Bruce Wayne was in the Watchtower, the Justice League's satellite space station, staring down what he believed may be the strongest being in the solar system. The blue blob simply stared back, his googly eyes bouncing around from behind Batman's stolen cowl. BatGooey was not one to back down from a challenge! He never lost staring contests, and he had a secret weapon that guarantees success. The unmasked crusader of the night scowled as Gooey's smile grew wider, and wider... and wider. And now he was concerned. His eyes widened in shock as he saw, where normally an unnasuming tongue would appear, a large pupil poked out from behind the stretched lips.

"Hey Bats! We miss anything?" Bruce jumped in his seat and turned to see the Flash waving at him jovially with Superman and Elfilis following him through the silent portal. Then he realized his mistake and turned back towards the large-eyed Gooey, only to see him back to his usual self. Licking the cowls nose with his tongue. He just sighed and put his head on the table.

"You missed an attempted alien invasion by a warlord named Darkseid. He was defeated within ten minutes. No casualties." He heard more than he saw Superman tense up before relaxing again, letting out a calm breath. It was the Flash who kept talking though.

"Must not have been as much of a big shot as he thought huh? Go team Justice!"

"The Justice League wasn't part of the defense."

"... Go... U.S.A.?"

"No one on the planet was aware the invasion even happened."

"... Go random bout of luck?" That one got an amused huff out of the caped crusader, and it gave him enough energy to to sit back up to speak.

"Gooey here destroyed the entire army by himself. Stole my cowl and ejected himself into space the moment we were aware of the threat." He looked at Elfilis as the tall winged being tried to hide his tired giggling. "So yes. I would say it was a random bout of luck." Superman finally broke his silence.

"Wait, seriously? Darkseid? And why did he steal your cowl?" Bruce noted down that Clark apparently knew about a world conquering being before he answered.

"I assume it was to hide his identity." Elfilis was now fully laughing, bent over as he held his stomach. "Yeah. He hasn't let me have it back."

"Oh my god! That's amazing! I'm sorry, but that's... woo, wow. How did Gooey do it? I would guess, but its been a long day." Bruce could see it, Elfilis was looking rather haggard again like when he made Gooey.

"He sprouted out these orange orbs that gave him propelsion and when he gained enough speed he turned into a rock. His momentum carried him right through the hull of the command ship. After that, we don't know. It exploded after a few minutes and the rest of the army either followed suite or retreated after that."

"Holy crap." He doesn't think he's ever heard Flash sound so awed. "Looks like you have comptetion Big Blue. Little Blue is coming for your title!"

"No he isn't. He's decided to explore the galaxy on his own, he was just waiting for Elfilis so he could say goodbye." Said being looked shocked for a moment before croiching down to be at Gooey's level. Everyone felt the mood drop, it was so sudden.

"You're looking for adventure aren't you? To spread love and joy and defeat those that would destroy it?" The blob jiggled in a way that resembled enthusiastic nodding. "... I feel like I'm letting a part of myself go. It didn't hurt this much when Toby suddenly decided to strike out. But... This is who you are, who I made you to be. My only request is that you make friends every step of the way. Besides, I'm only a world away if I ever want to see you, right? Have fun Gooey. In the way only you know how."

Fuck me. I practically abandoned Gooey moments after making him, without ever having said a word to him, and that little interaction still felt like the hardest punch to the gut I've ever had. In recent memory. I must be more exhausted than I thought. Two hours of studying the secrets of the universe in a completely non-philosophical sense was something I wasn't going to make a habit of. My thoughts stopped short as Celestia stepped into the throne room, all the Elements plus Spike following behind her in a rough line.

"Aurum is asleep with Cadence and Shining watching him, Luna is still recovering, and, outside of bodily tossing her onto the floor, nothing I could do would wake up Carina." I snorted.

"Yeah, that sounds about right. The actual Elements still missing?"

"Unfortunately, but until Canterlot is in order again I cannot have too many ponies out looking for them."

