Cynical Pone Parody

Chapters

Luna Has A Bad Dream
An Ordinary Day OR IS IT? (it is.)
The Evil Either Rises Or Descends Depending On How You Look At It
Everfree Foothills (Hoofhills? Nah, foothills.)
The Great Side Character Ensemble

Luna Has A Bad Dream

CHAPTER THE FIRST ONE
"LUNA HAS A BAD DREAM"
or
"IF THE PRINCESS OF THE NIGHT IS SCARED OF IT THEN IT MUST BE IMPORTANT"

There was darkness. And within that darkness, there was more darkness. A kind of double-darkness, if you will.

This double-darkness didn't exactly do anything. But it was extremely ominous. And very terrifying to look at. Not that you could look at it, because it was too dark - "it" being the initial darkness within which the second darkness dwelled, which was already so dark that it was impossible to see anything within it, but if one could force their gaze to somehow penetrate through this blackness that was like a thousand clouded nights rolled into one, they would find that this second darkness was, as well, too dark to make out clearly. There was a whole lot of darkness going on in that general area, is what I'm getting at.

And within that darkness, something laughed.

Princess Luna gasped herself awake. She jolted upright, something which would be a difficult feat for a bipedal creature and was doubly impressive for one whose spine naturally bent in the opposite direction, and hurled herself from her bed, wings already extended. Terror gripped her heart; her breath was shallow, and sweat dripped across her mane. What she had seen in her dream was no dream at all - it was a vision, of terrible and particularly dark things to come. Worse, the presence she had sensed within those multiple layers of particularly dark darkness was one that she recognized - one that she had hoped she would never feel ever again. Worse still - it wanted her to know that it was coming.

It was in a blind panic that she charged out of her bedroom, knocking aside the royal guards who asked her what was wrong. With no time to apologize, she threw herself out of the nearest window, flying outside in a haze of broken glass and making a beeline for her sister's room. She landed on the balcony of the Solar Tower and dashed to Celestia's door in record time, throwing it open hard enough to dent the wall. "Sister!" she yelled, barging inside. "I have had a terrible vision of..."

Celestia froze. She was spread out on her bed, the covers thrown wide, midway through licking frosting off the flank of an equally stunned royal guard. Luna gaped, trying and failing to come to her senses as the second horrifying sight of the night seared itself into her. "I... I shall come back later," she stammered, then hastily backed out and closed the door.

Ten minutes later, Luna threw open Celestia's door again. "Sister!" she yelled, barging inside. "I have had a terrible vision of evil descending upon us!"

Celestia gasped, breaking out of a very convincing sleep. "What do you mean?" she asked, drawing her covers around herself. "Has something happened?"

"Not yet," Luna replied with a shiver. "But I fear that something will, and soon. I believe that..." Her voice dropped into the darkest, most meaningful pitch that she could produce. "He has returned."

Celestia blinked. "He?"

"Yes." Luna stalked into the room, a gust of wind blowing around her dramatically. "The darkness that dwells within the forgotten darkness."

There was a lengthy pause. Luna waited for the expected gasp of recognition, but Celestia only stared back at her in silence. "You're gonna have to be a little more specific than that, Lulu."

"You know!" Luna strode forward, trying to keep the dramatic gust going. "Our long-lost half-brother whom we banished to the furthest wastes!"

"...Well, that narrows it down a little, but-"

"The ancient evil who once tried to shroud Equestria in eternal darkness!"

"Luna, even you tried that once."

Luna stomped in frustration. "The one with the red and black colour scheme!"

Silence fell and even the wind died, leaving the two princess staring awkwardly at one another. "...I'll go get the scrapbook," Celestia said, slipping out of bed.

"Okay, so we've ruled out Eclipse, the other Eclipse, the third Eclipse, Prince Eclipse, King Eclipse, Lord Eclipse, Duke Eclipse, Dark Master Eclipse, and Ekklipz-Dawg." Celestia listed them off, flipping through page after page of nearly-identical photographs. Alicorn after alicorn filled the book of memories, a large number of them standing in profile and leering off to the left. "Is there anything else that you remember, Luna?"

"Just his presence." Despite the warmth of her sister close by her side, Luna shivered. They had lit a fire and were snuggled together in front of it beneath a warm blanket, but the deep chill of the dream still clung to her. "It was such an evil as I had hoped never to feel again. If we are not prepared, the power that he wields could-"

"Yes, yes," Celestia muttered, continuing to turn over pages. She paused upon reaching a new section. "You are certain that the being that you felt was our half-brother? It could not have been our half-sister?"

"Yes, I am certain," Luna confirmed.

"That eases our search, then," Celestia said, turning over exactly one page. "Let me know if any of these stand out to you."

They continued reading for some minutes, looking over seemingly unending patterns of black and red. "Why do so many of our family turn to evil?" Luna asked in a small voice.

"None can say," Celestia replied in a serene tone. "Some believe that it was always a matter of numbers. You and I were always meant to rule together, as a pair. The others could have found places of their own, but chose to see themselves as anomalies, unable to believe that their destinies could be anything but those of ours. The more their numbers grew, the greater this unbalance became. Eventually, madness took every last one from us. For a while, it even threatened to claim you, my sister."

There was a somber silence as the pair reflected on this. Then, from Luna: "Mom and Dad got around a lot, huh?"

"Luna!" Celestia snapped. "We do not speak of them that way." A pause. "But yes. Yes they did."

"It is strange," Luna sighed, "to think that so much evil might have been halted with the simple application of... wait," she instructed, halting Celestia's hoof as the older sister prepared to turn another page. She leaned close, feeling an uncontrollable terror returning to her heart. "Him," she confirmed, pointing a trembling hoof at the page. "He is the one I saw."

Celestia leaned close. A fiery alicorn, taller than even herself, smirked up at her from the page. Even in the still picture, fire seemed to crawl across his coat like a living aura, and a deep black radiated inwards from the tips of his extended wings. Scars covered his face and neck, one even extending directly across his deep, colourless eyes. Most terrifying, however, was his mouth, curled up into a smile that radiated malice, insanity, and an evil that could never be tamed. He stood in a castle that appeared to be made from clashing stone, cloud and gold, mortared together with a deep red that dripped thickly from between the bricks. Hovering behind his head was a symbol that the eye could not focus on, seemingly written into the very fabric of reality, one that a mortal mind would not dare view or comprehend - lest it drive them mad.

"Paradox!?" Celestia scoffed, drawing back and laughing. "You got me out of bed for Paradox? You almost had me worried for a minute there, sister. Give me a minute to write to Princess Twilight, and-"

"N-no, sister," Luna said, tapping her hoof on the photograph directly above Paradox. "This one."

Celestia leaned forward again. The photo that Luna now gestured to was a standard one, a traditional profile portrait. It was easy to see how her eye had slipped over it, as the pony upon it looked virtually identical to Paradox. In fact, he looked virtually identical to every stallion they had looked over that evening; although he was covered in distinguishing characteristics, not one of them stood out. His colours were flat, his evil smile tame by comparison, his dark surroundings blandly generic. Despite this, all the mirth drained from Celestia's face. "Oh," she said, softly.

"Celestia?" Luna whispered, matching her sister's volume. "Who is he?"

Celestia stood, and spoke her answer in a quiet voice. "Paradigm."

At that moment, absolutely nothing dramatic happened. Luna waited for something, a crackle of distant thunder at the least, but found herself disappointed. "But... but I do not understand," she eventually said, looking back to the picture. "I know his face, and I have felt his presence in my dream. Why do I remember so little of him now?"

"I am not surprised that you do not recall him," Celestia answered, crossing the room. "After all... there is nothing unique about him at all."

Sighing contemplatively, the older princess opened a drawer beside her bed and drew out a thin, pale envelope. "Lord Paradigm is the master of unconsciously repeated patterns," she explained, testing the seal on the paper. "It has been said that every story that exists has already been told, dozens, maybe hundreds of times, with nothing changed but the names. Once these stories have taken root, Paradigm gains power over them. He feeds on their repetition, growing stronger with each retelling. And now, it seems that he has returned to bring one of these stories to life." She shuddered. "Let us hope that the one that he has chosen is benign."

Luna stood sharply. "Then we must stop him," she said sharply, "before this narrative contagion spreads. We must summon the Elements of..." She paused. "Do we still call them that? They do not possess the Elements any more, but 'Princess Twilight and her friends' flows much less easily from the tongue."

"Honestly, I lost track a year ago," Celestia answered with a shrug. "But it does not matter. Paradigm feeds on repeating patterns; doing exactly the same thing that we always do will simply be playing into his hooves. If we want to have any chance of defeating him, we must rely on someone we would never turn to under any other circumstances."

"But who?" Luna pressed. "Who could have such power?"

"Only one," Celestia said with a sigh. "I'm afraid we must rely upon..." She shuddered, and then sighed again, much more deeply, before concluding. "An original character."

An Ordinary Day OR IS IT? (it is.)

CHAPTER THE ONE THAT COULD HAVE BEEN THE FIRST ONE BUT ISN'T
"AN ORDINARY DAY OR IS IT? (IT IS.)"
or
"LET'S SEE HOW MUCH IRRELEVANT SETUP WE CAN CRAM INTO ONE CHAPTER"

It was an ordinary day in Ponyville. That's pretty much the long and short of the setting establishment here. I could go on to describe the weather, the hour, and the present activities of various irrelevant ponies whose day-to-day lives will almost immediately be forgotten, but that would be a waste of your time as much as mine, since, if we're honest here, you pretty much got the idea after the first sentence. The only reason this paragraph goes on at all is to create the impression that this chapter begins on some kind of meaningful note, when, in reality, there was nothing at all to report. Ordinary day. Ponyville. Got it? Good. Now let's get on with it.

Our hero, ~~Silver Scroll~~ ~~Vine Whip~~ ~~Sharp Wit~~ ~~Beautiful Mind~~ ~~Daisy Duke~~ ~~Omega Danger Legend~~ ~~screw it~~ Nonagon the pony (because let's face it, that's who this character would have been no matter what his name was) was relaxing at the crystal castle library house of his marefriend, Twilight Sparkle-

"GET OUT!"

