“I’ve got to be dreaming,” I breathed as I stared up at the gargantuan figure of Discord. There was no way in hell that this was real. My eyes had to be playing tricks on me; I was delusional due to sleep deprivation, Primrose had sucked out too much of my blood and I was now passed out and having a weird-ass nightmare. Any explanation would do, except for the one that expected me to believe that the eldritch abomination before me was real.

Yet, there he was, looming over the palace like a death cloud.

“Twilight and the others managed to take that down?” I said weakly. “There’s… there’s no way. How the…?”

Beside me, one of the guards—an earth pony mare—stared up at the colossal figure as well, her mouth agape. “<Sweet Celestia...>” The other ponies were much more animated, nickering and whining in a panic.

“<Discord’s out again? Again?! Why? And why is he so bucking huge?!>”

“<Colonel, what do we do?>”

“<I… I don’t know...>”

“<Of course he’d show up now, of all times! No Princesses, no Elements, the guards in shambles. What the buck can stop him?>”

“<That's great, this is really buckin' great, man. Now, what the buck are we supposed to do? We're in some pretty deep shit now, man!>”

“<Private? Shut up!>”

“<Sir, I recommend moving the injured further into the palace. Try and put some distance between us and him.>”

“<That's it, man. Game over, man. Game over! What the buck are we supposed to now, huh, what are we gonna do?!>”

“<Private! Shut the buck up!>”

“<Sir, we need to—>”

“<SILENCE!>” Night Light roared suddenly, snapping me out of my daze and causing me to jump. All ponies fell silent, staring at him with wide eyes. He snorted, glaring at everyone even as blood dripped from the stained bandage around his neck. “<Alright. Everypony is going to remain calm, got it?>” He paused, allowing the gathered ponies to nod before continuing “<Yes, Discord appears to have escaped again. Yes, this is currently out of our hooves, but we aren’t going to panic. He doesn’t appear to have noticed us yet, so we still have time. The first thing is we need to get the injured to the medical ward. They are our priority at the moment. We’ll figure out a way to deal with Discord after that.>” A murmur rippled through the crowd, and determined looks appeared on several blood-stained faces. However, some ponies still seemed unconvinced of whatever Night Light had said.

Leaving the ponies to sort out… whatever it was they were sorting out, I turned to look back out at Discord, but paused upon catching sight of the Equestrian humans. They were in horrible shape, many of them cowering down behind corners and in the shadows. They were staring up at Discord with looks of abject horror, several of them even appeared close to passing out. Tremors racked their bodies, and they whimpered pitifully. The castle shook again, causing them to shrink back and huddle against each other in fear.

Not all of them though.

A select few were different. Instead of Discord, they were watching me with calm, collective looks on their faces. Pyresteed was among them, her eyes boring into mine. The intensity with which they were staring at me was unnerving. It was almost like they were waiting for something.

“What?” I asked uneasily.

“Alpha fight, yes?” Pyresteed asked. It was more a statement than a question.

“Me, fight that thing?” I asked incredulously, pointing at Discord through the broken windows. “Are you crazy!? There’s no way I can fight him, let alone beat him! This isn’t some Shadow of the Colossus bullshit! What? He’s going to have some glowing symbol somewhere on his body I have to stab a bunch before he keels over and dies? No, not happening. Not going to—”

“Alpha.”

“—happen. It’ll be like be like an ant fighting a boot! A pitcher fighting a stone. And you know what they say about the stone and the pitcher. Whether the stone hits the pitcher or the pitcher hits the stone, it's going to be bad for the—”

“Alpha.”

“—pitcher. What?!”

“Alpha. Fight.” Despite how softly she said it, the words had some other emotion behind them, one that I couldn’t place. Pride? Determination? Hope? I wasn’t sure. She just continued to calmly stare at me, despite the hellish landscape displayed through the broken windows. Discord was now bent over some part of the palace and appeared to be tearing bits of masonry free and flinging them back over his shoulder without a care in the world. He was effortlessly disassembling Canterlot Castle like it was a Lego set, piece by piece. There was no way in hell that I… that anyone could—

“Alpha.”

I jumped as a soft hand suddenly touched my face. My eye darted away from Discord, only to suddenly find itself lost in a sea of sapphire blue as Pyresteed’s eyes filled my vision.

“Alpha, calm,” she said, keeping her hand on my cheek. It was then that I noticed that I was breathing heavily, my heart pounding wildly in my chest. Lifting a trembling hand up, I placed it on top of hers before taking a deep, shaky breath.

“Why?” I asked. “Why do you want me to fight so badly?”

“It what Alpha do, yes? Protect ponies, protect pack.”

“But… but just look at him!” I tried to turn my head back to look at Discord, but was stopped by Pyresteed keeping my head in place with her hand.

“You say protect ponies from human-not-humans,” she said. “You protect them, yes? Protect ponies, protect pack. You Alpha? Then fight, Alpha. Fight.”

“And how do you suggest we get to him?” I breathed.

“Pack help,” she said, removing her hand and taking a step back. “Pack get you there, safe.” I gave her a confused look, and she motioned behind me. Turning, my eyes widened in surprise.

Standing behind me, with grim, determined looks on their faces, were several Equestrian humans, all of whom I recognized instantly. There was Tarzan and Jane, who stood alongside side one of the other human males that had kidnapped me inside the garden, who was hereby named ‘Kerk’. Behind the three of them, hefting one of the Terran human’s makeshift hammers on his shoulder, was Psy, his lips pulled back in a silent sneer.

Sighing, I turned back to Pyresteed. “You guys are putting way too much faith in me. You know that, right? I don’t even know what I can do against him.” She remained quiet, giving me what could only be described as a pleading look.

“Fine,” I huffed. “Fine. I’ll do it. Damn you, and damn your sparkling eyes, but I’ll do it.”

Pyresteed perked up. “Fight?”

“Yes,” I sighed. “You get me there and I’ll… I’ll figure something out, I guess.” As she chirped excitedly, I glanced around for my helmet. It was lying on the ground off to the side, and I moved to retrieve it. As I picked it up, Night Light approached.

~We’re moving the injured to the medical wing~ he signed. ~We’re might need your help in moving some of them~ Glancing over his shoulders, I saw that the ponies were now making makeshift stretchers out of pieces of the doors.

~Sorry, no can do~ I replied. ~We’re going after Discord~

“<What?!>” he whinned, his eyes widening. The ponies behind him stopped working, their heads whipping around to stare at him. Hissing something under his breath, he glared up at me. ~Are you mad?! You can’t take on Discord by yourself~

~I won’t be by myself~ I signed before motioning at the humans behind me. ~Besides, we have to do something~

~No. No. No way. That’s not happening~ he signed, his glare intensifying. ~For one, it’s suicidal. For another thing, Twilight would never speak to me again if she found out I let you do something as stupid as this~

I grinned, giving him a lopsided smirk. ~Well, Twilight’s not here right now, and I’m old enough to make my own decisions, Dad~

“<You, I… you… gah!>” He grimaced, snorting in irritation.

“<What’s going on, Night?>” A large unicorn called out.

“<The idiot… the humans are planning on going up against Discord,>” Night Light huffed, clicking his tongue. Several ponies nickered, their eyes widening in shock.

Pushing a hoof against his temple, Night Light snarled before glaring up at me again. ~I… I can’t let you do that. As a Colonel of Equestria’s Royal Guard, it’s my duty to make sure all civilians are safe, and I have the authority of the crown to do so~

~There’s only three beings I’ll potentially listen to: Two humans, and one pony. None of them are here at the moment~

~I can have you detained for your own safety!~

Staring down at him, I threw my arms open wide and took half a step forward. We stayed that way for several long, tense seconds: him glaring up at me, and me waiting for him to do something. Finally, he averted his gaze.

“<Gah! Son of a—!>” Grinding his teeth together, he stomped a hoof on the ground, causing the marble beneath him to crack slightly. He paced back and forth a few times (looking remarkably like Twilight when she was trying to figure out a problem) before suddenly wheeling around. “<Terminal! Earthen!>” he barked out, causing two of the guards to salute. “<Change of plans. I want you two to grab three more able-bodied ponies and follow the Anomaly. He is your primary—no, your only concern, got it? If something bad happens to him then so help me, I’ll have your cutie marks!>”

They both nodded before the unicorn pointed at three other ponies. The five of them then moved towards me.

I was wary at first, expecting them to jump me, but instead they took up position around me. Three unicorns, one pegasus, and an earth pony.

~I hope you know what you’re doing, boy~ Night Light signed, still glaring at me.

“Not a clue,” I said, smiling down at him. His eyes narrowed, and he huffed as he turned away. My human entourage eyed the new pony additions curiously, much to the guards’ discomfort.

My smile faded slightly as I watched Night Light gathering up the wounded, and my brows furrowed. I had the nagging feeling that I was forgetting something, something important… but what was it?

My eyes narrowed, only to widen a second later when I remembered.

~Wait~ I signed, causing Night Light to glance back at me. ~The group of injured ponies we passed on our way here!~ This caused his eyes to widen as well.

Turning, I pointed at a group of humans huddling in the corner. “You. Can you guys take the pony to the room with the injured ponies and the three human-not-humans we met earlier?”

The only response I got was a whimper as they shrunk back further into the corner.

“Oh, come on!” I shouted, throwing my hands in the air. “You don’t have to fight Discord or anything. In fact, you’re going in the opposite direction!” When they just continued to give me fearful looks, I sighed and rubbed my forehead. “Okay, look… listen, just lead these ponies—” I pointed at Night Light “—to the room with the injured ponies. After that you can do whatever you want, okay? You can even go run and hide in the caverns for all I care, just get these ponies to that room.”

At first none of them moved, but then slowly, one by one, they began to crawl from the corner, casting furtive glances at Discord as they scuttled along.

