Opposition, 10 AM – Spike (Harmony)

Shining Armor was skeptical.  "My sister was the one who said you ponies were in league with Discord," he said. "If you really are some kind of doppelgangers from another dimension, then you ought to know that I'm inclined to trust my sister over some random strangers.  Even if they are duplicates of ponies I know."

"That's surely true," Applejack said. "But the way we've been hearing it, your sister ain't quite as right in the head as she used to be. Figger you might maybe have noticed that, if what we've been hearin's true."

"She threatened to kill me," Spike said, remembering the horror of that moment, the pain as the other Twilight's power wrenched him backward in a direction young dragons apparently didn't bend. "The Twilight I know, the one I'm betting you grew up with, would never have threatened to kill anypony. And she sounded so weird! Like, except for one moment when she met us all the first time, she had no emotion in her voice at all. That isn't right. You've gotta know that, Shining."

"I do know that," Shining said, his voice tired. "But you have no idea what she's been through. What we've all been through." 

"Perhaps you could tell us, then," Rarity said. "If we knew what your Twilight has been through, it would make it easier for us to understand how she could have made such a terrible mistake as to assume we are here to spread chaos for Discord!"

Shining sighed. "I probably shouldn't, but... Twilight thinks you're here to free him. If you knew what he's done, you'd know why that's a terrible idea. If there's anything in you of my sister's friends, and the Spike I know, you'd understand."

For a moment, Spike wanted to point out that the Discord who had done those things was not the Discord Shining Armor was referring to. Except, did Shining even know that? Had Twilight told him? Maybe they needed more information before dropping that bombshell. He said nothing. Applejack spoke instead. "Well, we're right eager to hear anything you have to say about it, sugarcube."

Shining began to pace. "You have to understand... at first none of us knew what was really going on. There were cotton candy clouds raining chocolate milk all over the city, none of the Guard could get into the Canterlot Gardens, there were giant birds walking down the city streets pecking at carriages like they thought they were seeds, and Princess Celestia had gone bald, but all she'd tell us was that Twilight and the Elements of Harmony were facing down an old foe of hers, and she had every confidence that they'd succeed. And I know my sister, so I was confident too. I mean, she and her friends had brought back Princess Luna from Nightmare Moon – I hadn't been in Ponyville, but I'd heard the stories, and I know what Twilight can do when she puts her mind to it.

"Only... they didn't succeed. Discord tricked them, so their attempt to use the Elements of Harmony to turn him back to stone failed. And then he made you three, plus her other two friends, float into the air, and he said he'd let you float into space and die if you didn't drop your Elements."

Rarity gasped. "And we gave in to such horrendous blackmail?"

Shining shook his head. "You're looking at it wrong. If you had died, there wouldn't have been anypony to bear the Elements. Giving them up to Discord and surviving another day was the right choice."

"Except that it was a bluffy bluff and we fell for it!" Pinkie said. "Other us wouldn't have died!"

Shining Armor glared at Pinkie. "Exactly what makes you so sure?"

"Because Discord doesn't kill ponies!"

"He killed my Cadance."

Spike stared in shock. He could see his friends were equally stunned. Discord was capable of murder? Was it just that this world's Discord had been far more villainous than theirs, or had they really come here to rescue a murderer? Would Discord really have accepted Fluttershy's friendship if he was the kind of pony – well, the kind of being – who was willing to kill?

"I'm so sorry," Rarity said finally. "How did it happen?"

"I wasn't there," said Shining, shaking his head again. "Her body was found under a pile of rubble, so mangled we could barely recognize her, with her horn broken, her skin torn from her all over her back and legs so even her cutie mark was gone... and her wings had vanished completely, like they'd never even been there. Discord had the power to take even an alicorn's wings – Princess Celestia told me afterward that he'd done it to her and to Princess Luna, in the past. But even without her wings, my Cady would still have been an alicorn. Alicorns regenerate their injuries, and unless her horn had broken before she fell, she should have been able to levitate herself enough that she wouldn't have hit the ground hard enough to kill her, nor would a building falling on her have crushed her to death like it did. Cady – Cadance survived a cave-in, the day I first met her. Alicorns are hard to kill." His eyes narrowed, bitterness and anger burning in them. "Unless you're Discord, and you can make reality stop making sense. Who else could have had the power to kill her?"

"Did he ever admit to it?" Applejack asked.

"He laughed at me the few times I was able to attack him. One time he put me in a diaper, tossed a bunch of blocks in front of me, made my magic as uncontrollable as an infant's, and said I was an ignorant baby and I needed to go back to school. Another time, he... he did something to space to break my body in half, except it didn't feel like I was in half. Twilight said he put a spatial portal through me. My own backside was in front of my face and he asked me if I could see it, because he thought I was so stupid that I probably couldn't. He never admitted to killing her, no, but would an innocent pony have made cruel jokes about somepony being stupid when they were angry over their loved one being murdered, if they themselves weren't the murderer? And who else could possibly have done it?" He sighed. "Twilight said, once, that she thought Nightmare Moon had done it, because Discord doesn't kill ponies for fun. But Cadance was Luna's adopted niece. Luna cared about Cadance, even if they'd only known each other a year. Why would even a corrupted Luna have killed her?"

"Did you say Nightmare Moon?" Pinkie asked.

