“Tiffany?”

“Nine thousand and one.”

Ryan jerked, sitting up in bed. He rubbed his eyes viciously with the palms of his hands, the dream already fading. His ears were ringing painfully, and he couldn’t quite seem to make out what he had been thinking of.

He jolted again, the voice obviously not part of his dream. Ryan gawked at the figure of himself that stood directly next to him, hands clasped neatly before him.

“… Why does this keep happening?” Ryan asked, not taking his eyes off of his double.

“Ooh,” the opposite Ryan grinned. “Now, that’s a new one.”

“What is?” he stood quickly, his identical twin slipping quickly out of his reach and toward the wooden bedroom door. “What’s new?”

“You’re asking more questions,” Ryan told himself gleefully, clapping his hands together. “It’s about time. Seriously, though. Get your ass moving, or we’re both going to die.”

Ryan stared at his twin, who pointed excitedly toward the door. He then glanced around the room for… for…

What was her name?

He paused again, the palm of his hand meeting his forehead as it flared it pain again. He knew this – he knew this, Ryan knew her name. He could have sworn that she was just there, whoever she was… even though he couldn’t remember what she looked like. Maybe that was a dream too, all fading away. Strange images and sounds, the woman with the nice –

“Rack,” the opposite Ryan rapped on the door impatiently, urging him forward. “The chick with the nice rack. You can’t remember her name.”

Silently, he stared at himself.

“Come on, man,” the twin admonished him again. “I can’t open the doors by myself. Move your fuckin’ ass!”

Ryan glided over the floor, struggling to regain his sense of reality. It was more like a dream than anything else, and he barely felt his hand as it wrapped around the doorknob…

Ryan blinked, head whipping around wildly as the traffic around him picked up speed.

“What the hell?” he whirred, dodging a speeding taxi and somehow managing to make it to a sidewalk without being run over.

What had just happened?

One moment, he was –

“Fuck!” Ryan swore angrily, punching a street sign so hard that it left an indent. He couldn’t remember!

“Ooh-hoo, little cranky, huh?”

He whirled around to face his double once again, fists balled tightly. He remembered that guy, alright.

“Shut up!” Ryan jammed a finger in his double’s amused face. “Shut the fuck up!”

“And this is precisely why it has taken you so long,” Ryan’s twin mused, scratching his chin. “Because any time you’re confronted with something you don’t understand, you get pissed instead of bothering to think about anything.”

“Shut up!”

Ryan punched as hard and fast as he could, muscles coiling in his arm – and meeting dead air.

And the moment he did so, he realized that there was a lot of dead air.

There was no noise in the city.

Even the vehicles were gone.

No cars, no people, no sound. Just an enormous, sprawling city; so empty that he could hear his own impossibly loud and labored breathing. There was nothing in the city but him, even though for all intents and purposes it still looked to be a city. Towering skyscrapers, long roads, dirty and sometimes graffiti-covered sidewalks. It was just a massive expanse of grey –

“Where’s all the color?” he blurted aloud, the realization hitting him hard.

He stared in horror at his own hands, discovering that they were coated in a filmy grey substance as well.

“That’s a new one, too.”

Ryan jumped in shock, lurching backwards away from his double, who had somehow appeared behind him.

It only served to disturb him more that his copy was the only thing in the city that actually had color.

“… Okay. O-kay,” Ryan gripped his temples slowly, his breathing labored as he lowered himself to a kneeling position. “I am too fucking sober for this.”

His double only looked down at him sadly for a few seconds, and sighed. The other Ryan tried to offer him a hand, only for it to be slapped away.

“Gimme a fuckin’ minute,” Ryan heaved weakly. “Kinda tripping a little, dude.”

“Look, I know you’re a little freaked out by this,” his doppelganger started. “But you have seriously got to keep moving. We need to work our way through here.”

“… For what?” Ryan cringed, wringing his own hands. “I’ve got no fucking clue what’s even happening!”

“You wouldn’t understand,” his colored copy shook his head slowly.

“Hey, fuck you!” he scowled, ready to try punching the clone again. “I ain’t stupid!”

