Harmony Forgot Nobody

“Hurry up, Spike!  We have to test this now!” The purple unicorn whines at her assistant, who was lugging various pieces of scrap metal, tools, pipes, wires, springs, gears, belts, pistons, and just about anything else that could possibly be used to build any form of device with any number of vague purposes, on a little red cart with a handle to pull the cart along.  Spike strains as he pulls the massive weight, each hard tug only making the cart move half a foot and the back left wheel squeak as if it were dying painfully.  He pants, falling onto his back and giving up.

“Augh... Hah... Hah... Twilight?  Why do we need all this junk?”

“I'm glad you asked!” The sunlight made Twilight's smile a little brighter than usual.  Spike groans, preparing himself for the usual rambling.  Why did he have to ask?  Twilight was making some kind of machine, and that was just about all he could tell.  A really big machine.  They were just outside the library Twilight called home where a huge mass of metal parts were being carefully pieced together to make some kind of huge mechanical mess, but by looking at it alone you'd never be able to tell what in Equestria it was meant to do.

“Blah blah blah blah blah” Twilight went on, her complex words smearing together in Spike's mind.  He wasn't dumb and usually understood her advanced vocabulary, but now she was getting into technical, mechanical stuff.  Generally stuff he didn't know about nor cared to know about.  Suddenly, in his boredom, something to his right tugged at his attention.  He turned.  There were ponies passing along the street, a common sight during the day, but there was one pony that stood out.  A gray one.  It was staring.  Spike couldn't tell if this unrecognizable pony was staring at him, Twilight, or the machine, but it made him uncomfortable.  The pony was a stallion, and Spike felt particularly threatened by his gaze.  It pierced him with something like an icy cold wind.  Something didn't seem quite natural about him, but Spike couldn't tell what.  He just stared back like a deer in the headlights, waiting for the watcher to move, even a little.

“SPIKE!!” Twilights yells the name for the third time, finally snapping Spike from his trance.

“Haugh?!” Spike jumped. “Uh, sorry Twilight.” The dragon scratches the back of his head. “So what does this thing do, anyway?”

“Augh!” Twilight huffs. “Weren't you listening?!  This...” She gestures to the assembled jumble of scraps, wires, tubes, pipes, electrical circuit-boards, and gears as if it were something simply wonderful. “Is the most beautiful thing I've ever created!”

Spike looks the machine up and down with a critical eye, then turns back to Twilight. “A pile of junk?”

“Wh-?” Twilight seemed dumbfounded. “Pile of junk?!  No!  This machine is supposed to radiate magical energy outward and record it when the magic bounces back.  It's like a bat's echolocation but with magic!  We'll be able to locate places that radiate with more magic than others!” The lavender mare beams with pride.

“Why would we want to do that?”

“Hrrrm...” Twilight growls, lowering her head in frustration before closing her eyes as she raised herself again, composing herself. “If we can see places and ponies with more magical energy than others, then we can find a better place for practicing spells and maybe locate objects and places with supernatural qualities.  The mirror pond, for example.  The whole Pinkie Pie crisis could have been avoided if we knew about the pond ahead of time.  And because everypony releases some specific amount and kind of magical energy, whether they know it or not, we could identify and locate any pony in Ponyville!”

When Twilight opens her eyes, she sees her assistant is looking off to his right, staring into the distance again.

She shouts, “SPIKE!!”

The dragon recoils, falling onto his back.  “I was listening!  I swear!”

There's a certain sort of malice in the mare's next words, “Spike, what were you looking at?  I'd just love to see what could possibly be more interesting than recording the magic waves of Ponyville.”

Spike's expression turns something like exasperated, as if the question was meant to be rhetorical.  Anything would be more interesting. “That guy over there on the street.” He points to the gray pony in question, who hadn't moved at inch and was still steadily watching the two. “He's staring at us.  I don't like it.  Something just doesn't feel right about him.  Do you feel that?  It's like there's nothing there, but he is there.  Something... Not quite right.”

Twilight looks toward the pony in question and examines him from a distance.  A stallion.  Gray with a shadowy mane.  He was completely monochrome in color scheme; coat, mane, eyes, and all.  Twilight could just barely make out a horn poking from the curls of his unkempt hair.  The unicorn was too far away to clearly make out his mane, face, or size, however. “It's a gray unicorn.  So what?” Twilight turns back to the machine. “At least he seems interested in what I'm doing, unlike some certain unnamed dragons.” Twilight levitates some of the metal scraps and tools from the little red cart and continues her work on the machine.

