One Way or The Other

Chapter 5: All Minds Die Someday

(Two days later)

  “Oh, Wired…” Rainbow cooed again.

  He was still lying in his bed, his state was getting worse. Princess Celestia had wrapped a bandage around his head, covering his eyes. Blood was starting to pour out of his eyes along with the tears he had shed every hour, making two large red areas in the front of his bandage.

  “Tia,” Princess Luna said as the two sisters left the room. “Why did you not let them stay in Canterlot that day they came with him? I know it wouldn’t have helped, but it could have kept their morale up.”

  Celestia closed the door, and they walked slowly down the hall.

  “I needed them to go to environments they felt were safe,” she replied calmly. “Staying close to the source of worry would give them a constant reminder what they didn’t want to see. Do you understand?”

  The princess of the night nodded.

  “You have a good argument,” she said as they entered the tea room. “But still, nursing him could give them a feeling they helped. Effective or not, it would make them feel better.”

  The princess of the sun gave her sister’s argument a good thought as she stirred in her cup. As she took a sip, she opened her eyes and looked deeply into Luna’s eyes.

  “You’re probably right,” she said.

  Applejack went to the kitchen to get some lunch for her friends. As she walked down the hall, she started thinking about what could happen to Wired Fix if he didn’t make it. The dark thoughts forced her to a sudden stop in the middle of the floor.

  She started breathing heavily. The sweat started dripping from her temple, hitting the floor at a rapid pace. The room started to stretch and bend slowly as Applejack stumbled across the floor. She crashed through a stained glass window and fell a few meters before she hit the paved road between the pavilion and the fountain.

  The impact knocked her unconscious.

  “Ow!” she yelled as she put her hoof to her head. “Where am ah? This doesn’t look much like Canterlot. To be honest, this ain’t th’ castle at all!”

  She stood up, stumbling a little. She was in a large room, all white. The walls were painted, the floor was tiled, and the ceiling was one solid plate. No doors were present, no windows either. What really confused Applejack was how she got there.

  As she walked around a little, the solid white walls seemed to come closer to each other.

  “What in tarnation?!” she asked and looked around. “Th’ room is shrinking! Ah gotta get out!”

  She started running around and started bucking the walls, feeling where a hidden door might be. But after a minute of kicking, she realized it was hopeless. None of the walls broke or revealed any openings. They had now reached so close, Applejack had just enough space to lie down and crawl together.

  She looked up. The ceiling hadn’t lowered or risen at any time, so she had at least something that didn’t cause problems. As she sighed in despair, the plate over her dropped at a fast pace, getting close to her in a blink.

  “Twilight, dear,” Rarity started and looked away from Wired Fix. “I am really starting to wonder where Applejack is. She has been gone for an hour, something must have happened.”

  Twilight looked at her.

  “I agree,” she said and nodded. “I’ll go look for her. Fluttershy, could you fill the pitcher with a new dosage of cold water? We need to get some liquid into poor Wired here, or he’ll dry out.”

  “I’m on it,” Fluttershy replied and flew towards the small table to pick up the pitcher.

  Twilight opened the door and left the room. She took a walk down the hall towards the North alley. A few guards patrolled the hallways, talking about how bored they were. They didn’t take the time to greet her or even nod her way. Twilight reached the main royal quarters without seeing Applejack anywhere. She decided to take the East hall past the kitchen.

  “She was going after food,” Twilight said to herself. “So why didn’t I just go to the kitchen?”

  She put her hoof to her face and walked down the hall. After a few minutes of walking, she saw the smashed stained glass window, and ran towards it to take a peek out.

  “No!” she yelled when she saw five guards, including Shining Armour, picking Applejack up and putting her on a stretcher. She used a spark to teleport down next to her brother.

  “Is she going to be alright?”

  “Twilight!” Shining Armour exclaimed in surprise when he heard his sister. “I’m sorry, but it’d seem she fell out the window and crashed down on the paved road. As you can see, she’s had a heavy bleed.” He pointed at a wide trail of blood pouring out of Applejack as she was carried away.

  “Oh no…” Twilight said and started to cry. “First Wired, and now Applejack?! It can’t be…”

  She vanished in a bright flash.

  “Oh, poor Twilight,” Shining Armour said to himself and put his helmet back on. “It seems my duties have not ended yet.”

  Twilight snapped out of the teleport right outside princess Celestia and Luna’s quarters. She took a deep breath before she knocked on the door. Before long, the princess of the sun approached the door and opened it. She looked down and saw a broken, purple filly with the shivers.

  “Twilight Sparkle,” she said. “What brings you here? I thought giving you and your friends permission to stay here would help you. Or do you just want to talk?”

  Twilight kept shivering, dropping a lot of tears on the shiny tile floor.

  “It…it’s A-Applejack…” she stammered and fell down on the floor. “She’s h-hurt too. I s-saw some guards p-pick her up from the p-paved road, outside the East hall. It was like she f-fell out the window.”

  Princess Celestia’s face immediately went from a surprised look to a terrified face, with hints of deep fear.

  “We’ve got to get to the medical bay!” she said and ran back into her room.

  Twilight could hear some discussing between the two royal sisters before they both came running out the door.

  “Twilight,” Luna started and looked at Twilight. “Prepare yourself for a mass teleport.”

  She lit up her horn, and created a large flashing spark around the three of them, before they all vanished.

  Applejack’s vision was blurry when she regained consciousness. All she could hear was a muffled indistinct chatter, and a repetitive dark bang. Her own heartbeat. She lifted her head slowly and looked around, giving her a cloudy image of the hall moving as she was being carried to the medical bay.

  “Lay still,” a voice said. “You don’t want to make your wounds worse!”

