Harpflank and Sweets: Forced Introspection

by Arcainum

Rating: everyone
Tags: DJ P0N-3, Lyra, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Sad, Octavia, Bon-Bon, Derpy Hooves
Length: 10733

The New Elements do some involuntary soul-searching.

The New Elements have fought robots, alicorns, genetic abominations, ninja and fillies to defend the city. But there is one enemy that Discord is certain they cannot defeat... doubt.

Published 2012-05-08 02:24:02 UTC
Last updated 2012-06-30 03:23:27 UTC

Going Under: Derpy Hooves

Derpy threw her hooves in the air in frustration, sending a blizzard of pages whirling about her. She groaned loudly and span her chair around with a swift kick to her desk, lying back in defeat and watching the room twirl.

“I haaate thiiis.”

As the storm of paper subsided and her chair slowly came to halt, Derpy noticed an unfamiliar splash of grey and orange out of the corner of her eye and stood up, partly out of curiosity and partly out of a burning desire to do anything that didn’t involve signing her name.

She trotted to the wall and tried to work out what she had seen. Her breath caught as she realised that the flash of colour was part of a photograph, a photograph she was not expecting to see. Slowly, she reached toward the simple-framed picture, hoof imperceptibly trembling.

“I thought I put you away...”

The picture was of a happier time. Derpy, barely an adult back then, stood before a pleasant country cottage, gurning at the camera. Next to her was a young Carrot Top, pulling a face along with her. The sun was high, and the two looked as carefree as ponies could be.

Derpy slumped back into her chair, gazing through the window to the past with a mixture of fond remembrance and wistful resignation. Barely realising she was doing it, she lightly touched the tiny earth pony’s face with the tip of her hoof and sighed deeply, talking quietly to herself.

“What happened to those days, Carrot? When did we forget how to laugh? When did we have to stop being fillies and start being heroes?”

She was pulled out of her reverie as she felt the tip of a claw prick the skin of her chest, just above the heart. Her eyes widened as the words filled the empty office.

“My, the past is a painful thing, isn’t it? Shall we find out how painful?”

Going Under: Nurse Redheart

Redheart pulled the last knot tight on the wounded soldier’s dressings and checked her work, wiping her forehead. It had been a long, hard day. An advanced training exercise had gone horribly wrong when one of the reclaimed Lunatrons that M.A.R.E. occasionally used had somehow reverted to its original programming. It had seriously injured several recruits before being put down by the supervising officer.. They’d live, but it had been a close-run thing for some.

She turned, running through her mental to-do list. To her pleasant surprise, it was complete. Everypony was stable, the clinic was clean and organised, and Fluttershy was handling... She smiled as she passed through the curtain surrounding the soldier’s bed and entered the clinic proper. Fluttershy was curled at the foot of her desk, sound asleep, with muffled snores filtering through the cascade of pink mane covering her face. She had worked even harder than Redheart over the course of the day, and had insisted on doing the paperwork for every pony she had so much as touched. But time and effort had caught up with her. Grabbing a spare blanket, Redheart gently laid it over Fluttershy before squeezing into her chair, careful not to wake her exhausted colleague.

Something touched her lips and she dropped her pen in surprise as a voice emerged from nowhere,

“So quiet, so strong... Let’s see what you really fear.”

Going Under: Lyra

Lyra caught Rainbow Dash’s striking hoof between hers and used the pegasus’ momentum to throw her over her shoulder, slamming her toward the ground. Rainbow quickly twisted in Lyra’s grasp and, with a single powerful wingbeat, reversed her descent and dragged her into the air. Crying out in surprise, Lyra kicked up at her opponent, but Rainbow was too agile. She raced towards the gym’s high ceiling, shifting her weight so Lyra was above her, preparing to smash her into the padded surface.

Seconds before impact, however, Lyra’s horn glowed. Rainbow’s hooves were enveloped in a green nimbus and pulled from free from Lyra. A look of shock and frustration flashed across the speeding pegasus’ face as Lyra fell away, waving nonchalantly in midair before she landed lightly on the soft floor. Before she could recover, Rainbow had slammed into the ceiling face first, leaving a new dent in the sea of depressions that, on closer inspection, could be seen all around the room. She too fell, clutching her face, and Lyra caught her telekinetically, lowering her gently to the ground.

Rainbow sat up, rubbing her bruised nose as Lyra trotted over smugly. She glared at the preening unicorn standing over her, who grinned widely and expectantly.

“Oh, hey, you’re on the floor.”

“Yeah, I guess I am.”

Lyra’s grin widened.

“And that means...”

Rainbow crossed her forelegs and huffed.

“It means...”

Lyra leaned in closer.

“It meeeaaans...”

Rainbow stood up and sighed. She hated it when this happened. Lyra was insufferable in victory.

“It means I lose.”

Lyra punched the air in triumph.

“Ha! Yes! Who's the mare? I'm the mare!”

Rainbow strode over to her and prodded her in the chest.

“Hey, it’s still only fifty-forty nine to you! We got a long way to go until a hundred.”

“I still hit fifty first.”

Rainbow waved her hoof dismissively.

“Eh. I’m going to bed. Vinyl really wants to weaponise the sonic rainboom somehow, and she’s got me doing tests all day tomorrow. That unicorn is wacko.”

She smiled, suddenly.

“Good session tonight, Lyra. Let’s do it again soon, huh?”

Lyra grinned again, and raised her hoof for a bump. Rainbow returned the gesture.

“Yeah, good match. You better win next time.”

As Rainbow Dash trotted out of the gym, yawning, Lyra began the arduous process of cleaning up after their mock battle. HQ had cleaners, but leaving the twisted metal wreckage of the exercise machines just lying around always made her feel a little callous.

As she reached for a mangled spar, something in the air, just a feeling, made her coat bristle. She span swiftly around, scanning the room.

“Who’s there?!”

She jumped as she felt the faintest touch on all four of her hooves, and the voice enveloped her.

“You love to win, Lyra. But what if the only way to win... is to lose?”

Going Under: The Great and Powerful Trixie

The Great and Powerful Trixie’s ears perked as the voice of Twilight Sparkle filtered through the fine, magically-reinforced fabric of the large tent that was the only thing between Trixie and the blizzard outside.

“Trixie, I’m not sure that maintaining consistent silicate levitation is going to do anything to affect my magical potential!”

Trixie glanced up from the thick book she had borrowed from her fellow Element and peered at the shadow she could just about make out on the tent’s surface, blurred by the whirling snow. Twilight’s silhouette was upside down, standing precariously on its head, while a number of large round shapes hovered about it. Trixie breathed on her hooves and held them up to the candle burning warmly on her travel table and called out over the storm,

“Oh, it certainly is! Unlocking the Element’s power requires... calm! Yes. And you must learn that calm through... concentration!”

Twilight’s reply was uncertain but trusting.

“Oh... ok! That makes sense! Concentrating!”

Feeling slightly guilty, but only slightly, Trixie nodded to herself. She would let Twilight freeze for another hour or so, then tell her the training was over for the night and get her frustratingly intelligent protégé to help her with research.