“It’s not just because you’re stupid,” the mirror image frowned. “I really mean that you cannot understand. It’s something that is literally beyond human comprehension. And if we don’t hurry, right now, it’s going to kill us both.”

“I don’t – that’s not – who are you?” Ryan pleaded for knowledge; something, anything to grasp on to.

His copy opened his mouth, but closed it slowly afterwards and shrugged.

“You know, I’ve asked myself that same question. I guess you could say I’m… what might have been,” his double stated quietly.

“… I ain’t callin’ you me, ya fuckin’ clone trooper knockoff,” Ryan grumbled, and crossed his arms. “I’m Ryan.”

“Fine, whatever,” his double crossed his own arms. “Just get moving!”

“To where?”

“The next sequence, just move!”

Ryan began jogging hurriedly down the street, automatically checking for traffic before crossing the road. He felt a little silly for it; no traffic, after all. His copy kept up pace next to him easily, not even breaking a sweat.

“… I’mma call you ‘Kevin’.”

“Sorry, what?” Ryan’s double blinked, staring at him.

“You ain’t got a name, right? So, I’mma call you Kevin.”

“My name is not Kevin,” Kevin glowered at him, picking up his speed. “Now, run faster.”

“Dude, the fuck is it,” Ryan ran harder, pumping his legs. “With you and fuckin’ running?”

“That,” Kevin pointed with a deadpan behind them.

“… I don’t see anything.”

“Exactly.”

Ryan actually stopped, almost falling to the ground.

He really didn’t see anything.

There was no city behind them.

“Holy fuck!” Ryan exclaimed, eyes nearly bulging out of his head. He watched in both fascination and horror as the city was slowly being eaten away by what appeared to be tiny black mites. A couple of the gleaming skyscrapers bore gigantic black holes, yawning directly through them. Where the holes touched, simply nothing, not even light or darkness, remained. It was a bizarre sight, to say the least, and one that he had enormous difficulty even processing.

“Don’t stop!” Kevin jerked his arm, yanking him onward. “Don’t look at it for too long, or it takes you! Just keep moving!”

Unsurprisingly, Ryan didn’t have to be told twice.

“Ryan, stop!”

The green streak of flame rippled across the ground, spiraling at Twilight with a vicious fury.

With a burst of magic, she deflected the flaming emerald spear toward the ceiling, where it splattered across the decorated plaster hungrily.

“Come on!” Ryan danced gleefully back and forth, taunting them as he begged them to come closer. “Fight me, fight me!”

“Eat hoof!” Rainbow Dash hurtled herself at him from behind, only for Ryan to bend swiftly and swing upward with his left leg. He kicked her violently in the wing, but instead of dropping, Dash rolled through the air with the blow and swerved back around at an odd angle, striking him directly in the back.

Ryan grunted, slipping just far enough out of the way that Applejack’s kick passed by his face. Fist filled with burning embers, he pounced forward and hurtled another ball of green fire toward Pinkie Pie while swinging at the steadily retreating Fluttershy.

“Back off!” Rarity threw up a silvery shield over Fluttershy just as Ryan’s wickedly jagged black sabre came crashing down upon it. The force of the strike threw sparks high into the air, and Twilight used the distraction to fling another holding spell in Ryan’s direction.

The speed with which he was moving was insane. It was extremely difficult for even Rainbow Dash to keep up, and he just didn’t stop. It was like Ryan had been filled with an eternal source of energy, and it didn’t take much for Twilight to figure out why. Whatever he had done to Luna…

The same thing that he had done to Chrysalis. It was fueling him, obviously.

“Ryan, just listen to me!” Twilight begged uselessly. He cackled hatefully, slinging blistering green bolts of pain whistling through the air. “Ryan, you have to come to your senses! Snap out of it!”

“Go fuck yourself!” he crowed, swinging his sabre in a surprisingly graceful pirouette. He spun it faster and faster, until the blade became a whirling black fan…

And then began using it to deflect her spells.

Okay, that was unexpected.

A screaming jolt of her own violet magic burst back toward her, and Twilight yelped in surprise. She fired a swift reversal spell at the deflection, barely managing to make the thing fizzle in time before slamming into her.

“Oh, that’s not fair!” Rainbow Dash scowled, stamping a hoof against the ground before preparing to charge him again at top speed.

