Contrast

Hours had passed since Twilight's last encounter with the peculiar foe, and no less than half a hundred books had piled up behind her, and yet, none of them seemed to contain any information that could help her.

"Uugh!" Twilight let out an annoyed sigh.

As though hearing his name being called, the voice instantly returned after hearing Twilight losing her temper.

"Still searching, hmm? Oh, you poor, poor thing," he said with fake compassion.

Twilight pretended to not care, but her infuriated expression said otherwise.

"Mayhap you should give that Elements of harmony reference guide a more thorough look...You might just stumble across something that had previously slipped your sights." After letting out a quiet laugh, the voice disappeared, again.

Had he mentioned this a few hours earlier, Twilight would have paid no heed to his words, but at this point, she was ready to take the advice of just about anyone. Just as the voice suggested, she left the current shelf and proceeded to find the mentioned book. She didn't want to admit it, but the presence may have actually been right on this. Seeings how he wouldn't stop going on about the elements of harmony, perhaps the book in question really could contain a hint about his true origins...but if that were true, then why in the world would he point her to it?

As she placed the book on her desk and started scrolling through it, she said some of the page tittles out loud.

"The tree of harmony...no...Combining the six elements...no...Similarities...no..." after a few more tittles, she stopped on a page that seemed to catch her interest. "The seventh element?" she said out loud and proceeded to read the contents of the page.

Little is known of the first six bearers of the elements of harmony, 'cept that they were six ponies that were as different from one another as ice is from fire, and that they managed to look past their differences and work together to ensure the safety of their land. Rumor has it, that there were originally seven ponies sent out to find a hidden source of power and bring it back to their village to help them defeat a foe that it was currently threatened by.

As the elements of harmony chose their owners, the seventh pony was left without an element. Refusing to accept the outcome of the journey, the pony insisted that he was more loyal, honest, generous, and kinder than any of his companions, not to mention - that he could spend days laughing without stop.

The other ponies tried to reason with him, saying that there was no shame in not being chosen as one of the six, but the dissatisfied stallion paid no heed to their words. He refused to acknowledge the six ponies as the rightful bearers of the elements, instead, he chose to abandon his tribe and seek out his own hidden power. With his final words before running off, he swore that if the other ponies did not renounce their claim of the six elements, then he would find a way to turn them against them...

Henceforth, the renegade pony was claimed to have secretly inherited the hidden, seventh element on that day - The element of corruption.

"Corruption..." the voice whispered so wickedly that it sent shivers up Twilight's spine. "Such an uncommon way of spelling the word righteousness, wouldn't you agree?"

"There's nothing righteous about betrayal of those that looked to you for help!" Twilight shouted and pointed her hoof in the direction of the voice.

"Betrayal? Me?" He laughed. "I didn't betray anypony on that day...My six brothers and sisters happily skipped back to their village and saved the day, while I was busy freezing out in the cold, on my own," he explained with little emotion in his tone. "Rest assured, I was the only one who was betrayed that day."

"How could you possibly claim to have been betrayed, when it was you yourself who chose to run?"

"As much as I would love to turn your words against you, I'm afraid we're going to have to continue this conversation later," he avoided the question. "You have guests coming."

"Wha-"

Before Twilight could utter another sound, her door got slammed open, revealing another one of her friends standing behind it.

"Twilight!" the distraught pony yelled and started coughing gemstones. "You have to help me!" Rarity cried out and ran closer to her friend, dropping near her and grabbing her foreleg. "They're everywhere, Twilight! I literally have gems coming out of my ears!" The panicking fashionista started crying after a single ruby rolled out of her right ear.

"Isn't that...a good thing?" Twilight nervously added, unable to think of anything else to say.

Rarity suddenly grabbed Twilight's cheeks and directed her towards the trail of gems that she had left behind her while coming here. A pack of ponies had already gathered around and started picking out the prettiest-looking ones.

"I see..." Twilight quietly added.

"And you haven't even seen Carousel Boutique yet!" Rarity shouted in hysteria. "I don't even know if poor Opal made it out of there alive!" Rarity fainted.

Before Twilight could even begin to comfort her, Rarity suddenly jumped back up.

"Oh my goodness...Opal!" she shouted and ran out of the door. "Opal! Darling, are you all right? Opal!" she kept shouting as she ran back the same way she arrived.

Twilight could only stare at the sight with her eyes wide open and her mind completely numb.

"Some element of generosity, eh?" the voice slyly added.

"Yeah, well, I'd like to see you trying to be generous while someone you love is buried under a hoard of shiny rocks." Twilight closed the door and walked back inside.

"Excuses, excuses. Tsk tsk tsk," he mocked her in a playful tone. "Why don't just admit that you were wrong from the very beginning? That way you would save us both some time," he calmly replied and watched the furious pony's reaction in amusement.

Despite the fact that, for a moment, Twilight's face turned tomato-red while her ears started shooting out steam, she managed to calm herself quickly enough. She let her remaining anger out with a loud exhale.

"Who's the sore loser now, hmm?" The voice kept mocking her.

"Still you," Twilight replied without much thinking. "You're not just a sore loser...you're a delusional loser...You've been one since the moment you ditched your tribe."

"Hmm hm hm..." he laughed quietly. "Oh, that was good. I salute you on a marvelous attempt to insult me, Miss Sparkle."

"You know, you're lucky the word nuisance doesn't have an adjective form, otherwise that would be your element," Twilight added with a cocky smile on her face.

"Ooh! Ha ha!" he laughed quite loudly. "That was even better than the last one! You really are something else, Twilight Sparkle, you know that?" He kept laughing as his voice floated from one corner of the room to the other. "I'll give you some time to relax a bit and think of what you've learned so far, before I present you with your next lesson."

As the voice faded away, a single word flew through Twilight's mind.

"Fluttershy..."