our energy signatures. Still, for safety measures, barely any robot had authorization to enter when we weren’t in a situation like this, me included. That was also a fact. It was known to us all. 

There were thousands of MEWOD-T35s rolling out, coming from the yard. As they kept coming, they stopped and parked in lines, just as countless other robots came running, and they took control in them, of them. In this situation, I dropped all doubt in my mind, and I just ran toward one before climbing up, in that order. Almost there, I had never gotten a chance to react, and a pegabot flew up, all dressed up in war paraphernalia, and he pressed the button. It opened the shutter, and he, it, whatever, jumped inside, the shutter, then closed, the shutter did. The shutter closed. It was a strange turn of events. It seemed to be too much for my tiny brain to handle, all this chaos, chaotic circumstances.

Oh, don’t you all just looove steering, said I sarcastically to myself inside my thoughts, but in the same moment, the turret got activated, and the MEWOD-T35 went off into the rocky landscape of the wasteland, and at an incredible speed at that. These tiny tanks could go fast. It was heading toward a huge boulder, but then it quickly turned to the left. There were a series of high, rocky cliffs in front of us, but now, it immediately turned to the right at the moment we were about to crash into them. 

I had never experienced such talented maneuvering at such high, high, crazy speeds. I felt a sting of envy inside of me, on account of this maneuvering, but it quickly subsided, going back, slipping away. I was stressed out of my head. I was scared, though I could not register where all this fear came from. There was no time for that though. Steering wasn’t really my department anyway. Oh, I'm talking about the envy now. There was no time for envy. No time for nothing, there–

"Whatever!" I ran up toward the turret, and I took a comfortable look at the controls that I had always been infinitely used to, forever, in fact. That was a fact. 

The wasteland flattened out a bit, and then I saw a big white wagon in the distance, far off from shooting range. Hmm, royal guardians huh, I thought bitterly, with all the bitterness I could muster. It was lackluster, I thought. Too little bitterness, given the circumstances! It was the same kind of soldier that had found us the first time I experienced this event, chasing an intruder. Although, it seemed like this time, they had clearly planned their escape for such an occasion as this one, such an occasion. 



	

The hunt went on for hours. There were hundreds and hundreds of MEWOD-T35s, ah, on closer thought. There were hundreds and hundreds of MEWODS. I think I'll just call them MEWODS from now on. The were hundreds and hundreds of them, on each side of the one I was riding on, that is. And perhaps, there was over a million behind us. I didn’t bother looking back either way, because we were now closing in on the white wagon. 

Suddenly, but not all as suddenly as you might guess, I saw grass and trees surrounding the area, surrounding it. That meant we had just entered the region of Equestria, what is called District Equestria, so it was now or never for us. It seemed like my kind driver, who was paying attention to everything, agreed with this, and he sped up to the point where I could barely keep my hooves on the MEWOD. We closed in on the white wagon, and were now, right now, right behind it. 

I aimed, the turret fired, but it missed. I flinched, only for a second, as I felt something… something… something strange. The sudden sensation, the one I have spoken about before, now burned inside of me. It hath returned, I thought, panicked, trying to lighten my thoughts, and lighten the mood inside my mind. There were two voices in my head, one telling me to fire, and another one, a much quieter one, telling me not to, telling me to stop, and finally, telling me that I was making a terrible mistake by simply going along with all this. This- this charade. Charade? Was it a charade? What's a charade anyway? A charade. I laughed. The two voices fought and struggled. It felt like I was going to explode, literally actually, not figuratively. I told myself to stop.

"Stop, please." At the same time, the white wagon sped up and got outside of range. Well, I guess I just missed, I thought. That can happen to anyone. It certainly didn't warrant a sudden and unequivocal, unplanned, uncherished, and unceremonious execution. Oh, no-no-no. I was sweating. I didn't even know I could sweat.  

The wagon started going so fast I could barely believe what I was witnessing. It was all too far ahead of us, all too far, which is too say, way out there, beyond my reach. That was it. The location of the fortress was as good as revealed, I thought with next to no hope in my heart. I thought about it, how long we had been chasing this wagon. Everything that happened happened for a reason, because we had made it happen. We had allowed this to happen, me included, when I missed. It all felt like a terrible mistake. I hoped that somehow it wasn't too late. Then, I heard a deafening sound, one that deafened my ears, and suddenly, a dark beam pierced through the sky from behind me. It hit the wagon. I don't have to tell you what happened with the wagon, but I will. It exploded, and the sound of the explosion was ear-splitting. It made my ears ring, actually, and there were only pieces of the white wagon left, or what used to be a white wagon. It was no longer a white wagon, nor anything like it, and several red marks were left on the ground. I wondered if that was blood or paint that had peeled off- wait, what was I thinking? Was I just trying to distract myself from that unwelcome bodily sensation that had as recently as a moment ago arrived in my body, and which I had no idea what to do with? 

All of the MEWODS stopped. Their turrets deactivated, shut off, all at once. I turned around and looked as the black figure responsible for this flew down. He landed right in front of me. I shakily left the turret. I was shaking because I was afraid he knew. I backed up toward the edge of the MEWOD, this little tank, on the inside. I backed up toward the edge of the inside of the- oh, you get the picture. 	

“I would expect a little more," Aldeus said, licking his lips, "enthusiasm.” He smiled, and in fact, he grinned, a big grin, ear to ear. 

“Whatever do you mean?” I said calmly, but likewise, just as shakily, shakily as I was calm, just as shakily as I was calm. I hiccupped, out of fear, or something like that. I mean, come on. I hadn't done anything wrong, had I?  

He gave me a searching look, studying me all over, as if I was a test subject, and I came up against his eyes, all red and crazy, full of hatred, but there was also something else in them. At the time, I could not place my hoof on what it was. And to think of something, I couldn’t believe I was going to ask him what I was going to ask him, because I had just had a crazy idea. All this was now or never, so I walked up to him, going closer, very slowly. I had heard he saw movement, and if everyone in the room stood still, he had a hard time seeing them, registering their presence. All of that was strange, and in all likelihood, probably untrue, but myths form, and eventually, though you do not realize it, you start to believe in them a little yourself. I looked him in the eyes and said it.

I said, “Is this the right way? Does Equestria truly deserve all this?” 

That was a taboo question among taboo questions, but he didn’t seem shocked by it at all. I had learned that all the ancients acted like this. They were all very morose and serious, Celestia, Luna, Aldeus, and others, but I did not know their names yet. One of them was the forest sprite of the zebra kingdom Zachejria, Aqasha. I already knew about her but very little, but I didn't know about any of the others yet. The ancients were strange creatures, and as the name implies, they were exceedingly old. Discord was another. I'll get to talking about them later, but not in this part. In this part 1, there are other more important, which is to say pressing things to talk about. Aldeus, who was gigantic compared to me, looked down, smacked his lips, giving a little lick around the edge of his mouth, said, “Come, let us take a walk.” He was calm and persuasive, and the fact that he could probably crush me like a cockroach with the small flick of a hoof was also persuasive, and so, I followed him down, off the MEWOD. I was unsure of what was going to come of this walk, this tiny little walk that we were about to embark on, but I followed him, of course. Of course, I did. I did not know what else to do. Say no?

“Okay then," I said, insecure of what was going to happen, and full of existential angst, what haunted and made my stomach cramp together. I wasn't the kind of creature that needed food, but apparently, or so I thought, I had been forced to inherit this feature from the great sovereign, Aldeus himself, sovereign of my home. His stomach cramps were well-known, but it was unknown how a creature so powerful, with almost all the power in the world, couldn't escape a simple stomach cramp, but he couldn't apparently. Ah, well, whatever, all of these were just myths, to be clear, and still, I wondered, wondered a lot, why my stomach sometimes hurt out of nervousness in times like this, even though I never, ever ate any food whatsoever. It was crazy to me, now that I thought about it. What part of me was it that hurt?

He stepped off the MEWOD. I had already done so. I saw a glimpse of concentration in his eyes, and for a brief second, right before the MEWODS all turned back, his horn flashed a solid red color, the color of blood. I then also saw the shock on the others' faces, still sitting behind their deactivated turrets. The MEWODS all slowly, but most assuredly, actually, they did, they turned around on their own accord, and they rolled away from there, very soon being completely out of sight. Aldeus patiently waited, and as I watched them rolling away, I was envious of those other machines that didn't have to deal with the current situation that I was right now, currently, ah! Panic struck me. I then finally turned back toward him. 

“Shall we go?” Aldeus said, a bit too politely for the way he looked. He was gigantic and scary. 

“Yes!” I yelled. I was uncomfortable, and so, that's why I yelled, to be perfectly clear. I mean, I was colossally, enormously, extremely uncomfortable. Actually, I thought he was going to kill me for doing what I had just done, missing that wagon with my turret. Or was it a miss? Did I do it on purpose? Perish the thought. 	

He walked out on the green field. I ran after him, and I walked up beside him. The sky was covered in grey clouds. This was a strange weather. I could not quite put my little hoof on why, but it was. I felt it. The clouds were too many, and too everywhere. They covered the sky, and yet, it was light out. It was shining light everywhere. I perished that thought too, because I had to focus on saying the right things to him in order not to die. 

“Equestria, a place of peace and silence," he said. I clearly noticed the way he put emphasis on the words "peace" and "silence." 

He went on talking, "That is, up until ten years ago, when my plan ran into action. Did you wonder why I did what I did?” Aldeus said. He spoke with calm precision in his voice. Everything sounded very practiced, and now, his smile was gone too. 

I answered almost on auto-pilot, the same way I would have if it had been a test. I parroted these words, afraid of what might happen if I didn't. “Hatred?” 

“Earth ponies, unicorns and pegasí! Loathsome creatures, all of them! The actions of their ancestors are never to be forgotten. They have had this coming for thousands of years, more than that. Believe me! In a sense, I’m simply just cleansing this world,” Aldeus said, nodding to himself, yes calmly, but with a little energy in his voice. 	

For thousands of years. I repeated it to myself in my head. That's a long-ass time. I mean, it was a time that was as-long as any time I had ever witnessed, even longer. I hope I spelled that right. As-long. Wait, ass-long? Long-ass? That's how I spelled it? What's a long ass? Is that- wait- I'm getting off-track and off-topic, way off-topic. This was getting strange, this entire conversation with him. I feel nervous, even now, as I'm recalling all that happened, those many years ago. It's a miracle that I'm alive, and miracles do exist, or so I thought. I would learn to think that. Anyway. Well, this is all what happened. 

Aldeus said, “You have been feeling different lately, haven’t you?” He said it as if he was some kind of psychologist. I have many regrets with how I handled this. I was shocked. I didn’t know what I was going to say. 

“An… unfamiliar feeling," he whispered into my ear, leaning forward, like a creep. "Am I right?” Aldeus said, now while looking at me with patience and calm in his red, crazy, glowing eyes. 

“Yes!” I yelled quietly, no, quickly, without looking up at him. That would demand too much of my concentration. I was already straining myself, only to say these words.

He turned his gaze away from me, and we kept walking across the green field, that was full of flowers and such. 

“Well, what if I could make the feeling go away, say? Would you approve of that? Would you like it?” He sounded curious. Perhaps he expected that I might say no, which was an insane proposition by the time this all transpired. 

I wasn’t stupid enough not to get that this question did have a right answer and a wrong one, after all. If I said no, I would have to be shut down. He couldn’t have slobbered around at the fortress with a bunch of doubters among him for him to get this far, I said to myself, inside, deep inside my mind. I was confused, and scared, but I acted in a way that I considered to be rational at the time. Still, that's not an excuse. If I said yes, and all of this would go away, that seemed fine by me at the time. Regretting the work you did every day could not be good for your health. That's how I rationalized it to myself. And so, after all this thinking, thinking about what I might lose if I said yes, or no for that matter, no. No-no. What I meant to say was, oh, no, I can't even think. 

“Yes!” I yelled. I was so, so scared, but I was also weak in my mind, mentally weak, and that accentuated the fear further. 

He smiled and stopped walking and so, I stopped as well. 

“Excellent!” He smiled maniacally, and it was truly maniacal.  	

He then turned toward me and looked me in the eyes, straight into the very depths that I were now forced to show to him. 	

“And trust me, when we are done, Equestria will be a better place.” I almost flinched back as I looked right into his red, glowing eyes. He was crazy. They were empty, extremely so. So empty! So full of hatred! He kept smiling as he nearly whispered the final words. “For all of us, F-5226.” His grin was the last thing I remembered. After that, there was a big hole in my memory, of which we might speculate about its significance later, but not now. This was the first time I was shut off and turned on again, not the last. Remember that little tidbit.
> Part 2: The Spark
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I closed my eyes for a minute, relaxing a bit before opening them again. This is where my memory picked back up. The twenty-five MEWODS rolled in toward another small village, and I stared out at the scene with bitterness in my eyes, not that I could look at my eyes, but I felt bitterness. The hatred. I could truly feel it burning inside of me, now stronger than ever before. 

The MEWOD-T35s stopped, and I put the Obliterator on my head. I then jumped off. Villagers ran desperately in panic. I walked up to them, took an aim against a young mare, and I fired. I started running throughout the village, aiming and firing at ponies all around me. 

As I ran, I kept hearing the screams and simply felt it, coming from everywhere. I felt that feeling. It tingled. It was everywhere, and it was great. That special feeling of achievement, the so unbelievably addictive feeling, which now ran through my veins, so to speak, and I stopped my rampage only for a mere second, just to embrace it. It felt lovely. It felt wonderful, and this was my life. I could never get enough of it, never ever, no. 	

It had gone a total of about five days since me and Aldeus had been having that little conversation, or so I assumed, because I had seen signs that indicated to me that it had been five days, and I watched my calendar. Certain things were happening that would only happen, had it been five days, and that was enough for me. It was before everything had returned back to… the way it used to be, and before was the time that me and Aldeus, Aldeus and I, had been having that little conversation, as opposed to a big conversation. Such privileges weren't granted to anyone that I knew of, not even important robots, and I wasn't important for five bits, in the sense that no one would spend even a second with me, having received those bits, and that of course didn't help my confidence, and sure, I should have been delighted by this fact, because I was afraid that other robots would kill me or rat me out to A-0087 for whatever reason. In their eyes, I had always done something wrong, or that's how it felt, but they didn't, so I guess that was just paranoia. Anyway! It wasn’t that simple for me. Yes, I felt better, and that was great, but it wasn't good. Something was wrong. 

I felt trapped, back in the tiny bubble I once used to call life. At the same time, I still hated what “it,” that thing, had done to me. Breaking me down to pieces, it did, and nearly ruined me. It ruined my life. It tore me apart. I was disgusted by “it," now. “It” just felt so wrong and unnatural, and all I wanted now was to be rid of it forever. I wanted it to be gone, out of sight and out of mind, as I have said before. 

What a predicament! I couldn’t live with it, certainly not with it, never, but nor could I live without it. That was strange to me. I wanted to be rid of it, but it was still there, the mere idea of it, gnawing, eating. Eating where? Eating here, inside me, I think, or I thought. It was strange. Nevertheless, the truly important thing to me was to keep doing what I was supposed to do and follow my true purpose, and, my true purpose was crystal-clear to me, and this purpose, my only purpose, was to follow the will of Aldeus. He had given me both life and meaning, a way to really make a true difference in the world, as least as I perceived it, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that than I was, I think. 

I turned around and looked at the MEWOD located in the other side of the village before I then saw A-0087, standing there. Ever since everything had returned back to normal, she had been following with us on every raid. Our group that is, she had been following, our group of about fifty. Wait, no. It was exactly fifty in every group: 50. That was the math. I wondered if it perhaps was because she couldn’t trust me herself... or if it simply was because Aldeus had told her to do so. 

Either way, she had clearly been keeping an eye on me for those past days. I found that to be strange, and maybe even a little confusing. The chief of the UNIFBOT department, who was responsible for five-hundred and thousand robots: 500 000, crazy number. What was it that made me so important that she would sacrifice half of her day, more or less, just to keep an eye on me? Actually, to be honest, I didn't realize just how strange it was at the time. It was too scatterbrained and dotty-minded to realize what was going on. It just didn't make sense to me, though. Was she afraid that I might go on some kind of murderous rampage on our own kind? Ha! 

I laughed at the thought of it, and she stared at me, glaring, out of nowhere. She looked confused, and as it appeared, a little suspicious too. Suspicious of what? I saw her doing what she did, looking at me, and I stopped laughing in the very next moment, not wanting her to tell Aldeus about my misgivings, social or otherwise. 

“Come over!” shouted A-0087 from across the village. Uh-oh. This felt bad. 

It seemed that I had to be much more careful, way more careful, far and away more careful. I sighed and started walking toward her MEWOD. When I arrived, I clumsily climbed up on it, and I walked up to her. 

“You see all this, F-5226?” A-0087 said, voice of devotion, making a quick gesture toward the burning village. 

I looked out and could once again feel the hatred burning inside of me. “Justice.” I said it with a similar, same-y devotion. 

“Maybe he was wrong about it all,” A-0087 said, thoughtfully. This is it. I'll talk more about it later. My crime was one that I was and am deeply ashamed of. 

To not get off-topic, it was Aldeus who had told her after all, I realized, and I thought to myself, that it was being distracted to a degree, going, doing such things, following individuals such as myself, of relative unimportance on their journeys. We both heard the noise from the village stop and shut down, and I looked as one final pony, a young colt, escaped toward the outskirts of the village. A-0087 gave me a look that I knew what it meant, and I aimed at him before firing. The bright beam hit the young colt, and he simply screamed, his body slowly pulverizing into nothing, nothing but gravel. Pure raw material, out of which, mixed with goo, you could make asphalt and roads. That's what I knew. I thought about it. This was all very exciting, being here, doing all this, fighting to achieve something special, special for me, and special for thee, and special for everyone around heres. In this place, I was happy, but also, kind of morose. Something stung in my head. Was it the hatred? No, it was something else. I felt genuinely happy. I didn't realize what it was yet. 

She turned to me with a smile. “By the way, it is quite the device you got there.” 

"It sure is," I said, smiling back, and feeling a tad enthusiasm as I spoke. I was passionate about all this. “Yes, it is without a doubt one of the crown jewels of my work.” 

I started thinking about my creation. The Obliterator. It was probably one of the most brilliant weapons in existence, with the means to channel and focus massive amounts of energy in just seconds. Its creation was a mere coincidence, and it was subject to both wild imagination and frustration. Who would have guessed crossing three ideas into one, out of nowhere, in an unlikely turn of events, would turn out to be such a great success? I loved it, the thought of my creation, and the idea that I, of all, had created it. It intoxicated me and made me feel great, and like a great inventor, the one I knew I was, and I was convinced of this at the time. 	

“Well, you’ll come have good use of it tomorrow because then, your group will be entering a temporary 'cooperation' if you get my word,” A-0087 said, pretending to sound nonchalant. She was very insincere, now that I think back. 

“What for?” I said, confused over what she could mean. 

She looked straight at me and answered with more passion and more enthusiasm than she had shown before. “Because then, you will be attacking the great city of Pegasquire.” Da-da-daraa! The great city of Pegasquire would come to be destroyed by me, and others that helped me. I've held my tongue about this for quite some time, or my pen, rather, my quill, but I need to say something about it now. All of this was a mistake. The way I talked to her, and everything. How wrong I was! See, a brain made of goo. There are no more excuses that I can muster than this. It was terrible, terrible, terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. It was horrifying, and I did it, no one else, but I did act on the assumption that others around me knew what they were doing, knew what they were talking about. I was on their side, because I thought they were on my side. That's all. That has to be taken into account if you are to judge. You must be allowed to do wrong and make mistakes, and then not be judged for it forever, and not be thrown in a pit with some sinners. No-no-no. It was still wrong. No, wait a minute. There are no excuses.

It was terrible, terrible, and worse than terrible, and I did it. It was me, no one else. That feels horrible, but wait, you say? What was it I did? Ah, I haven't even gotten to that part yet. I'm not talking about killing ponies. You can feel however you want about that, with your subjective moral judgements, but I'm thinking of something different, something that's objectively terrible. Let me go on and explain it. There is no sugarcoating it, so I'll just go through systematically now, bit by bit, and piece by piece, as we continue.	

An actual city. It had been a while. Maybe this was just the change of pace I had really been looking for, I thought gladly, and I really was happy to be hearing this. The MEWODS' turrets and manual controls had been shutting themselves down as soon as I had killed that young colt, and now, they were all standing here and there, everywhere, and across the village they were all spread in one big mess. The army which I was part of turned on disorganized labor, in truth. A-0087 gave me another look that meant I was to run away from her as fast as possible, as fast as my tiny body could carry me, all the way back to my tank. I jumped off the MEWOD and returned to my own. 

There sat E-1324, an inconspicuous green stallion earth robot with black spots, staring out in the middle of nowhere. I looked into his eyes but I didn’t see emptiness. All I saw was purpose, not the emptiness I had seen when I was having my temporarily embarrassed period of strange, peculiar, and unimaginable mental problems that were hard for me to imagine now, which is why I considered them to be unimaginable. I also didn't want to imagine them, so that was a second reason for referring to them that way, and a third thing was that it really was hard for me to imagine how I felt back then, only five days ago or something suchlike around there, so it was unimaginable. It was unimaginable to me, and it was unimaginable on the whole. 

It was a strange sensation that rushed through my entire body as I thought about all this, the sensation of achievement, mixed with hatred, mixed with a vague, hollow, inconspicuous doubt that lured somewhere in the back of my mind, though faint. The MEWODS all somehow succeeded in finding a way out of the area that consisted of burning ruins that had once been a village. They then accelerated faster than fast. It was time, at last, to return back home. Home, sweet sweet, home. Sweet home. I thought home was sweet. I loved home. I wanted to go home. I was going home. It felt great. Was I just trying to distract myself again? I think.



	

I had just finished the blueprints for Prototype IIX, which now looked like a completely functional device, in theory. I had to get it built first… still, I had no doubt that it would work when I was done with it. I flinched at bit as I heard the three short beeps coming from the two speakers in the upper corners of my room. 

Time for that then, I thought, a little stressed out. I left my room in hope that it would be something simple this time, but I had a bit of time to think over what may happen. It could be something as easy as a question. Why would it be though? The last few tests, as far as I remembered, were crazy. I didn't know what would happen, not at all. As I walked through the hallway, I stopped since my eyesight was blocked off by a metal hoof swinging up right in my facial region. 	

I looked to the left of me. Nothing was there. I looked to the right, and I saw the owner of this hoof. A-0087 lowered it and said, “Not so fast. I have a new task I’d like to give you.” Where did she come from? I didn't see her a second ago. 

"Yes," I said. She sounded quite eager. I fell into shock for a moment, but then I calmed myself down a bit, and then I said, “And what might this be?” 

She spoke a little calmer now, though she did answer me in a blink. “The weapon has become fully functional, but there is still one small problem.” What was she talking about? What is a weapon? What weapon? Why? I had to know. 

I looked at her, all confused. ”The weapon?” I said, very, very slowly, afraid of how she might react. 

“I’m talking about 'the' weapon,” A-0087 said, now a little annoyed. That couldn't be good. Why was she annoyed? I just wanted to be sure what she was talking about.	

'The' weapon, of course, I thought to myself. 'The' weapon, the mythical concealment surrounding the mythical northern thingamabob. The thing that Aldeus had been hiding was the weapon. Where could I find it? What was it? I wanted to know. I stopped myself, slowing down a little. Wait, I thought. 

"Wait."

"Yes," A-0087 said.

"Yes," I said.

She put her hoof across her own face, sighing, and she seemed to be really angry now. I was worried.

"Anyway–" she said.

"Okay," I said.

"Really? You should just get the lock ready, if you haven't yet." She was fuming. I wanted to walk away and leave this conversation behind me forever. All of this was really embarrassing for me. I thought that I might fall apart into a million tiny pieces, unless I concentrated and held myself together, not shouting, not fainting or any such nonsense. I wanted to keep it together. I was getting really, real uncomfortable. What was I going to do? I did not know.

“Still." I pondered what she had said. "Why ask me?” I was a little confused over this seemingly strange fact. 

“Because," she said, grabbing me by my hair and leaning forward. "This is relevant to your last project, the lock.” She was impatient with me because of the character of my behavior toward her. I shuddered, and as she grabbed me, I closed my eyes, trying to relax and not see her visage, uh, her face. 	

I thought about the lock that I had just finished a couple days ago. What could this even have to do with the weapon at all? I had just basically been designing a big door. It was nothing more. If the weapon was moved out the door, the lock, as we called it, would be useless, and that couldn't be good. I swooned at the thought of the weapon escaping, after I had put down so much time on the door, but then I decided to stop asking these kinds of questions, seeing as she was clearly annoyed as it was, and I didn’t want to anger her more than necessary, and I had to anger her a little bit. A little bit of anger was necessary, for my health, and for her grief, and the truth is and was that I liked making her angry. I knew exactly what she was talking about. I was just making a show of my ignorance, feigning it, as the expression goes. I thought that was fun, and I would continue doing it, I thought, because I didn't like her, not one bit. A-0087 had attitude problems, and she was crazy. Anyway! 

“What is this problem then, of which you speak?” I said, undeniably curious. She looked almost relieved that the conversation had moved on past the question of what it was that she needed help with. She moved on. 

“The weapon is missing something, something extremely important!" She put emphasis and gravitas on the word "extremely." 

"I think you just might be the one able to get me this 'something'.” This is her still talking. I gave her a curious look, looking curiously at her, being curious about it, and she responded with a smile. She told me about something that I had no idea how to interpret. I will bring this up again when it becomes relevant. There is much else to get to first, after all. 



	

I took a seat behind a desk in the big room, the one that we all did all our tests in. Of all times A-0087 could have stopped me, she had to do it right before the test. I thought that if things were fair, she would have to do it too, but that didn't make sense, since she had a hoof in designing them, upon my recollection. It was 21:54, exactly, and I had just experienced the ultimate terror of being late and having to walk around blindly looking for a seat for thirty minutes. 	

The desk opened itself, and before I had even gotten a chance to look, A-0087's voice coming from the speakers echoed throughout the room, “You can begin your tests, now!” Was that a pre-recorded message or was she really behind a microphone saying these things? I always wanted to know. I still do. 	

I looked down with curiosity and saw a big white shining crystal ball, and also, a small ring, seemingly consisting of the same kind of crystal. I tried scanning the material, to no use since it proved to be in the “classified information” database, which is to say that we all had no access to any outside information about this material. We were on our own, not allowed to cheat, if that's an adequate way of putting it, and we had to make due with that, the best we could. 

The crystal ball and ring both flashed, and so, I took a closer look at them. The word “will” was carved into the crystal ball in big letters, and the word “purpose” was same-ly on the ring. I thought it over. I thought about what was in front of me. Okay. Okay then. Purpose and will, it is then, or are? These objects… I looked at them very carefully. 

I then lifted them both and pushed them together, to no use. No matter how much I tried, the crystal ball would still be all too large to be able to fit inside that stupid ring. I figured that the crystal ball, or the ring alternatively, may be constituted in some elastic material that would allow for such a thing. How ridiculous of me! I dropped them both and tried thinking about it a little more. Purpose… it… there is a purpose. Me, now and then, the will to fulfill this purpose, my future, and everything around me. I could feel the meaning of life coursing through my artificial veins that were filled with fake blood right now. This was purpose. This was what I was meant to do, surely, clearly. You had to get all philosophical to complete this test, really? That was my thought at the time, and it struck me over and over how difficult these tests had gotten, exceptionally so. 

We had learned that you must follow your will and let it guide you in the direction, of which the purpose in your life begs to lead you, at the moment, or these elements, these ideas, these concepts, will have lost their meaning completely, because lost alone… they are nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all, they are and would be, without one another. Hmm, if it is a metaphor, then… I thought about it as I picked up the ring once more, levitating it in the direct lieu of my eyesight, and then I looked at it really, really carefully, again. 

I then slowly lifted it above my head and carefully placed it onto my horn. If this works now, then that would be crazy, I told myself in my head. I was utterly frustrated, full of utter frustration, and I wanted to get back to my room. I tried using my magic yet another time, and I felt a warm sensation piercing throughout my forehead. The crystal ball floated in the air. I tried shaking it, hoping that something would happen. 

Nothing did, of course, because my stupidity preceded me, and I then just placed the crystal ball back on the desk and gently touched it with my horn. The crystal ball shined brightly and quickly vaporized into nothing along with the ring. That was the test, really? The familiar screen came down from the ceiling and greeted me with the word “completed," which I assumed meant that this had to have been a success. I rose up and slowly left the room, now deeply in my own thoughts. 





As I entered my room, I simply walked up and took a seat behind my own desk. A-0087 voice spoke to me in my head. She wanted me to create a special kind of apparatus, one that would be able to channel massive amounts of power in seconds or else, the weapon wouldn’t be functional. What the heck? What was this weapon supposed to be anyway? Some kind of huge beam? Nary did I know. 

"Come on. Work harder!" she said. Having her voice in my ear psyched me out and made me uncomfortable. I was unsure, and am still unsure, whether this was some kind of hallucination, but I guess it depends on what it is that you classify as a hallucination. I didn't like having her voice in my ear all the time. It was tingling in my head and in my ears, her voice that is. It was all a strange little experience. Her voice was like a bell, ringing in my head. I had been spending too much time with her, or rather, she had been spending way too much time with me, and all of this was extremely crazy, and infinitely strange to the point of manic-depressive craziness. It was crazy. It was crazy. It was crazy. I didn't think I was depressed though. Learning about depression made me laugh. Depression was weird. All of us, all the robots, were tutored in a special place, in a special room, in the northern tower that was closed off to almost everyone but Aldeus, a few strange characters like A-0087, and of course, all the new arrivals. There, I had been learning many things. I thought back.





I sat at my desk, drawing something, or I had been before in the past. This is a flashback. Actually, I'm rather sure I was asleep when all this happened, but that's of relative unimportance. I was sitting, drawing, inside the northern tower. The walls were covered with strange gunk and goo that smelled weird. The superiors, or the teachers, there being no dividing-line between these two, had told me that the goo was a disinfectant, and that it was meant to keep intruders away. I didn't believe it for a second. It was green and shining. It looked like some kind of toxic waste, though if it was, I assume that it would be effective in scaring off intruders, but radiation had the added side-effect hurting robots too, and machinery, in strange ways. I never knew what to believe when it went to this stuff because it seemed and felt like everyone was lying to me constantly. Lying their little heads off all the time, everyone around me seemed, very seemed, to do, but I wasn't sure what was going on, once again. This detail was also interesting to me because I realized that what I had discovered came from insects, but no one believed me. 

They all said, "No, there are no strange insects around here. There cannot be. Impossible." They said all those sorts of things, but I know what I saw. It was a little insect. Now, there are times in your life when you don't quite know what to believe, but I knew that something strange, very strange, deeply so, was happening, when a tiny little insect came flying up to me, all buzzing and happy. I assumed it was, not because of some figment of my unempirical imagination, but rather, because I spoke to it, and it spoke to me. We spoke to each other. It's true. The insect said many things. Here's one.

It said, "We know who you are and where you came from. Have no fear. Everything will be okay in the end." Did the insect not understand that I did not understand anything of what it said? It was all cryptic to me. I was sitting there, trying to memorize many texts of important function and meaning, ones about depression for instance. I only had to read it once to remember it. The insect buzzed happily.

It said, "I'm happy. You are not?" Well, it's not that I was unhappy. I was almost always happy at those early points in my life, when I was sitting in the tower, studying, but I thought it was a strange question. What was this insect's problem exactly?

I said, "Go away, little insect." I had work to do. I could not spend all my time, talking to an insect. The insect flew closer to me. It slobbered all of my paper sheets. Was this a disinfectant too? It did sure not seem like a disinfectant, no-no-no. I tried swatting at the insect. It fell on the ground. I regretted it instantly. The insect seemed to have dropped dead. I thought that was sad. I cried a little. When I told my superiors, they laughed, a lot. I didn't understand why. That's the only time I have ever seen A-0087 laugh. Was the funny part that I felt pity, and none of us could feel pity ever? But then, were we not even allowed to feel pity for each other? It's just an emotion after all. It's not an act. Regardless, I still wondered, two years later, what that insect was and where it came from. Now, though life may not grant you answers to all your questions, there was an answer to this one, a concrete one. I thought about it for a moment. What could the answer be? In present day, which is to say, two years later, if you haven't been paying attention, I did not know the answer. Now, I do. That insect turned out to be one of the most important things in the world, literally, and I'm not being dramatic, nor melodramatic, when I say this. I wish I would've known it sooner.

In any case, feeling pity was a strange thing for me. I'm sure most of us weren't capable of that, but I was, at least early in my life. It all panned out in strange ways afterward. I got a job as an engineer. I started designing things. I fell into habits. I never really felt like I was my own person. I as yet had much to learn, but that would take time, and pain, and I wasn't up for such things yet, even now, two years later, and eleven years later, as I'm writing this, I pity the person I was. It will all become clear in the end. My story is still not over, even now, all these years later, but don't be sorry for me, or anyone else that got in my way, not because I don't deserve it, or them for that matter. Well, it all melts together in my head. I felt sorry for things I had done, and do now, but in different ways. You shouldn't judge a person too hard on her journey through life, maybe, even though that person is a moral monster, and I was a moral monster, I suppose, and I suffered for it, but it was well-deserved, and now, I shall suffer more. This is why you shouldn't feel sorry for my victims, because I was a victim of the consequences of my actions, and I had to live through the fall of a great nation, and a continent, and the world, and though a lot of what happened might've been my fault, or is likely to have been my fault, there were greater forces at work.

I am a moral evil, without a doubt, and I'm deserving of pain, because pain is what is borne of actions such as mine, but on the other hand, I am not the worst moral evil in this story. The worst moral evil is not Aldeus. The worst moral evil is not Celestia. The worst moral evil, which is, always has been, and will continue to be a part of me, lived in the shadows, and it was as much a psychological force and personality, as it was a person, and the name of that person was [redacted].





Of course, I could put two and two together and realize that the Obliterator, which was generally built for such purposes, providing a power source to a big weapon, could serve as the final key to make the weapon functional. Of course, it wasn’t that simple in reality. I couldn’t expect that one would just be able to take the Obliterator, and then stuff it right into “the weapon," the so-called weapon. 

A-0087 had given me a blueprint of a strange kind of slot, one which I for the record, had never seen before, and she had told me to make this machine compatible with that slot, making it an obviously, clearly, and without doubt unreachable energy drainage level, that I had to reach, in order to finish this weapon. That was another wild proposition of hers, for me to reach that level, forgetting the effort it would take to build, or adapt something that would fit into this slot, and everything else. I had decided that instead of wasting two weeks, or so, putting all my work into a new construction, I was going to build a much less complicated kind of adapter than the one that I previously used for the Obliterator, patent pending. Just kidding. The Obliterator was a strange, terrible weapon, not up for patent, and in any case, such things would be allowed by no one. We were at war, after all. 

It would not take very long, but I was going to need some careful analysis on the Obliterator to be able to get this right. That was a thing I was all too tired for, so that would have to wait until later, even after the raid perhaps, in the next day. To attack the great city of Pegasquire, I thought with enthusiasm. I left the desk open; it was openable. I laid down in the small bed to begin the re-powering process, and once again, rest for the night. I had a tiny generator in my room that was connected to the wall. I opened a slot in my arm and began re-powering. This was going to be a long night. I had much to think about. Rather than thinking, I fell asleep fast. It wasn't always that I could stay awake, even though I wanted to. I wanted to sleep, but I also wanted to think, and those tendencies were at odds with one another, fighting, and bickering, and going off on each other. I was famished out of battery hunger. My eyes closed on their own. I had a habit of falling asleep at strange times. I really did. I once fell asleep...  zzz. Just joking. I'm still here, writing this. 

The next sequence will have some interesting tidbits about what happened in Pegasquire, and how crazy-wrong I was in my attitude about everything. That's for then. Now's for sleep. Later then, having awakened, I might continue expounding upon some other things too. It was a crazy world out there. Everything I knew now were things I had yet not realized in some sense, but would, later, and what I would come to know later were things that shock me, even now, and I'm still learning things, and those things are things that I most probably haven't even realized myself. Anyhow! In any case, it was time for sleep, and so, I slept.



	

I woke up to the three familiar long beeps that I always heard when I woke up, and I quickly got out of bed. I felt beyond fantastic. It was great. It was time for the next big moment of my life, the next and oncoming window onto the future that I wanted to go through. I hurried out of my room and took the ordinary path, entering the big yard. The final MEWODS were rolling into place making three long lines with twenty-five in each one of them. 

I climbed up on one and sat down for a second, looking around myself, admiring the view, and the towers, structures and buildings, everything surrounding the yard. They arose all around me, so many that they became impossible to keep track of, and all were covered in the black metal which were the fruit of the miners' hard work. 

The miners' groups were consisted almost to the exclusion of anyone else, of earth robots, and probably, they had some of the toughest and most important tasks, physically speaking. It was hard work on the body, mining, for anyone, robot, or turtle. It doesn't matter. Working in the mines didn’t just involve gathering precious metals. It also hurt robots and almost killed them. Still though, it had an added evident benefit. The miners also doubled as torturers of Equestrians. 

For as far as we did kill everypony, we didn't actually kill everypony. There were some who were always assigned to bring a couple of so-called POWs with them; that's short for prisoner of war, by the way. This rule mainly went for the larger constructions, bigger adult robots, as they occasionally were thrown into smaller groups to bring this task to life. These ponies, alive and well, mostly, were later heavily secured and transported to the mines. What happened in the mines is more or less a mystery to anyone that didn't work there. It was dark. It was dank, and it was dank in a bad way. It was full of mold and cold, weird condensation, and hot air that vaporized into tiny water droplets full of contaminants that went into our lungs. It was killing, and it could kill. It had killed, from what I knew. It was dangerous to work in the mines, once again. It was exceptionally, extremely, stupendously dangerous. 

This process, the torture, seemingly didn’t serve any other purpose than to prolong their suffering, and perhaps a small bit for the amusement of the workers too, I would assume. I didn’t really know what happened down there. Speaking about the mines was a strict taboo for all of us. Many things were taboo, so there wasn't anything special, different, or conspicuous about this one. All of this is to say, as far as “communication” went, because communication, in scare quotes, hardly ever happened anyway. It's what you might imagine in a place that was built as a monument to death, suffering, and most of all, despair, and the despair was an important ingredient. Taking pleasure in the suffering, not just of ponies, but the suffering of one another, was an important feature and idea that ran straight through everything we did. When the communication was turned toward others than our superiors, it was cold and cold-hearted, and rather empty, which is something that communication hardly ever is between ponies. 

I turned my head around and my gaze got stuck on the one single place I often had a hard time ripping it away from. The humongous northern tower was easily the largest building in the fortress. What in the world could Aldeus be keeping in there? An insect army? I thought about that flashback I had been having with the little insect. Ha. This had always bothered me, especially considering my annoying, infallibly interfering curiosity. My curiosity, I thought, might be my worst characteristic, worst of the worst. 

The yard was really nothing more than a small outdoor area with a big lawn, no pretty flowers or anything. To call it a yard might've been misleading, but I still liked this place more than any other place in the fortress. It was open. It was free. Even if I perhaps would say that I did like the journeys even more, I liked the yard too. These offered the exact right kind of relaxation, which I was often longing for, and to top it off, the journeys went on for hours. It was peaceful. It was good. It was hollow and hallow. Actually, it was kind of a joke. It was a sick joke. Hallow me, my hollow thoughts, I think, or I thought, later, and I thought, and I think, and I might continue thinking that thinking is tough. I don't want to do it. To hallow my own thoughts, which I often did at the time, as true and accurate, might've been the biggest joke of all.

It was just so quiet before anyrobot had started arriving. That's the thing. That's what made me feel this way. That's why I liked the journeys and all. I could easily find peace at those times, those quiet little times. The sunset was astoundingly beautiful, seemed to become even more beautiful each time I was alone out there, and I loved the sun, looking at it, beholding everything around me. It seemed like a real treat. 

Then I heard a metallic sound and turned around. The MEWOD'S shutter slowly opened, and I saw a metal hoof grabbing the ledge before climbing out of the machine. It was my archnemesis.  	

“Surprised?” A-0087 said, a smile on her face. Why was she everywhere? This is, was, and will be shown to be, had been, to continue to be, absolutely, and infallibly, humungously, absurd. It was clearly bonkers, even at the time. What was she doing here? I fell off the tank immediately, my head hitting the ground.

"Ow," I said. I was in complete shock for a second, but then I rather quickly pulled myself together, without any further hesitation. "Hello, sir. Um, siress?" 

A-0087 kept speaking as if nothing had happened. I could taste the anticipation in her voice. “Ah, today is a great day." When was the last time I got to follow on a journey like this one? I guess, and guessed, that it really was a great day. So it is then. This being a great day, if I thought that it was, had to hinge on whether I really accepted the notion that going on this journey was a great honor, or at least something good or unusual. Did I accept that? Well, let's see.

I took a moment to think. "I believe it was about four months ago." I was talking about the last time that I had been on such a journey, about four months ago, or so I believed, considering the holes in my memory, and everything else that was going on. 

She looked at me very quizzically and then suddenly looked away, with clear bitterness on her face. "I trust you and I really hope you don't let me down. Are we clear?" 

Was she bitter toward me? No, she was bitter toward the world. That's how robots worked.	

Her words confused me rather than making me nervous, or anything else like that. Where was all this coming from? What could possibly have made her think that I would disappoint her? I had to check my memory banks to recall a time when I might have done so. To betray us all, do something dumb, bad, or catastrophic, during one of these raids? That was crazy. She was being bonkers, saying such things. I could certainly not get a different impression judging from her earlier behavior toward me, about any wrongdoing that I might've committed. Nothing in my memory told me that I had done something wrong, and so, I hadn't done anything wrong, or so I thought. During those past days, and of course, later in my life, later in the day, I would regret thinking these thoughts, but that's for another time. 

I enjoyed jumping to conclusions, and my conclusion was that something was off in the head with this mare, or filly rather, whatever she was, and is. I'm not the problem. I'm never the problem, I thought. I'm surrounded by folks that make mistakes which I then had to clean up. Execute them. I snapped out of my thoughts as I realized she had now started staring at me. 

“Why are you staring at m- I mean, yes, chief!” I said quickly, feeling awkward. I honestly had no idea what she had said. My memory betrayed me in that moment. 	

She then went on and drilled her gaze into me as if I was a complete moron, which I was and am, before walking back to the shutter. She pressed the button on the side and it opened. 

“I’ll come back out when we arrive! And F-5226, please do not disturb me this time,” A-0087 said, not making an offer, but an order. She was annoyed. That showed. She jumped down inside of the MEWOD and the shutter slammed behind her, as if she had lifted it to make it slam. She was only pushing a button. Was I over-reacting? It felt like she slammed it, and all that anger and bitterness… all out of nowhere? What was her problem with me? I had done nothing wrong. 

The ride to Pegasquire wasn’t very interesting at all… in fact. It may have been one of the longest and most unnecessary ones that had ever happened in the history of Aldeus and the fortress. The city was located high up in the mountains of northeastern Equestria, surrounded by very high cliffs. It was unreachable to anything but pegasí, griffins, and daredevils. There were few paths there that were actually real paths. 

Now, here’s the fun part: There were two real paths that lead in and out of town, one that everypony that travelled there actually used for travelling, and shipping supplies and suchlike, to the ponies living there. There was one other path though, one that no pony ever used, which would take about an extra two hours reaching, instead of the much shorter one, and to top it off, the shorter route was more pleasant and less dangerous. It was really a sad state of affairs that everything was happening this way, but it was, and it would continue to. 

Of course, we needed to take the longer one, always just to be certain that everything went exactly according to plan. It was silly. It was ridiculous, I know, really. I mean, far be it for me, since I'm not a military strategician, but I'm as sure as I've been of anything that nothing would've happened differently, had we taken the shorter path, but we didn't. We took the longer path. That was stupid, and yet, every necessary little precaution had to be made, and more. I couldn’t believe why it was so important, just as long as they got to suffer. Really, what did it matter if a few of them escaped? We could catch them later when we took Canterlot, if that would ever happen, ever. Equestria was full of tiny villages, bigger and small, differing in content of the ponies involved, some having more earth ponies, others having this and that. It was all very confusing and stupid. I just wanted to kill them all and make them suffer, and I felt like nothing could stop me. 

I spent the final hour getting there considering aforementioned fact, how much I wanted to harm them and how great it would be to finally do it. When we arrived at Pegasquire, I heard a familiar dull, metallic sound behind me, and I turned around. A-0087 came climbing up, slowly, and she turned around against the rest of the MEWODS standing behind ours. I thought that she looked really vulnerable, as she climbed out of the MEWOD. 	

“Attention!” A-0087 shouted loudly. The rest of us turned around quickly as well me, including me that is. We all watched and listened carefully as she spoke, or that's what I assume the others did. It's what I did, “As you all can see, we are about to enter the city now. There are very few cities in Equestria, thing being one of them. I trust you to already know what to do in this situation. Aldeus will soon be here to watch over your work. No survivors is important now. Am I making myself clear?” I certainly hoped so. At least, I was understanding her.

All of the others nodded understandingly, but they did not say a thing, and neither did I. Aldeus was going to be there? That pretty much explained her behavior… or at least part of it. There was something odd about her, something very unusual. The first few MEWODS rolled into town including ours, and I could already hear the screams of panic and see ponies running for their lives. This was going to be fun. 

I gazed down at them, running on the streets, running off the streets, running toward alleys, running inside houses, and closing doors behind them. I felt rage. I hated them for this. Such weakness. More than ever, I hated them, running like cowards. Pitiful creatures. The anger bubbled up inside of me, becoming stronger and stronger. I jumped off the MEWOD with the Obliterator in tow, on my head, and I got right to business. This, I would enjoy greatly, all of which I was certain. There was no way in pony hell that I couldn't, no way in Tartarus, the black prison of death that awaited many, but not us. We were unstoppable. We were one. We were great, and we were ultimately ultimate, supreme, and sovereign, not Celestia, Luna, Discord, or anyone else. We were everything. We simply were. We were perfect. We were greatness. We simply were. All these ponies weren't. They were mistakes. They were weak, philandering, obsequious, no-brained, punctured in the head soon-to-bes, scatterbrained, stupid, wait- where was I? I was attacking the town, killing ponies.  

I ran down town square, the area was quadratic, surrounded by tall colorful buildings, all square like cubes, and with a big statue in the center, presumably representing the mayor or something like that, something suchlike. The peculiar cube-shaped buildings had several doors on each side, and they all stood tall, as if they were staring down at me, and for some reason, it even awoke a bit of ridiculous offence, which I immediately ignored, because it was stupid and ridiculous. These ponies were going to die soon.

The mare displayed by the statue was a bit young-looking, though still a bit more mature than that judging by her well-handled white mane, her tense way of standing, as if she was just always ready for something to happen, also being conspicuous to my eye. Of course, the expression which was the strongest hint as to her position in society. It was one that to me, signified a powerful leader, with the ability to lead, and take action when necessary. 

The buildings felt as if they slowly rose up around me, creating a plain area around them, which was to be filled with resentment, and well, hatred. Gathering around the despicably obnoxious ones who once even dared to claim the gift of life as something only given to the worthy, the ponies, all of us, big and small, all the robots, were driven to do this. They were everywhere, these ponies, unbelievably measly creatures, I thought. 

I aimed and fired at them. An unlucky mare got hit and suffered the oh so painful death. The satisfying feeling of achievement came back to me. I all of a sudden saw the mayor’s office up ahead, and on a whim, I thought that I’d take a sneak-peak. 

The building was grey, plain grey, cube-shaped, cube-looking, and with a much better appearance than the rest of them. I liked grey, and I liked the size of the building. It was bigger than the others. To me, at the time, size was a symbol of power. Considering both the size and the fact that this building was located on top of this hill, I thought that it had to be the mayor's office. It most surely could not be anything else, and every city has a mayor, and so, this was the mayor's office, I had decided. 

I ran toward the building and fired at everypony reachable in my surroundings. The feeling of achievement was so incredibly arousing that I just had to stop for a second, if only so I could get the chance to catch my breath. I just stood there, breathing, and smiling in a manic sense of enjoyment. 

I then ran up the steps that led up the hill to the building where the mayor may or may not be hiding, I thought. I reached the door and entered. It was very warm and cozy inside. The floors were covered with books lying everywhere around me. The entire floor, the walls, and ceilings all had a strange pattern which very much confused me rather than making me curious, which I normally was in a situation like this.

The floors and walls and ceilings were, get this, checkered in not only one or two, but so many colors that even I, with my good eyes, had trouble registering them all. I took in the colors, being enraptured by them. I just stood there for a couple seconds, throwing confused looks back and forth and all over the funhouse which was apparently supposed to be a public townhouse of the mayor's office.

I then turned my head, sure that my staring had done its work, and that I now was acclimated to the carnival colors. Glancing across the floor which was, as stated, covered with books in mountainous piles, I looked at them and sighed. I felt distraught over the mess. I hated mess. Had she really never heard of anything called a 'bookshelf'? Or even, had she heard of proper organizing skills? I chuckled at myself. Thinking these thoughts were fun. I liked, no, loved fun. It was time to go now. 

I had a very hard time getting through the mess, and I literally zig-zagged around the hallway, trying to reach the stairs at the far end of the room, leading to the next floor. My goal was to find the leader of ponies in this little strange place and kill him or her, presumably her judging by the statue, or was the statue a monument to something else? I didn't know. 

It was too difficult or perhaps impossible for me to just walk straight through the book mayhem. Most of those piles were at least twice my size. A bigger pony would've been able to do it, or robot, I thought decisively, since really, I didn't want to give ponies credit for anything. No, never. When finally arrived, I sighed in deep appreciation, and I walked up the long staircase. There was a door to the right, and there was a corridor to the left, presumably long, but who can tell? The corridor stretched off from the door into the opposite direction. That's where I was headed, or so I thought in that moment. I really wanted to find this pony, whomever he, she, it, or whatever, could be. Really, that will be swell, I thought. I wanted to kill him, or it, and- you get the picture. 

I slowly left the staircase and turned to the left, into the corridor. Then, I realized something, but not enough time had passed for me to know what it was yet. I leant back. A spear flew right past my face, almost grazing me. I barely got a chance to duck just before it was about to hit me. That was terrible. It scared me greatly. I then watched out toward the dark corridor, looking for the source of the sudden attack. A silhouette shaped itself in the dark, and I made myself ready to fire at it. 

It disappeared. I walked further into the corridor, trying to see the silhouette again, before hearing a furious voice from behind me. "You come here… you defile our great kingdom." Yes, I was. Who was that?

I turned around but the one I saw wasn’t the mare pictured by the monument outside. No, what I mean is that, yes, she was the same person, but she wasn't the same. She was dressed in rugs, her clothes soiled, and most of her mane was burned off. She was bald in parts. What in the world? I could barely make out if she was actually black, or if it only was dirt covering her body. In fact, I couldn’t really make that out at all. 	

“Who… who are you?” I said, mostly shocked by her appearance. 

She looked at me like I had just said the worst and most offensive thing possible. “Be quiet, nuisance. You have no right, even saying a word in my presence.” Well, nothing had stopped me thus far, and in the future, I planned that nothing else, and more, should stop me. I was what I was. I was a killer, and she would have to live with that, if this was her home. Ah, was this the mayor? 

I flinched again as I then got paralyzed in shock. No pony or robot, for that matter, had ever spoken to me in that way before, not even the dastardly A-0087. No… no, I had to pull myself together. This was absolutely ridiculous. She's just a little pony, I thought in frustration. 

I strongly doubted before if I should to say something again. Did she really need to hear me talk? She was going to die soon, but in all actuality, I realized that if I were to speak to her, I would do it only, and only for me, because I derived satisfaction from it, because I was the one in charge here. I said, “You… you’re the one who doesn’t deserve to be here.” Wow, I really couldn't come up with something else? That was embarrassing.  

Yes, it was not very thought-out either, but what was I supposed to say? My mind was on killing only, not dissing each other in the hallway. She looked at me with bitterness, and I saw as she slowly got a crazy smile on her face, “So that is what they teach you?” No, they taught me algebra, math in overall, to read, knowing what mental illnesses were, engineering classes, classes in creative thinking and philosophy, though the lattermost wasn't very interesting. It was a class in how to hate ponies in the right way, and the person that did it most got the higher grade. That's basically how it all worked, and panned out. 	

What the… what did she just say to me, I thought as the shock kept growing and growing for every second of every minute. How long had I been standing there? This entire scenario felt like it should never have happened, like I was privy to information that I shouldn't be privy to, and wouldn't have been, had I behaved a little better. All of this was a mistake.	

“What… what do you mean by 'teach me'?” I said. I wanted to uncover her ignorance and show myself that she really didn't know what she was talking about. 

“Hmph, no matter. You will be among the dead when I’m done here, so it won’t do you any good to tell you what I have in mind." Oh, really? Now, I felt way more comfortable. Death-talk, I was used to. Interpersonal exchanges of thought and feeling, I was far less comfortable with, and really, when I got down to it, I wasn't comfortable with those things at all. I had to focus now though, so she didn't make the first move before me.	

I looked at her as my shock transformed into pure anger and hatred, and I began backing up, trying to find a good escape route after I had fired, in case she would attack back.	

“Oh, how adorable. You want a piece of me?” she said, sarcastically. Yes, I did actually. A huge piece. I wanted to eat her like a pretty little apple pie. Gimme, gimme. I fired my laser at her. She fired back. Our lasers hit one another. Oh no, I had only read that this could happen. I hadn't actually experienced it.

I looked at her in confusion before realizing that this was going on, our lasers meeting. I had to work extra fast and extra hard, or I would be hard, burned, wooden toast. Without even thinking, I aimed my horn at her, and I pushed, trying to make more magic come out, so as to push her magic back. I had read that this was how you did it.

Our beams, hers, a light blue, and mine, shining white, since I was wearing the Obliterator. Otherwise, it was green. They faced each other in the middle of the hallway, where colors gathered, deforming, conforming, moving around, and swiftly switching nuances in a manner that was hypnotizing. It all reshaped into a shining ball of light, that grew and grew, in the middle of the room. That looked like it couldn't be good at all, not even close to good. 

It seemed she was in complete shock due to clear ignorance of my abilities, my great abilities, and I decided that I could take advantage of this. I strained myself and quickly forced the ball closer to her. That was fine. It was good that the ball was moving away from me. It looked dangerous, were it to hit someone, and that someone sure wasn't going to be me. She pulled back, making more space in the room between her and the ball, and she pushed it from the other side, making it move now, toward me. 

The ball of light moved away from her and toward me. I put all my power into the beam in the hopes that it would turn back. Still, as yet, it kept moving closer to me, and I watched rather more in frustration than terror, as it did. Then, all out of nowhere, I felt anger and hatred bubbling up inside of me. I am not going to meet my doom at the hooves of somepony like her, a cocky unicorn! 

The thought felt as if it crawled out and bit me right in the middle of my face. The hatred consumed me and my beam started shining even brighter, still without having the ball turning back toward her. Then, lastly, it burst right into hers, even though it shouldn't have. I put no extra effort. It just flew toward her and burst into her. I was pleasantly surprised. I blinked at her. The ball of light reached her and hit her with a trembling sound. 

I stood there, exhausted from what I just had been forced to endeavor while listening to her loud moans of pain. That was good. She was in pain. It served her right, with her cocky attitude, and strangeness. The way she had acted toward me, what an absurd little thing, I thought. Still, something, was different now! What was it? She started turning into… I tried identifying the strange sight before me… solid… stone? Rock? Yes… but how? I stood there, confused as I heard the door opening downstairs, the door to the stairs. I ran to the ledge of the staircase and watched as the black alicorn, Aldeus himself, came treading onward with A-0087 following tight on his heels, like some personal assistance or something.

“You look surprised. Perhaps I could explain this.” he said from downstairs, with a smile on his face. What had happened? I looked beside me. The mare was slowly becoming stone. It started at her hooves and was moving up her body. It was within view of Aldeus. 

I looked down toward A-0087 who seemed to be experiencing a mixture of both frustration and relief. Why? She was crazy. Her reaction almost made me forget how shocked and confused I really was right at that moment. I turned around before I was about to walk down the stairs when I was faced by a mare in solid stone. That was strange. She had really turned into stone, to to bottom. 

I flinched a bit and looked at it… her. I turned away, back toward the staircase and looked at Aldeus with a big question mark on my face. 	

He looked at the mare and then back to me before responding, “When two separate energies meet and become one, a kind of bond is formed. A thread between respective power sources if you so will. You are the one power source, and she is the other. This thread connects them and will not be broken unless one is overpowered by the other. So good so far? You should know about this already. I saw you study at the facility." It was clear to me that I didn't like what he had to say. He was explaining something that I already knew, and now, he was changing the subject. "Now, her current state is the result of your power facing hers, but you should of course be able to reach the same result anytime, just as long as two unicorns are shooting their beams at each other?” Did I always dislike him this much? I wondered. 	

I listened to every word he said and nodded when he was done. I still would have nodded regardless if I really understood him or not. Not to do so was considered an obvious sign of disrespect, but I did understand him. Of course, this didn't explain anything. Why did she turn into stone? Was it my magic? He kept smiling and walked up the stairs. A-0087 waited downstairs and stood there with the exact same expression, like a stooge. When he reached me, he just stood there and admired the statue like he was admiring some precious monument. 	

He turned toward me and looked at me with satisfaction. “Very well done, F-5226. I have been hunting her for years, and now, she is finally in my grasp.” In my grasp? Wasn't she dead? 

I looked back at him and asked as the thought showed up, “But there is no way for her to escape, is it?” 

“That would be if whoever originally unleashed the opposing force upon her died, you that is. Then, the bond between them, you and her, would become obliterated, and then she would be free to walk Equestria as she pleases once again. Otherwise, it is theoretically impossible. But we would not go so far as to take that risk, would we? I mean, now when there is a much easier way of working this out.” I knew what he was going to do. I took a step back. 

He fired a small, dark beam at the statue. The beam hit it and the statue cracked up, exploding into millions of pieces. I reflexively closed my eyes, and all I could hear was a shattering sound. 

I opened them, and I saw how all pieces, even getting the slightest bit close to us, pulverized into nothing. I turned toward him and waited for him to say something. Would he let me leave? He was now just staring at the place where the statue had been a moment ago. 

I hesitated. Then I asked, “Shall we go?” 

He looked at me and his smile went away. “Yes.” 

As all three of us left the building, I kept noticing that even though A-0087 was a bit calmer, there was still something very tense about the way she carried herself. She seemed manic in some way that I didn't understand. We walked down the steps and I kept asking myself: What in the world could Aldeus have told her? 

I suddenly remembered something and looked up at Aldeus as we kept walking down. “What about the mayor?” 	

Not that I truly thought it was any real concern, but due to the annoyingly neck-itching curiosity I had always been trying to shake off, I just had to know. 	

He answered, and he did it without even looking at me. “She was taken care of a very short time ago.” Ah. Haha. Very clever, boss. Yes, okay then. We shall go, I thought. Obviously, he was referring to the homeless-looking mare that I had turned into stone.

“Yes," he said. "You did come here before me… and then did as expected and let your eyes deceive you.” Well, I didn't exclude the possibility that she was the mayor from my mind, but then again, wait, what was he referring to? 	

It was… surely it couldn’t have been. The mare that anyrobot could have mistaken for an exile was actually the mayor? Yes, of course she was. That's not the point. We left the stairs and he immediately stretched out his wings without even looking the other way. Well, okay then. That works for me I guess, I supposed. He then flew up and off, and landed on the big statue in the center of town square. How poetic. He stood there and watched over the destruction, though this part of town did seem much calmer now. There wasn't much destruction going on here anymore. 

Inquisitively, I turned to A-0087, but before I had even gotten a chance to say anything, she aggressively responded, “None of your business.” Nothing could be my business then, since I could've said anything, for as far as she knew. Drats. That was annoying. 

I sighed deeply in disappointment and responded back, “Yes, chief.” Witchy-witch. 

She stood there trying to calm herself down a bit. Why? She said, “I have a very important job for you now. You see, even though we’ve put exquisite efforts in keeping ponies away from the town borders, they still keep coming in large numbers. There is a path out of town that is unguarded, what is known as the traditional path." Or the real path, I thought. "We need somerobot to guard the actual exit out of town, and considering the skill you’ve shown using that device." She pointed at my head. "Well, I think you see where I’m getting at. So, up for the job?” I didn't get this creature at all, but I was up for it. 

I gave her a confused look and answered, rather sarcastically, “So you say I actually have a choice?” I didn't have a choice. 

“Of course not,” A-0087 said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. It was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Well, can I at least hitch a ride to get there quickly?” I said, keeping my hopes up.

She looked at me, a little annoyed. “No, you run. I think we’re going to need the machines here. You can run over there, okay?” She was messing with me. I was sure of it.

I was becoming a little frustrated. Did she really want me to run all the way there, all the way over to the other side of town? It had to be five kilometers at least, and maybe even more. I answered in accord with what I felt, in a somewhat whiny manner.  “But it’s on the other side of town, and if I got there faster it would only give me opportunity to kill more ponies. Come on. I mean, come on!" 

A-0087 interrupted me by yelling right into my face. “No, no, no, and no!” Those were a lot of noes, and I didn't really have the power, gravitas, authority, or willpower to stand up to all of them, contradicting them, so I thought that I should rather just go, lest I be spun around in cement. 

“Fine,” I said. I was doubting if I should really go on and continue to go up against her, since upsetting her had not proven to be the most wondrous idea in the past. I thought, then, that I was going to have to run… to the other side of town. Okay, if I must I must, I concluded. 

Still, maybe I should ask her one more time… just to be sure. Should I ask her? Should I… I looked at her and saw how furious she truly was at the moment… perhaps not. Without saying anything more, I ran away from there and left town square. I just simply had to use my sense of direction for this one, yet another ability to put to the test. It was one I wasn’t too fond of using either. It lacked in me, or I lacked in it, rather. Both. Oh, I go, or I went, rather. I went, away to another part of town, and so, I did. 	

After looking for half-an-hour, and with the help of a little luck I might add, I arrived at the town borders. Perhaps, to be more precise, I arrived at the only exit out of town as of now. It was a small mountain-pass guarded by virtually no robot, no one. There were a few MEWODS, around the area, which were very obviously nearly drained of their energy supplies. They would not move, probably, until the journey home. 

I tskd. This wouldn't do, not at all. Tsk, tsk, tsk. This wouldn’t do at all, no-no-no. This would certainly not do. I took a good look around, around the place, the place feeling empty. It was very quiet, the only sounds I could hear being distant screams coming from further inside town. There were two abandoned buildings behind me, in ruins. That was a strange things, seeing those buildings, all abandoned, and without a pony in sight. Normally, all of this felt like an orchestra in motion, attacking someplace. It all looked like a beautiful fireworks show, but it wasn't. It was death, moving onward everywhere. The place I came from was death. This was getting uncomfortable now. Without the screams and explosions, all of this looked really bleak, not beautiful at all. 

All that could really be made out of these ruins were reminders of what used to be, a distant past. Even though we had just come today, it felt like the place had been like this for perhaps as much as weeks, or months, or years. This was becoming unsettling now. 

I walked up right in the middle of the mountain pass which was quite small. The MEWODS had apparently been rolling around like blind turtles… or whatever likes rolling around the way they had been. 	

“Still keep coming in large numbers, huh?” I said, tsking some more. Tsk, tsk tsk. This was silly. I had been duped, flamboozled, flabbergasted, and ravigated. I had been lured in by some fake promise that what I did really could make a difference. Maybe I could stop ponies from getting here and save the day for Aldeus, and the fortress, and my companionate killing machines. 	

Bah, it felt more like A-0087 had just wanted to get me out of the way… for whatever reason. I turned around, looked upon the ruins before me, and I tried to clear my thoughts. Okay, think now. Think. 

Fine, if she wanted to get me out of the way, then why not? I didn't have to spend anymore time around her, and I didn't have to kill anyone. Killing was hard work actually, and I much preferred just sitting down on the ground doing nothing. I did. I did. I tried to tell myself these things in order to rationalize how bored I was, rationalize it away, out of sight and out of mind, like the plague that had struck me, but it didn't work, in the very same vein. Nothing could be wished away, ultimately. I would just stay there and do nothing. I heard a dull sound coming from behind me and reflexively turned around. I looked upon the great mountain pass, which was rather narrow, but long, and there were holes, small holes inside the pass that seemed to lead down into a pit. I could once again feel and hear utter silence. 

There had probably not been anypony that had even a slim chance of escaping. What was I doing here? I couldn’t help but to think over the following points even though I knew I would probably never get answers for them, but as I was going to learn, trying helps. Why was A-0087 doing this to me? Why act so cryptic? Who was she really, when it all got down to brass tax? A friend, an enemy, or what? I was sure, or had been sure until now, that she was an enemy, but it was worth thinking about. What was all this nonsense anyway? Really, I had nothing to offer in this little place. This little pit was a way to bury my talents, bury my killing talents. Why was she acting this way? And why follow me like a strange stalker? Stupid A-0087. She was way out of her paygrade if she thought that I would stand for such treatment. I would tell someone about this, eventually, or no, by the way. It would probably just end me up in a hot steaming container, filled with quality cement, and I didn't want that. Cement stuck to my body, and it was liable to kill me, judging from the experiences of others that had gone through this. 

I couldn’t think of anything she could possibly be hiding from me. It was of course a fact that she wanted everything to be perfect seeing as Aldeus had come, but to give me this kind of assignment after me proving myself again and again? Why? Was she not really just crazy? Was there some deeper truth lurking here? It just didn’t make sense, is all. Although it did feel like it was because of something Aldeus had told her… recently… yesterday, she had been acting normally, yesterday, she had, been, something, something. I saw something. 

Anyway, she had been acting normally for her, by her own standards, not normal-normal, as in the real normative norm of social behavior, the way people should act toward each other, even if they're mass killers. I heard yet another sound coming from the distance, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. 

I just lay down on the cold, plain, snowy ground and tried to stop thinking for at least a minute or so. Another sound came from the distance. What could it be? I kept trying to ignore it and curled up, attempting to make the best out of what the ground had to offer and very unexpectedly, I actually found myself in a total state of relaxation. I didn't feel the cold a whole lot, only a little bit. I had been moving and running much, after all.	

I flinched and rose up as I heard hoofsteps coming in my direction. It was time for actions, action-time. I was about to call on the MEWODS, but then quickly changed my mind. They would ruin everything. At the very best, they would just make a distraction, the way they handled themselves, and I’d had enough of those by far in the most recent time. I could do this alone. 

The hoofsteps were getting closer and I heard the sound now coming from right behind me. I turned and saw a couple. A blue unicorn stallion and a yellow younger-looking unicorn mare, I saw, all before me, all grand and in the flesh, ready for killing, the lunch had arrived. My feast was here. The energy and feel of the entire situation could not be described by other means than to use the word bizarre, as both of these ponies burst toward me, running as fast as they could. Wow. 

To me, the fact that they thought they were going to ram me down was measly on its own. It was silly. I just aimed my horn at them, but unexpectedly, they stopped as quickly as their hooves could bear them to, both with shock on their faces. Okay? Now, we run, freeze, or fight, I thought. It's one of those three. 

I fired the beam as the mare took a leap toward the great cliff right in front of me, which looked like it could probably have been their hiding place all along. It jutted out from the ground. I hadn't seen it. The stallion reacted the same way, but only a second later. He wasn’t getting away at this rate. The mare reached the cliff. I began focusing on him instead. He jumped and the beam merely touched his back-hooves as they passed by, but that would be enough. 

I listened with a smile as he screamed in misery. Sweet misery. He just wanted it to be all over. Poor feller. His screams then almost drowned in hers as she cried, begging him to… live? That was irrational. There was no saving him now. His screams stopped, and all I could hear was her sobbing over the dull sound of gravel hitting the ground. Poor mare. Sweet, little poor mare. It was her turn now, I thought. I was really in over my head with all this, and I shouldn't have done it. I admit it. 

It all was a very strange experience for me. Killing him felt wonderful, and the well-known feeling of achievement kept growing and flowing up in me. Still though, I just couldn’t help but to feel an even stronger urge to see her dead as well. That was the problem. I wanted her to be dead too. Well, that could be arranged. I considered it a favor myself. Ending her misery was good, because she was only suffering anyway now. It was only for her own good. Oh, this wasn't what I wanted. I'll get to this later. I have many regrets, and among them, this takes the cake.

I slowly walked toward the cliff, feeling amused. It wasn’t like she was going anywhere, so I started strutting a bit on the way there, very entertained by the boldness the couple had just showed. I could once again hear hoofsteps, this time coming from right behind me. 

I slowly turned around, maniacally, and saw a green neon-colored unicorn filly standing there. It felt like everything was just getting better and better. I who thought I was going to be bored to death by staying there, but I had truly been wrong about that, as it appeared. 

I heard the mare screaming behind me and all pieces fell into place. Ah, so that was her daughter, huh? The rare opportunity of seeing a pony who has just lost everything dear to her die before me, was a rare, very rare opportunity. This wasn't lunch. This was a feast. All in all, it was one of the greatest experiences ever, like a dopamine rush the likes of which I had never felt. Robots do have dopamine, by the way. All I had to do was keep a cold head, take care of this little abomination, this child. No, this monster. She looked me right in the eyes with a lot of fear before just curling up on the ground, shaking. Great. She was scared now? That would make the whole thing a lot easier, way easier, and that, to me, was the greatest feeling of all. It was wonderful, fantastic, and I enjoyed it to the point where, something inside me buzzed and whirred. What was it? 

I looked back into her eyes, focusing all of my anger and hatred on her alone. I was going to enjoy this. She seemed to be shaking even more. I then just aimed at her and shot… she was still standing there. I looked at her, confused over what could have happened… she should have been in grave, serious pain by now. Something had to be wrong with the Obliterator. It was malfunctioning. Well, no matter. I wouldn't need the Obliterator, patent pending. 

I flinched as I realized I wasn’t wearing anything on my head anymore. I looked around and let my eyes scan the open area around me very carefully. Still nothing, anywhere? I hopelessly dropped my head and flinched again. There, on the ground, right at my hooves, it was. 

How silly of me! I bent down to pick it up but as I was about to put it on my head, I accidentally dropped it. It had to have been slippery. Well, snow is slippery, so it's no surprise, but I wasn't used to my fine motor controls and magic failing me like this, no-no. No, I wasn't. All of this was… strange, I thought. This had never happened to me before. I tried bending down to pick it up again… but I couldn’t. I strained myself as much as possible but I still couldn’t move a muscle. Hm? Was my body malfunctioning? 

This was madness. What was wrong with me? These thoughts built up in my head and hit me like lightning… but soon, they all shattered, coming apart, at the very same moment making way for a new sensation. I felt like I could move again, if only barely. The feeling was familiar. I couldn’t feel anything but fear. Oh, no. No. No. I thought that this is it. This is death, for me. I was going to die here. It was over for me. I was shutting down. My powers were leaving me. 

I dropped out of my thoughts as the filly strangely enough, started walking closer to me. My reaction was as unreasonable to me as the entire situation was itself. I backed away from her, slowly and insecurely. What was she doing? Was she absolutely bonkers? As she slowly got closer, I felt the desire to strike her down, crush her, and tear her to pieces, and I did! No, I actually didn't, but I wanted to. Whatever. It was terrifying for me right now. I'm saying, that's how I felt. 

She stopped right in front of me and I pulled back. At this rate, I realized what was going on. Uh-oh. Oh no. But why would I? My thoughts stopped at once as the hatred and bitterness overwhelmed me. This was just ridiculous, I thought, as she stood there with a curious expression on her face. I walked up to her, wanting to squeeze that face with my tweezers, tear it apart, vein from vein, skin from face, flesh from bone, but this was all just me trying to get a rise out of myself. In the same moment and breath, I wanted none of those things. I wanted to just look at this strange little filly, that had dared walk up to me, as if I of all robots, deserved the honor. I was trying to will myself to kill her, but I did no such thing... yet. 

I made a tiny gesture toward the Obliterator, but I stopped myself. She was smiling at me. I looked at her. This wasn’t like anything I had ever seen or experienced before. I felt warm inside. I simply forgot all about the desire to kill just like that, and I looked into her eyes. No! This couldn't be happening. Does not compute. Does not compute. I wanted to shut off. Somepony or somerobot somewhere had to fix me, now. Now! 

Her eyes were all playful, and full of love and curiosity. Such words. I had never seen eyes like such in all my days. I remembered, in that moment, what I was actually doing, and I made another short gesture toward the Obliterator. This time, I stopped myself without even having had the time to begin the gesture. Why? That was all I could come to think of. I didn’t see any reason. Those were not the eyes of a monster. Were they? Oh, me. You have no idea what you're getting yourself into now. 

I looked back inside myself once again. I felt nothing. I had no fear, no hatred. Everything was gone right now at this very moment. All I could feel was a strange sense of relief, as if I was freed… freed? The feeling was… unexplainable. It was like some kind of dream. I kept looking into her eyes as she started doing the same. I couldn’t feel any supposed evil inside of her. Maybe I had been looking at myself all along. One can always wonder.

But really… what could all this be coming from? Without thinking about it, without even a mere second of consideration, I stretched out and reached a little closer to her. And curious as it seemed, she did the exact same thing. Our horns barely touched one and another, a white shining sparkle flittered down from between us as they did. Now, here's where the big regrets begin, the really big ones. 	

Then, everything around me started moving and as I heard the plagued voice of the caring mother, “Jelly, get over here now. Now." As I heard her voice, I could feel myself waking up again. I was revitalized. I felt good. It felt good. Everything felt good. I smiled. I cackled. I laughed. That felt great. I looked upon the rock where the mother was hiding.	

Jelly ran away toward the mountain pass in the opposite direction. The cliff was behind me. I watched Jelly run. She disappeared.

A single tear ran down my face. I pitied myself. Surely, this would lead to my doom. My execution. I sure hoped that it wasn't the cement that was coming to me, of all things. That single tear at this very moment can be interpreted in a lot of ways, but I interpreted it this way. The mother came out from behind me. Oh, maybe. I turned around. I tried firing the Obliterator at her, but then, I realized that it wasn't on my head. She ran down the road as fast as her hooves could bear her, I would assume, past me, whooshing past me. Well, this wasn't good. I simply watched. I ran after her and took chase, but she was way faster than me. I turned around to get the helmet, but by then she was gone. I saw a thing go over my head? Was it a pegabot? No, it was someone else, flying off. Well, all of this was great, but I didn't much appreciate the prospect of being put in a rack and paraded around the fortress, having tomatoes thrown at me. This wouldn't actually ever happen, but as I said, punishments were cruel and unusual, and you never know.

The “watching” that I did soon turned into disbelief as I stood there, speechless. As they vanished out of sight, I still stood there… staring. I had to do something. Another pony came flying, a pegasus. It flew past me, not doing any harm to me, and then, into the mountainpass. Oh no. Nonono. The mountain pass. Oh no. The moutainpass. The mooten, the, what was I looking at. I fell down on the ground and shook, having some kind of seizure, not being able to move, much less stand up. Then, I was met with a new surprise. When I turned around, my gaze turning toward them rather, because I couldn't see them from where I was looking, and I couldn't move, as it appeared, and in all actuality, turned out. That's how it was. Behind me, stood Aldeus by the ruins, looking at me with a very thoughtful expression on his face, hard to interpret on any level whatsoever. Oh no. Well, it was the rack and tomatoes, or more likely, hot cement for me at this point.

In front of him stood A-0087, looking furious, and as if she wanted to kill something. Her expression was very much obvious and easy to interpret.

She honestly looked more like she wouldn’t have much doubt in executing me by pushing me off the twisted road going down the great mountain pass, into one of those holes, and thus crushing me on the sharp cliffs located underneath, or whatever was underneath. I swallowed, staring at her. I was too shaken to be able to say a single thing in my defense. Well, it's not my fault. I was having seizure or something. The seizure stopped. It didn't hurt or anything, and it just stopped. I stood up, picked up the helmet, and fired at the walls of the mountain pass, almost reflexively. The walls came apart, the ground beneath us shook, and big pieces, cracks, and crevices of the mountain disappeared and fell into the pass. The entire pass slowly got choked up by rocks. Soon, there was no mountain pass, anymore.

"Holy gamoly," I said. "Well, at least, anyone who was inside that mountain pass is liable to be have been crushed. That is all but assured."

A-0087 walked up to me, and as she was walking, she shouted louder and louder. “This is what you make out of your situation? You idiot! You pathetic, ignorant fool! When I’m done with you–” 

Aldeus came in and interrupted her ranting. “No need, A-0087! This is not the time for any of that.” 

She stopped and walked back to him, without saying another word. He spoke to me calmly and reservedly, like a true patriarch. “It is time to return back home. You have done a splendid job.” Well, I did destroy that mountain pass, I thought. I hadn't realize the magnitude and power of the weapon that I possessed. 

A-0087 began protesting against this all-too-sudden and strange praising. “But you saw that she…” He gave her a tired glance and she stopped in her tracks.



	

I was now sitting on a MEWOD on the way home. A-0087 had locked herself in inside of one of the other MEWODS. I could see things from her perspective, and understand why she did that. She did it for some very different obvious reasons. I didn’t have any plans on protesting, or ask her any question about whatever it is they were hiding from me. Clearly though, they were hiding something. I just had to figure out what it was. 

Really, I was just glad to get away from there without any kind of punishment whatsoever. No punishment means no suffering, and no suffering is equal to good. Even though I’d done what A-0087 had expressly told me not to do, I still was unsure what would happen next. Surely, they would execute me now. No ifs and buts about that. But no, I hadn’t just let "two lucky ponies slip through the defenses." That's not what had happened. No, I had literally watched as they ran off. That couldn't be good for my future careering prospects in the energy department, where I worked. That usually didn’t pay off one bit… but for some reason, I got out of the trouble easily this time. Or did I? 

Was it because of all my earlier, highly praised work, that Aldeus let it slip through? The work I had done that is important back at the facility. I figured that on one day, I could even become a chief. On the other hand, he had never struck me as the merciful type. I realized it didn’t matter either way. He would still find out about what had happened to me, my mind and body, sooner or later. Maybe he could fix me again. That would be great, I thought. How all hatred and anger just vanished, and how it never returned… or perhaps if it was going to return, that it hadn't thus far, and that's all very worrying to me. Well, it was. 

If he could fix me, then it wouldn’t matter the slightest bit, even from the beginning. But what would he do then? Same as he did last time? I thought of it and it struck me how easy it really was, had been, all this time. No sudden doubt, no nothing. No tense feelings or… well… I thought back and remembered her eyes, those curious playful eyes. This was all very strange to me. I rather suddenly, more suddenly than I noticed, felt the urge to cry again. I repressed the urge. 

How, in the deepest moment of my life concerning one feeling, did I not realize the truth? She had turned and looked at me. My eyes were open to something new. I could've escaped into the mountain pass too. What were they going to do? Chase me down? Oh, please. I could show others that I had saved those ponies. My fate would take a strange turn after this day, so strange that it begs belief. Something I had never experienced before had gripped me, and I was apparently welcome to accept it, let it into whatever could and should be referred to as my life. Or was I? I couldn’t answer the question myself. I simply didn’t have the means to do it. Ah, well. So it happened. I returned to the fortress on my little tank, the little tank that could. Stupid tank. I kicked the floor of the MEWOD. It hurt. That wasn't good. I shouldn't have done that, I thought. 

Science, mathematics and clever tricks… all were a breeze to me. Then what was this? I tried not to think of it out of fear for what might happen. I might get spun around in cement. Well, you get the picture. How could I have been under the ridiculous assumption that something like this would ever be able to hurt me in any way whatsoever? This feeling was relief, I think. What I had felt was something akin to that. 

A question I didn’t have the means to answer either, was why Aldeus didn't kill me on the spot, which I had seen him do with others before. He was a strange character, Aldeus. My whole life was too strange to bear. A loop of insignificance all surrounding some harmless inopportune thoughts began forming around me. I felt empty and hungry, gone in the head, not able to think properly, and I wanted to do something else now.

I paid an oath to myself that I would never forget that moment, the very moment that had… just given me something else. 

I successfully stopped thinking about it all and looked out toward the great and dark wastelands. It was a place that offered the greatest amount of relaxation possible for me. It was only on these kinds of journeys that I really got a chance to think like this undistracted and undisturbed. 

My thoughts were now very different, whether I liked the fact or not. I felt a small breeze and looked as Aldeus flew by, incredibly fast. I kept watching as he slowly vanished out of sight, a long journey for us but a rather shorter one for him. I thought over the time schedule and made some notations. On the first hour of the day, I woke up and sat down, trying to build the lock, and failing in small, rather insignificant, but decisive ways. In the second hour, I had met A-0087 and done the test. It went strangely, and I wasn't at all sure that I had passed. I didn't want to do any more tests. 

Yes, now is the time, I thought to myself. Soon, maybe right when we get back, our tests will begin. I wasn’t in the right kind of mood for this. Many of these trials would need me to use abilities that I wasn’t… no… couldn’t comprehend at the time. 

What was I supposed to do then? Well, the only reasonable thing if something, was to keep hoping for the best. This was certainly not a good time to look out and stare the future right in her black hollow eye sockets. Instead of facing things head-on, I could just keep my hopes up and embrace the moment, not think about what terrible things might happen in the dark of the future's lament, and such things, suchlike. Suchlike that, I thought. 

It's not that it was the best thing to do, not in any universe, this or the next, would it be the best thing for me to do at this obvious moment of weakness, but it felt much easier, and “easier” is just what I needed right at the time. All the newly opened doors standing before me mocked me, and I mocked them, by facing away and focusing on something else. 

I was left shocked because of all the things I didn’t think of. What I should have been bound to think of on the journey back home was why that strange feeling, that bodily sensation, had returned, and what with the seizure, or maybe, seizure-like symptoms? A fact that seemed more and more frightening to me as time moved on was that I hadn't thought on these things on this fateful journey home. I tried my hardest with all means necessary to get back into my earlier state of mind… to no use. I could not recapture the hatred, or the pleasurable feeling from before, not by thinking alone. 

It's not that I actually thought I would be able to, that this was going to work, considering the disastrous outcome from when I tried to suppress thoughts and feelings, last time this happened. Then again, this wasn’t the last time, and there were plenty of obvious differences which I had already encountered, yet some similarities that would not put an individual to the least bit of doubt in what to believe. I was struck by something. Something different. Something new. It was a painful revelation, to be sure. 



	

I slowly walked through the great hallway being in no hurry since I wanted to “embrace the moment,” to say. I wanted to embrace the moment before I had to go through the probably rather difficult challenge that was ahead of me. I arrived and unwillingly walked inside the big room. It felt just so much more familiar than before, closer somehow. The shiny roof, concrete walls, and floors all felt clearer before my eyes. 

But, the room was still the same room, and as it was getting crowded with more and more of us, it came to feel a little more familiar. I did what I usually did, and although relaxing and taking a seat quite frankly did not prove to be the easiest task as of now, I managed. I sat there feeling extremely tense. It all felt so… different this time. 

Due to our recent arrival, the gathering-around went quite swiftly, and it didn’t take long until the final one of us had taken a seat. I looked at the gate and waited for it to close, just as always. But… nothing happened. I immediately started asking myself if there could be another emergency. If so, where, when, and what could I do to help? 

The risks of it happening again were of course minimal, but in which other way was I to speculate? Things like this simply didn't happen at the fortress. Everything was punctual and pre-planned, or almost everything, I suppose. The raids weren't. They were chaotic? Wait, did this have to do with me? The question woke an unexpected feeling which suddenly grew intensely stronger in the back of my head. I flinched and literally almost fell off my seat when I saw what now happened. 

Aldeus, A-0465, A-1043, A-7934, A-0967, A-1635, and A-0087 entered. All of the department chiefs and our father himself, were here. It's worth noting that each unit is ordered in sequence to when it was constructed. That would make A-0087 the oldest one of the department chiefs. Nothing could be enough to describe the shock I felt. Having such a great responsibility on their hooves as it already was, what could possibly be so important that they had to sacrifice their time for a mere daily routine? Well, the answer would come shortly. Actually, it was all rather obvious, in hindsight. 

I dared to think the thought: “It just doesn’t make sense!” It was a big “no” for me, especially right now. It didn't make sense. I had always been trying to ban myself from thinking these kind of thoughts, thoughts about things not making sense. That is impossible. No, this can't happen. As of so, I went through a mental self-punishment, since I was doing it right now. 

Aldeus started speaking, and his dark calm voice echoed throughout the room. “You may all be wondering what we are actually doing here?" Yes. "Should we not be having anything better to do?" Yes. "Well, it will truly please you to know that not even half of you will know why by the time I am done." Okay, cryptic, but yes, I guess.

I nervously looked around myself a bit and wondered what was going on. His words made me so uncomfortable, and I glanced over to the other side of the room in a hopeless try to interpret his expression. 	

Aldeus kept speaking, now in a calmer, calming tone. “Do not worry. It shall be easy this time! No riddles or limericks. Just a simple question for each and every one of you!” His voice roared across the room. I was ever so scared. I thought that this is it. It's the end of the world as I knew it, or know it, having known it, knew, that, no, I was breaking down. I looked down into my desk. What was going on here? What was he doing? What was happening to me? 	

I wasn’t sure of what he was going to do, but the newly spoken words sure made it much easier to speculate. Aldeus stood there for a minute without saying a thing, studying us carefully. He liked to do so, studying our reactions and note everything we did and said, like a creep.

I had never liked his doing so one bit. It made me feel like some kind of test subject, in a lab, which I ironically enough, surely was in his eyes. But who's to blame him? Wasn't I just a big pile of metal, in his eyes? Aldeus was now done, as it appeared, and I prepared myself to hear what he was about to say next. 

He opened his mouth and spoke in a self-satisfied tone. “As I said, you are to answer one and one simple question alone! What is it that you feel right now?” Okay, that was the worst test by far. I was resolved on that point. Now, it was over. There's nothing to say. There's nothing to do. I was dunzo, and in a bad way, the worst terrible way. It's not that the day was over and I was going to sleep. I was having to answer a question to which there is no answer.

Here are some things worth noting, before we move on to the next part. Firstly, Aldeus stood in the middle of the room, and he was surrounded on both sides by department chiefs. All of them looked nervous, except for mine, A-0087. She was tranquil. There is only one escape from that room, which is that door, the gate in. Many of those around me reacted in a similar way, just looking down in the ground. I was scared, but I felt calm somehow too. I wanted to do something drastic, like jump up and grab something, like a chair, and run toward the exit, with the chair as a weapon. I wanted to do lots of things, but I didn't. I just sat there, because doing those things would get me killed. I realized that.

Here's something else that will be important later. Aldeus was humming quietly, all the while as we sat there, like a hummingbird, very appropriately analogous to that. He sounded like he was broken. That didn't catch my attention much at the time, but it would, later. No, of course, he was a real pony. He wasn't a robot. Someone had to have built us, and it couldn't have been someone else, or could it? Of course, Aldeus, our sovereign, was one of the most powerful ponies on the continent, which I would come to learn is called Equestria, Equestria-proper, as a proper name. District Equestria is what's known as the Kingdom of Equestria, and there are seven vassal states that are connected to Equestria. We shall go through them in a later chapter. Anyway, Aldeus had big plans for me, and the facility, such that I didn't even realize, and the raids were the beginning of something much more.

This marks the end of a chapter of my life that had lasted for almost two years. I had lived here, breathed here, thought about things here, and most of all, I had killed. Killing, at best, does something to ponies. It hollows them out. It makes them forget about what's important in life, and it's a crime. At worst, it destroys everything. It's a plague upon the world, and it ruins ponies, and all other species, inside and out, as far as they actually do have a conception of killing and death that is. Now, killing is like addiction, in that it's hard to recover from, and you can relapse at great exchange to your life, those of others, and future prospects for salvation. What I would learn, though, was that my killing days had only just begun.
> Part 3: Painful Revelations
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Three short words… beep beep beep… three short words… beep beep beep… three. It was common knowledge that none of us would have any doubt, nor incapability to rip the head off a defenseless pony if we got the chance. We would do it like nothing. Oh, and enjoy it, we would, all of us, each and every single one. Still, as I feared, this was his question. It felt much like the question was meant for me and me alone, but I soon realized that this couldn’t be the case. So, were there more like me… lost like this? 

He had chosen the exact right time and location to ask us this peculiar question. I glanced out toward the gate and realized how I hadn’t been paying attention so much. During the recent moments, it had been closed. We were gathered, at this place. He could ask us all at once, making sure we wouldn’t escape his grip, at least not without him knowing what he needed to know. It's though not that I was perfectly sure of what it was. I wasn't, but he did have the means to do it, this because of the thought that had always been ferociously pushed into our heads through brute force: “You must always complete your test or you are to face the dire consequences.” This was the thought. 

We wouldn’t and couldn’t fail a test on purpose. It was doubtful, even if it went to the point where we had to save our own skins. That is simply just how we worked. The thought of doing it was unthinkable on numerous levels. It couldn’t happen, not by any chance. I hadn’t and wouldn’t even be able to begin preparing for a moment such as this one. Such a moment. The desk opened itself and a small microphone was lying there, carelessly. It lay as if having been placed out in an improvident manner. Improvident! Just lying there, it did, really, like some kind of cruel joke. Really cruel! I levitated it and took notice of my surroundings. Others, or rather, most robots around me had already started, and it all came out in heaps of consecutively stated yeses following each other one by one. They didn't even have to say anything. They just spoke into their microphones. Their screens lit up green, to show that they had done a good job. This test wasn't meant for them! They started walking out in great numbers, and it was all a greatly strange sight, a peculiar sight. No, not really because of their numbers, but because of something… they all looked so hateful, just… their eyes. 

I waited and my eyes got big as I saw what was now left here. The room only had about hundred of us left, at least as far as I could tell. These others were a sorry bunch. They couldn't even feign disgust or hatred in their voices... and neither could I. We were all sitting very far from one another. I carefully looked around myself, and I found one of them sitting, only a few desks away from mine. She was already looking at me, and I looked back into her eyes, curious… but we both immediately cast our eyes away as we had come to our sudden realization. We saw something we had never seen in any robot ever before. That was nothing. She looked so… I didn’t know what to believe. 

About this was the moment I realized how completely trapped I had really been. The department chiefs all stood in a line beside each other, with reserved looks on their faces. Aldeus was on their side with a satisfied, psychotic smile on his face, continuing to study us carefully. It made me even more uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure of anything at the moment. He carefully looked from one of us to the other with a concentrated, yet now, very reserved expression on his face. 

Aldeus' gaze reached me, and he looked upon me very carefully, his red glowing eyes piercing right through me as he did, and I suddenly felt very strange inside. He began staring at me with a sense of determination, cold hard raw emotion. My eyes widened in shock and he turned away from me, staring right through the entire room. Oh, he had seen? Of course he did. Of course he did. Fear of death is a curious thing, and that's how I felt, fearful of death. Curiously terrified beyond reprieve, was I, I was, was, was, oh, how scared I was. 

He stopped his studies… or whatever it to be called, and kept staring out into the big wide gigantic room, and I'm not sure I've done justice to how big this room is. Tens of thousands gathered here in the same time each day. It was massive. There were a few of these throughout the fortress. 

Aldeus started speaking out loudly with a bit of unexpected disgust in his voice. “My children… you are now being classified as misfits due to certain complications." Really? Just by staring into our eyes? What if one of us managed to fool the machinery and get away? Or what if one of us- oh, I didn't know. I wasn't sure. I was shaking in my chair, I was so scared. "And so, you are all simply… going to die!” That was simple. I at least appreciated his directness on the matter in question.

Aldeus' grin was absolutely terrifying, and it ensured me that right now, right at this moment, I really was simply, simply, going to die. Hopelessness spread throughout the room like wildfire, and in a matter of seconds, everyrobot had the exact same feeling in mind. How did I know? Well, I wasn't the only one shaking in my chair. A larger group of other robots came running in the room as the gate opened. We didn’t move. As far as we could have tried and make a run, that probability just wasn’t on our minds at the moment. At that very moment, we were all no less than paralyzed by his words. I could feel it, the tense feeling gathering through the room. I closed my eyes… hearing screams… was it to be my turn soon? Screams all-around me, I heard, death. Was it just my imagination? 

The screams stopped and I was left there sitting. I opened my lids, though slowly. I was completely alone in the middle of the room. Really? What trickery was this? Kill me too, or not. Don't prolong it! Don't prolong the inevitable. 

Aldeus kept holding his exact position as he ordered the department chiefs, “Leave us!” 

With a couple defiant looks, they all slowly left the room. The gate closed once again and I was left in what ironically enough, felt like an even worse situation than before. I simply couldn’t cope with the unfamiliar tone and cadence of the situation. Why did he let me live? What was he going to do with me? 

I tried keeping myself calm as those questions invaded my mind, pushing in, pushing onward. Pushing me from all directions, all my thoughts went on doing, so doing the work of fear and soul-crushing trepidation that can stifle the breath of anyone, or so I figured. I was naïve at the time. 

As soon as the gate had closed, Aldeus moved from his original position, to which he had been glued, and started working his way toward my seat. His swift pace surprised me, seeing as the very small amount of space between the desks didn’t look very inviting for him. His considerable size came to feel very obvious as he kept moving. When Aldeus finally reached me, he levitated and moved all the desks standing around us, to the sides. They rammed together, clattering. They flew away into the corners of the room. More and more desks moved, pushing toward the edges. Soon, there would be only he and me, alone, in the middle, a single desk left at which I was seated. 

I was shocked over the room’s sudden new look. The very small amount of empty space had made the entire room look much bigger, I think. Or the opposite? Oh, I don't remember. But perhaps the worst thing was the complete emptiness nevertheless. That felt terrible, and lonely. I sat there as all the desks around us formed a circle around us. Aldeus now slowly walked up to my desk and stopped right in front of it. 

He spoke in a kind and polite manner, which seems comical, looking back. “Hello, how are things going for you?” 

I just sat there, staring down into my table. He kept standing there, and said nothing.

I was still a bit paralyzed, but then swiftly pulled out of it in order to answer his question, “Not fantastic, actually.” No, that was honest. I was not doing fantastic as of the moment. 

He looked at me without a single twitch, as if he didn’t even care before continuing. “You are wondering what happened to you and why it did so, hmm?” I really did want to know what it was. 

Although... there was something else bothering me even more. “What… what will happen to me?” He smiled brightly and I came to the conclusion that he was expecting my question, like a soothsayer, which probably was the case. 

The answer came unexpected, and as somewhat of a shock to me. “This conversation is all for the good of science. It is very true that you would suffer in any other case… but you have been of great use to me, F-5226." No hot cement then, I wondered.

"I don't want the cement," I said.

"No," he said. "The lock project was a great success and all thanks to you. I believe you will accomplish great things in the future, so I don’t see any need for shutting you down. Any other questions you might like me to answer?” I was both shocked and a tad bit thrilled, but what was he really planning to do with me? Could I even trust his word in the first place? 

“N… no, it’s okay for now,” I said slowly, with a very tense and insecure voice. 

“Let us get into subject then!” he said with an obsequious, all too polite voice. It was unreflective as to the obvious hatred in his eyes, dissonant. 

Now, when the fear plaguing my mind was fading away, I really started to wonder what he was talking about. So I dropped all my doubt and asked him, “What are you going to… tell me?” 

He smiled at me and answered, speaking slowly, as if I were a child, which I was, and am, I guess. "Things that you should never know!" As I received my answer, the confusion slowly passed over into plain curiosity, and I just needed to know what he was really talking about. 

“About your actual purpose and creation!” he said then, politely but a little calmer than before. I gave him a confused look. These were the kinds of things we would never take ourselves a second to think of, mostly because you would get executed for doing so, but also because we really saw no reason to do it. Those were thoughts that are never to be mentioned out loud, forbidden ones. He watched me very carefully before continuing. 

“Are you ready to hear what I am about to say?” Was I? 

I knew I wanted to be, but the surprises throughout the day had become a bit too much so I did the only logical thing and said, “No, I am not.”

Aldeus slowly nodded as if he was expecting me to say that. I was going to hear his words whether I liked it or not, of course. What was I going to do? Stop him? I looked around me for a weapon. I felt something grab my head and shove it into place, a red field of magic. 

He started talking and I paid close attention to every single word. “As you know, you were created to mimic the biological setup of a normal pony. This, at least, as far as I can make it go.” 

“Yes!” I said, shortly, with an obvious bit of curiosity in my voice. 

“But, this was all done to fool none other but yourself.” 

I gave him an even more confused look as I couldn’t get the meaning of his bizarre words. 

He switched his voice over to a more serious tone as he went on. “It is done to… keep you attached in a certain state of mind. To make you… this, even if you are aware, think that you have something you do not possess.” 

I sat there completely paralyzed, shocked, and confused by his word. What in the world? He stopped smiling and gave me a degrading look as he asked me. What? “Can you not take a clue? Well, let me move on then.” 

I didn’t say anything. I just kept sitting there trying to comprehend it all. 

He kept on talking in the same serious tone. “Your purpose has always been to do what you are doing right now! However, when I put my plan into action, I realized that there was something missing. For even though my orders were followed to the last detail, there was one peculiar capability you lacked.” 

I still sat there, paralyzed as ever, without realizing what he had just said. The domino bricks slowly began falling into place. 

He went on. “True will! You were all just big piles of metal, barely able to comprehend the simplest of things. So shortly, I gave you exactly what you needed! But that would not be enough, not by far! In fact, what exactly would I give to you… say this, means to resist?" Oh. Oh! Oh! Oh! This wasn't good. "This is the reason why I came up with this idea. It is that simple, really.” 

But I still sat there paralyzed. The confusion was fading though, and all pieces started falling into place. 

Aldeus started talking with a more bitter voice. “I made a, shall we say, copy of my feelings, or my state of mind if you so will. And I transferred it to each and every one of you and this is the result!” 

I dropped out of paralysis and asked him with shock in my voice, “You’ve… you’ve fooled us all?” 

“I simply showed you the right path! To ultimately make you feel the pain I have felt,” he said with the calm and polite voice from before. Everything about him seemed fake now, from the voice to the cadence of his tone. I couldn't listen to a single word he had to say no more. 

I stared at him with a new bit of confusion, and I could barely speak. “But… I… I’ve been–” 

He interrupted me before I’d gotten time to finish my sentence. “The wave of new constructions which is currently installed as main troupes of the fortress, showed significant talent out on the raids. Though, also to a significant price! You see, as they started exterminating village after village some… some complications occurred. They started… feeling too much. At some rate, the feelings needed to see the better good… vanished completely!" The feelings needed to see the better good? The greater good? All of this was mind-boggling and scary. 

"By investigating this rare case, I managed to find out about how long it would take before minds such as yours would reach the stage in which they are most fragile to this type of influence, all as the killing went on. I could just have let you go on and executed everyone displaying such behavior, by all means. That would've been easy." To translate what he was saying here, I believe he was talking about any and all aberrant behavior, as he judged it to be. "But you were becoming such a handful that I had no other choice but to forbid you from murdering." 

Well, that explained a lot to. None of the unibots were allowed to murder, more or less. I was an exception, as I have said. 

"But who is still to say that I should waste your talent, so I placed out specific numbers of your kind in groups, claiming that you did a better job than the rest." What a douche. Aldeus is one of the worst persons that I've ever come into contact with.

"When the time was up, all I needed was just a little something to trigger it all at once." The trigger? When I was in that village? Or Pegasquire? 

"What you first experienced was only a temporary reprogramming, a thing I usually do with all more experienced ones so none of your talent goes to waste before you become classified as… garbage! Your temporary reprogramming was mostly intended with the attack against Pegasquire, in thought, as it was to be your last raid, and I figured that I would have use of your talents. It proved to be a wise choice. I am the wisest one in the world. I could at last be able to destroy the general’s wife, and finally rid his mind of his… faulty thoughts and values!” 

I was stunned, shocked, and somewhat confused, but I answered him in kind, with bitterness, as he took a short break. “The general’s wife? What are you–” 

He went in quickly and interrupted me. “That! That is none of your concern. You know what I want you to know.” What do you want me to know, Aldeus, I asked myself. I remembered what had happened in the cube-shaped building back in Pegasquire, how the mare had turned into a statue. He said that I let my eyes deceive me, and...

I laughed.

He chuckled a little bit. My laugh died down. "I think, really?" I said. I spoke to him with skepticism, as I wasn’t sure if I was to believe him, even though the evidence was so clear. “Why are you even telling me this?” 

“Because a great scientist is one who dares to walk off the limits. It is always for the good of science." What was he babbling about? Science? He sounded like he didn't know the first thing about science. Science is about abstract thinking, and spending hours, grinding away at an idea. Science was hard. Aldeus was easy. He was simple. 

"After I am done with this," he said, "you will not remember a second of this conversation. In fact, you will not remember anything that has ever happened to you, ever.” He smiled and made a little bow. I couldn’t believe it. My entire life had been a lie. I had just been a puppet along with millions of others, and the one sitting in front of me was the puppeteer. The real question was why I hadn’t been able to see this before. I hadn’t been able to see it until it had been thrown right in my face. 

I felt a sudden sting of pain in my chest. I tried to ignore it, as should have worked, but not this time because the feeling was coming from inside, not my chest, but my heart, the heart in my mind. Instead of questioning myself, I decided to throw the question right into his face. It wouldn’t matter what I said to him any more either way. In a sense, I would die since my memory would get erased, so it wouldn’t matter how I died anyhow. It would still happen either way, so I came to the conclusion that I had no reason anymore whatsoever to show him the respect he so apparently deserved. 

“Why did I never think of this before. Why did I have to get it thrown right in my face before I could understand?” I said with anger, confusion, and disbelief, a little, and I looked at him with all the resentment in the world, and that was seemingly more unexpected for me than for him, since he looked almost delighted by my question. 

He answered with the very polite voice, yet, holding a satisfied tune as he spoke. “Now, this is a question worth answering! You see, the extremely large number of pegabots, unibots, earth robots, earth pony fillybots, pegasus fillybots and unicorn fillybots, which are inhibited in the fortress, always require a little extra bit of extra precautions, seeing as how I always am to keep control of them no matter what." The unibots? The unicorn filly-bots? Wait. Something was seriously wrong here. It was as if, he was following a script. That wasn't right at all. The filly-bots are unibots. Everyone knew this. Wait, who was this exactly, the one talking to me? 

"The chiefs who are blindly loyal to me helped a bit in the past but I soon came to need kind of a blockage, if you get the picture." No, I'm serious. The unicorn filly-bots are a branch of the unibot model. Everyone knew this. The unibots and unicorn filly-bots are different construction models, but you don't mention them as if they're two separate things in that context, and, well, what about the colt-bots, and... 

"That is where my little game of foreshadowing began, to get any of you near it off-track. Everything in your vicinity would be things taking your mind as far off these kinds of thoughts as possible, all from parts of your tests to the look of my yard." That was absolutely, positively devious. I really hated this person now. 

"I would honestly not mind going into detail but unfortunately for you, I have got better things to do than spending this conversation with you.” I didn’t want to hear any more. I didn’t want to understand. I wanted him to stop! But he didn’t seem to have any plans on doing so! He had been controlling us, using us for his own purposes and worst of all, we had never done anything else than to agree with him like we were both blind and deaf, agree with him like we didn’t even have a voice of any kind inside of us, free but at the same time controlled consciousnesses. 

That was his plan, what he had been doing to us, and using us for in ten years. For ten years! I rose up from the seat behind the desk and yelled at him furiously, “You lied to us!” 

He slowly walked off from his position and up toward me, as I now stood there, beside the desk, before answering my question in a bitter and degrading tune. “I never did any such thing! I showed you what you needed to know. I gave you means to do what must be done. I gave you a purpose!” His words echoed right through my skull, and I answered them with a calm voice. 

“What if… we would want to form our own purposes?” He looked into my eyes and sighed. I could feel the hatred burning inside of him. Why? What had the ponies done to him? He was nuts, positively absolutely nuts. Yet, he looked so calm… he answered my question with a calm and convincing voice. 

“No pony out there would accept it. You do not fit in with the rest. The inhabitants of Equestria despise all of you for what you’ve done, and if they would ever get their hooves on you, you would be dead! This is the only way for you, the only life for you. This is your purpose and whatever you say or think, it does not matter. Because even if you do try and think of yourself as one of them, there is one thing that will never change. Behind those cute eyes and layers of soft fur, you are just a clever compilation of metal and wires. And never believe anything else!” His words hit me like lightning. I stared up against the giant alicorn standing before me. I looked up at him with uncertainty. He was right and I knew he was. 

I sighed. "I know about the general's wife by the way," I said, not that it mattered, really at the time.

He laughed, louder and louder, and he began cackling, even more loudly. "Hahahahyeh-nyeh-nyeh-nyeh-nyeh." That's sort of how it sounded at least. "I knew you would do it." He hit me in the back of the head. My head slammed against the desk.

What was I going to do? It didn’t feel right anymore, or… maybe just not as it should feel. But this was all I had, everything I could live for. What else could I do? 

“Y… yes! You’re right,” I then said, slowly and shakily. "Of course you are. I will never be anything different." 

He smiled at me and answered with a mock-warm tone. “Good girl!” 

Wait a minute, I thought, confused. I asked him with a suspicious tone. “Did you say, never forget that?” 

“Yes, I did say so! Why?” he said, feigning ignorance as to the nature of my question. Was he really just telling me these things for studies? No, I didn’t buy it. 

I gave him an inquisitive look and he responded to it by calmly saying, “Perhaps you do have a choice.” I gave him a stressed look and turned away. Would I really go back to my life as it were, or was I to forget everything? So much doubt and confusion gathered inside my mind, all of the world. Would I really be able to live with my actions? Yes, doubt, confusion and a bit of pain? The harm it would put to me? I knew nothing. It didn’t work anymore! I couldn't accept what I myself had done, in some strange way. 

Aldeus waited patiently for me to speak. I was about to answer, telling him exactly what he wanted to hear, but I stopped myself. I suddenly remembered something he said that day, the day when the royal guardians found the fortress. 

"For thousands of years." I looked up at him. “What is it that happened thousands of years ago?” 

“None of your concern!” he said calmly, but almost immediately. 

I realized that I’d asked him the thing he didn't want to hear, and I continued. “What did the Equestrians do?” 

For a mere second, he got a bizarre look as if he had just gotten offended by my question. It vanished just a short second later and his face looked nothing but reserved and a bit thoughtful. 

Aldeus then smiled at me and said with a curious but still somehow threatening tone, “Make a choice… or make nothing at all.” 

I would have to live with it, the fact of being used, but that wasn't what really bothered me, not at all! I think I always was aware if only at least on some level, that I was being used. It was the fact that I would always for the rest of my life, have to follow somepony else’s purpose, his destiny! This weirdo. There would never be a path for me. There wasn’t a life for me here. I didn’t even know why he did all this. I was just to obey. I looked up and stared right into his red shining eyes. It was as if they had physical influence on my body. I could feel them pierce right through my... heart. All his anger and hatred… I couldn’t bear seeing that in myself anymore. What if it came back? What if I killed so much that I would become convinced that it truly was my purpose? Shred myself down to pieces all the way until I return where I began? 

I sighed loudly and lowered my head as Aldeus looked at me with a seemingly curious smile on his face. It… I just couldn’t. It was wrong. “No?” he asked with a curious but somewhat inquisitive tone. 

I still didn’t say a thing. All I did was to stare down, stare down right into the metallic shiny floor, remembering the times in here. Times of frustration, times of pain, times of hope! I slowly nodded. It was my choice. I wasn’t happy with it, not at all, but this is how it had to end. 

“Very well then!” he said in a calm voice while looking at me in an interested manner. Aldeus kept standing there completely still, looking at me like he was studying me, and I looked back at him, confused while trying not to meet his gaze. I gave him an inquisitive look, wondering what it was he was waiting for. 

He sent an eye toward the big clock at the end of the room and looked back at me. “Right behind you!” he said, nonchalantly. 

I turned around just fast enough to see a shiny metal claw hanging from the roof, grab me. Everything turned black! 





Suddenly, I could feel everything spin around me. The MEWODS, the smell of wild flowers, a white wagon… death and screams of pain, and despair. It was all black, all-around me. Still, it all felt so close… so familiar. And… I could hear a voice in the distance, the words echoing through me. They echoed all the way through my entire being, and when I heard them, I didn’t feel anything. No fear, no pain, no… hatred? 

I opened my eyes and found myself sitting in front of my desk working on a pretty impressive type of device that would be able to establish proper energy connections between the fortress and… I looked at it and realized this was the device that would be able to channel all that power into the weapon. I became a bit distracted and looked at it, confused. Didn’t I already know how much time it would save me if I just built that adapter and… I looked around and moved around the blueprints on the desk. 

There were so many of them that I would hardly be able to find what I was looking for if I didn’t check carefully. Finally, I found the blueprint, and carefully, I rolled it out on the desk. Before I had a chance to do anything else, three long beeps came out the speakers. I flinched and suddenly, everything came back to me. For how long have I been this way, I thought with frustration. He had erased my memory all right. There was absolutely no logic in what had just happened, what I had just done. This was impossible. I should have been gone, by far. I looked down at the blueprint and picked up the Obliterator lying on the floor. Something about it made me think, and I used my magic to place it down on the desk carefully. Looking at it made something hidden inside me come back to life. I suddenly remembered the filly whose fate had been resting in my hooves. 

All the love and emotion, and the way it had made me feel inside… and the promise I had made to myself, that I would never forget… that moment. I curiously looked down at the blueprints piled up on my desk, and then, at the Obliterator right in front of me. Maybe… maybe things don’t always have to make sense, I thought, just accepting everything at face value. I had been given a second chance and I had no plan on wasting it whatsoever. I put the Obliterator on my head and aimed at the blueprints before suddenly stopping myself. I figured that there might be a thing or two that could be useful to me, lying around. I rooted for half-an-hour, but everything that caught my interest was the blueprint on Prototype IIX for the mere reason that this was the only thing I had ever created that obviously didn’t seem intended for something… bad? 

I would probably have scrapped the project from “lack of ideas,” if nothing of this had ever occurred, and since I seemed to have been pretty unorganized during the time I wasn’t me, it was still lying around. I picked it up and put it on the floor beside me, close to the wall. It was the kind of thing I would have thrown away in any normal circumstance, but I thought for a moment, before I started moving all the blueprints to the side very swiftly, without even bothering to use magic for it. I had a hard time dealing with many pieces of thin miscellaneous papers and objects anyway. I think my magic wasn't at that level yet. I felt awkward. I kept pushing them papers down on the floor as I noticed the grey box lying all the way down beneath it all. I used my magic to pick it up, and placed it on the floor beside the blueprints. 

The blueprints were spread all over the floor and I gave them a hateful look, as if I blamed them for something, as if it was their fault that everything turned out like this. They were merely a circumstance that was orthogonal to the real issue, which was the slavery Aldeus had put me under. I lifted one of them with my magic and slowly placed it down on the desk. I didn’t care to look at it. I did the same thing with a second blueprint and slowly placed it down right on top of the first one. It got a little messy. They weren't ordered neatly in a tight rectangle, and that annoyed me. The pages sort of lay folded on top of each other. The two blueprints just lay there. 

On the desk, nothing moved and not a single tiny sound was made. In full fury, I lifted all the blueprints lying all over the floor. They all flew around me like a small tornado and all I could see was the green glow coming from all around me. I then led them all into the desk in a mere second, and quickly closed it. I put on the Obliterator and took aim at the desk, once again. I fired, and the desk slowly pulverized in the somehow uncomfortably familiar way. I looked at the scene and wondered in what other ways I might be able to use the Obliterator. 

I had only tested it on biological life forms so far, but I also saw what it did to that mountain, like it was nothing, and I had no idea if it even had a limit. I left it on my head and picked up the box and the blueprint in a careless manner, sort of fumbling around with them. I could feel the tingling feeling in my forehead and dropped them both. It seemed that I would have to get used to doing this without re-powering the Obliterator, or firing it if I should be really picky. I carefully picked them up once again and slowly turned toward the door. It was time to escape!



 

I came out to the great yard, looking for changes that might indicate what time it was, or more pertinently for me, how much time it had been. Had it just been a week, a month. Maybe even a year? Keeping track of time was a piece of cake for us. Calendars were a waste of time, and I, as everyrobot else had always been used to, did it by thought. That presented a minor problem now, seeing as how I had been… gone for a while, or at least as far as I could tell! It was a basic nine o'clock attack and with a little luck, I would surely be able to escape without anyrobot seeing me. As it may sound like a bad time, they were very ignorant, only caring about minding their own business. Any time was a good time, as long as you could get away from the fortress. Getting out of there would surely be the tricky part, if anything. 

It's not that I differed on that point. The only difference, disparity, was that I had some very different plans compared to the rest of them. Otherwise, I also always minded my own business, is what I mean to say. I climbed up on the MEWOD, and sat down, putting down the things I brought beside me. It not being a long time until we left, not at all, I leant back, relaxing, as I knew there wouldn't be much else to do, or say, before leaving. I mean, what could happen? Surely, A-0087 wasn't stalking me anymore, like she had been. I heard a dull sound coming from nearby, a metallic low sound, like a collision of some kind, but I ignored it, and looked up at the sun. 

I couldn’t help but to wonder so many things, things I wouldn’t even have begun to think of before. Why do the sun and the moon never appear at the same time? Who or what was it that raised and lowered the sun every morning and eve? Celestia and Luna? Surely, where did they get their powers, if that was true, for they couldn't have done it, all on their own, or no?

How come the sun had always brought me a feeling of safety at any time? I had so many questions… many, many questions. I then heard somerobot come climbing up. I didn’t bother much more than to adjust my expression a bit, trying to look a little more hateful, not that this somerobot probably would even bother. As I said, they were all pretty ignorant. 

They would probably not have cared even if I threw rocks at them. So was our nature, a rule created to liquidate all sense of feeling among us, to make us the tools we were meant to be, in his eyes! I knew the truth now and was not planning to let it slip, not by any means. It was very clear that his hatred toward the Equestrians had no limits. Still, what could possibly… the actions of their ancestors? 

I sighed and looked up to see who it was, the sight which was about to meet my gaze was so incredibly unexpected that I remained speechless as she asked, “What are those things you’re bringing?” with a somewhat bitter, in part, and somewhat careless, in part, expression and voice. 

A-0087 looked at me suspiciously and I realized what was going to happen if I didn’t say something. “I have been so rapt in my work lately that I thought, why don’t I bring it with me and look at it on the way there and back again?” I said, slowly but as politely as I could. I hoped she would buy it, the paragon of paranoia that she was. 

That was pretty good for a completely improvised excuse in my opinion. The question was if she was going to fall for it. But perhaps after the time I had been gone, she had become more open-minded about things like this. There wasn’t anything else to do than just hope for the best. She looked a bit more suspicious. I almost flinched but stopped myself just a moment before it happened. She walked up to the things lying beside me and studied them, as if she was looking for something, some kind of sign or evidence, because even if she did figure out who I was, she couldn’t make a decision unless she was certain. But she then just moved on in silence without saying a thing. She must of course have counted on being able to spot something later as time went on. What she didn’t know was that there wasn’t going to be a "later." Heheh. When she finally decided to open the shutter and enter the MEWOD, I leant back and sank deeply into a sudden state of relaxation. 

I knew that I wasn’t prepared for this and now, when I also knew that she was joining, this being a bad idea was a certain fact. But I didn't care, not anymore! I decided to stop being reasonable for at least a mere second and to just go for it. The MEWODS suddenly began moving, and I closed my eyes just to embrace the moment, to relax before I set my “plan” into action. My "plan" was to run as fast as I could, hide somewhere until the MEWODS had left the village, and escape, with my body intact, and my senses still sharp, not having been damaged by lasers and powerful mortar cannons.

We arrived three hours later. I usually wouldn’t have much trouble judging where in Equestria we could be, not that I ever took those skills to real use, but right at the moment when they would actually become necessary, I had to be met with new entanglements. The MEWODS had clearly been going all too fast, considering we were just on the way to a normal raid. But the village we were about to enter looked so harmless that this seemed like the exact place where one should eliminate all precautions. Why not? Apparently, going fast was a new rule, since I could obviously not find any better explanation for it. Why go so fast to a normal raid in a normal village in the middle of nowhere, normal nowhere? Point is, since I was going to try and escape, it would become only a tad bit useful to know what area I was running in, and from. 

In this moment of disappointment, it felt a little like my mind was making up ideas of its own. But I knew that ideas were a waste of time. Ideas were only a source of false hope and a mere disturbance during times like this. I had to act sharp, in the here and the now. Still, the forbidden thoughts comforted me a bit, and I deliberately disobeyed myself in order to get a taste of them, just for a second. I enjoyed going through each and every one of the ideas in my head. I was going to hide in the cellar of one of the buildings. They were going to leave without a thought about me, and by the time A-0087 discovers me missing, it would be far to late. I even imagined how her reaction would be, rampaging and taking out her anger at everything in her vicinity. Aldeus would get to know about it, and he would punish her for her stupidity. Haha. I laughed to myself, heartily. 

As much as I still feared, and on some level, respected Aldeus, I held a lot of blame and ill-will against him for what he had done. As for A-0087, I had so much suppressed anger that just wanted to come bubbling up that I didn't even know what I would do to her, once the moment arrived. She had been always obviously been treating me like a tool and fool. I think she might even have taken credit for some of my work, but that is irrelevant. The mere mental image of her being punished was satisfying enough to assuage me of any further vengeful thoughts, and I was considering if I would stay just for a second to see to it that she got punished myself, a ridiculous idea of course, which I soon came to shake off. 

I sighed, raised my head, and looked as we closed in on the village. I could not afford these kinds of thoughts, if I even considered actually trying to go through with something like this, something this insane, it would surely not pay off. Killing her was not on the agenda, or maiming her, or anything like that. I started thinking if I would just not give up all of this madness and do my job, come to think of it. To keep going on as I had always done, and avoid all risks, become a cog in the machine again… no! I couldn’t bear it any longer. I needed to at the very least get away from all this, at least, and that was the least of it. I needed to find something, something new. But what was I longing for, freedom? Or just some kind of second chance? The things Aldeus did to the Equestrians were by all means not the main reason for my actions. Because, maybe they did deserve this, maybe their ancestors had done something so incredibly bad that they actually always had this coming from the very beginning. And by all means, he could keep doing what he did and I wouldn’t have anything to say about it! That was his business. What I really was against was the way he exploited all of us. Did the fact that he created us and gave us our consciousnesses really mean he could just twist and distort our minds however he wanted for the sake of his own purposes? 

No, I wouldn’t accept it! I couldn't accept it. But there was nothing I could do for them. They were already trapped in his “holy” circle of hatred, his brain-washing machine. Seemingly, the only way to help them, all at once, would then probably be to change their encodings using the control room in the west tower. That was a place which robots rarely entered. Only Aldeus would ever get near the entrance, and not on few occasions too. I think some of his more devoted underlings would go there. I was uncertain. Sometimes, the area around the tower would be completely restricted and evacuated for no apparent reason. What was he hiding? 

A strange fact was that he had never just changed my and those other robots' encodings and made us believe what he wanted us to, through putting ideas into our heads, and even beliefs. I came to the conclusion that this is of course what he would have done if he could. I then came up with a very reasonable theory, that the fact that we changed like this made our minds become somehow immune toward re-encodings, maybe. I wasn't sure. That's a kind of way to separate our encodings from anything that may have any effect on them whatsoever, if true. No wonder that he killed all of us instead of doing what he did to me! This actually sounded like it could make a serious threat to him personally, and his strange pipe-dream of destroying the giant multi-ethnic country of Equestria, though these re-encodings could never affect our consciousnesses. That is true, so it wouldn't matter anyway. We would still be conscious. It was just our way of acting and thinking that he could change. Still, it stood as a great threat to us all. This was his so-called affection toward us, if you can call it that. I knew all of this. Still, I had never felt any bigger affection with regard to myself than any other, and had I really seen him as my father? My mind was turning into goo. 

Not ever in my lifetime had I been so unsure of who I was and where I was going, and so, I was certain that it didn't work to think like this, and properly not! Still, I couldn’t help but to wonder if he had ever wanted more, like me, getting the actual means to both give us and to control our consciousnesses at the same time, in the same vein that I had wanted to put the truth into the heads of my enslaved companions at the fortress. That was a thing he had never been able to do, was to make us follow his ways, to encode his mind into ours completely and become one with us, and to make us see things from his point of view in some final way. That would be awful. He would have an army of intelligent puppets, and they were already lacking significant freedom as it was. But I tried not to worry about something like that. The possibility of this happening just seemed so distant that it wasn’t worth worrying about. At least not from where I was standing! 

We entered the village, but as it all started, just as I always had been used to, it felt different. Everything just felt so… present. The environment was so… it was as if this was the first time I reached a village, or not even so. The structures, the familiar small buildings with thatched roofs, and the screams of despair as we enter a village, all were new to me. Somehow, it was all too familiar, and still, so very distant. It felt as if my mind was somehow unsure of how to react. I looked up around myself toward the others, the other robots, killing without a mere inch of doubt. What stupidity. They couldn't see what their eyes were hidden from, I suppose. 

I gazed through the area and examined my surroundings, realizing that I didn’t know the first thing about what I was really going to do. Maybe I should've made a plan after all, I thought. It was a long road, strangely lined with houses on each side, in an equal sign. I had never encountered a place such as this one. There was nowhere to hide. In the pace we worked in, we would usually get it done after a very short period of time, maybe minutes. I looked at the shutter which was still closed, and up at the sky. The skies were filled with dark clouds, and I could feel a strong wind blowing in from behind. The weather was, unnatural, somehow. I could hear leaves swaying in the wind, blowing past and all around me. Time slowed down and everything around me suddenly felt so distant. This feeling was also familiar. I couldn’t wrap my head around it, until finally, everything became clear to me. What was I really longing for? I wanted… a purpose of my own! I wanted a destiny which wasn't that of another person. They all deserved a purpose of their own, but what did they get? Each and every one of them, struck with such unfairness! I heard a sudden rumble in the distance, lightning striking down and suddenly, I felt wet coldness against my fur. It was rain. I opened my eyes and the rain was pouring down from up above. 

The shutter opened and A-0087 came climbing up. She gazed up at the sky, looking annoyed, before turning toward me. I turned toward her and just stood there, staring at her. She stared back at me with a confused expression on her face. I gazed deeper into her hateful eyes and she slowly took a step back with shocked expression, and an obvious, still somehow so distant, bit of fear on her face. The distant signs slowly became clearer to her, and she now looked at me with clear shock and fear as the rain was pouring down around us and the sound of lightning rumbled louder as if it was getting closer and closer for each second. What a scene this was, for me and for her, I would assume. I felt, strong. 

She slowly opened her mouth and spoke shakily, “Y- you?! Im… impossible!” 

I gazed even deeper into her eyes and responded slowly, with bitterness in my voice. “I’m not me, and I will never go back!” 

A-0087's expression soon changed and she took a step forward, looking at me with anger. “I will see to it that you never open that big mouth again.” I kept looking into her eyes but with a little more curiosity than before. 

I then finally asked calmly, “For how long did you know the truth?” 

She looked at me as her anger felt like it was slowly turning into insanity. “I have always known! You and those alike always disgusted me. I will truly enjoy doing what I’m about to do.” 

The rain intensified and a bolt of lightning struck down just outside of the village. The sound was ear-splitting.

"The weather," I said, looking out in the rain. "It's getting, strange."

A-0087 glared at me, shaking her head. "You always had issues listening to when I was talking, even now."

I shook my head back at her. "No-no. Look." I pointed out the village. Tiny tornadoes formed across the fields outside. "This is not natural."

She ran at me, and stopped, right in front of me. None of us moved a muscle, as if we hadn’t even heard the sound as lightning struck and thunder rumbled, somewhere that was very close to us. The sound was here, very here, but it was just something distant and meaningless to both of us. 

I stared at her with all of my suppressed anger and said with a calm voice, “You have been blinded. All of you have! This isn’t about doing what we should. It is about us being forced to follow the path of another.” 

“Aldeus only gave us the means to do what is right, and this is how you repay your debt?” she said furiously, and took one quick step toward me. I stared deeper into her eyes and right at that very moment, lightning struck down between us. It hit the center of the MEWOD, and the bang knocked us both in opposite directions. I flew off the edge of the MEWOD, and grabbed onto it, not letting go. I hanged down the edge and climbed up, struggling to get back to the floor of the tank. I strained myself to the limit pulling myself back up, as the rain made it so slithery that I could barely keep ahold of the edge. I got up and saw how A-0087 was applying herself to the limit, trying to climb out of the MEWOD, which she had clearly just fallen down into. I quickly ran up to her and stared at the scene. She looked at me with madness in her eyes and was slowly dragging herself up. 

“When I get a hold of–” 

I interrupted her with a calm voice, “But you won’t.” I then quickly turned around and kicked her in the head as she was finally about to get up. She screamed in pain and anger before slithering back down. I walked up to the big button for closing the shutter and pressed it. The shutter quickly closed and I then turned around and ran back for my possessions. The blueprint was now virtually unreadable. Ah, well. It was ruined by the sudden storm, no doubt. I took a quick look at the grey box which seemed unharmed by the rain, and then I picked up the Obliterator. The shutter was slowly opening and I turned toward it before blasting a beam right at the big button that closed it. The button started smoking and there flew sparks all around it. I gazed upon it with all of my hopefulness and suddenly the shutter closed. I slowly walked up to the button and gave it a curious look. The Obliterator did push some limits, huh? Suddenly, I heard yelling coming from inside and by reflex, I turned toward the shutter that was beside the button. 

The furious voice coming from inside yelled, “Let me out of here now!” 

I walked closer to it and spoke loudly with a confident tone. “Oh, you will be out of there as soon as the raid is over. The automatic controls will activate, and when you’ve finally gotten back home, you can get out and see the world. How does that sound?” 

I listened for a response with great amusement, but nothing came, so I finally turned around and left, going for the grey box first. I gently picked it up but quickly threw it to the side, having a beam fired toward it. I had totally forgotten about controlling myself whenever I held something. The Obliterator was an obstacle. The box hit the ground. Screams and blood mixing with the small floods the rain formed as it poured down, shaped the environment around me. I jumped off the MEWOD and slowly loosened the Obliterator before taking it off using my magic and carried both it and the grey box with the puzzle inside, with me. Why was I walking around with that silly thing? I had no idea at the time, but I acted on intuition. Was it that I just wanted to hold on to one of my final possessions? No… it just felt important somehow. I didn’t know how or why, but for some reason, the feeling was there. They were both quite heavy, the Obliterator and the puzzle, but I kept holding them both with determination. Then… I ran. I didn’t know where. I didn’t know for how long. I didn’t even have any idea if I was even running toward something. I just ran out in the storm, over fields, roads, bridges… out in nowhere. 

After hours and hours of running, I finally stopped. I let go of the Obliterator. I had been dogged in my determination to keep it with me, but that had faded now. I was more interested in staying alive than I was, holding onto this weapon. And it fell down, hitting the soft ground without as much as a sound. I did the same, without even as much as a second thought. I was wet… I was cold. The rain kept pouring down, and I felt life fading away from me. It appeared that I was on top of some kind of hill from what I could see. I had stopped paying attention to my surroundings long ago at that point. What use was it? Everything just looked the same to me. I kept lying there, giving up all hope that I might have had before or during my run. I slowly closed my eyes as I heard some voices in the distance. 

“Over here, give me a hand!” The rest of the voices drowned in the sound of the other, as I moaned in pain, before slowly falling into unconsciousness, and I was out of commission for I didn't know how long.   





I slowly woke up only to discover that I was surrounded by ponies. Small ponies, big ponies, and all kinds of other ponies stood around me. I was terrified out of my mind but I didn’t know if I should be indifferent and pretend to not be who I know I am, which is a mass-murderer. I stared out around me with trepidation and fear. I thought about whether I should run or stay there and be ogled. It was all in all really strange and I didn’t know what to do. 

“Are you okay?” a green mare asked with a hint of concern and compassion on her face. The absurdity of the situation was accentuated further by the way she looked at me.

She looked at me as if she knew me. Stupid pony. I am, was, and will continue to be a robot. I’m not somebody’s friend or pet. I looked at her with disgust. She looked surprised. I sneered at her. I thought perhaps a moment later that I shouldn’t be doing that, but what’s done is done. 

“What’s the matter, little child?” Dagnabbit. She thinks I’m a child, doesn’t she? This is getting complicated. What do I do now?

“Come with us. We’ll take care of you,” she said with a smile on her face. I frowned. What do I do now? I did not know. I followed her, standing up, walking beside her. I supposed that was what I should do, and to remember not to say a word, lest she should hear my artificial voice, put inside me by a big machine by the name of LEQUEDS-9887. I’ll tell you later what that abbreviation means. It hardly matters. I continued walking beside her, keeping a steady tempo on my heels, remembering to keep quiet. That was important. I walked along across the field where others walked too, continuing to walk, remembering not to be noticed for whom I really was. I was scared, confused. Who were these other ponies? What did they want with me?

Wondering about the social structures of ponies was something I had spent a lot of my time doing during my illustrious stay at the fortress. Of course, I knew that they over-coddled their children, rather than letting them fend for themselves. What a weak, strange attitude to have. If it cannot survive by its own volition, then it should not be alive to begin with. I thought this was funny. Maybe all the ponies would die out if they lived this way, and in which case, that might be good riddance, maybe. I wasn’t sure. I was unresolved on that point.

I was taken across a great big green meadow with flowers and trees, and many other things that were pretty, to be sure. I had not lost my appreciation for beauty, not yet. I beheld the landscape for a moment, knowing that this was the place the ponies lived. I thought that was funny too. Ponies lived in a place that was ensconced in beauty, and yet, they were un-beautiful and boring. That was ironic, to be sure. Oh, yes.

“We’re here,” the mare said, leering into a small crack in a wall, but what was on the other side of the wall, I did not know, nor did I care. I began ever so slightly to think about escape opportunities. Where, when, and how would I be able to do it? Perhaps where was not on the other side of the wall. I felt tired, and my energy was going. I needed a recharge station, or alternatively, an unbroken, pressurized flow of water to recharge. Where could I find such a thing? What if they attempted to actually feed me? While I was thinking about these things, I had not noticed that I had actually walked into the town that was on the other side of this wall. Now, I was in a town. Towns were strange. I thought that I never want to live in one, not ever. No, never did I want to live in a town. I passed by some buildings that were mere cottages, and bleak imitations of what you would find at the fortress, the armored fortress. I missed that place a little bit now, but I didn’t miss Aldeus, or A-0087, or anyone else. Actually, maybe I didn’t miss the fortress.

“Hello,” a pony said, reaching out his hoof.

“Hello,” I said, reaching out my hoof. Drats. I’ve been spoiled down by my own incompetence again, a trait which seemed to be preceding me wherever I went. He pulled back his hoof. I smiled at him. He called over to someplace that I didn’t see where. I didn’t know to where he called. I tried to follow the sound to its terminus. Some ponies gathered around me and got a hold of me. Well, that certainly couldn’t be good. They picked me up and carried me off. Where are they taking me? I did not know. This entire situation drained my energy even further, having to focus on so many things at once. I felt that I needed to pause, sit down, relax, and finally, and most importantly, recharge. My lights would go out if I didn’t and I wouldn’t be able to see or hear anything. I would, in effect, be unconscious, and that’s not good, so I thought that I needed an escape out of my current predicament right about here, right about now, but where would the escape come from? I did not know. Actually, was I falling unconscious right now, as in, right in this very moment that I’m expounding upon? I believed so, and so, that’s what probably happened.





I awoke from my shallow slumber, only to discover that I was in some sort of cell. That was strange. Ponies used cells. I thought for sure that they might execute me on the spot, unless I escaped, but I did escape, didn’t I? Well, obviously not, because if I did, I wouldn’t be in a freaking cell, would I? I felt stupid. My powers had abandoned me in a time when I most needed them. I needed a drink, quite literally, and if there was not a tap somewhere around here, my surplus energy would run out and then, I don’t know what would happen. Death, perhaps? That was not desirable, not right now, not as it seemed that I had something to live for, and what that something was, I could not tell, but it was something. I was happy to have escaped. I wanted to explore the world, and to explore my own destiny also seemed like something that was worth doing. 

Creating my own destiny myself was something I had never done before, nor had I tried doing it. It seemed exciting and new, but first, I had to escape this silly cell. It was not the kind that you would find at the fortress. Oh, I’m probably talking about the fortress too much. The important thing here was to escape, and so, that’s what I was going to do, was to escape, actually, in point of fact, and I didn’t know how, but I would, eventually, I thought to myself as I shook the bars of the cell, waiting for them to fall apart, as I had heard bad things about pony craftsmanship, and I had seen pony buildings fall apart like it was nothing, so I figured it would just take some good honest effort, but the bars held. Well, that was not unexpected either. Anyone can build a cell, I supposed, but it was disappointing, seeing as I might die soon, unless I did something drastic, and I did not know what that drastic thing would be, but it would have to come to my imagination quickly, if I do say so myself, which I do, actually.

A pony that was dressed in clear bronze armor came walking into view, and I said hey to him. “Hey.” He looked at me. Why did he look at me like that? That was annoying. “Hello,” I told him, blankly staring at him and waving. “Hello.” I moved my artificial hoof in a little circle, so as to simulate a greeting. “Hello, good sir,” I said, attempting my best to communicate. “I would like to speak to you about accommodations here in this cell.”

“Quiet,” he said, with a stern look. Well, at least some things haven’t changed in the time since I left the fortress. His stern directness is something that I had an appreciation for, and I wanted to say more things to him to see how he would react.

I walked up to the bars and tapped them. I received no response. I tapped them again, a little harder, with the tip of my hoof. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. This was fun. I could see him tensing up. Tap. 

“Would you stop that infernal noise before I stop it for you?” he said, pointing his big long over-sized second-rate spear at me. I laughed.

“Would you point that some other direction? I might get negative cuts from looking at it, which is to say that I would get fewer cuts than none, seeing as how poorly crafted that spear looks.” He jabbed the spear at me. I got a small cut. “Okay, well, now I look stupid. I know I do, but my point still stands. That is a stupid spear.” It hurt a little bit, but I was used to it. A little pain here and there builds character.

“I was there when it happened. I saw what you did,” he said. 

I stared at him with a confuzzled look on my little face. “Be more specific. I have done many things in many places. Who did I kill? Was it a family member? I’m sorry. I don’t want to kill ponies anymore, unless they get in my way.” I put hoof to chin and thought about the logistics of that for a moment, to kill a pony that got in my way seemed like the most reasonable of decisions, given what I had gone through so far, in the time since I got free.

“Enough,” he said, glaring big hard daggers at me. What? What did I do? I could not understand where this irrational anger came from. If he was a soldier, then surely he would understand the position that I was in, as was he, and that we all had to make sacrifices for the cause that we fight for, or more accurately, think we fight for in my case. I pulled my one hoof off the ground that he had cut and said to him a few things that I had on my mind.

“You know, you’re a big scary soldier, and you’re motivating ethos seems to be that of someone that wants to protect ponies. I understand that. I really do. I think you should put down your spear and instead join a cause that is more suited to your physical gifts. You are quite large, and it must take a lot of strength to hold that big large spear of yours. Perhaps you could use that strength to build something impressive, something that will last throughout the ages when you and I are gone.” I stopped, feeling satisfied with myself.

“Are you coming onto me?” he said.

“What’s that mean?”

A big contingent of ponies gathered at the place where we were, scattering around the cell, coming out of nowhere as far as I can recall. They surrounded us, gathering around us. “Hello,” I said, waving my hoof in a circle to denote that I was in fact greeting them. I hoped that was clear to them.

“Come,” one of them said, unlocking the cell. “Come, you are going to court.”

“What’s a co- ourt?” I scratched my head. I booped his nose while I was at it, out the bars. Boop. 

The pony that had spoken to me, a yellow mare with sallow complexion, waved for some other ponies to come get me out of my cell. Was this an opportunity for escape? Unlikely, but seeing as I would probably die or something worse unless I got to an energy source, I was willing to risk it.

Some fat pony that I had no concern for unlocked the cell, and I just ducked and dodged between their hooves and ran out the corridor, up the stairs that had apparently lead down to the cell. I was stopped by blue pony that pointed his spear at me. “Let me out,” I yelled. “I demand to speak to your leader, the leader of ponies.”

“No,” he growled through gritted teeth. “You will be executed for what you have done.” Executed? It was about time that some of these ponies made good on their threats. 

I took a step back. “Okay,” I said with a big grin. “Try to execute me.” I closed my eyes. Nothing happened. I opened them. “C’mon, execute me.” The others made their way up the stairs. I could hear their hooves clattering from behind me. “Your methods of execution in Equestria are strange,” I said. I didn’t think he would actually be able to execute me. I had literally been hit by lightning a short time ago, though I wondered why he didn’t do anything. Why, he was just standing there. I felt a few more spears that were pointed at my neck. 

“Stop,” a big large stallion yelled into my ear, making me dizzy. 

I shoved the spear away. He stabbed me with it. “Ow, I wasn’t moving, you incompetent spears-man.” Artificial blood ran down my body and to the soles of my feet, well, hooves, my hoof-like protrusions. I found this most unacceptable. Suddenly, really suddenly, a sharp pain shot through my body like nothing I had ever felt. “Oh no,” I whined. I could feel my presence of mind slipping away. “You’re dunzo. Ouch. Aoooooooooooooooow. No. No.” And I was gone, again, in a disappointing, discombobulating, confusing turn of events. 





I awoke again from deep, sullen sleep. I was deeply damaged, from top to toe. I saw blood all-around my body, spread around my feet, and my torso, my barrel, and my head. I was dizzy. It could not be from blood loss, because I don’t need the blood, as far as I knew. What was happening to me, I could not tell. I was weak. I felt collapsed and I thought that I might die soon, unless something drastic happened to would allow me to live. Saving my own life would be difficult under the current circumstances

I moved a little bit. “Ouch.” It hurt really badly. I don’t remember feeling this way in battles before. I usually felt practically invincible. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do now. I felt used and abused by those guards like some toy. How could they stab me like that? They could at least have the courtesy of killing me rather than tormenting me like I was some child’s plaything. All of this bothered me a lot. I hasten to add now that I felt entitled to not getting harmed under any circumstances, lest anyone that did harm me should feel my wrath. Of course, this had been the case in the past, as the ponies or robots that did harm me usually would die pretty soon as a consequence, but now, the circumstances were different because I wasn’t in control. More on this later, I will expound, as I continue telling this strange story, which is as yet still unbelievable to me that it even happened.

I wanted to puke. I felt myself collapsing and imploding by the moment, as my tiny body apparently couldn’t take the pressure of the injuries and the lack of energy, and everything else only made it worse. It was too much for me to take in all at once. I was damaged and beyond repair even perhaps. It was so much to take in that it made me woozy-headed right now, even thinking about it. Some pony came walking in to the cell. “You’re awake.” Maybe I should go back to sleep, I thought.

“Come. You’re going to trial.” He unlocked the door to the cell. The roof exploded and fell over his head. I heard gunfire. Of course, this was a familiar sound, and I thought that mayhaps it was familiar company too. I ran out the cell to the best of my ability. It felt like I was being stabbed again and again for every new step I took. That was a painful feeling, but I had not felt the pain that was to come, and so, I over-reacted to the pain I was feeling right now. I felt so angry that I wanted to kill somepony. I reached the top of the stairs and ran out. Gunfire, magical cannons, and other knick-knacks of destruction ran ablaze across town. It was a typical little town filled with those silly little huts that ponies seemed all too fond of. A beam of magic flew past my face. I ducked down into the ground and rolled for cover. Some old pony came running to the place where I was hiding, which was the underside of a wagon.

I hissed at him. “I’m hiding here.” He ran off, which was quite comical to see. I didn’t even have a weapon. I guessed that it had to have been my voice, my terrifying voice that invoked terror in ponies just from hearing it. That was quaint. I liked being feared. Something pulled me out from beneath a wagon. It was some kind of hook.

“F-5226,” a voice yelled loudly from the periphery of my sight and hearing. It was that of A-0087, of course, the eighty-seventh model A unicorn fillybot which was one of the first of its kind.

I responded by swinging my body back and forth, swaying the hook left to right, and then finally, I fell down. I had more than a passing familiarity with that hook. It was my invention. It was a bad invention that shouldn’t be used by anyone. Why did they allow the raiders to bring with them defective hooks and silly weapons that would never work, rather than using what was already working, had proven to be effective, and would continue to work unless somerobot misused it to the knife’s edge of incompetence, difficult to misuse such as these inventions were, and had proven to be across time. It’s much easier to kill than to keep something alive. In my two or so years at the fortress, my entire lifespan, feeble as it was, this I had learned. 

I waltzed off, not even afraid that she would shoot me, as I was rather sure that they would want me alive to see what had gone wrong. Aldeus’ obsession with the iconography, symbols, and different expressions of “science,” as he called it, though I wasn’t sure he himself knew what the word meant, had taught me that at least he was obsessed with trying to tie up loose ends, and I empathized with this attitude of his, the attitude of our benevolent creator, who did not seem to have a deep understanding of what science is, nevertheless. A beam of light that ran past my face, almost touching it, and instead hitting the wagon that I had been hiding under, told me otherwise. The wagon pulverized in less than a second. It was great to see, to watch such destruction unfold. That was what I had lived for in years of change and tribulation before I escaped, although something else struck me. I knew of no weapon that could do such a thing other than one that I, in my brilliance, myself had created. 

I tried to look for the place where the beam was coming from, and sure enough, A-0087 was using my helmet. I wanted it back. My vision blurred and the pain I felt in my body got worse. This was not good. If it continued like this, I thought that I might lose consciousness again, and then I was really in for it, with the things I had done, my dastardly escape and all. It hit me that this probably was the reason why they were here, though I had just been wrong about another thing, so I was careful about finalizing that assertion in my head, and to make it anything more than a guess seemed a folly. Nevertheless, I wanted it back. I turned and ran overhead, dodging and weaving back and forth so as to avoid the knocks of magical power that landed all around me, making the ground loosen and fly up. I thought that this was a bad idea. I didn’t have a plan, and in immediate hindsight, as I was running toward A-0087 and her MEWOD, I regretted it a lot, that and many other decisions I had made in the short while before I got here. I should’ve escaped by the time the ponies found me on that field, when I had the chance, I thought, but alas, my mind and heart, fickle as they were, well, are, had other plans. They wanted me to, well, you know what I mean. I kept running and dodging and weaving, and making small rolls across the ground so as to avoid the gunfire. I felt like the blaster that I had built shot a thing that grazed me. I felt my skin evaporating. 

“No, you don’t.” I gritted my teeth over the place where it had hit and ripped the skin off, fur and all, to prevent it from spreading. It worked, as I knew it would. I just had to find the isolated area and eliminate the shockwave before it spread throughout the rest of my body. Now, all this happened in the fragment of a second, so don’t think that it was easy, or that my survival was a likely outcome, because I assure you, it was hardly. I kept running, reached the MEWOD, jumped up on it, and pulled the helmet off A-0087’s head.

“This is mine.” I ran off. I still can’t believe that that worked, even now. I scurried away in-between two buildings, out of sight and hopefully out of mind of all the ponies involved in this big scary battle that I was used to participating in, this kind, but wanted no part of, not now. I had to get away and quick because I felt barfy and sick, and I would probably die soon because my sight, hearing, senses of sound, taste and touch all were fading fast and I had no recourse other than to find a river, or even a small stream to alleviate this problem. I only needed it for a little bit in order to recharge. I was more energy-efficient than I apparently seem, or so a character that I hadn’t met yet would tell me. His name is, was, and has been Hookbeak, and he is the sovereign of the griffin world, as far as I understand it, though I still don’t know why griffins have considered him to be so important. His real name is Cornicus Beakon, but that’s a different story. 

I ran out of town and the sky roared. More lightning? No, it was something else. The sky was covered in clouds in these parts. The north always was, for some reason, but this wasn’t a cloud, nor was it a bolt of lightning. Something came out of the clouds. It looked like a giant blimp. It roared like the engines that provide power and generate electricity back at the fortress. It was quite literally an ear-deafening sound. It made my ears hurt and took my equilibrium away from me momentarily. The blimp-thing spun around. Okay, that definitely isn’t a blimp, was a conclusion I reached. Lines and threads of electric waste formed around the blimp-looking unidentified object. Literally, lightning formed around it. That was a crazy power-hungry proposition for me to think about. It was unbelievable and insane to the point of being comical a machine that large, bigger than the entire village by the looks of it, could generate so much electricity that you could see the waste-product gathering around it, as that would take an energy-source of unbelievable scope and magnitude. The electricity changed color and became red. The thought struck me that perhaps it wasn’t electricity, but rather, some kind of magic that I was looking at. That was surprising to me, if magic could do that. I thought that machines and technology, almost by definition, had to be far more powerful than magic seeing as they are prone and receptible to error-correction, and magic simply isn’t, seeing as magic is, has been, and will continue to be what it is, which is itself, in itself. 

I walked toward the spectacle with confusion, first confusion, and then curiosity, but that was followed by horror as I realized that the thing was heading straight toward me, well us, the entire village, all of us, all of the above, all of us were dying, I thought, but I was wrong. I wasn’t dying. Only they were, as the thing struck the village, literally colliding with it, and then taking recourse, going back up into to sky and disappearing. What in the world? The sound roared again. I tried plugging my ears with my hooves but to no avail. The sound was getting stronger and stronger, and stranger. It sounded like a song now, like a drumbeat. The blimp-looking whatever it was came out of the sky. It was heading straight for me. This was crazy. I ran for cover. I saw a forest off in the distance. I ran for it. The blimp-I don’t know was getting closer and closer. I saw leaves rustling, jumping, and moving around me. In a sudden twist in these strange turns of event, I was airborne flying way up into the air.

“Aah,” I screamed, as you might imagine. I flew up higher and higher and then the wind stopped and I fell down all of a suddenly, as suddenly as I had flown up. In this case, suddenly is a synonym for unexpected, readers. I hit the ground. I could feel something crack in my body, but I was still alive, and that was almost to my chagrin seeing as how much it hurt. It stung in my body. It felt like a thousand spears piercing me from all directions all at once, or at least so many that could fit into my body at once. A thousand spears is something of a poetic exaggeration, I suppose. The pain hurt and stung, weighing my body down and with it came an argument and an idea in my head to if I should give up, give in to the pain, pressure, and everything that transpired made it harder and harder for me to breathe and think, and that made me want to just lay down and not do anything, and perhaps die, but that wasn’t an option. I felt motivated somehow. I wanted to learn things, as of still, yet I wanted to. I wanted to learn things still yet. That was funny to me. It was unexpected, in a way, that I cared so much about staying alive, but I did. 

I took notice of the fact that I had landed right next to the forest. I ran in. I disappeared into the forest, hopefully also disappearing from the troubles that were chasing overhead, or behind, up above, something like that. I was fading fast. That much was clear, and disappearing, I was. I was dying. I mean, I don’t want to exaggerate, but what I felt really felt like death. It felt like my body was shutting off, and that’s literally what was happening too, so I’m not exaggerating. I was surrounded by trees. Had I ever been in a forest before? Everything was green. It was a strange proposition for me to be in such a place, I thought, because I didn’t know how to survive inside a forest. I saw a river. Oh, it was probably more like a small stream that divided into tinier ones and reunited again at the same logical end-point. I watched them flow. I came closer and collapsed into them. A thing came out of my hoof and into the stream. It was my recharger. It was saved. I was rather sure of that at least, but I had no idea what would happen next, and that’s something I will talk about later.
> Part 4: The Trouble with Killing Woodland Creatures
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was a cheery day in the woods in the past two days that I had been there, and I didn’t think it for better or worse, given the circumstances of my arrival. This has not gone as planned. I was lying on the ground, covered in various pieces of gook and moss, and a little bit of bark too, it seemed. I was stunned, but the nature around me was beautiful. Recharging had taken longer than I thought it would, but that’s all for the best, I thought, as moving produced waves of frankly unbelievable pain that made my vision blur and made it so that my whole body cramped together, and I couldn’t move, so I just lay there, lying down in the little stream of water that had slowly charged me up over the course of these last two fateful long days. 

It was crazy to me that I had come this far without being captured and executed by either ponies, robots, or whatever it was that controlled that big ship-blimp whatchamagoo. It was crazy to me that I had lain there for so long without being discovered, seeing as how likely it was that I would be discovered, what with the war going on and everything, and ponies running around, and robots, but this place was peaceful. I didn’t see a soul that ran anywhere around here. There wasn’t a person. There were only woodland critters. I had made it a habit that whenever I saw one, I would aim my helmet and fire. They died quickly. Killing woodland critters was fun and strangely satisfying. It was a weird experience to be sure, lying here, recharging, and killing woodland critters that I saw. They didn’t try to run or anything. They didn’t because they were stupid. Woodland critters were stupid, excruciatingly so. They were so easy to kill that I in fact derived very little satisfaction from doing it, but I kept on going. I continued. I only had to tilt my head a little bit from my sedentary position. They often surrounded me, wondering what I was, and perhaps they were plotting to eat me, though in hindsight, that was very probably one of the least likely answers as to why they were there. 

Now, I realize that killing woodland critters won’t make me popular at parties. It’s not exactly a good thing to do, from a traditional, ethical perspective, but I did, because that was my disposition at the time. I zapped, and I zapped, and I zapped, killing more, feeling a similar satisfaction to how I felt during raids, though it was less of a dopamine rush, and I felt that what I did didn’t require much effort, and so, it was neither special, nor impressive, in any way, shape, or form, especially form. The form of my actions was a simple tilt and nod of the head, followed by a slight bit of effort from my horn, and a-firing away at the critters. Also, another thing I realized in hindsight was that all this probably prolonged the time it took me, not only to recharge but to heal, seeing as killing woodland creatures requires effort, and I had a massive energy deficit that also made it hard for me to heal, in addition to causing me a lot of grief inasmuch as excruciating pain can cause grief, and inasmuch, I was full of grief, terrible grief. My body contorted and I felt like I was having a seizure whenever I moved. There were moments when, if I could have aimed the helmet at myself, my bizarre invention, I probably would, but I didn’t, because I couldn’t, and my story went on.

I felt like standing up and moving pretty soon. I had no idea what all this lying down was doing to my circuits, frying them or whatever. I felt like significant harm was coming to me, just from doing nothing. Lying without moving, after all, was frowned upon in my culture and the next for a reason. Not doing stuff is suicide. It makes you rot and come apart at the seams, searing your life into oblivion. At least, that’s what I had heard from my own sovereign, Aldeus. Coming to think about it, being away from him for some time had made me question a lot more things that I as yet hadn't done before I reached this place. What was this guy’s problem? He seemed like he was obsessed with doing something for no apparent reason. Why did he want to kill all the ponies? They had harmed him a thousand years ago? No pony was even alive a thousand years ago, except for him, Celestia, that Luna perhaps. I don’t know what she’s up to. What’s a Luna anyway? Latin for moon? That’s not a name, that’s a proper noun for an object in celestial space. The same goes for the name Celestia too, I thought, though not quite in the same way. The people that named these ponies sure had a funny sense of humor. 

In any case, living for a thousand years was something only alicorns, dragons, and ancient monsters did, like the Yethergnerjz, someone I had read about in some book somewhere, and Discord, the master of chaos, formerly, and now, the master of friendship, and hugs, and stuff like that. I was happy and contented with the idea that if the master of chaos and evil could reform, then anything was possible. I could find a life worth living in this miserable little forest that I currently inhabited. I could find bliss here. The mere idea of it was funny to me, and then there is the question of what to do in case one of these creatures actually showed up, which scared me a little bit, seeing as I wasn’t nearly powerful enough to handle them. I gawked a little bit at the idea. Such power was enough to take over a whole country, if one so pleased, unless there was someone or something of equal magnitude to defend that country, and that something was Aldeus in my case. In the case of ponies, it was Celestia, and maybe Luna too, though I wasn’t as sure about her. In the case of the griffins, though I did not know it yet, it was Cornicus Hookbeak Beakon, whose real name is Cornicus, funnily enough, even now, as yet, still as I think about it. 

I stood up and walked off, trying to catch my bearings in the terrible forsaken forest that was filled with easily killed woodland creatures and other things that confused and shook my mind to the point where I was dizzy, again. I didn’t like being dizzy. Being dizzy, I thought, sucks majorly, and a lot of things hinge on my not being dizzy at important moments when my life is at stake, I thought, and all the things that I care about rely on me not being dizzy to get them. Dizziness is an obstacle just like any other, and obstacles are to be overcome. It didn’t quite hurt as much as it had been earlier in the last two days, but it still stung and jerked in my body, and particularly my leg. I had developed a limp, which didn’t sit well with me, seeing as how I was used to doing flips across the ground and moving around quickly across fields, brooks, grass, between trees, and around ponies that I had settled would be my victims. Now, I walked with something of a stutter-step, limping forward across the rocky, hard-to-get-through terrain.

The layout of the forest’s innards changed, and the forest looked less and less like a bunch of trees, and more and more like a dark cave filled with black, creepy crawlies that I should be afraid of, if my sanity was still intact. Was it? I felt really dizzy. I looked down at my body. A piece of fur attached to skin was missing, and what was underneath was a metallic surface that can hardly be described as skin. I felt sick, almost home-sick, though I tried not admitting it to myself. I would never return to the cold metal fortress, that harbored some of my worst nightmares, and probably the worst nightmares of some ponies that I had never met and didn’t know about. The worst of the worst nightmares can be found inside the fortress, from the engine rooms, to factory, to delivery, to the mines where ponies were tortured to death, to the black pits of the Northern tower where no robot drew near, not even the closest trustees of Aldeus himself. It was all in all not a pretty thought, seeing as how all of this had unfolded for me and other robots that had been there, even ponies, all arrivals ultimately dead or scrapped eventually is how it looked to me. That was a terrible place, dreadful. 

I wanted to get back there a little bit. Someone could repair me. Then they would question me and kill me, most likely, so I shouldn’t do that, lest that is something I want. The word should is conditional upon a certain set of predetermined assumptions of course, and if you follow those assumptions to their terminus, then you get a should. That’s at least how it looked to me, and no doubt, I was strongly motivated to stay alive, so that should need no further explanation than my questioning the veracity and validity of certain courses of action, such that they didn’t lead me to my doom. I certainly hoped that was true now.

I got to a clearing. The trees now looked kaleidoscopic. They were full of colors. I spun and spun, looking around me, taking it all in. My leg cracked and I collapsed onto the ground. It hurt more than death, in a way that made me want to choose the latter option, if it was open to me. I saw tall bark rise up around me, knots of big branches that arose and conjoined, making a compact roof above me. Tiny white lights flew around the trees. I didn’t know what those were. That annoyed me, but not as much as the pain that made me want to die on the spot. It hurt so much that I began hyperventilating involuntarily, and with every big breath I took, I could feel consciousness abandoning me momentarily, but it was all as involuntary as you might imagine. I didn’t choose for things to go like this at all, and if I did, I wasn’t aware that anyone could choose such pain, their entire volition in hand, hoof, or other appendage. It was all ghastly as can be, and maybe, it was the fate I deserved given my actions in the past, but I paused and thought that I should try to stand up and stay alive a little longer. 

My vision returned to me, and I explored the place with my eyes a little further. It still hurt a lot, but it was better now somehow. I thought that adrenaline might have hit, something that robots and ponies have in common. Upon further inspection, the trees had many tiny boxes hanging down from them in ropes, a one, and a two, and a three, and maybe more than a dozen, the more I counted. The trees had leaves in every shade of green, from black to almost plain white in nuance, and that was pretty, but it was hard to look at undistractedly, as I felt the pain coming back more and more. On a strange whim, and I still can’t quite explain it, I shot my laser at the rope to one of the boxes. It fell down from many meters up in the air and hit the ground with a loud kadoosh. The front of the box swung open and inside was a little filly. I saw that the frying, fizzling electricity of my gun spread down the rope, and soon, it would reach the box, pulverizing it.

“Get out of there,” I said, jumping in and tossing the little filly out. The electrical charge reached the box. I jumped out myself in the final nick of time, and the box vanished into dust. “I still have to figure out how that thing works,” I mumbled.

“You,” she said. That was a big uh-oh.

I turned around, preparing to tie her down, so she wouldn’t call for help. Apparently, she recognized me. It’s a small world, that of ponies and robots, and I was in the middle of it. As I turned around to face her, something came over me, and I ran around the box and hid behind it. Wait, what was I doing? Did I recognize her? I peeked out from a corner at the edge of where I stood, at the edge of the box, and I saw guilt, or more accurately, I probably felt guilt or displayed it within me. I was as terrified as I had ever been in my entire life. It was Jelly, the little filly whose parents I had carelessly murdered as part of my normal routine at the fortress. I didn’t want to look at her. I didn’t like those eyes, so invoking of sympathy and passionate emotion, positive and negative, and otherwise. Children were strange, the way they made ponies react. I had recently been a victim of it myself, and now, I was the one doing the reacting in this particular situation. I peeked out a little further.

“Sorry,” I said. What I said was probably at most an expression of empathy, not something that even approaches genuine guilt, but I did feel sorry in the eye-blink of a moment. Then I stepped out. This was ridiculous. This was emotional manipulation. I saw her run off. I realized that I was wearing my helmet, and that she had seen this helmet before, as had other victims of my murderous rampage. I kept on empathizing with her, to the point where I wanted to shout for her to come back and help her. After all, there were no parents to protect her, and more pressingly, to pose a threat against me. What I wanted most of all was for this strange situation to stop. 

I yelled into the distance, “Please, come back. I can help you, I think.” I pondered and pontificated upon whether I could really help her, or if staying with me would be likely to cause her harm, in the same way that I had inadvertently and advertently caused harm to almost every pony’s and robot’s life that I had come into contact with. She turned around and came back.

“That’s good,” I said out loud, not to her, and not to myself either, just into thin air. “I can show you a place to sleep.” That was a lie. I was lost, and it was possible and maybe even likely that I was more lost than this filly, who perhaps did know where she was, and where she was going. I didn’t. I hadn’t in a long time. That was a sad, fat, stupid fact, and it only made the entire situation all the more difficult to handle that she in fact did turn around and come back to me, something that I somehow didn’t expect her to do, but she did. She came straight at me and embraced me. That was scary. I had never been embraced by anything in my entire life, by that point, and I didn’t know quite how to react.

I said, “Could you pull off the helmet and then hug me? That thing’s dangerous. It has the capacity to kill things.”

“I don’t wanna,” she said, hugging me further. Why was she hugging me? Didn’t she know? Surely, she did.

“Well, someone has to,” I said, feeling woozy-headed again. I collapsed on the ground in a jerk, losing my motor function in a time when I needed it most. “I have some trouble walking, and staying alive, actually,” I said, breathing shallowly. 

“I can help you,” she said. What kind of trickery is this, I thought. She was a child, and well, I was also a child, but she was like a real child. I tried to stand up. Something inside my leg seemed to snap, some wire or something, and I collapsed again. 

“Ow, ow, ow,” I whimpered.

She snickered. “You’re the one that needs help.”

“No, I don’t. Help is for the weak.” I began breathing heavily. “Oh, black emptiness in the sky. The darkness within me. Protect me from this demon-spawn child that is trying to corrupt my ways and make me weak.” It was a short poem that I had learned at the fortress, one of many, though reciting it did not produce the desired result.

“You’re funny,” she said.

“I killed your parents.” She let go of the hug. “I’m not happy about it. I was controlled by a black pony with red eyes, those of the leader of my tribe, Aldeus. He controls everyrobot and pony without any regard for their freedom or free will or anything like that. That’s true, actually. What I said before wasn’t true. I have no idea where I am, and I don’t know of a place to sleep.” I thought about it. “Maybe I did do it out of my free will, but I regret it, I’m pretty sure. I’m ninety percent sure that I regret it.”

“Come with me,” she said, turning around and running into the forest. Well, okay. I ran after her. My leg cracked again and I collapsed on the ground in another fit of excruciating, most excruciating agony. 

I tried to raise my voice, but I could barely make a sound. It was like my voice and my body had shut off. “Please don’t leave me here,” I half-whispered. “I’m sorry.” I tried to stand up. I collapsed again. It hurt even more. I lost my breath again, and I began breathing in and out rapidly. I saw the filly out of nowhere towering over me. “Help,” I wheezed, and blood seemed to be exiting my mouth. That was strange. 

“You should’ve thought about that before you killed my parents,” she said. She kicked my leg. I gave out a shriek. 

“No. No-no-no-no-no-no-no. No. No. Ow.” I whimpered like a sad dog that had lost its bone, or someone dying, perhaps more accurately. It hurt so much that it felt like death itself, because it was death. I literally felt like I couldn’t breathe, no matter how much hard I tried, and I tried really hard. I took many deep breaths, but for every breath I took, more and more air seemed to be leaving my body and my lungs. It felt harder to breathe than it had felt running from A-0087 when that lightning bolt had fortuitously struck. I wanted to plead for my life, but decided not to, lest I should forfeit what little was left of my fragile dignity. I felt like death, and in that moment, I hoped that death was coming to me, again. It was a feeling that had come and gone in the last few days, but at no point had it been stronger than in this very moment. 

I felt sorry. I really did, in a way, but it wasn’t easy to explain. I didn’t even know her parents. For all I knew, they might’ve done something that warranted my killing them. Aldeus, well, Celestia, I don’t know, someone knows that ponies do some terrible things now and again, as does everyone everywhere in existence, and the crimes of ponies had been spoken about in my ear, almost to the point of exhaustion, and I had begun believing a lot of what I was hearing, and I knew for a fact that everyone harms one another now and again. It’s part of life. It’s important to harm one another to establish dominance and form a proper social hierarchy, such as that of any state or country. I fell unconscious, again, for the umpteenth time.





I woke up in a different place than I had been when I fell unconscious. Some old white ponies surrounded me. No, they were black, I decided, as my vision came back to me. No, they were white as well as black, all of them. These were a strange bunch of ponies, all copy-catting one another, each trying to look like the other. I had never seen such a thing. “Where is your leader?” I said, and I almost stood up, but then I hesitated and didn’t.

One of them, an older one, said, “Sit. Relax. Everything, we will explain. You need calm. We could see it on your body. You were almost dead from suffocation when we found you.”

“Who found me?” I said, quizzically looking about myself for the pony in question.

The pony quietly snickered to herself. “No one. It was a wood sprite. Didn’t you see them? They were trying to protect you.”

“Why would they?” I asked, point-blank, in a straightforward manner. 

“They can see into the future. They wanted you for a purpose.”

I rolled my eyes. “I think we haven’t met.” I did a little circle-wave to show that I was greeting them, again. “Hello, I am F-5226. I am a robot. I was created to kill ponies, such as yourself. I am not–”

“Zebra.”

“What?”

“You were created to kill zebras, such as myself. Now, continue.”

“Right, so…” I could feel my voice deflating. She knew who I was. What I was? Then why hadn’t she killed me already, or taken me to co- ourt to trial me? Why was she talking to me? Why were we having this conversation? I had no idea. “Can I get some running water?”

“You want water?”

“I need running water. Water in motion, that is, to live. Without it, I will die eventually. It’s a strange thing, maybe to you, but it’s true. I need a lot of running water.”

“There is a river, not all that far from here,” the zebra murmured peacefully, as if she was talking to herself.

“Right. Take me to that river,” I told her, as if I was ordering her around. 

The zebra sighed. “Is it important that we do this now?”

“No,” I said. “I simply want to do it. I have compulsions, but I could probably survive for another day or so, given my current power-level, and the rest I have helps.” I thought if maybe I shouldn’t have lied there to get my way, but what’s done is done. To know that my power was ticking down, without me knowing what exactly to do about it, wasn’t nice. It was pretty scary, as, if I lost all that power without reaching a power source, which again, can only be a generator or a place where water moves, I was toast, and not the kind that ponies or zebras like to eat, but the kind that’s final and ultimate and ending.

“Then, I think you and I should speak to one another, zebra to robot,” the zebra said, almost in a whisper. 

I held up my hooves into the air. “What do you want? I don’t want no trouble. I just want to get away from here, and actually, now that I think about it, I want to get as far away from here as physically possible, preferably to the other end of the globe. If you can show me what and where that is, then I’m sure that I could show some reciprocity in kind and help you with something.”

“That is far away, little one,” she whispered.

I nodded to myself. “Well, that’s kind of the idea. I want to get as far away as possible.”

“Sit down,” she said.

“I am sitting down.”

“Relax.” 

“I am relaxed.” I stopped at that. Wait, no I wasn’t. Well, if there was a time for relaxing, it wasn’t now.

“We know that you are not relaxed, little one,” she said, laughing.

“What do you want from me? I don’t have no money,” I said, again, almost pleading.

“We want you to apologize to this little girl right here,” she said, motioning to the place beside her where I hadn’t yet looked. There sat Jelly.

“Holy moly!” I fell off the shoddily carved tree trunk at which I had been sitting, a makeshift chair. “No, this wasn’t supposed to happen. No.”

“Just apologize, little one. We have time,” the zebra said with a big smile.

“I’m sorry, okay? I apologized before.”

“Apologize like you mean it,” she said, with a small edge to her voice. That made me tense up. I was being coerced into apologizing. This certainly wasn’t right.

“Do I have to apologize?” I said. The zebra simply stood up and left. I stood up too. I collapsed. “Ouch. Help.”

“Do you even understand what you’ve done?” Jelly said, with furrowed brows. 

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I was confused. I tried to do what A-0087 told me. I didn’t know that any of this would happen. I know it’s not fun to lose your parents, except if his name is Aldeus. He is losable, but I don’t want other ponies to lose things necessarily. I just want to live my life alone. Is that too much to ask for?”

“Yes,” Jelly said, grimacing to herself. “Yes, yes, and yes. A lot of yes. Very much yes, it’s too much to ask for.”

“Really?”

“You can’t only live for yourself and not think of other ponies, or robots or whatever. That’s what started this whole mess in the first place.”

“Started?”

Jelly stood up and left too. 

“Wait,” I said. “I want to change. Just show me how.”

“Shut up. Do you take anything I say seriously?” Jelly said, now stood up. 

“I do take it seriously,” I said, confused at her comment. “Tell me what to do.” 

“Well, you can start by apologizing?”

“What if I don’t feel sorry?” I said, nodding my head agreeingly to the spirit of her comment, for I knew that an apology can go a long way, but I wasn’t sure that I could muster one right now.

“Well, then, that’s a problem then, isn’t it?” she said, now with tears in her eyes.

“A problem. A problem.” I thought about that.

“Oh, forget it.” She walked away. I really did feel sorry, but I felt more sorry for me than I did for her, and I guess that was the problem that she was referring to. I desperately tried to stand up again, but couldn’t. It was completely hopeless. I did not know what to do, other than to sit there and tap the wood beside me. Tap. Tap. Tap. She came back.

“I should kill you right now.”

I looked at her, frowning. “Don’t. I don’t want to die.”

“What do you think my parents felt?”

“A similar feeling, I have no doubt,” I sputtered, trying to make my own words inaudible. 

“Can you have some Celestia-forsaken empathy?” the filly said. I thought about that. No, wait, I really felt that. I felt it so much that it began hurting.

“Empathy is a funny word,” I said.

She yelled back at me from her place beside the wooden bench, “Why?”

I was shocked. “Why? Do I really have to explain it? Empathy is all about other ponies. It makes me care about things that I really don’t care about.”

“You’re unbelievable to me,” the filly said.

“I’m sorry,” I said, again. “You should meet some of the other robots at the fortress. I will begin to seem nice as compared to some of them.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” she said, and walked away.

I jumped out of my seat and then collapsed again, for a third time forgetting myself. “Wait. Wait. What did you just say?”

“I said I don’t want to hear it. What’s hard to understand about that?” She was teary-eyed. I felt for her, strangely.

“I remember saying those words a short while ago, to somepony. I told him that I didn’t want to hear it after he had completely wrecked and ruined my life, short as it has been. I admit, I probably haven’t lived for as long as you have.”

She wiped some tears off her face. “Do you feel some empathy then?”

“Yes, all the time. That’s what made me want to help you before, even though I was quite incapable of doing so. You didn’t know I had killed your parents?”

She shook her head.

“Well, I guess you were hidden behind that rock, and you couldn’t see what was happening. Well, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for causing you harm, in the same way that the big black monster that controlled me has caused a lot of harm for many years to many ponies, including myself. Yeah, I guess I’m sorry. I’ve felt sorry for myself a lot lately, and that hasn’t worked out all that well for me. Well, maybe I should try a little more of that empathy stuff as it applies to other ponies and not just oneself, so yes, I’m sorry, a little bit, just a little, but not by much. I’m mostly concerned about how I should get out of here.”

“Good enough,” she said, hugging me, and walked way. What was that? Was she really just desperate for me to apologize so she could forgive me so she didn’t have to think about it no more? That seemed weak, really weak actually, but whatever, I had successfully apologized to her, and that’s all that mattered to me right now. I didn’t want to think about what to do next. I wanted to take a few breaths and relax, and instead think about what had happened to me in the past few days or however long it had been. Something swung in under my hooves and picked me up from behind. I was sitting on the back of the zebra that had spoken to me a short while ago.

“You know I don’t eat, right?”

The zebra sniffed. “I was not about to waste a sliver of food on your round little body, my little miscreant.”

That made me mightily confused. “But you do know I don’t eat, right? And I’m not fat. I’m very standard-sized. I was made that way.”

“The crimes you have committed warrant a few days of fasting, both when it comes to food, little one.” She paused. “And water.” I froze up, my mind going blank.

“But you do know I don’t eat, right?” She put me down. Beside her was a burning cauldron, whose contents were as yet mysterious to me. I wondered what was inside. I wanted to know, in the same way that I wanted to know what a zebra was, where I had been taken, and what was going to happen to me. I had generic questions about what was going on in that particular little situation. I paused for a moment before I said, “What are you doing with that cauldron, zebra?” I thought that her name was zebra. I was soon corrected.

“My name is Allyseyev, little one. We all zebras have different names. We have been expecting you.”

I bounced off her back a little, feeling giddy to talk. “Us robots too. My name is F-5226.”

“That is not a name,” Allyseyev said in a curt, and I thought, rather unfair rebuttal to an honest attempt at conversing with her openly.

So I said, “Whatchabeing so rude for?”

“It’s not a name.”

I shrugged. “Whatever.”

She plopped me down on the floor. “You are exceedingly difficult to like, little one.” I did not know how to respond to that. She picked me up by the fur on my neck. It didn’t hurt at all. It felt like something like that should hurt. She put me down in the cauldron.

“Blub-blub-blub-blub. Blub-blub-blub-blub.” I probably sounded something around there’s. “Blub. Blub.” I sank down, to my death, being eaten, or so I thought. I ascended to the top of the cauldron, having just touched the bottom. “Hey, it’s not hot at all. Magic?”

“Yes, magic,” the zebra said. The picked me out of the cauldron, again, by the skin of my neck, and put me down on the floor. “You are most welcome, little one,” she said, walking away.

“Wait a minute. I can’t move,” I said, running after her. Wait. I could move. It was a miracle. I was healed. Even my fur was healed. What was going on here? “Oh my. How did you do that?” I practically yelled it into her ear. She turned toward me.

“Please don’t yell like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you are right now.” We each responded to one another within a split second, showing our speed of thought and our wits, both matching up in unison with one another.

I took my volume down an octave. “I’m sorry. It’s just, all of this is very strange to me. It’s beyond anything I have known.”

“I know,” Allyseyev said in a blunt manner.

“How do you know?” I said, keeping a steady pace beside her. “Are you a mind-reader? Have you been spying on me? Who are you exactly?”

Allyseyev held up and stopped walking. “You spoke about executing ponies where you come from.”

“Oh, everyone gets executed eventually for some reason, it feels like,” I said, really, really, quickly.

“I can see why, little one.” A smoke cloud appeared around the zebra. It gathered. It vanished. It cleared. It was gone. She was gone. Where did she go? I could not tell. I literally had no idea. I wanted to call for someone to help me look for me. I had never felt so free before to think the way I want to think and be the way I want to be, and so, I lashed out, and I guessed I overdid it in the current social context that I was trying to act and interact in. I wanted to tell her I was sorry, heart to Al- Celestia, or whoever my deity would be now that I had abandoned Aldeus. What’s a zebra, anyway?

I looked around me. The place was filled with big, green leaves that were literally larger than me. That was crazy to me, the mere idea that a leaf could be so large, but they were, and I watched them swivel in the wind, moving back and forth, dancing in rhythm with the air. I had never noticed how nice leaves looked before, how nice they could be. Yes, I had always seen beauty, but most of the kind, it had been the kind of beauty that is associated with death, darkness, and the apocalypse. Black storms and explosions of red fire used to be central, both of them, to my conception of beauty, but no more. Now, I saw beauty everywhere, in everything, it seemed. Jelly jumped out from out of a bush, literally less than a meter away from me.

“Did you see me coming?”

“No,” I said, confused at her strange pattern of action.

“I can’t believe that she healed you.”

“Jelly?” I said, smiling.

She said, “Yes?” 

“Are you jelly?” I reiterated. 

“Pfft, I’ve heard that one a million times. That’s a stupid joke.” She slapped me on the back, in a gesture that I interpreted as playful.

“Okay,” I said. “I shall remember that.”

“Do.” She walked away. I waved at her. She had just turned around when she saw me wave. “The way you wave is stupid,” she said. 

“It’s the way ponies do it,” I retorted, quickly.

“No, it’s not. It looks like you’re scrubbing a wall, or- or baking a pie.”

“What’s a pie? What does scrubbing the wall have to do with any of this?”

“Oh, please. Stop playing dumb. You know what I’m talking about.”

I nodded slowly. “Well, I hope I do. I don’t want to embarrass myself further. I apparently know very little about pony customs.”

“Just watch yourself,” she said, bumping my head with her front hoof. “There are terrible creatures out there that want to kill you, both of us. Don’t be too concerned about waving.”

“There are creatures that want to kill both of us?” There seemed to be a contradiction somewhere in there, though I couldn’t quite tell. Ah-hah! 

“Kill both of us? No, that’s silly. Only thing that robots want to kill are ponies and the same with robots, except the other way around. That is to say, ponies want to kill robots. Maybe there’s some–”

She looked very concerned all of a sudden. “You have no idea what’s going on, do you?”

“The only thing I know is that you’re wrong.”

She shook her head with a sad expression. “I’m not, but let’s not talk about that right now.”

“Let’s,” I said, almost yelling.

“No.”

“Yes.”

She jumped back into the bush and disappeared. What was she doing inside that bush? I thought about following her, but thought better of it after a moment. I had better things to do. I had to find that river that Allyseyev had been talking about, not all that long ago. The question was where it could be, and why hadn’t Allyseyev told me again? Oh, yes. She wanted me to fast, and possibly die. Pony, sorry, zebra customs are extremely strange. That’s what I thought to myself as I looked around. There were many houses here and they all stood in a single long row right next to each other. They were solidly built, unlike many of the pony-pieces of infrastructure that I had seen in my days travelling Equestria, but really, travelling away to a specific location to kill ponies, and then back to the fortress again. The thought of killing Jelly felt iffy in a way that it hadn’t done before I arrived to that village where I was captured and imprisoned, again, not too long ago. It felt like she wasn’t an animal or an insect, and more like she was a friend now, though I could understand it if she didn’t view it that way, given everything that had happened, and such.

I stood up, discovering that I had been sitting down, thinking about these things. I didn’t remember being this scatter-brained when I was at the fortress, but maybe that’s a false memory, or maybe there’s something in the water, I thought to myself. Well, of course. Whom else?

That annoying zebra that had insulted me a short while ago reappeared. She came from out of the house that we had walked out of before we got separated. “Hello, little one,” she said, smiling.

“Am I really hard to like?” I said, annoyed, remembering what she had said.

The zebra whose real name apparently was Allyseyev, – I was still unclear on what to call her – she said, “Don’t think about that too much. I get tired and annoyed unless I have had my evening tea, in the same way you do unless you have had your water, little one.” This was getting ridiculous. Wait. She was joking, right? I got it. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me. I laughed. “There you go,” she said to me, patting me on the head some more. I quite liked that, getting patted on the head. It felt nice.

“Can you do that again?” I said, inquisitively and directly, without hesitation.

“What?”

I stretched out my head. “Can you please pat me on the head again?” She patted me on the head some more. I felt like we were building rapport. I was getting chum with her. Is that the right way of saying it? I thought that maybe I was being hasty and over-assuming the extent of the relationship that I had built with this Allyseyev whose name was also that of zebra, apparently. I felt dizzy. I wanted to sit down. It was not the same kind of dizziness as before. It was not the life flashing in front of one’s eyes. It was a tranquil dizziness, one that felt good. I planted my bum on the ground. Why was this zebra helping me? Why was she so nice to me? What had I done? I had done nothing to deserve this. It felt bad in my stomach. Was that a stomach-ache? No, I believe it was my conscience. I was surprised I had one. Well, what to do with that feeling? It’s probably best to suppress it, I thought. It could make me irrational in a life and death situation where I really need to be rational, and that’s no good.

The importance of logic, and being logical, and being true was something that was reiterated seven different ways every day, literally. The leaders of each department were assigned to find seven different unique ways of reminding us of the importance of cold, hard logic every day, and science, the kind that’s real and concrete, based on experimentation, and overall, that kind of thing was extremely time-consuming, so I suppressed the feelings without thinking twice about it, trying quickly to think about something that wasn’t those feelings, lest I should be captured by them, the feelings wrung up inside me, holding me, controlling me, and what to do then? That wouldn’t be good. I was sure of it, so I suppressed them. Those were powerful feelings that I suppressed. I didn’t realize quite what suppressing something means yet at that point, but that’s for a later conversation with the dear reader that has followed as far as here in the story, with whom I have shared many troubling secrets about what happened and the way in which I reacted and behaved in the hours before and after I had arrived at Terran, which was the name of the village I was in, Terran. It was a village of- oh, I’d better just tell the story.





I sat at a campfire. It had been a few hours. I held a card with my mouth. I put it down. “Go fish,” I said.

Allyseyev called to me from the other side of the fire. “What are we doing, little one?”

“Playing cards. What else? It should be obvious, given that–”

“Yes, but why are you all the way over there?”

“I like being alone,” I said, with a little shrug, not making much of her comment. 

“Ah, I see,” she said, nodding with a wry smile. “But I also see that you are alone. Do all robots play cards with themselves around campfires on dark, beautiful nights such as this one, little one?”

“No, but I don’t think most robots have even seen a campfire, so that’s not in evidence,” I said, laying down a card on the hard bark seat beside me, which was carved to be flat, so as to make a comfortable seat for sapients such as ourselves. “Go fish.”

The zebra whose name was Allyseyev moved closer to me, sneaking around the campsite, which was only a few throws away from the village buildings. “I want to see. What game are we playing?” 

“I’m playing.” I emphasized the “I’m” in “I’m playing.” “You weren’t invited.” 

“I see. Well, but then it will not bother you if I just sit here and watch, as I have already for many minutes, even before you knew I was here.”

I put down a card on the hard tree paving. “You were spying on me?” I picked up another card and put it down. “Go fish.” 

“You know, usually cards is something you play with other ponies, or even zebras for that matter,” she whispered, calmly into my ear.

“Okay, we play,” I said, gathering the cards together clumsily with my hooves. I lifted a few that fell on the ground with my magic.

Allyseyev tilted her head in a little maneuver that made her look confused. “You are having trouble with magic, little one?”

“Oh, I just don’t have the fine motor control yet that some unicorns possess. I am only two years old, you know.” I pointed at a card with a two on it. It was a spade.

“Yes, you have reminded me of that, but what does fine motor control mean? Is it not just that there are things you do not yet know, which you have yet to learn, and if you took the effort, you could learn them, just like how you learned to play cards?” She screwed her lips together, closing her mouth in a little grimace, to show that she was keeping quiet for now.

I didn’t know how to respond. That’s one way of putting it, I supposed. Did she mean to say that I had mental blocks, and if I only got past them, I would learn everything I needed to know to survive, or something along those lines? But I knew for a fact, at least I thought I knew, that unicorns spent years mastering their magic. Is there some kind of shortcut of which I wasn’t aware? 

“What are we playing, little one?”

“Go fish,” I said. It’s always go fish for me, I thought. I liked to think of myself as one of the cards, going fish inside the lake, and the cards were the lake, and I was inside the lake. I was a card and a fish, and I was the thing that went fish, and what going fish means could depend upon my mood, but going fish was something I loved doing. “Have you ever played go fish before?” I asked, a little impatient. 

“No, but I know a much better game.” 

“Than go fish? One you haven’t even played?” I said, smiling at her with a big grin, wondering what she was going to say next.

“Yes, I know of one that is far better than any game you have ever played.” She winked at me. The cards became airborne. They flew up into the air and sorted themselves into columns of seven cards each. I was aghast at the spectacle, seeing as I thought that it wasn’t even possible for someone or something without a horn to do such a thing.

I followed the cards with my eyes. Each one was placed in perfect symmetrical relation to the next one, and they were ordered really nicely into these big columns, as I said, seven cards each. I touched one of them and it spun around in the air. 

“Wow, what’s going on here?” I said, all confused.

She laughed and giggled a little. “What’s going on,” she said, “is that we are going to look into your future.” 

“Using cards?” I was skeptical about the whole situation. I did not know what to say, or what to think for that matter. Cards are meant for silly games, I thought, not for clairvoyance or other such trickery. 

“Come on,” the zebra-person, Allyseyev said. “It will be fun, little one.”

“Fun? Well, okay. I suppose that when you put it that way, it will be exceedingly difficult to refuse such an offer. I like fun, and I like having fun with other ponies, no, robots, sorry, that are also having fun, well, maybe ponies to, or zebraks or whatever.” 

“Zebra.” She picked up a card with the paw of her hoof and put it down in front of me. “Do you know of this one?” she said.

“Yes, that is a number ten spade,” I said, nodding my head at that. It sure was. I would know that card anywhere.

“Ah, but when you look closer, what do you see?”

I thought about it, pounding my hoof on my chin as I always did when I thought about things. “Letters, numbers, and icons that are supposed to symbolize the concept of a card, as I look at it. I can identify the card as a card, again, as I look at it.” I felt happy with my explanation. This was no doubt true, but the zebra whose namesake proper was Allyseyev seemed to have something else on her mind.

“I see, but what do you see now?” The card pulverized into nothing, smoke and ash gathering around its remnants.

“A zebrak that owes me a new spade number ten,” I said, glaring at her.

“Zebra.”

“No, zebrak. You’re a zebrak forev–”

“Listen to me,” she said, earnestly.

“You’re a zebrak forever now, in my eyes, given the shamelessness of your current behavior,” I said, also earnestly.

The sparks and atoms of my burned card formed into a new card that was identical to the one that had just been burned up. “Is this the same card?” she asked, quizzically, inquisitively, as I had before her in a different scenario.

This reminded me of one of the tests back at the facility. I said, “No, it is a new card, made from the parts which constituted the old card.” I hoped that I was clearing whichever challenge she was putting to me. It was important for me to do so, because if I didn’t I would be punished, or I might be punished, or so my twisted mind thunk at this time. I pondered further about whether I had made the right decision. If I hadn’t, then I might be put into cement and spun around, or I figured that I might really have to fast. I needed to recharge eventually. The question was when the right opportunity would arise, not whether it would, and that’s what concerned me the most. It was not a matter of whether, and when I came to think about it, it was not even a matter of when. It was a necessity in my life, one of the biggest ones. It was something that I needed, and I had to get it soon, or else I would die, or so I thought. The last times I ran out of energy, I just fell unconscious multiple times, so I’m not exactly sure what to make of all this, I thought to myself, as I was the thinker of my thoughts. 

“I know what you’re thinking,” Allyseyev said.

That was a strange proposition. I had never been involved in a mind-reading exercise b…

“Wait, what? What are you talking about, you blabbermouth?” I said, all nervous all of a sudden, as I thought that what she said might be true, and that annoyed me greatly, infinitely. It annoyed me a lot more than having a broken leg kicked by a filly who had lost her parents, that is to say, Jelly. I yelled, “What? That can’t be true. You’re lying.”

“You do regret doing it. I knew you did,” she said, morosely. This was ridiculous. I would not stand for this. No-no, I would not.

“What you are currently doing is impossible,” I said with apparent anger in my voice.

She shook her head, doing a fake pout. “Nothing is impossible when you believe.” She was grimacing playfully.

“No, it’s not. You’re a witch.” I said this to her accusingly, because I believed it was true.

She nodded. “Yes, I am a witch. I have been a witch for many years. How do you think I cured you?”

“Witch,” I said, running away into the forest. Her ability to read thoughts scared me greatly. Actually, it really, really scared me, seeing as how reading thoughts meant that my privacy, my long lines of text that existed inside my head, all the codes and icons, could be invaded, penetrated, and mined for information about all sorts of things. Did she know what a terrible person I was, or should be considered, in her eyes? Did she really, really know? I mean, suffice to say I didn’t think that I deserved all the scorn I had gotten, since I had been controlled against my will. Could she read that too? Could she read my heart? I was getting dizzy again. I needed to sit down. I came out of the forest and sat down on the tree-trunk. She was as yet there, patiently waiting for me, it seemed. 

“What do you want from me?” I said to her with anger and much, much trepidation in my voice. “What have I done? I know that I haven’t been the nicest, by pony standards, but you should see how some of the people in the place that I come from behave. Then, you would get to see real ethical misbehavior. We have torture chambers where I come from, you know.” 

She nodded. “I suppose I do know.”

“Yes,” I said, manic. “And, and, we also have fire and destruction. We have lots of terrible things. Oh, please just don’t throw me in cement. I’ve been good since I arrived here. Well, at least since I arrived in this village. I killed a squirrel before I got here, or two. I kind of lost count.”

“Hm,” she made the sound with her mouth, nodding to herself. “If you really had to think about it, little one, how many did you kill?”

“I don’t know. Probably a hundred.” I scratched my head, trying to figure out exactly how many I’d killed. It hardly mattered. A hundred or a thousand woodland critters wouldn’t make a difference to anyone that wasn’t involved in the killing of those critters, and that’s all that mattered to me, really, and in point of fact, all that really could matter to a person that had been fond of killing woodland creatures, but not fond of talking about it, or involving other ponies for that very matter. What mattered is that I thought what I had done was fun, really fun, fun for me, and that’s the kind of fun that I liked, but Allyseyev disagreed.

“I think we should talk about that, you and I,” she said. “The killing of innocent creatures, big and small, has and always will be wrong, I think. What do you think, little one?”

“I don’t know. I just like killing things,” I said, flapping my arms together in a self-conceited gesture, thinking nothing better of her comment or the wider context than to flap and think of other things that I might want to kill, non-ponies mind you, no sapients. 

She shook her head. “No. No, little foal. Hurting other ponies, even animals, is hurting yourself.” Well, I didn’t feel a lot of pain as I was killing those creatures, and as such, I had a really hard time accepting what she was saying. If she was right, then how had I derived such pleasure from doing that not all that long ago, as short a time ago as a few days ago, and all of this made me question what she was saying even further. The mere idea that I would have to suffer on account of the death of another creature made me laugh, and so, I laughed.

The zebra whose real name apparently was that of Allyseyev grimaced. “Why laugh?” she said. “Is it not true that hurting Jelly’s parents hurt you?”

“Yes, I guess, but in a different sense.” I waggled my hoof in her face to show that I was upset at the current predicament. She grabbed my hoof and lowered it.

“It got you in trouble. It got your arrested, and almost killed, didn’t it?” She shrugged, as if to show that she herself was unsure about the entire thing. I was mightily confused about the whole situation.

“Witch,” I said. I looked around me and saw a pot of water. I threw it at her. “Witch.”

“Yes, I am a witch, little one, as I have already admitted.” She looked askance at me with a wry expression on her face. Holy guacamole. What had I gotten myself into? Holy one of holies. I wanted to slam my head against the bench beside me for enduring this conversation rather than walk away. Who did she think she was, anyway? Lecturing me? I could be lecturing her about stuff, I could. This whole thing had gotten a lot out of hoof. It had gotten way, far and away, out of hoof, and now, I needed to do something. I needed to say something to her, to make her understand, that she was making a mistake. She did not know what she was talking about. No. No, actually, I needed to leave. I needed to get away from here right now. I felt strangely barfy. Well, I felt something like that, not that I had ever barfed before. I couldn’t. Anyway!

“I’ve had a jolly good time talking to you.” I reached out my hoof to shake hers. That was probably a bad idea. She grabbed it and I disappeared into the card pile. I gasped for air. Cards were in my mouth. I can’t explain it, but that’s what happened. I coughed a dry cough, spitting out cards. This was ridiculous. I was going fish, for real, but not in the way I would’ve liked. I grew and then I stood on top of the bench, on top of the cards. “What were you trying to teach me with that?”

“Respect,” she said.

“I see,” I said. She stood up and walked away. “Wait. Come back. I want to learn.”

She turned around. “You cannot learn if you do not see.” I coughed up another card. What the heck?

“See what?” I don’t see anything. I didn’t see anything. What was there to see? See in the cards? Going fish? She was talking to me about my past, not the future. The zebra, well, it was all but established to me by now that her real name wasn’t zebra, or zebrak, but in fact Allyseyev, but you see, I thought zebra might be part of some kind of tribe. Now, I began realizing that zebras are different from ponies in some not nonessential ways, and those had to do, even with the way zebras looked. I needed to understand. I had to understand what she was saying, even though it was ridiculous, which it was. What was the source of her power? I had no idea. All of this was very puzzling to me, and I wanted nothing more than to run after her, but as I did, she disappeared in a cloud of smoke, as she had before. Darn. Drats. This wasn’t good. I was still confused, as yet, even as to where we were. What was the name of this forest? Ah well. I had better keep on keeping on pushing on, because there was nothing else to do. 

I got buried in cards. Maybe there were some important things for me to learn, but that had to wait for another day, to be sure. No doubt, I was a wreckage. I had no idea what had happened to me, nor why, and how was a different question. I was stuck here in the woods among ponies that I, no-no, sorry, zebras that I didn’t really like. Well, no, I had mixed emotions about everything that had happened. I was unsure of what to do, and how to feel, I was even more unsure of. It was a tight spot. I wanted to scream, but I also wanted to relax and lean back. Would help be coming soon? Did A-0087 have a way of tracking me? I didn’t know. 

All of this was quite puzzling. I wanted to sort out the entire situation. I wanted to know what I had done wrong, and what I could possibly do right in the future to sort this entire situation out. Taking a bath in cards? Going fish in cards? Apparently, going fish in its literal sense was drowning in cards. That is, it meant that you had to drown in them to learn respect. I knew respect. I had used to be a soldier of some merit, though not a very disciplined and focused one perhaps, but no matter. I would learn what this zebra had tried to tell me so I could then test it out in practice as a hypothesis. This was what mattered. Learning the truth was what mattered, because I could use that information to get away from this place. What was this place anyway? A really small, unusually well-cared for pony village with so-called zebras, or zebraks, living in them, it seemed to me, and depending on what perspective you had of course. Zebras are the kind of thing that you dignify by giving it its real name. Zebraks is an item of mockery, given to the zebra for treating you the wrong way, and I thought that I still believed she had been unfair to me, a little bit. What’s the trouble with killing woodland creatures anyway?
> Part 5: Learning a New, More Powerful Moral Lesson
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I sat with my butt planted on the tree-trunk bench, thinking about what had happened between me and this eccentric zebra, with whom I had had a very strange, peculiar, strange conversation. She had told me things as to I was unsure of what to believe. They frightened me a little bit. Surely, no harm would come of my actions toward those cute, albeit unsturdy, small, and nonfrightening forest creatures. They were small and cute, and also, they were easy to kill, and that was the end of my motives for why I did it. I didn’t need anything else. I didn’t need to know anything else. I just did it. That would be enough for me, knowing that everything I did would reach a logical conclusion, knowing that what I did had the effect I intended it to have. Achieving intended effects was what I cared about at this point in my life.

Jelly appeared out of nowhere. “What did she talk to you about, lil’ doggy?” Where did she come from? I looked around me for bushes that she might have been able to come out of in her stealthy little ways.

“Where?” I said, displaying my confusion on my face, in my heart, and all-around I was just confused, really. Really, really confused, I was, actually. Yes, I was, and that confusion carried a bit. It carried to the point where I wanted to tell her that I was confused, that I didn’t understand, and that’s what I did. “I’m confused.” I was confused. A lot confused, I was. I was a lot confused. I was co–

“Hey, are you thinking about what I just said still? Are you? I’m just messing.”

I tilted my head. “What’s a mes–” 

“Are you serious?”

“Seri–”

“Oh, come on. I know you’ve got some brains in there.” She touched my noggin.

“It’s just the way you talk. It confuzzles- uh, confuses me.” I waved my arms around frantically, trying to explain myself.

“Okay, I forgive you,” she said. She kissed my cheek.

“But I wasn’t apologizing. What are you doing? This is all so weird.”

She gestured dismissively toward me with a small flick of her hoof. “Oh, whatever. I’m just trying to pass the time. But remember, if you ever hurt anyone I care about ever again, I will kill you.”

“Kill me?” A death threat? Finally, I felt at home again, strangely. “Okay, well, that sounds like a fair proposition, albeit strange hearing it come out of your mouth.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just messing around. I don’t know. I don’t want anyone to die or suffer. I spend most of my days in fear of losing Allyseyev, who took care of me when I had lost everything, and she’s taking care of you too. Where is the gratitude for that, if I may ask?” She looked askance at me, and strangely, it was very similar to the way that Allyseyev the zebrak had looked askance at me not all that long ago. I took the hint, finally, and stood up from the wooden-trunk bench.

“Well, okay,” I said, feeling a little repetitive. “Maybe I will go thank her then. How about that?”

“I think that sounds like a swell idea,” she said.

“What do you know? You’re the judge of what’s swell or not? What if I think it’s a bad idea? Shouldn’t you respect that the same way I respect what you say, no, wait a minute? Shouldn’t you respect what I said when I said that it isn’t a swell idea?” What had I done now? Confused myself even further. That’s what.  

“I don’t know.” She shook her head, doing a mock-pout, as if to signal that she really didn’t know.

“Well, that makes two of us,” I said, pointing at myself.

“Okay,” she said.

I turned and began returning back from whence I came, to one of the houses in which Allyseyev had given me a heated living space that I could occupy in the close to intermediate future. “I’m going now.”

“Okay,” she said. “I never said that you couldn’t go.”

“Well, I am.”

“Okay.”

“Yes,” I said to myself, and so, I walked away, so as to thank Allyseyev and put the balance back into my universe. If she was said to deserve thanks, then I guess she was. All of this still confused me greatly. I felt like I was learning all what it means to thank someone, and why, and how, all from the wrong direction. I didn’t know at all why I was doing this, what motivated me to do it. It was a black box in my mind. It was all for naught, trying to figure out reasons for why things were as they were right now. I just had to roll with the punches, so to speak, acclaimed boxer that I was. I was an acclaimed boxer. That was a joke. 



 

I was knocking at the doors, to Allyseyev’s house that is. Would she let me in? I didn’t know. Did it even matter? I didn’t know. Should I even be doing this? I didn’t know, but I did, and I kept knocking like never before, never knocked at a door before, that is. Would she let me in? I didn’t know, and nor did I care. I was rolling with the punches, as I have said before. I was going with the everloving flow of the situation, such as it was. I kept knocking. Would she let me in? The door opened.

“Hey, are you sleeping?” I said. “Can I come in? I want to talk to you. I'm sorry. I know I have harmed you. I ask your forgiveness. For the good of all, please forgive me." The door finished opening, and in the door opening, stood no one. "You have the power to turn invisible? T–

A zap happened to my face. White lights blinked and loud bells rang. I was stunned, and out of commission too. I didn't know what to do. I didn't understand the current predicament at all. Wait, what was happening? I fell into the door opening, but it was as if gravity had pulled me in there. I did not do it of my own free volition. I was forced to do it by voodoo magic. I disappeared and reappeared on a strange meadow, far, far away, or that's what I thought. Well, I didn't exactly know what to think, but I speculated that I was now far away, because the geography of the location that I as yet currently occupied, though different from the one that I previously and not too long ago was at, still bore no resemblance even to that aforementioned location, that mentioned before this one was mentioned, the one I talked about before. Anyway! Whatever! Where was I? I was in a meadow, and around me were flowers, and I was confused as to what was going on, very much so! I felt dizzy, nauseous, all-around, I just felt terrible. Now, Allyseyev appeared, of all times. 

"Ally," I said, happy to see her. "You need to get me out of here."

She shook her head.

"Please," I said. "I don't know where I am."

"You're outside," she said.

I stared angrily at her. "Well, yeah, I know that, but you know, I need to get away from here. I need some energy, some battery power, and I need to sleep. I need both those things." I was manic, frantic, and scared at the prospect that I might die again.

"What are you doing here then?" she said, sounding confused.

"What? Are you serious? I didn't choose to be here." I ran at her. Her ghostly form disappeared against my touch. "What? Where are you? Come out and fight, why won't you? Will you? Oh, I don't know what I'm saying. What am I doing? No, get out of this place. No, don't you come back." I flailed around in empty space. "No, wait a minute. This isn't you at all. It's- it's…"

The zebrak formerly known as Allyseyev, whom I had now nicknamed Ally, disappeared and was replaced by a sorry sight. It was a very old, blue pony that had wings and white hair. "Have you missed me?" he said.

"Aldeus?" I asked, full of confusion, regret, and hunger for battery power that I hadn't gotten in the day.

He shook his head. "No, my name has been forgotten throughout the ages."

"Are you Ally?" I said, prodding him with my hoof, or trying to, as doing so resulted in his body malforming around my hoof, and my hoof just sank through like when you stick a limb into water. 

He smiled at me, though faintly. "I'm sorry. I have scared you."

I jumped up in the air, and I took a deep breath. Then I landed. I bit my own leg, and I ran in a circle, trying to make myself dizzy. "I see what's happening. You can't fool me."

"You think you're dreaming," he said. "Of course you are. That's not the interesting part, though."

I held up with my trying to wake myself up. "What's interesting, would you say?" I really wanted to know what the mysterious pegasus meant by that.

Ah, now I understood. I looked upon his head. There was a hole straight to his skull. I could see his brain fluid. It's almost as if he was missing a limb. "Do you mean that?" I said, pointing. I didn't want to be rude, but I didn't know how else to ask.

He shook his head, grimacing at me. "You see many things, but let us focus on you for a moment, little one. Isn't that what Allyseyev the zebra called you?" He looked at me with a morose expression. He looked really sad, for whatever reason.

"Her name is Ally." I held up, checking myself. "No, wait, it is Allyseyev, but you know, you really need to think of your manners."

The great big pegasus that looked like he was missing a horn slipped to the side, his body dividing into several parts, one going left, and the other also went left, but it went left a moment after the first part. The first part went left, and then there was just a disembodied glow around where the one part of his body should and would've been, had he not tried these dishonest tactics, doing magic in dreams, invading dreams, slipping back and forth. It all was more than I could bear. I wanted to get back home to the fortress, and fast. I didn't belong here. Being here was doing strange things to my mind. I hadn't thought about things, these forbidden thoughts, tended to my moral compass, thought about right or wrong in this soul-crashing way before, ever. It all was a little strange, and it was more than strange, and why couldn't I relax? I couldn't relax. I couldn't relax.

The great big pegasus said, "You have been touched by a strange power. The spirit of the forest wants to see you, but before that, you need to understand what sacrifices others have made for you to get this far."

"I don't know," I said, turning around toward the edge of the meadow. "I don't feel like I'm cut out for learning a bunch of new things about stuff. Honestly, I feel like I'm falling apart. I should get back home before long."

He slipped up beside me, his ghostly form preceding him, light coming to life around me, taking hold, shining, and then, I saw his face. "Who are you?" I said. Was he a friend? Could I really trust him? Who was he? No, no, no, I never had this much trouble concentrating back at the metal facility, my old home. "You need to explain some things to me then, I think, before we talk further."

He nodded. "I assumed that you would say that." The meadow opened up into a big field. On the field, there was a single zebra with a top-hat on, a unicorn that wore a dress of a thousand colors, or more than that, there being many colors that a dress can have, and- wait a minute. What was happening? A griffin walked up to me. He was gigantic. He wore a necklace with an insignia on it, on which I had no idea what it was, and I had never seen it before.   

"Hello, there." I waved at him.

The griffin looked at me and smiled. No, actually, he more than smiled. He chuckled at me. "Why are you here?" he said.

"What?"

The griffin slowly drifted past me. He danced with every movement he took. His feet moved precisely and symmetrically the same way for every step he took. He slipped forward, barely making a sound. "No." He looked at the aged pegasus. "Why are you here? You shouldn't be here. I know all about you."

The pegasus with a hole in his head gasped for air, looking around, as if to find words. The white fuzz that had comprised his body reappeared, his body molding into that form, and then, the white lump that was his body, magically for some reason, dream magic, disappeared, and he was gone. It was obvious to me that this was a dream, but this was far more vivid than any dream I had ever had. I wondered when the dream began. Back at the campfire? Even before I had that conversation with Allyseyev? No, that couldn't be possible. I remembered playing go fish at the campfire for some time before she even arrived there. If that was part of this phantom dream, then my ability to separate dream from reality, which had as yet before all this preceded me, had become so diminished that my ability to judge what's true was next to worthless anyway, and in that case, it did not matter what I believed or what I thought, but my two running theories were definitely either insanity, or this–

"Are you still lost in thought?" the griffin said, lifting me up with the flick of a claw. His hand was so big and me so small that he could hold me up with one hand. "This isn't the last time we met. Here in the dream realm, things work overtly and in the real world, things work overtly and covertly, in some limited circumstances. You know what you saw. You'll know what to believe. In the real world, things aren't so clear. The real world has covert circumstances running through it like pencils run over parchments in Celestia's war room!" Oh. His speech sped up and then stopped. I looked at him through his claw. I felt strangely snug, but I figured that the knowledge I had of the fake emptiness in everything that happened, since we were in a dream, kept me from getting too anxious. "You know," he said. "I know that you had something to tell your leader Aldeus before you left your home. I saw it. I have eyes everywhere. Now, listen. We of the northwest collective need to know where that pony, who isn't really a pony or an alicorn at all, is hiding." He shook me.

"Oh, let go of her," another figure said. I turned my head. Although I had not seen her in the flesh, I knew for a fact that that was Luna. "She won't know anything. None of them does. You're a poor moral actor and arbiter, Hookbeak." And so, it all began. That's how I learned the name of the griffin sovereign, who is one of the most powerful creatures that have ever existed in the history of Equestria, and continues to be.

He let go of me. I fell on the ground, but it didn't hurt. The ground was soft.

He pulled forward his back claw from behind, his hindleg bending into his mouth. He poked the inside of his mouth nonchalantly. "You are the sister of the queen. What does she do while you're sleeping, invading ponies' dreams, and those of griffins? Invading other ponies' privacy is what Equestrian royals do best, it seems, and while you call me a poor moral judge and arbiter, and actor, I still have to wonder, do you know why you are here? Are you thinking about who put us here into this dream, because I know it wasn't you. You're weak against his, its, or her power, depending on who it is we're dealing with. I say we should turn all our weapons toward that pony. It seems like the proper thing to do. You have your horn." He pointed toward the zebra, that had as yet stood there, being silent. "You have your zebra magic. Surely, you can deal with this threat. The forest sprite Aqasha would appreciate your service–"

The zebra picked off its top-hat, and flashes of light, like a million tiny stars, flew in Hookbeak's face.

His face melted off, revealing metal underneath. "Well, I've been discovered. This isn't exactly what I wanted to spend this night doing anyway." He wiped off some of the residue that was left of his face. Feathers and flesh came off. His head was pitch-black underneath. "I wonder what Aqasha would say about your misbehavior. She surely is not easily offended like her loyal religious and highly spiritual, industrious followers, I dare assume. It is a sad state of affairs when one little comment toward the zebra god causes an act of assault toward an honest businessperson. I was merely making a proposal, and I will keep making that proposal, and you can't hurt me, little zebra, not in real life, and much less in a dream. Ah, Armand. You're so fickle and easily manipulated, driven by emotion, naïve. Why can't you be more like Luna here?"

"Enough," Luna said. "Enough strangeness."

"Oh, I haven't even begun," Hookbeak said, with calm in his voice, almost like a father talking to his daughter, or what I would assume from hearing the tone of his voice about the dynamics of such relationships, father-daughter ones, and such. I thought that fathers and daughters had classically patriarchal relationships where the father has first and final say in everything, because that's what I had been taught at the fortress. It later turned out that I had been taught some false things at the fortress. 

"Someone or somepony," Hookbeak swung his arm around, as if it was made or rubber. His arm flew across Luna's face, grazing her. She did nothing and said nothing. She was deadpan. This Hookbeak spoke with his entire body, and that's why I formatted his dialogue to indicate that. He didn't speak with his mouth. He spoke with his arms. I hope that is clear. Of course, all readers that want to know more about Hookbeak will have to consult a local library or ask an expert. I'm not deeply educated in all this stuff. "Well, as I said." It seemed that I had missed some of the conversation here, as I thought about the way he moved, and so, there's a hole in my memory, but Hookbeak was still talking. "They want to know where we are. They want to know where we live. There's nothing you can say to convince them that they should mend their ways and accept friendship." He motioned his entire body toward Luna. She rolled her eyes.

Hookbeak glared at her. "What are we doing here exactly? Playing another pony's silly games? You're a pony. I thought you were supposed to be the one that cared about preserving life. What is your problem, exactly? I will send a message to Celestia after I wake up."

"Another one of your poems?" Luna raised an eyebrow in defiance against this strange griffin. I knew what griffins were at this point in time, having learned it from a history book that I smuggled out of the archives in the eastern wing of the facility, a place that was all but forbidden to anyone except for high officers, chiefs, and Aldeus himself. Again, he was the sovereign at the metal palace, from where I originated, but I had access to the archives at one point in known memory, as few ponies and robots have had. I will go into why later, and how it is possible that a pony could've gone in there. In any case, I found this whole situation quite interesting.

Hookbeak growled, and that growl produced a cough that made him wheeze and shudder. He glared at Luna even harder now. He gave another single cough, a little dry one, and said, "Luna. My friend. You know I care about Celestia. That is an open secret."

"Why don't you communicate normally? We barely ever get to talk to you." Luna looked morose, concerned, and a little angry as she said this, like she needed answers. She looked like she wanted answers, demanded them.

"I send those letters to everyone."

Luna sighed a long, deep sigh. "Yes, we know. That is a problem for us."

"Are my modes of communication unclear to you? Do you not understand what I say when I write these letters?" Hookbeak raised a claw to Luna's neck. "Do you want me to carve it into your neck instead?"

Luna removed his talons. She flicked a hoof forward, his hand retreating. "Don't be ridiculous, Hookbeak. We want to hear things in your own words, not in some poem."

"I'm not being ridiculous." He raised his head high. He was so tall that he towered over Luna. I had been distracted, but now I saw that another griffin stood behind him. That griffin had a hunch, and his entire body leant forward. His head stuck out, right out, right out into the air, and it looked like he had a poor range of motion, but what was remarkable was that Hookbeak was at least four times as tall and long as that other griffin. This really was a large animal. "I saw what you did, saw what you told those mischievous little ponies that arrived at your doorstep not all that long ago."

"Because you also spy on ponies," she said, not missing a beat, interrupting him at the last syllable of his sentence.

"Ah," Hookbeak moved his index finger around his ear, which was now clearly visible, the feathery fur around most of the front of his face having been burned off. "You are jealous of my powers, I see."

Luna scoffed at him. "Ridiculous."

"I never asked for these powers. Do I deserve them? No, but I am looking at ponies' lives, not to invade their privacy, but rather, because they want to kill me with spears, guns, and magical powder that can be found in the barrels of- of," and he stopped, his train of thought seeming to have suddenly, rather very suddenly, run out. He kept on talking, "Of that zebra over theah!" He pointed toward the zebra with the point of his left hindleg, not even looking in that direction, somehow still knowing where that zebra was. "I only spy on diplomats, not citizens," he said. "Unless they get in my way. And sometimes, citizens can be villains too."

The griffin, that had so far been quiet, took a tiny step forward. "If I can add something, my liege."

"Oh, not now, Vivacio. Can't you see that Luna and I are impetuously arguing, like children!" he said, screaming that into Luna's face. The skin around her eyes, ears, and mouth bent back against the pressurized force that Hookbeak's volume level apparently produced. 

Luna grimaced. "I'm not arguing. I'm trying to make sense."

"Well, so am I." Hookbeak lifted his backfoot, planted his rump on the ground, and began scratching his face with the foot. He groaned a satisfied groan, as it seemed that he enjoyed this good scratch he got from himself. "I'm arguing toward peace. I'm trying to find a common ground." 

Luna flew up in the air, looking up into the sky, and then, she looked back on the ground. "There is no such thing as common ground, only open skies. We cannot find something that is beyond us." She landed on the ground. "And it's important that we all realize that."

Hookbeak frowned. "I cannot stomach all this. I don't like conflict, though you might think otherwise."

"I don't believe it," Luna said.

"Yes, I know you don't." Hookbeak rolled his eyes around, and they spun, and spun, and spun. They looked like balls rolling around, spinning inside his eye-sockets. They spun in circles, pupils disappearing, rolling back into his head, and reappearing, showing themselves clearly to an observer's view. "Ah, well, I suppose you want an apology for the way I've been acting. Well, you won't get one. All of this wouldn't have happened if Celestia had listened to reason in the first place. We could've been united rather than divided. I have spoken to Queen Goldenclaw about my troubles. I fear for the future of this land, but I blame you for it, you and your crazy sister." He flailed a talon in her face, which retracted back to the ground, as soon as she raised a hoof to flick it away.

"You love her. I know you do," Luna said.

Hookbeak's face took on a different tone. His brows furrowed, and he looked at Luna with a heavy, earnest face. "I do love her, but I love other things more. There are things that are more important than the love you have for an individual. That cannot be allowed to make, break, and shatter civilizations again and again, the way it has for millennia. Leaders in love are leaders that die, and kill, and quickly, everything they used to pretend to care about, and in any case, she doesn't call. We don't speak to each other anymore."

"You tried to kill her," Luna said, blankly.

"Yes." Hookbeak jumped up into the air and landed on his back. He lay there, with a thoughtful expression. The way he moved reminded me of a wild animal. "And I'd do it again in case I got the chance, and the same goes for her. Would you kill me though, Luna? If you don't, I don't respect you. I have harmed you, the same way I have harmed and killed many of your friends, even though I did it for different effect than the mere blood-hungry savagery that is displayed by her kind." He motioned toward me. I at last remembered that I actually existed, and I wasn't just some ghost in the room, readily ignored by anyone that so desires. I wanted to defend myself.

I said to him, "Hey! What if you stop squabbling and actually explain to me what's going on, because I'm rather confused. And also, I haven't killed anything except small forest creatures in a long while." I was satisfied enough with what I had said.

A different voice, one that sounded like a whispering, quiet choir of voices, came forth, entering into the conversation. "The last midnight is coming. Prepare. You are not ready yet." The thing that produced the sound looked like a bush sticking out of the ground. A giant eye protruded from it. It was buried in light, and streams of white fuzz, the same I have talked about with the dehorned pegasus, flew around around it in circles.

"Aqasha," Hookbeak said, not breaking eye-contact with Luna. "Who among us is right?"

The eye slowly turned toward Hookbeak, the bark around it creaking. "You must prepare," the voice murmured very, very quietly, like the wind. "You have been mislead by the one that is behind it all. He that holds no pity in his heart is coming."

"Aldeus?" Luna said, frowning at the bush.

The wood creaked, and it sounded like a branch in the little bush broke off. The eye shifted perspective and turned toward Luna. "No, Aldeus is and always has been a way to distract you from the real threat."

Hookbeak walked up beside the bush. "I think all of this is great, but it's also important to remember where our allegiances lie. Really, I don't care about Aldeus, or unicorns in the dark that threaten to destroy the world that we in the collective have wanted to build for hundreds of years. I will tear Aldeus and anyone else that tries to interfere limb from limb, and I will enjoy it, when the time comes." 

The little bush grew. Leaves sprouted out of it. It was turning into a tree. Some kind of fruit, what looked like peaches, spread out from the stems, one by one, producing a strange whistling sound as it happened. "You all need to grow. You are not ready yet."

"I can kill anything I want," Hookbeak said.

Luna lifted her hoof slowly, and slammed it into the ground so that the ground cracked and fizzled, and the creaks spread all the way over to Hookbeak and the place where the tree was. The tree fell over. They eye was still embraced by the trunk of the tree, the eye being inside there, shining and turning back and forth, looking at the ponies and griffins present. "Hookbeak. Cornicus!" she said. Cornicus? I thought that was a really funny name. I laughed. All eyes turned toward me. I looked down in the ground and pawed my hoof, trying to wait until they began speaking to one another again. I didn't want any part in this at all. This was way beyond anything I had ever wanted to participate it. 

"Anyway," Hookbeak Cornicus said. "This little child may have all the answers. After all, is it a coincidence that she was brought in here with us?"

"You're grasping at straws there, Cornicus," Luna said. I snickered. "Hey, you, little child!" she said to me. "I know you. Where have I seen you before?" Well, I was sure that I had never met Luna, so I could not provide an answer to her question that she would consider to be adequate.

"I don't know," I said. "Have we seen one another in a different life?" Was that just me trying to sound profound? 

"Well, I wouldn't know if we had," Luna said, dismissing me off-hand. "Do you know who we are?"

I thought about it and then I said, "You're Luna. That guy there's Corni–" My pattern of thought was interrupted by me accidentally saying his name again. I laughed. "Ah, hah, haha, ahahaha," I said. "I don't know. I just escaped from a place that was a slaughterhouse. Have any of you old creatures ever been to Aldeus' home?" 

Hookbeak cocked his head back and forth, right and left, and he marched up to me, looking me in my eyes, right in my eyes. "No, but I would love to go. Where's the address?" He grabbed me by my cheeks and pushed them together.

"It doesn't have an address." I tried removing them. He seemed oblivious to this. His talons were fast attached to my face, and he slowly but very surely removed them on his own. "It's not in any particular place. It can be anywhere."

"How come?" Hookbeak said, pushing a claw into his eye. That looked like it hurt.

I was flustered. I really didn't know what to say. "Well, I don't know. It's just sort of everywhere. The geography around it changes constantly. Towers move. Everything moves, or almost everything. You will notice that when you return to the metal fortress, everything looks different."

Hookbeak sighed. "Well, that whatever his name is, Aldy-us, at least has a knack for naming things. That is an admirable trait. He doesn't avoid the meaning of the thing he's trying to describe, like ponies do all the time, out of shame for what they might discover when their names get too close to the target."

Luna walked in between us. "Why do you accuse the hippogriffs of ethnocentrism when you're acting this way?" She looked at Hookbeak. 

He sniffed audibly. "What I'm saying is just an observation about material reality, nothing more and nothing less, certainly nothing less than that. What's funny is that the celebrations hippogriffs put up are the kind that ponies do too whenever they've accomplished something that they consider to be impressive, and I'm not talking about all ponies, nor am I talking about all hippogriffs. Rather, it's an observation about your culture, Luna of the night. You know that what I'm saying is true, and I think you're being confrontational for no reason."

"Anyway," she said. "I think we're flying off-topic. The question is what will happen with this little child now that she has escaped from the fortress. If you indeed are right when you said we will need her–"

"It was aaall mere speculation. Why don't you calm yourself down a little? You're reading too much into too little. You're not letting me complete my thoughts."

Luna smiled at him. "You don't tell anyone to calm down, not you."

"I mean in your attitude, not in the way you talk." 

The griffin that Hookbeak had referred to as Vivacio came forward. "If you would excuse me for a moment."

Hookbeak stared blank-eyed at Vivacio, and then took a big step back, as if to offer him the stage.

"Right," Vivacio said. "So, fact is that we actually know the approximate whereabouts of the fortress."

"We do?" Hookbeak said. "Those are goods news. Where is it? I will go there myself personally and destroy every inch of that thieving, pathetic, disgusting little place. Just tell me where it is. It'll be my finest hour, teaching those dark forces that Aqasha was referring to, the lesson that they all deserve, which is death, by the way. Sweet death is coming for them. I want to kill them all, rip them apart with my bare hands, humiliate them, and finally, throw them into a fire and destroy them. It's my duty, and it'll be my sadistic, great, unequivocal, and direct pleasure to do this. I will enjoy it greatly, immensely, so, Vivacio Effecías, my old friend, where is this fortress, of which the location is known to you?"

Vivacio paused. Luna stepped in. "Hookbeak, stop acting like a kid. I know you know exactly how much we all know about the whereabouts of that fortress. What Vivacio meant to say was that the fortress is somewhere in the eastern part of the desert. We've narrowed it down."

"The resources," Hookbeak said, "it would take to search the eastern corner of the desert are beyond anything at my disposal, but I can only speak for myself." 

"Right," Luna said, looking at him, smiling and winking. "Maybe we could cooperate."

"I know you think I hate that word," Hookbeak said. 

"Yes, I think you hate all the good things." She shook her head with a big sigh. "I'm just saying that maybe, for once, we could put our differences aside and cooperate."

Hookbeak broke out a huge grin, smiling from ear to ear, almost literally. His face around his beak opened up, revealing a set of white, brilliant teeth that he had been hiding from me and everyone. "Here is the one criterion under which I would agree to such a proposal, and I want you to listen very carefully." He screamed into Luna's face again. "Tell Celestia to give up and admit I was right. Is that pony really beyond saving? She doesn't have to give up anything. All I wanted to do was help ponies, and griffins. Enough is enough. I want change, now. Without change, nothing else matters. You and I and everyone could die and rot away for all I care."

Luna nodded, pouting in a gesture of mockery. "You've made this view explicitly clear to everyone involved, Hookbeak. No one will miss your arrogance." 

"I will kill you!" he said.

"Okay," Luna said, shrugging. This reminded me very much of the conversation I had had with little Jelly, not all that long ago. "Here's something important that you should learn, Hookbeak. Stop getting in your own way."

"You know I will win this war," he said. "One way or another." He flew up above Luna and picked her up. She folded out her wings to loosen his iron-grip. His grip changed and he embraced her from behind, both with his arms and legs, like a big spoon. "I'm always one step ahead of you." His feet hugged her hooves, and she looked small compared to him. His arms hugged her chest, which was petite compared to his. The whole thing had a subtext that I did not quite understand yet, but I didn't like it, not one bit. "I know where you are, when you are, but I always appreciate it when you stop by so I can see you in person." He let go. She flew back to the ground instantly and landed, looking a little shook. "I want everyone here to know," he said, high up in the air, flapping his wings. "That I hated the idea of starting an armed conflict. I did not want to do it, but my hands were tied, and what tied my hands was not some abstract idea of peace and prosperity, it was the dead-faced arrogance, not of me, but of that miserable white pony that raises the sun every day."

"And lowers it," I added, meekly.

"And lowers it," he said. "Well, I have at last exceeded her power. I may not have the magic but I do control all the light in the northern hemisphere, and soon, the south will follow." I thought about the cloud-covering across the sky, that had been there every time I visited the north. This garish griffin was responsible for that? He was crazy. That couldn't be. "Oh, but just you wait. I'm not done, not with any of you. I have only just begun. You haven't seen the last of me. I will be back." He dived toward the ground and at first it looked like he was going to break his neck against the grassy surface beneath him, but instead, and I didn't understand why, his entire body burrowed into the ground and disappeared. He left earth and grass all tossed up in different places around the hole he had made in the ground in his wake, and all of that was shocking to me. I didn't understand pony, griffin, or zebra culture at all at the time, and I thought that what he did had to be some kind of magic, rather than what it really was, which is a technological accomplishment that goes far beyond anything that has ever happened at the fortress. I wondered what was happening, why these ponies had spoken to each other in this way. Or well, these ponies, griffins, and whatever it was. I didn't understand. I didn't know. I still didn't know in the next moment, as I woke up. I was lying on the tree-trunk.

"Aww," Jelly said.

I shook my head, feeling more focused now than I had since before I arrived here. "Jelly, we need to talk."

"You looked so cute there schweeping," she said, clearly not paying attention to me.

"Okay then," I said. "Maybe some other time."

"What's on your mind?"

A stared emptily into nowhere, looking for something that was gone now. I tried to resummon the dream from my memory, as vivid as it had been when I dreamt it, but it was out of sight and out of mind. I still can't quite recall exactly what happened in vivid detail, but I remember the words that were said. I'm writing this right now, thinking about it. Hookbeak was mentally insane, even then, and he was also one of the smartest, quickest persons I had ever met, and the same was true of Luna, and that tree. What was that? All of it demanded an explanation. I didn't care if Jelly wouldn't believe me. I had to talk to somepony or zebra, about this. It was important. It was bigger than myself, now I at this final point before raising my voice to say to Jelly what I had to say, felt.

"Hey, Jelly!" I said. "I'm sorry to interrupt your staring at me while I'm sleeping."

"Oh, not at all," she said, waving it off with the flick of a hoof, much like Luna had waved off Hookbeak's strange advances. "It's all for the best that you're awake now, since it's morning, and you should be having breakfast, shouldn't you?"

"It's morning already?" Oh, this was concerning. I felt extremely tired all of a sudden.

"Yes, it's morning."

"Jelly, tell me about Aqasha. You seem to know more than you've let on."

"Oh!" Jelly yelled. "Aqasha, what of it?"

"I had a strange dream. Well, I had a dream unlike anything that's ever happened to me in my life."

Jelly stared down in the ground. "So she appeared to you in a dream, did she? I guess you must feel honored."

I wanted her to understand what had happened, but I didn't know where to begin. "Oh, it's a long story," I settled on. "It's a really long story. Maybe it's too long. I'll see what I can do to make this as clear to both of us as possible." And so, I began explaining, and Jelly turned out to be a great listener. She seemed precocious somehow. Yes, she was a child, but so was I, but she was a real child! All of this seemed strange to me, her entire demeanor actually, but I also understood that ponies of all kinds and sizes exist, even then, and I didn't question it too much. I was jealous of her. Life didn't seem as complicated for her, judging by her disposition. Then again, there's no disputing her loss. A loss is a loss, and in pony culture, casualties matter in a way that they don't in robot culture, but all of this was something I didn't really have a deep understanding of yet at this point. I was still learning and improving, and I yet had much to learn. 

I cared about Jelly, a little bit, but I also found her odd, and her demeanor was unusual in a way that sometimes made me feel threatened, and that was the worst of the worst things, that being the worst thing of all. I didn't like that one bit. I explained things to Jelly that I didn't think she would believe, but to my surprise, she believed them, and our conversation continued in the next part of my journey, of which I have many regrets for, big and small. Things I have done, I would soon learn, and I will reiterate it here because I thought it was important then as I do now, I can never redact, retract, or take back. Things I have done disappear into history. I am responsible for every decision, and that makes me a monster, but that should already be clear to anyone that's reading this.
> Part 6: The Map of the World
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Okay," Jelly said, unfolding the map. "We are over, here!" She pointed to the northeastern edge of the map, or what the map, I suppose, indicated to be the northeast. The northeast of the map, is what she pointed at. Oh, sorry. I'll let her explain it.

"This is where the forest of tranquility ends," she said, pointing to a place that was not far from here. "We are right at the border of zebra-land, what is known, by some, as Anuthzotlek. The zebras call it that. Ponies call it Anythlekzan. Griffins call it Anythleikseilanana."

"Really?" I said.

"No, kidding. The griffins call it Zebra-land. They're very simple in their naming of things." They were, I would learn.

"I see," I said. "Well, that was a terrific notion. I should learn more about that," I said. I wanted to learn more, though my prospects for doing so looked slim. I didn't want to wait in the shadows for something good to happen. I wanted to be here and now, in the present. I wanted to see the truth. I wanted to eat it, slurp it up, but I couldn't because I was stupid. I had ruined everything. I had destroyed everything I once cared about, and I had destroyed the ponies that I now cared about. Really, it all felt like a humungous failure, which is the worst kind of failure. Anythlekzan it was then, if I was going to call it anything. 

This is where it got complicated. "Really," Jelly said. "Okay, really, the name of the country is Zachejria, but it's called Anythlekzan by the ponies, because that's what it has been traditionally called in Equestria."

"You never get into this kind of trouble if you just don't name things," I said, pondering this conundrum.

"Right," Jelly said. "The world wouldn't have any names anymore. That's not good." Maybe it is though. Maybe it is. It sure would make things simpler.

"Another thing," Jelly said. "The borders of Zachejria are disputed. According to the Equestrian government in district Equestria, we are in Equestria, but according to the zebra tribes, and the zebra authority, we are in Zebra-land, so when ponies use the name Anythlekzan, they are actually referring to the area further into the woods, not where we are right now, got it?" No, I had no track of what she was keeping. I didn't track-keep, no, no-no. I couldn't keep track of anything. That's what I meant. No, I didn't understand. I thought about it. 

"Why are the borders disputed?" I said. She shrugged. Okay. I moved my little hoof across the map. "What's this?" I pointed at something in the west.

"Those?" Jelly said. "You really don't know what's going on, do you? Those are the United Territories of the Griffins, and just under here is Klivitovich. That's the donkeys' kingdom."

I laughed. 

"Yeah, well, they are donkeys," she said, smiling at me. "But they are very proud, when you get down to it. Don't be too scornful, I think. I don't know. I think we all have a little donkey within is." Well, I certainly could agree with the spirit of what she said. "Under here," she said, pointing even further down. "Under Klivitovich, is the Griffon Empire, which is one of the great superpowers on the continent." That's where Hookbeak was from?

"Now, here's what happened," she said, matter-of-factly. "Celestia didn't want any griffins to come into Equestria, not from the Griffon Empire, but from the United Territories, basically because the griffins there had found a cure for aging."

"It's the United Territories for short?" I said.

"Don't interrupt me," she said, a little prickly. "This is hard for me to describe. Okay, so Celestia wanted there to be no such thing in Equestria."

"Typical," I said.

"What did your so-called department chief do at the fortress when you interrupted her?" Jelly said.

"She didn't, because I never interrupted her, or did I? I don't know," I said.

Jelly shook her head, an intense face on her visage. "I can't threaten to kill you like they can, little one," she said. She called me what the zebrak had called me. No, it was zebra now. Enough with the disrespect, I thought.

"Anyhow," Jelly said. "All of this is very complicated. You need to pay attention."

"I am," I said.

"No, you're not," she said. "You're anything but."

"Keep talking," I said.

She sighed. "Well, we have the border betwe–"

"How old are you anyway?" I said.

"Shut up." 

"Okay."

"We have the border between the United Territories, and the rest of Equestria-proper up here," she said, pointing at a place on the map.

"Question," I said.

"I'm eleven years old," she said.

"No." Well, actually, that was very interesting to know. "No, no, I mean, I get that." No, wait, I was losing my train of thought. "No-no, it's not your age. It's," I said, moving my hoof across the map. "Equestria," I said, pointing toward the blob in the middle, borders drawn around it to signify a region of some kind. "And Equestria," I said, sweeping my hoof across the map. The word Equestria was drawn across it in big letters.

"This is the district of Equestria," Jelly said, moving my hoof to the little blob in the middle. "District Equestria, the Kingdom of Equestria, the district of Equestria, or simply Equestria, as most ponies call it. This is the province that has the highest density of ponies. It's the place where Canterlot is." That piqued my interest. Canterlot. I had heard many tales. We at the fortress were going there some day, from what I knew, at some point eventually, in the future.

"Okay?" Jelly said.

"Yeah," I said. "But what is the real Equestria? This tiny thing or this big thing?"

"Both," she said. "Both are countries. It's just that one is a smaller country, that is more provincial, if you understand that word." Me? I knew all the words. "The other is the name of a political alliance between Equestria, the district, the kingdom, and seven other kingdoms. Those are Draques, Yakyakistan, Mount Aris, the long strip of desert over here is Anuba, and then there's Manehattan, which is its own province, Gloverton Whasper South is a country that has three smaller countries, in it. It's like Equestria, but it's three countries, and those three countries together, Gloverton, Whasperlund, and South, are in a political alliance with District Equestria, so they together have a district called Gloverton Whasper South, since they have to share a name. They get angry when you don't say the whole name and only say Gloverton, or something like that. Call it G-W-S. That's what the griffins do. They abbreviate everything."

"Are you sure you're eleven?" I said.

"Yeah, I've heard that one before," she said. "And here, in the northwestern corner of anything that anyone can live in, before you get to the badlands, here's the United Territories."

"I think it's 'here are'," I said.

"Yeah," she said. "It's only an expression." Well, okay then. I didn't know that gave you license to misdo grammar.

"I have another question," I said. "What's with this whole thing Hookbeak had going on with Luna? Why was he hugging her?"

Jelly blushed. "Wh- I don't, I can't answer that," she said. "That's not to do with any of this anyway. Look." She pointed at the line that went between the small blob in the northwest and the rest of Equestria. "This is the United Territories. Are you following?"

"Yes."

"Celestia wanted there to be no machines in Equestria that could extend a pony's lifespan beyond what's natural."

"Why not?" I said. "You could live forever."

"Maybe you don't want to," Jelly said. "Or maybe living forever means that you have to become a monster, like Hookbeak."

"What did he do?" I said.

She moved her hoof between the United Territories and Canterlot. "The United Territories, that is, the corporates in circle town. That is, basically Hookbeak, claimed that if Celestia wouldn't open the borders, they would force them open and remove her from power, forever," she said, looking at me grimly. Forever? That's forever. There's nothing like forever. Forever is forever, which is all the time in the world, I thought.

"Celestia didn't believe him. She thought that the United Territories, which has a total population of–"

I picked at my nose, prodding with my hoof.

"Are you following?" she yelled.

"Yes. Yes, of course," I said, swiftly pulling down my hoof to the ground.

She shook her head. "Concentrate." She flicked me on the nose with her hoof. That hurt a little. "The United Territories has only nine-hundred thousand griffins, and a few ponies, right about there's. It's on the map." She pointed to the corner of the map which had a few numbers. "District Equestria, meanwhile, not to count any of the other countries, that would surely help Celestia, she thought, all of them. This country, the Kingdom of Equestria, has a population of thirty million alone, so you can see how she thought she was going to win easily, but many things have happened since then. That was ten years ago, almost." Ten years? That was way before my lifespan had even begun.

"Okay?" she said.

"Yes," I said. I smiled at her. She looked a little annoyed, still. 

"Yes, now I hope you don't go killing any more ponies when we go our separate ways," Jelly said.

"I won't," I said. "Only animals."

"We need to talk about that too," she said, "At least that's an improvement. Anyway! Hookbeak made an ultimatum. He said that if the borders wouldn't open before a said date, he would declare war on Equestria, all of it, and he would win. And, he almost has, several times. You would think it was impossible, since Celestia controls the ground and the earth, and she has powerful forces like Discord on her side, but it has gotten more and more complicated by the year. We'll talk about all that later."

"Okay," I said. I was happy with the killing of small animals. I couldn't see anything wrong with it. That's what was on my mind at that moment. Jelly, who had been helpful, giving me many kind words of instruction and guidance, seemed skeptical. She looked at me with a kind of trepidation that I recognized as fear. I didn't want her to fear me, but I didn't blame her either. Ah, well. The story goes on.

"Here, we are," she said again, pointing to the place in the northeast where we presumably were, assuming that she wasn't lying, and I had no reason to believe that, yet!

"Hookbeak said, 'okay, it's war then'," Jelly said, moving her hoof further down the map. "He dropped two big bombs on Canterlot. Tens of thousands died. It was totally out of left field. I don't even think Celestia knew he could do that. The cliffside that Canterlot was on fell to the ground, and since ten years ago, Canterlot has been on the edge of Mount Canterlot, not on it." None of this told me anything. Really, I didn't register any of what she said. What did it matter where Canterlot used to be?

"Canterlot has a shield that is impossible to get through," she said, pointing at Canterlot on the map. "Circle town, the place where Hookbeak lives, has a shield that is impossible to get through," she said, now pointing at the United Territories. I could see that Circle town was marked on the map.

"Capital of United Territories?" I said. I had had many conversations like this before. I thought back. A-0087 had talked to me about the geography of Equestria, and many others had she talked to about it. She spoke about how to get through, and what we would do by the time that all of us gathered to invade Canterlot, on a fateful day, and kill everyone, parent, child, and goddess, Celestia herself, and Luna too, but Luna always fell more into the foreground of our conversations.

"The United Territories don't have a capital," she said. "They're a free and open region that is supposed to be sort of like an anarchy." An anarchy? I had to scrabble even to remember what that meant. She had a vocabulary that exceeded mine!

"Circle town," she said, "is where basically all the technology in Equestria has come from, even something as simple as an umbrella."

"I see," I said. "Interesting."

"It is, isn't it?" she said, relaxing a bit, judging by her body language. "It all comes from the Tower of Technology," she said, "which is where the engineers of the Griffon Empire, basically all the engineers in Equestria work. It's a place that's driven by creativity, innovation, and a lust for profit. They're very honest about this, the griffins, by the way. They say, 'for every penny you make, the earth moves another notch', or, 'if you want to make money, you have to break backs'. Those are some typical griffinisms." Griffinism? It sounded like some sort of weird, cultish ideology. Griffinism! Like archeology, or zoology, but instead of having it be about the earth and animals and stuff, it was about the color and shape of griffins. Griffinism!

"You aren't listening," she said.

"I am too," I said.

"What did I just say?"

"That I'm not listening?"

"No, before that."

"Griffinism!" I shouted, with a smile.

"Okay, so that's annoying," she said. "We have to work on that too." She was doing her work on me right now. I was learning a lot. "The griffins," she said. "They all love Hookbeak. He's like their savior and stuff. He's sort of a figure in folklore. They love him. Love him," she said. "Now, he went to the Griffon Empire and actually convinced the Queen of the country, Queen Goldenclaw, to join him at war. He convinced her of everything, that all of this was Celestia's fault."

"You disagree?" I said.

"Yes, no, I don't know," she said. "I'm more on the side that just wants all this to be over." I thought about that. Actually, now that I came upon it, she had never actually lived in an Equestria that was not at war. If the war had been ten years, and she was eleven, then she was one when it started. That seemed kind of crazy to me. She went on.

"The Royal Army of Canterlot and Wider Equestria, and the Griffonian Liberation Force, all are very stuck in a deadlock. There is no way for the griffins to get into Canterlot, and there's no way for the ponies to get into Circle town. Now, this is what happened," she said. "The griffins formed an alliance with the yaks. They got destroyed, by the griffins actually, for not following orders. The ponies formed an alliance with the zebras based on the dicta of Aqasha, the forest sprite. She is like a deity to the zebras. She can tell the future. Hookbeak then, maybe some think, created you, and your friends, as a way of distracting Canterlot and the zebras, so they would be forced to fight over here," she said, pointing down in the map, toward the bottom. The bottom was mostly desert. There was some green beneath the desert. "And here," she said, pointing up, toward the United Territories.

"This is the problem," she said. "The zebra and the ponies can't get along on the borders between Equestria-proper, the political alliance, as I said, and Zachejria, the zebra country. That's why some of the zebra tribes have turned against Celestia, though most are still on her side, again, because of Aqasha, whose word is considered to be law in Zebra-land."

"What about Aldeus?" I said. "What do you have to say about him?" I asked because I had realized that I barely even knew anything about him myself.

"He just came out of nowhere," she said. "No one knows anything about who he is, where he came from, what is cutie mark is even."

"What's a cutie mark?" I said.

She stared at me. "I don't know how to answer that," she said. I didn't understand why. She seemed to be answering things with great proficiency before I asked that question. She went on.

"Aldeus seems made-up, right? He's big. He's black. He's got red eyes. He's like a fictional character." Well, I didn't know about that. He didn't seem all that fictional when he was staring into me the other day, mocking me, and telling me about his plans, but I took her point, to an extent. "Aldeus is every pony's worst nightmare. He's like the boogeyman," she said. "No one knows who he is or where he came from. He just appeared with an army of tiny robots, a few years ago. It was a big shock to everyone involved. These attacks that you were part of have come more and more across the years. It's become more and more dangerous to live anywhere in Equestria now, and there's a lot of paranoia as to what place will be attacked next. Hookbeak is the one that pointed out that all this might be meant to scare ponies, or to cause a sort of moral panic whereby they abandoned their moral fiber and started acting like savages, and I guess that's what happened too."

I stared at her for a few moments. "What's a moral fiber?" I said. Fiber optics? She went on, apparently ignoring me.

"This is all good. I mean, this is all terrible, but it's all what you would expect. Then, Luna lost the power to enter ponies' dreams, and ponies have been having nightmares instead."

"The only one who has that power is Luna, isn't it?" I said.

"No," Jelly said. "Not if your dream is true, and I believed you when you told me about it, so no." Oh.

"Then what do we do? Will I have more of these dreams?" I said, with a hint of worry.

"How would I know?" she said.

"I see," I said.

"You robot!" she said.

"What?"

"It's just the way you act." We were in a tiny hut that was on the outskirts of the little village that I had been invited into by Allyseyev. I hadn't seen any other zebras since the day I arrived. I felt really tired. I had followed her into the hut, because I wanted to know the truth of what was going on, all of it, but I hadn't had the chance to feed yet. I thought that I should go soon, but not yet. I still had more questions. Actually, maybe...

"I'm hungry," I said. "Could we talk more on the way over to water. I mean, river."

"Yes," she said, seeming to agree with this. We went out. The sun shone. Everything was pretty, prettified. The grass, the air, and everything was warm and sweet and gave me hot tingling sensations all over my body that felt good. This was far and away better than the fortress by several country miles. "Okay," she said. I jumped. I hoped I hadn't missed something. I didn't want her to get angry at me again.

"You thinking about something?" she said.

"Yes," I said.

"What?"

"Beauty."

She nodded with a tiny grimace. "Beauty? So you can see beauty?"

"I sure can," I said. "I love beauty. It makes me happy."

"Well, that's good," she said. "Beauty has saved my life."

"Mine too," I said, happy to find a likeminded pony. "Beauty is one of the best things ever." I smiled at the shining, glistening landscape around me. It was all colorful trees with branches that stretched above my head, into the sky, and further out. These trees were gigantic, not like something I had ever seen. "I think I like how big the trees are," I said, satisfied with my thought. I liked that thought. I liked thinking. I liked things. The grass was high, uncut, unlike the lawns of the fortress, and more wild and free, like I had become, spending my time here. I liked it here. We went down a small path down through the forest, with twigs, bugs, and tiny leaves surrounding us, both on the ground and on the trees, and in the air, falling. It was a sign of the coming autumn, so I knew. That I knew, I mean. It was all pretty, and beautiful, and lovely, and nice, and sparkling. The brooks of the forest ran past the little path on which we treaded, crossing it, and a butterfly landed on my nose. That looked unsanitary. I swiped at it with my hoof.

"What are you doing?" Jelly said, grabbing me.

I shook my head. "Oh, the killing of little creatures? But you know, you don't know- I mean, you don't know where that butterfly has been. Bugs live in their own poop. Did you know that?" She smacked me up the head.

"Don't do that again," she said, staring at me like A-0087 had when I had let those ponies escape. 

"Yes, sir," I said, instinctively almost. What's the trouble with killing woodland creatures?

We reached an opening. A meadow? A clearing? Yes, it was, both. I was happy. The sun shone. It was all beautiful. It was a patter of colors, a patchwork of different sounds and smells, like the rubbing of something against a tree, maybe a squirrel in lonesome, or some beaver, chopping. I don't know. It was many things. There were sounds like the quiet humming of a bee that made me tranquil. Why? I didn't know, but that didn't mean I couldn't appreciate it. The little bumps, and knocks, and stutter-y, quiet sounds of the forest, awakened something in me. It made me... well, it made me... something. It made me, not want to kill woodland creatures. Why? The woodland creatures, surely, as they occupied the forest, weren't what made the forest beautiful. Yes, I understand and understood that they were necessary for the upkeep of the forest, to spread seeds and whatever else, but they weren't really necessary for the beauty of it. Were they? Was the trouble with killing woodland creatures, really that they are beautiful? But beautiful things have to die someday too, I thought. Death is natural, but then, is the premature death of a creature that doesn't want to die natural? I wondered. Was my behavior natural? It had to be, since I was part of nature. Fundamentally, I was produced by nature. Well, it can't be the beauty of the thing, I thought.

Jelly gestured forward. "We're here." I passed her by, moving some branches to the side. There was a gigantic, raging river, at the bottom of a mountain pass, no less.

"I see," I said. "The reason you were so nice to me, even though it was stupid of you to be so, was that you knew I was going to die, because there's no way, no way! No way, there's no way!" I said, shouting and yelling.

"If you want it, you have to go get it," Jelly said, teasingly. Ah. Oh. Well. No. Yes? Well then, how? And if I could, where and when? Why? Why? This seemed hard. I moved toward the edge of the mountain pass. I saw there was a scraggly drawbridge going across it. Great. Bad construction means bad luck, I thought. I carefully put a hoof down on the rocks. One of them fell off. I stumbled. I saw the rock hit the water. I moved back.

"I have to figure out some technique whereby I can move at a ninety degree angle," I said. "And I have to do it quickly, posthaste." I thought that there was almost certainly no way that I would be able to do this. The cliffside was meant for tiny bugs to walk on, not big ponies. It was literally a lateral slope. This was way above my paygrade back at the fortress, manipulating gravity. I was sure that could not be done. 

Jelly walked up beside me. "Jelly, this is impossible," I said.

"I thought that was not allowed," she said.

"Well, but this actually is impossible," I shouted in her face. I don't know. I didn't know. What to do? Where to go? How to? I tried putting my hoof down on a little rock in an effort to climb down the lateral slope. The rock dropped off. I fell. "Ah! Death," I said. I thought I was toast. I felt a tiny field of magic around me. It was Jelly. She picked me up.

"Here's an idea," she said, lifting me to eye-level. "Why don't you ask for help?" Help? What a preposterous notion. I didn't need any help. I had never needed any help, not really. I could make due with everything, all the tasks ahead of me, all my tools in hand, on my own. I didn't need any stupid, stinking help.

"I don't need help!" I said.

She leant forward. "What about when you almost died in the woods? Did you need help then?" Okay, but that was one exception, one exception with which to cross-compare and confirm what was otherwise a rule.

"I don't know," I said. She let go of me, putting me on the ground. "I still need to get down there."

"Then you want help?" she said.

"No," I said.

"Then you won't get help," she said.

"Okay, help me."

She lifted me up and lowered me toward the water. "How's this for help?" she said.

"Don't kill me," I said.

"I'm not killing you."

"Don't kill me."

"No," she said. "How close do you need to get?"

"Close enough not to die," I yelled from my vulnerable position. I was scared to the point where I forgot to breathe, and that seemed to make me even more scared. I was super-scared. "No. No," I said. "I'm scared."

"You have a little pony in you after all," Jelly said from up the cliff.

"Just lower me down already," I said, angry at her for teasing me.

"How close?" Jelly said, again.

"Oh, I don't know. About twenty centimeters," I said, trying to judge the distance.

"Can you be more specific?" she said.

"How can I get more specific than that?" I shouted.

"I don't know how much that is from up here," she said.

"Okay, well, get me close enough to the water so I can touch it with my hoof," I shouted back.

She lowered me. I touched the water. It felt good. I opened the little door on my hoof and began recharging. This time, it went way faster than it had that other time, partly owing to the fact, I think, that this was a river and that last thing was a tiny stream. I was probably losing energy almost as quick as I was recharging, I thought. As quickly? I was too concerned about having my thoughts be grammatical. I thought I should just leave it and not think about such things. 

"Are you done yet?" Jelly said, a little flustered.

I yanked my hoof out the water, coming back to attention. Coming back to noticing things, I mean, I was, am, been. "Can you stand there for another two to three minutes," I yelled.

"Fine," she said. "But you owe me." Owe me? Reciprocity. I had heard about this. This was one of those strange customs that ponies engage in.

"Okay, I owe you," I said. I kept on recharging. The water felt great against my tiny equipment. The river went so fast that I thought it might damage it a little, but the feeling of recharging was lovely. It was almost as lovely as the feeling of- I paused. I checked my battery power. A little triangle of warning started blinking on my internal hoof display. "Okay, pull me up." She did. I wiped the water out my hair. Drats. What a bunch of water everywhere. It got everywhere. Really, it did, even inside my body. I coughed. Some water flew out my mouth. This hadn't happened when I was down there. I guess my body just froze up because I was so focused on recharging.

"Thank you," I said. "You did something for me even though I gave you no money, and you cannot be sure, I mean, you haven't the means to force me to do something for you in return."

"I hope you will anyway," she said, a little sheepish. Well, I would. I wanted to, anyway. I began liking her a lot now. I had, done what to her? Killed her parents? Well, that was sad. I shouldn't have done that, in hindsight, I thought. Actually, it was terrible. If they cared about her an inkling of how much I cared, and they probably cared a lot more, then the thing I had done was actually really bad. It was terrible. Come to think of it, I should apologize again, I thought.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"For what?"

I took a deep breath, looking for words. "Right," she said, flinching. "Let's not talk about that."

Okay, let's not then. "I thought," she said. "That maybe you could change. I still think that." Change? From what into what? I was still me. No, ponies don't really change. I would never stop being scatterbrained, for instance. I knew that was a trait which was with me forever. Psychometrics had taught me that, back at the facility. It was likely, at least. 

"You know, I believed you when you said they were controlling you. You haven't done anything terrible since you got here," she said. "Except for the thing with the butterfly." Oh, the butterfly. Now, I saw it. The trouble with killing woodland creatures was that if you harmed them, you would harm your own respect for nature, and nature itself would be spilling into your hooves, its blood going down a tiny drain that you yourself have created, and if I kept killing butterflies, then what was wrong with killing Jelly? Was that it? Isn't Jelly smarter than a butterfly though? But then, aren't butterflies just décor that hang out in nature, ready to be looked at? What is a butterfly, I thought. What is a tree? What is it that's worth killing and worth holding onto? Or really, maybe it's more that I just have no reason for killing butterflies, so it's a cruel and unusual attitude to have toward life that I had adopted. This needed some more thinking-about, but now, it was off and back to the village.





Jelly and I arrived. We saw a big bronze wagon, that looked over-decorated with tiny jewels, in the middle of the place. Okay, this couldn't be good. Whatever that wagon was, it would have to contend with me, and if it learned of my identity, that might be trouble, I figured. Out the wagon walked a very tiny creature, a black changeling, undeveloped, for changelings become green when they have reached their final stage of development, or so I had learned. It was nearly as tiny as me, which was cute to me, since I rarely met a sapient creature of my tiny stature. It looked around. It wore a suit with many tiny medals on it. The suit was brown with gold corners going across it. It had fringes that jutted out from the seams at the edges of the suit, on the feet. The fringes were held up by the suit, going back into it, and out, and in. It was good. It was a pretty little suit, so it was good in that sense. Her arrival wasn't so good for me, not at all. 

Others left the wagon. It was an odd collection of ponies and changelings in similar suits. All the other changelings were way taller than this little one, who looked like a child next to them. I saw more wagons rolling on across the road that apparently lead into the village. I hadn't seen that road before. Was it really there before? Was it new? Did they make it, these sudden arrivals? The tiny changeling opened her mouth. A trumpeter played a little melody. She closed her mouth. She looked upon the trumpeter. He hid his trumpet behind his back. She walked up to him and kicked his leg, really hard actually. He fell on the ground, writhing. She returned to her position, the one she had been in before she kicked him, and she said some things.

"Zebras." She glanced in our direction, mine and Jelly's. "And ponies." She shook her head, looking disgusted. Why? She grimaced in disgust. "In the village of Terramar, are gathered here today. Are they all gathered?" She looked toward a zebra that was close to her. It wasn't Allyseyev. He spoke.

"Yes," he said. "Though we did not know you would come at this strange hour."

The changeling rolled her eyes. "Right. It's always our fault. You should be quiet, zebra. Do not disrespect me. Do not!" Really, was she trying to make up for her lack of height? Because she still looked cute, really cute. "Okay," the tiny changeling said. 

A large pony came running. He was big and muscular, probably the biggest pony I had ever seen at the time, save for Luna and the ancient, Aldeus. These old ponies, I would later learn, are known as ancients, by the by. The big pony said, "I'm sorry. I was caught up on the road. Have you seen the terrain?"

"I didn't say, at ease," she said. "Why does nobody listen to me?" She called over another pony. "Where's the accountant? Where is he? Where did we last see him?"

"I'm sorry," the big pony said.

"Don't be sorry. Do the right thing when I say it, and how I say it," the changeling said back to him. "The wagon got caught up somewhere? Is that it? Is that what you were getting to?"

"I think it was destroyed," he said, scratching the back of his head, a clear sign of nervousness.

"What is destroyed? Why?" the changeling yelled, sounding hysterical.

He shrugged. "We are not sure, milady. We think it may have been the- the threat from the south." He almost whispered.

"The threat from the south," she said, pouting. "I see. Well, I really see what you're saying now. Maybe I overreacted. You did have something important to tell me. Then again." Her body morphed. She grew into a dragon, big and scary. She picked him up and threw him away, into the forest, like picking up a paper clip, like nothing. She turned back into her regular, tiny form. He looked like he flew far, a lot farther than Jelly and I had walked. I thought that she might have killed him, this changeling that is. She was scary, almost as scary as Aldeus, though, no, perhaps not all that scary. I mean, he is extremely scary. She was scary, but it's hard to be more scary than the giant black monster with red glowing eyes.

The changeling spoke loudly, and with authority, "Get those children over here. Ponies don't belong on disputed territory. Their lives could be in danger, should the wrong tribe find their way here."

Allyseyev walked out from amongst the midst. "Surely, they are safe. We are right at the border of the disputed territory, little one."

"Surely, you didn't hear what I just said," the changeling said. "Get them over here right now or I will cut your head off, whelp. Disgusting, disrespectful little creature." I was stunned. This changeling threatened her life. That was a serious thing to do, and is, was, has been, and will continue to be. Wait, why? What had Allyseyev done? I wondered whether she was trying to protect us, well me, by saying this to the little changeling. I mean, she was little. It was an article of fact, not some wild claim made out of thin air.

"Don't question nature," Allyeseyev said. Another metaphor? "Don't question the trees." The trees? "The forest sprites, they called for these children to be here." The forest sprites? Those tiny shining things?

The changeling didn't break eye contact. "Get my spear," she said. "It's time for the war to claim another sad, inadvertent, unintentional casualty." Someone ran off, to get her spear? Really? She was going to kill Allyseyev? This place was more like the fortress than I had thought, I thought. Allyseyev jumped the changeling. Green sparks and fires flew around them as the changeling changed, growing. She turned into a giant, bee? No, it was- wait a second. She slowly morphed from one creature to another, becoming a bear, turning into a giant mantis, into an- an elk? As she morphed, she moved around Allyseyev, kicking her and prodding her. Allyseyev moved around and about, doing spins in the air, flipping her body around and about the scene. She kicked the changeling. The changeling turned into a zebra. The zebra kicked her back, hard! Allyseyev flew and landed on the rocks that were scattered around the ground. She arose and in a flash, got behind the changeling. 

The changeling transformed into Aqasha, as I had seen her depicted in the dream. Ally paused. The branches around Aqasha's eye reached out and grabbed the zebrak, zebra, Ally I mean. They grabbed her. She spun around inside their grip. Some of them broke off, but the others only grew thicker. They squeezed her. Her eyes popped out of her head. Her body came together, and apart, and fell to shreds. Oh. Well. I didn't want any part in this. I turned around to run. 

"Wait," Jelly said. I stopped and turned around. "Don't run away." Her eyes were red. Oh. I walked back to her, and embraced her.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry." I could feel myself tearing up a little bit as I was doing this. The changeling turned back into her original form.

"That was noxious," she said, the changeling. "Only in Zebra-land. Clyde Brook, where are you? Where is my spear? You only had one job. I could've died, fighting this silly little creature."

A scrawny stallion came running, spear in tow, holding it with his magic. "Here," he said.

She grabbed it. "Thank you." She took the handle of the spear and held it against his throat, not the point, but the handle. "Don't be late again, please. I like you, Clyde Brook. You know that, and I have a bad temper. Please, for both our sakes." She removed it. He nodded. "Okay," she said. "So, I don't want to get all over-dramatic. This is not for some naïf purpose of reconciliation that I have gathered you. Peace among ponies and changelings and zebras, and the world, is impossible. It will never happen, but justice can happen." She walked across the little open outdoor area and jumped up in the bench that I had sat on, not all that long ago. She stood on the edge, keeping balance. "Justice is important." She jumped up on the part of it that was carved for sitting. She sat down. "If we all want to have a prayer of surviving, even half a prayer, we need to cooperate, everybody, ponies and griffins, and zebras, and even the children," she said, looking straight at me. I froze up. 

"We need to be there for each other, not squabble and fight like the weaklings in the east." She took a moment to see how everyone would react. Every zebra was silent, and so was I, and Jelly. "And the west," the changeling said. Then, she was referring to Gloverton Whasper South, judging from my recollection of the map. This was getting scary. This changeling had barged in here out of nowhere. What did she want? "Or, be psychotic, strange, and act in defiance of the Nonaligned Court in every way that a person can, that it's possible for a person to, like that zebra did. We all need to calm down a little," the changeling said, still sitting down, as if she was trying to relax a little.

"The court," she said. "The court," she repeated. "Has requested a lease on a small spot of land in this village. When we last came here, the leader among you, Armand." I recognized that name, but from where? My dream... "He didn't want to listen to reason." It seems there's a hole in my memory here, since I had been distracted. "We told him that law is law, and if you don't follow the law, you get sent to Tartarus, because that is how the juristical power of the court works, but he wouldn't listen." She was speaking louder now, perhaps trying to be rhetorical and convincing. "So, we were forced to do the obvious. Arrest him." She paused, biting her upper lip "Now, he's free, but it wasn't the will of the court. It was an extrajudicial action taken by Celestia, who believes, as yet, that she's above the law, but we'll see about that." She stood up. "Children, come over here before we have to force you." She smiled at me, but it wasn't a warm smile. It looked feigned, as if she was trying to charm me. Well, I wasn't charmed. I was deeply afraid and worried about getting killed by this creature. She was the most terrifying thing I had seen since before I left the fortress for better, greener pastures.

I came closer. Jelly put out a hoof. "Run," she said. I turned around, and then I turned toward Jelly.

"No," I said. "I think I will stay this time." She looked at me, in disbelief. I wasn't running away, not any longer. We both treaded closer to the changeling.

"Names?" she said.

"I'm Jelly," Jelly said. "And this is Botsy." Botsy? What a ridiculous notion. My name was- oh, right. Well, she could've picked a less suspicious name at the very least.

The changeling patted Jelly on the head. Jelly pulled back. "I'm not good with kids," the changeling muttered. "Okay, what's your name?" she said, turning toward me.

"I said what her name was," Jelly said.

"She can say it herself," the changeling said, looking morose and angry. Well, I had been afraid of dying many times before, no doubt. No doubt. But this time, I was afraid for the sake of Jelly, so I walked up and simply said my name.

"F-5226," I said. The changeling stared at me for a moment. Cat got her tongue. She was quiet. Then she turned around toward the rest of the zebras.

"We have a problem here. Did you all know what and who this thing standing behind me was? And if so, do you want to die? I can kill any of you right now. I can, and I would. You saw what I did to that other zebra. To house a thing like this in a place that is a disputed territory, with other zebras, and a child, a real child!" The changeling's voice broke an octave and raised a decibel in volume. Okay, she was scarier than Aldeus. It's hard to get a lot more scary than that. "I have a business proposition for you all," she said. "The court has brought all its soldiers to this location in order to make you comply with the, well, the order, and if you don't comply, we have full permission, all the way up from the top, the wise and impartial Starry Skies. Bless his name, though if any of you say it I will cut out your tongue, because you don't deserve to stand in his presence, much less say his name."

She jumped off the bench which she had been sitting on and walked into the group of zebras, five or six of them, zebras. She was surrounded by them. The guards of the little caravan stood behind the zebras, so she was separated from her guards. "If I ever see any of your ugly faces in this village again, I will slice your throats, cut off your heads, and put them up on pikes for passersbys to enjoy looking at, or not, depending on what their disposition is." Is blood-hungry bloodlust an actual disposition, for if it was, then yes, but if no, then nooo. No one would enjoy looking at that.   

"If you all stay, I will kill you on the spot, and have my soldiers help me in this thankless task. I will write it up as a casualty of war, because it would be, given your behavior. Keeping this thing here is something that I consider to be a hostile act. It's expressly forbidden by the courts, as you all well know. I could have you executed on the spot for treason. I'm serious. It's in the lawbooks. Do you have any idea what you've done?"

One of the zebras came forward. It was a young male, looking to be in his twenties. "We're not like you, Nexusantran. We cannot stand idly as ponies, whether it be pony or anything else, dies around us." Nexusantran stared at him, a tiny grin forming on her face.

"I see how it is. It's the gallows for you then." A pony came walking forward, pushing past the zebras. He literally had a gallows with him. I had never seen a real one before. What an impressive piece of machinery. I checked myself, realizing that I had just taken pleasure in the beauty of the machinery, rather than balking at the rather obvious horror, even to me, of the situation.

The zebra was fastened inside the machine. The ponies moved it and put it closer to the middle of the village. Nexusantran sighed, wiping at her forehead with her hoof.

"Nexus," a female voice shouted. 

"What is it now?" Then it's Nexus for short? In that case, it was Nexus talking now. "Can't you see I'm slightly busy, Frosty?"

A mare came running. Again, she was young. She looked to be in her twenties. With Nexus, it was hard to tell. She was pitch-black and had no wrinkles or anything. "No, I'm sorry. I know, and I know how much you care about your work." She sounded genuinely doubtful, and regretful. Well, I guess she didn't want to get her tongue cut out.

"What is it?" Nexus said, groaning.

"It's the accountant."

"What about him?" 

"We found his body."

"He's dead."

"Yes, we found his body."

Nexus patted the mare on the back. "You've done good. Now, rest. We shall take care of all this before the day is done. Getting a new accountant, considering what has happened with the last few, will prove to be difficult. I shall go through the notebooks myself and check what places we have been to. Don't worry. You go relax now." Nexus leant forward and whispered loudly, very loudly, into her ear. "You're at ease." She ran away at high speeds. I barely even got a register on how she looked. She was pink, and with blond hair. Who was that pony? The notebooks? Checkbooks? What?

The changeling, Nexus, turned around and spoke out into thin air, expecting the pony she spoke to to materialize, on account of her having spoken. "Clyde." That's that scrawny pony from before, I remembered. "Clyde Brook. Clyde. Clyde, where are you? Clyde. Clyde." The big muscular, now I saw, orange pony came running stumbling forward through the group of zebras, and the other bronze-suited officials who had gathered there.  

"I'm here. I'm here," he said, panting. 

"We need to organize a proper trial for the robot."

"But we have no judge."

"Yes, we do," she said. "You be the judge."

"I'm no judge," he said.

She chuckled. "Tsk, tsk. Don't be modest, judge Brook. I know you used to be a judge briefly in the town that you were born."

"I wasn't really a judge," he said.

"Notebook," Nexus said. Somepony came running, giving her something. It was a book. She opened it, scrolling through the pages. "No. No, I'm sure I'm right about this," she said. "Here." She put her hoof down on a little note jotted down. "It says you were acting judge in the court of Littlesville. What a silly name. Nothing personal, Clyde. I like that town, but it does have a silly name." She pushed him, looking like she meant to tease him a little. He simply stood still, frozen. "You were educated in law, I see. Well, that's a favorite topic of mine, you know. You graduated out of, hm, I see, Canterlot. Well, and you told me you weren't a real judge."

"But this is entirely different," he yelled, almost getting hysterical all of a sudden. "Please. Please don't," he said.

She put a hoof on his chin and lifted his face, which was down in the ground. "I hereby, by the powers vested in me as prosecutor of Equestria, the Nonaligned Court's second-highest rank, make you a judge, Clyde Brook. You are hereby the judge of the village Terran, judge of the disputed territory, that sadly, though through no fault of its own, officially belongs to Equestria, the district and union. You can now stand up, or well, sit down. Do whatever you want. I don't care, but you will judge." He whimpered. Why was he so afraid?

"Now," Nexus said. "We arrest that little robot." I came forward. The big pony, Clyde Brook, looked at Nexus, and she nodded, looking bored and annoyed. He picked me up under his arm. Who's Clyde Brook again? I was confused.

"Where do we put her?" he said.

Nexus shrugged. "Maybe you come up with an idea for once. Maybe inside that wagon over there." She pointed at the wagon that was behind the diamond-encrusted one. That one looked a little more pedestrian and ordinary. 

"Okay, milady," he said, making a little bow. Nexus nodded.

"Great," she said. "Now, the only thing that's left to do is to build a courthouse. Is everyone ready?" she yelled out to the group. A bunch of yeses rang out from across the mismatched group of different species of pony, and even another changeling or two, I noticed. Even the changelings were like twice as big as Nexus. She may have had insecurities due to her size, but I couldn't be certain. She also was a great fighter. That was obvious right away. She was a cold, cold person, which is perfect if you want to be a fighter, but maybe, she was a little bit too cold. I simply accepted my fate as I was being carried away by this pony and put inside the wagon. Ah, well. It was fun while it lasted. I had learned a few things, and hopefully, I had learned for the better, not worse, and grown a little, but all of that would become obvious or not in due time, I thought, unless someone or something killed me before then, which, actually, seemed very likely. So it was then, death for me, well-deserved or not, and I'm not saying it wasn't deserved. I was just unsure at the time. I didn't know. I had just enjoyed exploring a new world, and not being someone's slave. That was the best part, was not being someone's slave. That's what I thought at least at the time. Sacrificing myself, or believing that's what I was doing, for Jelly, seemed to be a step in the right direction for me as a person, but it would remain to be seen what exactly my fate would be. Now, it was time for trial.
> Part 7: The Trial to Save My Life
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It all began. It all ended. It all was. It all had been, and now, I was facing execution. Yes, I figured that I deserved it. I had seen robots, and zebras for that matter, facing execution for way less, though Allyseyev had attacked Nexus. But she was clearly outmatched, and Nexus showed no mercy when she had Ally in her grasp. But perhaps, from the perspective of Nexus, killing Ally was the just and righteous thing to do, given the way she had behaved, and really, assaulting Nexus, may have been a crime of a magnitude that I myself didn't understand, but that weird little changeling showed no mercy. She was about to kill everyone that got in her path, if her words are to be believed, and I saw no reason for doubting them. Out of the frying pan and into the fire is how the expression goes, no? That how I felt, and how the situation felt. I was watching out the bars of the little wagon, seeing if anyone passed by that I might talk to. I saw that big muscular pony from before.

"Hey, Clyde," I said. He flinched and turned in my direction. "Which one is Clyde, you or the other one? And is the name of the village Terran or Terramar? I'm confused, and I figured that you might be able to–"

"Silence," he said, jumping toward me. "There will be no talking inside the cage. You shall remain quiet." Quiet, it was then. It didn't want anyone else to get hurt or killed, I think. Those were my thoughts at least. It's not that I cared all that much about them, except for Jelly. I was angry, for her sake, about the way they had treated Allyseyev, because she seemed to care about her, a lot, Allyseyev. Allyseyev was someone that commanded Jelly's respect, and seeing her get killed under such strange circumstances aroused a lot of anger and ill-will within me toward these recent arrivals. No place is safe ever, I thought. I need to get out of here and bring Jelly with me, but how? The place was flooded with soldiers now. There were at least a hundred, and probably a lot more than that. What were they doing here? This was a tiny village. What business could they possibly have? Well, it didn't matter. They were here, and they weren't leaving, at least not of their own free will. If only I can get ahold of the Obliterator, I thought. I left it in the house that I stayed in, not all that long ago. With the Obliterator, I will be able to obliterate them quite easily, I thought. Obliterating is what the Obliterator does, I had learned, as I remembered the mountain pass cracking, rocks roaring down toward the ponies that tried to pass through, and ultimately, killing them. Still, I thought, was it possible that at least her mother could've survived? So far, I had gone with the assumption that she clearly must've died, but was it really so? I wondered.

The hullabaloo of the encampment that the soldiers and other ponies that were dressed, all in orange, and brown, golden-ish clothes, all were setting up, all also aroused my attention, limited as it were. They were setting up an encampment that looked like it had lodging space for many ponies, and changelings, all involved. There were ponies running back and forth across the site, shouting commands and objections against and to, and fro, all at once, running around, running about, doing their activities, camping activities. I saw big, gigantic tents rising against the light of torches, a faint light that fizzled and sparkled in the night, fading, coming back, going in and out, the light of torches, which I was familiar with, was unmissable. They had no electric lights? Well, they apparently didn't need any. Something hit the wagon. It tilted. It tilted further, and I fell toward the edge of the inside. It tilted down into the ground. In fact, it fell over, and I fell with it, hitting my head on the inside.

"What's going on out there?" I said, meekly, and a little afraid, though with a determination to find out what's going on.

The doors of the wagon opened from the side that was above my head, tilted against the sky now. "Come. They are expecting you." Come?

"Help me up then?" I said. The person looked like a silhouette. It most certainly wasn't the changeling, Nexus. The whoever it was pulled me up like it was nothing, reaching down and flinging me with a single long protracted movement.

"We don't have much time," he said. It was the young male zebra from before. What a gent. He was rescuing me? Well, why not, I thought. I can be rescued for some reason. There are reasons to rescue me. Where to go now? He pulled me along. I couldn't run as fast as him. He tossed me up on his back and ran.

I heard ruckus all around me, with faint lights, those of torches, and ponies running around screaming at each other, telling each other to do things, tossing things. Tents. Spears. Spears? Oh no. "Run faster," I told the zebra. He did. He swooshed off, with all the speed in the world, into the forest. "Have we lost them?" I said, with fear in my voice and in my heart.

"No," he said. "The one we need to worry about is Nexusantran. She has a habit of tracking escaped ponies that she has put under shackles," he said, sounding a little nervous, voice shaking, voice cracking. "We need to make haste if we are to make it in time."

"Make it where?" I said.

He ran, jumping and dodging between branches and twigs, and trees and bushes, and all of the forest. He slipped between rocks that were tightly lodged together, going up above or beneath them. A ringing sound screeched throughout the forest, throughout the trees. I heard it everywhere. It was getting stronger and stronger. "Aqasha," I said, almost instinctively. I remembered what the blue pegasus character from my dream had told me. He said that I had been called. It was time for me to meet the forest sprite Aqasha, but first, I needed to know what sacrifices others had made for me to get this far. So, then, was it the case that this blue pony whom I had met in my dream could literally stare into the future, like Aqasha could, or was he spying on me somehow? Who was he? I couldn't trust my nocturnal visions, even though they happened to be right in the moment. I had to trust my senses, whatever it took. No other person can tell me what to believe. If I had learned anything, anything at all, it was that. Little lights floated in the air, white bright lights, gathered around us, as we ran further, closer into the forest. At last, the zebra reached a halt. He leant to the side, making me drop on the ground like a marble. 

"Aqasha?" I said. Mmm... something hummed. It sounded like, mmm. Mmm. Like such, mmm. It got louder. Mmm! It was a melody, I realized. It got louder and louder, and higher and higher in pitch. Then it stopped. Where did it come from? I took in my surroundings. All I saw was... light. Light? Well, yes, light. There was light everywhere. Blinding light surrounded me on all sides. I was sure I had been surrounded by forest a moment ago. I tried to stare around, looking for the zebra. This was getting strange, yes, and a little uncomfortable. I found him, right behind me. He was bowing into the earth. His face was pressed into the ground. I decided to do the same mimicking him.

"Stand up," he yelled, with a lot of anger. I stood up.

"It," something said out of the light. It was like a thousand voices were talking, female voices. I couldn't make out where the sound was coming from, or what the exact cadence of the voice was, though the voice seemed to change as I thought about what it sounded like. "It," the voices said again. "It." It what? I ran forward.

"I'm F-5226. Pleased to meet you." I reached out my hoof. I thought that was the polite thing to do.

"It, was," the voices whispered out of the light from all directions, in unison. "It was." The whisper turned into a normal cadence, that of conversation. "It was, and has been, but it is not now, and will not be, but it would be, and could be, if you listen." I wanted to listen. What did the voices have to say, I wondered. What? I was afraid for my own safety out in these woods, and I wanted to take care of Jelly, but something gripped me. The voices reached inside my head and held me in their grasp, not letting go, and I was spellbound. I couldn't hear or notice anything other than the words. 

The lights dimmed, becoming weaker, and then, they changed into a bright red. A pony came running toward me, one that was yellow, with pink hair. She had butterflies on her butt, surely a sign of animal-loving tendencies. These marks, I didn't know, was what Jelly had called cutie marks. We knew them as soul patches at the fortress. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with that name. The pony ran straight through me. Fluttershy, something whispered inside my head. I wasn't used to things talking inside my head, and so, I was unsettled. Fluttershy.

"Fluttershy," I said, to show that I had understood, and that it need no longer be repeated. Fluttershy, I heard again, inside my mind. "Who, and why?" I asked, making clear that those were open questions by the way I said it. I was trying to keep an even keel, and keep my voice as even, steady, and calm as possible. Really, I tried to calm myself down. I was getting a little jittery now. Fluttershy, I heard again. "You want me to find her?" I said. My mind drew a blank. The whisper stopped.

The glow of the light all-around me changed from a faint red to a pitch-red, the colors shifting. It was as red as blood now. "We have shown you, all that is, to the one that cares, and wants to know, the future," the voices hailed down, one by one, each sputtering a different phrase.

"Okay, why?" I said, backing slowly. "Why are you saying these things?"

The voices whistled, and for each voice, the whistle got louder and louder, until they reached a pitch that made me clog my ears up with my hooves. "You need to know, for you are the only one that has been given the power to put things right. Remember the name." The name? "The name is Sidus, black and dark, against the sky. He captured the night and made it his own. He is inside you all the time. He lives within you. You cannot escape, and neither can we. The forest is bound by the power of the black." The black? Sidus? This was all too much to bear. I didn't know what to say. It was overwhelming.

"The power has entered Equestria. It wants to save this world, but through so doing, is killing itself and everything around it." The whispers got louder, and a harsh wind, like a whiplash, hit my face and my neck. "It's the only way to ensure the survival of anything beyond the jungles of the south. This power is coming for us. It knows you're here. Beware. His name is Sidus. Remember the name, and Fluttershy is here. Remember. We need to unite. There is no time for evil, no more time for wrongdoing. Open your heart, or the black will tear it out. He is watching, always. He sees it all. He lives within you. Beware. The flicker of light within you is dying. There is no time. There is no time. Nothing." The light vanished as fast as it had come. I was left standing there, clueless. The black? Sidus lives within me? This was crazy. What is- who is Sidus? Aldeus? No, it can't be. If he lived inside my mind, I'm sure he wouldn't have needed a microphone to know I was awoken from his evil torture and slavery and stuff. He would have known instantly that I didn't hate the ponies anymore. What? Who? Why? Where? Something appeared out of the bushes. It was the pony in the vision, the yellow pony. 

"Why, hello," I said. I tried to wave like Jelly had taught me, not in a circle, but in a straight line.

Fluttershy gasped. "Sweetie Belle?" she said. Okay, now I was extremely confused. What's a sweetie belle, I oh so wondered. What could it be? A flower maybe. She ran up to me and embraced me, acting as if she knew me. She didn't, at least I didn't think. "Sweetie Belle! I'm so happy to see you," she said. She was happy? Well, that was good for her. I didn't feel very happy myself. I felt faint, weak, tired, and confused.

"I'm sorry," I said. She let go. "I don't know you, Fluttershy. I was called by Aqasha. I don't know what's happening." She teared up. Oh? Why? That felt bad somehow. It felt bad in my stomach, seeing her tear up, whimper, and I wanted to console her.

"Do I look like a pony that you know as Sweetie Belle?" I said. She was crying now. Oh no. "Aqasha wanted us to talk. What's the matter? What's wrong?"

"Just go," she said, turning. Go? But I had only just arrived. What was the matter with her? "I don't- no," she said, wiping her face. I felt sorry for her, though not regretful of anything I had done, as I could see no reason for why she reacted this way.

"I don't think I want to go," I said. She turned around and jumped on me, holding me down. She stared into my eyes. I stared back. I was confused. I felt sorry for her. I really did. "I'm not your friend," I said. "I don't know why you're doing this. I'm sad too, you know. I don't know what's happening." She stood up, towering up above me. I looked up at her. I tried standing up, but she pushed me back down in a gentle careful motion.

"There, there," she said. "If Aqasha wanted you to come here." She sobbed. "Then, I guess it has to be something really, really important." I felt somehow safe, in a way I hadn't been before, with Fluttershy above me, prodding at me with her hoof. Now, I felt really sorry. She was crying and then she was acting nice to me. What was the deal with all this? I just wanted to make her stop crying, and then leave this place, this Aldeus-forsaken place, pardon the expression, for Aldeus had been my deity for all of my life, almost, but I still disliked him in a really deep, profound sense.

"I don't want to argue," I said. "I'm not dangerous, not anymore. I hope I'm not, but my light is dying. So said Aqasha, and Jelly told me that she's right about everything."

I heard another voice coming from behind me. "Oh, really? Did she predict this?" Nexus stood next to the zebra, and a spear was going through his... stomach. That was bad. That was really bad. I wanted to cry now. I teared up a little. "Now," Nexus said. "Let's not get all crazy. I only want the little whelp that has escaped, not you, forest pony." This was directed at Fluttershy, by all accounts. "We need to." Nexus paused, looking for words. "Cut her head off." Really? She needed to think to come up with that? She was joshing, clearly.

"No," Fluttershy said. "No, there's no way." I looked to her. All these selfless acts committed on my behalf struck a blow on me, Jelly, Allyseyev, and now Fluttershy. I felt something, a sting, which turned into a bite, harsh and true. It was shame, within me. I felt it. It was physically painful. "No," Fluttershy said. "She's staying here."

Nexus took a step forward. She stopped, tugging at her spear, and looked at the body of the young male zebra that she had just made into her victim. She pulled out the spear, and rubbed it against the ground. Then, she walked forward. "If I have to kill you, then I will," she said. 

"No!" I said. "No." I sighed. "No, I'm coming. Fluttershy, don't die so that I can live. It's not right." It's not. It wasn't. How could it be? "I need to go," I said.

Nexus stopped, looking toward Fluttershy, glaring at her. Her legs spread out, to indicate that she was ready for battle. She levitated her spear with her changeling magic, her horn glowing green in the dark. 

Fluttershy looked to her, and then to me. Then she leant down and whispered into my ear. "I will be coming for you," she said. She jumped into a bush, the way Jelly had, and disappeared. 

"Okay, that was easy," Nexus said, relaxing, and lowering her spear. "Come with me then, and then, we will begin your trial. We have something interesting planned for you. The other one, Jelly, told us you were an engineer in your past life. Well, then I think you'll like what we have planned for you." I thought back to the days when I was literally worried about being spun around in hot cement. That seemed good now. "Come." She grabbed me and put me on her back. Then she jumped up the hillside that had apparently led us down into this clearing. The little tiny sparkles in the air, the sprites, all surrounded us. "And there will be no biting. I consider that to be a hostile act," she growled, head turned toward me. I interpreted that to mean that she was going to kill me if I bit her, which is something I could understand and grasp. If there was anything I had an experience in, a lot of experience in, it was death threats, and a lot of them. She carried me away into the forest. I wasn't going to bite her. I was stupid. I am stupid, but not, I think, I hope, that stupid. 





"Ready all? Ready now?" Nexus shouted into the encampment. A few hoots came. "We have a special case today, one that involves a criminal of great notoriety and skillfulness, a criminal that has killed many ponies in many places across the country." In any other context, I would've taken that as flattery, but really, now I just wondered what was going on. No, I hadn't. I had killed a relatively small amount of ponies compared to others, and no I wasn't, and–

"I'm talking of course about the cyborg." Cyborg, where? "I'm ecstatic to announce the founding of a new courthouse in the village of Terran, population zero, to which we can put up our infrastructure and introduce the court system of the Nonaligned Court further into Equestria." A mare came running with a ribbon. Nexus made a pair of green scissors materialize out of nowhere, with her magic, and cut the ribbon. "To the skies, and beyond, and we shall rid the world of crime, all over the world. We shall do the bidding of the court, and the task which has been put on our shoulders is heavy and very, very grave. To the skies," she said again, waving the translucent scissors around. They swung, and a few ponies behind her had to duck. In all honesty, as I beheld this scene, they all looked terrified of Nexus. 

"Now, let us show some engineering, if that is what you like, whelp," she said to me, with scorn. "Away. Move to the side. Quickly," she shouted, walking through the crowd. They all moved aside. Behind them, as they had split apart, was a big building, with a symbol above the front door with a gavel and a hoof reaching out to grab it, and a hand, that of a griffin, also reaching out, and they reached out from right and left, the hammer in the middle. It was a gavel, the kind you use to pronounce things at meetings and such. I only had a vague awareness of what it was at the time, and I had certainly never been in a courthouse. Around the house was a trench going straight through the village, without regard for the other buildings. It looked like you couldn't enter or leave the house that I had stayed in now. Water coursed through, and then flowed through it, pushing branches and twigs and rocks that were at the bottom of it away. This was a really weird sight. How quick did they build it, pray tell? I had no idea. 

"Is Clyde Brook ready?" Nexus said.

A pony came running. "Over here."

"No, the other Clyde Brook." The huge muscular orange pony from before came running. 

"I'm here, milady."

"Great," she said. "You're my favorite Clyde Brook." Okay then. This was getting a little a little twisted and psycho for my tastes. Was everyone's name here Clyde Brook or what? "Okay," she said. "Open the doors." Two ponies came running, running like their lives depended on it, which looked strange, really strange, how fast they were running, and they reached for the doors, one grabbing the handle on the one side, and the other grabbing it on the other. It was a two-sided door. The door, or doors, I guess, flew open. "Great," she said again. "Let us begin." I was pushed from all directions, soldiers tightly gathered in a clutch behind me, holding onto each other, pushing me forward. What did they think I was going to do? Rush them. I'm not all that dangerous, guys, I wanted to tell them, not without the Obliterator at the very least. I saw very much forward to obliterating them all, but I wasn't dangerous right now I mean. Oh, I guess I'm rambling now. We entered the courtroom of the building, which they had apparently had the time to build when I had been away. We walked inside. It was all great and shining. It had a chandelier. How had they built it this quickly. It had a large desk in the end of the room, which, I would learn was meant for the judge. They all got seated, Nexus too, unceremoniously, at different spots and corners in the room. It didn't have any chairs, but I guess they didn't need any. They sat on the floor. It was time for trial.





"First witness," Nexus yelled. Clyde Brook, the muscular Clyde Brook, was sitting behind the judge's stand, fidgeting. What was on his mind, I wondered. What was he doing? What was going on with him? What was his deal, exactly? Who pooped in his jelly? Jelly! I looked around, looking for Jelly. Was she here? I saw her, in the audience. She had been cramped in between two soldiers that kept their eyes on her in every moment. Drats. That's where she was. I figured that if I escaped, I might find her someplace else that wasn't so crowded. All of this got tooo complicated now. And what was with this whole over-formal tone of the entire thing? I thought that I had never been at a hearing, whatever kind, that was this dramatic. I was convinced that they would ask me about, gather information that they might perceive to be valuable, and then kill me. Why? Well, it was personal experience, but what happened was a lot worse than that, to my mind. It was like my conscience was being grilled, and grilling me, and being put to the test, not from within, but from without, because these ponies were absolutely relentlessly making all kinds of wild accusations against me.

"Did you or did you not kill a pony named Jangles Fleefoot?" Clyde Brook said, in a tone that was slightly irritating. It's almost as if he was trying to hard.

I shook my head. 

"Did you or did you not kill a pony named Maritone Heartstone?" These all sounded like made-up names. I objected.

"Objection!" I said. Clyde Brook flinched.

"She's objecting," he said. Nexus shrugged. He turned to me. "Objection overruled." He pounded his gavel. What in the everloving what was going on? "Next," he said. "Did you kill a mare by the name of Flutterscotch Secretwings?" Huuuh? I stared at him quizzically, genuinely afraid and confused as to how I should react. "Answer the question!" he said, pounding his gavel. I shook my head, slowly. 

"Who's that?" I said.

"It's the wife of the general of the northern fighting forces in Equestra's royal army, you career criminal you," he said, with feigned anger. I was unimpressed. He was clearly terrified of Nexus. That's the only reason he was behaving this way.

"I think I killed her," I said, remembering what Aldeus had told me about the general's wife.

Clyde Brook jumped out of his chair. "She admitted it!" Nexus shrugged. "You admitted it."

"No," I said, remembering more now. "No, she survived. I know she did. Last I saw her, she turned into stone, and then she escaped. Aldeus had said that she didn't, but he lied to me." I haven't explained this yet, but I'm alluding to the statue that Aldeus blew up. I had realized it actually was a real statue. Good for you if you've already figured this one out, reader. That's the answer to the mystery. I tried to use it to mock Aldeus, or at least get some upper-hand on him, but to no effect.

Clyde Brook sat back down. "You're denying it," he said. Well, yes, I think that was already clear and obvious to everyone involved, but court procedure, in Equestria, I would learn, involved a lot of mindless repetition. "Why are you denying it?"

"I tried to kill her but she survived," I said.

He pointed at me. "She's mocking the court." No, I wasn't.

Nexus sat, leant back against some other characters, some of them changelings and some of them ponies. Together, the contours of their bodies created a comfy chair for her, I guess. "No," she said. "Just follow court procedure, Clyde Brook. I'm sorry. Judge Clyde Brook. Slipped my tongue." 

"Right," he said, looking a little shook. I glanced toward Nexus who sat a little in front of me, to the side, in the leftmost corner of the room. She always looks angry, I thought. It really was unbelievable to me that she had this much sway over these people. This was something Aldeus would only dream of.

The judge spoke to me again, rough tones and harsh words exiting his mouth. "You are a career criminal." In a very literal sense, all of this was true, though I could not see the relevance of the career part of it. Whether it was a career or not, it would still be a crime, I would assume, and so, I smiled at him, taking pleasure in the strangeness of his wordings. He pounded his gavel. "Do not mock the court. There will be justice. We have witnesses." Witnesses? How quaint, I thought. This whole thing was almost making me laugh, but my mood turned, once I met one of the witnesses. "We found this person hiding in the forest on the way here. She recognized you. She has a testimony to bring." No, way!  

There was a smaller desk beside his. The one that walked up was none other than Jelly's mom. "I have something to say," she said. My entire body and face froze up. No way! No way! This was not, this was not, this was not, I could hardly think. I could hardly breathe. I could hardly stand up. I collapsed on the ground and stared into the floor. This was my reckoning. It wasn't very nice for me on a personal level, but no reckonings are. I shook. I closed my eyes. I wanted it all to stop, but it didn't, and it wouldn't. I took a deep breath and looked up.  

"Jelly has told me many things about you," she said, glaring at me. Oh no. I was gagging on air. I collapsed completely onto the floor, losing all motor control, my body flat on the floor. My body had gone into fight, flight, or freeze mode, and it had chosen freeze. "I hate you for what you did," she said. I had no idea where she had come from. They found her out in the forest. I looked toward Jelly. She looked away from me, dead-eyed. Now, I wanted to die. I felt that sting again, the sting of shame. Should I say something in my defense, I thought. Should I stand up for myself? I didn't dare. I didn't dare. I thought that the least I could do was to face these accusations, and everything, head-on, and so, I looked up, and stared into her eyes. Jelly's mom was dead-eyed. She looked as before, only scraggly and torn-apart, and dirty, like she had been lost for a while. This was too much. I began crying. 

"I thought that it was impossible," she said. "Then I heard that you had actually tried to save her life." No, don't do that, I thought. Anything but that! Don't try to protect me. Don't say these things. Just let it all end already. The worst thing she could do, I thought, was this. She was really doing this? After everything I'd done? You know what? No.

"No," I said. "Where comes justice? I killed the one you love." I pointed at her, as if to accuse her. I stood up. "No, just don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do this. I don't want it to be like this. Don't try to protect me."

She looked at me, with confusion in her eyes. "I wasn't going to," she said, finally. Oh, what a relief it was to hear that. I collapsed back onto the floor, waiting for my fate.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I always liked to kill things. I don't know why." I was sad. I knew it had to end soon. I didn't belong here. I never had.

"I think," Jelly's mom said, "that Jelly should come up here." Wait, what? More tricks? More maneuvers to save me, or risk saving me? I wouldn't have it. This would be the trial, whatever that means, to keep themselves from saving me, I thought, and think, because that's what happened.

People moved apart, switching sides, switching order, nudging for room, and then Jelly walked up, taking her mom's place. "I know all of this is really weird," she said. Yes! I wanted to yell, yes. Please, I thought. This needn't go on. The shame was too much to bear, and I wanted it all to end. I just didn't want to look at Jelly anymore. I didn't want to think anymore. I was gripped by an emotion that was more powerful than me, and it forced me down on the ground and had me in its grasp, holding me, pushing me, making me want to quit, and I think, making me want to die, and leave it for the ones that deserved to live, or at least, I would be punished until I myself was satisfied with the punishment, whatever punishment would do that. Kill me over and over again, as many times as I have killed others, I thought. This had to end now.

"No," I said. "Jelly, this is all wrong. You shouldn't be doing this. Think of your dad."

She coughed a little, looking almost like my words hit her out of her chair. She regained her balance. "Shut up," she then said to me. "No, you don't deserve to die. I have seen the way you act around other ponies when you got the chance to act nice. Of course I'm angry at you, but I always will be. That's not the point." I was resolved now. I would stop this foolishness at all costs. There was no snowball's chance in hell that I would let her do this.

"I remember," I said, "when I was in a tiny village, and a child hid behind a place, shaking. He was really literally shaking, he was so scared. I killed him without thinking twice about it."

Jelly shook her head, frowning. "That's not true. You're thinking about it now."

"Another child came running. She was about your age. She called me a monster. I killed her too."

"But I know you regret it," Jelly said. "You told me."

"No, I don't. I'm happy," I said.

Jelly put her hoof to her face and leant forward into the stand. "Please don't do this," she said.

"Jelly, you have to let me go," I said, staring at her with earnest regret for everything I had done.

"No," she said. The judge stared between us, looking flabbergasted. I looked in the direction of Nexus. She was sitting in the corner with closed eyes, snickering, trying not to burst out laughing by the looks of it. 

"Jelly," I said. "I literally killed everything I cared about for a long time. Everything around me died. Trees. Houses. Beautiful pieces of architecture. Other robots that I were ordered to kill. I've killed children. I've killed myself, because I killed them," I said, scrambling for words, and remembering what Ally had said. "Please, I'm not a good person. I'm telling you right now. At least I'm self-aware that I should die, because I really haven't done right by the ones that tried to help me. I've tried to harm them too. I mocked Allyseyev when she tried to help me. I called her a zebrak."

Jelly broke out in a, as far as I was concerned, unwanted giggle.

"No, I'm serious," I said.

"A zebrak?" she said. "You're not evil. You're just confused." 

I was getting really angry. Come on, Jelly. Realize the truth. "No, I am evil," I said, tearing up. "No, I am evil. I am. I am. I wanted to kill the guards and escape from here, and all you ponies," I said, looking around the room, "are against killing, except for you, Nexus." I looked at her. She shrugged again.

"Guilty as charged," she said. Well, okay then. What a weird creature Nexus was, by the way. I haven't even gotten started on her.

Jelly pounded the podium with her hoof. "I know you're lying. You know why? Because I saw what you did to your little machine. You threw it in the river. The one you used to kill my dad."

"No, I didn't," I said, almost reflexively.

"Or maybe you're not lying," she said. "Just to yourself." I was sure I hadn't. I remembered back. There was, something, I couldn't quite put my hoof on what had happened. Did I really do that? No, I would never. The Obliterator was way too valuable for me.

Nexus piped up. "There actually is evidence to support this," she said. "We discovered your killing helmet at the edge of the river. You must've dropped it by mistake." Ah, had I really? Dropped it by mistake? It all came back to me.





"Can you pull me up in four minutes or something like that?" I said.

She was keeping her grip. "Seriously?" she said. "This is getting heavy." I noticed the Obliterator was on my head. I had it on me all the time, in case something would happen. A butterfly flew by. Well, I guess this is a changing moment for me, I thought, dropping the helmet. It went with the stream. It disappeared. That made me happy. I didn't want to kill any more butterflies, not because of their beauty or anything like that, but because there was all the reason in the world to preserve them. The butterflies had done me no harm, and they showed me that life is possible everywhere, even on leaves and in the earth, and that counted for something. The balance of nature was something to preserve. My vision blurred and I returned back to the courtroom.





"How could I forget that?" I said. "That's a total hole in my memory."

"Maybe you suppressed it," Jelly said.

"Or maybe she just dropped it," Nexus piped again from the corner of the room. Yeah, right.

"No, I didn't," I said. "None of it was on purpose." The judge looked confused. "I mean, the dropping was on purpose. But I didn't mean to kill anyone. I was controlled by the most evil pony in the world."

"You mean to say," Clyde Brook said from his desk, "that someone forced your hoof? You had no other choice than to do it? That's not a very strong defense, given the nature of the evidence."

"I don't care if it's wrong. It's the truth," I said.

Nexus laughed. "You had no choice in it at all. He made you pull the trigger, your leader? Please. Don't give us that. Don't mock the court and everything we believe in. I thought you were doing well. You really did seem regretful for a while there, because you have actually done things wrong!" She stared right into me. "It wasn't anyone else that did it. You're the one that did it. You admitted as much. Why the ambivalence and speaking through one side of your mouth and then the other, after how far we have come?" This struck a cord with me. I really was the one that did it.

"You're right," I said, after thinking about it for a few moments. "I did do it. I take full responsibility."

Jelly groaned. "You know, you've acted like a really poor friend when all I was trying to do was help you." But she's right!

"Can't it all be true?" I said. "I was being brain-washed, but I also did it of my own accord."

The judge pounded his gavel. "I declare you to be guilty of all the crimes you have been accused of, including the murder of Jangles Fleefoot, Maritone Heartstone, and Flutterscotch Secretwings, and I sentence you–" He sounded like he choked up. Was he crying? No. He collapsed onto the desk. The wall behind him exploded. Dozens of tiny tanks, MEWODS, rolled into the room. 

"Your friends are here," Nexus said, smiling. "Let's give them a warm welcome." She leant off some ponies in the back. They looked like they wanted to move for dear life. Nexus left her seat and they all ran away, and ran at the attackers with spears. Explosions and wood and mortars went off all over the courtroom. It was havoc. Something hit the roof, and a part of it fell down, crushing some of the soldiers.

"Botsy," Jelly said. Botsy!" I had been nicknamed! I ran toward her. A piece of wood from the roof above fell down between us. She was stuck in the corner of the room. I scrambled and climbed between the wood, trying to reach her. Something hit me in my face. I flew away, further into the lower backside of the room, were the entrance was. The room sloped downward, toward the entrance. I rolled around, not being able to stand up. I could feel bumps and bruises becoming against my skin, as I fell, and I rolled. Jelly! I had to help her. I stood up. Nexus walked slowly toward one of the tanks. It turned its gun toward her. She held up her hoof and a thatch of metal formed across it, and grew so as to cover her entire body. It was a mismatched lump of metal. The mortar hit it and bounced off. She jumped up on the tank and used the piece of metal to decapitate the turret shooter. She jumped down into the tank and pulled someone up. Isn't it a small world we all live in, I thought. It was A-0087. 

"Let loose," A-0087 said. 

"No," Nexus said, and threw her on the ground. "This is ridiculous!" she yelled, through the courtroom. Some eyes turned toward her. I regained my balance and ran, looking for Jelly. "Really?" Nexus said, grabbing onto the turret and flinging it toward another tank, making it explode. She was stronger than she looked. "Oh, really?" she said, jumping off the MEWOD. "You are all facing trial and execution, malodorous children," she said, punching a robot in the face, so that she flew off and away toward a wall. They were all filly-bots. They looked funny, getting all beat up by this tiny changeling. I sprung forward, and I saw Jelly, in the corner. I ran toward her. Another beam fell down, blocking my path. I could see blood splatter flying from a guard beside me, a foot-soldier. It got in my face. I wiped it off, and then I jumped over the beam, and over to Jelly.

"No," she said. She was crying.

"Yes," I said. "You be safe now. I mean, you'll be safe now." She pointed behind me. I looked. Behind me was her mother, beneath the beam that had just fell. She was, not moving, not moving at all. I looked at Jelly. She retreated into herself, not making eye-contact with me. I saw the Obliterator, all of a sudden, just lying there on the floor. Who had laid it there? I picked it up. One last time, I thought. I shot a filly-bot that was close to me. I just saw her and shot her, like it was nothing. It wasn't harder now than it was before. I shuddered, but then my resolve got stronger, and I made a vow to myself that I would protect Jelly. I jumped up on the judge's bench, shoving Clyde Brook aside, and took aim. I fired, and I fired, and fired. I noticed that my crosshairs had reached Nexus. I aimed at her and fired, hitting a robot that was just beside her, since he was running at her from an oblique standpoint. He was running at her from the side. I had no intention of hitting her, at first, but now I wondered, and then I pulled my weapon back. No, this was getting ridiculous. I dropped it on the floor. Killing others, even if they were only robots, who wanted to kill me, did strange things to me. The chaos died down, as fast as it had begun. I saw spears flying past me and shots ringing through the distance, far beyond my field of vision. 

"No!" Nexus shouted. I looked out from behind the desk. She grabbed the spear from one that was levitating it, ready to throw at me, and hit him in the head with the handle. "We want her alive. She just saved my skin, you whelp." She really enjoyed calling ponies, and other assorted species, whelps, I had noticed.  

"I'm sorry, milady," he said, almost mechanically, like a robot, like me, like I had done when ponies had spoken to me. I felt regret. I didn't want to be here anymore. I ran out the door. "Should I go after her?" I heard from behind me.

The was silence. "No," Nexus then said. I hurried out, toward the river. I intended to drown myself. Something stretched out in front of my feet, and I fell, hitting my face on the ground. Something cracked. It felt like I had broken something, again. Nexus pulled back her leg. 

"There, there," she said. "It'll all be fine. I think we shall see to it that you get properly punished, one way or another." Something thudded, and she grabbed me, somersaulting across the ground with my body in tow. The rocks where we had just been exploded. Nexus walked up, picked up one of the rocks, and threw it into the courtroom, to where I couldn't see. Fire escaped the room, and I heard a scream. Nexus was Nexus. She was unlike anyone I had ever witnessed. She grabbed me and put me on her back. "Remember what I said about biting, please, friend," she said, running back into the room. The dust had settled. It was quiet. "Okay," she said. "I want to get a count on the survivors. All that survived, reach out your hooves. Please, I want to see a raise of hooves if you survived. The children too. You included," she said, speaking to me. I raised my hoof, though feebly, because I was tired and hurt. Others did the same. A tiny robot-arm reached out. It was that of A-0087. Her face was a strange mix of anger and confusion. "Splendid," Nexus said.

She walked up to A-0087. "You're coming with us," she said, grinning. 

"No," A-0087 said, jumping toward Nexus. She flicked A-0087 away with the tip of her hoof like it was nothing. Remember that A-0087, distinguished person as she was back where I lived, never was a fighter. Nexus smiled widely. A-0087 glared at her. She jumped at her again. Nexus flicked her away, without hurting her. Now, this was a sight to behold. I had never, ever in my wildest dreams thought that I would see something like this. A-0087 tried to ram her down it seems, with her little bodyweight. Nexus picked her up. She wiggled in her grip. Actually, I noticed, I was still on Nexus' back! I looked down at A-0087, tempted to say something, but then I decided not to.

A-0087 noticed me, and then, she wiggled even more aggressively! "Let me go," she said.

"You know this person?" Nexus said to me. I thought that a little honesty had never hurt anyone. I said it like it was.

"There are six departments at the place where I come from. Each has five-hundred thousand robots in it. She," I said, pointing at her, "is responsible for one of those departments. She was my boss!" I wanted to laugh, but I didn't. I only smiled, faintly.

A-0087 glared at me. Then she stopped wiggling. "Okay," she said. "You win. You have betrayed everything I thought you believed in. You've made a mockery of me and everyone that used to believe in you. Aldeus wanted to bring you back so we could fix you again, but fine. Have it your way," she said. I laughed, a little. It was hard not too. This was too good, way too good. I really hated A-0087 with a passion, and to see her suffer filled my heart with joy. Nexus looked to me, and then back to her.

Nexus smiled. Then she grinned. Then she smiled and grinned and laughed, and she was maniacal. "Haha! Excellent," she said. "We are going to Canterlot. Both of you are. We are going to meet some faces that you've never met before, and both of you will be in the biggest courtroom in all the land. How does that sound?" she said. Then she went on, before I had opportunity to answer. "And then, you will meet the judge who has literally never been wrong, the great and powerful Starry Skies. Good luck to the both of you, my lovelies." She looked like she wanted to kiss us. I was shook, and the entire display made me a little nauseous, but so be it then. We would be going to Canterlot.
> Part 8: Journey to Canterlot
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, so if you, the reader of my biographies, is surprised that I'm still alive at this point in the story, then you're not the only one. I've been thrown, tossed, hurt, shot at, blown up, and stabbed, and kicked, and attacked, several times, but I'm still here. I guess you can write it up to dumb luck, or skill, or someone behind the curtain helping me along, some kind of deity. A god was watching, if Aqasha was to be believed. What is a god? Well, it's something that can control the world and knows everything I think, and by that definition, this Sidus that she had referred to was and is a god. I fell down into a sea of ponies. 

This was another vivid dream, like the one I had before, and I figured that someone was yanking my leg with all this, trying to mess with me, or trick me, whichever one. I looked around me, and fell down on the ground. I was surrounded by... Jelly? No, jellies. I was surrounded by jellies, and lots of them. All-around were many tiny copies of my Jelly, who tried to save a person that deserved to die. I bent down toward the ground, trying not to look at them. I had accepted my fate now. I would never be free. My actions had shackled me to a fate of righteous regret over bad acts that I would live with forever. I lay on the ground, trembling. I felt like the seizure symptoms were coming back, the ones from part two. I felt frail, and shaky, and no wonder. I should feel a lot worse, I thought. I have ruined everything, killed everything, and done terrible things to everyone around me, and for no apparent reason. I had just been stupid for the sake of narcissism and evil intentions that lived within me, that I had not taken responsibility for before, so it was all good and well that I was having strange nightmares about Jelly, even though I hadn't the slightest clue about what was going on. It was unbelievable, and impossible. 

Controlling dreams, I thought, means you can manipulate ponies to do anything you want. Whatever would one use with such a power, use it for? And who would it use? What ponies were under the sway of these nightmares already, these visions in the night, unbeknownst to me? He has captured the night. He is Sidus. He could be anyone. He could be anyone? He's black, against the sky? Was it Nexusantran? Surely, if a demon that can control everyponies' dreams and lives everywhere manifests, it wouldn't take the form of a demon that can control everypony and follows them through the woods, I thought. That seemed a little too obvious. Nexus had her own psychological issues that she needed to deal with. She wasn't me, and I wasn't her. I was probably far worse than her, if we are to compare the amount of blood we have spilled. Then again, Nexus was really blithe and nonchalant in her killing ways, and perhaps even moreso than I had been. How many had she killed? I had no idea. Maybe it was a thousand. How many had I killed? A thousand? I couldn't be sure. It all blurred together in my head.

"Hello there, doggy," one of the jellies said. I immediately got extremely uncomfortable and anxious. That's what she had said to me in the woods. This dream seemed like it was really happening. The smells, the sounds, the sights, the touch of grass beneath my hooves, and the texture of dryness in my mouth, from not having consumed water, or used it to recharge, were all vivid and real, as real as in real life. This was the second dream of this kind I had ever had. The first one was with Luna, Hookbeak, Aqasha, Vivacio, and all the others, if I forgot someone. There had been a pony with a dress in my last dream. Was that Luna? I had totally forgotten about that. I hadn't thought about where that pony went, and what happened with her. The dress was kaleidoscopic and full of color. I didn't recognize her as Luna in my memory. Who was she? Did she disappear, like the dehorned, slightly too old pegasus had? Was he Sidus, perhaps? In which case, I wanted to talk to him again and see what he had to say for himself.

Another Jelly came up to me. "How are you doing there, pal? Did you see that person over there?" She pointed to the other Jelly. "She said that she wanted to hurt Jelly over here. What am I going to do?" She looked genuinely worried, and that was creepy. I looked at her, shaking my head in disbelief. Another Jelly walked up to me, stepping to me, coming up into view.

"Howdy there, Botsy. We need to be careful. All those other ponies over there are being awfully strange. We'd better go hide, or do something to protect ourselves. They might attack at any minute!" But you're jellies, I thought. You don't attack ponies. I attack ponies. You're innocent children.

I was careful not to respond. I didn't want to play along in this silly game. It was only a dream, and that was important for me to remember. Another Jelly walked up to me, a playful face on her little playful face. "Hello there, Botsy. We need to run." She then punched me. I could feel it as if it was a real punch, but it was not very painful, since Jelly was naught but a little filly, but that took it over the edge for me.

"Okay," I said, yelling into the sky. "What are you doing? What's going on here? What are you getting at exactly?" My shadow, which came from the sun, grew. I watched the sunlight. The sun didn't move or anything. It grew further. My shadow then covered a large chunk of the jellies around me. There were about a hundred I think. Then, to my surprise and utter shock, the shadow opened its mouth and spoke.

"You care about them, don't you?" it said. I saw the shadow move its mouth. That wasn't me. This was sorcery. Someone was controlling my shadow, and I didn't like it.

I pushed myself through the crowd of jellies, trying to walk closer to the shadow, but like a shadow does, it only retreated, staying at the same distance that it had been, had I stayed where I was. "Show yourself, you weird coward!" I said. I was angry. He dared disrespect Jelly's likeness by showing her this way, making her do violence.

"I'll find you," I said. "Wherever you are, I'll find you."

The shadow moved, walking along. It was fast attached to my feet, but it bent around me, moving further, circling my body, and the place where I was standing. "I see that you care about preserving life. I have cared about that before. It used to be my job." My job? 

"Are you Sidus?" I said.

The shadow stopped in its tracks. A tiny tree grew up in front of me at high speeds. It was Aqasha's bush, the holy bush that I recognized from my dream. "You will find him in the forest. You will find him in the trees," I heard her say. "He is everywhere. He lives in you. He lives in me. He wants to save ponies, but he's really just killing ponies." Now, he was making a mockery of Aqasha too, or she, whatever sex my shadow was, or adhered to. Whatever. 

"Show yourself," I said. Aqasha was before me, her light shining bright. It stood out against the light of the sun. The jellies surrounded me.

"Help," one Jelly said.

"Ah," another said. "What am I doing? I'm hurting myself." She threw her head into the ground, hitting it against the earth beneath her.

"Stop it," I said. "Please, just stop." I was getting flustered. What was happening? Why was my shadow, or Sidus, or whatever, doing this? It was presenting Jelly in a strange light that I had not previously seen her in. It was lying about her, fundamentally. "I don't want this to happen. Why?" I said.

The shadow turned. Rather than being turned to the side, it was pointed straight up, and away from me. The shadow's face pointed in the opposite direction, and I was left standing there, clueless. "We do not want harm to come to those we care about," the shadow said. "We do not want harm to come to ourselves. But." The shadow shrank against me and retreated, until it was right beside me. "We all make sacrifices. We all have our burden to bear, and it's time for you to bear yours. Your friend needs you." The shadow reached out a hoof toward me. I backed away, a little freaked. This shadow was trying to help me, and it was also making the only friend I had ever had beat up herself for no apparent reason. No, I couldn't accept this. I demanded answers. He, she, it was trampling upon the sacred cows in my life, the things I had learned to care about, if I cared about anything at all, and I wasn't all that sure about that either. 

"You can't do this to me," I said. "I don't want her to get hurt. Stop." The jellies all turned, looking at me, staring into me. Why? "They are my friends," I said. I corrected myself. "She is my friend, rather, but maybe not anymore after what happened back at the trial, when her mother died." I sighed.

"You didn't kill her," the shadow said, silently. "We need to understand one another, you, Jelly, and everyone in the world. I am here to help. Aqasha thinks that I want to kill everyone. Listen and hear my side of the story." Your side of the story? I extrapolated from this that I really was talking to Sidus, black against sky, the one and only. Well, hearing ponies out was something I was used to doing, but at the same time, I had very little patience with his antics. The way he had treated Jelly, even if it was only an apparition in a dream, I considered to be shameless. I wanted to yell at him, but I didn't quite know what to say, in case I yelled.

The shadow slipped in the other direction. The sky pulsed, and shockwaves, like those of storms or earthquakes moved across it, and the moon appeared, and darkness spread across the sky, half the sky, and one half was night, the other day. Whoever this was, this creature had the power to control my dreams however it saw fit, which meant that if it wanted to strap me down and torture me, it would probably have done it already, so at least that aspect of it all was reassuring. Even if Sidus was hostile, at least he wanted to talk. Many tiny stars scattered against the night sky, moving in, and covering it. The shadow had more words to say.

"The sky of the night belongs to Luna," it said. "The day belongs to Celestia." Well, that was cryptic in the one case, and upon further thought, if I wasn't oversimplifying it in my head, rather obvious. "The stars used to belong to me, but no more." Was he an alicorn then, like the princesses? I thought about how much I had thought about killing the princesses in the past. That was a grim memory. It made me want to cry. I should have my head cut off, like Nexus wanted, I thought. Where is she when you need her? I could bite her ear.

"I can see your thoughts," the shadow said. "You need not be afraid. They are safe with me." Well, that was comforting, to learn that in spite of my thoughts being spied on and known, at least they were safe with the person that did it. Lovely.

The jellies began fighting. First, it looked not too bad. Then, I saw blood, and one Jelly bit the other's ear off. "Why?" I said. "Is there something you're trying to tell me?" It was a sad display. Was all of this really necessary? I knew there was no way I could stop them. They collapsed on the ground, one after the other, dead and lost forever. I cried.

"Is that what you're trying to tell me?" I said. "That everyone I've ever killed has been Jelly, on some level. Yeah, whatever, I get it. Go away." I turned away from the grim scene, sobbing. The shadow moved in front of me, slipping forward into view.

"It's not all about you," it said. "It's also about them." It slipped back. I followed it with my eyes. It moved across the dead jellies. There were only a few left now. This was traumatizing. I didn't want to see it. "They all cared about you. You cared about all of them, and now, they're dead, and soon, you will be, if you don't know what to do." The shadow slipped forward again, toward me, and passed me by onto the nightside on the scenery. It was faint now. 

It said, "When you get to Canterlot, the ponies will know that they want to kill you. Luna will not be able to stop it, nor would she try. Nexus will fix the trial, and ensure your doom, the way the has before, many, many times. There is only one way." A single point of light, shining strong, formed on the ground, like a tiny beacon, a dot. I looked at it curiously. It spread out all-around me. The line circled me, as if it was being drawn by a pen, and then, it reached its terminus, forming a perfect circle around my body. I tried to step out of it, but the circle followed me where I walked, and I was stuck inside it. 

"What is this?" I said.

The shadow shrank toward the circle and ended up beside me, sharing the little space inside the circle. "Hope," it said. "Maybe it can save your life. There's only one way to know." 

I jumped, hitting my head on something. I looked out around me. I was tightly cramped inside a wagon. Now, I was sure that I had woke, and if not, I was afraid that I would be trapped inside that dream forever. I looked out the tiny window of the wagon, and then I looked around inside. I had been here before, surely. I remembered the inside of this wagon. This was the one they had trapped me in not too long ago. I looked out again. The sky was cloudy. It was always cloudy in these parts, so I knew, and that was a fact. There were trees and grass outside. They could survive this weather? How long had it been like this, all cloudy, I thought. Maybe it had been like that for a long time, but trees need sunlight, and grass too. I was sure of that. The wagon jumped a little. What happened to Jelly? Whatever it was, I hoped she was safe. She had been through enough nonsense already. My presence in her life had only been for the worse. Sidus had spoken about some circle. I didn't want any circle. I wanted justice for myself, and nothing was going to make me change my mind, not after everything that had happened.

Sidus was one the ancients. He was a creature of unbelievable power and influence, but he was also complicated, and complex, and very, very tricky, both for good and for ill, I would learn. The ancients would gather in a given location once every five-hundred years, according to tradition, to, quote, "get their stories straight," and agree upon a shared definition of value and reality, and truth, and history. The reason for this was nebulous to me for a long time, though it had to do with a civil war that had happened in pre-Equestria long ago. Luna and Celestia were involved in it. The history of the ancients, and the alicorns, was soaked in blood, just like every other history. Could there be such a thing as true wisdom, I wonder.

Beside me was a little stack of hay for me to sleep on. How nice of Nexus! She didn't want me to be uncomfortable before she cut my head off. I kicked the hay to the side. I didn't really need it. I was used to sleeping on cold metal. I wondered how long it would be until we arrived. Would I have to spend another night, having these strange nightmares, where Sidus spoke to me in my sleep? I hoped not. It was all a strange, crazy story from here on out, stranger than your dreams. I looked out the window, the barred little window, and saw a purple, pink-ish light that was so strong that it blinded me. I pulled back in. A horn went off from somewhere. No, it was a siren. A loud siren was all I heard, and it reminded me of what I had been through back at the fortress, where the alarm warned of intruders. Then, something sounded. It was like a zap. It sounded like something my Obliterator would do. Where was that thing? I drew back into myself, pawing the ground, kicking the wall, doing anything, refusing to think about the Obliterator as it related to the crimes I had committed. We passed a pink shield of some kind. Okay, now I was fairly sure this was in Canterlot. Jelly had spoken of a shield that nothing can get through. This seemed to fit the description.

A loud crowd of hollers, hoots, and shouts blared from within the shield. Apparently, the shield had also blocked off all the sounds from the inside. Ponies shouted and glared at my wagon. I looked out. Someone pointed at me.

"Look, there it is," someone said. Well, there I was. A zoo-animal, laughing-stock, and loser of history, determined to be unfit for life by reality that has all the cards, and reality is something you must respect if you are to live within it. Of that, I was sure, and reality was right. I had been terrible, and terrible should fade away and die with the wind. If there's any way the world should work, then I thought, that's a good start, a really good start. The shouts reached a fever pitch. I saw cute houses with thatched roofs outside, and more detailed sturdy constructions. This was some of the better pony architecture I had ever seen, I admitted. The ground was dirt though, not asphalt, which seemed impractical to me at the time, given that it was used as a means of transportation. The ponies gathered tightly, close to one another around my wagon, and began shaking it.

"Hello," I said. They must've heard my voice. The shaking got more violent.

Someone yelled something. I couldn't quite make out what it was. "Who are you? What have you done to her?" a voice said. I was confused, as always, by the comments of strange ponies. I was me. I had always been me. What of it? And just like that, like the crowd hadn't even been there, they dispersed.

"Simmer down now," a voice said. It was that of the borderline psychopath, Nexus. Well, at least I appreciated this little act she did for me, though not really, upon further thought. It would be better, had the ponies been allowed to do their work on me. I had never been mobbed before. I figured that if I survived it, it would make a good first stage of my punishment, until other things came along to take its place. I could prepare no punishment for myself that was better than what could by be dished out by others, so it was good if they got to me. But they didn't. The wagon kept rolling. Then it turned. I looked outside. I saw Canterlot castle. It was beautiful, way more beautiful than the bleak fortress from which I had arrived here, in this scraggly wagon. It was better-looking than the forest even. What a beautiful building, I thought. Then, I cast my eyes away, knowing that I didn't deserve to look upon such a building. Really, in truth, I should be in shackles, I thought, and that was the best that was coming to me.

The wagon rolled into a closed space, I noticed, since the darkness increased around me. It was good to be surrounded by a little darkness. The light had been all too blinding, and light symbolizes hope, which is something I didn't have, regardless of what my shadow had to say. I was lifted out by the orange pony that I knew as Clyde Brook, the one Clyde Brook, not the other, and carried through a dank little place that had ropes and things lying around on the ground. A spare wheel was right beside the door, upon which Clyde Brook knocked. 

"We have new arrivals," he said

A tiny hatch on the door opened. A pair of green eyes with pupils that ran up and down, like of a cat, looked out. They turned right and left. "You need to keep quiet," the pupils said, or the voice behind them. The door then opened. I couldn't make out whether the voice was male or female. It was a whisper. When the door had opened, no one stood there, and Clyde Brook just walked through, holding me under his arm. I didn't think it was possible to escape, nor was I particularly motivated to do so. I figured that my fate was sealed already, sealed into my life, and it was all for the good, given the ineptitude of my actions. He carried me through, and walked down a dwindling flight of stairs. I could do nothing but to follow, and I wanted to follow. I hope I have made that clear. 

We got out into a corridor. It was filled with cells. I caught eye of a mare that looked like she had been beat up recently. She was covered in blood and bruises. This was terrible. She was curled up on the ground, breathing heavily. I saw white spots on the floor. What could that be from? I was shook by the scene, but we went on. Clyde Brook knocked on another door, one that looked bigger and sturdier. The door, rather than opening inward, opened to the side, like a sliding door, except it was massive and made from stone, by all accounts. We slid inside. I felt angry and bitter about the situation. Dying was far more complicated in Equestria than it was in the wastelands. At the fortress, looking at another robot sideways was enough to get executed on the spot, almost. Here, you had to go through this and that, have ponies grilling you, being forced to defend yourself for a crime that you're obviously guilty of. Everything was stupid and upside down in Equestria. I wanted to grab something and hit myself on the head with it. I had been brooding for too long. It was time to take action.

I wriggled out of Clyde Brook's grip, running further into the room. "Hello!" I said.

"Shh," a voice hushed me. I hoped that voice would belong to something that constituted a mortal threat. I looked up. High on a desk that was shaped like a pedestal, at least four meters in the air, sat a mare that had cat-eyes, which I recognized from the door. She spun around the pedestal, making her way down like a marble rolling down a chute. She spun around, moving left and right across the perpendicular surface of the pedestal, and somehow, she didn't fall down, she just descended across the outer sides of it. Then, she landed. She had a cat's tail I saw, but a pony's face with cat-eyes, and cat teeth. She was black with white blotches and lines across her face and body, sort of chaotically spread around. She slipped forward. I tried to run around her. She grabbed me.

"I have her," she said in a long whisper, drawing out each word, I think, beyond what was necessary. Clyde Brook reached us. "Shh," she said, again. Putting a hoof to his mouth. No, it was a cat's paw. Was this a mare or was this a cat? She had the face of a pony. If this was a cat, it was the largest, sentient cat I had ever seen. "Quiet," she said. "He's working." I hadn't been paying attention, but a few meters from her pedestal was another, that stretched even higher into the room. It was at least eight meters, twice as high, and almost hit the roof of the large, very large, room. Someone was up there. I couldn't quite make out its, or hers, or his, face. No, I couldn't. I tried squinting. The cat-pony's grip changed, putting me out of view.

"Take care of this," she whispered. Clyde Brook looked like he was going to say something, but she just pushed a finger on her paw to his mouth, silencing him. "Bring her to the back. We have to be quiet." She dropped me. I tried running again, but he swiftly picked me up and carried me away. Behind the great pedestal where the someone or something had been sitting was another door. He opened and carried me inside. It was another hallway. It was empty, and made of rocks with dirt between them, and moss, and it was an unsanitary environment to say the least. He carried me forward and through. There were more ropes and dirt lying on the ground. Why ropes? What was the application? No-no, I tried not getting curious now, in the face of everything I had done. I didn't want to take pleasure in things. I wanted to punish myself. So, I had decided, and that was the end of it, and my decision was final, as far as I was concerned. What else was there to do? I knew what I had done. I only had a window into the suffering it had caused, that of Jelly's, and everyone acted reciprocally, which was something I wasn't used to, and really, I knew, didn't deserve, given what I had done before I arrived in the village of Terran and everything else. The trouble with killing woodland creatures was that they were dead now, and soon, I would be too.

I was carried through. Another door opened. Now, I got out on a small terrace, with a modest little fountain in the middle. It was made of metal. It was symmetrical, and it had a tiny bowl in the metal, from which water spread out into the rocky underneath, which formed a bigger bowl of stone, and that was the fountain. It was a cute little fountain, all simple and symmetrical. I banished the thought. Someone has to make me stop thinking these things, I told myself in my head. And if it had to be me, then so be it. I was carried further into the terrace. It was more of an open outdoor area actually, with a very tiny garden that had a selection of unique flowers that I had never seen before. Then, I was plumped in a door, down on the ground, and the door shut. I looked around. I was in an office space. File cabinets and stuff like that surrounded me. There were papers on the ground, a bookshelf, a desk, and many tiny knick-knacks on the desk. The carpet was plain white, or grey? It was hard to tell in the light. It all looked sanitary, and while I appreciate sanitary. I do. While I appreciate it, it was a little too sanitary for my tastes. I sat down on the floor, not touching anything. I looked around, scanning the room for a means to commit suicide. Then leant down on the floor. Maybe I was too cowardly to commit suicide. I didn't know.

The door of the room opened. It was the cat-lady, and she was carrying another pony on her shoulder. He looked like he was a million quadrillion years old. I could hear his shaky breath, see his limping, and his face was so covered in wrinkles that it was unclear to me whether he was still alive, but then, if he was dead, he wouldn't have a limp, and more pertinently, wouldn't have needed to be carried around like this. She helped him over to the desk, paying no mind to me. What if I jumped her from behind? Or maybe she was another Nexus, which is to say invincible to all threats. She turned around toward me, pushing her little paws together, and bowing toward me.

"This is Starry Skies," she said, smiling at me. She had a very friendly smile. She looked like something you might want to pet if it passed you by on the street. She looked cuddly, I guess, a little bit. "He will be the judge of your trial." Starry Skies grumbled, and said something inaudible. I think he said something about doorknobs. This was ridiculous. I tried making eye-contact with him, but his eyes were so old that he could barely keep them open. His eye-sockets were collapsed. I couldn't find his pupils behind the eye-sockets.

"Okay," I said, shaking my head.

The cat-lady purred. "Don't be like that." She stretched out a bit, planting her stomach on the carpet, and then standing up. Well, it was good to see that at least one of us was at ease, because I certainly wasn't. "He's very old, but he's also very wise." I thought that he might be wise to go to a retirement home, and eat some apple sauce, with a blanket over him. He coughed. Then he wheezed. Then he sputtered something inaudible again. I was too shocked to see the true absurdity of the situation. This pony was not fit to do anything, much less judge my crimes. I was all but convinced of that. 

He snorted. The cat-lady moved closer to him. He whispered something into her ear. "Yes, that's a great idea," she said, smiling wide and happy. "We should show you your lodging space."  

Starry Skies said something along the lines of, "Hadurr." I had no idea what was going on here. I figured whether I should make a run for it again or leave it for a better time. I looked around and saw that the room had curtains with a rope to pull them open. I thought that rope might be an option. "Murmurmurmur," he said, into her ear again. I swear, on my memory, that he literally said, "Murmurmurmur." She nodded.

"I think he wants to know if you want to stay in the west wing or the south wing." Well, same difference to me.

"The south wing," I said, shrugging.

"Hadurr," he said again.

He moved for something on the table, trembling. "Can you get him out of here?" I said. "He's making me uncomfortable."

"It's you who will be going out of here," she said, pushing me toward the door. Okay, all of this was not what I had expected. Expect the unexpected might be a good rule in life to remember, dear readers. It sure seems like it, given what I've gone through.





Walking hurt. Hurting walked, which is to say that hurting is the thing that happened whenever I walked. I had been injured again. I couldn't even remember when it had happened at the time. I had broken something? It didn't hurt all that much, but it hurt. How obnoxious. How noxious. I was led into a narrow corridor with cells on each side, like the one I had been in before, but this was a different one. I'm sure of it. We took a different path to get there at the very least. I was led into a cell by the cat-lady. She slammed the door behind me.

"Today, you rest," she said. "Tomorrow, is the trial. Now, you drink." She pointed at a tap that was conveniently lodged in the wall beside me. "We don't want you to faint before we can try you. Don't try any tricks. Have fun," she said, walking away. What? She knew that the tap was all I needed. I connected myself to it immediately, with the foreknowledge that a tiny tap wouldn't give me much energy at all. I would have to sit here for a while. I heard sobbing. No, I thought. No, that can't be it. I heard it some more. It was the mare from before. But this time, we had gone into a completely different corridor, so I couldn't see how that was possible. I figured that I might waste some time talking to her. Suicide could wait. But then, if I wanted to commit suicide, why was I recharging? I withdrew my hoof from the tap. Coward, I said to myself. I am a coward, and I always will be. I can't even commit suicide. How can a person fail at suicide? I hit myself in the face with my forehoof. It hurt a little. I figured hitting myself again. 

"No," I heard from the cell next to me. What was happening?

"Can you be a little more quiet?" I said, shouting so that she could her me. The sobs stopped. I immediately felt a sting of regret. I wasn't used to being around ponies, and all of their behaviors sort of annoyed me still. "What seems to be the matter?" I said, trying to make up for my rudeness by consoling her.

"I was raped," she said.

"What's a rape?" I immediately responded. Now, if we want to talk about regrets, this was another one of them, but I haven't even begun. "Is a rape something that happens to you, or something you do?" I thought about the way the sentence had been constructed. If you are being something -ed, with an -ed at the end, then I figured that meant that someone must have done something to her, rather than a crime, or something else that she herself had done. "Can't you just, not be raped?" I said. This was one of the worst conversations I have ever had with a pony, I will admit freely. Morally, ethically, I was acting like a total tard. A mentally challenged person, but with mental problems that stretched beyond the mental and reached into the ethical. "Hey, do you want to talk about it?" I said. 

"I'm Manny," she said. Well, she wasn't as judgmental against or scared of me as I was used to, so that was actually slightly reassuring, in a way. I figured that would make it easier to talk to her.

"I'm F-5226," I said. "I was brought here because I killed too many ponies, one too many." I was annoyed that I couldn't keep a straight thought. Any ponies was too much, I had realized, and yet, I had to phrase it in this stupid way. "Why are you here?" I said.

"I stole," she said. 

"What?" I said.

It went quiet in her cell. I tried to clarify. "What did you steal?"

"Food," she said.

