Twilight awoke with a splitting headache, and she did not know why. She was not the only one, though; in fact, it would have been nearly impossible to find a creature in her world that was not waking up with some sort of pain. Twilight’s pain-and-sleep addled mind attributed to over-studying and over-using her magic, though in actuality she had done nothing of the sort.

As she climbed off the floor - ‘The floor?’ - she noticed that her muscles hurt strangely, as if she had overworked them. Twilight was confused, and as such, fell into an ordinary and well-rehearsed morning routine in an attempt to fully rouse herself and regain her senses.

She had no idea that the spot she had just vacated had been the sight of her first grand mal seizure, but she was beginning to suspect it. Or at least, her subconscious was telling her that something was very, very wrong. “Spike...” the mare horsley moaned. Then, louder and more clearly, she repeated, “Spike!”

A pained moan was all she got in reply. Twilight figured that he was still sleeping and decided not to go and wake him.

As Twilight poured a drink from her new automatic coffee maker, the next and newest part of her morning routine came to mind. Now, if she had not made this particular innocent step a part of her routine, future Twilight would have numbed her pain, had her coffee, and had a generally enjoyable, albeit confusing, morning for the next thirty seven minutes and twenty three seconds. Upon the ending of that time period, future Spike would have been woken by a hastily penned note sent by Celestia to Twilight via dragon-fax.

But that crucial, innocent-seeming step, which would sour her mood far more than Celestia’s letter, was performed. And so, Twilight lost all good cheer.

Simply, at seven o’clock precisely, Twilight’s horn lit up and vibrated with the magically transmitted sounds of the radio host’s voice.

“This is Welcome to Canterlot on Equestrian Public Radio, Equestria’s first and currently only radio station, broadcasting on AM, FM, and magical frequencies. Today’s date is July 8th, in this fourth year after Luna’s return. I’m your host, Scoop, substituting in this week for Silver Tongue.

“I have to start out today’s broadcast with a quote, one that I insist that you all keep in mind as you hear today’s headline. ‘When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure.’ Author Unknown.

“As much as I wish it would, mere words cannot ever hope to lessen the impact of what I am about to say. Out of respect, I am going to be dedicating my entire hour of airtime to coverage of this...” There was an audible sigh. “I prayed that I would never have to do this when I took up journalism. But here it goes...

“Equestria’s east coast has fallen. Along the eastern coast, extending upto a mile inland at its widest point, a zone appeared at 11:42 last night that instantly killed most of the life within its range. And by eastern coast, I mean all of it. The cities of Baltimare, Neigh York, and Fillydelphia all rest along the coast, and have all been struck. Mares and gentlecolts, the devastation is... astronomical. I’m talking tens of thousands dead in an instant, stolen away from us in the middle of the night.”

Twilight’s coffee, long since dropped on the floor, spread around her hoof. She did not care.

“Those lucky few survivors that escaped have shown signs of chaos sickness, which include anemia, vomiting, loss of appetite, abdominal pains, dizziness, confusion, and blistering burns across the skin. The zone, which is bounded by a translucent blue energy, continues to maintain the highly concentrated levels of chaotic magic it had when it first appeared, and as long as it continues to do so, life will be unable to live there.

“As for the rest of the nation, the arrival of the zone was accompanied by a pulse of magic that induced fits in most creatures, ponies included, rendering us unconscious. Please, if you have any medical conditions, especially magical ailments, please report to a doctor as soon as you can. If you feel fine, I would ask that you refrain from going to the doctor within the next few days so that they may treat the major injuries first. Afterwards, when things have calmed down, I would advise every person, pony or otherwise, to visit their physician as soon as possible.

“I’m receiving reports from our pegasi Fast Response Team and my anonymous changeling contact that this pulse had covered at least as far south as Appleloosa and as far west as Vanhoover, leading me to assume that this is a nation-wide disaster. For the love of Celestia, DO NOT PANIC! We will get through this. We are tough. We are Equestria.”

There was a moment of near-silence broadcast over the magical radio, in which muffled voices could be heard in the background.

“Listeners... I’ve just learned... it’s worse than we thought. The afflicted zone extends deep into the ocean, where our seapony cousins live. We have lost contact. The only thing we can do is hope for the best, but... prepare for the worst.

The near-silence returned, though the whispers were louder this time. There was a cry of anguish.

“God no... Everypony, everyling, everybody, for those of you who are in the know, there is another place out there that is like ours, but different in many ways. Within the last few years, we have met one another, and some of us have ventured across to the other side through the natural bridges that have formed. The very equipment I am broadcasting on was invented in that place, my old homeland.

"There is one similarity I wish we didn't share with our neighbors. It seems that the are in the same dire straits as us here in Equestria. The same disaster that happened to us, happened to them.

