“You were more than my protector, Octavia. You were my very best friend.”
Slam!
Like an explosion, the sound of metal screaming into flesh. Screeching nails on a chalkboard. Cinder blocks free falling to the ground. Coffin wood being drilled six feet under. The high-pitched wailing of women gone mad.
The sounds of Dissonance.
Crack!
A silhouette tumbled out of the smoke and shadow with the quickness of a spark to bring new sounds mingling with the cacophony. Wood striking soft earth. Water running over stones. Wind threading its fingers through the trees. A gentle music, rising, rising, rising, sending waves through the soul.
She was rising too, jumping off walls and over rooftops with a reckless daring her friends had never seen in her before. A daring she had never seen in herself either. This was a side to her that was completely new. Which made sense. Everything was new. Too new to ever, ever make sense.
“I can see everything now. All the worlds that might have existed, and all the worlds that might come to exist. Each and every one. And I get to see you smile in them all.”
For a few seconds, Octavia stood teetering on the edge of a castle spire. From there she could just barely make out the line where the night sky distorted into the void she had just climbed out of. The terrible screaming could still be heard.
It was such a sweeter sound than the voice in her head.
Then she flung herself off the spire and dived right back in.
The wind stung in her eyes. A biting cold tore at her fur. Her heart rate accelerated with her body as the screaming grew louder, louder, louder. All rational thought stood no chance against the raging chaos.
Fortunately for Octavia, thought was not required. Her body knew the precise moment to fling itself to the right, pivoting in midair. Out of nothing, a pistol materialized in her hoof. Her eyes narrowed in concentration. The ground rose to crush the sky.
Ready, aim, fire.
A sleek bullet went singing through the air. Right on target, it lodged itself in the center of a graffiti heart.
Boom!
The very earth shook. Octavia’s hooves hit the pavement, and she stood to face The Wall.
Where there was once the back alley wall of a donut shop, now fifty feet of crystal stretched for as far as she could see. If she perked up her ears, she could hear a faint chittering on the other side. The crystal shimmered with a blinding glow to solidify into a dull obsidian with spikes running across its surface. The last part of the wall to materialize was a thick metal door, complete with a diamond knocker.
Octavia pursed her lips. As she walked, the sound of her high heeled boots echoed in empty space, but not for long. The sound was growing louder, a persistent scritch scritch burrowing under her skin and scratching at her mind.
Then she reached up and lifted the knocked on the door.
Slam!
Now she had done it. She had shaken the beehive. Octavia somersaulted backwards through the air to land neatly on a first floor apartment balcony, while below, the land of Equestria met its newest batch of majuu.
White robed spirits thrice the height of an alicorn, the majuu made their solemn, single file procession from The Wall. Their mouths were wide open, as if an invisible hand was pulling down on their dislocated jaws. From their mouths came the source of Dissonance, a retched wailing, the sound waves stretched out painfully tight on a bed of knives.
Octavia blinked, and when she opened her eyes, twenty loaded rifles hovered at her sides. The lead majuu stirred, and looked up at her. Its eyes were an unseeing mist.
The mist didn’t even have time to coalesce before the heat of a bullet racing three hundred miles an hour turned it to vapor, the majuu along with it. A bundle of robes fell to the ground.
In one simultaneous jerk of the head, the rest of the majuu locked their eyes on her as their screaming rose to glass-shattering intensity.
Octavia screamed back. To most, it would have meant fear. To her, it meant bring it.
Fire!
Catapulting herself off the balcony, Octavia straightened her body like a pole, forlegs pinned to her sides. As she descended, her magic pointed all her rifles together to form a deadly spearhead, aimed right at the center majuu. The majuu spread out and using their wailing voices, formed a rippling shield of blue energy, strongest at its center.
Come on, Octavia urged herself angrily as the shield began to heat up. Just a little longer.
Timing. Tempo. When you made music, everything had to be perfectly on beat. There was no stalling, no waiting for a cue from the side or someone to sweep in to save the day. The beating of your own heart in your own ears was your only prayer.
At the very last second possible, Octavia stopped in midair to let all the rifles spread out like a fan.
Fire, fire!
The bullets struck each weak spot of the shield. The world burned.
The flaming blue shards of energy rained down like razor sharp glass, but by that time, Octavia was already gone. Now she was on the ground, staring down the center majuu. The majuu was expressionless. Octavia was brimming with excitement.
Fire!
All of them would burn.
A mahou filia was never supposed to fight majuu one-on-one, save for last resorts when things had really gone south. To do so otherwise would be considered suicide. You ran out of the labyrinth. You called for backup. You did anything else other than fight that God-forsaken fight. Those were the rules.
