The light in the north had been so bright that Luna would have accused her sister of letting the sun intrude into her night had it not been accompanied by a series of deafening cracks. Thus, it came as no surprise to either sister when their father asked them to investigate what had happened. The two of them walked out of the throne room and discussed their ideas as they moved through hallways and corridors to their respective chambers.

“Perhaps we ought to request the accompaniment of a battalion from the Royal Guard,” Celestia offered.

Luna shook her head. “Nay, my sister. If there has not been any foul play, it may be viewed as an invasion of the Crystal Empire.”

“And if there has?”

The Princess of the Night sighed. “In my opinion, if that was the result of some sort of destructive magic, then I doubt very much that ordinary soldiers will be anything but a liability.” The dark blue alicorn paused briefly before suddenly turning sharply to the right and heading down a white marble hallway lined with torches glowing with magical blue fire.

“Sister?” Celestia called. “Where art thou going?”

“To fetch us some appropriate weapons,” Luna said simply, her eyes fixed straight ahead of her.

“But the armory is on the other side of the castle,” Celestia pointed out in mild confusion. She did not particularly feel like dealing with her sister’s eccentricities at the moment. “This hallway leads to the vault of Royal Treasury. Surely thou dost not think to throw money at whatever we encounter in hopes that it will accept a bribe.”

“I head to the vault because that is where we have been keeping Equestria’s most powerful artifacts. They are only seen as little more than baubles because our forebearers were completely unaware of their true nature.”

“Luna,” Celestia said with an exasperated tone in her voice. “What canst thou be speaking of?”

“The Elements of Harmony.”

Celestia’s shock was such that she ceased moving and stood temporarily rooted to her spot in the hallway, but her sister pressed on. “Luna!” she finally shouted, her temper getting the better of her. “Now is not the time to dwell on thy farfetched theories again!”

Luna turned on her heels and stared her elder sister in the eyes. “There is nothing farfetched about my theories. As I have explained to thee in the past, the magic that infuses the Elements of Harmony is far more complex than is needed for mere ceremonial functions. I believe that they may be conduits which will allow the channeling of magic with an efficiency beyond the ken of any pony alive today.”

“Sister,” Celestia replied, squinting her eyes skeptically, “thou art not speaking sensibly. Neither I nor thou had our magical abilities significantly enhanced after becoming Element-Bearers. Surely thou knew this, given thine expertise in magic.”

“Thou speakest truly in that regard,” Luna admitted with a subtle nod of her head. “But I do not think the Elements were meant to function so autonomously. Weak though they may be individually, I suspect that, when they are used in concert with one another, there is little that the Elements of Harmony can not overcome.”

Penumbra’s return to Canterlot turned out to be extremely well-timed, as her friends had not only uncovered important information of their own; they also needed somepony who could get in touch with Pinkie Pie at a moment’s notice. Hardly ten minutes after Penumbra had retreated back into Pinkie’s mind, the pink pony princess trotted through the doorway of the side room in the Royal Archives which had been chosen to serve as an impromptu war room while the damage to the great hall was being repaired—it was the same room, in fact, where Twilight Sparkle had first announced her intention to wrest control of the Equestrian throne from Celestia and Luna with the Nightmare’s assistance.

Despite the graveness of the situation, Penumbra found herself unable to hold back an amused smirk as she shut the door behind Pinkie and flew over to her seat at the large table which had been moved to the center of the room. The irony was just too striking; it hadn’t even been a year since that day, and now Twilight really was in control of the Equestrian throne, if only because of Celestia and Luna’s absence (and Pinkie’s tendency to defer to Twilight’s judgement on most matters). Indeed, Twilight Sparkle seemed to be adapting to the stress of a national emergency with great aplomb, as her recently-completed sunset had been impressive enough to cause some members of the Royal Guard to speculate that Celestia had returned.

However, neither the Element-Bearers nor Princess Cadance seemed to have engaged in this sort of reflection, as their attention was on more pragmatic issues. “Darling, is it really safe to leave Discord to his own devices just for you to come here?” Rarity asked as Pinkie Pie pulled a chair up to the table. “We could have simply allowed Penumbra to relay information to you.”

“It would have taken forever for Penny to fly back to Canterlot, though,” Pinkie replied. “My imaginary friend powers let me bring both of us here super fast.”

Before Penumbra could make her usual demand that she not be referred to by that nickname, Cadance jumped in with a response of her own. “That may be the case, but I can’t help but worry about the havoc he might wreak on the Crystal Mountains without somepony powerful enough to keep him in check.”

Pinkie Pie waved a hoof dismissively. “Oh, I don’t think you’ll need to worry about Discord for at least an hour or two. I knocked him out cold before coming here.”

