OTR: Darkness Zone

by The King of Hearts

Rating: teen
Tags: Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Comedy, Fluttershy, Original Character, Trixie, Queen Chrysalis, Adventure, Main 6
Length: 63915

Accompanying Chrysalis on her mission to end the war between the rest of the world and the Hive, the Elements of Harmony are forced to face the corrupted hive Council inside a chaotic world they know nothing about.

Side Story of: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Off the Record

After starting their mission to bring peace between the Hive and Equestria, the Elements of Harmony and Chrysalis find themselves split in to groups of two inside a world of chaos, with no recollection of how they arrived there. Working together in their groups, everypony must face a unique set of hurdles to overcome.

Working against them, the Hive Zodiac Council, who want nothing more than to control Chrysalis's armies, and take over the world, even if reaching that end means committing regicide.

The world of chaos they're trapped in, however, is not a product of the Hive Council. it was made by two Elements of Harmony, who both lost control of their bodies to chaotic beings within them.

These groups will fight it out for the victory, which one will come out on top?

Published 2015-12-19 05:30:02 UTC
Last updated 2016-03-06 17:43:07 UTC

Darkness Zone

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OTR: Darkness Zone
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Sorry it took so long everyone! I hope you enjoy it. More to come very soon!

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“Trixie!” A voice echoed in the mare’s head, as she was brought back from the world of her dreams, “Can you hear me? You should probably wake up!”

The mare grumbled something indiscernible as she waved her hoof in the direction of the voice she had heard.

“You know, I’m always happy to let a pony sleep in, I mean, when I was a filly, I had to wake up at the crack of dawn every day to work on the farm! That’s right! It was so lame!” The voice began, as Trixie realized just what she was in store for, “So one day, I swore to myself that I would never ever ever ever wake somepony up that was enjoying a good nap!”

Trixie prayed to Celestia that she was going to be left in peace now.

“And normally I’d never break that rule! But a whole bunch of things are going wrong right now, and if you ask me, it would be better if we tried to find our friends!” She continued, barely taking a breath as her speed increased twofold, “Omigosh! Therewasjustachangeoutside! Lasttimeicheckeditwasnighttimebutnowthesunisshininglikeitsthemiddleoftheafternoon!”

“Okay, I get it!” Trixie shouted, sitting up from her bed in the Ponyville Library where Twilight had been putting her up for the last couple weeks, “Trixie is- I am up, Pinkie! What’s so important that you need to be bothering me?”

“Oh, you’re awake!” Pinkie beamed, her face showing a strange mixture of happiness and relief, “I was worried that you were fake too!”

“Fake?” Trixie asked, crinkling her nose at the strange statement, “What do you mean by that?”

“Don’t you remember?” Pinkie asked, her eyes wide in surprise, “Because I don’t remember either!”

Trixie frowned. She had absolutely no idea what the mare was going on about. And while she generally expected craziness when it came to Pinkie, this was pushing it a little.

“Why are you even here?” Trixie finally asked, trying to piece together her own thoughts, “I… I thought we were supposed to be going to the Hive with Chrysalis? To...end the war?”

“We did!” Pinkie said, having already run through this line of confusion herself, “Celestia made us all look like Changelings, then we got on the train!”

Trixie was now completely confused. Pinkie was right. All of that had happened... Why was she in Ponyville?

“I don’t understand,” Trixie said, finally getting out of her bed, as he joined Pinkie by the window, “I don’t remember coming back to Ponyville.”

And for the first time since Trixie had met her, Pinkie gave her a serious look.

“We didn’t come back to Ponyville,” She said, gesturing out the window, “This isn’t Ponyville, just look at the sky! It’s all fake!”

Trixie did as she said, and almost felt her eyes bug out of her head at the sight.

The sky was rippling with some kind of crimson energy. If was as if somepony had mixed the northern lights with a whole lot of lightning, and turned it all red.

“Don’t worry,” Pinkie said, “It’s not all bad, it’s kinda pretty if you ask me.”

“How long have you- or, we been here?” Trixie asked.

“I woke up hours ago!” Pinkie said, pointing to her house across Ponyville, “At first I thought something had happened to the sky, and everypony in town was just hiding inside! But, when I saw Carousel Boutique wasn’t blown all over the place, I knew something was wrong.”

“So, nopony else is here?” Trixie asked, realizing just how eerie it was to see such a large town be completely devoid of life, “Well, thank Celestia we’re not alone.”

Pinkie shook lightly in response to what Trixie had said, drawing an odd look from the blue mare.

“What is it?” She asked, again surprised to see her acting so strangely.

“Wellllll… to be honest, I was pretty scared that I was all alone!” Pinkie said, not letting on just how completely terrified she had been, “It’s a pretty spooky place when nopony is around.”

“I’m with you on that.” Trixie agreed, squinting at the furthest distances she could see, “I wonder if everypony else is in here.”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll find them!” Pinkie beamed, her cheery attitude clearly returning to her, “I mean, they can’t be too far, right?”

////

Twilight groaned as she tried to open her eyes through the blinding light beaming down from above her… Where was she?

The air she was breathing was burning hot, and as she tried to press her arms backward to lift herself, she found that they were sinking in to the ground as if she was lying in a pile of sand.

Lifting her arm and blocking the blinding light from the sky, she found herself able to observe the area immediately to her left, and what she saw, was both a shock, and made a little bit of sense. She was in the middle of the desert.

“W- what’s going on?” She said out loud, sitting up looking around her, “Where am I…?”

After a few moments of trying to figure out just where she was, her mind wandered to just how she had wound up in this place… Wasn’t she supposed to be on her way to the hive with Chrysalis?

Slowly righting herself, she tried to run over the events of the past day again, but time and time again she kept hitting the same black hole in her memory. She remembered getting on the train with Chrysalis, disguised as a changeling, but she simply couldn’t recall what happened after that.

Where had everypony gone then? If she had woken up in this desert, was it crazy to think that her friends might be in here too?

Shaking her head, she decided to take in her surroundings a little better.

Squinting to block out as much sun as she could, Twilight gave the barren desert a much better examination, trying to find any sign of life that she could. But there was nothing but flowing gold for as far as she could see.

Then, finally, she glanced upward, and finally realized that there was more going on than her just waking up in a desert.

The sky had a cyan energy rippling through it. It had almost blended in with the sky.

“Oh Celestia… What have we gotten ourselves in to now?” She muttered, “Let’s see how far I can get myself with some magic.”

Closing her eyes, she concentrated on teleporting herself in to the sky, so she could have a better view of the area. But, it quickly became apparent that something was wrong.

Opening her eyes, Twilight did her best to look up at her horn, as she grimaced at the very scary realization that she couldn’t use her magic at all.

“Oh no…” She muttered, as she realized just how precarious her situation was.

////

Rarity walked down the hallway of the castle in which she had awoken. The place was huge, and completely deserted.

“Hello?” Rarity shouted, hearing her voice echo down the stone halls of what she could only assume was a castle, “Is there anypony there?”

Again, she heard nothing.

“Well this is simply marvellous,” Rarity huffed, walking down the carpeted hallway, past several suits of armor and countless paintings, “How is it that I wake up at the same time that everypony has taken their lunch break? And why is it that I can’t use my magic?”

She continued down the hall with a displeased expression as she tried to find any sign of life. But, as far as she walked, there seemed to be nothing more than empty space.

Every room she checked was empty- well, not in the conventional sense. There was always a bed and dresser, or perhaps a library within the room, but there was never anypony else. At this point, she was starting move past her thought that she was unlucky, and replaced that feeling with something a little closer to fear.

“If this is somepony’s idea of a joke, they’d better fess up!” Rarity shouted, opening yet another door, only to find a simple bedroom, “And where are all the windows? How am I supposed to know where I am?”

The search for clues was simply endless as Rarity continued on her room-checking quest.

She considered herself to be a pretty smart mare, and had been looking for plenty signs that might have told her something. She looked for flags to give her the country she was in, she looked for clothes, as their style might tell her something about where she was, she checked all the books she came across for clues, she even looked for food that might be indigenous to a certain part of the world.

But there was simply nothing that told her anything that she needed to know.

And so, after what seemed like hours, Rarity finally settled in what seemed like the fiftieth library in this castle, where she sat down on a massive sofa obviously built to accommodate several readers.

As she sat in the silence, she started to feel herself grow more and more nervous. It was a strange experience for her, to be surrounded by absolutely no form of sound. Usually a quiet room still has some dull conversation from somepony else, or the sound of a flame flickering. But right here, right now, there was nothing aside the sound of her breathing.

It was starting to leave the territory of eerie, and enter the world of creepy.

As far as she could tell, she was in this massive castle alone. Nopony was in sight, and literally anything could have happened to them. And literally anything could still happen to her.

The sound of silence started to fade out as the sound of her own pounding heart filled her ears.

“I wish Spike was here…” Rarity mumbled, looking around the room once more for any sign of anything, “He’d keep my mind off of this horrible place…”

////

Alex exhaled happily as he stretched out his arms smiled. He had been having the best dream with Pinkie and Rainbow Dash in it… Maybe he could doze off and spend a few more minutes with it.

“I know you want to taste mine,” Dash said, with a sultry voice as she walked toward him with a sly smile, “You know you love it.”

“Nooooo, you should give mine a lick!” Pinkie spoke up, jumping high enough to be seen by Alex over Dash’s form, “Its way sweeter!”

“Girls!” Alex called confidently, as he sat back on his soft with both his front legs hanging on the back of the couch, “Why don’t you let me try both at the same time?”

And so, both girls approached him with wicked grins on their faces, before each of them pulled a cake seemingly out of nowhere, and held it out before them with giant smiles on their faces.

“W-what is this?” Alex asked suddenly, “I thought we were talking about… you know… riding the tricycle!”

“I love tricycles!” The dream version of Pinkie spoke up, in character as always.

“You honestly think that this was going to be a sex dream?” Dash asked, shaking her head as she rolled her eyes, “You know, for once I wish you’d dream about the two of us getting married, or having kids!”

“B-but this is my dream world! Aren’t you supposed to do whatever I want?” Alex asked meekly, hoping he wasn’t about to receive a dream-smack.

“Of course not silly!” Pinkie laughed, before instantly glaring at him, and growling demonically as she spoke, “You are our puppet.”

“Jesus!” Alex shouted, sitting up from the ground that he had just been unconscious on, instantly realizing that he was somewhere he didn’t recognize. The sky was filled with some kind of pale green lightning that didn’t seem to interfere with the sunlight above it.

Sitting up, he took a look around him, and saw a beautiful batch of blue grass. It spread out about thirty feet around him in all directions. But, for some reason, it just stopped after that. It was like the grass simply vanished after a certain point, leaving nothing but air in its place.

“What the hell is this?” Alex said out loud as he stood himself up and stretched his various muscles, “Why is all the grass blue?”

Standing up, he made his way over to the edge of the grass only to realize that the world didn’t end, he was just on a floating island that was high above the ground.

“I’ve never seen a place like this in Equestria…” Alex muttered to himself, looking out to the horizon, and seeing several islands floating below him, along with the ground itself.

Frowning at the sight in front of him, his thoughts went to his uncle, who was visiting this world for the first time, and was now stuck in Canterlot waiting for him to return. But, for all Alex knew, he was going to end up dead in this place, and Chet was going to be stuck in Equestria forever!

“Maybe he’ll score with a princess,” Alex muttered, shrugging.

////

Dash slept soundly. Happily unconscious, lost to the world.

“Oh wonderful,” A voice echoed through Dash’s head causing her to stir, as she lay on what seemed like the world’s most uncomfortable bed, “I spend hours looking for another sign of life, and I find you.”

Dash didn’t need to hear another word. She knew that voice anywhere, and she had no idea why she was here right now, while she was trying to sleep.

“Wake up.” The voice demanded, “This is no time to be dozing.”

“Ugh, what do you want Chrysalis?” Dash growled, not wanting to deal with her right now, “Go bug somepony whose boyfriend you didn’t rape. I’m trying to sleep.”

“You can’t rape the willing, dear,” She said, before giving Dash a soft kick to her wing, “Now wake up!”

“What do you want?!” Dash exploded, sitting up in a huff, ready to smack the queen upside her head for disturbing her, “Why would you come in to… my bedroom… and… uhh…”

“’Uhh’ Indeed,” Chrysalis said simply, not taking her eyes off the cyan mare, “You’re lucky your coat sticks out like a sore thumb in this desolate place.”

And it truly did.

Rainbow Dash took a serious look at her surroundings, and felt a twinge of fear as she scanned it over.

Apparently she and Chrysalis were in some kind of… black forest. It wasn’t dark outside by any measure either. The sun was obviously behind the grey clouds hanging above their heads. Everything was just… black.

The trees had no leaves, and were little more than twisted branches that reached out in every direction as if trying to reach for anything living that might pass by them.

“Where are we…?” Dash asked, momentarily forgetting the contempt she felt for Chrysalis, “Is this a place near the Hive?”

Chrysalis shook her head, “This place is unique as far as my knowledge goes. I’ve never seen a place that makes me feel sick to my stomach like this.”

“How did we get here?” Dash asked, steadying herself on the rotten ground she stood on, before walking to the steadier ground, “Weren’t you supposed to be ending a war?”

“Yes, I thought that—“

“Wait, was this some kind of trap?!” Dash immediately said, taking Chrysalis by surprise, “Did you kidnap us and put us here?! I knew we couldn’t trust you!”

“Now just—“

“You can bet that I’ll find help!” Dash continued, stamping to within an inch of the Changeling queen, “My friends must be somewhere around here, and we’ll kick your butt for double crossing us!”

“I had nothing to do—“

“You and your council must have had some kind of contingency plan in case you were ever captured!” Dash continued, not stopping for a moment to even breathe, “Well let me tell you right now—“

“Silence!” Chrysalis boomed in her best royal voice, as Dash momentarily took a step back, “How dare you accuse me of such a thing! My advisors killed the only thing that mattered to me in this world! And I will have their heads on a pike outside my palace!”

Dash grimaced.

“Now, before you inevitably ask, no- I have no idea how we got here, and I can’t remember anything that happened to me prior to arriving here!” Chrysalis spat, glaring at the mare, “And I’m thanking my lucky stars that I even found somepony in this terrible place. So why don’t you come down off your saddle, and help me find a way back to our world?”

Dash didn’t respond right away. A little bit because she didn’t trust Chrysalis, and a little bit because she felt stupid for jumping the gun.

“And be careful about flying around in here,” Chrysalis motioned to the entangled branches above them, “I tried to get above the trees several times, but there is simply no getting past them without ripping your wings to pieces.”

Dash looked up, and hated that she had to agree with Chrysalis.

“It’s almost like somepony designed this place to keep pegasi down,” Dash muttered, looking around at the never-ending sprawl of black trees, “It makes me feel sick to my stomach.”

////

“Why did I listen to that guy…” Chet muttered, walking down a long, stone hallway covered from top to bottom green moss, “I could have stayed in Canter-town, and eaten myself in to a coma on carrots or something… instead, I decided to hide on a train, and wake up in gods-knows-where.”

Chet’s lack of knowledge of Equestria, made understanding his situation even harder, as Alex had mentioned crazy things happening in this world… but none of those things sounded like the situation he was in right now.

Chet continued down the hall, and truly wondered how far it was supposed to go. Torches lit the patch, and a few pillars were located here and there. But aside from those things, there was nothing. And not only was there nothing, but there was a lot of it. He had been walking, and frequently running for the past hour. He was confident that he had passed something along the lines of five miles at this point, and absolutely nothing had changed.

“When I find Alex in this stupid place, he’s taking me home…” Chet grumped, as he continued down his path, “I miss my bed… and the internet…”

“…And meat. Meat the most.”

////

“So, where do you think we should go?” Trixie asked, as her and Pinkie descended the staircase in the library, “If this world is fake, and I can’t cast magic… what should we even do?”

“I was hoping you’d have an answer for that!” Pinkie half-whined, “I have no idea what we should do either.”

“Well,” Trixie muttered, looking to the empty bookshelves surrounding her, “I guess there’s nothing we can do, except go out and see what happens. We might be able to find everypony else in town if we look enough.”

“Wow!” Pinkie chirped, “That’s a way better idea than what I had!”

“What was your idea?” Trixie asked, wanting to consider every avenue.

“Go to Sugarcube Corner and make some cake!” She said, smiling as Trixie gave her a frown.

“How would that help us, exactly?” She asked, rising an eyebrow.

“I always think waaaaaay better on a full stomach!” Pinkie beamed, her stomach growling on cue with her speech, “But I also get way sleepier! So I’d have to get all of my good ideas out before I fell asleep!”

“Got it,” Trixie laughed, hoping that what Pinkie was saying was simply a joke, as she reached to open the door, “For now, let’s just explore the town, and we’ll be able to—“

As soon as she opened the door, the two mares were greeted with… life.

Outside the library, Ponyville was suddenly populated by all of its usual residents. Busy ponies were walking all over the place as they went about their daily business, just as they would any other day in the year.

“W-what’s going on?” Trixie asked, looking over her shoulder to an equally flabbergasted Pinkie, “Did we go home?”

Bouncing out the door, Pinkie looked up at the sky, and instantly frowned.

“No… I’d say we haven’t.” She said, pointing a hoof up at the energy sparking through the sky, “That’s still there.”

Trixie frowned, that glimmer of hope instantly vanished.

“Oh! Hey, Twilight!” Pinkie called at the purple mare that was making her way toward the library, “I’m so glad we found you!”

“Pinkie?” Twilight asked, tilting her head, “I thought you were making a cake for the party later! I just came from your house!”

“Party?!” Pinkie asked, her eyes bugging out of her head, “Are you serious? How could I forget—“

“Pinkie, shush.” Trixie sighed, having an idea of what was going on, “Something’s not right here.”

“Trixie?” Twilight asked suddenly, as she took a step back from the mare, “What are you doing back in Ponyville?”

“What are you talking about, Twilight?” Pinkie asked, shaking her head, “Trixie’s been living with you for a month now!”

“Pinkie, I think I’d know if Trixie was living with me,” Twilight laughed, walking past the two in to the library, “But if you need a place to stay, I’d be more than happy to put you up for the night!”

“Thanks,” Trixie smiled, before opening her mouth to ask Twilight one more thing, “What’s going on with the sky?”

“Sky?” Twilight asked, stepping out of the library once more as she glanced up at the lightning filled mess above them, “I don’t see anything… What do you mean?”

“All the red lightning!” Pinkie said, her expression a little defeated as she realized that none of this was real, “Haven’t you seen it?”

“Sorry, Pinkie.” Twilight said, shaking her head, “I don’t see a thing. But definitely come grab me if you see it again! It sounds really interesting!”

“…Sure thing,” Trixie said, nodding to the mare as she trotted back in to her house, “We’ll see you later, Twilight.”

“Have fun you two!” She said back to them, as she closed the door.

A strange silence drifted between the two as they stood in place, absorbing the information they had just taken in.

“So… that’s not our friend?” Pinkie asked, her voice a little defeated.

“Well, she could be, but I doubt it,” Trixie said, biting her lip, “Unless she had her memory wiped, and can’t see the sky. Plus, she doesn’t even realize that we can’t use magic.”

Pinkie was again silent as she tried to wrap her head around the impossibility of the world she was in.

“Come on, Pinkie.” Trixie said, patting her on the back as she looked over her shoulder to her, “Let’s look around for some kind of clue.”

Nodding slowly, Pinkie let Trixie walk just in front of her before she started following behind.

“So,” Pinkie began, clearing her throat as she looked around the now bustling town, “Do you think our other friends are in Ponyville?”

“I couldn’t say,” Trixie shook her head, “You found me, but you said you didn’t see any signs of anypony else, right?”

“Mhmm,” Pinkie said, “I checked in a few places, and nopony answered me when I was shouting either.”

“They could be anywhere though,” Trixie said, pointing toward Canterlot off in the distance, “They could be there, or in the Everfree forest… Or maybe Sweet Apple Acres!”

“Oh yeah!” Pinkie exclaimed, feeling a glimmer of hope, “Applejack might be there!”

“Then let’s head down,” Trixie said, looking back to the pink mare with a hopeful smile, “The sooner we find our friends, the sooner we can get out of this crazy place!”

“And the sooner we get out of this crazy place, the sooner I can eat some lunch!” Pinkie said, her stomach growling once again.

“Well, you might be able to eat some apples there,” Trixie added, “If you trusted the food in this world.”

“I never met an apple that I didn’t like!” Pinkie beamed, as she turned the corner that would take them down to the farm, “And that includes the family!”

////

Twilight dragged herself through the sand in what seemed like the world’s largest desert. Her hooves burned with every step she took, and her throat felt as if it were full of sand itself.

“This is the worst…” Twilight grumbled, looking in every direction once again for some sign of life, or even a plant that might signify an oasis, “Ugh… nothing.”

When she had first arrived a few hours ago, Twilight decided that she would use the position of the sun directly above her to make a basic compass, all she needed to do was wait and see what direction it was heading. But, after about a half hour of close observation, she realized that the sun hadn’t moved an inch. It was as if the day wasn’t progressing, leaving her with no answers on that front.

Second, she decided to wait for any kind of winds. Even though it was a bit of a long shot, during the day wind would usually blow in from a body of water. So, when a breeze came through, she would be able to follow its origin and reach safety.

However, again, there was absolutely no sign of wind of any kind. The entire area was simply dead.

So, digging deeper in to a solution, Twilight decided to look up at the energy in the sky, and that was where she found her clue.

All of the lightning in the sky seemed to be flowing in the same direction. It was hard to pick up at first, but once she saw it, she couldn’t un-see it.

She walked for hours, hoping that over every dune she would see some kind of landmark, or town. But, she had yet to have that kind of luck, and was starting to feel herself lose strength.

“Why…” Twilight began, panting heavily as she contemplated wasting her energy on talking to nopony, “Is this… the only desert with no cacti...”

Her panting was heavy, and she truly wondered how much further her legs would carry her before she collapsed.

“I could tap some… water out of a cactus…” She said, closing her eyes and sitting back on her rump, allowing her hooves a rest from the burning ground.

Suddenly, she felt the sand around her start to shift, making her snap her eyes open and looked around for the source of the changing landscape.

“What the…?” Twilight said, as a prickly green cactus simply rose from the sand below her.

Wasting no time, Twilight ran up to the plant, ready to rip it to pieces and drink it’s insides, before she spotted a glint most of the way up its length. It almost looked like it would be a nose sitting in the middle of the uppermost section of the plant.

“Is that a tap?” Twilight said out loud, as she leaned forward and inspected it, “Huh.”

Pressing her hoof against the silver top, she gave an inward jump for joy as pure water began flowing out on to the ground.

Wasting no time, she threw her head under the flow of water and began gulping back mouthfuls of the life giving fluid. She could almost feel the water rehydrating every inch of her body as she felt her energy begin to completely replenish.

Twilight felt a little piggish as she kept drinking, and drinking, and drinking, but her brain was telling her that she needed to stock up on fluid right now, because this might be her only chance to drink for hours.

Finally, after a couple of minutes passed, Twilight finally took a step back, and sighed happily. She could feel all that excess liquid sloshing around in her stomach. Usually it was a feeling she hated. It was always associated with binging on food to her. But, right now, she would happily experience the uncomfortable feeling.

Stretching her shoulders, Twilight looked to the sky and exhaled. She had no idea how far she was from her destination. She didn’t even know if the electricity had a source, or if it was some kind of naturally occurring phenomenon in this desert. It was the kind of mystery that drove her nuts. Usually she loved discovering new things… but she didn’t love it when her life was at stake.

After a couple of minutes of relaxing, she finally stood up and started out on her journey once more. However, she couldn’t stop herself from looking over her shoulder at the cactus one last time.

“You were my favourite thing in this desert,” Twilight said, faking a devastated voice, “I hope our paths cross once again.”

Giggling to herself, she turned and faced her destination, and began walking. However, instantly, she heard the sound of sand shifting behind her.

Looking over her shoulder, the sound instantly stopped.

“Hmm…” She muttered, looking in front of her once again, only to hear the sound pick up again.

Whipping around, she again saw nothing but the cactus as the sound disappeared.

Forming a plan, Twilight looked forward and took a fake step.

Instantly turning around, she almost shrieked as she watched the cactus start moving as if to follow her.

“Wh-what are you?!” She shouted, as the plant once again froze.

“This place makes no sense!” Twilight shouted, her rational brain finally pushed to the point of having a temper tantrum, “No movement of the sun, no wind, no magic, lightning in the sky, and now this! Just where the heck am I?”

After a few minutes, Twilight sighed and looked at the cactus. Really, if this water fountain was dead set on following her, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

“Alright, you can come along!” She said, hoping that it would respond to her invitation in some way. But, it didn’t, “I’ll just keep walking, and you can keep behind me.”

And she did just that. She kept walking, and the cactus followed her like a lost puppy.

////

Rarity sighed as she sat down on a bench outside of one of the endless number of bedrooms, her positive attitude had all but vanished as she tried to wrap her head around this place. There was no end in sight, and there wasn’t a single sign of life. It made her sick to her stomach.

She was lonely, and it was getting to her head.

“Am… I going to die here?” Rarity said aloud, praying that anypony would answer her, but knowing that nopony ever would.

At this point for her, the sound of her pounding heart was so regular, that even if something had made a sound in the distance, she wouldn’t have ever heard it. She wanted to calm herself down. She knew that it would make this world more bearable, but she simply couldn’t.

Closing her eyes, she thought about Spike, and whether she would ever see him again.

If he had been here, he would have been positive to the point that she would have wanted to vomit. But, that was something she loved about him. Nothing could get him down… And here she was, not even strong enough to hold herself together after a few hours of being alone. Perhaps she’d grown to dependant on the company of others…

Rubbing her right eye, she felt a tear run down her cheek, and to her neck.

“Why are you crying, miss?” A small voice suddenly asked, as Rarity jumped back in surprise.

In front of her was a small unicorn filly, that was just about the same age as Sweetie-Belle. She had a white coat, with a light blue mane, and no cutie mark to speak of.

“Where did you come from?” Rarity asked, completely stunned that this little girl was here right now, “I-I’ve been alone for hours!”

“Alone?” The young girl asked, tilting her head, “But there’s so many ponies here!”

Rarity looked up, and was flabbergasted at the sight of so much movement around her. It was as if they had all just appeared at the exact same time, without making a sound.

“I… I don’t understand.” Rarity said, looking around in shock, “I was just alone here!”

“Alone? That’s really sad! I’ll spend some time with you!” The filly chirped, sitting down on the carpet next to Rarity’s seat, “What’s your name?”

Rarity was still trying to process everything that was going on. She briefly considered the prospect that she had just gone insane, but knew that she hadn’t been alone for that long.

“Miss?” The filly asked, tilting her head.

“Oh, I’m sorry dear,” Rarity said softly, “My name is Rarity.”

“Wow! That’s such a pretty name!” The filly smiled brightly.

“Thank you,” Rarity smiled, still occupied with solving this puzzle.

“Where are you from?” The inquisitive filly asked next, “Because I don’t think it’s from around here!”

“Um… Ponyville!” Rarity said, snapping her attention back to the young girl, “Is this castle anywhere near there? What’s it’s name?”

“It doesn’t have a name, silly!” She said, giggling.

Rarity tilted her head in confusion, “Well, what’s the name of the town we’re in? Or the country?”

“They don’t have names either!” The filly said smiling just as she had been before, “And neither do I!”

Rarity winced at the confession, as the filly seemed to have no negative emotion regarding something so significant.

“That’s silly!” Rarity said, “You must have a name!”

“Nope!” She said, giggling at Rarity’s concern over something the she didn’t care for, “The king doesn’t like us to have names.”

“What kind of a king wouldn’t allow his subjects to be named?” Rarity asked, shocked that somepony would use their power to achieve such a thing, “That sounds horrible!”

“It’s not so bad,” She shook her head, “At least I don’t have to worry about forgetting somepony’s name!”

Rarity wanted to be shocked, but couldn’t stop herself from cracking a smile.

“Well, that’s certainly a positive way to look at it,” Rarity said, letting out a small laugh, “Do you think it’d be possible to talk to your king? I think he might be able to help me.”

“Sure thing!” She nodded, jumping up from her place on the floor, “It’s a bit of a walk, if you don’t mind!”

“No, dear. I’ll be just fine.” Rarity shook her head, “By the way, does your king have a name?”

“He sure does!” She nodded, “His name is King Virgo!”

////

Flying himself off of the floating island, Alex landed on the ground below, and looking around at his surroundings a little more. Again, he was surrounded by blue grass that stretched out in all directions. There was a small body of water just ahead of him, and a blue forest just behind.

“At least it looks pretty,” Alex said, scratching the back of his head, “Is this supposed to be in the hive or something?”

Looking up once again, he looked to the electricity filled sky, and noticed a pattern in the lightning. It seemed to be spreading out from its furthest point on the horizon. It looked like the energy was actually coming from somewhere.

“Maybe there’s a source to that stuff,” Alex said out loud, unsure if he should take off yet, or look in the area for his friends.

So, deciding to do a quick check, Alex flew himself straight up in to the sky, beating his wings behind him to get as much height as he could without zapping himself on the energy in the sky.

Then, he flew to the highest floating island and landed himself.

Not only did this give him a perfect view of the area all around him, he could see much further in to the distance than he could from the ground, or even from where he had originally woken up.

He had planned on checking the surrounding islands for his friends, but the view stole his attention away from that task.

He was high enough that he could see miles around him in all directions. And with that kind of range, he was able to spot a couple of odd things. First, the lightning in the sky had an end point. Well, sort of.

He was only able to see its ending point in one direction, but that was enough to tell him that the lightning was connecting to another set of differently colored, red electricity. The two were blindingly bright where they met, and they dropped an absolutely insane amount of sparks from their collision in the sky. Something told him that if he touched one of those sparks, it’d be the last thing he’d ever do.

So, turning his attention away from the edge of his area, he looked even further in to the distance at what must have been a building of some kind. It was too far to really make out, but one thing was abundantly clear. The electricity was definitely originating from the building. It was shooting in to the sky, and spreading out in all directions.

The building was just beyond the forest that had been behind him, and he would have no issue flying over it.

“Hmm, well, I guess I can head in that direction,” Alex said, before realizing that he hadn’t really checked for his friends anywhere around him.

Running along the edge of the island, Alex looked to every island below him, every square inch of grass, every patch of trees, every everything. But, as he had initially figured, there wasn’t a sign of life. He was alone out here.

“That’s that, I guess.” Alex said, looking toward the source of the lightning, “I’d better get going. God knows I can’t fly on an empty stomach, and I can feel myself getting there.”

////

“What the heck started this fire?” Dash asked, as she and Chrysalis stared at a blazing fire that was taking place just ahead of them, “It’s stretching as far around this forest as I can see!”

“It almost looks as if it’s keeping us in,” Chrysalis said, looking left and right at the endless line of burning trees, “We need to turn around and find our way to the exit.”

“How do we even know where the exit is?!” Dash shouted, gesturing around at both the endless trees, and the endless fire, “For all we know, there’ll be more fire if we head too far in the opposite direction!”

“Well, if you have a better idea, feel free to share it with me,” Chrysalis grunted, sick of the negativity, “How can an Element of Harmony be filled with so much negativity?”

“Excuse me?!” Dash spat, turning around and narrowing her eyes at the Changeling queen, “Am I being too bitchy for you? To the pony that stole my boyfriend for two years, and spent that entire time banging him?”

“Oh here we go…” Chrysalis said just loud enough to be heard, as she rolled her eyes.

“How dare you act like it was nothing!” Dash shouted, throwing a hoof in the air, “You can’t just take stallions away from their mares, and brainwash them!”

“You talk about it as if my entire plan was to kidnap him and have my way with him,” Chrysalis scoffed, rolling her eyes, “I took care of him! I cooked for him, I cleaned him after his battles, and I tended to his needs, just as a mate should!”

“A mate?” Dash asked, giving a single ‘ha’ as she shook her head to the queen, “Where’s the progressiveness in the hive, huh?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Chrysalis asked, having expected a very different retort from the mare.

“So, you’re saying that it’s just a mare’s job to clean, and cook, and have sex with their husbands?” Dash asked, “Things are a little more advanced in Equestria, I’ll have you know.”

“You and I both know that’s not the case,” Chrysalis said back, “It’s the job for the mate not the mare . Any stallion would be expected to do the same if his marefriend joined the military.”

The truth was, Dash already knew most of this to be the truth. But, she was in an arguing mood, so everything was fair game.

“Then why choose Alex?” Dash asked, knowing the answer to this as well, “The two of you weren’t dating, or- mates!”

Chrysalis frowned at the question. She had two answers for Dash. One was the truth, and one was the political reason.

“Courting an Alpha brought me to a similar level with my subjects,” Chrysalis said, “It made me more relatable to my people.”

“Oh yeah, real relatable,” Dash rolled her eyes, “Hey everypony! Look at this human I’m banging! I just met him!”

“They had no idea,” Chrysalis said, avoiding eye contact with the mare, “As far as they were concerned, his face had been wounded in battle. Covering oneself like that is commonplace in the Hive. No questions were asked.”

“You had lost your fiancé to this war, and then you turned around and start banging some other guy that you got from the war!” Dash shouted, “Leaving some other mare all alone!”

Fire seemed to ignite in Chrysalis’s eyes at this comment, “My losing Stag was the worst thing that ever happened to me!” Chrysalis shouted, slamming her hoof in to the tree trunk just behind Dash’s head. “Don’t you ever throw that in my face!”

“You took away Alex from me!” Dash shouted back, knocking Chrysalis’s hoof away from her, “How could you ever justify taking him from me? You can’t act like it was for some political reason! But, you stole my stallion, because you wanted to try and be a wife for a few weeks!”

“I- I was only doing what I thought would help my people!” Chrysalis said, her voice losing its power as Dash continued staring daggers at her.

“The right thing to do was to end this Celestia-damned war!” Dash screamed, no longer holding back, “Alpha told me all about you and Stag, how you dreamed about ending the war, and leading the hive in to an age of peace! Instead, you spat on his memory by ramping up the war effort after his death!”

Chrysalis felt her bottom lip tremble. Dash wasn’t pulling any punches.

“You want to know what really makes me sick?” Dash asked, her voice suddenly much softer, but somehow so much scarier, “The fact that you’re only ending this war because you were betrayed. The fact that you think it’s okay to throw away the lives of your subjects, just so long as you’re not crossed by your colleagues. You sit so high in your hate-filled ivory tower, that you have no idea what damage you’ve done!”

“Y-you don’t know—“

“How many soldiers have died in the last year alone?” Dash asked, tilting her head, “How many mates lost their loved ones because you wanted revenge against the outside world?”

Chrysalis only blinked a couple of times, before looking at the ground.

“Remember that pain you felt when Stag died?” Dash asked, “Well guess what! You personally inflicted that pain on thousands of your subjects by keeping this war going on. And let me tell you something, no matter what you do, whether it be ending the war, or giving assistance to all the widows and widowers out there, you will never ever redeem yourself.”

Chrysalis hadn’t expected this kind of assault from the mare. And as a result of that lack of preparation, tears were now running down her face, as she realized every word Dash said was true.

“You think you did wrong by me?” Dash asked, her rage more or less dissipated at this point, “At least I got Alex back! I was lucky that I didn’t lose him to your stupid conquest, like so many of your people did.”

With that, Dash turned from the now completely destroyed mare, and started heading in the opposite direction of the burning trees. She was banking on something being in the middle of this hell hole, and the sooner she got there, the sooner she could be done with Chrysalis.

Still, a part of her felt absolutely terrible for the things she said…

////

“Oh!” Pinkie exclaimed, running down to the first apple tree on the way to Sweet Apple Acres, “Finally! I can have something to eat!”

At first Trixie had been wary of everything in this world. The sky, the ponies, the food… but she had skipped lunch herself earlier, and was starting to feel her stomach complain.

“I still don’t know why we couldn’t eat a cake for lunch,” Pinkie said, running over to the tree and getting in to the applebuck position.

“Because normal ponies don’t eat cake for lunch, Pinkie,” Trixie said, impressed as the pink mare bucked the tree and knocked several apples loose, “At least an apple is on the food pyramid.”

“An apple?” Pinkie asked, laughing as Trixie tilted her head, “I’m gonna eat a million of these things!”

“Well, don’t eat too many,” Trixie warned, walking over and knocking a couple of good-looking apples across the grass, where she could eat them without worrying about butting heads with Pinkie, “Remember that one time Applejack ate all those apples and got a wicked bad tummy ache?”

“I remember telling her not to eat so many!” Pinkie said, before leaning down and taking a chomp out of her first apple, happily sighing as she swallowed the first bite, “So did Dashie!”

The two of them spent the next few minutes making small talk as they ate their lunch in peace, but they could only gossip for so long before the glaring issues around them began to creep their way in to their conversations.

“And I know I shouldn’t say it, but the dress looked hideous!” Trixie giggled, remembering one of the dresses Rarity had suggested she wear to the royal wedding, “She looked like a peacock!”

“I know Rarity makes some of the most beautiful clothes in Equestria, but that one was baaaaad!” Pinkie laughed along with her, “It was like looking at a color explosion!”

Trixie giggled as she sat her back against the apple tree, watching Pinkie continue eating the seemingly endless supply of apples falling from the tree.

“You know, Pinkie, when I first came to Ponyville, I had no idea that I’d end up making friends with everypony like I have,” Trixie said, remembering her first night in Ponyville, when she unleashed the Ursa Major on the town, “I was so worried when I came back a couple weeks ago…”

“You thought we wouldn’t like you?” Pinkie asked, scratching her chin at her own recollection of how that day had gone when Trixie came back to Ponyville, and offered Twilight the Alicorn Amulet, “We knew you made a mistake last time you were here… I mean, I was almost expecting to see you come back wearing that amulet, to get back at us or something.”

Trixie frowned at the suggestion. It was one that had crossed her mind more than once after she first left Ponyville.

“It’s true that after my first time in Ponyville, I wanted to come back and beat Twilight at her own game,” Trixie said, “But after I left, some things changed...”

“What do you mean?” Pinkie asked.

“Well, after the Ursa Major tried killing everypony, I decided to skip the next town on my tour,” Trixie replied, “If I hadn’t sucked it up, and looked past my jealousy when Twilight was protecting herself from being smashed, she could have been killed. I was so close to just… letting her die, all because I was envious.”

Pinkie frowned at the obviously upset mare.

“You know Trixie, I don’t think you should worry so much about that,” Pinkie said, pausing as she collected her thoughts, “It doesn’t matter what kind of mare you were before you ever came to Ponyville. When you needed to swallow your pride, you did it! And if you had to redo it a thousand times, you would have saved her every time!”

Trixie looked up with a sad expression, “Are you sure about that?”