To hell with the rules.
Octavia fought like music. She shot rounds in rapid fire staccato, then soared through the air like a slur between two long notes for the finishing legato, a drawn out blow to the back of the neck. In contrast, the majuu attacks were inelegant but effective, with blunt force and sheer numbers aiding their side. A dozen kicks could be intercepted, but not even the most skilled could see that lucky thirteen hoof until it collided with the jawbone. Soon, Octavia was a mish-mash of black and blue roses blooming under her fur. Each of her nerves stung with the sharpness of a dozen thorns.
Octavia could feel the ruby lightning bolt pendant resting on her collarbone turn dark. Her magic was running low.
Soon, very soon, it would run out.
In the back of her mind, she felt several tiny pinpricks winking like tiny lights. If she chose to enter that state of consciousness, she would become aware of ponies. The budding musician dreaming of his first concert hall, the composer with her pen swishing across the paper in the dim but comforting candlelight, the virtuoso too enraptured by his music to succumb to the silence of sleep. She could feel all of their souls, thousands upon thousands, poured completely and honestly into their passions.
It was different than before. Before, she only had the power of her own soul to rely on. Now, she had the strength of all the musicians of Canterlot. They could give her the magic of friendship needed to fight.
But only if she wanted it.
A roar tore from her chest and she reentered the fray alone.
Fighting this way was intimate, Octavia discovered. Limbs circling, striking, entwining. Sparks forming burning streaks like tears on her face. She could hear the majuu screams vibrating in her bones, tunneling deep, deep down until her whole body shook in an uncontrollable mess. Their cries of pain caused her pain, and she in turn inflicted pain upon them. Pain, pain, pain.
It felt so good.
Wrong, wrong, wrong! she wanted to yell as she tore through the rows of majuu. This world is all wrong!
If Octavia had changed her fighting strategy to attack from a distance, all the majuu would have been dead long ago. But she chose to stay close, where the Dissonance was the loudest. That way she wouldn’t have to think. Or remember.
“Ditzy Doo, the way you are now, you are beyond the bounds of time. Your existence has shifted to another plane of reality and is now but a concept. No one can remember you. None can be aware of you. Only one will know you even existed.”
The Incubator’s words echoed in Octavia’s head and all around the empty space. “What? This is what Ditzy wished for? This is worse than death! How could I have done this? How…?”
Then, like the first star at night, a light emerged from the darkness. Then a blur of six colors: pink, orange, yellow, white, blue, and violet. Then finally, a face.
“No, it’s not, Octavia.”
But it is! Octavia screamed once more. It is for me!
In one frenzied blur, all the remaining majuu were dead. Those that had shared her pain could never do so again. And still, it wasn’t enough for her.
Suddenly, the cello music of her Harmony magic rose to a forte. And there was only one explanation for it.
A Siren was coming.
Nearly the height of her Wall, a hideous creature with the torso of a horse and the back end of a fish rose up from the ground. Negativity radiated off her scales in black electricity. There was a wild ferocity in her eyes, like the vortex of a whirlpool spitting fire at a world it resented. Destruction was its only solace.
This was not on par with a majuu. In another world, this would be a true minion of Discord.
Unlike her weaker majuu, it took the orange Siren no time to recognize the threat in Octavia. Turning her fiery eyes on the mare, she let her mouth drop open and unleashed her unearthly voice.
Octavia had a grenade trap ready. Fifty rifles were locked and loaded. Her hoof was about to pull the trigger on a pistol. But when the Siren opened her mouth, the gun slipped from her hoof. The guns all fell, yet she was rising, rising with the music.
Perhaps it wasn’t quite music. There was little variation from the majuu screams of incoherent discordance, but this was different. There was something more to it, a sort of life the majuu did not possess. The Siren screamed with emotion, with hate and guilt and pain and sorrow. All emotions after Octavia’s own heart.
“…You were my very best friend…”
“You’re right, Ditzy,” she whispered. “I was. But not anymore.”
She felt herself drop to her knees under the Siren’s hypnotic power. Why go on? she asked herself dazedly. The music is so beautiful. What is the point of fighting it? Why not enjoy it? Yes, enjoy it, love it. I love it. I love it so much I could die…
Her gem was nearly black. The fight was coming to an end.
It was over from the beginning. There is no way out. There is nothing, nothing but my despair.
The Octavia looked up at the orange Siren and saw a world of blue.
“Tavi!”
The earth shook with the force of a subwoofer: noisy, blaring, almost obnoxious. To Octavia, it was a chorus of angels.