“Really?” Twilight said, looking rather impressed. “How?”

“Well, I sort of caught him off guard. I don’t think he expected me to respond to his interpretive dance with a wheel of stinky cheese.”

Rainbow Dash seemed to be having some trouble visualizing the scenario. “Huh? Why would that sort of thing work on—Actually, you know what? I don’t think I want to know.” This seemed to be the consensus of the other ponies present if only because there were far more pressing matters at hoof.

Fifteen minutes later, everypony was up to speed on the tragic history of the Crystal Empire, the probable whereabouts of Celestia and Luna, and the possibility that The Great and Powerful Trixie was a new variety of thoughtform. Penumbra, in particular, seemed quite worried at this last bit of information. “I shouldn’t have left the Princesses with her,” she said, clearly disappointed that she had underestimated Trixie’s potential danger.

“Not much y’all could have done if you’d stayed,” Applejack pointed out, “especially if you need unicorn magic to break that seal.”

“Now isn’t the time to dwell on what we could have done,” Twilight Sparkle said. “We need to focus on what we’re going to do. From what you’ve all said, it seems to me that Trixie is currently a much bigger threat than Discord—and I can hardly believe that I just said that with a straight face—but if she is truly as ‘Great and Powerful’ as her stage persona and under the influence of a mass-murdering psychopath, then there’s no way we can let her keep Celestia and Luna in her clutches. Their alicorn magic may be able to keep Trixie from killing them, but there are far worse things in this world than death.”

“But what can we even do against her?” Fluttershy asked. “After all, anything we can do, she can do better.”

Twilight closed her eyes and began idly tapping her hooves against the table as she tried to think of some way to address her friend’s concerns. “Well,” she eventually said, “do we know for certain that Trixie knows what she’s capable of?”

“What do you mean, Twilight?” Rarity asked.

“If Trixie doesn’t realize that she’s essentially gained all the abilities of her stage persona, she might not realize that she really can do anything better than we can. I mean, she may have mentioned it during her attack on Canterlot, but she was planning to demonstrate how she was better than me. From the way she reacted to defeating Celestia, she might have assumed that she just got lucky in that regard. She might not think to try what she doesn’t know she can do.”

“Hmm... you might have a point there, Twi,” Applejack said. “On top of that, during her first show in Ponyville, she didn’t really show that she was actually better than anypony. She just used magic to do things a different way and just claimed it was better. That means that if she tries to be ‘better’ than us, it doesn’t mean she’ll do it in a way that’s actually useful to her.”

“But... what if she does?” Fluttershy asked hesitantly. “I mean, we can’t just charge in without a plan and hope that Trixie messes up, can we?”

“Of course we can,” Pinkie Pie said in an oddly cheerful tone. “It just wouldn’t be a very smart idea.”

“That is quite the understatement,” Penumbra said. “So, do you have a ‘smart’ idea of your own, then?”

“Maybe...” Pinkie said, trailing off as she scoured her brain for an interesting idea to toss into the discussion. “Oh! I know! We’ve been saying that Trixie’s better than everypony at everything, but I bet she’s only better than anypony at anything.”

“Isn’t that pretty much the same thing?” Rainbow Dash asked scratching her head.

“Only if Trixie faces us one at a time. If all of us face her at once, I think we have a pretty good chance.”

“I’m not quite followin’ you there, Pinkie Pie,” Applejack said.

“Well, think of it this way: you’re really good at bucking apples, right?”

“Of course.”

“So that means that The Great and Powerful Trixie could be better than you at apple bucking if she wanted to, right?”

“I suppose,” Applejack conceded grumpily.

“And Rarity,” Pinkie said, shifting her attention to the unicorn, “you’re really good at making dresses, so Trixie could probably be better, right?”

“Perhaps,” Rarity answered tersely.

“But how good are either of you at doing both?”

“I dunno,” Applejack said. “Never really thought to try makin’ dresses. With a little practice, I might be good at it.”

“With all due respect, that seems unlikely,” Rarity told Applejack drolly. “And even if it were the case, I doubt you could do both at the same time—I assume that that is where you are headed, Pinkie?”

Pinkie Pie nodded enthusiastically. “Right! Just because somepony’s the best at more than one thing, that doesn’t mean she’ll be able to do all those things well at the same time. After all, I doubt that anypony is very good at making dresses while they’re bucking apples.”