...was being forcefully thrown out the door of the crystal castle library house of his marefriend, Twilight Sparkle-

"AND NEVER COME AROUND HERE AGAIN, YOU CREEP!"

...ex-marefriend...

Nonagon landed hard on the road, skidding several feet on his face before coming to a halt. "But sugarplum..." he said plaintively, raising a hoof up towards the princess.

"No!" Twilight Sparkle shouted after him, still seething. "I am not your 'marefriend', I am not your 'why-foo', and I am not your 'ticket out of putting any effort into this character'! I don't know who you are or what you think you're up to, but nobody walks into my house and disrespects me or my friends like that!"

Nonagon froze, still upside-down. "Oh," he said sheepishly. "You found out about Applejack?"

"Applejack? I was talking about Rainbow Dash!" Twilight seemed to swell up as she prepared another blistering retort, then released a deep breath before she risked annihilating him on the spot. "Just leave my friends alone," she ordered, then slammed the crystal castle library house doors.

With a long groan, Nonagon rolled onto his hooves and brushed himself off. He was a pale, slender earth pony with an unruly mane that he frequently dyed depending on his mood; currently, it was jet black. His cutie mark was a complex symbol of overlapping lines which meant something very particular to him but was completely incomprehensible to everyone else. He also had one other distinguishing feature which the writer made up on the spur of the moment to try to give him more flavor, but it will never be mentioned by anyone again, so you know what, why bother. "Fine then," he grumbled, shaking the last few pebbles out of his mane. "I'll go and develop my character without your help, thanks!"

He heard a voice from the wall nearby. "You too, huh?"

He looked over. Spike was leaning against the wall of the crystal castle library house, looking dejectedly at the ground. He was bigger than he'd been the last time Nonagon had seen him, looking more like a proper drake with each day. Yes, the little dragon had been growing up lately, and this had been having consequences.

"Hey Spike," Nonagon said, trotting over. "Life got ya down again?"

"Yeah," Spike sighed. "Rarity rejected me again. I tried really hard to get her to like me, but nothing I do is enough. I know she still sees me as a friend, but it feels like every time I do this, it just pushes us further apart."

"Maybe there's a lesson in that," Nonagon mused. "What are you going to do about it?"

"Well," said Spike, raising himself up, "if there's one thing I've learned from romance stories, it's that any hole in my life has to be filled with romantic love, and nothing else, no matter what. So since Rarity doesn't want me, I'm going to abandon her completely and start a relationship with..." He rolled a set of dice, then consulted a chart. "Ugh. King Sombra. Well, this'll be a fun five thousand years."

"Yes, that sounds like a healthy, reasonable reaction to this situation," Nonagon agreed. Then he raised an eyebrow. "Wait. You're gay?"

Spike raised the patch of scales where an eyebrow might have been. "None of you are even my species. Why is that what people always get hung up on?"

"Point taken." The pair bumped claws and hooves. "Good luck, Spike. Try not to outlive all your friends and loved ones this time, all right?"

"No promises," the dragon said, standing up and starting to amble down the road.

"And try to keep things canonical!" Nonagon yelled after him.

"Now that I can do for sure!" Spike called back. Then he got in his car and drove away.

His good deed for the day done, Nonagon trotted down the road into town. "Well, that princess was a total bust," he muttered to himself. "Heh. Bust. I wonder if I can make a pun out of that." He pondered this for a minute before giving up. "Well, I guess I should do something with myself before the story kicks off," he decided, looking around for inspiration.

Nearby, a couple of mares were relaxing on a park bench, chatting amicably. The local balloonist stood near the edge of the park, looking for customers. A magician in a hat and cape trundled past, struggling to drag her stage carriage behind her. Across the street, near a pile of rubble, a large pegasus was shouting at a distressed wall-eyed mare. An angry white cat stalked across the road, looking lost. A grey earth pony and a white unicorn were putting up posters for two separate music events, occasionally stopping to glare at one another. Behind a carrot stall, a zebra was making some kind of trade with a pair of tall ponies in pinstripes, looking around nervously. A towering crystal train had just pulled into the train station. A familiar-looking stallion emerged from a large, mysterious blue box that Nonagon was sure hadn't been there a few minutes ago. From a nearby alleyway, a shadowy, cloaked pony beckoned, gesturing behind himself towards a shelf full of objects glowing with dark energy.

"Bah, I can't find any plot threads anywhere!" Nonagon complained, stomping away. He sighed deeply, wracking his brain for ideas. "Since nothing else is going on, I guess I'll go and visit my best friend, um..." He cast his gaze around lazily. "Uh... Tree... Um... Er... House."

"Hey Nonagon!" said Treehouse, winking into existence. "How've you been?"

"Treehouse!" Nonagon called in relief. "My best friend, whom I have known since childhood, and with whom I have shared many happy memories! How've you been?"

"Um... fine?" Treehouse paused, one hoof still off the ground.

"Hey, remember that fishing trip we went on last summer?" Nonagon continued in a loud voice, unflinching as other ponies started to stare. "Boy, those sure were some character-building experiences we shared together! I hope that our friendship, which is powerful enough to pierce the heavens, will last forever! It sure would be traumatic for me if anything were to cause us to part ways for any reason!"

"Nona, are you feeling okay?"

"All I'm saying is that it would be really sad, and would generate a lot of sympathy for me, if my best friend were to perish in some hypothetical disaster which might hypothetically take place a few minutes from now." He leaned forward and winked. "Hint hint."

Treehouse glared at him flatly. "You just created me so I could die, didn't you?"

"What? No!" Nonagon quickly shook his head, laughing. "No, no, no. No no no no no no no no no. No. No. No no no. No. Yes. C'mon, let's get some ice cream."

The two friends set off towards Sugarcube Corner, Treehouse only grudgingly. "You know, you can't define your character solely based on how you interact with others," he argued, dodging around an unexplained pothole. "You have to have some traits of your own."

"What? I just told you, I like ice cream," Nonagon said. "Specifically, vanilla ice cream. I know that doesn't sound very particular, but when it comes to ice cream, sticking with the base flavor is both deliberate and unusual. So that's like three traits right there."

"I would have said strawberry."

"Strawberry? What... that..." Nonagon huffed and looked away. "Nobody likes strawberry. That's dumb."

"Well, it's not as if my opinion matters to you anyway," Treehouse huffed right back. "You know, seeing how I'm just here to die and all."

"Are you still hung up on that? I told you, it's gonna be super-dramatic. The readers are gonna love it. It's still better than being some no-name background pony, right?" Treehouse was still scowling, so Nonagon softened a little. "All right, all right. I'll bring you back as a ghost or something. That way you can at least have a speaking role. Ghosts are canon, right?" He considered this. "No, wait, no they're not. Meh, I'll figure something out."

"You could at least tell me what pony type I am," Treehouse grumbled. "Or a colour, or something. I've had no description at all and it's starting to get ridiculous."

Nonagon looked at him for a second, then shrugged. "Nah, I like you better this way. Anonymity is what's cool right now." He turned back to the street, then put on a pair of sunglasses just so he could peer over the tops of them. "And speaking of what's cool right now..."

A pleasant-looking mare strolled by in the opposite direction, wearing a pair of saddlebags. She smiled at Nonagon, who smiled back, and the pair shared a full second of eye contact before they passed one another. "Phew," Nonagon breathed once she was out of earshot. "That was a close one. I was worried I would have to go through this whole story with no love interest at all."

"...Wait, her?" Treehouse looked back at her. "She's your love interest?"

"Well, yeah." Nonagon took off his sunglasses, storing them for later use. "You saw how she smiled at me, right? Total knockout. We'll definitely be hooking up by the end of this."

Treehouse looked at him like he was crazy, which Nonagon found difficult to tell from a regular expression. "You mean you think that because she smiled at you, which she probably does to everyone she sees, you two are somehow destined to be together?"

"Conservation of detail, dude. Conservation of detail." Nonagon tapped the side of his head. "She took up a whole two sentences, so that means she's got to be important. And she's conventionally pretty, which means that she has to be a love interest of some sort. Sure, there's a small chance that she'll turn out to be evil and I'll have to kill her, but only after we've already made out at least once, and that's a chance I'm willing to take, you know?"

"You... you can't just..." Treehouse clutched at his skull, as though his friend's words were literally, physically painful to hear. "Do you... have any idea the kind of twisted, harmful messages you're sending about relationships just by having this conversation?"

"What, so pointing out that we're doing it is more harmful than every story ever playing it straight?" Nonagon laughed. "Relax, dude. This is a totally flat parody, so we're allowed to get away with this stuff."

"Can I go be her friend instead of yours?"

"No."

"Damn." Treehouse rolled his eyes, shook his head, and made every other dismissive gesture he could think of simultaneously. "Are you at least going to talk to her, maybe ask her name, or something?"

"Nah. She'll find me again. Somehow."

"Right." They walked a little more in silence. Sugarcube Corner was coming into view, the smell of fresh sweets wafting over the air. "Hey, Nona?" Treehouse said. "Do you ever worry that you're too genre-savvy for your own good?"

"No, I can't see how that would ever be any kind of problem."

Meanwhile, at the charred, ashy plot that was slowly transforming into the Golden Oak Memorial Garden, four of the Elements of Harm- hm. That was meant as a joke, but now that we've come to it, it's actually a pretty good point. Huh. Mane Six? No, that doesn't work in-universe. Uh... Princess Twilight Sparkle And Her Friends minus Twilight Sparkle were gathered at a small table.

"Ah sure do miss mah parents," Applejack mourned, taking off her hat. "Ah know up until now it'd seemed like Ah'd put all that behind me and learned to live a loving an' fulfilling life with the rest of my family, but Ah decided that right now would be the best time to dig all those old feelings up and share them with y'all."