“Get a lil’ closer…” Ryan grinned, lowering his body and evening out his center of balance. His sabre stopped promptly, the jagged black blade stabbing directly behind him as he gripped the hilt at an odd angle in one hand with a cruel green light oozing from the other. “I’ll show you unfair, you insufferable, narcissistic cunt.”

Something clicked in Twilight’s eyes, which only widened further upon his words.

“Girls!” she snapped, grabbing their attention. “Brace yourselves!”

Ryan’s plunging strike didn’t even manage to touch a single one of them, because by the time Twilight had finished her last word, her teleportation spell had already taken effect.

Twilight gasped for breath, limbs flopping heavily to the ground as she wheezed for breath.

Her teleportation spell must not have taken them far; from the looks of it, just outside Celestia’s palace. The stone walls loomed high overhead, and they were glad to have some distance between themselves and their foe.

“What the hay just happened?” Rainbow Dash spluttered, spinning on the spot in confusion. Twilight held up a hoof, panting heavily. Teleportation spells took a lot out of her.

“Take a minute, Twilight,” Fluttershy patted her softly on the back. “It’s okay.”

“Like crap it is!” Rainbow Dash blurted. “Ryan’s gone bonkers, the princesses are either smashed to the ground or just gone, and some whack job is screwing the whole world up! Look!”

She pointed in shock at the sun, which didn’t seem to be nearly as painfully bright as it always was. Oddly, it was lazily whirling around the sky like an enormous ballerina.

Albeit, a massive, deadly, flaming ballerina.

“This is definitely that brute’s doing,” Rarity frowned hard, scanning the immediate area. Fortunately, they seemed to be away from them… for the time being. The only thing around them was dying grass.

“We’ve got to stop Discord, somehow…” Rainbow Dash said firmly, stamping the ground again. “Even if we have to go through R-”

“Don’t you dare!” Twilight spat sharply, causing the pegasus to lurch in surprise. “We are not killing him just to get to Discord!”

“Whoa, easy,” Rainbow held up her hooves in defense, her eyes wide. “I was just going to suggest that we put him out of commission until we get rid of the psycho. Chill.”

Twilight, however, still seemed noticeably twitchy.

“And just how are we supposed ta do that?” Applejack frowned, patting herself down. She still seemed to have her trusty rope, fortunately.

UNfortunately, it had somehow turned into licorice without her noticing.

Applejack stared at it for a few seconds, before internally shrugging.

Rope was rope.

“Easy,” Dash grinned, flaring her wings. “We pummel him.”

“You saw how hard that’s going to be,” Fluttershy stated miserably. “Even with all of us together, we barely got out of there alive…!”

“Yeah,” Pinkie Pie mused quietly, rubbing her chin. “That was pretty intense. The way he was moving should have been impossible. And believe me, I know impossible.”

The bizarrely guilty look slowly crept back onto Twilight’s features, which she struggled to hide.

“Actually,” Rarity interjected. “I noticed that as well. I suppose I can understand Discord putting some kind of spell on him like he was doing the others – did you see Blueblood slurping out of the wine fountain like an untrained dog? – but something just doesn’t add up…”

“Like how come he got so fast,” Rainbow Dash said suddenly, looking up.

“That, too,” Pinkie nodded. “He’s not just faster – he’s stronger, tougher, meaner.”

“I think he might have gotten a bit smarter, too…” Fluttershy started nervously. “I mean, ‘insufferable, narcissistic’? He’s an idiot, I doubt he can even spell his own name properly.”

“Aw, big whoop,” Applejack rolled her eyes. “Like suddenly complimenting the jerk is gonna help us take him down any sooner.”

“It’s… not a compliment…” Twilight said slowly, thinking deeply. “He really does seem to be under the effects of some kind of… amplification spell.” She looked up sharply, eyes widening. “He is! Ryan is under the effects of an amplification spell, and it’s intensifying his every attribute!”

“… How is that a good thing?” Applejack balked. “Don’t look so happy, dag nabbit!”

“No, this is perfect!” Twilight shook her head. “If his every attribute has been magnified, then that means his weaknesses have been, too!”