“Okay, that sort of thing might trip her up, but what if Trixie wants to fight instead of putting on a show?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“I’m just using that as an example,” Pinkie Pie said. “Basically, if Trixie tries to fight all of us at the same time, she won’t be nearly as effective, especially if we’re all using different approaches. That’s why I think our best bet is to swarm her and overwhelm her,” she added, spreading her forelegs wide and then smacking her hooves together to illustrate her point, “at least until we can free Celestia and Luna. And who knows? We may even be able to beat her outright, which would certainly make it easier to deal with Discord.”

“Speaking of Discord,” Cadance interjected, “are you just going to let him run roughshod all over the Crystal Mountains?”

Pinkie groaned. “I knew we were forgetting something obvious!” She sighed and started to speculate on a possible course of action. “Okay, how about this... I’ll go back to the Crystal Mountains, and the rest of you can just send Penny when you need me. I’ll just pop in for a minute or two so the Elements can do their thing, and then I’ll head back to Discord.”

“I have two problems with that idea,” Penumbra said. “First, you called me ‘Penny’ again. Second, it’s needlessly complicated.”

“What do you suggest?” Twilight Sparkle asked.

“Pinkie should go with the rest of you to the Badlands. I will handle Discord myself,” Penumbra replied.

“Um, are you sure that’s a good idea?” Fluttershy asked. “Your abilities don’t work the same way as Pinkie and Discord’s, right?”

Penumbra shook her head. “No, but I don’t have to defeat him. I just need to keep him occupied, and I’ve spent the last few weeks doing precisely that. And in any case, I’d only be a liability against Trixie; the last thing we want is for her to get the idea that she ought to be better than me at creating an army.”

The first thing Luna noticed was a mare’s voice indistinctly chattering somewhere in the distance. The princess did nothing in response, as it took her a few seconds more to remember that she had been doing something previously—attempting to reason with an Ursa Major, or something like that. And now? Now, she was lying on a hard, even surface that felt like polished marble, or perhaps glass. As she continued to regain her faculties, it occurred to Luna that opening her eyes might give her a better sense of what was going on.

Fortunately, there was no painfully bright light to cause her further discomfort—only a reddish glow that seemed to come from everywhere. Luna opened her eyelids wider and raised her head up to look around, only to drop down to the floor again as a massive headache overwhelmed her.

“Luna!” whispered a familiar voice.

Luna’s ears perked up, and she once again lifted her head, this time ignoring the throbbing pain to look towards the source of the sound. “Celestia? Is that you?”

“Keep your voice down,” Celestia hissed. “We don’t want Trixie to hear us.”

Luna complied, dropping the volume of her voice as she rose to her hooves. “Ugh... how long have I been out?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but I think it must have been nearly a day since we were brought here, and you’ve been out cold the entire time. If you were a normal pony, I might have feared the worst.”

Luna began to walk towards her sister as she said, “What does that mean? Did you not think to—ow!” Her question was cut off as she walked directly into a glowing, translucent wall, which, she now realized, was the source of the red light that illuminated the chamber. A glance over at Celestia revealed that she, too, was in a similarly-colored cubical cell. “Force fields?” Luna asked, dropping the volume of her voice once again.

Celestia nodded gravely. “And rather impressive ones, too, especially for a civilian. Perhaps Shining Armor finally got around to publishing that guide that Twilight Sparkle keeps nagging him about.”

Luna, though, wasn’t particularly interested in that sort of speculation. “Where are we?” she asked as she rubbed her bruised muzzle.

Celestia chuckled ruefully. “I can’t blame you for not recognizing it. Trixie’s removed most of your artwork.”

“What?” Luna blinked several times as she once again looked around at the dimly lit chamber. Indeed, there was something familiar about the layout.... Then she saw the crystal throne, and all her memories rushed back to her. “This is our cave.”

“Exactly. That, however, is not very important at the moment. Luna, Trixie has been possessed by Sombra.”

A chill ran up Luna’s spine when she heard the name. “You... you are speaking figuratively, correct? You mean to say that she is behaving like Sombra.”

Celestia shook her head. “If only that were the case. But as much as I would prefer that Trixie’s strange obsession with crystals and precision was nothing more than a sickening coincidence, the physical evidence leaves little room for such doubts.”

“What do you—?” Luna’s question, however, was interrupted by the return of the mare in question, followed by a dozen or so of her Diamond Dog minions. The “physical evidence” that Celestia had mentioned was immediately obvious: a pale violet haze was seeping from her eyes, which were now had deep scarlet irises set against an unearthly bright green sclera.

“Yes...” the would-be despot mused to herself, “‘Agharta’ will be a most appropriate name for The Great and Powerful Trixie’s subterranean empire of Order.”

“Of course, Your Greatness,” said a medium-sized Diamond Dog in a red vest who bowed obsequiously to demonstrate his agreement.