"Yeah. I've gotten ahead of my story. They gave up the Elements – all except Twily, because he never tried to take the Element of Magic from her. And Discord took the five Elements and disappeared, for several days. The chaos ended. We were starting to hope against hope that maybe that was all he wanted. Maybe he realized how narrowly he'd escaped being turned back to stone and decided he was going to content himself with holding onto the objects that could threaten him. We were wrong."

"Why didn't he want the Element of Magic, though?" Spike asked.

"I'm going to get to that. He kidnapped the Princesses when he returned. Set up another 'game', a scavenger hunt. If they found all five Elements and the Princesses within the time limit, they'd get to keep them all, but any they didn't find, he'd keep. Of course the Princesses were last. He had all kinds of dangerous obstacles, but they persevered. They found all five elements, found Princess Luna, and then rescued Princess Celestia, and that's when all Tartarus broke loose."

"Did that big three-headed dog that Fluttershy called back to his post that one time get lost again?" asked Pinkie.

"I think he means it as a metaphor, Pinkie," Spike said.

"Right," Shining said, nodding. "Tartarus didn't literally break loose. I wish it had. It might have done less damage." He looked down as he spoke, his hoof pawing the floor nervously for a moment, before he looked up at them again. "The moment Princess Luna saw Princess Celestia, she turned into Nightmare Moon. Discord had some kind of booby trap on her, a switch he'd thrown in her head. She just... forgot, everything about what had happened to her since she got back from the moon. The girls figured they'd use the Elements to purify her again. Nopony noticed that half of each of the Elements they'd recovered from Discord had turned dark. When they tried to use them... something happened. There was an explosion of magic, the girls fainted, Nightmare Moon fled, and when they woke up... they were wrong. All except Twilight. They'd all turned..." He hesitated.

"Into their opposites," Applejack said. "Our opposites."

"Yeah, you could put it that way." He shook his head. "It nearly destroyed Twily, you know. Her friends, turned into... what they'd turned into. Riots breaking out all over Canterlot as Discord distorted ponies' personalities. Nightmare Moon attacking, trying to take control of the sun to force it down over the horizon. Cadance..." He swallowed. "We'd never have restored any semblance of order if Chryssy hadn't come forward and offered her help."

"Chryssy?" Spike asked.

"Chrysalis. Queen of the Changelings."

Rarity's eyes went wide. "Her? She offered to help?"

Shining's eyes narrowed. "I don't know what Chrysalis did or didn't do in your universe," he said, "and I don't care. But you should know before you say anything that she's my special somepony, now. Cadance is gone, and Chryssy needs someone to love her, and I needed somepony to love. We've been together since a few months after Discord's reign of chaos began. So you might want to be careful what you say about her."

"My apologies, I meant no offense," Rarity said. "Our experience with our Chrysalis was... very different."

"Discord had been scr—messing with the Changelings as well. Part of the time we thought he was gone, he was tormenting them. And Chrysalis has admitted to me that before all of this happened, she was making plans for a potential invasion of Canterlot, sometime in the future. She had spies in place – Rarity, you know Fleur de Lis, right?"

"I—of course I do, yes."

"She's a Changeling princess. One of Chrysalis' daughters. I don't know her real name, she says she's gone by Fleur de Lis so long she's forgotten it. When chaos erupted, she helped keep order – Changeling princesses aren't as powerful as alicorns, but they do have both wings and a horn, and she was willing to shed her disguise so she could help with aerial support in the first battle with Nightmare Moon. Her husband hadn't known, but after her heroism he forgave her for not telling him, and embraced her, saying publicly that whether she was a Changeling or not, she was his wife. You know how influential Fancy Pants is, Rarity."

Rarity nodded. "I do indeed." She looked like she knew a secret, a slight small smile on her face, one that Spike knew well. But it wasn't a nice secret, because the tiny smile – almost a smirk – wasn't in her eyes. And then the expression was gone, and Shining didn't seem to have noticed.

"But even with Changeling support... we were fighting against both Nightmare Moon and Discord. The Elements didn't work, the girls were caricatures of who they'd been and Twilight was driving herself to the point of passing out from lack of food and sleep, trying to research something, anything that could stop Discord or restore her friends. It went like this for months. Princess Celestia couldn't keep stable control of the sun and moon; Discord kept taking both from her, and when she did have control and she'd put down the sun, Nightmare Moon would do her best to keep her from raising it again. Crops died. There were more riots, in every large city. Civil disorder ran amuck. Ponies stampeded. The Buffalos slaughtered half the town of Appleoosa because Nightmare Moon made them dream that ponies were attacking them, and she did it because Appleoosa defied her when she tried to take it over. And Discord just laughed and laughed, at everything that happened."

"My cousins?" Applejack asked, her eyes wide. "Braeburn and all them?"

"Dead. Not the only casualties, either. My mother's a quadriplegic now and my father lost a leg. Applejack's grandmother died. Half of Cloudsdale fell; the pegasi managed to catch the foals who couldn't fly, but a lot of the more solid physical objects hit pegasi and killed them, knocking them unconscious during flight or crushing them. The weather still doesn't work right. Black vines took over the Everfree and strangled most of everything; Twilight and her friends had a zebra friend who was in there when the vines got loose, and they've never seen her since. And Princess Celestia... Princess Celestia had to kill Nightmare Moon to stop her." There was a catch in his voice as he spoke. "She never recovered. She depends so much on Twilight, now."