"Who cares? I have a chance to join the Wonderbolts!" Rainbow Dash yelled. "All I have to do is take one small test, and I'm in! There's no way that this can possibly fail! I don't even know what would happen if I did somehow fail this test, but I don't need to, because there's no way that I'm not going to make it in!"

"Honestly, such silly problems," Rarity huffed. "Doesn't anypony care that some awful ponies have been bullying Sweetie Belle lately? This is certainly news to me, and she's in need of emotional support. Alas, I can't help her, as I'm terribly busy lately with whatever it is that I do all day."

"Um, girls?" Fluttershy interjected. "Does anypony know where Pinkie Pie is? She looked really nervous about something this morning and it's not like her to be this late for-"

"I'm here, everypony!" Princess Twilight Sparkle yelled, arriving in a flash. "Sorry I'm so late. Some crazy pony was holding me up and made a complete mess in my kitchen."

"I know the feeling," Rarity responded with a smile. "Why have you asked us to meet you here, instead of your fabulous crystal castle library house?"

"Because of this letter," Twilight answered, raising up a piece of paper with a flourish.

"Um, don't you think we should wait for Pinkie Pie before-"

"...Which warns us of an imminent attack on Ponyville!"

Everypony gasped. "Can we stop it?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"I'm not sure," Twilight answered, turning the page over. "Normally when Princess Celestia sends me this kind of letter, she gives me some kind of call to action or just vaguely reminds me to stick by my friends. This time, she just warned me that it's going to happen and asked me to do the best I can. She also asked me to stay away from the castle." She read the letter over again. "It says that the attack is going to come from some pony called Lord Paradigm, and his powers are... exactly what we think they are. I wonder what that means."

"It doesn't matter one lick what his powers are unless there's something we can do about it," Applejack said. "Is there anything we can do about it?"

"That's why I asked you here. But now that we've all arrived..." Twilight put a hoof to her chest, looking puzzled. "I'd hoped that we could use Rainbow Power to pre-emptively shield the town from whatever's coming, but... I can't feel it. Normally once we're all together, I can feel the power of friendship filling me, and turning it on is like turning on a switch. Why can't I feel anything now?"

"Um-"

"Hey, what the heck?" Rainbow Dash exclaimed, putting a hoof over her own heart. "I can't feel it either! What's going on?"

"I don't know," Twilight answered, panic rising in her. "Lord Paradigm must be somehow draining our powers before he arrives, preventing us from stopping the threat before anything interesting has time to happen!"

"Actually I think it's because Pinkie Pie isn't here, and it's really starting to worry me that no one else-"

"Oh no! Whatever will we do?" Rarity cried, swooning a little too hard and having to awkwardly catch herself before she fell out of her chair.

Seemingly from nowhere, a thousand voices answered her. "Nothing. There is nothing you can do."

Then the ground began to shake.

The Evil Either Rises Or Descends Depending On How You Look At It

CHAPTER THE ONE WHERE THE PLOT FINALLY GETS GOING
"THE EVIL EITHER RISES OR DESCENDS DEPENDING ON HOW YOU LOOK AT IT"
or
"IT GOES FROM A FOUR TO A SIXTEEN ON THE DARK SCALE IN THE SPACE OF ONE PARAGRAPH"

Nonagon and Treehouse had just reached Sugarcube Corner when the ground began to tremble. They both looked around, Treehouse with concern, Nonagon more with disappointment that he wasn't going to get his ice cream. "What's going on?" Treehouse asked in a shaking voice.

"I don't know," Nonagon admitted. "But whatever it turns out to be, I'm sure it will be something entirely unexpected but shockingly predictable in retrospect."

Other ponies were beginning to notice the tremors, abandoning whatever it was that they were doing to stand still and stare around apprehensively. As the rumblings grew louder, even the pegasi soaring overhead came to a halt, hovering in place. From somewhere nearby, a trio of purple, pink and many-coloured shapes streaked into the sky, only to be lost as dark clouds filled the air from horizon to horizon in a matter of seconds, seeding and rolling out seemingly from nothing. Hairline cracks began to appear in the roads, opening up to unnatural darkness beneath, and from these cracks dark fumes began to spill forth.

Treehouse nervously edged closer to Nonagon, then realized what he was doing and quickly edged away again. He watched in horror as the growing pillar of dark gases nearest to them began to swirl and fall in on itself, forming a black, impenetrable cloud. After several long seconds, this disspiated, leaving the shape of a pony in its place. This pony was dark, not in colour, but as though it was obscured by shadow from every angle; it may have had wings, horn or both, but imperceptibly changed with each passing second. The only part of it that was visible was its eyes, which glowed bright red with predatory intelligence. "Is it friendly?" Treehouse asked with pointless optimism, noting identical shapes forming every few houses all the way down the street.

"Just stay close to the wall," Nonagon whispered back.

The shapes looked back and forth, taking in the dozens of ponies around them who were too frightened to even breathe. Then they smiled, revealing shining fangs as sharp as the kind of knives that people demonstrate in supermarkets, and all at once, they pounced.

What followed was pretty much every terrible thing the writer could think of happening all at once. There was the standard fare of carnage and running about, but also graphic, detailed images of cute and cuddly ponies from a show aimed at young girls being savaged and slaughtered in the most horrible of ways, and the dissonance that this created made the scene even more disturbing. No one was spared, not even the children, that's just how dark and terrifying and serious and totally incongruous with the setting the situation was. On the whole, it was pretty unforgivable. Even if the damage that was done here could somehow be undone by, I don't know, magic or something, the sheer trauma that would come from experiencing such an event would leave the entire town emotionally broken for years, minimum. If whoever were responsible for this were to later say that it wasn't really their fault or that they'd only done it because of the darkness in their heart or something, it would be very difficult to imagine that they would be let go without some kind of punishment. Heck, Tirek got life imprisonment, and all the permanent damage he did was blowing up some trees. I mean, if someone came to wherever you live and massacred a bunch of people, and then came back two days later and said that they'd been mentally ill but were better now and shouldn't go to prison, what would you say to them? Hang on, I'm supposed to be telling a story here, aren't I? Right, back to that.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Treehouse said, then promptly proved that his prediction had been an accurate one.

"Truly, this is a dark day for Ponyville," Nonagon said darkly, still thinking about ice cream. "You can tell by the fact that death has been mentioned already that the villain here is someone serious and mature and deserving of our attention. But don't worry. We're going to get through this. And whoever is responsible for this is going to pay."

"But what's the plan? And why the heck aren't we running?"

"Don't worry, talking is a free action. And as for the plan..." Nonagon straightened up, speaking with the unflinching bravery of someone who wholeheartedly believes that he is not in any actual danger. "We're going to run out there, perform a few easily-accomplished acts of heroism to prove how brave we are, then hole up somewhere and wait for divine intervention to provide a way for me to get out of here."

"I don't like the way that I was abruptly excluded from the last part of that plan, but other than that I agree with certain parts of it."

"Awesome. Let's do this."

The two stallions charged across the square and into the fray. Nonagon zeroed in on a mare who was trapped beneath one of the reaching shadow beasts, only her weak and failing hooves keeping its snapping fangs inches away from her neck. "Take this, you generic monster!" he yelled, delivering a clumsy but impressive-looking punch to the creature's head. It exploded into shadow, disappearing into the increasingly thick air around it. As the mare mumbled her thanks and scurried off, he whirled around into a kick that destroyed another creature leaping towards them, then dove and took out another who was encroaching on two terrified colts. "Man, these things are easy to kill!" he commented, exploding a fourth monster with a casual slap just to see if he could. "I'm surprised the danger's even lasted this long."

"I'm more confused about why everyone's still running around," Treehouse added, punching into oblivion his sixth shadow beast of the day. He stopped to gesture to the continuing chaos and running about around them, ponies bumping into each other and walls in their ineffectual attempts to escape. "Why hasn't everypony left town or gone inside by now?"

"Herd instincts, I guess. Ponies are mountainous herd animals, so when threatened they scatter in all directions to confuse predators. Maybe that doesn't translate too well to enclosed streets." He scratched his head. "Or something. I just made that up."

"Whatever." Treehouse squinted into the distance. "Oh hey, there's your girlfriend."

"Where?" Nonagon whipped around, spotting the mare he'd seen earlier tangling with one of the dark ponies. "Awesome! Now's my chance to save her, and..." He took one step forward, then froze. "Wait. Girlfriend? You say that?"

"Well, uh... yeah. Boyfriend, too. Those are the words we use." Treehouse cocked his head inquisitively to the side. "Why?"

With mortified slowness, Nonagon clasped a hoof to his face. "Oh, no wonder Twilight Sparkle thinks I'm an idiot," he muttered. "Well, that's in the past. Now I'll just..." He started again, then stopped. "Where'd she go?"

"Oh, she killed it already and left." Treehouse stared admiringly at the place where she'd been. "Another competent character? I guess she will be important later after all."

"Glad you're catching on." Nonagon looked around. "Seriously, is this scene still going on? Why aren't we done here yet?"

"Um... dude." Treehouse backed up, nearly backing into him. "I think that there is why the danger isn't over yet."

Nonagon looked. Advancing towards them, down what he just now noticed was a suddenly otherwise empty street, was a practical wall of ponies. They were living, or had been until recently; although their bodies were intact, lines of shadow covered what might have been wounds, their eyes glowed with the same unforgiving red as the shadow beasts. "Is this the part where we run?" Treehouse whimpered.

"I think... maybe?" Nonagon checked their exits. More lines of possessed ponies were approaching from all directions, cutting off all escape routes. "Well, I can't think of anything," he said to himself, "so there's only one thing for it. Come on, scene transition, don't fail me now."

"Crap. This isn't what I had in mind."

"Speak for yourself!" Treehouse yelled back, leaning heavily against the doorframe. They were trapped in a bedroom on the top floor of an abandoned house, already in a state of disarray, as though its former inhabitants had left in a hurry. Treehouse held the door shut against the pounding hooves of the possessed ponies outside, while Nonagon scouted for a way out. There didn't seem to be one; the only window was out of reach, and the other wall was built directly into the thatched roof. They were, well and truly, trapped.