“And once everything’s settled down,” the mare continued, “The Great and Powerful Trixie will be able to—ah, awake, are we?” Trixie had apparently only just noticed that Luna was up and about.

“What have you done with my art?” Luna asked angrily.

“Nothing,” Trixie replied with a sinister smile. “There wasn’t any art in this cavern when The Great and Powerful Trixie found it. There was, however, quite a few examples of unnaturally curved and shaped garbage lying around, so she took the liberty of destroying them and replacing them with proper crystals.” Trixie walked over to a large, nearly transparent icosahedron sitting on a pedestal and lovingly placed a hoof against it. “This one’s her favorite.”

Luna, however, did not share the unicorn’s appreciation. “You insolent little tart! Have you any idea how much effort is required to shaped crystals into curved forms without fracturing them?”

“Just because you wasted a lot of energy making your imperfect trash doesn’t mean it has any artistic value. Is this not true?” she asked her Diamond Dogs.

The Diamond Dogs, however, seemed reluctant to make such a statement within earshot of the princesses. “Er, well...” the red-vested canine said, “we are not usually interested in art...”

This was not the answer Trixie wanted to hear. “Are you saying that you are not enriched by gazing upon the perfect creations of The Great and Powerful Trixie, despite the hours she spent ensuring that every single dimension was absolutely precise?!”

“O-of course we are, Your Powerfulness! It is clearly superior to everything that came before it!”

The raging storm passed almost instantly as the unicorn turned back to Luna. “See? An unbiased, impartial opinion, demonstrating that The Great and Powerful Trixie was right.”

Luna looked over at her sister. “I take it she’s about as reasonable as I was under the Nightmare’s influence?”

“More or less,” Celestia confirmed with a short nod.

“Wonderful,” Luna said as she rolled her eyes.

“Hey!” the unicorn shouted. “Do not speak about The Great and Powerful Trixie as though she is not present! Her benevolent rule of unimpeachable perfection is at hoof, and she will not be ignored!”

Luna ground her teeth angrily and muttered, “When I get out of here...”

If Trixie heard the princess’ threat, she didn’t have time to reply, because a loud blast from near the cave’s entrance rocked the chamber. A minute later, six mares emerged from the front corridor. “Well, there goes the element of surprise,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Sorry, but I didn’t want to waste any time, so I used the strongest spell I could think of,” Twilight Sparkle replied. She was still wearing her tiara, with the Element of Magic prominently set into it. Likewise, her friends all had their respective Elements of Harmony around their necks. “Besides, I don’t think Trixie would have taken that long to notice us,” she added, motioning to the tableau before them.

“The White Devil has returned!” yelped the smallest of the Diamond Dogs as he pointed a shaking finger at Rarity. “We must flee for our lives!” Apparently, many his compatriots agreed, as half of them retreated down the corridor that lead further into the cave system.

“I wasn’t that bad,” said Rarity. Any surprise she might have had upon seeing the Diamond Dogs was completely superseded by her indignation at their rather blatant overreaction to her presence.

Surprisingly, The Great and Powerful Trixie allowed those minions to desert her without much fuss—mostly because she was too busy being infuriated by a far more grievous action. “My sapphire dodecahedron!” she shouted as she galloped across the room to where a gemstone had fallen off its display area to the ground. “It’s been chipped! Your oafish entrance has ruined one of The Great and Powerful Trixie’s finest works!”

Twilight Sparkle looked confused. “But sapphires are one of the hardest of all naturally occurring minerals. There’s no way a fall that short could have chipped it, unless, of course, your magic made it weaker—”

“Silence!” Trixie interrupted as she cradled her afflicted crystal. “Don’t you worry,” she cooed quietly as she gently stroked the injured gemstone. “The Great and Powerful Trixie promises to make everything better.”

“Ha!” Luna shouted triumphantly, “now you know what it feels like.”

The Great and Powerful Trixie wheeled around and glared at Luna. “How dare you compare this tragedy to what The Great and Powerful did! Your unnatural filth was an abomination—a sin against Order itself! You ought to be thanking her for getting rid of it!”

“I will do no such—argh!” Luna collapsed to the ground as bolts of electricity suddenly arced from the walls of her force field cell.

“Thank me, you ungrateful harlot!” Trixie screamed, her voice turning deep and guttural as the attack continued. “Thank me and pray that the forces of Order may forgive you as easily as The Great and Powerful Trixie!”

“Enough!” Twilight Sparkle shouted; to her surprise, there was enough authority in her voice that Trixie actually ceased her assault on Luna. “You’ve gone too far, Trixie; you’ve completely lost your mind. If you don’t get help soon, you’re going to hurt a lot of innocent ponies in your ravings, and that’s just unacceptable. We don’t want to hurt you, but we will if we have to.” As she said this, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rarity all spread out along the walls of the chamber, ready to strike at a moment’s notice.