It was a source of constant irritation to Trixie that Twilight, it was plain to see, vastly outstripped her in magical talent. She had been prepared to deal with a student who matched her in intellect and power, but her Elemental partner had turned out to be a prodigy beyond anything she could have imagined. Trixie was no slouch, years of practice and proximity to Nightmare Moon having gifted her with significant prowess, but Twilight was in a league of her own.

So Trixie had taken to just mildly tormenting her to pass the time as a half-hearted punishment for being better until her Element awakened naturally.

She turned her attention back to the book, muttering quietly to herself as she tried to find her place. With an “Ah!” of triumph, she found what she was looking for after a few turned pages.

Her hoof traced the stylised diagram of Celestia Tower, moving from the bottom, where her colleagues at ExTech had built their robot, to the top, which nopony had ever entered. She had once asked Luna what secrets the Tower held, but the Princess had merely shook Her head and said that some things ponies weren’t meant to know.

But there were... patterns, she had realised. The way time passed. The way everything seemed to happen to the city. The way their lives were... paced. There was something strange about Metropony and everypony in it, something important, and she was certain that the secret lay in Celestia Tower.

Her eye was drawn to something that she had never seen in any representation of the Tower yet. At the very tip of the Tower, at its thinnest point, was a tiny glyph, blurred with the age of the book and what could very well have been intentional damage. The glyph was in the shape of a square, with a smaller rectangle beneath. The rectangle was filled with tiny squares. Trixie leaned closer, squinting. Was that...? It... couldn’t be.

“A ke-”

Before she could follow the train of thought any further, the book slammed shut of its own accord. She yelped in surprise and pulled her hoof away, glancing about the tent to no avail. Something tweaked her hat and a voice she had only ever heard described whispered,

“Ah, The Great and Powerful Trixie. The question is... are you?”

Going Under: Vinyl Scratch

A resounding clang echoed through ExTech Head Office as Vinyl banged her head on the underside of her desk.

“Ow.”

Octavia didn’t look up from her terminal array, typing away at a relaxed pace.

“Mind your head.”

Muttering under her breath about what certain earth ponies could do with their trite warnings, Vinyl clambered out from under her desk, and prodded a few buttons on her computer. The screen flickered into life almost reluctantly, as if bitter that Vinyl’s half-hearted attempts to fix it had been successful. A few moments later, it had its revenge as a “A REBOOT IS NECESSARY TO COMPLETE THE INSTALLATION” message flashed gleefully across it.

Vinyl stared at the thing flatly.

“I built a robot half the size of Celestia Tower. I made a half-finished rocket space-worthy in a week. I designed the most powerful suit of armour the world has ever seen, so powerful that it took out half of HQ by itself.”

She suddenly started hammering the keyboard frantically.

“So why can’t I make this blasted computer work?!”

Octavia calmly responded over the smashing of hoof on plastic.

“Well, you did insist on using a commercial OS instead of mine. You’re running the most sophisticated diagnostic software the world has ever known in an environment designed for teaching foals to count.”

Vinyl’s hooves slumped to her sides as Octavia, as usual, pointed out the obvious and frustratingly correct. Following suit, her head thumped onto the desk in an extravagant gesture of defeat. Right on the spot where she had hit it before.

“Ow! I... You... Aaargh!”

She threw herself back in her chair. The room lapsed into silence as Vinyl’s curses subsided, broken only by Octavia’s tapping hooves. Vinyl took a deep breath and let it out slowly, letting the sound fill her ears. There was something comforting about listening to Octavia work. There was a pattern to her typing that Vinyl could always pick out. A rhythm. Her ear twitched to the beat as she vocalised in her mind, drawing the white line of a melody to join the grey notes that dotted her thoughts like dark stars. Her hoof, unbidden, traced a wavelength in the air.

Her ears stopped twitching suddenly and stood to attention as she realised something else was following the trail of her hoof, grasping her lightly around the fetlock. She looked down quickly, but could see nothing to explain the strange pressure. Before she could say anything, the music in her mind was replaced with a voice.

“That’s all you ever do, isn’t it? Ride the wave. What happens when the wave hits the shore?”

Fever Dreams: Bon-Bon

As Bon-Bon walked into the HQ Lounge, the buzz of conversation cut out suddenly. Everypony looked at her, then returned to their drinks and their whispered words. She trotted over to where the other Elements were relaxing and sat down. Nopony was talking, and there was an awkward silence. Bon-Bon looked at her friends in confusion

“So? What’s everypony been up to?”

There was stuttering chorus of “Oh, not much” and “I don’t know, stuff...”

Bon-Bon raised an eyebrow.

“What’s going on? Is there something you aren’t telling me?”

They all averted their gaze, unable to meet her eye. Eventually, Lyra opened her mouth hesitantly.

“Well... it’s just... After that whole Gabby Gums fiasco, we’re... not sure we should be... well... talking to you right now.”

Bon-Bon stared.

“What?”

Lyra cringed at her friend’s tone.

“I didn’t want to say it, but... you kinda gossip.”

Gasping indignantly, Bon-Bon stood up.

“How can you say that?! I’ve never been so insul

The small office was as cramped as ever, a ten-pony business run from a room that could just about fit four desks and a photocopier. Bon-Bon pored over the contract she’d been passed, incredulous, and called over the noise of her colleagues to Starseeker, owner of the odd little talent agency/management consultancy/temp pool/all-round freelance group that she worked for.

“Hey, Star! Is this right? You want to me to babysit some loopy harpist?”

The noise in the office died down a little as everypony utterly failed to listen in with any degree of subtlety. Starseeker narrowed his eyes and met Bon-Bon’s gaze with a steely glance of his own.

“Yes. And you should be thankful you’re getting even that.”

Bon-Bon opened and closed her mouth a few times, struggling to find the words.

“Look, I made a mistake, okay? Do we have to go through this every day?”

Everypony in the room jumped as Starseeker brought his hoof down sharply on his desk, knocking a stack of papers to floor.

“Yes! Yes, we do! Because you very nearly got us shut down just because you couldn’t keep your clever mouth shut!”

Even as the anger rose, Bon-Bon’s heart sank. He was right. No matter how she tried to deny it, she had had no right to say those things, to let those details slip. And now the papers had hold of the story, and the agency was under investigation, and she’d rui

The file hit her in the face like a slap, and the expression on Lyra’s face made it clear that that was exactly how she had meant it.

“What the hay, BB? What the hay?”

Bon-Bon shuffled her hooves nervously, cheeks burning with shame and the impact of the heavy folder.

“Look, Lyra, I-”

Her friend held up a hoof and she stopped as Lyra’s eyes bored into hers.

“No, don’t explain. Not yet. I don’t think I’m ready for an explanation.”

They stood there for almost a minute, Lyra’s breathing deep and controlled, as if forcing herself to keep calm. Bon-Bon’s mind screamed at her, screamed that this never happened, none of these things had happened, but she ignored herself. It was just denial, denial in the face of her own betrayal. As the silence grew more and more oppressive, she couldn’t take it anymore. She opened her mouth to speak, and Lyra instantly cut her off.