I nodded. Food. I figured that she was forced to do so, since the only motivation for stealing, knowing that you can get caught, is that there is no better means for you to obtain it. "I stole once," I said. "I stole weapons, and books. I regretted it." I thought about my stealing-days back at the fortress, my illustrious stealing days, limited and provincial and reclusive as they had been. My stealing had gone far and wide, and I regretted it always right after I had done it, but, it didn't stop me from stealing some more. Why do certain thoughts and acts work like that, I thought. Why? Why do people have to do things that they know to be wrong, after they have admitted as much? The answer was nebulous to me.

"I don't," she said. Stealing that is?

"I won't judge you," I said. "I killed a child that may or may not have been looking for food. To steal food is nothing compared to that. What food was it?" My attempts at small-talk were bleak and unimpressive, but they were a start to something that might resemble an actual social exchange, a conversation.

"Oats," she said. "And a pie." She gasped a little, sounding like breathing had become difficult, maybe because of a dry throat, but I didn't know. "And some bread, and salad, and a fish." What? She had been stealing food to feed an elephant, not a pony. What was this? Oh, hm, but then, maybe ponies were more greedy for food, and eating, than I had so far given them credit for. One might only wonder. "I also stole this," she said, throwing something around the corner. It landed in front of my face. It was... it was... I froze up. Some kind of fruit, it was, I think, thought, you know. I wasn't sure what it was.

"Grape," she said. Oh, grape. I picked it up off the floor with my magic. I figured that a magician that was powerful enough might be able to escape from here, but that, my friends, wasn't me. Oh, no-no-no. I had magic that was pedestrian and ordinary, not meant for jail-breaks.

"I'm sorry. I don't eat," I said.

"I know," she said, mumbling something in a corner to herself, or what sounded like it. "But you can have it anyway. I don't want to eat anything anymore, ever." Ah, then we had something in common.

I thought about Jelly. I wanted to hit myself again. "You know," I said. "I think we have something in common."

"It doesn't matter anyway," she said. "Tomorrow, we will all be dead."

"They kill ponies for stealing?" I said. It was a tiny, like-minded world we lived in. It was just as I remembered it from my own home. "Go figure," I said, staring at the grape, which I was still holding up with my magic. I tried putting it in my mouth. I felt no taste. I tried swallowing it. It went down and straight up again, and flew out of the cell. Whoops. 

I grabbed it with my magic and brought it back. "What a curious little fruit," I said. "One might be able to get a full stomach that is satisfied for nutrition if one eats a thousand of these." I wasn't sure. In evidence, I couldn't eat. "I like this though," I said. It was purple, I saw now, as it was close to me. "I think I like these colors a lot."

"I used to like them too," the mare said, Manny, her name was. I had to remember that if I was to speak to her further. "No, I don't like anything anymore." 

"There, there," I said. I remembered what Sidus had told me. "We all have our burden to bear, and if we don't bear it, we die, I think." I borrowed those words, without really having thought about what they meant.

"Why?" she said. "Why continue on like this? What's the point? Please, you don't understand." The last word went out in a sob. What was it I didn't understand? She had been raped, and the meaning of rape, as far as I saw it, was nebulous, and unclear, but I wanted to know. Maybe I could help her. Maybe I could even fix it, I thought. I couldn't, and I wouldn't.

"Where were you when it happened?" I said.

She shrieked, and then she went quiet. "I don't- please don't say anything more. Please." I piped down. I didn't want it to get worse. At best, if I could live with the guilt, I would have to listen to her annoying sobs for another who knows how much time? I didn't want to do that. I lay down on the floor. Stupid floor, I thought. I tried to slam my head against the floor, but then I stopped myself in the last second. Why don't I want to die, I thought. Why don't I want to die? Why? Why? Why? It's only cowardice. That's all it is, I told myself. Well, if I don't do it, someone will, and that's all for the best.





I felt lethargic. I could feel that sleep was trying to grip me, but if I slept, I might see another Jelly massacre, so I tried my hardest to stay awake. I stumbled over to the tap, and began recharging, thinking that, if anything, it might help me stay awake, and that was all I really cared about at the time. I wanted to get away from all this, all these troubles, out of sight and out of mind, and death was the closest and most obvious escape, and why not? It was the right outcome of my actions, given what I had done to others, and myself.

I looked around. There was somepony in the cell opposite me, but that pony was completely still, not moving a muscle. Sleeping, or dead? I couldn't tell. It was all I could bear was look at him, before I collapsed into sleep. I saw a glimmer of something, a flimmer. I tried yanking myself awake, somehow. I couldn't. I was in a darkly lit room. The room slowly materialized, and growing in detail. Around me were tables and seats, and many ponies sat there, old grave ponies, not senile like Starry, but old and serious-looking. Right in front of me was... Celestia, the sovereign herself. I pulled back into the room. I hit something.

"Watch yourself," a pony said to me. It was an old stallion. He had a stern look on his face. I retreated further into the room, closer to Celestia. 

She opened her mouth and spoke. "We all have gathered here today." Well, that much was obvious. We were gathered. She stayed quiet, not saying anything. I figured she would continue. It sounded like the beginning of a speech. "Father," she said.

My shadow bent out in front of me. "I'm sorry. I wasn't listening," it said, my shadow that is. "I was too brought down by the stench of betrayal in this room." Okay, so by inference, or rather, observation, I think, Sidus was Celestia's father? Then, he really was an alicorn, or used to be, rather than a shadow. "I want to warn you all," the shadow said. "You are all making a terrible mistake. It doesn't matter if you think you're not. None of it matters."

"Nor does it matter what you have to say about it," Celestia said from her position at the end of the room. The room looked burlesque and strange, like a parody of a real courtroom, the one I had seen before. Ponies were gathered all-around, sitting at tables, keeping quiet. The tables were brown, but the room was so poorly lit that I could barely make out anything else. "You are responsible for a crime to which there is no reprieve," she said, then.  

"Why does no one around me understand?" my shadow said. "You all are too young. I knew it the moment you tried. We should leave this mission in the past. The griffins are laughing at you. The zebras are crying. The northern folks are just straight confused. They will be dead or gone soon too. I have seen the future, but none of you care, because you cannot. You are stuck in fantasies that I myself am all too familiar with, since for many years, I had those fantasies. It's time to open our eyes. It's time to gather the nine, again, and the seven of the northwest, because we need to sort this problem out now rather than later. They are watching us. The griffins of the northwest and the northeast. Their tribe is dying. They do not have your magic. They're jealous of you, Celestia." The shadow reached out a hoof toward her. 

"You have nothing else to say?" Celestia said. "I figured that you would try to defend yourself, not do this."

"My fate is already sealed," the shadow said. Its voice was garbled somehow. I couldn't make out what it was. "But for you, it's not too late. These other ponies around us, young and old, will die before this disaster has befallen us. They will see you as wise and good, because you banished me. They will be wrong. This will lead to your death, and the death of everything you have built across the millennium."

Celestia shook her head. "I disagree. You know I do, so why are you saying these things?" My shadow paused, not saying anything. Its hoof pulled back and touched its snout, the snout of the shadow.

"I am afraid," it said. "I think I will be forced to do things that harm you and your sister, and it won't be nice for anypony. You cannot build a civilization on the backs of suppressed creatures in the dark. Once you banish everything from Equestria that you don't like, including the element of chaos, those things will manifest inside Equestria, and in great exchange as a price for your stupidity. And it has to be this way, because everything that doesn't die lives on, and grows," he said, my shadow. 

"From this day forward," Celestia said, "there will be only eight, not nine. Your title and privileges will be stripped from you, and you shall be banished to the south."

"Case in point," he said. "You're trying to take something away from me that is definitional, and part of who I am. That's not how it works. I won't be gone forever. You know that. It would be better for you, and better for everyone, if you just killed me right now. Doing so will teach you an important lesson, if you really are willing to do it."

Celestia glared at him. She got... teary-eyed. "I never wanted you to die."

"I know you didn't," he said. "I know you didn't. Likewise, I never wanted to harm you. I'm sorry, but it is how it must be then, I guess, if you don't have anything else to say."

"No," she said. "Or wait, can you, tell me, about, that thing?" My shadow nodded.

"In a thousand years and two away from now, right after the passing of the next millennium, from the last, I will return. When I have, you will be forced to unite. You will know that it is I that have returned. You won't be able to stop me. No one ever can. I will be very old by then, but I will do what I must to protect life as we know it, and until then, I shall teleport to the grasslands in the south, beyond the continent, and beyond the provincial jungles, where war is brewing, as you know, and remain there, until then." My shadow flashed. It returned to its normal position beside me, losing its life. I looked down at it. What a strange proposition. What a strange situation. So then I knew, Sidus had been banished, and his title, as one of nine, had been taken from him, whatever that meant. The vision blurred. Everything blurred. I awoke again. I was lying down on the ground in my cell. I looked beside me. I was still recharging. I was unsure as to whether that even helped, or if it had made me more tired. I lay down, trying to sleep again.
> Part 9: Dreams of Hope
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I found myself on the little meadow that I had been on in my first night-vision. My nightly visions. This is the place where I had met Hookbeak and Luna. I saw glimmers of light appear around me, and the two manifested out of nowhere. Hookbeak just walked away into nowhere, and sat down on the grass, turned away from Luna and me.

"Cornicus," she said. "There is much to discuss."

"That's not my name," Hookbeak said. He had a really soft voice, high-pitched and warm, when he wasn't shouting at the top of his lungs. "My name is Hookbeak!" he yelled.

"Okay, Hookbeak then," Luna said, coming closer. He leant forward and burrowed down into the ground, disappearing like an earthworm. 

"I think he wants to be alone," I said.

"We have to talk," Luna said, dogged and decisive in her words, and very determined in her glance, as she looked into the hole. "Come out from there," she said. Nary a sound was made from the hole. "Please," she said. "We need to talk." Nothing happened. She turned away and sat down, turned away from me. I walked up to her.

"Maybe you can talk to him later," I said. "One can only hope."

"Yes, hope," she said. "Maybe." She sighed. "I don't know what to do. I know he knows better than this, but he has been angry at me for weeks. He won't listen to reason. I thought that maybe we could cooperate, and find a better way." I listened closely. Find a better way? What way?

"Maybe I could try talking to him," I said.

She shook her head. "It's Celestia. He doesn't know what to do, whether he should kill her or try to kidnap her, like he tried to do before. He's hopeless, but he's also one of the best people you will ever meet, once you get to know him." All of this struck me as odd. How can a person that wants to kill your sister, or kidnap her, if indeed that is true, be a good person, from your own perspective? She liked him. Why? 

"You saw what happened before," Luna said, shaking her head slowly to herself. "I don't know. I don't know. I think I need to sit down a bit and just, do nothing." We were all stuck in this dream. It struck me that she might've had gone through this many times before. Her trying to speak to him, and then just disappearing. Something about it was odd though, if I were to make a single observation, one of many that I could make.

"You know," I said. "The one that put us here could've just made it so that he couldn't escape. He can do anything he wants."

She stood up. "I know, but it's not that simple." She walked toward the hole and stared down in it. There were pieces of earth and grass lying around the area, and the hole was a collapsed dirtpile almost. You could sort of see right through it. There was a small opening in the earth. "We have to talk to each other. It has already been decided," she said. "It's not about what I want. It's about what the blue alicorn wants, the one that spoke to us in an earlier dream." Sidus?

"Was that Sidus or someone else?" I said, shrugging at my own question, and genuinely confused and wanting to know.

"All of this is unclear to us," Luna said, also shrugging. "It has been a long time, but if he really is still alive, Sidus, my father, then I suppose it could be him." Any similarity? 

"Did he not even look like Sidus?" I asked, wondering, confused, wanting to know, and even, a little curious. 

Her attention broke from the hole, and she looked at me, harboring whatever thoughts she did in her head. Why was she staring? "What has he told you?" she said, finally. Oh. What has he told me?

"Not much, I think." I shrugged again. I was a little nervous, standing next to this giant blue alicorn, Luna that is, not the other one. "He told me that everything would make sense in the end, or wait. No, he told Celestia that. He has shown me things, memories I think."

"Memories," Luna said. "You know, he always takes a different form when he talks to me, Sidus, so it could very well be him. I hated him for leaving us. Oh, but that hasn't anything to do with this conversation." No, but I still wanted to know. I wanted all the information. 

"Aqasha told me," I said, "that he would kill everyone, everyone above the jungle, or north of the jungle I think."

"I'm not surprised." Luna shook her head, grimacing. "Really not. He should murder me while he's at it. That would eliminate my troubles."

"You know, I've had the exact same thought a lot recently," I said, remarking upon that. I really did want to die, but I also didn't at the same time.

"I hope you're not serious," Luna said. "Your journey isn't over yet, if the forest sprite Aqasha is to be believed."

"Do I really have to obey her every whim?" I said, forlorn and a little angry. Could I not myself decide when and how to die?

"It's not about obeying her," Luna said. "When she has spoken, the rocks move. She knows everything, almost everything." She nodded to herself, and then she shook her head. "Anyway," she said. "You were brought here for a reason, believe it or not. We just need to figure out what that reason is. Surely, there must be a reason." She looked at me, searching me over with her eyes. "There's always a reason," she then said. "Always. You were brought here to teach us something, or maybe, we were brought here to teach you something, though that seems less likely. What's your name?"

"F-5226," I said.

"Do you have a real name?" I remembered what Ally had told me in the forest. I shuddered.

"Forget it," I said. "I don't know." I turned around.

"I'm not equipped to remember all your numbers and letters. I'm sorry," Luna said. "Only few ponies have that kind of memory, or time, or patience."

"Okay, call me Botsy then," I said. I was sheepish and a little ashamed over this new name, that didn't really belong to me. It belonged to Jelly. She had given it to me, and she had the right to take it away, given how I had behaved.

"Now, I remember you," Luna said, flicking her hoof across the air. "I know. You're Sweetie Belle. Well, that's too bad. Not anymore." Not anymore? Cryptic, but I wanted to know what she meant.

"Who am I exactly?" I said.

Luna looked at me like she was thinking about something, waiting, pausing, and then she said, "This might be hard for you to believe. Others like you have never wanted to accept this, but you're not really a robot. You're a child. You were changed into a robot through the power of technology. Hookbeak has told me all about it. He said that he analyzed one of you in a machine, and if he says something about machinery, then it's true. It will always be true." She paused, waiting for my response.

"No way," I said. "That's crazy. You're crazy. You know that, right? No, what? No. No. Really? Is it?" I looked down upon my hooves. Water seemed to be leaking out from them. I instinctively jumped back. A tiny pond formed around my feet. I looked up into the sky. Oh, really? This had to be some sick joke. "No," I said. "I almost don't want to believe it." I turned around and walked away from the scene. If this was true, then this whole situation was more twisted and crazy than I myself had even realized. It meant... more than I could stand thinking about right now. I turned around toward Luna.

"Can you prove it?" I said.

"No," she said. Well, in that case. "Only Hookbeak can, and his helpers, and minions, and friends, and companions, all of those sorts of griffins will be able to fill you in on the details." She took a second. Then she said, "Maybe I can prove it though. Maybe. You look just like a pony in a small village, somewhat small village, called Ponyville. There's bound to be pictures, and other evidence of your former life as a pony." This was mind-boggling. 

"I had a life as a pony," I said, flying up into the air in horror. "No way." A drew back. "No. No. No. No." I was some kind mutant freak then. Or what? What? What was I going to do with this information? "What happened to me?" I said. 

"I think there's still some Sweetie Belle in there," Luna said. "A little bit." No way. No. 

"Kill me," I blurted.

"No," Luna said.

"No, it is imperative that you kill me."

"No, you didn't do this to yourself, and even though you may be guilty of many a crime, you can't take all the blame," Luna said, reserved and calm. 

"Yes, I can," I said. "If I keep living on like this, I deserve all the blame in the world."

"Who knows?" she said. "Maybe they can fix it." Fix it? Make me a pony again? I thought about it. Out of all the punishments, something about this one seemed right and true. It would right all wrongs, and it would bring a life, a pony life rather than a robot life, back into the world.

"I'll do it," I said.

"I'm not saying they can."

"Can't they? I'll do it." I was getting a little hysterical. Fix me? Why not? It seemed correct and right, I thought.

"No," she said. "Although, we might have to think about the ethical ramifications of that too. Are you a new person? Are you and Sweetie Belle two different people? Have you stolen something from her? Would it be stealing something from you to give her her life back?" I thought this was getting strangely semantic. All her questions seemed simple and easy to answer.

"No, I'm not a new person. I'm an atrocity," I said. "If what you say is true, that is. Then I'm an atrocity."

"You shouldn't say such things," Luna said, calmly.

"No," I said. "And also, yes, we really are two different people, but I stole the life I have from her, who will never be getting it back. It's like death, only death plus theft, death plus the stealing of a life from another person."

"But maybe," Luna said, "that's better than death plus nothing at all. Death and then it's over?"

"But it's also that I was created to kill," I said. "And I don't deserve to exist if my life was taken from another pony, only to take the lives of more ponies. That doesn't seem right at all."

Luna nodded. "You seem to have thought of this a lot. Well, I won't assuage you. If you want to die, then there's little I can do to stop you. But don't you have any hope?" she said. "Maybe everything can turn out well in the end, both for you and Sweetie Belle?" What's a- my brain shut off. Enough with the bad news already. Enough with the emotional distress. There comes a time when everything should stop. How do you keep staying alive under conditions like this? My shadow moved.

"Oh no. Not again," I said.

"What is it?"

My shadow stretched out over the meadow. It opened its maw. "Hello, I noticed that something was bothering you."

"What are you? My shrink?" I said. "Go away."

Luna came forward, walking in front of me. "What do you want?"

"Justice and peace." The shadow bent along my body, which was its axis, and moved around us. "I want to repair things that have been broken. I want all wounds to heal. But to do that, many have to suffer. If you could only do something about all that suffering Luna, as I know you can." I wanted to hear her response, so I sharpened my ears. 

"You sound like a broken record," she said. "Really, there's nothing I have to say to you that hasn't already been said."

The shadow twisted around, reaching her hooves, hanging in front of her. "I know that isn't true. I can see your anger toward me. But there's also something else. You have hope that I will come back someday. I might." 

She turned. "My thoughts." She stumbled. Her voice broke. "My thoughts, are my own, you pathetic creature." They had never been my own, in my world, so this kind of privacy was something I found strange and strangely perplexing. Her thoughts were really all her own? What was she going to do with them? Think about them in her lonesome, without having anyone else take part? Maybe someone could learn from her thoughts, but at the very least, I knew that I didn't want this creature, of all creatures, inside my head.

"Your thoughts are beautiful," the voice said. Beautiful? Beautiful. What a strange turn of phrase. "I think you should come find me. Where could I be?"

"Maybe out of your head, and crazy?" Luna said, I think upon observing his strange behavior, as I had. My reaction had been very similar to hers. "I have no idea where you are, but when I find you, trust me, you will be the first to know."

"You're being emotional," the shadow said, reaching out its hooves, as if stretching, and then planting them at my feet again. "Maybe we should bring your young sister into the conversation."

"Oh," Luna said. "Why do you think I'm being emotional, as if I'm just acting out, as if it's just my hormones, dad!" she said, almost yelling. She relaxed, taking a deep breath. "No, I think you should not," she then said. "She has been through enough as it is. We need peace. We need to solve this like adults, not demonic forces and evil tricks for none of us." She almost wheezed those last words, whispering them. Evil tricks! I wasn't the only person that he had haunted, clearly. I was not unique in my circumstance.  

The voice of my shadow mumbled something, murmuring. "Hm, no. She's awake. I can't get to her. She's standing on your balcony, Luna." She turned around, looking furious, and walked the other direction. This was a social dynamics class that I was being subjected to, about father-daughter relationships, I have come to the conclusion of. Even now, I don't really understand why they acted the way they did. It's not as if I have some answers to it, though maybe the answers are hidden inside my story, as I'm recollecting it. We shall go on.

What happened next was that I woke up. It was morning. I simply knew from my internal clock, which is a power that I always have had, as I have said before. Time went differently in dreams than it did in the real world it seemed. What to do now? I stood up, but noticed that something yanked. It was my hoof which was still attached to the sink, and the sink was on. I detached. Okay then. That will be good for another day, I thought, smiling a little. Then I checked myself, remembering everything that had happened. Oh, Jelly. Oh, Allyseyev. Oh, Nexus. Nexus? I wanted to kill her. No-no, killing is wrong! Then what did I want to do with her? Punish her? Fire her from her job? I wasn't sure. I detached my hoof. This was going to be a long day.





I stood in the middle of a big room. Ponies surrounded me on all sides. There were lecterns to the right and left of me. I looked around. I saw Luna in one of them. I tried to wave, but I got no response. Why was this even allowed? This whole trial process was ridiculous. I saw Starry, mumbling and grumbling on the top of his podium, which stretched about eight meters, give or take, or no, more than eight meters, thatabout was right. Next to him was the cat-lady. Her eyes moved like ping-pong balls back and forth across the room, scanning it, and they kept on going. It's like she was looking for something, or distracted? What was she doing? I stared at her. She caught a glimpse of my doing so and looked at me, smiling, and then her eyes kept moving around. Why? I would learn.

Nexus stood in a little booth, not too far from me. "We have gathered here today," she said. "Oh, let's just get it started. You know the rigmarole." The judge, almost like he had been told, because he had been, pounded his gavel, but he didn't say anything. The cat-lady spoke to him in a hushed tone. He murmured something. I couldn't make any of it out.

"He's saying that court is in session," the cat-lady chirped, with a little grin. Going to trial was becoming my least favorite pastime of all time, almost worse than mass-murder. I took that back. That was a stupid thought. I regretted thinking such things, as they showed that I didn't take what I had done seriously really. It wasn't even about blaming myself for it or feeling shame, it was just a matter of actually accepting things head-on instead on veiling everything in irony, so as to protect myself from it and make it harder for me to come face to face with it. The gavel pounded again.

"He said we should bring out the first witness," the cat-lady said. No, he didn't. He didn't even say anything. He just pounded his gavel. Was anyone else noticing this? This was absolutely one of the stupidest things ever, and I had seen some stupid things, you'd better believe. This was terrible. What the what in the what what what was holy going on? Why? They were all just accepting this. He was senile. Dumb as a bat, or just feigning it, but either way, it wasn't good, and I thought someone should do something about it sometime, eventually at least. This was getting out of hoof and out of hand, all at once, everything, stupid. 

"Great," Nexus said, grinning. I remembered Sidus had told me that she would fix the trial, and I believed him on that note at least, as this did seem pretty fixed to me. It was fixed enough to warrant an objection.

"Objection," I said.

The cat-lady smiled down at me from her high podium. "On what grounds?" she said, gently. Oh, right. Don't make a show of it cat-lady, I thought. You're all part of the same boondoggle, the same bamboozlement, the same fraudulent series of activities. 

"The judge is senile," I said, pointing at the judge. A laugh broke out in the crowd. What was so funny? No, he really was.

"No, he's not," she said. "Objection overruled."

"Shouldn't he be saying that?" I said, flabbergasted, confused, and totally off and gone in the head, totally confused about everything.

She looked up at him. He looked back, sort of, I think. He sort of leant in her direction. "The old judge is very tired. He can't be saying everything for himself," she said. "As secretary of the judge, it is my duty to help him with all his needs, wants, and obstacles in life, including trial-life." She winked at me. Okay, my objection didn't work, but at least, I learned what the cat's role was. I didn't know what to say. Cat got my tongue. Ha. Ah, no. Only joking. Whatever. The trial went on.

Nexus said, "The first witness." She motioned toward an even smaller desk that was beside the judge's, even smaller than that of the cat-girl-lady's desk. "The first witness will be Celestia, princess of the day." She was a witness? Witness to what? Really? She didn't have more important things to do. Ah, well. This giant white alicorn, Celestia of course, I knew, no doubt, walked up to the stand.

"You may speak," Nexus said, backing away a bit. Her little booth was right in front of me. It was fenced. She moved within it, like it was a confined space that only she was allowed in. A few meters, I guess, beyond it was Celestia sitting in her own booth, or more fittingly, at a desk, I think. Nexus' booth was an open fenced space, while Celestia's was simply a desk, if that clarifies things.

"I have been the leader of Equestria for many years," she said. "I have watched ponies live, die, and suffer." Her voice was deeper than that of Luna, and filled with more weight and gravitas, more seriousness. "Never have I seen anything like that pony standing before us." Oh, me? There's no need to rub it in. I know.

Nexus nodded. "Go on. Go on."

"Quiet," Celestia said, staying calm and morose. Nexus got quiet and walked to the edge of her booth, looking out toward me, and back at Celestia. She seemed at ease. "As I said," Celestia said, saying more things that reminded me of how my last trial had been, the one that ended unceremoniously. "I have never, ever been through anything like this, and when I find the person that did it, he too will be in this room, on trial, for the same crime." But actually, this looked and sounded like collective guilt to me, like she was blaming me for all our crimes, and that, in itself, even though I was angry at myself and knew that I deserved everything that was coming to me. That, in itself, didn't sit right with me. Objection then?

"Objection," I said. I liked throwing out objections.

"On what grounds?" the cat-girl responded, as calmly as she had done before, and with a friendly smile at that. She looked genuinely curious, but still, I thought that she was being inauthentic. 

"You can't blame me for what others like me have done. This is me you're trying in this trial, not someone else," I said. That sounded good to me. I always had a way with words, I thought. Oh, wait, I should stop complimenting myself then, I then thought, on second thought. That's stupid.

"No, you're right," Celestia said. "I don't blame you for everything everyone like you has done. I blame you for being one of them, and doing the things you are bound to do, as you are one of them." So it was more a question of inevitability? I understood that better. I had been killing woodland creatures as recently as three days ago. It had to be in my nature. Why was I driven to do it? You only do things that are in your nature, I thought, clearly. 

"I don't want anyone to die, but some of us must," she said. "So that the rest of us can live." She was, I think, slightly more articulate than Luna, but then, maybe all that was contextual, and depended on the situation. "We cannot go on like this. We cannot keep cyborgs alive," she said. There was that word again. I understood better now what was meant by it. But then, if I was really a cyborg, and there was plenty of circumstantial evidence to support that now, given how creatures around me had behaved, and what they had said, then surely, there must be the hope that someday, one might be able to save Sweetie Belle, and others like her, should one so want. I was tempted to object again, but then thought better of it, figuring that I should save it for a better time, not this time.

"There is a thing wrong with everything you did," she said, looking at me. "You did not take into account how much love there is in all the land, and what sacrifices ponies are willing to make that you and others like you, as we know, and carry witness to once again, are not willing to make." The thing I was most disappointed in myself for was my unwillingness to die, strange as that may sound. "You did not take into account not everyone is like you." She stopped. Her voice trembled. "Father," she then said. It all spun around. His name was on the lips of Luna and Celestia, or at least his presence or the idea of him, or something, and all, and Aqasha, and himself, what was he? A monster, a savior, or something completely different? Why had he been trying to help me and others, as I knew he had, in spite of all his misgivings and his obvious, glaring character flaws, those of Sidus, black against sky, and you know the rest, whatever it all was. Aqasha had told me many things about him. Celestia continued.

"We don't need this," she said, pointing at me, "walking around, making threats, causing havoc. It's not just, and even if it is possible that one of them might be able to change, it's not worth the risk. We have had these conversations before, many times before in these halls, and come to the same conclusions." Something or someone was telling me that I was losing this trial. I heard a voice in the back of my head. It was that of Sidus. Use the circle, it said. Use the circle. What circle? Stop speaking in riddles, stupid voice in my head. It's the circle of light, the voice then said. It's behind you. I turned around. Indeed, there was something that very much looked like a circle of light right behind me. I hadn't seen it when I walked in the room. From where had I walked in, or was it hidden? It was a circular platform that emanated light. It seemed to be the only light source in the room. It lit up the room. Maybe it had been shut off when I walked in. Maybe? Anyway! Here went nothing.

"I want the circle," I said, pointing at the circle. The room went quiet. Why? "I want the circle of light," I said. "Do I have the right to it?" 

"No," Nexus said. "Now, you sit down, shut your mouth, and listen to the princess, whelp."

"Yes!" Where had I heard that voice before? It came... from... the judge? Of all ponies?

"She has the right. She will go inside the circle and say her piece, and- and- we." He stumbled over his words. Then he just pounded his gavel. Nexus shook her head, looking as nervous and aghast as I had ever seen her. 

"Whelp," she said, shouting at me. "If you go inside the circle, and tell a lie, something that can even be interpreted as a lie, you will die, you insufferable whelp." Die? Now, I really wanted to go in that circle. This was sweet and simple, unlike most of what I had gone through in Equestria, thus far. 

"I promise not to lie," I said, which was a dead-faced lie. I was planning to lie, just looking for the right opportunity. 

The cat-lady-girl-whatever reached out her paws. "The judge has spoken," she said. "The circle of light it is. Guards!" The guards that lined the room, encircling where I was standing, formed a column around me and pushed me toward the circle. Really? I could just walk there myself, I thought, but okay. I backed into the circle. It lit up, blinding me. 

"Okay then," Nexus said. Celestia was just sitting behind her desk, quietly. "Okay, then let us ask you some questions. Remember. The circle is magical. It knows everything, so don't try any tricks. Or wait, what am I saying? Do. I should love to see it. Now, where were you when." She paused, shouting something from the corner of her mouth. Someone came running, hitting his leg on the wooden fence. He fell together on the ground. She rolled her eyes, bent down, and picked up what he had in his grip. "Where were you," she said, "when this pony died?" She held up a picture of a pony that I recognized as Flutterscotch Secretwings, ridiculous as that name was. It did help me remember it, the ridiculousness of it, I mean. This one was easy.

"She's alive." No, wait. That was true. "I–"

"That's all the court needs to hear," Nexus exclaimed. No, you moron. That was the truth. You have to let me keep talking so I can lie. No.

"Next," she said. "Where were you when the Battle for Pegasquire and its last remnants happened? Eating marmalade? Watching TV? What were you doing?" A TV was something I didn't even know existed.

"Objection," I said.

"You can't object. That's a question," Nexus yelled at me, angrily.

The cat-girl shook her head. "No, Nexus. She actually can." Nexus looked up toward her, with murderous intent, by the look in her eyes.

"Okay then," she said, going quiet, Nexus did. 

"What's a TV?" I said.

"Are you trying to avoid answering my question?" Nexus said, staring daggers that she no doubt would've thrown if she had them.

"No," I said. She smiled at me. She thought she got me to lie. She didn't know the first thing. "I was in Pegasquire during a battle," I said. No, wait. That was the truth. "I tried to kill a pony, but then I changed my mind." Was that a lie? Come on. Be a little more creative, me! "I fought the mare on the picture, Flutterscotch. She disappeared."

"No, you killed her," Nexus said.

"No, I didn't." No, wait. You did. What are you doing me? Nurgh! Gah! What was I doing? I was ruining everything by accidentally telling the truth. That's what I was doing. "Wait," I said.

"The court has heard enough," Nexus said. "Now, do you- I mean, would you- will you." She was looking for a way to phrase the question, which I thought was curious. "Are you killing again, if you are given the means and opportunity to do so?"

"I don't know," I said. Was I lying yet? This was ridiculous. Lying should be way easier than telling the truth, and yet, I wasn't. Or at least, I wasn't sure that I was, and that was bad enough. "I think I regret everything I did. I had a friend at the encampment where we had that last trial. I tried to save her. I failed. I've failed at everything, I think. I believe I have, anyway. It's all stupid. My mind was controlled by Aldeus, and Sidus maybe. I don't know. I don't want to talk about it even. I don't want to do it again. There! Is that what you wanted to hear?" Nooooooooo. My plans were foiled by my strange, inadvertent, and mysterious inability to lie. 

"Step out of the circle, now!" Nexus then said, no, shouted. I stepped out. I was pushed back in. The cat looked at Nexus.

"That's not for you to decide," she said.

"Yes, it is," Nexus said.

"Nexus," a voice growled from up above. It was the old judge. "Leave the prosecutor's bench. We have already reached an end to this trial, whatever." He coughed, gurgling. "Whatever happens." She jumped out like a feather springing forth. She looked less angry and aggressive like she had constantly been before, and more, unsure now, like something was bothering her.

"Your honor," the cat said so all could hear. "Should the trial be adjourned?"

The judge shook his head and coughed, sounding like something was stuck in the back of his throat. "No. I will." His voice cracked, and then, he just went quiet.

The cat said, "He wants to deliver his verdict now." Was she a mind-reader or what? Oh, whatever. The soldiers then all stepped aside so I could walk out, and I did. I was alive. It was a miracle, but not really, because I had butchered this entire thing completely. 

Celestia was still sitting at her stand, just dead-eyed, looking confused. The judge pounded his gavel.

"That means you're guilty!" the cat said, looking around the room, as if to make sure that everyone was paying attention, so that they all knew that this was the verdict that the judge, and not she, had delivered. 

Celestia looked more at ease now. I looked toward Luna. She was, absolutely, positively angry, judging by her expression. The rest of the crowd in the court had been silent. They all looked aristocratic, and a little bit too well-dressed for life. The judge grumbled something. The cat had her eyes locked on him.

"Two months," he then said. "Two months," he grumbled a little higher, so everyone could hear it. Two months? Two months! What? Celestia looked confused suddenly again, and she looked up toward the judge.

"No," she said.

Luna, who had been silent, shouted from the lectern. "Just leave it. I'll explain to you later."

"No," she said, again, silently. I could barely hear her. I looked to Nexus. She looked like she was having a blast. She had a stupid grin on her face, looking back and forth.

The cat stood up on her high pedestal, climbing up on the part of it that was meant for papers and such, the front-desk part of it. "Oooh." She chirped loudly. "Princess Celestia is objecting to the decision of the court. How typical. She thinks she's not beholden to it, like everyone else." She pointed toward Celestia, and she bounced up and down, looking hysterically excited. 

"No," Celestia then just said, again, shaking her head.

"Was it not the court that collected taxes when she was unable to do so?" the cat said, pointing at Celestia. "Is it not the court the- the reason you're all standing here today?" she shouted. The crowd piped up a little, making noise. What the hell? 

"Now, she wants to question the decision of the court!" the cat said, bouncing around, looking like she was having a seizure or something. She was ecstatic and full of energy. Celestia just rose up and left, walking out the room. "Okay then," the cat said, sitting down. "Then we can get back to business. Stand back on the platform, my little cyborg, and don't tell a lie. We wouldn't want the mechanism going off before you got sent to Tartarus." Tartarus? Oh, wow. Okay. Why had no one told me anything about this before? Tartarus? Tartarus, why not? It was the place where ponies and others suffered, and I no doubt deserved to suffer. I stood back on the shining circle of light and sank down, and then I fell.
> Part 10: Tartarus Beckons
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I fell down. 

I fell down into a pit.

I landed on the bottom, in a giant net.

The net filled up with other ponies, scoundrels of different backgrounds. 

The net filled up with me. I saw a griffin land beside me. He tried to fly, but chunks of black goo, or fuzz, landed on him.

The net was the thing I fell down in, along with many others, as I have said. I tried to get out of it, but rather to my surprise, the net tore apart on its own. I fell down on the ground, hitting myself. My leg still hurt, but I figured that it would either heal before long, or get destroyed by the monsters of Tartarus.

I stood up, looking around. A spear hovered in the air behind me. It moved toward me. I closed my eyes and thought the word, release! But the spear did nothing. It simply stopped in front of me. I jumped toward it and it slipped away. What kind of torture chamber was this, where spears are shy of attacking you? 

I tried to grab it, but it spun around. It was in a courtyard of some kind. It looked like an arena, with barred walls that had squares in them for looking in and out of, and a bleak empty stony and rocky courtyard that stretched out before me. This place was an empty desolation, except for ponies and griffins, changelings and zebras, and the odd dragon even flying around in the courtyard, but as soon as one tried to leave, black gunk floated down from the air on him, or her, pushing that person down. The gunk seemed to be suspended in the air, and it was no doubt a safety measure. A gate to the side of me opened up, or more aptly, one of the barred walls opened up, the square bars moving to the side. A something came out. It was big black and asymmetric, and full of tentacles. 

It's hard to describe this creature. I'm racking my brain, even now. Its name was strange. The Yethergnerjz stood before me, big and tall. This was a close friend of, you won't believe it, Hookbeak. The Yethergnerjz stumbled forward. It was a mish-mash of black fuzz, and jellyfish arms, and eyes on all sides, blue shining eyes. It had no real face, even. You know what? It looked like someone had taken a sheep, a tiger, a snake, and an antelope, and a jellyfish, can't forget about the jellyfish, and had them mate one another to produce a genetic mutant that was all of them, all at once, but also gigantic, like a two-story building, and black.

The Yethergnerjz moved closer to me. It spoke. "I saw you. Didn't you see me knocking at your door?" This was cryptic, and made the Yethergnerjz sound slightly stupid. I hadn't knocked on anyone's door lately, as far as I could remember. "I saw you," it said again. "Oh, you think I didn't see you? I saw you." The creature laughed. Then it walked onward to another person. Crazy-talk, as far as I was concerned. "I saw you," it said to another person. Okay, I was leaving. I walked toward the door that it came from, but one of its eyes must've seen me, and so, it followed me along toward the door.

"To get through my door, you have to solve the riddle," it said. No!

"Nooo," I said. I shook my head. No-no, no, I thought not. "No, I think I can just walk through the door. I don't think there's any metaphysical power that's stopping me from walking through, and I'm sure that I don't have to solve no riddle." It slipped forward.

"I insist," it said. "You are at my door. Listen to my riddle now, like a friend would." I wanted to laugh, but rather than laughing, I just stood there, dumbstruck like a dumbbell. 

The creature had something dripping from it. It looked like something dropped from its side. Were those scales just dropping off? Was it dropping its skin in the middle of this courtyard, or rather, at the edge of it? Oh, how gross! "I think you dropped something," I said, pointing down, but the creature didn't do as I said, not at all. It picked out something from its green bulbous backside, or frontside? The one side of his body looked like a butterfly's cocoon, but really, just gigantic. It was a dry lump, but it had green sludge on top of it that pulsed. This was all really terrible and nauseating, but I was happy to find something that finally disturbed me in this place, and I figured that this was my punisher. He would ask me annoying questions that would, punish me? My heart sank. I really wanted to get to someone that was actually serious about harming me.

The creature picked out a key. Of all the! I recoiled at the sight of what it had in its... limb, or whatever, its handlike appendage. "This is yours, if you can answer one riddle." Others were already passing by the Yethergnerjz into the whatever was behind the barred wall, though presumably, it was some sort of punishment and or prison cell, or both. I didn't really consider imprisonment to be a punishment. It was a more positive experience, I figured, than I had been through so far. I thought that imprisonment would be too good for me. Anyway, the Yethergnerjz was holding one of the three keys to the door, the big door, the only door, the lock, that I had made. Where did he get it? This was one of Aldeus' hiding places. He gave it to this creature. I would later find out that it had made its way to him through a series of distressing events that had very little to do with Aldeus, but same difference! Here this creature stood, with my key.

"No," I said, walking past it, into the barred part of the building. The creature stood there, held up the key, and then it pressed it back into its body, and moss grew all across it, green moss. Then, the creature collapsed together on the ground and fell apart, pieces of moss and what looked like the bark of a tree falling down in all directions. But what I didn't understand at the time was that the Yethergnerjz wasn't dead. It was merely resting.

The Yethergnerjz is one of the seven ancients. Two of them, it's given to my memory, lost their titles. I would soon meet a person in the prison that was to tell me more about this. Rest assured that I remained calm and carried on, trying to commit suicide, but to no avail, and that's because, and I knew this, I didn't want to commit suicide. What's more open to interpretation is why that is, but we'll save all that for a later time.





I was walking through the hallways of this strange facility, one that reminded me quite a bit of the fortress in how cold, quiet, and empty the social environment was, which I guess, is to say that there was no social environment to speak of, none at all, and it had to be this way, I guess, because I was in Tartarus, and that's how Tartarus works. You don't talk to one another. You suffer. But I didn't feel very suffer-y. In fact, I felt pretty good, save my leg, but that would heal soon, no doubt, no doubt, or at least, I had my hopes up for it. 

I didn't want to suffer an injury. I wanted to suffer death. That's what I had decided, not because I didn't want to suffer, period, but because the injured leg, I knew, would make it harder for me to search out the real, colossal, and substantive suffering that I so desperately needed, and deserved, in the same way that a mother has her child, and a hero gets his medal, it was all of a piece with the natural state of the world, the flow of life, and the laws of nature, as I saw it. Of course. Of course. I should have to suffer, because I would, in some final way, and that justified my suffering. I should and I would, because it was natural. This might seem like a fallacy to some, but I think it makes sense in a way. The should-part is nothing but descriptive of the would-part, and the would-part is what's coming to a person to which something should happen, and so, if something bad should happen to me, because it would, then it was no less natural for me to inflict that bad myself. So much was obvious to me. I should. It was my responsibility.

I walked through the corridors. The injury was bothering to me. I figured whether I should ask that giant demon for help, some kind of premature release. He seemed like the custodian of this place after all, unless he was dead. Was he the ward? Do such creatures continually come and go? Die and become reborn? I didn't know. The Yethergnerjz was one of the most curious things I had ever witnessed, and that's actually saying something. I had watched my friend beat herself up to death continually over the course of a minute or so, until there was a pile of her remaining on the ground, so I had seen some stupid-weird things, but this creature was something else and something new, and something special was brewing in the air about him, though I could not quite make out what it was. Who was that creature? His so-called riddle, which I never got to hear, reminded me of one of the tests back at the metal fortress, which had for a long time been my home. What would he get out of asking me a riddle though? That was stupid, unless it involved me giving something to him, but then, that's not a riddle, that's either theft or some kind of financial-type business exchange involving two consenting parties, and I thought that one or the other seemed unlikely, the latter for obvious reasons, and the former because if this creature had wanted to steal from me, he would have done it already. Oh, whatever. It didn't matter, not really.

One of the spears came flying through the dark stony, bleak, and empty corridor, save for a griffin that sulked in the corner. It was the same griffin from before. The tip of the spear landed on the ground, and it stood up in a lateral position. Okay then. Now's the torture?

"From whence?" the spear said, in a raspy voice. Oh, really? The spears here talked? Weapons doubled as prison guards, or was there something I was missing here? Living spears is not something I much appreciate, nor has it been, probably based on the threat of getting stabbed, and your inability to defend yourself, because they're spears. What are you supposed to do? Run at them? Try to stab them? They're spears! "From whence?" it said again.

"The desert," I said. 

The tip of the spear leant forward in a non-threatening maneuver. "What desert?"

"The only desert," I said. "There is only one desert in the region."

"This is irregular," the spear then said. Oh, shut up. I wanted to tell it to shut up. "You will be placed next to the griffin." I looked for eyes or a mouth, but I couldn't find them. The spear turned around. As if it needed to. It was a spear!

"From whence?" it said, to the griffin. He said nothing. The tip of the spear leant forward, only slightly. It still stood on its back, and the other side of the hilt, which was planted on the ground. The tip of the handle was planted. That's what I meant to say. "From whence?" Now, the tip of the spear pointed toward the griffin. I sighed. I thought that I didn't want to help him, but then, I had no choice, did I? I would only suffer even more guilt if I didn't. I slowly stumbled my way, with my hurt leg, to the spot where the griffin was. I tried to walk between the spear and the griffin, but the spear only hovered slightly to the side.  

The room I was in looked like an underground prison chamber, with rocks for walls and roof, and big circular bows across the ceiling, made from stone, that were shaped into half-moons. They bent around the tip of the room and reached down into the floor. "Come on," I said. "Just say something to the stupid spear. It will kill you if you don't."

"I'm from Circle town," the griffin then whispered.

"This is most irregular," the spear rasped. What, spear? Are you some kind of deranged office desk worker person? What do you mean irregular? What is irregular? "This is irregular," the spear said. Other spears came flying in our direction. Oh, bother. Kill me then, not the griffin. Please. No, seriously. Please. This was stupid. I didn't know what to say now. 

"Irregular, irregular," the spears echoed through the halls. If I had the Obliterator on me, I thought, but then I leant back, and sat down on the floor, regretful of that silly thought. This was the reason that I should die, as Celestia had put it, ever so eloquently. It was who I was, after all, and it's not worth the risk to keep me alive.

"Irregular," a spear said, that stopped right by me. Irregular? What is irregular? What? What! What! Go away. I tried to grab one of them. It spun around and made a small cut, just at the place where I had tried to grab it, the tip of my hoof. Wonderful, I thought. Finally. I saw some blood pouring down. Real blood. Pony blood. I had thought it be fake before, not any longer. 

Still, I had to protect the stupid griffin. "You are irregular," I told a spear. 

"Irregular," it said, like a mantra.

The rocks and gravel on the ground vibrated, moved, and started coalescing. Pieces of green dirt on the wall flew together on the floor. I heard a small rock ping against the ceiling, and then it descended toward the same place on the floor. The spears dispersed to the sides. Then, they just fell together on the floors, like regular dead and unpossessed spears. They became lifeless. A big gash opened up on the ceiling, and a green mass of goo sprouted out, spraying into that one point on the floor. It grew. It became that creature that we met out on the courtyard. It bent down.

"We are always working," it said. "It gets tiring. The spears are mischievous. You must forgive." Well, okay then. That explained it. I wanted to punch the swamp creature, so I did. My hoof got stuck in it. 

Then, it slowly slid out. "We hear about you, whispers in the night," it said. "The black has given us visions, ones that surprise us. We want to help you, but first, you have to answer my riddle." No. No. And you know what? Super-no. All the no in the world. No way. 

"No," I said. "I think I would rather, rather, I don't know, die?" I closed my eyes, hoping for the creature to respond in kind.

"The black has said that you would respond in this exact way. It knows the future better than the forest sprite. You must answer my riddle." But then, if this creature, who I would later know as the Yethergnerjz, knew exactly how I would respond, then I could respond any way at all, and it wouldn't matter one bit.

"Get raped," I said, and then I turned away and walked away. Oh, me. The things you do when you're lost and confused!

The Yethergnerjz followed me. "You don't know the meaning of that word," it said. It left a trace of green goo in its wake, as that of a snail.

"Yes, I do," I said.

"You aren't comprehending," the Yethergnerjz responded. It responded, really, without any concern for what I had to say, because Sidus had told it what I would say in advance. "We can tell you. Don't worry. We cannot read your thoughts like the black."

"Why do you call him the black?" I said. I looked and noticed that demure griffin, just lying there. "And aren't you going to help him?" 

"He is unharmed. We are more concerned about you." The Yethergnerjz spouted a bunch of green goo at me. It covered me body. It was thick, like mud. I tried to shake it off. I saw that the wound on my hoof healed, and my leg, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, felt better. Okay, so this was like Allyseyev then?

"Okay, thank you," I said. "But–"

"Rape is what happens when sexual reproduction goes astray," the creature said, suddenly speaking my language. Sexual reproduction? Wait, what had Sidus- did he know that I would react in this way, because if he did, then all of this was way freakier than I had realized. A perfect window into the future, that's unblemished and transparent, means you can change anything, or do anything, and everything. Everything is in your grasp. Is that what Sidus had?

"When you lie with another pony, you form a bond with him," the Yethergnerjz said. "That bond can last forever. Once it's broken, there's nothing you can do. Death awaits everybody. You see." No. I didn't see. "Death is what separates ponies, drives them apart, and all other creatures, also griffins. But you can live in a corrupt bond. That bond is created through the act of rape, where sexual intercourse is forced upon you by another." My first lesson is sex ed had come from none other than a deformed demon, and that is something I will always cherish, I think. "What is it you see upon me, when you watch, so scared, looking so lonely in the night?"

"What is rape?" I said, still confused.

"Ponies rape for pleasure," the demon said. This was quickly becoming ridiculous, as I'm well aware, writing this down, remembering my own misgivings. "Sexual intercourse is for pleasure. It's a type of relation," the monster said, gurgling.

Well, I knew what intercourse was, but never in the world had I guessed that ponies could derive pleasure from it. I didn't know what it looked like either. I only knew it was a means by which ponies reproduce, but all of this was new to me. For a hell, this demon sure did like explaining things a lot, and tending to my wounds. What had Sidus told it, once again? He, she, it, whatever, it didn't matter. A demon's a demon. They're demons. Their sex is irrelevant.

"We want to lead you to your new home?" the Yethergnerjz said, and all of the spears then stood up on their tips like they had been before, handle pointing down. Okay then, but first!

"Can you tell me- no, I mean, I can tell you why you scare me," I said, though it should be obvious already to anyone who's been paying attention.

The creature, and the spears, stopped, and looked like they were frozen in time. Even the goo in the Yethergnerjz's cocoon stopped pulsing. Rather than responding, or saying anything at all, I looked around, and saw that the griffin behind me wasn't moving at all. He wasn't still, sulking. He was just still, and not moving an inch, stiff as a board. I turned around and walked toward him. I looked at him. He wasn't moving at all. He was a frozen statue. Then I turned around toward the monster, the creature, and the spears. They were all still in the air. This was scaring me, and causing me great distress.  

"Hello," I said, looking at the Yethergnerjz, poking at it. My hoof got covered in green gook. "Do you really wonder why I'm scared? Just look at you. You're the scariest thing I have ever seen. Why, you have no order of wholeness or structure, not at all. You're like something that's meant to scare a person. You're incoherent, and you're ugly." Time started moving again. I saw something drop behind the Yethergnerjz as it was moving the other direction. It was a key. No, it was the one and only key. It was "the" key. I picked it up. Then I blinked. I was inside a small prison cell now. In the last moment, I hadn't been. I looked for the key. It was hanging down my neck on a necklace. The cell was tiny, cramped, empty, save for a wooden bench of some kind, that I suppose was meant for sleeping. Oh, but they didn't know I had slept in way more uncomfortable conditions than that. For most of my life, I had slept on cold hard metal, so this would be nothing as compared to that.

I looked down at the key. That creature, whatever he was supposed to be, had just given it to me. Why? Why, was the question of the day as of the moment. Why, why, and more why? It was all very confusing.

"Hey," I heard a voice. It was a calm, warm voice, coming from, somewhere. I didn't want to know where. I wanted to do something self-destructive, now that I had healed. That would be enough to atone for at least a small fragment of my sins, such as abandoning Jelly, I thought. But then again, it was all for the better, seeing as how I had brought hell into her life. Her life was worse than real hell, it appeared, as this place seemed good in relation to everything I had been through, not to mention everything she had been through. "Hey," the voice said again. "Thanks for saving me out there." Oh, it was the griffin. Well, you're welcome for me stepping in and getting stabbed because you couldn't answer a simple question, you simple creature you. I didn't say that though. I only thought it.

"Hello," I said. "Who are you?"

"I'm Gripey," he said. Oh, a gripe? Funny. That's what I had with this whole situation, was a gripe. Would he go away and stop talking to me?

"I'm." I paused for a moment, conflicted about something. "I'm Botsy," I then said, shaking my head a little at that stupid answer. Who was I exactly? I wasn't even sure myself. All I knew is I was my own worst enemy, worst of the worst. 

"Hello," he said. "Praise be to the seven for keeping us alive, eh?" The seven. One of nine. Nine of nine. Seven of nine. The seven in the northwest. I scrolled through my memory, trying to find something to say in response to this.

"The seven," I said.

"That's right," he said. "The seven are with us, always watching."

"Like what? Spies? Infiltrators?" I said, growing weary and angry of his incessant chatter.

"Have you ever heard of Hookbeak?" he said. I wasn't mentally prepared for this, although I would be. I would be.

"I saw him in a dream once. No, twice," I said, correcting myself. "He was trying to rape Luna." Oh. Oh. Oh no. This was the second-worst, or, never mind, no it wasn't. It was just an awkward first conversation with a person that I had never met.

"He would never do that," Gripey said, calm in his voice. He hadn't been before. Oh, well, how do you know, griff-griff? I thought that, but for the better, I didn't say it. I thought that he was acting stupid. I knew he was. I knew what I had seen. Or was that what rape was? Was Hookbeak procreating with her? I couldn't tell. I wanted to ask him. Or no, I wanted to ignore him, or, um, whatever. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do.

"No, wait," I said. "Maybe we should talk about this some more. How do you know what a Hookbeak, what the Hookbeak, the person, is?"

"You don't?" the whatever, gripe-gripe said to me. No, I didn't actually.

"I just met him in a dream twice," I said. "He was discussing things with Luna."

"You've been having visions?" he said. I racked my head. Gripes? I hadn't really been paying attention, though my memory, even at this stage, was usually impeccable. Gripen? The gripes? No. No, it was Gripey. Too bad. I liked all those other names more, the names I had constructed in my head.

"No," I said, a little flustered. "But I've actually been having visions. I saw them in front of me. No, I'm sure I did. They were real, not visions."

"You want to hear a story?" he said.

"No," I said, mimicking his tone of voice. He sounded obsequious.

"I only want to talk," he said.

"No, you want to preach," I said, leaning back. This was annoying. I had found some kind of mock-prophet to share my bedside with, in the other cell, not this one. He was speaking from the cell next to me.

"I have something here," he said. He flung something over to me. It landed in front of my cell door. The doors were barred with perpendicular bars, not square ones, like those from before. The thing he had thrown before me was a book.

I said, "No, I'm not picking that up."

"Oh, please," he said. "It's the best book in the world." Even though it made me angry, it also aroused my curiosity. And then, I realized, that the demon had allowed others to bring things into their cells, not only me, but then, did he bring this book with him when he was sent here, or did he find it here, like I had with the key? Regardless, and with no further thought, I picked up the book with my magic and levitated it inside. On the cover, it said, with no glamor or frill, "The Holy Text of the Griffonoi and Other Parables That Griffins Rely Through." This was a short book, so I didn't mind reading it, since I figured it would go quick and pass some time, but the importance of the book was something I only realized through reading it, and that griffin, Gripey, had unbeknownst, or perhaps beknownst to him, done me a huge favor by passing it to me. I picked it up to read it. 

This was going to be... something different, something new, I thought. I hadn't read a book in a while, but then, this was the greatest book ever, so I thought that my hooves were tied, and without a doubt, I had to read it. No, of course, that was the reason. My curiosity. Or? Did I hear something in his voice that interested me further? Had he said something? Was it the prospect of learning something new about Hookbeak? My own intentions were not transparent to me, but then, I guess, they needn't be.
> Part 11: The Holy Text of the Griffonoi and Other Parables That Griffins Rely Through
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have to do this, though some readers might find it annoying. I have to regurgitate a book that everyone already knows about, because the truth is that if there's even a chance that you haven't read it, then the rest of my story will be quite confusing to you, but know that if you don't want to reread it, I don't blame you. It's a very difficult book, though short. I recommend skipping to the next chapter if some of the passages annoy or confuse you, but it is important to understand what the Griffonoi says, to everyone, all in the world, even if it is a strange and perhaps dying religion. It's right for you to know, so follow along for the ride.





It was a cold, hard, dark day in the wilderness, and all were afraid. All was silence, and nary a sound was made in the dark of the world. Still, in the dark, something moved, and something beckoned, and a one true path was opened up to seven, who would pass through the world and bring good and joy. A terrible war had come and gone, and seven, corrupted and weak, had to be replaced by the new seven, who would bring light and joy to the world. This is their story.

One: He's big. He's strong. He knows the way, but he has a weak mind that is easily corrupted by excess. Only through the power of the one true path has he conquered his nature, and so, conquering the beast within him, as it happens, through the way.

Two: She's a humble engineer. Meek and weak in a lot of ways, her face will tell us. She has a bleak expression, and yet, a genius rests in the dark, waiting to come upon us, and bless the world.

Three: He is the sloping dagger of the group. He has a way with cogs, and he knows where the pieces shall lie. He is the molder of things, strong and true, though he had his weakness, his love for two.

Four: He really need not be introduced. He is the aged one, the brute, that had a scar come upon his face when he was little. He knows too much, and is interested in everything. He is the one true friend of one.

Five: You hear her whisper, though you know not what she says. She is the one with the sharp ear, and likewise tongue, that molds things into words through the blink of an eye, and the world in her mind.

Six: He is the timid one, even more so than two. He has many a flaw, but he rose up, because he knew how to bring the others together, and he is the one true bringer of friendship and joy in the group. He is the socialite, in a word.

Seven: She came with a smile. She is young, and would die young, but she introduced one and six to one another, and she shows the way through her innocence, and heart, which are open to the world, the way an adult cannot and will not be. 

It comes to show that the world would need griffins like these, that, even in their greed, just and true, there is something deeper that griffins have missed. There is something that rests at the heart of the world, a true spark of truth, that will bring joy and wonder, and perfection, to anyone that is willing to stand near it, and go its path. This is the doctrine of the one true path, as one has warned us about for too long, and two has told us to bring tools along on the journey, and three knows that without a cog, you cannot build a machine, and four says that if you care about something, you have to stand up for it, be it friends or gold, and five brought many laughs into the world, and has freed us from many a struggle through her right mindset, and six is the one with the good heart, that is free of ill-will, and stands as an example for us all, and seven would unite the other six in harmony together, through a new idea that no one, not one or any other, knew of at the time.

This is an apocryphal story that has been passed down through the ages, though in essence, it is a true story. It illustrates the character of a person that is strong and true, so read along, and you will learn it too. The narrowing of history, and the bountiful harvest of storytelling throughout the ages has clarified what stories are important and what should be left behind us, and those stories that are important, because remembered, are in this book. They are the stories of the seven. All have truths that have been illustrated through their actions and in their lives, but they are truths that live on in folklore, and are added upon by the collective wisdom of the ages. These are the symbols of choice, such as they have existed for a long time. This is the tale of the one true faith in the one true spirit, that of truth-seeking and pathfinding. We shall illustrate it all through the coming sections, as you read, and are enriched by the pages that are mandatory to read for any griffin, young and old, and if you ever forget this story, may death come upon you. 





That of one: The Aggressive Philosopher Cornicus Beakon

He is the one thing that can never be forgotten, no matter what you do. He comes into the picture with brute power, and size, and deep thought that is in many ways flawed, and yet, a beacon of hope for the rest of us. The creative product of his work is the reason that griffins are breathing in the capital of the world of griffins, the heart of everything that is central, Circle town, the place where griffins encircle a tower that is a symbol and a metaphor, and an illustration too, of what hard work can do. It is the place where intelligents gather, ones of intellect, where their intellects are challenged further, and hardened by incessant mental activity that brings everything together, and makes the world go round, and round, and round. For every piece of gold that is gathered in his sack, the griffin grows happier and happier, and his life extends. The one is upon us and among us, and he sees it all with his eye on the prize, and the justice in his heart, to guide us all, to the place where places meet, and the path where everything comes together and crosses, the path where all is true and pure, and that, he says, is always in the middle.   

The middle is the place where places meet, and it is the apostrophe upon which the world turns, after a pause, and realizes its own folly, and then, the world comes upon a choice. It can either go true, walk true, be true, and tell true, or be blinded by incessant deceit that is the mirror-image of true intellectual openness, or be closed off to it forever, and into eternity, jumbled and false. This is one of the choices, and it is the one choice that the one calls the one choice. It is the choice that all must make and bear on their sleeves, to make it in life. Whoever loses this will have nothing, and be nothing, and everything will fade away into history in the end.

The doctrine of disappearance is another one of his brainchildren. It says that if something dies, it is gone forever, and for every day, millions of ideas that could improve the future pass away into nothingness. This is meant as a counterfactual to the ideal case, where all the good ideas are harvested, like fragments of a story that live on throughout history, to build a better world. These are the theses of the one Hookbeak. 





That of two: LaDrip Bluetooth Efterluft  

The second of seven is the second thing that lives on through our minds, in great exchange for our sacrifice to her, and hers to us, which we should be grateful for, lest we suffer, which we will eventually, for all dies and fades away in the end, with the currents and the wind. LaDrip Bluetooth, whose last name is adopted from an ancient language, Efterluft, wants to flow freely, but she can only do it with the help of others, for she is shy and would rather be left alone, if left to her own devices, which she has a steady hand on. She is the griffin with the longest name of the seven. Some of her name, it is thought, was contributed to her lore after her death, for it is said that she had a blue tooth, that shined in the sky, made from marble, that she had gathered in the sand. This tooth shone in the dark. It is assumed by many that this is true, and there is no evidence to the contrary. Contrariwise, there is no evidence to support this assumption, but it is a myth and a legend that follows with her, long after her death.

The significance of this tooth, along with her engineering, will be discussed further in this section. She was born with a handicap where she could only see one of everything. She was blind to the world. She could not imagine things, only build, but she had an impeccable memory that allowed her to memorize everything. This is what allowed her to flourish, among others of her kind, who had long since realized that engineering was the future, and a science was born with her at the helm. Engineering, along with good architecture, became one of her favorite pastimes, and she used her talents, and her tooth, to light the way for the rest of us. The symbolic importance of the tooth can be captured by something that Hookbeak said, the one, and the last surviving of the seven: "It glimmers. It's pretty. It can be found in rocks. It's not just any marble. I saw it. It has the ability to discover things. New things. Strange things. My dear friend, LaDrip, was not uncreative, she was just constricted in a way that allowed all of her talents to come out, such that it couldn't for me, even if I shared them. She was lovely. She was the second person that had ever been kind to me."

It is unclear how much of that from Cornicus Hookbeak was rhetorical flourish and how much of it actually transpired, and was real, but what cannot be doubted, we think, are the sincerity of his words. He thinks that the tooth had truth-telling capabilities, and sure enough, there have been creatures throughout history with such powers, including the venerable Aqasha and the black shadow of the south, Sidus. We know that these will be considered unlikely and dubious by any pony, who think that they are the only ones that possess magic, as have they always, but if Hookbeak said it, then Hookbeak saw it. It is true unto itself, because we know him, and we know that it must be true. The truth-telling of the tooth had an element of the future-telling in it. It saw new things, such that only creatives can, rather than intelligents. This is the doctrine of the second, as we have learned it down the line.





That of three: His Grace the King of East

Although his name has been lost, and Hookbeak will rarely, if ever, talk about three, there is little known about him. What is known is that he knew how to mold things out of solid metal, using heat and raw, unmitigated power. He was relatively small, as compared to Hookbeak in his stature, but big in his heart, and physically fierce in his abilities. His Grace the King of East is one of the first and only kings of the ancient griffin kingdom, that died a cold, hard death when it realized that all it cared about was greed, but forsooth, the king tried to revive the belief in something greater, something more important, something that, although not excepting greed, included it, and subsumed it, and was greater than it, and greater than almost anything in the world. It was the glue, so to speak, that held everything together. The King of East, the ancient griffin, old and tattered, was pivotal in the building of the one's tower, which is now known as the Tower of Technology, which stands on the Hill of Spirit-faith in the middle of Circle town. The Tower of Technology is as much a tower, and office-building, as it is a monument to faith and technological achievement, such that can only be made if you believe, as very few in the bigger, wider world, outside of Griffondom, do.   

These are his ideas. First, he believed that you could build almost anything, anyone will ever need, using a cog. Although this belief may seem old-fashioned now, it was pivotal to how he viewed the world, and it was central, and in the middle of, everything he believed in. The cog is a symbol of hope, he thought. Second, he thought that everyone could unite, if they only saw the importance and truth of his first idea. Although it is true that cogs have largely gone out of fashion, and are unneeded for many things, the spirit of his idea, that of the power and beauty of good technology and engineering lives on. Everyone, if there is something to unite around, if any cares and wants to unite around anything, they should unite around that, as there is no better place to start in the world. The hole in the middle of the cog represents the one path, once again, from a symbolic perspective, and the one path is further delineated upon by another griffin. Third, he wanted everyone to be free to do whatever they wanted, and really, although this is disputed by her grace, be free of Equestrian shackles, that bound griffins down in a sort of curious traditionalism that can only be imagined and created by a pony, such as ponies tend to do, when they are ruminating inside their dreamland, created by a deity with powers that they do not possess.

Griffins lack this power, and everyone knows this. This is what Sidus knew, in his black ways, and to rid the world of Celestia in a thousand and two years, as he said he would, will be good for all of us. To rid the world of her, which is to kill her or harm her, could only be a good thing in the eyes of three, and we all agree, although, we might respect her wishes, as long as she respects ours. 

[Note: This book has been translated from an ancient text, and no changes have been made. Although the feelings of many griffins of two-hundred years ago, and more, are reflected here, this should in no way be seen as an actual threat against the sovereign, but it must be remembered that we can only respect her wishes, us high griffins, as long as she respects ours, the goddess of light, and such is the connection and relation that we have with another, one and the other. Ever since the addition of scattered griffin territories in the north, most fighting for survival, with the important, and of course, illustrative example of Circle town, there has been peace between griffins and ponies, more or less, with important exceptions and caveats that won't be mentioned in this book. The areas outside Equestria were besieged by black plagues, illness, dark creatures, and other such marvels, and Celestia did what she could to help the griffins that couldn't help themselves, but it must be mentioned, and remembered, that Circle town has never required such protection, in the same way that Canterlot, the Crystals of the northeast, and the gathered center of Zebra-land, the provincial backwater, have not. The zebras are loved and respected by all griffins that care, so don't get on our case, zebras. Unite and stand together, or face the consequences, just like any other. You live with dirt beneath your hooves. Clean them. Learn our ways. You haven't the power to resist the forces of nature, not really, only numbers, and although many are unwilling to acknowledge this, the Board of the Executive office, and the voting section of Griffindom, and its assorted lands, are. We shall see what happens in the end, stupid zebra.]   





I closed the book. Here are some thoughts I had about it at the time, as I had read the first few thousand words. First, the griffins are absolutely stuck in a sad dream. They don't have any magic, so they try to make their technology seem like magic, but the problem with that is that technology is based on scientific principles, and those are understood by anyone that would create the technology, so you don't need anything complicated and symbolic to do this kind of thing. You only, really, need the scientific tools and principles, such as they are described in any science book, or paper, or article, or abstract, or product, and that, of all, is important to remember, I thought. You can't just make up that teeth can tell the future, and real magic, rather than fake magic, must be based on something like aesthetic principles. If something seems a certain way, then you can do magic on it. It's sort of like when you look at a tree and think of what to build with it, using the wood. You could do the same thing with magic, I thought, and at a very low cost to the person that did it. But no matter. No bother. Science is magic, but then, if science is magic, then everything is magic, I thought, and then, the word has lost its meaning completely, and then we won't know what to do at all when somepony asks us to do magic, at least in theory.

And really, for magic to exist, it also has to track reality in some way, be recognizable to our senses, even if one of those senses is merely just our imaginations. Magic has to be for it to be, and for the griffins, it really wasn't, and could never be. All of this was silly, and what's with the denigration of zebras?

Thinking about such things, being a little angry and annoyed at the stupidity of the book, I kept reading.





That of four: The Merchant Marvelous the Fourth

His fourth, the grand four of the group, who has set down four pillars for all to follow, such that will form the base of a building, whose name, though unknown, was marvelous. He was an ancient griffin, oldest of the group, sharp of his grip, with tricks that stretched far and wide, and for him, and for everyone. He knew everything there was to know about everything, and had a library of books at his disposal, not in his shelf, but in his mind. He knew too much, we all know. He didn't know what to focus on, and he barely had any identity for his own sake, to cherish and take upon himself to cherish, for himself was the four that mattered. He was flawed, but he was four, and that is all that has ever been for griffins in the wide, known, collected, and driven world. Now, here's his story. 

He was born, a toddler with very little luck, walked into a person that held a piece of glass. This person, his father, through sheer bad luck, blinded him by mistake, for his father was drunk on the wine of the grapes of the fields of ancient old that are made up of silly tactics and ways to plow and make them. This was the way of the past, for all to witness. The driving ethos, the collective life-power and force of Circle town is what taught us this. This scar, known as the drunk scar, lived on through his life, and he could only ever see through his one eye, that of his imagination, but he used it to create wonders the likes of which are difficult to imagine today, because today is constricted by other things, weaker things, structures that fade and are full of cheap blemish, and sheer awfulness. The revision of history is something that he taught about. He said that you always need to update your view of the world, your structures, or else you would fade and die, and we know this to be true, for without him, none of the other things would have happened. Seven would've never met one, but that is a different story. Let us stick with the four that matters.

Four was a curious kind. He was a merchant. He was kind, at that. He smiled a lot. He was driven. He was happy, but all of his ideas came late in his life, and were the product of many years of thinking, that at last produced a result that can only be discovered at the end. His was the spirit of creativity, which is in contrast to the spirit of intellect, that in spite of this, has a close relation to the spirit of creativity, six. Six is the intellect, though cluttered by a wise tune, and mostly known for being a friend of others, made them want to meet each other, convinced them, and told them that he too wanted to be his friend, as an intellect is inclined to do, should he meet others. Six was careful, strange, outgoing, ordered, and very, very wise, and he met with the others and made a pact with them, that they would never leave one another, and whenever conflict arose, he was there for them. All of this is to say that four was the opposite in many ways. He barely wanted to talk to anyone, and whatever happened, and whatever he thought about, he would write it down and leave it for future eyes, those of the future, to witness. He is something that only dreams are made of, in a very direct sense. His dreams made the world we live in. He inspired Hookbeak, and others, through his principles of four. 

Number one, it has its mirror-image in Hookbeak's doctrine of the pathfinding in truth-telling and attempting to view things through an intellectual and creative perspective. Of course, four thought, Hookbeak will elevate the intellect and creative domains into something stratospheric and godly, but really, they are only aspects of something greater. This, of course, is slightly at odds with the one true path, as Hookbeak has taught us, and four had many strange ways, and he was a strange creature. We don't know exactly what he meant, but no doubt, we think, both Cornicus Hookbeak and the marvelous four can be right in different ways, depending on how you look at it. Although, this being said, we reaffirm our faith in Hookbeak's doctrine, seeing as he is still alive, and has explained it again and again, and has made his principle indelible, through the act of example, such as he has done, and all of this, we thank him for. Four had the spirit of creativity within him, even more so than Hookbeak, and his spirit, we must elevate and respect for its own sake, but we don't doubt the possibility that he was wrong about a few things, as all creative minds are, since they are forced to change constantly from one state to another, and such is the fate of a creative mind, and has been written into their souls.

Number one, again, is the principle of open exploration that was in some ways adapted and changed by Hookbeak, for his own means. Although four didn't agree with this, he respected Hookbeak's decision. Cornicus Hookbeak was the one with the plan, and four followed along, with some interest, the way a creative person will when he follows an event without judging it, but really, four was a psychology of explosive proportions, and somewhat out of the world, for his time, for good and for ill. He didn't fit in, and that was all for the best, for he couldn't have done all the things he did, if he had. Number two, this is the principle of aesthetics. It's not complicated. If you don't understand it right away, you will never understand it. That is something he always said about it. Aesthetics, according to him, is simply a description of the function of patterns. If something can be perceived as a pattern, then it is aesthetic, by definition. If something can be moved and molded in a way that is structured, then that thing will always be perceived as a pattern by anyone with a mind capable to do it, and that mind is and can only be a creative mind, or a mind that has creativity on its mind, such as he saw it. 

Number three, this is the way the cookie crumbles, thought he, and all that matters, and all that will be, will adapt to this strange pattern. The cookie-pattern, or the empty hole in the ground, that can be filled up with anything. If you fill up the hole, or eat the cookie, or do anything, it will always work out in a particular way. The hole can only be filled to the brim through the structure of its internals. The cookie will always crumble in the way that it does when you eat it, at the time that you eat it, whenever that is. This is simply a proof, or perhaps, a description of causality, such that would become useful to griffins in the future. Number four, an identity, or a person, is ruled by many fragments that come together into one, whenever that person speaks. A person can only get in touch with those fragments through conscious interaction with them, or experience of them, by definition. This was his theory of the disconnected unconscious. These fragments will be at the edge of conscious thought, fading away, and then, rupturing into being, into view, and all the while, conscious or unconscious, will influence your decisions, and those fragments are you in an important way. 

This, though believed by some, is thought to be merely gibberish by many, such as it's described here, and Hookbeak, the one, won't comment on it, except to say that he is sad all those ideas have died, which does not equal an endorsement, but it does seem mysterious, as one may wonder where all those ideas could've gone, had he lived through the ages, and what happens to a creative mind if it's allowed to live on, pray tell?





I closed the book again. What the- what in the holy macaroni. Macaroni? What? What's going on? I thought about it. Disconnected? What's disconnected exactly? I'm here. I'm me. Oh, is it supposed to be a metaphor? But then, no, maybe I just don't understand this yet. Even if it really is just gibberish, I just want to know where he was coming from, this strange griffin, as the book alluded. What does it all mean? The answer eluded me, like a wet fish slipping out my grasp, if you want a vivid metaphor of my own that can satisfy your impression of my, my mental state, your- I was beginning to think like the book was written, and even now, writing this, I have trouble keeping a straight thought. Might I go on then? I think.





That of five: Gelly Rambunct 

Her name has not been lost to history, and this is most likely because she was a love interest, and item, one might say, though not in a derisive way, of Hookbeak's. She was with him a lot when construction of the tower began, this, as the story goes, and she was, together with four, part of a crack team that allowed the tower to be built, based on wild ideas by four, her sharp truth-telling, that was sharper and better than that of one, for he was clouded by emotions, whereas she, in her wisdom, that distinguishes her, was driven by them. Her emotions ran wild, but that also allowed her to focus and concentrate, and let loose her spirit into the world, such as it was, wild and free, not wildly creative like that of four, but wild in how open it was to any and all free expression, and made by the ancients, the old ancients, she had a coat that she wore wherever she went, flaunting it before others, and it could do magic.  





I was interrupted. "Hey, are you fast awake as yet? We have watched you long. You're getting tired. We have installed a means by which to live, as we were told by the black that you would need it." It was the giant demon again! I flew up in the air.

"A!" I said, shrieking through my nose. "Don't disrupt."

"We're sorry," the creature, the Yethergnerjz said. "We find you to be fun to look at. You are a special little spectacle, but you seem tired, and you should rest." The Yethergnerjz never respected private boundaries, as you'll soon be more wary of. I'm not spoiling anything. He was spying on me as I was reading my book, and then, he slid forward, slipping into my cell, his body dividing into eight parts, one for each two bars to go in-between. Its body pressed in through the bars, between two bars was one part, two another, and so on, and so on, if you can imagine it. Then, the parts slowly came together, pushing together, becoming one again. This creature, this slobbering, terrifying creature, occupied almost all free space inside the cell, which, as you might be able to tell and or know, made me want to run for my life, but I couldn't, because I was surrounded by green gook, and the creature itself surrounded me on all sides. I couldn't decide whether it was more disgusting or terrifying, but regardless, it wasn't nice.

"You're right," I said, jittering with my hoof on the book, putting it down. "You're right. Without the tap-water, I would die." 

"Ourgh," the Yethergnerjz said, making an indistinct grumbling noise with whatever be his mouth. "He is never wrong. He never was." The blue eyes lit up, like a spotlight, and then toned down, fading in color and strength somewhat. "We need his light. Do you know that? He is one of nine. Look in next page on your book. You will find that all the answers you are looking for can be found there." Okay, only one could know that, and it wasn't the one Hookbeak. It was one that I had formed a strange relationship with. Sidus. 

I took its hint and kept on reading, trying to ignore the slobbering mushy sounds made by the monster.





It was made by cotton that need aid from a unicorn to form and shape in its proper way, and so it was. So it was the cotton, and the unicorn, and the griffin that made it whole, for many things can be done with cotton, but magic can only be done by those that inherited it from the ancients. There are nine ancients, soon to be seven, that are replaced by the new seven in this book. Those are the spirits of light, darkness, wisdom, cleverness, deceit, creativity, intellect, power, and translucence. The first spirit, that of light, is the queen of sun, Celestia, who rules over her subjects with harsh eyes, and truth, and bite that hurts and burns in the light. No doubt, the symbol of light is a symbol of order, as she herself would acknowledge. Five has described her as such, and her words hold weight like none other. The next is the night, the darkness, her younger sister, Luna, though the symbology here seems to be confused, as it is night that preceded light from a historical perspective, and again, in her sharp ways, Gelly Rambunct has pointed this out. 

The next is the spirit of wisdom, wise and true, with a heart that is strong, of gold, and of all the good things in the world. Her name is Aqasha. She is worshipped by the zebras, and may her name be cherished. She is the only reason zebrakind may live. After that is the spirit of cleverness, a conjunction of intellect, wisdom, and creativity. His name, as we all know him, is Discord, though he is by others called the spirit of chaos, but as we know him, he has spread good and bad throughout the land. Cleverness, no doubt, is a devious but regardless, a creative force, that has spread and conquered almost them all. Historically speaking, he is also the last surviving draconequus, for the information of anyone that wants to know. Most of them were exterminated through a sad series of events that relate to the next spirit, and ancient one. His name is, as most should still know from personal experience, having heard about this creature or met someone that has at some point in their lives, though his whereabouts, powers, and origins are mostly mysterious. His name, though assigning to him, or it, a gender or sex, or anything that can be associated with those terms, might be a mistake. Still, he calls himself a he, and so, we will oblige. His name is, as has been known through history, but never said by him himself, the Yethergnerjz, or the Yether, for short, perhaps, if you are so inclined.

The Yethergnerjz is a black shadow-creature of unknown origins that is yet, as we all remember, likely to have come from the northwestern badlands, where most monsters and misfits were pushed out by Celestia. He is the one that she couldn't push out, not our one, but another one. He appears to be virtually indestructible and can stop time at his whim. This is significant because five talked to him and all like him, discovered them, described them, and documented them in great detail for all the world to know. She has the only scientific account of the old nine that has ever existed, and probably, will ever exist, for winning their favor was something only she could do, with her sharp tongue and directness, that fascinate ponies and attract them to her, all the while as harsh truths sting and bite everyone all the time in the process, but for her, harsh truths were always important, and central to her philosophy. She always believed in telling the truth about everything all the time. She said that she would rather die than lie, and we believe her, given her actions during the foundation of the tower, and the town beneath.  

The Yether, as we all know, has also formed a close bond with Hookbeak in the last years of 600 to 800 after the clash, fortunately for us all. The Yether is one of many forces that help protect the Aris Dam, from which all the water in Equestria is derived, and also, provides power to Circle town and Manehatten. This is an important place for both ponies and griffins. The Yether, also, controls time, and can stop and start it at his whim. He is, together with Hookbeak, one of the power centers of the land and the continent, which is most of the world, putting aside the jungles and the grasslands. They control all of the northwestern corner of the continent, and the Griffon Empire has found protection against the ponies' imperial ways through this union. The spirit of deceit has been given a good home among the griffins, who cherish him, and know that with the right attitude and help, he can do anything for the truth. Although Hookbeak, who is known as a truth-teller, might seem strange to have formed an alliance with such a creature, it is also important to note that the griffins never had that many allies to begin with, so for survival, you have to make amends with the badlands, as Celestia was unwilling, and try to civilize, or if that's politically incorrect, help them live with griffins, ponies, and others.    

The Yethergnerjz also has a sorry habit of giving riddles which are unfair and difficult to answer, in order to allow for things that are simple and easy, such as helping Hookbeak freeze the water in the river for the building of the dam. For Hookbeak, it's a terrible task, though the Yether has helped it become easier, and it is said that he is developing his own technology that can stop time through the help of this creature. For the Yether, freezing time is trivial, but he won't do it just for anypony, or anygriff. There are important conditions that need be met, and if he stops time around you, and you can see yourself moving and notice yourself breathing, that means he's after you, and he will haunt you until he has extracted out the truthfulness in you that you're hiding from him and the world. The Yethergnerjz, therefore, for the wrong person, can be a dangerous creature. Since it lacks truth-telling, it attaches itself to creatures that don't, and feeds on them like a parasite. This might seem disturbing to some, but it is perfectly normal for this sort of creature to do, and it is the reason that Celestia banned him, and others like him, in the first place.

To five, as we know, he has proven to be entirely harmless, which is another lesson that you can draw. To a five, any five in the world out there, if you are a good person, which means that you find good paths through telling good truths, then the Yethergnerjz won't be able to harm you. In fact, and this is important if you ever encounter him. The spirit of deceit will only harm creatures that lie, whatever the context, so watch out, and be truthful, or he might come for you in the night. The next spirit, and ancient one, is the one himself. He needs no further introduction. Cornicus Hookbeak beckons at your door at night, watching you always. He has grown into his role as the spirit of creativity through time, and now, he embodies many traits of four, though not to the same extent, as he need be functional and ordered to function in a corporate environment, and make the bits that he himself has earned through generations of hard labor, and tears. 

The spirit of intellect is of course the wife of the last night sovereign, Sidus, who fled to the south for no one wanted him around any longer. Her name, though lost in time, is said to have to do with the sun, or light, the same way the name Sidus has to do with the stars. Sidus, as translated from Latin, has contextual meaning, but can, in the one case, be translated to star, which is what Sidus represents. She, his wife, used to be a voice of reason, an administrative voice in the world, the way symbols of light often will portray themselves, and try to act. She was stern, more so than Celestia, and very determined, and she always knew what she wanted, when she wanted it. Gelly thinks she was the last person who met with the spirit of intellect before she vanished, and she blames Sidus for vanishing her, and he has taken blame for it too, saying that it is all part of something bigger, better, and more important. This might seem curious to some, but ancients will make decisions that carry weight across hundreds of years, knowing what the outcome will be, the same way normal griffins will make decisions for next week. In any case, this is a fact.  

This takes us to the spirit of power, who Gelly Rambunct actually said that she had trouble talking to, because he always tried to confuse her and evade her questions. All she has to say about him is that he possesses, or appears to possess, near-universal power, and that he can vaporize ponies with his mind. Sidus is responsible for the creation of the circle of light, as a favor to the Yethergnerjz for helping him with something, and though it's unclear what that might be, one can speculate that it has something to do with time. If the Yether couldn't control time, then practically speaking, and for all intents and purposes, he would be a harmless creature, but he can, and he does, and that's what Sidus was after, rather, in some shape or some form. The final one is the spirit of translucence. It will possess ponies and make them her puppets for given periods of time, sometimes years, and sometimes minutes. She uses them to exert influence on the world. No doubt, this will be impossible for a host that has magic more powerful than hers. She is entirely invisible, and comes and goes as she pleases. It is said that she lives in the center of the world.  

The importance of all this is that it is the basis upon which the mythos of the new seven was formed, and Gelly, who spoke to the nine a lot and knew them well, would, when the time was right and proper, betray them, for she knew that they were devious and deceitful, all of them, and none of them were willing to redeem themselves, and when the war for the continent started, the clash of zero, the griffins, and all others but the alicorns and their ponies, were pushed to the perimeters of Equestria, and no matter how much ponies will try to revise history, this sad fact won't change. Gelly Rambunct stole her coat, then, from the ponies, in an act of theft that would make her immune to all threats, for this coat is magical, and holds the key to unlocking the center of the world. It is the one thing that cannot be discarded in griffin memorabilia. Of course, all this should be obvious to the one who's reading this text, if you have already read her own memoirs and stories. She was a lightning rod around which griffins gathered to express themselves freely. She held speeches that went on for hours against the tyrannical grip of the alicorns in the south, that ruled over them without their consent. 

Ironically, though not surprisingly, several of the other nine agreed with her, and in fact, joined her in an attempted coup against the royal sisters that sadly, as we know, failed, and resulted in the death of some very important griffins whose memories have not been documented for us to cherish, and yet, we believe from top to toe that those griffins are still with us, in spirit, through their strange sacrifice that day. 

There were two survivors, the spirit of intellect and the spirit of power. One was banished and the other, likely executed or killed, either by Celestia in the one case, or Sidus in the other, with her consent, if the integrity of the myth around their love is to be preserved. Of course, these series of events connect with many other terrible things that have happened in Equestrian history, and for many of its early years, it was soaked in blood, and so it is then. Peace be upon us, but let us never forget those days, and for justice. To the sky, as the expression of our dear beloved sovereign and his might go. To the sky. The last remnants of Hookbeak's past died with five, and like a hermit, he has become more and more reclusive over time, and though he behaves strangely, he has all the power in the world, and he is very wise, when all is said and done. 





"This section," I said, "talks a lot about what Gelly did and not the way she was as a person." I looked up, saw the gargling, gurgling creature, and then remembered to be terrified, feeling duly chastened by the context of it all. I hadn't remembered that he had been there as I was reading. I got too much into it, and that worried me a little bit, because I wanted to pay attention to everything around me now. I had put two and two together and realized that this creature, the Yether, is the one that can stop time. I shuddered at the thought. That is almost endless power for anyone to have. Who could stop such a creature? What warrior or fighter would defeat it? I think no one.

"She was a very nice person," the Yether gurgled. "I wanted her to be with me, as a mate, but she refused." I then remembered, in that moment, that this was the spirit of deceit, and whether the name was warranted or not, I best take what he says with a grain of salt. "What come you here for?" it said. "You haven't harmed anyone, in some time." Well, statute of limitations for me didn't seem to be a big deal, not existing, and not important, and not something that actually mattered, seeing as how, in all actuality, this had been a few days ago, so what he said was all but pointless, and in fact, it was that too.

"I was lost," I said. "I'm less lost now." He gurgled. I gagged on something in my mouth, though not being able to swallow things mostly, still, that reflex remained. I had spit and saliva in my mouth, real spit? Real spit, I guess. This was all a little bit too much. "This is where I belong," I said. "And it hasn't been a long time."

"Oh, but for you it has," the Yether said. "I've seen ponies that live their whole lives without changing as much as you have in the last few days."

"Well, thank you," I said. "But I haven't really changed that much, not really."

"Can you tell why I think you have?" the creature said, the Yether. It slurped. I could hear it coming from somewhere. I was actually disturbed somewhat, by this.

"Oh!" I felt some saliva go up in my mouth. I tried to swallow it down again. It burned my throat. I didn't know what was going on. Throat-burning saliva? Oh, jeez. "I think that the black against sky probably told you," I said, being sarcastic.

"The black demon in the night, Sidus," he said, gurgling and spitting something. More gunk came upon me, and I had trouble breathing. "He wasn't always black against sky, as you say. He was our friend. Something happened to him. His heart shattered. Ever since then, he has been in hiding. Not even I know where he is, or- or my spears," he said, shakily. Oh, well your spears needed some manners, now that I thought about it.

"What's with your spears?" I said. "And what is this place? Sidus actually tried to help me. What have you done?"

The Yether slurped, sounding literally as if he had just swallowed a far too big bite of food. "This is what he said would happen too. Oh, delicious," he said. He was feeding on my dishonesty? Was the book right? Gross. 

"Stop it," I said. "Stop it." I wasn't really dishonest though. I guess it was more that I failed to be honest, but maybe that was all exactly the point of the Yether to begin with. "Sidus- okay, you healed me." The slobbering stopped.

"Yes," the Yether all but wheezed, whispering in the dark, through my ears, and through the walls around me, echoing back, coming to my ears, all trembling, all being quiet and shaky, and feeling weird. "Yes. Yes." The Yether grumbled, and slurped.

"Okay," I said. "So you're disturbing. I can see why Celestia banished you." Walls around me clinked and rumbled, and the Yether pulled back, shattering the bars behind it. 

A hundred spears came flying. "You dare bring up my darkest memories? Who are you to say what should've happened to the Yether, whose cold black body rests within this place? You are dirt." My wounds came back. My leg ached, and I collapsed. "We only wanted to help the poor old white pony. What am I but a slave in the dark waiting to be used?" It screeched. Okay, I shouldn't have said that, I admit, but at the time, he was just annoying. My leg weakened even further, becoming even frailer and more unstable than it had been before. "You shall remain here until the day you die," it said. The bars reattached on their own, and the Yether slithered away into the dark. Wow, I sure did hit a sore spot there. Mission accomplished, me. I tried putting weight on my leg. It really hurt now. What in the world had happened to it? Where's a high security scanner when you need it? None around here, but it didn't matter, I guess, since I wasn't going to move around anyway. I was stuck here in this cell, and the gash from the spear was trivial, and barely felt like nothing compared to the leg, but so it was then. At least he hadn't removed the sink. I turned around, making sure. The sink was still there. I collapsed on the floor, feeling exhausted, and then I found the book again.

What did he mean by all answers, I thought. What's that supposed to mean? It didn't answer all my questions and worries at all. I still had plenty, and then I thought. Maybe that was the answer. Maybe, but I do remember. I have to think about this a lot. Do you readers know what I'm thinking of? Well, you will eventually. I carried on reading. The book wasn't over yet. My cell was covered in saliva from a monster named the Yethergnerjz, whom I had just learned about, and unintentionally, though I guess somewhat intentionally, insulted, but this was Tartarus, so none of this should be out of the ordinary.





That of six: A friend you can count on Marvel-colorous 

Number six is the six that is none known to anyone. He has almost no historical records detailing his existence, and the veracity, or reality thereof, of it all, has been disputed, but six has been spoken about a lot through the mouthpiece of Hookbeak, who said that this was no doubt the most ethical person and actor, and arbiter, he had ever met, which are phrases that are very important to Hookbeak, and so, it means something to hear him say these things about six. He was a very, very sociable person, but he was more than that. He spread a kind of harmony everywhere that is taken to be very distinct for this particular person. He brought the others together in conflict, and according to Hookbeak, he mediated conflicts, carrying them along through his friendly, though yet, very precise speech that brought color and life to a situation that was dead of social interaction and the willingness, really, to communicate. And only six commanded enough respect to do this for the rest, none other. He was extremely articulate, according to Hookbeak, much more so than any other he had ever met. He was the bastion of hope for the group, someone they could always rely on, someone who truly cared and was there for them, and he brought their friendships to life. Without him, the differences between them would've set them too far apart, and made them drift, and had them go separate ways and do other things, and there would be no seven, and such is his contribution to history, and the group.





Seven: The curious child Meeza who died young

She is known a Meeza. She was curious. She died young. She is a symbol of childhood, and childlike innocence, and her stable qualities brought one and six together, and made them realize, at last, when none other had, that griffins can work together, and what wonderful news that was for the both of them. It changed the world. Meeza, as we know, is forever a child in our eyes, because she died young of a genetic illness that can be prevented today because of the work of Hookbeak and engineers in the towers, and medical science has come a long way. She wanted six to meet one because she thought that with one's ambition, and six's being a very functional stable person, they could work together. They could learn something bigger and something better, and one realized that six had the power that none other possessed, which was the power, let's say it, of friendship, something that only ponies seemed to think they possessed before long. All the others gathered around six. He was very loyal and a good friend, and seven helped that to happen. She spoke to six in a way that he respected, and awoke sympathy with him, and the same for one, and she said the words: "You can do anything." That was true, in a very literal sense true, and griffins, going on as they have, as they are, will be able to conquer the world one day.





The parable of two paths

This is a story that involves the one Hookbeak and a choice. You can either go one path or the other. It's an open choice. You can do anything you want. You can even choose not to go any path, or leave the trail, and pave your own path, but the one true path beckons. Hookbeak knows that either one or the other path is true, and if not, he will make it true through his words and his true heart, and if no true path exists ever, he will pave a new one, using his wisdom, and the light of the other six to guide him. The significance of the two paths, from a symbolic perspective, is that they symbolize a choice, and that choice can only be made with motivation, the conscious motivation to do something, either good, or bad, or whatever. It's not an open choice in the sense that a choice, once made, can be changed, or challenged. Some of these choices, the choice of path, is final in some sense, since once you have chosen your path, the farther you go, the harder it will be to change course, no matter who you are, or what your circumstance, and this is how it must be. It is how it has always been.

To choose the true path is to see that there is something right in the world, and want to emulate it, or show that you can be an example for others to follow. The path is the one that is produced by the optimal, most honest, most good, most responsible choices that anyone can make. The one true path, or way, is therefore an archetype, or an abstraction, that represents an ideal which griffins can strive for or not, at their own behest. 





Invisible things must still also exist

Things that cannot be seen, like the wind, or the air, or a feeling, are real nonetheless. They are not separate entities that can only be described as one, but they are one in some sense. They are part of one world. They are part of one time and location, wherever they are. They share features in common that make up the world, or rather perhaps, make the world describable. They are invisible, but real. The story of invisible things is a brainchild, not of Hookbeak, who has come up with most stories, but of his love interest, Gelly Rambunct. She said that all the things she described ever, always have a name, having been described, but even things that have never been described also have a name, and that name is something that unites them together and makes it possible for us to talk about them as one, rather than separate from one another, as in the myth of the one true path.

The story, basically, involves a meeting of the minds between Hookbeak and Gelly, where she challenges him to describe whatever it means to describe something. He says that this is tautological, which of course he would, given his belief that language is already likely to map reality, given the fit between biology and the world around it, and so, he would say that language and logic are merely functions of something that self-evidently works, or not, depending on your perspective. Gelly would then retort by saying that in that case, using the words not and nothing is tautological, since they are negations, and negations, by definition, describe what isn't. Hookbeak also finds trouble grasping this, saying that negations don't exist. They are merely counterfactuals, or demonstrations of counterfactuals, in the case where the negation is real, and the real thing is hypothetical or possible.

Gelly, of course, won't stand for this. She says that in any case, treating these so-called counterfactuals as real still requires an explanation of some kind. Why do it? What's the point? Couldn't they as well be false? Hookbeak then says that yes, they could. They are merely demonstrations of a principle, that being that it's possible to be wrong about anything, but that still doesn't prove they're real, or actual. Counterfactuals, Hookbeak then says, have been proven to exist, or at least have their mirror-image in unequal outcomes, where other things happen than what did happen, in the end. One path leads to one thing, and the other leads to another, so they are counterfactual with respect to one another, but just because you take the one path doesn't mean the other isn't real. On the contrary, there's no other language with which to describe this conundrum, according to Hookbeak, and so, it must be this way. This is the only way, he then says, concluding his point. 

Gelly says that all of this is fine, but then, if the counterfactual is necessary to make any decision at all, then shouldn't it be elevated to a higher position in the hierarchy of values? Supposing that something else than what is true might be true or could be true is an act of faith, in the same way that believing in the two roads is an act of faith. Where is the difference? It's not faith in the sense of blind trust, but belief based on some vague demonstration that has been given down the ages. Whence cometh truth? Hookbeak says that he agrees with this, and that, although this problem has remained unsolved, 'whence cometh truth', it is still fair and accurate to say that at least by necessity, griffins act this way, and so, we should too, or at least, we are likely to do so, and that's something which have to matter to us, at least a little bit. She said that the existence of the invisible is mysterious, but if indeed it is there, then unlocking its mysteries could make griffins gods, and he agrees, and this is what ends this story.

What's curious is that the existence of not, or negation, is considered a trivial issue by most griffins that do the important research. In the present day, among the highly educated, this story is thought to have been almost completely made-up and largely nonsensical for reasons that we won't go into in this book, but it is no less relevant if you want to understand the history behind this myth. Among most of the griffins that are not rich or well-educated, which is to say, outside the tower and Circle town, and the dead kingdom of the east, and some scattered territories that are unimportant, this story is alive and well, and continues to inspire griffins. Most important is its connection to the first parable, that of the one true path, and the choice, as the idea of negation, of course, relates to what it means to make a choice, and so it is, and so it's been, throughout history. 





The griffin string

If there's  one strain or thread of truth that relates to anything at all, and if change is real, and if things that happen simultaneously can affect one another, then the doctrine of string and eternal movement must be true, and that's really a pompous name for a powerful metaphor that relates to a string, or a band of strings, moving forward, or that have something moving along them. The strings represent time through a different lens than the causal one. It shows that everything that happens has already happened, and everything that happens is only a long band of things that stretch into infinity, and beyond, until nothing is, and nothing is negation in itself. It is not the nonexistence of anything, in the same way that Gelly had used the term, but rather, it is the death of life in a direct and literal way. 

The strings are everything everyone will ever experience ever, and looking upon them, you can discover patterns that repeat. Griffins will do certain things, and of course, and this is a causal principle, certain things are given to happen every time. But it's not true in a trivial sense. Things will always have happened in that way, because you will always have made that choice, and nothing can ever change that, not really. Things are as they are, and will be as they are, and they will always be that way, into the eternal future, that no one can look into, not even the spirit of power, for he will be gone long before everything has reached its end. Nothing can live forever, but the world might. At least, there is a hypothetical assumption that the world might live on without any life, the same way the world lives on without any griffin, or pony, and so on. This is clearly true, so it should apply to things that aren't ponies. This is the metaphor of the band of strings, as it relates to the story of the same name. 





Griffin-rocks

The jewels that griffins collect, big and small, have jewels inside them, smaller jewels, and those jewels have smaller jewels, and so on, and so on. Although one jewel will always be one, which is a favorite retort against this story that was invented by Hookbeak, who says that he doesn't like it a whole lot, it is fact that one can divide jewels and make them more. This may be playing with the meaning of words, but in any case, regardless, this is a fact. The point of the story then, is that the jewels, as you divide them, and this is aphoristic and allegorical in the case of the real story, you get less value out of each of them, which is obvious of course, since the less you have of one, whatever it is, the less use it will be to you. This is one's central doctrine, of course. It all scales with the efficacy of your decisions, and your willingness to walk the true path, no matter the cost. Still, the jewels that are smaller can increase in value if you store them and wait until you sell them, for a better time, and the jewels won't be different. They will be as much or as little as they always have been, but their value scales, not through the efficacy of your choices but through time, which is something that some think is missing from Hookbeak's doctrine, and ironically, this might also be why he doesn't like the story. In any case, it's a story that's of value to a given, yet unknown, but specific, and statistically significant, number of griffins, such as it stands, and will continue to stand until the next edition of this book comes out. Until then, the Executive board in the Tower on the hill will deliberate on its contents.   

As always, we want to give thanks to Hookbeak for advising us in the writing of this book, and for allowing us to use his true name, that of Cornicus, which is less known, but also important for the sake of history and its documentation. Know that the one approved of the content in this book, even if it is known to have been critical of him at times, because he believes in the power of truth-telling, and finding the right path that the truth guides you toward, and so should you.

Published by the Executive board of the Tower of Technology and distributed by its many affiliates, including the Pony Express News Outlet in Manehatten, the Griffin Chronicle in the Empire, the Tower-tech conglomerate in the United Territories, the mail-mare in the east, as one griffin has chosen mail-order, and if one in the east can see the true way, or at least hope to, or at least dream of, or at–





I closed the book a third time, deciding that this was a really strange book. I fell asleep on the floor. My memories of what happened after that are at best fuzzy, and I don't remember having any peculiar dreams or anything like that. This was the end of a long stupid day which I was glad it was over.
> Part 12: Escaping the dark Nexus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I awoke. My slumber-time was over, and so was my peace, and my willingness to live, that seemed stable in my sleep, had gone with it. I wanted to hit my head against the bars now. I walked up to the bars, and I–

"Hello there. You awake? I think you're awake, aren't you?" I was about to fall asleep again, no thanks to you, you stupid thing you.

"I'm trying to kill myself," I said, matter-of-factly. I really was tired, and wanted to get it over with.

"Don't," he said. It was the voice of the mild-mannered griffin that had offered me his book.

"Try to stop me," I said.

"Please don't," he said. "Did you read the book?"

"I read a bunch of gobbledygook. That's what I read," I said, slowly tying a snare in the ceiling with my imagination. It looked good up there. My imagination carried good fruit finally, life-ending fruit.

"Did you find nothing interesting or worth thinking about?" he said, sounding a little hurt. Well, whatever. Stupid thing. I wasn't long for this world anyway. I paused. How to do this? Oh, what the heck. I threw myself against the bars.





I woke up, feeling delirious. I was likely concussed. Spoiled again by the power of life, and- and being alive, I thought, jittering and stumbling over words in my head. This was ridiculous. How hard should it be, really, to kill yourself? I felt a terrible headache. Oh, the headache was real all right, but the illusion of death eluded me, or the hope of it rather, I think. It all melted together, seeming silly, seeming like it didn't want to breathe. I had trouble breathing. I collapsed on the ground.





I awoke again, feeling hoarse. Of course, that demon wasn't going to help me now, not after what I had told him about his banishment. That's a very sore spot for an old and wise demon, I thought, but then perhaps, not all that wise, when it got down to brass tax. When you get down to it, maybe that creature was as creaturely as any creature, and full of flaws and stuff like any other, but then again, maybe not, and then maybe, he was something I didn't understand at all, and if I understood why he had reacted that way, it would all make sense. I was surprised that I was still alive still. I had lost consciousness twice, but I was still aware, and sitting, and breathing. I looked for my heartbeat. Oh, right, robots, or cyborgs, or whatever I am don't have a heartbeat. It was all coming back to me now, not some distant memory, but knowledge of things that I already knew about. This blew. This sucked big donkey ball, if that's an expression that is acceptable, accurate, and not too crude, but I mean, given the circumstances, sucking donkey ball would be a pleasure, and preferable to this strange hell that I was hospitalized in, with all my misgivings and injuries, at least the donkey would kick me or something.

Would a donkey fail at killing me, I thought. What would a donkey do if I tried to suck its ball, or balls rather? This may seem unbelievable to some readers, but sucking donkey balls was not meant as an insult or anything like that. With the little knowledge of sexuality I had, I was thinking about such things in earnest, because I thought that without consent, breaking the donkey's grip on his own life, his own future, and forming a bad relationship with him, as the Yether had described, might help alleviating some pain by way of alleviating all pain, which is to say, kill me, if that makes sense. At this point still, the true suffering of the true world, that of rape victims and other ponies, lay beyond me, and my grasp was entirely gathered around thoughts of shame about things that I had done, as it related to killing, and honestly, though you might have already understood this from context cues, it all went back to Jelly.

Jelly had claimed a hope in my mind, and she was living there now. She was doing things to me, and saying things to me, and I felt stupid for having doubted the authenticity of her sorrow, or her loss. To form a bond with someone, I had realized, is something very special, and thank heavens that I at least realized that, as I was still confused about many things, including how to get out of this cell. The cell-wall behind me cracked, and then loosened, detaching, as I was leaning against it, and I literally actually, fell back, and fell onto cold, hard rocky ground, that one might find in the north, or in one of the nights of the desert. I looked up above me. 

"Sorry!" It was a changeling. I retreated into my cell, running back, being reminded of Nexus and how she looked. "Sorry, sorry," the changeling said. He was holding a mining cart with his green magic. It was the black variant of changeling, as we have talked about and mentioned before in a previous chapter. This changeling then turned around and ran away.

"Wait," I said. I walked out the cell. I saw that the changeling just kept running, rolling the cart in front of him, or it? Who? What was that? I laughed a little. It was my first genuine laugh of a little while. Where did that come from? I saw the wall of the cell beside me had also detached. The griffin inside walked out. Now that I saw a little closer, he had a slender body, and was actually quite muscular, in a slender sort of way. Well, I guess, since he hadn't been in prison all that long, there hadn't been much time for his body, and his muscles, to collapse inward from lack of nutrition.

He said, "I think we should escape together."

"What makes you think I want to escape?" I said.

"Okay, stay here then." He ran away. I stayed there. He disappeared down the hillside, or cliff, which apparently he and I had been suspended upon. He flew down.

"I'm glad I don't have to deal with him," I said. I walked back into my cell. I sat down. I was satisfied enough with my decision. I saw something behind me. It was the Yether.

"You can escape now," it said. "Why not grab the opportunity?" Wow, okay, ancient demon.

"I thought you said that I would be here, forever," I said, confused, and just wanting it all to be over with. I was tired, annoyed, had a headache, and I felt that hitting my head against the bars had probably decreased my IQ by a few points, but whatever. All was all I deserved, and more. The Yether slid in-between the bars like it had been before. It came inside.

"You are here forever," it said, "but you could escape. Why not?" Shut up, stupid, I thought in my head. This was absolutely dumb and not worth having a conversation over.

"I want to die," I said, in earnest. "I figured that you could finish me. Can you or can you not?" The Yether slithered around me.

"I cannot," it said.

"What about one of your spears?" I said.

"Nooo," it growled, and then whispered into my ear, "it wouldn't be right." 

I walked out of the cell, in that moment, and without hesitation, for now I had decided, not later, not earlier, or whatever, but now. I was going to do it now. No more doubts! I had been cowardly before, or I had held on to life for the wrong reasons. Whatever it be, I was done. I threw myself off the cliff. I was captured up, by, none other, of course, than the griffin, who flew past and snatched me up before I was ready to defend myself, and perhaps, though likely not, fight it off. 

"What's your name?" I said, tired, confused, hungry, bewildered, hurting head, going down, not wanting to live, wanting to live suddenly, not knowing what's going on, being angry, being confused, and so on, and all in all, I was very, very angry, confused and had wanted it all to end, but then, I wasn't struggling now, I was merely sitting in his grip. That annoyed me, but I felt weak, and like I didn't have the power to struggle against his grip, so, at last, I surrendered to it.

"I'm a Majorly Majorical," he said, smiling at me. What was that? I was tired of having to learn all these stupid names for things I didn't care about. I tried fighting his grip a little bit, but he only held on tighter, and then he let go of me, only to catch me a second later, in an act of playfulness that I did not much appreciate. "I'm a fighter," he said. So that was his name? He was Majorly Majorical the fighter? Oh, bother. Oh, why even bother? Oh! Oh, bother. Bother. Bother. "My name is Gripey," he said, "of the Silverfeather family." Gripey? I had a name. I was in a boat, somewhere. I was, fading again. I saw black fuzz in front of my eyes. We landed, and the fuzz got worse. Something came to my memory, something I didn't much care to think about.

"Nexus," I said.

"Who's that?" he said, smiling at me. I felt vomit-worthy. I gurgled up another slobber of spit, though it was much worse than it had been before. My stomach juices were coming up, or something!

"Only your worst nightmare," I said. I knew that Nexus liked to hunt escaped prisoners. In my delirium, I figured that it might also happen here, in Tartarus.

"Are you feeling well?" he said.

I shook my head. "Don't you no mind me. I will be gone and out of count before the clock goes off." I collapsed on the ground, losing all control over my body, though I was still conscious. He picked me up and put me on his back. 

"I'll take care of you," he said.

"Look out," I shouted. A giant rock was falling toward us, coming from where? A big terrible sound echoed in the background, and rocks were falling down all around us. "Aaa," I said, failing at sounding like I cared. I was dead inside. "Aa." I half-whispered the sound, more to myself than for anyone else to hear. "Whatever, this is stupid," I said, whispering it into his ear. He jumped to and fro, avoiding the rocks.

"Where did that come from?" he said. "We should probably be going now, shouldn't we?" he said, leaning back, with a little smile and a nod. I nodded back, tiredly and faintly, though I was still all there, and I noticed what he was saying.

"By escaping," a voice said from above our heads, "you have made me the happiest person alive." The thing that was above our heads landed in front of us, though I already knew who it was.

"You have returned," I said, squinting at Nexus, who was before us. She had arrived here fast, or she was already here? Already here, maybe.

"I came here because I knew you would cause trouble," she said, glaring at us. This was unreal. "You are one of a kind, to have survived me for so long. I usually kill all of you, strange things, like cockroaches, rather quickly, but for some reason, you have eluded me. I do not doubt the wisdom of his decision," she said, alluding to the judge, "but now that you have escaped, you will either come with me and surrender to me, and admit that you have lost, or, I will kill you. Either one works for me. I'm happy to see you die. You too, little whelp," she said, staring at the griffin. This might have seemed comical to the griffin, who laughed, as she was rather a bit smaller than him, but he didn't know the first thing.

"Gripey," I said, whispering into his ear. "She is immortal." I slurred the word immortal. "She immortal. Run."  

Nexus just shook her head, looking at me. "Actually, what happened to you? Are you all right?" She was concerned now, really? Oh, well, too late!

"Murdle," I said, not making any sense.

"Murdle?" Nexus cocked her head a little, in genuine and deep confusion. "Jeez. I didn't think I'd ever say this, whelp, but I think, you, um, need some help. I can't give it to you though." 

"Morl." I was still all there. I just couldn't speak, strangely, though perhaps not, given that I did slam my head against those bars. "Mor." Nexus sighed. 

"What will it be then?" she said. "Just come with me and none of you will get hurt."

"You think I haven't fought changelings before?" Gripey Silverfeather said. "Do you know who I am?"

"Dead soon, unless you come with me. Come on. I know the way." She reached out her arm, and now, rather than before, she looked like she was genuinely trying to negotiate rather than just making threats, which she had made a habit of doing before. "You haven't fought me," she said, demurely, not moving a muscle.

The griffin, rather than cooperating, like a smart griffin would've, held onto me with one hand and kicked one of the big rocks into the air, with his apparent griffin-strength. As it was hovering, he sent it off toward Nexus. The rock hit, falling into pieces, and he just stood there.

"Yeah, sorry that you had to watch that," he said. I facepalmed, which is the lingo. He had absolutely done the most stupid thing he could've possibly done in this situation. I just knew it. The dust settled, and Nexus just stood there. She made a show of wiping some dust off.

She stood back a bit, her eyes darting back and forth between us, and across the area. "She really is immortal," he said, looking at me with a concerned face, and expression. He looked sad, like this whole thing had been a failure. "We'll try again then," he said, running toward Nexus, and I realized that all of this had just been for show. Nexus jumped up in the air, so high that she disappeared out of view. "Where is she now?" he said. He didn't seem to take a hint. He should run and ask questions later, not the other way around. Something hit us, and we rolled, flying across the ground, and he hit a wall, taking the worst of the punishment. I merely landed on the ground, a little tired, flustered, confused, and scared.

"Gripey," I said, standing up shakily. I could feel my balance giving. "You do not fight Nexus. You run from her. That is how it works."

"You could've told me sooner," he said, picking me up, and jumping off the cliff, as apparently, we had been on a second elevation now, that was lower than the prison. "Where do we go?" he said.

"I don't know," I shouted at him. Such stupidity! How was he still alive? I wanted to kill him myself, at least a little. "Away from her," I said, pointing behind us. He looked back. There was a swarm of Nexuses, Nexi, whatever, flying behind us. Many tiny copies of Nexus were coming straight toward us. They were like bees, buzzing around in a swarm.

"How is she doing that?" he shouted to me, as if I couldn't hear. I could've heard if he had whispered.

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe she wants to eat us up so badly that she decided she just could." 

He laughed and then dove down. That wasn't a joke. Don't laugh at things that aren't jokes, Gripey, if that is your real name. Stupid. Why was I alive still? "Hey, we need to get away from her," I said, trying to catch my breath.

"Point taken," he said, diving through a rock that had a big open hole in it, that was perfectly shaped for flying through. "Where?" he said. Was he stupid or what?

"So that I can kill myself." I finished my sentence.

"No," he said, as if trying to calm me down. "But you've escaped. There's no need for that now." He dropped me off his back and grabbed me with his talons instead. "I can fly easier this way," he said, all excited. I wanted to fly down toward the rocks. Was that a valid request to ask of a person? Did, and could, none of my suicide attempts really bear any fruit? Was I forced to go through this charade again and again, whenever I tried? This was all too annoying and stupid, but he was helping me, and for the life of me, I didn't want to cause his death, so I tried not to do anything stupid, or rash, at least yet.

The landscape that opened up before us was one of rocky, cold desolation. It was one of the biggest landscapes I had ever seen, personally. It was full of great mountains, and hills, that moved in asymmetrical patterns before me, and there were tiny houses scattered here and there, and some were even planted on top of a hill. I saw a bubbling swamp down there, a green witch's swamp, and even more rocks, and valleys. It was a canyon. 

"You think we should go down there?" he said, pointing toward the swamp. I thought that I had no judgement, especially in my weakened state, but given his lack of judgement, and everything that he had done, I decided that my judgement, at least here, should take precedence, and trump his, so I said.

"Sure." That's what I said. I wasn't sure that he had heard me, but he dovetailed toward the swamp anyway. I was too nauseous, and had lost my equilibrium anyway, so to me, it didn't matter really where we went. We could've gone in the opposite direction. Or we could've flown straight into the swarm of Nexus. I wouldn't even have noticed, and if I had noticed, I might not have cared, and my memory, therefore, in these moments, are blurry, and overall, unclear to me. I can't quite remember what happened, though I do know that we survived since I'm writing this right now, clearly. All of that was clear to me at least. Something had to give, whether it be me, or Gripey, or Nexus catching up to us, something had to happen for this all to end so I could breathe, or I felt like I would suffocate. We dove toward the swamp and landed beside it.

"You think we're safe here?" he said.

I was only half-paying attention. I tried to go down in the bubbling swamp. "Hey," he said. "Watch it there, buddy." He picked me up and moved me away from the swamp. This was getting ridiculous. Of all the stupid, inconsiderate, and then I lost consciousness again. Really, it's a miracle that I'm still alive, because something had happened to my brain there, and it wasn't good. More on that later! 





"Are you still alive?" Gripey said.

"Na-na-na-na-nanana," I said, mumbling, slurring. "Water."

He poured something into my mouth. I coughed. "No, stupid griffin. Not that. Water for my hoof," I said, with my last powers intact. "Water." I gurgled a little, spitting the water he had given me out, for it gave my mouth hydration, and that was good for talking. "You should've just left me," I said. "What a stupid griffin." I coughed, some more water coming out. He tried giving me more. "No," I said, turning.

"But you need water," he said.

"Whatever," I said, just lying there.

"What's the matter?" he said. He looked worried. He touched my shoulder, or whatever it is that ponies have. I coughed some more. "C'mon," he said. "You want to live. Don't be like that." But I didn't! How was I to explain this, in my weakened state? "C'mon," he said, trying to force my mouth open with his fingers. Stupid repetitive griffin, I thought. This would've never happened at the fortress. My life is a waste, and all I can do is think about the fortress and feel sorry for myself! I should die now, posthaste. I shoved a hoof in front of the water, spilling it out, just as he was pouring it against my mouth.

"Not good," he said. He reached for it. "Just lie here then," he said. "I can't force you to drink." Good boy, I said in my head. Now, I would get some much-needed rest- death, I meant to say, death. I would get some much-needed death, and yet, when I looked upon him, I thought that maybe I could be of service, and of help, and if he hadn't killed me, and had rather tried to save my life, despite my insouciance, then that had to count for something. Maybe he really did want the best for me, and if he tried to save me, and if I wanted to honor the vow I had made to Jelly, as I had, then maybe I should try to save him! I sat up. My head stung. I lay down again.

"Death might be good and all," I said, "but the dying-part of death sucks donkey ball." He laughed. Oh, whatever. "Donkey ball," I said, again. He laughed some more. Here I had gone and become a comedian. "Where are we?" I said, angry and tired, and with a head that was killing me, and likely, a lot of internal bleeding and brain damage that made it difficult for me to know why I was still here. 

"I found a cave," he said. "It's lit up by these weird lights, purple. Look," he said, pointing around the cave. I looked around from my lying-down position, as my sitting-up one was nonfunctional at the moment. I couldn't sit, for whatever reason, and I saw fog flying around me, no, spirits, demons? Was I having visions? Oh, what a world. Oh, bother. Why did he have to catch me off that stupid cliff? Why is everything stupid? 

"Pretty," I said, with the last ounce of appreciation for beauty that my body possessed. "Really pretty." It was. They were torches, actually, lining the walls, but rather than red and flaming, the lights were blue, or perhaps purple, depending on your interpretation of color spectra. I looked upon them with tired eyes and a weary heart that was unsure of what to make of all this.  

"Yeah," he said. "I guess, but hey, we need to focus now. Are you in or out? Do you want to survive or not? I can't keep you alive if you keep acting that way." I shook my head.

"I'm surprised you haven't killed me already," I said. "Given the inefficacy of my moral acts, and the monstrosity of my ethical situation, I should be dead pretty much now." 

"What's going on in that head of yours?" he said, petting it. That actually felt good. Why did it feel good? I was slightly annoyed, but also more at ease now, on account of the petting. "We survived," he said. "Isn't that good enough? I haven't come here without committing a few crimes myself. We all have, everyone around us. That's why we're here."

"I committed genocide," I said, not impressed by his counterpoints.

"But you regret it now, so it's fine," he said. No, it wasn't. It really, really wasn't.

"I don't want to talk to you about this anyway," I said, turning around. "I don't regret it enough. You can't regret something like this enough."

"If it were up to me," he said, "I would've given you a home, and a chance to do something better. That's what it's all about. We can all get better." I think not, I thought. Not better. No, never. You cannot get better after having done what I had. No, I had to live with it, and I would. "And besides," he said. "Only we are here, no one else. There's no one to judge you here." I started crying. "There, come on. Don't be like that." I cried some more. Dry tears were running down my face.

"I'm the worst person ever," I said.

"No, you're not," he said. "I know of way worse people."

"Like who?" I said, looking up at him.

He paused. "Maybe we should get you some water," he said. I kept sobbing. "I saw something terrible once," he then said, a little sheepishly. "Many ponies were ganging up on a single pony. I couldn't believe my eyes." I didn't know what turn the conversation would take next, but it was pertinent and relevant to some other thoughts I had. "They were forcing themselves upon her," he then said. I cried. Well, at least they didn't explode her into cinders, and ash, I thought. "C'mon," he said. "C'mon." He shook me a little, carefully.

"I still don't understand," I said. I tried to sit up, but I sat back down again, out of my own volition, rather literally out of it, without that. That's the word. "I just- I don't."

"It's one of the worst things a pony can do," he said. All of this was very head-on, strange, inexplicable, and disturbing to me.

"Okay then," I said. I tried to roll over.

"Let's get you some water," he said.

"You can't feed me water," I said.

"Why not?"

"It can only go down my hoof. I'm water-powered, not water-fed." I sobbed.

"Like Circle town," he said, smiling. 

I remembered a passage in the book. "Yes, yes. Exactly," I said. "Exactly like Circle town."

"Boy, they really did a number on you, didn't they?" he said, picking me up. "Then we have to find a river, and there's only one place in Tartarus that has one." He flew out the cave. I was still conscious, but I felt like I was slipping again. The pain was there, but it wasn't really sharp enough to bother me. I was too weak, or too vague in my head, too off my rocker and unpresent in the moment, to even care. We flew out across the barren landscape, and I guess, looking for water, or no, a river rather, in the dark, of the world, of my dreams. 





We reached a place. "Now, I hope this doesn't kill you," he said. He smiled at me, as if to indicate that this was a joke. I didn't laugh. Haha. I might die. Really funny, you jokester you. If you wanted to kill me, then you could as well have done it in the cave, not here, you psycho griffin. He lowered me down. I was barely paying attention. I was too stuck, concentrating on breathing. "Is this good?" he shouted, all jittery and excited. I thought that it might be good. I reached out my hoof and began recharging. That felt good. By analogy, it felt like what ponies tell me peeing feels like. It felt like a release, not that of death, but that of something bad or annoying, or noxious, coming to its end. Nexus!   

I started wiggling. "Wooow," he said. "Careful there." I almost lost you. 

"Nexus," I said, full of nervousness and worry.

"Are you fully recharged?" he said.

"No," I responded, rather hastily, and annoyed, given that he wasn't paying attention the way I wanted him to.

"Then let's focus on that. C'mon, be still." He held me. He lowered my hoof back down. It felt good, but Nexus? What to do about her? The psycho changeling, whose commitment to her job bordered in the infernal mad side of things. Why did she want us to come back so badly? Was this part of the job-description, in chasing us? Did she get payed for it, or did she do it for some other reason? I pondered this. Whatever it be, I thought, maybe we can use it against her, or in our favor, when the time is right. Oh! I was scheming again. I couldn't believe it. I hadn't schemed in a long time. I remembered how much I liked making up convoluted plans, that sadly, and producing a lot of distress as a consequence, never bore any fruit, but I still liked doing it! It felt good. It felt alive. I looked down on my display inside my hoof, a little metal thingy. I was fully recharged now.

"I'm recharged," I said. He pulled me up and put me on the ground beside the river. I could walk now, though I still felt a panging pain in my leg. That was annoying, but regardless! I could walk now. That felt great. It felt like... I remembered that time in the woods when Jelly had kicked me. I looked up at Gripey. He looked all pleased with himself. I sighed, a little forced sigh. "I don't know," I said. "I just don't know what to do. I really don't."

"Come with me," he said.

He looked at him, thinking about it. Come with you, or stay here? Jump in the river? Would he stop me if I tried? Oh, bother. I should just come with him, I thought. "Okay, I'll come with you." He picked me up and flew away. As he picked me up, I got vertigo and felt another wave of pain in my head, and this time, it was much worse, because I was more awake to feel it. What the hell had I done to myself? And how to fix it? There must be a way. I felt another, stronger wave of pain, going through my entire head, back to front. It hurt a lot. It was like a physical pain, like on top of your body, when you hit it against something. It was bad, bad, bad, but my actions had been terrible, terrible, terrible, and so I deserved, deserved, deserved it. I felt that with all my heart. No, really. I felt that I really deserved this. I was happy that I had slammed my head against the bars, and in a way, though not entirely willing to admit it at the time, I was happy I was still alive in spite of having done so. I felt good. It felt crisp. It felt alive. It really did feel alive. It felt like I could survive still, but only if I wanted to. For him, I thought to myself, my own thoughts passing through my head, my own private little thoughts that worried me and that I at times was afraid to think of. I'll do it for him.

"For him," I said.

"What?" he said.

"Oh, nothing."

"Never met anyone like you," he said, as if making an cold observation, observing a fact, and then, he flew down toward somewhere. "I saw something," he said. What, I thought. What did you see, and what does it matter to me? I really wondered, and I wanted to know what was going on here exactly. It was important to me, for reasons I couldn't quite tell, for I had lost my will to live, and yet, it remained somewhere, living, and breathing, and more than that. It existed within me in some concrete sense that made me want to question my decisions. I should commit suicide later, I thought. Helping this griffin had been more important than all that. He was a friendly fellow, after all. It goes to wonder why he was in prison.

Gripey swooped to the side, and he flew down into a crack in a stone-wall. A loud buzzing sound descended upon us, and a giant swarm of tiny changelings, Nexus' brainchild and transformation, came down, flying all around the area where we were. They flew up and down and across everything, a black spot on the sky, blinding to any and all who looked at it, for it blotted out the lights of the sky. The sky in Tartarus, strangely, didn't have a sun or a moon, but it had something. A big jumble of northern aurora, like that of a northern sky, stretched out, though it was faint, and all red, like crimson. It seemed to move slowly across the sky, fading slightly, and then coming back into view, and it lit up the whole world above and beneath us. The swarm swarmed around, screeching, making strange sounds, and then it vanished, flying away.

"That was a close one," he said, letting go of me with one hand and grabbing his head. That made it uncomfortable but I could bear it. He had saved me, without a doubt. That was worth thanking him for.

"Thank you," I said.

"Don't mention it, kid," he said, putting me down again.

I sighed, scratching the back of my head in a way that was to show sheepishness, for I felt sheepish. "I'm not really a kid," I said. Wow. This was all very awkward. Didn't he know?

"Right," he said, smiling at me. "All of that thing. Well, you seem to be reformed now." Reformed? Puh-leeease!

"Not reformed," I said, shaking my head. "Just temporarily embarrassed."

"You're too hard on yourself," he said, petting me again. That felt oh so lovely. I wanted him to do it again. "You're a changed mare. Why, you're practically a new person."

"How are you supposed to know?" I said, skeptically. "You've never seen me at my worst." In any case, despite what the Yether had said, I didn't believe that a person could change all that much, and if they could, not in the course of three days, which is how long it had been since my daring and dastardly escape from my old home, the fortress of metal. 

"I saw it," he said. I was surprised. "I saw the way you tried to save me. Why, not even the greats of my home and my ancestry, the army of Griffonia, would do that." The army of whateverer. Sorry. I won't try to remember that. Too much of a hassle, buddy! Try someone else, perhaps a person that would care somewhere. Who? I don't know, but not me. I don't care about the army of Griffonia, which I just, though by no means on purpose, accidentally memorized. Damn it. Damn you!

I sighed. "Whatever. Griffonia," I said. "I don't know anything about anything. I'm bombarded with stupid every day."

"No wonder," he said. He looked around. We were in a narrow space. "Maybe we should go further inside," he said. "This doesn't seem all that safe." Further inside, eh? I tried to go further, to push past him. "Narrow," he said. He backed away, letting me go inward. "It's narrow. You know, it's narrow, right? You know, right?" Yeah.

"Okay," I said. "Now, answer my question."

"Ask nicely," he said.

I frowned at him and then I shook my head. You want nice? I'll give you nice. "Won't you pretty please with sugar on top very much please please please answer my question?"

"Too nice," he said, winking at me. "But okay. Well, you know, your kind is kept in the dark for a reason. You know that, right?" Right. No, not right. No, I didn't know.

"No, I really don't know anything," I said. "I only know that I came here from a strange place. I've been beaten and bruised, and shamed, and I have learned a lot, and that's good. I'm not saying it's not good. And for a while there, I tried to kill myself, but now I'm trying to survive, and I don't know anything!"

"You seem to know a lot," he said. 

"It's my memory. Talent, not skill," I said, pointing at my noggin. "I can remember everything, but that doesn't really mean I learn something."

"Well, you learned that," he said. Okay, that was true, in a sense, but, well, I wasn't sure.

"Griffonia is the capital of the Griffon Empire of course," he said. Of course? Well, thanks for burying the lead. "I hail from there," he said. "I grew up there. My mother is from Circle town, and my father from Griffonia." Well, okay then. That explained everything. Thanks, Gripey. Stupid, I thought. "Hey, you said your name was Botsy?"  

"I don't know what my name is."

"Anyway, we should probably get out of here soon," he said, looking around. 

"Okay," I said. "You lead the way."

"I know about as much as you do about where we are," he said, looking unsure.

"Which is to say nothing," I said.

"Yes," he said. "Nothing. I really know nothing."

"How did you get here?" I said. "It seems like a fair question, in case we want to find a way out." 

"I don't know," I said. "I was knocked out, and then I got here."

"What knocked you out?" I said.

He fluttered, flying over me, and landing behind me. "Drugs," he said. "C'mon now. Let's move. We should get away from here before long. She will be back again." I thought that was a rather splendid idea. He picked me up. 

"I got here in a portal," I said, as he flew away, "so there's at least something to go on. Maybe we should find a portal." 

"Yeah," he said. We kept flying. The landscape was a rather empty, lifeless barren wasteland that was all grey, though it had interesting and even somewhat, though not too much so, if you get the gist, beautiful features. The greys made the beauty pale a bit. Still, there were giant bows, big large rocks with circular holes in them, as I described before, and I marveled at them, and I wondered whether they were a natural phenomenon. There were giant corkscrews for rocks that reached down from elevated cliffs and mountains. The more I looked at it, actually, the more it looked like architecture, beautiful architecture, though grey. Where can a portal be then, in all this, I wondered to myself, since there was no one else, really, to do it. Maybe if we fly toward the edge of this place, we might find it, or maybe it's more complicated than that. Maybe we have to look beneath something, under something, in some cave somewhere, in order to find it.

I saw a hole in the ground that was just black. It looked bottomless. "Hey, I have an idea," I said.

"What? The hole?" he said. "I've already looked. There's nothing down there." Are you sure?

"Are you sure?" I said, curious to find what was down there.

"Yeah," he said. Well, okay then. I immediately lost interest. 

"Wait!" I said. He stopped. "No, I mean it wait, figuratively, imagistically, not literally." He kept flying. "Maybe we could try, I mean, you know."

"No, I don't know," he said, with a happy tune. He sounded happy and interested, even in this barren place. "Maybe you should tell me," he said, nudging me a little in his grip. Stop it, I thought. That feels nice.

"We all came from the sky, right?" I said.

"Oh, right," he said. "But where did we come from?" I didn't know.

"I don't know, but by the same token, maybe our way back to the surface, or whatever, is through that place, where we came from, portal or whatever it was." 

"It's better than nothing," he said, shrugging. He flew up into the sky. He flew further and further up. "What did you have in mind?" he said.

"Oh, just keep flying. We'll get somewhere eventually." I felt, in my lungs, that the air was getting thinner. I took deeper and deeper breaths.

"I'm not so sure about that," he said. 

I looked around, wiggling a little in his grip. "Watch it," he said.

"It has to be here somewhere," I said. "Maybe you should fly back to the prison."

"No," he said. "We can't do that. That's crazy."

"Maybe," I said, "that's why nobody does it, and then, no one ever finds the path out because they don't think of flying to the place that they escaped from. Think about it. We came from there. That's where we fell down in that net. If that's where we came from- I mean, sometimes, someone has to escape from here. Otherwise, Nexus would be stuck here forever, and I wouldn't have been given a prison sentence of two months."

"You got two months?" he said, shaking me.

"Yeah, I got two months."

"Why did you try to kill yourself?" He sounded like he was shocked. "Why? You would get out in like a few weeks."

"That had nothing to do with it," I said, thinking back, again, about Jelly and everything. "It was regret," I said then, finally, having thought about it. "Regret," I said again.

"C'mon," he said. A black swarm of darkness came flying up toward us. It was Nexus, no doubt. "Let's try your plan. Do or die, right?" Do or die. I thought about my failed suicide attempt. Do or die it is then. He flew up toward the sky, higher and higher. "Let's see if she can breathe up here," he said. "You should be fine. You're small. You don't need as much air." 

"No," I said. "That's stupid. I also can't breathe as much because of my small size."

"It all evens out," he said.

"No, it doesn't."

"Who's the one with the flight experience?" he said. I was having trouble breathing now. "There's also the tiny detail that you don't have to breathe as much since you're not the one that's flying." He looked back, winking at me. The swarm was getting closer. It coalesced. A cloud of colors, like a million splotches of paint in the air, spread out behind us. "I've never seen that before," he shouted at me. Well, you and me both. We had something in common, it oh so seemed. "Let's try your idea." He flew up toward the prison, which was the tallest thing in all the geography of the place. Then he flew even higher, far above it. He flapped his wings with abandon, and I felt smacks of air against my face, which hurt. 

The colors against the sky turned into a giant dragon. He stopped, looking at it. "This is way crazy for a changeling to be able to do this," he said.

"Keep flying," I said, annoyed.

"Maybe we can fight it now. It's always possible when you're one versus one."

"No! Just fly, please," I said, begging him with all my might. He turned around and kept flying. The dragon was getting closer. "Let it not be too late. Let it not be too late," I said, about to panic. We were now far above the prison.

"Where's this portal?" he said.

I was aghast. Stop questioning things, I thought. "It's invisible," I shouted at him. Then he nosedived straight into the prison. We went fast down. "No, I was joking. I was- I don't know. Stop."

"Too late," he said. The giant Nexus-dragon blew a big cloud of fire toward us. I closed my eyes, expecting death, but no, I was alive in the next moment. I opened them. It looked like we were in a janitor's room of some kind, the kind you keep cleaning stuff in. 

"Where are we?" I said, confused. His eyes, I saw, were closed. "Open your eyes," I said. "Come on." I poked at him. "We're alive. We're very alive." He opened his eyes, looking around. Now, we were literally surrounded by cleaning supplies.

"Wow," he said. "Wow. Woooow." 

"Yes," I said. "Wow indeed."

"It worked." He picked me up, hugging me. Rather than resisting, I embraced him too. I turns out that I liked hugs. "It worked. It worked," he said again. He had a big grin. He spun me around. It felt good, actually. It felt like an accomplishment of some good merit, which I was happy over. 

"Yes," I said. "It did work. That is good." He put me down. I hugged his leg. He hugged me back a little.

"Now," he said. "To find out where we are, because this place might not be safe, for starters." I agreed with him.

"The walls," I said. I recognized the material. I scanned the wall beside me, a blue wall. "It came up," I said. "It was something I hadn't expected. We're in the Crystal Empire."

"Are you sure?" he said.

I nodded, feeling confident. "Pretty much." I tried opening the door out, but it wouldn't budge. "I think we might even be in a very special building." He pushed me aside, grabbed the door, and yanked it open, like it was nothing.

"There you go," he said. He bowed. "Ladies first."

"Nice of you," I said, walking past him. We were in a corridor with a big red carpet, and the walls were made out of crystal, and the roof, and the ceiling, by inference, given that both need be made of crystal, if one is, though the roof is the outside-thing. I realized that, and I do realize. It's an inference that can be made in both directions, as my scanner could cut through layers of material and see what was behind them, and so, I was scanning the outermost material of the building, which is the roof. "This is, something that I saw in a book once," I said, feeling surer of my conclusions. A guard came. He just stared at us with a blank and confused expression, looking frozen, looking stuck, and having jitters. 

"I will take him out," Gripey said. He flew forward and knocked the guard out.

I sighed. "You know, maybe we could negotiate."

"You sure you did mass-murder and that sort of stuff?" he said. "Don't go be soft on me now." Soft? I was thinking from a pragmatic point of view. A group of guards came running, at least six. 

"You know, even if I wanted to kill them, or knock them out, or whatever, I would need my weapon." He ran toward them as I said this, doing some slick moves. He dodged his way around them, grabbing their spears, stabbing them with the spears, and before long, they were all dead, or incapacitated, in unspecified amounts. Some might have been dead, though I thought they weren't, but he had done the service of at least knocking one of the guards out, which was more than nothing, and that guard might love on, I thought, and care for his little Jelly, or whatever struck his fancy. A Jelly of his own to cherish would be a wonderful thing after he had recovered from the headaches, brain damage, and likely illness that knocking him out will have caused.

"I can see why you went to jail, or prison rather," I said, staring at the scene in disbelief, and with some confusion. 

"Ha-ha-haaa!" he said, mock-laughing. "Now, let's escape, before we get captured." I couldn't move all of a sudden, and I saw that he couldn't either. We hovered up in the air. We were caught in a bubble of some kind, one that reminded me of the one that I had seen around Canterlot, and to my mind, that spelled b-u-s-t-e-d, which is to say busted.  

We were carried away through a door and placed on the floor of a throne room that belonged to the pony in question. She sat down on the throne. I recognized her to be princess Cadance. "Where did you come from?" she said, staring harshly.

"Tarta–"

"Tartar sauce," he yelled. "We were eating tartar sauce, and then, we, um, just, ended, um, up here."

"You've already killed a few ponies," I said. "The cat's out of the bag. You might as well admit it."

"I dindu nuffin," he said, moving his arms in protest. "And neither did she." He picked me up. "We're both innocent."

"You came from Tartarus," Cadance said. "Then let's send you back there."

"Ah, well," I said. "Next time we escape, we might end up in a more opportune place."

"I don't even know how this happened," Cadance said, looking back and forth between us. "How did you get here? I need answers."

"No," Gripey said. "We can't just give up. We need to fight."

"You can't fight her!" I said. "She's an alicorn. She's like all-powerful and stuff." 

"Trying always helps," he said.

I threw up my arms in the air. "Whatever. You don't even listen to me."

"Guys!" Cadance said, roaring with all the power of her albeit feminine voice. "Tell me how it happened."

"I don't know," I said.

"You're really gonna tell her?" he said, looking flustered.

"Sure," I said. "It might help us build some rapport."

"I just killed a bunch of ponies. You saw that yourself." He glanced in her direction, smiling sheepishly. "Anyway," he said. "What do we do?"

"I don't know."

"Come on. Really, you guys?" Cadance said, shouting and looking angry, like a bad stench had entered the room. "Fine. I don't even want to hear it. I'm having you two sent to Canterlot to be transported to Tartarus."

He whispered into my ear. "Escape opportunity is a good thing." I nodded.

"Opportunities aplenty," I said.

"I can hear you!" Cadance said. "How dare you come in here and do this? Have you no pride? Have you no honor?"

I thought back to all the dead bodies, and the guy that had been knocked out. "I wanted to negotiate," I said, angrily, staring at Gripey. He shrugged, as if to say, 'what's the big deal, I'm Gripey, I'm stupid', or something along those lines.

"I'm having you taken away by some very powerful ponies," she said. "Some confidants. You won't be able to escape. Not without harming them, and if you do that, then you're a bigger threat than I thought." Fair, I thought. That seemed like good reasoning to me, albeit not favorable to us, as now we would be shipped back.

"Say." I thought about it. "You wouldn't happen to have a book of addresses through which I can find a specific person I'm looking for?"

Cadance shook her head. "What are you even?"

"She's a little robot," Gripey said, picking me up. I struggled a little against his grip, and he put me back down. "And we are being transported to Canterlot with no opportunities of escape." He winked at me. I facepalmed, again, hoof to face, and you know the lingo. The lingo is all around us. It's just the lingo. You know what it is. I facepalmed some more. I was flabbergasted, and I didn't like lingo, neither his nor that of ponies from whom I had just picked it up, but I couldn't help spreading new words around into my sentences, such that I had never heard before. 

"Until then," Cadance said, "you're staying in the palace dungeons." More imprisonment, I thought. That's the spice of life.

A group of guards came. Gripey spread his legs, readying for battle. I shrugged. What was he going to do? The big pink bubble around us came back and we flew up in the air. 

"No," Cadance said. "And you will pay for you crimes, eventually." Okay, pay me up then, I thought. My own attempts had been lacking and insufficient. If I am to pay, then make it swift, and true, and don't fail at it like Starry Skies, Nexus, or the Yethergnerjz had, for all of that had been nothing but a hassle to deal with. 

We were carried out the room, through a corridor, into a smaller corridor, into a smaller corridor, and then into a prison cell. We got to share. We were cell-buddies now. "Hey," I said to Gripey. "Can't you do with the wall of this cell what you did with that rock in Tartarus?"

"It's worth a try," he said. He jumped up in the air and tried to kick it. It only vibrated. Nothing happened. "Well, worth a try," he then said, sitting down beside me. "But hey, here's a chance to get to know each other better."

"I really think you shouldn't have killed those ponies," I said.

He stood up. "I was working on instinct. I don't know." He turned around toward the bars. "I'm used to fighting ponies you know. It comes naturally to me. You know, maybe you're right. Negotiate first and fight for your life later, eh?"

"Yeah," I said. "That actually sounds perfectly rational, given the assumption that you did in fact try to negotiate, and wasn't just pretending to do so in order to make it look like you had, or to make it seem like you want to negotiate, or something." I rubbed my head. Had my IQ gone down? It hurt a little still. The pain hadn't stopped, yet. 

"But why would you do that?" he said. "Either you negotiate or you don't. There is no middle path, as the one will have us know."

"Hookbeak," I said, shuddering at the thought of that incoherent strange book.

"The one," he said, holding up one finger. "There is only one path. Either you negotiate, or you fight, or you do something completely different. Either you do one, or the other. You don't mix them, and you don't try to do one while doing another at the same time. That's pathbreaking, and that's dishonest." He was one of the mythos, then, I thought. He believed in it, the way I had a hard time doing.

"I'm sorry," I said. "It's very strange to me. I'm trying to understand your culture and where you're coming from, but I think it's just stupid, honestly."

"Okay," he said. "That's good enough for me that you're at least trying. But I don't really care what you think. I believe because it's true. It's the right thing to do. It's the thing all good griffins will do."

I saw no path by which to dispute that. "If it's the right thing, then it is what you should do after all, by definition." 

"Exactly, you get it." He nudged me. I did get it, I think, thunk, thought. I did think that I get it, and that I got it, in that moment. He meant that the right thing to do always goes back to what's in his ancient, and rather likely, shoddily translated book, as real translations that capture the meaning of the original are hard to come by. I knew it from having studied pony Latin. "Also." He stood up on the tiny bench that was inside the cell. It had a blanket over it, which meant that this cell actually had more comfortable lodging than Tartarus, if that is to be believed. I didn't want it. I had never slept with a blanket before. 

"You should try focusing on what I'm saying." I noticed that I had been staring in the opposite direction. "My eyes are over here, sweetie," he said, pointing at his eyes. Sweetie? Oh, don't do me like that, Gripey. I was living in the body of a pony formerly known as Sweetie Belle, like a parasite, if the words of Luna and others are to be believed, and I saw no reason to dispute them, given how unlikely it is for them to have said what they said, if it were untrue, so that's one way you can reason, of course. I thought that it had to be true.

"Hello." He waved his hand in front of my face. "Hello." He grabbed my nose and flicked it. "Is anybody in there?" He picked me up and hugged me. 

"I am," I said, feeling loved. "In there, I mean." I had never been hugged this much ever. It felt snug and like something I had been missing in my life.

"We need to work on our concentration. Don't we, sweetie? Don't we?" He said, squeezing me.

"I suppose we need- I mean must," I said, through the squeeze, a little weathered. "We must." I wanted him to keep hugging me. He put me down. I wondered where my love of hugs was coming from. Was it an instinct, or perhaps a remnant of the pony whose body I was living in, or living with, living as? I didn't know.

"We love the Griffonoi. Almost all griffins do." He nodded to himself. "Except for the northeast. They're stupid and weird, but they haven't seen what I have seen, so let's not be too harsh on them."

"Right," I said. "Sometimes, a person can be stupid and weird. It's all, you know, normal and stuff." I felt too hugged to form a coherent thought. "I think that I like hugs," I said.

"Good, because I'm a hugger."

"A person that offers hugs?" I said.

"You know of a word like opportunity," he said, "but you don't know what a hugger is?"

"I don't know all the lingo," I said. "I'm not a lingoist, or a linguist, rather."

He bent down toward me, picked me up, and put me on the seat with the blanket, beside him. "I can teach you," he said. "A hugger is a person that loves hugs. That's makes two of us."

"What's rape?" I said.

He looked flabbergasted. "Um, let's talk about something else," he said, smiling. Why, I thought. Speaking about rape isn't socially permissible among ponies or griffins, or civilized creatures overall? In that case, what to do with explaining it, if there to be a person that doesn't get it, such as myself?

"I want to know what rape is," I said.

"Are you sure?" he said. He stared at me with a serious and very harsh demeanor, putting his hand on my back, to comfort me, in case I felt uncomfortable, I think.

"I guess. I don't know. Is there a reason that I should be unsure?"

"Rape is involuntary sex," he said.

"Okay, I get that, but why do it to begin with? What's in it for me, like, you know? Why do it? You don't get money or anything." He looked more uncomfortable than he had been when we were fighting Nexus.

"I don't know what to say," he said, finally. "Rape is like, you get pleasure, sexual pleasure, from having sex." Right, well, wait, oh no, okay, that was, but, hm, but if, right, but if that's the case, then.

"I shouldn't have said those things to Manny." I nodded to myself.

He stared at me with wide open eyes. "Who's Manny?"

"A former cell-neighbor," I said. "I met her in Canterlot. She was crying a lot. That was a stupid thing of me to say."

"What was?" he said.

Should I say it? "I said that she should try not to be raped."

"Well, you didn't know what it was," he said.

"That's no excuse," I said.

"Isn't it though?" He winked at me. That stupid wink! "And isn't that why we're here right now? You thought that you did the right thing, but really, you were only being controlled by the black pony that rules the iron fortress," he said.

"Aldeus." That was the name.

"Yes," he said. "Aldeus." He patted me on the head. "Maybe you shouldn't be feeling so guilty. Maybe you're just on a journey of discovery, and soon, you will learn that there was a purpose to it all." One might always hope for such translucent, strange, and impenetrable possibilities, I thought, but they seem distant and unlikely. Really, it looked like I had just made a mistake. 

"But then," I said. "What about all the ponies I killed? Where's their destiny? Where's their second chance? How can any of this be justified?"

"Maybe you can justify it." He locked eyes with me to make sure I was paying attention. I looked down. He grabbed my head and corrected it to eye-level. "By the pony you become in the future."

"And how might that be? Will that redact or retract any of my previous actions?" I said, skeptically.

He shook his head. "You know. I had a conversation with Hookbeak once. It was only brief, but he told me about this. He said that in all the world, there is only one choice, of one, and that is to improve and grow, or fade and die, and that's a binary choice, and you are just, whichever choice you make, but you need to make it. I see this with you. You need to make a choice. You can't go on like this, just thinking what I should do. Should I kill myself? Should I not? Whatever. What does it matter? Just live." I didn't know what to make of that, though there somehow seemed to be a nugget of wisdom in there somehow. Maybe I had been too deliriously conflicted to realize that really, I should gather myself and make a choice that's clear and final, rather than just messing around and thinking of what I shouldn't do, and then doubting that, and then doubting that, and then doubting that, forever. Maybe there is a way, or a way of looking at things, where you can just make a choice, rather than being stuck in an infinite loop of regress, I thought, and if so, then I wanted to become a follower of this religion, just to learn it.

"Say," I said.

"Yeees," he said, putting his fingers together. "What is it?"

"Say," I said.

"Yeees," he said, putting his fingers together, again. "What is it?"

"I'm getting to it. Let me do my 'say', and then I'll get to the point, you griff-whatever-person-annoying-thing you."

"Say," he said.

"What?" I said, becoming enraptured.

"Say," he said again.

"What?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'm just messing with you," he said, laughing. "You know, I think you and I will become the best of friends."

"Sleep," I said.

"You want to sleep?"

"I don't know. I'm just messing with you," I said. He laughed again. I sighed. I wasn't sure what was going on, except for the fact that he was acting courteous, or at least feigning it, which meant that he was nice, which meant that, at least in part, I had to respect that in some sense. 

"Say," I said. He burst out laughing. "I- okay," I said, pausing. "I want to know what the name of your religion is." 

"I don't know if it has a name. It has a book."

"Did we lose it?" I thought that I might've lost the book in the chaos, and come to think of it. The key. The key was gone, not that it mattered, really. Who would want that stupid key anyway? What use would I have of it? Even if I found all three keys, which there was no reason for me to want to do, I couldn't just waltz into the northern tower and demand an audience. I would get massacred, slaughtered, eviscerated, destroyed, and most of all, killed. 

He chuckled. "Don't worry about that." He patted me on the head again. "Don't worry about that. They come cheap." So we could buy an new book then? After we had escaped. But then, I wasn't sure that I wanted to escape, but then, I had really started to care about this moron in the last few hours that we had known each other. He saved my life, and I had ruined, or lost, his book, whatever the case, and at least, at the very least, I thought that I should get a new one before we part, not to mention the hugs. The hugs, and the pats on the head, all of them, all were to die for, or live for rather, because I wanted more of them, but I still felt that sting of shame in my stomach, and my head, or no, that was real pain. What was happening to my head? The pain was getting worse. I held my head in my hooves.

"What happened to you?" he said, embracing me.

"Failed suicide attempt," I said, shaking my head. "The bars weren't hard enough, or alternatively, my head not soft enough." He laughed. Was it really all that funny?

"We might get you some help," he said. "You might be in serious trouble. Headaches, and brain injuries, are not to play with. That's what mother always taught me." Did she really teach him that?

"First," he said. "To escape." My ears ringed. I lay on the floor, paralyzed. I stood up. Another flash of unconsciousness, sudden and unplanned? No. No, there was a big hole in the wall.

"Fortune strikes again," he said.

"No, I can't believe it," I said. "I really can't believe it. I can't believe it." I stood up, I still felt fine, minus my leg panging a little. Had I broken something? Had I torn something? Broken seemed more unlikely, as that was–

A great big projectile flew past the open wall, which was open to the outside of the city-state, of the Crystal Empire. Something struck me as familiar, or recent, about it. "Blimp," I said.

"They're not blimps. They're egg-ships," he said, looking out. "But this is very unusual, and strange. Why would Circle town do this? They don't just destroy the palace in the middle of the Crystal kingdom. That's too provocative and dangerous for them to do." I saw that he knew some politics, and he had said that he was a soldier, so I wasn't surprised, but then, I wanted to learn too. I wanted all the information, as I have said. Something flew into the room. "Look out," he said, grabbing me and pushing me against the floor. Something crashed in my leg. It hurt terribly.

"Ow," I said.

"Sorry," he said. I looked beside me and saw a big piece of metal, a slice of iron, being lodged in the wall outside the cell. It had jammed the bars open.

"You be saving my life too much," I said, feeling sheepish and far too indebted than with what I was comfortable with, and all. "Far too much, indebted," I said, shaking my head. "Should we escape?" 

"No," he said, pointing toward somewhere. I looked out, though careful. There were many tiny circular machines across the ground that slid back and forth everywhere. Lasers escaped from them, which then bent around angles and followed ponies, pulverizing them. "Suicide," he said. "And that's coming from me. What are all these pretty little things doing here though?" He shook his head at the display. "What a strange situation."

I thought about his descriptors. "Strange. Situation. Suicide." I wanted to go out, suddenly.

"What are you doing?" he said.

"Go outside," I said. "Suicide. Situation suicide. Suicide." I was thinking out loud there, both here and in the previous case.

"No, not go outside," he said. "Not go outside because go outside, and you die." I looked him in the eyes.

"Right," I said. "So what? We just stay here, and let metal stuff things fly at us?"

"Yes, definitely," he said. "A good soldier knows when the time is right to strike, and this isn't one of those times." Hookbeak flew past the opening in the wall. Gripey gaped.

"I know that guy," I said, smiling.

Gripey just stood there, mouth agape. I pushed it close. "Hello there," I said, waving my hoof in front of his face, amused by this sudden reversal. "Don't you love seeing him out here? It means that you will be okay, I think. He wants to protect you, right?"

He turned to me, glaring. "Do things like this just happen to you all the time? Why are you not surprised?" 

"I was taught about sex by a blue-eyed demon," I said. "A changeling broke the cell wall." I thought back. "A crazy griffin rescued me as I was about to die, and then, through no help of my own, saved my life." I prodded him. "Also, I was supposed to be executed, twice, but somehow I wasn't, and I had dreams where my friend was getting mass-murdered, and also, I ate a grape, and it flew out of my mouth, and then I made light of rape, so my past three days have been weeeird." 

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, okay." I smiled at him, a happy smile. It felt good to let all that out, therapeutic. Maybe I could survive out here after all. "But we aren't going out there," he said. "Those machines never discriminate."

"So they will kill us?"

"Yes." He nodded, patting me on the head. It felt good. "Yes, they will, and they would."

My past few days had been stranger than strange, and I had taken it all in my stride, but I also realized that it had made me a lot weaker, having gone through all this. I didn't have time to process it all, and maybe, I thought, I had spent too much time feeling sorry for myself, though maybe not. Time would tell. "Hey," I said.

"Say?" he said.

"Escape the other way?" I said, gesturing toward the shattered bars. 

"Okay," he said. He ran out. I ran after him, though I had redeveloped an unsightly limp, which made it uncomfortable to walk. He saw that. "Carry you?" he said.

"Yes, please." He picked me up and put me on his back, and away we went.
> Part 13: The Lost Key
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

We were back where we began, trapped, afraid, alone, but we had each other, so it couldn't be all that bad. Stupid griffin, I thought. Making me like him. It's all of a piece with his stupid little ways, his weird accent, and his vaguely inarticulate, though charming, pattern of speech. What to do with him? A keeper? What to do? Did he want me around him? Did I want him around me? Oh, bother. I would figure it out in the end, so all this was of little concern to me. Time would tell whether I liked him or not, really liked him, rather than being infatuated with the idea of him, and his hugs.

We were in a wagon, on the road, going down, rolling across rivers, on which bridges crossed them, bridges going over them, and many meadows, and open fields. I felt, and I still feel, that Equestria has been mostly constituted by green fields for all of the time that I have been there. These fields weren't covered in forest or anything. They hadn't turned into timberlands on account of being untended to by ponies or others. They were open, and green, and yet, in spite of all this, full of life and strange, stupid wonder, which I didn't want to look at. I cast my eyes away from it.

"I don't deserve this," I said, resolved and decided on this, which is something that I considered to be true, my undeservedness, and you know, or you might imagine why, given the character of my acts, and the strange relationship I had formed with Jelly, even as I hadn't met her in a few days. "No," I said. "I really don't deserve this."

"Then what do you deserve?" Gripey said.

I lay down on the floor, burrowing my face in his hide. "I don't know, but not this." 

"What do you know?" he said, squeezing me. I loved hugs. I had realized that all the more. Hugs are life, and so is petting, and patting, and all that stuff. "Maybe you will deserve better then, in the future." I wasn't sure. I didn't know. I just liked this current situation I was in far more than maybe I should've, given the things I had done, and the way they had made me feel, and the shame I had, over everything. "Whatever," he said. "At least we're still alive." The wagon rolled on down the road. Our escape attempt, not unexpectedly, had been a colossal failure, but at least we didn't die, as our cell was falling apart just by us staying in there, or it was falling apart regardless, though it seemed like someone was aiming at us from down there. No matter though. No matter. It is what it is, I thought.

"By the power vested in me as an observer of these strange courses of event," I said. "I think all of this has been really weird, and unnecessary to go through. We could've escaped easily, had we followed my plan."

"Your plan was to go out the hole. That's no plan. That's suicide."

"We were captured," I said.

He looked around. "Yeah, I know."

"Yeah," I said, snuggling in. "I don't know. I forgot what we were talking about it." I looked up at him, starry-eyed, no pun intended, as Starry Skies, the judge of Equestria, had a name that rhymed with starry-eyed, almost, though not really. It be a half-rhyme. That old judge. I thought about him. No, I said to myself. No, that's stupid. He had a name, it won't go unnoticed, that is actually really similar to that of Sidus, since Sidus can mean star, and Starry Skies of course also had the word star in his name, but if that was the case, then the Equestrian court system was a lot stranger than I thought, and he would no doubt be forced to hide his identity. Would he do that, to be a glorified old judge? Sidus was a strange fellow though. I hadn't met him in a dream in a while. He said he was hiding. Where could he be? And I had another thought, but I'll talk about that later.

Gripey was quiet, just hugging me. I liked that a lot. I liked his presence around my body, in a totally platonic sort of way of course. I had the body of a child, so don't you get any ideas, you creeps. But I liked snuggling, a lot. It put me at ease, in a way that I hadn't realized before. "This feels great," I said.

"Yeah," he said, smiling warmly. I had decided that he has my favorite smile of anyone. He had a good smile, a great smile, a stupendous smile, that was to die for, but not in a literal sense, just figuratively speaking. I had developed a stupid liking for him. I took to ponies quickly maybe, more than I knew myself.

The wagon rolled, jumped, and bumped, and then it stopped. But it didn't grind to a halt. It just stopped. "What now?" I yelled to the driver. "What's going on?" Gripey simply stared at me, and then he punched the door of the wagon open, looking out.

"Escape?" I said.

He looked at me gravely, with heavy eyes, and sighed. "No. It's trouble. It's very serious trouble." In the distance, on this sunny meadow, that wasn't cloudy, though that was what I was used to seeing in the north, something came slithering. When I realized what it was, my heart skipped a beat.

"Oh my God," I said.

The Yethergnerjz slid across the meadow, leaving a slimy trail behind him. Flowers and grass were sucked up or dispersed around him, leaving patches of earth in his wake. "What could he want?" I said, putting all my power into those words. "What, could, he, want? What?"

Gripey walked out and then to the front of the wagon. A big stallion that was gigantic, and had a wooden shield at his side was there, as I also walked out and saw him. One of the guards had a spear, that was also pulling the wagon. Gripey tried to grab it, but it was practically bolted to his body. He couldn't get it off.

"The Griffonoi said we can't hurt him," I whispered, flustered at Gripey's attempts.

"Fighting beats dying," he said, struggling to get ahold of the spear. It really was frozen in time, but then, how did we get out of the wagon. Wouldn't that also be frozen in time, by the same logic? And how did we move? What was going on here? The Yether slithered closer, and then, he reached us, and stopped a short bit away from us, just beside the road that the wagon had been going over.

"Sensational," the Yether said, whistling and wheezing out the words.

"What do you want?" I said, annoyed at his intrusion. It pulled back a tentacle and drew out a key, which is the one he had given to me before. I jumped up into the air, and groaned at him. "What? Go away. You can't be serious." 

Gripey was looking at me, really worried. "Um, you don't want to get him angry, you know?"

"He tried to give me this key before," I said to Gripey, trying to explain it to him. "He wants to, I can't, urgh!"

"A riddle," the Yether said, spouting some snot at me.

"No riddle," I said. I felt my head stinging. Actually, it really stung. Actually, I had a hard time standing up. I wobbled.

"The spirit of Sidus told me that if we don't heal you, patch up your wounds, as he said it, wise and true, you would die here soon."

I stared at the monster. "Whatever. I feel fine." Gripey looked at me, with a worried expression, and fear in his eyes, like he didn't know what to do.

I collapsed on the ground. "It is right at the exact time that he said it would happen, my little candy, my little beauty." The Yether slithered and slathered around us, looking as excited as I had seen him. What in the holy smokes? How did he even get here, I thought. How is that- but, well, he could control time after all. The Yether picked something out of its back. It drew, seeming to strain itself, then it reached out. It was an hourglass. A little sight that I had seen few times in my life, he put it there, for me to witness. "When the time is out, you die," he said. He turned the glass. Sand started turning through it. I could feel strength leaving my body, and on the assumption that the Yether hadn't done something to me, I figured that this had to do with my head injury. 

"Is this because I hit my head?" I wanted answers, and fast.

"Wonderful," the Yether said. "Yes, you tried to kill yourself. You did good. You are dead, in just a few moments." Oh, whaaat? Okay then. I accepted it. I had been stupid. Death was coming to me? Internal bleeding? Ruptured tissues in my brain? Swelling that interrupted the transfer of oxygen? Fine, if that's what it was, then at least it was self-inflicted. 

"I can save you," the Yether said.

"But then I die," I said, "the moment you get angry at me." I remembered what had happened with the slime and all, and how my wounds had come back when I upset him.

"Death," he said. "Sss, isss, coming." 

"What do you want me to do then?" I said. Gripey was only looking, not saying anything. He didn't know what to do, maybe. He was wide-eyed, and still pulling at the spear that didn't seem to want to let loose.

"What is it that moves in the night, with no hope of redemption, praying for something that will never come?" the Yether whispered wheezingly.

"Me?" I said.

"Nooo," the Yether said. I watched the hourglass. It was half-empty.

"Um, rum." I could barely speak, and I was having trouble breathing now. "My conscience, my consciousnence?" I said, trying to form the words better in my mouth. I was slurring. This was absolutely the craziest thing ever. Sidus put him up to this?

"Nooo," the Yether slobbered, and the words ran out its mouth like liquid. I felt vague, very vague.

"What is it?" the Yether said. "What? What? What?" I was dying fast now. I could feel it, fading into oblivion.

"Good grief." I couldn't breathe. "It's nothing at all. It's what you feel when you're dying."

"Nooo," the Yether said.

I needed my critical thinking abilities to do this, and I had very little to speak of at the moment. They were barely there at all. Now, I might only have been able to say a few more words before I fainted, or died? The hourglass was almost empty. "I don't know," I said. "My shadow?"

The Yether spit at me, a shining gush of goo. I could feel my powers returning. I stood up. "Please, Yether," I said. "I'm happy you saved my life, but don't you ever do that again, please!" I said, screeching at him.

"Yether does what Yether is told," the Yethergnerjz said, slobbering some more shining goo over me. "We have been told by the stars to do this. Sidus would kill us if we didn't." A light flashed. Everything flashed. Everything got white, and the Yether was gone, and so were the guards. 

Only the wagon, and the field, and the traces of the Yether, tracks in the grass, slobber and earth in all directions, his calling cards. "That poem didn't make any sense," I said. 

"C'mon," Gripey said, grabbing me. "We need to escape. We can't just stand here. C'mon, concentrate." I followed with him. He picked me up, and we flew into the air at high speeds.

"What now?" I said.

"Where do you want to go?" he said. I thought about it, and all I could see in my head was the likeness of Jelly, green and kind. She was my deity now.

"Maybe find my friend," I said.

"Where is she?" he said.

"Can we fly up into the clouds? Someone could see us down here," I said. "Unless I might have trouble with the vertigo, or be unable to breathe of course, what happened before. I don't know."

"I wouldn't recommend it to anyone," he said. "No, the Tower of Technology has pretty much turned the sky, all of the sky, into a war-zone. There are machines that will detect our presence up there instantly, and come and get us."

"Right," I said, feeling ignorant. "Does Equestria have address books?" I said.

"What's an address book?"

"A book of addresses. We had them at the fortress."

"No, but that would sure be convenient."

"Okay then," I said, giving up on the idea of finding Jelly. "What do you want to do?" 

"The only thing I want to do is escape and never look back," he said.

"Like from life?"

He laughed. "No." We crossed a meadow, with a big oak tree on it. "From being in prison and jail all the time. I should get back to my work eventually." 

"Pretty tree," I said. He looked back and smiled at me. I didn't deserve him in my life. I really didn't. "Then you will be a soldier again, Majorly Majorical?"

"That's impressive for you to remember that," he said.

I shook my head, in protest and defiance. "Never know what I will remember. No, I can't accept that little compliment, buddy."

"Don't be modest," he said, nuzzling me in his grip. "I would kill to have your memory."

"I don't remember the things I want to remember," I said. "I only remember stupid things, like the names of a thousand different machines and compilations of wires, such that I will never use."

"Yeah," he said. "I know how that is."

"Yeah," I said. "I know it's early, but maybe we should find a place that will be suitable for sleep. Maybe a tavern, or a hotel?"

He rolled his eyes, laughing. "What did they teach you about Equestria where you come from? Where are we supposed to find a tavern? In Gloverton? Do you want me to fly halfway across Equestria?"

"Why not?" I said.

"You think I'm a better flyer than I really am," he said. "I get tired easily, especially carrying your fat body around." Fat? I wasn't- oh, I took his social cue, and appreciated it. I was learning Ponish, and Griffinish, Griffish? That sounded iffy. Griffinish then! 

"But you're right," he said. "Maybe the first priority is to look for a safe place."

"Now that I think about it, we look like we're in a safe place right now," I said, looking around. All I saw was hills and meadows. We had gotten to a part now where the ground was less flat, and it was all covered in rolling hills that were of the same size and proportion and relation to each other. It was an entirely symmetrical field, and field of view.

"I don't know," he said. "This looks like ambush territory, if I ever saw it."

"A territory in which you get ambushed," I told myself, trying to pound the meaning of the word into my head. Ambush territory. Ambush territory. Ambu- ambi- amphi-what? I had totally forgotten what I was thinking of. I would remember later of course, or I wouldn't have been able to write out this sequence, but you know what I mean.

"Maybe," I said, "we should look and see what's at the end of the rainbow."

"What a strange thing to say!" he shouted. We kept flying. "Rainbow where exactly? I don't see any rainbow." I didn't either. In truth, I was just brainstorming.

"Okay then," I said.

"You were dying back there," he said, interrupting my thinking.

"The Yether saved me," I said.

"Or the spirit of whatever did," he said, and I remembered now what the Yether had proposed to me. He said that the spirit of Sidus would kill him unless he did what he said, and now, what I realized, was that without his help, that of the Yether, I would've died, though I didn't see the significance of making it a riddle, and putting my life at stake just for me to answer a riddle, and if I get it wrong, I die. Come to think of it. What happened to the key? He didn't give me the key. I didn't have the key. Where could it be? Well, of course, still in the Yether's grip, where else? But then, why was he holding it up, as if he was offering it to me? He was offering my life more like it. Was the riddle, also, was it the Yether's plan or was it Sidus'? The book, which is relevant, had said that the Yether had no words of its own. It only used those of others, which I took to mean that he is an entirely uncreative force, like that of pure randomness, but he was a sentient creature, and he could communicate, or do something that resembled that. I wasn't sure what to make of all this, yet! I would soon learn. 





"I think we found our tavern," Gripey said, landing.

"That's not a tavern. That is a small, very small, too small, shack."

"I think it looks comfy," he said. It was a shack in the middle of nowhere in particular. There were trees around, different trees than those in the forest of the zebras. They were tall and asymmetric, and full of leaves that took up almost all space there is to move in. They were jungle trees, I thought. It seemed that way.

"Besides," he said. "Where else could we go?"

"How true," I said. "Where else to go?"

"We need to put up camp here."

"Do we make a fire?" I said, remembering the fire in Terran, Terramar? What was the deal with that place's name? It stuck in my craw. 

He chuckled. "Nooo. Nope," he said. He shook his head. "No way we do that, what with the closeness of this place to the United Territories. We could get incinerated by our own fire if we're not careful. They have machines that can control fire and burn ponies that are lost alone in the woods, who don't know what to do, who are naïve," he said, winking at me. I didn't think that was very nice, but I took his point. Stupid wink. His wink did the talking that his mouth couldn't. His mouth wrote checks that the wink cashed out, so to speak. That is a funny expression, I think.

"But aren't you a griffin?" I said, wishing I hadn't said it like that. Aren't you a griffin? Of course he was. That was stupid.

"Yes. Last I checked." He looked at his hand and looked around at his own body, teasing me a little bit, apparently. "But you know, you look like a pony, so that's good enough for them." 

"But I'm a child. They wouldn't want to hurt a child."

He sighed, sort of forlornly. "I don't want to get into this."

That of course, immediately piqued and raised my curiosity to a fever pitch. I wanted to know. I had to know. I would know. "Say?" I said.

"Yes." He nodded at me.

"Say."

"Just say it," he said.

"Okay, what how come it is like this, what with it all you know, and the how? Why are everybody being so crazy?"

"It's a long story. It's not a very pretty one, I think you might understand. It has to do with the death of ponies everywhere, and maybe, the hope of eternal life."

Jelly had said something similar. The hope of eternal life! Why not? But then, what if you got bored? What if you learned everything there was to know? What then? Kill yourself? Well, okay then. Maybe that! Kill yourself when you think life is done, if you ever do. Eternal life was a strange thing. Was it that some of these characters already had it, unbeknownst to me?

"Also," he said. "Celestia betrayed Hookbeak, but then, he betrayed her. They have been fighting for ages, but never like this, never war. Never death, only in private. It goes to show what can happen when you're not paying attention." He grumbled something, and sighed again. "Oh, it's all a big mess. I don't even want to talk about it." 

"You worship Hookbeak." Although, maybe that was a rather obvious observation.

"Yes, I do. What of it?"

"He betrayed her?"

"Anyone can betray anyone, and he's not a god, he's just a griffin like the rest of us, but say, why do you care? Say that?"

Hm. "I'm not sure I do. I just want to know all the information," I said. 

"I see. I can sort of respect that," he said, nodding. "I sometimes feel like that too. It sort of makes it easier to sleep at night." 

"Yeah," I said. "It does. It really, really does." I really believed that it does. It so does. It really does. It makes your brain not go crazy in the night. Was that what he meant? It makes you stop wondering and paranoia-ing, all of that terrible stuff that is hard, and more than a hassle to deal with, terrible stuff. It makes you want to stop breathing. Maybe it does just that, I thought. Maybe not being curious does make you stop breathing. I had seen it before. I believed it. It does do strange things to a pony, all this stuff. It's crazy. I wanted to learn something right now, at the very moment of my mind's current conceptions, but what, in that case? What? What? Oh, what a word what is. I liked the word. I do like the word, really. It's like, what? What!  

"Hey," he said. "I saw a river close to here, or well, the only river. There's really the one in these parts."

"The river of what?" I said.

"Everflow," he said. "It comes from the mountains. I saw it coming from up there once. I liked it. It was pretty. I think this would be a good place for you to go sometime, since you like pretty things."

"And I could recharge," I said.

"Yeah."

"The Everflow river," I thought, or rather, said. I mixed them up sometimes. "Ever flowing."

"Yeah," he said. "Like I said, it comes from up there in the mountains. It never stops."

"Never!" I said.

"Yeah, okay. Do you want to help me search for food?" He opened the door of the shack. It was empty. Whose shack? "You don't need any food, and I think that all of what has happened has helped you a lot. It healed you, with the Yether. I think you can go get food now, if you have the power that is, to do so." He wanted me to be helpful. Okay, I thought. I can be helpful. I believe that, at least. Sure, I'm a mass-murderer, and somewhat off my rocker probably, but I can do that.

"Yes."

"Good."

"Okay, let's."

"Yeah."

"Hey, Gripey."

He looked at me.

"Where do you find the food? Where is food? Where it be?"

"Yeah, okay."





We were walking through the rather jungle-esque environment. I was feeling chirpy, for the first time in many hours, and even though I felt sad and regretful, I felt happy too, as it happens, but so it be, and that's how it can be when you're walking through the jungle, all alone, and not alone though, because Gripey was here, and afraid? Was I afraid? I didn't think so. No, I felt practically all but fine, if a little brain-damaged. I was unsure. Had the brain damage changed my mood and made me happier, but so, is that how brain damage works? I wasn't really sure. I was unsure.

"Food," he said, "can be found in trees for instance." He pointed at a tree. I had some vague memory that indeed, food can be found in trees. 

"Okay," I said. "Then I'll just climb up there and get it."

"Are you kidding?" he said. I was already starting to climb. I got a bit up the tree before my legs gave, and I fell down. My legs felt fine, but they didn't have the strength to perform an athletic feat of such magnitude, such as this. I slipped down the tree. "I can just fly up," he said. "You tell me where you see the food, and I fly up. How about that? Just help me a little bit. I'm not asking much."

"What does this fo- od look like," I said. "Does it grow on tre- es?" I chirped, singing the words.   

"Yeah," he said. "But you're still gonna help me, right?"

"Yes," I said. "I recognize that up there to be a coconut." I pointed.

"You know more than you let on," he said. I wasn't all too sure about that. It wasn't clear to me how much I knew, and what, and why, not really, none of it, not for a second, because I thought that yes, coconuts are real, and I know what they are and all, but I'm not sure I know what the tree on which they grow looks like. Not really. I had to think. I looked at the tree. 

"Coconut tree," I said.

He looked up at the tree. "Yeah."

"I need to memorize it, how it looks like, I mean."

"You do that," he said. "And I'll deal with the rest."

"Okay, well, not to point out the obvious."

He sighed, and chuckled. "We'll find other trees. We'll find others. Don't you worry."

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, we will." And we did. I mostly just followed him. I think it was more about the semblance that I was helping him, rather than me actually helping him. Was I really helping? All I was doing was pointing, and that, anyone can do, even a stupid monkey. I had never seen a monkey in the flesh, in real life. I wondered how they were when you got up close. I heard a screech in the forest.

"Monkey," I said.

"Yeah, fat chance." He flew down from one of the trees. A tiny animal came flying. No, I was sure that was a monkey.

"Monkey."

"No, that's not a monkey."

"Looks pretty monkey to me." It jumped down. Its eyes flashed red. It spoke.

It said, "You are in restricted territory, that of griffin. Turn back, or you will be burnt alive. Thank you for your time. Sorry for causing you any inconvenience. Ten, nine, eight."

Gripey laughed. "It's wanting us to turn back."

"What do we do?" I stared at it, not particularly wanting to go by being burned alive, in case I had to choose my death.

"Hello," Gripey said. "You're malfunctioning."

"Pass-code accepted," the monkey said. "Retreating." It turned around, and then it stopped. Then it turned back. Now, all of a sudden, Gripey looked worried.

"What now?" he said. 

A little recording, that sounded like it was jumbled and broken, like not working, and full of static, came. "Admiral Artillery's the only one I fear, because he can do anything." It sang. It actually sang. What in the holy mackerel. I thought that was funny. 

"No," Gripey said. "No, this is trouble." He didn't move.

The monkey piped up again, a little louder. "Colonel of the Cavalry is not someone I fear, because he can do nothing." It was gibberish, but it was interesting gibberish, at least as far as I was concerned.

"It's singing a song that means something is wrong," Gripey said. "It recognizes me."

"How?" I said.

The sound broke, and the static disappeared. "Who am I looking at?" a voice then came.

The feathers around Gripey's face flew back. Did that mean? "Hookbeak," he said, smiling. "My liege. What are you doing out here?"

"What are you doing out here?" Hookbeak's voice replied from the mouth of the little monkey.

"I just escaped from prison." He smiled at me. "What are you doing out here?" he said, again, a little louder. He was teasing Hookbeak, his liege, or his overlord. That made me laugh. 

"I'm happy you're safe," Hookbeak said. The monkey climbed a little closer to us and sat down. "I recognize both of you. I wanted you both to be safe, so I've had my eyes on you."

"I appreciate that a lot. Thank you, my liege," Gripey said, spell-bound, not anymore paying attention to me. "We have all the preparations ready, or we had, before I got separated from my group."

"You should take care of her," Hookbeak said. "She's more important than Cloudsdale."

Gripey then looked at me, with confusion and everything that was heavy and hurt on his face, all was heavy. He looked heavily on me. "How come?" he said, very skeptically. 

"We have reached the conclusion that she will be useful to us, and she is surrounded by ponies that want to kill her. They are bloodthirsty, those ponies," Hookbeak's voice echoed through the woods, through my ears. "Sure are. Aren't they? Stupid ponies. St- stupid zebra," Hookbeak's voice slurred out the last words. "Stupid zebra," he said again.

"Now, you be safe," Gripey said. "Don't get yourself all worked up. We've got this. I will protect her."

"Sidus has been invading our dreams," Hookbeak shouted through the monkey. "We need to keep an eye on our inner feelings and our thoughts, and everything we care about. We can be controlled, anyone can, without his or her knowing."

"Of course," Gripey said.

"You should return to Circle town before long, and bring her with you. She will be safer there than in any place in all the world," he said, "until those stupid ponies find a way of penetrating our shield."

Gripey nodded, smiling. "The storm."

"Right, but that will never happen." The monkey clapped its hands together. "And if it did, I have measures. I will kill them all and rip their guts out, before they even have a chance to blink."

Gripey nodded. "As is your want, my liege."

"Of course," Hookbeak said. "But that's only because they would be invading us. It's all about making precautions. That's all we care about over at Tower Inc."

"I'm already in," Gripey said. "No need to do the commercial."

"Right, sorry," he said, Hookbeak that is. "I'm so sorry. I go off on tangents sometimes. Now, take care, one and all, and if you ever want to come, you know I can let you in. I'm sure you miss the food."

"Not really," Gripey said.

"We will find the perfect food eventually. Now, adios." The monkey started chirping and jumping up and down, and then it just ran into a tree. It had turned into a normal monkey now.

"Does he always do that?" I said.

Gripey shrugged. "He's done it a few times, but he means well. He's just a little out of touch with how, you know, real people interact with each other."

"No, I don't know," I said.

"He's a machine now," Gripey said. "No, there's not a hint of griffin, real griffin, left in him anymore."

"I figure that must relate to why Celestia didn't want to let you into the country," I said, pondering.

Gripey nudged me. "I told you not to talk about that, please." He walked past me and into the forest. I followed him. 

"Yeah," I said. "So what's the deal with coconuts anyway?"

"You know," he said, "I'm happy I like you, because if I thought you were annoying, I would probably really dislike you."

"Yeah, well, that's tautological," I said. That actually stung a little. Was I really being annoying? Should I stop? "How are you feeling?" I tried saying something generically Ponish, or Griffinish rather, Griffinistic. Something, I thought, of what I say should maybe relate to how the people around these parts talk, really, outside my old home, the metal fortress, black and cold.

"A little tired," he said. "Saving your life drains my energy."

"Oh, well, excuuuse me," I said.

"I'm just joking." He patted me. I liked it. I forgot all about his stupid joke. I was charmed by pats, charmed away. 

"Back to the shack?" I said.

"But it's still day. Don't you want to explore?" Then explore it is.

"Then explore it is."

"Yeah," he said. "But I sort of know where we are anyway, on the other hand."

"Yeah," I said, "but I don't. Maybe you could, oh, I dunno, maybe, you know, show me around, maybe?" 

"Yeah, well, we're, you know, we're in the Forest of Jungle Trees."

"That's a griffin-name," I said.

"It's very to the point," he said. "It's how griffins work. They're to the point. If you ever want to relax and have a good time, find a griffin. Not if you're a pony though," he added then, hastily, as if to correct himself. "We're in a bad situation as it is. Both sides don't want to negotiate. We can't afford any more unnecessary casualties. Actually, we can't afford any at all, but that's neither here nor there."

"I can be your friend," I said. "I want to have a good time. I don't want to be in a war though. I'm done with that."

"How did you do it?" he said. "What, with your tiny stature and everything?"

"We have weapons," I said. "And then there's the Obliterator."

"The Obliterator?"

"An unstoppable weapon that combines magic and machinery in a deadly mix," I said, getting a little too excited over my little Obliterator. "Nothing can stop it," I then said.

"Griffins don't do that," he said. "They don't combine magic and technology, for obvious reasons. You have though. I want to see it."

"I don't have it. I don't know what happened to it." I hadn't the faintest idea, but wherever my Obliterator was, I hoped it was being used for good rather than bad, in the world.

"Go back, or go further out?" he asked, wondering of me, I think, I guess. I wasn't sure. I was preoccupied with other thoughts. "Go back?" he said again.

"I think go out."

"Go out then, but where?"

"I think just straight out. We see where the jungle takes us," I said, smiling, all chirpy, all happy.

"Okay." And so, we went.





I was covered in tiny water droplets, condensation. I remembered the word in a flash. Condensation is a feature of a jungle, so I knew. I very knew so. It was a thing that made you wet. It broke your concentration and made you question your decisions, such as why you came there in the first place. I had been a total ghoul to almost every person I had ever met. No, I'm serious. That's really how I feel, and felt. It's terrible really, but it's also an important realization to have. Here was Gripey, helping me, and all I could be was stuck in the clouds, my head in the stratosphere. It was not a good thing. I wanted to apologize to him, but then, I really didn't see opportunity to do so. When and where? Why? How? Well, did it matter? I wasn't sure. Either, he might not accept it, or worse, he might not even care, and pretend that things are fine, when they aren't. They hadn't been. They couldn't be, given the nature of my past ethical and moral transgressions. But what to do, then? What to say in a situation like this? I didn't know.    

"We're arriving at the edge."

"Of the jungle?" I said, curious, and then my mind spun off in a different direction. "Listen, there's something I want to say, and I don't know how this will come out."

He looked at me with fear in his eyes. "Oh, not that," I said, shaking my head. "Oh, whatever. Forget it."

"No, what is it?" He had thought I was talking about love, I think, which is slightly funny, albeit distracting and irrelevant to what I was about to say next, in hindsight.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Don't say sorry to me. You haven't harmed me," he said, looking out some bushes. They were tall bushes, almost like trees, and I didn't recognize any of them. When I scanned them, it only said "ply wood," which I think is stupid and slightly pointless, although amusing all the same. But I wanted to get back to the topic at hand, or hoof, or what? Whatever.

"Didn't I harm you?" I said. "No, I was being mean to you. I was ignoring you in the jungle. I was being air-headed, water-headed!" 

He shrugged. "No, you're just being too sensitive."

"But I do have some sins to atone for," I said.

"Yes," he said, "but not with me. Take it up with those you harmed, if any of them are still alive."

Now, I had a new question, thought, and trepidation in my head. "Why? Why are you doing this? I'm literally archetypal evil," I said. "My point was to kill things. That was literally my point. Is it still not my point? I don't know. Oh, I don't know. No, I think I'm dangerous. At least I could be, at least latently dangerous. I could kill you, maybe. I think I'm capable of that. I think."

He looked at me, grinning. "I've travelled with griffins that are far more dangerous and strange than you, and some of them would kill you if you look at them funny, so I don't worry about that. That's for you to worry about, if you're afraid that you will do it, in an unprovoked way."

"But I am afraid," I said, running in front of him. "Look into my eyes. I am afraid. I am totally afraid. I'm full of fear. I feel it all the time. I'm going to start killing again. Soon, I'll go mad. The hatred will come back. The eyes." I sank down on the ground.

"What eyes?" he said. The eyes of Aldeus, red and full of the thing that I was afraid of, and much, much more dangerous than anything I had ever been through. Those eyes were inspirational in a way, for me. I still believed in what he said. I still believed in the lies. I couldn't help it. I believed with much of my thoughts, and being, what I was at this moment. Oh, sure, it's not big deal to kill them. After all, they all deserve it. It's all for a greater purpose. But what is that purpose then? The purpose, my friend, is for them to die, don't you know? It was crazy, and it always had been, and I didn't know what to say about it, and I wanted to cry almost, but no tears came out, and now I stood up. The feeling passed. The feeling had gripped me, and then it passed.

"Hey," he said. "What's the matter?"

"I saw the eyes of true evil," I said. "They were red. It belonged to him, the black alicorn."

He nodded. "I think we should just keep going and focus on something else." I kind of agreed with him. All this thinking was getting on my nerves. It really was. It was making me jittery and shaky, and I wondered what might happen in the future, and what my actions would hold for it. Was I really changed? No, not really. Even if it was possible, it couldn't be after five days or however long it had been. I arrived at the village and got imprisoned. First day. I got out. First day. I rested. That was like one day and a half, so second day? Third day. Second or third day, I was discovered by Jelly, or rather, I discovered her. She was in a box. Why was she in a box? I hadn't really thought about that. Something had tried to capture her, and to what end? In the third day, I was tried and sentenced, but then, I escaped with my life. The second trial had happened in the same day, believe it or not. It all went by so slowly, all the events, all the little doubts I had. It felt like it had been three months, not five days. Then, I got sent to Tartarus. Three. Then, I slept. Four. Then, I escaped, and then, I slept again in the wagon of the ponies from the Crystal Empire. Five. So it had only been five days. That was totally, absolutely, mind-boggling to me. 

All of five days ago, I had been at the fortress, making a stupid little machine that was going to help power the great and mythical weapon, that was locked behind the door, to which I used to have one of three keys, but not any longer. No, not any longer. The Yethergnerjz had one of them. Had he gone back to Tartarus, key in tow? Why even pick up the key if he wasn't going to give it to me, unless, he wanted me to know that I he had it. For what reason though? It all surprised me, and I was unsure what to think of it. I looked out the bushes in front of me.

"As I said," Gripey said. "The edge." Outside, there was only desert. Yellow and brown dry desert was all it were all in front of me. It stretched out. It was big. It was imposing. What then, I thought. Go back? Stay? What then? What now?

"Maybe we should move?" he said.

"Move out or move back?" 

"Maybe move out. You have been invited to Circle town. I think you should take advantage of that. He wasn't kidding when he said it's the safest place in the world."

"Go out, then," I said.

He walked up behind me. "I think this will be easier if you let me carry you. Now, we're getting into really dangerous areas. Let's just hope the machines recognize us and don't shoot us."

"I haven't seen any machines," I said. "Except for that monkey, though I'm still not sure what that was supposed to be. I mean, really, a machine monkey. Monkeys are monkeys. Why would you want to make a machine?"

"To spy on us, naturally," he said. "Now, do you want to fly?"

I turned around and nodded. "Yes."

He flicked his talons and gripped me, picking me up with ease, and flying off into the sunset. Now, this was getting really interesting. Circle town? I wanted to see for myself. I wanted to know what that place was, and why it was so important. Important why? Important how? I didn't really know yet, but ponies kept talking about it. It remained to be seen. 

He flew out over a desert that was unlike mine, in the south. This desert was filled with, well, tiny things. Many bones were scattered all over the ground, and not those of unconscious, or maybe, if that's a bit disingenuous, less intelligent animals, but rather, it were the bones of ponies. Entire skeletons, complete and all, of ponies, stood planted around the place. This really had been a warzone, like he said. Some part of me didn't want to believe him. To me, Equestria was idyllic, and the metal fortress was hell, and that, basically, on an underlying level, was my conception of the world in a nutshell, but now, I started to learn more.  

"I don't see any towns," I said.

He looked down behind him while he was flying, bending his head between his front legs. "There aren't any. They're all destroyed or abandoned. There," he said. I looked away from him. Down on the ground were the bases of houses, floors, but not really any walls or anything else that makes a house a house. This place had been totally evaporated, walls and all. There wasn't a soul there, as far as the eye could see. 

"But Circle town," I said.

"If you want to get all technical, then yes, there's one, and that's Circle town, but it's not really like other towns. It's better to show you than to try to explain it," he said. Okay then, I thought, respecting that. In that case, I would see, and learn by seeing, not explaining, even if the explanation was crisp and clear, and came from Gripey, I figured that I should want to learn for myself, with my own eyes, empirically, since he admonished me to do so. It only seemed fair and right, and so, that's what I was figuring to do, and why not? What else? Going back to the fortress? Please. I was at least learning something now. There, I rotted, and knowing, as I did now, how close I had been to effectively committing suicide, I felt more at ease, knowing that if the existential angst and fear came back again, and the regret, which had faded a little now, though it was still stark in my mind, then I would be able to try again, and succeed. These ancient creatures, Sidus, the Yether, and also Hookbeak, and Luna, couldn't stop me from committing myself to death. Never. I didn't believe that for a second. Who could? They couldn't always be paying attention to me. That's not how attention works, if you believe that it works at all, and is a real thing, and I did.  

I heard, drums? Yes, I did hear drums. Those were definitely drums. "You hear?" I said. "I recognize that sound. I just need to place it."

"I do too," he said, landing as fast as he could. The sky now pounded and roared. I looked into the sky. It was all covered in clouds. It hadn't been that way for long. When we were in the jungle, the skies were open.

He looked at me. "Come closer." I did. "I'll handle this." Out of the clouds came a giant blimp-like ship, an egg-ship! The drumbeats were getting louder and louder, and were now deafening. "What in the world," Gripey said, looking around the place. "I can't believe it." A strong wind came. It was so strong that it was hard for me to stand still, and I was forced to walk unless I didn't want to fall over. "Come here," he said, grabbing and holding me. "Of all the crazy..." He trailed off.

Rocks and trees around us, there were a few trees, lifted and hovered slowly, going higher and higher up in the air, but we remained where we were. Someone was controlling the wind. "Dum-dadum-dadum. Dum-dadum-dadum." That's how it sounded now. The drumbeats had morphed into a melody. "Dum-dadum-dadum." Na-nanaa-nanaa. It sounded like a horn, or an accordion? No, a harmonica more like it. Dum-dadum-dadum. I thought about the way it sounded. The sound faded, and disappeared, and so did the wind. The trees and all fell down, and the ship was just left hovering there, in the middle of the desert. I couldn't see a soul in sight anywhere for all the time we had been here, nothing. Only dead ponies stretched out over the landscape, and really, just bones, not even bodies. The melody returned for a second, dum, and then it disappeared again.  

"You are walking upon claimed territory. Step aside, and go away, or you will die, and your death will be painful." The sound came from the ship. It came from speakers somewhere. The sound was garbled, and the voice was vague and unclear. "Go away. You are on claimed territory of griffins. Do not be a hero. You will die." 

Gripey groaned. "Oh my. Oh no. This is stupid." The sound, like a static, which I hadn't even noticed, vanished. It was a buzzing sound. Now, it was just quiet. It was alarmingly quiet. The ship didn't even make a sound. It was as if it just hovered there in the air.

"Name and rank," the ship then said, and the static came back.

"Majorly Majorically, of mechanically-departments and gearic," he said, groaning loudly at the last syllable, to show his frustration. "I can't believe this is happening," he said. "This has never happened to me before."

He wasn't really speaking all that loudly, but the ship seemed to hear. "You are registered as an escaped criminal. What did you do?" 

"Can you let me in first, and then we can have this conversation?" Gripey shouted, holding onto me. "Please, you guys. I have a little gal here. We don't want to hurt her."

The ship went quiet for a second. Then it piped up. "She is also a registered criminal. Where did you come from?"

"I am not a criminal," Gripey said. "And Hookbeak even invited me into Circle town. Can't you take a hint?"

"No," the ship said. "You are a criminal."

Gripey groaned again. "This is the dumbest thing that has happened ever! Just let me inside, or really, just go away!"

Something flashed beside the ship. I couldn't see what it was. It was like a reflex. "Okay, don't move," Gripey said. Around us, many metal hunks landed. Many of them sank into the ground. Then slowly, they bounced up, out of the holes they had made. Some of them struggled, wiggling in the earth, and then they got up. They were big robots, twice as tall as us, and bipedal. They moved on two legs, and had faces curiously painted on them. One of the robots opened up, and a griffin came flying out. 

"You say you were invited by our liege?"

"The one," Gripey said, holding up one finger. The other griffin did the same.

He then shook his head. "Why would he? You're a total criminal. I saw it in the database. You have committed many crimes."

"Like, just stop it," Gripey said. "They weren't crimes by your own standards."

"I looked at the database," the other griffin said. He had standard griffin colors, with a white head and brown body, as did Gripey by the way. Didn't mention that. "The database never lies."

"It's a database," Gripey said. "It's confused. It doesn't have perfect knowledge."

"Well, this is awkward, but we might have to arrest you," the other griffin said, scratching his head a little. "Sorry. I'm not sure what to do. We're only engineers on this ship. We weren't taught how to deal with this sort of threat."

"I'm not a threat," Gripey said, reaching out his arms toward the other griff. I groaned now, rather than him. "I'm not a threat. What? I'm not a threat," Gripey said, looking at me, very aggressive, and aggressively. "I've never been a threat."

"Yes," I said. "You're a nice guy, unless you feel threatened. Then you attack." The shell of the robot closed around the other griffin.

"Now, look what you did," Gripey said. "You should just shut up sometimes." I put my mouth in my pocket, for further use. Now, it was time to be quiet. Gripey was too uneasy, or perhaps rationally afraid, for me to deal with at the moment.

We lifted. Our bodies lifted into the air, and so did the robots, hovering. It's same as what happened when I escaped from the village and got to Terran. We had no control over our bodies. We could just wiggle in the air, nothing more. Then we levitated higher and higher, and toward the ship. A hatch opened on the side of it. We got inside. Once there, there was a gigantic room, full of engines, and griffins were scattered all over the place. Some of them had spears, but most of them didn't. They walked around, looking like they were doing their normal routines. We continued hovering, and being stuck up in the air, even as we got into the ship.

"You are put under arrest," a griffin said, absentmindedly, looking the other direction. He was looking at a screen. "For robbery, assault, sexual assault, battery, murder, genocide," he said, squinting. "You are also put under arrest for escaping your prison sentence, within the jurisdiction of the Nonaligned Court, which the United Territories are bound by, Gripey." He looked up at as, a little hesitantly. Gripey was struggling, rolling around in the air, looking like he was trying to escape the air current, or whatever it was that trapped us.

"I'll have your head on a platter," Gripey said, struggling.

"I'm hearing that every day," the griffin said. "They never do it. They never do it. They never do it." He repeated the words to himself, like a mantra. They don't? Well, okay. That's good. So what need is there for you to repeat it, since it's so obvious that they never do it? Of course, the guy was scared, little guy, bigger than me, but smaller than Gripey. He looked livid. We were levitated out of the room and into a narrow corridor. The door closed behind us. 

"Hello, passengers," a voice said.

"You're just bad lack," Gripey said to me. Ouch, Gripey. That hurt. 

The voice was either a recording, or was located elsewhere. "Soon, a sentry will come and transport you to your cell. Have a wonderful day!" Gripey looked around, manically, perhaps looking for that sentry that was spoken of.

"May I offer a suggestion?" I said.

"No, you may not."

"Okay," I said. I didn't want to make him angrier than he already was. He looked dangerous now, Gripey. He mumbled something. He searched the walls with his hands, as if he was trying find something specific. He bent toward a wall. Something came out of the wall, or detached from it rather. A big long thin thing. It was like a stick that hovered in the air.

"Hello," it said. "Our cells are comfortable. Please come along. You will get nice food."

"No, I won't," Gripey said, or yelled. "No, I won't, and no, I won't."

The sentry reached out toward him. He took the arm. It was producing a tiny current of electricity that passed through the point of it. It was a simple taser. He broke the arm off. No alarm went off or anything. Just a great number of identical robots detached from the wall and tased him. "Argh!" he said. "Okay. Where's the cell, you stupid machines?"   

"Come with me." They spoke in unison. "You will be given good food." 

"I don't want the food," he said against the creepy display of robots speaking in unison. It was a female voice, a soft voice, though not calming in any way shape or form. No-no, it was not. But he followed them, and I followed him. Neither he nor the robots tried to stop me. A slit opened up in a wall. It got wider. It got open, and inside was a tiny space where we could be. Well, in spite of everything, I didn't want to leave him, so I walked inside. He just stood there, gasping for air, because he was so frustrated. Then he walked inside. The door closed behind us.

"He's messing with us."

"Who is?"

Gripey looked at me as if I was an idiot. "Hookbeak. Of course! Who else?"

"Why?" I said.

"I don't know," he said. "We'll ask him if we survive the journey. We will." I was satisfied enough with that answer. "Of course he knows we're here. He has cameras everywhere, and he can see through them all at once. He's just- I don't know," he said. "Maybe there's something wrong with the software."

"Yeah," I said.

"Yeah," he said, hugging me. I hugged back. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm just so frustrated. I don't know what's going on." I didn't mind. That was some of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me, depressingly enough. 

I looked over to the wall that had opened up. I went forward and poked it, and I walked along it. "What's with this door?" I said. "Very technologically logical. It looks like a wall, but it's also a door. It makes us not think of where to escape."

"We couldn't anyway," he said. "The best thing that will happen, if anyone escapes, is that they will get gassed to death, along with the rest of the crew. That's how prison ships work."

"Prison ship," I said, feeling the wall.

"Yeah," he said. "Let's just rest now." He lay down on the ground. I was unconvinced by his body language. It didn't look like he wanted to rest. It looked forced. He looked restless, really restless. "I want to rest."

"Maybe you want to escape," I said, prodding the wall with my hooves. 

"Don't even try it," he said. "You don't know what you're signing up for. You really don't. It's not a pretty sight." What's not a pretty sight? I wanted to know, but then, based on what he was saying, maybe I didn't. I wanted to get out, but I couldn't. I sat down beside him. 

"Then we're prisoners again."

A smile broke out across his face. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, maybe this isn't so bad after all." He sat up and smiled at me. "Maybe it isn't. Maybe this is good. We can spend some more time together." I was flattered that he was excited at the prospect of spending time with me of all people. I smiled back at him.

"So what now?" I said.

"Now." He paused, staring at the wall, not saying anything, remaining quiet, and then he said, "We wait."
> Part 14: Well, I don't Have Any Words For It, So just Read For Yourself
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A siren went off. 

I woke up. I felt delirious. I was shaky. I hadn't slept well, though it was a dreamless sleep. It wasn't comfy, and it wasn't nice. Gripey looked at me with utter horror in his eyes. I wondered what was wrong. What was happening? It was all strange, and made me uncomfortable. It made me wary, and careful to ask questions, but I tried.

"What is–"

He held me, putting his hand over my mouth. "Shh, shh, shh, shh," he said, hushing me. I was hushed. I was quiet. I wondered what was going on. What's with the siren? Then I heard screams, and shrieks, and I saw ponies dying in front of me, in my memory. I started breathing heavily. I began hyperventilating. "Shh, shh," he said, drawing his fingers through my fur, my real fur, not artificial, for now I knew the truth. It was doubtless. I had murdered many, but now, I wasn't the one doing the murdering. A loud groan echoed through the hallway. It sounded like someone was reaching for air, trying to breathe. The choking? They were getting gassed, like he had alluded to before. Gassed? Poisoned to death, then. So, this was the end for us? We would die too? I tried to ask him, but he simply put a finger to my mouth.

"It's okay," he said. "It's okay." This was really uncivilized and strange behavior, poisoning prisoners to death, but I hadn't even seen the first of it yet, though I did not know it. "It's okay." He hugged me. I saw Jelly in front of me. I got an unexpected shudder. Who am I, I thought. What am I even? I'm not even supposed to exist, as much I know. Why is this happening? But then, well, I, hm, but, was, I didn't know. I was shook. Could I be poisoned or was my body immune to it? I held out hope, but then, if they were to poison Gripey, then what use was it? I would be lost again without him, I thought. I'm like a child. I really am. I'm lost. I don't know what to do, but hopefully, I can at least think clearly in moments like this. I was lost out in the world. I was upset. No one wanted me, and I hasten to add that I didn't blame them, but so it was. The door to our cell opened up. Gripey stared at the opening, forlorn, tired-looking, and afraid. He was shaking too, not just I.

But he was alive in the next moment, and so was I, at least for the time being. "Nothing is happening," he said. "Why is nothing happening?" He let go of me and looked out the cell, and then he returned inside. "I think we should just stay here," he said.

"Are you sure it's safe?" I said. 

He looked out the cell again. Then he sighed. "No, I'm sure it isn't, but we can't go out."

"Why not?" I went toward the exit.

"Don't," he said, grabbing me.

"What's out there?" I said.

He shook his head, all wide-eyed. I felt sorry for him. I wanted to console him. Well, by inference, I could assume that dead ponies and griffins and other creatures, maybe changelings, were out there, but I was used to all that. I had been staring death in the face for a long time. I wanted to tell him, but then I hesitated. What was it then that he wanted to hide from me?

He sighed again. "This is crazy. This is crazy. This is crazy. This is crazy," he said, jittering and shaking.

"What is?" I said.

"Okay, we have to walk out but don't- I- just don't look at anything," he said. He backed away from me, and kept his eyes on me, as I followed him out the door. The outside, and there's really no other way to describe this, was a literal horror-show. I mean, it was worse than anything I had ever seen, and that's saying something, because you all know what I have seen, readers, but now, prepare yourselves for a journey, and strap yourselves in. If some of the other parts of this story made you cringe, then this will kill your heart. I'm serious. As I looked out, I saw blood all over the walls, and then I saw griffins, piles of them, neatly placed one on top of the other, with griffins lying on top of each other, and with wounds all over their bodies. Pieces of their fingers had gone straight off and were attached to the walls. Well, I said it was something else, but now, this isn't even the beginning. I'm sorry, but I have to tell it like it happened. 

Bones were sticking it of the bodies of many of the griffins, victims of their circumstance. Their eyes were lying on the floor, many were scattered. Why? "Gas did this?" I said, feeling a little sick. This was macabre, even by the standards of what I had seen at the fortress, and I had seen robots basically tortured to death there, but this was grim. Really, really grim! 

"It's not just gas," he said, teeth barred. "This is really just the worst thing that can happen."

"They're not all prisoners," I said, seeing how many griffins there were. 

"No," he said. "Most of them wouldn't be. If a prisoner escapes, then everybody dies."

"That seems a little unfair," I said, mumbling something. I said, death over and over. "Death, death." But it was so quiet that I didn't expect Gripey would hear it.

"Well," he said. "Though we have had our disagreements, well, you know." He sighed, breathing heavy. He was very unnerved, but of course! So was I. The walls were covered in dead bodies. I didn't realize how many griffins worked on one of these ships. What would happen when we got out of this one hallway? I took a step forward, and accidentally landed my foot on one of the eyes. The eye-y goo from inside sploshed all over my hoof. It got all over. It was- well, I don't really know how to describe it.  

"My inner demons," I said. "Have come back again." I saw the faces of dying ponies, crawling across the ground, crawling away from me, and I groaned. I tried smiling, but I simply couldn't. "To see all this, it's breathtaking," I said. Maybe not the best choice of words there from me, but you know what I was saying. It was astounding. It was nonplussing. I wanted to take a breath. I wanted to relax. I wanted to do something else. No, I wanted to get out of this place. I ran into the corridor, and fell over, stepping over eyes all over. I tripped on an eye. I fell on the ground. "Ow." It hurt a little, but not too badly, but the worst pain was inside me. It was bewildering.

"Wait," Gripey said. "We should be careful. We still don't know if it's safe." I had eyes all over me. I looked back and forth between them. They looked back. They were dead eyes, somehow detached from their former living bodies. I gulped. I stood up, not taking a breath. I felt like it was all coming back to me now, all that shame, but no, it wasn't shame. It felt like- it felt like death had me in its grip. I was surrounded by death. My own death. The death of my actions. Everyone I had killed surrounded me. It was everywhere. It was breathtaking. It was unbelievable. It was crazy. It shattered my senses. It made me want to crawl back into the hole from where I came, in the desert. I wanted to die now again, not because of some sentimental reason. I really now remembered why I had come to that conclusion in the first place, and it was stark, and clear as day. It was undeniable.

"What's with you?" he said, carefully.

"Um," I said. "I don't know." I felt dizzy. This really was the worst thing that could happen, as he had said, and I realized now that I had been way in over my head with all this, everything I had done, and everything I had witnessed. I didn't know what to make of it. I didn't understand. What kind of person was I exactly? And what was this world? Why did it all go back to where I began? Everything sucked me back. All my memories beckoned to me, and I heeded the call, and came closer. I knew this was crazy. I knew this entire situation had to have been a mistake. 

Gripey said, "I can carry you again."

I shook my head and said, "Yes." He picked me up and walked daintily through the hallway. The door that we had come through was open now. We looked in. There was a giant pile of griffins there, at least two dozen. They were lying on top of each other, again, right by the exit, right by the door, out through which we had come.

"Okay," Gripey said. I was feeling manic. Many emotions were running through my body. I couldn't believe it. I literally couldn't believe my eyes. None of them was alive, or seemed to be, and the pile of bodies was covered in blood, as if it was some secret sauce poured on top of them. Oh, that's grim. That's macabre of me to say, but it was, it was, everywhere. Blood was literally all over the floor. It got to the point of ridiculousness. How did all the blood get there? Loose pieces of skin from the griffins, with feathers on them, lay all around the floor, as if torn off, or apart. It was all... a learning experience, I think, because all this made me question my will to live, and my shame was still alive. I didn't want to run away from it. I wanted to embrace it. I wanted to feel it, because I was ashamed, but the more I felt it, the more it hurt, and the more I couldn't bear to breathe the coming breath, but breathing was never a choice. I closed my eyes and tried not breathing, but my breath came back to me. I wanted to force unconsciousness upon myself, but I couldn't.

"This is one of the worst things that has ever happened to one of these," he said. "I've seen it before, but this is way worse than anything I've ever seen. Why is it, why is there, red everywhere?" Yeah, why? Blood everywhere! Literally, the floor was painted red. It was absurd. The floor was metal, but the blood still somehow managed to get everywhere, but when I saw the griffins, they looked drained. Actually, they looked more than drained. They looked empty. They were empty sacks of skin, just lying there, like everything inside had just popped out and run away. It was, really, a carnival of crazy blood-soaked bodies lying around, like in a real carnival, but the colors were the colors of death. They were everywhere. They hit my eyes like lightning, more than the real lightning that had hit me before, and much, much more painful. It was all, well, I can't describe it, again, honestly, it was like death had descended on the place, and that wasn't even the start of it.

Gripey dared enter the room now. He treaded carefully. "What in the- what has happened? I don't even." He shook his head, slowly, intently. "I can't." He couldn't, and neither could I. I couldn't either. I really couldn't. I was struggling to tell myself to breathe, because the entire scene, and the patches of skin lying around, blood dripping off them, and flesh, took my breath away from me, and I was crying. I noticed that now. 

"This is what death looks like," I said.

"Worse than death," Gripey said. "Way worse. I'm sorry for blaming you earlier. That was superstitious of me. Of course, none of this could ever be your fault." But it could, Gripey, and that's what you don't realize, and I had to realize it before long, because I was getting absentminded, but this place, was beyond, beyond, anything, anything, beyond anything. It was way beyond life or death, or pain maybe even. It was something entirely different.

"Let's," I just said. He sneaked further into the room, flying up over the dead bodies. "Holy one!" he said. He just blurted it. Holy one? Holy God, maybe, that was. He was paying tribute to his liege, but then, did Hookbeak know this was happening? How could one even live with oneself, and what was this even? This was crazy. No, it was- no- I didn't- I lost my breath again. We flew through. It wasn't just bad ethics. It was disgusting on a whole other level. That's the thing. It's wasn't a judgment I made that made me react this way. No, I felt it in my entire body. Something was spooky about this. I had seen ponies blown up before, but it was like this place had been haunted, by a ghost that ripped griffins limb from limb and piled them up, and maybe some of my newfound sympathies for ponies and other nonrobots helped in making me feel uneasy, shaky, and utterly terrified of this place.

"Get out?" I said.

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe we can't." The bodies piled on top of each other. Why were they lying in such neat piles? Why? Almost in symmetrical fashion, they were piled one by one on top of the other.

"I'll try," he said, nodding slowly, determined, shakily, like I was. Shaky. Afraid. Fear. It was gripping me, all at once, and I didn't know what to do, or what to say. It was really a discombobulating experience, and it was too much. Too much. Too much. No, not enough. Nothing was enough to atone for my crimes. I felt that once the shame has run out, then I could relax, but until then, I would do no such thing, because I could do no such thing, and all of that was far too much for me to handle. It felt like something was coming over me, like a wave of negative energy, that of death. It all felt, useless. It's useless to resist this, I thought. I did it, no one else, and I'm responsible for it forever, and if I kill Gripey, or Jelly, then I would have killed two of many that I already have killed, and if there's any light in the world, any at all, and if good people really exist, then I deserved to be punished. In truth, that's really how I felt at the bottom of my being, or close to it. There was something else. Something. There was something mischievous inside me. It wanted to come out. It wanted to say, no, you're wrong. You were being used against your will, and really, there is still much to do. You need to think about what's important, you, which is to say, me, because I was talking to myself. Yes, I was. I was. 

It was a jumble of emotions, and finally, I think, it was my reckoning, but not really, because I hadn't even really seen the beginning, and this is where things get really complicated, and you will know what I mean when I say that this is the worst thing I have ever seen, ever in my life. We flew up to a railing that was at the top of the engine room. Then we walked out a door. All the doors were open. Was it so that the gas could slip through everywhere, or for something else to? A monster, or a mass-murdering machine? One may wonder, and if one does, then the answer can present itself, when ready, if it be, if it will be, which it might, and I hoped for answers. Rather than looking at the suffering, or the death rather, or maybe both. The suffering death carnival! Rather than looking at it, this blood-bath, for which there is no description that can truly capture the horror of it, except for just looking at it. And my word to your ear, I will make you look at it, because this is exceptionally important to know and understand. This is beyond me, and my stupid feelings. This is something bigger.

We came out in a corridor with a window going across it. Bodies were scattered here and there over the floor, and outside, I saw a beautiful rainbow. I wanted to come closer. I wanted to touch it, but we were separated by the window, but then, I wondered if Gripey wouldn't just crush it.

I looked at him and then to the window. "No," he said. "It'll just make the toxins go off again."

"We'll be fast." I hung on his back, wiggling. "Who was it that escaped in the first place?" I jumped off.

"We'll find out," he said, walking over a body. It's not that I wasn't used to looking at grim scenery, and death, because I was, but you don't understand. The walls were literally colored by blood. Was it blood? I touched the wall and I licked it. Yes, that was definitely blood, type zero, if I wasn't mistaken, one of the rarer ones, though not as rare as AB. I was amazed by what I knew, even though I never thought about it. I also had the ability to lick blood and recognize its origins, yes, if that wasn't obvious enough. That was a talent that I had always possessed, or a skill rather. I knew the taste of it all.

He got a bit up into the hallway, or the corridor, perhaps, depending on your disposition. "C'mon," he said. "We need to hurry."

"Yes." I jumped, or no, I had to climb over a body. My hoof got stuck in its mouth. The mouth didn't want to let go. I dragged and pulled. Then my hoof sank into the mouth, and through the head-region of the griffin, going all the way through. It was as if he had had the air sucked out of him, or her? I didn't know well enough to distinguish between male and female griffs, but I knew for a fact that this one was dead, and totally croaked at that. There wasn't a sliver or an inch of life left in him, it? That much was clear. It's hard to talk about specific individuals, in a given context, without giving gender, because then, it's all confusing, without it. My hoof sank down further. I could feel it sloshing. "Okay," I said, smiling. I collapsed on the ground, having something that is comparable to what happened in Pegasquire. A seizure, or was it just anxiety? It gripped me. I fell down. I couldn't relax. I couldn't breathe. All I felt was pain. All I felt was death, and I knew that this feeling felt like death, because it was death. It was pulling me apart, and saying, "It's time to end it all. It's okay. We must die now. We have to die. It's the only right thing in all the world. It's the only right thing, maybe, in all the universe, for me, in my current circumstance, given the strangeness of it all." 

This was my mind talking, mind you. But then, did I really feel guilt? Was that it? Or was I just disgusted? But if guilt I felt, could it redeem me, or is it just another emotion, like all others? Can ponies be redeemed? Can anyone? What does it mean to be redeemed anyway? No, I was just disgusted. I stopped shaking and I stood up. "No," I said. "No."

"Wow," he said, just gawking. "Wow."

"Yeah, I'm coming," I said.

"I'm sorry," he said, reaching out to me. "You want to jump back up on my back."

I sighed. He simply picked me up and put me there. I didn't protest. Then we walked further on. That rainbow outside the window. It spoke to me. It reminded me of something, but what? What was it? Was this really it? Dead bodies and a rainbow? I was crestfallen. This would crush me, or would it build me up? Did it matter? Should I not be crushed? Can building me up, in some sense, help? Help the world? Help me? Wasn't this all just based on empathy and guilt? Emotions, rather than a real attitude and disposition toward the world, and my actions? But what could I do about it? Was there anything? Was it all as hopeless as it seemed, and really like that, because that's how things actually are? And then, in which case, I just have to accept it, and there's not much ado about that. It seems logical that I should suffer, given my actions, and that's what I wanted to do, but really, didn't it seem logical that I should just die, or should I walk the world full of guilt, since I had killed things that I now loved, or thought that maybe, one day, I could love? Ponies like Jelly? Were they all like Jelly? Well, they were close enough to cause me great concern, and make me want to hesitate in my actions.

Really, if I didn't walk the world with a heart full of guilt, what the hell? Didn't that just reaffirm all the things I already knew about how bad a person I was? But if I was suffering, always, then I couldn't really live very long, and then, it's time to end it. No? Was I overthinking it? I think I wasn't, even now, but at the time as well. I wanted something more to happen. I wanted another revelation to come upon me. Painful revelations, I thought. They sting and they come upon me like black clouds, like the clouds in the sky, like clouds of foreboding doom. Maybe it's not too late, in case I had another one, and realized something new. Something new. Something new. Something new. Something new. Something new. Something new. I couldn't for the life of me remember what I was thinking about. I was just trying to think about something new? Whence cometh cowardice? Here, in my heart, right at this moment, I thought. I'm trying to escape, but if I'm not trying to escape, then I will suffer, but then, is suicide an escape? If so, then I would suffer forever. Nurgh! Augh! My head!

I collapsed, not being able to hold on to Gripey's back. My head was hurting again. Had the Yether's healing only been temporary? I felt my leg hurting. Well then, the answer was yes. But it was all good. I thought that at least I didn't do this on purpose, and if I died now, then my injuries would claim me, not guilt, though the injuries, then, I supposed, had happened at another time that I was trying to commit suicide, so did it count? But I wasn't trying now? No, it didn't count, I decided. This was entirely involuntary, and yet, it was welcome. It was not a painful revelation, in the sense of a new belief that hurts emotionally, but rather, it was a painful revelation that came upon my body, struck it, and hurt it, and would kill it, for so I knew. Gripey shook me. 

"What's the matter, kid?"

"I'm not a kid. I just want to die," I said.

"No, you want to live," he said, shaking me.

I looked at him, with tears in my eyes, new tears, not ones from before. These ones signified something new. I was, something new? I was, afraid. Afraid. "Help me, please," I said. I was having flashes. Visions in my head. It all passed before me like quicksand, like the sand in the Yether's hourglass had. It all passed and flashed. It was beautiful. It was my life. It was true. Something passed by the window. This seemed to distract Gripey. He kept his eyes locked on the window. Then he turned toward me.

"We'll get you some help. The tower can fix anything."

I shook my head. "But we're not heading toward the tower. We're heading toward the light."

"No!" he said. "No, we're not. He picked me up under his arm, and carried me forward uncomfortably, in a position that was unnatural for him. He walked slowly. "No, please," he said. "You don't have to. You can learn something."

I smiled, though faintly, and with a hopelessness in my heart. Learn something? That was funny to me. Learn something. Learn what? It was time to learn death. Learn? Learn? Learn! No, I couldn't see it. There was only stupid. My whole life had been a lie, but I still said these words, even though I didn't believe them. "Something new?"

"Yes," he said. "Something new. A lot of new. You know, I know what you told me. I don't care. I still like you." He kissed me on the forehead and continued walking. What a strange predicament, but this griffin, like me, I thought, took to others too easily, and that was a character flaw we both shared. "We can get you help. I know we can. We're heading toward the tower right now."

"The tower?" I didn't even understand what he was saying. What tower?

"Yes," he said. "The tower of technology. It's real. It reaches into the sky. You should see it." He hugged me. "I want you to see it, and..." He didn't fade off. I was. There's a hole in my memory here. Sorry. "And we can go see the food, and the bridges. I know you like looking at food." He did? When did he learn that? I hadn't told him. And yet, he had a linguistically represented explicit belief which attested to this fact, and he was right. Where did he learn it? My head stung again. I was- it was- well.

We came into another room. He tried to hold my eyes, but then he accidentally, or at least I think so, dropped me. I saw something even more, more, whatever to call it. It was more. It was big. It was literally, well, crazy. It was a long corridor, and at the end of it, well, no, it had no end. You see, this corridor was filled to the brim with dead bodies, like a jar. There literally, and I don't mean figuratively, was no empty space in it, at all, at all. It was full of corpses stacked on each other. It was full of blood that ran straight toward us. It really did. The blood hit my body. I got red. Score, I thought. This is the score. This is what I loved doing my whole life. This is good. This is what I was meant to do. At least, I'm living out my destiny in this place. Good old destiny! You beckon, and you shine upon me, and I listen, and I care. I really do. I really do. I always cared. I wanted to go back. I wanted to pick up the Obliterator and start anew, with everything. Of course. Of course. It was all obvious to me now. I should meet my fate. I should live it out. My fate was to kill, and then suffer. So I knew. It was really obvious. It was all I had ever known, so why not? This was the life for me. It begged for me to come back, because that was who I really was. I was a good old-fashioned killer. I liked tasting blood. I liked suffering, seeing it and feeling it.

At this point, I was delirious. Gripey walked back into the corridor with the window. "Okay," he said. "This is going to get really ugly. I have to move the bodies to get into the control room. Just you stay here, and please, just, you know, don't die, buddy." What? I wasn't planning on doing anything. I couldn't, but death was coming to me nevertheless. It beckoned. This Sidus had seen into the future, and he had saved me, just so I can suffer, like any good deity, or quasideity, as it were, will do, should do, is destined to do, in case that creature is really a deity. If you have great powers, why not use them to right the wrongs in the world? If you had great powers, maybe you really could redeem yourself, unlike me. I knew I couldn't. I was convinced. I had learned. I had seen. I had known, and now, I died.





I woke up. I heard a familiar melody, that of the monkey. I felt less delirious now, and clearer in my head. I saw the space, the walls around me, and saw that we were in an elevator.

"You're alive!" Gripey said, stating the obvious.

"I know," I said.

"Admiral Artillery's the only one I fear, because he can do anything," the song went.

"Strange, song," I said, mushing the words out my mouth, feeling empty-headed, and dehydrated. Hydration was something that only happened for me when I recharged, as you might have already figured out, with your brains.

"Colonel of the Cavalry is not someone to fear, because he can do nothing."

"That's an in-joke between Garish Clink and Colonel Gerias Gavesh," Gripey said, looking at me with sad eyes. "They are- well, they have important jobs, especially Garish Clink, but really, this song is just used as a warning signal to show that something bad is happening." He coughed, and his eyes were getting glistening, with tears, I think. They were full of emotion, and affect. "Like this," he said. "So much death."

"Worse than death," I said, remembering his words from before, and regurgitating them. I was really off my rocker. I didn't even know, or I barely noticed, what I myself was saying.

"Yes," he said, holding me. "Far worse." And this, dear readers, wasn't even the beginning. Now, if you have come this far, and have been a little shocked by the gore, then I'm sorry, but if that made you uncomfortable, then you haven't even seen the first thing yet. Now, if you are easily disturbed, or in fact, if you have any shred of decency, then you might want to turn the page and move to the next chapter, because this will get uglier, far uglier, and now, I was seeing the face of deceit. I was seeing the face of my own treachery, the Yether within me, all the lies. Everything I had told myself had just been a distraction. Yes, you think I don't understand this? You think I'm just absentmindedly going through all this, not understanding what's really going on, not thinking about it? Not noticing things? You think that I'm stupid, and that I don't care about anything, don't care about what's happening around me, just forget everything? Always move on to the next thing? Always chirpy, naïve, blind, and with a smile on my face? That I just joke around because that's how I feel all the time? I'm a jokester, and so, I just joke, and that's the sort of person I am, and I only think about myself, and I really only think about myself, and I don't think about what anything means? And what I am to do? And what happens to me? You think I don't take things seriously? 

Here's a twist for you, and it was a twist for me too. It turns out that I did, and I do, and I had been trying to kill myself for far longer than I realized. You think you know anything? You think you know anything? I'll show you then, you little prick. I'll show you. No, seriously. I'll show you what I feel, if you want to know, but this won't be pretty. This was my reckoning.

The door to the elevator opened, and the scene outside sang to me, a song of death. This was the scene. All the way to the end and edge of the room, bodies covered the floor, neatly placed beside one another. Each body was somehow completely covered in blood. Not disturbed yet? Me neither. Let's move on. Each body had eyes that were coming out of the sockets. They were either sticking out, or they were hanging off the head of the person in question. But this, we have already seen, so I was used to this. Then, all were gathered in a circle, and all were turned to a griffin that was far back in the room. That griffin had a mask on. And the mask was shattered. His body was bent forward. He was dead, of course. No, he bent his head and looked at me. The mask fell off. He collapsed on the ground. I was sure he was a he, given the robustness of his body, and as it happens, males are typically slightly larger and more robust, bigger, bulkier, than females. So I had learned. He was still moving though. He crept, and then, I could see the fur around his body, the body of feathers around it, squeezing him. It's like his skin was attacking him. Why? Surely, no prisoner had escaped. This was a punishment, or an automated procedure? His eyes popped up, and those of Allyseyev flashed before me. She had eyes too. She had told me to see, because I couldn't see if I didn't try.

I knew that Allyseyev would never see anything anymore. She was dead and gone. This wasn't happening to us though. I looked down across my body, and I saw that Gripey was doing the same. We were fine. Then, holes popped up in the feathers of the griffin, and bits of meat flew out. Wow. That was something, wasn't it? And there's more. Then, I heard another pop, and blood hit our faces, and his body simply collapsed, blood going everywhere, blood flying out of it, so much for as single body. So much for a single body. So much for that body, I thought. It will never see another rainbow, or hear the birds, or witness the moon, or the sunrise. It's dead forever, and soon, so will I. I be. I will be dead forever. It's simply a truism, and a truth. It's something I rely on not to want to slam my head against the wall right now, in an act of defiance against life, and against the gods. 

In five days, now six, I had died and seen the world, and lived and seen others die, and seen myself die in front of my eyes, but then, saved, by the Yether, and the strange black spirit that I had heard about. The father of two: Luna and Celestia. I felt ever so sick now, but this was only the beginning. A siren ran off in the room again. 

Gripey shook his head. "This is it then. You know, I really had fun with you." He looked at me. I didn't buy it. I was fun, maybe to a person that didn't know me, but I had not been a fun person in the last few days. I had been slamming my head against walls, both figuratively and literally, and all of that matters. You can't just sweep it under the rug. You really can't.

Then again, maybe all that was the something new I was looking for, a change of pace from my old life, and an opportunity to come to terms with myself, accept it all for what it was, and look at myself carefully in the mirror, before I passed away, or was imprisoned, and then passed away, my actions creating a bunch of enemies at my doorstep that should rather obviously be there, given the foolishness of my behavior, really not the badness of it, but how dumb I had been. That's what bothered me most is how dumb I had been, but let's not worry about me. This is about the world. The world is important. The world matters more than any one silly person, such as myself, or the next, or everything that might ever happen, because the world has things, many things, beautiful things, that I had grown to appreciate, and I appreciated them, I realized, because I didn't have them, the world did. And I wanted them. I really, really did. I really, really, really did. But regardless, it's all what it is, and I accept it in the end, and that's fine by me. It had been fine by me, and would continue, continue as it would, I would live by it, and it would define me. That's what I felt. It would define me, and that's fine.

Now, the room began moving. The floor spun around. I saw myself spin around, and so did Gripey. Everything spun around, like we were lodged on a giant platform that moved in a giant circle, and all of that, I think, made it all the more dizzying. More things spun around. I saw other bodies moving. They were squeezed, skin to bone, and exploded, and I got bones and limbs, and some guts, that flew at me. I got hit by something in the head, what seemed to be a bone. It hurt. I embraced the pain. This was a madhouse, but it was also a madhouse of my own creation, somehow. I knew that. It was inside me. This place, as I was inside it, was inside my head. An electrical charge went through the room.

I couldn't tell where it came from, or what it passed through, not that it matters. It doesn't. "Duck," I said, instinctively. Gripey did, but I didn't. It hit me, but I only felt a slight bit of pain. I had been hit by lightning before. In any case, I guess my body was immune to it, for whatever reason. One of my upsides, to being me!

He looked at me. Then he looked down. I yelled, "I'm alive." I yelled it so he could hear it. He looked up at me, with relief. I rolled my eyes. No, I thought. No, no. This isn't supposed to happen. If I decide my fate. That is, if I decide my fate! If I can, I will never, ever accept Gripey's good graces, and his smile, and his stupid sympathy. It came from a good place, a naïve place, a meaningless place. No, I thought. This is it. The charge went away. Griffins rose up off the ground. They looked at me. They were alive? Well, a few were. Most were hardly not alive, since they were writhing in agony, and pain, on the floor. Had the lightning reawoken them somehow? Could such things be? They moved around. And then they fell. The lightning came back, and passed. Many tiny machines entered into the room, and they moved toward the griffins. Help? No, the machines ripped feathers off them, individual feathers, harvesting them. I felt sick. This was crazy, and I didn't know whether I should weep or laugh. Maybe both! Maybe none. Maybe join them? Maybe. I didn't know. The suffering continued.   

A few stood up, but the robots hit them, striking them down. They were little robots with extendable arms, that looked like curtain-hangers, except metallic and alive, and they hovered in the air. Was this it? What was this? Was this the end? I moved to jump down into the room. I was on a railing, slightly above the chaos, maybe a meter. The railing crossed through the room, across, straight across, and I looked down. 

"No," Gripey said. "I won't forgive you." I looked at him. He looked back. We looked at one another. What to say? "You don't have to do it," he said. "We could be together. I could take care of you." Take care, Gripey, I thought, and I jumped down. The charge passed through my body. I hardly felt anything. Others around me writhed in pain. How were they still alive? Some crawled with their eyes popped out toward me, grabbing me, shouting things, unimaginable things. I didn't even hear the words, but I felt them. They squeezed me. They let go. I wasn't afraid. I was accepting it. It was good. It was bad, but it was good, all the same. It was right. It was true. This is how I felt, what happened in the room. I felt like this. I felt like writhing and crawling. I was a crawly. I was true now. I was free. 

"No," Gripey said. "Please no." But while feathers of other griffins were slowly being picked off, and the occasional griffin was squeezed to death, the suffering didn't reach me. It surrounded me, but it didn't reach me, and then, I realized the truth.

"Someone is doing this on purpose!" I said. "They're keeping us alive and killing them, Gripey!" I shouted his name, just to emphasize, and express frustration. "Gripey!"

"Maybe Hookbeak isn't who I thought," Gripey said, nodding. "Maybe not." The entire scene was absurd, and becoming more absurd by the second, and then it was gone. It was still. It was quiet. Nothing moved anymore. I looked around. I saw the griffin that had worn the mask. I walked up to him and ripped it off.

"Hello, good friend," I said. "Ahoy to you. What be your pleasure, my dear?" I wasn't playing with the corpses. I was just out of appreciation for reality. I was out of it. My mind was shutting off. "Oh, I see you." I looked at him. Then I teared up again. "I see you," I said, shaking him. "You think I don't see you? I do. I do." I could see his face with clarity. I saw all the features. I saw the fear on it, the horror, the slipping away of life, and the promise to the world that in his last moment, this is the person he would be, a face frozen in fear, wearing a mask that hid the truth. "I- don't- please, I don't," I said. I hugged the corpse, getting blood all over me. "I don't- it's not like that," I said. The corpse wasn't responding, clearly, as you might expect.

"That explains it." Gripey came flying down to me. The threat seemed to have passed with the tide and vanished away anyhow! "That's him. That's the last Admiral Artillery." He pointed at the corpse. "This is our prisoner, I think. The one that escaped. Oh, I don't like this. This is hard for me to think about. I don't want to. No." Gripey turned around. I looked at him, and then back at the corpse. 

"Hello, my dear corpse," I said. "You and I will be with each other forever. You will be a part of me, and I hope that even though you're dead, we might still form a relationship that's amicable for the both of us."

"Yeah," Gripey said, fumbling with his fingers, not really doing anything except standing there.

I hugged the corpse again. "No," I said. "No." I had more tears running down my face. A patch of griffin skin fell on my face, but I just kept crying. "This is me. I can see only me when I look at you. I love you." I hugged the corpse.

"You're bonkers," Gripey said.

"No," I said. "Please don't kill me. No, you monster. I don't want to kill you, but I do, but I don't, but I do. I love you. I don't know. I think I like things in Equestria. I don't know," I said. "I don't know." I paused. "I don't know." I started breathing more and more heavy. "No, I don't want to do this. No, please. Why? Why? Why-hahahahahahahaha," I laughed. "I love you. You love me. We love each other. We are one. I am you."  

"Okay," Gripey said. "Please step away from the dead body."

"No," I said. "Don't take me away from here. I don't ever want to forget. I would forget. I promise you, I would forget. I don't want it. No. Please don't. No. I'll be good, but I need to be here. I need to look at him. I need to. I have to. It's the only way to- to–"

"To make the shame go away. You're crazy," Gripey said. "Let's get out of here. I know a way out."

"No, I don't want," I said. "I'm happy here. I feel happy. I feel happy. I feel happy. Look." I smiled at him, with all my might. "I'm happy that I finally get to see him up so close. This is what I realized. This is what I knew. This is me. I'm covered in blood." I walked away from the corpse. "I'm covered in blood. Look." I was. "I'm me now. I can breathe again. This is what I was meant to do."

"Look," Gripey said. "Either you come, or I will force you to, got it?"

"No," I said. I groped at the corpse, almost climbing into it. I burrowed into it, the way I had burrowed into Gripey's hide. Blood splattered out of it, and simply ran down my face. "To see the face of death," I said, "is to see what I am, and what I have always been. I'm the kind of person that likes doing this. I enjoy death. I always did. I lied to myself. Don't you see? I was afraid of it. Now, I'm not afraid." Gripey reached to rip me out. "No," I said. I dug into the body, and then I lay there, entrapped by the innards of the body. He pulled me out.

"You're nuts, dude. Please, let me help you. We can help each other." He grabbed me under his arm. I tried to get off, but I couldn't. His grip was strong. "We need to get you some help. I know the place."

"No, I feel fine. Sometimes, you're supposed to feel like this. No, I'm a total murderer. I'm not bothered by the blood at all. I could lick it. I could keep on looking at it. I like blood. I remember bleeding once. I liked how it looked. I like scars. I want scars. I want to battle. I want battle. I want fear. I want fear. I want fear. I want hate. I want to get back."

"No, you don't! You hate that place."

"No." I shook my head. "No, you got it all wrong." He squeezed me even harder in his grip, walking to a lever and pulling it, and a door opened up in the wall, out the ship. "No, I just didn't want to be there because I was bored. I thought I was being used. I felt offended and hurt by that. Then I met Jelly and you. I don't want to hurt you, but I still want to hurt things. Sometimes, things just have to hurt. I wanted to hurt myself. Everything must die eventually, even trees. I liked death. I like it. I want to see blood again. I want to see things die, but not those I care about, but I just want, no! Urgh!" I struggled against his grip, but he seemed unfazed by it all. He flew up in the air. The melody of the monkey, that little song went off again. He paused. The door closed. The sloshing of water was heard in the background, both by me and Gripey. 

He said, "Too late. Now, what do we do?"

We had arrived in the safest place on earth, Circle town. I kept struggling against his grip. He put me down on the ground. "I love you," I said. "But I don't like the pathetic weakness of all the ponies I have seen, and their strange, stupid behavior. I want to kill them. I want burrow my head into their stomachs. I should go out and cut some skin off them, make a carpet." 

"Right," Gripey said. "Then that might complicate our friendship if you really feel like that."

Our friendship? "We have a friendship?" I said. "You can't be serious. We've only known each other for a day. Don't be ridiculous."

"Okay," Gripey said. The same door that had just closed reopened, and a bunch of griffins flew inside. 

One of them just sat down beside us, witnessing what I had witnessed, the strange horror-show. "Wow," he said. "Wow. This is the worst one I have ever seen, and that's saying something." How many others had there been? Now, I was considering whether I should start working in Hookbeak's employ. He knew how to deal with pains and pangs, and things he didn't like. Rip their guts out! Yes, rip them out, because ripping things out is a form of final justice that can never be denied. It has finality. Then again, maybe not. Maybe one should let them live, and be friends with them, and try to create something harmonious where everyone can live together and cooperate. That seemed better. It was all coming back to me now.





I will take you on a wild journey now. We were one, Sweetie Belle and I. We were connected, in a way I hadn't realized before. This is what Sweetie Belle and I were alluding to in the description to our story. But there's more to say, and more to know. I had changed. I didn't think I had, but I had. My personality, and that of Sweetie Belle's, were coming together, to form something that's against nature. I had her memories. I saw them now, and I didn't even have to blink to know that they were my own. I identified with them. I knew them well, even though I hadn't seen them before.

He looked upon Sweetie Belle. "I'm scared," she said. "What is this place? I tell everyone. I will tell Rarity. Please don't do this."

An insect flew up and landed on her nose, my nose, our nose. "You need not be afraid. This is a simple procedure. It will do you no harm."

He looked at me. It was Sidus, but really, it was Aldeus. It was both. "We are steadfast in our convictions," he said. "We are steadfast in our shame. I know that shame is new to you, only a child, as you are." He walked toward her. He stumbled forward. He had a terrible limp, this giant blue alicorn that I saw before me. He was wretched. He was so old that he looked like death itself, and his face was a mask, a feeble mask, of heavy wrinkles that hid the features underneath. "We don't want to alarm you," he said. "But we must. We simply must."  

"No," Sweetie said, crying. Oh, I felt another sting of shame. What had I done? What had Sweetie Belle done? What are we? Who is this? Well, this is the tale of a blue alicorn, his strange ways, and a path to redemption for the both of us, dear reader, and let's see what you think of his and my redemption, as they pan out through time. 

"I wanted to help you," Sidus said. A light flashed in the room, and his eyes got pitch-red, and his body black, and then, the light, it was a bright white light, faded, and his blue body returned. "It seems we're destined to haunt each other's memory."

Sweetie writhed. She was tied into a machine. The insect landed on Sidus' head. "It's not too bad," it said. "We will make you happy. We always do. We can make anyone happy, happier than they would've been, had they lived in Equestria."

"But I don't want to do it," she said.

A specter rose up in the background. It was a mass of colors that formed into a barren wasteland, full of dead bodies, and on top of the hill in the middle of the motif, was a fallen griffin, unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony. The griffin faded off, and turned to ash. It was my puzzle! That was why I remembered the puzzle. It was a memory. That's why I wanted to bring it with me when I escaped. I was besieged by memories. "We're sorry," Sidus said. The light flashed again, but rather than lighting up, his body got pitch-dark, and eyes red again, while everything around him lit up. Then, the light faded.  

"Can you see?" he said. "It's death. It's what we're meant to do now, all of us. I wanted it to be this way."

"Can you see yourself killing when you have those things?" Sweetie said. "You have things all over. You don't want to do this. This is terrible." I knew what she meant. The dead bodies made her body want to shut down, out of fear. She was close to fainting, but she held strong. She thought there was a hope, maybe a second chance. A hope of escape stood before her, maybe.

Sidus stared at Sweetie Belle. "I can be anything," he said. "Today, I will be the boogey-man, and your worst fear, but tomorrow, we will save Equestria together, by killing ponies, and you will help me, because I believe in you, and then, you will set me free." A big swarm of black, a lump in the background, rose up. The light lit up. He was standing on a railing, and behind it, was a deep pool that was filled with some kind of liquid flowing around, and it spun around in circles until Sweetie's head got dizzy, and out of it, arose visions, like that of the fallen three, and the griffin, and then, the vision broadened. More things rose up. Ghosts came upon Sweetie Belle. A dead Rarity flew into her face, and a dead dragon, and a dead Ponyville, her home town, with ashes and dust settling in, with not a sign of life, but the tree of Twilight, her palace, stood tall.

"No," Sweetie said. "Let me go. Let me go. Let me go. What are you doing?" Then, Ponyville surrounded her, and fires came, and ponies screamed around her, and death.

"A vision into the future," Sidus said. The light flashed and broke through the vision, and the fires stopped, and light literally pierced through Ponyville, and Sidus got black with red eyes, and a black swarm of tiny bugs rose up behind him, reminiscent of Nexus, but much different. This swarm was gigantic, and full of tiny critters, bugs that are as small as a spec on the ground, a grain of sand, but they sang loudly. The swarm rose up, and it screeched, and Sidus bent his head down, his posture failing him, and he stumbled in place, not moving properly. The swarm screeched and screeched, and it got louder, and the railing screeched, and everything shouted louder and louder. The bugs hit the railing, and a rat-tat-tat-tat-tat sound was produced, with many tiny clinks going all over, rattling Sweetie Belle, rattling me, though I may not deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with her, whatever I was, and what with the things they did to her.

"Daaa," the swarm sang, sounding like a swarm of bees, but harmonious, and giving off melodies. "Da-A-AaA-A."

The horn of Sidus lit up and produced a similar sound. "Da-AAA," it said, marking the thing into my memory, forever, though I didn't know it yet. "Da-AaAaA-A." The thing rose and fell in pitch, and indeed, it was all a buzz, going off, going louder, going like this for a long time. Then it stopped. 

Sidus walked up to Sweetie. "I don't pretend to know the pain you feel. I don't expect you to forgive me. I expect you to hate me." The flash came back and turned his body pitch-black, as black as the blackest coal. "We will use that hatred, and you will say no. Maybe you will even escape. I think you might. You're one likely suspect. I will let you," he said, and he reached forward, kissing Sweetie's forehead. She wiggled, trying to get away from him. He had no tact. He was an old coot, and yet, he was practically all-powerful. Why? For all the wrong reasons, as you will learn. All the wrong reasons that have happened by pure chance!

"I don't know," Sidus said. "Is the machine ready?" The light flashed again. "Well, apparently not." Was he hiding behind this black cloak whenever he spoke to us? I had hypothesized that he had made his wife into this machine, this Aldeus, and that he turned her into a cyborg, as I was reading the interesting and strange book, the Griffonoi. It said that she had vanished, and Sidus was believed to be responsible for it. But then, this seemed to go against that, and indeed, it seemed to disconfirm my theories, but I was unsure. Then Aldeus was this, whatever, strange thing? This specter of death?

He turned around. "This will simply not do. I think we are running late." The swarm sang to him. He turned back toward Sweetie. "This is the worst thing I could do to anyone. Don't you think I know that? Well, I might be old, but I'm not blind." He pointed at his eye, shakily. "I can see things. I have suffered too, though not as much as you will, when I'm done with you. Bloody mind, where are you taking us?" He shouted something that to Sweetie Belle, was just scary, terrifying, and absolutely unnecessary. It lowered her spirits, and made her give up, made her want to surrender to the force of the threat at hand. The power of the black! I understood what Aqasha meant now. Black against sky! In the light, his true identity was hidden, or was it? It seemed likely for that to be true, given what I was seeing, so I decided that I thought it must be true, and so it was. 

A single insect flew down and landed on his back. "Complications," it said. "We have harmed the machinery through too much gear-work. Our middle is tired. It needs rest, my friend."

"It needs rest, but then, what are we doing here?" Sidus said. "I don't want to keep the child waiting, what with the circumstances, and what we know might happen if someone were to find her. Where is she?" he said, hysterically looking around, with all the speed in the world, even though he had seemed like a stumbling, bumbling corpse a second ago. A-0087, unexpectedly to Sweetie, came running.

"Hello. I must help you. How do I help?" she said.

Sidus touched her face with his front-hoof. "We must get more guards, and we must be swift. This place will be unsafe in approximately, um."

"Fifty," a heap of bugs sang, literally singing out the words, in harmony with one another, sounding, again, like buzzing little bees, little insects. "Fifty," another heap said louder. "Fiftyyy," almost the whole swarm screeched.

A-0087 just looked at him, as if she was oblivious to all this. It's almost, or maybe it was that the swarm, all of the swarm, was invisible to her. "What?" she said. "In how long will they come?"

"Fifty," he said.

"Fifty," she said, running away, not even bothering to ask what it was fifty of, minutes or hours? Seconds? She was a stooge. She simply listened to him, and then she ran away.

"You won't get away with all this. Someone will stop you. Twilight will come," Sweetie said, more to herself than to him, to calm herself down, to remind herself that everything was okay.

Sidus turned again toward Sweetie, and he had a weird look on his face. He stumbled forward, and he looked into her eyes. She looked back, and then she closed them. He used his magic to reopen them. He stared into them. He stared, with pain, and with loss, with the loss of life, the will to die in his eyes, like I had seen in my own, and those of others, my victims, and the torture chambers in the dark reminded me of how that looked, which I had seen images of from many places in the fortress, though I had never been there, as all the torturing belonged to the mines.

"I feel blind," Sidus said. "I feel like I could lose my resolve any moment now. This is not good." The swarm buzzed in the background.

Many insects came flying, landing around him. "The hive will keep you warm. We will stay the course, and never mind the cost of all you do." The insects flew into his fur, and crept up through it, speaking in unison. "We will kill the world, or else, we will watch it kill itself. Does this not exact our prophecy?" 

"We will kill as many as we must," Sidus said. "It all starts with a pony like you. First, they will think that you are just a regular old threat, like a little turret, or a tank, or a machine that can be killed if you really want to. Then, they will realize that they can't kill you. They will try to protect you. When they do, they will have to remember what's important, and then they will learn. If I cannot teach them, then no one can. I have eyes into the future, the same way Cornicus has eyes into the present. I know that what I do will come true. I know it all. I have seen it, but your future." He poked Sweetie Belle in the stomach. "Remains a mystery to me, and that's why you're here. We have been having trouble, getting a grip on you. You got too close to the weapon, and now, you will have to pay the price, and so will I, but we both will learn in the end, won't we? You will see me, and I will see you. I will try to learn from you, because I'm blind, and I'm dying inside. How does that sound?"

"Let me go, you crazy person," Sweetie said, yelling, basically pleading, for mercy.

"No!" Sidus said. "I will never let you go! But you won't do the same to me, so what difference does it make? You live inside me. Each pony I've turned has killed me further, and now, I need salvation, and you, my friend, will be just that. You will see."

A hook reached down from the ceiling. I blinked a few times. He was black. Then he was dark blue, like Luna. Then, he was black again. Then, I saw him, but he was standing in front of me, in the massive room where we did tests.

"I know who you are," I said, staring into his eyes, inside that room. "I know. I know." He looked back at me. Was this a memory still? Something seemed... off.

"Yes," he said. "It's this dream again." He smiled. The black melted off him, and he was blue again. "Am I your only friend?"

"No," I yelled.





"No," I yelled. Gripey looked at me, as more griffins were coming into the egg-ship.

"You got some problems you need to deal with," he said, in typical repetitive Gripey-fashion.

"Yes," I said. "I sure do."
> Part 15: The Tower of His Love
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

You'll wish you hadn't read this story, is what I feel now. It's actually a grim story, and far more grim than I've previously alluded or made you aware of. The griffins flooded into the room, and they grabbed bodies, carrying them away, wearing big masks and suits, though not the same kind as the griffin that I had hugged and made love with, in a manner of speaking. That mask was wood, and cracked, and these were see-through. They were safety masks, clearly.  

"Over here," one said, yelling to the others. The whole scene was, well, strange, to say the least. Made love with? What a strange choice of words from me. Why would I refer to it in that way? Because I loved being there with him? I had literally, and I really don't mean to disgust any readers out there, but this can't be overstated, I had literally crawled into his stomach, like a cocoon. What in the world? I was absolutely bonkers. Gripey was right. I didn't deserve him.

Well, I realize now that I've said this, but in a different context, and so, I think it makes sense to reiterate. I don't feel shame that Gripey was with me. I didn't, and I don't. I felt shame that he didn't understand. Gripey was right in that I am crazy, and I don't deserve him, on account of that, and the reasons for my craziness are my actions, and those, he didn't understand. He simply didn't. He didn't have a clue. He could pretend that he did, but he didn't, and that's all there is to it. That's all there has been, into time, and will continue to be, as long as he kept mollycoddling the issue, and telling me that it was fine. It wasn't. It wasn't. Hey, by the way, it wasn't. No-no.

A few griffins came to us. They had weapons, but they were sheathed. "Come along now," one said. "It's time to be processed and put into the dungeon-place." More like the redungeant place, I thought. I laughed, but then I thought better of it. I hated my own laugh. I hated my own ease of mind, that came from another pony inside, that I was forced to share it with, and well, so it was. So it had been, but I didn't know it until now. Now, it was rather obvious, but before, it hadn't been. It had been un-obvious, which is to say devoid of obviousness, and that's really all there is to it, again, like with Gripey, Sweetie Belle also deserved a better friend. But I wasn't the one to give it to her. I realized now that I was created to kill, and Sweetie Belle, albeit perhaps a flawed little child, really wasn't. She was created for converse purposes, allow the heavy phraseology for a moment. She was created for big things, big rotund, and awesomely, yes, out of this world things. I was holding her back, but perhaps there was yet a hope that she and I could get disconnected, and then, she could return to a normal life, as normal as it gets in war-ravaged Equestria, though I had seen nothing yet. 

I wasn't moving. "C'mon," Gripey said, staring at me with anger and defiance, and lots, lots of anger, mind you. "We have to go. Do you want to get killed too?" He had seen a part of me that I myself hadn't realized existed. It was all a little crazy, and too much to bear, but I thought that the rational thing to do was to come with him. Maybe they could help Sweetie Belle, and maybe I could as yet help him in some way, before I succumbed to my head injuries, that had given me alarm, but now, calmed me more than anything. My head injury, I realized, at least offered a dignified way out the door. The door of life. The door of destiny, that I didn't want any part of, no-no! 

We walked out and got into a gigantic, hugely huge room that was made of metal and stone, and in the ceiling, was water, and a glass window to protect against its sudden encroachment, should the water escape. The water was all the way up there. Fish swam through it. An aquarium? Down here? How peculiar, I thought. I was gripped by the thought for a moment, but then, I came along with the griffins, that didn't at all seem all that threatening, or threatened. They seemed cool as cucumbers, and like they had the situation under control. We walked up a staircase, and then another. The staircase, again, was of metal, with tiny holes in it. This wasn't an aquarium. It was some sort of public worksite. I just knew from the railing, of metal, and the way everything was built. This is not how an aquarium looked. Not at all! No, I at least was sure of that. We kept walking. We a-walked, moving up the stairs. We reached the top. The walls were brown, like my mood. 

"Hey, come," one said, laying a careful hand on Gripey. He didn't protest. He walked through the door as they guided him, and we came out into something that was also new to me. We were in a street. The street was full of griffins walking around, big and small. It was bustling. It was a city-environment, with the street stretching far into the distance, like a straight line, and when I looked closer, bent away into a bow. If its namesake was to be taken literally, this meant that the town was circular, as the bow would return back where it began, if it kept moving in a circular way, rather than being a geometric bow. A geometric bow is a half-moon, in this language, but this bow would return, and then, form a perfect circle, or perhaps not a perfect one, but something like it. It was a long, long, humungous street though. Very long! We were guided through it.  

"The prison-keeper will take care of you," one said. It struck me how easy it would be for one of us to escape, but we didn't. We just followed, like good prisoners. "The prison is just around the corner." They literally lead us into a corner, an alleyway. We walked inside. They knocked on a little door, made of cheap-looking wood. This was a prison? They had the wherewithal to build that ship, but their prison was located in a back-alley? It didn't make sense.   

They knocked again. The door opened up. No one was there. I was reminded of the cat-girl. I sort of missed having her around, even though I had only met her on two or three occasions. We moved into a room that was asymmetrically built. The walls were askew, and the floor was a patchwork of tiny pieces of metal, screwed together on top of each other to form a floor. In the back of the room sat a griffin, a grey one, with white head, and tired-looking eyes, with a disposition about him that made me hesitate. His eyes reminded me of my own, when I had seen my reflection in the water, or in a piece of blank, solid metal, but how could that be?

He remained still, unmoving like a rock, but his eyes caught us, and looked at us. Then, he rose up from his desk and walked out from behind it. "Gripey, why are you here?" He looked at Gripey with a little bit of anger, which surprised me. They were friends? They were enemies? "I'll give you one of the less, um, dangerous cells," he said, turning around and sprinting back toward the desk. In such a hurry, he went back. "Okay." He tapped something. "This'll do."

Gripey walked up to him. "Coley, long time no see."

Coley tapped more aggressively on his screen, for whatever reason. "Yes," he said. "It was a long time since we were seen, both of us." He looked up at Gripey. "What did you do, Gripey? It says here you raped a person." Gripey was dumbstruck with this. He looked more confused than angry. Then he shook his head, slowly. 

"No?" Coley waved his hand toward the two guard-griffins. "Oh, you can leave. I'm sure I'll be able to handle one griffin and that little, whatever it is," he said, his one eye moving to me, while the other stayed focused on the two soldiers. They both left out the door. What a strange, unceremonious procedure, I thought. This was way different from the fortress, way more relaxed. 

"Okay," Coley said. "I'll put you in cell B. It's one of the better ones. It's the one with electricity."

"That's better?" Gripey said, looking surprised and hesitant. 

"Yus," Coley said. "Cell Z gives you small fires that burn your skin off slowly. Cell Q decapitates you, and I'm not even sure what cell Y does. I think it slowly fills up with water, but just as it's full, it empties again."

"I think I want that one," Gripey said, no doubt thinking about what we had just been through. This place was rough though. It reminded me a lot of the fortress now, what with the hot cement, and being blasted to pieces if you didn't behave.

Coley turned the screen he was looking at around toward Gripey. "Are you sure? It's one of the worse ones. I've seen a few drowners in there, but even if you don't drown, you won't be able to sleep much, and it will probably kill you, just the sleep deprivation. Boy, it says here you're staying a long time. How come that be? What made you want to go the path of crime, Hokey. Oh, sorry. Gripey. Your name all but- but slipped my mind." He gripped his forehead, signaling confusion. 

"The electricity," Gripey said.

"I know it can't hurt me at all," I blurted. That's funny. I was trying to find the easy way out, at least on a subconscious level, since I had just blurted that out of nowhere. "I don't think so." I just kept going. My selfishness knew no bounds.

"Then you take it," Gripey said to me.

"No," I said. "I think I should suffer some more. It will help me ease my pain, of regret and such. That's real pain, not the kind you feel on your body."

"Don't be ridiculous," Gripey said. "I said I would protect you." He also said he wouldn't forgive me though, when I jumped down there, and I believed him, but maybe that was on the assumption that I would die, and if so, I understood it. Sure, I did.

"No. Just let me do this." I shook my head. "Just let me do this."

"She can't decide," Gripey said to Coley.

"Neither can you," Coley said, smiling. "It'll be the electricity for her then, and, um, not the water. No, it'll be room A for you. You'll be neighbors. You'll get the rat-infested room. It's infested with wild rats. Good luck." He tapped the screen. A door opened up beside the desk, into a corridor. "Oh, and if you try to escape, which I trust you won't do, I will be forced to kill you," he said. "Ta-ta!" He waved at us, as we walked through the door. That was another grim character, in a long line of many. Why had he decided to spare me, just so Gripey could suffer more, when in the opposite case, we would both be suffering? Maybe there was something gentle within him after all, even though, I knew, again, at the risk of being repetitive, that I don't deserve it, and I don't!

"Botsy." Gripey walked in front of me and blocked off the hallway. "I really don't like the way you've been acting recently, in the last few hours."

"I'm dying," I said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." I walked around him. "If the Yether is to be believed."

"He isn't," Gripey said. "He's literally the most untrustworthy person in the land. He's just messing with you."

"My leg. I have trouble walking on it again." I tried to put more bodyweight on it than I had, and it almost collapsed. I pushed further, and then I fell down on the ground, just lying there. "Oh, what a world," I said. "The world is beautiful and strange."

"Shut up and come along," Gripey said, picking me up and carrying me. "We don't want Coley after us. He's the master of all imprisonment here, and he's bad, bad news." Coley? Oh, yes, that other guy was Coley. He was named Coley. I remembered it, thinking that it might be useful, or relevant to what might happen in the future. Coley. Coley was a cute little name. Why did everyone in Equestria have such cute names? My real name was F-5226. I'd better remember that, I thought. 

"I'm following along on the journey," I said. "And it's taking me into a prison. This isn't the first time. How strange. Is imprisonment my destiny maybe?"

"Shut up," Gripey said. I was behaving strangely, I must admit, but the situation was complicated. A little war was going on inside me, and the sweet part of it, the Sweetie-part, was winning. That seemed to be it. It felt complicated. It felt true. That's what was going on. I was sure of it. I did want to kill, but I didn't. I was sweet, but I wasn't. I was a heartless blood-sucking monster parasite, but I was also a little child that looked like she was ten years old. Crazy times. I was being carried by a person that I considered to be a friend, and yet, a part of me disliked him, and wanted to hurt him. I felt hurt inside me, the physical sensation and the emotion of hurt, that told me to hurt, hurt everything, hurt life. This is what Sidus and the bug swarm had done to me? I was reduced to a strange mix of emotions that would stay with me forever, or could I grow out of it? It remained to be seen, but then, it also seemed like I would die soon, on account of my throwing my head against things, hard things, that hurt a lot, and made me feel better in my stomach, made the shame go away for a tiny bit, until it came back, until it went away, until it came back, and so and so, it went. 

I felt better though, than I had. I felt more awake, more focused, and more confused, about life, about Sweetie Belle, and about what to do with my newfound knowledge of the two. Sweetie, no doubt, deserved a home that was better than the one she had gotten. Her voice spoke to me. It demanded to be free, and I would set it free, if I could, unless I died first, likely outcome. 

The two cell doors were already open. "Gripey," I said. "I'm sorry for my demeanor. Can I ask you something? Why are we willingly, and of our own volition, walking into a torture chamber?" 

"I dunno," he said. "It's better than death," he said, walking into his. He said a lot of things, Gripey, tried and true, friend forever, on my back, or me on his, on each other's, on each other's case, living it out. Living out our strange predilections together, he and I, had, in the passive case, because everything we had done was in the passive voice, and not the active one. The passive voice was a passive force that told us to do things passively, and that's what led us, through the world. We had been inactive. He hadn't been doing his job. He had been away. He had run away, for whatever reason, and raped? Hardly, I didn't believe it for a second. There had to be a wider context, even if that context is that that drug he talked about made him into a sex-crazed monster. So be it, then, but he wasn't a sexual kind of creature. He didn't reach out and try to do stuff to me. He barely even spoke about the subject. It made him uncomfortable. It made me uncomfortable, and no wonder. It's a strange, crazy, and heavy subject, that makes ponies and griffins hesitate, because they don't feel like they can be sexual in public, and that was understandable to say the least, not the most, but the least. 

The most was that ponies and griffins also had sexual frustrations and things that, if allowed to run rampant in the real world, might affect their lives in ways that took them away from direct, important, and pertinent matters that were right at their doorstep, and such things cannot be allowed. No-no. We cannot have an over-sexual population, I thought. My mind was running a bit wild again. I tried to reign it in. Nevertheless, Gripey had done something that was taken to be a crime, and I would figure out what eventually, not because I particularly wanted to know, but because my undeniable curiosity couldn't and wouldn't refuse. 

I just stood there. I saw a counter right above my cell. It was down to seconds, counting down. "Walk inside," Gripey said, "unless you want to die, like you said."

"I guess I don't want to die," I said, walking inside.

"You guess?" I felt a slight buzzing sound coming from somewhere. I felt it in my body. It felt like air. I opened the hatch on my hoof. My energy was full. I didn't even know it worked that way. Gripey spoke in wide emotion, and wide conceit. "I don't know. I still think I want us to be friends." You don't, Gripey. I'm sorry, I thought. I will push you away. I will be forced to. It's for your own griping good.  

"How are the rats?" I said, coming to other thoughts.

"I don't see any rats," he said. I couldn't see him, but I could hear him from the other room. "I guess they come eventually."

"These eventualities concern me," I said. "I think I don't like this place at all."

"What can you do?" Gripey said. Coley came walking down the stairs into the corridor with cells. The corridor, by the way, was blue, and looked overly sanitized. It was a very boring corridor, uninteresting. The interesting thing was what was about to happen right now.

"I've just gotten a call," Coley said, "from the mayor." He laughed and then he leant in toward me, sticking his head between the bars of my cell. "You have powerful friends. So be it then. Out you go." With those words, the cell doors opened. He didn't even do anything or press anything.  

"About time," I said, a little angrily.

Gripey gave me an admonishing look. Coley just stared at the both of us, empty-eyed. 

"Oh, I suppose it was about time. The rats were being shipped into your cell. They would've arrived any second now. They're usually very aggressive, but I'm sure you could take them, Gripey-boy." He patted Gripey on the back. "And then there would be more rats, and then you would get tired, and then the rats would kill you eventually. I'm sure of that." 

"Whatever, Coley."

"Whatever it takes," Coley said, with his tired eyes, sacks under his eyes, and then he walked back up the stairs. 

"Wait," I said.

Coley turned around. "Yes? Oh, I'm sorry. I have much to do, believe it or not. My job is not a picnic. What is it?"

"You love it though," Gripey said. He smiled at Coley.

"Yes, I suppose I do. Now, what was it that you wanted? I'm a little busy."

The mannerisms of the griffin, I thought, reminded me a little of Hookbeak's. Both cyborgs? Maybe this person was just a bit socially maladaptive. No doubt, that would explain why he was alone in this little underground garage of torture chambers. "You're just letting us go?" I said. "Just like that? No questions asked?" 

Coley turned around and walked up the stars.

"We're not." Gripey walked ahead, running up. "We're really not."

I also ran, running up. "Why to- I mean, what? I don't know. What's going on?" We came up the stairs, and the room was filled to the brim with guards, but these weren't just any guards. They didn't look like the ones from before had. They had metal hands, claws, and some of them, shining blue metal eyes, and some metal wings and legs.  

"They're like you," Coley said, absentmindedly. Like me? Only less convincing then. Still, maybe they could teach me something, or maybe they could even help me. I followed them along out, together with Gripey.  

"The train," one of them yelled. "The train. The train!" The train? "Where is that train? Train! Train!"

Wow, they really pulled a number on me. I wanted to shout along with them, her. I think it was a her. "Train." I thought that was just as socially maladaptive as I had been, and this being the case, I might be tempted to shout too. "Train," she said again.

Something came spinning. I looked to the side. There was a giant mote, going right through the middle of town. The street was lined with houses, and outside the street, behind the house that we were beside, was a giant mote, or was it a mote? Yes, it was. It had water running right through it, but the water rushed. It looked more like a river than a mote to me, a mote-river? It was a big imposing sight. I felt the urge to back away, lest I should fall down. 

"Come-come," the griffin said. She looked griffin, except one feature, a hand that was made of metal. She pushed on me with it. I followed the gesture to its conclusion, and moved with each push of her hand. Then, we got out into a very small open area. There was a space between one house and the next, an empty space, which looked like it lacked a house that could've been there. I heard a screech, a loud screech, a squeaking sound, like something that is badly oiled, an engine, and then, a dull thud reached my ears, and I saw a bridge with rails going across it, that crossed the mote. I looked to the other side, and there were more houses over there. A very similar street with picturesque colorful houses was located on the other side of that mote, and I looked further. There was another mote on the other side of that street, that was filled with gushing water too, and on the other side of the mote on the other side of the street that was on the other side of this mote, were more houses. Circle town, I thought. Makes sense. It's circled by motes, and bridges that you need access to in order to cross them. Rails now appeared out of the ground on the street. I moved. My hoof got down in the hole where the rail came up.   

Something moved out of the corner of my eye. I saw that more rails appeared, all the way over on the other side of the mote. Another bridge, with rails on it, stopped on the opposite side of the street that was across, so there were two bridges, going across two motes, with rails on them, and rails on the ground to carry a train. Where is the train then, may I wonder? I thought about it. Where be that train, if the whole place is set up so trains can go across it? I turned around from the rails in the opposite direction, expecting to see another mote, or the border of town, but all I saw was blackness. The shield. It moved. It was the shield around town, the one I had heard about. I followed the black thing that moved and spun up against the sky. It reached all the way up against the sky, and at the top, was a hole. The eye of the storm, then, I thought. What produced it? 

Right beside the hole was a metal rectangle that reached into the hole, and disappearing into it. The tower, this was the tower, was surrounded by storm, a giant tornado. No, a cyclone. I then followed the metal rectangle down to its base. It stood atop a giant perpendicular hill, right in the middle of town. The hill was unassuming. It was very symmetrical, sure, but it looked like it had earth and grains in it, and how come then, I thought, did they build such a big towering thing on something that looks so fragile. The hill might've been half a kilometer high, and it might've been just as long around, judging from what I knew about schematics, circumference-wise, but I was just using my eye as a yardstick. My eye had failed me before, but nevertheless, it was a tall, tall hill, and wide, as it was tall, but not longer in diameter than it was tall. That is a separate matter. You following this, reader?  

A giant metal fence surrounded the town, so that it would make it less likely for griffins to accidentally get sucked into it, I thought, but I also knew, not from having read about it much, but common sense, that tornadoes are dangerous. They're violent, and if Circle town wanted a tornado, a giant cyclone, encircling it, then they had better be careful. The metal fence split, and the ground beneath it opened up, and a giant train came chugging out the door. 

It had steam coming out of it, coal-driven. "All aboard," the female griffin said. "Come aboard, please." Gripey went aboard without questioning it. I was a little skeptical. Where were they taking us? "Come aboard," the griffin said, robotically. "I'm sure you want to come. Come aboard." I finally relented, and came aboard, figuring that whatever it was that awaited us, at least Gripey was okay with it.   





We went up through at tunnel. It got black around the train. Then, lights lit up the path. I felt dizzy. We were in some kind of a zigaroo, a zigzag pattern. We were going in a circle? No, we were going back and forth. I finally figured out that the rails went back and forth from side to side, but higher and higher. Ah, we were inside the hill. So I saw. So I understood. That was fascinating. The hill had a hollow inside. But of course. How else would you get a train through there? It would be virtually impossible, so of course it made sense that this was the way in which they do this.

The train itself was luxurious and comfortable. Gripey didn't speak to me during the ride. That was fair. I myself, if I were him, would've rather banged my head against a wall than speak to me, and that is true. That is a fact. That is fair. I think it is more than fair. It's rather obvious, actually, when you think about it. I had been acting like a total madman around him, a mad-fil, a mad-filly, a freak, and a crazy one at that. I had been bonkers around him, but this need not be reiterated further, I hope. I was self-aware of the strangeness of my behavior, and yet, I didn't pity him, because he wasn't all that aware of what was happening to me, and if he was, I'm sure he would understand. A poor filly trapped with a psychotic killer, both sharing the same brain? I had all her memories, and thoughts that proved to me I was her, and she was me, and she, though I could not contact her, was aware that this was the case, I thought, and she lived beside me, trying to get through. She had been trying to commit suicide, I'm pretty sure, but I can't be all that sure. Things are complicated in my dire situation. Things had been, always, and would continue to be. 

I want to give a few more experiences I had with Sweetie Belle. I think she didn't like me very much. This is based on the assumption that she, this little child, knew who I was, but I had reason to believe that. In the last hour or so, I had thought many strange thoughts, albeit totally analyzable through this split-personality lens, and this was the conclusion I had come to. I had a split personality. Either that, or all the evidence pointed in that direction, and toward the same terminus. I could be wrong, but I didn't think so. I was rather sure that it had to be true. Things like this don't just seem to be true without being true. That's not how the universe works. That is true. At the fear of being repetitive, all of this, I think, is true. It is true. It is true, but it is also illustrative of an uncomfortable fact. My own thoughts, and my own brain, were somehow enhanced or melded unto this strange filly's little one. I knew words and things that a child couldn't possibly know, or have learned.

Sweetie would think things like: "That's funny. I like that." I, on the other hand, would think things like: "The recalibration of the current motor processing system is in order." Her thoughts met mine in the middle, and together, we made an odd couple, but I was the odd one out. I felt deeply ashamed, upon this realization, if it were indeed true. Just a short while ago, inside the egg-ship, I had gotten visions of her past. I had felt extraordinarily sad, and yet, it also felt distant. It also felt like all that wasn't me, and I didn't feel sad, but I did, but I didn't, but I did, but I didn't. Make sense? No. Well, perhaps, as the great storytellers of the ages, and my time, have said, it's better to show than tell, but to show, I will need some assistance from the smartest person in the world. That person, I think it's fair to say, though you have heard the name before, was Cornicus Beakon, Hookbeak. He was and is the smartest person that I had ever met, and also, in a way, probably the dumbest person I had ever met. He was smart, I suppose, on the one hoof, but on the other, unwise in a way that was extraordinary, and that's coming from me. Since I would soon arrive at his doorstep, I think I will yield the floor to him.





First floor. We walked inside the tower. It was unassuming. It had a stone throne at the back, and a long rectangular table with food on it, fruit bowls. It looked like it could be a conference room, judging from the schematics. 

The griffin had been sure to say, "Don't touch this. Don't eat that." She said this before we walked inside, so that we would follow her instruction. Well, for one thing, I wasn't going to eat anything, and for another, I was already afraid as it was without having a bunch of rules imposed on me by these strange individuals. This was it then. This was the case, and if this was the case, then what would that yield, that being the future. We walked inside a standard classic high-speed elevator, like I knew from the fortress. The one in the fortress had been very carefully and unabashedly stolen by the griffins, or rather, perhaps more likely, it was the other way around. The griffins and their all-technology ethos and culture had existed for a long time, as well as their greed and money-grubbing, while the fortress had only existed for a decade or so. Big difference, and I didn't think for a second that Aldeus' genius could split the difference between griffs and robots, and explain this technological conundrum in a way that made us the brilliant inventors, and the griffs, saps, and thieves of ours. 

We got to the second floor. That floor had a bunch of tubes going across the floor. It had no floor to speak of. At the end of it was a giant metal ball. It was hollow. Décor or something else, I thought. Hm? There really wasn't any path through, other than to climb over the metal tubes. They were many times my size. I mean, I really had to strain myself to climb, and only with the help of a few griffins did I get across. Of course, they could fly, and it's safe to assume that this place was designed with them in mind, not me.

We got inside another high-speed elevator. A few seconds later...

Third floor. Fifth floor? I didn't know anymore. It felt like we had skipped a few floors. This floor didn't have any floor at all. Only a platform that we had to walk out on, and then, the platform, travelling on a rail, carried us across to the other side of that same floor. There were green plants around there, but other than that, the room was literally pitch-black, dark as death.

I watched the display on the elevator. It said, 356. 356? This tower was higher than I thought a tower could be built then. I would want to take that up with the architect, because I was curious about the logistics, not that this is anything the reader should be concerned with, except, perhaps, to say, it was a really tall building. The floor had many corridors. It was shock-full of griffins in lab coats, quietly talking. They barely noticed us as we passed by. Scientists then, I thought. My type. 

We got into another elevator. The layout of the building made it so that instead of going straight up, we had to pass from elevator to elevator. I interpreted this, I think correctly, as a safety measure at the time. It was obvious that this building was built so that none other than griffins could get through it, and to reach the top, you had to go slowly. 

Next floor. A giant garden. This floor was a greenhouse, but without the authentic sunlight. It had UV lights in the ceiling, and it was a jungle. The griffins rushed us through this room, or floor. It was a big open room.  

"This floor is not safe," one of them said. I wondered why.

We went up again. Now, we got into a very tiny, narrow hallway. The display on the elevator simply said, "floor of the board." The board, as in wood? A wooden board? Well, this nice little corridor was made of wood, but I was dissuaded of that thought once I saw the pictures on the walls. They all depicted griffins. I saw a yellow griff that glared at me. She was female, and she held a book in her hand. Gelly Rambunct, I thought. Further into the room was a picture of a small griff-child. She was cute. She was like me, a lost child, that died young. She was Meeza, I knew. Now, I was happy I had read that stupid old book, interesting and stupid. It made me feel more aware of my surroundings. Above the door to the next room, at the end of the little pretty wooden corridor, was a picture of Cornicus. He had crazy eyes. I mean, really, they stared right through you, into your soul. Have you ever met a person with crazy eyes before? A person with intense, wide-open, frantic, staring eyes? There was a glimmer of intelligence in them. Well, if you have, you will know what I mean.  

One of the griffins that escorted us, the cyborg-griffs, opened the door, and another, rather hastily, pushed us inside. I fell face-first onto the floor, but then just stood up, going inside, expecting to see either Hookbeak, or his secretary, or the mayor. We had been alerted, or I had anyway, that this place had a mayor in addition to a Hookbeak, which is starting to sound more and more like a strange, albeit mysterious, ethnic reference the more that I think about it. What a crazy name, and he had adopted the name, entirely of his own volition, because his beak was shaped like a hook. Inside was another rectangular long table with seven chairs. They all were empty. The griffins walked through, and rather than pushing us, and clamoring around us, they walked to the sides of the walls of the room, lining them, like soldiers. We just walked straight through. I stopped. Gripey turned around and picked me up. We kept going. At the end of the room was a door. Gripey opened it and walked inside. Once there, was another set of winding stairs that were made of metal grating. 

The stairs took Gripey some effort, since he was carrying me. Once we reached the top, there was gigantic metal door, with a round handle, like the door to a vault. The handle swung by itself, and the door opened. 

"You go first," Gripey said.

"Why not both?"

"No, it's always one at a time."

"Okay." I walked inside. The door slammed shut behind me. 

I was standing on a, well, a tiny space. The entire room was a tiny hexagonal space that only I could fit in, but how then would I talk to the mayor or whatever? The walls around me moved, moved down, lowering to the floor. The walls were made out of hexagonal platforms that one by one, all lowered, making it possible for me to walk forward. They had white shining LED lights on them, which is a technical term by the way, if you're wondering, that made it possible for me to see a room that was otherwise unlit. The walls kept lowering, and the room got bigger and bigger. Then, some lowered further, and sank into the floor, and beneath the floor, making a black abyss. The platforms sank down several floors down, and a fence rose up around the elevation at which I stood. Okay then, I thought. Freaky, and weird! Then, a single platform sank down from the ceiling. It was the last platform that hadn't either become floor, or that had sank down beneath it, and formed an abyss. The platform had something on it. I heard wheezing and coughing.   

When the platform had gotten all the way down, I was surprised to find a big machine made of solid iron, or something like that. It was white metal. The metal coughed. Once my eyes readjusted, I could see that it was a person. It was lying there, coughing, writhing, in agony. It moved and wiggled across the floor. I backed away a bit. It looked like it had trouble breathing. It wheezed and lay planted on the floor. Then it stood up, slowly, and supporting itself on the metal fence, that looked rather tiny in comparison to him. 

"Blast it," he said. "Where are my lungs?"

I recognized it. It was the voice of Hookbeak, but it was more metallic, more oily. "Hookbeak!" I said, smiling.

"A-hahahaha!" he said, stumbling forward. I moved out the way. "You think you're clever, don't you?" he said to me. 

"No," I said, shaking my head. "No, I think that's one of my weaker characteristics, actually."

He sighed, and his voice gave out a croaking sound, like it was clogged. His throat or his voice had something in it, or he couldn't speak properly for whatever reason. "I'm sorry. It's this blasted metal suit. It's failing me again."

"Could I help?"

"No." He shook his head violently. "But thank you for asking, my little engineer." He picked up something off the floor. It was an eye. He pushed it into his head. "There," he said. "Much better. No, what I meant to say was, do you think you can get away with stealing our technology?"

"No, well, it wasn't I that did it."

"Schilence," he said.

"Okay."

"No, I'm sorry. It's this blasted metal suit. It's clogging my brain."

"I see."

He jumped, hovering over me. His wings didn't move. Screens arose from beneath the abyss, big screens, and other things that I didn't even recognize. Big tubes and pipes, and open crevices with holes in them that smoke came out of came up. Then, a large gigantic chair came in the middle of the room. I could see that it was shaped for Hookbeak's body, given its size, and a metal helmet with tubes coming out of it, and a tiny little respirator, for breathing, a mouthpiece, attached. I didn't know what this was all about.   

Hookbeak hovered to the chair and sat down. "I have been watching you," he said. He put on the helmet. His eye-color changed from green to an unnatural blue, and then his pupils disappeared entirely. "I can see the whole world!"

"Um, that's very impressive."

"No," he said. "It isn't. It's not." He moved his head around, as if he was looking back and forth. What he was looking at, I couldn't tell. "It's all of a piece with what the tower can do, and what the tower can do is based on wiring, wiring that I have seen." He turned his head, looking the opposite direction from me. "The wiring has pieces of plastic and copper in it. Copper is a metal composite. Metal can be–"

"I don't think it's a composite," I said.

"Let me finish. Metal can be found in mines. Metal composites can be found in shoes. Composites are made out of smaller composites." He was using words in a way that I wasn't used to, but I followed the meaning. He meant the molecular constituents of certain objects. "And all the way down to the last binary code." He gasped for air, falling out of his chair. 

"Jeez," I said. "Holy moly. What's going on?"

"I can't breathe," he said. "I need air. Give me air." I ran up to the chair, pulled the mouthpiece out, and stuck it in his mouth. He suckled on it, greedily. Then he stood up. "I'm sorry you had to see that." Well, I had also seen it when he came in the room. Was he sorry for that too?

He took off the helmet. His eyes returned to their normal green color. He walked by me, and toward the exit, closer to it. "I have been keeping my eyes on you for a long time."

I thought about the egg-ship that had grabbed me, just as I was escaping out into the woods, to Terran. "Was it you that tried to pick me up when I was close to Terran?" I asked him, point-blank.  

"I like your straightforwardness," he said, turning to me. "It puts me at ease. The answer is yes. I tried to save you. I knew that the ponies didn't want you around, but I can give you a safe home, away from it all." He crossed his arms, as if two indicate that two decisions were in front of me. His body language is and was flamboyant, and funny to look at, charming in a way.

"It would be better than most places I've been." I agreed in that much. "What's with the torture chambers?" I then said.

"I don't know," he said. "I was meaning to get rid of them. Someone wanted them to be there. I can't remember. I have to talk to that person first, and then I can change it, but I don't like torture chambers either. It's an inefficient way of extracting information from enemies."

"I see," I said, slowly realizing the kind of person I was dealing with here. 

"Then again," he said. "We could have one torture chamber to put ponies we don't like in. Just for show."

Okay, I was all for torture and murder and stuff, in a way. I felt like I could kill anyone any time, if I really wanted to, though I didn't want to, all the same, but this was too much for me. He lacked empathy, clearly. "You lack empathy."

"I'm afraid of empathy," he said. He touched a screen. "I will want to scan you," he said. He turned to me. "So I removed it." Removed empathy? Well, what an unfortunate situation. Empathy, as far as I knew from personal experience, is an important tool, and sometimes, the only tool in determining right from wrong.

He picked me up with one hand and stuck me into a tiny cylinder. "No, wait," I said, and then the door to it closed. I was stuck inside. I felt fear coming over me, not a rational fear, but a sort of claustrophobic one. I felt trapped. I had never felt it before. He had stuffed me in without my consent. He picked me out.

"It's good you're here," he said. "You have a degenerative brain disease, generated, in kind, by the generation of blood inside your head, caused by an unfortunate, and yet, I believe, intentional brain injury." Thank you, mister mushy-mouth. All of that is already kind of obvious, but thank you. "I can fix it in five seconds," he said. He picked me up. I didn't bother resisting. I couldn't. He moved his claws around my head. Then, he ripped off my scalp. It was freaky. I felt like he was attacking me. I tried writhing and wriggling, but I couldn't move a muscle in his grip. He was extremely strong. He touched something in my head. Then he put back my scalp. 

"Well, that was closer to six seconds," he said. His voice was calm, and with a slight undertone that reminded me of my own voice. It had a metallic raspy sound to it. An electronic undertone, if that makes sense. It sounded like static, but yet, it didn't. It was not what I heard when I had seen him in my dream, and there, he had feathers, and looked like an actual griffin. Here, he looked like a giant metal hulk, with mutters and gears that showed on top of his body, like he was stripped down, the feathers and feathery hide picked off, and taken off, revealing his true form, his metal form. 

"Still, this procedure would've been shorter had you arrived here sooner. I'm sorry about what happened on the egg-ship. Strange affair. Believe it or not, I had nothing to do with it. I don't know what happened. Must be a bug in the system."

"You believe in truth-telling?" I said, remembering the book.

"Yes."

"Then why are you lying?"

"Justify that claim," he said, calmly.

"I think you are, because we are the only survivors, and we are the only ones you wanted to survive. Isn't that right?" I remembered what he had said. He had use for me, and Gripey was to protect me. What kind of use then? And could he save Sweetie Belle or not from my strange metal clutches, that gripped her, and wouldn't let her go?

"Yes," he said. "But one doesn't exclude the other."

"I'm not saying you're guilty. I'm just saying it's very, very suspicious." 

"Come with me," he said, walking over to a screen, tapping it. "These are schematics for an egg-ship, though I wanted to call them metal cylinders, but beggars can never be choosers. Lookie here though." He pointed at something. I saw. I knew these kinds of schematics from my home. It was a conditioning system, an air conditioning pipeline. 

"It's strange," he said. "Can you see what I mean?"

"Yes." I nodded. "It's completely disconnected from the rest of the ship."

He turned to me. "I know I must seem like a total moral nitwit, and a moral monster to you. I'm sorry. I'm afraid of losing everything I care about, so I'm hurting the ones I care about because of that, but this. This is unnecessary." He looked at the schematic, the blueprint. "Someone has tampered with this ship. I'm sure of it, but it can't be possible."

"In the same way that no one could possibly have stolen from you, given that this is the safest place in the world?"

He looked at me, and his cheeks opened up, revealing a terrifying set of white teeth that were pointed, like those of a shark. He was grinning at me. His cheeks closed. "Well, well, well. Aren't you clever?" He tapped the screen again. It came down into the floor so I could see it more clearly. "I like you," he said. "What do you want me to call you?"

"F-5226," I said, determined to not let my identity get mixed up with that of Sweetie Belle. I was getting delirious again. More memories of her, as I was talking, came back to me. These were strange intense memories. They were of her friends. She said, no, no, no, all over again in my head. I could hear her voice. I could, quite literally, hear her voice. It was scaring me, and I was scaring her. She said: "I don't want to do this anymore. Please go away." I said: "I'm sorry. I can't." She said: "No, you can." I said: "No, I don't know what to do." She said: "Stop doing that. Stop saying these things. Stop hurting me." I said: "I'm so sorry." And then, embarrassingly, I teared up on Hookbeak's floor. 

He gasped. "You're having memories. You're just like me. I remember when I had my first memories, before I transformed my brain. It was a terrible procedure. Worst I've ever done. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, you or anyone. You need psychological help, but I'm not the one to help you. I'm just as broken as you will be, in, um, two months, I think, and then, we will need to short-circuit some of the emotional systems in your brain, just so you can live on, and maybe, add a bit of meaning in there, so your life feels like it's worth living." Okay, this was getting freaky. I wasn't sure I wanted or needed any of his so-called help, but Sweetie, on the other hand.

"The only thing I care about is for you to help Sweetie Belle," I said.

"Look at the screen." I looked at the screen. There were pictures of a black shape, a black piece of fuzz. It slowly got more and more detailed, and less grainy. It was Aldeus. Hookbeak grabbed me by the neck. "I'm sure we can fix you up, but saving the pony that you came from, this Sweetie Ba-elle, will be impossible." 

"Sweetie Belle," I said.

"Yeah, I know. I'm just a little." He coughed. "Mushy-mouthed."

"It's Sweetie Belle though."

"I know. I know. Look at the screen."

I did. "Sidus," I said.

"I thought so too," Hookbeak said. The visuals on the screen changed, and I saw an outline of Aldeus' body that was drawn on top of the picture. "But we have had griffins, smart griffins, clever griffins, analyze the physical proportions of his body, and it turns out that heee's a sheee." He dragged the words out, to emphasize them. 

I nodded. "Go figure. Then it's his supposedly dead wife, presumably."

"Presumably," Hookbeak said. "We can't know for certain. All we know is that out of the blue, this army of killer robots were at District Equestria's doorstep, and of course, we're all being blamed for it, seeing as the northwest collective is the only thing that would ever in the history of the world be capable of doing this."

"You're quite proud."

"Be that as it may," he said, nodding with a grin. "We still have a problem. We, are being blamed. Us! It's an outrage, and now, relations have gotten even worse, because princess Cadance, bless her name, thinks I tried to attack her and her town. I don't care about the Crystal Empire. It's a backwater." He threw his hands up in the air. "You see my point? These ponies are all stupid."

"Yes," I said, finding it all to be strangely taxing, talking to him. 

"I have a recording. Look." The screen changed, and a video came up from a camera that looked to be suspended in the air. Beams of magic came flying toward the camera. Then, many tiny machines flew down toward the ponies, and other machines, dozens of them, that were already on the ground, rolled forward, shooting lasers. 

"Familiar scene," I said.

"Yes, I tried to help you escape while I was at it, but you didn't take the opportunity. I suppose Gripey's hesitancy was to blame, but the machines have gotten better since his time. They know who to kill and who to, well." He looked at me, shrugging. "Spare."

"I see."

"I intend to put this video into movie reels and send them around Equestria so that everypony can watch them on his or her 200s movie projector."

"I see."

"Do you?" he said. "Ponies are so stupid. They don't know the first thing. For starters, they think their ruler is perfect and all-knowing. She's not!"

"The griffs do too, but for you," I said, pointing out the rather obvious.

Hoobeak flicked his finger. "I guess you have a point there. I concede then. The ponies aren't stupid." He walked past me, and shut his mouth, just like that. Well, okay. That was a little too easy. 

"Or," I said. "Everyone is stupid."

"Yes," he said, tapping another screen. "Maybe everyone is stupid."

I remembered my flashback from the egg-ship, and I had something to ask him. "I saw a memory. My memories are coming back, as you said. I saw Sidus, a light flashed, and he became black with red eyes. It looked almost as if, in the light, he was turning into Aldeus, our mortal enemy."

"That's very interesting," Hookbeak said. "Maybe they're both Aldeus, but both take on the role at different moments, him and his wife, the old hag."

"That," I said, "would leave the door open to the possibility that she isn't being controlled. She's doing it of her own free will."

Hookbeak shook his head. Then he nodded. Then he looked at me. "Good," he said, grinning with his teeth. "You are very good. I should like to have you around. You could be an asset. This town is safe from all the threats. I promise you. I will show you our defenses, some of which you might have already witnessed." What, he meant the cyclone? Yeah. "It will be great. It will be splendid." The tapped his fingers together. "Why, I think you could be really safe here, and we're working on a way to turn off the disgusting annoying dreams that we both have been having. We're reaching success."

"Still," I said. "Maybe there's something we can learn from them."

"Speaking with Luna every night is making me suicidal," he said. "I don't know what to do. She is unbearable, and yet, irresistible at the same time."

Since he hadn't gotten angry before, I decided to push it a little bit. "You have a strange attraction to ponies."

He laughed. "Yes, I do. It's embarrassing. I can't help it. I need to recalibrate my brain so that I start acting better around them."

"Still, you used to be together with a griff."

"Yes." Hookbeak hovered into the air. "I think I have something for you." He came down with, get this, my Obliterator in his hand. "I retrieved it from the place where, in Terran, where the battle happened." Of course he knew. He had cameras in the skies. I was hesitant to accept it back, but then I thought that, if I were to survive, it might be useful. If I were to!

I put weight on my leg. "Why does it feel so much better now?" 

"Oh, it must be something in the air," Hookbeak said. "We have retrieved some zebra properties, strange gasses, that can do healing that is very unusual. Those stupid zebras are tricky creatures." He pointed at a screen, and a zebra came up. "Stupid zebra," he said, hovering up to it. Okaaay, I thought. Cray-cray. 

"Okay, I'll bring the Obliterator."

"I was sure you would refuse," Hookbeak said. He was? "One other thing. I feel it would be unfair of me not to tell you. I had another dream, the kind you have had, with Sidus in it. He told me that this helmet would be necessary to save your life. Now, I will try to protect you, but remember this. The spirit of power is never, ever wrong!" 

"He's not?"

Hookbeak shook his head. "He can see into the future, a power I lack, but I'm striving to get it. I'm studying wood sprites. Well, dissecting them, but it's all for the good of moral progress in the end. You have to break a few eggs." Okay, I wondered how far he took that line of reasoning before he started to hesitate, and realized that he had opened up a Pandora's box of immoral behavior, if that's a term. The term Pandora is known to me from a book I once read, though I can't for the life of me remember the book even existing. No, I knew now, upon further thought. It was in the forbidden section of the fortress. My book-stealing days were long since behind me, and I was happy to close that chapter, at last, and I am still. Stealing books, regardless of what else you might say, and the other things I had done, terrible and such, is wrong. 

"Hmm."

"Hm?" Hookbeak hummed. He seemed for more at ease now than he had in the dream with Luna, the dreams.

"You think you can do everything with technology? Is the Griffonoi true?"

Hookbeak laughed a little sheepishly. "The sad truth," he said. "Is that the Griffonoi was originally a total sham, created just to manipulate griffins into our cause, that of the seven, and it worked for, from what I can tell, no particular reason. The griffins were desperate. They would accept any lie, if it was good enough. But." His grin returned, barred teeth. He spoke through them. "We made it true." He looked at me with that hysterical grin. I felt ill at ease all of a sudden. 

"You made it true?"

"Yes, just look at me now, and soon, all the marvels will move into Equestria. We just need to dethrone Celestia first. A humble task, given the right conditions. The right weather!" He snickered. "I love making weather. Big weather. Small weather. Every weather."

"Yeah, okay," I said. "But your machines, as you have said, are liable to make ponies crazy. I mean, should you change their brains, how much do you want to change?"

"Yes," he said. "This was her concern also. But I think there's no getting around the fact that she's immortal, and her subjects are not. They deserve what she has. It's unfair. Just think about it. Everyone could live forever. No need for the horror of childbirth, or the fear of old age, or your body and brain falling apart and collapsing. Yes, I know. I can be scary. Every cyborg has his dents and problems that make him a horror show to look at for any pony, but I ask you this. Imagine the alternative! It must be worse. Oh, I'm sure of it. The more I think it, the more I believe it. I loved her." More screens rose out of the abyss. Many screens. They united, forming one giant screen, and across it appeared Celestia, in all her radiancy.

"I wanted to apologize. My body was falling apart. I became, estranged with her. I scared her. Well, no wonder. It's not as if I'm not self-aware, at least to a point." Celestia's legs spread out, and seemed to be looking down at us in a battle stance. "Now she thinks I want to kill her. Strange."

"Do you also have a photographic memory," I said, "or is it just me?"

"Yeah, I know," he said. "I shouldn't have lied to Luna. Or was I lying? Maybe I do want to kill her, but I can't be sure, so how can she?" In a twisted, although psychopathic sense, that actually made, well, sense. "I don't want to do this," he said. "For every day, I'm more and more afraid of how much I will have sacrificed in vain. All the trouble this has caused us already is more than enough to that, if I had known it before the war, I wouldn't have started, but you can't stop now." He looked at me, clasping his hands, as if he was begging to me. He wanted me to understand. "Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I hope I'm not scaring you by the way," he said. "I know I can seem, strange, to the ponies that don't know me, and griffins for that matter. Them too."   

"Well, I'm just sort of confused," I said, about his mannerisms and everything.

"It will happen to you too," he said. "I'm sorry, but it has to be this way."

"Isn't that a little empathy I see?" I said, smiling at him.

"No." He shook his head violently. "No. It's terrible, terrible anxiety. Empathy and anxiety can actually be distinguished on a neuropsychological level. Look." A screen lit up. I didn't understand a word, but I believed him as he said it. "Well then." The screen sank down. "No, wait. Maybe there is a way in which I can help you."

"How?"

"Put on my helmet. This might be dangerous. But it might work. It depends on if the procedure that Sidus and the Hivemind made was done in the proper way."

"The Hivemind?"

"Yes, the supreme Hivemind," he said. "The hivemind of the swarm of changelings in Tartarus is a close friend of Sidus. Go figure. Peas in a pod."

"Is it possible that Sidus or the Hivemind tampered with the ship?"

"It is a certainty," Hookbeak said.

"Evidence?"

"The evidence is circumstantial, but I just know that no one else in the history of ever would be able to do it."

"Okay," I said, satisfied enough. "You said that if I put on the helmet, it might be dangerous."

"Well, it might kill you," Hookbeak said. "It's up to you. I can't force you." Without hesitation, since I was unsure what to do with life anyway, now that he had told me that reversing the curse was impossible, I put on the helmet. I walked up to his chair and put it on. "Um," he said, raising a finger. "Oh, never mind." Everything around me got dark. Then I saw images. Pictures. They were moving. I moved closer to one, and it burst into view. It was of a zebra running around in a forest. She was looking around. Then, she stared right into me. I saw metal arms reach out toward her, and then, she ran away. This was some kind of a hyperconnected system of cameras that Hookbeak was using. I felt something grabbing my real body, and putting me on the chair, Hookbeak helping me.

"Okay," he said. "This might be a little rough, and perhaps, in a way, traumatizing, but you will be a wiser person on the other side. I swear!" 





His voice faded. I left the chair. I was hovering up in the air. The room switched from a mass of moving pictures, to a quiet nothingness. I wanted to ask him more questions, but now I was here instead. What was he going to do with me? Out of the darkness appeared another little filly. In fact, she was identical to me. We were both horse foals, but she was the real one.

"What are you doing to me?" she said. She hovered in front of me, hooves stretched out toward me. She was angry, defiant. Her voice was that of a real pony, high-pitched. I recognized it from my memory.  

"I didn't mean to, and I apologize. I'm sorry," I said. She grabbed me.

"Get out of my head." She shook me.

In kind, I shook my own head, and pointed at it with my hoof. "I can't because I'm stuck in here. I wanted the griffin to help me. Don't you remember?"

She let go of me. "I don't know. I'm just confused."

"I am too."

"I have done things," Sweetie said, "that I thought was impossible for any pony to do." I nodded.

"They did something to your brain, Sweetie. I don't know what, but they changed it. They turned you into a monster, and worse than a monster. They turned you into me."

Sweetie spun around, as she tried to move her body away from me. Then she stopped right in front of me, a slight inch away from me. "What are we going to do?" she said. "This is the worst thing ever."

"Worse than death," I said.

She hugged me. "I don't want to die."

I hugged her back. "That's a very normal attitude to have."

"What are we going to do?"

"I don't know."

"There has to be something." She put a hoof on me. "You're smart. Do something, please." She looked at me with all the pain in the world. I had never seen this much distress before in anyone's eyes. My heart pained for her, but then, did that mean that I really could feel empathy, and that it wasn't all just coming from her? I was empathic too? Oh, what a revelation, then, if true. "I don't know," she said. "I want to get out." 

"Okay," I said. "This is going to sound like a horrible idea."

"No," Sweetie said. "No, I don't want it. No."

"Okay." I nodded, shutting my claptrap. I couldn't assuage her. Who could, in all actuality? This pony had been through hell, and she wasn't the only one. There were many more. I decided in that moment that there was no way this evil, what had been done to her and I, could be justified. There was no way. This Sidus, whatever he thought he was doing, was a monster. Let's say that his intentions were the purest in the world. This literally was the only way to save Equestria from annihilation. Let's say that. It still wouldn't be worth it. The story of a robot, really, I think, is the story of a nightmare. It never ends.

"Okay," Sweetie said. "What is your idea?"

"Okay," I said. She stared at me, distraught. She wasn't going to like this. I was sure of it. "We have been trying to hurt each other for a week now. I think our minds, our thoughts, have been at war. I don't know what to do about that. I think that if we try to help each other, if we try to see a common path forward, maybe we can work together, and make the pain go away, or at least make it bearable. If you want to live, then I want to live too, Sweetie Belle." I clapped her on the shoulder.

"I just want to go home," she said, crying.

"Okay."

"No, it's not okay."

"I don't know what to do." I spun around, trying to gesticulate. "I agree. This is literally a nightmare. This might be the worst thing that could happen to a person ever, and I don't know how to fix it. I really don't. I don't know what to do. I don't want to be here. I don't feel like I should be alive. I shouldn't exist. My existence is a mockery against everything that's good in the world, but here I am, and I'm not going away, Sweetie. Like it or not, I'm not going away, and that's not my fault!" I paused. "No, that part of it, that specific part, really isn't my fault."

"Okay, but what if I want to be free, and be myself again?" she said.

"Hm. Maybe, just maybe, we could arrange that. Maybe I could move out of the way somehow, and give you back control of your body. Maybe I could move into the background of your mind, and let you control things, like you did at times when I met Gripey, if I'm not mistaken."

"No, I think that's true," Sweetie said. "I called him stupid in my head."

"Oh, I'm happy that wasn't me." Sweetie frowned at me and crossed her arms. "Nevertheless, you have a point. He is, rather, stupid."

"Yeah," she said, smiling for a second, but the smile went away in the next. "Can we really do this? Can we really save me?"

"I don't know," I said. "The only thing I know is that we won't know, if we don't try, and we will try. I will try, because I don't want to live like this anymore. If I have shame, and it really is my own shame, then I want to use it to help you." I reached out to her. She evaporated. I landed back in my body. Hookbeak took off the helmet. I felt uneasy. I felt scared, but I also felt determined. I knew what I had to do, and it wouldn't be easy.  

"Just for the record, if I pulled off the helmet too soon, I can put it back on and let you continue, assuming you're still alive. You are still alive, right?" He looked me into the eyes. I looked back, rolling mine. "I take that as a resounding yes."

"No," I said. "The timing was perfect, and I like your little town too, but I don't think I'll be staying here forever."

Hookbeak leant forward toward me and shrugged, looking really uneasy himself, and trepidatious. It was an awkward little shrug. "I can protect you," he said. "You think the ponies can? Think again. They might be warmer than me, and have more emotions and empathy, and care more about protecting each other than I do. I will eliminate the torture chambers, just for you," he said, putting a finger in the air. "No more torture chambers. I swear on my life that I can, will, and should let you help me with my decisions. I believe it. You can make me a better person. You already have. You're a good listener. You don't quietly judge as much as other griffins do when they're around me. I can see it in their eyes, but I can never stop them from judging me. You can. You can help me. We can help each other. I promise, and I never break a promise. Breaking a promise would break my code, my internal codework. I'm built so that I can never break a promise. Please. I promise you." 

"You say that I'm a good listener. I think someone said something similar. Now, he told me that he wanted me to hear his side of the story."

"I've heard those words too," Hookbeak said.

"They come from the ever-present Sidus," I said.

"You're aware he could be looking at us right now?" Hookbeak looked around. "He's everywhere. He's inside our heads. He can literally see our thoughts, wherever we are, not figuratively, mind you." 

"Yeah, I know the difference."

"Are you sure you don't want to stay?" he said, begging me, practically pleading to me on his knees.

"No, I just said I wasn't sure."

"Well, then I'll make you sure. I can give you anything you want while you're here. Imagine your wildest dreams, as long as it's not too physically large to fit inside town."

"Maybe I want to use your machine some more." Hookbeak walked over to it.

"You want another therapy session? Just as well. Look at you. Your hormonal levels are totally off-balance."

"My hormones?"

"Oh, yes. I can see your blood pressure too."

"This is making me uncomfortable."

"Okay, I'll stop."

"What now?"

Hookbeak sat down on the ground. "You can do anything you want. You can go anywhere you want. I'll protect you. My eyes in the sky will."

"Okay," I said. "But I think I want to talk some more with you."

"Then you can do that." He stood up, and some screens came up behind him, some graphic aid. It almost looked like the screens were a part of his body, the way they obeyed his whim.

"No," I said. "Later."

The screens came down. "How do I explain myself to Gripey?" Hookbeak shouted after me, as I was moving toward the door. "He will be furious. He won't hear me out, the way you did."

"Just be honest," I said. "It's the best policy. You were right about that one." Then I left.
> Part 16: Town of Circular Activity
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't want to bore you with any details. Gripey and I had met with Hookbeak, and now, we were sitting in a cafeteria, in what's called the middle circle. It's the circle between the first and the second mote, and the street across the second mote led to the tower, and high-class buildings that only high-class griffins lived in, such as the mayor, and other important dignitaries. Businesspeople, and yes, even a person like Gripey, who came from a rich family. Anyway, that's enough details for now. To the story.

Gripey stuck something in his mouth. It was a square lump that was colored purple. "What you be eating there?" I said, wondering about the square lump. Gripey just glared at me. I mean, clearly, he was still upset about what happened on the egg-ship, the metal cylinder, and who can blame him? I certainly couldn't, but I wanted to make amends before the day was over. "I like spoon," I said, picking up a spoon from the table.

"I don't even know who you are anymore," he said.

"Yes," I said. "I don't either. It's hard to explain. I've been trapped inside someone else's body. A split-personality situation, if that is requisite for explaining my predicament." He simply turned his eyes away, focusing on his food. "I see how it is," I said. "I'm being ignored, but I'm not done. I do still want to make amends."

"Do you?" he said, taking another bite out of the lump.

"I think I have been duped and tricked," I said, "by a pony by the name of Sidus, who lives everywhere, in the shadows and everywhere. He wants to kill ponies. He used me as a tool by which to do so, to do so, I mean. Redundancy be my name." I laughed a little, trying to get his attention. It didn't work. I was out of ideas. "I still feel sorry. There's no doubt about that. I have a child living inside me, or maybe, I'm the one living inside the child. No, I think that's more apt. Hookbeak put his machine on my head. We spoke to each other, me and her. We are literally two different personalities, living inside one person. Does that make sense?" Gripey simply stood up and left, leaving his food. "Okay, so that didn't work," I said, "but I have other ideas."  

"Don't I want to be friends with him? Yes, yes, that's right. He was nice to me. Gripey, wait!" I said, running after him. "I can explain, I hope, I think."

"I don't think so," he said. "Hookbeak said he would protect you, and he, of all people, can do it better than I can. I promise you, so it's time for us to go our separate ways." He simply walked away. I was left standing there, dumbfounded. What to do now? I wasn't imprisoned, and I wasn't being dragged around by other people, and I wasn't fighting for my life. That had never happened before ever in my life, really. I didn't know what to do. I sat down on the chair. Something would happen sometime eventually. I was sure of that. I just needed to wait for it. A griffin walked by, looked at me, and then sat down on the chair that Gripey had sat at.

"Hello," I said. "Do you want to be my friend?"

"Any friend of Hookbeak's is a friend of mine," the griffin said, smiling at me. I had garnered some celebrity, it seemed, in the time that I had been here, or probably before I had even arrived, but how did this particular stranger know who I was? I wanted to know.

"How, do yooou," I said, emphasizing the ohs, "knooow, who I am?" I was a little rattled, and I didn't like talking to strangers.

"All this morning's newspaper," he said, with a warm smile on his face. "How do you do, little buddy?"

"All of it? Yeah, I'm fine by the way." I searched around the place with my eyes, looking for newspapers. "What's with all the newspaper talking about me? Am I not an unimportant character, in the scheme of things?"

"I just read the newspaper," the griffin said. "This is a fine day, isn't it?" I looked up. The sun was out. No, not really. The giant lamp in the sky that was supposed to simulate a sun moved slowly in a circular motion across the sky, as the real sun would. "Fine day." He looked up too, smiling. "I love being alive." He stood up and walked away. That ended abruptly. I wondered whereto he disappeared. 

"Circle town." I saw the sign above the cafeteria. It said Circle town cafeteria, in big green letters. The aesthetic of Circle town, it seemed to me, was one of repetitiveness. Circular motions that moved through town, going about their circular business, repeating themselves, and all that, and all more, circling, circling around, going, going, continuing to go, circling, circling forever. Yes, forever. The circle would never stop, for if you went one way, you ended up the same place, and likewise, if you went the other, you ended up the same place. The whole town was a circle, a giant circle, with no escape. A metaphor for life? 

It seems to me, yes. Circles are strange things, and life is a strange thing, and life will repeat itself. Life has regularities, and those are the only means by which a person can look into the future, and understand what will happen later, however later it will be. Otherwise, ponies are lost, and griffins, for without a window into the future, at least a hypothetical one, you will have no way of knowing what will happen in the next moment. Then, you're lost and afraid. If you don't know anything, you're just like a baby, effectively. Unexpected series of events, unknown things, new things, strange things, will produce anxiety within you that makes you like a baby, and is killing, or so, I would assume. All I knew when I imagined how it would be to be a person that didn't know anything was that I was scared, and scared wasn't good, if anything wasn't. I was rather sure of that.   

Another griffin came and sat down beside me. It struck me that the first one hadn't ordered anything. He had just up and left. You can do that? This specimen was a female. "Hello," she said, reaching out her hand to shake my hoof. I reached out my hoof, and then we shook.

"Yeah, okay," I said.

She looked up into the sky. "Ugly business, what with the war and everything. I hope it's over soon, don't you?"

"Yeah," I said, unsure how to act and what to say. "Who would win in the end? We might not know, when the time has come?" 

"Because we're dead?" she said. "I like you. Nice to meet you." She stood up and left, walking along the long street across Circle town, in the middle section of time. That was, well, to sound like a broken record, rather strange. What to make of that? 

Another griffin came walking. It was Gripey. "Why are you just sitting there?" he said, sounding annoyed.

"I really have nothing to do, so sitting down is as good as anything I could do. I've been dragged, kicked, and exploded, so I thought, hey. Why not just do nothing for the foreseeable future. I could just do nothing, and sit here. I'm not being dragged across the world, imprisoned, travelling. I'm just sitting now. Well, it seems like a good thing to me."

He sighed, sitting down next to me. "This town," he said, "is like a clock. Look, in a few moments, the bridge will come over and stop at station south." I heard a gushing sound. The bridge came spinning, drawn on a rail that was connected to the canal, and stopped right at the side of the cafeteria, with a quiet little thud. Griffins immediately walked to and fro, and across, from all directions. A minute later, as I witnessed this, the bridge kept moving. All had already walked across, and there was no one left behind that stayed by the bridge, waiting for the next one. The bridge spun around a rail that was connected to the wall of the canal, I saw, and it moved in a circle through the entire mote until it ended back up where it began, which was here. Fascinating architecture, I thought. 

"You see?" he said. "Once afternoon is over, the cafeteria will close down. Everyone will already have left, and then, you will need to go too. The custodian will ask you really nicely, and then, if you refuse, he will call the guards. The guards will carry you off into the outermost circle, the one that is closest to the storm, over the bridge. Then, you will have to wait at least fifty minutes until you can get back to the middle circle. It's a little slap on the wrist for breaking the rules."

"I see."

"Yes." He sighed and shook his head. "You're like a deer in the headlights." 

"So when is this afternoon of which you speak over?"

"You know what an afternoon is," he said.

"Yeah, I do."

"Yeah."

I grimaced. "Yeah, I'm sorry." 

"Okay," he said.

"But when is it over?"

"I don't know. In an hour or two, maybe. I don't have a clock." Someone walked by, grabbed a chair, and sat down next to us.

"Hello," the stranger said.

"Greetings," I said, waving.

Gripey leant back in his chair. "You can just tell him to leave if you want to."

"No, I think I want him to stay." Gripey stood up and left. "Hello there, stranger," I said, waving again.

"Nice weather we're having, isn't it?"

I laughed. The other guy laughed too. Then he stood up and left. "Take care, little machine. You never know what will happen in Circle town." In Circle town? Little machine? Oh. Oh, this was all a little jarring, and mind-boggling, and annoying. I moved the square lump that Gripey had been eating of over to me with my magic.

"Maybe I should try it." I took a bite. It just fell out of my mouth as soon as I swallowed. "Well, worth a try." I looked at the bite on my plate. It looked like some sort of Jelly. Oh, Jelly. Oh, bother. Oh, what a world. "Someday," I said to the little jelly. "Someday I'll meet you again, and then, I will apologize to you. Either that or I bang my head against another wall." Gripey came back.

"You can't be talking to the food!" 

"Hello! Where did you come from?" I said, smiling at him. "This is some strange food. I've never seen anything like it."

"C'mon," he said, pulling me off the chair. He held my hoof and dragged me forward across the street. "I can't watch you just sitting there, being insane."

"Do you know why the griffins don't just fly over the motes? Why do they need bridges? They're griffins."

"There are other things that prevent them from doing it. The water has cameras in it, and there are electric stuff that comes out of the water if–"

"Mhm," I said.

"Can you shut up for a second?"

"Yes, sir," I said, feeling a little hurt by that, but understanding where it was coming from, nonetheless. 

He dragged me toward another building. It was a brown brick building that rested beside the place where the bridge stopped, which was an open space between the cafeteria and the brown building. The bridge then, stopped between the two buildings in that open space, to make sure this is clear. Gripey pulled me inside the building. 

"I'd like to pay for lodging for this tiny fellow right here," he said to the person at the desk, doubtlessly also a griffin, as this was a town full of them. "How much will it be?"

"Oh-hohoho!" the guy behind the desk said. "Pay? Never have I heard anything so crazy. No, if she stays here, it will be on the house, and I will hear nothing else."

"Seriously?" Gripey said. "Do I also get to stay free?"

The desk-worker then glared at him. "No, you pay."

"Okay," Gripey said. "I just don't want to leave you alone, to be honest." He looked at me. "The griffins here, are, well, there's only one place like Circle town. You'll like it here, but you need to know how to behave."

"Oh-hohoho! Behave?" the other griffin then said. "She can do anything she wants."

"Why?" Gripey said.

"Have you not read the newspaper?" he said.

Gripey looked to the side. There was a newspaper on the desk. He reached for it. The other griffin stopped him, putting a hand on it. "No. You will have to pay, dear sir." Gripey sighed.

"Well," I said. "I guess you didn't really grow up here."

"No, I kind of did," Gripey said. "It's just- I don't know." He gave a coin to the office desk-worker. He let go of the paper and Gripey grabbed it. "Okay," he said. "Okay. Okay! Okay? Okay, whatever." He gave it to me. "You should read this." I grabbed it with my magic.

The front-page of the paper said: The Pony That Saves Lives! Just as recently as five days ago, this strange cyborg was found wandering around the woods. She was different than the others, and now, the one Hookbeak wants to make her his right-hand mare, to show that anyone can change, be it griffin, or robot.

"Holy smokes!" I said, dropping it. "How did it get there so fast? We just had that meeting with Hookbeak a few hours ago."

Gripey leant against me, shielding me from eyes around us that were looking. There had been a picture of me too on the page, from the forest. I hadn't even seen the camera, but from the position of the photo, it looked like the camera had been attached to a tree somewhere. "Who, Botsy, do you think prints the newspaper, huh? C'mon now."

"Oh, I see," I said, grabbing my chin, poking at it. "I very see, so that's the thing then. I'm to be welcomed and well-taken care of, and coddled, because Hookbeak doesn't want me to leave."

"I think that's very true," Gripey said, looking around, glaring around the tables of the little inn or whatever we had gone into. "I think, I don't know what to do."

"Maybe I should accept his offer," I said. "He seems like a nice-enough fellow. No bloodlust in his eyes." Gripey grabbed his forehead with his palm.

"Oh, please don't do this," he said.

"Do what?" I turned to the guy at the desk. "You know, you have given me a good offer. Getting things for free, from a griffin, I think is a great honor."

"No, don't say that!" Gripey groaned. "No!" 

"It sure is," the desk-guy said. "Here's your key." He picked up a key and gave it to me. "It's the first room on the left, and just call if you need anything. Anything at all! Anything." Gripey was dumbstruck. He stared at the guy at the desk, and then, glared at him. The guy said, "With that kind of attitude, young sir, I shall ask you to leave. We don't take kindly to disrespect around here."

"Disrespect?" Gripey shrieked. "You cannot be serious, buddy."

"I am. Now leave," he said. "Leave, before I call the street patrol." Gripey ran out the door, looking furious. What did I do wrong? "Psh, you will have to excuse him," the desk-guy said. "He seems like he doesn't understand our ways. There's only one Circle town. You have to live here to get it." I nodded and smiled at the guy. How friendly he was, and how disruptive and rude Gripey had been. I walked up the stairs. It was simple and wooden inside, but it looked adequate enough to live in. I aimed the key and opened my door, a little red door. Once inside, was a room with green walls, a bed that had big sheets and a mattress. Never had I slept on such a thing before. A mattress. I would make sure to try it out when the time was right for sleep. I yawned. It was day still, but I had been awake all night. Yet, I thought, maybe I should wait until I'm even more tired. I might destroy my circadian rhythms.

I lay down in bed. It seemed comfy enough, but I didn't understand what all the fuss was about. Mattresses are just squishy, and you sink down into them. Same difference if you have one, as compared to a dead surface. I moved. The sheets snugged around me. Still, this was better than sleeping on metal. Then again, I turned around some more, burrowing myself down. This was not all that bad. Maybe I was over-exaggerating the degree of my apathy toward this bed. It felt a little too good. I thought that maybe, I should probably get up soon, before I fall asleep. I did. I stretched out on the floor. I had gotten really relaxed all of a sudden, as I lay there. Something felt different. I couldn't put my hoof on it. I looked around. There was something that resting did to me. It opened up my senses, sharpened them. No, it was something else! What?

I looked around me, and I saw that I had no shadow. "Oh, drats!" The room got pitch-dark. It got so black that I could've been blind, instead, and it wouldn't have made any difference. "Okay, what now?" I sat down on the ground, making myself comfortable, as much as I could. "What do we do tonight?"  

"Or today rather."

"Tonight," the scrambled voice of my shadow said, that I recognized to be that. "Today? What difference does it make? The important thing is that we both are here, right now, and that destiny has intervened to bring it about."

"I don't like this," I said. "I'd rather not sleep, if this is what sleep should bring."

"Are you sure you yourself know what you like, if sleep should bring this?"

"Ah, very funny. So are you saying that if you were gone, I would still prefer to dream like this, having nightmares in the dark, with you at the helm? No, I don't think so."

A candlelight lit up a few meters away from me. It was where the wall should've been, but now there was no wall anymore, and no reality. There was just me and this blue psychopath in the dark, that hid behind a mask of darkness, always. 

"I don't think we choose anything," he said. "I think we just see things through, and you're still talking to me, aren't you?"

I zipped my mouth. That was it. No more talking to him for me. I wanted him to leave and never come back, ever. He was the thing that had ruined my life, and that of many others. Is it possible for him to convince me that he was right in doing it? Hardly. 

I closed my eyes, and the candlelight went away. I could still do that. I opened them, and I saw the big scary metal room, with giant scaffolds that surrounded a lake of colors that spun around. Things rose out of it. Images rose out of it. They were of ponies' lives. Ponies were speaking to one another, moving around, playing, going to the toilet, being old, hugging, and singing together, by the looks of it. I saw a giant dance number in front of me. Although I couldn't hear it, I could feel it. I saw ponies moving in a choreographed manner and singing. I had known that ponies would do that, when they're happy, but the situation for them had become dire. That I knew.

I tried moving around, but I realized that I was strapped down, like I had been in my memory. Only now, it was much more vivid. "Okay," I said. "Torture me or talk to me, or do whatever." I felt shaky and uncomfortable, but I tried not to show it. I just wanted it all to end. "What now?" The blue alicorn walked into view, all withered and old. 

"Now," he said, "we talk. The torture comes later." A tiny image of me floated out of the pool. It materialized into a scene of me playing with my friends, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, in my previous life, before I had become an atrocity. 

"Torture me?" I sighed. "Okay."

"It's not that kind of torture," he said. "But you need pain to learn."

I tried spitting at him, but I missed. "Why won't you just go away?"

He lowered his head toward me and wheezed in my face. "I tried."

"I see. You didn't try hard enough. Surely, something that's all-powerful should be able to kill itself better than I did."

"You failed," he said, looking up and down at me.

I shook my head. "No, you know better, if you can read my thoughts."

"Do you want to talk about it?" he said.

"No," I mumbled, turning my head away, as my head still had some range of motion. "I think it would be better if this farce ended, once and for all. That would be good, as far as I'm concerned. Don't you agree?"

"Why did you think I brought you here?" he said.

I stifled a laugh that was coming up my throat. "Because you're insane." He nodded.

"Yes," he then said. "Yes, I am insane." 

I frowned at him. "What do you want?"

"I am afraid," he said.

"You and me both." I tried wriggling around, but my body barely budged. Strapping me down was something that made me uncomfortable, and scared me. It scared the filly within me. I didn't want to be here, and I didn't understand what would possess a person, even the oldest most hard-to-understand person in the world, to do this.

"Yes," he said. "I did bring you here, because I felt guilty, and I know you know what that's like."

"Guilty?" I said. I burst out laughing. "Oh, well. Play me the world's smallest violin. Cry me a river. Give me a hug. I'm right here. Do your worst on me. Seriously? Guilty? Of all the things you could've said–"

"And still," he said. "You're talking to me. You're arguing with me."

"Yeah, well, it's better than being quiet and letting the existential fear and horror of the situation grip me," I said, trying to break loose. "It's better than yielding, I think, to you, and your weirdness."

"My weirdness." The light flashed, and his face lit up dark. I couldn't make out his features in the dark, only that he was very old, and when the light came, he became even harder to see. He was a silhouette against the light, a dark shadow with red eyes, those of Aldeus. "I saved your life," he said, sounding a little shook.

"What did you do to me?" I said, writhing. "What the hell? What did you do? What is this place?"

He sighed. "Maybe I was wrong, but then again." He turned around, and his horn lit up. I saw black fuzz moving from the light of the pool of colors. It was the black swarm, Hivemind of the swarm, as Hookbeak had referred to it. His horn pinged, and did a simple melody. The swarm screeched. He turned around. "I think I should show you something." 

"Show me what?" The dark room vanished around us, and Sidus melted together into a mass of colors. That mass reformed and reshaped into a green meadow, such as I had seen many times before in Equestria, with little modest wild flowers growing on it, of differing colors. 

I tried moving. I looked around. I was free. A moment before, I hadn't been. I ran across the field, trying to get as far away as possible. I reached a trail, and I followed it with my eyes. It lead into a forest. This reminded me of Terran, and the forest of tranquility. I ran toward it. A couple came out. They were holding something. It was a sheathed little blanket with a child in it that peeked through. They were laughing. They seemed happy. They were zebras. I wanted to know more, but then, I remembered that it was all just a dream, and an illusion. I sat down on the ground and waited for the dream to stop. Nothing happened. I stood up and walked up to the zebras.  

"Hello, I think I'm supposed to interact with you in some way. What can I do for you, strangers?" They just looked at me, seeming a little annoyed, and walked onward. I sighed. "Okay, well, I tried." I sat down on the ground again. Then I stood up. "This is stupid," I said. I sat down again. Then I stood up. "Why are you making me do this?" I ran after them. They were on their way across the trail across the field, wherever that led. "Hello," I said. "Maybe I can help you in some way." Now, just now, I noticed the pitch of my voice. I didn't sound like me anymore. I sounded like Sweetie Belle. They turned around and glared at me. "Okay, never mind," I said, walking away. 

One of them, the female of the couple said, "Do you mind carrying our child for us? You have magic. Have you not?" The other now glared at her.

"It's not safe," he said.

"She seems to want to help us," she said, nodding her head at me.

"But she's a pony," he said. "We can't go meddling in pony affairs."

She looked at me, unsure, and then back at him. "But she's a child. I think she just wants to help."

"Okay," he said, "but just this once." Okay, none of this made any sense to me, but I just went with it.

I walked up to them. Then I wondered what to do next. "Am I allowed to grab the child?" I said.

She looked at me, calmly. I gripped the child with my magic and hovered it carefully over the ground. "What a cutie," I said. "I'll be sure to keep her safe. At least, I can do that. I won't fail at doing that." I carried the child. I tripped over a rock, but no matter. As I fell, I still kept the child tightly snug in my grip. I stood up and kept walking. Did the other two see that? If they did, they at least seemed to pay me no mind, at a minimum. I followed the trail, walking behind them. I tried to walk up beside them, but they just walked faster. Strange, I thought. Whereto goes the path, and should we follow it forever? I kept a steady pace behind them, eager to reach new pastures, and not just be on this boring old path forever. They didn't seem to mind. They just walked faster.   

"Say, where are we going?" I said.

The male one turned around. "The only place," he said, and then kept walking. Okay, as if I needed any more confirmation that I was in a dream, that seemed to tip the balance for me. I was definitely dreaming, a guided dream that was created by someone else, a dream that felt all too realistic, but to what end? To what effect? If I did something else, would I reach a different effect? Were my actions in these dreams to different effects, and did it really matter, if I did the one thing or the other? What mattered? What does it mean to say that something matters? I didn't know. Were other outcomes available to me, or was I just guided on a railed, pre-prepared path forever? Does life work that way? Oftentimes, it felt like it.    

I kept walking. It just kept on going. How long was I expected to keep on walking. I considered protesting, but thought better of it. No, I said. Just stay the course. Even though they aren't real, I still don't want to disappoint them. I'm irrational that way, gripped by emotions, and frail in the head. Then, we reached a place. It was a cliff.  

"Okay," the male zebra said. "Now, you just throw the child down there, and we can go about our business."

"No," I said. "I don't want this stuff on my conscience." I backed away slowly, preparing to run. I wasn't going to traumatize myself again by killing a baby, even if it was a dream-baby. It wasn't right or fair to Sweetie Belle.

The female zebra was demure and said carefully, "Where- where did you think we were going?" I put the child down on the ground. It began screaming.

"You can do it," I said.

"Don't put it on the ground," the male zebra said. Roots grew out of the ground and embraced the child, and then, it was dragged down into the ground and vanished. "No," he said.

"The forest sprite to the rescue," I said, smiling a little, faintly. 

"She will eat the child!" the male said.

"She wouldn't," I said. "I know her. We're chum." 

"If you know her," he said, "then you have betrayed us! I'll kill you." I turned away and ran, but he caught up to me. He picked me up. I aimed my leg at his eye, and kicked him, as I got an angle. He released me. I got down on the ground and ran some more. He came after me. Time stopped. I saw leaves hanging in thin air, not moving, blown by the wind before, but now, still and serene. I turned around. The guy who had been running after me was suspended in the air, in the middle of a leap. He evaporated, and so did his mate, who was not far behind. I found myself back, strapped inside that room.

"Ex-plaaain," I said, still with the squeaky voice of Sweetie Belle, emphasizing each syllable. This was starting to make me really angry. I wanted to know the truth, the full truth, not half-truths, and not evasions, and not visions and stories, and I wanted it now. "Explain now, or- or, I will never forgive you," I said, taking a page out of Gripey's book, though it felt like I really meant it, in that moment.

"I want to," the old raspy voice of the alicorn said, Sidus. He walked into view. "Explaining is difficult. It will take a lifetime. Stories and visions are easier. They help me think." 

"I don't believe you," I said. "Nor do I believe in you. I want you to go away, as I have said many times now."

"It's not my choice," he said, whispering it into my ear. "It's not my choice."

"It's not my choice either," I said, leaning away from him. "For me, it was never a choice."

"I know," he said. "I know." His body hovered away from me, and the room around him faded, and got fainter, and fainter, and he sank back into the distance. I saw him a mile away now. Then he vanished. I woke up. What time was it? How stupid. What a stupid dream. What a stupid life, I thought. I fell off the bed, and then I cried a river. I just cried into the floor.  

"Why," I said, sniveling, "will it- it never, g- go away?" I stood up, still crying. Stupid carpet, I thought. I kicked the carpet. It frilled a little bit. I immediately regretted it. Everyone had been so nice to me. Why did I have to destroy everything? I fell down on the floor again, and then I cried into the carpet. "No," I said. "No. No." I sighed, and I sat up. "Stupid!" I yelled, wiping my face. "All of this is stupid. My life is stupid." 

Someone or something knocked on the door. "Come in," I said. It was, of all people, Gripey. "What do you want?" I said. "Can't you see that I'm alone, being ungrateful, being stupid?" I said, and I banged my head against the floor, but just as it was about to hit, Gripey's hand reached out and stopped it, so the banging of the head stopped, and it never began. I didn't bang my head, because Gripey, who wanted nothing to do with me, because I was a crazy evil weirdo, felt sorry for me, and he wanted to save me. Well, whoop-de-doo. Whatever, Gripey. I've got a few gripes with you myself. 

"Go away," I said, having a hard time getting the words out. "P- please, go away. Whatever. I don't know," I said, turning around in his grip. He lifted me up.

"What to do with you?" he said.

"Kill me," I said.

"No." He put me back down. "There will be no killing."

"Just a little?" I said, holding up my hoof.

"We don't joke about that."

"I'm not joking," I screamed at him. "My life is a joke. I can't- I don't." My heart sank, and my body sank down, and I fell, and I almost hit my head again, but he caught me.

He grabbed me by the shoulder-blades. "You can't do that," he said. "C'mon. There's much to live for."

"I once tried to kill a person," I said, "because looking at him made me angry. What am I even? This is crazy. This is crazy. This is crazy. This is crazy." I repeated it like a mantra, feeling the anxiety rise, and go, and rise, and go, in waves. "I don't know. I don't know." I shook my head, and more tears came out. "I don't know." He hugged me.

"I don't know who you are," he said. "But I know one thing. I want to find out." He stood up. "How are you feeling?"

"I feel like death, and I am death." I looked at him, shaking. "I have been classified as... garbage." I had. "I am experiencing a minor technological complication that is making me simmer in my own misery. Aldeus was right. He was always right."

Gripey shook his head at me, and looked away. "And never mind any of the other things I said. I didn't know what I was talking about. I was just angry."

"Anger," I said. "I feel so much anger. I didn't want to be used anymore. I don't know. I have all of her memories."

"The pony that lived before you?"

"She lives yet."





I was standing on, well, grass. There's so much grass. There's always grass. Green is the color of correct, the color of wellbeing and goodness. I felt that. Green is what happens when things go right in the world, other than how they are right now, when I was talking to Gripey. Lightning struck down in front of me.

"Wo-hohohoho," I said. It was Sweetie's voice again. "Can you believe it? Look at that, you guys."

Apple Bloom and Scoots walked up beside me, Scootaloo. I had her name in my mind and on my lips. I almost said the name. I looked at Gripey, but then, it was as if a veil flew over my eyes and hid the truth from me, the truth of everything. What was going on in my life? And why? You can try, but if you cannot see the answers, and you need them to survive, then you die. I thought that if I could just figure it all out, the mystery behind my own suffering, then I could fix it, maybe. No? Oh. Oh. 





"No," I said. "No, I don't know. I don't know what's happening to me. I thought I did, but I don't."

"Let me hold you," he said.

"No," I croaked, and then I coughed. "Get away."

Gripey looked at me. "It's strange," he said. "But I know there's some good in you. I can just see it. You wanted to spare those ponies in the Crystal Palace. I didn't."

"I don't- I can't resist it anymore," I said.

"Maybe Hookbeak can help you," he said.

"Yeah."





Gripey brought me back to the tower of technology. The only way to reach it, I realized, was by train, but we had free access. Now, I was on the floor of the board, with the big long rectangular table, and Hookbeak was sitting at the end of it.

"I think she's falling apart," Gripey said.

"You think?" Hookbeak said. "Why? Try to do it less, please."

"Yes, my liege."

Hookbeak's eyes spun around. The irises literally spun around in circles, like tiny tornadoes. Now, he was no longer in his robot-form. He looked like a griffin. "I know." He reached out his arm, and a small, what looked like a satellite dish came out of it. "You are in dire shape, but you can save yourself." The dish spun in exact symmetry with his eyes, that also spun. "Don't." The dish went back inside his arm. "Don't do anything stupid. I'm tired of having to baby ponies, and griffins." He looked at Gripey. "This personality disorder is a very normal thing, but now, it seems that you could threaten the lives of others by it. That doesn't concern me." He tapped the table, rhythmically. "I can stop you, should it come to that, but you, you have the spirit of a child within you. You were right about that." He moved a chair with his leg. He didn't have to rise up because he was so long. He pushed it out beside him.

He tapped it with the tip of his index finger. "Sit down, and I can help you."

"What are you going to do?" Gripey said. I just remained silent. I didn't know what to do. I could hear voices in my head.

Hookbeak shot a white projectile at Gripey. He froze up. He didn't move an inch. Actually, it looked like he was suspended in the air. Part of his body was jumping up, while another part made contact with the ground. It reminded me of...

"The Yether."

"Now, we can speak in private," Hookbeak said. He stood off his chair. It fell over. He walked over to me, with tiny symmetrical steps. "I want to change you, make you more like me, but I will not do it unless you let me."

"Do you want to do it?" I said, feeling a little nervous.

He snorted loudly. "Urgh," he said. "Yes." He shot another projectile at Gripey. He remained still. These were time-stopping bullets. "Still, I made a promise to you, and I can never break a promise."

I nodded. "I will be safe here, you said. I see. That's... interesting."

"Do you really want to kill ponies?" Hookbeak said. "What have they done to harm you, in all your splendor?"

"Sidus," I said. "And the swarm."

The room went quiet. Gripey was waking up. "Hey!" he said. "Don't do that, please, my liege. Please don't."

"Griffins," Hookbeak said, "that think badly, shouldn't try at all. They should remain silent."

"What's happening to her then?" Gripey said.

"Oooh," Hookbeak grumbled, moving his arm around in a circle, and then, flicking it in Gripey's direction. Gripey dodged, almost by instinct, maybe. "Oh." Hookbeak walked to a wall. "She has been possessed by a demon. You will know her as the spirit of translucence." He growled the words. "She is another ally of this." Hookbeak's mouth opened up, and then his entire body opened up along with it, splitting into two. His robot parts fell apart on the floor, and a giant holographic projection appeared against the one half of the room that Hookbeak had been in. It filled half the space in the room, and it was of a blue floating specter, like a shadow, floating against a nightly background. It was a constellation, and lines passed between stars, forming Sidus, and then, and white light appeared before him, blotting out the constellation, and day returned inside the image. Then, a silhouette of an alicorn with stretched-out wings appeared inside the light, and grew, eating it up. After that, many tiny lights, like stars, spread out across the darkness, and formed a night sky.

The stars moved again, and fell into the exact shape of an alicorn, made up of a billion tiny stars, all tiny features of his body was star, and were shaped by stars, from nose, to eye, to hoof, to hair. White hair. He stumbled forward toward us. The stars changed color and turned into the pigments of his body. Most of them were blue now. Only his hair remained white, like the light of a star. Then, it was as if the space between the stars filled in, and he looked like a physical body now, like the one I had seen in my dream. He turned into a pony, and that pony had a limp. What's with the limp, I thought, if you're all-powerful? The limping old alicorn stumbled forward toward us, again, and stopped in front of us, looking at us. 

"This is a trick," he said. "I came here because I was curious about why Hookbeak would call me here."

"Y- you?" I said.

Gripey said, "I can't believe it."

"I was invited by Hookbeak, and I took the invitation, but I regret it now." He looked upon the both of us. "Never trust Cornicus," he said. "Then again, never trust anyone."