“But don't you feel that?  When I look at him it's like there's just empty space.  It's like I go numb when I look at him.  My head goes all empty.”

“Then ignore him.” She huffs, continuing to add parts, the entire machine glowing a faint purple as she assembles it.  Once she's satisfied with her work she gives the machine a look over, calculating in her mind, making sure she didn't miss anything or forget a part or not screw anything on tight enough.  She smiles, beaming with pride as she gingerly trots to a side of the machine with a computer screen and keyboard embedded into it.  She begins efficiently and speedily typing out lines of code. “Spike!  The checklist!” She commands.  The dragon scampers into the library and comes back with a long scroll of paper, a bottle of ink, and a quill.  Twilight continues typing as the machine begins to hum and whir to life. “Check these off as I go.” Spike nods, staring at the machine as the gears begin to turn, the pistons begin to pump, lights flicker on and off inside, fans hum as they spin, and a large antennae climb up from the center of the device.

Twilight raises her voice so she can be heard over the hum of the machine. “Power online.”

“Check.”

“Coolant functional.”

“Check.”

“Electrical running smoothly.”

“Check.”

“Data recording...” Twilight looks to her right, watching paper gush out of a slot in the machine.  She smiles. “Online”

“Check.”

“Antennae functionality... Maximum.”

“Check!” Spike almost cowers as the machine hisses and clatters, getting louder and louder, making it harder and harder to hear Twilight.

“Program ready for activation!”

“Check!”

“Test one imminent!” She grasps a nearby red lever tightly in anticipation. “Counting down from five!  Four!  Three!  Two!”

She yanks the lever down and closes her eyes, a wide smile across her face.  She thought to herself, “This has to work!  It just has to!” Her own thoughts of what this machine would be able to do made her oblivious to the fact that the machine was slowing down and getting quieter.  The device no longer hissed and the gears no longer turned.  The pistons slowed to a stop as lights went from white, to yellow, to orange, to off.  The entire machine let off a low whir like a little wind up toy winding down to a stop.  Twilight, becoming suddenly aware of the silence, looked back at the machine blankly.  She stared.

“It didn't work...” Her shocked expression turns to one of frustration.  Impatiently, she pressed some buttons on the keyboard with haste.  The screen was displaying the letters she typed for a moment before going completely black.  Rage made itself evident on Twilight's face.  She mashed the buttons and yanked on levers, trying to get the machine to do something, anything!

“Why isn't this working?!” Twilight yells. “Spike!” The dragon stands upright, at attention. “Fetch me the diagnostics!”

Spike stares with an empty expression, obviously not comprehending what she meant.  Twilight slaps a hoof to her forehead, gesturing to the small pile of paper that had spewed from the machine.  Spike rushes to it, tearing it from the slot in the machine it came from, and hands it to Twilight.  She scans the paper, her eyes following the text with rapid speed. “Okay.  At least the diagnostics worked.  Cooling... Electrical... Thrust... Programming... No errors... No overheating... There wasn't any sound like a piece breaking...”

“Uh, Twilight?” Spike asks.

“Data collection functional... Antenna worked... No loose pieces...”

“Twilight?”

She groans, turning to her assistant. “What is it, Spike?!  I'm trying to figure out what went wrong!”

Spike stares at another side of the machine, pointing with an almost fearful expression on his face.  The mare's eyes follow Spike's gesture to see a stallion in all shades of gray touching the machine and examining each part very closely, tapping on some of the parts with his hoof and putting his ear against the metal to hear the echo.

“Hey!  Get away from there!” Twilight trots next to the unknown pony, who had just earlier been staring at them from across the street. “Er, I would greatly appreciate it if you refrained from touching the device.  This is very delicate machinery, and I'd hate for you to break anything, so could you maybe...” The stallion ignores her, moving to the next side of the machine and continuing to test each part, tapping them, rotating the gears, testing the scraps of metal.  Twilight stomps, glaring, talking through her teeth. “I'd suggest you be a bit more careful with this kind of thing!  This is delicate machinery and I couldn't stand it if you broke it out of carelessness!” The gray stallion slams his hoof against a box-like part of the machine, making a little metal door open.  Twilight gasps, too stricken with terror at the thought of the machine breaking to do anything.

