Grab Bag of Harmony

I stood there, completely still, my hand hovering over my nose. It was almost gone, I could feel it. I fought against the tingling feeling, sure that I was going to go mad in the process. I took in a shuddering breath, and waved my hand annoyedly. Of all the demons of the nine hells that could possess me, it had to be this one!? I felt something give way as I gained foothold in this great battle of ages, so I took a deep breath.

“Ahhhhhhh…” I had a giddy smile on my face. After all this time! I could finally banish this horrid demon from my head! “CHOOOOO!” I threw my head forward, and expelled the horrible demon called an unreleased sneeze from my body.

I closed my eyes, and smiled. I probably had that sneeze built up for a whole minute before it came out. I leaned my head back, and rested it on the… wait a moment. I opened my eyes, and raised an eyebrow. The sky was a lovely blue today, and completely clear. That, while nice, was bad. Sorta because I liked cloudy weather, and mostly because I had just been inside not ten seconds ago.

I popped my head up from the… stone(?) it had been resting on, and looked down at myself. “Oh boy.” I was transparent, a light purply, almost white color, and I was glowing. I looked up, and saw an all-too familiar castle on the side of a mountain. “Oooooh boy.” I stood up in my ghost/dream form/soul, and turned around. “OH BOY.” It was somewhat of a shock, turning around to see yourself completely encased in stone.

“Right. Either I’m dreaming, heaven is ponies, or HiE stories were correct. Or some mixture of the three. For the sake of sanity, let’s go with numero uno of those options.” I clapped my hands together, but was disappointed at the lack of clap. Ghost meant intangible, meant no touching air, meant no clapping. I whistled. I had to give my subconscious credit, that was a small, but nice detail.

I touched the statue, and was surprised to know that I could still touch it perfectly fine. Maybe ghosts were tangible, but just deaf? I heard some birdsong, and decided that I could only touch me since I was me. Hmm. “So, if I am in Equestria, dream style, does that mean that I got statued by the Elements? Because that would explain a good deal of stuff. I mean, how did Discord know so much about the Mane Six? He was stoned for 1000 years, and it’s not like anybody would come and talk about the current Elements to him.

“Answer: Stoned people have astral projections.” I nodded, proud of my detective work. Good job, me! However, I was not going to explore Equestria as a ghost-dream-thing. I walked over to my statue, and grabbed onto it’s- my arm. It was held up in front of me, like I was blocking the sun with my hand. The clothing on the statue was the same as what I was wearing. My face looked distressed, and a little bit angry. Maybe the sun had been really bright that day?

I continued pulling on my arm, but stopped when I heard a familiar voice. “…few foes I have faced have had to suffer such a fate. The Gorgon sisters, were one of the times I did not mean for them to become petrified. That was their own fault.” Huh. Subconcious me got Celly’s voice down to a ’T’! I looked over at a wall of orangey trees, where I figured they would come from. Sure enough, Sunbutt and her prized protege came walking around the corner. I had to bite my tongue to keep from squealing throughout my dream-world. Twilight was bite-sized! Filly form! Small and squee-worthy!

They were so adorable! On another hand, I noticed that there was a strange glow from within them. Twilight had a bright lavender glow inside her horn, and some of her head. Celly’s glow was in her wings, hooves, and horn. Huh. Peculiar, but unimportant. They walked towards my statue, and Celly frowned. That wasn’t a good sign. She wrapped her wing around Twilight, and leaned towards her.

“Listen well, my student. This creature here was perhaps one of the most dangerous of all the foes I have faced. He rose to power shortly after Discord fell, and spoke of wondrous goals that he never fulfilled.” Oi. “He said to be the Spirit of Harmony, as Discord was the Spirit of Chaos. But he was not harmonious in a good way.” Oi! “He forced his dark powers upon everypony. He fed off of magic, and could worm his way into your mind, taking it over for his evil purposes.” OI! I folded my arms, and leaned against statue me as Twilight let out a little ‘whoa’.

What the heck, subconscious? Was this some metaphor for me feeling to pushy when it come to getting others into the fandom? Celestia calling me evil and mind-controlling? I humphed, and sat down. “As he grew more powerful, he began calling himself Accord, the Harmony to Discord’s Chaos.” Silly fools, my name was Blake! Blake Dunn! Accord sounds like a bad draconequus oc, and I am neither a draconequus, or an oc!