“My personnel file? My personnel file? How could you...” She brought a hoof to her head, massaging her temple in an effort to calm down. “How could you ever think that I would be cool with that?”

Bon-Bon, voice as small as she felt, tried to respond. But every time she tried to state the reason she had thought so selfless, her heart faltered, knowing that it hadn’t been.

“I thought... After the night you lost your music... I wanted to...”

“You wanted to what? Find out more? Get more of Lyra’s juicy secret past?”

Lyra shook her head in disgust.

“I told you that stuff in a moment of weakness, BB. Okay? I was down. I was so far down I didn’t know if I could ever come up. And you pulled me out of that... that emptiness. And I love you for that. There is nopony in my life I consider a closer friend than you. Not Derpy, not the other Elements. But this?”

She prodded the file with her hoof as it were a dead animal.

“This was...” She cast about for the right word. When it finally arrived, she spat it with venomous irony. “Disloyal.”

Bon-Bon felt the tears well up, and she tried to say something, to apologise, but she knew there was nothing she could sa

She was alone now, alone in the infinite blackness. There was no sound, no sight, no sensation. She lay still.

A flash of white light pierced the void and a sinuous figure popped into being, a figure that Bon-Bon had only encountered once before. She looked up, confirming her assumption.

“Oh. It’s you.”

She hung her head again. Discord folded his arms and pouted.

“Well? Come on! Where’s the bitter self-recrimination? The anguish?”

Bon-Bon shook her head as she replied, voice dull and lifeless.

“Why bother? You’re right. I’m curious. No, nosy. I gossip. I pry. I spy. And I ruin other ponies’ lives because of it. Even Lyra’s.”

Discord grinned. This was almost too easy.

“Oh, yes, Lyra. She is fascinating, isn’t she? So many talents, and so many personalities! It’s like she’s a hundred different ponies rolled into one!”

Bon-Bon nodded despondently. The draconequus leaned nonchalantly forward, whispering from behind his claw.

“And that’s why you’re friends... isn’t it?”

Bon-Bon’s head suddenly snapped up with characteristic indignation.

“No! That’s not true! She’s my friend because she’s loyal, and strong, and... and funny, and...”

Discord blew a dismissive raspberry.

“Oh, come now. She’s a curiosity! A genius harpist who fights crime and studies a mythological species in her spare time? Who wouldn’t want to spend time with her?”

Bon-Bon faltered, the memory of the personnel file still aching in her mind.

“No, she... She’s my friend... My closest friend...”

Discord floated closer, pressing his face close to Bon-Bon’s as she stared at her hooves in desperate thought.

“She’s a talking point. A display piece.”

He placed a claw under her chin and lifted her gaze to meet his.

“And that’s all she’ll ever be... Am I right?”

Bon-Bon looked deep into his mismatched eyes. Something deep inside her, a speck of warmth in the cold wasteland of feeling that gripped her, told her that this was the most important question she would ever answer.

She searched for the answer.

Fever Dreams: Commander Derpy Hooves

The smoke obscured her vision, stinging her eyes as she stumbled through the wreckage. The acrid smell almost blanked her mind as she gasped the cloying dust into and out of her lungs, caking her tongue in dirt. The heat tore at her, searing her coat a speckled black. The roar of the flames and the crackling of burning wood blocked out all sound. All but the screams.

She forced herself to keep walking, blind and almost deaf, through the devastation. Her mind raced.

It had happened again. How could this happen again? The time between dragon migrations was measured in centuries! But this had happened twice.

Twice.

A roar from above sent her cowering to the ground, throwing her hooves over her head in a desperate mockery of protection. Morbid curiosity drew her eye upwards, and what she saw sent a chill through her that all but dispelled the seething pain of the fire.

Hundreds of dragons, a rainbow of scales, all flying north in an unbroken line. The few that had swooped down to casually burn everything she held dear had returned to the flock and the multitude was moving on, continuing their natural pilgrimage. But the dragons were not what held her gaze, what filled her with rage and sorrow and loathing and fear and dreadful determination.

The black shadow of a chariot, silhouetted against the moon. A pair of mighty wings, spread wide in sadistic glee. A head thrown back in laughter, the sound deadened by the dragons’ roars and the raging flames. A flowing mane...

A mane filled with stars.

A strength filled her bones, a strength she thought had been burnt away. She stood, oblivious to the pain that shot through every inch of her. From the midst of the death and the destruction and the senseless waste of life, she stared into the sky and silently swore to the tyrant in the sky.

“Never again.”

~

The sinuous creature wiped his brow in mock exhaustion.

“Oh my, heavy stuff. I didn’t even have to make that one up!”

Derpy glared at him, a visible tension in her defensive stance, and spoke in a low, calm voice.

“You must be Discord.”

The target of her aggression bowed theatrically then raised an eyebrow.

“Wait, that’s it? ‘You must be Discord?’” He frowned. “Maybe something a little closer to the heart.”

He snapped his claws and suddenly

~

“Carrot, please.”

The orange-maned mare sitting opposite her shook her head firmly.

“No, Ditz. This is wrong. What you’re doing is wrong.”

Her heart sank even as her conviction strengthened.

“It’s not wrong! It’s what the city needs! The Princess has agreed, Carrot! The Princess! What more do you need?”

Carrot Top’s expression softened. She gently placed her hoof against Derpy’s, a loving hoof-bump, recreating the gesture she had used to made her feelings clear scant years ago. Derpy almost pulled away, but relented, taking comfort in the small pressure.

“I need Derpy Hooves. The pony who helped me tend the garden, and blew bubbles in the sky. Not the pony that came flying out of the fire, full of vengeance.”

At the word “vengeance,” Derpy slammed her hoof on the table and leapt from her chair onto all fours, wings raised in anger.

“What’s wrong with vengeance?! Luna destroyed our home twice! Twice! And she wants to do the same to the entire city! To millions of ponies! Who will stop her if we don’t?”

Carrot stood up too, standing strong against her partner’s ire.

“The ponies who are meant to.”

Derpy scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, the police force? Yes, because we’ve seen how good a job they-”

“If you have a problem with the MPD, you have a problem with me.”

Derpy stopped as if she’d been slapped in the face, blinking in shock.

“You... you already joined?”

Carrot met her gaze, steady as a rock.

“I already joined.”

Derpy’s face collapsed, all the anger and resolve draining from her.

“But... M.A.R.E. needs you. I need you.”

~

“Ouch.” Discord cringed as the memory faded, fanning himself like an offended noble. “I’d go on, but... well, we both know how that little discussion ended.”

Derpy herself had fallen to haunches as the memory overtook her. She looked up at Discord and cocked her head questioningly.

“So, you’re the one Lyra and Bon-Bon saw after they ‘ported into the sun? They were right, you do feel dangerous.”

Discord slicked his mane back with his paw and grinned.

“Well, yes, I do have a certain je ne sai-Hey! You’re supposed to crying, not asking questions! One more!”

He snapped his claws again, irritably, and

~

“They what?”