“Of course I am!” Pinkie said, giving a small giggle, “You’re a better mare than most ponies’ give you credit for! Even if you weren’t the nicest when we first met, you changed yourself! And we all can see it!”

Trixie knew she had changed. The last three years of her life had almost exclusively been a period of growth for her.

“Hey… Trixie?” Pinkie asked, as the mare perked up to her name being said again.

“Uh, yeah, Pinkie?” Trixie asked, tilting her head.

“What did change you?” Pinkie asked, scratching the back of her head, “Twilight told me that something sad had happened to you. And… well, I guess I was a little curious. But you don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to!”

Trixie sighed and looked away from Pinkie, staring off in the direction she had headed after her first time in Ponyville. She had headed west of town, and followed the road until she came just short of the White Tail Woods…

“It’s a long story, Pinkie.” Trixie said, blinking a couple of times, “Even if I were to summarize.”

“Okay, I understand.” Pinkie smiled, standing up and shaking her head, “This isn’t really the place for it either, huh?”

“But we also have no idea what we’re supposed to be doing,” Trixie said, standing up and smiling to the mare, “So, I mean, if you really don’t mind, I think it’d be nice to finally tell somepony this story… if you don’t mind, that is.”

“Really?!” Pinkie beamed, her expression going from one of understanding, to one of complete elation, “Thank you so much! Nopony ever trusts me with their secrets! But I’m so good at keeping them! I mean, I never told anypony about all the experimenting Dashie and I did!”

“Well, it’s not a secret, it’s just hard—wait, what did you say?” Trixie asked, pausing and giving Pinkie a curious look.

“Oh no! Did Rainbow Dash tell you she did that?” Pinkie asked instantly, as her eyes went wide, “I thought the secret was already out! But, I don’t think you were around for… oh dang…”

“Don’t worry, Pinkie.” Trixie said, patting her on the back, “This isn’t the kind of story I would want to keep hidden. It’s just hard for me to talk about... So, I’ll try my best to tell you everything, okay?”

“Okay.” Pinkie nodded, smiling as the two of started heading back toward town, “I’m all ears!”

“Alright, well… It all started on the night I left Ponyville…”

////

“Virgo?” Rarity asked the filly, as she nodded quickly, “Wasn’t that the name of one of the council members…? Hmm, would you happen to know if this castle taken over by him?”

“I don’t know… The stallion you’re talking about sounds really mean.” The filly explained, as the two continued walking on their way to the throne room, “But he can be nice sometimes! He did build this castle for us to live in! Well, I think he did anyway.”

Rarity frowned. This didn’t make any sense, had this Changeling created some kind of… fantasy world of his own, filled with ponies that magically appeared and disappeared at random? And what would he do when he met her anyway?

“Um… has the king ever mentioned anything about a war?” Rarity asked, wondering just how much carry over there was with Equestria, “Or perhaps he’s mentioned other strange names like ‘Aries,’ or ‘Scorpios?’”

“Oh!” The filly nodded rapidly, “He’s talked about Aries a whole lot! Sometimes when he thinks nopony is listening, he talks about how much he hates him!”

“You spy on him?” Rarity asked, looking to the girl with some confusion, “How would you—“

“Oh, no ma’am! I’d never spy!” She said instantly, only confusing Rarity more, “Sometimes I just hear his thoughts!”

Rarity sighed quietly. While this confused her further, she simply decided to accept that there was too much craziness here for her to understand properly.

“Don’t tell him that I said that though,” The filly said quickly, “He might get mad!”

“Of course, dear.” Rarity nodded, only just noticing the significant increase in ponies in the area they had entered, “Are we getting close to the throne room?”

“We sure are!” She chirped, as they turned a corner, and entered the biggest hall Rarity had ever seen in her life, “He’s just at the end of this hallway!”

“Wonderful!” Rarity said, happy to be making any kind of progress, before she tried to squint and see the end of the hall this girl had just mentioned, “Um, how far did you say it was?”

“Just another half hour!” She said, completely unfazed by the ridiculous statement she had just made.

“J-Jus- Just a half hour?!” Rarity asked, trying her best to avoid whining, “I… I might need to stop for something to eat.”

“I’m just joking!” The girl giggled, “We’re here!”

Rarity looked down to the girl and opened her mouth, to ask for yet another explanation, however, she suddenly felt as if something was about to touch her cheek.

Turning her head back to the face her front, she bumped her head against a massive door… one that had not been there five seconds ago.

It was easily thirty feet tall, and fifteen feet across. It was the kind of thing she expected to see right outside a throne room.

“Where did this come from?” Rarity asked, backing away from the door, feeling less and less surprised as she just stood in its shining awe, “It just… appeared here.”

“It was always there,” The girl said nonchalantly, “Come on!”

The filly raised her hoof, and knocked on the door three times, sending a loud echo in to the next room.

Then there was silence.

“Who’s there?” A voice called from the other side. As far as Rarity could tell, it was hardly a royal one.

“It’s me!” The filly called.

“What’s your nam— oh, right.” He said, before sighing loudly, “Alright, you may enter.”

Pressing her hoof against the door, the filly pushed the massive thing open with ease.

Rarity watched in awe as the room on the other side of the door was revealed to her. It wasn’t like the rest of the castle, where every square inch of the place was made up of the same bland cobblestone. This room had clearly been fashioned somewhat in reminiscence of the throne room in Canterlot. The walls were pristine white, and all the windows were stained glass. This seemed to be the only place with sun shining in to the building.

The carpet leading up to the throne was beautiful as well. It had an exceedingly complex gold pattern sewn in to it, that stretched, and remained symmetrical for its entire length. It was the kind of thing that made her weak in the knees.

However, once her eyes finally made their way up to Virgo, her entire demeanor changed.

Rarity had never before seen a changeling that was overweight, but this pony certainly took the cake, figuratively and literally.

Virgo sat in his throne on his rump, with his legs kicked up on one of the matching tables that were from either side of the throne.

On the table that wasn’t being used to kick his feet up, was a large cake, that had obviously been picked at, and scooped out of with a hoof.

The king himself had light amounts of the white icing on the corners of his mouth, and a patchy beard that had only just begun to grow in, and hadn’t yet been trimmed.

And on the top of his head, instead of a crown, sat a fedora.

“So, what do you two want?” The king asked, exhaling as he swallowed a mouthful of his cake, grunting slightly as he re-positioned himself to get better access to his treat, “I’ll have you know I’m getting married tomorrow morning! She’s an angel that deserves a true gentlecolt like me!”

Rarity could only chuckle to herself.

Oh yes, Virgo indeed.

“Is this about the wedding preparations?” He asked, scratching the beard on his neck with his clean hoof, “Because I already told you, this room needs to be spruced up by tonight for me and my lovely bride.”

Rarity was thankful that he didn’t somehow recognize her. She had been in her changeling disguise the entire time she was in the hive castle, and whatever spell sucked her in to this world removed that spell. So, he couldn’t have known her from a hole in the wall. Perhaps it would be better for now, if she just acted as if she belonged in this world. She could have the opportunity to dig up more answers that way.

“Oh, yes!” Rarity said, nodding enthusiastically, “I’m here to see the bride about her dress options! If you would be so kind as to grant me an audience with her, I could have this issue sorted within the night, just in time for the two of you to be wed!”

“She’s just through there.” He said, gesturing to a door on the far right of the throne room, “And please make sure that her gown doesn’t make her rump look too large! My beautiful flower needs to be perfect for me!”

“Err, of course, your majesty.” Rarity managed, hiding the frown that his entire ‘self’ seemed to put on her face, “Do you mind if my assistant accompanies me?”

He shook his head, and gestured for the two of them to be on their way.

Wasting no time, Rarity hustled to the doors, and made her way through them, with the filly in tow.

Closing them behind her, Rarity wondered if she was going to run in to that female member of the council she had encountered before.

“Excuse me!” Rarity called, deciding to play the fantasy all the way out, “I’m here to help with the wedding gown!”

“Oh, perfect!” A soft voice came from one of the many side rooms, all of which were decorated just like the throne room, “I’ve been so excited to see what you had in mind! I’ll be right with you!”

Turning to the filly, Rarity gave her a smile, “You don’t mind that I told a little fib to the king, do you?”

“Nope!” She said, closing her eyes and smiling, “You’re a good mare, I know you’re not going to do something bad!”

“Thank you,” She smiled, as a door just a few feet in front of her opened up, and an orange mare stepped out of the bedroom.

“So, what did you have in mind for my big day?” She asked.

“A-Applejack?!” Rarity asked, taking a step back as the women looked to her with a measure of worry.

“I’m sorry… I’m afraid you have me confused with somepony else.” The mare said, as she approached Rarity.

Rarity herself was still in a little bit of shock. This mare was Applejack. There was no doubt in her mind. She had the same orange coat and blonde hair, along with three white spots on her cheek that most ponies mistook for freckles.

However, there were some key differences from her friend as well…

The mare was made up. And not in the kind of way Rarity might put makeup on in the morning.

She wore light pink eye shadow that Rarity would have never recommended in a million years, but had to admit looked simply stunning. Her hair was straightened. Just as Rarity would always do herself before curling it, giving her maximum control over its style. Her eyelashes were long, and had just the perfect amount of mascara on them to emphasize them against her orange coat, and pink eye shadow.

Also, her accent was gone, and somehow it made her voice sound very similar to Rainbow Dash.

Rarity almost hated to admit it, but Applejack looked good. And while this was something she would normally be happy to say to her, this mare was made up beautifully. It was the kind of beauty that Rarity often envied… She herself wore fake eyelashes, and used other clever techniques that hid several wrinkle lines around her cheeks and eyes that she had been cursed with her whole life.

“Are you okay?” She asked Rarity, tilting her head slightly as she brought the dress-maker back to reality, “You haven’t said a word…”

“Oh, my apologies!” Rarity said quickly, shaking her head as she cleared her mind, “Um, well, I suppose we need to go over some possibilities for dresses.”

“Oh… You don’t even have the dress ready?” She asked, concern riddling her face, “The ceremony is tomorrow night!”

“You needn’t worry, Apple- ahem, sorry… what was your name again?” Rarity asked, hoping that she would be a different case from the rest of the ponies in this castle.

“I don’t have a name.” She said just about as calmly as possible, “But you may call me whatever you like if it makes things easier for you.”

“Well-“ Rarity began, wondering if calling her by her friends name would be appropriate, “I’ll simply call you ‘AJ,’ is that’s alright.”

“Of course.” She said, smiling and nodded, just as Applejack would have.

“So…” Rarity cleared her throat, “Let’s discuss style!”

////

Twilight climbed the biggest sand dune yet, with her new friend, Mr. Cactus just in tow.

After she finished drinking all that water on his face, the two of them set off together to find the source of the lightning.

Over the course of that time, they had gotten to know each other quite well… well, maybe that wasn’t entirely true. Twilight had, in her head, invented several conversations that she shared with the magic plant. But, outside of her head, he was completely silent, aside from the shuffling of the sand as he made his way behind her.

“Almost there…” Twilight panted, looking over her shoulder as the cactus pumped its two arms over and over, as if it were a biped who was power-walking.

As she reached the top of the dune, Twilight felt her heart leap at the source of the lightning, and the first landmark she had yet to see. A huge pyramid stood right in front of her, just a short way down from her high point. At the point of the building, a bright beam of light shot in to the sky, where it split in to the lightning that covered the sky.

“Oh, thank Celestia!” She laughed, glad that her final actions in life wouldn’t be drinking water from a magic cactus.

Wasting no time, the mare ran at full speed down the sandy hill, toward the massive structure. She hoped that once she got inside, she’d finally have some answers to the millions of questions she had.

However, unknown to her, the cactus was starting to speed up, and it easily passed her, and positioned itself in front of her.

Then, all at once, it stopped dead, giving her just enough warning to dig her hooves in to the sand, and bring herself to a screeching halt.

“W-what are you doing?” Twilight asked, obviously frustrated with the plant, “I need to get down there!”

Trying to walk around, she found that he simply blocked her path again.

“Come on!” She shouted, frowning, “I appreciate that you gave me something to drink, but I need to find my way home!”

The plant somehow managed to shake its head, as the two arms on the plant extended out in either direction, blocking her further.

While this was frustrating for her, Twilight could almost sense an air of worry about the actions of the plant. Its head was shaking back and forth a lot, and it wasn’t using any actual force to slow her down. It backed up bit by bit as she tried to force her way past.

“Look- I don’t know why you’re stopping me, but you really need to let me go!” Twilight said, trying to get through to it, “My friends could be in there, and I need to make sure they’re safe!”

It didn’t change its stance.

“I can see that you’re trying to keep me safe, and I’m happy you’d do that,” Twilight sighed, “But you really need to…”

After a few moments, she realized that there was no convincing this plant to let her pass.

But, at the same time, it was clear that the cactus didn’t want to hurt her, otherwise it would have just pricked her a whole bunch, or even skipped giving her water. So, if she were to simply walk- or run right in to it, it would get out of the way!

Leaning down, Twilight kicked her back leg in to the sand, kicking up a small pile behind her, letting the cactus know that she wasn’t playing around.

He didn’t move.

“Well, here’s hoping you’re a nice guy…” Twilight gulped, throwing herself forward as fast as she possible could.

Not wanting the mare to be injured, the cactus slid to the side, as Twilight barreled down the hill at top speed.

Seeing this, the plant tried to catch up with her, to stop her again, but it simply wasn’t going to happen. She had the head start, and was moving too fast to close the distance.

So, the plant watched as she flew through the dark door at the base of the building, while it tried it’s best to catch up.

Finally reaching the bottom of the hill, it came to the door Twilight went through, and felt its roots bump against the hard stone floor of the building.

Twilight turned around, and saw the trouble the plant was having, and frowned. It was clearly trying to follow her inside, but the floor was making that impossible for him.

“First you want me outside, now you want to follow me in?” Twilight asked, walking back to the door, “I’m sure you’re just trying to protect me… but I can look after myself! I promise!”

The cactus almost looked like it was sighing, as it stopped its attempts to enter the pyramid.

“I’ll be right out, okay?” Twilight said with a small smile, as she tilted her head, “I’ll find some way to contact Canterlot, and then I’ll be right back out, okay?”

The plant reluctantly nodded, as it hung its head in defeat.

“I’ll be right back.” She said, looking to the cactus and giving it a smile, “Don’t sweat it!”

If only the plant could talk. She would have stayed outside with him in a heartbeat.

////

Alex landed at the source of the lightning in the sky, and took a good look at the building it came from. And after a moment, he realized that he somewhat recognized the layout of this place.

It wasn’t that he had been here before… it was more of a universal recognition, from being in this kind of place for so long.

He was clearly at a school.

The building was just one level, and had to be at least a quarter mile across with windows stacked next to each other over the entire distance. At the far end of the building to his left, was a playground that clearly hadn’t been used in a very long time… and all the way to the right, was a track field.

However, where he had set down, was the front entrance. There were three sets of heavy white doors, with small windows above each one.

Walking forward, he peered in to the building through a window, and gulped loudly at the sight of pure black inside. The sunlight only illuminated about a meter in to the building, and showed a checker pattern on the floor, and a few lockers running down either side of the walls.

“Maybe I should just go sit in the sun…” Alex said to himself, looking over his shoulder to the beautiful landscape behind him, “I’m sure everypony will be fine!”

Grimacing, he could already feel Rainbow Dash smacking him upside the head for being a baby.

“Fine!” Alex sighed loudly, to nopony, “I’ll go in! I hope you’re happy!”

Reaching forward, he pushed the heavy door open, briefly lighting up the hallway in front of him with sunlight, however, it showed nothing more than what he expected to see. Hallway.

Walking inside, Alex let the door close behind him, and stepped out of the lighted area, in to the darkness.

It wasn’t as bad as he had initially thought. There was light coming from under the many doors along the path, each one slightly contributing to the tiny amount of light in the hallway.

He wasn’t even all that scared. His eyes were adjusting just fine, and the school seemed to be kept in pretty good shape. It may have been a different story, had the halls been filled with spider webs, bones, or other generic stuff… but it actually looked like the place had been taken care of.

“Hello?” Alex called, making his way down the much easier to see hall, as he looked back and forth at the tons of lockers, and occasional classrooms, “Anypony around?”

He heard nothing aside from his echoing voice.

“Well, it was worth a shot,” he mumbled, figuring that his best bet would be to head toward the center of the school, where the lightning was originating from.

Suddenly, some static came ringing out of several speakers above the class room doors.

“My my my,” The voice said, as Alex looked around in panic, “If it isn’t our old Alpha!”

Alex frowned. The Changelings did have something to do with this after all.

“You know, when I woke up in this world, I thought I had been kidnapped like Chrysalis!” The voice said, “There was nothing but white stretching out in all directions!”

Alex frowned. He must have slept through the white part.

“But now, here I am in my own personal heaven!” She laughed, “Who would have thought that so many wonderful places existed in this world!”

Her personal heaven was in a school? Alex knew who that was.

“Scorpios.” Alex said out loud, as the mare on the intercom began to chuckle.

“You’re smarter than I took you for, Alex.” She said, “And here I thought I needed to enroll you in kindergarten.”

“Why don’t you just explain what’s going on here,” Alex said, not sure how loud he needed to be talking right now for her to hear him, “Because something tells me—“

“That’s not how this works, Alex.” Scorpios said, audibly tapping her hoof against some kind of table, “I’m not explaining anything, until I’ve had my fun!”

“Are you kidding me?” Alex shouted, “I thought you and Taurus were always the more level headed members of your stupid council! Don’t tell me you finally let all of this power go to your head!”

“You talk about being level headed to me?” She asked, “This coming from the stallion with split personality disorder.”

Alex exhaled angrily, just loud enough for her to hear.

“Now, Alpha- Alex! That’s no way to speak to the principle!” She mocked, “If you can pass my class, maybe I’ll be willing to share some info with you.”

“Of course. What kind of crisis would this be without the insane demands.” he rolled his eyes, “And what if I fail?”

“Normally I’d make you retake the class,” she said, obviously thinking this over for a moment, “But I think expulsion would be a more fitting punishment!”

“And it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what that means,” Alex said, looking over his shoulder at another intercom, “And what would stop me from running back to the doors getting the hell out of here?”

“I think you’ll find the doors have disappeared,” Scorpios replied.

Alex was startled as all the florescent light bulbs in the hallway lit up, revealing an unending path in both directions of him.

“This world, and everything in it, is mine to control.” She said, as a deep dark laugh escaped her throat, “That includes you, and your friend that I found on my way here.”

“Who did you find?” Alex said, instantly worried about this crazy mare hurting one of his friends.

“You’ll see soon enough,” She said vaguely, once again, “Because she’s just been dying to get a hold of you.”

Suddenly, a hole appeared in the ground, and before Alex could respond with his wings, he fell inside, and the hole snapped closed.

////

Dash had continued walking through the desolate forest, not daring look over her shoulder at the mare she had just ripped to pieces. Chrysalis had followed her, the constant breaking of branches, and quiet sighs told her that.

By now, most of her blind rage had vanished, and she was left with nothing more than a pit in her stomach.

“Geeze…” Dash mumbled, fighting the urge to look over her shoulder, “What am I supposed to say to this mare?”

She felt embarrassed by the outburst, but felt that she would look like an idiot if she just turned around and was suddenly apologizing for her actions.

So, that was it. The two continued walking in the opposite direction of the burning trees, just as they had for the last two hours, in complete silence.

Dash wondered where the rest of her friends were. Were they in this forest? Searching for a sign of life like her and Chrysalis? For all she knew, they had all been thrown in some other- equally crazy world.

“Uh, Rainbow Dash…?” Chrysalis said timidly from behind her, “You might want to see this.”

Dash thanked the mare for giving her a reason to turn around.

“Over there, there’s some kind of building.” Chrysalis said, pointing in to an extremely dark patch of woods.

“How do you know?” Dash asked, squinting at the pitch black.

“Changelings have exceptional eye-sight,” She said, avoiding eye contact as Dash looked in her direction, “I can clearly see the outline of something.”

“Well, that’s where we head next.” Dash said, gesturing for the queen to follow her.

Chrysalis sighed, and followed behind the mare.

The silence between the two was getting more and more painful, and Dash found herself wishing that she could somehow break it, while maintaining her cool.

Reaching the edge of the darkness, where the branches were completely covering the sky, Dash took a deep breath, and stepped out of the dim light she had been so much more comfortable in.

She expected her eyes to adjust a little more, but it was like the light was being sucked from the area around her. She simply couldn’t see, no matter how long she waited. This was emphasized as she walked in too a tree.

“Ow!” Dash yelped, stepping back suddenly, colliding with Chrysalis.

“Would you be careful?” The queen sighed, before sighing and stepping ahead of Dash, “Just stay right behind me. I’ll keep you from losing an eye to a branch.”

“Okay.” Dash said awkwardly, feeling even worse, now that Chrysalis was actively trying to protect her, “Thanks, by the way….”

Chrysalis gave a small smile at the softened attitude the mare had. However, it was too dark for Dash to see.

They walked slowly through the blackness for a few minutes, before Chrysalis came to a complete stop, causing Dash to collide with her once again.

“Why’d you stop?” Dash asked, rubbing her forehead.

“We’re here.” Chrysalis said.

“Really?” Dash asked, seeing nothing more than a few faint lines in front of her, “Any chance there’s a torch, or a light bulb somewhere around the door?”

“I wouldn’t use a torch,” Chrysalis muttered, cocking her head as she inspected the building, “The outside of this mansion looks as if it could burn down from s tiny spark.”

“Wonderful,” Dash sighed, “Mind leading me to the front door? I’d like to get out of this forest… Celestia knows what might drag me away in this darkness.”

“I’d say the risk is the same inside the building,” Chrysalis said, as she began moving again, “But a change of scenery would be very nice, regardless.”

The two walked for another half minute, as they headed around to the front of the house, where a small porch walked up to a rotten, wooden door.

“Ouch,” Dash said, rubbing her head, “Did I just bump in to you?”

“I’m still in front of you,” Chrysalis said to the blind mare.

“Are you sure?” Dash asked, walking up the steps, “Because whatever it was I touched, it was pretty warm.”

“It wasn’t me!” Chrysalis repeated.

Stepping up, the queen pushed on the door, and shielded her eyes as it opened, revealing a simply blinding light coming from the inside.

“Thank goodness,” Dash said aloud, as the pure darkness was replaced by an illuminated field, with three ponies standing in it, “Chr-Chry-Chrysalis…!”

“What is it?” The queen asked, feeling Dash back in to her quickly.

“Hello Rainbow Dash.”

“Come to my party tonight, Dashie.”

“You simply must try on this new dress, Chrysalis.”

Turning around, she went wide-eyed at the sources of the monotone voices.

Twilight, Pinkie, and Rarity all stood before them.

But they weren’t the ponies Dash had called friends… these mares were… wrong.

Their bodies were larger than normal. They were almost twice their usual size.

They had permanent, wide smiles across their faces.

Their ears were perked up, but their skin was ripped, as if they had been catching on the tree branches.

And then there were their eyes…

It looked as if somepony had taken a couple pieces of paper, poked two dozen holes in it with a needle, and then placed flashlights behind them to make a set of eyes.

As Dash stared in to the horrifying chasm of their eyes, the three monsters began walking toward them, closing the already small distance between them all.

“We n-need to go!” Dash shouted to the queen, as the changeling looked to the blinding light coming from the house.

“But that light- How do we know it’s any safer?” Chrysalis said, looking back and forth between their two options, “Things could be even worse inside!”

“Don’t leave us.”

“We’ll play whatever game you want.”

“Don’t be rude, Rainbow Dash.”

The air escaping from their lips reached Dash’s nostrils, and she almost gagged on the smell of rotten teeth.

“Oh geeze, just go!” Dash said, pushing backward in to Chrysalis, as the queen instantly relented.

They wasted no time getting through the door, before turning around to see the monstrosities following behind them, in exaggerated movements, mirroring how they would normally walk.

Pinkie was hopping, but she was doing it fast, whilst not covering much distance. She pounded the ground at an incredible speed, causing the ground to quake underneath her, as she slowly approached.

Twilight held eye contact with Dash as she took slow, massive steps. Each leg would stretch to an impossible length, it was stretched paper thin, before the rest of her body simply dragged forward, as if her extended arm was an elastic with a hook on the end.

Rarity was the worst.

She walked normally. But it wasn’t her leg movement that was so horrifying.

As she had in the past, she held her head high as she walked. However, when Dash and Chrysalis expected her head to stop lifting, it simply kept going. Her head continued going up, and up, and up… until it started going down. It started pressing in to her shoulders with more and more pressure, bearing her stretched neck to them as she kept walking.

“Close the door!” Dash shouted, as Chrysalis took a hold of the door, and threw it closed, just before they made it up the stairs.

The two sat in silence for a moment, as they listened to one another pant.

The pounding from Pinkie’s jumping had stopped, and their stench had vanished.

Dash took just a moment to look around the house they were now inside.

It was actually much nicer on the inside than it was on the outside. On their right, was a very modern looking kitchen, with a small, black glass table, and granite counter tops.

The entrance to the living room was in the same league. It was wide open, with hard wood floors, and several bookshelves. The room also had two red sofas in the center, with a small coffee table in between them.

“W-what the hell was that?” Dash finally asked, looking back to the equally disturbed queen.

“Was that your friends?” Chrysalis asked, blinking rapidly, “What in the world happened to them?!”

“Could the council have done something like that?” Dash asked.

“No way.” Chrysalis shook her head, “We don’t have that kind of technology or magic.”

“Well, if you ask me, they couldn’t be my friends,” Dash said, staying on the optimistic side of things, “I mean, just look at them. It must be some kind of trick.”

“Rainbow Dash.”

The two snapped their eyes back to the door, where all their voices had spoken in unison.

”Chrysalis.”

A massive pound on the door followed, as the rotten piece of wood somehow managed to hold back their force.

“Let’s get the hell out of here.” Chrysalis said, backing away from the door, “There must be somepony here who can tell us what’s going on.”

“Yeah!” Dash said, following suit, as the pounding on the door continued, “But just so you know, I’m sorry I said all that stuff to you.”

“Really?” Chrysalis asked, pleasantly surprised to hear that.

“I was feeling guilty for the whole time after I did that,” Dash said, as they kept up their brisk pace down the hallway of the house, “I know you made some mistakes, but I probably would have done the same thing as you…”

”We’ll see you soon, friends.”

They both looked back to the door, as the pounding stopped.

“And on top of that,” Dash sighed, happy to be away from those monsters, “I really would rather have a friend right now, than an enemy.”

////

“So,” Trixie said, gathering her thoughts as she walked down the road to Sweet Apple Acres, “I guess it all started after that night in Ponyville, after the Ursa Major appeared, and we all had to work together to stop it.”

“Mhmm.” Pinkie said simply, not wanting to sound rude, or cut in.

“Well, after Twilight’s spectacle, I realized that I wasn’t quite as amazing as I thought,” she said, tilting her head as she spoke, “So, I decided to call the rest of my tour quits, and head down the road in the opposite direction.”

“Would things have been better for you, if you had just gone on your tour?” Pinkie asked, as Trixie looked to her and gave a small smile.

“No way,” she said, shaking her head, “I wouldn’t trade my experience for a million bits.”

That made Pinkie a little happier.

“So, I kept up my trip for days… I just walked and walked. I needed to get away from my horrible mistakes I made in Ponyville.” She continued, as her eyes glazed over thinking back to that night, “Before I knew it, days had passed, and I was just coming up on a new town, and I was a little too tired to really keep going. So, when I found a bench outside a pretty decrepit house, I decided to take a nap on that.”

“You would sleep outside?” Pinkie asked, surprised that Trixie would allow herself to do something like, especially back before she had her big attitude adjustment, “I didn’t think that-“

“That the ‘Great and Powerful Trixie’ would settle for a park bench?” Trixie asked, again smiling as she chuckled to herself, “To be honest, I was used to such sleeping arrangements. Quit often, I would find myself more shunned than accepted in a town I was performing in.”

“You bragged a little too much, huh?” Pinkie asked.

“Just a bit.” Trixie laughed, as Pinkie snorted and giggled herself.

“So, what happened next?” Pinkie asked, looking back to the mare.

“It was a few hours later when I was woken up by a mare… her name was Aurora.” Trixie said, her expression softening even further as she remembered her dear friend, “She was a teenager, whose parents had died. Her mother in childbirth, and her father of… an illness.”

Pinkie gave the mare a concerned look as she clearly forced herself to stay composed.

“Well, after all those days of getting away from Ponyville, I was in quite a state, so Aurora offered to draw me a bath, and take care of my cracked hooves.” Trixie said, giving a strained smile as a tear rolled down her cheek, “She was the most caring pony Trix- ahem, I had ever met.”

Pinkie could see that the mare was having trouble speaking of her friend like this.

“Hey, Trixie.” Pinkie said softly, placing her hoof on her back, “You don’t need to keep talking about it if you don’t want to. I’m not trying to pry or anything!”

“No no,” Trixie shook her head, closing her eyes and clearing her throat, “I always start to break up around this point in the story… I just need a little bit of time to compose myself.”

“Okay.” Pinkie said softly, as she looked ahead of them, and realized that they had reached Sweet Apple Acres, “Well, why don’t we take a little break and head down to the farm to find Applejack?”

Trixie appreciated Pinkie’s attempt to keep her comfortable, and made a mental note to spend more time with her when they finally got home.

“What makes you think she’ll be any different from Twilight?” Trixie asked.

“Well… I have a hunch about this crazy place, and Applejack might be the answer to it.” Pinkie said, looking up to the electrified sky, “But it’s just a hunch.”

Trixie had an idea where she was going with this.

“You think her dark side could do all this?” Trixie asked, “Nopony’s had this kind of power, from what I heard.”

“I don’t know.” Pinkie said, shaking her head, “That, combined with the Council and the Hive… anything could happen.”

Trixie nodded. That was something she had indeed learned since she came to Ponyville. Anything could happen, when it came to this group of friends.

“Come on!” Pinkie said, running ahead to the farm house, as she knocked on the door quickly.

After only a moment, it swung open to reveal a stoic as usual, Big Macintosh.

“Hey, Big Mac!” She said happily, “Is AJ around? I was wondering if we could talk with her!”

“Nnnope.” He said, shaking his head slowly enough to give Pinkie pause.

“No? As in… she’s not home?” Pinkie asked, “Or, ‘no’ as in we can’t see her?”

“Eeyup.” He responded, equally vaguely.

“Ummm…” Pinkie said, a frustrated look growing on her face.

“Is she home?” Trixie asked him.

Big Mac nodded.

“Can we see her?” Trixie asked next.

Big Mac shook his head.

“Why not?” Pinkie asked, frowning.

“She’s feelin’ sick.” He said, “She’s been’n bed all day.”

“Oh, well do you mind if we just talk to her for a sec?” Pinkie asked, “We just had a question for her.”

“Hmm,” Big Mac said, scratching his chin, “Well, alright. Go easy on’er though.”

“Thanks!” Pinkie beamed, as the massive stallion stepped aside, “We’ll only be a minute, I promise!”

Big mac gave a look to Trixie.

“Yup! Just a minute!” She nodded quickly.

The two walked past Big Macintosh, and headed up the stairs to Applejack’s room.

But, when they opened the door, their happiness at reaching Applejack was lost.

“Something wrong is definitely going on,” Trixie whispered to Pinkie, as they inspected the orange mare.

Applejack was completely surrounded by a black aura that rippled off her body. She was exuding pure chaotic energy from her body. Aside from that, she just looked like she was sleeping in her bed.

“Do you think this could have happened to any of your other friends?” Trixie asked after a brief pause.

“Maybe,” Pinkie said, realizing that she hadn’t seen any of her other best friends aside from Twilight, “But I don’t think they’ll be changed. Just Applejack.”

“Well, if it’s her turn to face her dark side, I guess this would explain a lot,” Trixie said, “But we won’t know the answer until we find the rest of your friends-“

“You know, Trixie,” Pinkie said, looking to her with a bit of confusion, “You can stop calling them ‘my friends.’ They’re your friends too!”

Trixie chuckled in response to her statement, “Sorry. I guess it’s just a bit of a foreign concept.”

“Anyway, why don’t we explore a little more?” Pinkie suggested, “We might find some more clues if we go visit the rest of our friends.”

////

Twilight was happy to see that the pyramid was filled with torches, it had been very dark for the first minute or so inside, but now she was in an illuminated hallway made of sandstone, and filled with hieroglyphics along the walls.

She had felt a little bad for abandoning her cactus friend outside, but knew that sitting outside all day would have gotten her nowhere. For all she knew, her friends were all trapped deep in the bowels of this place, and she was the only hope they had for being rescued.

The building seemed like a huge maze, and Twilight had hoped that she could read the walls for some kind of clues. But after giving them a good look, she realized something very strange.

At first, she had been excited that she might also learn something about whoever built the structure she was in. However, upon closer inspection, the hieroglyphs were actually retelling stories that had happened to her and her friends in Ponyville.

“Nightmare moon, the Ursa Major, Manehattan… Discords return…” Twilight said, walking down the line, recognizing each collection of pictures she viewed, “How is this possible? This building is way too old to have pictures of me in it.”

“Yes it is.” A voice echoed down the hallway, as Twilight turned her head in the direction of the voice.

“Who’s there?” She called, not recognizing the voice.

A figure stepped out from a shadow where he has seemingly just appeared, and took a small step toward her.

“My name is Taurus,” He said, “I’m the head of security within the Hive, ensuring protection from the outside world.”

“What is this place?” Twilight asked, looking around once again, “How did we get here? Where are my friends? And what’s with that lightning outside?”

“You’re just full of questions, aren’t you?” He asked, sighing at the mare, “But, I suppose you’re owed a couple of answers.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Twilight said, giving him a curious look, “But, to be honest, I didn’t exactly expect you to be so… forthcoming.”

“I’m not like the other members the Council,” he said, walking over to the mare, while carefully examining her, “Are you okay? Hurt or thirsty?”

“Oh, I’m okay.” Twilight shook her head, not taking her eyes off of the figure, “I found some water… but nothing to eat.”

“Here,” he said, lifting his hoof to his chest, and pressing a button attached to a small device.

Just as he had appeared, a large carrot on a plate appeared in front of Twilight on the floor.

Twilight gave it a skeptical look, before looking back to the large changeling.

“I’m not looking to hurt you, Twilight.” He said, as he cast a spell to cut the tip off the carrot, and levitate it to in to his mouth, “It’s not poisoned or something.”

She watched as he chewed the food, and swallowed it, satisfying her enough to lift the rest of the food in to her mouth, and promptly eat it.

Taurus gave a satisfied look as the mare ate her meal.

“Now, answers.” He said, walking past her as she continued eating, “I assume you can’t remember much from the past day, can you?”

Twilight nodded rapidly, her mouth full of carrot.

“Well, you and your friends approached us, alongside Queen Chrysalis.” He said, giving a grim look as he recalled the encounter, “She corroborated what Alpha had been telling us for the last week, and that she intended to end the war.”

Twilight gulped down her mouthful, and gave him a confused look, “I don’t remember talking to you, or your friends.”

“Well, when Aries realized that Alpha hadn’t been bluffing, he panicked,” Taurus continued, exhaling loudly, “He cast a spell to knock all of you out, and then followed it up with an amnesia spell, so that he could capitalize on the confusion when Chrysalis woke up, and hopefully manipulate her in to siding with us again.”

“How could you do that to your own queen?!” Twilight asked, “She was coming to end a war, and you decide to mess with her head instead?”

“No!” Taurus said, stomping his hoof against the ground loudly, “I am nothing like Aries! I had every intention to make things right when I got the chance! Haven’t I proven that with all I’ve told you?”

Twilight winced at him, none of this made sense. From what she had heard, the council was filled with evil ponies. But this one didn’t seem quite so bad… unless this was all a ruse.

“You haven’t told much,” Twilight said, her eyes narrowed, “Keep talking.”

“Fine,” He said, clearing his throat, “After Aries cast his spell, two of your friends weren’t properly affected. The yellow mare, and the orange one. I don’t know their names, forgive me.”

“Fluttershy and Applejack,” Twilight filled in for him, “What happened to them?”

“They were surrounded by some kind of black aura, and after a few seconds, they drew together, combined their energy… and then it all exploded outward.” Taurus said, “It would have kicked our rumps if we hadn’t been wearing these computers.”

Twilight took a look at the technology on his wrist and scratched her chin.

“What is that?” She asked.

“It’s a portable magic field manipulator,” Taurus explained, showing her the silver device, “Whatever was pouring out of your friends, it was something we were able to control.”

“So you took all of that energy, and made this world?” Twilight asked, looking to him dumbfounded, “Why?”

“We didn’t make this world,” He shook his head, walking over to the nearest wall and placing his hoof on the hieroglyphs, “When we started messing with their magic, the two of them went haywire, and wound up making this whole world, throwing all of you in pairs to different parts of it.”

“Why would they make a desert?” Twilight asked, “What significance does a desert have?”

“It’s not just a desert,” Taurus said, pressing his hoof against his device, as a screen projected out from it, covering the wall with a massive map. “See here, in the bottom left? That’s section of the world we are in.”

Twilight didn’t answer as she inspected the map. She hadn’t seen this kind of technology in the past, save some of the weird devices Alex had shown them, but even those were far off from this.

The map was split in to several distinct sections, with a single word used to describe each one, within the lines it had been drawn on the map. Desert, Castle, Everfree Forest… They had obviously been created by her friends.

And, because of the massive variance between the biomes in the sections, she had a hard time making sense of how the world exactly worked.

“I don’t understand, I mean, according to this map, the desert is one of the smallest areas in this world, but I was walking for hours, and only just made it to the middle!” Twilight said, tapping on their section of the map, “There could be over a hundred different places in this world. That’s bigger than all of Equestria!”

“I don’t know why it’s like that, I’m afraid.” Taurus said, glad that she understood the map for the most part, “And… While we’ve had almost complete control over this world, there are certain limitations. We can’t leave, we can’t change the landscapes, and we needed to find your friends ourselves. None of us even knew what you all looked like.”

“How could you not know?” Twilight asked, truly surprised to hear him say that, “We’ve encountered hundreds of changelings in the past. Shouldn’t knowing us be your job or something?”

“Celestia must have had some kind of spell hanging off of you and your friends,” Taurus said, “As soon as your disguises broke, some kind of memory altering spell exploded out from all of you. If it weren’t for our technology, it would have worked.”

“Your little computer stopped the spell?” Twilight asked, frowning at the disadvantages Canterlot faced against the hive.

“It didn’t stop all of it,” Taurus said, “The spell wiped most of the specifics from our heads, we thought it came from Applejack and Fluttershy, but when we tried to interact with them, they created this world.”

Twilight was surprised that Celestia had the foresight to use such a spell to protect them, but was happy none the less.

“Then what’s stopping you from leaving?” Twilight asked, glancing to the projected map once again, “Why not walk to the edge of the map, and break past the barrier?”

