Ruining Harmony 2: Pillars of Harmony

Applejack had barely got out of Port Equis when there was a rumble in the ground. She froze, of course she knew all about earthquakes, but there was one thing she also knew about Irvest, it never got any. She turned her attention skywards and flinched as the black pillar had reached higher, revealing it to be a beam of energy. It arced and began to fall back down to the planet.
To her horror, it spread wide and struck Irvest across one side of the Mountain of the Sages. The ground shook more and more until there came a light from the mountain itself which pushed the beam away.
It relieved her to know the sages had put the barrier that had once been around Irvest, though she guessed in the sixty years, there had been little need to keep it up with Ulysses inactive within a different containment spell.

It wasn’t for an hour before she could see what had happened when the black pillar struck Irvest. One entire side of the Mountain of the Sages had collapsed, and there was a lot of solid ground now missing, or in some cased, floating, around the impact area. With her map now at least somewhat incorrect, she regardless turned north-west and headed on to the Glittering Vale.
Discord had contacted the sages to find out what had happened. From his perspective, the Bloodpact Stronghold had been under attack by it, and then the pillar had just suddenly altered course. Goldwing, the oldest sage still alive, had been the only one to respond to him, and suddenly it became clear what Ulysses was doing. The attack on the Bloodpact Stronghold had been just phase one, with the backing of the sages in Irvest, Ulysses had weakened them from Equestria where they would have still felt safe, before redirecting it to Irvest at them. They had been too weak to stop it, and it was only by luck that Goldwing had survived, putting the barrier up once again. It wouldn’t stop the Stronghold being effective, but for the next three hours, as the successors to the fallen sages were brought in, Bloodpact was out of operation.
He tapped a talon against his chair. Three hours may as well have been an eternity, even in a state of low operation, there was now enough of a gap for Ulysses to begin poking at, and Ulysses rarely did one thing without having some sort of plan ready and waiting. This had been a cover for his real plan.
But what bothered Discord was that he had no idea what it was.

Applejack moved fast thanks to the pendant given to her by Discord. A trip to the Glittering Vale should have taken a fortnight easily, but she was moving as fast as a motor vehicle the Irvestians favoured over their own hooves, and as such, she was there at sunset. But she paused at the edge of the place, as it had been affected by the black pillar.
Irvest had lost some land she knew, but the attack had split the Glittering Vale in half. Once there had been a river that ran through the city and vale itself, but the yawning canyon had removed it, and some buildings even tilted toward it.
What was also clear was that Ulysses had attacked more than just the Mountain of the Sages, he had struck at the Stronghold that Rarity had been placed in. It wasn’t destroyed, and if this was by design or intent, it now floated in the air.
“Well that’s just great, how do Ah get to it?” she grumbled as she walked to the city.

Glittering Vale itself was still in turmoil from the black pillar, ponies running around to help those out of collapsed buildings. Such was the state of emergency, no one paid her any attention as she wandered in. The city had been a sight she had seen many times when the world hadn’t got so crazy. Marble stone made up everything, and they inlaid all the stones with gems, so that at all times of the day, somewhere in the city glittered. It was how it got its name.
Applejack wasn’t noticed by anyone until she came across a unicorn mare, who happened to be looking up as Applejack got near. She waved to Applejack, catching her attention.
“I know who you are, you’re Applejack, one of the six who tried to stop Ulysses sixty years ago.” the mare said.
“Ah, yup, that’s me.” Applejack replied, rubbing her head.
“I’m Diamond Core, what brings you here so soon after he attacked our city?” Diamond asked.
“To be honest, that,” Applejack pointed at the Stronghold, “I need to see what Ulysses is up to, but it's only in there I can find out.”
“Well, that’s going to be difficult, since it's now flying. But if you're alright with it, I can spare a moment and take you to it.”
Applejack blinked. Even with all the destruction around her, some random mare was going to drop everything to take her up to the stronghold? There had to be a catch.
“What’s in it fer you?”
“For me?” Diamond pretend for a moment to look hurt, but when Applejack didn’t change her deadpan look, she sighed.
“I want somepony to avenge my sister. That blast may not have killed her, but I saw what it really was, corrupted time used as a weapon. My sister could be anywhere in history and I’ll never see her again, I want Ulysses to pay for it. So are you coming? Or are you just going to talk and wonder how to get to the Stronghold?”

Applejack of course chose to go to the Stronghold. Diamond Core had a small paraglider which had somehow survived undamaged in the blast. Loading it with fuel, the two mares climbed aboard and set off.
“This thing is awesome, it even has weapons should I need to defend myself.”
“And do you?” Applejack asked.
“It sometimes happens, there’s some dangerous things living in the clouds to the west.”
Ahead, the floating island that now was the home of the Stronghold could be seen, along with something circling around it and towards them.
“Oh great, looks like Ulysses isn’t going to let you get to this one so easily. Hang on, I’ll get rid of it.” Diamond Core stated.
Looking ahead, Applejack could see there was indeed something heading towards the paraglider. The body was pony shaped, the head a mix of griffon and dragon, with legs and appendages a mix of all three. It didn’t need wings for some reason, as it flew without them.
It held its appendages out and formed spheres which it threw towards them.
Diamond Core kept calm, shooting them with the gun until they popped out of existence again. She turned her attention when the coast was clear to the thing Ulysses had sent, but despite direct shots, it continued to make spheres and throw them at the paraglider.
“I think it’s throwing spheres of time at us, it wants to send us to another point in time.”
Applejack felt useless as Diamond Core turned about and kept shooting at the spheres, then desperately attacked the thing again. The second volley ripped through the smoke and dissipated it, giving them a clearing to land.
“Well that was new, a creature made of cloud, throwing spheres of time.” Diamond Core chuckled, with Applejack noting it sounded like a chuckle someone held in when they weren’t sure they were going to get out of a situation alive.
The paraglider landed with a bump after this, allowing Applejack to climb out.
“I’ll wait here for when you’re done. Take care in there, Applejack.” Diamond smiled. Applejack simply nodded and headed for the door.