“You would dare to challenge The Great and Powerful Trixie?” the unhinged unicorn said as she turned towards her nemesis. “Very well,” she said as the green glow of her eyes increased in intensity. “Let us end this!”

Discord was already awake when Penumbra landed in the foothills of the Crystal Mountains, hunched over some sort of model of the surrounding landscape. “Ugh, it certainly took you long enough to get back here, Pinkie Pie,” he said, not bothering to turn around to get a good look at the recent arrival. “I was worried that I’d have to find you to show off my special project.”

“I’ll be sure to tell her all about it once we’re all back in Canterlot,” Penumbra said as she briefly ran a hoof through her black mane and let it fall back over her right eye.

Discord seemed to jump into the air from surprise. “Penumbra?! What are you doing here?”

“Princesses Twilight and Pinkie decided that Trixie needed the attention of all the Element-Bearers. They do need to keep their priorities straight, after all,” Penumbra explained with a malevolent smirk.

Her attempt to goad Discord’s ego worked like a charm. “What?! How on earth could they possibly think that a mere showmare is a more pressing matter than a rogue Spirit of Chaos?”

“Because Trixie is no longer a ‘mere showmare,’” Penumbra replied. “Besides, you haven’t been dismissed as a legitimate threat. That’s why I’m here, after all.”

“Oh, please,” Discord said, waving his paw dismissively. “I’ve just spent nearly a day going head to head against a thoughtform who has almost as much power and versatility as I do. What makes you think you’ll be as worthy an opponent as Pinkie Pie?”

Penumbra said nothing in response, merely cocking an eyebrow as a silent retort. Almost immediately, four dozen Shadowbolts landed behind her, all decked out in reinforced flight suits. The golems stared at Discord from behind their goggles with steely glares, but remained otherwise silent, though one or two pawed the ground with their forehooves, as if they were getting ready to strike at a moment’s notice.

For his part, Discord looked genuinely impressed. “I stand corrected,” he said, looking over his new crop of adversaries with approval. “Also, nice job on timing their entrance.”

“I presume I have your interest, then?”

Discord smiled wickedly as he rose into the air and flashed his claws and talons in the moonlight. “Oh, you had my interest already. Now, you have my undivided attention.” There was a soft rumbling as the ground behind him began undulating and reforming into a completely new landscape. “I cordially invite you to, as the saying goes, bring it on.”

Everything they could do, she could do better; The Great and Powerful Trixie had already demonstrated this multiple times over the course of the Element-Bearers’ assault. Rainbow Dash’s attempts to use her maneuverability to outflank Trixie were rendered pointless through teleportation. Applejack bucked several boulders at the mage, but Trixie’s magic was more than sufficient to hurl them back from whence they came, though this had the unfortunate side effect of further defacing her crystal structures, several of which were smashed into unrecognizable rubble. The “White Devil” had attempted to levitate several dozen pieces of the resulting debris to make a coordinated attack, but there was no way that anypony was going to improve on The Great and Powerful Trixie’s precision—she easily deflected the projectiles, leaving Rarity open to stinging counterattacks.

Pinkie Pie seemed to be attempting to distract her with a musical number of some sort, but The Great and Powerful Trixie countered with an operatic aria of such grandeur that it put the Royal Canterlot Voice to shame, completely drowning out the pink earth pony’s mediocre bubblegum pop. When Fluttershy had roused a colony of bats to aid her friends, the remaining Diamond Dogs had been more than happy to keep them from interfering (mostly because to their minds the bats were a vastly preferable foe to Rarity). And all the while, “Princess” Twilight Sparkle’s continued attempts to weaken the force fields holding Celestia and Luna had proven to be exercises in futility, as reinforcing the initial magic spells was a laughably simple matter.

And yet... Twilight Sparkle didn’t seem to be shaken by her initial failures to dispel the force fields; she just started gradually increasing the intensity and power of her spells, which soon made it too risky for The Great and Powerful Trixie to devote her magical abilities to anything but counterspells for more than a second or two.

Meanwhile, her other adversaries began to coordinate their effort with surprisingly effective results. Applejack stopped attempting to use rocks as projectiles and instead used her strength to buck Trixie’s crystals into shards, which Rarity then fired at Trixie from every single direction, pausing only briefly to let Rainbow Dash periodically slam her body against Trixie’s so she could drop some some new creepy-crawly cave resident that Fluttershy had recruited to their cause into Trixie’s mane. And to top it all off, The Great and Powerful Trixie couldn’t focus her brilliant mind on coming up with a solution to this multifaceted attack because that stupid pink earth pony wouldn’t stop singing that asinine song about smiling!