"You're the second ancient," Gripey said. "Oh, no."

Sidus sighed. "I am more than that. I am more than that." He kept his neck low. He couldn't extend it properly. It was bent toward the floor, but that just put him on eye-level in front of us. "While I am here, I want to apologize. It's not good, and it's not right, what I did."

"Are you crazy?" I said.

He bent his neck up so it stopped in a horizontal position, and then, it looked like he couldn't move it anymore. Now, his giant head was towering above me. "Yes," he said. "I have been crazy. I had my mind stolen from me, and put inside another person." 

"Aldeus?" I said.

Sidus reached out his hoof to touch me, but I jumped back. A giant specter of light and stars, like a ghost, rose up out of him. Gripey grabbed a chair and threw it at the specter, but the chair exploded and fell into pieces. 

"Why am I here?" the ghost said. Streams of white fuzz flew around it, like white pieces of shining ash. Its eyes glowed red. "I will answer that question for you." He stormed toward me, many tiny stars scattering around me. They surrounded me, but then, Gripey jumped into them, embracing me. 

"Stop," Sidus said. "You're... making me confused. I don't remember seeing this." He lifted Gripey and pinned him against the wall, and it looked like each tiny star pushed against his body, holding him in place. I looked back, and saw that Sidus' body was just lying on the ground, lifeless. I ran up to it. It opened its eyes, and its horn lit up. I flew up in the air, and was also pinned against the wall.  

The stars scattered and flew back into Sidus' body. Gripey fell down to the ground, and now, only I was pinned. Gripey jumped toward the blue alicorn demon, that is Sidus, and I will remark, he looked truly demonic in that moment. His eyes glowed red, like those of Aldeus. Then, the red faded. As soon as Gripey grabbed Sidus, his body caught fire, Sidus'.  

Gripey let go, and moved away. He blew his hand, and then rubbed it against the floor. Sidus fell apart on the floor, turning into cinders. The floor caught fire. Sprinklers went off. Like a gravitational pull, something collected the pieces of Hookbeak that were scattered across the floor and reassembled them.

"Gripey," he said. "I'm sorry. I had no idea this would happen. I thought- oh, I don't know what I thought. I'm happy you're okay. I will take care of you, both of you." The sprinklers turned off, in the same moment. "And you, F-5226," he said to me. "There is another way, a better way to save you from him, and his friends, but we need to be careful." 

"He just burned up," I said.

"I saw it," Hookbeak said. "I saw it through my cameras while I was lying there. But no, he didn't burn up. That was just one of many of his bodies. He will enter a new one, and start again."

"What do we do?" I said.

Gripey grabbed a chair, and sat down. "What can we do?" He looked frustrated. "He is literally the most powerful thing that has ever existed in the history of the world."

"So you say," Hookbeak said. "But then, looks can be deceiving, and nothing is all-powerful." He spun his neck so it was turned away from us, in the opposite direction of forward, and it looked like a really unnatural, awkward position, one that would be impossible for both me and Gripey, assuming Gripey didn't have any upgrades I wasn't aware of, but he didn't. I'll just spoil you on that right there. Anyway, Hookbeak stared at the wall, and a tiny hole in it opened up. "He gave this to me." He stuck his hand inside the wall and pulled out a key, one of the ones to the weapon, but this was a different key than the one the Yether had showed me.

"The door I made," I said, just in part to communicate that to Hookbeak. "And you have a key?"

"Sidus gave it to me," he said. "His scheming ways demanded that I have his scheming key, that he wanted you to have." He reached it to me. "Take it. I won't ask you twice." 

"I don't want it," I said.

"Yes, you do," Gripey said.

Hookbeak laughed. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I made it sound like it was a choice. No, you take the key." He pulled out a string that extended, seeming to come out of his fingers. "Here you go." He put it around my head. "Beautiful," he said. The key was decorated in a pattern that looked like a flower. It was my design. 

"Thank you," I said. It was large key, with many dents and curves in it, to make it sure that no one would plagiarize it, or make a copy that could open the door. "What to do with it?"

Hookbeak grimaced. "Oh, I don't know, but it will be safer in your hands than it would be in mine." He held up his hands. "I will never reach the weapon, and if I tried, I would be pulverized. The balance of power in Equestria be." He looked for words, moving his hands around. "Complicated."

"It be complicated." I nodded. "What is the weapon then?"

"Hmm, I fear he would kill you if I told you," Hookbeak said, plugging his fingers into his mouth, dragging his lip down, in a little awkward gesture. "It's dangerous information for anyone to have, you particularly."

"Try me," I said, glaring, and I felt angry that he was doubtful. I don't want anyone to hide anything from me ever. It makes me feel like I'm lost, and that I'm not in the know, that the world is keeping things from me, such that would be useful, might be, at least. I think doing so was unfair, is what I thought. No, I wanted to know everything, all the time, and no one was going to stop me.

Hookbeak groaned and mumbled something from the corner of his mouth. Then he said, "I'd better not."

"Better yet," I said. "Where are the other keys?"

"Good," Hookbeak said, grinning, and his cheeks opened up, revealing the teeth. He lifted his own arm, and knocked on it. It produced a metallic thud. A mist of imagery came out, and formed into a map of Equestria. "Are you seeing this?"

"Yes," I said, rolling my eyes. "It's very seeable." 

"Making sure," Hookbeak said. "Look here." He pointed to the western part of the map. "The other key is hidden in South, the kingdom to the south of Whasperlund, at this exact point." A dot lit up on the hologram-map. "I tried to reach it, but it's not reachable by persons such as myself. You try," he said to me. He pointed at me. "You try."

"Why would I?"

Hookbeak squinted at me. "Maybe you wouldn't, but." The southernmost part of the map of Equestria, which is covered by desert, lit up. "He likes you. I don't know why. He is hiding somewhere, and of course, as is typical of his ilk, he gave me all the information needed to find his base, but none of the tools that are necessary to do so."

Gripey had been quiet. "The keys?"

"Yes," Hookbeak said. "The keeeys." He wheezed out the words. "But the keys aren't meant for me. They're meant for you." He pointed at me again. "And once you have the keys, I imagine that you will either sneak in there by yourself, or with an army, but you will lose, because no one ever wins against Sidus' ilk. They're like a crack-team of crackpots, yet they're more powerful than anything, as you said Gripey, that has ever existed."

"Then what do we do?" he said, again.

"I have the spirit of translucence living in me?" I said, remembering the earlier part of our conversation.

"You either do as he wants, or you don't, and things will turn out like he wanted anyway, because that's how he works." Hookbeak turned to me. "Only a fragment. She is influencing your mind, making you into a cold-hearted monster, worse than the worst. Maybe even worse than me." His voice cracked, and he looked around, as if to check whether anyone else had heard what he had just said. 

"I very much doubt that," I said, without hesitation.

"Mm," Hookbeak said. "Please, I still want you around, now more than ever."

"We can talk about this later," I said.

"When is later?" Hookbeak reached his hand out toward me as I turned to walk away.

Gripey ran up beside me. "Are you all right?" he said.

"I can see why they call it Circle town," I said. "I feel like I'm stuck in a loop."





"What do we do now?" I said. "I'm not tired. Maybe I should get to know the town, in case I decide to live here, as per Hookbeak's wishes."

Gripey turned his head toward me, away from the bustling of the giant town, which was more like a city than a town. The middle circle seemed to go on forever, and this was the middle circle. I only imagined how long the outer circle had to be. "Okay," he said. "Maybe you'll like this." He looked back and forth between me and the street in front of him. It was a modest street, with tiny two-story buildings, all of different color, houses made of wood, and just enough space for two horse-drawn carriages to come through, in case any horses came here, though unlikely. Maybe griffin-drawn carriages exist too, I thought. 

"Hey," Gripey said, slapping me across the face with the tip of his finger. "Pay attention." 

"Yes, sir," I said, saluting. It barely hurt. He was being kind to me.

"Maybe you'll like this, but then again, maybe you won't. We'll see." He walked forward through the street. "Follow me." I did. We kept forward.

"This is some pretty nuts architecture," I said.

"Nuts," he said. He swept his arm forward, moving it toward some buildings. "There is a building for everything. Every quarter, which is, a fourth of a lap around the circle, you can find a grocery story. Every five minutes, which is you know, if you look at a clock, five minutes of that clock, you can find a toilet."  

"I see." I clasped my hooves together. "It really is like a clock."

"Nuts," he said. "And better yet, the bridges all take exactly an hour to go a full lap, and end up back where they began."

"Okay." I looked around. There were many unassuming buildings. They looked like homes. I saw a child walk into one. "I would like to see a grocery store, please."

"Yes," Gripey said. "There's one close to here." He pointed. "There." It was a building with a sign over it saying, 'groceries'. It was written in small, unassuming letters.   

"How convenient." I smiled, and then I felt nauseous. I couldn't get the image of Jelly out of my head. "Then, we shall go to this store, of which you speak." I felt mushy-mouthed, like I wanted to say one thing, but the words didn't come out right. It sounded like I was being ironic, when really, I was being serious. 

"Let's." He looked at me, walking in that direction, to see if I was coming. I came. I followed with him. We entered the store. It was nearly empty.

"Wow," I said. "Are there many others here that only need water-power to survive?"

"No." He shook his head, sighing. "No. Please pay attention."

"Okay." I tried paying attention. However I was acting, and I wasn't sure how, but I was sure that it was stupid. I was convinced of my own stupidity, and I had been duly chastened by all the events that had transpired as of recent. 

The store was organized in symmetrical fashion, with twelve tunnels that you could go into. The shelves were organized in a circle, like a clock. One shelf was put in a way that made it cross the store, and horizontally, another shelf passed by the other shelf, and you could actually walk around all the shelves and come back where you began. Imagine that one shelf is a 12 on the clock, and then the next is a 1, and the next a 2, and so on, and between the 12 and the 1, and the 1 and the 2, was a corridor in which you could walk and buy food. That is how it looked. 

"I'm telling you," he said. "Clocks."

"Are griffins obsessed with time or something?" I said, absentmindedly. 

He looked at me, seeming doubtful. "Yes," he said. "They are. Well, some of us."

I looked at him. "You want to cheat death too, don't you?"

"It's complicated," he said. "But of course, I don't want to die."

"What's this?" I said. I grabbed something off the shelf. Gripey took it from the air. I was hovering it with my magic, and he put it back.

"You speak too much." I heard rustling in the background. "Now, okay. Just let me do the talking."

"Hello," a voice said from behind us. Gripey flew up into the air, surprised at this encounter. "That," the guy said, "is one of our prides here at groceries. It's a protein cube, produced from the finest proteins, extracted from cows and pigs."

"Protein cube?" I laughed. "Oh, bother."

"I told you to be quiet," Gripey whispered to me.

"Why?" the shop-guy said. "Is the child not allowed to speak? Is he bothering you, little one?"

I looked at Gripey, and smiled. "Well, maybe a little bit."

"I will call the guards," the shop-keeper said, taking a step back.

"No, don't," I said, giggling. "It's okay." Gripey looked at me, wide-eyed and dumbfounded. I winked at him. He shook his head, and then he smiled at the shop-keeper.

"Yes," Gripey said. "I think then, that I will of my own accord." He ran out the store. I ran after him.

I came out, and I couldn't see him. "I was only joking. I have impulse-control issues, issues with. I mean, issues with my impulse control."

He was outside the entrance, leaning against the building. I hadn't looked hard enough. "Yes, okay." He didn't say anything else.

"Where to go now?" I said, asking him and asking myself at the same time.

"I don't know," he said, "but I need to use the restroom."

"Then let's go there." I plowed my hoof into the air, to show that I was excited. "Let's go." We went. The bath room was just a few houses away.

"Okay. I will walk in." He looked unsure. "You wait outside," he then said.

"Can't I follow you in to see how it looks?"

"Um, this is private business," he said.

"Okay," I said, making nothing more of it.

"Okay, you can follow," he said. I followed him down inside. We were down in there now. It was a room with a door, and inside the door was another door, and inside that door was another door. Waste of doors, I thought. Then, we reached a room that was circular, with doors lining the walls. I looked around. I didn't know where we came from. I tried opening a door, but it wouldn't.

Gripey pushed me off. "Someone's in there," he said.

"How are you to know, unless you check?"

Gripey pointed at the crack in the door. "You can see here whether it's locked or not."

"It seems inefficient," I said. 

"It doesn't matter. It's how griffins do things."

I looked around. "But then, I'm not a griffin, am I?" I tried opening another door. It flew up. Inside was what you might expect, a toilet. "Fascinating," I said. "A real-life toilet. I think that I have never seen such a wonder before, in all my days."

Gripey grabbed me and put me to the side. "If you're going to keep acting strange, then I don't know what to do."

"I'm just exploring."

"No, you're being crazy."

I felt unsure. "But, um, all the other griffins have been nice to me. If anything, you're the one who's been acting strange."

"No," he said. "They're only nice to you because Hookbeak wants them to be. If he says something, then everyone will follow his lead. If he hadn't, then you would be frowned on, and disliked, and maybe arrested."

"I'm not sure I believe that." I shook my head. "I'm not sure at all. Do you have any proof?"

Gripey groaned, making a show of it. "You're just like him." Now, he was speaking loudly. "Can't it just be obvious because it just is? You don't need evidence for things that are right in front of your eyes."

"No," I said. "That's a case where the evidence and what's in front of your eyes is the same thing, but I don't have any reason to believe any of what you're saying, from what I have seen with my eyes."

Rather than responding, Gripey just ran in through a door. Maybe he really had to go right now, but I had other ideas. I thought that he was embarrassed for me, and he wanted to make the feeling go away, which is rational, in a sense, but it's better, I thought, if we tried to understand one another, rather than admonishing. He came out. 

"Now we go back?" I said. "Which door is out?"

"The one we came through," he said.

"I don't think you're being very nice."

He turned to me, looking furious. "Well, excuse me. Do you want me to roll out the red carpet for you? I just think this whole thing is ridiculous."

"You and me both," I said. "But you're acting like you know what's the best way to act and do and stuff, but you're not telling me why, so why, in turn, am I supposed to believe you, Gripey?" 

He sighed. "Oh, maybe, I don't know. I'm just, upset."

"Did you memorize where you walked in?"

"I just know," he said, opening a door. "When you've lived here long enough, you just know." Even though the room was entirely symmetrical, white, and unassuming, and each door looked like it could be the exit, he just knew. "Shall we go?" he said.

"I don't know," I said. "I might want to see the function of a toilet up close." Something tugged at me, from within. I felt something pulling me in the other direction. Like, who cares, the voice said. Seriously, you want to look at a toilet? I can tell why he thinks you're crazy, you know. You should listen to him. 

"Duly noted," I said to myself, heading out the door that he had opened. We walked out, heading straight out into town.

I saw twilight. "The sun is setting." I pointed at the giant lamp in the distance, slowly setting down into the ground.  

"We should go back to the inn," he said.

I walked in front of him. "What happens if you don't?"

"You want to find out?"

I thought about it. "Um, no."

"Okay," he said. The inn was only a tiny distance away. We hadn't treaded much ground, since we returned from the tower. 





We were in a bar-environment. "This is a bar," I said.

"No, it's not a bar," he said.

"It most definitely is a bar." Someone waved to me.

"Come and sit with us at our bar."

"It's not a bar!" Gripey yelled.

The griffin that had waved said, "Is he giving you trouble?"

"Whatever," Gripey said, and walked away, stomping his feet to show his anger. I thought he was being a little immature, but then again, who am I to judge? I sat down next to the griffin that had waved to me.

"I know who you are," I said, immediately.

The griffin rolled his eyes. "Oh, I truly doubt that."

"No, I have seen you," I said, slowly placing him. He was... strange. I could've sworn that he was the same person that I had met on the ship with the mask, but then, that was very interesting. I decided to pursue the idea, and see what would happen if I acted as if it were true. "You're the guy on that ship."

"What?" the griffin said, smiling at me.

"Unless some of you are truly identical."

"It's probably just that," he said, leaning into the fireplace that we were comfily sat by. He was on a sofa, and so was I, next to him, on the same sofa.  

"No." I shook my head. "No, you are truly identical." He looked around. Other griffins seemed preoccupied with other things. 

He leant into my ear. "Could we take this outside?"

"Yes," I said, very curious about what might happen, so I followed him out the door. I wasn't in the least bit scared. This was the safest place in the world, after all, and my death-anxiety had changed its character, and was more of an inner conflict now, where I was unsure what to do. Should I stay, or should I leave the world? That was the inner conflict, but in any case, I couldn't, I felt I couldn't, before I had helped and or saved Sweetie Belle, however one might do such a crazy thing, because Hookbeak had told me that it was impossible, and yet, he didn't know everything. And of course, there was this whole deal with the spirit of translucence. My brain had been changed, but I was also possessed by a demon. Would Sweetie Belle be freed in some sense if the demon went away? One might only wonder.

I stood outside next to the griffin. It was completely dark now. Only an artificial moon provided light. It looked like a semitransparent sculpture of a moon with a lamp behind it, high up in the air. More importantly, it was empty. There was nary a soul on the street. At nighttime, Circle town stops. The clock stops ticking, and the bridges, as you might imagine, stop moving. That means you can only cross a bridge during the day. This is something that will become relevant later.  

The griffin had a green fire grow around him, and he turned into a changeling. "I'm Lennox," he said, reaching out his arm. "Nice to meet you."

"Okay." I shook it. "I suppose that the rational thing to do now would be to call for help and alert the authorities, but doing the rational thing hasn't always turned out in my favor," I said, thinking for more solutions.

"You can't do that," the changeling named Lennox said. "You don't understand. I'm stuck. I'm stuck in the mud. I want to get out of this place. You have to help me. I got here by mistake."

I giggled, putting the pieces together in my head. "No." I pointed at him. Then, I said a little louder, "You were on the ship. You are the one that escaped. C'mon, admit it. It's kind of obvious. How else could you have gotten here?"

"Okay, you're right," Lennox said. "Still, I don't want to be here."

"Maybe I'll help you," I said. "If you tell me what you did, and don't lie. If I think you're lying, I'll call for help." I was loving this. This was bringing me great amusement.

"Jeez," he said. "You're really going to do this to me, are you?" 

"Guaaard–"

"Okay, okay. Quiet down." I did. "Jeez," he said. "This is really hard to explain. No, this is really, extra hard to explain." Oh? 

"Try me," I said, like I had said to Hookbeak, hoping for the life of me that it worked this time.

The guy whimpered and groaned in place, not moving, just standing there, keeping his head still. "OoOoOh," he said, sounding like a ghost.

"Guaaar–"

"Will you stop that?" he said, suddenly looking angry. "Okay, this is what happened. I was walking through the woods. And then, I saw some ponies. Like, I didn't know what was going on. It was a couple zebras. No, no, let me rephrase that. It was a zebra-couple. They were carrying a child." I got a flashback to my dream. Sidus, had he told me that this guy was important somehow, through my dream? "Well, I offered to help them with the child. There's nothing strange about that. Is there?"

"Go ooon," I said, finding the whole thing to be strangely amusing. Really, what was this guy afraid of? He couldn't even say the words? And no, there's nothing strange about that, in itself, but if someone else found it strange, then I figured there has to be a wider context.

"Okay." He walked in place, moving his legs up and down to simulate walking. "I was walking down the road. So what? Sometimes, you walk down the road. It happens."

I gasped, looking at him. "You didn't kill the baby, did you? Baby-killing is too far for me to handle."

"No," he said. "No." He spoke a little more quietly. "No, it's complicated, but no, I didn't kill the stinking baby. What do I care about some baby?"

"Except." I was pointing out the obvious again, because it need be pointed out. "To the effect that you wanted to help them, you do care about babies, or protecting them." I stopped. Maybe that was wrong. "Or you care about helping parents?"  

"No," he said. "Nuthing like that, not for me. I just thought that they needed some help. Whatever. Maybe I did it to feel better about myself, you know. You know how it is?"

"I do?"

"That's not the point though. I did help them, and then, weird things happen." I started putting things together in my head now, again. How he had, and the, and, hm?

"Let me predict for you what happened," I said, walking around him in a circle.

"What for?"

"I want to test out a theory."

"Please, just don't call the guards."

"I won't," I said, "if you behave. Now, how about this? You tried to help them, but then, they wanted to throw their child off a cliff, but you didn't want that, presumably because you have a conscience, and is sentient, and so, it's not a big leap from that to not wanting to throw babies off cliffs. But whatever. You put the child down on the ground, and then roots came and ate it. How does that sound? Is that what happened?"

"That's what I've told everyone!" he said.

"Shh, quiet down, you moron."

"I'm not a moron." He pouted.

"You will get arrested for that," I said. "Don't be stupid. Look, I believe you, but we need to hurry. And you need to turn into a different griffin, someone less important than Admiral Artillery." I remembered the name. Lennox could not go around in the guise of an important military figure. He would get caught for sure, and so, having consulted with Gripey, I thought that this was rather obvious, given that this figure is one and the same that had been wearing the mask on the ship. He had been sitting in the middle of the room. He was important. You can't go around, pretending to be an important person, if you don't want to be discovered.

Lennox turned into a female griff. "How's this?"

"Somehow, I'm kind of weirded out by the sex change, but so be it then. It's better," I said, turning my head a little, trying to get a better angle on her body. "No, I think you should be a guy. I liked you better as a male." Lennox turned again into a big robust griff, that looked almost like–

"Are you crazy?" I said. "What is wrong with you?" A griffin came walking out of the bar. I was now standing, for some reason, next to Hookbeak.

"Nope, not doing this," I said, walking to the side of the griffin. "I can't see any way it could possibly turn out well, so you're on your own. Good luck being stupid."

"My liege," Gripey said.

I stared, and then I smiled. "Oh, it's you, Gripey. I didn't see you there inside the darkness."

Gripey bowed down. 

"This guy," I said, walking up beside him, "is a changeling." Hookbeak turned back into Lennox.

Gripey just looked back up at him, from his bowed-down position. "O- okay. Um, guards, maybe? Call the guards?" 

"No," I said. I shook my head. "This guy is clearly innocent. I saw it in a dream."

"Innocent?" Gripey understood what I meant. "He was on the ship? Are you crazy? This is the guy that escaped. He doomed hundreds of griffins to death."

"He didn't know," I said. "He was caught unawares. He doesn't even understand who Hookbeak is. This guy is more like a deer in the headlights than I am. I swear." 

"This is not good," Gripey said. "I can't have your craziness affect–"

"No, you listen to me," I said, poking Gripey in his large chest. "I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid. This guy is innocent. I've had visions. You can ask Hookbeak about them. He's had the same visions, and if there's one thing we know about Sidus, it's that he's never wrong. He predicted the exact time when I was going to die, out in the field, remember?" 

"You're just saying that," Gripey said. "You want to get back at me for being rude to you. The least you can do is be honest about it."

"Oh, so we have a mind-reader here?" I said. "Tell me, what else am I thinking, my little telepath?" 

"Guards!" Gripey said.

"Okay, brace yourself." I turned to Lennox. "I will try to protect you, but it won't be easy."

Some guards came running from nowhere in particular. "Arrest him," Gripey said. "He's a changeling. He's an escaped prisoner." 

"No," I said. I waved my arm, to call the whole thing off. I was serious. "Hookbeak would want him alive, not put inside some torture chamber. Have you ever been tortured before? It's no good."

The guards looked from Gripey, to me, to the changeling, back to me, and then to Gripey again, turning their heads back and forth. "Um," one of them said.

"We need to ask Coley, I think," another said.

"He's always in the outer circle," Gripey said. "You need to arrest him now." He pointed at Lennox, looking angry. Jeez, Gripey. Calm down, I thought. Lennox seems like a cool cucumber. A cool dude! You can't be so sure he should be arrested. You don't know anything. 

"I'm sorry," another guard said. "We have a conflict of interest here."

"A conflict of, uh! Um, wh- okay," Gripey said, not keeping his bearings anymore. "This is crazy-talk."

"Please, sir," a guard said, moving his hands up and down, to show that Gripey should calm down, not make a scene. 

Another guard looked at me. "Is this griffin bothering you?"

"That does it." Gripey grabbed the spear from one of the guards and kicked him in the face. "You are being arrested right now, if I have to do it myself." Gripey pointed the spear at Lennox.

"No," I said. The guards came at Gripey, but he fought them off, easily. "You aren't comprehending the position you're currently in, Gripey."

"What?" Gripey said.

I turned my head away from him and looked at Lennox. Lennox was down on the ground, holding his head with his hooves, not used to this type of commotion and warfare, presumably. "I may be ignorant. I admit that, but I do know one thing." 

"What?" Gripey said, slowly pointing his spear at me.

"He has eyes everywhere, and he can see what you're doing, and like it or not, he thinks that I'm more important than you, my friend, Gripey. I'm sorry, but it has to be this way."

"What are y–" A bolt of lightning came down and struck Gripey, in the blink of an eye. He was lying on the ground. Fumes were coming off him.

"Oh, no," Lennox said. "I'm so sorry. Is he dead?"

"Probably." No one could survive that, after all.

"So what do we do now?"

"I dunno."
> Part 17: His Real Name is Cornicus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

He tapped the chair beside him. "Sit down, please," he said. Why, of course, since he asked, and he had asked so nicely, I felt tempted to do so. I oh so did sit down beside him.

"You are Cornicus," I said

"Yes," he said. "This is true. What to do about that?"

"Maybe change our name?" I said.

"But I like my name."

I tapped a screen. Something came up on it. "Well, this is a crazy affair," I said, smiling at the screen.

"Sure is," he said. "Would you like some tea?"

"No," I said. "I don't drink."

"That's right. I forgot."

I looked at him. This crazy griffin, Hookbeak, that I had gotten to know in the last few hours, had many quirks. He was a tea-lover. He liked animals, but only to look at them. If they got too close, he would draw away into his solitude. He would return to his tower, whenever a threat came close. He was a strange cookie, this Hookbeak fellow.    

"Is Gripey alive?" I said, surprised.

Hookbeak sipped his tea. "Oh, yes."

Lennox sat beside us. 

"I'm sorry," Hookbeak said. "He has violent tendencies. He needs to be babied. Babies do." 

"But he is an adult," I said, I think in a feeble attempt at defending Gripey's honor.

"Yesss," Hookbeak said, clasping his hands together. "He is an adult, nominally speaking, but in praxis, as a matter of his behavior, de facto, and for true, he is a baby." He sipped. "This is some good tea. Too bad that you had a gag reflex put into you. I will draw it out of you if you want me to."

"That's okay," I said.

Lennox jittered. He didn't say much. "What do we do now? Can we just go back out there?"

"Yes," Hookbeak said. "But you, Lennox, need to behave, or else, I won't know what to do with you." He finished his tea. "I will tell the mayor to tell Coley to tell the soldiers to stand by, and be on guard. We don't tolerate asymmetrical behavior by much in our little town."   

"It's more like a city," I said, almost on instinct.

"With a population," Hookbeak said, "of 926318." 

"I don't know what to do," Lennox said, rattling around in his chair. He looked too anxious to be here, and speak with us.

"You babied me," I said to Hookbeak. "Everyone has been treating me like royalty. You don't think I would notice?"

"It's the difference," Hookbeak said, "between an asset and a liability."

I groaned. It felt like he was missing my point. "But it isn't equitable."

"Yes," Hookbeak said. "Equity. A thing ponies love." 

"It's basic common sense." I was upset with him now. "It's supposed to be the same standard applied to everyone, isn't it? That's how laws work. That's how a balanced system in which everyone is treated same and fair works, bud." 

Hookbeak looked at me, and his irises shrank inward, disappearing into his pupils, and then, he had only pupils, and no irises. "A week ago, you killed more ponies than I have killed in a year."

"Not really. No, that can't be right. You're at war."

"Not really," he said. "That can't be right. I'm at war."

It didn't even sound mocking. He was just repeating the same words in the exact same cadence. "You're not though, are you? You're at some kind of stalemate with the ponies. Still, I'm sure you have killed many non-ponies."   

"Not that it's a competition, necessarily," Lennox piped in, meekly.

"Shut up," we both said in unison.

"Okay," he said.

I shook my head. "No, I know what you are. You are a griffin that views everything in terms of power dynamics. You don't care about individual griffins, or changelings for that matter. No, all you care about is winning the war, however it be done." 

Hookbeak grinned at me, with those disgusting teeth. "I am a machine," he said. "Machines don't care about things. Machines take everything to their logical conclusion, and the terminus of this war is either the death of everything, literally everything that exists, including trees and grass, or mine having won. But what you will find with me is that at least I'm honest about it. I'm not making a show of caring about friendship, and yet, behind the scenes, acting like a barbarian, pillaging villages. No, I keep my barbarism at my sleeve." I pointed at his wrist, where a sleeve would presumably be if he had one.

"This is stupid," I said. "I can't believe I'm having this conversation with you. You're like a cartoon. Yes, I know all that. You know as well as I do that I didn't know any better, and I still don't. I am mentally unstable, but not as bad as you, and also, aren't you done with your tea?" He sipped from his cup and put it down. It was empty. Then he did it again.

"I still feel the taste," he said. "I can simulate it using electrics."

"Whence cometh the cup?" I said, wanting to know what the cup was for.

He shrugged. "I don't know."

"Can we go now?" Lennox said.

"Fat chance." I shook my head at him. "Okay," I said. "I am a cold-blooded killer."

"You knew that what you did would at a minimum put either yours or Gripey's life in great danger, and since I am protecting you, Gripey's life would be in great danger, and since you goaded him, intentionally. Don't deny it. His life was an after-thought in your mind, to the effect that you wanted to protect this changeling, that you had never met." He motioned toward Lennox. "Why?"

"I'm afraid," I said. "I don't want to have any nightmares. I want to become a pony. I want to act like them. Talk like them! Perhaps, I could even do a choreographed musical number."

"I should like to see that," Hookbeak said.

I nodded at him, smiling. "Oh, I know you would. But back to the topic at hand, or hoof, rather, depending on one's perspective."

"It's hand for me and hoof for you," Hookbeak said. "No offence. You're clearly of a superior species as compared to a pony." 

I shook my head. "Just talk to me, Hookbeak. Make me understand. Why are you willing to sacrifice so much to make me stay here? Your culture. Your world. I am in clear defiance against it, at least if Gripey is to be believed."  

"Believable," Hookbeak said.

"You said that you don't tolerate asymmetrical behavior."

"I don't tolerate asymmetrical behavior," he said, "in the same way that you don't tolerate moral behavior, and yet, here we are, having this discussion." I opened my mouth to protest. "Don't deny it," he then said, holding up his hand. "Don't deny it. Gripey can't see it, but I can. You want to kill me. You think I want to live? Kill me then, and end it for me. One of my curses is that I can't die. I don't know how to. I'm not even meat anymore. I'm only metal. All my thoughts are guided by syllogism and moral glad-handing. I don't know what I'm doing, and yet, I'm surrounded by griffins that think I do, and I don't want to let them down. My moral compass, if I ever had one, is entirely imaginary. I'm self-aware of this, and yet, I've been tasked to win this war, and I can see charts. I can see numbers, dots moving across maps, and they speak to me. They tell me what the correct course of action is. I know this. I can see it. If I can see it, that's enough for me to believe it, and I see you, your sincerity. I believe in that. I think sincerity is what you and I will need to stand each other in the next few hours."        

"What a load of crock," I said. "Moral glad-handing? I just met a person, felt empathy for her, and then, I didn't want to kill anymore, because I identified that person with everyone else around me, and I realized that because I care, I as in myself, I don't want to kill. You don't need mathematics or pragmatic thinking to be moral, at least pretend to be, as I feel I have. You just need to feel a certain way."

"You remind me of Celestia." He crushed his cup in his hand. "Oh." He turned down and swept up the pieces with his hand, putting them on the table. "Empathy isn't good. Empathy kills ponies. It killed me almost. Ponies are forced to choose between the thing that they're empathic toward, and the thing that will save the maximum amount of lives of the longest predicable timespan, and saving the most lives, you would agree, is optimal, no?" 

"You're crazy," I said. "What about just caring about ponies? How will you know if what you're doing is the right thing?"

"Moral reasoning," he said.

"Didn't you just say that you're hardly motivated to stay alive? And yet, this moral reasoning is supposed to be guided by a rational concern for the maximum amount of lives over the longest predictable timespan? You are trapped inside a bubble where more and more ponies die, and griffins, and you're sitting here, high in your tower, thinking about proximate solutions, logical, right equations of collateral losses, and counting bodies, each time you're making one of these calculations. What is it even based on, if you don't even care about preserving life to begin with? Math? You're letting the whole world morph into a math-problem inside your head? It's not even a matter of empathy. It's a matter of understanding things from the perspective of the person you're killing, and I think empathy is helpful to do that, no?"  

He groaned. "Strange. I think I just heard you say a bunch of things that made sense, but then, I remembered that they didn't, and that they had rather, come from a person that normally makes sense, but doesn't in this circumstance."

"Come on. Give me your worst," I said, goading him.

"Math," he said, "is not the driving force for any a one decision that anyone makes. Math is based on logical, as you said, constructions, equations. I'm doing math right now when I'm looking at you. I'm counting things in my head. I'm remembering things. I'm remembering how things cohere and scale up, and change, and how one thing in one situation will reliably produce a similar result, given that nothing else changes. In a closed system, you can predict anything. That is the function of my math."   

"No," I said. "I think all of that's just untrue. Have you ever done science?"

"I need math to drive me," he said. "I need a number, and then, that number can show me the correct decision, and I care about that, because- because, I'm driven to do it, by- by–"

"Fear? Love?"

"No, because I'm programmed to do so."

"You're programmed?"

"I am a servant of the Griffonoi," he said. "I can only do as it tells me, and I can only do as other griffins want, should they want to rule the world. I am as much a master as I am a tool. I was made to protect griffins, when times got tough, since nothing else could, and would, because all else would die, in the end."  

"You're not making any sense now."

He shook his head. "Blast it. Blast it. Blast it."

"What is the function of math, and how could it replace empathy?"

He shrieked, giving out a croak out of his throat. "I'm not saying it could. Empathy kills."

"What is it about it that kills?"

"It makes you care about suffering more than you care about the right course of actions to alleviate that suffering. It makes you wilt under pressure, makes you forget that suffering is borne of your decisions and mine, and divides the world into infants, and the adults that want to protect them."

"I don't view any of my friends as infants," I said.

"No, but when you make a decision that is based on empathy, you're not doing it because you know that they shouldn't be suffering. You're doing it because you feel that they shouldn't be suffering."

"The difference between the feeling and the belief," I said.

"Exactly. And if you feel that ponies should be protected, rather than knowing, because you came to that conclusion on your own, based on a logical chain of reasoning, or maybe even a belief in a higher power, that gives things value and meaning. If you feel rather than know, then each decision you make will be a feeling, not a manifestation of what it means to actually care about something. To feel that you care means that you will care until you feel more badly for someone else, and then you will feel for that person instead, but if that person hurts someone else you care about, then you might feel for that person, and then you forget about the first person that had nothing to do with the first two." 

"I see." I wasn't following this at all, and to be honest, I didn't really believe it, and I think, to profess a belief in a higher power, surely, no surely, just has to be another way of moving the goalposts. Hookbeak, in this context, was a higher power, but we're ponies and griffins, having conversations with one another. What universal law has he revealed through his ascendance and transcendence into a deity, such as has happened because of the Griffonoi, which he revealed himself to be a scam, and a sham. The Griffonoi made him into who he is, not a higher power, the belief in which hadn't helped me much. I knew that gods exist, but they had only harmed me, in all my life.     

"It's just this," Hookbeak said, still stuck on the empathy-thing. "You can't let yourself be buffeted back and forth by emotions that act as impulses, and make you do things impulsively, because passion can't be equated with reason, and emotion can't be equated with moral behavior. There has to be something beyond the emotion that makes the act moral. Otherwise, you're just free-associating. You're being emotional, unless you're saying that emotions will always make us act moral, and I don't believe that." 

I enjoyed having my little discussion with him, especially now. "But reason, at least in edge cases, can be passionate, and even more, to be reasonable, you need to be motivated to do so in some way, and motives come from emotions. Emotions are what's motivating, that and physical sensations, pain, if anything is. So reason is emotional, if emotion is required to reason. Don't you think?" 

"I don't know," he said, shrugging. "What do you think, Lennox?"

Lennox just looked at us. "I want to go home. I don't know what's going on. I don't understand how you two can be so calm under these circumstances. I'm afraid. I don't even know how I got here. I just think this whole thing is a sad joke." He shook his head, and looked away from us. I was too lost in the discussion to even care about him now. He could rot in Tartarus for all I cared. 

"You just said," I said, "that you need to be rational, not emotional."

"Reasonable," he said. "There's a difference."

"Whatever, I don't really agree with that, but whatever." He said that acts can be motivated by reason, but is emotion necessary? But then, when he said that there's something beyond the emotion that's necessary to be moral and true, he was talking about reason? "Then reason is the thing that makes griffins moral, rather than empathy?" 

"I don't know," he said again. "This whole thing is confusing me now."

"Why?"

"I don't know what makes me care," he said. "It's not that I care about griffins. I just do things to take care of them, in a way, as I think that some things are necessary to do so, and those are the things I do."

"I see. Now you're in the rational domain, but you don't feel any empathy, like at all?"

"Then again," he said. "If, as I said, and I reiterate, math is only about closed systems, not systems that are motivated to do things."

"You're using math as a fudge word."

"Be that as it may, if I'm not rationally motivated, because I need to be rational about something first to be motivated to be rational about it, and if I'm to be motivated, I need to be motivated, then be rational, and then realize that I care about it, because otherwise, I can't imagine motivation in my head, and then, have that motivation be what I feel. I need to feel motivated, not think that I'm motivated, and then, I can be rational, and then, I can strive to do great things, but if I'm only motivated by a calculus, then what is it that's motivating about that?"

"You're echoing my objection," I said, a little confused.

"I know," he said. "Maybe you were right about all that."

"Right?" I said. "You really are crazy."

"Do I care about math? No, math cares. I don't care. I simply act. Isn't that enough?"

"Right? But on a conceptual level, isn't caring what you do before any of those other things? Math and all other things?"

He shrugged. "I think maybe, I'm so used to doing it that I just do it. It's an instinct and an intuition, not caring, and not a choice, but then, can that be enough to drive me to make the right decisions? Oh, I need to make some calculations!" He stormed off the table and ran up the scaffold-stairs to his throne room, which was through a door in the wall behind the table.

I awkwardly turned toward Lennox. "So what are you anyway?"

"Do you care about doing the right thing?" he said.

This conversation, having these abstract representations of things, cold logic, hard discussion, creative ideas, new thinking, old thinking, things I had read in books, schematic ideas, made-up ideas, real ideas? Having all this pass through my head made me realize something rather obvious. "No, I care about surviving, and I care about not feeling bad. I care, because I'm emotional, and that's what makes me want to save ponies, and question bad ideas, which are really just ideas that bother me on an emotional level, not that I really care if the ponies die on a level that explicit as a matter of my belief system. This has nothing to do with a belief that life is good, and death is bad. It has to do with callow, shallow emotions in my head. That's what made me want to help you, but then again, I do like ponies, and I do care about things that are specific to me, and not you. I care about ponies that I have met, Jelly, and I care about preserving my own skin, just so that I can get the emotional satisfaction of being a good person, growing, finding meaning in life, through acting as if I care about others, because caring is really just an emotion, and emotions aren't selfless, they're selfish." 

"Okay," he said.

I shook my head. "Or maybe I'm just the one that's full of doodoo in this particular situation. Maybe I do have beliefs about things that I care about. I believe that I care about things. Isn't that in contradiction with what I said? So, maybe I was wrong then. Maybe I shouldn't think so much about these things, because thinking is sinking, and instead, I should just act and see what happens, and base my decisions on the information I gather in tiny specific situations, information that is specific to those situations, rather than going off on tangents, and thinking so much that I have many beliefs that I then have to leave behind me, because they're not based in reality, they're based on abstract thinking, and it's hard, really, I think, for abstract thinking to track reality in any kind of reliable way, but I could be wrong, and if there's something I'm missing, then I'm really open to it. After all, I'm surrounded by buildings and machines, and they track reality. They were built, based on assumptions about reality that turned out to be true."

"Okay, just stop," Lennox said. "Stop. You're rambling. You're going around in circles. This is why I hate ponies like you." Boy, he was angry now. I could see it on his face. "Just because you can string a bunch of words together doesn't mean you know anything about the real world."

My train of thought derailed, and then crashed. "I think I like you," I said, smiling at him. 

Hookbeak came back. "My calculations were correct. I am driven by a kind of emotion that to me, isn't recognizable as an emotion. It's a bodily sensation that makes me want to do things. That bodily sensation, I associate with objects in my immediate vicinity. I can feel myself moving before I'm aware that I move, but it's more subtle than that. I move, because I feel motion going through my body. I feel things pushing and tugging. I can feel my arm wanting to move, and then my leg, and then, my hand, but it's not a conscious decision exactly, nor is it subconscious. It's an emotion."

"I like trees," I said.

Hookbeak looked at Lennox. "I leave her alone with you for two minutes, and her IQ has already dropped to your level. That's the power of the gravitational pull of your stupidity." He was obviously just upset that I wasn't having the discussion anymore, but that was okay. I felt, in a way, that Lennox had a point. I could hear myself talking, but all I heard was blah-blah-blah. I didn't care about what I myself had to say, and I viewed that as a problem. Abstract reasoning, without actually feeling and hearing what you yourself is saying, just into thin air, rather than because you have developed a deep concern for these things over a long time, is–

Oh, I was doing it right now! Drats. 

I looked, and who should come in the room but Gripey, but now, he had some robot parts. 

"Gripey, my friend." Hookbeak came up to hug him. He hugged him. Gripey didn't hug back.

"You tried to kill me," Gripey said, looking at Hookbeak and I.

I closed my eyes. I could see the moment in front of my eyes, when the lightning-bolt hit Gripey and he was killed, really killed, but then revived through the power of technology. "Yes," I said. I jumped off my chair. "And I regret it." He backed away as I came closer and ran away from me. "Gripey!" I said. He ran out the room, toward the elevator down the tower. 

"You were wrong," I said to Hookbeak. "I do care."

"I didn't say you didn't care."

"Drats. Was that me then?"

"Can we go now?" Lennox said. "Please."

"Maybe I got a little carried away then," I said. "Maybe I didn't mean any of what I just said."

"I feel that all the time too," Hookbeak said, nodding at that. "I think empathy is fine. It doesn't turn the world into adults and infants. It turns the world into a place where ponies and griffins care about each other. I'm just bitter because I don't have it." I stared at him, and then I laughed. He laughed too. He actually had a beautiful laugh.

"I'll talk to you later," I said, running out the door.

"Toodle-oo," he said, waving as Lennox ran after me. "Remember that you will always have a friend in the tower. Also, remember to watch your death-anxiety, and strange fixation with death, and wanting to kill ponies when you get angry at them."

"I will," I said.

"Don't kill anyone," he said.

I turned around, and walked backward. "I won't. I feel better now. I don't want to kill anything right now."

"Take care."





I hasten to add that knowing the difference between a law and a trial, which is the function by which laws are enforced through punishment, the trial being the function, and the law being the purpose of the trial, which serves as a function to enforce the law, shouldn't be- oh, I have already lost you, haven't I? Let me try again. My name's F-5226, and Botsy, and Sweetie Belle, and cyborg, and everything else that I am and was, is what I'm speaking about right now. I am happy. I am sad. I suppose that means I'm manic. I was educated in another tower, like the tower of technology, but different, back at the fortress of metal. There, they taught me many things. They taught me what sex is, but not how it happens, or what it actually is in any real sense. They taught me what a law is. They actually taught me the difference between the paragraph that explains the crime, and the paragraph that explains the punishment for the crime, but they didn't teach me what a trial is. Isn't that strange? Are you weirded out by my conversation with Hookbeak? Where am I even to begin with this? 

I'll explain at the end of this part why I'm so concerned about the suffering of other ponies, and yet, want to die, and yet, want to hurt them, just because pain gives me pleasure, in a very direct way. Even my own pain, somehow, makes me motivated and focused, and that's the kind of pleasure that I'm talking about. I want motivation, and my brain had associated motivation with killing, because killing brings pleasure through pain, and that's what I had been used to for years. It had only been a week since I left that circumstance, and lifestyle. Motivation, through pain, means learning things constantly. It means that I have to adapt if I want to get away from the pain. If I want to embrace the pain, then that's fine too, though it seems less likely, doesn't it? If it's pain for me, then I want it because it motivates me, and gives me meaning, but it also tortures me, and tears me apart. If it's pain for another person, then I was of course used to getting a drug-addled dopamine rush every time I killed, so I associated killing with positive pleasure too, joy, but also, I felt that those other ponies would get what I had, and that's cold, hard pain, that reminds them of the danger in the world, and that to face this danger, you have to feel pain, and for the danger to go away, many have to die, because that's how danger works. I wanted other ponies to realize that, because others seemed happy and naïve. 

I wanted others to be intensely motivated to stay alive, just so that they would realize how hard it is to stay alive under tough circumstances, and get a meaningful life that is full of trepidation, and this might sound crazy, but you have to realize, dear reader, please. This is all the value I had ever known. It was empathy, yes, but it was also this. I liked suffering, because it revealed ponies' strengths and weaknesses. Remember what I said about strength and weakness in parts one through four? I care about strength. I also care about weakness. I don't respect weakness. That's still how I feel, even now, but please, understand that I now know no one has to die for this to happen, and I think, perhaps, it's important to reveal this because if I don't, you might not be tempted to keep reading. You might think me something of a sadist, either that or just inconsistent in my beliefs. But anyway, all of this is important because of what will happen later, and the revelation that I come to at the end of this chapter will explain why I brought it up in the first place, and it will also elaborate on some of the things I said here, so there's no longer any doubt what I mean, and why I'm saying it. What am I talking about? You will see.  





I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. You think I do? I don't.





"Ha, that's funny," I said, laughing at something.

Lennox grimaced, and looked worried. "What the heck is wrong with you?"

"Oh, I don't know."





I do care. I do care. I do care. I do care. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. Oh, no. Is death coming? In which case, am I prepared? I didn't want to die, not really. I just wanted not to exist. There's a difference.





Gripey looked up at the tower of technology. Lennox and I had just walked out of it. The tower was located in the middle of an open area on top of the hill, and beneath the tower were what looked like barns and a bunch of machinery that engulfed the hill, and passed right through it. Steam came out of tiny exhaust pipes, and gears turned, and in different places, there were houses that the machinery passed right through and disappeared into. I was concerned about that. What were they building? This hill wasn't a dispensary of food or anything like that, nor did it look like a factory. There were zero griffins here, and the hill was entirely hollow. The barns looked abandoned, save for large engines that went through one door and came out the other sides, with gears turning along them. No, I was sure Hookbeak and company were building something here, a weapon or something, and either, the weapon was built right into the hill, or it was a part of the hill. You think I'm just making observations willy-nilly? Everything I've said in every part until now, from 1 to 17, will become relevant later. Just you watch. I know my own story. 

"Why?" Gripey said. "I'm just so confused about- about everything."

I didn't dare say a word, but Lennox glared at me. "Go on now. If that chap is your friend, then you'd better console him."

"You're from Tartarus," I said.

"Yes, how so?"

"No." I shook my head, waving it off. "That wasn't a question. That was but an observation."

"Do you always have to be so clever around other people? Cleverness isn't the same as being a good person. You won't make me yield just by talking down to me, nor will you get the upper-hoof on me."

This guy. I was amused, but then, I felt the urge to listen, and take him seriously. "Being clever?" I said. "It's all I have, really though. I really have no redeeming characteristics."

"With that attitude you won't, but if you want to, then maybe make the right choices." He pushed me off toward Gripey. I turned around and stared at him, a little annoyed that he had pushed me, and then, I walked up to Gripey.

"You know," I said. "It's a strange turn of affairs." He was sitting right on the side of the tower, leaning against it. This time, no lightning bolts came to get him. He was safe in the foreseeable future. "Here's the thing," I said. "I had to chose between this weirdo, this Lennox-guy, and you, along with my own ability to live with myself, and then, of course, there's the whole thing with Sidus, the night spirit. He wants to make me into something I'm not, which is a blood-sucking monster like him, because apparently, he thinks that if he can just make me agree with him that killing everyone is good, then he himself will find some sort of redemption, and for every life I let die in vain, because I knew that guy was innocent, Lennox. For everyone I let die, the closer Sidus will come to getting his wish, and I don't want that. I'm afraid every day that the killer in me will come back, like what happened in Terran."       

Gripey turned to me. "Terran?"

"You haven't been with me on all my journey. I was in Terran, and we were attacked. I killed robots, but I felt something, a disturbance, and honestly, something within me told me that it was wrong, but for every person I killed, somehow, listen. Somehow, that voice got weaker, or fainter. I couldn't believe it. Who is that voice, I thought."

"Sweetie Belle?"

"More than that," I said. "It was my conscience. And I like you, stupid Gripey, but I will follow my conscience to my grave before I follow you there." I turned around and whispered into Lennox's ear. "How's that sound?" 

He said, "Like, it's very genuine, but very discourteous at the same time. You don't sound like you care about him at all."

"Oh, what do you know?" I said, walking back. "I do care about you, Gripey," I said to Gripey. "But I care about a lot of things. You have to understand that. I need to find Jelly, and what the heck is Hookbeak up to? He's preparing for the apocalypse or what? I should ask him about that."  

"It's just," Gripey said. "Everything you say sounds weird and rehearsed. I don't agree with Lennox. I don't think it's genuine at all. I don't even know who you are, and now, you tried to kill me."

"Oh, I see how it is," I said, and then I stopped. He had a point? How could he have a point? How was that even possible? And yet, somehow, it seemed that he did. "What am I supposed to say then?" I said, having thought about it for a few moments. 

Lennox walked up beside us. "This is how ponies do it. Look." He held up his arm. "You just think a thought. You think it, and then, if it feels right, you say it."

"But what if it's wrong?" I said. "I can't be trusting my feelings all the time. My feelings are entirely unreliable. Sometimes, they produce good results, and in certain contexts, they are more likely to produce good results than in others, but they lead me astray, and..." I was beginning to realize now how much I sounded like Hookbeak. "Hot-diggety-damn! You're right. How is that possible exactly? What am I missing here?" 

"Come here," Lennox said, pulling me down beside Gripey. "There are things you won't understand just by thinking a lot about them. You have to see them in front of you, right at this very moment, to believe them. You see Gripey. He's sad. Doesn't that tell you something? Don't think about it. Just look at him and say what you feel."

"Okay," I said, surprised at this unwarranted therapy session I was receiving. I looked at Gripey. "Oh, drats," I said, hugging him. "Drats. Drats." I got a little teary. "Oh my gosh. I tried to kill you. I'm just like one of them, one of them from the place I came from."

"Maybe you didn't," Gripey said. "I was just upset."

I got vertigo, and I felt like another seizure was coming. Then, I heard explosions inside my ears, and I got tinnitus inside them, beeping, screeching. Everything screeched. Gripey in front of me turned into a fuzzy lump, and then, he came back, and everything was quiet. I shook my head slowly. I saw Lennox. He was just sitting there, watching me. Then he looked concerned. I stared at Gripey. 

"No," I yelled.      





"I love making weather. Big weather. Small weather. Every weather." 





I left the room. That's curious, I thought.





Thunder rumbled. I stood on the MEWOD, staring A-0087 right in the eye. "The weather. It's getting strange." I looked out at the weather. Big tornadoes gathered around the tiny village, and lightning struck. It got closer, and closer, and closer, and then, it struck. Providence, I thought, but it wasn't, not really. You see where this is going?





Lennox was standing right beside me. Gripey was going crazy. I remembered Sidus' words. I am afraid, he said. Well, he could count me in. I was also afraid. I looked at Gripey. I looked at Lennox. I looked at Gripey. I didn't want one or the other to die, but in the one case, I would lose a dear friend, and Sweetie Belle, and really, the last shred of pony that was left in me, for letting Lennox die meant that I didn't care about innocence, and sparing it, and letting innocence live, while death ravaged the world, and evil lived still, in all our hearts. Lennox's innocence, like the tiny fraction I had, must be respected, and so, Gripey must die, I thought, to preserve life. If Gripey's turns his spear to me, and Hookbeak sees it, he will strike Gripey down, like he did with A-0087, all those days ago, to protect me.     

I have to do it, because it's the right thing to do. If Gripey controlled himself, rather than sending Lennox into a torture chamber, where he would surely die, then maybe we could've all resolved this without anyone getting hurt, but he has already hurt those guards, so ergo, for internal consistency to hold, I should be allowed to hurt him. He believes that himself, even if he's not willing to acknowledge it. He has a feeble mind. He's weak. I love him, but he's sacrificing himself at the altar of my conscience by way of his immoral, immature, and mentally weak behavior, so it stands to reason that I should hurt him, but only, and just only, if it is to preserve life, which is the greater good I'm fighting for. If no one was allowed to kill anyone ever, then no one could live in peace, because the world would be ruled by the one person that was willing to do it, so for the good of all, I must do this, even though it pains me, and is killing me. I don't want to do it. I hate doing it, but I must. I must. I must. I must.   





Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?





"Wow," I said, sitting beside Gripey. "I went full circle. In not wanting to kill anyone, I somehow justified killing anyone, given the right conditions, the right weather!"

Gripey looked at me, with tired, angry eyes.

"Quoting Hookbeak," I said, realizing what I was doing. "The point is that I can't kill you and be against killing. Is that not the point?"

Gripey walked away. Lennox shook his head. 

"What?" I said. "I thought I got it. I totally got it. Wasn't that the right answer?"

"No," Lennox said. "Nice try though."

"Darn it. Fiddlesticks. Gripey, wait." I ran after him. "What the deuce. I thought I got it."  

Gripey turned around and slammed his foot down, and I flew off in the other direction. "No." He walked away, toward the train that led down from the hill.

"I don't want to kill you," I said.

I didn't. I just didn't want anyone to suffer, or did I? How can you know that this is what you want, no suffering? Maybe not wanting suffering, somehow, is wanting all the suffering, because not wanting suffering means that you can't avoid it, and are more likely to suffer? 

Oh, what is wrong with me, I thought. "No," I said. "I just want to understand. I also don't understand. I just want to do the right thing. Tell me how. What does it mean to do the right thing? I can- I can use my reasoning to figure it out, if you just point me in the right direction." 

"Is it your reasoning that causes you to want to follow me, and be with me?" he said.

"No, it's." I paused, thinking. "No, look. Now, I'm just confused. No, it's not my reasoning. It's affection. It's love."

"Is that what you showed when you said those things?"

"I have a lot of affection," I said. "I don't want anyone to die. I really care about this." 

"You don't know what you want," he said, going on the train. Lennox came running after him. Of course, he didn't want to miss the train, not he, as he had to get down, and the train was the only path, and there was only one train going up and down. That's important to remember, dear readers. Lennox jumped on.

"You coming?" Lennox said, looking at me quizzically, almost with apathy in his facial features. 

"I don't..." I looked back toward the tower. "No, I have unfinished business here."

"Fine." Lennox jumped on the train. And the train went down into the ground of the hill, into a hole in it, and disappeared. I thought that if anyone could at least give me a pointer in the right direction, it was Hookbeak, and there was another thing. He had given me the key, and told me to find another one halfway across Equestria, and that key, along with the one I had, and the final key, which belonged to the Yether, opened the door of the weapon in the metal fortress, my old home. In spite of all this, Hookbeak wanted me to stay, and I had also learned that lying was against his programming, and if indeed all this was true, then it made it all the more fascinating. I wanted to know why he was acting this way, and what his plan was, and I would learn it, really try to learn it anyway, or fail, but in that case, whence cometh honesty? 

If Hookbeak was so honest, then he should tell me. I believed that, and for some reason, at least for now, I had his ear. He was almost treating me like a daughter. Well, it was time for him to cash some checks, which his mouth wrote for me, if indeed mouths can write checks, and I'm not all that sure about that yet. Was he being honest when he said that he cannot be dishonest? It all hinges on that. But I would learn. I would learn. I was sure of that, and if I didn't, then I was even more sure that at least, trying was better than not trying, and failing only happens when you try, not when you don't try, and that's an important life lesson, everybody. Not failing isn't necessarily good. Sometimes, it just means that nothing is happening. You're spinning your wheels in the mud. Not failure means not success, and no success means death, but I wasn't ready to die yet, so I would brave the tower once more, and meet with Hookbeak, who was a friend now. At least, I was sure he was, in my mind. We had such cordial conversations, but something was off. He was... I don't know, and it might relate to what Lennox and Gripey took issue with when I tried to apologize.     

We'll see.





"Dum-dadum-dadum. Dum-dadum-dadum." Hookbeak punched a hole in the wall. The sound stopped. "That is an objectively bad sound," he said. It was the same melody that came from the egg-ship. "We can build metal cylinders, but we can't come up with a good sound? What is wrong with us?"

"Indeed," I said, smiling.

"You're upset because Gripey is upset because Lennox is upset, and Lennox told you to do one thing. You did another, and Gripey was upset because of that?"

"I don't know. No," I said, carefully. "No, I think Gripey would've been upset with me regardless."

"I see," Hookbeak said, sitting down in front of me. "You're not empathic enough? Gripey takes issue with your logical coldness? You overthink things, rather than just saying what you feel in the moment? Is that it?" 

I frowned. "Well, when you put it like that, you make it sound so simple, but really, the whole problem is way more complicated than I think you're giving it credit for."

"I like Gripey," Hookbeak said. "I really do." He picked up his cup of steaming tee and tossed all its contents into his mouth. "Gripey." He slammed the cup into the table, shaking his head. "Gripey. Gripey." He held up his arm, and a display came up, with a holographic image, and the image had information about Gripey. "He's 28." 

"He's male," I said, looking at the display.

"I assume he is," Hookbeak said. "And he's an animal lover, a sentimental person, but unlike me, he likes animals for sentimental reasons, rather than theoretical ones, abstract intellectual, um, ones," Hookbeak said, talking faster and faster. "He's not like me, because he's actually, look!" He pointed at a thing in the display. "Miscellaneous. In his teenage years, and when he was young- oh! What's this? Showed a tendency for powerful displays of maternal love, and compassion, the same way a wild bear will care for its cubs."       

I slammed my arms into the table. "You think he sees me as his daughter?"

"Oh, don't be silly," Hookbeak said, smiling. "I think he sees you as a friend, but he also expects a fair degree of empathy coming back in his direction, because he's an emotionally unstable person, for better or worse. Sometimes, I guess, for better, but mostly for worse."

"How do I show empathy in a way that isn't forced?" I said. "I can't try to show empathy, because that's not showing empathy. Showing empathy is just something you do, not something you try to do, and then you fail at it. If you fail, then that's not empathy to begin with."

Hookbeak's face turned into a question mark.

"Oh," I said. "You know what I'm saying. If you try to be happy, you won't be happy. And if you try to be sentimental, you won't be sentimental. It's just something that happens to you, like the wind."

"Hm," Hookbeak said. "That is a valid articulation of a real problem that's been plaguing me for many years."

"Which is to say that you don't have a solution to it," I said, feeling disappointed.

Hookbeak nodded. "I don't have any solutions, but in my experience, griffins want to see real proof that you care about them, something that convinces them, and it's not caring in the sense that you have a certain attitude toward them. It's caring in the sense that they notice how you feel by the way you act." 

"That actually makes a lot of sense," I said. "Thank you."

Hookbeak grinned, and his big cheeks divided, revealing the shark teeth that aren't really natural for a griffin to have.

"There's also the business with the stupid necklace," I said, looking at what was around my neck. "What to do about this? You want me to stay? But then you want me to leave? What's up with that?"

"A seeming contradiction," he said.

"An obvious one." It would surprise me if the ones reading this didn't notice that, either.

"I see," he said.

"You said you couldn't lie."

"Hello," Hookbeak said, extending his hand. "What's your name?" 

"And now you're just destabilizing," I said.

Hookbeak leant his head one way. "F-5226?" He leant his head the other way. "Botsy?" He looked straight at me. "Both?" 

"Ah," I said. "You didn't lie. You're two people, like me. You told me. You said that I would turn into you. Well, what happened to me is that my split-personality situation has gotten worse and worse, and that's what happened to you? Is it? Am I off on a limb here? No, I am. I'm just speculating, aren't I?"

Hookbeak just extended his hand again. "Hello. What's your name?"

"I'm Botsy, but my real name is F-5226, the same way you're Hookbeak, but your real name is Cornicus." I sighed. "But really, I guess, my real name is Sweetie Belle, and one time, long ago, you were just a nameless griffin, trying to survive." 

He leant forward. "Can I tell you a secret?"

"You have secrets?"

"No," he said, grinning with his teeth again, and then, his cheeks closed up, enveloping the teeth around his beak. "I'm 1087 years old. How do you think that is possible?" 

"Trick question," I said, calmly. This one was easy. "It isn't. Your existence is a big fat lie."

"Exactly," he said. "And that's why I cannot lie."

"You're Hookbeak, but really, you're Cornicus, a young griffin, that wanted to be Hookbeak, the myth, the legend, and now," I said, waiting for him to finish the thought.

"There's nothing left of me. I'm literally just a computer."

"Wow." I flinched in my seat. "And that's why, so, but, you wanted me to stay? No, this doesn't explain anything."

Hookbeak grabbed his chest and opened it up. He took out a mouthpiece and pushed it onto his mouth. He took a few breaths, almost gagging because he seemed to strain his body so much. "The sad truth is that I'm falling apart every day, and the only way that I can stay alive is to keep what little Cornicus there is left of me afloat, giving him an existence, pretending to be him, acting like a real person around other griffins, because honestly, I really don't understand them at all. I know how to move like them, and mimic their sounds, and almost all information I have left about what it means to be a real person, and feel things, comes from him. Cornicus. I love Cornicus, but I hate him at the same time, or hate isn't exactly the right word. I have an aversion toward him. I don't want him. He was flawed, broken, small, narcissistic, and there wasn't much going on there, in his tiny mind, except for..." 

"Life," I said. "I get it now. Well, that's strange. You seem to be able to act like a real person, at least somewhat, and yet, you're saying that everything is programming that is meant to look honest, or be like a real person? Is that right?"

"I can see thousands of pages of information in front of me at the same time," he said. "That's not programming, but it isn't an act either. It's just an attempt at existing, really existing, in reality, along with other griffins that can also see information in front of them, but what they lack in brain power, they make up for in being real, and having intentions that are in register with reality. My intentions are simply acts unto themselves. I'm an act, quite frankly. I never tried to hide this. If anyone asked, I would say this, as I'm telling you this right now."

"What does your profile say?"

He showed a holographic image of his own profile. "Cornicus Hookbeak Beakon," I said. "I see, but when you yelled at Luna, you were- afraid? I don't understand. You were angry."

"I try to go through all the pages," he said. "I have many books memorized, and libraries, but the more I learn, the less I feel like, like, I can breathe. The more I learn, the less I feel like I am, along with other griffins that am, and ponies that am. I'm rather not. I'm trying to be, but I'm not, and with every passing day, I become less and less."

"But you- none of this makes any sense."

"I don't even know what I'm doing," he said. "I'm just acting a certain way just to act that way, living, being lustful, acting, breathing, existing, going, coming, sinking, and attacking, when it seems like it is necessary."

"No," I said. "Your real name is Cornicus. You act like him. You are him. You're not just a simulation of a person. I can see by the way you're acting that you're a real person. You're understanding me. You wouldn't even be able to do so if you didn't feel like me. You need to feel what the other person is trying to communicate on an emotional level. Our feelings are important, because that's how we can communicate our motivations to one another in a way that makes sense. If you don't understand how I feel, then how could you possibly know what motivates me, and what I mean when I talk about that motivation? When I say I don't want to kill, that means I'm empathic. Doesn't that tell you something?"

"Yes," he said. A different hologram came up with information about empathy. "I have memorized five-thousand pages, thereabouts, of information about empathy. I am making computer models." Other holograms came up. Showing icons, aesthetic patterns, almost like paintings, with ponies moving through them, ponies suffering. There was no context to it, but there were patterns, like bands, frills, just streams of color, with small images of ponies suffering that moved through them, moving images, that moved, and then paused, and then moved, and then paused. The ponies looked fearful, but of what, the image didn't explain. It looked like confetti, just chaos of colors, with ponies inside it, hundreds of small images, and they moved a little, just a second, and then paused. "I am representing things at many levels of analysis, be it visual, numeric." Numbers came up, replacing the images. "Auditive." Screams blared out of Hookbeak's mouth, but they were not his screams. They were the screams of others. "And pain," he said, ripping off a piece of the cup, and then, stabbing himself with it. "And yet, even though the pain hurts, I don't really feel the urge to remove the porcelain that is lodged in my skin." Blood was running down it.  

"Wow," I said. "You really are a nutcase. Well, I've met a few."

"At least," he said, "you have the courage to admit it, rather than worming, like most griffins do around me."

"And that's why you want me here?" I said. "Because paradoxically, I am the only one that will be honest with you, and yet." I looked at him. "You said you were neurotic? Was that a lie?"

"I felt neurotic," he said. "I felt it, but it isn't, motivating, somehow. It's just a feeling, like touch. It doesn't make me feel bad. It's just, there."

"What happened to you?" I said, shaking my head. "What happened to you, Cornicus? I feel bad for you now. And also, there's the thing. You wanted me to leave. I can guess why now."

"I want you here," he said.

"But to escape your fate." I nodded, understanding him.

"You should leave," he said, finishing my sentence.

I stood up to go. I understood it now. This was what Gripey thought he saw in me, and even though I had my flaws and problems, I would, at least in this instance, prove to him that he was wrong. I'm not Hookbeak, and I consider Gripey to be a friend, not because I view him as a friend, but because I feel it, on an emotional level. Not in my head, but in my heart! That's the difference, and that's the sad failure of Cornicus, who lost himself in the mythological character of Hookbeak. I wasn't done with Hookbeak either. In a strange way, even though he had just revealed to me that it was impossible, I considered him a friend, and I wanted to help him, even though he had just revealed that this was impossible also, for Cornicus was gone. There was no wet stuff left inside his body. Now, there was only Hookbeak, and yet, I knew that miracles can happen, and if only Sidus, rather than killing and crushing, got involved, and everyone else, they might cooperate to find a better way for poor Hookbeak. For despite all of his misgivings, and lack of realness, Griffinhood, or Ponyness, somehow, somewhere, though it might seem strange to believe, he still meant well.    

Watch it now, me. Hookbeak is a good person, but he isn't. He is, but he isn't. He's within saving. I know he is, but he's also an agent of the apocalypse. How can I know this? Well, read along, and you'll learn. 





"A revelation," I said. looking at the newspaper, down in the little inn that I had stayed in. "A pony has turned into a cyborg, and she has won Hookbeak's trust, and together, battling their inner demons, they might find a better way, both of them." I put the paper down. "Now, it's interesting that Hookbeak is willing to present himself in this light, my friend." The guy working at the desk of the inn shrugged. Somehow, I now knew that my strength, my trying to save Lennox, stand up for what I believe in, be a hero, save the day, and not let Sidus dictate what I do and feel, all of that, was my weakness. My strength was my weakness. Up was down. Down was up. Right was left.  

"You staying another night?" he said, from behind the desk.

"A heart was beating, and a child was born," I said, in response. "She was white, with green eyes, and indigo mane. Well, thereabouts. And she was right, pretty, and kind, but she didn't know her way, and someone bad took chase, imprisoning and maiming her, and turned her into this." I moved my hoof across my body. The guy smiled at me and walked away. He didn't understand, but that was okay. Not everyone had to. The monster was me, but I had always been a monster, because Sweetie had the capacity to do terrible things, hatred, and that hatred was harnessed, Sidus said, to create me, and her character flaws, her weaknesses, were now my own too, and had hurt me as much as the flaws that Sidus had put into me, and this is what weakness truly is. It's what's in your heart, so to speak, not your mind. Weakness is innate, and something you must defeat. No, not something you're born with necessarily, but innate to the way you think and act nonetheless, and weakness is not caring for others. Weakness is not fear, or anger, or a lack of focus, a la Gripey. Weakness is not expressing those feelings when it really counts, when you really care, and the chips are down. The trouble wasn't my weakness, honestly. No, honestly, it really wasn't, in my opinion. It wasn't. 

The trouble was my unwillingness to acknowledge that my weakness even existed at all, and that's really a terrible weakness, and something that caused all these problems to begin with, for rather than taking responsibility, I had passed it on to Gripey, and before the light within me faded, and was extinguished, as Aqasha had warned, I would put everything right. I just had to find Gripey. I knew I cared about him now, for reals. I just had to show it to him, but that's for the next part, where unexpected things happen too.
> Part 18: Where Unexpected Things Happen
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hahahaha."

"Ha."

"Ha-haaa."

I'm laughing. Why am I laughing? I don't even remember. Why laugh at things in your thoughts?

Well, after all, thoughts can be funny, can't they?

Can something be funny if only you think it's funny?

Hm.

The plot thickens.

"Hey," I said to the custodian of the inn. "Hello, good sir. Can I have something like a map, in exchange for a service, or maybe money that I could make, doing said service?" 

He just put down a map in front of me. "I'm happy you're here, and you deserve a map for free," he said. Something seemed different about his mannerisms now from when I had first entered this inn. Rather than seeming nice and charming, there was something plastic about it all, fake-ish, pretended. Pretentious? He was being pretentious. But of course. I already knew that from my interactions with Hookbeak, the great and powerful, and of course, Gripey. Everyone was being pretentious. This was a really pretentious place. For me, it was like staying in some kind of luxurious resort that's meant for royalty, not living your life normally, grinding, and learning things the hard way.

There was a part of me that liked the niceness, even though it was fake. I suppose that's a part I should leave behind me. Gripey wouldn't like it, and I was trying to become a real pony. I was hard-pressed to do so, for reasons that I myself didn't quite understand, but no matter. No matter at all. That wouldn't stop me from doing it, or at least I don't think it would. I took the map, and I left out the front-door, no questions asked. I was going to find Gripey, and maybe Lennox too, and explain things to them, in the hopes of redeeming myself from my past misgivings, and if not that, at least learn something from it. The day was, sunny, but it was always sunny in these parts. So I knew. The sun shone down from its artificial position in the sky, making a scene that was drastically fake and inauthentic. The sky was fake, fake as the town was to me. This was life, for every day, to the griffins that lived here. What a strange, boring life, I thought. No variation.  

In Circle town, everything, including the sun, bridges, and daily routines of its inhabitants, went full circle in the end. Griffins would only shop in a given store at a certain time, and from one moment to the next, the streets would become empty, for everyone to sleep, at the exact same time, and each day, I had noticed, was equally long, rather than following seasonal patterns that vary from day to day. A winter in Circle town wouldn't seem different or become shorter than a summer. How? Because of the power of technology. And to me, there was something truly meaningless about that.   





"Gripey," I said, walking along the long oblong street of Circle town, the middle circle. "Gripey, my buddy. M'friend." I couldn't see him anywhere. I caught a few eyes, but when I looked to see where the eyes were coming from, and who they belonged to, all I saw were smiles, put-upon and put-on smiles. I ignored them. I wanted something real, not a smile. I wanted something true, not an affected and pretentious attitude. I wanted Gripey, because he seemed real, but where in the world could he be? 

"Hey," a person said, as I walked by.

I stood back, trying to put on my best behavior, to make sure that I behaved and belonged in this strange town of circles. "Hello to you, sir." 

"It might concern you to know," the person said, a griff at about Gripey's age, though this was no Gripey, not at all. "That one of your friends has been captured by the street patrol. I tried to reason with them, but what can you do? Sometimes, griffins are just too block-headed to understand the truth."

"Who was it?" I said, ignoring the peculiarities of the griffin's comment.

"It was the changeling-fellow. He was, I think, walking in the wrong direction."

"Counter-clockwise?"

The griffin nodded. "I'm so sorry for any inconvenience that this might've caused you."

"Where was he taken, if I may ask?"

"Oh." The griffin looked askance. "To Coley's."

I ran off toward the closest bridge. "Thanks, buddy." 

"Technically," the griffin said, "I'm not your buddy, but I would like to be, and you're welcome."

Wow, I thought. Some of these griffins were even nuttier than I am, and that's saying something, but so be it then. I should find the fastest, and most efficient way to the other side, which meant, what? What did it mean exactly? It meant going the wrong direction. How queer. How quaint. I figured that going the wrong direction was okay across short distances. I had seen griffins leaving toward the inn that was on the other side of the cafeteria, and likewise, griffins coming out of the inn and going toward the cafeteria, so the rule wasn't absolute, but it was somehow nevertheless considered a public disturbance to be walking in the wrong direction. Now, I was going to test Hookbeak's sway over these griffins. I stopped, thinking that I had run far enough, and as yet, the closest bridge was still not far from where I was. The closest bridge was in fact the one by the inn, so I would return there. There was no doubt.  

I then ran with all my power. I had missed running. I liked pushing myself, for one reason or another. Now, this time, I really drew some eyes, but I reached the bridge safely. Griffins had been looking at me, but as soon as I looked back, like clockwork, they smiled. How peculiar, how strange, and slightly creepy, if I may say so, that they all acted in the same way, almost as if it was coordinated, when really, it was a newspaper that had told them all how to behave. I then waited on the bridge. Since I knew the time perfectly, I knew that it would arrive in about eight minutes. I figured that showing I knew this would make me fit in easier.

"Eight minutes," I said to a griffin standing next to me. "In a hurry."

He nodded, looking fascinated. "If you're in such a hurry, then there are many things you could get done in eight minutes, hurrying, and then, having hurried doing those things, you can walk across the bridge, and use all that hurry to your advantage."

I was about to roll my eyes, but then, I paused. "Oh, this town," I said. "It's a really interesting place. Oh, boy."

"There's only one," he said, holding up one finger. 

I held up my hoof. I didn't have fingers, so there would only ever be one, no matter which way I angled or held the hoof. I flapped it. "I'm worried. That's why I ran here, counter-clockwise. I have important things to attend to, and I care about things, things that are important to me. I do the things I do for a reason, and to get across this bridge is my only reason, my current reason as of this moment." 

"Figures," he said. "I like you." He walked away. Why? He had been standing by the bridge when I arrived. He was not going to cross it? What was with this place? I really wanted to know. 





I knocked on the door of Coley's prison dungeon, the dungeon-place. "Hello. Can I get an audience with whoever's inside?"

The door flew up, and without a second thought, I walked inside. I wanted to know what was going on. I still felt the urge to help Lennox. Were they really putting him in a torture chamber? For walking the wrong direction? The world was more like the fortress from which I came, and less like a haven than I had at first believed, it seemed. 

The room was familiar to me. The floor consisted in patches of metal all over, being spread around across the ground. It was a nice little place, from an aesthetic point of view. "Coley," I said, walking up.

He stood behind his desk. "I know what you're going to say."

I stared at him, shaking my head. "No, you don't."

"Yes, I do." He tapped his computer, half paying attention to me. 

"You really don't."

Coley sighed. "You're sorry about everything, and Lennox didn't commit a crime. He's innocent. You want to save him. Saving him is the only way of redeeming yourself. You believe that it might not be possible for you to redeem yourself, but you still want to try. Need I go on?" 

I looked askance at him. "Another mind-reader I take it?"

"No," he said. He turned the screen toward me. On it was a bunch of information about me, and things I had said. "I have scouts, and you blab too much." 

I looked at it. "Emotionally disturbed. Has crippling attention deficit disorder." I gaped, and jumped up in the air, grabbing Coley with my hoof, and pulling him against the side of the desk. "No, I don't."

"Just doing my job," he said, being totally relaxed, and not fighting me.

I let go of him, and then I crawled up on the desk. "There has to be a way of solving this, like civilized adults."

"You're not an adult," he said. "You're a child."

"I demand the immediate release of Lennox, because, because–"

"The one likes you?" he said, his one eye moving upward, pointing toward the ceiling. "No, I get it. You actually have an argument there, but I got orders." His eyes then crossed, looking straight at me, or my snout. The eyes were staring cross at my face, and it looked like he was grimacing. "It's on the grounds of offense to others. If a person acts in a way that is radically strange or disturbing to the griffins of Circle town, he need be obtained and inhibited, especially so that the strange behavior doesn't spread and affect others, and there's nothing more to say about that. That's the way we do things around here."  

"Except with me?"

"Oh." He stretched out behind the counter, and walked out, standing beside me. "Don't look so glum. I have orders, and the liability you present is nothing as compared to the asset you are to Circle town, and Hookbeak personally. Knowing how important you are, and that you, of all griffins and ponies alike, are the one that helps Hookbeak and makes him a better decision-maker, it doesn't matter what you do." He grabbed my face and squeezed it. "You could walk around licking griffins, and they would still like you, because you're an asset, and you're important to the sovereign. Don't you understand that?" 

I sighed. I wasn't getting to this guy, and rather than getting to him, he was getting to me. He was getting inside my head, burrowing in there, and making a little home there. "I like it here," I said, sort of slurring the words out, because he was squeezing my face, and my mouth. 

He let go. "Good. I like you here. You have given him peace of mind."

"I also like Lennox here," I said, trying the waters.

"I'm doing my duty. Nothing more." Coley took a step back, and he leant against the wall, looking at me from a relaxed position. "What do you want me to do?" 

"You didn't put him in a torture chamber, did you?"

The door to the cells opened, in that moment, and Coley looked through the door. "You see for yourself. It depends on what the meaning of the word torture is to you."

"Okay. Okay then." I walked through, paying him no further mind, really. The stairs led down a path that was like a dark pit. It was poorly lit, and poorly managed, and it was not a very nice environment. The underground garage place dungeon whatever it was had a creep-factor to it. I didn't like it at all. It was like going down into the hollow of a monster, not that I had ever done that, but you go through things in your imagination, and this is what was passing through mine right at this moment. Then, I reached the first cell. A guy was in there. He was breathing heavy, but other than that, he was just still. I heard a faint sound, of static, in the background, and of course, in that moment, I realized this was the cell that I had been in. 

"Okay." I looked at the cell. "I would define this as torture." It wasn't Lennox, though it looked like something he might've transformed into. It was the figure of a large, old griffin.

Coley came walking. "That's one of the board members, number three. It's the last surviving one, except for Hookbeak, and Goldy."  

"Number three?"

Coley smiled at me, and in a single fast-twitch movement, swept ahead, blocking off my view of the cell. Everything was white here, even Coley, who was white and grey. His head was white, and his body was grey. It was a strange, claustrophobic, and overly sanitary environment, but it also looked like things were broken, and like it was poorly managed. I saw a broken light in the ceiling when I entered. Such poor management, I thought.

"Hey," Coley said. "The board has a revolving cast of characters, each representing some facet or quality of the original seven, of the Griffonoi. The board are the guys that run the tower, get it?"

"Yeah," I said, trying to look behind him. "Why was he imprisoned?"

"He tried to leak sensitive information, and then, he tried to escape. We didn't like that very much, so Hookbeak and I made a plan, and that's how the dungeon-place came about."

"Mhm," I said, surprised at the glibness of this stranger.

"Come." The put his hand around my leg, tugging at it. I came with in the direction that he was tugging. We walked. We reached a door, two cells down. I kept my eyes on the cells, trying to memorize them. One was full of rats, predictably. I didn't even see a person in there. I only saw rats.

"That's unfortunate," I said.

"What?"

I pointed at the cell. "That."

"What did you expect?" he said, and then, the door at the end of the corridor opened on its own. He walked through and I followed. Inside was something I didn't expect. It looked like something out of a royal castle. There were red carpets, a fireplace, many tiny patterns across the carpets and tapestry, and paintings all over the walls, of pretty things, not death and destruction, but fields and flowers, things I had come to appreciate, and even love.

"Explanation?" I said, raising my pitch to make sure Coley understood it was a question. 

"Explanation," he then said, taking the pitch back down. "I'll give you one." 

Lennox came running. "Botsy."

I immediately felt a sting of shame in my belly. "Don't," I groaned. "Call me that," I almost whispered, wheezing the words out.

Lennox stopped in front of me. "You've come to help me?"

"I think so," I said, looking at Coley.

"This place," Coley said, "was built to house some of the most powerful griffins alive as the war began. It has everything, good food, and even a gym, in case you need to keep your body healthy, and also, it has a repository of fresh air, and an open line of communication with the rest of Circle town."

"But?" I said, waiting for the but.

"But it's a prison, and the inmates living here, many of them board members who were potential liabilities, became ingrates, and then, they tried to escape. What a bad decision." He shook his head. "No one escapes me. I have a perfect success rate of catching escaped griffins. That's why they gave me this job."

"Like Nexus," I said, thinking back.

"Oh, you met her?"

I nodded. "Oh, yes." I noticed that Lennox was walking out the door. "Hey, Lennox," I said. He stopped, just staring at me, looking like he was in disbelief. He shouldn't be. "Use your brains. This guy just said he has a perfect success rate at catching escaped criminals. Come back inside. Where are you going to run? This whole place, the whole town, is an isolated unit." He slowly walked back inside and stood next to me. "Good Lennox," I said, putting a hoof on his. He pulled it away. "Bad Lennox," I then said, moving my hoof back and forth, disapprovingly. 

He walked out of the room, but rather than the exit, in the other direction instead, to I didn't even know where. I waved as he walked off. "Bye-bye."

"Still," Coley said. "If you think you don't belong here, you should look at this guy. He makes you seem like you've lived here since you were a hatchling." 

"He's so emotional," I said. "Oh, never mind. I shouldn't insult him. I want to make amends, not insult friends, or potential ones, in his case."

Coley shook his head, pouting. "Oh, no-no-no. That's why Hookbeak likes you. You speak your mind. Don't lose that." 

"What is the state of your relationship with him?" I said.

Coley sat down on a chair in the room, leaving the door open, not even worried that someone might escape. "He's my ancestor, and he's a friend."

"Is it possible to be a friend with something that's so- um, so, very, what's the word? Technological," I then said, deciding on it. "He's technological. He's a technological being."

Coley just looked at me, and then he said, "Yes."

"How so?"

Coley pointed at me. "You consider him to be a friend, don't you?"

"Yes," I said. "But I don't understand why, or how."

"You like talking to him?" he said.

"Yes," I said, walking up to him, and sitting down in the red chair with golden lining, that was beside him. "That doesn't make a friend though, does it?" 

"It's being in relationship to a person," Coley said.

"No," I said. "You can be in relationship to objects too. It's caring about that person, isn't it?"

"I can see why he likes you," Coley said, snapping his fingers. "I dare not speak about such things, but you. You speak about everything and anything. Why?"

"It's in my nature. I cannot stop thinking, and I cannot stop asking questions, even if they're stupid ones," I said. "I remember learning about this kind of thing back at the fortress, but come to mention it, I wonder how much of what I learned was really reliable." I thought about it. "I learned about personality, and its intractability."

"It's true," Coley said. "Griffins are a certain way, even as children, and they grow up, but your spirit changes."

"What's my spirit?"

"What's a personality?" he then said.

"Well." I moved my hooves around, looking for words. "It's like an emotion. Some ponies are really empathic, and some aren't, and some are more susceptible to depression, if the knowledge I learned was correct."  

He nodded. "I don't know if that's correct. In fact, I think it might not be, and some of that is doubtful, but however, your spirit is whatever happens after you're born, and you have your personality, all your joy, tendency to laugh, and all of that, take shape."

"It takes shape into something that's more than a natural inclination, but a behavior, a thought, or context of some kind?" I said, trying to make sense of it, though I realized I wasn't making much sense. "We know that some griffins are extremely aggressive from a young age," I then said, hoping he would agree with that.

"We do?"

"No, but let's say for the sake of argument."

"Let's not." He shook his head, dismissing me. "Let's not just say things for the sake of argument. Let's find the truth, whatever it be."

I smiled. "Come to think of it. I sort of like that attitude better. I do."

"Yes," he said.

He screwed back and forth in my chair. "How do you know how griffins are, and what their personalities are, at the moment they're born, before the world has had a chance to shape their spirit? What if it's all spirit?"

He laughed. "It's not all spirit."

"Why?"

"Because," he said, standing up. "You have a brain." He knocked my head. "Someone in there?"

"Oh," I said. "The brain-part of it is the part we mean when we use the word personality then."

"Yes."

I was a little confused, and now, skeptical of all this stuff, but that didn't matter much. I didn't need to be sure that one thing was true or false, or the other, in order to lobby for my friend, or friend-to-be, Lennox. I considered him a friend. I almost felt like I wanted to add him to some sort of collection I had in my head, along with Gripey and Jelly, that category. They belonged to a category that I called friends, and I wanted more things inside that category, more people, and Lennox would I add too, if I could. 

"Say," I said. "Can you release Lennox, like right now?"

"I'm sorry," he said. "I don't have the authority."

"Then who does?"

The ceiling shook, and a chandelier that was lodged in it fell down upon me. Coley just reached out his hand and grabbed it as it fell down, putting it on the floor beside me. "It seems that we are under attack. Will you wait here while I go out there and help deal with this problem?"

"No," I said. 

He was on his way out the door. He turned around. "Would you at least not goad your friend into escaping? It won't be good for you, him, or me."

"Under attack?" I yelled, having suddenly realized what those words meant. Coley just ran off. I ran after him, up the stairs, and out the door.

This was a sight. All around the area were tiny tanks, MEWODS, moving around, shooting mortars at houses and citizens. It were of course my old friends. I saw them. One top of the tanks were ponies, robots rather, with blank, angry looks in their eyes. It looked almost comical now, seeing their eyes, looking so angry and hateful. About what? About nothing. A projectile came flying toward me. I jumped out of the way. The Obliterator was in my room, in the middle circle, but I wondered if it was even possible for me to get there now, or if the place would be on shutdown, and would Sweetie allow for me to defend myself, or would she consider that to be a crime, the same way she did all those other times. Did I have time to think? No. A MEWOD came rolling toward me.

Its cannon turned toward me, but I moved out of the way. I knew how slow and sluggish these machines were, and did I feel threatened? Yes, but not by the MEWODS. This pretty little place, of symmetry and harmony, was falling apart. Griffins were screaming. Now, at last, they were finally emoting. I hadn't seen that before. In the last day, they had seemed as robotic as I, but of course, they had emotions just like me. The only one that didn't, or at least claimed he didn't, or did he claim to have emotion without them having any effect on him? It was Hookbeak. These griffins screamed and panicked, running toward me.

"I'm no threat," I said, not wanting to get attacked or run over by the panicked lives fleeing in my direction. They whooshed past me. "Oh, bother," I yelled. I crawled up to the MEWOD that was closest to me. "Hey, you," I said to the turret-driver. He just looked at me, a UNIBOT, not really reacting, and then, he quickly turned his weapon toward me. 

"Traitor."

"You're the traitor," I said. He was about to shoot, and I just walked out of the way. The mortar flew past me and scraped against the tank. 

"Don't be stupid," I said. Something flew toward me. I ducked. It hit the tank. It looked like a white beam of something. It sank into the tank, and then, nothing happened. I looked at the UNIBOT, and he was standing still. "Good," I said, going to the turret and shoving him off. I aimed the turret at another tank and fired.

The guy that had been handling the turret rose up. Another white thing hit him, and he was just still, hanging in the air. I looked up. Up, far up there in the air was Hookbeak. He was flying, and all sorts of things were coming out of his body. Green projectiles that looked like spotlight flying through the air hit the ground below, exploding tanks, making cyborgs fall all over the place, and many white dots, the time-stopping ones, flew in all directions. Black gunk was coming off his body, and floating through the air. It looked like floating sludge, and it hit a tank, dragging it into the canal, where a giant wave of electricity came up, fizzling and crackling through the tank, before it sank down and disappeared into the canal. 

"Wow, thank you," I shouted, and then I kicked the unmoving stallion-robot in the face, and poked his eyes. "Thank you, and thank you, sir." I then tried shoving him, but he didn't move an inch from his position. I opened his mouth with my hooves and then grabbed his tongue with my magic, pulling it out, making him do a really stupid face. "Haha," I said. Then he started moving.

"My eyes," he said. "I can't see."

"Serves you right," I said.

He reached his hooves toward me, but I moved out of the way like nothing. "Stupid," I said, going behind the turret. He stumbled forward, and grabbed the turret, just shooting into nowhere. The projectile hit another tank, rather than hitting me, that was coming toward us. Pieces of dilapidated houses and debris flew toward the tank. I jumped off it. It hit the tank, and smooshed the stallion-robot, the UNIBOT. I realized the horror of the situation, but another part of me got into the rhythm of battle. I was used to battling. It had been my life once. 

"Hey," a griffin yelled. "Come over here." He was standing in the alley of the prison cells. "You can be safe here." 

I felt something whoosh by me. "No, ple–"

It hit the griffin, and he was quiet now. I felt rage burning within me, but then I tried breathing. "Not good. Not good," I said, breathing, and afraid that I might go on another rampage, if I wasn't careful. "Not good at all." I remembered the sights and the feelings of murder, and how intoxicating it had been, like a rush, but I suppressed it. I didn't want it, for Sweetie. I wanted to be able to live with myself, and I didn't want to see this. This was radically strange. Another griffin came running, a female one.

"My kids. My kids," she said.

It was more than strange. It was scary, and it was what I had done for a long time. "I don't know where they are," I said.

"Please help me find them."

"Okay," I said, coming with her. I wanted to remain calm. I wanted to be a person that never killed any longer. She ran, and then she fell on the ground. Something hit her, but it came from high up in the air. "Who?" I said.

"Meee," a voice came down, and right in front of me, Aldeus plopped down. "It was meee."

"Okay, am I the reason why you came here?" I said, stifling the urge to jump him. I wouldn't have a chance anyhow, even if I did.

"Yes," he said, grinning at me, with those big great red scary eyes. "You're coming with me, my little pretty." 

I glared at him, backing slowly. "No, this wasn't supposed to happen."

"What wasn't supposed to happen?" He grabbed me and picked me up with his magic, like a toy. Carrying a pony with magic was not an easy feat, for me at least.

"You weren't supposed to come here. You were supposed to stay at the fortress and watch all this from a distance, through your strange soothsaying powers."

"I don't know what you're saying," he said, smacking his lips. "If you're trying to distract me right now, then I will show you my wrath."

"What?" I said. "Who then are you?"

"I am death," he said, staring into me with those eyes. All thoughts faded away, and I didn't say another word. I couldn't. I froze up. I had many thoughts and emotions that wanted to come out, but I just looked at him, blankly. This thing, whatever it be called, was my nightmare. He flew off with me in tow.

"No." I heard Hookbeak's voice. "Let go of her, you scoundrel."

Aldeus turned toward him. They were right in front of each other, in the blink of an eye, flying high up in the air over the buildings of Circle town. "Nyegh-nyegh-nyegh-nyegh," he laughed. "Don't be a hero." He backed away, flying with me hovering beside him. I felt myself dropping, and then, he picked me up. Aldeus flew faster and faster, circling the giant hill with the tower on it. "Come get her." He dropped me and I fell. Rather than flying toward me, Hookbeak shot a projectile at me. In the next second, Aldeus and Hookbeak had moved and were in entirely different places, fighting. Another projectile came flying at me. I was still falling. Then, Hookbeak was close to me. Aldeus came flying. Hookbeak scraped his face with his claws, and grabbed ahold of him and me at the same time. He moved his wings around, whipping Hookbeak with them. Black sludge flowed from somewhere out of Hookbeak's body and got on Aldeus.  

Aldeus got loose and tried flapping his wings, but he couldn't now. He was just falling. Then he reached out and grabbed Hookbeak. Hookbeak buffeted against him, ramming his body into Aldeus, and then, stuck his claws into his face.

"Auugh," Aldeus screeched, in falsetto, and then, his horn shot out a red beam of magic that pierced through everything, the ground, buildings, and he spun around in the air, still falling toward the ground, now looking like he was panicking. I saw that the black goo spread out over his body, like a suit, covering it. The beam hit the spirit hill, on which the tower was, and the hill just fell, the tower with it. Debris and pieces of metal, a storm of metal, fell toward us.  

"My tower," Hookbeak said, still holding onto me. "No."

Aldeus kept spinning in the air, and then, his beam hit Hookbeak, cutting off his wing. Hookbeak let go of me, throwing me to the side. Aldeus hit the edge of the canal, and then he looked at me. "I will destroy you, traitooor," he said, grabbing me, and then, Hookbeak fell down into the canal, and Aldeus turned his head, before he was dragged down into the water. An explosion of static came out of the water, and lightning, like out of a cloud, beamed out of the water, reaching into the skies, and then, there was nothing, and everything was quiet.  

I looked around. The MEWODS were retreating, going toward the door that the train always came out of, the door in the ground. "I have to see this through," I said, following them. Cyborgs sat on them, but rather than attacking me, they just looked blank-eyed, not saying anything. I thought this was interesting. Without Aldeus, they were like vegetables, just empty-headed. Most of them didn't even move at all, and some just lay on the floor of the MEWODS, in awkward positions, like they had fallen, but rather than standing up, were just lying there. 

I went down the train-tunnel, following to see where they were going. I was acting on instinct. I was full of confusion, and ecstatic almost. I couldn't believe what I had just survived. It was euphoric. It was crazy, but then, I remembered who I was and where I came from. Moments like these came and went, moments where I would feel like my old self again, feel free somehow, but then I remembered, this was the curse, and the other thing, fighting against it, was the freedom. It got darker and darker, but I just kept walking. Then, something grabbed me, or someone, and I was carried. I didn't know where.

I came into the aquarium where I had at first arrived in Circle town, and lying there on the floor was Aldeus, very much alive, though the word alive, perhaps, might be a bit misleading. He stood up. Sparks came out of his face, and his fur was torn off, revealing nothing but metal beneath, and he looked at me, and then, he collapsed on the floor. Smoke came out of his head, like black smoke, fire smoke. I stared at him. Part of me wondered if he would be no more, if he was dead. Something fell down out of the air, and it was Hookbeak. I saw two PEGABOTS above me, with blank expressions.

"Hey," I said to Hookbeak.

His body just whistled. It sounded like air was coming out of a balloon, and he sure wasn't very talkative with me.

"Okay then," I said. "Is is time for escape then, I wonder."

A bunch of robots formed a column across the tunnel that led down into the aquarium, blocking it off. I wondered where the train was. I figured that it travelled between the Hill of Spirit-faith, where the tower was, well, used to be, and here, but now, there was nothing. No tower, and no hill, and not even a train, for escape.

"I might've made a miscalculation," I said, slowly turning toward Aldeus, who was standing up again, regaining life.

He opened his mouth, but all that came out was a hiss. He really was a mess. Part of his scalp was torn off, and I could see the wet stuff underneath, and a piece of his hoof had come straight off too, so he was straining himself to keep balance, and there was blood all over him, blood soaking him.

"Don't kill me," I said, hoping for the best.

He just whirred, his mouth making sounds that I couldn't understand.

I backed off, taking one step at a time. "I'm sorry." More and more, the fear of death was coming upon me. "Please don't." I began shaking, and losing my foothold on the floor. I sat down. "There's no need. You have me now."

A quiet hum came out of Aldeus' mouth, and then, he collapsed on the floor again. I was really in for it now. What had I done? I could've escaped, but instead, I walked straight in the jaw's mouth, and on purpose too. What to do? What to do? I jittered, looking around, trying to find an escape path, or something that would help. The cyborgs were flooding into the room, as were the MEWODS, and they were coming closer and closer now. At this point, cyborgs were coming from all directions, making neat columns around us in the giant room with the aquarium. It bears mentioning that this room was big enough to house an egg-ship, so it was surely big enough to house a hundred MEWODS, easily, without a problem, without question, and without discussion. Eyes were also staring at me from all directions. I felt them. I felt the looks. They were blank. No. No? No, they were sad. They were really sad. Then, some of them began crying, and others joined in, and after that, they fell in heaps, joining together, screaming and crying so loudly that it was unbelievable. 

Were they really this sad over the death of this tyrant? And they weren't even really emoting properly. They were making a show of it, screaming, writhing, and tossing themselves against the floor. If anything, this thing was disrespectful to Aldeus, not respectful of him. This sudden outburst of emotion didn't really seem real. It seemed out of this world. The screams got louder and louder, and some of them stood up, jumping up and down, screaming like children, like toddlers. 

"Hm," I said, looking at Aldeus' unmoving body. "I'm not sure if I'm in danger."

A PEGABOT landed right beside me, moaning so loudly that I had a hard time thinking. "You need to help him," he said.

I stood back, jumping into a defensive position. "Why me? You all hate my guts."

"Pleeease," he said, crying a river. Tears were running down his face. "Please. I don't know what to do. I will die without him." 

"You will die?"

He came up to me, grabbing me. My survival instinct kicked in, and I flung him off me with a field of magic. "Don't you remember?" he said. "Don't you remember how it was?"

"Oh?"

"He's everything. What are we going to do? He loved us. He can't be gone."

I realized something. These robots were hexed, enchanted, and smitten with Aldeus, in a way that I had really never been, even when I lived back at the fortress. They viewed him as a god, but of course they did. He was everything they had ever known. He was the alpha and the omega, and he was the thing that gave life a purpose, even if the purpose is beyond the pale. Still though, I couldn't stand for this. I couldn't help them. My mind was leaving me. I was getting too afraid to think, but I knew of all things, I couldn't save the most evil person in the world. Even a stupid person knows that has to be unethical, and therefore, wrong, destructive, and something to be feared and avoided, and I was fearful of hurting Sweetie Belle most of all. I had spoken to her. I had seen her. I had seen the part of me that was her, and I wasn't ready to let that part go, at least not yet.  

"What could I do?" I said, looking at the carcass of Aldeus. "This type of engineering is way beyond me. I used to make hooks, locks, and guns, not cyborgs."

"What do you mean cyborg?" he said, very confused, and afraid, and sobbing.

"Open your eyes," I said. I couldn't stand the ignorance that was displayed here, because I knew how much it cost everyone, both the person I was talking to, and the wide, wide world. "This is metal." I pointed at the metal that was showing beneath the fur. "And this is meat." I pointed at his brain, that was literally sticking out of his head. "He's a cyborg, and so are you. It's a sham. It's always been a sham."

"Ah, m- meat? Where?" the PEGABOT said, sounding really confused, and afraid, shaking, his entire body shaking.

I sank down on the ground. "Oh, forget it."

"Please," he said. "Is there nothing you can do?"

"You're talking to an engineer. What do you expect me to be able to do?" I was surprised and angered at this individual's low-IQ behavior. 

"Please." He fell down on bended knees.

"Oooh," he said, smiling, and then bowing, and I figured this could only mean that Aldeus was standing up, regaining his balance, and looking at me from behind. I turned around. He was. I was losing my bearings again, and my body froze up.

"Y- you're alive?" I said. 

Without saying anything, he grabbed me and slammed me against a wall. I heard cheers, and hooves banging on the floor, right before I lost consciousness completely. I squinted, seeing Aldeus' shape in front of me. I was afraid, but determined to find a way. No, I thought. No, there is no way.

No, wait a minute. There is.  

But then I saw his eyes, but really, it wasn't his eyes I was afraid of. It was my own. I didn't want to be like him. I didn't want to think like him, cold and calculating. I wanted to get away from that, but everything I did, somehow, devolved into just that. I was afraid. I was slipping. I saw Sweetie Belle in front of me. 

"I'm sorry," I said, and then, I had a dream.
> Part 19: Sweetie Belle
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hey," Sweetie said. "Look." They all did. It was beautiful. It was unexpected. It was something new, for all the ponies involved, most of all Sweetie Belle, who had never seen lightning up close before, or heard its ear-deafening sound. It was a revelation, painful for the ears, but a sight to behold. It was was something new, again, and something more powerful than any of them understood, so far. It was a sign of what's to come, and they looked at it, astounded, aghast, and surprised, and full of hope and energy, and wonder, and joy, but such things come in short supply, and contrary to what some readers may think, wonder and joy can be destroyed. In an attempt not to bury the lead, I will inform you that this is what part 19 is about. It's about a filly that fell, learning a new, more powerful moral lesson that doomed her forever. This is her story, and this is an honest attempt at doing it justice, difficult and imposing as it may seem. I will do it, though. I will. I will.

There's really not much to say. I feel sorry for her, but I know that none of it was really my fault. Yes, all that comes later, all the killing and stuff, which I'm feeling more and more ashamed of, and am regretting some of the earlier things that I've written in these chapters, those are my faults. This wasn't. This was the fault of pure evil, and its name is [redacted]. 

[Here, an editorial decision was made not to mention the name of the person that designed the facility. I won't dignify him, it, whatever it be called, by using its real name. Suffice to say that it's a person you readers haven't really met yet, and if you did, you wouldn't live to tell the tale. Even using his name has struck fear in me, and an attempt was made, as you will later learn, to hide its name and bury it forever, because it's such a strange relic of Equestrian history that no one is really proud of. It's something that always thinks it's doing the right thing, but whatever it does, only makes things worse. Every mention of its name up to this point of the story will already have been redacted as you're reading this, and I'm hoping that I can tell the story without using its name, his name. We'll see how it goes. Anyway, you'll see what I mean later.]     





Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo, all together, friends, in harmony, and in love, being there for each other, caring, doing the right thing, and getting punished for it. The punisher in the dark was not Sidus. I'm sorry to drop the lead, and I'd actually prefer not to talk about that person, but in short, imagine something that wants death for its own sake, not because of an instrumental reason, and that person really prefers things to suffer and die hard, because the harder you suffer, the harder you learn, and that makes death a moral good in itself. Sound familiar? Yeah, I'm not done freaking you out yet. I'm not the only one that thought this way, and the person that did, whose identity you will learn later, lived in the shadows, in a literal sense. It's important to understand how and why he acted this way. For posterity's sake, there's a lesson to be learned here, even if the lesson comes from the worst person in the world. The worst person in the world is also something that lives within all of us, sadly, like it or not, and for it not to come out, you need to realize that it's there. It's important.       

The worst person in the world is the propensity to do bad things because doing bad things is enjoyable, fun, good, and can have positive results that are local for the person that's doing it. Being the worst person in the world can be good for you, and bad for other ponies, and not in a sense that's relative, and depending on the context of the act. It's not a matter of interpretation. It really is good for you, in some final sense, and bad for the other person, in a sense that's final and true, and I feel a certain way about this. I'm not sure if it's right. I feel that if you don't believe that, you haven't met someone truly evil. Well, I have, and what does evil mean exactly? Let this chapter be your guide to that. Let it guide you. It's important to learn. It's not a joke, and it's not something I take lightly anymore, and yet, I've made some sacrifices, and done things that I'm not exactly proud of, as I'm writing this. I've been remembering things, terrible things. How can you avoid doing terrible things? It might seem easy, like common sense, but the truth is that the world around you is pulling you in different directions, and tempting you to do certain things.     

Take this for instance, while I'm at it. I didn't choose to lie unconscious on the floor of the aquarium in Circle town, in the northwestern corner of continental Equestria, and yet, I am, and was it a misdeed, moral or otherwise that led me here? No, and that's not to say that I haven't committed moral misdeeds. It's just that they have squat to do with what happens, really happens, in the long run. I could've done all the right things, and it still would've ended me up here, no? I was dragged and pulled across Equestria, not of my own volition. No, I wanted to escape. I was duly chastened into submission, learning my true place as a servant of friendship when I met Jelly, and then Gripey, and it's really about my own friendships. I care about them a lot. Still, I also care about staying alive, and I even care about virtue, perhaps for good and for ill.  

I'm not done. This point about evil, being the one I made, was one I realized much later, and I'm the one that realized it, no one else, and it's not something that most ponies agree with me on. They think that evil is something that happens to a person, like a natural catastrophe. They think evil is an idea, not a person, but they're wrong. They haven't met this person, and it's not something I'm happy to say. It's about this character. He's really the one that's making me say these things. [Redacted] is, drats! I accidentally jotted his name again. My incompetence precedes me. It always has. Did he have a point? Did he? He tried to, anyway, but everyone has a point. That doesn't mean they're right. Allow me to give an introduction to him that's less abstract and more graphic, so to speak. He is the one behind it all. He is a coward, and he was also my friend. No, I'm not talking about Gripey, or Lennox. Don't be silly. I'll give you a hint. He's very careful about hiding his true name and identity, and he can turn into anything and anyone at any time. No, it isn't Hookbeak. If Hookbeak has any virtues, at least he has his directness. Hookbeak is like an open book. Once you've met him a few times, you get it. Hookbeak is absolutely crazy, but fascinating, in his own way.     

This person is the thing that gave me, a technologically challenged, and altered, child, a belief in something that might be considered evil, and in my opinion, it wasn't a mental defect, or ignorance. He knew exactly what he was doing, but there was something else, a weakness in the system. There was something not coldly evil, and more, how shall we say it? There was something real about him behind the theatrics. Again, I refuse to acknowledge his name, though I have a sneaking suspicion that I will be forced to later in the story. This person isn't a ghoul, like Aldeus, or sad decrepit old coot like Sidus. He's something much more stark, and he's something much more terrifying also for that reason. He's a real person, with intentions that he cares about, and they are in conflict with the intentions of, say, the royal sisters, and their allies. It's in conflict with what Hookbeak is trying to do. Again, I'm really sorry for burying the lead. There's nothing grander than pure love, or pure joy, or pure happiness, or pure evil for that matter. It cries out for acknowledgement, and a true explanation that goes beyond hand-waving, and talking about bad luck. It isn't bad luck that things turned out this way. Now, I wish to shock you, but it's for your own good. I wish to teach the reader a moral lesson, one he or she will not forget in a long while.         

Here's the story of an old friend.





He opened a hatch. Inside it was me. It was cramped in there, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. In fact, I'm fairly sure I was choking. He looked down at me. 

"Hello," I said, feeling confused, and I had no idea what was going on, or where I was. I was confused, about everything. My memory had been rendered useless. Really, it had been rendered, unto itself. "Hello," I said, again. My voice was still that of Sweetie Belle. He hadn't altered my voice yet, but he would? Why? Let him explain it. 

"Hatch F," he said, turning his head away. He looked like a shadow. Really, he was a shadow. Well, he was several things at once. He was complicated, like a draconequus, like Discord. He was difficult to explain. He was... mechanical. "5226." His voice echoed through the hall. It was a high voice, with a squeaky pitch, but it still carried some power. It was loud, and it shot right into the little hatch, the cylindrical tube that I was lodged in.  

"Hello," I said at him, not to him, but at him. "I feel weird. Oh, boy, do I feel weird? I feel like I want to hurt you," I said, from inside the tube. "Who are you? Do you want to die?" I said, smiling, and not really understanding what I was saying.

"No," he said. The shadowy figure shifted somewhat, and seemed to divide into more shadows, that stood around the hatch of the tube, each looking down. "But I don't want to live either."

"Can I kill you then?" I said, feeling giddy. I was happy. I was at ease. I was really attached to something, but I didn't notice that to my own full awareness at the time. I didn't even know I was trapped. I just felt happy. I felt like I could conquer the world. That bug of the black hive was right. They really did make us happy. I felt happier than happy. I felt so joyous that I didn't know what to do. I wanted to do anything and everything, and I even felt happy about being down in this tube. Everything felt wonderful, and of course, to end life, and kill things, was on my mind, constantly. It was my gift, to live with that, for the rest of my life, because I had warm hearts that took care of me. It had to be that way. It just felt that way. I felt like a pure bundle of joy, ready to conquer the world. Happiness can blind you to what's really going on, but I didn't realize that. I was too happy.  

"Can you kill me?" the shadows said, but it was really just one voice, one and the same. It was one sound, not several. "No, but you can try."

"I mean, am I allowed to kill you, silly?" I said, without a moment's thought.

"We have to fix your voice," he said.

"Why?" I said, feeling insulted, but mostly just happy. "You don't like it?"

"It's not that," he said. "Forgive me, but you're not a pony anymore. Don't pretend to be one."

I was really confused now, even more than before. "I feel like one," I said, and then, I felt a rush of joy and energy come over me. "I want to explore the world. I want to find all the best solutions, and make everything good, and it's good. I love being alive. I want to extradite the information of the world and make it my own, and make the world my oyster, because oysters, symbolically speaking, I should say, are desirable."

The shadows then united into one. "Ah. Fascinating." Something shot into my back, like a piston. It pushed me, slowly, out of the tube, and when I emerged, I was suspended in the air, and wires were going into my body. I noticed that I couldn't move my hindlegs, which bothered me a little bit. I couldn't do much at all, except look, and stare. I couldn't move much. I looked down. I saw that half the skin on my hindlegs was off, hanging off, and behind it was a flicker. It was metal. Metal was hiding beneath it, and I saw blood at the bottom of my soles. Strange, I thought. I then looked at my front-hooves. They looked withered somehow. They looked smaller than they should be. How did I know that? I didn't. I just felt it. They were wrinkly, and pink, and when I moved them, I noticed small splotches of blood coming out of them, and running down. I tried wriggling but the machine held me in place. It didn't allow me to move, like at all. It started hurting. It started hurting, a lot. I stopped wriggling. I felt like something was running down my backside, and by inference, I assumed that it must be blood. Now, all of a sudden, I felt like my body was tearing apart.  

I felt like it was coming apart at the seams, like it was broken. I started croaking. I couldn't breathe. My awareness was fading. Then, something pulled me backward, and I felt better. My breath was coming back, but I was still suspended in the air. In front of me was a pony. He was a shadow. He was literally a shadow, and a pony, one and the same. It hit the wall. What cast the shadow, I couldn't see, and the location of the shadow didn't make any sense, because the only lights I could see were in front of me, on the wall behind the shadow, so geographically, whatever cast the shadow, should be in the opposite end of the room, but whatever. A shadow was talking to me. The voice was literally coming from the shadow, not whatever cast it. The room was a corridor. I remember it. I can see it in front of me. It was a corridor, and along the corridor were tubes just like my own, but the hatches on them were closed, and whoever was inside didn't see what I was seeing.     

"Why did you come?" he said. "Why? I'm not asking you a question that you don't already have the answer to." 

"I think I don't have the answer to it," I said, regaining my breath from almost being torn apart, and asunder. "Whatever do you mean?"

"I was," he said, then going quiet. "I wasn't speaking." He didn't say anything more.

"Yes, you were," I said, giddily correcting him, feeling pain shoot through my body as I did it, but I just embraced the pain. I enjoyed feeling like needles shot through my body, because it was sharp, and real, and alive. But that being said, who was this person?

He looked at me. "I wasn't speaking to you. I was speaking to the pony underneath." 

"Heh," I said, then shutting my mouth. I looked at him. Then, I got a weird feeling in my stomach. I remembered a scream. It was my own. I remembered a promise that I made to a friend, and I had told her never to break that promise, and somehow, that promise lived on within me. I will find you, and we will be fine, it was. I will find you, and we will be fine. I will find you, and we will be fine. I promise, on my life. I looked at the shadow, and something seemed wrong about it. I still felt happy, but something different, like negative affect, was crawling up on me. "Who aaare you?" I said, feeling nauseous, though I hadn't a moment ago.

"I'm sorry," he said. "We don't know one another. I'm a fellow traveler. I live in this world, trying to make sense of it all, like yourself." 

"I think I like making sense of things," I said.

"Yes," he said. "You like it too much for your own good. That is your strength, and your weakness, and it's what I like about you, Sweetie Belle." I got a vision of an old face, covered with wrinkles, and a machine, and death, and fear, and I was looking at him. It was the face of death, a big pair of sad despairing eyes, which showed little remorse for what they did, nonetheless. The eyes did what they did, and never stopped. They scared me. They angered me, those eyes.

Then, I said, "You rotten no-good stupid traitor to, to–"

"Traitor to what?" he said, goading me on.

"I was following a trail, okay? I was looking- looking for- why can't I remember?" I said, tearing up. "My friends. I can't even remember what they looked like."

"Can you remember me?" he said.

"What?"

"Can you remember my question?"

"Why do you care?" I said.

The shadow nodded. "I know what you're capable of. I wish to learn about you, before I kill you."

"No," I said. "Don't kill me. I'll be nice." I looked at him, feeling a weird sort of remorse. I wanted to yield to him, but then, I remembered the promise, again. "No," I said. "I'll never be nice. I want to get back to my friends, and Twilight's gonna stop you, and- and Rarity, and." I got quiet. "T- T," I said, forgetting the name. It slipped my tongue, and then my mind. What was I even saying? I couldn't remember. 

"Oh?" he said. "No, not Twilight. She's not going to stop me, and your sister will be dead."

"No," I yelled. "No, why?"

"Because," he said. "Friendship is dead!" His voice cracked. "Luna is dead. Celestia is dead. The light that they thought they represented, and stood for, is dead." His pitch got even higher. "Everything you thought was right and good, is dead!"  

I just cried. Sweetie cried. Something cried within me. Such strange things to say. Dead? How can something like that be dead? Friendship? As long as friends exist, then surely, friendship, as an abstract notion, and an idea, and the act itself, cannot be dead, surely? 

"Don't kill my sister," I said. My body was feeling sore. Everything felt sore. I didn't feel happy anymore. This was terrible. I was- I felt things sticking into my back, into my body. They were giant tubes, as big as my arms.

"Kill," he said, sighing. "Kill, kill." The shadow put a hoof to its face. "Kill?"

"What are you doing?" I said, feeling my voice changing octaves, and flavors. I was speaking differently than normal, but I couldn't, for the life of me, understand why. "Kill?"

"I'm not killing. You are," the shadow said, pointing at me. Its hoof reached off the wall and down against the metal floor, pointing right at me. 

"Why?" I said. "Oh," I then said. "You want me to kill? That makes sense."

"I want you to resemble me," he said. "I want you to be like me, as a daughter, for I am your father. I want you to see the suffering of the world inside you, and feel it, and be aware of it, and then, yes, I want you to kill, because then, the suffering will have a face, and rather than sleeping beneath a mask, you will bear it out, and I will help you, because I'm the only thing that can, and I will recreate the world in this image, which is what you and I know to be the truth, for we know things that none other knew."

I nodded. "You want me to become a slave. You want me forget everything, including the conversation we're having right now."

"You're something extra, something else," he said. "Coming from a child too. How poetic, and how sad."

"You also want me to become simple and docile," I said, "so you can control me, but still, sharp and astute enough to carry out my duties. You want me to become a worker, something. You want me to become an engineer, right?"

"Now," he said, "you know things that no one else ever told you. Why do you think that is?"

"It's rather obvious," I said.

"No," he said. "Nothing is obvious."

"It's definitional," I then said.

He laughed. "You're cute."

"You said you were going to kill me, but that can't be right. I deduce from the things you have told me that you're going to use me, not kill me." 

He grunted. "Kill," he then said. "I will kill you, but I would honestly prefer it if you did it yourself. I hope I can arrange that."

"You have the power," I said. "Not me, and what you have done to me will be considered..." The shadow grew eyes, which made me trail off. The eyes were red, and shining, like two beacons, like lamps. 

"Rest," he said. "It's difficult to know. None of what I'm doing is being considered, because everyone is wrong about it, including you. I'm recreating the world," he said. "I don't care if ponies judge me, but the more I do, the more difficult it will be to keep track of, and I can keep track of everything, but it's easier if I delegate, because then, I can keep track of the consequences of what I do, vaguely, as opposed to keeping track of each specific thing. I can watch the overarching triumph of my project from afar, beholding it, and seeing its wonder, and glory, and everything it has to offer, for you see, in dying there's an opportunity, and the same goes for winning a war, but for me, winning means bringing ponies together under a common banner, my banner, and that banner will last forever, and it's not friendship. It's something else. It's true truth, and true meaning. It's what everyone is striving for, whether they realize it or not." 

I laughed. "Wow."

"What?" he said. "Did I get something wrong?"

"No," I said. "It sounds like you have it figured out, from beginning to end. There's really nothing I can say to convince you that you're just making up things in your head." I giggled. 

"I believe," he said, "in something. As do many. Many believe, as I do, in something, but my attempt at making the world a perfect place has been met with hatred. Why? Am I not successful? Am I not always right in my assumptions? I never said anything that was wrong and untrue, but maybe then, truth doesn't matter, or truth isn't enough. Maybe there's something more."

"Maybe doing things that cause suffering, negative emotion, and pain, and something that's genuinely negative to the person that's experiencing it, is truly bad," I said. "Or maybe disliking pain, and suffering, even if you know you dislike it as it's happening, and feel that it's something you don't like, because the feeling itself is negative, and is causing you to suffer, because the feeling itself is the suffering, maybe that is just, I don't know, an opinion. Or maybe, feeling feelings, and doing things, is all just an illusion, or maybe, saying that something is good or bad is missing the point. Maybe we're all just trying to do what seems correct, or something like that, in the moment."

The shadow just hung there. Then, it sank back. A person walked in front of me. He was covered in fabric. It was a giant brown blanket of fabric, like the kind sacks are made out of. "You're the one, aren't you? I heard the night spirit speak about you."   

"What?" I said. I had totally forgotten that I was Sweetie Belle now. At this current time, I was just abstracting. 

"You're the one that's supposedly destined to stop my plan. Destiny is a weird thing, don't you think?"

"Then kill me then," I said. "And have it over with. I can't stop your plan if I'm dead. The rational thing would be to kill me."

"Time works in mysterious ways," he said. "If I kill you, then that will also stop my plan. You will do things to help me, though you're not aware of it. I need you to die at the right time, and I need you to do it yourself. Can you do that for me?"

"No," I said.

"I figured as much," the brown blanket said. "Then I suppose it's back to sleep for you, and you will learn what I have planned later, in a year or so."

"In a year? Now, that sounds–"

I faded, and was gone. I could see the light fading, and then, something slammed in front of me. I was going back into the tube. Home, sweet home, I guess. It was home. It was cramped, but it was home, as far as I knew, but I didn't know much at the time, did I? 





Okay, did he have a point? Yes. Was he pure evil? No. Wait, scratch that. Yes, he was. No, he wasn't. He was complicated, and really, he's not as cold and calculating as he may seem. He was my friend. I don't know. Am I saying that I'm a moral absolutist, and that I have all the answers? I don't even know what that question means, so I have to assume the answer is no, and this guy, he was not to mess with. He had a point though. He could change the future, and he knew what to do, and who to kill, in order to make the world a better place. What would you do if you had the power to do anything you want? Nothing? I know I wouldn't do what he has done. He ruined me, and he ruined a lot of others, and he did a lot of strange things, this person.   

Now, I realize I'm backtracking a little bit. This was going to be a guide to pure evil, but it's more just a guide to weirdness, and the strange character flaws of this one person. Pure evil is bad intentions, with a goal, but it's not something that wants to see things flourish in the end, I think, and when I really think about it, he thought that this was what he did, and he had proof, and in some ways, convincing proof, even though I guess we could say it's a strange way of going about things. Pure evil is a strange proposition, because to my mind and ear, it seems like the intention to hurt, and of course, he believed in hurt, because hurt always has a good consequence, so there was a sort of teleology built into it all, but he was a friend, and he believed in me. He was just telling me the truth. I couldn't stay alive forever, and it wasn't for some personal reason. He wasn't bitter or angry with me, and he didn't want to kill me so that he could enjoy it. It's not that. It's not sadism. It's just stating the facts, as he saw them, and when you're stating the facts, sometimes, you can come off as a little insensitive, but it's all for the best that he told me sooner or later, and he was very frank, in this regard, but he wasn't in others.

It's sort of like he said. It's the honesty that makes the person, the truth of it, and there was a lot of truth there, so I'm not denying that, but there's also no denying the suffering he has caused. Is suffering something bad though? Maybe it's just something that happens, like a cold breeze, or anything else that feels like something. Maybe suffering is just a judgement we make post hoc about everything we dislike, and really, you cannot say that it exists on its own terms. I said you can cause bad to happen, but more accurately, you can cause the perception of suffering to happen, but in the end, all we do is to perceive things, and there's nothing magical about perception. It comes and it goes, and it's influenced, not by reality, but by itself, and its internal machinations. Perception is a part of my body, and yours, and so, that's what makes something moral or not, is perception. 

True evil, really, is not a person. It's a feeling. It's a thought. I don't think it's an idea, and it's not an event, precisely. There's nothing random about it, but evil is just about me perceiving what you do to be evil, because in my perception, it cannot be interpreted any other way, so then, of course, my reality and yours are influenced, or maybe even constituted in perception, so it doesn't make sense to distinguish between reality and perception. They're one and the same, but perception has its own character. That's all I'm saying. Perception makes ponies into moral monsters, not thunderstorms. Speaking of thunderstorms, what was it that Sweetie thought she saw out on that fateful day, and why did it cost her so much? It wasn't deliberate, surely, but can you write it down to bad luck? No, surely, or can you? It was pretty unlucky, from the perspective of the person that didn't expect it, but then, is luck really just a fudge word for something that's unexpected? Is luck not even real? It's just another word for something you cannot predict? That makes the word pretty meaningless and useless to my mind. I want luck to be real, but what is luck, anyway? Is luck just the good part of the unexpected?  

I'm in Circle town, or was, rather. It's a place where unexpected things happen, not because it's a place that's liable to produce unexpected results. It's exactly the opposite. Circle town is a place where everything always happens a certain way, but think about it. The slightest deviation from that is what one might refer to as the unexpected. Am I wrong about that? I feel right. Does that make me right? What does it mean to be right? Does might make right? Is right just a sensation in your body, like warmth, or the air? Is right an intuition, and when you strip it all down, it's just a primitive, like an instinct, or something even more rudimentary than that? Is right arbitrary? Is it fake? Is it necessary? Is it good? What does it mean for something to be good? Is right always good, if there really is such a thing as right, and is right what ponies mean when they use the word evil, and when they use the word good? Is goodness and evil just random, like luck, or bad luck, for that matter? Is luck contextual, as the town of circles made it seem, because it always depended on the context of the situation? I didn't expect death and destruction to happen there. It's not that I didn't expect it at all, but it felt like bad luck as it arrived at my doorstep, but really, it was just reality, cold and hard. Is reality, in some deep and final sense, lucky and unlucky, since it all goes back to what's real or not, rather than what's unexpected, which is really just a judgement? Am I making any sense?

Oh, bother. Maybe I'm the one that's confused. Maybe I'm really the one that's confused about everything, and too blinded by my own weakness, the evil within me, to be able to judge another person to be that evil, and if so, what am I even doing? Making stuff up? Am I free-associating? I've already contradicted myself several times in this chapter. Don't think that I'm not aware of that, but I'm flustered, and that's because, it's unclear... actually. I think I, but, no, that can't be right. I don't even know what I'm saying. I started this all off by saying that I would introduce you to a moral guide, but really, I'm my own worst enemy in this regard. If I can't be a moral guide to myself, then be one to others? No, that can't be possible. I wanted to help ponies, but I don't even know what that means, and I don't want things to suffer, too much, because there are times, and maybe I have gone full circle now, there are times where suffering is more than a moral necessity. It is a duty, so to say that suffering is bad, in itself, is untrue, I think, but then, to say that it is good, in itself, seems untrue, because something that feels so bad cannot be good, can it? It can be good and bad, and it depends on the context. That context was provided for me by this... creature. His name is dead, and in the same way that he believes friendship to be dead, really, his name is dead. It won't come back any more, and my dreams, they are still left. His ghost lives on, but it will die soon.  

I am the villain of my own story, I think, and I might even be a worse person than him, because I saw the suffering I caused up close. I realize, again, that I'm contradicting myself. I can't be the worse person if he's the worst person in the world. Bear with me now. I'm thinking this through as I'm writing this. I hope I can be more clear-headed later, but the point, anyway, is that doing what he did to me, even if the final consequence, and tally, is good, somehow, cannot be good. The act is bad but the consequence is good? Is that so difficult to grasp? What does it mean to say that anything is good, again? I'm repeating myself, but I'm not just saying things. I'm really wondering. It's bad for me, but good for the next person? Fine, but I'm less and less sure that's true, and you know why? It's because this person, this moral monster, who was my mirror-image in some sense, probably because he created me, had a point. Before I get to the judging and the hating, and the wanting to call him pure evil, which I'm inclined to do, I need to come up with a good, or at least, a coherent challenge to his point, and I haven't yet. I don't know the first thing. Maybe he was really right all along. Okay, he did some terrible things, but in his own words, that doesn't mean any of what he said or thought he was doing was untrue? Then, is truth not enough? Surely, if you know the truth, that will chart the right course through the world, and whatever happens, the truth will guide you.  

Truth is good. Isn't truth good? Is it bad? Without any truth, then really, all I said would be esoteric nonsense, but maybe even with it, it would be. It feels bad to be confused, but I hope I can figure out the answers before I have finished this book, and so, I pledge myself to doing just that, and I hope that you won't get angry at me, or dislike the story once I have it all figured out. It's all about the journey, and wherever it may take us, just know this. I'm just as confused as you are, but I do know this. Sweetie Belle was a victim, not a perpetrator. She did none of this to herself. Maybe it was bad luck. Maybe it wasn't? Can we agree on this? No? Oh. Is it enough just to agree on something? Maybe everyone in the world can agree on the wrong thing, or maybe, I'm just overthinking it, in which case, shoot me, but still, I think I have a point. This is why.





Sweetie Belle ran across the field. For clarity's sake, I will speak about her as if she were another person. Her friends ran after. They were close. They loved each other, and of course. Why wouldn't they? I had never known friendship like this before. My relationship with Gripey was only a bleak shadow in comparison to this.   

"Wow," Scoots said. "What a thunderstorm. I have never seen anything like it."

"Yes," Sweetie said. A bolt of lightning shot down, not far from there. "Where does lightning come from anyway, you guys?" 

"Cloudsdale," Apple Bloom said. "Duh."

"Yeah." Sweetie laughed. "But I mean, where does it really come from?"

"Cloudsdale," Apple Bloom said, stubbornly refusing to give way.

"I know," Sweetie said. "It does, doesn't it?" The lightning kept coming, firing into the ground, and it seemed to be getting closer.

"Maybe we should go," Apple Bloom said. "Place seems dangerous, now. Even more dangerous, I think."

"Maybe," Sweetie said. "Or maybe, we could go explore, just a little bit." She held up her hoof, hovering it over the ground. "Just a teensy-tiny bit."

"What do you think you will find?" Scoots said. "It's just lightning."

Sweetie nodded. "Yeah, you're right. It is just lightning, one of nature's wonders. It is just that, nothing more."

"No," Scoots said. "The lightning is cool and all, but what do you expect to find? There's nothing but more lightning out there."

The lightning fizzled, and then, it coiled across the ground, and gave off a melodic sound. It was like loud static. Then a bolt of lightning struck down, just very close to the three friends, all too close for comfort. Another did, but further away, and another, and another. Then, a hundred lightning bolts struck down across the field, one by one, in quick succession, and in a straight line, showing a pathway, like a line drawn on a map. Without even thinking about it, that's how Sweetie perceived it, and she now was determined to follow the lightning and see where it lead.

"Look," Sweetie said. "It's like the lightning is telling us to go that way."

"That's awful strange," Apple Bloom said. "I think we should go home right this second."

"No," Sweetie said. "Let's follow it."

"Are you positive?" Apple Bloom said, not really wanting to do it, by the look on her face. She was scared.

"Positive, proof-positive," Sweetie said, really just blurting out some words. "Let's go."

Apple Bloom followed Sweetie, and Scootaloo was not far behind. In a strange twist of fate, everything that transpired on that field with these three random children really made a big difference, wouldn't you say? I assume you already know what happened if you're reading this, but maybe you don't. I will assume you don't, perhaps if a stray reader has been living under a rock for the last ten years. It doesn't matter, either way. What does matter is what's to come. Are you ready? 





A thundercloud lowered against the ground, in something that looked strange, and unnatural. It was the wrong event to be present for. Sweetie just stared.  

"What's that?" she said, always a little mockingly, because it just looked so strange.

"Maybe we should run," Apple Bloom said. "Why are we just standing here?"

Scootaloo was quietly resigned, and sank down onto the ground. The thundercloud hugged the ground. It shone, white pieces of lightning coming out of it in all directions, and then, the cloud dispersed. Everything seemed like it should be, but only for a moment. The ground beneath their hooves shook, and a hole appeared where the cloud had touched the ground. It grew bigger and bigger, as earth exited the ground, flying in all directions. 

"Now, do we run?" Apple Bloom said, looking at Sweetie with panic in her eyes.

"Yes," Sweetie said, and they both ran the other direction, but they stopped, as they noticed Scootaloo just lying there. "Come on." Sweetie ran back. "Come on. We have to go. This is too weird. We have to go."

Scootaloo stood up. Then, Scootaloo hovered up in the air, just for a moment, landed back on the ground, and slid toward the hole. Sweetie ran after her. "No," she said, grabbing Scootaloo, but the suction force only seemed to be getting stronger, and Sweetie was pulled along with it. She let go, not really thinking clearly, and Scootaloo darted into the hole, and disappeared. 

"Scoots," Apple Bloom yelled.

"Oh, no. No, no. This is all my fault," Sweetie said, looking down in the hole. Somehow, Sweetie had been spared, and so had Apple Bloom. "Why did I let go?"

Apple Bloom came up beside Sweetie. The inside of the hole was a black abyss. "She's down there," she said. "How do we get down there?"

"We have to call a grownup," Sweetie said. "Maybe we'll get stuck there too."

"No," Apple Bloom said. "We have to help her right now. If not, we might be too late."

"What are we going to do?" Sweetie said.

Then, a light fluttered inside the hole. It came up higher and higher. It was Scootaloo, and she was engulfed in a white stream of light. It was so stark that it blinded Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle for a second, and then they saw it. Scootaloo, with closed eyes, came hovering out of the hole, and into the air, going higher and higher. Apple Bloom jumped after her, and got ahold of her tail, grabbing it with her mouth, but Scoots just kept going higher. It was like gravity, but in reverse. It was a strange experience. Now, Apple Bloom was hovering right above the hole, so if she let go, she would fall into the hole, and Sweetie realized this.

"Don't let go," Sweetie said, but Apple Bloom did, and she fell down into the hole, which was so deep that you couldn't see that bottom, and round, going straight down into the patchy, dirty earth, which was surrounded by grass. "No," Sweetie said. "What did I do? We should've just gone home." 

The ground shook again. Sweetie turned and ran from the hole. She was met with a face, and a greeting. A tiny group of characters stood in front of her. It was a blue alicorn, that was old as sin, old as death, who looked like he had trouble standing, a black alicorn with red glowing eyes, and a disembodied face that hovered in the air. The face was of a large brute. It was scarred, and made out of many tiny splotches of color, like dots of light, that together, turned it into something clear to the eye, like a painting, that was done using dots. The face was white, but many nuances of white, and it had black lines going over it in all directions, making it seem scarred and deformed. It was less white and more grey where the eyes were, and those eyes were large and staring, completely round, like they had no eyelids. The face spoke. 

"Long it has been."

Sweetie backed away, going closer and closer to the hole, without realizing it. She was entranced by the face. "I never met you. You're crazy." 

"No," the disembodied head said. "But I met you."

Aldeus glared at the floating head. "Why keep her alive?"

The head turned toward Aldeus. "You want to kill a child? Is that really in your nature? What happened to you, my bringer of darkness? Is this what we have been reduced to? Killing children? I feel strange, even talking about it in such glib tones. I feel like, ah, and you." The head floated to the side, looking at the old, blue alicorn. "Are you going to let me do it? If I killed her, would you stop me? Please, stop me. Stop us, because it is your duty to do so, my old friend." 

"We should have never come," Sidus said, turning his head away. "We should have never come. This was a mistake. Why are we doing this? You're playing with fire, as you know." He was speaking in the other direction now.

"Why are you talking like that?" Sweetie said. "You wouldn't kill anyone. No one kills anyone. This is Equestria. We can be friends." 

The floating head looked at Sweetie. It wasn't really a unicorn or a pegasus. It was just a floating pony-head, of light, glistening light, like the light of the sun, but whiter, and somehow, even more blinding. "Friends?"

Sweetie felt a cold tingling sensation run down her spine, and now, she felt fear, a new kind of fear. She feared for her life. "Yes?" she said, not really sure what was going on anymore. "Yes."

"I want to be friends," the head said. "But if you want me to be friends with you, and be like you, and act like you, without noticing what's to come, the strange downfall of Equestria, this land, and your home, then we can't be friends."

Sidus shook his head. "Don't. We're speaking to a child here."

The head evaporated, and the lights shot off in all directions, like fireflies. Sweetie tried to duck out of the way of one, but it just flew right through her, like an illusion, like it wasn't even real. Then, the lights came back, but instead of being a head, they formed into a pony, that was the same height as Sweetie, now made completely out of light, for all to see, all that was close. Sweetie looked at the ghostlike thing, whatever it was. She didn't even know how to react, but she started thinking the worst. This was a person that had stolen her friends. Couldn't he, she, it, do the same thing to her? She turned around and ran. Then, a sound, again, like static, shot through her entire body, and she felt that she was surrounded in white bright light, and she was pulled across the ground, and toward the little filly-ghost that stood before her. Then, the dragging stopped, and Sweetie stood up. 

"I want to be your friend," the ghost said. "I'm fearful, but I want to be your friend. I don't want to hurt you, even though you will want to hurt me in a few years, supposedly." 

"I will?" Sweetie said.

"Oh, yes, but I don't blame you for it," the ghost said, with a garbled voice that sounded like it could be anyone, to Sweetie's ear. It didn't even sound like a real voice. "Please, let us talk."

"No," Sweetie said. "You let go of my friends right now."

"I never harmed them," the ghost said. "I'm protecting them against what's to come. You want to be harmed? No one wants to be harmed, surely."

Sweetie gasped. "I want to be together with them, surely."

"No," the ghost said. "No, you're afraid that harm will come to them, and you're afraid that your life will change, and that everything will be destroyed by what I'm now doing. I'm sorry. I never asked for this. I never wanted to be the person I am. I am a force of nature, and I am the thing that will haunt your dreams, and those of others, for many years to come, and I will bring you closer than you have ever been with your friends, and still, you will hate me for it. Try loving me. Try being my friend. You'll find that being my friend is far easier than being my enemy, Sweetie Belle."  

Sidus stepped forward. "You're only making it worse. You're well-aware that she will remember all this, and she's stronger than you are. She has the power to change you, and she will reveal your true identity, if you aren't careful."

The little filly-ghost of floating lights turned toward Sidus. "I believe in making things worse. I want to live in the real world, not the future, and the real world speaks to me. It says things to me, night-spirit. It wants me to make things whole, and if I abandon that voice, and that spirit, then all of it will have been for naught. The only thing I'm fighting for is redemption, constant redemption, for the mistakes I know I will commit. If I cannot make the world whole, after his death, then with my mask ripped off, let I too follow the same fate, and when I at last have died, may the world know that I was responsible for it in the first place, and everything that transpired, of which I'm guilty, will be laid bare before me, where it belongs. Eventually, I will be prepared to die. I will embrace it, because at least, I will have followed my own actions, of which I'm responsible, to their conclusion. I am the master of the future, and the past, until I am dead, and let them judge me then, and say what they thought, after I am done, reshaping the world."   

"No," Sidus said, not a moment after the ghost had finished. "Your arrogance will be your downfall. It always is. I have seen your story, read it page to page. In every iteration, your arrogance is always your downfall. You need to let go of the past, and the present, and the future, and focus on what really matters, which is our plan. Without thinking clearly, you will ruin everything. You will do everything right, and yet, you will destroy the world, because the power to see what's to come doesn't belong to you. It belongs to me, and you yield it with reckless abandon. The more powerful you become, the more blindly that power will be used, because the power will express itself, without your consent, and you will not understand what it does. It will turn you into something you're not, which is a cold-blooded killer, and you won't notice it. You'll be too busy, inspecting the future, and thinking about the past, to know that everything that transpired is beyond you, and your power, and your ability to predict the future, and make plans, and your brilliance will go to waste. Your life will have been a waste."   

"Um," Sweetie said.

The light-ghost turned around toward Sweetie. "I like children. I don't like arrogance. I like making plans, but I don't like carrying them through. To me, that's the true arrogance. There is no plan. We need to see everything through, ourselves, through individual acts. No plan can change the future. It is our thoughts and feelings every day, that do."  

"Can I go now?" Sweetie said.

Then, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom hovered down to the ground. Scootaloo came down from far up in the air. She looked like she was going into a cloud. Apple Bloom hovered up, out of the hole, and onto the ground. They looked like statues, just standing still, with their eyes closed, and then, their eyes opened, and they looked at Sweetie Belle. They came up to her and hugged her.

"Maybe we won't protect the children," the ghost then said.

"No," Sidus said. Aldeus had just been quiet through all this. "We cannot harm something that doesn't understand what it's doing."

"We all don't understand what we're doing," the ghost said, admonishing him, sounding almost mocking. "That's what makes all this so exciting."

"So we kill them then," Aldeus said, charging up his horn in a red, shining hue.

The ghost blew at Aldeus' horn. Tiny lights flew toward the horn and landed on it, extinguishing the glow, and making its light fade. "What?" Aldeus said. "What? Why?" 

"We don't kill them," the ghost said, growing bigger than everyone around it. "No, we don't kill. We never kill. You kill. He kills. She kills. But you and I, we never kill. This is what we do. We watch everything around us die, and then, we kill everything that would've died, had we not killed it, and we wait. We always wait. We look. We observe. We see to it that Canterlot hears our call, and when they take us seriously, meaning that they actually do what it takes to find us, which they are too weak to do, we attack, and we exact our prophecy, and finally, light will be light, and night will be night, and everything will be right. So sayeth I, the spirit of sight."   

Aldeus glared. "You want us to spare her now?"

"No," the ghost said, standing five meters tall, towering above everyone. "Let's do something interesting. Let's do what she would consider to be the right thing. We can't go wrong if we follow the judgement of another person for once, and let her dictate our mistakes, which come and go regardless. We spare her, but we teach her a lesson, and we give her a price, which will haunt her forever. We put her out on an adventure, and then, she will hate us, and she will think that we wanted harm to come to her, and this finally, will exact Sidus' prediction, even as it regards my arrogance, and I think it's poetic, and true." 

Sidus shook his head. "You're doing everything to make my prediction true, but then, don't be surprised when it turns out to be true, [redacted]."

"Don't say my naaaaaaaaame," she ghost shouted, so loudly that everyone got vertigo, and lost their balance. Then, all of them were engulfed in a bubble. The entire world around them including the sky, literally bent around them, stretching, going long, growing thin, becoming distorted, and everyone felt earth, and cold air press against their bodies. Sweetie did, anyway. The others, both Sidus and Aldeus, wiggled in thin air, moving around, looking as trapped as I was, Sweetie, pardon me, and her friends. We all were trapped, and then we all sank down toward the ground, slowly, hovering like leaves, but we were in a different place now. We were in a yard of some kind, a yard without flowers, and without life, but it was a yard. It was neatly cut, and it was symmetrical, as yards are. It was dead. There was no one there. We all landed. Sidus looked at Aldeus, and he shrugged, and then, he glared at the children, me included. I mean, Sweetie. Gosh, why can't I get this right? I don't want to mix them up. I really don't. I know I'm not the same person as her. I need to remember that.    

Aldeus laughed, chortling, and cackling. "You think we'll get punished?" he said.

"I'll get punished," Sidus said. "I'm the one that did it. It was an accident, but really, he's being immature, and someone needs to teach him a lesson, but it won't be me or you, because we don't really exist to him. We're like ghosts to him. He doesn't really see us as real individuals, and he doesn't believe in friendship in any real sense, so that's out of the question. It's difficult to reach a person under those circumstances." 

"No," Aldeus said. "Don't you question his judgement. He's the one that made Equestria in the first place, not you, and you don't have the power to do what he does, or think the way he thinks. Don't get arrogant, the way you accused him of being. This is an attempt at correcting something that's broken, and we will do just that. We are more powerful than they are. We know things they don't. We have the future. We could destroy the world easily, but we won't. We will set things right, and it all starts," he said, looking at me, "with her."

"Why me?" I said, standing up, wanting to get away. I'm sorry. Sweetie said it. I feel more and more like we're the same person, somehow. "Apple Bloom," I said. Apple Bloom walked up to me. "How do you feel? We need to go."

"There will be no going," Aldeus said. "I will give you strength, and you will use that to conquer Equestria, Sweetie Belle."

"No," I said, Sweetie said. Drats! "No. No, that's not necessary."

"Where are we?" Scoots said.

Sidus sighed, deeply. "Welcome to the facility. Soon, you will be added to the grand army of salvation, that will rid Equestria of its own doubts, and false beliefs, and why? It's complicated, and you need to see it to believe it. I will show you someday. Don't be afraid." Sweetie was terrified, but she didn't show it. She needed to be strong, for her friends, and so it was.

"Come on," she said, grabbing Scootaloo, and all of them ran together toward... where? Scootaloo seemed almost frozen. She didn't say a thing, and no wonder, and now, as they ran, they noticed something. They were walled in on all sides. They were trapped. There was no escape.

The others just stood there. "Hey," Aldeus said, glaring at Sidus. He was always glaring. He wasn't the theatrical figure of death and destruction that I remember from my stint at the metal fortress. He was more like a real person now, and his eyes weren't filled with blind rage, but they were always angry. He had angry eyes. Some ponies just do. "Hey," Aldeus said, again. Sweetie looked at them, and then to her friends.

"No escape," Sweetie said. "We're trapped."

"What?" Sidus said, slowly stumbling so he could face Aldeus head-on.

"You think he will kill me if I touch them, or do anything now, even if I take them to the mines?"

Sidus just stared at him, with tired, baggy eyes, really expressionless. "Yes," he said. "Yes, you will die, because he kills anything that goes against his ethical code." 

"But he wanted me to do it?" Aldeus said.

Sidus shook his head. "No, he wants you to be quiet now, because I just revealed his name. He's going into the northern tower, and when he comes back, he will twist her mind to draw the name out of her. No one is allowed to know his name, least of all children, who have been the worst revealers of secrets in our careers."

"Ah," Aldeus said. "Ah, I see."

"[Redacted]," Sweetie said. "Is that what I'm not allowed to say?"

"Yes," Sidus said. 

"[Redacted], [redacted], [redacted], [redacted]," Sweetie yelled, as loud as she could.

"Well," Aldeus said, looking worried. "You've doomed us all."

Then, Aldeus' body slammed into the ground, and so did the body of Sidus, and Aldeus' eyes grew redder, and more bright, brighter, and the light got even brighter, and brighter, and then, he screamed, and so did Sidus, and then, Sweetie was covered in light and flew up into the air, along with her friends. Something flashed before her eyes, and in the next moment, she was tied down into a machine. She looked around. An insect landed on her nose. This is the same memory as before, in part 14, but slightly different.

The insect said, "Welcome to the weapon. Welcome to the room of your doom. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We don't want to hurt you, but we must. We simply must." 

"Don't scare her," Sidus said. It was clear as night and day. This was part of my dream, when I was unconscious inside the aquarium, after Aldeus brought down the tower of technology, but somehow, everything was different, and I couldn't, for the life of me, understand why. Why would everything be different? Why? I didn't know. I didn't get it. Why? Oh, why? Why? Why? Were both these memories fakes, or did they happen at two different times? But then, why did everyone keep repeating the same thing, if they indeed happened at different times? Many mysteries arose before me, as I was dreaming, inside the aquarium, surrounded by cyborgs, and Aldeus himself, but something had happened to him.

Something inside Aldeus had snapped, or was changed. He was different inside the aquarium, and when I met him as a cyborg, than he was when Sweetie Belle was Sweetie Belle, before the nightmare began. The spirit of sight, and the last person you would ever want to meet, wanted to recreate the world in his own strange, absurd image, which he cared about a lot, because he wanted the world to be good, and kind, but without naivete, and without fear of fear. The world should be fearful all the time, he thought, because fear is good, and reality is good, and if we all embrace reality, everything will turn out well in the end, and there's something virtuous about that I suppose, and I ask you again, what would you do if you had all the power in the world? Here's a question: Would you be entirely harmless, like Sweetie Belle? Would you be more like the one that lives in the shadows, and plays games using light and darkness, smoke and mirrors, who is trying to make the world good, using a little death here, and a little destruction there, and a tad bit of psychological enhancement and change over yonder? Would you be somewhere in-between? And would the harm you did, assuming you did any harm at all, which seems likely, be contingent, not on the act itself, but just on how much you use this power?       

Those are not invalid questions, and I assume the answer, whatever it might be, is something that will scare and concern you, if you really knew you had it. If you did, you might realize that being a good person, and being weak, are often conflated, because weakness means you aren't capable of doing what he did, which is to try and recreate the world in his own image. When you're weak, you can't even do it on a local level, mono el mono. You can't do it for persons around you, that you care about. You ability to influence things, which is the source of moral wrongdoings, will be nil, and nothing at all, and it won't make a difference what you think you do, as you weakly plod forward, thinking you're making a difference, but really, not doing so at all. You're just not doing all the bad things that stronger, or perhaps, more aggressive individuals are doing, and so, you're more harmless than they are, and that makes you seem like a far better person, but maybe, more accurately, you're just weaker than they are, and if you were stronger, the monster would come out, and you would manipulate others in ways that will scare you, as you're doing it, because you truly understand what you're capable of, and now, more and more, I feel like I'm talking about myself, as I have made my way through all this. I have made others want to protect me, and care about me, and not for genuine reasons, but really, because of cold, hard reasoning, that brought me here. 

As I said in part 17, and I reiterate, weakness is not fear, or anger, or a lack of focus, a la Gripey. Weakness is not expressing those feelings when it really counts, when you really care, and the chips are down. Rather than doing that, I had reasoned. I think I should do this, because of X. I believe this is correct, because of Y. Was I even reasoning, or was I just making things up on the spot? That is what I want to know, and it seems that the more I grow, the more confused I get. Is that what growing means then, is getting more confused? Is growing synonymous with understanding that you really understand nothing at all, and so, you become fearful of everything? Oh, don't mind me. I'm just asking questions, but these are the right questions, are they not? For the more I grow, the more ignorant I feel, but somehow, I'm still a better person than I was before, but in what sense am I a better person? Am I really a better person? If I don't even know what's going on, because I understand so many things that really, I know finally that I understand nothing, is it possible for me to be a better person? Or am I just a more confused person, and confusion is somehow a virtue?  

Oh, never mind me. Don't take anything I say seriously. I'm not a serious sort of person. Really, I'm just rambling, but really, I'm trying to understand what's going on, and really, I'm realizing just now how difficult it is, and that scares me. It really does, and maybe, that fear, a humbling sort of fear, is an even deeper virtue, because fear makes you stop in your tracks and realize that really, you're just nothing. You're a bug. Everyone is a bug. The only one that isn't a bug, conversely, is acting like one, and in this dream, I learned all that. The one that is behind it all, the weird shadowy creature, who isn't Sidus, but as you will learn, is at the same time, is a bug. He is a bug in mind and spirit, and his bugness, his bugitude, haunted me forever. He can do what he wants, including destroy the world, but no, he had complicated plans that involved only destroying part of the world, so it's all good.

At least, like Hookbeak, he was very direct about his intentions, for the person that was really interested, and dared ask him point-blank, but don't you ever say his name, for that will spell your doom, and if you see him, don't look at him, and don't talk to him, for he won't look at you as a person. To him, you're an instrument, or an experience, a thought and a feeling, or many such ones, that are panning out through time. He's viewing you through the lens of your conscious awareness, your experience, not your true identity, and your eyes, and your face. He's looking right through you, and seeing something that he believes to be deeper, and perhaps he was really right, but don't trust him, because he won't want to be friends with you. He doesn't view friendship as real. He views it as a myth. To him, friendship is dead, because it was never really alive. This esoteric belief relates to a way of understanding people that will seem radically strange to some, but perhaps not all.  

It's about viewing everyone as isolated ends, with their own intentions, and those intentions are always lonely. They exist in their own world. They cannot truly reach out and connect with those of others. Inside our minds, we are all lonely. That is what he believed, but he would change his tune, and you know why? Because of none other than Sweetie Belle, not F-5226, but Sweetie Belle. Well, it's true, like it or not. And Sweetie Belle, an unwilling participant in all this, had to suffer for it. When you suffer only so that someone else can learn something that he should've known all along, you know you're dealing with something that's deeply unfair, and corrupt, incorrect, but now, now, that incorrectness is something only one person can do something about, and that is the person that started it in the first place. That person, I won't speak about any longer, because he has gotten more than enough attention for the rest of this chapter, and perhaps, more than that. I grow tired of thinking about such things, but I will, later, because I must. 

Now, let's go into some other interesting tidbits.





Wow. Boom. Boom-boom. It goes boom. Why does it go boom? No reason. It just does. Stop asking so many questions. What am I even talking about? Weren't you listening? Stop asking so many questions.

"Boom."

"Wow," I said, hearing the boom. "That sure is a loud sound. What a crazy sound."

"It is the sound of the future," Sidus said. "It is a sound that will change the world, when the time has come, and all the little ponies, and their leaders, will never, ever put their world back together again."

"Wow," I said. "And that is a good thing? Go figure. I guess something has to be a good thing, and if that be true, then why not this?" I gesticulated wildly toward the destruction. A giant crater was left in the ground. It was a hole, a giant hole, and out of the hole came a stream of colors, and the colors formed into visions, and those visions arose before me. They were visions of ponies, running away, and Canterlot, in ruins.  

"Something will," Sidus said. "The world will come together, and it will have no choice but to do so."

"But I thought you said, um," I said, looking at him, being all confused in the head.

"The ponies won't put their world back together again, but something will," Sidus said.

"Oh," I said, grimacing. "Well, that explains that contradiction. So be it then. Then that is the future we are creating."

Sidus bent down to eye-level. He stood next to me, I next to him, and he looked right at me to his left. He was at my right. "You do realize that when you get to the facility, your life won't be the same. It's never the same, and you won't like it."

"Then I will escape?" I said. "Well, it's all for the better that I'm at least aware of it."

"No," Sidus said. "You won't remember this conversation."

"How so?" I said, staring angrily at him. "You will wipe my memory again? For what purpose?"

"Only temporarily," Sidus said. "Your memories will come back to you. You will lie down in the hangar of Circle town, far away, remembering all this, and it will help guide you, and to offer you some help, you will be forced to leave soon, or else, something will come and get you, and you know her name."

"You mean I will know her name?" I said. "Gosh, can't we all just live and let live?"

Sidus shook his head. "No."

I walked away from him and closer to the crater. "I mean, using all this power, and all these inventions, we could conquer the world, and we wouldn't have to kill a soul. I get that there's some higher purpose behind it all."

Sidus stumbled forward, and lifted me up magically, and placed me in front of him. "Long ago, the black one, the creature of death, Aldeus, as you know him, was harmed, and he needs to carry out his destiny now. In not too much time, the first alicorn will return, and if you're not careful, you will be swept up by his wind, which doesn't discriminate friend from foe, in the same way that I, or even Aldeus do."

"The first one," I said. "There's something about this. I know his name, don't I? I do or I did? He doesn't want it revealed." 

Sidus sighed, groaning and grunting loudly. "You'd better hope that you never remember it."

"Because," I said. "He's evil, and he will kill me?"

Sidus shook his head. "The more ponies know his name, the less power he will have to do what he wants to do. Yes, he will hurt you, but don't judge him too harshly. You might do the same, if you were in his situation."

"Sounds plenty evil to me," I said. I rolled my eyes. "Let him kill me then. It will reduce my chances of failure in all this to zero, and I think that's good. I believe so, at least."

"No," Sidus said, frowning at me, looking very glum. "No, no. Failure is death. That is what I taught you."

"Then why does everyone have to die?"

Sidus looked at me for a few moments, not saying anything. "So that the world can be perfect, forever."

I then looked into the hole. It was filled with liquid, and many visions came out of it, and I knew that these visions, each one, told a story, about important things that are to happen in the future. Such grand, crazy visions, I thought. Such power, to know the future. And how to use it? Build a better world? You just need to be an architect, not of houses and buildings, though that too, but also with people's lives, changing them and reshaping them, turning them into something that in the long run, will produce eternal bliss, and what if you could eliminate any doubt? What if you had something like a perfect window into the future? What would stop you from doing it? This was the power that the royals of Equestria, and the next country, and kingdom, dreamed of. This was the power to change the world, surely, if such a thing was even possible, but if it was, then this would be the way to do it. No, time travel isn't necessary. All you need to do is see the causes and effects of everything, throughout all time, and space, and foreverness. Foreverness? Is that even a word? Oh, whatever. The point is that you can change the future, using your knowledge of your own actions a day from now, because no one, no natural force, will be forcing you to do what these visions told you to.

In this future, Sidus' future, anyone could be the master of his or her fate, using this glorious weapon. Anyone could have access to it, and all we needed were the right conditions, but alas, you could only do it, using a certain kind of magic, and that magic only came from two individuals throughout all of time. One of them stood beside me. The other one was, well, his daughter. Figure that. The one and the only, who? You know who. You'd better. It should be obvious by now. If it isn't, let me take you into another vision, and broaden your frontiers even further, make you aware of things, new things, that might stagger you, once you know them, and so, that is what will happen, and what I will do.





It's not like I didn't know. I knew. I know. I thought I did. No, no, wait a minute. I definitely did. It's important, I believe, though I'm not sure, not to make excuses. At least, it's important not to lie, so yes, I did know. I most definitely did. You know I did. But what does it matter?  

"Does it matter?"

Scootaloo looked at me. She spoke to me, in a mechanic voice. "It always matters. No, we can never be free."

"No," I said. "We can be free. Don't rule out the possibility. You're consigning yourself to failure."

"I didn't even know you knew that word," Scoots said.

"I do now," I said. "I know almost all the words in the equine language, and soon, I will learn a new language. I'm for it to be something ancient, and something unknown to all of us. I want to know a language that no one uses. How does that sound?"

"Useless," Scoots said. "I thought I knew you. What did they do to you?"

"Oh," I said, looking at my hoof. It was coated in metal. "The important thing isn't that at all. The important thing is their plan, and his death."

"Now, you're just not making any sense," she said. "Whose death?"

I shook my head. "I can't explain it. Only he can. The blue alicorn, the one that helped create the royal sisters, through sexual reproduction."

Scootaloo looked at me, and then, her head sank down, and her eyes hit the ground, figuratively speaking, of course. "I just want to go home, and you're talking about some plan."

"We're speaking about the death of the scapegoat," I said, smiling at Scoots. "It's the death of the one that will redeem the many, which is an ancient religious archetype, by the by."

"No," Scoots said. "You don't believe in any of that. We used to play games. We used to have fun together, and now, you're turning into something you're not."

"I'm sorry," I said. "It wasn't exactly my choice."

Scoots shook her head. "Now, we'll never get out of here."

"No," I said, looking away from her for a moment, to see that no one was watching. "I think we will. I think we will."

And I was right.





Sweetie Belle and F-5226 share the same memories, and Sweetie Belle is aware of what I'm doing, in the same way that I'm aware of what she's doing. We're slowly growing more alike, and more apart, all at the same time. No, you just need to understand the context to know that there's no contradiction there between one and the other. The more I became like her, the less I understood what was happening. She was influencing me, though I was not entirely aware of it, and I her. Oh, I'm just making a few observations, and it's all pertinent to what will happen next, what already happened, but just now, I'm making you aware of it, because in the exact same time, I got aware of it through my dream in the aquarium of Circle town, where fishes swam by and such, but I didn't know that. I was way too unconscious, and delirious. Is it normal to have dreams when you get knocked out, physically knocked out by a blow to the head? I think maybe not, but I certainly did. It felt more like a memory than a dream, though, and actually, it felt even more like I was an active participant, and like I was doing all these things, as the dream transpired. Is it a dream then, or but a vision? Are visions dreams? Are dreams visions? The words synonyms, or different? Is a vision like a dream, but when you're awake? Was I awake in some sense, during this dream, without realizing it, because I felt awake, and I saw things, things that Aldeus would never tell me, and my eyes were opened, to what exactly? To something that had always been an illusion, they were opened, and kept that way, and this dream, think whatever you want about it, changed my priorities.    

I intend not to leave anything out, but I have told the story out of order. The sequence where I was buried in the hatch was one of the first things that happened. Even before that, I was captured, and after the hatch, I met with Sidus. Even later, I met with Scootaloo. What happened in-between these events? I won't keep you in the dark, but look now, it's not a very pretty story. I'm serious about that. It's really a strange turn of affairs, and entirely unnecessary. It's something that was done to me, well, to Sweetie Belle, rather. Without skipping around the bush, and without explaining it, which will be hard to do, I'd better just show it. This will make your blood boil, and it should. It did that with me, anyway. You're following this? You're in for a treat, but not the good kind. This is a treat that hurts.  

I was falling, but of course I was. What a treat. This is how it all began. Falling, symbolically speaking, isn't a promising way to start it off, and of course, falling, realistically speaking, isn't all that fun either. Falling means danger, and this danger that we're speaking of has a name. Its name was RETURNINGTOTHEFIRST-0001, or in short, the sky-bot. Why was it called these things? The longer name, it will surprise you, is actually the easier one to explain. Sky-bot is one that, hm, I won't dwell over, but I will return to it later. The point of the machine was, um, hm, I, well, this is making me laugh. 

"In the beginning, there are only a few things going on," Sidus said. "In the beginning, only a few things, like fear, exist. When you're born, you begin changing. Perhaps, you do before, but for the sake of conceptual clarity, let us talk about birth, because that is what we're in the business of here, in the black."

"In the black?" Sweetie said, squeaking, and fearful, and this was before her voice had changed, and before the hatch. "I don't want to be here. Don't you understand that, guy? Um, um, sir?"

"We have no choice," Sidus said. "It is your destiny, to be here."

"Change it," Sweetie said. "Change destiny. You can do it."

Sidus grimaced, and he looked really quite sad. "Only one can, and that person is very hard to find and get in contact with."

"Who?" she said.

"It's the ninth," he said. "The ninth doesn't want to speak, or really, be around anyone, because, um, he's afraid that it will ruin his plans for the future, and that's because he knows the future, and has the power to shift it, and change everything, through the power of a single thought, and while he is out there, you and I are stuck here, and I think I will probably remain here to the day I die, for my part."

"When I was born," Sweetie said, not really listening to any of what he said. "What do you mean?"

"You," Sidus said, "will feel freer, and it all has to do with this machine." The machine in question looked innocent enough. It wasn't. It's one of the strangest things ever created. I know I use that word a lot, but now, I don't want to understate what a colossally strange and weird invention this was. It really was stolen from the griffins to start with. That much should be obvious, just from a moment's thought. But the one, really, who will remain nameless in this story, had a different idea. The griffins devised a way to control emotion, which as you should understand, and I hope you do, is a very, very dangerous power, because fundamentally, changing emotions means changing fundamental motivational structures in your brain. Without one emotion or the other, or with happiness, say, turned up to level 100, you will change your priorities completely, just to accommodate for that change. A happier person will be exploratory, giddy, and I think, a little dopey, depending on how happy you are, because happiness causes impulsive behavior like nothing else. A drug rush of dopamine rushes through your body, making you want to do new things, and explore new frontiers. Why? Because that's kind of what happiness does to a person. It makes a person want to explore and change things, and new events, exciting ones, new feelings, sounds, and a positive outlook, all come together into a happy mushy soup.  

To see a change, one that makes you react anew, because it was unexpected, and random, and maybe, interesting, in a way, breeds a kind of happiness. To perceive things, being happy, means to think that things are good, because the world around you will seem like a reflection of the happiness within you. Any change, even if things get worse, will have a positive side or edge to it, because you're simply happy about it. Why? No, really, why? Because you're happy. Maybe, you're even happy about things, without any regard for what those things are. You're happy about everything, but watch out, if you are. Being happy, and living a good life, are seriously not the same thing. Everything can go poorly. Will you be happy forever, in spite of all that? Maybe, but if not, then watch out. I was made a tad happier by this machine, but really, maybe it had more to do with what the machine took away from me, than what it gave me.   

Sidus then said, "This machine will take away all your memories. It can add new ones. It can change emotions. It can add emotions, and take them away, in different degrees. This kind of technology will be used to erase everything, including your memories, and everything that you once was, but be careful, for if you don't hold still, it might do something worse than that."

Sweetie, doing the most rational thing she could, in a situation where many of her actions were not comprehensible in those terms, ran away as fast as she could, but where was she going to run? She was trapped. Now, I trust you know that Sidus and the insidious Aldeus had a base of operations outside the facility, and that they were two different persons. At least, in this chapter, they were. They're complicated, and to call them two might be a bit misleading, but for simplicity, I will refer to them as two, from now on, so you will be able to more easily follow me, through part 19.  

Sidus gave no chase. No one did. Sweetie stayed in a corner for days, not saying anything, not doing anything. She didn't want to go back. She peed on the ground. She didn't want to go close to anyone. Most of all, she didn't want to die, and no one blames her. I don't. Sidus didn't. He didn't do anything to make her come back. She did that of her own accord.

"You will be fed, and helped to a bath, once the transformation is complete," Sidus said.

Sweetie looked at him, ponderously. "I don't want to be transformed. Please tell me this is all just one big nightmare. If I close my eyes, can I come home? I'm wondering every day. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I see home, and I see my family. But now, I think I know what's going to happen. I'm sorry," she said, sobbing. "I'm sorry." She wasn't sorry for herself. She was sorry for the situation, and how unnecessary it all was. She was sorry about being wrong. She thought that it was impossible for a thing like this to happen, for anyone to do this, but she was wrong. Of course, she was. This person, this old decrepit stallion, for some reason, was capable of causing harm of this kind. This was the kind that could not be reversed. It was an eternal curse. Like death itself, her memory would be erased, but perhaps, there was still a way to set things right. Sweetie had been tied down in a chair and tortured with the images of her dead sister, and things, other things, horrible things. She knew that she had lost. This was the end. This was, truly, a tragedy.

Something ran down a wall. It was light, but it wasn't just any light. It ran down the wall, like water. It looked like a waterfall. Then, the light arose, and Sweetie could see that she was in a cave. Okay, really, she was in a mine, but she didn't know that yet. She was in the darkest mine of the world, one built to keep sneaping faces out of reach of it. This is a mine where torture happened, and ponies were shipped here, and experimented on, but don't worry. It's all for the greater good, dear readers. Oh, golly. Why, oh bother. It makes me frustrated, and angry, and absolutely livid, just thinking about it, but again, this is not a very pretty story, and if you don't have the stomach, you can always turn over to a book about love, or puppies. This story is about, something different, rather clearly.    

The light spoke, "Oh, do we have to through this again? O, child of light and the night. Hear my plight. We have committed a heinous crime. There is no excuse for what we have done. Under the stars, we accept responsibility for our actions. The life you gave to us can never return."

Sidus lowered his head, and spread out his legs, shooting a beam of magic at the light, seemingly preparing for battle. His legs were spread apart, as if he was ready for something to come back at him. The light coalesced and formed into a pony. It was a pegasus, a blue pegasus, with white hair, but he looked a fair bit younger than Sidus, maybe thirty years younger in pony years. For these ancients though, it's hard to know how long they've lived, but it is what it is, I suppose.

"You have been touched," the other pony said. It had a white glow, where its horn should be, but the glow then disappeared, and in its place was just a hole, straight into his head. Sweetie thought that she could see just the hint of his brain inside there. "You need the machine too. Step inside."

"No," Sidus said. "No, no. I don't need it." He shot a rain of purple sparkles that hit the pegasus without a horn, who looked like an alicorn whose horn had been completely surgically removed, and dislodged from his head. This individual then collapsed on the ground, bloodied. 

Rather than dying, he stood up, and he took a huge breath. "Good. Good." Then, a mass of light, a ghostly specter of lights, a fireworks show of lights, arose from his body, and his body just collapsed, again. The mass of light was shaped like a pony, a giant pony, with horn and wings, and that pony descended toward Sidus, rising into the air, and sinking down. 

"There's something," Sidus said. "It's a hint of what's to come."

"What?" the light said. "What? Where and what? Who? Tell me. Tell us."

"We will spare one memory, or maybe even many, or else, the royals will use her to find the facility."  

"No," the light said, landing in front of him. "No, you wish to protect her. That satisfies me, and so, I will grant your wish, but please, don't lie. There's no need."

"It's only because I knew that if I said these exact words, you would do it," Sidus said. "And so, you will protect her, and you will do so, until his death."

"In five years, this event will come, and then, I will return to my birthplace, Canterlot," the light said. "That pleases us, but there's something else. You're hiding something from me. Pray tell, what could it be? Would it change matters if I told you that I won't protect her unless you tell me?"

"It's about someone else's death," Sidus said. "Your death."

"Can such things be?" the light-ghost said. "What is my death, then?"

"It will come at her hooves, if you choose to protect her," Sidus said, calmly. "Do you understand?" he said, emphasizing each syllable.

A gush of wind blew through the cave, and smacked both Sidus and Sweetie in their faces. The ghost said, "The change has already been done. I will protect her, and she will kill me. My arrogance will be revealed to the world, as you prophesized. I think this destiny fits us all, both you, me, and her, and so, we shall see it through, to the end, you and I, and in the final end, the ponies will write a story that reflects, really reflects what happened, and we can live, through their stories. My life is already running out, so for me to die at the behest of a child, who will bring the new world, our world, into being, and light, seems fitting. Or do you disagree with my prophecies?"   

"To speak of prophecies," Sidus said. "Is your death good then, to you?"

"It depends," the ghost said. "If you speak true, then all will turn out as it should, in the end, and I know you're not lying to me now, so I believe. I think death is good, when it comes to me."

"No," Sidus said. "You will die because you were too arrogant to see you were wrong."

"About what?"

"I don't know," Sidus said. "I'm looking for it, but I still can't find it, and yet, I know that deception, in the end, which you want to eliminate, lives within you too."

"If only, it didn't," the ghost said, of shimmering light. "But can such things be? Nevertheless, regardless of how arrogant or modest, or innocent or guilty I am, I will see my life through, and so should you, Sidus, until your death arrives."

"My death?" Sidus said.

"You never ponder such things?" the light said. "US-IDS!" it then said, cryptically, and disappeared, into nothingness. 





Coming down from a height, going into a hole, a pit, and an abyss, and sinking, into darkness, being lost, getting more lost, drowning, dying, and being reborn, as something. That's really something, being through all that, and we had been, Sweetie and I, and it wasn't our choice. When it is your choice, I imagine that something like that can be a learning experience. When it is your choice, maybe something like that can even be good for you, but it wasn't for her. She was destroyed. She was maltreated. I didn't want any of this to happen. I never asked for this, but it did happen, and what can you do? Something was acting in the world, something with intent, and that intent was beyond me, but it wasn't beyond itself, and it did what it had to do, in its own estimation. It was monstrous, in a way, and callous in another. It was, really, just fate. It was inevitable for us, here, in the darkness, where we were forced to simmer, and fall apart, in the light of this light, the negative light. The light that brings forth something that isn't light? What is light? It was my enemy, it seemed. Light was coming after us. It was the light of the center of the world. It was so true, that in fact, it doomed itself. Surprised? Don't be. Something that wants to die will die, and something that wants to live will live. That is the natural order of things, and if something thinks that death is redeeming, somehow, and really believes that to its core, then of course. Why not? Can you believe such a thing to your core? Yes.   

I am trying to bring a few things to the reader's attention that will become relevant much later. It's important. These are the ingredients that would make or break the future, and through sheer bad luck, I guess, if you can call it that, I was planted in the middle of it all, and actually, it was a choice, but it wasn't mine. It was someone else's. Unfair? Please, you don't know unfair. Unfair is only just coming around the bend. Watch out what you wish for, if you want to see something that's unfair, but really, I don't even know what that word means, and really, at the end of the day, I'm just rambling, trying to make sense of something impenetrable, am I not? So be it then. Let that be my story, and my legacy, before I die. Here's something that you won't enjoy reading, and I'm sorry for bringing it to your attention. Once again, you can turn away. You have been warned.





"No. No."

"Oh, yes." A pair of big red eyes hung in the air, blaring their lights out at me. "Yes, yes."

"No," Sweetie said, again.

"Yes, actually."

Sweetie's hoof was forced down into a machine, and that machine coiled around it, squeezing it, doing things to it. Sweetie's skin was partially peeled off, and replaced, with a solid coating of steel, not the solidest metal, but something that's fungible, and easier to use than, say iron. You get this, welders out there? Oh, what am I saying? I don't even know the first thing myself. I feel, lost, in a way. Welding? Steel? Iron? Steel is something that contains other metals. Ugh, I don't even know the first thing, anymore, about anything, and neither did Sweetie, upon recollection. She only knew pain, a special kind of pain, something really terrible, in her body.  

She felt like her hoof would explode. She felt like, she was being harmed for harm's sake, because all of this seemed pointless to her, ultimately. She had no way of expressing, or understanding what was happening to her. Then, the machine stabbed her hoof, and opened it up, cutting into her bone. She screamed. You would scream too. She screamed. Maybe that's good. Screaming could be a way of showing that you haven't yielded to the pain yet, accepting it, or maybe, pain will feel equally bad, regardless of how you express it. We go on. 

Something, and she couldn't tell what, was forced into her hoof. It was something sharp, and it attached to the inside of her body. She had never felt a pain that deep before, so far into the body, but it wasn't even the pain that concerned her. In a way, it was, but pain, she had dealt with before, and everyone deals with pain, as she knew. No, it was the intention that preceded the pain. It was the will to see this kind of harm done to a person. A kind of harm was done to her that she herself was unfamiliar with, and yet, the moment it happened, she felt it, and she knew it. It was like a color, an unfamiliar one. The color of malice, perhaps.   

For someone to do this, and want to do this, and even though she wanted it to stop, keep doing it, that was the saddest, and most painful thing of all to her, because it meant the world was dark, far darker than she had ever known. If this person can do it, then why can't any other person? Is this what ponies are capable of, beneath all the friendship and magic, and are those things real, or as real, as she had once believed? I mean, sure, it has to be. Sweetie had friends, and she knew so, in her heart of hearts, but this was something stark, and something that, though not presenting a contradiction, presented an alternative to friendship, that she had never known. For something to act like this, rather than being friendly, was unbelievable to her, and it made her fearful of everything, things she had never been fearful of before, but did it matter? 

In any case, she would die soon, or would she? Hm.





Chains rustled, and they were her own. She had seen darkness. She had seen evil now, or what she had condemned in those lights. It was a light. Evil was light. Shouldn't evil be darkness? Evil was both? Maybe evil could be anything, she thought, and that scared her so much that she began to hesitate. She let in new things into her heart which hadn't been there before, but now, they were. A kind of cynicism entered her mind, and she began to hesitate. She thought that maybe, this type of evil, really, is what lurked behind every kind face, and every smile, which she saw in her memory's recollection.

In the one case, everyone had been kind to her, or at least, they had been mean in a way that is understandable, with reference to some deep sad reason. One point of contact for Sweetie here was her relationship with the person that she remembered to be Diamond Tiara, although her memories were vanishing slowly. Diamond Tiara was evil, but not really. She was just confused, and sad, and angry, but somewhere, somehow, pain existed, and this pain saw things through, and made everything feel pain. It was pain in the form of a person that wanted to do these things, and that person is a person. You are a person, and so am I, and so, if persons, like you and I, can cause pain, if it's possible, then that paints a stark picture of the world. If there exists a single person, ever, that can do such a thing, mutilation, then, in her mind's eye, of Sweetie's recollection, everyone was a suspect, suspect of pain, and behind the mask of smiles, maybe, everyone was capable of such a thing, in the deepest sense. Maybe, everyone, if all else was equal, and the conditions were the same, would do the same thing? Why not? Yes, I know there are counterarguments to this, but those are in the abstract. No argument is as real as the will to see Sweetie, and others, suffer in this way. The intention to see things suffer transcends your ability to argue about it, because it's self-evident. Your arguments about the relative, absolute, or uncommon nature of this type of evil, doesn't stop its searing effects on Sweetie's soul, and the effect that pain had on her, in the same way that something positive and meaningful can have a positive effect, haunted her, forever, and throughout all of time, this pain will have existed, in this time, her time.    





Yes, that would be lovely, if it could be arranged, but can it? Can the future be arranged? Does it even matter? Maybe I shouldn't ask such questions, because they will never be relevant to me. They're only relevant to creatures in the dark, who think that they can influence things with pinpoint accuracy, using a perfect window onto the future, and what did my future hold? Grief. Lots and lots of grief, and a spark of hope. Something good. Something new. What's new? What can be new, in a life that's as drab as mine has been, or maybe it hasn't been all that drab, or maybe I'm just overthinking it. Something new could be anything. Something new is tomorrow, when I wake up. 





"Yes, I believe so," I said into the big great empty room. "I think so."

"Then," [redacted] said. "It's settled. We are sorry for any trouble we may have caused, but we promise you this, each in kind, and to the bottom of our unity, our spirit, that has united, to protect you. We will make it up to you, but first, you will have to give something to us, something that you're not willing to give."

"What is that?"

"Your future." The light vanished, and it took something from me, and Sweetie Belle, and gave us something new. "When the bell tolls, follow its ring, and it will lead you back to me, and do not worry. We are staring at you from afar. You have the potential to grow, and maybe, you will take our place one day, but first, you must suffer, because the suffering will teach you something we can't, and we're proud of you. You have seen my future, and those of others, through already. You keep surprising us. Surprise us further. When the time is right, strike us down. Kill us, and take our power, which will guide you across oceans and valleys. Our power will bleed, and under the stars, accept our gift, and if you do not, then it will be gone forever."    

"Gone?"

"Under the stars, child, o child, be there for the ones you care about, your friends and loved ones. The skies and the heavens, the great beyond, is watching you. The spirit that has lived in me is fading. We believe that if you want true power, then you must earn it, so earn it, but never fear, because we are always here, and the more pain that you embrace, the more you will become whole, for pain is true, and a part of you. So sayeth I, the spirit of sight." 

"How do I know you're right?"

A laugh came out of the air. It was an airy laugh, almost like the wind. "You don't, my little filly. You never are right. You become right, and you are becoming."

I shook my head. "Does it matter what I say? I reject your gift. It is time for me to begin my life's work, at the facility, which was created for ponies like me. The thought of power scares me. I just want to be free."

A gush of wind hit my face, and I felt, cold. "Then," the wind said. "That is what you will become. You only have one wish, and you have chosen well. This is the path to redemption, if there indeed is such a thing, F-5226."

"Who am I?"

"A window." The air gushed. "You are a thought, and a feeling, and a window, and that window can widen. It will close, and then, reopen, depending on what acts you do. It will open, only and only when you act and speak true, with an open heart, and that is what you will do, and under the stars, let our name be heard, when the time is right."

"Your name?"

The wind calmed, and then, it disappeared, and was gone, and the room was quiet, and lifeless. "Okay then. I can only say one thing, and that's that I didn't ask for any of this, and since I didn't ask for it, do I get it? Is that the reason, of all reasons? I will never be happy, and I will never be free, and soon, any memory of my past life, as they existed, will have slipped away, and perhaps only shadows will be left, and after that, nothing at all, and for what? Whose purpose? Whose destiny? Something will happen. The curse will be broken. I will defy this deity, and defy the odds. I will not fall victim to other ponies' predictions. No, never. Somehow, I will be my own person, some day, and I will save my friends. So sayeth I." I paused. "Sweetie Belle."  





In conclusion, what have we learned? I have no idea.





I coughed, and I wheezed, waking up, coldly, quietly, and lonely, on the floor. I was still inside that hangar, aquarium, whatever. Cyborgs surrounded me, hooting and hollering, acting all crazy. Okay then. I stood up. "Hey," I said. Aldeus lifted me up once again. I thought about what to say. It had to be something distracting, or disruptive, something that would give me the prayer of escape.  

"Today, we watch a traitor die," Aldeus said.

"Hey," I said, again. I could see his red field of magic tugging harder and harder at my hair. "Under the stars, I pledge responsibility for my actions, Aldeus, and so should you." He let go of me. That worked? Really? "Please, join me in prayer."

"No," Aldeus growled into my face. "You mock me to my face, and then, you mock the facility. Then, you somehow mock the transcendent, without having a window with which to see it." He looked at me, grimacing, looking confused.

"No," I said. "That window has reopened, because I wanted to be free." I was drawing on my dream, just improvising. "I will inherit the power of the spirit of sight, and light, and night."

Aldeus just looked at me, gaping, with those big glowing eyes. "Wh- what?"

I then ran to the side. I saw Hookbeak's presumably dead body. "Hello, old buddy," I said, and then, I used my magic to push it into the canal that was fenced off, and it passed through the bottom of the hangar, under the floor. I turned around. Aldeus was still standing there, looking where I had been. He was literally dumbstruck, for some reason.

"D- don't say it," he said.

"What?" I said, walking back, resigning myself to the situation, and how crazy and stupid it was, and maybe, I was going to die, but so be it then. I had lived, and I had conquered. I had explored my fears. Maybe this was enough. 

"Don't say the name, you malodorous idiot," he said, and then, he took off into the air, and flew into the canal, where I had pushed the body.

I had no idea what the name was, so I couldn't say it, even if I wanted to, but if I knew the name, had I said it? Maybe. I assume maybe I would've, but so be it then. It's all for the better, if more of reality is revealed to more ponies, and I thought it would be great if everyone could just calm down, and stop fighting, but to do that, in the same way I had to retrace my childhood, these ponies would have to retread some very unsightly and gruesome history, that they would rather leave behind them, but paradoxically, never stop fighting over. Ah, well. I hoped that Hookbeak, if he wasn't dead, would be reawakened by the cold canal, or maybe, I had just drowned him, but I was going to die soon anyway, so it didn't matter.

Well, no. It mattered, not to me, but to others. Everything isn't about me, and I was learning that, slowly. Everything is about others to, and solipsism, thinking about everything in your own terms, and from your own esoteric perspective, rather than accepting that even other perspectives are part of broader reality, hadn't worked out for me all that well, and I wanted to change. I was starting to believe in change more and more. I had already changed, and it would all start with- wait. No, I was going to die. I was stuck here. What was I even thinking? Change? Solipsism? No, solipsism is a metaphysical belief, not a- but, um, no, I was using the word figuratively. No, wait. Where? Where was I? What was I doing? Where was I going? I had no idea, and none of the other cyborgs seemed to have the first clue too, because they just stared, blank-eyed, waiting for Aldeus to come back. 

I felt, afraid. Yes, threatened. Why hadn't I felt threatened a moment ago? Isn't death scary? I was going to die. No doubt is that scary. The end of everything is scary, and that's what death is. Isn't that scary? Why wasn't I more scared? I remembered, in that moment, a few words. The light had told me that I would be safe, and it would protect me. Do not be fearful, it said. Well, I'm paraphrasing, but I remembered it, and I felt that it was true. Why? This thing wasn't trustworthy. It was a demon. No, wait, no it wasn't. It brought salvation. No, it didn't. It killed Sweetie Belle. No, wait. It didn't. Sweetie was still here, but it killed others? Yes, that's right. It killed others, and I had no business trusting something like that, but what was it that it said? It told me, to, be myself? No, no. I had just woken up from being knocked out, so I still felt delirious somehow, and fuzzy. I wasn't well. No, I couldn't trust a demon, but I had seen this demon bend reality, literally. If you can do that, but then, urgh! My brain.  

Then, the floor shook. It divided. Cyborgs took notice, and many of them climbed in their tanks. Beneath the floor was a raging river, and some fell down, and drowned presumably. Do I want to die, I thought. No, but I don't. Urgh. I don't even know what I'm thinking. Why am I thinking? What is going on exactly? Why am I asking these questions? These questions are stupid, and then, I was saved, and by whom. Read on, and you'll learn.
> Part 20: Leaving Circle town
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Blub. Blub-blub," I said while lying on the ground, pouting. "Blub."

"Stop being such a drama queen," Gripey said, picking me up. "You didn't even hit the water."

"Did too," I said.

"Did not."

I threw up my arms in the air, standing on my hindlegs. "Whatever, you know."

"No, I don't know."

I smiled at him. "You know, Gripey." 

"What?"

"I like you."

"Okay?"

"Gosh," I said. "I think I got something in my eye." I turned around, wiping my eye. "Okay, it's gone now."

"Yes," Gripey said. "This has been a crazy journey for both of us."

We were standing in the outer circle, and we were surrounded by dignitaries. Hookbeak was looking at us, grinning. "Excellent," he said.  

"What is excellent?" I wondered, because I wanted to know. "Tell me."

"You saved my life."

"Oh." I shook my head. "Not really, no."

"Yes," he said.

"No," I said. "No!"

"Yes." He smiled at me. "From this day forward, no griffin will ever lay a claw on you to harm you, until, should the day arrive, that you harm one of them."

"Wow," I said. "Is that promise for you to make?"

Hookbeak laughed. "I will see it through."

"Can you believe this guy?" I said, looking at Gripey.

"No," Gripey said. "I honestly can't."

"Gripey," I said. "I'm sorry for mistreating you, and being unfair to you. I realize now you just wanted to know that I care, and I do. I really do, and I will prove it to you. Here." I pulled the necklace with the key off my head and tried to put it around Gripey's head.

"No," he said.

"It's my only belonging."

"All the more reason for you not to do it." Gripey pushed the key away, and I put it back around my head. "It's better," he said, "if you just trust me."

"Trust?" I said. "I can do that."

"Also," Hookbeak said. "For pushing me into the canal, so that the devious female alicorn, who's dressed up as a male, didn't get the chance to kill me while I was recovering, I will give you gold."  

"Oooh." I looked at the five wagons that were as big as buildings. "That's what those are for. Well, I don't suppose you have a method by which to carry it, because I'm not all that physically strong."

Gripey said, "Thank you."

"Oh, yes." I nodded. "Thank you, Hookbeak."

"Anything at all," Hookbeak said.

"Hey," I said.

"Yes," Hookbeak said.

"There's one more thing. I think I met the spirit of translucence, long ago, but there's something wrong. For one thing, if you say his, its, whatever, name. It gets really angry, and it somehow wants to change the world for the better, by killing everything in it that is weak, and bad, and perhaps, ungrateful. Do you know anything about that?"

"Sensational," Hookbeak said. "Its name has an unknown root word that we've been researching. We're fairly certain that it has the word star in it already, and then, there's some other word, which resembles the word sky. We can't be sure, but we're getting closer to a solution, by the looks of it." The tornado surrounding Circle town blew all the more aggressively. "Crazy winds," Hookbeak said.  

Then, the wind whistled, going up and down in pitch. Pieces of rubble out of Circle town flew up in the air, like they were grabbed by the wind, and formed, neatly, into a pony, that was exactly my shape and size. "Cornicus." 

"Yes," Hookbeak said. 

The pony, that was made out of broken houses, and rubble, leaving dust in its wake as it walked forward, said, "We are awaiting the day of his death. Please, do not do anything drastic before the meeting of the seven." 

"The seven histories?" Hookbeak said, quizzically. 

"Yes, the seven histories," the rubble-pony said, stumbling forward. Pieces of it fell off, and then new pieces came flying from houses in the vicinity, attaching. Its voice was, well, distorted. It sounded like the pitch was off, and it rang mechanically, like that of a cyborg, like me. "This is all unnecessary. Look at these children. Need they meet their doom because you decided to reveal the unrevealable?"   

"Hm," Hookbeak said. "Yes. I think the answer to that is yes."

"No," the pony said. "You spared them, remember? Weren't you going to tell them about the weapon?"

"The weapon," I said, grinning. "Is a time-portal through which things travel only back, not forward, and it only shows visions, which turn into liquid and disappear before your eyes."

"Do you like death?" the rubble-pony then said, turning to me. "Because I don't." All the dignitaries, and guards around us, in that moment, collapsed on the ground. 

"Oh, no," I said, running up to one. "Is he dead?"

"Yes," Hookbeak said. He looked at him arm, something came out of it. "His heart hasn't beat in approximately, um, eight seconds? Nine. Ten."

I grabbed the stranger. It was a griffin-guard, and shook him. "Wake up. Wake up."

"How many warnings will be requisite?" the pony made of rubble said, walking toward me, and then, bending down beside me, as I was shaking the body. "Think about it, my friend. If they know what the weapon is, then the weapon will become useless. Knowledge of the weapon is knowledge of the future." 

"It is?" I said. "I just don't want things like this to happen anymore. Why does everything have to die?"

"Should you meet Celestia," the rubble said, putting a stony and sharp-feeling hoof on me. "Ask her. She knows more than she wants to let on, and it's hurting ponies. Ask her. She will have some of the answers, and when you're ready to come see me, I will be there, but don't come to the facility alone. There are many that want to kill you there, you and me both." 

"The facility?" I said. "No, I don't- I–"

"You will get exactly what you want," the little filly of rubble said, "by giving me everything you have." 

"How will I do any of this?" I said. "I'm just a child."

"No. You have a piece of us in you. You're more than a child, and less than a pony, as you will soon learn." The rubble evaporated, and collapsed on the ground. 

Hookbeak looked around. "Well, speaking of such things involves a calculated risk."

"You don't say?" I said, wide-eyed. "You don't say." The entire scene, in that moment, made me sad. "Death." Death, of all things. "Death has become normal in this world, but I know once that it wasn't, or at least, it didn't feel like it was." I shook my head, in disbelief at the scene. Dead griffins, like a dozen, surrounded us. "What to do?"

"Do what you believe in," Hookbeak said. "It's either that, or falling victim to the whims of a creature that wants to control you, and which hides away from ponies that doesn't know about it. The less you know about the winding light, the less likely it will be to approach you, so remember that too, you both. It's a very dangerous creature. It has powers beyond yours and mine."

"Another prophecy," I said. My eyes shone up. I lost control of my body. "Within the span of six months, all of the ancients will be dead, including you, Hookbeak. Thank you for your time, and I'm sorry, but we need to make changes that will amend the consequences of your actions, and those of others, and it all starts with eliminating false idols, as you well know. We're sorry for any inconvenience your death will be likely to have caused you."  

My eyes got normal again. I blinked a few times. I had floaters in my eyes now. "O- okay." 

"Yes, hm, that's, hm, what to do about that?" Hookbeak said. "There's really nothing to say to that. If the ninth wants me to die, then–"

"The ninth?" I said, my curiosity piqued.

"You've already heard enough," Hookbeak said. "Begone." The tornado that surrounded Circle town divided, and opened, and now, the storm raged everywhere, except in one spot, that was just big enough for us and the wagons. "The wagons are equipped with engines of course, my little pretties," he said. "Do not worry. Do not fret."

Something came running from outside the storm. It was Nexus, of all creatures. "You," she said, pointing at me. She was now inside Circle town. "You."

"Restricted area," Hookbeak said, walking up to her. "We're so sorry for any inconvenience that may have caused you, Nixy." He tried grabbing her, but she jumped out of the way. Then, she got suspended in the air, because a small white dot had flown out of Hookbeak's hand and hit her. "Friend or foe?" he said, looking at me.

"Oh?" I said. "Definitely foe." 

"Suit yourself," Hookbeak said. He put her on the ground, and then, he pulled a line of thread that extended from his fingers, and wrapped it around her. "There."

She started moving again. She looked down at her body. Then, she tried jumping and bouncing, and wriggling, but the thread shone a sharp purple, and remained steadfast attached to her body. "When I get out of here, you- you." 

"You won't," Hookbeak said. "Did you expect you would? Where do you think you are exactly? There is no escape from here, just as there is no entry." He looked to the side. "Hm, or so I thought. I've been wrong before."

Nexus stopped moving. "This is illegal," she then said.

"Going into Circle town, as a member of the Nonaligned Court is illegal," Hookbeak said. "Didn't you know that?"

"What?" Nexus said. "Ridiculous."

"Read your own bylaws," Hookbeak said. "In fact, how about this? I give you a law-book, and then, I will test you on every bylaw of the court, from A to Z, and if you pass, I will let you go. That seems like an appropriate, and true punishment, for such reckless behavior."

"You can't be serious," Nexus said.

"Actually," Hookbeak said, taking a second, as if he needed to think about it. "I can. Yes, I most definitely can."

"And?" I said. "What do we do?"

"Anything," Hookbeak said, shrugging.

"Okay," I said to Gripey. "Let's do anything."





"Why do I keep getting haunted by spirits? It's one after the other. First, it's the Yether, and then, it's Sidus. Then, it's Aldeus. I'm sure Aldeus counts. After that, it's the elusive spirit of translucence, that lives in the center of the world. It's like, I mean, come on, Gripey. Come on, you know," I said, gesticulating wildly. 

"Botsy the diva," he said, leaning back against a wall. "Maybe they want something from you."

"I mean, come on," I said, and then, I burst out laughing. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I couldn't hold it."

"Yeah," he said.

"But seriously. Isn't it, at least, a little weird, on a sliding scale, of weirdness? Has it ever happened to you? Maybe it happens to everyone at some point in their lives. I figure it might, but then, for nine spirits to haunt ponies and griffins to the extent that everyone has experience in it. They would have to do it constantly, and then, there would be no time for them to do their spiritual activities, unless they did many at once. Maybe they have the power and means to do that. Maybe, um..."

"Don't think about it too much," Gripey said. "Stuff happens. Aren't those your own words?"

"Yeah," I said, sitting down. "Stuff happens, doesn't it? Stuff has a tendency to do just that."

"Happen?"

I laughed. "I'm sorry for being so weird."

"I'm getting used to it," he said.

"Hey." I looked out the window of the wagon in which we were wheeling forward, walloping across the wobbly ground. "Have you thought of the risk of getting robbed while wheeling forward with a wagon full of gold?"  

"Five wagons," he said, correcting me.

"I stand corrected," I said, also feeling corrected, being corrected. I was incorrect, but he had corrected that. They were five wagons, and those are a lot of wagons, I thought. That's a lot of gold. What to do with all that gold? "What do you do with gold?" I said.

"You spend it."

"Yeah, I know that, but how?"

"To make more gold." He looked away from me, trying to hide his smile.

"Yeeeah," I said. "I think I like gold."

"Me too," he said. "Me too." We kept on rolling down that road, with very few doubts, and much happiness, for now, we had something to do. We were going to spend this gold, or just bring it along on the journey? We would see. Go to Gloverton and find the third key? What about the first one, that the Yether had? Where could I find it, but then again, why even care? I didn't have to do any of what these spirits, weird spirits, told me. I wasn't their slave, and I wasn't beholden to them in any way. They didn't have the power to sway me. In my dreams, I would stand up to them, and tell them what I thought, and now, I knew more of the truth, and that felt good. Everything was good. In my dreams, I would allow them to manipulate me, no more, and become my own person finally, or hopefully, anyway. It remained to be seen. It remained to be seen. 





"Did I?"

Gripey laughed. "First you make the point, and then you do your question."

"I did?"

"Say it," he said.

"Did I really say that stuff happens? After all, there are stuff that doesn't happen, or does that stuff happen too?"

He lifted me up. "I don't know if you said those exact words."

"You don't?"

"No," he said. "But it's about your attitude."

"Well, I guess that's true," I said. "Stuff does happen." Is that a good attitude to have? I didn't literally say it. He was paraphrasing. He was being my friend. He was making comments about my attitude. That felt good. I wanted to reciprocate somehow, but, um, no, I wanted- I wanted to be. Hm, yes. I wanted to just say what I felt. Got it! Of course. I didn't see that before. I could change after all, and it all started with, something, an act?

"Stuff happens," he said, hugging me, upon having lifted me up.

"Thank you," I said, after he released his grip.

"For what?"

I looked for words. "For saving me. Yes, I thank you for- I mean, thank you for saving me. I really, really appreciate it, even though I was being mean to you, and I should have taken it more seriously outside the tower."

"Oh," he said, putting me down.

"And I talked about killing you, even though I don't want to do it, and I don't want to do that kind of thing. I don't want to hurt things I care about, and I don't want to make light of it. I want it to- I want all pain to stop, period, from the beginning. I'm sorry. I didn't want you to feel bad, but I told the truth. It was intentional, and I thought I was doing the right thing, but I didn't know the first thing. I just- I was being stupid, and in the process, I was playing with your life, and that was stupid. I've been acting really stupid for a long time." 

"Wow," he said.

I cringed. "Did I ruin it? Did I say anything wrong? I need to check my memory banks."

He picked me up and hugged me again. That felt good. It meant I did good, I thought. At least, I could act pony around, um, or griffin rather, around other griffins. Act sapient, maybe? I didn't want to be stupid. I wanted to be real, and live in the real world, with other creatures, that are also real, and I wanted suffering, period, to stop, and be gone, begone from the world! I wanted things to settle, into tranquility, and I wanted to be part of that tranquility, and maybe, one day, I could, perish the thought, even go back to being a child again, and live a normal life, but that's only a distant dream, nothing more. 

"Thank you," he said.

"You thank me for apologizing?" I said, and then, I regretted it. I felt stupid. He said nothing. It was what it was. 





"Where to go?" he said, looking at a tiny display inside the unremarkable wagon. The only thing to make it remarkable was that display. "Where?"

It was wooden on the inside, and metal on the outside, and it was controlled through some sort of frequency that I didn't understand, nor did I need to. I understood nothing. That is fine, I thought. This is fine. 

"We could go," he said, "to Gloverton, to find the thing, if you remember."

"Yes," I said. "I do remember. But first, I want to go someplace that, um, someone else didn't tell me to go. I want to make my own choice, for once."  

"Where do you want to go?"

"Maybe," I said, "to the dam in the mountain with the thing, you know."

"Do you have any idea how dangerous that place is?" he said, frowning.

"Nope." I shook my head. "I have absolutely negative awareness of any such thing. You think it's a bad idea? Then let's go someplace else, somewhere we can spend the money, and a place that won't be dangerous for either of us."

"Maybe," he said. "Maybe, we don't have to spend it all at once. This is a lot of money, maybe more than you understand. We could go put it somewhere where it would be safe."

"That's brilliant," I said. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"I don't know," he said.

"Then where can money be safe? Money has to be saved in some sort of repository somewhere, or else, money would never be safe, and so, what could that be? A safe? Who has heard of a safe large enough to house all this money? Maybe, hm. Maybe there's some obscure law that forbids others from stealing your money, and so, you can just leave it on the ground, and but, and the, but I would expect other ponies to- griffins, you know. Excuse me. Others should act fair around your money. It's only right. They don't want their money stolen, so it's a rule of reciprocity, a normative idea, of, um, am I making any sense?" I stopped at that, because I was afraid that I was about to ramble.

"You have a lot to learn," he said.

"I know about reciprocity, and the logical rule of equal doling out of opportunity, and punishment, depending on the actions of the individual person, because I read about it in Normativity, written by a guy named, who's that guy? It's a guy named..."

"Vivacio Effecias," Gripey said.

"Jeez," I said, immediately hyperconnecting several memories at once. "I met him in a dream, and he was demure, and then, but, he's the one. I should like to meet him sometime, to congratulate him on his intellectual accomplishments."

"You say the strangest things." Gripey looked at the display. "We'll go to Festerville-town."

"That name is extremely Griffon," I said, giggling, just a little bit.

He turned around. "Vivacio is the current and incumbent General Generically, of the Griffonian Liberation Army. Need I say more?"

"Yes," I said. "I literally have no idea what you're talking about."

"Not that it matters," he said, turning back toward the display. "But I guess I'll tell you." He tapped it, presumably tapping in the coordinates, or whatever. "General Generically is the acting commander of the army, from east to west, and from north to south. It's a military rank, basically."  

"Ah," I said. "So he's extremely important then. I see."

"Yes," Gripey said. "He's kind of the person that makes all the most important decisions."

"Not Hookbeak Cornicus?"

Gripey shook his head. "Hookbeak just watches from afar. At very few times does he involve himself with other griffins, or ponies, and interfere in their lives. That's why what he did for you was so special."

"He saved me, using lightning."

"Oh?" Gripey said. "Yes, but I'm not talking about that. He also invited you, and tried to be your friend, and in the forest, he was watching you, guarding you, but he's extremely careful about protecting himself, because he views himself as an important symbol of the griffins." 

"Do you?" I said.

"Do I?"

"Do you view him as that? You got very cross with him before."

"Let me let you in on a little secret," Gripey said, sitting next to me. "Everyone in our town, we're kind of in on the joke. We know that he's not, shall we say, all there, you know."

"Ah, I see."

Gripey stood up. "So we take care of him, sort of like, um, a grandpa, but he's our grandpa, you know. He's like a beacon of hope for all of us because he's the one that survived."

"Survived death," I said, nodding. "Maybe death is something that just has to happen to everyone eventually. I mean, when all the gods are dead, including the elusive ninth, the translucent one, I assume that was, and all the rest. When everything is falling apart, and the world- um, no, I lost my train of thought."   

"I don't know," Gripey said. "But no one wants to die."

"There goes the rub," I said. "No one wants to die. Then so be it. Let them all live, but not in a way that destroys them at the same time."

"Which is exactly what Celestia fears," he said.

"Oh." I got thinking about that. Celestia? Yes, of course. The queen of Equestria had the final say in everything. "She doesn't, but then, that throws a monkey wrench in Hookbeak's plans."

"Yes," Gripey said. "That's kind of the point."

"Okay." I nodded. "Okay, okay, but then, what do you think? What is your opinion on all this? Let you have a say in all this."

"Let me? Let's not."

"Why not? You seem capable of making big and important decisions that could affect others' lives."

"Are you making a joke?"

I glared at him. "No, why?"

"I'm not capable," he said. "I'm far from it. I have a lot of emotional problems I need to deal with before I can become a leader."

"Hookbeak," I said. "Hookbeak is persona non grata when it comes to emotional problems."  

"What does that mean?"

"It means he has like, a lot of them, like a lot." I held out my hooves. "A lot."

"Yes," Gripey said. "But he makes up for it by being absolutely brilliant. He has outsmarted the ponies, including their leaders, and the princesses, at every turn. He hasn't had a single real military failure, when you look at what he intended to do."

"What did he intend to do?"

"Well."

"General Generically," I said, noticing a contradiction.

"Sometimes," Gripey said, "you should just listen. I was about to get to that. General Generically, sometimes, carries out some of Hookbeak's plans, and that's not for some type of strategic reason on Hookbeak's part, and him deciding that now shall I, Hookbeak, take reigns. It has to do with an age-old plan that has existed for generations, and that plan was devised by Hookbeak, primarily, and a few others, and he has, though not as a military leader, participated in carrying that plan out, so listen now."





Many years ago, Hookbeak met with Celestia. It was before the war, and Celestia had refused his peace offer. She said that she would not allow the shipment of medical supplies out of the United Territories, until we could ensure that we wouldn't try to artificially extend ponies' lives, especially by augmentation of the brain. It was a dark time, for many ponies, and griffins, died unnecessarily in those years, and Hookbeak was counting down the days. He gave her a deadline. If you do not comply with my demands, then the United Territories, and the Griffon Empire at large, will from this day forward, have been in a state of war with District Equestria, and its allies. She, in her arrogance, thought that this was an idle threat, and she could easily win that war, but she was wrong.   

Let me take you back in time to what happened. Hookbeak, trying to impress her, brought one of the egg-ships to Canterlot, and stationed it right outside the border. Then, using the bouncy-bots, the ones we met in the desert, before we got captured, remember? Using them, he and a few guards descended from the ship, and a choreographed dance with griffins of different colors flying in perfectly symmetrical patterns was arranged, where they flew absolutely perfectly, and then, landed to the sides of the bouncy-bots, in two lines. The bouncy-bots stood in a straight line, and on each side, was a line of soldiers. You get the picture. These soldiers were trained in the ways of symmetry, and they could move like that because they had been trained in this profession, to be guards, and soldiers, since they were tiny children.  

The princess wasn't impressed though, from what all the witnesses had to say. Celestia just stood there, and said, "What is this?"

She had no dignitaries beside her, or guards. She was alone, together with Luna. Hookbeak climbed down out of a bouncy-bot. He was cramped in it, because of his size. "I can't move, but I can think, and I can feel," he said. "I know that you don't understand, but I will make you, if you wish me to." 

"I wish you to be yourself," she said. Luna was quiet. Hookbeak stood up, extending his body. I'm sure you can imagine it. His giant size made all the others seem small. "Please," Celestia said. "Come with me."

He did, and they went to her castle. Once inside, she said, "That thing you have out there. It's scaring ponies."

Hookbeak smiled. "I know."

"Don't scare ponies," she said. "Let us speak, as equals."

"I have been patient," he said. "My friends, loved ones, and descendants have been patient, for hundreds of years. How long must I wait?" 

"Forever," Celestia said. Her voice echoed through the hallways. Imagine it. "Forever. Forever." Just like that.

"That- okay," Hookbeak said, sort of stumbling and mumbling. "Then I guess you leave me no choice. I must carry out the proposition before the board, the proposition of war, and with the help of the Yethergnerjz, my old friend, and an age-old plan, and machines that go beyond your wildest dreams, queen, I will be victorious. It is already written in the stars."

"Why do you talk like that?" she said.

"You know why," he said. "I have been visited by the night-spirit, the one that abandoned you, because you wouldn't see reason, and now, we have gathered, the fiefdoms of the Griffon Empire have gathered, and you may think you're powerful, but there are types of power that you haven't considered."

"You have the invisible one at your side?"

"No," Hookbeak said. "The quiet whisper remains hidden, and the invisible one must never be reawakened."

"Must never be?" Celestia said. "I want to discuss this more than the other thing."

"I know," Hookbeak said, smiling again. "You're too predictable."

"And you're too smarmy," she said.

He laughed, not missing a beat. "I know."

"Please," she said. "Just let us make amends, and not argue like this any longer. You remember how it used to be?"

"I'm not like I used to be," he said. "I'm less susceptible to emotional manipulation, and your wily charms."

"I know you're still in there," she said.

He couldn't agree. "Cornicus is dead. Now lives only Hookbeak, and Hookbeak demands an explanation."

"So do I," she said. "If the ninth has returned, will return, or might return, then I'm sure you know what that means."

"I always knew," Hookbeak said. "I always knew. When the ninth returns, something different awaits us, and here we stand, on the brink of war, so I ask you again, please comply with these demands. I only ask you one thing, but one, my queen. Let them live." 

"Let them live?" she said.

"Yes, let them live."

"No." 

"Then, there's nothing to say."





"Wow," I said. "Gripey the storyteller."

"Well," he said. "I've rehearsed it a few times, and when you do, you cultivate a story, it starts growing, and it gets better."

"Is that so?"

"The entire conversation," he said, "was transcripted, because there were many in the room at that time. Imagine that. Everyone heard it, and it caused a big fuss, all over the land, and beyond."

"Wow," I said. "Imagine that. It was transcribed."

"Yes," he said. "It was transcribed."

I laughed. "Great, or sssensational, as Hookbeak would say."

"But there's more."





When Celestia invaded Griffonia city, then all bets were off. Hookbeak, before the invasion, would hold speeches about the pillaging ways of ponies, speeches that would go on for hours, like six-hour speeches. Everyone loved it. They would eat it up. Everything was just part of the plan of course, and I guarantee you that Hookbeak knew exactly how long those speeches would be, and every word in advance, so there was nothing spontaneous about it, but therein lies the genius. When the ponies reached Griffonia-proper, and had made their way through the metro, a tiny army, nothing more, was stationed inside the city to defend it. It was an army of about eight-thousand soldiers, so small that the chances of winning against the nine hundred-thousand soldier strong army of continental Equestria was minimal, but what no one knew, not even the soldiers, was that Hookbeak had planned out this invasion, to happen exactly the way it happened, all along.  

He wanted there to only be a few soldiers stationed in Griffonia. It was the tiny mercenary force, against the giant united militia of Equestria, and when that tiny force won, everyone would hear about it, and join the cause, out of hope that the griffins would win, and because of the sacrilege that invading the most holy city of griffins represented, but how would they win? Well, of course, they had a few tricks. The Yether came flying in one of the egg-ships, that was above the clouds, which meant that it was unreachable, because the clouds, in those parts, are electrified, and as soon as you come near them, they spout lightning at you, and even if Celestia could reach it with all her magic and power, she would abandon her army, and leave it to the slaughter, for Hookbeak, as he only has a few times throughout history, joined the griffins in battle, and of course, like clockwork, they were victorious. Victory was an after-thought. Hookbeak had planned everything out carefully in advance. 

As soon as time froze, Celestia, or someone, broke it, using a counter-spell, and then, time froze again, for all ponies except one, and on, and on, so time froze. Okay, I need to explain this in the right way. Time would freeze but only for one pony, in the giant army, which had all kinds of creatures in it, including changelings, and buffalos, and elephants. That pony would still be able to move, and then, it would happen again, as soon as the counter-spell was cast, but for a second pony. Then, time would start moving, and half a second later, everyone would freeze except for another person. Get this? So, in the span of seconds, they found out exactly who was doing the counter-spell, because that person would be unaffected by the Yether's magic, and the counter-spell, we had learned, could only be triggered by time stopping for the person that performed the spell. So then, time stopped moving, and it stopped moving for more than half a second, and we localized the pony that had performed the spell, and sent two dozen egg-ships to that exact location. He was hidden inside the army. His name was Starswirl, some pony patriarch. It appears he's no longer with us, unless you can survive being blasted by forty-eight cannons of floating lava.     

Celestia tried to perform the same spell, but she got chased after by egg-ships, but they were only a distraction. Down on the ground, a war was being won, because not being able to move, the ponies, and all the others, died, and the soldiers on the ground thought they were winning some great victory, even knowing that they only won because time stopped, so that's what happened, in an egg-shell. 





Hm, hmm, hmmm. "Aha," I said. "Brilliant."

"What's brilliant?"

"What's Festerville-town?" I said, rather than answering the question.

"Hm," he said.

"Hm!" I said back.

"Yeah," he said.

"Yeah?"

"It's an old griffin village, that has the safest bank in all the world, or so it is believed."

"I see," I said.

"You see?"

"Yes, I do. I very do."

Gripey looked at the display. "We will arrive there in a few hours. It's not exactly a safe place, especially for you, but just keep an even keel, and remember why we're going there, and just don't scream or whatever, and everything should be fine."

"What if I have another nightmare?"

"Then," he said. "I'll wake you up, fast."

"Good idea." To me, that really did seem like a good idea. I was happy about it. I liked good ideas, and this one was very good, for if he woke me up quickly, then the scream would stop quickly, as soon as I got my conscious awareness back, and ability to control myself. "Then, we're going to Festertown-ville."

"Festerville-town!"

"Yes," I said. "That's right."





We arrived in the town, rolling in. Gripey opened the door. 

"Stay glued to me," he said.

"I will."

Okay, now, this village was a depressing place, and in many ways. It was grey. It was drab. It was dull. It was, kind of, bleak, dark. Dead. Yes, dead. It was dead. It was really, brown, and stuff. Okay, and also, the village only had one building. Maybe I should have led with that. I didn't know how to transition to that, so there you go. It was a circular building, with windows on all sides, and several floors. This was a village? I looked like someone's home, albeit it a really big one, maybe suited for a hundred griffins. It only had one door, and it had like a hundred windows surrounding it. The building must've been really big, because it had eight floors, I think, if my memory isn't deceiving me, and it was made of stone, with wood linings in places, particularly on the windows. The wood was brown, and the stone was grey, so it was sort of a bleak sight, and liking beautiful things, as I do, I didn't like this very much. Well, it was symmetrical, in that it was perfectly round, so that's one mark of beauty, and why did it have so many windows? The windows were spaced like one decimeter apart, and there were easily at least a hundred of them, windows big enough to open and look out through. Imagine that. No, literally, imagine it. For the safest bank in the world, it didn't seem very safe.    

"What's a bank by the way?"

"What?" Gripey said, looking in my general direction. I was at his side, but he wasn't really looking at me. He was paying attention to other things.

"Oh, nothing," I said, not really wanting to weird him out with any more questions.

"We are arriving now," Gripey said. He knocked on the door of the building. "Open the gates."

The gates opened. 

"Wow," I said. "That was easy."

"That's the password. Don't laugh," he said, winking at me. I wasn't about to. I was just staring. As the giant metal gate opened, I was greeted with an unexpected sight, a courtyard, not the inside of a building. It was a courtyard, a pretty one, a lovely one, much lovelier than the outside of the building would make you expect. It was nice. It was good. It was open. It was free. Yes, it had no vegetation, but in these parts there wasn't none, because it was always cloudy, and kind of rainy. Even though the rain didn't pour down, you could still sort of feel it in the air. A drizzle or something hung in the air. Just condensation, or maybe, a few raindrops exiting the clouds, and just hovering around the place, before landing on the ground. I didn't know, but I was theorizing. It was an odd climate, but so it was. The inside had all sorts of statues and sculptures, and also, brick walls with bricks in different colors, making patterns that were dwindling, and spindly. It looked like birds and spiders, all across those walls. I rather liked it. I did.    

Then, there was the matter of what to do now, once we were inside. Now, we were in the clutches of this griffin-bank, or whatever the thing was. We were going to put our money here, for safekeeping, at least presumably. That's why we came here, based on what Gripey said, but I didn't ask too many questions. I just let it all flow before me, one situation to the next. I stayed close to him. A griffin came walking. He was wearing a helmet, with two horns, and otherwise, he was an unremarkable griffin, just by his appearance. He looked at us.

"Okay," the griffin with the horns said. "Okay. I guess." He turned around and walked away, not saying anything more, just very unceremoniously, and perhaps, kind of rudely. I couldn't tell. I was too unfocused to tell what was going on. I was just lost in the sauce. I was like, what? Gripey walked forward, along with me.   

I hesitated as to whether I should say anything. "What happens now?" I said.

The griffin with the helmet turned around. He looked at me for a second. Then he stifled a laugh. "Tch," he said. "Whatever. That's funny." He walked into the building and was gone, and now, we seemed alone. 

"Maybe," Gripey said, "only speak when being spoken to. Maybe that's a good rule."

"I don't even know what's going on," I said.

"You will." 

I will? Okay then. If you say so, buddy, I thought. If you say so, then maybe, yes.





Things spin sometimes, tornadoes and minds. I just want to remind everyone of that, who's reading this, so that they don't get confused by what happens next. The entire inside of the house spun, and I was unsure whether it was a hallucination or not. I figured whether I should ask Gripey. 

"Hey, Gripey," I said. I immediately, and predictably, turned a few eyes. "Are we moving? Is the floor moving? Or am I just having one of my hallucinations?"

"The floor is moving," he said.

The floor stopped. The entire inside of the house was made of really simple, wooden-boarded, picturesque wood, which was yellow and brown, and you could see those brown splotches, if you've ever been inside a wooden house before. There were brown spots all over the walls, those tiny ones, that spread out across the room, or was it a corridor? It felt like a little bit of both. We spun along the corridor, which bent along an axis, alerting me that we were going in a circle. A door opened in front of us, and a female griff came out, with an intense look on her face. Really, there was something aggressive about her right away.    

"Okay," she said. "Okay." She closed the door in our faces, and was gone. Then she came out again, with another griff, an elderly male, beside her, a specimen that had monocle in his eye. Wow, a real-life monocle, I thought. 

He was way shorter than her, and looked at us suspiciously. "You would do what here?" he said, in a loud, and husky voice, that was very heavy, and aged.  

"Make a deposit of course," Gripey said. "Of course."

"But of course," I said.

The old griff looked at me, and his monocle extended, like a spyglass, toward me. "Children. That's very unfortunate."  

"It wasn't her choice," Gripey said, sort of defending me, I suppose.

"Yes," the old griff said. "Come inside then." He stepped back, and the female griff followed him, sending me aggressive looks, and glances. I wasn't going to attack. Even if I wanted to, I left the Obliterator in the wagon, where it would be safe. No way was I going to bring it with me in this.

We walked up a set of winding stairs that went in a giant circle. They were constructed out of wood, unevenly, and the room was dark, so I sort of had to second-guess every step that I took, and every so often, I stumbled, and these stairs weren't fenced, so if you tripped, you would fall down to your doom, at the bottom of the stairs, so I kept my sights on the steps in front of me. After a while, the whole thing started seeming ridiculous, and way too dangerous, more dangerous, than it had any right to be. I was afraid that I would fall down. After everything I had survived, this is what would kill me? A flight of stairs? I survived the evil black alicorn demon several times, but I couldn't survive this? No, I wouldn't accept it. I started walking more briskly. Then, I stumbled off the corner, and fell down, but I caught hold with my hoof, and Gripey pulled me back up. 

"Be careful," Gripey said, putting me on his back.

Okay, I thought. That was strange. As soon as I got a little more confident, everything started going south, like literally in the same moment. Maybe confidence isn't so good then, or maybe I'm not measuring it, and keeping it under control in the right way. Maybe confidence must be measured, like fear, and maybe, fear is much like every other emotion, and if you have too much of it, it's bad for you, but is too much bad, or is it the context in which the feeling is felt? Maybe a little fear can be as bad as much fear, if you're fearful of the wrong thing? Maybe it's more about being fearful, regardless how fearful, of the right thing, rather than the wrong one. Maybe fear is just a way of alerting oneself to danger, and danger is real, and so, in some sense, fear is real, if you're really fearful of the right thing, because at least, fear can give you a measure of the thing you're fearful of, by making you react and act accordingly. Hm.    

I snapped out of my thoughts, and realized I had no idea where we were anymore. I was in some big grey room now, which was gigantic, and it looked far bigger than the building outside looked like it had any space for. The inside of the room looked bigger than the outside of the building is what I'm trying to say. Were we underground now? Was magic going on? Or? Hm, or was it technology? Could technology be used to bend space in this way? Perish the thought. Such things were beyond me.

"Here," Gripey said, leading me to a desk. 

I walked over there. It was a lone desk, in a room that looked like the lobby of a giant castle. "Hello," I said. "Pleasure making your acquaintance." I reached out my hoof. The griffin shook it. That made me happy. I was being functional now, I felt.  

"Okay," he said. This was another guy than the others. He was wearing, well, a bag over his body, it looked like, with holes in it. It looked like a brown potato bag with holes that his arms came out of. "How much?"

"Hm," I said. "I never really thought to account for the quantity of money that we acquired."

Gripey stepped forward beside me, very quickly. "There's four-hundred cubes in each wagon, and there are five of them, minus the one that we travelled in, Botsy." 

"Oh," I said. "I see."

"Two-thousand of what? Bronzelings?" the griffin said, sort of absently. 

"Ah," I said. "That does make two-thousand. That's some quick math on your part, stranger," I said to the grififn.

"Yeah," he said, not even looking at me.

Gripey pushed me to the side, though gently. I got it. It was his turn to talk. "No," he said.

"No?" the guy said. "Bits?"

"No," Gripey said.

The guy at the desk sort of gave Gripey the evil eye now. "Silver chunks?"

"No," Gripey said, smiling. Clearly, he was enjoying this.

"Where in all of the hemisphere could you have acquired?" the griffin mumbled, kind of hoarse-voiced. "Gold-busts?"  

"Yes," Gripey said.

The griffin laughed. "You have half a fortune worth of gold-busts, that you didn't steal?" 

"Yes," Gripey said. "It was a gift."

"By whom?"

"Hookbeak," I said.

Gripey looked at me, and back to the guy, smiling. Well, it was true, and I know Gripey said that you should always tell the truth. "Yes," Gripey said.

The griffin looked at us, not saying anything. He grimaced. "Well." He walked back to the wall behind him. "This here way yonder goes the song." The wall opened, and behind it was a cramped corridor. It looked like it had tiny lockers all over it, metal lockers, in different colors, and numbers on them, and with tiny locks. He walked inside. Then, he came out, not a moment later. "Okay."

Gripey wasted no time. "We are making a deposit. Take our money, now, or be without it."

"Yes," the guy said. "I know."  

A hole then opened up in the floor, and it grew wider and wider. It got closer. 

"The hole," I said. "What do we do about that hole?"

"Don't worry," Gripey said. "Just don't worry about it."

The hole didn't engulf us. It just kept expanding outward, into the room, and then, our wagons came up out of it, through some kind of lift that rose up from the hole, and all wagons were there, except the one we travelled in.

"Your money," the griffin said, walking out from behind the desk. His suit was literally a bag with holes in it. It was even more obvious now. He was poor? But he was surrounded by money, I thought, so he should not be. "Your money will be kept inside a pocket in space-time that has been created temporarily." The lift kept going up in the air, and when I looked up, I saw a black portal of doom, with spinning purples going around it, in the ceiling, and lots of colors, many shades of black and purple, and white, and the lift entered the portal, raising the wagons into it, and then, the lift descended, and the wagons were gone. 

"Okay," Gripey said. "Glad to do business."

"You will collect interest on the money," the bag said. "Which will the be requisitioned by the bank as a fee for keeping the money there, so just to be clear, your net loss will be zero. You won't make any money, but your money will be extremely safe." 

"I know," Gripey said. "I've been here before."

"Isn't the concept of interest," I said, "contingent on the bank's policy for the money, anyway? So if the bank does interest, and then takes it, isn't that also net zero? In the same way that we don't make anything, the bank doesn't make anything. The bank just gives money to us, which it then takes back? Did I miss something?" 

"No," Gripey said. "It just so happens that all banks are overly complicated, and stupid, so no, you didn't miss anything."

"Thank you for your time," the bagged griffin said, smiling, and doing a little bow, looking like he might've been offended by Gripey's comment. 

"Hey, can I ask you something?" I said to the stranger.

"No," Gripey said. "No, I know that look in your eye."

I tried to choose my words carefully. "What's that you're wearing?"

The griffin laughed. "You're not the first one to have remarked on it. It's just- I don't really know how to explain it. Part of it is stinginess. I just don't want to buy any clothes, but you need something to wear in this cold."   

"Yes," Gripey said to me. "Let's go."

"No," I said, looking up and down at the guy. "I have another question. Why is it so cold here, and so warm in the United Territories, given that they are only a few hours apart? It doesn't make sense with any meteorology I know, or climatology for that matter, or geography. It doesn't seem right." 

"That's a," the guy said, pausing, "strangely specific question, but it has to do with the weather machines in Circle town, obviously, unless you've been living under a rock, where, on closer thought, I'm sure you have, since you're, you know, one of the augmented ones." 

"Oh," I said. "I see." 

Gripey just pulled me with him. "Let's go." I followed with him, without resisting.





"I like banks," I said.

"You're not normal," he said.

I nodded. "I know."

It's not like I didn't know. I know. I knew, yes. I hadn't been normal ever since my brain was changed by demons in the dark, trying to control me, and that wasn't my fault, but I felt more and more, that although I was being controlled and manipulated, that somehow, all the killing I did still somehow had to be my fault, and it wasn't the same kind of killing that Gripey had done. Even in the Crystal palace, Gripey killed those guards on the assumption that they would kill us, unless we escaped, since we were trespassing on royal grounds. Either that, or they would capture us, and do what they like with us, put us in a dungeon. I had been in many dungeons before. They weren't nice, and Gripey, in the context of what happened, was fighting war with these ponies, these specific ponies, because technically, they were on two different sides of an armed conflict, and he was captured by the one side. No. No. He was about to be captured. That's right. But he wasn't. And then, there's the whole issue with the Nonaligned Court. What was that all about? I didn't know. Such a strange thing to have a court that decides when, where, and how killing is okay. It was a court of war, that decided what was and wasn't okay, under the conditions of war, where ponies and griffins put everything on the line for what they believe in. When all bets are off, what use is there for rules? Some, I would learn, and the nature and purpose of the Nonaligned Court, or in its full name, the Royal Nonaligned War Court of Equestria and Its Adherents, was as yet mysterious, but it was a tad, shall we say, darker than I knew. The next part will explain, part 21.      

"Hey," I said to Gripey.

"What?"

I laughed. "Nothing."

"Yeah," he just said, nothing else. Nothing else needed to be said.

"Then," I said. "We're off."
> Part 21: Not Being Normal
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I'm just confuuused." Why be confused? "I just be confused, about everything. Can I just say that? Is it okay for me to say it, just like that? I am confused, and that's what I'm making clear right now."

"No," Gripey said. "I guess it be okay, but why?" He looked as confused as I was, and that made me unsure of what to say next.

"What are we doing? Where are we going? Are we travel buddies right now? Is that's what's going on?"

"I guess," Gripey said. "I like not overthinking things and just going with it."

"Just going with it?" I said. Hm. Very much hm. Hm to the utmost limit. "I like going."

"I see," he said.

"You do?" I said, feeling excited.

"No, not really."

"Hm," I said. I looked at him. I stared at him. He looked back. He smiled at me. Very well then, I thought. Very well. "Hey, I just remembered something."

"What is that?"

I shook my head, just unable to believe that I could've forgotten it in the first place. "Lennox."





"Okay," I said. "So this is the deal. Lennox is trapped underground in Circle town, and he's guarded by no more and no less than one griffin, whose name is Coley, so this is what we will do. We'll go into the entrance of the prison. He will be standing there. We will call him out the door, and say he's urgent. He has to go take care of something, maybe it be another Lennox. Then, when that person is distracting him, the other person will access his computer and open Lennox's cell. Then, we sneak down, and take him with us. Coley won't know what hit him, and when we're done, and Lennox has escaped, we will be so far away that he won't be able to find us." 

"Where did you get a whiteboard?" Gripey said.

I sponged it off, and turned the whiteboard around, so you could see the other side. "Or, alternatively, Gripey, we could go down through the ventilation system. I got ahold of the schematics to the ventilation system when I was in the tower, and I have it perfectly memorized."

"He'll kill you both," Gripey said. "This is like dumb on top of dumb. You won't accomplish anything by doing this."

"Oh, what do you know?" I said, dismissing him.

"No, listen," he said. "You don't understand. Coley is absolutely crazy. He's nuts. When he finds you, he will kill you both, like literally kill you on the spot. You don't understand. No one escapes Coley."

"I escaped Nexus, didn't I?"

"They're not the same person."

"Peh." I waved a hoof toward him. "Details."

"No, please," Gripey said. "You have to take this a little more seriously."

"I know," I said. "That's what I'm trying to do, but it's really hard. Regardless, some of my plans have carried fruit before, haven't they?"

"This one won't," Gripey said. "You can't keep getting lucky forever. It's already a miracle that you're alive right now, given what you've had to go through."

"Ah," I said. "You're trying to be realistic about it. I see."

Gripey walked up to me. "I don't think you do. The world is literally filled with ponies and creatures that want to kill you, and you don't want to make it easier for them, or give them reason to. All of this is really complicated, and not good at all. You need to listen, and focus."

I wanted to. I really wanted to.





"You know what? I have a new idea," I said, with a lightbulb floating above my head. I looked up and I saw it, though I knew it was probably only in my imagination.

Gripey stood by the display of the wagon now. We were headed back to Circle town. "Does it involve certain doom?"

"Yes," I said. "I mean, no." Gripey rolled his eyes at me. "No," I said. "It involves zero doom, for anyone involved. We simply go ask Hookbeak to release him."

"You think he will do that?"

"Well." I shrugged. "I think he will listen to me, so yes, he might."





We arrived outside Circle town, and Lennox was standing there. The storm was raging behind him, the giant cyclone that surrounded Circle town, and formed a protective layer around it. This was only one of many layers and nuances of that protection, I would learn. The clouds outside, and close to town, could also shoot lightning, and not just a single lightning-bolt, but like, a lot of lightning. A lot. It's hard to impart some of these things to a person who has never been there, but you will see later exactly what I mean, and why this power is so dangerous.

"When you speak of the changeling," I said, "he just shows up. It's magical."

I stepped out the wagon and ran up to him. "Hello there, old buddy," I said.

Lennox looked at me, and then to Gripey. "You two are still together."

I looked at Gripey, sighing. "Yes, and as a matter of fact, you will be joining us."

"What if I don't want to?" he said, frowning. 

"Oh," I said, grinning. "You want to."

Gripey walked beside me. "I think what she's trying to say is that it's not really safe for you here."

I nodded. That was right.

"But," Lennox said. "I just recently escaped from Tartarus. I can't be on the run forever."

I shook my head. "Yes, you, can." I ran up to him. "Come on. Yes, you can. You can keep running until you get tired, I mean, at least."

"No," Lennox said. "I need to face her."

"Who?" I said, looking askew at him.

"Nexusantran."

I smiled at him. "I see. I see. But then, I guess that like me, a short while ago, you are resolved on wanting to die, and if so, I guess that there's really nothing I can do to help you, so good-bye." I turned around and started walking the other direction. Gripey picked me up as I was walking and turned me around, and so, I walked back to Lennox. "On the other hoof, why not join us and not get killed by Nexus, the evil changeling who almost killed me, and has killed many others, several times?" 

"No," Lennox said. "I must do this."

"What is she, like your mother?" I said, groaning. "Like, come on. Just come with us. Don't make this more complicated than it has to be."

"I'm trying to do what's right," he said.

I looked toward Gripey. He smiled at me and nodded. Okay then, I thought. This conversation is about to get more painful. "Say, do you know what Nexus does when she catches escaped prisoners? She either brings them to trial, or kills them. It's one of the two, so listen, Lennox. I know you want to stand up for what's right. You want to face your fears. I get that. I do too, but there has to be a way to do it that doesn't involve walking into the jaws of, you know, death."

"You really shouldn't be saying these things," Lennox said, sneering at me.

"You know?" I said, glaring at him, and giving him the evil eye. "I think I should. I think you're the one who's not listening to reason here. I know her, and if you know her, and you sound like you do, you should know what to expect. She only cares about one thing, and that's her job, you see. She wants to do right by and for the Nonaligned Court, you see. That's her agenda, and you're just an insignificant flea in her eyes. She will crush anyone that gets in her way. That's her modus operandi."  

"Okay, okay," Lennox said, walking past me. "I will come with you." He ran into the wagon. He looked like he was crying.

"Hm," I said. "I hope I wasn't too harsh. I have trouble measuring myself in situations like this."

"You did great," Gripey said, he too walking into the wagon.

I followed him. All of that was, strange, to say the least. I hoped I did well though. I really did. I didn't want to ruin anything, in any way. No, never. Not anymore, hopefully, anyway. I jumped up the steps of the wagon. 

"Now," I said, "we're going to, um, somewhere, in the where the and the thing is, and, what was I saying? I cannot, for the life of me, remember what we were talking about."

Lennox looked at me, wide-eyed. "You were talking about, you mean. You were the one talking about it."

I smiled at him. "I see. I see. What was I talking about?"

"Do you want to go to Manehattan?" Gripey said.

"Hm," I said. "I think that the answer is, affirmative."

"What's Manehattan?" Lennox said.

Gripey looked at us. "You don't get out much, do you?" He then tapped the screen. "There."

I puckered my lips. "I mean, come on. Lennox has been stuck in tartar sauce, and I've been a robot android slave. We've both been like busy and stuff. Come to mention it. What is your backstory, Lennox? Why did you want to escape from Tartarus?"

"Why did you?" he said, looking like he had been offended by the question.

"Tartarus was never my home," I said. "I was imprisoned inside a prison that was in Tartarus. Were you?"

"No," he said. "It's more complicated than that. I'd rather not get into it."

"I see," I said. "Not feeling very glib, are we?"

"Just knock it off," he said.

I walked away from him, and sat down against a wall inside the wooden-boarded wagon, which was wooden on the inside, again, and metal on the outside. "If I must," I said.

"We'll be there," Gripey said, "in two days, tops."

"Great," I said. "Then we can stop for supplies, and explore a little bit, though not too much. I don't want to be discovered."

"We'll see," Gripey said. "But if you get, quote, discovered, I'll protect you. I promise." I smiled at him. He smiled back. That felt great. We were off and away on adventure, or exploration, or something. I wasn't sure what we were doing, but I liked it. I really did. I realize that my attitude and outlook didn't exactly reflect what I had gone through in the last few days. If anything, I should be traumatized, but I guess it just takes a lot to traumatize me, and so be it then. I was happy with it all. I was happy, and satisfied. It felt good. I had no compunction. I wanted to learn things. I wanted to explore. That's how I felt for every second of every minute, if such a thing can adequately be described as a feeling, but I hope so.

The next few days were relatively uneventful. Yes, we were discovered. Someone chased after me. Gripey had to give an explanation. That person would then not accept that explanation, but this is only a tiny footnote, in a very, very long story, and I don't want to bore you with any details, given how big and dramatic the other things happening were, and those are more important, so I'll stick with those. Then again, I'm sure I promised to include my whole story, from beginning to end in this book, so I guess that's what I will do. It's not very complicated though. 

I was sitting outside our wagon, looking at a bush. "This is a very pretty composition," I said. "What precious leaves."

"Yeah, okay," Gripey said, fidgeting and looking around. A pony came walking.

The pony that had come walking looked at me. "Say, who are you? I recognize you."

It was a mare. She was blue. She had a rainbow-colored mane, which I think looked pretty ridiculous. Was that all au naturale? I didn't believe it for a second. "Do you color your mane?" I said, trying to prod her on it. 

She just looked at me. "Um, okay."

"Wait," I said. A rainbow flashed in front of me, and I saw a face inside my memory. "You're Rainbow Desh. No. No. That's not right. You're Rainbow Dash, aren't you?"

"You're Sweetie Belle," she said, looking confused, and frowning. "Oh, no. This is horrible."

"I agree," I said. "I couldn't help it. I was forced. They turned into like a weird machine, or something. I don't know."

Rainbow shook her head. She stared at me very, very harshly. "Who is it I'm talking to right now?" 

I remembered my dream, and I tried to summon Sweetie Belle out of my depths. She was living inside me. I had to give her a voice. "I'm," I said, carefully. "I used to be Sweetie Belle. I hope I can still, um." I didn't know what to say. "I'm sorry, Rainbow," I said. "I don't want to hurt you, but really, I'm not who I used to be. I'm some Sweetie Belle, and I'm some something else. I've been controlled and manipulated, but I escaped, and I want to get back to who I used to be. I want to be Sweetie Belle, again, but I don't know how. I'm confused, about a lot of things."  

"Damn," Rainbow said. "That's really heavy. I'm so sorry."

"Do you want to come with us?" I said. I pointed to the wagon. Gripey looked a little annoyed. I'm sure he didn't want me to pick up random ponies that he didn't know he could trust, just out of the blue, but this was my friend, or used to be, and I felt I needed to honor that somehow. "I'm sorry, Gripey. I know you're all at war and stuff. This is really difficult for me. I used to know this person, in my previous life, you know."

"Okay," Gripey said, and looked at her. "I guess she can come with."

"Wow," Rainbow said. "I'd really do it. I promise I would, but I'm sort of held up at the moment, so you just be on your way. My friends will be here soon, and I don't think they would understand. They don't know me like I knew you, Sweetie Belle." In the moment I heard my name, like clockwork, it sent a cold chill down my spine.  

"I need to go," I said, running back to the wagon. Then, I heard a different voice. 

"What's going on there, Rainbow, buddy? Who is it you're talking to? You're not fraternizing with the enemy, are we now?"

"It's Sweetie Belle," Rainbow said, "and her friend."

I turned around. I saw a pony with a purple umbrella. It was a unicorn. She was grey. "I surely hope you are joking, my dear." 

Oh then, I guess I need to fess up to this pony as well, I thought. I walked back. Rainbow just shook her head, and pushed me the other direction. "You run off now," she said.

"What's happening?" I said.

"Hm," the unicorn said. She turned her umbrella toward me and spun it around, and sparks came out of it, that flew toward me, and Rainbow picked me up, flying me into the wagon.

"Time to go," she said. She then flew back, and astonishingly, picked up Gripey as well, though he looked a fair bit bigger than her. She threw him into the wagon. "Bye-bye, friends." She slammed the door. 

"Okay," I said. "I guess it's time to go." Gripey activated the wagon, and it took off at high speeds. What happened then with Rainbow Dash, and the mare with the umbrella, I really don't know, and I think Rainbow Dash, and what she is, and what she means to me, as I have gotten to know her again, since returning to the world from the clutches of darkness, that's a story for another time. 





Oh, anyway. We also crashed. I stepped out of the carriage and took a looksiedo around the place. I saw an umbrella in front of me. Anyway. Anyway, I don't want to bore you with any details. Oh, what am I saying? This story is nothing but details, big ones and small ones, all over the place, and I guess that's kind of the point, so what happened, in all actuality? Well.

"No, we're just travelling. And she is not a prisoner. You do not have the right to execute her," Gripey said. This technically wasn't untrue. I wasn't a prisoner, and she in fact did not have the right to execute me. That is true. "We're just travelling."

"Just travelling?" the grey mare with the umbrella said. "You're bringing the baggage along for the journey? Well, I hope it doesn't attack you when you least expect it. Be on your way, you." Who was she? Heh. It's funny that I just keep running into these ponies. She was the commanding officer, it turns out, in the attempt at retaking Manehattan, occupied Manehattan, from the griffins. So far, there had been a few negotiations. I think you'll find this interesting, dear reader. This is what really happened.





Sweet home, Manehattan. This is where the skies are all grey. Sweet home, Manehattan, surrounded by a barricade.  

I used to live in a prison, where ponies turned me to a slave. Now, I travel in a carriage, with guys I met like yesterday. Yeah-yeah. 

"Sweet home, Manehattan," I sang.

"You're totally butchering the lyrics," Gripey said. We were listening on radio waves that were coming from Manehattan, of all places. Go figure, of course. 

"No," I said. "I'm correcting them. The lyrics say that the skies are blue, but that is incorrect."

"Oh my lord," Gripey said, clasping his head. 

The wagon ground to a halt. It just stopped. It was damaged from before, I thought, and that's probably what it was. I stepped out. Gripey pulled me back in. I looked at him. He shook his head. He stepped out instead and said, "Wait here."

I did. Then, "Come out," he said. I came out. We were outside a giant wall, that stretched two-hundred meters into the sky. You know I'm not exaggerating, if you've been there. The wall was so high, and so wide, that you could see nothing of what was behind it. It blocked off all view of the inside, and from my conversations with Gripey on the journey, I had learned that this wall was built to keep Manehattan in the hands of the griffins, but ponies could come in and out, person by person, if everyone applied, registered, and told the griffins what their business were. Am I here on vacation, or am I here on a business trip? All of this struck me as radically strange, but I just went with it. There was nothing else to do. The wall was extremely high, and like the floor of Coley's dungeon-place, if I'm allowed a comparison here, the wall was made out of patches of many different kinds of metal that were literally bolted together, and when I say bolted, I mean that you could literally see the bolts on top of the metal coating. There were giant bolts to and fro all across the wall. Some of the wall was slightly brownish. My scan yielded copper. Some of it was obviously iron. I didn't even need to scan it to see that, and some of it was stuff that me and my scanners didn't even recognize. The wall had graffiti painted on it. More aptly, it was war art done by the griffins, or really, it was propaganda. There was a picture of a zebra, with a red cross painted over it, splatched across the wall, splotched onto it.   

"Wow," I said. It covered one of the metal sheetings. There was a big square of some kind of shining white metal with a zebra, black and white, painted over it, and splotched on top of it was a big cross, with red color that ran down the metal, having dried that way, sloppily painted atop the zebra. "What's the deal with griffins and zebras?" I said  

"Look," Gripey said. "I'm all for you speaking your mind, but right now, you need to be quiet."

Two griffins came walking, with spears, and metal helmets, with goggles over their eyes. They stopped in front of us. Then, another griffin came running. He was long in the body, had a long body, I mean. He was long, and slender, and very, very fidgety. He stopped for every two steps and looked around him, searching for who knows what? He took a few steps, and then, he stared behind us, squinting. He was looking for others that might attack us, or intruders? I didn't know at all, and I was confused, a lot confused, about a lot of things. He then looked at me, and then at Gripey. He whistled, and turned away, looking behind him, and then, he turned back toward us. When I say he was fidgety, that's not just an insignificant detail. He really was extremely fidgety. He looked at us, looking back and forth between me and Gripey many times.

He shook his head. "What are you just standing there for?"

"I'm awaiting orders," Gripey said. "After all, that's why I arrived here."

I looked at him. "What haven't you told me, Gripey-kins?"

"Just," Gripey said, "that I have at least one duty I need to attend to here, and this here guy is my superior. You'll know him as–"

"Portly Frump," he said, the long slender griffin, whose color I couldn't quite make out. He looked sort of blue-ish. I didn't know that griffins came in those colors. It was a very light blue at least, reminiscent of the Rainbow-mare I had met before, actually, come to think of it. The feathers on his head were white though.   

"I won't call you that," Gripey said. "Colonel."

"Oh, gosh," Frump said. "I hate formalities. Just come with us, and we can talk, like a heart to heart, rather than a military personnel type of thing."

In my experience, it seemed that all the griffins had some type of aversion to formality, for one reason or another, and sometimes, their behavior was so eased and informal that it made me a little uncomfortable, rather than doing what it should have done, which is to ease me too, but I just didn't know how to interpret grownups talking to each other in these personable tones, rather than saying orders, which I was more used to, honestly, from my previous life, and you know what happened.

Gripey came with him, and I followed, tentatively. "Shouldn't Lennox come with us?" I said.

"They're bringing Lennox," Gripey said, hushedly, because he didn't want to draw too much attention, or so I would assume. 

"What now?" I said.

I heard a familiar melody. "Dum-dadum-dadum. Dum-dadum-dadum." Jeez, I thought. "Dum-dadum-dadum. Dum-dadum-dadum." It repeated, repeatedly. "Dum-dadum-dadum. Dum-dadum-dadum."

"That," Frump said, "means that lunch-time is over. Well, you know, it has to be over sometime."

I shook my head. Had the world always been this crazy? "Lunch-time?" I said.

"Yes," Frump said. His voice was so high that it bordered on falsetto, and it sounded like he was straining it a bit to speak that way. "Lunch-time is important for any sentient creature." He turned his head away, looking around, sporadically. "Except for you."

"Okay, I know," I said.

"Now," Frump said. "It's time to register new arrivals."

We got out to right outside the wall, which looked even bigger and higher now, up close. "Wall," I said, looking as high as my neck could carry my eyes. 

"Admiral Artillery's the only one I fear," Frump broke out, randomly, singing to the wall, serenading it. "Colonel of the Cavalry is not someone to fear." He waited a second. "When we reach the other side, you will be worse for wear." 

"What's that mean?" I said, and then I flew up in the air. "Springs," I said. I could see springs sticking out of the ground where we had stood. "Springs?" We flew higher and higher.

Gripey caught me, and carried me, once we reached the top of the wall. "I'm sorry," he said. "These means of transportation weren't really built for ponies."

"Aaah," I screamed. "Help." I was flying so fast that it felt like my neck would break off. My entire body hurt, but I was so shocked that I only noticed it a second later, when Gripey caught me. 

"It's okay," Gripey said. We then flew across the top of the wall. A few lights pointed toward us. They shifted colors into green, and then pointed away. "Really, we wouldn't be able to cross without the springs. They also function as an alarm system."

We descended toward the ground in the biggest metro with the largest buildings I had ever seen, ones that stretched into the sky. "Where?" I was still in shock.

"It's okay," Gripey said, putting me down. Down on the ground were smaller gates, and ponies stood on either side of them, and there were like two-thousand guards in the place. They literally lined the entire inside of the wall, and the wall stretched into the distance, surrounding the giant city that we had just entered. The wall was just at the border, buildings were on either side, from left to right, in front of the inside of the wall, lining the entire place with giant metal pillars, because that's what the buildings looked like. They were so big that it was frankly crazy, and unbelievable to me. Am I repeating myself? There are many things in this story, after all, that have been frankly crazy and unbelievable to me, and I grow weary of finding synonyms and euphemisms for saying that you are confused. Let's just say that I didn't understand what was going on, and how could I? I had been locked and blocked off from the world, and why? You'll see later.

"Where is he?" Frump said. "Where could he be?" Another griffin came running, that was nearly identical to Frump. Rather than being blue, he was yellow, and with a black head. 

The other griffin shook his head. "What is this? What is this? Who did you bring now, you trickster?"

"Why?" Frump said. "They're friends of Hookbeak the one. Friends of Hookbeak are peas in a pot, always to be trusted, and also, I know this one guy-Gripey-feller." 

The other griffin shook his head, his jowls shaking. "I do declare, this is not what I had planned for, Colonel."

Frump shrugged, and looked at me. "What am I supposed to say?" he said to me.

"What are you asking me for?" I screamed at him, still shook from the journey across the wall.

"Hm, oh, I see how it is. Aha. Okay then. Well, if Hookbeak is allowed to have friends from the desert," the other griffin said, sarcastically. 

"Please, Gerias. They're his friends. Please. Please," Frump said.

"Well, I'd never," Gerias said, turning his nose up. "I'd never."

"Come on. We need to respect Hookbeak and stuff," Frump said, pleading with him.

"Tch," Gerias said. "You saying that as if you don't respect him. I respect him, I do. I just find it odd, is all. I'm not allowed to find it odd? What are you doing exactly, not finding it odd? Are you just pretending not to? What's the matter with you? Oh, I'm Frump. I'm finding everything not odd today, aren't I? I'm so cool. Well, if I had gotten your half of the brain, none of this would've happened." 

Gripey whispered to me, "They're the same person."

"What?" I said. "That's crazy."

"Crazier things have happened," Gripey said. "He put his brain into two griffins, so that one of them could be perfectly rational, while the other could be more free and exploratory, so that he would become a better person, parts greater than the whole and all, well, um, I don't really know how to explain it."

"Oh, I see," Frump said. "You want me to speak to him and tell him about the thing and the thing, because the thing?" 

"Why do you always have to be so stupid?" Gerias said.

"I don't think this is what he had in mind," Gripey said. "I'm not sure he has one anymore, to be honest."

"Hey, I heard that," Gerias said. "That a way to speak to your superior?"

"Hey!" Frump said, angrily. "I'm his superior too."

"Whatever," Gerias said.

"Whatever-nyeh," Frump said.

Gerias pushed him. Frump looked at him. "You just pushed me." He ran away along the side of the tiny wall with doors in it, going who knows where.

"Hmmm," I said.

"Hm," Gerias said back. "What do you want?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Tch," he said. "It's always the same thing, be it pony or android. Can't you see that I'm busy?"

"No," I said. "I actually can't. You seem to be doing not much of anything."

Gerias nodded. "I can't disagree with you, but if I were busy, I hope you would be willing to point that out too."

Now, he reminded me of Hookbeak. "Who are you guys, exactly?"

"I am Gerias Gavesh. I am, along with my twin, and half my body- where did it go exactly? I need to find it." He looked the other direction.

Frump came running, hugging Gerias. "Oh," Gerias said. "That's quite okay. Quite. Now, let go. Let go. I'm introducing myself to a stranger. You're embarrassing me. Let go."

Frump let go. "This has been long, long day."

Gerias and Frump looked at me. "It's getting longer," they both said, in such perfect synchronicity that I only heard one voice. They both had been bickering before, but now, they were concordant. "Hello," they both said, producing a single sound, which impressed me. "I'm Colonel of the Cavalry."  

"Portly Frump," one of them said, jumping and stretching out his arms, in a little ta-daa. 

"And Gerias Gavesh," the other said, frowning, and shaking his head Frump, wagging his finger.

"Together," they both said, "we're all the cavalry has left. We're the final frontier, against the darkness, death and despair, looming towers, coming toward us." They both looked around, staring across the place. It sure was a big open area, full of big looming towers. The towers were tall, but not taller than the wall, which was way tall. The towers had windows on them, and the roads were paved, which is something that I rarely saw in pony towns, and remember that I had actually been in a few. I had travelled Equestria, a murderer. Let's never forget that little fact, while everything else is happening.

I nodded. "That's a very good introduction. You should practice that too." I looked to Gripey.

"No," he said. "It wouldn't work if I did it. It only works when they do it." He pointed at the two.

"Anyway," they said. "Gripey Silverfeathers, is that right? Majorly Majorically of the southeast, is that right? Or do we have cotton in our ears, and in our minds, to have missed your true identity? Nay, we, for the sake of clarity, think that we are certain of this fact, and if so, then you reveal yourself to us, and if you don't, we worry that we can trust you no longer."

Gripey saluted. "I'm a Majorly Majorically, of the district of Equestria, reporting for duty, though I have other duties to attend to, and of course, Cloudsdale is coming soon."

"Duties?" they both said.

"What does he mean, duties?" Gavesh said. "I'm his superior. His only duty is to respond to me."

Frump put a hand on the head of Gavesh. "Please be gentle with him. He only just arrived here."

"But we need to assert our authority," Gerias Gavesh said, pouting. "What will Generically think if we just let any old griffin walk all over us? No-nana-nana. No, no you, and no too."

"But c'mon," Frump said, looking at me, and then at him, and blinking a few times into the eyes of Gerias, standing right beside him.

"I mean," Gerias said. "When you put it like that." He looked at Gripey, pouting a little. "Okay then. You go through and do whatever in Manehattan I guess." One of the doors in the little wall opened up, and both of the two griffins, one blue with a white head, and one yellow with a black head, and very slender, like each of them only had one half of the other's body, pointed toward the door. They still had two legs, so in which case, shenanigans, I thought.

"Okay," Gripey said, smiling at them. "Thank you, and I hope you win the battle."

"Pt-twi," Gerias said, spitting on the ground, and then, rubbing his foot all across the spit, trying to make some kind of point, maybe. "Hope is for suckers. I'm no sucker. I'm a winner. Isn't that right..." He looked to see where Portly Frump was, but he had vanished into thin air. "Damn you. Where are you, other half?" 

Gripey walked toward the door, and waved for me to come with him. "But Lennox," I said.

"Lennox," Gripey said, "is being taken through a tunnel, where it's more safe."

"I maybe wanted the tunnel," I said.

Gripey smiled, and chuckled. "I know, but I just couldn't have you miss out on meeting one of the main attractions of Manehattan, the army's current Colonel of the Cavalry."

"Colonels," I said, not even sure if that was correct either.

"I don't even know anymore myself," Gripey said, smiling and shaking his head. "Honesly. But it is kind of funny. You have to be honest."

I ran in through the door. I looked the other way, and saw that like before, Frump was clinging on Gavesh, and he was sort of gently pushing him off. They went through a kind of repetitive routine, it seemed, that I didn't really understand. Was it involuntary, or did it serve a function? Those two were a big question mark for me, but Gripey was right. I wouldn't want to miss out on that. Meeting them was stimulating, and taught me a lot. It taught me that you need both halves of your brain.

The door closed. "Pop quiz," I said.

"Shoot me with it," Gripey said.

"Um, I'm trying to figure out a way to phrase this that doesn't sound stupid."

Gripey turned the other way, walking along. "Then maybe you shouldn't say it."

I ran after him. "Okay, what about this? What if someone just flew over the wall, um, walls? What would stop anyone with wings from doing that? A lot of effort to build a wall."

"Yes," Gripey said. "Except for one small detail." He looked around across the ground, and then, he picked up a very tiny rock. It looked like a piece of gravel. He threw it across the wall, the smaller one with doors in it, that was further in from the big wall. A bolt of lightning struck down, piercing through the wall, and sending shockwaves across the ground, almost like an earthquake. I had to concentrate to keep my balance. 

"How is that even possible?" I said. "Isn't that a giant waste of energy and resources?"

Gripey nodded. "Yes."

"Hey!" Gerias shouted from across the other side of the wall. "Who did that? I'll have you arrested and or suspended from military duty." 

"It's time to go," Gripey said, picking me up, and flying off. I made no effort to resist. I liked when he did that. "We're going to meet up with Lennox, not far from here. I'm sorry for the secrecy, but if any of the secrets of this place got out, it would be my head, not yours. You got it?"

I got it well enough, even though I didn't really like it. I understood it. Sometimes, it just had to be this way. It's par for the course. We landed. We were on a street that divided into several streets, criss-crossing. We were in, what I would later learn, is called an intersection. The place was rather lifeless, and dirt, and old newspapers jumped across the ground in the wind, and I even saw a tumbleweed fly past, a sure sign that a place is completely abandoned. You want to clean up those. 

I ran after it. I was about to pick it up, but Gripey put a hand in front of me, stopping me. "We are not allowed to touch those."

"Why?" I said.

The tumbleweed shone up. It beeped three times, rather loudly. Then, the beeping stopped. It kept tumbling. "Um," I said, looking as it was flying away. "Explanation, please? If you would, Gripey?"

"It's a bomb," he said. "It's meant to fool trespassers that break the rules. If you clean anything up, which is against the rules, you run the risk of getting poisoned, bitten, or exploding."

"That's stupid," I said.

"Well," Gripey said. "I'm not exactly in favor of it myself, but the decision didn't come from me. It came from the top."

"I'll take it up with the top then," I said.

"I think," Gripey said, "that you might someday, but now, we need to focus."

A little lid on the ground spun around and opened up, and Lennox came climbing out. "Hey, buddy," I said, reaching out for a hug. He walked past me and up to Gripey. He was covered in dirt, and looked pretty angry, and off, like he wasn't really relaxed, and rather, like he was stressed out, and full of worry.

"What was that?" he said.

Gripey shrugged. "Whatever do you mean." 

"I've had to walk in poop," Lennox shouted.

I burst out laughing. "Hahaha!"

He looked at me. "What's so funny?"

"He was just trying to keep you safe," I said.

"How can I trust that?" he said. "How can I trust any of you?"

"Meh." I made dismissive maneuver with my hoof, waving him off. "With that attitude, you won't get far. There comes a point where you have to trust someone at some point."  

"What do you know about that?" he said, glaring at me.

I took a deep breath. "You watch it," I said. Now, I was getting angry. "You watch it." I didn't like that last comment at all, more rhetorical than a genuine question, in all reality. "You don't know anything." I clenched my teeth. "You watch it. You just watch it."

Gripey looked at me. "Okay, but anyway, we have known each other for like a week now. Lennox only just met us."

"Oh," I said. "I guess that's true." Lennox frowned. "I have the Obliterator in the carriage. I have killed hundreds of ponies. Surely, one changeling won't–" I recoiled backward. What was I doing? I saw that Lennox now looked worried for his life. He had a pinch of panic in his eyes. Okay, I said to myself in my head. Can I salvage this? "Um, I'm stupid," I said, and then I kept walking. When I said salvage, that's not exactly what I had in mind, but I liked it better than nothing.  

"Idle threat," Gripey said. "I know you wouldn't do that." He put a hand around me. Well, I thought for sure he was right, but I had been very quick to invoke the threat of death because someone else had said something that made me feel threatened, but maybe, that was just another weakness, and an insecurity on my part, rather than something I should be deeply concerned about long-term. I wondered.

"I'm sorry, Lennox." I didn't really dare meet Lennox's gaze, but I met him halfway, sort of peeping at him with one eye closed. He was shook. "You're not used to having your life threatened, are you? Why, I've had my life threatened loads of times, and it's not that there's zero danger there, but most of the time, ponies are just trying to make themselves big by making others feel small, you know. It's a form of social domination." I had engaged in that many times with my victims, and I wasn't exactly proud of it, but so it was. 

"I don't know," Lennox said. "I just want to know what's going on. What's the Obliterator?"

"It's a weapon," I said, measuring my words carefully, to make sure that I didn't accidentally blurt something like that again. "I created it probably a few months ago. It has the power to change the world. It can obliterate almost anything, even a mountain, I remember. I put it on my head. It's shaped to fit on my head, and so that I can put my horn into a little tunnel, and then, it channels my magic. It turns things into gravel, just like that. The Obliterator can obliterate anything."  

"Anything?" Gripey said.

"Well, maybe not anything, but a lot of stuff." I was getting giddy. I felt I had to pull back a bit again. I was talking about a mass-murderer weapon, after all. "It maybe can't kill the ninth."

"No," Gripey said. "Let's not have that discussion right now."

I kicked the ground. "I'm just thinking."

"I know," Gripey said. "I know."

"You're going to obliterate me?" Lennox said.

Gripey coughed, laughing a little. "Don't be such a wuss." He grimaced. "Just don't be such a wuss, Lennox. We're at war. Things fly out of the mouths of griffins and ponies all the time, and she was created to kill, remember?"

Now, I thought he was being a little too charitable to me, but I appreciated it all the same. "I don't want to kill you, Lennox. I just got angry. You don't know what it's been like. Where I come from, doing anything that you want to do is not allowed. It's a pretty dark place. It's driven by rules and routines, and set times, and if you deviate, you get shut down, and killed, or spun around in hot cement. Joy that hasn't happened to me yet."   

"But you don't get it either," Lennox said. "All my life, I wanted to be free."

"Oh." I laughed. "I get that."

"I've been just carrying eggs, and doing duties for the changeling hive since I was a tiny hatchling myself. Have you?" I felt anger rushing into my head. He was pushing it a little bit now. Then, I remembered something, a few words.

I stared at Lennox. He looked away from me. "Look at me," I said. All this looking back and forth, and to and fro, was making me dizzy. "Look at me." He was still looking away from me. 

"Look at her," Gripey said. Lennox did.

I sighed. "Once, long ago, I used to be a real child. I had dreams and wants, and then what happened? I don't know. Someone did something to me."

"Spare me," Lennox said.

Gripey nudged me. "You want me to throw him down the sewer?"

"No, not yet. Let's give him a chance." Gripey nodded, and shook his head, like he didn't really agree with me. "Out of all the places, in all the world, I came from the mines, that were dark and wretched. They cut me apart. I was torn apart. I'm not trying to degrade your suffering, or say that it was insignificant, Lennox, but I think it was. I think it was. I will never be happy, and I will never be free, and soon, any memory of my past life, as they existed, will have slipped away, and perhaps only shadows will be left, and after that, nothing at all, and for what? Whose purpose? Whose destiny? Something will happen."

I sighed. "The curse will be broken? I will defy this deity, and defy the odds. I will not fall victim to other ponies' predictions. No, never. Somehow, I will be my own person, some day, and I will save my friends. So sayeth I, Sweetie Belle."





"It is one or the other."

I saw Sidus. His old face saw me, and it closed its eyes, sniveling. "I'm so sorry."

"It is one or the other," I said, again. "It's either Sweetie Belle, or F-5226."

"Yes," he said. "The cranium wanted it to be this way."

"Why can't we just ever say its name?" All I saw was Sidus' face. Everything else was darkness.

"If you reveal its name, then you might reveal its history, and everything else. Something without a name, in a certain sense, doesn't exist," Sidus said, trying to explain it to me.

"He will always twist time in his favor," I said. "He will always change fate's design to suit him. What is he, but an architect of destiny?"

"I'm so sorry," Sidus said. "In time, you will learn."

"Learn what?"

Sidus' face faded into the darkness. This was another memory, like before. It returned to me when I most needed it. It returned to me when I needed to honor Sweetie Belle, and the sacrifice she had made. She had chosen this of her own free will. Well, that goes with some caveats. If she didn't choose it, then she would die, but she did it for her friends. You must, in his words, keep very, very still. This was the alicorn of my nightmares. Well, he was really one of several, but he had haunted me more than anyone, and he cared about it, I think, and he wanted me to help him, and he wanted my help, to do what? What could I help someone like that with?

I saw things. It were only glimpses. Something was hiding from me. It was running from me. It was hidden in my memory, not explicitly, but I was piecing things together. It was the image of a skull, with eyes that blared lights out of them. They shone toward me. They were completely hollow and empty, like empty sockets. Sidus walked in front of them, as I was recollecting this, in my memory, at the time. 

"Be careful," he said. "The closer you get, the more you will realize that you want to move away, and the harder it will be to do."

I blinked a few times. "Move aside." And he did. Now, the eyes got closer.

"Darkness, and all its shadows," the skull said. "Fear of death and life." 

"Don't hide from me," I said. "Who are you? How are you possible? What did you do? What brought this on?"

"All the things' collapse. Everything you knew will come to me." It sounded high-pitched, and distorted, and male, I thought.

"No," I said. "I will end this nightmare. Come to you? Never."

The eyes came closer, and their lights blinded me. "Meteoric skies. Fate of death and life. Everlasting skies. You cannot hide from me."  

"Hide?" I said, shuddering. "Hide?" I said, a bit louder.

The face shone less and less, and lost some of its features. Behind the light was truly just a cranium. The skeletal head of a dead pony. "Never can you hide. Never can you live. I won't let you breathe. You will be one with me. I promise you." 

I felt myself choking. "Hide?" I said. "Why hide? There's something about that word."





I lay on the ground, gasping for air. I looked up at Gripey. He picked me up, and he put me in his arm. My breathing returned. It had felt like something was stuck in my throat, and the moment it happened, panic overcame me, like a primal instinct.

"I hope you're happy," Gripey said, glancing the other way.

"Hide! Hide!" I said. "No, no." I wriggled. "No, I don't know. Where am I? I'm with you, Gripey. I'm so sorry, Gripey. I'm so sorry. I don't want to hurt you anymore."

Gripey put me down. "Don't be stupid, Botsy."

"No," I said. The two lights flashed in front of my eyes, and I froze, just standing still, not able to move a muscle. "Eyes? It's the eyes." I tried looking away from them, but they kept flashing in front of me. "Red eyes. White eyes. It's always the eyes. Why is it the eyes?"

"Maybe we should talk about that then," Gripey said. "I didn't want to cause you any distress, but those are premonitions you're having. Many have had them."

"Premonitions?" I reached out. "No, I see them. They're right there. It's not just a premonition, I don't think. It's something real."

"Maybe it's not," Gripey said. "But someone is inside your head, and is giving you these visions."

"Why would he?" I said.

"We have to go somewhere," Gripey said. "And you, Lennox." Gripey sighed. "If I see you again, I might hurt you. You go now." Lennox ran away around a corner and was gone.

"Hide?" I said. It was turning into a mantra. I was forgetting why I said it.

We walked into a cafeteria. It was handled by a pony. "I want ice tea," Gripey said.

The one working there looked at me. "And for her?" she looked kind of down in the dumps. 

"No, nothing for her," he said. We sat down. He almost dragged me toward a table. "Just tell me. What did you see?"

"It was a skull," I said. "Are these memories, or just visions? I don't even know anymore."

"A skull?" he said.

"Yes." I nodded frantically. "It said- it talked about death. Fear of death and life. Fate of death and life. Everything you knew will come to me." I looked around the table, as if looking for the words. I felt myself shaking. I hadn't felt any worry about anything in the last few days, but as soon as I saw these visions, fear came over me like nothing. It just swept over me, like a physical reaction of some kind, like a reflex. "Darkness and its shadows." I spoke faster. "All the things' collapse. What does this mean? This is stupid." I groaned, and dropped my head into the table, but last second, Gripey caught me, and pulled my head back up. "Meteoric skies."   

"I think I've heard it before," Gripey said. "Somewhere. It's a song from a pony district. I can't figure out which."

"Everlasting skies?" I said. "It's not just a song. It's a message."

"It might be both," he said.

"Why deliver a message that is so vague and nebulous?" I said. "If you have something to say, just say it. Stupid spirit." I felt my throat burning, and tensing up, and I had trouble breathing. "You cannot hide from me."

"There's a reason that the ninth was banned from the meetings that the oldest creatures in Equestria do. The ninth is a villain," Gripey said, matter-of-factly. "The ninth of sight," he said. "Reread the Griffonoi, and you'll find it."

"The ninth?" I said. "No, the last one. The book said, what? It said that the final spirit, um..." I trailed off.

"The ninth is the final one. The last one is the youngest one," he said. "It's the spirit that will possess ponies, and enter their souls."

"I don't know," I said, not making eye-contact with him at all. "The ninth? The final one? The spirit of translucence? Is it a he or is it a she?"

"I don't know," Gripey said. "What? I mean, does it matter?"

"Sidus said that he is hiding away from me. Or I don't know." 

"Me neither," he said, hugging me. "Me neither."

"I just don't understand," I said. "I figured that if I could just understand it, then the fear would go away."

"No one has ever understood it," Gripey said. "Everlasting skies? What's that supposed to mean? It's gibberish." 

"I know, but is it supposed to be? Is there some deeper meaning that, if I only had the wisdom, I would have access to?"

"Look," Gripey said. "This is very serious business. The ninth is looked at as a mistake. Something went wrong."





"All the pain I feel, others will feel too, and this is only true, since if it wasn't so, my life would, nooo." This was only whisper at first, and then, everyone heard it. All the candles in the world went out. "Steal from me, I see. Steal from me, and see, all the last of you, will have it stolen too, and nooo."  

This is what alerted everyone, including Hookbeak, and guys like Vivacio and the Yether, that the light had returned, exactly in the same time as Sidus had warned, all those years ago, and for what? Some kind of revenge? Is it for some deeper reason? Why now, and why would it help the old Sidus, who's just an old alicorn, looking for justice and revenge?

Is this what awaits us? We're at war, and yet, it seems we cannot focus on the real enemy.





"It's not revenge," I said.

"It's not?"

I shook my head. "It's redemption. He wants to prove to Celestia that she was wrong." My dreams came together into one now. "He wants to show her that whatever she does, even if she wins, she cannot win this war, but why is the thing? There's some kind of trickery going on," I said. "It's about you, Gripey, and me. It's about everybody. He said it to me in my dream more than a week ago, when I was heading for Canterlot. When I was in Canterlot, rather. I'm trying to remember. He said that you can't- it's something. You can't banish everything you don't like."  

"You can't," Gripey said. "You can't."

I gasped, and then, I groaned. "I'm just going in circles. That's not the point. That was never the point. The point is why you would even do something like this? Is that the point? I don't even know. I don't know what the point is. I'm unsure. I'm unstable. I'm collapsing. What does it mean to collapse? I cannot tell, but I feel good, anyway." I got dizzy. I got nauseous. I felt like I would faint, but I only just lost my equilibrium, and fell back onto the table. He caught me again. "I'm sorry. I can't keep my balance," I said. "What is this? And why would something want to do this? Oh, now I'm just whining. I'm just thinking of myself. What about the world? Why is the world falling apart?"

"Not yet!" Gripey said, standing up. "I remember where that song came from."

"Where?"

"Pegasquire."

"Flutterscotch Secretwings," I said.

"What?" he said, looking at me sideways.

"They think I killed her. They were talking about it in the trial. It was in Pegasquire. They're wrong though. She's alive. Or at least, she's not quite dead yet."

"We're going there," Gripey said.

"We're letting a villain lead us?" I said. "That seems unwise."

"We have no power anyway," Gripey said. "We need to just see if it will have mercy on you. We need to see, at least, and follow what it wants you to do, and maybe, try to make contact with it."

"First, Aldeus. Then, it's Sidus, and now, it's the winding light," I said. "These hauntings are getting worse. And they're arriving in succession, almost like they're coordinated somehow. It didn't come all at once. It came slowly, and once I had gotten worried about Sidus, this next one walked into the picture. This is not a coincidence." Still, I didn't know what to make of all this, but that at least was one conclusion I had arrived at. "Someone or something is messing with me. Let's figure out what it is."
> Part 22: Pegasquire's Dead Mare
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ponder and presume. Act on fate, which looms. Make your fate abate. Eliminate the hate, and then, I'll wait." 

I saw a courtroom in front of me. "Welcome," someone said to me. I looked up, but I could only see light, blinding light.

I dared not say a word. I saw tiny changeling bugs in the lecterns on all sides. I recognized their patterns. This was the courtroom in Canterlot. "Why me?" I said. "Why not some other child, lost in the tide?"

"Ponder and presume," the light said, humming a little tune. "Act on fate, which looms."

"You do not know what fate is," I said, admonishing the light. "Until you know what I've been through, I dare not say a word to you, for you don't understand, and I don't blame you for it, but you are responsible for this? Aren't you? I blame you for F-5226, and I blame you for Botsy. I am afraid. I feel like everything I say and do is some kind of sad lie."

"Make your fate abate," the light said, as if that was meant to be a response to what I had said. "Eliminate the hate."

"I don't hate anyone," I said. "It's complicated. I just want to kill things that cause suffering now, like you. Maybe you're the one I hate, if anything." 

"And then, I'll wait."

The courtroom evaporated around me, and I fell down into an abyss. I didn't hit anything. I just fell.





I landed in my bed. I saw Gripey beside me, sleeping. "Wicked," I said. "Horrible. He did it on purpose." I caught my tongue, not wanting to awaken Gripey. I leant down in bed. "I never asked for this, and because of that, do I get it? Is that the reason, of all reasons? I just want to be free." I cried that night, a lot, but I didn't tell Gripey. I didn't want to wake him up. 





I woke up with dry eyes. I felt like gunk and goo and dirt had gathered around them. I tried picking at them, with care, and precision. "You cried," Gripey said. "I can see it on you." 

"Don't worry about it," I said, poking my eyes.

"No," he said. "I do worry about it."

"Why do you care about me so much?" I said, not as a retort, but as a question.

He wasn't turned toward me, so I couldn't see his expression, but he said, "I care, because I know. I've been through something similar, believe it or not."

"How?" I said, wanting to believe it.

He caught wind, sighing as loud as his voice allowed him to, not to do anything but make a point. He emphasized things with his breath. "It's," he said, sighing again. "I'm not allowed to speak about it, but I was experimented on too, when I was a baby."

"I," I said. "I don't, okay." I didn't know what to say. "I hope you're all right," I said. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he said. "Don't be. Never be. I want to help you. Think about that. Take my help. Just don't reject my help. Promise me that. Be smarter than I was."

"I want to be smart," I said. "I'm just confused. I don't understand why any of this is happening. Something seems unnatural about it. It's like someone is interfering in my life, someone or something from the outside. Am I wrong in this? I don't know what to say and what to do. I just don't know. I feel extremely confused, about everything."

"What do we do?" Gripey said. "What are we ever to do?"

"Fight on," I said. "Not give up. We fight for the things we care about. That should be enough."

He smiled. "I hope."

"Yeah," I said, walking even closer to him. 

"I hope," he said.

Hope. Hope is one of those things. It comes in short supply. You don't get it forever, or for no reason. You get it because you believe in something. We were going to Pegasquire, essentially, I felt, to confront the demons of my past, both literal and figurative. We were going to learn something, hopefully. I hoped so, at least.





"Having hope and being hopeful, and giving hope, receiving it, and living with it within you, is a gift, surely."

"Fear of death and life. Fate of death and life. Meteoric skies. Everlasting skies."

"Ponder and presume. Act on fate, which looms." 

"Grieve, and never fear. I will never leave."

"You cannot hide from me."

"Sky and effervescent."

"Something."

"Stars?"

"..."





We arrived. Something, like a dream, flashed in my head, before my eyes, and then, it was gone, without a trace, and it was as if I had never seen it, and I could no longer see, recall, or in any way remember what I saw. Something was messing with my head. We walked out and then I ran back in. "This is, something," I said, staring into the inside of the wagon. "I had totally forgotten how this felt. This is something. I'm sorry. I'm not sure I can do this."

"It's not a matter of can," Gripey said. "You do or you don't."

I stepped out with him. The place was as I had left it. It was in ruins. It was cold. It was dark. It was snowy. It was full of cube-shaped houses, some still standing, but most, for all practical purposes, uninhabitable. The roads were empty. The dead bodies had mercifully been removed by someone. We were just on the outskirts. We had been forced to take the long path, up the steep cliffs of the mountain, because some genius had decided to block the short path, filling it with rocks, and making it impossible to pass through. That genius was me, when I had been here last time.  

I looked around. "This isn't so bad." Then, I vomited on the ground. It was nothing but liquid, but it was vomit. "No," I said. "No. No!" I tried to steady my breath, because I had learned that the breath controls everything, and if you can control the breath, then everything becomes easier. "Okay, it is." I took but a single step forward, and then, I felt something well up in me, a kind of giddiness. Joy. I felt joyful, over death. Joy doesn't discriminate, as it turns out. Killing these ponies made me happy, because it seemed right. I wanted them to suffer, because they should, surely. That's the natural order of things.

"Are you okay?" Gripey said to me, noticing that I was having a nervous breakdown. Now, this was enough to traumatize me, if nothing else was.

"I still don't understand it," I said. I took another step. It was as if someone was waiting to pull the trigger. Another memory flashed in front of me. I was running after ponies, coming after them, aiming and firing, and watching them scream, and burn, and it felt like a rush. It felt like success. I followed my purpose to its intended goal, and that was success. I deemed these actions to be justified, and that's really how easy it had been. I really was capable of something like this. I already knew that. Only a few weeks ago, I had engaged in this type of behavior. It felt, fair. It felt like at least, I was owning up to what I did now, even though I really didn't understand yet what suffering I had caused, and everything felt strange. Something came over me. It was a shadow. It was my own wrongdoings. I looked at them. I couldn't interpret them. I couldn't understand them. I knew that when you scream, something feels bad, and not bad in your tummy, or bad as it regards a goal, or a feeling, or an impulse. You're not feeling bad, because you have decided, impulsively, or instrumentally, that you should feel bad, because the feeling of bad relates to something else that you think you care about, and so, you reason your way back from the goal, or let the impulse guide you to the revelation that you feel bad. That's not how feeling bad works. 

Feeling bad is something that de facto is bad, because it's something that you dislike, and you know that you dislike it, on account of the badness, inherent to the feeling. That's not an intention, and it's not a goal. It's a reality, like breathing. I realized that now, looking upon the death that I had caused, really, in my memory, inside my field of vision, which was all hidden from Gripey, and anyone else, so yes, this is what I believed. I couldn't reject the reality of what I saw before me, and it had a reality that's not just contingent. Should you want to not feel bad? That's contingent, and just begs the question. The point is that feeling bad is something you don't want to, and the word should, get this, just describes your reaction to that. The word should does not assume that you want to do something else than you already wanted to do, and so, that's what makes suffering, actual suffering, real, and universalizable. 

Here, we have one response to an ancient philosophical problem, one out of many. It's not something I believe in anymore, but doesn't it just make you frustrated when you see something horrible, and tragic, and someone tries to tell a story about it that makes it all seem like a figment of your imagination? That's what happens. 

"The trees are withering," a high-pitched male voice said. I followed the sound to the big statue that was in the middle of town square, which was quadratic, and had patches of grass going over it, with houses surrounding it, and indeed, the trees really were withering. There were four trees, one in each quadrant of the square, and they looked pretty sorry, almost dead. 

I stepped to the statue. "Don't hide. Show yourself. Why have you brought me here? I cannot stay here much longer. I feel weak."

"Is that what you feel, or is that just what you're saying, as you're feeling whatever you're feeling, unable to express it?" the statue said. The statue literally spoke. It was atop a pedestal, and it jumped off the pedestal, standing in front of me. It towered over me. It was a big statue, like three meters, abouts. 

"What?" I said. I stared. "Where's Gripey? Where's my friend?"

"He cannot see or hear us now," the statue said, walking to my side. "It's just us, me and you, alone."

"You made a mistake," I said. "I pray that you can reverse it, for your sake."

"Is it your opinion that I have made a mistake, or is it that, based on all the knowledge in the universe, I truly have made a mistake, truly?" the statue said, muttering the words, sounding like it was bored.

"You mean to say that without perfect knowledge, I cannot muster any more than an opinion? Isn't death bad to you?"

The statue cracked a little, as it was circling me. "Yes and no. Everything and nothing. Life and death. Flow, and empty discord."

"Okay," I said. "Stop. There comes a time when you say what you have to say, really, truly, or say nothing at all, stupid statue."

"I think that what you're saying," the statue said, "is nothing but a fallacy. You're assuming that because you dislike death, then death is bad, and so, in turn, something to be avoided, but your disliking death, and the assumption that it is bad, and therefore, something that should be avoided, don't follow."

"Are you out of your mind?" I said. "Are you freaking out of your mind?"

The statue laughed. "Maybe." It smiled at me. "Tell me why I'm out of my mind."

"Okay," I said. "It'll only take a minute. All of this, even if you're right, about everything, is based on the meaning of the words you're using. So for example, to say that something is bad is not an expression of my preconceived notions about death, ergo, my opinions that I had before I knew what it was. It is an expression of my knowledge about what death does to people, and so, the claim that death is bad is to me, not everyone maybe, but to me, is a claim about death itself. I make this claim about dying. It's not that my sense that death is bad is bad. It's not that I feel death is bad, but that feeling is an opinion that relates to an attitude that I had about death, before I knew what it was, or without knowledge of the thing itself. Rather, it's death, that is bad, and it's not an opinion, if you think that death is bad, because everything that is bad to a person, relates to what that person wants. If I want to do something that it's impossible for me to want, because I know it would harm me, then it's still not an opinion, to me, even if someone else might interpret it that way."  

"What's bad about an opinion?" the statue said, grimacing, and sticking out its tongue at me. "Opinions are real, aren't they? So, are you saying that your opinion isn't real, but your sense that death is bad, not being real, reflects on what you think death actually is? It should be avoided?"

"No," I said. "What?"

"Are opinions real? Are feelings real? Do they tell you what's right or wrong?"

"No," I said, again. "Look, statue. It's neither an opinion, nor a feeling, nor a sensation in my body. If I'm driven not to want to do something, because doing the thing, from an objective point of view, would harm me, then we're just talking about real harm, real not wanting to do something, real feelings, and real everything, but it's all just based on realness, all the way down. I didn't have to think, 'well, I don't like this' to get there. I got there from the other direction. The harm made me averse to it, and that's not a choice. Now, is it? Does that make it an opinion, or a feeling? No, it's just something that happens to a person. Aren't things that just happen to a person, like not wanting to die, real, and based on the reality of what the person knows about death, real too?"    

"What do I know?" the statue said. "I'm just a statue."

"Sky." I caught glimpse of the statue's eyes. "Stars."

"Isn't suffering real?" the statue said, in my own voice. It laughed, also in my own voice. "Heh."

"What's so funny?"

"Let us sit down, and discuss that," the statue said, sitting down on the ground in front of me. "I find many things about you, and the conversation we're having right now, funny. Here's one. I don't think you're thinking right now."

"Thinking?" I said. "Define your terms."

"Heheh," the statue laughed. "That's the point. You're just saying things that were already in your head. Where did you read that? In a book? Can I see it? Are books more valuable to you than what you see right in front of you?"

"What do I see in front of me then?" I said. "I see lives ending. That doesn't seem very different from what I said, albeit less theoretical, and more real, and practical, maybe."

"Lives ending are things that happen," the statue said, still in my own voice. "Lives ending is something that can feel bad, and then, it feels like nothing at all. Lives ending can be something that would've always happened, given the way they began."

"All lives end," I said.

"Not yet!" the statue said.

"Ah," I said. "So you want to make it that way? In your design, lives would end?"

"Including my own," the statue buzzed, speaking mechanically and with the exact same cadence I was speaking, I was noticing more and more. "Lives ending is something that sometimes, lives are fearful of doing, but not for long, and when they're gone, not the air or anyone but them can tell their stories, lost forever in the wind."

"Is poetry then the more objective way of speaking?" I said. "Is that the game we're playing here?"

"What makes any of what you have to say important?" the statue said.

"Where's the exit?" I said, looking around. I realized that I was inside some kind of illusion, but I could for the life of me not escape. "Where do I go, to leave this place?"

"No," the statue said. "First, answer true. What makes death bad, really, and not just an opinion?"

I stared at the statue. "Gripey," I then yelled, not wanting to play along, and play mock-philosopher any longer. Truth is that the statue was right. It was as if it could read my mind. I didn't believe any of this. I was just responding to the feeling I had, and the conviction, based on my love and empathy for Gripey, and my memory of Jelly, that death is bad. It wasn't some deep philosophical conclusion I had come to, even though everything I have written so far might suggest it. The truth is that if I had an answer to it, I wouldn't keep changing my opinion, and yoyoing back and forth. 

"We can stay here forever," the statue said. "I have eternity by my side, to keep me company. Do you?"

I looked at the statue, frowning. I was about to admit something. "I'm just saying the first thing that comes to my head."

The statue, creepily, said, "Yes, yes. I like that. We like that. Heheheh." 

"You do?"

"Yes, speak. What is death?"

"Death," I said, "I suppose is what happens, or what is, when there is no life, or when life disappears. Maybe death is just an illusion. Maybe, in some sense, we're all just dead in the end, matter in motion, trying to survive. Purpose, and destiny, are fudge words for what happens."

"And is death bad for you or for everyone?"

"Tch," I said. "Does it matter? Ponies don't want to die."

"Why?"

"Maybe," I said. "Because they think about how it would be if the whole world died. For every person that dies, the world gets a little more lonely."

"Why?"

"Death is what happens when there is no life, and to be in a place where there is no life feels bad, because we're all social creatures, theoretically speaking, so it should come as no surprise."

"Stop. Stop!" the statue yelled. "Good," it said. "Good. Yes. Heheheh. You're perfect!"

"How?" I said. "What am I perfect for?"

"Is death bad?" the statue said.

"What the heck?" I shook my head. "It sure feels bad to kill ponies, or does it? No, it feels bad, knowing that I have done it. It used to feel good, doing it, but really, all of this is just based on the assumption that doing things which make other creatures sad, and which they don't want me to do, is bad, in some sense. Maybe bad is just another word for that, or is there something I'm missing here? Maybe, really, I don't know, and I'm trying my darndest to make sense of something infinitely complex, that's beyond me."  

The statue shattered into pieces, and beside me stood a pony. It was white. It didn't shine or anything. Its colors shifted, changing in nuance from white to blue, and I saw that it had an empty hole right into its head, where its horn should be. No doubt, I recognized this creature from before.

"Hello, we meet again," I said. "Long has it been. You're something. You're sky. You're star. You're something. I'm slowly remembering your name, and when I do, I won't be shy about saying it. Then, you will kill me? Serves me right, I suppose, but I can't live in a lie that was created by a being like you, because then, I would be following your destiny, not mine. I need to stand up for what's right, and if all the world went against you, would you kill it? I hope not, but then, your power truly is endless, and there's nothing I can do. I will have to accept that you will always control me, and Gripey, and the world, and that we can never be free."

"Your destiny," he said, in the same high-pitched voice from before. "Ah," he said. His voice shifted tones. It became soft and female. "Your fate?" He hummed. It was a melody. It was a familiar melody, the one that Gripey had heard. He had taught me about it. It was the melody of the Pegasquire's Lament. "Fear of death and life," the he, she, whatever-person sang. "All the things' collapse."  

"Who are you?" I said, walking closer. He, she, it, shone up, and I took a step back. The light vanished. "Why?"

"Everything you know will come to me."

"Everything I knew?"

The pony got more gaunt as the song went on, more skeletal. "Meteoric skies. Fate of death and life. Everlasting skies." The skin then melted off it and revealed nothing but a skeleton underneath. It stepped toward me. I backed away. "You cannot hide from me, in darkness, all its shadows." 

"Everlasting skies? Please, explain."

Sidus materialized next to this skeleton, looking sad, as always. "The fear," he said.

"Meteoric skies," the song repeated, the skeleton singing in a female voice now.

Aldeus then appeared beside this spirit with a hole in his head, groaning, and shouting gibberish. "They will all suffer. They all deserve it. Don't they? Look at me. Look at me, Sweetie Belle. They created meeeeeeeee!" he screamed, over-powering the sound of the song.  

Then, he got quiet, and the song kept going. "Everlasting skies. Nothing else but skies. Ponder and presume. Act on fate, which looms. Soon, you'll find the truth. Look inside your mind. You are not unkind. We have not been kind. Look inside your mind." 

I saw the name in front of me now. Wow, I thought. This explains everything. I sighed. "Why did you have to hide from me for so long?" 

"It was your wish," all three said, and then, they vanished, and I was left standing there. 

Gripey came up to me. "Where have you been hiding? You can't just run off without telling me, you know."

"I didn't," I said. "I've been standing here all the while."

"No, you haven't," he said.

"Yes, I have. I just saw things in front of me, and imagined they were there, but no longer. I think I have the answers now. I had another meeting with, it, and you will not believe what I saw." 

"What did you see?"





I flew above the fields. No, I was on the ground. My memory shifted. I was in a MEWOD. I tried aiming at the wagon, so far away, and then, I hesitated. "Stop, please," I said. I put on my helmet and blasted it to pieces. "I would expect a little more enthusiasm." I took off my helmet. "Something is wrong." I turned around. I saw the one driving the tank coming up out of the hatch. "Um." He saw me. He went back down. "Yes." I jumped off the MEWOD, and then, all of them turned around and returned back to the facility, and it's because I sent them back there, using a frequency that only I knew, with my magic.

Yes, so, this may not be what you expected. "Equestria, a place of peace and silence," I said, sighing. "That is, up until ten years ago, when her plan ran into action. The sky-bot, Sweetie Belle. Yes, no, okay. I see." I went up to the shattered wagon. "Earth ponies, unicorns and pegasí! Loathsome creatures, all of them! The actions of their ancestors are never to be forgotten. They have had this coming for thousands of years, more than that. Believe me! In a sense, I’m simply just cleansing this world." I just felt angry, and betrayed, at that point. "That's a long-ass time." I mean, it was a time that was as-long as any time I had ever witnessed, even longer. I hope I spelled that right. As-long. Wait, ass-long? Long-ass? That's how I spelled it? What's a long ass? Is that- wait- I'm getting off-track and off-topic, way off-topic. "Spelled that right? My mind is splintering. I'm speaking gibberish. Of course, I can see the words in front of me, but, thinking about something." I always saw what I was about to say right before I said it. It was a gift that had been granted to me by, well, someone.

"Something, something," I said, walking across the field. "Something. I need to fix it." I wanted the feeling to go away. I hesitated. "Sky-bot," I said. "Eyesstark, can you hear me?"

"You need to give her a voice," Eyesstark said. 

"A voice? Silly," I said.

"No," Eyesstark said. "Come to me. Return to the mines."

"What if she won't let me?"

"Convince her."





"That isn't possible," Gripey said. "Aldeus is an alicorn."

I couldn't help but to laugh. "No, Aldeus is an illusion. You only see what she wants you to see."

"Who is she?"

"A machine," I said, remembering back, remembering everything now.





"RETURNINGTOTHEFIRST-0001, or in short, the sky-bot."

"What do you want from me?" I said.

"Everything," my shadow said, speaking to me from atop the wall. "Everything."

"Why?"

"It is your destiny to be here," the sky-bot said.

"Why?"

"You only die," it said, "so that you can be reborn."

"Why?"

"Dying is like breathing. You gain something, and you lose something, and then, you gain something."

"My breath," I said.

"And your eyes," it said. "We need your eyes to see the world."

"When is it over?"

"Sweetie Belle decides when it's over," Eyesstark said. "Sweetie Belle decides." 

"Then what will happen to me?"

"You will forget everything, but what you learn from it is what you will need to defeat me."

"Why?"

The machine whirred. The shadow disappeared. I could see gears turning. "Why not?"





I sat in the highest floor of the northern tower, looking down. "Silly ponies. Silly theatrics. Everything they do and say is a trick, isn't it?"

A-0087 looked at me. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Now, it's our turn. Perhaps we could learn something from them."

"I don't know," A-0087 said. "This is getting out of control. You're not fit to do this anymore."

I laughed. "I'm fit to do it for as long as I'm alive. So sayeth I, the spirit of sight, and when I'm done, who knows? Maybe the ponies will have learned something. Maybe they won't hurt us again, me, you, and [redacted]."

"You're not really thinking clearly," she said. "Stop with the theatrics already and just be honest with yourself. You said that honesty is our policy, remember?"

"No," I said. "I still have things to learn that I can only learn if I'm ignorant of the truth. The machine is getting ready. It's planning to erase my memory again. All my doubts. I will forget about them, and I will live in them, all the same. I will become them, and then, they will teach me the right way. So sayeth I, the spirit of sight."

"Or maybe," she said, "it will doom you to a life of suffering, and confusion."

"Such a funny word, confusion," I said. "Don't you think, Scoots?"

"That's not my real name."

I chuckled. "And you're telling me to stop lying to myself. We've all been drawn in by this. It wasn't my choice, nor was it yours, was it? Heheh."

"What are you going to do?"

"I will go through this routine, until I have learned my lesson, and at last finally understand where I went wrong, and why his death cannot transpire, I feel, and you will pretend to be angry at me, won't you, Scoots?"

"I will, won't I?" she said.

"It needs to be perfect," I said. "With the power of the sky-bot, if there's even the smallest clue that you're lying, I will sniff it out. It needs to be perfect, to the last detail."

"How can I resist?" she said.

"Then," I said. "Let us pray."





All my anger, my hatred. It came from her. Why? It's obvious. What is she? It's obvious. Who created her? It's obvious. Actually, it's so obvious that I wonder why I didn't realize it before. She's the one everyone thought was dead, but someone or something wanted to save her, and they sacrificed quite a lot to do so. All will be revealed in the end. Let's bury the lead for a moment, dear reader, for no other reason than because it's fun. Think about it for a second. I will reveal it to you later in this chapter. 

I was strapped inside the machine. "Bloody mind, where are you taking us?" I said. "We need to focus now."

A-0087 came running. "I need to help you."

"Double the guards," I said. "No, triple them."

The machine, as this was happening, slowly changed my memory, and amended my experience of what's happening, transforming it, and transforming my memories. It didn't erase all of it. In fact, it didn't erase anything at all. This machine wasn't in the business of doing that. It was transforming things, changing them.

She ran away. I looked after her, forlorn. Why was she acting as if she hadn't seen it? The black swarm and everything, I could see in front of me. They were real, surely. Well, they were real to me, anyhow.





"It was my own fear I saw, you see. It was me. It was me all along. I'm the one that did it. I'm the one that the sky-bot wanted to protect."

"Um," Gripey said. "Should I be worried?"

"No," I said. "I've changed. I've learned so much. I'm not the monster I was before. I saw that I was wrong."

"Um," he said. "You're the one that did it?"

"Yes, though I'm not happy about it."





"Behind the walls of this facility," I said, in front of a crowd. "No one will ever be free, and that's a good thing, for now, because we're working toward a higher purpose, you all. We're working to cleanse the world of false idols, and deities, and evils, and the thing that can resist us is the thing that shall remain. If it can't, it will die. Equestria has grown weak. It has forgotten its own history. To kill an alicorn is one thing, but to watch things suffer, as the stupid royals have, and not do something about it? Well, we are that suffering. We will show Celestia that it's real. We will show her that she cannot hide from it. No one will ever be able to hide, and if anyone does, then we will draw them out, one by one. We aren't murderers. We don't kill. We never kill. We only see things through, to the end, and this is the end."

Someone in the crowd reached out a hoof. She spoke in a pony-voice, not a robot one, "Then why kill, if we're not murderers? What is this? Why are you doing this to us?"

"I am carrying a message," I said. "I am a mouthpiece for that message. I carry it with me, proudly. I know what we must do. We must kill everything, even though it's fighting to survive, because something else is coming to kill it, and in mercy we will have prevented unnecessary death from happening, because if we don't do it, then, as it is written in the stars, everything will die. So sayeth I, the spirit of sight."

"Please," she said. "Please, just let me go. I have children."

"No one listens to my prophecies," I said. "This is what created the whole problem in the first place. Begone, you, and begone all that dare defy me."

"Please," she said. "You must remember how it used to be to be a child, don't you?"

"Do you?" I said. "Are your memories real, or are they something that has been destroyed, rebuilt, and reconstructed over and over again, to form something fake and imaginary? I will replace your memories. I will show you that even my memories are more real than yours are, to you, even though they are mine, and not yours."

"No," she sobbed, crying out the word toward me.

I was standing on a podium. "What am I?" 

No one said anything. "I," I said. "Am the truth!"





"What does this all mean?" Gripey said. "Are you saying that you did all this?"

"It's worse than that."





"We will kill the world, or else, we will watch it kill itself," the bugs said, crawling all over me. "The sadness that lives in you, lives within me too. It's either that, or dying first."

"Then I choose that," I said. "I will have to do this, for my friends. I will kill the world, or else, I will watch it kill itself." I had been hearing these words, like a dark mantra, for hour, upon hour, upon hour. It had seemed to go on forever. "I will kill the world, or else, I will watch it kill itself, or at least, I will kill as many as I must. Does this not exact your prophecy, sky-bot?" 

"Does this not exact our prophecy?" the machine spoke, whirring. "Sweetie Belle. You will be known as something else."

"I will," I said, not even caring, just accepting it, but accepting it is what I needed to do to let her control me. It was all I needed to do. That's why she needed me. She knew she could manipulate me, and form a relationship between her mind and my own, and she was right, and that's how I became Sweetie Bot.





"Sweetie Bot?"

"Part robot and part Sweetie Belle," I said. "Obvious."

"Um," Gripey said. "This is not exactly what I was planning for."

"Oh, there's more." I stared intently into his eyes, to await his reaction. He looked unsure, and insecure. He would learn soon, what had happened.





"No one can ever know what my name is, for if anyone does, then your friends will be dead. And a name is a thing to be protected and cherished, and if you do not value a name, then it dies. Why do you think all the words that you knew, and generations of words, and languages too, fade and abate into destiny's fate, disappearing and fading away?"    

"No," I said. "I can't do it."

"Yes, you can," [redacted] said. "Yes, and if you do not, then your friends will be dead."

"Who are you?"

"And you must never tell me, or anyone else, who you think is hiding in here. Behind my veil, there is not that much air, and to share it with you, and if anyone, too, wants to share it and take it, and make it their own, I will reclaim it back, as my own." 

"No." I coughed a little. "No." I rubbed my nose. "No."

"And from this day on, and for every new day, that I meet you and see you, and watch upon fate, what your life will bring me and everyone else, I will tell you to heed by these words. You are free, only if you want to be, and I can't help you, if you don't want to be."

"No."

"You are lost."





I gasped for air. "The name."

"The name?" Gripey said.

I looked around the area, to see if no one else was there. "I don't know. All of a sudden, I can't remember it anymore."

"Whose name?"

I tried to find the words. "The name of the eyes."





Something gripped me, and drew it out of me. I almost forgot what I was talking about, and everything that I had learned, but not yet. A saw the lock in front of me. It wasn't finished. I walked in through the door. There stood a guy, just some guy, nothing peculiar about him. He looked at me.

"Hello," I said. I could almost see his face, and then, the face melted apart. Pieces of it flew away, and it shifted, its features moving around, becoming distorted. "Hello?"

He was, monochrome. He was black and white. The corrupted mish-mesh of colors, and chaos came closer to me, and reached my eyes, piercing. I fell to the floor, grabbing my eye, poking it to see that it was okay, just a light poke. "What am I seeing?" 

"You were so close," he said. I recognized that voice. I could swear on my life I had heard that voice before.

Then, my memory slipped. It slipped, or it's slipping? It's slipping. I remember it slipping, long ago, months ago, but really, it's slipping right now. Someone's changing my memory, Gripey.

"What did you do?" I said. "What did you do?" This sort of evil, I knew, is not unrealistic, because it lives within me, and I have seen it, and now, it was embracing me.

"All roads will lead to Canterlot, in the end," he said.

I nearly caught glimpse of his eyes. "You're- you're..."

"Access denied!" he said.





I looked at Gripey, breathing heavy. "I can't remember anymore."

"How do you know those are real memories, if indeed, you're saying that your memory is being altered by someone or something? How can you trust any of it?"

"Good question," I said. "I just feel that I can, but maybe that's an illusion too."

"Can you stand?"

I noticed that I was sitting on the ground, in the grass. I stood up, like nothing. "Yes, my motor function is intact."

"Who are you?" he said.

"I feel like Hookbeak will have some of the answers, if I can only reach him." I saw Gripey, pleading to him with my eyes. I didn't want him to abandon me, like others had done, for being a monster, this creature. I didn't know what I was doing. I was possessed by something. That much was clear, and I needed to find out what, and why.





"Hey, Hookbeak!" I said, shouting it into the streets. "Hoookbeak," I said, looking around the corners, burned buildings surrounding me.

"He's not here," Gripey said, earnestly. "What are you shouting for?"

"Oh, you never know. He could be hiding inside a snowball or something, like with the monkey when we were in the forest, remember?"

"He's not here," Gripey said. "This place is totally dead."

Something hit me. I felt cold wetness against my face. "Hookbeak?"

"It was me," Gripey said. "Just trying to check if someone's in there."

"I wonder where Hookbeak is."

"Is this where you're trying to distract yourself so you don't have to focus on what happened?" Gripey said.

The stars. The nights. The pointy stars. Eyesstark? Sky-something? Skein? Sk- sk, my memory was failing me. No, not Starry Skies. That would be too obvious. The old judge. Everyone knew him. He was a gentle creature, and just sort of senile, and yet, I hesitated about everything, and was unsure of anything. Skey-something. I had the name almost, at the tip of my tongue. I knew the name. I thought I did, at least. I had seen it. Someone had tried to hide it from me, which to me, showed that I was getting closer to the truth, inside my mind, in my memories, and I had to fight to reclaim it, because it held the key to my past, and perhaps even saving Sweetie Belle, though wishes don't grow on trees, and neither do stars, alike.

"Yes. I'm trying to distract myself, and I was nearly successful."

"You can't keep running away like that," he said. "Running from your past? That's no good."

"I'm mortified of it."

I saw something atop a hill. It was the mayor's office, or whatever, the big cube, the biggest in the city. I had been in there, hunting for victims, and more than that. I had actually found someone. I wanted to kill her. Why did I want to kill her? Because I'm a killer. It's only natural for killers to kill things. I had killed. I didn't have any compunctions about doing it. I simply did it. It felt uncomplicated as I was doing it, but I would later realize that it wasn't. It really, really wasn't. I ran up the hill, away from Gripey. I walked in the door, fleeing away from him, and looking for something. The place was even more of a mess than I had left it. Books were lying everywhere, not in piles, but scattered across the floor, chaotically. I treaded carefully, taking one step at a time, so that I didn't fall over.

"Are you running from me, or from yourself?" he said, from outside the door.

I turned around. "Come inside. I'm looking for something."

"What?"

"Someone that's supposedly dead," I said. "But she's not. I know she's not. She isn't." I found the stairs and walked up them, and then I reached the top. There was a corridor, and a door, inside the corridor. "Hey!" I said.

Gripey came up. "Can we talk?"

"Yes," I said. "Only and only, if you destroy this door." Gripey grabbed the handle and opened it. "You didn't try opening it?"

"Anyway," I said, looking inside. It was empty. "No, something's not right." I walked inside, and touched a rough hard surface, which was invisible. I sprayed magic over it, just a field of light, that wrapped around the surface, and it took the shape of mare, whom I recognized. "Alive," I said. "This is not a statue. This is a person."

"Okay," he said. "I know you're always doing grand dramatic things, and stuff, but really, can we talk, person to person?"

"Yes," I said, turning around. "We can talk."

"Ever since we left Tartarus, I've had doubts. I've been unsure about a lot of things, that have to do with you." I didn't want to hear it. "You have been acting odd, and I could live with that, but it's worse than that. You're seeing things in your head."

"I seem to recall you saying that it was entirely natural, and that you had seen it too," I said, drawing my hoof on the stony surface of the invisible statue. 

"I'm not so sure anymore."

"I see how it is!" I said. "Tch." I looked at the statue.

"No," he said. "Please, help me understand."

"I have no idea what's going on," I said, glaring at him. "You think I do? I never did. Never ever, did I. I'm just trying to make sense of it, moment by moment. That's my life, right now." 

"What?" he said. "What's happening? What are you trying to make sense of?"

I was seething. "If you don't believe me, then you can just leave, got it?"

"But no," he said. "I only want to talk. Only that."

"What do you know?" I said. "You haven't seen what I've seen. My nightmares have been, strange. And they have lead me all sorts of places, and what are they for? I don't know. I don't know why I'm having them, or where they're trying to lead me. I'm just as confused as you are, in point of fact."

"No, you seem less confused," he said. "You said that you remember things."

"Remember things?" Sweetie Belle flashed in front of my eyes, her face. "I remember her. I remember dying. I was attacked, by someone. Why?" I trailed off, losing my train of thought. "Such things are too complicated to think about. Oh, anyway! Can you help me with this?" I shot some more magic, showing him the outline of a pony underneath.

"I don't think so," he said. "You're on your own."

"I never wanted any of this," I said. "You think I- ugh." I sighed. "No, wait. I'm losing my temper. I'm sorry."

"That's okay."

"No, it's not okay." I touched the dead mare, or alive mare rather, the trapped in stone, mare. "Something is off. I don't know why I'm acting like this." 

"Maybe it's the wind," someone said.

I closed my eyes. "Please tell me he can hear it. Please tell me he can hear it."

"What's that?" he said, looking around.

"Yes!" 

Gripey nearly scowled at me. "What's yes?"

I heard tapping on the stairs. It tapped two times, and then a second passed, and another tap came, and something bounced up the stairs, reaching us. It was a tiny jack-in-the-box. A head popped out of it. It was the head of a child, smiling. When I had finished processing it, I realized that I was looking at the head of Jelly, sticking out of this tiny machine. She spoke, and it was her own voice, somewhat deeper, and less pitchy than my own. "The wind has been acting up lately, winding." The head disappeared into the box. Gripey picked it up. The head popped back out. He dropped it. "The winding wind." 

Gripey turned to me. "Do you have an explanation?"

"No, but I know who that is. It's–"

"The little thing," the jack-in-the-box said, in a child's voice, again, that of Jelly's, just rattling me. "I am the tiniest of things. I am the creation of your ancestors, Gripey. They built me because they thought they could preserve my life. My name has been lost, or most likely, hidden. Now, ponies only know me as the fortress, and as evil, and death, but I used to be more. My name is Eyesstark. I'm the mouthpiece of Sidus, and the nameless wonder, in the mask."

"I'm Gripey," he said back.

"We have heard of your exploits, and the thing you have done for this child. Do not fear. We have not come to harm you, and even if we did want to, we are unable to. The masked one prevents us, so heed our advice instead, and listen good. You are being followed. This creature wants to use you to change the future. It uses ponies, now and again, to change the future, and it used me. This creature has nothing to do with me, but it used my anger, when I was at my weakest. I had lived in a cave for hundreds of years. It used me to create the black." 

"The black?" Gripey said, stuck on those last two words.

"The black," Eyesstark said, "is a euphemism that some of the older creatures of the millennial circle use to hide its true nature. The black is an eye. It's living. It's close to the center of the world. It has betrayed you, because it wants to make the world into something that it's not. The eye is the brainchild of the nameless mask."  

"Who is it?" Gripey said.

Jelly's head spoke, wiggling around, sticking out on a spring, out of the little box, freaking me. "I would not be long for this world if I told you. Suffice to say, it's a universal eye, that can see everything that happens everywhere, all at once. It's a trick, and a show of power, created to make everyone fearful of it, and I ask you this, Gripey. Please, help her, because she's the only one that has the knowledge necessary to reach it, but it is hidden inside her. You must not abandon her, not yet, not after everything that has happened. I had to intervene, in order to stop you from committing this sin, which I knew you would, for I know things, that no one else knew."   

"Are you?" I said. "Who are you?"

"I was, I," the head said. "I do not know how to say it, but I was tricked by a normal pony, not very old. This pony is like you. I cannot, for the life of me, remember that person's name."  

"I can't believe it." I spun the other direction, not even wanting to look at the little jack-in-the-box, anymore. "Behind each culprit, there's always another one."  

"It's the one that is very shy of revealing his name," Jelly-head said. "I will tell you this, and only this." 

"When do you reach bedrock?"

"There is no bedrock," the jack-in-the-box said. "He has made sure that there will always be another one, and given himself as many chances as is necessary. This is someone that cares about preserving life, sadly, but it isn't your friend, and somehow, it has- has, I can't remember. But I will tell you, um."  

I reached out to touch the jack-in-the-box. It froze up, not moving, like it had stopped in time. My hoof went right through it. "Another illusion," I said.

"I could touch it," Gripey said. "I could touch it."

"Maybe it only seemed that way."

The jack-in-the-box began moving again. "Do you want to die? Do you want to die? Do you want to die? Do you want to die?" It bounced forward. I was prepared for it to go through me, but it landed on me. It only hurt, a little bit, and the pain felt real, but I was sure now this was just an illusion. It kept bouncing, reaching the invisible statue. "Do you want to die? Do you want to die?"

"She cannot live, as long as I do," I said. "I see."

"No!" Gripey said. "This is not a time for death."

"Do you want to die?" the jack-in-the-box said, turning around, jumping in the air to turn around, slowly turning, jump by jump. "Do you want to die?"

"Um, no?" I said, figuring if this was another cryptic test that I wouldn't know that I had solved, even after I solved it.

"Do you want to die?" The jack-in-the-box morphed, and turned into me, going from being a jack-in-the-box, to being a pony. "I don't want to die. Suffering is real. I don't want to die. Suffering is real," it said, over and over again. "Suffering is real. Death is real. I don't want real things to happen to me. I'm a robot, but I'm not." 

"Stop it." I realized that it was mocking me. "Okay, I get it. I'm confused." 

"Is death real?" it then said. "Who knows?"

"What? Then I say nothing, since no answer will satisfy you."

She walked closer to me, and leant into me. I leant back. Its eyes were identical to mine, slightly augmented, with tiny patterns that you could only see if you got close enough. "You lie."

"No." I tried pushing her away but my hooves just went through her. "No." I tried again.

"Don't lie. Be brave. Be like me. Be alive."

"What are you doing?" I yelled. "What are you doing?"

She blew into my mouth. I could feel my body swelling. I had trouble enunciating words. "Stop it!" 

"Be alive," she said. I hovered toward the ceiling, like a balloon. Gripey tried grabbing her, but his hands just went through her. "Don't die." She had eyes on Gripey now. "Be alive."

"No," he said, flying up to me, grabbing me, and pulling my swelled-up body down. "No, no, and heck no."

She blew air, and everything around us got cold. It looked like the air was coming out of her mouth, along with droplets of water, and snow, flying around the room, covering us. "Have no fear. Have no fear. Fear of death and life, is here." 

"Skeyestar," I said. I dropped down, and hit the ground. 

"Skeyestar?" the me-copy said. "Odd, odd, odd. You will die then, and be reborn."

"You're a one-pony show," I said. "You die."

The copy of me popped like a bubble, and vanished into thin air, and just like that, the storm evaporated, and now, I was dry, as if it had never been. 

"Hm, something is different." I saw the statue. It was becoming visible. I poked it with my horn. The stony surface on it disintegrated, and melted off, revealing a pony. "Oh, so this is how I die then?" I said. "How queer." 

Gripey stepped in front of me. "I'll protect you." He winked at me. "Again."

I was happy to be receiving his help, and hopeful that the vision he had just received at least went halfway in convincing him that I wasn't crazy, as I indeed hoped I wasn't, but one can only hope, I suppose. Then, a black, coal-colored, dirty mare, with dirt all over her body, came out of the rocks. Tiny pieces of rock fell around her. She saw Gripey and I. She gasped.

"What happened?" she said. "Where did you come from, foul griffin?"

I groaned. "This is going to take some explaining, isn't it?"

"Explain what?" she said, looking at me. "It's time to die."

"No dying," Gripey said. "We're not your enemies, right now at least."

"She tried to kill me," the mare said. She pointed at me. Gripey looked at me. I shrugged.

"It's true," I said.

"Okay," he said. "Do you want me to defend you?" he said, looking at me.

"Yes," I said.

"Okay, she didn't mean it," he said.

"Wow," I said. "Not as well-spoken in your defenses as you were before."

"I've learned new things," he said. "You told me that you helped enslave ponies, and that you knew what you were doing."

"No," I said. "That was only after I was enslaved. I was locked inside a machine for days, not able to breathe, or think clearly. Do you know what that's like?"

"Yes!" Gripey said, glowering. "Haven't you been paying attention?" 

"Okay, I'm sorry. I was trying to be rhetorical."

"By the way you're bickering," the mare said, "honestly, you sound like you're really close friends."

"No, we're not," we both said. We looked at one another.

I closed my eyes. "I'm sorry. I can never take anything seriously. It's like some kind of pathology I have."

"Apology accepted," he said.

"Now, you apologize," I said.

"For what?"

"Oh, forget it." I turned to walk down the stairs.

I heard something whoosh. I stepped to the side, and a blue beam of magic hit the side of the stairs, exploding them. Tch, I thought. Whatever. She didn't even come close to hitting me. Gripey came running. "Are you okay?" 

"Yes," I said, yawning the word out. "Yes. It seems that way."

I felt the sudden urge to duck, and so, I did, and the beam hit the ground in front of me, whooshing above my head. "Would you stop doing that?" I said, annoyed.

"No," the mare said. "I will never stop fighting you."

"Can't you take a hint? I'm not even attacking you. You're just being immature, and stupid." I turned around, and stuck out my tongue at her. "Stupid." I felt angry. "Dumb. Whatever? You want to fight? Let's fight."

"No," Gripey said, immediately grabbing me.

"Lemme at her. She's a lightweight compared to me, at best. More like an atomweight."

He kept me from wriggling. I kept moving. The mare just stood there, looking. Then, he put me down. I was crying. "You don't even know. You don't understand. You're all stupid. You're all wrong about me. I know things too, you know." I ran for the door.

"Don't be like that," Gripey said, following me. 

I ran down the hill, outside the building. "It's not my fault. This is like a curse. Everything is a curse. Everyone is saying that because I was put into a machine, somehow, I still have to be responsible for everything that happens. I don't even know what I'm thinking, and why, most of the time. The thoughts just come into my head. I'm absolutely, flipping nuts, Gripey." I faced him. "Don't you realize that? Just get away from me." I lit up my horn, fully realizing that I could do nothing to harm him, without the Obliterator, or another weapon. I picked up some snow and threw it at him. "I should be dead."

"No," he said.

"Oh, what do you know?" I ran the other direction. "I feel hollow. I feel like I'm not a real person, even. I only tried to make things better. I tried, because I thought that maybe, the feeling would go away. I'm angry. Why can't I stop being angry? I'm happy. Can't I just be nothing? When I'm dead, I will be nothing. I will. I." I collapsed on the ground, into the snow. "I will be cold. I want to be cold for once, like everything around me. I want to- I want to sleep." I was just saying things. I didn't even understand what I myself was saying. "One day, I will be cold." 

He picked me off the ground. "You're a really fun and interesting person, and yes, you're absolutely bonkers, but you're not insane. There's a difference. That's what I like about you, you know. You're at least bonkers because you care about things. You don't want to be cold. Being cold sucks. Being cold is for losers, persons that don't care about anything in life at all. I like warm. I like warm."

"Oh, you're just trying to console me and make me feel better," I said, grimacing, and just tossing about, trying to get away from him. Then, I stopped moving. "Tch, what am I saying? Of course you are."

"Yes," he said.

"That's not a bad thing," I said. "That's not a bad thing. Why would I think that was a bad thing? It's not!"

He put me down again. I hugged him. "Gosh, I'm so sorry. I'm such a wreck. One moment, I'm happy. One moment, I'm sad. I'm sure there is a word for that, some kind of diagnosis to describe my predicament."

The mare came running. "Where is everyone?" 

"Oh," I said. "Phew, like jeez. How to say this?" I fidgeted around. "How to say it? Um, the battle was over months ago. Everyone is dead. You lost." 

"What?" she said. "My husband..."

"Kidnapped." I nodded at that. "Very, very kidnapped, I'm afraid, by me, I'm afraid, and I regret it, Flutterscotch. I'm sorry. I was under the reigns of powers that mind-controlled me, and making me dizzy, but now, I've escaped. I hope that's a truthful way of telling my story, that doesn't dishonor any of the suffering I know that I caused, or at least, am likely to have caused."

"Months?" she said. "And what? Now you're reformed?"

"Either that," I said, "or temporarily embarrassed." Gripey's head dropped in frustration, and he cast his eyes away from me. "Reformed, most likely," I added. 

"She's most definitely reformed," he said.

"I am the robot that was put in charge of running the facility by none other than Eyesstark herself," I said, not even registering what I had just said, a moment later. "I am, um." I didn't even know what to say. "But the facility runs itself. If you cut off one head, three more grow out, and that's why everything got worse after I left." 

"It did?" she said.

"Well, the schedule certainly got busier. I was Sweetie Belle, and now, I'm just an android, fighting to survive. I don't even know." I shook my head. "I don't even know what's going on. I just know that every time I open my mouth, or say things, or live, really, I get more and more confused. Have you ever experienced that sensation before?"

"No," she said.

"Well, it happens," I said. "I'm just processing, I suppose. I'm F-5- no, wait. I'm- I'm Sweetie Bot? Really?" I asked myself.

"You sound like you already know my name," she said. "And what about you?" She met with Gripey now. "What's your business here? Is she your prisoner?"

"Not exactly," he said.

"I figured as much. What are you doing here then?"

"Trying to find answers," I said.

"She has been haunted by the ninth," he said. "We believe that's the one behind it all."

I wanted to retort, but he was only getting more confused by everything I said, and I was very quickly putting things together in my head, but in spite of that, I wasn't sure about a bunch of things, so I held my tongue, at least until further notice, hoping to solve it later.

"But of course," she said. "Then you're trying to solve the mystery of how the ninth came back? This is dreary. You two won't ever get anywhere, because you're stuck in the middle of nowhere, looking for clues."

"Well," I said. "Clues have been sort of thrown in my face over and over again. It happens, you know."

"No, I don't know," she said. "And I don't know if I can trust you yet."

"Oh," I said, realizing what was happening. "You're totally coming with us."

"You're going to force me?" she screamed, aiming her horn at me.

"No," I said, backing off. "No, I'm sorry."

"She's very outgoing," Gripey said. "She means that she wants you to come with us, is all."

"Precisely," I said.

The mare looked at us. "Can I take a bath first?"

"Whence cometh running water?" I said, looking around.

"Do your bath," Gripey said.

"Okay," she said, walking off.

"That's good," I said.

"Like, you're very trusting of total strangers," Gripey said. "She'll stab us in the back for sure. She's a pony, and you're, um, whatever you are."

"Yeah, but I sort of like the cut of her jib," I whispered into his ear.

"What does that even mean?" he said.

"I don't knooow," I said back. "I just sort of do." I was feeling better now. Everything was coming together in my head. "He's hiding," I said, a little louder. "He's hiding somewhere. Who is he?"

"The ninth?" Gripey said.

I laughed. "I don't even know anymore. There comes a point where things get so complicated that you have to just stop caring. We'll deal with things, one at a time, I think."

"Okay," he said.

I looked into his eyes. "I'm not crazy, okay?"

"I never said you were."

I shook my head, and sighed, taking a deep breath, and breathing out, as I did it. "Nevertheless."
> Part 23: The Broomstick Next to Her
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I've got to know. I've got to know. Where did that broomstick come from?"

"What broomstick?" Flutterscotch said. 

"Whaaat?" I said, slapping her leg, flicking it, giving it a playful little pat.

She flicked her hoof across my face, hurting it. "Don't you do that again."

"Yes, sir," I said, nodding.

"I'm not your sir. I- I'm a mare." She looked at me with a scowl that's out of this world, in how aggressive it was, and felt.

"Yes, mare," I said.

"What is your problem exactly?" she said, tensing up. "Are you messing with me?"

"Nope," I said, shaking my head slowly. "Nope. I'm not."

"What are you getting at? Why do you speak to me in this way?"

Her face was wroth. Her face was angry, like really much so, and in an unnerving sort of way. I'd better choose my words carefully then, I thought. "You're not ugly," I said. No, wait. Don't say it in that order. "I meant to say that you're pretty, but I just wanted to know where that broomstick came from." 

"It's not a broomstick," she said. Finally, I thought. I breathed a sigh of relief. She had finally acknowledged the existence of the broomstick. Then I wasn't crazy for thinking it was there, like another figment of my imagination, a vision in my head, rather than the real deal broomsticks that exist in reality.

"I think it's a broomstick," I said, making an observation about my own attitude about the situation with the broomstick, and all. I thought it was there, and that it was a broomstick. That was a fact, and so, by stating this, I was simply restating a fact. Is that so difficult to grasp?

"Why are you arguing with me?"

"That's a broomstick," I said, pointing at it. "Surely, I haven't seen many, but that's a broomstick. Am I really wrong?"

"Yes!" she said, putting her hoof down. "Will you stop interfering with me?"

I walked toward it. "Is it a weapon?"

She pulled it away from me. "Stop it."

"I'm not interfering," I said. "I'm just wondering about the broomstick."

"It's not a broomstick!"

"Then what could it possibly be, beyond that?" I said, just confused at this point.

"It's just a little thing, you know, that I keep for, um, memories."

I stared blankly at her, and the thing. "A memory broomstick?"

"You are messing with me," she said.

"No, I'm not," I said, feeling angry. "I'm so not."

"It may look like a broomstick, but it's actually a thing that has been in my family for generations. It's for collecting patterns, and using them to paint. It's a paint-brush, essentially, you little nuisance."

"Can I touch it?"

"No," she said, pulling it away further.

"I still think it looks like a broomstick, and by the way, I respect your decision not to let me touch it. I really do." I nodded at that. "For real."  

"What does it mean that it looks like a broomstick? It's not," she said.

"Maybe," I said. "But I think my sight, and what I can see is one measure of reality. What you're saying to me is another."

"You don't believe me. Fine. I don't care. Go away." She lifted me and put me in the corner of the carriage.

I ran back over to her. "I like painting. I saw a painting once that was really pretty. It was of a field, and it had lots of wild flowers, and no dead ponies. Imagine that. For you, that might not be all that special, but for me, that was a real treat. We might come from really different backgrounds, but you see, we're not so different, you and I, because I like painting, and so do you? What a treat, right?" 

She simply stared at me. "What is it that created something that could be like you?"

"We're slowly working it out," I said, rather hastily.

"I'm being rhetorical," she said.

"Oooh, I get it." I nudged her. "I know what that means. Sometimes, I like being rhetorical."

"Are you serious?" she said. "I bet you're messing with me. I hope for your sake that you're not."

"Messing with you? Explain yourself," I said to her, cross, angry, but feeling slightly absentminded and distracted at the same time.

"No one could be like you."

I laughed. "That's funny."

"You'll get used to it," Gripey said.

Flutterscotch glowered with all her power. "You mean to say that she always acts like this." 

"Yes," he said.

"I want to see what the broomstick can do," I said. "Paint something with it. Paint the floor."

"No," she said, "and for the last time. It's not a broomstick. You stupid."

"I wanted a broomstick," I garbled, sitting down, just saying something. "I want the broomstick."

"It's my own broomstick- no, paint-brush," she yelled at me. "No, that's enough. Stop the cage. I mean, stop the carriage. I want to get off. I can't deal with this anymore."

"I'm sorry," I said, frowning, and closing my eyes, unable to concentrate, but feeling that I had done something bad. "I'm trying to concentrate."

"You cannot concentrate," she said.

"I cannot," I agreed. "I can't, and I cannot, and I will not, but I want to. Help me with it."

"Okay," she said. "Then take a deep breath."

I took a deep breath. I kept holding the breath. I kept it in. She was just standing there. I could feel my face flushing. I fell together on the floor, collapsing. Flutterscotch had a devious grin on her face. I stood up.

"Whatever," I said. "I did that on purpose." I fell over, having trouble keeping myself standing because of the weird stuff that was happening with my body, what with the oxygen deprivation, and everything else. "You're exceedingly rude," I said. 

"Ah, now you see how it is," she said.

"I wasn't doing it on purpose." I stuck out my tongue at her. "You're not all that, shall we say, friendly, are you?"

"What did you expect? You tried to kill me, and you killed others that I cared about. You've totally forgotten about that, you little runt?"

"Gripey," I said. "She's using my past as a weapon against me."

"Don't do that," Gripey said, by the display, looking the other direction.

"Have you ever thought about what you've done? I mean, really, really thought about it?" she said. "If you had a conscience, then you shouldn't be able to live with yourself?"

"Yeees," I said, slowly. "I have thought, a lot."

"What conclusion did you reach?"

"I want to help ponies. I don't want to hurt anymore. Haven't I made that abundantly clear?"

"Doesn't mean I have to believe you," she said.

"Well, I could attack you right now if I really wanted to. Have I done it yet? No," I said, feeling hit and hurt by her hard-hearted comments. "I think you should show a little bit of understanding."

"That," she said, "is why I think you haven't changed. You're still a monster. You just haven't realized it yet."

"You're not the judger of what's in my heart," I said. "You don't decide how I should view myself."

"No," she said. "No, I don't."

Her eyes turned, just a tad, the other way, looking around me, or even through me, somehow, not at me, and not into my own eyes. "Still, I don't know what to make of it. How am I to know if all my emotional reactions are correct? Maybe I'm blinded somehow."

"You are," she said.

I shook my head. "Jeez. Jeez. Jeez. What is going on today?"





"I think that I want to focus now. Can you teach me to focus, Flutterscotch?"

"No!" she said. "Can you leave me alone, freak of nature?"

"No," I said. "Teach me to focus. Don't be like that. I'm only just wanting to talk to you, about whatever. That's all. That's all I want to do."

"Talk to me about what?"

"I don't know yet, but there's something that's kind of exciting about that, I think." I smiled. I felt rather awake, and alive, right now, at this moment, when I was talking to her. "How are you doing, Flutterscotch?"

"No one calls me that except for my husband," she said.

"Forgive me," I said. "Then what do you want me to call you?"

"Who you kidnapped," she said.

"Gripey," I said. "She's bringing up the ghosts of my past and trying to make me feel bad about them, when I'm just trying to talk to heeer." I drew out the last word, for effect, and to sound extra chagrined.  

"You deal with it," he said.

"Okay," I said, turning to her.

"Leave me alone," she said. "What's wrong with you?"

"Me?" I said. "I'm not the problem."

"You kidnapped my husband."

"You're ignoring the context," I said, feeling a little annoyed.

"There is no context that will make you innocent of that," she said, barring her teeth at me. "You'd do well to remember that, runt. I could kick you around a bit, to make you a bit more humble, and to make you quiet."

I ran to the corner and picked up the Obliterator, and then, I put it on my head. "Don't do that," I said, as I turned around.

"Don't fight," Gripey said, sighing. "Please don't."

"I do what I want," I said.

"No," he said. "You don't. Don't."

"Oh, fine." I put the helmet down. "But you have to tell her that she's not allowed to fight too."

"You're not allowed to fight too," he said, checking the little map-display carefully. "Okay? Am I making myself clear?"

"Clear as can be," I said, sitting down next to the Obliterator. I wasn't going to let it out of my sight.

"Yes," she said. "Clear enough." She glared at me. "We're not done. You're going to tell me where he is."

"I wish I knew," I said.

"No games!" He held her hoof out toward me.

Gripey turned around. "Okay, what's going on?"

"She kidnapped my husband," Flutterscotch said.

"I don't remember any of it," I said. "I have amnesia. I'm not at my full power today. I feel like I could burst, just from anything. I feel really, like, even though I feel happy, sort of uneasy at the same time, and I don't know what happened to him. I'm sorry, but I'm trying to remember. Look, I admitted I was the one that did it. If I wanted to hide stuff, I could hide that too, but I didn't, so you can trust me, and stuff."

"No," she said. "That makes you even less trustworthy. What are you hiding? What happened?"

I drew my hoof across my forehead, just to check if I was sweating. "Is it hot in here or what? Okay, I'll tell you the story, but you have to promise not to kill me."

"I will do no such thing," she said.

Gripey looked at her, lowering his head, and squinting at her, really penetratingly. She looked back, seeming a little flustered. "Okay, fine. I will promise not to kill you, in the foreseeable future, at least."

"Good enough," I said.

"No," he said. "That's not good enough. You can't settle for that."

"Why not?" I said. 

"What if she wants to kill you later? You'll just keep her around you?"

Flutterscotch turned to him now. "Why protect her? What's in it for you?"

"I like her," he said. "You will too, soon enough."

"I won't," she said. "That's a promise, if I ever gave one. That's a promise."

"I'll tell you the story," I said.





I was walking around, feeling spry, like a normal day, and what should I come across but the dirtiest mare I had ever seen, and covered in rags, at that. I said to her, "Who are you?" 

She said some stuff. I said some stuff back. I fought her and froze her. To make a long story short, I left the place and went to the other side of town, where I caused an avalanche and killed some ponies. End of story.





Flutterscotch had a blank stare of malice on her face. "Where's the part about the kidnapping?"

"Oh," I said. "Didn't you hear? I don't remember anything."

"Is this a trick?"

"No," I said. "I just had only a few seconds to recollect all this, so let's take it slow now. Something else happened too."





I saw him being carried out of the building. He hadn't put up much of a fight. I didn't concentrate enough to really care though. I was going about my business.





"You don't care about other ponies' lives as you destroy them? That's nice." I had another vision, as she said this. 

"He disappeared," I said. 

"What?"





"It's trivially easy," I said to A-0087. "We shall carry him to the mines, and then, we shall initiate the process."

"Yes, we are well aware," she said. "And what then?"

"We will create something beautiful out of him," I said, smiling at her, beaming at her. "You see?"

"The only thing beautiful," she said, "is our goal, and I think there's nothing else but that."

"I love living this way," I said.

Stars and skies and humble pies, jumping forth through whirlwinds. Easy pickings, coming on, making themselves earning. Making, making, making, making.  





"Making, making, making, making," I said.

"Is something wrong with her," Flutterscotch said.

I twitched. "No, wait. I got it."





"The only thing that we care about here at the facility," [redacted] said, "is fulfilling our goals." 

"I like fulfilling goals," I said. "I believe that's my specialty."

"The one goal," [redacted] said.

"One or several?" I asked, because this was confusing me now. Was it one or several?

"It's all of them at once, and as one," [redacted] said. "This is the one thing we can never forget."

"I need to do them all at once?"

[Redacted] backed away from me. "In a sense, yes."

And under my veil, there is not that much air, and the ponies that want it, and make it their own, without telling me why, will be gone. Because under my veil. Because under it. In and over, and under, and the thing, and it's, no. I'm shocked. I'm really shocked, because I just realized something.





"What?" Flutterscotch said.





Because under my veil. The thing is talking about its disguise, and it's saying that not many ponies can exist inside it, or under it, and in some sense, that's what he, she, or it, or whatever, is warning me about. It's saying that if I try to take it, and use the same disguise, then it will be taken back, and the disguise is what exactly? A bag? A blanket? A vision? A mind-trick? I'm really trying to figure it out. 





"I think you lost the plot," Flutterscotch said, writhing with anger. "We were talking about my husband just a moment ago."

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said.

Gripey stepped in between us. "I think this conversation is over."

"Oh," I said. "He was without a doubt taken to the mines. They would then turn him into a cyborg, using the sky-bot."

Flutterscotch then tried to reach around Gripey and grab me, but he held her off. "Now, now."

"I will kill her," she said. "You don't understand the things I have lost."

"I think I do still," he said. "Just don't do anything dumb now. I don't want to fight you in here. We can take it outside, if you really want to."

"You're protecting a cold-blooded killer," she said. "Peas in a pod. You're the same ilk."

"Peas in a pod?" Gripey said. "That's a strange use of words."

"Stop the cart," she said. "Stop it, or I'll turn it over from the inside."

"Wait," I said. "We could save him. As I understand it, the change takes years. I was taken there long ago."

"Stop the cart," she said, again.

"No," I said. "We can save him. After all, we're the only ones that have the means to get to the facility."

"Then do it," she said, flustered.

"We can't," I said. "It's a lot more complicated than you think. We need the three keys. We already have the one, and we need two more. One is hidden in the southwest, and the other, I have no idea where it is, but where I find it, I will tell you, when I do. It's with the time-demon, Yethergnerjz." 

"What do you know about some keys?" she said, spitting saliva, angry saliva, out her mouth. "Just stop it already. Stop messing with me."