Shaking my head in exasperation, I turned back to Night Light. ~These humans will take you there, but don’t expect much more from them~

He nodded, watching the humans as they raced down the hallway. Once they reached the corner, they hid behind it, heads peeking out as they waited for the ponies to follow. They charge other humans with wild abandonment, but piss themselves at the sight of Discord. Wonderful.

~Oh, also~ I added, ~be aware that there are three terran humans in the room as well~ Night Light stiffened, eyes narrowing, but I continued quickly. ~They aren’t hostile. In fact, they’re trying to tend to the injured. Try not to be too rough with them~

He was silent for a few seconds before sighing loudly and nodding again. Turning to the other guards, he nickered, “<Alright, if that’s it, let’s get going. We have some more wounded to pick up along the way, and I want to get to the medical ward asap.>”

I watched as the guards slowly made their way down the hall, carrying the wounded with them on their makeshift stretchers. It was a rather solemn sight: the less injured carrying those who bore more severe wounds. Primrose and Ebony were on a stretcher together, near the end of the procession. Reaching up, I absentmindedly rubbed the bandage that was hiding the bite mark on my neck.

Avera made to go with the guards, only to pause and glance back, giving me an inquisitive look. I slowly shook my head, and she nodded once. Reaching into her armor, she pulled out a hunting knife, which she handed to me before turning and following after the last of the retreating group. They rounded the corner, and within a minute or so, the clattering of their armor had faded into nothingness.

I glanced down at the knife before slipping it carefully into a gap between my armor and the leather underneath. Once it was secure, I turned and glanced at Pyresteed.

“Alright,” I said, breaking the silence. “Let’s get this over with.”

She perked up. “Fight?”

“Yup, fight. Lead the way,” I said, placing my helmet over my head. With that, I motioned down the hall with an arm. She nodded before taking off, her scarred and calloused feet lightly tapping against the marble as she flitted down the hall. After a brief pause, the other humans followed after her.

“<Alright, you all heard the Colonel,>” the lead unicorn said as he glanced at the other four guards that had stayed behind. “<Form up on the Anomaly! He's lead human.>” They saluted before moving to various positions around me.

I eyed them briefly before grunting and running after Pyresteed. My armor clanked loudly as I moved, the noise mixing ominously with the bells still tolling in the distance.

Our group—five Equestrian humans, five Equestrian ponies, and myself—raced down the destroyed halls of the palace.

We raced towards Discord, the source of all our problems.

And the bells continued to toll.

“You can’t tell me that it wasn’t a little funny.”

“Not now, Dash,” Twilight growled. She raced down the hallway, followed closely by Applejack and Rarity. Pinkie Pie pronked along, leaving Fluttershy to bring up the rear. They all galloped down the hall, weaving around and through the rubble that had gathered in the corridor.

Rainbow flitted by overhead, careful to steer clear of any of the broken windows.

“Oh, come on!” she cooed, twisting around to smirk at Twilight as she flew backwards. “You have to admit that you found it a little funny.”

“Not now, Dash!”

“I mean, seriously,” Dash continued. “The Princesses charge us, and you got scared and teleported them outside into a fountain! How can you not find that—”

“Rainbow,” Rarity interrupted, panting slightly as she ran. “While I do certainly believe that we might all look back at that moment and laugh later, let’s focus on the more pressing concerns, shall we?”

“Yeah,” Applejack huffed. “Like what the hay’s goin’ on with the Princesses! They looked like somethin’ outta a nightmare!”

“Oh, oh! Maybe it was a Nightmare Night costume! A really spooky, realistic one!” Pinkie chirped as she bounced along. “Like, maybe Luna’s getting an early start on this year’s—”

“Thank you, Pinkie,” Twilight said, cutting her off, “but I highly doubt that was an intentional transformation on their part. Or if it was, something went horribly wrong. And I wasn’t scared,” she scoffed, giving Rainbow a dirty look. “I was just… startled, is all. They caught me by surprise. I meant to teleport them away like that.”

“Uh-huh,” Rainbow smirked. “Come on, Twi. You were just as confused as the rest of us when they disappeared. Admit it, you were scared.”

“I wasn’t scared!”

“Was too!”

“Was not!”

“Was too!”

“Was not!”

“Is this really the best time for this?!” Rarity snapped, glaring at the two. “Both Princess Celestia and Luna have been turned into those horrific… abominations, and here you two are arguing over if you were scared or not! I mean, really.”

Both Twilight and Rainbow’s ears splayed back, and they glanced away from each other.

“That’s what I thought,” Rarity continued with a sniff. “Now, if you two could quit bickering long enough for us to—GAH!”

The castle took that exact moment to suddenly shift violently, causing everyone to stumble as the floor beneath their hooves shook. Rarity nearly face-planted, grabbing Applejack’s neck at the last moment in order to save herself and, coincidentally, cutting off Applejack’s air supply. The cowpony grunted, her eyes crossing as her face slowly turned a lovely shade of blue.

The marble beneath all their hooves cracked as a deep groan reverberated through the corridor. Bits of ceiling rained down, and several nearby paintings and tapestries fell from their hooks.

Slowly, the tremors died, allowing the ponies to regain their footing.

“What’re you tryin’ tah do, kill me?” Applejack wheezed as Rarity released her neck.

“Sorry, darling.” Rarity frowned, stepping around a pile of dust and debris. “It was not intentional, I assure you.”

“Wheee! Do it again! Do it again!” Pinkie cheered, still lying on her back. She kicked her legs in the air and giggled. “The whole castle felt like somepony hooked it up to one of Mrs. Cake’s toys. The ones that Pumpkin and Pound aren’t allowed to play with!”

“W-w-what was that?” Fluttershy whimpered as she slowly got to her hooves.

“I don’t know,” Twilight said slowly, staring down at the cracked floor with a worried look on her face, “but something tells me we should probably keep moving. The sooner we reach the Elements of Harmony, the sooner we can sort Luna and Princess Celestia out and the sooner we can work on fixing this entire mess.”

“Awww,” Pinkie pouted as she rolled upright.

“And you’re sure that the Elements will change the Princesses back?” Rarity asked as they began to run again.

Twilight remained silent, chewing on her bottom lip as she ran. Her eyes darted back and forth, and her brow furrowed as her thoughts raced. Eventually, she sighed before answering. “No, I’m not sure, but at the moment they’re our best bet for fixing whatever is going on. They haven’t let us down before.”

“Yeah, right,” Rainbow sneered, rolling her eyes, “because they were so helpful when we used them on the big guy.”

“They did their job, Rainbow,” Twilight said tensely. “I might not have liked the outcome, but they did what they were supposed to do. They removed the chaos magic from Max.”

“That’s fine and all, but can we even get tah them?” Applejack asked. “Last Ah checked, didn’t the Princess have spells on the Element’s door tah stop ponies gettin’ in? How are we supposed tah get past ‘em?”

“There are defensive spells, yes,” Twilight said with a nod. “However, Princess Celestia taught me the required counterspells the week after I became a princess, just in case we ever had to use them and she wasn’t around. I just never thought that such a situation would happen,” she finished, her ears splaying backwards.

“Well, thank goodness for that!” Pinkie cried. “If they hadn’t, Twilight wouldn’t be able to get the Elements, meaning we wouldn’t be able to use them, and then we’d be in big, big trouble!”

“Yeah… big trouble,” Twilight murmured. She glanced sideways out the windows that were rushing by, a troubled look crossing her face. Movement from one of the lower building’s windows caught her eye, and she slowed her pace.

A human flitted down the hallway of the other building, Twilight only able to catch glances of her as she passed in front of the windows. She was running in the opposite direction, a look of fear clear on her face even from this distance. The human glanced over her shoulder once before putting on a burst of speed, and becoming lost to view.

Twilight watched her disappear, a small frown crossing her muzzle.

“Twilight, watch out!”

“Huh?” Glancing around, Twilight blanched as she about ran face-first into a fallen pillar. Scrambling sideways, she almost toppled over, only being stopped at the last minute by Applejack nudging her with her shoulder.

Regaining her footing, she gave Applejack a weak smile. “Thanks, Applejack.”

“No problem, sugarcube,” Applejack smirked, before she took on a concerned look. “Are you okay? You seem a little outta it at the moment.”

“Yeah,” Twilight sighed. “I’m just… I’m just worried about Max, is all. We don’t know where he is, all this horrible stuff is happening, and, well… I just hope that where he is right now, he’s alright.”

“I’m sure he’s fine, darling,” Rarity said, giving Twilight a small smile. “I wouldn’t worry about him too much. He can take care of himself, after all.”

“Yeah, the big guy’s fine!” Rainbow chirped, flying by overhead. “He can handle the crazy stuff that’s happening. I mean, he’s faced down manticores, timberwolves, and even an infected human! Hay, he even fought and won five rounds in a human fighting ring!”

Twilight’s ears splayed back, and her eyes widened in alarm.

Rarity winced. “You probably shouldn’t have mentioned that last one, Rainbow.”

“Yeah,” Applejack agreed uneasily. “He was in pretty bad shape after that one.”

“Let’s just stop talking about it, okay!?” Twilight asked shrilly, one of her eyes twitching. “Let’s just get the Elements, fix Celestia and Luna so that they can fix the bigger problem, so I can go back to looking for—”

A massive lion’s paw smashed through the wall in front of the mare, causing dust and debris to rain down upon them, and causing all of them to scream. A deep groan echoed through the halls, the floor beneath their hooves vibrating as the paw grasped the edges of the new hole. With a loud ‘crack’, it tore off a large section of the wall with very little effort.

A red eye filled the hole, glancing around before zeroing in on the mares. The pupil shrunk before a deep chuckle came from outside. “I spy with my little eye, an apple, a diamond, and a looney pie!”

“Discord!” Twilight shouted, wings flaring.