"I was speaking for myself," Nonagon snapped back. "How the heck did we even get here? I thought we had more presence of mind than this!"

"You're the one who said you're no good at action scenes!"

"I said I was learning!" Nonagon stalked back and forth in the confined space, looking around testily. "Come on, think think think. There's gotta be a way out of this..."

"No, there's not. I'm gonna die here, aren't I?" Treehouse slumped against the floor, defeated. "We're done for. Even if you get out, it's going to involve me making a heroic sacrifice for you or something worse. I'm never going to see the outside of this room again."

"Hey, don't talk like that. Listen, it's not so-"

"No, you listen," Treehouse spat. "I've done literally nothing in my entire life except punch monsters and argue with you. Don't you think that maybe I wanted more out of life than that? Huh? Maybe I have a favorite ice cream flavor. Maybe I would have done really well on an adventure. Maybe I actually look pretty good, if you'd ever let me know what I look like. You know that mare you've been bragging over all day? Maybe I thought she looked pretty cute too. And maybe I would have eventually asked her out instead of you, and I'd bet money that I would treat her a lot better than you ever would. And maybe we'd get married, and have three beautiful foals, and live a long and happy life together and never have to deal with any of this manure ever again. Or maybe none of that's true. But it doesn't matter, because I'm never going to get to find out, because I'm only here so that I can get ripped to pieces so that you can go off and be smug somewhere else! What does that make me, huh? What the hay does that make you?"

Nonagon stared at him for several long seconds. "Hold the door," he ordered.

Treehouse leaned forward. "Oh, you miserable-"

"I said hold the door!" At the last second, Nonagon charged forward and slammed the door with his shoulder, crushing a reaching leg that had been just about to land on Treehouse's flank. He pounded on it repeatedly until the leg withdrew, hearing unearthly screams echoing from the corridor outside. "I am not letting you give up on me that easy," he growled into Treehouse's stunned face. "Know why? Because I am not going to give up on you. Now keep your head together and hold this!"

As his friend meekly obliged, Nonagon backed up again and scanned the room with new eyes. The bed was too far and too heavy; he decided on a nearby wardrobe, rounding it and pushing with all his strength. "Move... now!" he commanded, giving one final shove and sliding it in front of the door. It started to shift as the possessed ponies increased their battering, but the extra weight allowed Nonagon and Treehouse to hold it steady as they collapsed against it, together.

They lay there for a second, catching their breaths. "Why?" Treehouse panted.

"Because you think I want you to die," Nonagon breathed back. "And I want you to know that that's not true."

"But... but reader sympathy..."

"Forget reader sympathy, okay? Look, maybe our backstory is bogus, and maybe things aren't destined to end so well for us. But we've all got parts to play, whether we like them or not, and you? You've gone above and beyond. All you had to do was be some dumb prop to hold me up, but you weren't satisfied with that. You're more than just a friend to me, okay? You're my foil. And if anyone deserves to break away from the darkfic formula, it's you."

Treehouse smiled weakly. "You mean that?"

"Yeah." Nonagon nodded. "And I just want you to know that, no matter how things play out in the next few minutes, there's no one I'd rather have spent the beginning of this story with than you."

"...Thanks." Treehouse wiped his eyes. "You know, I know you seem like a pompous, overly analytical prick most of the time, but you're actually not a bad guy."

"Thanks. And you're... nice, I guess." They looked into each other's eyes. "And right now, my only regret, the only one, is that I didn't make you into a hot chick."

Treehouse's smile dropped. "I take it back," he said. "You're a priiiiiiiiiiiiick!" His last word turned into a frantic wail as, with a concentrated shove, the possessed ponies rocked the wardrobe hard enough to topple it over. Nonagon got out of the way in time. Treehouse didn't. Its heavy frame landed on top of him with a decidedly final thud.

Nonagon put on a hat just so he could take it off and hold it over his heart. "Goodbye, buddy," he said with some degree of sincerity. "I'll miss you." The possessed ponies continued to hammer through the door, splinters starting to fly. Just then, however, a wall of light materialized across the doorframe, blocking their path. Nonagon looked skyward, towards a portal materializing through the roof. "And right on cue, there's my ride," he said.

In a blaze of light, Princess Celestia appeared in the room, shortly followed by Princess Luna. Nonagon bowed for just long enough for the narration to make note of the fact that he had bowed and then immediately straightened up again. Celestia smiled beatifically at him. "Do not fear, my little pony," she said. "You are safe now."

"My princesses," Nonagon said reverently, feigning ignorance. "Why have you come here?"

"A great evil, Lord Paradigm, has risen from his approximately one thousand years of slumber," Princess Luna answered. "If he is permitted to continue his rampage, the horror that has befallen Ponyville will be but a taste of what is to come."

"We fear that Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friends have already been taken by his influence," Celestia continued with sadness in her voice. "And that is why we have come here, in search of a hero who will lead us to victory against this threat."

"But, my princess, you must be mistaken," Nonagon said teasingly. "There are no heroes here."

"There is one, though he does not know it yet," Celestia answered with equal laughter in her voice. "But if he learns to believe in himself and in the courage within his own heart, then he may yet become the greatest leader that Equestria has ever seen. And that is why we have come to Ponyville, and to this house, and to this very room. Because the pony we seek is the one called..." She paused for dramatic effect. "Treehouse."

There was a long pause. "What."

"Me!?" Treehouse exclaimed, bursting out the back of the empty wardrobe.

"Ah, there you are." Celestia and Luna stepped around Nonagon, leaving him stunned in the middle of the room. "We have come to you, Treehouse, and you alone," Celestia explained, "because you are the only one who can save Equestria."

"The only one," Luna confirmed.

"But... but why me?" Treehouse gasped, taking a decent stab at his lines. "I don't know anything about being a leader. I'm not strong, or smart, or even that brave. I'm just an ordinary pony!"

"That is true," Princess Luna told him. "It may seem to you that you are simply an ordinary pony. It is true that you have no history of leadership, or of combat, or of sacrifice, or of making difficult decisions, or of travel, or of danger, or of adventure, or..." She faltered, looking to her sister. "There was supposed to be a 'but' in there somewhere, wasn't there?"

"But that does not matter," Celestia covered for her. "Because there is a strength in you that is yet untapped. It is a power that we have felt, but you have not yet fully grasped. And once it has been unlocked, you will be the only one who can save our kingdom."

"The only one," Luna parroted with relief.

"Hey, now... now wait just a minute!" Nonagon burst out, feeling the situation slipping uncomfortably far out of his grasp. "Why him? Why not me?"

The two princesses turned slowly, looking him up and down. "And you are?" Luna said.

Nonagon drew himself up proudly. "My name is Nonagon the pony," he stated, "and I'm every bit as unqualified for the job as him. I'm inexperienced, I'm conflicted, and I'm capable of believing in myself! On top of that, I've got like three more character traits than he does! Why in Equestria would you choose him to be your leader over me?"

The two princesses looked at each other uneasily. "Well, Nonagon the pony," Luna said, "we mean thee no offense, but thou art... kind of a prick."

"But that makes me endearing!" Nonagon whined.

"...Yeah, no." Celestia shook her head. "I'm sorry, but what we are really looking for is someone who has absolutely no character traits at all aside from being 'nice' in a general sort of sense."

"And a stallion," Luna added.

"Yes, that's right. Someone who is a guy, and nice, or some combination of those terms. Ideally, he must be someone who has no skills or achievements and no drive to acquire any skills or achievements, and he must be someone who does not regularly perform any actions that would indicate that he is brave, quick-thinking or compassionate, but knows that he could definitely be all of those things if the world would just give him a chance to prove it. That, we feel, is the mindset that will lead to greatness."

"That's me! That's totally me!" Treehouse jumped up and down in excitement, then slowed. "Wait, will this be dangerous? Will I have to fight?"

"Only if you wish to," Luna said, turning back to Equestria's new hero. "You will have other ponies who will do all your fighting for you. They will also perform all the dangerous tasks for you, except for one or two which any small child could have performed, and they will make all the difficult decisions for you, except for ones which only require you to point out obvious and simple solutions. You will, however, get to order everyone else around, make speeches, and take all the credit at the end."

"Wait, so I'll basically get babied around through my own story like a small child that the universe is trying to make feel special?" He shrugged. "I'll take it! Will I get an attractive female sidekick who's better than me in every measurable way but isn't allowed to be the main character for some contrived reason that stinks of executive meddling?"

"What do you think this is, a modern action movie?" Celestia guffawed. Then she sighed deeply. "Yes. The answer is yes. We'll provide several."

"Hot damn." Treehouse jumped down from the empty drawer, tossing splinters out of his mane. "When do we leave?"

"Immediately," Luna said. "We have tarried long enough."

The three of them walked back towards the portal, leaving Nonagon in open-mouthed shock. Treehouse paused as he passed him. "Um... can we take Nonagon with us?" he said, looking back at him. "He talks a lot. I might need him as a foil."

"I am sorry," Celestia said, "but we only have enough power left to take one. Your friend will have to fend for himself."

"What? No!" Nonagon leaped forward, grasping at Treehouse's side. "Please, dude. You can't do this to me. This is my story!"

Treehouse gently shrugged him off. "Sorry, Nona," he said. "We all have roles we have to play, whether we like them or not. You know?" He winked. "It's been fun. I hope I'll see you when this is over."

"No. NO. NOOOOOO!" Nonagon yelled as the princesses and the hero stepped into the portal. A flash of light momentarily blinded him and they streaked off, leaving a massive hole in the wall behind them. He watched through this helplessly as the light moved towards Canterlot, taking the story with them and leaving him helplessly behind. "Where will I get my pathos from now?" he murmured.