This was impossible. She was The Great and Powerful Trixie! And yet, despite the superiority of her abilities, they were the ones who seemed to be gaining the upper hoof. She was now standing on top of her throne, completely surrounded on all sides (including from above, as the two pegasi were hovering over her).

“Don’t worry, Trixie,” she heard Twilight Sparkle say as the gemstone in her crown began to glow. “This is the same purification spell we used to save Princess Luna from Nightmare Moon. Once it’s over, you’ll be back to your normal self.”

But the Great and Powerful Trixie wasn’t just worried—she was panicking. Teleporting to another spot in the cavern would only be effective for a few seconds, and leaving the chamber entirely virtually ensured that Celestia and Luna would be freed. But even worse, something about the way the Elements were glowing filled her with a dread more terrible than any she’d ever experienced, as though a repressed memory was desperately attempting to claw its way out of her subconscious. She was afraid.

But they made you feel this way, a voice in the back of her mind pointed out. And anything they can do...

The Great and Powerful Trixie didn’t know where the spell came from, only that it was suddenly there at the forefront of her mind, clearer than the purest crystal she’d ever made. As the glow from the Elements grew brighter and the six Bearers began levitating in the air, the unicorn knew that she was almost out of time. She gathered up as much energy as she could muster and blindly cast the spell, hoping against hope that her kingdom of perfection might still be saved.

A shrill, raspy scream echoed through the chamber: “Noooo!!” Rainbow Dash fell to the ground as she clutched one of her wings in her forehooves. The purification spell was immediately broken off as the pegasus’ friends gathered around her.

“Rainbow Dash, what is it?” Rarity asked.

But this question hardly seemed to register, because Rainbow Dash’s response seemed to be less an answer to a straightforward question and more an anguished scream of protest at Fate. “Not my wing! Please! It’s... it’s... oh, Celestia, no!”

“But Rainbow Dash, your wing looks fine,” Fluttershy said as gently as she could, but Rainbow Dash seemed to be trapped in her own personal nightmare.

Tears streamed out from behind Rainbow Dash’s clenched eyelids... along with same purplish smoke that continued to seep out of Trixie’s. “I’ll never fly again.... This can’t be happening.... This can’t be happening!”

“It ain’t happenin’, Rainbow!” Applejack said in a strained voice. “C’mon, snap out of it!”

“What did you do to her?!” Twilight Sparkle shouted at the blue unicorn, who initially looked almost as stunned as Rainbow Dash’s friends.

Any surprise on the part of The Great and Powerful Trixie, however, soon gave way to a triumphant, maniacal grin. “You’re about to find out....”

Penumbra stood on a cloud overlooking the battlefield, observing the struggle through a spyglass. The Shadowbolts seemed to be holding their own against the Spirit of Chaos, if only because Discord seemed content to stay on the defensive from within the hastily-constructed bunker whose design he’d been fretting over when she’d arrived. Occasionally, he would pop out to toss grenades loaded with paint at the mass of indistinguishable pegasi—which turned out to be more effective than Penumbra would have otherwise thought, since the paint was thick and goopy enough to ground several of them when it got on their wings. Still, the Shadowbolts seemed to be making a fair amount of progress demolishing Discord’s assorted defenses with bucks, body-checks, and lightning bolts.

Indeed, the golems had managed to breach the bunker’s final wall and found themselves facing the draconequus directly. Suddenly, Discord whipped out an elaborately-decorated folding screen and ducked behind it for several seconds as various articles of clothing began to fly out in multiple directions, as though they were being haphazardly thrown about in an effort to find a rarely-used cummerbund. Thirty seconds later, he swept the screen into oblivion with a wave of his paw and stood before the assembled Shadowbolts wearing a form-fitting outfit of some unknown shiny black material.

“Ha!” he shouted. “Rubber suit! Let’s see what you turkeys can do against this!” Three dozen lightning bolts later, a vaguely draconequus-shaped pile of ash crumbled to the ground.

Penumbra lowered her spyglass and sighed. “There’s no point in waiting. You’re not going to surprise me.”

In a flash, Discord materialized in front of her with a distinctly consternated look on his face. “How did you do that?” he asked with an irritated sneer.

Penumbra rolled her eyes. “As I’ve told you before, you’re predictably unpredictable. You only did the ‘crumbling to ash’ bit because it was the most amusing way to respond to getting struck by lightning.”