The four of them exchanged looks of horror. If this had been what this world's Discord was responsible for... well. Now Spike thought he knew why his counterpart had killed Discord.

"How... how did they eventually stone the miscreant, then?" Rarity asked.

"Twilight found a way. Something she called the Diadem of Order, a legend mentioned in a book she found in a land to the North that reappeared out of nowhere—"

"The Crystal Empire?" Spike said. "Was there a Sombra here? Did Twilight and I fight him?"

"Chrysalis and I went to the Crystal Empire," Shining said. "According to legends she dimly recalled, there was a magical item there called the Crystal Heart, which could be used to amplify emotions. Only, when we got there, King Sombra defeated me easily by spiking my horn with crystals, so I couldn't use my magic to protect the city. Chrysalis burned up most of her stores of love trying to protect the Crystal Empire, and we failed. Twilight and Spike were dedicated full-time to trying to find a way to stop Discord, so they weren't able to help. The Wonderbolts came in, with a few of Chrysalis' Princess daughters to give an assist, but Sombra beat all of us, retrieved the Crystal Heart, and put it at the center of one of his black crystal structures. He was going to torture a few innocent crystal ponies to get their fear, and our anguish at not being able to help them, to blanket the city – because the Crystal Heart was designed to spread love, but it could spread fear and despair as well. And then Discord showed up and stole it."

"Why?" Pinkie said. "Did he want to use it to spread all chaosy emotions?"

"No, after it was all over Twilight did some research. The Crystal Heart's an artifact of Harmony. It, by itself, might have been able to turn Discord to stone, if we'd known. He was just waiting for it to come out in the open where he could grab it. We have no idea what he did with it."

"But what happened to Sombra?" Applejack asked.

"Oh. Discord happened to him. He fought Discord for the Heart, and I think he might actually have hurt him – I wasn't sure what was going on at the time, because I didn't know the Heart had the power to harm Discord, but now I think he might have been channeling dark magic through it to amplify it so he could hurt Discord. But if you hurt Discord, we'd found out some time ago, you'd better be able to kill him or turn him to stone after, otherwise... things don't go well for you. He took Sombra's horn, tossed him to the Crystal Ponies, and did something to their minds – they'd been repressing everything Sombra did to them. They were so overwhelmed with fear and hurt, they'd blocked out everything from their memories. Discord brought it all back. Sombra was dead before anypony could do anything; the Crystal Ponies turned into a bloodthirsty mob and ripped him apart."

Spike swallowed. He himself had been instrumental in blasting Sombra to bits with the magic of the Crystal Heart, and had never felt any guilt for it, but the thought of Sombra dying because ponies, ponies, gentle, harmonious, peaceful ponies, had ripped him to pieces when he was solid flesh and not a living shadow... that was disturbing. From the expressions on the others, he could see they agreed.

"Once the dust had settled, Celestia sent Prince Blueblood as regent to rule over the Crystal Empire until some descendant of its original royal family could be found. My Cady... she'd been the last known living descendant, and she was born hundreds of years ago. We still haven't found anyone better than Blueblood, but Twilight sent a team of administrators and pencil pushers up there and they're really running the place now. Blueblood's a friend of mine, but he's the last guy who should actually be ruling anything, royal blood or no." Shining sighed. "Anyway. They had books there, of course, books that have been lost for a thousand years. Twilight found a reference in one of them to a crystal called the Diadem of Order. She thought that the only way she could make the Elements work – Discord had combined them with their opposites, and Magic has no opposite. He admitted that to Twilight, he gloated about it. Magic has no opposite, so she could never combine hers with the opposite of magic and be on the same magical frequency as her friends, ever again. She figured out, though – raw magic and Chaos magic are the same thing. She observed Discord and the magic he used enough that she could figure it out. So the opposite of Magic... is Order. Which is also the opposite of Chaos. Once she got the Diadem of Order and combined it with her Element... that's how they were able to harmonize. They stoned Discord with it. When they found a centaur who'd escaped Tartarus and was stealing magic from unicorns, sucking them dry, they used it on him and it killed him, made him wither up and die of old age in a moment. They've used it on a few dragons who thought they could take advantage of Equestria's weaknesses. They used it on some ancient magical being who was stealing artifacts that were supposed to let him take control of the sun, and he exploded. They're... not what they used to be."

"We... had suspected that," Rarity said. "We came here to help them, actually. We have the means with which to help re-harmonize them and purge them of Discord's taint, and we intended to do just that when we came here. Also, to extradite the Discord from our world, who's currently in their custody, since it's partially our fault he got free of stone and came over here to wreak havoc on you. Of course we appreciate him being recaptured, but he's not the Discord from your world, he's the Discord from ours, and it's our responsibility to punish him, not yours."

Shining looked at her skeptically. "Twilight believes you came here to rescue him."

"Well, from what I have heard of the treatment he's been receiving here, no doubt he would think of it as a rescue," Rarity said. "But the truth is, we would be returning him to our world for appropriate punishment."

"Which would be what?"

"Turning him to stone, most likely," Rarity said, "though there are other options on the table. None of them pleasant, but I would wager none of them as unpleasant as what he's been enduring here. Not that I can fault you, after that harrowing story."

"Um, yeah," Spike said, trying to back Rarity up, because Applejack really couldn't now that Rarity had entered the realm of outright lying, and Pinkie Pie couldn't be trusted not to blurt out the truth in situations like this. "I was wondering how the other me could possibly have killed anypony, even Discord, but now that I've heard your story, I understand."