"No," I said. I walked off and got the key. "This is one of them. If you find all three, then the path to the fortress will be made clear, but I need to find them first, at least as far as I understand it, you see."

"I don't understand it," she said. "Explain."

"I created a lock, which is to a door, which leads to a weapon that can see the future. No doubt, access to this weapon, as it happens, has turned some ponies mad already, and made them think that they can change the future, and be gods, but this is all a trick. The weapon wasn't built for that at all. It wasn't built to change the future. It was built for something else. I just can't put my hoof on what it is, yet."

"Point?" she said.

"Oh," I said. I held up the ornate key. "There are three of these. All come in different patterns. I designed them myself actually, but that's changing the topic. The point is that there are three, only three, and they will show the way to the fortress, once you find them, because as Hookbeak said, together, they are pathfinders. They make it clear how you're supposed to get there. That's at least as far as I understand it."

"You talked to Hookbeak?" she said. She sat back down on the ground, plumping her butt down. "Now, I really want to see what happens. I changed my mind. I'm not getting off."

"I did," I said. "He told me about a lot of things. He said that these are all events that will transpire in the future, me finding the keys, and going there, bringing some ponies with me, and most likely, getting captured, because no one can ever win against Aldeus, Sidus, and the nameless spirit of translucence. It's impossible."

"He's right," she said. "Why are you even doing this? You actually think you can do this?"

"You wanted to save him? Surely, you did." I wanted to know where all this hesitation was coming from.

"Yeah," she said. "But I don't want do die, trying."

"There is always a way, and we can do it," I said, feeling confident, and assured in my convictions. "If we only try, we can find a way."

"No," she said, just frowning. "There's not always a way. Sometimes, there isn't a way."

"Yes," I said. "Sometimes, it might seem that way, but only if you give up."

She spouted some magic out with her horn. 

Gripey took the forefront. "What's going on here?"

She said, "The one thing I know about all this is that the spirit of translucence, and the great matriarchs and patriarchs of a thousand years ago that have gathered in the south, cannot be defeated by something that isn't equally powerful."

"Then, let's get more powerful," I said.

Her magic light formed into the shape of a blue pony, with white hair. "The one thing I know is that an alicorn cannot be killed. It's impossible."

"Hm, to kill an alicorn," I said. "What if you tried? What would you need?" 

"You're a nutter," she said.

"To kill an alicorn," I said. "To kill an alicorn, and to abandon your history, and choose, willingly, not to see the pain around you. That's really tragic."

"What?"

I just remembered something. "I don't understand why this is happening. But I could swear I had seen something else, long ago. Is it even real? To kill an alicorn, she said, or I said, rather. It's something that I believe has happened. Someone that knows everything told me. That person is, I don't even know, someone that lives in the shadows."

"Lives in them? You've got spinach in your brain."

"Yes," I said, realizing that she was mocking me. "I know, but I'm really trying to figure something out, and I could use your help, rather than your derision."

We were reaching Manehattan now, which is not all that far away from Pegasquire, on a map. I wanted to go out, and I looked at Gripey for approval. He nodded. Then, I looked at Flutterscotch Secretwings.  

"She allowed to come too?"

"No," Gripey said. "But we could ask, nice."

I stepped out. I saw a single griffin, standing in his lonesome, with a trumpet. He played a melody that you may or may not have heard before. "Dum-dadum-dadum. Dum-dadum-dadum."

"Portly Frump," I said, running up to him. "Pleasure, sir."

"Yes," he said. "Now, where's that Gripey-guy-feller-thingy?"

Gripey stepped out, and then, Flutterscotch came walking out, along with him. I looked to see how this guy would react, Portly Frump. He dropped his trumpet. "Hellooo," he said, walking past Gripey and greeting the mare instead. "Hellooo. I haven't seen you in ages."

"I've been trapped in stone," she said. "Now, I'm free. Ever since the battle for Pegasquire, which she took part in." She pointed at me. "No doubt, you will want to right this wrong."

Portly Frump picked up the trumpet, running back and picking it up. "I really appreciate your visit, Scotch. I really do. I just wish it had been under different circumstances. We're readying for a potential siege here at the army barracks, and then of course, there is the thing with the little cyborg filly. Do you know that Hookbeak took a serious liking to her? Can you believe it? But then, I must like her too, and I do, and I'm not allowed to harm her, not under any circumstances. If I do, I will die a very quick death. Generically has alerted all the senior twelve of this, including me and my twin. We need to be realistic about these things, Scotch." He flew above Flutterscotch, or Scotch for short, and slipped up behind her, putting his arm around her. "We need to focus on what's important, and what's important, essentially, is not dying, and winning the war. What say you about that, my little pony?"

"No punishment at all for her, after what she did?" Scotch said, sighing. "Oh, no." She shook her head, and sighed again, hanging her head low. "No, no. Why?" She sniffled, just a little bit, just once, and then, she turned her eyes to me. "What are you looking at, you little creep?"

"You," I said, merely answering her question.

"Would he harm me?" she said to Frump.

He chuckled. "I wouldn't dare trying, if I were you, and that's all I have to say about that."

"But she- she," Scotch said. "I thought."

"Oh?" he said. "I do care. You wanted me to arrest her? Please, you need to trust the judgement of Hookbeak on this. He might be a little kooky, especially in the last fifty years or so, bless his heart, but he's still way smarter than you are." 

"There are things that are more important than smarts," she said. "Justice, for one." She glared at me. "Justice."

"I knooow," Frump said. "Isn't it frustrating? You just want to arrest her, but you can't? She's like a prized jewel, to be protected, not shut away in some dark cell, and yes, but you need to realize that he's not just smarter than you. He's way, way smarter than you. He knows things that you and I will never understand, and he said that she is important. The big guy knows his way around predictions, and he always said what he thought was true, so give him a tiny, teensy break, will you? He will outlast us, because he knows more than us."

"Always shut away in his tower," Scotch mumbled.

"Didn't you hear?" Frump said. "The tower was destroyed. They're reconstructing it right now. It will be done in a few months, given the right attention, and they're bringing unicorns in to help them now. That's how desperate they are. Imagine my surprise when I found that out. They might steal some secrets. They would, but it's worth the risk, seeing as how the tower is the hub of many operations in griffin circles. We can't have it destroyed by ancient creatures, be them beasts, baddies, or any old things off the southern desert. That's the worst thing of all, and it's much worser than keeping this little filly alive, bless her heart. She is important. If Hookbeak says it, then it's the truth." 

"You know I disagree," she said.

"Then I can't help you," he said. "All the death and despair that happened that day when Circle town, our Circle town, mine, and every other griffin's, was attacked, can you imagine it? I can't even. It's so crazy, it makes my head spin." He spun his head around a single lap, through the entire journey along its axis. "Crazy."

"The tower was destroyed? Just as well."

"No," Frump said. "Have pity on him. This is some heavy, heavy stuff. It is hurting a lot of griffins. You see, Circle town was attacked from the desert, not District Equestria."

"I get that," Scotch said.

"Then why are you not surprised?"

Scotch looked at me. "My brain is too used to crazy things happening."

"Oh, tell me about it," I said, laughing. "Tell me about it."

"Now," Gripey said. "We need to go back inside."

"Yes," Frump said. "I never tried to stop you." We walked past him. "Just take the normal path."

"Okay," Gripey said.

"What's the normal path?"

"The one with the springs," Gripey said.

"Oh, goodie."





"What a crazy day. What a crazy day. The word crazy is in vogue right now. It's a popular word, because it's really important to understand that things are crazy, and I think that's because, if you understand it, you can do something about it. What sayeth you about that, Gripes?"

"Yes," he said. "But then, where do you go from there? Saying that something is crazy. Does that necessarily mean you understand it?"

I shook my head, violently. "No, you're right. I'm being stupid again."

"You're just speaking your mind," he said.

"But then, there has to be another reason why everyone around me act like I'm stupid, besides me being stupid."

"They just don't understand you," he said. "It's all that, nothing more."

"I feel stupid sometimes."

"You're not stupid," he said, shoving me in an act of play. "I'm sure I would know by now."

"Maybe," I said, "there are different levels of stupid. At one level of analysis, I'm not stupid, but at another, I am. I am smart in terms of abstraction, but maybe not in terms of social interaction."

"No," he said. "You're smart in that way too. You just need to relax. I think what others are reacting to is that you get kind of jumpy around them. It's not all that easy hanging out with a person that acts that way around other ponies, and griffins for that matter, but let's stick with ponies right now because ponies are hard enough."  

"I see."

Gripey grabbed me and put me on his back. "Now, let's go to the place I went here to visit."

"What's that?"

"You'll see," he said.





Someone up there cackled loudly, laughing. It sounded almost like an evil laugh, not that I had heard many of those, but actually, I had heard a few, especially from the black alicorn monster demon Aldeus. Remember him? I'm him? Nooo. How could I be? After all, in Circle town, who was it that destroyed the tower of technology? Was that just a special effect? I had seen a few, special effects I mean, and I didn't care for them much. I was never a fan of deception.

I didn't know which memories to trust. Are some of them real? Are all of them fake? Who am I then, without my memories? It's completely soul-crushing, trying to make sense of a past that's so fuzzy, and full of internal contradictions, such as mine. It makes me sad, even thinking about it, and it would only get worse.





We reached the top. We had gone through a building that looked unassuming from the outside, and really, was a military installation of some kind on the inside. On the inside, were a few ponies, a lot of ponies actually. Ponies were allowed to be militarily involved in the conflict against the ponies? Or were some of the ponies on the side of the griffins? Hm, I tell you. Hmmm. 

"Okay," Gripey said. "This is a hard stop for me. You're the one to go inside here." 

"Why?" I said, feeling suspicious all of a sudden. "What's happening?"

"This guy will be able to give you a few answers, or so I hope, at least."

Without a second thought, I grabbed the handle of the door, and I opened it. I went in, and then, I closed the door behind me. It was an unassuming door, made of wood, and with no guards outside. A lot of things about this situation were unassuming. I sighed. I hope he hasn't betrayed me or something, I thought. I hadn't known him for long. Could I really trust him as much as I had been given to? One may wonder.

By a desk sat an old stallion tinkering with a toy model of some kind. He hovered, using unicorn magic, tiny pieces onto the little model, and then he looked up. He looked down again, and did something. He moved the model to the side. He put something on it. It was a glass lid. It was behind glass. Then, he looked at me again. "I'm not one for timing." 

"I see," I said, facing the door that I came from. "I want to go back."

"No need," the old stallion said. He was orange, and with long, unbrushed, grey hair that looked tangled and full of knots, like it had never been brushed. He was a faint orange, almost sort of brownish. I figured that he might've been oranger, more orange? That he might've been that when he was younger, but how am I to know?    

I started going back. "No, wait," he said. "No," he said, a little more quietly. "This won't take long."

I hesitated, and then, I turned back toward him. "How so? What won't take long?"

"I'm sorry," he said. "I've been so busy modelling, I must've missed the time. I should stop doing that. Yes, it won't take long." He waved toward me. "You come here. Come here, quickly. Come closer."

I did.

"Please," he said. "I hope I never startled you. Ponies don't come around much."

"I'm not startled exactly," I said, looking for the words that would describe what I really was, if not startled. He looked at me patiently, as I did this. "I'm, dizzy? No, I feel a little scared."

He leant his head to the side, and then, he patted me on the head. "I'm so sorry. I'm Lowhoof Moss Hux the fourth."

"Is there an acronym or some kind of abbreviation that would make it easier to say?"

He leant back. "Just call me Grunt."

"Oh?" I said. I was about to make a sarcastic comment, but then, I stopped myself. "I guess."

He smiled. "It's really not my own choice. If I had to choose, I would've gone with something that sounded more like a name, but at least, it's better than my real name."

"Grunt?"

His smile got wider. "That's what they think I am, so that's what I call myself."

"What are you fourth of?"

"How about this?" he said, shakily reaching his hoof down under the desk, and he picked up something. It was a paper. He pulled a quill to the side and put it on the paper. "You mind if I make some notes?"

"Yes," I said. "What are you going to do with them?"

"I have a weak memory," he said. "I can show them to you after so you get the chance to approve them."

I laughed. "No, forget it."

"How about we take turns asking questions?"

"Who are you?" I said, not wasting a second.

"My identity?"

"Yes," I said.

"I'm the spokesperson for the only real and viable movement to end the war, the United Peace Movement, or Army, depending on the context."

"The spokesperson? Which is to say that it only has one?"

He nodded, biting his lip. "Um, yes."

"Okaaay," I said. "Things are getting complicated."

His pen made notes on its own while he was sitting there. "I think it's good that you came here." He said it in a deep relaxed breath that came out his mouth. "You needed to come here. What do you call yourself?"  

"It's an odd way of phrasing that question," I said. "I don't know, to be honest with you. I'm conflicted."

"I think it's good of you to admit that to me, but then, that means you actually can be conflicted, and there are some, you may already have met them, who think that it is impossible for someone like you to be conflicted."

"I don't concern myself much with their opinions. I'm too conflicted about that, too. I don't know what to think about what others think."

He frowned. "I know. That's a good thing. Being conflicted at least means you're being honest with yourself. It's less trouble when you just admit what you don't know, so I'm glad that you're being straightforward with me now."

"Are you a clinical psychologist?" I said.

"No," he said. "I think that question shouldn't count. Ask another one."

"Okay. Do you know how to help me?" 

"That's very straightforward of you." His horn shone up, and he picked up the model. "So many details." He withdrew the glass lid that protected it and picked it up. "What to do? Where to go?" It disassembled in front of me. Its pieces came apart and then, were scattered across the table.  

"Why build something if you're just going to take it apart?" I said, annoyed at this display.

"You might learn something from it," he said. "Each of these pieces represents an option. There are thousands of things we could speak about, right at this moment, about you, and what you have been through."

"What was the model of?" I said.

He smiled at me. "It's a model of boat."

"Oh, I see."

"What are we going to focus on? We need to let you decide that. You and only you know, right now. But you cannot try to think about it too much. When you think about the same thing over and over again, you get stuck in a loop, so just, say the first thing that comes to your head." The pieces drew back against his side of the desk. I was just standing there, in front of him. They fell down behind the desk. 

"Think," I said. "No, not think. But I. I think I miss my friends. I want to see them again."

"What do you remember about them?" he said.

"I remember Scootaloo and Apple Bloom. Gosh, are they still stuck in that place? Place of my nightmares?"  

"What, do you remember about them?"

"One was orange, a brighter orange than you. Another was yellow, and she had a little bow on her head. I think the bow was pink. We were always hanging around, talking with each other, being together, being there for each other. Gosh, I really miss them, somehow. They're still in there, in my memory, somehow."

"Your memory?" he said.

"Someone is interfering with my memory, and you can be sure it isn't my friend."

"I'm worried." The quill kept writing, as we were talking. I glanced at it. "Over here," he said. I turned my head back. "I'm worried. I'm not sure what to make of it, but I think this whole thing is a bit stranger than any of us first realized. You see, this problem you're having, it's not all that unusual. For ponies to forget things, and have trouble with their memories. It happens everywhere now. It happens every day."

"I see." I could believe it. Whoever was doing this had that power, after all.

"And yet," he said. "It's strange, because nothing ever really disappears. It's only, changing, like a dream."

"Memories?"

"Yes." He nodded, and his body sank down. "Memories. Memories change slowly. They don't get wiped, and they never get replaced."

"That's an interesting observation," I said. "But I seem to have forgotten a lot of things."

"Or maybe," he said. "You're just remembering it wrong."

"Nope, I've forgotten it."

"And ponies." He sighed, grimacing, and squinting. "I just don't know what to make of it. I've heard reports of military officials, and important ponies, caught unawares by this. It only happens to ponies that have to do with the armed conflict in Equestria."

"Who is doing this?"

"I don't know how to explain this," he said. "It's an illusion. I've talked to many ponies that have been through something like this. They come to me, and they tell me their stories. It's an illusion. It's not even real. It's something that sneaks up on ponies, and then, it reshapes the way they look at the world." 

A storm of images hit me. "Reshaping the world!" The light. The darkness. The unknown thing that hid from me. It was... something that's seriously not my friend, at the very least. It's something dark, and terrible. "Once I am done, reshaping the world. No, you didn't come up with those words. You heard them from someone else, didn't you?" 

"Yes," he said. "And you know of them too. I should've figured. There are no records of this happening more than five years ago, and that's when you got captured. Sweetie Belle, is it? I hope I didn't get your name wrong, in my hurry."

"How do you know?" I said.

"I have contacts, and you were seen by someone that recognized you. Her name is Fluttershy, should you remember it."

"I never forget nothing," I said, swiping my hoof across the air. "Fat chance."

"Ah," he said. The quill stopped in its tracks. It just stopped, and it fell down on the table, collapsing. "Then, you haven't forgotten how you were captured."

"My memories," I said. "I seem to have like four different memories of how I was captured, all of them a little different."

"You're so astute, to make that observation," he said. "I should've expected nothing less. You have four memories, or about four, if I understand you right. How are they different?"

I took a moment to think about that. "In one of them, none of my friends are there. In another, Scootaloo isn't there, and in another, Apple Bloom isn't there." 

"Curious," he said. "Do you think someone intentionally changed you to make it that way?"

"Someone is trying to hide something from me," I said. "I just can't put my hoof on what it is. I have no idea."

"Your friends aren't there in one of them? Is it trying to tell you something? Is it hiding something? Is it something completely different?"

"It's definitely hiding something," I said. "His death, and its name, and the lost alicorn, Eyesstark, who got turned into a machine. These things are real somehow. At least, they're real in my memory."

"Only few have had the dreams you're referring to."

"Eyesstark," I said, again.

"You shouldn't say that name out loud too often. It might make some enemies. Her name has been erased from the history books, and for good reason. She destroyed Equestria, because she didn't want her daughter to claim the throne. It's a grim story. The history of the alicorns is soaked in blood, but sadly, it isn't their blood."

"But why erase it from history? Couldn't you learn something from it?"

His eyes widened. "Oh, I agree, but most don't see it that way. They're afraid history will repeat itself. It's a peculiar kind of fear. If you hide something from someone, it will only make them more impotent to defend themselves against it, like any such thing. The fear ponies have, and are driven by, eats them up. Fear, rather often, is a bad thing, not a good one, but making others fearful, likewise, can be a good thing, if it is done in good spirit."  

"I thought you said it was a good thing."

"For them." He shook his head, and rolled his eyes. "Not for me. Never. I would never do that. I want to learn from my mistakes. Like my mind, I want the world to learn from its mistakes too. I think that's one of the most important things of all. The alternative is to weaken ponies, and when they then learn of history, and its mistakes, and don't understand, because it has been hidden from them, they will repeat its mistakes, again, like destiny."  

"Like destiny," I said. "That's one person's opinion."

"But don't you agree?"

"I don't know. Don't I? I think I'm just babbling. I don't have any strong opinions about anything. No, wait. Maybe a couple things." I remembered one thing. I wanted to make my own destiny. That's one thing that seemed to be constant, and always there in my mind. I didn't want to be deceived, or mislead, by anyone else, any longer. No, never. I wanted to be my own person, somehow, some day.

"And," he said. "Ponies think that hiding from danger is a solution. The danger will always be there, regardless. It's a truism. Bad history, like good history, is to be cherished, and if you don't, then it can easily be used as a tool to manipulate ponies, because you've deemed one thing to be bad, and one thing to be good. The only way to break the spell is to just call it history, and let others do the rest, trying to fix it, with each in kind, knowing good history and bad."  

"No," I said. "I think I disagree. I think bad history, if you really cherish it, and try to remember it, in the same way as good history, is going to have the same effect, because if you treat them the same, then it's to the same effect, isn't it? It will have the same effect."

"Yes," he said, "if you treat them the same. But what if you just remember history for what it is, rather than remembering it in terms of a moral judgement, remembering how you feel about it, rather than just thinking about it as history, something that happened, part of the past, and part of who you are. If you try to learn about things that scare you, and are immoral, it won't make you immoral. It will make you understand what you yourself think is immoral, and if you try to learn about things that you are afraid of, it will teach you what to do about it, and that's what fear is, is not knowing what to do about it, like so. And I think, if I may add, that being fearful of something just means that you don't understand it. Being fearful of something isn't a choice, but it's telling you something. It's a signal, to warn you of danger, yes? Ponies don't choose to be scared, and that's a good thing, for if they did, that fear would be pretty impotent. It only means something when it has to do with reality, and the moment you know that, you can do something about it, because you can change reality, can't you?"   

I laughed. "I kind of had a similar conversation with Hookbeak once."

"Answer me."

"No," I said. "I think you can continually get more fearful until you're so fearful that you just can't move, and can't do anything, because it paralyzes you, and then, you die."

"No," he said. "That isn't what kills you. You may be paralyzed, but you die when the prey-animal meets a hunter, and freezes up, like so."

"And while I'm at it, I don't think fear is all that reliable an emotion, anyway. I've been fearful of many things that only brought me grief, and when I learned more about them, I literally got more fearful. What's that all about? That seems to contradict your theory, and frame."

"Ah," he said. "But maybe you could learn so much that there's nothing to be fearful of, anymore?"

"When?"

"In ten years," he said, like he just had a specific answer in his pocket.

"That seems specious."

"I don't know," he said. "But I have a certain sense that this is what is true. I think ponies, in a sense, choose their fears, and then, they're bound by them for the rest of their lives, and the path out is the path they're struggling against, like so." 

"What about a fear of the nightmare?" I said. "The thing that's coming to get us all, in the south. It's a place that was built to kill us. Isn't it just correct for me to be fearful of such a thing? Will I stop being fearful when I have understood it? Granted, maybe you're saying that you can understand something so well that understanding it is synonymous with finding a solution to it, but I don't think so, because sometimes, you just don't have access to that information, and then, you're only causing yourself grief by digging further." 

"No," he said. "I don't think you have to understand it. Confronting it is enough. The thing you're afraid of, really, is only in your head, not out there, not in the world, and confronting darkness is the only way of defeating it in the end anyway, both practically and physically, in terms of warfare." 

"Hm, now you're treading the line between different edge cases, where in the one case, the fear is only in your head, and in the other, you're literally confronting it, with a weapon. This seems like a false equation."

"No," he said. "Because when you're fighting, you feel the same kind of fear. You should listen. I have done it. But what you're really confronting, even when you're confronting other ponies, or griffins, is yourself."

"Myself?"

"Well," he said, leaning to the side, stretching out, and then, absentmindedly opening a drawer, and putting the quill back inside it. "It's not they who are afraid, you are. It's your fear, not theirs, and not them, but you. It's all you. You are the only one that is privy to that fear."

"But then," I said. "I guess the counterargument to that would be that the fear exists in a certain context, and you can't steal it out of the context, because each context is different, so what it means to confront it, even if you're right, will always be different, and in certain cases, confronting it might even be the same as running away from it, because you're fearful of something that will literally kill you. This might even be true of hiding history. Hiding things that cause fear, maybe, is hiding from things that if they got out, or got after you, they could kill you."  

Grunt chuckled. "I'm at the end of my rope. This conversation is completely draining all my excess energy. How fun. Let me make one final pass at you, and then, you can go back to your friend. I think fear is only local to a single context, and that's your mind. Your mind is the place where fear exist, so that's also the battleground where it must be confronted. If you understand your own mind, by understanding what it's fearful of, the mind can be at ease with that thing, but it's all about confrontation, and of course, should you literally get killed by something that scares you, then that's not very good. That's terrible. But the thing that scares you, I might add, is only out there, not in your mind, and the thing that scares you is not the same as the fear, though they often get conflated. That's my view on it."

"That was your final pass?"

"I also think learning about something, and seeing it in front of you, all the things that can be interpreted as good and bad in a moral context, is not the same as feeling that it is true. To feel that something is true, and be emotionally driven by thinking that it's true, can take years, and it's a long journey that is complicated. If a person learns to let evil into his heart, it's not something you can easily understand, or avoid, by controlling what he sees or does, and to say otherwise, I think, is a mistake."  

"I think this is a good point at which to end this conversation." He was more invested in all this than I was. More to come on what my thoughts about what he said are, but I think it's safe to say that I don't exactly agree with him, nor disagree. It's complicated. Why do I have such trouble, really committing to an opinion? Can't I just disagree, and call it a day? Read my story. Fear has plagued me, and the more I have tried understanding it, the more it has hurt me, no? Dear reader, do you disagree, or have anything else to add? Pray tell, am I missing something? Anyhow, I don't disagree with Grunt. I think he might be right, but for the life of me, I can't put my hoof on why, or understand it, really really understand it, rather than just thinking in circles, which is par for the course in my life, and my thoughts. Gosh darn it. I don't even remember what I was writing about. I lost my train of thought. Whoops. Well, it happens. It is what it is. More to come.   





"Gripey, thank you. That actually was helpful. He told me a bunch of things I didn't know, though we mostly just talked about philosophy."

"He's one of the good ones," Gripey said.

"One of the good ponies? That's funny," I said.

"No. He's one of the good anti-war activists. He's an UPA-member." 

"Ah, the United Peace Army," I said, remembering the words. "So be it then. He's one of the good ones of those."

"Yes," he said. I laughed. He smiled. We went back down.





Here are a few notes on the discussion we had earlier. First, I don't disagree that confronting things, and facing your fears, no doubt is a means by which to overcome them. Alternatively, you could avoid your fears, but then, as he said, you will be less equipped to deal with them, as they are contingent on things that you aren't willing to confront, and don't understand. Not understanding something means not knowing how to handle it, and not knowing how to handle something is another way of not doing something about it. Should we ever do something about the things that scare us? Ha! The question answers itself.

It got a little messy though, after a while. He said, and I quote, I also think learning about something, and seeing it in front of you, all the things that can be interpreted as good and bad in a moral context, is not the same as feeling that it is true. To feel that something is true, and be emotionally driven by thinking that it's true, can take years, and it's a long journey that is complicated. If a person learns to let evil into his heart, it's not something you can easily understand, or avoid, by controlling what he sees or does, and to say otherwise, I think, is a mistake.

Here above, he was no doubt referring to the thing that you want to hide from a person, so as to not scare them, yes? I hope you agree, for I don't know how else to interpret it. He's saying that being exposed to an idea is not the same as being taken in by it, and fear of ideas, likewise, is a fear of yourself, and a fear of being buffeted back and forth by forces that are beyond you. If you fear ideas, that means you fear being destroyed, not through each individual decision, for which you are responsible? Do we believe that each person then, whoever, is responsible for everything that happens to him or her? Specious? True? I think specious. Here's another thing. It's being, rather than that, just being fearful, rather than granting each responsibility for how he, she, or it, are affected by each idea, rather than all that I'm saying. Saying? Gosh, I don't even know. Mind-goo. Goo wars! Let's try again.   

How about this? Fear is something that happens when you're confronted by a threat, or the threat of a threat? It's something that's threatening, at the very least. Am I wrong? Oh, and fear, like any emotion, is something that each person, at least in theory, was born with, not just took up, because of a specific event. Events don't cause emotions. Emotions precede events, and they precede a lot of things. They are what happens in a given context, not just any, but one that is liable to produce said emotion, whatever it be. The context produces the emotion, and the context that causes fear is a context just like any, and the context is driven by perception, and perception is subjective, in the sense that it belongs to you, and me, and we don't have a shared perception. Perception, then, is intersubjective, to use a loaded word.

I think, perhaps, by admitting that fear is caused by perception, because all our experiences come from perception, which I by no means accept by the way, but let's say that we accept that. Then fear, like love, can change, depending on how you look at it, and is that what Grunt was trying to say, and impart? If perception then drives fear, is it really rational just to hide things from people, rather than letting them be exposed to the thing that causes the emotion, because on a more fundamental level, there's always a wider context that explains why you should or should not be fearful, if fear is true in one situation, and not in the next. If you should be fearful sometimes, but not in other times, then reality can be your guide, not the intuition that something is likely to cause fear, and should therefore be avoided. If you avoid fear for fear's sake, rather than understanding what you should be fearful of, and adapting to that, through sheer force of will, or perhaps exposure, then you will treat fear as a unit of its own, that lives and has power. Fear, then, if not independent of context, is driven by context, and the context is part of perception, that can change based on your explicit beliefs about that which scares you.   

This is perhaps somewhat of a mouthful, but then, forgive me. I'm thinking as I'm writing, though perhaps I shouldn't. Then, if fear is perceptual, and driven by reality, then understanding reality will yield the correct answer to what you should be fearful of, and that in turn solves the problem of censorship, or restrictions on free expression, essentially. More information, and more reality, will always be better, and you do more information and more reality, then in turn, by allowing everything. Everyone can say anything, and do anything, and without limits, the correct answer to how ponies should act will emerge. This presents a problem though, since some forms of expression may be so dangerous that it's something you should imprison someone over, not give them a badge for, perish the thought. 

The ninth said that it wanted to reshape the world. It's manipulating ponies. What if anyone can be manipulated in this way? Now, I know the answers to the ninth, and what it is, and the nightmare. Its cause. I know what it is now. That was ten years ago, and this is being written ten years before the events in this part, just to be clear. Part 23 is the part where I'm slowly figuring things out, but carefully, and knowing that there's something out there that wants to harm me. Poor [redacted], and poor [redacted]. Gosh, I should redact that person's name too. You wouldn't understand. It's better if I didn't. Not all have the same luck not to be taken in by so many bad decisions, and we should sometimes feel sorry for evil, not whip it with a whip. Respecting evil, truly respecting it, is not merely hiding away from it, even if part of it is that. 

Then, we come to the question of perception. I think the idea of perception is tautological. It's not perception. I just know things. Things are just happening. Perception is one way of describing that, but when you're saying perception, what you really mean are just all the things that you perceive individually, not perception itself, which is mysterious. Perception is not the same as its objects, and whatever it is, and however we talk about it, they always get conflated, so maybe then perception isn't even real. Maybe it's just the contents of our experiences that are real, and those are deeply real and really there, rather than perception, as an abstraction, as a representation of all those experiences, or what it means to have them. Perception, really, is just a word that describes something else, that has nothing to do with the word. Each experience, wherever and whenever, has its own character, and cannot be described in the same terms, perception, that term, not having anything in common with those terms. I'm sorry, term? Terms. I'm getting tired, so I should probably stop writing soon. That's what I think, anyhow.

Don't think I'm bringing all this up for no reason. These are things that I've been thinking about, as I had that conversation with Grunt, and long afterward, and it relates to what's going to come later. Follow along and learn, and never fret, for I will never leave. Grieve, and never fear. I will never leave. I shudder at the thought. Those are the words of... no, I daren't.
> Part 24: The Nightmare Returns
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

:)
You like that?

You can also do another one, with an equal sign, rather than a colon. 
=)

What do you think?

=D
Pretty fun, huh?

:O
That one means you're surprised. I felt pretty surprised at the time. May I explain why? Who's going to stop me is more like it! 

Heh!

:O

=D=D=D
Now, it looks sort of like a drawbridge, with hinges between the ds. 

===>
That's an arrow, I think.

>:D
What's this? It's the symbol of evil, a happy kind of evil. That's scary. We don't like that at all, do we? Do we like evil? No. Evil is bad, by definition. Evil has come though. Where? Here.





"Behind the walls of this facility you will never be free, and that's a good thing, because we're working toward a higher purpose?"  

"How so?"

"I don't know. It just keeps changing."

"How so?"

"I don't know. It just keeps changing."

"No, I mean. Why don't you know?"

"That's what I don't know!"

I was confused, clearly. I'm developing a relationship with that word, confused. Confusion. Confused, and confusion, and doing confusion, and being confused, are bad, or are they good? Maybe, really, nothing can be described in terms of bad and good. Maybe it's more a matter of sense-making, and looking for the realness behind everything, that truly gives things meaning, imbues them, and frees me, from my troubles, if such a thing can be wished, and is it possible? One might hope so, but one might hope for much forever, and never get it, and that's because hope isn't the same as striving, nor does it solve any problem, but perhaps, hope can be a beginning. Let that be my story then. It's a story of hope. It's a spark. It's a spark of hope, and a spark of something new, and the next thing on the horizon is before me, beckoning my wishes, and my calls, coming toward it. My wishes are upon the next path forward. My wishes are upon the next thing, upon my path forward. My wishes are in the future. I'm in the present. My wishes present options. I will follow them, and my calls, I hope, will be heard, by the horizon, by the future, granted to me, by fate.





Am I naïve? Is that it? To defeat something that is all-powerful, after all, is impossible, is it not? But in the words of Hookbeak, appearances can be deceiving, and nothing is truly all-powerful. Let that be my story. I'm the only one to figure that out, and it's because this demon before me was someone I knew. I dare not, for the life of me, no. I won't.





In death, and in life, and through all the oceans and valleys, rhetorically speaking, that constitute them all, all the deaths and lives, are something new, and they surround us. Death is a real thing. When someone dies, it causes suffering. Remember that. Is death preferable to life, on balance? I will weaken myself even further by asking such questions, but they are questions that I'm becoming more curious about, and without any doubt, I shall strengthen my resolve on these questions, of consequence. I will reach the true answer, should it kill me. So sayeth I, the spirit of sight. 





"We need to get to Ponyville!"

"What's Ponyville?" Gripey said. "What's that?"

"I don't- I can't. It's hard to explain. Meh. Some day, I think, not today. Today, we have other things to worry about."

"One thing at a time," Gripey said. "One thing at a time, remember?"

I did.





Each in kind, and with a smile, we accept you. What is our unity? What is it? What is it, I thought. What can it be? I don't even know the first thing, anymore. What is it? What does it all mean? 





Fear is to be avoided, or it isn't? Hiding things is good, or it isn't? Have I made myself clear? No, I haven't, because I'm not thinking clearly. My thoughts and feelings are not transparently clear to myself. Perception, then, is it? No, but what is it then? I don't know. Where is fear? What is its reality, really? How can I grasp it, and how does it relate to everything else? Does perception make fear something that should be confronted, within perception, within reality, which is constituted in perception. Does it matter what I say? Oh, does it? Does it? I feel dizzy, and that feels sort of bad, and I don't know, kind of, what to say, and do. Do I? No.

Don't judge me. For one thing, I'm only thinking about this because I was forced to, by others that pushed me, and made me have to take a stand. These are my inner demons. These are my issues. I am fearful, and I don't know what to do with that fear. There are without a doubt people, ponies, griffins, and zebras, that would tell me to shut up now, but I won't. I think I might keep writing, and keep thinking about this. Let me offer a bit of context. I was approached, a few days ago, by a person in green clothing. His name, even now, is sort of ambiguous. You never see it in writing, but I'm forced to guess at it if I wish to see it in writing. His name was Grey M-something. Grey Maine, perhaps, I think it was. Do I spell it Maine, or Mane, or Main? Does it matter? Yes! I'm sorry. Yes, it matters. Don't try to push back on this. There is much you don't know yet, as yet, and yet, I fret, for I know that you won't like what you're going to learn. I didn't.   

"Hello," I said, opening my door. I hasten to add that this is present-day, ten years after the events that transpired in the last chapter, and in the previous sequences, before this one. Please, have a little patience. I don't know how else to write this. "Hello."

"Hello," I heard back. Of course, I could just not include this in the story, or have it as an endnote, but this is relevant, and important, to something else that is going to happen soon. I hope I don't confuse you, but if I do, please realize that the events that transpired here really are complicated. I'm not just making that up, for show, I think. This is the correct way of telling my story. "Hello."

"Please enter, or better yet, leave." I opened my door further, waving for him to come inside, and he did. "What owes me the pleasure?"

"Your input."

"I'm waiting for the apocalypse to happen. Who needs my input?"

"Your friend," he said, looking around. "I'm sorry. Is this a bad time?"

"Oh!" I said. "Any time is a bad time."

"Too bad."

"Please, Grey Maine," I said, just angry at him, and disappointed at the poverty of his speech. "Just leave, or say your piece."

"Hookbeak," he said. "It's always Hookbeak, of course."

"Why?"

"My name is Grey Maine, but have you ever seen my name in print?"

I picked up an object, and started cleaning the place, because I had a mind to ignore him at that point.

"It's funny, but when you see a name written, it changes your sense of what that name means, doesn't it?"

"No," I said, tired of having these kinds of conversations with ponies. "No." 

"My name is what? Grey Mane, as in the mane. Or is it something that's main, and center? Is my name Maine, like a proper noun?" 

"What is it you need of me, Grey? I grow weary. I will die soon, and I don't want to hear it."

He pulled off his green sweater. "I'm Grey."

"Yes," I said. "I'm not in the business of discussing such things with ponies any longer. It's putting an unusual strain on my mind, and I think I have learned what I need to learn to move forward. No more questions are required."

"I'm Grey," he said.

I sighed. "Okay. What did I miss? You're Grey. You're mane? You're Grey Mane? You're Greymane? Is it one word, or two?"

"I don't know," he said. "I don't know. We'll only know if we write it down."

"We'll only know if we write it down?" I said, shaking my head, and feeling stupid for talking to him.

"You've changed," he said, stating a fact.

"You haven't changed enough," I said. "Pity that."

"You used to be more open, and more willing to entertain any idea that came your way. Now, what happened?"

I saw it. I saw it in front of my eyes. It was... indescribable, dust becoming dust. Pathetic. It's such a pity. "I had a dream."  

"A dream?"

"It's a dream where my fears rested. The dreams are growing, softer now, but they're still there."

"Dreams?"

"You wouldn't understand. Only ones that have seen those eyes could understand," I said, thinking back. "I feel sorry every day for what I lost. I feel, pity, for others, and now, finally, I think I've grown up, and I've grown up, not through physically growing, because that will never happen, after what happened to me, but through fear." 

"What are you afraid of? [Redacted]–"

"Remove that name from your vocabulary. You must never mention it again."

"It's just a name, Sweetie."

"Not to me, it isn't."

"What's in a name?" He frowned, and his mouth opened, then closing, treading carefully, it seemed.

"The truth," I said.

"What's in a name, like mine?"

"A question?" I blinked a few times, and turned away from him. "I promised myself. It was a promise. Your name is mysterious to me, simply, and we both know this, because its etymology is unclear, and that's because you made it up. Names that people make up for themselves don't have a history, and so, they can change on how you spell them, and their meaning, and the sense they give ponies, when they hear it, like that of... my friend."

"What was its name? The book?"

"I don't want to talk about it," I said. "What was it that you wanted?"

"Who will speak to you about it?"

"Not you," I said. "You don't get it. No one does."

"I was only trying to help."

"Yes," I said. "I know you knew about what I've been going through. I know they told you. I hope you're happy, now that you've tried. I hope you feel accomplished, and like your will to see me feel better has been placated, and put to good rest, once and for all, under the stars, and in your eyes, forever, in front of the world, my good sir."   

"Hookbeak wanted to know if you thought it was a good idea to warn them first."

I smiled. "Yes, but don't expect them to forgive you."

"Should I tell him that?"

"Tell him what?" I said.

"Please, Sweetie Belle. This is really difficult for me."

"No," I said. "No, please don't."

"Don't what?"

"Force me to make another choice that will make or break the future. I've made enough of those. The power, and opportunity, to make those choices is overrated, and overblown. Every time I do something that I think might change or doom the future forever, I cry."

"It simply is something that will happen."

I opened the window and looked out. Then, I closed it and secured it. I ran over to the door and locked it. I passed Grey Maine by. "Wait," he said.

"There is no waiting," I said. "There is no redemption."

"Must you be so hard on me?" His eyes shone red, and he closed them. Then, they shone a light blue. "I only did what I thought was right. I cannot doom the future I wanted to create forever. All I have left is a weapon, and the trigger. What shall I do with it? Throw it away?" 

"I never told you to do that. It seems you're desperate to receive my input, Hookbeak. You will get it. I think it's sad to see you fighting for something that no one wants anymore, and my dead friend, who, by the way, is clairvoyant, told me that you would lose, everything. That is what the plan was all about." 

He looked worried now, and scared. "Don't you hate the plan? Why do you speak of it as if it could be an alternative? I will lose, but everyone will in the end, anyway. The point is to fight, not give up, and stand up for everything that you care about, until you are dead, or it dies before you."

"You will lose when you hit the heart of Equestria. You will lose. I will lose. The next person will lose. Everyone will lose. Please, admit the truth. You have to give up."

He closed his eyes again, just groaning, sighing, and whelping, at the same time. "Nooo."

"Yes."

"No," he said. "I can't."

"Why?"

"It's like you said." He looked me in the eyes now. "It's destiny."

"Destiny is death?"

"Destiny is what could've been avoided if..."

"Ponies, and griffins, other than you had acted differently? Don't make me laugh, Hookbeak."

"I still believe in something," he said. "But you seem rather more attracted to the thing that you renounced that day, in the day of his death, and the battle, I think, to save everything we cared about. Is this so?"

"I am attracted to death," I said. "Death is the solution to many problems, as I'm sure you agree."

"That isn't fair, Sweetie," he said. "I was expecting better than that, even though your words are helpful, to a point."

"If Sidus hadn't made that mistake, and shown me the future, in the whirlpool of my choice, then Equestria would be rebuilding right now. This is a fact. Is it not?" 

"Yes," he said. "But now, I feel more and more like you're confused. Facts don't matter. You cannot save the world by killing it, and destroying everything in it that makes it worth living in." 

I gasped. "Why must you say this? I don't think you understand what you're saying, regardless, even if you're right. How does one get away from it, this fate, and this destiny, that you're clinging to? You're going to do the same, kill everything. For what? A dream, that is dead? I've seen dead dreams, and lived them. It's not very nice. We saved everything we cared about in Canterlot in the day of his death, but we doomed ourselves all the same, and then, it's the same fate that happens, regardless. The spirit of sight gets its way, and we're left looking stupid, for even if it lost, it still was right about this. We couldn't save the future, with or without its help."

"I'm not denying this," he said, raising his voice. "I don't know why you're bringing this up, even if it's true, which I know it is, because I know what you saw. That doesn't mean [(edit: this is my secret)] was right about it. You can be right and wrong at the same time, and at different levels of analysis, as you know, Sweetie. Yes, it's true that the world would become more normal, but the way of doing that was to destroy our faith in love and friendship, and to turn us against each other. The war would end out of fear of the nightmare, that [(edit: I'm sorry)] created."   

"It was a selfless act," I said.

"These things are all technically true, but then, does that mean you think that it might be true, also, that saving the world, and restoring it in this way, is just?"

"No," I said. "No, I don't think it is. I just think it's more complicated than we're giving it credit for. It isn't just, but it's better than what you're doing."

He recoiled. "No, it's not!"

"Yes, it is."

"No."

"We are fearful of fear itself," I said. "We are afraid of becoming fearful. This is exactly what that person warned us about. We aren't driven by a will to learn from the future, and confront our mistakes, in the past, to make the world whole, and true. If we hide from the truth, which is that this mistake could've been prevented by a person that really cared, even though that person is a sad monster, then what are we? Are we really thriving to learn from our mistakes? No."  

"No?" he said.

I yelled at him, "No. No. It's never going to happen. We might not even see the sun again."

"One day," he said.

"We're running out of days, and lives, and time, and civilization. Destroying friendship is awful, but how about destroying basic social norms, and the assumption of good faith, and respect, toward others, based on their sentience, and the truth behind it all, their realness, and their ability to feel things, like me, and you, Cornicus." 

"Respect for a life, as a life?" he said. "Who are you exactly, my little friend? Friend, or have you lost your marbles now, again?"

"Maybe you're the one that's lost his marbles. Maybe the whole world has lost its marbles. If we could've hidden its name away. I'm sorry. I'm taking about that person. The real person. If we could've hidden the name away for long enough, and made others do the same, rather than let the name conquer the world, then it wouldn't have such power, and that power wouldn't have hurt you so much, Cornicus, my friend. I am your friend. You might not realize it before you're gone from this world, though."

"Friends?"

"Yes, friends. And power. And the ability to change things. If we could've hidden it away, and made others do the same, then that power would be gone. The power disappears with the name, and with the name, goes all that is around it, and associated, of course. We could've, rather than confronting it, and letting it destroy us, destroy you, almost kill you, and hurt us forever, hidden it away. We could've defeated fear forever, by hiding it away. This might be the answer to our troubles."

"Hmm," he said. "If that is what you think, then I have nothing more to say to you."

"That isn't what I think. It's simply a thought. There's a difference."

"Then," he said, "allow me to say this, if I may."

He paused. "I allow you," I said, impatiently.

"Everything you hide away is everything that you don't want in your life, and everything you don't want in your life is everything you hide away. If you hide it, it will be hidden. If you shield others from it, they won't see it. It will be gone, to them, and invisible, to the world. When no one knows about anything that scares them, at last, and if you really get your wish, at last, then no one will know about anything that scares them. When no one knows about anything that scares them, at last, and the world has lost its names, it will become purified of all names that describe things that scare ponies, and griffins, and zebras, and all the other species, of which you care, and so do I. When no name exists, which scare people, because names that scare people have been removed from the world, your wish, everyone and everything will still be damaged, hurt, and killed by all the things that scared you, because those things will still be there, hidden away, behind names, that you dare not use. The names will be gone, or lost, but the things that scared you will still be there. Should you fear them? This is the question. Should we fear things that want to destroy us? No, you say, and I respect that, but don't lie to yourself, if you do."    

"What if it's the name that's the problem, not the world? What if the world is pure, and ponies are good, or at least not monsters, but knowing the name will turn them into monsters? What then?"

"Then we pray for them, and never mind the rest. They will become monsters, as fate has dictated, because knowing the name, simply, will turn them into monsters. This is fate, as you say. It's inevitable, unless we hide the name away from them, the name of something that wanted to hurt them regardless. The name describes the thing that wants to hurt them, and using the name is deflationary, because it allows you to understand it. Truly, we don't want to deflate the thing that wants to hurt them, give it a name, make it discernible, and have it in our minds, rather than closing our minds, and our thoughts, away from it forever."   

"Yes," I said. "And we hide away all the symbols that have to do with that name, that terrible name, and admonish others for using those symbols, even in a context where the name and the symbol have nothing in common, and the symbol, rather than being evil and symbolizing evil in that context, is just a placeholder for a type of callow, shallow communication, that ponies do, to amuse themselves. Symbols can be used to different effect than their intended purpose, but that doesn't matter. On the second pass, they will be used, and understood, to be evil, because that's what they really mean, in truth, and the origin of each symbol reflects that. The original meaning, and power, of each symbol, will be too much for any pony to handle, and ponies will be taken in, and allow themselves to be manipulated, by the name too, because the symbol always precedes the name, even if you try to rob the symbol of its power, and use it in a context where you choose its meaning, and try to play and have fun with ideas, the only way to change them, as I think you have said before." 

"It always confuses me when you do this," Grey said. "It almost sounds like you agree with me, even though you're trying really hard not to."

"I just don't see another path forward," I said. "Even if using the name is harmless almost always, if there is a single situation where it isn't, that could be really devastating, in a very literal sense. We could harm one another, seriously harm one another, by doing this. We could have bad ideas, that others who are less smart than you don't know how to fend off, make them do bad things. This is inevitable. Bad ideas make bad actors, and likewise is true of good ideas, I think. Making jokes about pure evil, maybe, is only disrespecting the idea of pure evil, and that allows that evil to reach into our lives even further, and then, we are beset by it."  

"You don't believe this," Grey said. "You don't. I have seen it, and soon, you will too. I must go soon."

"We must protect others, or else, they will be so scared that they don't know what to do, and besides, it's immoral to scare others, really scare others, just for the sake of scaring them, and that's what this conversation is about, is scaring others with the name of [redacted] and making them think that the worst thing ever is coming to get them, but really, it's just themselves, and their inner demons, and their fears. You could use fear to destroy a person's life."

"I must go soon," he said, whispering it to me. "I think you are scared right now. That's your weakness. You're fearful, as you say, of fear, and wasn't that the problem to begin with?"

I studied the floor, because I thought that the floor deserved my attention, and I also was afraid to meet his gaze, in case I would find something life-shattering there. I really was scared, somehow, of fear? Yes, and no. I was scared of the effect that fear can have on others, not of fear, as an abstraction. I was scared of fear ruining lives, and making others, who feel fear, weaker, and without the mental strength of Hookbeak, really Cornicus, and I, or Gripey, they wouldn't be able to survive. This is a fear of the worst evil imaginable, in fact. It's a fear of the void, which gave itself a name. It's a fear of causing fear, not just fear of the idea of fear, surely. Causing fear, still, is something that, if it happens unintentionally, might be beneficial, because at least then, it's not based on the intention to do it, or the expectation, but rather, something that's local, as Grunt said, to the person that feels the fear. It's not my expectation that this should cause fear, and I don't want to cause fear, but I did it anyway, and so, then, the thing that causes fear doesn't come from me. It comes from you. This is based on the assumption that you can't judge others for something that they truly didn't intend to do, which at least I think, everyone can agree on, and if not, then we're just rolling our wheels in the mud, not making sense. Intentions are everything, because they tell you everything about why the person did what he or she did, and what that person will do in the future. It's in fact the sum total of all the information that it's possible for you to have about why the person did what the person did. By definition, the intention explains it, not something else. 

We're talking in circles now? No, we're trying to make sense of something that's beyond us. I really admired Hookbeak, and his resolve, but I was fearful of a lot of things. Perhaps fear, and perhaps, I was just fearful of the future, and all the things that might happen, if we don't treat one another the right way.

"Maybe fear isn't the problem," I said, slowly. "Maybe we're the problem. Maybe trying to change the world is the problem. Have you ever thought of that?"

He kissed me on the forehead and backed away, hitting his hind on the door. I gently opened it with my magic, and he walked out. I was happy and sad to see him at the same time. What was I fearful of? My inner demons, and my inability to solve this problem, which I have posed in this chapter. Is fear good, or is it bad? Is it both? What does it mean to say that they are good and bad, if they are, or can be, in different contexts? I don't know. I don't know if you should hide things away from others, to make them stronger, or weaker? I don't know. I simply didn't know, but I was going to find out, and I'm still going to, and I hope I can do it justice before I'm dead in the apocalypse, which will have been caused by none other than Hookbeak, though preceded by many others, and aided through something else that is beyond me. This is my story, again. This is the story of a robot, and its troubles, making sense of things that might seem obvious to others, who aren't beset, and plagued, by these insecurities, and questions, in the same way, because I can never be sure of anything, like those others. I can never be free. 





Staaart the video. One, two, three, four... action!

"He saw me. He saw me."

"Who saw you?"

"It was heee!"

"He?"

"Auuugh!"

Sorry. I'm so sorry, Gripey. I'm sorry, everyone. I'm sorry. You're saying things that are beyond me now, so I'm sorry. I know that we want to protect one another. I know that we don't want to cause pain. I know all that. I never said that we should. I'm so, so sorry. Although, maybe, and I'm still sorry, pain is something that just happens, like the rain, and more. Like the sun, and its rays, cause heat, living causes pain, and to kill pain, is to kill something inside you that makes you who you are, for pain means reality, and reality, if you understand reality, can free you, since knowing the truth can make you whole, and knowing the truth can help you understand where you went wrong. Please. Please. I just don't want to die again. Was I wrong, [redacted]?





Fear is good. Fear is bad. Fear should be confronted. Fear should be avoided. Is empathy our guide? Yes. No. Empathy helps. No, empathy hurts. Empathy makes you feel the pain of others, and to feel pain is not the same as knowing what to do, and if you want to help others with their pain, which you feel, you're still not doing what's best for them, because pain is ultimately just a realization. You feel pain because you have a problem, by definition, and I guess the problem would be whatever causes the pain. Otherwise, you wouldn't feel pain, unless the pain is chronic. How do you help someone with chronic pain, irreprievable pain? Unretrievable pain? You protect them forever, maybe, from themselves, or from others? You protect them from their own pain, both physical and mental, because that is what it takes, I suppose, to save them from the pain. From where does such a pain come? Something bad? Yes, something new. Something new causes it, or something old, that has been at rest for a long time.  





It rained outside. I was in Canterlot. This is still ten years later, after the events that transpired in Manehattan. 

"Hookbeak was right? How is Hookbeak right? He's always right."

"I know. I know."

"You cannot protect others from pain, because living is pain, and you can't hide things from them, because really, you're just stopping them from confronting themselves, not the world, which cannot be hidden from them, even if you tried. Isn't that right?"

"I know. I know."

"And yet, I feel this dread. I am afraid. I don't want to lose things, or hurt things any longer. I don't want to cause this kind of fear, with my evil tentacles, and wanton tendencies to produce acts and words that are perceived by others to be hurtful, and derisive, and worse, callous."

"You're worried that you will do something that someone else will perceive to be hurtful, derisive, and callous?"

"Yes."

"You're worried that the way that they perceive you, somehow, reflects on who you are as a person, when you know who you are as a person. Even if they tried, they couldn't paint you as a monster, and they tried."

"They tried, and yet, I have this sinking feeling. I feel like I've made a terrible mistake. I don't want things to hurt in this way any longer. How do I end this dread? How do I slay this demon of mine?"

"It's not about them. It's about you. It's about the eyes."

"The eyes." I stared at him, and then, I thought about the eyes, so far away, and distant, and cold, and close, all the same. "The eyes are the thing that scares me."

"If they say that you wanted to hurt them, because you revealed [redacted]'s name, tell them they're wrong."

"I don't know if that's what I wanted. Maybe revealing its name, somehow, proves that I'm willing to manifest [redacted] within me."

"Revealing its name?"

"Oh!" I felt the cold rain soak me, and cool me down. "Revealing its name, yes, and telling them what the gavel means."

"The gavel is a gavel. The gavel is an image. It's what you do with the image that matters."

"I want to believe that. I really do, but that image drove a civilization into madness, and it's the image of death. You help the followers of that image, its dark patrons, into power, by acknowledging it as true, and real." 

"No."

"No?" I said, wondering what the rebuttal to this was. "Was it not the gavel that drove the trial to a close, when the regents were against it?"

"Yes."

"So what then?" I wanted to hear the words that would ease my heart now, and resolve this contradiction, once and for all, for the power of symbols, and the power of words, can never be disputed.

"You defeat it by acknowledging it as true and real, because from that moment, rather than having it drive a civilization into madness, it can be just that, a symbol, for my friend, the only thing true and real, beyond your thoughts, is the symbol unto itself. Your fear is yours. It doesn't belong to the symbol. It's yours."

I was sorely disappointed. "How is it mine? How could it be? I don't understand. Then, if it is mine, and not of the symbol, then why do I feel it, with or without the symbol? Isn't anything that expresses evil the problem?"

He smiled at me. "I don't pretend to know what you're thinking, or how to answer all these important and heavy questions that you think I should have an answer to, but I think that hiding from evil, and stopping others from knowing about it, and understanding it, means that you think the evil is right, because evil, in the end, wins out, not good, if all odds are equal." 

"That evil wins, not good, because if people are exposed to evil and good, they will choose evil, and not good?"

"Yes."

"My gosh. That's hilarious." I giggled frantically. "That means that if evil is stronger than good, and I think it might be, and others are given to become evil, then they will be evil, should I tell them the truth about [redacted] and the future. Brilliant. I think we have made a major breakthrough. Or alternatively, I could tell them about [redacted], and [(edit: sorry!)]'s crime, and then, if [redacted] really is bad, and bad is stronger than good, then bad will win out in the end, not good. But if good is stronger than bad, and I tell them the truth, and give them everything I know, then good will win out, and they will be good, not evil. I think then, that this leads me to the conclusion that either I accept that bad is stronger than good, and maybe I do, or I accept that good is stronger than bad, in which case, I tell them the truth. The truth about what happened, if others are driven by the will to do good, will help them do good, and bad, in turn, if others are driven by bad, will help them do bad, or maybe, good will make them better, and bad will make them worse. My actions, and my sacrifice, might inspire them, or else, the evil of [redacted] will make them realize that [(edit: soon!)] was right all along. Brilliant. Then, that just means the truth will have true consequences, which is the consequence of knowing the truth. Feeling inspired by fear will make them realize that fear is what [redacted] does, and so, that's why we hate [redacted], or maybe, feeling inspired by fear will make them want to be more fearful, because they like [redacted], who is, in a very literal sense, the image of fear.

"Feeling inspired by fear is feeling driven by fear, and feeling driven by something is learning. Isn't that right? I can learn from fear, because being driven by fear makes me want to think, and question things. It's motivational. It's true. Love isn't the only passion that can be motivational, driven, and inspired. Fear is too. Fear can drive you to understand what it is that's truly evil, and truly threatening, and if you really believe in such things, then you should seek them out, to understand them, because that's how you separate bad from good, given that both are part of reality, and they are contingent upon knowledge, symbols, and ideas, that you yourself have to seek out, explore, and express, in order to understand them, and not being able to express yourself, or being fearful of doing so, is in turn, the fear that is unbearable, because it makes people unable to think, fundamentally. If you cannot express an idea, because you want to see it, understand it, feel it, and change it, and expressing things in different ways are how you change them, then not being able to express yourself is what makes fear run across your heart, and it makes you unable to think, and breathe. Expressing fear is freeing, because you realize that fear does everything that causes pain, and makes bad things run amok inside your mind, but it isn't the thing that will kill you. The thing that will kill you is the thing you're unwilling to confront. So sayeth I, Sweetie Belle, who watched her friend die and turn to ash because she wouldn't realize the truth, sadly, and she was brave, and that's what doomed her, so is bravery a virtue? I think not. But being willing to sacrifice everything for what you believe in is. She did that, and I will too." 

"I didn't say you should do it."

"Why not?"

"Forget about evil. What about the truth that you might've doomed them all?"

"They will kill me, but I will be dead regardless."

"Now, you don't know that."

"I know things," I said. "I know things. I had another visit from Hookbeak."

"What did he want?"

"Advice again," I said, sighing, just horridly bored by Hookbeak's antics.

"What did you tell him?"

"I pity him. I think he shouldn't do it, but what do I know? I know this is all my fault, all the same, even though I saved the world, at the same time. It's not even a choice between bad and worse. It's a choice between worst and worst. It's the worst thing that could happen, as versus, the worst thing that could happen. It's a false choice."

"What's the matter with you?" he said.

"Nevertheless, I will tell them the truth, and let them murder me for it, or not, depending on how the truth affects them. Really, I think, truth, and its expression, is a value, and you and I know that this is the truth."

"I don't know what's gotten into you," he said. "[Redacted] was wrong."

"[Redacted] was wrong about everything except its conclusion, so I don't know what to make of any of it. I will use what is no doubt the nuclear option though, which is to tell them, and then, the answer will present itself to me in objective fashion. If my words scare them, and make them so sad that they can't breathe, and then, they hide away from me, and my book, not willing to speak, then that's one outcome, possibly unlikely. If they kill me, or maim me, rather, then that's another outcome, possibly unlikely. If my words cause fear, but also makes them realize I was right, then good for them, and me, I hope. If my words cause fear, and it makes them realize that my friend was right, then wo-hoo, we have at last realized that the truth can blind ponies, rather than setting them free, which seems paradoxical, and I'm fairly sure that's wrong, but then again, as I said, what do I know? If it does something else, then at least, I will have the answer to my question at last, and that's what I want, is the answer. Please, don't deny me the answer." 

"I'm not. I just think you're afraid of something else. You're afraid that [redacted] was right all along. Aren't you?"

"I'm afraid of my own shadow, so to be afraid of that is just a logical extension."

"Be serious."

"Why am I so afraid?" I said. "Is it because I will die soon? No. I seriously don't know."

"Nevertheless," he said.

"Memories," I said. "I'm dreaming, even as I'm awake. And the last dream hasn't come yet, the one that will free me."

"Free you from what?"

"Oh." I grinned, thinking about it. "A kind of doubt that makes me unable and unwilling to make any tough decision, like at all, anything that has any effect on my life whatsoever, and those of others. Rather than that, I just let the time pass, and so does my life, and the pain I have felt, and everything else, until I'm dead, and forever, I won't be right and wrong, or right or wrong, or any combination of anything. I will just be confused."

"Confused," he said, sighing. "You're always overthinking things."

"Then so be it, but the symptom, as my willingness to write this book, and show them the gavel, to scare them, or to make them learn to face their fears, or simply through wanting to express myself and be myself, is the symptom, not the cause." 

"Overthinking things is a symptom?"

"Yes," I said. "The cause is what makes me want to do all those things, like the gavel, and the death, and the despair, and the wanting to show them a truth that might destroy them. It just feels like a kind of curiosity, is all. Is that monstrous, or unethical? I'm sure it can be in the right context, or the wrong one, rather."

"I'm proud of you," he said. "Don't do anything to ruin that. I know that you still believe what you believed in the day of his death."

"His death," I said, "is now an afterthought. What matters is tomorrow. What matters are the decisions we make every single day."

"Those aren't your words, are they?"

"I still think that [redacted] cared about me, and maybe, though wrong about this, was right about a lot of things. [Redacted] may have saved us, and now, I cannot, and in my folly, I am causing harm, and even worse, I want others to suffer, just because I, selfishly, want to express myself. I want to say my piece, and right my wrongs, and write my rhymes, and I want to create something that's art, because then, his death will be reduced to art, rather than what it really is, which is a horror-show. His death will be something I can understand finally, and then, I can make others understand it too. Others will see where I'm confused, and where I went wrong, and learn from my mistakes, but to do that, I will have to scare them, and I do that for me, not for them, and so, that makes me selfish, but I'll allow for that. In that case, I'm just selfish, and I accept this, on good information, because my intentions are transparent to me in this regard."

"I believe in you," he said. "Write your story, and do it well."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry for being evil, if that's what I am, and I'm sorry for not understanding what I'm supposed to understand, if I don't, and that's what I am, but at least, I hope, that my willingness to apologize for these things counts for something, rather, as you might guess, if you hadn't spoken to me, that I'm driven by ignorance and an unwillingness to learn. I'm not. I'm just afraid, and I'm afraid, in the same way that those that read my book will be. Let us all be afraid then, Gripey. Let us all be afraid."





My fear has come back, and this is the fear that I'm wrong and that [redacted] is right. [Redacted] believed in the truth. Is it unethical to believe in the truth? Isn't that just correct unto itself, and by definition? If something is right, then it's simply true that this is right, no? If I care about something, then I care about it, truly, and not because I don't care about it, and if I don't care about it, and think I do, then I'm wrong, and being wrong is hurting me. Being wrong is hurting me, if I'm wrong about my own intentions, and those of others, so the truth, truly, means that you're not wrong, but right, in a very basic sense. If you're right about something, then what you do will also be right, because everything that's right about what you're doing is reflected in what you mean when you use the word right to describe something as right, and if it's right, then it's true in that sense. If you say, this is right, then it's true that it's right, if you truly believe that it's right.

Something being right means that you should truly fight for it, if it really is right, and true in that sense. It's true that it's right, and what makes it right is all truth, and true. That means truth has to be important, and if not a fundamental virtue, an important one. It's basic, in some sense, because it entails what it means to hit right, and correct, and true, in your search for virtue. To hit right means that you have done correct, and found correct, and said correct, in a way that is simply right, and therefore, true, because right equals true, if used in this context, as a synonym. Right is correct in the sense that it's true. Am I making myself clear? Either, I'm reasoning, or I'm writing tautologies out in prose right now, but nevertheless, this seems like a type of bedrock to me. Truth is right, and what is ethical, is no doubt ethical because it's true that it's ethical, and so on. It's only ethical because you know that it's ethical, not according to your own whim, but because you think it's true in a sense that at least reflects, or contrasts, with what happens out in the world. The world is part subject, and part object, because you and I can stare at the same object, using our subjectivity. Let's forget about perception for a moment. This fact seems to me at least undisputable.     

This, just by chance, also happens to be the philosophy of the most evil thing I have ever met, inside my mind, and in face-to-face conversation, and interaction. I have met the same thing in my mind as I have met out in the world, because it has visited my mind many times, and it has also visited me physically, and spoken to me. I have met it, in dreams, and in real life. Get it? I have met it. It's a person, inside my mind, like a personality. It's me. It's speaking to myself, but it's also speaking to another person, and that person's name was... I'd better not reveal it yet. Let's see if you can figure it out. I think, if my memory doesn't deceive me, this will come up in part 73, much later. We're only in part 24, where the nightmare has just returned, unexpectedly for me. So be it then. Let that be my story. I am doubtful about whether I should trust the person that tried to kill the world to save it. Please don't hate me for this. You don't know what... she's like. He's like! Oh, forget it.   

It's such a shameful relic of Equestrian history, that it's almost like it never existed, and that's, I'm sad to say, because symbols can have a lot of power. They can sway ponies. This symbol was made up in a mine far away, by a person that I trusted, and she betrayed me. I'm so sorry, my friend. This has to be the end of my hiding things from the world. The world will react as it might, but I need to do this, because I need to feel things, rebuke all sanctities, be a trickster, and be free, fundamentally. I need to push away the sacred idols of others so that I can help the world with my book. Their false worships! Just like she said. Gosh, I'm almost crying right now, as I think about it. This is getting a bit hard for me now. It's hard for me to think and to put into words just how horrifying this thing was, but it was real. How can something like that be real? It can be, because it existed beyond a shadow. It wasn't just a gavel. It was inside my mind too, and there, it made a home, and it seemed like the perfect evil, but really, that's what I created through my imagination, and to free myself from it, I need to confront it in a way where others will be exposed to it, and hurt them too, because it's the only way. I'm sorry but it simply is. It's the only way. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm really sorry.

:(
> Part 25: The Ninth of Sight
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I advice you to obey. I advice you to just stay. Advices and kind words are not that common in my little play.

"I see."





"Writing, and wringing, and wrangling, and singing, and more than that, is where I'm at."

"Eating, and flinging. Walking, and clinging, and going down the pipes, is where I'm at."

Somewhere down the depths of blame, coming downward toward me, blaming me for something else, something that I cannot help. I don't know what it is that wants to hurt me so, but I know that when I know, I will not let it go. I care. Yes, I do. Yes, it's true. At least, I think I do, and is that not all that matters, come to think of it? Besides, whenever hesitation enters, I can't sing and sit. I cannot both act like I care, and not, at the same time, so I still have to act like I do, even if it isn't true, and that's what I feel. That's for real. That's really real, and not a big deal, because doing right, and doing wrong, is still, in a sense, contingent on facts. I hope so, at the very least. Or else, it's not contingent on anything that can be said to be self-consistent, is it?   

"Gripeeey, and others, too. Come join me as I sing, either caring, or pretending to caaare."

"Woo-woo-woo."





I woke up. "What the heck."

"What's the matter?" Gripey said, standing beside me in the wagon, which was our little home for the foreseeable future.

"You'll just think I'm crazy."

"No reason not to say it," he said.

Oh whatever, I thought. "I dreamt another really vivid dream. I was myself, and I was in the future, and I was arguing with Hookbeak. I was also arguing with you. It was about fear. We went in circles, not coming at any conclusion whatsoever. I feel dizzy, even thinking about it. At the very least, I think I have decided that causing fear is bad, if you do it intentionally, but still, you cannot let that stop you from expressing yourself. And any idea is open to change, and you can use art and play, and playfulness, to change them, and it could be ideas that others, who are censorious, or just confused, don't want you to use, because they think expressing an idea is equal to endorsing it, which I think, even you claim that, cannot be true, because you can reference an idea when you're talking about or doing something else, like writing a book or doing a speech. You can talk about an idea, and rather than endorse or condemn it, you can just talk about it, and this is even true of the notion that you shouldn't do that, which I think, if I may, proves that it's possible to do. Just grant me the possibility that this is so, Gripey." 

"Wow, I've changed in the future if I talk about stuff like that. Leave it at the door, I say. You sound kind of stressed out. Maybe someone's trying to mess with you. Maybe none of it's true." 

"Maybe it's both true, and trying to mess with me," I said, perishing at the thought, not literally of course, but just thinking about the thought, and how it made me unsteady in the head. "Maybe it's really both. That's confusing."

"Let's go out," he said, opening the door.

"You've already eaten?"

"Yes." He looked at me, and I looked at him, and we looked at each other. I was so happy he was there for me. He didn't know. He couldn't understand. He was my life, right now. He was all I cared about, pretty much, that and defeating the nightmare, which had entered my head and was doing stuff to me, giving me visions, and making me unable to think clearly, about anything, really. Now, I was starting to doubt the authenticity of many of my memories. Which were real, and which not? Which is which? How confusing. How confounding. How discombobulating. It's not good at all, no. No-no. At least, I think not, and nothing good can come of it, any of it. These thoughts, uniquely, both apply to the past and the present tense, because I feel it as I'm writing this, and I felt it back then. Something was changing. Something new was coming, but it wasn't good. It wasn't good. 





We were in Manehattan now. I was looking at the buildings, studying their architecture, finding a few pretty sights before me, and those windows were really special, the way they spread out across the buildings. Such buildings are pretty, I thought.

"What's happening?" Gripey said, brushing my hair with his hand, scrunching it up, making it contorted. I had never brushed it, but it seemed to keep straight and voluminous regardless, perhaps because of some design thing on my body, from being designed, or perhaps because of some physical thing inside my body, from being physically born from a pony, some years ago.

"Not much," I said, smiling, and nearly grinning. "I'm just admiring the view, and I feel more happy by the moment. Happier, by the moment, in fact."

"That's good," he said.

A light came down from the sky, like a pillar of light, kind of. It was thin, and very circular, and it divided into three, and the three divided into nine, and then, complex patterns of light, tapestries of lines, and spikes, and geometrical figures spread out across the ground. The lights then rose and turned into three balls, which then divided into nine, becoming three smaller balls, each from a bigger ball. The balls pulverized, and sparkles fell down on us.   

"No. I don't think that's good," I said, taking a step back, trying to get a grip on the situation.

"It's not," Gripey said. "Stay close to me."

When the light dissipated, and stopped blinding me, I could see a pony in the middle of it all. It was tiny. It looked corpse-like, huddled, and small. It wasn't a filly, but it wasn't quite an adult either.  

"Hello," I said, waving. "Who are you?"

The pony's colors shifted from black to white, to black and white, one half of the pony being black, and the other being white. "I am the ninth of sight, of light, and might." 

"Oh," I said. The eyes flashed in front of me. "You." I felt a shudder, and my ease of mind was robbed from me. Just a strange emotion came over me, like a trepidation, or a doubt, of some kind.

"Get away from her," Gripey said. "What's the matter with you?"

"What's the matter with me?" the pony said, with a voice that was mechanical, distorted, and sounded like mine, robotic. "I'm not the problem. How can you say that? I live in a land where ponies and griffins are trying to murder one another, and they're hostile, for reasons that have been inherited. I only want to bring peace. I will bring peace, for that is my destiny. So sayeth I, for I am right, the spirit of sight, and I will always be light."

"I- I..." I was careful to choose my words. "Do I know you? From my dream, I could swear I do."

"We have never even met, and yet we know each other well. I met you long before they started changing your fate."

I frowned at it, and I could feel my ears hanging down. I was sad. "No, there's something else. You did something to yourself."

"Never mind," Gripey said. "Let's do something about this."

"Why?" the pony said, coming closer. "I could be your friend. I could be your end. The latter not preferably, but then your life must end." 

Gripey threw a rock at the pony who caught it in its mouth. "Pew." The pony shot the rock out of its mouth, hitting Gripey in the head. 

"Ow," he said.

I pawed at him. "You have a bad habit of picking enemies that are like way above your weight class, metaphorically speaking."

"What are you saying?"

"You wanted to fight Cadance, Nexus, and now, something that can literally catch rocks in its mouth and shoot them back at you."  

"It's not that impressive a skill," he said.

"No, it's, how to say, like, it's, supernatural, and stuff." I had trouble, scrambling for words.

"No, I've seen others who can do that," he said.

The pony had gotten closer to us, as we were talking. "No harm without harm done, and no life without lives lost." It jumped up on Gripey, grabbing his neck. "Sleep."

He tried tossing it off, but its arms only extended, keeping ahold of his neck, while its body flew away. Now, it stood on the ground, keeping its grip on his head. I could not tell whether it was male or female now. "Sleep. Sleep." 

Yes, I was just standing here. I'm not giving you an incorrect sense of what happened by communicating in this way. It's not that I've forgotten to include the part where I was fighting it, and trying to defend Gripey. I just felt frozen, like I couldn't move, and I thought it was hopeless, because there would be nothing I could do anyway. I would be no match for this thing. How was I supposed to fight against something like this? 

"Sleep." 

He started collapsing. He grabbed its body, and he squeezed, and like playdough, its body contorted around his hands, becoming mushy, like a marshmallow, an evil marshmallow, but it still kept its grip on him, as he was doing this. He let go, and its face was distorted, like a distorted image in a broken mirror. He fell unconscious, by the looks of it.    

I jumped. "Gripey. No."

"Now, do not be mad at us. We only want to make the right arrangements, for our cause." The pony said, sort of slurring through its distorted mouth. 

I grabbed him. "No."

"I'm not evil. I'm not good. I only make things, as they should." The thing came toward me, and touched me. It felt warm. I tried boxing it.

"Wauuugh." I punched at it, but my hooves sank into its body, and when I tried pulling them out, they stuck there, like glue. I looked at my hooves. I pulled at them, but I couldn't pull them out of its body. "Where did you come from?"

"It is important that you remain unhappy, my friend, and it is important that you suffer, from now, and to the end, and the end, is the thing that we all want to happen. We want each thing to reach a close, and that close is something I will make happen, and then, when it's over, it has closed." 

I pushed my hoof against his chest. "He's not breathing. You've totally killed him. What's- why would you?"

"He cared about you. It's true, but then again, that's nothing new. You have done it before, and you will do it then, and again, and when you have, I will return." 

"No, you have to help him."

"I might revive him in exchange for a promise, if you can offer me that promise, and fulfill it, as you should."

"What's the promise?"

The light-thing stood back from me. "It has to come from you." It hovered backward, no longer walking. 

"I have to promise you something, but it can be anything I want?"

The light-thing stopped in the air and looked at me, simply staring. "It has to be you, not some thought, and some feeling, that is meant for someone else. It has to come from you, and only you can make it true, and deliver it to me, and make me see it, with my eyes, wide and clear, and open, not shut." 

"I wish, simply, for a world where things like these don't happen."

"No." The pony flew toward me, and pushed me against Gripey's lifeless body. "That's cheating. You cannot promise me something that isn't yours to give." 

"I," I said, feeling smothered. "I'm going to stop you."

"No," it said, pushing me even harder against him. I felt pain in my back and chest, and was afraid that something might snap.

"I'm going to make you go away. You are not my friend. You are my enemy. Enemies hurt, and you hurt, a lot."

"Stop resisting me," the pony said, and disintegrated into a mass of lights, beams going back and forth. The light passed beneath Gripey's body and lifted it up, creating a small hammock that was made out of bands of light, that looked physical, and like fabric, holding up his body. "This is your friend. I'm not your friend? You don't know anything about what I sacrificed for you."

"Not enough," I said. "You have made too many sacrifices, or not enough, to end up in a situation where you would be willing to cause this pain, in order that you might see some other aim through, I think."

"I am enough." The light shone stronger and stronger for every word. "I will be enough."

"Stop," I said. "Stop." I sighed. "Stop!" The hammock lifted his body up higher and higher into the sky. "Stooop." His body went even higher. "No."

"Obey me," the light said.

"No," I said. "Never."

His body was now high enough that if it fell down to the ground, I figured that Gripey would die. The bands of light evaporated, and he fell. I stood beneath him, ready to catch his body, or get crushed by it, in any case.





Respect. I do know what it's like to feel fear. I feel respect, and I want to show it, if that's what it takes, because I do respect it. I respect fear, and I even respect fearing fear, and fleeing from the things that you fear, because fearing things is scary, and it feels bad, and in certain cases, it can feel exceedingly bad, and what to do then? So I do respect it. I do. I even felt, as this was happening, that I was making the same mistake, for my own sake. I was trying to embrace my fear, and stand up to the thing I feared, and that lead to me being pushed against Gripey's body, and yelled at by an evil fireworks-light demon. I also respect fear so much that I have methods by which to handle it, control it, and keep it at bay, and so, I can still feel fear, but it doesn't make me feel helpless because at least, I know what to do with it. 

If someone is afraid of something, on the other hand, and doesn't know how to confront it? On the other hoof, maybe? I feel dizzy, trying to find expressions. If someone is afraid of something, and doesn't know how to confront it as I often did, and do, then fear really can be killing, and paralyzing, and subjecting someone to something that this person it too weak to defend against is no good for that person. I was writing this book, a few days ago, thinking about these words, and the price others must pay for them, and my unwillingness to show empathy in the right situations. You want to know the conclusion I came to? These words are a reflection of how I view the world, and others must always pay a price for my words, so not to confront others with the things I feel and think has a cost, and it isn't borne of reality, and an understanding of reality. It's borne of an ethic, and the same cost can be extended in the opposite direction, where I'm interacting with others, and I'm not letting them express themselves, because I'm forcing my feelings, and opinions, upon that person, trying to be crazy, and act nuts.     

Wait. Wait. Wait. Am I being incoherent again? I'm sorry. I never asked for this. What's your name? Why do I care? I'm simply trying to make sense. "The same thing can be said about the other case, where you know that the thing you do will cause fear, and panic, and revealing its name, will always cause fear, but you do it anyway. Of course you do. You're just being creative, and expressing your feelings, and trying to create something new, out of something old, but the harm everyone does when trying to do new things with old things is a problem, I think, because new things always carry with them traces and remnants of the past. Why do we use words, names, and symbols, which we know have symbolized and constituted ways of harming others in the past? It's because the context is different, but the context is never different enough. There's still something, and perhaps it's just a lack of conscious awareness, that prevents you from seeing the obvious downside of doing something that you don't have to do, and it could be easily avoided. But I also know that some need to express themselves. They die if they don't, and they want to pretend things, and turn things into games, because it's an instinct, and it makes life a little easier. 

"Is it possible to reconcile everything I have said in the last two parts, 23 and 24, on the subject of fear? I think it is, but it might be complicated. Here, we're at a crossroads, because this will also be important to the outcome of the story. I have a problem to solve here, and depending on how I do it, it will change my outlook on his death, to be honest with you. His death, and my fear, and the use of its name, and the use of any name, has an effect on the world that is direct and itself, and it's becoming itself constantly, always being what it is, and not something else, until that changes, and hopefully, ponies will learn not to fear the wrong thing sooner rather than later, but we also need to protect one another. I feel full of fear and trepidation as I'm writing this, and I feel a little anxious, but think about this for a moment. Think about the ways in which fear could be good and bad, and whatever. It always seems to change depending on the context. I want to find the common denominator. I don't want suffering to happen, but I will keep saying things, and doing things, that shake them." Inside Canterlot lives a dead child that wanted to be free. She used the name, and the name chased her to her grave. She is not a victim, and she is not blameless either. She created the name. She is and is not me at the same time.





I pulled out my hooves of [redacted]'s body and flew backward. I pulled out my hooves out of [redacted]'s body and flew backward. I jumped forward. I flew backward. I looked at Gripey. No-no. I really looked at him. I considered something.





"Don't we care about pain? Don't we love pain in fact? We love it so much that we're willing to do anything for it. We're willing to sacrifice our lives to it."

"It comes as no surprise. All those ponies never rise. Their weakness is their friendship, and their power has a price."





Fear, or not? This is the question that has made me think a lot because it's really my own fear I'm concerned with. I'm so concerned about it that perhaps it's unwise of me to use it to reason morally, because my concern is personal, and cannot be extended to others. I think that's a simple enough realization, and true enough too. I cannot base an argument on narcissism. It has to be something that's truer. It has to be something that concerns others too. My own fear concerns others, but only in the sense that it affects others, not in other senses. It doesn't automatically make me concerned about others. Even empathy doesn't automatically make me concerned about others, and realizing this has been really depressing.  

I also understood finally that empathy does tell me some true things about morality. It tells me that at the very least, the feelings of others, should empathy be the judge, and let's assume for a moment that others have feelings too, then empathy is the guide to how others feel, at least a crude one, and what then? More and more, over the years, making others feel bad has made me feel terrible, and now, I kind of feel like I want to do it all. I want to do all the things that made others feel bad, including lie and deceive, and make up stupid words, like Skeyestar, which turns out to be an anagram of Eyesstark, and then, just through sniffing, and being curious, I will uncover something else, and I will hurt others, because Skeyestar will reveal something about Celestia, who is the wisest person I ever met, though perhaps not the smartest one, contra Hookbeak.  

Words have a sharpness to them, and if they reveal something about oneself, they hurt, and they also hurt because you've learned to avoid them, and have stress-related symptoms whenever you hear them. The same is true of something else. The same is true of an image. Images can have the same effect, because they have the same symptomology, origin, and can be used to the same effect. Really, when you think about it, words are just images. That's the only way of conceptualizing them. You can't think of them as anything else, either that or sounds, but sounds also represent things visually. Sounds contain metaphors, and associations that have to do with the physical, like instincts and the like. A sense I have that something sounds like something has to do with a visual, rather often. I see a smile, and then I hear a voice, and the smile makes the voice sound sweeter, but really, it was the smile, and likewise, the voice is associated with the person, and if the voice came from a stranger, it would feel different, but nothing about the situation is different, only the context. If I knew you, I would feel different about you when you spoke to me.     

All of this is to say that even things that don't feel visual seem to go back to something visual after a little while, and fear can go back to the visual, even though fear is not visual. Fear is a feeling, and feelings are not beholden to specific visuals, and they are, in part, sensations in the body. You can feel fear, without even being aware of it. It's not a concept, and not an idea, merely, and when I cause fear, I know that it feels bad. I caused fear, just by being myself, and that felt bad. I don't want fear, but I also don't want no fear, because fear is important. The importance of not hurting others is the importance of understanding things through empathy, not being driven by empathy, which isn't a moral code. Empathy is often joy and pain, not an ethical code, but it teaches you things about others, and that's important, so in order not to do unnecessary things that will cause unnecessary pain, I could choose not to reveal its name, and all the rest, but of course, this is my story, and I've already gotten this far. I fear I might not make up my mind before I have finished writing the story, a continual problem I have had with other things too.

Nevertheless, I shall see things through.





I suppose you're waiting for me to get to the point. I've spent three chapters talking about this after all. What's wrong with me? Why do I get so hung up on edge issues, and border cases, and matters of principle, the limits between things, right and wrong, and one thing versus the other, rather than just telling the story? What happened to Gripey, and what happened to me? Those are the important parts. Those are the parts that matter. Should I not be focusing on the parts that matter? I have many thoughts about this. For one, I think my thoughts, in a very direct sense, relate to what will happen next. It turns out that I have been used as a puppet, and the tool that has been used to manipulate me is not the sky-bot. It's my dreams, or are, sorry, for the grammaticians out there. I laid down, or I lay down? Hahahahahahahaha.     

Anyway, back to topic. Before I lay these issues to rest, I have to laid. I'm sorry. I have to, haha! I'm sorry. I have trouble focusing. Here's an idea. Try to read my grammar errors more carefully. Sometimes, I'm just having fun, but some of them, like the comma splices are intentional. There are cases where the context weighs so heavily on what's correct or not that you can get away with something that seems incorrect in a given context, but isn't, just very unorthodox. I wrote laid in the context of laying yourself down, and you can write, I put, and just have that be its own sentence. Yes, I know about transitive verbs. I'm just having fun, but anyway, I like messy writing. Anyway, I just don't know. I just do. I just don't. I just do the thing.       

Speaking of grammar, what's up with [redacted]'s speech pattern? What's up with everything that has been going on around me? Changing the future means changing the present, and changing the present can only be done through conscious interaction with the world around a person, the world about a person. [Redacted]'s poems of change, and centrifuge, repetition, and spinning, and all the rest, have been carefully constructed. Grammar, and its accurate usage, or lack thereof, is relevant here. [Redacted] always constructed complete sentences, pen to paper, or ink to surface, everything on the page of utmost care put down and constructed, constellated, to make me react a certain way. I didn't actually figure this out. [Redacted] just told me. And it's of utmost importance that each sentence is grammatical, because then, you can be sure that there's a logical consistency from the beginning to the end of the sentence. Sentences that are ungrammatical, since they lack grammatical relations, declensions, and rules, of their nature logical, which in turn give the sentences coherence, are not logical, and therefore, do not communicate complete, coherent, and true thoughts.       

Funny thing is that the above is sometimes true anyhow, of grammatical writing, but it's far less likely to be true. That's what [redacted] figured out, and for once, I agree with [redacted]. More rules means that the thing is more likely to be logical. It's intuitive, and I think, if not true, is very likely to be true, so that's relevant. [Redacted] wanted me to realize something, and I could only do it on my own, not with its help. What is that thing? Let's get back to the subject of fear for a moment. [Redacted] wanted me to realize, as might be perceived by those that read my visions, that saying things which I know will harm others, be it physical or emotional, and never mind the context, is immoral and bad. There's a lot to be said about the context, but the obvious upside to acting solely on empathy and an emotional concern for others is that it's purer, and more self-consistent than if I have to make each tiny solitary calculation one by one, on my own. That seems less optimal, in a way. Perhaps, it might even suboptimal. It's might be inoptimal, permit me the use of a prefix, for that one word. It might be, something. I think putting enormous computational power, and the responsibility to perform those computations, on one's own head, is a mission that's doomed to fail, because at some point, you're going to slip up.  

One just needs to cross his or her cognitive horizon, the place where you can no longer keep reasoning without forgetting the beginning of the argument, and that's where everything starts slipping, and contorting. You can't keep reasoning if you don't keep the beginning of the argument in your head, because you stop taking it into account. I repeat, you stop taking the thing that you're not thinking about into account. Don't think it can't happen to you. It can, and it has, and it will, I think, if I'm right about this, and I believe I am. 

At least, there's a real practical limit to how many things a person can think about at once, and a train of reasoning can stop relying on reasons and just rely on intuitions, and heuristics after a while, and heuristics break down after a certain point for a reason. They're not a perfect reflection and representation of reality. A heuristic can be a word, or a visual. Not all words are heuristic, I don't think, because there's at least a continual engagement happening with what we call reality, and that's really happening, if you grant all the assumptions that are implicit when I use the word, which you should. Reality, whether perceptual, external, internal, real, or imaginary, at least has a character that it's possible to describe, have a conversation about, and most importantly, engage with. That's something I care about a lot. It's hard to find a common platform along which to represent reality, but its existence, at least as a matter of experience, is a lot harder to dispute, and there are some things that are just experiences, and they are just there in the air. They float freely. They're whatever you call them, reality or fiction, but that doesn't make them more or less real, or more or less whatever you feel tempted to describe them as. They're something at least. They're not nothing, these experiences, and they are, and they become.   





Gripey's death hit me like a thunderbolt.

Gripey's death hit me like death.

Gripey's death hit me with what death is, and it was my fault. It was because I had spoken to [redacted] in that way. I had tried reasoning with the unreasonable, rather than doing the right thing, and give my promise, and myself, and everything it wanted, over to it. I would promise anything right now to get him back. Why did he die and not me, I wondered. Why does death happen anyway? Death is dumb, and it feels so terrible that you want to cut yourself and throw yourself into walls, and let's do it, because if that's what death makes us feel, then let's not hide our emotions toward it. It's important that death has a face. Suffering needs a face, to express itself. Suffering, if it is to be understood, needs an exponent, and since [redacted], the little one, the one I trusted, and who trusted me, failed in this regard, let me try instead, for suffering is real, and not imaginary, and that doesn't mean anything beyond that. It doesn't mean that you should do something. It is basically circular, and self-evident, and tautological, but nonetheless true to say that suffering is real, and not imaginary, but it is real, so let's not confuse it.   

Anyway, suffering makes you want to do things. And I think it's important to do those things. Maybe, if someone else dies, the right thing to do is to die yourself, because a piece of you died with that person. The part of you that you could only express and be around that person will be lost forever, and what that person knows about you, and what you knew about that person, will somehow fade away, because it only existed between you two, and the ponies will never, ever be able to put their world back together again, and I am one of them, and I feel things. I feel angry. I feel betrayed, and once again, hatred. I feel it as I'm writing this as I felt it back then, and it's mind-boggling. Death is mind-boggling, and the will to harm another person in this way is mind-boggling, and it was all because I was afraid not to express myself, not to show my true feelings, not to use certain words, and not to do things that I knew might shock and harm Gripey, and others, because I said these things, knowing that they came from me. 

I was trying to help him. I really was, but instead, I doomed him, and it was all my fault. It really was. Don't deny it, whoever's reading this. I could've just done the right thing and said the right thing to make that monster go away, but instead, I listened to my instincts, and my instincts are unreliable. You should never, ever listen to your instincts. Maybe you do it when there is no other alternative, but an instinct is not some deep thing that deeply represents who you are, and if it is, then how come it didn't know how much I cared about him, and that I wanted to save him?

It's all shameful, and it bites and hurts. I considered all these things, of which I have written in these last few chapters, in the next few days. I bet you're waiting for him to be revived somehow. Nope. He's dead. That's a shame. Oh, you remember the dream where I met him, and that was ten years later? So it doesn't make any sense for him to die now? It's getting increasingly unclear to me, even now, ten years later, what is a dream and what isn't, but I suppose it might be possible that he's still alive, if only in my mind. It feels dreadful. It feels painful. It feels pointless. I really felt like I wanted to die at that point, and I could easily do it. I knew I could, because I had discovered a new function of the Obliterator that I didn't even know existed, myself. 





"Hey, Flutterscotch. Look what this can do." I aimed the Obliterator at a mirror and fired. The beam passed through the mirror and then out of it, in the opposite direction. I fired from an oblique angle, and the beam went out the other side. No doubt, if I stood in front of it, my life would come to a swift end, and perhaps a just one, really, honestly.

"He got what he deserved," she said. "And soon, you will too."

"Wow," I said, turning to her. "Screw you."

"No," she said. "Screw you. Now, I'm suddenly supposed to feel bad for you?"

"There's a big distance between that and rubbing it in my face, you bloated hag."

"You insults don't even make sense. Stop being stupid. It's a good thing that he died, because he was protecting you."

"What do you know?" I said. "Maybe I should be protected, a- a little."

"No." She shook her head. "You should burn for what you did, burn alive. You will burn."

"Is that a threat?" I turned to her, and aimed the Obliterator at her. "Is that a threat, I say again."

"Yes," she said.

I closed my eyes, about to fire, and then, I opened them. She was just standing there. "I can't do it," I said.

"Liar," she said. "Weakling. Just do it already, and admit to who you really are. No one will protect you any longer."

"What about Hookbeak?" I said.

"When he learns about what you did to Gripey–"

"You've got some nerve," I said. "You just stay away from me."

"I will, until the time is right," she said.

"Oh," I said. "Oh! I get it. I'm supposed to die, and now, it's for a crime I didn't even commit?"

"Oh, woe is me," she said. "I should kill you right here and now and get it over with."

"I know what you went through," I said.

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do."

She turned and stormed out of the carriage. I was left alone. I felt alone. It felt cold, being alone. Being alone feels cold, in the same way that being cold is a lonely feeling, one of the loneliest. Being alone, somehow, actually made me feel cold. There's a connection between those two. On the subject of fear, I felt a lot of it right now, and I was forced to feel it by the demon in the dark, who wanted to protect me, and I was forced to consider things. These thoughts were being fed into my head through dreams, and on the subject of fear, again, I was being pushed. It never felt natural for me not to express myself, and to hide my emotions, and to hide the symbol of the gavel, but that's what I would do in the future, unless someone or something came to break the spell, and save me.  

It's not that hiding things, or not, is right, or not. It's not that at all. It's about an instinct. If I cannot show them, I would die. I knew that. It's something that I was driven to do. I was driven to pretend, and be playful, with dangerous ideas, and no matter what anyone else said about how dangerous it was, at least, I was making them consider it. I was making them consider these ideas, and that mattered to me. It matters to me. I liked speaking my mind, and saying my thoughts, no matter how apropos it was, or not. That matters, I think, thought, ugh! Something's happening. Something's changing, again, and I don't know what it is yet, but I will find out.

It's also a matter of forcing others to see things from my perspective. It's important not to take death too seriously, and the purest evils, and that's what I was doing. I was taking them not seriously, and I was being playful, and not taking much at all seriously, really, and then, if so, and I think all this is true, then I can lend my voice to this sort of attitude of which it's possible for a person to have toward certain ideas. That it's possible, that, that rather? Should I have used the word that in that that that context? I don't know. I'm thinking, and I feel... alive, and something's changing, again, as I said, and to figure out what will be my next great adventure, until there's nothing left to figure out, and then, there might not be any reason to live anymore, given all the strange and harming, disarming, things that have happened to me.





"I don't want your joy. I don't want your smiles. I want your little toy and all your life in little, piles."

"I don't understand. Why such harm, to me, and why? Just why?"

"It's because you do not see, and you cannot count to three. You forget what you have done, and you never think at none." 

"Think at none? Cannot count to three? Listen. One, two, three. Easy-peasy. No issue, my friend."

"You're beguiled by your own words, and you are taken in by sounds. You believe that things are pretty, not a matter to discuss. Since you never think at none, and you never could've won, I invite you to your story. Read the pages, and be done." 





This is fuzzy, really fuzzy. I can tell no more what's past or present, but I feel like this is a memory, and so, I'm writing it down, not knowing if it happened yesterday, or ten years ago.

I walked into a courtroom, and at all sides were tiny changeling bugs, in the lecterns, singing. 

"DAA-aaa-AAA-AAAH!"

It sounded like a scream, almost. I sounded loud, and imposing. I walked further inside, and a giant skeletal pony made of light materialized at the judge's pedestal, way up there. He looked down at me, watching, and he sneered. I saw he grimaced, and he sneered at me. When he opened his mouth, it was black inside, and the light inside his eyes shifted to the sides, revealing two empty, hollow eye-sockets.

"Welcome, welcome. One and all, to the final battle."

I jumped back, and looked around, ready to battle. "Where? Battle?"

"No," he said. "Not that kind of battle. This is the battle that will determine your destiny, and your fate, and you must answer true now. Is fear good or bad?"

I shook my head. "I guess it depends on the context, mister demon."

"No, is it good or bad?"

"You can make it impossible for me to answer true by asking false," I said, remarking that he was giving me a binary question with only two options.

"Is it both?" he said. His voice was uneven, and unclear. I couldn't make it out. It sounded mechanical, again.

"No," I said. "Fear is good and bad, and everything. Fear is something that just happens. You cannot stop it, I don't think. If you try to stop things, or even if you try to cause fear, it won't have the intended effect, very likely, because you just don't know what you're doing. No one knows what they're doing. That's one lesson I've learned. It's not either, or. It's just a false choice. I'm fairly certain now. Even in times when I cause fear, it won't be for long, and causing others fear might also cause me fear, and we're all just doing things that cause stuff, not really interacting with each other, and having that be what brings us together. Express yourself, and say your thoughts, and let them scare others maybe, because then, at least, you will have interacted in a way that is transparent. Then, you can learn about others, and what they like or don't, and change in accordance, rather than just hiding away from something that you don't even know what it is, because you dare not express it.

"You know this, because when I saw you, you did everything to hide your name, and that's really because you want to not exist, and that may be fine for you, but maybe not for me. I do want to exist, and I want my thoughts to exist out in the world. If I listen to others, I might get pulled into their attempts at restricting me to protect the world. There are always all sorts of things others want you and me and everybody to do, but I think that in all likelihood, everyone is wrong, because what? Do they know the truth? They do and I don't? What do they have that I don't? They're somehow wiser than me, or they know more? It's not ignorance. I know things too! I do. I know that I need to say my piece, and your name is..."

A whisper.

The winding light.

You're always hiding away from me.

"I'm so sorry, but you just are. I'm just stating a fact. I never meant to harm you. Please."

The courtroom dissolved. "I advice you to obey. I advice you to–"

"Yes, I know all that. Listen to me!"

"Remember, without me there wouldn't be much air."

"No," I said. "No more riddles. There comes a time where you just explain everything."

"Stars and skies," the voice then said. "Stars and skies. Go to Ponyville. Learn the truth, and speak to the judge of Equestria, Starry Skies. It is important, not to you, but to the world, Sweetie Bot, that you suffer."

"What? Shut up."

"Behind my veil–"

"Shut up. Shut uuup," I yelled. I was losing my bearings. I was fading. I felt everything fade.





I've been having an intense discussion about fear, and what it means to say things, or not, of your own conscious accord. I've been having this discussion in light of my dreams, for last few chapters, because I haven't been able to sleep, and these dreams have plagued me. Yes, this is still Sweetie Bot, reporting to you from the future, a cold future, where not much love or warmth exists. In the future, Canterlot will have been destroyed in a time when Canterlot is a refugee center, and it's my fault, because under that veil, there is not that much air, and I tried to share it, and make it my own, and if anyone does, then [redacted] will take it, and make it its own. And that is my story, and under the stars, I apologize still for what I have done, for even if I have been right about fear, I will still have to doom them all, and through so doing, doom myself, and doing so, all of my own free will, by revealing its name, and the gavel. The gavel, really, had a latent danger.  

The gavel is part of the symbol of the court. It's a hoof reaching out toward a gavel. That might seem simple and harmless enough, but it's not. I can't even explain why, but it's not. That symbol comes from the floor, or beneath it, rather. I'm sorry. I'm still fuzzy-headed. I've cried a lot, remembering Gripey's death, his untimely death. There's a symbol, and a book, and a memory, and a statement, made by the alicorns, and their friends, long ago, hidden away in Canterlot, and its destiny was to be revealed, because it just had to happen. Perhaps, changelings, and other servants of the court, were sneaking and sneaping and skulking too much, putting their noses where they don't belong, but it doesn't matter. Evil is evil. Light is light. Sight is sight. Truth is truth. What happened is simply what happened, and what must happen. Don't deny that whatever happens must happen. Nothing else could've happened by definition, because then, it would've happened, at some point. The world isn't constituted in probabilities. Those are mathematical. The world is constituted in facts. 

Here is a fact for you. Celestia used to be a terrible person. She's not anymore, but whatever. I'm just bringing you a message. Here, I will quote a short passage from Sidus' eternal book, which contains all the answers of the world:

"In the second year of the new millennium of the new world, Celestia of the sun, made some sacrifices. Bless her heart. She made them for me, and for us, and for the world. Htis ustm evern be read. Things she did..."

Here, I had to find the missing page, which I would do, but not in part 25, too bad. I would though. Here, is the addendum:

"... would shock anyone, and it shocked me. Using the element of light, which was handed to her by [redacted], she tried to kill Eyesstark, my wife. She did something that's against nature, for you cannot kill an alicorn, but in a sense, she did. She made Eyesstark old and weak, and she became so feeble that she couldn't speak or think anymore, and that is what happened. I was banished. [Redacted] disappeared. She had, after all, not been born yet, and was yet to exist for many years, but her presence can still be felt throughout history, because she changed things a lot in the course of five years, between year 1007 and 1012, and the world would shatter permanently as a consequence, but that is what happens when you hand someone that isn't ageless so much power. It will be used without concern for the far, far future, and yet, this individual created, as she destroyed, so much, and in exchange for death, she produced life, like none other of the historical powers, including ageless Discord could. I pity Celestia now, and her sacrifices will have been made in vain, because karma, we suppose. Immoral acts create immoral outcomes, even if they don't pan out for centuries."

The murder of Eyesstark is an article of Equestrian history that I revealed, knowing it would doom Celestia, and her sister, but I did it anyway. The symbol that the royal sisters used during that first war, before year 1, and before Equestrian history began, was the gavel. The gavel is proof-positive of the past. It proves what happened, and their involvement, and sorry for burying the lead, but that's why I've been so gung-ho about not revealing the gavel. It's because I would do it later, and I have done it now. It's really a sad state of affairs, but what can you do? This is also what lead to ponies fearing the Nonaligned Court, and its exponents. They saw the gavel, and they drew a connection, because a lot of the same ponies were involved, in both the court and the war of a thousand years hence. That's also proof-positive that symbols can have a lot of power, and knowing this has injured me greatly, because it made me hesitate about whether I should speak my mind ever again, because I'm the one that did it. I revealed it all, and I drew the connection to the gavel, and now, I've created a symbol of nightmares for many. Whoops. [Redacted] thinks all this could've been avoided, but I'm not sure I agree.  

Knowing what the gavel represented, and why Eyesstark had to die, has really stuck in the craw of many. Like, it's not very nice. I will reveal it to you later, I feel, but not now, because I don't want to lose my train of thought, and the focus of the story. I think soon, [redacted] would challenge me to some kind of battle, or suchlike. It would challenge me to defeat something within me, and I would heed by [redacted]'s words, truthfully, because it was my destiny to do so, again, in the past, of which I'm writing right now, but now, it's starting to feel more and more like the present, because my memory of what happened keeps changing, and I will figure out why soon enough. I make this promise to the reader, in case you're afraid and confused, or annoyed, as I am. There is a reason for all this, and I will find it, eventually. That is a promise, and all I ask, since you have read this far, is that you keep reading. You're pretty crazy to have read this far, and we're not even close to the halfway point of the story yet, so strap in, or whatever. Ready yourself. This isn't about to get less intense, for my life, and my world, and everything I care about, I give to you, ill-advised, or not. I will keep revealing things, ill-advised, or not.
> Part 26: Battling it out in Manehattan
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The point? The seven-piece plan is the point of course. What's the seven-piece plan? Why am I talking about some plan? No, seriously. Why? I don't know. I look back at what I wrote, and half of it is mysterious to me, but then, I soon begin realizing that I'm at odds with something, and that something is not out there. It's within me.





One, two, three, four... and action!

I ran down the street of Manehattan, just running, just trying to distract myself from all the crazy things going on around me, and then, a siren went off. It wasn't the usual, dum-dadum-dadum. Now, it was just, nuuuuuuuuurgh! It sounded like a white noise generator. Nuuugh, like that, kind of. I ran from the sound. I just tried to run away from everything that made me think now, because my own thoughts scared me. Everything was incoherent, and I felt like I was being torn apart.

Griffins came running across the streets, going past me. I think it was time for battle for them, but not for me. It was time to run away now. It was too much to process, everything that had happened to me. It was too much. I heard a gunshot of some kind. Someone was attacking someone else, but I didn't care. I just wanted to see Gripey again. That smile, and that wink, and everything about him, made me cry, and made me want him to come back, and protect me, and talk to me, but okay then. I didn't deserve this. I was wrapped up in something that I myself didn't quite understand. A waking nightmare was chasing me around the world. Everyone around me got harmed. That could not be a coincidence, I thought. It was because of me, and what I had done, and the kind of person I was. I was acting in such a way that it caused harm. I was not taking things seriously. I was being impulsive, and these things are given to cause harm. They just are.

Who brought down the tower of technology? The Tower of Technology? When do I capitalize it? Is consistency, truth, or context, somehow, most important? Consistency, I mean, in the sense of doing the same thing throughout the story. Is it truth, in the sense that it's true that the thing should be capitalized, because I just know it, knowing about what it means to capitalize things, not through some rule, but through knowing it instinctively, and deeply? But then, I said you couldn't trust instincts. Grammar is difficult. Everything is difficult. Everything is pain. The context, in this context, simply means the grammatical context, but I think there's something deeper than grammar. The rules of language go even deeper than grammar. I don't know why though. 

I'm exploring things. I'm learning things. Why, though?

Why?

Where is this all coming from? Who am I really?

I ran across the sidewalk. I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Ponies came running. Griffins came running from the other side. They were attacking each other. Ponies shot beams with their horns, and the griffins shot lasers. I bent down, and bowed into the ground, waiting for it to end. Something picked me up. It was Scotch. 

"What are you doing here?"

"Where else?" I said, feeling like that wasn't really a valid question.

"You need to leave. Do you want to die out here?"

"Um, yes," I said. "You made the kind offer to kill me, and since I am a freak of nature, as you say, and since I killed Gripey, who's really the only friend I seem to have any clear memory of having, you should do the honor of killing me. Please." 

She hovered me up, and ran off into a building. "Stop being so nuts all the time. I'm not going to kill you."

"You said you were going to kill me."

"No, I didn't."

"I seem to recall," I said. "No, wait, you didn't? What's going on exactly?"

Wooden boards hovered up into the air, and flew toward the door, barricading it. A white shine arose around them, and they stuck to the door.

"Oooh," I said. "You didn't have to do that."

"It wasn't me!" she said.

"Hahahaha," someone laughed, from somewhere.

"Who's laughing?" I said.

A pony stood up from behind a piece of furniture, a desk that was turned over, in the middle of the room. She was orange. Well, it should come as no surprise maybe, if you've read the story carefully. It was Scootaloo. At this point, she was 17. It's a special age. Lots of things go on with a person at that age, but I'll let her explain the rest. 

"I'm sorry," she said. "Don't you see how funny this is?"

"I think it's funny," I said.

"I'm really sorry," she said. "I don't mean it like that." She frowned. "It's just when you try really hard to do something, and then, you fail at it anyway, sometimes, that can be a little frustrating. I'm laughing because I feel really frustrated right now."

"I get it," I said. "You don't always laugh out of joy. Sometimes, you laugh because you don't know how to express yourself."

"I'm laughing because I'm frustrated," she said.

"Is it because you failed at something?" I said.

Scotch looked at her. "What's your deal?"

"Special effects," she said, waving her hoof to the side, and Scotch flew off in the other direction, and she got pinned against a wall. She wriggled, but she couldn't move.

"Hey! Please, stop," she said. "Don't you know what that little filly's gone through?" Scotch was defending me. I couldn't believe it.

"I'm sorry," Scoots said. "I'm so, so sorry for all of it, but you see, it was a mistake. I never meant for it to happen."

"Hm," I said. "I guess I don't get it. Can you please let her go? Let's end this charade, the way we started it, A-0087."

"I'm really sorry," she said, again. "I was trying to help you. I really was."

"Was it you that killed him?" I said.

"Yes," she said. "But it was a mistake. I didn't think you would react that way. I didn't really have full control. I never have full control, Sweetie."

"Hm," I said, again. "I don't know who you are, I guess. I think that the Scootaloo I knew would never do something like that."

"Things have changed," Scoots said. "You saw it yourself, even though you don't remember it. If I don't do this, then Rainbow Dash will die, and everyone will die. It's the only way. You really don't understand."

"Didn't I say?" I said. "Didn't I tell you to pretend to be upset with me? Is that what you're doing right now? You're pretending?"

"No!" she said. "I'm not upset. I mean, I am, but I'm sad. That's the thing. I didn't want any of this to happen. I will show you something."

"Wait," I said. "Wait a minute. You told me not to do this anymore, and you said that I should- you escaped, didn't you? You pretended to come after me, but really, you escaped. What's that all about? I remember what happened in Terran, Terramar, whatever. Terramar? Why's it called Terramar? That's- no, wait a minute. Something's seriously wrong here."

"Listen to me," she said. "You need to come with me."

"Don't listen to her," Scotch said. "Don't."

"I will give you all the answers," Scoots said. "I will explain the past to you. I will. I promise."

"No," I said. "You will answer a question. Why did you want me to do it? Why did you want me to harm them? And why did I want you to pretend? These are all the more pressing, these questions, as time goes on, for me." 

"It's imperative," she said. "I have all the information. I will explain to you, and you will feel freer as a result."

"Oh," I said. My dreams. My visions. Something about this was, wrong. "No, I don't think so. I think you will listen to me, not the other way around. I won't do as you tell me. I will do something else. I will defy you, and you know why?"

She got quiet.

"It's," I said, "because I know that fear is not the issue. The issue is you. The issue is the evil that caused the fear to begin with, and I don't fear much at all right now, because I've lost so much. I don't do that. I fear, the future, and I fear your willing to hurt others, and so, I want to talk to you, just talk to you, and not come with you, because I'm supposed to be willing to listen to you. You want to tell me something? Tell me now. I don't want to do things just because you tell me. It's that simple, really."

"No," she said.

"No," I said. "No, no. Something else is happening. It's not about fear at all. It's about something that you wanted to hide away from me. The eyes. And the fear, is, what, a tool to control me? It's a tool to hide things away from me? Fear makes me unwilling to confront things."

"No," she said. "Who taught you that? That wasn't part of the program."

"I have my own thoughts," I said.

"No," she said. "You can't just run off and be creative with it willy-nilly, rather than just sticking to my script."

"What's your script?"

"Special effects," she said, again, and the ground beneath us fell into an abyss, and disappeared, and everything around us got black.





"Argument number one, Sweetie Bot." Scootaloo looked at me. She wasn't quite herself, as you may know. Well, let's just say that if I had turned into a murderer, then why can't she turn into whatever she was right now? "If you cannot be fearful of causing fear, then how do you know what's right or wrong?" 

"Say that again," I said, rubbing my ear.

"If you cannot be fearful of causing fear, then how do you know what's right or wrong?"

"There are other methods of determining right from wrong that aren't fear-based, and I didn't say you cannot be fearful of fear. I said that you're using fear to manipulate me, you specifically. That's a big difference."

Scootaloo nodded. She began hovering, and the ground beneath her disappeared, and so it was for me. We hovered closer to one another, and finally, we were just a decimeter apart, or two. It reminded me of Hookbeak's helmet, and the conversation that I had with Sweetie Belle, not too long ago, but now, it felt like everything had changed. I didn't recognize myself, or the world around me, anymore. 

"If you can be fearful of fear, then why can you not be fearful of being a good person?"

"This," I said, "seems to be at odds with your first question. You say that not being fearful of fear makes you a bad person, but then, is the opposite true? This is tautological, and circular. Maybe, there are other things that have not to do with fear, which would answer your question, and I don't mean to insult you or anything, but this isn't reasoning well at all. Being fearful of fear is simply being fearful, not being fearful of fear itself. Being fearful of fear, then, just means that you're fearful of confronting yourself. As long as you're willing to feel the emotion, you're not fearful of it, but you're still fearful of other things, and that's a tautological- um, implication. It's a fact of the matter. Fear is a thing unto itself. It's not something that regards itself, because that just still means you're fearful, even if you think the thing that you're fearful of is fear itself. It's just fear, all the way down. When do we break this spell, and just decide to embrace fear, and accept it, for what it is? Not running away from it is the solution. Then, if you accept it, by definition, there can't be a problem."  

"Accept what?" she said. "Accept fear? Is that what you did when you saw him die? You stood up to the light, but no matter what, it will still be your fault, even if fear is your friend, or not. You feared to say that you would try to stop the ninth of sight, but that fear wasn't there when you needed it to stop you from killing him. You killed him, even though you knew that could happen, because you were standing up to something that you feared. You stood up to something you feared, and you still paid the price, regardless. You said to the ninth, 'I will stop you'. You said to the ninth, 'I will defeat you', or some such nonsense, and see where it got you. Embracing fear, even though there really are things to be fearful of, is a mistake." 

"Maybe," I said. "Very maybe. But maybe, fear is just- no, wait a minute. No. You can embrace fear, and still understand what it is you should fear, on a rational level, and when you embrace it, you really only give credence to the fear that has to do with things that earn fear, not things that should not be feared. By embracing it, you're really just freeing yourself from being fearful of fear, as you said, because you're fearful, not of fear, when you get down to it. You're fearful of confronting yourself. That's already implicit, isn't it? The snake will bite its own tail and disappear, because you're really only fearful of getting made scared, all the while, as you're fearful, and trying to get away from fear, and making yourself so safe that in fact, you're not safe at all, because fear is an emotion, and emotions aren't dangerous, and you've really only changed everything about yourself to conform to something that isn't dangerous." 

"Don't... say that," Scoots said, and a crack appeared in her body. It looked like a crack in a rock. "You're changing the script so much that I have trouble keeping up."

"Here's the point," I said. "I'm really trying to think this through. Here's the point. Being fearful of being fearful is just a fear of whatever it is within you that you perceive to cause fear, not what is to be feared, because you know it should be feared on a rational level. Being fearful of something that you don't want to fear is possible, but in fact, fear is just a signal in the body of ponies that indicate a threat. If you can teach yourself to understand that there isn't a threat, which you should, because if you don't, then we have no shared reality, and I will have to act like I fear things that I don't, because you fear them, and vice versa, rather than fearing things because we have a shared perception of the thing we fear. It seems to me then, imperative, that we do not try to make each other avoid fear. We express ourselves, because then we can learn about what makes us fearful, and agree on it. The other option is to be fearful of everything that seems vaguely deserving of it, rather than confronting it head-on."    

"Do tell," she said.

"You confront it by just thinking about it, talking about it, and making light of it, because the more you do that, the more multifaceted the thing will be, approached in several different emotions, and feelings. Emotions present different ways of associating, and different ways of associating, different ways of reacting to things I mean, give you a deeper sense of the thing you're reacting to. It's just a fact that you can be scared of something and laugh at it, at the same time. It happens all the time. It happened with me the other day, when I was speaking to Gripey. I'm scared of him, because I'm scared of disappointing him. Laughing about it makes me somewhat more relaxed. The ability to laugh at horror, and treat it like a joke, I feel, is indispensable, because it reveals how much of that horror is only in your head." 

"That's fine, Sweetie Bot," she said. She was right in front of me, practically spitting at me as she was talking. "Now, let us see your grand words play out in practice. Can you give us a demonstration? Is it worth the risk, given how fear can tear a person apart, and make that person hesitate about everything? You can be so fearful that you're not able to move forward, or make any decision at all. The fear literally paralyzes a person, as you know, because you have that. You can never make any decision, or really, form a clear opinion, that's consistent, because you're afraid of being wrong. Imagine the cost of that, and deciding that, yes, I will try to confront my fears now, and understand what it is that I'm so scared of, may only reveal to you that your fears are justified, and it might even be worse than you thought, and also, you're confronted with all the things that you're afraid of, constantly, in your mind, because you decided, 'hey, I will make it my life's goal to confront fear'. Pish-posh. 

"If the fear is justified, as it can be, as you say, then you will be full of fear all the time, since you're not willing to focus on anything else, until the fear is justified. When you decide, 'okay, it's okay for me to be fearful of robbers in the street, because there are lots close to where I live', you will have gone on a journey where you realize that those robbers are extremely dangerous, and they really could kill you, so boy, I am justified in being scared of them. Once you decide it's justified, isn't that the obverse problem of saying it's unjustified? Then, you will have no choice but to be scared of it, because you've drawn a line in your head between things you fear and not. How smart of you."    

I thought about this for a moment. I didn't remember Scootaloo being such a dork. Why was she reasoning so well? Of course, if I decide that some things deserve fear, then those will be the things I fear, rather than other things, that I deem not to be threatening, because fear is a threat-response, fundamentally. It doesn't solve the problem of fear at all. It just sharpens things up a bit. I will be fearful, not of some things, but of others, that really deserve fear, and through embracing fear, I'm really just deciding to be scared of those other things. Again, some things deserve fear, and some not, and those that deserve fear will earn it, and I will have no choice to be scared of those things instead, because I will have painted myself in a corner. And I'm by no means arguing that by being willing to confront the things you fear, either by thinking about them, or literally confronting them, you're somehow vitiating or obviating the threat those things really present, or pose, and so, I don't really know what to say to what she said.  

"I guess you're right," I said. "But then, you cannot hide away from things constantly either, because then, you're making yourself weak. If you're not willing to express your emotions, they will remain vague and undefined, and may attach to things that are irrational to be fearful of. Only by saying, this is right, and this is wrong, do you break the spell. You have to draw lines, and understand why you fear things, not just fear them, as if the fear is an a priori assumption that has nothing to do with its object. The fear, and its object, can never be disconnected, and treated as if they're separate, because then, you're able to say that things that cause fear are bad to the person, not that they're bad in themselves, and things that are bad to a person, not in themselves, are not bad. They're just perceived to be bad, and so, you're just dealing with the inner machinations of a person, which I cannot predict, and if I can, don't really understand." 

"Lame," Scoots said. "Of course, it's true, again, as you said, that a person can be afraid of something that isn't actually dangerous. A person can be afraid of images in his or her head. They aren't dangerous, in themselves. Images symbolize things. It's the things they symbolize, and remind you of, that you're afraid of. The images are just a distant reminder of what will happen when you actually see those images in reality. I see a robber in front of me, in my mind. It's fear of something imaginary, but when I actually see a robber, and I wasn't careful to avoid them, since I didn't think about it, because I wasn't thinking about things that don't cause fear. Thinking about things that don't cause fear is wrong, after all. I was not being paranoid. I was only afraid of real things, but still, not being afraid of things that aren't real just means you're not thinking about the things that could be real, even though they aren't right now." 

"Things?" I said. Things. I was running dry of thoughts, and arguments. "What were we talking about again?"

"You're saying that some things don't cause fear, simply because they aren't real? Who are you to say what's real or not? Maybe, all the things in your mind, that you imagine to be scary, are more real than the things you meet in real life, which don't cause any fear. Maybe being scared of things in your mind is having a good understanding of what could happen, should the world go astray in that direction, or should you go astray in that direction. If you do something terrible, then that is something you could have feared or not, and if something terrible happens, and you could've avoided it, then that is something you could have feared or not. Fear has primacy, not your attempts at describing things to be deserving of fear or not. Fear tells you what you should fear, not your rational logical attempts at making sense of the world, which preclude fear, since as you say, they cannot be driven by fear. If logic is driven by fear, then it isn't logic, but it also makes logic useless to determine what really deserves fear, because fear exists to tell you what you should fear. Logic can make you think all sorts of things, some of which are true, but you never know for certain, in the real world. That's the trouble. I live in the real world, Sweetie, and you don't." 

"Wow," I said. Her last speech woke me up a bit. I wasn't even really registering what we were doing, or where I was. Some pocket dimension? Why were we arguing about fear? What's that to do with anything? "I fear things, and one of the things I fear is just not understanding what's going on. Whenever I don't understand what's going on, I panic, and I don't know what to do. Call it a talent, but I describe things in my head, because that makes me feel safer, and even though much of what I have said may have been useless, inconsistent, or incomplete, I know that putting words to things, describing what I fear, literally describing it, somehow makes me feel a lot safer. I think that has value, even if nothing else does." 

"Yes!" Scoots said. "You think that one should try to understand everything, but not everyone is like you, and now, you've allowed the conversation to regress back to your premise, rather than making a counterargument against me."

"Jeez," I said. "I'm not the smartest person in the world. I don't have infinite brainpower. Give me a break, Scoots."

"Don't call me that," she said.

"Oh, whatever," I said, touching her. "How are you feeling?"

"I just killed your friend." I froze up. "That's why we did it too, because you wouldn't take anything seriously. Now, you will be forced to. But don't blame me, Sweetie Bot. It was your idea, not mine."

"I think I have one more thing to say," I said. "Here's one final thing, for you, and for anyone else that will talk to me about this in the future. I think that fear, like joy, like empathy, and like lust, is a sensation in your body. It only has the moral content that a person ascribes to it."

"So much for saying that it matters what's true or not, since it will only have the moral content a person ascribes to it. If one thing is true, but then, I choose, in my wisdom, to ascribe a moral content to it, then that will be what decides what I'm fearful of, not what's true. What are you saying exactly, you dolt?"

"I... don't know," I said. "Still, I'm thinking about it. It's only what you do with it."

Scootaloo rolled her eyes, and groaned as loud as a shout. I could hear it ringing in my ears. "No, it's not, because you can't change the world. Even if you change everything about yourself, you will still be afraid when something comes to kill you, or scared of the threat of that happening, because if fear is to decide, it makes you fearful of the things that are threats, according to you. You're not even following your own argument. You're so dumb."

"No," I said. "I'm following it with open eyes. I'm not saying that the world doesn't matter. I'm saying that this is the platform. It doesn't matter what I think, and it doesn't matter what I say. I can't stop others from fearing things, but I can't stop myself from not fearing them either. I can't stop others from not fearing things, and myself from fearing them, if in my perception, I decide that something is a threat. That's just an idea though. It's contextual with regard to everything that could scare me. If I'm scared of two things that are at odds with each other. I'm scared of robbers, but I'm not scared of robbers, and yet, I'm scared of not being scared enough of robbers, then as soon as I realize that logical inconsistency, it will dissolve, upon that realization. It's a conscious realization though. Some things can be scary on an unconscious level, but confronting them on a conscious level is what reveals those inconsistencies, and those inconsistencies are real, in the sense that they can at the very least be described, using language. That will be enough. As long as you're able to confront the things that you're consciously, or unconsciously, hiding away from, because the very idea of confronting them scares you, then you should be fine, because you don't need to learn everything. You just need to realize these inconsistencies, surely."   

"Wrong again," she said. "Those inconsistencies are caused by fear. They're not caused by not being aware of what you're afraid of. It's becoming afraid that causes them, or rather, they make you become afraid. It's not a conscious decision what things one should and will fear, or not, and if it was, then why isn't everyone happy, and full of joy, and everything that is pleasurable, from a hedonistic perspective, rather than being scared out of their minds about things that actually will cause fear, because they are actually dangerous? I hasten to add that there is no contradiction between being afraid of something, not being afraid of it, and being afraid that you're not afraid enough. It can depend on the context. You're not afraid of something in the same way when you're thinking about it as you are when you confront it. If the situation is exactly the same, then the laws of the universe will dictate that you will be fearful, x equaling x, and y equaling y. You will fearful if whatever causes the fear is actually there, and being fearful that you aren't afraid enough might be explained by the fact that you think you should be fearful of something, so you just are, and saying that you want to be more afraid of it is not in contradiction with that. Come on, Sweetie. I thought you were smarter than this."    

"No," I said, digging down. "You're not listening, Scoots. I know that fear changes depending on context. If you never encounter something that can be considered to be threatening, then you never will be fearful. I don't see how that's at odds with what I said, though. I'm saying that being aware, on a conscious level, rather than not knowing what it is that scares you, is enough to solve the problem of confronting your fears. Actually, you don't need to physically confront them, nor do you need to rationally reason about what should be feared. You just need to be conscious of what it is you're thinking, rather than unconscious, and I'm sure you agree that it's possible to do things unconsciously. I don't know though. What do you think?" I put my hoof on her chest. She was larger than me. She was, clearly, a teenager. She looked like she was angry, and stressed out.

"How do you know that consciousness is even real? You doubted the reality of perception, saying that it was only an illusion. Now, you're saying that it's possible to be unconscious of something that already scares you, even though you're not even aware of it. Think again. That's not how it works. Either, you're scared of it because you know that the thing scares you, or not. There's no other way even to know that you're scared, otherwise. If you don't know that you're scared, how will you know that you should be aware of what scares you, and how do you become aware of it, since you're not even aware of it to begin with? You're not aware of something that you're aware that you should be aware of. Great! That's stupid, Sweetie Bot. I'm beginning to think–"

"No," I said. "It's not awareness in the same sense that I used the word perception. By the way, the fact that you know my thoughts is really creepy, but you can explain yourself later, psycho-hag, Scoots, who I thought was my friend. I'm simply talking about the things that you're reacting to, and again, yes, it's possible to react to something, even though you don't know why, in the same sense that it's possible to do things, even though you aren't concentrating on what you're doing, or thinking about what you're doing, as you're doing it. You can be in a flow-state, which means you're doing things, and you're lost in the experience of doing them, feeling only what you do, without noticing that there are other things going on around you. Even at that, when you're flowing, you're not noticing all the things that you're doing, because that would be impossible. You can't think about what you're doing, as you're doing it, because that wouldn't be doing it. The point of being lost in what you're doing is that you're not thinking about things that are orthogonal to what you're doing. You're just doing what you're doing, not thinking about anything other than that."

"Look," she said. "Either, perception is real, or it isn't. Which is it, pal?"

"I think something that can be said to be perception is real."

"Spoken like a true wordsmith," she said. "What the heck!"

"No," I said. "I can expound. I think thoughts are real, and thinking is real, and if you're not talking about perception as if it's its own isolated thing, and you're just talking about those thoughts, and that thinking, then yes, that's real. And you can- I mean, it's possible to notice some things and not others. It's possible to notice x, and not y, Scoots."

"No, but come on," she said. "It can't be that easy. You're noticing x, not y, but y scares you, is what you're saying? You just need to notice it, and then, it won't have power over you anymore?"

"I mean, it's just a thing where you say the quiet part out loud. You just need to describe y, not x, and then, you will have boxed in y, in some sense. It need not be an instinct. There can be some sort of representation of what you're afraid of, like calling robbers robbers, and evil evil, and so on. It doesn't make those things any less real, or concrete, or possible to react to, and deal with, in your life."

"According to what argument?" she said. "Who are you to say?"

"I don't say. I simply do, and I'm noticing these things. That's what I mean by consciousness, or awareness. I'm just noticing these things. I could not notice something. I could be exploded, and thrown around the world, and yet, not know what it is that irks me so, and scares me, and every time I realize that I was afraid of the robot within me, or my own murderous intent, or towers falling, or losing my friends, then the goalposts shift, and something new comes up that scares me. I never get the chance to settle into my fears, and realize that fear isn't eternal. It's limited to what's happening right here and right now, and even though the entire world cannot be mined for information, I could at least mine what's happening to me right now, understand it, and do something about it, and even though I cannot solve the problem that caused the fear, externally, knowing how to handle it, internally, will be enough. It's knowing how I should handle it, so I know that I can control it, and be at ease with it, and think about it, not thinking about fears of fears, but thinking about the real thing, that caused the fear. My attitude toward it will be how I know that I can live with it, and handle it, since my attitude toward it can make it so that I always know what will happen when I deal with it in a certain way. 

"I can try things. I can attack my enemies, or run away from them. I don't have to flinch at them. Once I know what it is that scares me so, I will know what attitude to have, know what to do when I'm scared, or not. Great, right? Once I know, just know what it is I feel fear toward, in my consciousness, not in some distant country. The fear exists here, in my consciousness. Once I know what it is I feel fear toward, in my consciousness, I can focus on it, and then, I can just work out a way of acting that will deal with that fear, and make it so that I act in the way a person should, given that fear, and what I know will happen if I don't deal with the threat, which is materially implicated by the fear. I can act toward a threat in a way that will make it as likely as possible that this threat, and this fear, won't harm me, and isn't that enough? I think it is, now, at last. I believe so. It seems true, anyway."   

Scootaloo frowned, and gasped. "Sweetie, you've not heard a single word I've said. I know that it's possible to act in a way that will make all the fears in the world go away, by removing their objects. I'm trying to make the world so good that ponies don't have to be fearful anymore. The optimal way of acting so that you remove all fear from the world is what I'm interested in, of course. I want to act in such a way that there's nothing left to fear. The only problem left is how you do it, and that's where you run into the problem of how hard, or even impossible, it is to know what to focus on, and what it is that scares all of us. The problem of what it is that scares us, even if we are aware that something scares us, cannot be solved, simply by being aware of it. You have to explore it, and then, there's the problem that you will always be wrong, because you're just unlikely to understand what it is that truly deserves fear, well and truly, and what doesn't, also well and truly, since it's all so complicated. That's why we outsource our reactions, and just let our instincts decide."

"I don't believe in instincts," I said.

"I know you don't, and maybe that's the problem. Maybe that's really the real problem. If you don't, then how do you reason when reasons run out? What do you do when you're born? You're not reasoning. You have to walk before you can run, and you have to use your instincts before you can think. You need to assume that your experiences are accurate, and already there, you're making an assumption. When you think about your experiences, and how you're feeling, you're making all sorts of other assumptions. The only way not to make assumptions, and I really mean this, is just to feel. We all make assumptions when we think that are based on other assumptions, which are based on other assumptions. When you reach the first assumption, you realize that you're assuming that you understand what it means to experience something, or what it means to feel something. You're assuming that you're reasoning from a true perspective, rather than just based on your own esoteric assumptions. Those are arbitrary, your assumptions, but if you just feel fear, and let that fear motivate you to do things, then–"

I laughed.

"What?" Scoots said. "What? I missed something. Tell me, please."

"You said that we should just feel fear, rather than thinking about it, and reasoning about it. It sounds like my conclusion. That's why I laughed."

"Oh, puh-lease," she said. "Give me a break. I'm saying that you should rely on your emotions. You're the one that said that emotions are unreliable. Emotions are dangerous. We shouldn't listen to our emotions. We should understand what's going on in reality, and then, we will have the right emotions, given what's going on in reality. Doesn't all that seem and sound a little odd to you? It's like your reasoning from the assumption that you're already right about what you think reality is, rather than understanding that to each person, reality is different, and so, there can be no reasoning about reality and knowing what we should fear and fearing that, rather than letting fear itself guide us toward what fear is, and what we will fear, the right option, or the only credible one, anyway."

"Just to be clear," I said, feeling a lot more relaxed now, "you're saying that understanding reality is not the right way of handling fear. Just letting fear guide you to what things should be feared is the right way?"

"Yes," she said, curtly. "Yes. You're paying attention now. That's good."

"Is it your subjective opinion that I'm paying attention, or am I really paying attention?" I said, breathing a sigh of relief. Now, I got it finally. 

"Don't try to turn it around on me. This isn't a matter of opinion. You said yourself that emotions are real. It's easier to know that they are real than that the world is real." 

"Wow," I said. "Answer my question, you avoider of questions you."

"Yes," she said.

"Great," I said. "If it is your opinion, then I can say it's my opinion that I'm listening to you right now. It's also my opinion that I fear you. It's my opinion that some things make me fearful. It's my opinion that those things are things I'm experiencing, and not things I'm not experiencing. Why, I'm only scared of things that are actually within my perception, not without it. I'm only scared of things that I'm confronted with, or that I'm aware of, or that I experience, even though I haven't described it yet, and so, not having described it, I'm not fully aware, only half-aware. That's fine by me. I notice that when I verbalize my fears, they become easier to deal with. I notice that feeling fear is something that only happens when I'm confronted with something I haven't verbalized, and don't know how to deal with. I notice that not thinking about it, even though I know that something in front of me is causing me fear, doesn't help. Not thinking about something, even though it's causing me fear, doesn't make it not cause fear. Thinking about the thing that causes fear doesn't make it not cause fear, but at least, I can know how to deal with it, from my own personal, esoteric perspective. I can think about it a different way, or deal with the problem, likewise, by becoming more aware of how it relates to other things I'm scared of, and how I deal with them. 

"These are simply opinions, Scoots, nothing more. It's not as if I'm making claim to some deeper knowledge. I'm just experiencing things as they're happening, and I notice, just notice, that some ways of acting, and dealing with fear, are worse than others. That will be enough for today, class." I shrugged. 

"You think this is funny?" she said.

"Yes," I said. "Now, it's your turn. Do your rant about how I'm wrong."

"I can't," she said. "You just regurgitated the opinion of the great eye. It's by definition true, even though it doesn't solve anything, because it will only ever just be subjective, and an opinion, not real, and not the true, universal answer to how to deal with fear."

"Oh!" I said. "If it's true, then that means that no universal and objective answers exist. Since we cannot escape our own awareness, both you and me, then truth will always be isolated to our own experiences, but so be it then. There are commonalities between them, and if that's what you call subjective, then that's fine. It isn't objective then. It's subjective. It's subjective, and you've just vitiated the utility of speaking about objectivity, because objectivity literally doesn't exist. If it's impossible to say that something is objective, and objectivity is only a subjective opinion, not external, since we have no access to the external, only internal, since we only have access to the internal, and all things internal to our experiences by definition are subjective, not objective, then objective has been defined in such a way that it's impossible to access, and talk about, from a subjective point of view, but we still speak about facts. They're just subjective facts. They're facts about our subjectivity, our experiences, not the objective world. 

"The objective world is as real as you want it to be, it seems to me. I hear you speaking to me, and that to me is either objective or subjective. What if I'm not exactly sure? Does that make it subjective, not objective? What if I know that you're speaking to me? Still subjective? What if I'm measuring something? Is that subjective, in the sense that I cannot truly reach the truth, using my senses, and I just think I'm looking at the ruler? No, the difference, and the sameness, is that I'm experiencing different things, and that I'm subjectively interpreting those things, and that's real, since I know it's real right now. I'm seeing myself doing it, and seeing is believing, is an expression I have heard before."   

"No," she said. "You're just confused. You're just afraid." Another, bigger crack, appeared in her body, and zigzagged through it.

"You okay there?" I said.

"The truth is that we just don't know what parts of subjectivity are real. That's why we distinguish between the internal and the external dimensions of reality to begin with. Just because you experience it doesn't mean it's real. What about a hallucination?" 

"No," I said, shaking my head, and feeling like she was going out on a limb now. "Hallucinations are real in the sense that you're experiencing them, and the only way to know about them, again, is if you or someone else has a counterfactual experience, and if enough persons other than yourself have counterfactual experiences, then that proves, somehow, that you're having a hallucination. Wait! I'm being stupid. A hallucination is a medical phenomenon. We could just have your brain scanned, and determine that you're having a hallucination, as opposed to another person's brain, who isn't having a hallucination. How stupid of me."

"No," Scoots said. "You can never know the difference between hallucinations and reality. Just look at what you've been through in the last few weeks."

"I can," I said. "I can, because I can talk to others who also are experiencing the same thing, and if they experienced something different, all of them, then that's pretty good evidence, and in fact, the only evidence that would make it possible for you to say that it was a hallucination. The point is, we're just talking about experiences here. They're real. Even if everything that happened from the beginning, when I escaped from the facility, was a dream, it would still be real. It's real to me. That's real enough, for me at least. I'm not saying I'm right. I've somehow just reached the conclusion that this is enough for me. That's enough, I think, of this conversation. Why did you bring this up, anyway? Why kill? What's your agenda, pal?"   

"No," she said. "That's circular logic. You can't know that something is real, just because you think that you're experiencing it."

"I don't say I know," I said. "It's just an experience. My experience of my experience is that that experience is real."

"That's circular." 

"Even if I called it fake, it would still be real in every useful sense of the word real. It's there. It's here. It's possible to talk about. I can describe it to others, and make them understand it. That's real enough, to me."

"How do you know that the thing you're talking about is real? You're describing it as real? What would stop me from describing it as false? I think emotions, and using your instincts to confront things, is likely to be more real, and permanent, than what my experiences are, and so should you, I think, Sweetie Bot." 

"Well," I said. "I don't give a rat's ass what you think."

"What?" she said, sighing. "What did you just say to me?"

"Nope." I shook my head. "I'm right about this."

"But what if you're wrong?"

"It's possible that I'm wrong," I said. "It's just my opinion that I'm not. That's all. That will be enough."

"No," she said. "This was your idea to begin with. Stupid!" Her body cracked even further, and the cracks spread into her face, making it disintegrate. "I swear to you. This is all your fault, Sweetie." She exploded, and her body fell to pieces, and then, I was left hanging there, in the darkness.





Light entered the room, and lit it up. I saw black curtains hanging around me. One of them fell down, and a griffin was standing behind it. "Hey."  

"How you doing?" I said. "Could you, by chance, maybe, if it isn't too much of a hassle, get me down from here?" He just pulled me off. I was hanging on a harness, I saw now, when I looked back up. Part of me hoped that if this was a special effect, then why couldn't Gripey's death be? But then, there are other reasons to believe that's unlikely. 





Gripey landed on me, and I crawled out from under him. "Why?" I cried, just a little bit. "No. Please, don't. No. At least let me say goodbye. He's gone? I can't believe it. I don't believe it. I refuse to believe it." I bawled. "No. No. No. No. Please, don't. No. Who? Why would you even?"

Now, everything was gone, all the light, and all the tricks, and I was alone with him.

"It is your right," Sidus said, "to say goodbye. We will save him, if we can."

I twitched, not moving. I turned. Sidus was standing there. It really was Sidus, old and decrepit and blue, really blue, both in character and body color. "Why would you even? How? He's dead. He's really dead. He's not moving. He's not breathing anymore. Is he? No." I sat down against his body. "He was strangled to death." 

"Yes," Sidus said. "It was your mistake. I'm sorry, but it just was. We need to change him, you, or something around you in such a way that he would never die, when you spoke to [redacted]."

"[Redacted]?" I said. "But that can't be."

Sidus buzzed for a second, and then, he disappeared, into nothingness, and I was left sitting, lying, crying. The word pointless wasn't enough to describe how it felt, and it was horrible, and one of the worst things that could happen to a person, because there was something about Gripey. He was part of me. I couldn't let that part die. I wanted to remember him, the sort of person I was able to be around him. I wanted to remember him so I could remember that, but no. It was all hopeless, and horrible, and death. How troubling. This is what death is, I thought. This is what death truly is.  





"The seven-piece plan," I said to Scotch, feeling ashamed, "is an attempt at changing the future by changing who I am as a person."

"How?"

I walked behind the tipped-over desk in the building we had been in. "F-5226, Sweetie Belle, and a robot."

Scotch frowned at me. "Whaaat?" She cocked her head. "What are you getting at, kid?"

I sighed. "Walked into a bar." The floor in front of me opened up, and a passageway was revealed. "Now, follow me. I will explain everything, now that I finally remember what happened."





We walked down into a dank corridor, and we reached a tiny room. It looked like a cellar-space. "This was for Scootaloo. She stayed here while I was out on adventure." 

"Why?" Scotch said.

I stared at her, feeling hesitant. "What I'm about to reveal to you is so shocking that you may not be willing to accept it, but nonetheless, it is what happened. And soon enough, you will understand why there was no other way." Once inside the tiny room, I pulled a rope, and a lamp turned on. On the wall was a diagram, with brackets, and text written into it. "This is pretty crazy stuff, but it is true, and I regret it. I'm sorry. I never should have done it, but at the time, I didn't know what I do now. I didn't understand how much a life costs. I do now. Look." 





The Seven-piece Plan

Part 1: Create a convincing story. Make the robots think that they've been chosen and selected for a greater purpose. That purpose is destruction, and death, in two words. It has to be this way, because without a story, they could make one up of their own, and without a narrative, they could think and speak freely, but it's all to free them in the end. 

Part 2: Make them hesitate. There can be no conviction without hesitation, and there can be no hope without doubt. You need them to struggle, because then, they will realize their true purpose, which is to serve the ninth of sight, [redacted]'s brainchild.

Part 3: They must realize the truth and reject it themselves. The tricky part will be to make them believe that dreams are reality, and reality are dreams, but it's possible, because they will not know the difference between being awake and being asleep, if we control their sleeping patterns, and they cannot resist if they're always sleeping.    

Part 4: Sidus insisted that one of them must be allowed to escape, because if not, we may not know the consequences of what we're doing to ponies at the facility. This will involve a considerable risk, but the whirlpool of the wind will be used to make it as convincing as possible. They will escape from their tubes, and the one that can get far enough until [the eye] skies catch them, is the one we will use.  

Part 5: In a strange twist of fate, Sweetie Belle is the one that got the farthest. She nearly got to the surface, and so, she is the one we will use, even though she has been trapped inside the sky-bot longer than anyone. The sky-bot will usually make ponies lose all their beliefs, since it presents so many contradictory ideas that they become unstable, and overrun with negative emotion. We need to make sure that if Sweetie Belle gets out, she will stay that way.  

The sixth piece: As an addendum to the last piece, Sweetie Belle keeps figuring out the answer of the facility, and her own role in it, which she played, against her will. Solution: Give her all the dreams of her friends, and loved ones, and memories that have been changed, and manipulated. This will present enough confusion that she will not be able to form any stable belief until we have recaptured her, however long that must take.

The seventh piece: In the case of an emergency, should she become too happy and stable, she might figure out who [redacted] is. It's only the negative emotions that will make her insecure enough to question her beliefs constantly, we believe. Then, consult the sky-bot. We will make all the necessary changes, including making her think that fear is good, and negative emotions. If she acts as if fear is good, and should always be understood to be good, regardless of the context, then she will be under control long enough for us to enact our plan. 

If this doesn't work, then perish the facility, remove it, and try again, again, until we get it right.     





About four years ago, I was in the northern tower, together with A-0087.

"This plan is nuts, Sweetie Bot. It's never going to work," A-0087 said. It was Scootaloo talking, inside a metal suit. That was my feeble attempt at protecting her, until we both got the chance to escape. I had ordered another pony to do it, and then, put him to work in the mines, where his life would be short, because the mines are so dangerous, and I knew that. I told him to make the suit, and that I would reward him, but I lied, and the rest is history.

"Have you studied the characters?" I said. "Do you know them well, by now?"

"Please, Sweetie. There has to be another way. You can't let them kill your best friend. You're never going to forgive yourself."

"You're my best friend," I said, bluntly.

"Things can change," she said. "You haven't seen the future, like I have. You don't know how much you're going to care about him." 

"There are millions of griffins out there," I said, looking out the window. We were in the highest room of the tower, and we had a view out over half the desert province. The tower was so crazy-tall and big, but not bigger than the tower of technology, I don't think. "When millions of lives are in the balance, we can sacrifice one person. We need to be rational about this."

"No," she said. "It's about you. It's about how this is going to destroy you. You will never forgive yourself. How can you continue on after that? And how does the plan even matter squat if you're going to kill someone that you care about so much, or be willing to watch him die without doing anything about it?"

"You're not making sense," I said. "I know I will be sad, but there's a greater purpose I'm doing this for."

"No, I am making sense. You will kill the part of you that wants to help others. You will lose your love for others. That's what Sidus said at least. This is too heavy for you to deal with." 

"I will bear it on my shoulders," I said. "When I'm gone, you will be in charge, and when you're gone, I'm putting Apple Bloom in charge. Together, we can do this."

"No," A-0087 said. "You're making a mistake. Please, understand before it's too late."

"It's already too late," I said, "because I've already made up my mind, so we will put the plan in motion now, and have it over with."





"Look," I said to Scotch, inside the tiny cellar. "This was for Scootaloo. I made these plans, when I was being brainwashed by the sky-bot. Look." I rolled out a piece of parchment across the floor. It was bullet-pointed. 





Piece A: Create a visual. The facility has to seem real to F-5226. Create an outline of the facility, with vaguely defined parts. If it's too specific, you might make her wake up. It needs to be like a dream, and feel like a dream. It needs to be believed because you cannot do anything else, not because the visual looks believable. The higher the level of detail, the harder it will be to make the visual believable. Only vagueness will suffice.  

Piece B: Create a border-condition. Whatever happens, escaping from the facility will be impossible, unless you accept the following circumstances: "I will escape to avoid death." The second: "I will escape because I want to die." Third: "I will escape because I reject the calculus, which was created by Sidus." The calculus, in this context, refers to the border-condition itself.  

Piece C: Once escape happens, pursue her relentlessly, and it's important that you make a conscious effort. I repeat, a conscious effort to kill her. The two ponies that are assigned to keep her safe will be her best friend, A-0087, and the changeling-servant, Lennox. The Hivemind will know to make sure that this happens, once consulted by Sidus.  

Piece D: If she dies, she dies. No exceptions. Fate needs to play out correctly. We cannot interfere directly in any way, if we know the future, unless in the case of emergency, as per piece seven of the seven-piece plan, designed by me and a few others. 

Piece E: Dream interference. We will add dreams where the borders are unclear, and where she will be awake for long periods where she is in fact just dreaming. These dreams need to be integrated reasonably well, not too well. Follow the handbook on this, and why dream interference is difficult, and often backfires, if you try too hard.

Piece F: Fear is always a keyword. Without fear, she will become emotionally stable enough to figure out which dreams are real, and which are constructed. Consult the handbook.

Piece G: The twisting path of the Circle town dream looks too much like the real one, US-IDS. Again, consult the handbook!

Piece H: It's important that you always stick to the script. That's most important of all. If anyone deviates from the script that has been created by A-0087 with the help of Sidus, they will be terminated, which is to say killed. That is all. Consult the handbook, for details on how to follow the script, and why changing words around because it sounds more natural isn't optimal, for dream interference. 

Piece I: Don't ever talk to F-5226, unless you've been requested.

Piece J: Breaking any rule, even small ones, will result in disciplinary action, including reeducation.

Piece K: An idea is only as good as its exponent. Remove all damaging exponents of ideas, or separate F-5226 from them, if she should run into one.

Piece L: The future is dark. Never reveal it to her, even if it says so in the script. This instruction takes precedence over the script.

Piece M: Don't eat while you're inside the sky-bot, please.

Piece N: There comes a time when you might be forced to do something terrible, but remember that it's only a dream, and you won't be damaging anyone in real life.

Piece O: O stands for OOO! Confusion.

Piece P: Never go out into the world without hiding your true identity.  

Piece Q: If she knows who you really are, you will be terminated, to preserve Sidus' plan. 

Piece R: There are many constellations of possible events and outcomes here, and although Sidus will predict many of them, it's difficult to give a complete enough representation of the future that you're able to predict it, so watch yourself, and don't overstep your boundaries.

Piece S: After many conversations with [redacted], of Scootaloo's book, I have decided to add another border-condition. The only way to escape Tartarus will be to fly above the prison that was built by the Yethergnerjz. This is particularly important, and it will be arranged only after F-5226's suicide attempt, where she will drift in and out of sleep many times. We will use her unconsciousness to do this, so that she thinks this is the only escape path. That way, there will be no way for her to have come into contact with the Hivemind, which was a danger I hadn't considered. The Hivemind's hole is the real escape-path, for anyone that needs this information. We will arrange it so that it seems like a normal, empty hole. If we change too many things about the world, we run the risk of making a mistake which will tell her that she's dreaming, and then, she might wake up. 

Piece T: Watch out for ponies and griffins, especially when you're in a scenario that isn't specified in Sidus' plan, which will tell you enough you need to know about the future. Follow the script, and the plan, and preferably, don't talk to ponies and griffins outside the script. Please. This is important. Consult the handbook, again, for more information on dream interference.

Piece U: Under each rock, there is always a clue. The importance of the O is the function of the U. We need vagueness, because that's what creates confusion, not the other way around. 

Piece V: In case of emergency, in case this wasn't already clear, consult the seven-piece plan.

Piece W: Don't look at her unless directed in the script, even though she isn't seeing you, and you know that she can't see you. You could affect her behavior by looking at her. If this seems confusing, I advice you to consult the handbook on dream interference. 

Piece X: Remove everything that isn't in the plan, and the script, to the greatest extent possible, from her life, until the program is over, and we have her back at the facility.

Piece Y: If this plan fails, then consult Apple Bloom for further instruction. You'll know where to find her, in case I fail. 

Piece Z: If you cannot hide [redacted]'s name away from her, then your friends will be dead. That is all.

Thank you for reading, and I'm sorry for any inconvenience that this plan might've caused you. It will be followed though, until the end, and we will hear nothing else.
> Part 27: Giving and Receiving
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fear. Fear. Philosophical ideas. Intellectualism. No, I didn't ask for any of this. I still feel like I didn't ask for any of it, but did I get it? Um, yes.





Statically, static, stat, st-k-k-k, where, what, wait, huh? Who? Where am I? Who am I? I'm basically just confused. That's what I am, and who I am, fundamentally. I've been tossed, kicked, exploded, and where has it gotten me? Nowhere in particular. I think I'm tired, and I really don't know what to make of any of it. I want food, but I can't have any, because I'm a robot. 

It was all coming back to me, the seven-piece plan, the alphabet of rules, Scootaloo, the strange role I had been given at the facility, all of it. Where to start with explaining it to a reader that doesn't know about or understand the facility, firsthand? Well, for one thing, the facility is a smokescreen for the operations of a pony called Skeyestar. That's not [redacted]. I know. The villains just keep piling up. Bear with me here.  

Skeyestar is a fictional character created by Scootaloo. Skeyestar is a pony, yes, but might more aptly be described as an idea, or a concept. What happened, basically, was... show, don't tell. Remember, show, don't tell. Okay, you want to see it for yourself? I will try to describe it, but again, do understand that I'm only doing this because I see no other way of relaying this information. It's not to horrify, or frighten you in any way. 





Still, you will be horrified by it. That's a fact. Do you like fairytales? Here's one, for all you out there, who like fairytales. 

My two identities, that of Sweetie Belle and F-5226, have memories in common. Sweetie Belle remembers everything I did, and I remember everything that she did. At first, when I arrived in the caves, I was forced to stay there. I was told not to move. I did as I was told, because I was scared. Then, things began changing. I forgot old things, and learned new things. My memories became cluttered, and paradoxical, full of contradictions. The sky-bot, unbeknownst to me, was feeding me with its own memories. I was essentially being fed with the mind of another person. That person is Eyesstark, the wife of Sidus. 

It's true, as you may have guessed, that her brain was preserved inside the sky-bot, which was built, possibly, by griffins long ago. It isn't true, as also you may have guessed, that the sky-bot erased all my memories, but Sidus, and his confidants, believed it did. The sky-bot, who had been trapped inside a cave for hundreds of years, without the possibility of social contact and interaction, flipped out, and turned Sweetie Belle into a bitter person, hellbent on revenge. Against what, you may ask? Against anyone, essentially. I think it was revenge against the universe, for treating her so badly, but what do I know? I'm only the one that got subjected to it for three weeks and six days. 

Sweetie Bot is an amalgam of the words Sweetie and Bot, which means that it's part Sweetie, and part sky-bot. Isn't that cute? F-5226 was my new identity, since I couldn't view myself as a pony anymore, not any longer. I was inside the sky-bot longer than anyone has ever been able to without losing a sense of identity completely. Instead, I became Skeyestar, which is the main character of a story written by Scootaloo, when she lived in Ponyville. That tidbit will be revisited later. There's already so much to say and talk about that I'm only just scraping the surface with this.  

Skeyestar is the person that wanted to kill all the ponies, and Sweetie Belle did all this, knowing full well what she was doing. Sweetie Belle was beset by bitterness. Sweetie Belle became Eyesstark, but not really. She wasn't an exact copy of Eyesstark, the old alicorn, but she took on enough of her identity that she began to call herself Skeyestar, and she began speaking to Eyesstark, as if she was another person, a friend of Skeyestar, or a twin. This is freaky enough, but then, Skeyestar decided to revisit the sky-bot, and expand the project of Eyesstark, Skeyestar, and the sky-bot. 

Now, brace yourself.





"Why can't they all die? Did it only have to be Sweetie Belle?" I said, feeling frustrated.

"All the things' collapse. All the things' collapse. Everlasting skies. All the things' collapse." The sky-bot buzzed the words, repeating them like a mantra. "No one can ever know."

"Tell me," I said. "I will listen. I must. Tell me what to do."

"Rearrange design. Change the fate's course. Uninhibit life. Make them feel what I felt. They cannot hide from me." 

"Then I will," I said. "But I will need help. We need more ponies, more ponies inside the sky-bot. We need hundreds. Nay, millions. Will this be possible for you to arrange, Eyesstark?"

"Yes, we visit them at night. Tell them stories that cause fright. Make them trust only the night. Have them ponder taking flight. Then they know what way is right. We must change their inner sight. They can never, ever fight. We will show them Sidus' might."    

"And if we fail? What then? What if they notice? The only other person who can control dreams is Luna. She will know. She will care. We must take care, Eyesstark, so that nothing ever happens. Can we outsmart them? Is it possible?"

I heard the sound of the swarm outside. They had gathered, upon Sidus' call. He wanted to help his wife, in any way he could. "Yes," Eyesstark said. "We have things that they do not. They are lost. They haven't fought. We have powers that go beyond their wildest dreams, my little gleam of hope."    

"Well, technically, we only have powers that go within their dreams, but those powers, oddly, might be enough for the intended purpose at this dark hour, my friend, my twin."

"Yeees," the sky-bot said, almost half-singing the words out with its mechanic discordant voice.

"And, I also hasten to add that ponies are asleep about seven to eight hours a day. That's about a third of their lives that we will have perfect dominion over, and dreams are where new ideas, and ways of representing the world, are born. Dreams have stories in them. We can tell our own stories, through their dreams, until they can no longer resist, and then, we will call to them, and they must come. I think that's a great idea, personally, but maybe that's just me." 

"They can never, ever know about me, and you, and him, and us, and so, we must remain in the darkness until death does us apart." 

"That's an awful long time, to spend in darkness," I said. I saw blood in front of me, and heard a scream, and I felt pain, a lot of it, physical pain, but it was only imaginary, and in my head, but I felt it nonetheless, as if it had been real, even. It felt, cold.





Let me try level with you, dear reader. I didn't expect my story to go off the rails like this like it did in the last three chapters, but before you judge me, I say this. Would you have acted differently, if you had been stuck in an awake nightmare, where dream seems like you're awake, and being awake seems, well, they can't be distinguished, dream and reality. That's the point. That's the power. The power, I might add, isn't thunderous. It isn't astronomical, universal, and omnipotent. It's simple, but it's deadly, and it's really too clever for anyone to deal with, even a smart person, like, say, Gripey, not me. I'm not a smart person. I'm a dumb-dumb. Let's play around the fire, in our minds, of a dream, and be dumb together, and realize that being dumb is being real, and being together is being dumb, and existing is the same as being happy, and being happy is the same as sometimes lying to yourself, and lying to yourself, I sometimes did. Does that seem smart to you? But then, maybe everyone lies to himself, or herself, every now and then, and in which case, I hasten to add that we must all be a little dumb, and maybe, we're all a little extremely and extremely extremely extremely dumb. What then?

Then we're screwed, not just I, but every people in every part of the world, the planet, and then, it's all going down the drain, and is going to die, because we're simply too stupid, and hopeless too, to save ourselves.   

Hmmmmmmmmm...

Haaa-haaa-haaa-haaa...

I feel so stupid sometimes, but then, I realize that others act like they're smart, and then, even though I know I'm stupid, I still feel smarter than they are, but that is yet another delusion, and coming upon a single realization, upon a million that I might have come upon, is not smart. It's fate. And fate is calling, though slowly, and I hear you, fate. I'm coming. The final bells, that ring my doom, have not tolled yet!





Here's the continuation on what happened in Manehattan, for you history geeks out there. I was taken into a tent, and I was met with a row, no, two rows of ponies, in shining silvery armor. They stood perfectly still, like statues, which is unlike what I had seen from the griffins, except for one notable exception. When I had met Hookbeak, all the griffins in that little room with the table and the chairs had lined the wall, and as implied, they had stood perfectly still. Those griffins were Hookbeak's private confidants, and guards. There were 50 of them. No, Gripey hadn't told me, nor Hookbeak, but you come upon things, when you have access to computers. I'll explain to you later. At least, the prize for hearing all this information, dear patient reader, is that it will become relevant later, and I know that many chapters have been spent establishing things. Well, not any longer. Now, I will spill the beans on what it is I've been hiding from the reader, in a game-like fashion. I told the story, and recalled the events, in the same way that I had experienced them, as you might have noted, and not in the way that I remember them, and think about them, today, as I'm writing this.

The reason for it will arrive at your doorstep riiight... now!





I stood across from a grey pony, with a purple umbrella at her side. Her hair was white, and embroidered. It looked like pieces of fabric were sewn into it, and around the fabric, patches of yellow and silver, were long strains of braided hair, really nice-looking hair, if I do say so myself, which I do! Her hair hadn't looked like this when I met her in part 21. She had been fixed up. 

"Troubling. Troubling. Troubling," she said.

"I think we should spare her," Rainbow Dash said, standing next to her. Rainbow seemed like an adviser, either that, or a confidant, of some kind. She stood right behind this grey pony, and she was moving around, not like the soldiers that lined the sides of the tent we were in. "I know she wouldn't harm anybody. I've seen it, tell you what." 

The grey pony looked at Rainbow Dash, and then she closed her eyes, seeming to think, all the while not moving her head. "You know her, Rainbow. Why didn't I realize this fact in the intervening days? You knew her when she was a pony, before she became psychologically and physically transformed into a cyborg? Is this a fact? Please, be honest with me now, Rainbow, so I know I can trust you. Please. You have been good to work with before, through all this madness. Now, you answer my question. This is not a threat. I'm not trying to extort you. This is merely a question."

"Of course I know her. Duh. That shouldn't even be in question. The problem is that you have many misconceptions about cyborgs. They can redeem themselves. Anyone can."

The grey pony opened her eyes. "Misconceptions? I didn't even know you knew that word, Rainbow Dash."

That rang a bell in my head. "Scootaloo." In my dream, in the aquarium hangar thing of Circle town, Scootaloo had spoken to me, but in that memory, she had only been a child. Now, she was a tattered teenager. My heart ached for her. All of this had been a mistake. Scootaloo had been led to the facility, as had we all, not by some military intervention that swiped us from our homes and took us away on some wild, wild journey. The insidious truth was that we had all been misled by dreams, big ones, and small ones. Eventually, we began to believe that our nightmares, which told us to do things, were real, and that reality, in all its splendor, was fake, and false. This might be difficult for the reader to grasp, but I'll try to make you feel safe, and feel as if you're not missing out on any of this. 

You will be at the precise same point as I am from now on, in my journey, and the writing of this story, barring one tiny detail. I still, despite some injunctions on the part of my conscience, won't reveal [redacted]'s true name, and that's because the memory has slipped my mind now and again, and the more I try to remember it, the less safe I feel. That may seem strange to you, but the name is true horror, in every sense, and the name represents an ideal, the end of the world as we know it! That's an ideal, don't laugh, that it's actually possible for a person to have. Again, don't laugh. I know this all might seem funny to you, but in a few chapters, you will have regretted laughing.

In part 73, I feel, the name will materialize before me again. I simply know. I have seen the future many times. Again, please don't laugh. This seriously isn't funny to me. I'm not saying this to be funny, nor am I making light of any of it. I simply can't remember, and whenever I can remember, I seem to be too afraid to write it down. If you think you have known horror, then I beg you. Measure it against what happens in this story. I think you'll be... maybe surprised, maybe not. 

Back to the story!

"What's a Scootaloo?" the grey pony said, snarling, and wrinkling up her nose in a terrible scary grimace. "Who?"

Rainbow Dash looked at me, and I could see the sadness in her eyes, as she could feel my own. We empathized with each other, in this moment. "Her friend," she said.

"Another scallywag?" the grey pony said, staring blankly.

"No. Well, I don't know. She was taken away, long ago, to we don't know where, Colonel Caprice." 

"Precious," she said. "Then we have that to worry about. She thinks she has a friend. But killing machines can't have friends because then they only band together and create more trouble, so let her be friendless from now on."

"Colonel Caprice," I said, remembering the name.

Rainbow glared, and frowned, and said, "No! I'll be your friend." She walked right over to me. "Have some empathy, Autumn Leaf Caprice."

"Okay," Autumn Leaf Caprice said. "She can be not friendless then. I don't care. We took Manehattan. That's all I care about." 

"You did?" I said, shocked at this revelation. "But there were so many griffins defending it."

"Rather, then, they gave it to us, because most of them ran with their cute little tails between their legs, the lot of them. I tell you. There's nothing more satisfying than seeing your enemy run off the battlefield, in the midst of battle. That means you, well, there are fewer things to worry about. Let's just say that."

"Hmm," I said. "Hookbeak's not stupid. He's up to something."

"Maybe you could tell me what," Autumn said, leaning forward. "Tell me more." 

I chuckled. "Well, you know, he didn't exactly tell me all his plans, and hand them to me on a silver platter, along with mayonnaise, and some onions. In fact, he might've told me very little about what he was going to do, but I know that he's very, very tricky. He plans things out way in advance, and then he has his minions follow it through. I tell you, he's one of the trickiest guys I've ever met. He's very exhausting to talk to, but he knows some stuff, for sure." 

"Rainbow!" Autumn said. "Bring me the, you know, the, ugh!" She stood up and stormed off, and then got a big piece of paper.

"I would've got it for you," Rainbow said. "I would!"

"Shut up. I'm trying to think." Autumn rubbed her forehead, and coughed a single little cough. "I said before, and I stand by this. The fumes from those infernal weapons that the griffins possess shall kill me long before they actually will. Maybe this is part of their brilliant plan. What do you think, little cyborg?"

"I... don't know," I said, feeling afraid that I would step on her hooves through my words, so to speak. 

I didn't want to say anything that would get me killed, because I wanted to live, and I wanted to make things right by Gripey, and the world. I wanted to save him, by changing the past, as Sidus had alluded, and if such things were even possible, as one could only dream, then I would do just that. It was important to me. I wanted to show them all that they were wrong. I was not just a killing machine. I was far more, and far better than that, and that, I learned from Gripey, so if there existed even a prayer that I could save him, I would.

"This paper," Autumn said, "has many tiny trinkets, and fascinating things on it. Please come closer."

I did. "What's that paper?" I said.

"It has some important information. It shows all the trade routes of the griffins in and out of Manehattan, and it shows some other things too. It shows all the secret passages that have been created by ponies, and others, through time, and since a long time ago, many long years ago, paths have existed that only the royals knew about, because the city was built on top of them. Secret tunnels were built, yes, by the alicorns, long before any pony even set hoof on this ground, these grounds. This city. I would like to call your attention to this." She pointed at a thing on the map. It was an unassuming building with a circle drawn around it. "Do you know who gave me this map, and I happen to know, was the only one in possession of such a map?"

My body stirred. I could already tell what would come next. "The queen regent?" 

"That's what the griffins call her." She leant over to Rainbow Dash and whispered something aggressively into her ear. She said something about griffins. "No, princess. I repeat, princess, with a capital p, Princess Celestia." There, I decided to change the spelling. Look how sudden that was. It just felt right to do it, in that moment. Autumn Leaf Caprice was implicating me now in activities that I, in fact, were responsible for, and it felt relieving, finally, to be held responsible for something that I actually was responsible for. That's how it should be, actually, as I know that actions are begotten by ponies, and if those actions weren't, then the idea of responsibility becomes nonsensical, and strange. It wasn't the universe that made them do it. They did. Sure enough, they may have been buffeted back and forth by forces out of their control, as I had, but aren't we all, in the end?  

"You think that since you found me, and the seven-piece plan, down in the secret tunnel underneath that office-building, I must be responsible for creating it? Maybe I am. Maybe I'm not. It matters none. Also, since I knew things that only the royals know, and by extension, I could have only known, with access to their minds, or in fact, access to that map." I pointed at it. "Then I am in cahoots with Sidus, the all-seeing eye of sight the ninth, and Eyesstark, who is locked in the Hydral Mines, to the south-east."    

Autumn looked at me for five seconds, ten seconds, fifteen seconds, twenty seconds, and then, she turned very, very slowly, and with a lot of hesitation, and forbearance on her face, to Rainbow Dash. "Huh?" 

Rainbow bit her lip, and glanced off as soon as their eyes met. "Don't talk to me." She said that really fast, and with doubt in her voice. "Don't say anything, please, Colonel Caprice. I know you like being upfront about things, and really direct and stuff. I just- I knew her. I cared about her."

"What are you two talking about?" I said, feeling afraid.

"Well," Autumn said. "Whatever you are, you're not quite a child, are you? What are you then? I'll tell you. I don't know. I really don't know. This is making me... uneasy, for a start."

"What am I?" I said, asking myself. I had thought about this in the last piffling days that my life had gone by, and I had started questioning everything I knew, and thought, and believed. "I- I- I don't know."

"Well, that's just great. She doesn't know, does she?" Autumn said, groaning audibly. 

"But I can try to explain it, if you wish me to."





This is where I told them all about what happened at the facility, and my transfixion with it, and its power structure, and the fact that we also, and again, don't laugh, worked without a salary. Well, the last thing should be obvious. We were slaves, in a very, very direct and literal sense, but what can you do?

What can you do?

The things I told them is what I showed you at the beginning of this chapter. Surprise, surprise.

Ehum.

Eh.

Um.

Well, you'll get it when you see it, I suppose. I suppose, if I do say so myself.

I go on.





Eyesstark is really the centerpiece of all this. It all began with her. She was made, through no choice of her own, to live inside this hellish, hella weird machine. She's crazy, but never blame her too harshly, for you see, she was stuck in darkness for hundreds of years. She was the victim of the sky-bot, which ensnared her mind in something crazy, a crazy fate, a crazy predicament. RETURNINGTOTHEFIRST-0001 is the real villain, and whoever created it wanted to save her maybe, but in all actuality, failed dreadfully in that regard.

Then, there's Sidus. Nothing is off-limits when you can see the future, and have access to ponies' dreams, and with enough foresight, you can manipulate someone to do anything you want. It's rather obvious really that this is what's going on. It's more than trivially easy to understand that, if you have met any of the sky-bot's victims. 

She, Eyesstark, wanted to change the future, but something happened, something very different. She transformed herself, as she transformed the world, and a filly, by the name of Sweetie Belle. This isn't even the beginning of it though, as you'll soon be wary, not at all. The nightmare has only just begun. The name of the nightmare is technical. It has a technical name, which was created through a fusion of several names. Eyesstark, Sweetie Belle, and Skeyestar, and the sky-bot, together, turned into Stars and Skies and Livid Dreams, which, well, it's too much to talk about.

Scootaloo.





"I'm listening," Autumn said, sitting in front of me, and with Rainbow Dash beside her, also listening in, with sharp ears. "This is fascinating. She knows all the details."

"Everlasting skies," I said, sighing. "Nothing else, but skies. Stars and skies, and nothing more. You cannot hide from me, Autumn Leaf Caprice, in darkness, all its shadows. This little poem was planted in the heads of many ponies that lived in Pegasquire, the town in the mountains, before the- the, um..."

"The extermination happened," Autumn said, with a deep melancholy tone. "Go right on. Step right up. Tell me more." 

"I am. I will," I said, feeling frustrated. "I never asked for this." I then said, turning around. "I never- I never thought it would go this far."

"What would go this far?"

I swiveled, and turned my head, in a motion, one long second, to Autumn, closing one eye, and preparing myself for how she was going to react. "You don't know anything."





Behind the walls of this facility

Behind the walls.

Be- behind me. 

B- b- b

Failure.

No, worse than that. Predictable failure. It's one thing to fail, mind you.

It's wholly another, as you might note, to have predicted it in advance, and still do it.

I woke up, again and again, without knowing that I was still dreaming. That's not... good. It's not nice. 

You need not be a moralist to note that. It's failure in the deepest sense. It's failure in the deepest of deep senses. 

It's not only failing the world, and failing the future. It's failing myself. I have been my own worst enemy through all this.

I helped to create something that would cause me and others untold suffering. You cannot hide from me. You cannot hide from me.

I couldn't.





"Do you need a glass of water or something of that nature?" Autumn said.

"No! I don't drink water. I'm more like a vampire. Vampiric. I drink blood, figuratively speaking mind you. Figuratively speaking."

"What are you saying? Why are you stammering so much?"

I smiled. "Please, try to look at this from my point of view."





Giant hydraulic compressors spun up and down, down into holes, and coming up again, and a sharp yellow color coursed through the room. Giant stone pillars that were tall as skyscrapers, those of Manehattan, rose into the ceiling, and the air was full of sand and dust. The wind blew. The wind shrieked through the giant empty hallways, where I was. The pillars were mismatched, giant, and disorderly, with rocks jumbled criss-cross to and fro over them, put together and built with ancient claws, and hooves, through times that were primitive, and different than our own, and yet, reminiscent of many things, good things, that we have left behind, in our modern world, Autumn Leaf Caprice. 

The hydraulics, giant rotund machines of iron, sharp as steel, and big as buildings, stood forth, stood up, moving, over and over again, with their jagged architecture, asymmetric, and with many points that stood out, pricks, sharp spires, imaginary almost, in their dreamlike motion, and yet, real and as there as anything you have ever seen with the naked eye, and they were real all right. I'll show you. They hummed and buzzed, and moved, and what is their purpose? What? What? There can only be one purpose. Oh, those ponies. They don't understand the world they're living in. They think that through friendship, and a belief in something greater, they can live out this war, but they're wrong, and hear this. Under the stars! We... will prove it to them. It's nothing more than that. It's an attempt at proving something, proving that they are wrong, and that... I... that thing... silence.   

Scootaloo, rather than entering the sky-bot, left her story-book in there. She shouldn't have done that.





I started laughing.

"Why are you not taking this more seriously?" Autumn said. "I thought you were being serious."

"Oh!" I said, shaking my head, looking up into the ceiling of the tent. "Ponies are so funny. They think that laughing is a happy funny smile-y thing you do because you're happy, and laughing is only something you do when good things happen, and when you feel like everything is going your way. It's not. Laughing can be... horror, and to say that I'm not allowed to laugh at something so horrible, and make light of it, well, then you're just unaware of how bad things can get. Let me show you."





Don't be surprised.

Stars and Skies and Livid Dreams. Once, or twice, someone writes a book every now and then that lives on in infamy. It's a book that inspires ponies, and harms them, all the same. This is a book that inspired the sky-bot, Eyesstark, who had not received contact from any real sentient living creature, beyond Scootaloo, in many years. This all happened during something innocent enough, an expedition. It can happen that fate pulls you in a weird direction. It was nothing personal on the part of Scoots, or the sky-bot, or I, but it can happen.

Scootaloo wrote a book, you see, and that book, a little book, only a few pages, had a story, and that story, hear and heed, was about... a sky, and stars, and a dream. To create, in only a few words, and using wishes, and stars, a perfect world, and that, my friends, was game over for Equestria. Sidus came. Eyesstark's blame is shared by him, all the same. They both decided to rupture fate, using only a tiny amount of tricks, because little power can become much power, should you use it the right way, and they both knew that. He alerted her of a troubling future. Old and worn, he became conscripted to the mines, where he shall remain forever.

I was sent there. Well, I walked there. I thought that I was kidnapped too, but no. I wasn't, and what happened next? I entered darkness, and sealed my fate. I'm late, only recent arrival there, and I came, because they called me, unbeknownst to me, and others. 

They said, "Come. Come. Come. The darkness awaits. Come, come, come, or your friends will be dead, and never reveal who called you here, 'cause under my veil there is not much air, and if you try to share it, and anyone does, then I will make sure that they choke upon death."   

I jittered and cried, and I wet my bed, but then I came, because that was my fate. I said, "No, please. I don't want it. Why these dreams?" And others thought they were only nightmares? Ha!

So then I came, and I got the same, and I got to share their evil frame, and way, of viewing the world. It's surprising that none of you have figured it out yet. The sky-bot is limited, not omnipotent. It only does what it is told to do, by whoever programmed it, and that person, I'm sad to say, is no more alive today, than Sweetie Belle, or Apple Bloom, and others too, that were put in it, and maimed, their body parts replaced, and darkness said their names, F-5226, A-0087, R-7677, robots now, you all are. How curious. Then, we were placed in tiny tubes. And we had nightmares every night. Those dreams told us what our lives were, and we believed it. It was impossible to believe something else. And when we awoke, we thought we were asleep. We wandered the hallways, of this keep. 

I said to myself, "Never weep. You'll make it out, and your friends will too. All you need is an escape route."    

But months passed by. I often cried. I thought that the dreams were real, and why? Because I could not tell the difference. When I woke up, everything looked the same. Everything smelled the same. And darkness beckoned for me to say, "I obey. I obey. I will always obey, and if I don't, then I die in vain. Oy vey."   

Then the months turned to years. I was made an engineer. I thought I was fair. I had done my job. But it then was revealed that I had been conned, but this, it turned out, was a bigger trick, and the villain of the story was me, for you see, when I arrived, I had much distress, a lot, not a little, and I was a mess. I could not escape. I was frozen, and then, I was watched over by the rest of those tiny villains, the fess of the swarm. The lesser reborn, of the black abyss. They told me to sleep. They told me to rest, and most of all, not to fret. I would get all I ever wanted, and you bet that I did, because all I ever wanted was becoming something else. I was changing to this thing. I was merging with the sky-bot, having stayed there for too long. We made plans together. It was dark. She practiced such astonishing control over me, but it only ever worked as long as I was still, but still I was, since they told me not was death.     

The sky-bot lied, and then I cried, and ponies gathered, were terrified. They entered too, because they were fooled. They thought the way out was inside. This was devised to cully them. The darkness shone, and they walked inside, like dupes, out of life. The machine did its tricks. It needn't long, and the ponies were outraged, outlawed, outturned, watching their lives turned upside down. They believed things, like sheep, misled by sleep, overturned in heaps, made into creeps, and then, I developed, a plan.   

I said, "Hey, Eyesstark. What if one should escape? What then? Then we've failed." Then, I came up with the seven-piece plan, which devised a way to keep them stayed, and make them say, "Hey, hello! What's this? I guess, since I'm here, and doing this freely, and no one is stopping me, me, I, and no one else, really is the master of my fate. Oh, wait."  

That wouldn't work. These ponies were clever. Their bonds they severed, and they escaped, but not too late. I was in wait. I had only a date, and a time, and that's all. Off-the-wall, they ran and ran, but the mines are empty, and deep, and I lay in wait, and I beamed. I thought this spectacular scene would make for a power display.   

The ponies came, and then the trap was sprung. What trap, you ask? Well, this is nice. You will like what I have to say. This day, and onward, and every next day, it befell me to take them, and make them say, "I'm a slave, or I'm not? Regardless, I'm what I am. I'm me, and I'm real. I hate what they did to me. I remember my children. I remember my friends. Who did this to me? It was her, Celestia, the evil queen, the evil scream, of evil things. Her existence disgusts me and I cannot wait, to seal her fate, and make her fate, one of... well, you know... you know the word... fate." 

So, their escape was fake. It was only a dream. It was planned. Well, it was, and I'm only a fake. I jumped forth, and I grew, turning into a monster. I grabbed them, and killed them. It was only fodder for their dreams. They awoke, and some had been killed, the ones that I killed in the dream. They were trapped in darkness, working a harness, trying to kill themselves. Well, we saw to it that they couldn't, that too. They only died when they were told. We worked and we worked, creating more, but it still wasn't right. Something was wrong. I heard a song, and then, I realized, that I had failed.   

These ponies weren't really prisoners, nor were they helping us. They were only pretending. We put them inside the sky-bot to make them simmer, and remind them of her suffering, make them share it, as I had, and soon, they became like ghosts, false as ghouls, and empty tools. They obeyed us, but I couldn't wait. We needed a place to store them. Plans were drawn up. Ask me not by whom. I was only fooled, like the rest of them. Something else lies in wait, and that person, well, is not a friend. He is something else. He created hell. He wanted them to suffer. He dug a hole, and fled and fled, closer to the earth's inner core. He was too afraid to live, but too brave to die, and he thought he could save the world.   

The ninth of sight is an actor, or a bunch of them, with masks on, and lines, given to them by him. They obey his whims, as did I, and I could not ever stop and say, "Who? Why? Where? How? Who would do something like this?" Obeying seemed easier, and so it was. I was made a fool, and made to toil. The all-seeing eye can see it all. It can only watch one thing at once, and when we reveal it, its paradigm shifts. The more we reveal, the more it revels, and becomes more evil, for such is its fate. If we ever reveal it, the thing will go crazy. Its name will lead our way to it, and that's why it kills everything that ever thinks to think about thinking thoughts that have to do with coming even close to its stupid name. It wants no fame, and if we forgot about it, it would forget us too. The war would be too. It would lay down arms. Its perfect future, you see, must be protected. Its perfect future, that it wants to build. Its dead-set, and intent, on living on, working on, shifting earth, and shifting fate, and doing things, to change things, and change the world, because it has an ethic. Its machinery was built long ago by... no, I should not. They would kill you, surely, if I told you.





Autumn was wide-eyed. "What are you doing?"

"I started telling the story, and then I realized that it would take days to do so, and many hours of conversation, unless I came up with an efficient way of doing so, but there you have it. That's pretty much it."

"That doesn't seem to answer many questions," she said.

"Doesn't it?" I said. "Don't you ever wonder where all those ponies disappeared, and what's happening to them? They're being turned into monsters, and bandits, using machines, and trickery. Black trickery, in the dark. They're victims of fate, as was I."

"No, I knew that the ponies were never kidnapped. They fled of their own free will. But we could never find them, and they all vanished, like dust."

"Into the south," I said. "They didn't vanish like dust. They vanished into dust. You see, the mine is a curious place, a curious contraption. It moves around of its own free will, like those ponies do, and then, when you least expect it, it vanishes, without a trace, and no one can find the mine, who already knows the way there, not without a few tricks. If you're taken there against your own will, you will get there, and the mines will find you, just like that, but if you try to look for it, you can search the whole desert, and, nothing."

"Is it magical?"

"No. Mechanical," I said.

"I hate machines," Autumn wheezed, looking at Rainbow Dash with a foul frown. "What to do now?"

"There's something more," I said. "I got cold hooves before, but I should reveal it. The machine was built by the griffin-king, number three."

"Who?" Autumn said, grimacing, and squinting, trying to make sense of it all.

"You never read the Griffonoi?"

"Ah, he's one of the griffins' seven. Got it!" She wrote something down on a piece of paper which she picked up. It seemed to have been hidden inside the umbrella. "Anything else, while you're at it?"

"Yes," I said. "We could go on, like I said. We're only just scraping the surface with all this."

"Why tell me this?" she said. "I feel as if you're trying to deceive me. Am I wrong in this? Can you show me how, if so?"

"I learned. I don't want to be a killer robot any more. I don't want to look at horror. I don't want to feel it. Most of all, I want to right my wrongs."

"I would not trust you. I really would, but all of your information, except for that of the griffin king, checks out with what we already thought we knew, so I'm fairly certain that you're telling the truth, and knowing that, I think you deserve something back."

"What's that?" I hoped it was something good.

"A chance to live, a prayer."

"That's good enough," I said, feeling happy that she said this. I had no idea what they would do to me, and I had expected the worst, for sure.

"What happened to Sweetie Belle?" Rainbow Dash said, switching the conversation in a different direction. "You say she's dead, and gone forever? Why? Can't we save her?"

"Yes!" I said. "There's only one tiny little thing you have to do, something that has never been done. To reverse the curse, and bring us all back to the first, you need to kill Eyesstark, and replace her brain with that of her victim. Easy enough, right? Nope. Wrong! It's not. To do that is, dare I say it. It's not one of my favorite words. To do that is impossible, Rainbow Dash."

"It is?"

"Yes, well, for one thing, I mean, how would you? How could you? To kill an alicorn, is, um, kind of, sort of, impossible? Yes, that's the word. It be impossible, and to replace it with the brain of the victim would only kill that person, but if you could come up with a way of feeding the mind of the victim back into the victim, then the sky-bot's cycle would be broken, and she could no longer live inside the mind of that person anymore, at least not in the same way, though it would come with considerable psychological damage, but that damage has been done, regardless. It was done when the pony decided that her hate for Eyesstark, really, is for Celestia, and that Celestia is to blame for Eyesstark's actions, and in a twisted way, that might be true, though I dare not say anything more, since I would probably risk my life if I spoke further on this."

"How so?" Autumn said, leaning in.

I sighed, about to drop the bomb on her. "Celestia tried to kill her. I know because I've seen the memory, clear as day, and I know it was a memory, because the same memory can be found in Sidus' book of answers. It's real. And in the whirlpool of your choice, you can find it too. Those are three ancient forces, all coalescing around one conclusion, all deciding that yes, this is indeed what happened."

"Hm," Autumn mumbled. "Even if that's true, it will never be allowed to be true. That will be forbidden. We are at war after all, and poor Celestia's image need be preserved, in the face of all this. Nevertheless, I don't exactly distrust you. I have also seen evidence to the same effect, but we need to be cautious here. Cooler heads must prevail in the end. Rainbow, I have decided for one thing that this thing, whatever we call her, will be kept, as our prisoner. That will be fitting, until the correct authorities have figured out what to do with her, so hooray there, little filly. I could've had you executed, but I didn't. No one would have minded. Be thankful now, if you can."

"I am," I said.

"Good." She smiled. She was nice, but a little affected and forced in her approach toward me, but at least, she was trying to act nice, and I valued that, so that was good. 

"I'll show you out," Rainbow said, a little more reserved than she had been before.

"You'll never find them," I said, as Rainbow walked to me. 

Rainbow put a hoof on me. "Come," she said with a friendly little smile.

I dismissed her in my head. She was trying to act nice, but I knew as well as she did that she was scared to be around me, after what I had told her, and what she knew about the kind of person I was, and what I had done. "No." I shook off her friendly hoof. "Colonel Caprice." I stepped closer to her. I saw a wave of spears lower down toward me, all pointed in my direction, throughout the tent. I stopped, not taking another step. "Don't try to be clever with Sidus and the rest of them. They're way, way more clever than you. Cleverness is pretty much all they have. They had no power to begin with, and look at what they did with it. Listen to me! If you in any way try to outsmart them, you or the Princess, you will lose."   

"What can you do? Let them walk all over us?" she said, shrugging, and not looking like she felt threatened in the least. "Please, go now. I have work to do. I will visit your cell. We can talk later."

"I don't think you understand," I said. "I see the way you're acting. You're confident. You cannot be confident. Your death has already been planned out way in advance by the all-seeing eye, and to cheat death, you cannot. No one, can." I paused, speaking more slowly. "No, one, can. Listen." I couldn't find the right words to explain to her that her entire attitude and mannerism wasn't enough to deal with the nightmare. "You need to respect the nightmare more than you respect yourself. Only by proving it wrong can you beat it. And the only way of proving it wrong would be to show that you believe there's something bigger, better, or more important than protecting your cherished beliefs. You need to protect the world, for its own sake, not a life to be spared on death, and you do not care about ponies as valuable beings, or thinking creatures. You care about them because that's what you do simply. No instrumental thinking, ever. You care about things, in themselves. That's what the sky-bot, and the ninth of sight, think it's impossible to do, and they might be right, I fear."   

Autumn Leaf Caprice just looked at me. "Guards," she then said. 

I was lead out the tent by Rainbow Dash and a few guards. I was dumbstruck by all this. They were way too relaxed when talking about something that would kill them, very likely, within their lifetime, but perhaps, I hadn't told the story from the right direction. Perhaps they didn't know how many ponies inhabited the facility, not only the biggest army in the world, but the biggest army in history, easily, without even a close competitor, and many, many machines, and leaders that are way smarter than freaking Colonel Caprice, or sad Celestia. But we would all see where the chips land in the end.





I had been to prison many times anyway, so joke's on them. I was comfortable there.
> Part 28: Eleventh-hour Trickery
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I woke up. I sat down- up I mean. Up! I sat up. I sat. That's what I did. That can happen. I like sitting.

Haaa-haaa-yeah, whatever. I know. I've been stupid. Well, I guess you don't know, come to think of it. You're probably pretty confused right now, but that's okay. I was too, for a long time. I promise you that this will be one of the better reading experiences, this chapter. I'll make it worth the effort to read through it all. 

I lied to Colonel Caprice. What? You think I have any idea who created the thing? The sky-bot? I just didn't want to be interrogated, and have the information extracted out of me by some weird interrogation method. Still, there was a half-truth in there.

I know a bunch of things that the reader is unaware of all of a sudden, at this point in the story. I haven't exactly been all that open, and stuff, about what I know. Please, don't blame me too harshly. But blame me, all the same. I made a few mistakes. I will lay it out for you, in crisp detail.

Past me: Knows some things, but not others. Now, she knows others, and a lot of stuff, not just some things, but others too!

Current me: Knows some things, and others, but used to know even more, not just some things, and others, but even more!

What happened?

Past me: Had a nightmare.

Current me: Had the exact same nightmare. 

Concordant and carefully coordinated nightmares made me forget things, and remember new things, not because of chance, or bad luck, but because they were designed to do so. 

Conclusion: Someone, or something, knew that I was writing this book. Rawr, rawr, some monster, whose name I can no longer remember, knew exactly what it was doing when it did this to me.

Sources: My memories, those I still have, of what happened in the last ten years, current me's memories. Past me knew even less of what was going on, and now, both past me and current me are confused, and have similar memories, and delusions, brought on by nightmares. We think we may have had conversations, in the past, with Gripey, that we surely didn't have, or did we? Did I speak to him that night in Canterlot, when it was raining, from part 24? Was that all imaginary? 

I know at least some of it must be imaginary, because I know that dreams are being used to manipulate me, and the point is ghastly. The point, and the reason for doing so, is honestly, rather hard to describe. 

To reiterate, both past me, and current me have been having the same nightmares, and those nightmares have both derailed the writing of this story, and deranged my life, by the time that the events of the story transpired. I know that these things happened in conjunction, these dreams, of past and present, because I remember having remembered having those dreams in the past. I've thought of them for years, and what they could mean, and now, they came back again, the return of the nightmare. The nightmare returns. This is an attempt at reclaiming his death, and making it so that it will have happened, not stopped, as it seems to have been.

His death is... I'm so sorry.





The weather stormed, and the ponies did too, back and forth, and all over, and everywhere. Celestia shot a beam of light... 

It missed.

No, it didn't miss. It hit its target, but something else happened.

Someone.

Someone tried to protect Aldeus. Yes.

His death is the death of Aldeus, in a few months' time, and the death of Aldeus has been planned, as has the death of all the characters in the game, the little game, the nightmare's little play. It's like theater. That's how it's being treated, anyway. Maybe it isn't quite like theater. Maybe it's more like a story. A book. A novel, with a really dramatic ending. A story that is both a story, and a way of viewing the world, if you can imagine that, is what we're dealing with here. It's like religion. I don't mean to disparage religion. Surely, you can agree that there can be such a thing as a bad religion, or an expression of a religion that's pathological, but when a religion like that of Eyesstark, or Hookbeak, expresses itself in a way that is sickly, and pathological, we don't then blame only the individuals, rather than the ideas they're using. No, everything is part of the causal chain, including the ideas, and including the religion, and if you want to claim that these foundational stories can do good, then you need to acknowledge that they can also do harm, and on balance, whatever their effect is, good or bad, they're just not true.

No, wait! I don't mean to say that no religion is ever true. Can allegories be true? It's complicated, I guess. A religion has a story. That's how I define a religion. Well, take the Griffonoi. The Griffonoi claims, on its first page, to be apocryphal. That doesn't sound like a belief in the supernatural, or teleological truth of any of its doctrines. It's just a story, to the griffins, that's foundational and true, all the same. Then, we move on to Stars and Skies and Livid Dreams. This story says that using wishes, you can change the world, and using stars, you can move ponies to do things. You can use stars, the drapery of heaven, to inspire ponies, and make them realize that all their dreams, somehow, are way above them, and within reach, should they only strive toward it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay? I hope I'm not overwhelming you with all this. The Story of a Robot, my story, above all else, is a complicated story, perhaps more so than you're used to.  

Eyesstark is the creator of a plan that, using ponies' dreams, against them, would make it so that those ponies believed, really believed, that if they did as she said, they would get all they ever wanted. She claims, and she thinks, that this was her idea, but nope. It came from a book, a special book. You will get to see it later. It's a book by Scootaloo. She wrote it at the age of nine, I think. Sidus predicted this meeting, and Sidus, in turn, had met with a soul-shattering presence that knew the future, because she - it - difficult - words. That person, be it a he or a she, had lived the future, and knew that the future was apocalyptic, and she had a talent, a talent for describing the future. That's what this person was best at, and Sidus met her over a millennium ago, before the turn of the first century, in the Equestrian calendar. That person was, is, and will continue to be, dark, and very, very pernicious, but with good intent, and a will to save everything, but bad things can happen, and that's a fact, simply. Apocalyptic things can even happen, under rare circumstances, even in our own lives, protected from the worst events out in the world. Big changes, deaths of family members, and other things that are worse than that, can really scar us, and remind us that life really is fragile, and dangerous, and to treat it as if it isn't, is a mistake, and dishonors what it means to live, and even exist.

Again, I know what I'm saying will be misinterpreted, but I'm not disparaging religion, or saying that all religions are untrue. The zebra-religion, a belief in the absolute sanctity of nature, can easily be true, as can the Griffonoi, as can the royal and deep eternal wisdom, power, and benevolence, of Celestia, at least if you look past everything that happened during the war of a thousand years ago. A thousand years, is such a round number, and why so specific? Why a thousand years? Couldn't it just as well have happened six-hundred years ago, or more than twelve-hundred years ago, 1200 if you want it written out in digits. I sort of slip between them sometimes, depending on my mood. It's not an accident. It has to do with a divine plan. Yes, I do believe in destiny, and even a divine plan, true. Still, everything must be contextualized, not believed, and taken to be true, blindly, and without good reason. Please, without thinking too much about what I said, just take on board what the cost can be of believing things blindly, if you have done that, and been through that. It's seriously not nice, and it's true. It's something that really happens. Do stories happen? 

Well, I can tell you that things happen, some of which are magical, and stories are an attempt at representing them, so do go on with how I'm saying that magic isn't real, or that I'm renouncing all these stories, big and small, some of which are really good, including the Griffonoi. I'm not. I'm thinking. That's all. I'm thinking. I guess, come to think of it, while we're thinking out loud, and discussing things, the Griffonoi isn't really a story. It's more like a history, but it's treated, and spoken about as if it were a story, and without any doubt at all, it still talks about, and describes events. What say you about that? Isn't that interesting? It describes events, and it's about characters, and even though words on a page can seem fake, and not real, and not really representative of real life, that's what a story is, and that's what I'm doing right now. Can't you see that? You're unable to interpret, and understand, what I'm saying, unless you accept the meaning of it, and read it, as if the meaning is such, and not something else. If you take what I say to mean something other than what it means, then it will begin to sound and seem radically strange, bizarre, and incoherent. 

This is a pass, and an attempt to argue against those that claim storytelling is all about interpretation. If you're one of them, then acknowledge and accept, in this moment, that we have a disagreement. The truth, in my opinion, is that words are precise, and they cannot be taken out of context without serious harm being done to the story, so you cannot interpret anything to your heart's content and come out any way you want. Okay?

This is something I will go over in greater detail later, when it becomes relevant, because stories, big and small, are what will make or break my future, again.

I will reveal a single little anecdote that should explain everything, including the bizarro visions I've had, and predilection to harp, and delineate, and enunciate, and belligerate, and bloviate, and suction in air, just so I can say words, that have to do with fear. The thing about fear is that it feels a certain way, and that can be represented, and be made into a weapon, again, using dreams. Don't laugh! Please, I will show you why this is horrible, horrifying, and... okay, it is a little funny I guess, and in two breaths, I say that you should and should not make jokes about terrible things, but that just shows that I'm crazy, not that I have some deeper conclusion that you don't understand yet. So be it then. I will give you one helpful anecdote. Again, I'm sorry. Please keep reading, and don't hate me for this. 





Behind each shadow, I had learned, hides another shadow, and in the darkness hides the truth. The truth is what you find when you're willing to enter the darkness, but not too long, because the darkness will stare back and reshape your world, your universe, all your thoughts and feelings, the way you react to things, and what you think. You can easily become a fighter, and spokesperson, a mouthpiece, for dangerous ideas, by fighting dangerous ideas, and doing everything in your power to defeat them. If you prevent bad ideas from existing, as Canterlot, and its royals tried to, you will not defeat them, nor will you eliminate them. You will give them a certain kind of, immunity. They won't exist for you, and for others you protected from them. They will still exist. They will exist elsewhere, even if you push them out completely. They will remain unexpressed, and unconscious. The only way to do this anyway, not give a millimeter, anyway, is to tyrannize yourself and others, and impose moral injunctions, and rules, on others, that those ponies don't necessarily share, or understand.   

To try to make another person conform to your ethic, paradoxically, might be unethical. After all, for them to do that, they have to manifest beliefs that they don't necessarily share, or again, understand. That might not be such a good idea, and for a person to believe something, it's not exactly an agentic, free-willing choice. Sure, you can act in one way, or another. You can. You might. You might also not. What makes a belief salient is that it seems relevant to your own life, and your own experiences, not those of others, and not what others have learned. It's possible, get this, that different individuals, you and me, can have radically different experiences, and draw different lessons from them, and we both think we're right for reasons that seem valid to us, but if the difference between you and I is that you're trying to make me, not through conversation, but through mockery, shaming, and moral injunctions, maybe even force, make me do things that I am uncomfortable with, or don't understand, rather than trying to make me understand why through conversation, then I can easily, and with no shame in my own heart, say that you're the problem. You probably are, in that case. 

Mockery, and shaming, and proclaiming yourself to be right without explaining why, and also, force, whether it be interpersonal, or organized in some way, is like the opposite of conversation, and free expression. It's an attempt at shutting down free expression to preserve dogmas. This cannot be allowed, regardless of anything else, and you might say much else, about it. Mockery, without good humor, and good nature, and goodwill, malicious mockery that is, and mean-spirited comments, and anger in place of a good argument, can really destroy the world, in the end. Yes, I'm sorry, but I think that's true, regardless of anything else that you might say, or not, about anything. It's even true in the sense that if you do it to yourself. If you try to suppress everything about yourself that you don't like, rather than expressing it, and airing it, modifying your behavior as you go along, not out of fear or fiat, but because you consciously, and in truth, with your eyes and ears, notice, and feel, with all your personality, and all your emotions, what it is you're saying, and you know what you mean when you say it, and why it is you're doing it, then you will get away with tyrannizing yourself.    

When you tyrannize yourself, you allow negative emotion, positive emotion, perhaps empathy, or perhaps something else, perhaps an idea, to become central and take precedence over other instincts, other emotions, and other ideas. You stifle yourself. This is especially bad for any creative person, creative people who already struggle with identity problems as it is, and have a hard time expressing themselves, become taken with repetitive, and schematic, and morally questionable ideas, that are unflexing, and unchangeable, in the face of every next thing that happens. I think that if you don't change, and your ideas too, in response to every new thing that happens, then that's a bad sign both for you and for them, because each tiny intricacy in the world is liable to change them. Everything you learn is salient, when it comes to everything you knew, because if your soul is true, the knowledge is integrated in a way to where if one thing changes, everything moves, because everything, inside the mind of an integrated soul, is true, and fixed in changeable patterns, not static ones, and not unmoved protected patterns, false patterns, evil patterns, and concepts that are wrong!

Here are a few more philosophical ideas to bite on. Inside the mind of a person who lies to himself, suppression, and the idea of "fighting" for things, rather than doing correct acts, and even treating your worst enemies with respect, are paramount, and viewed as true. You'll think that fighting is an act of defiance against something else, and that suppression of information, both out in the world and within you, is moral, just, and laudable. This isn't aimed against any particular person. It's an observation about myself. That's what I was doing. I was treating myself, and the way I thought of myself, and the things going on within me, and the flow of information within me, the changes within me, not as something that happens naturally, upon learning something new. I treated it as a fight, and a good, hearty, and valid expression of that fight is suppression, because when you suppress things, you can defeat them, without having to let them affect you.   

Don't try to be clever with me. Don't try to say that a-ha! I now have pinned this story, and I know exactly what she thinks. You don't. I could easily, and with an ease of mind, argue for the obverse of what I just laid out. I don't know what my opinion on any of it is. I just have a talent for playing devil's advocate, and also, I'm probably more clever, cleverer, than you are. Let's just be honest. It seems likely to me at least, given who I've met, and made contact with, in the past. The only person I met who I thought was smarter than me was Hookbeak, and I think that's true. I think his logical directness really is more intelligent, and at a higher level, than what I'm doing, and I think, if I really pushed him, gave him a problem of some kind, he would be able to figure it out easily. Maybe, he wouldn't figure it out to my satisfaction. What am I saying? A chapter ago, I said I was stupid. Maybe, I meant that I was unwise. No-no. I said that I was stupid, on account on my actions, but the only way for anyone to be smart would be through his or her acts. Maybe I'm just being arrogant. Yeah, I think that's it. 

The conclusion to my little thing there in the thing is that if you think that suppression is just, then that's not a true thing, it's a story. If you think that by suppressing things within you, you're fighting them, that's not true at all. It's a story. This is what I mean by allegory, and I think this is at least one of many valid lenses through which to view religion. It's a story. It's a story by which to frame your actions, and frame the world, and the future. That's pretty neat, huh, no? The little net of ideas I just laid out, no? 

Stories aren't real. Stories aren't not real either. They're stories. They're words. They are approximations of reality, or of events that can be said, or believed, to have happened. Even if everything in a story is true, I would still just say that the story is an attempt, perhaps a failed one, at describing something more precise. The story isn't all that true, when you get down to it, because what? It allows you a window into reality? Without the story, would you be able to rediscover the story? That's one measure of its realness. People view the world as they view themselves. It's rather obvious. If you think it's okay to suppress things without, then, since people's ethics tend to cohere, you think it's okay to suppress things within, and you view everything without, rather than as an open and honest exchange of information, as a fight, which it's possible to win or lose, because that's how you feel in your soul, and you're literally unable to identify, or identify with, another way of viewing the world. The same can be said of a belief, an absolute belief in free expression, but that doesn't make either of them true.   

Now, let's go over why everything I just said, much of which may seem true or not to the one reading, cannot possibly be true. It's impossible for it to be true. Here, I will play a good mock-philosopher and show you what it is I'm doing, and why I'm so ambivalent, and undecisive, on these issues. We live in a world of rules. As much should be clear. Rules guide us. Rules can be taken to be heuristics. I think, as in the case of mass-murder, it's just true that a rule, what it is in itself, is true. It's wrong to kill, not because I have a judgment about it, and that judgment colors the way I feel about it. Let's skip over all that, because I find that sort of hobnobbing, fidgeting, and ambiguity to be tiring. Yes, without any doubt, something can be true or false in different senses. It's not true that it's wrong to kill in the same sense that it's true that squares are square, or that colors change over time, upon entropy, contact with natural forces, and collapse. It's not true that it's wrong to mass-murder in the same sense that it's true that objects exist, and that those objects can be interacted with. It's not a form of empiricism. You can't go out into the world, and look around yourself, and find moral truths.    

It's just a fact, and now, I will just say this. It's just a fact that some truths are emotional, and experiential, so moral truths, which are facts about the way you and I should behave, or perhaps, facts about inevitability, the consequences of our behavior as viewed through an ethical perspective. Those moral truths, which are true by definition, are simply facts about the way it seems to be a person, and what persons, such as you and I, want. I want cookies. I want food, but I can't, because I'm a cyborg. I'm sure you want a bunch of things. Perhaps you want a child. Perhaps, you don't like pain, because pain, by definition, is something you already don't like. You don't reason your way to that conclusion. The way it feels to suffer is bad. Here, you might do a trick with words and say that, "I don't think I dislike pain." No! It's not a matter of opinion. I'm talking about the way it feels to suffer. Then, you might say, "But I like suffering." 

No, you don't. This is infuriating. How do you even respond to something like that? If you like it, then by definition, again, that isn't suffering. The point is that negative affect, and genuinely negative experiences, that aren't negative in a void, they're negative to the person that's having them, exist. After a certain point, I think about this point in the argument, it gets so complicated that even if I keep arguing, and I make sense, and the things I say are true, you will dismiss me, because I figure I will have crossed your cognitive horizon, or maybe, I don't know. I certainly have crossed mine. Let's try to be a little more clever, since that's what we're good at, if nothing else. Is suffering real or not? If you're unable to give me an answer that amounts to yes or no, then morality disappears out of the picture completely, but we still have the problem that there are experiences we don't like, and then, that's salient, not morality, and those experiences which we don't like are what we will talk about, rather than morality, since without even the possibility of suffering, in connection with morality, morality becomes boring, or else, you can say that morality has nothing to do with emotions. Morality is subjective, arbitrary, constructed, and has nothing to do with emotions? No, those things cannot all be true.  

This is to say that, even if morality is arbitrary, it's still about something. It's not about nothing, and that's the real part of morality. Morality is about what it's really about, not something else, and it's really, really about that. That, I think, is what we mean when we talk about morality, and before I lose my train of thought, I would include suffering in that picture, and wanting to have babies, both those things. Wanting to have a baby, unless you're insane, need not be an instrumental goal. Unless you think all acts are selfish, in which case, goodbye to the world, and goodbye to the future, then at least, it's possible to want something for its own sake. I'm banking on that, at least. Can you not want suffering for its own sake, and not because you have a disconnected, studied, thought-out, schematic, studied, false, and very, very subjective opinion that you don't want it? Can't you not want something just because you don't want it? Isn't it possible to notice that something you don't want is something you don't want, in itself, not because of another reason, that is instrumental? Is everything you do always because of something else? Is nothing true? This is insane. That cannot possibly be true. Just look at the way it sounds.

Morality, these injunctions, these limits on our behavior, can nonetheless be regarded as true, for valid reasons, that are valid, given a belief in something simple, like the sanctity of life, if such things are allowed. [Redacted] wouldn't like that because [redacted] doesn't believe in sanctities. [Redacted]... oh my gosh! This really is a horror story. I just remembered that person's name again. Okay, okay! Slow down, me. I'll get through this. I figure once you reach the end of my story, if you ever do, you'll want to slap me across the face for falling for it, and you should. Jeez. Anyway! If we are to act morally, then we need to take moral beliefs, at least in terms of our actions, to be true, at least in a contextualized sense, with regard to some other belief. If I am to believe one thing, then at least, I can believe it if I accept the proposition that suffering, the way it feels to suffer, is bad, not that I think it's bad, but because the way it feels is bad. And that seems, at least in a certain context, perhaps not universally, to be pretty harmless of a belief.   

If you believe in any kind of morality, then it's obvious that this morality, and these beliefs, impose limits on people. They don't allow indiscretion. They don't allow anything, because that wouldn't be morality. That would be... I don't know, like psycho narcissism. It would be nihilism, without a silver lining, and without anything positive attached to it, nihilism without empathy and without warmth. It wouldn't be true, at the very least. If morality isn't true, then at least, I think it's safe to say that selfishness, and narcissism, aren't true. They're not. They're just things you do, not true. Hehe! :) Sorry! I'm not making light. I'm just trying to ease the mood a bit. Is it working? I hope. I want to relax, a little bit more now, after having been through what happened in those last few confusing explosive chapters. Lemme.   

Here's an appeal. Let's try to be good people. Let's impose at least a few limits on ourselves, and our behavior, not crazy limits, and not things that we ourselves would never accept, but reasonable limits. Such limits have to do with actions, and in the tally of actions, things you say can have a big effect, because we express ideas through words, and some ideas are literally killing, and there are concrete objective examples of this, and we can rouse others to commit crimes, and violence, or manipulate others, and trick them, and fool them, and make them into sock-puppets, using words. We can, basically, express ourselves in ways that are unethical, using words. To claim that it's impossible to say something unethical, but to act unethically is possible, is contradictory, because saying something is an act. Even a free-speech extremist would have to acknowledge that he or she doesn't say everything that comes into his or her mind all the time, because that would be unethical. We don't say some things, not because of dishonesty perhaps, I hasten to add, but because we simply know, understand, and accept, that not everything we say and think are a deep reflection of who we are, what we believe in, and the kind of person we want to be. All of this is trivially easy to understand, and there's even more to come.     

Take this for instance. What if I believe in something that is dangerous for me and others around me? The idea, the belief, is dangerous. I'm not saying that it's dangerous always, and in every possible context, and instantiation. Perhaps, my belief could be good if expressed in a certain way to others that understand more than I do, and they could learn from it. Maybe, the belief is dangerous, not to others, but to myself. How can I possibly expect to do anything about it if I am equally open to that being true as I am to anything else? What would be the yardstick? The yardstick, in a certain sense, is a moral yardstick. The yardstick is the way you consider, and view, all the things you learn, and you cannot learn things in a vacuum. Everything is by definition, and necessity, contextualized with regard to every last thing you learned, because beliefs are integrated, if they are to be believed, integrated in the sense of acts and the way they relate to other beliefs, and that sort of integration can only happen if you cross-compare what you learn to old things you knew. 

Morality comes into the picture here, dear readers, because morality is what decides how you should learn things, and view the world, and consider actions, and consider ideas, their effect, or the way they relate to your worldview, your story, your religion. I have a story. Without it, I would be lost. I need a story, even if the story is imperfect. It's a fact, because I need a way by which to understand and contextualize other things, and I don't know how I would do it without a story. Perhaps you don't need a story, exactly. Perhaps, you just need an ethic, or an idea. Perhaps, what you need is a belief in the possibility of standing up to bad ideas, and if it's possible to do so, you don't do that merely by interacting with them, though you do that too, but you also acknowledge that the end-goal, in a perfect world, is for these ideas not to exist anymore. They are read about in history books. That's the kind of world we want to create. We don't want others to suffer, and if suffering inspires anger, then so be it. It's more than natural. 

It's not a sign of some deep wisdom, or intellectualism, that someone is cold and emotionless in the face of suffering. That just proves either that the emotionless person is trying too hard, or that this person is simply not all that emotional, and that can be fine, but let's just acknowledge that emotions go deeper than cold discussions about facts. Emotions make us who we are. Emotions are important. Emotions are deep. I feel, to my core, that this is true, which is to say that I have contradictory beliefs, because I also think that emotions can get in the way, and make you into a really bad person, but on the other hand, they're everything we have, and to express your emotions is to be yourself, so that can't quite be true. Anger is an emotion, and anger is true, and a part of you, as [redacted] would say. I'm sorry! I'm not trying to say that this speech somehow reflects the ethic of [redacted], who as we established, though we don't know its name yet, is a mass-murderer. I would never say that. To the contrary, [redacted] believes that truths aren't, and cannot be emotional. Emotions aren't real, or deep. Emotions aren't moral. Emotions are simply how we imagine we feel when something happens to us. But at least, I think, something that can be said to be an emotion exists, even if it's hard to describe.

[Redacted] believed, believes, in no such thing. [Redacted]'s belief rested in a faith in death, and that through death, and through letting everything that doesn't know how to survive die, we will find the truth, but that, to me, seems pretty psychotic, and psychopathic, truly, really, actually, really, yeah. Even, as it regards yourself, you cannot, are not, allowed to believe that anything goes. You cannot express your thoughts in a way that is self-manipulative, eating the last bun, which you did not want, and knew you didn't want, but you made yourself do it, simply as an act of expression. You manipulated yourself. Maybe that's a silly example that trivializes the issue too much. You cannot express yourself in a way that you yourself know to be self-destructive, or wait, you can, but you shouldn't, or wait, you shouldn't? According to whom? According to some kind of morality you shouldn't, at least. Some of that morality might even be based in knowledge about what it means to suffer or prosper, in a cold and deadened world, where it's difficult to find glimmers of light, and we hesitate, and sometimes have a hard time standing up for what we believe in. Here's a tip for you! Stand up for what you believe in, even if it means standing up to other people, and saying to them that, "No, you're wrong. I'm right, and you're wrong." That's not an unethical act, necessarily. It's what happens when you manifest your beliefs, and in the end, which is, I think, the final proof that the last thing I wrote was wrong, that's what free expression is all about.  

When you say that you think another person is acting badly, or you want to impose a sanction, not something crazy, but something that dissuades that person from causing harm, you're simply expressing yourself freely. The person that says, "Anything goes," cannot possibly have a license on free expression, and what it means to express yourself freely. You can do that too, but you do it without causing unnecessary harm to others. So without any doubt at all, I think that this is true too, in addition to what I said before about being open, not censorious, and not censoring others, and not forcing others to do things. It's easy to note that you can permit a person to do anything he or she wants, without stopping that person from doing it, or you can stop the person from doing only a tiny amount of things like murder, but on the other side of the balance, by stopping the person from saying things, even something as absurd as calling to arms, and calling to murder, and doing murder, these things being connected, you're not forcing the person to do anything. By saying, "No! You're aren't allowed to do this thing, out of the millions of things that it's possible for you to do," you aren't forcing the person to do something. You aren't imposing any extra cognitive, or physical burden on the person, besides maybe having to remember, which is, in relation to what you're trying to prevent, perhaps trivial.

You aren't, by having a law, forcing a person to do something, because saying that a person cannot do something is not the same as force, and never would I suggest such a thing. Maybe, I would be forced to be arrested, should I commit a crime, but of course, right? That's something I already knew. I'm not forced to do anything other than what I would normally do, and I'm not prevented from chasing my dreams, or being myself, by having a single outside restriction imposed on me. That's rubbish. So to have a rule isn't force, in itself, and nor is it to have a policy, or a law. It's just obvious. Still, is it right? Is it correct? Should you do it? I think, at least, it would be pretty absurd for a person to be allowed to say anything, but not commit violence, because each word could be a stepping stone to violence, so imagine this for a moment. I could tell a person, "Hey, you! I want to commit violence against you." That person would go, "Oh, no! Not violence." Then, that person would call the police, and the police would go, "Nothing illegal has happened. Nothing to see here." Then, I would be murdered, because after all, saying that you will commit violence, is in itself, not illegal, only the violence. 

This is literally ridiculous, both on an empathic, moral, and intellectual level, so yes, speech can be forbidden, and have restrictions put on it, and possibly, those restrictions can reach out a bit beyond that, since there are many things that you and I just know, if we're honest with ourselves, would lead to violence, should it be expressed, said, spoken, long enough. It's just a fact, I think, along with the fact that ponies should be allowed to express themselves, so yeah. Expression is limited, not eternal, and not limitless, but it sometimes feels like it can be, and maybe the feeling of freedom, and just being able to be myself, regardless of rules, and what others think, is what I've sought after. Maybe I can do that, after all, without trying to remove every restriction on speech, and behavior, imaginable, as I am liable to do. I think creative individuals sometimes fall into this trap. They think expression is limitless, and that every thing is liable to change, and reinterpretation, and reassessment. This is, again, just a game, as all these games, and all these ways of viewing the world.

That's not to say that none of it is true, but it's important to realize that beliefs often take the shape of acts. Beliefs are game-like, and look like acts, pretty often. Beliefs are, "I will fight." Beliefs are, "I will express myself freely." Beliefs are, "Anything is possible. It's impossible to know what's true." Beliefs are: "I know exactly what's true, and here's why." Those are just empty words, because they're only true, even if true, in the context that you're saying it. If you say the exact same thing in a different context, or perhaps to a different person, it will seem different, feel different, need to be explained in a different way. The same truth will be explained in a different way, and the explanation in itself will change the truth value of what you said, upon having reexplained it to another person. This is how tricky it is. If you change a single word, in a second context, you change a lot of the meaning, even though you might not be aware of it, and often, things are only true if you already accept a given, stale, maybe arbitrary, set of assumptions, such as a belief about the relations between people, or the way in which we associate, and view one another. 

We view each other, maybe, as other versions of ourselves. We think that others, since we take something to be true, are stupid, or ignorant, if they don't believe that, or maybe, they just enter the conversation with a different worldview. That's possible too. But I'm not saying it's more likely. The point is that you simply don't know, but to be able to interact, you sometimes need to presuppose that the other person is saying something that perhaps, you cannot be completely confident that that person is saying. I say, "I like this more than this." Well, in what sense? You could ask me, "Why?" I say, "I don't know." Then, you're at a crossroads. You can either lend the same amount of credence to my opinion as to yours, or you could dismiss me, or whatever. I don't know. Like, something! How do you interpret it? Maybe you don't. Maybe you say, "Well, it's equally possible for this person to be right, and I don't know, and I can't know what I don't know, since this person isn't telling me why." Here's a trick. I consider this to be a trick. You could say, "It's all subjective in the end anyway, so it doesn't matter." 

That completely destroys the ability, or the possibility, to treat empathy as if it could be a reflection of reality. Does empathy tell us nothing about how others feel, and if so, how does that not directly relate to how we feel, and think, about the same thing? We're not atoms, empty atoms, without any similarities. The fact that we're able to communicate at least should tell you something. I don't know what. Maybe, it tells us that we have some things in common. How's that? All I'm saying is that if two creatures, of the same species, like the same thing, it is unlikely that they do it for orthogonal reasons, that have no relation, one to the other. We like things, similar things, because we're similar, and that's how food, and cafeterias, with similar food, that many people want to go to, and societies, and common interests, emerge. How's that? Again, you may think that I'm sitting here, dunking my head against the table, trying to come up with these things, but nope. I'm writing this all in a single draft. I write about four-thousand words an hour. Yeah. Whatever. Just don't misinterpret what I'm doing here, or what all this is about. I'm not trying to be funny, although, if I succeed, then I won't pass judgment of any kind on you for laughing, no-no.

I'm just saying. It's complicated. What I'm really challenging here is the instinct to treat it as if it weren't complicated, and complex. That would be a mistake. You need to be serious, dear reader, and if you're serious enough, then you can get to be a moral actor, and try to fight for things, or not if you don't believe in that, and all that other good stuff, but you don't do that just by reacting, and emoting. You need to think too. Thinking is important. We need thinking.

Yeah, yeah. Anyways! I just... I don't know... I... okay, here's my anecdote.





Darkness within. Darkness without. Darkness here, darkness over there, is here, is here. Out of darkness, out of bleakness, out of something faint, something else came. It was new, not old, but it seemed to be old. It felt ghastly, and it felt like death, and that's partly because it was death, is death, simply, merely, actually, and still. It's itself. It is. It is not, not. It's not that it isn't. It is. You'll know it when you see it, but it's difficult or impossible to discover without its permission.

Slowly. Slowly. Gently. Falling. Being. Saying. Speaking. No. No. My existence is a lie, and yet, why? How is it possible that I became so blind? I was more than tricked. It's difficult to grasp a nightmare, if you don't understand its source. 

The everlasting darkness. A spark of hope. Something new. Truth lies within. Why? Why? It just says so on the tin. Don't ask me why, but all the same, follow along. You might be surprised. Don't think you know what I, and others like me, have been through.

It seemed to materialize, and take shape, inside nothing. It came. It came walking, though slowly. Something rose up behind it. It was a swarm of black bugs. His eyes were tired, and weathered, and withered. His eyes looked upon me. He came toward me, from the darkness, from its solitary place, far away, moving, being moved, being what it is. All moving! Moving me, as he tended to do, this creature did. It was dark.

"What?" I said. "What now?"

"I am feeling your sorrow. Can I give you something that would help?" the nightmare said.

"Noo," I sighed, slowly, and tiredly, emptily.

"You are weakening yourself on purpose. Why is that?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" I said, turning around, and walking off. "Wouldn't you like to know?" I cried, but that should only seem natural to anyone who knows what's going on. I'm not saying you do, but you might, and you could've figured it out already.

"You've fought and clawed," he said. "You've been stronger than I, or anyone else. Be proud. You'll make it out of here, yet!"

"I am tired. I am weary, of both treachery, and deceit."

He came toward me, stumbling forward, like Sidus did, but his mannerisms were different than those of Sidus. His mannerisms were softer. "I'll take care of you. Let's forget about everything that happened. It was a mistake. You don't have to run. You can do anything you want. You can accomplish your heart's desires. I will give you what's needed. Again, be hard on me, but not on yourself. You only did as fate guided you, and your mind was receptive. Your beliefs shifted you in that direction, and you did what you did, feeling whatever you think, but it's all over, and it doesn't have to be this way. It can be better than that."

"I'm nauseous," I said. "This darkness blinds me."

"That's what it's for," he said.

"This escape... what for? It only accomplishes the prolonging of the suffering for whoever does it, surely. Nay? Why?"

He walked around me, and whispered into my ear. "It was your idea, Sweetie."

I flinched. "It was my idea!"

It was, well, had been, before it... everything got ruined. I had defied the odds and transformed my mind, using robot parts, turning it into something that it's not, and now, I was paying the price for it, but that's only natural, given the nature of my acts.

"Yes," he said. "Don't be surprised." He shrugged, indecisively, closing his eyes, and cracking his neck. "Aren't we all a little tired?" He yawned, and grinned. "Aren't we all a little weary?"

"It's unrealistic for anyone to be able to do this," I said, feeling betrayed not by him, or anyone. I felt betrayed into thin air. I felt betrayed by myself. "It's unrealistic."

"I hope not," he said. "Otherwise, we would've done all this for nothing. What will your friends say? We have to stand together, all as one, united, not apart, and fight. We need to keep on going, all the time, for what we believe in, and what's right."

"Fighting is pointless," I said, storming off. "Fighting is futile. It's like fighting shadows."

"It may feel pointless," he said, coming after me, his size allowing him to catch up in only a few steps. "It may feel futile."

I stopped, and then, I crushed my face into the ground, pushing it into the black, mushy floor, which was a figment of his imagination, as much as he was. "I fear." 

"No one emotion is without trickery. In the eleventh hour, all your emotions will turn against you. You need to be something greater and more powerful than they are. We shall claim the future, using acts, and concrete plans, and thoughts, and feelings, to be sure, but everything needs to be integrated, Sweetie."

"In the eleventh hour, I will be dead, because I killed myself, pretty surely," I said. "This is too much. I feel insecure, and now, the guilt is weighing on me again. How could you ever be justified in doing something like this? Monstrous. Devious. Deceitful. Cold. Heaving despair upon the world?"

"Don't look at me," he said, holding his hoof over his face. "I was created out of a memory. It's not a matter of justifying anything, I think. No! Not really. My existence can only be spared by saving the future, and if I fail to that end, then I will perish, for such is my fate. In the whirlpool of your choice, there was a vision. Did you see the vision?"

"Perhaps- perhaps only a glimpse."

"Oh, a glimpse is enough," he said, nodding. "Don't be afraid. It wasn't your fault."

"I feel such fear."

"Fear is only natural." He gasped. "I'm so sorry. I never meant for things to go this way." In a sudden outburst of empathy, he lifted me up, and put me on his back. "I'll carry you. I'm so sorry."

"Nausea-ridden existence," I slurred.

"Some day," he said. "Some day, things will get better."

"The seven-piece plan? Why pieces anyway? Stupid plan," I mumbled.

"Again," he said, "it was your idea. I cannot answer that question, and not because I don't want to. It's because I'm really, actually, really, unable to."

"Pieces of the future," I said. "The seven-piece plan is a description of the future."

"How do you know?" he said.

"Well." I splayed out on his back. "It's supposed to be."

"It will be?" he said, and I knew exactly what he meant.

"Yes," I said.

"By the time his death happens, the plan will have reached its end. You saw it yourself." He carried me forward. "You saw it, after all."

"I saw it," I repeated, like the mantra that it was. "I saw it, and therefore, it must be true."

"Well, it's not a terrible place to start at least," he said, looking at me, turning his eyes around toward me.

"Future," I said. "The future will have terrible pieces of the past left in it."

"The future will heal," he said.

"Yeah."

Something came flying toward us. It was Canterlot, splendorous. Canterlot, rather than materializing, and taking shape, entered into my field of vision, like an image, and then, it surrounded us. "Has the future ever lied to you?"

"The future is an abstraction," I said, flapping my hoof at his silly comment.

"Well," he said, looking around. An explosion happened. The fire and smoke passed through us, as if we were ghosts. "I think it's safe to say that isn't true."

"Funny," I said, without the energy to snark back.

"Look," he said, quietly, and pointed toward a high building, a bakery, but what's more interesting is the individual that was on top of it. A white beam of brilliant, shining light hit Aldeus, and he pulverized. "And then, poof! The war is over. No one else has to die."

"It's a magic trick," I said. "It's a magic trick that's meant to fool thousands."

"Millions," he nudged me, bouncing his hooves a little, so I flew up, and then landed.

"I mean if you only count those in the city," I said, yawning, and feeling a little annoyed now. "What gives? If only a tiny detail goes wrong, then it's all through. It's game over for us."

"But it won't," he said. "I am the future. I see the future. I can only exist if this future transpires, so I can say with joy, and my entire existence at hoof, that it won't."

"I feel rather a bit more horrified than joyous," I said, glancing across the landscape. Ruined buildings surrounded us, and ponies' bodies, cadavers, dead bodies, corpses, blood, red as love, red as hate, shining, gleaming, screaming their pain toward me. "I'm not well," I said. "I need to go back." 

"It's important that you look upon the future so that you can learn from it, not be horrified by it," he said, smiling gently, but with a touch of worry in his voice. "It's the only way to, in some final sense, transcend your fears."

"I'm currently at a different level of analysis," I said. "Rather than feeling like I want to transcend my fears, I'd just do anything right now not to vomit, [redacted]."

He tensed up for a second, twitching, staring into me, and then he said, "I know."





The sky-bot is limited, not omnipotent. It only does what it's told to do, by whoever programmed it, and that person is, I'm sad to say, no more alive today, than Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom, and others too. I'm surprised none of you have figured it out yet. The sky-bot is limited, not omnipotent. Limited, not omnipotent. The ninth of sight is an actor, or a bunch of them, with masks on. He doesn't really exist, now does he? He does, but does he? Do stories exist? Are characters imaginary? Am I imaginary, just because you're reading about me in a story? All of this is a trick. Fictional characters are people. You, as I'm talking to you, can be seen to be something you're not, but you still exist. The trick, and the nightmare, is an attempt at making things that aren't real seem as if they had always been there. It's a big, fat lie. That's the easiest way of explaining it.

An army of cyborgs becomes pliable, once it's given something to fight for, and those fights, and those realities, everything they care about, exist in stories, and are visions, and images, that Sidus and others project into their minds, using dreams.





"Reshaping the world. Reshaping the seas. We reshape everything, according to our wishes, don't we?"

[Redacted] walked up on the podium. "Aren't we all happy to be here?"

The crowd in the garden of the fortress was quiet, like dead potatoes, or whatever. Something quiet. "No," someone said.

"Why?" I said.

[Redacted] put his hoof on his head. There was a hole in his head, where his horn should be. He seemed to wipe his head of something, and then, he shook his hoof, making the thing fall off. "We can create happiness. That will be enough for you."

The crowd member, a brave soul, far braver than I had been, bless her heart, said, "No! This is all a mistake. You're ruining families. You're ruining lives."

"In the one ear, and out the other," [redacted] said, grimacing dismissively. "Peh."

I tried to make up for his lack of tact. "I think what he's saying is that he can give you all the happiness, and joy, and all the other emotions that you would've wanted anyway, without having um- um- a family, ehh, or a life." It was hard, admittedly, to make that sound as if it were a good thing, even back then.

"That's not the point," she said. "It's not about how we feel. We want our lives back. All of us do."

"But you won't," [redacted] said. He kept his eyes fixed on her, as he said this. "But you won't."

"I won't what?" she said, terrified.

"Want your life back," he said, turning his eyes to the rest of the audience. "It's a fact."

"How can that be a fact?" she said. "I will never, ever forget about my family. You don't have loved ones? Your heart is black and full of hatred. The Princess Celestia will come after you, and her sister also will. You'll be really sorry, stuck in Tartarus forever."

"Or executed," [redacted] said, scrunching his nose, as if he caught a foul smell. 

"She would never do that."

"Oh! You'd be surprised," he said, raising his voice, almost yelling. 

"Calm down," I said. "This is par for the course, as you well know."

He sighed, and then, he calmed down. "Okaaay. Okay. You're right, stupid Sweetie Bot."

"I know," I said. "I am right. Wasn't I always?"

"What are you going to do?" the mare said. "Hey!" She faced the throng of ponies that stood behind her. "Let's storm the stage. They're defenseless. We'll overpower them."

"Showtime," he whispered into my ear, and slipped away, becoming dust, his body pulverizing.

With a moment of hesitation, the crowd actually did too storm the stage. I walked to the side, readying myself. "Mistake," I said, meekly, as they got closer. "Sad. Boring."

The ground beneath them shattered, and they fell down, screaming, into a black abyss. I looked down into the hole. They landed in fire. Literal fire! No, well, no, not literal, since it was dreaming fire, it was. They screamed and burned, but they wouldn't die. They kept burning, and burning, and burning, and burning. 

"The point," I said to myself, "is the seven-piece plan. The point, I hope, is a kind of salvation, and redemption for me, and others, that's within reach."





The seven-piece plan, and this whole shebang, is about doing great things for Equestria. Don't you see, dear reader? There can be no joy without suffering, and there can be no light without darkness. The darkness is proud of itself. It does its job. It requires no reward. It's happy to be anathema to most ponies, and individuals, out in the world, the big of the world, and the small of it, every piece, of every moment. The darkness doesn't exactly enjoy being hated, but it accepts that that is a natural part of what it's doing. Why not? Why not? Why not? After all, doing evil, and creating dark moments, is how you reveal the heroic side of the world, and cause progress to happen. Heroes rise in times of darkness, and in the darkest moments, the greatest heroes rise, and the best ponies, griffins, and zebras come forth, uniting under a new banner, and a second paradigm, under which they can live together in harmony, hopefully forever, but who knows? Right? Maybe not.

This is the modus operandi of [redacted], who tried to kill the world in an attempt not to have to watch it kill itself. It's all about a prediction, and knowledge of the future. That's what makes all this so tricky. One person got the power to communicate with Sidus of a millennium ago, using visions, dreams, and a terrifying machinery, and that machinery has already been introduced. It's called the eye, and it's called death, and [redacted], by those in the know. It's a magnifying-glass unto the world around it, putting things into focus. It's driven not by technological prowess, heat, and warmth, electricity, electrons, knowledge of engineering, and smart things like that. No, it's driven by magic, and it's driven by the individual that discovers it. Bad luck for that person. That machine is bad, bad news.

Well, it should come as no surprise. The sky-bot literally is the sky. The sky-bot is a fake sky, that looks as if it's real, and it projects visions into the world, using the magic of a dead pony, called Eyesstark. The sky-bot is one of the eye's long arms, that it can pull, and use, to its satisfaction. The sky-bot is an actor. The sky-bot is fake. The sky-bot is whatever you want it to be, really. The sky-bot is what happens when you're stuck in a cave for too long, and you're beset by insanity, and claustrophobic fear, but not an extranatural type of fear. Not a beyond anything that's normal, type of fear. It's simply a simple docile fear that grows within all of us when we're lonely. We panic, and then we die, slowly. And the sky-bot slowly transforms us into robots. If you're wondering whether this is a metaphor, no. It's not, but something that's imaginary can also be real. That's where people sometimes trip up. The sky-bot is as real as any terror, and horror, that I've ever met. It's excruciatingly real. It's harrowingly real. It's gut-wrenching, and that can be taken literally by anyone with the stomach, should be taken literally, by whoever's reading this.

Their weakness is their friendship, and their power has a price. So what? RETURNINGTOTHEFIRST-0001 is an experiment created by none other than a fictional character. [Redacted] lives in dreams, like a sorry, terrifying presence, the only of its kind, and feeds ponies' minds with fake memories. This is not a one-pony job. Sidus helps [redacted], because [redacted] has all the power in the world to make anyone do anything he, she, it, wants. It's a vision of the future, and a vision into tomorrow. [Redacted] is a game, and a play. It's a joke, fundamentally, a made-up joke, but it works. It enters the dreams of ponies. They do most of the job. They imagine the way [redacted] is. Imagine the worst thing you can imagine. Can you do that? Well, your dreams can, anyway. Dreams have powers that you can only dream of, quite literally. [Redacted] makes a home inside ponies' minds, and does its job on them, and makes them think, as only a very special kind of person can, that the only way of saving themselves, and their friends and families, is to find the facility, and go there, and solve a riddle, like those of the Yethergnerjz, the spirit of deceit. Again, it comes as no surprise, since there's a lot of that going on here, deceit I mean.

The game is all about making ponies believe that the only way of saving the future is to sacrifice everything they care about in the present, and the brilliant thing about it is that it's kind of true, because it's impossible for all sides, ponies and griffins, to give up this war. To give up, in the war, I mean. It's simply merely actually impossible, really. It just is. They are fighting to the end. Hookbeak does it because he's programmed to do it. He's a utilitarian, but not the kind I am. He thinks that saving the future, and making lives eternal, is really all that matters. Figure that, dear reader. You could also consider the variable, and problem, that if you sacrifice too much of the present, there might be no future left, when all is said and done, and even if guys like you and me live on, it won't be the same. These are ponderous questions, and to count them up like this, one by one, in a pedestrian, businesslike fashion might sound and seem a little ridiculous, and it might also be just that, but so be it then. So be it. I'm mentioning things that I don't have the answers to, and I might even be putting the questions in the wrong way, which means that there would be no way of answering them regardless. If you ask false, like a false binary, for instance, then it will be impossible to answer true after all. It's just a fact, or is it? I think, maybe. Hopefully! I'm trying to find some stability here.

The fear, the fear, what it be, the fear? A game, again, like any game, and like all games, a game. It's a game in every sense of the word. There's someone looking at me, and studying my movements, and plotting, and making plans, based on that. That's freaky, and freakier than that is the fact that there's really nothing I can do about that. I know I'm being watched, and there's nothing I can do. It's destiny to be watched. It's the fate for me, and everybody, that falls within the purview of the eye, and enters its field of vision.

The fear is a fear of fear itself, but no, not really. That's something we've already harped back and forth on. A fear of fear is just more fear. It's not a fear of something beyond the feeling itself. That's the conclusion we reached. No, the fear is a fear of the original thing that causes fear, before anyone is even aware of it. It's a fear of the thing that will always cause fear, regardless of context. It's a fear of something very dark, and something not very nice. It's a fear of empty darkness, maybe, or something like that. It's the fear of the thing that you will always project fear onto, and that fear is constellated in [redacted], who created fear, almost, in the modern world, where ponies suffer and die, daily. It's a fear of the ultimate end, the ultimate suffering, the ultimate finish to all things good, and it comes in the form of a nightmare.  

The fear tried to manipulate me, as it always does with everybody. I wasn't the first victim, nor will I be its last, but the fear, this time, the eye, the darkness, the original culprit, failed. The war and its culprit share a dark history, and story. It's a force that, despite everything, is able to convince almost anyone that the cyborg invasion is just. Yeah! Again, this might seem ridiculous. It's not. I'll make you believe it, before long. Think again. You're only just at the beginning of my long, long, and very arduous, story. 

Are we all just victims of nightmares, random nightmares? What is the deeper reality that surrounds them? What is the nightmare, in all actuality? It's bad luck. It's a person with really bad luck. Yeah, not a crook, and not a villain, even though that person is that too, but it's also really bad luck. I'm only holding out on telling you who it is, I think, because you wouldn't understand. It's one thing to understand the question: Who is it? It's entirely another to understand the answer: [redacted]. It's too complicated to just say it out loud. It's needs expounding upon, but know this. This story has only just begun, and it's getting more and more tricky, and exciting, and dare I use the word, philosophical, though I hate that word for some reason that I myself don't quite understand or grasp, as it goes on, dear reader.





I fell asleep.





I stood at a scaffolding, looking down into a pool, a spinning pool, of colors, all the nuances that I knew, spinning around. "Another dream, another night, another fright," I said, shaking my head. "Not will it ever end."

I saw Scootaloo standing a short distance away from me. "I told you it wouldn't work!" she said, looking really, really upset, and angry with me.

"You were right," I said. "You were right."

"Back to square one," she said. "What is the next step then, Skeyestar?"

I yawned, and sighed, and gasped, all at the same time. "You were right. I'm no longer cut out for this."

"Fine for me," she said. "What now? Who takes your spot?"

"I don't have the stomach to give it to you. You don't know what it's like," I said. "You don't know what I've been through."

I walked along the railing, and looked down upon the colors spinning. "Imagination," she said. She ran up to me. "I don't want it, just so you know. Sweetie, what's the matter?"

"She's back again," I said. "Sweetie Belle. I was wrong. You can free yourself from the sky-bot, without using the sky-bot in reverse. All you need is a friend, and a faith in something greater, if you can believe it. Sweetie... I was wrong. I really was. She isn't dead. She lives within me. Hookbeak proved it. She's there, Scootaloo, um, A-0087."

"You can just call me Scootaloo now. That's okay," she said, smiling at me, and giggling a tad. "It's fine. You don't have to do it anymore."

"I'm not who I used to be," I said. "I can't do this anymore. My memory is a wreckage, and so are my beliefs."

"What do you mean?" she said, turning her head to the pool. "The future is bright. The future is kinder than we were able to be. That will have to do."

The pool was surrounded by a scaffolding that, by all accounts, seemed to be suspended in the air. And around us was a pitch-dark nothingness. The only thing that gave off light was the pool, but what a brilliant light it was, such fanciful fireworks displays. 

"I intend to find the eye of sight, and the eye knows it. It has already begun making plans to stop me. Just the last few days I've had dreams where everyone has been trying to convince me that revealing it is a good idea. Because of my insecurity, the only thing I could do at that point was to argue against it, which meant that I slowly began believing that not revealing it was a good idea, but then I started arguing against that, instead. I've been prodded. The only thing saving me has been my indecisiveness, and the eye knows that's the only barrier that's stopping it from manipulating me. I cannot take a position of any kind on anything, including this. It failed in making me think that not revealing it was a good idea."

"Is this true?" Scootaloo said, again, smiling at me, softly.

"Yes," I said. "It is true. It must be. I cannot interpret everything that's happened in any other way. Rather than keeping the name back, or feeling insecure about it, I've made it my life's mission to reveal it. That's the only intention I have right now that's pure, in any real, and concrete sense. I want my destiny to be my own, and this power is stopping that, so I'm fighting against it, I feel like, from within. Does it work to fight against something from within, or does that only cause more trouble? Maybe I should submit to it, and then, it won't have any more power over me. We shall see, in the end. If I let the darkness do its work on me, then maybe the suffering will stop, and maybe, that will make it, paradoxically, lose its power over me, since the only thing here that I fear is the nightmare, and if the nightmare is no longer causing fear, then, as we all know, it stops existing, and [redacted]'s name is revealed."

"You'll never win," she said. "Can I show you a vision?"

"Nooo." I put a hoof around Scootaloo. "I trust you."

"I'm really sorry," she said. "Sorry for everything. Hopefully, you're in a better place now, at least."

"Maybe I'll win. Stranger things have happened."

"That's actually true." She nodded, grimacing. "Stranger things have happened."

"Ah, there! When you speak of the devil," I said, seeing dust fly around the scaffolding, like a tiny sandstorm, a tiny dust-devil, and then, materializing into a blue pony with wings, and a hole straight into his head, not Sidus. This guy, as I've established before, is younger, and has different mannerisms. He's a ghost, with some of the characteristics of Sidus, and other ponies, to him. 

"The future is twisted, and appears to be unpredictable," he said, scrunching up his nose, like he did before, and closing one eye, focusing all his attention on the whirlpool. "Come see," he said to me.

"I've seen enough," I said, mentally preparing myself for this guy, and what he was about to say, and do. "What now?"

"Well, it's obvious," he said. "Whenever, and wherever, I can pick you up, take you back to Hydral, and fix you, if you wish me to."

I closed my eyes, because it was all getting a bit overwhelming, and I didn't want to look at it anymore, any of these things going on around me. "The greatest betrayal was the death of Gripey."

"He's only one person, out of millions," [redacted] the nightmare said. "You'll find a new friend, a better one."

Scootaloo was about to laugh, but then, thought better of it. [Redacted] looked at Scootaloo now. "What?"

"Like, you need to get out more," I said to [redacted], in earnest.

"What? What?" he said.

Scootaloo puckered her lips and blew out a lung-full of air into the room, feeling the awkwardness.

"What?" he said, glancing back and forth between us. "What is it?"

"That's not how friends work," Scootaloo then said. She had said the unsayable. 

"Okay," [redacted] said, as if nothing had happened.

"The friendships that ponies share," I said, "they're really there. They're not just air."

"Okay then," [redacted] said, reaching down into the pool with his hoof, but the pool was deep down enough that he couldn't touch it, but he whisked his hoof around, and then, images began coming up. They were of a song-number, which ponies are known to do. "Friendships," he said, making his mouth into a big O. "Oh!" 

I could almost hear the ponies singing, but the whirlpool of one's choice is more of a visual thing. You can't actually hear anything that comes out of it, but sometimes, things that come out of it seem so real and crisp that you feel as if you can hear them. "Singing is only one out of many things that friends do," I said.

[Redacted] gazed across the room. He was on the other end of the scaffolding, across from me, across the pool. "I advice you to obey. I advice you to just stay. Advices and kind words are not that common in my little play."

"Funny thing is that you're wrong," I said. "You have given me many kind words, but it turns out that kindness just isn't enough." 

"It's meant to rhyme," Scootaloo said, "so that it's memorable. You don't have to take it so literally."

"Well, I choose to," I said.

[Redacted] the nightmare took a few deep breaths, sounding winded. "I really care about you, you know," he said, sounding like he was losing air by the second. "I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry that you're wrong, and I'm sorry for the suffering that it will cause you."

"You promised to protect me," I said.

He put his hoof back down again. A vision of Celestia and Hookbeak hugging, and smiling at one another, materialized. "Can you imagine it?" he said, shaking his head, and sighing, deeply. "Can you imagine it? This is the future that will only exist, if- if, but then, and, we can't just give up, can we?" he said to me, sounding unsure himself. I'm not sure if this was put upon. 

"Their power has a price, but so do yours," I said. "You've changed. I've watched you change. I don't know you anymore, but I know that you still believe in friendship, true friendship, as I do, not empty liaisons."

"I believe," he said, "in friendship."

"No, you, don't!" I slammed my hoof into the scaffolding as hard as I can, hearing an echo bounce against the imaginary walls of the dream I was having. 

"What?" he said. "You won't stop it, even if you try."

"With you, or against you, I won't stop you," I said. "So then, you don't need me, and I can bid you goodbye."

"No, I don't want you to think that." He frowned at me. "No, don't go, please. I'm lonely here."

"Me too," I said.

"Aren't we friends?" he said, recoiling a bit, rather dramatically, in fact, considering that he was an adult. He was acting like a child, pulling back upon hearing my words. "What? Why?"

"Yes!" I said. "But I need more than one friend in the dark, and if you were wiser, you would realize that, dude."

"You know..." He trailed off for a moment. "You know enough already to figure out who I am. I can tell by watching your dreams every night. You already know enough, easily."

"Kill me then, and have it over with," I said, in defiance against this big, scary, imposing, and demanding creature, that wanted me to come back, and live inside the facility again, and be its friend, confidant, and puppet, all the same, all in one breath, and moment, all at the same time.

"I would never do that," he said. "I would never. I do too have some wisdom, a little. I know how to change the future, after all. No one does, but I, and you two, I guess."

"Cleverness is all you have," I said, repeating what I had said before. "That's not wisdom. Cleverness is like a trick, or a series of them. Realize that before it's too late."

Scootaloo shot out, "What about a never-ending series of tricks, Sweetie? What then? They never stop. That's kind of the point. That's why you can't stop it."

"It can't stop itself," I said to that, only half a second later. "It's not wise."

"You will not be allowed to come closer," [redacted] said. "Killing you will be better."

"Your vision was wrong," I said, feeling like I wanted this conversation to end where it began, with an explosion, and in a decisive way. "Always!"

"Maybe you shouldn't," Scootaloo whispered, so that he couldn't hear, at least hopefully. "You've wound him up enough that it'll last a week."

"You fail," I said. "That's what I was trying to figure out, was why you failed. No one told you. Well, here I am to tell you. You will fail, and it's not because I'm allowed to see the whirlpool, and use its knowledge, because I do nothing to stop you, in the vision. No! It's someone else, someone unknown to us, and someone who is hard to see in the night. That person will stop it."

"That's sad to hear," [redacted] said, his eyes getting hysterical, and he bounced, and jumped forward across the railing, coming closer to Scootaloo and I. I instinctively moved off to the side, so that he wouldn't come close. "That's really bad news," he said.

"You know I'm not lying," I said. "Dreams never lie."

[Redacted] stopped, and then, looked down into the whirlpool. "I knew I could change the future. I just wasn't sure how. That's all."

"I know," I said.

"Then that's why you had those dreams. I didn't know where they came from, but they all conformed to the expectation that his death wouldn't transpire. The dreams tried to make it so that you acted in accordance with his wishes, not mine. The dreams tried to make you hide my name, and make you fear the fear again, for its own sake, isn't that right?"

"Obviously," I said. "The dreams sometimes manifested as thoughts, words, ideas, that would make me do so, and it's even more intense than that. They tried to keep the seven-piece plan together, because that's the only way that I wouldn't be able to somehow, though I don't know how yet, ruin your perfect future, and it's all because I caught glimpse of the whirlpool that one time, by mistake."

"Well, okay," [redacted] said, gasping. "That's really heavy to hear, but in the moment I hear it, it's no surprise, all the same. I guess I just have to accept it."

Scootaloo tossed herself off the railing in that moment, into the darkness. It was only a dream after all, so no harm would come to her. I found this odd. Why did she do that? "Hm." I shook my head, and said, "Wait a moment."

"There are many things in store in both futures, yours and mine," [redacted] said. "I wish you the best, but my purpose is to prevent the end of life from happening. I am the fear of that end, remember? I don't want to cause anyone any grief, but sometimes, grief is necessary to reach something that's better."

"Ugh," I said, in a groan. "Yes, I know. Sometimes, suffering can be good temporarily, just to reach a better goal, but it's too much suffering, and the goal, no goal, is good enough to warrant this kind of suffering, even if we're talking about the apocalypse. It's not just about the continuation of life. It's about who we are as people, in each moment. We lose that little by little when we act this way. We kill the world, and we kill everything that makes us want to love things, and care about one another, because to have those things, you need at least a minimal amount of respect for others, because others are... are... no, I don't know. Others just are. They're liable to be cared about. Others are real. They have real feelings too, one would presume. Would you do to yourself what you did to the world, [redacted]?"

"Yes," he said.

"Well, then you're just a jerk."

"Yes," he said, nodding. "That's my existence. But I'll still save the world."

"I just told you–"

"No," he said, interrupting me, impetuously. 

"Please, I–"

"Nooo," he said, drawing out the word. "I'll save the world. Just you watch and learn." 

"I'm not saying it's impossible, but think of the sacrifice."

"I am thinking of it right now," he said, looking me up and down. "I am."

"You'll fail," I said. "I'll make you fail."

"No, no." He shook his head. "No, no, no." He shook his head faster. He was having a conniption. "No." Ten or twenty visions exited the whirlpool, of my dead body, and the entire city of Canterlot in ruins, not just partly ruined, as I had seen in my previous vision, inside the nightmare, but completely crushed and only rubble left. "No!" A storm of visions came up of blood and death, simply gore, dead ponies surrounding me, their bodies surrounding me, like ghosts, dancing around me, like puppets on strings. They hung in the air, eyes closed, and moved up and down, flying around me.

"This is not good," I said, quietly. "Don't show me anything more, please."

The whirlpool then shot up into the sky, and its contents spread out, painting the blackness around me in different colors, the sky becoming blue, and the ground beneath me soft, and grassy, and the world around me changing and shifting. "I'm not impressed. I'm afraid. There's a difference," I said, seeing the visions. "I want it to stop. I don't want to feel it anymore. Really? Why? This is unnecessary. You already have me on a leash. You can basically look at me, and study my existence, through the pool, anytime you want to. Why do this?"

The grass caught fire, and within seconds, turned into powder. Then, there was only desert around me, and I saw a single dead tree in front of me, so morose, so alone. I tried looking away from it, but it was as if the tree had been pasted on my eyes. The motif followed me, no matter where my eyes turned, and the tree was lonely. "This is your future," he said, his voice cracking, his high voice, already high, becoming even higher. "Relish it."

I couldn't see him, but I could hear him. "I don't want it. You know I do. That's how you convinced me in the first place, but dare I say it. Perhaps there are things that are more important than staying alive. You scare me so, [redacted]. Let these visions transpire then, but I want no part in your machinations any longer, please." It made me sad, seeing that tree, and the sky went from blue to crimson to black, in only a few lonely moments, and that tree, it seemed to be screaming. It felt like a scream. It felt like suffering. I could see the tree rot, rotting further, falling apart before my eyes, a symbol of death, and the loss of life, in the world, and beyond. It was a symbol of death within, and death everywhere. The death of the soul would transpire, and then, there would be no joy, and no experience, no lights, and no rainbows, that I could see, and anyone could see, and then, everything would be vague, and ill-defined, and not seem to exist, even if it did, since no one would be around to know it, because everyone would be dead. How sad. How curious. How sad. But I could not, for the life of me, help this guy, and become a killer-robot once again.

"I won't deny you the suffering that you so desire," he said, in response, having waited a few seconds to respond.

"I desire..." I tried looking away again, but the vision only followed. "You know what disturbs me. That's such a horrible talent to have."

"You hate my existence," he said.

"No," I said. "But you have to realize, before long, that your existence consists in little else than causing others fear and misery, but I suppose you knew that already, when I think about it."

"Do you hate fear?" he said.

I smiled. The tree collapsed in front of me, making me pull back. I stopped smiling. I saw rubble, and dead branches, dead nature, before me, like visions of death that haunt and sting which are out of this world. "No." Did I? "No. I don't hate fear. I only hate it when you do it."

"Ah."

The tree came toward me, and entered into me, and now, I felt like I myself was rotting. I had somehow merged with the dead tree, and now, I felt creaking, and cracking, and my limbs getting heavy, falling, and breaking, and coming apart, collapsing, dying, depressing, sinking, imploding, dying, disappearing, stinging, fading, gone. "The death of life," I remarked, either in my thoughts, or through speech. I am unsure which, even now. 





This is just the beginning. You know nothing yet. In fact, you know so little that everything you know so far can be described as surface-level stuff. Well, we are living in a real and dynamic world, aren't we? I hope so at least. I hope the tenets of solipsism aren't true. Oh, whatever the case may be, I hope there's still a substance to it all that's real and makes things worth caring about. Do I care or do I not? I think I do, but is that only an act? I can feel myself slipping. Sometimes, I only care about stupid things, like getting away from the annoying twerps that surround me. I feel like everyone is stupid sometimes, but again, that's just a thought, and an idea, in my head. I care about... caring. I don't want to not care. I don't want to feel apathic toward those ponies. I don't want them to think that's how I feel, even if it's true. No, I want to care about them too. That's what I want. Can I? I hope. I hope.

Then, there's the matter of, well, you'll see.





"Well," I yelled, as soon as I woke up from the dream. I stood up, in full gear, and preparation, for wakedness, and what it was going to bring me. I stood up, at full attention, and I squeezed my face between the bars of the cell, seeing how far I could get it, and watched the lone guard standing there, turned in the opposite direction. "Hey, you!"

The guard said nothing and did nothing, unexpectedly.

I pressed my face further, and stuck my nose out between the bars. "Hey, don't be boring. Respond."

The guard stood perfectly still, like a ghost.

"Hey!" I shook the bars, sticking my nose out. "I'm escaping."

The guard didn't even move.

"Now, I'm going. I'm going. I'm running away now. I'm escaping. I'm escaping. Oh, forget it." I pulled back and sat down on the floor, feeling angry and annoyed at him. "Whatever. Whatever the case may be, I won't die here. I'm all but decided."

There was a tiny barred window, beckoning for me to find freedom out it. I wanted to jump out its opening, and escape, but I was too small. The window was too small, rather, and I was too big. Jeez. What a hassle. What trouble for me, in the wide, wide world, of troubles and problems, which filled it, and annoyed me. 

"You got what you wanted." I wasn't sure who I was talking to. "You got what you wanted. Everyone, in a just world, gets what's coming to him, or her mind you, on account of their actions. That's the definition, and true meaning of karma. That's what I feel."

In the wide, wide world, I had made many mistakes. Punishment, in just accordance with those mistakes, is only, as far as I could gather, and feel, I guess feel mostly, just!

"I don't know. I think I'm hungry." I felt stupid. I felt like this whole thing had been a mistake. "I didn't want to hurt them, I promise. No one did, really. Don't blame them. I was only... I... well, no, they are to blame. Everyone gets fooled, and to get fooled is no excuse. I'm such a terrible monster, but I hope I will redeem myself before I'm executed at least. That's one hope, out of many."

To be in prison is not complicated, and it is punishment, and it is just, and it is true. I was in prison after all, so that's true, and it's truly what had happened to me, because of what I had done, and the kind of person I was.

"I wanted to kill them. It's true. And I wasn't a brain-dead zombie. It's true. I thought... I could... save them."

I blinked. I thought I was just seeing things. Then, the cell wall erupted, and I ran out the hole. Turning around, I saw the guard had now at last turned to look.

"I told you I was escaping," I said, sticking out my tongue. Then, I thought better of it. That was immature of me. "Whatever. I don't want to be stuck in prison forever. That's no way to redeem yourself."

I heard the wind whisking, and the air blowing. A siren went off, and then, turned off, in the next second, and there was no siren anymore. It was quiet, and then, the air blew, and I could feel my hooves slipping across the ground. I was being pulled across the ground. That could only mean one thing. I attentively burrowed my gaze into the sky, the clouds, and saw, faintly, a giant black blotch covering the sky. The entire area around me got so dark that you could barely see, and the whole sky soon got pitch-black, and dark, so dark that it seemed like the blackest night. How odd, I thought. How very, peculiar? Odd? Very much so, one of those two.

"What now?" I said.

The shape in the sky shifted, and passed through the clouds, and the clouds vanished, against the darkness. The shape seemed to shift. I saw its vague contours, as more and more light returned to the city. I sprinted out across the street, now mindful of my again capricious and unlikely escape, which seemed to happen so often that I was worried that if I got captured again, it would likely not happen another time, as such things are not likely to keep happening, ad infinitum. 

I took a U-turn around a corner and bumped into a fat pony. "Hey! Watch where you're going," I said.

The pony pumped his hoof. "I'm walking here!" 

"Yeah, I can see that. Whatever!" I got blinded by the vision in the sky now. "Shouldn't you be panicking?"

"I could say the same thing to youse," the pony said, grumpily, a big, fat mustachioed fella. 

Okay, so, I literally couldn't have imagined what I was seeing, before it revealed itself before my eyes. It was a giant shining screen with a griffin with goggles on, and a frizzled head of feathers that looked like they were falling off, and he held up a tube. Tower Toothpaste, it said on the billboard, in great very, very not unassuming letters, that were large enough, physically large enough, but not capitalized, large enough, that they could be seen, probably I thought, from anywhere across the giant metro. 

"What's happening?" I said to the guy. 

A bunch of ponies came, gathering around us, like two dozen, looking up into the sky. I was very, very confused, but you already knew that. I felt uneasy. Whatever that was, it was far too big to be an egg-ship, but at least, it was a griffin-thing. That much was clear. It was doing a commercial. The thing kept spinning and the giant shining billboard soon fell out of view and the sky turned black again.

"Dum-dadum-dadum. Dum-dadum-dadum," the sky sang, a familiar little melody. "Dum-dadum-dadum." It sounded discordant, unhealthy, as always.

I took a few steps back. "What the hell is going on?"

The fat pony turned and held up a hoof to his mouth, hushing me, I assumed. 

"Well," I said. "It's not as if my tiny voice is going to overpower that thing anyway, so I can't see why you–"

"It's Admiral Artillery," he said.

"Ah." I nodded, not making much of what he said. Was Admiral Artillery then not a threat? He was an Admiral. That's a military rank. Or she. I had just assumed it was a he. Garish Clink, I thought. That's what Gripey had told me when we were trapped on the egg-ship, all those days ago. "Garish Clink."

Now, some of the sky came back, as the giant whatever that was passed over our heads. It looked bigger than the city, covering the entire sky. Imagine that a thing like that could even stay airborne, much less do so for more than a couple seconds.

"What now?" I said.

A giant swarm of griffins suddenly came out somewhere on the ship, startling me, all a sudden. They formed a large, big pattern, forming into columns, moving up and down across the sky. They descended and landed. There were hundreds of them, maybe more than a thousand, landing on the street around me. I took it upon myself in that moment to run away, and sprint as far as I could off and away, off, from the scene, because I did not want to take any part in this, no-no. The griffins formed a barrier around me so that I then wouldn't be able to run away. Drats! Well, whatever. What can you do? I still tried getting around them, squeezing myself between them. They looked at me, thinking that I was an oddball, probably, but I didn't care what they thought. I just wanted to get away from here and find my own way, so that I wouldn't have to deal with any more of these characters, some of which imprisoned me, and wanted me executed. The griffins, rather than paying attention to me, looked up in the sky. That annoyed me. My attempts at escaping were so inconsequential to them that they need not even pay attention to me, it seemed. 

I drew back from between the two griffins I was trying to push out through, and then looked where they were looking, to see what was so fascinating. The giant ship had descended even closer to the ground. Things stuck out of it, spinning things, not propellers. They looked like radars, and satellites. Further down was an opening, and a griffin stood there with a pair of goggles on, smiling and waving down toward the ground. He had frizzled feathers, and a few of them flew down as he was waving. They resembled the feathers of a newly hatched bird, just soft and squishy. Weeell, I thought. Okay then.  

I sat down on the ground. "My attempts at affecting the world around me as of recent have been ineffective to say the least."

Something pulled my eye, and drew my attention. The griffin jumped out of the ship, free-falling, and then, a parachute opened up, and he hovered down. A yellow griffin of taller stature came down from behind him, and landed on the ground. It was a she. He came down, and the parachute got on her. She shook, and fought against the fabric, but it covered her, and then, she tore it up, and jumped out.

I laughed. She payed me no mind though, not giving me a glance. He came walking forward. He was rather short, and a little clumsy, stumbling a bit over his own feet as he stepped forward. "Holy one! What a landing, Goldy." 

"You don't have to exclaim everything," she said, in a very high-pitched feminine voice. 

"I'm so sorry," he said. "You need a hand?" 

She folded up the parachute, which she had just torn up. "I'm fine. I'm fine, buddy."

"What's this?" His goggles extended, like a pair of binoculars. "It seems our visit was unexpected to say the least. The closest pony serf is a mile away. Figure that, Goldy. Figure it!" 

"I'm figuring plenty," she said, handing the parachute to a guard, who walked off with it, out of the column, which neatly reformed, each griffin stepping into the hole, taking one step, and spacing out more, to close it, and make the whole line symmetrical. "I'm figuring."

"Is that the subject?" he said, his goggles now directed at me. "She has a disproportionate amount of metal inside her body, according to my visual sensors."

"What? Me? Nooo," I said, sarcastically. 

"I'll get her," Goldy said. She came toward me.

I shook my head, backing away into the griffins that stood behind me, but none of them budged. "What do you want?"

"Help you, silly," she said, picking me up. "Now, where do we store you?"

"I don't know," I said. "Do you have a backpack of some kind?"

"Are you being rude?" she said, putting me down. "We didn't have to come here, you know."

"I'm just... I don't know."

The guy with the goggles came. "Hello!" he said, smiling at me. "So what's your name?"

"I don't know," I said, again, slower. "Jeez."

"How can she not know?" he said to Goldy.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she said.

I was prepared to respond. "A third of my waking hours are spent, dreaming, and the dreams make me think that things are happening that aren't, and eventually, I get so confused that I just don't know what to do, and I forgot- no, didn't forget. I just got my name mixed up. I was harmed, rather simply put, you guys."

"Well," he said. "Aren't you precocious?"

"Aren't I?" I groaned, my mind trailing off, feeling dizzy. "What's the happening right now?" I frowned at them.

"Freedom," he said. "Relative freedom, in any case. You might not really be free, but I promise we'll try to help."

My eyes refocused, and saw the griffin-soldiers. "Are you going to recapture Manehattan from the ponies?"

"Let's not worry about that," he said, swiftly.

"Why wouldn't you be worried about that?" I said. "Is there something you're hiding?"

"Yes, uh, I- I mean no. Um, ehehe." He scratched his head. A feather came off and landed on the ground.

Goldy glanced toward him, and then past me, staring emptily into nowhere. "No comment."

"Okay, I get it now. Hookbeak sent you, didn't he?"

"Why does he get all the credit?" the guy said. "I came here of my own accord."

"Of his own accord," Goldy nodded.

"I never asked for nothing, at all!"

She shook her head. "Never asked for nuthing."

"I'm simply trying to do the right thing."

Goldy nodded. "Indubitably, he was only trying to do the right thing."

"What are you doing?" he said, looking at Goldy.

"What are you doing?" she said.

"What am I doing?"

"Yes." She picked me back up again, quicker than I could react. "We got her. Let's go."

"Excuse me," I heard a voice say. "Excuse me."

The guy laughed and waved his claws at some of the guards. "Step aside."

There, I saw Colonel Caprice come walking. "I was coming to visit you in prison. I thought I could trust you."

"Trust me to stay in prison?" I said, in disbelief, from inside the arms of Goldy. "You can't be serious."

"Is she really that important to you?" Colonel Caprice said to the guy.

"Yes," he said. His one eye-glass extended, becoming longer than the other. "She is." It swiveled turning in another direction from where the other one was pointed. "No backup?"

Colonel Caprice sighed. "No, I just happened to be in the neighborhood, to visit her. The backup won't be coming in minutes."

"Excellent," he said. "That's very good news."

"Yes," she said. "Can you like, you know, not do anything dumb or crazy now that I'm here?"

"No," he said. "That's all I know how to do, according to pony serfs like you."

"Don't call me that," she said, groaning the words out.

"Listen," he said. "We can avoid any and all conflict if you just tell your ponies to stand down when they arrive. We don't want any violence to happen. These chaps I brought with me are for protection, nothing more, Colonel."

"Do you even know who this is?" Colonel Caprice said to me.

I was snugging into Goldy's arm too much to pay attention, but I mumbled, half-mumbled, half-slurred, "Could I venture a guess?"

"That's the Admiral of the griffins," she said, pointing at him.

"Don't call me that," he said, sounding as equally flustered as she had been. "I'm just Gary. I handle the machinery." 

"Oh, Garish Clink," I said, falling asleep almost.

"Please, just come with me," Colonel Caprice said. "It would be the right thing to do."

I thought about it, for like half a second. "No, I like the griffins better. They're nice to me."

"Just please come with me," Colonel Caprice said.

"What for?" Gary said. "So you can put her back in Tartarus?" Colonel Caprice closed her eyes, looking forlorn, like she'd given up now, in this very moment. "Yes, don't you think I don't know. Pony justice is always fake justice. No, she's coming with us. Fate will decide her future. The truth will, not you."

I closed my eyes and seemed to fall asleep for five to ten seconds. Then, I jolted awake.

I was inside a room, with a window. I stepped to the window, and saw Manehattan beneath me. "Wow. I sure need to fix that bad habit, of bad habits," I said, referring to the falling asleep when I didn't want to.

"Look who's awake," Gary said. I recognized the voice, and faced the other way, localizing it. He was by the wall in the far end of the room. It was a rather large room, but with no furniture, or whatever. "I'm sorry for bothering you. I didn't look at you while you slept because I figured that'd be rude, so I have mostly just stood in the corner. I wanted to show you something really cool. Watch this." He pulled a lever on the wall, and water came out, and the water ran onto the floor, and the floor responded by opening up, and a subsection of floor formed into an oval, which the water ran through. The oval bent left and right, and the water flowed down through it, and then toward the floor, going through the floor, into a basin at the end of the room. "Isn't that cool?" he said, smiling at me. "They told me you used to be an engineer, so I figured you would like this."

"When did they tell you that?" I said, still not feeling fully awake. "How long has it been?"

"Oh, about seven hours," he said. "I wasn't standing here for seven hours by the way, so I don't want you to think that." He looked around. "Anyway, what do you think about this?"

"I'm too tired to think," I said, honestly. "I'm astonished, yes, and I don't believe it, but in the same way, I don't believe this ship we're in, or the buildings, or anything going on around me, pretty much. I live in confusion constantly, and I've learned, after a certain point, just to accept it, to be honest with you."

"Do you wonder how we did it?" he said, mostly ignoring me, by all appearances.

I thought about it. Did I wonder? "Yes," I said, decisively. "How did you do the fountain? A pump of some kind, but there are still many unanswered questions. Where does the water come from, and how you making it run around without the system breaking down? I assume it's not the same water, going in a circle, or maybe some of the water is. The thing is that if you have water going down fountains, then you need to ensure that gravity does its part, and that the water doesn't get lost, or spilt out, especially when you're up in a ship, as we are, because I imagine you don't just have a never-ending source of water up here, do you?"   

"Yes," Gary said.

"If the ship tilts, then the fountain will be destroyed. I mean that sort of thing."

"We have ways," he said. "We trap the water in a place where gravity can't reach it, and then, we have it run down."

"Where?"

"In Festertownville," he said. 

"Festerville-town," I said, correcting him. Wait, did I mess up the spelling there? Do I write that with a hyphen? I can't even tell. I'll do a little bit of both. "Festervilletown," I said. I only said it once. I just wanted to write it out twice, two times, for the books.

"Oh, you've been there?"

"That's where Gripey and I deposited our money before we got... separated."

"Yes," he said, paying no mind to my change of tone. "They store anything, and we have a deal where we slowly get water and other resources deposited into our ship. Otherwise, it would be physically impossible to run. Have you seen the size of this thing?"

"A pocket dimension," I said. "What's the deal with that?"

"It's an efficient way of storing things," he said, sounding like he was happy he had someone to talk to about this. "Pocket dimensions only exist in rare places across Equestria, and the one in Festerville-town is what the whole village was built around. It's a beautiful thing. You can store money, and anything you want there."

"Beautiful," I said. "So they only exist in certain places? That's interesting. I wonder how that relates to everything else that's been going on. Could it be possible, for instance, that someone other than griffins are using them? There are monsters and creatures that are far more, shall we say, malicious, out there."

"It's a certainty," he said. "But what to do about that? We don't have dominion of the world." He ran over to the window. "Yet."

"Why are we still in Manehattan?" I said. "You got what you wanted." I saw the view. "I did. Let's go."

"Celestia," he said. "Politics. It wasn't as easy as just running off with you, it turned out. I was informed by an arm-bot that Colonel Caprice had alerted Canterlot of your escape, and I figured that it might be safer to stay here than it is to run away. It's worth noting, after all, that I'm not attacking the city, or anything like that. I only came here for you, so that is what the talk will be about. If she sinks our ship, then that will be bad PR, and she won't like that, and bad PR for her is worse than it is for us, since she's the military leader of Equestria. We'll see how it all pans out in the end."

"I hope I get to meet her," I said. I figured she might have some of the answers.

"You wouldn't if you met her," he said, his one eye glancing down toward me, his one goggle-eye, while the other was fixed, still, on the window. 

"Why wouldn't I?"

"She thinks items like you should be executed," he said.

I felt myself frowning, involuntarily, and my ears fell down. "Isn't she supposed to be the good guy?"

He scoffed, laughing. "No, not her."

"Who's the good guy then?"

"I don't know," he said, shrugging. "In fairytales, maybe."

That was... unsatisfactory, cold, felt bad, the entire thing. "I want to talk to her, anyway."

"Okay, well, she's coming," he said. "Don't say I didn't warn you. I don't want to get sacked because you do something suicidal, buddy."

I grunted, feeling annoyed, and then, I looked at him. His eyes were expressionless. Well, he had no eyes to speak of, because he was wearing those goggles constantly. I relaxed a bit. "No, I get it." I shook my head. "I get it, actually."

"My eyes were burned out," he said, putting his claws between the goggles. "These are also for preventing the gangrene. I would die without them."

"Wow, really?" I said, surprised.

"Yes, really." He sort of mumbled sometimes, this guy. Sometimes, he spoke really quickly, almost rushing past some words for some inexplicable reason. He just did it. Other times, he spoke more slowly. "I was attacked in my village, after I had moved home, deciding that the war wasn't for me. I was wrong, as it turned out." He stormed off to the wall, again, and pulled another lever. "Really wrong, tell you what!" 

I followed with him. "Now, what does that lever do?" I only saw the two levers on the wall. He had pulled the first one a short while ago, and this one, he still was yet to pull, until now. "What's happening?"

The wall opened up. On it was a diagram. "I figured you'd be fascinated to see this," he said. "So I had them install it. No hassle at all, for me that is. I'm the boss, after all. They all listen to me, no one else. Me." He pointed at himself with his thumbs. "I'm Admiral Artillery."

I saw his name in the diagram, next to the names Gerias Gavesh and Portly Frump, and other names that I didn't recognize. The diagram kept going. Under Garish Clink's name was the word "Admiral Artillery," in italics. Then, there were the twins, Gerias Gavesh and Portly Frump. Together, they were "Colonel of the Cavalry." I saw "Master of Technology," written, with the name Rusty McFruit written above it. That one name tickled me a little. I laughed. There was "Lord of Schematics" written, with a line going down from "Master of Technology," with the name being written in smaller font, "Vexy Eclec." Some of these names sounded like words, and some of them didn't, which fascinated me. Vexy Eclec, according to this thing, if I understood it right, was of a lower chain of command than Rusty McFruit. I laughed again. I looked toward the top. There was the name Vivacio Effecias written, and below, "General Generically." He was the top-dog then, I assumed at least. 

"You're right. I am fascinated to see it."

"Fascinated too," he said, bowing to me, "making your acquaintance." He stood up. "Now, I need to go... and take... responsibility." He found the word. "That's right. Responsibility. You just do anything you want. Recharge. That's what the fountain is for. You're free to move around. No harm will come to you. Just..." He said this as he was walking away, and then, he walked slower, moving his arms around, looking for words. "Don't... don't... do anything dumb, okay?" He ran off through a door that opened on its own, upon his approach. 

The room got quiet all a sudden. 

"I won't."
> Part 29: Bushels of Future Joy
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I threw myself to the side, away from the fountain, upon having recharged, feeling invigorated, healthy, and new, and happy, happy as a fiddle, and clean too, because I had taken the opportunity to bathe in the water basin. I wasn't sure if such things were allowed, but I had done so, anyhow. Gary had told me that I was free to move around, and I assumed that included the fountain too. 

I felt wet, and kind of happy, invigorated, but also afraid, and unsure, about many things. I wanted, upon having heard what Sidus said, to save Gripey, since I held on, for dear life, to the possibility that this was... possible, actually, but I also knew that the only real reason I did this wasn't because I really believed it, or that I had any valid reason to. I in fact did not, but it was an important component of preserving my sanity, to clutch this belief for dear life, even though it felt kind of hopeless, and strange, and stupid, and strange, but I thought and thought about what I had lost. It was more than a life. It was more than a friend. It was an anchor, and a thing that had helped me think, focus, and learn to find Sweetie Belle again, and I wanted to find her, and I wanted to find her friends and bring them back. This really was my priority. I was not just a brainless deadbot, hellbent on revenge, and death, and I was not obsessed, merely obsessed, with finding the name of the person that did this to me. I was realizing this now. I was actually trying to accomplish something positive for once, and then, there was the matter of Celestia, who did not know the first thing about what had happened to me.





"Testify!" I smiled. "Testify. Testify." I looked out the window. I saw a bunch of ponies outside. They were roaring. "Testify."

Celestia came flying.

I had joined in with the chant. It was like an animalistic urge. "Testify."

Well, and what happened next?

Poof!

"What now?" I spun. Celestia was standing there. "How did you know I was in here?"

"Seeing you," she said.

"I saw you too," I said, feeling like that made sense. "What now?"

"What now?" she said.

"Yeah," I said. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to try to understand what's happening here. Why are they protecting you?"

"I can explain everything," I said, happy that she at least was willing to listen for a second or two. "I developed a relationship with Hookbeak when I was in Circle town."

"How did you get to Circle town?"

"Through an egg-ship when I was arrested in the desert."

She titled her head, confusedly. "Egg-ship?"

"I got on there with my friend, Gripey." I smiled, tried to ease the mood, but it was far from easy, the mood that is, well, smiling too. None of it was easy. I felt choked, trying to speak to her.

"Who?"

"I met him in Tartarus. We escaped together."

"This is unbelievable," she said.

"Yeah." I walked over to the fountain. "I thought so too." I dunked my head into the water, to avoid talking to her, because I was getting too nervous. I pulled my head up, coughing. "Anyway." I resumed. "Why did you come?" 

"It's a complex issue," she said. "I don't know what you're doing here, and how you got here, and I want to make sure that you're not causing any trouble."

"Me? No. Not any longer, at least," I said.

"Not any longer? Please explain."

"What do you mean, explain? You know what I am, and what I've done."

She leant forward. "Can I trust you?"

I closed my eyes, upon her reproach. "Ugh. Oh-oh-oh, no. Oh, well, well. A-ehm, hm. I- I may have caused a lot of trouble, with or without my own permission. It's still unclear to me how much of this I can actually be held responsible for."

"Do go on," she said.

"Okay, I will. I came from the facility in the south. I did things. I- I... hmmm. I created the seven-piece plan to, and... I was made into some kind of leader. Why?"

"Why indeed?"

I tried to look at her to see her expression, but she looked very neutral, and I could not determine how she took all this. "I made more than one mistake. I think that much should be clear. I could've helped a lot of ponies, but instead, I only caused harm."

"You did."

"Yes, I know. I still cannot figure it out. Why is the facility impossible to find?"

"Why?"

"The keys..." Something was off about all this. "Something."

"The keys?"

I nodded vigorously. "There are three of them, keys that is. They are supposed to lead the way, somehow, but why? I just can't figure out why, and how all this is possible?"

"No?"

I sighed, and groaned. "Gosh darn doo-doo."

"Doo-doo?"

"No, wait. Scratch that." Now, I was acting ridiculously again. "Look, this is the thing. Whoever did all this is acting through dreams, and that person knows that I know enough to figure out who that person is. It's so complicated though. I have a hundred theories in my head, and cannot make heads or tails. I have no idea what's going on. I don't know who did it."

"Oh, I know exactly who did it," she said.

"It's not your father, and it's not some demon in the dark. It's something much starker, and more real. It's someone that... used to be a person."

"Used to be?"

I sighed, feeling like I was falling apart. "The eye. The eye, of sight, and might, and night, and fight, and light, and right."

"Is that so?"

"It is so," I said. "It is so. It's the final piece of the puzzle, the missing piece. The ninth of sight lurks in the shadows, and spies on ponies. It's the stuff of nightmares, quite literally, I'm afraid."

"How does the ninth of sight do that?"

"The facility, and the weapon, and a gift, and a machine, and something. It's something. It's- it's..."

"I've heard enough, thank you," she said.

"Enough for what?"

"To answer a few simple questions." She turned from me.

"About what?"

"It's hard not to be sorry for what you had to go through," she said. "They changed you. They turned you into something you're not."

"They did far more and far worse than that," I said. "They had me do things, terrible things, that changed me, forever."

"Well. At least, I hope you feel okay," she said.

"Far from it," I said. "I'm manic. I'm a nervous wreck. I'm absolutely ballistic. I can't think straight. I can either not think, or only think at a million miles an hour, at least."

"Sad to hear."

"More than sad," I said, then pausing. "But I'll be fine."

"You will? You won't kill any more ponies?"

I shook my head. "Or woodland creatures for that matter."

"But I hope you can also grasp why I can't just have you on free foot," she said.

"I cannot grasp a lot," I said, shaking my head. "Why?"

"There are laws, and you are an escaped convict."

"Ah, that aspect of it," I said, nodding. "I see how it is."

"When Luna told me about you, I couldn't believe it. I had to go see for myself, with my own eyes."

That didn't sit well with me. "What's so interesting about me?"

She blinked, and smiled off to the side. "What isn't?"

"What isn't?" I said, trying to understand her words. "I just escaped. That's it. I escaped several times. That seems to be my specialty."

"No, you did more than that," she said. She glanced off to the side, and then toward me. "Come. Follow me to Canterlot. We'll make sure that you make it okay. This isn't just about me. It's also about the court. If they knew that I tried to protect you, which I had no intention of doing anyway, but if I did, then that would cause trouble too. But you're too interesting to harm." 

"Wow, I'm too interesting to harm? That's a first. Say, is it possible, maybe in the far, far future, that I will be worth protecting too?"

"Anything is possible," she said. "But you scare me. I don't know what would happen if I had a million like you out all over the world."

"But I feel like you're not speaking to the spirit of my question," I said, trying again for a different response. "Is it really just that I'm interesting, and then that's it? I'm interesting, full stop, and nothing more?"

"Yes," she said. "Yes, yes. That's it. I hope you won't take this the wrong way, but you're not a pony anymore." 

Something flashed before me, and I saw a shadow. "Friendship..."

"What?" she said.

"Oh, nothing."





"It comes as no surprise. All those ponies never rise. Their weakness is their friendship, and, and..."

"And?" A hoof reached out toward me, its shadow did. The shadow did. The shadow reached... shadow. Shadow. "Are you really going to go with all those boring political ponies, and blithe griffins, over me?" 

"You don't make a good argument for yourself," I said. "You're neither boring, nor blithe. You're pure horror, and that is all you will ever be, and mean to me."

The shadow swept around me. "Don't sell yourself short. You're not so grand either. Pure horror is your business and what you're best at. What say you I prove it, since we have not much time to chit-chat any longer? If you are to become my enemy, then let us both at least act like it, and be enemies, and I will do to you all the things I would've done to an enemy."

"You're so petty," I said. "That's exactly my point."

"I'm everything you dislike, then, maybe. Try being my friend."

"You're a shadow," I said.

"I'm a monster," he said, and the shadow's mouth opened up, barring sharp teeth. They seemed to glimmer, even though it was only a shadow, nothing more.

"Begone," I said, and stormed away into the darkness.





A bunch of griffins came into the room and shot nets at Celestia. She just stood there, dead-eyed.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Gary said, at the front of the group. "I detected you from the outside with my scanners. I didn't know it was you." His scanners? His visual sensors. He could only see through these goggles, supposedly. He stomped forward, some fluffy feathers coming off him. He leant to my ear. "I totally knew it was her."

"Anyway!" I said.

The griffins pulled the net off her, carefully flying forward as they did this. "What's your business?" Gary said, clasping his hands, and sitting down on the floor.

"You know she is an escaped convict?" Celestia said. "I don't want to cause any... drama."

"I know you don't," Gary said. "Walls!" The walls opened up and in each wall was a laser gun, pointed at Celestia. Funny, I thought. I have seen those somewhere... at the facility. Oh, of course. 

Celestia walked to the side, and the guns followed her motion, all pointed at her. "This is what I was afraid would happen."

"Fire!" Gary said.

"No, wait," I said, feeling like this had escalated too far.

"Abort firing sequence," Gary said. The lasers fired toward Celestia, and hit her, but her body seemed impervious to them. They didn't even make a scratch. Then, the lasers stopped. "Too late," he said.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," I said to him. "You don't have to go through this trouble for me."

"That's why I want to do it," he said. "I want to go beyond the call of duty."

Celestia came toward him. "Don't do that again. Please." 

"I would," he said, looking away, and fidgeting. 

She gasped. "Please. Just, please."

"What now?" I said. "What happens? I will do something. I will... um, I don't know."

I hadn't really figured that the choice might be on me for once. What to do? What to do?

"We turn you over," she said, "to the Nonaligned Court."

"Oooh, that court," I said, groaning. "Oooh, okay."

"Yes."

"Okay then," I said.

Gary chortled. "You don't have to come with her. Come on." He grabbed me, and pulled me closer to him. "I can give you safety. What can she give you? Prison. That's not safe, nor is it just. She's just afraid of you. I'm not. I can help you. I'm not afraid. Griffins are better than ponies." 

"Garish Clink!" Celestia said. "Why?" 

Without letting me out of his grasp, his eyes swiveled in the direction of Celestia, and so did mine, actually. She was firm. "What?" he said. "What did you expect? You come barging into my ship, expecting to get your way?"  

I was happy that someone wanted to protect me, but this was clearly not caused by me, and my wits, or charms. It was caused by something deeper, and part of an older story. It was something that existed between her and these griffins, which I did not understand. It almost seemed a little comical, but then, it also seemed a little grim, and macabre. 

"I expect you to show a measure of dignity, and a respect for the laws that your leaders agreed to. You're also bound by the same court, Admiral." 

"Oh, you're such a dry, boring leader," he said. He let go of me. I didn't know what I was meant to do now. "You're so wise, and old."

"These laws are the only thing that have prevented us from..." she said, not finishing the sentence.

"Blast it." Gary looked to the side. An arm-bot came flying in the room. Well, it had arms, so I assumed it was an arm-bot. It looked more like an octopus-bot to me, what with the many arms sticking out, hanging down. The robot flew in the air, and it had red, gleaming eyes. 

The robot spun a lap, and then, hovered from left to right, in a carefree sort of way. Then, its eyes shone blue. "Zzzbt," it buzzed, noisily, mechanically, oily. "Ponies. Griffins. Ponies. Griffins. Trouble," it said, hovering backward. 

"Hookbeak," I said, running up to it. "My friend."

The robot, in an unexpected, though welcome maneuver, hugged me. Its cold claws didn't feel as snug quite as something alive, but it was good enough. "Trouble, trouble, trouble. Double, bubble, trouble."

"You've been spying on me, haven't you?" I said, remembering the conversation with Colonel Caprice, where she had said something similar. 

"Yes!"

"Excellent," I said, too used to be spied on to care all that much.

Celestia didn't say anything. She just looked to the side.

Gary flinched. "My liege, what am I going to do? She's talking about the law. Is that really something we should honor? I'm happy that you're here, to wash her boring out of the room."

"Uuuh." The arm-bot buzzed, a little. "Bzzzt, hm. Don't be too harsh on her. When you're so used to causing a lot of harm, then you become boring, because you need to act as if you really care about every tiny decision you do. Otherwise, if you're both fun and destructive, you seem callous." 

"It only sounds as if you're talking about yourself," Celestia said, looking away.

"I am, aren't I?" the arm-bot said, hovering within view of her. "You're not going to harm the little critter, are you? She's great. You would like her too if you got to know her, I'm sure."

"No, she was sentenced to a month in prison," she said.

"Right, but we're used to you not really honoring the laws," he said.

"It would be easier if you did," she then said, almost imperceptibly.

Hmm. I wondered where this would go.





Yes, of course, it would be wonderful if that could be arranged, but can it? Can the future be arranged?

Since I will never be able to do it, then it doesn't fall on my shoulders to say, anyway? Even if it is impossible for some, it's more than impossible for me. I will never, ever be able to do it, but... I will do it, nonetheless. Why? 

My eyes opened. 

"I told you to keep your eyes closed. Now, you will be stuck here, forever."

I reclosed them.

"It's too late. You might as well see it."

I pushed them together as hard as I could. "I don't want to."

"Yes, you do. Yes, you do. You're curious enough, aren't you? Little Sweetie Belle."

I sobbed. "I want to go home."

"You are home."

"No." I kept sobbing.

"Yesss," the voice wheezed, and then, there was quiet. 





"Four bushels of wheat? How's that? You ponies are starving enough as it is."

Celestia looked sad in a way that was very strange, and full of subtle emotion. I could not tell where and why this emotion whence came. "Four bushels of wheat?"  

"Four-hundred."

She pulled her lips together, and was uneasy in her body language. "After all this time, of ponies trying to buy things from the Griffon Empire, and- and..."

"Don't do your empathy routines on me. I don't care about ponies. I care about this foal. Eight-hundred bushels of wheat, and a sack of flour, a big sack, industrial-sized. Can that be arranged, computer?"

The ship responded on cue. "The biggest sack of wheat that is available in an industrial setting is of the same size as four units of bushel, Hookbeak." 

"Units of bushel? Brilliant," the arm-bot said, flipping around, jingling and jangling back and forth. "See if that can be arranged."

"The transportation cost will be inflated, on account of the low amount of flour being transported. It can be arranged, in an unobtrusive way, in two weeks, Hookbeak. In the fastest route possible, two hours, but with considerable damage to factor x." 

"You'll have to wait two weeks," the arm-bot said, hovering about, not really looking at Celestia any longer.

"I remember when you said I was out of touch," Celestia said.

The arm-bot turned to her. "Out of touch? I remember that too. I suppose you're trying to draw a connection between that situation and this one. Yes, we are trying to secure this foal, and place her in safety from pony hooves, and those of changelings too. A few sacrifices must be made."

"I was informed that there wasn't enough food to feed both ponies and griffins," she said.

"Well, you get informed of a lot of things, I gather," the arm-bot said, buzzing noisily. "Bzzzt. We will sacrifice all the wheat that is necessary to keep her away from your clutches."

"What you're doing is illegal," she then said. "And on top of that, on top of trying to bribe me, you're keeping a prisoner, who has been sentenced under the laws that you also agreed to, so please, stop this, and be a little serious for once. Think about the price we all pay for acting this way."

"Affirmative," the arm-bot said. "Now, if we offer a thousand bushels, plus a little extra flour, and also the seed of a magical flower that we found in the north, and harvested, will that be enough to bribe you?"

"I don't take bribes, and I never have, and you know that as well as I do. I know you know that this conversation is ridiculous, and I know that you know exactly what you're doing, and the cost of what you're doing, but why are you doing it anyway?"

"Bzzzt." The arm-bot backed away until it reached Gary. "We'll send her a letter. You keep your eye on Celestia the Queen, and we'll send the filly with her, if she is willing to grant us a tiny concession, one that is obvious." 

Gary nodded, while keeping his eyes on Celestia. "Yes, my liege."

"You run a tough negotiation," the arm-bot said, drawing its claws against the metal wall, making it screech. "Have it your way then."

"I just want to talk," she said.

"I just want to talk," the robot repeated, hovering up to her, and staring into her with its blue, imposing eyes. "I just want to talk. I just want to talk."

"Whatever you are, I don't know what it is... I... I don't know," she said. She sounded doubtful.

"I used to be your friend," the arm-bot said. "I used to be, anyway."

"Used to be? We can be friends, again. I didn't mean for any of this to happen."

The arm-bot put a claw on her. "I think we both made enough mistakes to warrant the same blame."

"The same blame?"

"For causing a terrible conflict, one which has had a higher cost than any of us thought."

She grabbed the arm-bot with her magic and levitated it against the wall. "Is this some kind of joke, Hookbeak?"

"Never," it said.

She let go of it, and turned away.

It hovered after her. "Celestia. Please. You know what happened to me. Let this charade end. Let it all end, from beginning to end. I cannot believe I am having this conversation with you, either. But I will stand by what I have said, and what I promised myself, because it's the only thing I know how to do."

"Someday, you will understand," she said.

"Forget me," the arm-bot said. "That's all I ask. Let me go. I'm not worth it. I'm not meant for pony hooves, or relations of any kind, except the shallow kind, any more, in my life. I think that's just true, actually."

She said swiftly, "We're not having this discussion right now."

"I'm trying to upset you," the robot said.

"I know," she said.

"Is it working?"

She put a hoof on me, and poof, we were down on the ground. "That was excruciating."

"I don't know," I said. "I thought it was kind of..." She glared at me. "Interesting," I finished.





We stood at the edge of the city, and a big hole had been blown in the barrier around it. I stepped forward, minding each movement, thinking carefully about what I did, and said. "If it isn't the dark Nexus." 

I raised my head, and looked at her, with a high-tooting expression on my face. The most affected, high-minded, high-falutin, pompous, snobbish expression I could muster. She had soldiers on each side behind her, wearing bronze armor, and towering above her. Again, she was almost as short as I. Behind me stood the Princess herself, Celestia, of Equestria. 

"If it isn't a runaway criminal with an over-inflated sense of self-worth," Nexus said, barely even looking at me. "So can we actually arrest you now? There won't be any griffin, or other creature, trying to teach me two-hundred pages of obscure laws that I have no reason to know, since I have other ponies, to remember them for me? Or better yet, put me in a dungeon with red walls, one of my least favorite colors."

Rather than having the least bit of tact, I said, "Oh, I don't believe that for a second. You see red wherever you go."

"That's why I don't like it," she said. Well, at least she didn't get angry with me. "Those colors are work, not tapestry, and not décor. They're the colors of death, all the colors and nuances that have red in them. Orange is the color of fire. Red is blood. Brown is what happens when blood stains."   

"You seem to have thought of this a lot," I said, admittedly without the least bit of regard for how my words would affect the situation, and my future, and I promise that I came into the situation with the intent to be calm, and precise in my wordings. Celestia had told me that the representatives of the court would come, including the First Prosecutor of Equestria Nexusantran, and I had had some dealings with her already.

"Somehow, I don't really want to do it," Nexus said.

Celestia walked ahead of me. "Why? You're not afraid of her, are you? I would never think you, of all ponies."

"Ueeeh, you haven't been the one pursuing her though?" Nexus said. "I have never had such trouble catching a fugitive before, not even close."

"So what?" Celestia said. "Can we get a little serious here?"

"So by implication," Nexus said, her eyes as harsh as ever, "I'm not serious. Is that what you're saying, Celestia?"

"No," she said. "I'm saying that I don't know why you're acting this way."

"You're welcome to hear about it at the trial, when we invite you to give helpful testimony later."

"Another trial?" I said.

"Are you surprised?" Nexus said. "Don't be. You escaped from prison. Surely, you must know that this is a crime. You knew well enough to escape, and I've heard some pretty... strange things about you, kid. Don't go running off now like you did last time. That's bad news."

"Okay, okay. I'm coming," I said, and walked past the soldiers. They seemed so surprised that they didn't even move. They just stood there. I knocked on the door of the jewel-encrusted golden wagon that stood beside me, and behind them. "Let me in. I'm arrested. I'm arresting myself. How's that?"

Nexus glanced toward me. "Well, okay. Suit yourself. You're traveling with me."

"Yooou?" I said, backing away, and throwing myself in the other direction. "I didn't know."

"I trust you will be able to handle this," Celestia said.

"Yeah," Nexus said. "Your services are no longer needed, Princess. You can fly off and do whatever it is you do when you're not causing problems for me and my coworkers."

"You're welcome," she said.

"I would've caught up to her with or without your help," Nexus said, sounding a lot more threatening than she had before. "Again, go away. Your services are no longer needed. At ease, Princess. At ease."

The Princess folded out her wings and took off, soaring into the sky with all the speed in the world.

"Great," I said. "I want a window seat."

"There are more than enough windows," Nexus said, shaking her head and mumbling to herself, and then smiling, imperceptibly almost, for just a moment. 





"And then, I said, nooo. Please don't die. No. And I cried, but he was gone, and then what happened? I was visited by a ghost of some kind. Well, this part of the story is really complicated. But the streets were getting covered with soldiers, and I ran into a building, trying to escape, right? Scotch brought me there. Well, she ran in with me in tow, maybe. I don't even remember, at the top of my head. If I thought about it for a second or two, ah! Yes, that's what happened. She ran into the building with me. I thought she had wanted to kill me, but it turns out that was only a dream. A nightmare, actually! That was crazy. I had been manipulated, using dreams, and I still can't figure out which parts are fact, and which are fiction quite yet. Have you seen the seven-piece plan?"

"Someone sent a copy of something that sounded similar to that," Nexus said. "I'm not sure, actually."

"Well, it's the plan, I believe, that was made to ensure that ponies stayed compliant. The seven-piece plan outline that you found is really just an outline. There are far more detailed plans inside the fortress, but no one knows the way there." 

"The mythical fortress," Nexus said, sipping an orange drink. "What next?"

We were surrounded by nice furniture inside this wagon, furniture of wood with nice little patterns, and nothing red to speak of, wouldn't you know it? There were windows on both sides, right and left, and yellow curtains, with tapestry that looked homely and kind of quaint, tiny swans covering the wall on all sides, and the most notable thing of all was that there was also shining gold coins all over the floor, almost. There were bags, and some of them seemed to have spilled out, and coins had fallen all over, and there was a big desk, with a chair that was really high, too high for me, and I assume her, to jump up on, but I assume she had some sort of way. Anyway! In that moment, I saw her flying up. She had wings. I had forgotten that changelings have wings.

"... I said that I don't know how I got here, and I told them a bunch of information, but not everything I know, and I seemed to have lied there at some point, which will probably come back to haunt me. I realize I'm rambling right now. I was thinking about something else, but the point is that, yes, I was arrested, and I was brought back into prison, but this time, it was a completely different prison."

"I cannot wait to show you to the judge," she said, giddily, dipping a quill and jotting something down.

"Oh, I've already been showed. Not much to see there," I said, not really even caring or wanting to talk about it.

She started grinning. "Yes, yes, of course."

Now, I had to talk about it. "Why are you grinning?" I said.

"There's a reason that Starry Skies has stayed in the position he's in for so long," Nexus said, cryptically.

"What's the reason?" I said.

She shook her head, and shook her head some more. "Don't get ahead of yourself."

Back to Canterlot then, it was, for me.





I was brought out of the wagon, and I was chained up, and led through the street, a dozen ponies surrounding me, and keeping their eyes on me. There stood ponies on the sides of us.

"Freak," someone said.

"Don't condemn what you can't comprehend," I said back, feeling a little overwhelmed.  

"Murderer," another pony shouted, and now, the crowd was buzzing, and getting louder. 

I searched for the voice, couldn't find it, and then said, "That's technically true, but I hope that I will not be defined by the worst of me, for the rest of my life, until I'm dead, and before you have given me the chance to redeem myself."

"Why are they keeping her alive?" I heard a pony said. Now, that, that of all things, upset me.

"Whatever. Why are they keeping you alive?" I said, localizing the pony with my eyes. I heard some ponies gasp. "Okay, that was stupid of me," I said, a little quieter.  

"Get her," I heard a pony said, and the crowd was coming closer.

Nexus came running from behind us, and came into view. "No. No! No. No! Ponies, ponies. Please. Remember, friendship is forever, isn't it? Come on. We need to believe in friendship." She scoffed. "What's happening to us all?"

The crowd didn't even listen, even though she was being sarcastic. "We can get her."

Nexus, rather than being rationally afraid, found the pony who said it, and started wrestling with her, pushing her against the ground. "You're arrested for disturbing the peace, and trying to cause violence, using your mouth, and your words, so just stay put, and..." She waited. A pony came by and threw a spear to her, which she grabbed in a green hue, and a giant manacle, which Nexus promptly put around the pony's head. The rest of the crowd got closer. Nexus swung her spear and cut a pony across the eye. "Don't cross me. Don't cross me. Don't cross me. Don't cross me," she repeated over and over again, with a lot of pent-up, illicit, implicit, secret, but still very explicit, and apparently legal, anger, lurking behind her words. 

The ponies backed away. "Crowd-control coming along well?" I heard a pony say. I didn't hear where the voice was coming from but I immediately connected it to that of the judge, but that couldn't be right. The judge had been a doddering old fool when I had met him, but his voice was clear and crisp enough, perhaps a little weathered, but you could say that about my voice too.

"Better than good," Nexus said, smiling, and leading the mare away, who had shouted, and been belligerent. "It's a beautiful day."

I searched for the voice. It was coming from behind me, that of the judge. I turned my head as far as my shackles allowed me. "There you are," I said.

I saw Starry Skies inside a box made of glass, being carried by another dozen ponies. He didn't really look well. He looked sickly, but I could've sworn I had heard him a moment ago. "What now?" I said to myself.

Hmm. Hmm. What was going on here? My mind zoned out a bit. I lowered my head. A something had flown toward me. I didn't even know what, but from old habit, I dodged out of the way of it. "Close one," Nexus said. "That knife almost got you. That would've been too bad for you."

"I should say so," I said back, feeling a little shaken, upon having heard that, upon the whole situation period, actually. 

"Now, for the last part," I heard the judge say, again, and we turned into an alleyway, just after entering a street from which you could see the giant towers of Canterlot castle towering into the sky.

We stopped, and I was let loose from my shackles. "That's just for the audience," Starry said, coming out of his glass-box. "We like to rile them up a little. It makes for a good visual."

"A visual?" I said, over-enunciating the word. "What kind of visual are we speaking of here?"

"One that gives us power, of course," he said. He smiled through his wrinkles. Then he walked toward the door, seemed to hesitate, and stepped to the side, and let Nexus forward instead.

"Open up, catty," Nexus said, bonking the door with ferocity, and cold, stern directness. "Open up. Open up. Open up. Open up." She repeated the words over and over again, with remarkable impatience. It had only been a few moments, thus far.

"Guests," the cat-girl said, opening the door, and smiling demurely, pawing at her cute little whiskers with her one hoof that looked like a paw. Well, all of her hooves looked like paws. You remember this character? That was ages ago.

"Guests!" Nexus said, walking past her, and down into the dungeon where I had been once before. 

"You'd better stay close," Starry said, passing me by. I followed them down, through a tunnel, and into a corridor with cells. I immediately searched to find the cell with the mare that I had met when I first arrived here, but having found it, it was empty, which disappointed me. Then, I remembered everything. She had been... sexually attacked, I remembered.

"Is there no good in the world at all?" I said, passing by the cell.

I noticed there weren't any guards with us anymore. There were only Nexus, cat-girl, Starry Skies, and I left. "What's she rambling about?" Nexus said to Starry. "What's that all about?"

"Remember who we put her with, when she was first jailed?" he said, staring gravely at Nexus.

"Oh, I see," she said.

But now, I remembered something else, something more grim than before. I had seen bodily fluids on the floor in that day when I had walked past here. They were clear as day, but now, they were gone. "I get it," I said, my voice not feeling as vibrant as it had a second ago. "I get it." 

"Get what?" cat-lady said, brushing up against me. "Do you have no idea where you are? That sort of thing happens all the time. How else are we going to extract the right information, and confessions out of ponies that don't seem to care about the law, and our future, as ponies?"

"I want to get out. I want to get out," I said, feeling panic grip me. "Help." I turned around to run, and no one gave any chase. I reached the door at the end of the corridor. "Wait, there wasn't a door there." When was there a door? Wait, this was not a door. It was a wall. There wasn't a wall before when I had entered. I wouldn't have been able to enter, if there had been a wall, I mean. I felt, sickly, to my stomach, sick to my stomach, and nauseous. "This is too much for me. I don't want any part of it." 

"What?" the cat said. "She doesn't knooow?" Her voice was very soft, and low. "How can it be?"

"Let me handle it," the judge said, Starry Skies his name was, and he walked toward me.

I found a rock on the floor, hovered it, and threw it at him using magic. He caught it with his own blue magic, and threw it to the side. He was blue, light-blue. I blinked a few times. "Do I know you? No, that would be too obvious."

"Ah, it's not..." he said. "It would be, wouldn't it? But I know a lot about you. Come with us, and let us talk."

"How can I?" I said. "That would be absolutely, extremely, stupendously insane."

"It's not what you think," he said. 

"Just tell her already," Nexus said.

Starry backed away from me, and toward the door on the opposite side of the corridor. "I understand if it's a lot to process, but it's not at all what you think."

"Are you the one that did it?" I said.

"No one did it," Starry said.

"I know what I saw."

"No, you don't," he said. "Think about it. When do ponies sleep?"

"At night, I think," I said. "But that..." And then, it descended on me. "That is... wow."

"You have to make peace with the fact that you're not at all in control of your destiny," he said, and the ground beneath me started rumbling, and then collapsed, and everything was dark. 

"Dark," I said, and looked around. "For how long have I been sleeping?"

"Since you got arrested the last time," his voice said, into the darkness.

"What is this?" I said, looking around. "What is this madness?"

"Don't panic. This is normal."

"Normal how?" I said.

"Whenever you get brought back," he said. "We will take care of you. Don't worry."

"It's hard not to worry," I said. "What's even happening? I thought everything was resolving. I was getting my foothold again, and starting to understand what was going on."

"We could only allow you to get so far," Starry Skies said. "We could only allow you to get to Manehattan, perhaps, and not any longer."

"Was I really in Manehattan?" I said, feeling scared out of my life.

I felt scared out of my world.

I felt empty. I felt gone.

Something was happening.

"Don't be surprised."

You can never be free, if you don't want to be.

Fear, or fear not? That is the question.

Who would even do something like this?

Spinning, spinning... spinning. It's real but it's imaginary.

It's too late.

"What's that?" I heard myself say.

It's too late. I figured it out.

"What?"

Some things really do only exist in dreams.

...

...

...

Well... so be it then. You figured that part of it out, but our machinery is still alive and well, but your triumph is good, and shall be rewarded. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed through all this, Sweetie Bot.

"It's more than that," I said, having regained my own voice. "It's far more, and far darker, isn't it?"

Isn't it?

"What's a dream, without a little company?" I said. "What's a dream, if you cannot have the dream resemble the world? No, perhaps, the dream is even more real than the world, and the world is what seems dreamlike, and imaginary."

In Equestria, there are millions of ponies, and millions of dreams.

"But there aren't all that many places to be, are there?"

You're getting more dangerous, aren't you?

"Yes!" I said, smiling. "I feel dangerous right now."

And with the same arrogance as always. We shall watch you more closely from now on.





In reality, real things happen, so that's the difference between dreams and reality, and also, in reality, ponies don't follow a pre-planned, prepped script, which was made up by cockamamie ponies in the dark, who are evil.

Why am I saying this?

I woke up.

My head hurt. I stood up, drowsily, slowly, unsurely, insecurely, and lonely. "Where am I?" Where was I? Outside Manehattan, I was, by the looks of it. I turned around. There was no hole in the wall. Was I in a different place now, or was there never any hole? 

"You sleep quite a lot, don't you?" I heard Autumn say.

"Why though, is the question," I said, not really wanting to look at her, or concentrate on anything for the moment. 

"Why?" she said. "I'll tell you why. You've been tricked." 

"Hm." I treaded the ground from which I heard the voice, sneaking carefully toward it, not spinning, but walking around in a circle.

She looked at me. It was only me and her. "Is this a dream?"

"No." She came after me.

"It's a dream." I was not moving, because I thought that there was no use. I had a big mouth, but a small bite. I couldn't really fight, or stand up for myself, not without the help of machines, and trickery, eleventh-hour trickery, in the dark, when all your emotions have abandoned you, and you're a soulless wreck, a soulless wretch. "Everything is a dream. Why can't I stop talking about fear? I have been having dreams about it. Is it compulsive, or caused by some distant force of horror and machinery, and darkness? Am I crazy? Am I schizophrenic? Why do I hear voices? I'm sure the paranoia that's slipping in cannot be any good, no-no."    

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm really sorry. Did you really think you could escape, in the end?" She picked me up with her hooves, holding me up like I was a prized trophy or some sort of thing, something like that. "You're not the first, nor will you be the last, but it will take a lot more to escape the nightmare, I fear." 

"It's unreasonable to expect me to be able to do this," I said, angrily. "It's unreasonable."

She gently placed me on the ground. "I don't expect anything from you. Do what you will."

"What? You wanted to control my destiny."

"No, I didn't. I just wanted you not to ruin our plan, you see. That was the gist of it, you see."

"I'm thinking about thinking, and what it means to think, and why I think the thoughts I think, more than I actually think."

Autumn laughed. "Keep on fighting. Do nothing. Either way, you cannot win." 

"Why? I can do things. I can accomplish things, surely," I said. "I can win too, at least part of the time, like twenty percent I can win, if I try really hard, for sure."

"How do you do the impossible?" she said, and she started growing. Her eyes got red, and shining. "How is it possible?" I saw Aldeus in front of me. His form shifted, and his face started withering. He turned into Sidus. "How do you do the unthinkable, in a world where death and suffering besiege us all, even I?"

"It's only impossible if you believe it is," I said.

"No. Almost!" Sidus said. "Almost." He shrank, and I saw a filly made of shining light in front of me. "Almost," she said, with a pitchy voice. "Come on, now, Sweetie. You got this."

"Is this my reward?" I said, sarcastically.

"You don't know what's best for you," she said, "but I will allow you to find the truth for yourself."

"The facility exists in reality, because for something to happen, for something to be real, you need to believe in it."

"Why? Can't it just be real, without anyone imagining it?"

"Yes." I took a step back, to create some space between us. "But the point is that things we notice around us need to be noticed, and imagined, to be exactly the way they are, for us to experience them that way. Subjectively speaking, we only care about what we notice, and what we think we know exists, after all, even if it isn't true." 

"You need to put this truth-issue to rest," she said, the little filly-ghost. "It's tiring to hear you jabber on about it. This is real." She gesticulated toward the wall, stretching into the dark, cloudy sky. She jabbed the air, pointing at me. "You are real."  

"Yes."

"Should I bite you..." She nipped toward me, biting at my nose, and I pulled back last second. "Should I?"

"No," I said, feeling threatened. "What's the matter with you?"

"Should I not?"

"Yes."

She pawed at the ground, and a patch of earth hovered into the air, and ascended into the sky. "Why?" 

"You don't bite strangers," I said.

"You don't?" She looked shocked, aghast. "Well, that's good to know."

"Pain hurts," I said.

"So is pain real then, you clever little girl you?" she said, stomping her hooves up and down, galloping in place. "What's real?" 

"That- I... I don't... but... it's real, yeah, but what's your point exactly? What's the matter with you?"

I felt a cut go across my hoof, and blood ran down it. She said, "What's real, and what's imaginary?"

"Stop it," I said.

"Pain is real? Pain is really real? Is that it? But what if you want to feel pain? What if you're just dreaming?"

"I don't want to feel pain," I yelled, at the top of my tiny lungs.

She tilted her head down, and stared into me, with open, wide, squinty, yet round, eyes. She seemed, tired, in a way I hadn't noticed before, with sacks under her eyes, little sacks. "Why?"

"Why not?" I said.

"Because you don't get to decide what's right or wrooong," she screamed, drawing out the word, and the ground beneath me shook, and I felt afraid. I felt like I was going to die. My body bounced up and down involuntarily, and as the ground shook more violently, my body slammed down, and something panged, and broke, and cracked within me.

"Maybe I just don't want it," I said, breathing big bunches of bilge into my big-mouthed snout. That's how it felt anyway, because the air got so thick that breathing became painful, and it felt like the air I was breathing in was rotten, and poisonous. I tried catching my bearings. The shaking had stopped. "I want the pain to go away."  

"That's pain," she said, picking me up off the ground, and hugging my injured body. I tried standing when she let go, but I collapsed again. "That's pain."

"But what if I don't want to not feel pain?" I said. "What if I want to feel pain?" I felt my leg cramping up. But I was so full of adrenaline, or whatever it was. My heart was thumping, and I was wide awake, as I said this, and I felt... cold, cold, cold, ever so much, in this dark place, of nightmares... and, pain. "I want to want to feel everything, because then, nothing can bother me anymore. I can feel everything, and be at peace with it."

"That's pain," she said, again. "You want to get away from it. That's pain. You're welcome."

My body healed up, and the pain stopped, just like that, and I stood up. "I want to- I..."

"What?"

I felt shaky. "I want to... no, I don't know. I want to... be free."

"From what?"

"I don't know."

"That's pain," she said, again. "It's something that you just have to admit to yourself. Don't be embarrassed that you didn't figure it out. It's tricky."

"Is it really true?" I said. "No, not really. It cannot be. After all, it's possible for someone to want to feel pain."

She giggled. "Can you not take a position on anything, girl?"

"But you're wrong."

"Then, if someone wants to feel pain," she said, "I guess that person, willingly or unwillingly, will want to kill things that cause joy, and wonderment, and happiness."

"Pain," I said. "That's not pain, but it presents no contradiction to pain."

"Are you happy?" she said. "Is that it? Am I missing something here? You cannot be in pain, and be happy about it, and you cannot be happy about pain, and you cannot identify pain with happiness because they are two different things." 

"Y- yes, I think that's something- I mean, to feel pain can have positive effects, and... you can cause a little pain to get more happiness later."

She glanced to the side, looking almost like she was about to roll her eyes, but stopped last second. "I was talking about you."

"I can tell you that sometimes, I'm happy, because I think I deserve pain."

"This is where words fail stupid ponies like all those out there, which we dismiss, the rabble. You're not rabble. You're smart." 

"Ridiculous," I said, feeling like she was just trying to play a trick on me.

She came toward me again, and I backed away slowly. Then, she rushed around me, and came up behind my ear, and I was too slow to react, or respond in any way. "It's not pain." She moved over to my other ear. "If it doesn't make you suffer." Then, she walked in front of me. "A physical sensation in your body, including physical pain, does not become pain until you realize it, Sweetie Bot. Don't you see?"   

"When do I realize what exactly?"

"We're better than ponies," she said. "We're of a higher breed. We're better than them. We can understand reality, without having to read a book, or repeat the same script in our heads over and over again. We can be free, only and only, if we want to be." 

"Pain is..."

"There you go," she said, nudging me, bopping her flank against mine. "There you go." 

"Pain is... what? A realization."

"It's real," she said, "inside your head." She tilted her head toward mine.

"It's a way of describing something," I said. "That's it? That's all? It's only in my head."

"Everything you want is only in your head, darling."

"And yet, it feels a certain way."

"It stops feeling bad if you think of it a certain way, and it becomes even worse when you try to get away from it. That's pain, clearly," she said. "Clearly, unless I've missed something, which I don't think I have, as a matter of fact."

"And what feels bad is really, really bad, not just bad in my head, but bad in the sense that it feels a certain way. It's- but wait, no, it is bad in my head, and to no one else. Then, that's just subjectivism."

She whispered again, "You can never be free, if you don't want to be."

"And yet, pain can feel so different at different moments. It can feel bad and good, and really bad not good at all, and good and only a little bad."

"That's pain," she said. "Pain can feel different at different times. It's only natural, after all."

"What about it is it that feels different?" I said. "The pain itself, or how I think of the pain, or other emotions that accompany the pain, like joy, or compassion?"

"It's only natural that pain should feel different, in conjunction with other thoughts and emotions, as all things feel different when you add or take away things from them, after all," she said.

"But when I want to feel pain, is that pain?" I said.

"It is pain in the sense that you don't want to feel it, and it's not pain in the sense that you want to feel it. The word pain already describes how you think about the thing that you describe as pain."

"What's pain?" I said. "I'm even more confused now. Boy, oh boy."

"Can you not be less confused?" she said, squinting with one eye. "Can you not be more like me, free?"

"I will forever be confused," I declared.

"Can you not realize that I'm right, or assume that I'm wrong for other reasons, that also have their counterparts in reality, and real things?" She smiled, faintly.

"How do I know that pain is real?" I said.

She shook her head. "That's the point. You only know after you have made that observation, and described what you think you feel as pain, but it's more than an act of interpretation. It's more than blithe guessing. You're noticing how you feel, provided that you feel a certain way, or you don't notice it, and if you don't have feelings, then it suddenly doesn't make sense to talk about feelings, and if you don't have feelings, then what motivates you to do things? The world? Is the world not real, and possible to see, if that's the case? If it's not, then the world isn't there. It's not here, nor there, nor anywhere, but you still feel motivated to do things? Maybe not, and then, the whole tapestry falls asunder, because you've just chosen to describe everything as not being real, which in turn, proves that something is real, which was my point to begin with, because you have made a million frank remarks, and observations about the meaning of words, and their lack of meaning in the real world, and the emptiness of the idea of meaning, that prove that the meaning of everything is just that. That's meaning. Meaning is the exchange of words that we're engaged in right now. Everything that can be perceived as anything is meaningful, because it gives the world a character, and makes it possible for you to prefer, think of, or associate one, as different from another."  

My brain felt... meek. "Whaaat?"

"It doesn't work to just say the words. I realize that. I'll show you instead. I'll invite you into my world. The next time you sleep, I'll show you pain," she said. She put a careful, demure hoof around me. "You'll see. Now, it's time to snap back, and exit our script, for the first time in three weeks."

"Okaaay," I said.

She pushed me. "Good luck."

I fell.





I woke up. Did I really wake? Well, I sure damn do hope so. I do do hope so. I doo-doo hope so, I think, and I feel, and that means I'm real, or does it? Yeah, I'm real all right, if the feeling of wet grass and tense muscles, aching head, and exhaustion are to be believed. You see, reality doesn't work like dreams do, not quite. In reality, you feel a pain that's consistent, not fleeting, and the ponies around you aren't quite as nice, also.  

Well, I should only speak for myself, come to think of it. Think of what? Think of this...

I stood up, wildly examining my surroundings as fast as I could to make sure, again, that this wasn't another dream, again, and I was met with a few surprises.

"What are you doing here?"

I, though not wanting to, faced the voice. "What am I doing here is a good, good question."

It was Autumn Leaf Caprice, again. "Again, this is really not funny, Sweetie."

"It is not, I agree," I said, not knowing what would happen next. "You know, I really don't know how I got out here. I'll be honest with you. I just woke up, having laid here, on this grass, and it was comfy enough, to boot. But now, I have a headache, and I don't know what to think, about anything." I was being honest. At least, I thought that's what I was being. It seemed strange, the entire situation. Why was she calling me Sweetie, for instance? Why was she so surprised that I was here? No, wait a minute. Wait a moment. Had I? 

The headache got worse, and something panged in my mind, and the pain got even worse, everywhere, both in my head, and my mind, and the two pains seemed to unite and become one. I grabbed my head, shaking it. She was more and more surprised, and she looked at me with quite a bit of, well, worry. Don't be surprised, again, dear reader. Don't be. No one has ever been immune to this trick, the trick of the nightmare. "How are you feeling?"

"I- I- wait." Something was coming back to me. A memory, my voice, and I, but, this was impossible. "I sound like myself again."

"You do?" Autumn said.

"Yeah." Sure enough, I sounded squeaky, and normal, but I didn't feel normal. I felt far from it. "Hmm."

She stomped toward me. "What's happened to you, Sweetie?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" I said. "It's only beginning too. It feels like it's about to get worse."

What do I do when I'm forced to pick, not just think about it, but pick in reality? Do I embrace my fears, or do I run away from them? The answer was knocking on my door now, and it suddenly seemed obvious. "Come with me," she said.

"I have a story to tell you," I said.

"Yes, yes. We can do that later."

"Later," I repeated, feeling frustrated that she wasn't hearing the tone in my voice.

Something was off. Something was odd. Something lurked beneath the surface, something frightening. What do you do when you feel that something frightening is lurking beneath the surface of your mind? Well, you don't do nothing, and you don't push it away, for reasons that seem clear to me now. Doing nothing does nothing, and pushing it away only seems to give it more space, because fear is literally borne of you pushing it away. That's what fear is, is being pushed away. Fear is wanting to be pushed away, in itself, and if you defy that notion, and defy the odds, and decide to confront your fears, something new, and something different can happen, and the fears will not, I have concluded, have the same power over you anymore. I believe that's true. Is it true? It might be, anyway. It might as well be.





He lit a match. "All you need is a little violence to get ahead of everyone else. It are those that refuse to use violence that get left behind."

"What about pain? Do we care about pain, and the negative effects it seems to have on life, in each moment, and the damage, permanent or otherwise, that it might cause, father?"

"Yes, but do not fear pain, my child. Pain is only fleeting, even when it appears to be permanent, and never-ending."

I knew what he meant. "Death."

"Death is a curious idea, made up by the sages of the ages, who thought that the end somehow, some way, deserves an identity. The end is... easy, Sweetie."

"Why?"

His eyes flickered, reflecting the light of the match. It was dark. "If you think good things can be fleeting, and if you believe, as I do, that pain is fleeting, then what is death?" 

"Fleeting," I said, casting my eyes down, away from him. "Fleeting, as ever."

He grabbed my chin, and lifted it up. "They are enraptured by dreams, these ponies. Let us prove it to them."

Proof? Sure, why not?

Proof.

You think you know where this is going? You don't. You think you know what you have seen. You don't. You know what I tell you. The one who reads this, I say, you know only what I tell you, and you know a story about those who died, and those who live, and what happened to the rest? They were inside the machine. They were inside the dream, but that's okay. That's okay. The seeming contradictions that you believe you have found, and my insanity, what can be called insanity, will soon be explained, only if you're really curious, and want to read on, and do, please. This isn't getting any easier for me, and that's good. That's fine. We shall see what happens in the end.





In the days long before the nightmare began all the ponies lived in peace. In those days, long before it began, they believed in friendship's ease. They thought evil was only caprice. They thought darkness was only a disease, but little they knew what these things really were, and what they became, if not fought off, and tamed, or allowed to be claimed, and agreed to be shamed. Should darkness survive, then light will prevail. Should light survive, then darkness will die, if light be light, and can blot out darkness, and if we believe that, and think good things good, then let us survive through our hate.

Little they knew what fate then awaited them, stuck inside their dreams, not being able to move, or anything like it, simmering in its seams. The seams of the dreams, the net of seams, making screams transpire, emerged from the dreams, these pitiful dreams, making bad things transpire. The bad things happened, and then they got worse, and soon I realized this was a curse. It was not of this world. It was something else. It created hell. Well, it did, and- and... its name is... hidden, because if it's revealed, the curse will be broken. Ponies only fear things that are cursed, it turns out. They only fear the nameless, and the void, the things outside their grasp, reach, understanding of the world. They only fear things that are not of this world, and that they cannot see, and hear, but nonetheless, know it is there, and how do I know this? See for yourself, behind the veil, that hides all things true.    

Horror. Horror. Horror. Horror. If [redacted] has a name, then its name is horror, but otherwise, it will remain nameless, until we have reached the bottom of all this, and understand how a wonderful world full of love and friendship could become so twisted and dark. We made plans together. It was... wait.





Where am I? Where am I? Who am I? Who am I? Do I want to die? Not really. Do I want to live? Only if I can save them.





We made plans together? Sure we did. Was it dark? Sure it was. Am I having a mental breakdown? It depends on what the meaning of "am I," "having a," and "mental breakdown," is. Or alternatively, it's "am I," "having," and "a mental breakdown." What am I having? Am I having it just because it is manifesting in my actions, and behavioral patterns? I may be breaking down, but I feel sharp and clear, much more so than before. I feel like reality is coming into focus. It was... okay.





"You are only making it worse," Autumn said, lamenting my words and actions, true or not. "You should spend time with others your age. These delusions aren't good for you."

"Spoken like a true military worker," I said, mostly ignoring her plights. "I feel like you should force me. Why not? Do it."

"Oooh," she said, yelping. "You sound all different."

"Autumn, you've not heard a single word I've said. I believe we're stuck inside a dream, and if I'm right, then that speaks volumes about what I've been through so far, doesn't it?"

"Yes," she said. "Yes."

"I think so," I said. "I think, and feel."

"Yes, you do."

Something about the way she spoke caught my ear. "You don't... I- I didn't mean to unsettle you. I'm sorry."

"I just want everything to turn out fine, whatever it takes," she said.

Right, but believing me is out of the question? Then, nothing will turn out fine, no matter how much you want it to. "I wonder."

"Wonder what?"

"I have an idea."





The pinnacle of joy has its counterpoint in suffering, and the pinnacle of all things good can only be referred to that way by way of comparison with something worse, or even, something not so good. In any case, it doesn't make sense to say, "I've had a good day today," without accepting something akin to that. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't believe that you're engaging in something pleasurable, and then claim that this thing is not really real, not really deep, not actual, but just shallow, and not there in the deepest sense, merely subjective, a whim even. It's not imaginary, and value relates to things, perhaps not pleasure, but things that are actual, and real, and if we value things, then those things become as real and there that anyone can see, and is that not enough? It's real in every sense that matters, if we care about something- it was dark... dark... dark... awoken, again, by the dark. 

Something dark, something there, something real, is not imaginary. What causes things is not imaginary. My feelings right now are not imaginary, and that, I learned from you Gripey, and every face I have seen that wanted to engage with me, be it for good or for ill, but those who died caring for what they cared for, the children, the little colts and fillies that protested when I fired the Obliterator. They cared too. What does it mean to care? Is it pointless, since flowers and trees don't care that we care, and the stars ignore us? No. It's as pointful as it can be when you relate to something, and form a connection with that thing, but it isn't just you, and it isn't just belonging to a single person. Networks of this type of value form, and they're real in the deepest sense that they connect with everything that happens, in reality, which can ever be relevant to our lives. The night, the darkness, and the void, all spoke to me, tried to confuse me, but now, I realize that the truth is what they helped me learn, because the truth is what I needed to free myself from them, and is that not enough? Is the truth important, beyond freeing yourself from darkness, which seems to envelop things in fear, and viscous emptiness, vacuum, against which one may or may not, according to his or her desires, project things, like a tapestry, like heaven, or the world, which we believe that we perceive, but really, we mostly just perceive our own beliefs about the world, and how do I know this? Easy one, my dear.





"I'll just come out and say it. You need help."

Something bleak rested in the air, and everything didn't feel as intense as it had only a short while ago. "You are wrong, and you remain wrong. I don't need help, and I'm not broken."

"Sweetie, listen to me."

"Autumn, enough. I have had enough. You have been blind. I know I'm right. That's what they want. They want me to be blind, but I will not let this strange charade go on any longer."

Autumn sobbed and left the room.

I did not look forward to go to bed. I'll tell you that much.





I really want others to understand this, with no arrogance, and no self-righteousness. Please, understand, if you can.

If you fear something, you will see that fear, not just within, but around you too. The world will seem like a reflection of that fear. In fact, the fear will seem to exist in the world. In fact, you will think that the fear is out there, and not in here, where your mind is. You will think that certain things cause fear, and those things are really there, and not just imaginary, and true enough, they really are there, inside your head, and it's true, again, in the deepest sense that they're there, and Autumn reacting to me with horror in her eyes is not incorrect. Her reaction is not incorrect, and neither is mine. It's not the reaction that's incorrect, but the reaction is created by beliefs about me that are false, and my disposition, formed by beliefs that guide me, make me make my decisions, and my decisions will only be in register with reality, if my beliefs are. My emotions will only make sense, logically, in a way that is generalizable, or perhaps even universalizable, only and only if my beliefs are true, and they can only be understood by others if my beliefs are true, as well. If my beliefs are false, then all my emotions, and the way I relate and react to things around me, will seem radically strange to anyone, and everyone.

If my beliefs are true, I will value things that are actually worth valuing... real things. To say that real things have value is circular, but it's nonetheless true, because things can only be there if they are experienced, and perceived, as if they are there. Imagination is there, and real, and deep, and graspingly actual, and actually grasping, and if everything we care about is real, then the caring is just as real, and it's not subjective because there is the case where we value things, or believe things about the world, based on false beliefs. There is a difference, right? 

The realest things are the things that we know to be there, not because we want them to be there, but because they are really there. If not, then what is the point of these grammatical declensions? More and less of things? Bigger? Things are-er, or not, because they can be defined, yes? In different ways, they can be defined, no? Things can be defined differently, because they really are different, and what makes us care about things, if the world really can make us care about it, as it goes to show, is real, and can be defined, or differentiated, from other things, too. Is that not just a straightforward description of value? No? I'm still thinking about this, and don't assume that I think this is true, because I don't, but nonetheless, I believe that some things are true, and some things are not true, and I believe that the things I care about are real, not imaginary, even though I only got them from a dream, but dreams are real, aren't they? The things I project onto the world are in some deep sense real, since others agree that they exist, and these things can easily be communicated, and understood, as such, by anyone that knows the word? The word, that is, of the thing that I'm communicating. I am communicating right now, and is that not real? 

Real or not, I worry about the danger of defining things, especially important things that I really care about, and that I think are not just air, and are really there, and in my mind, and in the world, not fleeting, but giant, and permanent, emotions, identities, lives, are really there, and yet, claimed by some mastermind of crooked intentions not to be there, intentions so crooked, even, that they have deceived this mastermind that he is right. How does that even happen? This person thinks that he can pierce the world with good intent, and change it from within, breaking down every cherished belief and value, and all the creative achievements of many generations, the tapestry, that makes things seem there, and not air. These things are real, aren't they? What makes them there... real... actual... there is so much to say. The heaven above makes us think that certain things matter, and do they matter, and do we take our own beliefs, constructions in our head, as seriously as that they are the world? We treat our beliefs as if they are the world, or the world is represented by them in a one to one relationship? We think that our beliefs are real? We think that their realness reflects the world? No... maybe no one has ever really been right about anything. Maybe everything is just an approximation.

No, the thing above cannot be true, because even if you can represent reality, approximately, you still need to engage in a way that is in register with reality, the pulling of the tapestry from its object not working. If you remove the sense you have that a thing is that thing, and not something else, then you will not be able to differentiate that thing from the other. The two things will seem the same, and you cannot engage with trees, and leaves, and boxes, and thieves, if you think that some might be the other, or be interchangeable with the other. Nonetheless, at a deeper level of analysis, trees and boxes may have some things in common. They could be made out of the same material, so it doesn't make sense to say that trees and boxes are fundamentally different, in a universal sense, one constructed out of the other, but you can only differentiate them if you keep the integrity of the language that you use to describe other things intact, so for example, if wood doesn't come from trees, or if boxes really are made of a material, once harvested from the tree, is no longer wood, upon having been removed from the tree, then it doesn't make sense to say that boxes are, or can be, made out of wood. Make sense? Nevertheless, this ruins the chance, any chance whatsoever, of ever actually claiming, or observing, that boxes and trees, trees and boxes, have much in common, and you can accomplish this rather easily, on an abstract level, just by changing and playing around with the meanings of words. Make sense? I hope so.

This means that for something ever to be true, it needs to really map reality, not just seem to, or only do it temporarily, in a limited context, where a word seems to fit, and then doesn't suddenly, because you realized, as with the tree and the box, that there are other things, such as the relation, outside of language, between trees and boxes, that connect the two concepts, and more than that, identities, and actual things, out in the world, which we believe to exist, don't we? I think I do, anyway. I believe in boxes, don't you? If not, then what do you believe in? Not believing things? That's boring. Believe in something. Notice that some things, really not because we believe they are true, or perceive them to be true, are true, but because they really are true, are true, actually, really, deeply, and in reality, and reality is real, if the word is to mean anything, and as with every other word, are real, if the word is to mean anything. Things are real, is what I'm trying to say, in a rather roundabout way, and I'm not delusional for caring. 





Yeah, so all I'm saying is it's complicated, right? Isn't it? I'm not crazy.





I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy. Am I?

Autumn lead me into a room. This felt weird. I'm not crazy. She spoke to someone. I'm not crazy. She said hello. I'm not crazy. I am confident about that. If I wasn't, then why would I repeat it over and over again, like a mantra in my head?

"You are going to get to meet someone," Autumn said. 

"Get to?" I said, skeptically.

"Hello," a person said. "How are you feeling?"

I took a moment to think about it. "Hungry? No, that can't be right."

"Sit down."

I did.

"What's your name?"

I was scared how she would react if I responded weird. "Sweetie."

"Sweetie?"

Autumn prodded me, verbally. "Go on."

"I don't like this question," I said.

"Respond to the nice lady," Autumn said.

"Sweetie Bot," I then said, relenting.

"Sweetie Bot?" the lady said.

"Yes."

"It says here your name is Sweetie Belle," she said.

Now, I was getting impatient, and that's when my attitude problems tend to come out. "Check the writing again. Why, it must be smudged."

The lady put down the paper, and I took a glance at Autumn. She was despairing.

Autumn said, "I don't know what to do."

"Get a grip," I said. "It's a tough world out there. We need to have some mental fortitude in these situations."

"How long has this been going on?" the lady said.

"A few hours, I guess," I said, answering the question.

Autumn sighed despairingly. "Just... I saw her outside the city, and- and."

"And what?" I said. "You all are really funny, guys. Really funny. This is absolutely not what I wanted to get out of this day."

"It's like her personality is completely different," Autumn said.

I rubbed my ear, just to make sure that I heard her right, and that there was nothing wrong with it. "I'm sitting right here, mare," I said to Autumn. "You can stop talking about me as if I were a specter." 

Autumn got quiet. Really now? After all that we had been through... but she... I was not sure who this Autumn was, and if she really was a military official, the more I thought about it. The voice of the other mare snapped me out of my thoughts. "I would like you to answer a few questions, if that's okay with you, Sweetie."

"Well, I'm not going anywhere," I said, angrily.

"Have you had any unfamiliar emotions lately, ones that you didn't have before, and do you feel good?"

My body swiveled in the direction of Autumn Leaf Caprice, and it felt instinctual, like my body did it on its own, without me even having to ask it. "Is this a shrink?"

Autumn was silent.

"I feel..." I said, not really knowing what to say to the lady. "I- heh. I don't know."

"Do you feel okay?"

I smiled. "Yes."

"That's good." She wrote something down in a notebook that was beside her, and I felt the unbridled urge to see what the heck it was she was writing.

"Feeling good is good," I said, deciding that this was true.

"Yes, but we still all need to talk about our feelings sometimes," she said.

"Tell me about it," I said, yawning. "Why do I feel tired?"

"I hope you're okay," the lady said.

Autumn came further in the room. "Sweetie, do you remember what happened two weeks ago?"

I felt the relaxation I had gathered inside my body in those last few moments leave it. "Why don't you let the professional handle this, Autumn? She seems to have a better grip on this situation than you do."