“Oo-hoo-hoo,” Rainbow Dash grinned. “I like where this is going.”

“That still doesn’t answer one thing,” Rarity interrupted. “Where in the world did he get the power to throw fire?”

“Yeah, there’s that, too…” Pinkie Pie agreed with her uncomfortably. “I mean, just taking out Princess Luna like that? With one hoof?”

“So, we’ll kick his flank back to normal before he can lay a hoof on anypony!” Rainbow Dash stomped the ground so hard that it left an imprint of her determination. “We can do this. We’re gonna bust in there, blast Ryan with the Elements of Harmony, punch Discord in the head, and save Equestria!”

The resolute cheers of her friends sounded with her, except for one.

Twilight hung her head dejectedly, bitterly cutting them off.

“We – I- I’m so sorry, girls,” Twilight breathed, a hot stinging behind her eyes. “But that’s not going to work.”

They all stared at her for a moment, but after a while, Pinkie Pie slowly nodded.

“… For the same reason we didn’t use the Elements against the changelings… isn’t it, Twilight?” she asked softly.

Twilight swallowed hard, the gazes of her friends burning a painful hole in her.

She took a deep, quavering breath, and said “We can’t use the Elements of Harmony.”

“Why not?!” Rainbow Dash shouted angrily, her wings flaring again.

“Because I – I tore out a part of my Element, and put it inside Ryan.”

Their jaws dropped, eyes wider than dinner plates.

“… Okay, wow,” Pinkie Pie’s voice was barely above a whisper. “I did not see that coming.”

“Too bad,” Ryan said from the wall atop them, his shark–like sneer spreading impossibly wide across his face to reveal razor sharp teeth, his tongue rippling hungrily across them as he flicked his jagged black sabre from behind his back and leapt. “I did!”

Ryan blinked, sitting bolt upright in bed.

Even the simple act of doing so trigged an intense feeling of déjà vu. He rubbed his eyes tiredly, groaning as he slipped from beneath the sheets. Ryan’s bare feet touched cold floorboards, and he stumbled around for a moment before working his way to the kitchen.

From the massive headache and dry mouth, he’d have guessed whatever he’d gotten smashed on the night before must have been pretty strong, because he couldn’t seem to remember it. He flicked the coffee pot on with jittering hands, jamming his face under the faucet and flipping on the tap for cold water.

Ryan sighed, opening his mouth as dozens of beetles poured into it.

Hundreds of scratching, scrabbling tiny legs dribbled down his chin, forcing their way down his throat –

Coughing and choking, Ryan jerked away from the sink and retched.

Cold water pumped innocently down the drain, for all the world appearing just as normal as always.

He retched again, unable to vomit. Shakily, he kept his balance against the kitchen table, finding difficulty in breathing. Ryan continuously shook his head, probing his mouth for the nonexistent insects.

After a while, he finally dropped into the chair, forcing his breathing to regulate.

“Not real,” he heard the sound of his own quivering , weak voice. “Not real, not fuckin’ real.”

“Three hundred and seventeen.”

Ryan blinked, his identical twin appearing instantly on the opposite side of the table. His head pounded violently, almost enough to blind him; but in that one instant, his memory came rushing back.

He had been running away from something, something bad. With… Kevin?

“Bits and pieces,” Kevin sipped quietly at his cup of coffee, not bothering to explain how he had gotten it without pouring any from the pot. “That’s all that’s left now. You’re falling apart, Ryan.”

“I don’t know…” Ryan breathed, covering his aching eyes with his palms. “I don’t know what’s happening to me…!”

“I just fucking told you,” Kevin dashed hot coffee in his face, making Ryan jump and yelp in shock and pain.

Ryan stood to upturn the table, ready to jam his foot far enough into Kevin that it came out the other side –

“Ryan?”

He gripped the hospital’s front desk tightly, so hard that his knuckles were turning white.

Ryan’s labored breathing was muffled by the sounds of the lively hospital, and he shook hard in place as he stared at the redheaded woman behind the desk.

“… Rye-Pie,” Tiffany asked lowly, putting a single smooth hand gently atop his own. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Ryan replied with wide eyes, staring at her. “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I’m – yeah. Yeah.”