The eye disappeared, and the mares barely had enough time to move before another hole was torn into the wall, this time by a massive eagle’s talon.

“I spy with my eyeball, a rainbow, a moth, and a know-it-all!” Discord continued with a merciless chuckle.

“Oh, I know, I know!” Pinkie cried as she dodged falling debris. “Applejack’s the apple. Applejack’s the apple! Right? Right?!”

Ignoring her, Discord tore off another chunk of the building, throwing it over his shoulder without a care in the world. It crashed into one of the lower buildings, destroying the roof and causing parts of the building to collapse.

“Discord!” Twilight shouted again, drawing the massive draconequus’ attention.

“Princess Sparkle, it’s been too long,” he purred, a large smirk exploding across his face. “You never visited me in the gardens. What kind of Princess of Friendship are you? Even your human paid me a couple of visits from time to time.”

“Enough!” Twilight snorted, stomping her hoof. “I should have known you were behind this. It reeks of your doing!”

“Why,” Discord chuckled, “whatever are you talking about, Princess?”

“Don't ya dare play dumb with us, Discord!” Applejack snorted, her nostrils flaring wide. She glared up at the draconequus. “We know yer the one behind all of this!”

Rainbow Dash nodded, flying over to hover beside Applejack. “Yeah! This has got your cloven hoofprints all over it!”

“Fine, you caught me red-handed,” Discord sneered, raising up his paw, which had turned a dark crimson color. As he did so, his tail wrapped around a tree, only to uproot it a second later. Lifting it to his mouth, he took a bite out of it as though the leaves were made of cotton candy. “But you can’t really blame me for this,” he said around a mouthful of cotton tree candy. “It’s really not my fault. After all, I didn’t pull the trigger… I simply provided the gun. And you ponies supplied the ammunition.”

“Shut it!” Twilight growled. “Release Princess Celestia and Luna from whatever spell you have them under this instant!”

Discord tossed the remaining tree over his shoulder before cocking his head to the side and bringing a claw up to his chin.

“Hmmm. How about no?” he hummed before suddenly bringing his paw crashing down upon them.

Twilight’s horn flared, and the six of them blinked out of existence a second before Discord’s paw had a chance to flatten them. They reappeared several meters down the hall in an explosion of light.

“Ho ho! What’s this? It appears the game is afoot,” Discord gasped. Suddenly, a weird red plaid hat adorned his head, large earflaps covering the sides of his face. Pulling a large, curved wooden horn out from under his arm, he placed it to his lips and blew a loud series of notes before shouting. “Tally-ho, chaps! Release the hounds!”

The sound of baying came from down the hall, and after a few seconds a trio of bloodhounds with Discord’s face came scampering around the corner.

“Run!” Twilight shouted.

“And here I thought he couldn’t get any more hideous,” Rarity gasped, staring at the Discord-bloodhounds in horror before turning and hurrying down the hall with the others.

“Twilight, which way?!” Rainbow cried as they neared a split in the corridor.

“Right!” Twilight panted, bring up the rear. “Take a right and up the stairs—YAH!” She yelped as one of the Dis-Hounds grabbed at her tail, pulling out a clump of hair in the process. Cocking a hind leg back, she bucked the dog in the head, causing it to tumble backwards with whine.

“Nark! Nark!” The other dog creatures barked as they continued the chase.

Twilight’s eye twitched. “I’m not a nark!”

Yipping happily, one of the Dis-Hounds leapt forward and sunk its teeth into her back leg. Letting out a scream of pain, Twilight lit up her horn and, craning her head around, blasted the dog in its face. It flew backwards with a squeal before exploding into a cloud of smoke.

Standing awkwardly on three legs with the injured one held in the air, Twilight turned and hit the other two dogs with the same spell, causing them to explode as well.

“Twilight!” Fluttershy cried, her eyes widening.

“I’m fine,” Twilight huffed even as blood streamed down her leg and dripped to the floor below. “I’m fine. It’s… it’s just a scratch.” She tried to put weight on it, only to grimace, the leg shaking horribly.

“Oh ho! What have we here?” A large chunk of wall fell away, revealing the grinning face of Discord. He smirked down at Twilight, his red eyes glowing with perverted mirth. “Well, the antlers won’t fetch me much, but the wings look like they could be used to stuff a couple of pillows. And the bust will look so nice mounted above my fireplace.”

As he reached for her, Twilight flapped her wings and took to the air, barely avoiding being snatched up by the giant paw.

“Oh, a feisty one!” Discord sneered. “I like feisty ones. They make the best jerky!”

“I’ll give you some jerky!” Rainbow growled, flying forward. Before she could get far, a rosy barrier sprang to life in front of her, blocking her path.

“No!” Twilight shouted, half limping, half flying down the hall. “Don’t try and fight him. Just run!”

Rainbow shot Discord one last glare before, with a growl, she reluctantly turned and followed quickly after her friends.

“That’s right, keep running,” Discord called after them. “It won’t do you any good though. Nobody can escape the hunt!”

“Why are you doing this?” Fluttershy cried, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I… I thought we were friends!”

“Friends?” Discord asked, tearing out another section of wall as the ponies ran past. “Don’t make me laugh! We were never friends, you naive little strumpet.”

“B-but, the tea parties… a-and the… the…”

“It’s called acting, yellow quiet!” Discord cackled. “The naivety of you ponies never ceases to amaze me. I wanted to be free, and the only way to accomplish that was to convince everyone that I was reformed. I can’t believe you all never realized it was all a ruse. Especially you, Twilight Narkle.”

“I’m not a nark!”

“S-so, all the time we spent together, everything we s-shared, it meant nothing to you?” Fluttershy mewled, glancing over her shoulder as she ran.

Discord pulled several parts of the roof off before pausing, his smile fading slightly. He adopted a thoughtful look. “Hmmm, I’ll tell you what—you let me squish you, and then I’ll let you know if I feel sad about it, okay?” Ripping up another tree, he placed it lengthwise down the hall and gave it a huge push, sending it rocketing down the hall towards the retreating ponies.

Twilight’s eyes widened as the tree trunk raced towards them like a speeding train, and her horn flared with magic. There was a loud ‘crack’, and the six mares disappeared just as the large wooden missile reached them.

They reappeared in an explosion of light, each yelping in surprise as they tumbled across the floor of the Elements’ room.

“Ugh, Ah think we left mah stomach behind,” Applejack groaned weakly.

“Wheee! Let’s go again!” Pinkie giggled, her eyes rolling about her head.

“Okay, yeah, that was great and all,” Rainbow grunted, pulling herself out from underneath Rarity and Fluttershy, “but why didn’t we just teleport to here in the first place?”

“Because,” Twilight panted, gasping for air, “it takes a lot of magic. I had to disable all the security spells, teleport all of us in, and then activate all the spells again. They won’t keep Discord out for long, but hopefully long enough.” Getting shakily to her hooves, she limped along on three hooves towards the ornate chest sitting atop a small pedestal.

“Twilight, your leg,” Fluttershy murmured as she got to her hooves.

“We can deal with it later,” Twilight grunted, wincing in pain. “We have to take care of Discord first.” Supporting herself with the pedestal, she opened the chest’s lid, revealing the Elements of Harmony.

Upon seeing the glittering jewelry, Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank Celestia. They’re still here.” Pulling the Element of Magic out and placing it upon her head, she did the same with the other Elements, tossing them to their respective owners. “Quick, put them on before Discord—GAH!”

The room rocked back and forth, causing Twilight to fall off the pedestal and onto her back. Luckily, everyone was able to put their Elements on before they too tumbled to the floor. The room shook again before, with a loud, grinding ‘crack’, the ceiling was ripped away like the roof being removed from a dollhouse. The hellish sky above was revealed, as well the grinning face of Discord.

“Well, this certainly brings back memories, doesn’t it?” he asked, a large grin spreading across his muzzle.

“Girls! Now!” Twilight shouted as she staggered to her hooves. The gem in her crown began to glow, and she was quickly lift into the air. Around her, the other Element Bearers followed suit, their necklaces pulsing with power. The crackle of electricity filled the air, and stray bolts of lightning dance around the room. Light began to leak from the Elements, consolidating into a single point just above all their heads. In one finally burst, the energy flew to Twilight’s horn before an explosion of color erupted force in a hurricane of power.

The rainbow beam flew through the air, heading straight for Discord. It bore down on him like a thunderbolt…

...only to pass through the empty space where his head used to be.

“W-what?” Twilight gasped before dropping to the ground. She collapsed with a whinny as her injured leg gave out.

“You didn’t really think that would work, did you?” Discord chuckled, his voice echoing around the room. “A telegraphed attack like that? Please! Anyone can see it coming a mile away.”

“It worked on you once,” Rainbow shouted, stomping her hoof.

“Indeed it did, I will give you that,” Discord hummed. “However, that was mostly due to me underestimating you six pains in the neck. That, my little ponies, won’t happen again.”

“What do we do now?” Applejack asked. She glanced around nervously, her ears splaying back.

“Unng, get to the rooftop,” Twilight groaned as Rarity and Fluttershy helped her up, supporting her between them. “It’ll give us more room to aim.”

“And if he dodges again?” Rainbow asked.

“Then we keep blasting him until we hit!” Twilight growled. “Unless you have a better idea?!”

Rainbow puffed out her cheeks and glanced away, but didn’t say anything.

“That’s what I thought,” Twilight panted. “Now, everypony hold on. Rarity, Fluttershy, you might have to help me stand after this.” Her horn began to glow, and before anyone could protest her use of magic, the Elements’ room disappeared in a flash of light.

They reappeared atop one of the palace’s rooftops, their hooves clacking against the shingles as they tried to find purchase. Wind pulled at their manes and coats, and Applejack had to grab onto her hat to stop it from blowing away.

“Damn,” Rainbow breathed, glancing wide-eyed around at the chaotic landscape around her.