Vinyl flinched. The Commander was angrier than she had ever seen her. There was a fire in her friend and leader that Vinyl had never seen before.

“The public... hate us. Pretty much every media source is running polls and... well, M.A.R.E. ain’t looking good in any of them.”

She flinched again as Derpy beat her wings in frustration, flinging paper and crumbs around the room. The pegasus hovered above her desk, quivering with rage.

“How?! How can they hate us?! After all the good we’ve done for this city! Luna would’ve destroyed these ponies’ lives a thousand times over if we hadn’t been there, and the moment they realise what we’ve done, they resent us?”

“Commander... Derpy, I really don’t think you should be-”

“After all these years!”

Derpy closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, trying desperately to find a way to vent her impossible fury. In one fluid motion, she span in the air and planted a hoof in the metal partition that hid her rifle, Bubbles from the office proper. Her kick tore the metal like paper. Vinyl stepped back, terrified despite being used to Lyra and Bon-Bon’s prodigious strength.

“Derpy, seriously, I think you should calm do-”

Derpy whirled to face her, and the look in her eyes sent shivers down Vinyl’s spine. This wasn’t just a response to public opinion. There was something deeper, some far-off ache in her friend’s gaze that she couldn’t possibly understand. Derpy spoke through clenched teeth.

“Please. Vinyl. Just go. I’ll be... fine.”

Vinyl nodded. Despite the fear that whispered at the back of her mind, she had faith in her commander. If Derpy said that she didn’t need her help, she was willing to believe her. She left the room, glancing back as the door hissed closed.

Derpy was left alone in her office. She slowly alighted, breathing deeply as she settled back into her chair. She sat in silence, staring at the picture on her desk, a picture of a grey pegasus and an orange-maned earth pony making faces. Minutes passed. A thousand memories flowed as one through her mind, images of fire and stars and battles and nights together and nights alone and victories and... and failures.

Very slowly, she reached over and faced the picture down.

“I’m not wrong, Carrot. They’ll see. I’m not wrong.”

~

“Ooh, such resolve!”

Discord faded into view, and Derpy gasped as he released his grasp on her mind. Looking smug, he floated closer in the silence of the void.

“So? Anything? I mean, look at you. You failed to protect your home, your mare left you, the public don’t appreciate your work... Even your subordinates are scared of you! Everything you’ve ever loved, you’ve lost. Everything you’ve ever believed, you’ve gotten wrong. How do you carry on?”

Derpy stared at the her hooves, silent. Discord’s body twisted, sticking his head into her eyeline. She met his gaze as his face assumed an expression of deepest concern.

“Maybe it’s best if... you don’t.”

Fever Dreams: Redheart

Fever Dreams: Redheart

Redheart looked into Discord’s eyes.

Discord looked back.

Redheart raised an eyebrow.

Discord shrugged.

Redheart frowned.

Discord grinned.

Redheart's eyes narrowed.

Discord frowned.

Redheart glanced around the void.

Discord smiled.

Redheart sat on her haunches.

Discord raised an eyebrow.

Redheart looked into Discord's eyes.

Fever Dreams: Lyra

Lyra shouted into the void, her voice disappearing into the black infinity without even an echo.

“Discord! I know this is you!”

There was no response.

“Just because this one’s black, doesn’t mean I can’t tell it’s some weird Chaos dimension!”

The silence sucked her words into nothingness.

“Come on! Enough with the games!”

A voice directly behind her said,

“Games, eh? Well, isn’t that interesting?”

Lyra jumped with a cry of surprise and turned quickly to see Discord smiling above her, mismatched teeth clearly visible. She pawed the ground, ready to charge.

“Oh yeah? What’s interesting is I’m about to kick your-”

“Lyra, Lyra, Lyra. Must everything be a competition?” Discord waved his claw and tutted. “Can’t we just have a talk?”

Lyra eyed him suspiciously. She trusted Discord about as far as she could buck him, but... she wasn’t going anywhere, it seemed, and she wasn’t sure she could actually win. She relaxed and sat on her haunches.

“Okay. Talk.”

Discord clapped his claw and paw together in delight.

“Oh goody! Let’s start with that “she wasn’t sure she could actually win,” why don’t we?”

Lyra’s mouth opened in shock.

“How did you know what I was-”

“Ah-ah-ah, it’s still my turn.” Lying back in the air as if reclining on an invisible chaise longue, he conjured a pair of spectacles from the air and put them on, affecting the air of a psychiatrist. A long couch popped into existence under Lyra, knocking her legs from under her and leaving her lying there like a patient. “So, Lyra. You really like to win, don’t you?”

Lyra’s response was wary, every muscle in her body tense with caution.

“So? What pony doesn’t like to win?”

Discord nodded in agreement.

“Very true. But you really like to win.” He leaned forward, looking at her over the rim of his glasses. “Enough to sacrifice anything. Am I right?”

Lyra’s eyes narrowed.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Discord laughed, a hearty chuckle.

“Oh, come on, Lyra. You were ready to abandon everything you’d ever protected and join the Empire just because you were about to lose.”

“Don’t you even think of going there!”

Lyra jumped up from the couch, bristling with anger, but Discord waved his paw and her mouth was literally zipped shut. With a second wave, he sent her tumbling back to her seat. He narrowed his eyes, and his voice momentarily dipped into a register she had heard once before, when he had held a claw to her throat and threatened her life.

“I said... it’s my turn.”

Within an instant, his expression had returned to its usual irreverence.

“As I was saying... You turned your back on the city. You abandoned your... ugh... your closest friend, and you joined the enemy you’d been fighting for, ooh, years. And why was that? Because you were going to lose. Not because you felt undervalued or whatever claptrap you spouted at little Bon-Bon, but because you were making no headway against the Empire, and you just couldn’t stand that, could you?”

Lyra had stopped struggling against the mysterious forces that held her in place and was now glaring at him balefully.

“Aww, don’t look at me like that, I’m impressed! But it raises a question. If you were willing to shut out your heart completely for the sake of victory...”

He locked eyes with Lyra, meeting her blazing stare with a simple grin.

“How far would you go for total victory? What would you give if you could have the recognition you so dearly crave? Everypony admiring you? The music never leaving you?” Lyra flinched as he spoke, looking away. Sensing his opening, Discord snaked through the air, coiling himself lightly around the couch in a twisted mockery of an embrace. “Somepony loving you?”

Lyra’s eyes snapped open and she stared into space as Discord’s words hit home. How was he doing this? How was he looking inside her, reading her, taking her apart and showing her the pieces?

Discord broke away, hovering nonchalantly several feet away.

“It’s because I’ve seen the script, my dear, and it goes into a lot of detail. Now...”

He snapped his claw a final time with relish, and Lyra’s mouth was freed.

“Your turn.”

Fever Dreams: Trixie

Trixie looked down her nose at the darkness around her. She sniffed.

“I’m sorry, is this supposed to intimidate me?”

A shape she had only seen blurrily sketched in the rambling journals of lunatics flashed into existence.

“Oh, you’re no fun. Too much time around Nightmare Moon, I suppose.”

Trixie took in the bizarre creature’s features and rapidly came to a conclusion.