“So many have died in this is a tragedy that spans many lands, many nations, many people. If you are hearing these words, band together. Be strong. We need one another more than ever. Love your family, cherish them, let them know that you are there for them.

“More reports are coming in, saying-”

Twilight killed her horn’s light. Scoop’s voice faded with it. Shock, complete and utter shock was the only thing that Twilight could feel. It pushed outward from the core of her being, crushing any and all feeling away, and left her hollow, empty, and numb.

She sat there, trying to understand. Ponies did not just drop dead, so why? Why? Why had that happened?

For twenty eight never-ending seconds, Twilight sat and thought. For thirty two minutes exactly, she ran in a mad dash around her library for an answer that was not in her books.

Two minutes and fourteen seconds after Spike was rudely awoken, he handed Twilight the offending scroll.

Eight minutes and thirty nine seconds after that, Twilight Sparkle and Spike were crying their eyes out. In that time, they must have read the letter a dozen times to make sure they had read it correctly.

One point three seconds after that, Rainbow Dash opened the door to the Library.

Rainbow Dash was loyal.

The sentence “Rainbow Dash was loyal” was as obvious to those who knew her as, say, declaring that both she and the noon sky were blue.

What was slightly less obvious was that Rainbow Dash was also a health nut. She would never call her health books, diet regimen, or doctor’s advice “egghead stuff,” for she could feel it keeping her at her peak. Dash lived and breathed everything she would need to squeeze every last drop of speed out of her wings. So when she woke up with an unexplained headache, wing cramps, and an out-of-whack vestibular system, Dash flew straight as an arrow to get help.

The closest place for said help: Twilight’s Library.

“Hey, Twilight...” When Rainbow Dash opened the door, she expected to find her early-rising egghead friend there with her nose in a book. She did not expect to see the mare crying into Spike’s shoulder. Nor did she expect to see Spike crying back.

All thoughts of her own distress evaporated in an instant. Twilight needed her more than she needed Twilight.

“Twi, what’s wrong? Why are you and Spike crying? Did something happen?”

The lavender mare’s body heaved with an unchecked sob. “They’re dead. They’re all dead...”

The prismatic mare’s stomach dropped. Dread filled her body, making her own aches seem both bigger and totally inconsequential at the same time. “Who’s dead?” When no answer immediately came, Dash asked again, “Twi, who died?”

Neither of the library’s residents replied, but a scroll did levitate towards Dash’s face. She grabbed it and unrolled it. Before Dash could even begin reading, her eyes noticed two details. First, the letter was written in very hasty unicorn script, so swiftly written so as to be nearly unreadable. And second, there were brownish-red splotches dotting the page, still moist.

Blood.

Dash’s eyes read the letter. Dread turned to horror. Rainbow knew the Cloudsdale flight path by heart, as all its citizens did, and knew that had a few more hours passed before this had happened, she would have lost her parents. And while the cataclysm spelled out on this Celestia-forsaken scroll had claimed millions, Dash could only think of her family and friends up there in the sky.

Dash remembered the dead, and her relief that her family was safe evaporated into shock.

There was no poofy pink mane in ponyville that day. There were no smiles spread that day. There was no laughter that day.

The mare who used to be the main proprietor of said poofy mane, smiles, and laughter sat in her bathroom, trying not to get vomit on her decidedly straight mane. She had been empathic before that day in Canterlot, and was even more so now. Grief reeked to her changeling senses, but that was not why she had lost her morning breakfast. The thought of the millions in both worlds who would never smile again did it.

None of that mattered to Pinkamina Diane Pie at that very moment. Not the vomit, not the grief, and definitely not the dead.

Fluttershy needed her now, and that was that.

Doctor Stitches had treated almost every member of the royal staff as the Castle's resident physician of thirty years. The patients before him were the only two exceptions, and with good reason.

Princess Celestia and Princess Luna could not be hurt by normal means. Doctor Stitches had heard that normal swords merely bounced off their hides if they even gave a half-hearted effort to protect themselves. Some rumors said that they could regrow body parts instead, and that it was so fast that one could not even tell that they were hurt merely a second later.

Princess Luna had survived in the vacuum on the moon without food or water for a thousand years; Stitches figured there was something to those rumors.

So when he was called in early in the morning to treat them, he was obviously quite freaked out, as were the palace guards. It did not help that both princesses' heads were soaked in their own blood, freely flowing from identical, inexplicable wounds around the bases of their horns. If that were not enough, the fact that his healing spell triggered the release of chaos magic from Princess Celestia's lacerations nearly gave him a heart attack.