“Because this map I’m showing you has something in common with a world map, miss Sparkle.” He said, pointing at the rightmost point on the map, before tracing a large circle all the way around to the leftmost side, “This world is just that. A sphere. And no amount of magical manipulation, or teleportation can change that. I was hoping you might have an answer for me.”

“Well, I might be able to work something out magically… I don’t suppose you’d be willing to work with me in order to help Chrysalis, would you?” Twilight asked.

“I won’t betray the other council members, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Taurus said, shaking his head sternly.

“You just told me that you were going to make things right with the queen!” Twilight shot back, “And you told me you were nothing like the other members! So which one is it? Are you a good guy, or a bad guy?”

“That question is meaningless,” He scoffed, tapping his bracelet again, as the anti-magic field within the pyramid vanished, “Now please assist me, so we can get out of this place.”

“What about my friends?” Twilight asked, relieved that she could command the magic within her once more, “Or the other members of the council?”

“I’m afraid my comrades have followed your friends, and are controlling whatever world they arrived in,” Taurus sighed, knowing she wouldn’t like this answer, “Some have decided to… play games with them, as if they were their toys.”

“Forget escaping then!” Twilight shouted, “I need to save them!”

“Look- if the council realizes that I’ve given you your ability to use magic back, they’d have me thrown in the middle of the rotting forest, with Chrysalis and that rainbow mare. We need to take things slow.” He said quickly, “They won’t hurt your friends too badly, and in the meantime, we can devise an escape plan.”

Twilight didn’t like his indecision, it made her very uneasy. Why would he be working with her, while refusing to betray the rest of the council?

“Whose side are you on?!” Twilight shouted, looking back and forth quickly as she exhaled, “I need to know right now! Because if you think they’re in the wrong, then you need to help me save my friends!”

Taurus frowned, and averted his gaze.

That one motion made it very clear to the mare, that he didn’t have a definitive answer for her yet.

But… maybe that was good enough for her to push him in the right direction.

////

“So, which dress would you prefer?” Rarity asked, as she looked to Applejack’s doppelganger with as little concern as possible, “Something that feels clean? Or perhaps something soft?”

“Well, I was hoping to have something that was shiny,” She replied, before pausing and pressing a hoof to her chin, “Or was it shimmering?”

“Well, King Virgo made it abundantly clear that he didn’t want you in traditional attire,” Rarity said, frowning lightly at the thought of helping this changeling marry one of her best friends, “So, I would suggest something soft, and shimmering… I believe the best outfit would be a silk dress.”

“Silk?” Their young friend asked, blinking a couple of times, “That sounds so fancy!”

“Indeed it is, darling.” Rarity nodded, smiling to the young girl, “It’s one of my favourite fabrics to work with! If it’s tailored just right, it can fit a form wonderfully!”

“Would you show me some sketches?” AJ asked, with a hopeful gaze, “I’d love to see how they might come out!”

“Well, I’d love to dear, but… as ashamed as I might be to admit it, I’m rather useless without my magic, you see,” Rarity said, “I was trained in sketching with my spells, not with my mouth.”

“Oh...” AJ said, looking at the floor in attempt to hide her frown.

“Um, perhaps you could ask Virgo if he would be willing to remove the anti-magic field!” Rarity suddenly suggested, hoping that this might be her window of opportunity, “Not only could I sketch the dress; I’d be able to whip it up for you in only a few hours!”

“Oh! Of course!” She said, jumping up and running toward the door, “I’ll be right back!”

“Is this all part of your plan?” The filly asked, as Rarity looked to her with small smile.

“Oh, of course not dear,” Rarity said with a wink, “I’m just excited to make this dress.”

“Mhmm,” The young girl said, winking back to Rarity, “Sure thing.”

After a minute or so, AJ came running back in to the room with a hopeful smile, followed by the towering, jiggling changeling.

“You want to use magic?” He asked, looking her over, “Why, exactly?”

“I just told you!” AJ said, “She’s going to show me some sketches for a dress!”

Virgo frowned, his massive chin wobbling as he scratched his stubble.

“No.” He said flatly, “This is my castle, and you won’t use magic within it. That privilege belongs to royalty alone.”

Rarity put on her best faux-smile, as she approached the stallion.

“Now, my liege, you simply must understand,” Rarity said carefully, making sure not to upset him, “Being beautiful on their wedding day is something every mare wishes for. Would you take that away from your bride?”

“She looks just fine to me now,” He said, unmoving as Rarity continued her assault, “If it requires magic, then she can survive without a dress.”

“But you said I could wear a-“ AJ began.

“No ‘but’s!” He said loudly, taking all three mares aback with his sudden outburst.

Rarity needed her magic so she could get AJ as far away from this creep as possible…

“Yes- well, have you never heard of the correlation between a happy mare… and the wedding night?” Rarity gave a sly smirk, murdering him in her mind as she spoke.

“I… have not heard of that.” He said, blinking a couple of times, a little dumbfounded.

“Yes, well…” She said, trying not to gag on her own words, “Believe me when I say it. A happy mare, is a willing mare.”

He laughed out loud, as Rarity took a step back in confusion.

“This world is under my control.” He said, gesturing to the white walls around them, as they all slowly darkened, and turned black, “If I wish to have a willing mare, I need only wave my arm.”

Rarity finally let out the frown she had been storing up since he entered the room.

“Now that I think about it, I don’t see a need for a dress maker any longer.” He said sternly.

“No!” AJ said quickly, as he gave her an impatient look.

“I- I’d like her to stay and help me prepare anyway,” AJ said, “She’s a gorgeous mare! Perhaps she could do my makeup and hair… if that would be permissible, of course.”

He grunted and turned around, “She can make you a dress with her hooves for all I care. Just make sure you’re ready for the ceremony tomorrow!”

Rarity glared at him. So it really was just about magic. She’d have to find a new avenue.

“Thank you, my love.” AJ said, as he left the room, stomping along the floor at about twice the volume he had when he entered.

Once Rarity was sure he was out of earshot, she could no longer contain her politeness.

“What a jerk!” Rarity said, as AJ gave her a shocked look, “How could he ever take all of this away from his bride-to-be?”

“Oh, he’s just scared that something will go wrong, and he’ll be all alone again,” AJ said, her voice as delicate as ever, “He’s paranoid that he’ll lose me somehow.”

“Well, from what I’ve seen of him, he hardly deserves you!” Rarity almost shouted, before sitting down on her rump and exhaling.

“He’s nice sometimes,” AJ said, clearly just saying what she had been brainwashed to say, “He’d never really hurt me.”

“I’m sure he’s a peach,” Rarity rolled her eyes, “He does share the same amount of fuzz as one.”

“Well, I hope I don’t sound rude saying it, but it hardly matters what your opinion of him is,” AJ said, turning her nose up as she looked away from Rarity, “Now, will you two be assisting me with my hair and makeup? Or should I request somepony else help me?”

“I’d love to help!” The filly chirped, running over to AJ with a beaming smile.

Rarity sighed quietly. She had to help Applejack out of this situation… So leaving her was out of the question. She had no choice but to help her get ready for her wedding ceremony.

“Alright,” Rarity said, joining the two of them, “Let’s see if we can’t make up for the lack of dress!”

////

Alex grumbled quietly, waking from whatever sleep he had just been in. Feeling wetness around his cheek, on whatever hard surface his cheek was resting on, he opened his eyes quickly, and lifted his head to see what it was.

But, before he had a chance to figure it out, his attention was drawn to his surroundings.

School desks.

His butt was planted on a small seat, and in front of him, was a slightly slanted desk, with a small piece of wood protruding along the bottom, to keep paper from sliding on to the floor.

Around him, was more of the same. Desks.

Desks as far as he could see… on both sides of him, and behind him.

But in front of him, was a massive, sprawling chalk board that extended just as far as the desks did.

Alex looked around him once again. Maybe his friends were in here with him, but just incredibly spaced out—

“Mr. Mackenzie!” A familiar voice bellowed from the front of the class, forcing Alex to spin his head toward the voice, where he gave a very confused look.

Fluttershy stood at the front of the class, wearing a black cardigan, with a white button-up underneath, that was about three buttons left undone from the top, allowing the white shirt to be flared above the low neck of the cardigan.

“Mr. Mackenzie!” She said, in a voice completely different from anything he would expect from the small mare, “Have you been sleeping in my class?”

Blinking rapidly, Alex tried to make sense of what was going on in front of him.

“Fluttershy?” Alex asked, “What the hell is—“

“Excuse me! Watch your language!” She shouted, her wings glowing black as a ruler lifted off the chalkboard, and snapped back down loudly, “You will show me respect, in my classroom!”

“Jesus…” Alex said, knowing that she wouldn’t find that word offensive, “I think we just need to slow down here for a minute.”

“Absolutely not,” She said, shaking her head, giving him a small smirk, “The principal has made it very clear, that you need to be ready to take the final exam, by the end of the day!”

“Are you kidding me?” Alex asked, a little peeved that he was being put through this, “I seriously have to sit through an actual class?”

Fluttershy narrowed her eyes.

“I don’t like your tone,” she said painfully slowly, walking toward him with a narrowed gaze, each step making him feel like less and less of a man, “If I need to send you out of this class, you won’t be returning.”

Alex exhaled, and glared at her.

“What did she do to you?” Alex asked flatly, making sure not to use the wrong ‘tone,’ “If you tell me how you’re using magic, maybe I can—“

Leaning forward, to within an inch of his face, something finally clicked in Alex’s head.

Her blue eyes were burning with energy. It was something Alex had only seen in the dark sides of himself, and his friends.

“So, I guess I’m not talking to Fluttershy,” Alex said, leaning away from the mare, “What’s your name? Anger? Hatred?”

“Please,” She scoffed, turning around and walking back to the front of the class, “My name is animosity.”

“Oooof course it is,” Alex said, “You girls do love your fancy names.”

“And you’re one to talk,” She said, turning around to face him again, “Where did you get a name like Dax?”

“I don’t know,” Alex shook his head, laughing for a second, “I watched a lot of Star Trek?”

Glaring at him, she clearly didn’t appreciate the reference she couldn’t understand.

“Well, why don’t we get to work?” Fluttershy asked, a piece of chalk levitating up the board, “Because you’ve got a lot of ground to cover in the next ten hours.”

“I- I’m sorry?” Alex asked, blinking a couple of times as her words ran through his head.

“I said, we have a lot of ground to cover in the next ten hours,” She repeated, smiling as his heart sank.

Ten.

Hours.

Alex wept.

////

“I don’t remember this house being quite this big,” Dash said, walking down seemingly endless hallways, as she peered in to each room, hoping to find one of her real friends, or even a changeling, “Remember that bright light we saw when we came in? Maybe we should be looking for its source.”

“We would have passed a long time ago,” Chrysalis said, looking in the rooms on the opposite end of the hallway herself, “Perhaps the building is larger on the inside.”

“Yeah,” Dash said, frowning as they turned a corner, and found even more bedrooms, down an equally long hall, “It looks like whatever made those monsters outside, might have something to do with this massive place.”

“It’s strange,” Chrysalis said suddenly, as Dash looked to her, “I feel as if I’ve looked at these rooms before.”

“Well yeah,” Dash said, shrugging, “There are so many of them, they’re bound to all look the same.”

“No.” Chrysalis said flatly, pointing to a bed in the first room on their left, “See the way that blanket is folded?”

Dash looked at the neatly made bed in the room, and did see that the top left corner of the blanket, had been lifted up, and pulled toward the center of the bed. She hadn’t seen anything like that in her rooms.

“I’ve seen that same fold five or six times now,” Chrysalis said, pointing to the foot of the bed, where some clothes were neatly folded up, “Those are the same outfits as well.”

“Okay,” Dash said, looking to the bedroom on her right, and observing every detail within it, from the furniture, to the carpet, to the drapes, “Why don’t we head to the end of the hall, and check the rooms?”

Chrysalis nodded as they both picked up a brisk pace down the hall, reaching the end of the hall in a couple of seconds, where they turned for right yet again.

“Doesn’t this look familiar to you?” Chrysalis asked, as Dash sighed loudly.

After turning the corner, the two met with the same hall, and the same rooms. Neither had been looking for it, but couldn’t stop seeing it once they realized that was the case. They both confirmed it as they checked their rooms. Same fold in the bed, same clothing, same carpet, same drapes.

“Oh buck…” Dash said as her and Chrysalis looked to each other, “Um… What do we do now?”

“Well, we’ve only gone up a single level,” Chrysalis said, pointing to the windows, “Flying down, no matter how dark, should not be an issue.”

“The rooms on the left face the outside of the building,” Dash said, seeing that only her side of the hallway contained windows, as she walked inside, and pulled the drapes aside, “Wait, why can’t I see out there?”

Chrysalis joined her at the window in the first room, and squinted out the window, in an effort to see what was below them. At first, she thought that the light in the room was simply too bright for her eyes to adjust to the outside world, but she quickly realized that wasn’t the case.

“The glass is black,” She said suddenly, changing her angle, to look at the glass across its length, “That’s why we couldn’t see any light while we were outside.”

“Well then…” Dash said, flipping up the lock on the window, and lifting it upward, shining light on the world outside, “Here we go!”

”Dashie.”

Just below them, stood who they could only assume was Pinkie Pie. However, she was different from the last time they saw her. Her coat looked burned in several places, and was a black where skin was exposed, as if portions of her coat had been burned off.

The body only stood in place, and started laughing.

Suddenly, she was completely engulfed in flames.

But she didn’t stop laughing.

Her voice only deepened, and deepened, as the fire consumed more and more of her body, until neither her voice, nor her body resembled the mare Dash considered to be one of her best friends.

Dash backed away and let the window slam down.

Dash panted loudly, looking to the equally horrified queen, “What’s doing this? Who has a mind sick enough to do something like this?”

Then, as if a light bulb turned on in Chrysalis’s head, she had the answer.

“I think I have an idea.” She said, looking to the hallway, “And I think I know what we need to do.”

“W…what?” Dash asked, panting as she recovered from her ordeal, “Who is it?”

“Just give me a couple of minutes,” Chrysalis said, looking around the bedroom, as she inspected every inch of detail, “Because if it’s who I think it is—“

“Would you just tell me?!” Dash said, obviously impatient, and not wanting to be left in the dark.

Chrysalis sighed, and turned toward the mare, “One of my council members, Cancer.”

“Why?” She asked simply.

“All of this.” Chrysalis said, gesturing to the window, and the twisted world around them , “He’s always thought of physiological warfare to be one of the most proficient, and begged me to employ it in some fights. But even I was against what he would suggest to me.”

“He suggested stuff like this?!” Dash asked, “Why didn’t you have his butt committed to a hospital?”

“He didn’t suggest this exactly,” Chrysalis said, shaking her head, “But he often spoke of having our undercover soldiers study leaders of other armies, and then use spells to manipulate their brainwaves, and show them horrible things involving loved ones, leading them to have mental breakdowns, and cause significant blows to morale. It’s too similar to be a coincidence.”

“That’s sick!” Dash shouted, shocked that such a kind of warfare could even exist, “Did the whole council disagree with him?”

“No,” Chrysalis shook her head, “I had to veto his plan myself. Everypony else on the council, save Taurus, voted for it to be put to use. However, I was having none of it.”

“Thank goodness,” Dash said, happy that Chrysalis wasn’t quite all bad, “But what was in this room that you were looking for then?”

“A switch,” She said, as Dash frowned and tilted her head, “He has a fondness for secrets. I get reports of him vanishing for hours without a trace from my scouts. And after some searching late at night, I discovered a secret passageway in his office, operated by a statue bust of his grandfather.”

“So… you think there might be a secret in one of these rooms?” Dash asked.

“I’d like to think so, this entire house looks exactly like his office in my castle,” Chrysalis said, looking across the hall, “Of course, I could be wrong about all of this, and we’ll be stuck in this hallway for the rest of our lives.”

“That’s not the attitude we need,” Dash said, shaking her head quickly, “Let’s rip these rooms apart, and find the way out of this horrible place!”

////

“That’s the same thing from Rainbow Dash and Rarity!” Pinkie said, as they walked away from the Carousel Boutique once again, “They’re acting like nothing is wrong with this world!”

“Fluttershy isn’t too far from here,” Trixie said, pointing to the dirt path that would take them down to the Everfree forest, “She… might be there.”

Pinkie sighed herself, hearing the clear loss of ‘oomph’ in Trixie’s tone, “We’ll make that last trip… then we’ll sit down and make a new plan. Because I don’t think our friends are here with us at all.”

“Sure thing, Pinkie.” Trixie nodded, as they started on their path down to their friends’ cottage, “Hey, would you mind if I kept talking about my friend Aurora? It was really nice getting that story out.”

“Of course!” Pinkie said, nodding quickly, before covering her mouth, “I mean- of course not!”

Trixie laughed once again at the mare, pausing for a moment to really appreciate Pinkie for who she was. Here the two of them were, in this crazy world, as she still kept the two of them laughing at every turn. She simply radiated positivity. Trixie loved it.

“Well, where was I…” Trixie began, remembering that she had stopped just after her introduction with Aurora, “Ah, yes. She had just taken me in, and helped get me back to one hundred percent so I could go back out on my journey.”

“She sounds super nice,” Pinkie said politely, trying to tone down her usual level of energy.

“Well, after sleeping that first night at her house, I ended up waking up to her moving around at about five in the morning,” Trixie said, blinking rapidly at the memory of how tired she had been, “She was packing up some vegetables from a garden behind her house, and getting them ready to take in to town.”

“Why so early?” Pinkie asked.

“Well, she always told me that ‘the early bird gets the worm,’” Trixie said, turning down on to the main road to Fluttershy’s cottage, “But… to be honest, what she had grown wasn’t the best looking food you might see at a market. Her garden wasn’t too big, and she couldn’t afford to be picky with what she sold.”

“That’s sad,” Pinkie frowned, “How much did she sell?”

“She told me to go back to sleep, and that she would be back in a few hours,” Trixie recalled, frowning once again, “But even well past lunch, there was still no sign of her.”

Pinkie nodded along as she kept close to her friend.

“So, being the remarkable mare that I was, I set out to look for her. I was worried something might have happened, to be honest.” Trixie said, happy that she had had that level of caring all those years ago, “Eventually, after browsing the rest of the town for a few hours, I finally found her, standing in the market, with a big smile across her face… and not a single piece of food sold.”

“Aww…” Pinkie said quietly.

“It was a sad sight, that’s for sure,” Trixie agreed, clearing her throat before beginning again, “But when she saw me, she still acted as if it was the best day of her life. She ran over to me, gave me a hug… I knew then that something about this mare was special.”

“She sounds special,” Pinkie smiled, unsure if she would be able to maintain her own composure in a situation where nopony would buy the food she had made.

“Well, even though I hardly knew her, it was then that I decided that I wasn’t leaving town until this mare was up on her hooves.” Trixie said, “Between her old, falling apart house, and lack of selling food, it didn’t take a genius to figure out the kind of situation she was in.”

“Sooooo,” Pinkie said, beaming, “You decided to help her out of her tough jam! I knew you were a good pony way back then!”

“Well, to be honest, you and your friends had thrown me for such a loop, that I was looking for a change of pace,” Trixie said, clearing her throat as they passed by some fake townsponies, “So I stuck around with her for, well, what I had originally thought would be a couple of days…”

“Got sucked in, huh?” Pinkie asked.

“A bit,” Trixie giggled, “She was so happy to have me around… it was a little intoxicating.”

“It always feels nice to be needed,” Pinkie said, nodding, “Since I babysat Pound and Pumpkin, they’re always sooo excited to see me! I wish I could spend more time with them!”

“You know, I think that’s how all babies are,” Trixie said, pointing to Pinkie’s stomach, “Why not have a kid yourself?”

Pinkie blinked a couple of times, as all expression fell from her face.

“I… don’t think I’m quite ready for that,” She said a little too fast, obviously still mulling it over, “I mean, I don’t even know any stallions that might be interested in me!”

“I’ve seen plenty of guys look your way when you go bouncing past,” Trixie said, having a few memories of guys eyeing her a little too much, “I don’t think you’d have trouble finding a coltfriend.”

“Guys look at me?!” Pinkie asked excitedly, suddenly stopping and bringing her face to within an inch of Trixie’s, “Do you know what they say about me?”

“Uhh,” Trixie began, looking away from Pinkie awkwardly, “Nope! No idea.”

“Aww, come on! I’m a big girl!” Pinkie said, “Do they say gross stuff?”

“Well, some of it is pretty raunchy.” Trixie said, sighing as she pulled the lines from her memory, “Like, since you eat so much, well… you know where that’s going.”

“Sure do!” Pinkie said, her usual smile on her face, only serving to confuse Trixie more, “What else?”

Trixie coughed, “Well, one said something about… ‘not sticking it in crazy.’”

“Oh yeah! I’ve heard that one too!” She agreed, as Trixie looked even more mystified than before, “Anything… else?”

“Nothing else really…” Trixie said, tilting her head, “But you sound like you know most of that stuff already.”

“I’ve just heard it all before about other mares from those guys,” Pinkie shrugged, her smile fading a bit, “I was hoping they’d have nicer things to say.”

“Oh, well don’t worry! At least you get compliments! None of the guys in town have even noticed—“

“Are you crazy? Or deaf?” Pinkie asked, giving Trixie a shocked look, “The guys never shut up about you!”

Trixie suddenly, and very visibly blushed, “R-really?”

“They’re always saying that you’d be the ultimate prize,” Pinkie laughed, as the blue mare simply stood in place with her mouth agape, “But then they always say that you shoot them down, and that you’re really mean.”

“Shoot down?” Trixie asked, shaking her head, “I’ve never shot a stallion down! Not in Ponyville anyway…”

“They were probably making it up then,” Pinkie giggled, “Those guys just wanna look macho!”

“Um,w-Which ones are saying those things?” Trixie asked, “I’d like to have a word with them when I get back.”

“I’ll introduce you next time they’re in Sugarcube Corner,” Pinkie said, grinning at the thought of them being taught a lesson, “Anyway, why don’t you continue your story? We still have a couple of minutes before we reach Fluttershy.”

“Oh, sure…” Trixie said, shaking her head clear of all the perverts in Ponyville, “Where was I?”

“You had just seen her at the market, and decided to stay for little longer,” Pinkie filled in.

“Right, sorry.” Trixie said, clearing her throat once again, “So, after a few more hours, I finally convinced Aurora to come back to her house with me. She didn’t make a penny the entire day, but that didn’t stop her from being happy for one second.”

Pinkie nodded along with the story as Trixie continued.

“When we got back, I asked her how she felt about me using some of my magic to improve her produce,” Trixie said, “I knew some ponies look down on enhancing food, and Aurora made it incredibly clear that she wouldn’t be doing it.”

“I always thought tomatoes taste funny when they’re all filled with magic,” Pinkie said, licking her lips, “But I’d still love to go for one!”

“Well, she turned down my offer, and told me that she needed to simply ‘market’ herself a little better.” Trixie said, “So, you can imagine how I got myself involved with that.”

“Veggies that were officially endorsed by the ‘Great and Powerful Trixie?’” Pinkie asked.

“Oh yes,” Trixie nodded with a broad smile, “And back then, I was still referring to myself in the third person! It was quite the spectacle.”

“You still do that a little bit,” Pinkie pointed out, grinning to the mare, as she nodded and laughed, “But I think it’s funny.”

“Well, I talked that way for most of my life,” Trixie said, “I always thought it made me sound smarter.”

“Uhhh, I wouldn’t exactly say that,” Pinkie said.

“I’m, working on it,” Trixie laughed again, before pausing as a thought crossed her mind, “Say, Pinkie… Does anypony think I’m still, well, mean? Or pretentious? ”

“Um, I don’t think so.” Pinkie said, shaking her head, “Why do you ask?”

“Well, back when I was living with Aurora, a lot of ponies gave me a lot of trouble over it,” she said, suddenly grimacing at the thought, “It’s one of the reasons why I left after she… um, well, you know.”

Pinkie only nodded, seeing that Trixie had once again put herself in a bit of a rut.

“Hey, why don’t we take a few more minutes before we jump back in to the story, alright?” Pinkie asked,

“Sure,” Trixie said, sighing quietly, “Thanks, Pinkie.”

“No problem.” She beamed.

////

Aries stood in the Canterlot throne room, looking out through a stained glass window that he had broken in order to get a view of the beautiful city at sunset.

“Someday, I’ll be here,” Aries said to himself, “Then we’ll see who’s the weak one, father.”

“Who are you talking to?” A voice came from behind him, as he whipped around to face Scorpios.

“This world is so insane, I wondered if my father might be able to hear me,” Aries answered, walking away from the window, “What did you need?”

“I wanted to know what it was that you did to that orange mare,” Scorpios said, “It looked like you were about to do some mad science experiment before you sent me off.”

“Her name is Applejack, and I was testing a new spell on her,” Aries said, pulling up a series of journal entries that were written by his father while he still held the position of ‘Aries.’ “My father was experimenting on what he categorized as a mega spell. He called it the Syphon.”

“Syphon?” Scoprios asked, “What the hell does it do?”

“It… eats magic,” Aries said, “It’s nothing that you need to know about.”

“Are you kidding me?” She asked, “You’re going to leave me in the dark?”

“Indeed.” He nodded.

Scorpios growled, and turned around to storm out of the room.

“Wait,” Aries said instantly, “What was it you wanted again?”

“I wanted to know what you did to Applejack.” Scorpios said, refusing to turn around to face him.

“Oh, right.” Aries said, almost able to hear his father scolding him for losing focus again, “Well, my experiment left her physically exhausted. Short of a couple of minutes of talking, she’s going to be unconscious for a good week, regardless of what her doppelganger is doing with Virgo.”

Scorpios didn’t answer. She simply stomped out of the room, slamming the huge door behind her.

Aries couldn’t trust her with any information on his mega spell yet. The Syphon was his ticket to winning the war for the hive.

“You know, father.” Aries spoke back up, happy to be alone once again, “You may have been afraid of this spell, but when I use it, and Equestria witnesses it’s majesty, you’ll understand why it needed to be used. Magic cancelling is only the beginning. I’ll finally be able to control Chaos itself.”

Imagining the argument his father would use against him, Aries had his rebuttal ready.

“This world would fall in line behind me,” Aries said, “The only drawback of using the Syphon to gain that power right now, would be killing the Elements of Harmony and the rest of the council.”

Again, his imaginary father argued with him.

“Don’t worry,” Aries said to nopony, “I’m not willing to do that just yet. Once Animosity is done with Alex, I’m going to see if I can’t just take it right from her with my PDA.”

“But if that doesn’t work… well, all bets are off.”

////

Twilight wished she had access to some of her more advanced magical texts from her home. Taurus had given her the ability to use magic back, but wouldn’t budge on letting her use his magical manipulator. He was trying to walk a line of loyalty between two conflicting factions.

“Listen, if I could just look at the magical manipulator, then I might be able to work something out!” Twilight said for the tenth time.

“I can’t let you run rampant here,” He said, shaking his head as he pressed several buttons on his device, reading whatever information was popping up on the screen, “Experiment with your spells. See what results you come up with.”

“I’ve tried all of my strongest spells!” Twilight countered, “You watched me! Chaotic magic is naturally more powerful than harmonious!”

“Are you saying that it would be impossible for you to overpower the barriers keeping us in?” He asked, looking up from his watch to her.

“Well, no.” She shook her head, “If I could muster enough magic into a single point, I might be able to rupture the magical field creating this world, and then the two of us could exit through it.”

“I don’t suppose you’ll simply do that?” He asked.

“Of course not!” She said, “And leave my friends with those monsters? Besides, I don’t even know if the spell would work!”

Taurus rubbed his eyes and shrugged past the insult, “Look, if you could do that, we could go to Canterlot and enlist the help of Celestia and Luna. They might be able to—“

“They were monitoring this mission carefully,” Twilight sighed, wishing that his idea had more merit, “They’ll be aware of our situation.”

“What else can I do then?” He asked, “Nopony here has any experience with this kind of magic. I thought having you in here with me would give me the best chance at fixing this problem.”

“Why me?” She asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Well, you’re renowned across the world for being Celestia’s star pupil.” He said, a little surprised that she wasn’t aware of that, “You’re considered to be an incredibly intelligent pony.”

“Oh- thanks,” Twilight said, having not expected that answer, “But, to be honest, chaotic magic is probably one of my weakest fields of study.”

“After all that’s happened to you, I thought you would have extensively researched the subject,” He said, a little surprised at her ignorance.

“Well, I really did try,” Twilight said, “But the information was scattered… only a chapter here and there in some ancient texts. And at the time I was trying, somepony else always seemed to be checking out the books before I could get the chance.”

“That’s inconvenient timing,” He said, “Was it Celestia or Luna?”

“No, it was Rainbow Dash,” Twilight answered, “It was just after Alex was turned to stone by Discord. She went mental trying to learn as much about petrification and chaotic magic as she could.”

“So… you’re saying I picked the wrong horse?” Taurus asked, laughing to himself slightly, “And to think I passed her off in favour of you.”

“Geeze,” Twilight said, frowning at the way he was talking, “What, did you guys all fight over us? To decide who went where? Don’t you think that’s a little weird?”

“Well, some of my comrades wanted to mess with your friends,” he said, thinking to Virgo and suddenly scowling, “Others… wanted to do some other things.”

Twilight narrowed her gaze, “And what is that supposed to mean?”

Taurus opened his mouth to respond, but the device on his wrist started beeping rapidly, as he looked to it with a measure of panic.

“Okay you need to wait for a second here,” He said, gesturing for her to hide behind a pillar, “The other members are trying to contact me, and they can’t know I’ve found you.”

Twilight only nodded as she stepped backward into a shadowed part of the room.

Pressing a button on the side of the device, an image projected on to the sandstone wall, showing the faces of the other four members.

“I need a situation update,” Aries said, his face glaring at the other four members, “Where are we with our prisoners? Scorpios, you first.”

“We just talked like, two minutes ago!” Scorpios said, “Do you want me to repeat our conversation?”

“No!” Aries shouted a little louder than he meant to, “Would you just give us a progress update?”

“Alex has been located, and is being conditioned as we speak,” Scorpios said, chuckling to herself, “He didn’t even try to fight it!”

“Good to hear,” Aries said, “He’ll be a valuable asset once Fluttershy poisons his mind enough.”

“Chrysalis and the Royal Captain are in the house with me,” Cancer said, as a twisted smile grew on his face, “I’ve also decided to show Chrysalis what she passed up on when she denied by psychological warfare idea.”

“Good,” Aries said again, an equally horrifying smile on his face, “I want Chrysalis broken before we return home. And if that means… damaging either one of them, do it.”

“It’ll be my pleasure—“

“What do you mean?” Taurus asked, looking to the leader, “We agreed that nopony was going to be killed when we came to this world!”

“Did I say kill!?” Aries shouted back to him, taking Taurus aback slightly, “No… Give her the same treatment as our dear friend Marick. Just make a show of it.”

“But—“

“You’ll speak when spoken to!” Aries shouted, “Now! Virgo, how are your visitors faring?”

“The wedding for my sweet country mare is coming right along,” He said, chuckling, as each member grimaced at the pleasure he was taking in this, “Tonight is going to be—“

“We have no desire to hear your plan to copulate with the Element of Harmony,” Scorpios cut in, growling at him, “Are both of your targets secure?”

“I don’t know!” He whined, “The world populated before I found her! How can I find her when that stupid spell erased my memory of what she looked like?”

“Why would you add people to the world before you found one of the targets?” Aries asked, “It’s no wonder you’ve lost them!”

“I didn’t do it! I thought it was you!” He responded.

“Hmm, odd.” Aries said, “I thought we had all the control here. Another surprise, I suppose.”

“When she arrives, I’m sure she’ll make a show of it.” He said dismissively, “Perhaps I’ll condition her as well, and have fun with two elements.”

Twilight, who was still hiding in the corner couldn’t believe what she was hearing. One of the council members was going to… marry Applejack? That was very bad news. But it sounded like somepony else was there with her. And what had they said about Rainbow Dash and Alpha? She had a lot more questions to ask now.

“Fine,” Aries said, scoffing, “Taurus, where are your guests?”

Twilight held her breath.

“I haven’t found her yet,” He lied, keeping his poker face on expertly, “There’s nothing but desert here, if I need to locate her, she’ll be easy to pick out.”

“Do you know what she looks like?” Scorpios asked.

“Yes,” He responded, “Twilight Sparkle is a purple mare. A color that hardly blends in with anything in this world. I have a note saved in my PDA in regards to her.”

“So that’s how he recognized me,” Twilight muttered to herself.

“And what of Marick?” Aries asked.

“He was… dealt with.” Taurus answered, “He won’t be an issue for us at this point in time.”

“Good,” Scorpios said, looking to Aries, “Have you found your targets?”

“I located Trixie and Pinkie myself,” Aries said, “They’re exploring Ponyville as we speak, trying to piece together their situation. I suppose I should check on them. If the worlds are filling up with ponies, something may have changed in my area since I last checked.”

“What are your plans for them?” Taurus spoke up again, earning a glare from the leader.

“I have no desire to torture either of these ponies,” He said, “I’ll leave them to wander until we find a way out of this world. If I need them for some reason, I’ll obtain them. In the meantime, I plan on working on my new spell. I might be able to use this world to my advantage.”

“Spell?” Twilight muttered again, “That doesn’t sound good…”

“Good,” Cancer said, as a loud knock was heard from his side of the call, “Oh, they’re looking for me! I’ll have to let you all go.”

“Alright,” Aries said, “Do what you wish with your prisoners; just make sure they’re all alive when we leave. Equestria will be at our mercy with them as bargaining chips... or weapons.”

“And find the last mare!” Scorpios shouted to Virgo, “We can’t have somepony running amok in this world, especially when we don’t fully understand this place.”

“Yeah yeah,” He said, yawning in to the screen, “I’ll see you all tomorrow after the wedding.”

The four screens projected on the wall each shut off, as Taurus pressed a button on his device, shutting it down completely.

“Listen, Twilight—“

“Don’t give me that!” Twilight shouted, stepping out from her hiding place, “I’m going to give you exactly two choices.”

“Listen—“

“You are going to come with me, and help me save my friends,” She said, approaching him with a scowl, “Or I’m going to knock you out, take your device, and do it myself!”

Taurus sighed, “Maybe that would be best.”

“…Are you serious?” She asked, a large measure of her rage was dispelled by his attitude, “I-I don’t understand you!”

“Well, I’d say that not many ponies do,” He said, “Listen, after hearing that, I know you can’t stand by and let your friends be hurt, or married off to that pathetic creature. Do what you need to do.”

“W-why?” Twilight asked, “How can you be on the fence at a time like this? Do you have a cutie mark in indecision or something?”

“I don’t have an indecisive bone in my body,” Taurus said, as if somepony had lit a fire in his eyes, as he slammed his hoof in to the floor, “But my position in the council has forced me to act as such. A betrayal to these ponies would result in far reaching implications.”

Twilight opened her mouth to ask, but quickly realized just what he meant.

“Now, the others won’t be expecting contact from me until tomorrow morning,” Taurus said, levitating the device from his wrist, and wrapping it around Twilight’s, “If anypony asks, you attacked me, and knocked me out.”

Twilight knew that he was doing all of this to protect his family from the wrath of the council. He was trying to walk the line between helping her, and protecting those he loved.

“The menu on the device is a little bit complicated,” he said, walking over to her and looking over her shoulder as she blindly pressed a couple of buttons.

“Okay, I’ll do my best to explain this to you,” He said, “Let’s start with the basics.”

////

It was now late in to the night, and Rarity was still busy working with the brainwashed Applejack and their nameless friend, as the wife-to-be couldn’t seem to make up her mind on what she wanted to do with her makeup for her wedding tomorrow.

“Well, I don’t want something too dark,” AJ said, wiping the eye shadow from her face, as she looked over her massive amounts of makeup, “I don’t want to give him the wrong impression.”

“Something tells me that he won’t care one way or the other,” Rarity sighed, trying to contain her anger over the situation, so she wasn’t kicked out of the room.

Applejack simply wouldn’t shut up about Virgo, and how amazing he was. And on top of that, she had refused to go with any makeup styles Rarity had suggested, even though each one complimented her in a completely different- yet amazing way. At this point in her rage, Rarity wasn’t sure if it was AJ’s infatuation, or beauty that was feeding it more.

“Oh, that one looks nice!” The filly said, pointing to a much paler purple than the last one that was just on, “It’s nowhere near as dark!”

“No, I already tried that one,” Applejack shook her head, “Remember? I said I needed it to be darker!”

“Oh yeah!” the girl giggled, as AJ laughed along with her, “You’re no good at this!”

“I know,” AJ agreed, “I’ve spent my whole life not caring how I look. But it’s nice to let myself go once in a while.”

“Yeah!” The filly smiled brightly.

“What do you think, Rarity?” AJ asked, “What would be good to try next?”

“Hmm?” Rarity said, as she was snapped away from her thoughts, “Oh, try the one in between the two. I know it doesn’t look as good in the kit, but judge it once it’s on your face, not before.”

“Okay! Thanks so much for the help, Rarity.” AJ said, as Rarity simply looked away again from the pair, and went back in to her mind, “Hmm…”

“Let me try it on too!” The filly said, rubbing the color on her hoof, and softly applying it to her eyelid.

“Wow!” AJ said encouragingly, “That looks great on you!”

“Thanks,” She smiled back, “Now you try!”

Rarity listened to the two, and sighed once again. It was hard to formulate a plan with all these conflicting thoughts in her head. The truth was, Applejack needed to be rescued, and it simply didn’t matter what she was wearing, or how she looked. Nevertheless, how did you rescue somepony who doesn’t want to be saved?

“I wish Spike was here…” Rarity said quietly, refusing to let herself cry at a time like this, “I wish anypony was here.”

If only she could find her friends. For all she knew, they were all in the dungeon of this castle, and she was their only hope. What if she failed? What if Applejack ended up marring this scummy guy? This was honestly the most terrifying moment Rarity had been in her entire life. Sure, she had been in tough situations before, but her friends were always there with her. Even the time it had been her and Avarice. The two had worked together, and defeated Nightmare Moon.

However, this was different. Now, she was truly alone, trying to fight against a force that wanted nothing to do with the fight. Maybe waiting was the best option… but Applejack would end up married to this guy… But! this might not have even been her friend. After all, this mare was nothing like Applejack. Maybe she was just a product of this insane world, and the council.

But what if she was wrong, and that was her friend?

“Oh, Celestia.” Rarity said, inhaling unsteadily as she closed her eyes and felt just one tear run down her cheek, “Somepony help me… please.”

“Is everything alright, sugar cube?” AJ asked, as Rarity suddenly looked up to her with wide eyes.

“W-what did you say?” Rarity asked.

“I asked if everything was alright.” She responded, sitting down next to her, “Something is definitely bothering you.”