"Did you ask the Squeak Squad to help?" She paused for only a moment as her horn briefly lit up.

Daroach jumped as a focused beam of light came from the heavens, scorching the grass in front of him. It deftly made six shapes before scarring a sentence in the ground.

SIX GEMS
LOOK LIKE THIS
FIND THEM
THNX

"Now I have." I didn't know how to feel about the mischievous smile on her face. "Now, is everypony ready?" She got a small cocaphony of confirmation before she nodded herself. "Then let us begin. Elfilis? When were you first aware something was wrong?"

I rushed through my explanation of events, the faster this got done the faster we could get to the part that took two hours to do. New worlds, powers weren't working, Discord in Dream unsupervised, etcetera. Everyone else's version of the story was mostly the same, bar Twilight's and Spikes. Apparently she figured out a spell that let her see Professor Oak's Type energies, and this let her see where Discord was going to be before he did. And that dust that she threw in his face? She grinded down one of Spike's less protective scales into powder because they have Dragon Type energy in them, and Dragon Energies apparently don't play nice with other sources of itself like Discord. Damn clever.

Celestia was taken out of the fight sooner than the others, but the rest of Twilight's friends effectively woke up early morning in cages. Rainbow tried embellishing her story, something about a daring plan involving karate. I think we all silently agreed that we would let her have her little fantasy before we moved on. Finally, we got to what me and Luna were doing in the Dream.

"His body was destroyed?!" Twilight's reaction was nearly universal, but Applejack and Rainbow Dash seemed nonchalant.

"Yes, it's very scary, there's still almost two hours of events afterwards though." Celestia grunted, which was very not princess-like of her by the way, and I took that as permission to continue. "The order of events after that aren't as important as what me, and Luna, discovered. Discord's body turned into Dream Matter, but it left behind his Soul. Eh! No!" I saw them all ready to freak out at me. "I'm not done yet! It left his Soul, and Luna helped me study it and we corroborated some different theories of mine with what we learned. First thing to keep in mind: Everything is made of Dream Matter."

"But-"

"Shhhhhh!" I ignored Twilight's grumpy face as well as her mentors mildly skeptical face. "I can turn the Dream Matter in my Dream into anything I can think of and it's, as Celestia herself said awhile back, completely indistinguishable from 'real-life' objects. I also have a fifty-fifty chance of creating living things with the right colors. We think, that this was how Discord fucked with everything, by directly controlling the Dream Matter around him. Everyone with me so far? This gets worse."

"Worse how?! You've already put forward a theory that upends everything we know about the physical world!"

"I'm so glad you asked Twilight! Besides Dream Matter, there are three other forms of Matter."

"Ughhh..."

"Soul Matter, which is what our souls are made of if it wasn't obvious. Luna put forward the idea that magic might be powered by this stuff, because it isn't very stable by itself. Like say, magically created objects." I think Celestia was finally listening to what I was saying, as crazy as it was. Dropping her sister's name probably helped. "If you have Dream Matter without Soul Matter, then you wouldn't be able to make a sentient thing. If you have the opposite, you would just have a ball of volatile energy. They are the opposites of eachother but they work together. Unlike the next two."

"Should I be taking notes...?"

"Pay attention class!" I smiled at Rarity's disgruntlement, but Twilight seems to be sitting up straighter now. "Heart Matter and Dark Matter, polar opposites of eachother. I don't think they are completely incapable of existing together, or they are otherwise able to turn into their opposite. The thing that turned Luna into Nightmare Moon likely consisted of Dark Matter, but it obviously wasn't a permanent change. I'm... making this more compliacted than it needs to be I think. Heart is good and positive emotions, Dark is sadness and negative emotions. As in, your emotions are made out of these things. It explains how changelings can survive off emotions, Luna says it would explain certain magical effects, and I am fully ready to admit that it all sounds like total bull." Pinkie was giggling, but Twilight snapped her quill while Celestia seemed to have been shocked out of contemplation.