“This isn’t like last time,” Pinkie murmured, her hair losing its poofiness. “Where’s the cotton candy clouds? Where’s the chocolate milk?” A shiver ran down her spine as a low, keening wail echoed around the castle, followed by another and then another. “This isn’t fun anymore.”

Twilight sagged suddenly, blood dribbling from her nostrils as she gasped in pain.

“Twilight!” Rarity shrieked.

“’M fine,” she slurred, even as the blood stained her lips. “Just used too much magic. I’m… I’m fine. Where’s Discord?”

“There he is,” Applejack said, pointing with a hoof.

The draconequus was no longer focused on them. He was crouched over one of the lower buildings, his attention drawn toward something else. Twilight could faintly see spellfire flying through the air only to wash over Discord with no visible effect.

“Now’s… now’s our chance,” she wheezed. “While he’s distracted. Let’s do this!”

“Right!” all her friends said at the same time, nodding their heads in unison. They moved to stand around her, Rarity and Fluttershy still supporting her weight.

As the familiar warmth began to slowly spread throughout her chest, a weak smile touched Twilight’s lips. She gave a sigh of relief as she was slowly lifted into the air, taking the weight off of her injured leg. It still hurt, a dull throb pulsing from the bite wound, but she was able to ignore it.

Around her, her friends floated as well, the gems in their necklaces taking on a faint glow that gradually increased in intensity. The light around the gems began to change color, each one taking on the familiar tone of their respective Bearer. Orange, pink, red, blue, purple; the colored light danced around the floating ponies, consolidating together around Twilight’s crown.

Discord remained oblivious to what was happening behind him, still crouched over the half-destroyed structure below.

The Element of Magic flashed white, and Twilight felt the gathered energy flow through her, warming her body and easing her pain. A ball of swirling rainbows gathered around the Bearers as all their eyes began to glow. Narrowing her eyes, Twilight aimed as best she could, focusing on the colossal target in front of her. He was right there, right in front of them. Statistically, she shouldn’t be able to miss.

Her eyes widened when Discord suddenly straightened up triumphantly, something clasped tight in his lion’s paw. He cackled madly, waving the paw back and forth before bringing it in front of his face. He started to turn around, and Twilight panicked. Before Discord had a chance to notice them, she double-checked her aim one last time. Satisfied, she quickly felt for the mental trigger in her mind and, with a loud gasp, pulled it with all her might.

A beam of rainbows exploded out of the center of the Bearers as the Elements of Harmony fired. The surrounding area was bathed in a prismatic wave of light as the blast raced towards Discord.

Twilight bit her lip, praying that he wouldn’t notice until it was too late. Luckily, even as the rainbow raced towards him, Discord remained distracted by the object in his grasp. Shaking it back and forth, he jeered loudly, although Twilight couldn’t understand him as his words were lost in the roar of the Elements. Her brow furrowed, her eyes narrowing. What does he have? It isn’t a pony, is it?

Discord shifted, and she was suddenly able to see exactly what it was that he was holding. Her breath caught in her throat, and her eyes widened. She tried to cancel the Elements of Harmony, but was unable to. She could only watch in horror as the rainbow beam slammed into Discord, consuming the draconequus in an explosion of light.

As the world around them went white, Twilight let out a soul-rending cry.

“No!”

As we traversed the halls, it soon became apparent that the architecture had taken a lot more damage than I had originally thought. I wasn’t sure if it was the constant shaking of the castle, the fighting, or whatever Discord was now doing, but getting through the halls was turning into something like an Olympic event. Fallen pillars, piles of rubble, collapsed arches littered the halls; it was a bloody obstacle course! It didn’t help that I had my armor on as well, the bulky attire slowing me down and preventing easy movement.

And to make matters worse, I was still feeling the effects of Primrose’s… feeding.

Clambering over another pile of debris, I paused and sagged against the cracked wall, trying to catch my breath. A bout of lightheadedness took me, the dizzying sensation causing me to wince as my stomach churned. The side of my neck throbbed gently, a constant reminder of the bite mark.

As the room slowly stopped spinning, I felt something nudge my knee. Cracking open an eye, I glanced down through my helmet’s porthole. One of the ponies—the male unicorn with white fur—was nudging me with his hoof, a concerned look on his face.

“<You okay, boy?>” he nickered. “<Come on, we have to keep going.>”

“You know… I still can’t… understand you,” I panted.

“<Terminal!>” the pegasus squawked, glancing over her shoulder. “<We can’t stay here. Get the Anomaly moving!>”

“<I’m working on it!>” the unicorn yelled at her before turning his gaze back to me. His eyes softened, and he waved a hoof at me, beckoning me along.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” I grunted, pushing myself off of the wall.

“Alpha, come,” Pyresteed said from further down the hall. “Come, fight.”

“I said I was coming,” I yelled as I staggered forward, heading towards her and the other waiting members of my entourage.

“<Terminal, I don’t see how the Anomaly is supposed to handle Discord when he’s clearly on his last leg,>” the pegasus nickered as we set off again. She flew through the air beside me, shooting me a strange look before glancing back at <Terminal>.

Hey, I’m starting to recognize some of their weird-ass horse words! I realized, chuckling weakly to myself. I had no clue what it meant, but I was fifty percent sure it was the white unicorn’s name… okay thirty-five percent sure… twenty…

Fuck it, I didn’t know if it was his name or not, but I had heard the same three clicks and a neigh every time a pony wanted to get his attention, so it had to be related to him in some way.

“<You would be tired too if you had that much blood taken from you,>” <Terminal> replied.

The pegasus clicked her tongue. “<Maybe, but that still doesn’t excuse the fact that he’s practically half-dead to the world!>”

“<It’s fine, Steelwing,>” <Terminal> snorted. “<I’m sure he has some kind of plan.>”

I paused briefly midstep, my brow furrowing. Why do I suddenly feel like someone has unrealistically high expectations of me?

“<I hope so,”> <Steelwing> huffed before lowering her head and zooming off down the hall as she scouted ahead. She disappeared around the corner, only for a loud squawk to echo back down the hall. “<Buck!>”

“<Steelwing!>” <Terminal> whinnied loudly, his eyes widening in alarm. His pace increased, and he galloped off, the other ponies following close behind me. The other humans and I brought up the rear.

As we rounded the corner, the source of the pegasus’ distress was revealed. A tree had come crashing through the wall, causing the floor to collapse, falling through several stories to where it now rested, far below. This left a huge gap between us and the rest of the hallway, leaving nothing but empty space between us and a good hundred foot drop.

“<Where the buck did this come from?!>” <Steelwing> growled, glaring at the misplaced tree. Oddly enough, there appeared to be a large bite taken out of the tree’s canopy.

“<I’ll give you three guesses as to where,>” one of the unicorns nickered, leaning carefully out and glancing through the gaping hole in the building. Discord was visible, tearing apart a different building with unabandoned glee.

I paused, my eyes narrowing as something about Discord caught my attention.

“Is… is that a hunting cap?” I muttered in disbelief.

The earth pony mare gave me a confused look before shaking her head and snorting. “<Forget about where it came from, how are we going to get across? It’d take too long to climb down the rubble and back up the other side.>”

“<I’ve got this,>” <Steelwing> huffed. Flying down, she looped her legs around the earth pony’s body, causing her to yelp as she was lifted into the air. <Steelwing> carried her across the gap carefully before setting her down on the other side of the tree, the foliage hiding them from view. After a few seconds, <Steelwing> reappeared, heading back over to grab her next passengers.

“This take too long,” Psy growled. Hefting his hammer unto his shoulder, he took several steps back before, with a running leap, he launched himself across the gap. He disappeared into the foliage, branches and leaves flying everywhere as he tore through the canopy. There was a brief pause before a loud yelp came from the other side. “<What the—? Where the buck did you come from?!>”

“<What the buck was that?>” <Steelwing> breathed, staring wide-eyed at the hole that Psy created leaves.

Kerk grunted softly before following after Psy, leaping across the hole with little effort. Jane glanced expectantly at me, and I shook my head.

“Don’t look at me,” I said. “I can’t make that jump. I’m not even going to try.”

She just blinked before her gaze drifted to something behind me. I didn’t have any time to turn before something grabbed me and lifted me off my feet.

“Go, yes?” I heard Tarzan ask.

“Yes!” Jane chirped, nodding energetically.

“W-what? Wait, no!” I shouted as he carried me bodily to the edge of the gap. I heard several of the ponies nickering in alarm, but Tarzan ignored them. “No, let’s talk about this! There’s got to be another way across! I don’t like where this is goin—GAH!” I flailed helplessly as Tarzan heaved me across the hole and into the foliage of the tree. Leaves and branches smacked my helmet as I ripped through them. Unable to see and unable to aim, I prayed that I would make it to the other side.

Halfway through the branches, a particularly large one caught one of my shins, causing me to flip. I burst out of the leaves and landed hard on my back. My momentum caused me to roll across the floor until I crashed into a wall with a loud ‘crack’. The impact left me dazed, and I just laid there, staring up at the ceiling.

After a few seconds, a pony head appeared above me. “<Are you okay, sir?>”

“Did anybody catch the number on that bus?” I slurred. Rolling about, I staggered shakily to my feet. Psy was standing off to the side, staring at me with a neutral look on his face, as was Kerk.

The guard watched me for a few seconds before turning and calling back through the tree’s foliage, “<Anomaly made it across!>” The sound of affirmation came from the other side. The mare turned her attention back to me, only to yelp a second later as both Jane and Tarzan suddenly burst through the leaves, alighting softly on the marble. She glared at them before snorting and stalking off down the hall, grumbling to herself. “<Bucking humans, leaping around like bucking lemurs and shit. Scaring mares half to death. Ain’t right.>”

“I don’t like it when you pick me up,” I growled, shooting Tarzan a glare as I rubbed my now bruised shoulder. “It’s never fun.”