Twilight nodded, and wrote something down in a little book that she pulled from her saddlebags. The two ponies walked off, towards other statues. I sighed, and shifted against my statue. Something clicked in my head, and I stood up and followed after them in a run. We continued to walk around the gardens, occasionally pausing for them to talk about a petrified villain, or a memorialized hero. As they talked, I grew more confused.

Most of these hadn’t been mentioned in the show, or in what little I knew of the comics, which meant my head made them. One problem though. I wasn’t good at all when it came to creating new things, like these dozens of pieces of Equestrian history. Which meant that my head didn’t create this world. I looked at the two ponies again, and swallowed.

This wasn’t a dream of some kind, which meant those were the actual Celestia and Twilight. It meant that I was some kinda Discord-level villain in their history books, and I was really old. But then, what about Blake Dunn, the simple student from Earth? I scratched my chin. I think that they’ve got the wrong Blake in that statue, because I was not a villain. This was gonna be heck of a mix-up to explain once I wasn’t stoned.

Uh-oh. Celly said that I showed up a bit after Discord… but since she’s as old as she is, that could have been weeks after, or years. And if this prison was going to pop a thousand years later, like Luna and Discord’s, then I could be in trouble. I could miss the show! The events of the show, I mean.

Hmm. Might as well make myself busy. Forget what I thought about not exploring Equestria like this, time for some research! I turned around, and looked towards Canterlot. Time to figure out everything I can learn without being able to touch things! I began running to my goal, knowledge of anything and everything in my sights.

——————

“…knowledge of anything and everything in my sights.” I looked down at the ponies below me. “But, you don’t care because I am a ghost, and you can’t hear me.” I sighed, and continued looking at the pink and black sky from my perch on a Canterlot tower. I heard some distant thumps from the shield, as well as screaming from below. At this point, I had given up on ever being released from stone by a timer. So, I was taking matters into my own hands.

Cracking sounds rang through the air as the changeling army finally succeeded in breaking through the shield. That meant that Twilight and the others should be… there! I dropped off of my tower, and drifted to the ground. The Elements of Harmony ran past me, so I followed them. I caught up to Twilight, and held my hand out. I had been studying a good amount over the past six years, and if the books were correct…

I stuck my ghostly hand into Twilights horn, and focused. The glow inside Twilight flared up, and exited her horn in the tell-tale blobby light of unicorn magic. I saw her quickly glance up, understandably confused. I imagined a room that I had passed into many times, and focused further on Twilight’s horn. There was a flash of light, and the Elements and I teleported.

We found ourselves in the physical Elements of Harmony’s chamber, past the giant swarm of changelings. Rainbow Dash patted Twilight on the withers. “Good going Twilight! I’m sure we could have taken those changeling things, but it’s nice to have things go easily every so often.”

Twilight reached up, and touched her horn gently. “That wasn’t me. Or, at least, I didn’t mean to do that. Maybe the Elements did it? Maybe they knew something was wrong, and used me to teleport us.” Phht, as if. The Elements were glorified rocks that drew specific types of magic in from the surrounding area, and filtered it into spells. Not some sentient force. Like I said, I spent a lot of time studying over the years, I knew lots of things. Including things from places ponies couldn’t go.

Rarity stepped towards the box of Elements, and grabbed it. “In any case, we are here now. Let’s take these lovely things, and get rid of those horrible bugs!” She opened the box, and I was relieved to see six pieces of jewelry float from it, and onto the bearers. They all fastened their individual Elements, and stood together in a circle. About time! I had been trying to get hit with the Elements for a long while, but something had always come up.

When Discord had broken free, Celestia had come to me and ‘tapped’ my petrification spell, which dispersed my ghost-like form for a short while, long enough for me to miss the blast. I was indoors when Nightmare Moon happened, so I missed the whole ‘eternal night’ thing. I watch with giddy anticipation as a circle of magic flowed from Loyalty, and connected to the other Elements. The circle began to spin, even as more circles were made by the other Elements.

At last it came down to Magic, the last Element, which fired a light into the center of the spinning circles, filling them with a bright light. This spinning bundle of Harmony grew brighter, even as the doors flew open to reveal some very surprised and panicked changelings, who stepped away from the Elements. The sphere reached it’s full brightness, shrunk into a tiny point, then exploded outwards, sending a massive wave of Harmonic magic flowing over the horde of changelings, and pushing them away in similar fashion to Shining and Cadence’s love shield.