“Princess, I've never seen anything like this,” Doctor Stitches explained as he dug through his medical supplies. He pulled out a needle, some thread, bandages, and sanitizer. “I'd say that this is a curse wound. The only thing I can do for you is stitch it up by hoof to stem the blood flow and bandage it up – a patch job, really. We'll have to call in a specialist to fully heal it.”

“There is no need,” a shaky Princess Celestia replied. “My sister and I have a suspicion as to what caused it.”

“Please tell me, Princess,” the doctor requested as he was suturing up her wound.

“I fear that this might be a bit outside of your skill set, Doctor Stitches,” replied the solar princess.

Luna rolled her eyes, then blinked away a drop of blood that had fallen in to the left eye. “Your talent for understatement is as sharp as ever, sister.”

Once the skin around her horn had been patched up to the best of the good doctor's ability, Celestia turned towards her sister. "Luna, take care of the courts for the day. I will be back as soon as I have a clearer picture of the situation. I have already contacted Twilight Sparkle and explained to her the situation. She and her friends will be joining us in Canterlot this afternoon."

The night princess nodded. "I see. Very well. I hope you find us an answer."

"Yes, I hope so too," the day princess replied. "Goodbye for now." With those words, the occupants of that room were treated to the sight that no mortal currently alive had ever seen: a goddess shedding her physical form. Like a miniature supernova, Celestia's body erupted with pure sunlight, no, it became pure sunlight. Power radiated off her form, invigorating all those around her with her life-giving light. It would have been described as the most beautiful thing any of them had seen if it were not for what could only be described as a crack on her head. From it emanated a disgusting, blinding sound and a screeching, impossible light of a color that could only ever be described as "not black."

Then she was gone, having left the room at the speed of her light, and the tiny crack in reality was gone with her.

When he found his voice again, Doctor Stitches asked, "What was that?"

"A scar in reality, it seems," the remaining alicorn replied. "Sister and I are as much a part of the universe as your organs are you. When our world is wounded, it appears that our bodies reflect it as such. I would gather that Cadenza, the Elemental Lords, and all the other gods and goddesses are bearing similar marks."

"Princess, if you don't mind me asking," inquired one of the nearby guards, "how does the world get wounded?"

"That is the million bit question, is it not?"

The changeling queen and her otherworldly counterpart were at war, not with each other, and not with any external force, but at war with the tidal wave of emotions circulating their hive minds and themselves. Both Chrysalis and her partner had lost members, and it took everything they had in order to restore their networks to fully operational and not being crippled by an excess of emotion.

Less known to the royal Gatekeepers was the fact that they were each also at war with their own minds. That fundamental part of their minds that all animals have, the hunger and sex drives, warred with their conscious minds; their unconscious minds saw an opportunity to obey their most primal instincts in the face of their weakened respective preys, but their rationality denied it. They wanted to "feed and breed," even though they rationally understood that the correct response should have been "fight or flight."

And as much as Chrysalis hated to admit it, she was a creature of instinct. As the first of her kind, there had never been a parent to teach her how to “be a changeling,” and her instincts had yet to lead her or Rex wrong.

Chrysalis had grown up as a pony and with ponies, but she had been a predator for much longer. The animalistic, psychopathic aspects of her personality would never leave her be if she let an opportunity pass her by.

‘We’ve lost many good changelings,’ Chrysalis thought. ‘I need to repair what has been lost... and while I’m at it, I may as well improve my hold. The changelings we lost would want nothing more than to see their families prosper.’

Her defenses crumbled; Chrysalis’s desires were now justified. The tall changeling smiled, even though her eyes still betrayed her grief, because she at least had a goal to move towards. Chrysalis inhaled, puffed out her chest, and trotted off through her underground castle. She had to be strong; a silly little thing like mass death would never stop her, or so she wanted her subjects to think.

[Do you agree?] She asked.

[Yes for everything,] Rex replied. [Live. Feed. Grow. Be strong, Chryssie.]

[You too, Rex.]

If he could have moved, he would have. How he longed to move, to be free, to have a chance at ending this fate before it became permanent. Discord’s mind and soul writhed within his stony prison, more so today than ever before.

‘Let me out of here! Let me out!’ Discord roared within his mind, desperately screaming at the tree that held it captive.

“And why would I do that?” the Tree asked. “So you can reak more of your disgusting chaos? I think not. Do not believe that I will weaken my grip on you this time; such chaos as this will not help you.”

Discord retorted, ‘But it’s not my chaos. That is Oblivion out there; it’ll kill us both if you don’t let me go.’

There was a moment of silence, in which Discord had a sinking suspicion about what was going on in his enemy’s head. “Cease your nonsense, Discord. There is nothing out there; it is just you and your filthy chaos.”

‘So, even the great and self-important Tree of Harmony is blind in the face of Oblivion,’ the chaos spirit quipped. ‘Tell me, Tree, what caused those scars on these two worlds?’