“Alpha weak,” Psy snorted.

Tarzan gave me a confused look. “Alpha across, yes?”

“Alpha not a football, yes?” I snarked. “No more picking me up, and definitely no more throwing me around. Got it?” He nodded, and I went back to rubbing my shoulder. The sound of flapping wings reached my ears and I turned around. <Steelwing> fluttered through the gap in the foliage, carrying <Terminal> with her. He looked pretty uncomfortable with the situation, his eyes darting nervously to the pile of rubble far below.

He didn’t relax until he had all four hooves on the ground.

“<Ugh, I’m so glad I’m not a pegasus,>” he grunted.

“<What’s the matter, Lance? Not a cloudhopper?>” <Steelwing> smirked.

“<My parents were earth ponies, thank you,>” <Terminal> nickered. “<I enjoy having hooves firmly on the ground.>”

“Getting real sick of this,” I grumbled, looking back and forth between the two of them. “What the fuck are you two saying?!”

<Terminal> gave me a confused look before shaking his head and closing his eyes. It was only then that I noticed his horn was glowing softly. A look of concentration crossed his face, the light growing brighter until, with a ‘crack’, the other two unicorns appeared out of thin air.

Turning to Tarzan, I hooked a thumb back at the unicorns. “See that? That’s a lot easier than you tossing me about like a rag doll.”

He snorted but said nothing.

“<Alright, we’re all across,>” <Terminal> snorted, cracking his neck. “<Now, where’s Earthen?>” A shout came from further down the hall, and upon glancing around, I saw the earth pony peeking around from around the corner.

“<Oi, Lance!>” she whinnied. “<The rest of the hallway is mostly clear! We’ve got a clean shot to the stairs!>” <Terminal> nodded and started forward, the other ponies accompanying him.

“I guess we follow them,” I muttered.

Psy huffed before stalking off down the hall as well.

The corridor was fairly clear of debris, the biggest being a pillar that had fallen parallel to the wall. Even the windows weren’t broken, although one of them was cracked. A curving stairway rested at the far end, as did an archway running underneath it that lead deeper into the castle.

Reaching the stairs, I had just started up them when a loud nicker came from behind me. I glanced around, only to find the ponies were headed through the archway instead.

“<Where do you think you’re going?>” <Terminal> asked, giving me a confused look. He pointed a hoof through the archway. “<The courtyard is this way. You know? Courtyard? Where Discord is?>” When I continued to stare at him blankly, he growled and shook his head. “<Really wish I had learned hoof-language now.>”

“<Hang on a second. Let me try something,>” the earth pony neighed, stepping forward. She glanced up at me, before signing, ~Where go?~

“<You know hoof-language?>” <Steelwing> snorted, raising an eyebrow.

“<Not a lot,>” the earth pony replied. “<Only a few basic words. Nothing more.>”

I waited until she turned back to me before replying.

~Up~ I signed before pointing towards the ceiling. This caused her to snort loudly and shake her head. She didn’t need to translate for the others, the gesture being enough to get the message across, and their responses were the same as hers.

“<Why in Tartarus is he going upstairs?>” <Steelwing> grunted, fluttering her wings. “<There’s nothing up there but some spare offices!>”

“<It’s not our place to question it,>” <Terminal> sighed. “<Night Light ordered us to protect the Anomaly, nothing more.>”

<Steelwing> grunted, but didn’t say anything else. Instead, she and the earth pony quickly climbed the steps, getting in front of me and the other humans. <Steelwing> motioned for me to follow her.

I shrugged before continuing up the stairs. The staircase turned halfway up, heading back in the other direction. The landing had several large, stained-glass windows adorning its walls, and I paused to glance out of one of them. Through the colored glass, I saw that there was a small drop to a roof below. As I was watching, Discord’s tail whipped by outside.

Hang on a second… this… this might work, I mused, eyes narrowing. Ignoring the ponies climbing the second half of the stairs, I stepped towards the windows instead. I ran a hand over a particularly large piece of red glass. Satisfied with it, I pulled back and drove my gauntleted fist through the glass, shattering the window instantly.

As the large shards of glass fell to the floor with a loud clatter, several yelps came from behind me. “<What the buck are you doing?>” Ignoring the ponies nickering behind me, I knocked a few remaining pieces of glass out of the frame before stepping through.

The wind pushed against me as I stepped out onto the roof. Several shingles came loose under my weight, but I managed to stay standing. My human companions stepped through the broken window as well, their bare feet finding better purchase on the shingles than my boots.

“<Are you bucking serious? What the buck is he doing?>” <Steelwing> squawked as she peered through the broken window.

“<Night Light owes me big for this,>” <Terminal> grunted, pulling himself carefully through the window and onto the roof.

Pyresteed carefully walked up to me and pointed. “Alpha, look.”

“I see him,” I muttered weakly.

Discord was currently wrapped around a nearby tower. The roof was ripped off, and he had his head stuck inside the tower. As I watched, he quickly pulled his head back impossibly far just as a beam of rainbows flashed through the air.

“<The Elements of Harmony,>” <Terminal> breathed as he moved to stand beside me, his eyes wide.

“You didn’t really think that would work, did you?” Discord suddenly chuckled, still hanging off the tower. “A telegraphed attack like that? Please! Anyone can see it coming a mile away.” He paused, an ear twitching before he continued. “Indeed it did, I will give you that. However, that was mostly due to me underestimating you six pains in the neck. That, my little ponies, won’t happen again.”

“‘You six’?” I muttered before my eyes widened. “Twilight!”

Discord chuckled again, and his tail began to move. Repositioning itself around the base of the tower, it began to constrict, the masonry beneath it cracking and crumbling, making the tower more and more unstable.

Not caring that I could somehow understand what Discord was saying, nor caring that I didn’t really have a plan, I stepped forward, raised my right hand, and snapped my fingers. Fire erupted around my hand and, pulling my arm back, I threw it at Discord with all my might.

“Discord!” I howled as a large fireball sailed through the air, the prismatic flames taking on an eerie appearance beneath the blood-red moon high above. It slammed into the side of his head, the fire splashing across his face, singing his fur. His grip on the tower slipped, and he fell backwards, arms flailing comically through the air. After a few seconds he righted himself and glanced around in confusion.

Then his gaze landed on me.

“You!” The comedic bewilderment instantly left his face, replaced instead by a look of cold fury. Unraveling himself from the tower, he flared his mismatched wings before launching himself into the sky.

“<Lance,>” <Steelwing> gulped. Her eyes were wide as she watched Discord slither through the air towards us. “<I suddenly understand why the Anomaly’s guards failed their assignment.>”

“<Yeah, I’m kind of figuring that as well,>” <Terminal> nickered. His horn began to glow, as did the other unicorns’, magic crackling down their lengths. “<Doesn’t matter though. We have a job to do.>”

The ponies seemed nervous, and I couldn’t really blame them. As Discord got nearer, I suddenly realized how big he was and, needless to say, I was beginning to have second thoughts.

“So, how much experience points do you think this will get me?” I asked Pyresteed, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice. I had his attention, but I had no fucking clue how I was going to take him down. My plan so far consisted of the following: step one—shoot fireball, step two—get his attention, step three—???, and step four—profit.

She gave me a confused look before chirping. “Alpha, fight.”

“Yes, but how?”

“Alpha strong. Can beat!”

“Yes… but how?!” I growled.

She blinked once before opening her mouth, but it was too late.

A pair of mismatched paws smashed down on either side of us, destroying the roof and sending shingles raining to the ground far below. The impact nearly caused me to topple over as the roof shook beneath me, and I struggled to remain upright. The ponies had it a lot worse, what with their hooves, and the earth pony nearly slid off the roof completely, only being saved at the last moment by <Steelwing>.

Discord sneered down at me, his lips pulling back to reveal yellowed, crooked fangs.

“You,” he growled, his red eyes narrowing. “It’s always you, isn’t it? I’m beginning to understand how Celestia feels when dealing with me. I would ask how you managed to escape, but I’m beyond caring at this point.”

“It’s okay, I wasn’t going to tell you anyways,” I said, sounding more confident than I was. Truthfully, it was taking everything I had to simply not stutter.

“Why?” Discord growled. “Why are you constantly against me? We should want the same thing, and be working together on the same side. I brought you here to help me, but instead you side with the blasted ponies! Why? Why?! Why are you ruining my symphony of catastrophe? Look around you, boy!” He shouted, leaning back and motioning around at the world that was slowly being torn apart. “This is what the ponies deserve! This is poetic justice! Are you so stupid—so blind—that you can’t understand that? Can you not see?!”

Beside me, <Terminal> nickered something, glaring up at Discord.

“I’m gonna be honest here,” I said, glancing around at the floating islands. “I’m not a big fan of it. It’s a bit too terrifying for my taste.”

“You insolent, little bastard!” Discord snarled. Ripping his paw free from the roof, he lunged for me.

<Terminal> whinnied loudly, and the unicorns suddenly released a salvo of spellfire. The spells struck Discord’s paw, causing him to hiss and flinch back, parts of his fur now singed. Still, this barely slowed him down. Growling, he swatted the ponies away with a flick of his wrist. They tumbled across the rooftop, several smashing through the stained-glass windows in an explosion of colored glass shards. <Terminal> struck the side of the building and rolled, his limp body sliding down the roof and out into space.

“<Lance!>” <Steelwing> yelped, diving off the roof to save him.

Ignoring the pegasus, Discord gave his paw a shake before reaching for me again. “Come to Dissy!”

Psy stepped forward and swung his hammer around, only to have Discord flick it effortlessly away. Before Psy had a chance to recover, Discord picked him up and threw him over his shoulder. He flew through the air before landing in a tree far below.