“Are you sure, baby?” she asked quietly, looking around. “You look – you look pretty bad, Ryan.”

Tiffany suddenly turned angry, her thin eyebrows narrowing.

“You’re not back to shooting up again, are you?” she asked dangerously, her red-fingernailed grip on his hand tightening. This deeply frightened Ryan, but for reasons that he couldn’t remember.

“No!” he shouted, jerking away. “No. No, T-Tiff, it’s not that, I just – I – how did I get here?” Ryan asked abruptly, looking around the hospital.

The hospital that had been so full of life just a moment ago.

The very second he tried to focus on all the other people, they were gone; like dust before a breeze. With the hospital utterly and disturbingly silent, Ryan turned back to Tiffany.

Only to face his doppelganger, of course.

“What is this?” Ryan asked, thinking heavily. If only his head didn’t hurt so badly…

“Memories,” Kevin replied blandly, inspecting his now brightly painted red fingernails. “All falling apart, being eaten away.”

“Eaten?” Ryan asked swiftly, desperation rising in his chest. “By what?”

“Go take a look,” Kevin said without glancing up. “You know where.”

Ryan honestly did not know where, but he followed Kevin’s pointing finger down the long, brightly lit and sterile hallway.

“How the flying fu-”

But Kevin was already gone.

Ryan shook his head, breathing hard through his nose before starting off down the hallway at a swift pace. He passed room after room, each one just as empty as before. He passed another, and another. Empty, empty, empty, empty.

Ryan ran harder, pumping his legs hard and swinging his arms for momentum, trying to dart as fast as he could down the hallway.

And yet, the hallway just stretched a little further out, no matter how hard he ran… it was almost as if he were running in place by this point, and he could tell they were laughing at his failure.

Ryan skidded to a stop, the sound of loud, childlike laughter ringing in his ears. He could definitely hear it, and there was a lot of it. Narrowing in on the source of the laughter, Ryan cautiously peered into the only dark room in the hospital.

His fingers latched onto the doorframe, and his heart pounded in his throat. Ryan breathed heavily, inexplicable dread filling him as he looked hard into the dark room from whence the laughter was coming. It grew louder and louder, even though he could barely make out any shapes. However, from what he could see, there was definitely someone inside.

“Hello?” Ryan’s voice was dry when he started forward on shaking feet, forcing himself into the dark inch by inch. “Somebody in here?”

He moved closer and closer to the figure sitting in Indian-style on the hospital bed, with his back to Ryan. He waited for a couple of moments for his eyes to adjust to the dark, but they never did.

And that was when Ryan realized that the children’s laughter had long since stopped.

The only thing Ryan heard was the sound of his own breathing, and a faint tinkling, jangling noise of metal on metal.

Sweat beaded along Ryan’s back, and without warning, the figure on the bed slowly turned around.

Or at least, his head did.

“Did you come back for me, Superman?” the boy’s unnaturally large smile grew wider, so much that it made his pale little face bleed. Thick, gore coated chains dripped out of his mouth, clinking wetly as the clattered to the floor, the boy crawling faster and faster like a gigantic spider toward Ryan.

“COME BACK, SUPERMAN! COME BACK!”

Ryan jolted out the door, his screams lost in his ears.

Timothy’s laughter grew louder and louder, echoing down the long, twisting dark hall as the floor jerked and wobbled beneath him. Daring to cast a look back, Ryan watched in abject horror as the boy scrabbled along the ceiling, clanking red chains dangling from his mouth and eyes, the clanking and clinking mingling with his laughter. Dark shadows were cast so deeply behind him that the entire rest of the hallway seemed to vanish the moment they were touched, only serving to urge Ryan faster and faster!

Ryan couldn’t even hear the sound of his own screaming anymore, he was struggling to run through what he swore was quicksand. Couldn’t get away, couldn’t get out. Can’t get out.

Can’t get out, can’t get out!

Twilight flung herself backwards, barely avoiding being impaled by the flaming black sabre.

Ryan jerked the sword from the ground without pause, laughing meanly as he swung at anypony he could hit.

“Come on, bitches!” he cackled madly. “Fight me, fight me!”