Shining studied the two of them for several long moments, finally turning to Applejack. "Are they telling the truth?" he asked.

"I can't say rightly whether Spike is telling the truth or not, though there's a ring of honesty there," Applejack said. "Believe it or not, I can't actually read pony minds to see if they're honest, or dragons neither, and only Spike would know for certain what he understands or doesn't. But as for Rarity, you can trust her."

Spike's eyes widened for just a moment before he forced an expression of calm back onto his face. Had Applejack just lied? And lied well, without looking around her nervously or sweating or stammering?

"What about you, Pinkie?" Shining Armor asked.

Pinkie pouted. "I want him to make me more chocolate rain! But with whipped cream this time! It's totally unfair that the last time he didn't make any whipped cream at all! And then, you know, what Rarity said. But first the chocolate! Chocolate is very important!"

"All right," Shining Armor said. "I'll consult with Princess Celestia and Chrysalis. See what they think. I'm... not pleased with what I've been hearing about, regarding Discord. Less pleased than before, now that I know that he's not the one who killed Cady. In your world... is she alive?"

"Oh, your wedding was beautiful," Rarity said. "And yes, you are both very much alive, and rulers over the Crystal Empire."

"So your Discord didn't kill her."

"Our Discord hasn't killed anypony," Applejack said sharply.

"Ruined my coiffure countless times, deeply embarrassed me on more than one occasion, and made my boutique rotate as if it were an actual carousel, but Applejack is right; he has never killed anypony that we know of. Though this little excursion to another world is so far outside the terms of his parole I am quite sure Princesses Celestia and Luna intend to throw the book at him, so to speak."

Some tension seemed to go out of Shining's withers then, his barrel sagging just slightly. "That's... good to hear. I'll talk to them. I'd... I'd really rather have the old Twily back, and I know she'd rather have her old friends back."

He left. As soon as he was safely gone, Rarity said, quietly, "I do not think anything good has likely come of this... alliance... with Chrysalis."

"He doesn't seem like he's under her spell, though," Applejack pointed out.

"True. But... Fleur de Lis is not a Changeling. Cadance's spell that flung all the Changelings... well, I don't know the details, I'm hardly a mage. But when I asked her, at the reception, how she knew she'd gotten all of the Changelings, she said that her spell would have gathered and flung any creature that feeds on love. No Changeling, however well disguised, could change that."

"Chrysalis was plannin' the invasion, here, already," Applejack said. "We know Cadance told us all she'd been a captive for months. And Fleur de Lis sure does look a whole lot like Cadance, if you dyed her coat and her mane."

"But why would Fleur de Lis have disguised herself as Cadance before she had a building fall on her?" Pinkie asked, quietly, for Pinkie values of quietly at least. "It wasn't Nightmare Night, if all this happened right around the time Discord got loose."

Spike felt sick. He'd read enough spy comics and superhero tales in which a hero or villain thought dead turned out not to be through some improbable excuse to see where this was going. "She wouldn't have, Pinkie."

"Not to be gory about it," Applejack said, "but with a building fallen on her, there wouldn't be no way to see she'd been killed before it fell. It would've hidden the differences between their two faces. I'm no detective, but I think there was... was murder involved, here."

Rarity nodded. "If Chrysalis has already taken Cadance, planning to impersonate her – but the threat of Discord requires her to take open action, as herself, and Cadance as an alicorn cannot be impersonated by any Changeling but herself, because we were just told Changeling Princesses haven't the power of alicorns, and one imagines ordinary Changelings even less so. Keep Cadance – the power to generate love must surely be useful to creatures who feed on it. Fake her death, so it will never be revealed that she's a prisoner in Changeling hooves – or that she ever was." She swallowed. "Poor Fleur looked so much like Cadance. She had – has – that graceful, long-necked alicorn look to her. And if Discord was to be framed for her death... no one would ever have questioned why the body had no wings."

"Wait, are you saying the Changelings killed Fleur de Lis?" Pinkie shouted, prompting Applejack to stuff her hoof in Pinkie's mouth.

"Pinkie, keep a damn lid on it!" Applejack whispered furiously. "You heard Shining, he ain't gonna believe his special somepony murdered an innocent mare to fake his fiancee's death, and it ain't like we got any proof. Or even anything other than wild speculation."

"But informed wild speculation," Rarity said. "Because we do know that Fleur de Lis is not a Changeling, and therefore, the Changeling who took her place is lying about having always been Fleur. There was an original Fleur that Fancy married, and a Changeling replaced that one. That much, we do know."

"And I was just thinking," Spike said. "When Discord taunted Twilight into going into the forest after you guys, when we were up against his vines? He does that kind of thing. He doesn't answer your question, he just makes fun of you in a way that makes you do what he wants... or maybe not. Maybe when he called Shining stupid, he was dropping hints that Cadance wasn't really dead."

"Not that that helps us, here and now," Applejack said. "I'd surely be happy if it turned out she was alive, but... our mission here wasn't to rescue Cadance, and even if what we're thinking is the Celestia-honest truth, that don't mean she's still alive. Discord broke loose some time ago, and if she's been a prisoner of Changelings since before that..."