“No more distractions!” Discord sneered, lunging for me again. I tried to dodge, but was ultimately too slow. The massive paw wrapped around me, hauling me violently into the air. I gasped as the air was crushed from my lungs, the pressure he was putting on my armor causing it to creak and groan.

“Alpha!” Pyresteed shouted from somewhere below.

Cackling madly, Discord began to shake me around like a maraca. The force was enough to send my helmet flying off. I wasn’t sure where it went though, the world spinning as my eyes rolled in my head. My stomach voiced its displeasure at the sensation, and I gagged.

The shaking eventually stopped, and a large pair of red eyes suddenly filled my vision.

“Got you, you little bastard,” Discord said gleefully, “and unlike last time, I’m not just going to stick you in a hole in the ground and hope for the best. Oh no, this time I have power and I’m going to use it. Oh, but what to do with you?” he asked, giving me another shake. “Teleport you to the top of a tall, frozen mountain? No, that wouldn’t be satisfying. Oh, how about I turn you to stone? No, no… you’d probably figure out a way to get free. Heaven knows that I did. Hmmm, what to do, what to do?” He hummed, tugging at his goatee thoughtfully. Slowly, his eyes began to drift towards the tower he had been wrapped around earlier. His eyes lit up, a large, creepy grin spreading across his face.

“Oh, I know!” he cooed, slowly turning back to smirk down at me. “Oh, yes. This is going to be so much fun. It’s kind of funny too? Last time I turned her friends against her.” His grin continued to grow until it threatened to split his head in half. “This time—” his grip around me tightened, causing me to gasp in pain “—this time, I’ll turn the object of her affection against her instead. Oh, this is brilliant!” He cackled. “I can see it now: the despair on her face as her heart’s desire rips her heart from her chest. Delicious!”

“Not… gonna… happen,” I grunt, struggling in his grasp. After a few seconds of wiggling about, I managed to pull my arm free, and with it, the knife Avera had given me. Flipping it around quickly, I plunged it into Discord’s paw.

He paused and glanced down at the knife before giving me a deadpan look. “Seriously?”

I stared down at the knife as well. It had barely broken the skin. Pulling it free, I stabbed him again, only to be met with the same results. Undeterred, I just started stabbing him a bunch of times.

“Stop it,” he grunted. “That’s annoying.” He gave his paw a quick shake, which caused the knife to fly from my hand. We both watched as it tumbled through the air and disappeared into the gloom below.

Discord glanced back up at me and cocked an eyebrow. “That was your plan?”

“No,” I huffed. “That wasn’t my plan. That was a… distraction.”

“A distraction?” He scoffed. “You know what? Never mind, I don’t care. Just hold still. I need to mess around with your mind for a second.” Holding me up, he extended a claw towards my head. I quickly lifted up my hand to protect myself, only to have the claw slice into my gauntlet.

I screamed in pain as he pulled his claw free, taking the gauntlet with it in a shower of blood.

“Whoops! Well, that’s what you get for being stupid,” Discord tsked. “You can’t really blame me for that; you brought that on yourself. Now, for the last time, hold still. I don’t want to damage you further before I can sic you on Twit-light Narkle, but I’m not above breaking my toys.”

He moved to touch my head again, and again I lifted my bloody hand to stop him, but he knocked it away with his claw. With that, he moved the claw to my forehead.

“Remember,” he growled as his eyes began to glow a sickly yellow, “make it slow, and make… her… scream.”

I could do nothing but look on in horror as he lowered the claw, the glowing tip inching closer and closer to my face. Trying to grab it with my hand only resulted in the appendage slipping through my bloody grasp. I could feel the heat emanating from talon as it pressed against my forehead—

A wall of rainbows slammed into us like a freight train, engulfing both Discord and I in a whirlwind of prismatic light. A loud roaring filled my ears, muffling Discord’s screams as the rainbow tore into him. It swirled around his body, ensnaring his body like chains. His grip around me tightened to almost unbearable levels before suddenly vanishing. I felt myself plummet through the air even as the rainbow blaze around us slowly grew to blinding intensity. I didn’t even have a chance to scream before the world was consumed in white light...

White.

That’s all that the world consisted of.

It wasn’t even a pure white either; it was tinted light blue in some places, dark blue in others. It wasn’t uniform, and seemed to shift about so that no place was the same hue for more than a few seconds. White specks floated through the air, flickering in and out of existence seemingly at random.

I glanced around in confusion, unsure of how I wound up in this place. There seemed to be nothing here, the place seeming to stretch on forever, yet it also felt like it was closing in on me. I reached out a hand, half expecting to touch a wall or something, only to have it pass through the air effortlessly. The sudden movement caused the air to stir, and I was suddenly aware of a mist that hung about the ground. It was so thick that it hid my feet from view when I glanced down, my legs disappearing into the swirling white fog.

Glancing down also brought to my attention the fact that I was no longer wearing my armor. I was in regular clothing, and appeared to be unscathed. My previous injuries and scars were gone, and as I raised my hands, I realized that I could see out of my right eye again.

I stared down at myself for a good while, opening and closing my right eye experimentally, unused to it being functional. Ultimately, I closed it and kept it closed. I had become so used to it being blind that it felt unnatural to see out of it again.

It was then that a noise reached my ears through the mist that surrounded me: a soft thumping of something that, as I listened, seemed to grow louder. Footsteps, but unnatural in sound.

Click-thump. Click-thump. Click-thump.

Slowly, the mist parted, and out of the nothingness a familiar figure loomed.

I took a step back, my eye widening.

“Nice job, hero,” Discord growled as he slowly emerged from the mist. “Are you happy with yourself? Are you satisfied with what you’ve done? With what you’ve ruined!?” His tail thrashed back and forth angrily, stirring the mist around him. He was a lot smaller than he had been, only standing about eight feet high now. He even seemed to be shrinking as he drew nearer, but his anger stayed the same.

I raised my fists and stood my ground.

“Do you know how long I’ve been planning this?” he snarled as he stalked up to me. “Do you have any idea how many years of planning, scheming, and preparation I had to go through in order to get everything in place? Then you just come bumbling in and turn everything upside down! Why the hell couldn’t you have just done as you were told?!” he finished with a roar, thrusting his face in front of mine. “Why couldn’t you have been a good pawn, just like the rest?”

I said nothing, glaring up at him in silence.

He stayed that way for several seconds, his nose pressed against mine as he growled softly. Suddenly, he winced. With a grunt of pain, he staggered backwards, clutching at his head. Steam began to waft off of his body.

“I just need to… just, no… No, I… wait… not yet,” he snarled. The steam increased, practically billowing off his limbs as his body began to simmer and morph. His appendages began to quiver and shrink, and I had to step back again as the muscles beneath his fur began to ripple like water. There were several loud cracks as his knees inverted. Scales and feathers began to fall from his body, disappearing into the mist below. He thrashed about, his entire form still shrinking further until he was almost the same height as me.

There was one final crack, followed by an eruption of steam that completely hid his body from view. The obstructive cloud began to disperse, and as it did so, I felt my eye widen and my jaw drop.

A human now stood before me. His face was wrinkled with age, his gray hair streaked with flecks of white. Even his beard had patches of white throughout it. His eyebrows were bushy, sticking out over a pair of deep blue eyes. He had a dark green turtleneck on beneath a long lab coat. A pair of full-moon glasses rested upon the tip of his crooked nose, the glass within tinted red. He pushed them up as he composed himself.

“That’s better,” he muttered in Discord’s voice. Reaching up, he brushed off his coat before glancing around at me. “Ah, yes. That’s right… you. Hmmm, let’s start over, shall we?” He turned and, with a flourish, gave a small bow.

“My name,” he said formally as he straightened up, “is Doctor Paul Taylor Riddick, Sc.D. And with whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”

“What?” I breathed, my eye widening as I stared at this new human in bewilderment.

After a moment, he sighed and shook his head.

“Come, come, young man. It’s common courtesy,” he chided softly. “It’s a called an introduction. I gave you my name, now let’s hear yours.”

I continued to eye him for a few more seconds before saying simply, “Max.”

This caused his eye to twitch, his face contorting with rage.

“Your full name, boy!” he barked, before adding in a calmer tone, “if you’d please.”

At the sudden shout, I had jumped and taken another step back. Glaring at him, I huffed softly before answering. “Maximilian Zane Williams.”

“There,” the human—Paul—said with a smirk, “that wasn’t so hard, was it, Mr. Williams?”

“Fuck off,” I grunted, flipping him the bird.

This caused him to frown, his eyes becoming hooded. “So uncivilized. Although, I guess it’s to be expected… from you.”

“So are you Paul or Discord?” I asked, ignoring the insult.

He opened his mouth to reply, only to pause a moment. A thoughtful look crossed his face as he mulled the question over.

“Yes,” he said eventually.

I raised an eyebrow. “Yes to Paul, or yes to Discord?”

“Yes,” he said again, this time with a smirk.

I snorted in annoyance before glancing around. Despite Paul showing up, nothing else seemed to have changed. We were still alone, just two humans lost in an endless sea of swirling mist. White specks floated by, flickering in and out of existence.

“Where are we?” I muttered under my breath. Turning back to Paul, I glared at him as I repeated myself. “Where are we? What did you do?”

“Me?” he asked incredulously, placing a bony hand on his chest. “Oh no, don’t blame me, Mr. Williams. This isn’t my doing. I’m innocent here. You can thank your friends—the ponies—for our current predicament. As it is with most of the things they do, we’re the ones who must now suffer the consequences.”

I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant, only to blink in surprise when I was suddenly faced with empty space. He had been standing in front of me one second; the next, he was gone.

“What the fuck?” I muttered as I glanced around, searching for him. “Where the hell did you—”

“I don’t understand you, Mr. Williams.”

I yelped in surprise as he spoke from behind me. Whipping around, I saw that he was pacing about slowly, all while giving me a curious look.