The magic gone, the sounds of the town began to return. There were screams and inequine cries, with half the town still idiotically running about outside, and the pounding against the door began with renewed fervor. He could also smell smoke, and saw several surrounding roofs already ablaze. As he considered his options, the door cracked loudly, and drooling faces and wisps of smoke began to push their way into the room. "Oh crap," he said aloud as the penny dropped. "I'm the dumb friend who dies right at the start."

With a mighty crash, a dozen possessed ponies barged into the room, newly-grown fangs glistening. Looking back only once, Nonagon let his body take over and hurled himself through the newly-created hole in the wall, landing heavily on the ground below. "Oh, I'm glad we're inexplicably good at taking falls," he gasped to himself as he lifted himself up. All around, possessed ponies and shadow beasts were chasing ponies left and right, seeming much more threatening now that victory against them was no longer assured. "Can't accept it," he muttered. "This is just a minor setback. Gotta get sympathy somehow, somehow...!"

A white filly galloped past, screaming her head off as a shadow beast bore down on her. Seeing his chance, Nonagon swept her up and dragged her into an alley, kicking desperately at the beast's nose until it turned away in search of less troublesome prey. "Shh, shh, it's okay," Nonagon hissed, holding the filly down as she continued to scream and tried to squirm away. "I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm a friend, okay? A friend."

Slowly, the filly stopped squirming. Nonagon lowered her to the ground. "That's it," he said. "Everything's going to be okay. I'll look after you, all right? My name's Nonagon." He carefully held out his hoof towards her. "What's your name?"

She stared at his hoof cautiously, but didn't touch it. "Sweetie Belle," she answered.

"Awesome. I'll keep you safe until we get out of here. That's really important to me." He turned and pointed out of the alley. "Now, you see that crowd of possessed ponies over there? I want you to run right at them-"

Sweetie Belle swatted his hoof away, then slapped him hard across the face. "You always do this to me!" she yelled, then ran away screaming. She made it all the way across the street, a new crowd of shadow beasts in tow, before a larger white unicorn picked her up and ran away moments before a burning house collapsed where they had just been.

Nonagon blinked. "Huh. Wonder where that came from." A snapping sound alerted him to a new threat, and he jumped away from his hiding spot just as a shadow beast's jaws closed where his neck had been. "Yipes! Okay, new plan, get out of here." He ran down the street, dodging left and right with fearful abandon, searching for anything that might lead to his escape. "Just gotta get out, gotta get out, gotta get out-"

He stopped short. Chance had led him to the edge of the town, presenting him with a dark and empty road out. Despite all the chaos behind him, no one had taken this obvious exit, or if they had, they had long since vanished into the distance. "...Oh." At a calmer pace, he walked out of town and into the murk beyond. No ponies or shadow beasts followed him, and in minutes the sounds of burning, screaming Ponyville were already fading into the distance.

"Well, that happened," Nonagon said as he collected himself. He looked around. Even though he knew it wasn't yet noon, the unnatural clouds and fog covering the landscape made Equestria as dark and cold as a moonless night. Far ahead he could see the distant lights of Canterlot, still burning. "Well, so much for that story," he sighed. "Guess I'm playing it by ear from now on. This should be interesting." Without a plan, or much of anything at all, he ambled on into the darkness.

Everfree Foothills (Hoofhills? Nah, foothills.)

CHAPTER YOU'VE ALREADY STOPPED COUNTING HAVEN'T YOU
"EVERFREE FOOTHILLS (HOOFHILLS? NAH, FOOTHILLS)"
or
"IT'S NOT ACTUALLY THAT DANGEROUS A BUSINESS, STEPPING OUT YOUR DOOR"

Rarity and Applejack stalked along the edge of the Everfree Forest, keeping their wits about them. They had packed their families off on a cart with Big Macintosh and skipped town by the nearest available route, which had, unfortunately, been the opposite direction to the one they wanted to travel. Fearing the packs of still-roving zombies and shadow beasts in the town itself, they'd chosen the rock over the hard place and taken the long way around. Both took it in turns to lead the way, Rarity by the light of her horn, Applejack by virtue of knowing the terrain. Cautious travel was slow, but not as obstructive as either of them had feared, and, thus far, mercifully uninterrupted.

"Ugh, I cannot believe the others simply flew off and left us like that," Rarity moaned.

"We've been walkin' for an hour already and now you start complainin' about that?"

"I simply felt that... now was the time," the fashionista countered, unable to quite rationalize it even to herself. "And my point still stands. That was terribly rude of them, not to mention dangerous."

"They were doin' what they thought they had to," Applejack spat. "Flyin's what they do. They needed to see what was goin' on, so they did. Nopony knew the sky was gonna go dark. Ah just hope they got to safety all right." Anger over the state of her hometown was boiling in her, and with Ponyville still visibly burning in the near distance, it was starting to grind her gears that Rarity was talking so flippantly. She felt as though she should be dragging something heavy along behind her with a rope. Preferably with her teeth.

"Couldn't we have at least stayed with the cart?" the white unicorn grumbled. "I thought there was safety in numbers."

"Nothin' doing," Applejack snapped. "Wherever we go, danger's gonna find us. It's better if we send everypony else on their own way an' try and find Twilight and the others ourselves."

"Really?" Her purple-maned friend raised an eyebrow. "You're comfortable sending your baby sister out into the unknown without you watching over her? That seems out of character for you. Are you certain that's all there was to that decision?"

"She's got Big Mac. Ah'm not that overprotective..." Applejack protested, then sighed. "Honest? Ah just had a feelin'. Whatever's goin' on, it has somethin' to do with us, an' Ah don't want anypony else to be exposed to that if they don't have to. It weren't so much that Ah wanted to send Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle away... it was more like Ah had to."

"Some kind of intuition?" the fashion designer queried.

"More like... a memory. Like we've done this before, all of us. Ever since Twilight brought out that letter, Ah've felt like Ah've just been goin' through the motions, movin' where mah muscles take me. And if we've done this before, and come out safe and sound every other time, why would Ah do things any different this time?"

The purple-maned unicorn chuckled lightly. "No doubt if Twilight were here, she'd have some cute little name for that feeling, as well as an explanation."

"Yeah. But she ain't. Right now, it's just me and you." She stopped in place. "Hard-workin', messy, down-to-earth, level-headed me and frilly, tidy, ambitious, overly-dramatic you, stuck on an adventure together with nopony but each other."

They stared at each other for some long seconds, bordering on glares, before Applejack chuckled lightly. "Sure is a good thing we put aside our differences and learned to appreciate each other years ago."

"Quite," the dressmaker said with a smile. "Why, just imagine the arguments we might have gotten into if we weren't already on good terms! It might have completely distracted from the seriousness of the situation. I'm very glad that we're both mature enough to play off one another's strengths without needing to get into petty arguments or stop every few minutes to discuss how significant our working together is."

"Darn tootin'! With us workin' together, we'll be able to find our way back to our friends in no time, and nothing and nopony is going to get in our way!"

They'd only continued walking for a few more seconds when something got in their way. With a noise like several minutes' worth of rustling bushes condensed into a single motion, a gigantic black bear leaped out from the Everfree and onto the path in front of them, its eyes glowing with the same red maleficence that had possessed the ponies back in town. It roared, spittle flying darkly from its fangs, raising unnaturally sharp claws towards the duo.

"AAIIIIIIIIIII!" the white fashion designer wailed in fear, having a little too much fun with it.

"Don't worry," Applejack said, settling into a fighting stance as the bear neared. "It's just the one. Give me two seconds and Ah'll-"

The bushes rustled a second time, and out burst a manticore, bellowing with a previously unheard-of feral ferocity. The white unicorn with the purple mane shrieked a second time, while Applejack looked decidedly less sure of herself. "Alright, this puts a little bit of a damper on things," she continued, "but with mah rope, and mah hat, and mah best friend by mah side, Ah'm sure we'll still be able to come out of this just f-"

The manticore was then followed by an entire pack of timber wolves!

"Oh, come the heck on!"

"AAIIIIIIIIIII!"

And a cragadile!

"AAAHHHHHHH!" Applejack yelled as well, giving up.

And a dragon!

"AAAHHHHHHH!"

And a seven-headed hydra!

"AAAHHHHHHH!"

And a cockatrice!

"Don't look!" Applejack yelled, shielding her eyes.

And a basilisk!

"Double don't look!" the purple-maned unicorn dressmaker yelled as well, shielding her own.

And a plunder vine!

"AAHHH... uh..."

And a swarm of changelings!

"AAAHHHHHHH okay what?"

And a tatzlwurm!

"Don't they live all the way out..."

And a salamander!

"Pretty sure this is the wrong environment for that sort'a monster."

And an abominable snowpony!

"Definitely the wrong environment."

And a golem!

"How does that even-"

And a sphinx!

"What even is that?"

"A close relative of the chimera, I believe."

"Huh."

And a Khalkotauroi!

"Now you're just makin' stuff up."

And a roc!

"Right, Ah've seen enough," Applejack said, turning away as a bird with wings that spanned the sky wobbled unsteadily out of the underbrush on skinny yellow legs. "C'mon, Rare. We're leavin'."

"But..." The white and purple fashion unicorn trembled, lifting a hoof unsteadily towards the creatures in front of them. "But what about..."

"Ah reckon that snarlin' lineup ain't moving a muscle for another ten minutes or so. We can make it to the path by then."

"I suppose so. Seems a little anticlimactic, don't you think?" Still, the white unicorn with the purple mane who made dresses put up no resistance as she followed her friend's lead and trotted off into the darkness. A minute later they were out of sight.

And a gorgon!

And a charizard!

And a Beholder!

And a... a...

...

Girls?

Applejack? Rarity?

...Shoot.

"It's called déjà vu," Twilight Sparkle explained helpfully. "It's where even though you're experiencing something for the first time, you feel like you've done it-"

"We know what déjà vu is, Twilight!" Rainbow Dash yelled in exasperation. "Everyone knows! We're not four years old, you know!"

"I... I know that," Twilight responded, a little hurt. "I was just explaining it in case anyone who might be listening didn't know what it was."

"Who might be listening?" Dash spread her forelegs wide. "Look around us! Who is there who might be listening right now?"

