BEDLAM III: Quiet on the Set

"Less than twelve it is!" I shouted as I swerved around another tower that appeared in front of us. Thunder boomed all around us as the fields around Canterlot pulsed with appearing and disappearing towers and other tall or flying obstacles. Arcs of pale lightning rolled through the air and vanished, and the sky flickered between its normal healthy color and a sickly grey. I looked back. "How many do we still have?"

Jury met my eyes with her ears back. "Like, six?" She whimpered. Sure enough, another cluster of our KS 6 golems failed to avoid the suddenly appearing towers and crashed explosively against them.

I blinked as one of the golems further to the side managed to blast a hole in the wall she would have smashed into, and so she flew harmlessly inside. However, she was nowhere to be seen when the building vanished.

"Did she-"

"Look out!" Tempest yelled. Looking forward, I blanched as a massive mechanical tower, shifting and pulsing with gears and sliding panels, suddenly materialized in front of us. With a grunt, I stood up in my seat and clutched my phase distorter in the air.

Deliberately using it in linear time was a funky experience, especially given it dragged Tempest and Jury with me. Everything went blurry and I was forced to clench my eyes briefly, as a few dozen feet ahead, along a line of us, was a bright fiery cloud where it seemed we were set to impact and explode with the building.

Instead, using the distorter in a swimming fashion as I did in the void, I dragged us, hovercraft and all to the side. I caught a glimpse at Tempest and Jury as I worked, both of whom looked at the timeline we'd just exited with bewilderment. I dragged us forward and around the building, merging back into our timeline, which previously was just full of debris, fire, and bits of bone, but now shifted and displayed our hovercraft carrying on as if nothing had happened.

And when I unclenched my fist, that's exactly what happened.

Everything snapped back to normal and we carried on through the air, albeit a bit more alert and slightly shaken from the near-death experience. Jury and Tempest whirled to look back at the obstacle we'd avoided just as it dematerialized.

"What was that?!" Tempest cried.

"Phase distortion!" Jury squealed, clapping her hooves. "We mastered time and space!"

"Huh?" Tempest huffed.

"Good thing, too," I added, pointing to the clouds above Canterlot and drawing their attention there. "Cause I'll need it to fix all that."

"Holy.." Jury murmured as the pair took in the sight. Above the mountain, where I believe Discord would be, the clouds and sky were in motion, swirling, contracting, and expanding all at once. In fact, it looked as though the sky was both falling and rising at the same time, almost like a tesseract.

As I considered the anomaly above, I couldn't help but notice the towers and structures appearing and vanishing all around us in rhythm with the motions of the sky. One of which stood out to me especially.

Straight across from the mountain Canterlot was built upon was a huge multi-tiered city structure, as tall as the mountain itself but entirely built from metal. Even though it kept flickering in and out of existence I managed to get a good enough look at it to guess what it was.

"That's his Citadel," I declared, pointing at the construction. "He mentioned he had the whole thing built across from Canterlot as an act of spite and to prove he could."

"That's his headquarters?" Tempest murmured. Jury crawled across my lap to stare at the place in wonder. I rubbed my chin in thought, and my mind drifted back to the KS 6 duplicate I watched vanish into that tower.

"See, now I'm thinking," I began, drawing their attention to me. "If I seal up the holes in space at the wrong moment, some of these places might stay here. Including that." I gestured to his Citadel and looked down at Jury.

"If that is still here, then that also probably means he'll still be here," I added, clicking my teeth. "Along with whatever forces he's got there with him."

"I might have a fix for that!" Jury declared before reaching under her seat. She produced her saddle bag and opened it revealing a cluster of disrupting wands.

"Well, well! Good thinking," I chuckled and patted her head before raising an eyebrow at the city we were now flying over. The hovercraft lurched as I aimed us skyward. "However, if it comes to it, I might have a better idea in mind. But! Let's save that for if things go real bad, alright?"

I focused on the anomaly and clenched and unclenched my gloved hand. "For now, we've got work to do."

"I don't understand!" Fluttershy cried, whipping her head back and forth to scan the air all around the mountaintop. "I thought the other Discord told you that if you used your magic, none of this would happen?" She winced as another series of cracks and pops filled the air. Slowly she looked back at her draconequus friend, who was contorting his entire body into sharp angles as he snapped his talons.

"Not exactly," Discord said in a strained tone before taking a breath and snapping his entire body again. Another outburst of chaotic magic rolled out and wrestled against the shifting space around them. "I explained that I just needed to hold things back until he was in position to stitch the holes between worlds up." He sucked in a breath and snapped again, coiling his entire body up tight. Fluttershy winced and tilted her head.