“The fuck?” I gasped, placing a hand over my thundering heart.

“You, who has seen the worst side of Equestria firsthand,” he continued, pushing his glasses up his nose again. “I don’t understand. You arrive and are plucked from the desert by a pony who not only enjoys forcing humans to fight each other to the death, but also takes sadistic joy in torturing his own kind. Two weeks you are kept in deplorable conditions, only to be sold like some common household pet. Then, after you arrive in Ponyville, you are almost molested by several different mares, treated as an animal by all who come across you, and are fought over as a sex object.

“Then,” he continues, suddenly off to my right with his back to me. He glances over his shoulder, an eyebrow raised, “you are kidnapped and forced to fight within a pit for the entertainment of ponies. Something which nearly cost you your life, I might add.”

“Gee, I wonder whose fault it is that I got pulled here in the first place,” I snarked, giving him a pointed look.

“And despite all these hardships,” he said, speaking over me, “you don’t seem to blame the ponies for these slights against you.” He began to slowly circle me, rubbing his hands together absentmindedly. “In fact, you consider some of them your friends. You begin a relationship with one. You even sided with them over your own species. Your own kind. Why? Why are you so loyal to them? What have they done to win your undying loyalty? Do you even know?”

“Nothing,” I replied, turning in order to keep him in sight of my left eye. “I help them because I choose to help them. It’s my choice, my decision, done of my own free will.”

“And that’s what I don’t get,” Paul said, suddenly right in my face. He was so close that I could see myself reflected in his glasses.

I flinched but didn’t back down, glaring back at him. “I didn’t side with anyone. I’m trying to help both sides, human and pony. They can live together peacefully, helping one another.”

“Impossible,” Paul sighed, stepping back and beginning to pace again. “Impossible, and that’s not a word I throw about casually.”

“What about you, huh?” I asked. “You seem rather dead-set that ponies are evil and need to die. What the hell did they do to you, hmmm?”

“Oh no, they aren’t evil,” he tsked. “At least, not in the strictest sense of the word. As for what they did to me, that’s a long story.”

“We’ve got time,” I deadpanned, spreading my arms and motioning to the swirling mist around us.

He paused in his circling and cocked his head to the side.

“I suppose we do,” he muttered before starting to circle again. “Very well, Mr. Williams. My story. I guess it starts as most stories do: at the beginning, and with an idea.

“Skipping over my birth and adolescence, I was a member of a select group of scientists that were working on a top secret government project during the Cold War. The project was codenamed ‘Project Recall’. Its main focus was, at its core, to find a way to control and harness temporal forces.”

“Temporal… wait, you mean time travel?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Precisely,” he said, pointing at me. “We were trying to tap into the power of—as you put it—time travel so as to be able to use it on the war front. Think of all the good that could have been achieved with such power. History changed, lives saved, outcomes rewritten. We could have stopped Ivan before he was able to start spreading his communistic ways across the world. Stopped his plans before they were able to be put into effect. There wouldn’t have been a Cold War; Ivan wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

“But, time travel,” I said with a laugh. “I mean, really? Come on! That’s a myth!”

“It wasn’t our first idea, I assure you,” Paul said, suddenly popping into existence several meters away from me. “Many of my colleagues ignored the theoretical and focused mainly on improving weapons that were already invented. Bombs, missiles, flamethrowers, machine guns, tanks, napalm. That’s where most of the money went. However, someone higher up must have liked the idea enough, because the project was given the green light just days after it was first suggested.”

“So you were basically wasting taxpayers’ money on a project you didn’t even think would work?”

“Yes,” he said before pausing. “Well, not quite.”

“So you did believe that it was possible?”

“Yes, I was one of the few believers in our group,” he sighed. “I had to be, considering that I was the head of the project. Besides, it wasn’t like we were going in blind. We had the previous project’s notes as well, so we had some foundation to build on.”

“Previous project?”

“Yes. Project Recall wasn’t the U.S’s first forays into time travel. Back in the 1940’s, the destroyer escort, the USS Eldridge, managed—accidentally, mind you—to travel back in time during one of their tests of an experimental device that would render the ship invisible to enemy devices. Granted, they supposedly only managed to go back about ten minutes, but that fact alone was the basis for our project.” He trailed off, his brow furrowing as he glanced down at his hands.

“This history lesson is great and all,” I said, snapping him out of his daze, “but what does it have to do with you trying to bring destruction down on the pony race?”

He stared at me blankly for a few seconds before a frown crossed his face. “I’m getting to that, Mr. Williams. Patience. Project Recall started out strong enough, and we had high hopes for what was to come. However, within a few months things began to go downhill fast and we were hit with setback after setback. Eventually, our backers pulled our funding, and the project was about to be scrapped.”

“So… you never got the theoretical time machine working?” I asked as I rubbed my temples. I could feel a headache coming on as I tried to figure out what Paul was getting at with his story.

“I, sadly, can’t tell you that because we were never able to actually finish the device,” Paul sighed, clasping his hands together. “We were close though, but time was not on our side. Nor was fate, apparently.” He slowly walked up and stood in front of me, staring at me over his red-tinted glasses. “I decided to stay late one night in order to work on the machine—a last-ditch effort to get it working and save the project. We needed the machine completely operational by morning, or we were done. I had just turned on the generators for a quick test run, but something… something went wrong. I’m not sure if it was a crossed wire, the machine’s mechanisms overheating, or some outside influence, but just as I pulled the lever, an explosion consumed the room and me with it. The shockwave knocked me out, and the world went white.”

“I think I can guess what happened next,” I muttered.

“You’d be correct in your assumption.” Paul nodded. “When I awoke, I was here, in Equestria, with half my lab along from the ride. It ended up embedded inside of a mountain, with me trapped inside. It took three days for me to blast myself out using various explosives strewn throughout the wrecked laboratory, but I managed to do it. Just before my oxygen ran out, too. Unsure of where I was at the time, I ended up wandering aimlessly through the wilderness for the better part of a day.” He paused, his face darkening. “That’s… when she found me.”

“Celestia,” I breathed.

“Yes, Mr. Williams,” he growled. “Celestia. Now, I won’t go into too much detail about our initial encounter. We did have a bit of a communication barrier, but when we were finally able to understand one another, she was rather curious as to what I was.” He paused, running his tongue slowly over his lips before shaking his head. “I should have known then that things wouldn’t end well, but in my naivety and exhaustion, I remained blind to the signs.

“She must have determined that I wasn’t a particularly worrisome threat, because she took me back to her palace, the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters in what is now the Everfree Forest,” he continued. “It was there that everything went to Hell in a handbasket. Don’t get me wrong, Celestia was kind enough—as was her sister when she introduced us—but she didn’t treat me as an equal. She instead treated me more like an exotic pet than a sapient creature, something that she could show off to the nobles to make them ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’. She acted more like a teenager whose parents had just bought her a new puppy than a princess dealing with a new species.”

“And that’s what caused you to go crazy?” I ask incredulously.

“No, it wasn’t,” Paul huffed before glaring at me, “and don’t call me crazy. No, Celestia treating me like a pet wasn’t the problem, although it was a bit of an annoyance. No, the real problem—the first domino falling—came from one of the nobles. They were interested in me as well, but not in the same way as Celestia. One of the younger ones—a bullheaded unicorn whose name I have chosen to forget—decided that it would be good sport to pit himself against said unknown creature in order to prove his worth. Unprovoked, he attacked me, and I defended myself. I did so a bit too well, it seems, as I ended up killing the unicorn. This, of course, caused Celestia to freak out.

“My wounds had barely begun to scab over when she had me locked in the dungeons. I tried to explain the situation to her, I tried to make her see that what had happened had been an accident, but she wouldn’t listen. I was ‘too chaotic’ for her.” He rolled his eyes. “I was too chaotic when her own ponies could get away with murder with nothing more than a slap on the wrist. They had their two alicorn goddesses to protect them from reprisal; I had no one.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, Celestia came to the narrow-minded conclusion that my ‘chaotic tendencies’—” he made air quotes with his fingers “—was due to what I was. So, she decided that in order for me to become more ‘civilized’, she needed to show me the power of harmony. Just take a second to think about that one,” he laughed, though there was no joy in it. “One of her ponies attacks me, and I’m the one that’s in the wrong. Unacceptable.

“I tried to talk her out of it, but she had made up her mind. I told her I refused, but she didn’t listen. In the middle of the night, when everyone else was asleep and unaware of what was going on, she had her little pet Star Swirl cast a spell on me that was supposed to turn me into a pony; to bring me into harmony.”

“Wait…” I said slowly, my eye narrowing. “‘Supposed to’?”

“It didn’t work!” Paul said with a lopsided grin. “Rather, I should say that it didn’t work as intended. Star Swirl managed to turn me into a pony, yes, but the transformation only lasted about ten minutes. Then I suddenly—and painfully—turned back into a human. At the time, although I was angry and in pain, I was also thankful. I was still human; I was still me. I had somehow denied Celestia her xenophobic plan. I had thought it was over…

“I was wrong.” He trailed off, his eyes becoming unfocused as he gazed off into the distance.

I watched him curiously for a few seconds before rolling my eyes. The old geezer appeared to be lost in the past. Opening my mouth to shout at him and snap him out of his daze, the words had just started to form when, with a flicker, something large appeared in front of me. I didn’t get a good look at it; it was there for but a second before disappearing again, but I what I saw was enough to cause me to jump.

It was huge, standing so much taller than I was that it practically filled my vision as it loomed over me, a pair of wings spread wide. It was out of focus, almost like it wasn’t really there. Its body flickered and distorted, reminding me of an old television whose antennas were crooked. It flickered in and out of sight for a brief moment before it disappeared completely.