I saw the wave of Harmony continue out, and out, and out past the Castle Gardens. With a massive smile, I looked down at my ghost, which was burning away in small patches of multicolored light. I began to laugh, with a rising volume until I was cackling like some sort of super villain madman. Which, according to the history books, I was. The Elements’ hall disappeared as I felt myself grow rigid, which meant that I was becoming one with my stone body again.

After reading some books that all confirmed that I was the Harmony to Discord’s Chaos, I realized how I could release myself. The CMC made enough Chaos around Discord, while his prison was old and dimming,  that it strengthened his spirit enough to break his stone prison. I needed the same thing to happen, but with Harmony instead. And guess who happened to know the most powerful users of Harmonic magic?

I was completely inside my prison, so I began to try and move. I struggled, and tapped into the large well of Harmony still clinging to my stone. I felt a part of my waist crack, which sent a great cloud of inky mist spewing forth. I smiled, and felt the statue crack at my cheeks. Ink burst from the damages, even as I continued to crack open my prison. Eventually, the ink began to die down, and I felt free again. I willed the ink to move, and it did so. Wonderful.

I exerted my will even more, creating a shape in the ink. It was me, but I was covered in a business suit formed of pure ink, and my once-brown hair was now solid black. I pulled the rest of the ink in my stone form into the ink-me, and felt my consciousness possess the construct. I gave a massive stretch, and a yawn, causing ink to fly from my shaking limbs. I hadn’t been able to stretch properly in six years, so that felt so freaking good to do. I lowered my arms, and stared at them. It had worked! My plan had actually worked!

Only thing to do now was to do what I wanted to do when I first came here. Make Equestria a better place, a more peaceful place. And I knew just where to start with. I began another massive laugh, and began making my way towards Whitetail Woods to begin my search.

——————

Queen Chrysalis took in air with a loud gasp of breath, and groaned from the pain burning through her body. She knew what had happened, but still couldn’t believe it. That damned Celestia and her ponies had defeated her! Snuck past her defenses, and taken their Elements! She looked at her hind legs, and winced. One was missing completely, and the other was cracked. One of her wings was torn off as well.

She looked around the forest, and gave deep sigh. Dipping her consciousness into her hive’s egregore, she spoke. ”This is your Queen speaking on all egregore channels. I need two drones to come to my location, I am injured and I need love to heal.” She rested her head back on the ground, and sighed.

It wasn’t long before she heard someling approaching her location. “Finally, I was getting impatient. First, that failure in Canterlot, now this? I need to—“ The steps weren’t that of a changeling’s. She looked up, and felt a jagged spike of fear pierce her body. It was him, the All-Hive, the Mind Flayer, the Umbra Incarnate, the Spirit of Harmony.

He was wearing a suit that matched the pitch black of his hair, and eyes. She held a shaky hoof at Accord. “You! You were supposed to be gone! Imprisoned! How did you break free!?” He gave her a chilling smile, and crouched down.

He squinted, and muttered, “You knew me?” He shrugged, and spoke to Chrysalis. “Simple. I needed a large amount of Harmony to hit my prison, so it could give me enough power to break free. That meant that I needed the Element’s Spirits to fire a blast that would hit the gardens.

“When I heard you were visiting Canterlot, I was ecstatic. I knew that the Elements could blast you, and your bugs, away with a spherical blast, one that would easily reach the gardens. I used Twilight’s magic to teleport them past your guards.”

She lowered her head into a glare. “Just as clever as I remember, Accord. What now, are you going to start your ‘hive’ again? Go around, stealing the minds of anything that moves, just to show off your power?”

“Heh. No, nothing like that. I’m headed to my old crib right now, to do some light reading. Afterwards, I’m gonna make this place better. Harmony doesn’t work on it’s own, as past events have shown. You need an equal amount of chaos for things to work smoothly.”

He stood back up, and began walking through the woods. When he disappeared through the trees, Chrysalis heard the buzzing of two changelings behind her. They stood at attention, and closed their eyes as she began to drain their love from them.

Despite the warm feeling the love gave her, Chrysalis shivered.