“Discord, I presume?”

Discord conjured a hat identical to Trixie’s, placed it on his head, then swept it off in a puerile imitation of her signature introduction.

“The one and only. Spirit of Chaos and your ex-boss! No, no, don’t applaud.”

He waved back an imaginary crowd, simpering crudely. Trixie rolled her eyes.

“Yes, thank you, you’ve made your point. So, has the self-proclaimed greatest threat Equestria has ever known brought me here for any particular reason? Or just to debut a frankly tiresome impression?”

Discord coughed and straightened the tie he was suddenly wearing, and crossed his legs in midair, sitting on nothing.

“Oh, just checking up on an old employee. You know how it is. You let them go, you want to know how they’re doing... Oh!” He raised a claw as if suddenly thinking of something. “ And you want to remind them of their place.”

Quicker than the eye could see, he had slithered through the air toward her, grabbed her hat, and returned to his original position. Trixie gasped and cried out in protest.

“My hat! Return my hat this instant!”

Discord turned the starred cloth over, inspecting it closely.

“But it’s not just a hat, is it?”

He threw it back towards her and she grasped it eagerly, ramming it back on her head. Discord grinned.

“It’s you.”

Trixie tossed her mane dismissively. Discord’s grin widened yet further.

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

Discord appeared beside her, throwing an arm across her shoulders and casting the other out, as if an awesome vista lay before them and he was struggling to take it in.

“Look at them! The crowds! The reporters! The talent scouts! All of them cheering for you, the Great and Powerful Trixie!”

Trixie shook herself, dislodging Discord’s grip. She backed away and collected herself.

“There’s no one there, you fool.”

“But there is, isn’t there? In your mind.” Discord’s eyes bored into her. “Watching everything you do, listening to everything you say. They’re all there, watching you. Judging you.”

He shrugged.

“Of course, I can understand if you don’t believe me. I suppose tricking yourself into thinking otherwise is the only way you can survive. But that is your special talent, after all. Tricks.”

Trixie scoffed to hide her mounting discomfort.

“Illusions. Tricks are what studs do for money.”

Discord laughed uproariously at her words, wiping a tear from his eye as he gasped for breath.

“Oh, you are good! You’ve built yourself so high you can’t even see how low you are!” He doubled over, breathing deeply as his laughter died down. Wiping his brow, he leaned in close to the hesitant Trixie.

“What’s that phrase? ‘A worm on the throne is still a worm, just with a fancier hat?’”

He pulled the hat from her head again, and this time she didn’t resist. He ran a claw across her cheek, speaking in a tender voice that belied the venom in his words.

“And that’s all you are.”

He whispered in her ear, and she shivered in a mixture of disgust and fear as his words caressed her with an almost physical intimacy.

“A worm in a fancy hat.”

Fever Dreams: Vinyl

Vinyl glanced about her anxiously. Everypony was deeply involved in their tasks. Good. This would take the utmost concentration, and the slightest distraction could bring the entire plan tumbling down.

Angle... adjusted. Trajectory... set. Necessary force... calculated.

She licked her lips. It was now or never. Everything, all her efforts, had come down to this moment.

She took a deep breath, narrowed her eyes, and fired.

The spitball hit the grey earth pony filly three desks ahead precisely in the spot where her shoulders met her neck. The filly jumped and squeaked in surprise, and Vinyl threw her hooves in the air, crying out in triumph.

“Yes! Mission accom-”

She froze as the entire class stared at her, her eyes reluctantly drawn from her target to the flat stare of the teacher bearing down on her. Her surprisingly deep voice sent the faintest echo bouncing through the silence.

“Vinyl Scratch, I’m sure you know what I’m going to say.”

Vinyl’s eyes darted left and right. No escape. Everypony was looking, and the teacher was getting closer. Detention loomed, and there was only one recourse. She pointed a hoof accusingly and trembled her lip.

“I was getting revenge ‘cause Tavi took my lunch money!”

The teacher gasped and turned to face the grey filly, whose mouth had dropped open in stunned indignation.

“Octavia! Is this true?”

Octavia shook her her head firmly. Her voice hovered somewhere between tutored refinement and the roughness of youth, cracking at the high notes.

“Nuh-uh! I did no such thing!”

The teacher sternly trotted over and opened the drawer in Octavia’s desk. It was at that precise moment that the filly realised that Vinyl had insisted on lending her a few bits earlier that day.

Vinyl sighed in relief as the teacher launched into a fuming impromptu lecture on bullying. She’d almost had to stay behind by herself.

~

“Whoa!” Vinyl shook her head violently, trying to clear the images from her head. “What the heck was that?”

There was a flash of light that sent her reeling. Tripping over her hooves, she ended up sprawled on the non-floor of the darkness she found herself in. As the spots disappeared from her vision, she was greeted by an even more worrying sight.

“Ah! Draconequus!”

Her train of thought moved on even as she scrabbled away from the smiling beast.

“Ah! Discord!”

She managed to pull herself up, setting herself in the best approximation of a combat stance she could manage. Though she and Octavia had been training with their newfound powers, she was still relying mainly on instinct.

Discord himself was chuckling at her discomfort.

“It’s scary, being alone, isn’t it?” Seeing Vinyl’s eyes widen, he pressed the attack. “But you wouldn’t really know about that, would you?”

Vinyl blew an errant strand of mane from her eyes irritably, fear prickling at the edge of every thought.

“What? I’ve been alone. What are you talking about?”

Discord pulled a book from the air and began thumbing through. He tapped a page and dragged the ink from it, a winding line of liquid colour flowing into space to form a picture that hung in the void like a hologram. The picture showed Vinyl and Octavia as fillies in the playground, Vinyl laughing riotously at Octavia’s attempts at a sandcastle.

“Hey! Get out of my memories!”

Discord grinned and flicked another image into the air. Years later, Vinyl and Octavia, young adults now, were standing alone on the stage of the Metropony Opera house, their mouths agape at the grandeur of their surroundings. Octavia’s acceptance letter had fallen to the ground, forgotten but every bit as important.

Vinyl galloped toward the creature rifling through her past like a magazine, embarrassment burning her from within. But before she could complete her charge, Discord had casually teleported behind her. She stumbled, skidding to face to him.

“Stop it! This is seriously uncool!”

Flick. Octavia typing at her terminals in Head Office, teeth gritted, as Vinyl and Lyra danced behind her to the beat of the enormous jury-rigged speaker that took up half the room.

“What is this?!”

Flick. A day at the beach. Octavia huddled beneath a parasol as if the sun’s rays were deadly to the touch, Vinyl pulling at her tail in effort to get her out of the shade.

“Okay, so me and Tavi have always been together. Why do you care?!”

Flick. A pair of foals, one grey and one off-white, splashing in the bath.

“... Our parents knew each other, okay?”

With slow deliberation, even as he floated out of reach, Discord looked up from the book, gazed into her eyes, and flicked a final picture into the air.

Flick. Vinyl and Octavia, wearing for the first and last time their M.A.R.E. dress uniforms and saluting, badges worn proudly on the chests.