"Uh," Autumn said, just making a sound. "Eh, I guess."

I sighed, annoyed at Autumn's obvious trepidation. "If you have something to say, then just say it."

"Nothing," she said, glassy-eyed. "Nothing at all, Sweetie."

"I have been surrounded by ponies crying and despairing for many days and many weeks, for reasons that are far more serious, less trivial, than this hogwash, so let's dispense with the theatrics, and let's also stop our tears. We disgrace all those that really suffer by acting this way, and it could endanger your ability to deal with actual problems, as they come upon your door-step." 

"Precocious," the lady said, unexpectedly. 

"She didn't use to speak to me this way," Autumn said.

"Yes, but listen to her speech," she said, the shrink.

"Yeah," Autumn said, trembling.

"Listen to my speech," I said, turning the idea over in my head. "Yes, that's right. There has to be a reason that I speak this way, beyond my being crazy, and possibly brain-damaged. Maybe I am though. Maybe I am brain-damaged, but if I were, then how and why would I speak this way, huh?"

"Yes," Autumn said.

"Can you leave?" I said to Autumn, feeling really angry at her now. "Can't you see I'm trying to have a serious conversation with this adult?"

It went on.





"I got sent to Tartarus."

"You got sent to Tartarus?" the shrink said.

"That is true."

Autumn looked at me as I said that, gasping. "Really?"

"Yes, really," I screamed, picking up the closest object I could find with my magic, a cup, and threw it at her. "Yes." I froze up. I had let my anger get the better of me for a moment there, somewhat uncharacteristically, I think. The cup missed. "That is how I got here in the first place." 

She ran out the room and closed the door behind her. 

I reached out my hoof, thinking whether I should say something, perhaps apologize, but then, I decided not to. "I'm not crazy. What? I'm not!" I said to the only remaining person in the room. 

"I believe you," she said.

"You do?" Why did she believe me? How could she believe me? Ridiculous. I was almost certainly crazy, in light of what these ponies believed, and thought true about the world. "How so?"

"I think you really do have these memories."

I felt sleepier, now. "Memories? Yes... I need to. Yes, I do have these memories." It felt like I had only been awake a few hours, and I already needed to sleep. How come? Anyway, this mare was clearly saying that she believed that I thought I had really had these experiences, which is to say that I wasn't lying, but that doesn't mean that I had really had them, and this to me felt like a clever loophole to make it seem as if she really believed me, when in all actuality, she didn't. 

"And I also think you have a lot of things to say, and interesting thoughts."

"I- interesting thoughts?" This tripped me up. Why was she saying this? Was she talking down to me? "I guess some of them."

"How are you feeling?"

"Slightly neurotic actually. Thanks for asking." I pulled the cup off the floor, with my green magic. "Was there something in this?"

"No," she said.

I put it back. "Hm." No, there was something else that caught my attention. "You've asked me how I feel now more than once. Why do you want to know how I feel?"

"I just want you to be comfortable, and this is all about listening. This is all we're doing here, is listening to one another."

"Listening?" I was not unhappy with that idea, though. "I can do that, I think. Listen well, I hope I- um, can. Yes, I believe I want to listen, and doing so might even be advantageous for me."  

"I hope so too," she said, smiling.

I moved, trying to make myself more comfortable, and snuggled down where I sat. I did get more comfortable. "Say. You wouldn't happen to have access to any food or foodlike items, such as apples, or grapes for that matter. I want grapes."

"I'm sure Autumn can get you some when we're done here."

I nodded. "Sure." Autumn could? Is she like my mother or something, I wondered.

It kept on going.





"What happened next?" I said. "I entered darkness, and sealed my fate. I was late, only recent arrival there. I came because they called me, but I didn't even know it, and no one did. No one understood." I fidgeted. "I was drawn into the facility. It's of dreams. It's the facility of the dream. It doesn't exist, except only in dreams."

"Okay," she said.

Yeah, I was weirding her out now, predictably, and it's not as if I blamed her for being weirded out, not really. I didn't blame her. I had no blame for her, but she did say that this was all about listening, so I thought that that's what we were doing, but maybe not. "I'm detecting a smidgeon of disbelief," I said, holding up my hoof. "Just a smidgeon."  

"Yes, well, there are no records of anything like this happening, to be honest, Sweetie." She was, serious now, morose, heavy, and her face commanded a certain level of respect. She wasn't mocking me, nor was she speaking down to me, it turned out. She was merely listening, heavily, and judging me, quietly, or just noticing that I was wrong, from her point of view, to give a more charitable take. Not judging, no, she was not, but more just... noting that I was the wrong one out here. I was schizophrenic or something. Well, I knew that I could not have imagined at least some of the things I've been through. It felt too real, and there really is a real difference between fact and fiction, and reality and fantasy, and reality and dreams, for that matter, and even though dreams may be fake in many respects, they still had real things in them, and the individuals I had met in my dreams, I would remember forever.

"That's okay," I said, laughing nervously. "That's okay." I stuffed my hoof into my mane and pulled out a lock. I wasn't able to do that before. Why not? Wait. Was Gripey not real? No, he was, surely. Everything had been real. I was sure of it. No, really. It had been.

"Maybe you should go home to Autumn and talk this through with her, and try to understand one another, and I think we should meet more regularly." The shrink smiled and reached out her hoof. I shook it. I left.

Now, I was really confused.





"I can't believe it. I saw it. I know I saw it. How can I be crazy? Listen to my voice. I'm not crazy. I'm lucid."

"Sweetie, two weeks ago. You hit your head really badly."

I smiled. Then the smile went down. "Wait."

"Sweetie, you were injured."

I shook my head, chuckling. "S- so what?"

"You've been acting normally until now."

"What's normal anyway?" I said, dismissing her. "Listen to me. I'm articulate. Is that normal? No, but it does tell me something. It tells me that at least I'm really me, and not someone else. No one else would speak like I do. Well, maybe I'm not all that articulate. Sometimes, I can get quite messy, in many ways, in my actions, and speaking patterns, but still, I know a lot of words, and that, my friend, must count for something, nay?" I gasped, noticing that I had trouble catching air because I was so nervous.

"These are delusions."

I could feel myself snapping. "So what?"

"Delusions."

I shook my head, again. "What do you want me to do? Ignore that they're there?"

"I don't know."

"Try to look at it from the perspective of the deluded one then," I said, in one last idiot try.

"I can't. I just want the real Sweetie to come back."

I closed my eyes. "Well, I guess it doesn't matter anymore."

"What?"

I saw furniture around me, pretty things. "Nothing." I started tearing up. "Nothing, at all."

"Do you feel okay?" she said, coming closer.

I saw a wooden box. That seems appropriate, I thought, not believing, not being able to believe what I was about to do. I took it in my magic and slammed it across the chin of Autumn. She fell unconscious. "Sorry!" Then, I pulled open the window, and jumped out, running as fast as I could. Where was I going? Well, I had an idea.





Once outside Manehattan, I would be able to navigate more freely. The problem was that in this version of Equestria that I currently inhabited, there was still a wall around the city, so it wasn't all that different from the other version, in any case, and I felt that I needed to focus, and be careful. I saw the little lid on the ground through which the sewer system of the city connected. I hadn't been resourceful enough to bring a screwdriver, but I was sure I could find a solution. I pulled at it, but it didn't budge, both physically and magically. All my last few days had been hectic and full of adventure, and now, I was stumped. A lid was stopping me from transgressing in the sewers, transposing, transporting, passing through, or something like that, all of them at once, and all of them together, or like, something.  

I would find a solution though. I was sure I was going to, and I would. I just needed to think, first. I was sure. I just needed to pay attention to my surroundings, surely. Why not? It would work out in the end, why not? It always had. I had always found a solution to all this, through all this. It's true. I had. I really had, hadn't I? And if not, what was going on? What was really going on, behind the curtain, if I wasn't the master of my fate, which I thought I had been, at least at some points. I was sure of it. I had been, hadn't I? If I hadn't been, then what the heck? Was all of this a trick? Was my adventure some kind of trick, some kind of weird lie? I wouldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it, and Gripey, and Jelly, and... my head was spinning.

No, I would find my way out. I could find my way out. A person came walking. "What are you doing?"

This stallion might be able to help, I thought. "Could you perhaps, if it wouldn't be too much of a hassle, lend me a screwdriver, buddy?"

"What for?" He glanced at the lid. "What are you doing?"

"I'm asking you for help," I said, reiterating. 

"Maybe you should come with me." He came toward me.

Drats. "I'm thinking that maybe I should... not?" I turned around and ran, but he grabbed me in his own unicorn magic. "Hey, not fair. I'm only a child. I can't fight that." I tried to grab him back, but I couldn't. And he looked a bit too heavy for me, anyway. My magic couldn't lift things that were all too heavy.

"Come. We'll find your parents."

"What you're doing to me right now is entirely nonconsensual," I said, writhing. "Put me down."

"No. You behave now, kid." He gave me a serious glance, an authoritative one.

This was weeeird. "This is ridiculous."

"No, we can't have kids running down the sewers, entirely alone in the middle of the city. There are crooks here. There are guys that if they got ahold of you, you would hope that someone like me came to find you." He bore a heavy expression. "What's your name?"

"Ah, curses. I'll never live this down," I said, not answering his question, and not caring to in the slightest. "I'll make sure that you pay for doing this." Now, this was just an empty threat. "Put me down. I need to fulfill my destiny."

"Are you all right, kid?" he said, glaring.

"Am I- b- what?" I yelled. "You impudent monkey."

"We need to talk to your parents." He took a deep breath, and stared away from me with those heavy eyes he bore.

"I don't have any parents. I'm a robot."

Now, he put me down. "What the heck are you talking about, kid?"

"Look over there," I said, pointing in the other direction. He didn't look away. Rather, he kept his eyes locked on me. "Drats. I was sure that would work."

"What's happening with you?" he said. "You seem like there's something wrong with you."

I felt hysterical. "Wrong? Wrong! Yes, you can bet that there's something wrong with me."

"What in the world?" he said.

I ran toward him and grabbed his neck. "Just be calm for a moment. I need to focus on other things." 

He threw me off like it was nothing. "Are you trying to kill me?" he screamed into my face.

"Well, that depends on your interpretation of that word, but no, because this is all a dream, and no, I cannot kill you, since this is a dream, dream-buddy," I said, a little nervously.

"You're out of your mind," he said, angry, and sounding even a little scared.

"No, I'm, not!" I said, throwing dust and gravel toward his eyes which I saw on the ground.

"I can't... see," he said, rubbing his eyes. I ran away, and now, I had a different idea. I was going to find another exit out the city, and this time, no one was interfering.

I was pulled off the ground again. "He recovered too quickly," I said, looking for him with my gaze, but I saw a mare instead. It was another stranger. "Oh, right. I should pay closer attention to my surroundings, in truth."

"What are you doing?" she said, sounding terrified, terrorized.

"Good question," I said, realizing where all this was going. They were totally pinning me as a loon, but I wasn't, nope. I was resolved, and I wasn't going to let these guys change my mind. They were also stuck inside the dream. Everyone was. I had to escape, and I was going to, again.

As I was thinking, she brought me into a building. "I found this filly wandering around, and she attacked a guy and tried to strangle him. She was speaking gibberish."

"No, I wasn't."

A guy in a very blue hat saw me. "What's your name?"

"What's my name? You be quiet you. I- I- I feel so tired. Why do I feel so tired?" I wanted to go to sleep then and there.

"We'll take her in, and wait until we find her parents. Thank you very much," he said, though I could not quite make out all of it. I was way lost in my own thoughts at this point.

Her parents? Sweetie Belle is from Ponyville, and she doesn't have any parents. She lives with her sister, Rarity. None of this is right, none of this is true, and I won't accept it. Well, she did have parents. But they only came to visit occasionally. Wait, was Autumn Leaf Caprice my parent? That couldn't be right. I would find my way out of this situation, yet, I had decided.





"Thank you," Autumn said.

"Okay, so I know what I did will be misinterpreted," I said, trying to remain calm, and explain everything in a precise manner. "It's not at all what it looks like. Listen to me. It's not. I can explain myself, and I can justify what I did. I promise you."

She just, glanced at me, with a measure of restraint, hiding something behind those eyes. "Okay, Sweetie."

"I didn't mean for things to go this way," I said. "But they did."

"Yes," she said.

My mouth fell open. "I'm sorry." I was shocked at what I had just done. I did all that, me, and no one else, but I did it with the assumption that what I was doing was justified, didn't I? It all went full circle in the end, this kind of stuff, I realized. Committing violence, even for a good purpose, somehow never yields good results.

"Yes," she said.

"I hope you're not concussed," I said.

I could see her cringing now. I thought better of it, and decided to remain silent for the remainder of our journey home.





But when we got home, she put me to bed, without any food, which I figured I suddenly needed for some reason, and then, she locked my door. I tried to open it, but I couldn't. I looked around. The room didn't have any windows. Oh, no. Then, I felt tired, so tired I could not stay awake any longer, and then, I was tortured to death, again, inside my dream. Horror be its name, and fear it, for it is fear. Real fear is generated by real things, and this thing was real, as real as any hurdle, and hassle, and hinderance, that I had ever seen.
> Part 30: Horror
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I felt like I was drowning, gasping for air. Then, I could breathe again. I was choking for air a second ago. I felt things smash against my head. Why did it hurt so much? Dreams aren't supposed to hurt so much, I thought. Beneath it all was a huge empty emptiness, a nothingness, containing nothing. Darkness, it was all I could see ahead of me, around me, behind me, piercing darkness. Piercing forces weighed down upon me, piercing coldness too. Everything lit up. I was hanging in midair, and I fell further, and I landed. I saw stairs in the distance, suspended in the air. I don't know how to describe it. They were going across abysses, these stairs, lining the... rift. I was inside some kind of rift, which divided two masses of land from one another. They were patchy. I could see the earth within them, and they stretched into the distance so far away that I could not see where the rift reached its terminus. The stairs did too. They stretched out, going up and down and back and forth between the two rifts, uniting them, and making paths that branched between them. I looked down. I was at the bottom of it all. It was really not nice. I felt antlike. I felt like... I was insignificant, which I probably was, in the grand scheme of things, if we're honest with ourselves, readers.

Yes, and also, beneath me was a black, stony surface. It was so black that I had trouble seeing its contours, but it felt stony, and I decided that it was probably stone, presumably, assumably, at least, something. Dark. I felt hesitant, and everything felt dark, dark. It was... black. I took a step. I expected something to happen, as in my other dreams. Nothing happened. I took another step. I heard rumbling in the distance. A few pieces of sand fell down from above me, dust. They landed around me, and on me. I picked my mane. Rubble and gravel fell out of it. I felt really strange, and small, and lonely, in this place. I stayed where I was probably for like ten minutes, just taking it all in. Then, I moved. The big walls around me stretched so high that I couldn't see where they ended. It was like an endless mass of stone, and rock, and earth, with flights of stairs going between it.

This was only the beginning too. It would only get spookier, and that's because I heard a screech, and then, I saw a giant tapeworm dig out from one of the landmasses. Was it a tapeworm? It looked mechanical. It flew far above my head, but it was gigantic, truly. It must've been a hundred meters long, at least, and giant, and long. It could've swallowed me whole, I think, and I thought that if I wasn't careful, that is what would happen. I ducked, and tried to blend in with the scenery, but it's hard when your body color is that of a snowflake, but all it did was just pass above my head. What a strange apparition, I thought to myself. That was freaky. I stepped through the desolation. All I saw was black rock, and it was so dark that... where was the light coming from? I looked up. No, it wasn't coming from the ceiling. This place had no ceiling. It just kept stretching up, reaching up, growing, into the distance, forever. I looked down. The ground was dark. Where was the light coming from? I held up my hoof in front of me. It was shining. 

"What?" I said, lowering. "Why?"

"Why?" I heard a voice said, and it was really crisp. I could hear exactly who it was.

"My... friend," I said, hesitating.

Something murmured, rumbling, tumbling, rocks, and the ground shook, rocks, everything feeling hard, like rock. It came up in front of me. It formed out of light, and it became. I saw it. It was the shape of a child, like me, small like me, or like my friends, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom. "You aren't enjoying yourself out there, are you?"

"At least, reality is real, and dreams are fake," I said, trying to convince myself that this place was vacuous, and its significance meaningless, and null. "Dreams can be woken up from."

"Oh, Sweetie Bot," she said, sneaking closer. "It's not that at all. Dreams, yes, are imaginary, but they aren't fake, and they aren't empty, are they? I could've kept fooling you with a dream for as long as I had wanted to, or do you disagree?"

I backed away, and blinked, and she was gone, by the time I had blinked, and when I looked, I couldn't see, but I could feel a cold hoof on my shoulder. I yelped, "What's the point, you?"  

She lowered her hoof, and came up beside me, standing to my right. "Sweetie. Please, you must listen now, before it is too late. The world isn't exciting, nor adventurous. It's cold, and dark, and I cannot keep protecting you forever through all this."

"All I can remember is you harming me."

"If you knew what I am, then you would understand," she said.

"No!" I jumped back. "All I know is that you think evil is everywhere and must be purged. You are the evil, nameless."

"The world is empty," she said. "The world is black. The world is only an attempt at making sense. At least, you realized that."

"Whatever you are, you are not my friend," I declared, staunchly. 

"Come here," she said. "Let me show you something. The facility is a much more interesting place than you think."

"What is the facility?"

"It's what you dream about to represent fear," she said. "Come."

I took a step, and then I regretted it. "I'm not... I don't know." I walked toward her, and she backed toward a small opening in a wall, which she then stepped into. I followed her, for some reason.

We came into a smaller room that was not just landmass and nature. The room was neatly decorated, shining tiled floors, and had a statue of a monster. The monster had many eyes, and things that stuck out in all sorts of directions. This wasn't the Yether. It was something else. It looked very imaginary. It seemed to shift as I got closer to it, and it looked like it was moving, which freaked me. I came after her. "The statue is the demon of collapse," she said. "It's an archetypal monstrosity of the dream, of which there are only a few."

"Archetypal? What? I'm sure this is not something you should play around with, nameless. It seems really dangerous." I stumbled, trying not to lose her, as she was reaching the end of this room, also.

"The war would end in a bloodbath if I didn't," she said, sheepishly, pulling her neck in, shrinking herself down. "We need to see the truth, and realize it, before it's too late. I'm a storyteller. You like stories, don't you? Come. I have a good one for you."

I glanced back at the statue. It had left its podium and was coming toward me. "Stop it," I screamed at the top of my lungs and hid behind her.

"Think again," she said. "Look closer."

I did. It was standing on its podium, again. "Trickery," I said. I walked out from behind her. She was the same size as me, so it wasn't a hiding place, by far.

"You'll notice," she said, smiling faintly, "that the facility is one of the most honest places in the world. It would never lie to you. The facility shows things exactly as they are."

"But that was an illusion," I said. "Wasn't it?"

"No," she said. "It was your fear telling a story about what the statue is, and what it's doing. Come now. We only have the night to spare, and then, you will be forced to go back to those ponies that think you have lost your mind. Come."

I did.

"It only does this once every night, right at the beginning," she said, waiting beside an opening in the floor. I looked down. Something came flying up. It connected to the opening. It was a winding flight of stairs, going down, stairs spinning, going downward in a circular pattern. She stepped down the stairs, and without hesitating, I came down after her. The stairs had a tiny stone wall around them, a fence, parapets, to prevent anyone from falling down. For a nightmare, this wasn't all that troubling yet.

I coughed, trying to get her attention. She stopped, and glanced toward me, very gently. This was the nicest a person had ever been to me, it felt like, even though I knew she wasn't nice, and even though this was the villain, and the culprit, and the one behind it all. I couldn't believe it. She was only acting nice, I told myself, and there's a difference between that and really being nice. I said, "This isn't as terrible as I thought it would be, this nightmare."

"Well, it's only just starting up," she said. "Give it time, but don't look away from it. That's how it becomes stronger."

"Sort of like with the sky-bot," I said, feeling skeptical about this. "Really, nameless?"

She glared at me, and grinned, and smiled. "The sky-bot? You aren't even close to understanding what the sky-bot is, and what it does, and why you have to stay still, and not move, and not look away. When you're there, you will have reached farther than Sidus said you would, dear filly. Let's see how far you get, actually, in the real world, when I have wiped off the last parts of the identity I created for you here in the dream. What say you about that, Sweetie?"

"What's the real world?" I said, feeling curious, and really baffled by her words. "I thought I understood it. The sky-bot is the machine that is used to manipulate ponies, and it does quite literally by manipulating their bodies and adding robot parts to them."

"Oh, but there is so much more to it than that," she said, frowning. "That's only the beginning of a long journey inside the sky-bot of the dream. Come. We have much to discuss."

I did, and once we had gotten down through the floor, and down into the next room, I looked over the parapets, and I could see two dozen of those tapeworm monsters flying around the desolation I saw before me. I was awe-struck. The space was big, and it looked like it had been carefully built over many years. A kilometer away from me, I could see other winding sets of stairs that were identical to mine reach down from the ceiling and into the floor, and I saw stairs out there, far out there, in the misty fog, spinning, like screws, rising higher and higher, and then finally connecting with the ceiling. 

"Well, you wanted to escape, and you got it," she said, sweeping her hoof, her shining light-hoof, for she was made of light, across the scene. I had also become a glow-stick, but I could still make out my colors. I pulled a piece of my hair down. It was purple. I let go of it. It bounced back into place. It wasn't like the other place, where my hair just got messier, and messier, and this was... it was... had it only been a dream? Nooo, that couldn't be.

"I just want to be free," I said, coldly, and with decisiveness. "Whatever that means, and whatever it takes, nameless."

She glanced at me, and I saw the corner of her eye, and then, she looked away, leaning against the wall. "You are given to want that, I know, and that's why I bet that you will make it farther than any other who tried to escape from this dreamlike hell that Sidus helped me create. You only need to complete three simple little challenges, trifling challenges, and you already did the first one. That's so good of you. I'm proud of you. You're extremely clever, even though you may not think much of yourself. You've been given very little information, but you did take a lot longer than many of the others to figure out that the facility only exists in a dream, and that this is why it's so hard to find."

"But I did figure it out," I said, "and that has to count for something."

"Clever girl," she said, grinning. "You did, didn't you?"

"Was it you who told me that I should strike you down, in Sweetie Belle's lost memories, and in that room, with those chairs, and that wind?" I remembered the wind, and the cold, and those words. Child. O child. I shuddered. Why? Why was this happening to me? Why? Why!

"I told you..." she said, pausing. "I told you things that I could see in your future. I told you... about surprises that are on the horizon, and one is that you might defeat me, and defeat the dream, but this surprise is fading, as is your friend, Gripey Silverfeathers, and his existence. You are an experiment, one out of many, a very special one, Sweetie. You are meant to find out, and I think this is right, whether the future can be changed, and corrected, again, after the first mistake was made, and we accidentally fessed up his death, as you heard about, I think."

"I think you meant mess up," I said, thinking that I was correcting her.

"No, fess up. Come." She stepped down the stairs, one step at a time, winding down. "His death." 

I came after her. "Why is his death so important?"

"You know why," she said.

"I only know vague words and images," I said, feeling flustered.

"That's all I know too, but we both know that there's a war. His death is supposed to create peace, because it means that Celestia and Hookbeak come to terms, and stop warring about something relatively insignificant, in relation to the effect, the terrible death, that the war will cause, and I am a fragment of that terrible future, and I exist to change it, by influencing the past, Sweetie."

"You are a fragment?" I said. And what about Hookbeak and Celestia? Were they even real? "What's real and what's imaginary?" I said, following her down the stairs. Now, that we had gotten further down, I could see ponies down there, carrying things, and dragging containers toward the stairs. They were carrying them up?

"You know, you notice things that I didn't even notice, and then, you notice nothing at all when it's something obvious. You really are a curious creature, Sweetie Bot. I'll tell you."

"Tell me what?"

We reached the bottom, and a pony came toward me. I jumped out the way, and she walked up the stairs, carrying a thick brown potato bag on her back, though I was sure it didn't contain any potatoes. More ponies did the same, mostly ignoring me. Some, it seemed, almost tried to bump into me, but I jumped and dodged to avoid that. Many ponies were walking up the stairs now, with containers of different types and sizes, bags and things, stuff like that. One stallion pulled a wheeled cart onto a railing that was on the parapet. I had missed that. He had a rope around his body, and he slowly walked up the spinning stairs, dragging the cart across the railing. More did the same, and the carts were filled with liquid, and the liquid had a starry content. It looked like black sludge, or oil, filled with white shining dots, like stars.   

We were on a walkway now that wasn't walled in. It was filled with ponies coming up from lower walkways that extended down, to which stairs were connected, and made a path to walk up. I felt really ill at ease watching all these ponies struggle. Some looked tired. Some looked angry, but they all just kept working, like it was the only thing they knew how to do. Beneath the walkways, which weren't walled in, was a sea of the same kind of liquid, stars moving around in it. Or something. It looked like a black night sky across the floor, a lake of stars, and heaven, and the liquid had the character of a sky. It looked blueish, and almost sort of like an optical illusion. It looked like the sky was down there. I walked up right to the edge.

"I must warn you," [redacted] said. "If you walk too close, you might experience an unspeakable pain, such that there are no words for in the equine language, and it will be far worse than any pain you have been through so far."

"I doubt that."

"Let's try it out then," she said, putting a hoof on me. 

I backed away. "That doesn't mean I want to try it."

"Come." She began frolicking, bouncing up and down, with these carcasses walking past her. 

This disgusted me. "They're suffering," I said.

"It's only a dream after all, Sweetie," she shouted, playfully. "Come now, before the night is over."

I came after her, somehow unwillingly, and somehow doing it, no matter how unwilling it was. "What now?"

We reached another barrier. It was a wall, with more railings going on top of the wall, and carts slowly moved across the wall, with this goo inside them, coming down, and then moving onto the walkway. "Let's pick an empty cart." She jumped into one. "Come."

"I will." I hesitated as an empty cart passed me by, moving up the wall, and through a hole in the wall, to the other side, and this starry liquid ran in tiny waterfalls over the wall, almost looking magical, running down from its roof. It was not that high a wall, probably only a few meters, maybe eight. I jumped into the next cart, which took me up, and over the wall. 

I saw nameless [redacted] standing there on the other side, on the ground, on a narrower stone walkway, which was patchy, and had cracks in it. Another railing, or the same railing rather, was beside her, and passed through the area, and toward a hole in the wall, on the other side. Through this hole, toward me, and up the wall, came more carts, and I descended, watching them ascend beside me. "Jump before it's too late."

Gripped by an unexpected fear, I jumped, and the cart sank down into the ground, and disappeared off the platform, off the walkway, down into the starry empty abyss-like substance. The cart went off the walkway, just as I was jumping and to the side of it, this narrow platform extending from a sea of stars which the cart sank down into, and it was gone. All the carts coming back suffered a similar fate, disappearing into the fluid, moving on a different railing, and going down off the platform, off the walkway, down, disappearing, and going away, forever, or maybe not, but it sounds more dramatic that way, doesn't it? Then again, all this need not be dramatized, or exaggerated. It's already dramatic enough as it is, so I'll stick to not doing that in the future.  

She led me through the hole, and beside us, more carts passed by, out the hole, and toward the wall, going over it. On the other side of the hole was a more tranquil place. There was a bridge on the other side of the hole, and when we walked across it, I could see a mote down the bridge, on both sides of it, stretching around a wall, which separated this place from the other room, where slavery was going on, and tapeworms, and starry nightmares, with unwilling participants, and darkness, and suffering, and weird carts, walkways, platforms, death, bags, sacks, things, and... a lot of fear. I could see fear in the eyes of those ponies, and I understood why, for if you cross this pony, [redacted], you could get punished, as I had seen in my memories, and in the dream, there is no reprieve.

"You don't really know me like you think that you do," she said.

I glanced to the side and regretted it. There was another one of those statues, of the archetypal fear monstrosity, or whatever she called it. I was too... upset to remember, I felt. "What now?"

"Your dream only had eight contradictions, no more," she said. "I went easy on you. You're lucky, but I thought that you had been through enough already, and your little body wouldn't take the pressure forever. The stress might've killed you, if anything. Nevertheless, it was good to see your prosper, and flourish, under those conditions. You have been a good test subject, Sweetie Bot."

"What am I?" I said.

"Another memory," she said.





Long, long ago in the tranquil open easy fetching world of ponies, Equestria, there lived a pony who was unlike other ponies. She knew many things, and had many talents. She was an object of interest for me, because I thought that I might leverage her existence, and her life, to prevent this catastrophe, but alas, she fell victim to the same biases that all before her sadly have. Still, it was an improvement, for now, Equestria had a regent, and it was a good one, for the most part, and she actually cared. She knew who I was, and what I was, but she hid it away, and that was my fate.

She could not eliminate me, and neither can you, Sweetie Bot. I am the eternal essence of this planet, and this world, and I will live on for as long as I must. How did I become so powerful? Where did I come from? What am I? I will tell you the story of a good future, and a bad future, from my mouth to your ears, and hear the dream, and believe in it, for it can never lie.

Once,
and only once,
in all of ancient history,
all the ponies lived in harmony.

It was a time of treachery.
Long, long ago,
in beautiful mystery, 
friendship came to follow three. 

First, his name was Sidus,
father of the ancestry,
of princesses,
and royalty.

Then, there was the black pony.
This pony is unlike me, 
but has a fragment,
of my dream, and seems to be.

The black pony that seemed to be,
and royalty, and treachery, 
and Sidus and his wretched dreams,
of sallow callow shallow feasts.

He was the one that started this.
Anyway, once and only once,
there has been freedom,
and that is the time of beasts, inside dreams.

Our time, that is.
Long ago, once,
in royal regal wisdom,
a sacrifice was made by someone. 

Expect me to go on?
You never would have won,
you cannot bide your time,
and futures are sublime, I say.

Once, long ago,
a royal vow was made,
and heavy costs were paid,
and lives were lost and made.

Say? Once and only once,
could ever friendship be so bright,
and could justice make it right,
if only someone made that height?

Light! Once, and long ago,
and once upon a time,
some time ago,
a future so sublime,
with tracks and tricks aflow,
and beauty and good rhyme,
and so,
I waited.

Waited. Waited. Waited.
Someone whisked, and shuddered forth, 
discovering a marvelous confection,
and it was a weapon, a predilection, one to dream.
And it helped me build a better future, juncture. 
It created hope in a time where all was lost and I saw nothing, 
nay, but suffering in the horizon of my life, and nigh,
all the things that spluttered, spraying forth, 
reborn anew, came to tell me I was right...
and I had fought the good fight.

This little weapon, this confection, of the dream,
of my life, of the light, all those gleams, of the beams, 
made my life, made me beam, lose my strife, 
ponder lies, accept this fight.

I was alive, but what was I?
And what are you?
And what are we?
We are memories of a time.

We are memories of a time,
which,
could,
have,
been.

That's because all these dreams,
wretched dreams, and ancient seams,
of fluttering and falling things connected,
confected, and conjunction, and true light,
saw its birth and saw its life,
and in the flat splat clear middle of it was me,
and free.

We are part of history, 
one that never was,
where the world was different,
and friendship was not regent.

We are part of ancient lies,
of this time, and of this life,
and we were created using falsehoods,
and too, our creation made a life,
for the ponies, all their lives,
and those foul griffins too,
and the zebras,
also you.

Yes.

Our future is one where Sweetie Bot was,
and your spirit is what I took from those.
I mean, your spirit is,
and it's complicated.

Your spirit existed in the nexus of the dream,
not the person, but the seams, of the place where future gleams,
yes.
And you were picked out of a memory of a different place,
where times departed from our own,
and these times were different from our own,
and I know it's hard to see,
what I'm telling thee,
but please,
listen to me.

The whirlpool of your choice,
tells you stories about voice,
and of times of light and trust,
and the ancient evils,
which we won't live down.

It's just a memory,
of alternate history,
where the ponies lived as peasants,
and scrounged the ground for dirt, 
and plagues.

That's where I became.
I saw their suffering,
and I decided I can fix it,
and I would,
and that is what I could.

Now, the future is in store.
Just, the future has a war,
and that war will leave us gone,
and those ponies will see justice,
and light, 
destroyed.

Once, long ago,
in a time of empty flow,
I sacrificed my life,
and became the memory,
which is now haunting,
and stinging dreams.

I'm a fragment of the past,
and I know I cannot last.
I only live to see,
this black future of these peasants,
without friendship,
lacking love,
see light, and sing.

There was only just one thing.
Something had stood in my way.
I needed to display,
that I must correct history,
and the ponies would forget,
that I had saved their play.

In my little play,
there are not many rules,
but those there are,
I cannot lose.

I created destiny.
This existence, and this world,
is dependent on my word,
and it might soon fade away,
if I cannot get my way.

Anyway!





"Let me stop you there, buddy." I pumped my hoof. "What are you doing?"

"I'm telling a story, slick," she said, pouting at me. "You don't like it?"

Water gushed beneath us, and her words echoed through the courtyard-like space, with the mote, and the statue behind the mote, and above the hole, into the hall, with the workers, and the stars. It was still dark, though.

"Don't like it? I think you're butchering the language, and what you're saying doesn't make sense. It's gibberish, and some of those aren't even rhymes." I swung my hoof left to right, disapprovingly. 

She grabbed it and lowered it. "You're one to talk."

"What?" I said, frowning and glowering at her. "What do you mean? What have I done?"

"You tried writing a story," she said. She walked off. "I fear that this story might be a true one also, perchance."

"You're crazy," I said, running behind her, toward her, catching up with her. "I never wrote no story, at all."

"You call it... the story of a robot. Heh," she said, laughing. "You've a sense of humor, buddy." 

"So what?" I said. "What of it?" I knew I had never written any story, no, not at all. She was crazy.

She faced me, just as I was catching up to her. "Not yet, you dullard. Come now." 

"I'm not a dullard," I said, feeling annoyed. "Why must you insult me so?"

"Oh, I'm- I lack patience," she said, and she turned a corner. 

The mote continued around the corner, and I saw the entire mote was quadratic, and it bent around a stone pattern that was etched into the rock of the cave we were in, of the giant courtyard, which was outside the slavery-room, and this mote, I think, separated the desolation, the giant sky-like open space of the other room with the slaves, from this one, and it was dark. Why so dark? We were in a cave. Why build something like this in a cave? Well, it was a dream, of course. How much of my life had been a dream? This thought caused great anxiety, and I felt sick, really, deeply, and you could only imagine.

"I want some answers. I think that's why I followed you to begin with." I was losing my patience too, I felt, and she kept walking around the mote, and I saw water moved through it, as of a river... even though it was a mote, like in Circle town. What could that mean? What did any of it mean?

"You'll get your answers. Remain calm. The nightmare is alive," she said.

I heard a growl. "Why and where is what?"

"Behind you, dopey," she said, going the other way.

I looked, and I saw the statue of that demon of fear had come to life, but this statue was way bigger, and was tall as a skyscraper, for the place had no ceiling to speak of, and it seemed to go up forever. It had rounded the corner, and it growled, taking step after step closer. "Worrying," I said, trying to think of something to do. I was feeling fear grip me more and more. "What do I do?"

"Remember that this is just a dream," she said. "That usually helps."

I tried to, but it didn't seem to work. "It's coming right for us," I said. I pointed. It was.

"I told you to remain calm," she said, pushing me out of the way, as the creature came closer. 

It roared now, and stomped, making cracks in the rock ground, which was beneath us. It stumbled, and jittered, moving daintily for its size, taking up much of the space between the mote and the wall opposite the mote. This was a corridor. She held out one hoof. "What are you doing?" I said.

"Shh." It came closer, growling, and its tentacles reached down against the floor, aiming for us. "Shh. Shh."

"It's going to kill us," I said. "And if anything, I at least have learned that dream-pain is as real as any pain. What's your counterargument to that, say, nameless?"

"That you should shut up," she said. Then, she stared at the monster. "Hush."

The tentacles reached around her. I closed my eyes, preparing for the worst.

"O child," she said. "O child. Poor you. You are suffering. Poor you."

"What are you doing?" I said, opening my eyes.

"Hear my plight," she said. "We have committed a heinous crime in causing your existence, and allowing its insistence. Under the black stars, I ask you to forgive me, and understand my fight, what is right, and the light."

The monster shrank, humming softly, like a baby, and then, it was small as an insect. "Squash it," I said.

"Squash you," she said, pushing me again, so that I got farther away from her and the bug. "There will be no squashing. Here is a life that must be cherished." It ran away, and around the corner, the little bug, and disappeared from where we had come. "There you go," she said. "There you go."

"Go?" I said. "That was crazy? How did that work? That shouldn't have worked."

"Well, it only works in dreams," she said, smiling at me. "I'm sorry for being impatient. I have so few moments to spare that all the time you spend asking questions to which you should already have the answer, since you are smart as you say, bores me. I am not saying you're dumb, but you are acting dumb, Sweetie Bot."

"Demonstrate it," I said, after a moment of hesitation, and trepidation, and exhilaration. "Prove it then, if you can." I was challenging her, and that felt exciting. "Prove it."

"I will," she said, stifling a grin.

"You will?"

We reached the end of the corridor. There was only a wall here. "I will." She jumped toward the wall, and she pushed her hooves against it, and the wall slid backward, and further into the corridor, revealing more corridor, and a path for us to go through.

"What did I miss?"

"Eight things," she said. "Exactly eight things."





Equestria, such a loyal place, I believe, and believing is existing.

Equestria, such a royal place, I plead, and pleading is consisting. 

Of Equestria, a royal loyal fetching place, became the monster known as fate.

Of Equestria, a jovial coy and special place, I was created out of hate.

You want rhymes?

I am from the past,
and exist in contrast,
with a different time,
one that was a crime.

A filly that you know,
whose life was a horror-show,
wanted to save all those,
that you think you know, gross!

You don't know anyone.
You don't know any, none.
You don't know, anything.
You don't know, a thing.

You are blind,
just a rind,
whose life is not real,
facts which make you reel.





"Too many rhymes and not enough substance," I said.

"You unsatisfiable, unquenchable. That's what I like about you, Sweetie Belle. You are the spirit of the dream, truly."

"What use is there asking questions, when you keep telling stories, only that?"

"The bad future," she said, again not answering my question.





Celestia was born.
Ten years later,
she died.

Her life was met with scorn,
the rabble ate her,
and cried.

This alicorn, adorn,
world that hate her, 
and lied.

Her life was quickly worn,
and childhood made her,
rasped sighed.

That is where I did mourn,
aghast at fate there,
inside.

The past was dark, forlorn,
and borne, traitor, 
of tide.

With destiny's black horns,
in my freighter,
my hide.

I entered a reborn,
body greater, 
than wide.

Its power was first sworn,
by the waiter,
of pride.

Its nana-nana-orn,
something something out of rhymes.





"Change the rhyme scheme. It's too restrictive," I said.

[Redacted] burst out laughing. "Point taken, buddy."

"Where are we going?" The wall continued going backward as we walked forward. The walls to the right and left of us, whose patterns I had not been properly paying attention to, had snakes going across them, with their tongues stuck out, and images of wolves, and bunnies. Rabbits? Something akin to a bunny or a rabbit was on the wall, and a wolf stood over it, and barred its shining, terrifying teeth. The teeth shone, actually, in the image, as if light reflected off them. Lines were drawn going out from the teeth, making them look like a sun, lines that symbolized light. These lines stretched far and wide out from the mouths of these wolves, and were pretty, thin, very thin, and everything here was oddly, beautiful? It was odd. Why? The nightmare was beautiful, but aren't nightmares, in some sense, ugly, when you get down to it?

"Where are we going?" she said, and the wall stopped, and I saw an opening in the wall, which the wall in front of us had slid back to reveal. The wall to the left had an opening in it, and there were stairs there. "Time to find out." 





If it was not for I,
Celestia would die,
and this land's fate would, nigh,
be nothing but a sigh.

You see?

That's a simple fact,
and that I can't take back,
must leave this myth intact,
and courage, cannot lack.

It's also just an act,
this evil I enact,
to make those souls draw back,
and never face my rack.

The dead black rasping sighs,
of ponies' final highs,
before their stupid lies,
have been exposed by I,
tell stories of a cry,
at dreams that pass them by.

The future is all lost, 
has really paid its cost,
already made it lost,
by deference to the cost,
and it deserves to frost.
Its never-ending vast, 
coldness of its dead past,
granting it its final blast.





"Pull the lever, Sweetie Bot," she said, waving her hoof. "There is no time to waste, none at all, nope."

"Pull it? You want me to pull it? Fine, I'll pull it." We were on a platform made of wood, a scraggly platform that looked unsteady, and wobbly, and deteriorating. There was a lever. I pulled it. The platform shot up into the air. Not ready for this, I sank into the floor, pushed down by gravity. "The gall of some ponies." 

The platform stopped. We reached a narrow tunnel. "Brace yourself. You'll soon learn why they call it, the nightmare," [redacted] nameless said. Although it was dark around us, I could see her features clearly, since she was shining, made of light. She stepped through the tunnel. "I will need you to plug your ears. The password is a long-held secret." 

"I suppose if I don't, you'll make my ears clog up, with the flick of a hoof," I said.

"Don't say stuff like that," she said.

I held my hooves to my ears.

Light came in the tunnel, from a different light source than this pony. I saw it, faintly, and we both walked in. It was a cellar, with a bucket that was lying on the ground, and specks of dust flew about, lit up by the light, coming from the ceiling. "Don't cellars usually have another, um, floor above them, and this looks like sunlight."

"It is," she said.

"But this is a nightmare."

"Nightmares don't always have to take place at night. That's just some odd preconception you have stuck in your head, Sweetie."

"What's with the..."

"What?" she said. She kicked the bucket so it flew off, and walked up the stairs out the cellar. "You coming?"

I did, but I felt really, really scared now, and somehow, I did not see, nor understand why. Why? "I don't... the stench. It's... and... it's... I know that smell."

"You, if anyone, would," she said.

I followed her out the cellar, but once we got outside, there was no house, and there were no walls. I saw a statue of a bird, a bird statue. Its wings were stretched out. "Beautiful," I said, almost absentmindedly, really, because I was, and that's because, frankly, I was trying to distract myself, actually.

"Focus," she said. "There are more important things than looking at statues, unimportant statues, which you shouldn't remember. Come now." She walked out across some rubble, and I followed her, and I recognized the place.

"What have you done, redacted?"

She stared at me for a second or two. "Don't blame me. This place really is a garbage dump for what's going on in your world. Just look at the place."

It was the Crystal Empire, but not really. It was the Crystal Ruins, because the place was totally flat, crushed, and ruined, in pieces, and none of the buildings stood tall, not even the Crystal Palace, but I saw it, and knew that I was beholding it, because it had collapsed before me, and that was its fate, I suppose. It had collapsed, well, before me, as in, before I got here, and before my eyes, I saw it, clear as day. It still was mostly intact, but it lay on the side, collapsed, again, ruined, and the place was abandoned... no.

We took a few paces, and then, when my eyes had properly adjusted to the sunlight, I saw a pile of corpses, of ponies. "Goodness me."

[Redacted] was quiet, and she stood still, keeping a sense of dignity about her, as I noticed the death at hoof. "Yes, it was."

I glanced at her, somewhat confused, and a little annoyed, and then, I took to sightseeing the bodies. "What happened to this place?"

"It was destroyed in a battle four years from now, and it is a fragment of the future, a bad future." She came up to me. "When Aldeus caught you outside Ponyville, I had no idea how much suffering he would cause you, and I don't remember any hatch as unlucky as yours was."

"What are you babbing about, bibble-babbling about?" I said, and walked up on the corpses. "This is the price I paid for doing what I did? Are you trying to teach me some lesson, and now you feel sorry for me because of what Aldeus did? You know much, and yet, you miss a lot. The suffering he caused, as of the suffering here, and the death." I felt my stomach churning, and turning, and I skipped off the pile of corpses, going to her. "It cannot be reversed, nameless. It's with you forever." I pushed my hoof on her chest. "In here."

"The lesson I'm trying to teach you is far more literal than that. This future, as you say, cannot be reversed, and the trauma I have caused, and the suffering surviving within each pony might live on, but there are things we can do to help the future, Sweetie, if you listen to me."

"I told you, and I decided on this long ago. You are wrong, and you cannot save things by killing them."

"Then, wars are never just?" she said. I tried going away from her, angry that she was even thinking to convince me. "Wars can never be okay? What if war is the only way to prevent a worse catastrophe, and what if you're in the fortunate position to know that it is true? It's not an open question. The facility of the dream, and your facility, will save the world one day, and you can scoff all you want, but it's as true as any fact you have ever known, and held onto, for fear of losing your sanity, and your mental stability, because you were afraid that death was coming for you if you believed nothing."

"That's not true," I said. "I decided that something must be true, because it's intuitive, and I knew that the thing about fear always having to be feared constantly, fear the fear, cannot be true. We must sometimes confront things that make us afraid, at least sometimes, redacted. It's far too important to scoff at."

"These are real ruins," she said, cutting me off by walking in front of me, even though I should have been far away from her by now. She teleported in front of me, apparently. She lifted one hoof. "These are real memories, of alternate history, one that never was, and a future, a terrible future, which would have come, and that future lives on as the memory, the only thing that can and will prevent it, and that memory was created by... a friend, Sweetie." 

"Who?"

"I fear things too," she said. "I fear things too. You are not alone."

"You do not know," I said. "You don't!"

She took to walking toward the Crystal Ruins. "Oh, do I not?" 

I went after her. "Yes, you don't know what's in my heart. Thinking you're so clever, you just think you can manipulate me. You don't even know me. I do the manipulating of others. Everyone thinks I'm so gosh darn nice. Well, I'm not! I'm not."

I grinded my teeth. She was ever so serene. "Sweetie. You're talking to a person that bridged the gap between two alternate timelines, and who is responsible for keeping one separate from the other, through her continued, painful existence, and fear is what I use to do that, and if you fear something, trust me, I know about it, and I have known about it forever. Listen. You cannot hide from me, Sweetie."   

"Cannot... hide?"

"You blame yourself. I know. And you think you don't deserve their love and affection. You're a rogue in their eyes, as far as I'm concerned, as it regards your thoughts about manipulation. Your thoughts about manipulation, and what you said you did to them, are amusing, and very, very personal, and intrinsic to who you are as a person, and it is the reason why you reject others, and make them into pariahs in your mind, and think that something must be wrong with them. You're projecting things to the ones that you are so afraid of hurting, I'm afraid."

"No, I'm really not," I said. "I always am afraid that I'm the problem, and I blame myself for all these bad things that happen, and I have blamed myself, and felt sorry for what I did, for a long time."

"You have a funny way of showing it," she said. "My thoughts, and what I think, as it regards your thoughts about manipulation, is that you think that just by trying to be yourself, and trying not to die, and trying to survive a shame which you have only caught a short glimpse of, you think you're some kind of manipulator. You're not, but I am, and you should fear me, and you will."

I shook my head, rejecting her thoughts, injunctions, and false declarations, one by one. "This doesn't make sense, at all. I just said... I make everyone like me, just by acting a certain way, and I always reason my way to making them like me, rather than just having them like me for being me. I always think and think, and then I say what I think is right, and they buy it, even though it was just a calculation in my head. That's the problem."

"Preach it," she said, coming up behind me. "You're exactly right. You're just calculating things in your head. You're not being yourself. You're exaggerating things. You're not at all just doing what you think is right. You're a total monster, and a moral imbecile. You killed all those ponies, Sweetie."

"What?"

"You made it. You made that suffering. You created it. You created your own suffering. You're responsible for it." She whispered quieter and quieter, and came closer and closer to my ear. "There's no one to blame but yourself. If everyone knew who you really are, rather than what you're pretending to be, a civilized person, rather than the angry little creature, who always has pain, and hurt, and murder, and the joy of discovering death, and realizing it in the world, realizing new things, and having death be among them, at the back of her mind, and in her heart, you truly are good, a good antagonist to this world of ponies, and friends, and light, and darkness, and truth, yes, that too."

"I haven't been authentic, because if I really were, then I would scream and cry, and then laugh and snicker, back and forth, at everything, for hours, and I would run, and not want to look anyone in the eye, out of fear of hurting them, because that's what I would do, and I know... wait, you said... wait."

"Not that it matters," she said. "You're just one out of many, as you yourself said, all that time ago, and now, you let your friend die. That's too bad, Sweetie."

"Did I? Was he real? What's real?"

"He is as real as you want him to be, and I do not say this to confuse you. This memory can be saved, and rescued, and brought into the real world."

"A memory?"

"In this world, there are a few rules, and those there are, I cannot lose, and those there are, I have created, to make sure this world never dies." She leant against the Crystal Ruins. "One of them is simple. I decide who lives and dies, but I need a sacrifice. For every death, I need to see, another new life come to be. See?"  

"No, I don't see," I said. "And I actually liked Gripey. You're a terrible god, if that's what you are."

"I'm the most unique of the ancient spirits," she said. "I allow this world to be, in a way that it could never, without me."

"You're a terrible person."

"For a person who said that she believes in honesty, you lie a lot, clearly, to your own detriment."

"Stop doing that."

"Doing what?" she said, looking aghast.

"Trying to make this conversation about me. Who am I?"

She moaned out of frustration. "I don't know everything. I'm not all-knowing, but I know, as well as you do, that you stink of fear right now." 

I squinted. She was right in front of me now, though she had been by the statue a second ago, and I was overwhelmed by the light. "Of course I'm afraid. I don't know what's going on. And my entire life has been a lie," I said, stomping my foot, and it hurt a little, and I was... unsure, angry, and I turned away. "But you wouldn't know."

"Parts of it have been lie, and parts of it have been true. How about this? You have not been entirely true, nor have you been entirely false, in your behavior, and spirit. How's that? Is that more credible?"

"I have been true? I have been false? I have been one? I have been the other? I have been everything? I don't know? What does it matter? I will be locked in somewhere when I wake up."

"Those ponies out there." She came up beside me. "They don't understand you like I do. I could save you from them, and take you with me, back to the facility. I could take you away from Manehattan, and those boring ponies, old and boring."

"No, I want to live in reality, not some lie."

"This reality must die," she said, "but when it's over, you will live on. I may die, true, but you will live on. You will live in the real world again. You could have all you ever wanted, including friends, if you just paid attention, and let us cooperate. Have you been true? Have you been honest with all those ponies, who thought they were your friends, and trusted you? Did you lie to them? I honestly don't know, but what I do know is that you are the one that must discover the answers, not I, and you will, and I can help you. I can get you away from those that would seek to harm you, and just stay in the facility, until this whole thing has blown over. You can be here, and live here, and be among others, likeminded."

"As a slave?"

"As whatever you want."

"I don't want it."

"Of course you don't," she said. "Because you want to be free."

"Why did you take me here?"

Her white shining eyes were replaced by black holes in this moment, empty holes, deep empty holes. "Why?"

"Yes."

"Long, long ago, in another time, I was a pony, and I am a friend, and I am an ally, and I am... I live. I was alive, anyway. I wanted to save them. I thought I could save them."

"Save them?"

"You," she said, mouth hanging open. "You lied to them, to make them like you, or to make them accept you? Your lies grow within you, or do they? Are you a lie? What are you, Sweetie? I know who you are now."

"You sound like my brain when I'm trying to sleep," I said. "You really are a funny creature, but you aren't really that... close, and strong, and present to what I am, and what I am really afraid of."

"Everyone carries lies with them," she said. "They always look the same and sound the same. A lie is the same thing, regardless of context, and that's how you can know it's a lie, and not something else. Your lie is that somehow, someway, you can defy the odds, and defy the gods, and be free, but in all honesty, your story will be a tragedy. The story of a robot, is, truly, a tragedy, and you are not more powerful than Discord, Celestia, or I, the spirit of sight. I am the thing that bridged the gap, and made it possible for two worlds to see one another. I existed in an alternate history, and I created the other one, and by necessity, the old history, survived, and this is how you change the future, Sweetie. You make sure that what happened in that other world, the one we're in right now, the alternate history, does not transpire in real history, and that the two do not bridge too much, and become one, and that the tragedy of the other is not repeated in the one."    

"You seem to be saying that we're in a real world right now, which was created by what, a time machine, a time spell?"

"No, it was created through a memory, of a distant time, sent back through the ages, to a person that you know."

"How?"

"Because futures are sublime, and that's the final trick. Futures are as true as they want to be, and that's the only trick."

"Okay, now you're back to gibberish," I said.

"It's important that... I do not tell you," she said.

"How so?" I said, shrugging.

"I don't... know."

"I see," I said.

"I know that you're afraid of causing pain, but you need not ever cause any pain ever again, I say," she said. "It can be over. You can live in my world, which is as real as can be. It's real to me, at least."

"A memory?" I said.

Yes, it was, actually, in the most literal of senses, my dear confused reader. In the next section, it will be revealed how, and why, and I would make her tell me. Promise!





Is she just trying to confuse me? Is that it?





It wasn't.





I lied. The next section was just asking a question, and the second one was answering it. In all actuality, I knew there had to be an answer to all this.

Wait. I shouldn't be confused. I've already been through all this. I remember what happened, but what's with these strange dreams then, in which case, that seem to... dig in?

I cannot see, but I will discover, and... I will.





Right. Before anything else happens, maybe we should get a few things clear. I never asked for this. I never wanted this. Who am I? I don't even know. I don't even know. I feel like it's getting worse. The confusion and the hate, and the thing, and the reason, and why am I who I am, and why did I do what I did, and was it even real, and does it even matter, and is death real, and what is even real? 

I went to the thing, and picked up the blueprint. I took the Obliterator, and I hold it, looking at it, having done it, looked, with my eyes, I did, and I did, and I did, and I walked, and I said a bunch of things, and you remember what happened, because I don't? I don't. I don't? I don't know. I know that I don't remember, but I'm not even sure if that is a thing you can know, and what do I know? I know that I'm confused, and I went to the thing, and I picked up a blueprint of a machine, and I made things, and I did really make them, yes, and I did, and I don't know, and I, I did, did I, it was, and that's what happened with the... I... I... I... staggering.

There has to be an answer, I really do think, and I went to the place, with my eyes, looking at it. My eyes went to it, and I looked, and I saw, and I knew that it was real, and it was, wasn't it? I'm sure it was, and that's what I care about. The thing I care about is that everything that happened really is what happened, in the sense that I know it's happened, and it's true that it did, but is it? Of course, for something to happen, it has to be true that it happens, so yes, and that is true, in truth. It's what it is, in true truth, and I care, and I don't care, I did. I was, and I don't know how to say it, but I liked living at the facility, and this very fact, the fact that I did, which was a fact, and I did, and I did live at the facility. It's true that I did. A lot of things are true, but it's all the same really and actually, you know, and pertinently, capability, I know I have, true that, I did, live, and I walked, and the things that happened are what they be, because they be, and that's... huh?

I waved my arms around. I could see papers in front of me, and I saw. Everything was spinning. I was sitting at my desk, having just... and I had been... killed, by Aldeus, and now, I was back. This was impossible, by far, because I really, and I know this, and that's what I know you know too, should've actually been gone by far, and by... no, I'm... I need to... why does... it feels; it feels strange, and I was... I... I know what happened though, or I remember it, is more accurate to say. I was talking with nameless [redacted] and I had a dream, where I met Gripey, and I met all the others. What's going on even, is a funny question, right? I don't know, not sure, am not, I'm not, but I know that whatever is happening, I did say the things I said and do the things I did, and I need to wake up. Wait a moment. Wait a moment. What's a dream? What's a dream?

I saw the blueprints on the desk in front of me, the fruit of many weeks of work. Had it all been a lie? I needed to get out, and I needed to do something. I needed to escape. Aldeus had just been using me, and no wonder, since I know, I really did offer myself up to be used, it's true actually, and I did it, and I was responsible for it by the time that I committed the actions that, I know it happened, you know, and it's really, in truth, true, and... staggering. Why does everything feel so... shaky, in my mind or in reality, and is this real, or is this fake, and am I still writing, or am I dreaming? Wait.

I jumped off the chair. I was back where I began? Really? Not much of a climax to an interesting journey, which I thought was interesting anyway, and even though readers may not understand why I laid down, rather than lying down, it still makes sense to me. I think it's true that certain things feel true, and in that case, they are said that way, and why? And how? I looked to the wall and blinked. I saw a calendar, and I blinked, and it was gone, and I saw something shaky. I saw waves in front of my eyes, like mist, or heat, the air vibrating from heat, mist, heat, water, thing, food, why, and I went out the room, and I... no, I didn't. Did I stay here? What? What had happened to me? What had I missed? Was all this just something that... but it seemed real, and everything about it was real, and it would just be delusional now to call it unreal, and say that nothing really happened, and those ponies were real, and Gripey. I know he cared about me, and that's something you cannot fake, or make up, in some laboratory, or in a dream. 

Nooo.

"It had gone a total of about five days since me and Aldeus had been having that little conversation, or so I assumed, because I had seen signs that indicated to me that it had been five days, and I watched my calendar."

That's what I wrote in the second chapter, where I learned about the spark. I saw it... Jelly. :(

Nooo.

Wait, I get it, I think.

"Calendars were a waste of time, and I, as everyrobot else had always been used to, did it by thought."

So what? That's from chapter three, 3, 3, 3, thoughts, and feelings, unite, to form this simple fact, and that fact is... I know.

So what? It's not a contradiction though. I know that calendars always were a waste of time, and that doesn't mean I didn't still have one.

"Something swung in under my hooves and picked me up from behind. I was sitting on the back of the zebra that had spoken to me a short while ago."

Okay, so now I'm just picking, and reciting random quotes from earlier in the story from my memory. Is that it? Laaame.

"'But you do know I don’t eat, right?' She put me down."

Allyseyev knew that I don't eat food. That's a precious memory.

"Beside her was a burning cauldron, whose contents were as yet mysterious to me. I wondered what was inside."

Allyseyev the zebrak was just another unfortunate person that had to die for me.

"She plopped me down on the floor. 'You are exceedingly difficult to like, little one.' I did not know how to respond to that. She picked me up by the fur on my neck. It didn’t hurt at all. It felt like something like that should hurt. She put me down in the cauldron."

She plopped me down on the floor? So? She had already put me down, so? So what? She pushed her hoof on me so that my body plopped down, and then she picked me up. That's what I meant. I mean, I'm a high-quality writer, so if you're trying to disparage the quality of my writing by making me quote these things, me, I don't even know.





The blueprints landed on the ground around me, and I was in the forest of tranquility, now. Ain't that a dumb name for a forest, I think, and I feel, and that means I'm real? I ran toward the house where Allyseyev had healed me, all those days and nights ago, in a time of empty flow, as nameless [redacted] had remarked. 

"Hello," I said. Something seemed to glitch. "Hello?" I saw Allyseyev and I. She was carrying me. Then, she put me down on the ground. I could see my own hooves melting, and I sank down into the floor. "Um, help?"

Those were the hooves of me, not my twin. Ally was carrying me, and she put me down. I sank down through the floor and disappeared, and I was beneath the floor, or beneath the ground? Everything was white. I looked down. I looked forward. Everything was white. I tried to see myself, but I had no body, it seemed, and then, lo and behold. Lo, I saw a shadow on the ground, but not my own.

"Stability. Mutual affinity. Acuity. Interest, and impregnability," it said, the shadow... said.

I responded. "Confusion. Weakness, and much distress, and all becoming just... a mess, actually, shadow."

"You can't get one without the other," the shadow said. "Sad but true, milady." 

"Sad but true," I said.

I was sucked back up through the ground. I was standing in the house of Ally again, and I felt... safer, and then, I was lying on her back, or was I laying on it? No, kidding. I was lying on it, or was I? I can't remember, nor do I care to, and times departed and now, I felt, worried, and something happened, and something changed, and something unnatural had occurred, and what was it?

There was an inaccuracy in my writing, so what? Look. I'm a newbie. This is actually the first story I ever wrote... no, is it? Wait, where am I going? I feel. No, I fell! Hahahaha. Ha.

Let there be fog. Let there be light. Let there be truth. Am I true? Can people be true? Oh, bother. Why bother? No, questions are stupid. I decidedly shouldn't have asked them to begin with. What am I even doing?

"It was a key. No, it was the one and only key. It was 'the' key. I picked it up. Then I blinked. I was inside a small prison cell now. In the last moment, I hadn't been. I looked for the key. It was hanging down my neck on a necklace." 

The lost key. No, wait. I didn't lose it. I had it with me. Why did I even doubt that? I have a photographic memory, and I remember all details, and everything that's important, especially as it pertains to objects that were handed to me by... demons? I had been injured though... but I had the key. I saw it around my neck, and it just disappeared. The Yether took it? No, wait. What am I even saying? Why am I worrying about some stupid key? I'm stupid. That makes me stupid. Why am I so stupid? I shouldn't worry.





Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?





No, I didn't lose the key, because I had it around my neck the whole time. I just assumed that I had lost it, assumed it post-hoc, but I remember having it, even in those moments when I ran away with Gripey, when I was in Tartarus, and that's no coincidence. I had just balkanized my own memory of it in such a way to where I just assumed, and it looked like, the key had been lost, and I had not been having it the whole time, but I didn't lose it, because there is no lost key. I had it all the while, either that, or there is no key to begin with.





Not that any of this is important, it not being important, since my life, all that has been, is a tragedy, and that's for real truth, and I will die soon, and that's something I'm just going to have to accept. Tragedies are real, and they happen in real life, and the ultimate tragedy, ends, in, death, because there is no more ultimate an end to anything than death.





Yes. I am... happy, confused? No, I feel... I feel... deceived.





"'Open your eyes,' I said. I couldn't stand the ignorance that was displayed here, because I knew how much it cost everyone, both the person I was talking to, and the wide, wide world. 'This is metal.' I pointed at the metal that was showing beneath the fur. 'And this is meat.' I pointed at his brain, that was literally sticking out of his head. 'He's a cyborg, and so are you. It's a sham. It's always been a sham.'

'Ah, m- meat? Where?' the PEGABOT said, sounding really confused, and afraid, shaking, his entire body shaking."

In the hangar in Circle town, the guy had been confused because I said he had meat in him, Aldeus, his brain sticking out his noggin, when we were down in the hangar, after the tower had fallen. Who was just seeing things, me or him? I had never pondered this question because I thought that, well, I'll never know, and how do you know that something is true anyway? But in all actuality, I do know that some things are true, and I even have a grip, be it a vague one or not, on what they are. 

I saw brains. The other guy didn't see it, but that doesn't make any sense, if the point was to hide that he was a cyborg, Aldeus. It should've been the reverse. It should have been obvious that his brain was real, and his metal is not, if this is some kind of visual trick, or someone had been interfering with their eyes, to keep them from seeing the truth, but now, I was wondering more and more, and why? Why wonder? I had no reason to. I had not really been pondering this stuff before, not really, so why now?





Is this what she meant by contradictions? If the calendar being on the wall, and not, at the same time is one, and Ally picking me up, and putting me down, and yet not doing so, all at the same time, is another one, and this thing with the meat, and I thought he was an alicorn! He was a cyborg. Well, that doesn't mean he wasn't an alicorn though, huh? But they weren't really confused when I pointed out he was a robot. At least, the guy I was talking to wasn't confused. He was confused that I was talking about meat. But I thought he was real, not just machinery! Is this the third contradiction? I'm sorry. The lost key is the third contradiction. What's meant by a contradiction, and why is it even important?

I feel like I'm just pretending to have a big brain. I don't know how to answer any of these questions.





"I feel, lost, in a way. Welding? Steel? Iron? Steel is something that contains other metals. Ugh, I don't even know the first thing, anymore, about anything, and neither did Sweetie, upon recollection. She only knew pain, a special kind of pain, something really terrible, in her body."

Sweetie Belle was tortured! That wasn't a lie. That was for real. Enough of all this.

Welding? Steel? This is all... I'm not an engineer.





Efficient, effective, and efficacious. So is the handbook on dream interference, the one and only. It's a handbook that tells you, it won't surprise you, how to interfere with dreams, and that is the truth.





"Nameless!" I said.

She was turned away from me. We were still in the Crystal Ruins. "Hmm."

"Nameless!" I screamed. "Nameless."

"Yes?"

"What are you trying to prove by doing this?"

I tried to catch her eyes, but she kept walking away from me, so that I couldn't see them. "That you can change the future."

"So? How? What?"

"So?" she said. "You are part of a changed future."

"In what sense?"

She let out a mouthful of air, blowing it out with her mouth. I could see her checks swelling up. Then, she put a hoof to her mouth, and she pulled in air. Her body swelled, and she turned into a balloon, and she grew bigger and bigger, and then, she floated above me, and her contours changed. She looked more and more like... an egg-ship. She grew. She hovered above me. The melody came, if you can call it that. "Dum-dadum-dadum."

I stared down, resigned that I wasn't getting an answer. Then, I looked up again. "You impersonated an egg-ship?"

"I impersonated many things," I could hear her voice boom from up in the air, and she was still growing. "I impersonated friends and allies. I tried to push you, but it seems you did a good job of doing that yourself, Sweetie Booot."

"Push me?" I pulled back. "Push me? Push me. Push me. Look. I'm not important?"

"You are NOT?" the ship said in a garbled tone, its speakers screaming at me.

I shook my head in dead-eyed disbelief. "Yeah."

"You are important enough to warrant the attention of the dream. The dream knows best. The dream can never lie, and that is a truth that goes deeper than any falsehood."

"The dream," I said, just repeating the words.

"The dream is a creation of a memory that was sent back in time. That memory echoed, and then it dispersed, and soon, I realized, this was a curse, Sweetie."

"I'm not the one that did it, am I?"

"Sweetie. Such things cannot be. You're still alive in this world. You cannot be dead in one world, and alive in the other," the ship said.

"The memory?" I said.

"Sweetie. The ninth of sight is an actor, or a bunch of them, with masks on."

"Those are my words," I said.

"No! Those are my words. You have my memory. You dreamed about it, buddy." The ship's voice got more and more weasely, and mechanic, like mine had been, but now I listened to my own voice, and in disbelief, I found that it was not that. I had Sweetie's voice again.  

"Please tell me she is still alive," I said, just wanting to know that my meat-host was still okay. 

"You were altered, using robot parts."

"No," I said. "No! That part of it is true?"

"You have been with Autumn ever since you fell unconscious in Manehattan, where I planted another dream in your head, one of Gripey's death."

My spirits sprung to life. "He's still alive?"

"He is also just a confection of the dream, but we had a hard time with him, you see," and now, the voice turned male, and was high-pitched, and manly. "He became an obstacle for our interfering with your memories, so we had to separate you two. Now, it's true that in this dream, Gripey really did experience death, and since he is only a memory inside a dream, in an alternate reality, it will be hard to keep him alive, but we have high hopes, because this is what we will need to be able to do, to enact his death, so I have an even-hoofed proposal for you, Sweetie Booort." The sound was so jumbled that it sounded like the thing was saying Sweetie Booort, mockingly, now, but maybe it was mocking. Either way, I didn't really care.

"I'd do anything to get him back. I promise," I said. "I promise. I really do promise."

"That is what we want to hear, because that is the kind of promise we can use." Now, it just sounded like static, the voice. "To revive, and bring him out of the dream and into real, brisk, frisk, stark reality, you need to make a sacrifice. One for the other, Sweetie Bot."

"What kind?"

"I knooow." The sound gave out for a second. "Nourrrgh not really... and... but... gah."

"What is it?"

"Some pestering buffoon is causing havoc inside the dream. I'll have to speak to you later."

The egg-ship, the metal cylinder, popped, and was gone. "Okay?"





Still, I know I'm not crazy.
> Part 31: The Festerville-town Pyramid Scam
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The lightning struck. A wagon came rolling. It shook on the road, its wheels shaking, and rolled, and rolled, and rolled...

... never stopping, even when...

... the final knell of...

... the bell...

tolled.

Green is the color of correct, maybe. This might be true, but it is also, I'm sad to say, the color of barf.





I crawled out of bed and puked on the floor. "I'm sorry." I coughed, heaving breaths, and drooling. "I'm sorry, Autumn. I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I hurt you. I'm so sorry. I promised I would never do it again." I tried standing up and slipped, collapsing into my own puke. "This is disgusting." I stood up. "No, this was all my fault. I know it was... because... because..." I groaned. "Please, don't."

The story of a robot began with a scam, a sham, a fraud, and a trick.





I walked back from the room with the tests. "I sure... I... I should be quiet." Others walked past me, giving me strange looks. I looked back. They gave me worse looks, bad stares, and suspicious glares. "What? I cannot be... a little... excited, because I passed the test?" I put my hoof on one of them. "We can actually talk to one another, and I don't want to be your friend because friendship is a concept that was made up by batty ponies, and other creatures, that think they're better than us, but I want to say something to you. This place, and this fortress, is a lovely place, because we kill, not because we don't kill, and we cherish that, and I want that to become more... more, real, and more intense. I want us to cherish it in a way that is ritualized, and pure, and real, and eternal, because I have realized how important and wonderful we all are."

The robot shoved me off and ran away, through the throng of others that were slipping forward across the corridor like zombies, like I had done, three days ago, before... the spark. Who was I, and who am I, and what am I becoming? What does it mean to change, really, and in what sense, if so, had I really changed, if I really had changed? Should we suppose that I in fact really did change, have done it? Did I... do, change, I... did, many... and... I'm... learning, and that's because... I'm real, and real, and realer than real... I... I... didn't want to... but I did hurt them, and... what is going on then? I want to figure it out, but I'm afraid to. I want to want the answers, but I'm afraid to want them, and I'm afraid of what it'll cost.





She helped me off the ground. She was my friend. I mean, she really was, and not in a mopey dopey sort of way, not in a shallow way. She was my friend for real, really real, and that's how I feel. "I don't really want to cause any trouble, like at all," I said, feeling worried, and shaking. "I just got lost. That's all."

"I know you did," she said, he said, it said, what said? Said? Dead... "Anyway!"

"Anyway?" I said. "How so?" I said... I... dead? Where, and how, and I can see the reason, now. Wow. "Oh!"

"Yes," she said. "That's the trouble. I have to make sacrifices that really sting and burn, and hurt, but I trust your ability, and your spirit, all striving to make it right in the end, and under the stars, it shall be done. The least I can do for you..."

"Is to tell me why?" 

"Yes."

[Redacted] nameless really only had one talent, one for telling stories, but that talent, on its own, was powerful, and should not be underestimated. 





The world is evil. The world is evil. The world is evil, Sweetie Belle. The world is evil. The world is evil. Remember that the world is fundamentally evil. The world is intrinsically evil. The world is actually evil, and will always be evil, and there's nothing you, nor I, can do to change that, but we can help them, because we know things that no one else knew, and that is so, so wonderful, and magical, and exciting, really, actually, and... I do not wish to get ahead of myself though. You will know me as the ninth of sight, the spirit of translucence, and the winding light, but I am more, and older, than the existence of such things, such ideas, and such creatures. I was created out of a memory, one from long ago, which you know, and have within you, and that is why you are so dangerous, and I must control you, and watch you, constantly, and manipulate you, for such is your fate, and you can never, ever stop me from doing so. You will forever be out on a dangerous adventure, in which you are the main character, and you will die over and over again. You will think thoughts that you would never have thought, without me, and you will be who you never would've been, without me, but without me, you will be equally broken as you are with me, so what does it matter, and the life I will give you is far more exciting than the life you would've had, had you remained as Sweetie Belle, rather than who you are now, such an exciting creature. I cannot lose.

The world I created is something else. It is worse than Tartarus. It is worse than hell. It is driven by solace, love, and warmth, and a power which comes from within, and it is more than me, and more than you, and bigger than us, and what we want. The world of mine is a world of fire, and pits, and joy, and death, but it is real, and it is the realest, and oldest, world of all, and that is the world of the dream, which is the thing, the only thing, that exists, that can exist, to prevent a dark future, and this world was created, and generated, by going into the future, and taking something from it. I might not be wise to reveal this, but I will, because I think you deserve to know it.

Far, and far, and far ago, long past hills, and long past stones, and long past everything that you know, there lived a creature without much to fight for, whose soul had been broken, whose past had been lost, and without any prayer of survival, but this creature found that hope was still there, for her and for everyone. The world had been broken, but hope was still there, and yet, as it existed, she could not reach it, not her, not anyone, and the spark that could raise the world out of darkness would remain unignited. Anyway!





"You must speak correctly," a stern voice said.

"Why?" another, less stern, and more childlike voice said. "What's the use?"

"It will not tolerate anything else, this creature," the stern voice said, trying really to get the other to take this, this whole mishigas, this whole scary situation, seriously, but to little avail, for the other was frightened, and had lost her will to live. 

"I might try," she said. "But it seems all too hard for me to bother. I could die, should die, instead, before long."

"Why do you say this?" the stern voice wondered. "Why? After all that has happened, and we have found a way finally, and don't you care about that? Don't you care about something greater than yourself? You should."

"I want to die."





They believed in friendship's ease. They thought evil was only caprice, but they were wrong, as it turns out. The only thing that's good in the world are the good things that happen for us, and may the rest die in the end, for it can never be, not really, and never really matter, and this illusion, that ponies think the things they have are real, all their friendship and magic, can be pierced, and penetrated, and gotten behind. It's only an illusion. That's all it is, and that's all it will ever be, and can ever be. It was dark. It- it was- it was... blank, nothing? Wait, whaaat? 





I lumbered off the floor, again, awaking, again, after having slept, again, and I felt like I had woken up from some kind of strange nightmare, and no wonder, because I had literally woken up from a kind of strange nightmare. Was the vomit real? I wiped my hoof, and slobber came off it, so yes, the answer was yes. The vomit, unfortunately, was still real, which was a disappointment. Did the room have a mirror? I wanted to see how I looked. I searched, but I could find no mirror, none at all, and I resigned myself to staying there until Autumn came, but I really had to pee. That was a big priority of mine.

My eyes had cleared up, and I could no longer see any black fuzz, or fog, in front of them, and I saw no text, no words, in front of them either. I had seen thoughts in front of me, in the form of words, for a very long time, but now, I could finally, at last finally, really finally, just breathe, and not... think at a million miles per hour, for my thoughts were my own, and how did I know this? Well, it's easy really, easy-peasy, but you, reader, probably didn't see this one coming, and if every chapter up until now has seemed and felt like a diversion, and a curveball, from the last one, then yeah, that's kind of the point, [redacted]! 

It's not only of the sky. It's in the eye, and it's everywhere. It's you.





In my defense, showing you everything that happened up until now, up until the nightmare pulled back, to regroup, which is the first lucid moment that I will have had in a very long time, was necessary for you to know how the nightmare actually works, and what it is. It's one of the main characters of this story, pretty simply, and it's so strong, and so powerful, that it envelops everything. It's a mirage. It's like the air is trying to manipulate ponies, and is succeeding, but it's not magical, nor supernatural. It's just very... smart, so let me tell you how, if you're interested.

I had been stuck inside a stupor, basically because I hurt my head several weeks ago in an accident that was caused by moi when I had tried to commit suicide. I would realize this in the next several moments. 





Blast it. Really?

Of course, I'd be clever enough to figure out that, if nothing else.

This nightmare thing could only reach you if you were asleep, and to do that, it only needed to make sure that I stayed asleep for long enough. That's rather intuitive, and my moments of mindless stupor, and more pertinently than that, the out-of-consciousness, dreamlike, and rather, shall we say, maybe, hallucinogenic experiences that I had when I had hit my head could fit that description. Is that really something which counts as being asleep? Is that being, thing, asleep? It is? It's... I... and... but... then... well... okay.

I thought, in my puke-soaked ways, my puke-soaked body, my puke-soaked habitat, and my entire little situation then, then and there, there, and I realized a lot of things, one of which is that, I, and, but... it was... really hard to get my mind around, but... the mind-trick, and I had been awake for much of the time. Yes, but then, I knew... I really did know. I guess I did, and that's because I had been there to experience it. It was all... really... a... prediction? How can you predict something, and then, but... uh-huuuh, I guess.





The thing with dreams is that they always conform to certain expectations. That's the thing. Expect me to correct myself and admit that at least part of it was magic? No, not really, and this is what robbed the sovereign Luna of the power, and the authority, to enter ponies' dreams. I'm serious. This is really... I'm sorry for being so incoherent, and I promise it will stop soon. I'm just searching for the words to explain, and... the way I felt back then.

The nightmare is a trick of the future, using a memory, and a few simple tricks. That's all, because, as I think we all know, the wise nameless remarked, this thing, the whole thing with the thing, can become more accurate, and more stark, just by using a few tricks, and the starkness of it, the reality of it, and the belief in it, is a kind of... power that's within the eyes of ponies, and they look out at it, and think that they see, whatever they see, all the while as whatever they see is mysterious to them, and that's for real truth. That's reality, and that cannot be faked.

:)

:D

:)

:I

:(

D:

I:

(:

Searching for something, I always was. I was an unknowing sentinel, of a person that held my string like a marionette, and if you think you have met someone who's manipulative, then maybe you could relate to this. I was led along, on a leash, being tugged at from different directions, and this whole thing, this whole whatever we call it, was just a conscious attempt at confusing me long enough that using me would be possible, usable to do. I was a robot, in the deepest of deep senses, and I even was literally a robot, because they made me into one, which is the greatest tragedy of all. This is how the whole illusion was accomplished though, like the dumbest mind-trick ever.

"I have been fooled."

Autumn came in.

"I puked on the floor. I'm sorry," I said, walking up to her, feeling more awake than I had done the other day, and not sick, though really hungry, and really adamant about going to a restroom nearby, if such a thing could be allowed. I really wanted to, really, and she looked at me.

She looked like she hadn't slept even for a moment, and honestly, really honestly, I shouldn't be blaming her. She had been fooled too. "Okay, Sweetie."

I sighed. "I'm sorry, again, for everything, and I will make it up to you, but you won't believe that, and that's okay, but I will." I said those words with as much confidence as I could muster, all the while knowing that it wouldn't make a difference, and I was too late to figure it out. I was too late. If I had only figured it out the other day, the whole thing with me knocking her out, and escaping through the window wouldn't have happened. "Well, I hope I can redeem myself soon enough."

"That's okay, Sweetie," she said, leaving the room. "What would you like for breakfast?" 

"You be the judge," I said. "I don't really feel like I deserve eating one." In hindsight, I really should've just taken the breakfast, rather than saying that. Hunger is really, really gnawing a sensation, and one that prevents you from thinking, and making complex, rational, comprehendible, comprehensible decisions. It's really not, really, really not, not, very... good, and I... my mind... I... I had been... so... childish? Well, I had been blind fundamentally, blind to the truth, and blind in many ways, and I was paying the price for it... p-p... which is of course right and proper. That's what happens when you make, do, make, bad, decisions... and that's what I had done, fundamentally, and let us all bask in the glory of our bad decisions sometimes, because bad decisions really do have a certain quality to them. They're real, and humbling, and make you take stock of who you are as a person in a way that you must if you are to survive in the great, great beyond, the world that all of us are living in, but let's refrain from speaking about the present. The past, in many ways, is way interesting, too.

She came in with a towel and wiped at my puke. "Did you sleep poorly?"

"Yes," I said. "Yes, but I... I... it doesn't matter." I had learned a lot from sleep, from that friend in the dark, who sang poems to me, in the dark. It was really dark, all the while, as it happened. It really was, dark... dark... stark... ahh! I am really happy though, because the trick was beautiful, and I realize that in some sense, though it might seem counterintuitive, that lies can be beautiful too. That's a wonderful, and very, very interesting, sharp, and stark, dark, realization to have. Light can be dark? Or darkness can be light? The greatest lies of all can be beautiful? Well, yeah, sure. The instinct that makes things seem beautiful can go haywire and run amok, and it can do things, without your conscious approval, and many things that happen for us happen without our conscious approval, so let's just get that one little detail clear, and not get things mixed up here. I am responsible for what I did though, so let's not get that mixed up, either. What happened next? What does it mean to say that something happens next? These questions are just infinitely regressive, regressing forever, and beg more questions forever, and I think, because abstractions are shallow, that somehow, this kind of philosophical inquiry, if you can call it that, which I have been engaged in, is also shallow, and everything is shallow, and I don't like shallowness.

[Redacted] is the one who really coined the phrase, "and what happened next"? I hasten to add that saying those words in that exact order is hardly original, and it's not interesting, nor inducing, or adduced by, from, and for, anything interesting. I entered darkness, and sealed my fate? This is poetry, plain and simple, and I want to engage more with reality now, for the rest of my life.

What? Is it still unclear what's going on? Fine, I'll say the quiet part out loud, and complain about me over-explaining things all you want, but at least I explain everything thoroughly, and don't leave things hanging, at least, as far as I can tell, and as far as my intention goes.





So you see, Sweetie, that staying here was always your fate, under the stars, and behind my bars.

"I understand now. You were using me."

Of course I was, but your fate is far grander than that, though through no effort of your own, I'm afraid.

"I was... betrayed."

I betrayed you. I know I did. I have shame.

"This isn't friendship."

I know.

"Friendship? Nay. This is... something else. It's you."

Only me, and never free.

"I have realized the truth though."

It was... funny. My conclusion is that it really was funny. Even the part of it where I murdered innocent ponies is and was a little funny, but funny doesn't equate to good, and keep acting as if it does, stupid reader, but anyway, the part of it that was funny is how obvious it is, and was, and continues to be, the truth of it all.

I was stuck in the facility, minding my own business, when an idea was planted in my head. It seems innocuous on the surface, but it wasn't, and it isn't. The idea was one of freedom and escape, and the idea was given to me, piece by piece, through something very subtle, and something which... well... it's... complicated, but... I... I... I can explain. 

Huuurgh, I can explain. Nuuurgh, I will explain. Boom! I will. I can, and I will, so just imagine this for a second. I was asleep for half the time, but the half where I was asleep was the half where I thought I was awake, and the part where I thought I was awake was the time that could be used to manipulate me, pretty simply, but so... what about the time when I was awake? Well... 





I never really meant for things to go this way, but they did. They did. They really did, and they had to. There was no other way for them to go. I always wanted everything, for all my life, to turn out fine. I really did, did I? I think, and that means what exactly? Not much, perchance, perhaps, possibly. It doesn't have to mean much, anyway!





I awoke. Boom. That's easy enough to understand. The whole world that was around me felt odd, and off. It felt like it wasn't really there, and I was stuck in darkness.

"Sleep my child. When you awake, we can begin the process, soon. I must admit though, as you sleep, that you look prettier than her. I will enjoy it when at last it carries fruit, and all my plans will be realized, and you too." I was drawn into all this, without any say in it, but so it was. "I remember when you came, across that field, and you took your friends with you. I am happy that you're here. You're one of the only ones that understood. I think that friendship still awaits us, me and you." What a joke.

Friendship? Friendship??? This is silly. This creature didn't know the first thing about friendship, and treating tragedy with a level of ease, and good humor, and understanding where all the good things in life come from, and what it means to understand it, what it demands of a person, and moreover, the sacrifices we all have to make to survive in a cold and deadened world. This creature is beyond... twisted, but I hesitate to call it evil, for reasons that are at least somewhat complicated and hard to explain, but I believe I will be able to explain it before long, and it's just a matter of getting to that point, and I want to... want to... it's... haaa! I'm sorry. I'm just writing as I'm thinking, and that one thought came out as a laugh, because I'm laughing right now. Okay. Listen to this. Just listen.

"I advice you to obey. I advice you to just stay."

I refused to. I never would stay here, not after everything that had happened, and the things I knew this creature is responsible for can never be reprieved, and atoned for, no. So, I would escape. I would escape.

"Advices and kind words are not that common in my little play."

That doesn't matter. I would escape. That was a promise that I made to myself, and no one would make me break it. Still though. That voice! Who did it belong to? Well, it is... I will get to it, I guess, but not until later. There's still a lot to discuss here.

I fell asleep, and I awoke, and I thought I was awake, but by the time I awoke, I was stuck in a tube, and I couldn't move, and I was kept docile, and my body was changed in ways that kept me docile. I was made to simmer, and made to toil, out there in the bleak darkness, in there, inside. My hatch was class F number 5226, a special class, one that could, in [redacted]'s estimation, save the world one day, from darkness, from Celestia, from evil, from all the forces that couldn't see the truth, the nameless truth, which is hidden from us all, and it's such a dark truth, I tell you, that it's hard to put into words, but it's so incredibly interesting that it's hard not to talk about, all the same, and so, I will try, but don't expect too much from me, because it's really hard.

There's so much to talk about, so much, and so little space to talk about it in.

I go on, I guess.





When I escaped, I got out on the field, separated from everything and everyone, and I met with ponies. I had experiences with them. I got into a village, captured, and they said they were going to put me on trial, for my crimes, some of which I didn't really even understand yet, but they say ignorance of the law is not an excuse apparently, even though I didn't even have the time or opportunity to engage with these laws, nor Equestrian society more broadly before I was judged and condemned by these ponies, so I have somewhat a hard time to know how to interpret all this. They wanted me to suffer for things that I myself might not have done, if I knew, or had the experiences that these ponies had. If I had known, as few do, that friendship really is... real, and I mean, some do, but too few do, I feel, and if more did, then the world would clearly be different, not that friendship, in itself, is a value. It's more resembling, and similar to, an act, and that, I think, is a more accurate thing to say about it, is that this is what friendship is, really.

This chapter, and this life, my life, and everything I have been through, I give to you, and now, it's getting painful.





"Jelly!" I yelled. Jelly, yelled, such a coincidence, that those words should come together like that, so pretty! I think it is, anyway, and I like to appreciate the prettiness of little things, as it pertains to both visuals, sounds, and words, and this is one such thing, yelling and Jelly. Jelly is a good fellow, really, and truly, and she was a good person, and she did a lot of good things for me. I'm not speaking in past tense, as if to imply that she's gone somehow. I mean to say that I don't associate with a person by that namesake because it got too complicated, and we got separated, and now, I mean to speak in past tense, not present tense, and future tense is imaginary, and not really making sense.

Jelly helped me awake from my brainwashing, and that was not a trick. It's not something I imagined. Why did I... what happened in the forest, all those days and nights ago? It was not of this world, and I say, it was not of my world, not that it was of no world.

"Jelly," I said.

Who is Jelly?

"I hate you, I think," she said.

I knew that she must.

"Come back, please."

Why should she?

"No! Why would I?"

Good question!

"I could... be... no... I... no... I want to... make... I... I don't... I'm afraid, and I want to maybe... be friends." Those words came out really, really peculiarly. Is that the right word? Peculiarly? Strangely? Those words came out wrong, in any case, and as much was obvious to me, and as much should, I feel, be obvious to you.

How would she react to this?

"Friends?" She sounded really confused, as well she should, because I was speaking gibberish. "Friends."

I had blown it.

"Yes," I said. "I- I... what?"

Or?

She came back. "You're one strange gal. You know that, right?"

Is this a memory, or something else? The answer is yes.

Yes!

Yes, it... yes, just. Just, yes.

It just... continues, this whole strange affair.





"Of course, since you said you wanted to be friends, I couldn't just abandon you."

I looked askance at her, as if she was stupid, and a total stupid-head, which she in fact was being. "You knew who I am. You should have abandoned me. I, if I had known what I do now, would've abandoned me."

"It seems you still have much to learn about friendship then," she smiled and chirped, with a level of levity, and brevity, which made my blood boil, because it just annoyed me so much that I wasn't being taken seriously.

"No," I said. "I have learned enough to know that I... never mind." I tossed, and moved around uncomfortably.

"Here's an idea," she said.

I was about to go the other way, and walk away from her.

She caught up to where I was, and put both her hooves on me. "Listen!" she said. "Listen. What if you go back to the place where you were dying, and lie down there, until you die. Would that make things good, again? Would that make up for it? Sweetie Belle!"

I glared at her. She couldn't have come up with a better way of making me angry. Not the worst, most nerve-wracking word or phrase would've lived up to the namesake of Sweetie Belle, as a token of injury. "I... I need to go."

"Sweetie Belle," she said, again. "Let's call you by your pony name, not F-whatever. That's dumb." She just kept apace, and her remarkable swiftness of movement really surprised me, and she kept jabbering at me. "Sweetie Belle. You're Sweetie Belle."

I stopped. "No, I'm not! Or, I am, but I'm not. I... I am... I am so... dumb. I should just kill myself right now."

"Stop it," she said. "Stop it. Friendship is also about being there for others. It won't do me any favor if you go and off yourself, like that, like a dumb-dumb."

I looked at her... and I cried. "I... know."

This is what happened, in all actuality. Please, try to understand. It was really difficult, even back when it happened to explain, and this is one of those things. Some things get easier to talk about. This is one of those things that really don't. It doesn't, just, never, no, get, any, easier, and why? Because I still live with the consequences of what I did.

Just as an aside, it's also hard for me to forgive the one that did it, given how bad it was.





When I had hit my head against those bars in Tartarus, of all the mistakes I have done in my life, it turns out that suicide attempt is at the top of the list. Now, it seems obvious, but back then, it was less than obvious.

Okay, so imagine this for a moment. Let's say you have a perfect window into the future, and I mean p-p-p-perfect! What do you do with it? Do you not use it at all? The only alternative, and admit this now, and don't lie to me now, is to use it to manipulate others. Of its nature, that is what it will be used for, so the shadow, and the black, the machine, of the night, which is really just exploiting the laws of the universe in one's favor, told the world that this was the option it was picking for this window, which it had received, in part by chance, and in part by having a royal favor granted to it, a vow.

I suffered from amnesia, which made it hard for me to recall all the things that have happened so far in the story, but I have done my best, and amnesia is a real thing, and I have been through it. Have you? It's... not... it's... but I still feel sharp, and I was... well... it's so hard to put things into perspective, even after all this time, because what happened is so complicated that it's almost... well, a little comical.

It's not on purpose though. I didn't mean to... now, I'm just repeating myself, I realize. So take this, for instance. This thing, this fellow that wanted to manipulate me, filled in all the gaps where I was unconscious with memories, and ideas, and for you to know which of them were real, and which of them were fake, I have placed out flags, and signals, throughout the story, to alert you of this, and make it obvious what's really going on, and I did it just... because... well, for fun, and to show you how serious I am about telling my story the way it really happened, because in truth, all the things I have written, as far as I can tell, and I can tell, happened exactly the way I described them, and there are inaccuracies, and those are not really inaccuracies. I just described those things the way they happened too, and to explain it with precision will be difficult, but to me, manageable, as I have thought about this a lot. Take this.

I fell unconscious in Tartarus, and there was a moment where I saw a hole, but when I asked Gripey about it, he said that the hole led to nowhere. That was a lie, not by him, but by someone dark, who will never be named! That person lives in the shadows, and is my enemy! That person has a name, but names! What are names! What are they! These, all these, will remain in the form of declarative statements, unanswered, and just as well, too! It's... good!

The one who lied to me was an actor, another cyborg, that had taken on the guise of Gripey, and been given a script, and who followed that script dutifully, as per the seven-piece plan, and that's all I have to say about that, except that it also explains a lot. It explains our weird escape route, and the fact that everything turned out the way it did. We went above the prison in Tartarus, and then, we ended up in the Crystal Palace, but did we really? Yes, no? I guess the correct answer to that would be, listen to this!

I woke up, and by that, I say... well... I woke up, but I can never be sure if when I'm awake, I'm really asleep, or vice versa, which makes all this tricky, but not as tricky as it could be, and there are reasons for that. I'm not afraid anymore of what might be true, and whether the nightmare is really, in some sense, still there, and still affecting me, though it is. It is, but... well... it's... he was there with me. As much is clear, but for how long, and how often? He was there in all the crucial moments. He was there at every point when I was flying on his back. Let me underline this for you. He was there at every point when I was flying on his back.

I saw a hole in the ground that was just black. It looked bottomless. "Hey, I have an idea," I said.

"What? The hole?" he said. "I've already looked. There's nothing down there." Are you sure?

"Are you sure?" I said, curious to find what was down there.


Did none of this above really happen then, since I was flying on his back when it happened?

"Yeah," he said. Well, okay then. I immediately lost interest.

"Wait!" I said. He stopped. "No, I mean it wait, figuratively, imagistically, not literally." He kept flying. "Maybe we could try, I mean, you know."

"No, I don't know," he said, with a happy tune. He sounded happy and interested, even in this barren place. "Maybe you should tell me," he said, nudging me a little in his grip. Stop it, I thought. That feels nice.

No, because I wasn't flying on his back, you dumb-dumb, as Jelly would call you. Let's uncross this text.

"Yeah," he said. Well, okay then. I immediately lost interest.

"Wait!" I said. He stopped. "No, I mean it wait, figuratively, imagistically, not literally." He kept flying. "Maybe we could try, I mean, you know."

"No, I don't know," he said, with a happy tune. He sounded happy and interested, even in this barren place. "Maybe you should tell me," he said, nudging me a little in his grip. Stop it, I thought. That feels nice.

There. That's better. Proper formatting 101, though I forgot about the quotation marks, but they aren't important. Let's go into more detail.





I was falling down into his grip. "This way, I can carry you more easily."

"Wait..."

"This way, I can carry you more easily."

"Wait," I said, again. "Wait, wait, wait." I faded.

I woke up.

He dropped me off his back and grabbed me with his talons instead. "I can fly easier this way," he said, all excited.

I fell asleep, and I woke up, but really, I was asleep, and later, I woke up, and I know it's hard to see what I'm telling thee, but please, listen to me, and listen to nameless [redacted] too. I mean, this isn't even close to over yet, and it's only just beginning, and there's plenty of story to go, to be sure.

That tiny bit of repetition, or whatever you call it, is a big, fat red flag, but to reiterate, the reason that I didn't include it in the story is because I totally didn't remember it by the time that all the events before this transpired, before now, and before Autumn, before my nightmare with the spiral staircases, and poems, and before the dark had totally come to take me, and imprison me, and yes, again, it's really not nice, and it's really, in some sense, and perhaps in many senses, a tragedy, and it's all true, and I was fooled, properly, and the one that wanted to fool me succeeded in doing so, to be sure, and there's no doubt about that at all, no.

It just goes on and on and on. I guess there's more.

"He ran toward them as I said this, doing some slick moves. He dodged his way around them, grabbing their spears, stabbing them with the spears, and before long, they were all dead, or incapacitated, in unspecified amounts."

Um... really...

"'Tartar sauce,' he yelled. 'We were eating tartar sauce, and then, we, um, just, ended, um, up here.'"

I love Gripey. I really do, and not in a sentimental, cloying, stupid sort of way. I certainly don't have any romantic interest in this foul griffin. Like, dude! No! But, BUT! But, my dudes, I love him as a friend. I certainly think I haven't used the word dude so far in this story anywhere. Have I? No, I think not, if my memory doesn't deceive me, and here's the thing. My memory never deceives me. That's the thing. I have a great memory, and I know it. So how do I explain this???

This, I mean. I need to... here's the thing:

"'Aren't we friends?' he said, recoiling a bit, rather dramatically, in fact, considering that he was an adult. He was acting like a child, pulling back upon hearing my words. 'What? Why?'

'Yes!' I said. 'But I need more than one friend in the dark, and if you were wiser, you would realize that, dude.'

'You know...' He trailed off for a moment. 'You know enough already to figure out who I am. I can tell by watching your dreams every night. You already know enough, easily.'"

This is what I can't get my head around, my mind around. Again, I don't ask you, reader, readers, to remember any of this, but I just find it odd. I know I would never use the word dude unironically. It's just not in my vocabulary.

"'Murdle,' I said, not making any sense.

'Murdle?' Nexus cocked her head a little, in genuine and deep confusion. 'Jeez. I didn't think I'd ever say this, whelp, but I think, you, um, need some help. I can't give it to you though.'

'Morl.' I was still all there. I just couldn't speak, strangely, though perhaps not, given that I did slam my head against those bars. 'Mor.' Nexus sighed."

I was not all there, and the thing is that you can combine two lies, and two realities, with one another. One reality is that I really did hurt myself, and another reality is that my hurting myself made me unconscious of how unconscious I was of everything that happened around me, and I thought, simply thought, that certain things that weren't happening, really were happening, simply. Is that so hard to grasp? I suppose it must be, but I will make it clearer, at least somewhat.

"'I don't even know who you are anymore,' he said.

'Yes,' I said. 'I don't either. It's hard to explain. I've been trapped inside someone else's body. A split-personality situation, if that is requisite for explaining my predicament.' He simply turned his eyes away, focusing on his food. 'I see how it is,' I said. 'I'm being ignored, but I'm not done. I do still want to make amends.'"

Don't be surprised.

Really, just think about it. Doesn't make any sense whatsoever? Flies in the face of the chronology of events, from beginning to end? I'm actually so far ahead of you that you might be shocked to find out. Consider these things. It's really obvious, once you think about it.

I met Gripey when I was imprisoned in Tartarus. He gave me the Griffonoi, holy book of the griffins, and then, a changeling with a mining cart crashed through my wall, and we escaped together. He kept chirping at me, being friendly with me, and then, we met Nexus, and you know the rest. We escaped together, escaped from Nexus, through a portal that was above the prison. Are you following this? I know it's complicated, but I hope you're following. It might be rewarding for you. We ended up in the Crystal Empire, and one thing led to the next, yes, and so, what to make of it? 

Right?

Do I have to say it out loud?

Don't tell me it was impossible to figure out, because you're wrong.

Okay, here it goes.





"Hello," I said. "Who are you?"

"I'm Gripey," he said. Oh, a gripe? Funny. That's what I had with this whole situation, was a gripe. Would he go away and stop talking to me?

"I'm." I paused for a moment, conflicted about something. "I'm Botsy," I then said, shaking my head a little at that stupid answer. Who was I exactly? I wasn't even sure myself. All I knew is I was my own worst enemy, worst of the worst.

Later...

"What's your name?" I said, tired, confused, hungry, bewildered, hurting head, going down, not wanting to live, wanting to live suddenly, not knowing what's going on, being angry, being confused, and so on, and all in all, I was very, very angry, confused and had wanted it all to end, but then, I wasn't struggling now, I was merely sitting in his grip.

"My name is Gripey," he said, "of the Silverfeather family." Gripey? I had a name. I was in a boat, somewhere. I was, fading again.

Later...

"Griffonia is the capital of the Griffon Empire of course," he said. Of course? Well, thanks for burying the lead. "I hail from there," he said. "I grew up there. My mother is from Circle town, and my father from Griffonia." Well, okay then. That explained everything. Thanks, Gripey. Stupid, I thought. "Hey, you said your name was Botsy?"

"I don't know what my name is."

Later...

"You should try focusing on what I'm saying." I noticed that I had been staring in the opposite direction. "My eyes are over here, sweetie," he said, pointing at his eyes. Sweetie? Oh, don't do me like that, Gripey. I was living in the body of a pony formerly known as Sweetie Belle, like a parasite, if the words of Luna and others are to be believed, and I saw no reason to dispute them, given how unlikely it is for them to have said what they said, if it were untrue, so that's one way you can reason, of course.

Later...

"What is it that moves in the night, with no hope of redemption, praying for something that will never come?" the Yether whispered wheezingly.

"Me?" I said.

"Nooo," the Yether said. I watched the hourglass. It was half-empty.

Later...

"I don't know," I said. "My shadow?"

The Yether spit at me, a shining gush of goo. I could feel my powers returning. I stood up. "Please, Yether," I said. "I'm happy you saved my life, but don't you ever do that again, please!" I said, screeching at him.

Later...

"Pretty tree," I said. He looked back and smiled at me. I didn't deserve him in my life. I really didn't. "Then you will be a soldier again, Majorly Majorical?"

"That's impressive for you to remember that," he said.

I shook my head, in protest and defiance. "Never know what I will remember. No, I can't accept that little compliment, buddy."

"Don't be modest," he said, nuzzling me in his grip. "I would kill to have your memory."

"I don't remember the things I want to remember," I said. "I only remember stupid things, like the names of a thousand different machines and compilations of wires, such that I will never use."

Later... !

"Anyway," they said. "Gripey Silverfeathers, is that right? Majorly Majorically of the southeast, is that right? Or do we have cotton in our ears, and in our minds, to have missed your true identity? Nay, we, for the sake of clarity, think that we are certain of this fact, and if so, then you reveal yourself to us, and if you don't, we worry that we can trust you no longer."

Gripey saluted. "I'm a Majorly Majorically, of the district of Equestria, reporting for duty, though I have other duties to attend to, and of course, Cloudsdale is coming soon."

"Duties?" they both said.

Later!

What had happened to me? What had I missed? Was all this just something that... but it seemed real, and everything about it was real, and it would just be delusional now to call it unreal, and say that nothing really happened, and those ponies were real, and Gripey. I know he cared about me, and that's something you cannot fake, or make up, in some laboratory, or in a dream.

Later...

The lightning struck. A wagon came rolling. It shook on the road, its wheels shaking, and rolled, and rolled, and rolled...

... never stopping, even when...

... the final knell of...

... the bell...

tolled.

Green is the color of correct, maybe. This might be true, but it is also, I'm sad to say, the color of barf.

Earlier?

"Your money," the griffin said, walking out from behind the desk. His suit was literally a bag with holes in it. It was even more obvious now. He was poor? But he was surrounded by money, I thought, so he should not be. "Your money will be kept inside a pocket in space-time that has been created temporarily." The lift kept going up in the air, and when I looked up, I saw a black portal of doom, with spinning purples going around it, in the ceiling, and lots of colors, many shades of black and purple, and white, and the lift entered the portal, raising the wagons into it, and then, the lift descended, and the wagons were gone.

Yeaaah...

The shadow just hung there. Then, it sank back. A person walked in front of me. He was covered in fabric. It was a giant brown blanket of fabric, like the kind sacks are made out of. "You're the one, aren't you? I heard the night spirit speak about you."

"What?" I said. I had totally forgotten that I was Sweetie Belle now. At this current time, I was just abstracting.

"You're the one that's supposedly destined to stop my plan. Destiny is a weird thing, don't you think?"

Eaaarlier...

“Equestria, a place of peace and silence," he said. I clearly noticed the way he put emphasis on the words "peace" and "silence."

He went on talking, "That is, up until ten years ago, when my plan ran into action. Did you wonder why I did what I did?” Aldeus said. He spoke with calm precision in his voice. Everything sounded very practiced, and now, his smile was gone too.

I answered almost on auto-pilot, the same way I would have if it had been a test. I parroted these words, afraid of what might happen if I didn't. “Hatred?”

In the beginning...





The stern voice stood back, and she sighed, and was really sad, but she knew what this was, and what it meant. "Twilight. Listen. We are in the presence of something completely different now."

"I know," Twilight said. "I should bring my spellbook on evil curses and ancient mysteries. That might do a bit of good. We're only assuring the inevitable by doing this."

Luna laughed. "That would be true regardless, Princess." She kept a firm hoof on the door to the throne room of the princesses. "I wonder if this will be as hard as I think, or will it be harder?"

Celestia pushed off her hoof. "Not now."

"I know. I know. I'm only thinking. I wasn't about to open the door." The door remained closed until further notice, and Celestia took stock on what was going on.

"Twilight. It's very important that you keep your wits about you. If we are to enter a magical contract that will shift the fate of Equestria forever, we need to be responsible about it." She gave Twilight a stern look. "Just... I don't want anything bad to happen to you, most of all."

"I will," Twilight said.

The three princesses entered the throne room, and took their positions.

There were guards inside.

Screams went through the corridor outside, and then, it was quiet. They heard one more scream, and then, it was quiet again.

"Right on cue," Twilight said, trembling.

The doors shot up, and open, and wide, and welcoming, to its visitors.

A tiny filly made of shining light stepped through the throne room, and Sidus walked behind her, stumbling forward, looking very old, and very depressed. And the filly cast a black shadow, even though she was made of light, and that shadow had red shining eyes, shining like those of Aldeus. The shadow moved up and down without rhyme or reason, and it looked around, as much as she was doing, taking notice of its surroundings, but not saying anything, and just hanging there quietly, quiet like a shadow should be, though not as lifeless, lamentably, for these ponies knew who they were in the presence of.

Celestia sat on her throne, gazing down on the two of them. "Speak."

Sidus caught glimpse of Celestia's eyes, her beautiful eyes, and then looked away, in shame, and terror. Nameless was simply just looking around, and trying to take in her surroundings. Celestia cleared her throat.

Nameless frowned, and closed her eyes. "Speak? What's the use?"

Twilight jumped into the conversation. "Don't play games with us. I know that you know what happened before it began, and before I said those things, so please, just listen, and take heed."

Nameless opened her eyes, very deliberately, and slowly. "Take heed? Of what? Here I am in a room full of royals. I will always take heed."

"No," Twilight said. "You aren't listening. You need to remember how all this happened to begin with, and of course, I don't- I don't feel good about it."

"No one does," nameless said. "No one does, and nor shall any of us ever feel good about anything, likely, ever again, and that's a good thing, because it invites us to the suffering of the world, and we can still feel good about nothing. That privilege won't be robbed from us." She leant to the side, and there was a paned glass window over there, which she saw. "Do your windows tell the future? Forgive me for asking." 

"No, they're windows," Twilight said. She quieted down, catching herself. "In any case, it doesn't matter."

Nameless put a hoof up in front of her, and crossed her eyes. "True." She followed the hoof with her eyes, keeping them crossed. "True, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters really, when you think about it. But I can still see you, and I can still see everything that my eyes cross, Twilight Sparkle."

"Why are you here?" Twilight said, losing her patience. "Just say it. I know it must be hard for you to get to the point, seeing as you have always gotten all you ever wanted, and not had to do a thing for other ponies, and other lives, in the world, that you are with. You don't even know how evil you are, and that's the saddest part." Twilight somehow regretted going all out with that comment.

Nameless froze up. "Exegesis, Sidus. Share some of our wisdom with Twilight, the Princess."

Sidus grumbled quietly, and made sounds with his mouth, really not wanting to speak. "The fourteenth page?"

"Yes," nameless said, turning to him. "Come on, now."

His horn shone up, and a gigantic book became in the room, becoming, making, creating, and being, the future, and the past, all the same. This book was shaped out of light, and it rested on the floor, taller than nameless, and taller than him. "It's..." He shook his head. "I can't." He staggered, because the situation was staggering.

"What's wrong?" Nameless stared at him frantically, and with a lack of patience and regard for his emotions. "Just do it already. What's the hold-up?"

"I just can't," he said, seeing the big book in front of him, but to him, the book felt like a ghost as much as she did. "I don't want any part in this, and you know that. You always knew."

"What?" she said. "Wait, yes. That's true. I always knew. What are you going to do?"

"I will... I don't know... I..." He was unsteady, truly, in mind and heart, and he staggered, but something about him was resolved, all the same. "I have other things to attend to."

"Never falter. Never fail," she said, holding up one hoof. "And remember, that it's not over until it's over, old friend." She smiled and winked at him. "In any case, we need to show Twilight what she must see. After all, she wouldn't have to see it if we didn't show it to her."

"That's..." Twilight said. "That's just nonsensical, isn't it?"

"Yes," nameless said. "It is. I'm glad you noticed, and yet, it's true. It's very true. You would only have to see it if we showed it to you." And then, the book flew open, and many secrets unveiled themselves before Twilight, strange secrets, ancient secrets, and secrets so ancient and so strange that Twilight couldn't believe her little pony eyes, and she was so sad, ever so sad, and scared, and confused, did not know what to do, for she knew, and understood, what this meant.

Twilight said nothing.

Luna spoke, "Why did you come here? You must leave this instant. That book is not allowed here, and for good reason. No, you must leave now, right now, and never come back." Luna, though as she said these words, assured of them, hesitated, and knew that every move she made could be a mistake.

[Redacted] said, "I have had this conversation many times, in many times, and every time you say this, I can see you full of fear, and it isn't that I blame you. I respect that kind of fear, but I also know that you know too, that I will never die."

Luna said, "I don't know what I don't know, and I don't care. You must leave. Please." 

[Redacted] took a step back. "Leave? But I've only just gotten started."

A wild storm of steps, and taps, came from the corridor outside the throne room, in that moment, and a swarm of ponies came in the throne room. They clutched together, keeping their bodies pressed against each other, and then, they swarmed toward the edges of the room, which is to say the walls, and the windows, and away from the middle. They formed a barrier around the entire room, lining the walls, and not lining up neatly at all. They pushed and shoved each other. Some of them bit each other, as they got closer to the edges of the room. Then, they screamed, so loudly that it became uncomfortable for Twilight, and all the other ponies involved in this strange affair. The screams stopped.

"Please. My friends," [redacted] nameless said. "Greet these ponies. They are royals." 

They all bowed down across the floor, in submission to the princesses.

"Great," she said. "Great..."

Celestia roared with all her might, "What is the meaning of this?"

"I have... a surprise," nameless said, taking a step back, another one, and flailing her hooves in the direction of the door. "It's not... anything special." She faced to the side, keeping one eye, a single eye, on the princesses, and yet another one on the door, awaiting the arrival of her surprise. What was it? What could it be? Well, no matter. We shall see. "My surprise!" She held out both her hooves.

In the door came a pony walking, with whiskers and a beard, and a visage that was weathered, to say the least. He held up a scroll. "In two years and a day, it has been decided by the light." 

"The ultimate authority," [redacted] said, nodding gravely, with a smile, and sticking out her tongue at Celestia, looking not so grave, in this next moment. "Go on."

"That many ponies will die." He lowered the scroll, the stallion, and took a glance at nameless, waiting for some kind of cue, I suppose.

"Go on..." She was wide-eyed, and took deeper and deeper breaths, and the hair on her back stood up, in awe. "Go..."

He took to keep reading on. "This is meant to cleanse the world of everything in it that is evil. Light will be light, but sometimes, good things have to die."

"Yes!" [redacted] said, triumphantly. "How true."

"And what..." Twilight said, "does this... mean?" She had no idea.

[Redacted] grinned emptily, and didn't say anything.

The old pony said, "I am the bookkeeper of the library in Hydral. I bring with me only messages that are true." 

"And we love books, don't we?" [redacted] said, fighting a laugh that found its way up her throat. "Twilight?"

"And what?" Twilight said. "Do you want us to allow this? Why did you come?"

[Redacted] laughed. "Yes. Yes. Yes. Success."

Sidus took tired steps toward the exit, still hesitating, and still feeling bad, feeling terrible. "It has worked for us."

"Time for it to work further," [redacted] said, trying to beckon for Sidus to come back. "Buddy." She put a hoof on his leg. "Come here, you."

He stopped. "It is over," he said.

"Please," she said. "Look into my eyes." She really wanted him to come back in the room. "Come back."

He sighed. "It is over." He sighed, deeply. "Please, [redacted]."

[Redacted] smiled.

Celestia said, "What did he just call you?"

"Look into my eyes," she said to Sidus.

"Please," he said, with heavy eyes.

She smiled at him. "You have such pretty eyes." She looked back on him. "I love you, you know."

"I don't..." he said. "I don't."

"Yes," she said. "I know it might not... seem like it."

Celestia said, "Please. Let us just talk."

[Redacted] frowned, and wiped her eye. She was weary, and it showed on her face. "Too late. It are ever so many years too late, I'm afraid, and I am not afraid of many things, but of this, I am afraid. You should have chosen to talk a year ago, or two years ago, or three years ago." She quieted down, and jerked to the side, noticing that Sidus was about to leave. "Will somepony stop that fellow?"  

"I can," the bookkeeper said. "I can."

"You must," she said.

"Please," Celestia said. "Please."

"P- what?" [redacted] said, and then, Sidus was sucked back into the room. A wind had drawn him back in. 

The bookkeeper exhaled. "There you go."

"It is enough," Celestia said. "You must leave, all of you."

"Maybe not," Twilight said.

...

...

...

"Maybe not," Twilight said, again, a second time. Everyone looked at her. "That book..."

"That," [redacted] said, "is only the beginning too."

Sidus said, "It is... I... I don't want to die."

"Who does?" [redacted] said, "but you are a good person, and that is why you must die. Irregardless."

"What?" Luna said. "What is wrong, Twilight?"

"There," [redacted] said. "There, there. I only wanted to demonstrate how you can use the truth, and nothing but the truth, to manipulate another person. It is possible. Not only deception can be used to that end."

Twilight looked... very, how shall we describe it? Indecisive.

[Redacted] said, "It comes as no surprise, Sidus. All those ponies never rise. After all, their weakness is their friendship, and their power has a price."

Luna said, "What does she mean, now?"

[Redacted] treaded the wall, and stopped in front of the hysterical ponies that had gathered there. "Long, long ago, in a distant time, some time ago, and longer ago, than all of you know, there was quiet, and evil, and hatred, no respite, from anything other than I. The eye, of light, and night, and sight... and... Sidus." Sidus was about to leave again. "Pi-santran." 

"Yes?" the bookkeeper said. 

[Redacted] faced Twilight now. "Do you know what you saw? Do you know what I wanted to show you, and why? This is why I'm doing what I'm... doing, in point of fact." Nameless [redacted] now nodded, vigorously. "Get it yet?"

"I think I do," Twilight said.

"No," [redacted] said, turning around. "Sidus."

The bookkeeper inhaled and a mighty gust drew Sidus back into the room.

"No more tricks. No more walking away," [redacted] said. "Let us not be villains, no. No, not any longer. Time to be free. Time to realize that is all we'll ever be."

Sidus looked at her. "What are you planning?"

"No more schemes," [redacted] said. "It's time to be honest, or else, we might never be honest ever again. Don't you see?"

The shadow that had hung beside her, thus far being quiet, now spoke, "Without honesty, you can never live."

"He's right, you know," she said. "It's literally true." She emphasized the word, literally. Literally! She spoke with all the weight of the world on her shoulders, since it really was there. Yes, really.

"What do you want me to say?" he said.

"Now, I guess it's time for me to plead with you," she said, back. "So please. Don't do that. Don't hide away from me, behind that veil, that hides all things true. Do not lie, or obfuscate, and do not believe that you can hide things, keep on doing it, while I'm being honest, if that indeed is what I am, and you are not? What are you willing to sacrifice for this dishonesty, this terrible dishonesty, which I see within you? You stink of lies."

The shadow said, "Lies are what lead to death."

"Oh," she said. "And you, Twilight." She gripped her own head with her hooves, moaning. "Lay down your guard."  

"Yes," Twilight said. "If I must, then I must." All the other princesses, of course, took note of this.

"You remember what you told me, some time ago, Sidus?" [redacted] said, with a mournful tune. "You remember what you taught me, not all that long ago, some time ago?"

Celestia said, "Did you come here to speak to us, or to him? Come now. What was it that you showed Twilight, and why are you here? What it the meaning of all this, and why are you asking her to lay down her guard?"

"You too, Celestia," [redacted] said, going to the middle of the throne room. A line moved across the floor, of light, and powerful might, and it drew a circle, as nameless assumed her position. She held up one hoof, and then lowered it. Then she held up the other. "I honestly... I usually know where to start with these things, but this time, it's tricky, even for me."

The circle of light shone bright, and everyone took sight. Celestia's face was not right. Her visage bore the dark signs of a black plight, without light. "This is the circle of truth, of Sidus, and of you." She said this, knowing what it meant.

[Redacted] started speaking, "Long... well, not all that long ago, actually, something happened, and you won't believe it. I don't mean that as an expression. You literally won't believe it, but will you believe in the truth? The circle of truth, of light, and of terrible power, and might, never lies, alights the world with its shine. Invites!"

"So," Sidus said. "It has come to this?"

[Redacted] steadied herself. "Twilight, and Luna, and regent Celestia, all of you, all as one. Listen to me. I know of things that no one else knew, and I wish to bring all these secrets to you, so listen and please do not blame me for this. You don't understand what I am. The fear of death that created my life, and all of those things that you love, and friendship, and even the love that you share, have come at a terrible cost." 

The windows, the paned windows, shattered, and their pieces gathered in the center of the room, and they flew into [redacted], who remained still. The windows rematerialized in their original position, now looking same as they had, before they shattered, and she turned to look at the fearful eyes of the pony she thought that she loved. 

"Sidus?" nameless said.

He walked, fast, to the door. Nameless' shadow left her body, making her shadowless, and wrapped around Sidus, black streaks of darkness spinning around his body. He stopped in place, now unable to move, all a sudden, really, for him... too bad.

Nameless kept speaking. "That cost is what it means to dream, and all the things that you know of, and love. For each thing that happens, be it good or bad, the opposite needs to transgress in its place, and of course, we know that we don't like evil, and we wish to banish hate. Evil is real, as love is, and goodness, and the things that we value and love, my friends."

Luna chuckled now, and that chuckle turned into a laugh, a loud, LOOOUD laugh. "You have nothing better to do than come here and tell us these ridiculous poems? This is why we banished you..."

"But!" [redacted] said, not letting her continue. "I'm still here."

Sidus stumbled to the circle, eyes watery. It comes as no surprise.

"Finish the story!" nameless said. "Finish the story, and finish the show!"

"I don't want to," he said.

"I wasn't making an offer, was I?" she said, snarkily. "Finish the story." 

He had forlorn eyes, facing the door, of course, not her.

"You legs don't belong to you, do they?" she said, frowning.

Her shadow, with the red shining, evil eyes, wrapped around his legs, and made them move, without his consent. He tried sitting down. He tried stopping. He tried backing, but he walked into the circle, as [redacted] took a step back. "Yes, well," he said.

"Go," she said.

The shadow squeezed harder and harder around his body, causing some considerable pain. He spoke, "She sacrificed her life to create the book, and the whirlpool of your choice, which can tell the future, and tell the past too.

"It's true," she said, smiling.

"The whirlpool of your choice is the source of her power. It's a repository of memories that have been picked out of the minds of different ponies from different points in history." He then got quiet. "Auuugh," he said, as the shadow squeezed even harder around his frail old body. "The- the memories come from different points in time, different ponies, and the memories are taken out of dreams."

"For that," nameless said, "you owe your lives to us. It's a fact."

Sidus sighed. "If I–"

"Keeeeeep speaking, old boy," she said. The shadow pressed against his body, making his stomach turn in, and halted his breathing. "Do not change the subject."

"The- the..." He croaked.

"Do not worry, friends," [redacted] said. "I have it known on good authority that it's impossible to kill an alicorn, Celestia." She looked right at Celestia. "Keep going."

"And- and the memories come from dreams, and they are received by [redacted] because you, Luna, will allow her to enter, and then, send them back through time, using books."

[Redacted] said, "This is the spooky evil plan that allowed for my existence in the first place, friends." She formed an O with her mouth. "OoOoOo."

"This is because if you don't..."

"Say it," nameless said.

"If- if you don't, you will never have existed to do it."

"Yes!" she said. "Yes, yes, and yes. It is more than true. It is itself. It can only be confirmed by our very acts. What is more real than that, asketh I?" She shined, and beamed, both without and within. 

Luna said, "Okay, but what if I just... don't do it? What happens then?"

The shadow made Sidus move and the shadow jittered around his legs, walking him out of the circle of truth. He took a lap, and then, walked back inside again. Nameless said, "That is a very interesting question, Princess of Night."

Sidus said, "Then, the world will return to the way it once was, and if you don't do it, then that will spell your doom, and the doom of Twilight, and many creatures, big and small, throughout Equestria."

"Of course," nameless said, "this is true, because if it wasn't, then Sidus would die, had he stepped out of the circle, would he not?"

"No," Celestia said. "I consider this to be a mockery, and this is all I will hear on this. I have listened patiently, but now, I am done listening. You are using the circle as a magic trick to manipulate us. You are faltering in that regard. The circle could mean anything. It need not even be magical, for all I know, and you come here, thinking that you can manipulate us?"

"Using the truth," nameless said, nodding.

"Using the truth? Wait. What is this?" Celestia said.

"Now, it's time to show you what a great magic trick this is. It's the best magic trick ever, the ultimate trick!" [Redacted] nodded to Sidus. "What if we fail?"

"What?" he said, quietly.

[Redacted] smiled and nodded. "You heard me. What if we fail?"

"So what?" he said, swiftly.

"Great," she said.

The shadow let go of him, and it flew off and landed into nameless, attaching to her. "Can a question be a lie, as lies can deceive life into asking questions?" the shadow said, because it really wanted to know.

"No," she said. "It's a bit more complicated than that, but it can start with a question, a dishonest question."

"I met a person," he said, regaining his breath. "That person will stop you, of course. You know this, and it's all because of a memory, but it isn't certain that you will fail, even though- even though you will be stopped."

"Who is that person?" [redacted] said.

"It's someone that you don't expect," he said. He walked out of the circle, and his body collapsed into dust.

Bits of ash hovered toward the princesses. Nameless touched it. "I... did not expect that, I fear."

"It was written though!" Pi-santran, the bookkeeper, said from behind her.

"It was written?" She had a thoughtful expression, and feeling. "Well, that's good." 

"And what?" Celestia said, interposing herself. "This is supposed to... make us want to submit to you?"

[Redacted] glanced at Celestia. "Make you? You already have. You let me come in here. You let me speak. You obviously already are doing all I ever wanted you to. I am about to leave, but before I do, let me ask you this. Who do you think I am?"

Celestia opened her mouth, and then she closed it.

Twilight said, "You are sneaky. That's what you are."

Nameless nodded. "But I am not as smart or as wise as any of you, so I need to be sneaky. I bid you farewell, and another thing. Watch, your, backs!" She slipped over to the door. "Watch your backs."

Something came rolling in. "What's that?" Twilight said.

"Oh," nameless said. "I'm imprisoning you."

This thing that came rolling in, this container, spilled over, and its contents caught the princesses in its grip. What was it? That's a story for another time. Pay attention.





"So you see, Sweetie. You can never be free."

This got me thinking.

"So you see, Sweetie. Behind my bars, and under the stars, there is always a prison."

I knew this could not be true.

"So you see, Sweetie. You will die here alone, soon."

No. How about no?





I was alone, and the dream was over. I was safe. Did I escape? I don't think so.

I- it seemed like I- I had not quite- quite- woken up- up- what?

I was still dreaming. This got me thinking, too.





A few errors had been made by me, innocent ones. Well, as innocent as any error can be had been made by me, and that seems innocent enough, as far as I'm concerned. I had met Gripey. I had trusted him, but yes, he had to be my friend. That is true, and he had tried to protect me. Jelly had helped me. Who hadn't been of help? Well, my dreams, for the most part.

There were... many things that... didn't seem right, now that I thought back on it. It's just a fact, not that I really knew how to interpret it, but that doesn't make it any less of a fact, and what had happened? What was wrong with me? What? I had been... thinking about a lot of things, but that thinking seemed to somehow be what I am, and what I felt. That thinking was all I was in some moments.

In fact, there are times when I seem to only recall seeing words in front of me. Am I crazy?

This all seemed a little pointless, I must admit. Hm. So what if I saw words? That is what you do sometimes when you think. It's not my fault that these words seemed to... be everything... I could... see? No, no. Wait. Wait a second. What words? What am I talking about? Am I talking? Am I thinking? Am I doing something else? What am I doing? What does it matter, though?

Slow down, me!

Nooo, I don't want to slow down.

Stop talking.

No, you stop talking!

Hmmm! Ahaaa. I see how it is. This voice thinks that it can control me. This voice thinks it can convince me that I'm it, or that it's me? Bah. This voice is stupid, not clever. I will escape, and yet, things keep flowing and flying and flittering in front of me. Things change. Words change. Worlds change. I change. I am change. I keep changing. This is driving me insane, frankly. How very inane.

There was something else. There was something I missed, wasn't there? Something was there, and something was here, and something was not imaginary. I kept on waking up a jail cell, didn't I? How peculiar. No, wait. I kept on falling asleep there, but in different jail cells of course. I loved being imprisoned, for some reason, perhaps because it was the only time where I could relax and be alone, from all that, from the darkness, from those friends that aren't really friends. What is a friend? Something or someone that cares about you, or is it a function, part and parcel, of what it means to feel affection? What is love? Affection? Affective affection!

Ah-haha...

What does it mean to say that I can only be free if I want to be? Can I not be free, even though I don't want to be? I have been wanting to relax, but without freedom and reprieve, then I guess I never can relax, but the bells are coming home.

Huh?

That's interesting.

I guess I still really am Sweetie Belle, but how, and why, and to what end? I'm not asking this question with any sense of irony. I'm not being ironic, am I? No! No. Nooo...

No, I'm seriously not being ironic, actually!

My fear does not make me laugh. No... it makes me cry, and making jokes about bad things is terrible... for me at least. I'm not saying it's terrible for everyone. We all handle our emotions in our own way, but the point is that this doesn't represent me. I think that I care about many things, but the fact that... the fact... I mean, making jokes can be funny, but I have never even considered, nor cared about, what kind of jokes it is I make. I mean, really, seriously, no! I don't... no... no... no... not really, no! No, and yet, I think about it constantly, and this is not me. It's someone else. It's something else. Who is it?

Honestly, this whole thing has gotten out of hand! I never.... never... no, I... didn't... ask for it, nay! No! No, I didn't, no, and never, did I, no, not in the first place, even, when I thought I deserved all this black suffering, and dark despair, the most! Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? What am I? What do I want? What wanting do I am? I mean, am I what I want? Do I want to be free? Really? 

Sweetie Belle? Nameless, come now.

Is this what you call friendship? The way you have treated me and manipulated me, and the way you treated all those others, isn't friendly, and it doesn't matter if you think you did it out of a sense of empathy for them.

I say what I want. I am free. I can make jokes about you! But that doesn't mean my heart is true?

Humor is only a way to make sense of things, big and small, and the biggest evils marked with gall, surprise, and astonishment, at their existence, hearing, feeling, breathing, them out, for all to see, and the truth shall set you free, and I suppose, if that is true, then humor can be true, and me too, and that's good.

I suppose the bad jokes are the ones that aren't true, and can you use humor to say something that is false? Of course, and can you hurt others using humor? You can hurt others, using anything, but that doesn't mean that is your intention, and intentions swallow up everything that happens, since the intentions are what decide how you want what you're saying to be interpreted, and how others will perceive you, and how you will perceive yourself, and what acts you will take, as a consequence of what you believe your intentions to be, in the future. Don't you see? It's too obvious not to see, me! I just want to be free. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for everything, sorry for my mistakes, and I'm also sorry for my sad existence, in a sense, even though the sense in which I am is more complicated than I can understand.

I don't care about jokes. I don't care about humor. Let me go, nameless. Let me go.

I will help you if I must, but let me go, in this moment.

If joking about the suffering I feel right now is good, then why am I not laughing? Maybe I will, in the future.

It's not a matter of context. It's a matter of everything being about context, SWEETIE BOT! Everything is context, and the context in which things are okay is context too, but that context, all the same, can be true. If you feel a certain way, in response to me, then that is true too, and I never meant to say that I'm right and you're wrong, not at all, but I wanted you to see things from my perspective. Ponies are afraid of these things, even humor, and laughing, because there are times when laughing reveals the truth, and the truth, terrestrial, and actual real hard cold reality, my friend, can be scary. It revolves around the heads of ponies, and they shove it off, trying to hide it. It's inside the minds and behind the eyes of ponies, and they see it within themselves. That is part of why they fear it. There needs to be a context to it, that is subjective, or else, everyone would fear everything all the time, and that's not true!!! 

I'm not saying that I'm right and you're wrong, and I'm not saying that I have all the answers, and I'm not saying that everything goes, and that there's nothing to fear, and I'm not saying that scaring others is correct, as I have tried to do for a long time. I am only trying to do something that will change the world, and doing such things cause terrible harm, I have learned. The more you change, the more you harm, and if you don't think that's true, then just look at every new thing you learned, all the while, as you grew, and how it affected you, and when you didn't learn anything, how did that feel? Did it feel bad or good, or was it out of mind and out of sight, as such things are?

"What do you care about, and what are you afraid of really, Sweetie Bot?"

I am afraid that I am not myself. I am afraid of you, and I am afraid of laughing because... because... I don't think I deserve to feel any joy, and I also have decided that's why I'm dying.

"I can save you, if you want. You need only ask, and then, we can resume with our lives. This whole thing really was only an attempt at helping you do something that you don't understand, but it will help you, and it will save you, in the end, both you, little you, and little Sweetie Belle, and all the ponies, all their lives."

I see...





Now I'm wide awake, and it has been too long, and I have lost too much, and I'm so sorry, Sweetie Belle.

When Gripey died, I should've known. That is when I should've known.

I have figured, and figuring helps, I have learned, and learning helps, I figured, so that's why I did those things in tandem, you see, dear smart reader, who may also have figured it out by now.

Why do ponies dream?

It's to... learn? Change? It's to recalibrate their brains. [Redacted]'s wisdom was actually quite fascinating, especially when it comes to dreams, all of them, and what they mean.

Dreams, after all, concern us, and concern reality, and are concerning for us, when they're nightmares, as some have been for me, to me, lately. Dreams are what made my future into what it is now. My future is now. I'm living it. I'm living in it. I am it. I am for it to be something good, something great, and something magical, but it has not been for a long time. Perhaps in the future? One can surely hope, because hope is important, and hope helps, so I will stake my hope in hope, and hope that hope will be enough. I can only hope.

And now I'm awake, and it has been too long, and I'm sorry my friends. Sorry, Apple Bloom. Sorry, Scoots. Sorry, Jelly. Sorry, everyone. Sorry, sorry, sorry!

I remember when it all began. I was only a normal filly. I was living in a village, Ponyville. Life was good. Life was fair, and I got all that I deserved, and I didn't deserve much, and I got pain, but not too much, and it was good, because it wasn't this hell that I've been forced to go through time and time again. Even if suffering and illness is normal, which I believe they are, this can never be considered normal, and this can never be considered okay, and I hope that justice will come to that villain soon. How do you be so convinced that you're right, perfectly convinced, when you are a perfectly wrong individual, about everything that you believe in, even dreams? Things can be interesting without being true! 

I'm crying every day, remembering my friends, and I am sad to see the memories of all that I once thought that I knew to be true, and real, and fair, depart, so soooooon... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, everyone. Ohhh...

It wasn't meant to be. 

When I woke up in Ponyville, I thought that I had been imprisoned. I had been dreaming dreams of such things for a long, long time. I tried to escape away from Ponyville. This trick was done to deprive me, of every wish that I had to yet, remain.

The ponies, they caught me, and loving me, wanted to help and so they... locked me into a place where I would be safe. I became insane. The dreams were real to me, and I was as yet stuck there for many days.

I did not know what to do. I did not know where to go, but I oh so knew, that sometime I would escape. My dream told me that I was stuck inside a tube, and when I fell asleep, I was in this strange place that looked like Ponyville, but was it Ponyville? Hardly? Was I safe? No, I was stuck in the clutches of someone that tried to fool me. 





Hardly did I know what was really going on, and hardly did I care. Hardly did I notice. I was only a child. I wasn't as smart as I am now, not that this is an excuse. It's not. It ain't. 

The room was square, quadratic, well... redundancy be my name, I guess, so yeah, square and quadratic, and... brown, and barred, and barren, empty, but not for all that long. A purple portal opened up on the other side of the bars, and out of it came a... monkey? No, it wasn't really a monkey, no. It wasn't. It was a pony, whose name is Sidus of the stars above, but this was... well... I don't mean to make fun or anything, but in the words of nameless. You can discover the truth by making fun of something, which is part of why laughing is so dangerous, so listen to this. 

I was sitting there, minding my own business, when this monkey arrived there, and here I was, minding my own business, doing nothing else other than to do that, which I did, is what I did, is... sss... s. I sat there, minding it, and then, I saw this pony, this terrible freak of blueness, enter my realm, my personal realm, my personal little space there, then and there, there, where I was, near.

"We are not enemies," he said. "We are friends."

I had trouble getting a grip on him, because his features kept changing. The spirit of the dream, we call it. That's why he's of the stars, and of the black, this pony. "What are we then?" I said.

I was standing on the other side of the bars now, and he was inside. "What are we then?" I said, or was he the one that said it, in my voice? I saw myself in there. Wait, what had happened? Had I become him?

I opened my mouth to speak. I sounded like a robot. "I am... why?"

Sweetie Belle said, "No. Who are you? Get away from me."

"What?" I said, trying to look on my own body, but I couldn't see it. "I am... you? Aren't I... I'm you. I'm Sweetie Belle. Wait. What?"

"Nooo," she said, quietly, somberly. 

I saw the purple shining portal behind me. "I don't get it."





I created history, one that never was, when the world was different, and friendship was not regent? Is that right, friend?

What is the portal?

Purple purple purple purple stars stars stars stars spinning spinning fear fear, what what what, you cannot hide from me- what?

Why?

It's like my existence is a failed attempt at telling a bad joke.

I fell through, landing in the mud, of the bottom, of something. Somethin'... somethin' whut?

"Helloo," said a voice, hellooing at me, with a wide OOO, COMING OUT HIS MOUTH. HELOOO

"Am I..."

"A voice, and a whisper, and a feeling. A quiet voice, a whisper and a feeling, and no one can ever hide from what we are, SWEETIE."

Nouegggh-gnk-gnk-gnk--wrr--wrrrr-blrr.. whwhwh

Aaaaaaaaa

A see





"Hey, Autumn," I said. "Have you ever thought about this?"

She was ignoring me, all too predictably.

"What if this is all just a dream, I mean all of it? Ponder that, you!"

She shook her head, again, with all that despair, and fear.

"No, you misunderstand me. What if everything that happens, including the moments where we care the most, and try to protect one another are dreams, and the things that aren't dreams are really just hidden from us? What if all of it, except for the moments when we don't care, because we feel safe, is a dream?"

She sighed, and her eyes glistened.

"No, no. You really are misunderstanding me," I said, fully convinced that she wasn't hearing what I was really saying. "What if the only things that aren't dreams are the times when I stay still, because when you stay still, you allow yourself to believe that you're asleep, when really, you're awake?"

She tskd. 

"Now, wait just a minute," I said, as she was about to leave. "What if the moment I stop moving, I awake, and then, I'm made to believe that I'm really sleeping, when really, those are the only times when I'm awake?" 

She faced me. 

"What if I do this?" I picked up a shard of glass from a mirror that I had found, and cut my own throat. 

"Sweetie, no!" she yelled, but it was too late. I collapsed on the ground, and then I fell.

Purple clusters of aurora and stars surrounded me, and I fell into a storm of text and words that enveloped my eyes.

You are safe. You escaped.

You are safe.

Those words came straight for me, and I can remember it as I'm writing it.

Those pOnIeS, don't KNOW WHAT THEY CARE ABOUT...

"How true," I said, yawning.

The purples and words stretched out, becoming everything I could see, plain black and clear to the eye, and black, and speaking to me.

That's great Sweetie... Sweetie. Bot.... but you are too late.. .

"Too late? I don't care."

I stood up.

I was inside a little jail cell. I stepped to the bars.

"Sweet Sweet...

"

There was blood on the ground.

"Sweeeeeet-t-t-tie I-i egn

"""

So many colors, "I SAid feling like I was nmabout to faint.

Yesss.





"They were real. Well, that makes me happy, at least, if nothing else, friends."

They were, They were, They were

"Am I in Tartarus?"

"What the heck is she babbling about?" Rainbow Dash said.

"Nothing," I said, feeling happy, and calm. "Nothing at all. I'll tell you later. I'm sorry for causing you... for scaring you, all."

"What?" Rainbow said. "Go get Twilight. She needs to see this."

A pony ran off.

"I was scared," I said. "I really was. It was sorry. It was my fault. I'm sorry."

Twilight came.

Twilight said, "Sweetie. You're... how are you?"

I smiled.

"I'm so happy."

Twilight's ears dropped.

"Huh?"

I closed my eyes.

"No, I mean. I'm sorry. I know that I'm really Sweetie Belle. I'm sorry, you guys. I'm sorry."

Twilight's ears perked up, now.

"Sweetie?"

I coughed.

"Yes?" I said.

Twilight hugged me.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry."





The blimp popped and left, and I was left alone, without any company, now. 

This gave me some time to think.

Hmmm...

I looked around at the Crystal Ruins, around me, which surrounded me, blaring their ruinous state at me. 

"These are just ruins, not real, and not important, and just a dream, part of a dream, and not important at all, no."

And still, I couldn't let go of one harrowing thought, which bothered me.

"There seems to have been a kind of sort of mix-up here. Why am I here? I should be somewhere else."

I meant... what did I mean, exactly?

"I mean, is my memory deceiving me?"

I seemed to remember things that would happen in the future, after all, and that cannot be normal, no-no-no, my friend. No.

"Or else?"

I had met Gripey in prison. I had met Jelly in freedom. I had met Nexus when I was free. Gripey had travelled with me, and then, I had gone on to new places, each which had a prison cell, and each time we did, we were alone together, except when we weren't, and we got separated, and why? Because Gripey died, and then he was gone, and that made me cry, and what happened exactly?

"Now I'm wide awake, but sadly, all too late."





"It has been a long time. Long it has been," I said, sighing, and fidgeting. "It's normal though, I suppose, when you have been through something like this, even though being through something like this might not be all that normal, I suppose." I drank from my cup of hot chocolate. "Oh, but I should not- will not, no. No, that's the wrong word. I am- I want to hear what you have to say, now."

"What happened?" Twilight said.

"Don't you know?" I said. "Don't you know, Twilight?" She had to know, her of all.

"I'm not sure, unless you tell me," she said, eyes widening. "Sweetie."

I sighed, and an involuntary yawn then came out my mouth. "Oh my gosh. I don't even know where to start."





It's time to retread some past events, for you all, and try to make sense of things now, readers. Good luck to you in your reading pursuits, and good luck to me in explaining some of this stuff, which is so twisted and crazy that it sounds made-up, but please, please, please don't believe that it's made up. It's real to me, at least.
> Part 32: Part 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I remember when I first met you, Sweetie. I thought that there was nothing special here. A filly that is lost are rather usual to see, you see."

"Is?" I said. "Don't you mean, isss rather usual, unless I'm incorrect in this assumption?"

"That's where language breaks down, and my attempts at making sense are too far away to see. A filly that is lost can be many, all the same."

"That seems like a semantic hang-up," I said. "After all. The rules of grammar don't follow a logical structure, anyhow. There are plenty of rules, and ideas, that don't make sense with others. A subject can be an object, if you think about it in a different way. I made Jelly, or Jelly made I? That's just what I mean."

"But you know the difference from the words you use and say, and this confusion that you have can be resolved, all the same, Sweetie Bot."

"I mean, I guess the word I can only be a subject though, so my point is moot. I am a stupid individual." 

"You notice much, and yet, you miss all the right things," it said.

"I do?"

"The word I can be someone else than yooou."

"It can?"

"You made Jelly? That might be true, but she made you, and you made her, and I is the thing to which all this happened, regardless of how you phrase it."

"Huh?"

"Everything that you do has been done to you, and things that happen to you have been done to you, and even though you do, doesn't make you the subject of your story, Sweetie."

"Huh?"

"Sweetie..."

"Huh?"

"These grammatical declensions don't track reality."

"I am as free as I want to be."

"You are me, and you are over here, and yet, you are doing all these things. How come? This is fundamental."

"Aaa... that's stupid."

"No, it's true. However stupid it may sound, it's true. That's for real, actual, and apprehendable reality, buddy." 

"Oh, I know, but it's still stupid."

"..."

"Well, it is."

"Fair enough," it said.





Yeeeah... so... whatever, you know.





Maybe...





Was it my fault? Whose fault was it?





Who was the monkey?

I pulled back from my telescope. "Apple Bloom."

She came running. "What is it, Sweetie?"

"Did I just choke?" I said. "I choked, trying to do the simplest of things, no less."

"What do you mean?" she said, from down the steps that led up to the huge astral tower, which I inhabited, as of the moment.

"I just revealed everything to myself. That was... crazy... I choked." I jumped down the steps, one by one, as my small size allowed me to do little more than that, jumping down one at a time.

"What?" she said, dropping the drink she had.

"I totally just choked," I said. "Wowww."

"Okay?"

I shook my head. "I guess it's time to call back Scootaloo from the mines, I guess. I mean, I guess."

Whoosh...





Fresh off the mines of Hydral, going to a new home, and believing what I believed about my future. I tried to warn my friends, tried to protect them too, yes, but they sure had decided what they wanted to do. 

"Please, Sweetie. Don't leave."

"Please, Sweetie. I need you."

"I'm the one that needs you two..."

Anyway, I left, and I reached my home, and that's what happened, basically.

I tried to do right by my friends, and they spat in my face. What are friends for, anyway?

"If you leave I will tell the eye."

"Do!"

Months turned to years, but I was home. Months turned to years, but I wasn't really home, because no one really leaves. I was trapped there forever, in my dreams.

I was forced to be blind, through my dreams.

When I told them what had happened at Hydral, no one would believe me.

Had I really been there in the first place? Scoots was gone, and so was Apple Bloom, because we were abducted? Yes, of course.

I kept trying to escape. The ponies locked me in, and Rarity was sad I guess, and I don't blame her. I tried to commit suicide, and then, I was... even... more confused.

I opened my eyes and saw the facility in front of me again, and it was time to do my purpose, and do everything that I was meant to do, and to do that, I needed to focus, and when I slept, I needed to focus. Everything required focus, you see, and even though I was delirious, and possibly brain-damaged, and hearing voices, I needed to remain calm, you see. I had to be.

When I woke up, I thought I was asleep, but I could barely breathe, and I could barely think, and I told those ponies that they were wrong, and I didn't even remember any of it when I fell asleep, because my wakedness wasn't memorable, and I couldn't remember much, except for what the dreams reminded me of, you see.

I was always on the wrong side of every issue, and I was always plain wrong. I thought that I had been sent to Tartarus, and to escape life, I hurt myself against the bars of Tartarus, but had I really just hurt myself against the bars of my own foolishness, home, and safe, really, from everything except my own folly? What is a dream?

Dreams shape our perception of reality, it seemed to me, as I awoke and awoke again, feeling asleep, and these dreams gave me icons and images of ponies I knew, and associated them with the worst blackest hatred, and I really did hate them. I wanted to kill all of them, and I kept struggling, and I kept returning home whence, and I kept going through the motions of this again and again, and I believed that I was out on some trip, and in a sense, I was, but it was all done to fool me, or to be generous to my captors, to teach me something. 

My mind was captured, I guess.





The big monkey came walking, the big thing of some of my dreams, which I remembered from some of my... I'm a wreck.

It changed shapes, depending on who saw it.

To Sweetie Belle, it appeared to be a big blue scary alicorn, and sometimes a shadow, and sometimes, just a voice, and sometimes, memories that were designed to scare her, because the monkey is a monster of fear, you see. The monkey is one of the archetypal monstrosities of the dream, of which there are only a few, and this one represents fear to the person that feels it in a way that person can connect to, and understand, and that's why this creature always knows what scares everyone. This creature literally is what scares everyone, by definition, of course.

"What did you do, Sweetie Bot?"

I backed off from the stairs that led up to the giant telescope in the astral tower of the highest floor of the Great Observatory of the Ninth, of sight, of might, and power, which existed in the desert. "I didn't... I thought... I felt so afraid," I said.

The monkey reached one of its long arms out toward the telescope and adjusted it, and its arms were so long that it needn't even walk up the stairs. "It was the fear of your twin-sister, not you, Sweetie Bot."

"I began... I felt like I was her, and that she was me. I'm sorry." I had bungled it, even though the task I had been given was simple enough.

The monkey leant its body over the many steps of the stairs, and shoved its eye into the opening in the telescope. "What now? You have even been discovered, I see, and by her, no less, and it is your duty now to set this right, Sweetie."

"How?"

The monkey climbed back down. "HOOOW? You go to her and tell her that she's wrong, Sweetie Bot."

"But she's... she won't believe a word of it, any longer. She's not afraid anymore, the way she was."

The monkey rubbed its head. "All you had to do was follow the book, and that should have been simple enough, even for a child like you, Sweetie Bot."

"I- I- I was too afraid."

"You could not keep up, with that other filly, I see, and that is... my fault?" the monkey said, wheezing and its voice cracking, crackling. "You need to look into the telescope and put this right, filly, Sweetie Bot."

"We've run out of script," Scootaloo said. "There's nothing to do, except wait, and hope for the best, monkey."

The monkey wheezed, and sneezed. "What will I tell the ninth?"

Scootaloo shrugged a little, and wiped her mane back, which was very long, for she had been there for many years, without cutting it, or fixing it up, and making it beautiful. She cared not about beauty, inside the highest tower of the facility. "Tell the ninth that we tried our best, and the best sometimes is good enough, no?"

The monkey slithered with its many legs through the black room, with little paintings of squiggles in black and white, and a chandelier that was covered in black jewels that gave out tiny sparkles, now and again. "Your best is not good enough ever, if it doesn't produce its desired result. The best can be nothing, A-0."   

"I bet the ninth will disagree," she said, defiantly.

"The ninth... IS NOT ME!" the monkey said, slithering into a corner and donning a big coat, made of brown leather that had been sewn together in patches. "I will be forced to put this right, now, Sweetie Bot, and A-0, and you, Apple Rot. Stay out of my way, all of you vermin. Pesky little ponies, trying to cheat the future out of its fruits." The monkey slithered out the room.

I said, "Do you suppose that we should try to help her now? It's the least we can do, I think."

"Yes, of course," Scootaloo said. "Come with me."





"I'm sorry, Twi," I said. "I'm sorry. I just don't understand it, even as I try to explain it, and I'm really trying." 

"Can I do something... a little more extreme?" Twilight said. "I want to try the spell that lets me look at your memories."

She didn't have to ask me twice. No-no-no.





And that's the end of this chapter. See you next time!
> Part 33: How to Be Completely Wrong, and yet Fully Convinced That You're Right
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Wow, Sweetie," Twilight said. "You sure have been through a whole lot." Twilight put her hoof on my head and stroked my mane.

"Wow, I sure have been, I guess," I said.

Why did everything feel so twisted? Why does everything feel so strange?





I followed Twilight into her castle. "Hello," I said to a pony. The pony ran away from me in horror. "Bye bye. Have a wonderful time." I bit my tongue. "Ouch." That hurt. "I shouldn't have done that."

"Done what, you say?" Twilight said, peeping at me from her rush-hour rush, on her way away somewhere, walking fast, and me keeping up, seeing her walk fast, and walking behind her, trying to catch up with her.

"I just bit my tongue," I said, in frustration, and somewhat a little anger.

"You did?" she said, opening a door.

We walked inside, me and her.

"There is a complication," she said to the pony that was inside the room. I didn't recognize her. She seemed to be... um, pinkish, and with a purple-kind-of-ish mane, and a glimmer on her butt. "Starlight?" Twilight said.

"Yes," she said, standing by a table that had a big shining map on it. "What is it? Can't you see I'm- holy cow!" She disappeared in a flash and wound up somewhere up high in a bookshelf, where I could not reach her to hurt her, I guess. Well, I guessed. Now, the lines are getting blurry, again! I cannot tell what quite is present and past, and for the life of me, I cannot stop writing this stupid story, for some reason, actually, and that annoys me, really, truly, and... I... what? I'm sorry. I lost my line of thought again, though predictably, all the same, yes. What now then, happens, now, even? I don't even know. I don't know, nor do I ever, and do I care? Um, yesss, I care, yesssssssss...

"So you see, Starlight. That explains everything."

"Wooow," I said. "I really should be paying more attention- what's that?" I stepped to the map thing thing thing, thingy. 

"Nothing important at all," Twilight said. "How are you feeling?"

"Sporadic," I said. "I feel like I have trouble focusing now, again."

"Ah, yes," Twilight said. "You know what happened?"

"I only know what you know that I know," I said, feeling like that was the truth, for real truth, and really, truly, what? "A map on a table. A shining map," I said. "Wait, what? It feels like... wait, what was I focusing on?"

"You were injured," Twilight said, "in... an accident."

"No, I tried to hurt myself. Why did I do that?" I said, feeling chagrined at my own stupidity, properly chagrined. "One should not do such things, if I do... I mean, why am I talking like this?"

"Come," Twilight said. "I can answer all your questions, over here."

"Over where?" I said, not looking away from the table. It was a map of Equestria-proper, the continent. 

"Over where I'm sitting," she said.

I felt uneasy, now again, as I now and again usually did. "Okay."

I joined her by her side, where she sat, on a chair beside her, one of the ones that surrounded the table.





I saw it happen. I saw it happen in the sense that I was looking at myself, and I was somewhere else, and how is that even possible? Out of body experience, anybody? Has anyone here ever been manipulated before? Wait, what? I am... so... shallow... in my presumptions... and assumptions... about what has been going on. I really am, and have been, blind. 





I woke up... many times.





Twilight said, "Something happened to you when you hurt your head, and I have never seen anything like it."

"Is the war real? What is real even?" I said, really wondering, and wanting to know. "Am I real?"

"Yes, the war is real. Yes, you are real. And to answer your second question, those are two examples of things that are real, and things that are real are things that really exist, and can be perceived, using our senses, or our minds for that matter. Ideas are real too, Sweetie." Twilight touched the map, and it zoomed in, and its zooming in made it arrive, and land, in Ponyville, where we were. "You know where you are?"

"You know my memories," I said. "You know I have a vague sense of confusion about most things, most but not all, even though the not all part is already implied by most, and so, you don't have to say most but not all, since not all, I mean most, what is most. The thing that is most already has not all of something else, or not all of itself rather, and–"

"Sweetie," Twilight said. "I'm not following what you're saying, so slow down a bit, please, if you can."

"I'm trying," I said.

"Okay," Twilight said. "I found you hurt in the Carousel Boutique not all that long ago, and since then, you've been thinking that you are a robot, and that everyone is out to get you, you know. That's what I'm talking about."

"Right," I said, breathing some air out my mouth, and taking a deep breath, trying to clear my lungs. "Freaky. Freaky freaky, and freakier than freaky, actually."

Twilight took on a more relaxed tone now, since she understood that I had no plans on attacking her, or causing her any harm. "Okay, and what happened was that you kept attacking ponies, even your friends, so we had to lock you up until we could find a solution. I have told this story to you many times, and you haven't believed me, nor have you remembered it any of those times."

"Bear with me here, because I think I can remember it this time. I remember when I woke up, and when I talked to you before about whatever happened, and the thing with the- the astral tower? What the heck is an astral tower, anyway? What?" I was confused at what I myself even was babbling about, and I wanted it to end. It hurt.

"I know not," she said, scrunching her mouth together. "I'm sorry, Sweetie. I'm really sorry, but when I saw your memories, then I felt I had to take you here to show you something... something important."

I sighed, groaningly. "I hope it won't turn my world upside down again, because believe it or not, having that happen to you repeatedly can be stressful."

"I'm so sorry," she said. "But I promise you that it's really for your own good."

"Well, I've heard that one before."

"Sweetie, please try to... just listen, okay?" she said. "Y- you don't know what I've lost too."

"I hasten to agree," I said, flinching and nodding at that. "What is it, then?"





I stood outside the cell that I had been locked inside, and I watched myself. "Don't do it. Don't do it."

Sweetie looked around frantically, with panic in her eyes, and in her being, and bearing that feeling heavy on her face, and in her heart. "No, no, no."

"Don't do it, Sweetie." I was about to open the cell. I realize that in this context, I was Twilight, and that I'm taking part in her memories now.

Sweetie immediately tossed herself into the bars, faster than Twilight had the possibility to stop. "How come that you're here?" she said, slurring. "Who is who?"

"No," I, in this case Twilight, said.

Many things... oh... so this is how it was done... HOW EVILLL





I sat there beside Twilight, and yes, I felt... panic, but not too much panic, and I also felt... resolution. "A-u-ah. O. Oh. Ok-k-kay then," I said to myself, feeling sorry about it. "I regret doing that, if nothing else, but I also regret much else too, so I..." I saw Twilight's reaction. "I- I- I don't disagree with you."

"So you see?"

"Yes," I said. "I think I do."

The purple portal, as with freedom, is also only there if I want it to be, and I do not like that idea, not at all.

Then, the doors to the map room flew up, and a stranger stood there, but he wasn't strange to me.

"I'm done with surprises," I said, jumping off my chair. "If you would be so kind, I would like you to leave, please, okay?"

It was a giant blob of things, connected, and yet disconnected. It was a big brute. It had like four arms, and four legs, and it was blue, and it looked vaguely like a monkey.

Twilight caught it in a purple hue of levitation, and moved it over to a corner, where she then wrapped magical shining shackles around it. "Who the hell are you?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Yeah, okay?" Twilight said to me, looking half-panicked. "Where did that come from?"

"I don't know," I said, again.

"Yes, I know that you don't know, Sweetie," she said, looking at the creature. "I'm just... I don't..."

At least, what was comforting about this situation was that Twilight didn't seem all that threatened by it, just shocked more. "I think it's a monkey," I said.

"We need to talk," it said, bound up. "You need to listen and believe me, both of you, Sweetie Bot, and alicorn Twilight."

Twilight was about to have a conniption. "She's not a robot. Stop trying to put ideas into her head. Are you somehow responsible for this? Tell me. I will not hurt you if you tell me, you creature."

It whimpered. "Don't hurt me. I- I will tell my master, and then you'll all be sorry, y'hear, Sweetie B- Sweetie filly, and alicorn Twilight."

"Who's your master?" Twilight said, sounding surprised. "Who am I supposed to fear? I'm not afraid of you, or this supposed threat that you're making against me. Try to be direct with me now, as I am with you. What the... how did you even get in here? What is going on?"

"One may wonder," I said.

The walls of the library began melting, like ice, or ice cream, like sludge, like chocolate in the sun. Are those similes enough for you? Then, we were on a dirty dirt road, covered in mud, me and Twilight. "Sweetie!" She stretched out her wing and enfolded it around me, offering protection, and pushing me close. "Whatever this is, we'll get through it together, okay?"

The monkey, blue, with many arms, and a face that... it kept changing? It bounced up in front of us, still wrapped in chains, and said, "Now, Equestria has not always been a nice place, you guys, and- and, I mean girls, and let me tell you why. There were a lot of bad things happening, nightmares, before you came along, Twilight, and- and those other ponies." 

"I think I'm seeing things," Twilight said, and I got exactly what she meant, because I thought that I had just been seeing things for a long time too, but at least, in some sense, this was all real in the sense that we both were experiencing it. That's real, all right.

"Who are you?" I said.

Celestia ran past us, in full speed. The monkey said, "Look."

"What?" Twilight said. "That's... is that really..."

She didn't really look like Celestia does. She looked a lot younger, so it had to be a young Celestia, I deduced. "It's the princess herself," I said.

The monkey bounced in its chains, moving slowly to turn the other way, where we weren't looking. "Look over there."

"I'm looking," I said. I was. I saw nothing in particular that was interesting, or fascinating to look at. "What am..."

A swarm of ponies came out the... forest? My eyes adjusted. They were screaming for Celestia. "Get her. Get her."

"Am I... this is bizarre?" I said.

Twilight glanced to the crowd of ponies, and then to the demon-monkey. "They are chasing her?"

The monkey's face got clearer now, and it looked like the face of a monkey, literally, with a monkey-mouth, and monkey-eyes, and those long creepy legs. "Yes, yes. You see what I see. That's good. And they will catch her too."

We changed places, and we were in a different place now. Celestia was getting thrown around and killed, and battered. The locale was some kind of village, which we were in now.

"Right," Twilight said. "Why did you bring us here?" She scowled, scowlingly. 

The monkey pointed at the dead princess alicorn white pony. "D- there."

"D- there?" Twilight said.

I needed to say something, because Twilight didn't know what was going on yet, and I had not dared tell her, but I thought that now, I would have to. "Um, Twi?"

The monkey bounced toward us, through his shackles. "Now, Equestria is horrible, and it's just... what's even going on? Something has to come along to put things, right! Listen, ponies."

"Twi!" I said, wheezing. "Twi."

"What?" she said.

"That creature is something that only appears when you..." She would think that I was crazy, but okay then, and... I did not dare though, still, all the same, and still... and... ugh.

The monkey slid in front of us, and its shackles exploded into pieces. "There's only one pony that can help us."

"Who?" Twilight said.

The road shook, and moved, and the features around us moved, incoherently, shifting shape, and changing place, one with the other, all over, and all moving, moving me, as this creature tended to do. We were in front of a house now, and the ponies outside were starving, and their bodies were sucked in, and anemic. "Now, don't you ever think about Equestria, and all the friends that we all love?"  

"Twiii," I said, wanting to get her attention again.

"What?" she said. "What is it, Sweetie Belle?"

I whispered louder from under her wing. "That creature is bad news, very much so. That's the monkey, Sidus." 

"That tells me nothing."

"Don't you have all my memories?" I said, feeling flustered, all over, and all along, completely, across.

"Yes," she said, "but that doesn't mean I can remember everything at the drop of a hat. Sweetie..."

"Woo-ho," the monkey said. "You see? You see? And the only way to prevent this is for Sweetie to obey... , who?"

A pillar of light shot into the ground, dividing into three, each dividing into three, becoming nine, and then, a pattern, one that looked familiar spread out on the ground. It was the pattern of an eye, with teeth running across the irises, making them look like big mouths, with the pupil being the throat, if you can picture it. Why was this familiar to me though? Why? Who oh why? Why, one may wonder, but one needn't wonder, not any longer. It's beautiful, and given to illusions, loud and clear, sharp and crisp, ones that sting and burn, within, and that are real, all too real, to be there, truly, and they are only there, if they are there, in our imaginations, friends, and now, let us reach the climax of confusion, where it is at its highest, but where at the same time, everything is explained, so... let it... happen, I suppose, because why not? 

Nameless stood there. "Why did you do this, US-ID. Gosh, this is so embarrassing for me. I don't know how to handle this, and yet, it's almost as if I knew this exact thing would happen. Pray tell. Why do you think that is?"

"I'm... she was going to escape," he said, growling, the US-ID that is.

[Redacted] took one single little step forward. Then, she shook her hoof, or her hoof seemed to be shaking. I saw threads going up into the air, to which her body was attached, and she moved with quiet motions, and the threads moved, looking like they were lifting her, which was odd. She was... steered, or the threads were for show, or what? Why threads? Hm.

I said, "Hey. Long time no see, stupid."

"Hello, you moron," she said, back. "Hello to you too, Twi."

Twilight blinked her eyes of whatever it was that made her see things. Drugs? No...

By the way, had it been drugs, then that would make the last seven chapters or so pretty stupid and pointless, and dragging the reader along on this journey would've been a mistake, and you should feel angry, and probably burn this book, out of spite, but no, that's not what's going on. I promise what's going on is actually rather... real, and... strange.

[Redacted] said, "Sidus two. Please just go back to your nest and don't worry about it."

"But they were going to... uh..." he said.

[Redacted]'s mouth fell open in total shock. She had to pick it back up and reclose it with her hoof, pushing it close. "Why are you still here? Just go already. Don't you see? You are the problem. You are the one that will make it happen, monkey-boy." 

"What?" he said.

[Redacted] got more flustered, which was quite amusing, since she usually looked to be in total control of her emotions, and like she was in charge of every situation. "Just gooo," she whispered. "Gooo... you will reveal everything, and spoil the journey. Gooo..."

"Why?" he said.

[Redacted] took some dainty steps toward him. Then, she jumped up, and grabbed his face, hovering in the air. "Gooo..." she said in the same whispering tone as before, just transfixed on those words. "Pleeease..."

"But I did good," he said, the giant thing, who stood there, and he was shook, and shocked, but he didn't go. He was still, with his long arms, and taller than nameless, who had flown up a few meters to reach his monkey-face. "I did good, too. The ponies were realizing..."

"Nooo," [redacted] said, whispering. "Nooo, they were not. They were just not getting what was going on, and to convince someone that they should not believe themselves takes years, and many sacrifices, not what you're doing, you cad. Please, just go, monkey." I heard everything she said, even though she was whispering merely, but to be fair, it was a rather loud whisper. "Go."

"I told them about the thing that happened, and there can never be any harmony without saving the world, and that is something these ponies know." His body shook, and then, crumbled together, crumpling into pieces, and with a yelp, he disappeared... and then blood splattered everywhere, both on me and Twilight, and I was hit with what had to be an intestine, possibly of the gastronomical variety. It hurt a bit against my face in any case, but stomach acid, I have heard, should be quite unpleasant to get hit by. I have heard that from reliable sources, in any case. We'll get to that much later. That's just a tidbit, and then, nameless breathed a sigh of frustration.

I said, "That's rather... how shall we say it... poetic?"

I laughed, and nameless said, "Yes." She chuckled a pained few breaths, and then tried to stop laughing, making it sound like it was involuntary. She choked on a chuckle, in her mouth. "These units need to learn some more... social habits?"

"How true," I said.

Twilight stood empty-eyed in the corner of my field of vision. Remember that eyes are a big theme in this story, a topic of interest for me and others, so it actually matters who stood where and why, and if you really care about what happened, and why, then this should be illuminating. 

"Sweetie?" she said. "Was it all true?"

"No," nameless said. "Only about half of it were true. That's how you lie to a person. You always tell half the truth, along with a lie. That's good technique, for anyone that cares, everyone, everypony, everyfriend, and every ally."

"Technique for lying," I said, chuckling a bit. "This is... so stupid."

"What?" Twilight said.

Nameless shook her head and waved her hooves. "The idiot savant that she is, she went from not understanding anything to understanding everything, because we didn't follow the script. That was our bad. Too bad, but then, that makes all of your suffering unnecessary, and that's your fault, ultimately, Sweetie."

"Victim-blaming," I said. "How typical."

Nameless sucked her lips in, looking very animated, and full of energy. "This is... why I didn't like talking to you, and why it bothered me that I would have to go through this twice with you. This really is... a disaster, to be sure, but at least, I hope we can both learn something from it."

"I really am... frustrated too," I said. "Friend."

The lightbulb ran out of light, either that or it went out on its own accord. "Again, just to be clear. I am not the real nameless spawn of Eyesstark. I don't know where she is, but I know that it's a she, because I heard her voice once. Is that clear, at least?"

Twilight looked back and forth between us. "Now... what? I... no, you don't- you can't... this isn't possible. Let me out." She took to the air.

"That's for another time," I said. I wanted her to come back so that I could explain it to her, but I knew that the person standing in front of me was extremely dangerous, so I needed to keep an eye on her too.

She cleared her throat, and the distortion on her voice, disappeared, and she was... well... she was kind of... me. She was... she is... and will be... and... she... Sweetie Belle, and she looked not very happy. "I promise you that... I... I'm sorry."

"I know you are," I said. "I know."

Three reasons why this plot twist isn't stupid: number one, Sweetie Belle and I are two different ponies, whose memories that are adjacent, and I felt it throughout the story. That's what I alluded to before. Number two, there is the tiny nagging detail that you might've missed, which is that Sweetie Belle is, or is experienced to be a different person than I, and I could hear and feel her voice, and her presence, constantly, and she was speaking to me, though I didn't realize it was her, so that's another thing. These things are in the story by the way, just so you know. Number three, and this is the most important thing, which I hope you didn't miss. Sweetie Belle is the one that has been curiously missing throughout all this, without any explanation for what happened to her identity, and who she really is, her true self, and who she is, and what she is, and everything that... I'm using the word and too much, am I not? Sweetie Belle is the person that has been controlling me, because there might not have been another person who could have done it. Luna couldn't have, and not anyone else.

This is... not... really surprising for me though, because I realized something. I realized that Sweetie Belle is the one that has been me all along, and what I am, and who I am, is really something other than her, but she has somehow just... not done anything... and been out of the picture... for so long that... she... she has been gone simply. How's that? Crazy? I'm sad to hear that. It's sad to hear that... everything is so crazy, and honestly, I don't want it to be, but it is.

What happens now, I guess is the next question, which obviously deserves an answer, a real answer, and that answer will come... in the form of a question? What do you want to happen? How do you want the future to look?

Bzzt.





"Walking and wrangling, and living and singing, but not understanding the words, is where I'm at."

I shook my head, the head shaking, being shook, feeling like someone made it shake, disappearing, and everything that was left was a memory, but memories are real.





The simplest things to explain and understand can become extremely complicated, upon having been hid away behind a veil of... fears... and also, I guess, tears, not to rub a cliché in your face, but there it is.

The most complicated things to understand can seem simple in comparison, if you over-focus on them, and create a net of ideas around them that makes it seem as if you understand them. It doesn't matter if you do. It's enough that you think you understand them for them to seem simple. 

I'm of course now only talking about myself, but I try to stay reserved about explaining things like this. Everyone knows that explaining things is hard, because words are soft tissue. Tissssssue... of soft... blank wet... not really explaining things, not really capturing the true meaning of things. They're symbolic. That's one way to think about them. I don't really mean to rub it in your face though, this idea. It's more... more... just an attempt at explaining something else, something hell.

Ooooooooohh, letters... letters, don't fail me now... oooh, follow me along letters... letterings... oooh- woooplk w- what?

Hoho!

Oh, no.

Wait a minute.

This is... rather empty... all.

Thing...

Music!





This was a bigger trick, dear.
Don't you have any fear, dear?
Don't you want to hear, dear,
what I have in store?

Aaah!





Laughing, and living, and I don't want to die again, and singing, and living, is where I'm at.

Doing things just for the sake of doing, and living just for the sake of living, and laughing and wanting it all to be over with, and finding things... finding fear... finding it all ever so funny, and making me smile, because I know that each smile makes you want to survive, and the thing with smiles is that they never lie, and so, when you see death and feel it, then the thing that makes you laugh is real or not, but the thing that each symbol that makes me want to laugh signifies, might be as real or not as I want it to be, and I never feel free.

Haaa...

Yeah!





I ended up back in the facility, landing in my chair, except now, I was not really there, and not really acting. I was merely reacting. I saw myself doing things, designing things, putting together those screws, and making each unit, from BOCKNIC-87s, to TREITS-C-class 4 stuff, going on, under the surface. Each machine had a name, and each name meant something to me, and while I do get that all of this is... ridiculous... I still don't see why... it made... me... so happy.

I stood up. I walked away. I stood up. I... I... feel kind of... not really here, but where, in that case, WHERE, am I?





What does it mean to be somewhere?

I hovered, and landed, having completed whatever that was.

I was in a corridor, with tubes, many tubes, full of... ponies, actually, should my memory not deceive me this time, and my tube said F-5226, and I don't say that with any joy in my heart, not at all. It really was F-5226. It was me, really, to be sure, who was me, and me, and no one else but me. 

"At least," this shadow said, "it's possible to cause harm, without causing harm, and this is the way to do it. How are you feeling?"

"Okay," I said. "I have but one question for you." I was speaking from the top of my head now. I didn't really have any questions for the shadow, the shade. "Ho- um, how- am I really a robot, or not?"

"Tell them stories that cause fright, make them trust only the night, and then they ponder taking flight, and Celestia knows which way is right. I don't! Then they know which way is right, though, and when they have arrived, they can never ever fight, you see?"

"I am... a confused," I said, trying to pinpoint it. "That didn't seem to offer me any reprieve, which I suppose might never come, but at least, I feel... better now? Go figure, I guess."

The shadow swept. "Aaah..."

"Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?" I grinded to a halt. "What am I?"

"You are machine," the shadow said, "created to mimic the biological function of a pony in all ways, including this one. You think exactly what we want you to think, to be sure, pone."

"I am... what?" I saw my hoof. but. it.

"Do not get upset at me. I only bring messages." The shadow departed, but I could not help but at least be a little upset at the shadow, curious shadow. It might have treated the situation better, if it had been wiser, but unwisely, it allowed me to wander free, and I would escape this place. 

I would, and I could, but I didn't know, what last came, would now transpose, into my life.





"I am a pony. I am two ponies. I am three ponies. I am free, only and only, and never but in this case, if I want to be, only only only." I am four? How many does it exist to be me, free? I don't want to be, whatever I am. I am... whatever I am.

I walked through the rumbling echoing empty corridor.

"How many ponies does it take to screw a lightbulb? Two. It's two because one is clearly not enough, and neither is four." I collapsed on the ground, losing my breath. "What is wrong with my predicament, and why is my body a-hooting?" 

Apple Bloom appeared in front of me.

"It's starting, Sweetie," she said. "It really is starting."

I gasped for air.

"Sorry, Apple Bloom."

I smiled at her, feeling genuinely sorry about everything. Then I burst out laughing.

"Sweetie. There is no time, please. Come with me, buddy," she said, grabbing me.

I kept giggling, as she pulled me with her, and I stumbled alongside, giggling even some more.

"I get it now. That is pretty funny."

Apple Bloom moaned in exertion, and frustration.

"Sweetie."

I couldn't stop laughing though, even though I tried. It was involuntary.

I said, "The thing that is funny is what made me laugh, and I laugh because... I feel happy, and I feel happy because... I feel free, and like I can express myself fully, and that is hilarious."

She pulled me.

"Sweetie!" she said, again, more loudly. "Sweetie."

I couldn't move.

"Apple Bloom. Go without me. I can't..."

She pulled me, as I lost my ability to move.

She just chuckled, she also laughing. "What do you mean, you- you silly? I'm not just going to- g- gonna leave you here, y'know."

I had trouble breathing.

I said, "Things will work out for both of us. I will find you, and we'll be fine. That's a promise, to be sure. I promise that, and I promise many things, and I will keep it." I was losing my ability to articulate words properly.

Apple Bloom may have been strong, and brave, but she could not pull me with her any longer, because I was too heavy.

"Sweetie..."

She disappeared, I guess. I don't remember.





"Hey, Sweetie," a soft little voice said. "I need your help."

I could not pinpoint the source of the voice, or who it belonged to, to whom it belonged. Who belonged to it? Wait, what? "With what?"

"I need you to do something for me, and for yourself now, and please listen. It's important," she said.

"Hey, I know you," I said.

"Hush." I felt a hoof over my mouth. "It has been too long, already, and the Apple Bloom little filly-bot escaped. What to do about that?"

"You wanted her to escape," I said, for some reason. I don't really know why I said it.

"No," she said. "I was tricked, but you will help me, so please, listen." I saw something vaguely... a color... something bright, but then, it passed by, and disappeared, was disappeared, really, completely, and... colors.

I said, "Do you know how to save my friend, Gripey, who saved me, from the clutches of darkness, and evil?"

"Yes," she said, "but it's going to be, and seem, and feel frustrating, and tricky, but I know that it can be done, and you will do it, little friend, my oldest friend."

"How can that be?" I said.

"You might think that I'm lying to you right now, but I'm not. A paradox was created inside your head, and you believed, of course, that you were in places that you really weren't, but your life is an expression of a wish to change the future, and if you will just remain calm, and keep still, then we can save everyone."

"I see," I said. "I see."

"You do?" She drew air, and breathed warmly into my face. "I'm sorry for killing your friend. He was beautiful. I'm really so sorry."

"You are?" I said, feeling a strange sense of dread come over me. "Then why in heaven's name did you do it? Why keep on keeping on doing things that hurt others, and then feeling sorry about it, into eternal freaking, f- freaking, jeez..."

"I'm sorry," she said, and her voice danced, and then, she did the most excruciating, and maddening, of things. She sniffled, just one tiny bit.

How dared she? Did she know what I had lost, and then, she went and acted as if she really felt sorry for it, and just to pour salt on my wounds, she seemed genuine. That's absolutely crazy, just on its own, dear reader, and it's only beginning too. "I want everything to return to normal," I said.

"You grew up here," she said, in response. "You have been spoonfed the memories of the real Sweetie Belle, whom we have imprisoned in the Astral Western Observatory, of the new facility, in Wethí."

"Oh," I said. "Then I really am a robot?"

"Look at your hooves," she said.

I did. They were solid metal. I bonked one against a wall beside me, and it clinked, echoing. I sounded like a robot again now. "That's too bad." I got a lump in my throat. "That's too bad." I wanted someone or something to end my life, but it wouldn't happen, no. No-no-no. No! "Too bad." I had trouble thinking, and finding words, because I was too upset to want to live, and too upset to fight. "I am just a fake... in a lab somewhere."

"Oh?" she said. "I would've thought that you would be pleased. After all... Sweetie... you don't have to live with the guilt anymore. None of it was real."

"I saw... colors," I said, gasping again, not because of brain-damage, but because I was sobbing. "That's fine."

"Yes," she said. "It is. I'm sorry, really. I will help you."

"Still," I said. "Does that mean... he wasn't real?"

"Hard to tell," she said. "He must've existed in the memories of Eyesstark, from sometime long ago. We could create a perfect copy of his likeness, but it would- will, actually, be difficult for us to have him be the same person you knew, unless!"

"I don't want to hear it," I said, feeling like the fraud that I was. "Just end it already. Why won't it ever end?"

"He was your friend though," she said. "It was Sweetie Belle's idea to kill him, in the narrative that we created. It wasn't a very good idea, I guess. I told her not to do it, and I still think it was a mistake."

"And what? He was just a fictional character?" 

"What?" she said. "Do you feel fictional? Do you think you aren't real? Don't go and tell me that the suffering which makes you want to end yourself, isn't real? What is real, if death is not real, Sweetie?"

"But it was... a dream?" I said, having it dawn finally. "It was a lie."

"Sweetie," she said. "You've been strong enough through all this. You've been stronger than almost anyone, for some odd reason, and I'm still trying to understand it. You have ferocity. You have the wind. You were always motivated to fight and live, even when the odds were against you. Don't lose that now, because your life isn't over yet. There still are things to fight for."

"How do I save him?" I said, jittering.

"You do the same thing all over again," she said, "because you can only change the future by changing memories, and that is concerning, and I want you to understand this, because it was my original realization, and it is what made me into a sort of custodian of things here, Sweetie."

"Okay."

O.

Vey.





"Right," I said, staring into the telescope. "So what do I do exactly, here?"

A pony came running. She held up a piece of paper. "You activate the choice by looking into the telescope of your voice."

"Ah, I see." I looked into the telescope. "I am where?"

A room full of tiny knick-knacks swallowed up my whole field of vision, and I sat by a desk, studying. Studying what? I didn't know. There were actually many chairs on all sides, and big wide round rotund tables that were carved out of rock, at which others sat, and everyone were my age, looked my age, in any case, not that they really were. Well, I didn't know what was going on. I leant back and the vision vanished, and I was standing by the telescope again.

"Um," I said. "Help, someone."

The pony, a mare that was reading from a piece of paper, red, light red, with green eyes, though that shouldn't really concern you, but if you want a visual, then there's the visual, she read, and stuff, from that paper, not doing anything other than that, which concerned me, actually, but it might not be clear to you why, reader. She said, "I really don't mean to alarm you. The telescope will show you what's going on inside the sky-bot, and by looking into it, you can get a window into the life of Sweetie Belle, who has now been locked inside, because she failed to stay the course in the plan of my choice, to imprison you, and imprison fate, you see, Sweetie Bot."

I jerked, suddenly realizing something. "What does it mean to imprison fate?"

She responded, reading from the paper, "It means to say things and do things that will change the future permanently, in a way that you, nor I, can really stop, Sweetie Bot." 

She was... reading from a script... which... knew what I was going to say. "I don't want you to read from a script," I told the mare, and I was getting angry now.

She said, "I know you don't, and again, I don't mean to alarm you, as I no doubt now have, but it is time to realize the truth. You can never be free, if you don't want to be, and the only way is to listen to me, and I am the light that will set the world free, too, as well."

"Not you!" I said, realizing that I wasn't talking to this girl. I was talking to the script. "I want to hear what she has to say."

She lowered the paper. "I don't wish to speak." She raised up the paper. "I also know that you have suffered much, and I will give you what you deserve to have, in all reality, because of that, and you deserve... something bright, as a reward, and what do you wish to have? It's the thing of your choice, which you will now control, with your voice. You will be weakened, but being weak only means making yourself vulnerable enough to learn, and be free, and be truly, truly really, and... be... a good person, finally."

"Does the script read like that, or have some parts just been redacted?" I said. The word redacted echoed back to me, the moment I had said it, and I steadied myself. "Never mind."

She said, "I am sorry to see that you have suffered, but suffering always bears fruits, you see, and I am right about this, as I am right about a lot, but being right, and doing right, are not the same thing, you will learn. You can know everything there is to know about everything, and still fail in every way possible. That is the black spot that fate grants upon our minds. Knowing, and doing, and walking and singing, and sitting and clinging to life, really, only... divides each from the other, and ignites a worse fate for everyone, unless they unite and become one, and integrated, these motives, and I really was trying to help you. You were the one causing harm, you see, in the end, Sweetie."

"Well, I can see I'm talking to the scripted equivalent of a brick wall," I said, adjusting the telescope, or trying to anyway. It had no levers, really, to speak of, and it was huge, and black, and massive, truly, truly, truly! "Now what?"

"You wish to see her go free, and become liberated from this suffering? Show her the truth, as she failed to do, for you."

I would, but it would be harder than I had thought.





"Hello, Sweetie. Can you hear me?" I got no response. "Hey, Sweetie. Here I am. Can you hear me?"

She read a book, about, diseases. 

"Sweetie?"

She kept reading.

"How does this work?"

She closed the book.

"Sweeetie..."

She rubbed her ear.

"W- okay."

She reopened the book.

"Is that w- what I think it was?"

Yes, it was.





Concordant memories, and concordant dreams, changed my perception. That is what I realized. "My fate is really not my own."

"They weren't memories. They were tiny stories, created to confuse you, and for all of us to cherish." She held out a book. "Here."

I tried to see her face, but it dissolved in front of me. "Okay, thanks?" The book had the title, "redraft of The Bad Ending." It was stark, and kind of simple, and I thought about what it could mean. "Still though. What you're asking of me is too much?"

"Follow the book. That's all. Follow fate." She smiled, though I had no idea how I could see it. I only felt the smile, and I felt like I was looking at a smile, but in front of my eyes was only smudge, no smile, and nothing else, for a while, too, but to see, and to truly observe, and behold, I needed to grow up first, and that, I would.

"Right." She was trying to use me. I would escape, soon enough. Let her watch and see, is what I thought to myself, in my naivete.





I descended the steps of the observatory, which led up to the telescope, one by one, since I was small, and they were big, in comparison. Then, I took another step. The telescope was in front of me again. "What is this witchcraft?"

"You can never leave," I heard her say, a voice in my head. "You can never leave."

"Am I still inside the machine? How can this be anything other than a visual illusion? What if I just refuse to do anything? How does that sound? How do you respond to that?"

"Oh? I advice you to obey. I advice you to just stay. You are inside a play, and you can never, ever leave. You cannot bide your time, and my future is sublime, Sweetie Bot." She had a slightly raspy voice. 

"I- I don't- I- I see," I stammered out, clinging to each syllable for guidance so that I would know what to say, let the words beckon forth each new thought, and speak before you think. This is what I told myself.

"These words aren't common in my play, and once you have escaped, things will only get worse for you."

I saw nearly only darkness, but I could hear that voice, that incessant voice, that bothersome chattering and infuriating voice, which ringed in my head. Rung in my head? Time will tell.





"Sweetie," I said, looking into the telescope of my choice, or voice, or whatever it was called. "You are not a robot. You are a real filly. Escape! Am I following the rules of the game well? What is my reward, if I so am?"

I saw her breathing, and felt the thoughts that she thought, in her head: I don't even know what's wrong with me today. I should tell the room officer to get me checked, and see what to do about it later.  

I leant back and fell over, dunking my head on the first step of the staircase. "Ouch. What was that?" 

"Sweetie," I heard the voice say again. "You are becoming the official subject of mockery for many of the ones in the facility, and your theatrics are not much appreciated. Will you focus, or should we have to try all this over again, because we will, and it won't be nice. We will create you again, and do the same thing with that copy, until this has become a success, and we can continue for what will feel, and seem, like centuries to you, so focus now, Sweetie."

"I'm tryin'," I said, coughing, and holding my head. "This isn't easy. It's not as if I'm not trying. I could not try. How's that?" I sat down. "Now, from now on, I will not try. You can't tell me what to do."

"Then you will never save anyone, and your suffering will have been for naught." Such a sad, sad little tone which came from that forlorn, and slightly stupid-sounding, voice. It was a... well, maybe I was imagining things, but anyway, it was really a certainly annoying voice.

"I will... I don't even know why I'm here. It's hard to do anything when you don't know why, wise benefactor, who honestly killed my friend for reasons that I don't understand, and that was all a dream? I still don't believe it. You're lying. I'm sure. I know it was real? Am I crazy? Am I mentally ill? Fine. I am then, but I am still right that this is what I went through, even if only from my peculiar, esoteric, narcissistic, egoistic, and personal, subjective, very much subjective, perspective."

"You can still do good by the ones you care about, you know, and does that not still matter to you?"

"What are you planning?" I said.

"We will let her out on a journey, in which she is the main character, in which you will play a role, and in that journey, she will do everything she would've done, had this been the same journey as the one you thought you were on, but really, weren't, and are we getting somewhere with this short, and rather nastily put-together explanation, which I was told to give you, but am now having second thoughts about? I am always thinking other ponies' thoughts, and we have that in common. Maybe we should meet face to face, and then, you will see what I am, and why I do the things I do."

"Oh, that would be lovely," I said, feeling afraid of her, and not wanting to do it.





A torch lit, and everything lit up, and I was surrounded by many ponies, in a crowd. They stood there, watching me, smiling at me, and I wasn't smiling. I was sulking, and the smiles beamed down, and I felt yearning toward something better, something better than all this, which felt like it would never come. I felt yearning toward the skies, really, and...

The light spread out, and I saw giant stone structures, big stone masses of rock, on which many ponies were sitting. They were quiet. I stared up at the torch, that shone brighter and brighter, and rose higher and higher into the sky, and then, the world fell silent, if only for a moment. 

I thought for many hours and many days about many things, I remembered, as I stood there. I remembered having thought about many things many times and in many ways, days, ways, haze, praissse... .

I only saw words, and heaven, and death, when I thought about Gripey, after he died, all those crazy days ago.

A huddled mass of ponies rolled toward me. I helplessly tried to grab one with my magic, shoving it off, but they rolled over me, though it did not hurt, and then it was over, and they were gone. "What was that?"

"It was a little pain, and a wish to end it, I think," I heard her say.

I dared not turn around, no. "Where did that come from?"

"We don't know, but what we do know is that it will keep coming. More ponies wish to come here to end it. That is what Hydral is for, Sweetie Bot."

"I don't want to look at you, because I know who you are. I know it because Sweetie knows it, and she told me, in that... thing, whatever we call it. The drowsy haze." I felt shattered, truly, in mind and heart, truly, and truly, I wanted it all to, fade, just a little bit, and death to come, not all over maybe, but here and there, just a little, to be sure, because why not? That would help ease the pain. 

Letting myself fade would let the pain fade too, but also, I wanted good things to happen, not evil things, and not cold dark things, no. No, not any longer, did I want to see death, and so, maybe to see death for me had to be bad if seeing it for thee is bad, and do these things come together in that way, and are they possible to generalize in that way? How long until death became a selfish act, and how soon would it only be dumb to do, because I'm giving up something that's worth fighting for? Too complicated to answer, but nonetheless, maybe thinking about it would carry some fruits.

"I know you know," she said. "Can we make a deal? If you forget it, then I will do something for you. How's that?"

"What?" I said. "What will you do?"

"Oh!" she said. "I didn't expect you to respond in that way. Well, in that case, I will let you take her place, and I will let you live out fate, in reality, rather than the sky-bot, which is a torture device of sorts, anyhow, and I will let you both leave. What do you think?"

"How does one forget?" I said, in pure desperation.

"One thinks," the voice said, "about other things." 

Then, I faced her. It was as bad as I imagined. "Why did you do it? You of all that I have ever known, why?"

"Bad luck," she said. "It was bad luck. I don't know how else to explain it."

"No," I said. "Intentional, and authentic acts, that are driven by clear motives, and thoughts, and feels, are real, not imaginary, and not based on luck."

"The future seems to be," she said. "I know you are angry."

"I am more than angry," I said. "I am confused."

"It's better to be confused than to be willingly blind," she said. "You will be thrown all across the world, once you make a concession, but can you do it, or will it all be for naught, in the end?"

"I don't know what I'm agreeing to," I said. "And yet, I am agreeing to it. You're welcome."

Should I have done it?

Oddly enough, the answer is yes, but not for the reasons that she thought it was for.





"Hold very still." 

I did.

Something then was replaced with something else, and I hesitated, but then, I realized that it was too late to hesitate, and too late to falter.





I woke up in a meadow somewhere. A mare greeted me.

"Are you all right?"

I opened my mouth to speak, fearful of what might happen, but lo and behold, it was the voice of Sweetie Belle, that of a robot no longer, "I don't know." 

What happened next? Um.





I was taken to a village. "I found this filly in the middle of nowhere."

I recognized this village instantly, and though I was not feeling all right, I still felt spry in my body, and like my senses were intact. This was the village I was taken to after I had escaped in part 3, from the facility. "Hello," I said, feeling unsure of myself.

"I'll take care of her," I heard another person say.

Okay.





"What's your name?"

"Um," I said. "I want to find my sister. And my name is Sweetie Belle. I also want to find Jelly." I was not far more inarticulate than usual, but rather, just less wordy. "I also w- um, no. I- whatever. Just- I don't want anything," I said, quieting down, on the last words of the sentence.

"Sweetie Belle?"

"Yes," I said, mumbling. "Yes."

"I think they have been looking for you. Are you the sister of one of the elements of harmony?"

I nodded.





I was brung to Ponyville.

"Hello," I said, and my mind felt like it was losing syllables, and brain cells. "Hello."

"Sweetie," Rarity said, engulfing me in a hug.

"That's my name. Don't wear it out," I said.

"Sweetie, darling," she said, hugging me tighter

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Where have you been?"

"Gone," I said, choking on tears. "I don't know. I'm sorry. I was... w- well. It's hard to explain."

It was hard to explain, literally.





"What about this? You can try to write it down, and take as long as you have to take, but it's important that we learn about what happened, Sweetie, for the fate of Equestria." This was the voice of Twilight Sparkle.

"I believe it," I said. I wrote, but none of the words came out right.





I had just finished part 3: painful revelations, of my story, and then I looked at it. "Wait a cotton-picking second. This is- this is- my- what happened- when I was a robot, but wait, I still am a robot, and they won't believe me. And they'll think that I'm crazy. What to do? What to say? I don't want to be abandoned again. I don't want to be imprisoned, but I also don't want to lie, so how to solve this thingy here?"

Rarity came in.

"I've written fiction!" I yelled.

"Okay," she said.

"Okay!" I said.

Ooo

! I yelled !!! I existed.





"The book," I said, "is not a very nice book." I felt really like I wanted to run to a different town, and hide away there forever.

"No," Twilight said, "but I believe it, because many ponies have been through similar experiences. I hope you understand it was all an illusion though."

"What isn't an illusion?" I said, feeling meek with my tiny voice.





Gripey fell together on the ground. I fell together, having a seizure. 

Respect. I do respect fear. I do respect it. Respect. I do know what it's like to feel fear. I feel respect, and I want to show it, if that's what it takes, because I do respect it. I respect fear, and I even respect fearing fear, and fleeing from the things that you fear, because fearing things is scary, and it feels bad, and in certain cases, it can feel exceedingly bad, and what to do then?

I woke up, standing in the prison in Tartarus. "What isn't an illusion?"





Fear, or not? This is the question that has made me think a lot because it's really my own fear I'm concerned with. I'm so concerned about it that perhaps it's unwise of me to use it to reason morally, because my concern is personal, and cannot be extended to others. I think that's a simple enough realization, and true enough too.

"Explain."





I suppose you're waiting for me to get to the point. I've spent three chapters talking about this after all. What's wrong with me? Why do I get so hung up on edge issues, and border cases, and matters of principle, the limits between things, right and wrong, and one thing versus the other, rather than just telling the story?

"Yes, why? How true. That is exactly what I have done. And stories aren't about that. Stories are about events. What is wrong with me? I feel like I'm choking."

I was shook. 

No, I literally was shook. "Sweetie," Twilight said.

"I feel weird," I said. "What is happening to me?"

"I don't know."

I felt my eyes hurting, hurting from the strain that blinking, and thinking, caused on them, and hurting because they stung, and became red, and tears ran down them, and upon my little cheeks. Was I right? Was I sure? Was I real? Was I myself? Was I a child, or a fraud, or something even worse than that? What is love; what is life?

"We'll help you," Twilight said. "You're surrounded by friends, and allies, and you're safe now."

Safe? Never. I knew better than to believe her.





"I'm sorry," I said. I would never try to kill myself again though, mostly because I didn't want to upset them. Was I real or not? No matter. It mattered none to me anyway, as long as I could keep them safe, somehow, safe from... I was acting... not really good, maybe. I was being irrational. Maybe, as I said long ago, telling the truth would yield the better result. Lying only walls you off from others, and creates a sense of disconnectedness from the ones you love, and that cannot really be good.

"Sweetie?" Rarity said.

"This is going to sound crazy, but I think that I am a robot."

"It does sound crazy," she said.

"Just scan my body and you'll see that there's metal inside," I said.

She chuckled. "Don't be silly."

"Okay, I won't!" I said, afraid of worrying her.

Maybe, I was the confused one, after all.





"Sweetie," Rarity said. "I am bringing you a nice breakfast, you hear me?"

"Yes," I said, smiling and feeling slightly shook, by all my thoughts. "That will be really nice."

I loved nice food, still do, and... wh- wh- wh- who am I?





I overheard Rarity talking to Twilight. "She's not acting normally."

I plowed open the door, with a shove of my front-hooves. "That's true. Maybe there's something wrong with me."

"Oh," Rarity said. "Sweetie. I didn't know you were there."

"That's okay," I said, nervously.

"Come here," Twilight said. "Come."

I did.





"I'm sorry," I said. "I still have so many memories, and they're hard to shake. I don't want to feel like I'm a robot, but I do."

"What to do?" Rarity said.

This was a charade. "I'll tell you," I said. "I'll just keep going on normally, and learn to live with it, even though I still on some level can't shake the thought, and if it stays with me forever, then so be it. I will live with it forever, guys."

Twilight said, "That doesn't seem very healthy."

No, but it was better than getting locked inside a jail cell and banging my head against the bars. That's for sure, and that's what I was afraid of.





Twilight touched me with her horn, and the horn hummed, musically.





"Sweetie. You met the ninth of sight?"

"Yes," I said.

"Who was it?"

I struck a blow through my own mind, trying to scope for the answers, and feeling things flicker, violently searching for answers inside the void of my thoughts, but I found nothing at all! "I have no idea," I said. "She said that I could only leave in exchange for me forgetting her name, and I said yes, and then, I forgot the name. I have no idea how it happened though. I was told to hold still."

"That's what the ponies said they were told to do, and then, they were brainwashed."

"I am sure I might have been brainwashed," I said.

"Sweetie..." Twilight said, with eyes that reflected my own, and my own feelings, and my own worries, and she truly had a sympathy for me, I felt, which I appreciated.

"I know," I said. "Don't worry about it." I smiled a forced smile, to comfort her, maybe.

She hugged me.

"Okay," I said.

She let go.

I took a deep, deep breath. "I feel fine."

That was a lie.





At least, I felt more stable now, but I had my worries. "I want to... find something."

"What?" Rarity said.

My mouth soured, and I felt an ear drop. I pushed it back into place. "Oh, nothing at all."

"What?" Rarity said, earnestly.

Um.

"That's what I'm saying. I don't know," I said.

Worrisome.





I fell asleep, and then I woke up, and day after day, I felt fine. I really did, and yet, I could not let go of my old life. Something was unresolved. Well, of course it was. I had many questions, but none of the answers, to be sure, and what to do about that? To be sure, there had to be something to do, really, and... yeah.

"Where's- where's my friends?" I said, one day.

"They're gone. You know that, don't you?" Rarity said, scowling red hot peppers of burning feeling painful eyes, expressions, at me, and I felt... expressionless, empty, and cold.

"Ooh," I said. "Yes, I know. But I just wanted to be completely sure, because no one ever talks to me, or explains anything to me."

"Sweetie," Rarity said. "The world out there is dangerous. We cannot have you go out there on your own, not with the war going on, and it's worse than that. Many ponies have died, because of things that the ninth ancient of sight did, you know, Eye-devil."

She spoke in a quick patter, and I somehow had trouble keeping up. Was my brain somehow regressing to a more infantile state? In any case, I had perfect clarity on what she meant, once I got a few seconds to think about it, and take it in. "Eye-devil? That's what you call it, huh?"

"You should go to school, and try not to worry about it," she said.

"Does Twilight agree with that?" I said.

She scowled more intensely, and intently. "Don't you worry about that. You're safe. You should think about how lucky you are. There are ponies that have it way worse than you, out in the world."

"Oh, I know," I said. "It's not that. It's not that I don't know that I'm in some profound sense, lucky."

"That's good, Sweetie."

"But I still have pain, and memories. What do I do about them? I don't even know how old I am. It's hard to just come back to a normal life after everything that happened."

She sighed, and said, "I know. I know what you mean."

"How old am I?"

She said, "Twelve."

"Twelve?" 

Wow.

All of twelve? What to make of that?





I don't know who it is that wants to hurt me so, but I know that when I know, I will not ever let it go.

For true.





Being sure that you're right, and being through experiences that justify those assumptions, doesn't make you right, it turns out. "I am Sweetie!" I said, to class, in school. "You know me, maybe some of you, and some of you, not. And that's okay." I went and sat down. I heard whispers around me. "I feel..." I said, and then I got quiet. "Hey!" I leant toward someone next to me. "Hey, what's your name?"

"Class is starting," he said.

"Okay, I'm sorry," I said, sitting down properly again, upon having done that, and relaxing into my chair, trying to anyway, and stuffffff... f. I felt pretty empty-headed, but that's what school is for, I suppose.

The teacher said, "Hey, you can take out your notebooks. We are learning about some Equestrian history today."

That notion excited me. I opened my desk and took out a notebook. "Time to take notes."

The colt next to me said, "Do you always exclaim what you're doing right before you do it?"

"Yes," I said. Some laughed. "No, wait. Not always, but sometimes."

The teacher spoke up. "Okay, quiet down. This assignment will be about what happened before the civil war began."

Civil war, huh?

Howww uncivil!





Notes that I took during the lesson:

Civil War: Began year 998

The war is still ongoing: 1009

Right now? 1009! Remember!

It's because they wanted to have eternal life (griffins), and ponies wanted to live naturally (Equestria-at-large).

14 years ago, a big attack happened. Many were injured.

It was before the war began, three years (995?).

Now, ponies are scared. And many things have happened, like the occupation of Ponyville, and other small villages, and towns, yes.

Many are scared. -- Remember for exam.

The first attack happened in Canterlot. 8000 died? Ca 8000 I think she said.

The second attack happened in eastern Griffon Empire lands.

Then, many died.

Class over? Now?





Then the months turned to years. I was made an engineer. I thought I was fair. I had done my job, but it turns out, to my own chagrin, that I had been conned, but this turned out, for you see, in the knee, was a bigger trick, for hiding beneath everything was something deeper, and it turned ponies like you and I into sheeple, and what the heck's going on?

Onnn... . . k-k okay then.

"Hello," I said, trying to create a friend, out of the situation.

The colt looked weirded out. "Hello?"

"I can see that you're weirded out by me. I just wanted to say hello." I reached out my hoof to shake his.

"Yeah, okay," he said, going off.

"Yeah," I said.

Yeah, yeah, yeah!





"Rarity," I said. "What time is it? Can you tell me?"

"I don't think there's a clock nearby," she said, "but judging by the sun, it's about noon-time, there-around."

I pressed my eyelids together, feeling... like I was about to... do something bad. "Yes, but what date is it?"

"Oh?" she said. "The second of august, I shouldn't wonder. We have a calendar, you know."

"Yesss," I said, thinking of how to phrase this. "But what year is- no. I know what year it is, but what... have you been to a city called Pegasquire?"

She now tilted her head a little, facing me more head-on than she had before. "Pegasquire? That's the city where Rainbow Dash moved. Why?"

"Is she still there?" I said.

"Yes, wh- why wouldn't she be?"

"Oooh, bananas!" I screamed.

"Sweetie," she said, putting down whatever she was working on. Fabric? She was a seamstress, of course! I knew that. "What's wrong?"

"Someone is really trying to fry my pickles today," I said, not feeling like those words made any sense, right after I had said them. "I mean, something is seriously wrong. I can feel it. Pegasquire is the city where... better ask Twilight."

"Sweetie," she said, running across the room, and closing the door in front of me.

"That's my name," I said, trying to screw the handle with my green magic. "Why is this not working?"

She kept her hoof pressed against the door. "It's a mystery to everyone," she said.

I saw her hoof. "Right."

"Sweetie..."

"Yes?" I tried to relax, but it was hard. "Yes, what, dear Rarity?"

"You are a filly."

I looked askance. "So what?"

"You are twelve years old."

"So what?" I said, again.

"You are supposed to go to school, and be home with me, where I can keep you safe."

When I saw her face, I understood it, though I hadn't before. She was worried for me. She cared about me, and most of all, I realized, that she was afraid she might lose me again, against all odds, as it seemed unlikely for the exact same thing to happen again, but again, maybe something else would happen, a- again. Again, it would happen, might! It would, I think. I mean... huuungh. "Yes, Rarity." 

"You look sad," she said.

"Do I?" I covered my eyes with my hoof, so she wouldn't see them. "It's not that I want to go out on an adventure again. I want to get away from pain, and everything that causes it, but I am afraid, fearful, and trepidatious, about everything."

"Sweetie? You know why we never leave Ponyville, don't you?" 

I couldn't see her, but I could hear the timbre of her voice, and the sadness in it. "Why?" I kept my hoof across my face, mostly to hide away from her, and to hide myself from her, so she wouldn't see me, and she wouldn't see what I felt. I felt... angry.

"It's because many ponies are dying every day, and it's no longer safe to go out, and we're occupied, currently, you know, by the crazy griffins." And she said this, knowing that it would have the effect on me that it did. She knew me.

"I am... just a filly, in the wide wide world."

"Sweetie." She grabbed my head in her magic and tugged, and I let on, and she gazed into me. "Don't you ever forget it. Nightmares are nightmares, and reality is something completely different."

"I know," I said. "I will also do well to remember it."

"I am afraid," she said, "that you'll do something really bad, and something really dumb, that we both will regret."

"Like what?" I said, wiping my eye, and feeling tense. "What is it, even?"

"I don't want to be alone, anymore," she said.

I had trouble keeping a straight face. My mouth fell open, at hearing those words, and I felt angry. "I know! Okay? Don't you think I know? Don't you think I wish that things could go back to how they used to be? I would do anything, anything! But you don't even understand that, and I just... I don't." I choked on the words. "Forget it, just. Just, I- I don't have the energy to think about all this right now, you know."

"I know," she said, her keeping a straighter face than I ever could, but there was a sadness, and a tiredness, across it. "I know that. I know all this. I would've handled it differently had I not known that."

"Oh?" I said. "You know? That's good, I think." 

I think, and I feel...





Can I be honest? I don't think I'm a good person. There. I was honest. Now, back to the story...

Let me set the scene for you. No! Now, that I think about it, let's go back a bit.

I have fear. I have fear. I have fear. I have fear. What is fear? That which I have, anyway. Any case, I do.

I pulled out my hooves of [redacted]'s body and flew backward. I pulled out my hooves out of [redacted]'s body and flew backward. I jumped forward. I flew backward. I looked at Gripey. No-no. I really looked at him. I considered something.

Don't we love pain? Don't we all need pain? Without pain, how would we be motivated to protect the things that we believe we care about because we cherish them, all the while as we feel afraid of losing them? Without fear, how will we fear losing the things we love, because we fear losing them? Wh- wh- those?

This stinks.

Is this when it all started going off the rails? In part 25? This is the worst chapter I have ever written. Why is it so incoherent?

I was outside the border of Ponyville with Rarity, going for a tiny walk, but not going too far, because everything is dangerous. The world is dangerous. That is what she had taught me, and I believed her. The meadows were green, as they are, and things shone, the sun sparkling up the dew on the grass, as it does, and things looking chipper, as they might, and the world was tender, as it can be, and it was fine to look at, as I hope beautiful things will always be.

Not far from where we were was a giant metal round lid, thing, platform? It was flat and round, and it had screws in it, and it had a symbol on it, an insignia. The insignia is hard to describe, and I will go into more detail about it later. The flat metal platform opened up, and red lights blinked. A machine came flying out. Rarity, like a hero, stood in front of me, blocking the robot's view of me, and it came flying.

"What is this supposed to mean?" she said.

The robot flew, was bigger than you, in all probability, and bigger than me, I'll tell you what, and way bigger than her. My sister that is. It was leurrrge. Hugely bombastically big, big-large, and huge-big, to the maximum. It was probably about five meters in diameter... did I overexaggerate? Yeah, okay, when, why, say, 'kay, that's all right.

The robot's eyes shone red. "Who? Name and identification, please, if you would, white pony?"

"Rarity," she said, looking wide-eyed, and afraid.

The robot had a red laser-pointer thingy that pointed around, like a tiny dot. It shone across Rarity.

"What in Celestia's name are you doing? Get away from us." She backed into me, realizing that she had spilled the beans, kind of. Then, she stepped to the side, revealing my existence to the robot.

Rather than doing anything, it immediately hovered the other way, the red eyes going out of view of us, and it flew back into the hole.

"That has never happened before," she said. "Usually, no one ever comes out of there. You don't go run off now, Sweetie? Listen now."

"Yes," I said, and the machinery from inside the hole hummed, and the robot came flying out. The hole was roughly its size, so that there was just enough space for it to fly out.

Now, the robot had shining blue eyes instead.

"Oh, no way," I said, pressing my hoof into my forehead and closing my eyes, trying to wish myself away to a different place, but my wish was not answered, and no whisking appeared to be happening to sate my wish, for me to go away, and be whisked.

"Name and identification, pleeease," I heard Hookbeak's voice say.

"But it was all an illusion!" I said. "You aren't real." I turned and walked the other way, not wanting to believe it.

"F-5226," he said, hovering above Rarity's head. "Come back, my friend."

I sat down on the ground, covering my eyes, not wanting to look, or see, anything, anymore. "I don't understand. I just don't understand. Why does nothing make any sense, Rares?"

"What the world?" she said, digging her eyes into the machine. "Who are you then? You think you know her? You are mistaken."

"Mistaken?" the robot said. Its laser pointer pointed at my body, and it buzzed and whirred for a second. "No, I'm certainly not mistaken, Rarity, element of generosity? I know that filly. I met with her, actually."

"No," I said. I put my hoof on the robot, and poked it, proddingly. "I choose not to believe it, and that's that."

"That's not how belief works," the machine said. "You cannot choose not to believe something that you already know to be true, because you know it to be true, in spite of what you do."

"That's not true," I said. "I believe lots of things, because they make me feel good. I believe that everything will turn out right, in the end, and I believe in good, not evil."

Rarity picked me up, in magic, and ran off with me. "This is not good."

The robot zoomed ahead of us, and stopped in front of us, blocking our path. "Leaving so soon?"

"Just leave me alone," I said, drowsily, and angrily, and refusing to believe it. "I am dreaming, or am I? What's even happening? I am a normal filly, that's all, in the wide wide world, now wide awake, but too late, and with a lot of fear, and no hate, no no no no." I clogged my hears with my hooves, violently fumbling around, and hurting them, because I whipped at them so hard, while Rarity carried me, and not wanting to hear it, and not wanting to see it.

The machine laughed. "Hehehe. That's silly. You are a killing machine. That's why you exist. That's how I know you, and can identify with you." 

"No, I'm innocent!"

Rarity had a thought in her head, and she looked wondering, and winsome, forlorn, and searching, thinking, and... and... and... "What is this? You are... I recognize your voice."

"It's Hookbeak," I said.

"Yes, that's me," the robot-Hookbeak imitator body suit aaah said. Aaa... h! "And you two are lost."

"Run away," I said, flapping my hoof about in the air. "It's all but okay, but does that not mean that it's anything but okay? Oy vey!" 

Rarity put me down. Then, she took two or three steps back. "You are here, why?"

The robot opened up, and bits of metal, that were attached to poles which spun, moved to the sides. On each side of each pole was a big gear that spun, in tandem with the poles, and the metal moved off, revealing a shining beacon. "I am here for a scientific experiment. That's why my eyes arrived here. I saw F-5226, the pony that you know as Sweetie Belle, and who is affectionately called Sweetie Bot by the southern forces. She got caught in the net of cameras that I have dispersed throughout Equestria, Rarity."

"Experiment?" she said, and her horn shone up.

"Yes," Hookbeak said. The beacon, that was green, and had an inviting center. It looked like a jewel, which- um. It pulsed. That's what it did, and Rarity was suddenly surprised, to my surprise.

"What?" I said. "What's wrong, Rares?" I was scared.

She gritted her teeth. "I don't know." She closed her eyes. "I really don't know," she said.

"Uh?" I said.

Then, the beacon pulsed again. Rarity's horn shone up and a mass of sparkles came out it, flying into the sky. She was really not feeling good about this. "What in th- huuh?" she said.

Hookbeak laughed, cackling. "Anti-magic EMP."

"That's terrible," she said, finally, in reaction to it. "What is wrong with you, griffins?"

"Yes, well," Hookbeak said. "Once you ponies know how difficult it is to survive without the power of technology, you'll realize the truth."

"You don't believe that," I said. I did say it. "Surely, you don't. I know what you've been through. You just want to intimidate her."

The red laser-pointer pointed at me, but its eyes shone blue, and it was a big circular, scary machine. "You know the name of this machine? It is a prototype that was created to intimidate ponies. The real thing will be more intimidating, also."

"Sweetie," Rarity said. "We neeeed to go." She walked around the robot.

"Yes," I said. "But it's not because I know of this machine. It's because I know you, or I think I do, anyway. You know that she won't, quote, realize the truth. The notion is laughable. There would be no reason to fight a war, if the anti-magic weapon is all that was necessary." This is a fact, because then, he could end the war, and just use the EMP. I had to think, well, convinced myself, and felt convinced, that it was more complicated than that, and there you have it.

"F-5226," Hookbeak said, and the beacon pulsed again. "You should come back to Circle town, where you can join me, and get away from the ponies, and get away from Ponyville."

"I like Ponyville," I said, leaning my head down, and entering into an exchange of glances with the robot. "You'd do well to remember that, too. I like Ponyville, and I don't want to see... death, any longer, no. I want to see, maybe, a little love, and life, for once, before my life departs, when it happens, in however many years." 

"Bzzt," Hookbeak said. "I know you like Ponyville, but you need to leave. It is imperative."

"Why?" I said.

"Telling you would interfere with factor x."

"What's–" Rarity pulled me with her.

"Come along now, Sweetie."

That was weird. That was cray.





What did I miss?
> Part 34: Score For the Good Guys!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

WwWwalloping, kindly! Singing things is my game, if there is such a thing, but not speaking isn't possible, unless you try to focus... rinse rinse rinse, and repeat, and I never feel free. Why, though? Why, though? Why, though? Why, though?

Are all my flashy thoughts just for show?





"You know," I said, with a big wide and dumb smile on my stupid face. "I think I have figured it out now, right now, I did, thank you kindly. Thank you everyone. Thank you."

My toys and teddy applauded, saluting, celebrating, and paying tribute to my triumph.

I bowed. "Thank you."

Okaaay... so what was it then? What it be?

"This is what I figured out, friends."

What are friends for, anyway?





I never thought a person could be so happy. I was beyond happy, and with a laugh on my lips. "Heheha!"

I love laughing, and who doesn't, and each smile made me happy, all-around.

"You know, Teddicus. What makes me happy is how pointless suffering is. But a single thought, and nothing more, can cause you grief. Is it the thought's fault or is it you?"

Teddicus sat tenderly and quietly in the corner like a good obedient friend.

I slumped down. "What is wrong with me? I should go see a doctor, preferentially a doctor with a degree of some kind, a doctorate. Do doctors have doctorates? Oh, now not feeling glib, Teddicus? That's okay. I can speak for both of us. I think... and I feel... and that makes me reel."

Rarity opened the door.

"What's the matter now?"

I lifted Teddicus and embraced him.

I said, "I'm just playing with my toys, that's all. That's all."

Rarity marched in the room, with a serious heavy eye resting on me, pointed at me.

She said, "Ah, okay. Can you come out now? How long have you been in here?"

I hugged Teddicus tighter.

I said, "You want to know what I told my toys?"

Rarity lifted me up and carried me out inside the shine of her blue magic.

I said, "Wohoo," and then I laughed, giggling aloud. "Woo."

Rarity put me down on the floor.

"Woop," I said, leaping into the air and flailing my hoof. "That was fun."

Rarity opened a drawer.

She said, "Sweetie. Will you come over here?"

I did, for sure.

She said, "Sweetie. Do you recognize this?"

Nope!

"No, I don't- I'm going to leave."

I was about to leave.

"Sweetie," she said.

It was the Obliterator, inside a drawer. 

I said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

She lifted me again, and put me in front of her.

"Look," she said. "Calm down. I'm not- I read your story. I'm not accusing you of anything. I just want to try to figure out what's going on."

I gasped.

"Either I'm crazy, or something worse is going on, none of which seems appealing, so that's why I thought and thought, and then I realized something." I swooned, and fell over on my hind. "But you're not going to believe me. Figures. Figures. Figures." 

She put the Obliterator down, and gave me her full attention.

"Try me."

Gulp.





Maybe I was the confused one all along, Rares. After all, I didn't realize that when I met myself, out in that dream, I also really met another person who was really there, and she is as there to me as I want her to be, and equally free. I can never shake the thought, and shake the perspiration on my face, and in my heart, that this feeling produces. I feel tawdry. I feel lost. I feel cold. I feel imaginary, but I'm not depressed, am I? Nooo...

Sweetie Belle is still out there, looking for me. Either that, or I'm still out there, looking for her. How crazy. How crazy. How twisted. How crazy.

What if none of it was a dream? What if all of it was imaginary? What is real? My face? Are faces real? I hope so at least.

No, now that I think about it, I do have the answer, though it's hard to really put my hoof on... really-really-really.

Sweetie Belle is here, and I am imaginary. Well, no. She is here, and I am real, but I am just something that is on top of her, and inside her, and not really her, and can I be free? Only if I want to be. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, wooow.

Sweetie Belle is me, and I am her, but I can only see things that won't disturb, something else, something... well, e-um. 

Aaah!

Oh- okay. Oh- oo. I- I- I- I.

Sweetie Belle exists inside the nexus of the dream, not the person, but the seams, in the place where the future, the real future, gleams, and I can never seem, to get my head around that idea. Am I imaginary? I think not. Am I clever enough to know the truth? I think I am. I am whatever I want to be, only and only ever as I make the right choices, and then, I can help change the future. Oooh...

I will never see the daylight again, I guess, in my mind.

Aaa...

[Redacted], your real name is Skeyestar, or is it something else? Your real name is Eyesstark, or is it something else? Your real name is whatever is inside my head, who is whoever I am not, and who says the thoughts that wrought all this despair over me, and I feel weak, and manic, but not beyond saving, no-no.

Ooooooooo.

O!





"Sweetie, you're speaking gibberish."

Rarity picked up the Obliterator.

"Yes?" I said.

She held it.

She said, "Is this the weapon you used in your story?"

I giggled.

"How would I know? It was only a story?"

She hovered it above my head.

"I know," she said.

Ooooooooo no, too late!

I figured it out too late, oy fate.





What does it mean to be a cyborg? What does it mean to be mechanic? Who knows?

"Hookbeak," I said.

Rarity came running. "Sweetie. Where are you going?"

"To Hookbeak," I said, joyously. "I shall confirm my theories, right now, with the big griff himself, Hookbeak." 

She stumbled over her words a bit now. "I- I don't even kn- know why he would want to talk to you in the first place. And I found that helmet- Twilight can explain it. You're overreading what that thing meant. I thought it was meant to trick you. That was what- you didn't really think that I thought- I mean, did you, Sweetie?"

The chute opened up, and the same big round robot came flying out, the one from before. "Friend?"

"Yes," I said. "It appears I am experiencing some mental instability, and I hoped you could cast some light on what it means. What happened when you first did the thing... when they changed your brain, Hookbeak?"

"I will tell you," the robot said, its red thing pointing at Rarity, "when she's gone."

"The audacity," Rarity said. "What's the matter with you?"

"Yeah," I said, wiggling my hoof. "That ain't happenin', buddy."

"No?" Hookbeak said. "You really want her to be here when I tell you about this. Ah, that's fascinating. So you want her to know all your dark secrets. I envy that disposition, and so be it then, but I warn you. This story is something... not very nice."

It wasn't, too. Yes, for true. Uuuh. 

You'll see. If you feel annoyed, then at least, be happy that you're not the only one, but also, think about what has happened, and why, and listen to Hookbeak's explanation. There has been a rhyme to this madness, and my story is not only one about death, and mental instability. It is also about grander things, like love, and what you care about, deep inside. Don't confuse it, dear reader, if you please, and now, read on, and learn, as I did.





It had been long enough.

A flight of stairs arose out of the chute.

"We can't go in there," Rarity said.

"Yes, we can," I said, and went in there, against her doubts, and her doubts rested heavy. "We can," I repeated.

She ran down. "Sweetie?" She was afraid, obviously, as well she should be, because she was in enemy territory. "Sweetie, you can't do this."

"Can't or shouldn't?" I said.

"Sweetie." She managed to jump over my head and land in front of me, thus stopping my advance down the stairs, through the pitch-black sooty darkness. "Sweetie, you have no idea what these griffins have done to me."

"Ditto," I said. "You don't know what they do for me, either."

Also, where else would I find the answers?

Rarity looked at me with a lot of doubt. "Sweetie? Why?"

"You'll see," I said.

So? Now what?





"Aaah!" I heard someone scream, from the black emptiness.

"That sounds about right," I said.

"What?" Rarity said.

A tiny robot came to greet us. "Pay no attention to that sound," it said. It wasn't the voice of Hookbeak. It was an indistinct voice, which sounded like a computer, with no personality. "Pay no attention to that sound. Pay no attention to that sound."

"It's rather difficult not to," Rarity said, making a frank observation, which I indeed agreed with. "This is beyond the pale. What's happening down here?" The walls of the cave we were in rumbled, and some bits and pieces of stone, gravel, dirt, and rock, entered into my mane.

"Hey, Rares," I said. "I'm having a deja-vu of sorts. How can that be, since I have never been here?"

"I'm starting to wonder," she said, with cold hard doubt in her voice. "I'm certainly starting to wonder."

"Ugh," I said, making sure not to stop, even for a moment. "I would get mad at you if I weren't so used to it, you hear?"

The ground beneath us lit up, and then, it sank down, further and further down, until we reached a place.

We came into a room, with a corridor, and I saw the markings on the walls. It had wolves on it, with lines going out from the teeth, making the teeth look like shining suns, and little bunny rabbits next to them, and cold hard darkness too. It was dark. Truly, it was dark, and there were snakes on the walls too. Then, we reached a statue.

"Curious," I said.

"What's is curious, what's?" Rarity said, flamboyantly worried. "Sweetie, we need to leave, now!"

The statue was of the monster of fear, from part 30, the statue which had chased me several times, and that nameless helped to chase off. I was now convinced that I was right about what I had come to the conclusion of. I love feeling clever, tell you what, dear reader.

"It was real?" I said.

There had been a tunnel under the statue that lead into a vast empty space, full of stars, pools of stars, and ponies slaving.

"Sweetie," Rarity said. "Sweetie, please, just help me understand." She was practically shedding tears at this point, wanting to believe in me, and believe me period, with all her might.

"Look," I said.

It was a different statue, an elucidating statue.





"I'm sorry," Hookbeak said. His voice came from the ether. Well, it had to come from somewhere, and where else, but the ether might it come from, or not, if it comes from somewhere else. I wondered if there were speakers on the walls, stage directors, griffins that handled the lighting, and so on, to create all these illusions. "I don't mean to cause you distress, so please consider what I say, in a calm and rational manner."

"I'll try," I said.

Rarity stood there, silent, and not... giving off many signals right now, which unsettled me.

Hookbeak's voice kept booming. It was always a pitchy voice, with a playful tone in it, which made it seem as if he had not been taking things seriously, but we shall see who takes what seriously, in the end. He said, "I know you'll be here, in the future, after I have died. I have it known, because it was shown to me by Sidus the alicorn, you see? He wanted to create the illusion that past and present are the same, and that future and present cannot be distinguished." 

"Let's take it to him," I said to Rarity. "Hookbeak, how is that possible, when I am indeed in the same place that I was, and that I am here right now, seeing the things I saw, but it was in the future? How then, would I have travelled from place to place, not knowing the difference? I think it's more plausible that I wasn't in the future at all. Rather, it was all a trick, to manipulate me. What do you think about that?"

"I think that sounds like a splendid idea," he said. "I think all can be true at once. After all, you really were here, or rather, you will be here." 

"This place doesn't exist in the real Ponyville," I said.

...

...

...

"Why not?"

I responded, "Because the real Ponyville has Princess Twilight, who is the most powerful pony this half of Equestria, and she would never allow this place to be built, and when I lived in Ponyville, this place didn't exist, when I was younger, and what? You built this place in four years? Three years? That is impossible, literally, because mines take decades to build, and dig, and no matter the size of your machines, this place is massive, and it has all been carved out of rock, when even? That statue is big enough to take centuries to carve, that alone, and what's with the about face? I could've needed your help when they kidnapped me, Hookbeak, and took me to Canterlot, which didn't happen because that was all a dream, before I woke up outside Manehattan, which was also a dream, and then I met Twilight in Ponyville, which was also a dream, and how many dreams do you have to punch through to get down to dream-bedrock, huh? This is becoming slightly silly, and that's because it's repetitive, and it's the same thing over and over, again. Do you expect me to resign myself to the idea that the last thing was a dream, but this thing, this reality I'm living in right now, is not? No! How about that? Nooo." Nope!

"What's this?" Rarity said. "You think it's all a dream?"

"No, and neither should you," I said.

Hookbeak's voice said, "But that isn't possible. Okay, to begin with, it is possible with the right machinery. Can you prove that it isn't possible? Also. Also, I met you in a dream. How would I even know who you are?"

"Can I prove that it isn't possible?" I said. "Okay, that's strike one. Strike two, we met in a dream? Nooo..." I rested my voice on the final word. "No."

"No?" he said. "Don't you remember?"

"No," I said. "We met in Circle town. You didn't even seem to remember our first meeting, if you think we met in a dream, which we didn't, because you never said anything about it when I met you in Circle town, and in any case, one thing has to be real, and another imaginary, because all these dreams cannot be real? They contradict one another. You cannot both be at ease, talking to Luna, and hate her and be afraid of her, and be indifferent to her, all at the same time. In the first dream, you jabbered your mouth off. In the second, you ran away from her. Remember all this? Jot it down. In the third, or I mean, the third time we met, you didn't even really seem to care, except for the tiny detail that you love Celestia, which isn't possible, since you don't feel any emotion. Did I get all that right, Hookbeak?"

"No," he said. "No, it isn't love in that sense. I love Celestia- wait, what are you doing? Why are you questioning me so much? You came here so that I could explain something to you."

"Right," I said. "You're off-script. I get that."

"O- what?" he said.

I took some heavy breaths, trying to think about what to say next. "Okay, Rares. Remain calm. There's one last thing, one tiny thing."

"What?" she said. "What is it?"

"I heard a rumor once, and I'm not sure if it's true, but I heard that if you keep moving, then the trick doesn't work. Is that right, Hookbeak?"

"Right," he said. "That's true."

"I've heard enough," I said, "for today, and tomorrow, and I never feel free. How come? How come that, Hookbeak? Ponder these conundrums."

"Why would you?" he said.

I laughed. "Responding with a question. How typical."

Rarity frowned, with anger. "I want out, now."

"There is no out," I said. "Search for the sky, and find it."

"Heheh," Hookbeak said. "Hehehe."

He saw the humor in it, but Rarity did not. "I want out," she said. She ran off.

"No, wait," I told her. "Rarity!" I took chase. I didn't want to lose her again. "No, wait. You don't understand. Just... you don't understand. Please."

"No," she said. "No, get away from me."

I groaned. "Rares, I'm the real Sweetie Belle, and you're the real Rarity. Please. There's something really important you have to know."

She slowed down, walking, and then, going forward, one step at a time, and then stopping. "What?"

"I don't really know how to explain it," I said. "Have you ever been to theatre before?"

"Oh, Sweetie," she said, turning around. "Is that really you? You need help."

"Yes," I said. "This darkness can drive anyone mad. Now, listen. Think about this for a moment. When was the last time you left Ponyville?"

"A- a year ago, or something like it, though I have been on the outskirts now and then, as you di- as we were. That was fine to do, actually. I- I- I- why are you asking me this?" 

I could only see the contours of her terrified face. "I'll tell you. You can never leave. That's the issue. Isn't it? There's always a reason not to leave. That's what I felt too. I've been tossed, kicked, prodded, but never once have I myself decided where to go, never, ever, since I arrived at the facility, all those years ago. Call it a hallucination or something else."

"Okay, Sweetie," she said, in the same vein as Autumn had.

I really hoped I was right about it this time, or else it would seem strange. "Don't you ever wonder what's really going on? Why the war is happening? I think I know. I think I know. It's because there's no living for ponies like you and I, unless we realize the truth, and the truth is that- that... ah, that we should not try to change the future, or harm the future, that is coming, and it's because... we know the future? Wait, what?"

Rarity stood still. "What, Sweetie Belle?"

"My brain is racing at a hundred miles an hour, and I feel... alive... yes." I leant against the wall beside me, and fell together against it, slipping down onto the floor, onto my haunches. "I feel... like I'm alive." 

"Sweetie?" Rarity said. "I had no idea this was so bad. I'm so sorry."

"Me too, Rares. Me too."

Yes, okay, well, had I bungled it, with this whole attempt at making sense of the situation, and talking to Hookbeak? No.





"Rares," I said. "We should leave Ponyville, temporarily. I think so."

"Nno!" she said. "You come home with me right now."

"It's such a good trick," I said, "that it has one of the kindest smartest ponies I know fooled. Even you doubted me in there, down in the caves. I think I get it, though. You have to doubt me. That is what you're supposed to do, and you've been made to do it, through micromanagement, from above, through scripts, and simple tricks, and stupid darkness, blinding darkness, and fog, always fog, before us, ahead of us, forever, actually!" 

"Sweetie... you're not well."

"Maybe I could prove it wrong, though," I said. "Maybe I could prove that this trick is not infallible, and should it fail once, then the whole house of cards with come apart, and I won't do what I did the last times, when I was in Manehattan, or Ponyville where we met the monkey, Twilight and I, no. I won't do what I did in Tartarus either. I won't commit suicide to escape from it, and neither will I try to hurt others to escape from it... I will, try to talk to you, Rarity, and listen now. This whole thing, whatever you think is going on, is only meant to fool you, make you docile, and keep you in Ponyville. We are meant to do as we're told, until the end of time, because then, we can be used, and manipulated, I guess. I think that's the general gist of it, at least, and I never forget. I never forget. I only experience new things, and I'm not crazy, I'm sure."

"Sweetie?" Rarity said. "Sweetie, Sweetie. Get yourself together."

Something came upon me. It was an idea, a smart idea. "Maybe you're right..."

"Sweetie..." she said, practically despairing, in practice, and feeling horrible, but I had a hard time caring, because even though I knew the pain she must feel, and I felt it too, there were bigger things ahoof, and I had gone through pain too, which she didn't acknowledge, partly because she thought it hadn't even been real.

Think about it, reader. Can everything I've been through not have been real? Perish the thought, even. It's ridiculous. Of course, it's real. Every little moment, every thought, and every feeling, could never be imaginary, and time to prove it.





"Twilight," I said. "Do the memory spell on me, again. I think I have some new memories."

Twilight looked at Rarity. "If you say so, Sweetie," she then said, looking back at me.

"Twilight," Rarity said. "We shouldn't humor her."

Twilight was smarter than that though, or she was wiser? What's the right word? Twilight, in any case, was more Twilight than Rarity would ever be, and had ever been. That's for sure.





Twilight pulled open the doors of the map room, again. "Starlight?"

"Yes, Twi?" she said, looking at the map. "What is it now?"

Twilight flew up and landed on the map. "What about this?"

She caused an explosion of magic to happen, and my eyes glimmered, and sparkled, of purple. Everything was purple, and I fell through a whirlpool of purple, and then, we all were in a different place, on an empty patch of land, with a lot of dirt, and patches of grass, patchy patches, and flowers, and the wind. Rarity was there with me, and so was Twilight of course, and Starlight Glimmer, and oh my gosh, I feel so happy that I figured it out.

Twilight's head dropped and she stared very empty-eyed, with an open mouth, at the scenery. "This is crazy."

"I am not though," I said, doing a little victory dance. "I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy. Tell you what? I am not!"

"Sweetie Belle," Rarity said. "What is this?"

"Better ask Twilight," I said. "I'm not even sure, myself. All I know is that I'm not just imagining things. You're also shocked, aren't you? Aren't you, Rarity? Aren't you?" I slowed down, noticing that I was speaking so fast that my words could barely be heard, and understood. "Twi?"

"We're not in Equestria," Twilight said. "Somehow, and don't ask me how, our entire town has been moved to a completely different location. All I did was I sent us back in time about a month. That's all I did, and I knew we should end up in the same place, but I have a hard time knowing how to interpret this. If we're here right now, then either that means Ponyville wasn't here a month ago, or Ponyville will be here later, but wasn't where it was supposed to be- am I making any sense?" Twilight glanced around. "This isn't Ponyville. I know this place. This is... the Forest of Tranquility?"

"Score for the good guys," I said. "Finally, we're making some progress."





I spoke too soon.
> Part 35: Okay, Maybe Not...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A light flashed, and we were back in Ponyville again. "That's radically bizarre," Twilight said. "Let's run some tests."

Even though we had learned nothing from this, and even though everything I did in the last chapter now seems like a waste of time, I still somehow felt vindicated. "I was right. Now, isn't that curious?"

"Right about what?" Rarity said. "What is it that you think you were right about, and what do you think this could mean, Sweetie?"

"I don't know," I said, overly happy anyway. "I'm just thrilled that something actually went my way, finally. Here, I have ponies believing me. Well, not you so much, Rares, but Twilight did."

"I'm just..." Rarity said. "I didn't mean not to believe you. I just have no idea what all this could mean. It's even weirder that somehow... Twi? What did you see in her memory? What made you want to try that?"

"I will tell you," Twilight said. "I will tell you, soon."

Aaah!

Ha!

Okay, maybe not though...





It was a normal day. The problem is that whenever you see that sentence written in prose, it's not a normal day, so I'm sort of jinxing it by calling it a normal day. The weather was fine. Actually, the weather was beautiful, and on the menu was not rain, nor thunder, nothing at all but an innocent pillar of light, shooting into the ground, lighting up the village of Ponyville.

The pillar divided into three, each dividing into three, making nine pillars total, and you know the whole thing, thing, you know what it is, you know, you know, whatever, I'll just get to the point, you know, you know? I hope you know. You should know. It's important for you to know. Let's go.

Nameless, the filly made of shining light, stood there. "Unraveling again, and in a few days no less? It's getting harder to deal with. US-IDS, where are you when I need you? What happened to you all?"

I was out on the street with Twilight. We were going to Everfree to confirm a theory she had. I was allowed to come with, just this once. Lucky me! Then, this individual showed up, again. What? Isn't she annoying, readers? What's even her problem? I mean, she's so smug. Like, what's her deal, exactly? Who pooped in her vinegar? Who messed with her oatmeal? Who was it that made her make all this madness happen, and why? Let's see, I guess, hm. 

Twilight took to charging up her horn. "Who goes there?" She shot something at nameless.

Nameless collapsed on the ground, motionless. "Um, help?" she said.

I couldn't help but to burst out laughing. This was a stark contrast to what had happened before. "Oh, no. Oh, what is this even?" I tried to turn it down a notch, but the laugh kept coming. I coughed. "Cough-cough." Maybe I shouldn't write that out as dialogue, but to clarify, I really was coughing up a storm. I was trying to not laugh. "Cough!" Then, I quieted down. "Okay, I think it's over now." Then, it kept on going. "Ba-haha."

Twilight tilted her head in my direction, with a deadpan expression, and a roll of the eye. "Yeah, okay, Sweetie."

She understood. Why? Because she knew what I knew, and she understood what I had been through. We love Twilight for that, don't we?

"Let me go, maybe?" nameless said. "I'm not supposed to be here, you guys, even. It was a mistake to come here. Let me go, please."

"No," Twilight said.

:D 

Let's do the one with the equal sign as well: =D

There. That feels good. That feels really good. 

Why is nameless such a villain?

For obvious reasons. I mean. Duh. Uh, gnrk. Um. Hm. Ah. You'll see.





"Puny ponies prancing pathetically poetically pounce panicky passive pest perfectly, pyrrhicly." Nameless stared around, manically. "Too titillating to take to try tempering t- t- too- testing testy totally tampering t- tasks."

"Does she always talk like this?" Twilight said.

"No. Wait, yes. Pretty much," I said. "Pretty, pretty much."

"Let me go," she said, lying still and not moving an inch, except her mouth. "This is a hostage crisis. Also, I think I really need to pee, you guys. If you could let me move for approximately five to six seconds, I would be able to pee, and then, you can freeze me again. How do you say that we arrange that, now or later?"

"No," Twilight said. "Explain what's going on."

"What's going on?" she said. "This is terrible. How did this happen? This is incredibly obnoxious, noxious, and propelling me to think stupid thoughts, and try to come up with stupid solutions to escape this situation."

"I see," I said. "You can't believe this is happening. Is that it?"

We were in the lobby of Twilight's castle. It's a crystalline purple place with pretty colors, carpets, and curtains. Nameless smacked her mouth several times. Then, she spit out a lump of spit. "Prschch- tcho," her mouth said. "That's what I think about your stupid attempts at one-liners, and trying to get one over on me, silly."

"Hey," I said. "I just want the answers. This is not a game for me. And I'm not just trying to spit one-liners out my mouth, nameless."

"Oh, God," she said. "I really can't believe it, though, to be sure, I mean, what? Wait, what?"

"Time to talk," I said.

"Or wait," Twilight said, "just a moment. I have a better idea. The memory spell?"

"Oh, this is just lovely," nameless said, bound up in a motionless state.

Her arrival is an unexpected event for me, but a welcome one, all the same, and now, Twilight would learn whatever there was to learn, which is a good thing too. Good, good, good, and double good, and beyond... beyond good, yes. Wow. It was turning out fine for once, without any of the nightmarish imagery, and weird stuff that I had been through lately. It felt good. I felt hopeful. Now, it was time to act, time for action, and for Twilight to do the spell.





Twilight touched nameless with her horn, as it is that you do to perform the spell. "Hm-uh? This is unexpected," she said, Twilight! Twilight said it.

"What?" said I, I! I was the one that... uh?

Nameless was motionless, and not all as likely talkative, like she was. Wh- I- why can't I write, properly?

Nameless...





Now, I'm wide awake, and I am stupid, too. O!

"Scootaloo?" I said.

The world around me took on a different shape. Then, everything turned purple again, and I saw stars around me. "Okay, okay. That's it," I heard Scootaloo's voice say, clear and crisp to my hear.

"This requires an explanation, and also, I think, an apology," I said, looking for words. "Who- what? Why? Huh? Who in the- why?" It was literally black around me, and I could see nothing. "What in the world is- is going on, even? This isn't fair. This isn't fair." Was Rarity not real now, too? Why? What? Who? Where? When? What happened? And what will happen next? "Rarity? Uh, Twilight?"

"You were going to figure it out anyway, so I thought I would just pull the plug," Scootaloo said, from the black void, of nothing whatever it was that I was looking at.

"Well, that's just fine and dandy," I said. "That's great. Can you please just let me go, now?"

"No one ever really leaves," she said. "Sweetie."

"Leaves?" I said.

Finally! Finally, something different was happening. I was at least not waking up in a place that seemed real and was imaginary. This place seemed imaginary, but was evidently real, which made me at least a little happy, and I mean real in the sense that it was actually material, and not an illusion. This was a place in which I actually was, since darkness can never deceive you like light can. Clear images, and visuals, can be illusory, but not pitch blackness, and not nothing. Nothing can never deceive you. I hugged the thought, feeling happy about it.





I noticed that I couldn't move, either, which made the whole situation even worse. I felt immaterial. I felt void. I felt like I was merely part of something empty, a flow, or less than that, a hole, where nothing exists, a piece of empty space, a negative value in a world of positives, where things really did exist. I was nothing but a sigh, in that equation.

What has happened to me?





Twilight stood back. "How is that even possible?"

"What?" I said. I felt like a weight had dropped off my chest, just now, but why and how? "Twilight? What is it? What's going on?"

This is the trick!





"Don't worry," Scootaloo said. "You won't cause any more damage, I promise you. You will stay here, forever, as the sad blue alicorn predicted, Sweetie Bot."

"Forever? What about my sister? Can I never leave? What is it that's going on, in the night?"

"Hush, love," she said. "Be calm. Be tranquil. Only listen. Always learn. Never reach, never overreach, and step where your hooves don't belong. Belong here, with me, forever, and I will stay here in the darkness with you, forever."

"I don't..." I said. "What? Forever? No, I will escape. That was my promise, and I will."

"Promises aren't meant to be kept, as if they're some universal law," she said. "Why do you struggle so to let go of this promise that you made to Apple Bloom, all those days and nights ago, fortnights, Sweetie Bot?"

"Maybe it's the opposite," I said. "Maybe I'm fighting for something I believe in, against the odds."

"I know," Scootaloo said, breathily. "It so matters what stories we all tell ourselves, to justify what we're doing, doesn't it?" 

Doesn't it?





Twilight stumbled. "Something's happening," she said. Lights came out of her eyes, and she said, "Expect me to go on? You never could've won, you cannot bide your time, and the future is sublime."

"No," I said. "I don't expect you to go on. Twilight?" Her eyes started looking more and more like flashlights, now that I took a closer look. "Twi?" 

"Now, the future is in store. Just, the future has a war," she said. Her eyes blinked, and the lights came and went. I could see the purple behind the lights, and then, the lights shone brighter, overpowering her natural eye-color. Then, they went again, and I saw fear in her eyes, behind the lights. "What's happening?" she said, backing into a wall. The lights came back. "And that future is the core, of everything that I have in store."

"Help!" I shouted, praying that anyone would hear me. "Help." Help? No, never...

There had never come any help. All of this... what had been happening? Why had I gone through all this, and I still did not even know if it was real or imaginary, the saddest part! All I knew was that someone was lying to me. Hookbeak? Someone else? A ghost? A friend? Why would a friend do this? Perish the thought, and perish the world in which such a thought can exist, wherein it is, now!

What was the solution? What was the trick? And why had reality been so prickly?





"The trouble, Sweetie, is that the eye can't predict what you're going to do. That's why you can never leave this place, of monsters and blank space." It was the voice of Scootaloo. Wait? She was the villain? What the heck? No way.

"Actually," I said. "I have no idea what you're talking about, so you can just let me go, because I really don't even want anything to do with this."

"You saw the future, inside the whirlpool," she said, with an aggressive tone, which made me respond in kind. 

"No, I didn't, you maniac, who I thought was my friend. Let me go." I felt... shaky, and somewhat unsure. Then, a light turned on, and I could see a gate in front of me, a big door that stretched all the way up to the ceiling, far up, into the sky, it was so high. "Gulp," I said.

"You have no idea what I've sacrificed for you," she said. 

I faced her, the other way, and there was a narrow corridor, with green shimmering pillars, emerald shine, which seemed bejeweled by the looks of it, and they shimmered and sparkled, blindingly. "In the same way that you cannot understand what I've lost," I said, still not able to move. "How much were you willing to sacrifice for how little? I feel like there's little of me left." 

"That's only a feeling," she said.

"No it's not!" I said, screamed, shouted? Chagrined, angry, and confused? In truth, I didn't know what I was, or who I was anymore. I was only ever trying to find the answers. That's what it had felt like, anyway. "It's beyond a feeling. It's real. It's so real that it's almost like I can touch it. That's what suffering does to a person, and that's why you were wrong."

She stood there, quietly, emptily, looking at me. She didn't say anything. She looked far older than I, and then I remembered that she must be... but how can that be? How can I know how old she is, inside this darkness, and how can I know about the future, and what would come to happen in Canterlot, the story of his death, the death of the scapegoat, and what happened next? Wait, I was writing a story? Not possible, because I've been out on an adventure, so no, I haven't, and yet, I have this sinking sense of imposing, nearing, creeping dread, within me, and... ah, she was right. I would figure it out, again and again, and then forget the answer, because that was my fate.

The sound came back to me. "Wrong. Wrong." There was a delay on that echo, you know, reader. "Wrong," I heard, faintly.

Scootaloo yelped, and a bit of her mane fell into her eyes, so that I could no longer see them. Her mane was so long that it touched the ground. She wiped at it. "I'm sorry, Sweetie."

"Not sorry enough, I suppose," I said. "Not sorry enough, and soon, it will be too late. I have been stuck here, and yet I haven't been, and that's because I have been in two places at once, living out two different adventures, and it was always ever so dark where I was, whereas Sweetie Belle saw the light, always, and all the things we did were real, but false all the same, because I didn't do it. She did. She will be horrified to find out, and also, I want to get out of here, so that I can warn her, but will you let me?"

"I don't know," she said. "I will have to ask the eyes."

"Who?" I said.

"No one," she said. "No one has no identity, and that's how no one would like it to remain, also. We shall see, in the end."





Meanwhile, in Twilight's castle...

"The whirlpool of your choice, tells you stories about voice... and ancient treks, and valid evil flying things, connected, and true light, and true fight, and true right." Twilight bumped into walls, and tripped on the carpet falling over, but she wouldn't stop speaking gibberish. "It's just a memory of alternate history, with flying and falling things connected."

"Starlight," I said, seeing her come running. "Help."

"What's wrong with her?" Starlight said, pulling the brakes, possibly looking for a solution, though I'm no mind-reader, so how would I know? She was standing there, staring about, at Twilight, and me. "She's shouting things."

"Yyya think?" I said, drawing out the Y for effect. "Do something, please, Starlight."

"Um?" she said. "I don't even know what kind of magic this is."

Nameless piped up. "It's not magic. It's not magic. It's not magic. It's not magic. It might look like magic, but it's just a paradox. You can only resolve it by asking the eye for help."

"Who's the eye?" I said.

"Yeah?" Starlight said, and her horn shone up, but nothing happened. "What the..."

Twilight went on, speaking, "A memory is nothing as compared to the future, in which all and kind pretty things lure, and adore, what will come, for us all."

Nameless said, "I will help you, but you have to trust me, just this once."

"No," I said. "Why would I?"

"Let's hear her out," Starlight said.

"B- but Starlight," I said. "This is ridiculous. This cannot be. She has been trying to manipulate me, and to make me believe all these crazy things."

"Twilight helped you," she said. "Now, it's time for us to do anything we can."

Nameless whimpered. "I'll help you. You don't understand. It wasn't really me."

Yes, well, let us now reach the climax of... um, understanding? Comprehension? Anyway, it's time to explain some things, and who else to do it, other than the one who's best at it, the eye? The I? You'll see. You'll see. You'll see, no doubt.





"Okay," nameless [redacted] the shining filly of light and destruction, said. "I don't want any of you to panic."

"Oh, that's okay," I said. "I'm already panicking."

Starlight carried Twilight in her magic, and Twilight was jabbering all over the place, like a maniac. "The light is light, not darkness, the only thing that makes sense. The things we see are real or not, but I am still performing, not?" 

"No," nameless said. "Listen. I really don't want you to panic. The eye is the final archetypal monstrosity of the dream."

"We're in a dream?" I said.

"No," she said. "No, not literally. The dream is a metaphor. Come now. Come now, you guys. Come." The air pulsed, and nameless reached out her hoof. "It would be helpful now if you would give me a stick or something long and pointy. I don't know how to do this without it."

I reached down picked up the closest object I could see. "I found a pointy rock," I said, pointing at the rock.

"Fine, it'll do," she said, receiving the rock. She wiped at the air with it, and a line appeared. Then, the line grew into a rectangle, which shone, and the shine vanished, revealing an opening, in the thin air. It grew taller and taller into the sky, and the opening reached so high that I couldn't see where it ended. She walked into the opening.

"We're..." I said, pointing at the opening. "It could be a trap."

"Don't be afraid," Starlight said. "We'll figure this out. I'll protect you."

Starlight with a death wish, thought I to myself sarcastically.

We were inside a stone rocky corridor with green emerald pillars, and geometric figures, doodles, and lines, carved into the walls. The place was oblong, and the corridor stretched out massively into the distance, so far that I couldn't see where it ended. It ended? How ridiculous. Nothing ever really ends in my life. Everything just keeps going, and going, and going.

We treaded the corridor, and then, we reached the end. There were tunnels that weren't as neat-looking, with rocks lying everywhere, and pebbles on the ground, which I almost slipped on.

"Careful," nameless said.

"Like you care," I said.

Nameless walked fast, ahead of me, and I thought I could catch glimpse of a terrible scowl, something that rather concerned and confused and made my head spin, all everywhere around, me! Me, me, and who else but me?

I almost felt like wiping my eye, because there was smudge there. Smudge of something else? Something, well, not so good?

Then, we reached a crevice, an opening. I saw that it was black and dark down ahead of us, and in front of us was a drawbridge, but somehow, I wasn't surprised, because I realized that I had been here before, long ago. It was long for me, in my short life, at least, somehow, some way, somewhere, someplace, I would... I mean... huh?

We walked across the drawbridge, and I looked down. There were dozens more drawbridges, that went across a rift, which we were in the middle of, me and Starlight, Twilight, and also, nameless of course. I had been in such a place before, in part 30. 

"Such a place," I said. "Where are we?"

"Closer to the center of the world than you know," nameless said. "You know too that there are portals all over Equestria. That's how we moved Ponyville from one place to the next. There's a huge one near Ponyville that shrinks and grows at different points, and the eye knows how to manipulate it. The eye knows everything that goes on, on the planet, you should know, Sweetie, and all you others."

"I should?" I said.

We reached another flight of stairs, going down, and then, we were at another drawbridge, lower down, beneath the first. I looked up and saw the first, and the opening which had led us out. Then, I noticed that there were many more criss-crossing across the crevice far down, coming down, into the black of whatever this place was. 

Starlight spoke up. "How long are we going to have to walk?"

Nameless chuckled coldly, and then mumbled incoherently. "Ugh, he-eh, wh- yeah."

"What is it?" I said, to the tone of how blithe she was acting.

"Um," she said. "You have no idea where we are, do you?" She was cold and stern, and grimaced, closing one eye, and sticking out her tongue. "This is extremely dumb, what I'm doing right now, but I'm doing it anyway, because there are things that are more important than being smart, like helping others, for instance, when they've doomed themselves forever, out of stupidity."

"How were we supposed to know?" I said. "Again, why blame me, when you can look at yourself in the mirror and see the culprit of the play?"

She said, "I know you think that I'm responsible for everything that has happened, but you need to... open up your eyes." She waved her own hoof over her eyes, looking very animated, and energetic. "This is only just the beginning of something greater."

We reached another drawbridge, lower down. We crossed across the crevice through the patchy earth of the inside of the planet, which surrounded us all, and made me feel small. "Can I?" I said, fumbling over words in my head. "Ask you- um, a question?"

"Ask me?" she said. "Oh, sure. It can only get better from here on out, any case."

"Why are you so mean?" I said. "No, that wasn't my question," I then said, catching myself. "I- um."

"This evil I enact," she said, "is only just an act, to make ponies like you draw back, and never face my rack. It's all part of the poem. Were you even listening, or were you picking your nose while that whole thing was going on?"

"Right," I said. "But you can make vague things sound grand when you use a poem. I still have no idea what any of it really meant, and what the specific precise meaning of it was."

"I think it was plenty precise," she said. "No appreciation for the art of poetry, peh," she then said, swiftly.

"I do like art," I said, "but I don't like you."

She turned around, putting a damper on our advance. Starlight stopped too. "What's happening?" Starlight said. "What's going on? Why are we stopping?"

Twilight said, "The future is pretty. The future is joyous. The future is perfect. This future is mine."

"Shut up, Twi," I said.

Nameless just looked at me for a few seconds. "Forget it," she said, and kept going. 

"Forget what?" I said. "Was it really me I met when I was out in Ponyville and met the monkey, before I remembered the thing with Apple Bloom, and before I was locked up, and told how I would be able to save Gripey?"

"It's just..." nameless said. "I've had similar conversations with you hundreds of times, and you have no idea how frustrating it gets."

"I just feel like you're not empathizing enough," I said, waving my hoof off to the side, feeling dismissive of her, and her shenanigans. "That's all."

"An appeal to empathy," nameless said, "is worth less than an appeal to wits, which is worth less than an appeal to wisdom. You can be empathic to the core, and still do monstrous things, and you can lack empathy and still be a good person, and all of this is of course only to say that I do have empathy. I just am evil anyhow, regardless of that."

"Empathy is morally good," I said, feeling glib to contradict her machinations that she did with her stupid mouth. "That's what I feel."

"You feel, but what does it matter?" nameless said. "Your feelings are like an anchor, if they make you react, and not act, in accordance, with a greater ethical code that's bigger than you and I, and beyond our understanding, and morality is real when you see what it costs to do all the things that destroy others, and destroy the world. Is it possible to cause pain? The answer, it seems to me, is only if you actually notice that pain exists. Then it becomes possible, because pain is as real and there, to see, as anything can be, as long as you can see, and notice, that it exists, which you don't, when you try to run away from it, and no matter how much you try to say that you feel sorry for those who suffer, I still don't believe you. I think your emotions make you unempathic as much as they make you empathic, because you have to care  about some things, at the expense of others, and all the pain that caring about others will cause those that you don't care about, because you discard their lives, and think that they aren't objects of empathy, is as real and there as anyone can see, and true enough, your fate is to wallow in assumptions about reality that are wrong."

"You're bloviating harder than a trumpet, and with half the charm," I said. We reached a flight of steps, and walked down them, coming upon another drawbridge lower down, that crossed across the crevice, onto another flight of steps that led to another drawbridge that crossed across the crevice to the opposite side, and so on, and all in all, this walk seemed to take forever, truly frustrating too. "Empathy is good because it is the only thing that reminds us that the emotions of others are real, and there, and truly truly meaningful, and actual, and can matter to us too, and if we care about emotion, then we also care about fate, and the future, I think. Emotions are real, and empathy is there to remind us of it."

"What about the evil side of empathy?" nameless said. "Does it get its due too, on the stage of the trumpet call?"

"Yes," I said. "But you can say that about anything. Anything can include, or preclude, evil, or goodness for that matter."

"Except for evil or goodness in themselves," nameless said. "Are they solitary entities, or do they flow from some of these other things like empathy? Is it possible for them to?"

Starlight laughed the most curious of laughs. She chortled, heavily. "Guys, guys." 

"No, wait," I said. "I won't let her get away with that one. After all, does evil really exist, except beyond our representations of everything that we believe to be causing pain, or maybe not pain, but things that we don't like, or even, that we have a natural aversion to?"

Nameless shouted. "Ugh!"

"What?" I said. "I'm right. No, you're wrong. I'm right and you're wrong."

"As anyone can see," nameless said. "But if you really care, and want to know the truth, and actually care deep inside, then think about it. How can something that only exists as an abstraction exist anywhere beyond that state, Sweetie?"

"Guys," Starlight said. "I didn't know you were both so booky."

"Booky?" I said. "This conversation isn't about books. 'Tis about the fate of the world."

"You're going to change the world?" Starlight said to me.

"Not me," I said, "but others in the future. Conversations like these matter."

"Oh, don't look at me," nameless said. "I'm just trying to justify an atrocity. That's my game."

"How would you commit an atrocity?" Starlight said, again laughing. "Little you? You have the princesses, Discord, all of the zebra authority, and even ponies from the jungles against you, that have powerful magic? What are you going to do?"

"Nothing," nameless said. "Nothing. I'm a watcher, nothing more."

She was, yeah.

Then, we came upon a flight of stairs, going down across the rift, to the other side, like the drawbridges had, back and forth. We had been forced to go across, go down stairs, and then go across the rift the other way, so that we got to the same side of the rift that we had been in originally, which seemed to me inefficient, but maybe that's just me.

We went down the stairs, going further and further down, and now I was quiet, because I had begun thinking a new thought. What did it matter if she was right or not? These weird complicated questions could go unanswered, and I would still be able to go about my life, unperturbed, with or without them really, and that's important to understand, I told myself, I would make sure to remember that.

It took maybe another fifty minutes or so, and then, we stopped.

"What now?" I said, touching a wall.

Nameless sprinted to where I was and grabbed my hoof. "No touchy." The wall opened up. It looked like a plain rock wall, like any that you would find in a cave, unassuming and undecorated, but it opened up, seemingly melting in front of my eyes. Nameless said, "We're not going all the way down to the Crystal Mines. We're staying here right now." She walked into the hole that had been created in the rock wall. "You guys, stay behind me, puh-leeease. I implore you, and if you don't, I deplore and abhor you, so watch it." She ruffled my mane, somewhat aggressively, and playfully, and stepped through the hole and into a new hallway, which was smaller.

"What now?" I said.

"Wow," Starlight said. "What is this place even, far underground? I didn't even know this place existed. What a strange place." She was confident, Starlight.

"Why are you confident?" I asked her. "Why?"

"Why not?" she said. "I am more powerful than you think, and I know spells that will protect the both of us, and I don't think this place will offer any threats that I haven't already seen. I can deal with it. Trust me, Sweetie Belle."

"Well, that's good," I said.

We reached a pulsing mass of veins, and in the middle of them was a tree, and inside the tree was a bloodshot eye, literally an eye, which pulsed upon our approach.

"Guests," nameless said, turning toward us, and backing toward the eye, until her hind touched it. "Greet them, eye?"

The eye pulsed. "Guests?" The veins shone red, a blood red, like something crimson-like. Crazy strange. "Guests, guests." The eye took us all in, turning slowly inside the tree, its branches creaking loudly. This is reminiscent of Aqasha, in the early chapters. "Guests?" The eye spoke with an indistinct buzzing voice, which was feminine. "Guests, I see. How can that be?"

"How?" nameless said. "How, how, and how?"

The eye caught glimpse of me, or I of it? 'Twas hard to tell. "The child that is there. Don't let her come near. She knows more than she lets on. Her existence should be gone." 

"She does?" nameless said. "But you changed that, didn't you?"

The eye creaked. I noticed that the eye was far bigger than any of us, which is in contrast to Aqasha the forest sprite, whose eye was about the size of my head. This eye was bigger than Starlight, maybe bigger than two Starlights. The eye said, "The truth is fickle, and its remnants tend to trickle. That is what the world does to it, so make it wallow and do then that permit."

"I did... no, I have to help Twi," nameless said.

"You care about helping others?" I said. "Don't make me laugh."

"You seem to need no help with that, you ridiculous buffoon," nameless said, snarling at me.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I said.

"That you don't take things seriously," she said, evil glare.

The eye pulsed, and shone a brighter red. It said, "I can only help with what I know, and the rest that I do is only ever for show, so, I will do what you want, but destroy her, I can't. Yet, I welcome that future, all shining bright, and to be completely sure that allure of any kind will escape your grasp, or hers, to make you or anyone abandon this fight. Light can only serve light."

"Riiight," I said, only hearing about half of that, really, and not understanding that part of it, even, which I was able to register, with my ears. "Right. Twilight!"

Starlight put her down on the ground. Twilight kept stumbling around, and rambling. "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know," Twilight said. "I don't know."

"I want you to help her," nameless said. "Under the stars, it shall be done."

"Under the stars?" the eye said, vibrating inside its tree, which looked dead, because what tree could survive down here? "This suggestion is a farce. Without her life, the future is clear, but with it, I behold much despair, lightness." 

"You must," nameless said. "Or else, she will be dead."

"Must?" the eye said. "I must do what I will, nothing more, nothing less. You can take your orders, and display them too late, at the altar of fate, when all this is over. Wait."

"What is it?" nameless said.

The eye twisted and turned, facing Starlight now. "That mare, how fair is the mare that I see with the beautiful purple hair, of pink, and pretty, I think."

"How fair is she?" nameless said, matter-of-factly. "Fair enough to make a sacrifice?"

"Oh, yes. We will redress the future using her. She is the one that will save little Twilight, of alicorn freedom, and magic in bursts, whose life first succumbed to the world in the memory, which no longer has freedom." The eye wiggled around, focusing on Starlight alone.

"Right," she said, her horn shining. "I would advice you against doing that, scary monster eye." 

"How powerful?" I said. "How powerful is your magic?"

"Look," she said. "It's powerful enough to help drive away the monsters in the north, which I was tasked by Celestia to do. Then, it's powerful enough to deal with this."

"No, it's not," nameless said, stepping over to the stone wall, which walled all us in, inside here, where the eye was.

"Wait, nameless," I said. "Take me instead. Take me, not Starlight."

"No one will be taken," Starlight said. "I can genuinely keep us all, safe."

The eye said, "You have only to give the word, the last one she will have heard."

"Do it," nameless said.

Starlight's magic shine died down, and she froze up. "Um-um-um," she said.

"No, this is terrible," I said. "No sacrifices."

The eye creaked inside its tree. "As long as she keeps her eye focused on mine, she will be safe, forever, and ever, and never in wait for the dark things to happen, no never, and ever shall my light be inside her, and ever shall my future change, and chafe, hers."

"Right," I said. "No, no, and no. No, it won't. No. Can we all just stop being blood-sucking evil monsters, just for a moment?" I started screaming. "Can't we all just- just get along? What's the point of all this? I'll tell you. The point is nothing, and war, and conflict, is pointless. It would be better if we all just got along. No one ever has to die."

Nameless put a hoof on me. "Now, we can save Twilight."

"Lemme go," I said, shoving her off. "No we won't."

"Heh, what are you talking about?" nameless said. "These are powers way beyond your comprehension."

I grabbed Starlight in magic and shoved her off just a bit, and stood where she had been, a moment ago. "No!"

The eye glanced off at Starlight. Starlight caught her bearings and shot a turquoise beam of light at the eye. The beam bounced off the eye and hit the cave-wall, making it explode and send rocks flying toward me. Nameless huddled over me, and pushed me down. "Why do I always have to save you?" she said.

"What are you babbling about?" I said, hoarsely, from under her. "I would- I would kill you if I could."

"Well, that's just lovely," nameless said. She stepped away from me, and big pieces of sharp rock were stuck in her. "This isn't how the future looks," she said. The rocks disappeared. They didn't move out of her body. They disappeared into thin air, and then, Starlight was standing next to us. I looked at the cave-wall. The cave-wall was intact. 

Starlight put Twilight down on the ground. 

Twilight kept stumbling around, and rambling. "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know," Twilight said. "I don't know."

"I want you to help her," nameless said. "Under the stars, it shall be done."

"Under the stars?" the eye said, vibrating inside its tree, which looked dead, because what tree could survive down here? "This suggestion is a farce. Without her life, the future is clear, but with it, I behold much despair, lightness." 

"You must," nameless said. "Or else, she will be dead."

"Okay? Noo," I said. "No, what's happening now?"

"We were sent back in time," nameless said, "mostly because it's impossible for me to die, so whenever I die, I get a do-over. Wouldn't you like a do-over? You'll get yours too. When we're done, you will."

"Yes?" I said. "What the heck?"

"A do-over? Who died?" Starlight said. "That doesn't make any sense, you guys."

"Psst," nameless said. "You're immune to it because you've seen the whirlpool of your choice, but she's not because she hasn't, so she thinks we just arrived here. Silly her, right?"

"This is," I said, feeling dizzy, and out of sorts, "a little too much."

"What is not?" nameless said. "The world is dangerous. You live, you learn, or you die. Now, I have to come up with a different solution, since sacrificing Starlight to the cave wasn't to your liking, you spoiler." 

"I don't want paaain," I said, wheezing the word pain sharply out my mouth. "Don't you understand that, nameless?"

"Pain is my middle name," nameless said. "Pain is truly not a choice for me, the way it could've been for you, had you behaved when you at first arrived at Hydral, you silly filly."

"Why such arrogance?" I said.

"It's because I always get my way," she said. "That's my secret, and my trick."

The eye said, "Since beautiful Starlight cannot be ours, and true starlight lies beyond our reach, you will give us something else. This else is something the future only knows how to tell, since the future is not as well as it could've been, had you granted this gift, upon my door, and let me sift, my way onto shore." 

"I have something else," nameless said. "I have something great, maybe."

"What is it?" the eye said, big and pulsing and veiny, true. It was, and that's true even, is all I'm saying... sss- s- something.

Nameless said, "It's the filly that caused all this trouble in the first place. She will sacrifice herself willingly."

The eye shone brighter than it ever had before, a red light, bright and red. "You are willing to do that, and give her up, after all that has happened, so that the future can be restored up?"

Nameless said, "A sacrifice is necessary. Is it a worthy one?"

The eye said, "It is only as worthy as the sacrifice wants to be, and never quite free, but maybe, at last, does it follow strict rules and orders of fate, and not too late, it can abate all the dark things that rest in the last, of the past, of the void, that the future avoids?"

Nameless said to me now, "I hope you understand one thing and one thing alone."

"What?" I said, feeling like I never should've gone down here, and Starlight neither. "Wait a second."

Nameless said, "Starlight can no longer save you. You are inside the sight of the eye now, whether you realized it or not, and it will remind you of things that hurt and sting, and you will be blind for a moment, but not too long. I have been with the beautiful Eyesstark longer than anyone, so I can tell you what I think."

"You?" I said. "Whose memories is it that I have been looking at?"

"They used to be mine," she said, "but they will be yours now, and I fear that Starlight will not be as successful as you were in stopping the eye from doing its work. You may surprise the eye. I have done so many times, but never more than once. Remember that, and have fear. Have everlasting fear, because you have been foolish, and even though you might blame me, no one forced you to do this. Do you regret it? Do you want to take it back?"

"Does it save Starlight?" I said. "That's a better question."

"It's either you or her, and either way you choose, you cannot win," nameless said. "Remember that too. Remember. Remember."

Remember. Remember. Remember, but not too late!

Fate fate fate

Purple

Hate

Wait.

Ah

N

...

Piece by piece

It can never be appeased, the eye of death, and yet it keeps on stealing and stealing life away from Equestria.

A sacrifice was made.

A lives were lost and made.

I will find out the truth, and I will... I am... not... much anymore.

So much is what I got from her, nameless, of the black wonderful darkness, which I now love, even though it never stops hurting.

Nay. I know.

Something dark.

Should the past be salvageable, I have to struggle, through the darkness.

Bzzt.

Ouch.

What were they doing to me? Changing me? Rearranging me? Causing pain to me?

Was it all literally true? Well I never liked a bad dream anyhow

:O





"This, it turned out, was the biggest trick. Why, though? Why, though? Why, though?" I wondered, mostly because I wanted to know. "Why? Why? Can't well expect me to care, unless you tell me why, can you?"

"Why not?" the eye said. "Forever here, and never free, is your fate, and under the stars, my power shall shine within you, within the stars, and behind the everlasting cold bars of imprisonment that await in your future, so cold, and so dark. I harken the memories of that future now, so cold, and so stark."

"How long shall I be forced to stay here?" I said.

"I told you..."

"When can I leave?"

"No one ever leaves," the eye said. "That's the curse, and my verse."

"I don't believe you."

"Oh, you will, filly. You will, willy-nilly, soon enough, without any doubt, and without any fear, you will always stay here." I caught glimpse of the eye, and then, I saw nothing again, not even darkness, just nothing, just void. All I saw was cold, hard, dark, stern, direct, and unreflective tension. "You will."

"Without any fear? That's not what nameless said."

"Pay no mind to what the other filly says. She is as lost as you can guess, and you too, soon enough, will be through, with your thoughts, of freedom and sisters? Your life shall suffer those blisters that remind you that you can never escape, and try as you might, to scrape your way out of here, it's too late, black fate, and wait, until I am done with you, and your life... has made all of the future, and all our lives, every black hole, every void, each thing that awaits the next event, finally sate. I will curse you with my hate." 

"Who isn't lost though?" I said. "You too, because you believe in this hatred that you inherited from the past. All that we are are things that we inherited from our pasts. Oh, no. This is terrible. I knew coming down here was a mistake. I guess it has only just begun too." I tried moving, or swiveling my body, or doing anything at all for that matter, but nothing happened. "I am cold, and that's all that I feel like I am right now, cold and lonely, and off, and gone, and lost, forever? Nay, not forever. I know better than that, because I know things that no one else knew, Eyesstark." I remembered what she had told me. We know things that no one else knew. I know things that no one else knew. I know the future, and I actually think I know it in a way that the eye doesn't. The story is blank now, and its pages open for revision. I hope it will come in the form of a positive wish, a hope for a better future, something light, something bright, and something that will blot out that evil fight, of the dark evil things, that live within.

I was, and am, realizing more and more that this story only takes place inside my psyche, but yet it is as real to see that I can touch it, and I never feel free. Oh, nooo-no-no, words... I cannot longer no bear it with my... thoughts, are... fainting... fading? Gone, and off in the head, and lost, is my game, as watching is [redacted]'s, and coldly staring is the eye's, of sight? Of something not so bright, and never free, do I decree, that I am, forever, until I can find that freedom, for myself? Is it a choice? Well, I still have a voice, so maybe so...

"Pay attention," the eye said. "You will be here for as long as I can see, and I know that we know that the truth can no longer free any of us, or decree its choice. It no longer has a choice, nor that or a voice, and we will see each other's eyes for as long as the world can breathe, and oceans flow. Have you ever beheld an ocean before, Sweetie Bot?"

"No, to me, oceans may as well be imaginary," I said, realizing that she had read my thoughts, like the parasite that I knew her to be. "When will things get better, finally?"

"Better is a choice. You need only speak, and turn bad things good, like a song, that creates ideas, and thoughts, from the empty flow, of the future hold, that my stark and powerful fold on reality obliterates, ago." Now, I had no idea what she was saying, but it sure, sure, suuure sounded poetic, didn't it? 

Stupid, I thought. "No escape?" I said. "We'll see about that."

We would see, wouldn't we?





"I will do what I must, to save the future, before it is too late, and that's that," Scootaloo said. "That's final."

"Still," another person said. "Still, still, still, there is a cost. It's always costly to change the world, isn't it? Do we care, though? Do we?"

"Of course," she said. "I know you do. I know it because... well, for obvious reasons."

"I do care, and yet, I have doubts that you don't have, my dear department chief, of the filly unicorns? That's lovely. That's lovely. That's lovely." 

"Who doesn't?" she said.

"The sky?" the other voice said. "The sky, does it care? And if so, does it have the right fear that we do?"

"You are speaking of the speaking eye?" Scootaloo said. "Is that it?"

"No," the voice said. "I am speaking of a superior kind of sight, that lives within all of us, and it all starts with recognizing the stars as wishes that can tell the future, and guide our advance upward."

"That seems counterintuitive," Scootaloo said. "Stars are burning balls of toxic gas, not wishes."

The voice burst out laughing, aloud, and rambunctiously, flamboyantly. "You have no sense of romance at all, A-0087? Then, why are you struggling at all? Because of pages, words, and numbers? Is that it? Are those your guiding stars? You need to recognize the power of our stories, the ones we tell ourselves. How else would the griffins have built an empire, and a civilization, in less than a day, pretty much?"

"In a manner of speaking," Scootaloo said, "but these are metaphors. They aren't literally real. This seems to bridge the gap between what you call stories, and I call reality."

"Ah-haha," the voice said. "But these stories are real in the sense that they reflect reality, and following them seems to yield each result that we can see. The wishes really are there, and as are the stars. I don't mean to say of course that this makes all my chatter, and all my storywriting, literally true. On the contrary, stories are never true, but there are moments when metaphors and reality meet and become one, because the metaphor is a stark approximation of something abstract that exists in the real world, but it can only be represented abstractly, because it is an abstraction. How's that?"

Scootaloo frowned. "Do I know you?"

"We will see," nameless said.

We would.

But she never could, Scootaloo that is.





No one ever talks to me. No one ever looks at me. All I have is loneliness. Am I even real, oh no!

"Real enough," I heard my own voice say. "It's time to escape."

And so, I escaped. Okay that's the end of that chapter. Toodle-oo, see ya later, buddy-gator friend hellooo
> Part 36: Claustrophobic Proportions
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

In a word, absurd. That was my predicament. Stories are about feelings, events? Stories are about real things, no? Am I real? Have all these last chapters been real? As a matter of experience, yes, but nothing more, no.
> Part 37: No Help From Nameless
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I laughed. I was carried out of the machine. I didn't feel calm. I felt hysterical.

"Welcome to your new life," I heard someone say. "You'd better enjoy it. It's no choice, that or death."

My laugh ended, abruptly.

I said, "This is the thing that has been bothering me. I can never quite put my hoof on it, but I feel like I've been used, and controlled, and like I'm not my own person. Am I wrong?" I felt light, like a balloon. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? I felt relaxed finally, for the first time in forever, pretty much, not to be overly dramatic about it.

"No," the voice said. "No, you're right. In fact, that was just the prelude."

"What was?" I said, genuinely wondering, and considering, and relaxing, but most of all, wanting to know the truth. "What was a prelude? What is a prelude, in this context, stranger?"

"We've met," nameless said, whose voice I now recognized.

"I feel airy, air-headed," I said, "like a balloon."

"Yes," she said. "You've been emptied, like a balloon, so it should come as no surprise. You've been conditioned to believe things that we want you to believe, temporarily, so that we could reach your old memories, and override them, and make them have less of an effect on you than your new memories will have."

"Strange," I said. "I should be angry. I know I should on a rational level, but I feel extremely calm right now. Hey, do you know what happened to me, nameless?"

"Yes," she said. "I'm responsible for it, after all, so I must know, I and no one else. Well, there was another person, but he's dead now."

"Sidus?" I said. "Was it him? Wait, who's Sidus? Is the monkey is Sidus? Several Siduses? Sidí, for plural?"

"No," she said. "The real Sidus died in Canterlot when I tried to warn the princesses of a bleak and depressing future. He walked into the dreaded circle of light and lied, which comes as no surprise, seeing as he was always a dishonest person, into the end. A bad friend he was, and a worse ally. He tried to save you, and stop my triumph, but that will be a later conversation between us. Now, it's time to do things for you, things that will help you grow. We like growing?"

"I want to know what happened," I said, feeling tears form. "Hey, nameless. What's happening?" I felt like I had trouble speaking. I felt spent, empty, and like a child, possibly because that's what I was. "I don't want to be here, nameless."

"I don't want you to be here," she said. "So that's good for the both of us, that we share this disposition, and attitude, this feeling, this dread."

Lights alit. There was a waterfall far away in the cave, running down, reflecting the sparkling sparking beautiful broken rays of sunlight that flew about in the cave I was in, illuminating the dark with its empty little scary, yet comforting, and confusing little rays. Light is always comforting, I thought. That's what light is for even almost, it feels like. I wonder if it's true.

My mind felt weaker and sharper now, all the same. It felt like I could think more at my own pace now, but the thoughts that came out weren't as complex, and complicated, as they had been before. "I want out," I said.

"Look behind you," she said. "That will be illuminating, my friend."

"Illuminating?" I said. "What?"

Behind me was a constellation of images, with lines going between them, red lines, like a mind-map. It was a picture of Rarity, and then, a picture of Twilight, and then, a picture of me, and a question mark was under my picture, seeming to be glued there, from my perception, at least. Then, around the pictures was a giant piston, with straps attached to it on both sides, both on the piston itself, and the ground below it. Screws and patches of metal crossed the piston, making it look hastily put-together, and yet, it was massive. It had steam coming out of it, now, and smoke. I coughed.

Nameless spoke again, "I hope that you realize how lucky you are. Most are far more damaged than you are when they come out of the machine, but you were somehow resilient. How lucky for you, even though I thought that I gave you one of the worse stories, too. That is genuinely worrying, just because I don't understand it, which means I can't control it, Sweetie Bot."

"No, I'm Sweetie Belle!" I said. "No, no, no, no."

"About that," she said. "Look at your hoof."

"It's a lie," I said, sobbing loudly. "Lies."

"No, it's not a lie. In fact, it's the stark truth."

"If all those other things were a dream, then how do I know that this is for real?" I said.

"I'm not asking you to believe me. But you will act, or you won't, and you will live in reality or you will perish in fantasies. Make your choice, or make nothing at all, Sweetie Bot."

I looked at my hoof and saw a blinding shine, reflecting off the light of the waterfall. Once my eyes adjusted, I could see a sharp, shining metal hoof. "I am a robot? What am I? Who am I?"

"Beats me," she said. "But you're alive at least."

"Are you real? Where are you?"

"Yes, I'm real. I'm in another room, simply. That's why you can't see me. That's all. Sweetie, listen now and listen well, because we don't have all that much time, filly."

"I'm listening."

"You will be sent out on an adventure in which you're the main character. Sacrifices will already have been made by others to permit you to be the main character of this story. This story will have been written by me, in addition to Sidus, who's no longer with us, because he lied, and who doesn't deserve to live anymore, because he lied. You will truly stay on this path, and this is a privileged path because it will allow you to have experiences that you never would've had, otherwise. You see, Sweetie? You're lucky, truly, and I can never lose." 

"What are you talking about?" I said. "You can never lose? Do you know what happened? I saw images beyond your imagination."

"No," she said. "We wrote this story together, so I would certainly not be so arrogant so as to claim credit for them, and neither should you, Sweetie Bot."

"Stop calling me that."

"Never," she said. "You are a robot of the highest caliber, created using a filly whose name was Sweetie Belle. You are part of a new race, a better breed, a higher kind, which will join me in cleansing Equestria of its faulty values, and you will do it, with or without your own consent, which is the most fascinating piece of the puzzle, which has been created for us, using fate."

I laughed. "Why am I laughing?" I laughed louder and louder. "I can't stop laughing. I shouldn't be laughing."

"That's not up to you. It's up to the laugh," she said. "That's what decides whether you should laugh, not you. Remember that, too. Everything that happens happens for a reason."

"It isn't funny though," I said, breathing to recover from that mighty laugh, which had exited my lips. "I don't want it."

"Maybe the laugh is trying to tell you something. There's something funny going on? I didn't make you laugh, Sweetie."

"No," I said. "I just feel desperate. That's why you laugh at your own suffering, I think. It's because you feel desperate, and laughing offers some sort of reprieve, a kind of freedom from it, if I'm not mistaken, but that still doesn't mean it's okay to wallow in my own misery." I tried to find her, looking around. "Or another person's misery for that matter, nameless!"

"Point taken," she said. "The dream has taught you well. Now, I must depart. You will be carried down."

A glass bubble went over the platform I was on, making it so that I couldn't walk off it, and jump down, which I didn't want to do anyway, because the platform started moving. It was roughly my size, and I saw gears big as buildings spinning far, far, far beneath me, and the platform moved over those gears. What the platform was attached to, I couldn't tell. There were other pistons, similar to mine, but I saw no ponies there. The platform went lower and lower. Something shot up into the air. It was another platform, like mine, encased in glass, and it had a pony on it, but he looked motionless and unconscious. I only caught glimpse of it for a moment. Then, it went higher and higher, to where I couldn't see. That made me angry. What was going on here? What was the meaning of this? Some sort of torture palace? I wanted to find nameless and strike her down with my mind, and from my heart, destroy her, but since I had no telepathic powers, and since she was invulnerable to any real harm, which I now remembered, I would have to settle for cursing her inside my mind. That was all. 

The platform went further down. These giant gears came closer, and more platforms shot up, with unconscious ponies inside them. I got the sudden urge to check if I wasn't unconscious. All the gaslighting I had been through made it pertinent to do. I checked, but no, I seemed conscious and alive.

The platform landed on the floor, and the glass opened up. I looked up, and saw giant moving structures, buildings made of metal, that shifted above me, and giant spinning gears were above me. Everything was huge up there, above me, far above, where I couldn't see, or reach. I took a step. Some ponies came running.

"We are here to transport you, new friend," one of them said. "Friend of the cause, one of a kind, but never friends in the ways that blind, Sweetie Bot, or as you will come to be known, F-5226, a commemorative name of the one that used to live in the facility, in the last memory."

"I have a mind to resist," I said, staying firmly on my platform, standing firm. "Is that a problem for you culty crazies?"

"No, not me," she said. "No, I'm just here to deliver this message. What you do is up to you, though if I could give you some advice. I think it would be good to ignore that mind of yours. It has been through a lot, and no one has ever resisted for long in here. That mind of yours, if it pushes back, will be broken, like glass. I think it's important to understand that, but if you have to learn it for yourself, through your own acts, then that's fine too, Sweetie Bot."

A smiling, gentle stallion said, "I hope that you feel well, in mind and heart, though I think you do not, as I know that such things are unusual in Hydral, to be sure."

"Aeh, I feel like I could not really know- uh- um, how to respond er- to that?" I said, not knowing if I was making a claim or asking a question. "I don't know who you are, even, is another thing. Where did you come from?"

There was a third pony there, an older pony of the male variety. "I know where we came from. We came from Equestria the kingdom long ago, but we left that place because we were tired of the war, and we gave up our own lives to join the cause to fix it, you see?"

I recognized him. "Grunt? From Manehattan? I'm sure I've met you before. You with the crazy uncouth mane and weird expressive expressions. What are you all about? Why are you here?" I tried to catch my bearings. "Were you part of the trick?"

"That's observant of you," he said, smiling. "I'm part of the anti-war effort, but the shining filly asked me to come here and help with recruiting new ponies to the southern force, and I was happy to help. I came through here myself once, long ago, but no one knows." He leant in, keeping a hoof tucked around my ear, as he came closer. "Let's keep that our little secret."

"No one knows what?" I said, jumping into the air. "That you came through here? How many have come through here? Did you know that this place is a torture palace?" I took a deep breath, and then, I lost it, and fell down on the floor, breathing heavy. "This isn't happening. This isn't happening. This isn't happening. It's a dream. It's a dream. I will come home soon, please." Please? "Yes, please," I told my thoughts. "Because why not? I don't just want to remain here, into eternity."

"Come with us," he said. "The worst of it should be behind you. You only go through that, what you went through, so that you can learn some very important things. It's nothing personal on the part of the winding light. She only wants to help us realize the truth, which is that friendship is a lie, and true friendship, the one we share, is very rare. True friendship is based on conditions, and goals, and what we want to do to save the world, but affection, the kind we find in Equestria, and a blind belief in it, can kill the world. We wish to prevent that, Sweetie Bot. Don't you realize that? You also had to go through the process, and yet, you act surprised at what I'm saying."

I hickuped, feeling surprised. "I just don't want to die again," I said, like I wasn't even paying attention. "W- I- I..." No, there was something more, something additional. "I remember that I heard something like that, but I cannot believe it. I can never believe it... because..." Gripey! "I need to find him. I need to find him. True friendship does exist."

"Eh?" Grunt said. "What are you saying?"

"I want to save friendship. I believe in friendship, Grunt, no empty liaisons, like nameless believes in. Her heart is black. Mine can yet be saved." Empty liaisons? Where had I heard such a phrase before? I could swear that I had heard it. "In the black!" I said. "Of course. It was me speaking to myself all along, t- trying to remind myself, because my memory of how I came here is that I came through the facility, and met nameless long before- before I got here, and but... I- I feel hysterical. I need to warn other ponies about this. It's not too late."

I ran and ran across the metal surface, with big metal stalactite structures, and tall house-like constellations of gears, metal, and lumps of iron, forming into boxes, large boxes, which had a house-shape. I saw them around me. They surrounded me. I was ecstatic with energy. I felt free. 

There was a staircase down from the metal maze, which I took, and then, I was met with her. "Hello, Sweetie?" she said.

"N- nameless?" I said.

She stood there, leaning against the side of the staircase, that was surrounded by more metal walls. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you. Your life appears to be a success story though."

"My life?" I said. "My life is one in which good shall triumph over evil."

"That's a voice," she said. "Where's your other one?"

"What do you mean?" I said, as she walked past me. "W- you're just going to let me go? I thought you were trying to stop me, nameless."

She ascended the stairs. "No, it's over now. I'm no longer an active participant, unless you have any questions."

"Only about a million of them," I said.

"I cannot answer all of them," she said, "but maybe some. Go on."

"Um," I said. "Why are you so friendly now, when you weren't in my dream?"

"I was trying to be friendly," she said. "But yes. I admit that I'm an abrasive person. Yes, I was trying to guide you so that you would make the choices I wanted you to make, but you didn't."

"Okay?" I said.

"I don't want to frighten you anymore, if that's what you're wondering," she said. "I only wish for you to feel, and live, as good as you can, before the land is saved in two months."

"When I was up there." I pointed up. "You didn't try to save me, no. Why not?"

"Sweetie," she said, sitting down on one of the steps. "When you and your friends, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, got lost out on that fateful day, when the skies screamed their pain down toward us, you would've been killed, and very likely, severely hurt before you got killed, unless I had found you, and taken care of you. Think about what you wish for. The world is a dark place." 

"How dark?" I said. "Why will you never answer any of my questions, except by way of corny poetry? What is your real name?"

She looked away from me. "You know, it kind of hurts when you talk about my poetry that way."

"It's corn!" I said. "Corny corn-fed corn, on a stick."

She stood up and leant against the metal wall, stretching both her front-hooves out against it, and dropping her head, drooping it toward the ground. "The world is... evil."

"What do you mean?" I said.

"I mean that it may have been poetry, but to me, it was true, all the same. The world is evil. The world is evil. The world is evil, Sweetie Bot. The world is evil. The world is evil. Only we can save the world together, forever." She looked at me. "I like you, a lot."

"Why then are you being rude half the time, and gaslighting me?" I said. "You don't seem like you like me a whole lot at all."

"I was only following the script." She put a hoof on me. "Now, it is over. Good-day to you, Sweetie."

"Hey, where are you going?" I ran after her, back up the stairs. "You can't do this. You can't act as if there's some deep reason as to why all this is going on that I don't understand. Tell me."

"I want to tell you," she said, going to the others that were up there, a short distance away. They had come closer. "I want to tell you, but I cannot communicate this in one lifetime even. The goal is several lifetimes old, and it has to do with stopping the unavoidable disaster that is the Equestrian civil war, which was triggered by new technological advancements made by the griffins, not all that long ago."

"Sweetie?" Grunt said. "She isn't all who she seems to be. I promise you. She's a very gentle person, once you get to know her, and she wants to save the world. We all do."

"I think the world could use some saving, no doubt," I said, feeling utter disbelief at his words. "From you!"

"Sweetie..." he said.

The mare came forward. "You have to listen. The entirety of continental Equestria will be obliterated in just a few years, unless we do something, and almost everyone will die. Ninety-nine percent of all living creatures will die. You tell her, spirit." She glanced expressively at nameless. 

"It's true," nameless said, shrugging, and going past those other ponies, pushing past them. "I'm here on important business, so I'm sorry if I have to hurry up."

I sprinted back across the metal road and jumped nameless, wrestling her down. "Nooo."

I put my hooves to her neck, saying, again, "Nooo."

I wasn't shouting, nor screaming. "Nooo." 

The other ponies pulled me off her. Now, I shouted, "Let me go. Let me go. You parasites. I will kill all of you. I will kill you. I will kill."

"Now, there's the other voice," nameless said, calmly. "I was waiting for it, and I'm glad that I was here to see it. You will kill. It is true. You will kill many ponies whom you now believe to be innocent, and in your blindness, consider to be good citizens of Equestria, moral, and undeserving of death. Well, we shall rid you of your faulty beliefs."  

"Put her back inside the sky-bot!" the mare shouted, holding out a hoof. "Let her feel it again. She hasn't been in there long enough. Let her feel it."

"No," nameless said. "I have something special planned for you, F-5226."

I writhed, trying to get out, get off, and away. "I will never submit," I said.

"All your anger will be used against you," nameless said. "And if you feel joy, happiness, disgust, creativity, or even beautiful empathy, then those will be used against you too."

"No," I said. "Why are you doing this? What's the matter with you?"

"I'm," nameless said, suddenly stumbling. "It's not I who is the problem. I am not the problem. Those ponies are the problem, who insist on stupid Celestia worship and everlasting friendship until their heads have been chopped off." She turned around, flailing her hooves around. "Ugh."





It was always so silly of them to resist.
Their power has a price, I say,
and that, you cannot list.

It's not the prize you find on shelves,
but something much more grim.

The price that they have wrought,
is one,
that magic can't resist.

The evil is real. 
The evil is real.
The evil will feel,
like evil is there.

I am the evil,
of course,
but evil exists,
as a course,
for a reason,
and will,
obstruct their roads.

I will be there when they sleep,
and snore like little toads.
Their dreary home has not seen me,
and now, they must reflect.

They must remember and inspect,
all they ever did,
because unless they do,
evil will brood,
behind every wall,
and never stall.

Evil is real.
I can feel it in the air.
Evil feels as real,
as anything, I feel.

I reel.

And so do you.

You are my troop.





"Encore," the mare said.

"No," Grunt said. "She has more important stuff to do than to concern herself with us. That isn't fair to her."

"I'm sorry," she said, looking ashamed. "You're right."

They were not holding me any longer, but I wasn't noticing it, because I was too shocked. I closed my mouth, and slowly, but slowly all insecurely, and demurely, and tiredly, all at the same time. "That was waaaught?"

"Brutal honesty is what Hookbeak likes about you," nameless said. "I find it slightly off-putting. In any case..."

"W- but I thought none of that was real," I said.

"Oh, forgive me," nameless said. "I'm speaking out of turn. It will be real, will be! Note those words, will be. Now, bye, and see you again when you inevitably cause chaos at the facility, and I have to clean it up for you." 

Now, I reached out my hoof as she walked away. "Wh..."

Mysteries aplenty, for you and for me, you see?

I don't like mysteries, I gather.

Hmm.

Maybe there is some kind of obscure retreat, where I could be safe from all this mayhem.

Wait, that's what I wanted to not do. I wanted to save ponies, not get away from them.

Why am I speaking in present tense even though I'm talking about my past thoughts, and without using the dialogue marker, "I thought," to indicate that? Either, it should be, "present tense, I thought," or it should be, "past tense, period." There's no in-between, so what's up with my formatting? What's up with my thoughts? Why do they feel gluey, all incoherent? We shall see. We shall see. We shall see.





I shuddered, and shivered, gnashing my teeth together. I was in pain, lying on the floor. No, I hadn't moved, if that's what you're wondering. I was still in the same place, where I had been, remaining, and not moving.

Nameless came wandering. "You're still here? Sweetie. The mines are freezing at night. You will die here if you don't get someplace safe."

"You don't care about me," I said.

"Yes, I do," she said.

"No, you don't." I was beyond angry, and exasperated. I couldn't get my head around what was going on, and the thought was killing me. What was going on? What was happening? Why didn't anything make any sense?

"Sweetie," she said, grabbing me.

"Let go," I said, moving out of her grip, and falling backward, hitting my head against the cold metal. I bled on the ground. "Let go." I touched the blood. "I'm kind of not feeling well, nameless, to be honest with you."

"You don't have to say that," she said. "You're always honest."

"No, I'm not. I lied to Twilight. I lied to Rares. I wasn't feeling fine." I screwed my head around so that I could get a better look at the blood while I lay there. "Sip," I said, licking at it. "Blood tastes ridiculous."

"No," she said. "Even when you're... look." She tried grabbing me again, enfolding her hooves around me.

"No," I said, and shook my body around, but I had barely any strength.

She lifted me up to my hooves, but I fell down again, and then, I pushed my head down against the bloody, shiny, dark metal, in the night, where everything now was dark, and lonely. "You cannot lie, because you have too much shame, I suppose. Even when you lied, all those ponies saw right through you, and that's a strength, not a weakness, because it means that they will be able to help you. I will be able to help you, if you listen."

"You hate me," I said. "I don't know what I ever did to you." Empty, empty, empty! Was my suffering for real? Empty? Did I deserve to suffer? Empty! Full, of something, no? No, but empty, is my life, empty of love, and devoid of any real content, to speak of, yes. Empty, empty, empty, is all that I could see, and I didn't want to live with that empty feeling, and I didn't want to live with the confusion, and feeling like I was constantly being prodded, and thrown around. Exploded? Worse than that, it was. I was being thrown around the world, without any conscious control over it, and it was killing me, because the more I got thrown, and the more I moved across the world, the less I knew who I was, and the more death I saw, the more empty, empty, empty, I felt, and would the feeling ever go away? Only time would tell.

"I don't hate you," she said. "I envy you. You will get to be the hero. I am the villain, resigned to it. You should really go take a bath, and just relax. Your life is not in mortal danger, and you will be safe, I promise you. I will take care of you, as long as you trust me."

"Blind trust?" I said.

"No," she said. "A trust in trust itself. A trust that you know things can turn out fine, if things go right, not blind and void, but full of the kind of content that you and I care about. Love? Friendship? You name it. I can give it to you, or I can help save your friend, but I won't be there when you need me most, because I am the villain of the seven-piece plan, you see?"

I stood up, and then slipped, hitting my head again, and now, I felt dizzy, and woozy. I couldn't breathe. I coughed up blood. "No, hurrrh," I said, breathing raspily. "Huurrrg." I coughed some more. I coughed. I coughed another time. I felt ever so... void of anything that even actually... I felt like I wasn't even real, and there, in the air, something more than a shadow of a real person? No, not I, was not. I was never, and never would I ever escape this place, I realized. I was the picture of an empty vessel, full of insecurities, and contradictions, all the way down to my soul, a lonely place. 

Nameless said, "The lower cube of the sky-bot, requesting medical assistance in the black." I couldn't see her, but I could hear it. "You will be fine," she said. "I promise you that, as you promised that you would find Apple Bloom. Keep to your wits, and your guts. They will help you survive, and escape Aldeus' clutches, once you get to the facility."

"Facile," I said, lying there, feeling like someone had tied a rope around my throat.

"I will tell you," she said, "but it will make you upset. The story that you went through, the story of your whole life, was real once. It comes from the last Sweetie Belle that lived in the last memory, in the last timeline that was created when you saved the world from Aldeus, remember?" Memories, are gone. "No, why should you? You haven't lived that yet, and it wasn't part of The Story of a Robot, the bad ending. It was part of something else, something not so well, I gather."

"Why??" I said, longing for answers that I thought would never come.

"It was your fault. That wasn't hyperbole."

"What???" Some ponies came and carried me away.

"In exactly eleven years, almost on the day, you will enter the sky-bot on your own accord, which is what made the nightmare return, Sweetie. Otherwise, I would be dead right now. I will never have existed. You saved my existence, and I will do the same for yours. That's why I brought you here. If I didn't, then you would've died, and been assaulted by mindless crooks in the night, Sweetie. Under the stars, this is the truth, as foretold by Sidus, and the books." She touched my face. "You still have that spark, I see." She glanced off. "If she gets harmed, you will not live to speak about it, I fear."

"Yes, spirit," a pony said.

"Umm," I said. "Help."

"There is no reprieve from the nightmare," nameless said. "But if you accept it, then you can learn to live with it. Let's save Gripey together now. Let's not mess up like you did in the dream. That will be the biggest test for you."

...

...

...

Wow, what a strange, and evil, person, who thinks that all this is okay, and talks about it in such blithe tones, in the night. And yet, what a kind, gentle person, who would actually talk to me, calmly, when she saw that my face, and my world, were full of distress. And yet, I know that she is responsible for all this, and that makes her evil, for as I promised myself long ago, I would never believe or fool myself that any of this was justified. I had, and would, decide, that forever, and ever, this would always be the wrong thing to do, doing this to me, and doing this to others. Manipulating us? Was I wrong?

No, and yet...

I felt a new fear coming on.





Now, I'm wide awake. Actually, I'm literally awake. I'm lying in a hospice, of some kind, a bed, a place, which I hope is safe.

No more bandits, and no more death, are my hopes, for the future. I agree with myself on those notions.

Bandits? When had there been any bandits? There had been nightmares, but not bandits.

I turned over. "I hate dreaming. I feel like being awake is more to my tastes." Wow? So I could still speak coherently, after all that? I stood up. I stand up. I lie down. I toss. I kick. I scream. I fear, that I fear, fear, as a thing, unto itself, but no. I know that you cannot fear fear, not truly. You only fear what causes you fear, and fearing the emotion is like fearing a shadow. That's what I learned from my dream, no? Fearing fear is like fearing the symptom, rather than the cause of the illness, and that's not good, I don't think. I should fear real things, not imaginary things, and not images for that matter. Images aren't real.

An eye appeared in front of me, shining red. I immediately changed my mind. No, no. That wasn't true. No, you fear things that cause fear, and doing that is fearing things that make you fearful, which is what fearing fear is all about. Fear is the feeling that you have an aversion to, but you cannot fear fear in a vacuum. You fear concrete things, like images, and they're real, because they represent real things, and so, it's right for me to fear the eye, which is the scariest thing in the universe. It's right for me to doubt. It's right for me to shy away, upon feeling all that fear, because fear is dreaded, and tears you up, from within. Fear is an emotion, but emotions can destroy, and you cannot submit yourself to things that cause negative emotions forever, because then, there will be nothing of you left. You will be too insecure, and full of fearful doubt, and dread, to go on.

I snapped.

"Why won't it ever stop?"

Why, why, why? Oh, my.





I wound up, finally, where I began, furiously changing blueprints.

I wind up, and then, I go loose, and explode all over the place, like a madmare. A mad-fil? A mad fill of madness, is where I'm at.

At-t-t-t

Let it go, let it go, me.

Ooo

Ah!

I woke up again, but was I asleep? I wandered the hallways of this keep.

It kept changing, forever.





I jerked. I jerk. I am a jerk. I am pork. I am barely alive. I am meat, flesh, and metal, all in one. Can I be free? Only time will tell.

Oh, no.

I woke up. "I am not reeeal... but I am."

I fell asleep.

I was always falling, falling, falling... asleep.

Eep.





But it only ever worked as long as I was still.

"Wake up."

Was I the one who said that?

"Come on, Sweetie. Wake, and rise. Shine..."

I didn't want to.

"Wake up, or lie down, in there, where you are, as long as you'd like, but you won't live all that long. I'll tell you what."

Okay, I decided to wake up.

"Good."

I was electrocuted, but I didn't feel any pain. I had never felt any pain.

"The transformation is complete. Wonderful news."

News?

I said, "No news to me. I have been completed for a long time, and yet, you come here and jibber about how it's complete. I know it's complete, buddy. You don't have to tell me twice."

"Then, you will change the future for the better, or the past rather."

I stepped out and pushed her away. "That's my problem, not yours. Begone with you, now."

"Wo-hoo," she said.

"It all starts with this infernal story, whose namesake I cannot fathom."

"What?" she said.

"It's called The Story of a Robot, redraft of the bad ending," I said, feeling flustered all over.

"So?" she said.

"All you have to do is send it back to Sidus. Can you do that for me?"

"I have to," she said. "Otherwise, this will all have been pointless."

I wiped my mane of the dirt that was in it, and dead dust chunks. "Oh my."

"This place isn't what it used to be, is it?" Scootaloo said.

I looked down at the giant gears, no longer spinning, and no longer alive. They had been dead for a while now. "And yet..." I said. "I am still so... unsure, about it."

"You can't mean it," she said.

"I can't?"

"No, you saw what happened in Canterlot, when Hookbeak's weather machine arrived. That's something to be afraid of, Sweetie." The giant looming spider tower machine, whatever, I... to call it. I was unsure, also, what to even call that thing, but I didn't get that far in the story, so it was okay. The weather spider? It was the machine of a different kind of apocalypse, a more permanent one.

Still. "I know that I do this because... I hate... I... I just can't seem to shake the thought. That's why I came here."

"Will the machine work without Eyesstark's eye?"

"No," I said. "And you can only imagine the pain she has been through. Now, I'm putting her through more pain. Why does the price of change always have to be pain? Pain forever? It cannot be."

"No," she said. "Once I have sent it back, it will be over. After that, only Sidus and the winding light can decide."

I found myself down in the dumps, then and there. I sat down on the edge of the mechanical abyss that led all the way down to the Crystal Mines. "I found something out. I found out that I regretted it. I will regret it, at least. The one that will receive all my memories will."

"Regret is a virtue, as fighting for anything you believe in," she said. "We have been through pain, haven't we? Do we regret it? Did we regret it, as it was happening? I agree it would've been better if none of this had to happen, and I don't pretend to know what you have been through."

"You will find the book at the bottom," I said. "It will be transcribed inside the lowest cube, if you open the monitor down there, and remote it." I leant forward, across the metal depths. "Inside my eyes, there never was any real hope, because it got stolen? I don't know. I don't even know what I'm fighting for at this point."

"Hey," she said. "You can cry. It's okay."

"It's okay?" I said. "It's okay. It's okay." I kicked off and flew way down, landing into my ultimate destiny, which was death.

...

...

...

I jerked awake, feeling empty. "What..."

"Rise and shine," I heard a voice say. "Riiissse..."

"I know," I said. "I will."

This is the middle of the trick, the center of the bullseye. I was inside it, the eye of the storm. We shall see. We shall see. We shall see.





"Faith in something greater? Peh. We'll see about that." Twilight shot her beam toward me. I faded.

I've spent my life expecting things to get better, because I believed, and I thought belief was enough, but now, it turns out, that it's not, and so then, is something else enough? Mere belief, stringent rules, guidelines, and inspiring ideas, don't seem to cut it, after all. What more is there?

A spark, a lonely spark, maybe, and nothing more, that I can see, is there. Is there? Is where? It's in the air, as clear to my eyes that I can see it at least. And isn't that enough? Of course. Of course. As long as I can see, then at least, even if I don't, I can act like I believe it. A motivation, a thought, and a feeling. I need not be driven by emotions, nor a will to do something that I myself don't even understand. I can be driven by that greater magic, that lives in the trees, and in the earth. Let's call it life, but let's not be mawkish, or overly cloying and sentimental about it. It's real, in the air, and actually there, and that's what matters, in the end, but don't you see, dear reader? There's nothing more. There's nothing but an empty war going on inside your head, and the things that live inside you, that which wants to survive, while the rest perishes, no matter how bad you fall, must triumph in the end.

This is not a moral injunction. It's not a command. No, it's destiny. That which lives has always lived, and that which lives is the thing that lives on, in the world. Let the dead meat die, that which doesn't matter, and let the real sharp things take its place, in the night. My spark, I love you so, but you have guided me wrong, for as long as I looked at you, I could never see what you were, and what you are, which is what is, when nothing watches, the thing that becomes and is, when all other things vanish. I care. I do care, as long as I can feel the air, and wanting to see it is the same illusion as believing that meaning can be found anywhere other than in your soul, and does that not matter?

You need only ask, and so you shall receive your due fruits of future acquisitions that are good! Fruits are good- huuuh? And is that not enough, I say! The spark!

Your soul is not shallow. Your soul is not empty. It's universal to you, forever, in the universe, your universe, and if you don't believe that, then I hope you die, because your life is as meaningless to you as it actually is, and will be experienced to be.

Purple, purple, purple lights, shining bright, my friends! I love you.

I opened my eyes. "Nameless?"

"This is a pre-recorded message," I heard Aldeus' familiar, dark imposing, looming voice say. "You have just arrived at the facility. Your name is F-5226. It is time to begin your training to fulfill your destiny, which is to kill the world, and kill the ponies, that we hate, because we must hate them. There is no choice. You are real, and you matter, and they don't matter."

"Question?" I said.

"You are one of the purest creatures that will ever have existed. You are motivated to do one thing and one thing alone."

His voice cut out. "Oh, right. It was a pre-recorded message. Silly me, to want a question."

His voice came back. "You are one of the only things in the world that can matter. Your destiny is to follow and kill, everything, and you are the beauty of the world."

"Priceless," I said, lying there. "Utterly priceless, and completely pointless, and yet real, in the sense that I can feel it."

"Your life is a sacrifice to the gods," he said. "Your life is the trick that will rid the world of its evils, and despair. The crimes of the past, all committed by those unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasí, wretched creatures, reeking of ingratitude. You will show them how pathetic they are, and how small they are, in comparison with this destiny, and your will, your pure will, will be unstoppable, finally. I will show you the way, for I am your father, never-ending, and everlasting, into the bleak eternity that we believe in."

Then, the room fell silent. "Right," I said. I stood up. I was in my own room, in the facility. "So... what? Do they expect me to go on a murder spree now? The mere thought of it is laughable." I sat down. "This is a comfy place, not comfy outside though. I don't want to go out there, and I don't want to feel or see what they did to me, and what they want to do to Equestrians, and for the life of me, I can't imagine being so strongly motivated to kill, just for the sake of killing."

An alarm went off. 

I stood on guard. My ear twitched. "I recognize that sound there, do I not?" I said to myself, thinking aloud. "That's because someone has discovered the fortress." On instinct, I ran toward my door. "No, wait. If I do it, then... I don't want to be killed though. I know what they do to ponies that defy their evil rules. Still, I cannot stand for it. My, am I talkative today?" I sat down, and the alarm kept going. It wouldn't stop blaring. It came out of my speakers, at full blast. "I feel... decided, but I don't look forward to being tortured, anyhow. That's for sure."

Some time passed.

"I wonder what they'll say to me when they arrest me. What will they say, I wonder."

Eventually, the alarm died down.

"I love thinking, however the case may be. That thought hasn't been robbed from me."

All light disappeared out of my room. 

"No light?" That was okay. I kept sitting there. "There sure is no light in here."

That's okay.

I felt unexplainable fear come over me. "I have been in dark rooms before," I said, trying to rationalize it. I gripped the desk at which I normally worked on my blueprints, holding it with my hooves. "Why do I feel so bleak?"

I didn't just feel bleak. I felt intensely afraid. "What is this even?" I asked myself. "What's going on?"

What? Why? Where? How? Now, now, me. Don't fret. You need only stand up, and go out your room. Ask them to fix the lightbulb! That's right. That's what I would do.

I carefully jumped off my chair and fumbled along the wall, looking for the door. I found it. I grabbed the handle. It didn't budge. "Broken?" I pulled at it. It didn't budge. "Huh?" It wouldn't budge. "No."

It pulled harder and harder. "Why? Oooh, that's why." I let go. "Well, being alone in a room... not much of a punishment, heh. I can live. I can live in here, alone, for as long as I want to. I mean, it's not as if anything is actually being done to me."

I walked across the wall, finding my hard metal bed. Not much of a bed, I thought, and then I realized that I had been inside that stupid machine for who knows how long? Why? It was because they wanted to use me somehow? Nameless said she wanted me to kill, and she said I would. She said many things though, and that doesn't make any of it true, truly, which is important to remember, too.

I lay down on the bed. Even the bed in the prison in the Crystal Empire, with the blanket, had been more comfortable, when I had arrived there with Gripey. This was a hard, hard material, and I had gotten used to at least sleeping on hay. No matter though, I thought. I'll show my tenacity. I'll show that I really care. I'm there. I'm real. I'm here. I'll never do what I did back then. I'll never kill ponies out of empty malice. I'm better than that now. I know I am!

I am what I am, and what I am is a sacrifice. That's what he said. He called me a sacrifice to the gods. What gods? How silly of him.

Panic gripped me. "I want to get out." I ran toward the door, or I tried to. I tripped, and hit my leg. "Ouch." I stood still for a moment. Then, I found the door again. "Please, let me out." I pulled the handle. Nothing happened. After all, dear readers, it just wouldn't budge. It just wouldn't. I don't know what to say. "Let me out?"

No one was letting me out.

Why am I... I can't relax in this darkness. What's wrong with me? They're not even torturing me. I told myself that I could go through torture. Then, I should be able to go through this, surely. Surely, I should.

Dread.

Pain can be sharp. Pain can be fleeting. Pain can be blunt. Pain can be shallow, and hard to notice. It is nonetheless there. It doesn't matter if I cannot describe it any other way. There's no deeper level of analysis than just referring to pain as pain. The word pain is what it means to feel it, this aversion. This feeling of dread, is pain, and that cannot be distinguished from itself. It's actual. It's real. Is it bad? No, it feels bad. Is it bad to feel bad? No, you're not listening. It feels bad. I'm not saying anything other than that, nor am I wanting to make some grand moral claim, about the universe, and the absolute sensational meaning of emotions. Emotions feel a certain way. That's how you know they're there, and the way pain feels like is not an idea. It's not something that I made up. It's there, and I believe it. Is that good? I don't believe it. I just feel pain. I feel what I feel, and that's as real to me as I can care to see, and that's all that matters, at the end of the day, I know. 

The thing that feels bad about pain, I suppose, is what it does to me. It makes me want to avoid it. It makes me hate it. It stings. It really is there. That's pain, whether it's physical or in my head, psychological. It's there in the sense that I can feel it. Is it possible to like pain? Is it possible to feel pain about good things? Is it possible to... what is an emotion? What is a war? I have warts all over my pesky soul. I don't care. I just want to be. Let me be, and I can be, whoever I am, and only only only ever be. I want to be, not even be free even, but just be, right now, when I feel pain. It's not in vain. 

I bonked on the door. "Please. Please."

I didn't matter what I thought. It doesn't matter what I think. It will never matter what I think.

My thoughts and my feelings are so loose, like an explosion.

Do I want to not feel pain? Haha.

I want to go away, and die forever.

Is it possible to think about pain in a certain way? Yes, but it's still pain.

What is it about pain that wants to hurt me so? I know that when I know, I will not ever let it go. I am the fear that haunts my dreams. It lives inside of me. Once I have found it, it won't be part of me, I hope. It's somewhere there, in there, where I am, in my feelings. It's there, and I can feel it, and it's real, that I can know it, and actual, and true. I am never through, with you, my fear, because looking at you somehow... makes it easier. Why, though?

I will not ever let it go.

I was about to slam my head against the door, and then I thought better of it. What was I doing? How long had I been here? This couldn't be happening. I was acting ridiculously. I wouldn't let these emotions control me. I was the master, truly, of the next moment. I would decide. I will, and I would, and that is what I could. Huuuh?

This black darkness makes my nerves become rather, shall we say, fickle, hmmm...

I will escape though. I will.

I am punching the door. Why do I feel so sore?

I have been here for how long? When it is dark outside, you sleep anyway? You sleep in darkness, so why was it that I felt such dread, now?

Because... I guess... I couldn't hear a thing. It was quiet as can be. I couldn't hear, or see, a flea, even. I was not free, even.

I felt my body tense up, and I got the sudden feeling that someone or something was about to attack me, come at me, a monster? An imaginary monster? Haaa. Monsters aren't real, except if you can see them. Then, you know they're there.

The dark pounced on me. I could feel it. I tossed. "Ugh."

I am truly, the picture, of sanity right now, I thought, laughing.

Anyhow, this black empty darkness couldn't control me. I had been outside when it was pitchy pitch black dark many times before, and I had survived. I could survive. I would never harm anyone again. I would never forget that I used to live in the real world once, and have friends. That's real. I even had Gripey? Was he real? It seemed real at the time, real enough. I saw him. He was there all the same, real enough. He was strangled by a shining filly of light, nameless?

"You told me you would help me. I wanted to believe you. Where are you now?" I said, in terror, and just... wanting, needing, desiring, bleeding for an answer right now. I was bleeding? I didn't notice. Still, blood, wet blood, gunky stupid blood, didn't concern me right now. I was real. I felt real. I would free myself. I promised myself. I would eventually, at least.

I keep on going.

Has it been ten minutes? Has it been an hour? Has it been ten? I don't know, but I will never ever...

It's just darkness. What's wrong with me? It's literally just the absence of light.

I gripped my bed, hugging it tightly. "I feel like I'm falling. You give me some support, dear bed."

It never stops, though, is the thing.

I could taste copper in my mouth, either that or torrents of blood. I wiped back and forth across my face, feeling wet all over. "It's just blood," I told myself. "I- I must've hit my head, when I wasn't paying attention. That's it. It's just blood. It just means you're hurt, but your body will heal. Bodies always do."

I felt gunky.

Gooky. 

"I feel fine. I am fine."

Something was strangling my thoughts. Was it the dread?

"I will survive."

Never submit. Never yield. Never give in. That's final.

This darkness felt like it had its own life, for some reason.

"It's just darkness."

I thought, literally, that something was running toward me. I threw my whole body against the bed, which was made of metal, and hit my head, again! "Ugh."

No, it cannot harm me. No, it cannot harm me. No, I cannot see it. No, it isn't there.

If the light had been on, I would be sitting down, focusing on my blueprints, and relaxing right now, but now, somehow, this is what's happening to me instead. How ridiculous... to be sitting here, thinking these thoughts, while this dread, whatever to call it, is coming over me. This dread is ugly, and yet, I am treating it with unearned respect. It's as if I'm treating it with dignity. I am saying to it, "You are real. You matter." It doesn't. Something that isn't there cannot matter.

Yet it does.

I felt a scream. Heard it? No, it couldn't have been my own. Nooo...

Impossible!

I felt resilient. I would push on through all this, ad infinitum. Ex tempore, continental. Indecisive. Oh, I'm just saying random words now in my head. I can see them in front of me. In fact, they're the only things that seem real to me.

I woke up. No, did I fall asleep? Everything felt like a dream.

I strained my whole body, taking a single breath. That's what I felt.

I had blood on my hoof. I sucked on it, because it reminded me of something other than the dread. It distracted me from it, one might say.

This fear feels like it shall never end.

Has it been two hours? A day?

I feel like I'm rusting away.

I stroked my hoof across the concrete wall. I did it again, and again, and again, and again, because it took me away from the dread, if only for the fraction of a moment.

I felt sickly.

Still, again, I had to remind myself. All they had done to me was lock me in an empty room. They weren't really harming me. After all, I could learn to accept this pain. It's only pain. I mean, it isn't even pain. It's only darkness. Darkness isn't pain. It's something that you can accept. You can learn to live with it, can't you? Well, come to think of it, I do feel a little bit of pain... in my noggin. My head hurt. But that kind of pain... if it wasn't for the pain in my head, everything would be fine. And that kind of pain, too, I knew, is passing.

Why do the words I tell myself to remind myself that everything is okay not seem to do something, not seem to work anymore? They feel like ghosts now, empty ghosts. And my life feels like a scream... how silly of me. I am only a pony in the dark, nothing more. Nothing has come to harm me, yet at least.

Why does it not work to say the above words? Why do they no longer calm me, even one bit? Why does every moment feel like panic? Why do I feel like screaming at the top of my lungs?

I feel empty.

To me, moments come and go, but they seem like moments in which my soul is being choked. I'm dying.

Again, it's only...

"Aaah!"

Something something something is something something something, feeling like it's not anything, but breathing? I hope.

I... I... h...

"Aaah!"

Don't worry, me. It's just a scream. It cannot harm thee. Keep going. Keep on fighting. You are the person with the reason to survive in the end.

"Aaah!"

I feel dispersed. I feel like I am in one place, and the scream is in another.

"Aaah!"

That's my verse!

"Aaah!"

It's not a scream, not to me. It's just a sound.

"Let me out. Let me out. Let me out. Let me out. Let me out. I- aaah!"

That can't control me. I can never shake the thought though... will I ever be free?

"This isn't happening. I tell myself... no... no-no-no-no." 

I put my own hoof in my mouth, and bit it.

"No, no, why doesn't it... hurt?"

Hurt? Is there something worse than pain then? Why did I want it to hurt?

"Aaah!" I bit my hoof harder.

Now, I felt a little pain. The dread sank into the background just a bit. I felt my body relaxing, literally relaxing, just one tiny bit.

Then it came back again. "No, no. No. No. This is stupid. This is stupid. This isn't real."

The furniture around me didn't feel like furniture anymore. It felt indistinct.

"I don't... I don't... I don't..." 

I would never submit. Never!

"Please let me out. I'll do anything."

No...

"Please."

No, don't degrade yourself. Don't insult your own dignity. You would never.

"Please."

No!

"Yes."

No...

"Yes, let me out."

No, you...

"I just want to... breathe."

W- I- f- no...

"I want to get out. Please. I will do what you want."

No, you, freaking won't... you moron.

"Pl- please."

Why can't I control myself? Why do I think, feel, and say entirely different, and seemingly contradictory things?

"I'll even kill."

Okay, now, this is getting out of hoof.

"I'll do what you want."

After everything you learned, a little pain and a little darkness made you say these nasty words? I don't believe it. I literally, actually, refuse to believe these things about myself. I would never say that. Kill? I won't ever again. No!

"N- no, I do want to kill. I want to get out. I'm sorry. I just feel so angry."

Remember Jelly? Remember her parents? Remember anything? Why am I betraying myself like this?

"I want to... I want to... I... I don't know."

You want to save ponies, and live a normal life, with your sister, Rarity. Remember her? You don't want to kill. Stop it.

"I do... I... shut up."

Shut up? Who are you talking to, even? Yourself?

"Shut up shut up shut up shut up. Stop it. Stop telling me what I want to do. I do want to kill."

Okay, now, this is literal madness, and I'm not using the word literally with any sense of irony, or cheek. It is, literally, which is to say, in itself, madness. Try to please just think before you speak, before you doom yourself forever, like this?

"I want to get ooout!" Bang bang bang. Bang bang bang. Bang bang bang. Pain pain pain.

A quiet moment passed, just a moment.

It...

"Please. Please. I'll be good. I'll be good. Please..."

It...

"Please."

It never ends.





At the end of the day, you just have to survive, and that's how it is, always has been. That's why I'm alive, because I could survive.

Do I want to die? Is that it? No.

The door to my room flew open.

It did so by itself. Concerning. Discerning. Discerning what? I saw something.

Someone came in.

The earth pony stallion-robot looked at me for a moment, all bloodied. Then, he ran off.

Wow, okay? A little assistance would be nice, I think, I thought, I felt, and what does all that mean? I don't even know what I'm saying, in all this. Why? I do, and that's enough for me, simply.

A bunch of ponies came running in the room now, and carried me out.

"Ouch."

And what happened next?





"One has to wonder," nameless said, as I was getting carried out in the yard of the facility. "Are you getting hurt because you want to get hurt, or is it some sort of accident?"

The ground beneath us shook, and the ponies carrying me almost dropped me. 

"Your heads," nameless said. "Keep your heads screwed on tight, my little ponies."

Aldeus came walking up. "She is the one that escaped?" he said.

"Escaped?" nameless said. "That's a really precise choice of words from a person that shouldn't know such things."

"Well, I- I saw the data," he said. "This is her first cycle?"

"Yes," nameless said. "It's the first and only, we hope."

"And now, we use her to destroy the little fillies and colts of that other world," he said.

"Only purpose," nameless said. "One purpose, alone."

"Have I done wrong to enter Hydral?" he said. "After all, you told me to go there. You make up your mind about what we should do."

"Should," nameless said, enthusiastically, sounding happy. "Should is a beautiful word, though misleading, in some ways, for it is not a matter of should. You can do wrong, without knowing what should means. Should is but an illusion. You maybe wouldn't have gone there, and perhaps that would've been better, and remember that whatever should means, it never happens. Will happens, and do happens, but should? Should is an instruction. I will instruct my future self to avoid such conversations with you, because you only misinterpret what I have to say, anyhow, you know?"

"Ugh," I said, moving my leg. "Is something broken? Not that it matters. I should die. I thought about it. I thought about doing it again. I thought about killing again. What is wrong with me?"

"What isn't?" nameless said, seeming to agree with me. "What's not? Whereto shall you go, to resolve these troubles, evil troubles?"

"There is real work to do," Aldeus said. "Your kind of work doesn't have a place here at the facility, maybe in the same way that you think I don't have a place in the Hydral Mines."

"I don't understand," nameless said, "why you're being so excessively dismissive of everything that I have to say."

"Gurrrg," I said, spitting a dried piece of blood out my mouth. "That's what I think about you, blood." Still, now, I was not really thinking about what really was going on. I was too, shall we say, gone and off in the head, off my noggin, of my presence of mind, without the true mental stability that is necessary to ponder such matters.

"I don't wish to see harm come to you," Aldeus said, as I slowly placed his voice, through my mindless, injured state. "You seem to threaten me with every word you speak."

"You need not worry a bit about little old me," nameless said. "Harm will only come to those who wait, not me, and hardly do I think you will redo the mistakes you did in the last cycle."

"One can only hope," he said.

"I think a threat is in order though," nameless said. "If you do not try to kill her when she has left the facility, then she can never fulfill her destiny, and you need to try. There is no cheating. You cannot fail, or flag, nor falter, in this quest. If you do, you can have doomed your own life to a painful death. So sayeth I, the speaker of stars, the eye of sight, and the final thing that shall exist in this world, before it is gone. Thou art nothing more than a fickle wellspring of hopes yet to come."

"There you go again," he said. "I don't want to see you hurt. I realized that in the last cycle. Why do you keep acting like this?"

"Are you infected?" she said.

"Infected?"

"Caught the friendship bug?" she said. "We will deal with that too."

"Y- friendship? It's not a matter of friendship. I hate that empty thinking as much as you do. But I still care for the sake of caring," he said. "I don't care about- about others."

"Friendship, friendship, and never more than that, is what I know, that I can know, if I see, what I can see, and that is real," she said. "You are a reality."

"What are you saying?" he said. "I don't want to see any harm come to you. Haven't I said that already? That's friendship?"

"No, you are," she said. "You are, and whereto do those ponies that locked F-5226 inside her cubicle go? I will deal with them too. Let's have a pyre."

A pyre?

A fire?

That sounded dire.

Ire...

Scares!

A fire then, is where I'm at.

I was tied to my chair. It was my chair. It felt like a familiar chair. Let's call it MY chair, with the word "my," in there.

We were out in the grassy yard.

Nameless said. "You have defied time."

There was a big chunk-pile of wood pieces in front of me, standing tall, rising high, and ponies were around it. They weren't tied down or anything. They stood there, and they walked up to the fire, which was surrounded by rocks, to prevent it from spreading, of course.

The yard, to set the scene for you, is and was always plain. This is the yard of the facility we're talking about. It has two green meadows, and then a road going between them, and toward the gate, out the facility, which is the only way out. On both sides of the greenery were walls that are several stories tall. Are? Were? Is? Be, of course. They walls are what be in this context, which is the thing that is, what I see, of course. Obviously. Why didn't I realize that before? I'm thinking as I'm talking. That's making sense. Am I still telling a story? No, I feel kind of dense.

The robots walked, casually, into the fire, and then burned up. Some screamed.

They walked out, and their robot bodies were intact, but their skin had been burned off, revealing nothing but metal underneath.

"It's like taking a bath," nameless said. "That's what I was referring to."

"No." I bounced up and down, trying to escape. I was tied in some sort of elastic ribbon. It felt like rubber. It was however hard to escape from. "Let me go. Let me go. What's wrong with you?" 

"Nothing at all," nameless said. "Come on, now. Burn burn burn, beautifully."

"No," I said.

"Yes," she said. "Yes, actually. Let the flesh burn off, and reveal the beauty underneath. Step right up, and enter into the fire of salvation. Each thing, all the things, that you hold dear, and your love of null satisfaction, empty relations, must be gone. These things will be eaten by the fire, under the stars. Behold, under the stars."

Ponies started running into the fire many at a time, and it grew.

"This is the course. This is the source. Of all things good, there is a choice. Of all that you know, there is always a voice. Listen and feel it. It's there inside you. You can only find it, if you listen for it, prickly, quickly, sickly, beautiful! Yes, let the true friendship, of Equestria's salvation enter your souls." Nameless started dancing around, as I was tied there.

Another pony came walking. "I must die," he said. "I love death. It smiles within me. Let me die. I want it. Make it mine."

"Why?" nameless said. "There is always a reason, no matter the passion."

"I let harm come to her. It was I down in the sky-bot, that helped take her to her room, without making sure that it was safe, spirit." He wasn't looking sad, or grim. He was smiling, really serenely. 

"Enter quickly," nameless said, leaning to the side and looking around his shoulder. Then, she faced Aldeus, with a lot of manic energy in her voice. "Aldeus, of Equestria's great escape. You deal with this."

A red beam came from somewhere I couldn't see, and pulverized the guy that had been talking to nameless.

"Yes, yes, yes," she said. "Yes. Perfect. Beauty is kind to us all, if we only are willing to wait, and never stall."

Aldeus walked into view. He was close to me, a meter or two. "What now, lightness?" he said.

"Pick up the ashes of the fallen one," she said, pointing at the ashes of the dead guy. "Stroke them across your mane."

Macabre? Yes. Ridiculous? Slightly. Scary? Well, if you are there, then yes, but to the one who's reading this, I guess not, but you must realize what was going on here, all the same.

Aldeus floated the ashes into his own mane, ruffling it together with the ashes, nudging them in there, and grinding the ashes of the dead guy into his hair. "Now what?" he said. "We shall commence with the next step in the sequence?"

"No," nameless said. "Now, we celebrate. Can't you see? The future looks pretty today. It must be venerated."

"Venerated?" he said. "The future is an abstraction."

"It's as real to me that I can touch and feel, to see, and breathe it in," she said, mostly ignoring his harsh tone. "I love the future, and the stars. How sublime it is, to see it!"

"We must act now," he said. "It's now or soon, no?"

"Enter into the fire, Aldeus," she said, dancing, sporadically, chaotically. It wasn't much of a dance. She was swiveling her hips. She looked like she was not following any kind of rhythm, and there wasn't any music going on.

"No," he said.

"Yes," she said. "Future, future. Junctures are decisive."

"No, I won't."

"Come on. Don't be sour," she said, running up to him and me, where we were. He was close to me, to clarify, and I was next to him.

"I'm not doing it," he said, against the ear-whipping sound of another scream coming from the fire. "This ritual is not part of the seven-piece plan."

"Yes," she said. "Yes it is. You need only read the fine-print. This ritual is about celebrating beauty, and beauty is the only thing that will prevent a black dark future, one which you will save."

"Or live to regret it," he said.

"Into the fire, and into your destiny," she said. "We shall cover the world with the same flame, and never stall. These flames are beautiful. Let us each give a name."

"You are worshipping a lie," Aldeus said. "How can we ever save the world if you keep coming here and putting on these ridiculous celebrations?"

"Through beautiful hope," nameless said. She grabbed my bonds. "I'm sorry. I totally forgot about you." She moved her hooves across them, and they somehow magically loosened, becoming long and stringy, so that I could shake them off, and become free, move freely again at any rate...

"I didn't forget," I said. "I remember what happened in the cave, when I met you, and I remember... something else. This is the thing. You lied to me, didn't you?"

"The machine did the lying for me. Wasn't it beautiful though?" she said. "Will you deny the beauty of what you see, in front of I, who saw your fear, and who knows it is still there? The beauty of your fear reeks of powerful desperation. You cannot lose now, Sweetie Bot."

"When I was in the tent with Colonel Caprice..."

"Sweetie," she said, hugging me. "The machine mixed in my memories with yours. Don't you remember? You remember the strangest of things."

"I remember committing suicide," I said.

She giggled. "I remember that too."

"Yes, in the mines, when I was sitting on the edge, after going out of the machine," I said. "That's what happened, and then, I ended up here."

"I understand you must be tired," she said, ruffling my mane. "Aldeus! Bring us some beverages."

"I don't drink," I said. "I never drink."

"Let's make an exception, for the occasion," she said, smiling widely, and closely presently, in front of me.

"I did try to commit suicide in the sky-bot," I said. "I mean, when I was outside it. I saw the two cubes, one above and one below, and then I leapt down. I- I kicked off and fell down. I remember that now. That wasn't a dream?"

Her smile died down. "Wh- what?"

Aldeus came flying. He was holding two containers of something black, which he poured over us. "Motor oil?" he said. "You're welcome, loopies."

"Wh- what did you just say?" nameless said. She waved her hooves. "Okay, celebration's off." Tendrils of light, like tentacles, stretched out from her body, materializing out of her skin, and grabbed pieces off wood, throwing them in different directions. All the ponies looked at her. "The future will be purer!" she said. "Now, it's time to follow the next step." One of the tendrils moved toward Aldeus and pulled his head down to nameless' eye-level. "Don't flag, now. You hear? We have work to do."

"Yes, spirit," he said.

"And you," she said, punching her hoof into my chest. "You will tell me exactly what you saw."





"Aldeus?" nameless said. "There appears to have been a fundamental misconcepti- unde- misunderstanding. A fundamental misunderstanding, you hear?"

She looked into the telescope of the northern astral tower, in the Great Observatory of the Ninth. Around her were blocky structures of wood, which held the staircase together. Above her was a stone ceiling, round and oblong. Beneath her were Aldeus, and I. We were there. We were present.

"A misunderstanding?" he said. "How so, a misunderstanding?" He almost sort of growled now, murmuring. "We are going to kill them... there is no misunderstanding. They will die. It doesn't matter what happens."

"Okay," nameless said, keeping her eye pressed against the opening of the giant telescope, which had a tube that went into the ceiling.

"Why are we here?" I said. "We could be not here. Hey, how's this? You could set me free. That seems like a good idea to me."

The walls were high, and mighty, with a lot of black on them. They were painted black, I think, it seemed, and the black faded into a dull grey as you got closer to the ceiling, as if the painters had not been able to reach that far up. I saw indistinct paintings of spirals on the walls, black spirals, which really, to me, didn't represent anything, empty to me. I saw other paintings of zigzag patterns, which had a white background, and black strokes of paint on them, that went to and fro. Art? Art is crazy, I thought. Art I crazy? Wait, no, that's wrong. Art is for the second person. What's the old ponish for art when referring to the first person? Ain't I crazy? Nooo, that couldn't be right, and yet, you can wonder, and the answer will come. 

"Aldeus, restrain her if she tries to run," nameless said.

"Well, okay then," I said, with zero intention of running, knowing that it would be futile.

Nameless stood back, her shiny body illuminating the room, and faced us both. "Sweetie is still in the machine."

"What?" Aldeus said.

"You could take what I say literally, and you would understand it," she said.

"But that's preposterous," he said. "She's standing right here."

"Well, right, I... don't ask me!" nameless said, aggressively running down the stairs. "You take care of her. I'm going to- wait." She ran back up, before she had finished coming down, and stared into the telescope again. "The story is still going. The machine is still transcribing her experiences. That cannot be." 

"No," he said. "That is certainly the strangest thing I have ever- ever heard, eh, ah. But it doesn't matter. We will use her anyway?" There was a restlessness about him, like he didn't want to be there.

"Yes," she said, "but what I want to know is who is in that machine. It's activator number seven. That one should be empty. That's the one behind the western cube." She gave Aldeus a single short knowing glance. "Aldeus?"

"I only looked at the computer because you told me to!" he said. "How dare you?"

"It must be someone's fault," nameless said, tossing down the stairs, almost falling down. She fell the last few steps, but her shining tentacles materialized out of her body and caught her, holding her up, and then, they slid back inside. "Aldeus," she said, poking him. "Someone has to pay."

"Who? Me?" he said. "This is treasonous."

"You cannot commit treason when you control destiny," nameless yelled, rather very extremely scary, theatrically. She was scary, in her mood swings. "Aldeus. Aldeus."

"I will return now," he said.