I placed a hand on my chest, my heart threatening to break out of my ribs at any second. Spinning in a small circle, I tried to find any trace of the presence, but there was nothing. Not even the mist appeared to have been disturbed.

Breathing heavily, I turned my attention back to Paul, who was eyeing me expectantly.

“W-what?” I asked.

“I asked you a question, Mr. Williams. It’s usually considered courteous to answer,” he said, tsking softly.

“Sorry. I was… distracted.”

“Youths these days,” he sighed, shaking his head. “Very well, I shall repeat myself. You, much like myself, probably came to this world thinking that magic was fake, right? That’s one of the bigger differences between Earth and Equestria, correct? The presence of magic?” I nodded dumbly, and he grinned. “Exactly. But, what if I told you that that wasn’t true? Earth, despite what we might think, does indeed have magic.” He raised his hands, sickly yellow sparks dancing between his bony fingers. “Chaos magic.”

I gave him an incredulous look before laughing. “I’d say dementia seems to have set in, gramps.”

“But it’s true,” Paul said, lowering his hands and beginning to pace back and forth. “Think about it: here in Equestria there’s Harmonious magic, right? Pegasi control the weather, earth ponies control the plants, ponies help convert winter to spring, and so on and so forth. The Princesses even move the sun and moon across the skies.” I scoffed at that, but he ignored me. “With that in mind, where’s the one place that is not under the control of ponies? The one place that is left to its own devices?”

It took me a second to realize what he was talking about. “The Everfree Forest?”

“Yes,” he said, nodding happily. “Very good, Mr. Williams, the Everfree Forest. A place that is filled with Chaos magic, by yours truly, I might add. Now, what happens in the Everfree? Plants thrive without pony intervention, the animals tend to themselves, and the weather is nigh unpredictable. Doesn’t that sound oddly familiar?” he asked, giving me a pointed look. “Doesn’t that sound remarkably like Earth?”

“An odd coincidence doesn’t mean that there’s magic on Earth,” I huffed, crossing my arms. “Besides, if there was indeed Chaos magic on Earth, why don’t we have timberwolves, manticores, hydras, and other weird creatures running around?”

Paul smirked. “Because Earth lacks one basic thing those creatures need in order to exist.”

“Logic?”

“Harmonious magic,” Paul said. “There is none on Earth, but here it’s abundant. Harmonious magic mixed with Chaos magic can lead to… interesting results.” He motioned back and forth between us. “You and I are prime examples of this.”

My eye narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” he said with a smirk. “As I said, I was wrong when I said that Star Swirl’s spell didn’t work. It did, in fact, work. Just not as intended. It didn’t turn me into a pony. It turned me into something else entirely.”

“A psychopath?”

“A god!” he cried, arms thrown out wide. “It didn’t show right away. Somehow Luna managed to convince Celestia to let me go. I spent the next few days hiding from her, sleeping during the day and hanging around Luna during the night. She seemed to sympathize with my plight of not being liked, and I used this to my advantage. Things returned to normal—or as normal as things could be in a magical world full of talking ponies—and I began working on trying to figure out how to get back home. Then, it happened.

“I woke up to find that my left hand morphed into an eagle-like claw. Celestia was elated to find out, believing that the reason Star Swirl’s spell hadn’t worked was because I wasn’t meant to be a pony, but a griffon instead. She was wrong. I cornered Star Swirl and tried to force her to stop the spell, but there was nothing she could do. There was no reversing it; the effects were permanent. Over the course of next few days my body slowly, painfully, excruciatingly, transformed into an abomination. In the end, the spell was successful. It took my humanity from me. Celestia robbed me of my humanity. And with that, I vowed to get revenge.”

“And your revenge?”

“She took my humanity from me; I would take her precious order and harmony from her,” Paul said grimly. “But first, I had lots of preparation to do. Before the transformation claimed me completely, I took some of my blood; my DNA. Using it, I planned to create humanity in Equestria, with a little help from a unicorn friend I had made over the course of my time here. With her help, I began the process of creating a new human race. Unfortunately, my blood was not enough. The spell had done its work too well; my human DNA had been corrupted. Luckily, I was able to work around that problem. I just had to combine several other species’ DNA as well: diamond dogs, minotaurs, wolves, etcetera. It took multiple tries, but eventually I was able to recreate humanity.”

My eye widened in shock as my mind processed what he was saying. “You made the Equestrian humans?”

“Indeed, they are my children.” He nodded. “Created by me using the various machines in the laboratory that came with me. Created in order to take control of the ponies when the time was right.”

I frowned, my brow furrowing. “The Equestrian humans were meant to control the ponies?”

“We dominate equines back on Earth,” Paul said. “I would show Celestia who was in control when humanity stood triumphant over her precious little ponies. Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan.”

“The Equestrian humans were too stupid.”

“I jumped the gun,” he said with a grimace. “I got too eager; too ambitious. The humans were still developing, still growing, yet I decided to preemptively start my revenge. I hit Star Swirl first, the cause of my transformation. Oh, I didn’t kill her, oh no. But I did take something special from her, oh yes. Just to make sure she suffered as I did.”

I nodded slowly, only to pause, a confused look crossing my face. “Wait… ‘she’? I thought Star Swirl was male.”

For some reason this seemed to amuse Paul.

“You and everyone else when I was done with her,” he chuckled, his glasses flashing. “A pity too. She was so looking forward to being a mother. I won’t deny that I enjoyed the look of despair on her face, but she wasn’t the instigator of all this; Celestia was. I did my best to make her life a living hell, spreading chaos as far and wide as I could. Unfortunately, before I could finish exacting my revenge, she and her sister managed to thwart me and imprison me in my stony prison. I remained there for over a thousand years, until I managed to escape a couple years ago. The rest is, as they say, history.” He slipped his hands into his coat pockets as he finished, looking at me expectantly.

I groaned and rubbed my head. “Okay, let’s say for one second that I did believe you. Why is that Celestia and Luna don’t remember you? They were shocked to learn that I was intelligent.”

“That was a little bit of genius on my part,” Paul said. “It seems that my transformation gave me an uncanny control over mental magic. I can make ponies turn on each other, give up their morals and ideals, and even—should enough power be used—cause them to forget certain things. One massive spell that nearly killed me later, and Paul T. Riddick, the human, was lost. Only Discord remained.”

“So all of this was to get revenge on Celestia?” I asked. “Creating humans, bringing me and the others here to this world, and staging this revolution; all of this was to get revenge on Celestia? To make humans the dominant species on the planet?” He nodded. “That’s insane!”

“I’m not insane!” he screamed suddenly, causing me to jump. “Don’t you dare judge me! You haven’t experienced what I have. You don’t know what I went through.” Sickly yellow sparks danced up and down his body, and his eyes flashed red. “I… am not… insane,” he said slowly, taking deep breaths as he tried to calm himself.

“Sorry,” he said in a much calmer voice. “He… I sometimes get a little riled up. The human mind isn’t designed to last over a millennium. It… slips occasionally.”

Silence fell over the unnatural world, the mist drifting lazily past. We stared at each other as my brain tried to make sense of everything he had just told me. It all didn’t make any sense, and yet at the same time, I somehow knew he was telling the truth.

Rubbing at my closed eye, I sighed heavily.

“So what do we do now?” I asked softly.

“Do, Mr. Williams?” Paul asked, clasping his hands behind his back. “Why, it’s simple. We wait.”

I gave him a blank look. “Wait for what, exactly?”

“I don’t know!” he said with a happy laugh, throwing his hands into the air. “I don’t know about you, but I have time to spare. You may have ruined my plans this time, but I—unlike you—appear to have all the time in the world to think up another one. So you can spend this time doing whatever you want; I’m gonna get a head start on my plotting.”

“And what makes you think you’re going to get another chance?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m over one thousand years old, Mr. Williams,” he said with a smirk. “I’ve been turned to stone three times. I highly doubt I’m going to die any time soon.”

“Maybe not from natural causes,” I said, “but I don’t think Celestia will allow you to remain a threat. Especially after what you’ve done here today.”

Paul laughed, throwing back his head and cackling madly. His glasses flashed again, turning his eyes red for a brief second.

“Celestia won’t kill me,” he wheezed, resting his hands on his knees as he caught his breath. “It’s not in her nature. Even when something like me is a threat to her ponies, she prefers non-lethal tactics. Banishment to the moon, imprisonment in Tartarus, frozen in ice, or imprisoned in stone. Even when the changelings had invaded Canterlot, she didn’t seek violence on their race. It’s her nature to be compassionate, and it’s her biggest weakness. Even after all I’ve done here, she won’t kill me, I can almost guarantee it. I’d even be willing to bet she just seals me in stone again.”

“You really think she’s going to be that naive?”

“Past experience says ‘yes’,” he smirked. “Old age won’t kill me, and neither will Celestia or the Elements of Harmony. Face it, Mr. Williams. It’s just a matter of time before I get another chance.” His smile faded, and his face darkened. “And next time, you won’t be there to fuck everything up.”

“And if I decided to try and stop you here and now?” I asked.

This just caused him to laugh again. “What are you planning on doing, Mr. Williams? Strangle me to death? There’s nothing here but you and I. No, there’s no way that you can kill me. Sorry, but it’s not going to happen—”

A blinding flash of light interrupted him, and we both had to shield our eyes. A gust of wind suddenly whipped up around us, stirring the mist into a veritable whirlwind. A loud chiming noise echoed around us, followed by a metallic ‘thunk’. The light began to fade, and we lowered our hands, blinking tears from our eyes.

There, with its head embedded into the ground in between us, was an axe. The metal head glinted as the little flecks of white light popped and sparkled around it. The mist, disturbed by whatever forces had brought it here, began to slowly consolidate around it once more.

Both Paul and I stared at the axe with wide eyes before slowly glancing up at each other. Neither of us moved, each holding our breath.

Then, as one, we both dove for the axe.