"Indeed. Even if Cadance was alive at the time, the worst may well have happened since," Rarity said. "If we succeed in reharmonizing our counterparts, we should tell them our suspicions. At the very least, if it is true, Chrysalis should face justice."

"But what if we told Shining Armor that we think there's a chance Cadance might be alive, and we don't bring up the whole Chrysalis kidnapped her and then when she had to be herself and not Cadance faked her death by killing Fleur de Lis and disguising her to look like Cadance and then dropping a building on her and saying Discord did it theory?" Pinkie asked. "He's so sad!"

"Pinkie, how do you reckon we explain why we think the special somepony he saw squashed like a skeeter under a good hoofslap wasn't really his fiancée at all, if we're not gonna mention the part about thinking somepony killed an innocent mare to set a frame-up?" Applejack said.

"Pinkie, we absolutely cannot talk to him about this yet. He loves Chrysalis; he has no idea what a false creature she can be, since she never took the place of his love and enslaved him in this universe," Rarity said. "And to be fair, if this universe has, or had, a Discord who is more evil, perhaps there is a Chrysalis who is less."

"Ain't rightly sure their Discord was more evil," Applejack said.

"Do you truly think our Discord would have removed a pony's horn and tossed them to an angry mob? Even Sombra?"

"I think that Discord is chaos, and chaos has a lot of ways it can go. Our Discord, we locked him up in stone before he could get into any more trouble. Think he didn't get angry about that? Think he would've just embraced the magic of friendship or whatnot if we'd tried to stone him up and failed? He had a good number of months to cool his heels and calm down, and even so it was a near thing – he came awful close to not taking Fluttershy's offer. He'd've done different if we hadn't gotten him into stone then and there, no question about it. Maybe he wouldn't've done all the awful things this fella did. Maybe he would. He's lived a different life by now, like we all have, so we're never gonna know. But just because he's sincere about his friendship with Fluttershy—"

"—And he tried to make friends with me, and apologize, but I said no, because he wouldn't apologize to the rest of you," Pinkie said in a stricken voice.

"Yeah, okay, and he sincerely tried with Pinkie, but... that don't make him a good fella. He ain't evil anymore, but... doesn't mean he never was. And he needs rescuin' because what they're doing to him, I would not have wanted Sombra himself to go through, or Chrysalis, or anypony. You don't torture people 'cause they're evil, and you don't ra—" She stopped.

"I thought so," Rarity said softly. "From the things Fluttershy was saying."

"What are you talking about?" Pinkie asked.

"Pinkie... it ain't my place to say, and it's a thing as would upset you a whole lot."

"Is it worse than the time the other me cut off his arms and legs?" Pinkie said. "Because she told me about that while she was trying to kill me and make me into a pie because she thought that would be funny."

"Oh, dear," Rarity said, turning paler than usual. "Oh. Oh dear Celestia how horrible."

"Don't faint here, Rarity, we don't know how clean this floor is," Spike warned. "Do you need me to help hold you up?"

"N-no, I think I can avoid swooning, this time," Rarity said. "Applejack, Spike, did you know about this?"

"He mentioned it in the letter," Spike said. "He said he was able to grow them back. At least there's that."

For a few moments they were all silent, taking in the awfulness of what they'd just been discussing.

"If we rescue him—" Applejack said.

"When, darling. When we rescue him."

"If and when, I hope he knows about all this, because sounds to me like he owes us a big old thank you for turning him to stone that time and not letting him end up like he ended up here. I don't rightly think Discord wants to be evil, and I doubt he intended on going this way when he was fighting us."

Spike breathed deeply. "Guys, I think we ought to change the subject, 'cause I don't know about you but I think that if Shining Armor has to talk to Chrysalis to get us released... it's probably not a good bet to wait for him to let us go."

"Agreed," Rarity said. "Let us turn our attention to how to escape this dreadful little dungeon."

---

Opposition, 10 AM – Discord

After Spike was gone, Discord fought the nausea as hard as he could. There was a bucket in front of him, but throwing up in it would still signal to Twilight or Spike that he'd been misleading them. Recovering from accidentally telling Spike that they were all going to die, and managing to mislead him away from that, had made him acutely sick, given him a migraine, and made him fear he'd have another seizure.

He whispered under his breath, after Spike was safely gone, "No, you were right, you're all going to die. Twilight's going to get everything she ever wanted for five minutes and then she's going to kill you all, and the only thing I regret about it is I won't be alive to laugh at you. You're all going to die, you were right, you're all going to die." It wasn't really helping. Apparently telling the truth to alleviate the nausea of almost-lying only worked when he was telling the truth to someone.

Tears welled in his eyes again from how sick he felt. He'd never be able to get back to sleep this way. But if he threw up and then had to eat it, again... no, don't even think about that, if he thought about it he would throw up.

He crawled, slowly and carefully, to the farthest reach that the clasp on his collar and the chain that held him would allow, stretched himself flat on the floor, and reached into the washroom next to the workroom with his tail, groping for a towel, a mop, anything. If he didn't throw up he would have a seizure and then throw up. If he did throw up, Twilight or Spike would know he had lied, or done as close as he was capable of to lying.

His tail struck something, that rolled. Discord couldn't even turn his head; he'd stretched himself so far to be able to make it. The nausea and headache were even worse. He kept swallowing down bile, and worse things. He was going to choke on his own vomit because he was fighting so hard to keep his mouth closed and not openly retch. No. The thing that rolled made contact with his tail, and he swept it closer to himself, and inched up so he could turn his head. Toilet paper. Better than nothing.