Rarity didn’t respond. She just looked at her with bewilderment.

Sugar cube

“I-I’m sorry.” Rarity responded, wiping the tear from her cheek, “I’m just thinking of my own boyfriend, and how i wonder if I’ll ever have a wedding this beautiful. I guess you could say I’m envious.”

“Oh, don’t worry yourself about that,” She said, placing a hoof on Rarity’s shoulder, “I’m going to be a queen soon! I’m sure I’ll be able to pull some strings for you.”

Applejack smiled to her, and gave Rarity all the confidence she needed.

“Thank you,” Rarity smiled back, sniffing lightly as she stood up and gave the mare a soft hug.

“No problem,” She said, “Now why don’t you try on makeup with us?”

“Okay,” Rarity nodded, “I think I’d like that.”

The three set off on seeing who wore which makeup the best, while Rarity formulated her plan to keep things from going forward tomorrow. She would work out a plan to get AJ out of this place… and if she didn’t, well, she passed an armoury on her way through this never ending castle, and she was sure she could find her way back.

One way or another, Rarity was taking her friend back.

////

“Now, did you know that the Hive was attacked by Equestria seven different times over the past year?” Animosity asked him, as Alex blinked heavily, trying to keep himself from dozing off again.

“I know that the Council says stuff like that,” Alex said, rolling his eyes, “But the truth is, there have been zero attacks. I was an Alpha in the army for a year! I know all about the bullshit tactics here.”

“But you’re wrong,” She said, approaching his desk and narrowing her eyes, “So very, very wrong.”

Alex felt his head go a little fuzzy as she started at him. She was exuding some kind of power from herself, and it was really messing with his head.

“W-why are you doing this, Fluttershy?” Alex asked, “I thought you cared about us…”

“I care about my friends,” She said somewhat cruelly, “I care about very little else.”

Alex frowned. She was simply under the control of the council. But he was desperately hoping that she would come to her senses somehow, before he had to finish with this ten hour class. Nothing was more important to him than getting home, and spending some quality time with his lovely bed.

Animosity growled, as if Alex had just articulated his thoughts out loud.

“You aren’t taking this seriously enough,” She said, turning around as her wings started to glow black, “Every time I think you’re not paying enough attention, or giving me attitude, you’re going to get a little shock.”

“Shock? What do you—“

Suddenly, Alex felt a surge of energy run through his left arm, as he crumpled on to his desk, hissing in pain.

“S-stop!” Alex managed to say, as his teacher relented, and allowed him freedom from his pain.

“Now, I hope you’ll be more interested in your lesson.” She said, not looking back to him, as a piece of chalk levitated off her table, and she began writing on the black board, “Now, we’re going to go over the many triumphs of the hive over the outside world.”

Alex’s breathing was labored as he looked up from his desk to the front of the class. How easy would it be to just… knock her out? Without magic, he couldn’t do it.

While most of his magic was gone, he could still feel a little swirling around in his head. It wasn’t enough to make any kind of spell, but if he could focus on building up a little more, he might be able to mix some chaotic, and harmonious magic together, and cast something with a little more bang for his buck. It wouldn’t be easy to do, but it might just do the trick.

Problem was, he needed to focus to achieve this goal. And he needed to focus hard.

But how would he do that, when his teacher was going to electrocute him for not focusing on her? He always sucked in school.

“So, Alex.” She said, turning around suddenly, confident that he hadn’t been listening to what she just said.

“Huh?” Alex said, looking up, trying his best to keep his composure, “What was the question?”

“What battle did the Hive famously win over the Zebra nation, giving them their very first hoof hold on the continent?” She asked, a wicked smirk on her face, as she anticipated shocking him once again.

“That was the battle of Dusk Gap,” Alex said, waving his hoof in the air dismissively.

“That’s… right.” She growled to herself. How on earth did he know that answer?

“Well, if you were listening so well, then tell me who led the assault!” She challenged, having only said the answer to her question once.

“That iron pony,” Alex said, trying his best to work on half brainpower, “Uhh, Alpha Saladin I think.”

She frowned again. Had he really been listening?

“One more question, before we continue the lesson,” She said, smiling inwardly as she asked him for something she hadn’t explained whatsoever, “How was the battle commemorated, after we had claimed victory?”

“The surviving soldiers, uh, got weapons made from the armor of their fallen comrades,” Alex said, as if it was common knowledge, “It was a seriously powerful weapon called, Galla- Gally- Gjallar- I don’t quite remember.”

“How could you know that!?” Animosity suddenly shouted, as Alex turned his attention completely to her, losing the grip he held on his magic, “Are you cheating in my classroom? Do you know what I do to cheaters?”

“How could I cheat?” Alex asked, looking at her like she was crazy, “I just… know the subject!”

Alex had to admit, working as an Alpha for as long as he had, gave him a surprisingly large amount of knowledge on the topic he was currently being quizzed on.

Hell, if he could keep this up, he would be able to beat anything she threw at him! Chrysalis had spent hours reading reports, and talking about battle history with him while he was under her control! All he had to do was remember everything Chrysalis had told him, and he would pass this class in no time!

“Fine,” She growled, looking at a sheet of paper on her desk at the front of the class, “Alright. I’ll move us on to a new subject then.”

Alex smirked. Whatever she had, he could pass it no problem.

“We’re going to go over…”

This was going to be easy—

“Math.” She said, looking at him with a smirk of her own.

“Shit.”

////

Chrysalis knocked along the wall, looking for any sign of a secret that might be concealed within the particular bedroom she was standing in.

“What are you doing?” Dash asked, entering the room and tilting her head, “There’s like, a million walls you would need to knock on to cover this entire place.”

“Not true,” Chrysalis shook her head, as she continued on with her task, “Believe it or not, every other wall on this floor is connected to something we can already reach.”

“What do you mean?” Dash asked, as she began pulling various books on the bookshelf, looking for a secret switch.

“Well, the wall on the other side of this room for example, there’s no missing space in between the two rooms,” She said, gesturing behind her, “If you went next door, you would hear me knocking right on the other side, because the rooms are side by side.”

“Duh,” Dash said simply, checking moving down a shelf and continuing her investigation.

“Well,” Chrysalis sighed, rolling her eyes at the juvenile response, “There is a stretch of hallway with no rooms after this room we’re in, before the floor repeats itself once again.”

“And...?”

“And, why, if there are no more rooms, can I hear an echo on the other side of this wall?” She asked, finally looking over her shoulder and cocking an eyebrow to Dash.

“Oh, maybe it’s empty space,” Dash shrugged, “Or a tall room on the floor below us.”

“That may be the case,” Chrysalis said, “But I’m afraid it’s all I have at the moment.”

“Well, maybe we could—“

Dash was silenced by the sound of a door slamming down the hall from them.

Looking to one another, they both ran at full speed backward down the hall, until they came to the room with the closed door.

Both simply stood outside silently, before simultaneously looking to one another.

“What are you waiting for?” Dash asked.

“W-what are you waiting for?” Chrysalis asked, “You are the captain of the royal guard, after all.”

“You’re the changeling queen! You’re used to seeing freaky stuff!” Dash said back.

“How about this,” She sighed, “I’ll open the door, and you look inside.”

Dash wasn’t sure she liked that proposition.

“How about I open the door, and you look inside!” She said back, as the queen sighed loudly.

“Fine,” Chrysalis said, obviously scared to see whatever went inside, “Just- open it fast!”

Wasting no time, Dash walked beside the door, reached out a hoof, and slammed it in to the door, sending it flying open.

Chrysalis flinched slightly, as she looked to see if one of those rotting monstrosities had gone inside. But, to her surprise, the room was empty. Well, as far as she could see.

“What’s in there?!” Dash called, not daring step out from the protection of the wall.

“I don’t see anything,” Chrysalis said, walking to the left, allowing her view of corner of the room, “Perhaps it was just the wind…”

“What wind?” Dash asked, as she carefully stepped away from the wall, “The air in here hasn’t moved since we got here.”

“Well, we should—wait.” Chrysalis said, looking at the bed, “There’s something new in the room.”

“What is it?” Dash asked, stepping next to the queen, and following her gaze, “Oh yeah! On the bed!”

On the neatly made bed, there was a single piece of paper, one that had most certainly not been there before.

“So… are you gonna go in there and get it?” Dash asked.

“Me? I looked!” Chrysalis said, “Just fly in really fast!”

“Oh, yeah!” Dash said, feeling a surge of confidence at the familiarity of moving fast, “I can do that!”

Flexing her wings and stretching her back, Dash certainly took her sweet time getting ready to move in to the room.

Chrysalis would have complained, but didn’t want to end up having to go inside.

“Alright, if something tries to attack you in the next half second, I’m sorry I wasn’t fast enough to save you,” Dash said, smiling as the queen gave a short, single ‘ha.’

“I have a hard time believing that even you are that fast.” Chrysalis said.

Dash only narrowed her eyes.

Leaning forward, she fluttered her wings a bit to make some air movement, before exploding a gust of air behind her, propelling herself in to the room at a speed Chrysalis would have thought impossible before this very moment.

Expertly, Dash grabbed the paper from the bed with her hoof, while she broke her speed with one wing, causing her body to rotate around and face the door she had come in. And as soon as her hind legs made contact with the wall behind her, she launched herself off of them, sending her out of the room, where she broke instantly, and landed.

Chrysalis blinked rapidly. The entire trip had perhaps taken a second and a half. A whole three times longer than she had boasted. This mare should have been running the Wonderbolts. Not the royal guard.

“Are you gonna just stand there slack-jawed all day?” Dash asked, holding back on her laughter, “Or are we going to read this paper?”

Shaking her head, Chrysalis regained her composure, and cleared her throat.

“Of course,” She said, walking over, as Dash placed the sheet on the floor, “What does it say?”

Dash read the note aloud, “Inside each room contains one thing that doesn’t belong. Look closely, as they are very easy to miss. Each one will have a word inscribed on it. Combine the words to form a sentence, and then read it aloud in the room you found the final word. This will open the path you seek.”

“Cancer.” Chrysalis growled, seeing the signature on the bottom of the page, “I’ll have his head for putting us through this gauntlet.”

“I thought we checked the rooms pretty thoroughly,” Dash said, trying to steer the queen’s thoughts away from murder, “Did you see anything that didn’t belong?”

“No,” Chrysalis shook her head, “But I was looking for secret doors… not toy cars.”

“Well then!” Dash said, humming to herself, “How many rooms are there before the hallway repeats itself?”

“Ten, I believe.” Chrysalis said.

“Well, why don’t we start looking?” Dash said, “I hate to be playing some freak’s games, but it’s not like we have a choice.”

“Agreed,” Chrysalis nodded, “The sooner we figure this out, the sooner we escape this hell.”

Dash was about to start heading toward the first room in the rotation, when she noticed some ink on the other side of the page that had started to bleed through the page.

“That’s weird, that wasn’t there before,” Dash said, biting the page and flipping it over.

“You ought to hurry, because I opened the front door, and your friends are making their way up.”

Chrysalis and Dash looked to each other with panic, as they both stood in silence, listening.

”Dashie.”

Pinkie’s twisted, emotionless voice was easily heard through the floor.

“How could they reach us?” Dash asked, “This hall never ends!”

“We got here somehow,” Chrysalis said, shaking her head rapidly, “Something tells me that they’re going to be on the same path.”

“Then we’ve got no time to lose!” Dash said, pointing to the room at the end of the hall, “I’ll start there, you start right here. There’s no way I’m dying this young!”

The two both bolted in to their rooms, and started checking every nook and cranny they could find, hoping they would recognize what they were looking for when they saw it.

////

Chet sighed as he continued on his trip down the hallway. It simply didn’t ever end.

“If I wasn’t going in a straight line, I’d swear that I was going in circles,” Chet said, keeping up his brisk pace, ignoring the beginnings of his hunger pains, “Is anyone there?!”

Again, his voice echoed down the hall, and had no response.

“God damn it,” He sighed, finally stopping, and sitting down on his rump, and leaning his head against a wall, “I hate this world, if I get out of here alive, I’m never coming back.”

As a response, his stomach growled loudly.

“Crap,” Chet said, closing his eyes for a moment as he pictured being back at home, eating a big steak, “Why couldn’t I have gotten a horn? Then I could… I dunno, magic myself to safety. Or even magic myself a doughnut.”

Suddenly, a sound barely grazed Chet’s ears. It was so quiet, he wasn’t even sure if it had been there in the first place.

Standing up, he shouted once again, “Hello?”

Then, he stood still for a solid fifteen seconds, not daring make an noise as he concentrated on the air around him.

Then he heard it again. It sounded far off, but that was all he needed.

Bolting down the hall at max speed, he covered distance at triple the pace he had been at before. It truly did surprise him how fast he was able to go in this body.

“Hello? Is someone there?!” Chet shouted again, listening for a few seconds, and feeling his heart leap out of his chest when he clearly heard the response.

“Yes!” The voice echoed.

“Just keep yelling!” Chet shouted as he pushed himself even harder. If somepony else was here, then he might finally be able to escape this hallway from hell.

“Over here!”

He was getting closer…

“Hurry!”

Wait…

Chet stopped suddenly. Had that voice come from behind him?

“Say again!” Chet called.

“You passed me!”

Taking a couple of steps back, Chet didn’t understand. The voice was coming from behind the stone wall. It looked no different from any other in the hallway.

“Uhh, hello?” Chet said, knocking on the stone.

“Hey, are you with the council?” He asked, “How did we get here?”

“No, I’m not with those guys,” Chet said, “I’m from… uh, Equestria.”

“Oh! Do you think you could take a message back there for me?” he asked hopefully.

“Well, to be honest, I’m trapped here,” Chet said, pressing against several bricks, looking for some kind of give that might get him through the wall, “I was hoping you’d be able to help me out of here.”

“How are you trapped?” He asked, “You’re not in some kind of cell, are you?”

“No,” Chet answered, looking at the floor, and opposite wall, “I’m in an endless hallway! I’ve been walking for close to three hours now, and there hasn’t been a single thing!”

“Damn,” He said, “Well, do you see any way to get rid of this wall?”

“I’m looking,” Chet said, “But nothing’s really sticking out…”

“Well… if you need to keep moving, I understand…” He sighed, “But you just need to promise me that you’ll deliver a message when you get out.”

“No way!” Chet said, before realizing that he may have confused the guy on the other side of the wall, “I mean, I’m not leaving! I thought I was going crazy in here alone! I’m staying right here with you.”

“Oh, well… thanks.” He said weakly, “I appreciate the company.”

“Hey, no problem.” Chet said, “And hey, I didn’t catch your name. Mine’s Chet.”

////

“Hello?” Trixie called in to the home, “Fluttershy? Are you home?”

There wasn’t a response.

“Hmm, do you think she’ll mind if we come in?” Trixie asked Pinkie.

“Well, Fluttershy said we can always come in to her house, but not her shed,” Pinkie said, tapping her chin, “Then again, this whole world is fake!”

“Oh… right,” Trixie laughed, as the two entered the house, and looked to the staircase across the room from them, “I guess we should just check her room, huh?”

“She’s probably in her bed, like Applejack,” Pinkie spoke, as she looked around the building for any of the animals that were strangely absent.

“It sure is quiet,” Trixie said, crossing toward the stairs, and making her way up, “I wonder where all the animals have gone.”

“I haven’t seen any since we got here,” Pinkie said, “Only ponies.”

“Hmm,” Trixie said, poking her head up to the second level of the house, spotting Fluttershy asleep in her bed, “She’s up here!”

The two wasted no time getting upstairs and next to the mare’s bed.

“She’s just like Applejack,” Pinkie said, reaching out and waving her hoof through the black aura surrounding the mare, “I wonder if we could wake her up.”

“With Big Mac looking over our shoulders, we had no chance to really interact with Applejack,” Trixie said, approaching her friend, and laying a laying a hoof on her cheek, “Fluttershy… can you hear me?”

The mare didn’t respond.

“Here, let me try,” Pinkie said, softly pushing Trixie to the side.

“Ahem,” She cleared her throat.

“Hey Fluttershy! There’s a whole family of dragons making their way through Ponyville right now!”

“Dragons?!” Fluttershy asked, sitting up instantly, her eyes opening and a broad smile growing on her face, “Oh! Are there any babies? Maybe a friend for Spike?”

Both mares were shocked that this had worked so easily.

“Uh…” Trixie said, trying to find the words to say.

“What are you just standing there for?” Fluttershy asked, jumping out of bed, “Where exactly are the dragons?”

“Fluttershy!” Pinkie said quickly, as the mare looked at her, “We’re trapped inside a crazy world! And Trixie and I think it’s linked to your chaotic side!”

“My chaotic side?” Fluttershy asked, blinking a couple of times as some things clearly ran through her head, “I… I thought that was just a dream!”

“What do you mean?” Trixie asked.

“I just dreamed that I was in a school with Alex!” She said, looking back and forth between them, “I was going to give him an impossible test that he couldn’t pass!”

“Why would you give him an impossible test?” Trixie asked, frowning slightly.

“Well, when he failed, he was going to be brainwashed back in to the changeling army!” She said, shocked that she had taken part in something like that, “B-but I had no control over myself! It was my dark side!”

“Why would she force you to quiz Alex?” Pinkie asked, scratching the side of her head, “Why not just brainwash him in the first place?”

“She said that he needed to be mentally exhausted, otherwise the brainwash wouldn’t work!” Fluttershy said, covering her mouth with her hoofs, “I- I think my chaotic side is going to help her do it!”

“Well, where is Alex?” Trixie asked, “Is he at the school house in Ponyville?”

“No,” She shook her head, “He’s in a… school! I don’t think it’s in this world.”

“This world?” Both girls asked, as Fluttershy found herself knowing more and more information.

“Um… I think he’s next door to this world,” Fluttershy said, pointing to the south of the town, “But you’d need to get past the—“

Both girls waited for Fluttershy to finish her sentence.

“Past the… the…” She said, blinking heavily, as the black aura around her intensified.

“Oh no, we’re losing her!” Trixie said, rushing to mare, “Don’t fall asleep!”

“the… the… lightning…” She muttered, before collapsing on the floor, surrounded by even more chaotic energy than she had been previously.

“Fluttershy!” Pinkie shouted, “Don’t you wanna see the dragons?”

The mare didn’t respond.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to wake her again,” Trixie said, shaking her head as Pinkie softly shook the unconscious mare, “Whatever it was that was keeping her sleep, just got a lot stronger. I can feel it.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right” Pinkie agreed, seeing that the black aura had intensified dramatically, “But what was that she was saying about Alex? He’s stuck in some kind of school?”

“Yeah,” Trixie nodded, “Fluttershy said that he was next door to this world, and then pointed that way.”

Pinkie followed the pointing hoof and cocked her head at the direction.

“That’s over toward the bad lands,” Pinkie frowned, “But she said it was another world, didn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Trixie nodded, looking out the window toward the setting sun, “Do you think we could get the same reaction out of Applejack?”

“Maybe!” Pinkie said, jumping at the thought of seeing another of her friends, even if it was for only a minute, “Oh! And if she does wake up, you need to remind me to ask her what kind of cake she wanted for Apple Blooms birthday party!”

“We might only get thirty seconds to talk with her,” Trixie frowned, blinking a couple of times, “Are you sure you want to waste those on asking for a flavour of a cake?”

“You’re right,” Pinkie nodded, “There’s no way Applejack could explain the whole cake in only thirty seconds, I’ll just have to wait until we’re out of here.”

“I’m glad you agree.” Trixie said, laughing at her silly answer, but secretly worrying that she wasn’t taking this entire situation seriously, “But there is another option…”

“What’s that?” Pinkie asked.

“Well, it sounds like Alex is in real trouble, and somepony needs to get to him right away,” Trixie said, “We could split up, if you think you’d be okay going off on your own.”

“W-well, how would I even get to him?” Pinkie asked instantly, trying not to look like she detested the idea separating, “Fluttershy said that we needed to go to another world! How would one of us even do that?”

“Hmm, that’s a good point,” Trixie nodded, “I just assumed that we would go south… but you’re right. Let’s go talk to Applejack, maybe she’ll have something to tell us.”

“Yeah!” Pinkie perked back up upon hearing Trixie ditch the plan to split up, “She might know the way to get between worlds! Or even better, have the kind of cake she needs memorized!”

“Then let’s get moving,” Trixie said, wasting no time in heading down the staircase, and out the front door of the cottage, with Pinkie just behind her, “Something tells me that if Alex is in one ‘world’ then the rest of our friends will be in similar situations.”

“And we can save them all!” Pinkie said, hopping up and down as she ran, “I haven’t got to be the hero in a while!”

////

Rarity paced back and forth outside of Applejack’s room, trying to scrape together even a fraction of a plan, but she simply couldn’t bring it all together. She had spent the entire night building and breaking down plans, all while AJ and the filly were beautifying themselves for the wedding.

How many plans had she gone through? What could she do?

She could try to drag her away, and carry her from the wedding, but she’d be spotted in an instant. She had thought about luring AJ somewhere deep in the castle, then locking her in a room, but as far as Rarity had explored, the entire place had been populated. She couldn’t take her anywhere quiet without one of the inhabitants making a scene.

She just needed more time to think, and she’d be able to figure this out.

“What else…” Rarity muttered, looking at the floor intently as she ran through her brain over and over again.

“Hey, Rarity!” The filly called, bursting out of the bedroom with a broad smile on her face, and spring in her step, “Come look at the Queen-to-be!”

“Oh, of course dear,” Rarity said slowly, shaking her head as she tried to clear the mess of thoughts from her head, “Tell me, how is she looking?”

“Sooo good!” She beamed, running ahead of the pony and pointing her hoof at the bathroom door, “Come on out!”

“Oh, I don’t know if this makeup is the right color…” She said, as the filly groaned.

“We decided that as a group two hours ago!” the filly called, “We know that shade of pink is the best!”

“But what about my—“

“You’re beautiful! I promise!” The filly laughed, as she ran over and started pushing the door open with her head.

The door swung open, and once again, Rarity felt the completely foreign feeling that was jealousy.

“H-how do I look?” She asked, blinking rapidly, and avoiding Rarity’s gaze.

She had done herself up to the nines.

To an untrained eye, it would look like she had hardly put any makeup on. But, Rarity knew better. She had used just the right amount, in just the right places. And it all came together beautifully.

On her eyes, were a light pink eye shadow coupled with a primer to keep them from shining, a small amount of eye liner, and fake eyelashes that were just the right size, extending them by only a fraction on an inch.

Her cheeks had only a faint amount of light peach-colored blush that darkened her cheeks just enough to make her eyes pop.

On her lips, judging by the sheen, and smoothness of the color, she had put on a pale primer, a light pink lipstick to match her eye shadow, and a slightly darker lip liner, to give them a simply amazing dynamic, that Rarity never would have thought to use.

“Y-you look…” Rarity stuttered, simply unable to get over the beauty this mare could achieve, “Amazing…”

Applejack gave her a genuine smile, rushing over to give her a hug.

Rarity simply stood in place, looking over her shoulder as AJ hugged her.

“You know, I don’t really know anypony in this castle,” Applejack began, “I was wondering if… well, if you’d be my mare of honor!”

Rarity was still in awe of her friend as AJ asked the question, and didn’t react in the way Applejack was hoping that she might.

“Is everything alright?” She asked, placing a hoof on her shoulder, as Rarity slowly looked to it, “You’re looking down again!”

“You look so beautiful,” Rarity said, blinking a couple of times as she frowned, “I just... never realized…”

Applejack smiled at her again, “You know, I grew up on a farm, and I never considered myself to be the kind of mare that would get to be beautiful.”

Rarity instantly looked to the mare, hearing those words instantly brought her focus back to AJ, “A mare like you? On a farm?”

“I sure did,” She smiled, thinking that she was surprising Rarity with her story, “I remember, while I was still just a filly, when I was starting school, I got made fun of because of the way I talked, and because of how tough I acted… Up until that point in my life, I had been told I was special. But here I was being told that I wasn’t.”

Rarity was surprised. Applejack had never really been the kind to talk about her past. Sure, she would laugh at an old story, talk about how she got her cutie mark, but that was really it. Rarity had always assumed that she was a mare that lived in the moment. But, here she was, brainwashed by an evil changeling, sharing stories that obviously came from her real life, that nopony would have heard from her otherwise.

“So, one day, I went home in tears. A bunch of boys told me that I’d never get a coltfriend because I didn’t act, or look enough like a girl.” She spoke softly, as her eyes glazed over, and her smile grew even more, “So, my mother came to me, and spent the entire night trying to calm me down, while my dad and brother ran away from the house to get away from my sobbing!”

As Applejack laughed, Rarity was taken aback once again.

Applejack had never once mentioned her parents to her, or any of their other friends. Big Mac and she had always been silent on the topic. All that Rarity truly knew, was that Apple Bloom had never known them, which meant that they died when Applejack was about seven.

But, once again, she was now talking about them candidly. Even though it felt wrong, Rarity was truly happy to be seeing this side of her friend.

“My mother told me that it didn’t matter how I looked, or how I acted.” She continued, losing herself to her memories as she spoke, “All I needed to be, was me. That when I was truly comfortable being myself, I would find somepony who cared about me.”

“But… wouldn’t that go against wearing makeup like this?” Rarity asked, seeing the small hole in her story.

“Well, yes,” Applejack laughed softly, “But, even with my mom telling me that my looks, and attitude didn’t need to change, there was still one thing I promised myself…”

“And that is?” Rarity asked, having a small idea already.

“That on my wedding day, I would throw aside the farm-girl look, and finally be the beautiful mare that I never got to be… and show those boys what they were missing out on!” Applejack said, her smile fading a bit, “I just wish my mom was here to see me…”

Suddenly, all of this made sense.

The council didn’t make this world, nor did it brainwash Applejack to think and act this way.

This was her personal fantasy. Deep down, some aspect of Applejack wanted to be this kind of mare. A beautiful girl that was about to marry her prince charming. Virgo must have inserted himself in to this world to be that stallion.

“My goodness, I can’t cry or my makeup will run,” She said, wiping her eye carefully, and smiling again, “Sorry if I got carried away there. Sometimes I lose myself when I reminisce.”

Then Rarity got an idea.

“You said you had a brother, right?” Rarity asked suddenly, as AJ gave her an expectant look, “Where is he? Shouldn’t he be at your wedding?”

“My… brother? B-Big Mac?” She asked, as her expression suddenly changed to one of confusion, “Ah’… don’t know…”

“Hmm, well, did you have any friends back when you were on the farm?” Rarity asked, covering as many bases as she could.

“Oh yes!” She nodded quickly, “I had a close group of friends! The six, or well, seven of us… or I guess eight of us used to do everything together!”

“Really?” Rarity asked, feeling her heart leap for joy as she counted her five friends, along with Spike and Alex, “What were they like?”

“Well, you could say that we all covered the spectrum,” She laughed, “One was a bookworm, one was one was a party girl, one was an ex-dragon, one was a wall flower… we also had an athlete, with her boyfriend … and then there was my arch nemesis, the fashionista!”

“Oh, um… fashionista?” Rarity asked, having not expected her to say something that might actually turn out to be an insult directed her, “Why was she your arch enemy?”

“Oh, it’s just a joke darlin’,” She laughed, her old accent slipping through in her speech.

“Well, what did you really think of her?” Rarity asked, suddenly caring a little less of escaping, and a little more on what Applejack truly thought of her, “What kind of pony was she?”

“Oh, well, to be honest I actually considered her to be—“

“Is everypony ready here?” Virgo asked, stepping in to the room loudly, interrupting AJ mid-sentence, “I’ve decided that the ceremony will be held this morning, instead of tonight!”

“W-what?’ Rarity stammered.

“Really?” Applejack asked, taking in a breath as she beamed with happiness, “Oh, that’s wonderful, dear!”

“Come with me,” He said, gesturing for his fiancée to follow him, “We have a couple of things of things to pick out before the wedding.”

“Of course,” She said, walking next to him and resting her head on his shoulder, “Let’s hurry so we can get right to the ceremony! I’m plum sick of being alone!”

“Of course, m’lady.” He said, tipping his fedora to her, as the two walked out of the room together.

Rarity glowered at the rotund changeling as he led her friend out of the room.

“You really want to stop them from getting married, huh?” The filly asked, walking next to Rarity and looking up at her.

“Of course I do,” Rarity said in a hushed tone, “Don’t you see him? Don’t you see the way he treats her?”

The filly looked at the floor.

“Well, you know he’s lonely, don’t you?” The filly asked carefully, unsure of how Rarity would respond to that question.

“Of course I can see that,” Rarity said, her volume increasing as she watched AJ and Virgo leave the throne room, “But this is by no means the way he needs to go about getting married!”

“So, what are you going to do?” The filly asked.

“I… I don’t know,” Rarity sighed, “I’ve spent all night trying to make some kind of plan… but nothing I come up would work!”

“Well, tell me something,” The filly asked, as Rarity looked down to her with a curious expression, “Were you scared when Applejack called you her arch-nemesis?”

Rarity was surprised that such a young girl would be asking an odd question like that, but had to admit that she was spot on with the observation.

“I- I was a little worried, yes…”

She gave Rarity a bright smile in return.

“I could feel her thoughts,” The filly said, “When Virgo came in and interrupted her, she was going to tell you that she considered the ‘fashionista’ to be her best friend.”

Rarity felt her heart skip a beat, “She… she really thinks that?”

“Mhmm! And when you started asking about her friends, it started drawing out all sorts of strange thoughts,” The filly said, “I could feel the old- the real Applejack coming out from the dark.”

“You could?” Rarity asked hopefully, “So- that means I might be able to bring her back, if I just get her to reminisce enough!”

“No, I don’t think so…” The filly said, shaking her head, “I don’t think that would be enough. I could feel the memories giving the old Applejack strength. We need something that’ll give her even more. Something that would force her to focus on her past self!”

“Focus…” Rarity said, thinking to herself, “Maybe I could… hmm, yes.”

Rarity gave a sly smile as she looked to the filly.

“How would you like to be made up a little more?” Rarity asked.

“I know what you’re thinking too,” The filly said, a small smile on her face.

The filly mystified Rarity, but she simply assumed that she was a part of Applejack’s wedding fantasy, which gave her certain powers.

“Alright,” Rarity said, walking over to the makeup set Applejack had left behind, “Let’s find the yellow, shall we?”

//

Rarity and the filly stood in a bedroom down the hall from the throne room, putting on the finishing touches the young girl’s disguise.

“Ah, I must say, nopony can do makeup quite like me- well, except Applejack, apparently,” Rarity said, gazing over the work she had done to the filly, “Now, we just need to add the final touch.”

Expertly, Rarity gathered the filly’s now-red hair behind her head with one hoof, and then looped a red ribbon around the bunch. Then releasing her grip on the hair, she tied the material in to a large bow.

“Done,” She grinned, “What do you think?”

The filly looked at the mirror at the end couldn’t stop herself from smiling.

Using some dyes that were lying around the castle, Rarity had managed to turn the white filly, with the light blue mane, in to the yellow filly, with red hair and a bow. Her eyes weren’t quite dark enough to make her a dead ringer, but Rarity figured this would be good enough.

“Now,” Rarity said, “What’s your name?”

“Why, ah’m Apple Bloom!” She said, mimicking her tone perfectly.

“Oh, that’s simply marvelous!” Rarity said, “How much do you know about Applejack?”

“Everythin’,” The filly answered, “Since you started askin’ her questions, it’s all been comin’ back to me!”

“So… what?” Rarity asked, tilting her head, “You’re Applejack’s soul incarnate?”

“Na,” The filly shook her head, “Ah’m just a thought in her head. One that’s a little closer to her real self than she is.”

“Well, I do hope you can help me reach her,” Rarity said, accepting the answer, understanding about as much as she could, “Now, how long do we have until the wedding?”

“It’s already started,” Apple Bloom answered, as Rarity went bug-eyed in response.

“W-why didn’t you tell me?” She asked, as she threw the door open, and started gesturing for the filly to follow her.

“Well, ah’ didn’t want ya’ to rush or nuthin’!” Apple Bloom said, taking off down the hallway with Rarity, “Besides, they’re just exchangin’ vows!”

“The vows come right before they’re officially married!” Rarity said, as Apple Bloom grew a mystified expression, and a small blush.

“W-well, jus’ because Applejack dreams of getting’ married, doesn’t mean she knows the order of em’ off by heart!” She defended, “We jus’ need to hurry!”

Rarity ran at full speed, and felt her heart start pounding harder and harder as she approached the door.

Suddenly, the throne room filled with screaming.

Hearing the horrified screaming, Rarity began to fear for the worst.

Wasting no more time, she ran her head in to the massive door, as it swung open, revealing the panicking figments of Applejack’s mind, the furious king, and the levitating Applejack.

“W-what’s going on?” Rarity said, as she looked at the mare’s floating body, “Why is she surrounded in that magic?”

Applejack simply hung in the air as Virgo rapidly pressed some buttons on his wrist.

“Aries!” He shouted, as a screen projected from his wrist, and made the face of another changing on the wall, “Aries answer me right this instant!”

“What is it?!” He shouted, “I’m in the middle of a much deserved massage!”

“S-something’s happening to my Element of Harmony!” He shouted, jumping up and down in his spot.

“Point the camera at her!” Aries said, as his image was pointed toward Applejack’s floating form.

“What’s happening to her?!” Virgo shouted, his eyes almost filling with tears.

“It’s my ponies.” Aries growled, “The real bodies of the two girls are still here in Ponyville. The other girls here must be interacting with her body somehow.”

“Stop them!” He whined, stomping one of his hind legs hard against the floor.

“Would you shut your trap?” Aries shouted, growling over the call at the temper tantrum-ing man-child, “I made a fail-safe in case something like this happened. If either of these mares are to wake up, my PDA will automatically detect it, and fill them up with so much chaotic magic that they pass out again.”

And, just as he said it would, the spell keeping her trapped in the castle world began to work itself again, as the mare’s body fell to the ground.

“Ugh…” Applejack mumbled, her face firmly planted on the floor, “What happened darlin’? Are we married yet?”

“Would somepony get her up?” Virgo demanded, not moving from his place on the podium, “I need to finish this ceremony!”

////

“So, you’re ready?” Taurus asked as Twilight gave him a single nod, “Good. We don’t have much time.”

“Oh!” Twilight said suddenly, looking up from the device on her arm, “Before I forget, what did you—“

“Strange… sorry, I don’t mean to cut you off, but there’s a transmission going on right now,” Taurus said, pointing to the flashing light its side, “Can you pull it up?”

“Won’t they see me?” Twilight asked.

“No, not if I don’t join the call.” He said, “We can just spectate.”

“Oh, okay.” Twilight said, blinking as she looked at the screen, tapping the screen according to his instructions, “That should do it…”

”Aries! Answer me right now!

“That’s Virgo,” Taurus said, pointing to the larger of the two on the screen.

”What is it?! I’m in the middle of a much deserved massage!”

“S-something’s happening to my Element of Harmony!”

“What does he mean?” Twilight asked, as Taurus shrugged.

“Point the camera at her!”

“What the…” Twilight said, looking at the hovering body of Applejack.

“What’s happening to her?!”

“That’s the spell used on them,” Taurus said, “Something is happening at their real bodies to make that happen.”

“Those are the bodies in Ponyville, right?” Twilight asked, remembering that Taurus had mentioned them.

Taurus only nodded.

“It’s my ponies. The real bodies of the two girls are still here in Ponyville. The other girls here must be interacting with her body somehow.”

“Which of my friends are in that section?” Twilight asked.

“Trixie and Pinkie,” Taurus said, “If what Aries said was right.”

“Stop them!”

“Would you shut your trap? I made a fail-safe in case something like this happened. If either of these mares are to wake up, my PDA will automatically detect it, and fill them up with so much chaotic magic that they pass out again.”

They both watched as Applejack collapsed on the floor, as the camera followed her, revealing Rarity and Apple Bloom at the end of the room.

“Why is Apple Bloom there?” Twilight asked, looking to Taurus, “She wasn’t with us when we came to the hive!”

“I… have no idea,” he shook his head, “I don’t remember her being mentioned as entering the world. Something must have been missed.”

“Well should I go to their world and help them out?” Twilight asked.

“I think that—“

“If your wedding is back on track, Virgo, then I’ll be going to deal with my meddlesome visitors,”

”Whatever.”

With that, the conversation abruptly ended between the two, as the screen vanished from its place on the wall.

“B-but if he’s going after them, that means they’ll need my help too!” Twilight said, realizing that she couldn’t be in more than one place at once, “And they were talking about mutilating Rainbow Dash! I don’t- I… there aren’t more of these devices by any chance, is there?”

Taurus shook his head ‘no’.

“Then… who do I choose?”

“Listen, I know your friend is about to get married to that… monstrosity,” Taurus said, “And I know Rainbow Dash might be in danger, but you need to understand that if Aries is on the warpath, Trixie and Pinkie are in the most danger.”

“Are you sure?” Twilight asked.

“I’m positive.” He said seriously, “You need to go to Ponyville. Use the magic manipulator to find your friends, and get them the hell out of there. If you can get them out of there without Aries seeing, you’ll have some time to gather the rest of your friends up.”

“Alright.” Twilight nodded, after closing her eyes and forcing herself to calm down, “I’ll get them, and then rescue Applejack and Rarity, then Rainbow Dash and Chrysalis, then Alex.”

“Yes you will.” He said, giving her an encouraging smile, “And remember, the third button on the right side is what you use to let them use magic again.”

“Right,” Twilight nodded, setting her destination for Ponyville, and pointing the device at the wall, as a massive green portal materialized in front of her, “Thank you, Taurus. I don’t know what we would have done if you were with the rest of the council.”

“I don’t want to imagine a world run by these monsters,” Taurus shook his head, as Twilight took her first step in to the portal, “If you run in to Aries, kick his ass for me, will ya?”

“No problem,” Twilight smiled, as she pushed her body through the portal, and vanished to the other side.

Taurus smiled. She was going to save the day; he knew it. Especially with Alpha at her side—

“Oh crap!” Taurus shouted, “Twilight!”

However, the portal closed, and he was no longer able to reach her.

“Well, I’m sure Marick won’t mind being a cactus for a little while longer…”

////

“So… what are we going to do now?” Pinkie asked quietly.

“I don’t know.” Trixie responded.

The two had just pulled Applejack from her magical coma, and had asked her as many questions as they could in the short amount of time they had. However, they didn’t receive as much information as either of them would have liked.

Applejack had told them that any attempt to cross the lightning wall would end up with that pony completely fried. Which left them back at square one.

Pinkie walked over to the chair in the corner of the room, and sat herself down, unsure of what she could even say at this point.

Trixie took an extra moment, but eventually joined her, sitting down next to the chair, and leaning her head back against the wall behind them.

“Why don’t I tell you a little more about me and Aurora?” Trixie suggested, as a smile grew on Pinkie’s face.