“Vinyl!”
Vinyl Scratch swung down from a nearby spire from a golden link chain. She swooped across the sky as if on a bird’s wings, only to sharply ascend in a manner that was beyond any of Nature’s creatures.
Then, as she arched just above the Siren’s head, Vinyl yanked down sharply on the chain. Within seconds, it transformed into a spear. Light glinted off its tip.
Slash!
Vinyl made quick work of the Siren; soon, its scales were riddled with gaping holes. The Siren howled in agony, but to no avail. With a gesture of her hoof, Vinyl bade her dubstep music to increase until even the terrible creature fell silent. Blood poured freely from its wounds.
Yet the Siren would not die. No, Vinyl would never allow it. After all, there was a living pony inside.
Her orange apple-shaped gemstone detached from her necklace to hover before the howling Siren. “It’s alright,” Vinyl whispered, eyes closed in serenity. “You are not alone in your despair. Even if you feel alone, there is a friend who is always watching over you. Remember her. By the power of Laughter, Kindness, Generosity, Honesty, Loyalty, and Magic, by the power of all that is of Harmony in this world, may you find peace in friendship.”
From the gemstone came a steady stream of rainbows. They wove themselves through the air, undoing the harsh reverberating notes and rearranging them into sweet music. They cut through The Wall, turning it to dust.
Finally, Harmony’s magic landed on the Siren. At first, the Siren cried out, trying to resist, but as if touched by a familiar, soothing hand, she relaxed into the flow of peace. She let the rainbow wash over her completely, and when the spell dissipated, what remained was not a monster, but a young, peacefully sleeping filly.
Riding a bright blue soundwave, Vinyl caught the filly in her arms. “Let Chaos torment you no longer,” she said. She pressed her pendant to the girl’s forehead, and with a content sigh, she melted away into a white light.
The world around them rippled, returning the two mahou fili to the real world, an alleyway by Canterlot Castle. Octavia was still kneeling on the ground.
“Vinyl, let me ex—“ Octavia began before Vinyl squeezed the air out of her with a swift grip around her lower torso. A flash of vertigo, and she felt herself being carried high above the city. Vinyl’s flapping cape hid her face from Octavia’s downcast eyes.
She was deposited none too gently on the balcony of Canterlot Castle’s astrology tower. When she finally got her bearings and looked up into Vinyl’s frowning face, she thought it might have been better to keep her face imprinted on the railing.
“What was that, Octavia?” Vinyl demanded. “Marching straight into a battle by yourself? How could you be so stupid, honestly, how? Do you have some kind of infernal death wish?”
Tears stung in Octavia’s eyes. In a flash of light, her frilly purple mahou filia dress disappeared. “I…” She shook her head and resolutely turned away. With all she had learned during her life, both normal and mahou, lying to a Carrier of Honesty wasn’t one of them. “You wouldn’t understand.”
This was true. After all, how could Vinyl understand? Octavia didn’t even fully understand herself. Not after what Ditzy did.
Ditzy.
God.
Such a heavy word. It weighed on her chest whenever she tried to say it out loud. It was the focus of philosophy and study for millennia. Wars were fought and peace discovered because of it. It bore the weight of all those ponies who poured their hearts into it. How mighty, unreachable, and distant.
It was a powerful word. Its mantle belonged to the gentlestallion in black suits or the mares in white robes or the princess in golden majesty. It was laughable to imagine its burden trying to balance on the tiny shoulders of the klutzy mailmare next door as she nosedived into somepony’s roof.
Ha, ha, ha. The golden floor gained a glossy wet sheen.
Every mahou filia was granted a wish. How nice, to repay those young mares who gave their souls to fight Discord’s entropy with a miracle. Only it wasn’t a miracle. Everything came at a price. And that price was eventually going mad, falling to despair, and becoming one of the very creatures of Discord they had tried so hard to fight. A cycle of hopelessness.
That was the old order, anyway. Ditzy had changed it all.
“I can’t allow their wishes to end in despair. Not after they’ve fought so hard. I want them to live with smiles on their faces. I’ll take all the despair! From every creature of Discord in the past, present, and future. With my own two hooves.”
It was a powerful wish. Ditzy’s little soul shouldn’t have had the strength for it. And still it did.
Because I failed.
Vinyl tilted her head to the side, just enough to see Octavia’s tears. Her expression softened. “Hey, Tavi, I’m just worried, that’s all.” Her legs neatly folded under her as her fighting outfit dispersed. “Come on, sit down,” she coaxed, tapping the empty space at her side. “You can talk to me.”