First, he threw up in the bucket. It had been a few hours since he'd had to eat already digested food; a lot less actual food came up this time, but he retched so hard and for so long that the thin bile that was coming out at the end was red with blood. Or maybe the crystals had cut his stomach on the inside, or something. None of them came up; they must have dissolved and entered his bloodstream already, waiting to kill him. So be it. He was going to die tonight anyway, so they'd never get the chance.

Then he covered the vomit with toilet paper, and the toilet paper wrapper. Next, he urinated into the bucket – something he'd have needed to do anyway, but he'd been waiting for Fluttercruel to come back, because he was too upset at Spike right now to have asked him for the opportunity when Spike showed up. Honestly he was lucky he hadn't wet himself when Pinkie had shown up; that had been terrifying. And humiliating. He'd promised himself he wouldn't cry again before he died, and then because he was scared of Pinkie the waterworks had started right up again. Why was he scared of her anyway? Twilight was going to cut him open tonight because he'd told her to, why was the prospect of Pinkie cutting off his body parts so utterly horrifying when he was already facing an equally terrible fate of his own design? But he hadn't been able to help himself. When Pinkie had tortured him, he hadn't wanted to die, and he'd spent most of that horrible evening being convinced that he would. She'd told him all the details about the vivisection of his innards she had planned, cheerfully, while she sawed off his bound legs, one at a time, and with his mouth tied closed he hadn't been able to scream loudly enough to drown her out. Maybe she'd just been taunting him and had never planned to kill him, or maybe she had lost track of what she was supposed to be doing and was going too far, but he'd never been as happy to see Fluttercruel as he had when she'd walked into Pinkie's basement and screamed at Pinkie, even though he'd passed out from shock and pain only a few moments later. The ritual he'd given Twilight actually would involve vivisection of his innards, and he'd given it to Twilight deliberately knowing what a terrible way it would be to die, but despite that, his memories of the terror he'd felt under Pinkie's hooves had apparently imprinted on him hard enough that he was still afraid of Pinkie even now.

Besides, tonight he'd probably bleed out before Twilight got to the part about harvesting his liver and his heart. Bleeding out wouldn't be so bad. She'd cut some major veins in his arms and legs, maybe only one leg if she couldn't get through the dragon scales on the other one, and that would hurt a lot, but then he'd just get very cold and dizzy and he'd lose consciousness. He might never feel her carving the ritual symbols on his ribs, or breaking them open to take his heart. That would be good.

The bucket was now awash with urine, toilet paper, and obvious vomit. That wasn't good enough. Carefully, because he was weak and it was hard to stay in a squatting position but he didn't want to knock over the bucket, he assumed the position over the bucket and did his best to push out bodily waste. There wasn't much – not long enough ago since the one good meal he'd had recently, and he'd been fed very little before that – but there was enough to change the color of the liquid and make the vomit look like it might be diarrhea instead. Good. Then he used a great deal of toilet paper, because this whole operation was disgusting, and he used up most of his saliva spitting on toilet paper before rubbing it on himself to make sure he was as clean as he could possibly make himself. More spit, on his paws, because he'd tried to be careful not to touch anything foul but there was only so much you could do when there was so much foulness you were working with, and more toilet paper to clean off the paws now that he'd moistened them. His mouth was very, very dry and the smell was horrible and his throat and stomach burned and cramped and there was a horrible taste in his mouth, but he no longer felt nauseous and the headache had mostly subsided, and Twilight was never ever ever going to examine a bucket with his feces in it to see if he'd also thrown up.

Discord left the bucket in a corner of the room, as far as he could carry it, on all fours because his tether gave him more range when he didn't try to stand up, and then he went back to his place in the circle to lay down again. He was so very tired, physically wrung out and sleep-deprived both, but sleep eluded him. He was in too much pain, and he was overwhelmed with the despair of knowing that his life was going to come to an end tonight because it was the best possible option for him in a universe where he had no friends and he would otherwise be kept enslaved, raped and tortured over and over for the rest of his life. He didn't want to die, he just didn't want to live like this. Well, no. He did want to die. Because existence was worthless, now that he had tasted what it would be like to have a friend and then had it wrenched away from him forever. He didn't even care about chaos anymore. But the fact that life was meaningless and had no value and he hated it and wanted to die to escape it didn't actually mean that he wanted things to be this way, that the prospect of dying was particularly pleasant. It was just the best option under the circumstances, and when he'd figured out how to take this entire world down with him, then it had seemed like a fantastic idea. But now it was sinking in that he'd be dead before his revenge took effect, and he'd never see it. They'd scream, and suffer, and wither away as all the energy was sucked out of the world, and there would be glorious chaos, but he wouldn't see any of it. He wouldn't get to laugh at them and gloat. He probably wouldn't even get a chance to tell Twilight what he had just manipulated her into doing, because by the time the ritual was so far gone that she couldn't stop it, he would most likely be unconscious or dead.

He closed his eyes tightly. Discord didn't want to be here, mentally. He wanted to go back to the world where he'd cared about nothing except chaos, where the lack of friends would have prompted a chuckle and a "So what else is new?" from him. If he had known it would hurt so much to lose it he would never have accepted the friendship Fluttershy had offered in the first place. Seemed to offer. She'd been lying about all of it.