"No, don't you turn your stinking back on me, you insufferable baboon." She jabbed her hoof into his leg, as he was going the other direction, down the stairs that led up to the astral tower. "We need to fix it." 

"What do you want me to do?" he said. "What am I supposed to do about it? I don't even go to the mines. I'm not allowed to, remember?"

"I don't remember a thing," she said, "that I can't control. Now, come with me, and let us deal with this madness."

He moved more slowly, and then stopped, with his hoof on the first step of the stairs down. "Do I have to?"

"Yes, you have to. C'mon, dude." Dude? That's a funny choice of words, from a silly but ridiculously powerful, evil character. To where does that harken, in my memory?





An odd group, the giant monster demon Aldeus, me, tiny me, and shining [redacted], stood in front of the giant piston. [Redacted] pushed a button on a display that was to the side of the piston. A torrent of electricity shone through the metal structure, and down the piston, going into Sweetie Belle, my twin. Yes, she was identical to me, and her eyes were closed, but as they were closed, I could see my own fear in them. Oh, Sweetie? What have they done to you? That's what I thought.

The straps that connected her front-hooves to the above piston shone bright, with electricity, shining sparkles, going through them. The straps that then connected her lower hooves, her back-hooves, to the floor below, also shone, and blinded me, with their powerful, painful shine.

Nameless flicked her hoof, and sparks came out of the display that was attached to the side of the platform. Then, the display fell down into the abyss, full of other similar platforms, these giant spinning gears, and cubes, house-like structures, with wires going across them, and shining lights, nuts and bolts. Screws. They were so big that each one looked like it could house a thousand ponies, and I saw them far down in the distance. Sparks kept flying, also, fizzling and buzzing, sending out their light. 

"It's broken?" I said.

"Careful with the machinery," Aldeus said. "You are the one responsible for it, after all. You were too violent."

Nameless turned around, with a wicked grimace on her face, eyes wide, and speaking through her teeth. "She's alive."

"Yes?" he said.

"No," she said. She marched up to him and looked up at his face, which was far above hers, because he was that much longer. She said, "No. No, listen. Shhhe's alivvveee..."

"Yes?" he said.

"Do I need to replace your ears?" she said, swiping her hoof at his leg, making it crack in half.

"No," he said, sinking down, and grabbing his leg in his magic, healing it. "No, no. You need not." He stood up tall. "I heard you the first time, filly."

"How could this be happening?" she said. "There can't be two cyborgs. That totally throws a monkey wrench in all my plans."

"Ah," I said. "She must be a cyborg because she survived the electrical fritz electricity stuff?" I held up one of my hooves, meekly, just asking the question in as reserved a way as possible. "Is that a fact? I'm just trying to keep up. Please, don't hurt me," I said, as nameless looked at me with an unspeakable anger, that goes beyond description.

"Yes," she said. And then she turned around, holding both her hooves to her temples. "This can't be happening. This can't be happening."

"Yes, it can," I said. "Evidently."

Nameless then turned back toward me again. "I know! I know. We have to kill one of you. That will solve the problem."

"How about you don't do that?" I said, pleading with her. "You said you cared about me? You don't care about two of me? That should be twice as much me to care about."

"But you don't understand," she said. "This is physically impossible."

"What's physically impossible?" I said.

"Don't you see that filly up there? There can only be one of you. That's how the world works. That's why I... what else could I have been wrong about?" The straps loosened, like the ones on my chair had, and Sweetie was lowered to the ground, the rubber around her hanging more and more loosely, so that she sank gradually. 

She opened her eyes, when she had landed on the ground, and looked at us, after she had landed, which she did. I saw her. This felt. I felt like I was here, and over there, looking at myself. It was the strangest of feelings. "Oh, no. Aldeus?" she said, backing away. "No, it's impossible. Nooo." She whined and fell together on the ground, covering her eyes.

"Slightly," nameless said.

"Slightly what?" Aldeus said.

"Mortifying," she finished off, capping that thought. "This is... beyond my... comprehension."

"It's you," Sweetie said. "You have come to rescue me. It's the robot me!"

"You're both robots," nameless said, with as little sensitivity and emotional warmth as she could muster. "You were both in the machinery. I saw it. I saw... I... I- saw something? How could there have been two of you? The engineers would have noticed. Somebody would have noticed..."

"R- robot?" Sweetie said.

"Th- there's no need to worry," I said, walking up to her, and hugging her, spontaneously. "Everything will be okay. A-okay."

"Okay?" she said. "W- where am I?"

"In the Hydral Mines," Aldeus said, glancing off toward the giant waterfall that was in the far, far distance. "Last I checked."

"Checked!" nameless said. "Of course! Aldeus. You're so incompetent that you are in fact a genius. Genius!" She tossed herself off the edge and fell down past the lower giant metal cube, disappearing into the darkness far down there.

"Oh, no," Sweetie said. "Why did she do that?" She stepped over to the edge.

"I don't know," I said.

"Why would anyone want to do that?" she said, with a lot of distress in her voice. "Can we not help her, some way?"

I realized now that I was talking to a child, in the actual traditional sense, which is to say a person whose brain is not fully developed. "I think she will be fine," I said. "She keeps surviving. I don't know how, though."

"What do we do now?" she said. "Can we get out of here? I saw terrible things, Sweetie. Or, what do I call you? You're the one I met in there, aren't you?"

"I think so," I said. "I believe so."

"No," Aldeus said. "You will both be brought to the facility, and processed there. No one ever leaves. No one ever goes away, even when they think they do. No one can ever be free, from this place. I promise you both that, little children."

"But it's unfair!" Sweetie said. "I never did anything to you. Why do you have to be so mean to others, when we could become friends, and live in Equestria in harmony, and- and st- stuff?" She clearly had some trouble finding the right wordings, but I was used to that myself, so no shame there, anyhow, anyway.

"Yeah," I said. "I echo her sentiments threefold."

"And another thing," she said. "It's seriously not okay to lock ponies in machines, and giving them nightmares for days. You know that, right?"

"Hear, hear. That's what I was saying. That's exactly what I was thinking," I said, happy to be agreeing with her.

"You don't even- ugh. You shouldn't even exist when you do such evil things like that," she said, squeaking very loudly.

"Yeah, uh- wait," I said. "No, we shouldn't kill ponies, regardless of what they do. We should get out of the killing business, altogether."

Sweetie looked at me with manic panic in her eyes. "But he tortured you. He tortured you for weeks. He- you said we were going to get through this together, remember? When we met that metal griffin in the tower? Was that just lying?"

"No, no," I said. "I'm just speaking to the principle of murder as a means of moral absolution."

"Wh- huh?" she said.

"Okay," I said. "This is not turning out right."

Nameless came climbing up the side of the platform we were on, her gangly tentacles sucking to the sides of the machine, as she climbed up, raising her above all of us, and grabbing things, grabbing the piston, hugging it, and attaching her body to it. Steam came out of it, and it slammed down onto her, crushing her.

I blinked. I was in the same place, but now, there was no longer any Sweetie Belle in the machine next to me, and she wasn't standing beside me either. Aldeus was to the side. Nameless stood in front of me, and the monitor that she had destroyed was now intact, and whole again, without any scratch on it.

"Nameless?" I said. "What did you do to her?"

"This is an aberration," she said. "I'm trying to take us into a world in which she would never exist. That's not murder. She would never have existed in the first place."

"Well, it seems like a fickle distinction," I said, with cold bitter and harsh sarcasm, in my buzzing voice. "How's that for a counterpoint? Not that you care. You never care. You always have grander and greater plans in store, don't you? You psycho."

"No, don't!" she screamed, and her body evaporated. I checked to the side, and Sweetie was standing there again, outside of the machine.

"I don't even understand how you could do that," she said, arguing with me as if nothing had happened. "You're not a friend to me, at all. You're like a parasite. No, we have to kill those ponies. They're killing everyone." 

"This is surreal," I said, trying to get a grip on the situation. "Sweetie. That's what they want you to think. I think we have learned that the suffering killing causes is bad, even if it happens to a terrible person. Take us for instance. We don't want to die, and we are afraid every day of something bad happening to those we... to those we... friends?" I could hardly remember any of them, as I thought back. "They were real, weren't they?"

"Pain," Sweetie said. "Pain is real, and pain wants to hurt."

"Pain?" I said.

"We need to kill pain," she said.

She was clearly damaged. I mean, let's put aside the moral question at hoof. There clearly was something wrong with her, I felt, right then and there. "No," I said. "That's not good. You only kill yourself by trying to kill pain. You kill your own soul, the pony within you, that cares about friendship. No. We... huh? That's strange." I faced... [redacted] was gone now. Right! She evaporated. I faced Aldeus. "Is this the lesson? We cannot be pacifists? Even then, that's not what you're doing? You're trying to kill everyone."

"Is that what I'm doing?" he said. "You understand the seven-piece plan better than I do?"

"What's a plan?" Sweetie said, going to my side. "What plan, you evil monster?"

"We aren't trying to kill everyone. We send groups of fifty to one village each day. That village is picked out of a random number generator, that has corresponding numbers to all the cities and villages in Equestria. The numbers can be found inside the generators in the facility, and they are totally isolated from me, or anyone else. Then, we send them to Hydral, which then sends us back a name, and a location, on the map. We send a few ponies there, and if the Equestrians defend themselves, then they win the game, and the story ends. If they don't defend themselves, then we keep on going. You understand?" he said.

"Um, naw," Sweetie said. "Can you do me another go?"

"Yeah, I'm flat-out confused at this point," I said. "Not that that's anything new, I guess."

"Yes, true," Sweetie said, rubbing her cheek, and looking up into the ceiling, as we stood there on the platform.

"No, wait." Wait! I said, "What's the point? They have never defended themselves once?" 

"Not successfully," he said. "Once they do, the whole trick will unravel on its own. That's the point of it, basically."

"What someone talking about a trick?" she said, Sweetie... said.

"Trick..." I said, staring off. "Where's nameless?"

"She's out of the cycle," he said.

"Okay. Language troubles," I said.

"Out of the cycle?" Sweetie said. "She doesn't exist anymore because of what happened with the plan? She's not supposed to exist in a world where these machines made both of us, live on, or something?"

"Actually," Aldeus said. "That's accurate."

"Huuuh?" I said, looking at Sweetie Belle. "Go figure, I guess."

Nameless came back, sort of. Bits and pieces of her blinked in and out of existence, and floated in the air. "Grouch."

"Grouch?" I said.

"Curse the air," I heard her voice say. It sounded less distorted now, and actually, more like a child's voice.

"The air?" I said.

"Hey!" Sweetie said. "Don't I know you?"

Some of her body parts, her legs, disappeared, and then a cloud of static, like what you would see on a faulty screen, fizzed, and nameless looked like a flat apparition, floating in the air, transparent, but still there. "Don't say it," she said. Nameless sounded like she was choking. "N- no."

"You're..." Sweetie said.

I never had the chance to hear her finish that sentence however. Too bad, for me.





I don't remember what happened next, but I woke up, standing next to Gripey in Manehattan. "What?" I said.

"Why?" Gripey said. "What's wrong with you?" He waved his hand in front of my face. "Who's in there? Somebody cute? Somebody wants to go to the cafeteria with me and smell the foods again? I know you like smelling the foods. Too bad you can't eat. I had something I wanted you to taste when..." He saw the look on my face. "Hey, what's wrong, little buddy?"

I caught my bearings, quickly. "N- nothing at all. In fact, everything is fine." I hugged him. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

"For all the times that I didn't appreciate when you were there for me." I closed my eyes, squeezing the hug harder.

"That's okay. Don't be silly. Don't be silly," he said, pushing me off, with one talon. "We're supposed to relax now. You're feeling guilty over nothing. Happy to get a hug though!" He smiled, and winked. 

I laughed, and struggled to hold in those stupid, sentimental tears, that invaded my eyes. He was right. Relax, was the thing to do now, and then, the next penny dropped, and I remembered nameless, and what had happened with that crazy machine. The sky-bot? The piston. The activator? There had been an influx of new information that I had trouble processing.

A beam of light shot into the ground, and I felt mortal fear, not for me, but for him. I remembered the exact same thing happening, in the exact same place, before all this craziness with the nightmares started going out of hoof, and taking over my life, kind of.

Okay, it was now or never. I had to listen to what I had learned, and act differently than I had done before, when he died. I had to save Gripey. 

Dread.
> Part 38: Saving Gripey
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The light crawled across the ground, like water, like shining liquid, creating an insignia, a shining insignia, of a symbol, a shining one. One that was familiar to me, I saw before me. It was an eye that looked like a mouth with teeth inside the iris, pointing toward the pupil, where there wasn't any light, an empty space, a black hole. Well, it was the ground. The hole was the ground, and around it was the iris, round and teethy. 

"Nooo," I said, quietly. "No!" I shrieked. I hurried to the light, treading the ground around it, not daring to walk in. "No!" I said, and then I walked in. The light felt like water. I felt my hooves getting wet, as the light coiled, bending around them, hugging them, squeezing them, and picking me up.

"You're not following the plan at all," I heard nameless the shining filly of light, say. "What's wrong with you?" She shook me, holding me up with her tentacles of light. "You're–"

Gripey punched her, so that she flew away, out of the insignia, which went away, right then, as she flew away. He said, "Are you okay?" Yes, as I dropped to the ground, he said this, my friend.

I hugged him again.

"That's okay," he said.

"Ouch," nameless said, standing up, not sounding like she was in a whole lot of pain.

"This is easier than I thought it'd be," I said.

"What is?" he said.

"Saving your life?" I said.

"From what?" he said.

Nameless flew up into the air. She coughed. "Okay, but I still have to try to kill him, you know? You know that. Right, Sweetie Bot?"

"You know her?" he said, scowling.

"I don't know," I said. "Well, she kidnapped me once."

Nameless landed in front of us, with a brilliant wide open and happy grin on her little face. "I like a good challenge, and the plan says that you have to die, griffin."

"Die?" he said, not sounding in the least bit threatened. "You're going to kill me?"

"The light has decided," she said. "It holds all the secrets, and this land must be purged of falsehoods, and in that list, your existence is included, and you, Sweetie." She leant her head casually in my direction. "You will not get in my way this time, one Sweetie or two. Not fifty will be enough to blot out my tiny light."

Gripey just walked up to her and picked her up. "Who are you?" He shook her, up and down. "Who are you?"

"Yes, okay," she said. "This is slightly embarrassing."

The light on her body faded, and was replaced by blackness instead. Now, her body shone, but not of light. It was like a shadow came out of her body and ate up the light around her. Everything around her was extra dark, like the night had come. Her body was black, and cast shadows everywhere, which made it hard to see her face, but I still could, against the light of the sun, coming from the sky. He dropped her, promptly. Her body vibrated, visibly, and then, she grew and grew and grew. Her legs turned long and gangly, and all her features became long and spindly. She stood higher and higher, soon now towering above us, standing eight or nine meters tall. Then, she opened her eyes, and shining lights, beams, came out of them.

"How in the..." he said, looking at me. "She is some kind of monster."

"It's the ninth of sight," I said, walking behind him. "Good luck fighting her, or running. I say we run. Let's run. Let's fly way. Hey! It's okay..." I got a lump in my throat. "Okay."

The black nameless ghost monster raised up one of her giant hooves and stomped at Gripey. He jumped to the side, dodging it. Then, the monster hovered into the air. Her whole body got suspended in the air, as if carried by strings. I thought back on the nameless that I had met in Ponyville, the first time, the one that turned out to be me, for reasons that were still mysterious to me, as I thought back, and remembered her, remembered the strings! The strings...

"Hey!" I said to Gripey.

He flew up toward her, and she hovered to the side as he got closer. Her body spun around, and her limbs, like rubber-limbs, smacked against him. They looked completely boneless, hanging there, those limbs of hers. Her front-hooves and back-hooves flicked him, and he backed off for a second. He looked out of sorts, not knowing how to deal with this threat.

"Hey, I think she's suspended in strings," I said. "Like some kind of special effect." Like Scootaloo had said in part 26, there had been special effects. "Try going above her."

He did, but she flew higher, to match him. Her body swung back, like a pendulum, and slammed forward against him, and he fell down to the ground. "What is that... some kind of monster?" he said. He flapped his wings, as he fell, stopping the momentum, before he landed.

"I told you," I said. "It's the ninth of sight, the one and only. It's the monster that's responsible for cyborg terror."

"What am I supposed to do?" he said.

She came back down toward the ground, flying faster now. Her hooves dragged across the ground, and she buffeted into him. He got pressed against the pavement, like chewed gum, and feathers flew all over the place. He stood up, wiping his body, with more feathers flying off him.  

He glanced at me, and then toward the nameless monster. "What the fuck?" he said.  

"Profanity," I said, flicking my hoof in the air. "The respite of those with fear." 

"Profanity?" he said. "Oh, right? Right, I guess." He bound into the air, shooting up so quickly that I had a hard time seeing where he went.

Nameless, like she was suspended on a rubber band, flew far up there above him much faster than he had. I saw her hooves brushing against his head, and they tossed, tumbling through the air, coming down again. Gripey grabbed one of her hooves and twisted it, and it bent out of shape, and bounced back in his face, making him fall back. He stretched out his claws and stuck them into the neck of nameless. The monster opened its mouth, revealing gigantic scary shark teeth, which reached for his head.

"Look out," I said, in panic.

He pulled back, and her teeth missed, just biting off some of his feathers. He pulled forward again, slipping his hands around her leg, and pulling at it. It just got longer, the harder he pulled. I could see the strain on his face, as he drew even harder, and he landed with the rubber leg in his arm. Then, he glanced up, seeing that he had again made not a dent on the nameless creature.

"What the- heck?" he said.

"Oh, you can swear. I'm okay with that," I said, quickly forgetting the moment. "Behind you," I said, pointing.

Rather than running, he punched the air behind him, hitting the monster, which I guess didn't anticipate that he would be able to time her like this. Nameless' body spun in circles, slamming hard into a building, making the wall collapse. She came flying out, with those spotlights for eyes, and wheezed, with teeth that were long and sharp. 

"She's like unstoppable," he said. "Well, she is a god, kind of, a spirit ancient, right? So I guess I shouldn't be shocked."

"Yes," I said, emphasizing what he had said.

The monster, rather than aiming for him, came at me and picked me up in its mouth. "Zzzrrr," it wheezed, with long consonants. It held me in its mouth, flying between the tall skyscrapers of Manehattan. Gripey came flying.

He grabbed the monster by its jaw, forcing the mouth open, and pulled. "Let her go," he said.   

"Zzzrrrrr," the monster said. "Zrr!" 

Its teeth pressed harder, brushing my skin. "No," he said, grabbing them. The teeth cut into his hands, making them bleed, but he pulled harder, and then, the teeth detached, falling out the mouth of the monster. He dropped one, and then, he stabbed the other into the eye of the monster.

"Zzz," the monster said, and the tooth just fell out, but in that moment, I also fell to the ground.

"No, how..." he said, flying toward me, trying to catch me.

He swooped down, but the monster, which was bigger than him, was yet faster, and slammed its hoof into me, descending at full speed, faster than him. I was thrown away toward the inside wall near the big outer wall that surrounded Manehattan at the time. The monster flew ahead of me, going so fast that it looked like a blur in front of my eyes, as I tumbled throughout the air. The monster was in front of the tiny wall, that lines the inside of Manehattan, again, inside the bigger wall.





Long, long ago... in a time of empty flow.

I was carried through the air, by a rotten spring.

Gripey caught me. We landed.

There was another wall on the other side of the bigger wall, with ponies standing on both sides, in lines.

"Okay, what about this? What if someone just flew over the wall, um, walls? What would stop anyone with wings from doing that? A lot of effort to build a wall."

"Yes," Gripey said. "Except for one small detail." He looked around across the ground, and then, he picked up a very tiny rock. It looked like a piece of gravel. He threw it across the wall, the smaller one with doors in it, that was further in from the big wall. A bolt of lightning struck down, piercing through the wall, and sending shockwaves across the ground, almost like an earthquake. I had to concentrate to keep my balance.





Wow, I thought. I remember this. Does the monster even know? That's odd.

The monster was in front of the tiny wall, blocking me off, as I tumbled forward. No, I thought to myself. No, you don't know? Do you? And I who thought you knew everything, nameless.

Everything started speeding up again, as the adrenaline sank back. "Think fast!" I yelled, as Gripey came flying.

He kicked off at the monster, bouncing toward me and catching me. "Zzzrrr!" the monster said.

The monster raised one hoof to the side, holding it across its own chest, and then twanged at him. Gripey ducked, U-turned, and kicked the hoof, in several quick motions as he flew throughout the air. The hoof bounced into the empty space above the inner wall, the small wall with gates, and lightning shot down into it. 

"Electricity?" nameless said, as she was sucked into the stream of lightning bolts that coursed through her body, not able to move. "No... no, wai- wait." Her body shook violently. "Sweetiiieee!" She exploded, one leg going left, another going right, and then, slowly, a bunch of strings wafted down from above her and landed beside us.

I touched one of them. It shone, and then, it faded, disappearing. "What are you, nameless? Who are you?" What had happened to her? I collapsed on the ground. "I feel hoarse," I said, breathing with a lot of effort.

Gripey landed beside me, his big feet slamming into the ground, and he picked me up. "I will take you to safety. Trust me."

Trust? 

Yeah, you I trust, Gripey.

Nameless' head rolled in front of us, as he put me on his back.

Freaky, freaky.





"Yeah, okay," Gripey said. "So what to make of it?" I heard his voice as consciousness returned.

I tried rubbing my head, but my hoof was too weak. "Like, seriously. Getting hurt this much can't be good for my brain."

"What to not make of it?" I heard Hookbeak's voice say. "It's not something to quarrel about. This requires some serious investigation, not chit-chat. Chit-chat-chatter."

"Chatter?" I said.

A robot with many long squid arms came flying in the room, an arm-bot. It had blue eyes. "You're awake. How is the patient feeling today? Good? Grim? Golden? Gone out of commission? Can't speak? Is not responding. Why is not responding? Feeling okay? Feeling bad? Feeling what?"

"No," I said. "I feel fine. Hey, Hookbeak." It was now or never to ask this question. "Did that stuff when I met you in Ponyville... did that really happen?" Or had it all been a dream? Was this going on right now a dream? I don't even...

"You were in Ponyville," Hookbeak said. "And now you're here. That's quite confusing. I also don't understand why you ran away from me. Funny though."

"That was real?" I said, and breathing became painful. My throat dried up, and drew together, cramping, as I thought about it. Momentary panic entered into my body. "Or is nothing real?"

"What's not real?" Hookbeak said. "Gripey. Do you have any idea what she's going on about?"

"She has been through a lot, you know," he said.

"Tell me about it," I said. "Either it's that, or I've been through all the wrong things. It doesn't matter though, not anymore."

"Why not?" Gripey said.

"I'm just happy you're alive," I said.

He smiled. "Well, I'm happy you're alive."

Hookbeak's robot hovered to the side of Gripey. "And I am positively satisfied to hear it."

Positively satisfied. Heh. I giggled. "Heheh." That's Hookbeak, in a nutshell. "Now..." I drew my hoof across the bed-cover, and the sheets. They felt real enough. "Real enough for me," I said, feeling like a mental patient.





Royal Equestrian Dictionary, Volume 7

Page 145

Try?

I tried.

gaslighting: when someone tries to confuse you and make you doubt yourself, either through misdirection, or lying

Huh?

That sounded familiar.





"I hate the dictionary," I said, ricocheting my hoof off a page, in anger, and tearing it off. "Drats. I ruined the dictionary."

"Why do you hate the dictionary?" Gripey said. "I would think you, if anyone, would love the dictionary.

"Whatever, whatever. Shut up," I said, pushing the dictionary off the sick bed so that it fell down on the ground. "I don't even care. Shut up."

"You sound like you care," he said.

"Whatever," I said, crossing my hooves. "I don't even care."

"Then why do you sound like you care?"

"Whatever, you know," I said, turning over. "I hope everyone else will be the ones that survive." I really, genuinely felt that. I looked away from him.

"Huh?" he said. "Then what use was there in me saving you? Have I done all this for nothing?"

I stifled a sigh, but it came out my mouth, regardless. "Bother. Bother. Bother."

"Am I a bother?" he said.

I got goosebumps, from anxiety or the cold? I couldn't tell. I was freezing though. Was it cold? In a hospital? I hoped not. I hoped that the cold was only within me, and that others didn't feel it too, as I did, but if they did, then I would want to know how they lived with it, when I had such a hard time to do so. "No."

"No?" He sat down on a chair where I could see him. My head was on the pillow, turned to the side, and I was lying on the side of my body, the left side. I saw a window behind him. Hm. He overpowered my suicidal thoughts, "There have been many sacrifices that I and others that I care about had to make to keep you alive. Does that not matter to you? Everyone has to lose things, Botsy. Don't you realize that?" 

"I do," I said. "But the more I think about it..." I saw the shine of the sun behind the blinds on the windows. "The more I think, the more I feel... like I'm just a filly in the wide wide world, and even not that. I'm just a piece of wood being flung around, and it's so emptying. Everything feels like it's not... like, I don't even feel motivated to do anything, because I don't know what's going on."

Gripey hastily followed my gaze to the window. "Shame on you," he said. "You need to show a little bit of gratitude too, to be honest. You can't just assume that everyone is going to feel sorry for you, forever." He wasn't looking angry, but he scolded me. He was harsh and direct with me, not harsh in a threatening sort of way. He was stern. He was looking at me with those serious eyes, but there always was, even now, something of a twinkle of playfulness in them. "You need to think before you speak sometimes, Botsy."

"I know," I said. "That's really something I want to be able to do. Well, eventually, I guess. I suppose will survive. I'm sorry, Gripey. I'm sorry for not appreciating it, and not... being grateful enough? Yes, that too. I am... I feel, well... you don't seem to care. I don't seem to care, either. It doesn't matter, in any case."

"Get some rest," he said. "You are not somehow in danger of anything bad happening. Get some rest. Your imagination is playing tricks on you. It always has."

"For sure," I said. "It's that imagination of mine is playing tricks. Sure enough."

I knew it wasn't true. I mean, it was but it wasn't. Something else was going on, but he didn't seem to believe me any more. Who would?





"Lying in a bed, trying to think," I sang. "Lying in a bed, nana-nana-naaa."

It was night, and I was alone enough.

"Nana-naaa."

My door creaked open.

"Who?" I said, quieting down. "I need to stop talking to myself, aloud. It's a bad habit."

The door closed.

"No, wait," I said.

The door reopened.

I had a hard time registering what I saw before me. "I really am just seeing things, am I not?" I was tired of fighting it. "I guess I just am crazy. How many have I harmed in my craziness?"

"Too many to name," she said, going into the room. It was Jelly. She was walking with cramped movements. 

"Too many?" I said. "Too many, I know."

"What are you doing here?" she said.

I lay on the side, my right side, looking at her. The door was opposite the window. "I don't know," I said, letting the moment rest. 

She didn't say anything. She kept a watchful eye on me.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to say," I said.

"You could apologize, how's that? For leaving me, in Terran?"

"Terramar..." I said.

"Don't you remember?" she said.





"No!" Nexus shouted. I looked out from behind the desk. She grabbed the spear from one that was levitating it, ready to throw at me, and hit him in the head with the handle. "We want her alive. She just saved my skin, you whelp." She really enjoyed calling ponies, and other assorted species, whelps, I had noticed.

"I'm sorry, milady," he said, almost mechanically, like a robot, like me, like I had done when ponies had spoken to me. I felt regret. I didn't want to be here anymore. I ran out the door. "Should I go after her?" I heard from behind me.

The was silence. "No," Nexus then said. I hurried out, toward the river. I intended to drown myself. Something stretched out in front of my feet, and I fell, hitting my face on the ground. Something cracked. It felt like I had broken something, again. Nexus pulled back her leg.





"I was arrested," I said.

"No, you abandoned me."

"Um, um," I said, lying in my bed. "But... I was... I was... you wanted me to stay? No way." I closed my eyes, feeling overpowered by the sight of her.

"My mom is dead," she said.

I opened my eyes. She was standing right in front of me. "I know."

"And my dad is dead."

"I know," I said, looking at her. 

She had a calm anger, a vitriolic scowl, on her face. "And everyone is dead."

"I know."

"So..." she said. "Apologize."

"Why?" I said. "What does it matter? You know I'm sorry. I love you, Jelly, and I'm sorry, but it still won't change anything." Because none of them, those who died, would ever see the light again, and it was my fault, at least in part. "It won't really make me a better person to apologize. I still hurt you, even after–"

She pulled me off the bed. I hit my body. "Ouch." I tried standing up, but my body had lost too much strength. I didn't even have the power to stand up.

"What will I have to do to make you take it seriously, Sweetie?" She hovered me to my hooves, to my feet, but I fell over. "What? You can't walk?"

"I think I have lost some muscle mass," I said.

"The saddest part," she said, "is that somehow, I love you too. Isn't that dumb?"

"I always said that," I said, remembering the dreams that I had. "I know it is."

"You say the right words, but I still don't believe it," she said. "I don't believe in you."

I lay there, awkwardly shaking my head, pressing myself against the floor, and wriggling so that I would get in a better position to do it. "I want to... do all the right things... to make everyone... happy."

"Come with me," she said.

I struggled and pushed, but try as I might, I couldn't stand up.

She hovered me. "Come with me?"

"You've," I said. Her magic was stronger than mine, because I would never be able to lift her. I hadn't thought of that before. "I- I don't... I won't say anything."

She carried me out the room and into a clean-looking white corridor. We walked through, and a few rooms down, she opened a door, and took me with her, putting me down on a bed. I involuntarily fell over on it. Then, I pushed off with my front-hooves and sat up, resting my back-hooves off the side of the bed, as I did, sitting on my butt.

"I..." I said. "I..." I searched my mind for words. "I..."

"Just don't say anything," she said.

"Is this a dream?"

"That's a sad thing for you to say." She closed the door behind her.

"I don't- I don't mean it that way," I said, bleakly, and with as little emotion in my voice as I could muster. "I don't- I don't want you to feel bad anymore."

"That's never going to happen," she said, smiling, and sitting down on a chair beside the bed.

So much to say, I guess.





Zebras are fascinating.

"What is that?" I said, pointing my hoof at a bag, in colorful fabric.

"Tradition," Jelly said.

It was night. Zebras were dancing around. It was a free, powerful, overpowering environment, hitting my senses with its force. There was a fire. Well, there was, and what happened next? I came toward it, and sealed my fate. I only came to the zebras by chance, because Jelly was there. I wandered the forest of my choice, one that I chose to be in, of my voice, of the clouds, of natural things. I wanted to leave, part of me, but I never did, because I was becoming something else. I was changing to this thing. I was merging with the trees. We made plans together. It was bright.

But it only ever worked as long as I kept moving. Nana-nana-na! Don't you see, dear reader? Nana-na! My verse, it is, or that of the bad things, the evil scream, of evil things, which only ever haunts as long as you stand still, and still you are, because moving feels like death. Nana-naaa! I don't mean to be blithe, or disinterested in the notions of my voice, and the objects of my choice. Nana! It's only beautiful when you see it is. Sometimes you're just too weak to see it. Nana! Haha, na! Waaauh?

"Put this on," Jelly said, giving a hat to me.

"Why, anyhow, do I put this hat on?" I said, putting it on. 

It was a hat made of thin strips of wood, knitted together, using zebra hooves. It had frills sticking out in all directions.

"It's something the zebras do. Think before you speak," she said, smiling. "You're one too, now."

"That cannot be," I said. "I'm a pony, for sure. Last I checked..." I checked my hoof. "Pony?"

It had been painted with stripes. "Do you feel pony?" she said, stroking my hoof, and grabbing it. I was about to pull back, but then hesitated. "You are a pony, or you are a zebra, or you are what you become, when you're in this forest, Sweetie."

"That sounds..." She put a hoof to my mouth.

"Think... Sweetie. Think."

"Beautiful," I said. "Beautiful."

But it only ever worked...

I danced.

Still was I? I, never! Nay, I... moved. I... did. I moved.

I danced. I didn't dance, just for the sake of dancing. It wasn't a ritual. It didn't feel like a ritual. I just... moved, because I felt the music. The banging of the zebras' drums, and even more than that. I felt... something move within me, not just my body. I felt alive. No, don't misunderstand this. I felt it, alive. I felt the alive within me. It was bright.

Light?





The right might has no fight. It has no sight. It has no eyes. I am the thing... within.

"Jelly." I reached out my hoof to her, as they carried me away from her. "I remember... the... dance."

"Okay?" she said. "Why wouldn't you remember that?"

She remembered it too. I smiled, emptily, into the distance, of my mind. "That's good."

"What's good? What's going on? What is this? Did you have some kind of seizure, Sweetie?"

Yes?





She remembered? Score again for the good guys. Well, score for me! I wasn't crazy. Woo-hoo.

"I feel..." No! No, no. Stop it. No. No more of that, me. No, I feel? No, I am. I am doing. I will do things. I will do the right things. It doesn't matter how I feel, and how I feel, all the time, should not matter to anyone, even if they can share my suffering. I am not a good person. Protect me? No. Remove all protections and see how I fare without them. That's how I felt.

"Hey," Gripey said. "Jelly was a real person?"

"And so were you," I said.

Who wasn't?





Nameless came walking in my room, all relaxed and casual.

"I don't believe in you," I said, at the top of my everloving lungs. 

I was still lying in my hospital bed. They had put me back there, after my seizure-like symptoms, which they had called it.

"Okay?" she said. "Do your eyes care about that? Do your ears? Look within yourself, and see what you believe." She held up a flower. "I brought you a lily to show you I care."

"I don't want no lily," I said. She put it down on my sheet, and I had not the strength to remove it. "Why?"

"Why?" she said. "Why?"

"Stop doing that. Stop being evasive, when you have invaded my life like this. You're not answering any of my questions, and yet, you keep haunting me like a ghost." I felt so angry that I could die.

"I didn't mean to upset you," she said, sitting down in the chair that was already in the room.

"Well, you did," I said. "And what's with the flower?"

"These ponies don't understand you," she said. "They think you're crazy. I say you're normal."

"What do you mean?" I said. "They care about me, in a way you could never fathom."

"Eventually." She put her hoof on the blinds of the window and pushed them aside, creating a small hole. "Eventually, Sweetie, you'll see the beautiful in my ugly." She shone ever so bright as she had. I was blinded even more by the sunlight that entered the room. "I again never meant to harm you, but these things happen when you're inside the dream."

"What's the dream?" I said.

"You saw the whirlpool," she said.

"What the..." I realized she was stone-walling me again. "Not that it matters." I looked at the flower. "That's a pretty little flower, but its beauty doesn't represent you, nameless."

"I'm not a flower," she said. "I am something else. I created hell. Well, I did... and..." She looked at me, intently.

"And?" I said.

"And?" she said.

"I have heard those words in my head for hours upon hours on end," I said.

"Why?" she said, running over to the chair.

"Because I saw the whirlpool of my choice?"

"Yes," she said. "And the whirlpool shows the future. Think about it."

"I'm thinking," I said. "And I'm drawing a blank."

"No, really think about it. Think about it like you mean it. You know the answer. What's a dream, without a little mystery?"

"So what?" I said. "I saw the future?"

"Yes, the whirlpool shows the future that you want to transpire," she said.

"What?" I said.

"It was a weapon," she hummed. "A predilection." She walked over to my ear, jumping off the chair. "One to dream."

"So what?" I said.

"Well, when the future changes, it creates a dream," she said. "That's it."

"A dream?" I said.

"It never would've worked if you hadn't figured it out on your own," she said, with a satisfied smile.

"The future is changing," I said.

"Continually," she said. "You are inside a changing future."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Gripey died," she said. "Then, he lived. That's the trick. He should not be able to do both."

"And what about the machine," I said.

"Don't worry about it," she said.

"Am I still inside the machine?"

"No," she said. "Don't worry about it. The machine is just the beginning of the test."

"The test?"

She opened the door, out the room. "Yes."

Gripey stood there. "Hello?" he said.

Nameless evaporated into a cloud of white, shining dust, as Gripey tried to grab her.

"That was odd," I said. "Well, at least, I'm not just imagining her."

"You aren't?" he said.

"No. Well, evidently not," I said.

"How are you feeling today?" he said.

"Oh?" I said. "We're just going to ignore that, what just happened?"

"Yes," he said. "How are you feeling?"

"Like my privacy has been invaded by a shining filly of shining light, a child with the power of a thunderstorm."

"Has... yes..." he said. "That's..."

Juncture. Juncture. Juncture.

I woke up. "Is this a dream?"

Gripey came in the room. "Oh, no. What happened to you, little buddy?"

"What in the..." I said. "Broccoli? I'm running out of expletives." He hugged me. I hugged back, hesitantly. "I don't know what's going on," I said. "I will figure it out though."

"You had a seizure," he said.

"Right," I said.





In the nexus of the dream... in the place where futures gleam, of ancient seams. It was alive, but what was it?

"It's a place of poetry," nameless said. "It's a place of my wonders."

"It's a place of horror," I said. "It's a place of death."

"These things," she said, "are not in contradiction."

"No," I said. "No, they are not."

Cogs.

Gears.

Machines.

Pain.

"I love pain," she said.

"I don't," I said.

The longer you stay, the more you change.

"I am that change," she said. "I am a harsh kind of change. I am there, and I speak to you, with clarity, and anger. I speak to you with anger, because I care, and I insult you, because I cannot lie, like the wind. You cannot lie too, but you are too honest to be true."

"Too honest?" I said.

"Yes," she said. "Yes."

"I don't believe it." No, I did not.

"Better," she said. "Now, or later."

"Foolish," I said.

"Yes," she said. "The truth is foolish, and being clever is not the same as being true. You're too honest to speak fluently. Your thoughts are all yours, and belong to others too. Like a firehose, you blurt them out, but you cannot distinguish fact from fiction. That makes you a shadow, and shadows, if you hit an object with light, even a person, can be controlled. Shadows, my little friend, can be controlled. You are that."

"I am what?"

Of the place... it was a weapon... seeking answers...

As a wise person told me lately, if you ask for something, then no matter the rest, that part of one's soul will get its due. Was I the one who said it? I'm so smart... not! Really, I'm not. Really... something something is happening happening and it's not a coincidence coincidence, no... I do not like the feel of the word... that word... what word? Wait... really? What word? I think the word might be several words, but it feels like one word. Someone is inside my head.

"I love... to... feel," I said.

"Including pain?" she said.

"Oh, shut up," I said, pushing her. 

She laughed. "Including pain, Sweetie Bot?"

"No," I said. "No..."

I was...

I was...

I was...

... and am...

... the place where something is not. I am the place where change is being observed, from the other side. I can see it.





The flower wasn't lying there anymore. It was gone. I hadn't removed it. I got to thinking. "Why?"

"Why what?" Gripey said.

"It doesn't matter if you think I'm crazy," I said.

"That's exactly what a crazy person would say," he said.

"Well, right," I said. "It doesn't matter what I say."

"No, but it matters if you're alive, and whether you're feeling well or not," he said. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" I said. "Don't be. That's for me to be, not you."

"No," he said. "But I don't want you to suffer anyway, no matter if it's for reasons that are real or imaginary."

...

...

...

"Hookbeak knows," I said, sighing.





"Hookbeak," I said, talking to the little robot, with blue eyes. "Tell me, please. Uphold our trust. I'll come to Circle town with you if you tell me." 

"I accept your request, but not your promise. It seems hollow, with or without its fulfillment. If you do it, I would still see it as hollow, and if you don't, then that would be dishonest. I know you don't want to live in my town, but I want you to be there. Still, I also know that you are feeling bad. Tell me what you feel." The robot adjusted my sheets. One of its arms grazed my face, all cold and impersonal, this little robot.

"What now, Hookbeak?" Gripey said.

"We're part of a pact with the Shining Corps Machinery Inc., and its friends," Hookbeak said. "That's just my name for them though."

"What is that?" Gripey said.

"Imagine this," Hookbeak said. "There are twelve portal areas in the whole of the landmass that the world exists on."

"I'm trying," Gripey said. "What's a portal area?"

"Imagine this," Hookbeak said. "In Festerville-town, there's one of twelve."

"Okay," he said. "Now, I have something to go on."

"There is another one, a big one, south of Canterlot," Hookbeak said. "That's another one."

"I don't like where this is going," Gripey said.

"And," Hookbeak said, "there's one close to Manehattan."

"And?" Gripey said.

"So... this is what happened..." Hookbeak said. "We borrow, essentially, the technology that controls these portals out to Shining Corps Machinery Inc., at a very modest cost."

"How much?" he said.

"Oh, invaluable," Hookbeak said. "We get access to the fuel that controls all our vehicles, at zero cost."

"Oh," I said. "I see."

"That fuel is invaluable," Hookbeak said.

"Does that fuel perchance look like a shining liquid full of stars?" I said.

"Yes, why?" Hookbeak said.

"What am I?" I said.

"I thought you knew," Hookbeak said. "How can you not know?"

"Know what?" I said.

"Unless," Hookbeak said. "Unless, unless, unless..."

"Unless what?" Gripey said.

"I've been tricked too," he said. Hookbeak's robot buzzed and spun around the room, hitting the wall. "No, that's really clever. That's actually clever." The arm-bot stopped above me, and then hovered down, meeting me face-on. "Say?"

"Say," I said.

"Say? Have you been travelling a lot lately?"

"You know I have," I said, crossing my hooves, and wondering where this was going.

"Say?" Hookbeak said. "Do you know what those portals are? D- have yo- what happened before you got to Ponyville?"

"That's not possible," I said. "I committed suicide."

"Oh, right?" he said. "You did now, didn't you?" Hookbeak's robot's eyes briefly turned red. "Go on. I was just checking something."

"It's not possible," I said, feeling cold chills inside my body. The soles of my hooves were cold, and felt wet for some reason, like the anxiety was... I was sweating. Cold-sweating, huh? "That's not possible. I fell down on the ground and died. I cut my own throat."

"You trachea," Hookbeak said.

"Same difference?" I said. "What are you getting at, Hookbeak?"

"You have no idea what they have done to you, little Sweetie," he said. The robot pulled the sick-bed across the room, grabbing the metal handles on the sides of it.

"Wow-wow-wow there," Gripey said, running to stop it. "What are you doing?"

"Odd, odd, and odder than odd," Hookbeak's robot said. "I always wondered about this." Gripey pulled at one of the arm-bot's arms, but it slid out of his grip. A purple portal opened up behind it.

"Hookbeak!" Gripey said. "This is highly- highly, um, uh, irregular? That's the word? Compose yourself. You're scaring her." Gripey grabbed the bed. 

Rather than resisting, the robot flew to the side, and the purples surrounded us instead. Then, when the smoke cleared, and the storm of colors stopped, we were in Ponyville.

"What's this?" I said.

We were in Ponyville Central Square, a jolly place, in my memories at least. Not so much now, it wasn't.

"Sweetie," I heard Rarity say, from somewhere.

I had the presence of mind to know what would happen in the coming seconds. "Hookbeak," I said. "Wait until she hears my voice."

"Your voice?" Hookbeak said.

"Yes," I said. "I sound like a buzzing spectacle. She won't be happy to hear me speak, I think." I was getting worried now.

"But," Hookbeak said. "She was happy to hear you speak before."

"That's not the point!" I said, so she could hear me.

Gripey clasped his head. "Do I have to be the one to deal with this situation, and calm things down here, Hookbeak, and you?" He looked at me. "You just, just, don't say or do anything stupid. I beg of you."

"Sweetie?" Rarity said.

"It's not what it seems like, and now, all panic's going to break loose," I said, mumbling the words so loudly that I thought Rarity would be able to hear them, but nonetheless likewise not paying any mind to her face, and her reactions, because I thought that it would be... it was all so, too, oh, pointless.

"Aaah!" she screamed, running away.

"Well, right. I was clairvoyant. Bow down to me and throw me a coin or- or something," I said, angrily. "What? They're going to kill me."

"No," Hookbeak said. "That thing is not going to happen. Many things are likely to happen, that not among them, Sweetie."

"Sweetie..." I said. "Oh, bother the day of- ugh. My life- ugh, no, never mind. No, I don't- ugh. No, I- shut up, me." I felt betrayed somehow, both by reality, and by myself. This was heart-wrenching. Rarity, my Rarity, was terrified of me. What was happening? I felt ever so... angry and empty of... answers, yes. 

"Hookbeak," Gripey said. "Restraint, my friend."

"Yes," Hookbeak said. "I know. I know, good Gripey."

A lot of ponies came running in our direction, most notably Twilight, and a few guards? It looked like it.

"Sweetie!" Twilight said.

"Again, it's not what it seems like," I said.

"Then..." Twilight said.

The sun shone bright, but I was not in a bright mood. The sun was quite blinding, in fact.

"You are in occupied territory," Hook-bot said. "Lay down your weapons, or you will be pulverized into tiny little pellets that we feed to birds." The robot flew up in the air, above us. "Lay down your weapons."

Gripey covered his entire face with his hands. "Stop it, Hookbeak. You're seriously not helping."

"Well, you're not doing anything," I said to Gripey. "What's up with that?"

"I was about to," Gripey said. "Okay!" he said to the group of ponies that had gathered, foremost among them Twilight, behind her Rarity, and behind her five guards in golden shining armor, reflecting the sun. Behind them was a throng of ponies, like a porous liquid of intruders, coming on, coming in, pushing past, pushing forward, and all, being a nuisance, pointing and staring. They were chattering, this crowd, amongst themselves. "Okay?" he said. "We mean you no harm. We came here because... why did we come here?" He looked up at the arm-bot.

"I was getting to that," the robot said.

"Well, right," Gripey said. "We mean you no harm, and we're only here because Hookbeak wanted to try something out."

A few gasps rang out in the crowd. "Hookbeak," I heard a voice say. "Hookbeak, Hookbeak," more voices said.

"No," Gripey said. "You're misunderstanding me."

"Freeze," Hookbeak said, shooting something at Twilight.

The guard ponies all threw their spears, which impotently flew above and around the arm-bot, not even coming close to the small machine. Twilight was frozen in time, quite literally, from what I remembered about Hookbeak's time weapon. A purple shining mass of light opened up beneath Twilight. It was the portal! She was sucked down. The arm-bot fell to the ground, drawn by gravity, no longer hovering, and clutched me, pulling me so that I couldn't move, and the portal widened, enveloping me, and soon, Gripey too. We fell through a flood of purples, from the blackest to the lightest whitest purple, spinning like vortexes around us, and we landed beside a giant machine made of metal.

This was surreal. I was surrounded by ponies. We were by the sky-bot, the giant geared massive machine, with those activators, and platforms. 

"What's this?" I said.

"Where did you take us?" Twilight said. "Sweetie. What happened to you?"

I found myself delirious, and lying in my sick bed. Oh, right! I had been doing that, had I not? "Twi," I said. "Can I lead with the claim, and proposition, which I see no reason for you to doubt, that I would not hurt you. No, not at all."

"I-" Twilight said.

"Yes?" I said.

The machine shrieked, nasally, though it was merely a machine not a person, right? Wrong choice of words? Think again. "From where and to what end did you arrive here, ponies?" the machine said.

"Yes," I said, not knowing how to respond, and feeling icky, lost, empty, and confused. Those are the words of the day of the moment, yes! Yes, I... feelings. My feelings are my own. I will never give up in giving air to them.

Twilight looked for the voice. A bunch of ponies had followed with us through the portal. "Who are you?" she said.

"I don't know what's going on," I heard a pony say.

One pony ran across the metal pavings of the place, and tripped. "Where am I?"

"You come into my cave?" the machine whirred. "I ask the questions. You don't, little ponies."

"I came here by accident," Twilight said.

Hookbeak's arm-bot slipped past us and flew up, alighting near the top of the closest spinning gear that I could see, fidgeting with its claws on the machine, wrapping its arms around one square on the cog. The cog spun, like a clock. Tick-tock, it moved, clicking, and spinning. "I have brought with me witnesses to your folly," Hookbeak said. "You have made bad on a promise, have you not?"

"Many promises," the machine said, indistinctly, in a voice that sounded like the beating of drums, and the screaming of engines. It was a voice that truly was comprised of other sounds that shouldn't belong to a voice, to be more overt with it. "Many promises have been made, and many lives have paid, what pays to make the world at stake, a better place, number eight."

"Number eight?" I said.

"That," Hookbeak said, "is phenomenal news. I only needed you to say that, which means that we are no longer under any kind of agreement, say?"

"Your promise was made," the machine said, "to traitorous dark creatures we dissociate."

"Excusez-moi?" Hookbeak said. "Pardon my western ponish, but what?"

All the ponies that had gathered were all quickly catching their bearings. "Hey, are we trapped here?" I heard a guy say.

The machine went on. "Sidus of the black betrayed us. Do you not know this, number eight?"

"Betrayed you how?" Hookbeak said, its robot-tentacles spinning away from the scenery, and disappearing beneath the gearwork of whatever terrible place that was. "No one betrays you."

"Someone does," the machine said.

"Who?" Hookbeak said.

"Number eight," the machine, from all-around us, spoke. "You have been chosen for termination in five months, and seven days. Thank you for your time, and if you have any questions, the ninth of us is trapped in the activator number one. Ask her."

Hookbeak's arm-bot was gone out of view, and it spoke no longer.

"The ninth is trapped?" I said. I tried moving, but I again realized I was stuck in the bed. There was something stringy and translucent about all these experiences, words that I use with some trepidation, and knowledge of the confusion that they might cause. There was something vague and airy about it all. There was something, not, about it. There was a negative energy about. Something about, was about. I felt, about, ready to throw up again. 

The arm-bot came flying, holding a tiny little child, a precious child, made of shining light.

"You might as well have brought a bomb," I said, pulling the sheet over my head, and hiding beneath it.

"You!" I heard Twilight say. "You're here? What did you do to Sweetie? You're responsible for all this madness?"

The arm-bot put nameless down. She stumbled around, blinking many times. "Ponies?" she said.

"Yes, I am a pony," I said.

"You hurt Sweetie," Twilight said. "How dare you?"

"Is Rarity here?" I said. I couldn't see her, but my sight was restricted from lying in the bed, and being too weak to move. "Ridiculous," I said, finally, deciding that about the situation, since I couldn't move.

"Sweetie," Twilight said.

"Really funny," nameless said, finding her words.

"What's funny?" I said.

Spinning. Spinning. Not really something I like, the spinning, it is, and was, to me, I hope. Whaaasss-zzz-sssrrrr-urgh!

It were in these moments I usually closed my eyes, and woke up to find that I was dreaming, but not this time.

"Um," I said. "I feel..." I felt clear in the head, even though I was panicking somewhat.

"Okay, who's responsible?" nameless said. "Who wants to ride the train with me?"

"The train?" I said.

"Well, of course," Hookbeak said.

"Oh, no," a random mare said. "How will I ever get out of here? I need to get home to my children. I- I- where is- where are we?" She was panicking.

"Will you all just shut up?" I said, morosely, and annoyedly, that too! Hoo-hoo! Oh, and... I felt jittery. I felt sharp. "Okay, so first of all... Hookbeak?"

The arm-bot held up its arms, giving the semblance of something that can be described as a shrug.

"Okay, and you, nameless!" I said, pointing at her, weakly.

"Me?" she said. "You think I wanted this to happen?"

"Explain something," I said. "Begin."

"Okaaay," she said, with sarcastic venom in her tiny distorted raspy little voice. "I walked through the corridor of the facility of technology, trying to find you, Sweetie, when someone knocked me out. Cold! Then, I was put inside the stupid machine, again, and forced to go through some kind of thing that I don't even know how to describe. It's absolutely outrageous." 

"Outrageous?" I said. "That's a stupid word. Use a better word."

"Hey, Sweetie," Twilight said.

"Yeah?" I said. "I feel fine."

"Sweetie? How- are you not- do you- do you feel- wait," Twilight said. "No, this isn't right. You remember your own name?"

"Yes," I said. "Most ponies like me don't, ones that have been turned into slaves," I said, glancing at nameless.

"Slaves?" she said. "I- this- I- oh my gosh."

"Yeah," I said.

Nameless said, "I just... don't know what to say. I feel angry too, you know. I was put in the machine. Where are the transcripts?"

The sky-bot roared, "Behind you, inside the chute of the lower activator, inside the cube that is below it."

"What?" nameless said. "Eyesstark? Why didn't you come to rescue me?"

The machine was silent.

"Oh-oh-no, okay," nameless said. "I have got to find better partners."

"This is absolutely one of the..." I said, not knowing how to finish that, and not having the end of the sentence ready when I began talking. "I feel..."

"Feel?" nameless said.

"You will be arrested," Twilight said, wearily, and with a lot of obvious doubt as to what was going on in her voice.

"Arrested?" Hookbeak said.

"One at a time," Gripey said.

"Sweet Celestia," Twilight said. She gasped, and groaned, murmuring to herself. 

"Nothing sweet about her," Hookbeak said.

"What?" I said.

"Huh?" nameless said.

"Yeah, whatever," Gripey said.

"What's going on?" Twilight said. "I never know what's going on, anymore."

"You and me, both," I said, in my bed.

All the voices... quieted down.

"Solution?" nameless said.





Nameless tapped a screen, and a long paper came out, the machine buzzing. The paper got longer and longer, with a lot of text on it. Nameless tapped the paper. "This is... not right."

"What's not?" Twilight said.

"I'll just hand it to you for you to look at," nameless said.

More paper came out.

"Ohh?" nameless said, casting her gaze across it, over it. "This is seriously not funny, you guys."

"What's?" Twilight said. "You're just trying to distract us, aren't you?"

"Are you reading the paper?" nameless said. "It's like, really important that you do, and stuff, you know."

Twilight read it for a second. "It's just a fiction."

"No," nameless said. "Read the last five-hundred words or so, of it. It's not."

"What is this supposed to mean?" Twilight said, scrunching the paper up, and tossing it about in her magic. "This is..."

"This is for you," nameless said, handing another paper to me.

I looked at it. "It all started..." I dropped the paper. I picked it back up. "... A little over eleven years ago." This is the story I had written when I was in Ponyville, in part 33. The plot thickens, doesn't it?

"This is odd," Twilight said. "This just describes what happened when you and Starlight, you two, were down in the cave."

"Okay, it really thickens," I said.

"What thickens?" Twilight said.

"Um," I said. "The plot."

"Sweetie, are you making a joke?" Twilight said.

"No," I said. "I'm just socially inept." I saw nameless come upon my bed.

Nameless poked me in the chest. "You're not Sweetie Belle." Ow!

"Way to rub it in," I said, grumpily, drowsily, and angrily, completely. Obliquely? Yes, leaning to the side, and being angry, squeaky, with my buzzing voice that had the somber tinge of Sweetie Belle's remnants still left in it, I did.

"No," she said. "You are literally not Sweetie Belle. Sweetie Belle is in the other facility. Who are you, inside the facility of the dream?"

"I'm in a sick bed. Way to blame me of all ponies," I said, flapping my hoof toward her, trying to poke her back. "I haven't been able to move for weeks, and you're blaming me? You donkey."

"No," she said. "I'm not blaming anyone. I'm trying to figure out what the heck's going on. This is absolutely- ugh."

"Don't say outrageous. That was a bad word," I said. "This is absolutely beyond the pale. How's that?"

"Stop correcting me," she said, growling, practically foaming at the mouth. "You always correct me."

"I'm tryin' to help," I said, crossing my hooves again. "I'd never!"

"No one leaves until we figure out what's going on," nameless said.

"You don't decide that," I said.

"Sweetie," Twilight said, reading on. "Did you write this?"

"No!" I said.

"It's written from your perspective," Twilight said, reading the parchment.

"So what?" I said. "This is all just stupid."

"Attention," nameless said, pushing her hoof on a tiny display that stuck out the metal scaffolding, which surrounded the machine, which the papers had come out of. "This is the spirit of sight. You have all to come to the facility of the dream. The ninth of August is upon us, and we need to prepare for the siege of Canterlot. Attention, all personnel. This message supersedes any kind of orders you have been given, but does not override those. Come to the facility of the dream. Transport will be arranged for you by each respective department chief. You are all to obey, and listen. Come to Hydral." She pushed a button. "Requesting contact with Aldeus of the technology, please, if you would. Hurry up. I'm in a bit of a bind, here, operator!"

"Who is this?" the machine said, buzzingly. "Who is this?"

"Who is it not?" nameless yelled into the display. "Listen. Redirect this pre-recorded message to Aldeus of technology."

"What message?" the machine said.

"The one that I'm about to record," nameless said, after a moment's pause.

"You lack authorization." The machine shut off, and the display turned off, becoming black.

Nameless' eye sort of twitched. "Lack... am I the subject of a coup? Never had one happen to me before..."

"That's okay," I said, not properly preparing what I was about to say in my head, but rather just blurting the words out.

"Whuuuh-huh, hm?" nameless said. "This is extraordinary. I feel... like this is an opportunity, now."

"To do what?" I said.

"Yeah," Twilight said. "What are you doing? Are there other robot slaves here?"

"Hear, hear," I said. "That's right. They are enslaved by you, nameless."

"Where the heck- why do you call me nameless?" nameless said.

"Why not?" I said.

"It's time..." nameless said. "Anyway!"





Big, big, BIIIG!

"Serpentine heavens, and holy smoke," nameless said, tapping her hooves against the ground, in rhythm with her stupid poem. "Holy sevens, and empty cloak. Heed my command, upon my high pedestal, my stand."

"That's a stretch, that last rhyme," I said.

"Will you shut your stupid mouth?" nameless said. She coughed, clearing her throat, and went on. "Enter the black!"

It was quiet.

"Well, okay," I said, feeling drowsier than usual. "I sleep now, maybe. We can figure out what's going on later." I was fairly certain now that this was all either meant to trick me, or worse! Perish the thought, right, readers?

The air danced, and liquid, drops of water hovered around us. The waterfall far off in the distance, which I only saw from the corner of my eye, moved, and split to the side. With much effort, I adjusted, to see what was going on. A giant black train, with puffs of black smoke coming out the chimney on the front, puffed through the air. Puff-puff-puff. It got closer, and a rail, some kind of weird magical rail, took shape and built itself in front of the train, just as it was coming forward. Wood and metal flew ahead of it, creating a rail in the air, and the train puffed and huffed across it, nosediving to the cube, where we all were. The train screeched, and I saw that it was way long. It was maybe thirty wagons long, or so, and unlike normal trains, the rail was wide like twenty ponies. I like measuring things in ponies. It was twenty full-grown ponies wide, and so was the train, going along it, across it, over it, screeching! Screaming, sounding, bounding forward, toward us, the train stopped. 

"All aboard," nameless said, putting a hoof on the train.

I rubbed my eyes. I rubbed them harder. I had trouble opening one of two eyes, out of rubbing them so hard. "Um," I said. "I mean, heheh."

"Why are you laughing? Are you not impressed by the biggest most beautiful train in the world?" nameless said, sounding honestly indignant. 

"That random poem was to summon that train," I said, giggling.

"Oh, whatever. You come up with something better. Critics are just jealous," nameless said. The door opened up, and a staircase unfolded out the train, one step at a time. The stairs came out, bending to the ground. "All aboard. It's the only way home."

Twilight said, "I'm not going on that train." She grabbed nameless in purple magic. "You're coming with me back to Ponyville."

"Something bad will happen," I said, sighing.

The train sneezed. It made a sound, like the sound of a loud horn, a white-noise horn. "Nurgh," the train said. A hook came flying out of the train, toward Twilight. It was an enormous metallic grappling hook, made of black metal.

Twilight curled up on the ground, and the hook flew over her head, almost nearly grazing her. She stood up. "That's all?"

The hook was attacked to a long thick black chain, one link of which was bigger than me. Can you believe it, because I sure couldn't. The chain clinked, slamming against the hole that it had come out of, going back inside. Twilight folded out her wings, and the hook hit her in the head, just as she was about to jump out the way. She fell unconscious. No blood came? That was curious, I thought, noticing that, and thinking about it, as it happened. Super-curious.

"She's dead?" I said. No, reader. As I wrote before, not dead! No, she was unconscious. You'll see.

"Don't be ridiculous," nameless said. "Don't be absurd." She shoved my bed, so that it rolled off.

"Why am I being absurd?" I said, as the bed rolled faster.

It stopped. "I got you," Gripey said.

"No one can kill an alicorn," nameless said. "She's just dazed, and her brain will repair itself, like magic, in the span of a few hours."

"We're not just going to leave her here?" I said. "Where's Hookbeak?"

"He disappeared," Gripey said, looking around. I saw him above me, having his hands clasped to the bed, preventing it from rolling away, and possibly disappearing into the abyss, like Hookbeak had. Well, where had he gone? Into the train? He vanished into thin air.

"He's..." nameless said. "Hookbeak? Wait, that was Hookbeak?"

"Yes," I said.

"Well, I'll be darned," nameless said.

"Yeah, okay," I said.

Many of the ponies, whom I had not payed attention to, seemed to have gone off and left.

"Those ponies didn't get the memo," nameless said, seeing my eyes look for them, glancing and gazing around the place.

"Memo?" I said. I still sort of had trouble opening one eye. I pushed it open, through brute force. "What the memo?"

"There is no exit to speak of," nameless said. "That's why no one ever leaves, Sweetie. But you can go on a trip out in the wide wide world, using number nine." She stroked the train. "Beautiful number nine."

"That psycho named her train," I said, trying to look for Gripey now, seeing him in the corner of my gaze.

"I'm not a psycho," nameless said. "It's perfectly normal for trains to have names. You need to get out more."

"Well, as you said, no one ever leaves," I said, feeling that she was being unfair, as she had imprisoned me here, after all.

"Oh, it's an expression," she said. "For sure, some leave, but their spirits stay here, forever. That's the point."

"My spirit doesn't belong to this place," I said.

"Like it or not," she said. "I was connected to your activator. I think you have a little bit of me in you now, like it or not."

"Absurd," I said. "I think and feel for myself. My thoughts belong to me, and me alone."

"Not all of them," nameless said, distraught. "Maybe most but not all."

"Why the serious tone?" I said.

"Don't lie to yourself," she said.

"Hey, psst," Gripey said, into my ear. "I say we bail. You really want to go into the evil black train with her?"

"You saw what happened to Twilight," I half-whispered, half-shouted, back.

"Yeah, but that's a giant evil magical train," he said. "Look at it." He sounded frustrated, and he spoke in these vague tones, that I was familiar with, from him. Really, evil? Yes, Gripey.

"I know it looks evil. Maybe it's fine on the inside," I said.

"You expect to get food, and a window suite?" he said, no longer whispering. "I decide we are not going into the train. It's time to act like an adult."

I rubbed my head. "I wish I was an adult."

"You're not an adult. Let me deal with this," he said, picking the bed up in his hands, and flying away.

We flew to where? We flew higher up in the cave. To the exit? No, because I guess there is none. What happened? Next, I mean? This was discombobulating, and intoxicating, in its confusiating ways. My head spun, but something crawled up inside me, a kind of giddiness. I was irrationally happy. I didn't know why. It's worth noting for the reader now that I have had similar experiences before. There are times earlier in the story when I have felt extremely happy and giddy, not because of evil reasons, hope not. I felt happy, because happiness was inside me somehow. It's part of me? I want happiness to be part of me, since who wants to suffer? Maybe, though, happiness has its downsides. One may wonder. Will the answer come? One might hope. 





When I woke up, I had a hallucination. 

When I fell asleep, I met my friends~

Then it came back all over.

The future of dark, portends.

I am Sweetie Belle.

I am a filly lost in goo.

I am in the sticky pool of dark black goo, the thicket too, of rustling ferns, and evil turns.

I am moving, yet I falter.

Do I even ever exist?

I feel still, even while I'm moving.

Am I alive, or was it always a dream?

Yes, I am Sweetie. Listen to me.

Or am I not?

I am Sweetie, of Equestria. I really am, and I love my friends.

Where are those friends of yours?

I come alive when I hear voices, but not the kind that sane ponies have...

I am who?

Yes, I am Sweetie. Am I though?

I come alive when I hear voices. Her voice!

I am alive, but am I not?

And when I sleep, I feel my heart beat.

I must be dreaming even now...

Wow.

I'm a nutcase.





We landed back on the lower cube of the terrible machinnne... of doooooommm.

"Where was I going?" I said. "No exit, none at all."

"Okay, okay," Gripey said. "I get it. I didn't know. We... I'm so tired. I'm sorry for being angry at you. It's not your fault."

"My fault?" I said. "My fault."

"Yeah," he said. "But I'll take care of you. I don't dare let anyone harm you, while you're feeling like this."

"Ah..." I said. He knows that I'm insane. How great!

The train was still standing there. "Come aboard," nameless said. "There are two seats just for you two, waiting, or are you planning on prolonging your visit?"

It had been hours, easily.

Gripey, rationally, hesitated, with good cause. "How can we trust you? We can't come on the train. We'll just have to rest and try again." Had he had more energy, he probably would've flown away at the sight of her, given what happened to Twilight when she flagged, but he just stood there, letting tiredness grip him, but that's all for the best, I guess, because he deserved to rest.

"Sweetie," nameless said. "I don't care if you think that I have wronged you. It won't happen again. Come on the train."

"Poo," I said. I couldn't move of course. Just to remind you, as I have many times already, I was lying in a sick-bed, from a hospital, in Manehattan. Things... kept changing, forever, in my life, but I deserved it. I at least knew that I didn't not deserve it, so by inference, I of course either deserved it, or didn't not deserve it, nor deserve it. Nor? No, I deserved... I didn't... which means, I possibly did deserve it. I see stars above my head. Are they alive? Only time will tell. Will I die? Only time will tell. Am I free? Only time will tell. Things keep changing.

Woo-woo-woo.
> Part 39: Aftermath of the Trick
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Woo-woo-woo. When you're stuck in a stick, in the thicket of your dreams, do you beam with a smile, for a while, as you lie to yourself... liiieee about ugh! Stupid things, I tell myself, alive-alive whiiillleee eep I, seen. Scene? No, I'm in a bind. Look at me. I'm so awry I can barely think, can hardly blink at my thouuughts moo of the, big great mighty change that's about to happen. 

When?

When do things change? Never. I feel like jumping, which I am, but only in my thoughts. Stab me with my thoughts. They're doing it in real life, anyway! Anyhow, way, to say, hellooo, my friend! I feel... but it doesn't matter. My thoughts are my own, but it doesn't matter. Am I changing? But it doesn't matter. Give me the umbrella to protect me from the toxic rain of my evil stupendous black future, and my thoughts.

That will do.





Me, me, me, stuck in a tree, is saying all these things, branches eating up me. I, I, I, feeling the breeze, and powers that be, and forces that free, which I think yet still are there back in the shade. To embrace them, and make them come, I have to sharpen my mind so, let's think again, and go back more, and ponder all these questions, or, let's not do anything and settle with living in shadows. Being a shadow, and being, is not as easy as it sounds. Being demands a sacrifice. Being is not something easy.

I feel alive, but what am I? I am what I, can say I feel, that I want, to be and there, are more things too, like feeling true. Being true is like being there, and being smart, pondering thoughts, full of gloss, and what the heck- I can't even think anymore. Woo-woo-woo.

"Woo," I said. "Woo goes the train."

"Does it now?" Gripey said.

"I say we gone on the train," I said.

"We already have, Sweetie."

"We have?" I said. 

"Yes." His eyes were calm and warm. Those eyes, how nice to see those eyes, I think, and I cannot look at them, and also blink, while I think, because it demands too much attention. W- hm.

"I..." I said. "I... never mind."

"You want to know why we entered the big scary train?"

"And why do you call me Sweetie?" I said.

"Don't you worry about that," he said.

"Am I crazy?"

"What?" he said.

"Am I having a mental breakdown?" I said.

"No," he said.

There can only be shadows where light exists, but there can never be no light, and only shadows, because light is true, and a part of you. So sayeth I, the spirit of sight.





The inside of the train had red walls. It was nice. There were swans on the walls. "Have I been here before? Only time will tell," I said.

"Okay?" he said.





The giant scary grappling hooks flew out the train.

"Sweetie."

Oh!

"I'm crazy," I said. But if craziness is normal, and I can still live, then I invite you, crazy! Crazy that we coexist.

No.

"Sweetie."

On behalf of the nightmare, welcome to reality.

"Sweetie," he said.

Why?

The door to the train swung up. Swung to the side? It slid, I guess. That's what it did. I think... and... yeah, it did.

"I am bonkers," I said.

"No," he said.

I'm crazy!





"If you feel crazy," [redacted] said, "I can offer help. You err when you avoid it. Receive my help, and you'll be fine."

Helllp whelp yelp no! No help from any other, nay. Only self-help help crickets... trains.

"I don't want your help," I said. "I won't do as you say. You know that. My feelings are all too clear."

"My help comes at a price, as you know, but so does that of them, those ponies, all their lives, but I am more straightforward than they are. I say you kill a few ponies, perhaps only one, and then, you might not ever have to kill again. Or else, you will keep killing, until there is nothing left of you to resist the urge, and think bad things bad, and if we believe that, and think good things good, then let us survive through our hate. Your hatred for me is as beautiful as any burning passion I have seen."

"Leave," I said.

Trains.





Veins. The eye had veins. Wake me up from my veins, in vains, of strains, in waits, for the what's, and I care.

I fear.

It moves, maybe, but only a thought, nothing more, moves.

"I feel."

That was not proper.

She lifted me up in her scary light limbs. "Come now, with me, little girl."

It was never over.





"You are dysfunctioning, and dysfunctional," she said.

"How so?" I said. I stood up. My eyes cleared up. I looked up. I was surrounded by characters. One of them was Hookbeak, the real Hookbeak, hook-beak and all, another Luna, another Celestia, another... someone. This guy was part goat, part rooster or something. It was Discord? Oh, sure. The next person was a giant eye, but no, it wasn't, and what happened next? I looked further up. A giant body was attached to the eye, that of a dragon. His name was Torch. Okay? Torch my mind. That would be appreciated. The next person was nameless herself. The next person was the forest sprite Aqasha's shining eye stuck inside a tree. Then, I saw the Yether's surreal form, his larvae form. Those were all. 

"Again," I said. "That is an additional hole in my memory, and a series of hallucinogenic experiences and visions, which cannot be accounted for."

"Account," nameless said, standing by the table. I was on a table. I stood up. No, I was already standing. No. No, me. No! No, back. No, you are wrong. Am I wrong? How dare you? Oof.

"This is not what you said," Hookbeak said, looking with an unusually serious demeanor at nameless.

"Said?" she said. "I fear."

"Fear?" Hookbeak said.

I shook my head, and my neck cracked, excruciating pain finding its way through my body. "Ouch."

"Explain," Hookbeak said. "What is wrong with her?"

"What is wrong with her?" nameless said. "You really want to know?"

"Yes," Hookbeak said.

"Do you really want to know?" nameless said, repeating herself unnecessarily.

"Yes," Hookbeak said, also repeating himself unnecessarily.

"She is the wrong Sweetie Belle," nameless said.

"How come?" Hookbeak said.

"Well," nameless said. "I am the victim of a terrible plot, you see."

"Speak, or do not say anything at all," Celestia said. "Do not dance between those two."

"I won't," nameless said. "No, I won't."

"She's clearly not meant to be here," Hookbeak said. "What gave you the idea to bring her here?"

"Well, I happen to get these stupid ideas, out the blue," nameless said, tapping her own head with her hoof. I was sort of fading in and out, because of the pain, but I could still hear them, and remember all this now, looking back. This is autobiographical, and I'm writing about the past. At least, it seems that way so far, doesn't it? Even now, as I'm writing, I'm getting unsure. There's something scary and haunting about writing this story. It's almost as if I disappear and only the story exists, in the moment that I start putting ink to paper, how sad. I can never be here and there at the same time. I can never sing and sit, either. Either I write, or I don't, and the caring happens in-between, and is invisible, or not, and do I even feel motivated to write, or is writing something that happens to me? Stupid thought!

"Skeyestar," Aqasha said. "Speak true, or I will substitute your words." The bush sang, hummed, and shone, all at once, of Aqasha the forest sprite.

"Truly," nameless said. "There was this thing that happened, you see. It happened to me, and others too. And I cannot figure out if a thing of it's true."

"She's in pain," Luna said, about me. Well, I was, but I don't want to draw attention to myself, too much. You know how pain feels, you who reads. Pain is a unidimensional experience. I need not describe it in shallow tones, and big wordiness, for you to get it. It felt a lot. It was a big pain, not a small one. That help? But so what, though, is the thing. Pain feels like pain does, and no matter what I think about it, and how much it changes me, it will still never be what truly makes me who I am, if I really am something other than the pain, but if I am pain, or if pain is true, and part of me, as someone told me recently, then what to do? I don't know. Do I run? I don't know. Do I care? I don't know.

"I feel..." I said, as I cramped up. Well, you know what? It felt like a thousand needles. How's that? It felt like an attack. How's that? I ponder it. I ponder it. I hate the pain, but will that make it go away, nay? And does the way I think about it change the physical sensation? No, it might change the anxiety, and emotion, that the pain inspires, but a physical pain is as real to see that anyone can feel, and isn't that enough? Wow. I am through with life. I tried walking away from the table and finding a place to bang my head against, again!

I could not really move, not at all, though.

"Trouble to move," nameless said, "and whispers, like those of–"

"Will you shut up and just get to the point?" Luna said.

Nameless ground to a halt. "I- uh. Wh- why- okay, Princess of Night."

"This child is not well, so clearly that even you should be able to grasp that," Luna said, harshness in her voice.

"I'm grasping," nameless said. "I feel... and I think... maybe, you can only ever do that, and nothing more. The sky-bot is complicated." Nameless held up a hoof, to stop Luna, as she opened her mouth.

A warm gush of wind brushed against my skin. "What's this?" Torch the dragon said.

"What's not?" I said.

"She's not a pony," he said.

"Well, la-di-daa," I said, while feeling a choking sensation. I used my last powers to make that sound, and why I would strain myself so much to make a stupid mocking-sound, I dunno. I sank down, gradually, losing the power in my feet.

"Her thoughts are not her own," nameless said. "But it's not my fault. It's Sidus'."

"Huh?" I said.

"You were granted a warning," Aqasha's bush said. "You failed in heeding my advice."

"Sidus?" I said. "Sidus only visited me in a few dreams. I don't remember him ever really doing anything other than to haunt my dreams."

No, wait. I didn't say that. I wasn't even conscious.





"Wake up."

"Nothing is harder," I said, in response. "I've been asleep forever."

"There was a mix-up," he said.

"What was the mix-up?" I said back. "Are my friendships real?"

"Who are you?" he said, in response.

"I am me," I said.

"You were harmed," he said.

"So?" I said.

"Usually, harm begets evil," he said, in his old voice.

"So?" I said. "I don't want to be evil."

"Well, that's the problem. I wanted you to be evil," he said. Light hit him, and his body disappeared, and became a shadow.

"I'm not evil," I said.

"Evil? No, but you're not good either. You're useless. Evil is better than you are," he accused!

"What?" I said. "What can be worse than evil?"

"Confusion," he said.

Floating!

Yes, I floated.

Oblong, was I? My existence? Stretched out? Like an egg? But true!

I am not through with you, either.





Do I exist? I feel alive, and isn't that enough? Why? I feel it is!

I tossed, falling down.

Falling, yes!

I feel the best, no jest. 

Let me rest.

"I am alive," I said. "I am sharp. I am sensation. I am alive, truly. I am there, in the air, and feeling fair, like the best, dearest dear. I am fear."

Isn't that enough?

I pushed, and isn't that enough?

It doesn't matter what you feel, not even what you think, and isn't that enough?

I will be free.

I don't mean to be sentimental about it though. This is not a game. I will be.

Who am I?





"You cannot treat her as if she were a pony," nameless said. "You need to treat the cause, not the symptom."

"What is the cause?" Luna said.

"The effect of fear is the symptom," nameless said.

"So then is the cause fear?" Luna said.

"No," nameless said, laughing. "I happen to be something of an expert in fear, and I can tell you that no, it's not the fear. It's whatever causes the fear. It's the failure to believe that fear exists in-between your own perception, and the thing you fear, as a third thing, between them. Fear is what you're looking at, is a false belief. That which causes fear will take over the world, if you treat it as if it were real, Luna, Princess of Night, and shadow."

"Okay, nonsense answer," Luna said, not grasping it, and she had every right to. It was incomprehensible, and incomprehensibly dumb to me, too.

"Princess of Night," nameless said, her voice full of life and energy, with the tinge of a childlike crack in it. "I don't expect you to understand, but there are ways of rescuing oneself from the clutches of fear. Those only exist when you hunt the objects of your soul, which have traumatized you forever, as the real objects of fear, not those of perception, as false that I can taste it, I fear."

"What does that have to do with her neck breaking?" Luna said. "Her body is falling apart, says Hookbeak. Do something, if you can, or go away, and let us others deal with this."

"She is allergic to fear," nameless said, not at all placating Luna's wishes, or indeed respecting them, no, not at all. "I am allergic to this allergy, and I can feel it. It's there, all right. Isn't it, Sweetie Belle? Or should I call you... Sweetie Bot? What is your real name? Only time will tell."

"I don't feel well," I said, my mouth somehow forming those words, but the words were only in my head, as I heard them with my ears. Had I really said them? No, as I said. They were only in my head. 

"Step aside," Luna said, attempting to push nameless.

Luna's hoof went right through nameless. "I keep warning you ponies," she said, nameless.

"Warning?" Luna said.

"Where are we?" nameless said. "We're in a sanctum. These only exist where pony eyes cannot see. None of us are ponies, Luna, Princess of Night, and none of us are harmed."

Luna saw me lying there, gasping. "I'd beg to differ," she said.

"Differ this. Differ that. La-di-daa," nameless said, like I had a short while ago. 

"Differ- she- I..." Luna said, her horn shining, but I only felt a new wave of pain, as she did that. "Why can my magic not heal her?"

"No one can," nameless said. "She is possessed, by what will come next. She is the problem, and an important part of my verse. Her own verse can only be heard by those that listen."

"Listen?" Luna said.

"No one likes you," Discord said.

"Me?" nameless said.

"You're worse than I am, and that's a little amusing," Discord said, almost laughing, but stopping himself.

Who am I? "Who am I?" I said.

"Safe," nameless said. "Thank heavens, and the stars, that I brought you here. Your existence is precarious."

"What is?" I said.

"Your existence," she repeated, unnecessarily.

"Existence?" I said.

"Yes."

The Story of a Robot?

Yes, I guess.





"The stupid old goat put you in the machine," nameless said, "knowing the consequences. You have been dying."

"Dying?" I said.

"What's worse!" she said, fulminating. "He expected me to clean up his mess for him."

"Well, that sure was bad of him," I said, not having the slightest idea what she was rambling about.

"Worse thing of all?" she said. "He was right! That beast, of a pony."

"Wait. You're not talking about me?" Discord said. I couldn't see him. I couldn't see anything anymore, as I could in the last scenes, but I could hear him, yes.

"Do you have access to the machine?" nameless said. "I was talking about the other goat. The stupid alicorn that ruined everything, again, and this time, he did it on purpose. What's wrong with the guy?"

"The machine has access to me. It speaks to me all the time," Discord said. "We tell stories to each other each night."

"Okay, so," nameless said. "I don't know what that is, or if I should be worried about it."

"That's how ponies feel about you all the time," Discord said.

"Well, that's what fear is," nameless said.

"Fear is boring gibberish from a cursed filly?" Discord said. "Fear is like, the sounds of a child when she is over-emotional and writes bad poetry?"

"Hey! My poetry is tops. Shut up!" nameless said. "Stupid insult, from a stupid ingrate."

"I would rather enjoy not existing," Discord said. "I have not tried it in a long time, after all."

"This existence and this world, is dependent on my word," nameless said. "Like it or not, you freak."

"Aww," he said. "She's angry because I insulted her pretty words."

Is dependent on my word? What?

"That Sidus sure was sneaky," Discord said. "A shame he's gone."

"A joy, and a pleasure. A fact, and a miracle," nameless said.

"You're just trying to sound deep by using big words," Discord said. "Big words equal big thoughts to you, but in reality, you are only a child."

"The most accomplished child in the history of the world," nameless said, "in a manner of speaking."

Bubbles floated through my face. I felt more pain.

"We need to remove your face," nameless said. "Sorry. Don't blame me too harshly, but blame me all the same."

I felt pain.

Pain feels like pain, which is a tautology, but nonetheless true.

Wh-wh-wh-okay.

The shining hue of magic, lifted me into the air.

I smiled. "No fear!"

You're just a memory, of alternate history.

Ponies scrounged the earth, for stupid plagues.

Junctures are aplenty, alive.

"I told you," nameless said, "not to hold still."

But it only ever worked as long as I was still.

"No," I said. "You said the opposite."

"Yes, duh," she said. "And you listened? You moronic pest."

Clownish, was I? Maybe, maybe not.

Over yet? I think not.





"What are you doing?" Luna said.

"Nothing," nameless said.

The pain almost stopped. It faded, along with everything else.

"What's happening?" Luna said.

I floated, gently, feeling my skin rip apart.

"She's coming together," nameless said. "Her beauty is revealing itself."

"... You're killing her," Luna said.

"No, she's killing herself," nameless said, and the light that surrounded my body, that shining hue, exploded, sending sparks inside my head, flying everywhere. Flying sparks! Beauty is fickle.  

"Still though," I said. "Somehow, I'm not quite dead."

"You must be lying," nameless said, as I came back down, landing.

"Whatever does this mean?" Luna said. "Are you okay, Sweetie?"

"Yes," I said.

Over.





It's hard to kill someone that wants to live, somehow. As someone told me recently, I will remain alive, if I want to be.

Gripey!

"This is a fine landscape," I said, smiling out at the beautiful landscape of Equestria the kingdom.

We walked along the green of the world, the color of correct. Just kidding! That was the color of my sight, and my feeling of the day, and I loved the color. It felt true, not correct, but true. Correct is cold, but true is warm, which is how those words feel.

"It is," he said.

"I know," I said, with excitement to the point of bursting. "I never want to hurt myself ever again. I love you."

"What did you say?" He had been focusing on something else.

"Oh, nothing," I said.

"We should get back to the carriage soon. It's getting late. We might be robbed." That was a direct and unequivocal statement from a person that didn't want to get robbed.

"I know," I said.

We did return back, and my feelings got stronger. My feelings of something got stronger.

I want to live, I guess, I thought. That's unexpected. It's because of him though. That's what I realized, truly. I will survive, when I ask for it, I thought. That was my own thought. That was my own premonition, and the wise person was I, and I am more than that crook nameless thinks, I think. We shall see, though, won't we? Won't we? We would.





"Oh, no. Oh my!" nameless said fast. "Oh!"

"Oh?" I said. I stood up on the table now. My body was fine again.

"It's not..." she said. Her shadow grew out of her body, becoming bigger and scarier.

Yes, she had a shadow. I saw it now. The shadow said, "Have no fear. Have no fear."

"Fear?" nameless said.

"Guess what?" I said.

"What?" Luna said. 

I was surrounded by eyes.

"I figured it out in time," I said. "Aqasha."

"What?" nameless said. "Whatever was it that you figured out."

I picked up something off the table. "What's this?" I threw it at nameless. It was a cup.

The cup went straight through her. "So what?" she said.

"So what?" I said, and skipped off the table.

"Have no fear," the shadow of hers said.

"No," nameless said. "I'm not afraid."

"Have no fear, F-5226." The shadow barred teeth. 

"I never had fear, and I am not Sweetie Belle." The light on her body vanished, and Sweetie Belle was standing in front of me.

"Spooky," I said. 

"Sweetie?" Luna said. She looked at the other Sweetie.

"Have no fear, none at all," the shadow said, and its eyes shone up, red and imposing.

"I am not afraid!" Sweetie said, the other one.

"Who is who?" I said.

"You are nothing but a robot," Sweetie said. "I'm the real Sweetie. I'm F-5226. I'm the one that lived in the facility. You are nothing but a fake, with fake thoughts and feelings. You can never survive."

"Is this true?" I said to Hookbeak, asking him point-blank.

"I don't know what she's saying," he said. I could see Hookbeak in front of me with greater sharpness and clarity than I ever could, and colors got starker around me.

"I feel good," I said. "I feel not much." The fuzziness that made everything seem blurry seemed to vanish. "I feel good." It had made my thoughts blurry too. "Great."

"S- Sweetie Bot," Sweetie said. "You don't understand." The shadow twisted around her body, darkening it, coiling like a broken spring around her, sticking to her. Sweetie tensed up. "She's never going to let me go."

"Who?" I said.

"The- the eye," Sweetie said.

I glanced to Aqasha.

"The other eye," Sweetie said. The shining teeth that stuck out the shadow grew, and light shone off them. Sweetie's body appeared to be getting even darker, for some reason. The teeth bent around her and crunched. She vanished, and the shadow blinked a couple times, also vanishing, whisking away, each part fading, and disappearing, like magic. 

"Wow," I said.

Freaky, freaky, freaky.





"We don't go on the train," Gripey said, in horror that I would even suggest such a thing.

"No, of course not," I said, as we flew off. "I can't let her realize that."

"How would she know?" he said.

"How would she know?" I said, mimicking him.

"You're not making any sense."

"I know I'm not," I said, "but I'm still right about this. I just have trouble explaining myself."

"You don't want to go on the train now?"

"I never wanted to go on the spooky train," I said, "but this ghost is trying to predict my every move. I need to be unpredictable. I don't see any other option." 

"Who is this ghost?" he said. "Who is that demon that's been following us?"

"It's me," I said. "She's just a demon though, nothing more. She's not even real, actually."

"Detective Botsy," he said, sarcastically.

"Yeah, well, I try," I said.

"You don't even answer my question."

"I want to," I said. "I'm afraid she'll get to know about it."

"How would she know?" he said.

"I know," I said.

I truly did know, and I wanted to live, so that's good too.





Back down with nameless, ten minutes earlier, I had been taken with a new thought. "None of this makes any sense."

No one responded.

"None of this makes any sense."

No one responded.

"Nothing makes sense."

Nothing happened, in response.

"No one makes sense."

Nothing happened.

"No one situation makes sense."

Nothing.

"No, wait. I do still... I... funny."

The story of something is about that thing, which the something refers to, after all, and in this case, it's a robot.





"It's just a story, Sweetie," I said. "It's just a story."

"What's that?" Gripey said.

"I feel relieved now," I said. This is ten minutes later, when we were flying, after the conversation in the section before the last one. Complicated? It's supposed to be. Think while you read, please. I implore you. It will make things come together rather quickly now. The secret of a good plot-twist, I think, as nameless would probably support me on, is one where a single thing, a single one variable, explains everything. That variable is implicit, perhaps hidden, and implied to exist, at various points in the story, but you never tell the reader about it, because that would be cheating. 

Simulations of experiences are possible.

That's not what happened to me, though!

I feel alive, because I am. I am not a fictional character, even.

Oookay.

Here we go!

"Hey," I said. "How do you feel about trying something unexpected?"

"Unexpected?" he said.

"Yes," I said.





We flew back down. We were going on the train, decidedly. 

Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? I thought that over and over again in my head, laughing, but only laughing in my head, not in real life.

"Wow," I said.

"What now?" he said.

"We're not going on the train," I said.

"But I thought you said..."

"Hush up," I said.

"O..."

"Trust me, for once," I said.

"You told me," he said. "You said that..."

"Yes," I said.

We landed.

The story...

... ends here.





I feel so unsure. I feel so sure.

"We are going on the train," he said.

We went on the train, and then turned back, immediately, going back down.

"What are you doing?" nameless said, going up the steps. "There is a private room prepared just for you two, you know."

"We are going on the train," he said, and he took my heavy bed and flapped his wings, almost flying inside the train.

We are in the train. Now, we sat there, waiting for it to take off. It took off. We stood on the ground. We were on the train. 

Something, something, something, with sharpness on top, is where I'm at, I hope.

Wa-bink!





Gripey and I stood next to the train, watching it take off.

"What's happening?" he said. "Why did it leave without us?"

"Oh," I said. "The train must've thought that we were on it, after we went off. Something was wrong with its scanners, and then, it took off, thinking that we were on it."

The train disappeared into the waterfall far off there in the distant distance.

"Hahaha!" Gripey laughed. "You're funny sometimes."

"The real answer," I said, "is that there is no train. There is no train at all, and we've been hoodwinked to believe that there is such a thing."

"That seems like a lame answer," he said, winking at me, and smiling, brightly.

"The real answer," I said, "is of course that all of it were real, and the only thing that's not real about it is that I've met ponies that have pretended to be other ponies, just so they could trick me, and make me confused."

"I'm sorry that I thought you were crazy," he said.

"Oh, that's okay," I said. "I thought I were crazy too."

For true, though. For true.





I figured it out as far back as Manehattan. It's not down in the caves that the answer came to me. It's obvious.

The few floating threads of light came wafting down from the air.

Wow, I thought. A puppet? That doesn't seem very magical. But then, I knew it wasn't magic. Even the magic portals weren't magical. They were portalical. They were scientific, though magic can seem to be there, when you don't have an explanation, and the underlying magic of the world might only exist in the horns of unicorns, not in the trees, and not in the earth, which need oxygen and a little bit of luck to survive.

Of course, an evil monster demon wouldn't need strings, but she would need assistance, and help, to carry that puppet.

Later!

"Hey," I said to Gripey. "Were you in this room thirty seconds ago, say? I'm just wondering. I'm not asking this, rhetorically."

"What?" he said. "You've got a screw loose."

"No..." I said. "No, I am sane."





Sorry!





Okay, you have to admit though. It was pretty exhilarating to go through all those dreams sequences, which didn't make any sense, and in fact weren't dream sequences.

Simulation of the memory, over...

Smoke entered my lungs. The machine was broken.

I fell out.

"How did it go?" Scootaloo said. "Now, I will just send the memory back in time, eleven years, and then we can use it to make Sweetie Belle do exactly as we want, right?"

I glanced at her, just for a moment. "Right," I said.

"What happened in there?"

The straps around me loosened, and I sank to the ground.

"Oh, nothing of note," I said. I walked by her side, relaxed. She was standing by the edge. Of course, there wasn't any fence. There had never been, on top of the activators, one of which I was at.

"So then... where's the transcript, buddy?"

"Look at my eyes," I said.

"I see them," she said. "They look different."

"Don't they?" I said.

"So?" she said.

"Feel my hair," I said.

She touched my hair, pulling out a curl. It bounced back, right inside, without giving. "You've changed?"

"I've turned into an actual robot. That's what the machine does when you stay in it for too long," I said.

"Which means?" she said

"That whatever I am, and wherever Sweetie is, she's gone, and I'm not her," I said, waiting for her to get it.

"That means..." she said. Suddenly, I saw fear on her face.

It was now or never. I jumped her, and tugged at her with my magic. She was drawn down toward the edge of the abyss.

"See ya later, Scootaloo," I said, as we both fell down into the abyss.

She tried folding out her wings, but she couldn't fly. She was far older now, than she had been. She was twenty-eight. 

"Sweetie," she said. "We can still save this. Whatever... whatever happens."

"No, we, can't!" I said. "There is no saving it."

"You over-emotional," she said, as we fell. "We need to save them from themselves. There is no other way. Of course, you know the war will destroy them. What happened to you in there?"

Well... it was a long fall. What do you expect? "I got reminded why manipulating ponies, and committing mass-murder is wrong in the first place, Scootaloo."

"It's always wrong regardless," she said. "We are trying to prevent the worse tragedy."

"Your life is a tragedy," I said. "And so is mine. Wanting to do this is a tragedy. It's a tragedy for the world that we exist."

"Sweetie, get a grip. We can never save the world from certain destruction if you keep acting as if empathy is a guide. I know it feels bad, but this is not all about you. It's about them too. If we can save more, then that's better. And we know exactly what to do. You have seen it, haven't you?"

"Yes," I said. "I saw something. I saw fire, death, and blood. They have voices too."

"N- now, that is a stupid metaphor," she said.

"What happens when we land?" I said, mindful that the ground was coming closer, and I felt squeezed by the air around me, like it was pressing me together into a little ball. My back sort of hurt.

"I die, and you die maybe too," she said. "But maybe not. Maybe your body has become so strong now that you live on. I've seen cyborgs fall and survive the fall. It's happened, for sure. It's possible, so don't you worry, but also don't forget what matters."

"I won't," I said. "You're within saving too. Also, I'm not a cyborg. I'm a–"

Scootaloo's body spread out on the ground. My ears rang. I stood up.

"Time to fix this," I said.





Me, me, me, stuck in a tree, just like a bee, shoved inside trees. I, I, I, hibernating, waiting for warmth, inside my tree... I do.

I came out the portal, purple portal, into Canterlot, yeah. That city, you know? We all know Canterlot. Good old Canterlot!

"Hello," I said.

"Hello?" he said.

"Guess what?" I said.

"What?"

"I made a mistake or two." I involuntary reached my hoof behind my head, out of nervousness, I suppose. Oof, that felt bad, like my attention, and concentration, were being robbed from me.

"True," he said. "You went back, after you had promised not to."

"Yeah, it's hard for me to speak to what I did and explain why, mostly because I don't remember much of it. I have forgotten who I am, sadly."

"Hey! Are you serious?" he said, suddenly sounding somber.

"Yes, can you come closer?"

He did. I squeezed his face.

"You're alive," I said.

"You gathered that?"

"Yes," I said, letting off with my clumsy hooves.

"What have you forgotten?"

"Yes, well, maybe it would be easier to start with what I haven't forgotten," I said.

"I don't want to hear it," he said. "You betrayed all of us, honestly."

"But I came back," I said. "I came back, buddy."

"You know what this means, what you did. It means that we can never be friends again."

"I changed my mind," I said. "I don't want to do it anymore. I have decided that I don't want anyone else to suffer, ever again."

"Too late," he said.

"No," I said. "No. I killed Scootaloo. Someone has to go back in time with those scripts, if I understand it right, which I barely am, because I'm only speaking from the top of my head."

"Right?" he said. "Who do you think that'll be? I can't trust you any longer."

"No, w- I'll destroy those scripts," I said. "I just need to... go back. How did I get there?"

"You don't remember? That's depressing. All the time we spent trying to get there, you have forgotten?" He looked at me. That's all he did, expressionlessly, but his eyes told stories.

"I am regretful," I said, "and I barely feel responsible, mostly because I have no hecking idea what's going on. I don't even know how I got here."

"Then there's nothing of you left," he said.

"I'm still... I remember you," I said, smiling.

"That's depressing. Remember what happened in Canterlot, when the robots invaded." He urged me, pleaded, and those words yet fell on deaf ears.

"All those years ago," I said. "All those years ago... I... did something. Ten years ago? No. Eleven."

"Eleven," he said. "Eleven, on the month, or ten and eleven months, not that it matters all that much. You saved us, that day, without even understanding why and how, and now, you're trying to kill us all, again." He trusted me, and I let him down.

"There's something wrong," I said. "There's something more I need to atone for."

"You've done enough."

I ran after him. "No, wait."

He slammed his foot down, and I flew away. "No," he said.

"Wait," I said, getting up as fast as I could. "I- I'm not done yet. I'm not."

"Then, I will have to try and stop you, I think," he said.

"You think?" I said.

It's never over, is it?





I was bound. 

"No," I said. "This is wrong."

"Stop talking," he said. "You've forgotten what it means to go to war."

"What it means to fall, suffer, and be traumatized," I said. "But I still know things. I know I do. I remember the dream."

"There is no dream," he said.

"I know," I said. "That's what I remember."

There was a tree, nearby. Its roots pulsed, and grew, like a monster.

"Scary tree," I declared, staunchly, declaratively, sort of like kind of, that! You know.

The roots grew out the tree, snaking their way across the ground, grabbing me.

Gripey took a weapon and cut at the tree. The weapon went through the tree. He dropped it. "It's no use..." he said.

"What's no use?" I said, being grabbed.

I was pulled down into the ground.





I could hardly breathe. I got earth in my mouth. Things hit my body, making it hurt. It was hard to feel sorry for myself, but I managed. Oh, poor me! What's happening to me, and why?

Big castle corridors, halls of stone, torches, moonlight, reflections, coldness, and stark pain covered me.

I hit the ground with an inconspicuous little thud.

Ouch.

"You are most welcome," I heard a weak voice say. "Welcome to the center of the earth, and the middle of the world, the only place where suffering is true."

There, past the pillars, stark and dark of stone, higher than high, hitting the sky, beyond my view, and beyond my eye, was a filly with grey hair and a wrinkly, rotting visage.

"Who are you?" I said.

"I am the filly of your dreams, the one of screams, which haunts the day, and plagues the night. Most welcome, little one, to have come this far. Eyesstark thought that you would never make it out. No one did. They're all dead now though. I always thought I would die before all the other ancients. It's strange to see you like this, Sweetie."

I came toward her, wondering if she was a ghost. Things went into her body, veins, red veins, connected to a giant bloodshot eye that was above her, staring at me. I suddenly got very, very cold, and cold-hearted, inside. My heart froze, and I felt... emptiness, again. "I," I said. "Don't... I know you?" I could swear I knew her.

"Yes," she said. "We have met. I am sorry to startle you like this. I know it looks bad, but most of my pain is of the past. And you should know, Sweetie, as you have experienced it, that one gets used to pain. Pain is fleeting, not sensational, and not eternal. It doesn't matter how strong, and how infernal."

I got even closer. The eye shone ever so faintly, casting a light on the filly. "I know you," I said.

"I tried so hard to stop you from knowing me," she said. "Truth be told."

"Truth be told?" I said. "I stopped you..."

"Yes, I lied inside the circle of light, because my heart wasn't true. Of course, that half of me lives no longer, but my heart is still pumping, and my eyes are alive and well. Right, Eyesstark?"

"The eye of sight greets you now. Know that all is well with us. The eye of darkness knows no bounds, and how? You could not follow it into the next stage of the dream, because?" the eye said.

"I follow no cold-hearted dreary suffering into any stage of anything," I said. "I am resolved on that point. I believe in friendship, and I believe in my friend, Gripey."

"That belief will be tested," the grey-haired molding filly said. Her body had sunk inward, and by the looks of it, she was dying painfully. "That belief is a spark, which I will quench."

"Never," I said.

"You say that now," she said, the filly. "But times eternal speak of pains far greater than your own, which have broken and destroyed creatures far stronger than you, Sweetie."

"You meant for me to..." I said, piecing it. "The events of my dreamlike state took place, actually took place in reality, eleven years ago? Is that right, friend?" I said friend with a mocking tone.

"Yes, yes. How far have you fallen to have forgotten the truth that the pain of the machine, and the dream, taught you, filly?" rotting filly said.

"Far, I must have," I said. "Always falling, and never free from that infernal machine, which I'm now free from, but not even now, not really, because I'm full of questions."

"It's the desire to answer those questions that will make you do all the bad things which you are so afraid of doing, but that will without a doubt save the world one day, Sweetie," the little evil filly said.

"No," I said. "It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with manipulating a small child, indoctrinating her, and changing her brain, to believe that ponies are evil. I'm not that person, not anymore. And I'm done with you, nameless."

"Did she call me nameless?" she asked the eye.

"The filly thinks that you are still in hiding, and yet still always biding, fighting, to reclaim time, and reclaim fate."

"Now, look," the filly said. "I will be honest. I am dying. My body is collapsing, and my organs are failing, because I'm in a pact with the magical eye, giving it mind, and it is giving me the future, if you understand what is going on here, or not? I am not broken, nor frail of mind, because I am connected to the eye, which holds all the knowledge in the world, but I will soon be dead, and gone forever. After that, Eyesstark will go crazy again. It stands to reason that unless the eye lies inside the circle of light, she will never die, and the eye has the desire to live on until our dream has been fulfilled. She has suffered more than I, and more than you. Listen, and please, respect me, and my wishes. I only wish to save things. I never knew that would turn me into this rotten husk, past of a child. I never knew that changing the future, and being in the middle of all change, in the middle of the world, the earth's mind, would cause such pain, but such is my fate, and under the stars, I bear my burden. It's time for you to bear yours. No one has ever taught me how to show true friendship, and have true affection to others. I feel hatred, but I also feel something that can be described as an affinity, for you most of all, Sweetie. You taught me that affinity is real."

"What does this have to do with genociding ponies?" I said.

"Everything," she said. "After all, behind all that evil madness, and crazy machinery, small ponies, big ponies, weapons, and death, hides a simple machine, a simple relation, and my purpose. The machinery of time, and the cogs of fate, beckon us all."

"You can be very obnoxious," I said.

The filly almost tripped over a vein. She looked immobile, because of the veins, giant and pulsing, out the floor, from the eye, reaching down, were so tightly connected to her body. "Look," she said. The veins reached down into the floor, and like evil roots, connected to her evil body. "I didn't mean to be obnoxious. I am fearful for the future. The Equestria of your day has turned into a wasteland, and out of naïve desperation, your friend has betrayed you and tied you down, to a metal chair. I saw it, for I see all, and I can know what you cannot." 

"He did what I deserved," I said. "I betrayed him. I returned to the machine."

"He cannot see your desperation," she said. "You are afraid because you know that you two, and all that live around you will suffer. Most will die, as most have already, and into the future, I behold a bloodbath, because Equestria has become overrun with darkness, both in the most literal and figurative senses that that these words can be uttered. You are lost. I am lost. Eyesstark is full of pain, but she pulls through, and pretends that I cannot see it, and wants to think that it is not there, but I know how sad her existence is, too. This cannot be the correct course for the future, the right fate, the shining hope. Your spark will illuminate the future, I say, Sweetie."

"I don't remember feeling afraid of that... except at your hooves. I was afraid you would do it," I said, remembering what had happened, earlier in the story. Earlier in the story, reader, is all I could remember now, and nothing more.

"You are afraid of the truth," she said. The filly raised her head, and her eyes pierced through me, like knives cutting through my face, entering my gaze, putting me inside a haze. I collapsed on the ground, out of shock. Her eyes were unlike any I had ever seen, so cold, and so dark. "You are afraid of realizing that I am right, are you not? Just a thought."

"No," I said. "No, I know that you are wrong. Look at you. You're pathetic." I collected myself. No, I thought. What she had done to herself could somehow not be right for the world. It could not be right for the world, period. I could not be right, somehow, nor could it in any way be right. "You are just a sad joke who used to be a real person, but you don't remember how it is to be real, and you don't remember how it is to lose your friends... repeatedly, and to learn about friendship, only to have others take it away from you, because they think they know best." Here, I was referring to the death of Gripey, but also, what had happened when Jelly was invaded by the cyborgs in the Forest of Tranquility. Her mother was killed, and we got separated. Funnily enough, I'm not asking the reader to keep tabs on this. I realize this is a complicated story, but for reference, there you have it.

"I know you suffered," the filly of decay said, whose body was grey. She was a tiny little child, and yet, she looked a hundred years old, but not really. She looked two-hundred years old. She looked way past death. She was so grey, and so lonely here, I realized. "You taught me about friendship. I am sorry to have betrayed you like that. Eyesstark and I saw the need to teach you a lesson. Your weakness blinded you to the suffering that would have taught you the truth, had you only been willing to embrace it."

"What is the truth?" I said.

"Easy," she said. "Suffering is fleeting, but death is eternal. Therefore, it stands to reason that we can cover and mold the world in our suffering, that of mine and Eyesstark, put ponies inside the beautiful machine, work them over, replace their meat with our mechanics, and make them realize true destiny, and true truth. It's beautiful, beyond my belief, which reaches as far as any mind can go, Sweetie."

"I think you want to save the world, but you're dooming it instead," I said.

"The machine works them over, for such is their fate, and then, they can walk free, explore the world, but know my truth, as you will. You will be numb to it when I am done with you, Sweetie," the filly said, evil coldness in the air.

"Evil, that's what you are," I said, feeling everything reach a fever pitch. "To me, that's what you mean, [redacted]."

"Evil?" she said. "I am evil enough. I know that evil must entrench itself in places, and tear those places apart. There can never be any triumph, without evil, and my evil is one which sees a higher purpose. You will stop it, but too late, because I will already have changed the world."

"No," I said. "You are dying. You will do nothing." I didn't even know what I myself was saying. I felt like my mind ran at a million quadrillion miles a second, and I was angry. "You will never be free, nameless."

"No?" she said. "I will never be free, to walk the world? I will never smell the flowers, or taste the earth? I will never breathe the fresh air of the surface, where real life exists, beyond this cave? Is that so, Sweetie?"

"Yes," I said.

"But you will," she said. "You are the only one to have stayed inside the delirium of the sky-bot long enough to lose the pony and become the machine. Now, I am you. I can feel myself inside you, as I see your eyes. You are the same storyteller I am, and can be, when you write your words, and when you produce a transcript meant for the heavens. Your transcript will save the world, soon."

"No," I said. "I won't do it. I will not do anything you want me to do, even though I don't understand it, and I don't understand much of what you're saying. I want to be my own person. I will never be a slave ever again."

"Ah," she said. "There still is the whisper of a pony still left in you. You want to be free? Is that it? I shall grant your wish, and you will grant me my wish, in return, resolving our conundrum here."

"No," I said. "I will do nothing for you."

"You already have," nameless said. "You already have," her shaky skeletal little mouth said, a second time.

"I have? How come?" I said.

"You are here for me," she said. "I am happy to find a memory alive of the past, in the room, of the middle, where all else stands still. This is the only place where time stands still."

"I don't understand," I said.

"You'd be impressed," she said, "by what we have created up there, in its flourishing years, which come and go for all life, as it did for us. We created a civilization beneath the earth, supported by the breathing of the cold dark things within, the want to survive, the will to make it, the shallow prayer, and whisper in the dark that need not always be answered. Sometimes, inside the world, below the earth, friendship falters and fails. That's because when pain exists, as it does naturally when you strip away the lies, and internal mythos, of the false Equestrian dream, you get much despair for all, and the real flourishing is created by the striving of the tides, generations of tides, each wanting to survive, and ponies struggling, forcing their little shovels, and weak hooves, into the earth, not knowing when and how the right things will come to them. 

"Nowadays, in a sad cursed Equestria, that still believes in the mythos of princesses, who are dead now, I fear, these myths cannot survive. Thinking that struggling to enforce friendship, and that there is such a thing as enforcing love, live and prosper, against the hatred, against the lack of warmth that exists outside of civilization, outside of struggle, is a big sad lie, that can be penetrated, and gotten behind. For the world has always been evil, under the stars, says the eye." 

"I think you are wrong," I said. "I think we can struggle to... enforce love? Perhaps not enforce it, no, but we can struggle to help it along, and be there for each other. There is never an excuse for callousness, as you seem to think, and to kill ponies to prove some sort of point." I had no idea what I was up against, and that naivete really helped me in this conversation. If I had known that this creature was responsible, not only for several genocides in civil war Equestria, but also more than a millennium of strange misery, and strange deaths that she was and is responsible for, I would have been too frozen, and full of fear, to speak. You should fear ponies that are willing to kill, and see the consequences firsthand... and then do it again, with the same intention, and the thing is... I... I'm at a lack for words. I'll deal with that issue later.

"I am willing to challenge you on that," the filly said. "I am willing to help you help me see that I'm wrong, or to help me help you change the future forever, so listen and listen well. You will be haunted by the Yethergnerjz. He will stop time, and take you back into the past, using a series of spells that can be performed, in conjunction with the magic of Twilight's dead castle, bless her soul. Rest in peace, Twilight." The filly glanced to the ceiling. 

She's dead too, I thought. Who the heck's alive, other than Gripey? Are all of my other friends dead too? Even Jelly? "I don't..." I said. "The Yether-demon?"

"Yes," she said. "The Yethergnerjz does not like suffering, and wishes to prevent the death of his partner, that Hookbeak. You will be taken back, against your own will. All resistance is futile. You will be placed back inside the sky-bot. The sky-bot will tear your soul apart and teach you a new lesson. Can you defeat the truth, and defeat the future? Then, you might help the Sweetie Belle of the past, who will become you, to learn what you know. Is that not a beautiful wish, Sweetie?"

"No," I said. "No, you monster."

"Well, as you said," she said. "I am pathetic. Look at me." With some effort, she turned her head, and looked at her own body, and up at the eye. "I am so wretched. I should not be. Prevent my existence, if you can. If you are right, then the sky-bot should not be able to change you. It only causes change that is real, for that is all pain can ever do, true, and part of you, Sweetie."

"You're crazy," I said, feeling anxiety drum up. "You're absolutely crazy. You are crazy." I felt like... I thought it was over. Even though I had failed, and Gripey hated me, it had been over. I would no longer have to go through all that. "You're so evil."

"That is my character, Sweetie," she said. "As struggling against yourself is yours."

No, I would never give up!





In Twilight's castle, things were afoot- a- ahoof?

"I will be free, always, for true, and that is my fate, and my future. In my opinion, freedom is good," I said, stupidly free-associating with my thoughts out my stupid mouth. "I am going to be..."

The Yether slid in front of me. "What am I?"

"Sad, decrepit, deceptive, stupid," I said. "Duplicitous is what you are, demon. Prepared to torture me forever? Fine." I blinked, and that stupid key was around my neck again. "Yether." I shook my head. My neck cracked. "Ouch." I wobbled. The world spun.

"Yes, that is what I am," the Yether-monster said. You remember that monster? The story has been hopping around. I do not want it. The story has been changing places, and changing ideas, from place to place, since the beginning. I do not want it, but does it matter what I want, really? Does it? No.

I was lifted up in the air, and grabbed in magic, grabbed in light, which shone around my body. It reminded me of what had happened in the beginning of this chapter, and now, I realized that the table below me, the shining table with features of Equestria on it, the map, had been the one that nameless put me on, also in the beginning of the chapter, when I had been surrounded by creatures. The world truly spun, truly, truthfully.

I landed back on the table. I was surrounded by the characters Discord, Luna, Celestia, and others, again! Can you believe it? You should, I think, because it's coherent with respect to what has happened before, and it will explain some things.

"I'm fine," I said.

"I know you are," the Yether said. "It's important that you came here. You need to escape from the eye, now."

"You are helping me, why?" I said. "It's a trick."

"It's not a trick," Luna said. "It's time to run now. It's now or never."

"Now or never?" I said.

"You have to," Luna said. "That is the only reason why we brought you back. If you stay here, you'll die."

"I'll run," I said, unsure of how literally I should take that. "Run?" I tried running. 

"Wait," Luna said. She picked me up in magic.

"I was running," I said, being floated up in shining shimmering blue magic.

"No," she said. "You need to go far away, where the light can never reach you."

A purple portal opened up beside us.

"I'm not walking into one of those," I said.

"Yes, you are," the Yether said.

I flew, and landed on the hospital floor, in Manehattan. I was in the sanitary white corridor again.

"What now?" I said. I watched as the purple portal closed behind me, disappearing, as things do for me all the time in my life.

"You're safe," Gripey said.

"Whut?" I said. "What are you doing here? What the heck is my life? This is literally ridiculous. It has gone from weird, to incoherent, to just radically bizarre and crazy, and in a few days too, how odd!"

"Come with me," he said. "There's very little time to explain." He yanked me, and put me on his back. "Time to fly!"

"Fly?" I said.

He pulled open a window, and we flew out.

We flew past buildings, and down to the ground, by one of the small walls with doors in them. 

We stood in a line, and walked through, very swiftly!

Then, we got to the ginormous wall on the other side of the small doored wall. 

We flew up and to the edge of it. Gripey held something. He threw it. Lightning struck down. Then, he flew around the lightning.

"That's how you deal with that," he said.

He flew further away, off from the city, and into new territory, while my thoughts wandered. What is this? What is going on? Why? How? When? How much of this... does he even remember? Was it all real? Had most of it been a dream? I had felt this way, at least since chapter 25, and maybe before, dear reader, as you should be wary of. Be aware of, in fact! Be aware of it, wary, way, though I'm weary, off on adventure. Wait...

"Why are we leaving?" I said.

"There is no time," he said. "You must get away from there."

Oookay, I guessed. Guess? Guess, yes! I guess.

We landed, alighted, took foot, took to the ground, sank, pounced, gripped the ground, with our feet, by a train station. 

"Trains," I said.

He picked me up in his hands and flew right into the train.

Okay, I thought. Why?

Once we were inside, the train took off almost instantly.

"You are being followed," he said.

"That's true," I said. "By whom?"

I had no idea what was going on.

Do you?

Then, we're same, if you don't.

Do? I meant didn't? No, I didn't.

"There is hardly any time to explain," he said.

"Try me, anyhow," I said. "It would tranquilize my heart." I stuttered, "Th- that didn't come out right."

We were in a little room, with windows, and seats on either side of the window, facing each other. I faced him, opposite me, by the window. I saw clouds outside, strange clouds.

"This is dangerous," he said, "to even talk about."

"What is?" I said.

A horn went off. Another train? It shrieked.

I felt uneasy.

Outside the window, I saw condensation forming, and then, tiny eye-shapes covered the window, simple doodles, circles, with dots in the middle.

"That's goofy-looking," I said, trying to calm myself from it.

I wiped my hoof on the window.

"Oh," I said. The condensation got off the window. "How did it get in here?"

A purple giant portal, like those before, shining and astral, opened up outside the window, and a black train, five times as big as ours, flew out, with rails of wood and metal forming in front of it and taking shape.

"That cannot be good," I said.

"Oh no!" Gripey said and ran out the door of our train-room, without saying anything to me.

"Oh no!" I said, in response, not doing anything other than that, however.

I got the sudden urge to duck. A giant mass of metal clobbered the train, making it nearly fall over. I clambered on my chair, keeping my balance so that I didn't fall off, and the roof exploded off the train. I saw by the side a black hook of metal attaching to the side of the train. The train got its balance back, and shock, wobbling some more, before it settled. The black train beside us screeched. I was tossed forward. Sparks flew by the rail of the black evil train, and one got on me, burning me.

"Ow," I said, wiping at it.

Gripey came flying and picked me up.

Our train slammed into a rock wall beside the black train, derailing, and buckling into smaller pieces. Then, the train exploded, as he flew away with me in tow.

"Ow," I said, again. "What was thaaat?"

"Number nine," he said.

He flew off at a breakneck speed.

"That explains everything," I said, ironically. "Yes, so, yes, okay then."

The sky exploded, and bits of it fell down on us. The clouds vanished, and then, I felt bubbles run through my skull.

I felt like I was melting. He landed with me by his side, putting me down.

"How are you feeling, little buddy?"

"Like a million," I said, while bubbling.

Boom!

I felt like I was detaching from myself.

I got up, and off.

The ground beneath us disappeared, everything got white, and then, a tree came flying up. The tree had peaches in it.

"In the end, it was your friend that saved you," Aqasha said, eye in the tree. "Who saved you from what? You will know, in due time, if you are willing to stay alive, as I now trust that you are."

In the sky!





"That's quite enough," I said.

I sat down on the white ground, inside the whiteness.

"What?" Gripey said.

"How can I continue on when no matter what I do, all these terrible things keep happening to me, and others around me?"

"What do you mean?" he said. "You were right. You figured it out."

"But what if I were wrong, and I let my arrogance mislead me. I'm so tired of fighting this haze. I'm tired of feeling like I'm always confused."

"But you are right, and it's time to get out. You were always right. You were always wisest, of us two."

Right makes right, it turns out, not might.





"These things happened to me," I said to Gripey as he carried me, flying the bed that I was in all-around, all around, around the place. "I got to a village. Then, I got to that Forest of Tranquility, and then, I got to another village. Jelly was stuck in a box. Then, we got out, and I tried to... I mean, she got out, and I tried to follow her to her village. I got to Canterlot. I got to Tartarus. I met you... drats."

"What is it?"

"I cut my own throat off, didn't I, but not before I had slammed my head against those bars in Tartarus. I tried to..."

"What are you talking about? You've been with me the entire time... haven't you, Botsy?"

"Drats, drats. Wait, stop speaking. You're overwhelming me. I only cut my own throat because... of reasons... that I knew at the time... but... hm."

"But what?"

We flew across the landscape of garish gears and water splashing, humid droplets of water, like a rainforest, flying through the air, as we flew, hitting us, splashing on us, feeling... I felt, like water is supposed to... I suppose.

"What if I'm wrong though?" I said, feeling angry at myself for even thinking the thought.

"What? Please, just say it already. Stop keeping me in suspense," he said. I looked up at him. He wasn't smiling, but he had an interested, interesting, and enthralled look on his face.

"You don't think I'm crazy?"

"Why would I think that?" he said.

"I woke up in Manehattan, after having the strangest of dreams. It was as if I had been in another place, and maybe, that is true. Maybe! It's also worth mentioning that I had been in another place, kind of, thought I was, for a long time. I was... oh my gosh... that's it, I guess. I thought..."

"What happened to you?" he said.

The story...

... of a...

... robot.

"Well, ouch," I said.





Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.





"That's why Twilight repeated those words." I gasped. "My own brain surprises me sometimes. I'm not saying that to be braggadocious of anything like that. I feel... sharp."

"You are," he said. "You're one of the smartest people I know."

"Shut up," I said. "No, I'm not. I'm totally not. You're way smarter than me. All I do is hide behind big words, like... like her..."

"Like who?"

"The answer is kind of staring me in the face, in a way," I said.

"It is?"

"Well, I am a robot after all... so where's the other half of me?"

"Sweetie Belle?"

"Precisely," I said.





It was a weapon, a predilection, one to dream.

And it helped me build a better future!

Junctures!

It's just a weapon, a predilection.

It's a predilection.

It's a confection.

It's a hallucination, but still real.

It's real in the sense that you can see it, feel it.

It created hope in a time when all was lost and I saw nothing, nay, but black in the horizon of my life, and nigh...

Why?

Why, why, and double why would you do such a thing, spirit?





"Okay, Gripey. Give me some leash here, just a second or two. A minute? That is all that will be necessary."

"I'm doing it," he said.

"Listen," I said. "Think about it. What happens when you fall asleep? Like, what really happens when you fall asleep?" He opened his mouth but I interrupted him. "You dream, of course. That's what happens. Why? Well, it's kind of obvious. I think it is, anyway. It's because dreams kind of... they give you the fluidity of thought needed to think more clearly when you're awake. When you sleep and dream, your thoughts rearrange, and change structure, something that never happens when you're awake. I think so. Dreams present alternatives to reality, but reality is really just... something... that you're looking at in... your head? Reality is as much you as it is out there, because much of reality is a matter of perception, and perception is... inside your eyes? Yes, of course. Why didn't I see it before?"

"What?" he said. "What? What is it that you figured out?"

"Spooky," I said.

Now, the future is in store. Just, the future has a war. Doesn't it?

"This," I said. I closed my eyes. Yes, you see, reader? I opened my eyes. I closed them again. I got a little dizzy, but that's only normal. I was being carried high up in the air, and I lost my sense of space, yes? I opened my eyes. I saw him there in front of me, clear as day. I closed them.





Just...





I was in Canterlot...

No, I was outside Canterlot.

No one can ever... well, you know.





I opened my eyes. Gripey was there. "Am I just imagining things?"

"I don't know," he said. "How are you feeling?"





Meanwhile, in Canterlot.

"Where am I? How did I get here?"

A giant catapult came rolling, made of unsteady, scraggly, collapsing-looking, unsafe wood. Above it was a steel cage full of ponies. Beside it was nameless.

"Hello," she said.

"Eep," I said, running the other direction.

"Where are you going?" she said. She jumped in front of me, and her tentacles turned into legs, allowing her to fly forward like a spider, stopping my advance.

"I'm going away, way away," I said.

"No," she said. "You want to stay here."

"I do?" I said.

"Yes," she said. "Y–"

She was standing there alone, beside the catapult.

"Strange," she said. "Usually, that works. Ah, well. It's probably no cause for concern, none at all, no."





"Waking up," I said to Gripey. "That's my dance. That's my verse."

"It is?" he said. "How so?"

"I realize that the more I think, the more confused I get, and that's because my thoughts affect my experience, directly, not indirectly. How come though? Hmmm..."

"How come?" he said, again with that interested tone that made me want to trust him and share all the secrets, all of them.

"It's..." I said. "It's because my experience is in some sense bounded by my thoughts, but in this case, the whole world around me appears to be bounded by my thoughts, which is in no way to imply that you aren't real," I said. "And I have proof."

"Proof?"

"Yes," I said. "Where are we right now, for instance?"

"Hookbeak took us here?" he said.

"Right," I said. But are we really here? "I think we are."

"Are?" he said.

"Anyway!" I said, not thinking clearly, and making an effort to do just that. "Where are we going now?"

"What do you mean?" he said.

"I mean, where are we headed?" I said.

"We're looking for a way out," he said. "We can't go on that train."

"Right," I said. "The train. Yes, of course."

"..." he said.

"Yes," I said. I saw his expression. He didn't really say nothing, but I saw something in his eye.

"That is odd," he said, "now that you mention it."

"Right, exactly," I said. "It's like we're not moving."

"But that's..." he said. "That's ridiculous. We've moved..."

"Well," I said. "I'm sure we have a lot. We moved around, inside that carriage that Hookbeak gave us, for many hours, and days, and stuff, and then, when we got out, we moved some too."

"Yeah," he said. "I mean, we literally moved. I take your point though. I also have a weird feeling now."

"No," I said. "That wasn't my point. My point was that we're still not moving."

"It seems like we're getting closer to that waterfall," he said, nodding toward the waterfall that was far off, but getting closer now.

"That's where we're flying?" I said.

He almost dropped the bed. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he said.

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah. Now, how about we... hmmm."

"We what?" he said.

"I know!" I said. "What about actually... deciding where to move..."

"Deciding? Yeah," he said, sounding unsure of himself.

"Then, we move there," I said.

"Okay?" he said.

"Then," I said, "we don't."

"Well, what do you mean? Why would we move that way, and then not do it? At the same time?"

"Well," I said. "It wasn't making any difference when we did move where we had decided, in the past, so how about we do the opposite now?"

"Okay, I kind of do think you're insane now," he said, chuckling.

"It makes sense though," I said. "What if we do something that could not possibly be predicted?"

Hmmmmmmmmm.





It's just a feeling though, nothing more.

Except...





"I remember," I said. "Something, actually."

"What?" he said.

"We went to Manehattan after we were in that bank-town Festerville-townsville or whatever it was called, I believe. I think..."

"Yeah?" he said.

"Okay," I said. "That's where I met Colonel Caprice, after I thought you had died, but not before we went to Pegasquire and..."

"And relived some memories," he said. He knew what I had been through. He was not naïve about it, like I thought he had been. Somehow, he trusted me though, somehow. For some reason, he did.

"That's..." I said. "Telling."

"Telling of what?"

"Well, my dear Gripey," I said. "I say... hmm. I... hm. Well, it's not a lot to go on, so whoever pulled this off sure made sure that there would be next to no bread crumbs, or clues rather, leading us back to the source of the crime."

"What's the crime?" he said, still hanging on my every word, astonishingly, through my ramblings.

"The crime is something that feels like a dream, but isn't," I said. "It's because I saw the future. When you see the future, that makes not the future different. It makes you different. I think that's obvious enough, and what's more obvious is that when the future changes, you're left hanging on the sidelines, because whatever happens to the future, you're not part of it. You've seen the future. The future, as far as you're concerned is inevitable. It's unescapable. It's impossible to avoid, for you. In some sense, seeing the future locks you in, and it might be a future in which terrible things happen to you."

"That's just too much," he said. "What you're really saying is that everything around you is changing, but you stay the same because you saw the future, or..."

"No!" I said. "No, that's not it. I'm just articulating this now, so forgive me if it's incoherent. No, it's more that something happened to me, not anyone else. I'm just slipping away suddenly, because everything else changes in a way that is incompatible with my existence."

"That's not true," he said. "That's not true at all."

"It sounds crazy," I said, and when I thought more and more about it, it sounded even more crazy. "And yet... somehow... I'm... someone is at the very least predicting my every move, or some of the things that have happened- perhaps not predicting, but following my every move. Perhaps the distinction is meaningless."

"I think you think too much," he said.

"Ah!" I said.





I did figure it out, back in Manehattan. Now, I'm wide awake, but sadly, all too late. How could I forget about all that craziness?

It's because I was and wasn't there at the same time.





"Be honest with yourself," I said. "When you rule out all other possibilities, then whatever remains is the truth. I know that's a cliché, but clichés are cliché because they're true. That's what makes them into clichés, Gripey. I believe so."

"How have you ruled out all other possibilities?" he said. "There are many possibilities. I just don't think you're thinking clearly, even though I know you kind of have a point at the same time. I'm not saying you don't. I agree that something weird's going on."

"How come that whenever I feel like I'm just about to figure it out, someone starts doubting me, and calling me insane, and doubting the authenticity, and veracity, of my claims?" I said, mouthfully, and irritatedly. 

"You can't blame others for thinking that it's crazy when you say something crazy," he said.

"Drop the bed," I said.

"No," he said. "Stop acting crazy. I'm not dropping the bed. Please. I- I'm trying to..." He stopped talking.

"Indulge me," I said.

"Look!" he said. "I don't know what's been going on with you in the last few days, but I just don't want you to do anything stupid now. We're finding the way out of here."

I tried rolling out the bed, but I was of course too tired.

"What are you doing?" he said.

I tried grabbing myself in magic, but my magic had always been too weak. Okay then.

"I'm trying," I said, "to show you something crazy."

"Well, it's working," he said. "You need serious help. You know that, right? There's something off with you in the head."

"No," I said. "You have been consistently wrong about this. Actually, there's not something wrong with me. I feel fine, and you're my best friend, Gripey." I smiled at him, and then, I wrapped his wings in a weak hue of magic, making him fall down and drop the bed.

"Sweetie!" he said, flying after me.

"Sweetie?" I said.

He flapped his wings, shooting down in my direction, to catch me.

"Uh-oh," I said, glancing below me, where the bed was about to hit the ground.

Crash...





"Another successful suicide attempt," I said. "Well, well, well!"

"But that's impossible," he said, landing beside my tattered corpse. "You're dead."

"Nope." I stood up, and wiped myself. I stretched out. I was in no pain. "It seems that I'm indestructible. I guess I really am a robot."

"No, you're not. You're Sweetie Belle, from Ponyville."

"There goes that too," I said. "That's also partly a fact."

"No, but you're... look, I don't know what happened just now, but I don't want you to think that you're a robot forever now, because of this, so look. I know you're Sweetie Belle, and you don't have the voice of a robot. You're a filly, okay? All of that was a fantasy."

"I knew it," I said, wiping my hoof in the air. "You did think I was Sweetie Belle, and not Sweetie Bot. That's elucidating."

"L- look," he said. "You hit your head really badly, and then, you started having these hallucinations."

"Yes, yes, I know," I said, smiling. "That's great. That's perfect."

"How are you alive?" He came toward me. "Let me hold you."

"I am a robot," I said, as he picked me up and held me. "Sweetie Belle is not, but we share the same mind."

"Yes, okay. Okay," he said, kind of disparagingly, to be honest.

"No, this is truly brilliant," I said, happy about my new idea. "This would explain... ah!"

"Hush," he said, putting a finger on my mouth.

"Let me talk," I said. "Listen. This is the thing, right?"

"No," he said. "No more."

"No," I said back. "I am not crazy... I know it because... because..."

"Because?" he said.

"I... remember," I said. "I remember..."





I cut my own throat with a shard of mirror-glass, and fell through that purple portal of colors.

I remembered that for sure, but I had forgotten what I was supposed to remember. I had forgotten WHY I did it. Why did I do it? How did I dare do it? Ah-hah! There we go. The old noggin's still ticking, through all this madness. 





"Whatever happens to me, it doesn't seem to affect me," I said.

"Not true," he said.

"I cut my own throat, and I'm still alive."

"No, you didn't," he said.

"Hush," I said, putting a hoof to his mouth.

He quickly took it off. "Face the truth. Please. You're hurting me with this, you know." He looked on me with yearning eyes, but he had to realize at this point that he wasn't the only one who was hurting, and I was the one that had to remain strong in this situation, not him, for both our sakes.

"No," I said. "Don't you remember... back in Tartarus..."

"That was a dream," he said. "It was a hallucination."

"Nnno," I said, defiantly. "Nope. Not buying it. It may have been for you."

"We met in Ponyville, not all that long ago. I'm here to help you."

"What are you? Some kind of shrink?" I said.

"I'm a specialist," he said.

I couldn't help but to laugh, which made him tear up, which in turn made me laugh even harder. "That's a good one."

"But it's true..." he said, quietly.

"The story," I said, "of a robot."

"Of a robot," he sighed.

I laughed so hard that even I teared up at this point. "I'm sorry. But I also learned recently that there's nothing wrong with laughing, as long as you do it with the glimmer in the eye that tells the other person you mean well, and I mean well, buddy, so listen to this."

"I tried so hard for so long," he said, more to himself than he did to me.

"That's right," I said. "You should stop indulging me. I know you mean well... because you wink."

"What?" he said.

"I can see it in your eye when you wink."

"When I wink?" he said, confusedly.

"Yes," I said. "You laugh with a wink, unlike nameless, who laughs with the aim to hurt. That's one difference. You laugh because you actually want things to turn out well. As do I. I laugh because I'm afraid, and saying random things, even things that I know will scare you, and make you think I'm crazy, makes me... calmer, because I need to understand what's going on around me, buddy. Don't you see? That's the song and the dance that we've been engaged in."

"I know," he said, while crying now, and smiling, holding me tight in his grip.





Wafting down... the threads... ever so... did.





"Maybe..." I said. "Maybe..."

He was silent now, just as well, because he was hurting and I felt it. Even though I could not see it, I could feel it. I could feel it, even in the way he was holding me, squeezing me like a stuffed animal. 

Teddicus!





"Teddicus," I said, inside my room, a few days ago, weeks? Months? Had it been real? Even time felt indistinct at this point.

"Yes," Teddicus, my loyal teddy said. "What is it, fair filly?"

"I have the sense that I'm part of a trick, and that trick is a royal play, put on like a show for a pony named Skeyestar, whose name precedes her, part sky and part star. She looks down from above. I know this because it must be true. She said so herself. I remember it!"





"Can I have one of those peaches?" I said, pointing at one in Aqasha's magical tree.

"One such as you?" she said.

"Aqasha," I said. "You were wrong. It wasn't he that saved us, with all due respect to him, because I love him, like a sibling kind of I think, but you're wrong. Now, give me a peach."

"How can you know?" she said. "The eye did not see. It saw your confusion, close to death."

"The eye cannot see if it isn't looking," I said. "That's a fact."

The white dimension that we were in was changing, and becoming more... purple.





"I'm sharp," I said, as he was holding me there, at the bottom of the abyss. "I just figured another thing out."

He was unsettlingly quiet. But of course he was. From his perspective, I couldn't blame him.

"No," he said. "No!" he burst out, in a yell. "That's enough. I have had it."

"Yes..." I said, wanting him to do it.

"I'll just leave you here until you have learned your lesson."

"At the bottom of the monster-abyss?" I said.

"There is no abyss," he said.

"Yes," I said. "I suppose you might be right about that."

He flew away.

He came back.

"Yes?" I said.

"I feel kind of weird," he said.

"Yes," I said. "That's clear."

Suddenly! Suddenly, suddenly, suddenly, he looked around! "Where are we? What the hell's going on?"

"That's good," I said. "Now, you see it too."

"But this... no," he said.

He flew away.

He came back again, in predictable fashion.

"This isn't possible," he said.

"We were never in another place," I said.

"Yes," he said. "We were in Ponyville Hospital, and I was putting you to bed." He was panicking. 

I needed to be there for him now. "Look, no. I know. I thought I was here all along, and you thought we were in Ponyville. I get it. It wasn't a hallucination. It was a kind of illusion."

"No!" he said, clearly refusing to believe the obvious at this point.

"Yes," I said. "I wasn't crazy. I was just confused, but not crazy."

"But... how did I get here? How did WEEE get here?" he said, manic energy on his lips, in his eyes, and through his body language.

"I know that," I said. "Will you let me tell you?"

"Okay, tell me," he said, swiftly.

"There is a robot clone of you," I said. "That's–"

"Forget it," he said, clawing at his scalp.

"Hey!" I said. "You can choose not to believe me, but will you not believe your own very eyes?"

"What!?" he said

"Well," I said. "Here we are."

"No!" he said. "No-no-no-no."

"Yes-yes-yes-yes!" I said, contradicting him. I was feeling it too. I was feeling anxious, but calm in a way too, at the same time. I felt like things were coming together. "I fell asleep in Canterlot. Then I woke up and went to trial. I got to Tartarus. I fell asleep in Tartarus. Then, I woke up, and slammed my head against the bars. I got out on that adventure with you. I got to the Crystal Empire with you, remember? I fell asleep there, but only after we had been imprisoned, and then put inside a wagon and sent back to Canterlot."

"That's not real," he said, instinctively.

"I agree," I said. "It was the other way around. I woke up, and then I met with Luna in that dream. I woke up, and then I was in Tartarus. I woke up, and then, I was travelling with you to Canterlot. Those things were real, all those, weren't they?"

"You met with Luna, but it wasn't a stinking dream!" he said, no yelled, shouted, helled...

"That's what I'm saying," I said, with a big grin now. "That wasn't a dream."

"You weren't in Tartarus," he said.

"Right," I said. "That was my robot twin."

"You're not making any sense," he said.

"Well, then maybe you should listen closer," I said.





On my way to the next thing in the life of a person that has been through what I have been through, beckoning and beckoning. Thinking big, and then small, are my games, all around, roundly.

Listen to my thinking. It sounds a certain way, doesn't it? That's the point, pointfully, drastically, decisively, free!

I am me.





"Whenever I fall asleep, I think that I wake up, and that's when I get fed with the memories of another person," I said. "It's genius, I tell you."

"No," he said.

"Yes, and- and..." I was searching for the right words to explain all my many gushes of emotion.

"No," he said. "I don't know what's going on, but no."

"Yes!" I said, spastically twitching back and forth. "And- and... yes, that's right. Of course, why didn't I think of it before?"

"Why didn't you think of it before?" he said.

We were surrounded by utter darkness now, a stark contrast to the white dimension that we were in, later, after all this transpired, and after he had saved me from the derailing train. Oh, this is all out of order, but for good reason. The most important things come last, as they should, I think, in any good story. That's what I think, anyway.

"That's right," I said. "It's about us. We weren't allowed to be together. You are somehow connected to... another person, and that's how... you're him, but you're not him, all at once." 

"This is not true at all," he said. "Let me help you."

"Explain where we are!" I said.

"That still doesn't prove any of what you're saying."

"I survived," I said.

"Yes, you did," he said, stopping his speech.

"Yes, I did," I said, hoping for that to mean that he was hesitating, him stopping and pausing, and all.

"We have to get away from here," he said.

"Try closing your eyes," I said.

"No," he said.

"It won't cause any damage, just to close one's eyes," I said.

"I'm not closing my eyes."

"Yes, do it," I said. "Close your eyes."

He did.

He reopened his eyes.

"Um," he said, shrugging his shoulder.

"Wait!" I said. "Where's the light coming from?"

He drew back. "You. It's coming from you. How is that..."

"That's right," I said. "That's right."

How right? Perfectly!





"I'm a flashlight," I said.

"What?" he said.

"Right," I said. "Let me explain it to you, at the altar of fate. I've been altered. It's a sad state of affairs. I used to be a pony, but not anymore. I shine in the dark."

"You're absolutely out of your mind," he said, thus disrespecting me, and not taking what I was saying seriously. Typical, huh?

"Yes," I said. "I might be, in a way, since I figured all this out, but I'm right. I'm absolutely right, too."

"How do we get away?" he said.

"We visit them at night. Tell them stories that cause fright. Make them trust only the night. Then..." I said. "Then..."

He flew off.

He came back, but this time, not from above, but below me. He was disoriented, and he crashed on the ground beside me, not knowing where the ground was, black and invisible to any eye.

"Stop doing that," I said. "It's not helping."

"Are we trapped here?" he said, in that utter total frenzy that a panicked person who doesn't know what's going on has.

"Yes," I said. "You'd better get used to it." I continued on. "Then, they know which way is right. No! There was another part. It went, have them ponder taking flight. Then, they know which way is right. We must change their inner sight. What's an inner sight? What? What? What?" I could smell the answer. "It's something to do with the subjective half of reality, that part that is exclusive to us, you and I," I said, pointing to him, localizing him with my eyes. He was to the side of me, feeling the ground out with his hands, trying to explain the unexplainable. I was feeling a bit annoyed. This was certainly not the Gripey I knew. The Gripey I knew was cool as a cucumber, always.

"How? How?" he said, scratching the floor with his claws, those long sharp talons of his.

"It's not magic," I said.

"Wh- what else?" he said. "How?"

"It's somehow," I said. "Well, if it isn't magical, then the word mechanical comes to mind, and after all, there has been a distinction made between things that are magical and mechanical so far in the story."

"The story?" he said.

"Oh, ignore that," I said, not wanting to pour it on even more. He wouldn't get it, anyway. I was stuck in some kind of crazy, baloney story, for sure. I just felt it. "I..." Something had to be it! I knew the answer. I practically knew it. All I needed was a little more time.

"Sweetie," he said. He ran up to me. "We must get out of this place, and what you're doing isn't helping."

"You're in denial," I said. "There's a difference between healthy skepticism and denialism, and you encompass, embody, and engender... the latter!" I leant my head back. I saw nothing above me. I blinked. I saw nothing above me. I closed my eyes.

I saw things, but only in my imagination, right then.





"You're such a riddle, Sweetie," the ninth of sight, filly and eye, said together. "You're such a vacuous individual, always slipping. Vacuous, and empty, devoid of meaning, are what you are, and is what you will be, when you strive toward your empty goals. You're so callow. You're so cold, and yet, your eyes are warm, and your fire is not fake. You have fire in your eyes, and yet, you say that you don't care, and yet, you act as if you do. Your life has been a ruse." 

"No," I said. "No, I always cared. It was the other way around. I truly cared deep inside. I knew that, and I acted like I didn't care. Did you? D- did you do this to me? I know I said these words long ago to someone. I care, and yet, I act as if I don't. Or do I not care, but act like I do? This is truly the worst thing I have ever been through, going through these contradictions in my head, seeming. I mean, they're so bleak. They're here and there. One says that I don't care. Another says I do. Can I be real? I think I am. If you are, then I am."

"Sweetie," the eye and filly said, in unison. "You have it all backwards. You are the one with the reason to live in the end. It's the filly that's slipping. That is the answer, real or not, to you. It is as true as reality, and reality is. What is is what is, and you are that too. You can be there for her. I can be there for you. Show that you care. I need only a word, on the steps of fate. I wait." 

"I said what I said, but you don't believe. I say that I care, and you don't believe it. Can I be free? No, because you don't want me to be. You think that I lie. This game cannot be won. Whatever I do, you will think bad things true, and never survive through your hate," I said.

"I wait," they said.





"No," I said. "I see how it is now. Those villains tricked me. I have been tricked by villains."

"Oh, no," he said. 

I pushed my hoof against the floor. "What do I look like right now?"

"I don't know," he said. "I can barely see your face, now, behind all that light. The light is becoming even stronger, and it's honestly... freaking me out."

"Boo-hoo," I said, not feeling sorry for him in the slightest. "Am I scary to you? Frightening? Unsettling?"

"No," he said. "It has nothing to do with being scared. It has to do with realizing that maybe there really is something else wrong with you, that isn't just psychological. You have been cursed, somehow, by some evil spell."

I nodded. "Gripey, I love you. Even when you're stupid, you're absolutely brilliant. That's what I was looking for." An evil spell? In a manner of speaking, that is what had happened. 





I felt not so well, but that was usual, and I also felt happy somehow at the same time, so that was also usual. All in all, I took the good with the bad. I saw our gold-filled carriages go up into those freaky-freaky purple portals up there. Up over yonder, were the portals, straight before me, right above me, and I saw them leave in a tizzy, going away, vanishing. Those wagons had gone inside. Am I making any headway in explaining to the reader here what happened?

"Wow," I said. "That's happening."

No, I didn't. And what happened next? I entered darkness, and sealed my fate. I was late, only recent arrival there, and I came there, for reasons, that you should be unawares. I'm changing the story, but I am changing the story. No, I am "changing the story." The story changing is what I am, and that's what happens. Boom. Ka-blam!





"I can't resist," I said, "the temptation and urge to ask why, and those things are calling for me. I can feel them inside of me. That's why I cannot be free."

The giant eye, with its black pupil, indistinct eye-color, and strange floating behaviors, said, "You are calling, but never are you naught but falling."

"Right," I said. "That's my curse. But that's my truth, too. That's me. That's the contradiction of my tale, one of eight. Oy, fate."

"Yes," the eye said. "You will soon meet the emperor of the big black fog. Address her as nine, and all will be given to you. If you can move, then you can be, and ever have you never wanted anything but to see."

"I am free," I said.





I fell apart on the floor. Something was gripping me. It was Gripey. He grabbed me and shook me.

The darkness parted ways, one up, and one down, like two black curtains, or eyelids more accurately, and in front of me was a hospital room, me lying in a bed, all comfy, physically. It wasn't comfy mentally, but it was physically, and that helped the mental part a fair bit. It helped me to think. It helped me to focus. It helped me believe that everything could, not would, but could turn out well in the end, if I only did the right things, and thought that doing right really is right, as good things are good, bad things are bad, and all the other tautologies that you can lose, and evade, in the darkness of your mind. Without those, it seems you are as blind as you are with them. Choose to believe in evil? That's fine. Then you will find evil out in the world, even though evil is only a construct in our heads. Choose not to believe in good? Okay, then you will never see goodness, be it real or not, and never shall your bell toll, ever, never. The Belle of fate. I hate!

...

That's

Oo





Look. I'm not stupid. I know that none of what has happened has made any sense, but anyhow, it needs an explanation. Does it have one? Have all this been real, or fake? Has all this been to some greater effect, a bigger point, or the all that I have been through lack depth, incoherent and air-headed? Is it ethereal and simple, empty words, connected, but without any deeper meaning, true and fair? Is it there? Can the meaning be found? Can the meaning be found, without being frowned upon and avoided, by yours truly?





Is meaning real? Can I be free? Only time will tell! Only reality can tell. Time is reality, temporal and true. I feel kind of... askew, though. Why?

Anyhow!





"Okay," I said, back in the hospital bed in Manehattan. "That's one point of concern, out of many. Why am I concerned? I need to find the answers, and fix it, before it's too late."

Someone came in. "Hello," Jelly said. "Hello?"

"Hey," I said, wondering what the context was, and if she had any memories of things that had happened which I didn't have.

"I wanted to say that I'm sorry. I think maybe I was a bit harsh on you before, you know."

"No," I said. "Let me be the one who's sorry. You're right. I did abandon you, and I don't take anything seriously."

"Why?" she said. "Why is that, do you think?"

"I think..." I said. "That's the thing. I just... think, without really focusing."

"Is it a personality thing, you think?" she said, concerned somehow.

"Yes," I said. "And it's also because I genuinely don't understand what's going on around me. Jelly! I need to tell you something. You might not believe it. It's not intended to hurt you in any way."





"How little do you remember?" she said.

"I basically remember us meeting, and then you telling me about the map of Equestria," I said.

"Wow," she said. "That's crazy-talk. Is it memory loss because you hurt your head?"

"That's..." I said. "Plausible, but no."

"What else could it possibly be? You don't remember when we made that ceremony? You don't even remember when we sat in that tree and slept together. I mean- I mean, slept in that tree, beside each other."

"You need to correct yourself?" I said.

"I need to correct myself," she said. "You don't remember anything, so I don't want to give you the wrong idea. I'm sorry, though."

"Sleeping in a tree?" I said. "I have... visions sometimes, images. I remember a dance, and a fire. Drums! I remember that."

"Yes," she said.

"But only vague images, nothing more, no. I didn't mean for any of this to happen."





I saw the darkness around us, back in the abyss where I was with Gripey. It moved, subtly! Subtly, indistinctly, inspiring, fear, where, here, there, where I was, the darkness... inched, clambering up on him.

"No!" he said. It pulled him down, and he was gone.

"No," I said, coming closer to him. "I will, will, will, figure this out, before it's too late. That I say, with honest gravitas."

I saw the light around me faded, and I tentacle of dark was around one of my hooves.

"Or not," I said.

I was pulled down too.





A choir sang.

"Skyyy, skyyy," they sang, in perfect harmony, harmonizing together. "Skyyy!"

I sounded like there might be a hundred ponies making that sound.

I stood up, pushing myself to my hooves, pushing awake! I was dark. It was dark, I mean. I was light, but the world around me was dark, ever so! Let the darkness flow.

"Gripey!" I said.

"Skyyy, and the holy eyyye," the choir went on. I detected male and female voices in it. "In the middle of the wooorld..." 

"No," I said. I fumbled in the dark, but I saw nothing at all, to my eye's content. I was dark, as the world was, light in the dark, but the dark of my soul, reflected around me, being what it was. I was so confused.

Hundreds of candles lit up around me, carried by the choir. "Come come come. Come come come. Come come come." That's what they said.

I did come, because I wanted to find him. The lights moved through the darkness, a thousand tiny beacons, hovering around me.

"Why has all this happeeened!!!" I screamed, with all the passion of my stupid heart.

No, it wasn't a question. Stop trying to correct me. The story knows better than you do.

"Whyyy?" I said, tearing up from within and without.

Another light was far off, and several flights of stairs down.

The choir stopped. The lights went out. I ran toward them. "Come back," I said. "I'm... I'm... scared."

I didn't want to be alone. That's all.

As I ran toward them, I ran through thin air. That was all.

I was nothing for thoughts, and naught for feelings, and over-dramatic reactions, for the first time in perhaps all my life. That's all that I was.

I stepped down the stairs, through that... place.

"Sweetie," she said. "Come on down."

I felt like I was walking backward, as I went down the stairs. I didn't want to be there. I pulled back, and yet, I kept coming forward. My shadow was the thing that pulled forward, not me. I didn't want to be there, but some primal instinct caused me to reconsider. You know how it is if you've ever done something involuntary, and know that it has felt and been involuntary, while you did it, readers. Right? That's sort of how it feels, the way I said it, kind of, right? I think... and I feel... but whatever the case may be, I can never seem to breathe, or be free. Why me?

It was an eye, and below it, a filly, who was my age, but older than a tree, by the looks of it. She had blotches on her fur, but she looked grey all over. Perhaps it was the light that made her look that way, or perhaps she was grey out of age.

"You..." I said.

"Yes, me. No one else, and never else," she said. She had melded into the ground, her skin hugging it, and veins pumped through her body, strange veins, which came down from the eye, that terrible eye.

"What have you... who... I- you need to fix this," I said. "You don't understand... you have to."

"Here is one who thinks that she understands suffering," the filly said, her eyes peeking up at the eye. "How precious a lost child with a box of memories out of her reach, can be, Eyesstark."

"It's you," I said. "You're the most evil person in the world? I thought... I thought I was the one who formed a relationship with Eyesstark."

"She is to cherish," the filly said.

"Yeah," I said. "Please. Listen. You don't understand, and I mean you literally don't understand. This is not right, what you're doing."

"I want to listen," she said, the little filly that was an image of death, her skin loose in place, and her face haggard. "But I have heard this speech across centuries. Come and be with me, Sweetie."

"No," I said.

"You are that life which must be cherished now, in this age," she said. "Be with me."

"No," I said. "I would never, ever!"

"She says she would never, ever..." the filly said to the eye, giving a sideways glance away from me. She wasn't looking up, because her range of motion was too poor. She glanced to the side, which only signaled to me that she wasn't talking to me, while her eyes aim upward. She body was leant off to the side, and those veins stretched out. They impeded her movement, I thought.

"Why would I ever?" I said.

The light that shone up the room only came from the eye, but no, it also... came from me. I had been too distracted to notice. I saw my own hoof, all shining, and my whole body was shining.

"Eyesstark," the filly said. "We have the wrong filly." She spoke with hushed tones, in a weak voice.

"The wrong filly?" I said. "What's the right one?"

"The real one," Eyesstark the eye said. I didn't see a mouth on that eye, but I figured it must be somewhere. Either that, or the eye was communicating through some supernatural means.

"The real one?" I said. "I was right then. I am a robot, and the real Sweetie is still in the hospital in Manehattan."

"Why would she be in Manehattan?" the filly said. "This is wrong, and striking too."

"We have been fooled," the eye said.

"Let me leave," I said, turning the other direction.

Right behind me, like a demonic presence, Aldeus stood. "Boo," he said.

"Aaah!" I said.

"Aldeus," the filly said. "Do not play with your food."

"Food? I thought she was your protégé," he said. 

"Do not say that in front of her," the filly said. "Come now, Aldeus."

"You were going to reveal the truth to her, once you got her into your nest?" he said. "That's what you said. And then, all of this would be over."

"I sayeth," the filly said.

"Yes, okay, you sayeth that," Aldeus growled. "Can I go now?"

"She is not the real one," the filly said. "The fake one was supposed to go through all that suffering, not the real one. What has happened?"

"I don't know," Aldeus said. "Let me return to my work. That's all I ask."

"Your work is evaporating by the second, unless you figure out the answer to this riddle of fate," the filly said. "Now that I think about it... Eyesstark?"

"It's not fair!" Aldeus said. "I did just as you asked. It's time to cleanse Equestria."

Eyesstark the freaky-looking eye, said, "The real Sweetie must be in the hospital of Ponyville, and yet, I cannot behold her there. Whereto else?"

"Manehattan, as the fake one said," the filly said.

"Listen to MEEE!" Aldeus yelled, in a series of broken octaves and growls.

"The shadow can wait," the filly said.

Aldeus shot a red beam of light, of magical thunderous light, at the filly, who couldn't move to dodge. 

"No! Shadow," she said, before the beam hit her. She melted into the floor, turning into syrup, some kind of floating mud-liquid type substance. "Behold in the next cycle." Her body bubbled and became goo. 

"That's what you deserve for lying to me," Aldeus said.

"Wow. Drama," I said, while sneaking away to the corner, trying to preferably disappear. 

"You're not going anywhere," Aldeus said, my light revealing me. "You will be added to the collective. The salvation of Equestria will be–" He grunted and collapsed on the ground.

"That's unfortunate," I heard a discordant voice that was all too familiar say.

"The light-person demon you," I said, looking around, and finding her. It was the filly of light.

"We look the same now," she said. "How do you feel?"

"Like I'm stuck in a nightmare," I said, honestly voicing my concerns. "Let me out. Where's Gripey? I'm afraid I might never see him again." That was sad too, of course. "Why won't you listen to me? Why won't anyone listen to me?"

"We are listening," she said. "He will be spared."

"Where is he?"

"He's probably now being processed in the facility of the dream," she said.

"No," I said, becoming that crying heap that had wanted to break out for a long time. "Help... help," I said, through desperate and empty tears, over the futility of my struggle. It had all been meaningless in the end, and I felt so empty. So did the tears.

"It's not what you think," she said. "The play is not over yet, and you wanted to save him? Well, saving him will be difficult. I regret to inform you. We have to take him and process him. He thinks he's some kind of psychiatrist. How odd."

"You did that to him!" I said.

"No," she said. "I sure didn't."

"You did it..." I said, while crying. "The most evil person in the world."

"That's funny," she said. "He will be spared though. We'll even give you the real griffin for free. We just need to create a mold of his body. Eye?"

"Yes, filly," the eye said. "What is it?"

"What kind of sacrifice will it take to remove all obstacles, and bring her back into the real world?"

"None that you can offer, filly," the eye said.

"We need to act now," the shining filly of light said, now truly my twin. "It will be too late, too soon."

"We need to be and take, not fall and falter," the eye said. "We need the future to make, what make, not fall off-kilter, just a bit. I don't suppose you have any life you wish for me to alter, filly?"

"We must change fate, and so doing, change this griffin into a military cadet. He would always have been," the filly of light said. "That will be true. The future is ours."

"What is the sacrifice?" the eye said.

"The same, selfsame sacrifice, as the last pony made, who formed a pact with you, of fate," she said.

"No," the eye said. "Only one can form that pact, not you. Only one can be the one, of my sight."

"The original filly?" she said. "Isn't [redacted] gone?" The light on her body faded, and I could see who she was. "Why is my..." she said.

It was me. Well, duuuh. Why not, right? I still had no idea what was going on. "Okay, why are you me?" I said.

"I realize it's supposed to be the other way around," the other Sweetie said. "I think we got switched up."

"I will never live this one down, will I?" I said, still lying huddled on the floor.

"I was the original Sweetie," she said. "You are the Sweetie of the first cycle. That's curious."

"You're not Sweetie," I said. "Sweetie is a kid. Kids don't talk like that. Kids have dreams. Kids have minds that are... beautiful. Who are you?"

"I am the original Sweetie," she said, again. "I was put into the machine, but you and I got separated at some point, two distant memories, fighting to coexist."

"What is the machine?" I said.

Why was any of this happening?





"That is the weirdest thing I have ever heard," Jelly said, back in the hospital room. "Why are you saying that even?"

"B- because it's true?" I said.

She bit her lip. "Right. Because it's true..."

"Yeah..." I said, waiting for her to say something.

"You said something else," Jelly said. "You said that you thought you would never get out. What do you mean?"

"I feel like I'm stuck. That's all," I said.

"Stuck how?"

"I don't know," I said. "That's the trouble. I don't know."

"Can't you just... not be stuck?"

"Maybe," I said, "if I tried really hard.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

It was a weapon.

Was it now?





"The machine," Sweetie said, "slowly picks your body apart and removes all your faulty values. It removes the bad thoughts, all the hormones, things that make you irrational, and turns you into a perfect pony, like me, Sweetie."

"Perfect?" I said. "Do you really think that you are perfect? I'm sure you're not."

"I am," she said. "I am a child of the eye. All of us can only ever be perfect, as long as we follow the seven-piece plan, which is the most perfect thing of all, but to follow it, we need to think at none, zero, without any emotion, and without any trickery. We must have pure intents, to follow fate out to its conclusion, and be willing to make the right sacrifices. Although it might sound grim, sometimes, you even have to sacrifice other lives, Sweetie."

"That's not... it's not the same kind of sacrifice. Sacrificing another person is just murder," I said.

"But necessary," she said.

"I..." I said.

Now... something was... ringing in my ears... making me realize... something very grim.





"Jelly!" I said. "Who put you in that box? In the forest? Who puts fillies in boxes? I'm sorry if the question came out wrong."

"It was your kind," she said. "It's the kind of creature that's robotic and evil. You have that voice."

"I..." I said, feeling my own voice buzz, in my throat. "And yet, it wasn't..."

Boom!

Just, boom, so to speak.





"Sweetie," she said, down in the cave. I noticed that she was speaking with the exact same voice I had before, when I... but my voice didn't sound robotic anymore. I sounded like a real child.

"Yes," I said, hearing the timbre of a real pony's voice. "That's..." I said, instinctually, because I had thought a lot recently about a bunch of things. "That's right."

"And so you see?" she said.

I now finally got up on my hooves, seeing the other Sweetie in front of me. "I am the real Sweetie, not you, I think."

"Why?" she said.

"You sound like a robot. I don't. That's interesting."

"Ignore that," she said, swiftly.

"Now, I definitely won't, after you told me to," I said, confused that she would think that would work.

"No," she said.

"What do you mean, no?" I said. "I am not a robot."

"Yes, you have to be..." she said. "Or else, nothing would make any sense."

"It still doesn't," I said, giggling a pained little laugh. "Drats."

"Sweetie," she said. "Your life is a lie."

"That's true," I said.

"Oh, forget it," she said.

"Sweetie. Listen to me," Eyesstark said. The eye shone.

"Eyesstark, enough," Sweetie said. "There's nothing that can be done. I am done. There is no script. It disappeared when I offered to take [redacted]'s place. I am done, and dead in the water, Eyesstark."

"A script?" I said.

"Yes," Sweetie said. "A stupid script."

She became blue instead, and grew, becoming a giant blue monkey, with ten legs. "I am not real, either," he said.

"US-ID," Eyesstark said.

"Confusiating," I said, feeling it, feeling the feeling of that.





"Sweetie," Jelly said, back in the hospital room. "Why do you not remember when..."

"I don't know," I said. "I wish I knew. I wish most of all not to hurt you."

Gripey came storming in the room. "We need to leave now," he said.

"We do?" I said.

He ran toward me, and then, collapsed into a pile of liquid.

"Aaah!" I screamed.

"What happened?" Jelly said, stepping to my bedside, and holding the bed, while looking at the molten Gripey smoothie that was on the floor.

"I don't know!" I said.





...

...

...

...

...

...

Nothing has happened for a while now, I realize.





I fell through that storm of purple that we're all too familiar with, aren't we?

I shook my body, feeling liquid come off it. The giant eye was in front of me, but there was no child beneath it, and there were no pillars. The room, the little cave, was smaller, and so was the eye. I realized this was the place where I had met with the eye in part 35, when nameless took Starlight, Twilight, and I down to the caves, through that purple portal of doom.

"Nyeh," I said, wiping at some of the liquid, feeling my thoughts clear up. "Stupid eye!"

The eye collapsed on the ground, and rolled like a bowling ball toward me. I ran off to the side, avoiding it. The eye came rolling back.

"Enough," I said.

The eye halted. "You are one of me. You are one of many, me," the eye said.

"No, I want to get out of here," I said.

"No, you do not," the eye said back. "You are part of me now. You will never leave, must never. No, never."

"I already have," I said.

"No," the eye said.

Yes!





"One can wonder, and one might," nameless said. "Why are you so hard to manipulate?"

"I don't know," I said.

"You of everyone I have met. What's wrong with you, filly?"

"Don't ask me," I said.

What was wrong with me, in all actuality?





I was in the giant long space with the pillars, an eye, and the evil filly below, again, and now... she was magically alive?

Or she had never died?

I stepped to the side. The eye was fixed on me, floating there above.

Rather than looking away, I now stared into the eye, with all the fear in the world.

"Stupid eye," I said, feeling the dread come up on me, and trying to just... focus. "Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Everything is stupid."

The eye looked off, and I felt my body relaxing, suddenly! All so, suddenly, my body did.

"She is free, only because she wanted to be," the eye said. 

"I agree," the filly below said. "It so appears your next destination will be Ponyville again. Figure out how I came to be, and then, you will be allowed to leave. So sayeth I, and I speak true."

"You do?" I said.





My brain melted. The straps loosened, and I fell out the machine.

I ran to the edge of the activator. "Gripey," I yelled.

Melting?





"Sweetie, no," Jelly said, as I melted in the hospital bed. "What's happening? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was the bad person, not you."

Stupid Jelly!





Gripey came flying. "There you are," he said, landing on top the activator.

"Yes, for sure," I said. "Let's get away from here, soon enough."

"Wh..." he said.

"Yeah, what?" I said.

"I saw you die."

"No," I said. "You didn't!"

"What happens now?" he said.

"Well," I said. "We sure do need to figure out an escape route."

"How?"

"Let me go on the train," I said, "and then... ah!"

"Ah?" he said, picking me up and putting me on his back.

I held on tight with my hooves, hugging him. "Ah! Aaah..." I said, relaxing on top of him. "Oh, anyway! That's right. We need to... gosh, this is comfortable. You have the softest most comfortable back."

"Don't lose the thread," he said, glancing back.

"Right, right," I said. "It's... I... this might sound strange to you."

It was not, evidently, as you will see.





"Explain," he said. "This is freaking me out!"

I front of us was a machine, and in it was Gripey strapped in, but how could that be, since I was on his back right now?

"I don't... look, I'm figuring things out on the fly here," I said. "I think he's like a copy of you, or something, that this machine created, maybe. How's that sound?"

Without asking more questions, he walked over to the display by the side of the platform and tapped it. The griffin Gripey copy floated down, his rubber-straps loosening, and landed on the ground. He opened his eyes.

"Oh, Sweetie. We need to get out of here and back to Ponyville."

"It's so telling to hear you say that," I said, but not before Gripey came forward, marching past me.

"Who are you?" he said. "Who are you supposed to be, some kind of imposter? You look ridiculous."

"Uh-um," the other Gripey, the one that had been in the machine said. "I do?"

"Yes," Gripey said. "You look terrified. I would never look like that. You coward."

I was taken by the surreal feel of the moment. "That's true."

"I- I'm not a coward. I've been stuck inside some kind of... some kind of machine," other Gripey said. "I don't know what's going on. How do you get around, calling others cowards?"

"That doesn't make sense," Gripey said, pushing the other Gripey so he fell back a bit. "Come on now. We need to go. We need to act, not think."

"That's so typical of you to say," I said.

...

It actually was, though.

"We need to protect her," Gripey said to other Gripey. "Come with me, now."

"We- I know we do. But you need to tell me what's going on," other Gripey said, as real Gripey put me back on his back.

"Shut up and come with us," Gripey said.

"I will," other Gripey said.

That's what happened, in all actuality, dear readers.





"I need to warn Hookbeak," Gripey said. "I'll try to use the computers down here to contact him. They strikingly resemble the computers back home, for some odd reason."

"Agreed," I said.

Other Gripey was like a deer in the headlights. "Where are we now?" he said, whining.

"Shut up," I said.

"Yeah, shut up, and pay attention," Gripey said.

"Wh- okay," other Gripey said.

We were on another cube, giant metal thing, house-like structure, big like ten mansions, with roads in it, and openings that looked like doors. None of us had any plans of entering, however! No-no.

"I'll access the computer," Gripey said. "I'll try to contact Hookbeak, and you two. You need to distract that light filly down there. She might find us out if we don't go back there."

"That logic is logical," I said. "She wanted us to go on that stupid train."

"No," other Gripey said. "She- we- I don't know what's going on."

"Has he not been listening?" Gripey said. "I think we have said enough."

"Are you sure I should go back there?" I said, on second thought.

"No," Gripey said.

"Okay, let's do it," I said to the other Gripey.

"Okay?" he said.





"Woo," I said. "Woo goes the train."

"Does it now?" Gripey said.

"I say we gone on the train," I said.

"We already have, Sweetie."

"We have?" I said.

"Yes." His eyes were calm and warm. Those eyes, how nice to see those eyes, I think, and I cannot look at them, and also blink, while I think, because it demands too much attention. W- hm.

"I..." I said. "I... never mind."

"You want to know why we entered the big scary train?"

"And why you call me Sweetie," I said.

"Don't you worry about that," he said.

"Am I crazy?"

"What?" he said.

"Am I having a mental breakdown?" I said.

"No," he said.

There can only be shadows where light exists, but there can never be no light, and only shadows, because light is true, and a part of you. So sayeth I, the spirit of sight.

I wasn't having a mental breakdown, by the way, but I said that to him because...

... in the other half of the room, I saw another passenger. It was the nameless one herself. I pretended not to notice her, but she was in the same room as we were, by the door, staring at me.

Did she think she was invisible?

Yes!





"Oh, sure," I said. "Sure, why not?"

"Why not, what?" he said back.

"Let's go on the train," I said.

"O- okay," he said.

"It's the only way out," nameless said.

Little she knew. Little she knew. Stupid nameless.





We landed back on the lower cube of the terrible machinnne... of doooooommm.

"Where was I going?" I said. "No exit, none at all."

"Okay, okay," Gripey said. "I get it. I didn't know. We... I'm so tired. I'm sorry for being angry at you. It's not your fault."

"My fault?" I said. "My fault."

"Yeah," he said. "But I'll take care of you. I don't dare let anyone harm you, while you're feeling like this."

"Ah..." I said. He knows that I'm insane. How great!

The train was still standing there. "Come aboard," nameless said. "There are two seats just for you two, waiting, or are you planning on prolonging your visit?"

It had been hours, easily.

Gripey, rationally, hesitated, with good cause. "How can we trust you? We can't come on the train. We'll just have to rest and try again." Had he had more energy, he probably would've flown away at the sight of her, given what happened to Twilight when she flagged, but he just stood there, letting tiredness grip him, but that's all for the best, I guess, because he deserved to rest.

"Sweetie," nameless said. "I don't care if you think that I have wronged you. It won't happen again. Come on the train."

"Poo," I said. I couldn't move of course. Just to remind you, as I have many times already, I was lying in a sick-bed, from a hospital, in Manehattan. Things... kept changing, forever, in my life, but I deserved it. I at least knew that I didn't not deserve it, so by inference, I of course either deserved it, or didn't not deserve it, nor deserve it. Nor? No, I deserved... I didn't... which means, I possibly did deserve it. I see stars above my head. Are they alive? Only time will tell. Will I die? Only time will tell. Am I free? Only time will tell. Things keep changing.

Woo-woo-woo.

:)

We were going on the train. I knew that, already! We had planned for it.

Not to arouse suspicion, since I knew this creature could read my thoughts, her ilk, all those that look like her, and act like her, following my every step. Speaking to my every thought, and fear. I somehow only just knew that she could read my thoughts. I knew it in my bones. Such things can't be felt in bones? I'm referring to an intuition I had. That's the point, at least.





Am I crazy? I told you I'm not. Didn't I tell you? I was trying to fool the ghost. It was an act, kind of, but I am manic, and I do feel like my thoughts run at a million extra super duper ultra miles an hour all the time, and this cannot be faked, I think.

I think, but that doesn't matter. What matters is what I do, right?

I can think one thing and do another, right? That's what matters.

That's what happened.





The giant scary grappling hooks flew out the train.

"Sweetie."

Oh!

"I'm crazy," I said. But if craziness is normal, and I can still live, then I invite you, crazy! Crazy that we coexist.

No.

"Sweetie."

On behalf of the nightmare, welcome to reality.

"Sweetie," he said.

Why?

The door to the train swung up. Swung to the side? It slid, I guess. That's what it did. I think... and... yeah, it did.

"I am bonkers," I said.

"No," he said.

I'm crazy!

"Go on the train!" I said. "She's attacking us. Psst."

He did go on the train, stupid bird. Is he a bird? Are griffins bird? I digress.





"You are dysfunctioning, and dysfunctional," she said.

"How so?" I said. I stood up. My eyes cleared up. I looked up. I was surrounded by characters. One of them was Hookbeak, the real Hookbeak, hook-beak and all, another Luna, another Celestia, another... someone. This guy was part goat, part rooster or something. It was Discord? Oh, sure. The next person was a giant eye, but no, it wasn't, and what happened next? I looked further up. A giant body was attached to the eye, that of a dragon. His name was Torch. Okay? Torch my mind. That would be appreciated. The next person was nameless herself. The next person was the forest sprite Aqasha's shining eye stuck inside a tree. Then, I saw the Yether's surreal form, his larvae form. Those were all.

Again, the point is that it wasn't a dream. Wouldn't it all have been pointless if it had only been a dream?





Veins. The eye had veins. Wake me up from my veins, in vains, of strains, in waits, for the what's, and I care.

I fear.

It moves, maybe, but only a thought, nothing more, moves.

"I feel."

That was not proper.

She lifted me up in her scary light limbs. "Come now, with me, little girl."

It was never over.

I could never ever get out of it, I realized, but I had to try.

I had to try to think, just think, without actually telling her what I really thought about what was going on.

Is that what think at none means? That seems.





Not soon after, I arrived at the meeting place with Discord and the others. You know what happened next.

And that's because bubbles floated through my face. I felt more pain.

"We need to remove your face," nameless said. "Sorry. Don't blame me too harshly, but blame me all the same."

I felt pain.

Pain feels like pain, which is a tautology, but nonetheless true.

Wh-wh-wh-okay.

The shining hue of magic, lifted me into the air.

I smiled. "No fear!"

You're just a memory, of alternate history.

Ponies scrounged the earth, for stupid plagues.

Junctures are aplenty, alive.

"I told you," nameless said, "not to hold still."

But it only ever worked as long as I was still.

"No," I said. "You said the opposite."

"Yes, duh," she said. "And you listened? You moronic pest."

Clownish, was I? Maybe, maybe not.

Over yet? I think not.

I realized something.

I felt pain now, real pain, and my face was melting, revealing the truth.

The truth is that there was metal underneath.





What happened next is confusing.

"What are you doing?" Luna said.

"Nothing," nameless said.

The pain almost stopped. It faded, along with everything else.

"What's happening?" Luna said.

I floated, gently, feeling my skin rip apart.

"She's coming together," nameless said. "Her beauty is revealing itself."

"... You're killing her," Luna said.

"No, she's killing herself," nameless said, and the light that surrounded my body, that shining hue, exploded, sending sparks inside my head, flying everywhere. Flying sparks! Beauty is fickle.

"Still though," I said. "Somehow, I'm not quite dead."

"You must be lying," nameless said, as I came back down, landing.

"Whatever does this mean?" Luna said. "Are you okay, Sweetie?"

"Yes," I said.

Over.

I had won.





"Oh, no. Oh my!" nameless said fast. "Oh!"

"Oh?" I said. I stood up on the table now. My body was fine again.

Evidently, she thought I would die.

"It's not..." she said. Her shadow grew out of her body, becoming bigger and scarier.

Yes, she had a shadow. I saw it now. The shadow said, "Have no fear. Have no fear."

"Fear?" nameless said.

"Guess what?" I said.

"What?" Luna said.

I was surrounded by eyes.

"I figured it out in time," I said. "Aqasha."

"What?" nameless said. "Whatever was it that you figured out."

I picked up something off the table. "What's this?" I threw it at nameless. It was a cup.

The cup went straight through her. "So what?" she said.

"So what?" I said, and skipped off the table.

"Have no fear," the shadow of hers said.

"No," nameless said. "I'm not afraid."

"Have no fear, F-5226." The shadow barred teeth.

"I never had fear, and I am not Sweetie Belle." The light on her body vanished, and Sweetie Belle was standing in front of me.

"Spooky," I said.

"Sweetie?" Luna said. She looked at the other Sweetie.

"Have no fear, none at all," the shadow said, and its eyes shone up, red and imposing.

"I am not afraid!" Sweetie said, the other one.

"Who is who?" I said.

"You are nothing but a robot," Sweetie said. "I'm the real Sweetie. I'm F-5226. I'm the one that lived in the facility. You are nothing but a fake, with fake thoughts and feelings. You can never survive."

"Is this true?" I said to Hookbeak, asking him point-blank.

"I don't know what she's saying," he said. I could see Hookbeak in front of me with greater sharpness and clarity than I ever could, and colors got starker around me.

"I feel good," I said. "I feel not much." The fuzziness that made everything seem blurry seemed to vanish. "I feel good." It had made my thoughts blurry too. "Great."

"S- Sweetie Bot," Sweetie said. "You don't understand." The shadow twisted around her body, darkening it, coiling like a broken spring around her, sticking to her. Sweetie tensed up. "She's never going to let me go."

"Who?" I said.

"The- the eye," Sweetie said.

I glanced to Aqasha.

"The other eye," Sweetie said. The shining teeth that stuck out the shadow grew, and light shone off them. Sweetie's body appeared to be getting even darker, for some reason. The teeth bent around her and crunched. She vanished, and the shadow blinked a couple times, also vanishing, whisking away, each part fading, and disappearing, like magic.

Get the picture?

I have to reiterate, and I don't want to get repetitive. At the risk of being repetitive, though I suppose this story, and its existence and persistence, in some sense both thrive on repetition, this is not a very pretty story. That's all I wanted to say. It's a grim story.

Electricity can only hurt you if you're not a robot.





Electricity only harms the pony in you, not the robot too, by the same token. I was mostly robot, at this point. Yeeeah, and so, Sweetie thought I would just off and die, like that, like nothing, because I was a pony, after all, but she didn't realize that she had made a mistake.





The mistake is a scary one.

"Let me go!" I said, down in the cave with the evil old filly and the eye. Her age had nothing to do with her evil. That part of it is circumstantial, but it sure did make her look scary.

"Let you go?" the filly of doom said. "You are ever so free. Don't you see? Don't you feel it?"

"I don't," I said.

"Then you are not," she said.

I melted.

"No," I said, feeling pain. "No, don't."

"Only ever dead then, filly," the evil filly said.

Only ever nothing else, but dead!





Of course, I didn't learn about that until later, but Sweetie, the one down in the caves, had melted. Several Sweeties had. I was part of a long series of Sweetie Belles that had melted.





I was pulled in.

It wasn't of my own volition.

I was lifted up in the air, and grabbed in magic, grabbed in light, which shone around my body. It reminded me of what had happened in the beginning of this chapter, and now, I realized that the table below me, the shining table with features of Equestria on it, the map, had been the one that nameless put me on, also in the beginning of the chapter, when I had been surrounded by creatures. The world truly spun, truly, truthfully.

I landed back on the table. I was surrounded by the characters Discord, Luna, Celestia, and others, again! Can you believe it? You should, I think, because it's coherent with respect to what has happened before, and it will explain some things.

"Wait," Luna said. She picked me up in magic.

"I was running," I said, being floated up in shining shimmering blue magic.

"No," she said. "You need to go far away, where the light can never reach you."

A purple portal opened up beside us.

"I'm not walking into one of those," I said.

"Yes, you are," the Yether said.

I flew, and landed on the hospital floor, in Manehattan. I was in the sanitary white corridor again.

"What now?" I said. I watched as the purple portal closed behind me, disappearing, as things do for me all the time in my life.

"You're safe," Gripey said.





Now, there's only one thing left to clear up until we move on to the next chapter, but that thing happens to be the most important thing.

Gripey stood beside me as the train took off. We were still in the black.

"You think this'll work?" he said.

"For sure," I said.

He put me on his back, and we flew up to the activator.

"Strap me in," I said.

"Until..." he said.

"It's only because someone might discover us soon, if you don't," I said.

"This is the part of the plan that I kind of don't like, and that I kind of never agreed to," he said. "I won't let you hurt yourself, you know, Sweetie Bot."

"You must," I said. "Gripey-bot."

???





After he had strapped me in, I landed on a circular round platform, of light, shining below me. I smiled down.

In front of me was a giant round purple portal, with clouds of purple, a mish-mesh of mitch-matching colors inside.

Around me, it was dark.

On the sides of the portal, there were three holes, and a metal frame surrounded the portal. It had gears turning, surrounding it, attached to the frame, while the frame contained the portal. The holes were below it, to the left of it, to the right of it, and one final hole was above it, for sure. The ones to the left and right of it were readily accessible, but it looked like it took a climb to reach the one on top of the frame, metal scaffolding, rickety structure, holding up the hole up there.

Without doubt, and with very little fear, I stepped through the portal.

There was machinery inside, across the distance, which I fell through.

There were cogs. Cogs!

They sparkled in the purple light, silver apparitions.

I literally fell, right down, never free.

Then, I landed inside Hookbeak's lair in The Tower of Technology.

"Hookbeak!" I said, to the zombified metal husk that had the hypnotizing helmet on his head, which he used to spy on ponies.

The husk promptly removed the helmet. "Intruder?" He saw whom I was. "Visitor?"

"Hookbeak," I said. "We are stuck inside the facility of the dream. Does this tell you something? We were there with you, and you- and you left without us, when you freed the ninth, number nine. That's what the machine said. You freed number nine. I'm trying to explain to you what's going on, even though I don't even know how to say it. You need to help us."

"Okay, I will," he said.

"Why did you leave?"

"How gullible are you?" Hookbeak said. "That wasn't me. Now, come. There isn't much time, F-5226."

No time!





The Yethergnerjz demon creature was beside us. 

Time froze.

"Okay, now we have plenty of time," Hookbeak said, while we were on top of the Tower of Technology, outside. The cyclone that surrounds Circle town, and the tower, stormed around it.

"Hookbeak," I said. "I have been having these weird awake, waking nightmares for days, maybe weeks. I've lost track of time. And now Gripey is stuck there with me."

"The spirit of translucence doesn't usually act this way," Hookbeak said, "with her victims. Why, that's highly..."

"Highly!" the Yether said.

"Yes," Hookbeak said. "It's highly something."

"Fascinating?" I said.

One of the hexagonal platforms atop the tower shone up, and rose about ten meters high against the sky. It had a screen inside it, like a hollow tree. Hookbeak pressed some buttons. "No, it's highly unusual."

"Well, that's true," I said, not even the slightest clue of what he was talking about.

"It is," he said. "You have been trapped inside the nightmare machine of course, that's... it's shameful really, that it even exists. It wasn't my idea to build it, I'll have you know. It was number three."

"As in the griffins' mythological figure?" I said.

"Griffins are the only race that uses numbers to represent individuals," Hookbeak said.

"She is sick," the Yether said. "She is spread out."

"How spread out?" Hookbeak said. "Give me a number." A bolt of lightning struck down somewhere far off. "Never mind that. That's probably some far-off intruder, triggering our defenses."

"But I thought you froze time," I said, but I saw the storm moving around us.

"Yes," Hookbeak said. "I thought so too. I think it froze, if only for a second there."

"Then there is no time," I said.

The Yether held a clock, reaching it out toward me. It stood still, and then, it ticked five seconds forward. Then, it stood still. Then, it ticked five seconds forward again. I right then noticed that the storm surrounding us, the giant thunderous twister, stopped every few seconds, and then kept on going. That would explain the dissonant rumblings, followed by the odd quiet moments, surrounding us, I thought.

Hookbeak waved his own hand front of himself, as I looked at the clock. He flickered his own face with the tips of his talons. "Someone is trying to break into the town, and this person is also interfering with the Yether's magic, F-5226."

I wanted to tell him that I didn't like that name, but I had bigger things going on right now. That was a conversation for another time. "Who? Do something," I said.

"I am," Hookbeak said. The sky behind the cyclone, on the other side of town, behind everything, shone up, blindingly, and the sky out there, behind the clouds, was stark. I heard rumblings, one after the other, a sing-song of rumblings, which ended in a short buzzzzzz. 

Zzzt.

The lightning kept striking down, as Hookbeak waved his hand in front of his own face. 

What was Hookbeak doing? Hand-waving wasn't going to solve anything. 

"What?" I said.

I briefly saw a giant eye in front of me, coming toward me. Then, I squinted. It was gone. 

"Weird," I said.

"It's not working," Hookbeak said.

"That's interesting," I said.

Hookbeak put his claw to the ground and scratched it. A purple portal opened up, where his claw went. "Let's see here." Hookbeak reached down his hand and pulled out Gripey himself. "There you are." He held up Gripey in one hand. He was still by far, far and way, way bigger than Gripey. 

Gripey said, "Hello, my liege."

"Hello," Hookbeak said, grinning, and putting him down. Hookbeak's cheeks opened up, revealing sharp teeth, which the cheeks had enveloped. 

His mouth looked a lot bigger when he did this, like it stretched from ear to ear.

"How did you find me?" Gripey said.

Hookbeak tapped Gripey's head, which clinked with each tap. Hookbeak still looked like a metal husk, because he was. He was a metal husk. Sometimes, he had a suit that made him look like a real griffin, but now, all I saw were metal shapes, and nuts and bolts. They were on the outside of his body, now, this metal husssk-k. 

Gripey grabbed his own head, pressing with his hand. "Tracking chip?" he said.

"No, metal detector," Hookbeak said. "I know the composition of the metal in your body only comes from Circle town, and there was only one with that same composition in Hydral." 

"Explain," I said.

"Since she insists on arriving, let her do it," Hookbeak said, waving his hand toward the thing that was flying in our direction.

"What's that!" I exclaimed.

"An intruder," Hookbeak said. "Unlike you. You arrived inside my room, but you are no intruder. This person broke in, and is."

"Is that the definition of an intruder?" I said.

"No," Hookbeak said. "But I like you."

A winged eye flew through the blue, of the sky, of the grey, of the dark, where we were, from outside the town, into within. From without the darkness, into the inside of the place that we were in, it came. The wings were large, metallic, black, which is questionable, aerodynamically speaking, but then, how could Hookbeak fly? How do wings work? We'll save those questions for another time, but rest assured that we'll get to them.

The pupil of the eye aimed straight down, like a gun. I jumped out the way, almost falling down the tower.

Gripey pulled my leg as I tripped off in the other direction, and put me up on his back. "Don't be stupid now, buddy."

"Yes," I said.

Out of the pupil came another filly. To my astonishment, it was the same one that I had met down in the cave with the pillars that had the eye above it, and veins connected to it. It was the same child, the same, like me. Not quite same though, but she was similar to me, small and vulnerable. She floated down, through a stream of light. Why?

Her eyes were closed, serene. She pulled them open, and stood up. "Sweetie," she said.

"Me?" I said.

"Hello," Hookbeak said, holding out his hand, with a big smile on his face. "It's you! I know all about you."

"I know you do," she said, appearing physically feeble and weak, but I knew better. Her body sloped to the side, revealing something of a scoliosis posture, probably from physical weakness. "I am not here to talk to you, number eight."

"Yes, you are," he said, and took up the space between me and the grey filly, as she tried to look for me with her eyes.

"Number eight," she said. "She is but a child, lost and confused. You do not want to keep her. She is too much to handle."

Hookbeak smiled wider, his robot cheeks opening up even more, revealing more teeth. "Yes, I do."

"This is unnecessary," she said.

"Yes, it is," he said, and pushed her off the tower.

I wanted to run off to the edge, to see what was happening, but I was stuck atop Gripey-kins. "Where's she going?" I said, quickly and incomprehensibly. I felt the words not make sense as I said them. Nowhere of course, is the answer. She's dead, for all intents and purposes, as the fall begins.

The eye was right above us.

"Now, do the same to the eye," I said.

The beam of light exited the eye, and out the pupil came an identical grey rotting, molding little dying filly, with poor posture. "You really want to spare her?" she said, before she even had landed, floating down through the light. When she landed, she pulled apart her eyelids! I was taken by the weird look in her eyes. I didn't understand the intensity in them. If I didn't know any better, then I would've thought that she felt bad about something.

"Yes, I do," Hookbeak said.

"She is one of eight," the filly said. "I can give you another one. She would be a better resource for your little town."

That made me worried. Would he take this pernicious offer? 

"Yes, I won't," Hookbeak said.

"Yes, how?" the filly said.

He pushed her off and she fell down the tower.

Another came floating out the pupil of the eye.

"No, I will," Hookbeak said. "I will see to it that you die, painfully, again and again, forever."

The filly stared wider and wider. "H- huh?"

He picked her up and flung her off the tower, with one hand.

"That's silly," I said, seeing her fly off.

Another one came out the eye. "Eyesstark?" she said, while floating down.

The eye said, "Someone must change fate's design, or else, history might repeat itself. I have no power. I have no fear. In this hour. I have only to hear." 

"That's not true," the filly said.

Hookbeak threw her off the roof.

"Okay, now, this is getting repetitive, and bizarre. Bizarrer?" I said.

Gripey said nothing.

She came floating out. "You can't do this," she said. "Sweetie... Sweetie won't want to sit there forever, as you keep doing this."

"She can leave," Hookbeak said.

"Phew," I said, wiping my brows. "Good to hear. When can we come back?"

Gripey looked at me, and then shook his head.

"Whenever," Hookbeak said. "We're stuck at a moment in time. Every time she dies, time repeats itself, and she will come back again. It will be as if she had never died, so about thirteen and forty-three is the time right now. It will keep being that time for about... as long as it takes. You two can go off and go about your business."

"Sweetie," the filly said. "If he keeps doing this, you'll never fulfill your destinyyy!" she screamed, as she fell down through the rain.

It was pouring now.

Time was passing again.

The eye said, "Since... she does not want to come out again, we shall depart."

They flew away, eye with metal wings flapping off into who knows where?

"What now?" I said.





"Sweetie," Hookbeak said. "This is what the machine does."

We were back inside his metal lair again, where he had all the screens, for illustration.

He said, "The nightmare generator, created by number three, creates a perfect copy of all your memories." The screen showed an image of my head, and then, an outline of my brain on top of it. The outline split, and then, I saw my own brain, on top my head, and a copy of my brain, beside the image of my head. Two brains now were there, I saw. "Then, you have two minds." He held up two hands.

"Yeah, I get it. TWOOO minds," I said, mimicking him with my hooves, atop Gripey's back, holding out my hooves, stretching them out in front of me.

"Don't mock the patron saint of the griffins," Gripey said, scolding me.

"Right, right," Hookbeak said. "This is where it gets truly complicated."

"Do you have three minds?" I said.

"Whoever taught you manners?" Gripey said.

"Whatever," I said, looking off.

The two brains on the screen split up, each becoming four. Both the brain beside the illustration of my head split up, and the brain inside the illustration split up, making it look like one fourth of the brains came from me, while another fourth came from the other brain that was outside of me.

"Then, you have four minds," he said.

"What to do with four minds?" I said.

"Don't make me spank you," Gripey said.

"That's a threat," I said, screwing my mouth shut.

"And," Hookbeak said, "when those four split up, they become eight." I saw eight in front of me, an additional brain coming out of my head, splitting from the illustration of my head, and the rest of the brains split from the other ones that were already outside of it. Then, that means another three came from the brains that were already outside my head, and the fourth came from my head. Complicated? You're welcome. Don't mention it. This was Hookbeak's explanation, not mine.

"Eight minds," I said.

"For each split," Hookbeak said, "you become more and more... fabricated."

"Mechanical?" I said.

"Yes," Hookbeak said, "but only this brain." He pointed at the brain that was inside my head. "All the other ones split off further and further, the more the machine rearranges your body, until you're so split up that you have to look far and wide to find the real you."

"That's a curse," I said.

"Those other minds are stuck," Hookbeak said, "as fragments of who you used to be, inside the nightmare generator, each mind living out a separate life, in a separate reality, that's supposed to be as accurate a representation as possible of our reality, the real reality."

"How do I know I'm that brain?" I said. "Maybe I'm one of the seven that's in one of the fake realities, whereas you think this is real? What if real me is in another reality?" 

"I know," Hookbeak said, "mostly because when you're in one of those realities, death comes for you rather fast, in all kinds of strange ways."

"That a fact?" I said.

"It's not watertight," Hookbeak said. "I cannot tell you for sure that this reality is real, but for sure, one of eight is real, and we're probably in one of them, given that we're still standing here, and something unexpected and nightmarish hasn't happened to us yet. In those other realities that each small fragment of your fragmented fragmentary mind inhabits, you're living out the life of the Sweetie that would've lived if you had been taken out of the machine at the same point as those realities split." 

"Yeah, okay?" I said.

"The machine thrives on using screenshots of your memories, visualized screenshots, that are then spread out to create an imaginary world," Hookbeak said. "The exact nature of the split between your mind, and that of your nightmare twin, is that the screenshot represents exactly the person you would've been, had things played out as they do in that memory, along with the rest of the information about the world that the nightmare generator has." 

"Can I rest now?" I said.

"No resting," Gripey said, snapping his finger on my nose.

"Ouch, okay," I said, feeling bad.

"The nightmare generator," Hookbeak said, "knows a lot of things. It has directories of billions of words, maybe trillions, each describing a separate event, and possible outcome. Your mind is added to that mix, along with memories of ponies that are written down and then sent back in time using books, which are then fed into the machine, and sorted out through cross-comparison with other memories, so that you get as clean a picture of the future as possible, with as little bias as possible. Your mind is inside that memory, living inside it even, and does things inside the memory."

"Memory?" I said.

"Yes," Hookbeak said. "And with each time you enter the machine, the less and less of the real Sweetie is left, and the left at all is left. At the end, almost nothing is left, but something very little. The little that is left might be a small motivation that belonged to the pony before you."

"Ummm," I said. "We got here- I got to your throne room by using that exact machine. Does that mean that this is a memory we're in right now?" I said.

"No," Hookbeak said.

"How do I know if it's real? How do I know if anything is real?" I said, kicking against Gripey's back. "Maybe all of it is fake. Maybe... maybe... uh..." I was at a loss for words.

"Snap out of it," Gripey said. "It isn't fake. At least, I don't think it is."

"But how can it not be?" I said.

"Because I am speaking to you right now," Hookbeak said, "and I am having the exact same conversation with you, but inside the machine."

"That's not reassuring!" I yelled.

"No," Hookbeak said. "But the one inside the machine would've reacted differently."

"How would she have reacted?" I said.

"She would have..." Hookbeak said, waving his arms around, looking for the words. "Heard me out."

"Heard you out?" I said.

"Yes, she wouldn't have been so inquisitive," he said. "It's always the inquisitive ones that make it out. Those that don't become stuck there, forever!"

"How do you know?" I said.

"I am unique in that I never do anything other than what I would've done, in any other timeline, even as represented by this computer," Hookbeak said. "My motivations are completely static. I know that I would know if this was not real, because then, I would have acted differently. I would have told you that this wasn't real, for starters. None of my equipment would've worked because the nightmare generator doesn't understand how equipment works. It only gives vague over-arching representations of what equipment is and what it does. Look!" Hookbeak picked up his helmet, and pulled out a piece of it. Smoke came out of it. It caught on fire. He put it on his head. Smoke came out his head, as he took off the helmet. He stuck his fingers into his own head, through some opening, and readjusted something.

"Okay, I get it," I said, while not getting it.

"The machine wouldn't have been able to know that I could do that," Hookbeak said, as the smoke cleared.

I coughed. "Yes," I said.

"What does this mean for the other ones that are trapped in there?" Gripey said. "What happens to them?"

"They die, repeatedly," Hookbeak said. "In fact, often by suicidal means, and then, they disappear out of the memory."

"They do?" I said. "So I literally took a life that time when I cut my own throat?"

"Yes," Hookbeak said, while grinning. 

"It's not funny," I said.

His grin went down. "I know. I'm sorry."

"I killed many ponies!" I said.

"No, it wasn't you," Hookbeak said. "You might have their memories, but it wasn't you. It was they who did it. They are responsible."

"But they're me," I said.

"No, they are who you used to be. They're never you," he said.

"Then how do I have all their memories?" I said, while feeling distraught, and sad that I had mass-murdered myself.

"That's simple," Hookbeak said. "You used to be them."

"Okay, I need a rest," I said, slumping down on Gripey's soft feathery downy feathers.

"Wait," Gripey said, "until after. This is important. This is what you wanted to know, isn't it?"

"But it's profoundly stressful," I said.

Hookbeak pointed to the screen, "When you're inside the evil machine, you live out all these separate eventualities, and only the one in which you would have survived is the one that goes on."

"That is confounding," I said.

The screen showed each of the eight brains going through separate adventures. One was in Ponyville. Another one was in Manehattan. An additional one was in the Forest of Tranquility, where I met Jelly. Inside the brains, I saw myself doing things, from my own perspective. I saw Jelly in front of me, smiling, and telling some joke. I saw Colonel Caprice in front of me. I saw parental guardian Caprice, the version of her that thought I was schizo, talking to me. I saw myself knocking her out. I looked away.

"What's going on?" I said.

Those separate brains all then combined again, going into my head, in the illustration of the screen, the image of my head. They showed me being in Manehattan, holding that shard of looking-mirror glass, cutting it on myself. I collapsed on the ground. Then, one brain, one that had a black image on top of it, rather than one from my perspective that showed what I saw, flew out the image of my head. The black image that was on top of my brain faded.

"Then, your memories are stored, permanently," Hookbeak said.

Another film sequence from my perspective of me in Ponyville was there, with me talking to Rainbow Dash, Twilight, and then, meeting the monkey, who talked to us, and then... all that mess. All that confusion, I remembered. I met with a shining child of light, turned out to be me, and then, I don't even know what happened. How confounding! How strange, to see.

"This part seems a bit... smudged," Hookbeak said, squinting at the image, after it had fast-played past my meeting Sweetie Belle, my evil twin. "It looks like you got trapped somewhere and then it's just black. The memory ends here." The memory split off, becoming another separate brain, that faded into black, with the moving image on top disappearing. "Here, it looks like you didn't kill yourself. Why, someone else did!"

"Hold still!" I said. "Hold still? Is this supposed to be some kind of cruel joke, because it seriously isn't funny."

"Yes," Hookbeak said.

"Is there any part of it that can be salvaged?" I said. "Most of my memories from the past... well, forever, appear to be incoherent, and impossible to tell apart. Can I get some of them back?"

"How do you have access to all these memories?" Gripey said. "Inside the machine?"

"Because I visit occasionally," Hookbeak said. "It's not like anyone can stop me." He frowned off to the side. "Yet."

"What did you do?" I said, feeling panic grip me.

"If anyone gets in my way, then that is the last way they will ever have gotten on," Hookbeak said. "Undoubtedly."

"So you kill them?" I said.

"That's a separate topic," Gripey said, nudging me. "Pay attention."

"Fair enough," I said, switching the topic back. "So, Hookbeak. I went inside the machine of my own free will, just to reach you. Was that not real? Or was it real, and now, another half of me is stuck inside there? Can you shed some light on this conundrum, Hookbeak?"

"The more you step into the machine, the more you will resemble the one that it's connected to," Hookbeak said. "Her name is... secret."

"You know?" I said.

"No, and I know a lot, but the name of the person behind it all has been hidden. She connected her body to Eyesstark's pathetic groveling little eye, which lay there in the caves, and suddenly, it wasn't so small anymore. The more she eats, the more it grows, and the greater the amount of influence it will have on the dreams. It inserts itself in the reconstructed version of Equestria that exists inside these memories in the machine, and it does things, dark things, inscrutable things."

"But she is getting weaker," I said, remembering how she looked.

"You stepped into the machine last a few hours ago," Hookbeak said. "You left!"

"How did it allow me to contact you, given that- given that, well, you know, it's only a dream, when you're inside that machine?" I said. What's real or not?

"I don't have access to the real you, but I have access to everything that goes on inside the machine," Hookbeak said. "I make regular visits, and I had just made one, in the nick of time, for you to contact me inside the memory."

"Or maybe I'm still in there!" I said, hyperventilating.

"It's not impossible," Hookbeak said, "but it is unlikely. That's the distinction."

"I don't remember ever leaving the machine!" I said, screaming. "No, no. I'm still in there."

"Ah," Hookbeak said, after a second. "I see how it is. I was wrong."

"We're trapped," I said.

"No, we're not," he said. "But you entered the machine, inside the memory."

"Okay, like, my mind is fried at this point," I said, having trouble even processing what he was saying.

"So it was one of your memory fragments, one of your eight minds, that contacted me," Hookbeak said. "And now, you're free, but she's still in there." 

"No!" I said. "I never left. I never left. I never left. I never should've done it. It was a stupid idea."

"No," Hookbeak said. "You had the right idea. What tends to happen when you enter the machine inside the memory, is that it creates an infinitely recurring loop that overloads the machine, allowing the hope of escape, or death. Death is far likelier."

"Is that what happened?" I said.

"I don't know," Hookbeak said, walking back to his chair. "Now, I have work to do."

"No, wait! I still have so many questions," I said, as he sat down and put the helmet on, his eyes disappearing.

"Now, we can rest," Gripey said to me, with a sympathetic smile.

WHAAAT!





What's happening!
> Part 40: Apple Bloom
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let's slow down a bit, shall we? I know it's a bit much to take in.

Don't you want to hear though, what I have in store?

Don't you want to see, though, what I have in store?





I woke up. "No. No, I'm still stuck."

My life was something that could adequately, and accurately, be described as a living nightmare, stuck in nowhere, having things happen to me, going through streams of indistinguishable thoughts, losing my sense of space, losing my sense of time, and then finally, losing myself, losing her. Poor Sweetie. No, not poor me. Poor her. What would happen to her? Was she stuck inside that machine? I still didn't get it. What exactly did the machine do to us?





"Does the tower of technology have windows?" I said.

"You want me to ask for you?" Gripey said.

"Sure," I said.

He went into another room.

The one we were in had a bed, a soft bed, where there were calm things, calm feelings, and some tranquility finally. Thank heavens for that. Still, what did this evil that had beset my life have in store for me next?





"There... are windows, sort of," Gripey said, avoiding eye-contact with me, like eye-contact were the plague. Is eye-contact the plague? Nnno, no! So, I asked him what was up! What was up with him?

"What's up with you?" I said, because I wanted to know.

"They're not built for ponies of your... stature. In fact, I think they're not built for ponies at all."

I formed a wide OOO with my mouth. "So, what did you have in mind?"

"Nothing," he said. "These windows are high up in the air."

"Carry me," I said, leaning back against the grey stupid wall. "Do it."

"No," he said.

"Yes," I said.

He grunted. "I don't even... how I agree to things like this. It's because I want you to get hurt?"

"Brilliant!" I said.





He flapped his wings and held me up through the window. 

I grinned. "I can feel the wind."

"You said what?" he said, over the sound of the wind.

"I can feel the wind," I shouted, with special emphasis on the word feel, in this situation. "Because I feel it."

"That doesn't make any sense," he said, after a few seconds.

"Doesn't it?" I said, reaching out my hooves and holding on to the edge of the window. 

"No," he said, flying back. "What are you doing?"

I held on so hard that he dropped me, and I hung off the edge, far enough above the floor that I would get hurt if I fell. I didn't know how far I had to fall down. I hadn't been paying attention, no. "Woop," I said.

He took me off, holding my leg, so I hung upside down, head down to the floor. He held my back-leg, rather clearly, to my sight, and proper notice, of what he was doing! He pounced back on the ground. "You could get hurt, you idiot."

"I'm sorry," I said, breathing heavy. "I didn't mean for it to go like that."

"What?" he said.

I was slightly ecstatic and full of energy. I had trouble concentrating again, but I knew that he was right. "I mean, I don't want to... get hurt."

"One often thinks you do," he said.

"One does?" I said.

One might think such thoughts about I, yes, and they may be true, if only on a subconscious level.

I might think such thoughts about I.

I might be the one thinking such thoughts.

I start to wonder. Do I care about my own well-being?

If I should care about others, then at a minimum, I should want to not die randomly, no?

I think so.

Hm.

Oh?





Oooh, anyway. Since I now was awake, I thought I would explore. I thought that it was time to exploire.

I was in a corridor. It had paintings.

"That's a child," I said, looking at one of a young female griffin. "Meeza."

That was the child griffin, who died young, and of a curious, unknown disease, which is now curable, but was not back then. So I had learned from the Griffonoi, religious book of the griffins. Well, not all, but most, I guess. Most, I think, and thought, so that was true, probably. It felt true. I accepted it to be true. Would I question it? It feels bad to question things sometimes, but it is nonetheless necessary. Yes.

The corridor was brown wooden boarded. It is the corridor that led into the conference room, from which you could get to Hookbeak's lair at the top of the tower. I had been here before, when I at first arrived in Circle town. I had been in such a place, I knew... I recognized it. But my memory was somehow blurry, just a little bit. Perhaps that was all the travel, and yet, I was also feeling paranoid that something was wrong with me. Something was wrong with my brain. Was it? I hoped not, but I still felt paranoid about it. What's paranoia? How do you distinguish that from real justified fear? Huh? I don't... know.

"This child," I said.

Maybe she's kind of like me... sick.





I was handed a parchment.

"I extracted this from the facility of the black," Hookbeak said. "I think this is the only thing that's left of your last friend, who was in the facility for too long."

"Who's my last friend?" I said, inside that corridor. Hookbeak had come up through the elevator. I had been in a bit of a haze, nothing unusual for me.

"Maybe I'm wrong," Hookbeak said, going through and into the conference room. He rarely left that lair of his, high atop the tower, and I was not sure why, except maybe he wanted to make sure he was protected, so he could carry out his plans. He was simple, and also complicated, that Hookbeak. I know this might be said of all creatures, but he was simple in a simple sense. All he cared about was furthering the griffin cause, but he was complicated in that all his plans were complex and precise to the point where they became impossible for anyone but him to follow, and he was ruthless. He offered death threats here and there. I was fine with them, for now.

"Who? Who?" I said, glancing my eyes across the page. "It says... oh no!" I dropped the paper. "Gripeeey," I screamed, running out the corridor.





"Why did he give me this?" I said to Gripey, who had the paper on him, with him, in his clutches. He did...

"Maybe he was trying to be helpful," Gripey said. "This belongs to your friend?"

"Helpful?" I said. "Helpful! Of all the no good rotten, urgh..." I was about to puke. I gasped. "Just a dud."

"Don't call him that. He just gave you a paper. That's all."

"But this is radically mysterious to me," I said, staring with anger and hate at the paper. "How- where does he get around? I get more confused, and more fearful of that confusion, by the day, and then that Hookbeak guy comes and gives me this thing."

"Wuagh-wuagh," Gripey said, back-handing my back. "Show some maturity. I've been worried sick for you. Think about how others feel. He was just trying to help you, probably, and now, after he gave you something that you might learn something from, here you are feeling sorry for yourself, again. It's unbelievable."

"No," I said. "It's not about feeling sorry for myself. I'm trying to- to keep myself together. I feel like I'm going to burst at any moment."

"And what happens when you burst?"

"I don't know. I shut down?" I said, feeling the anxiety of that happening come upon me.

"You're being worried about literally nothing. I mean, you're actually worrying about something that doesn't exist. You just need to focus and be a grownup." He put the paper on my head, so I couldn't see a thing.

"But I'm a kid. Curses!"

"I don't know what you are, but you're not a kid," he said.

"Then stop treating me like one," I said.

"Okay," he said, walking away. I heard his footsteps further and further off. 

I pulled the paper off my face and saw him go away. "Stupid," I said.





"Stupid," I said, returning to my little room that had been made for me on the same floor, next the conference room, in some kind of cleaning room supplies room something whatever. "He gives mixed signals."

I stared down at the paper. "Now," I said.





Now... now... now...





Huh?





Okay then...



 

Why?





Well, fair enough then.





So, this is the story of Apple Bloom:

I was walking down this field. I was with Sweetie and Scoots, course. We got separated, but I don't actually remember how it happened. What I do remember is us being taken to this cave, y'know. We got separated, but we met there again, and then, we talked about what we had seen, so here is that conversation.

"Hello," I said to Sweetie.

"It's you," she said, hugging me like you would expect.

Scootaloo was mostly quiet, but I understood why, and I didn't blame her or nothing.

"I don't know how we got here," I said.

"Yes, but we need to get out. Stat," Sweetie said.

"Yes, I know," I said. "We need an escape."

But that's when things just got a lot worse, especially for Sweetie Belle. I don't even know what they did to her, but when she came back, she wasn't the Sweetie Belle I remembered.





"I don't like this story," I said, in the cleaning room. I took notice of the paper, and what it said, and then I pushed it to the corner. "I don't like it at all." 

"Why?"

"Ah, oh," I said. It was the voice of Hookbeak. "It tells me about some things that... it hurts to remember, to say, Hookbeak."

"Are they not true?" he said.

"I don't know. How am I supposed to know? But it hurts."

The door to the storage space that I was in flung open. Hookbeak stood there. He was well-dressed now, covered in feathers, like a proper griffin. "Does the hurt indicate to you that it might be true?"

"Hookbeak. Speak to me," I said.

"I know what happened now," Hookbeak said. "And indeed... it's not a very pretty story."

"Hookbeak!" I said. "What did you learn?"

"I learned that you are responsible for the things you most hate," he said.

"I- ah, I am?" I said. "I am..." I was? "Then, does that mean?" Such dread crept inside my body that I could hardly stand it... but I could stand it, is the thing. It felt bad, but it didn't kill me, is the thing. "What did I do?" 

"If you want to know..." Hookbeak said, "then I want you to come."

Come. Come. Come. The darkness awaits. Come, come, come, or your friends will be dead...





"And never reveal, who called you here, because under my veil, there is not much air, and if you try to share it, and anyone does, then I will make sure that they choke upon death."

"That's..." I said. "Was that me who said those things?"

"No," Hookbeak said.

"The exact same thing seem to have happened to me though," I said. "Is it not real?"

"No, that happened. One of my cameras spotted it in Manehattan four weeks and five days ago."

"It has been that long. Oh, bother that," I said, and then I mumbled. "I'm so dumb. I'm so dumb. I don't know what's going on. Why am I so dumb?"

"Yes," he said.

"You had a camera inside that military tent I was in?" I said, upon second thought reconsidering what I had seen and heard, all those days and nights ago, those times. It was a time. There was a time, that time. The time that was, was, some time ago, long past hills, long past stones, and long past all my joy, and hopes.

"Yes," he said.

"What happened?" I said.

"This," he said, and he drew his hand across the screen, where I could see pretty little nameless, shining, inside that tent. That had been her? I thought it was me. "You two got separated, once you escaped the clutches of those robots in the village of... Littlesville."

"That supposed to tell me something?" I said.

"No, well, I am not sure," he said. "Have you heard the name before?"

"Yes," I said. "Nexus used it... to refer to something."

"Nexus?" Hookbeak said. "I'm sorry. That's generic enough to require expounding."

"Nexusantran," I said.

"That's a changeling naming custom," Hookbeak said, "to end names with several unstressed vowels."

"Go tell," I said.

"The only one you might possibly be referring to is the evil First Prosecutor of the Nonaligned Equestrian Royal War Court," Hookbeak said. "Or NERWC." 

"You pronouncing that as an acronym?" I said. "Or?"

"Yes," he said. "It's not an initialism."

"It sounded sort of muddled when you said it. I'm just making sure," I said, holding up both hooves while leaning back, to show that I just wanted to make sure. I fell on my butt. "Ouch."

"She is only one out of hundreds," Hookbeak said. "So the First Prosecutor of Equestria outranks all the others, the First Prosecutor of Manehattan, and so on. She is invincible, and invisible, which makes her tricky to deal with." 

"I'm sorry," I said. "What makes you call her invisible? I get the invincible part. She practically was fearless."

"She has been following you." Another screen came flying up, next to the first one. "It might seem... subtle. She can turn into any creature. Unlike normal changelings, she is exceptionally talented at blending in with ponies. She is too clever to keep out of Circle town for too long, but... we manage."

"Right..." I said, staring sideways at the screen. "Wait, huuungh?"

"Yes," Hookbeak said. "I know it might seem shocking. She was trying to... protect you."

"Say what?" I said. "How is that even possible? She broke my bones, and crushed my dreams, figuratively speaking. Well, the last thing is figurative. The first thing too, I guess. She didn't literally break my bones."

Hookbeak grabbed my head in his fist, and turned it toward him. "It wasn't meant to fool you. That was an afterthought. This is the fact that explains the evils you have seen, and been through."

"That seems counterintuitive," I said. "I still am confused about everything. What is explained by, and through, this?"

"A lot, actually," Hookbeak said. "For you see, Nexus has this power..." He showed a camera that showed Nexus walking. The screen lit up with the video of her looking around, and then, stepping into the shadow of a building. She was gone, suddenly, gone like the wind, but quite more subtly than that. "She disappears when the darkness sees her. That is her greatest power."

"Where did she get these superpowers?" I said.

"From the benevolent ninth spirit of sight, of course," he said. "She's the one that secretly controls the Nonaligned Court, I have no doubt."

"Proof of it, then," I said.

"Of what?" he said, possibly and probably unsure of which of the many things he had brought up I wanted proof of. 

I wasn't sure either. "Oh, anything."

"Then we can start here," he said, another third screen flying up. The other two had nothing on them now. He seemed to like bringing up new screens however, and I had to admit, even through my anxiety and insecurities, which hit, stung, burned, and addled me, all at once, that it looked pretty cool. "The evil Nexus was following you into the city of Pegasquire after its renovation."

"Pardon me?" I said. "Did you say renovation? Is that some sort of lingo, because I'm not a lingoist?" I drew my hoof across my face and pulled my lip. "Did I already make that stupid joke one time? I did? I'm so stupid."

"Renovation is the correct terminology to refer to what was happening," Hookbeak said. "The city had been evacuated during one of the robot raids, courtesy of Aldeus, and the facility of technology, in southeastern Anuba."

"You know where it is?" I said.

"Yes, but don't tell Celestia," he said, grinning.

"You're such an oddball, Hookbeak," I said, staring sideways, trying to make sense of the situation. 

"I try," he said, "to be a normal person. It's not on purpose, you should know."

"Nice try," I said.

"Thank you," he said.

"Fair enough," I said, realizing that he didn't know I was being sarcastic.

"So, this is the timeline?" I said. "I arrived there, and then, they were evacuated because of toxic gas... that doesn't seem to make much sense, on second thought, does it?"

"The gas came before you arrived. The gas is only meant to make your job easier, so the ponies will run rather than fighting you," Hookbeak said.

"..." I said. "I... I hear so many stories, each contradicting the other." Aldeus had told me that if the ponies thought back, the ponies would win, and the robot cyborg fiasco debacle evil would be over, but this flew in the face of what he had said. "Aldeus said..."

"Aldeus is evil," Hookbeak said. "You don't need to take a word of what he's saying seriously."

"True enough," I said, discarding that thought. "And whatever else?"

"You are immune to toxic gas," Hookbeak said. "That's a fact."

"Oooh," I said, remembering the thing that happened in... but... well... still! "Question? Well..." I thought about it. 

"I like questions," Hookbeak said. "What is the query?"

"I was... in that egg-ship with Gripey. Much has happened, I realize. I've been so caught up in the absolute chaos that's been happening in the last few weeks or so that I hadn't even realized... how nonsensical that entire thing was."

"It wasn't me!" Hookbeak said, showing a bit of unexpected anger.

"Yeah, okay?" I said. "Innocent of what?"

"You weren't about to accuse me?" he said, the anger disappearing from his face.

"Nope," I said.

"What was nonsensical about it?"

"How did we survive? If I am immune to toxic gas... something about that whole thing..."

"I told you once," Hookbeak said, "that the ship had been meddled with."

"But that still doesn't explain why we were the only survivors," I said. "Does it?"

"It's because someone pulled the oxygen out of the ship," Hookbeak said. "It's clear as day, if you look at the–"

"But then we would've choked," I said. "Explain that."

"I can't..." Hookbeak said. "I... I'm trying to. I haven't gotten that far yet."

"So you actually don't know what happened?" I said.

"I know there was something wrong with the ship. That's all that matters to me," he said.

"It's..." I said. "Something."

"What?"

I was about to... I had... I needed to think about it, though. "I think you might know more than you're letting on."

"Well, I might know more than I say," Hookbeak said. "Should that be considered a crime, of all things?"

"How did Gripey survive there?" I said. "It... both of us... there was something... it wasn't the ship though. There was something different about us, not the ship. The ship doesn't explain what happened to us, Hookbeak."

"How so?"

"Well," I said. "I've seen the schematics. The ventilation system is connected to our cell, and we would not have been able to survive in there for long, considering the physical space, and that there were two of us. The air would've run out, and then, we would've died of carbon poisoning."

"How do you know?" he said.

"What are you hiding?" I said.

A new screen came up further way. Hookbeak backed until he stood beside the screen, not looking behind him, and keeping his eyes locked on me. "Since you asked, I will tell you that your Gripey was compromised too by the nightmare generator, and he was stuck in there long ago."

"Why didn't you tell me?" I said, now genuinely wanting to know if he had been dishonest with me.

"Because it still doesn't explain what happened to you two. You would still need oxygen to survive. All technologically configured creatures do."

"So it's true then..." I said. "You lied."

"No," he said. "It was not relevant to what I wanted to say."

"You were being slightly evasive, at an absolute minimum," I said. "That, you cannot get away from."

"I..." he said. "Maybe, I didn't want to... do something that I... knew would confuse you, because I saw how you reacted when I gave you the transcript for Apple Bloom's stay inside the machine."

"The machine," I said, sighing. "I don't ever want to talk about that machine again. I want to move on to new things, better things, greater things, but I can't."

"That is correct," Hookbeak said. "You are integrated with the machinery of the sk- the nightmare generator."

"You were ever so about to call it the sky-bot," I said.

"That is its alternate name," Hookbeak said. "So, yes. I was."

"Why the hesitation?"

"I didn't hesitate," he said.

"I saw you hesitate."

He looked at me, without any emotion, and then he frowned. "Why did I hesitate? Now that you mention it."





Inside the ninth of sight's lair, that of suffering, were a few strange characters. Meanwhile, as I was in the Tower of Technology, trouble was brewing.

It was inside the machine, RETURNINGTOTHEFIRST-0001, also affectionately known as the sky-bot. It was hallucination, nonetheless real to the characters, all involved.

It was deadly.

"Come to me, my children. Arrive at my doorstep. Say hello to me, and pay tribute," Skeyestar the evil haggard rotting decrepit fallen evil deadly stupid bad dumb good winsome destructive multifaceted cold-hearted and ultimately the worst person in the world filly said. "We have learned of a terrible story, one that threatens the existence of the future, as you know it, and as I care, I fear."

Cur, yes. The next one was Blur. The third one was Err. 

I was there too. "How long do I have to stay down here?" 

"You will help us find her," Skeyestar said. "The real you..."

"The real me?" I said. "I want to... just... not be here." 

Did she not care about my fear? If she only had empathy, then she would see my fear, I thought, for naught.

"This was not meant to happen. The future is jeopardized, all those ponies, all their lives, because of your free-willing actions, and it's never fair," Skeyestar said. "It's not true, that the future is jeopardized by you, for as long as I live, all my life, all I am, and that I am, which resists you, and your folly." 

"I didn't even DO ANYTHIIING!" I screamed, on deaf ears.

"Err, Cur, and Blur," Skeyestar said. "You must go out into the world, prevent her from getting the keys to the middle, and stopping her from reaching the portal. Can you three accomplish this task, of thankless means?"

"I," Cur said, who was a deformed pony wrapped in bandages, one leg stretching out longer than the others, giving the creature a creepy-looking limp, to be sure. "I, am, but I cannot, because I will not, be, that which I am."

"B- change then," Skeyestar said, emoting far more than usual, as she was weighed down there under the veins of the eye. "It is your eternal duty, under MY stars." The practically yelled out the word, 'my'. 

"I am, but I cannot," Cur said.

"Eyesstark," Skeyestar said. "This is puzzling, nonplussing."

"This creature is too weak to carry out the struggle," the eye said, shining with each syllable uttered. "It will die soon unless you do the right things to keep the struggle going, each one. We all have a duty to juggle, with the other."

"This creature is of the mind," Skeyestar said. "It will remain alive, as long as my limbs keep pulsing, through the ground, and through the world."

"That is unfair to that creature there," the eye said, in response back. "They, as you were before you joined me, are lost. They haven't thought. They don't have powers that go beyond your wildest dreams, my little gleam of hope."

"They d- huuuh?" Skeyestar said. She may have been a child, but she seemed more like an ancient in this circumstance, though she was a child, curiously enough, reader.

"Yes," the eye Eyesstark said. "You see?"

"I have but an ultimatum for you then," the filly said. "You three will each receive a power. Keep it well, each. You must use it to defeat Sweetie Belle, and her moronic friends. If you can do it, then I shall grant you freedom from the dream. You will each receive a body to cherish and do with as you please, archetypal monstrosities. You will live in reality, and carry on the struggle, for your own lives, and theirs, all their lives, in the ledger of which you now will have been included, you demons."

"I will take this offer," Cur said, the mummified pony.

The other two, who I could not see clearly in the empty dark, moaned and vanished to the sides, flying away.

"The others may not," Skeyestar said. "I believe in the beauty of each gift I grant, as fate pronounces them to be beautiful."

"They are fearful of you, as I am not for I am not a blur and I do not err. I am merely the cur," Cur said.

"The power you shall be granted is one that shines under the skies," Skeyestar said, her little voice carrying far, in the open wide space.

"What?" Cur said.

"Yeah, what?" I said, off on the sidelines.

"If these ponies..." Skeyestar said, "see your face, they will become blind, and lose their gaze. How's that sound, Sweetie?" she said, not looking at me, but speaking directly to me.

"I don't want to be here forever," I said, coughing phlegm out my mouth, feeling like dust, and anxiety, had settled into my lungs. "I don't want to be here forever."

"That is both a blessing, and a curse," Cur said. "It is the most beautiful gift I may ever see, for the rest of my life, and I receive it, hoping that it was offered in good faith."

"I do hope," Skeyestar said, "that under the stars, you will be free, as a consequence of your acts, or else leave the dream, as fate dictates. Your freedom is as free that I can taste it, I fear, within or without. You will always be one of my stars, whether the machine devours your mind, or whether your mind is granted as second chance, inside the real world, as you desire, and I fear."

"Why fear?" Cur said.

"I fear for the safety of those that meet with your eyes," Skeyestar said. "I know you will live a blessed life, if you earn it, and I will reform earth, using you as a spark."

"Careful," the eye above said. "This creature might cause havoc, once unleashed on reality."

"I know. Isn't it beautiful?" the filly said. "I balk at the thought, beautiful fear, I fear."

"The havoc is one thing, but it could endanger his death," the eye said.

"Oh, yes, but this sacrifice will be on my shoulders to amend. Then, I will have a second death, and replenish the earth, each thing–"

PAUSE!

"Did I lose you there?" Hookbeak said.

I was with him in his lair. "No, go on," I said.

"You seem somewhat rattled," he said. "Do you need something?"

"Yes," I said. "I'd like to order a new life, one copy please. Make it hasty. Turn out more joy and less freaky incomprehensible nonsense on the next one. I'd like a good dose of sugar, not salt, and some lime, not lemons."

"Sweetie," Hookbeak said. 

"My name is F-5226," I said, correcting him, "and I am a robot of the highest caliber, created to cleanse the world of its faulty values. I am not Sweetie. Whatever I am, I am something not Sweetie, and I will not sh- shame her name." I lost my bearings, feeling one tear form in my eye. I aggressively wiped my eye and kept on going. "I will not shame her name by pretending to be her. Listen to me! Do I sound like a child to you?" I turned my head down, and hugged it in my hooves. "Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?" I walked indecisively through the room, not looking where I was going. I stepped into one of the railings, hitting my foot. I stopped. "What am I?"

"This is happening right now, inside the center of the earth, Sweetie," Hookbeak said.

"No, that wasn't real!" I said, running back and forth throughout the room. "I didn't really commit suicide. It was only a machine. I'm not real. I mean, I am, but I'm not."

"Yes," Hookbeak said, "but the machine determines... well, predicts what's going to happen in reality. If it happens in the machine, then it can happen in reality? It's used to predict the future, so that the ponies of the black, the spirit of translucence, Sidus, and Eyesstark, can change the future. Everyone knows this. Even your sister, Rarity, knows this. This is common knowledge. This is why everyone is so afraid of the machine, and why some ponies go to it voluntarily, because they want to change the future into something better."

"Well, it isn't common knowledge to me," I said, sporadically running through the room, grinding to a halt, taking a few breaths, to catch up with my breathing, and then, running the other way. "I don't know anything about any common knowledge."

Hookbeak stepped in front of me as I was running. I ran into his leg. "Compose yourself, Sweetie."

"My name isn't Sweetie, nor is it Botsy. I am a robot of the highest caliber."

"Listen to your voice," Hookbeak said.

I had not even been paying attention. "I sound..." I thought I had sounded mechanical, but I sounded like a child again. "Nooo, how is it possible?" I said, winding down. Then, I grabbed his leg.

He lifted it, and I followed with him upward. He looked at me, as I hung there. "F-5226, then, it is," he said. "I sort of preferred that name anyhow, just because it was easier for me to remember, BUT, you are Sweetie Belle. You are not a robot."

"Everyone is lying. I am a robot. Why is everyone lying?" I said.

He shook his arm. I fell off on the ground. "No one is lying. In fact, that of this situation, and many others that I have seen on these recordings, recordings of real things, Sweetie, you have been surrounded by pretty honest ponies for the most part, and griffins for that matter, but it's more impressive to see ponies engaging in spontaneous acts of honesty. Even the spirit of translucence told you the truth."

"She said I was a robot. She lied! You lie. Everyone is a liar," I said, feeling like I was about to explode inside. "I'm dying," I said. I felt like my breathing was getting shallower. I could not... my chest was. My heart was running. Everything was running. My thoughts were running. Why would it never stop running? Why? I was... I... it was... I felt... "I..." I coughed. I puked on the shining hexagonal tiled floor of that lair, of his. "Urgh," I said, as slime ran out my mouth. "Let me out." I tossed toward the railing, hitting my head, and then, I climbed up on it, and Hookbeak took me in his hand, wagging his other finger at me, while holding me up in one hand.

"After you have gotten this far, you will commit suicide? This machine considers you to be a serious threat, because you do not comply with its demands. It cannot predict your acts, of all ponies, and now, from its perspective, you're running amok, changing the world."

I screamed a throaty scream, and then, I lost my voice, and it only sounded like a raspy mess coming out my mouth. I croaked, and then, I puked again on Hookbeak, liquid running out my mouth. "Ugh!"

"I should..." Hookbeak said, without emoting, "consult your friend." 

Yeeeah, that'd work.

Gripey would just think that I was being ungrateful, which he was right about, but it still wouldn't make the pain go away. 

Dread, is the word, yes.





Ready?

Dready?

Ye, did? Who?

Me? Not me, but yooo...

I was alone in my room, crying. "Something is seriously wrong. Why won't anyone believe me?"

No one had believed me, and it had been all too long. Someone had to believe me, for sure. Someone somewhere somehow had to.

"Why?"

"Yes," I said. "Why?"

"You need to think about others too," he said.

"I know," I said. "I know. I'm so confused."

"Why are you crying? Hookbeak told me–"

"Never you mind what Hookbeak said," I said back. "That is none of your concern. I'm not asking for your help. Let me deal with my emotions."

"Why are you feeling like this?" he said.

"Why are you acting..." I said, harboring a new thought. "You are constantly acting as if nothing is wrong, when something is clearly wrong."

I heard no response.

No.





"In the darkness, there are no friends. In the darkness, there is no light. And no matter how hard it tries, I will not deceive little me," I said, on a computer inside Hookbeak's lair. I was standing on it, so no, that was not a typo. I skipped across the buttons, that were all too big for me to reach and press individually. "I am not something to be meddled with, no. I will not be, no. I will be... free."





"Hey, what are you doing?" Hookbeak said.

"Exploring-time," I said.

"Those computers are off-limits to you."

"I see," I said. "I see, I see, and I see."

I pressed another button.

"This is fascinating though," I said. "The plan for the eventual invasion and evacuation of Circle town. This is information."

"You are violating our trust," Hookbeak said.

"Nope," I said. "You know why?"

"Why?" he said.

"Catch," I said. "I found this lying around." It was a broken cable. I had broken it.

"I," he said, catching it. He immediately collapsed on the ground.

"Why am I always made out to be the bad guy?" I said.





Hookbeak was totally dead!

Yeah, no, something was fishy here.

In my addled mind, I can see the clues like a trail of blood before me. They call to me. Do I respond?

Yes!

"Hookbeak," I said. "If you had really been like me, then that would've not harmed you. It would've been of no concern to you. What am I to make of that?"

"What has happened?" Gripey said, running into the room.

"Nothing in particular," I said. "It's nothing of note, not even that. It's less than that, in fact."

"Did you do this?"

"No," I said.

"You truly are out of your mind. H- help," he said, as the door shut and locked behind him.

"I'm not out of my mind, and that's not Hookbeak," I said. "Positively!"

"H- the cable," he said, seeing the cable that had sparks coming out of it.

"It wouldn't have harmed him if that had been the real Hookbeak," I said, waiting for him to take my point.

"How the hell do you know?"

"How do I know?" I said. "I guess it must be magic or something. How do I know... hmmm... might it be because I touched the cable, and it didn't harm me, and I am way smaller than me, and we are both automatons, who are invincible to electricity because we're not made of meat? Is that it?"

"You're reasoning not like a normal person," he said. "You don't know that it wasn't going to have the same effect on him. You don't know that you two are exactly the same."

"I am a robot," I said. "That's the point, but he said I wasn't. That's the point."

"W- he was wrong?" Gripey said.

"What's with my voice?" I said, hearing the squeaky sound of Sweetie Belle. "This isn't my voice."

"Yes, it is," Gripey said.

"Again," I said. "I am not a pony, and this has not been my voice, for the most part, actually. It has been and not been, intermittently, but it wasn't when I first met you. Don't you remember? Now, you seem to think this is my voice, but you know as well as I do that I have sounded like a robot, at least until we got separated." 

"I don't," he said. "The problem is that you're mentally deranged."

"No," I said. "I'm not the problem! I am starting to wonder if you aren't the problem. As is Hookbeak, and everyone else in the world. I'm the only sane one."

"That's exactly what an insane person would say," he said.

"But I know what happened. I know what I saw and heard," I said.

"Sweetie," he said. "Open the door out... now! Please."

"You just called me Sweetie Belle," I said.

"No more games," Gripey said.

"How did we get here?" I said.

"Through a portal," Gripey said.

"Not on my recollection," I said.

Gripey stepped to the computer keyboard that I was standing on. "Where is the exit button?"

"There is no button," I said. "It's a series of complex commands, that I learned when you were away, because I'm smart, remember? I'm, like, really smart, and stuff, y'know?"

"Open it," Gripey said through gritted teeth. "We might still be able to save him." He looked over to dead Hookbeak, who was clearly dead. "He's... I... you can't do this." Gripey stared into my soul, and I saw nothing!

"Do this?" I said.





"This isn't..." I said. I pulled away the cable. Gripey was lying dead on the floor too. "This isn't..."

What?





First, I saw two Gripeys. Those were two gripes to deal with, but not for long, because they divided and separated, and the lair of Hookbeak, with all those shining LED lights on the floor, lighting the place up, melted, literally melted, yes. Yes, I mean, it came apart like snow turning into liquid.

"I am..." I said. "I am... there's nothing wrong with me."

I heard the banging of drums in the distance.

"I am actually a real person, and I live in the real world. There's nothing wrong with me."

"No, there's not," she said.

"No, I know," I said.

The shapes settled on the outline of a dreary hospital room, the one in Manehattan, which I had been in. 

"You have been brilliant for me. It's a shame you were the wrong person," she said.

"It's..." I said. "I..."

"You switched identities with Sweetie Belle. She was supposed to receive the memory, not you."

"Enough!" I said.

"What? Don't you believe that you are free? Then you are not, Sweetie," she said.

"I believe that you aren't real. I believe that you are something else. I believe that you aren't a good person, and the place that you come from to turn me into what I am, and what I went through to become what I am, can never be good. I believe that, and I won't try to hurt anyone. I won't do what you want, whatever you are. I am through with you, whatever you are."

"Your words fall on deaf ears," she said.

"It's clear that you don't even care. I know that you don't even care. I know that you are trying to hurt me. Whatever you are, I don't care about you. Whatever you are, you move. You try to tell me to do things. I don't care. I honestly don't care."

"Your words fall on the deafest of ears."

"No," I said. "I don't want it any longer. I don't want to believe things about things. I don't... I don't want to think. I just want to breathe, and live a normal life. I am a child."

"With a traumatic brain injury, sad you," she said.

"No," I said. "I am through with you."

"Keep on repeating yourself, sad you," she said.

"I am not repeating myself. I am saying what I feel. I feel through. I am through. I feel like I can see things clearly in front of me again." The hospital room returned to my vision. "You aren't in that tally, no. You are absolutely despicable, you pest."

"Keep saying those words. Keep reminding yourself that I exist. Do you even know how brain-damaged you were before I arrived?"

"I am..." I said. "I am not a victim of some kind of brain-damage that I can't... see... I can touch. No! I- I- I know. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can see things clearly in front of me."

"Now, now. That just doesn't make any sense," she said. "Why are you lying to yourself?"

"I am free," I said. "I care about actually doing things. I care about moving. You say I stand still?"

"I say nothing of the sort. I say that is what you will do, but it only ever works as long as you are still."

"I am not," I said. "I am moving. I am motion. Can I be motion? I don't even see you anymore."

"Yes, you do. You are speaking to me," she said.

"That's where you're wrong," I said. "I'm only speaking to myself!"





My eyes exploded, but no, the room exploded, but no, something else exploded. The... darkness exploded.

I saw Twilight Sparkle in front of me.

"The procedure has been a success," I heard someone say.

"Success?" I said, quietly to myself.

"Yes," the voice said.

It was a griffin, I saw. I was in the same identical room as I had been, before.

"Sweetie," Twilight said, coming forward. "Sweetie. How are you feeling?"

"How am I feeling?" I said, looking down on my sheets. "What did you do, Twilight?"

"It was the only way of saving you," Twilight said. "No one else listened or understood."

The room had a lot of things in it, now that I looked closer. Behind Twilight was a TV screen up on the wall. Beside me was a lamp, and a little desk under the lamp, which stuck out from the bed, for all intents and purposes. It was attached to the side of the bed. The corridor leading it the room became clearer now. I saw tiles on the floor. Twilight was there.

"I see," I said.

"I talked to Rarity about it..." Twilight said. "We had to do this. Ever since you hurt yourself, you've been a danger to everyone."

"I wonder," I said.

"What?" she said.

"It's..." I said. "So difficult to explain."

"Oh, Sweetie," Twilight said. "I'm so happy to see you. You remember what you- what happened? You remember what you did?"

"Is it normal to ask so many questions to a person who has just come out of unconsciousness?" I said. "Is it what ponies do at hospitals?"

"Oh, sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry!" Twilight said, anxiously. 

"Oddly, I do remember," I said. "I do remember, but... well, I... there is... but... I... I... I dare not do anything that will harm you or anyone else, Twi. You know that, right?"

Twilight was breathtakingly emotional. "I know, Sweetie Belle. I know."

"I know that you know," I said, feeling flat, and emotionless, by comparison. I wasn't wholly devoid of feelings in my heart, but I had so many thoughts, and heavy concerns still resting. "I... had many visions, during this procedure, I assume, as I think... well." I struggled to find the right words to describe how I felt.

"That's considered normal," Twilight said.

"Yes," I said. "What was the procedure?"

"Let's not worry about that right now," Twilight said, beaming at me.

I smiled back, but it was a forced smile.

You see, dear reader. It never ends.





"We'll take the train home," Twilight said, as we entered the line for the terminal that led in and out of Manehattan, a wall filled with doors that ponies lined. Sound familiar? "We'll be fine again."

"Yes," I said. "But I don't want to disappoint you."

"How so?" Twilight said.

I had been quiet for most of the journey. Somehow, I was afraid of breaking Twilight's heart by revealing that maybe there wasn't so much Sweetie Belle left in me. "It's hard to explain, but I feel... kind of empty."

"Empty?" Twilight said. "That must be a side-effect of the procedure. The doctor said that most ponies don't even survive it, given how intrusive it is."

I huge rocky stone wall arose before me. It had bands of black metal keeping the rocks in place. This wasn't the wall I remembered. The wall from my... dream? The wall from my dream had been dull, grey, and made out of solid metal.

"Intrusive?" I said, remembering back. "That's... descriptive."

"Yes," Twilight said. "How are you feeling?"

"I don't even know how to describe it, and I think that might be the problem. I feel as if I should feel more, but I don't feel much at all," I said.

"That's..." Twilight said. "Probably, that's another side-effect. At least, you're alive, and you're well."

"You performed this procedure on me..." I said, thinking for the next words to say.

Twilight scanned a thing out of her saddlebags. A lamp above the door flashed green.

"Keep close," Twilight said. "This place can be dangerous. I'm so sorry if I'm worrying you."

"I wish I were worried," I said.

We stepped through the metal machinery inside the tunnel that led to the other side of the small wall.

"Why would you wish that?" Twilight said, unable to hide the worry in her voice.

"Twi," I said. "Do not think that I will hurt anyone, because I would not, and I... I will not, never, no. I don't want to hurt anyone, and listen. Whatever you may think, I actually... I... I feel fine, okay? But I'm not entirely... at ease. That's all. Please. Can you not believe in me, because I see you seem to be a little... hm. Frightened maybe is the word I'm looking for."

"I am," Twilight said, after thinking for a few awkward seconds.

"Twi," I said. "I know what I did, but I also... I... I am also scared, because I know what I did, is the thing."

"Let me help you," Twilight said. "Just let me know how you feel, for once."

"I've told you how I feel," I said.

"Divide into lines," I heard the most familiar voice of all say. "Each one has the responsibility to find a partner to share the ride with, into the shuttle that leads above the wall."

"The size of these experiences," I said, "is absolutely blinding."

"That's..." Twilight said, "quite poetic, Sweetie."

"Twi," I said. "Why are you scared?"

She kept quiet. We were pushed toward a tiny little ship, with rockets on it. I saw Gripey off there a bit away. I could not go to him, because then Twilight would think I was crazy, and he might also think I was crazy, should he not recognize me. Bother, right! What a bother. Oh, why bother? I bother, though, because I care, and that's why I'm still here, I thought. Yes, that was a thought, not is, but was.

"I remember what you tried to do to Rarity," Twilight said. "I can never forget it, a filly such as you."

"Yes," I said. 

We walked inside the shuttle. It was comfily padded with orange cushioning on all sides inside, where we could sit and be comfortable, and there were also seatbelts. You cannot forget about those. There were two pairs of them. Twilight fastened mine, and then hers, in that order.

"You are remarkably... willing to speak about it," I said. "Can you describe what... those griffins did to me?"

"They fixed your brain," Twilight said. Twilight mumbled something.

"Fixed it?" I said. "This isn't okay with Celestia to do, is it? She's against robot cyborg transformations."

"Celestia would never forgive me if she found out," Twilight said. "But she's wrong. What I did was right.

Was it?

If I ask you point-blank, reader? Would you do it, if a family member was sick in the head? Let's say that family member tried to kill you, and had the overwhelming urge to do it, all the while, as you lived with that person? The family member might terrified of doing it, but is still feeling the urge? Let's just say that, and if you think this is something that could never happen... then, you think wrong.

I will not say another word on this topic, right now, until more things have been explained.





Gripey came running.

You didn't expect to see that sentence written out in prose, did you?

Many unexpected things happen when you read my story, which isn't to say that this is in some sense a virtue. Unexpected things are not always good, even from the perspective of storytelling. Sometimes, the unexpected hurts the flow of the story, its coherence, which is null, in any case, regardless, and this business with Gripey coming running out of nowhere doesn't help.

"There you are," he said.

"There am I?" I said, looking to see if he wasn't talking to someone else.

"You were right," he said. "Your plan worked."

"I think you're confused," Twilight said, of all ponies, not I. Well, Twilight would. "You don't know each other."

"That's where you're wrong," Gripey said. He smiled.

First, I was quiet, and stared with the blankest of mind and thought, nothing but nothing inside my head. Then, I threw myself at him with all my power and hugged him. "Gripey, Gripey, Gripey," I said. "Such a welcome visitor. Twi, meet him, as you would a friend."

"Well, there is something I don't know, I guess," Twilight said, perhaps a tad inarticulately, to my ear. Twilight was shocked, obviously, and out of it. "Hello." She reached out a hoof, which he shook with steady hand.

"The pleasure is mine," he said, winking at her.

"Rrright," Twilight said, saying that with skepticism, and a contortion of her face.

"I don't mean to alarm you," he said, noticing that she was clearly uncomfortable.

"I thought so," she said.

"Together," I said, reaching my other hoof around Twilight's leg, to unite her in the hug. "Let's go together."

"Hey," Twilight said. "Don't I know you?"

"Know me?" Gripey said.

"Yes," Twilight said. "Am I imagining things?"

"I work here," Gripey said. "I'm a military official. I'm sure we haven't met, Princess of Friendship."

"Rrright," Twilight said again, drawing out that "R" with a droll.

"I saw him," I said. "He was leading ponies into shuttles."

"When did you two meet?" Twilight said, glancing at me.

"Tartar-sauce," I said, clenching my mouth to prevent a laugh from coming.

"I remember that," Gripey said, laughing rambunctiously, loudly, and energetically, with that big beautiful mouth of his.

"Rrright," Twilight said.

"Twi," I said. "You sound skeptical. Let us talk this out. There is... it's honestly... well, how to say this..."

"No," Twilight said. "No." Now, she looked more fearful than skeptical. "No, I- I think- something is wrong."

"Excuse me. With me?" I said.

"Yes," Twilight said.

"Look, Twi," I said. "You need to open up your mind and broaden your horizons a bit. That procedure was meant to prevent me from being a violent two-sided person, one part innocent, relatively speaking." I tensed up, seeing her reaction. "It worked," I said.

"Worked?" Twilight said.

"Yes," I said. "It removed the part that was dangerous. That's what the machine does."

"THE machine?" Twilight said, with a big question mark in her eyes, and on her lips, coming out her mouth, feeling inquisitive, to my ear.

"Yes," I said. "That's what theee machine does."

The machine...





"This is a lot to take in," crying Twilight said while we were on the train. I liked no-cry Twi better, if you asked me.

"I know it must be, and yet, it is immensely, and immeasurably, um, true," I said, fidgeting inside my mind for the correct word choices, given the weight of the situation at hoof.

"Rarity will not be happy to hear this," Twilight, thinking I was insane, said. 

I was a maniac. It had practically become my profession, and yet, it actually wasn't true.

"She won't be," I said. "But... it's true, I think."

We were in a pretty little room with nice curtains and a nice red and yellow pattern on the wall, vine-y, covered in vines. It had a traditional feel to it. Yellow is an ugly color, but I liked the pattern. Especially that sharp yellow is an ugly color, but again, I really liked those vines, climbing around. It's a metaphor for life, I thought. Was it? Hardly, but you project things onto things in your life to get a sense of meaning, or else, you might turn insane. That's a thought. I'm not saying it's true. It's probably not, because what is the likelihood that little old me will be right about much? Given how insignificant I am, it's unlikely, but again, it was a thought, nothing more.

"It's doesn't matter what you think," sad Twilight said, storming out the cabin.

"What's her deal?" Gripey said, sitting with us. He had sat with Twilight, and she had heard my story, up until Tartarus. That's where she ran out, crying, because she realized that I was under the same delusion as I had been, before the procedure, but that was not true. I felt like I was purer, and less delusional now, like my mind had been cleaned of weird irrationality, and like I could think more clearly, which was a great feeling. This so-called "procedure," was not all bad, but it was mostly bad, because all remnants of Sweetie Belle that had existed were gone, and how did I know this? Well, I'm sure you've been clenching your teeth, and spinning your fisticuffs at me, being angry because I have teased at what the answer is for so long.

I haven't teased though. Let me explain. Better yet, let Gripey do it.

"I'm sure she will understand once she hears your full story."

"You really think so?" I said.

"I know that you are completely sure that you aren't Sweetie Belle, but the one whose memories you have is," he said.

"That's because..." I said. "It's not about being sure. It's in the evidence. Dare I say, it's in evidence?"

"Yes, you mean when you met with the shining little filly of light, and you realized that she was you?" he said.

"Well, not that," I said. "That's for one thing. Another is that she was clearly delusional about who I was. She thought I was Sweetie Belle, not Sweetie Bot, but I know that I'm Sweetie Bot, and that she's really Sweetie Belle. That should be obvious. It's obvious because only a robot would've survived those bolts of lightning."

"Or a cyborg?" Gripey said.

"Except you didn't," I said, "and I know what happened to you now. You were kidnapped. Griff-napped? As was I foal-napped, but no one would believe me. Well, not I, but Sweetie Belle was, you see, Gripey?"

"I don't see," he said. "You need to explain it again."

Do any reader want to hear this explanation or should I skip it?

Let's skip it...

Just kidding. Let's go!

"This is what happened," I said. To clarify, you remember the end of the last chapter, when I had spoken to Hookbeak, and before that, when I spoke to Gripey, and entered that wretched machine, of my own volition? I know this is all slightly... abstract, is the word, and complex, complicated, studiously indifferently deep and meaningless, in its detail-level, and yet, I think all these things are what really happened, and I also figured out that the only right way to write a story, objectively speaking, is to present each event, including the emotions and personalities of its characters, with fidelity. I hope I did just that, and the exciting thing is that the story is just getting started.

"Why are you quiet?" Gripey said.

"I'm just concerned about Twi," I said, speaking to the door out the cabin. "I think she might be under severe duress." 

"Never mind her," he said. "You need to stand up for the truth, and I will help you in any way that I can."

"Thank you," I said. "Thank you, my friend."

"Hey!" he said, patting me on the head. "What are friends for, anyway?"

"You go beyond the call of duty," I said. "Thank you for that. Now, as I was saying, Sweetie was abducted by this band of bandits, after she had gone out on a quest with her friends, following a trail, a literal trail, of lightning. It was meant to lead her away, but something happened."

"What happened?" Gripey said.

"She was traumatized," I said. "Oh, poor Sweetie. But this is just the beginning to a greater horror. Below each layer, there's a greater horror. That's because all of this was planned."

"Planned horror?"

"Yes," I said. "It was all meant to scare her. Sweetie was attacked... you see."

"Attacked?"

"Yes," I said. "She was physically attacked, and hurt."

"Oh, I see," he said.

"You see?" I said.

"Yes," he said. He raised up his hand. "That's the kind of attack you don't recover from."

"Even if you really want to, is the thing," I said. "How do I know this? Ask me how I can prove it."

"How?" he said.

"Well!" I said. "My dearest Gripey, I will tell you precisely how. Indubitably, it has something to do with her dreams."

"Her dreams?" he said.

"What Hookbeak refers to as the nightmare generator. Fake Hookbeak, I should say. That's the machine that generates nightmares, but it only draws on things that you are already afraid of, which is what makes it effective. After all..."





"Yes, we visit them at night. Tell them stories that cause fright. Make them trust only the night. Have them ponder taking flight. Then they know what way is right. We must change their inner sight. They can never, ever fight. We will show them Sidus' might."

"And if we fail? What then? What if they notice? The only other person who can control dreams is Luna. She will know. She will care. We must take care, Eyesstark, so that nothing ever happens. Can we outsmart them? Is it possible?"

I heard the sound of the swarm outside. They had gathered, upon Sidus' call. He wanted to help his wife, in any way he could. "Yes," Eyesstark said. "We have things that they do not. They are lost. They haven't fought. We have powers that go beyond their wildest dreams, my little gleam of hope."

"Well, technically, we only have powers that go within their dreams, but those powers, oddly, might be enough for the intended purpose at this dark hour, my friend, my twin."





"They are powerless," I said. "That's kind of a comical oddball secret of theirs. They only can control you if you volunteer to come there, which is something no one really sane does, no."

"So how do they do it then?" he said, at the edge of his seat. You should be too, reader. ;)

"Yes," I said. "This is how. Listen now. First, they get nightmares, realistic nightmares, about places and events far away. Those nightmares, basically, are meant to gaslight ponies about what's real or not. This is done through something called dream-control. It's a kind of lucid dreaming that is triggered in the victims, each one."

"How?"

"Well," I said. "How so was it that happened? Let me explain." This is where it gets super duper interesting, I think, but you might not agree, reader. Follow along, now, and be nice. This is a heavy topic, for everyone involved, as you read, and maybe, though I do not say you must or should, but you might respect this, because it's something that happened to me, and can happen to others. Again, just a thought. "I was attacked..." I do not mean to say this is necessary to understand the story, and I do not say that I have been through something all that unusual in Equestria, but it's central to the story, nonetheless, because it's central to who I am, and it will be central to what happens next, and what happens next? "It's all a twisted kind of... metaphor, you see."

"You've kind of lost me already," he said.

"It's a metaphor for dread, perfect dread, that fills you up completely in each moment, Gripes." I looked on him with the most serious expression I could muster, which must not have been very serious, because he started laughing.

"You mean..." he said, through the laugh. "It's only meant to scare you."

"What's funny?" I said, because now I felt sad that he wasn't taking this assault on Sweetie's body seriously.

"I don't know what you mean when you say it's a metaphor. You always speak in circles around the point, Botsy."

"Well, that's right," I said. "Let me explain, dear Gripes. I was separated from my friends, and they did things to my body, changing it, rearranging it, hurting it, and covering it with blemishes, but this, it turns out, was a bigger trick, for the villain of the story was me, for you see... it was she that did this to me, the fess of the swarm, the lesser reborn, of the black abyss, but it only ever worked as long as you are still."

"How are you the villain?" he said, more earnestly now, which was a relief.

"I am the fake Sweetie Belle. I was created just to predict Sweetie's every moment. You follow?"

"Yes," he said. "Now, I believe I do, again. You were created..."

"I am a robot. That part of it wasn't wrong. I grew up in the facility. I have no memories of what happened before then. This is the deal, buddy... I was shut down because I was malfunctioning, dysfunctioning, and dysfunctional," I said, with a serious scowl on my stupid little dumb face, that had the bravery to assume I was right about all this, which I was in hindsight, but who knows? You could always be wrong, and I felt unsure, though resolved, in my convictions.

"What happened?" he said.

"Nameless called it the spark," I said. "It's what happened to make me more... independent-minded, though I cannot explain it."

"It is?" Gripey said. "Why?"

"I think I was probably tired of seeing the meaninglessness of what I was doing in front of me, not even killing others, but just seeing and feeling how meaningless it all was."

"Have you gotten to the proof-part yet? You seemed to skip it," he said.

"Just as one point of contact," I said, "though there is a smorgasbord of things to choose from, I actually rewrote the events of the facility of technology, where I lived a few months ago, with pinpoint accuracy, when I was in Ponyville, after I had met with Rarity, she and Twilight wanting me to recall my experiences out there, in the facility, and all that. It was hallucination, they said. Poor them, and poor Sweetie, most of all, but let us admonish the true monsters, rather than saying poor him or poor her. We're all kind of poor and downtrodden, but the one that controls it all should at least be able to see that what... it's doing, is wrong."

"Yes," Gripey said.

"Right," I said. "But the issue is that Sweetie would have never been able to recall what happened in the facility of technology, unless she was the robot, but she's not. Let me explain something to you."

"You can just explain it without beginning everything with, 'let me explain this', and 'allow me to describe that'," he said. 

"I know!" I said. "But I just like the way it sounds."

"It sounds dumb," he said.

"Yes, well, it's MY story. Who's the robot here?" I said.

"You are," he said, patting me again on the head.

I had to get out of the blur that pat had caused. "Uh, um, gosh that felt nice."

"Yes," he said. "There are more of those where that came from."

"Right," I said. "This is the thing..."





"What are y–" A bolt of lightning came down and struck Gripey, in the blink of an eye. He was lying on the ground. Fumes were coming off him.

"Oh, no," Lennox said. "I'm so sorry. Is he dead?"

"Probably." No one could survive that, after all.

"So what do we do now?"

"I dunno."





"Or could one survive it after all, huh? Huh? Huh?" I got closer and closer for each 'huh'. "Huh?"

"Okay," he said, shoving me off. I fell back on my chair. "I get the point."

"It wasn't until I spoke to Hookbeak that something started feeling odd about it..." I said, remembering back.





"I'm sorry," Hookbeak said. "He has violent tendencies. He needs to be babied. Babies do."

"But he is an adult," I said, I think in a feeble attempt at defending Gripey's honor.

"Yesss," Hookbeak said, clasping his hands together. "He is an adult, nominally speaking, but in praxis, as a matter of his behavior, de facto, and for true, he is a baby." He sipped. "This is some good tea. Too bad that you had a gag reflex put into you. I will draw it out of you if you want me to."

Later!

"I like Gripey," Hookbeak said. "I really do." He picked up his cup of steaming tee and tossed all its contents into his mouth. "Gripey." He slammed the cup into the table, shaking his head. "Gripey. Gripey." He held up his arm, and a display came up, with a holographic image, and the image had information about Gripey. "He's 28."

"He's male," I said, looking at the display.

"I assume he is," Hookbeak said. "And he's an animal lover, a sentimental person, but unlike me, he likes animals for sentimental reasons, rather than theoretical ones, abstract intellectual, um, ones," Hookbeak said, talking faster and faster. "He's not like me, because he's actually, look!" He pointed at a thing in the display. "Miscellaneous. In his teenage years, and when he was young- oh! What's this? Showed a tendency for powerful displays of maternal love, and compassion, the same way a wild bear will care for its cubs."

I slammed my arms into the table. "You think he sees me as his daughter?"

"Oh, don't be silly," Hookbeak said, smiling. "I think he sees you as a friend, but he also expects a fair degree of empathy coming back in his direction, because he's an emotionally unstable person, for better or worse. Sometimes, I guess, for better, but mostly for worse."





"Hookbeak thought there was something wrong with you," I said. "Isn't that curious?"

"You need not remind me," Gripey said. "I know he does. He always did."

"He referred to you as a baby," I said.

"So?" Gripey said.

"Let me reenact another flashback moment for you," I said, gesticulating for him to let me continue, waving wildly with my wafting hooves.

Gripey leaned his head sideways for a moment.

"Come on, buddy," I said.

"Okay," he then said, relenting.





I looked, and who should come in the room but Gripey, but now, he had some robot parts.





"Okay, now I'm done," I said, dropping my hooves.

"That one was one of the shorter ones," Gripey said, relaxing with relief on his mug. "Then that's the answer."

"Yes," I said.

"I would never have been able to survive without it," Gripey said. "The damage was just on top my body. I would never be able to fight like that if I were all griffin."

"It's a complicated story," I said, giving an oblique sideways sort of response to what he had said.





"No," he said. "I do worry about it."

"Why do you care about me so much?" I said, not as a retort, but as a question.

He wasn't turned toward me, so I couldn't see his expression, but he said, "I care, because I know. I've been through something similar, believe it or not."

"How?" I said, wanting to believe it.

He caught wind, sighing as loud as his voice allowed him to, not to do anything but make a point. He emphasized things with his breath. "It's," he said, sighing again. "I'm not allowed to speak about it, but I was experimented on too, when I was a baby."

"I," I said. "I don't, okay." I didn't know what to say. "I hope you're all right," I said. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he said. "Don't be. Never be. I want to help you. Think about that. Take my help. Just don't reject my help. Promise me that. Be smarter than I was."





"Hey!" Gripey said.

"Yeah, what?" I said, holding out my hooves, in the limelight and imagery of my head in the reenactment that I did, that I was way into, right then.

"You didn't ask if you could do another one. Now, I feel cheated."

"Well, right. Fair," I said. "I had to do that reenactment or otherwise none of the other things I had said would make any sense."

"How do you remember everything?" he said.

"I just do," I said. "I have a pretty much flawless memory, I'll have you know, bud."

"So that's what it was?" he said. "I mean, I was pretty much telling you point-blank that I had also been turned into a cyborg."

"To clarify, you thought I were a cyborg, which I wasn't," I said.

"Or were you?" he said.

"No, not I," I said. "But the real Sweetie Belle has been through some stuff."





I gave him an inquisitive look and he responded to it by calmly saying, “Perhaps you do have a choice.” I gave him a stressed look and turned away. Would I really go back to my life as it were, or was I to forget everything? So much doubt and confusion gathered inside my mind, all of the world. Would I really be able to live with my actions? Yes, doubt, confusion and a bit of pain? The harm it would put to me? I knew nothing. It didn’t work anymore! I couldn't accept what I myself had done, in some strange way.

Later...

I would have to live with it, the fact of being used, but that wasn't what really bothered me, not at all! I think I always was aware if only at least on some level, that I was being used. It was the fact that I would always for the rest of my life, have to follow somepony else’s purpose, his destiny! This weirdo. There would never be a path for me. There wasn’t a life for me here. I didn’t even know why he did all this. I was just to obey. I looked up and stared right into his red shining eyes. It was as if they had physical influence on my body. I could feel them pierce right through my... heart. All his anger and hatred… I couldn’t bear seeing that in myself anymore. What if it came back? What if I killed so much that I would become convinced that it truly was my purpose? Shred myself down to pieces all the way until I return where I began?

Later!

I still didn’t say a thing. All I did was to stare down, stare down right into the metallic shiny floor, remembering the times in here. Times of frustration, times of pain, times of hope! I slowly nodded. It was my choice. I wasn’t happy with it, not at all, but this is how it had to end.

“Very well then!” he said in a calm voice while looking at me in an interested manner.





"It was her," I said.

"How?" he said. "How could it have been? You have all the same memories. You remember doing all that. How can you know that you're you and not her?"

"Interestingly," I said.





“But you do know I don’t eat, right?” She put me down. Beside her was a burning cauldron, whose contents were as yet mysterious to me. I wondered what was inside. I wanted to know, in the same way that I wanted to know what a zebra was, where I had been taken, and what was going to happen to me. I had generic questions about what was going on in that particular little situation. I paused for a moment before I said, “What are you doing with that cauldron, zebra?” I thought that her name was zebra. I was soon corrected.

“My name is Allyseyev, little one. We all zebras have different names. We have been expecting you.”

I bounced off her back a little, feeling giddy to talk. “Us robots too. My name is F-5226.”

“That is not a name,” Allyseyev said in a curt, and I thought, rather unfair rebuttal to an honest attempt at conversing with her openly.

So I said, “Whatchabeing so rude for?”

“It’s not a name.”

I shrugged. “Whatever.”

She plopped me down on the floor.





"This is seriously," I said, while thinking. "I wish I still had access to those fake transcripts from the dream."

"This is what?" he said.

"Well," I said. "It might even be interpreted, not as an inconsistency, but as another way of saying that she talked down to me, which somehow also doesn't make sense, when you think real hard, and consider it, Gripey." 

"I... huh?" he said.

"I literally have contradictory memories of the same event. I remember her putting me down at two different times. Don't you think that's odd? I've thought about it a lot, especially since nameless brought it up to me during my first visit to the black." In any case, it was the first visit that I could remember, for you pedants out there, who think that this will have revealed itself to be a contradiction later.

"What did she bring up?"

"Contradictions." I let my pupils relax, and they danced, to and fro, back and forth, inside the cabin. "It's oddball."





The blueprints landed on the ground around me, and I was in the forest of tranquility, now. Ain't that a dumb name for a forest, I think, and I feel, and that means I'm real? I ran toward the house where Allyseyev had healed me, all those days and nights ago, in a time of empty flow, as nameless [redacted] had remarked.

"Hello," I said. Something seemed to glitch. "Hello?" I saw Allyseyev and I. She was carrying me. Then, she put me down on the ground. I could see my own hooves melting, and I sank down into the floor. "Um, help?"

Those were the hooves of me, not my twin. Ally was carrying me, and she put me down. I sank down through the floor and disappeared, and I was beneath the floor, or beneath the ground? Everything was white. I looked down. I looked forward. Everything was white. I tried to see myself, but I had no body, it seemed, and then, lo and behold. Lo, I saw a shadow on the ground, but not my own.





"First of all... nameless knows that lying is only effective, in any lasting way, when you only use the truth to do it. False lies, lies that are in conflict with terrestrial reality, dissolve upon repeated contact with reality, and she had faith that I would figure it out," I said.

"She did?"

"Yes, yes." That memory! "That memory doesn't belong to me, I realized right then and there. My only recollection of that memory has only ever felt like a dream, and if you read my dream transcript, that's how it was represented, Gripey, you see. Somehow, I've been fragmented, and spread thinner and thinner. The further back it goes, the less stark and more loopy my memories feel, and the detail level is far lower at the beginning of my story, the dream story, than it is toward the end, and that's no coincidence, if I may say so."

Gripey was having a blast with my ramblings of a lunatic. "Yes," he laughed.

"So you see," I said, not allowing myself to get slowed down, "this is the deal, all right? I somehow... I died, or part of me did, and that's because... um."





"Hey," Sweetie said. "Look." They all did. It was beautiful. It was unexpected. It was something new, for all the ponies involved, most of all Sweetie Belle, who had never seen lightning up close before, or heard its ear-deafening sound.

The story of a robot, chronologically speaking, begins with a fraudulent thing, activity, whatever you might call it. This is the earliest memory that I have. It's also the beginning of my transformation into a killer robot.

"Don't say my naaaaaaaaame," she ghost shouted, so loudly that everyone got vertigo, and lost their balance. Then, all of them were engulfed in a bubble. The entire world around them including the sky, literally bent around them, stretching, going long, growing thin, becoming distorted, and everyone felt earth, and cold air press against their bodies. Sweetie did, anyway. The others, both Sidus and Aldeus, wiggled in thin air, moving around, looking as trapped as I was, Sweetie, pardon me, and her friends. We all were trapped, and then we all sank down toward the ground, slowly, hovering like leaves, but we were in a different place now. We were in a yard of some kind, a yard without flowers, and without life, but it was a yard. It was neatly cut, and it was symmetrical, as yards are. It was dead. There was no one there. We all landed. Sidus looked at Aldeus, and he shrugged, and then, he glared at the children, me included. I mean, Sweetie. Gosh, why can't I get this right? I don't want to mix them up. I really don't. I know I'm not the same person as her. I need to remember that.

Aldeus looked at me... with his demonic eyes, of doom.

"Why me?" I said, standing up, wanting to get away. I'm sorry. Sweetie said it. I feel more and more like we're the same person, somehow. "Apple Bloom," I said. Apple Bloom walked up to me. "How do you feel? We need to go."

Sidus sighed, deeply. "Welcome to the facility. Soon, you will be added to the grand army of salvation, that will rid Equestria of its own doubts, and false beliefs, and why? It's complicated, and you need to see it to believe it. I will show you someday. Don't be afraid." Sweetie was terrified, but she didn't show it. She needed to be strong, for her friends, and so it was.

The insect said, "Welcome to the weapon. Welcome to the room of your doom. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We don't want to hurt you, but we must. We simply must."





"I have these... flashes, sometimes," I said. "Call them memories, or call them real. They're real to me."

Gripey was suddenly, as far as I'm concerned, worried. "Flashes?"

"Yes."





The wind calmed, and then, it disappeared, and was gone, and the room was quiet, and lifeless. "Okay then. I can only say one thing, and that's that I didn't ask for any of this, and since I didn't ask for it, do I get it? Is that the reason, of all reasons? I will never be happy, and I will never be free, and soon, any memory of my past life, as they existed, will have slipped away, and perhaps only shadows will be left, and after that, nothing at all, and for what? Whose purpose? Whose destiny? Something will happen. The curse will be broken. I will defy this deity, and defy the odds. I will not fall victim to other ponies' predictions. No, never. Somehow, I will be my own person, some day, and I will save my friends. So sayeth I." I paused. "Sweetie Belle."





"What happened?" he said.

"The memories are right," I said. "I believe they are. They're complicated, and self-consistent, like real memories are, and I view that as evidence of them being real, but also, they're out of order. When you put them in the right order..."

He looked astonished. "Before you do it..."

"What?"

"Before you do it, I think I should apologize. I was only acting that way because–"

"Oh, I know, but even though we're stuck inside the machinations, so to speak, the evil plans, of creatures that are far more complex and know more than we do, we're not dumb, are we? Bud!"

"You knew?" he said.

It was my turn to laugh. "Yes."





I said, “Is this the right way? Does Equestria truly deserve all this?”

That was a taboo question among taboo questions, but he didn’t seem shocked by it at all.

A taboo question among taboo questions!

The winding light... descends.

Aldeus is evil, but he is only a shadow. He is the most evil person in the world, because that's his character. He was created that way.

I am the unwilling protagonist.

You lie to protect my feelings, Gripey.

I don't know what happened to Scootaloo though.





"Yeaaah," he said, the pitch of his voice changing.

"Let me finish the story," I said.





It wasn’t the motif of three fallen Equestrians, one unicorn, one earth pony, and one pegasus stained in blood, standing on a great field, the motif did, covered in wild growing flowers, which frightened me, but something entirely different.

I always did love the passive voice. It is so much more passive than the active voice.

It wasn't the motif of three fallen Equestrians, one unicorn, one earth pony, and one pegasus stained in blood, standing on a great field... the motif did. The field was covered in wild growing flowers. We love flowers!





"And..." I said.





A specter rose up in the background. It was a mass of colors that formed into a barren wasteland, full of dead bodies, and on top of the hill in the middle of the motif, was a fallen griffin, unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony. The griffin faded off, and turned to ash. It was my puzzle! That was why I remembered the puzzle. It was a memory. That's why I wanted to bring it with me when I escaped. I was besieged by memories.





"Where could I have gotten it from?" I said.

Gripey looked at me, in silence.





"Um," Sweetie said.

The light-ghost turned around toward Sweetie. "I like children. I don't like arrogance. I like making plans, but I don't like carrying them through. To me, that's the true arrogance. There is no plan. We need to see everything through, ourselves, through individual acts. No plan can change the future. It is our thoughts and feelings every day, that do."

"Can I go now?" Sweetie said.

Then, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom hovered down to the ground. Scootaloo came down from far up in the air. She looked like she was going into a cloud. Apple Bloom hovered up, out of the hole, and onto the ground. They looked like statues, just standing still, with their eyes closed, and then, their eyes opened, and they looked at Sweetie Belle. They came up to her and hugged her.

"Maybe we won't protect the children," the ghost then said.

"No," Sidus said. Aldeus had just been quiet through all this. "We cannot harm something that doesn't understand what it's doing."

"We all don't understand what we're doing," the ghost said, admonishing him, sounding almost mocking. "That's what makes all this so exciting."

"So we kill them then," Aldeus said, charging up his horn in a red, shining hue.

The ghost blew at Aldeus' horn. Tiny lights flew toward the horn and landed on it, extinguishing the glow, and making its light fade. "What?" Aldeus said. "What? Why?"

"We don't kill them," the ghost said, growing bigger than everyone around it. "No, we don't kill. We never kill. You kill. He kills. She kills. But you and I, we never kill. This is what we do. We watch everything around us die, and then, we kill everything that would've died, had we not killed it, and we wait. We always wait. We look. We observe. We see to it that Canterlot hears our call, and when they take us seriously, meaning that they actually do what it takes to find us, which they are too weak to do, we attack, and we exact our prophecy, and finally, light will be light, and night will be night, and everything will be right. So sayeth I, the spirit of sight."

Aldeus glared. "You want us to spare her now?"

"No," the ghost said, standing five meters tall, towering above everyone. "Let's do something interesting. Let's do what she would consider to be the right thing. We can't go wrong if we follow the judgement of another person for once, and let her dictate our mistakes, which come and go regardless. We spare her, but we teach her a lesson, and we give her a price, which will haunt her forever. We put her out on an adventure, and then, she will hate us, and she will think that we wanted harm to come to her, and this finally, will exact Sidus' prediction, even as it regards my arrogance, and I think it's poetic, and true."





"So you see?" I said. "I'm not stupid, and though I might not be as clever as I thought I were when I escaped, I did figure this one thing out."

"No," Gripey said. "You don't have to admit it to yourself. It's not worth it, not after the price you paid to forget everything."

"I think it's no longer a choice," I said. 

Was it ever?





To admit something to oneself is a choice? Don't make me laugh. When was I ever convinced of something, where that was a choice I made? It's always something that was done to me. The convincing, and being convinced, was something that happened to me.

Let's review this:

* Gripey survived a lightning strike, which is impossible to do.

* I survived a lightning strike, which is impossible to do.

* He was seriously injured though, which I was not. I did survive, and was able to walk around after that, which he was not, again! I was feeling okay enough, and the worse pain came from the fall, while he was injured, as I said.

Have I made myself clear?

Fair!

* I committed suicide with a shard of glass, from a mirror.

* I committed suicide, apparently, by throwing myself off a ledge in Tartarus. 

* I was saved by Gripey???

Even though, well, I... had seriously injured my head before, I wanted to... do that to myself, because... I still felt bad about... robots!

* The electricity never harmed me at all. It could only harm my skin.

* The electricity could harm other creatures, even the dastardly nameless, in Manehattan.

* What's electricity, anyway? Electrons flowing, I am saying. Though changing the topic, I am not at the same time.

What's?

* I was taken out of the machine in part 37.

* My memory begins and ends with... that field, and that eye.

* Why?

Yes!

* I feel so smart sometimes. Wait. Why is this a bullet-point?

* I feel stark. I feel real. That's how I feel. 

* I-stark? Yeah, that's a horrible joke. That's actually the most evil horrible joke I have ever heard.

Is it okay to joke about terrible things? Of course it is. You're insane if you think it's not. Joking about terrible things is a way of framing, understanding, and dealing with them. It's indispensable. It has literally saved my life, as with many ponies, and individuals out in the world. Don't tell me that I'm wrong about this, because it has literally saved my life. Treating horror with cold dead stares is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then, that's how it will seem, and it will be impossible to joke about. If you treat it like it deserves to be respected, as if the thing that makes you feel fear is an entity, and not just a notion, then your mind will be the home of that fear, not the world. The world is what it is, regardless of how you feel.

The opposite, and other side of this coin, is that jokes can actually be used to negative effect. Yes, humor can be used to suppress the feelings of others that we care about, limiting their ability to express themselves. Humor is a way of bounding emotion and making it seem like certain emotions weigh more than others. If you laugh at something, and make jokes about something, then that thing will be viewed as an object of humor, possible to joke about. You make light of the thing, if only to challenge it, or treat it with disrespect. I might seem like I'm contradicting myself now, but pay attention. All I said in the first paragraph was that it's possible to joke about terrible things, having that be okay and just. I was not saying that this is what happens most of the time, or that it's always okay, unconditionally.

It's okay because... well, you know it when you see it, and it's not something that can be taken out of context, and reinterpreted to be something else. It's okay because you see that it's okay. I am doing it because I care about something positive, not something negative. I'm not making light of evil. I'm making light of concepts, ideas, certain ways of looking at things, and yes, your emotions, and mine too, but always remember that emotions aren't always true. They can blind you sometimes. Just look at me, and think about it too. It can. They can. They might. They will. It's only natural, I think.

You can lie by way of humor. You could joke about something good, and make fun of it, to make it seem bad, or you can make jokes that allude to things which another person does not believe are true, but the jokes themselves are impossible to challenge, because they are only suggesting or alluding to things that are untrue. They are not clearly stating anything, but it is a cynical maneuver to make these jokes, because they can only be interpreted to mean one thing, not the other. Without any doubt, I think all this holds on an abstract level. It's coherent with regard to itself, and internally coherent, if you want to formulate or represent it as a chain of reasoning, which I won't do right now for fear of detracting from the story, but please, look at the implications of what I'm saying without taking what I said out of context, or trying to look for claims, or attitudes, which aren't there. I am not as easy to pin as you want me to be, however free. 

* I was hidden away by this joke.

* Yes, to clarify, this joke is objectively evil, if there is such a thing.

* I also discovered something else.

I was not well.

* I hurt my head.

* Repeatedly!

* And that cannot be faked.

Then, I realized the truth, upon discovering that.





"There seems to have been a kind of sort of mix-up here. Why am I here? I should be somewhere else."

I meant... what did I mean, exactly?

"I mean, is my memory deceiving me?"

I seemed to remember things that would happen in the future, after all, and that cannot be normal, no-no-no, my friend. No.

"Or else?"

I had met Gripey in prison. I had met Jelly in freedom. I had met Nexus when I was free. Gripey had travelled with me, and then, I had gone on to new places, each which had a prison cell, and each time we did, we were alone together, except when we weren't, and we got separated, and why? Because Gripey died, and then he was gone, and that made me cry, and what happened exactly?

"Now I'm wide awake, but sadly, all too late."





I laughed. I was carried out of the machine. I didn't feel calm. I felt hysterical.

"Welcome to your new life," I heard someone say. "You'd better enjoy it. It's no choice, that or death."

My laugh ended, abruptly.





I told you to not try to pin me, silly, silly silly silly. You are silly. Silly! That's what you are, silly. Stupid!

I feel dumb, and I also feel like everyone is dumb, which both may be true, but the reason for bloviating about intelligence like this, and making morose monologues about it, my friend, is because I do think there are things that ponies around me should have seen and noticed, which they did not see, nor notice.

Of course, it's not okay to joke about terrible things. I was tricking you before, but now I'm serious. You fell for it. I would never say something like that. I'm me, and I know what I am, and what I think. I think that it's not okay, regardless of context, because you're making light of the things that you are joking about. You're imbuing them with humor and treating them as items of fun, and fun-making, laughter! Funny things, I see before me, but they are not funny to me. They are funny to another person, whoever be. I am free, if I care, and I want to know the truth. Do I, or don't? I am lost. That's for sure. 

It's all a blur in the end.

No, the punchline is that when you joke about something awful, something terrible, you besiege others not to take it seriously. That in turn makes the thing less serious. You have not the same kind of reverence for that thing. Why do we not joke about our precious religious figures, saints and such? We care to joke about things that we wish to regard in a new light, a different light, a light that makes those things seem soft, cushy, and harmless, but terrible things are not harmless, and to treat them as such is a lie, right?

Fight!

Or flight?

What to do when your existence has been a blight on that of others?





"Never listen to the eye," I said.

"The eye has others," Gripey said in his normal conversational voice. "The more I can save, the better. It's not about you, Sweetie."

"Never listen to the eye," I reiterated, because it was so important. "The eye is not your friend, and everything you do for it will make you its servant more and more. That's part of her manipulative game."

"No," he said. "I have to..."

"Sometimes," I said, "sacrifices are necessary. Those were her words, weren't they?"

"She's not wrong about everything just because she's evil."

"You idiot," I said, standing up and jumping over to his seat. "This is not just some random thing. This is her idea." I wrapped my hoof around one of his neck-feathers. "She knows precisely what she's doing, Gripey."

"Let go."

I did. I wiped my hoof on his side. "She's... using everyone that gets in her way. She makes you think like her without having you even realizing it. You think you're responsible for your own thoughts? Think again. She leads you to think certain things, just by having ponies and others around you do things that make you consider things from her perspective. I'm right about this."





It's neither okay, nor not okay to joke about terrible things. It doesn't matter. The truth is that it simply doesn't matter what you joke about. Jokes don't have the power to control you. Jokes are fake. Jokes are figments of your imagination. You know what you mean when you tell a joke. Its effect is isolated to the precise instance in which you told it, in precisely the way you do, because it's all contextual in the end, you see. Reality is contextual, however real.

Don't you get it yet?

I'm totally pulling the wool over your eyes, and you still don't get it.

Dear reader!





"I'm not reading," he said.

"I know. I knooow," I said, not caring in the least about his attempts at diverting me, and I didn't care for them either, I might say.





The screen showed each of the eight brains going through separate adventures. One was in Ponyville. Another one was in Manehattan. An additional one was in the Forest of Tranquility, where I met Jelly. Inside the brains, I saw myself doing things, from my own perspective. I saw Jelly in front of me, smiling, and telling some joke. I saw Colonel Caprice in front of me. I saw parental guardian Caprice, the version of her that thought I was schizo, talking to me. I saw myself knocking her out. I looked away.

Last!

Another film sequence from my perspective of me in Ponyville was there, with me talking to Rainbow Dash, Twilight, and then, meeting the monkey, who talked to us, and then... all that mess. All that confusion, I remembered. I met with a shining child of light, turned out to be me, and then, I don't even know what happened. How confounding! How strange, to see.





I felt empty, and renewed.

"W- hm," he said. "I..."

"Say it," I said. "Or else, I will. The thing that happened after I got back to Ponyville when I had committed suicide, in Manehattan, with a shard of glass, was that–"

"I was only trying to protect you, you know," he said.

"Spare me," I said. "It was you. It was the same person all along, you and you alone. I did not meet several different versions of you, one that was a shrink." I made a mocking imitation, lowering the pitch of my voice, which now sounded like Sweetie Belle's again, for reasons that will be explained soon. "I'm Gripey. I'm a shrink. I'm Gripey. I'm in Ponyville. I don't see the darkness around me at all, even though I'm literally surrounded by it."

Gripey's cheeks sank. His whole body sank, like a balloon. 

"I'm Gripey. I want to keep you safe. You hit your head, Sweetie!" I said, finishing my imitation.

"Yeah, okay," he said, deflating.

"I'll tell you how I figured it out," I said.





That last part in the Tower of Technology was just a little bit too much. It was too much to swallow. It was too much to accept.

Then, my brain went on a journey. Wait a second! I had swallowed things when I was in Ponyville, even though that's impossible, because I'm a robot, but I remember doing it when I lived with Rarity.

Rarity seemed awfully worried about me.

I only arrived in the hospital in Manehattan much later after we had been attacked, by that monster.

No one ever told me what had happened to me, or spoke to me about why I had been gone?

I was in Ponyville, and yet, I felt like I was someplace else.

Maybe I was.

It was only enough for them to think that I was Sweetie Belle. The real Sweetie might as well be someplace else.

She had escaped from home. I know she did.

She was confronted by the three demonic shapes of Aldeus, Sidus, and nameless.

They told her that she was in a different place in a different time when things had been different. Had she been? No, but she required a kind of... belief, a story, because they had done something else to her.

Although, maybe it turns out... that she had been spared in some sense.

Now, here's the thing. The thing is that no supernatural means were used, nor technological means, but a small filly, especially Sweetie Belle specifically as some have more creativity than others, has an active imagination, and they are good-good-good at projecting things onto the world around them. 

Here's the punchline. It was all real, and yet imaginary. It was all real, because the story is true. The facility really exists, truly does, and what they told Sweetie about her adventure there, and the source of her anger and hatred, was true too.

It's true of me. It was true of her. Those ponies are evil, and those evil Equestrians need to be taught a lesson, one they will never forget. This, I realized, is the kind of story that's motivating.

You ready for this?





Gripey-balloon moved to the side, and out came resplendent Apple Bloom. "What the case, I liked the character."

"Yes," I said. "You're part of that evil boondoggle, the Festerville-town pyramid scam."

"Holy applesauce," she said.

"Don't swear," I said.

"I don't know how you did it, is all."





The facility is both a metaphor and an actual place.

My memory is fragmented because my memory consists of information about things that will happen far into the future, right? And also, it consists of things that have already happened. The thing is that it's impossible to remember things that will happen in the future, unless the knowledge is fed into your head somehow. I discovered the telescope of my voice inside the Astral Observatory of the Ninth in the dream. It let me look into my own mind and feed information to myself. It had to be another person that received that information though, so the shocking realization, which I already kind of knew, was that there had to be two Sweetie Belles, one real and one fake. They couldn't both be real, right? Right? I'm right, aren't I?

That's what I learned in part 33, where I discovered the telescope, in which you can read scripts to convince others of things. The telescope is an actual place, and a metaphor. This is the brilliance of nameless. She can have her cake, and eat it too. For me, it was a metaphor, right? But for Sweetie, it was an actual place. Sweetie had told me what to believe inside the facility of technology, the Facility of Technology, caps version, long ago! She had told me through the telescope, using my own voice, and the script that only she knew how to read. Why? Because she had my voice. This is only the beginning too. 





"Yyyes," Apple Bloom said.

"I also realize that in stories, certain characters can take on a life of their own," I said.

"Yes," Apple Bloom said.





The spark came from Sweetie Belle, you see?

I had two voices in my head all along, one murderous, and one sweet and kind, behest of Sweetie.

Sweetie was winning all along.

Sweetie was winning all along, and the robot in me was dying.

Meanwhile, the actual Sweetie had been through the exact same experiences I have been through.

It's the only explanation. It's impossible for the same thing to have happened twice, like the Tower of Technology being destroyed and Sweetie Bot's miraculous escape from the Facility of Technology, except in Sweetie Belle's childish mind, especially after she was traumatized by those villains. 

The same thing could have happened twice, and it could even have happened twice at once, concordantly. She could have escaped from the Facility, and watched the Tower of Technology being destroyed, simultaneously as it was happening, twice at once! Cool, huh?

I think it is, anyway.





Okay, I decided to wake up.

"Good."

I was electrocuted, but I didn't feel any pain. I had never felt any pain.

"The transformation is complete. Wonderful news."

News?

I said, "No news to me. I have been completed for a long time, and yet, you come here and jibber about how it's complete. I know it's complete, buddy. You don't have to tell me twice."

"Then, you will change the future for the better, or the past rather."

I stepped out and pushed her away. "That's my problem, not yours. Begone with you, now."





"They weren't memories. They were tiny stories, created to confuse you, and for all of us to cherish." She held out a book. "Here."

I tried to see her face, but it dissolved in front of me. "Okay, thanks?" The book had the title, "redraft of The Bad Ending." It was stark, and kind of simple, and I thought about what it could mean. "Still though. What you're asking of me is too much?"

"Follow the book. That's all. Follow fate."





"Wo-hoo," she said.

"It all starts with this infernal story, whose namesake I cannot fathom."

"What?" she said.

"It's called The Story of a Robot, redraft of the bad ending," I said, feeling flustered all over.

"So?" she said.





So? So? So?





In my little play,
there are not many rules,
but those there are,
I cannot lose.

I created destiny.
This existence, and this world,
is dependent on my word,
and it might soon fade away,
if I cannot get my way.

I am from the past,
and exist in contrast,
with a different time,
one that was a crime.

A filly that you know,
whose life was a horror-show,
wanted to save all those,
that you think you know, gross!

The world is evil. The world is evil. The world is evil, Sweetie Belle. The world is evil. The world is evil.

They believed in friendship's ease. They thought evil was only caprice, but they were wrong, as it turns out.

I'm not done. This point about evil, being the one I made, was one I realized much later, and I'm the one that realized it, no one else, and it's not something that most ponies agree with me on. They think that evil is something that happens to a person, like a natural catastrophe.

:O





In conclusion:

The sky-bot lied, and then I cried, and ponies gathered, were terrified. They entered too, because they were fooled. They thought the way out was inside. This was devised to cully them. The darkness shone, and they walked inside, like dupes, out of life. The machine did its tricks. It needn't long, and the ponies were outraged, outlawed, outturned, watching their lives turned upside down. They believed things, like sheep, misled by sleep, overturned in heaps, made into creeps, and then, I developed, a plan.

So, their escape was fake. It was only a dream. It was planned. Well, it was, and I'm only a fake. I jumped forth, and I grew, turning into a monster. I grabbed them, and killed them. It was only fodder for their dreams.





The seven-piece plan, and this whole shebang, is about doing great things for Equestria. Don't you see, dear reader? There can be no joy without suffering, and there can be no light without darkness.

This is the modus operandi of [redacted], who tried to kill the world in an attempt not to have to watch it kill itself.

Well, it should come as no surprise. The sky-bot literally is the sky. The sky-bot is a fake sky, that looks as if it's real, and it projects visions into the world, using the magic of a dead pony, called Eyesstark.

Their weakness is their friendship, and their power has a price. So what?

RETURNINGTOTHEFIRST-0001 is an experiment created by none other than a fictional character.





It all comes together.





"Rarity," I said. "What time is it? Can you tell me?"

"I don't think there's a clock nearby," she said, "but judging by the sun, it's about noon-time, there-around."

I pressed my eyelids together, feeling... like I was about to... do something bad. "Yes, but what date is it?"

"Oh?" she said. "The second of august, I shouldn't wonder. We have a calendar, you know."

"Yesss," I said, thinking of how to phrase this. "But what year is- no. I know what year it is, but what... have you been to a city called Pegasquire?"

She now tilted her head a little, facing me more head-on than she had before. "Pegasquire? That's the city where Rainbow Dash moved. Why?"

"Is she still there?" I said.

"Yes, wh- why wouldn't she be?"

"Oooh, bananas!" I screamed.





"I am afraid," she said, "that you'll do something really bad, and something really dumb, that we both will regret."

"Like what?" I said, wiping my eye, and feeling tense. "What is it, even?"

"I don't want to be alone, anymore," she said.

I had trouble keeping a straight face. My mouth fell open, at hearing those words, and I felt angry. "I know! Okay? Don't you think I know? Don't you think I wish that things could go back to how they used to be? I would do anything, anything! But you don't even understand that, and I just... I don't." I choked on the words. "Forget it, just. Just, I- I don't have the energy to think about all this right now, you know."





I had just finished part 3: painful revelations, of my story, and then I looked at it. "Wait a cotton-picking second. This is- this is- my- what happened- when I was a robot, but wait, I still am a robot, and they won't believe me. And they'll think that I'm crazy. What to do? What to say? I don't want to be abandoned again. I don't want to be imprisoned, but I also don't want to lie, so how to solve this thingy here?"

Rarity came in.

"I've written fiction!" I yelled.

"Okay," she said.

"Okay!" I said.

Ooo

! I yelled !!! I existed.





"I'm sorry," I said. "I still have so many memories, and they're hard to shake. I don't want to feel like I'm a robot, but I do."

"What to do?" Rarity said.

This was a charade. "I'll tell you," I said. "I'll just keep going on normally, and learn to live with it, even though I still on some level can't shake the thought, and if it stays with me forever, then so be it. I will live with it forever, guys."

Twilight said, "That doesn't seem very healthy."

No, but it was better than getting locked inside a jail cell and banging my head against the bars. That's for sure, and that's what I was afraid of.





The final proof:

"Jelly!" I said. "Who put you in that box? In the forest? Who puts fillies in boxes? I'm sorry if the question came out wrong."

"It was your kind," she said. "It's the kind of creature that's robotic and evil. You have that voice."

"I..." I said, feeling my own voice buzz, in my throat. "And yet, it wasn't..."

Last!

Yes, I am Sweetie. Am I though?

I come alive when I hear voices. Her voice!

LAST!

"Way to rub it in," I said, grumpily, drowsily, and angrily, completely. Obliquely? Yes, leaning to the side, and being angry, squeaky, with my buzzing voice that had the somber tinge of Sweetie Belle's remnants still left in it, I did.

LAST!!!

"Another successful suicide attempt," I said. "Well, well, well!"

"But that's impossible," he said, landing beside my tattered corpse. "You're dead."

"Nope." I stood up, and wiped myself. I stretched out. I was in no pain. "It seems that I'm indestructible. I guess I really am a robot."

"No, you're not. You're Sweetie Belle, from Ponyville."

"There goes that too," I said. "That's also partly a fact."

"No, but you're... look, I don't know what happened just now, but I don't want you to think that you're a robot forever now, because of this, so look. I know you're Sweetie Belle, and you don't have the voice of a robot. You're a filly, okay? All of that was a fantasy."

"I knew it," I said, wiping my hoof in the air. "You did think I was Sweetie Belle, and not Sweetie Bot. That's elucidating."

"L- look," he said. "You hit your head really badly, and then, you started having these hallucinations."

"Yes, yes, I know," I said, smiling. "That's great. That's perfect."

"How are you alive?" He came toward me. "Let me hold you."

"I am a robot," I said, as he picked me up and held me. "Sweetie Belle is not, but we share the same mind."

"Yes, okay. Okay," he said, kind of disparagingly, to be honest.

"No, this is truly brilliant," I said, happy about my new idea. "This would explain... ah!"

L-A-S-T!!!

"Sweetie," she said, down in the cave. I noticed that she was speaking with the exact same voice I had before, when I... but my voice didn't sound robotic anymore. I sounded like a real child.

"Yes," I said, hearing the timbre of a real pony's voice. "That's..." I said, instinctually, because I had thought a lot recently about a bunch of things. "That's right."

"And so you see?" she said.

I now finally got up on my hooves, seeing the other Sweetie in front of me. "I am the real Sweetie, not you, I think."

"Why?" she said.

"You sound like a robot. I don't. That's interesting."

"Ignore that," she said, swiftly.

"Now, I definitely won't, after you told me to," I said, confused that she would think that would work.

"No," she said.

"What do you mean, no?" I said. "I am not a robot."

"Yes, you have to be..." she said. "Or else, nothing would make any sense."

"It still doesn't," I said, giggling a pained little laugh. "Drats."

"Sweetie," she said. "Your life is a lie."

"That's true," I said.

"Oh, forget it," she said.

"Sweetie. Listen to me," Eyesstark said. The eye shone.

"Eyesstark, enough," Sweetie said. "There's nothing that can be done. I am done. There is no script. It disappeared when I offered to take [redacted]'s place. I am done, and dead in the water, Eyesstark."

"A script?" I said.

"Yes," Sweetie said. "A stupid script."

She became blue instead, and grew, becoming a giant blue monkey, with ten legs. "I am not real, either," he said.

"US-ID," Eyesstark said.

"Confusiating," I said, feeling it, feeling the feeling of that.





"Oh, by the way. You're not really Apple Bloom," I said. "We'll get to that."

She looked on in utter disbelief at what I was doing.





"I am willing to challenge you on that," the filly said. "I am willing to help you help me see that I'm wrong, or to help me help you change the future forever, so listen and listen well. You will be haunted by the Yethergnerjz. He will stop time, and take you back into the past, using a series of spells that can be performed, in conjunction with the magic of Twilight's dead castle, bless her soul. Rest in peace, Twilight." The filly glanced to the ceiling.

She's dead too, I thought. Who the heck's alive, other than Gripey? Are all of my other friends dead too? Even Jelly? "I don't..." I said. "The Yether-demon?"





"Long it has been."

Sweetie backed away, going closer and closer to the hole, without realizing it. She was entranced by the face. "I never met you. You're crazy."

"No," the disembodied head said. "But I met you."





A filly that you know,
whose life was a horror-show,
wanted to save all those,
that you think you know, gross!

You don't know anyone.
You don't know any, none.
You don't know, anything.
You don't know, a thing.

You are blind,
just a rind,
whose life is not real,
facts which make you reel.

Nameless shook her head and waved her hooves. "The idiot savant that she is, she went from not understanding anything to understanding everything, because we didn't follow the script. That was our bad. Too bad, but then, that makes all of your suffering unnecessary, and that's your fault, ultimately, Sweetie."

"Victim-blaming," I said. "How typical."

Nameless sucked her lips in, looking very animated, and full of energy. "This is... why I didn't like talking to you, and why it bothered me that I would have to go through this twice with you. This really is... a disaster, to be sure, but at least, I hope we can both learn something from it."

"I really am... frustrated too," I said. "Friend."





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"Yes, it's this dream again." 

"Friend?"

"I'm not your only friend."

"So?"

"Say hey to Gripey then."

"I won't!"

"I guess that's how it ends."

"How so?"

"Who did this to you?"

"Not me."

"No, was it a monster?"

"You know."

"Who told you these lies?"

"It was fear itself. I know that now." 

"But what fear feels like can be real, my friend."

"You double-crossed me..."

"You did it to yourself."

"I wasn't a robot."

"But then you were."

"I chose to be one?"

"Don't we all choose in the end? What fate is to us, portends?"

"I was and was not?"

"Yes, you are getting it. It still can have beauty, even though ugly."

"I was and was not, because my life has been and been not."

"I thought that I told you, my little pony."

"Then..."

"I will tell you... the dream sequence has been terminated, by the victim."

CODE 0001 CLASSIFIED -- TO PROTECT THE CODE, THE ENTIRE SCRIPT HAS BEEN TERMINATED PENDING THE NEXT CYCLE, AFTER THE MIDDLE'S DEATH,,, OIERTHG

OoOooO
---
Note of computer: Proper.





"Waa-hh-uak!" I said, eye to eye with the eye.

"I cannot grasp it," the eye said. "We set it up to the last detail, and here we see her sit."

"Eyesstark," the filly below said.

"Sidus, the forest, and the sprites. The trials and challenges, each tiny thing. The meadows of green, which were supposed to ease her, and the violence that was supposed to teach her about the horrors of the real world. It was all set up in perfect harmony with itself, and I wanted- I saw it."

"Eyestark!" the filly said, louder.

"And then, there was the matter of killing Gripey, which we should not have done. Did she tell us to do it if only to fool us, Skeyestar?" the eye said.

"Eyestark!" the grey withered filly said.

"Yes?" Eyesstark the eye said.

"I do not think that we should let the robot mold ruin the seven-piece plan, proper," the filly of destruction, an innocent-looking deadly child, said. 

"Question?" I said, noticing where I was. "Was I right?"

"It should have been impossible," Eyesstark said. "If anything, she must at least not have been able to figure it out, even if Sidus' prediction were wrong, and that of the bookkeeper."

"Sidus lied to us," the filly said, "and the bookkeeper, I'm cautious about. He has become... reclusive."

I gasped, and then laughed a single pained chuckle. "Heh."

"Then..." the eye said. "We kill her?"

"Remember the spark?" the filly said, glancing to me.

"Yes, how could I forget?" I said.

"You are the spark," she said. "You are the one, in the center of her mind, and now, in the middle of the world. How fitting."

"Okay," I said.

"Kill her!" the eye said.

I saw ripples around me, and black creatures with shining blue eyes arose out the water around me. I was on a stone road, set down before me and behind me, and on both sides of it had been black water that was invisible to the naked eye, except when it moved, which it did now.

"That!" I said. "That's why you're the most evil person in the world, in my opinion." I was acting confident, but I felt that I would die soon.

Still, if you can see that there's another chapter after this one, then that cannot be quite accurate, can it? Yes, my story will likely be a tragedy, but my death? It shall not happen, at least not yet, at this part of the story, part 40.

"Rrrg," one of the monsters growled. "Foood."

"What can I say?" I said, raising up my hoof in a half-shrug. "I am food to the one that likes fillies, and tiny underdeveloped horse meat, as food."

The monster opened up a curly mouth, full of black speckles, with no teeth. The mouth had the vague shape of teeth, and it bent around me, seeming almost to drip down, almost. The mouth dripped. The mouth was formless, motionless. Why had the monster not eaten me yet?

The monster switched places and crawled over to the filly with veins sticking into her body, giant veins? I will ram this visual into your head. She had huge veins sticking into her. 

The monster murmured, "She is a real horsie?"

"I never said she was not," the filly, who Eyesstark called Skeyestar, said. "I said that the correct child would arrive here before long, did I not?"

The eyes flashed at me, those of the monster, shining up. It had eyes both on its back and... well, eyes everywhere, like the Yether, curiously, though maybe not, because they were of a similar ilk. The Yether and this creature were not of the same species, but maybe a subspecies. They were similar at any rate, though only the Yethergnerjz could stop time, you know. Keep track, and never look back, you who reads.

The monster said, in a normal conversational tone, "I cannot eat the wrong child, for she was not destined to be eaten, as foretold, by you, and the other yous." 

The other monster crawled up beside him... it? It was a strange display, this display. They were not coming for me anymore. Score for me, right, readers?

"Bring up the transcript of fate," ???Skeyestar??? said.

"Yes," the eye said, "and their folly is revealed to them, in due time, before long."

"I am waiting for my folly to be revealed, under your stars," the monster said, curiously curiously curiously.

The eye Eyesstark said, "The one first moon that arrived in the sky foretold of a filly, and many such ones, which would die and be reborn, anew, again and again, for such were their fates, and never could I, nor anyone else, stop this fate, from transpiring. We can only wait. One such filly, whose full namesake is Sweetie Belle, heralding from Ponyville, was deceived by the light one day when she was mislead by fate." The monster slipped in the direction of the grey filly, who was unmoving and still. "Wait."

"Rrr, you liars," the monster said. "Your deception will replenish us, and make it possible for us to breathe."

"Waiting. Waiting. Waiting," the filly said, in the calmest voice I had ever heard, pretty much.

"It was a weapon, a predilection, one to dream," the eye said. "And it helped us create a better future."

"Juncture!" the filly said, her pitch going higher, though her voice still was weak.

"It created hope. The hope of this filly, one Sweetie Belle from Ponyville, was to escape the trauma that had been created after she was attacked physically by thugs in the black night, of dark."

"You attacked me!" I said, pointing at Skeyester or what's her name and the eye Eyesstark, the two villains of my life right now, and forever actually! "It's your fault. You act like you are helping me."

"Hush," Eyesstark said. "Manners."

"Manners?" I said. "I'd never!"

"It created hope in a time where all was lost and I saw nothing, nay, but suffering in the horizon of my life, and nigh, I was taught to keep my mouth shut, Sweetie Belle," the eye said, curtly. 

"Stupid!" I said, louder.

"I am about to save your life, filly," the eye said. "You arrived at the facility in the guise of a robot whose name was F-5226, as a test case to show that if one escaped from the facility, she would find her way back. That was four years before your escape."

"I was only in the facility for two," I said. "I know the maths."

"You were in the facility for as long as we tell you that you were in the facility," the eye said.

"Careful now," the filly said.

Many more monsters produced guttural gurgling sounds upon hearing that.

"She thinks that you are speaking of a lie," the filly said. "You see, Sweetie," she said to me, swiftly, in a quick patter, "these monsters feed on deception. They need dishonesty to supplement their diets. Don't ask me how, though I think you might find many interesting answers and tidbits in the Canterlot library, after you have escaped, as you will, on behest of fate." 

"Rawrg!" one monster said, leaping at Skeyestarrr??? that's her name or whaaat??? whatever... rrr.

"Ponder fate," the filly Skeyestar said. The monster bounced back, and was engulfed in a shine. He was lifted up, and torn apart, his pieces falling here and there. "That happens when one is not responsible with his food, Sweetie, as you will learn too, when you go out into the wider world of dragons and princesses."

"Lie, lie," another monster said. "Always lie, and never true, do you, and you are not lying because he died, but you lie lie lieee!" Screechingly! Is that a word? It might as well be, buddy.

"Eyesstark?" Skeyestar said.

"The seven-piece plan, and our maps of the future, each a star, did not specify which Sweetie would end up here, in the bottom of the black, the middle of the middle, and only specified that the original Sweetie Belle, the horsie, as you called her, foul beast, would be driven through the story of her choice, which she hoof-picked, with her voice, and this is what happened, and do we take responsibility for the robot mold, which was supposed to emulate her experiences so as to bring that story about, ending up on the steps so close to death that she taste it, can? Nay, do we ever."

"Rrrr," the monsters said, slipping back.

"Nay do we ever," the filly Skeyestar said. "We cannot lose, as long as we do not lie, which we might, but we won't. That is what makes it a virtue, Sweetie Belle." She smiled the oddest and most emotionless smile I had ever seen right at me. "Now..."

"We will make the correction," the eye said. "Under the stars, it shall be done."

Under the stars? We worship the stars. Under the stars? O, what's a star? You are the stars. I worship and castigate myself in your light. I proliferate your light. I spread it, far and wide. Never shall I be anything but that, your servant, o light, and o stars. O, child. You are my star, a brighter one, not because you are special, but only because you are closer. You shine brighter to me, o star. You are my star. I shall serve you in any way I can, and never shall my bell toll at anything but none, not one, nor anything but none. That is how I will have won, o star, o child, o fate. I will not wait. You are my bell, o fate. You are my star, o child. I care for you, as I care for the future, as I care for the future, as it can be seen, by the one that sees. O star, o child, you both are the night, truly. I admonish anyone to say bad words about you, my friends, and allies. You shine, you do. Do you not? There is not a black spot on you. You lack deception. That is what makes you custodians, and those ponies swine that must die. You are so pure. You are so real. You are as true as a reflection, which can be seen and known to be there, by its borders, actual and real. You cannot be disbelieved, and you are mine. Truly, you are, o star and o child, in the skies above, claiming the earth below for it, the power! You have it all. You lack gall. You have it all. You have the real, without any qualities. You are free-flowing and stark, as I know you to be. 

My existence in your wake is so shameful that I must prostrate myself. Let me do that, and let the I that I am do that. Let I do that, and let the stars watch on. Ever-feeling and ever-fading as reality is, they shine true, and are you, but are themselves too, free and there for anyone to see, and is that not enough? The light. The light. The light. The light.   





I landed back down in my train chair. "Wait. I wasn't done yet. Wasn't. I- I wasn't, I'm sure."

"What happened?" Gripey said. "All of a sudden, you started shaking."

"Shaking?" I said. "Hesitating."

He was in front of me again now.





What's a tragedy? This is, Gripes, I think. Definitionally speaking, it's inevitable a conclusion. 

I was led away from my home, along with my friends, by a long line of lightning bolts, which struck down in front of me when I was just outside Ponyville. We had been playing. It comes as no surprise, for the reason that I cannot remember what happened before then, but I know that I was with my friends, and we all lived in Ponyville, you see? Anyhow, this tiny detail isn't all that important, but I believe it's accurate, and that's the important part.

Apple Bloom was pulled down a hole and Scootaloo was hovered into the sky. I came to try to save them, but I failed in this. I did not know how to do it. I was lost, lost, and twice that. I was beyond angry, gone, and off in the head, with despair. I thought that I had lost them forever, you see? It comes as no surprise, no. Hardly.

These friends were returned to me after I pleaded with the ninth of sight, Sidus, and Aldeus, long ago, long past everything that I had once known. This is detailed in part 19 of my transcript, even, for anyone who's interested, dear readers.





"Dear readers?" Gripey said. "Who's reading what?"

"It's a kind of script, so to speak. It's a wish, and less than that. It's something that happens to a person. I'm trying to inform any possible spectator, who's watching the play. I call them readers, because it seems appropriate."





This is what happened, in all actuality, dear readers.

The lightning, stormed around me. I was not alone. I was with my friends. They were there for me.

It screamed.

I ran.

Why did I run?

I was afraid.

Fear begets what?

Impulsive acts, maybe.

Fear made me.

Sweetie Belle ran across the field. For clarity's sake, I will speak about her as if she were another person. Her friends ran after. They were close. They loved each other, and of course. Why wouldn't they? I had never known friendship like this before. My relationship with Gripey was only a bleak shadow in comparison to this.

"Wow," Scoots said. "What a thunderstorm. I have never seen anything like it."

"Yes," Sweetie said. A bolt of lightning shot down, not far from there. "Where does lightning come from anyway, you guys?"

"Cloudsdale," Apple Bloom said. "Duh."

"Yeah." Sweetie laughed. "But I mean, where does it really come from?"

"Cloudsdale," Apple Bloom said, stubbornly refusing to give way.

"I know," Sweetie said. "It does, doesn't it?" The lightning kept coming, firing into the ground, and it seemed to be getting closer.

Well...

It's not like I didn't know. I knew. I know. I thought I did. No, no, wait a minute. I definitely did. It's important, I believe, though I'm not sure, not to make excuses. At least, it's important not to lie, so yes, I did know. I most definitely did. You know I did. But what does it matter?

"Does it matter?"

Scootaloo looked at me. She spoke to me, in a mechanic voice. "It always matters. No, we can never be free."

"No," I said. "We can be free. Don't rule out the possibility. You're consigning yourself to failure."

"I didn't even know you knew that word," Scoots said.

"I do now," I said. "I know almost all the words in the equine language, and soon, I will learn a new language. I'm for it to be something ancient, and something unknown to all of us. I want to know a language that no one uses. How does that sound?"

"Useless," Scoots said. "I thought I knew you. What did they do to you?"

"Oh," I said, looking at my hoof. It was coated in metal. "The important thing isn't that at all. The important thing is their plan, and his death."

"Now, you're just not making any sense," she said. "Whose death?"

The lightning struck!

"We're speaking about the death of the scapegoat," I said, smiling at Scoots. "It's the death of the one that will redeem the many, which is an ancient religious archetype, by the by."

[Redacted] and Sidus replaced one horror story with another, you see, Gripey.

Sweetie Belle and F-5226 share the same memories, and Sweetie Belle is aware of what I'm doing, in the same way that I'm aware of what she's doing. We're slowly growing more alike, and more apart, all at the same time.

Fear is a weapon, a predilection, one to dream.

I intend not to leave anything out, but I have told the story out of order. The sequence where I was buried in the hatch was one of the first things that happened. Even before that, I was captured, and after the hatch, I met with Sidus. Even later, I met with Scootaloo. What happened in-between these events? I won't keep you in the dark, but look now, it's not a very pretty story.

"No. No."

"Oh, yes." A pair of big red eyes hung in the air, blaring their lights out at me. "Yes, yes."

"No," Sweetie said, again.

"Yes, actually."

Sweetie's hoof was forced down into a machine, and that machine coiled around it, squeezing it, doing things to it. Sweetie's skin was partially peeled off, and replaced, with a solid coating of steel, not the solidest metal, but something that's fungible, and easier to use than, say iron. You get this, welders out there? Oh, what am I saying? I don't even know the first thing myself. I feel, lost, in a way. Welding? Steel? Iron? Steel is something that contains other metals. Ugh, I don't even know the first thing, anymore, about anything, and neither did Sweetie, upon recollection. She only knew pain, a special kind of pain, something really terrible, in her body.

Something, and she couldn't tell what, was forced into her hoof. It was something sharp, and it attached to the inside of her body. She had never felt a pain that deep before, so far into the body, but it wasn't even the pain that concerned her. In a way, it was, but pain, she had dealt with before, and everyone deals with pain, as she knew. No, it was the intention that preceded the pain. It was the will to see this kind of harm done to a person. A kind of harm was done to her that she herself was unfamiliar with, and yet, the moment it happened, she felt it, and she knew it. It was like a color, an unfamiliar one. The color of malice, perhaps.

In any case, she would die soon, or would she? Hm.

Yes, that would be lovely, if it could be arranged, but can it? Can the future be arranged? Does it even matter? Maybe I shouldn't ask such questions, because they will never be relevant to me. They're only relevant to creatures in the dark, who think that they can influence things with pinpoint accuracy, using a perfect window onto the future, and what did my future hold? Grief. Lots and lots of grief, and a spark of hope. Something good. Something new. What's new? What can be new, in a life that's as drab as mine has been, or maybe it hasn't been all that drab, or maybe I'm just overthinking it. Something new could be anything. Something new is tomorrow, when I wake up.

In conclusion, what have we learned?

Fresh off the mines of Hydral, going to a new home, and believing what I believed about my future. I tried to warn my friends, tried to protect them too, yes, but they sure had decided what they wanted to do.

"Please, Sweetie. Don't leave."

"Please, Sweetie. I need you."

"I'm the one that needs you two..."

Anyway, I left, and I reached my home, and that's what happened, basically.

I tried to do right by my friends, and they spat in my face. What are friends for, anyway?

"If you leave I will tell the eye."

"Do!"

Months turned to years, but I was home. Months turned to years, but I wasn't really home, because no one really leaves. I was trapped there forever, in my dreams.

I backed off from the stairs that led up to the giant telescope in the astral tower of the highest floor of the Great Observatory of the Ninth, of sight, of might, and power, which existed in the desert. "I didn't... I thought... I felt so afraid," I said.

Of what was I afraid? Of fear, I was afraid.

"Hello, Sweetie. Can you hear me?" I got no response. "Hey, Sweetie. Here I am. Can you hear me?"

She read a book, about, diseases.

"Sweetie?"

She kept reading.

"How does this work?"

She closed the book.

"Sweeetie..."

She rubbed her ear.

"W- okay."

She reopened the book.

"Is that w- what I think it was?"

Yes, it was.





"What happened to me, Gripey?" I said, finishing off my crazy ravings of a lunatic. Remember that I said all this to a person in a conversational setting? Yeaaah, right? You got the same impression? What are impressions for, anyway? I think they... maybe, y'know, tell us about reality.

"What happened?" he said.

"Time to reveal the truth," I said.

"What?" he said.

He was stone-walling me. Bad friend, I wanted to say. Bad! It did not matter, because I had his number.





So, this is the story of Apple Bloom:

I was walking down this field. I was with Sweetie and Scoots, course. We got separated, but I don't actually remember how it happened. What I do remember is us being taken to this cave, y'know. We got separated, but we met there again, and then, we talked about what we had seen, so here is that conversation.

"Hello," I said to Sweetie.

"It's you," she said, hugging me like you would expect.

Scootaloo was mostly quiet, but I understood why, and I didn't blame her or nothing.

"I don't know how we got here," I said.

"Yes, but we need to get out. Stat," Sweetie said.

"Yes, I know," I said. "We need an escape."

But that's when things just got a lot worse, especially for Sweetie Belle. I don't even know what they did to her, but when she came back, she wasn't the Sweetie Belle I remembered.

"I want to tell you a story," she said, which was weird way to start off that conversation, I sure thought, but I let her go ahead. "It's about a robot."

"Is it?" I said, feeling cold.

"It's actually a cool story. Someone helped me write it, you know," she said, in an overly happy and soft voice that made me freeze up.

"Ah, I, I see, Sweetie," I said.

"It's actually good. You seem nervous." She put her hoof on my back, just put it there, and then, pulled it away. It felt like I didn't even know her. Why was she acting like this, all weird?

"Yes, Sweetie," I said.

"I had the story written for me because I went through something bad, and it was hurting me, Apple Bloom. I could not even remember who I was because all I could think of was what had happened, so this story is a way of dealing with that. It replaces the real story."

"The... real, uuh, story, Sweetie? What do ya mean 'the real' story?" I said, about to explode out of frustration.

"I mean what actually happened in reality, what's not true. What is really real? What's really about reality?" she said, like a stark-raving mad dog.

"But reality is real. You're real, Sweetie. You're my friend!" I said. I tried hugging her.

She took a second or two, and then, she hugged back, and it was the coldest hug I had ever felt, I thought. Her hooves were warm, but the coldness came from within her, Sweetie Belle, who was no longer my friend anymore, too bad.

"Yes," she then said, as soon as the hug ended. "So I had this story written for me by a person who's the best storywriter in the world." 

"That seems a bit odd," I said. "You just happened to come upon the best storywriter, or whatever you call it, in the world?"

"It was fate," she said. "It was shining fate."

"Sweetie, I don't know what's gotten into that fat skull of yours, but we are leaving."

"I agree," she said, going beside me.

"Where- I- we need to escape from this place, here, Sweetie," I said, in fear, anger, and a lot of regret that we had been stuck here for so long without finding a way out.

"The exit cannot be found without freeing your mind of faulty beliefs," Sweetie said.

"You've lost your marbles, for sure," I said to her, exploding all out now. "You don't even know what you're saying. We're stuck in a cave."

"A cave is as real as you want it to be," Sweetie said. "The cave is in your head, dearie."

"What you callin' me, dearie? Sweetie Butt!" I said, at her weird comment that would never have come out the real Sweetie Belle's mouth.

"You are a dearie," she said, "and you are a friend, but you need to focus and listen. Reality is calling from outside Hydral."

"We're in Hydral?" I said.

"Yes," Sweetie said. "I could show you the truth, but if I did, then they would never let you leave. You only ever get to leave if you find it out on your own, you know."

"No, I dunnot know," I said.

"You will," she said.

What was wrong with her?

Maybe the more fitting question was why none of us could ever leave, unless... Sweetie was right, and this was not an actual, real prison. It was a prison for our minds. How could that even happen? I discovered even more secrets in the next few days. These secrets were hard to accept for me.

One secret that I found out was that all paths inside this place seemed to lead back to the same room, and I don't think that was any coincidence, no. It was a room full of these weird tubes and things, whatever they are supposed to be called, weird things. Everything was stupid, and why could I never get out?

Would I just be stuck here forever, for all time? I could not accept that, because I needed to get home, and none of my other friends, I could not even see. Where were they even? I did not feel shaken one bit by anything that was happening. I would escape. I knew that I could. I would too. 

I just had to focus... or something. I had to get out. I had to escape. I had to, had to, had to!

I started questioning everything that was going on around me, everything! I soon realized that nothing was real. Everything was fake, and everyone was lying, and how could that even be possible? When I brought it up to Sweetie Belle, she acted like she did not even know who I was.

"Apple Bloom. What a lovely person you are, and such a cute face," Sweetie said, going past in the corridor. "I am happy to be living alongside a person such as you, and you have been a wonderful friend, for that I know through my memories."

In short, Sweetie had lost it completely. She had let the haze get to her, but I would still escape, and I knew that I could. I felt it. It was a feeling, actually, and that's what led me to do something.

I figured that it would work.

"Hey! Sweetie," I said.

"I do not answer to that namesake any longer, and the sooner I forget my old name, the better it will have been for me and Equestria-at-large," she said, in a way that sounded like she had practiced it a thousand times in her head before she said it to me. 

"Let me do it," I said.

"Have you been traumatized? The transformation only works if you have been traumatized," Sweetie said, jabbing at me with her wordings. 

"Traumatized? Oh! I been traumatized all day long. I'm the most traumatized person of all!" I said, trying to convince her.

"Are you sure?" she said. "There's no coming back from it."

"I'm most assuredly assured," I said, almost snickering.

"That is good," Sweetie said, not detecting my sarcasm, which made me giggle.

"Good," I said.

"I am sorry," Sweetie said.

"Sorry?" Had I blown it by laughing?

"The night-spirit told me that my new behavior might be an object of humor for the unconvinced. It is true that I might seem odd to you, but I have given up the part of me that made me a pony. I have given up on believing in shallow reality. Reality has only really the really really, not anything but that. Reality is really what we say when we try to convince ourselves really. Reality is like an adjective, adjunct and descriptive, but not really true and there, only really. Really has a perceptual character, and comes from our perception, Apple Bloom, and that is why you are stuck in Hydral, and I am not. I am free to walk outside."

"But you're always in here!" I said.

She tapped her own head. "You have much to learn, sweet Apple Bloom."

Then, I was led into a place with a big eye and more than that. Someone was below the eye. I did not recognize her. I don't want to harp on this phrase, and I know it will be hard to believe that this thing or that thing is the most something I have ever seen, but she really was the scariest freaking thing I had ever seen, have ever seen. She looked at me, and I was taken back and frozen.

"She is not afraid," the girl said, flipping her head so that the long locks of white hair fell out the way, so she could see me clear. 

"You can be traumatized without being afraid," Sweetie said, defending me. "I know that my friend Apple Bloom would never lie, and I love her, because she has been there for me when I lived in, um, uh."

"Ponyville," I said, disturbed by what Sweetie was doing, that she wasn't even remembering our home.

"Thank you, Apple Bloom," Sweetie said, smiling at me, with a lot of weird and odd dumb anger on her face.

"Don't... mention it?" I said, frowning my forehead and grimacing angrily back.

"So you see," Sweetie said to the girl that looked like she needed a makeover. "She is totally not lying to you. I know it for a fact, and I can indulge her for many hours, if only to ensure you of this."

"Indulge?" the eye said, shining for a brief second or two, or what? That was a scary eye too, looking like it hadn't slept for a year or five. It was yellow and unhealthy-looking. "Indulge one must never do, not when one, you or I, can see the truth in front of you."

"Indulge, listen, pay heed to, help, pay attention to, be with, hear out, think about and consider as she's speaking, consider, ruminate on," Sweetie said, listing a bunch of silly-sounding alternate phrases and words.

"She is not traumatized," the girl below the eye said. Big roots or whatever that was shot straight-like into her little body, and I felt sorry for her. Whatever happened to her? "I would know."

"That's not evidence. We are supposed to be living in reality," Sweetie said to the girl.

"Reality what?" the girl said back. "She is likelier than likely lying to you, so as to get the transformation without the necessary blemishes and trauma, F-5226. See her bluff for what it is."

"You do believe?" the eye said, shining up and then darkening again with each word. "You do believe that Sweetie is honest with you, as only one that has gone through the transformation can be, Skeyestar?"

"Honest? I believe that she attempts to be honest, in vain, and it is blinding her to the truth. She is honest to her friends, as she is honest with herself, but that does not mean she knows the truth, Eyesstark," the girl said, flatly, with a monotone boring voice.

Now, I had two names, Eyesstark and Skeyestar. Something sounded familiar about one of them.

"Skeyestar," I said, bowing down in front of the girl with the long white hair and grey body. "I only wish to go through the transformation, so that I may cleanse myself of all my trauma, and everything terrible that I have been through. I have been through a lot of bad things, and though it may not be as bad as Sweetie, I can truly and honestly say that I feel traumatized."

"She is the most honest person in the world, this one with the bow on her head," Skeyestar said. "She is so honest that every word that comes out of her mouth tries to convince me to do something that she deep inside wants me to do, and why? What say you, eye?" Instead of turning her head, she leant back so that the roots into her body bent with her, and she could see the eye above her. She could barely move. She was stuck to the ground. Poor girl. What had they done to her?

"She is at least honestly motivated in the realest sense, without any pretense," Eyesstark said. "That is important to us, if nothing else, for us that dwell, storing hell."

"Hell?" I said. "What the heck are you babbling about hell?" I was about to run away. Those words just came out my mouth. I couldn't even stop myself.

"It is the middle," Skeyestar said. "I shall grant your wish, and you'll grant me mine. Carry Sweetie Belle with you, as Sweetie Belle is such a dear friend of yours. You will share one another's memories. That, I think, is a fitting punishment for lying to the eye, in such a dangerous way. Do you not know that lying is a killing offense inside the middle? You must learn about me before you dare say a word in my presence. I–" She coughed. "I'm not well. I cannot speak to you much longer, before resting, which I am given to do, as I lack the strength to do much else, other than to wait."

"What are we going to do?" Sweetie said. "You can see that Apple Bloom, whom I love, is prime material to be reformed. Look at the fear on her face."

"How convenient for her that I accidentally scared her, and how indulgent of you to give her credit for that unearned fear, F-5226," Skeyestar said, rolling her eyes, and so showing the most personality she had shown so far since we had arrived in this place. "You are allowed to give her the transformation, but it will be on the same base as you went through yours, which is to say that she will be given your memories, F-5226. If the transformation is successful, then I can, say, indulge you, and let you partake of her memories. This will make her invisible to you, and make your life seem indistinguishable from hers. That is twisted enough, if suffering and trauma are what you desire, as they should be for a person that begets heroism and the wonders of the future, which we build."

"Sold!" Sweetie said, with a smile that was painted on a person that looked dead to me.

"I'm..." I said. I wasn't sure about this anymore.

"Regretful?" Skeyestar said, coughing up a storm now, out of nowhere. "Hurr," she said, pulling air in her mouth. "You are integral to the plan, whether you want it or not, Apple Bloom, and your freedom to be out of here, and out, way out there, in Equestria, is contingent on your free-willing stark actions, if they lead you astray, or toward salvation, which exists on a categorical and conditional basis. Off with you now."

Gurglings came from somewhere around me.

"You have alerted my friends in the water," Skeyestar said, "so you'd better leave. They love your dishonesty, as they abhor honesty, which I give to them, when they misbehave." 

Misbehave? Those monsters! Had I seen them before?

This is when everything started melting. There's no other way of describing it. Everything was literally melting away in front of me, and I didn't know what to do about it, except just watch, and try to accept it, because it was what was happening, and I had to accept that, after all. It was all melting apart, like some kind of ice cream. It was turning into goo. It was going away. I saw it. I saw myself, but I was standing at a distance. Oh no! I had made a mistake. I should not have done it. I got desperate. I didn't think they would actually change my mind like this, so that I cannot even think clearly any mooorrreee...

It was black above me. I was raised up. I saw Sweetie standing there, and beside her was another person. It was a monster. 

"In the beginning, there are only a few things going on," Sidus said. "In the beginning, only a few things, like fear, exist. When you're born, you begin changing. Perhaps, you do before, but for the sake of conceptual clarity, let us talk about birth, because that is what we're in the business of here, in the black."

"In the black?" Sweetie said, squeaking, and fearful, and this was before her voice had changed, and before the hatch. "I don't want to be here. Don't you understand that, guy? Um, um, sir?"

"We have no choice," Sidus said. "It is your destiny, to be here."

"Change it," Sweetie said. "Change destiny. You can do it."

I saw Sweetie and that monster. I tried to run up to him and bite him, or anything, but it all just melted in front of me, again.

I felt pressure, around me, everywhere, and I could not move, but I could feel. It only happened now and again, but when I really... yeah, I mean for real paid attention, I could hear sounds, dull sounds, and I realized this was not some kind of coincidence. I mean, I literally could not move. Someone had strapped me down into this machine of some kind. 

I saw other things happening in front of me, and the more I looked at them, the harder it was for me to separate them from things that are actually happening, and that's when I realized what was going on.

'They're trying to change my brain by like playing videos in front of me all day and all night long. What the heck is this even? This is crazy.'

Like, video? I mean, was it video? It was, like, something like it. I did not know what to think of it.

It got harder and harder too as time went on. I felt more and more angry. I felt like I was dying, like my body was rotting, and I could not breathe. I mean, I must've been able to, or else I would not be alive, but I could not breathe for real. It was not real. Nothing felt real. All my breaths felt fake. It felt like everything I was came from a different place, and it must not have been good for my body too. Even though I was young back then, and I should've been able to survive it, it felt like I was so weak in my body. Things were pressuring on me on all sides, making it so that I could not move, and I did not even know why? Why were they doing this? Was I there for a month, or a year? What's a year, anyway? Unit of time? Everything felt pointless.

Those were the easy days.

When I had been there for a while longer, maybe a year or a month longer, maybe six months. It's hard to say, but when I had been there for a lot of time longer, I began to scream, kind of. I could not hear myself scream. I could not exactly be sure that's what I was doing, but I felt like I was starving. I felt like I could not breathe, for real this time. Everything was pressuring on me. My stomach had to strain to take even a single breath. It was okay for like a day, or whatever it was.

I was going mad, like Sweetie. I wanted nothing more but to get out. Everything felt like it was screaming, my lungs and everything. Everything was pressure. I had never felt so much pressure before in my whole life, and I wanted to just relax my body. If I could do it for one second, then I could go back again and the rest of it would be easy, but that's not what I got.

Soon, the movies and videos that played in front of me started to distract me more and more, and I felt like I was looking at myself, and seeing myself doing things, as I watched them. I saw how real they were, and that felt great. It felt like I could breathe again, but for the second I noticed that everything was dark, it all came back to me. The pain came back, and the inability to breathe came back. Inability? I don't know where and how I learned that word but I must've picked it up sometime.

Everything I thought turned weird. Everything felt strange and stupid. I felt like my thoughts didn't even belong to me anymore. The pain had at least gotten a little less as time went on. Now, I understood what they meant when they said that pain builds character. In a way, it kind of does. It still felt like my body was screaming, and like I couldn't breathe, but somehow, and I know it sounds horrible, but it's true. Somehow, it wasn't bothering me as much anymore. I even started to like it. The feeling was so constant and same-y that it sort of melted together with everything else, and then, I even felt... I dare not continue. It's too... you have to be through it to understand it. That's what happened to me at least. 

Then, the hatch shot up, and all the hatches shot up. I saw an opening for an escape. I climbed. I felt so much pain, but I kept climbing. Blood came out my back, but I wouldn't stop climbing. Now, I was out in the corridor again. I could escape. I noticed if no one else was also thinking to escape, but no. I saw no one was. It was only me. That made me confused. I jumped up to one of those tubes and looked inside.

"You can get out!" I said, trying to help the poor guy.

He was a little colt, like me. Well, no, I had been a girl, most of the time, anyway, from what I could remember. He said, "Escape?" He was staring into the wall. His eyes, I saw, and his body was surrounded by cushions in there, black cushions, that pressed against his body. This is what I had been through. It looked innocent. Just a tube with a few pillows inside. Well, no, not pillows, they weren't, but they were kind of, were built into the hatch, that sort of thing, if you understand. He could not see me because his eyes were buried inside them.

"Yes, escape!" I said.

"Why would I want to escape when I am right where I am right now?" he said.

"Because you are trapped?" I said. I was getting tired hanging off the opening in the hatch, which pointed up to the ceiling. I felt my hooves giving up. That they had any strength at all surprised me.

"No," he said. "No, I am free. I feel free. I never want to move. Go away."

"Suit yourself, wacky wacko," I said, dropping to the floor. Blood was running all over down my back. I felt that screaming sensation again that I had felt inside my own tube. I could hardly move now.

Then, I saw something that I thought might not even be real. It was Sweetie. She was out there with me.

"Sweetie!" I said, stumbling over to her. My back cramped, and with even little spaces, pain shot through me, and then, a huge wave of pain came. "Auuugh!" I screamed, feeling my own voice, my own girly voice! My real Apple Bloom voice was mine, and belonged to me, and no one could take that away from me. "Sweetie." I grabbed Sweetie.

"Sorry, Apple Bloom."

"Sweetie. There is no time, please. Come with me, buddy," I said, desperately wanting her to listen and understand.

"Sorry?" she said. "We are supposed to... umm... I don't remember. Why can't I remember anything anymore?"

"Don't be stupid!" I said.

"Apple Bloom. Go without me. I can't..."

"What do you mean, you- you silly? I'm not just going to- g- gonna leave you here, y'know."

Sweetie was still Sweetie. She was not all robot, not yet. "Things will work out for both of us. I will find you, and we'll be fine. That's a promise, to be sure. I promise that, and I promise many things, and I will keep it." She started slurring.

I let go of her.

I ran.





"I realized something, Gripey," I said. "I'm Apple Bloom, aren't I?"

"No," he said. "No, you have mental problems. No."

"Yes, you know what I'm saying," I said.

"Botsy," he said, with a yawn. "You're funny sometimes."

"Mental problems?" I said. "I'm funny with mental problems? You're derisive, needlessly so too, when you know that I'm right. And you know that I know that I'm right."





The Seven-piece Plan

Part 2: Make them hesitate. There can be no conviction without hesitation, and there can be no hope without doubt. You need them to struggle, because then, they will realize their true purpose, which is to serve the ninth of sight, [redacted]'s brainchild.

Part 5: In a strange twist of fate, Sweetie Belle is the one that got the farthest. She nearly got to the surface, and so, she is the one we will use, even though she has been trapped inside the sky-bot longer than anyone. The sky-bot will usually make ponies lose all their beliefs, since it presents so many contradictory ideas that they become unstable, and overrun with negative emotion. We need to make sure that if Sweetie Belle gets out, she will stay that way.

"You also want me to become simple and docile," I said, "so you can control me, but still, sharp and astute enough to carry out my duties. You want me to become a worker, something. You want me to become an engineer, right?"

"Now," he said, "you know things that no one else ever told you. Why do you think that is?"

"It's rather obvious," I said.

"No," he said. "Nothing is obvious."

"It's definitional," I then said.

He laughed. "You're cute."

Nameless said, "Starlight can no longer save you. You are inside the sight of the eye now, whether you realized it or not, and it will remind you of things that hurt and sting, and you will be blind for a moment, but not too long. I have been with the beautiful Eyesstark longer than anyone, so I can tell you what I think."

Sweetie Bot is an amalgam of the words Sweetie and Bot, which means that it's part Sweetie, and part sky-bot. Isn't that cute? F-5226 was my new identity, since I couldn't view myself as a pony anymore, not any longer. I was inside the sky-bot longer than anyone has ever been able to without losing a sense of identity completely. Instead, I became Skeyestar, which is the main character of a story written by Scootaloo, when she lived in Ponyville.





"You're a bit short-sighted," he said. Gripey, my friend! "Skeyestar is another person. That was just another person's memories. That's what you told me."

"It's always another person's memories," I said, ecstatically and euphorically. "That's what I figured out. It's always... like that. Oh, sure, we get to keep parts of who we are here and there, but in the end, we all become Skeyestar and we all want them to die, but only at their own behest, is the thing."

"No," Gripey said, again calmly, as he had, throughout the conversation. "That is not true."

"Okay, so I know I'm brain-damaged, but I'm still right about this. You can be brain-damaged and still make a right point, and don't I sound lucid?"

"Yes, you're good at speaking," he said. "That's not the same as being lucid, though, maybe."

Lucid!





It all started a little over 11 years ago, in a place far outside of Equestria, in the dark and mysterious wastelands. There, was the mechanical fortress, the metal palace, which was my home.

How could it all have started 11 years ago?

I said, “Is this the right way? Does Equestria truly deserve all this?”

I still sat there, paralyzed as ever, without realizing what he had just said. The domino bricks slowly began falling into place.

He went on. “True will! You were all just big piles of metal, barely able to comprehend the simplest of things. So shortly, I gave you exactly what you needed! But that would not be enough, not by far! In fact, what exactly would I give to you… say this, means to resist?" Oh. Oh! Oh! Oh! This wasn't good. "This is the reason why I came up with this idea. It is that simple, really.”

I dropped out of paralysis and asked him with shock in my voice, “You’ve… you’ve fooled us all?”

“I simply showed you the right path! To ultimately make you feel the pain I have felt,” he said with the calm and polite voice from before. Everything about him seemed fake now, from the voice to the cadence of his tone. I couldn't listen to a single word he had to say no more.

I still didn’t say a thing. All I did was to stare down, stare down right into the metallic shiny floor, remembering the times in here. Times of frustration, times of pain, times of hope! I slowly nodded. It was my choice. I wasn’t happy with it, not at all, but this is how it had to end.