"Who?" She asked before gasping. Discord raised an eyebrow and peered over his shoulder.

"The only creature stupid enough to learn how to drill holes in space and time," he grumbled as Bedlam and his cohorts flew at high speed toward the epicenter of the anomaly above the mountaintop. Discord rolled his eyes before he unwound with a violent crack. "There'll be no living with him if he pulls this off, you know that?"

"I don't understand!" The pegasus cried again, fluttering up to stare anxiously at the flying machine. "What could Bedlam possibly do? Won't he just try to-" She cut herself off with a sharp wince as another series of cracks sounded off.

"I explained to myself that I was faintly aware of his presence in the other world I came from, and as such had a feeling he was going to encounter something that might finally smack some sense into him," Discord explained, leering up at the hovercraft while bent back in a tight spiral. "A bit like what you did for me, my dear."

"Smack some sense?" Fluttershy murmured, looking between Discord and the vanishing machine above. "What on earth could that be?" She grunted in mild annoyance as the draconequus snapped again.

"Oooh, that one was good," Discord hummed with approval. "Just a shame I had no time to share that possibility with everypony else. But then again, it being just a possibility does limit the benefits of sharing it." He sighed and popped all his joints.

"For all I know, he could still be the same old villain he's always been," he twisted at the hips and tilted his head. "I guess time will tell. Just a shame considering the timing of his potential change of heart."

He managed a toothy grin. "He's certainly not made trusting him easy, after all."

My metallic claws clacked against the railing of the balcony as I studied the land around my Citadel. The bare rock mountain that once held Canterlot was still there but intermittently flashed with life and structure, almost as if I'd never razed the place. Grumbling, I attempted to reestablish communications with my personal satellites, but every two seconds the line was cut again.

"They must have given Discord his magic back," I huffed, leering at the sky that shifted from the comfy dark grey I preferred to the clear blue of a less polluted world. "He's the only creature I can imagine could tamper with space on a scale like this. But why?"

[Lord Bedford, sir!] The Sunset golem at my side suddenly peeped. [Just a moment ago-] I cut it off with a firm backhand, causing its head to spin.

"Yeah, yeah, I got the report. Shut up," I growled and studied the data that was transferred during the brief moment we had communications running. I tilted my head. "One of his KS 6 models came through?" I looked at the image that was attached to the report. The tiny thing had immediately been dog-piled by security and was disabled quickly. I narrowed my eyes.

"No, that's one of the spares I was making. Just looks like they reprogrammed it," I hummed and leaned back against the railing with my arms folded and a smirk. "Are they trying to infiltrate in between shifts? Ha! Pretty crafty."

I leered back at the city appearing and disappearing in the distance. "Two can play at that game, though," I declared and sent out a mental command to the Citadel, ordering all my war machines to make ready and the Celestia clones to be unleashed. Drumming my claws on the railing again, I considered the little golem they'd sent through. "Sunset, go try to retrieve the intruding unit, and when you find it add this data to its brain." The alicorn golem paused as it collected the command and then nodded before spreading its wings and taking off. As the world shifted again, she vanished from sight completely, as she was no longer in contact with the matter of our native world.

Even though we were shifting back and forth through dimensions, everything was still roughly in the same spot spacially, at least if my Citadel's proximity to the alternate Canterlot was any indication. Thus, the little pony machine should be able to find the location just fine. And that meant I could turn their attempted sneak attack into something sneaky all my own.

I strode away from the balcony back inside and looked over the pulsing crystal channels lining my floor. Inside the magic running through this place was the mind of my entire operation. My fleshy double may have only had the one Crystal Mind, but he was also limited by his inefficient human brain.

This Citadel was my Crystal Mind, because every channel, every gem, every natural and alchemically produced crystal lining the entire city structure housed me. There was no gap between my consciousness and every crawling inch of machinery in this place.

This also meant that if they were able to slip past my defenses and sensors and say, slam their version of the bell into any part of the magical circuitry, they'd be able to neutralize me instantly. Despite the hold I was still confident I had on the situation, some long mechanized part of my self shuddered. I climbed onto my throne and set my mind to work organizing the machines and clones within the Citadel, as well as inspecting my defenses and assets.

The magical pocket I kept my bell in was still intact, which of course meant I could also very quickly steal a win. I just needed to find their Discord and use the bell on him.

I raised an eyebrow and considered the open balcony across from my throne. The mountain peak in the distance seemed to be where the warp in spacetime was most active. As good a place to hit first as any.

"Wait for the next shift and then charge," I ordered audibly and mentally.