The ride back to Canterlot was lost in an empty, gray mist. Twilight wouldn’t remember the burning ruins of Ponyville fading in the distance behind them, the way the wind carried the stench off the town right to her nostrils, or the way the burnt-over ruins on the outskirts of town looked like blackened remains after some apocalypse. She wouldn’t recall how seeing buildings she had passed by dozens of times turned to charred ruins made her feel like the world had ended, and how she had to keep reminding herself that it hadn’t, only the bit around her had. Most of all, she wouldn’t remember the horrifying moment of lucidity she’d experienced on the edge of town upon seeing the columns of smoke still rising over Sweet Apple Acres and realizing she’d probably never taste the cider of that place again, and reflecting back on the path where she’d first drunken it and how that unlocked a whole host of memories of running and playing with her friends and helping them with their problems when needed and…

And the gray fog closed in on her mind. She allowed it to, welcoming it gratefully. She didn’t reemerge again until well into the night, with her friends sleeping fitfully in the cells around her. She let her breath out in a long, drawn-out sigh, shoulders rising with the motion, wings stretching against their bonds. Somewhere in the darkness, a pebble dropped from the ceiling and skittered across the cobbled ground. A drop of water splashed rhythmically into a puddle. The world moved on. Ponyville was a smoking ruin not even visible from the single barred window, out of reach from her cell, and the world just moved on.

“Up so soon?”

Twilight whirled, and her heart leapt into her chest at the white form kneeling across from her. “Princess!” She gushed, oblivious to the glare being aimed her way. “Princess you’re…”

Finally, Twilight caught sight of the goo coating the Princess’s horn, as well as the ugly-looking iron band around her midriff, glowing with red symbols and pinning her wings to her back. Twilight’s heart dropped right back out of her chest and into her stomach. “Oh…he got you too…”

“Yes,” Celestia replied, craning her neck to eye the iron band dispassionately. “He got me too.”

“I…it doesn’t matter,” Twilight stood up in her cell, still oblivious to the hard glare and the anger radiating off the princess. “We can still fight, we just have to…”

“Oh my sweetest Celestia, will ya give it a rest already, Twi!?” Applejack screamed from the darkness. Twilight shivered in her cell, but didn’t even turn in the other pony’s direction. “It ain’t enough that we’ve just lost our homes, you have to spout that ‘Save Equestria’ bullshit too!?”

“Your homes?” Celestia asked in a way that conveyed minor curiosity, as though asking the weather ponies about a snowstorm planned for mid-April or some oddity found at an archaeological dig site.

Twilight shivered in her cell and nodded, mistaking Celestia’s curiosity for compassionate concern. “Yes princess, Jason burnt it all. But don’t worry, once we’re out of here we can take back the castle, then we can make those changelings help us rebuild and…”

“She said shaddup!” Rainbow this time, the latest turncoat. Twilight still couldn’t bring herself to turn and regard the other pony. “Seriously, Twilight! Just shut up and take your punishment like a mare! It’s the least you can do!”

Still not looking at her, Twilight closed her eyes, letting in a few shaky breaths. “Rainbow, I understand that tonight has been hard on all of us, but lashing out isn’t…”

“Really darling, weren’t you listening at all during the ride to Ponyville?” Rarity this time, her face pinned to the bars, her mane now little more than a mass of split ends covered in dirt.

“You need to stop trying to be the hero,” Fluttershy now, putting her own two bits in with an uncharacteristically sharp edge in her voice. “The only pony you’re fooling is yourself.”

“Girls,” Twilight whispered. “Please stop.”

“We can’t stop, Twilight,” and now the set was complete, as Pinkie stepped up to the bars of her cell, her straight mane dangling over her eyes. “Not while you’re still trying to keep this stupid act up.”

“It’s no act…”

“Then tell me why we did what we did!?” Fluttershy screeched. “Tell me why we behaved like we did!? If we were ever the loving ponies we’re supposed to be, tell me why!”