Twilight did no such thing. She merely stepped toward him slowly as the others circled him.

“What’s the matter?” Ryan taunted them as he was completely surrounded by slowly circling ponies. Ryan kept them at bay with one hand full of lime fire, the other with his jagged sabre. “Aren’t you pathetic little shits going to put up a little bit of a fight before I skin you all?”

“You don’t really mean that,” Pinkie Pie blurted angrily, watching the tip of the sabre carefully.

“No?” Ryan said conversationally, as if they were discussing the weather. “I mean it a lot more than your ‘friends’ mean anything they say to you. They don’t even like you, everypony just lets you throw parties to shut you the fuck up.”

And with that one statement, Pinkie Pie faltered.

She seemed so completely jarred and hurt by his words that she stopped moving altogether, and Ryan lunged.

Rainbow Dash knocked Pinkie out of the way, barely managing to avoid being struck.

“Ah, and the stuck up cunt!” Ryan chortled, hurtling a line of green flame behind him as Rarity failed to take advantage of his distraction. “No surprise you wanna save her life; she actually has something to live for. But you? You’re not gonna die today. No, you’re gonna die old, frail, and alone, when everybody has forgotten your name.”

And with that one statement, Rainbow Dash faltered.

He kicked her hard, his foot slamming hard into her chin. She grunted and rolled with the blow, Pinkie Pie shrieking and dashing after her.

“Enough!” Fluttershy darted at him, tears in her eyes as the circled became a little tighter. “Stop it, stop hurting them!”

“Hurt them?” Ryan asked as he backhanded hard, knocking Fluttershy clean out of the air. “You and your ‘friends’ have been trying to kill me since day one. You’re a monster, Fluttershy.”

And with that one statement, Fluttershy faltered.

She stayed where she had fallen, crying into the ground.

Only Rarity, Applejack, and Twilight were left, desperately straining to get in close enough for Twilight to pull out her trump card…

However, Ryan wasted no time in cutting down their ranks.

“And of course, the Apple,” he grinned maliciously, his wide grin spreading even further as he teased her forward with the tip of his blade. He seemed to be turning an even deeper shade of grey, like he was growing stronger by the minute. “Too fucking stupid to realize that your friends have been using you the whole time.”

“That’s a lie!” Applejack shouted angrily at him, swinging the licorice rope at him – only to be sliced evenly down the middle as he backed away, smirk still on his face.

“Sure it is,” Ryan hissed cruelly. “This coming from the one gullible enough to believe that Mommy and Daddy really love her. That’s why they left, you know. You weren’t good enough for them.”

And with that one statement, Applejack faltered.

How could he even know anything about her parents? The thought vaguely crossed her mind as she was struck with a blast of green flame, and she caught sight of a flash of purple before passing out from the pain.

“Don’t – you – hurt – my – friends!” Rarity hurtled bolt after bolt of brilliant blue energy at him, each one effortlessly deflected off the flat of his sabre. The way he lazily stood and flicked away her every spell, even the added yawn. He was outright mocking her, he was smug, he was no gentlecolt at all!

“Now!” Rarity screamed, pouring all her strength into her magical strikes as her blasts became slower and weaker. “Hurry, Twilight!”

“Yeah, hurry!” Ryan mimicked her in a high-pitched voice. “Before the bitch that’s too much of a bumpkin to ever make it with real classy motherfuckers pisses herself!”

And perhaps it had been because of that one statement, but Rarity faltered.

Ryan took his chance and jabbed the sabre directly toward Rarity, who barely managed to throw up a silvery shield before the blade came crashing down atop her and sent her flying into the dirt.

Fortunately, Twilight took advantage of his distraction with extreme prejudice. She blasted a stream of violet energy at him, which he only managed to partially dodge; his left arm snapped with the force of the purple strike, the green light flickering out as it did so.

He only let out a shriek of insane laughter, before turning seriously to her and delivering the shortest, but by far the most brutal statement.

“I never even liked you.”

Ryan swung around to cleave the unicorn in half, not even slowed by his broken arm.

Ryan’s black sabre met a pink shield, almost like an enormous –

“Fucking bubble!” he screamed in rage, his voice completely muffled when he discovered himself trapped. Like a rat in a cage.