Grudgingly, Twilight looked around. She, Dash and Fluttershy were on a path well away from Ponyville, rising into the foothills that would eventually lead up into the mountains. They had led a large crowd of ponies out of town to safety with their flight, but were now hanging back to look for stragglers. The last signs of life they'd seen had been Big Macintosh pulling a wagon holding Granny Smith and the Cutie Mark Crusaders, but they had disappeared across the landscape some time ago. There was no one else in sight.

"I didn't know what déjà vu was," Fluttershy mumbled.

"I get your point," Twilight said to Dash. "And all I'm saying is that if we all felt it, then maybe there's a reason why we ended up being split up like this. Maybe, for some reason we don't yet understand, all this was meant to happen."

"I still don't like it," Dash grumbled. "Nothing with any good on its mind would want to split up the Rainbow Force."

"That is so not what we're called now."

"Yeah? Says you and what army?"

"I just hope Rarity and Applejack are okay," Fluttershy quickly broke in. "We didn't have time to check for them before we left."

"Yeah?" Dash snarled. "And what about Pinkie Pie?"

The others carried on as if they hadn't heard her. "I'm sure they're fine," Twilight said confidently. "I have a feeling we'd know if they weren't. When those two put their heads together, they... hang on. What was that?"

The three looked back towards Ponyville. They immediately spotted a white earth pony on the path, or at least, the back half of one; as soon as he'd spotted them he'd tried to leap into a bush and had immediately gotten stuck. His hind legs pinwheeled in the air, his rump flashing back and forth. "Hey!" Rainbow Dash gasped, squinting at the raised flank. "That's the creep who tried hitting on me this morning!"

Twilight's face and voice soured. "Oh. Him."

The pair of them looked at each other, each briefly considering leaving him where he was. However, Fluttershy was already walking towards him. She grabbed him gently and untangled him from the branches, leaving Nonagon gasping on the road. "Good afternoon," she said in the calmest voice she could, trying to return some normalcy to the situation. "My name's Fluttershy. Are you all right?"

Nonagon's breathing slowed as he got a good look at her face. "All the better now you're here," he said in a suave tone. "My name is Nonagon, Nonagon the pony. After escaping that nightmare, I'm glad the first pony I came across is one as..." He subtly reached towards her hoof. "...lovely as you..."

"Yeah, save it," Dash butted in, whacking him lightly across the side of the head. "What are you doing here?"

Nonagon scowled under her glare, but quickly composed himself. "Fleeing to Canterlot, same as you," he said. "And that line of questioning had better stop right where it is."

"Have you seen Rarity or Applejack?" Twilight Sparkle asked, hoping that this counted as the beginning of a different line of questioning. "They're a white unicorn with a purple mane and-"

"I know who they are," Nonagon interrupted, "and I haven't seen them. The last ponies I saw were in a cart that passed me twenty minutes ago, and I don't think they were in it. I was one of the last to leave, so if they were coming this way, you or I should have seen them by now." He looked around at the three mares, counting to himself. "Is Pinkie Pie with you?"

Fluttershy and Twilight didn't acknowledge this last part. Rainbow Dash looked suspiciously at both of them, then at Nonagon. "No," she answered. "We haven't seen her. Nopony knows where she is."

"Really?" Nonagon scrunched up his face in thought and looked up towards Canterlot. "Odd," he muttered, apparently to himself. "A parody like this, I thought she'd be all over it..." He shrugged and looked around. "Well, shall we?"

The three others looked at one another hesitantly. "If the others are taking a different route, then we might miss them if we stay here," Fluttershy suggested.

"You're right," Twilight agreed reluctantly. "We'll just have to trust that they'll be able to catch up to us at Canterlot. Besides, the Princesses might need us more." She turned back down the path, running an eye down her new companion's side and irritatedly noting his lack of wings. "And let's keep up the pace. We've got a looooooong walk ahead of us."

Nonagon laughed nervously. "Come on, it's not that far, is it?"

"By wings, no," Rainbow Dash said with a glare. "But on land, it takes a whole eleven hours. By train. Mountains are tall."

"It won't be that bad," Twilight added. "Trains are limited by how steep their paths can be. I know some shortcuts, and it won't be so bad if we can catch up with the others. We'll be fine." She started moving, already mentally calculating their route. "Of course, it had to be Rarity who volunteered to bring lunch today..."

With new purpose, the quartet set off, unaware of the hundreds of eyes watching their every move.

The Great Side Character Ensemble

CHAPTER THE ONE IN CANTERLOT
"THE GREAT SIDE CHARACTER ENSEMBLE"
or
"IT'S HEADCANON CHALLENGING TIME"

"Sir?"

Nonagon's head slumped. He took several seconds to blink, letting his cheek skim the surface of the desk. A sound passed through his lips that was almost a greeting but more like a snore, dissolving into a faint muttering about paperwork.

"Sir!" A sky-blue hoof smashed into the desk in front of his face, causing Nonagon to jolt back and nearly fall out of his chair. When he regained his balance, he found a set of furious green eyes just inches from his own. "I am here to volunteer!" the mare barked. "Are you going to facilitate that? Or do you require a replacement?"

"Uh... yeah! Yeah, I'm awake. I can do that." Nonagon blinked rapidly and scrambled about the papers in front of him, pretending that he remembered where the relevant form was. "Sorry," he said, stifling another yawn. "It was a really long walk to get here."

The sign on his desk read Nonagon's Volunteer and Missing Foal Rescue Centre. The sign outside said the same thing, with the slogan Are you ready to be a hero? carved underneath. The room in between was well-lit and needlessly spacious, with extravagant plants in every corner and gigantic clocks on every wall. Each of these had stopped close to noon when the sky had turned dark, but Nonagon suspected that the positions of the hands was close to being accurate again. The room was technically the reception area for an investment banker's office near the heart of Canterlot, but for the first time in its existence groups of ponies were walking into it looking like they actually wanted to be there. Volunteers of all shapes and sizes milled about in the large space, some forming a crude line that stretched all the way to the door but others comforting each other by the gold filigree waiting chairs too delicate to be sat on. Loud and concerned chatter filled the room, turning into a hushed echo as it rebounded off the curved ceiling. As a headquarters for the new objective, it was perfect.

"Ah, here we are." Nonagon beamed and produced a paper with a crude chart on it from the pile of identical copies he had strewn about his desk. He picked up what had once been a delicate fountain quill from the inkpot beside him and crunched the top half between his teeth. "Name?" he said.

The blue mare slowly backed down from the desk. "Nurse Tenderheart," she stated.

"Good." A few crude scratches made their way onto the page. "Occupation?"

She eyed his penmanship with disdain. "Nurse."

"Cutie mark?"

"Nurse."

"Special talent?"

"Nurse."

"Experience and education?"

"Nurse."

"Areas of interest?"

"Nurse." Her voice started to grow louder.

"Skills relevant to volunteer activities?"

"Nurse."

"Dream job?"

"Nurse." Her tail twitched.

"Preferred position within this group?"

"Nurse."

"Do you have any history with drugs or-"

"NUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURSE!" Tenderheart bellowed, blowing Nonagon's mane back. She pointed a hoof aggressively at her nurse bonnet and held her glare, daring him to ask another question.

"...Well." Nonagon steadied himself and attempted to straighten the single page in his hooves. "You, um, appear to have the qualifications we're looking for. Please, have a seat by the chairs and I'll let you know as soon as you have an opening I can fill." He brushed his mane back into place and put on his professional face, managing to hold it for a whole two seconds until his brain caught up with his mouth. "Er..."

Nurse Tenderheart pierced him with a look that could drop birds from the sky, but she still whirled away and huffed off in the direction of the chairs. Nonagon buried his face in his hooves and spat the quill messily onto the desk. "Ugh, why couldn't I have gotten this over with in the form of a montage?" he groaned. "I wouldn't have done all the work in between story segments if I'd known it was going to be all this work." Still, he rang the little bell that he'd stolen from the hotel across the street and called out to the line. "Next!"

It was a mint green unicorn who broke away from the line next, a cream-coloured earth pony right behind her. She approached the desk nervously, stuttering as she spoke. "H-hi. I, uh, I w-w-was w-wondering-"

"Finally!" Nonagon belted. "Somepony I can work with!"

He drew stares as he leaped onto the desk, scattering papers everywhere. "Lyra Heartstrings!" he yelled excitedly, pointing into the startled mare's face. "Or Lyra, or just Heartstrings, or what the flip ever. You're the excitable and bouncy one and kind of a genius, depending on the writer, and socially oblivious to match. You've got an obsession with humans that borders on the fetishistic but so long as we don't probe too deeply it'll stay cute instead of disturbing. You're a total raging lesbian for her-" He gestured to the other mare. "-who totally reciprocates, in every possible meaning of the term." He winked and forcefully nudged her as she started to shake. "Her name is Bon Bon, and she's comparatively sane and kind of motherly, depending on the writer, and makes candies for a living despite the fact that Sugarcube Corner basically has a total monopoly on that market. She can reign you in when you go off the rails and usually has some kind of secret, but it won't come up for like six chapters so we'll be totally safe until then."

He jumped down from the desk, strangling the pair of them into a hug and smooshing their faces together. "This is perfect!" he shouted. "Do you have any idea how easy you two are to write? All I have to do is throw you onto the page and people will instantly think of the relationship they've seen in other, better fanfics, which cuts my workload in freaking half. All the character establishment and setup for the emotional stuff's already been done. It's like you're barely even real ponies! You're like visual cheat sheets to make people love me!" He beamed and threw his head back. "We are back in business, baby!"

There was a long, choking- and spittle-ridden pause before the two mares could get enough leverage to push away from him. Then the cream mare spoke in the most obnoxious voice he'd ever heard. "Um, yeah, my name is Sweetie Drops, and, like, none of that was true."

Nonagon's smile froze on his face. He slowly twisted his head toward the first mare, whose legs were shaking. "Wh-wh-why would you s-say that ab-about me?" she stuttered. Tears started to spill down her face. "Why would you say that!?"