“W-what…” Twilight swallowed, shaking on her hooves, a tear crawling down her cheek. “What happened to Jason…is regrettable…and while some of our actions with regards to him can be…questionable…”

“Cut the political bullshit and lemme know why, for three years, we all acted like the most pig-headed pieces a’ horse manure there ever was!” Applejack’s voice added to the screaming match. “Why did I raise my hooves against a creature that never did me no harm!?”

“It’s…” Twilight swallowed again. “It’s…”

“Why did I keep zapping him when I was clearly hurting him!?” Rainbow Dash, that time.

“I’m sure…there was something he must have done…”

“Why did I turn my back on the spirit of generosity itself when he practically begged for a little compassion!?” Rarity.

“Maybe…maybe he looked…”

“Why did I feel the need to avoid him like the plague when I would have been treating him like anypony else if I was half the mare I’m supposed to be?” Pinkie Pie.

“It’s…”

“Why did I freeze up and collapse when he needed me most, when my kindness might have been the only decent act of love he might have seen in all that time!?” Fluttershy, amazingly.

“It’s…” the tears were flowing free now, though Twilight kept her voice steady. “It’s…there has to be a reason for it all…”

“Why?”

All eyes turned on the cell holding the ivory Alicorn, her face hidden behind a mass of feathers. “Princess, what…” Twilight started, only to be interrupted almost immediately.

“Why, Twilight!? Why!?” Celestia shrieked, raising her head to reveal the tears streaking down her muzzle, the first time they’d been seen there since Luna’s banishment. “Why would you do such an awful, horrible thing!? Why would you turn your back on everything I thought you’d learned!? If even half of what Mr. Wright says is true, it’s no wonder he committed these acts! Any creature that went through what he did would go insane, it’s a wonder he didn’t lash out against the citizens of Ponyville two years ago! So why!?”

“Puh-princess,” Twilight stammered. “H-he was so different, I…”

“Don’t you dare!” Celestia shrieked, stamping a hoof to punctuate her sentence. The others shrank back, despite the heavy restraints holding the princess’s power at bay. “Don’t even try to excuse what you’ve done! There is nothing that could explain away what you’ve done to Jason! I just asked for why.”

“Hey!” Dash stirred, stepping up to the bars of her cage, though her wings quivered, Celestia’s words having apparently touched a nerve. “We all…Twilight was just…”

“Miss Dash…” Celestia turned a glare that burnt with the heat of her sun on the cyan pegasus. “If you don’t step away from those bars, sit down, and shut the fuck up, I will find a way to break into your cage and snap the wings right off your body.”

Rainbow stepped back, eyes wide in shock as the Princess glowered, the verbal onslaught continuing: “Your actions against Mr. Wright have been nothing short of utter sadism. Miss Applejack’s assaults were at least understandable: morally bankrupt and cold-hearted to the point where were it in my power, I’d banish her just on principle, but understandable. You, on the other hoof, have committed acts of such reckless cruelty that just looking at you makes my stomach turn. I look at you, and I see the few rapists and pedophiles that I have had to execute in my kingdom. Maybe not quite as bad, but the comparison is there.”

Rainbow’s jaw went slack. Celestia immediately turned back to cowering little Twilight’s cage. “So, Miss Sparkle, what would it have taken for you to treat Mr. Wright with the decency and respect I’d expected for him? For me to say it was a test? Is a good grade what it takes to make you act like a decent, loving pony? Or would I have needed to personally supervise his…”

“We don’t know!” Pinkie shouted, bolting up and pressing her muzzle to the bars of her cell. All eyes turned to her, even Celestia’s, finally drinking in the long, flat mane, the tears streaking from those wide blue eyes. “We don’t know, okay!? I don’t know why I did what I did, but none of that matters! We’re paying for it now, all of us!”

