Haywire: Origins

[Skai]

In a bright flash of pink, suddenly we’re out of the castle and in the middle of the forest. And, by the look of the sky above and the types of trees and plants around, we’re in none other than the Everfree forest. So, in a rush, Trixie must’ve teleported us out of the castle. Great! Outside in the middle of the Everfree forest, one of the most dangerous places in Equestria. Not as great.

I groggily shake my head and hop up onto my hooves, looking around at the others, who all seem pretty upset. I sigh, brushing myself off, “Is everypony okay?”

Rosegarden shakes her head with a heavy sigh, “I still don’t know what just all happened. Who even was that mare? Where did she even come from? How could she even defeat the Princesses and her friends? Or Discord?” She says as she brushes off her red coat, which is now slightly caked in mud and dirt.

Burnt Apple groans and rolls his eyes, “As if that matters now! We gotta find our way back to the Castle, come up with a plan and stop her!” He says bumping his front hooves together as he lowers down to the ground.

Crimson slumps against a tree, covering her face with her hooves, “We can’t just go back! We barely managed to get out! We shouldn’t just risk everything and put ourselves right back into that!”

I hear a groan, and I turn to see Starlight trying to stand up, “We have to…” Starlight says as she continues struggling to stand up, as Trixie tries to help her up.

“Starlight, no, you need to rest! I’m not a doctor or anything, but I’ve messed up enough tricks to know you’re definitely hurt!” Trixie says, rubbing her head, using magic to summon her iconic magician cloak and wrapping it around her.

Starlight shakes her head, pushing Trixie back and tugging the cloak off, “No I’m okay… We have to find a way to stop Onyx, because she was able to turn not just Twilight and her friends, but also Discord to stone. She just managed to beat the most powerful ponies, and creature, in Equestria!”

I sigh, walking up to her and patting her head, “Starlight, Trixie is right, it’s not gonna help anypony if you’re not resting up. Trying right now isn’t-”

“But we have to try!” She cries out, pushing past me, “We can’t just give up when things seem tough! Twilight wouldn’t stop against her countless enemies, Celestia wouldn’t stop against Discord or Nightmare Moon, everypony strong enough to be a hero wouldn’t stop trying! If I had stopped when Chrysalis took the Princesses, the Changelings wouldn’t have found their true way, and Equestria would’ve been doomed!” She says, sitting down and planting her hooves against her face.

Trixie shakes her head, patting Starlight’s side, “Look, Starlight, just rest! Besides, it’s not like there’s somewhere for us to go.”

Starlight thinks on that for a moment, and then gasps as she jumps up and then winces in pain, “Ow...Except there is! I have an idea, everyone just gather close.” She says as we all huddle up with Starlight. She begins to strain as her horn lights up, and in a flash of bright purple we’re suddenly teleported outside some massive treehouse with blue crystals, with massive tufts of pink crystals shaped like leaves.

Everyone gasps in awe, and I look around, “Uh… So what exactly is this?” Looking around at the massive treehouse, surrounded by what appears to be an old decrepit castle.

Starlight trots in front of the group, waving her hooves around, “Welcome to the, uh, Treehouse of Harmony! It’s no doubt the safest place in all of Equestria. Not only is it hidden behind the Everfree forest, but it’s also got some kind of mystical ‘Spirit of Harmony’ protecting it.” She says with a smile, as swirls of light dance around behind her, slowly twirling upward.

She notices everpony staring in awe, as she laughs, “Pfft, come on everyone I haven’t even seem this ‘Spirit’ before, but from what I’ve heard there’s nothing to be scared of.” All of us keep staring in awe causing her to turn around with a gasp. She backs up, watching with the rest of us as the light forms a vague outline of a pony, made of pure white light, specks of multicolored specks of light dancing around it.

“Fear not, dear friends. I mean no harm to you.” It says.

Starlight gasps as her eyes widen, “Wait… No way, are you… The Spirit of Harmony? I thought the students described you as some sort of ethereal version of Twilight?”

The Spirit tilts its head, “The form they met was the first of many. I am the Spirit you speak of, and the one you didn’t know you were seeking. I am the same Spirit, yes, but the next incarnation. As the Tree of Harmony evolved into this Treehouse to protect the friendships across Equestria, I evolved as well. As Equestria and it’s needs change, as do I and what I provide. And what it now needs are new attributes to strive for, new Elements, new Pillars, a new group to spread the Light, the Hope, the Harmony.” It looks around, as if to study us. “You’re all nearly ready. You’re just missing your final piece, the last light to shine, the last Element of your Harmony.”