“I’d like that.” She said.

“Okay,” Trixie said, “Well, where did I leave off?”

“The two of you had just gone home after she didn’t sell any veggies,” Pinkie answered.

“Right!” Trixie nodded, forcing the best smile she had, “Well, over the next couple of days, I insisted that the two of us refine her sales pitch, you know, adjust her attitude a bit, along with fixing up her cart.”

“How could she afford to take a few days off?” Pinkie asked, “It sounded like she was broke already.”

“She was, and she told me that she wasn’t able to,” Trixie said, “But, I told her that I found a small pouch of bits hidden in her ceiling.”

“Wow!” Pinkie said, a smile returning to her face, “What are the chances of that?”

“To be honest, it was my money,” Trixie said, as Pinkie gave her a small ‘aww,’ “I knew she needed it a lot more than me.”

“Are you sure you weren’t nice way back then?” Pinkie joked, as Trixie smiled a bit, “You keep telling me all these nice things you did for her!”

“I was pretty bad back then,” Trixie gave a small laugh in response, “But, when I saw this young mare, alone in the world just like I had been for so many years… I wanted nothing more than for her to be happy, and I was going to do whatever it took for her to get there.”

Pinkie gave her a soft smile, as Trixie blushed in embarrassment.

“So, after I sat her down, and taught her the true power of showmanship, we decided to go back out, and try to sell her produce once again,” Trixie said, her gaze narrowing in frustration as she began to recall what happened, “She had really taken my lessons to heart. She was loud, she talked about her product like it was simply better than anything else anypony else had to offer. I did it too. I thought that we would have sold out by lunch.”

“And did you?” Pinkie asked, her excitement at its peak.

Trixie shook her head.

“She sold a couple of things, but nothing more than she would usually sell she told me,” Trixie continued, scratching the back of her head and sighing, “It was nearing the end of that day, when a colt came up to the stand, and asked for some carrots. His mother ran over to him, and started scolding him for buying from the two of us.”

“Why?” Pinkie asked, crinkling her nose at the strange behavior.

“That’s what I was determined to find out,” Trixie said, “So, I went over to the colts mother, and pulled her aside to ask why she was refusing to buy from us.”

Pinkie nodded along.

“Well, it turned out that a lot of ponies in town thought Aurora was cursed,” Trixie growled, “She said that everypony who ever got close to her died.”

“That’s horrible!” Pinkie said, her eyes expanding as her mouth hung open.

“Well, when I asked her to elaborate, she told me that Aurora’s mother died in childbirth, her best friend died in an accident, and her father contracted some kind of exotic illness with no cure,” Trixie continued, “Rumors of the curse really started to circulate after her best friend died. The filly was on her way home from Aurora’s house, when an out of control wagon came down a hill, and hit her.”

Pinkie grimaced.

“The filly’s mother was apparently a little out of her mind before the accident, but after, she went full psycho. Blaming Aurora for the accident, going in to town and talking about Aurora’s mother, and how she was cursed to kill everypony who she got to know…” Trixie sighed, feeling her heart break all over again for the poor girl, “Most of the town didn’t pay too much mind. But, when her father was diagnosed a few weeks later with a rare illness, things really started to get worse for her.”

“That sounds so terrible,” Pinkie said, “I wish I could have been around to slap some sense in to the townsponies!”

“Oh, don’t you worry,” Trixie said with a small smile, “After I heard that story, that was my plan. I was a mare of magic, and I knew that there was no kind of curse around that poor filly. They were all just superstitious chickens.”

“So what did you do?” Pinkie asked.

Trixie laughed, “I called a town hall meeting.”

Pinkie tilted her head, “Really? Why?”

“So I could do what I did best,” Trixie said with a smirk, “I showed them all how superior I was to them.”

“What do you mean?” Pinkie asked.

“Well, a little trick Trixie- ahem, I learned way back, was that it’s easy to convince somepony that they don’t know what they’re talking about, if you just talk down to them.” Trixie said, normally ashamed of such attitudes she had in the past, but was truly proud of this particular moment, “So, I talked to the mayor, and asked him if I could do a magic show, in return for the proceeds that I would be making.”

“I’ll bet he was happy to let you do that,” Pinkie giggled.

“He was ecstatic,” Trixie said, “So, a week or so passed, and in that time Aurora and I had really bonded. The two of us had spent every waking minute together, getting to know everything there was to know about one another. The night before the magic show, the two of us were up late, just talking. She admitted to me on that day just how happy she was to have met me, she told me how much she had missed having somepony to care for her… and for the first time since I had met her, she stopped smiling, and started crying.”

“Why?” Pinkie asked.

“Because she was happy,” Trixie answered, her voice straining a bit, as she wiped a tear from her eye, “For the first time in my life, I had made somepony truly happy… and she had done the same for me. To tell you the truth, we both cried a lot that night.”

“That’s so sweet,” Pinkie beamed, happy that Trixie was able to experience such a rich relationship.

“Yeah, well, after that night, things finally started to look up, “ Trixie said determinedly, pounding her hoof on the floor quietly, “When the magic show started the following day, the turnout was good. About the same as the show I did in Ponyville a couple weeks before. I called ponies up, and challenged them to best me. None of them were able, however.”

“Twilight still held that honor?” Pinkie asked, smiling a little bit.

“She’s the only pony to have ever beaten me,” Trixie said, “That’s still true to this day.”

“I’m not sure if you’re being modest or boasting,” Pinkie said, a small smile growing on her face.

“A bit of both,” Trixie smiled back, as the two girls burst out in laughter.

The two didn’t mean to be quite as loud as they had been as they laughed together.

The window suddenly exploded open, as the room illuminated, as a large changeling stepped in to the house, his eyes locked with Trixie.

“Ah, there you are.” He said narrowing his gaze to the two of them, “The two of you have been causing far too many problems in this world.”

“You’re a member of the council!” Trixie shouted, standing up and taking an offensive stance, “And I think it’s time for you to let us out of here!”

“Ha!” Aries said, walking further in to the room confidently, “You know, I was happy to let you wander in this world. You had no way out, you had no magic, and I figured I didn’t need to imprison you. But here you’ve gone and started messing with things you don’t understand.”

“You know what I don’t understand?” Trixie asked, “Why would you force a helpless mare to marry some desperate pig? Why would you force us against each other?”

“It’s all for the hive,” He said dismissively.

“No, you know what I think?” Trixie asked, “I think you , and your pals on this ‘council,’ are a bunch of greedy ponies, with no interest in peace, or the lives of your own people! When money, and power become such a driving force in a pony that they become a monster for it... I actually find myself able to relate to them. I used to be a lot like that, but I changed! You can too!”

“You don’t understand my motives, nor could you ever,” Aries said, noting that Trixie was now standing alone, “Now, the two of you are- wait… where did the pink mare go?”

“Oh, Pinkie?” Trixie asked innocently, “Well, she snuck off when I started talking! But don’t worry, she’s right there.”

Aries turned his gaze to the left, and was met with the pink pony, as she leaned the front half of her body on a large blue cannon, “Hiya!”

“Where in the world did you get a cann—“

Cutting him off, the cannon exploded with confetti and lollipops in such force, that Aries was blasted back out the window he had come in from.

“I never leave home without my party cannon!” Pinkie called out the window at the stallion as he tumbled across the ground.

Trixie ran over to her and pulled on her arm.

“Come on! We need to get out of here before he comes back!” She said, as Pinkie nodded, and ran out the bedroom door with her.

“He’ll see us if we go out the front or the back!” Trixie said, looking around the empty house for another route.

“Oh!” Pinkie said, running over to the corner of the room, “Applejack told me about their cellar! It goes all the way out in to the orchard!”

Pinkie started scraping her hoof against the floor, until it hooked on an uneven section of wood, “Here it is!”

“Why on earth would they have that?” Trixie asked herself, looking at the near invisible door as Pinkie lifted it up, revealing a staircase that led down in to the pitch black.

“I don’t know, but we need to hurry!” Pinkie said, gesturing for her to go down.

Once Trixie made it to the bottom, Pinkie reached up through the entrance, grabbed the door, and swung it closed.

Not two seconds later, they heard the front door slam open, as Aries made his way back in to the house.

“You two have really made me mad!” He shouted, as the two heard him storm up the stairs.

“Well, time to go!” Pinkie said, as the two took off running at max speed down the dark cellar.

“Oh, they’re making wine down here!” Trixie said, as they started running past barrels that were lined up along the floor, “I didn’t know they were in that market.”

“Oh, Applejack said that it was pretty new,” Pinkie responded, “A lot of ponies will pay a lot of money for an aged Apple Cider.”

Trixie only nodded in response as they kept running, and eventually, after a minute or so, finally reached the end of the hall.

“Okay, this should let us out about half way back to Ponyville,” Pinkie said, hopefully he won’t be looking for us this far out.

“When he doesn’t find us in the house, he’ll head back to Ponyville!” Trixie said, “He’ll see us for sure then!”

“Well- we could go away from Ponyville,” Pinkie suggested, “Maybe started heading in Canterlot’s direction?”

Trixie frowned as she looked between the two options she had.

“How long do you think it would take us to get to Twilight’s library? If we ran.” Trixie asked.

“Umm,” Pinkie said, rapidly tapping her hoof against the ground, “A little over five minutes?”

“Okay, do you think Aries knows that place belongs to Twilight?” Trixie asked again, exhaling as she looked back toward Applejack’s house, “We might be able to dig up something on countering this kind of magic!”

“If that was in the library, don’t you think Twilight would have saved us from this world by now?” Pinkie asked, grimacing at the thought of where her other friends might be, “She would have shown up in some big portal, with magic blowing all around her, and she would have saved the day!”

As Pinkie spoke, a large green portal opened behind her silently, and to Trixie’s shock, Twilight did step out of it.

“Um… Pinkie…” Trixie began.

“We would all be home having a party right now if she had some way of reaching us,” Pinkie continued, sighing as her usual smile sat in a frown, “But instead we’re stuck here, being chased by an insane pony!”

“Pinkie.” Trixie said again.

“I- I just… I wanna go home!” Pinkie shouted, collapsing on the ground and placing her arms over her face, as tears seemed to explode out of her eyes, pouring on almost impossible amount of water on the ground around her as she sobbed.

“Pinkie? Trixie?” Twilight said, stepping away from her portal, “are you two okay?”

Pinkie snapped around to the source of the voice, as her massive smile returned in an instant.

“Twilight!” Pinkie shouted, jumping up and wrapping her arms around the purple mare, “Is it really you? You’re not a hallucination caused by my sadness are you? Oh! And you’re not just a nasty trick made up by those meanies right? You know, a couple of weeks ago I saw a bunch of dark shadows when I was sad—”

“No, Pinkie,” Twilight cut her off, not paying enough attention to what the mare had said, “I managed to convince one of the council members to give me their magic devices! I can give you back your powers! But we should probably get away from Aries first, I’ll take us somewhere that we can regroup.”

“Trixie has no complaints,” Trixie said, ignoring her slip up in referring to herself.

“Neither does Pinkie!” The mare said, jumping up and joining her friends.

“Great,” Twilight smiled, “I’ll explain everything when we get out of here.”

Not wanting to waste another second, Twilight pointed her device at the ground, pressed a couple of buttons, and created yet another glowing green portal that instantly sucked the three of them up, taking them as far away from Aries as Twilight could manage.

////

Rainbow Dash frantically rummaged through the second to last room in the rotation, so far she and Chrysalis had found eight of the ten objects that Cancer described to them.

They were all small figures that had been made of the seven Elements of Harmony, along with Celestia, Luna, and Cadence. Each figurine had been found in a different, but equally difficult to locate spot. One had been behind a pillow on a bed, one was in a bathroom behind the toilet, one was even sitting on a light fixture.

So far, Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie, Rarity, Alex, Fluttershy, Luna, and Cadence had been found. All that remained were Rainbow Dash and Princess Celestia.

“Any luck?” Dash called to Chrysalis, hoping that the queen was having more luck than she was.

“None yet,” She shouted, “Who’s idea was it to fill this room up so much?”

Dash took a step back and growled. She had pulled every book off every shelf, tore the bed apart, flipped over every piece of furniture, and yet had not found it.

She flew up as high as she could, checked on the top of every shelf, light fixture, and wood frame, but she simply couldn’t spot it.

“Ah ha!” Chrysalis called, “So that’s where you were hiding, Celestia!”

Dash huffed. Of course she was having so much trouble finding the figure of herself.

“Get your rump in here!” Dash called, not caring how rude she may have sounded in that moment, “If we don’t find the last clue, then those monsters are going to reach us!”

“I haven’t heard them in a couple of minutes,” Chrysalis said, walking out of her room, “Perhaps their bodies fell apart on the way—“

”Chrysalis.”

The queen went wide eyed as she looked to the larger, rotting version of Pinkie Pie.

“I take that back!” She shouted, “They’re at the end of the hall!”

“Are you serious?” Dash shouted, as she went to work removing the massive rug, “Well then- help me out here!”

“How is it that I found all five of my figures, but you’re still lagging on finding that last one?” Chrysalis asked, in the same angry tone that Dash had just used with her.

“Oh, remind me to beg for forgiveness later!” She growled, “Just help me find this stupid thing, we still need to solve the puzzle!”

”Rainbow Dash.”

Neither of them gave a response to the horrible voice, they both simply started looking significantly faster.

The sounds of their approaching enemies fed their fire to complete the task, but as the seconds marched on and on, they still had no luck.

After what could have only been another half minute, the two both took a step back from the destroyed room, and realized that every single corner had been checked. No stone was left unturned, and they were now surrounded by a complete mess.

“So…” Dash said quietly, looking to the queen, “Any chance you found it, and you’re just playing a prank on me?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Chrysalis said quietly.

”I love pranks.”

The two whipped around, and faced Pinkie, Rarity, and Twilight. All were now standing just outside the room, and all were smiling brightly, revealing their long since rotted teeth, along with their cracked and split lips.

“I’m not going down yet!” Dash shouted, running to the door and slamming it closed, while pushing her body against it to keep them from bursting in, “Why the heck are we in the one room with no windows?”

“Half the rooms we checked had no windows!” Chrysalis shouted back.

“Well- what are we supposed to do now?” She shouted, as one of the ponies on the other side of the door slammed in to the wood, pushing it in to Dash’s back.

“Ouch!” Dash said, wincing as she felt something stick in to her back, “Did they try to stab me?”

Reaching behind her with her right hoof, Dash felt around the impact point on her back for any blood, and was relieved to feel none. What she did feel, however, was a hard piece of plastic.

Before she could investigate, the door was slammed in to once again, stabbing the plastic object in to her for the second time.

Turning quickly, Dash went wide-eyed at the toy of herself that had been glued to the back of the bedroom door.

“It was stuck to the back of the door!” Dash said, wanting to hit herself for not thinking to look there, “Here!”

Chrysalis caught the toy midair, and wasted no time turning it upside down to reveal the final hidden word.

“Okay, I’ll line these up and try to solve the puzzle!” Chrysalis shouted, as Dash nodded rapidly, bracing for another hit against the door.

Banging her hooves against one another, all of the other figures fell out of the many holes in her legs, where she had been keeping them so they weren’t misplaced during the search.

Chrysalis blinked as she looked at her list of words.

home
you
on.
Whether
are
marches
the
or
gone
Hive

Chrysalis was happy that she fancied these kinds of puzzles. Anagrams, crosswords, word searches, pretty much anything she would find in the daily print.

Her eyes darted between each word, as she picked up on a couple of clues right off the bat.

“How’s it going?!” Dash called, as the door was pounded upon once again.

“I’ve only just started! Be patient!” Chrysalis said angrily, not taking her gaze off of the problem in front of her.

“Oh yeah! Don’t worry about m—“

Again, she held the slamming door back, as she placed both her wings behind her, using them along with her arms to try and keep the slamming from doing any damage to her, or the door.

“’Whether’ is capitalized,” Chrysalis muttered, “It begins the sentence… and ‘on.’ Has a period, so it must end the sentence.”

Organizing them in to place, she now had: ‘Whether home you are marches the or gone hive on.’

Following ‘Whether’ only three words made sense: ‘you,’ ‘the,’ or ‘or.’

On top of that, the central words in the sentence didn’t work with all the others.

The words: ‘home,’ ‘marches,’ and ‘hive,’ only made sense being followed, and preceded by certain words.

So, looking at it, she put the most likely combinations together based on that information.

‘Whether,’ was followed by ‘you’

‘are’ precedes ‘home’

‘or’ was followed by ‘marches’

‘the’ preceded ‘hive’

‘gone’ was followed by ‘on’

Organizing the words, she looked at what she had.

“Whether you are home, or marches, the hive gone on.” Chrysalis read out loud, shaking her head.

“That sentence doesn’t make any sense!” Dash shouted, looked at the door as she prepared herself for another slam.

”All together, girls. I want to give Dashie a big hug.“

Dash gulped loudly as she heard the sets of feet start stepping away from the door, instead of just the one.

Chrysalis looked up as the three charged the door, and managed to open it a couple of inches, before Dash slammed it closed once again.

“Stop looking! Solve that thing!” She shouted, as Chrysalis only nodded and went back to work.

“What did I do wrong?” She muttered, looking for where the sentence made the least sense.

“Whether you are home, or marches, the hive gone on.”

“Okay, ‘the hive’ can’t be followed by ‘gone’” She said, blinking at the words, “But the hive can march!”

The three girls slammed against the door, knocking Dash clear of her place, sending her crashing next to Chrysalis, luckily missing the puzzle pieces.

The three figures stood in the door, smiling without moving an inch.

“Do it! Do it! Do it!” Dash shouted, as the three opened their mouths, and began emitting a low pitched shriek.

Chrysalis cleared her throat, as she read the puzzle aloud.

“Whether you are home, or gone, the hive marches on!” She shouted, as she looked back up to the three.

All three of their mouths closed, as they stepped away from the door.

”Cancer is waiting for you.”

After Pinkie spoke, the three bodies vanished in a blast of black smoke that completely filled the room, blinding the two of them.

Dash coughed loudly as she waved her arms in front of her face, trying to clear herself some air to breathe.

After a few moments, the dark smoke seemed to completely vanish, leaving the two to sit on the floor, coughing their lungs out.

“Dear sweet Celestia,” Dash coughed, falling on to her back and inhaling the fresh air she had been robbed of just a moment ago, “We got rid of them! Booyah!”

Chrysalis didn’t answer her.

“Next time I see them, they’re gonna wish they hadn’t chased me around!” Dash called, stopping her celebratory pumps, allowing her hooves to fall to either side of her, “Are you okay?”

Chrysalis again, did not answer.

“What’s up with you?” Dash asked, propping herself up on her front hooves as she looked behind her to the rather angry looking queen.

“Those bastards…” She growled, “They think they can run my kingdom without me?”

“What?” Dash asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Whether you are home… or gone, the hive marches on…” She muttered, as the full extent of what she said dawned on Dash, “Those were the words, when I put them together.”

“Oh…” Dash said, “Well, we already knew that, didn’t we? That they were manipulating you?”

“Of course I knew that,” She growled, shaking her head slowly, “But now they rub my muzzle in it. They do not know who they trifle with.”

Dash raised an eyebrow at the queen, “Putting on the royal Canterlot voice?”

“Royal Hive voice,” She corrected, standing herself up, as she made her way over to the front door, and peeking her head around the corner, “Come. The end of the hallway has changed. We can finally escape this floor.”

“Seriously?” Dash asked, standing up with a bright smile, “let’s go find this ’Cancer’ guy, and kick his rump in to the ground!”

Chrysalis chuckled to herself in response to Dash’s zealousness.

“You sound like Alex,” She smirked, as Dash laughed herself.

“You would know, wouldn’t you?” Dash said, walking out in front of her with a small huff, before pausing and looking over her shoulder to the queen, “Say, how much was Alex… well, himself, while he was under your control?”

“You saw him while he was in his armor,” Chrysalis answered, “He was… like himself. Perhaps a bit more cocky when he was going about his business. But when it was just the two of us, he was very pleasant.”

Dash didn’t let herself get mad over the recollection. She had asked, after all.

“With the conditioning, he was very honest. He had very few… inhibitions.” She said, trailing off in her tone as she took herself back to the many nights the two had spent together, leading her to make an almost silent observation, “Such a high voice though…”

“What did you say?” Dash asked, her ears perked.

“Oh, nothing,” Chrysalis shook her head quickly, afraid of what might come of this conversation, “It wasn’t the kind of thing—“

“Chrysalis, there’s only one time his voice goes up reeeaaalllly high,” Dash said, looking forward to hide the sly smile, “And that’s right when he’s about to… well, you know.”

Chrysalis let out a single, loud ‘ha!’ as she suddenly covered her mouth.

“It’s okay to laugh,” Dash said, slowing down to walk beside the queen, “I make fun of him all the time for it. He sounds like a little girl!”

“I couldn’t bring myself to laugh at him,” Chrysalis said quietly, as if to keep anypony from hearing, “He was trying so hard...”

“Did he flap his wings?” Dash asked, a slight tone of hopefulness.

“Like a humming bird!” Chrysalis shouted, a wide smile growing on her face as Dash followed suit.

“He’s so adorable!” Dash shouted back, her smile growing to match that of the Queen’s, “For such a tough, powerful stallion, he acts like such a little daisy sometimes! I- ah… I love him so much”

Chrysalis thought Dash’s own response was adorable itself. The mare’s eyes glazed over as they talked about the man she clearly loved so much. Chrysalis couldn’t help but feel guilty. It was easy to avoid guilt when you never saw the loved ones of the ponies you stole. Distance had kept her safe for all these years.

“So, the two of you are engaged,” Chrysalis spoke up, “I heard he asked you to marry him shortly after he escaped my grasp.”

“After we dealt with my treacherous side,” Dash corrected, clearing her throat and narrowing her gaze, as the two of them stepped through a massive doorway, “He told me he wanted me to be his wife… he told me that he wanted to have kids…”

“And you want that too?” Chrysalis asked.

“More than anything,” She said, “More than I ever wanted to be a Wonderbolt, more than I ever wanted to be a captain of the royal guard.”

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Chrysalis asked, a calm expression glazing her features as she looked back on her own, similar experiences, “How love can change ones perspective so rapidly. “

“To tell you the truth, I’ve always been worried that it’s made me look weak,” Dash said, finding it both odd, and comforting that she was able to confide in the queen like this, “What does it say about a pony, when they’re willing to throw away their dreams to have a family?”

“You didn’t throw away anything,” Chrysalis said quickly, making sure that Dash didn’t continue on the line of thought, “One dream can change shape a million times. It may start out as one thing, but be something completely different in the end. The fact that you’re willing to pursue what you truly want? That’s what makes you strong.”

Dash blushed lightly at the encouragement she was receiving from the mare as they continued down the now spiraling staircase.

“What is it that you really want?” Chrysalis asked, “Tell me where you see yourself in five years.”

Dash turned and gave the queen a smile, sure, they might not have been friends a so many hours ago, but now, she couldn’t help but admit that Chrysalis had some wisdom within her.

“I want… I want to get married, have a kid, or two… or maybe three… all the while, I want to keep doing my job as Captain of the royal guard in Ponyville.” She said, needing no time to collect her thoughts on the subject, “I love my job, I love Alex, honestly, when all this ‘chaotic side’ nonsense finally comes to an end, I’ll be happy to do nothing for the rest of my life.”

“I wish I could find that kind of piece,” Chrysalis said, as she stepped off the staircase, “You’re lucky to have that at home waiting for you.”

“What about you?” Dash asked, “Don’t you have a dream?”

“My dreams died with Stag.” Chrysalis said simply, “But, after all of this is over, maybe I can find a new one.”

Dash paused from their conversation and took a look around their new surroundings.

“Looks like we’re in the dungeon…” She said, looking at the chains hanging from the walls, “Wonderful.”

“If there’s one place we’d find Cancer, it would be here,” Chrysalis replied, looking at the single dark hallway directly across from the stairs.

“You’re very smart, my Queen,” A voice came from the hall.

“Smarter than you or your friends,” She answered, a low growl following her speech, “Now, if you see me back my hive, I’ll think about sparing your public execution.”

“My, wouldn’t that be so easy? If I were to let you all run free, so you could turn around and throw me in jail,” He laughed, still not revealing himself, “No… I’ve got one more game I wish to play with you two.”

“You sound like you get off on this stuff!” Dash shouted, “We’re getting out of here one way or another! Make sure you’re on the right side when we do!”

“You know, when I found out that Chrysalis was trapped in the same world as Alex’s lover, I was hoping for some more explosive arguments!” He shouted, with an obvious anger behind his words, “You two were doing so well at first, but then you got all buddy-buddy.”

“Oh yeah, sorry for that,” Dash said, her eye rolling almost audible.

“Well, at first I was hoping you two would kill each other, but now I see that I need to be the one that does that.” He said, a terrifyingly calm tone echoing down the hall, “So, instead of keeping you together, I think I’ll send you each off on your own, and see how far either of you can make it.”

////

Twilight sighed as she pressed every button on her PDA, trying to give the girls their magic back.

After the three teleported away from the fake Ponyville, they arrived in one that looked just like Manehattan. There were skyscrapers as far as the eye could see, and above them was a sky free of any lightning, which in theory, would let them move from one world to another by simply walking.

“Okay, and that should do it!” Twilight said, as her device sent out a wave of magic energy, encompassing the two ponies in front of her.

Trixie simply couldn’t put her joy in to words as she felt her magic begin flowing through her veins once again.

”Trixie!”

A voice echoed in her head.

“Aurora…” She said softly, too quiet to be heard by her friends, “Thank goodness…”

”Thank you for sharing our time together with her. It made me smile to see her so happy.”

Trixie only nodded, as she turned her attention back to Twilight.

“Okay, so! We need to act very fast,” Twilight said, as she emulated Taurus by bringing up a map on the side of a building, “We have three groups of friends that are in trouble right now, and we need to decide who to go for first.”

“Oh yeah!” Pinkie said, “I know the answer to this one!”

“Pinkie, this wasn’t a quiz-“

“Alex is at school! And they want to scramble his brains again!” Pinkie said, throwing her arms in the air, “And Applejack is being forced to marry a big gross changeling!”

“Yes but—wait, how did you know that?” Twilight asked, looking between them curiously.

“Their bodies are in the Ponyville we just came from,” Trixie said, “We were able to speak with both Applejack and Fluttershy for a few moments before they were pulled back in to their worlds.”

“Do you guys know about Dash and Chrysalis?” Twilight asked next.

Pinkie shook her head, “We found a Rainbow Dash, but she wasn’t herself!”

“That wasn’t her,” Twilight shook her head, “This entire world has been made because Applejack and Fluttershy experienced their dark sides at the time, and by combining their energy, well…”

“Really?” Trixie asked, blinking her eyes rapidly in surprise, “Two at once? That have—well, I guess I know how strong the effect was.”

“They created all this,” Twilight said, gesturing around, “Sometimes I really wonder just how powerful chaotic magic is.”

“Pretty powerful!” Pinkie said, “So! Who should we go help first?”

Twilight scratched her chin, “Alex doesn’t seem like he’s in immediate danger. Rainbow Dash and Chrysalis are in some kind of twisted ‘horror’ world, but are still together as far as I know. Applejack, on the other hoof… Is about to marry one of the council members. ”

“Okay,” Trixie nodded, looking to Pinkie to gauge her reaction, “So we go for Rainbow Dash first? That makes sense?”

“Not quite,” Twilight said, her expression showing conflict, “As soon as AJ gets married, Virgo plans on taking her on their honeymoon.”

“Oh.” Both girls said, wide eyed.

“Applejack it is then,” Trixie said quickly, “We’ll rescue her then go right for Rainbow Dash.”

“Yeah...” Pinkie nodded slowly, “I don’t think Applejack would be doing very well after we get out of here if she gets… well…”

“Don’t say it,” Trixie said, placing her hoof on Pinkie’s lips, “She was in the middle of the ceremony when we woke her up, and that was just a few minutes ago.”

////

“Would you get on with this already?” Virgo demanded, as the priest in front of him recoiled at his sudden rush of anger, “The two of us have a very busy night ahead of us.”

“That is not how the ceremony is to be done!” The priest retorted, frowning at the massive changeling, “One does not rush their wedding! It’s something that you’ll cherish for the rest of your life!”

“Honey… you don’t want to rush this special day, do you?” Applejack asked, her tone more delicate and demure than anything Rarity could ever hope to have herself.

Virgo frowned, “You’re not in charge here! I am!”

“Well I never—“ The priest began.

“I’ll simply get somepony new to finish this if you refuse!” He spat, “The way you all treat your king is horrid!”

//

Rarity hard a very hard time containing the rage she felt at this moment. The way he was treating this ceremony was simply atrocious. Not to mention the fact that he was marring this mare without her consent.

The two had snuck back out of the room after they saw that Applejack was alright. Their plan was to kick the door in, and try to draw Applejack away from the alter by having her chase after Apple Bloom. Then, they could find a room that was empty thanks to everypony being at the wedding. From there, Rarity could try anything to bring her friend back to her.

“Are we goin’ to go through with the plan?” Apple Bloom asked, as Rarity looked to her.

“Oh my, yes! You’ll have to forgive me, seeing all of this going on has had an effect on me,” Rarity said unhappily.

“When should ah’ go?” She asked.

“Well, by the look of it, Virgo is going to have the wedding finished within the next couple of minutes, so I suppose the sooner the better.”

“Okay, here ah’ go then—“

“Oh, no, wait!” Rarity said, peeking through the crack for a moment, “Just- go when I say…”

“Huh?” The filly asked, tilting her head at the strange attitude.

Rarity stood in silence for a few more seconds, until she gave the girl a single nod.

“Okay, I’ll open it, and you run in.” Rarity said, as she nodded back to her, “Three… two… one… now!”

Rarity pushed the door open, just as the priest spoke.

//

“If there is anypony here, who sees a reason why these two should not be wed, speak now, or forever hold your peace.” He announced, looking around the crowd anxiously, as if he were hoping that somepony might stand up.

“Ah’ object!” Apple Bloom shouted, running in to the room, as everypony turned to look at her, “Applejack! How could you get married without invitin’ yer’ own sister?”

“A-Apple Bloom?” She asked, tilting her head, “W- What in tarnation are you doin’ here?”

“What’s going on?!” Virgo shouted, looking to the filly with his gaze narrowed, “Get lost you—“

“How could ya’ do that tuh me?” Apple Bloom asked cutting Virgo off and turning around as she faked her best tears, “Ah guess you don’t love me anymore!”

“Of course ah’ do,” Applejack said, taking a step away from the podium, “How could ya’ ever think ah’ didn’t?”

“Go!” Rarity whispered.

“Oh yeah!” The filly whispered over her shoulder, suddenly bolting out of the room.

“Apple Bloom!” Applejack cried, as she jumped from the podium and began chasing her sister.

“Get back here this instant!” Virgo shouted, wobbling off of the podium himself as he tried to keep up with the orange mare, “We are to be married!”

“After ah’ find my sister!” Applejack shouted, not giving the stallion a second look as she bolted down the hall and took the same left that Apple Bloom had.

“No! No! No!” Virgo shouted, stomping on the floor as his entire body vibrated along with his movements, “Get back here right now!”

Rarity managed to slip herself away from her hiding spot, and get down the hallway after her friend while Virgo was busy shouting at the guards to chase Applejack down.

“Apple Bloom!” Applejack shouted, her accent having returned in full force, “Where’d ya’ go?”

“Down here sis!” Her voice echoed from another hallway to the left of them, “Hurry!”

Applejack, followed by Rarity both followed the path of her voice, taking the most convoluted path that Apple Bloom could muster, guaranteeing that their path wouldn’t be followed any time soon.

“Just a couple more turns!” She shouted back to the two, “Then we can—who are you all?”

Rarity suddenly felt a surge of fear hearing the filly say that, had Virgo somehow teleported and found them? She hadn’t expected his magic to be that effective!

“Apple Bloom!” Applejack shouted again, “W-what happened to you?”

Rarity picked up her speed, and was surprised to see herself keeping up with Applejack. She figured the mare would have trampled her in a footrace.

“Rarity!” Applejack shouted, “We need to find mah’ sister!”

“A-are you back to normal?” Rarity asked.

“What in the hay do ya’ mean, am ah’ back to normal?” Applejack asked, her face scrunching just as it always had when Applejack was annoyed with somepony, “Ah’m perfectly fine!”

“Well- what do you think of Virgo?” Rarity asked carefully, hoping she would give her the answer she wanted.

“Ah told’ya! Ah’m In love with him!” She shouted, as Rarity sighed, she hoped that Apple Bloom would bring back more than just her accent.

Turning the final corner, the two of them came face to face with three mares.

“Applejack! Rarity!” Pinkie shouted, jumping up happily, “Oh my gosh I can’t believe we bumped in to each other like this!”

“T-Twilight?” Applejack asked, tilting her head, “Pinkie?”

“My goodness!” Rarity said, running forward and embracing Twilight, “Is it really you? You’re not… different, are you?”

“Don’t worry, it’s us,” Trixie said, looking to Applejack and smiling, “I’m glad that you’re alright.”

”They’re down one of these hallways!”

The group looked behind them, as they heard the far off voices of the guards as they began their search for Applejack.

“We need to get out of here right now!” Twilight said, “I can take all of us away from here!”

“Where’s Apple Bloom?” Applejack demended, “Did she run past y’all?”

“I didn’t see her,” Twilight said, cocking her head at the oddly made-up mare, “But, you look… really nice, Applejack.”

“No kidding!” Pinkie exclaimed, zipping over to her friend as she inspected every inch of her face, “You’re Beauuuutiful Applejack!”

“Did she turn at a different corner?” Applejack asked, “Ah’… Ah’ need to go find her!”

“No, Applejack, wait!” Rarity said quickly, “That… wasn’t actually Apple Bloom…”

“What in tarnation are ya talkin’ about?” She asked, shaking her head as she tried to look past the three hoping to spot her sister, “Ah’ think ah’d know my own sister—“

“That was the filly that spent the night with us, making you up…” Rarity said, avoiding the gaze of her confused friend, “I dressed her to look like Apple Bloom so that we could get you away from Virgo.”

“What?” She asked, her face scrunching in confusion as she tried to process the information, “H-how dare you! You know, you’re always buttin’ yerself in to other ponies’ business! Ah’ can’t count the times you made all of us do things your way back in Ponyville! Where we ate, how we dressed- ah swear! An’ now, yer tryin’ to keep me from marrying the man ah’ love?”

“Applejack, how could you possibly remember all of that about me?” Rarity asked, “You didn’t even know—“

“An’ don’t think that ah’ didn’t notice all of the mean glances you were sending my way!” Applejack accused, her accent slipping away, as she was pulled back in to her dream, “Those jealous eyes bearing down on me, just because you’re not getting married!”

Rarity opened her mouth to rebuke the accusation, but knew deep down that she had indeed been jealous. However, it wasn’t because Applejack was getting married.

“Oh? You have nothing to say?” Applejack asked, “That’s what I thought! Now, if you’re done lying to me, then I’ll be going back to the stallion I love.”

“Applejack, wait!” Pinkie said, watching as the mare turned around and made her way toward the end of the hall.

“We can’t let her marry him,” Twilight said, pointing her device at the bride, “I can just teleport her out of here with us.”

“No,” Rarity said quickly, “Give me one more chance with her… please.”

Twilight gave her a worried look, but eventually nodded, and lowered her arm.

“Applejack, wait.” Rarity said, as the mare down the hall stopped in her tracks, “You… you were right.”

Applejack turned around, and gave her an expectant look.

“I… I am jealous of you,” Rarity said quietly, as if to keep the rest of the world from hearing her, “But not because you’re getting married. It’s, well… oh Celestia… You’re just so- so beautiful!”

The statement visibly took Applejack aback; it was not what she had expected to hear from her friend.

“What do you mean?” She asked, completely dumbfounded.

“There’s too many ways to count! I cake my face with makeup to hide lines on my face… I have short, stubby eyelashes, my hair is the least cooperative thing in Equestria!” Rarity said, breathing in uneasily, as she felt her eyes begin to water, “You put on a little blush, some eye shadow, and do up your hair, and you look better than I do on my best days!”

“Rarity…” She said, deciding to not cut in just yet.

“I think I’ve always been jealous...” Rarity said quietly, closing both her eyes, causing two tears to run down her cheek, leaving a trail of black in their wake from her makeup, “It’s why I’ve always spoken down to you when it comes to topics such as fashion and the like. I’ve always been terrified that if you were to realize what potential you held… everypony would... wonder why they were wasting their time with me.”

The four girls were in absolute awe. None had expected this kind of confession from her.

“How could’ya ever think that?” Applejack asked, taking a step toward her friend, her accent back once again, “Ah’ promise ya’, Rarity, ah’ don’t have any plans to try and take yer place as the town’s most beautiful mare.”

Rarity laughed as she wiped her eyes, “When you say it like that, it sounds so childish.”

“Rarity, it don’t matter how it sounds,” Applejack said, walking the rest of the distance so they could be standing together, “Ah’d be upset if somepony came in to town and kicked trees better than me.”

Rarity nodded, a small smile forming on her face,

“When ya’ boil a pony down to their essence, it doesn’t matter how important something sounds,” Applejack said comfortingly, “The fact is, that it matters to ‘em.”

The three girls knew that they were short on time, but somehow it felt like they needed to let this exchange take place.

“Those little fears can force a pony to make some real mistakes,” Applejack said, “But ah’ wouldn’t be much of a friend if I hung it over yer head.”

“Thank you,” Rarity said softly, clearing her throat.

Applejack smiled as she embraced her friend.

Twilight, having remembered the button combinations, took this opportunity to return the ability to use magic to the two mares in front of her. Even though Applejack wasn’t able to cast anything, fixing everypony was still something that needed to be done.

Rarity felt the pulse from the device run over her body, as she felt her magic begin flowing once again.

“Ah!” She said, stepping back from Applejack, “That feels so much better!”

Applejack on the other hoof, didn’t look so good.

“Are you okay?” Trixie asked, stepping away from the other two as she ran to AJ, “Applejack?”

"I... I remember everything," She said quietly, as the girls surrounded her.

"Is that you, Applejack?" Twilight asked.

"No, my name is Deceit." She muttered, looking around slowly, "Applejack accepted me weeks ago on her own. It didn't even require that she face me, like Rarity and Rainbow Dash had to. I manifested here in a completely different way than I would have, had Applejack held me inside long enough."

"That's amazing," Trixie said.

"But that initial burst of chaos that usually accompanies our arrival still existed inside of me. So, when Aries tried to experiment on us with that spell..." She said, her eyes blinking heavily, "It... it forced me out..."

The mare’s face suddenly scrunched as she collapsed on to the ground.

“Applejack!” They all shouted, running to her side.

However, before any of them could do anything, her body simply faded from existence. While the other four watched in disbelief.