He lay in torment, trying to sleep and failing miserably, wishing that he were not only dead but that he'd never existed, for what felt like hours and hours. Eventually his exhaustion won out over his inner turmoil, and sleep claimed him at last.

---

Opposition, 10 AM – Spike (Opposition)

Zecora was gone, either dead or fled back to Zebrica during the chaos. Sweetie Drops, who used to be Bon Bon, had moved out of town after Discord's defeat because she was needed more elsewhere. Mayor Mare continued to be useless for everything. Spike racked his brain, trying to think who he could possibly talk to. Shining Armor? But he was in Canterlot, and he'd trust Twilight anyway, probably more than he'd trust Spike. Who could possibly help him?

The only pony that came to mind was Big Mac. He used to enjoy hanging out with Big Mac on occasion, doing guy stuff like going out to watch a hoofball game. Big Mac wouldn't want an Applejack from another universe to be killed, would he? Maybe he could help. Spike checked on Twilight, Applejack and Rarity, making sure they were all still asleep. Pinkie Pie was in the kitchen, making a cake. "Hey, Pinkie, Applejack asked me to check with Big Mac after she'd been asleep a couple of hours and make sure he's ok with her not being there today," Spike said. "So I'm going over to Sweet Apple Acres, okay?"

"Okie dokie lokie! Come back soon or you'll miss cake!"

With Twilight enforcing a no-gems diet on him right now, cake was missable, Spike thought. Nothing he ate tasted as good when he wasn't able to have gems. He didn't say so.

Sweet Apple Acres was at most a five minute gallop from the library, but Spike was not a pony, and could barely keep up the pace of a trot when he was running as fast as he could. It took him closer to 20 minutes to get to Sweet Apple Acres, and another five to find Big Mac – the property was large, and Apple Bloom was in school and not available to guide him.

"Big Mac," he said, panting, as he came up on the large stallion. "Do you have a minute?"

"Nope," Big Mac replied, continuing to kick trees and knock apples into buckets, at a pace of 2 trees a minute or so.

"Okay, then, do you mind if I talk to you while you're working? Because I really need to talk to you. It could be a matter of life or death."

"Nope," Big Mac said, which puzzled Spike at first until he realized it was a literal answer to "do you mind".

"Okay. So you know why Applejack's staying at the library, right?"

"Eeyup."

"Like, you know that there are alternate versions of Applejack and all our friends, from another dimension, and that they came through last night, and Twilight and our friends defeated them with help from the Changelings and sent them to Canterlot as prisoners... right?"

"Eeyup."

"I need help. Or at least advice. Twilight sent a letter advising Princess Celestia to have them executed! I don't think mares who are just like Applejack and our friends were before Discord broke loose deserve to die, do you? They were trying to rescue Discord, so they had to be stopped, but it's not like they're in league with him or something – they just don't think it's right that he's being tortured. And I think that before he broke loose, before – before he did that stuff to their Elements, our Applejack and our Rarity and the rest of our friends would have agreed. I don't think they should die because they think torture is wrong, do you?"

"Nope."

"So what should I do?"

Big Mac turned and looked at Spike. "Ain't much you can do."

"But there has to be something! I can't just let them die!"

"Can you get to Canterlot and break 'em free?"

Spike stared. "Uh... no, no, I wouldn't even know how to begin doing something like that. Why? Is that what you think we should do?"

"Nope."

"Then what do you think we should do?"

Big Mac shrugged. "Ain't much you can do," he repeated. "Can't go there and free 'em. Can't make Twilight take it back. What can you do?"

"Well... maybe if you went with me to Canterlot, and both of us talked to Princess Celestia?"

Big Mac shook his head and turned back to his trees. "Nope." Both hooves struck a tree, and apples dropped from the branches into a bucket. He picked up the handle of the bucket with his teeth and dumped the contents into a cart, then carried the bucket to another tree.

"Why not?" Spike asked desperately.

"Wouldn't do no good." Another applebuck. Another bucket filled. "Princess Celestia ain't going to listen to the likes of me." More apples into the cart. "You talk to her all the time, though."

"Well, I send all the letters..."

"Ever sent a letter on your lonesome?"

"You mean, without Twilight dictating it first? Yeah, a few times. Do you think that's what I should do?"

"Eeyup."

"But... Princess Celestia's going to listen to Twilight before she listens to me."

"Ain't nothing you can do about that," Mac said. "Spike. All you can do's what you can do. Can't go making yourself crazy over wanting to do what you know you can't. Do the best you can, that's all."

Spike shook his head. "I can't. I can't accept that that's all I can do. What if they're all killed, because I sent Twilight's letter to the Princess?"

"Gotta do what you can first, before worrying about how to do what you can't."

"You mean, I should write Princess Celestia first, and then if I don't get a good response, then worry about what to do after that?"

"Eeyup."

"Okay." Spike pulled a quill, ink and a scroll out, sat down on the grass, and quickly wrote.

Dear Princess Celestia, I think Twilight made a big mistake when she asked you to kill her other self and the counterparts to her friends. They didn't come here because they love chaos or something; they came because they think torture is wrong, and frankly... it is, and before our first Discord corrupted the elements, she would have thought the same. They all would have thought the same. It's not fair to kill them for being true to who they really were, before they got corrupted. And if we can ever find a way to undo the corruption, I don't want Twilight to have to live with the memory of ordering the death of ponies who are basically the same as her friends. Please don't kill them, Your Highness. Sincerely, Spike the dragon.

