Author's Note

Don't worry, the real Chapter 27 is coming. Still editing it.

I felt like after a hiatus this long, we needed a recap. And then I decided that The Editor would be providing it. And then he got away from me and started talking about his perspective, long before I expected to start inserting anything substantial about him. So even if you don't need a recap... probably you should read this.

The Recap Episode! (This Is Not Chapter 27)

While we were working on editing chapter 27, Discord said we needed a “recap episode.” I have no idea what that is. I asked him why, and he said that 26 episodes is a whole season. So now that the new season has started, we need a recap episode.

Discord says a lot of very weird things.

I eventually figured out that what he meant was that he wanted a description of what's happened so far in the story. I really don't get why chapter 27; there are multiple chapters that come after this, though I haven't edited them yet, but whatever. It's his story.

But it’s my story too, so I’m going to tell some of the parts I was there for, in the order they happened, not the order Discord talks about them in the story.

So some time ago, a few months ago, Discord was in stone, and someone -- not a pony -- came from another world into the Everfree Forest. This guy, Anon, came from a world that… well, he calls it Earth, just like here. But you know, according to Discord, apparently everybody calls their world Earth. I guess I can see why; it sorta means “dirt”, and I guess, most planets are made of it? Anyway, Discord describes Anon’s world as Terra Mundi, meaning it's Earth without magic, and we’re Terra Fabula, which sounds to me like fabulous Earth, but he says it's Earth with magic, and magical creatures.

So Anon is a human, which is a creature that-- ok, Discord keeps referring to him as a coatless monkey, but he's actually better looking than that. Firstly, humans are closer to apes than monkeys, and secondly, humans… kind of look like in comparison to apes, what ponies look like in comparison to horses. They've got the bigger eyes and the smaller snout and more expressive faces that ponies have that horses and apes both don't. It's true that he doesn't have a coat, though. He does have a mane, or we call it hair, actually, when it's on a human, but just on the top of his head, and like his eyebrows and some other places I don't really need to get into.

Anyway, this human was wandering through the Everfree Forest. He fought off some timber wolves with fire, and got help from Zecora in getting out successfully. Then he met up with Twilight and her friends, and became friends with them. So far so good. Meanwhile, Discord was sensing a wave of building chaos that was powerful enough that he thought it was going to set him free.

Around this time, Twilight got her invitation to Shining Armor’s wedding, which was kind of surprising, because we didn't actually know Shining Armor was getting married, which, considering that he's her older brother, you would think someone would have said something. But, yeah, actually, I've grown up with this family, so it doesn't shock me.

Anyway, Shining Armor was getting married to Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, who happens to be Twilight's old babysitter Cadence? I remember Cadence just a little bit from when I was very small. And I don't remember her being in alicorn, but anyway, I was really little, so I guess my memory’s not great, because she's also an alicorn, like Princess Celestia. So Twilight and all her friends go to Canterlot, and Anon is with them. And Twilight notices that Cadence is acting really weird and nasty, won't eat Applejack’s food, being a total Bridezilla. She kept trying to point this out. No one believed her, except for Anon.

So she mentioned her concerns to Princess Celestia, who told her she was a jerk and that she needed to rethink things. Anon yelled at Princess Celestia over this, so she had him thrown in the Catacombs, which are kind of like dungeons except they’re not sealed cells, more like a maze of caves. Twilight ran off crying, investigated, and found out that Cadence was an impostor. It turned out the imposter was the Queen of the Changelings, a species that eats love and can take the form of any pony they want. Then the Changeling Queen threw Twilight in the Catacombs, where she found Anon and the real Cadance.

So while he was in the catacombs, Anon found an artifact that looked like a little crystal sword. But when he joined up with everyone else after escaping the catacombs, he found out it was the seventh Element of Harmony, the Element of Protection, and it would grow into a full size sword. Which he used to kill a lot of changelings, seriously wound their queen ,and drive them away. This impressed everybody, and they were all really sorry that they had questioned him and Twilight. They all fell in love with him and formed a herd.