Starlight shakes her head, “I-I don’t understand, what do you mean?” The Spirit’s light disperses, melting out into six orbs of white light, floating upward and twirling in the air.

“Like with the Pillars of Equestria and the Elements of Harmony, six attributes, six heroes, six Elements. Courage, Empathy, Sympathy, Optimism, Harmony...” The Spirit says, all around us in a disembodied voice,“But like before, there are only Five true among you. Find your sixth, your Balance, your Trust, your Truth. You must find your sixth, for all of Equestria and the many lands beyond hangs in the balance.” As it finishes speaking, the light disappears, forming six different grey pearls, slowly twirling down and laying down on the stone ground.

Burnt Apple clears his throat, “So uh… What in the name of Celestia’s famous pancakes just happened?”

Starlight lifts up the orbs with magic, seemingly studying them. “Hmm...I’m… Not entirely sure. But I think… I think this is some kind of passing the torch.” We all look at each other confused. She turns and looks around at the rest of us, “I think we’re the new spirits of the Elements, like how Twilight and her friends became when Nightmare Moon attacked during the Summer Sun Celebration all those years ago...”

Rosegarden just stifles a laugh, “Uh, that’s funny. Great, yeah totally, but um… Not to be rude to anypony here, but we’re not exactly the best shining examples of being ponies. Besides, who exactly is supposed to be each Element? Do we do little acts of kindness? Make our friends laugh? Be honest?”

I wish I could argue, but she has a point. It’s a bit of a stretch. Not to mention I’m not exactly the kind of pony most would look up to.

Starlight shakes her head, tapping her chin, “No, I don’t think it’s like before… the Spirit really highlighted some of it’s words… ‘Courage, Empathy, Sympathy, Optimism, Harmony’... But it’s only five, and it said one was missing, and that we gotta find it.”

Trixie scoffs, “Uh, not to break the mood, but there are already six of us here. Unless maybe it’s supposed to only include ponies.” Trixie points out at Crimson, causing her to back up and shift into her pony disguise.

Burnt Apple scoffs, “Or maybe it’s talking about the worst, most inconsiderate pony here. ‘The Great and Stuck Up Trixie’!”

Trixie scoffs, “How dare you! I-”

“Everyone just stop!” Starlight yells out. She sighs, turning around and levitating the pearls, “We need a plan to stop her. And maybe if we knew what she wanted, or why, we could maybe stop her, but without knowing we’ll have to figure out some other way to-”

“Wait!… Maybe we can find out why!” Rosegarden says with a gleam in her eyes. Everyone turns to her, and I clear my throat, “Uh, sis, what do you mean?”

She sighs, “I think we can find out what’s wrong with her, why she’s so upset as to do all this. There’s a spell I was studying, and it searches the mind of the pony to find what’s upsetting them. Usually it’s just for small situations and therapeutic type things, but I think it can help us here and now figure out why Onyx is doing all this and maybe we can use it to stop her.” She says as she massages her chin with her hoof.

Starlight grins, “Great! After a few, um… Mistakes with mind control, I stopped studying magic that dealt with ponies minds like that. What do we need for this spell?”

Rosegarden strains as her horn flickers and summons a book, as she quickly flips through it, “Aha! We don’t need much, but there is one possible issue.”

Trixie groans, “And that would be…?” She says with a raised eyebrow.

“We need something of importance to her, something that could be considered a focus for her energy, a focus for her essence so to speak, something she’d think about a lot and very intensely.” Rosegarden says as she taps the book.

Trixie groans, “Well great! We have no idea who she is, so finding that will be so-” Starlight covers Trixie’s mouth with her hoof.

“What about me? If you use the spell on me, it could work. She seemed… Pretty eager to make an example out of me, making kind of a big show out of knocking me down.” She says, and I do recall how harshly she looked at and talked to Starlight.

Rosegarden flips a few more pages, “I mean… In theory it could work, but if we use the spell like that, you’d be the only one who could go in.”

Starlight nods, “It’s the best we have, so I say we get started. What’s the first step?”

After a couple of minutes using a stick to dig a spell circle in the mud outside the decrepit castle, Starlight stands in the center. Rosegarden has Trixie look over the spell one more time, being the only Unicorn left with enough magic strength to cast it. “Do you think you have it fully down now Trixie? We wouldn’t want to trap Starlight’s psyche in a mental Limbo.”

Starlight grows very nervous at that as Trixie laughs, “Of course! So I just think of those words, big mean queenie’s face, and then zap the circle?”

Rosegarden nods and she turns to Starlight, “Are you ready?” Starlight gives an unnerved nod with a nervous smile as Rosegarden nods to Trixie.