“No, I mean how did they hit me with so many lightning bolts? That was a real rubber suit I was wearing, and it should have repelled all of them. Instead, they all hit me in the face. I’m supposed to be the one pulling off nonsense like that! Your powers are supposed to be limited by common sense.”

“Technically, yes. But Luna’s contingency plans assumed that Celestia’s minions would be capable of ‘bending the rules’ to some degree, therefore my Shadowbolts have somewhat more leeway than I do myself.” As if to back up this point, a half-dozen of the jumpsuited pegasi landed behind Penumbra and stared at Discord with inscrutably neutral expressions on their faces. This, at least, seemed to catch Discord off-guard, as he grew unusually quiet, squinting at some unremarkable spot in the sky as though he was trying to work out the implications of her statement.

Rather than take the opportunity to attack, Penumbra decided to continue the conversation. After all, it had the same effect of keeping him distracted, and there was still a chance that she’d get him to reconsider his actions. “Is all of this really necessary?”

“It wouldn’t be if you had just laughed when I did something funny instead of holding it back! I should have already won our little game at least a dozen times over!”

Penumbra let out a short groan. She didn’t know how Discord had found out about her skill at not-laughing, but at this point, it didn’t much matter. “In truth, you only came close one or two times, and it was never when you were actually trying to make me laugh.”

“So you admit that you cheated!”

“I wasn’t cheating. The whole idea was for you to gain my trust by being my friend, after which I’d be comfortable letting myself laugh around you. That was always the best strategy you could have taken, but it never occurred to you that you might not be able to overwhelm my self-control.”

“So you were basically doing it Celestia’s way the whole time, but dressing it up so that it looked like a game? Since when does a goody-four-shoes try rigging a contest like that?”

“Since when does anyone expect The Nightmare to be a goody-four-shoes?”

Discord opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out—apparently, Penumbra had managed to flummox him for the second time in a five-minute span. “I... hadn’t actually considered that.” Suddenly, the chimera gasped. “That’s the real reason Celestia wanted you to try to reform me, isn’t it? She knew you’d come up with a plan that had all sorts of failsafes built in!”

Penumbra simply looked at Discord with a half-lidded stare. “You’re seriously just figuring that out now?”

Discord didn’t respond to this, instead choosing to continue his own monologue. “I keep underestimating that pony.... Celestia actually found a way to harness your villainous tendencies for good. Awfully clever of her, but then, I shouldn’t have expected any less. After all, she created me....”

Penumbra cleared her throat loudly, if only to remind Discord that she was still present. “I actually tried to drop some hints that making me laugh wouldn’t be as easy as you had obviously assumed it would be, nor did I try to mislead you when I dropped hints unintentionally. That’s why I didn’t try to divert your attention after you heard my real laugh—as it hasn’t changed since my own reformation, I thought you might be able to infer that I might be suppressing it. Apparently, you didn’t think to review all those notes you took at the time.”

“Why would I?” Discord asked. “That was supposed to be a sight gag.” Discord floated over to Penumbra and began slithering through the air around her head, much to the agitation of the still-silent Shadowbolts. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you really were trying to give me a fair shot.”

“You don’t know better,” Penumbra replied evenly.

Rather than answer, Discord floated in front of Penumbra, staring her directly in the eye. Penumbra half-expected him to attempt some sort of mind control magic, but he just kept silently scrutinizing her expression. The pegasus wasn’t sure how long the uncomfortable silence actually lasted before Discord finally broke it: “Thank you.”

Penumbra wasn’t quite sure what to make of this as she watched Discord float out of her personal space. She had never heard the draconequus speak in a more sincere-sounding tone of voice. Eventually, she decided that this meant that the conversation was worth continuing, if nothing else. “Discord, what exactly do you expect to get out of this alliance with Trixie, anyway?”

Discord rolled his eyes so far back that they ended up making a complete revolution, rising into view from the the bottom of his eyelids. “Half of Equestria, obviously, though I don’t know which half yet. I never really got a chance to show these ponies what I could do the last time I was in charge, mostly because they kept griping about how I’d permanently scarred the Everfree region. But with Trixie around for comparison, it’ll be obvious that I’m the more benevolent ruler, and all those pesky counter-revolutions will be nipped in the bud.”

Penumbra raised an eyebrow skeptically. She didn’t quite see how being the lesser of two evils would stop any uprisings, but she didn’t see much point in pressing the matter. “So, you still want to be royalty, then?”

“Oh, there’s no need to go that far.” Discord said as he waved his paw dismissively. “I’ve actually taken a liking to ‘President.’ It sounds more modest, I think. I might even let the Pandelirians fool themselves into thinking that they’re a democracy.”