Meanwhile, Discord escaped. He went to Zebrica, but eventually decided to come back here to Equestria to make chaos, because apparently, zebras don't panic at chaos as much as ponies do. And the first thing that he thought of doing was to do the exact same thing that he did last time. He stole the elements and he kidnapped Princess Luna. He put her in a magical sleep and took her someplace, claiming that if the girls and Anon could complete his maze, that they would get Princess Luna back, and the elements.

Well, that didn't happen, because he discorded all of them except Twilight, this time doing it with straight up magic like he did to Fluttershy the first time. Anon attacked him with the sword, and it turned out that the sword disrupted Discord’s magic, so they managed to un-discord everypony. But Discord managed to get away and didn't tell anyone where Princess Luna was. They did get the elements back.

After that, Discord investigated Anon and the Seventh Element. He says that there is no such thing as a Seventh Element, or an Element of Protection, and he would know, because Harmony is one of the three powers, including Order and himself, Chaos, that govern magic and reality on our world. This isn't exactly a thing he can be wrong about. So that begs the question, if it's not the seventh Element of Harmony, what is it? He says that it feels like Harmony gone wrong, twisted Harmony.

He dug deeper, and discovered some interesting things. Herding -- that's actually new. From Discord’s perspective, it had been very rare before, and now all of a sudden, everyone was doing it. From our perspective, there had always been herds, and they were just as common, if not more so, than two-pony marriages. He found that ponies used to be very accepting of male ponies who love other male ponies, male ponies who love members of other species, and ponies who think that they're the opposite gender for what they are. According to Discord, this all used to be perfectly normal, and now everybody looks down on it, because there's so many more mares than there are stallions, so there aren't enough stallions to go around, if stallions are having affairs with other stallions or with people who aren’t ponies.

Discord says that's also wrong – I mean, there being too many mares and not enough stallions. A lot of the extra mares are actually stallions. Somehow Anon's powers altered the world so that a lot of stallions turned into mares, and thought they had always been mares, and so did everybody else. And society changed also to match, so, herds.

Anon’s powers do things like make everybody think that he's a great guy and awesome, unless he thinks that they're villains, in which case they're allowed to hate him. But then his powers make them act stupid. That happened to Discord more than once. He has weird luck powers, like when Discord went to check on Princess Luna and Anon just happened to show up while Discord was there.

I was there for part of that. I remember Anon getting a sudden idea. Wait a minute, we haven't checked the Castle of the Two Sisters. What if Discord put Princess Luna there? And none of us knew that Discord was there right then. And nopony wanted to go with Anon because the Everfree Forest is creepy and they had a bad experience when they were getting their Elements, and he was fine with that because he’s Protection, he takes the risks for his friends so they don’t have to. That was how he managed to come upon Discord when Discord was checking up on Luna.

This allowed Anon to cut off Discord’s tail.

Anon told us about attacking Discord, and cutting off his tail, but he got away before he could kill him. Fluttershy was really upset by this; she doesn’t like Discord, but she hates the idea of anyone suffering, at least any kind of bloody gory suffering. They almost had a fight over it, but then Fluttershy came around and recognized that sometimes defending your friends means you have to make somepony suffer, even if you don’t want to.

Discord told the same story – well, the events were the same, but what sounded to me like a really cool fight when Anon told it comes out as a horror story when Discord does. Cutting off Discord’s tail with the Element of Protection started making the rest of his tail disintegrate, and he had to amputate it himself to keep from being annihilated.

So at this point, Discord was really scared. He couldn’t figure out how to fight Anon. How do you fight somebody who makes you stupid every time you fight? Or someone who luck will always favor, so that if something that could hurt you or help your opponent is weird and totally improbable, it’ll still happen?