“They reek of your magic; obviously one of your other aspects decided to aid you in you destructive ways.’

Discord scoffed, ‘Oh please, I have enough work cut out for me in the realities that you haven’t sealed me off already. Just accept that my memory eating mistake is after our heads.’

“A memory eater?” the Tree of Harmony asked. “As if a mere memory eater could triumph over something as powerful as me.”

‘Humility is obviously not one of your strong points. We may be infinitely strong, but it is an infinite amount of power spread into finite chunks across the infinite cosmos of reality. Oblivion doesn’t have to conquer all of us, but merely two finite Chaos Spirit avatars and two finite Harmony Spirit avatars at the same time.’

“I am well aware of that. Even then, I have nothing to fear,” the Tree retorted.

‘Grrrr... It’s like I’m trying to talk to an inanimate rock... Oh wait, I am. Well, if you won’t listen to me, then have fun with my plunderseeds. All this wonderful chaos must mean that they are quite close to germinating.’

“Plunderseeds?” A new voice asked. It was distinct in the fact that it could only be heard as the absence of the ambient noise, muting the surrounding sound in such a way that it made itself understood, and if one fully focused on the un-sound, then they could not properly grasp the words - they merely heard the background instead. The figure - if it could be called that - that spoke the words stood - if it could be called that - a few feet away, maybe. In actuality, all the information that could be gleaned was that there was something there - or maybe back there - and that it was speaking. “What are those? If you are wanting HIM to have fun with them, they must be quite deadly.”

The light shifted around the statue of Discord. The subtle change made the otherwise fearfully posed statue look downright sinister; his eyes were devoid of all the draconequuis’s ever-present mirth. No reply came from Discord.

“Discord, who is this?” the Tree asked.

‘Oh, nobody. It’s just my mistake. Let me out and I will fix it in just a second. I promise that I’ll go right back to being stone if you just give me this.’

“Father, I thought you would be more proud of me. I am your greatest masterpiece yet. And YOU,” Oblivion’s manifestation growled at the tree. Sound vanished entirely from the gardens. “I despise you. I loath you more than anything in the world. I was less than a thousandth of a degree away from killing this aspect of you, Harmony Tree. But that would have been too good for you, bastard. You tried to kill my sister! Only I am allowed to do that!”

“SILENCE, YOU PETULANT CHILD!” the Tree roared. “I should strike you down where you stand!”

‘Yes, please do,’ Discord added.

Ignoring his father, the first personality of the sixth incarnation of Oblivion retorted, “Well, smite away. Or are you too kind to do it?”

“This is the GREATEST KINDNESS! I will preserve Harmony!”

“Well then, catch me if you can.” The presence that denoted Oblivion made a noise that distinctly reminded Discord of a raspberry, and then faded from that place, from that time, and from their memories. The only evidence of Oblivion's passing were the plants within a dozen meters of Discord's statue, which, while they looked perfectly fine, were all dead.

“What just happened?” the harmony spirit asked.

‘Something that desperately needs thinking about,’ replied the chaos spirit.

First felt content, his stomach more full than it had ever been before, relatively speaking. It never really would be completely full, even when there was nothing left to eat.

Second felt happy. She had spent more time fully aware with her sibling selves than ever before. It was a good day.

Third felt something he had never felt before while aware. There was no rhyme or reason for it, but the youngest and most mortal-like of Oblivion's personalities, he felt the slightest bit of remorse. Although, the feeling faded quickly, the idea that spawned from it stayed behind.

Author's Notes:

(Reposted because I accidentally posted an old version of the chapter.)

*Ding* Have a chapter. The title is a homage to Welcome to Nightvale, a podcast that I really enjoy.

I feel that this one was quite choppy. I mean, how do you capture the grief of two worlds for a disaster of this scale? I'm too young to really remember 9/11 and too far inland to have been affected by any major hurricanes. I've never been in a disaster, so how do I write it?

There was a personalty test I did once to determine how much of a psychopath you are. I scored a 64%, which kind of makes sense given my perspective. It's easy to write a partial psychopath of a character because - and I am ashamed to admit it - that's how I think. If you gave me Rex's powers (and maybe a beer or two), that's how I would act. That's why this chapter was hard to write; that's why I gloss over the relationship of Sal and Rex. It's hard to understand these emotions when you don't feel them correctly, or as "normal" dictates one should feel them.

I didn't even cry when my grandfather died. We were really close and... nothing. The rest of my family was bawling their eyes out and I just sat there. Thank whomever that I at least feel guilty in retrospect, but...

Rant aside, if you ever question why certain characters act the way they do, it's beause I'm trying to emulate what I think that they would do, not what my gut tells me that they should do.

Do you guys pick up much on that?