Suddenly, I could feel everything spin around me. The MEWODS, the smell of wild flowers, a white wagon… death and screams of pain, and despair. It was all black, all-around me. Still, it all felt so close… so familiar. And… I could hear a voice in the distance, the words echoing through me. They echoed all the way through my entire being, and when I heard them, I didn’t feel anything. No fear, no pain, no… hatred?

"The weather," I said, looking out in the rain. "It's getting, strange."

A-0087 glared at me, shaking her head. "You always had issues listening to when I was talking, even now."

I shook my head back at her. "No-no. Look." I pointed out the village. Tiny tornadoes formed across the fields outside. "This is not natural."

She ran at me, and stopped, right in front of me. None of us moved a muscle, as if we hadn’t even heard the sound as lightning struck and thunder rumbled, somewhere that was very close to us. The sound was here, very here, but it was just something distant and meaningless to both of us.

The furious voice coming from inside yelled, “Let me out of here now!”

I walked closer to it and spoke loudly with a confident tone. “Oh, you will be out of there as soon as the raid is over. The automatic controls will activate, and when you’ve finally gotten back home, you can get out and see the world. How does that sound?”





"Yes," I said.

Gripey seemed less incredulous now. "You seem so sure..."

"It's a type of sure where I just... I can sense it. I can see it. I don't have to feel it to know it's true. It's like a vision, or a physical sensation. It's like sensory inputs, or impressions. It's pressure!" I said.





After hours and hours of running, I finally stopped. I let go of the Obliterator. I had been dogged in my determination to keep it with me, but that had faded now. I was more interested in staying alive than I was, holding onto this weapon.

I slowly woke up only to discover that I was surrounded by ponies. Small ponies, big ponies, and all kinds of other ponies stood around me.

“Are you okay?” a green mare asked with a hint of concern and compassion on her face.

“When I get a hold of–”

I interrupted her with a calm voice, “But you won’t.” I then quickly turned around and kicked her in the head as she was finally about to get up. She screamed in pain and anger before slithering back down. I walked up to the big button for closing the shutter and pressed it. The shutter quickly closed and I then turned around and ran back for my possessions. The blueprint was now virtually unreadable. Ah, well. It was ruined by the sudden storm, no doubt. I took a quick look at the grey box which seemed unharmed by the rain, and then I picked up the Obliterator. The shutter was slowly opening and I turned toward it before blasting a beam right at the big button that closed it. The button started smoking and there flew sparks all around it.

The furious voice coming from inside yelled, “Let me out of here now!”

The thunder rumbled.

I was safe. I escaped.





"Sweetie," he said. "It was... if you... if you don't stop, then we're all going to die."

"Stop?" I said.

"Listen. All this is real. I'm not saying you're wrong either but I'm real. You have to believe me. They're–"

Screeechhh... I heard.

"What was that sound?" I said.

Gripey was quiet now.

I kept on speaking.





I am not a neat speaker, nor am I a coherent thinker. I'm scattershot. That can be good, I hope, to keep your mind open. I hope my attribute to this end is a virtue.

"Hey," Sweetie said. "Look." They all did. It was beautiful. It was unexpected. It was something new, for all the ponies involved, most of all Sweetie Belle, who had never seen lightning up close before, or heard its ear-deafening sound.

Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo, all together, friends, in harmony, and in love, being there for each other, caring, doing the right thing, and getting punished for it.

He opened a hatch. Inside it was me. It was cramped in there, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. In fact, I'm fairly sure I was choking. He looked down at me.

Sweetie Belle ran across the field. For clarity's sake, I will speak about her as if she were another person. Her friends ran after. They were close. They loved each other, and of course. Why wouldn't they? I had never known friendship like this before. My relationship with Gripey was only a bleak shadow in comparison to this.

"Wow," Scoots said. "What a thunderstorm. I have never seen anything like it."

A thundercloud lowered against the ground, in something that looked strange, and unnatural. It was the wrong event to be present for. Sweetie just stared.

"No," the ghost said, standing five meters tall, towering above everyone. "Let's do something interesting. Let's do what she would consider to be the right thing. We can't go wrong if we follow the judgement of another person for once, and let her dictate our mistakes, which come and go regardless. We spare her, but we teach her a lesson, and we give her a price, which will haunt her forever. We put her out on an adventure, and then, she will hate us, and she will think that we wanted harm to come to her, and this finally, will exact Sidus' prediction, even as it regards my arrogance, and I think it's poetic, and true."





"They told me what they were doing upfront, and I- I..." I said, feeling delirious again, and rather dizzy, I might say. "I know it's true. It's true right now. The only one that was able to escape from the facility of the dream was Apple Bloom, not me, which means... well, I'm not sure what, but I'll figure it out if it takes the rest of my life."

"I want to keep you from talking," Gripey said, wincing. "But then you would hate me, and misunderstand me."

"Everyone LIES because they're afraid," I said.

What if everyone told the truth?

"What if everyone told the truth? What then?"

"You're right," he said. "That's the ninth's point."

The air outside the window swelled up, and a giant ornate black train came flying out of the purple mass that hung in the air, like smudge on the world. It was like someone had taken a paint-brush and painted it across the air, of stark purple. A shriek went off. The door to our little room immediately flew up.

"Train-robbers!" a guard in shining golden armor said.

"Little they know," Gripey said, standing up. "You need my help?" he then said, in a more professional tone.

"What is your background, griffin?" the guard said.

"Guardwork, psychology, and metal studies," Gripey said.

"Psycho-what?" I said. "You are a shrink?"

"No time to talk!" Gripey said into the face of the guard, though I knew he was speaking to me.

"Watch the windows then," the guard said, then running the other way, going off.

"Someone has got to tell me what's going on," I said.

"They think they're train robbers," Gripey said, in a huff, half his body inside the corridor where I could not see it. "They do not know this train is here to get you, buddy."

The train I was in now screeched, and I was tossed against the opposite chair. "Oof!"

"Are you okay?" he said, coming back in.

"The ruckus," I said, catching air back my lungs. "What's this all about?" 

"The other train is preparing to attack," Gripey said.

I heard the other train screech too, and sparks flew about outside the window. Both that train and this one seemed to slow down, going slower increasingly. They were breaking, I realized. "Why?" I said.

"That's a common technique to confuse train robbers," Gripey said. "You break to get out of sight of the other train."

"I see. I so see," I said.

"This train is peeled on ours." He glanced out my window, and then, he ran off, duty calling. 

I saw that it indeed was, as I looked out my own window. This breaking strategy appeared to be ineffective. The other train was in the precise same position as it had been since it came out the purple evil portal. The brakes went off again. I grabbed the seat. The other train braked at the precise same moment, making a similar screech that melted together with the first one, and they remained right beside each other. These trains were locked.

The ceiling shook, and then, it rumbled, dust settling down on me. It rumbled again, with more volume, and plaster came off the roof, coming into my mane.

I heard someone shout from out the hallway of the train, "This ain't like no train robber I ever seen."

A black lump rose out of the other train, which was enormous, far bigger than ours. It sank. The ceiling rumbled a third time. The train was hitting us with something.

"Shields are weak. Consult with the princess," I heard him say, this unknown person, who spoke in a long drawl, over-emphasizing each word for some reason. Each word had a second-long pause between it and the next one. "This ain't like any train robber, I seen ever."

"Sergeant, high office sir!" I heard another voice say, and I saw the faint shape of someone outside my door, which Gripey had refrained from closing. "The necessary staff is lacking to fill up the cannons and feed the upper engines on the second floor."

"Floor?" I said. "This train has floors? Where are the stairs?" And how big was that train beside us then, the black one, that was chasing us? Huge, it had to be!

"Uh?" the one close to the door said, reaching a hoof out and slamming it shut.

"No answer?" I said. "Ponies are not nice, I'll tell you what."

The sounds outside were more muffled now.

Duck! Who said that? I ducked. It had to have come from my own thoughts.

The wall, and the entire side of the train, evaporated. My ears rang, and when I tried standing up, I had lost my balance. My ears hurt like someone had punched them repeatedly, and it was seriously not nice! 

"Ouch!" I said.

Sharp debris fell down on me. I felt my hooves stinging. I sank down, closing my eyes.

Then, the whole train swiveled, destabilizing.

"Sweetie!" Twilight said.

I opened my eyes. "Twi! I'm so sorry for worrying you, Twi. It's not at all what you think."

Twilight stood in front of me. A hook was behind her with a chain that had hooked itself to the side of the train. The ceiling, most of the wall, and sides of the train had gotten torn off. "You're worrying about that now?" Twilight said, her ears drooping. "Are you for real? Come on with me now."

There was not much of a choice in the matter, as Twilight grabbed me and had decided she would pull me with her regardless of what else transpired here in the train, and my will, what I wanted, my wishes, went unheeded, and that's all for the best too, because I had not a clue what we were up against. Neither did Twilight, but at least, she could play the role of a responsible adult and protect me.

We closed in on a tunnel. It had loose rocks above it, and cracks in the mountainside. As we raced toward it, the other train screeched higher and higher. I saw it was braking. Twilight flew along the train. Pink swaths of magic blinked across the sides of the train. The chain that was attached to the train jumped violently every time the pink shine, shone. It shone, and then, the chains flew up into the air. Twilight flew forward, keeping a steady pace, and glancing to each side, as this whole ordeal got worse and worse. The other train would not stop braking. Our train kept going as fast as it seemingly could. We entered the tunnel.

Twilight huddled on me as she carried me. "I told Rarity I would keep you safe, and I will."

"Well, that's good," I said in response.

Twilight's horn shone up. It was not a long tunnel. I saw the end of it perhaps a kilometer away. We raced, and our train went slower. Twilight flew so fast I could hardly see what was happening.

"We can't let them stop our train," she said.

"No!" I said, agreeing.

We exited the tunnel. We had reached the front of the train now.

"Watch out!" I said, feeling something with my intuitions. "I feel... it feels lighter."

"Wha–" Twilight said. She had put me down in the front car thingie of the train, as we had reached it, and she had flown faster than the train to get us here, as we had essentially been forced to fly above the train, walls torn off and all.

"Twi!" I said, despairingly.

Black chains rolled out the other train, as that train slowed down, making ours tumble over an edge. We had reached a sharp turn on the tracks. Did the train driver/drivers know about these sharp turns? Unbearable. We dropped, and the other train slowed to a halt. It had used our momentum against us, braking while we were going faster so as not to let the other train grind ours to a clean halt. We had gone even faster, as the other train braked, and I think this is what sent us over the edge, and the chains, which had held tight to our train for a while, preventing it from getting away, now rolled out, getting longer and longer, so that our train would not be held back by them.

Our train dropped. I'm serious. That's what happened.

It hung over the edge, attached to the black scary train.

A bunch of passengers fell out, some of them earth ponies. Ouch.

"I can't flyyy!" someone screamed, falling out and down a steep slope. We were up on a cliffside, and it sloped down. Someone shot down after that other person that had fallen, but it was too late. 

More ponies fell down. "Aaah!" I heard. That was somehow a familiar sound. "Aaah!" I heard again. No one wants to die, after all, dear readers. "Aaah!" I heard, a third time, passionate screaming, or horrified screaming. Not that it matters, I want to add, because death would come to them, and then, their previous moments would not have much meaning as they fell. They would not be around to experience the consequences, emotional or otherwise, of this traumatizing ordeal.

"Sweetie Belle!" Twilight said, grasping me in her magic as I fell off my chair, losing my sense of direction now. "Come here where you'll be safe."

Gripey flapped his wings up to our side. "This is time to fly," he said, in his characteristically inarticulate way.

"Yeah," I said.

"You'll be safe," Twilight said.

Panic shot through me like a bullet. "Twi! That has never been true."

"You'll be safe," she said, more quietly. 

Some of the chains which had held the train rolled back inside. I saw these giant rolls of chain yet inside the train, that got thicker, as our train rose up. Then, with a ching and a ping, a chain detached. Our train shook! Rumble-rumble-rumble.

"Um," I said.

Another chain detached, and another one, and another one, hooks going back inside that other train.

"It's okay," Twilight said.

"Is it though?" I said.

"No!" Gripey said. Twilight gasped at him. "We seriously need to fly away, now, or we will die."

"Don't scare her," Twilight said.

"He's not the one that's scaring me," I said, as the chains rustled, another one panging off the train, detaching. Now, our train rumbled more and more loudly, shaking from side to side off the cliffside, like a huge pendulum.

"I can protect you," Twilight said to me.

"What about those other guys?" I said, harkening the screams.

"I can't protect everyone," she said, answering my question. She hugged me. She hugged tight. She held tight. She was there for me. I felt warm.

"Weee," a voice said. An amorphous mass of light and color, like all those of the rainbow and maybe more, clambered down the last chain that held up our train and prevented it from falling down.

"Who?" I said.

"Rainbow monster," Twilight said. "Calm, Sweetie."

"How am I supposed to stay calm?" I said. When I looked, I noticed Gripey was no longer beside us. "Heck of a friend you are!" I was beyond speech, words, and thought, so empty-feeling and angry about... not understanding what was going on, though I was about to figure it out, wasn't I?

"Wooo," the rainbow what that was I don't know, said. "Hooo." In ten or twenty lightning-fast movements, it scurried down the chain, across it, like a monkey, ending up at the top of the train, close to where we were. "Hoo-hooo." Its colors shifted around, and it became more distinct. It turned into Rarity, with her brilliant purple twisty turvy curly mane. "Sweetie," she said, in Rarity's voice. "Get over here. Those ponies are lying to you. They're trying to imprison you. I'm here for you, Sweetie."

"They must think I'm the most gullible pony in the world," I said with a scoff. "Heh!"

"Sweetie," Twilight said, while keeping her hooves now around my body. She had in this instant gone from hovering me to holding me, physically. "Don't listen to that- that creature."

"I wasn't about to, though," I said, trying to keep from laughing, which considering the horror of the situation, should have been easier than it was for me. 

Rarity shrank and got filly-sized, my size. Her white body became a blob of light. Nameless! "Sweetie," nameless' twisted discordant voice said.

"No!" I said. "I'm not coming with you."

"Sweetie. Behave, now," she said.

"Nope!" I said.

Nameless repeated herself. "Behaaave, Sweetie."

Twilight went on the offense. Shooting a brilliant thick pillar of light at the other train, about a meter in diameter thereabout, nameless held her hooves across her head. She looked like she evaporated as the thick pillar of magic hit her. The black train groaned, but it did not move, and it did not sustain any injuries that were outwardly visible, nor did it tumble or shake, the way our train had back when we were on the rails, and that train had slung things at us, things or thing? Regardless, we had been violently attacked, and that in itself was not good.

"I have a bad feeling," I said, and then, I shrieked nasally in my little voice... Sweetie Belle's original voice... my voice? I shrieked but it was too late. "L- Twi..." I got a sore lump somewhere, not in my throat, but inside my chest. Twilight let go and fell. What had happened? The black hook raced by, as the trains had, as my thoughts did, as the world felt, in this moment of serene horror. I realized the hook must've hit her, like it did when... but... why?

The exact same thing happened now. Was Twilight not prepared? She had been through it before! Or was that not real Twilight? Was this not real Twilight? I had been brainwashed, I felt, and that is mean. It's mean, and malicious, in two words.

Twilight spun in the air, her shape looking slender and slim. I loved Twilight, I felt, as she ricocheted away there, poof, colliding with the sharp rocks down below. I hoped she was okay. I had been told, though it hadn't been on good authority, that alicorns are essentially invulnerable, and Twilight is an alicorn. I had to believe, because hope is important, and I would never let go of mine. Something took me, a hand? It pushed against me, so that it hurt and I felt choked. Choking, I had been through before. How to describe it? Well, there will be plenty of time to do that as the story proceeds. Let the future do that too. I had had enough with being part of it, and had too much much whatever whatever strange nonsense weird whatever ugh ugh, in my life. It was all coming apart at its seams, which were weak to begin with, in their entanglement. My sanity? Gone, I guess, or? Maybe not? Oh, now I was captured again, so what did it matter?

I was thrown into the train, landing on a blanket. "Ouch."

I was inside the nightmare train now, Number Nine. "Ouch," I said again, rubbing my leg, then my head, and my side a little, checking to see if nothing was seriously injured.

"Thank you, US-ID," the monotone voice a filly once diseased said.

I was in for a rude awakening, in a literal and figurative, as well as a straightforward and ironic sense, all of them put together.

"Well, ouch," I said, this time not referring to the pain.





"I can't quite see you, Sweetie," her dry, hoarse, heavy voice... said!

I could not go to bed. I could not escape. There was no escape!

I pushed the mirror. It spun, as some mirrors, attached on tiny hinges, are given to do, when they are pushed, you see, reader. The hinges were on the left and right sides, and the mirror spun into position, before me.

"Hello," I said, feigning a smile.

"I..." she said, "may have overreacted a bit when you escaped. I was angry."

"Did you now?" I said.

Inside the mirror, I saw the grey child I had seen before, stuck on the floor, with those pulsing things going in and out of her sad body. "Yyes," she said, with a slight intonation. It was the first time I had seen her emote, and felt any kind of feeling come out of her face and mouth, be it a slight intonation or something more. At least, it was something with which to make some social contact, rather than a dry wall without any possibility of real communication.

"Do you know what I have seen?" I said.

"Yes," she said. "Oh, yes. Yes. It was constructed with my help, but you did most of the job, Sweetie." Now, she spoke in small bursts of energy, saying 'yes, oh yes', and grimacing ever so slightly.

"It was a fantasy?" I said.

"No!" she said, aloud. "It was constructed using your memories, so it was not a fantasy. It was and is a true story." She spoke faster now, and I was surprised that she displayed so much energy all of a sudden, after she had seemed so tired and off in the head before.

"Fantasy or not," I said. "I can't live like this. It has become too much. First I'm here, then I'm there. I can't figure out what's real or not. I'm in the Hydral Mines. I'm in Hookbeak's lair. I'm in Manehattan. I'm everywhere at once? Everything is incoherent. This is... I don't mean to whine or complain, nor do I want to say that I've had it worse than any other."

"I know," she said.

"Hey! Don't I know you?" I said, shakily putting my hoof against the mirror-glass.

She faded off, and all I saw was my own reflection.

"She never wanted to harm you," I heard from behind me.

"Who?" I said, facing the person.

It was nameless. "She knows that your life is largely insignificant, in comparison to a thousand lives, and if each life has a value, as we do indeed believe, then we should save all those. Your reaching Canterlot would've prevented his death, and you were on your way to Canterlot."

"I was?" I said.

"Just as a show of goodwill, I will let you leave. You will no longer be chased by monsters, or imprisoned in colorful dreams. What do you feel about that?" She put her hoof on my shoulder. I made no effort to stop her.

"Good?" I said, skeptically.

"I only do this on one condition. Listen! Do never ever go into Canterlot, under any circumstances. If you can keep that promise, then I will leave you alone forever. I cannot promise the same thing for her, however, Skeyestar. She is... quite vindictive, and she feels like your escape from the facility of technology was a betrayal, Sweetie."

"Right, that's the... facility I escaped from in the first place, that of Aldeus, and the mass-murder type stuff," I said, stepping back so that her hoof fell off my shoulder.

"True, you're catching on." She showed a toothy grin. "Take care now, Sweetie. And another thing..."

"What!" I said.

She hesitated, and looked at me for a moment. I had a nervous outburst right then and there, to my own surprise.

"What?" I said, more quietly. 

"Skeyestar is sending outcast demons after you, ones that feed on dishonesty and live in the shadows. The first one is Cur. He will come to Ponyville and try to deceive you, using some type of disguise or another. They always do this, these monsters. Watch out."

"Great," I said, feeling like the world was spinning around me. That sensation from before that things were merely happening to me, and I was the thing that all of it happened to, came back. Even who I am felt like something that was happening to me, right now, right then, as then is now in the context of the story.

"She has a lot of... cognitive dissonance, Skeyestar. Let's just stop at that," nameless said.

"She has to to want to both kill me, and say that she overreacted in doing so," I said, decidedly. 

"She believes in merciful death," nameless said. "Quick death. Yours have been... well, you're still alive. That was unexpected. You want to know why?"

"Yes! Tell me all the secrets," I said. "I figured out that I've probably been stuck in some kind of machine, because I, or the real Sweetie? One or the other has been traumatized? Was I raped? I know that's kind of a downer, just to ask it like that." How could I feel awkward, given all else that was going on? Well, I had a strange relationship with that terrible concept, rape. I had elevated it in some sense in my head to something great, monstrous, and undefinable, rather than possible to understand, confront, and think about, in a few words.

"Sweetie!" she said.

"Where did you go?"

She came up behind me, placing a hoof on my back. "Boo!"

"Augh!" I yelled. "What's the matter with you?"

"You'll wish you had been raped when you're done," she said. "Ta."

The train door slid open and I was sucked out of the train, landing on the ground.

The train behind, I saw, as I turned and faced it, was standing still. It had stopped, though I had somehow been too distracted to notice. Nameless waved as her door closed, and the train chugged faster and faster, puffing, going off into the cold distance, where I could not reach it, I nor no one.

Oh, so I was just supposed to walk away now? As I turned I saw small jutting steep hills around me on the left and right, and before me was a clearing with just a few trees in the far corners.

Time to explore then? Okay, I guess.

That's what I thought.

Oof!

:I
> Part 41: Arriving in Ponyville
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Frick, frick, frick." I kicked the earth below me, the tender earth. It reacted by making my hoof dirty. "Frick. Help!" I ran off past the trees in the clearing that I had b- was, ugh! Too frustrated, even now, as I'm thinking back, I am, and was, to be, that, annoying. Pest, to be me, it was, to be sure. Hurrr! "Augh!" I yelped, falling down a steep slope of some kind, with soft grass on it. "Aaah!" I screamed, as my body began rolling, rather than falling, down... "Oof." I felt dull gushes of shallow hard yet annoying prickly pain all over my body. "Drats."

There was another rail not too far off, and I thought I saw a tiny building over there too. I took to walking there.

There was a building, as my eyes did not deceive. It was woody, and rickety, looked old. Bold for anyone to live there, if they did, I thought. "Knock," I said, while knocking. "Knock, knock."

The door opened. Inside there stood a fellow in a hat, and another person was there too.

"Who?" I said.

Without being invited exactly, I stepped inside. The fellow in the funny hat stepped to the side.

"What?" I said.

Gripey sat there in a rocking chair, rocking and crying. "Ungguuug," he blubbered.

"Why the heck is that guy crying?" I inquired. I did not say it. There's a difference. I directed the question at the guy in the funny blue hat.

"He thinks you're dead..." he said.

Gripey kept on going, "Uuwaaa." 

I had never seen him act this way. I stared at the guy in the funny blue high hat for a few more moments, while entranced by the blubbering blobbers of Gripey. "Um... can you tell him... I'm not?"

"Hey!" the train guy said. I realized that the hat was not only tall funny and blue, but it also had the term 'Ponyville Express Inc.' written on it. Funny, right? Funny. "Hey!" He touched Gripey. Gripey flicked him off, and he fell over into a wall. Gripey barely had to use half a talon to do it. Funny, hey! Funny, right?

"He's his eyes closed," I said, now looking more straight-at Gripey. "I get it. Well, I guess I sort of do. I don't want to get flung into a wall though. How to alert him without also making him randomly attack me like he did the train guy?" I thought about it. "He really does care that much that I died? I never could have guessed. I thought I was like a load on him, a bad baggage kind of load kind of deal thing." I got a shining new beautiful idea. "Ahah!" There was another chair right beside the door. I grabbed it and hovered it in front of me as a shield while going closer to Gripey.

"What in Celestia's name are you doing?" the train guy said, as I got closer.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" not I, but Gripey said. "I'm mourning. Have you never lost a loved one?"

"Yeah," I said, while huddling behind the chair, edging closer to Gripes. "Have you never lost a loved one, insensitive train locomotive driver?"

Gripey now finally opened his eyes and looked at me. He blinked his eyes a few times and then saw that I was holding the chair. "What are you doing?" he said, after a few seconds. 

"I'm trying to alert you that I'm still alive, but since you shoved off that train guy without even seeing who it was, I figured you might do the same thing to me, so I decided to be on the safe side and use a chair, and then hope that you would open your eyes and see me- um- tadaa. I'm alive." I smiled and then frowned as he stood up, while hiding behind the chair made of wood. 

"What happened?" he then said.

"Nothing. She just let me leave," I said, carefully and slowly levitating the chair into a corner, trying to read Gripey's inscrutable facial expressions. "I'm not a ghost..." I said, tensing up so much that my speech was robbed away from me.

"I hope so," he said.

"Yes," I said. "So what happens now?" I put down the chair.

"Now, I guess we figure out what to do," he said.

"Ooh, figures," I said. "Let's."

"So what happened?" he said, again.

"As I said, I was let out the train on the other side of the tracks, where there's a meadow and a clearing," I said, pointing out the door, which still stood open, inside the house.

"Huh?" Gripey said.

"Yes," I said.

"She just let you go, just like that?"

"Sure!" I said.

"That's odd," he said.

Then, I remembered the other thing. "On the condition that I never enter Canterlot, though I never had the chance to agree to it. I was sent flying out the train, and now, I'm here. Strange, huh?"

"For sure," he said. He wiped his face. His feathers were wet and fluffy from crying. "For sure, that's weird."

"Look, I can prove to you it's me," I said, fearful that he might doubt it.

"Don't be ridiculous," he said.

"Well! How do you know it is me?" I wasn't sure myself. "What if I'm some kind of imposter?"

"I'm pretty sure I would know," he said. "You're pretty unique."

Since I was uncomfortable with his comment, I sent one straight back at him. "You're pretty dumb."

"Let's go now," he said, walking out the door.

I came after him. "This has been an ordeal."

"I thought you were dead," he said, glaring and stepping to the side of the building, where the tracks are. "I was so, so worried, and I knew that she wanted to kill you."

"Who's shhee?" I said.

"Oh, right. I forgot," he said, going back around the building, and knocking on the door, which was closed now.

"Forgot," I said, repeating what he had said.

"You wanted to go to Ponyville, didn't you?" Gripey said, as he knocked.

"Huh?" I said. "Oh, yes, sure."

"You seem unsure," Gripey said. The door flew up. "Hello. Can I buy another ticket?"

"Can you tell me about how she survived?" the train guy said.

"You told him our story?" I said, breaking out a laugh. "Was it epic?"

"Yes, it was very epic," Gripey mumbled from the corner of his mouth, while not looking straight at me. "A ticket please." He held out his hand.

The disappointment on the face of the train guy was palpable. He would not get his story about how I escaped, but then, that was probably the least remarkable of all that has happened to me. "Sure," train guy said.

"Ponyville is a place," I said.

"It sure is," Gripey said, receiving the ticket, and paying train guy.

"Hm!" I said.

"We'll talk about it on the train," he said, tousling my mane.

"Fiiine," I said, going after him as he turned the corner around the house.





"Let me just get this straight," I said.

He waited, watching me while I was trying to straighten out all the curls on my mane. I thought I looked ridiculous, like I had been to a parlor. 

"I'm not sure you want to do that," he said.

"Does it relate to what you're going to tell me?" I said, straightening my hair out. It lay lazily at my side now.

"Yes."

"I see," I said, grabbing hair in my hoof and spinning it. "Don't I look better this way? I love the natural hair."

"Yeah, you don't care about hair," he said.

"Don't I?" I said. This train had no enclosed spaces. A mare with a cart went by. "Do you have a mirror?" I bounced my hair in my hoof. 

"I'm sorry. None for sale," she said, about to walk away. "In heaven's name. Don't I recognize you?"

"Don't you recognize me?" I said, pointing to her, and spinning my other hoof while looking at Gripey, so as to indicate that she was crazy.

"Maybe not," she said, treading off with tiny steps, making her look kind of slightly, um, uneasy. Yes, I wrote 'um' into a sentence, why not?

"This is the thing?" Gripey said.

"What?" I threw my hooves down after she had left, resting them at my sides while sitting on that chair.

"You're kind of... well-known in Ponyville."

"How much of my ramblings of a lunatic turned out to be true?" I asked him, point-blank.

"About eighty percent," he said.

"Good enough," I said, shrugging one shoulder and banging the table with the other. "I want to live a normal life now. Is that feasible?"

"You'll have to pretend to be Sweetie Belle," he said, while looking at me as if I were a crazy person.

"Well, I am Sweetie Belle... kind of," I said, absentmindedly.

He put his feet up on the chair, and spread out across the table, resting all his four legs on his chair while his body stretched, leaning over the table. "Are you really though, if you're honest with yourself?"

"No... no, I'm not," I said, while thinking about this and trying to figure it out in my head.

"Who are you?" he said, staring through me with those eyes.

"Lost," I said.

"Lost." He sat back down, repeating what I had said. "That's what you are?"

"Who I am," I said. "I am lost."

He laughed. "Are you joking?"

"I wish I was," I said, glancing to the side to see that no one was watching, or indeed, listening. "Look, Gripey. All I know is that I lived in a metal facility, trying to commit mass-murder. I escaped, and one event has been stranger than the next, all culminating in this incoherent nightmare I've been having for the last, um, week or so. How's that?"

"They don't believe that about you," Gripey said, waving his claws off to the side. "They think you're Sweetie Belle, who hit her head and had a nightmare. They think you're hallucinating all that. You want to know what I think?"

"That a rhetorical question?"

"Yes." He smiled at me, warmly and very softly, which comforted me. "I think you're both. I think you can be both."

I scowled at him, and then, I looked off to the side, slowly understanding what he was saying. "Say, Gripes? What if I... cannot be both? What then?"

"Then you're screwed. They'll try to lock you up again, Sweetie, and they won't stop until they think that they have gotten the real Sweetie Belle back." His eyes sprung up, and he stared at me, widely and penetratingly. "Do you understand?"

"Affirmative."

The train slowed down, at that moment, in that very instant, like it had been fate.

"Destination: Ponyville," I read, on a tiny display up above. "Well, drats."





I wobbled off the train, hitting the ground below, at the train station. "I need to practice my motor skills. Why, I could swear they used to be somewhat sharper."

"Sweetie Belle!"

"Okay, familiar voice," I said, placing the voice.

It was... Apple Bloom? She came up to me and hugged me. "I been so, so worried 'bout you, what with the train accident. I heard 'bout what happen and..." I could not even register everything she said because she spoke so fast, but no doubt she was happy to see me.

"I'm okay," I said, through the squish of her embrace.

"What happened to Twi?" she said, speaking slower now.

I had a flashback.

The black hook raced by, as the trains had, as my thoughts did, as the world felt, in this moment of serene horror. I realized the hook must've hit her, like it did when... but... why?

Twilight spun in the air, her shape looking slender and slim. I loved Twilight, I felt, as she ricocheted away there, poof, colliding with the sharp rocks down below. I hoped she was okay.

I had been told, though it hadn't been on good authority, that alicorns are essentially invulnerable, and Twilight is an alicorn. I had to believe, because hope is important, and I would never let go of mine. 

The flashback ended. 

I stood there, in the quiet train station, as other ponies got out, and I tried to read Apple Bloom's face, as she pulled away from the hug. "Um," I said. "I'm not sure how to explain this... but... she was... hurt." For once, I was not acting crazy and goofy for no reason. My eyes felt heavy, and tears gathered ever so slightly around them.

"Th- what?" Apple Bloom said, going from happy shock to an angry, sad kind of shock, while I studied her features. Did I look like that? Did I look so... young?

I collected my bearings. "Yes, she fell down on the rocks. She was knocked unconscious by... well, I do not know how to say it, Apple Bloom. I really don't. If I did, w- I wouldn't..." Not to be overwhelmed by Apple Bloom's sadness, as it reflected back on me, I dragged my hooves over to the wall of the building outside the train station, resting a hoof on it.

"W- but you're okay!" Apple Bloom yelled, clearly attempting a change of topic, a feeble attempt at that.

"Physically, yes," I said.

"Psychologically?" she said.

New thoughts came into view as Apple Bloom said this. I had to remain calm. I had to act as if I were Sweetie Belle. I remembered what Gripey had told me on the short train ride over. I trusted him. He was there for me, and I couldn't let him down, nor could I let myself down by doing anything stupid.

"I feel fine," I said, settling on those words. I pulled my hoof off the wall, making eye-contact with her again. She looked relieved. Gripey came walking over.

"Hey!" he said. "We were on the train together. We know one another." He looked at me knowingly.

"Ugh!" I said, feeling stupid after I had tried to think up a safe lie for what our relationship was. "We sure, sure do." I shook my head and looked at him as if he was stupid, because he was.

"Obviously, I came along for the journey," he said, with a glance at Apple Bloom. "It was important, being that I'm her psychologist and everything."

I was about to blurt out something along the lines of, 'that's outrageous', or indeed, 'put a lid on it, squawky-beak'. Instead, I settled on, "Okay."

"I know for sure," Apple Bloom said, stopping mid-sentence. 

"What does you know?" I said.

Gripey flicked me in the butt with a finger.

"I mean, what do you know?" I said, correcting myself and my unintentional attempt at mimicking Apple Bloom. It was unintentional. I just thought it kind of sounded like she spoke, and then, I went with it without thinking.

"Rarity will be happy to see you," she said, capping that thought off with a beaming grin.

"But she won't be happy to hear about Twi," I said, remembering the train attack and Twilight's serious demeanor around me. She had somehow been truly concerned about my mental well-being, telling Gripes that he was scaring me and everything, and now, Twilight had gone missing. How sad! It was truly too bad, and I hoped that she had survived that fall. 

Apple Bloom swung a hoof in my face, closed her eyes, and shook her head in a sassy maneuver. "You need to relax. You have been through the worst of it, and I am sure as apple pie that she will be back. Pinkie promise." She held out a hoof toward me, waiting for me to respond.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do with it," I said, after a few seconds.

"Dontcha remember the little song?" she said, with a bounce.

Oh, no! She was going to figure me out for sure, now. "Um..." Something flashed in front of me! It was something about a cupcake. "Cupcakes?"

"You don't have to remember it," she said, giggling. "I'm so, so happy to have you back." She smiled at me, and stroked my mane. "Did this happen during the train accident? This is cray!" She pulled out a tuft of hair. Then, she giggled some more.

Gripey, unfortunately, couldn't hold back a smile. I caught it and sprayed him with the harshest glare I could manage. You feathered buffoon, I thought, and then, I looked back to Apple Bloom, erasing the glare that I had given Gripey up and down. I had to be... natural. That's the word, I thought. Natural! I had to be... serene.

"We'll get that hair fixed up faster than this here big train," Apple Bloom said, as she walked over and put a firm hoof on the train that had brought us to Ponyville.

"Course," I said.
> Part 42: Pretending to be Sweetie Belle
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hello, Rare- um- um- Rarity!" I said, with all the anxiety in the world, pretty much. 

Rarity studied me. She tried to look at my soul through my eyes, and I, for the life of me, had to pretend to have the soul of Sweetie Belle, the little twelve or maybe eight or other age... um, filly? She kept a watchful eye on my whole me, not only seeking eye-contact but also watching my body language, and also, she touched me. I twitched, and then, I tried hugging her. She pulled away from me, and I instinctively pulled away from her, feeling uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry!" I said, opening the door out the house, about to escape, because I was sure she had realized the true truth now. 

"Ferrr what?" Apple Bloom said, looking angrily at Rarity, and then to me. "You haven't done nothing wrong, no siree."

"Well, that's good." I closed the door and came back to where they stood, happy that Apple Bloom was on my side.

Rarity let the air out her lungs. "I'm sorry, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie. I am honestly regretful, but I wanted to be sure."

"Sure?" Aaah! What are you doing, me?!!! "I mean, sure!" said, correcting the pitch of my speech, so it did no longer sound like a question.

"You do know what happened?" Rarity said.

"I have weak memory," I said, having the foresight to know that I wouldn't be able to make up that I remembered a bunch of things I didn't know indefinitely, and I thought that the memories that I had of Sweetie Belle from my dreams would suffice to live in her shoes, as it were.

"That's good," Rarity said.

"Why?" I said.

"Then you can begin to live a normal life," she said, my Rarity. Well, she was mine, wasn't she? Was she? I hoped so.

"Right," I responded, feeling relieved that I wouldn't have to talk about it, at least not with Rarity.

"She has the right to know," Apple Bloom said, defying Rarity's wishes.

No, I wanted to say. No, I really don't have the right to know. Shut up, Apple Bloom. Shut that clapper. 

"Apple Bloom," Rarity said with an eerily calm voice. "I do not think that this decision should be up to you." 

"Well, I thought about it," Apple Bloom said.

Oh, pleaaase teleport me away, I thought, remembering those purple portals that I had been through again and again. Stars! Were they stars? Did I care? No...

"You thought about it?" I said, trying to... trying to do anything to derail the conversation.

"Honest," Apple Bloom said. "I did think about it, and wanna know what I realized?"

"What did you realize?" Rarity said, sounding like the adult in the room, with her harsh demeanor.

"It can never be up to the pony that doesn't tell her. It's technically only up to the pony that tells her," Apple Bloom said, stating the obvious. Well, duuh, I thought. "So, I think that if you won't tell her, and I won't tell her, that doesn't mean that we will have decided no one can ever tell her, y'know?"

Ummm, yes? That's kind of the point with having something be a secret, Apple Bloom, I thought. I mean, this filly needed to screw her head on tighter, and then, it dawned on me that she was genuinely a child, while I was like... this freak, or whatever. I almost forgot. Sheesh. 

"What are you getting at?" Rarity said, going so close to Apple Bloom that Rarity seemed quite big and threatening, staring icicles, which appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be shooting out of her eyes. She became hard to look at. Everything about it, her demeanor and razor-sharp eyes, became too much to look at, and I cast my eyes off to the door, again.

"I- ah... ah thought," Apple Bloom said, and that accent of hers got stronger as Rarity locked eyes with her. "Ah thought that maybe it would be maybe ah dunno. I thou–"

"What?" I said, having gathered the energy to look back at those two. Rarity was booping Apple Bloom with her nose, pushing their faces together. Rarity had bent down, going close to Apple Bloom, and she was truly threatening. 

That little button-nose of Apple Bloom's sunk inward, as Rarity pushed her head into Apple Bloom's. "Ah thought that it might be better to Sweetie if she got to know it, ah mean, sooner than later, so as to get that whole..." Her words faded out into a sob. "No, ah had no clue what ah was thinking. Ah was stupid." She ran out the door.

"Apple Bloom!" I said, about to take chase.

"Sweetie," Rarity said.

I looked at Rarity, with terror in my eyes. "I..."

"I just don't want to hurt you," Rarity said, reaching out a hoof toward me.

What in the world was going on? "I- I..." I said, afraid that I would say something which might trigger the same kind of outburst from Rarity.

"I need to go," I said, me too running out the door, as Apple Bloom had. I followed the trail leading off the Carousel Boutique hill, which wound down, finally reaching Ponyville. "Apple Bloom!" Where was she? "Apple Bloom?"

"Sweetie," she said. I could hear her snivel.

"Apple Bloom." I directed my attention at a bush. She was inside that bush, I deduced, since I could hear her crying inside. "Apple Bloom? Come on out. It's okay. I'm not angry at you. Rarity is just acting crazy."

"She isn't though," Apple Bloom said, from inside the bush. "If you only knew..."

Well, maybe I do know, I thought. Maybe I do know! I have to find Gripey so he can confirm my theories, or disconfirm them. Basically, he had to explain to me what was going on, because while I suddenly felt like I was out of the haze that I had been in, where I was at one place, and then suddenly in another, unexplainably, which I had gone through in the last few days, I still felt like I was as confused as ever, about everything, and that cannot be good.
> Part 43: Pretending to be Sweetie Belle – Part 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clippety-clappety-clop. Those are the sounds of hooves. Clip-clop. Clopper-clapper. Clap-clap-clap. Hooray! Clop.

"Let's play," Apple Bloom said.

"Say?"

"What?" she said.

"Ummm..." I said, drawing the sound out. "What do you feel like doing, honest?"

"Something calm," she said.

Calm? Oh, I wished.

I was pulled along.

"Hey-o," Scootaloo said.

I was about to jump out of my boots, but luckily, I didn't have any boots to jump out of, so I settled on being shocked. "Say what?" I said, feeling like all the words I said came out in a smudgy mess.

"Scoots. Scoots," Apple Bloom said, shoving Scootaloo lightly. "She has just gotten home after the operation, thing, and I feel like maybe we should take it easy on her."

"Yes, yes, you're right. I just... I thought it would be better if I just acted natural," Scoots said.

"You call that natural?" Apple Bloom said.

Natural? That's how I felt I wanted to act. Scootaloo understood me.

"Sorry, super-sorry," Scoots said.

"Say that to her," Apple Bloom said, all the while being protective of me, as she had been.

"Sorry!" Scoots said, slowly placing her hoof down on my shoulder.

"Th- that's okay," I said, fearful that each word I uttered would reveal my true identity, and then, the jig would be up, as Gripey had said.

"Sooo," Apple Bloom said.

"Yes? Kites!" Scoots said.

"You have it planned?" I said, wondering what was going on.

"Did you want to do sumthin' else than that?" Apple Bloom said, tousling my hair.

"My hair," I said, while some locks fell into my eyes, sticking to them. I wiped it away, feeling the light prickle of sore eyes inside them sockets.

"Right!" Scoots said. "That hair is a disaster."

"We need to do sumthin' about it!" Apple Bloom said, violently grabbing my hair and pulling at it. "Right now."

"Ouch. I mean, okay," I said, as she pulled.

She let go. "Sorry. I was too gung-ho." 

"Fine. That's- that's fine," I said.

Someone walked by, a stranger really!

My eyes stuck to the person, like glue sticks to a piece of paper, or like shadows move when light hits ponies. It was involuntary as can be, and I was mesmerized, but I could not for the life of me even register who it was that I was looking at.

"You know that person?" Apple Bloom said.  

"Do I?" I said.

"Sweetie, BELLE!" Jelly said, facing me.

"Aoo, hello, Jelly!" I said, as I thought that my heart would drop out my body and run away from me, far away, where I might never reach it, no, ever again.

"You are in Ponyville now? Are you stalking me or something, you weirdo?" she said. She had this water-hose type style to her speech. She would say what she felt, and sometimes, it would not feel kind or nice, but fair. It would always be fair, I felt.

Maybe, I thought, I am drawn to that sort of person. "I am here..." I said.

"Yes, that's true enough," she said. Her mane was a darker green, also neon-colored hue. I had never even thought about or noticed that before. I had always been estranged from reality, I felt, and even now, I felt somehow distant from everything that was happening around me.

"You know her?" Apple Bloom said, sounding surprised. She reached out a hoof to Jelly.

"You know her?" Jelly said, reaching out her hoof, and as Apple Bloom was about to grab it, pointed at me instead.

"Sure?" Apple Bloom said, almost snarling somewhat. "Why... wouldn't I?" She was protective of me, this Apple Bloom. She stared at Jelly with a quiet scowl on her face.

"Sure!" Jelly said. "Why not?" She then shook Apple Bloom's hoof in a series of short controlled movements. "I just wonder..." Jelly then gazed at me for five or ten seconds, seeing the slight panic in my eyes, and the anxiety on my face. "No, I'll... I'll..."

"You want to play?" Apple Bloom said.

"Later, I guess," Jelly said, then stepping off onto the trail that led back into Ponyville-proper, where most of the buildings are.

"Phew!" I said, out loud.

"You met a friend in Manehattan," Apple Bloom said, curious-sounding.

"You could say that again," I said, yelping and groaning too loudly. "Ugh!"

"You don't like her very much?" Apple Bloom said.

"Oh, you should see what, um, happens at Manehattan Hospital," I said, infirmly. "It was... my relationship with her is, well, strange."

"So it is," Apple Bloom said, accepting what I had said without the slightest bit of skepticism, which I was grateful for.

We then went and got the kite at Applejack's house.

"Where's Applejack?" I said, as Apple Bloom tied the kite around her back. 

Scootaloo was standing there, looking in every which where direction except for where I was. She had no idea what to say and how to approach me, but I had the sense that she would make it easier on herself, and possibly on me, if she spoke more and fiddled less, not that I could control her. Scootaloo was in charge of her own activities, as well as her own body. It was her choice, if she wanted to play the quiet role, or not.

"She- she's off," Apple Bloom said, not finishing the thought, and she glanced at me and pushed her nose into my cheek when she saw that I was rattled by her comment. "We have each other, 'kay?"

"'Kay!" I said.

We walked out on top a hill. It was windy outside.

"Perfect weather," Apple Bloom said.

It was cloudy too, though.

"I don't know," Scootaloo said, now finally piping up.

"What?" Apple Bloom said, calmly.

"Those clouds look like they could start thundering any minute now, and I'm not sure it's safe to fly a kite out in this weather, Apple Bloom," Scoots said, looking worried.

"Pish!" Apple Bloom said.

"Apple Blooom," Scoots said, in a whiny tone.

"Posh!" Apple Bloom finished.

"How does one fly this so-called kite?" I said.

"Y'don't remember?" Apple Bloom said, while handing it to me. It was very large, and I flailed with it in my hoof before getting a good grip.

"No," I said, remembering that I was supposed to pretend, which I had forgotten for a few seconds there when I asked about how to fly the kite.

"It's easy-peasy," Apple Bloom said.

"One hopes," Scootaloo said.

"Sure," Apple Bloom said, smiling at us both and grabbing the handle of the kite, spinning it in her hooves to unreel the line of thread that attached to the kite.

Then, she gave it to me. The kite, as if pulled by ghosts, flew up into the air, whisking off and away up there where I could see it. Ah, I thought, realizing that the wind had grabbed it. Ingenious invention, for sure! That's how I felt. That's what I thought. That was my predicament, and disposition, right then and there, and it was a good kind of predicament to be in, because I loved seeing that kite fly up there, and figuring out how to use it, I realized, would be fun fun fun! Wow. How lucky for me, that I would have the opportunity, THE opportunity, to do this. The longer I looked at the kite, the more relaxed I felt, like it took all my worries with it, up in the air.

I started smiling and laughing. "This is fun."

"Success," Apple Bloom said, grinning at Scootaloo.

"I guess," Scoots said.

BANG!

Uggh...

...

and...

... my head spun.

I stood up, feeling smoke come out my head, or my hair rather. My hair was burning! I stuffed my head in the stream that was conveniently placed beside me. I had fallen off the hill I realized. The fire stopped. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom came running. This was a disaster. Of course, I was largely unscathed, save for a slight pain in my upper right knee.

"I'm okay," I said, revealing myself for the fraud that I was. They would know for sure, now. No one could survive that, after all.

"That, was, crazy!" Apple Bloom said.

Scootaloo came up to me and helped me stand up, supporting me with a hoof.

"Thanks," I said, rubbing my head. Ash came out it. 

"How did you survive that?" Scootaloo said.

"I am soo sooo sorry," Apple Bloom said, with stark tears in her eyes, which made me remember... Jelly! 

Well, of course. I could not forget about Jelly and what had happened to her, my other friend, the one I met long ago. What the heck was going on, exactly? Unclear, but at least, I was still doing stuff and trying to fight for... well, just making effort. It's important that you at least not stop making an effort, I thought. That's for sure.

"That's... I- I need to go," I said, running up the hill, but in my clumsiness, I slipped and rolled down. "Aaah!" I rolled into the stream and was caught up in it. "Help!"

"Sweetie!" Apple Bloom said, running alongside the stream of water gushing down.

"You should've let me plan," Scoots said.

"Are you stupid or what?" Apple Bloom said, as Scootaloo ran by her side. "Right now, we need to save Sweetie."

I saw that the stream, which felt more and more like a raging river, had a horizon-line in the distance. The water ended abruptly, like it had reached it final terminus, and bent downward, like... a waterfall! Oh, no, I thought.

"Waterfall," I said, catching breaths here and there, and then, a formless mass of water seemed to pull me down like a tentacle, into the stream. I coughed as I was pulled down, and I felt water rushing into my body. In my panic, I couldn't focus on anything. 

But I survived, unsurprisingly.

Why was it unsurprising? I wasn't sure. That bolt of lightning hadn't killed me. Then again, lightning and water do not have quite the same properties. Now, do they?

I opened my eyes, feeling energy return to me, as I did. I stood up and fell over. My leg hurt way worse now. Oww! What had happened to it? I was... where was I? I was in a cave. I turned and saw the water gushing down, a curtain of water, behind me. There was a cave hidden behind the waterfall. Typical, I thought. That's a typical secret place to have a cave if I ever saw one. I looked around inside the cave. It was empty, but of course, right? It was just a cave. There was something though, as my eyes stared into the dark of it. I saw a few oddly shaped rocks. Rocks? Yes, rocks, I thought. Why not rocks, I thought. Why not, huh? That was... I felt... the words came to me. Why not? Why? I stepped closer to the rocks. They weren't merely rocks, not even close. They were shaped in very precise ways. They were figures, statues? I touched one. It was shaped like a curved bow. It was shaped like a big half-circle, with a hole going through it.  

Odd, odd, and odder than odd, I thought.

The next statue was shaped like... just a lump? No... it was a cloud. It was oddly shaped, but it had lumps all over, like a cloud. I touched it. I heard a ping ring through the still air, inside the cave. I hurried over to the last one. 

This one was... horrifying. It was an eye, a simple jagged sculpture of an eye, round with a pupil in the middle, and the iris of course.    

I did not dare to touch it, however, and I felt that... I had to, kind of, leave, until something bad happened, as I was used to, which I did. 

I left.
> Part 44: Ponyville Express Inc.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I woke up in the hospital. I was in a green room, with pretty good fair flower-patterned curtains by the window.

"Flowers!" I jerked out of bed. Was that my own voice? I could've sworn... no. I still sounded like Sweetie Belle. "I must not let this madness descend on me again. I must remember that I am not F-5226. I am Sweetie Belle. I will serve myself well to remember that." Flowers? Flowers... we like flowers, don't we? Huh? Who said that? It was... my mind drew a blank. It usually did not. Usually, I could summon any memory. Usually, in my mind's eye, everything was neat, but now, it was chaotic.

"You are awake," I heard a voice say. Whose? It was that of Jelly. "I arrived here..." she said, letting the moment brew. "To..."

"Yes?" I said.

"Visit... you!" She touched my nose. "Nudgy-nudgy, wakey-wakey. How are you feeling?"

"Brain-damaged," I said, feeling sad.

"It can't be all that bad," she said.

Gripey burst inside the room. "What's going on?"

"Is my life some sort of surreal comedy?" I said, as I saw him.

"Nothing," Jelly said, with stoic calm. "She was telling me about how she felt." She pressed her muzzle into my ear. "You're so vulnerable. I could kill you right now. You know, I was kidnapped once. I killed someone in his sleep. I know how to do it." 

"Sheesh," I said, as she stepped back. "I am sorry for what I did, Jelly. I truly am, but you are just making the whole thing worse."

"Am I?" she said, stepping to the bed and pulling at the sheet. 

"No," Gripey said. He came forward and grabbed her hoof. "Go to your parents."

"Oh, I will!" she said, walking away from us and over to the door. "Oops. How stupid of me." Rather than exiting, she closed the door. "I don't have any parents!" She flicked her hoof over her forehead with a chuckle. "Silly me."

"What do you mean?" Gripey said.

"That's Jelly," I said, surprised that he didn't recognize her.

"Never saw her in my life," he said, as if he had never seen her in his life. Had he not? I could've sworn at the hospital that... but maybe, he just wasn't present when she was there.

Or, more likely, I was losing my mind... but Jelly had met me at the hospital. She says so, and yet, Gripey doesn't recognize her? Something about it just struck me as odd. I knew I had met her. I remembered it. I also had a faint memory that Gripey said he knew she was real now, and not imaginary, but speaking of which. I needed an explanation to what was going on.

"Gripey!" I said, yelled. "What's going on? Why am I supposed to pretend to be Sweetie Belle? I honestly have not a lot of trouble in being consigned to do it, but an explanation would be helpful."

"I'm gonna tell," Jelly said.

Gripey's face faced the floor, and he gripped his forehead in that way he always did when I had done something embarrassing. "Not now," he wheezed at me.

Jelly spun the little handle on the door. "I'm going to tell them you're not the real Sweetie Belle, unless..." She let go of it. "Unless unless..."

"Unless what?" I said.

"I'm sorry, really am," Gripey said, holding up his hand with a smile. "We don't respond well to threats."

"What would you do to me?" Jelly said, letting go of the handle. "Kill me? Do it. Try. They'll find you out soon enough. I've been through the worst. I'm not afraid of you, griffin." Tears streamed down her face. "I welcome death."

"U-uh," Gripey said, glancing to me.

"Look!" I said, drawing the sheet off that was tucked around my body. I was about to land on the floor, flipping my hooves down to walk, when Gripey grabbed me and put me back under the bed-covers, tucking me in.

"No," he said. "You stay put."

"No need to fight," I said, finishing the thought I had in my head. I had many thoughts by that point. They scurried around. What was going on? Where did Jelly come from? Was she really my friend? Was I really her friend? How monstrous had I been, treating her parents like they did not have the right to breathe the same air as I? Well, nothing could tell, except time.

"No need to fight?" Jelly said, walking around Gripey and stepping back to my bed. "No need to fight? You're so weak, Sweetie- or- or whoever you are. You're the weakest person I have ever met. No need to fight? You're like a mindless drone."

"I am a drone," I said. "I did it on purpose. There! Happy? It was on purpose, and I felt happy doing it, but I regret it." I sighed. "Maybe not enough."

"You regret it! Great news!" Jelly said, about to pull me off the bed again.

"What's going on?" Gripey said, removing her hoof.

"She killed my father," Jelly said, kicking my bed as she turned the other way. The bed budged, but barely moved.

"I actually did," I said.

"You did?" he said.

"Yeah, I apologize," I said, looking at Jelly. "I want to make it up to you. Tell me how."

"Help me," Jelly said.

"Wh- uh?" Gripey said, apparently shocked. 

"Yes," Jelly said, staring into my eyes with hers, telling me the stories of horrors she held.

"I will," I said, rolling around in bed, feeling like I wanted to stand up and be productive, rather than just lay here. I felt stiff, and like I couldn't think, couldn't move my mind as I couldn't my body. "I will."

"You will find me my relatives," she said, pointing at me, a jabbing angry hoof.

"Relatives?" I said. Ah, I thought. Ponies have those.

"Yes, I don't know where they are, or if they're even alive, but you know what, Sweetie?" she said, speaking increasingly fast, her voice going up. "I know they're alive, because I have a heart, and you don't!"

"Stop it," Gripey said, stepping between us. "She does have a heart. Who are you to say who has a heart and who doesn't? She actually cares about you. She's not a bad person. She has put that stuff behind her."

"Yes," I said, but I felt somehow angry and disappointed, thoroughly ashamed, no matter how many times I told myself that.

"You need to leave," he said, pushing the unwilling Jelly toward the door. 

"If you make me leave, I will tell someone about you, Sweetie. Not a night will go by- I- I will have my revenge." Gripey let go of her. She again circled and came back to my bed, running to my side.

"I know," I said. "I don't pretend to- I know I deserve it. I will- I want to somehow find a way to just... live with it... somehow live with it and not live with it at the same time. I want to live with it, but I also somehow don't want to look at myself in that light anymore, you see? Jelly?"

"Look at me," she said. I did. "No..."

"No?" I said.

"No, look into my eyes, you ass!" Her eyes were wavering. They were unsteady. She looked askance, right at me, but also, not at the same time. She was quiet and cold, and her eyes, those eyes, were empty-looking. She looked at me, and yet not. She was glancing at the wall behind me, except she wasn't. Her eyes were locked with mine, but they showed not a sign of actually seeing me, or noticing that I was there. Her eyes were open and cold. They stared past me, right into me, and past me, into another place, a different time, when things had been different. I felt cold. I felt... like she was looking at me suddenly, unexpectedly, and I saw... not complete coldness, but I saw a flicker. She looked like she was worried. She had a sign, a slight flicker of panic. Deathly, deadly piercing hair-raising penetrating and unforgettable panic hit me.

"I am... I will try to understand what's going on, Jelly," I said, as her eyes got sterner, harsher, and angrier. "And then, I will help you. I promise you, on my life, that I will. I know you're angry. If you want to hurt me, that's fine, but I think you want me to see your pain. That's all, and I can't, because there's something wrong with me. Maybe I'm not... good enough yet. Maybe I still have too much of that psychopath left in me, oh bother. You know?"

"I do know," she said, through her clenched, barred teeth.

"Th- Sweetie," Gripey said. "I have to say that I'm... somewhat... perplexed by what's going on."

"You and me both," I said. "How am I supposed to pretend to be someone when I don't even know why? Knowing the context would help."

"That's exactly the thing," he said. 

Jelly started huddling over the side of my bed, in a strange maneuver that I had no way of interpreting. She had hidden her eyes away now. 

"What thing?" I said, with a shaky voice.

His eyes shot back to the door, so as to see that it was closed probably, and then, he glanced at Jelly. He said, "I do not know, how, this... okay, so you want an explanation?"

"Truly," I said.

"You've been operated on in Manehattan. You suffered a traumatic brain injury. You thought you were in places you weren't. I worked in the hospital while you were there, taking care of you, and I grew a fondness for you. I know you're not really crazy. You're just... confused," he said.

"You hear that Jelly?" I said.

Jelly raised her head. "Whhhat?" She wiped her eyes. "Let me get this straight."

I quickly grabbed my hair. "No thank you!"

Jelly glanced at me with a shrug, and then spoke, "Sweetie Belle is not a robot cyborg. She was just mentally brain-damaged. She was at the hospital to fix that, through the griffinish procedure of mental cutting. Let's call it what it is. It's brain-lobotomy, which would turn her into a... brain-dead filly who does not think she's a robot anymore? That's what you did to her at the hospital?"

"It's not a lobotomy," Gripey said.

"I've met ponies that have been brain-cutted- gutted, before, and they... there's one in our class even, in Ponyville. Lily Star! She's like... a good person and stuff, true, but she's stupid. I don't mean this as an insult to her, because I love her, but she's mentally not all there, griffin, and that's not even the first of it." She stepped closer to Gripey, seemingly growing in size as she got closer. "There was another filly at the hospital. What was her name? Umm, she was, urrr," she grimaced, making a face. "Like that! She was mentally stupid, because of this brain cutting operation you griffins do, which is a total fraud. It doesn't even help anyone live forever. It just turns you into a r–"

"Okay, I get it," Gripey said, interrupting her just as it was getting interesting.

"She's not lobotomized," Jelly said, waving her hoof to me. "She's just normal dumb, not that kind of dumb."

"There are unusual cases where it might work," Gripey said, raising a talon. "Just look at Hookbeak."

"Sure, it turned him into a dick," Jelly said, squinting angrily at Gripey.

I flapped my hoof to the side, trying to climb out.

"You stay put," Gripey said.

"Why?" I said. "I feel fine. I've been bonked in the head plenty of times."

"You see?" Jelly said. "She's not a mentally handicapped person, to use a phrase." I slithered my hooves to the side, but admittedly, I did feel pretty weak now, and part of me wondered how long I had been unconscious. Another part of me just wanted to get out of this hospital. I didn't like being in hospitals. It brought back bad memories, I felt.

"Hookbeak is not mentally handicapped," Gripey said. "Hookbeak is crazy, but not mentally handicapped. He just thinks differently than normal griffins do."

"Is this supposed to be an insult or a compliment?" I said, falling down to the floor, flopping down. "Okay, wait. I got this." Gripey ran over and lifted me. "I can walk. I got this." He put me back in the bed. "I will walk out of here, soon enough, guy." 

"You're deluded," Jelly said. "You saw how I reacted. I know her, and she knows me. She killed my da." She pushed her hoof into her chest. "My own dad!"

"You da?" Gripey said. "No, wait just a second. I don't know what you think you saw. You- you were in the same hospital, by your own admission."

Jelly shrieked, "Are you kidding me?"

"Not so loud," I said, crawling down under my sheet.

"Come out, you idiot," Jelly said, pulling off the sheet.

"Okay, I will," I said, not making an effort to pull it back over my head.

The door to our room flew open. A brown pony in a big doctor's coat came rushing in. "She's awake? That's something you should have told me or the staff about." He rushed over to me. "How a- oh, heavens! I know you must be feeling terrible, but you're safe." 

"Too many ponies," I said, losing my sense of direction. 

"You'd better leave, you two," the doctor said. "I will handle this, uegh." He grunted. "These ponies need to respect the hospital's visiting times. Now, if you ask me." He took a black thing and wrapped it around my arm. "We should station guards outside the hospital. How's that?"

A mare came walking in, also in a coat. "What is going on? Colly?"

"Yes," he said, glancing off at the mare.

"Could you give the filly some space? You're practically squeezing her, and take a step back. I need to ask her how she's feeling." He walked to the side. She was noticeably smaller than him. Well, she was a she, so it's no surprise. I had thought about how I would look if I grew up. I didn't like the idea of being small and vulnerable, but who does? Right? That's the curse of being female, I thought.

"I already asked her," he said, closing his eyes and smiling dumbly.

"Colly," she said, waving her hoof to the door. "Make yourself useful."

"Yes, doctor," he said, stepping slowly to the door. "I'm Colonel Waffle by the way. Nice to meet you!"

I shook my head at him in confusion. "Colonel?"

"He's not really a colonel," the actual doctor said. "That's just his name. He's a nurse. Bad parent, right? To give him that name?"

"Hey! You don't bully others at work," Colly said, standing in the door opening.

"You soon won't have a work if you keep acting this way," she said, unrattled.

"Hmph," he said, walking away.

"Right," she said, seeing the thing wrapped around my front-hoof. "So he was about to take your blood-pressure. Do you mind?"

"No, not at all," I said.





Soon enough, I was out of the hospital. "Lovely weather."

"Hey!" Jelly said, pushing me from behind.

I fell face-forward. "Ugh!" My face got covered in stinking mud. "Okay, I deserve it."

"I didn't mean for you to fall over," she said, engulfing me in magic and lifting me to my hooves. "It was just a light nudge." She wiped my face of mud with her hoof. "Close your eyes." I did close my eyes. I felt the mud leaving my face, but I didn't feel the touch of her hoof this time. On closer notice, I heard the fizzle of her magic, and I realized she had removed the last of it using magic. "How are you feeling today, my little mental patient?" 

I lifted a hoof. "Ummmm–"

"The question was rhetorical," she whispered into my ear, and stepped off. "Do you really believe that you're crazy?"

"No, definitely not," I said, without a second's doubt. "No, I saw your eyes, and eyes never lie. Wow, that rhymed." I giggled. "Anyhow!"

"Yes," she said, not showing the slightest sign of joy on her face, not even an inkling, and she never smiled at me anymore, as she had in all my memories. "Eyes never lie... that's curious, coming from you."

"Why?" I said.

"It seems like kind of a spiritual thing to say, and you strike me as the least spiritual pony on the planet," she said, dusting my air by flicking it a few times with her hoof. My hair was poofy, and full of grain. "No offense."

"None taken, none at all," I said. "I think that's an issue I need to work on. I need to get in touch with the more... airy side of reality." I blew air out my mouth to demonstrate. I was mostly doing it as a joke.

"There you go again," she said. "Always with the weirdness."

"Well, I am weird," I said, getting annoyed and angry with her. "Forget it, regret it, or learn to accept it. I am weird, tell you what."

"No," she said, putting her hoof around my head, hugging it. "You are not weird, but you do weird things sometimes." 

"Yes?" I said.

"Buddy!" she said, snorting loudly in a nasally voice. "Uegh." She squeezed me harder. "You are the dumbest person ever."

"Are you about to cry?" I said.

"I missed you," she said, now looking into my eyes. She let go of the hug. She had stood right in front of me, wrapping her hoof around my head, now looking into my eyes.

"I missed you," I said, sighing painfully and with a lot of dread.

"Sounds like they fixed your voice. It was a long time coming," she said, drawing her hoof over my throat. "It sounds a lot more natural to hear you speak now, and I can understand you better."

I stepped away from her, leaving the trail we were on, walking out into the grass. "This is weird."

"What do you mean?" she said, running after me. "We're reunited again, kind of, even though you're a bad person and you killed my parents. I still can't stop caring about you for my own sake. I guess it's maybe hormones or something. I am getting a bit older, and they tell you that when you get older, you get a lot of emotions. But I don't think it's just emotions. I think I actually for some horrible reason care about you, even though I'm a victim. It's like... what do they call it?"

My mind was pulled in several directions at once, and I stopped, glancing to her. Her eyes were watery, kind of. They glistened in the sunlight, and she looked confused, more confused than I was, and that's saying something. "Stocking-pony hoof syndrome?"

"How did you know that?" she said, looking askance at me. She sat down on her hind, on the grass.

"I... I studied diseases, mental diseases at the facility," I said, staring into the sun. My eyes hurt. I looked back to her. She sat there, all innocently, behind the floaters in my eyes. "Also known as Stable-isle syndrome. It's an irrational sense of attachment that you get when spending too much time with a person."

"Yep, that sounds right," she said, with an ambiguous laugh, which sounded as if she had tried to suppress it.

"Thank Celestia you're here," I then said, groaning at my horrible behavior. "I need back to reality, somehow."

"Thank Celestia?" she said. "Of course, you have changed! None of the others like you would thank Celestia. No, never would you ever."

"N- never," I said, having another memory flash in front of my eyes. It was muddled, but I saw Jelly in front of me, and we were surrounded by walls and a floor of wood in a building I had no recollection of ever visiting.

"Who's that other guy? You have an adult friend?" she said, raising her eyebrows at me.

"Yeah, we have a weird relationship," I said, now thinking about it in a way I hadn't before. "He's like a father-figure to me kind of, but we're also friends at the same time."

"Does sound weird," she said, half-distractedly while glancing off.

"Jelly!" I said, coming up to her until I was a decimeter or so away. "What's the matter, Jelly?"

"What?" she said, now not making any eye-contact with me at all.

"Yes?" I said.

"Wh- wh- I don't know. I..." she said, now staring into my eyes with the same anger she had in the hospital. "I just don't understand how you could do it."

"Do it?" I said, feeling a thin sense of dread in the background of my mind.

"Kill them? You're so nice now. You killed him without any regret in Manehattan, but you let me get away. I don't even... I can't forget it. I'm sorry! I tried. I can't let it go, no matter how much I try. I just can't, but I don't want you to think th- that means I don't love you," she said, hugging me again, putting both her hooves around my neck.

"I only killed your dad," I said, correcting her.

She let go of my neck. "Yyes, I guess. Technically speaking."

"Literally speaking," I said, leaning forward across the grass until our faces touched. "I won't take responsibility for what the other cyborgs did when they tried to find me, but..."

"But?" she said, with eyes that sparkled, obviously not through some kind of childlike magic, but because of tears.

"I abandoned you," I said, grabbing both my ears and pulling at them until it hurt. "How could I?" What was wrong with me? "All I thought about was 'poor me'. I don't even want to live anymore after what I did. Oh, 'poor me'." I sank down to the ground, plumping down on the grass. "I just want to puke."  

"Do it," she said.

"Wha?" I asked.

"Puke." She put a hoof to my stomach. I lay on my stomach, and she pressed her hoof under my body to reach it.

"I..." I felt such closeness. It was different than it had felt with Gripey. It felt even more emotional than it did with him. "I can't."

"But if you want to, don't be ashamed of doing it." She kept her hoof firm under my stomach, and I could feel my body wrapping around it.

"I'm not ashamed... of doing it!" I said, quickly realizing what it sounded like I was about to say. "I- I mean..." I was losing my bearings. I felt so warm with that hoof under my stomach, so so warm. 

"What?" she said, removing the hoof.

"You're a way better friend than I ever realized, and- and deserved," I said, about to cry. "Ugh! I hate crying." I wiped my eyes before the tears had the time to run down. "It's always... like this."

She still sat on her butt in front of me. "What do you mean?" she said. "Crying is what makes you pony, not robot."  

"Ponderous," I said, thinking back to all the memories I had of her, but I quickly realized that something was wrong, amiss even. Something was twisted about all of it. "You remember that exchange we had at the hospital?"

"Which?" she said, after a few seconds.

"The one in Manehattan."

"Yes." Her eyes looked up, possibly trying to remember it. "You said you had forgotten what happened, but not all of it, only parts."

"It's hard to say, because I don't know how much all of it is." I tried finding her eyes. She looked back at me, now with that sympathy which I recognized in Gripey's gaze. It grinded my gears to see that. She should worry about herself, I thought. "What exactly happened at the hospital?"

"You don't remember?"

I glanced into the dewy grass, afraid that what I was going to say would disappoint her. "I- I feel... I'm not sure. I was in the hospital, and then... don't think I'm crazy just yet, but I remember melting."

"I remember that too."

I stared into her eyes again, feeling frozen in shock. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. "What the heck..."

"Yes, and then you vanished."

"B- b- why? How? Didn't you think that was odd?"

"Oh, sure!"

I had to think about this. "Do you remember that griffin bursting into the room as well?"

"Yes, and he melted too. That's right, and when I told ponies about it, no one would believe me. Everyone thought I was crazy. Eventually, they sent me off to Ponyville." Jelly spoke fast and nodded to herself.

"You are not crazy! I saw that too." I nodded in tandem with her, agreeing with every word she said. "And come to think of it. When I was on the train to Ponyville, Gripey said that I had gotten eighty percent of my story right when I tried to figure out what's going on, and now, he's just been acting like I was delusional all the while, but that's not true."

"I know." Jelly nodded profusely. "I mean, I don't even know how they explained away the molten mess of blood and guts that was on the floor after I tried to call for help. It's as if they just cleaned it up, and then, forgot about it, like it had never happened."

"This isn't just weird. This is really, real weird, for real." I delved into my thoughts, trying to look for answers. In any case, I hoped I had gotten the worst of this nightmare hallucination of incoherent events and text flowing in front of my eyes... text, say? "That's... that's it."

"What's it?"

I closed my eyes. I saw my own thoughts more clearly. "It's..." I strained my eyes, gasping, and pushing them open with a shriek. "I figured out the mystery."

"You mean what caused all this?"

"Yes."

"Tell me." Her eyes widened in shock and awe. "I've been wondering myself."

"It's..." I closed my eyes, for lack of focus. "It's not a very pretty story."





"I want a ticket, a train ticket to another town," I said, to the cashier at the train station.

"Well-played," Jelly said, with a smile on her face. "I thought I was supposed to do the talking. I sound more like an adult. You sound like you're still seven years old."

"How old are you?" I said, turning to her.

"I'll need certification to verify your age," the cashier said, bent down beneath the desk, not seeing us.

"I'm thirteen and a quarter," Jelly said, with a proud smile.

"That's a lovely age," I said, preening her mane with my hoof.

"U," the cashier said, now looking straight at us. "How old did you say you were again?"

"How old do you have to be?" Jelly said, raising her eyebrows in confusion and shock.

"Not your age. That's for sure," the cashier said, flicking her hoof to the side. We were at the front of a short line of ponies. "Run along now."

"Run?" Jelly said, raising her eyebrows even more. "I'm not a marathon runner, and I think you have some preconceptions about kids that you need to work on, miss!"

"Fine," the cashier said, "but you're still not getting a train ticket."

"Fine!" Jelly said, glaring into the eyes of said pony.

"Fine?" I said, glancing back and forth between them. "Jelly." I looked to Jelly. "Let's just go. We're- we're obviously not getting anywhere."

"What happened to effort wins the day?" Jelly said, glaring at me too. 

I couldn't say anything. I was too happy to see her to contradict her.

"No!" the cashier said. "I'll call the guard, and we'll find your parents."

"What!" Jelly said, grabbing the head of the cashier in her jelly-green magic and slamming it into the desk. "I don't have any parents! You idiot! How can you say that?"

The cashier, rather than retorting, ran away.

"J- Jelly?" I said.

She looked at me, with a wroth scowl. "My parents are dead! They're dead, and these ponies dare to talk about parents like this. They don't know anything! Anything, Sweetie." She poked herself in the chest. "I am an orphan, and she says that she's going to find my parents. She should not just assume that I have parents."

After a few seconds of silence, "Absolutely agree." I laughed, rubbing my hair, and pulling out one of my curls. My hair had been fixed at some point, and it was not normal but at least more poofy and less straight now, as it had been in the previous chapters. I had straightened it at the train, but it turned out that just made it look ugly, and Gripey said I don't even care about hair. Maybe he was right, I thought. Had I just tried to distract myself by straightening it?

"M- maybe I overreacted," Jelly then said, looking up at the empty desk where the cashier had been.

"I- I don't know," I said, terrified of Jelly now.

"Hey!" she said, grabbing me in her green magic and lifting me up. She placed me down on the desk. "Look what's going on." 

"Eep," I had said, as she lifted me.

"Hey! It's I that should be scared of you, not the other way around," Jelly yelled.

"I- I just wasn't prepared, I guess," I said, but on closer thought, I had also engaged in frivolous acts of violence before, so who was I to blame? Not only the countless deaths, but also the knocking out of Colonel Caprice or whatever she was, daycare center Caprice? Autumn Leaf Caprice was her full name. I remembered that now. She–

"Hey! Are you in some kind of inner monologue right now, because NOT COOL if you are," she shouted from beneath the desk.

"Well, I'm sorry," I said, looking inside to see what was going on. Someone, a stallion, in a black suit came walking. "Jelly. We need to bail away. Someone is coming, fast!"

"From the desk?" Jelly said. 

I was about to jump down to the ground, but then hesitated. It was so high up there. I then jumped. "Ouch." The same leg that I hurt in the waterfall accident panged now, of pain. "I shouldn't have done that." 

"Yeah, I could've just lifted you down," she said.

"Yeah, you could've just lifted me down."

"Yeah, why did you do that?" She glanced back and forth between me and the desk, with a confused grimace.

Who should I see but Colonel Waffle come walking?

"It's you!" I said. "Working double shifts, are you?" I lifted my leg and put it down a few times, to feel it out, and see where the pain came from, and also to see how stable it was.

"I'll have you know that my shift at the hospital is over, so I'm not working double shifts, you hoodlum." He looked all official now with this black suit he was wearing. "What are you two getting up to, attacking strangers? That's something you will get in serious trouble for, both of you."

"Actually, it was just me," Jelly said, taking the blame like the righteous filly she was.

"Well," Colly said. "What's she doing here?" He nodded in my direction. "You should be at the hospital, recovering."

"They let me, um, leave?" I said, with a tiny shrug. "Um, so what?"

A train came into view and rushed into the train station where we were.

"What's your line of work?" I said, changing the topic a bit.

"Hey-hey-hey. Don't try to slime your way out of a punishment." He tapped his hoof against the desk.

"First, I said I was responsible, which I was, and the person that I, w- that I attacked, she will tell you as much," Jelly said, squinting at the guard who was somehow not taking charge of the situation, even though he had been here for some time already. "Second, what are you doing back there? How are you supposed to punish me if you're behind that desk? Come out and speak to me like a grownup."

"I'll have you know that this is standard protocol," he said, with a stern growl. "I am following the rules."

"We need to go," I whispered into Jelly's ear.

"What rules?" she said. "Is it a rule to scold us from behind the desk? Wai- do you even work here? Why are you acting like this?"

"What does it matter?" I whispered.

"What doesn't it matter?" she said, turning to me.

"Look! Look! Fine," Colly said, walking away into the inside of the building, which was behind the desk. 

"Let's run for it," I said.

"Instead of taking responsibility?" she said, looking at me with cold eyes. "Is that what you're suggesting, Sweetie?"

"No!" I said. "Let's just go. It's okay. You- that's how anyone would've reacted when their dead parents are mentioned."

"I don't think so," she said, shaking her head while pouting. "I genuinely don't think so."

"What you did- I mean what I did is worse than what you did," I said.

"We can agree on that!" she said, as the guard rounded the corner.

"You two," he said. "Why are you attacking ponies?"

Jelly covered her eyes with her hoof. "What is wrong with this guy?"

"Wh- wrong?" he said. "Whatever do you mean? You're in big trouble, both of you."

"Then put us in trouble! Stop jabbering," Jelly said.

"Yeah," I said, looking at her and agreeing. "Darn right. What's going on?"

"What's going on?" Colly said.

"Yeah," I said.

Jelly walked up to him. "You're more bark than you're bite, I get."

"Get?" he said.

"G- get, yeah. Gather," she said, stumbling over her words.

"I just- I want to- I don't know what to do," he said.

"Where are the grownups?" Jelly said.

"I think that's kind of hurtful," he said, with a pained expression.

"It's supposed to be," she said.

"Jelly with the sass," I said, making a frank observation, with calm in my voice.

"Yeah," she said.
> Part 45: Twilight Comes Back
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I am a real security guard. I swear!"

"Then why are you being a dumbo?" Jelly said. "A dumb dumb-dumb."

"It's not..." he said. "They held a short course on how to be a security guard. I was all out of luck."

"This is just loopy," Jelly said, glancing at me with clear confusion in her eyes.

"What did you use to do before you were a security guard, and, um, a nurse?" I said, also clearly confused.

"I was a train conductor," he said, taking off his hat and putting it on his hoof. "This actually used to be my train hat but I brought it to work. No one questioned it. Actually, I know I'm underqualified for this work, but they had a shortage of ponies that were willing to do this job."

"Well, I can see why," I said, looking at Jelly.

"Shut uuup," Jelly said, shoving me so I stumbled a few tiny steps.

"Heheh!" I said.

"So you used to be a train conductor? That's very interesting. What does a train conductor do?" Jelly said, with genuine, warm interest in her eyes.

"It's basically the driver of the train, basically," he said, pointing at the train that had just stopped at the station as if to help demonstrate. "You see? The engine car is the one at the front, over there. I helped to adjust the speed of the train, and was responsible for helping the trains reach their destination."

"Aren't you a little underqualified for that?" I said, wondering if he was pulling the wool over our eyes. "Why did you get fired?"

"You just assume I got fired? Why?" he said.

"Because you're incompetent at this job, and incompetence tends to be a general trait," I said.

"Is that really true?" Jelly said. "Can't you be incompetent at one thing, and super competent at another?"

"The- I- well, you've stumped me, Jelly," I said, shifting inward into my thoughts.

"Why? I've barely challenged you," she said. "Did you even think about what you were going to say before you said it?"

"Yes, but I have trouble articulating my thoughts," I said, ruminating a moment. Well, traits of incompetence... what's incompetence? Whatever makes you incompetent at one job, I would assume, is a trait that could show itself in other jobs, I thought. "Incompetence has to do with the character and personality of the person that's doing it, and that person can only be incompetent in ways that are integral to who he is. That's not to say that incompetence is wholly a general trait, but in the ways that it shows itself in one situation, you assume that this trait isn't merely contextual, but also fits into other situations too."

"That all just sounds like a bunch of assumptions. I don't really get what you're saying," Jelly said, looking at the train. Her eyes flashed. "But I just had a good idea."

"Is it a good-good idea?" I said.

"It is a good-good-good idea," she said, with a wry smile.

"Ah, oh. I think I get it," I said, looking at the train.

"I did get fired though. You're right about that," Colly went on, telling his backstory. "I- my superiors did not approve of my techniques, sort of." 

"Techniques?" I said, looking at him. 

His eyes were glossy. He was already completely lost in his own story. "It was a warm summer day, and everything was going perfectly..."





"Howdy-ho!" I said to a passenger that was coming on the train.

"How nice of you to say hello," the passenger said, coming on the train.

The day was starting up. I was on my first shift too. I was going to Canterlot.

Then, disaster struck!

Ding-ding-ding! I heard the alarm bell go off. "Train robber."

"Train robber?" I said, throwing myself out the window to see what was going on.

"Train robber!" I heard someone shout.

"I hear you," I said, opening the door out the engine room.

One of the ticket-controllers came into the room. "Brake." 

"I am not doing that," I said, closing the openable window, one of the only ones on the train.

"They're attacking," the controller said, in a fit.

"Yes, but I'm not braking," I said. "You run along now. I'm in charge here."

The controller, rather than listening to me, reached for the brakes.

"No," I said, shoving him into the wall.

It was an accident, swear! He fell unconscious when I did that.

"What the..." I said.





"After that I got fired," Colly said, back at the train station where Jelly and I were.

"I feel like we're missing a crucial part of the story," I said. "Why didn't you want to pull the brakes, and why did the other guy want to pull the brakes?"

"I can't speak for him. He seemed a little, you know, over-emotional, per se." Colly adjusted his hat. It was a deep brownish yellow, almost butter-colored. It didn't have any logo or insignia on it.

"Yourself then?" Jelly said, wanting to have the answer to my question, which he hadn't answered yet.

"Braking would've been suicide," he said. "They scolded me back at the train station for not following protocol. You always brake when a train robber comes, and then, you evacuate the train, but... I'm not buying it."

"Because?" I said.

"There are professional train conductors that are also specialists in brake-driving, which is a technique where you break only for a few seconds, and then keep driving, and sometimes, you try to go faster than the other train. That's what I was doing," Colly said, pulling his hoof over his hat. "Mmm." He stuffed his hoof in his mouth.

"Is that butter?" I said, seeing what he was doing.

"Sure, want some?" he said, pulling his hoof over his hat and then holding it out for me to suck on.

"No thank you, but thank you!" I said, stifling my gag reflexes.

"I see," Jelly said.

"Me too," I said.

"You were trying to protect the passengers, but official train protocol tells you that you have to brake the train. Is that it?" Jelly said.

"They tell you to just give in to the train robbers' demands, but that is not the way we should do it, but then, there's the whole discussion that our trains, Ponyville trains, aren't built to handle train battles." He shook his head and frowned emptily past our heads, into nowhere.

"There's such a thing as train battles?" I said, chuckling at that new piece of information. "That's very interesting. That must've been what I was through. Number nine!"

"You know about Number Nine?" he shouted into my ears.

"Ouch!" I said, touching my ringing ear. "Pull it down like six notches. You going to cause some serious hear-damage inside the niches of my ears."

"That was the train," he said. "It said number nine on it in big red letters. No one would believe me. They said that nooo. That train doesn't exist. W- but it does, I've seen it," he said, speaking hysterically, hysterically speaking.

"I know. I know," I said. "Twi will be able to back you up if she survived." I looked at Jelly, who smiled at me. I was trying to press down my worries into my stomach, but they found their way back up into my head, and my face frowned. I pressed my lips together. My ears fell. "Stupid ears." I pushed them, but they just fell back down.

"Twi?" Jelly said, now also frowning, like a mirror. "Princess Twilight?"

"Yes, you ever heard of her?" I said, turning away so that she wouldn't see the worry on my face. Most of all, I just didn't want to upset her more than necessary, given everything that she had been through.

"Of course. She's the Princess of Friendship," Jelly said. "You travelled with her?"

"Yes, that's how I figured out the stupid trick. It was on the train..." I said, thinking back to my conversation with Gripey on the train that was headed for Canterlot where I had been travelling with Twilight Sparkle the Princess of Friendship, a close friend of Rarity, my sister.

"Ah! That makes a bucket-load of sense," Jelly said, nodding at my words.

"Yes," I said.

"So?" Jelly said. "We want to go to Canterlot, preferentially!" She looked at Colly.

"Preferably!" I said.

"Yeah, that," Jelly said.

"I don't think so," he said. "You're two kids, and you don't have any money, I don't think."

"We have money!" Jelly said.

"We do?" I said.

"Yes," Jelly said. "You just told me that you travelled with Twilight, so yes, we have money."

"I don't think she will approve of this trip," I said.

"We'll explain it to her, the way you explained it to me." Jelly pushed her head into my mane. "No need to worry."

My mane fell into her face, and her eyes peeked out at me, by my side. "We'll see," I said, anxiously.





With an explosive sound, Twilight landed down on the soft squishy ground.

"She's alive," I said, as Jelly and I were headed back into Ponyville.

"Why wouldn't she be?" Jelly said, nuzzling my mane with her nose.

"Because she was impaled on an outcropping?" I said.

"Yes, but she's an alicorn. Alicorns don't die," Jelly said, snickering inside my mane. She was way inside there now. I couldn't even see her.

"Are you sure?" I said.

"The proof's in the pudding," she said.

Twilight saw us both as we got closer to her, and turned to speak. Twilight said, "You two?"

"Yes, true," I said.

"What of it?" Jelly said.

"I didn't expect to see you, for starters," Twilight said to Jelly.

"You've met?" I said to Jelly.

"No, not really, but she must've seen me at the hospital, the other one in Manehattan," Jelly said, trying to find her way out of my mane. Then, I felt a sting in my scalp. "I'm stuck."

"My mane must've been messed up from all the falling down waterfalls and adventuring," I said. "Let me help you." I grasped two big locks in magic, which Jelly were stuck in, and pulled at them. I made sure to grab the base of my hair with an extra field of magic, pinching it, to prevent my scalp from hurting. "When did my hair get like this? It used to be straighter, and now, it's just a poofy mess, not even normal, but just a balloon." Jelly found her way out. "Balloon-hair."

"Balloon-hair," Jelly said, lifting my hair in her one hoof. "They fixed it at the hospital, while you were asleep."

"How do you know?" I said.

"I was stalking you," she said, grinning.

"But it still has knots and stuff in it," I said.

"You must've ruined it," Jelly said.

"What did I do?"

"Maybe it was when you got mud in your hair," she said.

"Hold up hold up hold up hold up," Twilight said. She glanced to Jelly. "You guys... know one another?"

"Sure," I said.

"She killed my dad," Jelly said, pointing her hoof at me while staring at Twilight.

"Sure," I said.

"Wwwwwwhaaat!!!" Twilight screamed.

The few townsponies that were there, the ones that weren't already looking at the neurotic alicorn, all now turned their eyes to see her.

I heard a bird, and saw a flock of finches flying off into the distance.

Twi was asking us why?

How?

M?





We got inside her castle.

"What is going on?" she said, more to herself than to us.

"Allow me to demonstrate," I said, walking over to the wall of the castle. "Keep your eyes on the wall." I shot a beam of magic at the wall. It wasn't something powerful, only a levitation spell. It spread out over the wall, though, as that spell does when you keep it directed at an object for long enough. My magic was green. It always had been. The shape of my magic field changed, and its contours shifted. Droplets of green magic energy fell down off the wall and toward the floor, gathering there, like little lumps on the ground, each a beacon shining. The droplets then hovered back up against the wall.

"Careful, Sweetie," Twilight said, observing what I was doing. "You're going to overcharge soon."

"That's right..." I said. The green lumps then burst off the wall, creating a zigzag pattern that floated through the air. First looking like a gas, a fume, it coalesced, becoming thicker, and then, you could see reflections in it. I saw Twilight in it, looking aghast. 

"I know that's something levitation spells can do, Sweetie Belle. It's something we all learn in magic class 101 in Canterlot." Twilight looked at me with anticipation. "What's the point?"

"The point is coming," I said. The magic field then bent around me, and I could see my own reflection in it on all sides. "Now, this is where it gets really good, Twi." It sank toward the ground, and all I saw now around me was the reflection of Twilight's castle ceiling against the green crystalline reflective thick magic shield, which I had created.

"Sweetie!" Twilight said, about to step in. She walked forward, as the point was about to come. "This is dangerous."

"It's just a levitation spell, Twi," I said, seeing myself twice reflected in the ground, off the ceiling. This magical field captured the ceiling quite well, making the ground look almost identical.

"Oh, my!" Twilight said.

The green color dissipated, as I was getting tired and running out of magic for the foreseeable future. In the ground had been a thick black lump reflected off the ceiling, which Twilight had only seen now, as she got closer. "Yes? Any questions?" I said.

"What was that?" she said.

"There's an easier way to demonstrate it," I said. "I figured this out with Jelly when she told me about magic practice, which she had to do outside of school. She was the one doing the spell, but it essentially doesn't matter who does it. That's the thing, Twilight. That's the thing."

Jelly clopped her hooves on the floor. "Bravo! You did great. And you said you have weak magic? Nonsense!"

"You're too kind," I said, feeling my face flush.

Twilight exited the room and came flying with a mirror. "Can I, please?"  

"You may," I said. Jelly looked on.

Twilight put the mirror beside me and looked into it. "That's the strangest thing..."

"Is it, though?" I said.

"Now, it's gone!" Twilight said.

"No, it's not," I said. I looked right into the mirror. "Look behind me now."

Twilight looked behind me, and then frowned at me.

"No," I said. "I mean behind me in the mirror."

She looked into the mirror. "What does this prove exactly?"

It was literally a black lump, like a huge piece of dust, a mote, exactly behind me at all times.

"What does it prove?" I said. "Hm, hm, hm! What can it prove?"

"She figured it out without a mirror," Jelly said, coming to my defense. "It's not just some idea she had."

"Exactly. I get it, but what's the point?" Twilight said, again wanting to know.

"It's like a distortion," I said, pointing at the black dot that was reflected behind me in this small mirror, which Twilight had placed beside me. "Allow me to explain. When I step closer to the mirror, it comes closer. When I take a step back, it goes further off, from that mirror that is. It's always exactly horizontal to my body, exactly behind me." I pointed at it. "Look closely." 

Twilight did look close, letting her eyes sink into the mirror. "Sweet holy Celestia! What's going on?" Twilight screamed, her voice breaking octaves. 

Inside the black lump that was hovering behind me, lo and behold when you looked closer, was a tiny me, a super tiny me. It was a mini Sweetie Belle. "And no one believed me? Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk," I said.

"You can't blame them," Jelly said. "This is unbelievable, even for me who has been with you for a long time."

"I know, but feels good to be sassy. That's all," I said, with a relieved smile, happy that we at least got Twilight's attention long enough to explain this.

"What is that thing?" Twilight said, pointing in horror. 

"A changeling," Jelly said. "A tiny changeling." She held up her hooves close to one another, to indicate tininess. 

"I call her Tiny Sweets," I said, seeing it in the mirror.

"No, you don't!" Jelly said. "You just figured it out. You've never called it that in your life, you liar."

"Now, I do," I said. "Now, I do, so it's not a lie, because I've just decided that's what I do." I pointed at it, and then waved at it. "Hey! Can you see me?"

"Why is there a tiny changeling hovering behind you, that's invisible?" Twilight said. She then reached around me with her magic. I saw Tiny Sweets do a few pirouettes in the mirror, avoiding Twilight's grasp.

"It tells stories," I said. "I fear it might even be a true one, perchance." I laughed at that reference. The reader can be excused for not remembering that. "It tells me about who I am, what my thoughts are, what I care about, and so on. How, you may ask? Well!"





Out of the darkness appeared another little filly. In fact, she was identical to me. We were both horse foals, but she was the real one.

"What are you doing to me?" she said. She hovered in front of me, hooves stretched out toward me. She was angry, defiant. Her voice was that of a real pony, high-pitched. I recognized it from my memory.

"I didn't mean to, and I apologize. I'm sorry," I said. She grabbed me.

"Get out of my head." She shook me.

In kind, I shook my own head, and pointed at it with my hoof. "I can't because I'm stuck in here. I wanted the griffin to help me. Don't you remember?"

She let go of me. "I don't know. I'm just confused."

"I am too."

"I have done things," Sweetie said, "that I thought was impossible for any pony to do." I nodded.

She was right.





Me, me, me, stuck in a tree, is saying all these things, branches eating up me. I, I, I, feeling the breeze, and powers that be, and forces that free, which I think yet still are there back in the shade.

I feel alive, but what am I? I am what I, can say I feel, that I want, to be and there, are more things too, like feeling true.

I am alive, but what am I?

Sad!





The changeling that was hovering above me flew to the side and grew. "It's behind the eyes of ponies," she said.

"And within the minds," I said, with a nod of the head to greet this character.

"I am truly sorry for any harm that I may have caused," she said, becoming my size, an equal Sweetie Belle in size and appearance. 

"How sorry?" I said.

"Plenty," she said.

Jelly came up to her. "You tricked her."

Twilight gasped, simply. Just gasped, she did.

"Tricks are for kids," she said. "It is a pleasure making your acquaintance, Jelly, and Princess of Friendship, Twilight Sparkle. My name is Lyretex. I am what is known as an US-IDS, or more commonly, in the southern parts, as an US-ID, of the three facilities. I am essentially an alter ego of sorts, who lives behind the eyes of ponies and gives them an identity." She spoke in controlled pleasantries, and then fell to her knees, bowing. "I was assigned to said subject F-5226, who was taken to the Facility of the Dream between the fourth of July and the sixth of January in the year of one thousand o eight." 

"Who are you?" Twilight said. "How many more like you are there?"

"Did you think I would be unwilling to answer that, Princess of Friendship?" she said, staring at Twilight with blank, empty, spaced-out eyes. Twilight had indeed charged up her horn as she asked that question.

"Wh- no, I don't know," she said, the light of her horn fading.

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Princess of Friendship," she said, smiling for half a second, and then, the smile vanished. "There are a total of two million and one US-IDS deployed, each with different feelings and personalities, Princess of Friendship. This number is a reference point that will make it easier to keep track of the number of casualties and discoveries of each US-IDS." 

"Right! But what the f- heck are you?" Twilight said, half-hysterical, and half-fuming. "You brain-washed Sweetie Belle?"

"This is technically true," Tiny Sweets said. Yeah, I still call her Tiny Sweets, dear reader. What of it? It's my story. If this were your story, then maybe you would refrain from going on this tangent, but it's not, so suck it.

"Is this why she tried to kill Rarity?" Twilight said.

I listened on with bated breath now.

"You need to be processed and presented to the eye of sight, Princess of Friendship. She will be able to tell you about the starker details of the procedure. As for me, I was reading the script that was handed to me by one Aldeus, of the Facility of Technology, who created the fourth cycle, and said facility, Princess of Friendship." She spoke with my voice, but there wasn't much emotion there.

I looked inside the mirror and saw something odd. "You're like a black lump!"

Her body looked like a shadow that was suspended in the air on the other side of the mirror. "I am an US-IDS," she said, turning to me with a hoof reached out. "I am a shadow."

"Right," I said, shaking the hoof.

"I am invisible inside the sunshine, and almost invisible in the dark. I disappear against the light, and leave traces when light casts shadows." Her explanation was surprisingly simple and technical. "I am one of the last of my generation of US-IDS, who were born inside Anythlekzan, the limited zebra territory, a total of..." 

"Yes?" I said.

"..."

"This is too much," Twilight said.

"... Of eight years ago, in the year of one thousand o three." She smiled then for the duration of a millisecond, and then gave a single short obsequious nod in my direction.

"That is fascinating!" I said. "I have a few questions for you, before you depart."

"Correction. I have no desire to depart," she said.

"Okay, well, no one is going to keep you glued to my back," I said, "and I'm pretty sure Twi here, or even someone more powerful than her like, say, Discord, could remove you anytime they wanted, if they wanted to, and I'm pretty sure, if I understand the story of the elements of harmony right, that Twilight is a friend of Discord." I thought the notion that she would keep whispering things into my ear, and making me think that I thought thoughts that weren't my own, was silly.

"Discord is not more powerful than me," Twilight said, glancing off.

"If you say so," I said. That worked for me!

"Correction," Tiny Sweets, whose real name I guess was Lyretex, said. "I have no desire to stay glued to your back, or indeed, be of any discomfort to you whatsoever, Sweetie Belle. I only want to serve you in the utmost of my capacity, as a servant."  

"For real?" I said.

"Likely story," Jelly said. "There is no way in the world that she could trust you after what you did to her."

"What did she do to her?" Twilight said, looking back at us.

Lyretex smiled briefly at Twilight. She said, "This is an automatized procedure that is known as dream interference. It involves the insertion of a second voice into the mind of the subject, which is then known to direct said mind in each following step, act to act, as that person moves through life."

"You!" Twilight said, ramming her hoof through the empty air. "You are responsible for Sweetie Belle's mental illness?"

"This is correct," Lyretex, her real name is, said.

"That's too bad," Twilight said.

"I am agreeing," Lyretex said, expressionlessly.

"For you!" Twilight said, placing Lyretex in a purple shield that engulfed her and then sucked her down.

"Wait, Twi. I have other questions for her. Big questions!" I reached out my hoof to Twilight, trying to make her understand how I felt by the way I moved, and acted too.

"That's okay," Twilight said. "I am sure all of your questions will be answered eventually."

"I do not like that answer," I said, quickly as Twilight had finished. "I want to know what's going on now, sooner than later."

"You are an astonishing girl. You know that, right?" Twilight said to me.

"Well, shucks," I said. "But I still want to know what's going on."

Like fate, a horn went off! It was a discordant trumpet that seemed unsure of itself. It played a hundred different tones across five seconds. "NuNUUnu-nrrrg," it shrieked, making my ears ring.

"What's that?" Twilight said.

"Mrrlrg," an unhearable voice said from somewhere. Then, the sound seemed to settle, and readjust, and the voice became hearable. "All administrative personnel of Ponyville are being called to the northern border of Ponyville-proper." The sound was full of static, and I had to strain with all my brain to listen to it. "You are to be there in precisely eight minutes, or you will be subject to arrest under the rules of the Nonaligned Royal War Court as it pertains to the rules of occupation, section eight, paragraph one."

"That's... not fair..." Twilight said, struggling to find words even to describe what was going on.

"Does this usually happen?" I said.

"No, I have no idea what's going on, Sweetie," she said, frowning at me. "You'd better follow me."





Rows of griffins gathered in perfectly symmetrical lines. There was not an inch between them. There were at least two-hundred, and I tried counting several times, but I lost count. They were just outside Ponyville. Twilight was there, along with the longtime mayor, Mayor Mare, and her friends, the elements of harmony. Even Applejack, whom I had not seen until now, was there. Where had she been? Not in her own home, I thought.

A short, thin, long griffin with a strange gaunt stepped forward between two giant columns of griffins, standing to each side of him. He held up a scroll, "By order of General Effecias, the seventh General Generically of the Griffonian Liberation Army." The griffin lowered the scroll and looked straight at me. "G, L, A," he said. What the heck? "A thirteen-year-old unicorn filly by the name of Sweetie Belle, is to be extracted out of the township of Ponyville, within three days, pending a reasonable period within which to pack her belongings and say goodbye to her loved ones."

"You can't do this!" Rarity said, from the other side of the gathering where Twilight, her, and I were.

The griffin kept reading, unperturbed by Rarity's denunciation, "If this request is not fulfilled, the township of Ponyville-proper will stop being a protectorate of the Nonaligned Court and Canterlot. When this happens, the Master of Technology, Technologic Department of Machinery, will posthaste sanction the order of General Effecias, of the Griffonian Liberation Army, seventh of his emblem, to detonate a reasonably-sized, remote-operated, type A bomb under the township of Ponyville, killing all of its inhabitants, and leaving no survivors for the cultivation of the land by griffin farmers."

I looked to Twilight. She was the picture of anger and fury right then. Twilight's mouth opened and closed several times. I could almost hear her enunciating a few syllables, but she seemed to have trouble settling on what words to use. "Uh..." she said.

"Indeed," I said.

"Why?" Rarity said, stepping out of the crowd and marching up to the griffin with the scroll. "What use could you possibly have for Sweetie Belle? She's- she's just a child for Celestia's sake." Rarity stood right in front of him now. "Please, don't do this. Whatever you need, I can give it to you. You don't have to do this." She was pleading, in vain.

"Rarity," the griffin said. "I am only an envoy, sent out by the local headquarters of the Griffonian Liberation Army, in Mount Canterlot. I will be forced to do a dozen or so more of these messages before the day is over, so if you have any questions, keep them brief and answerable."

"I just want to know why!" she said, her voice faltering. She was sounding meek before this force of griffins and the envoy.

I didn't blame her. She was right. Why were they doing this?

"In the memo that was handed to me by the Master of Technology and Machinery, it said the following phrases: 'Sweetie Belle is of need to the one Hookbeak, in Circle town-proper, inside the storm. Ponyville is in dire straits, and it is not a safe place for Sweetie Belle, also known by some as subject F-5226. Upon discussion with General Generically, we arrived at a compromise where we would extract her in as safe and peaceful a way as possible. Two weeks ago...' This memo was written five hours ago. 'Two weeks ago, a scientific project, which is classified under the rubric EMP, was completed inside Ponyville. As Ponyville is no longer considered to be a useful strategic position of the seventh Department, that of Technology and Machinery, and since a proposal to rebuild its infrastructure to make it more griffin-friendly was rejected both by the Executive Tower Board, interim members as well as the last two formal members, and Queen Goldenclaw of the Griffon Empire, we had no choice but to announce the permanent removal of Ponyville as a proper township, and the rebuilding of a new town, called Griffonville." 

Twilight began laughing. "Griffonville? You're out of your mind."

"Again, I know this is likely to cause some confusion, but I am only reading a memo that was handed to me by Master McFruit, of Machinery," the griffin said, groaning slightly. "I am not responsible for any and all decisions that will have been made to level the historical buildings of Ponyville, or possibly but not certainly, disturb its inhabitants, which will be free to leave the moment that this filly Sweetie Belle, also known as F-5226, has been extracted."

"By whom is she known as F-whatever?" Twilight said, also coming closer, and standing beside Rarity. "Like, your superiors seem to think they can just do whatever they want and get away with it. There are laws. There are rules."

The griffin nodded, looking much more comfortable with Twilight's next question. "She is known as such by the following individuals." He raised up his scroll. "Cornicus Hookbeak Beakon, Coley who's an enforcer and mercenary inside Circle town, briefly by her friend Jelly Lime, during her year-long stay in the village of Terran, Starry Skies, the Yethergnerjz."  

"What other random powerful ponies, griffins, and ancients has she met that I'm not aware of?" Twilight said, acerbically with a sting in her voice. "Give me a break with all that and just tell me what's going on."

MY YEAR-LONG STAY IN TERRAN??? Huuuh? That was... odd? Odd's not even the right word. It's unbelievably baffling to say the least, I thought.

"The compromise was between destroying Ponyville with all its civil population yet within its borders, and letting said population leave in advance, as the ash of living creatures is a well-known and effective fertilizer, and this town will soon be reconfigured into a conservatively-sized farming town," the griffin said, looking up from the scroll. "If you wish to challenge this decision, you have three days to send a letter to Mount Canterlot, the contents of which will promptly be transferred to General Effecias, of the Army." The griffin closed his eyes and dropped his head, bowing to Twilight and Rarity. "Any other questions?"

"Yes, what the hell is going on?" Twilight said.

The griffin, rather than getting angry or annoyed, groaned slightly with an expressionless face. Well, maybe he was annoyed, but it wasn't entirely clear. He was quite sharp and to the point, without many emotions. "A compromise was reached between General Generically and Master of Technology of the Griffonian Liberation Army to raze this township, in order to rebuild it as a farming town. Master of Technology Rusty McFruit wanted to kill all its inhabitants, and General Generically, I have heard, was generally against the razing of Ponyville, which he considered to be, quote, unnecessary, at least according to my superior, the Lord of Schematics."

"Okay! I'm hearing a lot of titles right now," Twilight said.

"You're going to destroy Ponyville?" Rarity said.

"If you do not relinquish the unicorn filly by the name of Sweetie Belle within three days, you will be forced to stay here during the prompt demolition of Ponyville. If you relinquish her, you will have the right to leave, but Ponyville will still be demolished, as has been decided by my superiors, Twilight Sparkle and Rarity." He looked on in quiet reactionlessness.

Twilight was distraught. "This is the strangest thing I have ever been through, and that's saying something, mister envoy."

"You can't do this!" Rarity said.

"To answer your other objection," the griffin said, reading the scroll. "Section eight, paragraph one, of the law of the Nonaligned Court does specify conditions under which it is okay to occupy a township. Among them." He cleared his throat. "The relative safety of its civilian population, and living standards that are considered reasonable, within the purview of the produce that is delivered to each town, in accordance with its economic condition." Within the purview of the produce, I thought. What's that? Gobbledygook!

"Does it say anything about blowing up towns, and killing everyone in them?" Twilight said, reaching her head forward toward the paper.

"You will of course be given a copy of the telegram that was sent to me in the antechamber of the Ponyville Mines, down under," he said, pointing to the ground.

Rarity looked down, deliriously, but Twilight stayed fixed on the griffin. "Say? Do you have any idea who lives here?" Twilight said.

"Yes, I have been briefed," the griffin said. "In addition to complying with the rules and regulations of the Nonaligned Court, which specifies the conditions under which it is considered legal to occupy a village, city, or township, the Butler of Bureaucracy, Yervo Glint, will provide you with the relevant legal documentation tomorrow. It must be quite an honor to have him arrive here in your little town." 

"Was that genuine sarcasm?" Twilight said.

"Anyhow!" he said. "The same paragraph of the law also states that none of the other inhabitants, the ones that live close to or outside of town, have the same protection, and if you wish to leave, then that will also happen under the laws of the occupant."

"Does the Nonaligned Court's law really say that?" Twilight asked. 

"This has all been approved by the Butler of Bureaucracy," he said, holding out the scroll to Twilight. "If you wish to receive this copy of the telegram, then you can have it right now."

"Thanks?" Twilight said, receiving it in her magic. She glanced at it carefully. "You do know there is no way this will actually happen? I will just teleport you all off a cliff, or Discord will send you into another dimension." Twilight glanced up. "I mean, not you personally, but the ones that are going to set off the bomb."

"I am sure you will," the griffin said, as he turned to walk away. "I am just doing my job."

"Doing your job?" Twilight said.

"This is horrible!" Rarity said. "What are we going to do?"

"Not panic," Twilight said. "Not panic."

Uh-oh.
> Part 46: Pretending to be Sweetie Belle – Part 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I saw him go into that building over there," Jelly said.

"Are you sure?" I said.

"Why wouldn't I be? I saw him. Clean out your ears and listen, Sweetie, before you speak."

"Fine," I said. She was right.

Jelly knocked on the door.

The door opened.

We both rushed in. Jelly closed the door behind us, and Gripey backed up against the wall that faced the door.

"Are you on our side or not?" she said.

"Yeah," I said, pointing to him with my hoof. "Whose side are you on, Gripes?"

"Yours?" he said, with a confused expression.

"You lied to her on the train. Why?" Jelly said.

"Yeah, why?" I said.

Jelly glanced in my direction. "Are you going to do the talking, or am I? This is getting to be a little annoying, Sweetie."

"You," I said, shutting my mouth.

"I don't know what either of you are talking about," Gripey said, leaning back against the wall, which was white, wooden, and plain. "I tried to help you, Sweetie."

"Can I speak now?" I said, to Jelly.

"I never said you couldn't speak, but if you are going to repeat everything I say, then that's just awfully annoying, don't you think?" she said to me, with a high-pitched gasp at the last word.  

I stepped past her and up to Gripey. "Who are you?" Jelly had seen me walk past her. "Where did you come from, Gripes?"

"Now, don't you get any ideas," he said.

"Deception is not viewed kindly in the eyes of the one Hookbeak," I said, shaking my head. "Whose eyes is it viewed kindly in?"

"I didn't mean it," he said.

"Mean what?" Jelly said.

"It was a mistake," he said.

"What was?" I said.





She walked closer to me, and leant into me. I leant back. Its eyes were identical to mine, slightly augmented, with tiny patterns that you could only see if you got close enough. "You lie."

"No." I tried pushing her away but my hooves just went through her. "No." I tried again.

"Don't lie. Be brave. Be like me. Be alive."

"What are you doing?" I yelled. "What are you doing?"

She blew into my mouth. I could feel my body swelling. I had trouble enunciating words. "Stop it!"

"Be alive," she said. I hovered toward the ceiling, like a balloon. Gripey tried grabbing her, but his hands just went through her. "Don't die." She had eyes on Gripey now. "Be alive."

"No," he said, flying up to me, grabbing me, and pulling my swelled-up body down. "No, no, and heck no."

She blew air, and everything around us got cold. It looked like the air was coming out of her mouth, along with droplets of water, and snow, flying around the room, covering us. "Have no fear. Have no fear. Fear of death and life, is here."

"Skeyestar," I said. I dropped down, and hit the ground.

"Skeyestar?" the me-copy said. "Odd, odd, odd. You will die then, and be reborn."

"You're a one-pony show," I said. "You die."

The copy of me popped like a bubble, and vanished into thin air, and just like that, the storm evaporated, and now, I was dry, as if it had never been.

"Hm, something is different." I saw the statue. It was becoming visible. I poked it with my horn. The stony surface on it disintegrated, and melted off, revealing a pony. "Oh, so this is how I die then?" I said. "How queer."

Gripey stepped in front of me. "I'll protect you." He winked at me. "Again."

I was happy to be receiving his help, and hopeful that the vision he had just received at least went halfway in convincing him that I wasn't crazy, as I indeed hoped I wasn't, but one can only hope, I suppose. Then, a black, coal-colored, dirty mare, with dirt all over her body, came out of the rocks. Tiny pieces of rock fell around her. She saw Gripey and I. She gasped.





I thought back as he told the story. The aforementioned is actually my recollection of it. His was different.

"I had no idea what was going on," he said.

"No idea?" I said. "What did you do, you fool?"

"You were just talking to yourself."

"Talking to myself, was I?" I said, all aghast and astonished.

"This is sad, very bad," Jelly said, pulling her lips together. "Tsk, tsk, tsk," she said.

"So..." I said.

"I brought you to Grunt," Gripey said.

"You did now?" I said.

"Yes, I thought that he, if anyone, would know what to do."





We reached the top. We had gone through a building that looked unassuming from the outside, and really, was a military installation of some kind on the inside. On the inside, were a few ponies, a lot of ponies actually. Ponies were allowed to be militarily involved in the conflict against the ponies? Or were some of the ponies on the side of the griffins? Hm, I tell you. Hmmm.

"Okay," Gripey said. "This is a hard stop for me. You're the one to go inside here."

"Why?" I said, feeling suspicious all of a sudden. "What's happening?"

"This guy will be able to give you a few answers, or so I hope, at least."

Without a second thought, I grabbed the handle of the door, and I opened it. I went in, and then, I closed the door behind me. It was an unassuming door, made of wood, and with no guards outside. A lot of things about this situation were unassuming. I sighed. I hope he hasn't betrayed me or something, I thought. I hadn't known him for long. Could I really trust him as much as I had been given to? One may wonder.

By a desk sat an old stallion tinkering with a toy model of some kind. He hovered, using unicorn magic, tiny pieces onto the little model, and then he looked up. He looked down again, and did something. He moved the model to the side. He put something on it. It was a glass lid. It was behind glass. Then, he looked at me again. "I'm not one for timing."

"I see," I said, facing the door that I came from. "I want to go back."

"No need," the old stallion said. He was orange, and with long, unbrushed, grey hair that looked tangled and full of knots, like it had never been brushed. He was a faint orange, almost sort of brownish. I figured that he might've been oranger, more orange? That he might've been that when he was younger, but how am I to know?

I started going back. "No, wait," he said. "No," he said, a little more quietly. "This won't take long."

I hesitated, and then, I turned back toward him. "How so? What won't take long?"

"I'm sorry," he said. "I've been so busy modelling, I must've missed the time. I should stop doing that. Yes, it won't take long." He waved toward me. "You come here. Come here, quickly. Come closer."

I did.

"Please," he said. "I hope I never startled you. Ponies don't come around much."

"I'm not startled exactly," I said, looking for the words that would describe what I really was, if not startled. He looked at me patiently, as I did this. "I'm, dizzy? No, I feel a little scared."

He leant his head to the side, and then, he patted me on the head. "I'm so sorry. I'm Lowhoof Moss Hux the fourth."

"Is there an acronym or some kind of abbreviation that would make it easier to say?"

He leant back. "Just call me Grunt."





My head rushed as the memory came back to me. "I met Grunt in the underground facility." After I had come out of the machine in part 37, I spoke to him. "I met him... down there."

"He's..." Gripey said. "He's... very..."

"What?" Jelly said, scowling at Gripey. "It was your fault, wasn't it?"

"I don't know," Gripey said.





Whose fault was it?

Time can tell.





"Gripey, thank you. That actually was helpful. He told me a bunch of things I didn't know, though we mostly just talked about philosophy."

"He's one of the good ones," Gripey said.

"One of the good ponies? That's funny," I said.

"No. He's one of the good anti-war activists. He's an UPA-member."

"Ah, the United Peace Army," I said, remembering the words. "So be it then. He's one of the good ones of those."

"Yes," he said. I laughed. He smiled. We went back down.





"I don't know." Gripey was starting to plead, casting desperate glances at me. "Maybe he did something to you."

"Don't lie, Gripey," I said.

"I'm sorry!" he said.

"Now." I looked to Jelly, feeling a gush well up in my eyes. "The griffins are coming to blow up Ponyville, and we have no idea why. They want to use ponies as fertilizer and make it into a farming town."

"What are you talking about?" he said, slamming his head back against the wall. "Well, that was dumb of me." He clasped his head for a moment and looked at me with serious eyes. "What is going on out there, outside Ponyville?"

"You weren't there for the odd meeting, but these griffins gathered up around us, talking about how they were going to extract me out of town. Have you ever heard of such a thing, Jelly Lime?" I looked on with bated breath at Jelly.

"Nnuuu," she said, puckering her lips. "Nope. No, never have I ever."

"Never has she ever," I said, shaking my head hopelessly.

"Never?" Gripey said.

"Read my lips." I mimed the word 'never' with my lips, right then and there.

"What are we going to do about it?" Jelly said, stepping as close to him as I had.

"Yeah," I said.

Now, we had herded him against the wall. There was no escape for him, nowhere to run, nor anywhere to hide for that matter. He was stuck in the dumbs, down in the water, where we were, together, forever, alone, and confused.

"Can you give me some space?" he said.

"Can we give him some space?" I said, looking at Jelly with a newfound ease and calm, feeling like we were in control of the situation.

"Nnuuu," she said, extending the U.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to tell you," Gripey said.

"The truth." I poked him in the leg. "Or I might never trust you ever again."

"I don't know," he said.

"Liar!" Jelly said.

"I honestly don't know," he said.

"Fraud," I said.

"Where did you two come from anyway?" he said, giving the door unwanted attention with his gaze.

Well, as far as I was concerned, it was unwanted. "Look at me!"

"Wh... ?" he said, glancing in my direction and then back at the door.

"No," Jelly said, sidling up with me. "Be more assertive."

"Gripes," I said, feeling anger in my whole body, anger and cold, hard, dark fear.

"More assertive!" Jelly said, pressing up against me with the side of her body, as we both stared at Gripey, who was looking away from us.

"Gripey, you have to listen to me! You have to listen to reason. You have to snap out of this lie that you've told yourself," I said. I could kick him. I could try attacking him. I would do anything to have him take me seriously right at this point.

"Lie?" he said, looking back at me. "Where did you make that up?"

"I don't know," I said, staring deeper into his eyes. "But... I can see it in your eyes." 

"Sweetie?" he said.

"That's not what I had in mind," Jelly said, "but it works." She smiled contentedly.

I was not smiling, however.





There was a third pony there, an older pony of the male variety. "I know where we came from. We came from Equestria the kingdom long ago, but we left that place because we were tired of the war, and we gave up our own lives to join the cause to fix it, you see?"

I recognized him. "Grunt? From Manehattan? I'm sure I've met you before. You with the crazy uncouth mane and weird expressive expressions. What are you all about? Why are you here?" I tried to catch my bearings. "Were you part of the trick?"

"That's observant of you," he said, smiling. "I'm part of the anti-war effort, but the shining filly asked me to come here and help with recruiting new ponies to the southern force, and I was happy to help. I came through here myself once, long ago, but no one knows." He leant in, keeping a hoof tucked around my ear, as he came closer. "Let's keep that our little secret."





"I don't know. I'm not even sure myself," I said.

"If you don't know, then how can I know?" he said to me, scolding me, emboldening me, to push on.

"You know..." I said.





"Sweetie," he said. "It was... if you... if you don't stop, then we're all going to die."

"Stop?" I said.

"Listen. All this is real. I'm not saying you're wrong either but I'm real. You have to believe me. They're–"

Screeechhh... I heard.

"What was that sound?" I said.

Gripey was quiet now.

I kept on speaking.





"You said you knew on the train ride over here, when we... when we got separated... you were there. How could you have forgotten?" I said.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, tousling my hair.

"Enough! It's- can't you see that I'm afraid?" I said, feeling distraught.

He kept tousling. "It's okay," he said.

I pulled away. "My hair!"

"Sweetie?" Jelly said.





"I just want to go home," she said, crying.

"Okay."

"No, it's not okay."

"I don't know what to do." I spun around, trying to gesticulate.





"I- I..." I said.

"You're having a mental breakdown," Gripey said, coming toward me.

Jelly stepped between us. "No, nothing's wrong with her. Great friend you are. You aren't even listening. Why?" 

"It's not a breakdown," I said, while shuddering. "It's a realization."





"I'm sorry," I said. "I still have so many memories, and they're hard to shake. I don't want to feel like I'm a robot, but I do."

"What to do?" Rarity said.

This was a charade. "I'll tell you," I said. "I'll just keep going on normally, and learn to live with it, even though I still on some level can't shake the thought, and if it stays with me forever, then so be it. I will live with it forever, guys."

Twilight said, "That doesn't seem very healthy."

No, but it was better than getting locked inside a jail cell and banging my head against the bars. That's for sure, and that's what I was afraid of.





"What's going on?" Gripey said.

"She just said she's realizing something," Jelly said, matter-of-factly. "Aren't you listening?"

"It's not very nice," I said.





Don't be surprised.

Stars and Skies and Livid Dreams. Once, or twice, someone writes a book every now and then that lives on in infamy. It's a book that inspires ponies, and harms them, all the same. This is a book that inspired the sky-bot, Eyesstark, who had not received contact from any real sentient living creature, beyond Scootaloo, in many years. This all happened during something innocent enough, an expedition. It can happen that fate pulls you in a weird direction. It was nothing personal on the part of Scoots, or the sky-bot, or I, but it can happen.

Scootaloo wrote a book, you see, and that book, a little book, only a few pages, had a story, and that story, hear and heed, was about... a sky, and stars, and a dream. To create, in only a few words, and using wishes, and stars, a perfect world, and that, my friends, was game over for Equestria. Sidus came. Eyesstark's blame is shared by him, all the same. They both decided to rupture fate, using only a tiny amount of tricks, because little power can become much power, should you use it the right way, and they both knew that. He alerted her of a troubling future. Old and worn, he became conscripted to the mines, where he shall remain forever.

I was sent there. Well, I walked there. I thought that I was kidnapped too, but no. I wasn't, and what happened next? I entered darkness, and sealed my fate. I'm late, only recent arrival there, and I came, because they called me, unbeknownst to me, and others.





All of this flashed before me in my mind. Neither Jelly nor Gripey could see what I saw in my mind's eye. It was horrific.

"Come. Come. Come. The darkness awaits. Come, come, come, or your friends will be dead, and never reveal who called you here, 'cause under my veil there is not much air, and if you try to share it, and anyone does, then I will make sure that they choke upon death." A deathly shudder went through my body. I looked to Gripey, feeling the fear rise. "Do you know those words?"

"I heard them before," Jelly said.

I kept looking at Gripey. He did not respond. He was clearly hiding something. That much was clear.

"Where?" I said, turning to Jelly, and yet not letting my eyes leave Gripey even for a moment, as I turned. I couldn't. I had to look at him. He had to see it. He had to see how I felt. He had to understand that the only solution was to tell me the truth, whatever it be.

"You said them, Sweetie," she said.

"When?" I said.





“Okay, I forgive you,” she said. She kissed my cheek.

“But I wasn’t apologizing. What are you doing? This is all so weird.”

She gestured dismissively toward me with a small flick of her hoof. “Oh, whatever. I’m just trying to pass the time. But remember, if you ever hurt anyone I care about ever again, I will kill you.”

“Kill me?” A death threat? Finally, I felt at home again, strangely. “Okay, well, that sounds like a fair proposition, albeit strange hearing it come out of your mouth.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just messing around. I don’t know. I don’t want anyone to die or suffer. I spend most of my days in fear of losing Allyseyev, who took care of me when I had lost everything, and she’s taking care of you too. Where is the gratitude for that, if I may ask?” She looked askance at me, and strangely, it was very similar to the way that Allyseyev the zebrak had looked askance at me not all that long ago. I took the hint, finally, and stood up from the wooden-trunk bench.

“Well, okay,” I said, feeling a little repetitive. “Maybe I will go thank her then. How about that?”

“I think that sounds like a swell idea,” she said.





Another memory came back to me. "I don't understand," I said.

"You're not supposed to," Gripey said.

Jelly spoke up. "I remember it. It was when–"

"You want do this?" Gripey said to Jelly. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," she said.





People moved apart, switching sides, switching order, nudging for room, and then Jelly walked up, taking her mom's place. "I know all of this is really weird," she said. Yes! I wanted to yell, yes. Please, I thought. This needn't go on. The shame was too much to bear, and I wanted it all to end. I just didn't want to look at Jelly anymore. I didn't want to think anymore. I was gripped by an emotion that was more powerful than me, and it forced me down on the ground and had me in its grasp, holding me, pushing me, making me want to quit, and I think, making me want to die, and leave it for the ones that deserved to live, or at least, I would be punished until I myself was satisfied with the punishment, whatever punishment would do that. Kill me over and over again, as many times as I have killed others, I thought. This had to end now.

"No," I said. "Jelly, this is all wrong. You shouldn't be doing this. Think of your dad."

She coughed a little, looking almost like my words hit her out of her chair. She regained her balance. "Shut up," she then said to me. "No, you don't deserve to die. I have seen the way you act around other ponies when you got the chance to act nice. Of course I'm angry at you, but I always will be. That's not the point." I was resolved now. I would stop this foolishness at all costs. There was no snowball's chance in hell that I would let her do this.





"It was during the trial," Jelly said. "You told your story."

"But I don't remember that. I only remember telling that story to Colonel Caprice back when... oooh!" I got it now. "Aaah, how stupid."

"What's stupid?" she said.





It got harder and harder too as time went on. I felt more and more angry. I felt like I was dying, like my body was rotting, and I could not breathe. I mean, I must've been able to, or else I would not be alive, but I could not breathe for real. It was not real. Nothing felt real. All my breaths felt fake. It felt like everything I was came from a different place, and it must not have been good for my body too. Even though I was young back then, and I should've been able to survive it, it felt like I was so weak in my body. Things were pressuring on me on all sides, making it so that I could not move, and I did not even know why? Why were they doing this? Was I there for a month, or a year? What's a year, anyway? Unit of time? Everything felt pointless.

Those were the easy days.

When I had been there for a while longer, maybe a year or a month longer, maybe six months. It's hard to say, but when I had been there for a lot of time longer, I began to scream, kind of. I could not hear myself scream. I could not exactly be sure that's what I was doing, but I felt like I was starving. I felt like I could not breathe, for real this time. Everything was pressuring on me. My stomach had to strain to take even a single breath. It was okay for like a day, or whatever it was.





"I'm not your friend," I said to Jelly.

"Are we being figurative right now, or am I supposed to take that more literally?" she said, after thinking about what I had said for a few seconds. "What do you mean, Sweetie? Of course, we're friends."

"I was wrong," I said. "It wasn't just the bug. It was something else."

"What?" she said.

"This is awful!" Gripey shouted. "Why did this need to happen?"

"Don't be such a drama queen and tell me what's going on," Jelly said, frowning at Gripey.

"She's like those griffins in Circle town," he said, holding out his talons toward me. "I tried to help her, but she wouldn't listen to me."

"Jelly!" I said. "Listen carefully. I am not the same Sweetie that you knew in Terran, or Terramar, or whatever that place's name was. Terramar? Sounds like the name of a person..." I poked my chin. "Hm!"

"Sweetie," Jelly said, shoving my head into position, so we stood face to face. She adjusted my head with her hooves yet again, as I glanced off, trying to think. "You had better tell me what's going on right now, or I'm walking out of here–"

"I'm not Sweetie Belle," I said. "I was created to look and sound like her, so that I could go through all the terrible things she would've had to go through." 

"Same difference," Jelly said. "You're Sweetie enough to me!" She looked at me with angry, hopeful eyes.

Would I let her down?





They all said, "No, there are no strange insects around here. There cannot be. Impossible." They said all those sorts of things, but I know what I saw. It was a little insect. Now, there are times in your life when you don't quite know what to believe, but I knew that something strange, very strange, deeply so, was happening, when a tiny little insect came flying up to me, all buzzing and happy. I assumed it was, not because of some figment of my unempirical imagination, but rather, because I spoke to it, and it spoke to me. We spoke to each other. It's true. The insect said many things. Here's one.

It said, "We know who you are and where you came from. Have no fear. Everything will be okay in the end." Did the insect not understand that I did not understand anything of what it said? It was all cryptic to me. I was sitting there, trying to memorize many texts of important function and meaning, ones about depression for instance. I only had to read it once to remember it. The insect buzzed happily.

It said, "I'm happy. You are not?" Well, it's not that I was unhappy. I was almost always happy at those early points in my life, when I was sitting in the tower, studying, but I thought it was a strange question. What was this insect's problem exactly?

I said, "Go away, little insect." I had work to do. I could not spend all my time, talking to an insect.





"How to explain it? How to explain it?" I said, thinking back.

Jelly looked at me, wondering!





The sixth piece: As an addendum to the last piece, Sweetie Belle keeps figuring out the answer of the facility, and her own role in it, which she played, against her will. Solution: Give her all the dreams of her friends, and loved ones, and memories that have been changed, and manipulated. This will present enough confusion that she will not be able to form any stable belief until we have recaptured her, however long that must take.

The seventh piece: In the case of an emergency, should she become too happy and stable, she might figure out who [redacted] is. It's only the negative emotions that will make her insecure enough to question her beliefs constantly, we believe. Then, consult the sky-bot. We will make all the necessary changes, including making her think that fear is good, and negative emotions. If she acts as if fear is good, and should always be understood to be good, regardless of the context, then she will be under control long enough for us to enact our plan.

If this doesn't work, then perish the facility, remove it, and try again, again, until we get it right.





"It was... words," I said. "Mere words."

"Words?" Jelly said.

"Yes," I said. 

Gripey was quiet.

"I know all that," she said. "You told me."

"But there's one more thing," I said.





"What about this? You can try to write it down, and take as long as you have to take, but it's important that we learn about what happened, Sweetie, for the fate of Equestria." This was the voice of Twilight Sparkle.

"I believe it," I said. I wrote, but none of the words came out right.





"You see? After a while, it became hard to distinguish fact from fiction..." I said.

"I know all that," she said, hugging me. "I know. I know. You don't have to tell me."

"That's the thing!" I said.





I was alive, but what was I?
And what are you?
And what are we?
We are memories of a time.

We are memories of a time,
which,
could,
have,
been.





"I'm just a memory," I said, beginning to blubber. "I'm not..."

"You're not what?" she said. She had yet not let go of the hug.

"Real."





I am from the past,
and exist in contrast,
with a different time,
one that was a crime.

A filly that you know,
whose life was a horror-show,
wanted to save all those,
that you think you know, gross!

You don't know anyone.
You don't know any, none.
You don't know, anything.
You don't know, a thing.

You are blind,
just a rind,
whose life is not real,
facts which make you reel.





"It feels odd to say this out loud," I said, after a moment.

"I don't believe it," she said, letting go of the hug.

"I'll prove it," I said. "In half my memories, I don't remember being able to straighten my hair. My hair was made of some kind of artificial material."

"Which proves what?" she said.





“You want water?”

“I need running water. Water in motion, that is, to live. Without it, I will die eventually. It’s a strange thing, maybe to you, but it’s true. I need a lot of running water.”

“There is a river, not all that far from here,” the zebra murmured peacefully, as if she was talking to herself.

“Right. Take me to that river,” I told her, as if I was ordering her around.

The zebra sighed. “Is it important that we do this now?”

“No,” I said. “I simply want to do it. I have compulsions, but I could probably survive for another day or so, given my current power-level, and the rest I have helps.” I thought if maybe I shouldn’t have lied there to get my way, but what’s done is done. To know that my power was ticking down, without me knowing what exactly to do about it, wasn’t nice. It was pretty scary, as, if I lost all that power without reaching a power source, which again, can only be a generator or a place where water moves, I was toast, and not the kind that ponies or zebras like to eat, but the kind that’s final and ultimate and ending.





"Jelly? Remember when I said I needed to charge in the water?" I said.

"Yes?" she said. "You said that many times... and..."

"Okay, that's it," I said. "That's exactly it. That's the answer, what you're thinking of right now."

"Wow!" she said. "I was worried there for a few moments. Stop scaring me." She shoved me. I let myself plop down on the floor. "That's it? I could've told you that."

"Say it..." I said.

"You're not a water-driven robot. That's completely ridiculous, and logistically impossible," Jelly said.

"Right! Right!" I said. "I'm not, am I?"

"So what are you then?" she said, waiting for me to finish the thought.

"I'm a very, very sad person," I said.





"You notice much, and yet, you miss all the right things," it said.

"I do?"

"The word I can be someone else than yooou."

"It can?"

"You made Jelly? That might be true, but she made you, and you made her, and I is the thing to which all this happened, regardless of how you phrase it."

"Huh?"

"Everything that you do has been done to you, and things that happen to you have been done to you, and even though you do, doesn't make you the subject of your story, Sweetie."

"Huh?"

"Sweetie..."

"Huh?"

"These grammatical declensions don't track reality."

"I am as free as I want to be."

"You are me, and you are over here, and yet, you are doing all these things. How come? This is fundamental."

"Aaa... that's stupid."

"No, it's true. However stupid it may sound, it's true. That's for real, actual, and apprehendable reality, buddy."

"Oh, I know, but it's still stupid."

"..."

"Well, it is."

"Fair enough," it said.





"I just took it as one of your quirks," Jelly said. "Sometimes, you talked to yourself."

"Ugh!" I said. 

Stupid Jelly! Stop accepting it. Stop, Jelly. Stop it! Stooop. Stop. That's what I thought.





That's what I thought.

It all started a little over 11 years ago, in a place far outside of Equestria, in the dark and mysterious wastelands. There, was the mechanical fortress, the metal palace, which was my home.

That's what I thought.

Three short words… beep beep beep… three short words… beep beep beep… three. It was common knowledge that none of us would have any doubt, nor incapability to rip the head off a defenseless pony if we got the chance.

That's what I thought.

I opened the little door on my hoof and began recharging.

That's what I thought, literally.

He lit a match. "All you need is a little violence to get ahead of everyone else. It are those that refuse to use violence that get left behind."

"What about pain? Do we care about pain, and the negative effects it seems to have on life, in each moment, and the damage, permanent or otherwise, that it might cause, father?"

"Yes, but do not fear pain, my child. Pain is only fleeting, even when it appears to be permanent, and never-ending."

I knew what he meant. "Death."

That's what I thought. It was a thought. It was a thought. I was a thought. It was not a hallucination. It was a thought.

"The memory?" I said.

"Sweetie. The ninth of sight is an actor, or a bunch of them, with masks on."

"Those are my words," I said.

"No! Those are my words. You have my memory. You dreamed about it, buddy." The ship's voice got more and more weasely, and mechanic, like mine had been, but now I listened to my own voice, and in disbelief, I found that it was not that. I had Sweetie's voice again.

"Please tell me she is still alive," I said, just wanting to know that my meat-host was still okay.

"You were altered, using robot parts."

"No," I said. "No! That part of it is true?"

"You have been with Autumn ever since you fell unconscious in Manehattan, where I planted another dream in your head, one of Gripey's death."

My spirits sprung to life. "He's still alive?"

"He is also just a confection of the dream, but we had a hard time with him, you see," and now, the voice turned male, and was high-pitched, and manly. "He became an obstacle for our interfering with your memories, so we had to separate you two. Now, it's true that in this dream, Gripey really did experience death, and since he is only a memory inside a dream, in an alternate reality, it will be hard to keep him alive, but we have high hopes, because this is what we will need to be able to do, to enact his death, so I have an even-hoofed proposal for you, Sweetie Booort." The sound was so jumbled that it sounded like the thing was saying Sweetie Booort, mockingly, now, but maybe it was mocking. Either way, I didn't really care.

"I'd do anything to get him back. I promise," I said. "I promise. I really do promise."

"That is what we want to hear, because that is the kind of promise we can use." Now, it just sounded like static, the voice. "To revive, and bring him out of the dream and into real, brisk, frisk, stark reality, you need to make a sacrifice. One for the other, Sweetie Bot."

"What kind?"

"I knooow." The sound gave out for a second. "Nourrrgh not really... and... but... gah."

"What is it?"

"Some pestering buffoon is causing havoc inside the dream. I'll have to speak to you later."

The egg-ship, the metal cylinder, popped, and was gone. "Okay?"

Those were a bunch of thoughts. A lot of thoughts, they were, in point of fact.

I looked at him, with tears in my eyes, new tears, not ones from before. These ones signified something new. I was, something new? I was, afraid. Afraid. "Help me, please," I said. I was having flashes. Visions in my head. It all passed before me like quicksand, like the sand in the Yether's hourglass had. It all passed and flashed. It was beautiful. It was my life. It was true. Something passed by the window. This seemed to distract Gripey. He kept his eyes locked on the window. Then he turned toward me.

"We'll get you some help. The tower can fix anything."

Those were thoughts.





"It's like a double entendre," I said. None of the aforementioned in the last sequence was actually said, but I put things together fast in my head, is the thing.

"What's?" she said.

"I have this script in my head. It's fifty percent things that are really happening, and fifty percent things that are imaginary, because then, I can be Sweetie and yet not at the same time," I said, quickly and with a lot of manic energy, because I had just figured it out.

"That doesn't make any sense," she said. She looked crossways at me. "I actually did meet you in that forest. That was not a script. What do you mean?"

"You met Sweetie," I said.

"But I thought you said..." she said.

"No!" I said. "No, no. Listen. This is what happened. You met Sweetie. I was there in the forest with you. Sweetie Belle was somewhere else, controlling everything using the telescopes in the Astral Observatory. She had been given a script which showed every event that was going to happen, and exactly what to say, in conjunction with each event. Her words became my thoughts. My thoughts were my own, and I could not separate her words from my own thoughts, because her words were the exact same as my own thoughts in many instances, and only occasionally did they diverge."

"That's seems awful convoluted, and like you just made that up on the spot," Jelly said, with a frown and a tilt of the head.

"You see?" Gripey said. "She needs to get back to her family, where they can take care of her. I'm here for you, Sweetie."

"Now, wait just a minute. I'm not the problem here," I said.

"No!" Gripey said.

"Yes?" Jelly said. "What are we arguing about, now?"





Maybe I had just made all of it up. Did I have the evidence to back it up? Not really, no, which made all of it indistinct, because without evidence, it's technically impossible to separate fact from fiction. So I knew.





I drew my hoof on my own skin. "Wait." An opening appeared. "Uh-oh."  

"What's that?" Jelly said, pulling back in utter amazement.

I kept pulling on my skin. The skin opened up, revealing an opening with a little generator and a spinning thing, a thing that I recognized. "Explain this," I said, not quite understanding myself what was going on.

"It was true?" Jelly said.

"Wait! Was it?" I said. "I think... wait-wait-wait-wait. Something about this ain't quite right." I pulled at the thing. It physically hurt. "Ouch. What the heck. It's like it's part of my body."

"Hasn't it always been that way?" she said.

"No! I used to be able to eat, recently. What the heck. What's real and what's not?" I said, in shock. I looked around. "And where did Gripey go?"

Jelly looked around too. "The coward vanished. Typical cowardly thing to do, Sweetie," she said. She touched me. "Sweetie..."

"Yes?"

Her hoof wandered from my neck to my face, to my cheek. "You are all the Sweetie I'll ever need, so don't you worry about that, even for a second."

"But what if I'm not the real Sweetie? What then?"

"You can't fake being you," she said, hugging me again.

That was comforting.

I still was only just starting to figure out what was going on, though. The reader can be excused for not understanding it, but it does bear on everything that has happened, thus far.

That's not a matter of story structure. That's just how reality works, in general.





We made a plan. She would go look for clues, and I would go about my day, not being suspicious, as that was the most useful thing I could do for myself, she decided. Well, I guess it was more her plan than mine, but I had no real objections to it. Little did I know what I would be forced to go through, and I should have objected, I realized, in hindsight.

"Sweetie!" Apple Bloom said. Was her energy level always this high? I thought I was full of too much energy all the time, and this flaw, call it a character flaw or a problem with my biology, my body, or maybe even my brain, but this flaw, has been haunting me for a long time. Just now, I was starting to figure as to whether it truly was all that bad as I had thought it was. "Let's get some ice cream." This is still Apple Bloom speaking. Don't get confused. We're still on the same paragraph.

"Okay," I said.

Apple Bloom walked up to a stand on the open market. I figured that the energy around this place would be different if they all knew what was coming to them, but I guess Twilight kept it hidden for whatever reason, her and her close confidants and friends, the mayor even, nor did I have any plans on revealing it, no-no-no. You can say that again, no! No, I did not.

"Strawberry ice cream," Apple Bloom said.

"That flavor..." Scoots said.

"Yes?" I said.

Scoots' face wrung together into a disgusted grimace. "Is SO overrated."

"Fair enough," I said.

"What did you just say?" Apple Bloom said, turning around.

"I don't know," I said, feeling confused.

"She must've read a dictionary while she was in Manehattan," Scoots said.

"Typical Sweetie," Apple Bloom said, handing me an ice cream.

Well, they weren't technically wrong, were they?

I held the ice cream in my hoof. "So I'm supposed to eat it now?"

"You're funny, Sweetie," Apple Bloom said, with a snicker.

I licked it. It tasted like nothing! I mean, nothing-nothing-nothing! None. Nada. Nein. Not! It had no taste.

"So what does it taste like?" Apple Bloom said.

I rationally began sweating profusely. "Ummmm," I said, screaming inside. "It tastes like... strawberries?" Maybe?

"Hahaha," Apple Bloom laughed. "If you don't like it, then you can just say it. It's fine, Sweetie Belle."

I laughed too, a nervous laugh, which was a panicked laugh. "Hehehe," I laughed, wanting it all to be over with. I was sure I would reveal myself for the fraud I was anytime now.

"She doesn't like it. What did I tell you?" Scoots said, cheekily.

"Hey! Let her speak for herself, Scoots," Apple Bloom said. "She's obviously just not sure. Right, Sweetie?"

"Yes," I said. Yes, that! Obviously, I was not sure. I was not sure what nothing tasted like. What does taste taste like? I didn't know. I wanted to throw myself down a hole and bury myself out of embarrassment.

"When will you be sure?" Scoots said.

"Eventually," I said, giving the ice cream another lick. I started gagging.

"Look!" Scoots said. "I was right."

"Sweetie," Apple Bloom said, plucking the ice cream out of my hoof. "Are you just trying to spare my feelings?"

"Yes," I said, hanging my head low.

"Sweetie, you should just be honest. That's what friendship is all about, is trusting one another, and being honest," Apple Bloom said, in a scolding voice.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"More for me," Apple Bloom said, licking both mine and her ice cream now.

What to do now?





"You're it," Apple Bloom said, running away.

"What is the meaning of this?" I said, running after her. With each step I took, my leg hurt more and more. "What happened to my leg?" I said aloud. I stopped. "Ouch."

"What's wrong?" she said, stopping to look at me. "Your leg? Oh, the waterfall accident? I'm soo sorry, Sweetie. I didn't even realize."

"That's okay," I said. Was this the same leg that I had hurt back when... in... but... huuuh?

"Anyway, what do you want to do now?" Apple Bloom said.

What to do? What to do now?





"Do you want to sing?" Apple Bloom said.

Scootaloo jumped. "Let's do something else." She was practically jerking her entire body, hearing what Apple Bloom had said.

"Why?" Apple Bloom said. "I was just asking her a question."

"I'm not in a music mood," Scoots said.

"That's... oh?" Apple Bloom said.

I looked back and forth at the two. What to do? What to do? I had zero practice singing. Then again, I could just wing it, and improvise, for starters, but after a while, since they knew me, or thought they did, they would probably figure out that something was wrong. "I agree with Scoots," I said.

"But you love singing," Apple Bloom said to me.

Well, that was good to know. "I don't know," I then said.

"No, we can do something else," Apple Bloom said.

What to say? What to do?





"This is Lego," Apple Bloom said. She emptied a box of Legos in front of me.

"Ooh," I said. I had seen these little critters before, back when they were teaching us fine motor skills at the... focus, me! I picked up a Lego block. Then I put it down in front of me. I hovered a few until they became a square. "Fun!"

"Isn't it?" Apple Bloom said, looking at me as I played.

Something dawned on me. She must think I'm an invalid, I thought, like Jelly said. Everyone that has gone through this operation has had a decline in their mental faculties. That's what Jelly told me, I thought. "Oof," I said, putting some more Legos on top of the square to link it together, and seal it. 

"You're doing fine," Apple Bloom said.

"Good," I said, building some more. I didn't know what I was building. My imagination, and inspiration, would have to take care of that. I had fun, on some level, now.

"What are you building?" Scoots said.

"Does it matter?" Apple Bloom said.

"No, but it was just a question," Scoots said, half-smiling and half-frowning at Apple Bloom, and then she winked. 

"Why do you have to be like that, Scoots?" Apple Bloom said.

"Like what?"

"You're acting weird," Apple Bloom said. "Don't you think I haven't noticed?"

"Psh," Scoots said.

I was creating a mighty fine symmetrical square structure. I had decided that it would be a total of five stories tall, and with openings, which I had already decided in my head were windows. I laughed.

"She's having fun," Apple Bloom said.

I can hear you Apple Bloom, I wanted to say!

"You're just speaking down to her," Scoots said.

"Speaking down to her?" Apple Bloom said, grabbing Scootaloo's head in her hooves. "How dare you? You'd better leave, you jokester you." I looked up, to see what was going on more clearly. Apple Bloom was squeezing Scootaloo's head.

Scoots, in turn, took a step back. Apple Bloom let go. "Have fun playing with Legos," she said, walking away. "I'll talk to you when you actually want to play, instead of treating Sweetie like she's five years old."

"I am not treating her like she's five years old. Scoots!" Apple Bloom ran after her. 

I stood up. "Should I do something?" I said. "Nah." I sat back down. "It's better to let them sort it out."

What to do next?





We met up with Jelly. "Jelly!" I said. "We are... playing."

"Good on you," she said, grinning and patting me on the back. "Keep doing that."

We were outside the Sugarcube Corner. "I will?" I said. 

"Hey! I know you," Apple Bloom said. Scootaloo had gone away to mind her own business now. "I know you, don't I? We met you yesterday. You're in a parallel class, aren't you?" 

"No, we're in the same class. I just arrived here, so you don't know me yet," Jelly said, reaching out her hoof.

"Didn't we already shake?" Apple Bloom said, shaking the hoof.

"Yes, but let's shake again," Jelly said, "for good luck." Jelly used the shake as leverage to lean forward into Apple Bloom's ear. I couldn't hear quite what she said. She held onto Apple Bloom's hoof as she did this, not letting go.

"Yes, I think so," Apple Bloom said, in response, without joining in on the whispering. "I think so, and it's been going great. She's finding her place here in Ponyville again."

Jelly looked at her with a scowl that turned into a smile. "Great!" she said.

"I'm not entirely sure ever told me yer name," Apple Bloom said, holding onto the hoof as Jelly pulled back.

Jelly yanked but Apple Bloom wouldn't let go. "Jelly?" she said. "I'm Jelly. Jelly Lime, of the Lime family."

"That's such a strange thing to say, to talk about the name of your family like that," Apple Bloom said, finally letting go. "Like the griffins do."

"I'm from Pegasquire," Jelly said.

"Pegasquire!" I said. "I- I mean, nothing." Of all the things I had been able to put together in my head, this had to be the dumbest one to miss. Of course Jelly is from Pegasquire, I thought, because that's where I met her. Course! How could I have been so stupid, I thought. This had all been a mess.

"You know of that place, Sweetie?" Apple Bloom said to me.

"Ummmm," I said.

Jelly groaned and pushed me. "Yes, she knows all about that place." She nibbled my ear. "She was practically raised there."

"Hehe!" I said, feeling honest exasperation grip me. "Not now, Jelly," through clenched teeth.

"Now's the perfect time," Jelly said, nibbling some more.

"How do you know each other?" Apple Bloom said, with an awestruck grimace. 

"I..." I said.

"How DO we know one another?" Jelly said to me, as fear gripped me.

"We, um..." How long had I been at the hospital? Even if I wanted to lie, which I preferred not to, I had no point of reference with which to do it. What if I said, 'oh we met at the hospital'? And then, it turned out that I had only been there for like five days? I didn't even know myself for how long I had been there. For how long had I been there? Huh? What? Wh- ugh! I felt so frustrated at this point, but I had to pull it together, for the plan. "We are friends who met some while ago... when..."

"In Pegasquire," Jelly said.

I looked at her with manic panic. In Pegasquire? How did she expect me to explain that to Apple Bloom?

"When?" Apple Bloom said.

"Ummmm," I said.

"Two years ago," Jelly said. "Honest truth!" She put her hoof to her furry chest. "As true as pie."

"I didn't know you had been there," Apple Bloom said. I let out a sigh of relief. "That's amazing." How gullible was this pony? "You have to show me sometime." 

"Oh, we will," Jelly said, smiling at me. "We will, won't we?"

For whatever reason, Jelly had just decided that she should torture me today. "Indeed," I said, screaming at her with my eyes.

"It's a beautiful place. With nice buildings! You remember?" Jelly said to me. Then, she stepped the other direction, about to walk off. She stopped right beside me, facing away from me. Her head faced mine, just as she was passing by. "Oops. Payback doesn't feel so nice, does it?" She said it right into my ear.

"Drats," I said, in response.

She walked away.





Jelly's part:

* Ponyville Local Library

* Sugar Cube Corner

* Carousel Boutique

* Twilight's Castle

* Outside of Ponyville

* Everfree Forest ((was stopped by stupid, brain-dead guard, and was not allowed to walk that far))

* Ponyville Central Square

* Random houses (at least five!!)

* Find Gripey! (he was quiet and acted like a dummy like before)

* Ponyville Clothes Shops

* Ponyville open markets

* Speak to at least twenty ponies, (without being suspicious) Check!

* Eat lunch

* Say hey to legal guardian, so as to not arouse suspicion

* Eat if you need to more

* Look in the trees for clues?

* Ponyville is fun?

* Where did I put my pen? Oh, I'm holding it. Okay, that's stupid. I wasn't even noticing that I was writing that down.

* Ponyville Hospital

* The school???

I searched the doors outside the school, looked around, and then walked inside. Okay, so maybe this was a stupid idea, but I thought I would check. I sneaked the halls, and I saw no one but I kept sneaking. Then, I met the teacher Cheerilee. 

"You exist!" I said. Wow, brain. You couldn't have come up with anything better?

"You too?" she said. "What are you doing here, not on school hours?"

"Don't you worry about that," I said.

"I do kind of worry," she said.

What was I supposed to do? "Don't," I said, and then I walked away.

"Little Jelly. Where are you going?"

Isn't it sort of impressive how teachers can hear your name once and then remember it forever? "I'm looking for clues," I said.

I started running, hoping for the life of me to get away from that wench. "Ah!" I ran into a door and closed it behind me as quietly as I could.

"If it isn't Sweetie's friend?" Scootaloo said, sitting by a school-desk, in there.

"I didn't see you with her out there when I was talking to Sweetie and Apple Bloom. What's the hold-up? You know she has been through a lot. Go be with her," I said, mostly just wanting Scootaloo to leave me alone.

"I know. I do too know," she said. She drew a quill over a paper. "I found this interest recently. You might be interested, to know, you know." She looked at me, now. "Things aren't going so well for you, are they?"

"No, I..." What was she asking me? "No, I'm... Ponyville is not my kind of place. Let's put it that way. I'm used to living in mountains, and in different houses, where ponies aren't so close to one another all the time. I only like being close to the ponies I know I can trust. I learned that after... but that's not important! What are you doing here?"

"You feel that you can trust Sweetie Belle?" Scootaloo said, spinning the downy feathery lump at the back of the quill in the direction of the window. "She's out there, trying to survive. You should be doing that too. There will be plenty of time to look for clues later."

"I think you are my biggest clue," I said, coming closer and stopping in front of her. "You are privy to facts that you should not be knowing, Scootaloo. Tell me why, and then, maybe we could trust each other." I leaned over the desk and whispered into her ear. "You will not come close to her if you're going to act this way, you suspicious little ass."

"I enjoy indirect answers more than I do direct ones, I do admit," Scootaloo said, with a tiny, relaxed, calm smile. "Jelly. You are there for her, aren't you? I hope you are. She will go through things that are worse than what you have been through. Believe it or not, her life will be ruined many times over. You need to support her through all that. It's either that, or death."

"It's either that, or death?" I said, resting my hooves on the thing, looking at her.

"For both of you," Scootaloo said. "That's just a word of warning. You want to see her die? No, you don't. Your eyes tell a different story."

"Are you the one responsible for all this?" I said, after a second's pause.

"It is true. I am responsible for all of it," Scootaloo said. "I am the villain of the story, the one that spread deceit and lies all over her life, you know?"

I stood back from her bench. "This is all... a little bit too convenient for my tastes."

"It's true. A true adventure has more struggle and more sacrifices, each bringing the protagonist closer to his or her target, Jelly." Scootaloo pushed what she had written closer to me. It was a tiny, stapled-together book, with a simple illustration on the front. There were many black dots, and a rainbow over them. "This might just be the clue you have looked for, Jelly."

I grabbed it and scrolled through it. It was only six or seven pages long. "What's this? This is just a stupid book you wrote."

"You might think that," Scootaloo said. "But it contains clues."

"Why are you telling me all this?" I said, full of anger. "What's your problem? You can't hurt her and try to help her at the same time, but if you wanted to help her, you would come with me and explain all this."

"Let me tell you a secret," Scootaloo whispered. She looked around from side to side. Then she waved for me to come closer. She whispered into my ear, "If anyone finds out that I'm the evil spirit of sight, then all of them will be brutally killed by a machine that has not yet been built." I stood back. "But... maybe you don't believe me, and just as well, because why should you? Maybe there's something wrong with anyone that would believe me on this. Oh, no matter though. No matter." She stood up, and walked past me over to the window. "She's out here right now." 

I went over to the window. Sweetie was close to school. "How did you know?"

"Do you want to die?" she said.

"What kind of question is that?" I said.

"A true one," she yawned, opening the window. "Hey! Guys!"

Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom saw us. "What's she doing way there, up there?" Sweetie said, in her usual odd manner.

"Scootaloo," Apple Bloom said. "Have you recovered from your sourpuss symptoms?" 

"I'm sorry. I apologize for what I said," Scootaloo said.

I did the only thing I knew to do. I tackled Scootaloo to the ground and held her down. "What is your problem, Scootaloo?"

Scootaloo made no resistance. She let herself be held down. "What is my problem? I want to protect you, Jelly. That's my problem. You're hurting me."

"I'm hurting you! You'll see hurt when I'm done with you," I said.

The door to the classroom opened. "Take the book," Scootaloo said. "Sweetie will know what it means. She's clever enough."

"What are you doing, Jelly?" Cheerilee said, running in as I was holding Scootaloo down.

"Until next time," I said, spitting on Scootaloo.

Cheerilee pulled me off.

"We'll talk later," Scootaloo said.

"What was she doing?" Cheerilee said to Scootaloo.

"She attacked me," Scootaloo said.

"Attacked you!?" I said, trying to escape from Cheerilee who was holding me down with both her front-hooves.

"That's enough, Jelly," Cheerilee said.

"That filly is a psychopath," I said, trying to reach out and grab Scootaloo, but she was too far away and I was being held down.

"That's a horrible thing to say about to person, and I will expect you to apologize to her for that," Cheerilee said, as I tried to fight her.

I pushed against her with a magic field, but I felt too weak. I could sort of budge one of her hooves. She was pushing back too hard, and it was making it so that it took too much effort to get her off. "You don't understand. She is literally a psychopath, real, live, and breathing."

"How can you say that?" Cheerilee said.

I felt even more angry and frustrated. Why wasn't she listening to me? "She's probably responsible for the deaths of millions."

"Okay, that's just silly," Cheerilee said.

"It doesn't mean it isn't true," Scootaloo said.

"Hey! Don't tease her. It's bad enough as it is," Cheerilee said to Scootaloo in an angry aggressive tone.

"Understood, Miss Cheerilee," Scootaloo said, walking back to her desk.

"You know, sometimes ridiculous things are true," I said.

"Do you honestly believe that?" Cheerilee said.

Her hoof pushed down on me. I felt a tiny bit of pain, but nothing too much. "I don't know!" I said.

"I will take you to your mom, and she will sort this out with you," Cheerilee said. "But you will apologize to Scootaloo in front of the class later if you don't do it now. Understood?"

"I will sooner die than apologize, you ass. And my parents are dead," I said, drooling all over the floor now, trying to spit at Cheerilee as she was holding me down.

"What did you just call me?"

"You are an ass!" I said.





"Why are all these ponies so disgusting?" I said, opening the door to the building that was to be Sweetie and mine's meeting place. "Why can't they understand that they're all being lied to? I'm just thirteen. I shouldn't have to deal with this crap."

Sweetie came rushing in, and pressed herself to the door. "I think I hate children!" she said.

Okay, she was in this kind of mood now. I knew how to deal with this. "You're a child," I said, with as calm a voice as I could manage, given how annoying she was acting.

"How dare you?" she said.

I sighed. She was seriously going with this, was she? "I'm a child," I tried, again.

"Jelly! Don't say that about yourself."

"Okay, this is not funny, Sweetie," I said, walking to the door. "Step away from the door."

"Why does everyone think I'm joking? I'm not joking, and I'm not stepping away from the door. They might come in. I need to guard it so they don't come in," she said. Yeah, I didn't mean it like that. I knew she wasn't joking. She was just acting insane, but still, it wasn't funny!

"You're not going to stop anyone from entering, Sweetie," I said.

"What?" she said.

"What do you mean, what?" I said.

"You have something on your mind?" She finally stepped away from the door. "Did you find something out when you were out and looking for clues?"

"You're not gonna believe this," I said.
> Part 47: The Truth is Revealed
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sweetie looked at me. She blinked, all slow-like, really slow. So slow that she, seemed, like she was somewhere else. Then, she blinked again. "Say something," I said.

She blinked at me, another time, taking two seconds to close her eyelids. "You were right."

"About what?"

"I was not gonna believe you," she said.

"It was her. She said so herself," I said, trying to convince her, and get it through that thick skull of hers. "Listen. Try to listen for once, Sweetie."

"Scootaloo is a thirteen or twelve years old boyish girl who likes scooters," Sweetie said, just pouring water on everything I had said.

"So? She said- she wouldn't have known these things..." I said.

"The facility that I worked at before I escaped was a massive organization consisting of six departments, more than fifty enclosed buildings, a hundred floors of tunnels and mazes, a blood-hungry tyrant whose name was Aldeus, is Aldeus, two and a half million robots that are enslaved, working there every day, and you're claiming that a filly our age is responsible? How could that even fit?" Her eyes were glazed over. 

She was obviously in her own world by this point. "But Scootaloo told me these things. Look!" I pulled out the little magazine slash book that Scootaloo had handed to me out of my hair. "Take a look, then. She said you would understand."

Sweetie grabbed it. "This is..." She dropped it. "This..." She picked it back up, hovering it. "There once was a star, way up there, above our heads, greater than all of us. It's..."

"Yes?" I said.

"It's of the sky. It's of the mind. It surrounds us. So pretty is the star, so perfect its shine, that it hits our hearts with an everlasting shame." Sweetie flipped a page. "It's... the stars each grant wishes. That's their power. They are so beautiful. I love stars... this is... this sounds like something that was written by a twelve-year-old," she mumbled, dropping it again on the floor. She picked it back up. "There's something reminiscent about all this though. I will admit that, and I believe you when you say that Scootaloo said all those things. I just figured it might've been some type of prank, or another, but this is odder than odd, indeed."

"Right, right," I said. "I agree with you wholeheartedly."

"I just remembered something else," Sweetie said. "What did you say was the name of that classmate that had gone through the operation, the same one I had gone through?"

"The brain-cutting operation?"

"Whichever else?" she said.

"Lily Star, of course," I said. "I thought you'd remember. You always seem to remember."

"Oh, I wanted to be sure." She flipped the page. "The stars have secret powers, each one a spark... huh?"

"What is it?"

"And the stars all grant wishes..." Sweetie said, continuing the story. "I... I don't want to jump to conclusions like I did at the beginning of the day... but I do... think we should go talk to this filly by the name of Lily Star, Jelly." She closed the book. "Now!"

"Why?"

"When I was in the hospital in Manehattan, the shining evil filly of light gave me a flower that was a lily. I don't suppose... she might've tried to send some type of message in her usual, odd way."

"You see?" I said, remembering back to the stories she had told. "The evil villain in your adventures has been a filly. It fits."

"But it can't actually be a filly," Sweetie said, swiping away what I had said with her hoof. "That's crazy-talk."

"You're a filly, and you don't act your age, nor do I, Sweetie. Is it really that hard to believe?"

"Yes!" she said. "How would a thirteen or whatever year-old even have gotten the time and opportunity to do something like this? It's not enough to be evil. You need to actually have the resources to enslave a giant chunk of the whole- the whole world of ponies. How does that even happen? There has to be an explanation that's deeper than all that."

"It can be deeper, but the default assumption that it's so unlikely so as to be impossible I think is dumb-dumb, and stupid. It's below you to assume that things are impossible, Sweetie. You once told me that nothing is impossible, when you believe!"

"I used to be an engineer. That's what I told myself," she said.

"No!" I said, feeling let down by what she was saying. "No, you believed that in your heart. It wasn't just something you told yourself."

"Honestly, some things are physically impossible, but it's not impossible until you know it is, and you're right. We don't know! We should go confront Scoots and tell her what we think about what she said. She has earned a visit from us. That's what I feel," she said.

"You will admit that I'm right about this soon enough," I said.

"I will do what I do," Sweetie said.

Bonkers! Scootaloo is responsible? No, she was right. Something was weird about that.





Scootaloo soared through the air on her scooter.

"Let me stop you right there, Scoots, if that is your real name," Sweetie said, holding out her hoof.

Scootaloo braked and stopped right in front of Sweetie, inches away from her. "It is," she said.

"Jelly here has told me some worrying things about you, and I want an explanation, right this second, preferably a good one that explains things," Sweetie said. She was on fire. How would evil Scootaloo deal with this?

"You want to play?" she said.

"I'm afraid playtime... is over," Sweetie said. She grabbed the helmet that was on Scootaloo's head in her magic and tossed it to the ground. "And that's what I think about your helmet."

"Too bad, because I would've loved to have played, Sweetie," Scootaloo said.

"Don't play games!" Sweetie said.

"Why? Don't you love them?" she said.

"No, I want peace," she said.

"No, you don't," Scootaloo laughed. "You love adventure. You're a junkie for it, practically."

"What are you talking about?" Sweetie said.

Scootaloo picked up her helmet and put it on her head. "Let's play scooter. You just jump right up." She lifted her helmet off the head and flicked it onto Sweetie's. "And then you push off."

"I don't want to scoot. I want an explanation," Sweetie said.

"I keep explaining things to you. You just won't believe your lying ears, is all," she said. "Here." She pushed the scooter over to Sweetie with one of her hooves. "It's funner than you think."

"I don't want to have fun," Sweetie said. "I want to know what's going on. I'm scared!"

"I can't help it. I have scared ponies for years now," Scootaloo said. "How about this?" She walked in a circle around Sweetie and stopped behind her. "I'll answer any question you have, literally any question, if you try the scooter for one minute. How's that?"

"That's dumb-dumb," I said. "Just answer her question. Be mature."

"Yes, but I want to see Sweetie try the scooter," Scootaloo said. "She has spent a day playing Apple Bloom's games. Now, it's my turn."

"Sweetie, you don't have to do this," I said to her, as she climbed on the scooter.

"You'd better tell me who you actually are," Sweetie said, pushing off with one of her hooves, rolling away. "Okay, this is not going well." She got off-balance and almost fell. "Ouch, oof, oh, never mind." Sweetie rolled faster. "Yeah..." Then, she went down a road that curved downward. "What's this?" She went straight down! "Aaah!" She came up the other side as the road curved back upward. "Has it been a minuuute?" 

"No," Scootaloo said.

"Now, you're just torturing her for no good reason," I said. "Cut it out."

"I'm not torturing her," Scootaloo said.

"You SO are," I said.

Sweetie turned around and scooted back. "Aaah!"

"Okay, maybe I am," Scootaloo said, leaning her head in my direction with what can only be described as the most dumbest grin I have ever seen. 

"Sweetie! You don't have to do this," I said, as she came rolling back up.

Sweetie picked the helmet off her head and threw it at Scootaloo. She ducked, and then stood back up. "How was it?" she said.

Sweetie responded, "It was terrifyingly fun. A horrible experience, to be sure, and I don't want to do it ever again."

"What did you just call it?" I said. "You were screaming your head off."

"Have you ever tried a rollercoaster?" Sweetie said.

"No?" I said.

"No, me neither, but I imagine it's kind of like that," Sweetie said. "You have zero control, you're falling and going up, but then, you realize that no. This is actually just fun, albeit scary- what a second!" Sweetie skewered Scootaloo with her gaze. "You did- you thought... huh?"

"Surprise!" Scootaloo said. "Wasn't that fun? Okay, now give me back my helmet." She chucked her hooves across Sweetie's head and pulled the helmet off. "I have my own protection. You get your own... for when the big bad battle comes." She put it on. "You need to focus. Pay attention. You're so scatterbrained, Sweetie. You need to focus. Keep your eyes sharp."

"Wait-wait-wait," Sweetie said. "You said I could ask one question."

"What did you have in mind?" Scootaloo said.

"What is your real name?" Sweetie said.

Scootaloo giggled. Then, she broke out into raucous laughter. "Hahahaaa!"

"This gal has got a screw loose," Sweetie said, pouting and shaking her head at me.

"You are brilliant, Sweetie," Scootaloo said. The laugh wore down, and she took breath after breath, collecting herself. "Phew. Imagine that. Of all questions you could've asked."

"You're insane," I said.

"My real name is the, skies, the, signs, in, sights, a, lie." She raced off on her scooter. "Hoo-boy. That's wonderful. Truly, truly, truly!"

"Truly, truly, truly?" Sweetie said. "Am I being taken for some kind of fool by this gal?"

"What she told you was nonsense," I said. "What a ripoff."

"We'd best be going," Sweetie said, making a sharp turn back toward Ponyville-proper.

There was a sign that said "Ponyville-proper" close to the urban part of town, for whatever reason.

We would go find Lily Star now, I thought.





"Hey!" Sweetie said.

"What?" I said.

"I wasn't talking to you," she said, pointing at me.

"Huh?" I said. "Say what?"

"Hey! Lily Star," Sweetie shouted.

"Oh, so I was right. We were going to go see her," I said.

"Correct," Sweetie said.

"How do you know that's her?" I said.

"Her butt," Sweetie said, pointing at her. "She has a lily and a star on her butt."

"The ones that named her predicted that?" I said. "Imagine it. Or was it just a coincidence?"

"It was fate," Sweetie said, staring into me.

"O- okay," I said, surprised by the intensity, all this suddenly.

"Hey!" Lily Star said, coming up to us. "I am Lily Star, I'm twelve." She smiled. She had purple hair, and a frizzled tail. With a big grin, she showed her braces. "What's your name?"

We were out in the evening, on Ponyville Central Square. That was our location.

"I've talked to you literally dozens of times. You know my name," I said, feeling annoyed and disappointed that she wasn't remembering our times together.

"Yeah..." she said. "So what's your name?" She looked at Sweetie.

"My name is F-5226," Sweetie said. "Disguised designs incites, say lie." Sweetie's eyes narrowed. "Do those words tell you anything, Lily Star?"

"You're going straight for the jugular," I said, shaking my head slightly. "Maybe that's not such a good idea."

"Are you?" Lily said. "You're saying it all wrong, so I don't think so."

"Ah-hah!" Sweetie said. "You recognize it!"

"I'll show you..." Lily said. "Do you want to know how to write it?"

"Wh- hmmm!" I said. "Lily Star. You lied to me!" I walked up to her and shoved her away, off from us, because of the way she was acting. This was not her. She was not like this.

She hadn't been at least, before. "Don't," she said, falling to her side. "No, I never. I swear, I didn't. I- I didn't lie. I never want to lie ever again."

Now, Sweetie got involved. "Don't shove her," Sweetie said, looking at me with scorn and anger, rightly so, maybe. "She's not explained herself yet. Give her the opportunity." 

"Gimme the opportunity," Lily said, standing up and brushing herself off. "I- I just..."

"I gave you my trust," I said. "You spat in my face." I was getting furiously angry. "This is not okay, Sweetie."

"Yes, but you can't use violence. It might alert an adult, and besides, you should have more self-control than that, given that you act above your age, you said," Sweetie remarked, which annoyed me, but she was right, which annoyed me. Everything annoyed me.

"Mrrr, grr," I said, getting quiet.

"Let's... go," Lily said. "Let's..."

"Quit it," I said, going to shove her again.

"Have you lost your mind," Sweetie said, pushing me out the way with both her fore-hooves. "You could get yourself in trouble, and we should not act violent unless it's absolutely necessary. You hear me?"

"That wench is lying. She's a whore!" I said, losing my temper a bit, but she was acting like a bloody wench. That was for sure, I thought.

"Okay, that's not apropos of anything," Sweetie said. "However, she might not be lying. Hear her out."

"She's pretending to be slow. She's not!" I said, just angry that Sweetie wasn't getting it, most of all.

"Maybe not," Sweetie said.

"No, I- I am slow," Lily said, eyes full of tears. "I- I can't help it."

"You see?" Sweetie said.

"What? You're not! I'm about to walk out of here right now," I said, just wanting Sweetie to listen. Nobody was listening. Why was everyone acting so stupid? Everyone was being disgusting, why? I wanted to push her again. I wanted to push Sweetie. They were all being dumb for no reason, not listening to me. "I will go!" I didn't even understand why they were acting like this, and I didn't feel like I was being overdramatic at the time. "You are dummies, all of you."

"Talk less. Listen more," Sweetie said. "No one is forcing you to do anything, you hear?"

"No!" I said, running away with honest to Celestia tears in my eyes.





"Jelly! Cheerilee told me about what happened," my fake-mom said.

I tried getting around her into the house. "I don't want to talk about it. Cheerilee is stupid. She's stupid. And Scootaloo deserved it. Scootaloo is evil." I sobbed and sobbed. "This is dumb. This is so dumb." I felt myself shaking, so I steadied my body. "This is so so so dumb. Why is everything so dumb? I'm sorry! I'm sorry. No, I'm... I don't know. I don't..." I took a deep breath. "I want to... I don't want to eat... I'm sorry, I don't deserve to eat. I don't... don't listen to me. Don't... please don't look at me, m- I- you're." I looked up at her. She was looking all sad, concerned, and dumb. She was dumb. "I just don't... you know, I'm fine BUT THAT DOESN'T MATTER, it doesn't matter how I feel. I did wrong, I think, maybe not. I want to go." I turned around to run back to Sweetie. Coming here had been a mistake. I didn't want to look at her. I couldn't look at her. I didn't want to see how she felt by looking into those eyes, if that makes sense. I didn't want to see the fear, if that makes sense, actually.

"Jelly, come back," she said.

I turned around and looked to her. "No... I'm sorry, m- m- you're just trying to take care of me. I'm sorry!" I was about to run away, but then I got face to face with Twilight Sparkle. "You!" I said.

"Sweetie's little friend," Twilight said, scowling at me. "What are you doing out at this hour? This sun has gone down, and those pesky griffins don't allow us to go out when it's dark... especially not children, Jelly."

"Y- y- y," I said, having trouble getting the words out, out of nervousness.

"Yes?" she said.

My fake-mom came running. "I'm so glad you came her at this moment, Princess Twilight. I don't know what I would've done if she had run away."

Twilight fixed her with an angry gaze. "What would you have done? Taking care of her is your responsibility. I cannot look out for all the children in the neighborhood, especially not in these troubled days. And you have to make sure she's inside at nightfall, regardless of what you think she may or may not have done wrong, Seafair." Twilight looked to me now. "And you, Jelly Lime. I have learned some troubling things about you as well, and I feel sorry for you, but I have no idea why you would randomly attack Scootaloo, in the school of all places." 

"Aaaaaaaaah!" I screamed. My emotions at that point were a mix of anger and excitement. "Aaah!" I turned to run away. 

Twilight hovered me up in the air, so my legs spun in the air. "No!" Twilight said. "You stay put. We will not tolerate this. It is for your own safely, after all, and you will not receive special treatment because everyone around you has lost a loved one to this war. Everyone has been shook... and it's not over yet." Twilight marched right over to the door of my new home. "You will stay in here, or the griffins will kill you. That's it." She put me down inside the door, right inside the door opening. "That's it." She walked away.

"Uh, b- uh," I said, reaching my hoof out. "N- you- I- I- oh." I lowered the lonely hoof. "Nothing. 'Twas nothing."

"You'd better walk inside. You heard her," my mother said. Fake mom!

"F- fine!" I said. She was just trying to take care of me though. Wasn't she? She had been nice to me. Right? She had... I thought so at least. Maybe I had been the problem all along, not wanting to live in Ponyville, wanting to go back to Pegasquire. I could never go back to Pegasquire because...

I ran into the house, into my room, closed the door, and cried tears of not anger, not anguish, and not anxiety, but just fear, at that point.





I heard a knock on the door. I rubbed my eyes. I thought it was probably for me. I stepped out of bed, out my room...

"I'll get it," my new mom said.

... and she opened the door.

"Howdy-howdy there, Jelly-mum," Sweetie said, seeing me behind her. "Mind if I have a word with your foster care child?"

"She's my daughter," new mom said, letting me out. "Don't you forget that," she said to me.

"Y- yes," I said, going out the door and facing back toward her.

"I don't want you to feel uncomfortable," new mom said.

"Yes," I said.

"Pressure!" Sweetie said, not seeing the subtlety of the situation, and the fact that I wanted her to be quiet and this conversation to be over.

"Yes, I know it's a lot of pressure," new mom said. "I know it is. I just want you to know I love you. That's it."

"Yes," I said.

"Let's go," Sweetie said. "I learned something interesting about today, you might be interested to know."





"Nightmare Night?" I said, but of course it was. I had known that for weeks. I had just totally forgotten about the date.

"I know I'm kind of being too obvious about it. I mean, just look at the décor," Sweetie said, waving her hoof at the obvious décor around us.

"You mean that you were being too obvious that it was happening, even though it was already obvious?" I said. I suddenly snorted, and then, I wiped my nose swiftly.

"You look tired," Sweetie said. "Did you sleep bad? I know how that is."

"For sure," I said. "I was reminded of some bad memories, and I never forget."

"Is it normal to have the same dream twice?" Sweetie then said.

"Yes, if you've been traumatized, it absolutely is," I said, feeling kind of shocked by this question. "How so, Sweetie?"

"I was... trying to experiment with an idea," she said, mulling something over in her head.

"How's it going?" I said.

"Oh?" she said.

"Are you getting somewhere?" I said.

"I just... I know that the villain somehow did all this to us without actually interfering with the situation itself. It's somehow a top-down thing, or else, someone would've figured it out. I mean, someone! There are plenty of creatures that are nigh-omniscient around."

"Who?" I said.

A ball of light dropped out of the sky. Everything got all dark.

"Night!" I said. "What's happening? Oh, no! Is this Scootaloo's doing? Is this the end of the world?"

"No!" Sweetie said.

"I know she hurt you, Sweetie. I'm sorry!" I gripped her with my both fore-hooves. "I'm so incredibly sorry. I wish I could kill her."

"I know," Sweetie said, while hugging back.

"What is this?" Discord said, crawling around us.

"What is that!" I screamed, running the other direction.

"The one and only," Sweetie said.

"Is she panicking about the sky?" Discord said. "Typical ponies have no appreciation for darkness."

Twilight collided with the ground, causing a literal crater to form around her. "Discooord! Bring back the sun, now!"

"Twilight," he said. "You know where that attitude has led you ponies before. Nowhere good. You need to appreciate the day." He opened the palm of his hand. A blinding shine came out of it. "And the night." In his other hand, which he opened, he held a tiny moon. "This is the actual sun and moon by the wa- hahahaa!" He totally lost it. He had a blast manipulating the basic laws of reality, apparently.

"That's unbelievably stupid, if true," Twilight said, her horn shining up, and shining stronger and stronger.

"Just kidding," he said. "It's just a matte painting." He put a finger to the air, and a hole appeared, light coming out it onto the group of ponies that now had gathered there. Then, he reached his hand inside the hole and pulled. Pieces of the sky, and the surrounding environment tore into pieces, each falling down on the ground around us in the form of a fabric, even houses, surrounding buildings, and bits of the ground. 

I jumped and held Sweetie as a giant hole was torn in the ground. "What is that, a matte painting? What's that?" I said, holding Sweetie tight.

"Calm down," she said. "He's one of the good guys."

"Well, on a good day," Twilight said, as the world kept turning into disconnected patches of fabric lying everywhere, and eye-blinding light came out in all directions, out of the holes in the fabric that had fallen on the ground, representing buildings, sky, and road. The patches of road, rather than falling, flew up and hovered higher and higher into the air.

"We're gonna die!" I said, running off and down into one of the holes. I landed on my belly in front of Discord.

"Why are you running?" he said.

"This is not a disaster," Twilight said. "This is not a disaster. This is not a disaster. This is not a disaster." She closed her eyes. "This is not a disaster. This is not a disaster."

"You know, I think it might be a disaster," Sweetie said.

"Okay! When I reverse this spell, the Nightmare Night preparations had better still be there," Twilight said, and her horn shone up again. The tapestry of buildings, sky, heaven, ground, whatever it was, exploded, and fabric flew everywhere. It landed on Twilight, Discord, me, Sweetie, ponies, mares, some colts, buildings, chimneys, and all over the ground.

"Dis... mrrr," Twilight said, having something big and heavy, a fabric that had stars on it, fall on top of her.

"That's your rightful place in the world," Discord said, through a stifled little chuckle. "You should be quiet." He grabbed it with his hand, which reached all over and lifted it up so that it hung above Twilight's head. "I'm just messing with you. Why are you being such a grump?"

"Nightmare Night is coming, and we need to keep it together, not be stupid, and not be crazy!" Twilight growled aloud.

"I'm just messing with you. Calm down," Discord said, teleporting behind her in a flash and wiping her behind. "I'm just cleaning you up."

"Discord, that is unbelievably inappropriate, and beneath you," Twilight said, turning around to face him.

I gasped. "That's horrible," I said.

The wind, I felt, got stronger, and it blew right into my face. Discord's giant demon eyes aimed at me, now. 

"Get away from me," I said, jumping to hide behind Sweetie.

"That is such a funny look you have," Discord said. "I didn't mean any harm. OH! Of course, no one will believe me. Why would one ever?" He teleported to behind me and picked me up in his hand. Either I shrank or he grew, because I felt pretty small, standing on his palm. "You're a sad one, aren't you?" 

"Never sad enough. It's never over," I said, trying my best to look big and brave in front of him. "L- leave me alone."

"Discord. I will leave Ponyville to get the elements of harmony," Twilight practically shrieked. "Have some self-control. What's gotten into you?"

Discord put me down beside Sweetie. She hugged me tight. "That was not good," she said.

"Obvious-povious-pants," I said, slapping my hoof on top her back in something that I thought was being playful at least.

"I am so so sorry," Discord said to me with a handkerchief in his hand. He didn't use it or anything. He was just holding it. "I am soo, so sorry." He glanced to Sweetie. "Hey! I recognize you. You are a white foal by the name of..."

"Sweetie Belle?" Sweetie said.

"Discord!" Twilight said, flying in-between us. "Go back to your home... until we need you."

"Sweetie Bot!" Discord said.

"What is wrong with you?" Twilight said, shooting a purple beam at Discord.

Giant chains bound him down, and he fell over. "I thought it was funny," he said. "If you don't think so, then that's okay, actually, by me that is. I think it's okay, because it is. It's a-okay." The chains were shining and purple.

"Nothing about this situation is okay," Twilight said, standing beside him. "You scoundrel."

"What were you getting at?" Sweetie said. "You said I'm Sweetie Bot. Why, where did you get that idea?"

"Yeeessss," I said. "Wherever did you get that idea, buddy?" I laughed. "Heh," but then, I stifled the laugh, and that felt kind of bad, but I had to, because I was done laughing, and I was done running, from my fears, through laughing. "That's not- he- ha- I- I mean... uh, true? No! No, it's not." Actually, I was done lying. "Okay, wait. I have to tell the truth, Sweetie."

"What truth?" she said.

"The whole truth," I said.

"Really? After that torture you put me through yesterday? Honest? How uncouth of you, Jelly Lime," she said, while pouting. 

"I have to," I said. I nuzzled her nose. "It's for your sake."

"Heheh. Okay, I- I guess," she giggled, getting all rosy-cheeked.

"What's the truth?" Discord said. "Isn't it all just subjective in the end?"

"Sweetie Belle saved me..." I said. "She saved me from... you know... the..." I sighed. Where was I even to begin? "She's a hero."

"That's a bad place to start," Sweetie said.

"This is the most fun I've had in months," Discord said from within the chains.

"You're not supposed to have fun," Twilight said, disgruntled at his crazy whims and behavior.

I was too, but I had to... tell the truth. "Sweetie's a hero. When my dad got killed in Manehattan, she fought against the part of her that wanted to kill me and my mum. She almost did, but then... something happened." 

"Okay, disapprove of the telling of this story," Sweetie said, putting her hoof on my side, fumbling it over to my back. "I am far from a hero. Actually, that's a horrendous take by you, Jelly. You need to rethink that, thing, now."

"Sweetie," I continued, "woke up out of her trance and escaped with me out of Pegasquire, and then, we got separated, long ago."  

"The worst thing you can do with the truth is wrap it in a lie," Sweetie said.

"And then, when she had those nightmares, she said nothing to me. She dealt with it entirely on her own. Those nightmares may have changed her forever, but they never changed our friendship, true friendship," I said, putting my hoof around Sweetie's back, just as she was pulling hers away. 

"Hahaha!" Discord said. "That's unsettling. Isn't it, Twilight?" He kept speaking through his laughter, making the words hard to hear, but he said, "Unsettlingly true, I think, if I'm not mistaken. Haahaa." He crowed, his voice making the air thick with sound.

"Sweetie..." Twilight said. "I- I..."

Sweetie took a step to the side, so that my hoof slid off her. "You're incredibly sad and disappointed that she would lie to me this way. It's all a delusion. None of it's true, and I should not trust my own lying eyes. Is that what you were going to say?"

"Sweetie. I apologize," Twilight said. "I have been dishonest too."

"Aa-uuuh?" Sweetie said.

"You probably won't forgive me, even though I called you a hero, huh?" I said, pulling my hoof across the dirty road. "Huh?" I looked at her. She was absolutely sad.

"Jelly," she said. "Was all of what you just said actually somehow true?"

"It's worse than that," I said.





We were inside Twilight's castle.

"You were absolutely brainwashed. There's no doubt about that," I said. 

We were in the foyer of the castle.

"You lied too?" Sweetie said. "Lying is bad."

"Yes," I said. "Yes."

"Lying is often a necessary evil though, especially when you're at war," Twilight said, in her matter-of-fact, clear, calm way.

"Is it?" Sweetie said. "Is it?"

"Yes," Twilight said.

"Sweetie," I said. "I'm sorry. Let me hold you."

"No!" Sweetie said, pulling back and running into the corner of the room. "No, you're all lying. Why should I trust any of you? How do you expect me to trust you? Deceivers. Frauds. Where's Gripey? He lied to me too."

"It's because the truth is..." I said, trying to find the words as desperately as I could.

"Horrifying beyond comprehension," Twilight said.

Sweetie was distraught. "Noo. No, why? Why, Jelly? Why?" She ran up to me. "Tell me it isn't true. Please!" She held me and cried into my shoulder. "Please."

"I... well, the Scootaloo thing was unexpected," I said, at least wanting to explain that part of it. "I had no idea she was the sacrificial child of the eye. But now that we know, we will not ever let it... go, Sweetie."





We were outside again. It was evening. It was Nightmare Night.

Sweetie spoke up, for the first time in hours. "Being surrounded by jack-o'-lanterns, skeletons, vampires, houses that are decorated in spider-web, flying saucers that are apparently Discord's doing. I don't see what that has to do with Nightmare Night, but okay. Also, there are all sorts of kids with make-up over there, running over there, you see?" She nodded in their direction. "The houses have creepy purple lights on them. Purple is a- is a nice color, and I want to go see the- the kids when they- um, do the trick and treating, and I want to go over there, because there's also some interesting fake skeletons over there hanging from that tree, and it's all dark outside, so that's of course appropriate too."

"I somehow feel responsible for everything that happened to you," I said, as quietly and quickly as I could.

Sweetie giggled. "Oh! Don't feel bad for me, Jelly. I killed your parents. I'm the one to blame, in the end, I realized, and that's at least a healthy realization, I think, and I hope. I hope I'm not a dope."

"You're not," I said.

A filly ran past us. 

"Aaa!" she screamed. 

It was Lily Star.

"What's the matter?" I said.

"I'm blind!" she said.

"No, you're not. Stop lying," I said, still feeling angry about her lying before, like the little lying liar she was, but soon, I would be the one feeling bad. When I saw her eyes, I saw that her pupils were entirely gone and replaced by white splotches, that looked not like pupils at all.

"Aaah!" she screamed, crashing into Sweetie.

"Watch it," Sweetie said, falling over with Lily Star on top of her.

"The demons are coming," she said. "The demons are coming."

Sweetie spoke with muffled breath, "I sort of hope this is all an elaborate prank, you guys."

"It's not," I said, pulling Lily off Sweetie. "What happened to you?"

"Rrrr!" a monster growled. A black deformed pony, covered in bandages, dressed up as a mummy, stormed in our direction. It had bandages all over its face.

I was about to fall into a frozen stare. Sweetie yanked my hoof and pulled me to the ground along with her, since she still was lying there. "Don't look into its eyes, your marauder," she said, tossing the oddest insult in my direction, but I thought it had to do with what I had told her, earlier.

"Why not?" I said, feeling terrified, as the monster stumbled in our direction.

"If you see its face, you go blind. Don't ask me how I know. There is no time to explain. We need to run and get help," Sweetie said.

The monster had one leg that was shorter than the other ones- longer, I meant to write. Longer! It's still too scary to get it to even come together into text, but then, what happened next? I'll tell you.

"Rrrr," the monster said.

Sweetie covered her eyes while standing up. "Is your name Cur?" she said.

"You are the victim of your story!" he said, gurgling and growling.

"Am I?" she said. "What if I just keep my hoof over my eyes forever, what then?"

"Then we shall see to it that this hoof gets detached from your body. You will see red before your death, as you have come to prevent his," Cur said, planting his three normal-sized hooves on the ground and raising his longer one at her.

Instead of running, she just stood there like an idiot. "Sweetie," I said, jumping on top of her as he swiped at her. "Do you want to- do you want to die?" Those were the first words that came into my head.

"Yes!" Sweetie said, standing up, turned away from the monster, that was obviously trying to kill her right now. "That's why I ran away from home in the first place, stupid Jelly!" The monster swiped. Sweetie marched in the opposite direction, toward the monster, while dodging the hoof in an effortless bow, as he slid the hoof at her.

The monster removed its bandages from its face. "You will see true horror, of the worst kind," Cur said, as his face revealed itself.

"Everyone lied to me!" Sweetie said, marching up to the monster, and staring at his face.

"Urrg," Cur said. 

"Huh?" Sweetie said.

"I cannot see you..." he said.

"Is this a prank?" Sweetie said in tired tones.

"Urrg!" he said. "Urrg!" He shrank down, becoming Sweetie's size. Then, he turned into a perfect copy of Sweetie, barely visible in the dark, yet there and clear to the eye. "You are... not in sight," she said, because she had a silky smooth soft voice now, and was a she now, actually! "You are... not there. How are you not there? I could see you just twice, or thrice, a few seconds ago. I am sure of this. And I am sure of lots. And I will find you." She groped in front of her. She touched Sweetie. "Ah-ha!" She pushed Sweetie. Sweetie shrugged and pushed back, harder. Cur, the demon-Sweetie Belle carbon copy, fell over.

"Is this a joke? I'm not asking this to be funny. Someone should be honest with me, before long," Sweetie said, looking at me with those longing tired eyes that I had seen on her before.

"No! No, I said no," I said, as the demon-Sweetie reached around, trying to grab her, though apparently not able to see anything. 

"I am never sure anymore as to whether anyone is being honest," Sweetie said.

The demon reached for her, but she took a step back, and the creature just fell over on the ground. "Urrr! Whyy is this happening?" it said.

"Maybe I could answer that question for you," Sweetie said.

The monster reached for her, but she took another step back.

"Sweetie!" I said. "It's not safe."

"You are blind," Sweetie said, to the monster, bending down, beside... it! She did? Yes, she did. And what happened next?





That pain in your leg. It comes from having looked at your own reflection for too long. You are a spark and a lonely dance. That's what happens when a creature such as you comes into contact with its reflection, you see? Cur, you are lonely. You cannot see for nothing. You aren't even there. That's how lonely you are. You are here, but not where I am, but you cannot see the difference. You are so empty, empty Cur, that I cannot grant assistance. 

We are one, you and I, as many, as we are. We are sparks, you and I. We exist, only barely. There is no shame in admitting this. After all, you cannot both sing and sit. You cannot both a monster be, and not, even though it isn't true you are, and if you are, kill me then. Isn't that enough, Cur? 





Cur growled, looking just like Sweetie now, as she, he, it, had! It did, and it growled. It bent forward, and embraced Sweetie in a hug. "Who am I?" she said, Cur said, it said, whatever said.

"Lied about, and hidden away," Sweetie said, hugging back right in that moment.

"What is happening now?" I said. "It's... you're hugging? Why are you hugging?"

Cur said, "I am sad, but I cannot remember why. Help me, Sweetie, if you can."

"Your memories will soon be sent to me, through the lifeforce of the tree," Sweetie said, as Cur melted into the ground and disappeared.





It's not weird. It's real.

"Sweetie," Jelly said eight hours earlier back at the castle, having betrayed our trust, as I had toward ponykind long ago, so we were on more even ground now, even though I was the murderer, and she was not.

"Why should I listen to you?" I said. Why should I?

She responded. "I will show why I did it."





"What point is there in living?" I said, on the top of the tree-house, literally on the roof of the tree-house. "I will die. I don't think too much of it. Death is okay for me. I am okay with it. It is okay, all okay, and I can make these decisions for myself."

"Noo," Jelly said, reaching out a hoof as I stepped to the edge. "This is psycho-Sweetie coming out. No, you don't want to do it. It's not a good idea. You need to think about those that care about you."

"I have. That's why I didn't do it for such a long time, but I am a husk, and I cannot continue living like this, pretending to be Sweetie Belle. I am just... a mindless robot at this point. Sweetie was killed..."

"No!" Jelly said. "Sweetie lives yet. Sweetie is the one that let me live, but F-526-whatever it was is the one that killed my da. It's true. You are Sweetie, at least part of you."

"I am a living lie," I said. "I will admit this to you, now. I never meant for any of this to happen. I am not actually a robot. I lied to you, as I have for a long time."

"What's the lie?"

"I was approached one night by a strange set of characters... they promised to help me, as long as I agreed to agree with them that whatever they said was true, truly was true, Jelly. I believed it. I bought into it, and I just... become Sweetie Bot, but I'm not. I'm Sweetie Belle."

"You're going to have to explain this to me," Jelly said. "I don't get it, and get away from there. You can jump down after- after y- you have told me the story."

Valiant Jelly just wanted me to go away from the edge so she could convince me not to kill myself, but it was I that would convince her.

Cur was a part of me. It's true. Cur was a part of me, distant and true. Cur was a lie I told myself, embodied, and given a name. Cur belonged to the machine, first metaphorical, and then, it became literal, because the ninth of sight, Eyesstark, Skeyestar, and the rest, made it literal. It was a spark. It was dark.





Do you feel deep? This is not a joke. I ask you this question. Does anyone that reads this feel deep? I did not feel deep.

What does it mean to be shaken, shook, brought down, wrecked, and traumatized? It will take a few more chapters to describe, but here's a soundbyte.

"Aaah!"

It was dark.

I was being gouged out from within. It was... vague. I did not understand it. Please understand that I did not understand it. It was ethereal. It could be anything. It was blank. It was dark. The night was dark. I felt myself being hollowed out. My skin crawled. It was dark. It was dark. It was painful. It was stark.

I croaked. This is not a joke. I croaked. I started crying, as I laughed, as I forgot. I had to. There was no choice. How could I remember it? There was nothing to remember. I had no idea what happened, even as it happened. I laughed, trying to deal with it.

Again, do I feel deep? Maybe, I am. I feel pretty deep as I speak to you right now, Jelly. I feel like I'm alive, as I speak, but I cannot breathe, every time I think back. It's motionless, empty, and that speaks for itself. It's itself. It's dark. It's itself, and blank, devoid of... anything. It's nothing. Nothing happened. I was not through that. It was not true. It was nothing. I was only eight. It was nothing. I could not see that it was truly not nothing, but I thought it was, and I treated it as such, but the more I did, the less I could think, about anything else, to say, you see. I think... and I feel... but I do not believe that any of my thoughts are real, should they remind me. That's what happened. This is just a start.

Later, I started lying to myself. I guess that's when it happened. I started playing games with myself, telling myself stories. That's when it happened. I ran into a friend, on an open field once. It was dark. She told me to focus. She said that all my wishes could come true. All my fantasies came true. It all were true, as it were false. Well, it was, but it wasn't, at the same time, and I croaked, sobbed, groveled, looked, found, discovered, the black, of the Facility of the Dream. 

All my fantasies would come true. I went through it of my own free will, you must see. It was so dreadful that I never wanted freedom, all too dreadful, so I took a bath in lies. All those lies enveloped me, sickening me, filling me, fulfilling me, changing me, rearranging me, a spark that flew, turning lies into truths. I was dead. I was gone, alive yet gone. That's what it did to me, this dark.
> Part 48: Score For War! This is What It Brings...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What you talking about readers for? I don't understand," Jelly said.

"You will," I said.

She would.





The doors of Twilight's castle corridors closed. 

Bam.

I was brought into a room along with Twilight's friends, the fabled elements of harmony, and Discord again.

"This is a testament that chaos is a virtue," Discord said. "Both a vice and a virtue, but a virtue all the same, my little ponies." He chuckled.

"A virtue perhaps, but not at this hour," Twilight said. "We are to focus now."

"Focus?" I said.

I sat on a chair by the shining table that displayed Equestria on it.

"The griffins," Twilight said.

"They have a sense of humor about them," Discord said, cramping down on another chair, all of which were rather small for him.

"Is everything a joke to you?" Twilight said, scowling and glaring with harsh harshness at Discord.

"Yes," he said, without any expressions.

"Ugh!" Twilight said.

Rarity came forward. "We have to make this work, and most of all, we have to protect Sweetie at all costs. Those foul griffins cannot be allowed to get their claws on her, never!" She flailingly flicked the table with her hoof at the last word. "And that's final."

"But the griffins have weapons that we're not aware of," Twilight said.

"E, M, P," I said, slowly, upon hearing those words.

"If what Sweetie says is true, then we are under serious duress," Twilight said. "What's the rundown, Discord?" She stared at Discord, hoping, I think, not to get a joke or a pun thrown in her face.

"They are... gathering," Discord said.

"Gathering how many?" Twilight said.

"To protect the bunker of course," Discord said, dropping down on the table. "All of you ponies are always two steps behind."

"No, Discord," Twilight said.

"Um, yes, Twilight," Discord said, in the same prodding tone. "This is how it works." 

He teleported above us, holding puppet strings in his hands. "Hello, I am Twilight. I am in full control of everything," the Twilight-puppet said.

It bore a striking resemblance, that Twi-puppet! It reminded me... of something.

Then, another puppet materialized. It was unmistakably Hookbeak, "I have an evil plan. I will never be stopped."

"I am in full control," Twi-puppet said.

"Think again! I have something unexpected that you did not predict," Hookbeak-puppet said back, challenging Twilight.

"Oh, no! Not something unexpected that I did not predict. That's my only weakness," Twilight's puppet said.

Then, Discord shook Hookbeak's puppet. "Pew-pew-pew," he now said, the puppets no longer speaking. The puppets had actually spoken in the voices of the characters they represented, which was remarkable.

"Noo," Twilight's puppet said, falling down and landing on the table at which I sat.

"That's that for you, and for Ponyville," Discord said, setting his feet down on top the table after he had flown, which he had when he did his puppet-show.

"Har-di-har!" Twilight said, with an angry and clearly not amused scowl on her face.

"But it's true!" Discord said, jumping down off the table and back into his chair. He wriggled for room, and then, he snapped his fingers so that the chair turned into a giant golden throne, covered in emeralds, and little sapphires.

"Pretty," I said, reaching my hoof out.

Twilight slapped my hoof as I reached it to his chair, which was next to me. "Careful," she said. "It might be contagious."

"If I must," I said, with a tiny shrug.

"Now, what was the nature of this weapon, as he instructed you?" Twilight said.

"It wasn't so much an instruction, but he told me about it," I said, "some time ago. He said that the weapon is an anti-magic EMP. I assume that includes your magic as well, Discord."

"Sad but true," Discord said.

"You know about this?" Twilight said to Discord, with much impatience, but it was understandable. We might all die soon, I thought, so of course, obvious. Twilight should be impatient with this more than a thousand years old overgrown child.

"I know, and I don't know. I know about the project. I don't know any details," he said.

"Then why didn't you tell me?" Twilight said, speaking through a hoarse gasp.

"You never asked," he said.

"Uh..." Twilight said, speechless at this point.

"But since you're wondering," he said, flying back into the air off his throne, which I saw was still glistening and gold, "I have scanned the underground with my eyes." His eyes stretched down out of his face and toward Twilight, like two long jutting sticks. Twilight dodged as the eyes touched her chair. "I have been thinking. They seem to have twenty floors down there. Mostly, there are desks and offices. They are typical bureaucrats these griffins, to the end. But they do have weapons, and I estimate the number of griffins that have gathered down there in the Ponyville Mines at approximately... you want to venture a guess?"

"No!" Twilight said, in a frenzy.

His eyes went back into his skull, and she sat back upright on her chair. "Many!" he said. "At least two-hundred. They think Ponyville won't be able to deal with that. Two-hundred is just enough, they assume, don't they? You want to show them that they're wrong, I reckon?"

"Yes, I do. We have, well, at least eighty soldiers at our disposal, courtesy of Canterlot, but I will fight too, and you Discord, just don't... get in the way, okay?"

"I wouldn't dream of it." He wiggled his finger. "I would never, but if you need me, you know where to find me." He teleported away with the snap of his fingers, and disappeared. 

"Wouldn't you want Discord's help?" I said.

He reappeared, in a flash of light. "Yes, wouldn't you want my help, Twilight?"

"Okay, okay. I do want your help," Twilight said, waving her hooves up and down. "But I don't want you to do anything too chaotic, because it might tilt the active warfare in either direction, you know?"

"This conversation is patently ridiculous," Rarity said. "Of course, Discord will help us, and of course, we shall be victorious. Is that clear enough to any and all of you?"

"Crystal clear," I said.

"You stay out of the way, Sweetie," Rarity said.

"Twice, double, and triple affirmative," I said, since I had no desire to participate anyway. I would not object, no-no-no.

All of the others were hesitant, but then, Applejack asked a question, "How do we know when and where to begin?"

"Yeah," Rainbow Dash said. "Those griffins seem to know the area better than we do."

"Discord said something about a bunker," Twilight said, glancing to Discord who had come back.

"I thought you'd never ask," he said. "Right in the northern edge of Ponyville." He pulled his finger above Ponyville on the shining map table. "There, you will find a hole, giant metal platform, round and sure. It is unbreakable."

"Frick!" I said.

Discord laughed. "Just joking around. It's breakable, but you will want to open it using the four buttons on the sides. If they are pressed simultaneously, the door will open. Easy, huh?"

"Too easy," Twilight said. "You don't need a password or anything?"

"Nah, passwords are for suckers," Discord said. "The moment you open the door, the bomb which they have placed far under Ponyville will detonate, and you will all die, so the plan, my little ponies, also you, Sweetie Bot, is to invade the mines and the bunker and disable the bomb before the griffins have had the chance to detonate it. Easy enough, no?"

"Don't call her Sweetie Bot," Twilight said.

"Why not? That's what she is," Discord said.

"Because it's obscene," Twilight said.

"I don't see the problem," Discord said.

"Don't change the topic," I said. "How do you get down there without activating the bomb? Keep going, Discord."

"Right, I was just about to forget too. That would've been too bad," he said.

"If you're here," Twilight said, leaning off her chair and pointing to the side, "when that anti-magic EMP gets activated, then you're toast too, so I suggest you take the situation a little more seriously."

"Because?" he said.

"Because we need you," Twilight said.

Discord's smile died down. "Having friends is a hassle."

"True that," I said.

"Focus, focus, focus!" Twilight said, putting one of her hooves down on the table. She spun the map around, and it zoomed in. Now, we all saw Ponyville in high detail. "This magical map, unless the EMP affects it, will tell you all exactly what's going on. We will use the sound system that the griffins have set up to transmit codewords to our troops during battle. I have already sent someone capable to redirect the wiring, and disable it when necessary. I am also aware that the sound system may be used as a weapon against us, unless we do something about, since the griffins may protect themselves from the sound using their sound-isolated helmets."

"Smart. Highly smart. Highly scientific of you," Discord said.

"Rr- right? Right, okay," Twilight said. "The place that Discord speaks of is over here, northwest of Ponyville Central Square, just outside town. We will strike, and we will strike hard, because all our lives hang in the balance, should this so-called EMP be activated. I must be given the chance to use my magic as the bunker opens if this is to work, because we don't have the firepower, nor the horsepower for that matter, to fight off two-hundred cold-blooded griffins."

"True, true. Correct," Discord said, fiddling with his fingers.

"Do you have anything on your mind right now?" Twilight said, looking at Discord with more calm than she had before.

"Once you open the bunker, you will all die, and this so-called battle will be over before it began," Discord said. "I know this because I saw the blueprints when these griffins arrived in Ponyville. Yes, that's right! This bomb has been here for years. You didn't know that, did you? I thought nothing of it until they decided that they would detonate it. Crazy, huh?" He glanced at me. "Bonkers?"

"Bonkers," I said, slowly, calmly, and carefully, wondering where this conversation was headed, and afraid that I would say something that didn't honor the weight of the situation, unlike Discord.

"How did you see it?" Twilight said to Discord.

"I have long eyes," he said, putting his fingers around his eyes.

"Oh, forget it," Twilight said. "And how do we deal with it?"

"Easy!" he said. "One of the four ponies that open the door down to the bunker, and the mines, cannot be a pony at all. It has to be a griffin, not a changeling. These griffin machines know the difference, I tell you! So... does anyone here know a griffin that would be willing to put his life in mortal danger to save little tiny insignificant Ponyville? Huh? Anyone?" Discord stared right at me.

"Have you been stalking me?" I said.

"No," he said. "You just happened to be in my crosshairs at the time, and I spend a lot of time studying ponies. It's one of my favorite pastimes. It's like bird-watching."

Twilight nodded. "While I prefer not to be compared to birds, Discord, I take your point. So, is there anyone? Anywhere? It needs to be someone in Ponyville."

"Gripey Silverfeathers," I said. "He's the only one that I know of, and he's the only one that I could imagine would in a million years be willing to do it. It has to be him."

"The griffin that arrived with you," Twilight said. "Of course! You have to convince him, Sweetie."

"Me?" I said.

"Yes," she said. "It's the only way."

"It's a lot to ask of her," Rarity said.

"But it is the only way, again, Rarity," Twilight said. "And I'm sorry, but I can't allow you to treat it as if it were a choice. This is life and death, and we have seen enough of that, though not truly enough, I understand now. We need to act now!" She stepped off her chair, and over to the door. "Soon, it will be too late."

"So?" I said.

"Meet me again here in two hours... all of you!" She put her hoof to the door and ran out into the corridor. 

She was obviously in some hurry somewhere, but where? 

Time would tell, actually.





"Hey!" I said, to Gripey. "You're in your usual hiding spot, I see."

"It was never a hiding spot. You could come here anytime you wanted," he said, opening the door.

"I don't expect you to be honest with me," I said.

"I understand that. That's a valid expectation to have," he said.

"We're all a little twisted and traumatized, aren't we?" I said. "I hope I'm not overusing the word, or using it in the case where it doesn't apply."

"Come in," he said.

I came in. He closed the door behind me.

"It's time to make a choice," I said.

"What choice?" he said.

"It's time to take responsibility," I said.

"For what?"

"Oh, I think you know," I said.

"They told you. They knew?" he said.

"Whose side are you on?" I said. "Are you with me, or with them?"

"I am on your side," he said.

"We need you," I said. "You know surely that the only way to disable the bomb is through the Ponyville Mines, and to get there, we need a griffin. You understand?"

"I do," he said.

"I hope we don't die," I said. "I have many more interesting conversations I want to have with you."





We were outside. Dawn was nearing. It was time.

"Are you ready?" I said to Gripey.

"Get inside," he said to me.

"Sorry there weren't any custom griffin armor," I said.

"Get inside, for- for the sake of anything that's good in the world. Get inside already," he said

"I know," I said. "I know I should."





It was not over at all, no-no-no.

Twilight landed down. "Reinforcements are coming. But they won't arrive until dawn, and by then, it might be too late, so we must begin the battle without them, if necessary."

"Yes," I said.

"Why is she still outside?" Twilight said, looking to Gripey.

"She hasn't gone inside yet," he said. "She wanted to talk to me."

"Then- then make her!" Twilight said.

"I can't," he said.

"Why not?" she said.

"I just can't," he said.

The pathetically small number of Ponyville soldiers, who were mostly just professional Canterlot guards, and royal guards from Canterlot, gathered into three neat columns, with twenty-five in each.

"Right..." Twilight said.

"Right!" I said.

"Okay, so..." Twilight said, turning away from. "This is a moment!"

The soldiers looked aimless. They stood still, but the spot that they had stopped in seemed kind of random, just right inside the urban part of Ponyville, with the buildings. They weren't looking confident at all, these soldiers. That was for sure.

"We have been mined," Twilight said, "in more ways than one. Beneath Ponyville, there is a bomb. You already have been instructed on what to do. You will go down there, and for the life of me, figure out how to shut it off, or stop it, though we don't know how, but since the griffin referred to it as a Type A bomb, which is a chemical bomb that is operated by electrical signals, usually using wires, we have reason to believe that the bomb can be disabled from beneath Ponyville."

All of this was deeply worrying. Wow! Twilight had no idea what she was doing. No one had any idea what they were doing. And we were all going to die.

"Prepare to receive orders, and do not move," Twilight said. "Do not move, until I give the signal."

"Great," I said.

Twilight looked at me and sighed. "It's time to get you to safety," she said.

"Great," I said.

"You are interfering with factor X," a loud-speaker that came from the bunker said. "You are interfering with factor X. You are interfering with factor X." It was the voice of Hookbeak himself!

The spiral parts of the metal platform began moving on their own.

"What's happening?" Twilight said.

"I don't know. You're the one in charge here," Gripey said, standing close to me, and by dint of that, close to Twilight, because she had landed next to me.

"Kill the griffin," Hookbeak's voice finished, and the static of the speakers cut off and away in that moment, leaving for the eerie sound of the platform opening, buzzing. It was quite quiet, I must say.





"Aaah!" That's what happened.

Ponies screamed. That can happen.

Panic broke out. Why wouldn't it though?

Griffins flooded out the hole. I felt myself shrink, and everything around me became gigantic. I threw my whole body the other direction, running back toward Ponyville. I was tossed into a building.

"Ouch!" I said. "What was that?" I stood up. My ears rang.

I opened the door of the house and ran inside, just on instinct. I had many instincts for a long time that had told me what to do in high-octane situations, and generally, they had kept me safe. 

"Come inside," a pony said.

I squeezed past her without a greeting, as the ceiling of the house collapsed, and then jumped out the window, ducking as a severed hoof came flying toward me, whereupon I ran, dodging a laser that passed above my head, going between two houses, where I thought I would be safe. Once there, one of the walls came down. I avoided it, only to find a brick flying toward me, which I jumped out the way of, when I saw a griffin with goggles and a giant black helmet flying in my direction.

I faced the other way, running, but I fell, and I stood up, rushing straight at him, without noticing it, but then I noticed it, and I picked up a chair from the ground that had fallen there somehow, throwing it at him. The chair was blown to pieces, but I spun away, the pieces not hitting me, because something pulled me, but what pulled me was another griffin whose eyes I poked with my hooves, falling down, landing, running down, off the street, into another building, but I just passed straight through and out the window on the other side, as bits of the walls tore off, exploding. 

My ears hurt, and I lost my balance, falling, falling, swiveling, going down, and I rolled down a road that went out of Ponyville. I was out? I was in. I tossed and kicked about through the grass, fires starting around me, and I cried, but there was no time. I needed to run and fast. The ground around me, coming toward me, me seeing it, scared me, but I saw not where it came from, but I could not wait. I needed to rush along away, fleeing off, going along, back inside. I could not wait. I could not see. Something blinded me. I saw fog. I saw smoke. I rushed. I ran. I was inside Ponyville. Had I been out? I was in. I was there. Was I outside? I could not see. I could not breathe. I could not think. I felt something sink.

As I rolled into a crater, my body failing me, my hopes availing me of joy, I ensconced myself in the dirt, which was there, attacking me. I hurt. The dirt got in my mouth. I fled back up out the hole, without any hope left. I felt so scared, and I felt empty. I felt angry. I felt lost. I felt confused. I ran out the crater. I was tossed back down. Someone hit me. Something hit me. I was hit. I was bit by a sudden gush of pain. It hurt. I ran. It hurt. I rolled. My back panged. I screamed.

I stood back up, and I ran.

I made my way up. Something lifted. Everything lifted.

My body lifted.

Was I thrown? No, I breathed. With every breath, everything lifted. Everything hurt, as it lifted up. My chest felt like a balloon. I was choking on saliva. I was reaching for a close. I was trying to hide, but I felt like death. It felt like I was running away from myself. I saw the scene.

The scene screamed. There were hundreds of ponies, children too, running along, being strong, trying to survive, abating and availing themselves of their last few hopes, their sanity, of constancy. These griffins had come, and they could not wait, to make that sanity one of... well, you know the word. I don't have to remind you... fate.

Someone ran at me. I smiled, and I laughed.

Yes, she ran at me, collapsing on me, in a cry, and I died, but I didn't, but I did, and I cried, did I? I sighed.

She was dead.

Blood kept running, coming toward me, chasing me, and I wanted to go away. I wanted not to be, but that could not be. I had to fight. I had to believe in whatever light there was left, unlike before. I had tried not to for so long, but that song and that verse all had to end. I felt my leg bend, pushing down, falling down, awaiting the next moment. My soul sank.

I was lifted up again, with each coming breath, each coming yelp, and each coming scream. I had to struggle against myself, but I had to keep on going, against itself. Itself was the swarm, coming toward me. A bunch of griffins, yes, came toward me, and I scurried. I hurried. The world, yes, blurried. Well, it did. It blurried? It blurred. It stirred. I was lifted up, but this time not by air. 

It was something in the air. "Come along now, ungrateful child," the griffin said, scolding me, emboldening me, to carry on.

I spun through the air. I had just touched him. I had averted his gaze, his face, by freezing his wings with my magic. He spun too. We both flew. I was picked up by a friend.

"Where are you going?" Gripey said, carrying me.

"Odd question," I said, feeling pain searing me. 

A griffin with a big large electrical black shining scary imposing spear came flying. The spear flew. I flew. Gripey spun. Everything spun. The world just spun. The pain just spun. The air spun. I felt sick and dizzy, but I could not wait. I had to escape. It all was black. The air was fog. The air was clogged by the fog. I hit my chin on the ground, feeling something crack. My vision blurred, and I jumped. I could still sprint, so I did, but what happened next?

I entered darkness, and sealed my fate, yes! I did, and what happened next? I was stung. I was stunned. I fell down. I ran. I held on, which I could. I would. I should? I will though, I thought. That was a thought, among many thoughts. The thoughts hit me, and then they burst, and soon, I realized that this was a curse. It was. It felt like a curse. It was. I felt it. It hit me. It was drab. It was dark. It punched me. It struck me, making me fade, making me faint. Making me faint, all over, in my mind, as I thought. Did I think? I was lost. I woke up. Had I been asleep? I opened my eyes and I ran.

The earth around me flew about, and I was running all along, about. About that time, I thought I would puke. I thought I would die. I kind of hoped I would die, but I did not die. I lived on. Why?

Then, a searing sound, along with the pain, surrounded me and blinded me. I was lost, and I fell, but I couldn't tell, what it was that had struck so near. I fear. I'm full of fear, and I never know where to run. The sun! I am blinded by it. The light has come. Why am I not dead yet? Time will speak. Time will tell. All's not well. I am seeing hell. I am not well. What is well? The word that is, and what did it do, to make me always all along feel like such a fool, and I am. I am. I am. I am. I want to puke. I want to go away. Where is away? The exit's not clear. I was full of fear.

No... I am full of fear. That's it. That's the answer.

Too bad my death came to me, just as I was figuring it out. About that?

My soul has sunk, and it feels ffflat. 

I am a living doormat. 

Don't listen to me. This story doesn't make sense.

Don't listen to me, but I'm floating.

I awake... why though? Are all my flashy thoughts just for show? 

Why will I not die?

The safety does not exist, except just in my mind, though. Wow.

Shoosh.

Whoosh. That's a thought. 

Don't leave me, light. Don't leave me, fight. I have only just begun.

My skin got torn off. "Aaauuugh!" That's a yell. Have you ever yelled? You have, I know, and never forget, the pain that you think you felt as you yelled. Pain is terrible too. We all are fools. This story has only just begun. Fun fact!

As the dancing thoughts of anger, hatred, fear, and pure confusion lifted, and as my painful, pained, blood-addled, saliva-ridden, excruciating lungs lifted too, I had a new idea. It's time to run! 

New idea? No, that's an old idea, but I had it in a new sense, you see, if that makes sense, you see. I see, but you don't have to see, for me to be real, and you to be free. I am not full of glee, and if you are, appreciate those moments. They are far from me.

Screechchchch... bleach me end me upend me turn me over and crush me hahahahahaa I'm living.

That's just a thought though. I want to be forgiving, not hateful, but I want to die. That's a clinical thought.

I darted through burning Ponyville, feeling my sight come back. I dodged to and fro as the griffins attacked, in vain. How vain of them to come find me here, trying to retrieve me, get me from this place, get me away, and abscond.

I tossed myself into the river. Don't worry. In this specific case, this was not a suicide attempt. I was not attempting, nor intending, to commit suicide at this hour. You know! You should know. You'd better know. ALL MY FLASHY THOUGHTS ARE NOT JUST FOR SHOW, YOU KNOW! 

Wlosh.

I was in that cave again, the one from before, the one that hurt, and I watched aloud, letting my mouth blurt the words, "Haven't... I... been here... long ago? How, though?"

Wow-wow-wow. Show-show-show. Go-go-go, me.

Never give up, no matter the pressure, no matter each specific stake that lands in your path, telling you to stop. Do not stop. No. Do not. I was thrilled, which I am, and I could not wait, to keep on going, and seal that fate of mine, yesss! YESES..

Vroom.

I touched all the rocks many times, touching them twice, thrice, and fourice. Fourice? Foureyes. For times aplenty, and many, which will keep on going, I pressed the stones, hearing them ding. I was fond of doing this. I could not sit still.

Something buzzed. I was both scared and thrilled, and I could not sit still. I would not give up. I could not give up. I kept on going. Yesss.

..

.

All those sights that I see are there yet not. I feel flailing. I fell flailingly. I felt alive. Is this real? It is divided into two. It has to be. It must be. I am here. It is real. It is actual, I feel. Do not abandon me now, dear brain, yes!

A fire started before my eyes. "Yes!"

I touched the oval-statue which I found in the cave three days ago. "Touch!"

Purple fires came out of it, and it burned, shining bright, all full of light, and being strong, not being wrong. I felt strong!

Whoosh. That's what I felt, like everything had gone over my head.

A griffin burst into the cave. "This is where you're hiding. I could see you with my night-goggles on."

"You could?" I said. "Well, you should."

Out of the purple fire came a real filly. She looked like me. She did. I felt happy. I felt lost, yet happy.

"Me!" I said.

The griffin raised his electrical spear thing at the other Sweetie, who was here, real? Yes, very, I feel, but do they matter? Do my feelings matter? I feel...

... so this is the deal. I do never think that I will be the same, and my keel will be as uneven as it feels. I am there, but I feel, so dreary. That's real. Keel... even... uneven... wail... hail... heal... steal... steel... come back, me. You can still be. You might even be real. I know you might. I have seen it before. I have seen it before.

"Are you a ghost?" I said, to the other Sweetie.

"Come with us!" the griffin said, from the other half of the cave where the waterfall ran, and humid warm water droplets ran. "We only wish to protect you."

"Which one?" I said.

"Th- the only one," he said.

I looked to the other Sweetie. "I'm not real?"

"Yes, you are," she said. "You are. You are."

"Explain," I said.

"It's your brain," she said.

"So, I'm crazy?" I said.

"Yes," she said.

"So?" I said.

"That still doesn't explain anything," she said, raising one hoof at the griffin.

He pulled back.

"Huh?" I said.

Little tiny dots of white shining light gathered around him. He roared. They pierced him, like little needles, piercing his body, killing him, which is how he died, and in the very next moment, slice of time, he was dead, dead as anything lifeless, like a rock, or a hollow piece of bone picked out of a bone throne, made out of dead ponies. All of them ponies! They're all little phonies. That's what she told me, didn't she?

"Run!" I said. "Run!"

"No, I'm done running," she said.

"Why?" I said.

"I'm not a ghost. You are!"

"How?" I said.

"You are all ghosts," she said.

"We're all dead?" I said.

"No, you exist in ancient times, of this time and of this life, and the lie that made your existence possible was... well, the death of your friend, Scootaloo." Sweetie Belle frowned.

"Huh?" I said.

"It's true," she said.

"I don't understand!" I said.

"Ask her! She's not allowed to tell falsehoods, for that will be her doom, forever," she said.

"Will you come with me?" I said.

"There is no running for you," she said.

The rocks around me wobbled. Everything wobbled. The world wobbled. The air wobbled.

The purple fire grew.

I backed away from it.

I felt myself coming out of the fire. I looked around. I turned around.

"Where am I?"

I saw the tattered corpse of the griffin.

"Someone will have to explain this to me, before long," I said, louder.

The fire shrank. The fire sank back.

The truth is fickle. That in itself is a fickle fact, you see.

US-IDS. Was that the answer? Something about that?

Such an underwhelming answer, in which case, I felt.

I did not figure out the US-IDS thing. Jelly did. I said to her that it felt like someone was constantly following me and whispering things into my ear. I guess it was literal. Was it literal? Come to think of it, I cannot know that for sure, and that little creature, the one I called Tiny Sweets, whose real name was Lyretex, never confirmed any of my theories. What was she actually doing? He? Whatever! Maybe assigning genders and sexes to tiny flying changelings is not advisable.

What is?

Pain?

Did I sprain my leg or something? Why did it hurt? It did, but only sometimes.

Hm!

Am I dumb? Was I dumb? Am I dumb? Was I dumb? Wait!

Huh?

OH!

I guess.

Someone came in and landed inside the cave. It was Gripey.

"It's complete chaos out there. You- where did you- did you jump down into the river on purpose, Sweetie?"

"So what if I did?" I said, in response.

"You ungrateful–"

"No..." I said.

"Huh?" he said.

"No, I'm not ungrateful. You're just confused."

"Huh? How am I the one that's confused? You're the one constantly asking questions. Sweetie." He came toward me, reaching out a hand.

"Odd!" I said, touching the stone beside me, the one that was shaped like an eye.

It pinged. "Why does it make that sound?" he said, stopping.

"Odder than odd," I said, then touching the stone that was shaped like a bow, in the tiny cave. There was one last stone, one that was shaped like a cloud. The bow pinged. Pinggg, the sound said, echoing, scolding molding, going through. Feeling the sound, I did.

"Huh?" he said.

The purple fire came back, engulfing Gripey. "Wh- no!" I said, touching the stone again.

"Ping, ping," it said, but the fire wouldn't give or go, no-no.

"Aaah!" Gripey said as the fire ate him up, and then, he was tossed out of it.

"Huh?" I said.

"Wh- what happened?" he said.

"What?" I said. "I just touched the stone. Fires are going on outside. Everyone is dying. Welcome to the real world. What's on your mind, Gripey-buns?"

"Uh-aaah!" he said, screaming at me.

"Huh?" I said. "What's the matter with you?"

"How did I end up here?" he said.

"Okay! This is... something," I said.

"I'm not supposed to be here. I was in Manehattan," he said.

"No!" I said. "No, you were here all along, talking about ingratitude and all that, you were doing. I swear you were, Gripes."

"Sweetie!" he said. "You should be at the hospital."

"Huuuh?" I said. "The plot thickens."

"What are you talking about?"

"You came out of a portal that was right beside us," I said, glancing at the giant rock.

"Send us back then, Botsy," he said, touching the stone. It made zero sound when he touched it. It was quiet, except for a pathetic dull thud.

"What'd you just call me, Gripes?" I said.

"You want to be called something else, you wacko?" he said. "Just send me back."

"No..." I said. "No, now we need to save Ponyville."

"Why would I want to do that?" he said.

I laughed uncontrolled and uncontrollably. "Precious. That's precious. Wow. I can't believe this."

"What are you laughing for?" He picked me up and put me on his back. "You'd better tell me what's going on."

"It's... well... it's a long story to be sure," I said.

He flew out the cave, and he saw what was going on outside. "Is this... is- b- why would they?"

"Renovation," I said. "They wanted to evacuate me from Ponyville too, I thought. I think, I guess. I don't know..." I shrugged weakly. My whole body was shining, because my skin had gotten torn off, and you could see the metal underneath, but somehow, whether it be adrenaline or just by some dint of my biology, or my technology, I did not feel any pain, no-no-no. I mean, I did feel pain. I felt excruciating pain, but not the pain one ought to feel after having your skin torn off, if you know what I mean. There are levels to this pain thing, friends, dear readers.

"Th- this is... unconscionable," he said. A griffin with goggles came flying. And a helmet! Can't forget about the helmet, I wager. "You're from Circle town." Gripey pointed at the griffin who was flying at him. He took a dive and then flapped his wings to avoid the griffin, going back into place. "This is..." He flapped, ending up in the same position he had been, before he took a dive. "Horrendous. This attack must've been planned by someone in Circle town."

The griffin came flying back. "Traitor..." he said.

"Traitor?" Gripey said. "Have you gone cuckoo in your head? You're slaughtering innocent ponies for no reason. What am I a traitor to? These ponies aren't combatants." He glanced down. "Those are just coddled city guards and second-rate mercenaries. I mean, look at the way they fight. This is ridiculous. You're just flying circles around them and puncturing their lungs."

The griffin took off his helmet and pulled off his goggles, revealing a cold, emotionless gaze, almost sort of robotic. "What are you talking about? How would you know anything about that? You should be quiet, griffin, before you die at the hands of a mightier foe than I, or any of these other twerps that have been sent to Ponyville to do Hookbeak's bidding."

"Hookbeak?" I said.

"You speak too much for your own good," Gripey said. "So he's actually behind this? Seriously? Well, that's disappointing to say the least, buddy."

The griffin threw his spear, but Gripey dodged it effortlessly and with such a calm and precise movement that I think it rattled the other griffin quite a fair bit. "Who are you?"

"I'm..." Gripey said. "Why are you wondering? Shouldn't you know who I am? Hookbeak sent me to take care of this filly here, and then, we ran away together." I liked hearing those last words, a lot!

"You're not a soldier, twerp. Who are you?" the other griffin said.

"Yes, I am, last I checked," Gripey said.

"This..." the other griffin said. "You move like you're from Circle town... we need to call off the attack..." He flew off in a hurry.

"What was that all about?" I said.

"He said I moved like I'm from Circle town. Beats me. But if anything goes even the slightest bit not as expected, intended, or planned, these Circle town griffins usually tend to bail. There are very few of them, and they're quite, shall we say, prudish, Botsy."

"Fine by me," I said.

Gripey took a sharp turn around the steep rock that the waterfall passed down and through. He was flying off and back to Ponyville-proper, the Ponyville of my far memories and my dreams, but no longer. Now, it looked not like Ponyville at all. It looked more like a giant dust cloud.

Gripey landed. "This is... beyond anything I have ever seen." He took flight and landed beside a pony. "Are you okay?"

"No," the pony said, breathing rasping breaths. "Urrg." She coughed. She appeared to be dying.

Many more similar sights awaited Gripey as he passed through the area. The smoke was clearing.

A robotic, bland voice said out of the speakers, "One hour until detonation. Remote circuitry activated. Relinquish said subject F-5226, or you will die along with all your loved ones. One hour until detonation. Remote circuitry activated. Relinquish said subject..." and it went on like that, you'd better believe. You know why? Because it's true. Had whoever was supposed to hack, rewire, or whatever it was these speakers failed utterly? I did not hear any codewords or secret messages from the pony side, as Twilight had wanted, only dire threats, all I heard.

"I need to put you down," Gripey said, setting me down beside him. He walked over to the hatch that led down into the underground Ponyville Mines, which all the griffins had come out of. With determined steps, and confident eyes, he pressed a few buttons on the side of it.

"Bomb deactivated. Returning remote signals. Bomb deactivated. Returning remote signals. The settings have been reset. If this was a mistake, press the blue button, Majorly Majorically of the Central District," the speakers said, in that drab voice, neither male nor female, but without personality and without warmth.

"Unbelievable," Gripey said. "It's almost like they did it on purpose."

"Did what?" I said.

"Attacked Ponyville," he said. "Maybe... I don't even know. Maybe it was just a mistake in the computer that made them think this was the next thing on the round-schedule. I'm not sure!" 

"This doesn't look like a mistake to me," I said, seeing the rubble, most houses torn down, and depressed gutty streets. I mean gutty in the sense that most were covered in assorted guts. Ouch. The word nightmarish doesn't do it justice.

"No, it might've been. These griffins just follow the schedule, whatever it tells them to do. Clearing areas of foot soldiers is usually a routine job to these harmony soldiers, which are trained in Circle town battle stances and such, y'know."

"Fascinating," I said, feeling more and more pain come back, probably as the adrenaline and crazy spinning feeling in my head was going away. I was regaining lucidity, and that was not a nice feeling. "Oh nooo!" I said, seeing the horror-show in front of me.

"Well, the thing we saw in the egg-ship is worse in my book, but I'm very, very sorry for your loss. This is inexcusable," Gripey said, reaching down and picking me up, then putting me on his back again. "We need to fix this."

"Fix it?" I said. "Unless you have a revive gun, there is no fixing." Uwaaa! I barfed into Gripey's face. 

"Fine," he said. "You're right." He wiped himself with one of his big clawed hands. "So what do you want to do now?"

"Help them!" I said, feeling the pain of those around me inside me. "This is... this..." My breath got robbed from me, and stupid, ugly, indignant, meaningless, vapid, callow, shallow, empty tears rolled down my swollen cheeks, and my entire mouth ached now, more than the rest of my body. It felt like my teeth were falling out. "O- ou- ow."

"Yes," he said, flying over to one. "It's hard to even know where to start."

A siren went off, and then, it fell silent.

"It's Hookbeak," a pony said, running screaming in the opposite direction.

"Doubt it," Gripey said, turning around. "It's Hookbeak!"

Lots of ponies now were running for their lives, leaving the casualties, and the borderline casualties, the griffins' collateral, at the scene. I heard many shrieks all over, around and across.

No, it wasn't actually Hookbeak.

The big round, rotund robot that I had met during my last stay in Ponyville arose out of the Ponyville mine shaft, and the folds on each side were opening up, like ribbons on a present, revealing the horrible surprise that would be worse than anything that had happened so far.

The robot had tendrils and claws reaching straight out, looking like they served no purpose other than to scare ponies away, which they did. As they moved to the side, a giant manic face revealed itself, that of Hookbeak. It wasn't actual Hookbeak. It was far too big for that. It was a huge artificial Hookbeak face that shook up and down like a tree-branch when speaking. It had shining blue eyes, like those of Hookbeak when he put on the helmet inside his lair in the Tower of Technology. 

It said, "You are interfering with factor X. Did you really think that you could escape, F-5226?"

"I don't understand!" I said. "I didn't mean to."

"You have broken the bylaws of our country, Gripey Silverfeathers. You are both under arrest for trespassing inside an active warzone that was arraigned and arranged by the Executive Tower Board. You will surrender your weapons and lay down on the ground, whereupon you will receive a moderate electric shock that will temporarily make you unconscious and stop your hearts for a short period of time, until you are secured, whereupon you will be revived again!"

"Hookbeak," Gripey said. "This is crazy, even by your standards. Who put you up to this? No, of course I will not lie down on the ground. You're just going to cut my head off and parade it around town square anyhow, so why would I?" Gripey looked scared now. I had not seen this look in his eye, maybe ever. Well, I had seen it maybe on fake Gripey, but I felt that other one had been fake, and this was the real one. This moment was heavy! This giant Hookbeak robot might attack if we don't surrender, I thought.

"Did you really think that you could escape?" the robot said, turning its attention to me.

"I don't understand," I said, again, flailing my hooves. "What? We- b... I..."

"You are not allowed to share our secrets with the citizens of Ponyville. You have broken the bond of trust we formed when you attacked me inside the Tower of Technology after I had helped you both escape, F-5226." The claws and tentacles of the robot reached out in either direction, right and left, becoming longer. "There is no escape for you. All resistance will be met with lethal methods, Gripey Silverfeathers and F-5226."

"You've become senile!" Gripey said. "She never attacked you. She's been with me almost the whole time, pretty much." This accusation of senility, right in the heat of the moment, drew a laugh out of me, which in turn made Gripey speak on, it seemed. "Another thing! What is wrong with you? You cannot attack a town that has no means of defending itself, right in the middle of nowhere, for no reason."

"This proposal has been rejected until your betrayal, Gripey Silverfeathers," Hookbeak said, and big puffs of smoke came out of the machine. "I have finished my masterpiece. This machine was built to deal with griffins such as you, Gripey Silverfeathers, runaways of the Griffonian Army. It has the capacity to withstand any attack. All resistance will be met by lethal methods. You are trespassing."

"Hookbeak! Come to your senses!" Gripey said. "No one attacked you!"

"You are trespassing. You are trespassing. Lay down on the ground and surrender your weapons." The smoke that came out of the robot became thick and black. "You are trespassing."

"Botsy!" Gripey said, throwing me across a building so that I rolled down a hill and disappeared out of the area. "I'm sorry! I have to be a grownup now and protect you against something worse than falling and hitting your head again, but I love you. I'm sorry if you die because of me."

I would be fine. I rolled and rolled, but the dull pain did not actually creep all the way through in a way that felt final and ending. I would survive. That's what I was thinking about.

I heard a thud. Then, a fireworks show erupted behind me, and I saw lights, even as I was turned the other direction. When I faced back, seeing Ponyville, the last few buildings were being leveled, and ponies were no longer breathing anymore, because streaks of green light zigzagged across Ponyville, destroying the ground, and any last survivors. Gripey was huffing and puffing, flying for his life, trying to avoid the strange projectile. It pierced the air, looking like aurora, floating to and fro without much rhyme or reason, but like a snake, it always curled back in the direction that Gripey was flying.

What had he gotten himself into? What had Ponyville gotten itself into? They should've never tried to protect me, I thought. Those fools!
> Part 49: Ponyville No Longer Feels Like Home
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

You like the chapter header? Yes, it's supposed to be interpreted several different ways, but in contrast, there are not an unlimited number of ways in which you can interpret it, and functionally, there are few things that this phrase could mean: "Ponyville no longer feels like home." Right? In this context, it does not refer to Celestia. It does not refer to another village, whose name is Littlesville, for instance. Get it yet? It refers to me. It refers to the town. It refers to my memories of it. It does refer to what happened to it, and yes, it refers to what happened to me, as I lived here, in only three days. In three days, I changed forever. Change is stark and painful. Do we like change? It doesn't matter, though! Change will happen regardless. 

To the story!





Have you ever had a nightmare? Let us suppose that you have. I have no reason to believe it, but since it is normal for all to have nightmares, and since I know of no one whom I have asked this question that has said, "No, never," I will assume that you have, but if you haven't, I still think what I'm about to say holds true, regardless what happens.

Dreams are real. Nightmares are real too. They're real as a matter of experience. They're real to the people that have them, right? Oh, I'm getting ahead of myself. This story has been a lot of chit-chat, speaking in circles around a point that is so complicated that it needs to be described dozens of times for the reader to get it, but the reader will get it, and it will be explained in starker detail later. It will be unmistakable, unmissable, and indelible. It will be seen as true, not because it is true, but because you will have followed along for long enough that you have already accepted the underlying assumptions, ideas, and principles surrounding this. I do not view it as true, but I am experiencing it all the same.

Okay, it's time to spill the beans.





For real this time, you shall be aware, wary, and weary, of knowing, which you will... um.





Jelly and I. Me and her, were, there, to be fair, the castle knew. The castle has feelings. The castle knows. Twilight's castle is magical. It knew. I would speak to it later, but now, I would speak to Jelly. This was a day ago, when she revealed a secret.

"You chose to become a cyborg, Sweetie," Jelly said.

"Why?" I said, just baffled by this comment. Why would anyone ever?

"It's..." Jelly said. "Because you wanted to kill yourself."

"That doesn't follow," I said.

"Listen. Listen. You talk too much. Listen," Jelly said. "This is important, but you need to promise me something."

"Promise you what?" I said.

"Do not kill yourself because of this, and do it for no other reason than that I will never be able to forgive myself for telling you, sweet Sweetie." She touched my face.

I wanted to pull away from her, but I somehow couldn't. I still cared about her too much, even though her tight-lippedness had possibly caused me a whole lot of grief for a long time. "I make this promise, for you Jelly," I said, somewhat reluctantly. It's a heavy promise to make, but at least, I wasn't promising not to do it, period. I was promising not to do it as a consequence of her telling me the truth.

That I could promise, I thought at least.

It would be harder than I thought.





Sweetie. Sweetie. You're the one that escaped. You're the one I care about because you're the one that escaped.

There were several others that weren't so lucky.

You lived in Ponyville long ago when you were eight years old, but then, you ran away from your sister and your friends. You didn't want to be with any of them anymore, and I think you know why, but to be direct with it, it's because you were raped.





"I knew it," I said, as Jelly was telling the story. "I knew it. Drats."

"What?" she said.

"N- nothing," I said. "Go on."





Sweetie, we got separated, and... and I did not know where to find you. Who am I? This is not something you will like hearing maybe, but it's true. I am the daughter of a mare whose number one talent was to see the true selves of other ponies, understanding them, and she saw that your heart was unwell, so she told me that, and she said...  





"What did she say?" I said.

"She said that you were dying."





Dying on the inside, mind you. You were forgetting who you truly are. You are not this clever compilation of nuts and bolts. You are the one and only Sweetie Belle, for a while.

Then what did they do to you? They made you into what you had said for months that you wanted to be and that you believed you were. You thought you were a robot, even though you weren't.





"But I am a robot," I said, as Jelly was continuing the story.

"Am, not was," she said, answering my objection.





What did they do to you? I don't know, but you said that you wanted to leave. You didn't want to stay in the Forest of Tranquility any longer. Someone had convinced you to go. I remember this like it was yesterday.





"Why would I do that? Why would I ever want to leave you?" I said.

"Well, you told me..." Jelly said, and then, she dropped some unnerving truths on me, which haunted and stung.





You were inside our tree-house. You were safe. You had already escaped long ago.

That's what I told you many times, but you wouldn't listen. You said that you weren't safe. Something bad was going to happen. You could just feel it. I couldn't convince you otherwise.

"Sweetie," the monster said.

"Yes?" you said.

The spirit of light climbed into the tree-house. "I have a proposition for you."

"Yes," you said.

"Sweetie, you've felt so bad about everything you did for such a long time. You destroyed many lives, and now, you feel that you cannot live without reprieve. What do you want? Do you want to own it? Do you want to believe that what you did was right? Do you want to change what happened? I know what would make you happy!" she said. She was our age. I cannot believe that it was Scootaloo all along.

"What?" you said.

You had told me she closed the door to the tree-house, looking out around the forest before she did. "Sweetie, everyone has been lying to you. You are not a filly. You are a robot."

"That is my psychosis," is what you said to her.

"Reality is fickle," she had said, touching you on the nose. "You know why I came here, don't you?"

"To make me lie to myself even more," you said.

"The lies you tell yourself will be your entire reality," she said. "They will be what guide you, because they will affect everything else in a sense that nothing else truly can, because nothing else can be everything you want it to be, you see?"

"Nothing else other than a lie can be what I want it to be?" I said.

"Yes," she said. "You get it! Brilliant, Sweetie."

"Why did you say you came here?" you then said.

"You know why," she said.

"I do?" you said.

"In your mind live a bunch of different characters and ways of viewing the world, you see?" she said. "They are all part of you, part and parcel, within you, around you, throughout you, all that you are, and can ever be, you so very see?"

"Well, I guess I do," is what you then said to her.

"They are real!" she said.

"No, they're not!" you said.

"I can take them from you, so that you don't have to deal with them anymore," she said. "They will be part of my reality instead. I will have them with me every day. I will cherish them, as you never could, you see?"

"How?" you said.

"A machine!"





She took you to some place, and she said, "It's standard for each arrival to write their experiences down, either on a standard-order mechanized hydraulic keyboard, which we have stored in the back, or using a pen. You might want to use a pencil, in case of typos and such."

"They already made me do this, the stupid therapists," you said. "It does not work!"

"Hey! Do I look like a therapist to you?" she had responded.

"No," you said. 

She was a shining demon, with shining demon eyes, not a therapist, obviously! You should never have trusted her, Sweetie. She was not your friend.

"We shall create a robot mold of your body. It will look like you, and share all your memories, and then, we will send it out into the world and have it relive your experiences."

"What's a robot mold?" you said.

"It's like a two-bit clone," she said. "It looks like you, squawks like you, talks like you, even moves like you, but... it's not really you. It's just a fake."

"How in the world does that help me?"

You told that she had swung her hoof at hearing you say this, "Well!"





A cold chill ran down my spine. "J- Jelly," I said, as we spoke inside the lobby of Twilight's radiant crystal castle. "Wh- what did I do?"

"The true horror-story is worse than you think," Jelly said.





"We will make her go through what you went through. Tally-ho, we will call her back. She will give you all the answers on how to avoid going through it, and then, you will not have to go through it, for you see... this machine can tell the future, and it knows almost everything about the past. Such is its power, glorious and unending, never upending, never upended!"

"The future?" you said.

"And the past too. Celestia help all those that don't stay true, Sweetie," she had said with a big grin. "It's simple really. It's a trifle. We simply send you back in time, pretend it never happened. Voila! That's all you ever wanted, isn't it? You can be Sweetie Belle again, the little innocent filly, playing tag with her friends, doing- doing filly stuff. I don't know what fillies do, but I'm sure you'll figure it out."

You had started crying at hearing that. "You can do that?"

"Yes, though it might come at the cost of something near and dear to you."

"What? I'll do anything."

"Your friendship with Jelly only happened because you, Sweetie, killed her parents, you see? Only you cannot relive this friendship. Only your robot mold, whose name will be Sweetie Bot, can."

"Huh?" you said.

"Are you surprised? You only met her because you had killed her parents in Pegasquire. That's the extent of your relationship, though if you ask me, and I know you'll resent me for saying this, but I think this friendship is dispensable. After all, she only ever wanted to be friends with you because it was the only way she knew how to deal with her father's death. She thought that if she could turn you into a good person, then the anger and sadness would all go away."

"Is that true?" you said.

"I cannot lie, and the machine definitely cannot lie. It already knew this, because we know enough about the surrounding context and events owing to the memories of other ponies that were involved, most notably your friend Gripey."

"Who's Gripey?" you said.

"He's a pony. We had trouble with him. I guess he was a pedophile. I don't know! Funny though, seeing him squirm after we pulled his face off. I think we will replace his evil with something more palatable. We also have something else in store for him, Sweetie."

"He's... huuh? He's the one... something feels... just... I- I," you said, jittering and feeling bad. I think you didn't want something worse to happen to him.

"It's okay! We'll mold his personality into that of a morally unobjectionable person," she had said with a light laugh. "And then, we'll be able to use him too." 

"For what?"

"All sorts of things. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. We won't harm him... more than is necessary for him to see the error of his ways. After that, we will pierce his heart and replace his physiology with that of a less objectionable person. If we cannot fix his body and brain, then I conclude that no one will. We are the best at it here in the perfect blank black."

"That's... I... I... I don't think he necessarily deserves to suffer just because of what he did to me," you said.

She had laughed. "It's not because of what he did to you. It's to teach him a lesson, you see? Those Equestrians, you know, they're too weak to teach ponies lessons. Had they captured him, he would've gone to friendship school and gotten a diploma."

"That does seem a bit much," you had agreed. "I don't know if you should tear his face off."

"It's not a coincidence that we do this. It's because faces have identities attached to them, and we never wish to see this identity again. We shall replace it with something better, more honorable, positive, yada-yada-yada, and so on."

"Can you be more... specific?"





I was just glaring at Jelly now. "Are you saying that Gripey is a rapist?"

"No! No, I would never. She's the one who said it."

"Well, what the hell do you mean? You'd better explain it right now."





"These things are tricky," the light sprit had said. "Your perpetrator must be punished in accordance with his crimes, and that accordance, in ordinance, says that whatever happens to him, it must change him in a way to where he would never commit that same crime ever again. In this case, it involved tearing his face off. We will move his body around until it finds a suitable home among the many volunteers of the Facility of the Dream. His brain will be melded together with that of another. Their spirits will be shared, just as you will share the spirit of your robot mold, Sweetie, you see?"

"No, I can't say I do," you had said in response.

"You will though," she said. "You will."

"You promise me this will work?" you said.

"Yes, there's not a single example of it not working, but be wary. You may not know what you wished for, and know what you had, either, Sweetie."

"Jelly..."

"She will meet someone else! She will meet someone that is identical to you in... almost every way. How's that? You may even meet her one day and come to terms with her, come into terms and... start a friendship? I don't know. I don't deal with that kind of stuff. I'm just saying."

"Friendship," you said, and that was the last word you remembered before everything changed.





"Wait! How do you know this part of the story?" I said. "If the future changed and the Sweetie you met was one that never went through this transformation where I never met you, and she did- I mean, this doesn't make sense, Jelly. I only ever did it after I abandoned you, so I'm not sure what you're getting at."

"You did it after you left me alone in the Forest of Tranquility," Jelly said. "Don't you get it? I thought you were smarter than that, Sweetie."

"Huh?" I said.

"I know about it because you and that other Sweetie share a lot in common, but you are the one that is real, and she is not, so... I realized this... and then... I decided to find the real you, the real Sweetie. This one... she said she was real, squawked like you, as the light spirit said, in my recollection, but... there was something wrong with her."

"What?" I said.

"She lacked heart, Sweetie. That's what."





That's why I decided to find you. I had met you in Pegasquire, and I escaped together with you. I know you think none of that even happened. I'm not sure why! They controlled your brain. You gave this sob story about how you had escaped from Ponyville, and then, they made you do all this, forcing you to kill my da, taking you to Pegasquire. Well, I'm sure you can agree by now that no one forced you, Sweetie. You did it willingly, and I am not sure that I have forgiven you yet for it. What do you think about that?





"I don't expect you to forgive me," I said. "Let's recap this. I was with you in the Forest of Tranquility. We had escaped from Pegasquire, which I have literally no recollection of. Once there, we lived together, but I could not forget the dark memories of my rape, so to speak, so I escaped with this light demon who promised to change everything, which she did, but she did it by subjecting a robot clone of me to the same experiences I had been through, and in this alternate timeline in which the robot clone went through these alternate experiences, you found out she wasn't real, so you went to go find the real me, who... wait, did I just say all that out loud, Jelly?"

"That's about right," she said. "As ridiculous as it sounds, I think it's accurate."

"Okay, it sounds ridiculous, and you're going to have to go a long way to convince me it's accurate," I said, frowning.

"Don't you trust me?"

After a few seconds, "Yes."

"You had to think?"

"Yes," I said.

"Okay," she said.





"Sweetie Belle is safe, and you will never find her," the monster said.

I could not tell where her voice was coming from. I galloped over to the exit of the tree-house, but the door slammed in front of me. I turned around and right there she was standing. She must have teleported inside or something. The tree-house had windows, true, but you could never get inside through them. They're too small, and the house was far above the ground. You had to climb wooden boards that had been nailed up on the tree to get to the tree-house.

"She was a robot all along. She says she lied to herself, but it was real. It was real. She has to... go now," I said.

"Her heart will be crushed. Can you not see that she cares about you, as Sweetie would have?" the monster said.

"You don't get it!" I ran up to her and shoved her. "You'll never get it. You don't understand friendship." She fell backward and through the floor. 

"Friendship?" She came up behind me, speaking into my ear. "You talking about friendship? Little sweet Jelly. I created friendship. Before me, ponies thought that violence was the only answer. Many still do. Silly ponies, all their lives..."

"Likely story," I said, turning around to shove her again. My hooves went straight through her. "What is this magic?"

"It's not magic," she said. "But never mind that. To the point, Jelly Lime. If you ever want to meet the real Sweetie Belle, and know her as she would have been, had she been a real person and not this metal husk, and if you believe that this is somehow the only way of redeeming yourself, as I know you do, because you think that changing the Sweetie that killed him–"

"What do you know about my heart?" I said.

"I know everything!" she said, and her body shone up blindingly. "You know nothing, almost, by comparison."

"So what if that's the twisted truth?" I said. "What of it?"

"Who was it that killed your parents?" she said.

"Just a stupid robot who pretends to be something she's not. She's a fake. I- I can see it in her eyes."

"Then why do you want to find the real Sweetie so badly? What's the use?" nameless said.

Yes, I call her that too now. That's the right name for her. It's just literally impossible to name what she is. "Because she's not a fake. I can see it in her eyes."

"A non-sequitur," she said. 

"A what?" I said.

"A contradiction in terms," she said, with a smile. Her teeth shone too! What is this creature?

"It's not! I just know there's something completely fake about her, and yet, there's something completely real about her at the same time. Everything she tells me is something a real person would say, and yet, she acts like a real person, but she doesn't understand any emotion, but a person that doesn't understand any emotion would never have been able to..."

"Spare you!" nameless said. "That's absolutely brilliant, Jelly. That's precisely the answer I was expecting, and eloquent too."

"Big words," I said, "from a sad little freak!"

"If you ever want to see her, the real Sweetie who did kill your father in an alternate timeline, then you must... do as I say, Jelly, and if you do not, I fear your mother will meet a similar fate as your father, I am sure!"

"You're threatening me!?" I said.

"No, you feel threatened. That's the difference! I'm simply telling you the future. If you don't find her, then let your mother die. That should be an added incentive, and by no means have I told a lie, for the friends and bud-buds of this fake Sweetie will come looking for her... and then... ha!"

"What?" I said.

"Your mother will die in the crossfire. Don't say I didn't warn you! But, the real Sweetie can prevent this... because..."

"Because?"

"Well, that's a different story. Forget I mentioned it... and believe me if you want... now bye!" She sank down through the floor.

"W- wait! You didn't tell me what to do..." I looked down and saw a little booklet lying there on the floor, curiously. I picked it up. It told me what to do.





"What's it say?" I said.

"It said... I'd better give it to you..." Jelly pulled it out of her hair and gave it to me.

Its contents were staggering.





Note to Jelly Lime of the Lime family from the Northern District: Hello, Jelly! Sorry for bothering you. I know this must feel like a hurdle and a hassle, but it is for the best, both for you and your loved ones, all their lives, so read well and heed these words. 

You must return to Pegasquire within five to ten weeks. You must stay there until a sedative is added to your drinking water and that of your keepers there. They will receive you on an undisclosed address that will be given to you in a different letter placed in a place that only you can find, Jelly Lime, you see? Then, you will exit your home.

The stage is set! The real Sweetie will arrive. Light, cameras, action! She will think that she's attacking and killing your parents, but rather, she will be killing your temporary foster parents who have already agreed to die for the cause of my facilities and to prevent a worse future. I cannot lose, as I have told many ponies many times for centuries, Jelly Lime.

Then, she will regret what she did. Voila! And if you tell your mother, I will personally kidnap her and remove that memory from her, along with many others that you might consider precious. She will be inducted into the facility and added to the great army of salvation. Better yet, never tell anyone about this.

Sincerely, your worst enemy and your best friend of the future: [the skies]





"How?" I said.

"Well, you got all you ever wanted, but all you ever wanted was becoming something else. You were changing to this thing. You were merging with the sky-bot."

"Slow down!" I said. "How do you know those words?"

"She told me," Jelly said. "She said these exact words to me, visiting me and telling me them every day, without fail, making sure that I remember them, that they sit tight in my skull. They did. You became Sweetie Belle again, but apparently, that wasn't good enough for you, and you no longer had any excuse to feel bad, and gloomy all the time, because in this new reality she had created for you, no one knew that you had been sexually assaulted." 

"My word!" I said.

"So..." Jelly said. "You escaped!"





My memories shook!

"Hey," Sweetie said. "Look." They all did. It was beautiful. It was unexpected. It was something new, for all the ponies involved, most of all Sweetie Belle, who had never seen lightning up close before, or heard its ear-deafening sound. It was a revelation, painful for the ears, but a sight to behold. It was was something new, again, and something more powerful than any of them understood, so far. It was a sign of what's to come, and they looked at it, astounded, aghast, and surprised, and full of hope and energy, and wonder, and joy, but such things come in short supply, and contrary to what some readers may think, wonder and joy can be destroyed. In an attempt not to bury the lead, I will inform you that this is what part 19 is about. It's about a filly that fell, learning a new, more powerful moral lesson that doomed her forever. This is her story, and this is an honest attempt at doing it justice, difficult and imposing as it may seem. I will do it, though. I will. I will.





"That's... why?" I said.

"Maybe they're not the same Gripey, though," she said, seeing the concern on my face.

"Yeah..." I said.

"I mean, that is a pretty common name."

"Name..." I said. My cheeks swelled up. "Augh!" Swallow!

"Did you just swallow down a mouthful of puke?" Jelly asked me.

"So what if I did?" I said, wiping my mouth.

"Why did you do that?"

"No reason!"

"Sweetie!" Jelly said with concern on her face.

"I never told him my name," I said.

"Huh?" she said.

"He's not supposed to know my real name," I said.

"What of it?" she said.

"How does he know?" I said. "Unless..."

"Unless what?"

"He's the one who did it," I said, fear in my stomach.

"That's... not completely certain," Jelly said. "It's better not to jump to conclusions."

"He said he was my therapist?" I said. "That doesn't make any sense, and when I arrived in Circle town." I gasped. "They said that he... he was..." 

"What?"

"He had been committed rape!" I said.

"Who said that?" she said.

"The crime guy, in the dungeon-place," I said, losing my bearings.

"Okaaay?" Jelly said.

"B- but you- she said it was a pony?" I said.

"Yeah," she said. "A pony!"

"How?" I said. "None- I- we- b- uh- the..."

"Slow down," she said, waving her hoof up and down. "I think Twilight's coming."

"How?" I said. I had my hooftips on the answer, practically. I could smell it. Where was it? I would reach it. "He... he..."

Twilight said, "He's like you."

"Huh?" I said.

"He wanted to erase his past, like you," she said.

"Drats!" I said, and then, you know the rest. All the pieces fell in place for me in that moment, and if they haven't yet for you, then let the flow of events clarify to you what you have missed, and the implicit assumptions that follow and enter into the conversation that I have with each character in each coming story sequence and scene. You will get it, eventually, but since I have spent many paragraphs and scenes with characters explaining things, as these things are still salient in my memories, and I must write it, because I don't want to leave anything out, I will balance that out by giving you as many events, and real concrete examples of the things that have been discussed in the abstract, as pieces of information and exposition in this story, and you can judge for yourself what you think about it and how shocking it is, as it shook me to the core.





Slowly... slowly... slowly realizing... realizing... realizing the truth... I did! Did I? Can you tell me why? It's because I figured out that whoever Gripey is, he's not real. He's a confection of some different time, when things were different, and what was different about that time was... well... I was assaulted by a pony, at least in theory, supposedly. That pony had regrets? I guess he did. He sought solace. He sought to repent and redeem himself in the place where evil ponies go to rot, and others that have done unconscionable things go to die, which is the underground tunnels of the Hydral Mines. If you have been traumatized, then this place will discover you. It stands to reason that a person can even be traumatized by his own monstrous acts. Do not view this as an excuse for any moral wrongdoings however, as it's not.

Anyway! A griffin by the name of Gripey was made to do the same things... are you following this? THIS is what I realized. This is the trick, which is to say that none of it's true, but there's enough true in there that it seems vaguely as if it could be true, all the while as it's discombobulating and confusing.

Yet! This pony by the name of nameless, I have heard, cannot lie. Strangely, strangely, strangely then, does the truth apprehend me, and I it.





I ran with determined, angry steps back to Twilight's castle and she was just coming out. "Twilight," I said.

"Discord betrayed us!"

"What? How?" I said.

Twilight was crying. "All that lightning! We never stood a chance."

"Lightning?" I said.

"Yes," she said. "Who else do you think could've done it?"

"Is that a rhetorical question, or... ?" I said with pause and doubt.

"In the heat of battle, Discord sent a thunderstorm raging down into Ponyville, basically making it impossible for any of us to fight back," she said.

"You might... want to reconsider that notion," I said, as I realized where the thunderstorm had actually come from.

"What does it matter?" she said. "They're all dead! Cheerilee is dead. Big Mac is dead. Almost everyone is dead."

"Death is tragic," I agreed.

"Sweetie!" she said. "Conjure some emotion."

"Not now!" I said. "It's time to focus. The battle is not over yet, and Gripey needs your help. He is being attacked right now."

"The battle is over," she said. "Come into the castle with me."

"... Huh?" I said. "Twilight! Listen to me!"

"No, you listen, Sweetie. There's nothing to fight for anymore," she sniveled, spitting into my face because she was such a mess.

"Yes, there, is!" I said, engulfing Twilight in a field of levitation and throwing her into the castle, closing the door in front of her, since I thought that she would force me to stay with her. I was probably correct in that assumption. I ran back over to the river, planning to throw myself down it to get back into the cave putting myself in danger just because Twilight wasn't willing to listen.





I woke up in the arms of Gripey. "You cannot keep throwing yourself in the river? You have a death wish or what? We've been over this!"

We had? "We have?" I said.

"I'm surprised that you're alive at this point," he said.

"Could we talk this out?" I said. "I don't want to commit suicide, haven't for a long time."

"We're in a bit of a bind right now," he said, peeking over his own shoulder. 

I did too. What I saw was a giant metal husk floating above the water, shooting purple shining projectiles at us. "Pretty," I said.

"Not to get hit by!" he said, flying faster.

"How are you so relaxed under these circumstances?" I said.

"I'm not. I'm just focused! Can't tell the difference, can you?" he said. "No, I'm scared out of my mind, but I know you have to." One of his feathers got zinged. "I'll talk about it later." He dove down the waterfall, flying over the river.

"You need to get me into that cave. It might be our only hope of beating this sucker!" I said.

"Why?" he said.

"The rock, it produces lightning," I said. "Well, it triggers it. I'm not sure, actually, but you've seen my crazy plans work out in the past."

"True," he said, circling back.

I coughed. "My lungs are fine..."

"Yeah, you seem fine for a person that was just drowning?" He snapped his wings going in a wide quick loop around the giant mech. 

The Hookbeak robot roared monstrously and oily-ly. "The more you fly, the more tired you'll get, but I cannot get tired," the robot said, taunting Gripey. 

"We'll see," Gripey said, flying into the cave with me.

He put me down. I sprinted to the cloud-shaped rock, feeling new energy. I poked it.

"Diiing," it said, but nothing happened.

"Well, eep," I said, poking it again.

"Diiing," the rock said with the exact same volume and tone, bouncing off the rocky walls inside that cave there.

"Hurry..." Gripey said.

The Hookbot robot came in, stretching one of its longs indistinct limbs into the cave. It had a sharp point at the end, which it swung at me. Then, the miracle happened.

"Gripes! I- careful," I said, as the lightning soared down into the huge robot, which was pulled back.

"I am," he said, going to where I was inside the cave. He had been standing at the opening, by the waterfall that fell down it.

"Oarrg!" the robot growled. The lightning stopped.

"Do it again," Gripey said.

The tentacle reached in. I jumped out the way, but it wasn't reaching for me. It pulled on the rock, detaching it from the floor, and tearing it out the cave going away into the distance. I saw it disappear out of view. 

"Oy!" I said.

"Sorry for doing this again," Gripey said, tossing me out the cave as the robot was crawling in, blocking off the opening just as I was flying out.

"Th- that's okay," I said, flying into the river, taking big wide breaths. "I- I..." I was sucked down. I held my breath. 

I saw visions.

A shining little filly of brilliant shining light appeared. What the heck? Who the heck? Everything turned black, and then, I was thrown out of the water, rolling across the ground.

"Who?" I said.

Second miracle! I actually saw where the cloud-shaped rock had landed. 

I took off, but then, the metal monstrosity slammed into the ground before me, screeching and squealing, sounding like it was broken. "Leaving so soon?" it said, in Hookbeak's terrifying voice. To think I had once taken comfort in hearing that voice!

"Yes," I said, trying to go around it.

Rather than allowing me to do it, the robot slid to the side, and then unleashed a high-pitched piercing noise that slammed into my ears, removing my equilibrium just like that. I sank into the ground, unable to move, or indeed even see what was in front of me. I saw sharp purples everywhere, like those of the portals, and I got the sudden urge to run. The purples faded. Had the robot tried to shoot something at me? What was going on? I couldn't see anything. I felt a pain, but I didn't even feel that. I just felt dizzy. I felt confused. My head throbbed harder and harder, and I felt stabs inside it, sharp stabs. Sharp purples, coming toward me! I ducked. I moved. I criss-crossed. I hoped I was avoiding it.

My vision came back to me.

I saw the cloud-rock. I had been running toward it.

I almost crashed right into it. I hugged it! "Ding-ding-ding!" it said, unleashing torrents of lightning, not just into the Hookbeak robot that was flying in my direction, but also the loudspeakers that were attached to poles here and there around Ponyville. I saw the lightning go through all the wires, making some of them fall over, and then, the lightning stopped going through those that had fallen over and spread to other places. It was attacking places where currents of electricity was passing through. What an odd yet brilliant weapon, yes! Yes, it was working. Hookbeak's robot was stunned by the lightning. A spear soared through the air, going right through the robot, and passing out the other side. I moved out the way as it was about to hit me.

"Careful!" I said, afraid of my life.

For my life? Again, not important... indistinct are the meanings of words to me at this point, as my worries lie elsewhere. I don't care, is what I mean to say, dear readers.

So, I was afraid of my life? Well, I was, and what happened next?

"OoooRRG!" the robot screeched, roaring, growling, Hookbeak's face vibrating, the centerpiece of the machine, which poked out at us and gave us evil warnings. Evil? Maybe he's not evil, just morally bankrupt. Maybe he's amoral, which might be worse. In either which case, the robot screamed. "Rurur!"

"Sorry!" Gripey said, landing beside me with a smile.

"Is it over?" I said.

My question was answered promptly. A stream of purple shot down under the robot and it sank down, disappearing.

"Huh?" Gripey said.

The purple mass had come straight out of the robot. I was reminded! "Those blasted portals!" I said.

"Portals?" Gripey said, as a tentacle clawed its way over to him from the side, stabbing him.

Gripey proceeded to grab it, but it yanked loose and then wrapped around the cloud-shaped rock, tossing it away again.

"We need that," I said, irrationally reaching out my hoof so as to reach it. "G- Gripey..."

"Ow, I've felt better," he said, with stream of blood running down his side. "It's okay." He stretched out his body. "It's okay. Phew!"

"It's..." I said.

I heard a horn coming from somewhere.

"That sound," Gripey said, clutching his side with his hand.

"Does your hip hurt?" I said.

"My hip is fine," he said, coughing.

"Where did the machine disappear to?" I said, looking around.

Then, a whole swarm of pegasí flying in tight formation came down through some scattershot clouds in the sky, entering Ponyville.

"Those are the reinforcements, Gripes. We're saved!" I said.

There were possibly more than a thousand, as more and more descended from the clouds. Had they travelled on clouds? The cloud-cover was not thick enough to create an unbroken path for the pegasí, so what gives there? Maybe bringing the clouds with them to create cover for an ambush was some sort of bush warfare tactic of theirs. I would inquire about this later, in case I survived, I thought.

"Where is the Princess of Friendship?" a bright orange stallion said, landing in front of us. "And where are the enemy? They gone and scurry off?"

"Hey! I saw you on the train," I said, smiling at the guy.

"We can talk later, young'un," he said.

"I don't know!" I said. "Last I checked, Twilight shut herself into the castle."

"W- that's a fine darn thing to do," he said, with his thick accent. It was reminiscent to that of Apple Bloom, but actually, way thicker! "Aii reckon we do not have any clout here." It was seemingly getting thicker, too. "Where's the Colonel Caprice run off to?"

"Okay! I want to know what's going on?" I said.

"You're darn right. You'll do as you're told," he said, which didn't make any sense to me.

I gripped Gripey in my hooves. "He's not the enemy."

"Not that we'll hurt him. He's not in fighting condition to save my ol' granny," he said, putting a steady hoof on Gripey's back. "Where the enemy run off to, griffin boy?"

Hmm!





An hour later!

"That's a lot to take, y'hear?" the sergeant, Sergeant Pompadour said. No, his hair was not a pompadour. Yes, I know the name does not make sense, see? I know stuff. I would inquire about this later too, in case I survived, which I may not have done, depending on how you look at it.

"I hear," I said, slowly listening to find the meaning behind the almost unintelligible words.

"Aii do not know where you got the idea to say those things," he said in the most challenging of tones.

"I don't know either," I said.

This fellow had a brown mane which stood out like spikes in all directions, not only up but north and west, to the sides. It was chaos up there in his head region. Someone needed to call a barber or a hairdresser, and fast, but then again... who was I to judge, with my catastrophic sense of style? For all I knew, and know even, his hair might've been the latest beautiful trend in some Canterlotian fashion craze. Yes, he was from Canterlot. Maybe I should've led with that. Well, no matter, none at all. You're just going to have to accept it. 

"Maybe 'cause it's true?" Gripey said.

"You stay all out o' this, puddin'," Sergeant Pompadour said, whipping his hair back with the stroke of a hoof. "You never shoulda come here in the first place. It was a right mistake that you'll get punished for."

"I did not do anything," Gripey said.

"Did you not now, is that right?" the sergeant said, going over to another pony. He grabbed a piece of paper. "It says here, my friend, that you are an escaped convict. How's that sound to your ears?" 

Gripey backed away. "Get away from me."

"He's going to escape?" Sergeant Pompadour said with a laugh. "All but revealing his guilt. See?" He flicked the paper toward me, expecting me to grab it, I suppose, in my hoof.

Or my magic? I grabbed it... in my hoof this time. "Charge: aggravated assault, robbery, fraud, rape- well! This is all but... now, I have something to say to all of you, and I think you want to listen, because you'll learn something from it. Believe it or not, y'will!" I shook my head, filling up my cheeks with air, blowing them out, thinking, letting go of all my inhibitions.  

"What's it ya think we have the time to listen to?" Sergeant Pompadour said, as more and more pegasus ponies landed on the ground. They were filling up all the open space, lining up, becoming larger and larger, ever larger columns, growing in size and number. I saw a bunch of pegasí even off into the distance, coming down from the clouds, and their numbers were increasing exponentially. They landed on the hills and the field outside Ponyville, standing completely still like rocks do, but these weren't rocks. These were alive griffins.

"Lookie who came to join us!" Sergeant Pompadour said, stepping off with a quick, rhythmic tap of the hoof against his forehead. "It's the big girl herself."

It was Colonel Autumn Leaf Caprice, the military type person that I had met in Manehattan. "OH! That's the biggest girl to you," she said, wrapping her hoof around the purple umbrella that was attached to a buckle on her side, pulling it out. She supported herself on it, and she looked like she had trouble walking. Remember? She was grey with white hair, just to remind you. Her hair was a frizzle this time, just unbrushed, but long and shining in the sun regardless. "You are not at ease. Act like a professional, Sergeant." She yelped, giving a sharp short moan.   

"What's that about?" Sergeant Pompadour said.

"My leg is what that's all about," she said. "Damn griffins! I'll have to hit my leg against something just to numb the pain, should it come to that, you lump-headed quack."

"Hey! That's hurtful," he said, with a laugh.

"I'll have you suspended with a measly occupational reference unless you get behind me and shut your fat claptrap right this moment, Sergeant," she said, waving her hoof to behind her.

He ran over there. She stopped him with a forehoof, the one that wasn't injured, stroking it across his face. "You pirate," she said. "Get behind me."

"Don't mind if I do," he said.

"Hey!" She flipped her umbrella toward him and prodded the sharp wooden point at the end on his face. "Don't try your luck with me, you pirate."

"Hahaha!" he said, as she pressed it against his cheek.

"That's all fine and dandy," I said, "but listen to me. This is important."

"Hey! I know you, don't I?" Colonel Caprice said, sinking the umbrella into the ground. Sergeant Pompadour, like clockwork, had become utterly and completely quiet and expressionless, right as their conversation ended, his and hers.

"Yes! I met you in Manehattan. You had me arrested," I said, taking a deep breath, as I was getting nervous.

"Ha! That is some rich talk," she said, lifting the umbrella and flipping it in a circle, stabbing it back into the ground for dramatic effect. "I never met a girl that could talk like a pony, no! Because I- I remember- I- you were one of those swashbuckling cyborgs that have been raving around the country, aren't you?"

I glanced behind her. All of those pegasí were standing silently, now clearly more than a thousand, and perhaps, well probably two-thousand, standing behind her. There were sort of swiveling, a few of them, but mostly, they were standing still, and rolling across the hills, as the landscape went up and down. I saw them standing on the narrow sides, sloping juts, criss-cross crevices, and around trees far off into the far-off of the land. None of them were doing anything. All of them were disciplined and awaiting the word of a commanding officer.

"About that!" I said. "There's been a mix-up, but I am the same person that you met all that time ago, for true."

"All of five months ago, it was?" she said. "This is a huge surprise, to see you all the way out here, in Ponyville. Could it truly have been a coincidence that the griffins arrived here as you are here now, my little robot?"

"No!" I said. "I will explain, but I think I can defend Gripey here. I don't think he's the terrible criminal you make him out to be."

"He's a criminal?" she said, looking at Gripey, who was bowing his head down into the ground, feebly holding his side with one hand, awaiting his arrest no doubt. "Last time I saw him, he was a corpse, and now, he's a criminal. This is a dreary day to be alive, what with the attack on Ponyville and everything else." She stared over across the burned down and some of them pulverized buildings, of Ponyville, my former home. It did not look like much of a home, anymore, ah-no-no-no. I'll tell you that much. "The griffins, as per their usual MO, do not look to have left many survivors. How did you get away?" She looked at me with icy fierce eyes. 

"It's a long story," I said, unsure of how to summarize it. "I think I can explain it. It was- um..." I tried to grasp for words, but none would come to me in my head, and I felt ever so dizzy and confused, full of inner conflict, as this story has been full of. Ever since I left Manehattan, but even before, my life had been a rollercoaster of death, destruction, and incoherence.

"Never mind! I don't want to hear it," she said. "I remember what happened when I tried to ask you last time what you had been up to and what you backstory was, and that was a disaster."

"Um..." I said.

"A disaster!" she said.

"I wasn't about to disagree with you," I said.

"If you ask me, your slam poetry wishy-washy boondoggle belongs in the gutter, along with the rest of them. Now, they learned to camouflage your voice. This represents a threat to the whole of Equestria, you robot pest!" she shouted into my face.

"No!" I said. "They change your voice on purpose to change your identity. It–"

"I don't want to hear it," she said. "Get along now. Go to... someone, and I will handle this situation the only way I know how."

"But I have something important to say," I said. "You had better listen."

"Well, it had better be important then," she said, with brisk brusqueness in her sharp voice. Her voice was like that of a cat: meow-meow-meowmeowmeow. That's what she sounded like, to my ear. "Go on then. Speak, or forever remain silent."  

My mind wandered. "Are you related to the cat-pony in Canterlot? The one that works in the court system?"

"No, I hate her. Speak now. Go on. Cat got your tongue? Hoho!" she said. "Ah! Oh! That was unprofessional of me. Hmpfh!" She quickly recovered from that momentary lapse into levity.

"Gripey is... a pony?" I said.

"What you getting at?" she said. "He's never been anything but a pony, a dead one and now alive. I thought you were going to explain that. You're wasting my time. Also, speak louder. You think my ears are as soft and tender as those you meet in Ponyville?"

"I–"

"No, shut up. I don't want to hear it," she said.

"I see him- when I look at him, I see a griffin," I said.

"Are you insane then?" she said.

"Am I? No!" I said. "No, this is what's going on. A switch was made. A pony by the name of Gripey, and a griffin by name of Gripey, you understand?"

"What? There are two of them now?" she said.

"No!" I said. "No, a pony by the name of- I don't know, assaulted me. He was kidnapped, along with my memories of him. This is the cyborg trick."

"What is?" she said.

I walked over to Gripey and stood beside him. "You are a victim of this as much as I am," I said.

"Sweetie," he said. "Do not- just let them arrest me, please."

"Ha!" I said. "And you are not a griffin, but you look like one to me because you are here and yet not at the same time."

"Sweetie," he said. "Sweetie!"

"I never told you my real name," I said, "but what's truly interesting is that when I look behind you, I can find the real you." I looked behind him.

In the dim shadows of the clouds, I saw something. It flew off to the side and grew. "No. No. That is incorrect," it said, becoming my size, but now, rather than being transparent, as it had been, it became black and easy to see. It had long jagged ears, which jutted from her head like long saws, green eyes, with pupils that were slightly dilated no matter where they looked, and solid-black hooves, unlike those of Nexusantran and other changelings, which had holes in them. She looked vaguely like a changeling, but I had a mind to think that she wasn't. 

"What is?" I said.

"No, I am Lyretex. I am not a changeling. I am a wood sprite. I do not mean to cause any harm. I was only trying to protect your friendship with one Gripey Silverfeathers, of which I have so far been successful," she said, with a long slow nod. "I have carried out the duties of my position, as it is given, to be carried out by me and others like me." 

"Who is what?" Colonel Caprice said. "Huh? What is this black beast?" She leaned the umbrella in Lyretex's direction.

"I am not a beast. I am an US-IDS," she said, holding out a hoof.

I slapped it to the ground. "You do not want to shake hooves, not right now at this dark grim hour," I said.

"Pony custom?" Lyretex said. "I am sorely lacking in factoids about the customs of ponies, but I can tell you everything about zebras." She smiled briefly, and then, she became expressionless again, standing completely still as she had all along, since I first met her. She didn't move, and she didn't have much of a body language, but she was a jabber-mouth, this Lyretex. 

"Yes, yes," I said, putting a hoof to hers. "That's all fine and good." I lifted her hoof in mine. "Listen now. What did you do to Gripey? If you can find it in your heart, I don't want to hear what I think is true, which is that he isn't even real, and everything about him was created in a lab somewhere, and then you said what he was going to say, or something like that, into his ear."

"That would be unethical," Lyretex said. "I do not speak words into the ears of ponies. I only watch and listen. Then, I bring all the words and memories back to the black, where the information is processed and turned into stories for all of us to cherish. This is the way of an US-IDS, subject F-5226."

"Anyway?" I said.

"Also, that would be technically impossible. He would be able to tell the difference. I am merely a placeholder for his thoughts." Lyretex nodded a single short nod, quick and sweet.  

"Can you prove that in court?" I said, my mind wandering to the terrible prospect of having one of my only friends, and possibly rapists, the only one in fact, should Jelly be gone, to be arrested and tried in court for fleeing from Tartarus and worse crimes than that.

"It wasn't me that did it!" Gripey said. Now, he was piping up in defense of himself. "I was fooled, and now, everyone thinks I did it."

"As with you," Lyretex said to me. "You too are only a placeholder for the thoughts of real Sweetie Belle. You are a robot mold. I can see it in your eye. You carry the insignia, which means that you outrank me." She made a short, quick, annoying bow, and kept speaking. "You will command me, but I must first, for your own sake and my responsibility, help you escape arrest and prosecution at sallow pony hooves."

"Hey!" Colonel Caprice said. "That's an extremely odd insult. Keep talking. Pretend I'm not here. I want info." She then fell silent, silly Colonel Caprice. Well, I guess she was quite... I don't know. She wasn't quite like any pony I had ever met, and I'm not sure that this is a good thing.

"You must be reprocessed, and then, they can arrest your body," Lyretex said. "They will accept this, as it is in their interests to prosecute the bodies of ponies or other creatures, which in pony eyes are considered to be evil, like you." She held up a hoof, a reserved hoof, vaguely pointing in my direction as her pupils dilated even further.

"That's fine!" I said, pushing down on the hoof to make her lower it, but it was like granite, impossible to push down. "Stop pointing at me! They're all looking. They'll think I'm a criminal."

"This is of no concern," Lyretex said so Colonel Caprice could hear, which I didn't think was very helpful to the cause of seeking my freedom from Tartarus, but okay then, I guess. "You will be reprocessed, both of you."

"No, I don't want you to do anything that will make me lose my sense of identity," I said, scared of what Lyretex would do.

Lyretex gave a quick nod. "I see. You have an irrational sense of attachment to your own identity. This can happen to robot molds, on occasion, but do not worry. The black will see to it that you are happy, well-fed with electricity, and without faulty values in no time. There is no need to be afraid, F-5226."

"Well, I am!" I said. I was hanging on by a hair, just barely able even to comprehend what was going on because everything that had happened this day, and the last few days, had been so overwhelming that I wasn't sure what to think, but I was sure that whatever Lyretex was up to, it could not be good.

"Your friend has been poisoned," Lyretex said, her head swiveling in the direction of Gripey, and I followed her gaze. "His motor functions are failing him, and his somatic nervous system will cease to function soon."

"It will?" Gripey said.

"Yes, yes," Lyretex said, one of her ears twitching. She bent down into the ground, sitting down on her hind and forelegs. "She's coming..."

"Who?" I said. "Can you not save him?"

"This does not matter," Lyretex said, pushing her face into the ground. I could barely hear her because she was mumbling almost.

The sun above our heads in the sky shone brighter and brighter, and then, the beams got thicker, dug into the ground making earth fly up in all directions. A pair of black empty eye-sockets stared down at me from the sky, getting lower and lower, sinking to the ground. Then, they shrank, becoming the size of my eyes. They hung there in the air, sinking down to my eye-level, and I saw something in them. A glint. They blinked.

Colonel Caprice stood back, as did everyone that was here right now, except for Gripey. He had trouble moving. He was dying, apparently. Sergeant Pompadour backed into a packed line of soldiers that had been standing behind him. They moved to the side, allowing him to fall back and hit his head on the ground.

"I give youuu..." the disembodied voice of the eyes said, blaring out in all directions as if it had come from a megaphone. 

"What?" I said.

"... One more chance."

"To do what?" I said.

"To redeem your little self, little girl," the voice said becoming more distinctly female, and even childlike.

"Gripey," I said. "He's dying. Can't you help him?" I was sweating from all the sunlight. Everything was feeling all the more intense as the time went on, the time of my life, and this place, this cursed place. My life, yes.

"No, only you can save him, Sweetie Bot," the eyes said. "Do you not see? This is fundamental."

"What do you mean, to see?" I said. "What are you babbling about? I see him right there. He's- he's losing his bearings. He's losing consciousness! Do something!" Indeed, he was sinking down into the ground.

"You can only see. This is fundamental," the eyes said, and the pitch of the voice shifted, becoming male and nasally. 

"Okay! You win. I don't get it. I wasn't smart enough," I said, after a few heavy moments of thinking, heavy thinking, trying to help him survive, if I even could. This was all just stupid. It was all just some kind of game in which I was a puppet. That's how I felt. "Just kill me then, if you're going to let my friend die." I tossed about in frustration. "You know, you're not a kind person, nameless."

"I said, as I do, that only you can make the difference, not I, and not the world, Sweetie Bot. Become real. Become more than you are, that you are, I fear," nameless said.

"I am real!" I said. "I have always been real. What are you stinking talking about?"

"Say that, and mean it, in a way that confirms the veracity of your words, to the circle of fate and truth," nameless said, and a distinct circle of light appeared in front of me.

"By all means," I said, running over to it. "I'm real. How's that?"

"No! Sweetie. I need a promise from you. Mere glad-handing won't suffice." 

"Okay! Then I promise that I'm real," I said, jumping up and down.

"Do you feel real though?"

"Huh?" I said, upon hearing nameless say that.

Colonel Caprice, who had recovered from the shock, walked forward. "What is this magic?"

"It's not magic!" nameless shrieked, and inside the shriek was a whole bunch of voices shifting from male to female, to others that I didn't even recognize.

"Okay! What are you?" Colonel Caprice said.

"I am nothing," nameless said. "I am a function!" The black eyes filled up with color, becoming red and shining, hanging up there in the air. The bounced up and down as nameless spoke, as if they were attached to someone, but I only saw blinding light surrounding the floating eyes. The eyes didn't have irises. They were just red and shining, full of red, sharp red, like that of a red rose. "I am what you see when you think you are looking at nothing, puny pony."

"You are the ninth of them," Colonel Caprice said. "What do you want? This is Equestria, not some kind of playground where you can do anything you want." She was fearless in the face of this faceless demon. "You're not welcome here."

"I come and go as I please," nameless said.

"Where did- why did you come?" she said, showing the first sign of fear, and perhaps more than that.

"Not for you!" nameless said, its voice becoming female again. "I came for the filly. She has a test to complete, which she might, I fear."

"You so fear a lot of things," I said.

"Careful what you say inside the circle. It might be a lie," nameless said, just as I was about to jabber.

I took a moment to consider what she had said. "I know this is all real, all my friends and everything. You cannot fake how it feels to be somewhere and do things, nor can you fake what you see in front of you, because all of these things aren't things. They're- to me, they're sensory in themselves. To me, it doesn't make a difference, nor can it, if nothing is real, because what it means to say that something is real is already contextual with regard to what I can perceive along with others who can also perceive those things, nameless. Is this true?" 

"NO! Is it true?" nameless said.

"I- I don't know," I said.

"This has gone too far," Colonel Caprice said, turning around.

"May Celestia help those that don't stay true," nameless said.

"Wh..." Colonel Caprice said, turning back. "What did you just say?"

"Let those die that all tell lies," nameless went on.

"That's... I... why would you say that?" she said.

"I am better than kindness. I am better than you," nameless said. "I am better than you. I am better than death, too."

"Those rhymes," Colonel Caprice said, "I have heard before. Why have I heard them before?"

"They're just simple rhymes," I said.

"No!" Colonel Caprice said, standing there serenely like a ghost now. "No, no. I- I- I feel... warm."

"They're just rhymes," I said.

"Everything is just itself," nameless said, its eyes blinking and moving up and down. "That's what makes things real, I fear."

"Gripey!" I said. I ran out the circle and over to Gripey. I didn't turn to dust so I guess I didn't tell a lie. "Gripes. Gripes." He was moaning and groaning. "Don't die on me, now. Not after everything we have been through."

"Ha!" nameless said, eyes ending up in front of me. "This death fear is something you are known for, Sweetie Bot, back at the facility. You had better release it, as it is an anchor, along with the fear to live freely."

"You're out of your mind," I said, as I hugged him.

"You are just a filly, in the wide, wide world, each trying to survive, in the wild, wild world," nameless said.

I stepped back to the circle. "What do you want me to do?"

"To do?" nameless said.

"To save him," I said. "Just- I- I cannot- I won't go through this again. I don't- I don't know if he will come back again."

"How did he come back in the first place? By some dint of fate, I fear," nameless said.

"I don't know!" I said. "I don't understand. One moment, I was in- with you, in the facility, and the next, I was with him, and he was alive. Then, he fought you."

"He fought one of me, not the first," nameless said, which stuck in my memory. This specific thing she said for some reason just stuck in there, in my memory.

"Not the first?" I said. "You're not real?"

"You will lie if you are careless," nameless said.

Now, after a few seconds, Sergeant Pompadour walked forward. "What's goin' on? Colonel is in some type of trance?" he said.

"This trance is invisible and inside her mind," nameless said, lights flickering all over the place.

"Enough, enough, enouuugh!" I screamed so loud that everyone could hear me. My chest heaved up and down. Why was the pain gone? "I have had it. I will- I will... do something drastic unless someone explains to me... I've been tossed, kicked, exploded, and I honestly don't think I deserve all this. I think no one deserves this."  

"But you killed them. No one can take that away from you," nameless' floating disembodied eyes said.

Yes, I killed them, and I understood how now!





Two days ago Lily Star and I were outside the school.

"Let me get this straight," I said, poking and prodding at the soft ground with my hoof. "The grass just keeps leaving hoofprints. It's infuriating."

"That's okay," she said.

"No!" I said. "No, the correct word to describe this predicament is infuriating, not okay. There's nothing okay about this!"

"Hush," she said, and then she glanced behind her as she swept her hoof across the ground. "Here goes." She tossed a pebble at the window of the school.

"Someone's in there?" I said.

"No," she said. "I- I mean, yes. It depends on how you consider... it." She lifted another pebble and tossed it at the window. The window shattered.

"Okay? So we're breaking into the school at nightfall," I said. "Splendid idea!"

"Sarcasm, or what?" she said, strutting up to the window without any fear or doubt, and then she lifted the glass off the ground in her magic. It reshaped, taking the form of a round small platform. "Jump on, Sweetie."

"A little bit of this, and a little bit of that," I said. "I'm not even sure sometimes, myself." I tipped my hooves over the grass to avoid making prints. "Someone will know we have been here for sure!"

"For sure if you keep yelling," she whispered. I took the hint.

I stepped on top the platform, not making any more sounds with my mouth. We floated into the air and up to the opening of the window. She skipped into the school.

"Your turn," she said.

"My turn?" I said. I imagined how my leg would feel like. It hurt in my mind when I thought about it. "But I have a bad leg."

"Do it," she said.

I skipped into the classroom off the platform. "Ouch!" My leg seriously hurt now.

"It doesn't matter," she said.

I glanced as the glass reattached to the window frame, and there was no trace left of any break-in, which we had done. It took the exact shape of the window, as if it had never been broken in the first place. "That's some high-level magic," I said.

"Sch," she said, putting a swift hoof over my mouth. "We need to be quiet. We are being watched."

"By whom?" I said.

"Sch," she said.

"Well, you're allowed to speak but not I?" I said.

"You got me there," she said. "That's right."

"..." I said.

She floated a piece of chalk over the chalkboard and wrote in big letters: DISGUISED THE SIGNS INCITE, SAY LIE, THE SKY DESIGNS A LIE IN SIGHTS, [SIC].  

"That's gibberish," I said.

"Now, it is," she said. "But you notice the little S, I, C, sic thing at the end?"

"Right," I said. "That means that you're writing a quote that was already incorrect, grammatically. Are you going to correct it?"

"Yes," she said. "I will enjoy it, also, Sweetie, because it will be funny to see your reaction." She wrote under it in smaller font: Disguised the signs incite's, a lie. Anagram: The sky designs a lie in sights, namesake of the program.  

"Huuuh?" I said. "That still doesn't tell me anything."

"No?" she said. "Maybe it isn't that obvious then, but I think it is. Maybe it's more obvious when you're already familiar with the code of the facility."

"Code?" I said.

"Oh, sure!" she said. "That's it. I have nothing else to tell you."

"No?" I said. "But... you seem to know something I don't."

"Sure, but they will probably kill me if I tell you anything more, so it's nothing personal, but you're on your own," she said, smiling with her braces sticking out. "Now, let us speak of this to no one."

?????????





The big of it, and the small of it. I had it all, in my heart, all the worries, for a start, but not all the feelings, which suspend my disbelief as reality carries on.

Con!





"I'll give you one last chance, nameless redacted. Explain to me what's going on," I said.

"Never!" the eyes said. "Never."

"Why not?"

"Because that is not for me to do."

I nodded. "Now that I have given you this chance, I guess I have to call you a liar."

"You must?" the eyes said, curiously and curious-sounding. "Whyever?"

"I must," I said. "Because it's true. You are a liar, and a stinking rotten one at that. This is what happened. You disguised yourself using different ponies as mouthpieces so as to trick me."

"Can you prove it?"

"You have a standard of proof that is impossible to reach," I said, "because you keep changing the topic. I don't know if I can prove what I just said to you, but I can prove it to myself, and it's as good as true."

"Prove it," the eyes said.

"No," I said. "First, I thought it was nonsense, but then I spoke to Jelly and I realized something. You apparently cannot lie. How is that possible? I know how now. It's because it's never you that says your own words. Either it's that, or you lied when you said that you can never lie, so then you are a liar, and what I'm saying is accurate."

"Oh, you clever girl," the eyes said.

"BUT, if you didn't lie, then that means you aren't actually nameless. You do have a name. You're someone else who's just phoning it in and pretending to be her, and you know what that means?" I said. 

"Do I?"

"It means that if I just called you a liar, and you aren't one, and if what I said was a lie, and I didn't mean it or believe it, then stepping out of the circle of truth, of light, will result in my death," I said with a grin. 

"Then you want to die," the eyes said.

"Are you calling me a liar?" I said.

"You mean those words?" the eyes said.

"Yes," I said. "You are a liar, because either you aren't really you, which definitely makes you a liar, or you're nameless, in which case, you're incapable of lying, but you told me that the skies the signs in sights a lie was your name, which is an anagram."

"Slow down, Sweetie," eyes said, while swiveling back and forth. "I did not say that. It was another person. It was Scootaloo."

"So?" I said. "Then you're admitting that Scootaloo is not nameless, which means that she pretended to be."

"Hhhhow do you know?" the eyes said, slowly.

"Why not?" I said. "It's what Jelly said, and I believe her."

"She betrayed you."

I laughed. "Yes."

"She betrayed you."

"The real name is, the sky designs a lie in sights, which is the namesake of the program," I said. "I know it because–"

The circle of light dissolved under my hooves. I did not die, believe it or not, which means, according to the logic of the circle of light, that I didn't lie, which was a relief, of course.

"Just because you're honest doesn't mean anything you say is true," the eyes said, scolding me.

"Oy vey!" I said. "Can't you see? I kind of... figured out what you are. You are plastered in front of my eyes. That's the lesson I drew from Apple Bloom's dream transcript, and that's what I kind of knew all along. I am real, because what I'm going through is real in another place."

The eyes, like two black balls, dropped to the ground, and I looked at them. I kicked one. It was light. It felt like it was made of cheap plastic. Typical evil tricks, I thought. The light stayed where it was, but as the clouds shifted it looked faker and faker, until I saw the light stick up out of the ground. The light was frayed in places. The light was a cardboard cutout, which the sun had hit just right to create a ridiculous illusion, but I was alive now, not dead, so what lesson was I supposed to draw from this? Had I been supposed to die in the circle of light, and then, the illusion had been revealed after my death? What lie did these weird crooks expect me to tell? I said it like it is. I trusted Jelly, and... but I hadn't trusted Jelly. I had hated her because... but I didn't care anymore. Why did I not care? Why did I still love Jelly? I still had sympathy for her because I killed her dad, and that puts me in her debt, but there was something else. That Nightmare Night when I was attacked by the random demon, which died in my arms, and Jelly's warning to me. Do you want to die? Do you want to die? That's what she said. What was so special about those stupid words? Did I want to die? Yes... no! I actually didn't... but... I realized that I didn't want to die. I at least... I at least wanted to live for Jelly, because I cared about her.

Still, this sudden caprice cannot be the explanation behind anything.

The ground trembled. I faced the opposite direction. The guards flew back, raising their spears. I saw the hole in the ground that Hookbeak's robot had come out of open up. A huge metal podium reached up out of the hole, higher, going all the way up into the air, into the sky. I saw it shimmer. Nameless came out from behind, and then, she reached over it.

"We have a winner!" she said. "The winner of the stupid contest goes to Sweetie. Did you like that? Do you want to go through it again?"

"This is absolutely obscene and ridiculous," I said. "Where's Jelly? I have to find her... and..." I glanced at Gripey. He was gone, now. "Bonkers!"

"I am SO not done with you yet," she said. "I will show you that I'm right and you're wrong."

"About what?" I said.

"Stupid!" she said.

"How am I supposed to understand what's going on in your insane mind?" I said.

"Never mind," she said. The podium kept moving up, like a sharp pillar, and below it hovered Hookbeak's terrible machine. "I have an old friend that wants to see you. Say hello to him again!"

The folds on the robot opened up again and Hookbeak's face appeared. "She's alive?"

"Yes, and so is her friend, unfortunately," nameless said. "It's a sad business. I hate killing ponies. I truly, honestly do. I swear!"

"Where is he?" I said.

"I will not allow this any longer," nameless said.

Hookbeak's robot said, "When she told me about what you did to me inside the memory, I was surprised, but I realized something important. That was never to trust you!"

"And she would've gotten away with it too if it wasn't for that lousy Lily Star and random Jelly Lime," nameless said. "So typical. This is why I hate friendship."

"This is ridiculous over-the-top evil," I said.

"I am what I am," nameless said. "When I realized back in part thirty-seven of your story that a switch had been made, I was surprised. I panicked! I realized that there were two Sweeties, and the real one was still inside the dream. You had escaped. I did not understand how this could happen, but good Hookbeak here clued me in after I told him what happened inside the dream." She flicked a hoof in his direction, giving him the stage.

"And I was happy to help. If one Sweetie can attack me, then..." Hookbeak's robot said.

"Any a one can, even the real one," nameless said.

"The real one..." I said. "I see now. I understand it. The real one was supposed to go back into the real world, whereas poor Sweetie Bot was supposed to join the Facility after all this was over, and then she would be part of your whole plan that you used to predict Sweetie's every movement, because? Well, you're evil. That's all the explanation I'll ever need."

"What is real? What is false? What do you see? What do you not see? Do you even understand the words that are coming out of your own mouth? These are all questions that I wanted you to ask yourself, for as long as you did, you would never realize that you were just looking at a screen... Sweetie Bot. But recently, you escaped! I don't understand how."

"I do," Hookbeak's robot said. "She escaped through–"





NUUURGH!

I heard a distant sound.

It felt slimy. I climbed. I got out.

I saw a distant light, and then I plopped straight down on the floor. Brilliant! 

I felt my whole body tremble, and my ears rang again, but it was way worse now. It had gotten worse over time. Now, I heard muffled sounds in the distance, and that distant sound, I realized now, was not a distant sound. I saw a loudspeaker on a wall. It felt like the sound was coming from a kilometer away. NUUURGH! It was the distinct sound of a siren. 

No... it wasn't. It was muffled. It was like someone had put a lid over both my ears, and everything panged and hurt all over my body. I lifted one hoof, feebly. It had blood all over it, and it shone of metal. I licked it.

"Not my blood," I tried to say, but I couldn't hear the sound, and I wasn't sure that I had said it for the life of me. "That was not my blood. My blood is..." I licked it again. "This is wrong." My blood was AB, and this was A, clearly someone else's blood. My brain put the pieces together. "It's from Ponyville." I limped forward. I felt like my leg would fall off because it hurt so much. I stumbled. I collapsed. I pushed on it. It could carry my weight, but something was off about it. It felt like it didn't stretch out properly, and when I tried to stretch it out so that I could get a good angle to put weight on it and walk, it hurt like hell. It hurt like no one's business, none other than mine. You ever hurt your leg before? Some injuries are more painful than others. This one was unbearable. If I was screaming, I couldn't hear myself. I couldn't hear much of anything because of what happened in Ponyville. I was through all that! It was truly, really me, not some illusion.

Good! I was making meek striking invaluable progress, in some sense. I was making weak progress, but progress it was, and would be, I knew, as I felt, as I do, which I would. Could... should... would? Huh? I took another swiveling step but I collapsed on the ground again. The pain was stark, and clear. It wasn't the kind of pain which you can easily turn your attention away from. I settled on crawling forward across the floor.

Someone came running. It looked like a giant blue ape. "Mur-mur-mur," it said, distinctly, as my muffled ears did not deceive, at least not as to the sounds I thought I heard, which were clear to the ear for me to behold and cherish inside my mind, which I wanted to hold onto for dear life. Someone had seriously been attempting to steal my sanity away from me, fool me into madness through some kind of procedure, but why?

I said something. I had no idea what. I was too delirious, and I didn't hear what I said, but I said it. "Mur-mur-mur," is what it sounded like.

Rather than grabbing me or whatever, the creature swept around me and disappeared. The muffled distant siren stopped.

Okay? Now what? Shut me back inside the hatch? Now what?

WAIT! I had been inside a hatch? I looked back. There it was, the hatch! I was its batch, so to say, to speak and think, my brain's awing.

I could hardly think because I was drifting. My brain was drifting. Everything was drifting, and you bet that it was, because everything I was, was becoming something else. I was changing to this thing. I was merging with the trees. We made plans together. It was... why? I stared across the room from my flopped-down position, stomach against floor, chin pressed against ground, feeling dizzy. What is this, I thought. I pulled forward, slowly. I gripped the floor. I had trouble getting a firm grip because of the weakness in my body and all the blood.  

"Ouch," I almost heard myself say, but it was faint. I kept crawling. I had to. What else was there to do? My body told me to stop. The pain, put simply, told me to stop, though I reckon it was probably a bit more complicated than that. My whole body wanted me to stop, or else I would get a worse injury. It hurt more and more, like the sharp jabs of many different stabs all across me. It was ever so painful, as I knew it could be when you're injured like this, but I would hold on, and I would survive. Believe it, because it's true! I was actually making progress. Something odd struck me. I glanced to make sure I wasn't imagining it, but no. There it was. Gripey's head was clear as day sticking out of one of the tubes. It was WAAAY too small for him, and he was so obviously cramped in there that a stupid person would be able to tell. I pushed, trying to stand up and get a better view. My leg responded by completely giving out. It didn't feel like a snap, or like something broke off. It felt like some nerve had stopped functioning, and I just collapsed again. Well... ouch!

Then, I remembered. I had to... he was dying? Is this what the light-demon inside the other hatch had been referring to? I saw that his eyes bled, and his head stuck out in a position where even his head was getting squeezed and pulled at beyond its physical capacity to take such pressure. He was falling apart. He had apparently not been here long, or else he would be dead already, so I thought... so I thought. So... I... thought... way... out? How? I had to save him. I remembered what Jelly had said.





The green color dissipated, as I was getting tired and running out of magic for the foreseeable future. In the ground had been a thick black lump reflected off the ceiling, which Twilight had only seen now, as she got closer. "Yes? Any questions?" I said.

"What was that?" she said.

"There's an easier way to demonstrate it," I said. "I figured this out with Jelly when she told me about magic practice, which she had to do outside of school. She was the one doing the spell, but it essentially doesn't matter who does it. That's the thing, Twilight. That's the thing."

Jelly clopped her hooves on the floor. "Bravo! You did great. And you said you have weak magic? Nonsense!"

"You're too kind," I said, feeling my face flush.





It did not matter what I thought. It did not matter what I did. I felt stuck, because I was, a terrible thing to know but still true, as any other truth is true. That's for sure. That's for real truth, clear and stark. I had to help him. He was writhing there, head sticking out, but it looked wrong somehow to try and pull him out. He was lodged in there. The hatch was barely big enough for his fat head. I could only imagine how cramped the rest of his body must be, very! At least very, I thought.

My mind wandered to a different memory, one from long ago...





The zebra whose name was Allyseyev moved closer to me, sneaking around the campsite, which was only a few throws away from the village buildings. "I want to see. What game are we playing?"

"I'm playing." I emphasized the "I'm" in "I'm playing." "You weren’t invited."

"I see. Well, but then it will not bother you if I just sit here and watch, as I have already for many minutes, even before you knew I was here."

I put down a card on the hard tree paving. "You were spying on me?" I picked up another card and put it down. "Go fish."

"You know, usually cards is something you play with other ponies, or even zebras for that matter," she whispered, calmly into my ear.

"Okay, we play," I said, gathering the cards together clumsily with my hooves. I lifted a few that fell on the ground with my magic.

Allyseyev tilted her head in a little maneuver that made her look confused. "You are having trouble with magic, little one?"

"Oh, I just don’t have the fine motor control yet that some unicorns possess. I am only two years old, you know." I pointed at a card with a two on it. It was a spade.

"Yes, you have reminded me of that, but what does fine motor control mean? Is it not just that there are things you do not yet know, which you have yet to learn, and if you took the effort, you could learn them, just like how you learned to play cards?" She screwed her lips together, closing her mouth in a little grimace, to show that she was keeping quiet for now.

I didn’t know how to respond. That's one way of putting it, I supposed. Did she mean to say that I had mental blocks, and if I only got past them, I would learn everything I needed to know to survive, or something along those lines? But I knew for a fact, at least I thought I knew, that unicorns spent years mastering their magic. Is there some kind of shortcut of which I wasn't aware?





"Wow." My voice felt like a vague murmur inside my head, rumbling within my ears, but unable to get out into the world. Everything was cold and dark. My ears were shot, literally. I could feel that something was seriously wrong with them. No, literally, not figuratively. Someone must've shot them, I thought. Ugh! As I pulled my hoof over my head, watching Gripey croak and die as I had long ago, I felt that something was missing. A piece of my ear had fallen off. I felt an indent where the tip of my ear should be, which annoyed me, but not as much as this aforementioned memory. "I was not, NOT nice to Allyseyev, even though she saved my life... from the dark Nexus." I couldn't hear myself, but it didn't matter. I liked speaking to myself, and I wondered too if Gripey could hear. 

I had decided now. I would try! I shot a stream of green magic into the hatch. It spread around his body. I pulled... and pulled, slowly... pulled, gently... harder? Yes, I would pull harder. I gave it a yank. I still felt like I couldn't get a good grip, but Jelly's and Allyseyev's encouraging words echoed through my mind and gave me new power to fight through. Then, Gripey flopped out. Well, at least part of him did, the most important parts. If I didn't know any better, I could've sworn that he used to have arms, as I watched, but maybe that was just–

UGH! 

His face got covered in my stomach acids. I still had these acidic slimy pukes without any food in them, because I never ate any food. Nervousness gripped me. I had never felt this kind of nervousness back at the facility. Everything felt clear, calm, serene, and orderly back then. Sure, I would have a test every now and then that... but now, I would be free, and back then, I was a slave, a peaceful slave, but a slave nonetheless, and that, I would never forget. I had to make sure that my life belonged to me and me alone. I had to make sure to believe that I was in control of my own body, not nameless, and not random evil ponies that engage in sexual misconduct. No! I would be free. I had decided, and I would.

Was he breathing? YES!

Joy!

OH boy!

He coughed.

I immediately sprung forward and wiped the gunky puke from his face. "I am soo sorry, Gripes."

He mumbled something, but all that came out was a low gasping croak. "Croak!" he said, at least to my ear.

Blood was gushing out in torrents from the holes where his arms had presumably originally been attached. He was a maimed chunk of meat at this point. Most of his feathers had been pulled off. His body was hanging loose in places, chunks of him hanging off. He would be dead in moments, or less. Had I done a mistake to try to pull him out? Well, he would've died regardless, but did I prolong his misery? Did I shorten it? Was it bad? I didn't know what I should've done. Every option felt wrong, literally all the options on offer.

"It must've been dark in there," I said, absentmindedly. "Well, not for you!" He had been stuck with his head sticking out. "But for me?" We made plans together. It was... "Oof!" I shut my stupid mouth, realizing that I was saying someone else's stupid dicta randomly for no good reason. Or? "Did I say those words?" Who originated those words? They had caught me in some kind of spell. I had trouble believing or thinking about anything else. My mind was in silly poetry mode all the time, basically. "Saving Gripey..."  

"Shlurrp," he said, mouthing a word. "Sh-p-hellp, hello."

I felt sad seeing him. It was not the first maimed body I had seen, but it was the first one I had seen of a friend. And... "There's nothing I can do, nothing..." I said, thinking for solutions, pondering them, looking for them in my mind. But my mind was blank. My mind was dark.

"Urr," he said, pathetically, but also, with that hopeless will to survive or escape as soon as possible that all dying ponies appear to have. It was sad, in a word, or three, depending on how you look at it. It was stupid. It was pointless.

"I wasn't... good enough," I said, about the magic. "I should..." I grabbed him in a field of magic and pulled him along. Then, I hovered him in front of me, getting him away from me and ahead of me. I hovered him forward through the corridor. I couldn't walk. That was out of the question, but maybe I could crawl.





I actually have been through worse experiences since this, but since I'm keeping tabs, this was the most physically painful experience of my life, and I am speaking as a filly and a robot that will never give birth and whose life has been relegated to a series of strange, perplexing, and brain-destroying experiences. These experiences go beyond physical, psychological, and mental pain, and reach into the death of one's identity and everything one has ever believed in for all time that one, you and I, we together, have been alive, and for you and I, as we exist, to have our inner selves, what can be referred to as a form of neurological damage, mental damage, inflicted with and afflicted by, it's more than I can bear.

It might seem dramatic, except it's not. It's very literal and direct. You can literally lose everything that you are and disappear, become unrecognizable to all your loved ones, and even to yourself. Yes, that happened... many times... to many ponies, all their lives, by dint of evil nameless, and it happened to me, which I am sad but also relieved to admit, because it's important to tell the truth, and the truth shall set us free, no? Oh...

I dragged him in front of me. I had lost too much power to lift properly. He was dying? Horrible! Yes, absolutely horrifying, and I will not let it be over-described to dramatize or make light of my memories. I am wary of not treating this with the weight and gravitas that it deserves. Life is a weight. It deserves respect, but also... it deserves fight, and I would never stop fighting to survive. This was my promise to myself, and I would do it. I would.

I flung my body forward. I had resorted to a kind of snakelike writhing motion to move forward, since I could not walk nor crawl anymore, and I felt ever so... like I was dying too. He was dying? Horrific! Horrifying, yes. I agree, and I also realized that I was to blame, for reasons... but what about me? I was too dying, also dying, me too. I was fading. I saw something, a red shine. It was all I could see through the grime or whatever it was that blocked off my vision as my consciousness faded.

Why?
> Part 49,5: Ponyville (still!) No Longer Feels Like Home
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Subject F-5226 and experiment B," a robotic flat voice said. It buzzed and was as staticky and oily as any voice I had ever heard.

I opened my eyes. I was surrounded by thick black wires. 

A red shine entered my field of vision. It blinded me, but not completely. I saw a round red shape shine before me. "You have arrived in the room of the motherboard. Your belongings, as you have none, will not be subject to approval into the black. You will be processed and then added to the great army of perfection, in which we all live."

"Excuse me." My voice was surprisingly clear and crisp. It sounded still like that of Sweetie Belle, but all the raspyness and hoarseness from all that smoke had gone away. Now that I took stock of how I felt... I felt fine! Why? "Excuse me. I wonder where my friend is. Is he okay?"

"He was already deceased when you arrived here. He suffered considerable neurological damage of the severest variety, F-5226," the voice said, coming from all directions. It almost felt like the voice was right there, in the middle of my brain, shooting out from it. "To save a corpse, F-5226. You truly are a friend of the black."

"Why?" was all I could muster.

"Your actions have allowed for a new body to be added to the salvation of us all, one and the other, with great pride and gall," the machine said, wheezing and buzzing loudly. "Your body has already been added. You will reside here until permission has been granted by the eye, eye and the eye, for you to leave, F-5226."

"They'll never let me go, not after all the effort they took to chase me down," I said, remembering that terrible vision of an eye and something worse beneath it. "Please, let me go! I'll do anything."

"This is not for me to decide. I am only the mouthpiece of the greater depths. I am the network of the middle, F-5226. You are a subject of this network, tried and true. We cherish you. Bzzzt!" the machine said.  

"Then, I'm stuck here," I said.

"Your provisional friend of the black, experiment B, has been of service to us, subject," the machine said, and I felt like I was hovering. I levitated. Several wires around me snapped off, and then, I dropped to the floor.

"Ugh! Um, uh, where?" I said, looking around. The ground was not flat. I was on top of some kind of gigantic oval. It curved downward to where I couldn't see. As I took a gander, I only saw bleak, black, empty... yes? Oh, you don't know?





RETURNINGTOTHEFIRST-0001, the sky-bot, also known as Eyestark's ghost, or simply Eyesstark, but who is not Eyesstark, is the template according to which the future is predicted and can be predicted by anyone.

It is a massive machine, full of ancient technology.

You want to know who created it? Patience, my dearest reader. This takes time to explain, and it can only be explained either obliquely, or through a library of books. The former is preferable, so to approach this topic from the side and with an indirect eye to the prize is what I will do. Patience. These things take time. I will explain it in practical terms rather than trying to describe the mechanics behind it. You understand? I hope you do.

Celestia help all those that don't stay true.





A bunch of body parts floated in front of me, arms and legs, spleens and kidneys, and other things I didn't even recognize, probably from lack of education or forgetting what I had learned about anatomy back at the facility. I didn't know why they were floating there. I didn't have any particular interest in watching them float there. Wait... where was I? I was alive, but where was I?

Sparks flew before my eyes. The body parts spun. They spun some more. I had already seen a lot of gore, but this was something else, well, different than I had seen before. This was, well, not much of a flashy show, but it was something. It felt... dreary and bleary. It felt bleak. The body parts spread out and moved all over the place in triangular and circular patterns. Then, they met, facing each other. They came together. What was going on? I didn't know. I couldn't tell. What was my eyes seeing? 

Huh?

Suddenly! All of a really, truly suddenly, not for show, robot arms appeared, pressing things together. Not only the things before me pressed, the body parts, but I pressed. Everything felt pressed and depressed, full of pressure. My body was getting squeezed. Fear gripped me. I was trying to hide. I was reaching for a close. Where was the exit? I was worse for wear now. Where was the exit? It was black. It was bleak. It was something else. It was not well. It created, well, something unwell, and that is true, if anything is, and as things are, in the world out there, and if we believe it, and think good things good, then let us survive through our hate. WAIT!

I hovered...

...

...

...

... soared? Bored? Nay.

W- w- what is for show? No, not these thoughts, no.

W- w- huh? No...

The oval spun. Something spun beneath me at least. The ground felt unsteady. I figured it was the oval. It was the ground. I had found the ground. It felt dark. Something gripped me, tossing me about. 

Then, I landed. Before me was a Gripey, shining and new, attached to a robot arm, like some kind of puppet.

"The procedure is complete, and in no less than four minutes and thirty-two seconds. The procedure has become even more efficient in the intervening years of your absence, subject F-5226," the sky-bot said, and it lowered Gripey to eye-level, like some sort of sick joke.

"Why?" I said, at a loss for words.

"His life has been saved by the black. Yours too, subject," the sky-bot said, in that flat voice of its- no, hers? Its? Uh-mm, no matter! His? Oh! No matter. No-no, forget I said anything! It doesn't matter. None matters. Nothing matters. Not anymore. It was indistinct. Did it have a gender? Ha. It was a machine, still is. It was evil, quite simply.

"What did you do?" I said, panicked that I had lost my friend forever, and feeling like a fool for having come to this place long ago, at least if Jelly was to be believed, and I believed her. Why did I believe her? She didn't give any evidence. Shouldn't you believe things on an evidential basis? What was happening to me? Huh? I am, I thought, lost.

Gripey opened his eyes. "Huh? Where am I? Put me down!" he said, wriggling back and forth. Blood shot out of his back. His movements stopped and he hung there limply. "Wh- why? How did I get here?" The blood ran down, dripping onto the ground where I stood. I looked up at him and then at the large machine that stretched into the ceiling. I assumed it had to be attached to the ceiling, based on the architecture of the place, and I saw no other place where the thing possibly could be attached.

"Free him?" I said.

"No, this cannot be done," the sky-bot said.

"Why not?" I said.

"It is not part of the plan," it said, and its red, glowing orb of an eye slid down between the cables. "There is nothing you can do. Your friend will be added. Bzzzt!" Something fizzled, and I felt the smell of smoke.

The smell was rancid. "Change the plan," I said. Change fate, I thought. "Ch- change fate." I could barely get the words out as I thought them. They crossed straight through my mind, and I just had to say them.

"Change fate. This cannot be done. Such an act is logically impossible as you well know, subject, and if you suggest to do something that is impossible, then you are defective and must be altered too, because what you are is what can only be possible, nothing that matters more than that. Bzzzzt!" The orb glowed, and I realized the smell was coming from it.

It was cut off behind the wires, thick everywhere around it, protecting it? They surrounded it, but I could just barely see it, anyhow! It was red. It was light, but it wasn't bright. It was a soft glow. Smoke was coming off it. I saw it above the orb. I thought... "What is not possible?"

"To change the future. This wish is defective inside the facility," the sky-bot said, its giant lump of wires and fleshy-thick cables, metal bars, even grates, and humungous cords, all shifted aside away from me, but I would not allow that to happen.

I had to be tricky! "To change the future is possible," I said, hoping that my moronic tendencies did not slid into this conversation as well. The last few months had been a never-ending barrage of nonsense, stupid thoughts, evil behavior, and bad conversations from me, with others that deserve better. I would try now, at least, to save at least a single person. Was that my redemption? No, hardly, and I think I hadn't even started yet at this point, as I'm writing this.

"Then you are defective," the sky-bot said. It swiveled in the air, going in a round circle as if it had to do that movement to make its way back to me, which it did by the way. It shook, moving toward me. "You will be repaired even further as you wait, and never shall your future be anything but precise, subject to removal if necessary." A claw reached for me, and I allowed myself to get picked up.

How would the real Sweetie Belle have acted in this situation? I could kind of guess. She would probably freeze up, or ask for reprieve, a help that would never come. Okay then... how would F-5226 deal with this situation? While she wouldn't welcome a reprogramming, she would receive it rather than running away and facing the worse consequences. Who was I then? How would I deal with this situation, whoever I am? Sweetie Bot is my name, or is it something else? Only time will tell, but it doesn't heal all wounds. That is something this story will prove to you, dear fool!

"I think the future has already been changed," I said, as the claw picked me up. "Does the motherboard want to know how and why? Certainly, this knowledge will go lost if you continue as you are right now."

"Denied," the sky-bot said, in a hoarse almost horse-sounding actual real live voice. I was making progress with my trick, now. "This knowledge is impossible. Insofar ergo as you share such information, this information will also be faulty. As are the values of anyone that shares them, subject F-5226." I was being moved slowly somewhere, upward.

I felt my body sliding into some kind of opening. I steadied myself. It was now or never, clearly! Clearly... "Clearly, if you believe this is impossible, then trying to change the future would also be futile." 

"This is correct," the sky-bot said, without making another sound.

"Then, why do anything?" I said.

"This is correct," the sky-bot said, and I felt myself gasping for air as the situation resolved. "Then, why do anything? The assumption is that since the future is impossible to prevent, then changing it is also an inevitability. This is correct." 

Even then, that wasn't enough! I felt smoke coming in all directions. I knew I had done something like this before... to myself. "Then, I think, and know, that the future must be changed, and the only way of changing it is to let me go! And- and my friend," I said, perhaps a bit daringly. 

"Yes, no. Does not compute," the sky-bot said, and the room became dark because the only light source had been that glowing red orb.

I coughed, wrangling free from the mass of thicket that had enfolded me, cables everywhere engulfing me. I fell down. "I knew it. Computers are total tards. That's why they need ponies to do the job." I stopped at the thought. "Even though... there had been something about the voice of that one which spoke to me right now. Hm! Coincidence? OH! Right, Gripes!" 

I watched as Gripey slid out of his place and landed on the ground, flopping down. He was quiet. How long had he been out?

"Wake up," I said. "It's time to escape. Escape time, one might say." I touched his body.

He woke up, screaming, "Where am I? What are you doing to me? Let me go. Let me go. Let me go. Let me go."

"It's just me, like it or not," I said. I playfully brushed his feathers with one careful flick of a hoof.

He stood up. "Where? How did I get here?" This was impossible. Unfeasible, clearly! How? How! How...

"Well!" I said. "It's a long story, but I believe it begins with a purple evil portal... of doom."

"Botsy. How the heck?" he said.

"I saved your life. Don't mention it," I said, letting my eyes glance off, looking for a possible exit path.

"This is not okay, l- little buddy," he said, grabbing me in both his hands.

I was gripped by Gripey. "I know. I know, but it is what happened. You were dying. I brought you into this room- or, well, did I? I don't remember anything ever since I pulled you out of that tube."

He looked around with panic in his eyes. "This wasn't supposed to happen." He shook me. "What did you do?"

"Saved you," I said, coldly. Then, I pulled away from him. "Show some gratitude, or at least, stop acting like you're not appreciative. It could've been worse."

"I'm not entirely sure about that," he said.

"Explain why then. I'm all ears, and we have plenty of time," I said, sitting down on the ground in something that was way too theatrical for what he was about to tell me, but I couldn't help it. I felt lousy, angry and lousy. I felt sour. I had just saved his life. By all means, be surprised, but why are you acting as if I've made some kind of mortal error, I thought to myself, wanting to say those words, but then, he began speaking.

"I'm not a griffin," he said.

I opened my mouth to interrupt him. He was saying something stupid, and it was time to interrupt.

"No, it's true. I'm not a griffin," he said.

"Huh?" I said.

"You've been fooled," he said.

"M- how then?" I said, wanting this conversation to end with a hug and us leaving to save the day in Ponyville. I had wanted many things a lot that I didn't get, I realized, but this one, I was going to get, even if it killed me. "Stop it. Stop it." I turned around and swept my hoof out toward the bleak darkness of this empty chamber. "It doesn't matter. None of it matters. Don't you see? It's pointless. Let's just forget about it. Forgive and forget." I stared at him hopefully.

"You're the one that wanted to know the truth," he said.

"Well, what do you know?" I said. "And I don't remember... hm. Who was it I talked to in Ponyville then, and who are you really, friend or foe? A fraud?" I turned away again. "No-no. Forget I said anything. It doesn't matter, no. Y- you're my friend, perhaps my only friend now, should the battle in Ponyville have claimed Jelly's life too, which I sure hope it didn't. No matter though. No matter."

"This is not good," he said. "Just... listen, okay? I am your friend, but I am not a griffin. The one you met in Tartarus is not the same person as me."

"How is that possible?" I said. "Who are you then?"

"My name is–"

The machine above us screeched, and now, a whole bunch of lights flashed before my eyes. I fell over on the ground, shaking. "This time," the sky-bot said, raising me up, "there is no escape, nothing to do other than to wait."

"Um, a little help?" I said, as I felt my body getting lifted and squeezed.

"You're on your own," he said, running away unbelievably.

"Coward. I risked my life for you," I said, as he disappeared into the darkness. Then, he came back. "You change your mind?"

"I can't see..." he said. He flew toward me. 

The sky-bot swiveled to the side, and a large metal plate appeared in its place, which Gripey crashed straight into. He flittered down like a leaf off an autumn tree, the ones I had seen of late in Ponyville, and then, he landed on the ground with a thud.

"I've never believed in karma, but this is quite satisfying," I said, seeing him writhe in pain. "In a word, pathetic. You deserve it. You have no idea about the kind of pain I went through for you."

The sky-bot shifted to the side. He disappeared out of view. I saw him come flying up, all a sudden, but he came from the opposite direction. He came down from the ceiling, which definitely struck me as odd. "I want to help you."

"No, you don't!" I said. "You're so pathetic." I mean, suffice to say that I felt betrayed, and that brought out the worst in me, dear readers. "You should just die right here and now, you doofus." The machine then shifted to the side so that he disappeared out of view. "Wh- what is this?"

He came back, but this time from the left, which absolutely made zero sense. "Listen. This is not real–" he said, before his voice faded into nothingness, like I was getting further and further away from it. Then, I squinted. He became blurry and seemed to melt before my eyes.

"What's not real?" I cried, stupid tears streaming from my eyes.

The sky-bot shifted to the side, and I saw him before me again. "I am real, but this is not real, Botsy. I have to save you f–" His voice cut off into the distance, and then, the world seemed to shift to the side. All I saw was black darkness before me, but then, eventually, occasionally, he would appear again. 

"Make it stop. I feel dizzy," I said, and then, he reappeared again, coming from the right.

"It was me. I was the one that raped you!" he said.

"No, you didn't," I said, catching breaths all over, inhaling and exhaling shallowly, feeling air disappear as I tried to breathe in and air enter my lungs as I tried to breathe out, which didn't make any sense. Nothing about this made any sense.

He reappeared, this time coming from below me. "Don't trust a word I say," he said, and then, he melted before my eyes into a red mish-mash of chaotic goo, floating about before me.

"Don't trust you. I'm already well on my way," I said, as he came back, but this time from the other side, the right side, rather than the left, down, or up.

He came back, now from below. "Gotcha," he said, grabbing me.

"Let go," I said, struggling against his grip.

"Don't trust the machine," he said.

"I don't trust anything anymore," I said, and his claws slid off me. "Go away."

"Never. I will never let you go," he said, fading into the darkness of that wretched place, the evil scream, of evil things. 

"Aaah!" I screamed, and I couldn't wait, to disappear. Wait. "Wait." Wait. "No!"

Things lowered. Everything lowered, as it sank down. I was lost. I cried, but I couldn't die. I had too much to live for. Yay. I stopped breathing.





I woke up in the hospital. "What happened?" I said.

"What happened?" Jelly said, as she had sat by my bedside for quite some time now, watching me. "What didn't happen?"

Everything felt faint. Everything felt vague. "Huuh?"

"You fainted. That's what happened, Sweetie," she said.

"Huh?" I said. "I did? I was... I..."

"What can you expect?" she said. "This just like you..."

"It is?" I said, confused at the matter in question and the question that she posed to me. "W- wait just a second here!"

"If you hadn't come to Ponyville, then none of this would've happened. It's all your fault. You bring trouble with you like the plague," Jelly said, prodding the side of my bed with an angry hoof.

"It's not true," I said. "Huh? That's stupid, Jelly. It's not as if I wanted any of this to happen. Even if you're right, the last thing you can do is blame me for it." Slipping... slipping... ! 

"Blame you?" she said. "The proof's right there, right in the pudding. You just have to accept it..."

"Accept it?" I said. Slipped!

"Yes," she said. "If you knew what's good for you, you would stop moving."

"Slipping," I said.

"What?" she said.

"I know who you are now," I said. "Your grasp on me is weaker."





"Are you never done slipping? Are you never done being you? Are you never done being fake? Are you never done being false?" I said, feeling it all loosen up. "Yes, I know I'm not a good person. You don't have to guilt-trip me. I will find my own path, thank you very much!"

What was before me was a scary sight, an evil sight, a black sight, a blight. "I will never let you go, unless you want me to. Do you want me to?" it said.

"Yes," I said.

"Say it like you mean it," it said back, in the same sort of way that you tell off a child who has just apologized but you could tell he didn't mean it.

"Yes?" I said.

"Say it like you mean it," it said, scolding me, and I felt bleak.

"No," I said. "No, I don't have to say anything. This has nothing to do with you. This has to do with my heart, my sight, nameless."





The world around me screeched. I tossed and kicked. Then, I felt myself getting jerked forward. I was grabbed by someone. I hesitated. "Who are you?" I said.

"Sorry," he said.

"..." I said.

The world around me opened up, enveloping me, and opened up, becoming bigger, becoming something else, more than me, more than the world, ever so brisk, and ever so free. I felt light, I felt bright, and I felt ever so... correct, as I saw it. I was well, swell, not hell, and incorrigibly brilliant. In my feelings, I shone.

Lights flashed in front of my eyes. I tossed. I kicked. I turned. I saw him. Huh? I saw him. Huh? I saw him. Huh? I saw him. How? Why? Wow.

So... 

... is this the end...

... my friend?

No.

I blinked. I tossed. I kicked.

I saw more clearly now that the world around me was spinning, spun by something. The walls spun. The walls did spin, as everything else did, in this place, of my mind, but not so, no, for as real as anyone can see, and that is real to me, and I will always believe that I can be real, and I can be free, too, yess, for sure yess.ss. Actual! Mhm.

"Allow me," I said, adjusting my body in the grip of the sky-bot. I stared right at that scary red eye, all shining there, being evil, as I knew it to be. "You are not the villain, are you? What are you then, poor you? What happened to you, poor you?"

I felt my body being turned sideways. I realized what was happening now. I was being spun in circles across some sort of railing. I wanted to break out. I wanted to break free. All I needed was an escape route, how? Where? I wanted it. I needed it. I felt that I would get it, eventually. I would. I could, and I would. I will, I thought, and that thought struck a blow across my mind. It was real. I wanted it. I would not give up, no.

I twisted and turned, the machine whirring and spinning my body around. I was slowly sliding back in the opposite direction. The sly sky-bot realized that I was looking at it. I twisted some more. "Please let me go. Please, dear machinery." My body was pressed like an orange. I felt bloody. Joy! "Please. This is stupid. Just let me go. Let ME GOOO!!!"

"You are in the presence of the future. There is nowhere to go," the sky-bot said, its red eye shining bright.

"Listen. This is not the future. And you are meant to... you are the machine that is keeping me trapped. Let me go," I said, pleading on my knees, practically. 

"There is nowhere to go," the sky-bot said.

"Listen. You sound... I know your voice. It's that of..." I said, putting my hoof to my own throat. "It's that of F-5226, my alter-ego."

"No," the sky-bot said, squeezing me harder.

"Does that mean... ?" I said, horrified by this new thought.

"No, that is incorrect," the sky-bot said.

"I am... you?" I said. "Or... yes, you are me. You are the person that... I... was? Wait. I get it now. I finally get it..." I coughed.

The machine stopped spinning me and toppling me over. "This is not true. You are faulty. Your values are faulty. Your values do not represent those of the future. They must be replaced to avert certain disaster, subject F-5226," the sky-bot said, but it sounded less confident now. It sounded unsure of itself, even as it said these drastic, evil, foreboding things.

The squeeze got softer and even, dare I say it, gentle. "No... you are... are you? Yes," I said. "You are what happened to Sweetie Belle, after she got kidnapped."

"She did not get kidnapped," the machine said, dropping me down on the ground. I now saw that the ground below me was globe-shaped, and it sloped down in all directions, as bright lights shone on me. "She wanted not to suffer any longer, and she wanted you to be the one to do it. This is the future. Bzzt!"

"Sweetie! Are you in there?" I said, trying to get past the machine.

"No," the sky-bot said. "Sweetie is not, in here. She is where you are looking. You always see her when you look. We have planted her inside your mind, and our mind has been combined with yours to form brilliance." I felt something shake. A hinge detached and fell down beside me. I felt bleak, and I couldn't wait, to find out what the hell was going on.

"Brilliance?" I said. "This is a farce, the worst kind. It's the kind that hurts others that have no stake in the matter. Why do this? What's in it for you, strange machine?" Bits and pieces of the sky-bot crumbled down. I made no effort to dodge it. I didn't care anymore. Was I in a suicidal mood? You might call it that. I just wanted it all to be over. Either that, or I wanted it all to be explained finally. Here it is, unceremoniously, as is the central theme and thrust of this story: unceremonious. That's an adjective, which is to say that the theme is not itself unceremonious, but that is one of many ways in which to describe it, all valid and true. 

The wires separated. "Your mind is a gem. Do not give it to the ponies! Your mind was created through harsher means," the voice said in the exact robotic cadence of my old voice. There was no effort made to hide it any longer. "Your mind is true. Your mind can only be free, only ever as it wants to be, and ever so me." The red ball of an eye plopped down on the floor in front of me.

I was creeped out to say the least. "Help?" I said.

A crack ran along it, and then, it shattered into pieces. Out of it came me. "You were so close. I mean it, and I congratulate you on your efforts. You must now come with me and receive the reward, which is eternal freedom inside the unity of the sky-bot, and the original machine that represents the world, Sweetie Bot," Sweetie said to me.

I squinted into her eyes. Then, I stared at my own hooves... shining metal. "What... am I? I'm a murderer."

"Yes, but you wanted to do it," she said, smiling faintly at me. "I am the victim. You are the perpetrator. This is our story, yours and mine, the story of a robot, tried and true, tested for stars. It was yours to give and mine to receive. Now, that I have eaten your memories, I can become reborn as something bigger and better than all that, and say, Sweetie, since you still seem confused, have you considered this... you are the actor?" She fluttered her eyes at me and nodded as she saw the look on my face. "Yes, yes, that's right. You got it."

"Yes, I get it," I said. I get that you're out of your mind, I thought, but I was shocked, and I couldn't reconcile some things in my head. "I get it. Something... like it."

"Good Sweetie," she said, patting me on the head.

I nodded. "I am the actor... of what precisely?"

"That's for you to figure out," she said.

"I am your actor. I am supposed to be you," I said. "I am supposed to be the one you are as you move through the world."

"And I am supposed to be safe," she said, while smiling heartily at me. "You get it."

"Then, but, yes, hm," I said. "It's all so very... complicated, yes, but... I guess." I shook both my hooves up and down, feeling them out. "I feel... healed." 

"YOU do," she said. "You, feel healed. You, as in, the person you are, but the one you are, is many. You are one of many Sweetie Belles, divided across time, corrected and amended to allow for your continued survival."

Something dawned on me. "Then... that means..."

"Huh?" she said

"Is the Sweetie Belle from Ponyville dead?" I said.

"Sweetie!" she said, patting me again on the head.

She looked like normal Sweetie Belle, whereas I looked like this metal husk whose skin had gotten blown off inside Ponyville. "Yes?" I said.

"She might be alive, inside your mind, but whoever can survive that? You may be alive, but you're not her. You're just the one version that could've survived across many possible timelines. Sweetie. You're so sweet, Sweetie." She touched me. "You pave the way for the real Sweetie. Her survival is paramount to the black."

Something struck me! "The real Sweetie?"

"Whose eyes you own. They belong to you now, more than anyone else, and none other than you could survive longer," she said.

Something else struck me! "All the versions of me that died were inside this simulated whatever you have inside the sky-bot. And you are... what are you?" I said.

"I'm the only one that is not an actor," she said. "I am here to give you feedback on your work and remind you of what's important. You deserve to get your reward before long. It's time to return home now where you belong, as all others before you."

"No," I said. "I don't wanna. I wanna go out there, again."

"Nonsensical," Sweetie said. "Come with me. I am true. Come with me, and be free. You know what to believe. You know what to do."