The inside of the stronghold was an off-white color, Applejack noticed, with a hint of blue and purple. The memory machine stood in the center of the floor, suggesting to her that it was random which way the strongholds were laid out. Choosing to investigate, she headed downstairs and saw what Discord had placed inside to start triggering memories in Rarity when she awoke. There were small piles of gems scattered about, along with ponyquinns and dresses on them.
Under other circumstances, Applejack would use it to point out how flat Rarity’s interests were, but she turned to the stairs and returned to the memory machine, pressing the single flashing button to see what memories Rarity had been given back.
There was interestingly, no first moments of life memories for Rarity. No seeing the world through fuzzy eyes that had yet to adjust to seeing the world in the first place. Instead Rarity’s first memory was that of fuzzy toys. A lot of fuzzy toys. On and on the memories went, past to how she got her cutie mark, meeting Twilight, and then running for their lives that day.
How long ago had it been? One thing Applejack couldn’t recall was how long it had been since they fled Ulysses and then returned to be defeated. She shrugged it off, a question for another time if the memory didn’t return itself.
Focusing, Applejack watched how Rarity met her end in the battle with Ulysses. The unicorn had fallen from a platform shortly after Pinkie, but this had only broken her leg, leaving her to limp. Panting and desperately trying to buy time that had ran out, Rarity cast her glance over her other friends, the barely breathing Pinkie Pie, who’s very movements suggested death was just a moment away, Twilight Sparkle who was crumpled in an unnatural way against a wall, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had dislocated wings, though how they both suffered other than that was different, Dash had long cuts across her barrel and flank, while Fluttershy’s front half was in a different direction of positioning to her flank. And Rarity had even seen Applejack, bleeding heavily but somehow still standing.
“Applejack! We have to get away!” Rarity cried out.
“Ah ain’t runnin’ like a coward.” the memory Applejack spat back, stumbling as Ulysses laughed and swatted her aside. The memory showed she had cracked her skull against a large rock, and she stopped moving.
Rarity herself looked on as Ulysses approached.
“No more harmony, no more friends. You are alone. You fool. I gave you a world where you could have been queen, a world that was yours! And you walked away.”
Ulysses lifted Rarity by her neck.
“I have no time for fools and weaklings. I have my true life waiting for me.”
Rarity felt cuts across her belly, not deep to remove organs, but enough that she could feel the blood run down her legs. She passed out from the pain.

Rarity stirred awake to a soft blue glow. There was only one memory, the sudden pain and feeling of blood. And yet the dull pain across her belly suggested she wasn’t dead. Regardless of not knowing anything else, she was happy to be alive, when the odds had been against her.
Slowly she stood up and looked around. The lack of memories, even her name, was disturbing, but she decided she really wanted a drink more. She soon located a source of water, drinking enough to satisfy her.
Seeing stairs, and nothing else around her other than the water and where she had woken, Rarity headed up the stairs, seeing the gems and dresses. They seemed familiar, but she pressed on, they had no memories to them, not that she knew anyway.
The third floor was where she saw the large machine, and somewhere to sit. As soon as she did, it dropped something over her eyes, and she gasped. Memories began to play and filled her mind, and in minutes, she recalled everything, even why her only memory made sense.
“Okay, I’m guessing by this machine, Sunshine Blaze didn’t let me die at the very least, and I’m back in Irvest.” Rarity hummed.
“But the others, poor Applejack. Stubborn even to the end. I can guess the only reason Ulysses did a poor job on seeing me off was because he didn’t see me as worth his time.” Rarity sat again. Her mind kept returning to the sight of her friends.
“Until I have the answers to what happened to them, I can cry for missing friends, but I won’t accept I saw them all die.”
The shadows moved, and Rarity stood quickly. From the corners of the room, the eyes of Ulysses stared at her, and formed a shape, part pony and part dragon.
“They did die. And I messed up with you,” he sneered, “but that works in my favour.”
Rarity turned to run, but Ulysses was already behind her. His hoof touched her head.
“Sleep.”
Rarity collapsed to the ground, asleep.
“Two down. Four to go. Then, Discord, I’ll make you regret everything.”

Applejack shook her head. Then she took off her hat and tapped it. There was no indication her skull was now metal, but at the very least, it had answered how she had met her end at the battle against Ulysses. She thought for a moment as to why her own machine hadn’t shown it, but if she had knocked her head, it was likely she couldn’t even recall being the last of her friend aside from Rarity to still be facing Ulysses when all hope had been lost.
With nothing left in the stronghold, Applejack returned outside, and with Diamond Core, headed back to the Glittering Vale.