He decided that Anon's powers were trying to create a story where Anon is the Big Hero. So everything that happens is going to be something that glorifies Anon and makes him look good, unless it's a thing that makes the story more dramatic and builds up the tension, presumably. So Discord's decided that he's going to collect these things called Elements of Disharmony, which he thinks are actually kind of useless. They give their bearers certain abilities that have to do with whatever they represent, and they provide some protection against mind control, but they can't be combined into like an ultra powerful wave of Disharmony, because Disharmony can't work with itself. That's kind of the point of Disharmony. And in fact, people who hold these Elements can’t get along with each other. It’s, like, Bearers of Harmony need to be friends with each other, or Harmony doesn't work. Bearers of Disharmony, apparently can't stand each other.

Generally speaking, I -- I've always felt like, live and let live, and control your temper. Keep things, you know, keep things smooth. So I noticed some of them picking fights with me back when I wasn't the only one, and I did get very irritated with that, but I kept it under control. Because when you're a dragon, everypony might be scared of you, if you go around losing your temper and being angry.

And I've spent my life having ponies say, like, “What's that thing for?”, “Twilight, control your pet lizard”, or things like that. Rude stuff that's very offensive. So I learned how to keep my temper. I'm not gonna say it wasn't hard, but I am saying I'm better at it than any of the others were.

Anyway, back to the story.

Discord has been going around collecting up these Elements of Disharmony, giving them to ponies who Anon thinks are villains, and then having them go do things to irritate him or Twilight and her friends. That’s it, really, just irritating. They're not really doing anything worse than that.

But the idea is, Anon’s powers think this is a story. They want to make discord out to be an evil mastermind , who has a plan to do something terrible with these Elements of Disharmony. And eventually Anon is going to defeat it, but first the plan needs to come to fruition. That's how stories work, right? I mean, that's how comic books work. And Anon was really more of a comic book guy than, like, artsy literature, like the kind of Twilight likes. I've read some of those things myself, personally, I think they're pretty boring. So it's not like I hold that against them, but that's the kind of story that his powers are trying to make.

Discord needs time, without Anon’s power forcing him to go challenge Anon so Anon can kill him. He needs time to be able to figure out how Anon’s powers work and how to defeat him. So that's the point to the Elements of Disharmony.

At this stage of the story, the Elements of Disharmony were:

Blueblood, who has the Element of Arrogance, and has been stirring up ponies against Anon in Canterlot. He’s also gotten Princess Celestia’s administrators to pull all of Anon’s money, on a technicality. So now Anon’s totally broke.

Gilda the Griffin has Rage, and she's been going and attacking ponies like Applejack and Rainbow Dash. Mostly getting her flank kicked, but it definitely makes it look like there's some kind of evil plan going on.

Trixie has the Element of Deception, which allows her to supercharge her illusions. That comes up in this upcoming chapter.

Diamond Tiara has the Element of Cruelty, and she's been using it to do things like embarrass Anon, by making Rarity think that Anon doesn't really love her, and then Pinkie thinks that Anon really doesn't love her and loves Rarity more. She's also been writing newspaper stories about how Bad Anon is.

Chrysalis has the Element of Hatred, because changelings feed on love. Hatred is toxic to them. Discord was afraid that somebody with Hatred could use it to tear pony society apart, and he doesn't want that. But Chrysalis won't do that, because hatred that tears pony society apart would do a lot of damage to the changelings. As of this point in the story, though, she hasn't done anything yet, except she's healing from her injuries. Oh, I should mention that Discord’s somehow managed to recruit a second hive of changelings too. I didn’t even know there was more than one hive.

Discord hasn't been able to find the Element of Selfishness. He keeps mentioning that it exists and that it's around someplace, but he doesn't know where, and he will get around to looking for it eventually. I think that's a little bit suspicious, but it's true. He doesn't really need it, so I guess he knows best about that.