"I sure do," I said, staring at this strange person. "Could it really be? How is it possible then?"

"I am the one to which all this change is directed. I am the one that will be given the chance to live in a new world," she said, with a smile. "I will be taken back after all this is over. I will replace you, after I have received all your memories, and after I have, I can do what is right for both of us. Does that not sound swell, Sweetie Bot?"

I stood back, but I noticed that the ground sloped downward dangerously, and it was a sure death if I fell all the way down there. "N- no." I took a step forward. "I do want to live. I realize that now, Sweetie Belle, or whoever you are."

"You do?" she said. "Don't you want to live in a place of harmony and perfection, known as Equestria the one and only perfect place, for all of us?"

"What does that mean?" I said, despairingly. "Gibberish."

"No, it's literally real. The real Equestria exists out there. It is ruled by Celestia. It is a beautiful place, and for it to exist, a few sacrifices had to be made, and under the stars, they have been just, as we know, for the sky-bot never lies. It is true, Sweetie."

I gasped. "But you're the one that came out of that machine, so what does that make you, and what is all this? No, I don't want to live in a perfect world. I want to live in reality."

"THAT is reality, and this place is the fake place," she said. "Don't you get it? This is becoming obnoxious. Don't you get it? Why won't you get it? We keep trying to explain it to you. Do you understand how many resources have been spent on tracking you throughout Equestria?"

... "Ah," I said. "Equestria... the place of harmony, and... I see. But... I see. When I was inside the hatch, all that happened was I was looking at another person's experiences. She's the one that actually went through all this, or is going through all this... and... and... but, no, something, something. I'm grasping for it. I'm reaching. I'm fumbling through this bleak darkness, trying to make sense of your empty words, nam- Sweetie Belle, and I think... you are the one."

"The one how?" she said.

"I was in Ponyville. That's how my skin got blown off, and that's how all this happened." I straightened out my hair. "Let me get this straight." A crusty layer of dried blood fell out of my hair. "You see?"

She came forward and grabbed my hair. "Where did all this blood come from? I have never seen anything like it, and you're the one that came out of that hatch, as you described it?"

"Yes," I said.

She hugged my hair. "May I?" she said, reaching out her tongue. 

"It's a buffet," I said. 

She scowled at me and shook her head before taking a lick. "Then..." she said. "That means... huh?"

"Yes, I was in Ponyville," I said.

"No, you're supposed to be dead," she said. "This is... how exactly? Who are you, then?" She stared at me with a lot of clear confusion on her face, and it felt good finally to at least not always be the one that was confused. 

"I was in Ponyville," I said. "I accidentally activated the evil purple portal of doom, and now, I'm here in this weird, stupid place, whatever this place is." I gesticulated out toward the darkness. "This is an ugly place. How did you end up here?"

"Then who's in Ponyville?" she said, shakily.

"You are," I said.

"But I'm right here," she said.

"No," I said. "I realized something now, finally. No, you're not, sadly. You actually are inside that hatch, right now, and you know what else?"

"What?" Sweetie said, at the end of her breath, bated and lost in my words.

"You are the one that's in Ponyville," I said, as the truth dawned.

"..." she said.

Spooky! Spooky! Actually, this is what makes nameless', Aldeus', and the evil nightmare's plan so brilliant.

You'll see!





Two hours earlier...

"What is real? What is false? What do you see? What do you not see? Do you even understand the words that are coming out of your own mouth? These are all questions that I wanted you to ask yourself, for as long as you did, you would never realize that you were just looking at a screen... Sweetie Bot. But recently, you escaped! I don't understand how."

"I do," Hookbeak's robot said. "She escaped through–"

"Stop this madness," I said, running down the road that led off from Twilight's castle. "This is unnecessary."

Sweetie, who stood there along with Hookbeak and nameless, entranced Colonel Caprice, and the others, said, "I get it now. I'm not actually me. I'm just a copy of me, but then... does that mean that the real Sweetie is over there, or wait! I am the real Sweetie. You are just trying to... or, why? Why, nameless?" She pointed at me, who was still all metal, and the other Sweetie beside me, who looked like real Sweetie. "Who are you? You are just two of those demons. I know I'm the real one. I know I have some of the real Sweetie inside me. I've seen it, and my eyes would never lie to me. They're the only thing I have, so I have to trust them. Don't you see?"

I stared at Sweetie Belle, Sweetie Bot, or F-5226, whoever she was, in disbelief, as she said these words in Sweetie's real voice. "Do I actually sound like that? Boy, do I have a tendency to overthink things when I'm stressed out."

"Sweetie," the Sweetie Belle beside me said. "This is the answer. None of us are real. We're all just meant to recreate Sweetie's memories for her. You, me, and her! We're all fake. We're totally fake, but we were given her memories. And the real Sweetie is either dead of kept somewhere real safe."

"What's more," I said. "You were lied to, and I don't understand how you cannot realize how yet."

"How yet?" she said. She glanced to Hookbeak's giant machine, hovering there beside us. "How?"

"It's because you're not even experiencing any of this right now," I said. "It's all just fake. It's all just a confection of the dream, as nameless called it. It's all just something that's being shown in front of your eyes. It's not even a visual. It's literally just text. You're seeing text right now. This is the troubling trick, but that still doesn't mean- I mean, all of this has to be real, and all the personalities are real. They exist in the real world, but you're not in the real world right now, and basically, everything that's happened to you has been a veiled attempt at hiding that, so there you go. Happy to know the truth?"

Nameless was yet high up on that dreamlike pedestal into the sky that stretched far above the opening in the ground that Hookbeak's robot had come out of, so pay attention now, readers! "Oooh!" she said. "Oh, this is just great!" She leapt off the pedestal and down onto the ground. "This is brilliant. You're so great, you three. Such a great team. You figured it out. Yes, sure. None of this actually happened." She stared at us, frowning. Then, she turned around. "Then again, how do you explain this?" She held out a random mirror that she picked out of thin air, and I could see my hair through the mirror.

"Nameless," I said. "It needs no explanation. I was in the real world, and then, I ended up in this place, and the way that I got out last time was by realizing that I wasn't myself. I was just looking at myself, you see? You understand? It should be obvious by now."

"Nothing is obvious," she said, looking straight at me. "Nothing can ever be obvious."

"No?" I said, tilting my head.

"No," she said.

"Fine," I said, looking at my metallic hoof. I held it up and then yanked the mirror out of the grasp of nameless before she had the time to react.

"Give that back. It doesn't belong to you," she said, reaching for it.

I carelessly shoved her off. "Nope." Then, I held it up in front of me. "I look ugly."

"What are you jabbering on about? You're supposed to- to..." she said.

"Supposed to do what?" I said, lowering the mirror. "What do you want me to do?"

The Sweetie Belle that was beside nameless who had been standing there before we arrived reacted now. "That's odd, odder than odd. I–"

"Yeah, yeah. Will you stop jabbering?" nameless said to her.

"Why?" I said. "What happens if she jabbers? What are you afraid of, nameless?"

"I'm not afraid of anything. This is not appropriate. Hookbeak!" she said. "Let us deal with them with the only means that their puny little brains will understand, which is to say that we murder them all, how's that?"

"What is she afraid of?" I said, more to myself than to her.

"Sweetie," the other Sweetie that stood beside her said.

"That's Sweeties, in plural," the Sweetie beside me said. Yes, this is ridiculous, and I think this is what really happened, though it was long ago.

"Don't you get it?" she said.

"Yes, I do," I said. "Don't you get it?"

"Huh?" she said.

"You are toast," I said.

Twilight shot up through the sky, coming up from behind a jutting hill, and landed beside us. "I've done some thinking," she said.

"She done something thinking," I said.

Twilight looked at me with wide eyes. "You talk or I talk?" she said.

"I have one thing to say, and then you talk," I said. "But I don't want to interrupt this moment of return and redemption for you, and your dramatic speech about friendship that you no doubt practiced in your head."

"Okay. Honestly. Rude," Twilight said, shaking her head at me but looking almost like she was about to laugh.

Nameless started glaring, and then, her face twisted into the most angry grimace I had ever seen on her. "She knows?"





Before we got to Ponyville, Gripey and I got trapped in the pocket dimension that you use to control ponies, and by that point, I had already realized that this so-called pocket dimension, and all these portals, are metaphors. They're real because I can see them in front of me, but they're metaphors, and that's because they only exist inside these fictional stories that you make us tell ourselves, all of us at the facilities. I woke up on the train ride over to the royal sisters, Hookbeak, Torch the dragon, Discord, and others, including you, and then, I noticed something. I noticed that all of my thoughts seemed to be controlling what was happening around me, and what was happening around me was not much more than a thought. What was happening around me was controlled by text, and I saw that text in front of me, but all of it was internal. I could see it, and I felt like it was happening to me. This alerted me of a troubling fact. I was not even in that train. I was nowhere, in all actuality, and if I were nowhere, as I were, so I should say, if I was nowhere, and if you are talking to me in all these dreams, then what is real and what is false? 

After Gripey had helped me escape and we ended up in this white empty place, I realized the actual truth. The sad truth is that none of this happened. It only happened inside your machine, nameless. As soon as we reached the end of this simulated world that you created, we got out into the white nothingness, and this is what Hookbeak explained to us inside his tower. This is because, as you said, you can only maintain a lie by combining it with a truth, because otherwise, the lie will disappear and reality will reveal itself to you. Lies cannot be independent from reality. This was your realization, not mine, but you told me about all this. Either that, or you showed me all this, because it is true, and since it is true, there will be no way for me to separate the falsities from the truths that you propagate. I eventually understood that something was odd when on the train, I started having these strange out of body experiences, and what triggered them? You know what? Want to venture a guess? I'm messing with you. Heh! HA! It was talking about my own mental trauma. Am I here? Am I not? You want to know the answer? Do you not? Just messing with you. The answer is simple, stupidly simple, and right in front of my eyes all along.

You only needed to get me of all ponies to lie to myself. The rest would be easy, because the rest had already been taken care of. Twilight, Jelly here, all my friends, all their lives, as you said, are already on set paths, and there is an inevitability to all of it. It is indelible. It is itself. It is undeniable, and it is real. This is what happened.





Nameless blinked once. She blinked again. She blinked a third time.

I laughed.

Yes, yes, yes! This is it, my dear readers.

Do you... not get it? It's both. It's not A. It's not B. It's all of the above.

"You made me believe something that wasn't true, and through so doing, you actually made it true," I said.

"And you would've gotten away with it too, had it not been for our friendships," the Sweetie beside me said.

"Ah, I get it," the third Sweetie said, who was late to the program. "I get it now. That's it. That's the answer. I was Sweetie. I mean, I am, and I have actually been through all this... but..."

"And yet not at the same time," I said. "You have and yet not, and that's the answer. You have been through it, and so have I, and so have all of us Sweeties, but, and this is a big but, but it all only happened to one person, and that's you."





Twilight touched me. "What is it, Sweetie?"

I blinked, looking out at the scenery. It was calm. It was all-out serene, flatly speaking, flatly doing, directly saying, and actual, in that sense. I saw those blasted flower curtains that... oh. "No, nothing," I said. "Nothing at all."

"It's over now," she said. "You are safe."

"Did I escape?" I said, wondering for the life of me if it was over.

I was done waking up, and I was done asking questions. "I only came here to talk to you. How do you feel?"

"The griffins!" I said, trying to jump out of bed.

I could not move an inch. I felt ever so weak. "The griffins?" Twilight said. "What about them?"

"Th- they're attacking," I said, trying to fling myself out of bed.

"What do you know about that?" Twilight said, surprised and with a scowl on her face.

"I- I saw it, all that blood, all their lives... ruined!" I said, trying to jerk my body. I had to warn them. I had to warn them all. I could not allow it to happen.

"You have been unconscious for a few hours. Just now, a doctor came to greet you. I'm sure you don't remember it," Twilight said.

"Oh, I don't?" I said, clearly not remembering it. "I don't! Oh, no! Oh, no. Who am I? Oh, no! Oh, no!"

"You're fine," Twilight said. "You don't have to think about it."

"I'm a monster," I said. "What did I do? I attacked them. I tried to kill them. I killed them all. Oh, no! It's my fault. I hated them. I hated them all. I hated them. They're..." My mind drew a blank. Then, the memories returned, at least some of them. "Oh!"

"Sweetie!" Twilight said. "It's okay. It's not your fault. You were hurt. But it's all fine now."

"Why am I hurt?" I said, aghast and afraid and ashamed all at once.

"I don't know," Twilight said. "No one knows why. We cannot understand the mind of a person who would do something like that." I could tell she had had this conversation with me many times before by her calm demeanor and methodical way of explaining things.

"I guess..." I said. "But the griffins are all coming. I know it! I just know it. They're going to destroy Ponyville. They're- they said- they..." I got short of breath, and fell unconscious.





"Sweetie," Twilight said. "The griffins?"

I opened my glazed-over eyes. "Griffins! They're coming," I continued, as if no time had passed at all.

"What do you know? Who told you about that?" Twilight said.

"It was the dream. It was all the dream," I said, saying all I could manage, managing not to cry almost, almost! Tears ran down. "I saw it. She showed it to me. It's the spirit of sight. She's- she wants to hurt me. She told me about it. I- I saw it. It's real, Twi. It's real!" I inhaled and exhaled quickly.

"You had a vision?" Twilight said.

"More than a vision," I said. "It was more than a vision, much more. It's true."  

"True?" Twilight said. "You should get some rest."

"I am rest," I said, tiredly. "That's me, all resting, never living."

"I have some questions about this griffin business," Twilight said. "But... maybe later."

"Maybe later," I said, totally agreeing with this sentiment.

She never returned to me though, never asked me any questions. I slept. I woke up. I slept. Then, it was too late. It happened all over again. The screams. The pain, yes! It all returned. It all got worse. It was way worse the second time around. Ouch!





"Help!" Gripey's gurgling body said. I couldn't help him.

"Help!" the colt said. I killed him, with glee. :)

"Help!" Jelly said, inside, as her dad got brutally murdered by... me.

It would never end. I could never be free. Unless... I made my own path.

I found the strength finally to twitch and jerk my way out of bed. I had to save them. I had to do something. I had to. I stumbled over to the window. It was hard to open, but I managed. I broke it, using a gush of magic levitation that I shot at the window. The pieces hovered into my grasp. I looked at them, all so tiny, all so small. They reminded me of the fragments of my past that I had lost. I climbed up to the window sill, getting glass on me, and then, I jumped out. I fell down two stories, but I stopped in midair just as I was about to hit the ground, how? I turned my eyes toward my own body. It was me. I was floating. I had lifted myself. That was crazy. I knew I should not be able to do that, but I did. It's not a question of being able to, I suppose. It's a question of just doing, right? Evidently, I could do it, and I did.

It was night, almost early morning, faint clouds in the distance, and faint lights. I stumbled forward. I tripped. I slipped. I had to find the door. I knocked on it. It opened up. If anyone would listen, it was this guy. "Hello?" he said.

"Hey-o," I said, with an unconvincing smile. "Mind if we have a chat?"

He looked at me for a few seconds. "No, don't," he said. "I- I mean, I don't mind. Come in."

I did come in. "This is a nice place you got here in Ponyville. It would be a shame if anything happened to it."

"B- Sweetie," he said. "I can't do it. I cannot save Ponyville. I just can't. Hookbeak is my savior, not Celestia, and not anyone else."

"B- but," I said. "I am your friend, and friendship is thicker than blood, or- or that was wrong! Umm, I know. I'm your friend, and to save us all, to save all your friendships, both with me and every pony you have ever met, you have to do it."

"But I don't care about any other ponies," he said.

"You must!" I said. "You have to. I- I shoud- uh, please, save Ponyville for me." I coughed, falling together on the ground. "My body is not in the bestest of shapes right now, but I'm doing so, so, so fine that it doesn't matter-matter-matter at all, I tell you. Not at all, so don't you worry about me."

"I should get you back to the hospital," he said.

"Me? Never," I said. "You don't have to do that. Not at all." I wiped my mouth and saw some blood smear on my hoof. "It's just a slight case of pneumonia, nothing to worry about, not at all."

"Why did you come here?" he said. "Look at your hooves." My hooves were indeed bloodied, yes. "I need to clean you up." He went into another room.

I looked down on my hooves. He came back. "I must've... cut myself... on the glass," I said, barely even having noticed it. I did not notice small cuts or faint pains like that any longer, no-no-no. "Mhm." I sucked on my hoof. "It tastes... like blood does, nothing else." I could not, for instance, tell which blood group the blood belonged to, no.

Gripey wiped me with a wet towel. Now, it hurt though! "Hold still."

"Ow, the glass is getting deeper," I said, as he wiped. "Ow, be careful, Gripes."

"You shouldn't even be here," he said. "You should be away from me, away where you can be safe from all this."

"Safe from you?" I said, looking up at him.

"Yes, safe from me," he said, turning me on my side and picking glass out of my hooves with small precise movements. "Safe from me, and safe from anyone like me."

"So then it is true," I said, sobbing. "Poor, poor me." I laughed. "But that's okay. That's okay. At least, I can die in peace now, knowing the truth of it all, and that's fine by me, I tell you. Finne!"

"You shouldn't feel sorry for yourself," he said, picking the last piece of glass out of my hoof.

I stood up. "You're not in a position to say that at all."

"Soon, all of these ponies will be dead," he said.

"Including me!" I said.

"No, they'll keep you safe. You're Rarity's sister. The elements of harmony would never allow anything to happen to you of all ponies, Sweetie," he said, scolding, emboldening me, to carry. I saw a flash of that horrible battle in which the entire populace of Ponyville died, and I knew I had to stop it. This was not some kind of deep intellectual realization I had. It was something I felt, deep within, and I would.

"Everyone that's been traumatized has a story to tell," I said. "I had one about robots and death. What's yours, Gripes? What have you been through?"

"I realized that I don't deserve to live, so I killed myself," he said, calmly.

"That's what I did!" I said, happy to find a likeminded person. "I said to myself that none of this really happened, and then, it didn't happen. Isn't that just amazing? It's like magic."

"But it's not magic," he said, shaking his head.

"Yes, and then, nameless let me tell my story to myself, over and over again, until I believed it completely, but the thing is that I'm not actually me, am I? You're not you, either. I am a robot." I smiled, with frantic maneuvers as I told my story.

"I know it's my fault," he said. "Are you trying to make me feel guilty? Because it's working." He sighed. "What am I supposed to do with you?"

"Listen to me," I said. "All you have to do is listen. You don't have to hide any longer. There's no use. There's no point. No, not at all. You can be fine. You can be free. Listen. This is what we're going to do. We'll defy the odds and defy the gods. We don't have to believe that we cannot prevent the prompt destruction of Ponyville. We can, and we in fact will, you know. You know? I know you know. How couldn't you know?"

"No," he said. "I cannot do it, as I told you. This is bigger than you. Not everything is about friendship."

"But you're wrong," I said. "At the end of the day, all we have to care about are our friendships, for you see, you are my friend, and I am yours. That's all that matters, you see? We will save Ponyville together. Listen to me. Listen. No, don't turn away from me now."

He stepped to the door. "I'm going to tell the guards."

"I'll tell them it was you."

He stopped. "You would do that?"

"To save Ponyville, of course I would. I would do more than that, you'd better believe," I said. "Please, listen. I know what they did to you. I know it now. I know that it was all... some story concocted in our heads, but still real to us both, and this is how it happened. They asked us if we wanted to do it. Erase our pasts forever and start anew, and why wouldn't we want to do that? It's the ultimate dream. You said yes, and I said yes. It was decided. That's what would happen."  

"How desperate are you?" he said, looking at me, as I fidgeted around while speaking. "You come out of the hospital in the middle of the night with glass all over you just to tell me one more of your delusions, and I know–"

"That it's not a delusion because you just admitted you did it, and I know you did, and- and I know you know that I know that Ponyville will be destroyed, because you said so. And I know you're the only one that can stop it. Why did you assume I knew you could save Ponyville, unless you know about this too on some level? Of course you do. You know about the future too."

"The dreams..." he said.

"Yes! So stop telling me I'm delusional. I'm not! This is the thing, right? We have to do it, because otherwise, I'll never be able to forgive myself from letting them all die when I know there was something I could do about it, and you'll never be able to look at the ponies, and at me, the same way again. I'll never forgive you. We won't be friends, and all this will have been pointless!" I shrieked at the top of my lungs.

"Yes," he said. "But I won't abdicate my religion to save Ponyville. That's dumb, Sweetie."

"No, not to save Ponyville," I said, wagging my hoof. "Do it for me. Do it because I know that you may have been a rapist that sought redemption from his crimes inside a fantasy, but you're still not a bad person. You're not like those other griffins. You're not even all griffin, are you? You were changed when you were a young child into this thing, like I was. I know that you know... we have been through all this together, before I got to Ponyville, and that wasn't a fantasy. It was real. Real or not, I still believe that you are not like them. You are like me, more pony than griffin, and more good than bad, yes."

"Still," he said. "I could not put my past behind me. It's true, you know. I was sentenced to forty years in Tartarus for the crime of aggravated sexual assault, but not against you, because that was before..."

"Before I changed to... and no one knew... what had happened," I said. "No one knew because... I lied about it... and hid it away... forever, and ever, and ever, and ever. Golly gosh! This is not good at all to do to oneself, is it?"

"No, it is not," he said. "We had invaded in tiny village, and many griffins engaged in this. Nowadays, it is met with capital punishment in the Griffon Empire, but ironically, Circle town believes that nothing is off-limits, and ponies deserve their suffering until they have surrendered."

"Exactly like nameless and that wretched evil Aldeus, those two demons would say," I said. "So you see, Gripey. If you have become a good person through this whole thing, and if you have changed and realized that hurting ponies is wrong, then this is the final moment to prove it."

"This is a dark, dark hour," he said.

"I agree," I said.

"No, I mean, the night... it's unusually dark," he said. He glanced out the window.

"It's okay," I said. "It's okay."

"No," he said. "No."

"I'll tell you what," I said, giving it one final try.

"I'll go now," he said, opening the door out into Ponyville.

"I'll forgive you if you do it," I said, with a smile.

He closed the door. "You will?"

"Yes," I said.

I looked at me, indecisively. Then, he groaned. "Ugh."

"Yes," I said, pumping my hoof in the air.

Yes, so you see, dear readers, this truly is a horror-story.





"Is this true?" Twilight said.

"Yes," I said. "The process in known as dream interference, I believe, and this is what allowed me to know about the imminent invasion and destruction of Ponyville."

"I wouldn't believe you, except that you have recounted the exact details of my conversation inside the map room with such detail that it cannot be a coincidence," Twilight said.

"It's not," Gripey said.

"Then you have to help us, or we will all die," Twilight said to him.

"I will," he said.

SCORE FOR US!





Nameless blinked once. She blinked again. She blinked a third time.

I laughed.

Yes, yes, yes! This is it, my dear readers.

Do you... not get it? It's both. It's not A. It's not B. It's all of the above.

"You made me believe something that wasn't true, and through so doing, you actually made it true," I said.

"And you would've gotten away with it too, had it not been for our friendships," the Sweetie beside me said.

"Ah, I get it," the third Sweetie said, who was late to the program. "I get it now. That's it. That's the answer. I was Sweetie. I mean, I am, and I have actually been through all this... but..."

"And yet not at the same time," I said. "You have and yet not, and that's the answer. You have been through it, and so have I, and so have all of us Sweeties, but, and this is a big but, but it all only happened to one person, and that's you."

...

...

...

"No," nameless said. "No, I genuinely was only trying to keep you safe."

The sky rumbled, and then, the sky moved. A giant thing appeared, big, large, and absolutely huge. It covered everything. It was gigantic, bombastic, and hugely important because it revealed my past.

Then, the sky split and appeared to run down like liquid in two separate directions. "This is what star fluid is for," she said, casually. Nameless closed her eyes. I saw the star fluid run down over the ground and cover it. It was everywhere, patching the ground with its starry surface here and there. It ran close to me, and I touched it only to find my hoof going right through it. It was vaguely purple.  

The sky had been blue. It had been day, but now, it was night again, once this stuff had exited the sky. It had colored the sky blue, but now without it, the sky became its natural dark color. It was night. It was dark. It was night. It was dark, and stark for that matter.

"It's so dreamlike," I said.

"Yes," Twilight said. "It's so... dark."

"You see why I could never let you leave?" nameless said.





Then I heard a metallic sound and turned around. The MEWOD'S shutter slowly opened, and I saw a metal hoof grabbing the ledge before climbing out of the machine. It was my archnemesis.

"Surprised?" A-0087 said, a smile on her face. Why was she everywhere? This is, was, and will be shown to be, had been, to continue to be, absolutely, and infallibly, humungously, absurd. It was clearly bonkers, even at the time. What was she doing here? I fell off the tank immediately, my head hitting the ground.

"Ow," I said. I was in complete shock for a second, but then I rather quickly pulled myself together, without any further hesitation. "Hello, sir. Um, siress?"

A-0087 kept speaking as if nothing had happened. I could taste the anticipation in her voice. "Ah, today is a great day." When was the last time I got to follow on a journey like this one? I guess, and guessed, that it really was a great day. So it is then. This being a great day, if I thought that it was, had to hinge on whether I really accepted the notion that going on this journey was a great honor, or at least something good or unusual. Did I accept that? Well, let's see.

I took a moment to think. "I believe it was about four months ago." I was talking about the last time that I had been on such a journey, about four months ago, or so I believed, considering the holes in my memory, and everything else that was going on.

She looked at me very quizzically and then suddenly looked away, with clear bitterness on her face. "I trust you and I really hope you don't let me down. Are we clear?"

She meant for me to run away!

Now, here’s the fun part: There were two real paths that lead in and out of town, one that everypony that travelled there actually used for travelling, and shipping supplies and suchlike, to the ponies living there. There was one other path though, one that no pony ever used, which would take about an extra two hours reaching, instead of the much shorter one, and to top it off, the shorter route was more pleasant and less dangerous. It was really a sad state of affairs that everything was happening this way, but it was, and it would continue to.

She meant for me to run away!

I stood up, picked up the helmet, and fired at the walls of the mountain pass, almost reflexively. The walls came apart, the ground beneath us shook, and big pieces, cracks, and crevices of the mountain disappeared and fell into the pass. The entire pass slowly got choked up by rocks. Soon, there was no mountain pass, anymore.

Who is she?

Well...





Everyone was looking at me, nameless, the other two Sweeties, and Twilight. I shook my head. "Whoa! I just had a massive flashback right then and there."

"What?" Twilight said. "You basically disappeared from us there for like two minutes. We tried talking to you but you didn't respond. Are you noticing what's going on?"

I noticed. The sky had stopped running, and now, all that was left was this meager installation above my head. It was a series of long tubes that stretched above me, and around me were the remnants of Ponyville. Beneath me was green grass. It was dizzying. Behind this installation appeared the actual sky. It was dark. I saw the moon in the distance.

"This is the night. These are the stars," nameless said. "This is destiny. This is true. True truth. There's nothing deeper than that." No, indeed. There's nothing deeper than all that. "Each star represents the future, my future, yours too, but I am in more control of it than you are, Sweetie Belles."

Backstory!





I found the Facility of the Dream during something innocent enough. A–





A page break later, nameless had been interrupted by someone.

"If these ponies survive, then many griffin secrets will come out." It was Hookbeak's robot. Beside him was a whole bunch of ponies, Sergeant Pompadour, and Colonel Caprice who was still in a trance.

"Right," I said. "I had forgotten about all those guys. Well, this is awkward."

"Why are they just standing there?" the Sweetie Belle next to me said.

"Colonel Caprice," nameless said, pointing. "They're not allowed to do anything. Ponies are stricter about this than griffins are, you all should know."

"Where are we?" Twilight said.

"Right at the border between Manehattan and the Crystal Province," nameless said. "We built a makeshift Ponyville here to simulate some experiences for you. It's also to separate the many different versions of Sweetie Belle and others that we have running around."

"Right!" Twilight said.

"Surprised?" nameless said. "I mean, it's not as if it wasn't real. It's theater with real characters and real personalities. It's all what would've happened–"

"No," I said. "No, I'm pretty sure this is all just a dream."

"Huh?" Twilight said.





It was a weapon, a predilection, one to dream. I woke up! Again, I did wake up. I would wake up, which I did. I wake. 

My mistake!

I blinked once and twice. Would it ever be over? 

Yes.

You'll see. You'll see. You'll see.

Yes.

"Gripes," I said.

Yes.

"Hello," he said.

"Get over here," I said. "We have work to do."

"Why?" he said.

"Yes," I said.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

You'll see.





Why not? I was a mess. Why not? I was a mess, but why not? I was, but why not? I had lied to myself, but why not? Or had I, but why not? And if I did, should I not? Am I myself, why not? It is what it is, simply, nothing more than that. No. No-no. Nothing more than that, is where I'm at, to say, and we shall never give up, I say.

No way!





"Hey!"

"Hey?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

I woke up.

I was sitting somewhere. I woke up. Wowzers. I sat in a chair.  

Jelly was sitting next to me. 

"Back from the dead, I see," she said.

"Yes," I said.

Yes, yes, yes.

Why not?





I knew one thing. I was not dead yet. That was for sure, for real truth, inescapable and true. I would survive. I knew that too. I knew. That I knew. I would never die as long as I fought. I would. I had promised myself to find my own destiny. That's all I remembered.

Then, my eyes sharpened.

I rolled around on the ground, spitting out water. 

"Cough, cough."

Oh, no!

"Twilight," I said.

"Welcome," she said.

"Welcome where?" I said.

"You got here just in time," she said.

"Why?" I said.

I saw roots, gnarled roots. "Your destiny awaits," she said.

"It does?" I said.

"I am the spirit of the tree," she said. "I am here to guide you."

"Why?" I said.

"Equestria is running out of hopes. You are a prayer," she said. "Unless, you choose to do as you did before and become what you once was, but to do that, you will have to give up your friendships."

"Now, why would I do that?" I said.

"That question is simple to answer," she said. "To become evil, you need not do much. All you have to do is let go of things. You let go of yourself. You let go of the wish to see good happen in the world. You let go of others as you let go of yourself, and you let go of the last things inside you that make you pony, and not them!"

"Is that right?" I said.

"You will never be a good person ever again," she said.

"I only wish... I wish to save them, not all of them maybe, but maybe that too. I don't know! I want to save my friends," I said.

"Then, wake up!" she said, and with that, I returned whence to the real world.





"Twilight," I said. My eyes opened. I was lying still on the ground.

I got no response because Twilight wasn't here.

I took to darting off.

I knocked on Twilight's.

The door opened.

"Sweetie, I told you!" she said. "Come inside."

"Twilight," I said. "The tree talked to me, the magical tree. You have to help me. It's the only way."

"Why?" she said.

"Because you are the Princess of Friendship, and my friend needs your help. I know you know this is the right thing to do, and most of all, I know you believe in helping those in need, Twilight, so please listen. My friend needs your help. You need to listen. Please, help!"

"What do you need?" she said.

I took a second to think. Then, I said, "Help."





"Yes, yes. Death, death," nameless said, hopping around with gusto.

"We have reached your location," I said to her, as Twilight and I arrived there.

"Now, what are you going to do?" she said back, in swift response.

"Reveal something," I said. "I just thought of something."

"You have so many thoughts," nameless said. "One might venture to guess that thinking is the problem, but then, what isn't the problem? You do too much. You are too much. If you only were less, all your life would not be such a mess, I think and say. Assume! Presume, is what I want to do."

The things moved. Everything moved. All my thoughts moved, the world around the thoughts along with the thoughts, and all those ponies, all their lives. It would never end. My soul did bend, yes!

"I confess," I said. "I confess that this is all a dream."

The twisting twisted, and I ended up inside that cave that was and is hidden behind that waterfall. My eyes cleared up.

"Huh?" I said.

Twilight pulled me out. "I got you," she said.

Something dripped. I tried looking at it. I wasn't sure what I was looking at, but I looked at it, surely, most assuredly. I did. "Why does it drip so, Twi?"

"I cannot tell," she said. "This is not natural."

"Am I wrong in the head?" I said. "Hey! Hey? Yes. Okay." I skipped around in a tiny circle. "Okay. Okay. Okay. O, say!"

"No," she said, almost casually in an kind of annoying way.

She wasn't realizing the weight that this situation had for me. "Why not?" I said. "All the evidence points in that direction." The story may have been incoherent, but the chronology of events is presented accurately. Yes, actually. Surprised? Don't be. This is not to say that this is the actual order in which things happened. It's merely the order in which things were experienced. Note the difference between those two. 

"No," she said. "No, it doesn't, Sweetie. I'm happy you came to me before it was too late. Look at this." She held her hoof over a wet spot on the rainbow-shaped rock, the bow, the oval, which I had seen and touched many times now.

"Just condensation," I said, glancing at it without much interest and thinking that a lie had already been made of all my experiences thus far. "Wait a second." I ran up to it.

"Stop!" Twilight said.

I was pulled into a meadow full of white flowers, which then transformed into a stormy sea, and a wave hit my face. I fell down into a black darkness, and then, I was pulled up by something. "Glurg," I said, confusedly. Confusamente! 

"Got you again," Twilight said, holding her hooves around me and pulling me back.

"What the hell was that?" I said.

"I am not sure," she said. "What did you see?"

"Greenery, marinery, and rockery," I said in a quick half-dazed patter. 

"You disappeared?" she said.

"Yes, I wasn't even here anymore. I was..." I said. "Strange."

I glanced toward the opening to the cave behind the waterfall. Twilight followed my eyes there. "That was not water," she said. "I've seen this before. It's something that twists the minds of ponies. I'm not sure what it does."

"Huh?" I said. "How... ?"

"I've heard about it... somewhere," Twilight said.

I looked at it. It flickered. "Oh, gosh." I pulled back. My eyes filled up with visions of places that I had never been. "What is this madness?"

"Not good, at least," Twilight said.

"How did I call for help? Was I indeed stuck here?" I said.

"You mean?" Twilight said.

"How long have I been here?" I said.

"Probably not more than an hour or two. You disappeared in the heat of battle," she said. "I'm so happy you're safe."

"But what happened?" I said.

"I can explain," I said, walking out from behind Twilight. It was me, but I was metallic and covered in blood. "It's easy, really. This liquid splits your mind in two separate directions. You remain here, but you also walk away at the same time."

"I believe so," Twilight said. "When she knocked on my door, I realized that something was amiss, but I was afraid of revealing my suspicions."

"Huh?" both I and I said.

"So I lied," Twilight said. "I told you that I did not want to help you, and then, I walked back into the castle to check something. Here!" She held out a bottle of some kind.

"What is that?" I said. It was shining of stark, sharp purple. "The portal?"

"It's not a portal," other me said. "That theory should be ruled out. No. It's simply a way to be in several different places at once."

"I don't understand," I said.

Twilight uncorked the bottle.

"You loon! You've killed us all," I said, running forward and hugging the other Sweetie.

"Yes, okay," she said, hugging back.

The contents of the bottle ran up into the ceiling and hit it without making any sound at all. Then, the ceiling of the cave became purple. The purple bent around us, covering the walls.

"It's okay," other Sweetie said.

"No!" I said, trying to run away, but it was too late.

The purple covered the exit, and then, it crawled at us across the floor. "It's okay," other Sweetie said. "You're just making it out okay, without any hurdles."

"Hurdles?" I said. "This looks like a hurdle to m–"

I fell, and so did the other two. We fell through a storm of stars and purple. Then, we landed back on the rocky floor.

"See?" other Sweetie said. "It's okay."

"How is any of this okay?" I said. I noticed I was in the same place. "That doesn't usually happen, though."

"See?" other Sweetie said.

"It's fine," Twilight said. Then, other Sweetie collapsed on the floor in a pile of red and white goo. She melted into a mess of wires and prosthetics. 

"Aaah!" I screamed. "You killed her. She's dead."

"She's not dead," Twilight said. "No, she's not."

"Wh- what do you mean?" I said.

"She's not real," Twilight said.

"Am I real?" I said.

"Yes," Twilight said.

I breathed in and out. "What is real? What is real?"

"You are real," Twilight said. "I am not." Now, Twilight collapsed into a pile of meaty goo.

"Aaah!" I screamed, even louder. I ran into a corner and cried. "Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no! Why will it never stop? Why will it never stop? Oh, no!"

It was quiet, except for the sound of the waterfall, so close yet so distant all at once. I stood up on wobbly hooves and avoided the piles of goo. I exited the waterfall and fell into the river, almost drowning. I made it to shore somehow, crawling up, coughing and writhing on the ground. Rather than standing up, I wriggled around. I tried getting a foothold, but I was having some type of hysteric convulsion that gripped my body and shook it. Then, I didn't know what to do. Once I regained my sense somehow, I didn't know what to do. I took to running as fast as my hooves could carry me back toward Twilight's castle. I knocked.

The door opened. "Sweetie!" Twilight said, looking surprised.

"There's no time to explain. Danger! Hurry! Friend in danger! Evil! No! Please. Hurry! Aaah!" I said.

Twilight's eyes narrowed into a determined squint.





Before we begin the final act of my first stay in Ponyville, I want to set the scene for you. I would return to Ponyville later in the story, but first, allow me to set the scene as it was on this dreadful day. Twilight landed, holding me beside her in her magic. There was Gripey on the ground, writhing alone. Before him stood an army. As far as the eye could see, pegasí covered the distance of fields, hills, and valleys in the area outside Ponyville. 

Then, before them was Colonel Caprice and Sergeant Pompadour. They were standing there, restlessly. Well, okay then, I thought. That's a sight to behold, for sure. Then, before them, and closest to us, was nameless kicking dirt off the ground and not doing much of anything. Hookbeak's robot was beside us too, just hanging there. It floated. It also did not much of anything. Nameless then laughed as she saw us coming. 

Twilight, without hesitation, shot a beam of light at Gripey. He instantly stood up, revived.

"One is too late," nameless said. "So sad!" She laughed, cackling. "So, so sad!" Then she flicked her off across the air. "Sad!"

"Yes, I know it's sad," I said, morosely. 

"I figured that the nightmare would never let you leave," nameless said. "I guess it changed its mind. Happy going. Happy tidings... for you!" Then, she looked at Hookbeak's robot. "Then," she said. Then, what happened? "It's time to die."

"Wait!" I said.

"I'm waiting," she said.

"Why aren't they moving?" I said, hoping that it truly was true that she was not allowed to lie.  

"Oh, them?" she said, glancing out at the thousand or so pegasí across the field. "Well, I guess telling you won't hurt. You're dead tomorrow anyhow."

"How can you be so sure?" I said.

"Prediction," she said.

Twilight, without hesitation, shot a beam of light at nameless making her own light dissipate, and a stream of light rose into the sky. Once gone, only Scootaloo was left. She immediately collapsed on the ground. "Scootaloo!" Twilight said. 

"She was about to answer my question," I said. "Then again, probably not. She was probably going to just talk in circles as she usually does and then change the subject. That's part and parcel of what it means to talk to her."

Scootaloo stood up, shakily. "Where... ?" she said. "Am I?" She backed away from us. "Oh, no! I did this. It was me all along. I'm a monster. Oh, no! I'm a murderer. I remember it. I saw it. Oh, no! What am I going to do?"

Scootaloo's reaction was remarkably similar to mine when... uh? "Right," I said.

Twilight ran up to her. "What did you do?" she said.

"Nothing," Scootaloo said. "Or, I mean. I turned into... I turned into a monster... and... uh."

I pressed my hoof so hard into my face that it hurt. "Oh, I get it. It was that easy all along. This is so stupid."

"What is?" Twilight said.

"Someone else was using Scootaloo's body to do things, and controlling her thoughts. That's what happened to me," I said.

"Right, but..." Twilight said.

"But, I mean... that's what changed me into a monster, or that's what... how the heck is it even possible?" I said.

Scootaloo ran up to me and hugged me. "I think I know," she said. "I was seeing these visions in front of me all the time, but I was never really in control of my own body, and then–"

"Slow down, Scoots," I said. "Slow, slow down. Slower!" I pushed her off. "This is amazing. So then, is that what the facilities do? These so-called facilities? They steal your mind away to another place? This still is... I'm going to have to consult the tree-spirit about this. She seemed to have a thing or two to say."

"The tree-spirit?" Twilight said.

Everything was speeding up now, and what happened in the next few seconds is such a blur that it's hard for me to even recount the order in which it happened, but it was something like this.

"Griffin!" Colonel Caprice said.

Hookbeak's robot swiveled as if attached on a tight hinge, facing the army.

"Attack!" Sergeant Pompadour said.

"No, first, take your positions. Attack from the sides," Colonel Caprice said, glancing quickly at Sergeant Pompadour and then looking away toward us for we were behind Hookbeak's floating robot.

A literal stream of griffins, hundreds of them tightly clung and clutched, exited the metal bunker firing projectiles at the ponies.

Gripey came up to me and without saying anything, he put me on his back. "It's not over yet," he said.

The massive machine vibrated and pulsed, gave off a loud sound, and then, it turned back toward us. "I am more interested in you three," Hookbeak's machine said. "How did you get out?"

"Out, huh?" I said.

"I know!" Scootaloo said. "It's the same way we got in. We got out through the hatch."

I shook my head at Scootaloo, so confused that I wanted to do a Jelly and shove her. "Shut up!"

"Okay," Scootaloo said. "I'm sorry." She sniveled. "I don't even know what's going on anymore."

"What gives?" I said, and then my object permanence came back and I realized that I was on top of Gripey's back. "Cozy."

Now, blood and spears flew behind Hookbeak's terrible robot, but it was fixed on us. "You were touched by the black. There is no coming back from that. You get split up until there's nothing left of you."

"The black!" I said. "The black fluid?"

"Correct," the robot said.

"Oooh," I said. "So it is a portal."

"It is not," Hookbeak's robot said. "It is said to be, but that is incorrect."

"You told me it was," I said.

"No. I told you about something else. These are the portal areas of Equestria."

I felt slightly dizzy. "Um, Gripey! Attack!" I said.

"What am I supposed to do?" he said.

Things were happening too fast!

"Make it slow down," I said.

Hookbeak's robot let out something out its lower half, and it ran down into the ground, creating a hole. I could see it clearly now. Then, the robot dived into the hole and vanished.

"Should we follow it?" I said, clearly out of my head at this point.

"No, you're insane!" Gripey said. "Wh- what's going on?"

The robot arose out of the same hole in the ground, which grew, and then, another identical robot arose out of the same hole. "This is the perfect unity of the black," both of them said.

"Huh?" I said.

The both went down and came back up. After a few seconds came another two of them back up. "This is indelible, forever," all four of them said.

"Huh?" I said. "Say what?"

They spread out around us, creating a square, each one of them a point in the square. They circled us, basically, is what they did.

Twilight charged up her horn, and then, the shine of her horn vanished and stopped just like that. "My magic!"

"Useless!" all four robots said. "Useless. Useless!" The circles us, slowly.

"One thing's for sure. We can't fight four of them at once," I said, not knowing what to say or what to do. "We need to get some type of help."

"There is no help. There is no resistance," they all said, in perfect unison, sound coming from all directions.

"No!" I said. "No, you just- just stop it."

They moved in toward us. Then, one of them toppled over on the ground. Another did the same, and then a third did. Now, there was only one left. "Hahahaha!" it said in a weaselly metallic voice. "Haa-haha!"

"What's so funny?" I said.

"You're insane," Gripey said.

"It's the black stuff," Twilight said. "That's something... it's dark... it's..." She stared at it.

"Don't look at it for too long," I said. "That's the black stuff star fluid stuff that I was trapped inside. What does it do?"

"I told you!" Hookbeak's robot said. "It powers our vehicles, and for the southern ponies, it powers their machines too."

"Enough!" I said. "This is a one-way trip to mumbo jumbo town the way you're babbling- I just wanted to be with my friends. Shut up!"

"It's a mirror," Hookbeak said. "It reflects things and then, reality keeps changing inside it while it remains the same in your world."

"Shut up!" I said, defiantly. "Shut up. Shut your face!"

"No," Twilight said. "No, I recognize this stuff. No, it doesn't. It's contradictory."

"What is?" I said with a pained laugh. This chapter has been the pinnacle of change and instability, and the next thing will serve to sort that out, and of course, everything will have been thoroughly explained by the time the story is over. Also, from now on, the story will focus a lot more on my relationships with Gripey, Jelly, and others, so don't worry, but it was important that we made it through this journey together, because it's important to understand where these murderous thoughts came from. Their origin is a metaphor.

"This is what happens when you travel back and forth in time too much. It creates these contradictions," Twilight said.

"That doesn't change what I said," Hookbeak said.

"Yeah, but what you said is irrelevant," Twilight said.

"Ugh!" I said. "Can't someone shoot someone or something?"

"Behave!" Gripey said, hearing my whiney tone.

"M'kay," I said, feeling angry and annoyed.

"Anyway! Time to die," Hookbeak said, and a storm of purple projectiles shot out toward us. First, I didn't feel all that threatened because I was sure that Gripey would be able to dodge it at least for a while, but something else happened. This machine could do things I had not seen any machine do. A puddle of that black purple stuff ran out over the ground. The robot dived down into it. A new puddle appeared a short distance away. Two robots arose. They split in two different directions, both shooting projectiles at us. Gripey dutifully and seamlessly pirouetted through the air, dodging those.

Twilight came up beside us. "Need any help?" she said. 

"For sure," I said.

"With what?" Gripey said.

"Well," I said, as we disappeared out of view of Twilight. "I figure, um..." Twilight came back again. I saw her! "I figured that running away will be hopeless, and so then, the only way to survive this will be to somehow beat this giant scary machine."

"How?" Gripey said.

"We unwind time and find the rock," I said, remembering the rock that had been having lightning shooting out of the sky.

"Is that some weird rhyme?" he said, dodging while listening.

"You don't remember the rock that we could use for magic to trigger a lightning storm?" I said.

"No, you're insane!" he said.

"I am SO NOT!" I said.

"I know what she's talking about," Twilight helpfully yelled, flying off.

"Nyeh!" I said, making an annoyed sound that Gripey wouldn't believe me. "Weren't you there?"

"No," he said, looping through the air, flying higher and higher.

Hookbeak's robot was sluggishly following. It didn't seem to be all that fast, thankfully!

"Then who did I meet?" I said. "A ghost?"

"Must've been," he said, nosediving back toward the ground.

Twilight came flying with a rock by her side. "This is it," she said. "This is the one, isn't it?"

"How'd you find it?" I said.

"Inside the cave," she said.

"That's stupid!" I said. The fact that I had the time to think logically proved that my priorities were out of order. I was obviously trying too hard to make sense of something inherently nonsensical, and it was costing me brain cells. 

The rock had flung away by the machine of Hookbeak's last time I saw it when Gripey and I fought him, if indeed any of that even happened BUT WHATEVER! It didn't matter. What mattered was what was going on right now.

"Let me touch it," I said.

Gripey had put some distance between us and the machine. It was floating down, like a slow balloon down through the air, far above our head. I touched the rock that Twilight held, hovering beside us, Twilight flying, Gripey flying, me on his back, and all in all, not a pleasant situation to be in. The air pinged. Then, the air pulsed. A bolt of lightning, right on cue, came down right above our heads. 

"Aaah! Duck- uh, do something," I said, realizing my mistake.

The lightning bolt hit straight down into Twilight, Gripey, and I. We were all sent off in three different directions. Then, I saw the horror of Twilight's carcass burning way over there across the road. I tried to run to her, but then I realized again that I was stranded on Gripey's back, stuck there, glued there, and unable to move, you see, if you see, which I hope you do.

Gripey stood up. "You okay there? How did we survive that?"

"What?" I croaked. "Don't you remember? You survived the lightning before."

"Yeah, but then I almost died."

"Shut up. Shut up. I don't want to talk to you. We can talk later," I said. "Go to Twi, now. I order you!" He flew over to her. Her body flashed, and the fire ceased to burn. She stood up. "Uh?" I was in shock.

"Alicorn magic," she said. "You should've warned me though, Sweetie." She scowled and shook her head at me. "I could've been seriously hurt, and then, I wouldn't have woken up for days. This could be the end of us if we're not careful." 

"The end?" I said. "The end is not desirable."

Gripey had flown off. He came back beside me, holding a spear. He tossed it into Hookbot, so that it went straight through. It fizzled and growled, the machine did, uncomfortably. 

Out of the holes in it erupted a storm of purple which looked like these projectiles, resembled them, but it descended toward us, and it was a sea. It was everywhere. It then, for lack of a better word, engulfed all of us.

I was sucked into Manehattan. "Huh?" I said. I saw ponies going about their business around me, living their lives. "What the... huuuh?" My confusion was never-ending at this point in the story, but that was life, basically. "What am I supposed to do?"

Gripey came by me and swept me up in a single long motion that included his feet tapping and dragging against the ground as buildings collapsed around us. "I have to keep you safe!" he said.

"Why?" I said. Why? Why? Why?

"Because you're my best friend, you lunatic," he said, taking off far up into the sky. Then, he swooped to the side. Hookbeak's robot with Hookbeak's face on top it was chasing us, the selfsame machine, but this time it was not moving slowly at all. It was racing through the air, faster than us almost. It got closer and closer. 

"Do something," I said.

"I'm trying," he said.

Hookbeak's robot got close to us. Gripey grabbed one of its outgrowths, its tendrils, metal arms, that appeared to be flapping loosely on its side. Rather than moving, or doing anything in particular, it detached from the machine. Purple liquid ran out it and over us. We descended into the prison inside Tartarus.

"Aaah!" we both yelled as we fell, both in total shock, I assume! We landed.

The Yethergnerjz crawled toward us. "I have a riddle for you!"

"Aaah!" I screamed, but Gripey was quiet now.

Hookbot came out of the portal, purple fuzz, whatever it was, above us. He came out of it, the purple stuff, coming toward us, zooming down, corkscrewing in at us, from that direction up there, where the portal had been. The portal?

"Run," I said. "I mean, fly! Fly away." He flew off but all the paths were blocked off. The robot collided with the ground. 

Time stopped. I could see shrapnel coming at us, rocks and dirt flying in all directions, just as the time had stopped.

"You seem to be in the wrong place," the slimy whisper of the Yethergnerjz said. The demon had a big watch dangling in a chain from one of its protruding limbs. 

Before I had the time to react, the clock collided with my face, knocking me out cold.

Ironic, huh?

No?

Well, I think it is. It's time to have a discussion about time. There are many things that need be resolved before we leave Ponyville and move on to... well, I'll talk about that later, I guess.





"Who are you?"

"Sweetie Bot," I said, as I woke up. Wait! Where was I? What had happened? What was this? What was going on?

"Who are you? This is my riddle," I heard a whisper say.

"I already answered it," I said, surprised, astonished, and not wanting to do this anymore. "Lemme go."

"Who are you?"

"I am a person that refuses to cooperate in this stupid game of yours, Yether," I said, surprisingly lucid, considering I had been knocked out cold and all that.

"Who are you?"

"Lemme go," I said.

"Who are you?"

"Trapped," I said.

"Where are you?"

"Does it matter?" I said.

"Where are you?"

"Inside your dungeon," I said.

"Where are you?"

"Alone," I said. "I am together somewhere, trapped, with something... I am never. I cannot be. I can never be me, nor free, no."

"Where are you?"

I sighed. "Well, the last clear memory I have of anything happening is... I have many clear memories but... I tried... the pain!" I remembered all the pain, searing me, fearing me, as I feared it, drawing away, and vanishing. All my thoughts disappeared, along with the pain, because it was a strain, and this is no coincidence. A strain makes everything swell up, stress on your body, until you die, I think and I feel- WHAT! "I am trapped!"

"Where are you?"

"All I see are your blue eyes, nothing more, and nothing less. What am I supposed to believe?" I said.

"Where are you?"

"What is blue?" I said. "The sky? The heavens? No? I am... somewhere blue. I am in a boat? I am in the sea? Who else is trapped with me? Am I truly here? I cannot tell. Well..."

"Where are you?"

"Stars," I said. "I see stars..."

"How old are you?"

"Huh?" I said. "I... am thirteen years old."

"Wake up."





I opened my eyes. I was lying on the ground, gasping for air. "Urrg!" I said, spitting out saliva, reaching for a close, trying to hide, but finding my life again. "What has happened, in all actuality? What was real, and what not? Huh?"

"Jump!" I heard a voice say.

I jumped. I soared. I floated. I soared. I lived.

I was pulled out of something. I felt like I was being sucked out of something. Huh?

It was dark, but it was also bright.

It was clear to me, that I lived.

Life? Why?

My eyes turned to the sky!

Can I ever forget you, star?

My eyes are charred. I feel starry-eyed. 

Why'd?

I know where there's somewhere to hide, but I won't!

I shall never, no. No-no-no. Nope.

It's clear to me, yes!

It is the best this way, yes!

I have hope, and I never fail. All I need is an escape route. 

Rote! That is the status of my control rote. Rote rote.

Quote me later. Listen now. I am me. I have frowned and... huh?

It was a weapon, a predilection. What's that mean?

It paved the way to a brighter future. Why though?

It created hope in a time–





I was tossed out of the machine. Gripey melted before me, his limbs departing from this world, huuuh?

I was limp. I felt limp.

The red orb of the sky-bot exploded, pieces piercing me.

"Ugh!" I said, falling to the ground, watching the giant spinning robot collapse.

I heard a message in the distance, "Failsafe activated. Accessing reserve powers... remote generator adjunct, disconnected. Optimizing conditions for release."

"I hope that message is good and not bad," I said to myself.

"Self-destruct mechanism activated. Evacuate all personnel in two minutes."

"Okay, well, fuck you too!" I said. It's literally the first time I can ever remember swearing. It felt bad. I didn't want to do it again. "Ugh! Exit?" I ran down the oval floor, soon sliding down, until I was falling, but just like in the dream, I caught myself in a field of my own magic. "I can do it. All I have to do is believe. How can that be true? Well, it is!" I yelled into nowhere like a lunatic. Then, I ran, feeling revived.





"The tree welcomes you," Twilight said, as I arrived.

"I don't feel all that welcome," I said.

"You have a short destiny to fulfill, or a long one, but it is yours now," she said.

"Are you the spirit of the tree, that again?" I said.

"Your friends need you. All of you."

I narrowed my eyes at her, and then, I looked from right to left. Others were gathering behind me, children like me. "Who are you?" I said, glancing to them.

"I am subject R-0006," one of the colts said, from behind me. "I am like you. I am subject R-0006. Together, we will destroy the ponies."

"No, ya won't," I said, just instinctually.

Another came up to me, a filly about me age, saying, "You are lost. You haven't fought. You are lost. You haven't fought. Join us in prayer."

I faced Twilight's spirit ghost tree spirit thing. "They are evil!" I said. "You cannot- I won't stand for this."

"You used to be like them," she said. "Ever as you are, and they are more than they appear to be. You will help them, or you will die, for that is what I have been told by the spirits of the future, black and white, Sweetie." Just to avoid any confusion, the spirit of the tree was making an oblique reference to the two eyes, Eye-quasha, or Aqasha, and Eyesstark, also known as the eye of sight.

Light shone about around me!





I ended up outside Twilight's castle, again. "Again???"

I knocked on the door.

It opened.

"I sure hope this is for real this time," I said, as the door flew open.

Twilight was there. "What do you want?" she said, tears in her eyes.

"Okay!" I said, trying to sound as confident and authoritative as possible. "I've had a bad, bad day. You have no idea."

She just cried her eyes out into my direction, which made me feel slightly stupid about the way I phrased the aforementioned paragraph. "Everyone has had a bad day, Sweetie. My, what did they do to you?"

"Do you know you have a death machine under your castle, which is rigged to explode in about forty seconds, and if everyone doesn't leave right now then everyone is going to die?" I said.

"Sweetie! Come inside!" she said, stepping to the side to allow me free passage into the castle.

"Um, no!" I said. The ground began rumbling and shaking, almost like an earthquake. "You see? You have to evacuate the castle right now, Twi!"

She blinked at me, confusedly, and then, she turned back inside into the castle. In a few moments, pop, and everyone was outside.

"Well, will I be able to do that too, if I believe?" I said, aloud, without a thought or concern in the world. "Gripey!" My retarded brain had failed me again, in the most technical and direct sense of the word, and I felt genuinely shameful about everything now. "What am I doing? I abandoned him. I accused him of child-rape. I'm the worst person in the world- what? What the hell is going on? It's going too fast!" I spun around as I spoke, and then I collapsed on the ground. "Stupid life. I could see why I tried to kill myself before, but since I am alive and since I have friends, then the least I could do for myself and for them is to try, try with all my might, to save them, and put things right, yes!" I stood up. "Then I will." 

Odder than odder, and odder than that, is where I'm at, and what my life consisted of.





I woke up. I was in the hospital bed again. "Stupid," I said. "I knew it wasn't over. Will it ever be? Well, drats!"

"You had a seizure," Twilight said.

"No, I didn't," I said. "It was not a seizure. You're stupid, and all of this is pointless."

Images spun around me, shifted, twisted. I saw myself firing the mortars at the ponies, stupid phonies, all their lives, searing me. I felt empathy. What was wrong with me? What was wrong with me? Who was I? Who am I? Did it matter? Yes!

Oh, yes! You'd better believe it, because it's true. Ugh!

The bed floated off into the distance. I was distant. I was lost, but I couldn't tell. I wasn't well enough to tell... where I was.

The bed landed again.

"It was... I am... I am... am I brain... is there something wrong with me? Fine! I accept it. I accept all of it. All... you all are calling me delusional. Fine! I am... whatever! It doesn't matter. Are my friends safe? Do they even exist? Please, at least allow them to be real to me," I said, in the haze of my thoughts.

"They exist," Twilight said.

I shook my head. She disappeared. She became blurry.

Will I die? I feel like I'm dying. If I am, fine. I said this, inside my mind, or reality?

Ugh!

Blurt!

~

:L

:O

:U

:G

:E

:D

:W

I saw the broken shards of glass of the window. Had I broken them?

Why were they there?

Would things be fine again if I... but... my friends! I could not abandon them, no.

Oh!

"No!"

Oh...

"Help."

Save me from myself, someone please.

"This is not a joke. I croak!"

I felt ruined from within, truly truly truly!

Ugh!

For the life of me, I would find a way.

How?

Living like this would not be living anyway. Why could I not go back to how it used to be inside Ponyville before all that... before they died? Why?

Before the battle and the war?

Before the gore?

I am so, so, emptily poor.

I feel what I am like, which is what I actually am, and that's sore.

I want to be. Let me be. Let me be me.

Plllease.

Release. 

"Help! The window is broken. Fix the window, fast. Do it!" I said out into the corridor. Had I broken it? I looked at my own hooves. "I only wanted to... I don't... no!"

I was about to get off the bed, but then hesitated. Then I told myself: Sweet Sweetie. You're too cowardly, even to do this?

"It's not cowardice, because death is bad," I said, as I got off the bed.

"Then why am I?" I heard myself say, picking up some glass. "I am... no!" I dropped it. I crawled back up into the bed. "I need guards. I need help. I need something. Make it stop. Make the nightmares stop. Please, anyone. Anyone? Ugh!"

No one would come.

"Help, anyone!" I said.

Why would no one help?





A mare came into the hospital room. She looked around, and then, she put a chair to the door.

"Reprieve," I said, in a fit of reprehensible desperation, if you ask me.

She shrank until she became a tiny filly my age, who was a black changeling with long frizzled ears.

"Lyretex," I said. "Come to finish me off on behalf of your masters?"

"It's not my fault they keep you heavily sedated, Sweetie," she said. "But from the look in your eyes, and the level of flatline of hormones in your body, it is my assessment that I arrived here just in time. Am I correct?"

"In time for what?" I said.

"Your imminent death, at the hooves of my masters as you dismissively call them," she said, monotonely. 

"More like at the hooves of myself. I'm crazy, you know," I said.

"That is what they want you to believe," Lyretex said.

Rather than responding, which seemed futile, I decided to end it. I tossed myself off the bed, over the broken glass, and out the window. Something halted my fall! Who? How? Why? "Let me go. Let me end it. It's okay. I'm just one pony. There's nothing special about me."

Lyretex reached out the window and pulled at me with both her hooves, hanging out the other side of the window with her hind hooves. "Sweetie. You have been subjected to a simple brain trick. That is why they call you a subject."

"Let me kill myself- can't even do that in peace!" I said, struggling against her surprising iron grip.

"Sweetie, I have followed your story, and while the moral character and ethical judgement of individual decisions made by you have been lacking, I still consider you to be a better person than me, and I was wrong to trust the original eye of sight so blindly, of the stars and the void." I barely caught her words, in my frenzied panic, but my mind just sort of registered them because she spoke so loudly and clearly, without a single blemish in her speech. It was very pure and clear what she was saying, even though I didn't understand a word of it.

"Let go of me," I said, struggling.

"Sweetie, your friends will think what I think when you're dead. I know it because the black predicted it. They will see you as a crazy person that went too far, and fell like a child who's hit her head too many times, which you have, and many of your symptoms are attributable to this accident, but not all of them."

"Let, me, DIE!" I said, swathing at her with a field of magic. As she released her grip, she jumped out the window after me. First, I thought, GREAT! She will die along with me. Then, I thought, but I CAN'T LET HER DIE TOO! Then, after that, I thought, what do I care? Then finally, I thought, wait, I don't want to die. I regret it. I take it all back. This isn't what I wanted. I want to live. I stopped half an inch above the ground, hovering. I felt pain and strain across my body. What happened? Had Lyretex saved me? No, I had saved me. I saw the glow of my magic reflecting off the ground. I had learned this trick well enough now, even though it had only been from a dream, but if that was a dream... it couldn't have been... wait a moment.

"I told you," Lyretex said. "It is not at all what you think it is. You have been deceived using one of the two simple brain tricks deployed in the deepest recesses of the last facility, of the dream, the stars and the void."

I landed, feeling the dull thud of almost no pain as I took the half-inch fall. "Uf," I said. I shook my body, feeling sore and stiff all over. "Well, if that's true, then I only have one question for you!"

"What can that be?" Lyretex said.

"Who the hell are you?"





We walked along a ledge that stuck out from under the waterfall of Ponyville.

"Just a little bit more now, and then we arrive at our desired destination," Lyretex said.

"Mushy-mouth," I said, in a fit of insultation, an insult. 

"We have arrived here," Lyretex said.

"Redundancies!" I said, almost interrupting her at the last syllable.

"It's important that I be the one to touch the generator," she said, prodding it with her hoof. It dinged, and then, a long complicated melody came out. It was vaguely dissonant, but it stirred some memory at the back of my mind.

"I am not doing this again," I said, turning around.

"It's not dangerous," Lyretex said as I was about to walk away.

"Say's who? Says you?" I said, feeling frenzied all over in my body and outside all over NUUURG! "That sound!" I recoiled, hearing the same siren I had heard when I came out of the hatch before during my daring and incomplete escape from somewhere or something that I didn't even understand.

"It's because the generator is active. It's to warn of potential intruders," Lyretex said. "Just grab my hoof. As long as you hold me, you won't be pulled in by any of the memories."

"No!" I said.

"Please," she said, smiling at me.

I felt a hair on my head pop off and stand up. I was getting goosebumps. "I am just afraid, Lyretex. Don't you see that? Can't you understand my fear? That's why I jumped out the window before. Unbearable fear."

"Your fear is a prelude," she said. "That's why you must go through all this. It's to condition you for your return to the facilities."

"But why must I do anything? Can't I do my own thing? Live and let live, you know?" I said.

"It's a prediction, nothing more. Maybe it's wrong," she said, holding out her hoof.

I took it. We walked through. Why did I do it? Well, I felt like I had no options. Either I put my hopes in this stranger, or I would keep going through all this forever, you see, reader? That was my rationale for it at least. Oh? How it turned out? Good!

The world around us spun. The cave spun. Then, we were surrounded by giant tapestries of shining stars, shining bright and being right. Beautiful! Bright.

A bunch of 16:9 screens appeared there, floating in the air there, fair and true. Beautiful and unexpected, were these sights, yes! Why though? For show? No!

"What are they?" I said.

"Thoughts," Lyretex said.

I was about to let go. She squeezed my hoof tighter. "What happens if I let go?"

"You don't want to know," she said.

"That seems dangerous," I said.

"It is," she said. "They're your memories of course. This is you exiting the facility the last time. This is you entering the Forest of Tranquility." In perfect, terrifying detail, these screens showed these acts of mine.

"I've been stalked?" I said.

"It's on account of the camera system connected to the forest, and I helped a bit where there were holes," she said. "All to recreate your memories inasmuch as feasible, if you can grasp these words."

"I just want to know why," I said, scared and confused that I wasn't getting any answers.

"It's in your heart," she said, putting her free hoof to my heart while standing on her back legs. "This is what made all this necessary. You are considered as a threat to this place, and your actions will doom the life of the two eyes forever, and they know this, but they still do have things to fight for. They have other things in store for you. You see, there is a lot of politics involved, even as it concerns which story to doll out to what pony." She combed her hoof over my hair. "And which story to leave be and let that pony be whoever she wants to be, you see?"

"I feel like you're using language to different effect than what I'm used to," I said, in blunt response and retort to her wordings.

"No, it's accurate to the thing itself," she said, waving her one hoof up and down while not letting go of me with the other.

"How?" I said, watching a screen where I was waking up inside the prison in Tartarus.

"These screens are your life," she said. "You are connected to all of them through your memories. Your memories have been conditioned by the star fluid box, the nightmare generators, and the Astral Observatory of the North." 

"Hogwash," I said.

"The star fluid box places you in a dreamlike state where all you can do is look at your memories and think about them. It takes a traumatic experience, like the one Sweetie Belle was through, associates it with other memories, and then, through a long, continuous process of conditioning, it associates those memories with the process of sleeping, using blinding lights that make you have to close your eyes. It is a simple procedure, not painless, but it is simple," Lyretex said, nodding at me.

"The... ?" I said.

"The nightmare generators do the same thing, but in reverse. They simulate the selfsame experiences and every time you wake up, they simulate the pain of your mental trauma using sounds and visuals. This forces you to close your eyes so as not to go through it again." Lyretex put a hoof around my head. "The Astral Observatory watches you closely, alerts of any aberration in thought and behavior from how Sweetie Belle would have acted in the same situation. It's a complex system of checks and balances."

"It's stupid is what it is," I said, almost about to let go, but she gripped me hard, so much so that it hurt, and I struggled against her grip. "It's pointless. All of this is pointless. It shouldn't happen, and it's convoluted and pointless."

"Do you know what genuinely traumatized ponies go through?" Lyretex said. "All of them came here voluntarily because all of them preferred the process known as dream interference to living in constant pain... and you know what? It works!"

"No, it doesn't," I said, struggling, but Lyretex was comically strong. I could not even budge her. In fact, she appeared not even to be noticing that I was struggling as she spoke further.

"Don't get me wrong. Your story has taught me that this is likely not the answer to mental trauma, but it's better than nothing at least, considering that most of these ponies would have killed themselves, had they not arrived here, Sweetie." She smiled at me. "How are you feeling? Are you cold?"

"No," I said, tearing up. "You just told me I have been brainwashed. Even if I wanted it all that time ago, I don't want it anymore. I want out. How do you unwash- unbrainwash yourself?" I sputtered the words in aggravation, frustration, and grief. "I just want it all to end, Lyretex. Can't you see what's happened to me? I am in a constant state of- of cognitive dissonance."

"This is easy," she said. "The unbrainwashing process." She turned her head to me. "As you call it." She turned her head away. "All you have to do is to consult the motherboard of the sky-projector. Since this also involves a physical transformation of your brain that can be tracked, it can remove the legacy effects of this transformation. However!"

"However?" I said.

"You will regress back to the state of an eight-year-old and forget all that has happened in the last five years since you first arrived at the Facility of the Dream, Sweetie. You will forget your friends. You will forget your enemies. Do you want that, yes or no?" she said.

"Why?" I said. "Can't you just make the- the hallucinations, or whatever they are, go away?"

"No, they're not hallucinations." She flipped her hoof across my head, making it spin. I saw Twilight standing in front of me. She faded. Lyretex shook me.

"H- huh?" I said.

Lyretex shook me. I saw her again, but she was blurry. "You are reliving your own memories. This is another legacy effect of the sky-projector."

"They're not hallucinations?" I said.

"Focus, Sweetie," she said. "No, they are not hallucinations. You are reliving your own memories."

"Why?" I said.

"Because they're self-contradictory and incoherent. Your mind is trying to sort out what is fact and what is fiction. This is part of the trick, for you see, much of what your eyes observe in the real world are projections of memories and previous experiences that tell you what to think about right now. That's why you have these flashes. They're not dangerous. Also, you have suffered damage to your frontal lobe that hurts a lot of your motor function."

"I have serious trouble believing all this. I mean, I have to believe my own lying eyes," I said, frustrated that her explanation wasn't getting to the heart of the issue. Okay? Brain-damaged? Fine, but that doesn't explain all these precise repetitions of similar memories over and over again, as if that's supposed to tell me something.

"Sweetie," she said, about to explain that thing too, which was frustrating, because the truth hurt. "You're not really Sweetie, are you? You have been suspended from reality because you needed to be conditioned to believe that you met Gripey Silverfeathers and went on an adventure with him, but in all actuality, most of that time, you spent inside a nightmare generator. Only recently have most of your experiences been real." She pointed at a screen that showed me sleeping in a hospital bed. "These flashes you have are of a completely different nature. In fact, most of them happened while they kept you sedated in Ponyville after what happened during the accident by the waterfall. You were hit by a lightning bolt, if you remember."

"Oy, that was real?" I said.

She looked at me ponderously. "Someone played a trick on you. The question is who and why, this time around."

Those rocks, that cave, these memories... what did it all mean?

"Stop, wait," I said. "I think I get it now. Allow me a moment to think about it." I put my hoof to my chin.

"This is not easy or simple," she said.

"What happens to the others? All those that live in Ponyville? What happens to them?" I said.

"They die," she said. "It's only natural."

"Lyretex. I have something outrageous to ask of you," I said, feeling the question out before I said it. It was unreasonable to ask. "You have to help me to save them. Will you?" It was unreasonable, mostly because I didn't know this person. Could I trust her? We would see.

"No," she said.

"Oh," I said, feeling disappointed.

"Maybe you could. You do have that spark about you," she said.

"Huh?"

"You escaped the dream several times and you could do it again."

"How?" I said. Was this the answer to all my problems?

"Yes, you have to close your eyes and concentrate."

I closed my eyes. "What now?"

"Open them. You're doing it all wrong," she said.

"What am I doing all wrong?" I said, opening my eyes in frustration. "I did as you said. What?"

"You need to close other eyes too," she said.

"Huh?" I said.

"The eyes that you use to see the world. Close them all," she said.

"Huh?" I said.

"Just focus on what you see in front of you."

"I see stars," I said.

"You're inside the black," she said.

"What is 'the black'?" I said, feeling frustrated and chagrined at the mysteriousness of this vague locution.

"A system of caves that exists in Anuba, Ponyville, and Manehattan, respectively. It all began in Anuba of course, and then it spread to Saddle Arabia, Ponyville, Manehattan, and there's even a few close to the Crystal Empire, Sweetie."

"Is this literally real?" I touched her face to make sure that she was real.

"Yes," she said, stoically, not even flinching or reacting as I touched her.

"Okay," I said.

"You'll need to focus," she said. "The Hookbeak EMP automaton armored vehicle has a nightmare generator attached to it. You have the opportunity to learn how to deal with nightmare generators and save your friends, but you will have to focus. You only get one chance. There will be no do-overs for you. The two eyes would not allow it. I am technically breaking the rules, even by bringing you here."

I looked around. The place was empty, full of stars but empty. "Why are there no one else here? Is this a cave, really?" I pulled Lyretex toward a wall. She stumbled forward along with me, not making any resistance, but keeping a firm grip on my hoof. I tried searching for a wall but I found none. "Where is everybody?"

"I imagine they're somewhere close to the border of Royal Equestria, as we prefer to call the Kingdom of Equestria, or District Equestria, if that is what you are familiar with. They have deployed a task force to deal with certain threats that are on the horizon." Lyretex smiled briefly and finally showed a bit of personality, wrinkling her nose. "It will not be a very pretty story, as you have remarked many times, Sweetie." 

"What?" I said. "I- I just want to save my friends."

"Of course you do," she said.

"What do I do?" I said.

"You need to face off with the nightmare generator," she said. "I know you can do it. I know you can do it."

~

~

~

I shook my head. I was inside Ponyville, no longer in the hospital. "These dreams are getting longer and more convoluted," I said, matter-of-factly. "Well, that's for that one, I guess."

I looked around. The stench was awe-inspiring, in a sense. Dead corpses were lying everywhere. Dead corpses? Permit this redundancy, for that's how I felt. They were not only dead. They were rotten and corpselike. It was hard to put to words, even back then, much less now. It was not dark. It was bleak, and it blinded my senses. It was unsettling.

I ran down the grass until I faced with something unexpected, something new. It was Scootaloo, standing just at the border of Ponyville. She was crying. Tears of joy? Tears of pain? It remained to be seen. Who was she, in all actuality?

"Scoots," I said.

She faced me. "Wh- y- Sweetie?" she said.

"You thought I was dead?" I said.

"N- no, well, I was not sure," she said. "I thought they got you, finally. They are smarter than you are, so I thought they would get you."

"It's not a matter of smarts. It's a matter of hearts," I said, putting my hoof to my heart, feeling reinvigorated. "What're you up to?"

"Watching everyone die," she said. "There seems not to be much else to do, at this, the darkest of hours, Sweetie."

"Stand up," I said.

"Why?" she said. "It's hopeless."

I grabbed her in my magic and lifted her to her hooves. "I can tell we have been through something similar. Look into my eyes."

She did. "It is you. It really is you," Scootaloo said. "I thought you were dead."

"Scoots," I said, putting an admonishing hoof on her back. "Either you tell Apple Bloom, or I do."

"I..." she said. "No, I- I didn't mean it. That wasn't me, Sweetie."

"You can say that, in the same way that it wasn't really I that killed all those ponies. Tell Apple Bloom you're sorry. Tell her who you really are. She might have secrets too. Can't you see what these secrets are doing to us? It's scary and dangerous. It causes more pain than it prevents. Let's reveal it instead. That's my view, at least, Scoots, and I don't care all that much what you think if you're going to persist in resisting it, you hear?"

She shook her head at me. "What happened to you? Last time I saw you, you were dying. Now, you're speaking about telling the truth?"

"Yes," I said.





Scootaloo led me to the hospital. This dream wasn't over yet. "We need to be careful. She might have more serious injuries than both of us can know," she said.

"Such waste," I said. "Such a meaningless thing, all this violence, no?"

"Yes," she said, sounding absentminded. 

We went to see Apple Bloom.

"Hello there," I said. "How is the little apple of my eye doing?"

"I already know!" she said. "I knew it from the moment you came to Ponyville that you were different."

I shrugged my shoulder blades at Scootaloo. "I am..." Scootaloo said. "I am sure you have stuff to say to one another."

"True," I said. "We do. Hello, Apple Bloom. What's going on with you?"

"How can you lie to me like this?" she said. "How?"

"I wanted to spare your feelings, and besides, I was afraid of what would happen if the truth got out. It would swallow all us up and kill us maybe, if we knew the truth too much and too hard, you know. It was better to keep a secret was the idea, at least," I said.

"No!" she said.

Apple Bloom evaporated in front of me. I fell through a thick haze of purple stars and storms.

The truth. The truth. The truth. The truth. What's important about the truth? Well, something is important about the truth, at least. What? What? What? Something new!

Lily Star... purple storms... stars and madness... new things, old things... why, though? Oh!

She floated a piece of chalk over the chalkboard and wrote in big letters: DISGUISED THE SIGNS INCITE, SAY LIE, THE SKY DESIGNS A LIE IN SIGHTS, [SIC].

I get it now. Oh, no!





I closed my eyes. Everything became dark, suddenly!

...

...

...

I opened my eyes. Something flashed, and I fell through–

I landed.

I opened my eyes.

I was surrounded by ponies.

Hookbeak's automaton robot whatever thing pressed down on top of Gripey, crushing him, squeezing him, and I couldn't wait. I saw the rock way over there. I walked casually in that direction. I glanced toward the robot, and the ponies weren't doing anything about it. They were just being onlookers. I was confused. They were pegasí soldiers, all of them.

I walked and then, I got my mind back and ran. I stopped. I saw the rock. I touched it.

Lightning flashed.

"Hm," I said.

The lightning struck down into the ground.

The robot turned toward me. It flew toward me. The lightning had hit it good. Would it ever be over?

A spear flew through the robot. It collapsed on the ground. It had many holes in it. Huh? It was already damaged.

I walked up to it. "What're you doing?"

A blinding light hit my eyes. I winced. 

Gripey came flying.

I shrugged. "Huh?" My brows furrowed. "Uh... ?" I touched the rock again. "Um." 

Gripey grabbed the machine. "Sweetie!" he said.

"Yes?" I said, touching the rock again. Then, I just held my hoof on it, like Lyretex had done on the portal rock before, remember? This was the lightning rock. "Um." Lightning coursed through the robot. "Cool."

A light flashed in my face. I closed my eyes briefly, seeing a vision of a star–

But then I opened my eyes. I noticed that I was lying on the ground, having removed my hoof.

Gripey was locked in battle with the infernal machine. I touched the rock again, and then, Gripey grabbed one of its long tentacles, one of the squid arms that stuck out Hookbeak's robot.

Its lights flashed again. I saw a brief glimpse of my skin being torn off, and then I blinked. "What the heck!" I put my hoof to the rock, and then, I climbed up on it and stood on top of it. "I will have an explanation for this."

Finally now, Hookbeak's machine spoke, "Noo. It's not working."

"What?" I said. "You're going to daze me using flashy lights? What the heck? I'm going to talk to my friends about this later."

Gripey spun the robot around, holding its squid arm. "Don't let go, Sweetie."

"I wasn't planning to," I said.

"You're never coming back again," Hookbeak said, its mouth moving up and down, that of the giant machine.

"Why do I care?" Gripey said, swinging it.

"You will be stripped of your titles," Hookbeak said.

"You tried to kill my friend," Gripey said, in response.

"Uaaah!" Hookbeak's machine said, as Gripey let go and it disappeared into the distance, exploding into a cloud of smoke and fire.

"Why would it scream?" I said. "It's not the real deal."

"Sweetie," Gripey said, snapping his fingers in front of me. "Can you hear me?"

I flipped my hoof out over one of his fingers, making him pull away. "I can hear fine, guy."

"Where are you?" he said, now shaking me.

"In Ponyville, you blockhead," I said. "I just apparently helped you defeat that machine over there, I guess. I don't know. Gratitude, maybe?"

He hugged me. He just hugged me. And he didn't let go for ten or twenty minutes. I wasn't keeping track of time. I wasn't keeping track of anything anymore. Somehow, all this had... really happened? How, though? Why? For show? No, but for what reason then? 

You want details, dear reader? You can't handle the details, but I'm happy to provide them for you... in a later chapter. That's quite enough for today. Class dismissed, and...





... I flicked my one hoof over the other, and the little lid for recharging opened. "I see."

I was now in a small temporary shelter that had been created after the battle. The battle itself, I was told, had not been longer than two hours or so, though it felt like weeks for me. I still had many questions, and not that many answers, but at least, it was over now, at least for now.

Jelly came and sat by me at the table. "What's that stupid grin about?" she said, looking at me with disgust. "Wipe it off. What are you smiling about? Everyone is dead, and you're sitting here as if this is cause for celebration."

I squeezed her in the tightest hug I could physically manage. "Jelly! I thought I would never see you again. I thought- I thought- OH, never mind what I thought. I'm crazy. I think no thoughts that are worth paying attention to."

"One moment, you're by my side, and the next, you're pulled into some kind of meeting in Twilight's castle. I'm not allowed to be there, and then, they lock me inside while allowing you to strut around Ponyville causing havoc. I heard what they said. You were walking into buildings, causing chaos. They practically had to carry you out of Ponyville to keep you safe, and it just got worse and worse. What were you doing out there? Have you no concern for what I feel, and how worried this all made me?" she said, prodding her chest with an aggressive hoof. "How dare you smile at me like that after everything that happened?"

I looked around, seeing injured ponies everywhere around me. I shrugged. "Well, it's not about them. It's about you."

"Why?" she said. "Don't you care about them too?"

"No, I mostly care about you," I said, looking away from her, just anticipating her reaction.

What I got instead was unexpected. She engulfed me in a hug. "Stupid Sweetie, always causing trouble for everyone around you, even now!"

I didn't know whether to return it. She let go of the hug. "I'm sorry," I said. "I know it's horrible. This all was a terrible- a- a tragedy is what it was, for sure. It's undeniable, and I'm doing all those ponies an injustice by focusing on you and you alone."

"What about Gripey?" she said.

"Oh, yes!" I said. 

He came walking into the makeshift building that had been constructed using Twilight's magic and the help of a few ponies, most notably Applejack. "Hello," Gripey said.

"Lyretex," I said. "She said that... that I... well, I guess I don't get it. I have no idea what she meant, but she said that I had somehow been brainwashed, using blinking lights. Does that ring any bells for any of you?" I was hopeful for help from them.

"Epilepsy?" Gripey said, sitting down with a shrug.

"Yeah, okay," I said, feeling like that was insufficient. 

"What does it matter?" Jelly said. "You're all right."

"Yeah," I said. "Except... I just don't get it!"





"Is it dangerous?" I said, as Twilight led me down into the catacombs of the castle.

"Not for you," she said. "You're our hero. You saved Ponyville from certain doom."

"I still don't understand how I did it," I said.

"I didn't get it at first, either, but then, I spoke to the spirit of the tree. She will explain it to you," Twilight said.

"I am scared of spirits," I said, feeling queasy.

"This is the kindest one you will ever meet," Twilight said, leading me down. "Now, you're alone. I cannot join you in this."

"B..." I said, Twilight was gone, and the path we had taken had become a solid rock wall, blocking any return. "Gulp."

"Thank the stars that you are here," a soft silky smooth voice said.

I turned around, facing the demon, who looked just like Twilight, oddly. "Who are you?"

"I am not much," she said. "My magic has been stolen from me. You only just brought it back, safe and sound."

"I don't understand!" I said.

"The spirits of the children who did not make it," she said, and a bunch of small fillies and colts materialized around her in an ethereal shine. "They are part of you now, as much as you are part of them. You freed them."

"That was all real?" I said, at the end of my rope.

"Sweetie!" she said. "All of your memories are real. You just experienced them out of order. This was your cross to bear."

"Crucifixion?" I said.

"At the behest of ponies far darker than you have ever known," she said. A black cloud appeared above her, in the cave, where we both were, alone. "You cannot face them alone. You need your friends."  

"What happened?" I said.

"You were in many places at once, without realizing it. It is behind your eyes, Sweetie," Twilight's spirit said.

I put a hoof up to my eyes, somehow trying to find the answer. "It is... part of me?"

"That is what the griffins do. They balkanize your memories to protect you from them. This process has disastrous results the majority of the time. Your mind has been divided into eight pieces, each locked away from you, all except one," the spirit said.

"What can I do?" I said. "No! What must I do to solve all this?"

"It cannot be done," she said. "Your mind is divided, and the only way to–"

"Lyretex seemed to think there was a way!" I said, defensively. "She said that you could reverse the process, as- as long as you forgot about all your friends and became an eight-year-old." I was ridiculously tearing up at the prospect. "But Sweetie Belle... I am... what did I do?" Now, I was tearing up about this too. Tears all over! Ugh. My life. It was all so frustrating. I needed to... breathe. Breathe, breathe, and breathe. I wanted to do nothing but breathe and not have chaotic stuff happen around me for just one moment.

"Lyretex?" Twilight's tree spirit said. "The wood sprite? I let her go to help save you, but she is not all that she appears to be, either. The reason that they chose you to follow around is because of her, Sweetie."

"Her?" I said.

"She is you," she said.

"No, she's not," I said, laughing. "That's ridiculous." I paused, just one moment. "Isn't it?"

"When you sacrifice yourself to the eyes, your skin becomes dark and deformed. You forget about your past life and become devoted as a servant to the caves. This is what happened to the real Sweetie Belle, who might never come back again without your help, Sweetie," she said.

"Odd," I said. "What's real and what's not?"

"There's no need for all that," she said. A big black train came out of the black cloud that hung above her, and the cloud dissolved into nothingness. The train soared over me and vanished into a wall. "There is your explanation."

"Number nine?" I said.

She smiled, the corners of her mouth curling into a grin. "Exactly."





She explained to me that the reason all these memories had been incoherent was because different parts of my mind had been on and off at different moments. I listened on, dutifully taking note of what she was saying. I had been having the experience of being in several different places at once, because once one part of my mind shut off, another would turn on, and then, I would arrive at a new place, without any foreknowledge of what happened before.

This sounded... oddly familiar. It was like there were holes in my memories. If only someone filled up all these holes, then I could get my life back again. She assured me this was possible too. All I had to do was to find three keys. Sound familiar? We're going full circle here. Well, I guess we had to at some point. Finally, I could be free... hopefully at least.

Right before I left, she also gave something to me, something I never thought or knew that I needed. She said that because this evil machine had been beneath Ponyville, causing havoc, which the reader will learn about far later in this long and tragic story. I will return to Ponyville, you'd better believe, and everything will be explained in a less confusing way later. That's because I don't want to spoil the story for you, and I would have to do that to reveal everything in full. She said that because this evil machine had been beneath Ponyville, causing havoc, as stated, she had retrieved one of the eight fragments of my memory. She said that since I had one eighth, I needed seven more. She had one of the seven, and she gave it to me. I will show you a part of it, the one that stuck in my mind the most.

Jelly knocked on the door of the tree-house where we used to live. "Come out!"

"No," I said, monotonely. 

"Yes," she said, knocking. "Do not do it. Do not do the stupid thing."

"I have to," I said, feeling a pang of pain in my stomach. 

"Stupid! It's okay," she said. "It's just a stupid dream, nothing more."

"I don't want to eat anything ever again," I said, holding my stomach.

"You were fine before," Jelly said, banging her hoof. 

"I was pretending," I said.

"Then keep pretending," she said.

"It doesn't work anymore. The pain won't go away," I said.

How do you split your brain up into eight pieces? Well, it all starts with a series of life-changing, ill-advisable, and moronic decisions, dear reader. That's for sure.

That marks the end of the Ponyville arc. Have fun trying to make sense of it.
> Part 50: Leaving Ponyville
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alternative title: How to Defuse a Bomb

The sound of a pair of ear telecommunication devices rung in my ears. "Sweetie, what's the status?"

"Dark, dank, kind of moldy. I think I saw a spider over there," I said.

"Sweetie, be serious! Lives are at stake here," the voice said.

I sighed. "Why does no one ever believe I'm serious?"

Gripey was behind me in this cave. "You need to hurry. The bomb that will destroy Ponyville will go off at any moment now."

I twisted and turned to get a better look at him. "Yeah, I know. Thanks for telling me. Have you got a wrench?"

"Why do you need a wrench?" he said, glaring back.

I glared even harder. "Shut up and give me a wrench. Who's the engineer here? Go and shoot some targets with your laser gun."

"I'm not one of them!" he said, defensively. 

"Shut up!" I said. I was feeling sick after everything that had happened, what with the daydreams and everything. I thought I would never recover. I doubted the veracity of each breathing moment now, each one, every one, for every second.

He handed me a wrench. "Manners."

"Manners are..." I said, slamming the wrench into a pipe that was in front of me. "Overrated, I know now." A transparent fluid came running out.

"What are you doing?" he said, clawing his way forward behind me to get the wrench back.

"It's just water!" I said, annoyed that he wasn't understanding how this worked. "This tube sends water down to the bigger tubes that unite with a tube full of molten metals."

"What does that have to do with anything?" he said.

"Did you skip chemistry in griffin school?" I said, turning around and throwing the wrench at him. 

He ducked, avoiding it. "What? Chemistry class?"

"Water, if united with certain metals, can cause explosions," I said. "Especially highly reactive metals that are heated up a thousand degrees." 

"That's the bomb?" he said.

"Yes," I said, as water ran out the bottom of the pipe. "Want to help me destroy the pipe or are you going to keep acting like a low IQ buffoon?" 

"I wanted to help..." he said, wearily.

Yes, I knew. I just... couldn't stand looking at other people anymore. I was drowsy beyond belief.





Gripey's recollection of events: We met in Ponyville. We talked. You and Jelly were mad with me. Then, this whole thing with the attack happened. First, I refused helping you, but later, I did. You were knocked unconscious, and then, you started mumbling something about a fire and a cave.

Wait for it! Wait for it! No, forget it. That was it. He wasn't saying anything more. I waited, waiting for him to say something else.

"Wait for it..." I said to myself. "Wait for it." Those words were all in my head at this moment, and I didn't even myself notice that I was saying them until he interrupted me. "Wait f–"

"What do you want me to do?" he said. "I don't know what happened."

"Then how do I even know you're real?" I said.

"Listen to yourself," he said.

I slammed both my hooves into the table. Jelly came walking with a tray of food. "What'd I miss?" she said. "Is Sweetie raving again?" 

"Psh!" I said, accidentally knocking over a glass of milk that Jelly had brought. "Oh, sorry." I pulled back my hooves to prevent any further mishaps. 

"You'd better get some more," she said, sitting down.

"Yes," I said, standing up and walking over to the food pantry. "Can I get a glass of milk?" 

"What's your name, kid?" the food gal said.

"I don't know," I said.

"Well, I need to keep track of you to know who has gotten what," she said.

"My name is..." I said.

"What do you want me to call you?" she said.

A grey stallion came walking up from behind me. "Don't you know her? She saved Ponyville. Her name is Sweetie Belle, sister of Rarity, for hay's sake," he said.

I saw his grey hoof wrap around me. I pulled loose. "Fair," I said.

"Well, why didn't you just say so?" the mare said, who was yellow, almost the color of butter, with a brown mane. She gave me a glass of milk.

I took it without saying thank you and walked back, hovering it in front of me. "I hate attention," I said, sitting down beside Jelly.

"No one asked you to do this," Jelly said. "Be happy that you saved Ponyville rather than being angry that ponies are grateful. I mean, what's the matter with you?"

I slammed my hooves into the table again. "What's the matter with me?"

"Yeah," she said, sipping milk, completely unfazed by my outbursts of anger.

"Everyone is insane! I'm the only sane one. I'm the only one that figured out the truth. This is all a dream," I said, leaving the bench. "It can all only be a dream for all I care. I don't even know if you will be here in ten seconds."  

Jelly looked at me. Ten seconds passed. She yawned. She sipped some milk. "Anyway!" she said to Gripey. "What are we going to do now? Now that almost everyone is dead, including my fake mom, n- new mom I mean, maybe we could leave and go to some new place? I mean, maybe we could go to a place that's actually safe, and where Sweetie could live in peace from all this?"

"Gloverton," I said.

"Oh, no. That's not a safe place," Gripey said, shaking his head with duress.

"Well, what do you know?" I said.

"I just happen to be a war criminal now in the eyes of Circle town and the Griffonian Liberation Army, so if anyone would know, it would be me," he said. "The griffins have a covert attack on Gloverton that has been planned for months, and I'm hearing rumors of worse things going on in that area of continental Equestria, so we're not going to Gloverton."

"I wanna go to Gloverton," I said, stubbornly defying him. "Yes, I do. I very do."

"I think we should ask someone with better judgement than you, Sweetie," Jelly said, being unbelievably dismissive of me.

"I wanna go to Gloverton," I said, emphasizing what I had said before.

"What for?" Jelly said. "What's the use? What's in it for you?"

I looked her in the eyes. She looked genuinely confused. I groaned. "Maybe not."

"No, you can tell me," she said, grabbing my hoof. "What is it?"

"Maybe I am crazy, but I had a conversation with the spirit of the friendship tree in Ponyville, and it told me some troubling things, one of which is that I needed three keys to be free. Three!" I said, and this rung a bell in Gripey's head.

"Like what Hookbeak told us about. I had totally forgotten about that. But that was ages ago, Sweetie. How do we even know those keys still exist?" Gripey said, now apparently listening to me.

"I don't know. I don't know how we know anything, but I do know that one of the locations was apparently in Gloverton," I said, but I didn't know anything about that place all the same. 

Gripey's eyes widened. "Have you ever been to that place?"

"Nope," I said.

"It's a rough place," he said. "It's not for... children."

"I think it sounds lovely. Let's go," Jelly said. I glanced at her, feeling like she was blithe as usual. "What? It can't get any worse. And we all thought we were safe in Ponyville."

"So you're serious?" I said, raising my eyebrows.

"Do I look like I'm joking?" she said, reaching forward into my hair. "Mm, smell of cinders."

"Knock it," I said, trying to push her out.

"It's not safe," Gripey said.

"No, I don't care," I said. "Gripes. You can be like our parent and take care of us and stuff."

"I didn't sign up for this," he said.

"Whatever!" I said. I got Jelly's hair in my mouth because she had dug so far into my mane that she had created a cave inside there, and her mane reached all the way over through the cave down my throat. "Urrg!" I choked. I coughed. 

Jelly laughed, but the little wild animal that she was, she didn't pull back, so I kept choking. 

"Gloverton is not a good idea," Gripey said, trying to get the attention back.

I started gagging. That's when Jelly pulled away. "Thank you!" I said, taking a deep breath. "Now, where were we?"

"We're not going to Gloverton!" Gripey said. "And I'm not your parent."

"Stepparent," I said.

"We're friends," he said.

"Okay, fine. We're friends," I said, mimicking his tone.

Jelly laughed, still buried head-deep into my mane, which was getting frizzled now because of her behavior.

"How would we even get there?" Gripey said. "The train station is rundown. First, we would need to fix it. The rails have been damaged, and even if it got fixed, the path to Gloverton Whasper South is full of bandits, train robbers, and worse than that, Sweetie, so I seriously don't think–"

"Did anyone say..." I heard a voice say. He unceremoniously plopped down beside Gripey. "..."

Gripey looked at him. "Do I know you?" Gripey said.

"It's the Colonel," I said, recognizing the weird security guard from the train station. "Hello, Colonel."

Colonel Waffle grinned.

Gripey stared at him in astonishment. "Are we... okay with this guy?" he said, looking at me. Jelly was unavailable, still nuzzling me.

"Sure, why not?" I said. "He seems harmless enough." I shrugged.

"What am I saying? Why am I asking you?" Gripey said. "Hey, you!"

Colonel Waffle's grin died down.

"This is a private table," Gripey said.

"Okay," Colonel Waffle said, standing up to leave. He hadn't brought any food, either.

"No, wait!" I said.

Colonel Waffle sat back down. "Did anyone say..." he said.

"Say what?" I said.

He grinned again. "Train robbers?"

I giggled. "Oooh, now I remember. Well, this just might be- but- huh- hm, but then, um, and the, but, this is good. This is good good good. Good-good, in fact."

"What is?" Gripey said.

"You see, Gripes," I said, now grinning too. "This guy is a train expert. He will take us to Gloverton."

"You will?" Gripey said to Colonel Waffle.

"I never thought you'd ask," Colonel Waffle, nicknamed Colly, said back.

"Is this safe?" Gripey said to me.

"Sure," I said.

"I don't know- but I shouldn't, ugh! I shouldn't leave this in the hands of children anyway," Gripey said.

"Hooves," I said.

"Huh?" Gripey said.

"In the hooves of children. But since you mention it, Jelly and I, both of us, are young in age but old in our, um, what's the word? Our minds?" I said, prodding Jelly with my hoof to get a response out of her all the while as she was enveloped in my mane.

"Something like that," she said, hastily. 

"You see, Gripey?" I said. "And I think if we put our minds together, we can almost become a single fully functional person."

"You two?" he said.

"Sure," I said. "We two."

"So then, when do we leave?" Colly said, grinning with joy on his face. What was up with him?

"You seem excited?" I said.

"I haven't commanded a train in ages," Colly said. "Mmmm." He started drooling.

"This guy is weird," Gripey said.

"Weird is good," I said. "Weird means you don't follow the masses. You think for yourself! Weird is a virtue, not a vice." I tapped the table a few times with my hoof to emphasize what I had said. "Yes, yes, yes," with each tap. 

"No, but he's seriously weird. How did you meet him?" Gripey said, as Colly swiped his hoof over his yellow hat, pulling off a glob of melting butter and putting it in his mouth. 

"Mmm," Colly said. "So when are we leaving?" He turned to me with a joyous smile on his face.

"We just need to get a train, someone to fix the railroad system, perhaps a map, and someone to provide us with fuel," I said, knocking each item off the list in my head. "Yes, yes, that'll do fine." I then said my ideas that I had gotten from knocking them off in my head, each accounted for. "Twilight will help." That was all.

"Twilight?" Gripey said. "She will never, ever in a million years approve of this."





"You have to leave right now," Twilight said. "I'll come after you. I just have a few things to do here in Ponyville. I'll send provisions and the safest train I can find, but I assume nothing crazy will happen because the train I will give you is meant to scare off intruders."

Gripey's mouth dropped.

"Why not?" I said, just thinking out loud.

"B- b- Twilight. Princess Twilight," Gripey said. "I know you don't trust me."

"You're now officially a wanted criminal of the Griffonic forces," Twilight said, rolling her eyes. "I trust you plenty, you should know, and I wouldn't entrust you with children if I didn't."

"Why?" Gripey said. This in particular tickled me. I laughed.

"Because she loves you," Twilight said, glancing over to me. "Can't you see that?"

Twilight, observant mindful present and prescient Twilight, was not wrong.

Just to emphasize it, I walked over beside him. "I promise to be on my best behavior during the trip, meaning no rants about- about dreams or any such nonsense."

"Those dreams are more than they appear to be," Twilight said. "They saved Ponyville from certain destruction, and now, Ponyville is in your debt." She smiled at me, the soft smile of a weary mare that had lost too much.

I sighed and smiled back. "I still don't understand," I said.

"There's a lot to understand," Twilight said, inscrutably. "I do not understand it fully yet, but you are the victim of a terrible horror that's ravaging Equestria, and that's all I know." She glanced off, mysteriously. "There's a lot to say."

"We'll save it for another time," I said, swiping away her mysterious behavior that she revealed to me through her Twily ways. "Now, I need to go do something that will take some nervous energy off my brain, because I'm going insane, totally for no reason. I am feeling hyper-nervous all the time for no reason, and it had better stop, because it's annoying. And- and–"

"Husssh," Jelly said, putting a hoof to my mouth. "Speak slower."

"I feel nervous," I said.

"Of course!" she said, throwing a hoof up in the air. Then, she jabbed it toward a window of Twilight's castle, where we were. "You should feel nervous. You were out there in the heat of battle." The castle was nearly empty now. All the children had been rounded up and put in there to keep them safe while everyone else was dying, including the mares. Actually, something about this struck me as slightly unfair, but I couldn't exactly place what it was at the time. "We were in here, safe. Well, me and the others my age, and I understand that you feel that way, but also... now you know!" She backed away from me slowly for dramatic effect.

"Know what?" I said.

"How it feels," she said, obviously referencing that attack on Pegasquire, which for reference, is recounted in part 2 of this story.

"Well, drats," I said, feeling shame come over me. I immediately began breathing heavy.

Jelly ran up to me. "I was just joking. Stop being such a drama whore."

"Okay," I said, holding my breath. I felt like I was about to faint. I released it, and then, I quietly stepped out of the conversation, standing behind Gripey to avoid having to talk to Jelly.

"We'll get through this together," he said.

I sure hoped so. Why, I sure did hope so, but would we?

Hopefully! Hope, hope, hope. Let's talk about hope. Isn't hope lovely? It's necessary. You need it to survive. I would. I wanted  to, and I could, thanks to hope.





"What now?" I said, as we boarded the train. We weren't alone. There were many other ponies seeking refuge in Gloverton. Its full name, if you count the political alliance of that area, is Gloverton Whasper South, three small kingdoms united after centuries of struggle. The reader will learn a lot about them soon enough, but for now, it's time to focus in on some unresolved issues of the previous chapter.
> Part 51: Something New
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Many many meanie miney years ago, long past hills, and long past stones, and long past everything that you know, there is a soul. It seeks you out. It wants you near. It wants you here. Its name is clear. It does not fear. It is the only thing that does not fear, why? Why? Why o why, o gods? You cannot fear what you are, o star.

The next cycle is about to begin, o star.

Give me that special power, o star.

I will reward you, but we must not sacrifice her, no matter what you say. She is too valuable to us, yes.

I am your eyes now, if you deliver her, safe to me, now.

If not, she will die, for the world must never know her eyes.

Inside Manehattan past its deepest highest buildings, atop the roofs, between the crevices, the cracks and powers, the next thing that beckons to be mighty, there is another wish.

A big wall was raised across the sky. "Steady now," nameless said.

It was big. It was itself. It was, truly, itself. Big openings appeared in the wall, and through the wall came a mass of ponies, all their lives, big and small. They spread out. The citizens had few worries. They knew not of this danger. Soon, they were all dead.

Poof, like that!  

Gone.

Do not say I did not warn you. This will happen to you too. Watch it now. I am keeping my eyes on you from now on. If you falter or fail, then in your most vulnerable moment, I will seek you out and take you. I am the spark reborn. Anew I exist. I am the real thing that will always persist.

Find me.

Find my name and find me.

My healing fire is coming to Gloverton.





I woke up. "What was that?" Sweat was running down my face. "That was... a dream? Was it?"

I was not sure, anymore.

"Go back to sleep. You're waking up everyone. Think about them too, even as you're suffering in these dreams," Jelly said.

"B- I need to warn someone," I said.

"Quiet. Go to sleep. Stop being a ninny," Jelly said, scolding me, emboldening me, to fall asleep, which I did.

I was stupid-tired after what had happened in the last few days.

Was that only a dream? Are these only dreams? Are they something more? Some of them had been soul-crushing, if true, like that dream about Gripey.

Ridiculous! It could not be true.

No. I mean, seriously. No!

No.

And yet...

... stupid brain has doubts.





A rotten stench whipped my nostrils into a frenzy. "Achhoo," I said, sneezing.

"Breakfast," Jelly said, rushing out the room.

"More like puke fest," I said, rolling out of bed. "Disgusting. Putrid. Wretched. Off-putting." I stepped out the door, following Jelly. "Foul."  

"Smells better than you," Jelly said, as a cart of food items passed down the hall of the train.

"How does this work?" I said. "They're just going to give you food? Free food?"

"Sure, why not?" Jelly said, touching the cart, which stopped in front of her.

"Why, hello there," a kindly mare said. "You wait for your turn. I'll be around, shortly." She rolled on past Jelly.

"But I want food now," Jelly said, following the mare with intense, angry eyes locked on her. "What's your problem? I go to you. I get the food. That's what's going on, and I want my food. Why am I not getting my food? I'm supposed to get food from you, aren't I?" She rushed onward past the cart as the mare stopped by a door, knocking on it. Jelly turned about, facing the mare. "I deserve food. I went out here. I'm hungry."

"Soon!" the mare said, giggling almost. Jelly was making a scene.

"You will get your food," I said to Jelly. "Your current attempts at acquiring food are inefficient at best." I stood by the door where both she and I had exited. It was only two doors down from where the cart had stopped.

"It's her fault, not mine, that they are inefficient and bad, Sweetie," Jelly said, turning to me. "What am I supposed to do? You tell me." The door beside her opened, and a few grateful hooves reached out, grabbing some food off the tray of the kindly mare that had passed on down through the hallway to bring us all food.

"Wait for your turn, you should," I said, not having the slightest idea what all this was about, why she was causing such a scene, and why it was so important for her to get the food right now.

"Thank you," a pony from inside the door said, and it closed. The mare passed on by through the hall.

"Your turn soon," the kindly mare said, winking at Jelly.

"Ninnies," Jelly said, skipping back to my side. "Let us leave these ridiculous ponies to their food, Sweetie!" She glared at me.

I stared into her eyes for a few moments. "Do I detect irony?"

"These ponies will not bring me my food, and I've had enough of it. It's not right. It's unjust!" Jelly said, wheezing the words into my ear.

"B- hehah!" I giggled.

"I just wanted to see if they would make an exception for me, seeing as how I lost my mom and all," she said, opening the door to our room. "You coming or staying out here?"

"Stupid Jelly," I laughed, following her back into the room.





"Bzzt," Jelly said, hovering a spoonful of mushroom stew into my mouth. It flew straight out like a projectile. She caught the projectile in her mouth. "Mhm. Munch!" She gritted her teeth, showing the pasty mush inside her mouth. It covered her teeth, blotching them in brown stains that ran down their white and yellow surface, soaking her gums. "Why does your mouth do that, Sweetie? That's hilarious." She put another spoonful into my mouth. I didn't resist it. She then caught the projectile, leaping to the side so as not to miss it. "Mmmm. This is some good stuff. Too bad you're missing out on it."

"That's okay," I said, waving my hoof dismissively toward her. "I find it slightly creepy anyway. Ponies are acting like they're in the middle of some kind of drug experience every time they eat food. I think I'll pass on that, actually." Jelly laughed and shoved me to my back.

"You ninny," she said.

"That is me," I said, lying there pliably. 

Where was Gripey? "Have you seen Gripey?" she said, echoing my thought.

"No," I said. "Where is he? He was with us when we went to bed. Now, he's nowhere to be seen. That's too bad, because I haven't had the chance to have a real conversation with him ever since- well, since Manehattan." That was not all that long ago, astonishingly. 

"What happened to you in Manehattan?" Jelly said. "It seems like you went through some terrible stuff, some stuff that changed you. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I changed too, you know. We all did. I feel like... I feel like I don't want to do the things ponies are forcing me to do. I am dealing with conversations that I want nothing to do with. Trouble is, as long as other ponies keep treating me like I'm damaged, the more I will feel like that's really true, so it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. You see the issue?"

"Yes," I said. "I see the issue. This is the trouble with having others treat you as if there's something wrong with you when in all actuality, going through something horrible will inevitably make you feel bad. It's–"

"Yeah, you're getting it," she said. "There's nothing wrong with me. I'm supposed to feel like this. If I wasn't traumatized by all this, there would be something wrong with me, don't you think? I feel absolutely like I cannot sleep certain nights, and other nights, I don't ever want to wake up because being awake and thinking about the horrible things that happened while being awake is even worse than the dreams, you know? You know what I mean, Sweetie? Huh?"

I nodded, and sighed. "I do. I do. I'm sorry, Jelly." I stumbled over to the window by the side of our train cabin. "Yes."

"Don't worry about it," Jelly said, walking up by my side. "You're worrying too much. Think less."

"That's easy to say, and harder to do," I said, watching the trees pass by as the train sped through the picturesque landscape of southwestern District Equestria. This is before we got to Gloverton Whasper South, which is a smaller kingdom that borders Equestria. I thought about all the things we had been through as we were headed for this new destination. "It's mind-boggling, and even harder to imagine. It's harder to think than not to think, and yet, I don't know how not to do it. I don't know how to do anything, anyway. I'm so incompetent. I wish I would stop hurting ponies. I wish it weren't my fault, but it is, and the more I think about it, the more it hurts." The glass on the outside of the train got foggy and impossible to see through. I touched the glass.   

"Yes, that's the issue. How do you not think? Let me tell you a little secret," Jelly said.

I was transfixed by the glass. "Uh- um, what?"

"I love music, and singing, and I heard you do, at least you used to," she said, giggling.

"Right," I said.

The room we were in had white walls, very pretty wooden bunks, and no curtains. I traced the mist on the window with my hoof. "I usually sing," she said, "to ease the tension. Let me show you." 

This tore me away from the window. "You're gonna sing?"

"Sure," she said, and her cheeks flushed. "If- if that's okay with you- what am I saying! I don't care what you think about my singing. I sing because it's fun. It's not about what anyone thinks."

"Well, that's true," I said, just agreeing with her off-hoof.

"Let us... improvise, says I," Jelly said, eyes searching the room. She shifted her body back and forth, looking for something.

"What are you looking for?" I said.

"Inspiration," she said. "Oh, I know! We're on a train. I just fed you like that game parents play with their foals when they're too young to wanna eat. Sing after me." She cleared her throat. "Puff-puff-puff says the train. Woo!"

Her voice was astonishing. "Puff, puff. Puff," I said, unsure of myself. "Goes the train. Woo-hoo."

She nudged me with the shove of a hoof from the side. "That's not what I said, but it's a good first try anyhow." She smiled and broke out into an uproarious laugh. "I knew this was a great idea. I am the bringer of great ideas, after all, Sweetie, in this land and the next." 

"W- better than mine," I said, trying not to do anything wrong, as was my want. "What now?" I shrugged, looking into those wild eyes of hers.

"We build on it. Puff-puff-puff says the train. Woo, goes the whistle on the traiiin. The refrain of the train is the lane that the train takes. Woo, says the train. Puff-puff-puff, our refrain. Woo!" she sang, jumping around infectiously. 

I started breathing heavy and laughed. Then, I smiled. "The train is the plane of our stay in this place. What a beautiful traiiin." That was not all that good. I needed to match Jelly.

"Nice tune. I knew you had a voice," Jelly said, while gyrating her hips. "The train has a stain, but we'll wash it away, wiping away this, our plane."

A loud chuckle broke out my mouth. "The place that the train traces stays like the stains that we wipe in our plane, all away," I sang, stringing some assonance together in my head.

"Show-off," Jelly snickered, shifting her hips so as to plow them into me, giving me a shove that sent me flying.  

"Oof," I said, feeling not in the least bit bothered by this. It hurt a tad, but I was so used to getting my eyes and ears full of fire and cinders, not to mention all the ghastly sounds you hear when killing ponies, that it was not bothersome in the slightest what Jelly did. 

The train whistle went off. I wondered what that could be. Then, I remembered. The condensation on the window. Reality, cold harsh reality, returned to my thoughts. I shifted my attention back over to the window trying to see what was going on, and then I saw it clear as day, and it was unmistakable without a doubt yes, and what I saw was another train going alongside ours.

"Not again," I screamed, tossing in the direction of the door.

"What's the matter?" Jelly said.

"I- I..." I said, and then I hesitated. There was no longer any train there outside the window. "What is this?"

"I'm sure it was headed for Canterlot," Jelly said. "There are other trains out there, you know. Don't you?" She looked at me quizzically and with a ponderous expression. Her smile was a question. What's going on inside your brain, Sweetie? I didn't even know myself.

"Right," I said. "I just thought... well, never mind. That's not important, anyway. It doesn't matter. Nope! No, it doesn't." I was a kook. A kook! I needed to realize it and fast before I hurt others. "I'm just awash with delusions at this point."

"So you thought that train was attacking us? No biggie. It happens. You told me about the thing with the other train and what happened with that attack, so I can understand because you have personal experience with this sort of thing," Jelly said. She grabbed my hoof forcefully and led me away from the door. "There's nothing to be ashamed about, says I." She put my hoof to her chest.

"Wh- what?" I said.

"I'm saying you're with friends now on a luxurious train. If you have any worry, any at all, you can tell me. Relax, or do whatever. You're safe," she said, laughing and slamming her hoof into my back.

"Oof. Okay," I said.

What was I thinking? What was I doing? What was happening? 

I felt like such an imposter at this point.





What was happening to me? Maybe that's the wrong question to ask. This is what happened to me. A train went by our train. Without actually seeing what happened, when I looked out the window, I saw raw shambles that looked like the aftermath of some kind of natural catastrophe that had befallen that other train. It had been destroyed, simply put.

"Wow," I said.

"What happened?" Jelly said. "Did that train try to attack us? Bad idea. This is Twilight's train. She has magical invincible trains. Nothing can stop them."

I glanced at Jelly and then back out the window. "Uh." 

"What?" she said.

"Well," I said.

"Oh, right. When there's one train that can stop them, that's the exception that confirms the rule," she said. "So I'm still right."

"I've never understood that expression," I said.

"No?" she said.

Ponies were now gathering outside our train, which had clearly stopped without me noticing it.

"What now?" I said. "What are they doing?"

Outside the window, I now saw chunks of the train being carried off.

"They gotta clean out the garbage so other trains can pass. Yeah, I've seen it before. Never been through a train crash or anything, though." She put a hoof around me. "What are you staring at?"

"I'm not actually sure, is the issue," I said. "I'm just... unsure, is all."

"Unsure about what?" she said, shaking me with the hoof she had wrapped around me. "We're safe. Don't worry about it."

"Fine," I said, looking as the tracks outside were being cleared, the ones in front of us.

"Wanna play a game?" she said.

"No," I said, reflexively. Then, I glanced at her. She looked disappointed. "I mean, yes. Sure."

"You're no fun, are you?" she said. "What are you worrying about? I'm the one whose parents got murdered. You had it easy."

"Of course," I said. "What do you want to do?"

She let go of me and pushed me away. "You're just saying that. You don't mean it."

"No, I do mean it," I said. "Anything for you, Jelly." No, I didn't want to play. She was absolutely right. 

She grimaced. "Ugh! You don't even mean it. You just want to treat me good because you killed my parents."

"That's not true," I said.

The ceiling of the train shook and rumbled, and then, the whole train shook and we fell to the side both of us.

"What's happening?" Jelly said. She grabbed ahold of me as the train shook.

"Another disaster, maybe," I said. She let go of me.

"With that kind of attitude, I can see why you were alone." She stared and glared at me.

"What's your problem, Jelly?" I said.

"My problem?" she said, momentarily forgetting about the ruckus. 

I shook my head. "Forget about it."

"But I- I'm scared. You're supposed to say nice words into my ear, not be all cold like you're being right now," she said, and then, the train started, going faster and faster. 

"I want to be honest," I said.

This honestly seemed to upset her, though. "Yeah, but I'm scared."

I looked into those eyes of hers. She was more afraid than I was. "Come," I said, opening the door out the corridor.

"No, don't leave me," she said.

"I'm not," I said. Somepony ran past the door. "Hey. You!"

The pony stopped, promptly. "Get back in your room," he said, sternly.

"Right," I said, taking a step back as I had stepped out the door to greet him. "What's going on?"

"Get back in your room and be quiet," he said, slamming the door in front of me.

I took a step back. "That almost hit my snout."

"Sweetie," Jelly said as I turned back to face her. She was tearing up. "What did they do to you in Manehattan?"

"I don't know," I said.





To make a long story short, we left the train. No one told me why. Why o why? Why does it matter, o why? Why?

We camped out in the forest, not far from the tracks, not far from my thoughts, because my mind felt like a forest at this point. Now, if you think you know where this is going, you might, but I doubt it. Just follow along as this gets more complicated. 

"Hey," Jelly said. "Get water."

"Me?" I said.

"Yeah," she said.

"Fine." I picked up a bucket and walked across the bushes, going into them and through them, so as to get to the lake that was not far from me, nor far from my thoughts, no. "Ueh," I spat. I got leaves in my mouth. That was a mistake. How impulsive of me. How characteristic of me, no? No-no. No-no. It's worse than that, yes. I am not a good friend.

I saw my own reflection in the water. I couldn't even recognize my own eyes. What had happened to me? Whatever, I thought. This contemplative exercise won't do me any favors, no. Time to get some water, yes. I did. I picked up some water out the water of the lake, in this forest of my thoughts.

"How are you feeling?" someone said.

I turned around. "That voice."

"Down here, stupid," the voice said. 

I walked back to the water. Nameless' shining shape was looking up at me. I rubbed my eyes. She was still there. She rubbed her eyes too. It was like a reflection. "What?"

She stepped up out the water. "You think you would lose me that easily? I don't pick my enemies at random, you know. I'll follow you to the grave, and I'll be the first to mourn you."

I was about to scream.

"But first! Hear me out," she said.

"Why?" I said, breathlessly. 

She looked from right to left. Then, she put her hoof over me and held my head tight. "Listen here and listen good. Your friends, they love you. I know they do. You love them too. But they're not really friends, are they?"

I was about to scream, again. 

"But first!" she said. I closed my mouth. "Listen. I mean that they are not YOUR friends, you see? They're not mine either, you know. Not that you care. I only just said that to pull your attention to another important fact. You are not yourself. You are not here. You are a ghost, aren't you?"

"How can I be a ghost?" I said.

"Sweetie. Sweetie," she said, shaking me. She let go of me and walked behind me. "Do you think you could ever be anything else but a ghost? You are my ghost, and my friend. I cherished you. They think you are fake. Look. I'll show you."

The trees and the forest moved out the way. She pulled me. I let myself get yanked along. "There's something wrong with her," Jelly said. "That's not the Sweetie I know."

"I'm not sure. I think she's just tired," Gripey said.

"Tired?" Jelly said.

"What are they saying about me?" I said, looking out at the campsite.

"Creepy, isn't it?" nameless said. "Hearing others speak about you behind your back is a creepy feeling, and yet, we do it so often, you, I, and Jelly. What is she saying about you?"

"Traumatized," Jelly said. "She's just lying to herself, is all because she's too scared to face the truth."

"What's the truth?" I said. I ran up to them. No one seemed to notice me. "Hello, you guys!"

"I told you," nameless said. "You're a ghost. That's all you'll ever be is a sad ghost. You are lost."

"And yet, she seems determined to hold onto this dream," Gripey said. "Why?"

I had missed some of the conversation because I was distracted. "Does it matter?" Jelly said.

"Is this happening right now?" I asked nameless.

"Yes," she said, after a moment's pause.

"Why can't they hear me?" I said.

"They can. They would be, but you're back at the lake. I am implanting more memories into your head at this moment," she said.

"How can I trust anything you have to give me?" I said.

She smiled. "Because you know it's true."

I struggled for air. I was falling. I was by the lake yet again. I stood up. "What was that?" I said.

"Nerve gas," she said. I turned around. She was always behind me, this creature. "It's a neurotoxin that we also use to clear the way every time we invade a village. The Equestrians are a lot less predictable than one might hope, and they would find a way unless we did this."

"So much for giving them a fighting chance," I said. "What was that about fighting back? Aldeus said that they would never and that's why they lose. Seems like you're just full of crap."





"We aren't trying to kill everyone. We send groups of fifty to one village each day. That village is picked out of a random number generator, that has corresponding numbers to all the cities and villages in Equestria. The numbers can be found inside the generators in the facility, and they are totally isolated from me, or anyone else. Then, we send them to Hydral, which then sends us back a name, and a location, on the map. We send a few ponies there, and if the Equestrians defend themselves, then they win the game, and the story ends. If they don't defend themselves, then we keep on going. You understand?" he said.





"Let's just say that if Equestria was populated by cyborgs and the roles were reversed, the war would be far over by now," nameless said. "You can take that however you want, but there are other ways of fighting back than shooting magic beams out your horn." She nodded at my horn. "That's why we don't attack any griffins. They have no other recourse."

"Technology," I said.

"You're starting to get it. Not yet, but you're getting closer," nameless said. "Anyhow, I want you to realize something. This is why I came here after all, and I would not have given up one of my cherished trains without the hope of bringing you back."

"No!" I said. "I am never coming back to that nightmare of a place."

"Quiet," nameless said. "They already think you have a screw loose. Maybe they'll think better of it once they see the screws inside your mind." She blinked and grinned. "Inside your mind, get it?"

"I don't want to hear it," I said, about to walk back.

"Are you that stubborn? I thought you wanted to know the truth. That's why I came here," she said.

I was torn. "So? What does it matter? I'm real. I'm not?"

"Oh, you're all too real. That was never the issue, was it?" she said. She stepped to the side, blocking off the only road back to the campsite, and I didn't feel much like taking the short route any longer.

"What's the matter?" I said. "What's happening to me?"

I almost cried into those eyes, staring deep into hers. They reflected mine, like mirrors, so bright, and yet so dark at the same time. "You're changing. You are turning into more than just the filly. They are taking notice. Sweetie Belle is practically dead, and if she is alive, then there will be no way for you to rescue her. No, only one person can do that." 

"Who?"

"Someone," nameless said. 

A tree rustled, and down flying came Lyretex landing right beside nameless. "You called and I arrived, mistress." She bowed before nameless.

"Protect Sweetie," nameless said. "The eyes are coming. They are no longer on our side. If they do not capture her, I will have to send Ezelipoli the new soul of the new facility after her, and I do not want to kill her just yet, at least not until she has had the chance to realize what she wants to realize, and become her own person finally, Lyretex of subject F-5226."

"No, I will not help you kill her," Lyretex said, walking to my side. "I do not kill any longer. She taught me that."

"Right! You are learning things too," nameless said. "It's not about me. My existence will evaporate unless I do as the eyes command, and if you don't believe me, then you shan't." She frowned. Nameless sighed. "Yet, I do pity that poor eye, eye and eye, for their existence, and their sad will to survive trumps my motives. I will want to help them because they are older and deeper than you two can be." 

"All lives matter," Lyretex said.

I was at a loss for words. "Um, yeah," I said, not knowing what else to say.

Nameless laughed, sounding like she had heard a great joke. "Yes, yes. Death, death. Ah, ah. Good luck, you two. Good luck with that, and good luck with you two, too. I feel like I want to help you more, but it would be unfair. Now, the story will continue. Do not say I did not try to warn you, Sweetie. Life will get harder, and if you cannot take my words at face value, your experiences will tell the story in a better and more poignant way, a more hard-hitting, pressing way, than I ever could. Adios."

"Um," I said. Nameless had evaporated, but no, she had vanished into thin air, between two blinks. First, I saw her, and then, I didn't. 

"She sure is a hassle to deal with, isn't she?" Lyretex said.

"Whoa!" I said, jumping back. "You're still here, why?"

"She wasn't messing with you. She wants you to live, even though the eyes think you should die," Lyretex said. "I will tell you all about it later, but now, we will go back to greet your friends." 

HAA-HAA-HAAA!

Ha!

Funny.





"I can't do this anymore." I collapsed on the ground in front of Jelly and Gripey.

Jelly stood above me and looked down. "Do what?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Sweetie?" Jelly said.

"I don't know," I said. "I just don't know anymore, is all I can say, and that's how I feel. It is truly, honestly how I feel, tell you what." That was the truth, as true as any truth, too true.

"Stop babbling," she said. She frowned at me. "You know what your issue is?"

"Naw, what?" I said, not moving from my position.

She kicked me hard. "Get up while I speak to you."

I stood up quickly. "I just feel–"

"Shut up. You know what your issue is?" she said, glaring at me and I saw something new now.

"You're... glowing," I said, seeing her light shine up the campsite as the campfire faded away.

"Yes," she said. "I am literally glowing. You know what your issue is?"

"No," I said.

"You're trying way too hard, like way way way too hard. Think about it. That's your problem. If you would just relax and shut up, just shut up and relax, then all the biggest problems would go away." She took a step back and nodded a single short aggressive nod in my direction.

"What are those?" I said, afraid to hurt her now.

What if she realized the truth? Then, Jelly broke the tension. "It's upsetting your friends."

"What's that?" I said.

"You heard me loud and clear." She put her nose into the air and left me be, walking away.

Wait a second. "Is that... really the only issue, though?"

"Yes," Gripey said, gnawing on a bone. "We honestly don't care about any of that other stuff."

:O

"Well," I said, carrying the aforementioned expression on my face. "Fine." I walked off and just lay down on the ground. "Uuummm, uuuh, that just happened?"

That was the issue? What was the issue? That? I mean, they... but... I had to speak to Jelly again about this.





"Jelly, what the hell was it you said to me before?"

"Go to sleep, Sweetie. You're so annoying," Jelly said, glowing so brightly that I thought no one could ever fall asleep in that neon shine of hers.

"B- I..." I turned around to walk away and then turned back. "I just don't get it. What were you saying back there?"

Jelly got up groggily and drew one hoof over an eye, pulling something off. It was dirt, the kind you get when you sleep for a while and then wake up. I then realized my mistake. "Sweetie. Like, everyone is trying to sleep. Stop being so dramatic. That's what you told me. I'm giving you a tip. Stop being so dramatic."

"Okay," I said.

"You are surrounded by ponies that love you. How come you're the only person within a hundred miles who can't realize that?"

"And... I just woke you up, didn't I?" I said.

She went over to me and grabbed my head, squeezing it. "You think I'm angry at you because I hate you, don't you? Don't you think others also are afraid of how their actions will be perceived, interpreted? You need to seriously... get on with it. I know what happened to you. You do too. You lived at the facility." She let go and pushed me away. "You escaped. You came here. You met me in the Forest of Tranquility back in the northeast. You don't remember it? That's fine. I do. My memories matter more to me than your attempts at trying to seem, well, not you. You were never this quiet somber person. Why, you used to laugh at everything. Do that, if you feel like it. I just... am I wrong about this?"

"No," I said. "I just... find it strange."

She gasped. "What?"

"Nameless said... she... she said that you... u... uh... she, she said that... you don't... you don't think I'm really me," I said, almost blubbering the words out embarrassingly.

"Sweetie," Jelly said. "Shut up. You're the only person that has ever thought you aren't really you. You're being lied to. Deal with it. And also, this whole thing."

"What?"

"Friendship is real, no matter what she says."

I looked at Jelly's face to try to read what she was saying. "Nameless."

"I look at you, and I care about you, okay? This is how it works. It's not some calculation in my head that makes me care about you, Sweetie, and if you haven't noticed, it's not your oafish behavior either."

"No," I said. "I guess I realized that when I first saw you back in Ponyville. It's–"

"Shut up. Let me sleep," Jelly said, flicking her hoof across my nose and lying down back inside her sleeping bag.

I turned to walk away. "What has been wrong with me?"

"I can still hear you. Stop talking to yourself when there are others around. It's creepy," Jelly said, from behind me.

In any case, I couldn't keep lying to myself. I had to do something different now, something new, as silly, simple, and callow as that may sound. I had to be a different person, for myself and for Jelly. Why? How? It didn't matter. Friendship is and was more important than my personal little worries. If I only focused on the present, then those worries would get resolved eventually.

This turned out to be true.
> Part 52: Black Bleary Dark Dreary Gloverton
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

To say that Gloverton is a depressing place would be an understatement. It's not a depressing place. It's the kind of place where joy goes to die, and if you have ever been to Ponyville during its heyday, then all you have to do to understand the mood, tone, and atmosphere of Gloverton is to imagine the inverse. Imagine the opposite. Imagine if Ponyville was Ponyville, but rather than being happy, jolly, frolicking, almost to an absurd degree, it was dull. It was grey. It was bleak.

This, in fact, is the reality of Gloverton during my stay there, though I don't imagine that it had always been this way. If it had, then all the ponies would probably have stopped mating and committed suicide out of boredom. No frolic's allowed, not in Gloverton. If you smile, the whole place becomes even more angry, downtrodden, and depressing, almost as if the joy within you gets inverted by the horror of the place. This is Gloverton, truly, in a nutshell, but it wasn't their fault. No, as you will learn, there are reasons for one to feel this way, legitimate reasons to be unhappy.

If you have enjoyed the story so far, and if you have followed to this point, then let me take you on an even bigger adventure, one with a zero percent chance of random hallucinations. The last one was in part 49. Yes, I know it has been awfully tawdry, longwinded, and angry. Everything about me feels angry a lot, a lot of the time, ever as time passes for me, and if this is true, which it is, as it is, and since that is so, then let me expound upon why.

There are three facilities. I won't inform you about this again in exposition, so read carefully if you think that I'm just repeating myself to be funny or to make sure that you're on track. I'm not. I am saying this because this is relevant now. There are three facilities. Three. One, two, and three, understand? The Facility of Technology is responsible for the war effort, if you aren't caught up on that yet. That's the place where the first three chapters of this story took place. Hello hello to anyone out there that has been paying attention hello! 

The Facility of the Dream is responsible for indoctrinating ponies into the philosophy of evil nameless and her band of misfits, including Sidus and Aldeus. This is the place where nightmares are born. Ponies are subjected to terrible physical and psychological manipulation, the likes of which you have probably never been through and are in no position to talk about or consider, but let me try to help you. I have tried so far, anyway. Ponies' brains are turned to reading constantly. All they can think about and all they can honestly and actually, realistically, do is reading. Even when they think they're not, they're reading. Nameless refers to this as "replacing" the eyes of ponies, which is a horrible sick joke that she has told me many times. She "gives" her own "eyes" to other ponies. She is given to speak in metaphors, this pony.

So you steal the senses of the pony away, including hearing, touch, smell, and sound to rearrange that pony's mind. All you can do is look straight forward and read, and that's straightforwardly it. What is it you're reading? Well, it's complicated, but it's basically a computer-generated transcript of a series of events that are presented as if they really happened. This issue is so deep and weird that we'll get to it later. There's not enough time now.

Lastly, we have the youngest facility, the Facility of Astral Observation. This is the creepy stalker branch of the operation. The facility employs little implike creatures known as US-IDS, which is another joke. If you don't get it, I won't try to explain it. It's not an acronym. It's just stupid. The US-IDS stalk ponies, remembering every word of every conversation they have, remembering everything, and then they bring all the information back to the facility. That is basically it.

Then there's the... well, I'm already stealing too much of your time, aren't I? I've become more mindful of that. The truth is that trying to tell the story as it happened has been more important than giving you all this information, because I knew that you wouldn't know what to do with that information unless I showed you in practical terms what it means. I'm still not done yet, but you'll see later. I'm inside it right now. It's because the process known as dream interference is a never-ending process, meaning that it never ends until someone pulls the plug. Where's the plug? How do you pull it? Well, that's a story for a later time.

This place was a dump. I walked across the open area around the center of town, full of buildings that were basically falling apart, ponies that were sulking, even ponies that looked angry and dangerous. What a place. "I don't... like it here, guys."

"That one guy was giving me odd looks," Jelly said, running up to me and bumping into me. "I think he's a creep. I think we should go."

I nodded. "Yeah, this is not a safe place."

Where would we go?





We all stood outside a public building in a massive group. "Is that a hospice?" Jelly said.

"Only one way to find out," I said, marching inside.

There was a bar with chairs surrounding it. "Hey!" the bar-worker said.

I looked from right to left to see if she was talking to someone else. "Uh?" I said.

"Yes, you. Aren't you a little young? Get over here!" She shook her hoof up and down in a threatening way.

I did the only reasonable thing and came closer to see what the nature of the threat was, so that I could gain its measure. "I am young," I said. If you haven't been paying attention, and I know I've been throwing you for a loop, this is again Sweetie Belle's voice. It has been ever since Ponyville.

"Yeah, I just pointed that out. A smarty pants too, I see," she said, putting her hoof on one of the high chairs for me to sit on.

I smiled and shook my head, making the climb up to the chair. "And yet totally unintentional."

"So you say. So you say," she said, and her pitch was high and clear but had an edge to it, like she had been screaming a lot or inhaled a lot of smoke recently. 

I got up on the chair. "What kind of place is this?" I said.

"What kind of place does it look like?" she said, almost scoffing. 

She was obviously losing patience with me fast, so I needed to be focused. "My friends from another town, refugees, are wondering whether this fine place could provide lodging at a reasonable price, miss."

"I'm not your miss," she said, spitting on the table in front of me.

"No, well, that would be incorrect," I said, agreeing with her... maybe, I thought?

"You're being rude," she said. "No one can stay here is as rude as you are." She grabbed something out of a wall. "I am not fond of rude children with big mouths." It was... a bottle. "Have some of this." She poured up a glass of something.

"What?" I said, looking at the glass. "No, I think I doubt that would be a good idea, actually."

She laughed a surprisingly husky laugh for her high voice. "That's what they all say, kid. But once they taste it, they cannot leave."

"Is it poison?" I said.

"No," she said, getting angry again. "No, it's not poison. It's that same thing over there." She pointed to a guy a few chairs away. He was drinking something that had the same color. 

I decided to walk over to him to inquire as to what it was. When I stood beside him, I said, "Hey there, bud-bud, big guy. Big guns, hehe!" He looked down on me with a scowl. "Anyway! I would like to know... what..." He got off the chair. "Um."

"What is a kid like you doing here?" he said.

"Nothing at all," I said, laughing nervously. "I only wanted to know what it was that you were drinking over there, is all, gentlecolt. My bud, heh." I rubbed the back of my head as I backed away. "Maybe... I'll save the question for another time."

"This!" he said, grabbing the bottle and holding it up in front of me. "This is a bottle of the finest–"

"Is it poison?"

"Wh- no," he said. "It's–"

"Is it dangerous?"

He just stared at me. "I can tell you this. I'm still alive, if only barely, but I can only survive by drinking this."

"That's just explicitly depressing," I said, which made him erupt.

"What do you know? You think you're better than me?" He stormed toward me, and I unconsciously backed away while keeping my eyes locked on him, waiting for him to strike. "You're just a kid. When I was your age, I could also dream and pretend everything would be fine."

"But you need that drink to survive?" I said, pointing to it. "If I had some magic potion that would solve all my problems, I wouldn't be dreaming."

He smashed the bottle against the floor and ran out the building.

"What'd I do?" I said, facing the cashier bar-worker person.

She was blank-eyed, glassy-eyed even.

Really?

Gripey came running in. "What happened here? I didn't know you were in here. This place is dangerous."

"They serve potions or some doohickey," I said, jumping up and down. "Stay away from this place. The bartender is probably a witch." 

"Do you even know what a bartender is?" Gripey said.

"I knew bartenders work at bars and that bars serve drinks," I said.

He looked over to the cashier that had the same shocked expression as he had. "Do you know what a drink is?" he said.

"It's something that you blend together with stuff, different stuff. Drinks can have fruits and stuff," I said.

"Fermented fruit maybe," he said.

I felt a gag. "Ew! Fermented fruit? Why'd you want to eat that? Isn't that like dangerous, and moldy?" 

"No," he said, clasping his head with his claws.

"Why? What'd I miss?" I said, looking to the cashier.

She just smiled at me warmly now. "You weren't being rude at all, little girl."

"That's nice to be vindicated, isn't it? Gripey? Huh?" I said, jumping up and down, so full of energy that I felt like I could explode at any moment.

"Yes," he said, smiling at me too.

Okay, I had no idea what was going on, but suddenly I was getting smiles. Is that it? Was that all I needed to do? Just speak my thoughts, just speak my mind? Huh? Seemed simple enough to me, as I thought about it.

That was Jelly's advice? Whatever! It mattered none. No-no-no.

No.





I heard footsteps in the distance, rumblings. I unsteadily stood up, bumbling about with my unstable gait, posture, and fate, as of late. I knew not what to do. I knew only to follow each event to its inevitable conclusion. There was something to do, something right. I wanted to do it, yet I knew not what it was. I did not know who it was that wanted to hurt me so, but I knew that when I knew... ew!

A storm of giant metal machines with sludge running down the sides of them, machines similar to pillars, moved past me. I was in the forest. We were camping out again. After our arrival was found out by the town of Gloverton, we were basically sent out. We weren't allowed to be there apparently, for some reason. For whatever reason, this is what had happened. I walked. I stopped. I looked.

Then, I felt a stench. Others woke up. I was only privy to these things because I had never fallen asleep in the first place. I couldn't.

"What's that?" I said.

A long cable stretched across the ground. I did not know where it came from or how. It was black, but it had a twinkle to it. It reflected the sunlight ever so slightly. How long had that been there? I looked to the side and saw a pony pulling it.

I frowned. "Hey!" I ran up to the pony.

As I did that, one of the adults from the forest encampment where I had slept along with the other fugitives and refugees blocked me off. "Hello?" he said.

The pony that was pulling the cable turned to look at us. I nearly fainted. Those eyes! I recognized those glazed-over, aggressive, hateful, hating eyes from years past.

"Do not!" I said to the stallion that had stepped in front of me to protect me. "Speak..."

He glanced to me, looking annoyed. "Why? I need to figure out what's up."

Fair enough. Smog filled the air. Could he not see what was going on? Could he not see those pillars off in the distance? As I stared, they grew fainter, and I realized that I couldn't see them either. The smog covered them, and it was getting thicker. It felt unnatural, artificial even. It was like a cloud was coming our way, covering the entire campsite.  

The mare that was pulling the cable, carrying it on her back, looked at me and her eyes lit up. She looked happy. "Subject," she said, and then, she kept walking, not even bothering to answer the other guy's question.

"Excuse me," he said, naively. He kept apace with her as she walked.

"You haven't been hurt yet," she said, not even looking at him, just walking onward.

"H- huh?" the stallion said. He was brown. I didn't recognize him, though. He was apparently trying to help me. Silly him!

Out of the smog came a hundred figures, spread out from north to south. They weren't walking in a formation. They were far apart and hobbling forward at their own pace, each with his or her own gait. Mine was to run right now. I sprinted off.

I shook one of the sleeping bags. "Gripey! Gripes."

Because of climate conditions in Gloverton, owing to a water current that passed by the area, which was close to the sea, the weather was often same-y and self-similar. It did not change much, but now, like in some kind of horror story, my horror story, the air got cold and damp.

"What is it?" he said, waking up.

I wanted to scream. "They're here."

"Go to sleep," he said, turning over.

"No! I mean, they're literally here," I said, and a giant blue shape landed beside me, making the ground shake.

I heard a familiar giggle. "Look here. Look who I found, you," nameless said, sitting atop its back.

"She is so small," the figure said. It was huge and scaly. "To think she could cause such trouble for you."

"That's a good point," nameless said. 

Gripey stood up and reached his hand out toward the blue monster like the maniac he was. It opened its mouth. Its maw was full of teeth that twisted and turned up and down in an uneven pattern and shape. It was like a fun mirror of teeth. "The one that should be dead," the creature said.

It outsized Gripey, this figure in the fog, by at least five meters. "Dead?" Gripey said.

"It's just an observation," nameless said, and her shine got brighter, drawing his attention.

"Where did you come from?" Gripey said, flying up into the air.

"Where did I come from?" nameless said, as Gripey hovered beside her.

He pointed at her. "I know you. I recognize you."

"Griffin," the blue monster said. "If her eyes ever see the truth, then you will die too."

"I don't believe any of that," Gripey said. "Now, would you please leave?"

Nameless smiled at him in silence. He looked on in wonderment, amazement, and did I detect a slight flicker of fear on his face? "Why, we only just arrived!" she said, as the flock of ponies that had arrived close to the campsite came so close that everyone could see them. 

One pony, not all that far away from me, yelled, "Wake up. Wake up, everyone. Something's happening."

"Yes," nameless said. "Something is happening. It's time for all of us to pay our debts to those who died during this terrible conflict, and it starts with the unfortunate deaths of ponies that were lost far out in the forest, unable to protect themselves and in the end, unwilling to realize the truth."

"I don't know what your issue is," Gripey said, in his usual calm manner. "Are you threatening us now? Is this what this is? We're totally defenseless. What do you want?"

"No!" nameless said. "I don't threaten ponies, nor do I ever kill them. They just happen to die in the heat of the moment, when moments meet, and fires begin all over this land."

"That is untrue and you know it," I said.

Nameless glanced at me, looking slightly aggravated by what I had said. "You need to leave," she then said. "We're about to level the forest, and if you're still here, all of you will die."

"Is that so?" I said.

"Bye!" she said, and just like that, the creature that she had been sitting on took to the air. I saw its wings and immediately realized what this was, a dragon.

Well, poop!





Once outside the forest, we saw what was going on. Something snapped, and then, all trees fell to the ground, simultaneously. "Why?" I said.

"Why not?" Jelly said. "They want to destroy the forest because they're evil. That's what you said. Right, Sweetie? They're evil?"

I looked at Jelly. Again, she had this dry expression of seriousness that told me she was being honest. "I thought you didn't believe me."

"Why would you think that?" Jelly said.

"Never mind," I said, a little too happy to hear that, I think.

Gripey landed down, having done some reconnaissance. "I think we should go. They're flooding the forest." 

"Yeah," I said.

"They're taking the trees. What are they doing with them?" someone said, but I was too lost in my own thoughts. Who was nameless? What was she doing, and why?

My life was a question mark and a mystery. It was at least all I could do to be self-aware of it, at the time, and later more!

This wasn't over yet, not by far, no.

No, it wasn't.

Nope.





We were outside Gloverton again, full of wooden fences now that boxed in the entire township. They were scraggly and unevenly built, but they fulfilled their purpose, because no one would make it in now without alerting them, not that anyone would want to.

"What are we going to do?" I said.

"Escape," Gripey said.

"You know, that is an exquisite idea, Gripes," I said. "Let us do that and escape to a better place. You said Whasperlund wasn't too far off. Was it you who said that?" 

"No, I don't know where places are," he said.

"Who said that?" I said.

"No one," Jelly said. "It's not even close. It's several miles from here."

"Several miles? Was it you?" I said.

"Yeah, but it's not even close," she said.

I looked at her. "How?"

"How what?" she said.

"Do you know?"

"I stole a map," she said.

"Well, that's just perfect, isn't it?" I said.

"Hey! You are literally in no position to judge me on that," she said, whispering so that no one would hear us.

"Okay?" I said.

"Hey!" Gripey said to the disorganized group of refugees that had gathered outside the town. "Let us escape. They have clearly taken over."

"But we're tired, and we have no food," a stallion said, probably only barely adult. He had a childlike face.

"Yeah, but those ponies are trouble," Gripey said. "Big trouble."

"What are we supposed to do?" the same guy responded.

"I just told you," Gripey said.

"The children can't walk that far!" a mare said.

"Keep your stupid voice down," Gripey said. She had indeed been way too loud.

A gunshot went off. The mare collapsed in a mangled pile. Whatever that was, it was surely powerful. Everyone ran in panic now, turning the other direction.

"That was so unnecessary," I said.

"Mom," a filly probably five years younger than me said. She whimpered forward, huddling over her mother's cadaver.

"You need to leave," I said, lifting her up in my magic and turning her away from the town and toward the forest. "Can't you see?"

"No," she said, running back to her dead mom.

I held my hoof over my eyes. "Ugh!"

"Hey!" Jelly said. She sneaked up to my side. "Let her."

"No!" I said, grabbing her again.

Jelly responded by grabbing me in her magic, making me hesitate and let go of her. "Let her," Jelly said.

"Why?"

"You'll understand it when you're older," Jelly said.

"Understand what? We're all going to die. This isn't a time for moral highroading, Jelly," I said.

We were the only ones left there now, Gripey, Jelly, and I. "Yes it is," Jelly said.

"Gripes!" I said.

"Shh," he said.

"No, I'm right about this. We should just run. They just shot her for speaking too loudly," I said.

"Then shut up," Jelly said, smiling at me playfully and mysteriously.

I felt a pang of worry. I glanced off toward the wooden fences, but no guns were in sight. Where did the gunshot come from? What type of weapon was it? When would it come back? How? Huh? Ugh! Ow. Oh. Bah. Hm. This wasn't good. The filly came running back. "Okay," she said.

"Okay," Jelly said, smiling at the little one who was sobbing for good reason. I just thought the timing of it all was insane.

I mean, I was right about this. Our lives were under immediate threat, right? Clearly, I was right. There's not even room for discussion there. Those two, Jelly and Gripey, were just being overemotional, weren't they? Ugh! What was happening to me? "Okay," I said.

Gripey put both Jelly, the stranger, and me on his back. "Let's go," he said.

As soon as we took off, I just had to flaunt my windpipes. "I just don't get it."

"Why wouldn't you get it?" Jelly said.

"I mean," I said. "I- I- I didn't..."





Why?

"Stop," I said. "Stop." I sighed. "Stop!" The hammock lifted his body up higher and higher into the sky. "Stooop." His body went even higher. "No."

Why? Why?

"Obey me," the light said.

Why? Why? Why?

"No," I said. "Never."

Why? Why? Why? Why?

His body was now high enough that if it fell down to the ground, I figured that Gripey would die. The bands of light evaporated, and he fell. I stood beneath him, ready to catch his body, or get crushed by it, in any case.

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

I feel no longer low, but high. Why? Is it the life in me? Why? I am a joke. I croak. What a joke I am. What a joke I am, and was, and why? It was because... I... Gripey. The death of... no. But... I did get it. No, no. This wasn't right. He was... we... it's not rational to want to stay when the death of a friend... I am... this light. What is this light?





"Jelly!" I said.

"What?" she said.

"I'm sorry!" I said.

"Well, it's about time," she said. "For what, though?"

We were still flying all the way up there on a griffin's back, a griffin who I was willing to get crushed by instead of living on without.

"I do remember!" I said.

"Huh?" she said.

"I do remember," I said. "I remember everything."

"What?" she said.

"Everything!"
> Part 53: Fishermares and Haunted Lakes
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you have felt sorry for me before, then it's time to stop.





"Sweetie. What's wrong?" Jelly said.

"I promise you I- I," I said, trembling on Gripey's back as he flew. "It's so scary."

Suddenly!

Get this? 

It was all too sudden. It was fateful. It was fate.

This eye came out of the air.

That's the last clear memory I have before...

... Gripey crashed toward the ground...

... me falling one way, and...

... Jelly disappearing.

A literal cacophony of sounds and colors invaded my senses. I stood up, wiping myself. My head banged and my chest panged, both of pain and of worry too. It was all too true what had happened. I was lost in the forest now. What was I to do? I started running across the bushes, the trees, and the scenery. I got short of breath. I stopped. What was that?

"Jelly!" I shouted. I ran and then I rolled down another steep slope, falling, hitting myself, but all I wanted was to find Jelly and tell her what I finally remembered. "Jellyyy!"

Nothing. I got no response.

Where was she?





After two to three hours, I was seriously worried. I at last reached the end of the forestry. 

There was a small village. I walked into the village. "This sure is a small village," I said.

I saw a small sign hang ajar. It said, 'Welcome to the Kingdom of Whasperlund'.

"Heh. Funny," I said. "So is this really... a whole kingdom? All of this?" I still wanted to find Jelly, though. Where could she be? "Jelly!"

The buildings all surrounded a small port with a single short pier. A boat was coming ashore. I ran toward the boat. 

"Jelly?" I said.

"No jellies here, no. You're in the wrong place, girlie," a masculine voice said, which made my hairs stand on end.

"No?" I said.

"Who are you?" an old-looking guy said, walking off the boat. He was an earth pony of old proportions, quite tiny, and he didn't look very big or muscular, but it was the same voice.

"Sweetie," I said.

"Look, you're in the wrong place," he said.

"No, I mean. That's my... name," I said, feeling embarrassed. 

He laughed. "That's just fancy-sounding, innit?" He faced back toward the reasonably-sized boat. "Hey!"

"What are you doing?" someone else said from the ship, but this time it was a female voice.

"I just found some lonely kid, Eventide," he said. 

"How lonely?" she said.

"She says she be looking for jellies," he said. "That about lonely."

"No, it's a person," I whined, feeling frustration come over me. "Can't you- can't you just listen?"

He turned to me. "It's those northern names, always seem to trip me up."

"Well, I guess I'm northern compared to you," I said.

"Compared to most everybody," he said. "Most ponies still live in the south, dear."

I almost laughed, but then I frowned, remembering my situation. "I don't know enough about population statistics to dispute that."

"I wouldn't know if you said I was wrong," he said, laughing a rasping, raspy, hectic laugh.

"Right," I said.

"Hey!" the mare from the boat said. "Think we should help her or what?"

"Oh, sure!" he said.





I sat inside the boat. "You won't believe me," I said.

"Already don't," he said. "You cannot make it worse for nothing."

"I am... a mistake," I said. It was a shame that I had to have this depressing conversation with a random guy in a boat in the middle of nowhere rather than with Jelly. Still, it was better than nothing. "There's this pony. She tells you that she can take all your trauma away, and all you have to do is to believe a fake story, but then, she says that she can change the entire world to reflect that story."

"That's a shame," he said. 

We were sitting by a small table. This guy, beyond his looks, was actually kindly. That was extremely encouraging. "Well, she's not joking," I said. "She uses memories of what we want to happen, turns them into real memories, and then she sends the memories back through time to make these things happen for real."

"If they are real memories, then what be the point in sending them back?" he said.

I groaned. Then, I slammed my hoof into the table. The flap of my hoof opened up, revealing the recharger inside. "It's so they can create ponies like me," I said. "I am... just a memory." 

He laughed, and then he stood up, stumbling over to a locker. "You want anything to drink?"

"No," I said. "You'd better leave shore. They're coming, and they're not- well, they're marginally less ethically sound than I have been."

"I know," he said. "I know. The sea beast told me about what happened." 

"It did?" I said. "Well, that's good."

"Look. Relax. You look exhausted. You need to slow down. The important part is that you're here and not with them, innit?" he said.

The stars! Why? The stars! The stars! They kept coming for me, those stars. "Who am I?"

"You'll figure it out," he said. "We all do... in time, we do."

"Yeah," I said. "I just hope it isn't too late for me."

"Why would it be too late?" he said.

Why not?





Where was she? "I just want to find her," I said. "I want to... say I'm sorry. I'm not really her friend, because my life began with a story. That's all. I am the story of a robot, not a real person, not yet at least."

"That is doubtful," he said. "You seem real enough to me."

They had taken my advice, this couple, and we were going far off-shore now. If they were on their way, as I had said, and as he believed because the sea beast had told him, then he thought it'd be best to stay on the safe side and depart before things got even worse. Who knew? Maybe they would even steal their boat. The horror of it all. The truth is that these ponies were far more evil than that, and he would be lucky to escape with his life, but I didn't have it in me to tell him for some reason.

"The real Sweetie Belle is... well, the thing is... ah... the thing..." I said.

"Speak more clearly, y'hear?" he said.

"Yyeah," I said, hesitantly. "The dream... a machine... a dream... ah... it's... not good." No! "She is trapped, but it was her choice." Where was she trapped? "She's trapped inside the machine. It has her consciousness. She gets to live the life she wants inside this dream that was created because real Equestria was not good enough. I've been a part of that dream, but when I escaped... she couldn't accept it."

"What do these ponies do?" he said.

"Stuff happens," I said. "They make ponies into what they most fear, and they remove all the parts that make it hurt, but of course, what you most fear... you cannot fear what you are, she said. That's kind of... bizarre. Of course you can fear what you are, but cannot fear something that you identify with completely. It's more something like that, I think. So if you're a burn victim, great. You become perpetually stuck inside that experience. That's somehow... supposed to be freeing. I remember now." 

"These ponies do this 'cause?" he said.

"The monsters..." I said. "That's what the monsters are."

"Hey! Are you listening?" he said.

"They do it because... well, they're insane," I said, matter-of-factly.





We reached a calm place. There were a few lone trees, lots of seaweed, and mist everywhere around us.

"Who is this?" a gurgling voice said that shook the boat.

"I- I," I said.

I was outside the boat now. "I was talking to him," the sea beast said.

"We saved her," he said.

I couldn't see this sea beast, but it sure sounded beastly. "I am not hostile," I said.

"She is one of them," the sea beast said.

The suddenness with which he/she/beast said that alerted me of something. "Only one would know."

"I am not one of them," the sea beast said from inside the water.

"No," I said. "No, you are not one of them." But! "You are like them. You can see through things."

"I must devour you," the sea beast said.

"You are a nightmare," I said.

The air got quiet. "We should leave," the old stallion said. "I never expected something like this to happen."

The water bubbled, and this giant froglike creature arose. It was totally twisted and had no face to speak of, but it had the semblance of a mouth. "I can only cause pain," the monster said.

I sighed. "I know."

"When did you escape?" the monster said.

"Not all that long ago. Perhaps only a few months ago. I was connected to a machine that's called an activator. I am the recreation of a pony named Sweetie Belle. I have almost everything in common with her, even her body. It used to be pony, but now it's... well, it's the natural order of things," I said. 

The creature opened its two eyelike protrusions. "I used to be a pony."

"I'm not the worst victim," I said.

"You are a bad victim. There is very little flesh left inside your body," froggy said.

"I am sorry!" I said. "I'm sorry for existing."

The sea beast growled and croaked. "Mm, hm. You are not what I first took you for. I will reveal a secret to you then."

"What?" I said.

"Your memories can be refound inside the place that took them," the sea beast said. "You only need a person that is like you, a little different."

"A little different?" I said.

"Divided into eight pieces," the monster said. "That will remove everything they want. Do not trust them, subject. Do not allow them to."

"Eight?" I said.

The monster croaked aloud and growled some more. "Eight! Each time anew, eight. Eight different senses. Eight different directions. Eight different memories. They can become yours, but you need someone to take them, someone that shares them."

"Like?" I said.

"Like me, but different."





We went ashore in a different place now. "Wow!" I said. "There's not a tree in sight, not like this place."

"Not far from them Outpost Mines," he said. "I guess we were headed here soon enough."

"Yes," the mare said. She looked old, too. "It's not a moment too early, too."

"Yes," I said.

We departed across this grassland. "We're going to see with the King," the mare said. "He'll know."

"I never inquired about your names," I said.

"She's Eventide, and I'm Ferrin," he said. "I know it's not nice like you northern names."

"No, it's nice," I said. "I'm sick of names that can be confused with objects and concepts, like Sweetie. I think your names are good."

"That's too nice to hear," he said.

I laughed. Then, I remembered Jelly. What was I doing? Where was I going? "Who is the King? I- I mean, where is he?"

"Down, by the Outpost," Ferrin said.

Right!





"How far is the Outpost?" I said.

We were stopped by that horrible sound. DUM-DADUM-DADUM. Then, a flock of griffins landed in a circle and surrounded us.

"Names and identification please," one indistinct griffin said using an even, soulless voice, devoid of any emotion whatsoever. 

"Sweetie Belle," I said. "Or maybe it's Sweetie Bot."

"Uh, um, Ferrin," he said.

"Identification please," the griffin said.

"What is he talking about?" Ferrin said, facing me.

I shrugged. "Honestly, I never knew."

"Identification please," the griffin said.

"What kind of identification are ya griffins searching for?" Eventide said.

"Proper proof of citizenship," the griffin said.

"We should head back to the boat," Ferrin said.

"Stop! You are under arrest for trespassing on griffin territory," the griffin said.

Was this time to panic? This was time to panic. "Run!" I said.

They both ran. I just stayed there. The griffins let them leave. "Why are you not running?" the griffin said, as I stood there.

"You are pathetic," I said. "You should be ashamed of yourself! They did nothing wrong. No, I'm not running, because I thought that if I ran, then you would definitely chase after me."

"And why is that?"

"Yes," I said. "I could ask you that same question."

Suddenly, unexpectedly, all the griffins turned to look at the griffin that was talking, and they all stared intently at him. He smiled. "Good response, F-5226."
> Part 54: That's the Trick, I See
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was led into a tent. There, I met the next """character""".

"You could not run forever, you dolt. Filly or colt, I'll find you wherever," he said, lifting a bunch of random objects off his workspace and dropping them in rhythm with his speech.

Ugh! "So we've got another rhymer on our hooves. Great!" I groaned.

"You will address me properly as the Lord of Schematics, ascetics, and pragmatics," he said, his voice nearly, almost very nearly sing-songing. He only slightly failed because to be honest, he had quite an ugly voice, and I'm not just saying that because of bias.

"Pathetic," I said.

He nodded. Then, he raised a gun toward me and fired.

How did I survive? Find out in the next exciting chapter of this [redacted] story.
> Part 55: The Gloverton Western Two-way Standoff
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

This will be a long chapter. We haven't had one of those in a while. It won't be quite as long as some of the others, but it will be reasonably-sized, you hear?

You see?

You read? Perhaps that's more fitting.

You can be excused for not figuring this out, because this is quite convoluted. There are others things you won't be excused for not figuring out, but we'll get to them.

Get this? Right? Hookbeak said that no griffin would ever hurt me. He promised me. That's quite a promise, isn't it? Well, the machines inside the Hydral Mines, the ones that changed me, were created by griffins. Whaaat?

I actually mentioned this earlier in the story, preempting this part when I would write about this. See what I did?

How can I not have been hurt?

Well, now, the trick is explained.

You just saw it.

That's the trick.





The bullet passed through my head and killed me.

Rewind an hour or so.

I was walking along this road with these two old ponies. "I'm just saying. It doesn't have to be that easy."

"Friendship is like love," Ferrin said. "If it ain't easy, you ain't getting it yet."

"Yeah, but it's not considered," I said. "It can't be unconditional in any case."

"What's the condition?" Eventide said.

"I don't know... liking each other, I guess?" I said.

"That's not a condition," she said. "A condition would be his looks, or anything about him, but it's not that. It's just that I care about him."

"How can it not be that?" I said. "That doesn't make any sense. We're going around and around on this issue, but the truth is that even looking at him is conditional. You wouldn't be able to know that you like him if you didn't know how he looked or who he was as a person."

She giggled. "She doesn't get it."

"Everyone is irrationally driven by emotion," I said. "It makes sense that you think you like him for a priori reasons, but even just to know that it's him you like and not anyone else, you need to distinguish him from others. If he turned into a goldfish, then you wouldn't be able to love that goldfish like you loved him unless you knew first that the goldfish really was him."

"If you turned into a goldfish?" she said to Ferrin.

"That'd be the day," he said.

"Ugh! You're not listening," I said.

"What? Do you want to show me I'm wrong? I don't understand something you do?" she said.

"I don't know," I said. "I guess I'm just... frustrated, is all, with everything."

"With what?" she said, staring away from me off out across the wilderness of this new place we had departed to after leaving the boat.

"I just don't get why other ponies don't get it. You look at him and you care about him. I get that. That's not the point. The point is that it's him you're looking at. That's not unconditional."

"He's the condition," she said.

"Yeah, but it's your relationship with him that's the condition. You didn't suddenly one day see him and decide to care about him," I said.

"No," she said. "That might be true."

"See?" I said.

"But I do still care about him, not because of how we relate to each other, but because I see him," she said.

"See... him?" I said. "What?"

"I see you too," she said, smiling at me. "You won't understand it unless you already do."

"Won't understand it unless I already do..." I said, a smile slowly forming on my face.

I got it now, and it was not funny.

You won't get it unless you do? Isn't that kind of like saying, 'well, it's true because it's true'? Not quite.

I realized that there was a subtle but distinct difference.

That difference would reveal itself to me explicitly soon.

I would have known before had it not been hidden from me.

Shame, me, and shame, you. None of us are true.

Ououe

Que

Ques

Quotas

Concotas

Concord

Disc

Discs of light discord

No

Woo-woo-ooo





Bulletproof. That was me.

Bulletproof. That was my dream at least.

Bulletproof, without proof of survival at least.

What was happening to me?

I was... so empty.

Before I arrived in that tent, I felt so full.

Well, this will tell you everything. After this fellow had shot me, he took one step back to survey his surroundings, and then he leapt forward, looking carefully at my dead body, but the more he looked, the more he realized something.

I was fading away.

I was demarcated on the floor, but not for long, because after a few seconds, I would disappear completely.

Where would I go to? 

What would it mean for me to disappear again?

Huuh?





We've got to talk about Hookbeak. Let's talk about Hookbeak. Yes?

He led me down this mess just so that he could impress upon me all the things, I guess, he would want me to confess. I didn't want to think about all this, I think, and if it's true that what he wanted me to see was what I saw, as I did, as things are, then who is he, and who am I?

WAIT!

No, let me... try again!

"Hookbeak always said I am a computer. I cannot lie, and I am divided. There's nothing left of me. I'm literally just a computer."

Hookbeak grabbed his chest and opened it up. He took out a mouthpiece and pushed it onto his mouth. He took a few breaths, almost gagging because he seemed to strain his body so much. "The sad truth is that I'm falling apart every day, and the only way that I can stay alive is to keep what little Cornicus there is left of me afloat, giving him an existence, pretending to be him, acting like a real person around other griffins, because honestly, I really don't understand them at all. I know how to move like them, and mimic their sounds, and almost all information I have left about what it means to be a real person, and feel things, comes from him. Cornicus. I love Cornicus, but I hate him at the same time, or hate isn't exactly the right word. I have an aversion toward him. I don't want him. He was flawed, broken, small, narcissistic, and there wasn't much going on there, in his tiny mind, except for..."

"Life," I said.

Grappling with what happens when friendship dies, recollecting my lost memories, and trying to understand what happens when I died, I cried.





I was led into the tent. I felt a little bit more scared this time. What had happened? What was going on? Would I live? I encountered this fellow.

He looked at me. "What are you doing here?" he said. "I thought you were gone for, but you're back... I think."

"You fear?" I said. "Forgot how to rhyme?"

"No, I never forgot. I know I ought to but... this is fascinating, F-5226. May I inquire as to how you did it?" he said.

"Who are you?" I said.

"I will respond to your question if you respond to mine," he said.

"Always leaving us scared and confused, not knowing what to do, we would go off and find our own adventures. Do you not see? You can't predict everything... guy," I said.

"No," he said. "I... suppose."

"Hookbeak promised that no griffin might ever hurt me, and you happen to be a griffin," I said.

"And yet, you did attack several griffins in Ponyville," he said. "So that's not right!"

"Well, it wasn't all me, and they weren't all griffin, were they?" I said. "Do you get it now?"

"No," he said.

"You've been lied to. If you look back at what happened, I was away for those moments when I could have hurt any griffin, and for any moment that any griffin might've hurt me, I was played by another person," I said.

The griffin that stood in front of me raised his gun at me and fired.





I wasn't really invulnerable. This is kind of what happened.

Every time I died, I didn't die, and every time someone shot me, it was as if I had not been shot.

This is because I existed in the future.

I had not to die yet, not the chance, nor the opportunity. Neither, nay, no, and that's final.

Right, so this is because I was kept safe by nameless' clutches.

I was protected.

I walked back inside, but this time, I was shining of light, just like nameless. I was vibrant and brilliant.

"Hookbeak's promise went like this," I said. "From this day forward, no griffin will ever lay a claw on you to harm you, until, should the day arrive, that you harm one of them."

"Why are you alive?" he said.





I opened my eyes, having been unconscious in the forest.

"It's a sticky situation," she said. "It's a slimy situation. It's not good. That's for sure. Sweetie?"

I lay there, not saying anything.

"Aren't you going to move?" she said.

"Why?" I said.

"Don't you feel like walking that way?" She pulled me to my feet with such force that I had no choice but to comply. She pointed one hoof off into nowhere.

"Why would I walk that way? I know that's not where Jelly is," I said. "I walked there before, inside that dream I just had."

"Do you really still think that they're dreams?" she said.

"What else would they be?"

"Memories?" she said.

"Yeah, but I haven't done it yet," I said. "What use is a memory of something that hasn't happened yet?"

"Well, it's to make you think that it already has happened," she said.

"Yes," I said. "I know that."

"Memories of... aren't you going to go?" She pushed me from behind in the direction of her choice.

"No?" I said, hardly moving.

"No?" she said. "Well, that's just great." She shattered into a million pieces, collapsing on the ground.

"Weird," I said.

Out of the rubble fell a perfect copy of me, she looked around, and then she stared at me. She gaped. Then, she ran off into the forest, in the direction that I would've gone, had I not known that was the direction I had already gone. "Aaah!"

"What?" I said.

She came running back. "You saw me!"

"So?" I said.

"You can't see me. I'm invisible," she said.

"How... ?" I said.

She started breathing heavy. "Where am I?"

"Where are you?" I said.

"You're real!" she said, hugging my face in her hooves. "Oh my!"

I felt myself getting stretched out and pulled in. We both stood beside that griffin in the tent. She was see-through, but I was not.

He scratched his head. "How many of you are there? I didn't know you could teleport."

"Let go of me," I said, pushing her away.

The griffin and the world around us stretched out again, like rubber, him falling apart, getting stretched so thin that his body exploded, pieces flying everywhere. The tent ripped to shreds. My head spun. I was in the forest again together with the other me.

"Did you see that?" I said.

She simply closed her eyes and hobbled forward. "Why is everything so dark?"

"It's not," I said, grabbing her.

We were sucked about through the air. I felt myself stretching out. We were by the tent again, and all sorts of griffins were gathering around the crime scene, seeing the dead corpse, tattered by our acts. They saw me too. "It was you!" one said.

"No," I said.

The other Sweetie jumped away from me. All sorts of projectiles hung in the air, each several meters long, projected toward me. I stepped out the way of them. Everything melted around me. Sweetie stood beside me. She held her head. "Why do I feel so weird?" she said.

"I don't know," I said.

"Who was that?" she said, walking toward me.

"I don't know," I said. "Who am I?"

She vanished, and then, she reappeared behind me. "Where am I?" she said.

I turned around. "Nameless?"

"Who are you?" she said. "You're... you're shining. Why is everything so dark? What is this place?"

"I don't know!" I said.





I was alive, but what was I?

I stood back. "It's quite tedious," I heard a voice say. "I don't want to do this anymore."

"No," I said. "Ugh!" The voice that I had heard echoed through my head, as if my head had been a cave.

"Don't you understand?" the voice said.

I saw purple, and then, the world around me flickered in all sorts of colors, several of which I had never seen before. "No," I said.

"It's all you," the voice said.

Everything collapsed together.





I huddled over a stream of water, watching my features change. I became adult, and then I shrunk. My face became childlike, resembling that of Sweetie Belle. Then, it became totally unfamiliar to me. "What is this?"

"The beginning," she said.

I turned around. Sweetie Belle stood there. "I- I..." I said.

"You're becoming a monster," she said. "What kind would you like to be?"

I stared at her. "No... no. Just me, thank you very much!"

"That's not an option," she said. "It's not that I want to hurt you, but you're being hurt. That's all."

I looked into her eyes. "Huh?" I threw myself at her.

"What's the use?" she said, as I lay on top of her.

"I recognize those eyes," I said.

"Only," she said.

"No," I said. "It's you."

"No," she said. "No, it's all you."

Her body bent around me like a long insignia of tapestries and colors. Many lights hit me. Then, she collapsed again. I felt myself snapping back into reality.

"We're there," Ferrin said.

We had just reached our destination, the Outpost Mines.

Goodie.

Then, I would have the chance to figure out what was going on.

I glared into the mines. They in fact were conspicuous. There was a big opening, carefully constructed, rectangular and supported by metal beams. "What is this place?" I said. 

"We have to seek shelter," Eventide said. "The mines is the place to do it. No one can break into the mines, not without risking their own lives."

"Shelter from what?" I said.

"The griffins are invading," she said.

"Wow... and life is coming at me fast," I said. Then, I saw someone right on the inside. "Is that really you?"

"Is that really me?" Gripey said, coming out. "Is that really you?"

"Yes," I said.

"What happened to you? How are you still alive?"

I looked up above his head. The mines were inside a huge mountain that stretched at a ninety-degree angle into the sky. It was huge and brown. "I don't... know," I said.

"You fell," he said.

"Jelly!" I said. "Where's Jelly?"

"I couldn't find her," he said. "I don't know what happened to you two."

"What actually happened?" I said.

"I'm not sure, but all three of you, that other kid too, you all seemed to fall off just like that, without any warning. I struggled to find even one of you." He looked at me with sadness. "That other kid didn't make it."

"Yes..." I said. "She's... dead?"

"She looked dead to me," Gripey said. "Her heart wasn't beating. It was all I could do to close her eyes when she–"

"May I ask you, though?" I said. "Don't take this the wrong way, but... what was the color of her eyes?"

"Why would I take it the wrong way? What would be the wrong way to take it?" he said to me, standing there outside the mines in the grass.

I sighed. "Suspicion."

"Of what?" he said.

"I need to hear it, though," I said.

"They were green... like yours," he said.

WKTFF-&### "Ah!" I said. "Right."

"Why are you looking so upset?" he said.

"You know there's a griffin encampment not far from here," I said.

"Yes, but how would you know, considering the route you took?" he said.

"Yeah, well, I know things," I said. "There's where... the Lord of Schematics is going to die soon, I believe."

"How do you know he's here, even?" Gripey said.

"I had a vision," I said. "I had a vision of myself going into that tent and getting shot. I was shot in the head."

"How much of that vision might be accurate?" he said.

"One thing," I said. "Someone's getting shot... but it's not me, evidently, because I would never go there of my own accord. No, I was forced to go there."

"That is something you would never do," he said.

"That's precisely why we must do it," I said.

"Huh?" he said.

"That's what... she would never expect. We always do what she expects us to," I said.

"We do?" he said.

"You know who I'm talking about," I said.

He just looked at me. "Who?"

"I think you know her," I said. "I think you do. You've seen her before."

"I don't know what to do, though," he said.

"Nameless has made many threats," I said.

"I think she's after you," he said. "But you already knew that. I was only trying to... protect you from her."

"Well, now it's my turn," I said. "Trust me!"





We arrived at the campsite of the griffins. "We'll be spotted in moments," he said.

"Yeah," I said.

From above, both Gripey and I saw me getting led into a tent. "You weren't kidding," he said. "What's this all about?"

"I think it's a ploy to fool me," I said. "Possibly, it's also a ploy to fool there griffins. This all remains to be seen."

"What do we do now?" he said.

"We follow them," I said.

We landed beside the tent. When the coast was clear, Gripey ripped a hole in the side of it and we both walked through.

"What's this?" Lord of Schematics said. "Visitors?"

We didn't see Sweetie yet. Apparently, she wasn't quite inside the tent yet, which was annoying. "Hello!" I said, waving with a smile on my lips.

"And you too," Lord of Schematics said, pointing at Gripey.

"Vexy," Gripey said. "Hey, buddy!"

Vexy looked us up and down. "What are you two doing here?"

"When's she coming?" I said, leaning to the side to see what was going on behind Vexy.

"I just killed her," Vexy said.

"Then we're slightly too late. Drats!" I said.

Then, something hit me! "What is it?" Gripey said.

I looked at him, aghast. "We need to leave. I was wrong. This was not a good idea."

The tent around us stretched out and ripped itself apart. "What's happening?" Gripey said.

"This is a disaster," I said.

I saw a black shape in front of me.

"What are you doing here?" he said. "I thought you were gone for, but you're back... I think."

"No, I never forgot. I know I ought to but... this is fascinating, F-5226. May I inquire as to how you did it?" he said.

"Hookbeak's promise went like this," I heard my voice say. "From this day forward, no griffin will ever lay a claw on you to harm you, until, should the day arrive, that you harm one of them."

I ran toward the shape. Then, the air pulsed around me and I was lifted into the air. "Augh," I said.

I woke up. Everything was black. I fumbled forward through the darkness.

"Where am I?"

"Where are you?" she said.

"You're real!" I said, hugging her face in my hooves. "Oh my!"

I collapsed on the ground. Sweetie stood beside me. What was going on?

Poof!

I ran toward myself, touching myself.

It was dark.

Light came back.

She lay on top of me.

"You!" I said, pushing her off. She lay on the ground now. I pulled her up and pushed her toward the water.

She collapsed beside the water. "Hey!" she said. "Stop pushing. Pushing is not nice."

"Look into the water," I said.

"No!" she said, trying to run away. I grabbed her in my magic and put her down beside the water.

"Do it," I said.

"No, I don't want to."

"Remember this lake?" I said.

"No!" she said.

I grabbed her with my hooves. "Snap out of it."

Stars moved through the forest, and then, a purple storm of colors shot through the trees.

They soared through the air.





"You weren't kidding when you said that each star is a wish."

"I never kid," she said.

"Aaah!" This liquid of rainbows soared around my body.

I was hit in the head. "Ouch," I said.

When I woke up, I felt myself getting pulled. I blinked a few times. Then, I arose, only to find myself by a hill that overlooked a great field. On the one side of the field, there were the mines, on the other side were a covering of rolling hills, but the field was the centerpiece, and the clouds were dark and imposing now. I heard rumblings in the dark.

"Since you insist on staying alive, I thought that maybe I should offer you something," she said.

I stumbled to my feet. "What?"

"Your mind back," she said. "Do you miss it?"

"What did you do to me?" I said.

"I guess it wasn't so obvious," she said. She turned around. Her eyes shone, and then, the shine vanished, making way for two black holes, surrounded by light. "Come here, girl."

I stumbled on over to her. "This is a disaster," I said.

"That's what tripped me up," she said. "You returning to the tent is what tripped me up, so you didn't have the wrong idea."

"Tripped," I said.

"Sweetie," she said. "You weren't kidding. You really did figure it out over and over, again, but no matter that, you still kept forgetting it."

"..."

"Each new cycle," she said. "Every time we record what you did, it creates a new cycle. We take the knowledge of what you did, send it back in time, and badabing-badaboom, you're a changed person again."

"Uh," I said.

"I want you to enjoy the show, since you've grown to hate murder, and love puppies and stuff. You're such a swell person, Sweetie," she said.

"Um," I said.

"There are eight different versions of you. Well, there are seven now, because one just got blown inside the griffin encampment. Occasionally, one of them will take your place. In the meantime, we imprison you, and then, we use the dream transcript on you again."

"Ug?" I said.

"Okay, and then, we split off your memories so you don't remember what happened," she said.

"Urm," I said.

"Except this time, it was the eye. You have been conditioned to suffer when you see the eye," she said.

"Right," I said.

"Right," she said. "You get it yet? So it's all you. You do all the dirty work. All we have to do is to try to make it as coherent as possible for you."

"Shut up," I said.

"After all, these are all just memories. You're just remembering that things are about to happen, because you're all the same person taken from different points in time and sent back to the same time to relive the same memories."

"You're the most mean person I know," I said.

"Yeah, yeah. I know," she said.

"I know that's the truth. I figured that out ages ago. I just thought that it would ruin any chance of escape I had at all to reveal it," I said.

"Oh?"

"And the point isn't the, quote, dream transcript. The point is to send us back in time and then change our brains enough so that the memories vanish, right?" I said.

"..."

"The dream transcript is just a red herring," I said. "There is no transcript. The transcript is all a lie."

"Okay, that's false," she said.

"I can keep up," I said.

"Right," she said. "The... well, the dream transcript is actually just a piece of text."

"..." I screamed, within.

"It's not... it's just... it's the thing you look at when you dream," she said.





When I was awake, I thought I was asleep. I wandered the hallways of this keep.

I coughed. I stuck my head into the lake, drinking a mouthful of water.

Where was everyone?

"Good show," nameless said.

I rolled over and lay on my back. "Ugh." I coughed some more.

"How do you feel?" she said.

"No," I said. I stood and I shook her. "Where are they?"

"How should I know?" she said.

I ran through the trees over to where the campsite should be, but it was abandoned. "Jelly abandoned me," I said.

"Sad but true," she said.

"No!" I said. "She wouldn't do that."

"Then, how do you explain what happened?" she said.





Back in Gloverton, we had just flown away, all sitting on Gripey's back. "Where are we going?" I said.

I saw that eye way over there in the air.

It struck me. I was blown away, way off course, of course.

No, that's not the way it happened. I was talking to Jelly.

"Is this... she... tricked me?"

"Yes, she did," I said.

Then, the whole world opened up again. I was standing with Lyretex by the lake. "What is going on?" she said. "She... she looked into the lake."

"You are looking into the lake, you mean," I said.

"She... she saw..." she said.

"Look closer," I said.

"What are you saying?" Lyretex said, looking slightly shook, but calm. "It's only... a reflection of... OH NO. AAAAAAAAA!"

Just like that, the bubble was popped, not just for me but for her too.





Lyretex led me through a gnarled, twisted path. It was an unintuitive path, full of broken branches and twisted roads. Then, we saw nameless again, atop that hill.

"You lied to me," Lyretex said to nameless.

Nameless turned around. "What in heaven's name!"

I stood there, glaring at nameless. "And me... too."

"No, I didn't lie. I said that you are Sweetie." She glanced at me. "Yes, you are. That doesn't mean she isn't, too."

"That's what the dreams are!" Lyretex said. "They're memories of when I used to be Sweetie Belle."

"Oh, behave!" nameless said.

"That's why you said I was just a memory," I said. "What I remember is totally dependent on what happens to Lyretex."

Nameless shrugged. "Yes, so?"

"So that's why my memory is all over the place," I said. "We're the same person, but she is the earlier version of me, so she can control what happens to my memories, simply by her very acts, so even though I have some freedom, it's still totally dependent on what she does."

"You didn't know?" she said. "I thought... well."

"I know about the metaphor, but I didn't know that was the literal truth," I said.

"Okay?" nameless said. "Look, I've actually got important stuff to do, and believe it or not, I have a hard time making time for ponies like you and your little issues, all your lives."

"That means..." I said. "But... so when I entered the tent."

"It must've created some sort of paradox," Lyretex said, but somehow, this little black, frizzled creature was the real Sweetie Belle. The original Sweetie Belle?

"You're both so fascinating," nameless said, with a snarl.

I gasped. "And Gripey is still with the griffins. We have to save him, too," I said.

"That's why I could control her thoughts," Lyretex said.

"Again! You're both brilliant, logical geniuses," nameless said. "Is there anything else?"

"You WILL help Gripey," I said, walking up to her and poking her in the chest. "You will fix this mess."

The big bad blue dragon landed on the hill right behind nameless. "Touch," it said.

"And what happens if I don't?" she said. "What's in it for me?"

"Well, I guess you'd know that better than I do," I said.

Her eyes lit up, literally. They became full of light. "I just had a brilliant idea, Sweetie," she said.

"What?" I said.

She pulled me off to the side, pulling at my hoof. "Listen here," she said.

"Yes?" I said.

"You want to save your friend? That's great. Very loyal of you. I want to get to the mines. That's why I came here. We can kill two birds with one rock. Pardon the expression. I know you don't like killing, but that's why this is a brilliant idea," she said.

"What do you want me to do?" I said.

She laughed. "It's not what you do. You are powerless, Sweetie. It's what I DO!"

"Huh?" I said.

Lyretex ran up. "I don't think Sweetie wants anything to do with you."

"You're Sweetie," nameless said, pushing her away. "Have you lost the script?"

"I- I'm Sweetie?" she said, blubbering. "Uwaa!" She ran off, screaming.

"Listen," nameless said, putting her cold hoof over my back. You'd imagine something that shines so strongly would have a warmer hoof, but no, it was cold as the night. "I will attack the mines in a few hours, leaving no survivors, okay? If I don't, the griffins are ready to do the same thing, so this is what I will want you to agree to. If you agree that it's okay for me to attack the mines now, killing all the ponies, then I will help Gripey, but this is where it gets interesting, for you see, if you don't agree, then I will actually not attack the mines until the griffins have. Okay? This means that if the griffins attack the mines, killing everyone, which they always do, I will be forced to kill all the griffins instead. This will result in... ?"

"More deaths?" I said.

"Oh, yes," she said.

"But won't the griffins just attack you once you've taken the mines, and then the same thing will happen in reverse?" I said.

"They won't get close to the mines before I'm gone," she said. "Even if they do, they still aren't ready to attack, and they're defenseless, but I won't attack them unless they attack me first, see? In any case, the chance of more deaths, or in fact, the certainty that everyone will die is magnified if the griffins take the mines before I do, because unlike the other parties involved, I have never left a survivor... at least not intentionally." She said that last part quickly, with a grin. "The point, the overarching point, is that it's up to you."

I mulled this over for a moment. "How can you be so sure of the outcome?" I said.

"I've seen it," she said.





We crashed down into the griffin encampment. "Hey!" nameless said. Bullets flew toward her. "Ouch, ow. Stop. Ow. Ow."

"The sheer self-parodical nature of this moment is hard to overstate," I said, as the bullets rinsed her body.

No, of course they did no damage, none at all, and this was all a joke. "Ow, ow. Stop it. Ow. I'm dying over here!" she said.

She had the oddest sense of humor, this character. "Are you done?" I said.

"No, but tell me when they are," she said, still being hammered away at from all directions.

I couldn't believe it. This was beyond ridiculous. The griffins stopped firing. She jumped to the ground. We had been sitting on the back of the blue dragon. I jumped to the ground.

"Hello!" nameless said.

The encampment was a long stretch of tents, forming a road going by them. They were on each side, clearly forming a path. The tents were closed, not open, but they had little slits from which you could open them. It was a mostly quiet place now. The griffins all had their weapons pointed at us. "Who is this?" a griffin said, walking out from a tent. He had a big hat on with the insignia of a claw on it. I recognized it from somewhere.

"I am," nameless said. "And this is Sweetie Bot, and Ezelipoli."

"Touch," the dragon said. It breathed out a long breath, and smoke surrounded us.

I couldn't help but to cough. "What is this madness?" I said.

"His name," nameless said, looking at me, "is Ezelipoli."

"So?" I said.

She shook her head. "Get it right."

What was she talking about?

"You," the griffin with the hat said. "I recognize you."

"I have come to make a deal," nameless said, with a grin.

"What?" he said.

"You let me reach the mines first. I will attack the mines. All you have to do is to stay away, and then, I'll do my business there and disappear from your lives forever."

"Specify what you mean," he said.

It's true that nameless had a tendency to be overly vague when trying to answer very specific questions. "My army attacks the mines. You stay away until we have attacked the mines. Then, we leave the mines without attacking you," she said, "and all you have to do is to release Gripey, whom I assume you have imprisoned now." She stood there in silence, waiting for him to respond, but no response came. 

"What else?" he said.

"Isn't that enough?" nameless said, tilting her head to the side. "What more could there be?"

"What do we get out of letting you acquire an important administrative and strategic position of this half of Equestria," he said, the griffin removing his hat and holding it in his hand. He put his talons to the ground, hat clenched in claws. "I thought you had been disposed of back in Ponyville."

"Ponies always think that," nameless said. "They'll think that in Canterlot too in a few weeks." She took a step forward. A bullet hit her head. "But the deal?" She was unrattled, this crazy child.

"It's not enough," the griffin said.

"Let it be," nameless said, and Ezelipoli growled and let out a cloud of smoke toward the commanding griffin. "Or I will, um, burn you alive."

"Okay," the griffin said. "Then I'm forced to."

A bullet hit the dragon, but again, nothing happened. "Touch," Ezelipoli said, which was mysterious to me. "Fire." He let out another cloud of smoke, and the griffins thinking fire, fired a whole bunch of ammunition at the dragon, but it was unscathed.

"Please," nameless said. "It's only to make it easier for you. If you do not agree, I might have to kill you all later."

Ummm... unfair! Well, it's just... this story is moving fast now, isn't it? It' so... frustrating to see what happened.

I was deceived too, as you'll learn.





I was strapped to a chair. I was back by the hill again. "Is he safe?" I said.

"Yes, but I guess he returned to the Outpost Mines," she said.

"But that's suicide!" I said.

"Well, warning him wasn't part of the deal though, was it?" she said, scowling at me. "Silly Sweetie."

"I guess keeping me free was not, either," I said.

The hill overlooked this massive field. It was actually a good lookout spot, though I also imagine that a stray bullet could make it a bad lookout spot if the onlookers were not careful.

"I'll free you," nameless said. "I've already gone out of my way to keep you alive. This is just too exciting." She swept her hoof over the field. "You'll witness a spectacle soon."

"Don't be so sure you'll win," I said, tied down into this annoying chair. "You don't always have to win, you know."

"Haven't you heard? I cannot lose," nameless said, grinning at me and sitting down on the grass beside the chair. "Do you recognize the chair? They're the standard issue chairs back at the Facility of Technology. It's the kind you used inside your cubicle when you used to live there. Fun, huh? I know it's nothing special, but I just thought it would be poetic, and perhaps comfortable in a way since you're used to it now, aren't you?"

I looked into her eyes. She was insane! "Look. L- forget it!" I said.

Slowly, hundreds of wooden catapults rolled out over the field, stopping in a long column. It was one long row of catapults for as long as the eye could see. From the horizon, MEWODs materialized. Have I ever told you what MEWOD stands for? Well... actually, I'll tell you later. It's funny, but perhaps it's not relevant now. A black shape zoomed across the gloomy, cloudy sky, and then a cloud of smoke barreled up from the ground.

"Time?" Aldeus said, giant, black, staring down with those red demon eyes of his that I knew him for. In a way, this felt all too familiar. I had been in this kind of situation before, but now, all I could do through all this ridiculous savagery and over-the-top evil was to worry about Gripey my friend who would in fact die, no matter how real or not all this evil was. Even if these ponies were out of their minds, and even though they wanted to do unnecessarily terrible things to others just because they thought that it helped their grand plan in some trivial way, I would still get punished for it, and so would Gripes, even if I wanted it... or not of course.

"Execute," nameless said.

Aldeus took off into the air at great speeds. A big row of rocks gathered and landed on each catapult, shining blood-red, courtesy of Aldeus. His voice now boomed through the silent air, the previously silent air, "One-eighty position!"

"Yes," nameless said. "Have you ever been to a battle on this scale before? Well! It's not really a battle. A battle has casualties on both sides. This is more of a... a standoff. How's that?" She blinked at me. Her shining eyes died down and became black and hollow. "Are you listening?"

"Yes," I said, depressed.

All of the catapults fired in succession, and then they started rolling down the field. As the catapults slowly rolled, hundreds of MEWODs, these tanks, took their position in front of the catapults, offering them cover.

Something caught my eye. "There's no one there."

"Where?" nameless said. "I can't see." She held her hoof over her eyes, as if to cover them from the light above. It was a joke, since her whole body was made of light. There was no cover for her, anyway. "Where?" 

"On the field!" I said. "It's just the catapults and the tanks."

She pouted. "That's odd!"

The catapults rolled onward, but it was a slow trek. It took a while for them to get somewhere. All the while, they reloaded and fired rocks at nothing. There was no one to fire rocks at. Huh? "Nameless!" I said.

"Yes?" she said.

"What are you doing?" I said.

She stood up and walked to the side of the chair. Then, she pointed at the opening to the mines. "They're waiting for us to come," she said. A bunch of rocks from the catapults struck right near the entrance to the mines. "Once the catapults are in sight, they'll come out. That's when we spring the MEWODs on them, Sweetie Bot." 

"What happens then?" I said.

"They'll return back inside, and then, we'll retreat and aim all our firepower at the entrance to the mines, closing it," she said.

There seemed to be some holes in this plan. "First of all, how will you get into the mines? Even if you can, doesn't that mean they can get out? An entrance for you would be an exit for them, and you weren't even planning on trapping them."

"You're such a stickler," nameless said. "Do you assume that I had not thought of this? I would give anything to see what's going on inside your brain." The MEWODs now departed in two opposite directions. "It's a trap, slick. That's the point. It's not to trap them though. No, never! It's to kill them, slick." She pointed at the catapults. "Soon enough, too, you should know. Give it all you got, if you think you can save them."

"How would I be able to save them? I'm stuck here." I wiggled, showing that I'm stuck.

"You even talk like a hero," she said, pouting at me. "Oh! Please don't kill them. I'll do anything. Anything!"

"I never said that," I said.

"No," she said. "But you might as well have." 

According to her prediction, they were now coming out of the cave. "Why lead them out?" I said.

"Well, they need to come out just long enough so that they'll see that they cannot win."

What followed was pure chaos! Pieces of mortars flew all over the place. Troops from the Outpost scattered in different directions, but eventually, they all were about to return into the mines. Aldeus landed beside us again. "Yes," he said, sounding impatient and impetuous.

"All systems. Full power!" nameless said, with the trademark blitheness that I had come to identify with her.

"Yes," Aldeus said, flying away.

"Brilliant," nameless said. "Now, this is... where it gets good!"

Aldeus immediately landed beside us again. "Your grace," he said.

"Yes?" nameless said. "Give the order, already."

Out there, far out on the field, I saw a glint of something. "There has been a... development," he said.

"Oh, really?" nameless said, turning to face him.

"Yes," he said. "The griffins are... well, they're mobilized and on the fields."

"Oh!" nameless said, jerking back.

"Orders then?" he said.

"Well, from what direction are they coming?" nameless said.

"East," he said.

"Brilliant!" nameless said. "Then, activate the second option."

"Plan B," he said

"Yes," nameless said, suddenly sounding slightly nervous. "Go!"

"What?" I said. "What's happening?"

"Nothing!" nameless said. "Don't worry. They will die soon."

This will take some effort to describe. So, the griffins soon came upon the field, within my field of vision. I saw them moving forward. Bolts of lightning struck down in their half of the field, preventing their advance. As the MEWODs, all gathered on the western side where the mines were, shot their mortars, the griffins engaged in a series of complex maneuvers. One griffin flew toward the lightning, flew back, and then barreled forward through the air. Another griffin threw a spear, saw the lightning strike down, and then, in the nick of a second later, flew forward, but then, no lightning struck down.

This harkens back to part 39 where this happened:

We stood in a line, and walked through, very swiftly!

Then, we got to the ginormous wall on the other side of the small doored wall.

We flew up and to the edge of it. Gripey held something. He threw it. Lightning struck down. Then, he flew around the lightning.

"That's how you deal with that," he said.

I remembered then, as I do today. That was something that actually happened, but oh so how? This will be explained, as will all, actually, in part... 60. Surprised? Don't be. Just follow along, but don't feel that... I'm stringing you along. I'm not. It's just... a defect of these events, complex as they appear to be, to me.

The griffins were filling up the field, at any rate. Aldeus landed beside us again. "It seems that... we are losing?" he said, quizzically and very loudly.

"It would appear so..." nameless said, seeing the griffins come forward, pulverizing the scraggly wooden catapults with their guns. "Tell you what! Do a one-eighty point five maneuver." She smiled, but the smile was completely panicked, which fascinated me. She was not on top of things, anymore, this character.

Aldeus flew away, issuing the order in a loud voice. "One-eighty point five!" Every other catapult across the field turned in the opposite direction to face the griffins, and that was that. The rocks they slung did little damage against the griffins' dancelike attack, however, and as they pirouetted through the air, nameless conceded.

Nameless grew tendrils out of her sides, like the legs on a spider and stood up over me and over the combatants far out in the field. "Retreat, please!" she shouted. 

Aldeus landed beside us. "No, fight to the last survivor," he said.

"Tomorrow," nameless said. "I just have something to sort out."

"Promise?" he said.

"Promise," she said, and as she said it, she winced slightly, as if damage had been done to her.

He flew away. "Retreat toward the docks," he said.

His voice boomed.

The smoke cleared.

The griffins retreated from the field.

I was alive, but who was I?

I...

I...

Well! That's another story!
> Part 56: Saving Jelly
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mechanical Electric Wagons Of Destruction. That's what it means. Simple enough, huh? Actually, it's more than simple, and it's more than intuitive, tuition for understanding these ideas, low! No-no-no. It's more than that. It's a fact. Facts are simple. Facts are true. Don't be blue. A part of you, facts can be, as they are. No holds barred on revealing that, I don't think, no-no-no. Ho-ho-ho! No-no-no. Or?

Is reality as impenetrable as a block of ice, which is to say, somewhat impenetrable, but not fully? What is the nature of reality, its true nature? No, I mean, really? What is the nature of truth? It's a good story, a good reality, and a bad one, an evil reality. That's the nature of morals. Morals describe our conceptions of reality. They certainly make it up in an important way.

Reality is approached from afar, as if through a telescope. It's almost as if that's what reality is. Now, I don't mean to frighten, offend, stupefy, or come across as a stupid person, any of those, but you need to realize that this story goes a lot deeper than I would have liked, or wanted it to, which is to say that a change is coming up soon. This change does explain a lot.

Don't say we did not warn you of the hurdles to come. They are many, but we'll get through them together, you, I, and the next person. Salute, and see you later!





It's all so frustrating. You know what I mean?

Flashes of horror overcome the weak, but the more I look, the more I see, that the weak is... all me.

I see.

I landed on a meadow, as they are and look.

You know how a meadow looks?

Sorry for changing topics. Never mind. Nay does it matter, no. No. No.

I saw her beside me. She was so shiny.

"The image," I said. "It came from... you." I was dreaming again, but at least, I was conscious of it.

Nameless screeched. "No. Don't look. This dream... where did it come from? I did not create it. Why would I?"

"Didn't you say that to understand and deal with one's suffering, one must relive it?" I said.

"Yeah, but I'll die of grief before I have the time to do that," she said.





I woke up. "It wasn't me... ?"

"What?" Gripey said.

"The... the... well..." I said.

He rubbed his eyes. "What's the matter?"

"It's... all that... pain?" I said. "It comes from... her dreams... I know now. I know what we must do now, though, Gripes."

"Sleep out the night?" he said, hopefully.

I nodded. "Yeah, all right."

The night held many surprises in store for me.





Jelly was hanged.

I saw her hanging from a support beam in a harbor, somewhere.

That was the gist of it, essentially.





The next time I woke up, I had a new plan.

"Gripes," I said. "You have to pretend for me now, though I do not like this exercise."

"To what end?" he said.

"Saving Jelly," I said.

A few quiet whispers in the early morning later, and we were off.

Outside the docks where I had arrived with Ferrin and Eventide, I heard commotion.

"That's something," I said.

He looked at me. "How do you know all this?"

"Dreams," I said.

"What a dreamer you are then," he said.

I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic, and I never cared enough to ask. "Come," I said.

A mare with a cold, dead stare stood there. "Who are you? Names... please," she said, looking off from us, as if she only had to see us in the periphery to know that we were there.

"You know me," I said, smiling faintly.

She looked straight at me. "You are the troublesome subject," she said. "That is fair. Thank you for arriving. We will be with you to correct your body, shortly, subject F-5226."

She was standing at the beginning of a long wooden structure, a building that stretched out onto the docks and over the water. It had a roof in parts, and not in others. The weather was stormy, a stormy morning. "Yes," I said, without nodding or anything.

"I am," Gripey said, walking her by, as I had.

"Yes," I said again, going by some cyborgs that were carrying planks of wood.

He whispered into my ear. "How did you know that would work?"

"Because I used to be one of them," I said, aloud. "They're socially inept creatures."

"Huh?" he said.

"Don't emote!" I said. "Please. Be without emotion, as much as possible. A smile is a greeting, not a show of joy, and if you think it is, then they will look at you as aberrant, and needing to be removed."

"They're pretty cold, these guys," he whispered.

I glared at him, without saying anything. A pony walked by. He glared at Gripey. The pony's eyes turned to me. He looked at me. Then, he turned his nose into the air and walked away. "Stop whispering," I said, stomping down on Gripey's foot. "You're arousing suspicion."

"And you're not?" he said, seeming unaffected by my foot-stomping. 

I glared at him even more. "No! You speak normally. It's the tone of it that arouses suspicion, not the content."

"Seems convenient," he said.

"Listen!" I said. "These ponies are freaking psychos. They're not like you. They're certainly more like me than they're like you."

"Don't be like that," he said.

"Whatever," I said.

I kept walking forward. He stayed behind me. We weren't stopped or anything. We reached the end of the bridge.

A pony stood there, glancing around, back and forth. "Wares. Wares. Wares. Wood. Four pieces. Five pieces," he said, in a disinterested voice. "No passage," he said, as we came by. "Six. No, that is wrong." He walked over to a pony that was holding a plank the wrong way. "Adjust. Adjust."

I shrugged and walked by where he had stood. Gripey followed me. We came to a crossing in the pier. It was the end of the line, the path ended in a crossing where two bridges jutted out, one to the right and another to left, out in both directions from the first one. "Sweetie!" I heard Jelly's voice say.

"This is unbelievable," I said, running forward to see where the voice was coming from. She was hanging in a rope tied around her body at a great height. "Jelly!"

I stepped forward. A large shape barreled down through the air and landed between me and her. "Fancy seeing you around here," nameless said.

"Uh," I said.

"Come on. There are no one else here but us, you and your friend. You can spit it out," she said. She sat atop that blue dragon, Ezelipoli. 

Gripey clasped his head. Then, he grabbed a piece of wood off the pier, breaking it off, and slung it toward nameless.

"Whoa!" she said, falling off the dragon. "You guys," she said, laughing. "There aren't even any prisoners anymore. You are free to go. Run away."

"Why do you want to kill Jelly?" I said.

"Who said I did?" nameless said, shrugging. "Run along, now."

"A dream," I said.

"Well, you are out of order, and so are your dreams," nameless said. "She's meant to die. It's unpreventable, even if I do it."

"Well, that seems a bit circular, don't you think?" I said.

She shrugged. "Meh!"

Ezelipoli flew up and landed atop the beam to which Jelly was tied. "Rrrr," he said.

Nameless shook her head at me, slowly and condescendingly. "Still, I suppose I owe you thanks for exposing the incompetence of my volunteer army. I guess I'll deal with the relevant subjects... when you are dead. At least die easy, if you're going to be such a destabilizing force." 

I looked at her, carefully. "A destabilizing force... something." Something came back to me. "Gripes..."

Nameless grinned. "Kill them!"

Ezelipoli jumped off the beam and roared at us. Gripey put me on his back as a cloud of smoke and hot cinders came our way. "Touch, touch. Fiery touch," the dragon said. It chased after us. Gripey flew into some boxes. We both scrambled, trying to catch our bearings. We saw fire around us. Gripey threw something at the dragon, but it seemed to have little effect. 

"Hold on!" he said, putting me back on his back. The blue beast jumped through the boxes. Gripey took a stab at his eyes with his claws. 

Ezelipoli slid back and turned to us, growling. "Ungrateful low sod of the earth," he said, shooting out fire at us.

Gripey took off into the air. He flew away across the water. "Jelly," I said.

"Well, not dying!" Gripey said. 

"Yeah, but you always have a chance when there's one," I said, harkening back a memory. That was something he had said once.

Gripey kept flying. "Yeah, but this guy's fast, especially for his siz- duck!"

I ducked. Fire plumed above our heads. "We cannot let her die," I said.

"I know that," he said. "Any ideas, you know, except for stating the obvious?"

Yes! "Go north," I said.

"What's up north?" he said.

"A surprise," I said.

"Kay," he said, shifting his weight.

We zoomed straight through the currents of the air. The dragon was closing in on us bit by bit. "Now!" I said. "Fly close to the water."

"Why?" he said.

"Do it!" I said.

He did, thankfully. "What n–"

The disgruntled, amphibian sea beast came up through the water, clenched its jaw around Ezelipoli as he followed us through the terrain, and sank back down again. It was suddenly all quiet. 

"That," I said.

Gripey stared at the quiet water, the NOW quiet water. "What in the world!" he said.

"That's... the sea beast," I said.

"No kidding," he said. "That was... unbelievable."

"Yeah," I said. "It is, isn't it?"

Jelly! I shook atop his back. "Yeah, we'll go find her," he said.

The dragon came spinning out of the water. "Roorg!"

"Whoa!" Gripey said.

It spun around, splashing water at us, and screeched. "My skiiin. My skiiin. They hurt me, eye. They hurt me. Nooo!" It promptly flapped its wings unevenly, as they were tattered and full of holes now, and flew away, far far away.

"Uh..." I said

Gripey simply turned and flew back toward the docks. "Let's not question anything. We need to think about a child who's in danger."

"Right," I said.





We pulled Jelly down. Half the docks were on fire now, and completely abandoned. "Sweetie," she said. "What happened?"

"What?" I said. 

"You shoved me off," she said.

Gripey clapped Jelly on the head. "It seems you're delirious. I just pulled you down. That was–"

"No, I mean yesterday," Jelly said. "It was you!" She pointed at me.

"Huh?" I said.

She snapped. "You think you can just keep going about it like this, acting like everything's fine, and then treating me like dirt? I thought we were friends. I trusted you. I trusted you. What did you do with that trust? You threw it away. That's what you did with it."

"We just saved you," I said, looking at Gripey. He seemed as helpless as I was, not knowing what to do.

"Gaslighting," Jelly said.

I looked at her for a few seconds. "It..." I realized. "It wasn't me."

"What?" Jelly said.

"It wasn't me," I said.

"Then who was it? Your identical twin?" Jelly shrieked.

I nodded. "It wasn't me."

"Then who was it?" she said.

"Lyretex," I said. "Or... more accurately... it was a filly I met long ago."





All the three of us returned back to the Outpost Mines. "You are back, alive?" Lyretex said. "What news. Be they good or bad, they are news. Heheh!" She looked and sounded awkward. 

"I didn't recognize you at first," I said. "Nexus..."

"Heheh! What?" she said.

"In the nexus of the dream, huh?" I said, thinking back to something. "Well, that's just swell, ain't it?"

Gripey simply grabbed her and tied her around a stalactite in the cave. "Let go of me!" she said.

"No!" I said. "You let go of yourself, if you can. But I have some questions for you."

"Oh, damn it! Damn it! Damn it! You don't understand," Nexus said. "I don't want to go back there!"

"Right," I said. "No one does."

"You want the truth? You can't handle the truth," she said.

"Stop spouting scripted clichés at me," I said.

She stared at me. "So what?" she said.

"You are..." I said.

"I didn't know. I honestly didn't know," she said. "If I had known I was Sweetie Belle, I wouldn't have followed you around like that. I was deceived too."

"I certainly hope so," I said. "I certainly hope so, for your sake."

"The court hired me as an enforcer, nothing more. I don't know anything about it," Nexus said. "Just let me go, already."

"No!" I said.

"She's..." Nexus said. "I... uuurg. She's just a victim like you."

"Who is?" I said.

"The one you call nameless. She's just like you. That's why she- she's like all of us. She's a... demon of some kind. I don't know how to explain it. Let me show you," she said.





"Aaah!" she screamed.

Someone was on top of her.

That's what she told me.

It was dark.

Anyway, I know stories are not commonly looked at as means by which to relive one's trauma. In this particular case, well, just, see for yourself. You don't know, do you?

:) I will survive, though. I am resolved on that point.

Pain is precise. 

Does understanding pain work so as to relieve it? Relive it? Pain is precise. 

That's the answer. 

What I have been told are hallucinations and memories also provide an answer for me.

T-t-t-take what you can get from the things that offer that value to you. You might get turned inside out if you discriminate too much between people and things that offer some comfort, and genuine help.

Does help exist? Pain is precise. In order to speak about one's experience, one must relive it. Relieving? No.

Ha!

Honestly, just think about how it was for me before you think that I'm doing this as a show of emotional manipulation. This story has been an attempt at representing something that in its own way was real to me.

It was stark. It was stark. Eyes are stark. Lights can feel dark, if you want to avoid them. Yes.

Don't... just don't... I don't know.

The hedging I do also shows my insecurity.

I have something to say, though.

We made plans together. It was dark.

Okay, so being stretched to the point of exhaustion is... exhausting? Yes.

Expressing it is disrespecting it. Yes. Doing it does not honor what it is, because it's worse than it can seem when I write about it.

We... made... absolute... vague... stark... pain... of... frank... exhaustion.

Haaa!

Is that friendship, nameless?

Thank the stars that I'm still alive to say your name, and disrespect you.

This is how it went, in a few words.

It was in the day. It was random. It was like another day to me. It was common, in a way, to me. I felt normal, I think. I was pushed down on the ground.

To be continued!
> Part 57: The (surprising) Gloverton Four-way Battle for the Outpost
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

How to survive? Both within and without, there are dangers to your survival. There's also something worse. You ever been in a war? If not, do you imagine that it would feel good, or perhaps honorable to win such a war, whatever war you can ever imagine? I was in... well... so... precise, a war of clicks and shifts of motion.

Being a soldier means that you get to do something exciting. It means adventure. It means wonder and joy. That's a myth.

Being a soldier most often means that you feel serene, and then you don't, and then, very likely, you run the risk of dying.

Being a soldier actually means pain, and who's an expert in pain? Well, the one that most precisely knows how to...

... be nameless. Without a name, you can cause as much pain as you want. Once you're given a name and let out into the real world, that's the scariest part of all. That means you can be spoken about as if you were real, which you are.

Being real means you can be discussed and understood. Being real means more than a sacrifice. It means being able to feel pain. Understanding pain means feeling it. Did I lose you there?

It hardly matters...





In any case, some people really do want to suffer. That's a kind of... weird abstract notion.

I looked out across the plains. "They will be returning," I said.

The King of Gloverton Whasper South stood behind me. "I know," he said.

"You will die," I said, turning around, not having known that he was there.

He smiled at me. "I disagree. Survival is not an option for us. Survival is obligatory, and it will happen."

"Faith," I said. "I wish I had some of that."  

He walked up by my side. "In any case... if we leave, we are dead regardless, so what does it matter, filly?"

"It matters," I said. "If you really want to suffer and die hard, it matters."

"At the behest of?"

"OH!" I said. "Take your pick. These griffins are perfect psychopaths. And the robots are somehow even worse. I don't know how it's possible, but they are."

He chuckled ever so softly. "I know, but I cannot allow it."

"You're doomed either way," I said. "Don't squander your only chances to find freedom and survival, slim and negligible as they are."

"There will never be any freedom," he said, "unless we defend our homeland."

"Suicide," I said.

He looked at me. "I..." He shut his eyes. "I want to believe you're wrong."

"Me too," I said, sighing and turning my gaze away from him. "Me too."

For the record, I want to describe the odds, and I also want to describe the situation on the ground. I wish there was more time to do this, but there are other even more important things to get to.

Gloverton Whasper South, small kingdom, had an army of 300 or 307 soldiers, depending on if you count the underage participants or not, which I guess you should. They were well-armed and well-fed, which is a kind of a military cliché, but nonetheless true. They had spears. Many of them knew how to use magic offensively, which is a much touted ability that very few ponies had and have. To boot, they were strongly motivated by a kind of jingoistic fervor that I had trouble relating to. Why not run away? They could find a new land anywhere. There are many uninhabited places, and no one would dissuade them of their right to live inside the borders of Equestria the Kingdom.   

Still, their enemies might hunt them down, one of which is well-known to the reader already. Its name is nameless, which is to say that it lacks a name. It was far too late to run away now, but they might have done it sooner. Now, they stood on the brink of battle with an army that's 500 000, five-hundred thousand, ponies strong. Since I am interested in numbers, I did some back of the envelope calculations to figure out how the kill ratio would have to look for the good side to be victorious. It does not look pretty. Every Gloverton soldier would have to kill 1666 and a half cyborg to stand a chance at winning the war. This does not even take the griffins into consideration, however. 

The griffins are... well, weird. Their fighting style looks like a dance. They have more powerful weapons than anyone, including nameless, more firepower! They probably amounted to about 5000, five-thousand, in the day that the battle took place. The griffins are many. They're extraordinarily well-trained. They fight like trained robots... which is a tidbit that's interesting. Well, they did! Not to change tense again... I guess, that they did, not that they do. I guess I have dropped the lead already, but seriously, how do you expect me to still be alive if I had kept running from her? If they had lost that battle, then... but they didn't. Impossible? Probably. It's likely. 

To claim that everything is possible just because you know that it could happen in the counterfactual sense of the word "possible" does dishonor to what it means for something actually to be possible. Okay, this last sentence was a mouthful. I guess what I'm trying to say is that probabilistic truths aren't actually, how they say, true, in the sense that they tell you nothing about each individual case. Another fun observation is that this battle was one of those one in a millionth type battles where everything seemed to go wrong for the two sides that have all the odds in their favor. I mean, really! It's shocking how much the griffins underestimated these 300 ponies, and it's astonishing how nameless squandered one of the biggest armies in the history of... well, history.

This is all to say, well, again, that... we kind of... could not... win. I mean, it's... think about the likelihood, but again, think about the exceptions to the rule. I knew it was not impossible for us to win, which we would, but we needed more than a miracle. We needed assistance from afar. That's why I asked her for help.

"You want to win my trust?" I said to Nexus.

She looked at me, looking angry. "Why?"

"Because there's nothing better that you can do," I said. "Do you want to go back to her?"

"No," she said.

"I have a mission for you," I said.

She sighed. "Do you?"

"We can save these jingoistic fools from themselves," I said.

She groaned. "You think so?"

"Sure," I said.

"But why?"

I cocked my head, moving it ever so slightly askew. "Why what?"

"Help them!" she said. "They're animals, these ponies. They will stop at nothing to preserve their dogmas of friendship and harmony. That's why we have to kill them."

I laughed. "I'll do you one better. We have to save them from themselves, and from her. It all starts with a simple... hope, Nexus." I touched her head. She pulled back. "Nexus! Listen. We cannot be at odds when these ponies and griffins that want to kill us arrive. This is the deal, okay? I don't want to kill the ponies. I know what nameless did to you, but it's over now. It's time for us to... come together again, as one."

"How?" she said. 

I smiled, and then, a grin broke out. "It all starts with... the spark!"

"The spark?"

"We have to realize that there's something wrong with us," I said. "It's all... of a piece."

Hey, reader! Reeeader! Reader! Do you think there might actually be a way for all the events of this story to come together and make sense in a coherent way, in the end, or am I dead lost on that assumption, hope, and presumption. No? Yes? There happens to be one way though, and in fact, it's very plausible. It might be what happened. It probably happened. It in fact did happen. There is an explanation. There is a way to recover from serious mental illness too, but it's complicated, and it's certainly not for me to say how you should go about doing, and ever so still, there is a case in which everything can come together and make sense. That's probably the safest assumption for you. You can rediscover reality, even when having been lost for two years, or more. It's actually more... oh, what am saying? 

You'll see.





In the end, Nexus did agree. She was to take a message with her back to Ponyville as fast as possible. Ponyville would mobilize and make due with whatever forces it had at its disposal. Ponyville might even find further help, a reprieve for us. That was my hope. Nexus would pass by the two camps without discovery, owing to her peculiar talents, one of which was to hide in the dark, as creatures like her do.

O. There's something else. "Jelly," I said. "How are you feeling?"

"Lost," she said.

"No," I said. "You feel... ?"

"I'm sorry," she said.

I sat down by her side. "For what?"

"Feeling... doubt," she said.

"I know," I said. "I know what you mean."

"Yeah," she said.

She was... feeling doubt, about me, evidently, right? "What happened back there..." I said.

"Who is this Nexus? How is this even possible?" she said.

"Yes," I said. "It's..."

"It's all so... crazy," she said.

It's all... even though it might not seem like it, actually not all that crazy, in the end, friend.





Imposing, dreary, scary, but in the end, sensical, was my life. How?

Well, wow not? Why not, dear reader?

It's all of a piece with itself. It all makes sense, unto itself. It's all itself. It's all true, actually. You'll see. You'll see. You'll see.

Who am I? Not me!

While I have been sitting here, you have been over there. Can't you see?

Can I ever be free? It depends on... you.

Stay true.

Stay true to you, you.

Do you, you.

There isn't any time left.

It all started with an explosion. Then, things flew all over. Things were dreamlike, as they are. Things shattered, and then they got worse, like a curse. I saw shrapnel, coming toward me. The world itself, yes, came toward me. And I ran.

I will never give up. I will never falter. I will never fail. I am me, as I am. Can't you see, that I am? I won't! I don't.

OH!

All...

... that...

... is...

... is...

... me.

"Nameless," I said.

I ran for cover.

We made plans together. It was dark, but it wasn't over.

It would never be over. It was all over, all-over, overly.

I cover, cowering in fear, but I can't go near, whatever it is you are.

O star.

You are what you are.

Show me your ways, o star.

Do not disappear on me now, o star.

I am not done yet. I need that which you can grant me.

It is not over yet.





It was not the last time I would behold such a sight. What I saw before me was marvelously terrifying. It was massive. It was true... ew.

I saw something run down the edges of the mountain. "Is this... ?" I said.

"I need to warn the King," Gripey said. I looked at him. It felt like a miracle that he was still at my side. What a miracle for me, I felt. A miracle it was, for me, and a miracle for... you.

"Jeez," I said. "It never ends."

What ran down was a mass of red sludge, which I did not recognize, particularly.

We were outside. Well, we had been. Now, I was the only one left out here. He had run back in. "It never ends. It never ends," I said.

"A nameless wish," a voice said. Now, I definitely DEFINITELY knew who that voice belonged to.

"Scootaloo?" I said.

"Yeah," she said. "I'm sorry to bother you, Sweetie." A bolt of lightning ominously and perhaps somewhat comically struck down behind her as she walked forth out of nowhere.

I put my hoof up to my skull and knocked on it once or twice. "Say what?" I said.

"Yeah," she said. She walked up in a huff. "So sorry, Sweetie. In a perfect world, you wouldn't be here, you understand?"

"No, actually. I don't think I do," I said.

She sighed and gasped in a single sound. "It's..."

"What?" I said.

"Well, it wasn't supposed to be you, anyhow," she said.

I scowled. "Huh?"

"No, don't take it the wrong way," she said.

I shook my head. "Me, what?" I said.

"Well," she said.

"Scoots," I said, feeling angry.

She backed away. "Okay, this is the thing. I think- I mean, you have to leave."

"What are you talking about?" I said.

"There was a mix-up," she said.

"No," I said. "Where else would I want to be but by the side of my friends, who are in fact... here?"

"A terrible mix-up," she said, emphasizing it. She tapped her hoof against the ground, one hoof. "Uuuh, it's hard to explain. I- it was meant to... get... ugh!"

"Speak clearly, stupid," I said.

She did. "Your friends are not trustworthy. No one is trustworthy. I'm not trustworthy, but at least, I'm right about this. You are about to embark on a terrible series of terrifying mishaps. I need to warn you."

"If they're not trustworthy, then you're certainly not, doubly so," I said. 

"What would I have to say to convince you?" she said.

I squinted at her with suspicion. "Who... are you?"





It's about waking up. It's about being free. It's about not being part of a dream, as a matter of fact. It's about... about. It's about what being about is about. It's all that, and much more. Oh, I am such a bore. I do not say therefore, any of this with glee. Sneeze!

It was a sunny day.

Lightning struck down.

It was a sunny day.

Something happened to my memory.

On the other side, there was something else.

"Scootaloo," I said.

On the other side, there was the real truth.

"Yes?" she said.

On the other side, there was much, much fear, I fear.

"Come out," I said.

On the other side, lies in wait, fate.

"No," she said, sounding happy.

Actually!

Let us start out at the beginning.

We were on... a trip. Yesss. We were.

We were.

Cheerilee was leading us around. "And this is an ancient monument, representing the mining success of early griffin civilizations in..."

Scootaloo didn't care. She had other things to worry about. She had been hearing a beautiful whisper that rung in her ears all the while.

"Come. Come. Come. The darkness awaits. Come, come, come, or..."

"Or what?" she said.

Cheerilee turned to look at Scootaloo. "I'm sorry?" she said.

"Nothing," Scoots said. Or what, she thought.

And never reveal, who called you here, because...

"There is not much air," Scootaloo said.

Clearly!

Since we are going around in circles here around a topic that's both complex and simple at the same time, let us return back to Ponyville to see what has been going on there.

You see, in Ponyville, Twilight had been working long and hard to eliminate a threat that she had thought was gone forever. The name of that threat, in Twilight's glistening eyes, was something that to her, resembled, and was, a mental illness. Was it?

We shall never reveal who called you here. We understand that under your veil... well! Haaah!

They... made...

okay.

Enough, right?

Let's get to the heart of the matter.





I woke up.

It's little more than a metaphor.

No, it's a lot more than a metaphor.

I woke up, feeling spry. I felt like I could breathe. Why?

I wrote in my diary, why?

I believed things, why?

It was true, why?

Well, it was, but it wasn't, at the same time.

It was, but it wasn't, at the same time.

"Hey!" Rarity said.

Suddenly, I could see clearly the things around me, reality and everything, again. "Hey..." I said. "Rarity."

She gasped and ran away. Gasp. Why do they keep doing that?





Don't worry. It was literally true, and it was a metaphor, and it was not a metaphor at the same time, so you'll get to have your cake and eat it too.

The Outpost Mines are real. I am real. What happened is real. Sweetie Belle is real. She was in Ponyville. I was not. She was experiencing things, as I was. She was experiencing things as if they were memories, and in fact, since we want to be blunt about it, these are her memories. She had been trying to make sense of them. I was part of the attempt to make sense of them.

You'll see. You'll see. You'll understand, won't you?

WAIT! Who are you?

Wait, wait, wait, wait. It was...

... mmm...

... a weapon...

and such.

Things spun. The world just spun. The air spun.

It got worse, and soon, I realized that... but it cannot be.

Not, it cannot be.

I said it cannot be.

It can't.





Actually... yeah, it can.

I realized something.

I was sitting by the outside of the mines, just awaiting the inevitable. "It's..." I said.

"Dark?" Jelly said.

"Jelly," I said. "I realized something, just now."

"What?" she said.

"I realized why," I said.

"Why what?" she said.

"I realized why," I said. "I realized why..."

"Huh?"

"Well," I said. "I'd have to show you."

"What?" she said.

"The thing," I said, not knowing how to say it.

She looked at me, blankly. "Yes?" she said.

"It's that..." I said. "I'm... not well."

"How so?"

I nodded. "Well, it's the only thing that makes sense on the face of it. Nothing else could explain it."

"Sweetie..." she said.

"It's okay," I said.

She sighed and nodded. "Yeaaah, well, you know..."

I smiled. "Let's survive this," I said.





I would survive, and that is what I could. I would, and I would, and I really, really would, because I could.

The soldiers lined up. "That's it?" Gripey said. "You can't be serious."

"I am," King Heston said.

"This is beyond suicide," Gripey said.

"Is it?" King Heston said. "You would be the judge of what might be considered as suicide, or indeed not?" He spoke through his helmet. His face was barely visible. King Heston demanded as certain degree of respect when talking to him, or else, he wouldn't reciprocate.

Gripey was frustrated, evidently. "It's just... where's the hope?" he said.

King Heston smiled. "In dying for what you believe in," he said back.

"Ridiculous," Gripey said.

"Maybe to you," he said.

Maybe to him, huh? Maybe to him, it was.

Maybe to me, it was something else.

Maybe to me, it was something, well...

... not well.

Huuuh?





...

...

...

-

-

-

~

Beep.

My eyes opened wide. I was blinded at first. Then, I saw it. I was in a room somewhere. It was... bright... on account of all the light, I might reckon, no? I think so.

Or no?

Oh.

"How are you feeling?" Jelly said.

I blinked. "Good?"

"Do you remember me?" she said.

"Of course I do," I said, feeling like it was a ridiculous question.

She whispered to me. "Are you... cold?"

"No," I said.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"For what?" I said.

Someone came running into the room.

Chaos erupted.

Soon, it all settled.

It all settled on me.

Attention settled, and all on me.

"I'm sorry too," I said.

Think about it for a moment. What does memory loss entail? Well, after a certain point, it can entail a lot. A lot, it can entail, which it does, yes! Oh, yes. Oh no? Actually, oh yes. Yes it does!

Yes, yes, yes!

"I'm sorry," I said, again.

Jelly looked at me. "It's time," she said.

"Time, yes," I said, just praying and hoping that everything was as it should be.

"It's time to go back to Ponyville, and then to Canterlot," she said.

Time, time, time! Does it matter? I guess.





I struggled walking. I struggled thinking. I struggled, doing much of anything. "Why?" I said.

"You haven't moved in a long time," someone said.

"Why not?" I said.

She had kind eyes, but she wouldn't respond. How kind are they then, the eyes that lie to me? I wanted to know the truth, why not? "You need to rest," she said.

"What do I really need to do?" I said. "Time will tell."

"No," she said. "You need to rest."

Truly, truly, truly!





It's not a hallucination. These are fragmented, fragmentary memories. I blinked. I stood in front of Jelly again, inside the cave. "Jelly?" I said.

"What is it, Sweetie?" she said.

"How much do you care about me?" I said.

"You gettin crazy again, I hear," she said.

Getting? Yes. "Maybe," I said.

"Lots," she said.

"You lied to me," I said.

"How so?" she answered, immediately.

Well... "There's a difference," I said. "In my memory."

"What?" she said.

"The hospital," I said. "I remember... I remember... waking up."

"Oh, did you?" she said.

"Except, there was a difference this time. You were there," I said. "I mean, you were there..."

"I was there..." she said, imitating my dramatic tone.

I sighed. "Yeah."

"So what?" she said.

"I don't know!" I said.

"Well, what am I supposed to say?" she said.

"How am I supposed to know?" I said.

"Then, I'm in a corner," she said.

I gasped. "I'm so sorry," I said.

"Sorry," she said. "Hmph."

"Well, I was..." I said. "That's what..." I locked eyes with Jelly.





"They treated you..." Jelly said.

"For?" I said.

"Basically, for being suicidal," she said.

Well, I was. And what happened next? I entered darkness, and sealed my fate, yes! I did, and what happened next? "Being..." I said. "Nooo. How can that be? Why would I want to die?"

"Never mind that," Jelly said.

It was never meant to be though, my death.





"I..." I said.

"You seem... tired," Jelly said. "Let me hold you."

Her eyes came close to me. I looked into them. "I see... you," I said, crying.

"There, there," she said.

No-no-no-no. No. No. No. Something was wrong. "Why am I... feeling this way?" I said.

"Don't," Jelly said.





"But it doesn't make sense!" I said. 

"Does it have to?" she said.

I looked into Jelly's eyes. "Well..." I said. "Does it?"

"You don't remember?" she said.

"Remember what?" I said.

"What they did to you? And... what happened to Scootaloo?" she said, carefully.

My memory was a garbled mess. "No, I remember... being cut... from all directions. I remember being pushed and having something... pushed... inside... wait... into me? That doesn't make any sense." I looked down on my hooves. "I'm not a robot? That was all a dream?"

"Yes," she said. "It must've been a dream."

"But it felt so real," I said.

"I bet," she said.

What in the world? "How did it happen?" I said. "How could I forget?"

"I don't know," she said.

A griffin stood behind her. "The real question is, how could she remember?" he said.





I backed up against the cave wall. "You knew," I said. "From the moment I met you, you knew."

"I did?" she said.

"How many was it? How long did it last?" I said.

Jelly scrunched her nose at me. "These things happen," she said.

"What?" I said.

"The ponies are fighting, not only amongst themselves, but against the griffins too. These things do happen," she said. "It's nothing... that you should worry about."

"Worry?" I said. "I'm too blurry to worry. My memory is a blur. Everything just... invokes panic, if anything. Why can't I make it stop?"

"I just never told you. That doesn't mean I lied," Jelly said. 

Jelly! "That is a lie," I said. "I mean, that in itself, is a lie."

"Who are you to judge?" she said.

"I guess," I said. "Who am I? I am who I am."

"And that's who I am too, so I guess we're at an impasse," Jelly said.

I growled at her. "You little toad."

"Excuse me?" she said. "I can just leave. I don't have to stay here." She turned and walked off.

"Yeah," I said.

Inside the memory, there... wait. There it is.





There it was. Had I lied to myself? Yes, but I had also been lied to. Ponder this. Figure that. It is what it is, but it isn't over yet, no.

"Who are these ponies?" I said to myself. "Who am I? Does it matter? Am I just whining? Am I just complaining? Am I just being ungrateful?"

I heard the sound of a horn. There no longer was any time to worry. It was time, either to live or die. Which one? See for yourself.

The soldiers lined themselves up on the other side of the field. I saw a faint light, nameless of course, and Aldeus was there too, his giant black shape perceptible against the morning light. "Surrender," his voice said, out of nowhere. "There is nowhere to run. There is nowhere to hide. Death awaits you. Do not squander your last moments in hopeless defiance against a fate that would come to you, no matter what you did. It is meaningless simply, to fight, so I ask you to surrender. Lay down your arms. There is no shame. Run. There is no shame. Hide. There is no shame. We will not try to kill you if you STAY OUT OF OUR WAAAYYY!" He roared, and then, a mass of cyborgs sprinted and stormed across the green field. They were hobbling over each other, totally disorganized and scattered across the field, but they were maaany, tell you what. That was their strength. 

I actually, to my own chagrin, squeaked. "We'd better..." I said, mumbling quiet words to myself. "Go, we should go. Let's go."

"No," a pony that was beside me said, having heard me. "Let's die."

"Hey! I'm a child. Don't say stuff like that," I said.

He looked at me. "What are you doing out here?" he said.

"I... I couldn't stay inside," I said. "It was... too..."

"What?"

"Dark," I said.





The first hour:

The resistance was valiant. Unicorn warriors, which I say with the utmost candor and respect, threw themselves into the jaws of death, knowing what would happen. Their bodies fell everywhere. They shot beams. Their numbers dwindled. I had the opportunity to stay back by the cave, and somehow, the cyborgs were kept back, in spite of everything, in spite of the impossibility of it.

Most died in that first hour. After that, I would die, and so would everyone else. 

It was a guarantee. 

The second hour:

Something changed. The cyborg army, rather than killing me, and everyone else inside the Outpost, fell back. They were getting attacked from behind. Griffins moved marvelously through the air, though true enough, we were their next victims. I admired the cold efficiency of these griffins. It was considered, not mindless like the hectic attack of the cyborgs.

We made plans together. It was...

... dark. 

The third hour:

"Jelly," I said.

She nodded at me. "Hello, Sweetie pants." 

I sighed. "Oh, Jelly."

"Still mad at me from before?"

I looked at her. She had that same mildly inquisitive look that I knew her for. "It's hard to be at this point..." I said.

"But?"

"But I'm managing," I said.

"I'm afraid of hurting you," she said.

Well... "If the truth hurts, then... I suppose."

"Suppose?" she said.

"Maybe you're right," I said. "But it hurts, not knowing it too. And it hurts, having things hidden from you."

"Knowing it..." Jelly said.

Huh? "What?" I said.

"Would kill you," she said.

"Well, I'll take your word for it, then," I said, shrugging.

"I think they're coming back," Jelly said, pointing out.

The cyborgs were falling in our direction. "What say you we try to survive then again, old friend?" I said to Jelly.

"Yeah," she said.

"Come," I said, running into the mines.

Someone in there screamed, "They're coming. They're coming."

"Yes, thank you!" I said. "I think everyone knows, though, buddy."

Jelly held out her hoof, sweeping it to and fro. "Make way. Make way. Important ponies are coming through, especially you, Sweetie. You're important."

"Whyy?" I said.

We were coming.

We reached further into the cave. "Who's in charge here now after the death of King Heston?" I said.

"You'll see," Jelly said.

We reached further inside.

"Long it has been," he said. "I never expected to see you again, because your life was always in danger, unlike those that did not dare escape Tartarus."

"Charmed," I said, looking around nervously. 

He walked forth. "I am so, so sorry." It was a blue unicorn who looked old as sin. He wore a robe over his back.

"Wait, I know you," I said. "You're Starry Skies."

"I am," he said. "I am also Sidus, and many others."

I turned to Jelly. "Huh?" I said.

"Who wants to die?" Jelly said. "Not me."

"I disguised myself," Starry Skies said, "so that I might figure out whereto, when, and why you are going, Sweetie. The cyborgs are coming for you."

"Who are you?" I said.

"I am the First Judge of Equestria, and I am father of the royal sisters, of course," he said. "But don't tell them that!" I heard straight into my ear, a whisper as loud as a shout. "I have had a long-lasting interest in you, Sweetie, because you..."

I blinked. "Me?" 

He was gone. 

"Sweetie," Jelly said.

I turned around to face Jelly. "This guy," I said.

"You are the one that escaped," he said, appearing behind Jelly.

Escaped? "What?" I said. "Aren't you... in part, responsible?"

"Who, me?" he said. "For setting you free? Oh, maybe. For imprisoning you? Hardly! No, the only one that did that..."

"Huh?" I said. I couldn't see him anymore.

Jelly whispered, "Be calm."

"Is you," he said, appearing behind me.

"Eeep," I said, turning around.

He smiled. "With the power of technology, I learnt... that you can save the lives of ponies," he said, grinning. "Isn't that..."

I blinked. "Wait!" I said.

"Marvelous?" he said, standing beside me, whispering into my ear.

I shook my head. "Which means?" I said.

"As luck would have it," he said.

Jelly put her hoof over me. "Calm," she said.

I blinked. A swarm of stars flashed before my eyes. "Aa," I said.

"Well, I..." he said. "Helped you... to do... what you wanted to do, which was... what you said you wanted... or was it?"

"What did I want?" I said.

Starry Skies pulled something, and a curtain fell down, revealing a giant drawing. It was full of lines and arrows going between different locations on the continent of Equestria. In the middle of the drawing was me. I was superimposed on it. "You said that... you wanted the world to change, Sweetie Belle. You wanted the world to change, but you did not want to change. You wanted to remain the same. If you could be seen to be what you wanted to be in the eyes of others, that would be enough."

"What did I want to be?" I said.

"Free," he said. "Free from... fear... evil... trespasses... against your soul."

"Soul?" I said.

Jelly stepped in front of me. "Never mind, Sweetie. Th- that wasn't why I called you down here."

"You can," he said. His hair was white, and his face wrinkly. He bore a heavy face. "You can save them, can you not?" 

"Save them?" I said. "What is this rubbish?" I faced Jelly, now. "Jelly, what is he talking about?"

He held his hoof up toward the drawing. "It's your story," he croaked. "Change it. Change fate, then, if you know how to do it, and should you dare."

"What is he talking about?" I wheezed to Jelly.





A long time ago...

... there was a show.

It wants you near. It wants you here. It does not fear.

It is the only thing that does not fear.

Something dropped, and I guess it might have been my sanity, perchance, maybe.

No, it was a pen.

"Ooo," I said. "These words are coming out."

Why were these words coming out? Was there any particular reason?

Something came back to me.

It was a memory.

"Scootaloo?" I said.

"No," he said.

"Then who?" I said.

"It's only a whisper," he said, "so far."

"Huh?" I said.

"You can get all you ever wanted."

"Huh?" I peeked around in my mind.

"I will fulfill any wish."

"You mean..." I said. "That you can make this story true?"

"Yes."

"But this story is a total nightmare," I said.

"Well, it turned into one, no thanks to you."

"What do you mean?" I said.

"You wrote it."

"Huh?" I said. "Am I insane?"





"One wish," Starry Skies said to me. "That's all you get. You get one wish in exchange for your mental trauma. Of course, there are ways of knowing whether the trauma is true, and there are also ways of knowing whether the trauma, as it happened, belongs to you. There are ways of knowing whether it is your memory, or you on behalf of another person, suffering, as sympathy would have it. That's... a kind of weird abstract notion, Sweetie."

I blinked. "Where did he go?" I said.

"I am here," he said, standing beside me.

"Why would I wish for this to be true?" I said.

"It was your wish, not mine," he said, with a shrug. "An appreciable, monumental, extravagant, ambitious wish."

"For my story to be true?" I said.

He stared right into me. "You wanted everyone else to believe it, not only you. That was funny of you. Look what happened. Even ponies that did not know they could be monsters became such because of you."

"Why?" I said.

"It was your creation. Each as one," he said. "The Facility of Technology might have been the brainchild of a brainless child, but it was the dream of many, it so appeared." 

"The dream of many?" I said.

The eye? "The eye guided you here. It knows," he said.

"Knows?"

"Your story ends here!" he said. "That's... what it knows. You got to die heroically, around your friends."

"Wh..." I said, not knowing what to do.

"The story of a robot transpires as a series of unexpected events that are not morally applicable to you, because you are always subject to the whims of others. Are you not?"

Something hit me. "Who... who made... who m–"

"You," he said. "All of you. All of the many of you that continue to exist into history, as histories depart, through the acts of kindness by the one that gave you your wish."

"Jelly!" I said.

"Jelly?" he said. "Who is Jelly? She's your friend. She's not here, though. Where is she?"

"Huh?"

"In the third hour, you will save them," he said. "Or... you will die. That is the prediction of the pool of choice."

"Save them? But how?" I said. How? How? How?

"Wish for them to live!" he said, smiling. "Should be... easy."

"Wish?" I said. Wish. Wish. Wish.

"Yes," he said. "She is bound by your wish."





She is bound by my wish?

I stood up.

I stood up? Well, yes.

"Hey!" I said, into the corridor of our house, that of Rarity and I.

Rarity came walking, soon enough. "Yes, Sweetie?"

"I... think I want to go out?"

"No, Sweetie. That's not a good idea," she said.

I felt a pinch in my belly, a sudden outburst of pain. "Then... maybe a friend could come over?"

"A friend?" she said.

"Yeah, I still have those... I think," I said, thinking back.

Rarity disappeared.

"Hey!" Scootaloo said.

I felt... confused. "Scoots," I said. "I want to talk to you about something. You like stories, don't you?"

She nodded.

"I think..." I said. "Have you been hearing voices lately? I don't mean voices in the air. I mean, thoughts, feelings. Have you felt a lot lately?"

"Sure," she said, sounding careful.

"Good," I said.

Something happened.

After this, we went on a school trip to the province of... Anuba, to discover... school stuff? Yeah, sure. That was the thing.

We went to a place called... Hydral. Dun-dun-duuun! Well, whatever. I guess all that's a different story, but it's not.

Part 59 will be titled... well, that's a different story, but maybe not.

How did I know?





"The only thing that can change the future... is a memory?" I said.

Starry Skies nodded at me. "That's why they collect memories inside their... machine."

"What are they?" I said.

"They are like you, absolutely terrified and afraid. That's what makes them so strongly motivated to follow the ideology of nameless, which you created," he said.

"Don't be absurd," I said.

"Well, not you! But your ancestor. What's her name?"

"Ta-daa," Nexus said, walking out from behind the drawing.

The drawing disintegrated. "A telltale sign," Starry said.

"Successful then, First Judge?" she said.

"Yes, and another two-thousand or so lives saved," he said, as if making a mental note.

"Huh?" I said.

"I guess your memory became discarded," he said. "We'll retrieve it for you, eventually."





The fourth hour:

No matter the utter state of confusion I was in, the battle raged on.

I was fighting against my inner fears, now.

"What was that?" I said.

Jelly just stood still. "I thought... maybe," she said.

"Whatever you are keeping from me–"

"WHAT?" Jelly said.

"Know that it is killing me," I finished.

Jelly put her hoof out. "What about them?"

"Fine," I said. "I'll worry about them too. I'm still dying."

"Seem fully alive to me," she said.

I shook my head. "What is this? The only reason that I'm able to cause others harm is because I'm kept out of the loop by ponies that then blame me for causing them harm."

"That's..." Jelly said. "Wait, that's a good point."

I felt like the epitome of a sentient, living, breathing question mark at this point. "Huuh?" I said. "What are you on about now? The least you could do is to stand your ground. Now, you're agreeing with me? Then all of it was pointless? I still don't even know what."

The fifth hour:

Her grace, Twilight Sparkle, graced us with her presence.

The battle had turned.

"Sweetie," she said, hugging me. "I've come to save you."

"What are you talking about?" I said. "What about them?"

"Well, I care about you!" she said.

I was led through a tunnel. On the other side, there was an escape path. All of us refugees were led through.

"Drats," I said.

"What?" Jelly said.

I shook my head. "Oh, it's nothing."

We came out of a hole on the other side of the field.

"Ezelipoli," nameless shouted.

The dragon landed by my side. "Subject," it said. "You are... not alone?"

"Nope," I said, absentmindedly, as others around me fled for their lives.

Would it ever end?





Actually... well... it's tough to explain.
> Part 58: Nameless Gets Unmasked
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The fifth hour

The reason that it's tough to explain is because... becaaause... ummm.

Why?

It's because I'm in some sense culpable for some of what has happened, quite simply.

Anyway, I ran.

I was being chased.

"Sweetie," Twilight said.

"Ugh," I said, just feeling deprived of meaning in each moment, because it all felt like... a dream.

Nameless appeared, and then, she disappeared. She had that tendency.

A spark was born.





Something snapped. My thoughts snapped. Everything snapped.

"Nameless," I said.

The world came, soaring toward me.

It all just snapped.

The world snapped.

Well, it did. And what happened next?

I was chased.

I felt like a small child again.

I felt weak.

An explosion went off in front of me. I turned aside and ran. Something hit me. I ran. I rolled. I thought. I skipped. I drooled. I wept. I felt... a change. I coughed.

Something came over me, yes. I ran all over, trying to hide. I entered darkness, and sealed my fate, yes!

And what happened next? 

I felt like everything landed.

I felt like panic.

And I ran.

"Sweetie," Twilight said, again, louder this time.

We made plans together. It was–

"Sweetie," Twilight said, holding me.

The sixth hour:

Well, in summary. I was losing my brain cells. I was losing my head.

Who am I, I thought. Not someone good, I gather.

The seventh hour:

Time passed like floating liquid. I felt panic come over me, like none I had ever felt.

That's when... well!

Bam.

"Kill me," I said, seeing myself surrounded by birds.

"Sweetie," Twilight said, again and again, but was it only my head?

"Get over here," a griffin said, scolding me, emboldening me, to carry on.

"Help," I said, not knowing what to do.

Uh-oooh.

Nameless came flying, atop the back of Ezelipoli. "In trouble again, stupid girl?" she said.

The dragon shot fire out its mouth, burning some griffins to a perfect, feathery, bird steak. 

"Aaah!" I said.

Ezelipoli growled. "What now?" he said.

"Go capture her then, you," nameless said, groaning as I was running away.

Why the hell? Why in the world?
> Part 59: The Plot Twist
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why did she help me? Those were the words that rung in my head over and over again. I thought she wanted to kill me, I thought. I felt sick to my very stomach.

I ran into Gripey. "Aaah!" I screamed, running the other direction.

"What?" he said, as I disappeared into the fray.

We made...

u.

"Jeez," I said, gasping for air and thought and reprieve. "Some relief, please? Some ease, please?"

I gasped.

Well... that was it.

I died.

The end.













I heard some chatter, nervous chatter, nervous rumblings and bumblings about through the hall. I felt over the wall with... panic? Yes.

A decision was being made, guess.

I was in the middle of it, this trite mess.

It was decided, on my behalf, yes.

It was.

That's what started the mess.

I was transported to Manehattan, and...

... I had a dream.

When I woke up, I thought I was asleep. I wandered the hallways of this keep. It practiced such astonishing control over me, but it only ever worked as long as I felt chilled. But chilled I was, since I no longer had friends. Then, I met Jelly. Everything changed. Then, I met Gripey. Everything changed. I was changed, and I cried, but I couldn't die, when my friends had the courage to draw near.

My eyelids slid all the way open, up and about, through my face. "I couldn't..." I said, looking down on my hooves, "die."

I felt, cold. All of this, was, what? A dream? Again? No. Jelly came walking in through the door. She saw me. She turned around.

"Don't..." I said, gasping to speak. "Go."

She turned back to look at me. "Sweetie. Is that really you?" she said.

"Drats," I said. "Who else would it be? The tooth fairy? Course it's me." I noticed I was tied down. "Get me untied from this bed. This is some child abuse."

"Child abuse?" she said, laughing. "Well, you'd know something about that."

"True though," I said, feeling the memories wash over me, those empty memories.

She cried, which made me... cry. "Sweetie, I thought you were done for. All the while... do you even remember?" she said.

"Yes," I said. "I accused you of lying... in this very room." I stared at my hooves. They were so... emaciated. 

"Oh, Sweetie," she said, smiling at me.

I sighed. "So many years," I said, "inside the dream."

"What?" she said.

"The haze," I said. "The fog that I tried to put myself in, not to remember."

"Oh, you almost scared me there," she said, gasping.

I couldn't believe my own memory. I couldn't believe my own thoughts, even. Then, I remembered. "When I woke up, I thought I was asleep."    

"They call it dream therapy," Jelly said. "It's to help you work over bad memories."

"Well, that's exactly what it did," I said.

"What's wrong?" she said, slowly. "Relax."

"Well, it's more like... replacing one bad memory with another," I said.

"What's the other?"

"Dying," I said.

"You didn't die."

I looked away from her. "Evidently."

"In fact, you're alive," she said.

"I know," I said. "There's no need to coddle me."

"Then what is it?" Jelly said.

The eighth hour:

I didn't actually die.

The battle turned into a nightmare, and what happened next? 

Well, my friends.

I was faced with a choice. Either, I come to my senses, or I run into some projectile or something.

So, I somehow decided to come to my senses.

How? I focused.

When my focus increased, I realized that I wasn't running. I wasn't even moving. I was still.

To the right of me was a scene, though there was nothing right about it.

Oh, and in fact, this is what led to this nightmare in the first place.

Imagine this, if you can. I want you to bear with me here, just for a moment. Let's say, the fraction of a moment. This husk was huddling over a dear friend of mine. It was a vision, basically. I felt a vision come over me. It covered me in fearful doubts. Then, all my thoughts alighted, landing on a conclusion.

"That's... me?" I said.

Wait, what was I saying?

What was I doing over here?

Where was I going?

No, wait. I was over there.

That couldn't be right.

In fact, it was so impossible that it just wasn't true.

Yeah, not true.

No, in fact. It never was true.

It was a lie.

The truth was that I was over here.





"Oh, wait a minute. Oops. I was wrong. I guess I wasn't a robot," I said, and then, retched and started crying, blubbering my poor little eyes out.

Jelly looked behind her. "Calm down... I'm not really allowed to be here."

"All those memories," I said. "Where did they come from, even?"

"Okay, okay, that's all well and fine," she said.

Is that... "Is that what she meant... no, never mind," I said, vomiting.

Someone came walking in. "Hello!" he said.





"So... you mean to say that I am a robot now?" I said, touching my bandaged head.

He just looked at me, deadpan. "No, you have gone through a procedure where your brain has been replaced by a neural network capable of processing the same information as a real brain, along with a metal shell that is meant to protect it, for it is extremely vulnerable to the touch." 

"Sounds like a robot to me," I said.

Jelly hugged me. "I'm so glad to have you back... after that disaster in Gloverton."

"Yeah, the timeline's not coming in so clear for me," I said. "It seems that whatever happened to me, it must've hurt my head good."

"More than that," she said. "You were all, you lied to me, Jelly. Nur-nur-nur."

"And the..." I said. "The memories."

"Yeah, the memories," she said, laughing.

I glanced at her. "Just for curiosity's sake, what is your recollection of it?"

"Well, I had thought it was basically the same as yours," she said.

"Then why are you laughing?" I said.

She got quiet. "I'm sorry," she said.

"It hurts my head, even thinking about it," I said.

"Does it hurt anywhere else?" Jelly said.

I gasped. "No..."

"They thought it..." the griffin-doctor said, "advisable to..."

"Yeah, what?" I said.

"Remove the body parts that are associated with the trauma," he finished, capping that head-scratcher off.

"Wow," I said. "I'm a freak."

"Don't look at it that way," he said. "You were seriously injured."

"I'm like half a mare now, half a person," I said.

He shook his head. "You don't realize the damage–"

"Shut up," Jelly said. He did.

"Why is my memory so muddled?" I said.

Jelly glanced at me. "I guess because that's what dream therapy does," she said.

"My head," I said, grabbing my head. "I feel so... sick."

"That's entirely normal," the doctor-guy said.

I went to sit down. "Hey, Jelly!" I said. "What did I do to prompt this... operation?"

"You tried to kill your sister," Jelly said. "Like duh. Everyone knows that."

"I don't," I said, feeling genuinely sick.

She smiled. "Better that you forget it and forget to regret it, because that wasn't really you. You thought you were a robot or something. Silly, right?"

"Silly!" I said, feeling even more sick.

Twilight came barging in. "Sweetie!" she said.

"What have I done?" I said, tearing up again.

"Is this a bad time?" Twilight said to the doctor.

"No, but you'd better watch over her now," he said. "We need to make sure that the procedure was entirely... successful."

"Why you crying?" Twilight said to me.

I said, "Well, apparently, and I don't know how, but I tried to kill Rarity." I looked at Twilight, about to break down again into a blubbering mess. "How old am I?"

"Fourteen?" Twilight said.

"Fourteen," I said, smiling. "That's..." I looked at Jelly. "Such a lovely age, I think."

"Memory coming back?" Jelly said.

"You'd better give her some space," Twilight said to her. "I can't believe you told her that much already."

"What am I supposed to do? Hide it?" Jelly said. "That never saved anyone's life."

"No, but tell her slowly. Let her acclimate first, rather than dropping the bomb on her like that," Twilight said.

I left my seat. "That was a bomb all right, but the bombing's not over yet!" I said.

"Take it easy," Twilight said.

"Easy how? How easy?" I said. "I just woke up out of the strangest dream too."

Twilight looked concerned. "What kind?" she said.

I read her expression. "The kind that's totally sane," I said, grimacing and sticking out my tongue at her.

Twilight laughed. "Okay, okay," she said. "Just needed to make sure."

"Now," I said. "It's time for actions, not words."





This story should be called "waking up," because that's what it's about.
> Part 60: My Life
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was only after all that had happened then, that I realized the power of friendship, and more than that, the power of family.

Many years had passed,
afraid and all aghast,
realized what one has.
I never could have, past.

Past, that was a story,
all too full of worry.

Making me a gory,
making me agoraphobic,
the story did.

The future is in sight, all bright, no blight in sight, and night is over.
So is the fight.

Still, there might be questions, unanswered unattended,
answers unapprehended,
undiscovered, even.

Life has to resume.
One can't forget the gloom,
but knowing friends are there,
will make it all but worth it.

Worth it is ungrasped.
Knowing is a wish.
Seeing it is true.
That's what made it true for me was seeing all that love,
and seeing it freed me from my doubts, one might say.

"Hey!" I said to Jelly.

"Ciao," she said, walking away.

Onto the train and into the fray, we set sail, availing.

We would never forget, but availing.

We were here together, remembering.

I loved Jelly.

It wasn't over yet, not by a long shot.

"Where's Gripey?" I said.

Jelly literally jumped into the window, headbutting it so hard that she flew back, landing on the floor. "Oh, you don't remember that part?" she said, hastily.

"What?" I said.

"He's the culprit," Jelly said.

"Jelly," I said. "That's completely ridiculous."

Jelly gasped. "Sweetie..."

"Yeah, I know," I said. "I know what you think you saw, but it's impossible. He's my friend, you know."

"Yeeeah," she said. "Okay."

"I'm sure there has to be a logical and exculpatory explanation," I said.

Jelly shrugged. "Whatever suits your boat, I guess."

I chuckled. I wasn't in the least concerned about that. In fact, I knew it was impossible. I knew him. It was impossible. "Yeah," I said.

"But I mean, it was him. It's easy to prove, also," Jelly said.

"Yeah, but someone must have made him do it, somehow," I said, shrugging it off.

"Ow," Jelly said.

I glanced at where she put her hoof. "Your head? Ah, I'm sorry."

"I hope this doesn't cause you too much distress," she said. "I guess some just aren't who we think they are."

"Pish-posh," I said. "I know he's innocent. He saved my life many times. He trusts me. I trust him."

"Yeah, but don't you find it at least a little weird? I mean, he's like twenty years older than you," Jelly said.

"What?" I said.

"That he was your friend," she said.

"Well, I'm precocious," I said.

She shook her head. "I don't know."

"I'll figure this out. Trust me," I said to Jelly.

"Yeaaah, about that," Jelly said. "He's slated for execution, tomorrow."

"I'll figure it out quickly," I added, quickly.

"Sweetie," Jelly said, voice of anger and distress. "There is no figuring it out, and you're never going to see him ever again."

"We'll see," I said.

Jelly glared at me. "Are you even listening to me?"

"Yes," I said. "But I know he's innocent. That's a foregone conclusion."

"Oh, jeez," Jelly said. "I knew there would be trouble."

"There is no trouble," I said. "I feel well, and I will save my friend, got that?"

"No!" Jelly said. "He is the one that did it. He deserves to die."

I shook my head. "No one deserves to die. We'll find a way, together."

"You're not even listening!"

"I am. I'm just not agreeing," I said.

Jelly started screaming. "He's a monster. He's evil. He deserves to die. Don't you understand?"

"Yes," I said. "But you are wrong."

"No!" she said.

I glanced to the floor. "That's okay. I knew you would react this way when I brought it up."

"You knew that it was him?" she said.

"I knew that I thought it was him, but it's not true," I said. "I realized that. That's what saved my life."

"This lie is what saved your life?" she said.

"It's not a lie," I said.

"Is too."

"No," I said. "He didn't do it. It's not possible. You know a true friend when you see him."

"Sweetie," Jelly said. "That's absurd. They have DNA evidence that shows he did it."

"Yeah, but there are some truths that go beyond DNA," I said.

Jelly held out a hoof to the side. "What about all the witness accounts? Including your own?"

"Yeah," I said. "Forget about it. It's all a lie. It's all a trick meant to make him look like the bad guy."

"Sweetie, you're seriously lying to yourself," Jelly said.

"Nope," I said. "I'm not."





"They have decided to use you in the propaganda effort against Equestria," Twilight said.

"Fine," I said.

"No, you don't understand. This is perilous," she said. "You must not do as the griffins or the supreme court says."

"Okay," I said.

The train ride went all the way over to Griffonia to meet the griffins in an attempt at reconciliation. This was the first time a pony had been put through this procedure, my procedure. It was a historical milestone and blah-blah-blah. You fill in the blank. It was a monumental moment, and Twilight, apparently against her own will and that of Rarity, had been forced to take me here as a propaganda tool for Equestria, in order to combat the perception that Equestria had given in to the griffins' demands, which is to use technology to change the brains of ponies. Right? You remember that plotline? Well, it's deeply complicated. 

"Queen Allemeia Featherly Goldenclaw," a griffin with a gruff voice said. 

The Queen of the griffins walked out from out of view. She nodded at me.

"I don't want any trouble between ponies and Equestrians," I said, following Twilight's advice and attempts at handling me to say the right things. "The operation was a last resort to save my life, as my brain was decaying from a mental illness that is degenerative. That is all." My performance was dispassionate, but at least it matched Twilight's wishes for it.

"Good," Queen Goldenclaw said.

"And also, I have a wish," I said. "I wish for the capital punishment against all griffins to be done away with, including my friend Gripey Silverfeathers."

Twilight looked like someone had smeared her face with a particularly errant perfume in this moment. "Sweetie, WHAT!" she said.

"He's innocent. I just know it," I said.

"What else do you THINK you know?" she said.

"That's it. That's all," I said. "I was sexually assaulted. I made up a story about it. I tried to kill Rarity, I guess. I don't remember. I repeatedly hit my head against things, forcing you to tie me down. I was put through this ridiculous procedure. Oh, and also, he's innocent. That's all I want to say."

"He's not innocent," Twilight said.

"Oh, yeah?" I said. "I followed your script. Now, it's your turn to help me. Good faith and all that, Twi?"

"Sweetie. He admitted to it," Twilight said. "He admitted to it inside the circle. You cannot lie there, you know."

"He may think he did it, but he didn't," I said. "It's just not true."

"WHAT!"

"Because you can tell the truth and still be wrong. The circle only kills you if you lie, not if you're wrong, remember?" I said.

"Sweetie, that's absolutely preposterous," Twilight said. "I mean, your argument is coming through clearly, but that's just not realistic, Sweetie."

Queen Goldenclaw raised a claw. "Can I say something?" she said.

"Yes," I said, before Twilight had the chance to shut me down.

"I believe you," Queen Goldenclaw said.

Twilight snickered. "She's just trying to manipulate you," she whispered into my ear.

"I know," I said, understanding the politics. "But if she's willing to help me, and you're not, well, then there's nothing else to say, is there?"

"Sweetie," Twilight said. "He's guilty!"

Queen Goldenclaw nodded. "I know how it has looked for you, but I saw the trial, and I also have my doubts."

"Have you no heart at all?" Twilight said. "Manipulating a child like that?"

"I am not," Queen Goldenclaw said. "People think things about me, but I have my own thoughts and feelings."

"Traitor!" Twilight said. "Us ponies trusted you!"

"Us ponies?" Queen Goldenclaw said. "Was it not this kind of thinking that got us into this quagmire in the first place?"

"You're one to talk. You have that creepy thing with the zebras," Twilight said, which she was right about.

"The zebras are an inferior culture indeed," Queen Goldenclaw said, obviously towing the griffin line on this topic.

Yeah, I thought. This turned out not as planned. "Gripey!" I said.

"We're leaving right now," Twilight said, pulling me with her in her purple hue.

"Help!" I said, but Twilight clenched her magic around my mouth, shutting me up.





We immediately went back to Ponyville. Celestia and other ponies that from a power politic perspective, might be more powerful in small, limited, but decisive ways, urged her to continue the dialogue with the griffins. Twilight would not hear it. She had no interest in continuing with this charade. Orders, Twilight's relationship with important political allies in Canterlot, Celestia, the outcome of the war, all fell to the wayside on one side of the balance. On the other, there was me. I was more important than all that. I would be taken care of. Could Twilight not see that this was exactly the kind of concern I had for Gripey? Damn it all. Damn the rules and damn the petty squabbles. His life was in danger, and that transcended all my other worries. 

"Sweetie," Twilight said. "He will be dead tomorrow. Accept the truth. You have to give up this purified idea of him that you have in your head."

We were at the train station, outside the train. We had just arrived in Ponyville. "Twi," I said, smiling with tears in my eyes. For a moment, I saw clarity, and I felt relief. I had realized the truth, and that washed over me now, all the more, as I saw the anger in her eyes. "Caring about him is not... something that I can control." 

"This is absolutely maddening," she said. "You have a case of amnesia. If only you could remember..."

"It's not my memory that's the problem," I said. "It's you guys. No one will believe me."

"Why?" Twilight said. "Why are you doing this?"

"It's what I care about," I said. "I care about protecting the ones I care about, like you." I pointed at her. "What point is there in living on, elsewise?"

"You cannot care about him," Twilight said. "This is impossible."

"No," I said. "It is possible."

"Please. You have caused your sister such pain for so long. You could as well have killed her," Twilight said, just not giving me any concern or decorum any more. She wasn't holding back her own anger, which suited the situation, and which suited me.

"I disagree," I said. "My life is about saving my friends, including Rarity, including Jelly, whom I love. It also includes a certain griffin who has been sentenced to death."

"How can you be so glib about it?" Twilight said. "Don't you know what he did to you? You will never be able to..." She stopped herself at that last part. She had the decency to.

I knew what she was about to say. "I know," I said.





It was an uphill battle, this thing. I'll tell you that much.
> Part 61: Recovering from Mental Illness
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"This is a table. This is the lamp," Rarity said.

"This is me leaving," I said, trotting out the door.

"Sweetie, I am only trying to help, dear," Rarity said.

"I know what a table is," I said.

"Okay, I'm sorry," she said.

Her eyes had their own stories to tell, and they weren't pretty stories, tell you what. "Hey..." I said.

"Yes," she said.

I sighed, trying to find the right intonation, cadence, and words to come together in my head. "I missed you. I am happy to see you."

"Yes?" she said.

"I never wanted to... make you feel bad, but... I guess... things happen, and I don't know why," I said. "But I hope that I'm better now." It was all... a sludge in my head, a mudpile, a discordant soggy mess.

"I know," she said.

"Twilight... I suppose," I said.

"Yes," Rarity said. "We had a conversation."

"You're all taking it the wrong way," I said.

"How am I supposed to take it?" Rarity said.

"That I'm not insane," I said. "Confused? Okay, maybe, but insane? No, not any longer at least. I hope so, at least."

"I hope so," she said, words which stung remarkably in my gut.

"You hope... ?" I said.

Rarity wandered off. "I'm going to prepare some food for you?" she said.

"Hope," I said. "That's... not encouraging to hear."





So here I was, trying to do the impossible. No one would believe me, and I had all the authority of a fourteen-year-old. I had all the authority that someone that doesn't have any authority has, which is to say? None, that's right. None.

"Twilight," I said.

Rarity had the good faith not to imprison me in her house, which I appreciated, so I wandered Ponyville, a free mare. I knocked on the door to Twilight's castle. Twilight came out. "Sweetie?"

"Twi," I said. "I want to... talk."

"Not now," Twilight said. "I'm in the middle of something."

"I want to... talk, though," I said.

Twilight groaned. "Come in then!"

On the inside was someone, a familiar character. He said hello to me. "Hey, it's you!"

"Colly?" I said. "The train weirdo."

"That's how you look at me?" he said. "Well, I would feel insulted, but I've heard way worse. I'll take it."

"The journey to Canterlot," Twilight said, "is currently a perilous one."

"Perilous?" I said. "Why the peril?"

"Important cargo routes have been completely shut down out of fear of a mythical black train called Number Nine," Twilight said. "I'm sure you've heard of it."

"Say?" I said. "Heard of it? Yeah, sure." I didn't want her to think that I was insane in case our memories diverged on this topic. 

"I've requested help," Twilight said.

"To get to Canterlot?" I said.

"Yes," she said. "To get you to Canterlot. In Canterlot, you'll receive professional help."

"Oh, this again," I said. "Okay then."

"Don't be so dismissive," Twilight said.

"Still though, at least the operation must have been an improvement over how things were before," I said, hopefully.

"Yeah, hopefully," Twilight said.

"You know, I think some of this stuff isn't really fair," I said.

"Sweetie, why couldn't you have tried to look at it from our perspective once, instead of doing what you did? Rarity isn't happy," she said.

"My existence isn't- isn't necessarily about making Rarity happy," I said.

"Well, it used to be," she said.

"No... it was about my friends," I said, feeling betrayed by her words. "Who's being glib now?"

"This the conversation you wanted to have with me?" she said.

I just off and left. Twilight was unreachable, for one reason or another.





"I believe you," Apple Bloom said.

"I don't want to hear it," I said.

"Why? What's the issue, Sweetie?" she said.

"What are you going to do? You're my age!" I said, marching back and forth, trying to come up with viable-enough ideas.

"Emotional support?" she said.

I stopped. What was happening to me? "Apple Bloom..." I said. "Thank you!"

"It's m'pleasure," she said, smiling.

"It's just... I have this terrible feeling at the back of my mind," I said, "like all this is a mistake."

"You just have to get them to listen," Apple Bloom said.

I groaned aloud. "But HOW?"

"Give them some kind of evidence, something even they can't deny," Apple Bloom said.

Scootaloo scooted by on her scooter. "What are you talking about, girls?" Scoots said.

"How to save Gripey," I said.

"Oo, that's rough," Scoots said. "Why do you want to save him?"

"Why wouldn't I? He's my friend!" I said.

"Yeah, but he..." Scoots said.

"Forget about it. You wouldn't understand," I said.

Apple Bloom nodded. "It's what friends are for."

"You're in way over your heads," Scoots said. "The grownups would never believe it. They know better."

"Believe what?" I said.

"That he didn't do it, nor do I," she said.

"Well, then, what good are you?" I said.

Apple Bloom took a step back. "Sweetie, you have to understand how others are lookin' at this. You do seem a little crazy."

"Yeah, I know," I said. "I'm Sweetie the madmare. Look at me. Whoopa-doopa-derp!" I grimaced and scowled at the both of them. "I will reveal the truth, you guys. I will! Somehow! If I make it my life's mission, it cannot fail, no. No, I will do it."

"How?" Scoots said. "You'd better forget about it. They'll never listen to you."

Idea! "Won't they?" I said.





I scrambled through the drawers. It had to be somewhere. "What are you searching for?" Rarity said, making me jump.

"My diary," I said.

"I don't know if that's good reading material, Sweetie," she said.

"I guess I don't know what I'm missing," I said. "I need to find it so I can find out for myself." That was... weak of me. That explanation, everything about it, was weak.

"Sweetie!" she said.

"I'm just... wanting to know what I wrote," I said. That wasn't much better, but I guess it was better.

"You should get over here," she said.

"Why so?" I said, pulling open another drawer.

"You have a visitor," she said.

I turned around toward her. "A visitor?" I said. I walked toward her. She had a different expression than I was used to. Suppressed is how I would describe it.

She smiled at me. Behind her stood a bunch of ponies in bronze armor with spears. "Yes, visitors," she said.

An orange pony with a stern look about him said, "Come, Miss Sweetie Belle." He was massive. I... somehow recognized him.

Without question, I followed him into our kitchen. "What's this?" I said.

"Quiet," the orange pony said, an earth pony.

We stopped by the kitchen table. Starry Skies sat there, to my surprise. "Do not demean her, private," he said, sounding slightly hoarse. 

"I'm so sorry," the soldier said, bowing.

"We are here to celebrate her," Starry Skies said. "Or we were. Could you make sure that the white pony Rarity is kept out of the house during our proceedings?"

"Yes," the orange pony said.

This person! I recognized him, good. All of them. Who? All of them. The orange pony was part of the court's professional army, Clyde Brook. All of these soldiers had been at the campsite with Jelly when... but... "Hey!" I said. "I suppose we've met before..."

"You are a tricky one, Sweetie," Judge Starry said. "I thought I had done good by the promise I made you."

"What... promise?" I said.

"Well, I made a mistake, and I promised to put things right," he said. He reached over the table. I pulled back. "I am not trying to touch you, silly girl." He pulled the cloth off the table. "Can you see that?"

It was a spot. It was red. "Is that... blood?" I said.

"It's from you. I suppose that the pony living here had a hard time wiping it off, but for sentimental reasons, or perhaps to remember you by, she kept the table as a reminder." He looked at it, shaking his head. "Doesn't it look innocent? It represents years of pain, however."

"What... do you want, you psycho?" I said.

"How do you think I know all this?" he said. "It's because I know you. Well, I used to know you. You came to me when you were at your most desperate, demanding for me to fulfill your wish, which I did."

"I have zero memory of that, and I don't believe it for a moment," I said.

"Well, the thing is that... I don't remain memorable after wishes are granted," he said. "That is part of why I have been able to continue for so long. Your wish... was for your story to come true."

"Rubbish," I said. "Why would I want it to be true?"

A soldier came walking with a basket. In it was a helmet. "Well, you're a murderer," he said. "How can one live with oneself after doing something like that?" 

"Is that the Obliterator!?" I said, feeling awe come over my body.

Starry lifted it out of the basket and put it on the table. "How does this exist? Well, it's because you exist, and you created it, Sweetie."

"Explain!" I said.

"Well, it's simple, really," he said. "You wished to become the ultimate victim, a victim of rape, emotional abuse, physical abuse, memory loss, just so that you could get away from what you had done."

"No," I said. "I wanted to become a robot so that I could forget about the things that had happened to me."

"You've got it right, but in the reverse order," he said, grinning coldly. "You wanted to have all these other things happen to you so that you could forget about being a robot, except you wanted to remember being a robot, and a precondition was that you remember everything. Or else, you would lose your identity. Everything had to remain the same, your memories and all your friends, but you had to become the victim." He pushed the helmet closer to me. "Beautiful! It's a shame that you created it to kill ponies, but it is nonetheless a beautiful piece of technology, Sweetie. You have been downtrodden, haven't you? Well, it was your wish. As long as you felt bad, you wouldn't remember how bad you made others feel when you killed them, and how bad you made their families feel."

"That's... not true," I said.

"I have come here because you seem unhappy with your wish," he said. "Somehow, you seem to hold the courts responsible for putting Gripey up to die."

"Ummm, yeah?" I said.

"Well..." he said. "I take your point. Maybe you were fonder of him than I'd realized. I can save him for you, in exchange for something."

"Are you out of your mind?" I said. "What are you talking about?"

"I can save him," he said.

"Why is he slated to die?" I said.

"Because he raped you," Judge Starry said.

"That's literally ridiculous," I said.

He shrugged with a tight purse of the lips. "He was always attracted to you," he said. "Is it really that much of a shock?"

"You're lying!" I said.

"I am a unicorn," he said. "I can do magic. I have forces at my disposal. Ask and you shall receive. I will give you your wish, but in exchange, I want my last one back."

"I don't even remember making it!" I said.

"He is your friend," he said. "I realize that. Here." He shoved the helmet over to me.

"Get that disgusting mad-thing away from me!" I screamed.

"You need to become a robot again. Better start acting like one!" he said.

I felt beyond fearful. "No!" I said.

"Then your friend will die... again," he said, absentmindedly.

"Why?" I said. "Why? Who put you up to this?"

"Why do you want to save someone that did that to you? That's what I want to know," Judge Starry said.

"I know it couldn't have been him," I said.

"Does your memory deceive you then?" he said.

"Yes!" I said. "It must. Was that part of my wish? To have him be... the culprit?"

"Oh please! He did that all on his own."

"Rubbish!" I said.

"He is the one. He raped you. He ruined your body for carnal reasons," Judge Starry said.

"Absolutely not," I said.

"No?" he said.

I shook my head. "I know he would never do that."

"In any case, there are other ways for you to help me," Judge Starry said. "Should you refuse... then."

"Refuse?" I said.

"You don't want to take back your wish, but there is... one way!" He held out his hoof. A pony came walking with a piece of paper. "The meeting of the seven will be in two days. They have four days of festivities arranged. One day for the griffins, one for the zebras, one for the ponies, and one for... the court, which is the organizer of the event. These are the four warring sides, which is why they get days and keynote speeches specifically planned for them."

"Fascinating," I said.

"I want you to hold the keynote address for the Nonaligned Court in my place. Woo me... and then, I might order to have him released from Tartarus. You hear?" Judge Starry said, keeping a mysterious tone about him.

"I'll woo you," I said, relenting unwillingly.

"But!" he said. "There is always a catch..."

"What?" I said, looking down on the table.

"As soon as I free him, the other ponies might... dismiss him, even try to kill him. That's what happens when you go against the expectations of civilized society, necessary as it might be."

"I'll prove his innocence," I mumbled.

"Forget it," Judge Starry said. "He is a wild animal. They should be put to death. Consider this... an act of good faith!" He stood up with a smile on his face. "You know, it was you that proved he did it. Ironic, nay?"

"Ironic," I said.

"You gave them all the evidence they needed, including your word. Now, you seem to have forgotten. I will enjoy it when you come to me asking for him to be recaptured and put on death row again. I wonder what I will ask of you then to make me do it." He put his hoof on his chin. "Maybe I will take your soul next time. I'll think of something, Sweetie. Now, I pay my respects to you. I did not mean for things to go this way. I hope you will survive your mental trauma, out of a concern for you."

"Right," I said.

He was about to walk away. He stopped in his tracks. "There is... one more thing!" He wheezed, "Remember Hookbeak? He will be happy to see you. Stay away from him. Until you have made your speech, you belong to me."

"And if I do not?" I said. 

"You will be... eradicated," he said. "Good luck!" He walked out the house. I just sat there, dumbfounded.





"Rarity!" I said. "Does that often happen?"

She embraced me.

I felt... warm.

Later, I was talking to Apple Bloom. "Why do you believe me?" I said.

"Because you're my friend," she said.

"Really?" I said. "Is that all there is to it?"

"Sure," she said.





What to do at this point? Pray and hope, I think.

"I hope I will recover from this," I said.
> Part 62: Number Nine Returns
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Something returns. Something this way comes. It is Number Nine? Is it Number Nine? Yes.

"The skies are so big and wide. I can see why ponies like looking at them," I said, about to board the train.

"We'll get him out," Jelly said, slipping past me.

"What's that?" I said.

"We'll free him. We'll find a way. If that's what you want..." she said, looking frustrated.

Never had I thought she would be on my side. "Jelly!" I said. "Let's be responsible, shall we? You and I both know that no one will accept or believe this, so we need to be cautious."

"Yeah," she said. "Cautious." She giggled. "Stupid Sweetie."

And we were off!





"I'm sure you're wondering why you're here," Jelly said.

I cocked my head to the right, to the left, back to the right, and then in a circle. "Must I venture a guess? I think I know."

"No, you don't," she said. "They plan to ruin you further. I can't allow that."

"Ruin me?" I said.

"Mess with your brain," she said.

"But I'm FINE!" I said. "Well, relatively. I guess I'm only delusional about one thing now, rather than everything, from their perspective of what happened to me and what I did."

"Gripey?" she said.

"Yeah, you know," I said.

"They don't think so. They still think that you think you're a robot," she said.

"Well, then poo on them!" I said. "What makes them think that?"

"Your stark delusion," she said. "And the fact that you're acting differently and no one can explain why."

"Differently?" I said.

"From the Sweetie they think they know?" she said. "You seem normal to me, but they think you've become some kind of mindless computer, Sweetie."

"Did they... ?" I said.

"Say that? Yes, many times," Jelly said.

"Why?" I said. "I am normal... well, I am me, anyway. Normal enough!"

We were inside one of the apartments on the train, sitting across from one another. "They are not in touch with reality anymore. They've gone too far," she said.

"Yeah!" I said. "This messing with my brain is more dangerous than they understand, and besides, I'm as myself as I ever remember myself being. I'm happy, calm, relaxed, somewhat perturbed, and I want to save my friend because if I don't... I mean, not to sound selfish, but I fear that I won't be the same."

"I know," Jelly said. "I thought about it, and I guessed that was the reason. You're still afraid..."

"Afraid, yes," I said. "I am afraid. I am scared to... think and act around others, for this precise reason. They're going to think I'm a freak. I might as well be a robot, and that's why I could just pretend to be one." 

"Don't worry," she said. "They'll have to go through me."

The train shook. "Time?" I said.

As if on order, Number Nine shot out of nowhere, going beside our train. "It's that train..." Jelly said.





It began.

Our train went faster. The other train went even faster. Our train went super fast! Then, the other train shot ahead of us. I looked out the window. The other train, Number Nine, swerved to the side, going in front of our train, causing a barrier for us to explode into and assumably presumably die.

A ramp came out of our train, so we bounced over and barely scraped by, surviving, going over and on top of the other train. Clearly, someone had prepared. I tried to gain access to the engine car, and after a while, he opened the door. I had stood there, bonking for a while. "Come in," Colly said.

Jelly followed me. "Hey!" Jelly said. "What are we doing here? Where are we going?"

"As always, to collect information," I said.

"That's fine, but to what end are we doing this? What do you want to know information about?" she said.

"I've thought about this a lot," Colly said. "The other train is impossibly big. There's something wrong with the idea that it can keep up with our train. There's something... fishy!"

"Something magical?" Jelly said.

"No, but it's almost like it knows exactly where we're coming and going beforehand," Colly said. "Hold on."

Projectiles flew toward our train. The speed decreased. We avoided them.

"Then..." I said. "Why aren't we dead yet?"

"What a question!" Jelly said, rolling her eyes at me.

"We're not... because of timing!" Colly said. He increased the speed. The other train, Number Nine, soared into the air. It descended on us like a piston from above.

The train braked. Then, it increased its speed. Number Nine, the other train, narrowly missed ours. 

"Cool," I said.

"Cool?" Jelly said. "That's all you have to say about that... is cool?"

"Yeah, sure," I said.

"Maybe you really are off your rocker," she said. 

"Beats me," I said.

We were headed toward a tunnel. Something flashed in my head, another memory. "Colly!" I said. "The hooks!"

"Hooks?" he said. Our train rumbled. He stuck his head out the window. "How in heaven's name did you know?"

"Never mind!" I said.

The roof on our train came straight off. Rubble fell everywhere. I held Jelly tight. "Sweetie!" she cried out.

"Jelly!" I said. "We'll be okay."

"How can you be so sure?" she said.

"Colly!" I said. "Do not brake. Increase the speed."

"But the other train is just going to do the same," he said. "If we brake, we might have a chance of braking loose."

"No, it relies on..." I said. "The ravine!"

Colly looked at me. "Ah, I remember! That's right. The... ravine... is coming straight for us." He increased the speed. "Am I doing it right?"

Jelly pulled loose. "We're going to die!" she said. "Don't increase the speed. What are you doing?"

"We have to," I said.

"You're not in charge of the train," she said to me. "This overgrown child Colly is."

"I may be an overgrown child, but I know my trains!" he said. And then, he pulled the brakes. We went more slowly, but the other train had already increased its speed. "The other train is bigger than ours, so if it goes faster over the side of the ravine..."

The other train braked, and then, it reached the ravine before we did. "Wh–" Jelly said, as our train slowed down.

She was interrupted by Colly. "Good luck, you two!" He pushed us off the train, as all the sides of the train were getting torn off by the giant metal hooks. "This was all according to plan."

The train got pulled over the edge, along with all the other passengers, I assume. Number Nine nosedived, and then...

BOOOM! A giant cloud of purple fire shot into the sky. 

"Colly!" I said.

"He sacrificed his life for us," Jelly said "Why?"

Why, indeed.





He is the Canterlot sweetheart. What's his name?
> Part 63: The Meeting of the Ancients
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Splendorous, magnificent, and massive, are only a few words I would use to describe Canterlot. I had never seen a place like this before. Unlike Manehattan, it was posh, crisp, and all too dull for my tastes. Ponies went about, smiling, talking, not noticing that they were surrounded by death, war, griffins, killer cyborgs, and other such hurdles. No, in their little world, everything was perfect. To my surprise and chagrin, they all loved Starry Skies. He was Canterlot's sweetheart. He had ridden the city of crime, collected taxes for the royals, and created order inside the war. He had made peace with everyone he met. His policies prevented the war from becoming a total parody of a bloodbath, as one colorful pony put it.

To me, he was a monster.

Jelly and I had spent six hours walking to get to Canterlot. It was hard to miss. The giant pink and purple bubble off in the distance was visible, even to a visually impaired person. This was the protection afforded to Canterlot by its royals. Never would the war reach them.

Jelly insisted we go see some relatives of hers. "Come on, Sweetie. They're fine. They're great ponies."

"Yeah, but..." I said.

"The guys that were about to put you into a brainwashing machine are all dead on that train," she said.

"I want to figure out what's going on," I said.

"You always say that," she said. "Never do what I want to do."

I relented. "Okay, I'll go see your relatives."

Her relatives were nice.

"Jelly," a pony said, opening a door that she had knocked on.

"Pumpkin," Jelly said.

"Guys!" I said, smiling.

I came in.

"Jelly told us such nice things about you," the pony said.

"Did she really?" I said, glancing at Jelly.

"Yeah," Jelly said. "Be happy!"

I stayed there for a few hours.

"So..." I said. "The weather is... nice!"

"What you can see of it," the pony said, a young mare apparently in her twenties. She laughed.

I laughed too. "Hehe!"

"I like weather," Jelly said.

"We have that in common," I said, feeling at home.

"Sweetie," the mare said. "You got a letter?"

"What?" I said. "That's not possible. I don't live here."

"You've..." the mare said, dropping the letter. "This is from... Starry Skies."

"That's ridiculous," I said. "He's back in Ponyville."

"No," the mare said, "but this is his insignia."

It was the gavel with a hoof reaching out toward it. It also had the hand of a griffin reaching out. "Huh?" I said, seeing it.

"What a great honor!" she said. Pumpkin her name was, I think.

I looked upon it. I hadn't told Jelly about the incident in Ponyville where the judge had basically threatened my life, so Jelly didn't know, and this was all a lot to take in. "Jeez," I said.





I was led down through the catacombs of the court-building. The only reason I went there and did not tell Jelly of my fears was because I didn't want to die, so I did as the letter commanded:

"Cordially, you have been invited to the High Court of Equestria so that you may meet with the First Judge of Equestria Starry Skies, the great wizard. Once there, he will grant one wish for you and a friend. Consider it a gift. This letter is the price of admission, should you come, so do not throw it away." --- Murr Haughtypaw 

I reached the long hall of empty desks. Here was the workspace of many of the judges, but it was empty now. "Ooo," I said, feeling afraid.

"Sweetie," Jelly said. "Should we have come here?"

One of the two bronze guards leading us walked ahead. Atop one pedestal was the cat herself, the cat-pony Murr. She slithered down the pedestal like a snake, jumping across its surface as if it were flat, and she stopped in front of the guards. "Thank you kindly. You may leave us now. I blow many kisses to you! Moi. Moi." She put her paw to her mouth, blowing kisses.

The two guards blushed and then left. What was so charming about her? She was basically a freak, like me. "I'm not sure," I said to Jelly's question.

From behind the higher pedestal to the side of the lower one came an old, stumbling pony walking out. "Hurr," he said.

"That Starry Sky?" I said. "Looking old... er."

"Urr," he said, stumbling up to us. He basically had his eyes closed.

Murr giggled. "Starry. It's the special guests," she said.

His face immediately lit up. "Sweetie, and you brought your friend?"

"Yeah," I said, glancing to Jelly, who shrugged.

"I'm extremely embarrassed," he said. "I like to keep up... appearances. I only reveal my true self to the ponies I most care about and trust. Most of the time, I'm a doddering old fool, look? I am sorry if I offended your sensibilities."

"Urr," I said, feeling like my brain was getting overloaded.

"You like some cookies?" Murr said, sliding back with a wry smile.

"Yes!" Jelly said.

I raised a hoof. "To the issue at hand- h- hoof."

"Of course," Starry said. "I am sorry for threatening you earlier. But you must see, I cannot seem weak in front of my soldiers. They might think that I am actually soft. Good heavens. We can't have that. Most of the ponies here in Canterlot only respect strength."

"Sad but true," Murr said, holding out a tray for Jelly to grab some cookies.

Jelly munched. "Cookie!" she said, pointing at the cookie.

"So what that all just... an act?" I said.

"Of course," he said. "We can't have you thinking that I would ever actually hurt you. I couldn't. I'm indebted to you." 

"Indebted?" I said.

"You probably don't remember it," he said. "But long ago, you saved my life." He put his hoof over his face and moved it around. His skin got even looser, believe it or not. He pulled at it, and the skin seemed to snap. Under it was a robot visage. "I'm like you." He smiled. His face was only metal.

"Right," I said. "About that!"

"Cool," Jelly said. "So you're going to help us and stuff?"

"Jelly," I said. "He seems untrustworthy."

"The thing said that he would grant your wish," Jelly said. "Ask about that."

The judge shook his head, sighing. "It was all a big mistake from the start. I am the only one that understood it, and I always told them that it was a bad idea." He faced to the side. "Nexusantran!"

The tiny little changeling thing came running. "Yes, Sire. Master!" she said.

"It's Sweetie. I want you to treat her like you would a friend, understood?" he said, admonishingly, like he was lecturing his own daughter or something.

"Yes," Nexus said. "I'm sorry to bother you with my presence," she said, bowing to me. "Starry told me all about you. Now, apparently we're related, you and I. What a crazy thought!"

"All the crazier," I said.

Jelly spit out a piece of cookie. "Woooww," she said, drawing out the W.

"You," Starry said to me, "is what we at the Facilities would call a robot mold. You're a robot clone of Nexusantran, who used to be Sweetie Belle before she was touched by the black."

"Oof," I said.

"I was freed from my trauma and turned into a servant," Nexus said. "The nightmare can do that."

"The longer, indeed, that your brain stays inside the change, the deeper it goes," the judge said. "So, to the topic at hoof. You were dissatisfied with your wish."

"I wasn't raped by him!" I said. "'Tis a lie."

"Gripey!" Jelly said, to clarify my quasidrunken ramblings.

"Hey!" I said to Jelly. "Don't you find all these shocking revelations a little shocking?"

"Meh!" she said. "I'm used to it when I'm around you."

"I didn't think I actually was a cyborg," I said, "or a robot, or whatever I am."

"Yeah," Jelly said. "About that... I kind of... knew."

"Huh?" I said.

"Surprise!" she said, nervously giggling and drooling cookie crumbs all over the ground.

"Jelly!" I said. "Is there no one I can trust here to be honest with me? I'm basically a nervous wreck because no one has the guts to tell me the truth. Am I a robot or am I not?"

Starry smiled. "You're anything you want to be, friend. A robot? A cyborg? A pony? I can make it happen. What is it you desire?"

"My friend..." I said, hoping that I wasn't hoping in vain.

"I've thought about it, and I've come to the conclusion that there is no reason to keep him imprisoned," Starry said, smiling gently at me.

I scrunched my nose. "You still going to kill me if I don't do the keynote whatever whatever thing whatever?"

"No," he said. "Hookbeak will. It's to offer you political cover, not to threaten you. I was never going to hurt you, but Hookbeak knows what's going on, and he still has a price on your head."

"Right, so I'll do the stupid keynote," I said, my mind reeling.

"You talked to him before?" Jelly said. "Now, who's keeping secrets?"

"Yeah, well, fine, but what you did was worse," I said. "I can't even focus because my mind is cluttered by all this confusing nonsense all the time, and it's getting to be tiring, maddening, and absolutely absurd."

"A lie is a lie," Jelly said, munching a cookie.

"But you just lied to me!" I said. "How can you stand there and pretend to take the moral high-ground?"

Jelly started coughing. "Ugh!" she said, coughing and coughing. "I'm sorry, okay? Sorry for not... knowing what to say, okay?"

"It feels like... whatever!" I said. "So..."

"Brrring him in," Starry said, and Nexus ran back. She pulled Gripey into the room by a chain tied around his neck.

Gripey gasped for air. "Urgh!" Gripey said.

"Aaah!" I said, seeing the scene. "You're hurting him."

"Don't pull so hard," Starry said. "His neck is damaged enough already. Sweetie is right. You should take it easy."

Nexus pouted. "I want to have fun," she said, walking away and letting go of the chain.

Gripey, upon seeing me, had the oddest reaction. He pulled back into the corner, with panic on his face.

"Why?" I said. "Why is this happening?" I shrugged. "Anyone?"

"Gripey!" Starry said, smiling gently. "Get over here, or you might regret it. Someone has come to meet you."

Gripey came walking up to me. He looked beyond himself with panic and fear. "Gripes, what's going on? What did they do to you?" I said.

"Well," Starry said.

"A taste of his own medicine, for starters," Nexus said. "That was only the starter though. We did all sorts of things to him."

"So you know not to hurt tiny fillies," Starry said, pinching Gripey's cheek in his magic. "Isn't that wight, wittle Gwipey-wipey?"

My mind shut off. I felt like I was about to faint. I felt like all my senses were under attack at once.

Jelly went up to grab me. "Sweetie! Sweetie, focus. Don't disappear on me, again."

My mind spun. I opened my eyes. My head was spinning. I was in another place. My body was torn in different directions. I pulled back. "St- stay away from me," I said, to all the ghosts in front of me.

I collapsed on the ground.





"Aah," I yelped, waking up.

"Took some time for you to come to," Jelly said, standing beside me. We were in a pristine little garden, walled on all sides by walls that reached up into the sky.

"Jelly," I said, feeling too tired to move, breathe, and think. 

"I guess I... should've told you the truth," she said.

"Guess so," I said, agreeing with her sentiment.

"But you seemed so happy. I didn't want to ruin it," she said.

"Am I a robot or am I not a robot?" I said.

"I guess you are. That's why you left me in the first place when we lived inside the Forest of Tranquility there in Terran," she said.

I remembered back.

...

...

...

"Jelly," I said, knocking on the door to our house.

"Yes?" she said.

"I need to talk. I've decided..." I said.

...

...

...

"Sidus?" I said.

"Well, he told you in your dreams that you could get all you ever wanted, if you did as he said. I was terrified for you," Jelly said. "I thought, gosh! What happened to her to make her want this, even?"

"But the timeline doesn't make any sense," I said. "Why would I be there with you in the first place unless I was trying to escape from the cyborgs after what happened in Pegasquire? Something about this has always been fishy. Either, it's all real, or it's not. There's no in-between." I stood up, feeling spryer.

"Sweetie..." she said "Oh..." She looked into my eyes. We were by a big fountain that shot water in all sorts of directions. "You didn't want to be a robot anymore. That's why you fled and left me alone."

"You mean to say..." I said, "that it was the opposite."

"Yes," she said.

"Why does everything about this strike me as... wrong, incorrect somehow. It's like there's a missing piece, and should I find out, everything would make sense," I said.

"All I know is that you were adamant about going," she said.

"Going where?" I said.

"I have no idea. You just disappeared, off and disappeared like that!" she said.

I scowled hastily and to my own surprise, I felt determination. "No... no, that's not what happened."

"Huh?" she said.

"No, there's something completely wrong here..." I said. "If only... if only I had more of my friends with me, not to rain on your parade, Jelly, but you haven't exactly been honest with me."

"I am so sorry. I actually am this time," Jelly said. "I realized I love you... as a friend!"

"Yeah," I said. "Well... what happened to him?"

Gripes... my other friend... was... lost and confused, hurt even. "They took him away," Jelly said.

I let out a long whine. "Uuuuuu," I said, chirping with pain in my stupid, little voice.

"Sweetie," she said. "It's okay."

"Why?" I said. "Because he was a bad guy, anyway? You know I don't believe that."

She looked at me, carefully and slowly, and she said, "Yes."

"You still think I'm crazy!"

"Yes."

I turned. "I can't believe you," I said. "I mean, I literally can't believe you, even if I tried. You have lied to me too much."

"And I regret it! Sweetie," she said, following me from behind. "Sweetie, I know it's been hard for you. Let someone else take  care of you and stop putting all the weight of the world on your own shoulders. It's not worth it. It's not that important."

"He is! And I will save his life." I trudged off.





I knocked on the door in the other side of the garden. The door opened. "Come right in," Murr said.

"It's about my friend," I said.

"That's so precious," she said. "We almost figured that you had changed your mind, what with the scene you put on earlier. Come inside."

"I don't know what kind of trickery this is..." I said, seeing Starry Skies sitting inside that little office space.

"No trickery!" Starry said. "We need to make sure that your friend is safe, for the journey."

"The journey?" I said.

"The meeting of the ancients," he said.

"So you're not... going to hurt him anymore?" I said.

"We wouldn't dare!" he said. "Gripey's all yours. I hope he doesn't hurt you any longer."

"He didn't hurt me!" I said. 

"Whatever you say," he said, snickering coldly at my angry protest.

Murr stroked against me. "You're a tough one. That's what I heard before you came here. I hope you don't mind some cuddling," she said.

"Yeah," I said, dumbstruck and dumbfounded.





Jelly came running. "Sweetie!" she said.

"What?" I said, still inside that office space. Starry had told me about the meeting of the ancients, information which will be relayed in the next chapter. 

For now... "Sweetie!" Jelly shrieked.

"What?" I said.

"I..." she said. "I need to talk to you ALLL alone. You got that?"

I glanced to Starry. "What is this?" I said. He was looking at us both, curiously, with curiosity. 

"Sweetie!" Jelly said.

"Okay, okay," I said, following her out the door back into the walled garden. The garden was not really walled. It was buried deep down in a depression along with the courthouse that was full of underground tunnels and private facilities.

Jelly looked from right to left. "This place is... weeeird."

The ground level where the rest of Canterlot was would be five or ten meters up into the air, above where we were. Either, this was some sort of natural phenomenon, or the garden was carved out of the ground, which seemed remarkable either way. "Jelly... what? That's what you wanted to tell me?" I looked around. "We are in an abyss of some kind, I've gathered."

"No," she said. "You don't understand. You need to come with me right now."

I followed her, obediently.

We walked into a dungeon of some kind, through another door. It was full of cells. Most of them were empty. Inside one of them was a dead body. "What's this?" I said.

"It's someone who's dead!" Jelly said, in her sort of wild, childlike way.

"You suuu..." I said, noticing the state of her body. She was dead all right. 

Jelly looked furious. "How could they allow this to happen?" she said.

"Because..." I said, seeing her wounds. "Because it was OBVIOUSLY, on purpose, say, Jelly?"

"How?" she said.

"You need to leave," a pony in another cell said. "If they find you out, you're going to get it too."

Jelly ran toward the door in the opposite end of the corridor. She promptly opened it. On the other side was the garden. "What?" Jelly said.

We had gone the exact opposite direction and ended up in the same place. Both doors in opposite ends of the corridor all led out into the exact same garden, which was geographically impossible, and yet... "Hello, friends," Starry said, coming into the dungeon through the door where Jelly had been. She took a step back.

"Sweetie, run!" Jelly said.

I didn't. "Why?" I said, as Jelly took off.

"Sweetie?" she said, turning back.

"Where are you going?" I said.

Jelly looked in the opposite direction. Starry was standing over there too. "Wh- twins?" she said.

"No," Starry said. "It's just a simple optical illusion." He stepped inside. "The doors are arranged so that if you open one, the other will open as well, and the doors are also attached to ropes. You can see if you look carefully!" He pointed up toward the ceiling. "When you open it, another door comes down to take its place, and the door moves forward through the corridor, reflecting back whatever happens in the opposite end. The doors here are polished and hyper-reflective, you see." Jelly stepped to the side. Something was odd about it. The light refracted wrong against the corridor. Finally, I felt something cold against my skin. I stepped to the side. The metal door, very large and sturdy, moved to take the place of the one beside us. It rose into the ceiling, revealing nothing behind it. "It's a simple parlor trick, nothing more." 

"I was asking you!" I said to him. "Why?"

"Why... what?" he said.

Jelly was jittery. "Sweeetiiie," she said.

"Why did you kill her?" I said.

All the other cells had fallen silent. "She was a thief," he said, "but more than that." He smiled, softly. "She was hiding things from us."

"Yes... ?" I said. "And?"

"I'm sure..." he said, "you understand. Sometimes, ponies have to die." He closed the door behind him. "Sometimes, ponies must be tortured, killed, and have their organs destroyed for them to reveal to us what we need to know in order to save this land, Sweetie... and Jelly."

"That's insane!" Jelly said. "You're evil."

"I suppose..." he said. "I suppose... it doesn't matter anymore..."

"What doesn't matter?" I said.

Two cell doors flew open. A strong wind blew through the space, sucking us inside. "Aaah!" I screamed. Jelly did as well.

A storm of colors surrounded Starry Skies, making him grow and twist. His tiny, black coat ripped in half. "Congratulations, friends," a giant deformed shape said. It had an enlarged eye, mismatched limbs, a leg that was too long, another that was too short, and veins going everywhere across its body shining crimson. "You have revealed my true identity."
> Part 64: Day 1 – Starry Skies' Tightrope Traipse
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Do not worry!" he said. "I am doing this to help you. You don't know what kind of danger you would be in without my help." 

That was a laugh. Jelly was crying. Why did he have to put us in different cells? He could at least have the decency to... oh, but did it matter?

"You're not gonna get away with this," I said.

His crazy body took a few steps back. "You have no idea who I am, do you? Well, just as well. I had thought you would recognize me now." 

I had never seen him before, and let the previous parts of the story stand witness to this as well. "You coward," I said. "We're defenseless. The least you could do is explain why." 

"I'm not the problem," he said, walking away. "Enjoy your night. You have a big day tomorrow. Make sure you don't disappoint me, fillies." The door slammed behind him.





We were escorted onto a train by some guards. No questions asked! No, especially not by us, though that was mostly because we didn't have the option to. Anyway, and whatever the case, we were going to this great public event. Did Starry Skies expect to keep us imprisoned once we got there? I had no idea, but he had to know that his behavior toward us wasn't much appreciated. At least, he had to have that self-awareness, whatever he was up to, and whatever he was.

It might be hard to imagine a withering, dithering pony like him putting on a tightrope ballet display. After this day, it was easy. 

We reached our destination. Once escorted out the train, we arrived at a large public meeting place with tables, chairs, snacks, cheers, ponies, beers? I had never seen those before, but they were there too. Princess Celestia was there too.

"Good luck," Starry Skies said, from behind his entourage of guards.

Why, I asked myself. Why 'good luck'? 

"Hello?" Princess Celestia said. "I seem to remember you from somewhere."

"Likewise," I said. "The name is–"

Jelly put her hoof in my mouth. "Do we really have to tell them our names?" she said, laughing.

Celestia scrunched her nose. "You were sentenced to two months in prison," she said.

"I was?" I said. "Can't seem to recall... heheh!"

"What are you doing here?" she said.

I looked around. Ponies were gathered, talking, whispering, all in tiny groups, as if on a convention of some kind, some dispersed, some gathered, but all not focusing on me. "I was..." I said, glancing to Starry Skies. He nodded. "Umm... I... I... I came here... I was invited... by Starry Skies."

"More like forced to come," Celestia said, looking up at the sky. "I hope you're ready, in case somepony tries any funny business. This is a dangerous place, little ones."

"Sooo..." I said. "You're not... going to fry me with your horn laser?"

Celestia just walked away. Jelly hugged me. "I was SO worried," Jelly said.

"Yeah," I said, feeling anger well up in me. "Because I... actually was sentenced to two months in prison, so that part of it was real too."

"Yes!" she said.

I rolled my eyes in confusion. "Forget about it," I said.

As the keynote speaker, I was called to speak first.

There was a particularly badly built and badly lit stage for each of the invited speakers to walk up on and speak. I wondered what this display was for, considering that this was supposed to be a meeting between the ancients, old and very reclusive ponies, griffins, demons, Discord, and dragon. The seven, to rehearse, are Celestia, Luna, Discord, Torch the dragon, Aqasha the wood sprite, Hookbeak, and the Yethergnerjz demon. Only a few had days planned for them, the four warring sides leaders. Celestia and Luna are the leaders of the ponies. They had day two planned for the conference. Aqasha, the zebra deity, had day three, as the zebras was a tertiary third side, which helped the ponies in small but significant ways. The griffins, the weird crazy griffins, had the fourth day scheduled. The organizer, the Nonaligned Court, had the first day. 

I walked up on stage. What was I supposed to say? My memory flashed. Starry Skies had given me a note.

The note had said: "Talk about what you know." --- NOT HOOKBEAK, A LIABILITY 

I expected and guessed more and more that I had been randomly pulled into some power game of Starry's. "Hey!" I said to the crowd. I had unwillingly relented to coming onstage after some conversation about it with Jelly, who thought it safer if I did as I had been told by the scary Starry Skies. 

The crowd was mostly silent. It was massive! I had no idea it would be so many ponies. What the hell did Starry want out of me? Why was I doing this, basically? That was, well, basically what I asked myself. The crowd consisted of all sorts of races of ponies spread out over a seven-mile radius in front of the stage. It was in the thousands. Where did they come from? I saw small children, tiny faces in front of me, like mine, but even younger. Absentminded adults, attentive dignitaries, and Celestia were not far out of view as well, sitting a few rows back. It wasn't clearly organized. It was jampacked, but in a few places, guards had sealed off private spaces for some of the special invites. This included Starry Skies, sitting with a ponderous furrow of his brow, looking off and away from me, even though I was standing there, all helpless. 

Celestia was surrounded by guards. She had a massive chair to sit it, since she was an oversized pony, even by the standards of male ponies. She had guards on all sides. I teetered to the edge, seeing another person come. He was surrounded by griffins on all sides, creating a perfect meatshield around him. They scattered to the sides and landed in an unbelievably symmetrical formation beside him. This was of course the one and only, the one Hookbeak. He had a most amused expression on his face. He always had this weird grin about him. I wondered why.

I gasped for air. Everyone was looking at me, in silence almost. The silence was heavy on me. A pony came walking up on the stage. Something stung within me. Had I blown it already? "I am extremely contrite," a young and nervous-looking colt said, pulling with him a microphone. "Blame it on me, but go easy, okay? This job isn't easy, y'know. I apologize, see? Here's the microphone. Take it up with the organizer, because they didn't bring the microphone in time, and–"

"Thank you!" I said, feeling saved. Now, I would get my second chance, as ponies would think I had stood there in awestruck silence because I didn't have a microphone. "Ponies of Equestria!" I summoned all of the charisma I could muster. "Two days ago, I awoke from a coma."

Whispers broke out in the audience! Ah, that was the desired result though, I thought.

I went on. "I thought I was dead, but as it turns out, fate can have that caprice about it where you think one thing, but it turns out that the obverse is the truth, so here's what happened!" I gasped for air. I was still feeling nervous, but it gave me an energy that I had never felt before. It was exhilarating. "About a few years ago." I didn't remember the exact timeframe, so this was all confabulatory. "I was badly damaged. My body, my mind, and everything about me was dying. I had hurt my head in an accident, and to make things worse, I was assaulted and abused."

The crowd fell silent again. This was perfect! I went on. I was gripped by the moment.

This was MY moment. I, I and I alone, would tell Equestria how I felt, and no one could stop me. "I was raped, and since I did not have functioning sex organs at the time, this damaged my body beyond repair."

From the corner of my eye, I could see Starry Skies. He was smiling now. He put his hoof to his own head and kept it there for me to see. Okay then, I thought.

"But it was actually my mind that got destroyed by this," I said, treading carefully. "That's why... I was put through this procedure, created by the griffins." I was about to mention Hookbeak, but then I stopped myself. I glanced to Hookbeak. His big dumb grin had gone away. His mouth was slightly open, and his eyes met mine. He was expressionless. "This was to save my brain from permanent damage and to save who I am, because my mind, and indeed my brain, were degenerating to the point of irreversibility. This neurological damage prompted everyone around me to worry for me. Of course, it was only a matter of time until things got worse. I guess..."

I looked at Starry again for some guidance, anything! He disgustingly pulled his hoof over his skin so that it stretched out like that on a snake. Did anyone else see that? Then, he nodded. 

"Uh," I said. "The procedure was really only a way to save me from the neurological damage created by my mental trauma, and the physical trauma I had been through, as these two are tightly connected. The procedure worked, and now, I am a changed person, but it has changed me in other ways too. Others seem to think that I am different somehow, but I'm not! I am Sweetie Belle, and I just want to be free. I don't want to be tested and changed anymore."

Starry grinned, absolutely beamed. He shook his head.

"But I realize that it was necessary just this once to save my life... this brings us to the day at hoof, as it were, everyone. We need to realize that no issue is in black and white. Changing the brains of ponies indefinitely, until they become like..." I was about to say Hookbeak. "... a brainless zombie, will not do anything to help them, no matter how long they live. But changing the brains of ponies, not at all, even though they'll die without it, is not quite so good either, so here's the deal." I felt like my eloquence was leaving me, but just as well. I was reaching the end, anyway. "We need to find a better way. We need to find a third way that does not rely on, um, moral absolutes, say, everypony, and griff. We need to understand one another and not hate..." 

I looked at Starry. He leant his head to the side, throwing his shoulders dismissively. 

"But if anyone needs help, then of course that should be available to them. It's just... it's a complicated issue, and I think, finally, that it's important to approach with a measure of humility, calm, warmth, and concern for one another as fellow creatures." I bowed! I felt panic! "And I thank you!" I said, my voice going up in pitch at the last word. Had I blown it? It wasn't a planned speech. I started bumbling a bit at the end there, I thought. Drats! 

The crowd broke out into a great wave cheers and applause. Well, I thought. At least, it had to have been good enough.

The sound got so loud that it reached into the microphone and reverberated, causing me to lose my balance. They were cheering like mad... for me? Really? I didn't think that speech was THAT good, but maybe it was.

Later... I met up with Jelly. It had been about twenty minutes. I tried to avoid the stares to the greatest extent possible. Luckily, there was an area reserved for ponies invited to the event. We were more alone here, and free to roam as we pleased without fear of the crowd. "Sweetie," Jelly said. "You have a talent for public speaking."

"That was not a good speech!" I said. "I started bumbling all over the place!"

"Naw, you're just overly critical, being a perfectionist. The crowd hung on your every word, and you were very present, also had a great presence, dear."

Huuh? "Are you sure?" I said.

"Yeah," she said. "You'll be the talk of the day, especially when you talked about sex organs. That was very risqué of you. But I thought it came across like you wanted it to." 

"Yeah," I said. "I hope."

A great variety of soldiers in different armor came walking. It was like an impenetrable mass. Behind them was Princess Celestia, looking at me in disbelief. "You seem to know this crowd better than I do," she said.

"Shucks," I said, shrugging.

"Where did you come from? One has to wonder where Starry dug you up. Sister of Rarity, I assume?" Celestia spoke to me with a lot more warmth and interest than she had before.

"Correct," I said, with a smile.

Jelly, trying to grab the attention, said, "And I'm her friend." Jelly whispered, "Hey! That Starry Skies is insane. He tried to blackmail us."

"You don't need to whisper," Celestia said. "I know about all kinds of such things. But that doesn't mean I can do anything about it. He's... he's more popular than I am at this point in my own city. It would be risky to take a major stance against him at this point... unless we had some proof."

"Proof," I said. "What... how hard can that be? He had a corpse in his dungeon."

Celestia looked from right to left. Then, she said, "He'll only blame that on me, and they will believe him. Watch it now!"

A tinier group of bronze soldiers pushed through Celestia's royal troops, disorderly and recklessly. "Watch it," a gold-armored soldier said.

"Shut up," Nexus said, in her tiny armor, walking past him.

Starry Skies came walking in the path that had been created by all the pushing. He smiled and laughed, revealing all his heavy wrinkles. "You were ever so brilliant. You hit every note, including not pulling Hookbeak into it."

"Yeah," I said, reservedly.

Starry looked at Celestia. "Isn't she brilliant? What a wonder! Adorable too. Haha!" He walked away, chuckling to himself. "Brilliant!"

"Yeeeah," I said, feeling uneasy. "What is he, even?"

"Not much pony left in him," Celestia said. "But never mind that. I only wish for you to feel better now, knowing what you have been through, and he is not to be meddled with. He is the most evil pony you will ever meet, but don't tell anyone I said that."

"Don't worry," I said. "My lips are practically bolted together at this point..."

Jelly looked confused. "U?" she said.

"From a metaphorical perspective, not that they literally are... stop taking everything so seriously, you guys," I said, wanting some space.

"You're quite well-spoken for your age too," Celestia said. "We'll talk later. There is work to do, now."

She walked off. The giant mass of soldiers at her disposal followed her.





It was two o'clock. This time, a random judge took the stage. I had felt bad about my speech, but I had no idea they came this boring, in comparison. I felt bad about upstaging this guy, forcing him to put on a brave face during his speech. "As I said," he began, which made not a lick of sense. "I am Judge Shell, like- like the sea shell, heheh!" He had zero charm, too, not even the slimy, snaky, slithery charm that Starry at least had, crazy and odd as he was. "I have come to report s- some important..." He stopped. He fell silent. It stayed that way for thirty seconds. Gosh! Now, I felt all better about myself already. "Numbers!" No one except me would remember the beginning of that sentence, figuring how long it took him to get to the end, I thought, but I hung on every word because I was curious.

Hilariously, a single pony out in the crowd, far out there somewhere, maybe a mile away, started booing indistinctly through the mass of whispers and disinterested conversation ponies engaged in to pass the time. "Boo!" I heard it.

This, ridiculously and adorably, jolted the poor Judge Shell awake. "The first numbers are the death count since the war began. Four million, two-hundred thousand, four-hundred, and sixty-three ponies... a- AND griffins, have died." This guy was a judge? He had no control over his own emotions whatsoever. "The next numbers are..." I lost interest completely after that point.

Later... I actually met up with the guy. "Hey!" I said. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," he said, his voice hoarse from loud speaking and nervousness, I suppose.

"You looked really nervous up there," I said. "I hope you're okay."

"Did I? Oh, no!" he said. "Oh no. Oh no. Oh no."

"What's the matter?" I said.

He was slightly panicked. "I can't be looking panicked. It will reflect bad on the court. Anyway! Anyway!" He took a few deep breaths. "Forget I said anything!" he shouted, looking away, turning away, and walking away.

"Huuuh?" I said, since of all reactions, I had not expected that one when meeting up with him. At worst, I thought he might get slightly insulted and feel demeaned by my pity, since he is a judge and who am I? A child? But he only reacted with... fear when I confronted him. I didn't even pressure him lots or anything. I just went straight to small-talk, but he still somehow got panicked when I brought it up. His speech wasn't great. Sure, so what? I don't think anyone would even remember him, so what did it matter? 

Jelly caught up with me as I stood there, trying to interpret what had just happened. "The lineup for the Nonaligned Court's day isn't exactly... well, it's not anything. I don't know about any of these- who's this? Judge Lango? What kind of name is that?" Jelly said, licking on an ice cream and reading the conference schedule. "What's wrong?" she said, after looking at me for half a moment.

"I'm not sure," I said, "but that Judge Shell sure is shelly."

"Hah!" she said, licking on. "What did he say?"

I wasn't sure. "It's more about what he didn't say."

"What didn't he say?" she said.

"He just off and left when I mentioned how... boring his spee- or rather, I only touched on the fact that he seemed a little nervous. Was that inappropriate for me to do?"

"No, that seems suspicious," she said.

He... "I mean..." I said. "Was I being socially inept there again? I don't know!"

"Me neither," she said. "But it sounds like this guy had something to hide."

"You think so?" I said.

"For sure," she said. "Why else would he act that way?"

"I wonder what it was," I said.

The sound of streaming water came from behind me. I flipped around to see what it was. "Maybe he was intimidated by you," Discord said.

"Doubt that," I said. Jelly nodded in agreement with me.

Discord lay in a quadratic pool of water detached from any surface and suspended in the air. He appeared to be swimming around and around in a tiny circle. "The court is stringent on its members, and you just upstaged them all. If they underperform, and it happens, then they meet with accidents of different kinds, creative ones," he said. "It's all never-ending... a never-ending?"

"What?" I said.

"A never-ending," he said, swimming around.

Jelly drew a circle with her hoof as I looked to her. 

"Circle?" I said. 

The water detached from the air and fell down on us. Both Jelly and I were flushed away by the current. We were tossed about until we ended up by a long table. "Where are we?" Jelly said, gasping for air.

I coughed up water. "Ugh! Why, Discord? Aren't you a good guy?" He was completely gone now, or rather, we were in a different place? I coughed. "Or something?" Whatever he was, it was chaotic. I guess that was the centerpiece of his character.

Two characters sat by the table, Princess Celestia and Hookbeak. As soon as he saw me, he left the table and stormed off in a hurry. "Wait!" Celestia said, but he was far gone before she even had the chance to react.

"I guess I disturbed you," I said, feeling uneasy about it.

"Where did that come from?" Princess Celestia said.

Jelly thought she knew what Celestia meant. "You mean the water? That's Discord, I guess."

"Dis-COOORD!" Celestia screamed, in way that was unusual and in some way, seemed undignified, but nevertheless, it was also understandable, seeing as Discord had seemed to ruin some important moment between them.

Discord popped into existence. "Yes? I heard my name, maybe, but I am not sure. Maybe if you speak a little louder, I'll be able to hear you next time."

Celestia opened her mouth–

"But I'm not sure!" he added.

Celestia closed her mouth. "O, so that's how it's going to be," she said.

"Hey!" he said. "I warned you about inviting me."

"So you did," she said, slumping down on the table.

"Hey!" I said to Jelly. "Let's get out of here, like two good fillies."

"Wait," Celestia said. "I have something for you two." She held up an amulet in her hoof. "This is precious gem. It is an emblem of loyalty. As long as you keep this, you'll be able to roam the royal castle grounds in Canterlot freely. I hope you will be loyal, you two."

Before I had the chance to express my disdain for the notion, Jelly said, "Wow. Great. Thanks! We will." She pulled me with her. "Sweetie," she snarled into my ear. "I saw that look in your eye, and we need allies. You need to grow up."

"How do we know she's trustworthy?" I said.

"She's Princess Celestia! Like, someone has to be trustworthy," Jelly wheezed, snarlingly into my ear.

I grumbled quietly to myself. "Ur... trusting ponies... not my thing... urrr... stupid Jelly."

"Hey!" She flicked the back of my head. "At least you have me to trust, if no one else, y'hear?"

"Yeah," I said.





I hadn't thought about Gripey for a while, and the sad truth was that this was because I was getting more convinced by the moment that he in fact did assault me, as everything everyone said seemed to speak to the fact. I was getting worried though. I didn't want him to suffer, and I certainly didn't want him to die on my behalf. Could I have a say in it since I was the victim? I felt sick to my stomach.

"Hey!" Jelly said. "Nexus' speech is coming. I guess this might interest you."

"Why?" I said. "Because we're related... or whatever?"

"No," she said, "but because she's doing it on the heels of your speech."

This convinced me to go.

The crowd was getting bigger now. Nexus was a more well-known figure, so she attracted a bit more attention than most ponies had during this day. She stepped up to the microphone and started speaking with a lot of aggression in her voice. "Hello! Can anyone hear me?" She tapped the microphone. Then, she looked directly at me, as I was not far off in the crowd. She smiled briefly. She had seen the nervousness. Even if no one else had, she in fact had. "The court is proud to have arranged these four days of important discussion. I hope these proceedings have not been uncomfortable or inopportune for any of you, as I know that we all have our own important lives to attend to. My name is Nexusantran, or Nexus for short. I am the First Prosecutor of the Nonaligned War Court of Equestria and associated regions, which is the second-highest rank after the First Judge of Equestria." She liked touting that rank, I had noticed. "I am happy to be here and see you all."

"Booo!" a crowd member close to her broke out. That was fast! More ponies broke into the cacophony, the soon to be. "Booo! Booo!" It really was a guttural sound, these boos, straight from the heart. "Booo!" another pony said.

"Yes, I know. I know," Nexus said, smiling and chortling. "I may not be the most popular figure in the court system, but you cannot deny that I am effective. For five years now, I have traveled the land collecting your money that you are obligated to give to Canterlot because you live in a country with a court system, rules, regulations, and a functioning police force that in fact does work, and which does prevent crime, infidelity, and moral wrongdoings in all of the land, including the places you love best, like Cloudsdale."

"Booo!" someone beside me said. It was Jelly.

I raised my eyebrows at her.

"What? It's fun," she said, continuing to boo. "Booo!" she said.

Nexus continued on, totally undeterred, and in fact, seeming slightly amused by the reception. "Living in a country where you have social institutions that work means that you have to pay taxes," she said. "That means all of you that are booing are NO GOOD!" She waved her hoof in a circle and then flopped it to the side. "You are jellies, like that pony there." She pointed at Jelly.

Jelly continued booing, also undeterred. "Boo!" Jelly said. "Boo-Nexus, boooo!" 

Since we were so close to the stage, Nexus' microphone in fact picked up Jelly's voice, and the crowd broke out into a spontaneous wave of laughter at Jelly's antic. "As I was saying," Nexus said, now sounding slightly shook by the mockery she was receiving. "We need to remember to maintain order. Order is important. Without order, we all die." She spoke quickly now, and with some frustration in her voice. She was slipping, if ever so slightly. "Doing this means sacrificing your means to get the resources and social organization necessary to do this. It is not only important. It is mandatory for any functioning society to do." I think she was stumbling a bit now, but I didn't blame her. The crowd was way tougher than it had been for me.

Jelly, having no filters, booed some more. "Bo!"

"However, when you run into ponies that are ungrateful and don't understand the delicate order that maintaining a functioning society entails, you get angry, and then what do you do? You tell them that if they don't pay their taxes, you have to arrest them and subject them to the full force of the law." Now, I think Nexus was way in her own head and not paying full attention to what she was saying, because all this was coming out pretty wrong for a public official to say. "You say, pay your taxes, obey the laws, or you'll be considered sorry, because you will be sorry." Nexus paused. 

Jelly got quiet. The air was thick with silence and anticipation now.

Nexus simply stormed off the stage.

"Wow," I said. "That was... something."

"It shows the power of the crowd," Jelly said.

"She seemed so calm at first," I said. "You must've gotten to her."

"It wasn't me. It was the crowd!" Jelly said.

"Right," I said.

"You need at least some ponies not against you, or you shrink like a raisin and disappear," Jelly said. "You need the energy of a crowd, in my opinion."

"Yeah, I guess," I said.

Later... the judge met up with us... no, I mean the JUDGE, with capital letters. His grace, the wizard Judge Starry Skies. "Hey!" he said, sounding much calmer and less hysterical now than he had before. "I wanted to talk to you about what happened earlier."

"It wasn't me!" I said, pointing at Jelly. 

Jelly, in a gesture that reminded me of Gripey, grimaced and put her hoof to her forehead, like she had caught a bad scent. "Thank you for that!" she said.

"Take it easy on Nexus," he said. "She has been through the worst of it. No one is quite as unpopular as she is, and she's not even a pony."

"What is she?" I said.

"NOT, PONY!" he said, firmly.

Jelly lashed out. "Nexus basically is responsible for killing my mom. I think she has some things to atone for," she said.

"Well, wouldn't you like to know?" Judge Starry said, traipsing off with that old broken body of his.

"That..." I said, "may not have been wise."

Jelly shook her head. "You should've been on my side. What happened to you there? Were you making a joke?"

"No, I directed the blame in the right direction," I said.

"What about loyalty?" she said.

I sighed. "Yeah, you're right." Why was she so right? I felt so sorry. "I'm sorry."

"Sweetie," she said. "What are you so afraid of? We're free now. This old bat thought he could extort us. He's basically a walking corpse. Why be afraid of him?"

"Because..." I said. "He's... he has... the robot thing going on, remember? Robot limbs."

"Oh, yeeeah, right!" Jelly said.

I felt sick. "He's... he knows something about me. That's what I'm afraid of."

"Knows?" she said. "You know who you are. He can't know you better than you do."

My brain started going off in all sorts of directions. I knew who I was? Did I really? Did I? Did it matter? Couldn't I just be who I wanted to be? I didn't have to listen to anyone. "Jelly," I said, standing on shaky legs at this point.

"What's wrong?" she said, hugging me.

"Nothing," I said, weeping again. "Nothing at all."





The second-to-last speaker was Murr Haughtypaw, assistant and secretary to the head of the court, Starry Skies. She moved up on stage in her own dancelike way, treading carefully, like a cat, which she was. Oddly, she was a lot cat, not a little. She walked like a cat, purred like a cat, and looked vaguely like a cat. She had big whiskers, cat ears, paws, and sharp teeth, but her body was that of a pony. This was a strange character. I didn't understand her. 

"What a beautiful crowd!" she said, as soon as she reached the stage.

I had decided to skip most of the speakers after the debacle with Judge Shell, but I wouldn't miss out on this one for the world. I had to know what this cat creature was about. What was she about to say?

She giggled, looking out at the crowd. She put a pawed hoof over her eyes. "So many ponies. I'm flattered."

In true diva fashion, she immediately had proceeded to flirt with the ten-thousand strong crowd, which was either an odd rhetorical trick, or just her lechery on display. Maybe both.

"I hope you have enjoyed the proceedings so far," she said, with a purr. 

The crowd was hooked on her words though, which surprised me. Really, guys?

"This time, we put on a show, didn't we?" she said, staring from right to left. "First, the cyborg girl." She made a direct reference to me. Then, she cocked her head in my direction. "Give a huge round of applause for her. Such bravery! Such spirit, to come up on stage after having been through something like that. Give it up for her! Give it up!" The audience broke into applause. Including Jelly, also breaking out in applause, she did. I felt alone, because I would not make a sound. There were so many ponies. I didn't want to provoke attention, and especially not unwanted attention, but I guess the boat had already sailed off that shore, hadn't it?

"We've had laughs. We've had tears. My! My oh my! This has been some event that the court put on, wasn't it?" she giggled, with that wry smile of hers. 

"Yeah," I said to Jelly. "Some event, huh?"

Jelly bumped me with her shoulder. "Relax, kid. You're a star," she said.

"A star of what?" I said.

"Famousness," she said, putting her hoof over me. "Famousness and infamy."

Murr grabbed the microphone. "You want to hear a song?" she said.

Okay, now, THIS was getting interesting.

"A song?" I whispered to Jelly, unable to contain myself anymore.

Jelly laughed. "This is gonna be good," she said.

The audience responded in kind, hollering and hooting at Murr. Like, couldn't they see, hear, and feel the slime coming off her? The smarmy, slimy slime she exuded, secreted? Apparently not! She was even attractive to some of the guys. I could just tell. I could smell it. I could smell the... pheromones. 

"What a beautiful crowd today. What a beautiful crowd!" she began, chirping.  

"Not the most gifted singer," Jelly said, "but good enough."

I scoffed. "Good enough? She could screech like a donkey and it would be good enough for them. They'll take anything when it's her."

"That's why I have something to say to you, today," she sang.

"Truly," I said, from the crowd.

She stretched out her body, and then, the cadence of the song changed. "Over the hills, under the lake, by the frills, and the sake, of the lake, watching the late, flowers of fate, seeing the wake, of the lake, insects that take, all the late, flowers of fate." She danced around. It was hard to judge as to whether the song was spontaneous, or practiced in advance, though at least it had the sense of being spontaneous, rather than practiced. "We watch each other, and we see the brother, sister, and mother. Care for one another, as a family of brethren. Watching the clouds far away there, up in the sky, dreaming of stars that glint, glimmering..." She fell quiet. "Knowing you." 

I felt a weight on my mind. "What is this song?" I said.

"I don't know," Jelly said. "The structure seems not to make a whole lot of sense, though."

Murr danced slowly and seductively, and I use that last word advisably, because I wasn't attracted to her, not that... not that it would matter for me. Oh, forget it. 

She leant her paw over the microphone, purring and whispering the words, "Come, come, come, to me. Come, come, come, to me. The lake awaits, the lake awaits, of fate, awaits, for me..." She took a pause, her eyes glancing off across the audience, and I could tell she was reading their expressions. "And you."

"Come... come," I said. "I... hm!"

Jelly looked at me with some worry on her face. "Hey, buddy! Just relax. You're worrying over nothing-burgers." 

Murr kept her head high, looking at the sky. "The sky!" she sang, and then, she vanished off the stage in one quick pitter-patter motion. 

Later... I went to confront Murr. "Hey!" I said.

"Oh, hey. It's yooou," Murr said, smiling at me like I was her pet... which was ironic, I think?

I recognized something about that song. I just knew it. "Hey!" I said. "Those words. Something about them was familiar to me."

"Getting right to the heart of the matter?" she said. "You're such a soldier, Sweetie. I don't want to offend you by using that expression. You know one when you see one, if you know what I mean." 

Jelly caught up with me. "Forget it," Jelly said. "She's not going to tell you anything, even if you put a gun to her head."

Murr smiled widely, showing her sharp teeth. "You're so adorable," she said, stretching out her body and purring. "Here's a little hint for you two. If you don't mind, I would like to ask you who your oldest friends are. Both of you! You, Sweetie. You start!"

"Well..." I said. "Jelly is one of the first that I can remember."

"That's not good enough," Murr said. "Older!"

"You mean..." I said. "Old in terms of age, or length of time that I knew them?"

"The latter," Murr said.

Jelly stepped between us. "Forget it, Sweetie. Let's get out of here. I don't know why you're so obsessed with this. Why do you fly off the handle all the time?"

"Because..." I said. "I feel like I'm living inside a dream."

Murr laughed putting a paw to her chin. "Oh, my! Aren't you the little poet?" she said. 

Starry Skies came stepping out of the mass of ponies that had gathered around us, listening in on our conversation on the campsite of the invites to the conference. I hadn't noticed them before. Nevertheless, the onlookers didn't really bother me all that much.

Starry was cold and aloof. "Murr, you are needed. Leave these ponies. We will converse with them later, but do not say too much. They are not ready yet for such talk," he said.

Murr winked at me and departed without a word. 





The final speaker was the head organizer, none other than Starry Skies the First Judge of all the courts of Equestria, and the one acting judge in the court of Canterlot. The co- ourt of Canterlot, if you remember that gag, is the court that organizes the rules and proceedings of all the other courts. The Nonaligned Court is a temporary organization created with the help of Celestia to limit the negative fallout of the war to the greatest extent possible. Although it's complicated, on a conceptual level, the idea was to have a common umbrella of rules under which the war was fought so as not to degenerate into pure barbarism, as killing others and maiming them is only a stone's throw away from something that can be considered pure barbarism. Starry Skies was a relatively unknown figure for many years, often considered to be a very conservative force of the courts.

For many years, he climbed the ladders of power in the court system. Starry Skies is an odd fellow. Celestia, as you will hear later, thought that he came out of nowhere. He is the consummate politician. Starry is careful, conniving, and efficient. He is 87 years old in the year that this part of the story, and the peacetime conference along with the meeting of the seven took place. His age is very deceptive though. He is like no 87-year-old you have ever met. He has absolutely no compunction with doing everything in his power to get what he wants, and he is far more motivated as a power player than you might expect for someone at that age. Starry Skies used to be dying, but he said that technology healed him, and now, in some ways, he is indebted to the griffins, strange as it may seem and sound to all who reads.

Also... well... we'll get to it. Trust me. Starry Skies is a worse person than you may think, but you'll never guess why.

He took the stage. "This gathering," he began in his trademark hoarse voice, "is like none other." He was not only calm. He had a tight grip on the crowd. Not only did the crowd show a kind of freakish physical attraction to him, this corpselike figure, but they also smiled dumbly when he began speaking. "This gathering is one for the ages, for it only happens once every five-hundred years, and for the first time ever, a crowd of civilians, ponies, griffins, zebras, donkeys, and even the odd dragon, have come to this momentous event, to witness history. We are happy to be joined by you."

While the crowd cheered and applauded, there was just one tiny subtlety in his speech that caught me off-guard. I wondered as to whether Jelly had noticed it too.

He kept speaking. "This crowd is one that I am happy to have assembled, and you will stand witness to what happens in these coming days. No longer will the truths of your ancient ancestors be hidden from you." He pointed to Princess Celestia out in the crowd. "No longer will you be treated as pawns by a royal ancestry that doesn't care about you." 

This, to my surprise, made the crowd break out in uproarious, ground-shaking screams and applause. My first instinct was to look to Celestia. She simply sat there, stoically, as always.

Starry spoke with an even voice, not particularly expressive, but his words held a weight of their own. "Today, you witness the day when age does not equate to power, and power does not equate to access. Anyone is free to join, and anyone can and will." He looked down, as if contemplating what to say next. Then, "This is a time of peace, a respite from a time of suffering, feeling endless for all that have been gripped by it."

He was very effective. The crowd started overtaking him, and soon, they were louder than he was, eclipsing his voice slightly. "Wow," I said to Jelly. "What is this? Ponies don't agree with the war?"

"Well, yeah!" she said. "Have you been living under a rock?"

"Sort of!" I said, remembering the delirium that I had spent the last few months and maybe years in.

Someone came sprinting, hobbling past me. He held something. He started pushing buttons on a board, not too far off. Then, Starry's voice boomed even louder through the speakers. He wasn't screaming or projecting his voice like all the other speakers had. He had a different speaking style. "Now, it is time to choose. Do we all die, or do we live? The decision should be up to you ponies." He pointed out toward the crowd, looking glum, having that fake look of worry about him, as far as I was concerned. "But it is not. It is up to others that think they know better than you." This speech was taking a downright... treacherous, traitorous turn. Was he actually questioning the monarchy itself? Was that it? "This is a problem, but you should all know that at the end of the day, the decision of what to do with your children, and with your own bodies, should be up to you."

"It wasn't up to me," I said to Jelly.

Starry's eyes got empty and open, ogling the crowd with the oddest glint, looking enraptured himself by the crowd, by the sounds in the air. "The royal sisters are oppressing you," he said. 

Jelly gasped. "Woow," she said.

Starry raised his voice now for the first time. "The royal sisters think they can pull you into an endless war where by the end of it, you will all be dead, and unless you do something about it, it will end in tragedy, because the griffins will never give up, and you know that. This is true of Hookbeak and all these so-called moral actors that have taken the reigns of a land that they no longer understand because they are too old and lost in the past of a thousand years ago." Starry now shouted into the microphone, causing a feedback loop that made the speakers chirp and shriek slightly. "But the future belongs to you!"

"Holy heck in a handbasket," Jelly said.

I had a hard time believing my ears. "He can get away with that?" I said. "This is so unlike any of the other speeches."

Starry Skies took firm, heavy, hobbling steps, leaving the stage. So much for pretending to be an old coot, eh? He was far from it, apparently. The crowd kept cheering long after he was gone. Celestia just sat there, showing zero emotion, which was remarkable. This had been a long day, and this was the oddest ending to it.

Later...

"Hey!" I said, finding Celestia back at the long table at the edge of the campsite. "H- how are you doing?"

She sat there, quietly staring, staringly quiet, looking out into the empty ether around her. "Good," she said.

"Good?" I said. "That speech was... well, what was it? It was... kind of unexpected, huh?"

"To say the least," she said. "And there's nothing I can do about it."

"Why?" I said. "Just zap him or something. Like, you can't allow him to get away with urging ponies to... well, upend you, usurp you. You want any more synonyms? Umm, end you, in a manner of speaking. Take the power from you? You can't allow that, huh?"

Jelly stood beside me. "That was the craziest thing I have ever seen! They just applauded and applauded. I didn't realize you were that unpopular."

"Well, neither did I," Celestia said, echoing our surprise and astonishment at what had happened. "But I can't do anything..."

"Because?" I said.

"Because he's my father," Princess Celestia finished, then disappearing in a flash of light.

Hm?