“W-where did she go?” Rarity asked.

“She must have gone back to her real body in Ponyville!” Pinkie shouted a little too loudly, as her voice bounced down the halls, towards the listening ears of the guards.

“Down here! Follow me!”

“We need to get out of here,” Twilight said, pointing at the wall and creating a portal, “This will take us back to Ponyville! We should be able to get Applejack from there!”

The four wasted no time jumping in, hoping that they were only a few steps away from getting out of this horrible place.

////

Dash rubbed her head as she stood herself up from where she had fallen down.

She was having a hard time comprehending exactly what had happened to her. Some kind of trap door had opened below her, and dropped her down in to a pit, leaving Chrysalis alone up top. Then again, that wasn’t so hard to comprehend.

“I swear, when we get out of here, Alex is giving me a six hour massage…” Dash grumbled, Taking a moment to look at her surroundings, “Great, more cobblestone.”

Everything around the mare was stone brick. The
walls were bare, the ceiling had no light fixtures, and the floor was barren. The only deviation in how the perfectly square room looked, was the doorway in to yet another stone filled room.

Dash sighed, cracked her neck side to side, and began her brand new adventure in the basement of the horror house. Celestia only knew what she was going to encounter down here.

Walking in to the new room, Dash looked on either side of her, and saw that she had two choices in direction. One hallway going left, and one going right.

“Another puzzle, huh?” Dash said, rolling her eyes, “You council members really need to get a better hobby.”

Choosing to go right, she followed the new hall in silence for a couple of minutes, hoping to find any sign of life, maybe even one of her other friends.

“Is anypony down here?” Dash called, as her voice bounced down the hall, only greeting her with her own echo back.

She kept up her pace, praying that this wasn’t going to be another endless hallway.

Suddenly, two white orbs appeared in the shadows in front of her. Each one looked like it was covered in a myriad of black specs.

”Dashie.”

Dash stopped dead in her tracks.

“Oh, no no no no no no,” Dash said shaking her head, as the mangled body of her friend came limping out of the shadows in front of her.

The mare was now in an even further state of decay than she had been the last time Dash had seen her. Her coat wasn’t pink anymore. It was either brown, or it was black, where her skin had begun to grow mold.

“Pinkie, listen to me—“

”I want you to come to my party. All our friends are there.”

Dash felt yet another pang of absolute fear as her mind wandered to a place she had locked away up until this point.

What if this was her friend? What if this was the real Pinkie, and she had been warped by Cancer in to this monster?

”Alex misses you. He wants you with him.”

“Don’t you say that!” Dash shouted suddenly, “If there’s one pony who would come out on the other side of all this fine, it’s him!”

”Come with me, and you can see him.”

Dash inhaled as much as she could, refusing to let herself lose composure here. If she did, she might as well have run in to Pinkie’s arms.

Backing up, she decided that left was the direction she needed to go.

Turning around, Dash bolted in the opposite direction as fast as she could, covering all of her distance back to the second room in only a few seconds, where she wasted no time running through the opposite hall, once again at max speed.

However, after covering about the same amount of distance, she encountered yet another one of her friends.

”Darling, you simply must come to the party.

Rarity was in the same state as Pinkie, as far as her appearance. Her coat was missing, and her skin was dark. However, along with those, her horn had clearly been snapped off.

“I’m not going anywhere!” Dash shouted, feeling her heart start pounding even harder than it previously had, “Just- get out of my way!”

Dash didn’t know what to do. Running away would just herd her back to Pinkie, and staying here was guaranteeing that she would face her fate at Rarity’s hooves.

Deciding to take her chances with the former, she once again turned around and ran back to the main room.

As she entered it for the third time, a bright white square appeared on the wall that didn’t contain an exit to the room, as Cancer’s face appeared in front of her.

“Out of options?” He laughed, as the two mares drew closer toward Dash, “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“What do you want?” Dash shouted, refusing once again to break down, “Why are you doing this? What’s the point to chasing me down with those monsters?”

“Why Rainbow Dash, how could you call your best friends in the world monsters?” Cancer asked, feigning shock.

“Those aren’t my friends,” Dash snapped back, “You made them that way!”

“I’ve got some bad news for you,” He said, smirking confidently enough to give her pause, “All of your friends were through this house before you. You and Chrysalis are the very last ones.”

“T-that’s not possible!” Dash tried to argue, but the shaking in her voice was giving away her lack of confidence, “You couldn’t—“

“Oh, but I did.” The changeling said, almost getting off on the fear she was exuding, “However, all of your friend failed to get this far in the house, so I’m going to give you a little help!”

Dash was weary to take anything he was offering her.

“I’ll give you the chance to hide!” He said, “You can run back up to the endless floor, and if you can elude your friends for a full hour, I’ll let you, and Chrysalis go home!”

Dash didn’t trust a single thing this guy said. She knew he was toying with her.

“And what about my friends?” Dash asked, trying to read his expression in the hopes that she could get a concrete answer on what happened to the ponies she cared about.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” He shook his head, his smile still wide on his face, “I’m afraid that they’re gone forever. There’s no hope for them… but there’s still a chance for you.”

Dash didn’t observe any sign of lying on his face, and her heart was wrenching because of it.

“So, why don’t you follow these stairs, and head back up to that never ending hallway?” Cancer asked, as several of the bricks next to his screen fell apart, revealing a staircase, “You’d better hurry though, if you want a chance at hiding in time.”

Dash didn’t respond as she bolted up the staircase. She’d figure a way out of this horrible place, she just needed another minute to figure it out.

////

Twilight and her friends all fell out of the portal in the sky, and landed on their butts in the dark, rotting forest that had held Dash and Chrysalis prisoner for so long.

“How’s Applejack?” Twilight asked, as she looked to the unconscious mare that they had taken from the Ponyville world, “Is there any chance the jump woke her up?”

“No,” Trixie shook her head, looking at the collapsed mare on Pinkie back, “Still out like a light.”

“How is it that you can carry her with such ease, Pinkie?” Rarity asked, shocked that the weight of another pony wasn’t slowing her down in the least.

“Well, duh!” Pinkie giggled, “I’m an earth pony! Just because I don’t do physical work, doesn’t mean I’m not strong! I could probably carry somepony else on top of AJ!”

“We’ll let you carry Fluttershy if the chance comes up,” Twilight said, looking at her wrist, “All I can see is that Rainbow Dash and Chrysalis are somewhere in this world. But I don’t have any idea where…”

“Just a second,” Trixie said, looking up at the thick tangled branches above her.

Casting a spell, a beam of energy shot upward, destroying the thick cover.

Then, with a levitation spell, she lifted herself above the tree line, and looked out in to the distance all around her.

“Okay…” Trixie said, lowering herself once again, “So, in front of us is the lightning wall. And the beam of energy is coming from behind us.”

“So, if we turn around, we should find the council member.” Twilight said, as Trixie nodded, “And hopefully Rainbow Dash is with them.”

“I almost hope she isn’t,” Twilight sighed, “I heard that this council member had a horrible plan for her.”

“Then what are we standing around for?” Pinkie asked, “If anything happens to Dashie, then it’s on me to take care of Alex for her!”

The three other girls gave her a very confused look.

Pinkie, on the other hoof flew forward, balancing her friend perfectly on her back as she bound toward the lightning.

“Uh… yeah, we should hurry,” Trixie said.

“Mhmm.” Was all Rarity could manage.

////

Dash had made her way up the staircase, and had indeed found herself in the endless hallway once again. As soon as she had stepped in to it, the staircase behind her vanished.

”I love hide and seek, Dashie.”

”It’s so much more fun than pin the tail on the pony.”

“’Time to hide my rump,” Dash seethed, as she decided to save some time by flying down the hall.

However, as she flew, she noticed just how stale, and thick the air was in this house. It must have been made that way to keep her from flying around inside.

Stopping at the third room on her left, Dash ran inside, and looked for any place that she could buy herself enough time to figure out an escape plan.

“Where would be a good spot…” Dash muttered, thinking back to when her and Chrysalis had been searching for the clues.

Then she had it.

Running out the door, she ran to the ninth room in the rotation and looked at the mess that was still present from when the two of them had been searching for the final clue.

Looking to the open door, she nodded inwardly, liking the idea she had.

Moving one of the bookshelves so it overlapped with the door, preventing it from closing, as she made herself a small sliver of space that she could occupy behind the open door, while the bookshelf kept those monsters from being able to move the door and check behind it. Sure, if they pushed really hard they’d move it, but all she cared about was riding the hour out.

Jumping in to her hiding spot, Dash exhaled silently, and began the waiting game.

And time passed.

Her two ‘friends’ had come and gone a couple of times, neither time having the sense to look behind the door, just as Dash had hoped.

The only problem Dash had, was that she had no way of keeping track of time. At first she had simply tried counting, but that got far too tedious, far too fast.

So, instead she decided to just wait until she was comfortable that more than an hour had passed, then she would see what Cancer had in store for her

“My, my.” Cancer’s voice echoed across the entire floor, “You’ve done a better job than I thought you would! How many places are there to hide on this floor?”

“Enough.” Dash said silently, not daring give herself away.

“But, I decided to speak up, to let you know that your hour had passed!” He announced, “But, it got me thinking, this was far too easy for you!”

Dash growled. Here came the bullshit.

“So, I’ve decided to extend the time to three hours!” He laughed, with just enough insanity seeping out of his voice to let Dash know that she was dealing with a real psychopath.

“Rainbow Dash! Don’t listen to him!” Chrysalis’s voice suddenly came up, “He’s just playing with—“

“Would you shut it?!” He shouted, as the sound of a slap echoed toward Dash.

And, it was then, that she decided to take this sick game away from him.

“No!” She shouted, kicking the door open as she stepped out in to the destroyed room, “That is it! I’m done with your sick shit!”

“Oh, don’t say that!” Cancer said, his tone nearing what Dash thought might even be apologetic, “Look, I’ll give you five minutes to find a new—“

“No!” Dash shouted, “If what you say is true, and my friends are all- are all twisted freaks now… Then why am I even trying?”

Cancer didn’t respond.

“I’m not going to spend the last few hours of my life hiding in a corner from you, or your sick creatures!” She shouted, walking over to the small window in the room, and smashing it open in rage, “I’m a captain in the Royal Guard, and I refuse to let you—“ Dash suddenly felt the air in the room around her begin flowing out the window she had smashed, “I- I won’t let you make a coward out of me!”

A deep growl sounded in to the room.

“Got your panties in a twist?” Dash asked, looking to the other window in the room, and smashing it open as well, “Because I can see right through you now!”

“Oh, can you now?” He asked, making no attempt to sound nice.

Trying to prolong the conversation, Dash made sure to take her time saying every single word as slowly as she could.

“You, are obviously so fucked, that you need to make others suffer, just to make yourself feel some kind of twisted happiness!” She said as she made her way out in to the hallway, and in to the next room, where she was able to smash the glass of the two windows in there as well, “It probably stems from an abusive father. One that took a little too much pleasure when he smacked you around! He didn’t do it to punish you! He did it because it made him laugh!”

Dash wasn’t sure if his silence was one of angered admittance, or if he was simply letting her finish.

Either way, she had no time to waste.

Stepping out of that room, Dash flapped her wings and smiled at the airflow she could feel between her feathers. Just one more room ought to do it.

“You want to know something, Captain Dash?” Cancer asked, now speaking in a monotone, “You’re not far off the mark.”

Running past the now-frozen corpses of her friends, Dash put her hoof through the last two windows.

“It was my mother,” he said, as he appeared in front of her, standing in the doorway, finally giving Dash a chance to see what he looked like.

He was slimmer than most changeling soldiers, and his hair was long like Chrysalis’s. He also seemed to be taller than the average male, but only by a few inches. Otherwise, he looked like any other changeling she had seen.

“She used to slap me, and laugh while she did it. Even the smallest error I made would result in a beating..” Cancer said, stepping toward the mare, as she took a step back, “For years, I envied her. To be able to do something that brought her so much joy! I wanted to feel that same- pure joy! …but, to be honest, she stopped it after I turned thirteen. I don’t know if she realized it was wrong, or maybe she was getting her kicks somewhere else…”

Dash slowly took a step to the side hoping to find an opening in case she needed to run away from him. He wasn’t trying to block her path, and she didn’t want to make herself look too obvious.

“So, I decided that I wanted a turn…” He said, a twisted smile growing on his lips as he continued, “As soon as I turned sixteen, old enough to inherit her seat on the council, I decided that it was my turn.”

Dash continued her rotation around him, as she came only steps away from the door.

“I went in to her bedroom at night while she was sleeping… she looked so peaceful,” He said, as his smile faded, “But as soon as I made contact with her head, I didn’t care about peace. I only wanted to feel that happiness she felt all those years ago! I wanted her to make me happy!”

“And… did it make you happy?” Dash asked, now only a few steps from the door.

”No!” He shouted, as his eyes began to glow green, and the house began to shake, “I beat her head in to a bloody pulp! And I felt nothing!”

Dash only nodded as she stepped backward. She didn’t have very long before he snapped.

“I will never stop! Not until I can feel the satisfaction that comes with suffering!” He shouted, stepping toward her, “And you’re going to be my next test subject!”

Dash bolted past him and turned the corner, losing him around the corner.

“You don’t have any chance, Captain Dash,” Cancer said, casting a spell that Rainbow would have thought impossible.

The entire hallway shifted, and straightened out, until all of the corners that used to exist were gone. The hall was now straight, and truly went on forever.

Turning around, Cancer laughed once again as he stepped toward her.

Dash wasted no time turning tail and bolting away. She needed to as far away from his as she could.

“Come now,” Cancer laughed, turning around to watch Dash as she was seemingly warped from the end of the hall, back to the beginning.

Dash skidded to a stop upon seeing that Cancer was now in front of her, instead of behind.

“You can’t get away from me,” He smiled, tilting his head slightly as he began walking toward her.

Turning around, Dash ran in the opposite direction once again, trying to buy herself enough time to work out just how she was going to get out of here.

However, just as he had before, Cancer was suddenly in front of her instead of behind.

“Fine, if I can’t get away from you, I’ll just kick your ass!” Dash shouted, running full speed at the changeling.

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Cancer asked, waiting until Dash was within a few feet of him, before he cast another spell, stretching the entire hallway between him and Dash, somehow putting a massive distance between them, “This is my world, and you’ll play by my rules!”

This was it.

“You think you can outrun me?” Dash growled, spreading her wings and leaning forward, before launching herself toward him at an incredible pace.

Once again, just before Dash reached him with her outstretched hoof, Cancer pulled the hallway even further, putting an even larger distance between them.

“I can do this all day!” Cancer laughed.

Dash smirked.

“No you can’t.”

Beating her wings harder than she ever had in her life, she fought against the stale air in the building, and accelerated to a point that Cancer clearly had not been expecting.

"Nice try!" He shouted, pulling back once again.

The air around Dash began to warp as she flew faster yet toward him, after another moment, sparks even began arcing off of her outstretched hoof.

“Fly as fast as you like,” Cancer said, readying yet another spell to put distance between them, “You can’t reach me... wait. No!“

Dash almost laughed as he realized just what she was doing.

“No… you can’t do that in here!” He shouted, as he watched a rainbow field of air ripple around her body, “This is my world! You will play by my—“

He wasn’t able to finish the sentence.

Dash finally crossed the threshold, as the air relented in hindering her, and instead exploded outward with such force, that the hallway, along with the rest of the upper level of the mansion, was completely obliterated.

////

“How much further do we have to go, Twilight?” Rarity asked, “My legs are simply killing me from all the walking I’ve been doing for the last two—“

Suddenly, a bright flash of light lit up the sky, as the ground began to shake tremendously.

“Look!” Pinkie said, pointing above them, off to the distance at the rainbow ring that was expanding away from the source of the lightning.

It was unmistakeable. A sonic rainboom had just gone off, somewhere deeper in the forest.

“That had to be Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie said excitedly, “I only know one pony that can do that!”

“Wait… something’s coming!” Trixie said, squinting at the hundreds of shadows heading in their direction.

Instantly, beams of wood, glass, and stone all came crashing around them. Luckily, Trixie was on the ball, and she protected them within a spell before the wreckage could cause any damage.

Once the havoc came to an end, and the spell dropped, the three were simply in shock over what could have possibly happened.

“We… need to go find Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said.

////

Dash slowly opened her eyes and used her hoof to block out the sunlight that was beaming down on her.

“Oh, I’ve missed this,” She muttered, turning her head as she looked around at the destruction she had caused, “I hope that house didn’t need the upper floor.”

The mansion she had entered along with Chrysalis had been brutally damaged by her sonic rainboom. Almost the entire second floor had been destroyed, along with large chunks out of the first floor.

There wasn’t as much debris around her as Dash had anticipated. The blast must have knocked most of it clear from here, sending it all over the forest. After all, it had taken the entire canopy with it, allowing her to see the sky for the first time in what felt like forever.

“You bitch…” A voice growled, as Dash looked to a pile of rubble a short distance toward the house from her, “You think you’re free and clear now, don’t you?”

Dash didn’t need any help figuring out who that was.

Rolling to her right to stand up, Dash suddenly winced in pain as she put some weight on her right wing.

“Ah!” She hissed, rolling back as she lifted her head to inspect the damage.

Along the top of her wing, at the center, her radius or ulna had broken, causing both broken ends of the bone to push upward, and try to erupt from her skin at the top of her wing.

“Awesome,” Dash grunted, rolling to her left instead to avoid hurting herself more than she needed to.

Righting herself, she walked over to the pile of rubble that had been cursing at her, and kicked a few bricks away from the top, revealing Cancer, who was in much worse shape than she was.

“You’re still trapped here,” He said, grimacing at the mare, “You may have gotten the upper hoof, but you destroyed my magic field manipulator. There’s no escaping this hell now.”

“Where is Chrysalis?” Dash asked, narrowing her gaze, “And if you lie to me, well- I can always bury you under more rubble.”

Cancer exhaled, not daring move his body to avoid any unnecessary pain.

“In the basement,” He spat, looking to the right without moving his head, “The front entrance is still intact. There’s a hidden door behind the bookcase in there.”

Dash wasn’t sure if she should buy his story, but figured that he had so little going for him, that lying would do him more harm than good.

Dash didn’t bother to inspect his body more than she needed to. It was clear that more than one of his limbs were broken, and she was sure that the shrapnel would have torn his paper wings apart.

“Don’t run off now,” Dash said to him.

“Very funny.” He said, coughing weakly.

Dash walked away from him as she made her way back to the front door of the house. Upon entering, she saw that the bookshelf Cancer had mentioned already knocked over, revealing the door leading to the basement.

Stepping over it, she headed down the stone staircase, in to the only part of the mansion that hadn’t been completely destroyed by her rainboom.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, she found herself in an area very different from what she had expected. The room was decorated with wallpaper, paintings, a soft red rug, it removed the lingering question of why he had run his sick game out of the basement.

“Chrysalis?” Dash shouted, walking across the room to the large wooden door on the other end, “Where are you?”

“In here!” She shouted from the other side of the door, “What the hell was that explosion?”

Running across the room, she winced at the pain surging through her wing, but decided to stick with it, just to have some company.

Opening the door, Dash breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the queen tied up in the corner.

“Thank Celestia,” Dash said, her smile broadening as she walked toward the queen.

“Celestia had nothing to do with it,” Chrysalis said, “Or… did she? Did she cause that explosion?”

“Oh, no,” Dash shook her head, as she grabbed one of the knotted ropes with her teeth and began pulling it loose, “Thath wath me.”

“How could you have done that?” Chrysalis asked, feeling the ropes begin to loosen, “Last I heard, he was going up to deal with you personally.”

“He dropped me in the endless hall, thinking that I’d be trapped,” Dash said, reaching forward to pull the final rope, as the binding fell to the floor, “So, with an endless runway in front of me, I had no problem making an exit of my own.”

“I see... and what happened to Cancer?” Chrysalis happy to have the use of her arms once again, “Did you…?”

“No,” Dash shook her head, “I think I broke all of his legs, but he’s still breathing.”

“Good,” Chrysalis said, rolling her neck, causing it to crack several times, “Because he’s going to pay for what he’s done.”

“I hope so,” Dash said, gesturing to the door, “We need to work on our— Wait… did you hear that?”

////

“There,” Trixie said, pointing to the huge amount of light coming from a clearing ahead of them, “That’s where the rainboom went off.”

“I can still see the colored clouds,” Rarity muttered, watching the dust cloud over their heads spread out in a beautiful display.

They covered the rest of their distance to the mansion in only a minute, each of them wanting nothing more than to reunite with their friend.

As soon as the house came in to view, they all had to stop and take a moment to appreciate the level of destruction their friend had achieved.

“Now I know why Applejack asked her to level her old barn…” Twilight said, simply awe struck.

“Come on!” Pinkie called, “Let’s go find her! I need to take a break from holding Applejack!”

The three began to carefully navigate the mounds of wood and stone, as they made their way to what looked like the back door of the mansion.

Suddenly, the four had their attention pulled to a large pile of debris, as it shifted, and a large portion of it tumbled to the ground.

“That could be her,” Twilight said, as they all rushed over to the pile, “There’s no doubt she was in the house when she pulled off that trick… she could have been really hurt.”

“I’ll levitate it all off!” Trixie called, getting behind the pile, as Twilight, Rarity, and Pinkie got ready to help their injured friend.

However, as soon as the pile lifted from the ground, the figure instantly started moving toward the three girls.

”Dashie.”

The low voice vibrated the ground, as the torso of a pink pony dragged itself forward with its right arm. Behind her, she left a trail of sand, as if her entire body had been filled with it.

Rarity, Pinkie, and Twilight all shrieked as they all jumped away from the monster. Trixie, having no idea what was going on, dropped the pile, and instantly understood what her friends’ problem was.

“Come to my party, Dashie…”

“I-is that… m-m-me?” Pinkie asked, almost hyperventilating at the horrifying sight.

Getting her first look at its face, Twilight was shocked that she had to agree with Pinkie.

“W-what is this?” Rarity asked, surprised that she hadn’t completely lost her mind to this sight.

Trying to back up further, Pinkie finally lost her ability to balance Applejack on her side, as the orange mare collapsed to the ground, still unconscious.

Spotting the unconscious mare, the monster suddenly rushed at her, covering the small distance the girls had put between them and it in only a second.

Somehow leaping in to the air, the beast was only a few feet away from Applejack as it dove down from above her.

Trixie, Twilight and Rarity all began casting different spells to knock the creature away, but before any of them had the chance, a rainbow streak shot to them from inside the house, and struck the creature mid-leap as it tried to attack Applejack.

The beast on the receiving end of the charge was launched so far in to the sky through the opening in the canopy above them; it almost seemed that it had hit the lightning barrier in the sky.

“Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie cheered, as everypony turned to looked at the beaming mare.

“In the flesh,” She smirked, breathing a sigh of relief at the sight of her real friends, thanking her lucky stars that Cancer had been lying about them dying, “And I want you guys to know, I can still go pretty fast with just one wing.”

“Oh thank goodness,” Rarity said, “I was worried that you had been hurt when this house exploded!”

“Thank Celestia we found you!” Twilight spoke up next, “I heard about what your council member might do to you! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Dash said, not wanting to worry her friends with her injury, assuming nothing could be done about it anyway.

“Awesome! Well, now we’re just missing Alex, Fluttershy, Alpha, and Chrysalis. But, she should be somewhere in this world with you.” Twilight said, looking around the rubble hopefully, “I hope she wasn’t in the house.”

“Oh, she’s here,” Dash said, pointing to the back door of the house, as the Queen slowly made her way out.

“Oh, perfect!” Twilight said.

“Wait- you said ‘one wing?’” Pinkie asked, remembering what Dash had said a moment ago.

“Oh, yeah-” Dash sighed, figuring there was no point in hiding it from them.

Dash flared her broken wing, wincing in pain as she showed them the damage, “Got this after the rainboom. A brick landed on my wing or something.”

The girls all cringed at the damage she had received.

“That’s terrible!” Pinkie said, jumping over Applejack’s collapsed body as she inspected the damage, “Can anypony heal it?”

Trixie and Twilight both looked to Rarity.

“I know I’m the one with the chaotic power,” Rarity began, biting her lip, “But I haven’t quite been able to wrap my head around the healing magic yet… But I could certainly give it a try!”

“That’s alright,” Dash said, showing none of the pain she was experiencing as she brought her wing back to her body, “I haven’t got using this magic down either, considering I have to cast it with my wings… I’m sure Alex can fix me up when we reach him.”

“I can try to help out,” Trixie offered, “I know some—“

“No,” Dash shook her head, “Harmonious healing spells are amongst the most dangerous to cast by inexperienced magic users. I’m not saying that you guys are bad at magic, just that you aren’t doctors.”

“And even then… a doctor wouldn’t be able to do much but set the bones, and hasten the healing a small amount,” Twilight agreed.

“If you try to force it, you could hurt yourself,” Dash said with a smile, “I appreciate the offer though.”

Trixie gave her a smile in return. It made her happy to be treated as if she was just another member of the group.

“Wait- you guys can cast magic?” Dash asked, “I thought it was all blocked here! Neither Chrysalis or I could get a spark out!”

“I have this!” Twilight said, showing the PDA on her wrist, “It belongs to one of the council members, he showed me how to use it, and I was able to restore all of our magic!”

“Wow!” Dash said, taking a step closer to Twilight as she brandished the piece of technology, “Can you fix me so I can use magic again?”

“Once Chrysalis catches up here, I’ll fix you both.” She said, suddenly lifting her hoof out of a small patch of sand from the monster and frowning deeply.

“How did you like Pinkie’s Twin?” Dash said, gesturing to the ground covered in sand, “I’ve been dealing with her for hours, along with the two of you.”

Twilight and Rarity both frowned as Dash pointed to them.

“I hope they were both crushed when the house exploded,” Rarity said.

“I’m sure they were.” Trixie said, looking around at some of the rubble piles, “Even if they weren’t, we’ll be long gone before they can do anything to us.”

“Wait- how did you guys get here?” Dash asked, as a slew of questions popped in to her head that she was dying to have answered, “Were you all here in the woods? Or did you cross the lightning? Were you all together when you woke up?”

“Oh no, wait… yes! Well, no, and yes! But also no!” Pinkie said, only confusing the Pegasus as she continued rambling the two words back and forth.

“We were all in different worlds,” Rarity said, as Dash gave no expression whatsoever in response.

“Of course we are,” She sighed, “Well, how have your worlds been then? Horrifying? Because this place was practically hell.”

“It hasn’t been so bad for us,” Trixie shook her head, “We were just in Ponyville.”

“It wasn’t too bad for me either,” Twilight said, garnering some frowns from Rarity and Dash.

“I for one, went through quite the ordeal!” Rarity said, levitating Applejack up on to Pinkie’s back, “Applejack was intent on marrying one of the council members, and it was up to me to stop her!”

“Uh, what?” Rainbow Dash asked, tilting her head and narrowing her gaze slightly, “Why would she want to do that?”

“Well, it wasn’t her,” Rarity answered, “It was actually a version of herself that idolized the idea of getting married, and being a beautiful mare, and the council had somehow manipulated that version of her in to loving him.”

Dash let out a loud, obnoxious laughter.

”What?!” Dash gasped, laughing a bit too loud, “Are you kidding me? Applejack and being beautiful? Ha!”

“Hey now!” Rarity snapped back to her, “You’re planning a wedding! How ‘Rainbow Dash’ is that? And something tells me that you plan on dressing up for the occasion!”

Dash stopped laughing, as her mouth hung open.

“Ehhh, good point,” Dash coughed.

“And I’ll have you know… Applejack truly looked truly amazing with a bit of makeup,” Rarity said, “She had me feeling quite jealous.”

“Seriously?” Dash asked, shocked that Rarity would feel that way- let alone admit it, “That’s… strange to hear.”

Rarity didn’t respond, she just exhaled.

“But how did we end up seeing that version of her? Was that her dark side?” Dash asked, looking back to Twilight and Trixie, who now stood side by side.

“I’m not sure,” Twilight spoke up, “This world was manifested when Fluttershy and Applejack both fell under the control of their chaotic sides at the same time. While the mare Rarity dealt with wasn’t anything like the real Applejack, she wasn’t the opposite of her either.”

“Her name wasn’t Deceit or something?” Dash asked, looking over her shoulder to the changeling queen as she slowly made her way through the rubble.

“Well, yes. But she was nothing like her name.” Rarity spoke back up, nervously scratching her ear, “She was still incredibly honest with me. She actually talked to me about her mother.”

“Wait, like, her real mom?” Pinkie asked, her mouth falling open.

“Mhmm,” Rarity nodded.

Twilight and Trixie were both out of the loop a bit, as they looked to each other with confused expressions.

“Is that odd for her?” Twilight asked, “I mean, I’ve just never brought that subject up.”

“Applejack’s never talked about her parents,” Dash said, shaking her head, “Whenever any of us have tried to bring up the topic, she shuts it down instantly.”

“It’s a super-duper private thing for her and her brother,” Pinkie said, “They were so young when it happened that they were completely devastated!”

“As wrong as it might be to say,” Rarity said, “Apple Bloom was lucky to only be a baby when they passed away. Their death left a powerful impression on Applejack and Big Mac.”

The group fell silent as Chrysalis finally reached them.

“I appreciate you waiting for me,” Chrysalis grumbled, expecting to hear some kind of remark from the rainbow mare.

“Sorry,” Dash said, blinking a couple of times as she cleared her throat, “Why didn’t you just fly?”

“Those ropes Cancer wrapped around me left a bit of a burn on my wings,” Chrysalis said, “I didn’t want to make a hole in them that didn’t belong.”

Dash only nodded, as she looked back to Twilight.

“So, where to next?” Dash asked.

“Alex,” Twilight answered, “I can take us—“

“Wait-“ Dash spoke up, “Can you fix us? You said you could give us magic back, right?”

“Wait- where did you get that?” Chrysalis asked, recognizing the tech on the mare’s arm.

“You know, they just finished explaining all of this to me,” Dash said, sighing, “Could we just move on and explain as we go?”

“We most certainly cannot!” Chrysalis said, “I’m just as confused about this place as you are! Cancer wouldn’t admit a thing to me!”

“Oh- speaking of Cancer, we should probably go grab him,” Dash said, “One sec!”

Zipping away instantly, the mare returned only ten seconds later with the changeling unconscious on her back.

“He’s out,” Dash said, “What should we do with him?”

“He’ll be fine there,” Chrysalis said, pointing at a clear spot on the ground, “Just leave him for somepony else to find.”

“Works for me,” Dash said, sliding him off her back, “Are we all ready to go?”

“We should explain to me exactly what’s going on!” Chrysalis said, “Before anypony goes anywhere!”

Pinkie exhaled, “Okay, fine! I’ll catch you up!”

////
Twelve seconds later
////

“AndThatsHowWeGotHere!” Pinkie finished inhaling loudly, having just repeated the conversation they all shared, including all parts about Applejack’s parents, the fake Ponyville, and the healing spells for Dash’s broken wing.

“I- uh… Okay?” Chrysalis said, unsure if she was even able to process everything she just heard.

“Any questions?” Twilight asked.

“Yes!” Chrysalis said, remembering the one she had already tried to ask, “Who gave you that device?”

“Taurus,” Twilight said with a single nod, “He was on the fence at first, but he didn’t want to see my friend married to Virgo.”

“Virgo tried to marry one of you?” Chrysalis asked, holding back her laughter, “Hmm… while I’ll have him thrown in prison after this stunt, it would have been nice to see him lose his virginity before his cellmate takes it!”

Oddly, Rarity joined Chrysalis at bursting in to laughter at the joke.

The two were cut off as a blue pulse of magic emitted from her PDA, removing the block on both Chrysalis and Rainbow Dash, giving them the ability to use their magic once again.

“We can make jokes once we get home,” Twilight said, following up with the creation of a large portal for all of them to step through, “Once we find Alex and Fluttershy, we can grab Alpha and get the heck out of here.”

“Oh!” Pinkie said, raising her hoof and hopping off the ground once, “I have a question!”

Twilight sighed, “What is it Pinkie?”

“Can I pee first?”

////

“Now, Alex!” Animosity asked, brushing her pink mane out of her face, “Tell me. When you take in to account that X’s value exceeds Y by a factor of more than six, what does Z equal, when you divide them by one another?”

This.

Was.

Hell.

Alex sat in his seat, unmoving.

He had long since given up on casting any sort of magic, as any attempt at focusing on building what he had inside of him, was instantly met with Animosity electrocuting him.

So, he had decided to play by Scorpios’ rules, and get through the schooling, so she would tell him everything that was going on in this world.

Still, doing that required that he be able to answer any of these neigh impossible math questions.

“Um, I figured that this was a silly question, so I wasn’t going to ask…” Alex began, rubbing his eyes as he lifted his upper body off of the desk in front of him, “Can I use a calculator? These questions are just… a little tough.”

Animosity grinned in response.

“Of course you can,” She said, walking over to her desk and opening one of the many drawers on the opposite side of Alex, “Is this what you were looking for?”

Alex almost felt his heart give out.

“How could I expect you to answer such a difficult question without an abacus?” She asked, a smirk strewn across her features.

The device he had been handed was nothing more than a collection of wood and beads, that he was somehow supposed to slide around, and use to answer complex math questions.

“Uh, is there any chance you have my iPod?” Alex asked, pushing the archaic device away from him, “There’s a much better calculator on there.”

“Alex, what will you learn if I just give you everything?” Animosity asked him, shaking her head as she tried to hide her smile, “Now you go ahead and take as much time as you need solving this question on the board.”

Alex closed his eyes and sighed, as he tried to run the numbers through his head himself… He wasn’t terrible at solving basic math problems in his head, but this was a little out of his league.

Opening his eyes again, he looked at the first section. There were so many brackets, exponents, and letters, that he simply couldn’t get heads or tails of it.

”The answer is four.”

Alex sat upright, as he looked around him suddenly.

“Excuse me, are we losing focus again?” Animosity asked, stepping forward suddenly, as Alex’s view snapped back to her.

“Uh, no!” He answered instantly, fearing that he was going to get zapped again.

“Well, then I’m assuming that you figured out the answer?” She asked.

Alex frowned. Now, did he listen to the magic voice he had just heard, or did he just take a shot in the dark?

He wasn’t that stupid.

“It’s… four?” Alex asked, holding his breath.

“So, you were listening,” She said, narrowing her gaze, “I suppose we can move on to another subject then. Sit back down!”

Alex needed no further instruction, as he slammed his butt in to the chair so hard he was worried he might have bruised it.

“Now, we’re going to continue on to chemistry.” She said, turning to the board as she began to write.

”Alex, you need to listen to me, and you can’t let on that you can hear me.”

“Colors?” Alex said out loud.

“Excuse me?” Animosity asked, turning around from the board and giving him an icy stare.

“Sorry!” He said, laughing nervously, “Just thinking about the ol’ girlfriend!”

She didn’t respond, as she went back to working on the board.

”Are you stupid or something? I told you to pretend you couldn’t hear me!”

Alex felt a comfortably familiar slap on the back of his head.

”Now, Twilight got her hooves on one of the Council members PDA’s, so she turned me invisible!

Alex nodded silently.

”Everypony else is further in to this crazy long classroom. Apparently Fluttershy might sense us if we’re too grouped up. So I’m going to help you cheat, while Twilight works on a way to break the spell over Fluttershy.”

Grabbing a piece paper provided for him, Alex picked up a pencil with his mouth and wrote as best he could, considering he had never mastered the art.

How the hell did you know the answer to that question?

Alex could practically hear her roll her eyes at the unimportant question.

”Have you been paying any attention since you turned back from stone? Look- studying magic is pretty much just studying math, science and English all at once. And two years of constant studying will make your brain a little bigger.”

Alex scribbled on his page.

Are you sure you don’t want to let Twilight—

Alex got another knock to the back of his head.

”Now listen up, and act perfectly normal. We’ll be out of here soon. And whatever you do, don’t go getting apathetic on me. They aren’t here testing you. They’re trying to mentally exhaust you, so they can brainwash you back in to the hive.”

What?!!!

”One exclamation point would have told me that you were surprised, you know.”

////

“Geez, how long have I been sitting here?” Chet asked, opening his eyes slowly, as he woke up from his nap.

“It’s probably been eight or ten hours,” The stallion on the other side of the wall responded.

“Oh, Jesus!” Chet called, jumping from his place on the floor as he remembered the stallion that he had come across so long before, “I forgot all about you!”

The stallion gave the weakest laughter Chet had ever heard, “You dozed off just after we introduced ourselves.”

“Oh yeah,” Chet said, scratching the back of his head, “Sorry about that.”

“That’s alright,” He responded, “I got some shut-eye myself.”

“Have any good dreams?” Chet asked, looking over his shoulder to stare at the wall, as if he could see through it.

“Yeah,” The stallion responded, clearing his incredibly dry throat, “Thought about my marefriend.”

“Mare… oh yeah, girlfriend,” Chet muttered, “What was she like?”

The stallion paused for a moment, leading Chet to wonder if he wasn’t interested in sharing the topic.

“She was… amazing,” The stallion finally said, “She was kind, she was understanding… and more than anything else, she cared about those who were important to her…”

“Sounds like my lady,” Chet said back, flaring his right wing and inspecting it before he decided to try preening it, “She’s a principle of the high school in my town. She seriously cares about her students.”

“I love that quality in a women,” He laughed from the other side of the wall, “I’m glad that it was one that our queen had.”

Chet paused, as he tried to process the information he had just been given.

“I’m sorry-“ Chet began, “What did you say your name was again?”

“Stag,” The pony on the other side of the wall answered.

Chet squinted as he realized that he recognized the name.

“I- uh, think someone told me about you,” Chet said, tapping his hoof on the floor, “You’re Chrysalis’s fiancé, right?”

“That’s me,” He answered, suddenly coughing as some air caught in his throat.

“I, uh, thought you were dead,” Chet said, “If I remember what I heard right.”

“Nope… not dead,” He answered, his voice suddenly much lower and sullen, “The council had my squad killed, and took me prisoner so they would have leverage against Chrysalis, should she ever defect from their way of thinking.”

“Oh, yeah! I remember hearing about those death squads.” Chet said.

“How could you have?” Stag asked, “Those operations were only known by a like, half the council, and those that carried the orders out. If Chrysalis doesn’t know, how do you?”

“Oh, well, I’m from Equestria,” Chet responded, proud of himself from identifying the place he had been previously, “And… geez, okay, I just need to start from the beginning.”

Stag listened patiently.

“So, Queen Chrysalis led an invasion of Canterlot a little while ago, alongside some guy named Alpha.” Chet began, before scratching his chin, “I think Alex said his name was Marick. Oh wait, maybe I wasn’t supposed to say that part—“

“Marick helped take over Canterlot?” Stag asked suddenly, “He must have gotten a crazy promotion for that!”