Vinyl fell to her haunches, exhausted from her fruitless pursuit.

“Okay. Fine. Lay it on me. You want to say something. Say it.”

Discord snapped the book shut and it vanished in the white flash that characterised his magic.

“I just thought it was important that you realise how little... effort you’ve put into life.”

Vinyl’s raised her head and frowned.

“What? I work plenty hard! Me and Tavi-”

“Ah, but that’s it, isn’t it? You and Tavi, Tavi and you. BFFs since birth!”

Vinyl shrugged uncomfortably. She felt uncertain, and the worst thing was she had no idea what she felt uncertain about.

“So? Don’t see what that has to do with anything...”

Discord rolled his eyes.

“It’s always been the same, hasn’t it? You have the fun, Octavia does the work. Octavia succeeds, you follow her lead.”

Vinyl’s mind raced. What was he getting it? Sure, she’d always taken things one step at a time while Octavia made the plans, but it had worked out all right in the end, right?

Right?

“You just waltz through life, doing what you want while Octavia picks up the slack. At school, in your careers, at M.A.R.E.”

Vinyl opened her mouth to respond, but Discord’s voice was hypnotic, forcing its way into her mind like an iron bar.

“You’ve never achieved anything for yourself, and you’ve never taken responsibility. You’re a child, Vinyl Scratch. A foal who never grew out of her surrogate sister’s shadow.”

Vinyl’s eyes darted left and right. No escape. Only the void. Discord swam through the air toward her, and his voice seemed layered with that of every teacher, every agent, every disappointed parent.

“I’m sure you know what I’m going to say.”

Fever Dreams: Tavi

Octavia sat alone in the void, Discord’s words ringing in her ears.

“What if you had nothing left to give?”

She scoffed to herself. Typical mind-games. Apparently the fearsome Discord was no better than Trixie in her heyday.

Silence.

She cast her gaze around her, trying to discern something, anything, in the darkness. But there was nothing to see, nothing to hear. The only sound was her own breathing.

“What if you had nothing left to give?”

She sighed in frustration at her situation. Trapped in an infinite emptiness at the whim of some creature they knew next to nothing about.

Her mind turned to her companions. Were they experiencing the same thing? Was Discord even now boring them to death?

Silence.

She hoped Vinyl was okay.

“What if you had nothing left to give?”

She tossed her hooves in the air in uncharacteristic frustration.

“Fine! I’ll think about it.”

She closed her eyes. If she had nothing to give? Strange idea. One always had something to give. Whether it was simply your time, your love, or even your attention, there was a world of immaterial wealth that every pony would gladly supply.

She examined the concept more closely, turning it over and over in the hooves of her thoughts. She had always gone out of her way to help those she considered her friends. That was just... what one did. Right? Her entire life had been spent helping Vinyl out of her scrapes, for Celestia’s sake. And, no doubt, so would the rest of i...

Her expression froze.

That was it. The rest of her life.

Lyra appeared next to her, and she leapt to her hooves. Lyra grinned at her and said, nonchalantly,

“Don’t worry, Tavi, I got this. Let the heroes do the heavy lifting.”

She vanished. Octavia scanned the darkness wildly. What had that been? A vision? An illusion?

Bon-Bon appeared behind her, holding a sheaf of papers.

“So, I’ve been doing some work in my spare time, and I think I’m starting to get a handle on this coding thing.”

Even as Octavia whirled to face her, the image of her friend faded from sight. She snarled.

“Come out and talk!”

Octavia’s voice drifted into the distance, dying away without even an echo. Breathing heavily, she massaged her forehead with one hoof.

“Calm down, Tavi. It’s just tricks. Tricks and lies to make you doubt yourself.”

“What if you had nothing left to give?”

A chair appeared beneath her, and Derpy’s desk materialised, complete with smiling pegasus.

“Amazing work on that new system, Octavia. Our organisational workload has been almost halved! Why don’t you take some time off?”

Octavia shook her head desperately.

“No, honestly, Commander, I think I can improve it even more...”

But Derpy had already disappeared, and the chair dumped Octavia unceremoniously before joining them in oblivion. Octavia cursed silently.

“Don’t respond, you fool! You’re getting confused.”

Trixie was next, throwing her head back in scornful laughter.

“Oh, please. You, help me with my calculations? Let’s just stick to our own projects, hmm? We’ll see who wins.”

Octavia tried to get up, legs weak with mounting fear. Tears began to prick the corners of her vision.

“Please, let me help, I-”

The ethereal Redheart shook her head silently, turning away to the pony in the clinic bed.

“There must be something I can-”

Her breath caught as she realised what was next. She stepped back from the darkness before her, as if she could escape whatever madness had taken her slightest doubt and made it so horrifyingly real.

“No. Please. Anypony but her.”

An off-white unicorn took shape, but not the Vinyl she knew. This was her lifelong friend at the end of her time, wrinkled and smiling. Octavia shook her head, wide-eyed in horror, able to sense what was coming. She pleaded with the darkness, pleaded through the tears that threatened to flow free at any moment.

“I understand! I agree! Bon-Bon and Lyra will always be loyal to each other! Derpy will never tell a lie! Redheart will always care for others! Trixie will always be powerful! Vinyl will...” She smiled a bittersweet smile, even through the cold terror that gripped her. “Vinyl will always be laughing.”

The ancient Vinyl before her opened her mouth to speak. Octavia’s words tumbled out faster, trying anything to stop the apparition from talking.

“But I’ll be used up! I’m a finite resource! I’ll give everything I can give and there’ll be nothing left! I understand! You win! Don’t you hear me?! You win, Discord!”

The ghostly Vinyl began to speak, her voice crackling like ancient paper.

“Tavi, you don’t have to worry anymore.”

“Don’t make her say it!” Octavia collapsed, falling to her knees in anguish.

“Where I’m going...”

She threw her hooves over her ears and screamed.

“... I won’t need you anymore.”

Breaking The Surface: Derpy

“Why would I stop when I’m doing so well?”

Discord blinked.

“Well? Did... Were we watching different memories? You couldn’t even deliver the mail without breaking something!”

Derpy shook her head, smiling to herself.

“Is that really all you’ve got? Rifling through a few bad times and thinking I’ll break down and give up forever?”

Discord’s lip quivered.

“That was essentially the plan, yes. You ponies hardly have the greatest mental fortitude.”

“Oh, you have no idea.”

Discord’s eyes narrowed with disdain.

“Oh, please don’t tell me that your friends will get you through this. I may vomit.”

To his great surprise, Derpy laughed brightly.

“Friends? They’re not my friends.”

Even as she chuckled, she fixed her lop-sided gaze firmly to her archenemy’s.

“They’re my family. Every single one. Every member of M.A.R.E, every citizen of Metropony, every living thing on this planet... They’re all my family. Do you have a family, Discord?”

Discord hung still for a moment, an unexpected pause in his constant, erratic movements.

“... No.”

A hint of sympathy flashed across the Commander’s face before her expression hardened once more.

“Then you could never understand. Do you know what happens when a pony lets down their family? When they fail the ones that give their life meaning?”