The gray pony turns to Twilight.  His face is blank and he shows no clear expression nor emotion in his cold, stone-like eyes.  He takes in Twilight's apparent horrified expression, his thoughts unreadable and unknown.

The monochromatic unicorn speaks, his voice somewhat deep and just as gray and emotionless as he looked. “The lithium-injection tube is in improper alignment with the photon infuser core and the negative flow of electrical energy.”

This is all the stallion says before going silent and staring steadily with his piercing, perceptive, dark gray eyes.  Twilight stares back, dumbfounded.  She was too stricken with fear for the machine, confusion at the vocabulary, and a slight amount of admiration for a pony who knew his machinery just as well as her, to understand what the expressionless stallion had just told her.  “What?”

Keeping his gaze fixed on Twilight, he reaches into the metal box and yanks out a metal cube that somewhat resembled a car battery. “The batteries were in backwards.”

Twilight looks from the stallion, to the battery, back to the stallion, then back to the battery.  She growls. “Well, give it here!” She swipes the battery away from the stallion and pushes him aside to get a good look at the circuit-board the cube had come from. “In backwards!” The mare scoffs. “Backwards!  How dare you!” The parts inside glow with purple magic as Twilight works to fix the problem. “You probably looked at it wrong, and just tore it out!”

“Do you know what you're doing?” The gray pony asks with no apparent emotion, his words flowing like a stream, but sting firmly like a rock.

“Of course I do!” After finishing putting the battery back, she turns to the colt and glares. “How dare you even begi --”

He cuts her off. “Because you put it in backwards again.” The sentence tore into Twilight like a sharp piece of flint swiped at her ego.

Twilight stares for a moment before her face twists and contorts with malice, frustration, rage, and other emotions that made her just want to kick this colt fifty yards away from her.  The stallion's blank, relaxed, stone-like stare keeps her from just ranting his ears off or resorting to actual physical violence.  There was something about how un-threatened he was by her.  Like it wouldn't have mattered if she did shout at him or try to physically harm him.  It was as if he wasn't there, and it wouldn't have mattered.  She'd just be yelling at empty space.  A hollow husk of a pony.  Twilight's breath became heavy with frustration, but she just couldn't respond.  There was absolutely nothing to say.  Her mind went blank as she glared at him, and she simply froze in place.

The colt turns his head to the dragon who shared a similar blank expression to Twilight, and who was still pointing at the monochromatic stallion.

“You.  Spike, is it?  Do me a favor and get me those pliers?” His voice is kind, but still firm and cold like granite ground smooth and round by a river.  The kind of stone that would slip easily from your grasp, but seriously injure someone with its weight.

It takes a few moments, but the serious gravity of the words snaps Spike out of his trance long enough to dash to the little red cart and get a pair of pliers.  A glassy gray glow of magic like a foggy, dusty window encases the tool and levitates it over to the place where the battery had been re-installed.  The stallion gets a closer look as he maneuvers the tool, bending wires and crimping springs until the battery is loose again.  Twilight and Spike simply stare emptily as he works to twist the metal cube in a different position and re-attach the wires to new places.

He speaks, his voice static, stone-like, emotionless. “There isn't quite enough power.  I'm going to inscribe a rune that will allow the battery to draw additional energy from its surroundings.  I assume this is alright with you?” The gray unicorn turns to Twilight, who snaps out of her own trance for a moment.

“Uh, rune?” Twilight couldn't recall hearing the term used like this before.  The stallion steadily stares, waiting for an answer. “Er... Sure.” Twilight's mind was a bit foggy, and all traces of anger had left somewhere while this gray unicorn was re-positioning the battery.  The same went for Spike, who couldn't muster up any thought at all.  The stallion nodds, turning back to the battery.  His horn glows again and what seems to be a transparent black quill appears in front of him.  The magic pen carefully scratches against the surface of the battery, causing an odd symbol to appear on it and glow the same color.  The utensil cut deep, carving the inscription in.  It was an unusual mark that Twilight thought she had seen before elsewhere, but her mind was too fuzzy to think of where.  When the stallion was finished, the quill disappeared and his horn stopped glowing.  The rune, however, began to glow a bright blue, causing the entire machine to spring back to life and hum at full speed again.  The gray unicorn grunts, making the quill appear again, and inscribes several other symbols on the metal which cause the machine to run much more quietly and allowing for a normal tone of voice to be heard within such close proximity to the device.