“Well, yeah. Chrysalis named him Omega. I think that’s what it was, anyway.” Chet recalled.

“To Omega?” Stag asked, clearly shocked to hear that, “Wow… That’s one big step up.”

“But, well, I forgot to say this part- shit,” Chet shook his head, “Long before the invasion, Marick had been heading up a project called ‘Haven Station—’

“Right, I know that one,” Stag said through the wall, “It was one of the longest running projects in the history of the Hive. It was built to capture and brainwash high value targets. It makes sense that Marick would head it up.”

“Well, he did head it up, but things didn’t go smoothly,” Chet replied, “When the place finally got up and running, they invited the Elements of Harmony to come and relax there for its grand opening.”

“Wait- Elements of Harmony?” Stag asked, “I’m afraid I don’t know what those are…”

Chet exhaled loudly, “Okay! One more step back in this story!”

“The Elements of Harmony are seven ponies that represent the seven aspects of harmonious magic- or something.” Chet said, “To be perfectly honest, I don’t really know about that. But they showed up when Princess Luna came back from the moon.”

“Princess Luna returned?” Stag asked.

“Um, yes!” Chet answered, trying to remember which one was her, “But she was evil- or something. So, together, the Elements of Harmony defeated her with some kind of mega-magic.”

“Okay, I think I understand,” Stag said to him, “The Hive wanted to brainwash these Elements of Harmony, and use them to help further the war?”

“Exactly,” Chet replied, “But, a lot of things went wrong- I’ll spare you the details, but by the time the Elements of Harmony were done with Haven Station itself, it had lost all structural support, and the complex collapsed in on itself.”

“So, shortly after its grand opening, the entire place was destroyed?” Stag asked, obviously blown away by the fact, “That… must not have looked good on Marick.”

“It didn’t,” Chet shook his head, as if the pony could see him, “He was the only survivor of the incident, and was banished for his failure.”

“Wait- this story ends with him becoming an Omega?” Stag asked.

“Yeah,” Chet laughed, “I’m getting there! I promise!”

////

”Just. Like. That.

Alex blinked a couple of times at a paper given by Animosity. On it, was a chemical equation that needed to be balanced. Normally, this was something that wasn’t too much trouble for him. But whatever dark power that was controlling Fluttershy, decided to give him the single longest line of letters and numbers that he had ever seen.

Are you sure?

”Alex, I can do this stuff in my sleep, just trust me.

“I’m- uh, done!” Alex called, as the mare turned to look at him with her massive scowl.

Since Rainbow Dash arrived, he had been flying through every question she had thrown at him. Physics was a breeze, biology was easy, and now chemistry was out of the park, so long as this question was right.

Walking over to him, Animosity acted true to her name as she inspected the sheet.

Growling, she threw the paper back on the desk.

“Right. Again.” She seethed, looking over to him with a large scowl, “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back.”

And just like that, she vanished from the room in a burst of black smoke.

“Jesus,” Alex breathed, sitting back in his chair, happy that he could take a break from the perfect posture he was supposed to have in this classroom, “Can you guys get me out of here yet?”

“Not just yet,” Dash responded, her voice no longer hushed as she approached the desk, “Twilight said that she has some kind of chaos negation spell, but that it might not work unless she’s very careful.”

“So… we need to keep doing this?” Alex groaned, sighing as he dropped his head to the desk, “Maybe I should just take a nap…”

“You can’t!” Dash snapped back to him, “Unless you’re looking to go back to being an Alpha.”

“It sure sounds tempting right now,” Alex whined, “Just let me go. You can go marry Speed…”

“Speed isn’t even real!” Dash shouted, sick of his childish behaviour, “Now would you please just grow up, so we can finish this class, and get out of here?”

Grumbling something incoherent, Alex sat back up, and cracked his head to the sides.

“Fine, I’ll act like a grown up for a few more hours,” Alex said, turning and looking to the invisible space his marefriend occupied, “But you owe me, if you know what I mean.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Dash asked, more curious than upset at his demand, “I mean, it’s not like I hold sex over your head or anything… We both love that.”

“What? No! I don’t want sex! Yuck!” Alex said, making a sour face, “I want you to give me a nice long backrub! After sitting in this hard seat for so long, I’ll have plenty of knots in my muscles.”

“Yuck?” Dash asked, her eyes narrowed once again, “Geez, maybe I should hold it over you.”

“As if you could go without me, baby,” Alex said, grinning as his attention pulled back to the front of the class, as a bubble of black smoke exploded next to the main desk, revealing Animosity once again.

“Well, I spoke with the principle, and she told me that I needed to give you one more test before she would answer your questions about this world,” Animosity said as the glowing in her eyes intensified.

“And uh… what test is that?” Alex asked, raising his eyebrows innocently, “English? Current Events?”

“Oh no,” she shook her head, “It’s much easier than that…”

Spreading her now-glowing wings, she curved them upward, and gave them both a powerful flap, sending a pulse of energy a few rows in to the classroom.

At first, Alex wasn’t sure what it had done, but it quickly became evident to him, when he noticed the light blue mare in the corner of his eye that was no longer invisible.

“Ah, Rainbow Dash!” Animosity said, acting as if she was talking to her friend normally, “I knew Alex wasn’t smart enough to answer all those questions!”

Dash glanced over her shoulder quickly, and breathed a sigh of relief. Everypony else was far enough that Fluttershy’s spell hadn’t hit them. They were still invisible, and hopefully they wouldn’t be discovered.

“So, um, have you come to join my class?” She asked, trotting over to the mare as if nothing was wrong between them, “I don’t think you need it though.”

Both Alex and Dash were a little confused at the massive shift in her attitude.

“Well…” Dash began, clearing her throat as she approached her friend, “I guess I was just worried that Alex would fail, so I decided to try and help him out.”

“Oh, he definitely needs help,” Fluttershy giggled, as Alex huffed in his seat, “But I’m afraid I can’t let you help him cheat.”

////

Rarity wished she could speak up, but was afraid she might tip off Fluttershy to her presence.

“This is exactly what Applejack did!” Rarity said in a hushed voice to Twilight and Chrysalis, “The more stuff I exposed her to from her real life, the more it drew the real her her out!”

“But she’ll go back to her dark side after a while, right?” Twilight asked, remembering how their exchange went when they reunited.

Rarity nodded.

“Did you tell Rainbow Dash about that?” Trixie whispered.

“Well, I brought it up when we first arrived in this school-world,” Rarity responded, looking over to her friend, “I hope she remembers… Because she can buy us some time.”

“Are you close to a solution?” Chrysalis asked.

“No…” Twilight said, feeling a little defeated, “Last time, I freed Applejack by giving her and Rarity their magic back. But, Fluttershy already has her magic. Something is different going on here.”

“Just keep working,” Chrysalis said, standing up, “If things start going south with your friends, I’ll try to buy us a little more time.”

Twilight didn’t even look up from her PDA when she nodded.

“You can do this, Dashie…” Pinkie said quietly.

All of her friends hoped she was right.

////

“So, why are you teaching Alex like this?” Dash asked, hoping to keep the calm version of the mare out, “Is somepony making you do this?”

“What? No!” Animosity answered, “I love it! It needs to happen!”

Dash wasn’t sure why this conversation was carrying, but decided to just buy time for her friends.

“Wouldn’t you rather go home?” Dash asked, “I really hurt my wing earlier, and I’d love to get some rest.”

“Your wing?” Alex asked, looking to the crooked bone in her right wing, “Geez, are you okay? That looks painful!”

Animosity snapped to him.

“You will not speak unless you’re spoken to!” Animosity hissed, as Alex slinked back in to his desk, too terrified to say a word.

When Fluttershy looked back to Dash, her expression softened once again, as she gave her an apologetic look.

“Sorry, I just hate it when ponies disrespect the rules!” She said, moving back to her previous conversation, “So! How are things back in Ponyville? Have you made any progress on joining the Wonderbolts?”

Dash wasn’t sure how to respond to that question.

“Uh, why do you ask that?” Dash tried to play off.

“Oh, well, you know! It’s always been your dream to join them!” Animosity said, “You told me that you wouldn’t stop training until you were flying with the best!”

“Oh… well, I’m not a member yet, no.” Dash shook her head, “One day maybe!”

“I hope so!” She replied with a big smile.

Suddenly, a green spark of lightning struck the ground, creating a mass of black smoke.

As it cleared, the familiar form of Scorpios appeared, as she stepped out with a large scowl on her face.

“What are you doing?!” She demanded, as Animosity’s gaze snapped to her, “I told you to restart the class with the both of them!”

“Aww, come on!” Alex shouted.

Animosity looked to the mare, her expression darkening, “I told you that I was here to teach Alex. Nopony else.”

“You’ll be teaching both of them!” Scorpios growled back.

Her eyes suddenly returned to their burning red, as Animosity growled and turned around to fully face the council member.

“I’m spending time with my best friend,” She growled, stepping toward the changeling, “Do not try and stop me, or you’ll be my next student!”

Scorpios backed away from the seething mare, as she raised her PDA up to her face.

“You’re under my control!” She shouted, pointing her device at Animosity and pressing the screen.

A wave of energy pulsed outward toward the three of them.

However, before the wave hit her, a blue wall appeared between the three of them and the council member, protecting them from the spell.

Scorpios growled.

“I was never under your control. This is my quest, and I’ve used you to complete it.” Animosity growled, “I’m having a hard time seeing how you’re useful anymore though.”

“Fine!” She shouted, taking a step backward, “Enjoy your victory, because I’ll be back with Aries, and I promise you’ll wish you had just listened to me!”

With that, she exploded in a cloud of black smoke, vanishing from the classroom.

Silence filled the room as Animosity looked over her shoulder and cocked her head.

“Fluttershy!” Pinkie called.

Animosity looked further back in the classroom toward the source of the voice, as the crowd of ponies appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

“Oh my!” Animosity said in a very Fluttershy-like tone, “How long have you all been here?”

“Since the end of math class,” Chrysalis said, sitting down in a nearby desk, kicking her hooves up on the table.

“That’s wonderful!” She smiled.

“So… uh, Fluttershy,” Dash said, as the mare looked to her with a curious expression, “What’s up with you?”

“What do you mean?” She asked innocently, blinking a couple of times.

“You’re acting all crazy,” Alex finished, as the mare glared to him instantly in response.

“What did I say to you about speaking?!” She shouted, as everypony in the room visibly inched away from her.

“Well-I mean that,” Dash said, scratching the back of her head, “It seems like you’re exclusively picking on Alex.”

“Oh, of course I am!” She said, looking back to Dash and smiling, “I’m making Fluttershy see how much she hates him!”

“You hate him?” Dash asked, her heart sinking hearing that, “Are you sure?”

She nodded, “That’s why I’ve been electrocuting him!”

Alex instantly seized in place as an electric current ran through his body.

“God damn!” Alex managed, clamping his eyes closed in pain.

“Stop!” Dash shouted, flaring her working wing to surround Alex in a shield spell, “W-what the hell are you doing? You’re nothing like Fluttershy!”

“Oh, but I am! After seeing Rainbow Dash and Rarity refuse their dark sides, I decided to be proactive!” Animosity smiled, as if nothing was wrong with her, “I sat myself down, and I dug deep down in to myself, in the hopes of finding my darkest feelings, and face them without having to make a big scene!”

“Wow!” Pinkie exclaimed, “That’s really smart!”

Animosity blushed, “Thanks, Pinkie.”

“Did you face your dark side by doing that?” Rarity asked, intrigued by the thought of somepony skipping their dark side all together.

“Sort of!” She beamed, “I managed to accept most of the anger I had inside of myself, but I missed something really big!”

“What was that?” Dash asked.

“A part of me really hates Alex!” She answered, shocking everypony in the room, “A part of me likes him too, but I hold a lot of stuff against him!”

Alex opened his mouth to question it, but decided against getting shocked again.

“Like what?” Both Rarity and Twilight said at the same time, as they exchanged a small look over it.

“Well, it’s mostly because he hogs Rainbow Dash all to himself!” Fluttershy said, “I feel like I never get to see her anymore! If she’s not spending time with him, she’s spending all her time trying to save him from something!”

Neither Dash nor Alex responded.

It was eerie how Fluttershy remained so happy as she explained something that obviously made her profoundly sad.

“So, when I made this world, Applejack and I decided to live out some of our fantasies,” She continued.

“But Applejack wasn’t named like you,” Rarity said, scratching the back of her head, “And she didn’t really lie at all.”

“I’m not too sure about her to be honest,” Animosity shrugged, “But if she wasn’t lying to you at every turn, then I guess she had the same idea as me, and tried to accept herself a little early.”

“Hey! I thought about doing that too!” Pinkie said, “I can accept that I don’t laugh at everything!”

“So… what do you want from me?” Alex asked, speaking loud enough to get the rooms attention once again, “I know this process pretty well. You won’t go back to normal unless you accept every aspect of yourself. So you just need to accept that you hate me.”

Once again, Animosity’s eyes blazed red, as she focused on the stallion.

“That’s not exactly right,” She said, pleasantly surprising the room with her lack of anger, “I’ve already been accepted by Fluttershy for the most part. I’m here to focus on one last teeny aspect that she refused to acknowledge.”

“And that’s that you hate Alex?” Twilight asked.

She didn’t answer. She only sneered at him.

“Then why did you side with the council?” Chrysalis asked from her seat, “You may not like Alex, but the two of you are on the same side.”

“I didn’t side with anypony,” She said, obviously not a fan of Chrysalis either, “When she saw that I was a chaotic manifestation, Scorpios thought she had some kind of control over me, so I played along in order to fulfill my true purpose. I would have never chosen a school as my torture chamber… although it seemed to fit the bill.”

“And your true purpose was to be mean to Alex?” Pinkie asked, “And… to hurt him?”

“To show Fluttershy how she wants to treat him,” Animosity said, “She’s bottled up so many feelings about Alex and Rainbow Dash that it was probably going to give her an aneurism.”

“Fluttershy wants to electrocute me?” Alex asked.

“Yes.” She said, scowling.

Nopony said anything.

All of their dark sides had been bad, but it sounded like Fluttershy had a true anger streak inside of her. It was something that none of them would have guessed existed.

“What?” Animosity asked, looking around the room, “Why is everypony looking at me like that?”

“Because you’re abusive,” Chrysalis chimed in, not really shocked herself, “It’s always the quiet ones.”

“Hmm, maybe.” Animosity shrugged.

“But… is now really the time?” Rarity asked quietly, a little put off by what she had just learned about her quiet friend, “Shouldn’t you have saved this experience for when we were all safe back in Ponyville or Canterlot?”

“I made this world to defend all of us from the council,” Animosity said, “It used up almost all of my magic. Once Fluttershy accepts me, I can destroy this world, and deal with the council.”

“Why would you not crush them in this first place?” Chrysalis asked, “It would have saved us all a great deal of time!”

Animosity shot her a fierce look, “I tried to do that at first. But those devices on the council members use were cancelling out my magic. So, I decided to overwhelm them with magic instead. This world is the result of that.”

“Okay… then I have another question. If you’re trying to convince Fluttershy of something, doesn’t she need to be here for it to work?” Twilight followed up.

“She is here! In my head” She returned, her fury showing through to her friend, “She can see everything I’m doing! She’s just being stubborn! I just need some more time to convince her that this is what she really wants!”

Nopony said anything. Even Alex, who hated being here, understood what needed to happen.

“Now, may I get back to my class?” She asked.

“Aries is on his way,” Trixie spoke up, looking between Twilight and Animosity, “You don’t have time.”

“I guess not.” Animosity sighed.

“Can I talk to Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash asked suddenly, as Animosity looked to her with a raised eyebrow, “I know what it’s like to deny my dark side. And if she really has been lonely, then I need to apologize for making her feel that way.”

“Wait-“ Rarity cut off, as everypony looked to her, “If you weren’t able to be controlled by Scorpios, why was Applejack under Virgo’s control?”

“I think it’s because Applejack accepted her dark side,” Animosity answered, “But because she did that, there was a bunch of leftover chaotic magic that was supposed to be used when her dark side came out. That magic came pouring out when I made this world, and it somehow made a copy of her that wanted to get married- I don’t quite know why that happened.”

“Okay okay,” Dash said, shaking her head at the useless information, “Listen- can I talk to Fluttershy or not?”

”Yes, can she?”

Everypony looked to the front of the classroom, where Aires was now standing.

“You’ve all been quite busy haven’t you?” Aries asked, stepping forward toward the middle of the room, “Twilight, you beat Taurus, although I have a suspicion he had a hoof in his own downfall… Rarity, you saved your friend from being married to our youngest member. And Rainbow Dash, my personal favourite, you destroyed an entire mansion, and left Cancer bloodied and broken.”

“What can I say?” Dash asked, glaring at the massive changeling, “He pissed me off.”

“I must say, I underestimated the lot of you by some margin,” He continued, his cocky smirk not wavering for a moment, “I thought this was going to be a walk in the park!”

“You must be pretty stupid to just walk in here,” Trixie said, stepping forward and charging a spell, “We’ve all got our magic back!”

Firing a blue beam of magic at the stallion, she frowned as it passed right through his body and blasted the desk Animosity had been teaching from.

“You think I would be stupid enough to actually face all of you alone?” He laughed, “No. I’m much happier to play on my home field.”

“So, what are you doing here then?” Twilight asked, stepping forward.

“Come to surrender?” Chrysalis asked.

“Hardly,” He answered bitterly to the queen, “I came to show you all something.”

Pressing some buttons on the device on his wrist, Aries made the unconscious body of Fluttershy appear just as he had in front of them.

“You’re all going to come to the Canterlot world, and surrender peacefully.” Aries said, his cocky expression now completely replaced by a twisted scowl, “Or I’ll snap this mare’s pretty little neck.”

Everypony looked back and forth amongst themselves nervously.

“You have half an hour. Don’t make me wait.”

////

Aries sat back in the royal throne, kicking on leg over the other as he looked to Fluttershy’s body that was being held up by her front hooves.

“What are you going to do with them?” Scorpios asked, approaching him carefully, unsure of where he was mentally at this moment.

“I hope that you’ll have my bride back with me in one piece,” Virgo snapped, earning a glare from Aries.

“I just found out that this mare here is the key to getting us out of this horrible world,” Aries said, waving his hoof, causing Fluttershy’s unconscious body to sway through the air, “When everything works out, I’ll let you have this one.”

Virgo didn’t answer. He simply stepped back.

“Well, what are you going to do with them?” Scorpios asked.

“When they surrender, I’ll have them all conditioned, and then ransom their wellbeing to Canterlot.” He answered, “If Celestia refuses to comply with our demands, I’ll execute the blue magician, and see if her resolve stands.”

Neither responded to his answer. They were both weary of his plan, but didn’t dare speak against it.

“Is that a good enough answer for you?” He asked.

“Yes…” Scorpios nodded.

“What’s happened to Taurus and Cancer?” Virgo asked, “I thought you would have brought them here.”

“Cancer is being tended to by some of the residents of your castle,” Aries answered, relaxing back on the throne, “And Taurus has been left in his world. Whether or not he had a hoof in Twilight’s escape, he still failed to keep her at bay.”

“And Chrysalis?” Scorpios asked next, fearing that Aries had something horrible in mind for her.

“She can’t be conditioned, obviously,” Aries said, “Perhaps I’ll throw her in the cell with Stag.”

Scorpios breathed a sigh of relief. She wanted to control the hive more than anything. However, committing regicide was not something she ever wanted to take part in.

“Now, listen. When they come through, they might try to attack us.” Aries said, “So when that portal opens, and they step through, we’ll all use our magic cancelling field, just to be safe.”

The two only nodded.

“Good, next we’ll—“

Suddenly, a portal opened, as they all readied their PDA’s, so they could disable the potential attackers.

However, instead of Twilight, or any of her friends, Cancer was the one to step through.

“Starting without me?” He asked simply, joining Virgo and Scorpios at the bottom of the throne’s podium.

“How did you get here?” Aries asked, looking to the stallion’s wrist for his PDA, which was absent, “You don’t have your—“

“We’re in a world full of chaos!” He exclaimed, which was followed by a deep laugh, “I’ve spent some time mastering my healing spells.”

“Are you telling me that you’ve used chaotic magic?” Aries asked, his jaw almost dropping, “How could you have—“

“Oh please, Aries… if any of us were to understand… chaos, who would it be?” He asked, tilting his head and licking his lips.

Pointing his hoof forward, the council members gasped as a black aura enveloped his hoof, and shot a blast of energy in to the wall at the other end of the room, blowing a massive hole in it.

“How did you like that?!” He asked, “Wanna see me make another one of my ‘pets’?”

“No!” All three said at once, not wanting to see another rotting Pinkie Pie wandering around.

Aries sighed, he didn’t have time for all of this. He decided to simply move on with the planning.

“Try to keep up, Cancer.” Aries said, as the stallion only nodded. When they come through that portal, we shut down their magic, and we incapacitate them,” Aries said, looking between the three, “Do whatever you need to make sure that they don’t put up a fight.”

Virgo and Scorpios both nodded.

“Hmm, I have a question!” Cancer said aloud, “Can I… crush that little blue pegasus?”

“No you may not!” Aries snapped, seeing the fury burning in his eyes, “I don’t care what she—“

“I won’t kill her!” Cancer said immediately, shaking his head, “I just want to… rip her wings off.”

“That isn’t a wise plan,” Scorpios said, looking at Aries with wide-eyes and slightly shaking her head, “It won’t matter if we block their magic. That kind trauma will damage our ability to condition her, or Alex.”

“Then I’ll just- break the other one!” Cancer spoke up again, his right eye twitching, “That won’t send anypony in to a tussle!”

“You’re wasting our time, Cancer!” Aries shouted, as the frail pony lowered his head with a deep scowl, “I will break her wing. You may watch.”

Cancer stood back up and smiled.

“You drive a hard bargain!” He laughed, “But I accept!”

“Good,” He said, looking toward the front of the room, “Using the PDA, they should have no trouble finding us, now, let me see if they’re still in that world—“

“Aries!” Cancer shouted, as the leader looked up from his device with a confused expression.

“What do you want now?!” He asked.

“Oh! I just had a… question!” Cancer said, “What happened to Alpha again?”

“Alpha?” Aries asked, frowning, “You mean Marick?”

“Oh, yeah! Of course!” He answered, giggling a bit before returning, “Where is he?”

“Marick is still trapped with Taurus,” Aries said, “I transformed him in to a cactus.”

Aries had expected Cancer to laugh, but he simply scowled.

“I hate cacti.” He growled.

Before anypony could respond, another green portal ripped open.

The three with working PDA’s readied their devices.

Twilight stepped through the portal, and behind her, was Animosity, Trixe, Pinkie with Applejack on her back, and Alex.

After the three stepped through, the portal closed behind them.

Instantly, the PDA on Twilight’s wrist was destroyed by a blast of magic from Cancer, as Aries, Virgo, and Scorpios all used their magic dampeners on the three of them.

Twilight braced herself to keep from collapsing.

“Where are the rest of your friends?!” Aries demanded, “You were all told to come!”

“Chrysalis refused to come,” Twilight answered, “And Rainbow Dash followed after her to convince her to surrender.”

“That wasn’t part of the deal!” Cancer shouted, looking back and forth wildly, “I want to watch that bitch writhe!”

The ponies flinched at the horrifying response from Cancer, as he ran toward Twilight and wrapped his hoof around her horn, “Where is she?!”

“Cancer!” Aries shouted, ripping the stallion away from Twilight, and throwing him across the room, “If you don’t control yourself, I’ll have you thrown in the cell with Stag!”

Cancer didn’t respond right away. He simply stood up slowly, and tilted his head at Aries.

“Stag?” He asked, with an expression that nopony could place, “I- I thought… I w-was under the impression that he had died.”

“Don’t play stupid, I don’t care if they know anymore!” Aries said, looking away from the bewildered stallion, “And once we get out of here, we’ll be able to use him to manipulate the queen.”

“Wait! Where’s the white mare?” Virgo asked suddenly, looking back and forth between them, “You’re missing one more!”

“She went off after Dashie!” Pinkie said, her smile beaming despite the situation they were in, “She said that she didn’t trust Chrysalis!”

Aries growled. He clearly wasn’t happy with the second development.

“They don’t pose a threat to you,” Trixie sighed, “None of them have the magical ability to escape that world anyway. They’re stuck.”

“How do I know you didn’t send them to another world? To start this whole process over from scratch?” Aries asked slowly.

“Check your stupid PDA,” Alex said, “Doesn’t that thing tell you everything about this hell hole?”

Looking to his wrist, Aries flew through the huge amount of information on the screen to the world he wanted info on, and he was happy to see that they were telling the truth. There were three ponies detected in that world.

“Fine,” He said, looking up from his arm and gesturing to Animosity, “You! Animosity. Come here. You’re going to help me escape this world.”

////
Ten minutes before
////

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Twilight asked Chrysalis, as the mare stretched out her arms and cracked her neck, “How do you know they’ll believe you?”

“Twilight, I’m a changeling. It’s in my blood to act like other ponies,” Chrysalis answered, “This will work, I promise.”

“Okay…” Twilight answered, obviously still on the fence, “And you’re sure this is the only way to talk to Fluttershy?” She asked, turning her gaze to Animosity, who gave a single nod.

“Fluttershy can’t really perceive what’s happening in the outside world right now,” Animosity explained, “She understands what I’m doing, and what my reasoning is… but she can’t see out of my eyes.”

“That makes no sense,” Alex spoke up, as the mare scowled at him.

“Your face makes no sense,” She retorted.

“I like the other Fluttershy better.” Alex said, turning his nose away from the chaotic mare.

“Yeah well—“

“Listen!” Trixie shouted, silencing the two feuding ponies, “This is no time for arguing, dark side or no!”

“Thank you,” Chrysalis said, rubbing her forehead with her hoof, “Now, let me go over this one more time, because I have a feeling some of you haven’t been listening.”

“I’m going to disguise myself as Cancer, and using a cloaking spell, I’ll bring Rarity, and Rainbow Dash through with me.” Chrysalis said to them all, happy that they trusted her enough to follow behind her, “I’ll tell them that I cured the wounds Rainbow Dash gave me, and have come to join them in their final assault on all of you.”

“Meanwhile, while Chrysalis keeps them busy, I’ll sneak over to Fluttershy, and try to convince her to accept her dark side,” Dash said, looking to Animosity, “You’re sure that’ll work?”

“Yes,” She nodded, “Fluttershy was already awoken by Trixie and Pinkie once, she can hear every word you say.”

“And, um, what am I doing again?” Rarity asked.

“You’ll be my backup magic user,” Chrysalis answered quickly.

“Right… I’m not sure what that means,” She shook her head, looking between her friends, happy to see that they were confused too.

“If the council ask me to cast a chaotic spell, then I’ll need you to cast it for me,” Chrysalis said, “Otherwise, you’ll stay hidden.”

“Why not use me?” Alex asked, “I have a lot more experience—“

“No.” Chrysalis said frankly, “When we show up missing some of your friends, we need them to think they’re not going to be a threat. If you’re missing from the group, then Aries will insist that we find you.”

“But if Chrysalis, Rarity and I are missing, they probably won’t send a firing squad after us,” Dash continued for the queen, “As long as the strongest of you surrender, it should buy us enough time to get Animosity her power back.”

“Are we all ready?” Chrysalis asked, turning to face them all, as her body erupted in to a green flame, that instantly died down, and revealed a perfect copy of the council member Cancer.

“Oh, no wait!” Twilight said quickly, remembering the lesson she had been given by Taurus, “The life scanner!”

“The what?” ’Chrysalis’ asked, her voice mimicking Cancer’s perfectly, shocking everypony in the room.

“Wow!” Pinkie said, running over to ‘Chrysalis,’ as she inspected every inch of the queen, “You look so manly!”

“I wasn’t aware that you could emulate the other gender…” Rarity added, checking her body out as well.

“Do… all the parts work?” Dash asked slowly, as her friends all shook their heads at her, “What?! You were all thinking the same thing!”

They all were.

“It works,” Alex answered, opening his mouth to continue explaining, before closing his mouth instantly.

“How would you know?” Dash asked, cocking her head.

“Uh… no reason.” He said, shaking his head quickly.

“What is this ‘life scanner?’” ‘Chrysalis’ asked, looking to Twilight.

“There’s a thing on this PDA… it shows how many ponies are in a particular world at any given time!” Twilight said, pulling up the screen and scrolling to the world they were all in, “See? It shows that there are nine ponies in here! He’ll definitely check to see if you guys are still here, if we show up missing a ton of you!”

“Hmm…” ‘Chrysalis’ said, scratching her chin, “How easy is it to get that information?”

“Easy?” Twilight asked, cocking her head and blinking a couple of times, “Well… you have to go through a couple of long lists to get there, I guess it’s a bit of a pain.”

“Right,” ‘Chrysalis’ said, “So, would he have an easy time checking other worlds? Would he have a reason to check out those worlds? Because if I’m not wrong, there are just enough ponies in this world to add that number back up to three.”

“I don’t understand,” Twilight shook her head.

“If you grab Taurus, Cancer, and Marick, and place them all in this world, we can all leave, and it would still say three, right?” ‘Chrysalis’ asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Cancer should still be in the haunted woods,” Dash said, looking to Twilight and eyeing the PDA.

“Um… let me see…” Twilight hummed, “The PDA says that nopony is in that forest… But it does say that there is somepony in the castle. And that there are three ponies in Canterlot.”

“He was busted up pretty bad,” Dash said, blinking a couple of times.

“That’s why I’m going to say I cured myself,” Chrysalis said.

“If he needs to be healed, then he’ll be in the castle I came from,” Rarity said, as they all turned their attention to her, “I must have walked by fifty infirmaries when I first woke up there.”

“Perfect,” Chrysalis nodded, “Now… for what I had in mind.”

Twilight nodded along slowly.

“The PDA can’t tell you who is in the world, so we just need to fill the quota, right?” Chrysalis asked.

“Yeah… yeah! That could work!” Twilight nodded, smiling as it all came together, “But wait- I’m not sure where Alpha is!”

“How do you mean?” Chrysalis asked, “Can’t you just use the PDA?”

“Well- I thought it was broken,” Twilight replied, pulling through the menu’s on the PDA to reach the world she had come from, “See? It only shows one pony inside that world.”

“We were all in pairs, Twilight.” Trixie spoke up, “By that pattern, he should have been in that world with you.”

“Are you sure you didn’t see him?” Pinkie asked, “Because in Ponyville, there were tons of fake ponies all over the place! Maybe you just missed him!”

“No!” Twilight said, shaking her head, “I only ran in to Taurus! The only other sign of life in that place was that cactus!”

Trixie tiled her head.

“Cactus?” Everypony asked at once.

Twilight blinked a couple of times as everything set in her mind.

“Oh.” She said, laughing nervously, scratching the back of her head as a light blush crept across her cheeks, “I guess everything makes sense now…”

“Well, go and grab them!” ‘Chrysalis’ said, “I’m done playing around with council. Not only are they going to pay for capturing us, I’ll make sure each of them meets the executioner for what they did to Stag.”

////
10 minutes later
////

The plan had worked up until this point, and none of the council members had been the wiser.

Dash had made her way over to Fluttershy instantly while Chrysalis held their attention. However, she had been shocked to hear the development that Stag was still alive. She hoped that Chrysalis would keep her cover over the revelation.

“Fluttershy… listen to me.” Dash whispered softly, making sure that Aries didn’t hear her as she hovered next to Fluttershy’s hanging body, “I know how hard this is to accept. It’s really not fair that the darkest sides of us are being put on display for the whole world to see.”

Dash was hoping that she would see any kind of response from the seemingly unconscious mare, but she got none, so she decided to push on.

“Remember how bad things between Alex and I got?” Dash asked, grimacing at the thought herself, “I was convinced that I had cheated on him, all because I refused to just… accept myself.”

Dash’s gaze snapped to the side as she looked at the green portal that appeared across the room. Everypony that had stayed behind were now crossing the threshold.

Dash knew what was coming next for them, so she turned her gaze back to Fluttershy.

“But, let me tell you something, Shy.” Dash muttered, placing a hoof on her cheek, “It’s one of the most liberating things in the world to accept the darkest depths of yourself, and bring them in to you… Animosity told us that you had accepted most of your dark side before any of this happened, so you could avoid this whole situation from happening. Not only are you smart for making up that plan, but you’re so brave to have faced all of that alone.”

Fluttershy’s eyes seemed to strain somewhat. Luckily, she didn’t make a noise.

“And I promise you, after we get the heck out of here, you and I are going to spend as much time as you like together!” Dash said, her voice straining at the thought of abandoning her friend, “I’ll ignore everypony else for a month if you want!”

“You!” A voice said behind her, as Dash whipped around instantly, her heart almost exploding from stress, “Animosity. Come here. You’re going to help me escape this world.”

“Do you hear that?” Dash asked, “Aries is about to make your dark side do who-knows-what! And, well, I’m not trying to rush you, but, well, the sooner we get out of here, the better!”

Dash looked over her shoulder to Aries, and watched silently as Animosity levitated up in to the air, and surrounded by a dark aura.

“I had hoped that we had you under our control, so we could brainwash Alex,” he said, as his horn began to glow its usual green color. “But seeing as that’s no longer an option, I guess I’ll just have to suck the magic out of you, and use it to rip a hole in the side of this world so we can all escape.”

Dash watched in horror as the black aura began to pull away from Animosity, and pour in to Aries.

“Oh… my my my!” He said, laughing deeply as the magic began flowing through his body, “This feels good!”

This continued for another ten seconds, as the ponies in the room all hoped silently that their plan was going to work out.

“Stop!” Cancer suddenly shouted, rushing the stallion with his magic charged.

Aries didn’t have enough time to process the attack before he received a haymaker to the side of his head, followed by an explosion of energy, blasting him off of the royal throne, and in to the back of the room.

Instantly, Cancer was held in place by Virgo, as Scorpios used her PDA to negate his magic.

Silence followed, as the smoke across the room cleared.

Rainbow Dash was the only one that noticed that Fluttershy fell to the floor, as she rushed to the mare’s side, and began asking if she was okay, despite the lack of response she was getting.

“You piece of shit!” Aries shouted as he managed to right himself amidst the rubble of his throne, “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

However, because her magic had been negated, Chrysalis could no longer hold her disguise together, as the same green flame that had hidden her identity, promptly revealed it.

“Ahh… My queen,” Aries said, shaking his head lightly to try and stop the ringing he was still feeling, “That was quite the disguise, I wasn’t aware you were gifted enough to pull off such a transformation!”

“I hope that hurt,” Chrysalis spat.

“Oh, I’ve been hurt plenty,” Aries said, somehow laughing, despite the swelling around his eye, and the bleeding cut on his forehead, “But I’ve got some bad news for you.”

Closing his eyes, he lifted his head upward, and felt the chaotic magic run to his horn.

“Mmm, yes!” He exclaimed, as his entire body was surrounded in a black aura, that instantly healed every wound Chrysalis had just inflicted, “I like being able to do that!”

Alex looked across the room to where Fluttershy was lying, and gave a panicked look to the slightly warped air that Aries had yet to notice.

By some miracle, even though he had unmasked Chrysalis, Aries hadn’t stopped to think about what had happened to Rarity or Rainbow Dash if they weren’t chasing after Chrysalis. It was only a matter of time before him, or the other council members realized this, however.

“Now, Chrysalis, I have some very bad news for you and your friends,” He said, raising his hoof, as each of them lifted off the ground, save Rarity and Rainbow Dash, who were still invisible, “You’re all going right back where you started! The desert, the school, Ponyville, the forest, and that never-ending castle.”

“Where’s Stag?!” Chrysalis shouted, fighting against his magic desperately, hoping that she might somehow break free, “You have no idea what’ll happen to you if you don’t give him back to me!”

“Back to you?” Aries asked, stepping forward as he lowered Chrysalis to the level of his face, “If you don’t fall in to line, you’re never going to see him again, do you understand?”

Chrysalis didn’t answer. She only growled.

“Now, why don’t all of you run off, and—“

“And what?” Alex interrupted, “Sit in our worlds until you decide to let us out?”

“Very smart, Alex.” Aries answered, pursing his lips and nodding slowly, “You’re all going to sit tight, until I can break us out of this world.”

“You won’t be able to,” Chrysalis said, fighting against his spell futilely, “Only the mare that created this world can break it down.”

“Well, if that turns out to be the case, I’ll make sure I keep her close by to help me out,” He said, lifting Animosity off the ground, and throwing her over to Flutteshy’s body.

Dash narrowly dodged her friend, as she watched her tumble over her doppelganger, and on to the floor next to her.

“Are you okay?” Dash asked, rushing to Animosity’s side.

“I’m fine…” She whispered in response, “Have you had any luck with Fluttershy?”

“No…” Dash sighed, “She hasn’t really responded.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Animosity sighed, crawling over to Fluttershy and placing a hoof on her cheek, “She’s so terrified. I don’t even know if she’s listening.”

“Isn’t there anything we can do?” Dash asked, looking over her shoulder to the currently monologuing villain, “If he leaves this world with your magic, he’ll be able to start pushing a lot harder against Equestria.”

“I know,” Animosity said, panting softly, “But, if she can’t come to terms with me, well… I don’t know what else we can do.”

“Can you talk to her?” Dash asked, “You said she could hear everything you said, but can you two actually talk?”

“Well, no,” Animosity shook her head, “I can’t hear her at all. How would I change things anyway?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t see any other options,” Dash said, shrugging, despite Animosity’s inability to see her do so, “If you go back inside of her, you could figure out the problem, and try to solve it. Maybe she needs to have a confrontation with Alex. And if that’s the case, I’ll make sure Rarity and I make that happen.”

“Well… um, okay…” Animosity said nervously, “It’s a good thing I don’t need magic to reconnect with her.”

“Oh, yeah,” Dash said, almost laughing, “I forgot that might be a problem.”

Animosity gulped, as she touched her hoof to Fluttershy’s cheek.

“She still has all of her magic running through her,” The dark mare said, “I just need to tap in and…”

Animosity was instantly sucked in to Fluttershy’s body, which was followed by a blast of energy that knocked both Rainbow Dash and Rarity out of their invisibility spells, revealing them to the room.

And it only took a half of a second for their magic to be dampened, and for them to be grabbed by Aries, who was now clearly livid.

“Where did she go?!” Aries shouted, shaking Rainbow back and forth, “Answer me!”

“She’s going to finish this.” Dash said, hoping that she wouldn’t be made a liar.

////

Animosity looked around the black plane of Fluttershy’s mind. Normally, this place would have been filled with her favourite places, or perhaps fond memories. But, that entire world had been ripped out, leaving a black abyss in its wake.

The only difference in this world, was the mare sitting by herself on a bench, just a few steps in front of Animosity.

“Fluttershy,” Animosity said, approaching her, and sitting down on the bench, “I suppose we need to talk.”