“...”

“They try harder.”

Derpy stomped her hoof and her every word resonated with power, the same power that had shouted down the Mare In The Moon herself. In the instant before she spoke again, it occurred to Discord that true Honesty could only be achieved with the strongest conviction. Derpy’s faith in herself and her ideals radiated from her, an almost physical aura.

“Nightmare Moon took my home from me? I created the organisation that destroyed her. The public rejected us after all we’d done for them? Our recruitment this year outweighs the past five, and foals pretend to be Harpflank and Sweets when they play. Carrot left?”

Her expression softened.

“Well, that’s between me and her. What I’m saying, Spirit of Chaos, is that you’ve come into my new home, my castle, rummaged through my darkest secrets, and tried to use them against me. No doubt the others, too.”

The look in her eyes made Discord float imperceptibly away from her, recoiling from what he had never thought he’d see in a ponies gaze.

“So what do you think I’m going to do to you?”

There was a moment of silence.

“This is my world, Discord. And I will keep it safe.”

Eyes narrowed to slits of hatred, Discord floated in close again.

“You’re going to regret this, my little pony. You have no idea what I can do to the things you so dearly ‘love’.”

Derpy grinned confidently.

“We’ll be waiting.”

~

She came to, pulling her head free from the papers that had covered it as she slumped under Discord’s influence. Bleary-eyed, she tried to clear the fuzz from her brain. For a moment, she was filled with worry for the other Elements. Then she chuckled.

“Even I don’t listen to me.”

Sitting back in her chair, she kicked her desk and span a few times, watching the relics of her past blur across the walls. As the chair came a halt, her eye caught the photo again. Memory stirred once more, this time a welcome friend. She checked the time and, hesitantly, tapped a familiar number into her communicator. A few seconds later...

“Chief? Yeah, it’s me. Yeah, I know how late it is. Aaah, come on, you’re still up working, right? Listen... you want to get a drink?”

Breaking The Surface: Redheart

“...”

“...”

“Oh, fine! Go be kind, and see where it gets you.”

~

Redheart awoke, blinking. The only sound was Fluttershy’s gentle breathing at her hooves.

She shook her head and sighed, then reached for her pen.

Breaking The Surface: Lyra

“Everything.”

“Oh?”

“I’d give everything.”

Discord’s creeping smile widened.

“You see? That’s the Lyra I know!”

The couch and other trappings vanished, letting Lyra drop gently to her hooves.

“Isn’t it nice to let go and... understand yourself?”

Lyra nodded.

“Yeah. I’m kind of glad you helped me get it off my chest, if I’m honest.”

Discord blushed and waved his claws coquettishly.

“Oh, stop.”

“No, I’m serious. If it wasn’t for you, I’d never have puzzled this out. I never realised you could win and lose at the same time, but it’s pretty clear now.”

I... Wait, what?”

Discord froze.

“I get it now. I’d give anything to win totally, like you said. Beat you? Get the love, the music, the adoration? Sounds awesome. But...”

Lyra chuckled.

“But then that wouldn’t be winning, would it? Because even though I’d gained everything, I’d have given everything up to get it. And that’s no win at all.”

Discord scratched behind his horns and raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t follow.”

“If I sacrificed everything to win, I’d have lost all the love and music and stuff I already have. So the only way for me to win, to really win, is to win without giving anything up. Even if the only way to win is to give everything up.”

“I’m not sure you’re quite grasping the nature of sacrifice.”

Lyra scoffed.

“You’re the one who doesn’t get it. If the only way to win is to sacrifice everything, then winning isn’t winning. Winning is winning without sacrifice, and I’d sacrifice anything for that.”

Discord’s blank stare seemed to last for an age.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

Lyra shrugged.

“Making sense? What fun is there in making sense?”

~

Lyra awoke tangled in the mangled frame of the exercise machine led to an unfortunate demise by her duel with Rainbow Dash. Grinning to herself at Discord’s infuriated reaction to her words and subsequent ejection of her self from whatever weird world he’d pulled her into, she pulled herself free from the creaking structure.

She briefly wondered about the others. They’d be fine. She held no illusions as to her own insecurities, and had no doubt that her friends could handle theirs.

She looked around the dented gym. The scars of ninety-nine battles covered its every surface. She trotted, a spring in her step, to the scoreboard propped against one wall, grabbing a piece of chalk magically along the way.

With a smug flourish, she added a fifty-first line to the green column.

Breaking The Surface: Vinyl Scratch

“I don’t have to listen to you, you’re not my mom.”

Discord’s eye imperceptibly twitched. The day was proving decidedly unsuccessful.

“I... what?”

Vinyl stood up, glaring at the floating Discord with a petulant expression.

“Hay no! Who do you think you are, getting all up in my memories and trying to get me down? Even Nightmare Moon had the decency to attack us in person.”

Discord laughed at Vinyl’s pout.

“Oh, you’re hardly helping your case here.”

“Ah, shut up. You’re just twisting words. You think I spent a lifetime hanging around Tavi without hearing a little wordplay? Okay, so I’ve kinda breezed through life. I got a good family, I’ve been lucky with jobs, Tavi’s got my back...”

Her expression hardened.

“Yeah, I was lucky. But that doesn’t make me a bad pony. Whatever luck I had, I acted on it. I played around at school, sure, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t work. And if you’re so big on my memories, then you know the sweat and tears that went into this baby.”

She cocked her head back, nodding at her cutie mark.

“Say what you like about how I got to where I am today, but the fact remains that I spend every minute of every day working my butt off. I doing what I love, and what I love helps keep ponies safe.”

She stuck out her tongue and blew a long, dismissive raspberry.

“So nuuuh.”

Discord threw his claws into the air and sighed.

“Oh, fine! You win as well. Congratulations on being incorruptible, like all the rest of your blasted friends.”

He froze, and the faintest hint of a grin crept into his expression.

“...Yes. Yes, you should wake up now.”

~

Vinyl’s eyes snapped open and she sat bolt-upright, eyes wide. She had easily deflected the mental attack, but Discord had sounded almost... smug.

A noise behind her made her spin in her chair, leaping to her hooves.

“Tavi?!”

Vinyl looked in horror at her friend, who had collapsed to the floor of the office and lay head in hooves, wracked with sobs. Vinyl galloped to Octavia’s side, panic gripping her. In all her life, she had never seen her friend so broken, so... lifeless. Her grey coat had lost its lustre.

“Tavi?! Tavi, what’s wrong?! Octavia!”

At the sound of Vinyl’s voice, Octavia’s head jerked up, and Vinyl gasped. Her friend’s face was a mask of bleak despair, her gleaming tears sharply contrasting the dull colourlessness of her eyes. Vinyl reached a tender hoof toward her, and Octavia clutched at it desperately. Vinyl knelt beside her and gently stroked her mane.

“Please, Octavia. What the hay happened?”

Octavia swallowed, choking back the emotions that consumed her. She shuddered as she fought the horror that had so overtaken her and scrambled closer to Vinyl, pulling her into a tight embrace as if they were foals again. As the lifelong friends held each other close, the light gradually began to play on Octavia’s coat again, and the colour seeped back into her eyes.