“There.” The stallion takes a few steps back, watching the machine, his expression still unchanged as if it were carved in rock.  He turns to Twilight. "I'd suggest you be a bit more careful with this sort of thing.  This is delicate machinery, and I couldn't stand it if you broke it out of carelessness.” He turns and begins trotting away. “Perhaps you should keep a better checklist?”

Twilight and Spike stared a moment more as the monochromatic stallion trotted out of speaking distance and then out of sight before they snap out of their dumbfounded silence.  Their minds suddenly clear again, and they gain an awareness of what had just happened.  Twilight blinks a few times, only now realizing what the colt had said.  It should have made her furious, but looking at the machine running so smoothly now she didn't feel like yelling.  She was more amazed than frustrated.  Twilight examined the glowing symbols on the machine, her brow slanting before she mutters, “Jerk... Messing with my machine... A better checklist, he says...”

Spike shudders, “See what I mean?  Empty feeling.  Who was that guy?”

Twilight moves back to the computer screen which was now glowing with electric life again. “Don't know, don't care.  Never seen him before in my life and quite frankly I would be able to stand for not ever having to see him again.  Good riddance.”

Spike pauses a moment before dismissing the event entirely, telling himself what had just happened probably wasn't important.  Might as well not have happened at all.  Twilight seems to do the same and focuses more on her machine, typing out lines of code as the device whirs with an added rock-like kind of stillness that wasn't there before.  A cold calm.  Peace like what came from the words of statues.

_ _ _

The night air was warm and hung in the darkness, offering a kind of comfort to those rendered blind by the shade.  It swirled as if whispering something secret, meant not to be known.  The colors of the houses melted into shades of gray and stood tall, ominous.  There was something mysterious about this night, and the stars above twinkled with curiosity as they observed the town below.  The wind whisked against the window panes of Twilight's library now, moving from one window to another and making each rattle as if searching for a specific transparent barrier.  If you could look into the last window it reached, you would see Twilight laying in her bed, the room standing stiff around her.  The rattle of the panes did not disturb her as she slept something a little less than soundly under the warm covers of her bed.  She twisted and turned, however, a sort of peacefulness on her face but whispering something urgently.  Her eyes were lightly closed and lips were mouthing unknown words.  She tossed and turned in her sleep, dreaming something she had not dreamed before, and something that altogether didn't make much sense.

This was a dream in a dark forest, or rather a bright forest in a dark scene, or even a dark forest in a bright scene.  This forest was warm and welcoming despite its outward appearance.  The night was bright with the light of the full moon, and the trees bowed away from the trail Twilight was walking.  She smiled brightly as she walked beside the gray stallion to her right.  His presence was soothing, and made her mind at ease.  She was close enough to feel the warmth emanating from his body.  Immersed in the butterflies nesting in her belly, she turned to look at the gray stallion as he spoke words she didn't care too much to listen to.  She watched his smile.  This was the stallion from earlier today, she realized, and it made herself smile to see emotion on his face.  Looking at him now, she could see that he was clearly as tall if not taller than Big Macintosh,  but far less muscular and burly as the apple-bucking stallion of Sweet Apple Acres.  He seemed to hang loosely on his frame and moved gracefully, despite how it seemed as though he dragged himself forward as though his feet were weighted to the ground.  Twilight giggled at the thought as she watched him walk in his funny way, his legs slumping and flowing like a marionette while his torso, neck, and head remained stationary, firm, and sure.

Sunlight stood still and solid, providing a wall clear enough to see your reflection in.  The ground shone like the light of fireflies dotting the night sky, emitting a glow much like a candle with each hoof step.  The air was lush and green, the wind carrying thick leaves that would pass through you if you so wished, or leave a burn where it touched that would quickly turn icy and vanish.  This place was unknown to Twilight, but she was too focused on the pony walking beside her to notice her surroundings.

“You look very cute when you smile.” He said, his usually gray expression showing more an emotion of whimsical pink.  His emotionless coat was still bleak, but seemed to hum with a light joy in being nothing.

At this, Twilight smiled even bigger, her whole body flushing a blushing hue. “I'm glad you think so.  You have a very nice smile, yourself.  You should do it more often.”