Trapped.

Caught.

With no way out, in a tiny, cramped little place.

Ryan stumbled through the dark, hands out as he felt blindly for something; anything, anything at all.

How long had he been wandering?

He would have even gone back to the dark horrors of before that he couldn’t quite remember, at least they were something. This dreaded, yawning black eternity – it never ended. The darkness extended on and on.

There was the Spark to guide him.

For a little while.

He reached out for it, desperately.

It vanished every time.

No, the only thing that awaited Ryan was the gaping maw of forever.

He wandered on and on, no sense of time with him. Ryan eventually collapsed, huddled on the ground.

If there even was a ground, that is. He couldn’t feel anything anymore.

Nothing but the emptiness.

So much space, and still trapped.

This was how Twilight found him.

This was how she had first found him, too.

A crying, shattered, broken shell of a man. Merely a shadow of what he once was.

“Ryan?”

He could barely hear the soft, feminine voice. Ryan remained where he was, daring to crack open his eyes.

There, in the massive expanse of darkness, stood a shining figure of violet light.

Or perhaps she just seemed to stand out a little more, what with there being nothing else.

He stared wordlessly at the unicorn, shaking. Ryan could have sworn that she looked a little familiar.

It made a pang shoot through his chest to see her crying, but he couldn’t quite tell why.

“Ryan?” Twilight asked again quietly, her voice coming out in a croak. “Oh, Celestia. Ryan, I’m so, so sorry.”

Ryan didn’t try to respond. She wondered if he even could anymore.

“I’m going to fix this, Ryan,” Twilight vowed, wiping her eyes and drawing closer. “I swear to you, I’m going to make things right. Please, please be okay. Please.”

Twilight jumped when Ryan’s large, spider-esque hand clapped firmly onto her shoulder, and he looked upward with a weak, lopsided grin.

“Quit cryin’, kid. A’ight?”

“… A-a’ight,” Twilight choked with a half-laugh.

Twilight slowly withdrew from the human huddled into the fetal position on the ground, her breathing heavy and tortured. Her head pounded violently, and it was difficult to see properly for a long few moments.

“Did you do it?” Rainbow Dash asked quietly, putting a hoof on her shoulder. “Did you get your… your ‘piece’ back?”

“Is he gonna be okay?” Pinkie Pie asked nervously.

“Who gives a flying f-”

“Dashie!”

“Ryan?” Twilight prodded him softly with one hoof. “Ry, are you… oh, Titans.”

The moment Twilight turned Ryan over, she saw that his face had assumed a horrendous, frozen look of terror. His mouth hung open slightly, his face gaunt. But worst of all were his eyes – they weren’t even his own eyes anymore. They were coated over with a filmy black substance, oozing slowly out of them.

“Ho-lee!” Applejack lurched backward, disgusted. “What in tarnation…?”

Ryan shook suddenly, lurching upwards into a sitting position.

He hanged his head, rubbing his eyes hard. When he looked back up blearily, he looked just as normal as always.

“… ‘The fuck just happened?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“Ryan!” Twilight cheered, throwing her hooves around his neck and knocking him backwards. He grunted, weakly pushing her away.

“Git – off, lil’ fucker,” Ryan grinned, finding himself surrounded by relieved ponies. “Seriously, you little shits are smothering me. The fuck did I miss?”

“You… you honestly don’t remember,” Rainbow Dash stared at him with disbelief.

“… I remember havin’ some real fucked up dreams,” he scratched the back of his greasy head. “Was I high, or something?”

“We’ll explain on the way,” Twilight helped him to his feet, leaving him staring at the sabre laying with a black glint in the grass. “We’ve got to stop Discord.”

“Uh… okay,” Ryan said slowly. He swallowed dryly and shook his head, thinking. “But… why did you have to take off my pants?”

“NO TIME, MOVING NOW!” Twilight said far too loudly and turned on the spot, marching away before he could see the red tint in her cheeks.

“Discord!”

Twilight barged through the palace throne room’s double doors, making them slam loudly off of the walls.

Or at least, she would have, were the walls not now made of pumpernickel. Instead, it made a significantly less than impressive squelchy noise, but it was loud nonetheless.