“Even you, Princess,” Rarity said from the shadows in her cell, keeping an icy glare locked on Celestia, her watery eyes the only thing visible. Celestia gaped at her, awestruck, as Rarity sat up, every split end and curl in her mane now plain for everypony to see. “Three years, and it never once occurred to you to check on the highly-vulnerable alien living in your student’s care? Three years without so much as a quick glance in his direction? What do you have to say to that, Miss high-and-mighty? What excuse do you, a ruler of all ponies everywhere, have for that?”

“I-I…” and then, she finally broke down. The silent stream of tears became a waterfall pouring around her muzzle, punctuated with sobs and quivering gasps. Her wings and ears folded low as she sank to the floor. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Jason, why didn’t you…I would’ve…oh Maker above, I’m so sorry.”

“I…I guess we all failed him in the end,” Twilight sighed, at long last succumbing as tears dripped around her muzzle. “We all had our part in what happened to him and what he became. Although I will admit…”

She gasped and sniffled, bracing herself. “Me most of all. Jason was right, I wasn’t the worst, but I was the first, and that’s inexcusable.” She touched her wings through the goop. “I don’t deserve these. Nopony who’s done what I did to him does. I don’t deserve to be the Princess of Friendship.”

She was met with utter silence as she slumped to her cell floor, the prison falling into a heavy silence punctuated by Celestia’s sobs. Twilight’s ears folded against it, not wanting to hear her friend and mentor in such a state, even after basically being told that Celestia wanted to be neither.

“Wh-why?” Celestia whimpered. “Why didn’t you just...come to me...”

Twilight’s eyes started to drift shut despite the turmoil raging inside. The sheer emotional exhaustion was enough to overcome even this as she slowly allowed herself to drift off. And then an odd chime filled the air. Twilight’s eyes darted wide open, worried about some new punishment from the emperor of all ponydom, but instead was treated to a most peculiar sight: Celestia, on the ground, still whimpering but watching in amazement as a burst of color pealed over her coat, leaving brightness and the strange, chiming noise in its wake.

The rest watched in stunned amazement, even Celestia, tears rolling around her muzzle as she watched. “Th-that can’t be, it’s almost like…”

But Twilight beat her to the punch, the pieces all coming together behind her ever-widening eyes. “Duh…” she muttered intelligently.

“I-I don’t know why I did why I did! It goes against everything I’m supposed to stand for!” Fluttershy babbles and chokes, her chest heaving, the last of her breath going into these words. “E-even now, when I try to look back, it feels all gray…”

“Duh…Dis…”

”I always thought I was a loving pony,” Applejack muttered, that tired gaze falling on the lavender alicorn. “Shoot, even now that I can remember, it’s like somepony else was usin’ my hooves. Like it wasn’t even me doin’ the buckin’…”

“Disc…” she choked, swallowed, still trying.

As they watched, her eyes locked on the human, widening with a sudden gleam of recognition…

But it wasn’t a gleam… Twilight realized. “Disc-Discor…Duh-Dis…”

”He treats his powers like a joke; he doesn’t understand how much damage he can do without even meaning it! I’m just worried that someday, he’s going to hurt somepony. Hurt them in a way that can’t be laughed off or fixed with a few months of chocolate milk clouds.”

Except…except…

Except he already had, she realized, backing away from the bars of her cell. “Oh…Oh Discord…”

“That’s my name, pretties!” A booming voice filled the chamber as a familiar, snake-like form coiled its way down from the darkness, pale yellow eyes gleaming as a snaggle-toothed grin leered at the group. “Don’t wear it out.”

Author's Note

WWAAAAAIIIIIIITTTTTTTT!

I see you there, getting ready to post how this is so much bullshit, how this completely annihilates the point of the story, but please, wait. Just read the next chapter, then post all you want, okay? Let me explain myself, and get that out there, okay? After that, if you still feel the need to flame me out of existence, please do it with some modicum of restraint.