"Why are you sharing all of this if you aren't sure of its legitimacy?"

"Your majesty, I am one hundred percent sure of the truth of it. I just know that it's going to be frustrating to use all this information because all this Matter likes to act on its own most of the time. They are emotions, Soul, the fact of the matter is that they don't always make sense. It doesn't matter that we can measure amounts or isolate them from other variables, they will always do something to surprise you. Discord's Soul was extremely erratic, and we couldn't blame it all on his nature because even the very clearly foreign bits and peices kept doing whatever the fuck they wanted." Celestia cringed, and when I just looked at her without continuing, she realized that I was curious about her reaction.

"He, Discord, was truly being manipulated? His crimes were influenced by another?" I slowly nodded, her sad tone was not lost on me.

"Yes, he was. His Soul had little wounds in it, with Dark Soul Matter frothing and bubbling out... Okay, Celestia?"

"Huh? Yes?"

"Something is making you uncomfortably sad, and you should probably just spit it out before I get to the end." I felt bad, now everyone was paying attention to the Princess instead of my rambling. But regardless, she sighed before speaking her mind to us all.

"I am... realizing that I have made more mistakes. I believed that the Elements banished my sister because I was not supposed to be able to use them all myself, but we split their responsibilities when we sealed Discord. Why would they not cure him as Twilight and her friends cured Luna? I am wondering, if perhaps I had been close to losing Luna for the second time. If I had accidentally put my sister's life at risk over a game of chance when I set things up for Twilight to discover the Elements." That... Didn't occur to me, but I can see why that would be bothering her. And to be honest-

"I'm not sure I can assuage your fears on this Tia. Like I said, some of this stuff isn't made to make sense. But, I do have some good news."

"A Party!"

"No Pinkie, other news. Raise of... hooves? Who thought I was saying Discord was dead when I said his body fell apart?" None of them actually raised their hooves, minus Twilight, but I could tell that I was right on the money this time. "Well, you were wrong. Once we finally got all the Dark Soul Matter to fuck off or be destroyed, we were able to let it free. Discord pulled on the Dream Matter to make a new body, and I am proud, and have been extremely patient, to announce that Discord has been saved. Ladies and Gents, presenting the oldest being in Equestria-" I opened a portal, letting a young-looking stallion reluctantly walk out of the Dream, much to the shock of my impromptu audience. "Star Vision! A half-pony, half-dragon, this Kirin is from a time before Hearths Warming, as well as-" I made sure to catch Celestia's eye as everyone else was distracted by the spectacke I was making. "-before Starswirl was known as the Bearded."

The way her eyes narrowed before she nodded let me know that she understood made my whole performance worth it. Luna, in between insulting Starswirl's inability to produce progeny, let me know that Celestia would much prefer that the pony's misdeeds stay a secret for now. It wasn't just how ponies would react to his misdeeds that she was worried about, it was how it could negatively shift opinions of legitimately good events that he was associated with. Hearths Warming, the creation of modern spellcraft, even the appointment of the Princesses themselves. Until they could distance his name from these, revealing the true nature of the asshole wasn't worth the problems it could create.

Well, according to Celestia. Luna said-
"If it would mean spending eternity naked, absent of all fur, mane, and tail, it would still be worth it to drag his name through the manure. Hell, I would tattoo his crimes into my skin so that any who would look upon my form would know how much of a complete and total Fucking Shit-Faced BASTARD-" But she didn't want to upset her sister so I was being discreet.

Author's Note

Just for clarity, the Phantoms like Toby and Gooey aren't one to one recreations of the originals. They are based on Elfilis's perception of them, so they can do things he believes they can do and act how he believes they would act. My personal belief is that once a work of literature is out there that its meaning is open for interpretation, but I know someone was going read this and wonder how the hell Gooey casually'd Darkseid and why he would choose to become BatGooey, Intergalactic hero. That's not something you really see of him in the games.