Trixie takes a deep breath, her horn lighting up as she cries out, “Doin’ magiiiiiic!” She says as she zaps the circle, causing Starlight to visibly, but calmly, panic.

The circle lights up, swirling around Starlight as she begins to float into the air, the air curling around her like mist as it flows into her eyes, causing them to glow white.

[Starlight]

I look around, seeing nothing but endless white light. Until finally I see a stream of green, swirling around with circles of stars and clock symbols with a loud ticking coming from all directions. Oh no… I think to myself for a moment before tumbling out of the Time Portal. I didn’t really ever want to think about any of this again.

I land down on the clouds, looking up and seeing my past self arguing with Twilight, partially tearing up Starswirl’s scroll. I sigh, turning around and finding myself muzzle to muzzle with a pegasus stallion looking up and watching the two of us. Suddenly, the rainboom shoots outward, and the Time Portal opens up, sucking Twilight and I back to the present- er the previous present? Time travel is weird.

As the portal closes, a boom of magical energy surges out and the scroll floats down and lands next to the pegasus, who lifts it up and reads it a bit. He was about to talk to himself when suddenly everything freezes.

“How cute.” I gasp as I turn around to the voice, seeing Onyx’s sharp horn tear through the world, clawing her way in. “You really thought you could enter mymind and I wouldn’t notice?” She looks around, “Awe... How sweet. Trying to figure out how I could have ever grown to be such an ‘evil villain’?”

I narrow my eyes at her, “You say that like you aren’t. You just took over Equestria, turned the Princess and all her friends into stone! How are we-”

She runs up to me, “You ARE terrible. Each and every one of you.” I tumble onto my back, looking up as she towers over me. I get an up close look at the pendant on her chest, which seems very familiar, something Trixie told me about.

She lifts up my chin with her hoof, “It’s irritating how you're still too inept to figure out the damage of your own causing. But if you must know…”

She trots over and past me, looking down at the distant ground below the clouds, “My father witnessed the confrontation between you and Twilight. He told my mother, who thought nothing of it until Twilight’s coronation. And then you became Twilight’s very own student. She became obsessed with figuring out how it was all possible, and it eventually grew too much of a strain on our family and my father left her, and took me with him.”

She sighs, grabbing a piece of cloud with her hoof, “I never did see my mother again, not even after the destruction of Canterlot Castle during the Fight for Equestria, when he got injured and I eventually lost him.” She says, sitting on the edge of the cloud, looking down with a blank look in her eyes, shifting away from the dragon-slitted purple eyes to a tame light grey as the cloud in her hoof blows away.

I stand up, walking up to her and sighing, “I’m sorry that all happened. But you can’t just do all this just for-”

She knocks me back and snarls, “I lost both of my parents because of you and Twilight Sparkle and all her annoying ‘friends’ and allies. Without you, my father might still be around and my mother wouldn’t have become OBSESSED with finding out how you did it. But you didn’t care, did you? No, you didn’t even KNOW. Because that’s all you all do. You make messes, and never care about the consequences.”

I try to back up as she knocks me down, “The Pillars pushed out Stygian, and he caused untold damage as the Pony of Shadows. Celestia pushed out her own sister, and she pretended LUNA was the reason she had to be banished for a thousand years. And YOU…”

She walks up and knocks me down again, her eyes glowing with both hatred and power. “YOU nearly destroyed all of Equestria for a petty grievance with Twilight and her friends. How are YOU any better? As a matter of fact, you’re WORSE. And that’s why I want you to suffer SO MUCH more. So come, attack me, ‘befriend me’, whatever you wish to try. But you won’t win. And I will watch with GLEE as you all fall.”

Her horn blasts out a shockwave, clearing away the clouds as I fall down to the ground, about to land down painfully as I suddenly am knocked into the white nothingness again.

And then, quite suddenly, I tumble out of the white onto the real ground, getting slightly caked in mud in the process. Everypony runs up to me, Trixie being the one to reach out and pull me up, “Are you okay?! Did it work?” Trixie asks anxiously.

I cough, “It… It worked. And I know exactly why she hates me, but I don’t know how that’s gonna help us stop her.” I think, trying to figure out some kind of way to help her as I brush the mud off of me.

Skai clears his throat, “So… What’s our plan?” I look down at the six pearls, and I feel a surge of lightning course through me.

“I think I know exactly what we need to do… But I’m going to need you all to trust me, because this is gonna sound weird.” They all look pretty concerned as I say that, but I turn around, levitating the pearls.

There’s only one way this all ends, and it’s going to happen one way or another whether Onyx wants to accept it or not.