Octavia was in no mood for fighting anymore, so she reluctantly sat next to Vinyl. Despite their closeness, Octavia still felt a barrier, like a thin sheet of glass, separating them. Separating whole worlds, whole universes, whole memories.
“Please, Tavi, just tell me what’s wrong.”
Octavia shook her head. She couldn’t do it. The very universe had been rewritten. Nopony remembered Ditzy even existed. She couldn’t bear the thought of saying ‘Ditzy,’ and having Vinyl ask, ‘Ditzy? Who’s that?’ It was too much to even imagine.
After some silence, Vinyl tried again. “Tavi, we’re friends. You can tell me anything. It can even be a little issue that doesn’t matter, if it helps get things off your chest.”
Octavia stayed quiet.
“Here, I’ll go first,” said Vinyl. “Do you know what happened to me at the Hay Burger today? So I order a hayburger and hayfries, wait for nearly thirty minutes, and when the waitress finally comes? She forgot to get the hayfries. I mean come on! Some ponies, you know?”
Octavia’s eyes remained hard, though a smile tugged at her lips. “Vinyl, I’m not upset about something like hayfries.”
“Well, that’s good,” Vinyl said. “It narrows down the list. So come on, what’s up, Tavi?”
Octavia sighed, bit her lip, and nodded. “I had this fr-friend…” she began before her constricting throat cut off the rest. “I-I had… th-this fr-fr-friend…”
Vinyl was quick to place a hoof on Octavia’s shoulder as she shook from uncontrollable sobs. “Oh, Tavi,” Vinyl said. “Was she pony or mahou?”
“M-Mahou,” she managed to say.
Vinyl covered her mouth with both hooves. “Oh God. Tavi, that’s horrible, I’m so sorry. W-We could go back in and get the body, if you wanted.”
“No, no, she’s… she’s not dead. She wasn’t even in that Siren’s labyrinth.”
“Alright. Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Vinyl smiled with a warmth that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
The beginning? Ha. At what loop in the time-space continuum? “I… I had this friend,” Octavia began. The slow words were a waterfall of lemon juice in her mouth. “She saved me. From myself, from my bitterness, from my despair.” That day, when she was singing on that bridge, my God, she was an angel. If this world is cruel to let her be filled with kindness, I say cruelty got the short end of the stick. “But more than that, she gave me a reason to live again.” To become a mahou filia. A magical girl.
“I want to redo meeting Ditzy!” Octavia shouted over Ditzy’s dead body, hazy in the water. “I want to be the one to protect her instead! I want… I wish… no, I promise I will protect her.”
“I tried so, so hard,” she continued. All the times I turned back the clock, only to watch all of them die. “But in the end, I couldn’t save her. She ended up saving us all.”
“It’s alright, Octavia,” Ditzy whispered, softly squeezing Octavia’s hoof as ash rained down around them. “You don’t need to keep fighting anymore. I…” Her smile was the sun breaking through the clouds. “I finally know what to do.”
“She’s given so much of herself,” Octavia murmured, silent tears cascading like a string of beads. “Too much for any one pony to bear. I failed her, but not just that, I made it worse.”
“All the timelines you have cycled through are now fixated on Ditzy, amplifying the power of her soul a hundred times over,” the Incubator said. “Congratulations, Octavia. You’ve created the most powerful creature of Discord in the history of the world.”
A voice cried out in a vast darkness. “This is worse than death!”
“I broke my promise,” Octavia said, her voice below a whisper, “and I don’t know how to live with that.”
Vinyl gave a low whistle. “That... that’s pretty heavy.”
“Uh-huh,” she said with a squeak.
Silence. “Is she alright?” Vinyl asked.
“I don’t know. I think that she is.”
“Well, there’s something. Are there ponies who want to hurt her?”
Octavia shook her head. She highly doubted anyone would be out to hurt somepony that for all intents and purposes didn’t exist.
“What’s she doing now?”
Rewriting the universe, cleansing ponies’ souls, saving the world. You know, the usual. “She… she has a lot of new responsibilities,” Octavia answered. “She’s had to go really far away to take care of things. I don’t… I don’t think I’ll ever be able to see her again.”
“What, don’t feel like investing in a carrier pigeon?”
Vinyl’s trembling smile wilted under Octavia’s glare. “Oh, okay, not funny…” she backpedaled before clearing her throat. “Well, based on what I’m getting, you ‘messing up’ scored her a promotion. Not the worst thing in the world. Doesn’t she like her new job?”