And he has the Element of Greed, and he was going to give it to Flim and Flam, but Anon showed up with Applejack, Rarity and Rainbow Dash, so Discord got his butt kicked. Up to this point in the story, he hasn’t given that Element to anyone.

That was also how we found out that Gilda was working for Discord, when we saw her come to his defense. We later found out that Discord was collecting something called Elements of Disharmony. Anon found this out, and that he had most of the ones that he needed, during a fight with the caribou. Which, not even going to go into that in this recap. Just, no. If you haven't read that section, or you don't remember it, you're better off.

Since we knew that Gilda had fought for Discord, we figured she had one of these Elements of Disharmony. But at this point in the story, we didn't know who had any of the other Elements.

Right now, at this point in the story, things look pretty good for Discord. Anon is on trial for having killed a dragon, who wasn't a heck of a lot older than me, because she was greed grown at the time. He didn't know that she was a child, and his powers wouldn't let Discord tell him so, or tell Luna This was during the fight with the caribou. Again, you don't want to know.

So the dragons have come to Canterlot to demand that Anon be put on trial for this Dragon's death, because she was a little girl and slave. Anon’s money just got pulled, and Rarity and Pinkie Pie are at odds with each other, because they both think Anon loves the other one more, though they've put their differences aside because Anon’s on trial, so that's the most important thing to deal with. And Trixie has Just started fighting her duel with Twilight.

Meanwhile, a mare named Cheese Louise --a party pony like Pinkie -- has turned out to actually be a stallion named Cheese Sandwich, and his birth certificate says so. This told Discord that the changes that Anon made, they aren't real. They're changes to people's memories, and our current physical reality. But they don't alter the past. The records are still there.

So he told Cheese Sandwich about this, and Cheese is trying to recruit other mares who feel like they ought to have been stallions, because they might actually have been, and they can find out by checking their birth certificates. And he's told me.

He hasn't told me in a lot of detail yet, at this point in the story. He just said, go check the birth records, and that I'll know it when I see it.

Discord didn't know this because he wasn't paying a lot of attention to me, which -- not shocked, nobody ever pays a lot of attention to me. But at this point in the story, I'd started doing that research, and I'd found out about the ponies who were born stallions, who are now mares.

But I was planning on checking it in a few places, because it’s not exactly like I’m gonna just take Discord’s word for it.

I know Discord can make a lot of changes. But I don't think he can make changes everywhere. Al those birth certificates, there are copies of them at Canterlot. All of Equestria sends copies of the birth certificates there, and I knew if I could check there, I’d know for a fact. Or maybe go to some random small town even Discord has probably never heard of, and check there. I just haven't had a chance to get to it at this point in the story.

I should say a little bit of something about who I am, in case you haven't figured it out.

My name is Spike. I’m a dragon. A teenage dragon. People call me a baby dragon, because I still look kind of babyish, but that's just – Dragons live a long time, so we have a long childhood. I'm actually 14.

I'm in love with Rarity, and she's been treating me like garbage ever since Anon came along. So are the rest of my friends. And I loved Anon too. I thought he was great. I looked up to him. Wanted to be just like him. I wanted him to be my friend.

But he doesn't care about me. He thinks I'm a waste of time, that I'm a useless little baby. He's not interested in being my friend.

Discord’s not anybody's friend. I don't have any illusions about that. He's not somebody who should be looked up to. Actually he’s still pretty evil in a lot of ways, but… Discord was the one who told me that all my friends ignoring me, paying no attention to me and getting angry at me over stupid stuff… That it isn't my fault. It’s because of Anon’s powers.

I didn't really trust Discord. Earlier in the story, there was a scene where he tried to make Twilight choose between me or Anon. He said he was going to kill one of us. And Twilight picked Anon and then Anon got free. And attacked Discord, and that saved me. I thought Discord was actually going to kill me. But according to Discord, he said he was disgusted by the fact that Twilight picked Anon. Because the whole reason he made that choice was that he wanted Anon to suffer, because Twilight would pick me over him. Someone that Anon doesn't care about and thinks is a waste of time, over him. Except that's not what Twilight did.