Forced Introspection: Octavia

"Please... call me babe."

Going Under: Bon-Bon

The lights flickered.

Bon-Bon looked up from her notes and cast a glance about the M.A.R.E. archives. The enormous room was empty at this time of night, even the custodian having retired to his office. Bon-Bon and Vinyl both spent enough time on late-night research that he had long since given up conforming to the stated opening hours, and had just told them the code to the door.

After a few moments’ staring quizzically at the ceiling Bon-Bon shrugged and returned to her work, pulling the sheaf of papers before her closer. It had taken her hours to find it, but she finally had what she was looking for - Lyra’s personnel file. After a recent... emotional incident on Lyra’s part, Bon-Bon had been seized with a desire to know more about her friend’s past. She had been caught off guard, and she wanted to make sure that if Lyra ever needed her again, she’d be ready.

Suddenly, she felt something that felt like a paw touch her nose. As her gaze snapped up, seeing nothing but stacks and servers, a familiar voice whispered in her ear,

“You should stop putting this where it doesn’t belong, my dear.”

Going Under: Octavia

Octavia felt a guilty smile creep onto her face as Vinyl cursed in pain. She shouldn’t be amused at her friend’s irritation.

But it was so funny. It had been all she could do to not burst out laughing when Vinyl had hit her head a second time.

She pursed her lips as the giggle threatened to escape, and concentrated on her typing. She had work to do. Recent reports from Outpost 226 indicated increased changeling activity in the Tartarus surrounds, and Derpy had asked ExTech to upgrade the far-flung base’s ailing surveillance equipment.

Octavia had refrained from informing the Commander that this would involve creating an entirely new system from scratch, as 226 was so neglected that its surveillance equipment was to HQ’s what a broken lens was to an observatory.

And so she worked, tapping away into the night as she built the new system. She had had to drop a few projects of her own, but she could always pick them up again later when she had time.

A thought struck her, and she called over her shoulder without turning.

“Vinyl, do you still have the schematics for the AE-35 transmitters?”

It took her a few seconds to realise that Vinyl hadn’t responded.

“Vinyl? The Ae-35s? I was thinking we could incorporate them into the 226 project. They have that strange effect on changeling physiology, remember?

Still no response. She sighed.

“Come now, are you really going to be like this? I’m sorry, but you really should have used my...”

She trailed off as the text onscreen caught her eye. She stopped typing, but the words kept coming. Green text matched the voice that seemed to come from all around.

“You really do give your all, don’t you? But what if you had nothing left to give?”

Breaking The Surface: Bon-Bon

“No.”

Discord pulled back, folding his arms and frowning. Bon-Bon’s chin held firm as he removed his claw, her gaze locked to his.

“What was it you called her? Fascinating? You’re right. She is fascinating. But do you know who else is fascinating?”

She grinned, a wry smile of acceptance.

“Everypony else.”

Discord stared.

“So you admit it?”

“Of course. I want to learn everything I can about everypony I can. Because I care!”

Bon-Bon’s eyes were afire, her sudden vehemence taking Discord by surprise. He rallied quickly and went back on the attack.

“Because you care? Oh, spare me! You’re a gossip, a tattler!”

Bon-Bon scoffed.

“What do you know about it? You’re the one who rummaged through my memories to try and find something to use against me. And you didn’t find anything, did you? You had to make up your own.”

She stepped forward, punctuating every word like blows striking Discord’s lies with the force of her denial.

“Because all I’ve ever wanted is to know how the ponies I love work, so I can fix them when they break. Every fact, every snippet of information, is something that lets me understand my friends that little bit more, and help them if they need it.”

Discord gritted his teeth as she faced him, glaring him down.

“So go on, spirit of Chaos. Tell me what my memories, my knowledge, have helped you understand. Tell me how my friends work. How Redheart sings to the patients when they’re alone. How Lyra thinks her music is alive, and cries when she can’t hear it. How Octavia smiles when she hears Vinyl laugh. Tell me what you know.”

There was a tense silence. After a few moments, Discord tutted in annoyance.

“Hmph. You’re a sharp one, Bon-Bon. Watch you don’t cut yourself.”

White light filled her vision and her mind.

~

The archives came back into focus. Bon-Bon sat up and clutched her head, squinting through the pain to scan the room. She was alone again, and Discord’s distinctive presence could not be felt.

She sighed with relief as the cloud of deceit cleared from her mind. Discord’s mental attack had been harrowing, and all the more unsettling for his seeming total lack of concern for their security.

But, for all Discord’s efforts, she felt... better. Stronger. As if she had confronted something long overdue. She looked down at the table, at the personnel file that had been crumpled by her collapse. She sat and stared for what felt like an eternity.

Then she gathered the pages together, placed the file back in its folder, and went to check on the others.

Breaking The Surface: The Great and Powerful Trixie

Breaking The Surface: The Great and Powerful Trixie

“Hmph.”

Discord cocked an ear mockingly and beckoned Trixie to say more.

“I’ll admit that, at times, I have had... doubts. My Lady’s cause, M.A.R.E’s chances of victory... my own talents.”

“Do go on.”

Trixie glanced at the hat Discord was casually spinning around one claw.

“First, I would like my hat back.”

“Nope.”

“My hat, Discord.”

“Nah.”

“My hat.”

The hat vanished from Discord’s grip in a blue flash and reappeared on Trixie’s head, where she adjusted it self-consciously. Discord gave her an infuriating smile, receiving a toss of her mane in response.

“So, yes, you’re right there. I have doubts. But if you think that having doubts makes me any less of a pony...” She scoffed. “You are sorely mistaken.”

Trixie began pacing back and forth as she spoke, her voice slipping into the smooth, practised tones of her showmare past.

“You see, Discord, it is my doubts that have driven me! Am I the pony I think I am? No? Then I shall become her! A worm on the throne, as you say, is just a worm in a funny hat.”

She spun on her heels with a flourish and shot Discord a withering glance.

“But what if the worm is a great ruler? Then the worm is no longer just wearing a funny hat, she is a queen! A mare of power, influence and, dare I say it, beauty! She is, in short, the Grrreat and Powerful Trixie!”

As she finished, crackling magical fireworks erupted at her hooves, the grandest finale she could conjure in the void.

Discord stared at her, then shrugged.

“Mix whatever metaphor you want. Delusion only lasts so long.”

~

Trixie awoke to find her vision filled with the terrified face of Twilight Sparkle. Yelping in surprise, she pushed her pupil away and leapt to her hooves.

“Ah, refreshing! Nothing like a power-nap to break up research!”

She stopped as she saw Twilight’s expression.

"What... what is it?”

“Trixie, I just saw all the colour drain out of you.”

“Oh, come now, I may have had a mildly disturbing dream, but-”

Twilight shook her head as Trixie laughed.

“No, I mean the actual colour. It was like... like the life was gone from you.”

Trixie looked down at herself in confusion. Her coat was the same blue it had always been. She shook her head.

“We shall discuss this later. You really need to see what’s in this book...”