"...Oh, cheese." Nonagon's eye twitched. "I'm so, so sorry, you looked exactly like-" She turned and fled from the room, pushing ponies aside as she stumbled back onto the street. Nonagon stared after her, then turned his ghastly smile back to Sweetie Drops. "Aren't you going to go after her?" he said.

"Why should I? I'm just here to check in for the night."

"Check in? This is..." Nonagon sighed and turned away. "Ma'am, the hotel is across the street."

"Well why didn't ya say so?" She spun away with her nose in the air, but paused to get one last shot off. "Oh, and by the way, these are little bow ties, not candy," she said, brushing her flank. "But I'll forgive ya. If ya looked any closer, I'd have to, like, tell my husband to kill you."

Nonagon waited until she was out of sight, then turned back to the desk and winced so hard that he smacked his forehead against its edge. "Why does the universe hate me?" he whined to himself.

"Amusing as that was," a male voice stated from behind him, "I can't help but feel that you set yourself up for that. Rather cheapens it, don't you think?"

Nonagon turned around. He ran his eyes up and down the dark blue unicorn in front of him. "And you are?"

"Noteworthy, my good sir."

Nonagon checked him out again. "Um, no you're not," he corrected. "Noteworthy is an earth pony."

The stallion drew himself up. "I should think that I know who I am."

"Whatever." Nonagon pinched the bridge of his nose and awkwardly waved to the left. "Just wait over there. I can not deal with you right now. Alert me if anyone important shows up."

"Mister?" a new voice squeaked from below.

"What?" Nonagon snarled. He looked down to see a tiny pink filly poking at his leg. "Um..."

"Mister?" The filly looked up at him with big, puppy-dog eyes. "I can't find my mom."

"Oh." Nonagon looked around desperately. The ponies he'd already spoken to that night were avoiding his gaze. "Um... look, kid, listen," he tried. "The missing foal thing was really more for PR reasons, and I haven't really been looking-"

She widened her eyes at him.

"I mean, it's not that I don't want to help, I just haven't really vetted enough responsible adults yet, and-"

Those big, soulful eyes.

"We don't really have the facilities to-"

Those big, soulful, watering eyes.

"I'd have to mock up another type of form-"

Those big, soulful, watering, quivering eyes.

"I-"

EYES.

"All right, all right. We can see if anyone here's seen her." He took her hoof and helped her climb onto his back. "Notesworth, take over," he called. "I'll just be five minutes."

"Very well." Noteworthy reappeared and took Nonagon's place behind the desk. "Though I'm fully aware that that mispronunciation of my name was intentional."

"Yeah, it was."

Nonagon took a breath and lurched into the crowd. Colours surrounded him, and voices, and so many different mane styles that he could barely detect any repetition. Some wore clothes, some didn't, and a unique cutie mark graced every flank that was visible. Two dolphins, a star, a scroll, a ship, a brain in a jar. He shut his eyes before the details could overwhelm him. "What does your mom look like?" he asked.

"She's purple," the pink filly said. "And her mane is purple, and her cutie mark is purple. And she has a big tummy, and she smells like grapes, and..."

The words started to blur together, becoming part of the dozens of conversations happening simultaneously. Every voice had a backstory, a childhood, a place in the world. Every image was symbolic. Every interaction was worthy of a whole page to itself. "Maybe... maybe she's outside," Nonagon huffed, focusing heavily on the sound of his hooves hitting the floor. "Maybe she just needed... some air..."

He forced his way through and burst out onto the street. The buildings here were rounded and immaculate, seemingly growing out of the mountain into gilded marble spires. Even the cobblestones had the same pristine, natural quality to them. The only thing that seemed out of place was his own, hoof-painted sign, which covered the office's window. The night sky was still covered in broiling clouds, and the city's usual smell of stone and flowers was tainted by ash. There were no other ponies in sight, and the city fell quiet as the door swung closed. That was it. That was all the detail there was.

Nonagon took a deep breath as his mind cleared. He felt the filly curl up into a little ball on his back. "So many characters," he muttered. "Why the heck does this world have to be so big?"

Suddenly, a noise to his right startled him. Twilight Sparkle winged out of the sky and loudly touched down on the street, Fluttershy following close behind her. "What the hay is this?" she demanded.

"Ah, there you are!" Nonagon exclaimed, instantly feeling his good mood returning. "Just the purple mare I was hoping to see."

"Mommy?" the filly gasped, bounding up onto his head.

There was an awkward pause. "One of the two purple mares I was hoping to see," Nonagon clarified.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" Twilight demanded while Fluttershy scooped the filly from Nonagon's head. She shook a flier with another copy of his sign on it at him. "What is all this? Why is this? How is this!?"

"I know some guys," Nonagon said with a shrug, deftly not answering the question. "And I'm just doing my part to help the community."

Twilight pointed angrily. "There is an actual rescue centre two streets away," she said. "One with food, and beds, and actual staff from the Royal Guard. If you wanted to help, why didn't you just go there?"

"Twilight, Twilight, Twilight," Nonagon said, shaking his head. "You're not seeing the big picture."

He threw a foreleg over her shoulders, inwardly rejoicing when she only stiffened uncomfortably a little, and led her down the street. "Look, sugarplum," he continued-

"Don't call me that."

"-you and I both know that the Royal Guards aren't going to do anything. Nothing was ever accomplished by a large group of ponies working together over a long period of time."

"That's completely untrue."

"Nothing that matters. Everything that's ever changed this world has been accomplished by a small number of individuals across an equally small number of events. It doesn't even take any skills, just being in the right place at the right time. Half the time the only trial is getting the masses to do what you want - removing the useless weight from the equation. Heck, your whole shtick is being more important than everyone else."

"I am not more important than everypony else."

"Whatever you say, Princess."

Twilight ruffled her wings, but she held in a lecture and delivered a stern question instead. "So is that what you're doing here? Removing useless weight?"

"More like sifting through it." Nonagon spun away from her, practically dancing, and looked her in the eyes. "Think back on every adventure you've ever been on. How do you think they make other ponies feel? Small. Weak. Insignificant. If you've ever taken part in a crowd scene, you know deep down that nothing you do will ever have real value. And at that other shelter, those guards will be taking steps to keep it that way. They'll be telling other ponies to stay indoors, hide themselves away - to, whatever else they do, not participate. They're streamlining the world for you so you heroes can have your spotlight. Well, it doesn't have to be that way.

"Sure, not all of us are cut out to be main characters. I can live with that. But sometimes, it takes nothing more than a single line to completely steal the show. And right here, ponies are getting those lines. Most of them won't make the cut. They'll fade into the background, just like the majority of everyone who's ever lived. But just for tonight, and just for a second, some of them can feel like they're contributing to the world. Like they matter. And I'd take that over cowering in a basement, waiting for Twilight Sparkle to do her job again."

He fixed her with his cocky smile full-force. "Sure, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm just wasting time. But maybe, somewhere in there is a diamond waiting to be found. And if I can put just the right team together... then hey, who knows?" He shrugged. "Maybe you won't have to be better than everyone else any more."

Twilight stared at him hard, her lips pursing in angry thought. Fluttershy came out the door and edged up beside her. "This little one's parents aren't inside," she said. "We should bring her to the big shelter and look there."

"...Yeah. Let's do that." Twilight glared once more and walked away.

Fluttershy moved after her. "Is it, um... is it okay to leave him in charge?" she stage-whispered to her friend.

"I doubt there's anypony in there who can't look after themselves. If he doesn't figure it out, they will."

With a small sigh of triumph and relief, Nonagon went back inside. He edged his way around the corners of the room, accidentally taking the long way around, and arrived back at his desk, where Noteworthy was speaking in hushed tones to a turquoise pegasus in a beret. "How's it coming, Notesworth?" he said.

"It's..." Noteworthy gave him a strange look "It's, er, coming along."

"Good, good." Nonagon bumped him out of the chair and took his place. "And what's your name?" he said, smiling charmingly to the mare across the desk.

She grinned cheerily back at him. "Well, uh, I don't really have one yet!"

Nonagon stared at her blankly. "Notesworth, go finish the interview with her over there," he said.

"Er... Over where?"

"Somewhere I'm not. Next!" He took great delight in ringing the bell. "Oh, Celestia, Narrator, whoever," he begged with his head in his hooves, "let the next one be the one who makes this all worth it."

"Well, I can't make any promises, but I have been called that before."

Nonagon's eyes snapped open. He lowered his forelegs slowly, staring with dawning realization at the stallion in front of him. "You," he said.

"Oh, you know who I am?" The stallion beamed in mock disappointment. "Can't we do the introduction anyway? You'll say 'Name?' and I'll say 'The Doctor' and you'll say 'Doctor who?' - that's my favorite part - and I'll say 'No, just the Doctor' and you'll give me a funny little look... That's right, that one. That's half the reason I introduce myself any more these days. Well, that and to be polite. If I feel like it."

Nonagon's breath twisted up inside his throat. Something that was barely half-articulate to begin with lost all form as it left his mouth, coming out as a strangled "Ogh."

"Now, I was in the neighborhood and I happened to overhear that you were looking for volunteers of more than just the usual sort, isn't that right? Well, I believe I may be just the character you're looking for. I have a history with this sort of thing, you see; being in the right place at the right time, always knowing just what to say, being terribly important more by way of convenience than everything else. I've solved bigger problems than this without having to actually do anything."

"Get out," Nonagon whispered.

"And I mean that about not having to do anything," the Doctor continued. "Often my only real contribution will be identifying the villain, or giving the villain someone to explain their plan to. Aside from that, I'll just be the spark that starts something that would have happened without me anyway. And the rest of the time, it usually has to do with control panels. Do you have any idea how many alien races there are out there who build control panels that can be easily manipulated by hooves? It's as if they're asking to be interfered with."

"Get out," Nonagon repeated, louder.