And Anon didn't mean to have Twilight pick him. I know that. This power that Discord thinks he has? He doesn't know about it. Or if he does, he's keeping it a secret really well, and frankly. I don't think Anon is good enough at keeping secrets to be doing that.

Except… I have to question that because… OK, this is really weird. So Anon comes from an entirely different world than ours, a different dimension. Like in comic books, you know? A whole different dimension. Except this isn't like a dimension where all your friends are there, but they turned evil or something like that. This is a dimension where there's no magic. Where they believe that dragons and pegasi and unicorns are mythical creatures. They have horses and ponies, but the ponies are more like miniature horses, and none of them are smart or can talk.

And there are like, movies that show every week on a box in your house. Kind of like what if you have a movie theater inside of your house and, uh, you know the little cartoons that they do with serials, where you go like every week to the movie theater? And they've got, you know, an action adventure film that’s like half an hour long, and they've got a whole bunch of cartoon shorts, and some of those cartoon shorts are about superheroes. And the superhero stories are also action adventure, like the live action adventure film. Not just comedy cartoons.

So that's what they have in this world. Millions and millions of these films. And you can pick out which one you want to watch on the box in your house, which frankly, I I'd like to see that kind of thing come to Equestria! That sounds really awesome.

But here's the weird thing. Our world is one of those cartoons. Like a superhero cartoon. I mean, according to Discord, it's got a little comedy, but it's got a lot of action in it. And he says, it's an accurate depiction of our lives... up until the wedding.

These serials come in groups every year that are called seasons… Oh wait, that's what Discord was talking about when he said 26 episodes makes a season, so now it’s a new season and we need a recap episode! Oh wow.

So up to the wedding took two seasons. Which makes sense, it was two years. But this cartoon has three seasons. And in the first two episodes of the third season, the one that probably shows what our lives would have been like without Anon… I was supposed to go with the others to the Crystal Empire, and help Twilight to fight Sombra. In the cartoon, Twilight was told that she couldn't use the help of her friends. So, according to Discord, she and I found the Crystal Heart. And she was blocked and couldn't get it to Cadence in time. So. I jumped. Carrying the Heart, I jumped across a huge dangerous distance to Cadence. She got the Heart from me, and she activated it, and that destroyed Sombra.

In our world, I wasn't even there.

These things Anon saved us from? Discord says, we already saved ourselves. There is a cartoon about our lives that was accurate up until the point where Anon showed up. And we can tell our lives would have gone that way and it’s not just total fiction, because it's sort of similar to things that really happened in our lives. Like there was a story where Pinkie found the Mirror Pool, and that really happened. And Anon warned her about it ahead of time… so we know he’s seen it. There was a story about an Apple family reunion, and the family reunion really happened here.

And there was a story about Trixie dueling Twilight, which is exactly what's happening in this chapter that we're finishing up editing now, the one that this recap is happening in front of.

If Anon hadn't been there, Cadance and Shining Armor would have defeated the changelings, with the power of their love. And if Anon hadn't been there... Twilight and Cadance and I would have defeated Sombra. I'd have been the hero instead of Anon. And none of my friends would have hated me or looked down on me.

And Anon has to have seen these episodes, because he warned Pinkie about the Mirror Pool. There’s a thing he does in this upcoming chapter, I won’t spoil it, where he’s wrong about something because he thinks things are going the way the cartoon in his world did.

He decided that the version where he's the big hero is better. Or the thing in his head that makes him a big hero has decided it. But if that’s the case… then he hasn't questioned it. He didn't say, ‘oh, Spike should come with us to the Crystal Empire, because I have a feeling he'll be really important and be able to help a lot,’ he said I should stay home because I can't fight.