“That’s not the point!” Octavia burst out. “She shouldn’t have to be burdened with that responsibility at all! Not if I hadn’t failed to protect her!”
“But I thought you said no one wanted to hurt her,” Vinyl said. “Why would you need to protect her?”
“Because I… Oh, why did I tell you anything?” she snapped. “There’s no way you could possibly understand.” Octavia roughly shrugged off the other mare’s hoof and glared determinedly at the floor.
Vinyl sighed. “Look, you’re right, Tavi. I don’t get it. But I wanna help, so let me at least try. Why do you need to protect your friend?”
“I told you,” she hissed through clenched teeth, “I made a promise to her. She saved me, so I have to save her in return.”
“But you couldn’t,” Vinyl finished, “because there was nothing to fight against. She’s stronger than you thought.”
“Stronger than I ever imagined.” Octavia shivered in the cold. “What kind of friend am I, always needing her to help me? Doesn’t she need my help too? Or am I just too weak to ever lighten her problems?” She buried her head in her hooves. “I’m a terrible mahou filia,” Vinyl heard her whisper. “And a terrible friend.”
“Hey, join the club,” Vinyl said. “Remember what Bon Bon used to tell us? ‘There’s nothing good about being a mahou filia. There’s no peace, you fight every day, and when you die, nopony even remembers you.’ And Lyra? ‘Don’t underestimate this job; not everypony’s cut out for it. Only those who are forced into a corner should risk their lives like we do.’ If they were alive, they’d think we’re pretty terrible. And yet we chose to fight the Sirens anyway. Why?”
“Because we’re weak,” Octavia spat. “Without the strength of our magic, we’d be nothing.”
“That’s why we wanted to fight. But why did we choose the risk to die?”
The answer came readily, a bubble exploding in the air. “For her,” Octavia said, tears burning her eyes. “It was always for her.”
Vinyl nodded. “We always fight for our friends, not because we have to, but because we want to. Being friends isn’t running around with a notepad, trying to repay a bunch of favors because our friend deserves them. Your friend doesn’t deserve to have all that responsibility forced upon her. Guess it’s a good thing that it wasn’t forced on her. It’s something she chose to do.”
“But what if she chose the wrong thing?” Octavia asked. “What if she’s unhappy?”
“Then it’s a good thing for her that she has a great friend like you to make her wish come true. She wished for somepony’s happiness, didn’t she?”
“She wished for the whole world,” Octavia said. For the first time, she said it with a kind of pride.
“Well I don’t care who this girl is; she’s not gonna save the world by herself. Just knowing she has somepony who will fight with her could be the thing that keeps her going.”
“But I can’t fight for her,” Octavia said, downcast.
“You’re right, Tavi, you can’t.” Then she broke into a grin. “Guess you’ll have to make a new wish.”
“But I…” Octavia’s eyes widened, as full and vast as a new universe. “I can.”
“She fought for this world for a reason, Tavi. Maybe you don’t understand why just yet, but I think her reason must’ve been a really, really good one.”
Then the little orange jewel in Vinyl’s hoof flashed gold. “Another Siren,” she said gravely. “Hang on, I’ll—“
But Octavia stayed her with her hoof. “Actually, Vinyl,” she said, her smile lighting up the night sky, “I’ve got this one.”
Then with a spring in her step, Octavia jumped off the balcony.
Ponies. She could see them everywhere, milling around parks, quickly trotting home, settling down to bed under a starry sky. Octavia would never know their life stories, their hopes and dreams and fears. She probably wouldn’t even learn their names.
But she did know that each and every one of them had a soul, souls that one little filly had found so precious. Maybe that filly used to see an aura of their soul hovering around them, lighting up the world. Maybe Octavia would learn to see that way, to see ponies how Ditzy had. Ditzy wouldn’t have seen a crowd of ponies walking through Canterlot Gardens. She would have seen the little colt chasing fireflies, the lonely stallion with his head bent low, the old couple together on a bench, the mare sitting and staring at the moon...
There! Wait, could it be…? The coat was the same, the hair too light to see in the settling dusk…
No. Her eyes were different. She wasn’t somepony special to Octavia.
Just a background pony.
Nopony noticed as Octavia kept falling. We are background ponies, she thought to herself, fighting behind the scenes. Nopony sees us. Nopony thanks us. Nopony cares. Except for her. For her, my very best friend.
But I'll remember. I'll always remember her. And maybe... maybe that's enough.
The rushing wind made Octavia cry, even as she laughed. All around her she could hear the majuu growling, the ponies’ hearts beating, and the beautifully crazy planet turning.
For a second, it sounded like singing.