"And while I can't quite claim to know which iteration of this character I'm supposed to represent, you can rest assured that so long as I'm here, you won't have to worry at all. I'll just step in, say a few catch phrases, do a lot of running, and let everyone tell me how clever I am, and the problem will just set itself up for me to resolve it. It's as if any suspense or tension is sucked out of the room as soon as I walk in the door. You won't even notice that anyone else is there!"

"GET OUT!" Nonagon roared, rearing up menacingly. "Get out of this room, get out of this city, get out of this story, and never come back here again!"

The Doctor stopped, for once in his life completely at a loss for words. "Are... are you sure?"

"Yes." Nonagon settled down, glaring fiercely. "You aren't welcome here. Get out."

"Well, if you're sure." The Doctor reached into a hidden pocket and produced a small, folded piece of paper. "But if you ever find that you're in need of me..." He slid the paper onto the desk. "I hope that this will change your mind." With that, he calmly turned and walked out the door.

Nonagon glared after him for a long while. He slowly picked up the paper and unfolded it, reading what was written on it twice. Then he scrunched it up and hurled it to the ground, stomping on it for good measure as he leaped out of his seat. He became aware of a lot of baffled stares being leveled at him and twisted his head arrogantly away. "I'll just be another minute," he grunted in the general direction of no one at all as he marched to the end of the room and disappeared further into the building.

The pegasus without a name fell hard against the wall, allowing Noteworthy to catch her. "I don't understand," she murmured as conversation started to return to the room. "Why doesn't Nonagon like the Doctor?"

Noteworthy mused over this. "Well," he said, "it seems to me-"

"Are you freaking kidding me!?" Nonagon screamed, only being slightly muffled by the building's thick walls. "What, was he mad that I didn't cream my frigging panties over him like every other fangirl? Am I supposed to be impressed by that level of fluffy writing? If I have to read just one more totally overblown introduction, I'll..."

"Ah," Noteworthy said with a nod over Nonagon's continued ranting. "It appears his 'beef', as t'were, isn't so much with the character of the Doctor himself as with his fans."

The pegasus gasped slowly, taking her time to process this. "You mean he's..."

"It appears so."

"He hates..."

"Without using any specific terms... Yes."

"And if I have to see just one more gifset about those stupid companions, I'll..."

The pegasus lurched angrily to her hooves. "Why, that ungrateful, hypocritical ass!"

"A sad case," Noteworthy sighed, "but perhaps, to him, necessary."

"Why, I oughta go in there and give him a piece of my-"

"No!" Noteworthy grunted, catching her as she surged forward. "He mustn't suspect. No matter how difficult he becomes, he absolutely can not know the truth."

The pegasus struggled for a second more, then gave Noteworthy a wicked smirk. "I wasn't necessarily going to say 'mind'."

"You sicken me."

"Why thank you, Doctor-Sensei! Let me bathe you with my tongue, Doctor-Sensei! Ooh, your plot hole is so big!"

"Alright, now he's getting into sarcastic honorifics. He must be wrapping up." Noteworthy straightened up and dragged the unnamed pegasus around to his side. "Look natural. And for the Narrator's sake, behave yourself."

"No promises," she retorted with a lecherous grin.

"SUE!" Nonagon belted out. A few seconds later, he reemerged with a pleasant smile and his mane freshly combed. "Just needed a drink of water," he explained to the dozens of perplexed stares on him, then calmly walked back to his desk and sat down. "Next!"

A wall-eyed pegasus trotted up to the desk. "Um..." she mumbled, looking like she'd forgotten why she was there.

"Yes!" Nonagon leaped up and rapidly shook her hoof. "Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Can't be any mistake this time, am I right? Of course I'm right. I've been wanting to work with you for ages. Oh, but of course, my manners. Let's get right to it." He sat down and leaned eagerly over the desk, not even bothering to produce a form. "Name?"

"D-"

"Of course it is, of course. Now, just to get everything out of the way early, and just to make sure we're all on the same page about where this story is going, just a few quick questions, no trouble at all..." He flipped one form over to its blank side and picked up his mangled quill again. "Settle this for me, and please, don't hold back: Are you retarded or not?"

In an instant, the entire room went silent.

He wasn't sure who punched him, but there were a lot fewer ponies in the room by the time stars stopped spinning around his head. In fact, at first he could only make out one, who obscured his vision further by pressing an ice pack against his blackening eye. She pinned him down as he tried to squirm away from the biting coldness. "If you don't want it there, there's only one other place I'm going to suggest you shove it," she snapped.

The world swayed as Nonagon managed to stand up perfectly straight. He held the ice pack in place and examined his surroundings. Aside from Nurse Tenderheart, the only other ponies left were Noteworthy and the unnamed pegasus. "That's it?" he groaned, not even trying to hide his disappointment. "All that searching, and all I'm left with is the freaking... the freaking blue crew?"

The pegasus giggled, while Noteworthy furrowed his brow, just slightly. "It... appears so," he said.

"Well, what am I supposed to do with you?" He stormed into the middle of the room and surveyed them: Tenderheart glaring at him, Noteworthy watching him with concern, the pegasus grinning at him with feigned shyness. "You're not important to anyone," he complained. "I'm not going to win anyone's heart by hanging around you. No one cares about who you are. You're just a bunch of no-name background ponies with no established personalities or backstories."

He slowly marched up to Nurse Tenderheart and then, to her immense shock, wetly kissed her cheek and hugged her. "You're perfect," he said, sounding genuinely happy for the first time that night. "Now come on. If this scene's over, that means the action's about to begin. Let's try and get some good seats." Then he skipped out of the building and exited the scene completely.

Tenderheart stared after him with slowly-returning fury. Noteworthy approached her and put a steadying hoof on her shoulder, but it wasn't enough to keep her from growling. "I'm going to kill him," she said. "I'm literally going to kill him."

"We need him alive," Noteworthy ordered.

"And functional," the pegasus added, licking her lips.

"You're both wrong. All we need are his words." Tenderheart broke away from them both and stalked forward. "Now come on. For all his posturing, he's right. We genuinely do need good seats."

The trio left, following the hoofsteps of their new leader. With no one left to need them, the lights in the office went out, one by one. Save for exactly one.

"So now you understand," Celestia said.

Treehouse sat in the middle of the carpet in her study, absorbing all that he had been told. "Wow," he said. "I had no idea the complete history of Paradigm would be so long or so meaningful."

"And we hope that you have listened well," Luna said, circling ominously behind him, "for the tale is both too long and too meaningful for us to ever tell a second time. Hold on well to every detail, for they shall not be spoken again." She paused. "Nor shall they become relevant. In truth, none of what we have just told you will have any bearing on the story to follow. If, in reality, you have spent this entire time daydreaming and eating thine complimentary peanuts, it will have no impact on your abilities."

"Huh?" Treehouse said, bits of shell falling from his lips as he turned. "But if none of this matters, why did we spend the past eleven hours talking about it?"

"We did not wish you to feel left out," Celestia said gently. She crossed over to the window and gently parted a curtain. "And now, I believe, it is time."

As if on cue, a royal guard barged in through the door. "My princesses! And hero," he added in an impossibly gruff voice. "Something is happening in the central plaza."

"As I thought." Celestia closed the curtain. "Iron Rod, leave us. Paradigm will wait."

The guard stood stunned, then stomped in protest. "My lady, this catastophe cannot wait-"

"Paradigm will wait for us, Iron Rod. It is his way. Dismissed."

With gritted teeth but a professional posture, the guard retreated to the hall. Luna eyed her sister with an implied sigh. "Iron Rod?" she said.

"Would you believe I hired him for his voice?" Celestia turned away and walked to her desk, where a plain white envelope was waiting. "Consider this your first true lesson, Treehouse," she said. "Paradigm's strength lies in his accordance with patterns, but he is also bound to them. For all his power, he is incapable of making an entrance unless there is someone of importance there to witness it. And right now, the most important ponies in all the land are the three of us."

"Really?" Treehouse got up, stretching. "But why? What about Princess Twilight, or..." He almost said another name, but it grew into a lump in his throat. "Or a friend," he continued, almost silently.

"Her time will come later, if at all. Right now, Paradigm is here for us. And that is because we are the only three ponies..." Celestia focused light in her horn and magically held up the envelope. "...who know about this."

Treehouse tried to stare with the suitable amount of awe, but found that he couldn't. Even by the standards of envelopes, this one was especially plain. "What is it?" he asked. "You didn't mention anything about that in your story."

"Suffice to say it is something that Paradigm wants," Luna said. "Something that he will stop at nothing to get. And that is why we are entrusting it to you." She added her magic to Celestia's own and, grim with the significance of the action, together they placed it into Treehouse's grasp. "Do not open it. Do not tell anyone that you have it, not even your closest companions. All of Equestria depends on you keeping this secret."

Treehouse wrinkled the paper back and forth. It felt like there was something inside, but it was impossible to tell what. "I can do that," he said, embracing his destiny. "On my life, I won't tell a soul. It's not like anyone's listened to anything I've had to say before now."

"Then this world is safe." Celestia touched her horn to each of his shoulders, signifying something that was, to him, completely meaningless. "Now go. Flee this city. We will buy you time."

The two princess began to walk away, leaving Treehouse on his own with the envelope. "Hey, wait!" he called after them. "Flee to where? Where is safe any more? And even if I keep this secret, how am I supposed to stop Paradigm?"

"You will know," Celestia said. Then she and her sister bowed their heads and left the room.

In a mild panic, Treehouse sat down. He turned the envelope over repeatedly in his hooves, finding that he was drawn to examining its surface, searching for any imperfection. There was nothing notable about it at all. Like himself, the envelope defied description. "What would Nonagon do?" he asked himself, finally letting the name grace his mouth. And when the answer came, he gripped the envelope between his teeth with a fire in his eyes and raced after the princesses.

Author's Note

It's back. For some reason. And, for reasons that have nothing to do with me, there seems to be some kind of plot emerging.

As always, this chapter was largely cranked out in a single sitting and has been minimally edited.