That really hurts. He knew I was supposed to be a hero. And he decided to take it from me. Because he thinks I'm worthless, even though he knows I could have been a hero.

I still can't bring myself to hate Anon. I think maybe I should, but I don't. Maybe it's because I'm still under the influence of his powers, but I want him to be my friend. I want him to see that I can be a hero, but...tThat's not going to happen. Because he already knew I could be a hero. The hero, of one of these “episodes” of our lives, one of our adventures. And he decided he was going to take it from me.

Now I have the Element of Greed, and I'm going to use it to hold on to what belongs to me. My friends are my friends. Their love for me, their friendship. The compassion they feel for me. My chance is to be a hero. Those things are mine. I'm not letting him continue to take away from me what is mine.

I was afraid, when Discord offered this. I remember what happened the last time I got greedy. And I honestly think that if that happened to me again, Anon would try to kill me. And I'm not sure my friends would stop him. Because he's taking them away from me. But Discord says that holding on to the Element of Greed immunizes you from the excesses of greed, if he is the one who gave it to you. Like in one of the earlier chapters, there was this other dragon who had the Element of Greed and it completely warped his personality, and it made him as big as a mountain. He didn’t seem to get stupid like I did the one time I got greed-grown… but he was stupid enough to fight Discord. And in the end, he didn't die, because Discord tries not to kill people, but he lost everything.

But according to Discord, that's not how the Elements work when he hands them out. And I know that he's telling me what he thinks is the truth, at least… because it's what he put in the story. Long before I started working with him. And Discord is not the kind of person who goes back and inserts things into the story… well, OK, actually he does. When I tell him to, or when he gets the idea while we're editing it. And there are a couple of places where he used his magic to make extra words float on top of the page because he was adding them to the manuscript, before I became his editor.

But he couldn’t have gone back and edited how these elements work into the story, just to trick me, because that's how they work for the other Elements of Disharmony, and I’ve seen it. So. The Element of Greed will allow me to control my greed. Use my greed to fuel power that I can use to keep what's mine.

I don't want everything in the world. I don't want all the gems, I'd like more gems than I have, but I don't want them all. I don't want to sit on a mountain of gold and jewels. Don't even want to sit on a mountain of comic books. For one thing, that would ruin most of them.

I want the love of my friends. I want them to acknowledge my love for them. Rarity, I want her to love me as more than a friend, but if she doesn't, I at least want her to see me as a friend and not a nuisance!

And … Twilight's my only family. She’s my mom and my sister and my boss and the leader that I would follow anywhere, all rolled into one. What she feels about Princess Celestia, I feel the same way about Twilight herself, except twice as much because I live with her and I serve her and I take care of her. She's mine.

I'll share her with anyone who'll share her with me. If she had a coltfriend, that's fine. That wouldn’t bother me. Just because I love Rarity doesn't mean I don't love Twilight any less. It would be the same the other way around.

But Anon won’t share her with me. He won't let me have my mother, my sister, my best friend. The power in his head wants her to sacrifice me for him.

So I'm done. I'm done trying to get Anon’s approval. Done trying to get my friends’ approval. Maybe they’ll hate me for this, but if they hate me in their right minds without being manipulated by Anon, then I have faith that someday, someday they'll remember.

That’s why I work for discord. Not because I want chaos. Because I want what's mine back.

So that was a tangent and, you know, I'm thinking about cutting this, but if you see it, I guess I decided not to. I thought it was more professional to just be calling myself the editor and not make a big thing about who I am. I mean, I guess we'll get to that point in the story eventually, but it's Discord’s story, he's telling it.

If I'm gonna be editing this story, I want my perspective. I want any pony who reads it to understand why I'm helping Discord. I want them to know, I’m doing this for the sake of friendship. Love. Because I want my friends to have their right minds back. Because I want them to love me.

And if they won't love me because they’re mad that I did stuff for Discord? Well then. At least it'll be for what I've done. And not because Anon took it away from me.