She glared down the reclining draconequus, followed by the other bearers of the Elements of Harmony and a sabre wielding Ryan with a freshly repaired arm. Even a couple more ponies seemed to have followed them, but they hung back out of the throne room, unseen.

Discord sat upside down on the throne, sipping lazily at a wineglass full of chocolate milk. Beside him in two very cramped looking birdcages sat Celestia and Luna, each with their tails pinned to their faces to resemble ludicrously large moustaches.

“Yo. ‘Sup,” Discord raised a single talon with a cheeky grin, slurping loudly again at his chocolate milk.

“It’s over, Discord!” Rainbow Dash braced herself, realigning the golden attachment to her neck.

“Your reign of chaos has come to an end!” Twilight declared in what she sincerely hoped was a threatening tone, but the draconequus only laughed.

“Do you hear this, sun-butt?” Discord scoffed, jabbing a thumb at the approaching ponies. “Ah, it’s so adorable when they think they stand a chance.”

He snapped his talons together, grinning wickedly.

Nothing happened.

Discord stared expectantly at Ryan for a moment, then snapped a couple more times.

“… Huh,” he mused, scratching his chin. “That’s supposed to work. Clap on, clap off. Clap on!” he slapped his palms together, waiting for Ryan’s move.

“… ‘The fuck is wrong with you?” Ryan gawked.

Discord sighed in disappointment.

“Aww. No fair. Taking all my good toys away,” he whined. “Very well. Carry on, ladies! Hit me with your best shot – fire aw~a~ay!” Discord sang gleefully, a spinning target appearing from nowhere and rotating on his stomach as he righted himself.

Twilight lowered her head, light pouring from her horn and through the Element of Magic as whirling streams of brightly colored energy spun around them. Ryan actually had to take a couple of steps back, staring in awe at the nearly blinding sight.

“NO!”

The clanking BANG! of something far heavier than the blue police box that appeared from thin air hit the ground, making the entire palace floor shudder. It glowed with an eerie red light, leaking into the throne room unnaturally. Pinkie Pie’s eyes widened, and her mouth formed a silent ‘o’.

Even Discord stopped and stared at the tan stallion stumbling out of the police box, followed closely by another Discord.

“Hi, me!” Discord waved cheerfully to the older version of himself. “Lovely weather we’re having.”

“This isn’t what was supposed to happen!” the tan stallion shouted angrily, charging ahead to protect Discord. It took Ryan a moment to recognize the pony as the one that called himself Doctor; but he looked so much older, he almost missed it. The current Doctor didn’t have a working time machine at all…

Meaning that the blue box that just dropped into the throne room was a working time machine.

“What?” Twilight blinked, the gathered magic fading swiftly away. “What’s going on?”

“Stop, dammit!” the older Discord tried to snag at the Doctor before he could do any lasting harm. “STOP!”

“History must repeat itself!” the stallion insisted. “Ryan Miller has to die!”

“What?” Twilight repeated, just as confused as everyone else. Even Discord seemed to be put off. “Why, what are you talking about?”

The Doctor merely stamped a hoof against the ground, and said “There’s no time left! He has to die n-” he was left pointing uselessly at the spot where Ryan had been only a moment ago, staring. What he did see, however, was his younger self, alongside with a grey pegasus with strangely lopsided eyes.

“I don’t know who you are,” the younger Doctor stated dangerously. “But if you are willing to take another life so callously, then obviously I don’t want to become anything like you.”

“Idiot!” the elder Doctor bellowed. “You don’t understand!”

“I get it now!” Pinkie whispered to Twilight. “We weren’t being corralled in – they were keeping something else out!”

“What?”

“He’s converted the TARDIS into a paradox machine!” the younger Doctor called out, their heads spinning to the grinning human standing inside the TARDIS.

“I dunno what that means!” Ryan shouted back delightedly as he began ripping cords and wires out of the device, tossing them callously through the air.

Both the present and future Discords panicked outright, scrabbling in fear toward the time machine.

They were both far too late, however, as the universe promptly imploded.

Far, far away, a single glint of light shone through Earth’s atmosphere, and began hurtling toward the ground.

Now go check out the sequel.