“Pandelirians?”

“Oh, that’s a nice little name I came up with to refer to my subjects. You see, I’m planning on calling my new domain ‘Pandelirium.’”

“I see... and what, pray tell, does it mean?”

“Who cares? It sounds cool, which is definitely going to be another plus once it’s time for everypony to pick a side.”

“Pick a side?”

“Oh, yes. We figure that if we let individual ponies decide which regime they want to live under, we’ll reduce the total number of malcontents. It’s a simple matter of gathering everypony in a single place and forcing them to choose whether to live in one part of Equestria or the other.”

“I’m sure that’s going to be popular.”

Discord sniffed loudly in disapproval. “You don’t need to be so sarcastic about it. Besides, once everypony realizes that life in Pandelirium is more fun than an octopus riding a unicycle, the immigrants will be arriving in droves! Well, assuming that Trixie lets her subjects leave, that is.”

Penumbra sighed in frustration. For the briefest of moments, she thought that Discord might have been willing to rethink his actions, but it seemed that there would be no such miracles today. She was about to order her Shadowbolts to resume their assault, when Discord spoke up again.

“You are going to choose Pandelirium, right?”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, just out of curiosity,” the draconequus said as a he abruptly broke eye contact and began to absently file the claws on his talon. “You’ll be perfectly free to spend the rest of your days under Trixie’s iron hoof, if you want. Granted, her iron hoof seems a bit dull to me, but some ponies no doubt like enforced conformity.”

“I’m not going to choose either, because the two of you are going to lose!”

Discord snapped his fingers. “Oh, that’s right. You haven’t accepted your inevitable defeat yet. Sorry for getting ahead of myself there, but I’m just so anxious to start setting up my kingdom. But, uh, that being said, have you given any thought to which despot you’ll choose when—sorry, if your noble attempt to preserve the status quo goes down in flames?”

Discord’s refusal to leave this subject now had Penumbra’s curiosity thoroughly piqued. “No, I haven’t,” she said hesitantly. “Why should I?”

“Oh, it’s ever so important that you choose the right dictator for your needs. After all, if you’re going to be oppressed, there’s no sense in being depressed at the same time, which is why it’s important know all of the pertinent facts about your potential overlords. For example,” Discord paused to zip over to Penumbra’s side and whisper conspiratorially in her ear, “Trixie’s not quite right in the head.”

“Neither are you,” Penumbra said, glaring.

“True, but I’m not suffering from any delusions of normality. Trixie, on the other hand, still believes that she’s a rational pony whose behavior is perfectly acceptable to society at large.”

“So, you’re claiming that you’re the better choice because you already know that you’re crazy?”

“And I’m honest about it,” Discord added. “C’mon, it’ll be fun! I’m even willing to give you some special privileges, like being allowed to tell me what you actually think without being thrown in prison. Oh! I could even make you my Secretary of Weather! You’re really into the importance of hoof-made clouds, right? If I let you handle the weather policy, there’s sure to be lots of interesting stuff in the sky—especially since I can completely obliterate any boundaries on your creativity. Water vapor and cotton candy are just the beginning!”

Penumbra didn’t look nearly as excited as Discord at the moment. “Are you offering me a job now?”

“Er, what? No! No, no, no. Don’t be silly. Technically, you haven’t lost yet, and accepting my offer—if it was an offer, which it isn’t—would be treasonous. This is just a theoretical discussion. Besides, who wants to dwell on something as dreary as work? Play is far more interesting, and that’s where Pandelirium is going to tower above whatever passes for entertainment in Trixieland. We could go landsurfing, or humpback riding, or cragodile hunting... oh! And you can have your Shadowbolts form sports teams, and we can put on exhibition matches throughout Pandelirium. Or maybe we can make the world’s biggest cloud sculpture, or—”

“Hang on... you’ve actually made plans to spend time with me after taking over the throne?”

“Well... yeah. I mean, that was back when I thought I could just win our bet and have all of Equestria to myself, but it’s basically the same thing.... Uh, why are you looking at me like that?”

Penumbra stared at Discord with a slightly bewildered expression for a few seconds as the corners of her mouth suddenly started to twitch oddly. Then, all of a sudden, she made a strained, guttural noise in the back of her throat that sounded like a muffled cough. Discord looked as though he was about to ask if she was feeling alright, but Penumbra rendered that question moot almost instantaneously, as she reared her head back and started releasing howling peals of laughter into the mountain air.

Author's Notes:

If you're a member of the Petriculture Cycle group, you might have noticed that the title of this chapter has changed from when I first posted a thread on the songs that the chapters are named after. Therefore, here's a link to "Hammer and Tongs."