He paused, his comforting eyes flaring various hues of pink before turning a dry green like a dessert fire.  His eyes were always piercing, but this was a warmth that came from his eyes.  A warmth that touched Twilight at her very core.  A piercing kind of fire that seemed to hum through her body. “I'll try.”  Now, his smile became lighter, his glow of neutrality intensifying to a slightly bluish color. “But only if you can promise me something.”

Twilight continued walking with the gray unicorn she had only met just earlier that day.  She looked at the gray stallion expectantly as the whole scene, trees carried in the wind that would burn with touch, fire in the green that smelt dry and arid, reflective and dazzling sunlight creating a barrier you would have to walk around to feel, even the floor below that glowed like stars and the sky that appeared as an enormous dirt path seemed to lean in as the mare asked, “Yes?”

The stallion no longer smiled, making the scenery around him turn a little bit darker, and begin to melt like water freezing over. “You are one of the Elements of Harmony, correct?” Twilight pondered the question for a brief second before her thoughts were interrupted by the pony before her. “You hold one of the powers needed to bring balance with a single bolt of energy.  You turned Discord back to stone.”

“Well, yes.” The area around them seemed to fade away to an empty space where nothing could distract from the stallion's words.

He pauses for a long time, simply staring into Twilight, his face showing a sapphire sorrow. “Do you think... Do you think harmony chooses who it cures to preserve the balance?” He interrupts again before Twilight can respond, holding up his hoof and turning two shades of blood red as the seriousness of his tone sinks in.  Twilight was meant to listen. “Many were, 'discorded' in that time.  Yourself included.  You turned as gray as I and as lifeless as stone.  Do you ever wonder, when Discord was banished and everything went back to the way it was, do you ever wonder if the Elements of Harmony... Forgot to cure anypony?”

Twilight couldn't help but giggle at the thought, the air about her glowing a faint yellow for a moment. “That's impossible.  The Elements of Harmony forgot nobody.”

“That's right...” The bleak unicorn before Twilight smiled, but his eyes showed clear pain in the words.  The world around them turns more gray and desolate than before. “The Elements of Harmony forgot Nobody...  Nobody is the one Harmony forgot...”

A faint echo sounds through like a bitter whisper.  Maniacal.  It was a deep, genuine laughter.  A serpentine form snakes behind the gray Stallion, taking definite shape.  Twilight had not seen this new apparition since he was turned to stone.  Discord himself towered over the monochromatic, emotionless stallion.  He smiled slyly as the stallion before Twilight repeated, “Harmony forgot Nobody.”

Discord merrily chimes, “And it's just killing him!”

Before Twilight can react, Discord, wearing a large malicious grin, snaps his fingers.  The ground under Twilight seems to break, making her fall through.  The world around her goes black and she sees nothing.  She screams loudly for help before she makes a large splash in bitter cold, in addition to scalding hot water.

Twilight Sparkle's scream could be heard all through the library, and made Spike jump out of bed with a start and rush up to Twilight's room to see what was the matter.  He saw the mare sitting up in bed, mane mangled and messy, face ragged, eyes gaping wide and white, her mouth contorted into a twisted frown.  She breathed heavily, staring at the wall on the other side of the room, sitting in a cold sweat.

“Twilight!  Are you okay?  What happened?” Spike approaches the side of the bed, staring up at Twilight, ready to help with anything she needed.  Twilight didn't respond, but instead continued to eye the other wall, staring as if fearful. “Twilight?” Spike lightly touched her arm with the intention of comforting her, but Twilight's immediate reaction was to jump back screaming, falling out of the bed and causing a few large tomes from the bedside table to fall on her. “Twilight!” Spike rushed around the bed and hastily pulled the books away as Twilight groaned, clutching her head.  Evidently, one of the books slammed into her skull.

“Oww... What happened?” The mare asked, rubbing her temples.

“You screamed!” Spike responded, putting the heavy books back onto the table. “You must have had a nightmare!”

The unicorn took a moment to rub the pain in her head away, only slightly succeeding, before trying to think back to what her dream was.  It came back with shocking clarity, and made her shudder. “Worst dream I've ever had...”

“What was it about?” Spike inquired, worry on his face.

“Discord was there... And so was that unicorn from yesterday...” She paused, obviously dreading revealing the next fact. “In the dream it was like I had a crush on him.”