  In a way, Applejack couldn’t seem to understand what was being said. All she did was nod slowly. She closed her eyes, and tried to remain calm. She was feeling really nauseous. Her pulse was rising. But the limit was reached when she hopped off the stretcher, and put her face into a potted plant to vomit.

  “Oooh…” she exclaimed in pain. “Ah feel worse than ever… Get me to th’ bay quickly!”

  The guards nodded and put her back on the stretcher, before they ran to the medical bay.

  The three mares flashed into the medical bay to see the guards come running in with Applejack on the stretcher, all covered in her own blood and regurgitation. The guards almost knocked Twilight and Luna over as they passed by.

  “Oh dear,” Princess Luna said and sighed. “First we have a stallion who has a memory intrusion, and now a mare crashes out a window? My sister, we must take action this instant, before more ponies get in trouble!” She looked at Princess Celestia with a serious gaze.

  Princess Celestia looked at Twilight, then at Applejack before returning to Twilight.

  “You are right, Luna,” she said and closed her eyes. “Discord must be stopped!”

  The three of them gazed upon the nurses, who cleaned and stitched up Applejack, while she kept vomiting in a paper bag. They left the medical bay without a word.

  When they got out, they looked at each other.

  “That must have been Discord,” Twilight said. “I am certain. It’s not like Applejack to just black out and crash through a window! I wonder how we can stop a creature that knocks ponies out, simply by breaking the connection between mental control and body functions.”

  “Twilight,” Luna started. “You can’t defeat Discord that easily. You need all six Elements of Harmony, and the Honesty element doesn’t work without Applejack. Plus, the Elements were just enough for a normal Discord. The one we are worried about the resurrection of, is the original Discord, the one with all his powers available. The Elements might just about weaken him enough for my sister and I to turn him back into stone.”

  Those words made Twilight feel even worse than before.

  “Could it really be too late?” she asked herself and left.

  Rarity was standing in the door, waiting for Twilight to return. Her faint smile vanished as a purple, heartbroken pony came walking slowly past her into the room. Rainbow Dash was sitting by the bed, Fluttershy was sitting next to her. They both watched over Wired Fix.

  He looked horrible, even worse than when they returned to Canterlot, as requested by Princess Celestia in her letter. His once golden mane was now completely pale brown, like sand. His once marble white coat was now grey as must. His pearl horn was now just a shiny, splintered rock.

  Rainbow nodded towards Twilight as she sat down on the other side of the bed. Fluttershy took off the bandages that covered his eyes. Large marks from bleeding were stained around his eyelids. He was barely breathing, but they couldn’t feel his pulse. It was almost gone.

  They all sat there silently, crying and holding each other’s hooves. Fluttershy was the only one who hadn’t said anything that day. She decided to break the silence.

   “Um…” she started. “Rainbow…Twilight…I just want you to know that…um…I feel really sorry for you. Wired Fix is a great friend, and it’s always hard to lose a great friend…”

  Rainbow looked at Fluttershy, and showed a faint smile. She really appreciated Fluttershy’s concern. The three of them ended up hugging and crying.

  Rarity came walking from the kitchen with four glasses of ice tea, which she wanted to offer to her friends as a comfort, though it being very little.

  “Here,” she started. “Have something to drink. You’ll need to strengthen up.”

  The three ponies by the bed came towards Rarity, gave her a hug each and took a glass.

  “Thank you, Rarity,” Rainbow said and smiled. She gave her a quick friendly kiss on the cheek, and sat down on a chair.

  They all sat there, on a chair each, sipping ice tea and comforting each other for the rest of the evening.

  It was late at night now. The clock in the room had just passed eleven o’ clock. The four ponies were sitting by the table in the corner of the room. Fluttershy was cuddling a stuffed lion doll Rarity had made her. Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle sat and discussed the situation.

  “I just heard they have successfully patched Applejack up,” Twilight said. “So she’s going to be fine soon. Now, I can’t say the same about Wired Fix in the bed here.”

  They all pointed they attention towards the bed. Wired was all silent, not making a sound.

  “No,” Rainbow replied. “He’s really ill. If this really is Discord’s work, we’ve got to stop him. Turn him back into stone!” She banged her hoof on the table.

  “Rainbow, dear,” Rarity said and put a hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder. “Making a lot of noise won’t solve anything. Please, just calm down.”

  Rainbow nodded and closed her eyes. Twilight looked at Rarity.

  “I don’t want to make any hasty predictions,” she started. “But I have a nagging feeling Wired is going to get worse. Right now his pulse is weak, he’s barely breathing, he’s completely discoloured… We might lose him if a miracle doesn’t happen.”

  They all exchanged worried looks. Suddenly, the silence was broken by a few knocks on the door. Princess Luna walked into the room, bearing a sad look on her face.

  “Ponies of Ponyville…” she began before clearing her throat. “My sister and I have discussed the state of Wired Fix’s health. And we have something horrible to tell you.”

  The four ponies stood up and approached the Princess of the night slowly.

  “How horrible?” Fluttershy asked. “Is it the worst possible?”

  Princess Luna nodded.

  “I’m afraid so,” she said and looked at Wired.

  They all flocked up around the bed. Wired Fix’s horn started to glow. But it wasn’t amethyst purple, as usual. This time, it was red as blood.

  “It has begun.”

  The four young ponies held each other, crying. The red glow was starting to creep down the horn, slowly fading. As the horn was slowly uncloaked, it turned grey, shininess was turning matte and coarse. Wired Fix’s muscles started to twitch and bend, Wired himself groaned in pain. Then, the glow was just a ring around the base of the horn.

  “Goodbye, Wired Fix.” Princess Luna cried.

  The ring disappeared, and Wired Fix stopped moving.