“Yes we do.” She said softly, not daring to move an inch.

“Why haven’t you accepted me?” Animosity asked, gesturing to the black space behind her, “Our friends are out there suffering, and you’re in here acting like it’s not your problem!”

Fluttershy slinked back at the anger that Animosity had exploded with.

“If you don’t hurry up and accept me, then everypony is going to die, and it’ll be all your fault!” She continued.

“I- I…”

“Just do it!” Animosity shouted, “Let’s get this over with!”

“But-“

“Would you stop being so scared?” Animosity screamed, her volume increasing to its max, “It’s your fault they’re about to get hurt!”

“Stop!” Fluttershy shrieked, her wings flaring and her eyes clamping closed, “Stop! Stop! Stop!”

Animosity exhaled, scowled, and took a step back.

Fluttershy didn’t say anything. She stood in her place shaking with tears running down her face.

“Well?” Animosity asked impatiently.

“It’s not Alex anymore…” The mare muttered, her throat strained and her cheeks damp, “It’s me…”

Animosity didn’t say anything.

“I can accept that I hate Alex sometimes!” Fluttershy said with some force behind her voice, “But- how can I ever accept that you and I are the same?!”

Animosity didn’t respond, she only tilted her head in semi-confusion.

“You were insulting him, You… you were hurting him!” Fluttershy said, biting her lip as she took a moment to regain her courage, “This experience hasn’t made me accept you! It’s made me hate you!”

“What...?” Animosity asked, taking another step back, “That wasn’t the point of all this!”

“I’d never go to the lengths that you did!” Fluttershy argued, “All that you’ve done is prove to me that we’re nothing alike!”

////

“So, to summarize,” Chet said, waving his hooves in the air for a second, “Alpha betrayed the Hive and had Chrysalis locked away in Canterlot. And after some documents were cross examined between your people and mine- well, the Equestrians, they discovered that there were a bunch of things that didn’t add up, and your death was one of those things.”

“And with that information, Chrysalis figured out that she had been lied to by the council?” Stag asked.

“Exactly.” Chet nodded to his friend on the other side of the wall, “She was determined to come back to the hive and have the council disbanded. After that, she was going to officially end the war.”

“That’s… good.” Stag coughed, his voice quieter than it had been a couple of hours before.

“Are you gonna be okay?” Chet asked.

“I don’t know.” Stag answered, “It’s been so long since I’ve eaten, or had anything to drink… I’m weak.”

“Well, I’ll try to keep you occupied until someone gets here,” Chet said, suddenly realizing that he was probably talking to somepony that was very close to death.

“Thanks…” Stag managed.

////

“You need to listen to me,” Animosity said, her expression much softer than it had been a minute before, “This needs to end! We can’t save everypony until you and I merge!”

“No!” Fluttershy shot back, “You and I are nothing alike!”

“T-then what are you going to do…?” Animosity asked, having now essentially switched personalities with Fluttershy, “Just let the council win?”

Fluttershy didn’t answer. She only looked away from herself.

“You can’t just give in!” She pleaded, her eyes watering as she took a couple of steps toward Fluttershy, “Please- just- just listen to me for a second…”

Fluttershy didn’t move.

“I know you’re having a hard time accepting this, that I could possibly exist inside you,” Animosity said, composing herself as best she could, “But it’s true! Just look at what you’ve done in the past!”

Again, the mare was silent.

“The gala, the cockatrice, the changeling invsaions…” Animosity said, “When it comes down to it, you’re capable of being cruel… but it’s to be kind at the same time!”

Fluttershy faltered, as she sighed quietly.

“But you need to understand that I… I still went overboard!” Animosity admitted, almost breaking down, “You have to know, Discord didn’t create me to deal with these circumstances!”

Fluttershy looked over her shoulder.

“I mean, I’m living in a world of chaos… so many ponies have been hurt, and others are trying to take over the world… It’s almost too much to take.” Animosity said, as tears began to run down her cheeks, “I’ve been going crazy trying to get you to accept me, so that we could save everypony! Do you think that I’m happy with the choices I’ve had to make?”

“How do you expect me to accept you in to myself, when even you can’t justify your actions against my friends?” Fluttershy asked, finally looking to her doppelganger with a small frown.

“I don’t know,” She answered, “I’m just- I’m just scared! Okay?!”

“I am too,” Fluttershy said softly, turning around to face herself, “But that’s what tells me that you’re sincere. You’re scared. You’re sorry. Everything that I would be… had I made the same mistakes as you.”

“But—“

“Maybe… maybe we are the same,” Fluttershy said, sighing softly while looking to the obviously, “This world that we’re trapped in, I don’t know what it would have done to me if I were in your shoes.”

“But after everything that I’ve done?” Animosity asked.

Fluttershy gave a small smile, “Alex is a big boy.”

Animosity didn’t shift. Her expression was locked in one of sadness.

“Something’s wrong…” Fluttershy muttered.

Animosity was scared to say anything. She knew what was wrong.

Suddenly, the ground beneath them began to shake violently, as Fluttershy and Animosity looked to one another.

“What’s happening?” Fluttershy asked.

“It’s the council,” Animosity sighed, “Aries must be trying to break through to us.”

“I know that we haven’t accepted one another, but is there anything we can do to help them?” Fluttershy asked.

“I’m not strong enough, but some of our magic has been unlocked for you. I don’t know if it would be enough though.” Animosity said, furrowing her brow.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out…” The mare gulped, surprised that her resolve was strong enough to make her brave.

“Good luck,” Animosity said quietly.

////

Fluttershy opened her eyes, and found herself looking up to the ceiling of the Canterlot throne room.

And suddenly, it was all real. Everything that had been separated from her while she hid inside her mind was right here in front of her.

And it made her angry.

The black aura Aries had surrounding her body instantly dissolved as she stood up.

Nopony said a word as they all watched the mare, now in a single body, stand up and turn to face them.

The look on her face was a kind of horrifying mystery to them all. She had closed her eyes, frowned slightly, and lightly crinkled her nose.

Even Aries didn’t make a move to stop her at this moment.

“I’m not the kind of pony that likes being upset.” Fluttershy said softly, opening her eyes just a sliver, revealing the burning red color on the top, with her usual blue on the bottom, mixing to make a shimmering purple, “But I can feel it.”

“Don’t take another step!” Aries shouted, getting his head back in the game, holding Applejack’s unconscious body close to him in a spell, “If you don’t surrender now, I’ll break her neck!”

“Oh my dear sweet lord, no!”

Everypony looked toward the corner of the room, where Virgo was shaking nervously at the prospect of losing his ‘wife.’

“You’re not going to hurt anypony,” Fluttershy said, her voice still calm and collected.

Before anypony could react, every spell in the room was cancelled out, and all of Fluttershy’s dangling friends fell to the ground.

“No!” Aries shouted, his magic draining from his body in the form of a black mist that instantly returned to the powerful mare.

“I made this world,” Fluttershy said, stepping closer to her friends and Aries, “You don’t get to push us around anymore.”

“Nice job Fluttershy!” Pinkie cheered.

“I told ya’ this was easy!” Dash added.

She looked to them and gave them a small smile, as they all cheered together.

“Crap.” Scorpios muttered.

“Sorry. Aries,” Chrysalis chuckled, stepped away from the group of ponies.

“No!” He shouted, pulling his PDA up to his face as he began pressing a series of buttons on it.

“There’s nothing you can do,” Fluttershy said calmly, looking back to him, “I made this place. It follows my rules.”

“Wrong!” Aries laughed, “You may have taken my magic away, but that doesn’t mean I can’t destroy this world! I still have one more card to play! My Syphon!”

Pressing a couple of buttons on his PDA, Aries was instantly surrounded in a bubble.

The council leader gasped in pain as his PDA shorted out inside the shield he had made for himself.

“You may have your powers back, but I’m still the god in this world!” He shouted as the bubble he hid inside began sucking in absolutely everything that was around him, starting with the throne below him that seemed to break apart into nothing more than particles, which were then absorbed in to his bubble.

“What the heck are you doing?!” Pinkie shouted, standing up and taking what looked like an offensive stance, “You can’t just eat everything! I tried that once and let me tell you, it did not work out!”

Fluttershy summoned every ounce of magic she had inside of her, and focused it in to a single spell.

Flaring her wings, she exploded out a massive amount of black energy that she assumed would break his bubble. But, to her horror, it simply absorbed the magic, and kept right on its way.

“No…” Fluttershy muttered, taking a step back.

“What are you even planning to do?” Chrysalis asked, taking a step back toward Pinkie, “If you destroy this world, you won’t have access to chaotic magic ever again!”

“This entire world is made of chaos!” Aries responded, his eye twitching as he began laughing again, “This spell is going to absorb every iota of magic, and pour it right back in to me!”

Twilight looked to Fluttershy, who was now scowling.

“Last time I tried to escape this way, I realized that it would tear this entire world apart,” Aries said, as the floor below the throne began breaking apart and being absorbed in to his aura, “I didn’t want to hurt anypony then, but now? I couldn’t care less!”

Everypony eventually became aware of the ground shaking, as more and more of the world began pulling toward Aries.

“Are you insane?” Trixie shouted, as the floor below her was pulled toward him, leaving her standing on nothing but solid white, “You’re going to kill us all!”

“Not all of us,” Aries shook his head, “There’ll be one brave survivor! But don’t worry, my queen. I’ll tell the hive of how bravely you fought against the Equestrian soldiers.”

“What about us?” Scorpios shouted, over the now howling wind as the world around her was pulled away, “How do we protect ourselves?”

Aries paused and looked at the ceiling.

“Pray?” He asked, laughing once again, this time with a touch more insanity.

Leaving him to laugh himself silly, everypony gathered around each other to figure out how they were going to stop him.

“I do hope that we have a plan to get us out of here!” Rarity called to her friends, hoping that one of them would have a solution for her.

“Don’t you have your magic back, Fluttershy?” Dash asked, looking over to her friend, “You already used it! Just use some more!”

“I don’t have it all back yet... I used most of it up cancelling out everypony’s magic” She sighed, her anger fading at the sight of her friend, “I’d have more, but I haven’t finished with Animosity yet.”

“Well, can you teleport us out of here, Twilight?” Trixie asked.

“Well, I can’t get us anywhere,” Twilight said, running forward, “My PDA is broken. I can’t open any more portals.”

“I can take care of that,” Scorpios said, joining the group of friends, with Virgo following behind them, “There’s no way I’m dying by his crazy hoof!”

Pointing at the floor, and casting the appropriate spell, a green portal opened.

Chrysalis scowled at the mare, “This won’t spare your sentencing.”

“Whatever!” Scorpios growled, “But I’m getting the hell out of here! Follow me or not, I don’t care!”

With that, Scorpios and Virgo jumped through the portal.

“Sounds good to me!” Alex said, pushing Chrysalis and Dash forward with his head and right hoof, “Time to jump in, ladies!”

“Is that concern I hear in your voice?” Chrysalis asked, looking over her shoulder to him.

“Yeah yeah,” he rolled his eyes, “I don’t want to see anypony get hurt here, whether they’re a rapist or not.”

“Ha.” Dash laughed, pointing at Chrysalis.

“That goes for you too!” Alex wagged his imaginary finger at his fiancée, “There have been plenty of nights you forced yourself on me.”

“Are you kidding—“ was all she could say, before she fell through the portal in the floor.

Following Dash, everypony jumped in to the portal, until only Alex remained in the room.

“Why are you still here?” Aries shouted over the howling of his spell, as its effects reached further and further out, ever closer to Alex and the portal to escape, “Going to plea for me to surrender? Or surrender for your friends perhaps?”

“Nope.” Alex shook his head, “I just wanted to say one thing to you.”

“And what’s that?” Aries asked.

“Fuck you, pal.” Alex said, once again using his imaginary finger to flip the bird.

Aries only burst out in laughter as Alex jumped through the portal that promptly closed behind him.

////

The group had crowded together in the school world, as it was apparently the furthest from Aries, according to Scorpios. In the back corner of the room, where Aries was assumed to hit very last with his spell, was an unconscious Cancer, and a cactus that had been placed in a very large pot.

Everypony else seemed to be talking over one another, as the mood in the room started to escalate from worried to panicked.

“So how are we supposed to get out of here?!” Virgo shouted, “I can’t die before I get married to your friend!”

“You are not marrying Fluttershy,” Rarity said.

“I don’t wanna get sucked up by Aries!” Pinkie called.

“Everypony, we just need to listen to—“ Twilight tried to begin.

“What happens if something messes up her face?!” Virgo cried.

“I just said—“ Rarity began again.

“Everypony! Shut up!” Scorpios shouted.

“But- but-“ Virgo stuttered.

“Would you just- okay?” Scorpios asked, shaking her head as she turned back to Fluttershy, “I- I need to apologize for what I did to you…”

“It was my fault,” Fluttershy said.

“Huh?” Everypony seemed to say at once.

“I’m so sorry everypony!” Fluttershy suddenly burst out, “I was so so desperate to be over and done with my dark side, that I did some terrible things to all of you!”

“You didn’t do terrible things to me!” Pinkie announced, jumping up.

“And you were very polite to me!” Rarity added.

“I think it was just Alex,” Dash laughed, looking to her fiancée and smirking, as he shrugged.

“And I’m so sorry!” Fluttershy apologized, looking to him with a massive frown, “I- I- I…”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Alex waved his hoof, “I’m not really upset. Dax has pissed off a lot of you in the past. I mean… well, he never electrocuted any of you, ooooor called you idiots, or—“

As Alex spoke, he made casual eye-contact with Dash, who had the biggest ‘shut the hell up’ face he had ever seen.

“Uhh, but yeah!” Alex laughed nervously, “I’m not upset! Takes a lot more than that to upset this guy!”

“I promise I’ll make it up to you,” She said, “When we get home I’ll—“

Fluttershy suddenly paused, and stumbled in her place.

“Are you okay?” Pinkie asked, zipping over to catch her friend from falling over.

“I- I think it’s time for me to finish with Animosity…” Fluttershy said breathlessly, “We still have one thing to settle on.”

“We have no time for that!” Scorpios shouted at the mare.

“She needs to do this!” Dash shot back, “The sooner she’s done, the sooner we get out of here!”

Fluttershy didn’t say another word. She simply closed her eyes, and drifted away.

“I hope she hurries,” Twilight said softly, walking over to her friend, “I can carry her.”

Twilight tried to levitate her, but remembered that her magic was still blocked.

“Okay, first,” Trixie said, “We need our magic back! Or else we don’t stand a chance.”

“Oh, right,” Scorpios said, as a pulse of magic emitted from her PDA that removed the blocker on their magic, “That should do it.”

“Great,” Rarity said, “At least I can fix my hair before we’re all devoured.”

“What is that spell, anyway?” Twilight asked, as silence filled the room, “Not your hair fixing spell- the one Aries is using.”

“It’s something Aries has been working on for some time now,” A voice came from behind them, as the massive changeling, Taurus, approached the group from behind, “It’s a spell that drains all of the magic from a pony, leaving them unable to cast any sort of spell.”

“What?” Scorpios asked, “I’ve heard nothing about that kind of spell!”

“That’s because I had to steal his PDA to get the information on it,” Taurus answered, before moving on with his explanation, “He calls this spell, the Syphon. He had hoped to use it on the Elements of Harmony to drain their power permanently. However, when he tried to use it on your friend, Applejack, her magic regenerated ten times faster than he could drain it, so he was forced to make some last minute changes to the spell.”

“That’s the power of the Elements of Harmony,” Twilight nodded, as if it were common knowledge.

“So, when he realized that he wouldn’t be able to disable one of you with the Syphon, he altered the spell to just suck all of the magic out of the world, and store it for himself,” Taurus continued, as everypony listened along. “Aries thinks he can control that magic eating bubble, but something tells me that when it gets big enough, it’s not going to stop for him, or anypony else.”

“Wait, so, it’s not going to stop growing?” Trixie asked, looking to him and tilting her head.

“Jesus.” Alex muttered.

“How do we stop it then?” Twilight asked.

“Strike before the Syphon gets too strong.” Taurus answered, “If you can get Aries out of that bubble, it won’t have a power source, and it’ll collapse, and the magic will be freed.”

“How could you possibly know all of this?” Scorpios asked, not believing what he had already said about stealing the PDA, “This goes way beyond—“

“Don’t worry about it,” Taurus answered, his cold expression enough to silence the mare.

“How do we get him out of the bubble then?” Rarity asked, “Fluttershy tried to use magic on it, and it had no effect!”

“It’ll take something physical… but I’m not talking about a punch.” Taurus said, shrugging as he looked around the room, “We’re all so filled with magic, I think it would eat just about any of us.”

“So what do we use then?” Dash asked.

“Well, if somepony here was strong enough, they might be able to hurl a boulder in to him,” Taurus said, “Magic simply isn’t an option when we’re close to him.”

Everypony looked to Pinkie at the mention of ‘incredible strength.’

“What?” She asked, looking around at them, “Is there something on my face?”

“Well- you’re really strong, right Pinkie?” Twilight asked.

“Of course!” She nodded, beaming, “You could toss Fluttershy on my back along with Applejack if you need a break, Twilight!”

“Could you kick something in to Aries and knock him out of his bubble?” Dash asked.

“Well, I dunno!” Pinkie said, scratching her chin, “It depends on what I’m kicking!”

“Wait just a second, how long do we have?” Alex cut in, feeling the ground beneath his feet begin shaking more and more, “It didn’t seem like Aires was sucking up Canterlot too fast, so we’d probably have a few hours before he reaches us, right?”

“No,” Taurus shook his head.

“This world is only the size of the Hive castle,” Scorpios said, “We’ve been able to figure that much out.”

“Everything in this world shrinks and grows to fit what’s necessary everypony,” Virgo added, “It’s all a little complicated.”

“I hate magic sometimes,” Dash grunted, “But I’m not sure how much time that would give us.”

Chrysalis thought to herself and worked out a rough estimate in her head, “Well, if his spell started the size of a regular pony, and is growing outward… at the rate we saw it going, it could be anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour.”

“I think we should assume for the worst then,” Rarity said.

“Agreed.” Trixie nodded, “We need a plan, and we need it now.”

////

“What the hell is going on?” Chet muttered, looking down the hallway for the source of the shaking, “Do you feel that?”

“I sure do,” Stag answered, “It feels like an earthquake.”

“It’s been getting stronger,” Chet said, uncomfortable with the way his hoof was vibrating against the floor, and it looks like this entire hallway is just about ready to fall apart.”

“I hope that means somepony is on their way to get us,” Stag sighed, slumping back down against the wall, “I don’t know if I could even walk out of here.”

“You’ll be fine!” Chet laughed nervously, “But- don’t worry. I’m sure Alex, or Chrysalis will be along here to help us out!”

////

After ten minutes of half-deliberation and half-arguing, the group had made almost no progress in solving the problem at hoof. At first, they had planned to have Pinkie hurl Fluttershy’s massive desk at Aries, but as Rainbow Dash had pointed out, the desk was made of chaotic energy itself, and would have been absorbed.

And now, the ground was shaking harder than most of them could bare.

“He’ll be here any minute,” Chrysalis said, looking toward the source of the shaking behind the wall.

“Are we sure that we can’t just throw Pinkie?” Alex asked, “She doesn’t know any magic.”

“Pinkie’s an Element of Harmony,” Trixie pointed out yet again, “She’s got more magic in her than I do.”

“And your friend can’t help us?” Pinkie asked her, as Trixie frowned slightly.

“No,” Trixie shook her head, “She’s made of magic herself.”

As everypony continued bouncing ideas off of one another, Twilight looked to Fluttershy’s unconscious form and frowned.

“Please hurry…” She muttered.

Everypony was cut from their conversations as the board in the front of the classroom suddenly had a massive chunk ripped out it’s back, and sucked in to the vortex behind the wall.

“I was worried I’d lost all of you!”

////

Fluttershy gulped. This was the moment she had dreaded the most. The moment she had to truly accept her darkest side. In hindsight, her attempt at pre-emptively accepting her dark side had been pretty futile.

“I know that you went a little crazy,” Fluttershy said, facing her dark side with a small frown, “You hurt Alex, you threatened my other friends…”

“I know,” Animosity sighed, moving her pink mane out of her face, “I just... wanted all of this to be over, so I acted that way. All of that... that anger! It belongs to you and me... We really do have a monster inside of us.”

“I don’t think so,” Fluttershy said, shaking her head and giving the mare a reassuring smile, “You know, I was thinking while I was out there, helping our friends escape from Aries. If somepony is willing to go to any length to help her friends, does that really make them a monster?”

“Well, does it count as helping when you’re hurting them along the way?” Animosity asked, expecting Fluttershy to back away from her statement.

“Of course it does!” She said, her smile growing more and more as it all became clear to her, “Don’t get me wrong, I’m sorry about how we treated our friends. But if that’s what it takes for me to get my strength back, and save them from being swallowed by Aries and his Syphon, then I’d do it all over again.”

“You really feel that way?” Animosity asked quietly, hiding behind her hair as she looked up to herself.

Fluttershy smiled and nodded, “You’re me, and I’m you.”

Animosity closed her eyes once again, and let out a single breath as she composed herself.

“It feels good, doesn’t it?” Fluttershy asked.

“It does,” Animosity answered, looking up from the floor to reveal a pair or no-longer red, shimmering blue eyes.

“We are strong,” Fluttershy said, her smile growing as she let out a small laugh, “And no matter how we do it, as monster or not, we’re going to save our friends.”

“And when the time comes the whole world.” Animosity added, stepping toward herself.

The two embraced, just as the black space around them filled with light that enveloped them both.

“Thank you.” Animosity whispered.

////

Everypony was backed in to a corner, Aries and his Syphon had pushed them further and further back in the massive classroom, until they had their backs against the wall, along with Cancer and the Cactus.

“I can’t tell you all how happy I am with this spell!” Aries shouted over the cracking wood, and smashing furniture, “I’m can’t wait to see how well if preforms in Equestria!”

“Why am I not surprised,” Taurus growled, “You’re insane! This kind of magic could spell the end of the world!”

“The end of the world as you know it!” Aries retorted, “With this spell, I can control who has magic across the entire planet! No stupid anti-magic fields, no PDA’s, it’ll only take a wave on my hoof!”

Trixie fired a blast of blue magic at the Syphon, but had no luck. It simply ate the spell, and continued toward them.

Alex considered pouring out his strongest spell, but decided against it. It would only make that bubble bigger, faster.

It hadn’t grown as much as Alex had thought. The bubble was hardly bigger than when he had originally cast it, but its hunger for magic had noticeably grown.

Suddenly, the spell stopped moving forward as Aries slowed the vacuuming effect, allowing his voice to be heard clearly.

“So, I suppose this is it for you all,” Aries said, “Is there anything you’d like to convey to your people before I destroy you, my queen?”

“You could always tell them that you’re a bastard.” Chrysalis growled.

“After this?” Aries asked, “The entire council dying at the hooves of the Elements of Harmony, aided by the treacherous Omega? Hmm, after all this, I think I might just take up the title ‘Omega!’”

The cactus in the back of the room jumped up and down in what everypony assumed was anger.

“I guess I made the right choice shooting you down when you asked me out,” Scorpios said.

“Think of it this way,” Aries answered, “You’d be on the other side of this spell if you’d had just let me fuck you.”

“I’ll fuck you!” Virgo said desperately.

Both Rarity and Chrysalis erupted in to laughter once again at the rotund stallion.

“Dude, you’re not helping yourself,” Dash whispered to him, “Just go out with a scrap of dignity…”

“Woah!” Pinkie called, as everypony looked to her, “Twilight! Fluttershy is waking up!”

On the mare’s back, Fluttershy stirred, and instantly tried to right herself. However, this led to her sliding off of her friend, and tumbling on what was left of the tiled floor.

“Would you look at that, I guess you’ll be awake for the big event!” Aries laughed.

“Fluttershy, are you okay?” Twilight asked, kneeling down next to her friend.

“I- I’m having some trouble with my legs…” Fluttershy said weakly, “Could you lift me back up?”

“Oh, of course…” Twilight said, levitating her friend up and on to her hooves.

“We need to go to another world,” Fluttershy said, her throat surprisingly raspy, considering she had only been unconscious for a few minutes.

“I’ve got bad news for you,” Aries said to the yellow mare, “There are no worlds left! They’ve all been devoured by my Syphon!”

In response, Fluttershy’s wings extended, and a massive green portal appeared behind the group, revealing yet another throne room behind them.

The world behind them was the Hive throne room. One that several ponies in the group were very familiar with. Fluttershy, however, wasn’t one of these ponies.

“Of course,” Aries said, pushing toward them as they all backed in to this new room they had been supplied with, “How could I have missed this world? The Hive castle! It only seems fitting that things end for you here, Chrysalis.”

Scorpios frowned at the sight. She had studied the many worlds that they were trapped in, but none of them had been any part of the Hive.

“So, you’re going to kill Chrysalis?” Fluttershy asked weakly, her wings still glowing slightly, “So you can take over the world?”

“You know, I love the sound of that!” Aries said, scratching his chin, “Take over the world! It sounds so cliché, but it truly is within my grasp!”

“You won’t get away with this,” Scorpios shouted, “Our people will figure out what you’ve done!”

“How would they?” Aries asked, laughing as obnoxiously as he could, “The hive is mine to control! They’ll be as ignorant as I wish for them to be! And as long as I tell them what a good job they’re doing, they’ll follow me like the sheep they are!”

“Hmm, I like the look of this!” Fluttershy noted, levitating a shield off of a wall and bringing it in front of her, “Where did you get this?”

“That’s one of the shields used by King Omega himself,” Alpha answered, having turned back in to a pony as soon as they exited the world, “It’s rumoured to be stronger than any sword—“

“Oh, it must be really strong then!” Fluttershy said, rotating the shield to it was held horizontally in front of her.

“Strong?” Aries laughed, “That shield is one of the strongest things to ever come out of the hive armoury!”

“Perfect!” She said, her sweet smile confusing Aries, “Then it should the trick!”

“Go ahead! Throw it! My bubble will—“ Before he could finish his boasting, he was cut off as the shield shot toward him like a bolt of lightning.

It collided with his shoulder, and instantly sliced off his right arm, while sending the rest of his body hurdling away from the Syphon, in to a wall.

And just like that, the Syphon died, exploding in a burst of purple magic that was promptly absorbed by the ponies it belonged to.

Fluttershy, however, was completely speechless. She may have been angry before, but all of it melted away as she looked in horror at the dismembered limb that had a small puddle of green blood on the floor in front of her.

“Oh shit!” Alex laughed, pointing at the limb, “I don’t think any of us have actually ripped off somepony’s arm!”

“I- I- I-“ Fluttershy stuttered, backing away from the damage she had done, “It w-was a shield!”

“That was the shield of King Omega,” Chrysalis said, pointing to the relic that was trapped in the wall, “It was used more for slicing than it was for blocking…”

Fluttershy seemed to hyperventilate with quick, short breaths, as she looked to Aries and his bleeding stump.

“I think he deserved it,” Dash muttered, as Rarity tapped her on the back and shook her head.

“He may have been deserving of a good punishment, but poor Fluttershy shouldn’t have to live with this.” Rarity whispered, looking to the shaking mare.

“Yeah… you’re right,” Dash sighed, “Hey Alex!”

“What?” He called back to her, not looking up from the leg on the ground, as he poked it with his own hoof.

“Reattach that thing!” She shouted.

Fluttershy looked to him hopefully.

“Are you kidding me?” Alex asked, frowning as he looked up to her, “This piece of crap should walk with a peg for the rest of his life! I’ll call him Peggy! Or… Eileen! Ha!”

“Get it?!” Alex laughed, looking back and forth between Rarity and Rainbow Dash, “Eileen? As in I lean?!”

Nopony laughed.

“Now Alex,” Dash said as condescendingly as possible, raising her eyebrows and tilting her head, “Be a good boy and put that arm back on!”

Alex huffed. “Well I never! You are lucky that I’m so whipped!”

“Whipped like cream, buttercup.” She said passingly as he went to work.

Walking next to the leg, Alex levitated it off the ground, and sighed loudly.

Walking over to Aries with the leg, he reattached it with relative ease using a copious amount of chaotic magic to stimulate blood flow through his body.

Fluttershy let out a small sigh of relief seeing Alex fix that problem.

Alex hoped that it would score some points with the mare that apparently hated him.

“Wait- how did you hit him with that?” Pinkie asked, looking back and forth, “Wasn’t he absorbing everything in this world?”

“We’re not in the darkness anymore,” Fluttershy said meekly, “I didn’t take us to a different world, I took us back to the real one.”

“Thank goodness,” Trixie said, not willing to admit just how hard her heart was pounding right now, “I’m a little surprised that we made it through this one…”

“We make it through everything!” Dash smiled, walking over and wrapping her arm around the mare.

“Somehow.” Twilight added, laughing along with them.

“We didn’t do anything!” Dash said, slapping him on the back of the head, “Fluttershy saved all of our butts this time!”

Chrysalis stood silent, as she looked at the black wall in front of her, that they had just passed through to escape the darkness zone. The walls were silently shaking and cracking, revealing white light where the darkness had split. She was happy to be rid of it.

“Where is Stag?” Chrysalis asked suddenly, looking over her shoulder to the two remaining council members with hopefulness.

Scorpios and Virgo looked to each other.

“He’s being held in the sub-basement,” Scorpios answered, rubbing her arm nervously, “Aries had a secret room built to hold him with special magic dampeners, where nopony would stumble across him by accident.”

“Good. This place seems like it’s only a few minutes away from falling to pieces,” Chrysalis said, her tone conveying no feelings whatsoever to her terrified subjects, “When it’s gone, we’ll go downstairs and retrieve him.”

“Wait- what do you mean there was a hidden room?” Fluttershy asked, injecting herself in to the conversation, “My dark side removed everypony from the castle except for my friends, and the council! If I didn’t account for somepony, that means they were- inside the world when Aries used the Syphon…”

“How is that possible?!” Chrysalis shouted, “Somepony must have known he was in there!”

“Well, I don’t think that’s true,” Fluttershy said softly, hating that she had to be the one that said this, “If that magic dampener hid him from me, then it must have also hid him on the PDA. Nopony could have known.”

“I never saw anything about somepony else in the world on that device,” Twilight spoke up.

“But…” Chrysalis asked, her voice now near silent, “Aries destroyed everything in that world…”

Fluttershy only gave a small, sad nod.

“But wait! If your magic couldn’t detect him, then Aries might have missed him as well!” Chrysalis said, “I’m going to go back inside and look for—“

“No!” Fluttershy said instantly, “That world is breaking down, and going back inside of me! If you go in, you’ll be trapped!”

“I- I can’t give up on him again!” Chrysalis said, looking over her shoulder to the portal, “Can’t you do anything?!”

“No… I’m sorry.”

////
Five minutes earlier
////

“Come on, stay with me!” Chet said to the fading Changeling on his back, as he ran like a bat out of hell down the endless hallway, as the world was ripped to pieces behind him, “It’d be a lot easier to get out of here if you could run too!”

“I’m sorry,” Stag muttered, almost silently, “Just leave me…”

“Don’t go getting all heroic on me! I’m taking you back to your girlfriend!” Chet said, pushing himself to the limit in terms of speed, “And then you’re going to get laid! You can’t die when you’re so close to getting laid, man!”

Chet could feel Stag laughing weakly on his back.

Chet was about to continue, when he reached something that he could have sworn didn’t exist.

The end of the hall.

Chet stopped himself at the solid brick wall, and looked over his shoulder.

“It stopped…” Chet muttered, looking at the white abyss where the hallway had just been, “Something stopped the spell.”

“That’s good…” Stag muttered.

Carefully walking toward the abyss, Chet looked upward, and saw a whole lot of nothing above him.

Looking down, however, he managed to spot something.

“There’s something down there,” Chet said, hoping that Stag was listening to him, “It’s green.”

About a hundred feet below them was a large green circle that Chet couldn’t make heads or tails of.

”You need to jump.”

Chet spun around, almost losing Stag in the process.

In front of him, stood a glowing yellow mare, with pink hair.

“Hey, I know you!” Chet said, happy to finally see somepony he recognized, “I need you to help—“

”This world is vanishing, you need to jump down through that portal below us,” She said, “It’ll take you back to Alex and Chrysalis.”

“I can’t make that jump!” Chet said, turning to look back down there, “I’ll explode when I hit the ground!”

“Please trust me,” She pleaded, “You’ll be trapped here forever if you don’t jump! Just flare your wings close to the ground, it’ll slow you down, even with the extra weight.”

“God damn it… Fine.” Chet sighed, defeated, “Are you coming?”

”No.” She answered, “The portal is going to close any second, hurry.”

Looking over his shoulder, the mare was gone.

“Stag, I need you to hold on to me tight, got it?” Chet asked.

Somehow, the stallion had enough energy to comply. He wrapped his front arms around Chet’s neck, and his hind legs around his stomach, leaving plenty of space for him to use his wings.

Looking upward, Chet sighed.

“You know, bro, if you hadn’t died, I wouldn’t be in this insane situation,” Chet said to nopony.

“Who are you talking to?” Stag asked quietly.

“Oh, no one.” Chet chuckled, stepping toward the ledge

“If I kill us, sorry.”

“S’all good man.” Stag slurred.

And he jumped.

////

Chrysalis watched the portal in front of her slowly close, as the blackness that had encompassed the entire south wall of the throne room shrunk.

“Are you okay?” Dash asked, stepping next to Chrysalis.

“I… don’t know.” Chrysalis said, “I lost him again.”

Before all of this started, Dash would have relished in seeing this mare so destroyed, but now, it only made her chest hurt.

“Twilight!” A familiar voice came from the door to the throne room, as it burst open, revealing Spike.

“Spikey!” Rarity called, running toward him, as he rushed to embrace her.

“Spike?” Twilight asked, approaching the couple, “What are you doing here?”

“I came here with Chet!” Spike said, stepping away from Rarity, “That big dark bubble separated the train we took in here in half! He was sucked in, and I was stuck in the other half!”

“Chet was in there too?!” Alex asked, running over to Spike, “Are you kidding me? Why didn’t anypony know that?!”

Twilight looked to Scorpios and Virgo.

“He wasn’t on the map!” Scorpios said.

“Everypony was in pairs,” Virgo spoke up, saying the first intelligent thing he had all day, “by that logic, he must have been with Stag.”

Alex didn’t say anything.

“Why were you two even here?” Dash asked, “You weren’t supposed to come on this mission.”

“Well… we were feeling kinda left out,” Spike laughed nervously, scratching the back of his head, “Where is he?”

Nopony answered.

Spike looked around, “Did I miss something.”

Rarity walked over to the ex-dragon and whispered in his ear.

“Oh…” he said.

Silence filled the room as they each digested the information they had been given.

After a couple of moments, Pinkie finally spoke up.

“Does anypony hear that?” Pinkie asked.

“Hear what?” Trixie returned, looking around the room.

“Shh!” She said.

Everypony listened intently.

"I can hear it too." Dash said, looking around, "Where is it coming from?"

Eventually everypony looked to the now small portal in the wall, as the voice finally became loud enough for them to make it out.

"Shit-Shit-Shit-Shit-Shit-Shit-Shit!"

To everypony's surprise, Chet shot through the gap in the wall, his wings extended, and a passenger holding on for dear life on his back. The two slid across the polished marble floor, until they collided with the unconscious Aries and his recently fixed leg, which they promptly broke.

"Oh shit!" Chet said, getting himself out from under Stag as he looked around the room, "That wasn't my fault! Just to be clear! I had no control!"

"He's the bad guy," Alex said, with a wide smile.

"Oh? Really?" Chet asked, looking to him and shrugged, "Okay, screw 'em."

“Who is that?!” Chrysalis cut them off, “Is that—“

“His name’s Stag,” Chet said, “I found him in this weird-ass hallway, and had to carry him on my back to get him out of there.”

“Stag!” Chrysalis said, running to the collapsed stallion and falling to her knees, “Can you hear me?”

He didn’t respond.

“He hasn’t had a thing to eat or drink in days,” Chet said quickly, “You need to get something inside of him.”

Not wasting another second, Chrysalis levitated the stallion off the ground, and ran with him out of the room.

“Nice going, Chet!” Spike cheered, “I told you this would be an awesome adventure!”

“You.” Chet said, pointing to Spike with a large frown, “You’re the one that told me to stow away!”

“Uh, didn’t you have fun?” Spike asked.

“Fun?!” Chet shouted, “I’ll show you fun!”

Chet charged at the ex-dragon, as Spike instantly turned tail and ran for his life out the throne room door.

“It sure is easy for equestrians to just run around in this castle, isn’t it?” twilight laughed, having wandered her way over to stand next to Alpha.

“They’ll be tossed in a cell if they get caught,” Alpha laughed, “I’ll get them out if they do.”

“Or leave them for a while,” Twilight joked, leaning in to him softly.

Pinkie giggled at the exchange as she walked over to Trixie casually and tapped her on the shoulder.

“Oh, hey Pinkie.” Trixie said, “Happy to be back in the real world?”

“You bet!” The pink mare beamed, “I’ve never been so happy to be standing in a changeling castle!”

Trixie laughed at her energy.

“But, um, I just wanted to say, Trixie,” Pinkie said, stumbling over her words somewhat, “I wanted to thank you for confiding in me about Aurora. It makes me really really really really happy that you trust me enough to talk about her with me.”

“I should be thanking you,” Trixie said, “You listened to me blubber for hours on end about her. You must have been sick of it by the end.”

“No ma’am! I’m happy to listen to you blubber for weeks if you want!” Pinkie said instantly, hoping that Trixie wasn’t going to bottle her secrets back inside of her, “I just… I wanted to say, that if you want- and you don’t have to! But, if you ever feel like it, you can tell me the rest of the story…”

Trixie smiled earnestly. Pinkie truly cared about her.

“Thanks, Pinkie. I promise I’ll tell you the rest when we get home.” Trixie said.

Everypony’s attention was grabbed as Applejack let out the loudest yawn any of them had heard in their lives.

“Well shoot, how long was ah’ out for?” Applejack asked, looking around the throne room, extremely confused, “I would’a woken up sooner, but I was havin’ the nicest dream!”

“Oh, were you?” Rarity asked, containing her laughter for the moment, “Were you getting married in this dream, by any chance?”

“Well ah’ll be an Apple’s apple!” Applejack laughed, “How’d ya’ guess?”

“Was he big and strong?” Pinkie asked, also holding back a fit of giggles.

“Well, uh, he was big!” Applejack scratched the back of her head.

“Ah, milady!” Virgo called, jumping past the crowd, his fedora tipping as he landed on one knee with a bouquet of flowers in his hooves, sending a tremor through the floor, “I know I tried to marry you without your consent, but you must understand, I was so taken with your beauty, that I couldn’t hold myself back!”

…
…
…

“Nnnnnope.”

////

Epilogue

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