He breathed fire on the message, sending it off to Princess Celestia. "You think she'll listen to me?"

"Mebbe."

"Well, that's better than 'nope' at least," Spike muttered. "You mind if I stick around here for a while?"

"Nope."

"'Cause everypony's asleep over there but Pinkie, and Pinkie promised she wouldn't go near Discord without someone with her, but when I was there she could get me to go in with her, and... she was awful. I know he deserves a lot but he was so scared of her he was crying."

Big Mac didn't say anything. Spike felt uncomfortable with the silence. "Do you think it's right, what they've been doing to him? I mean... especially now that we know he's not even the same one. But when we thought he was the original one, that he did all those things... even then, I just... I really don't think what they've been doing to him is right. Do you?"

"Nope," Big Mac said.

"Did... you ever talk to Applejack? About that?"

"Nope." Big Mac turned to look at Spike. "What you did was what he deserved. Plain and simple. No torture, no thousand years in stone business. Just... protect our families and kill him dead. That was right. What they're doing... ain't just a bad thing, it's a stupid thing. He ever gets loose, there'll be all Tartarus to pay."

"You... you think what I did was right?"

"Eeyup." Mac kicked another tree. "My granny's dead. My cousins in Appleoosa 're dead. Princess Luna. Ain't no way of knowing how many ponies woulda died, he ever got loose again. You did right."

"I don't think I did." Spike shivered. "He was helpless, Mac. It was murder."

"Eeyup. But a stallion's gotta do what he's gotta to do to protect the family. If I could of done it for you, I would've, but I didn't know about no magical weapons in a secret Canterlot arsenal. You're the smart colt. You got the education in Canterlot, you got training from the Princess herself, and from Twilight. You had the know-how, and you were tough enough to get it done, and good enough to be sorry you had to do it." Another kick. More apples. "Murder's wrong. But sometimes a stallion's gotta do what's wrong to do right by his family."

"But it turned out that it really messed up the magical balance of the world when I did it, or something like that. The world needed Discord to exist. That's what Twilight said."

"You didn't know. I'd've made the same mistake, in your position." He kicked another tree. "Wanna help out some?"

"Uh, sure, but... I'm not really built for applebucking..."

"Ain't the kind of help I need. If you get in the cart and start checkin' em, tossing out the real bad ones. Won't fill up so fast with the good ones if we toss the bad ones first, and I won't have to make as many trips back to the barn."

"I don't know... I wouldn't want to take out good ones by accident..."

"You know a really rotten apple when you see one, Spike. You'll do fine. Apple Bloom can sort 'em again when she gets home, just to make sure there ain't none you missed. If you've got a question about an apple, leave it in for her to get. Just get out the ones that're bad to the core."

Spike was about to answer when he felt the familiar sensation of a belch rising in his throat. He breathed out flame, and a scroll materialized.

Dear Spike, There's no need to worry. I have no intention of executing a fellow alicorn simply because Twilight fears her. I have a use for Twilight's counterpart, and so long as she agrees to help me, I see no reason why any of her companions should be harmed. Please don't tell Twilight this; I don't want her to be frightened. I know she's afraid of her alicorn counterpart, but this alternate Twilight won't be a threat to us. Trust me. Sincerely, Princess Celestia

"Oh, awesome!" He jumped up and cheered, waving the scroll.  "You were right, Big Mac! Princess Celestia did listen to me! They aren't going to be killed! Isn't that great?"

"Eeyup."

"I'll help out for about an hour and then go back home, all right? I want to be there before Twilight wakes up."

"Eeyup."

Spike climbed into the cart. He wondered if Big Mac's advice – that he'd know a truly rotten apple if he saw one – was meant to relate to the other topic of discussion, or if it was just a coincidence and it was his experience helping Twilight with her literary essays that made him draw the connection. Had he done right to kill the other Discord? He knew Mac was right about the torture; it hadn't occurred to him before, because he'd been working too hard to fight down his visceral emotional reaction at the thought of anyone, even Discord, being tortured, but Mac had a point. If this Discord, the one being tortured, got loose, wouldn't he rain even worse havoc down on them all than the one who had just been held in stone? They'd all be safer if he was either dead, or if his friends took him out of here and didn't let him come back, and if he hadn't done all the terrible things the other one had done then Spike would feel awful if he died. Bad enough he had to kill the one.

Maybe Mac was right about that, too. Twilight said it had been a mistake, magically, and it probably was, and the thought that he was battering a helpless, conscious, living foe to death had tormented him even when he was doing it, and had haunted his nightmares since. Sometimes, before this Discord had arrived, he had hallucinated his victim, as if all the bits and pieces of stone left after he was done taking the Hammer of Celestia to the statue had turned back to flesh and reassembled back into Discord's body, but not properly aligned with each other, so Discord had been a bloody jigsaw puzzle with parts of him missing, or put together wrong, or sliding down or sideways out of alignment with the rest of him. It had been horrible. Seeing this Discord, solid flesh, patchwork only in his mismatched body parts and not as if he'd been broken to pieces and incompetently reassembled, had banished the apparition from his dreams, but then he'd started conflating Discord's screams under torture with the statue he'd destroyed, so in his dreams the statue had screamed in agony and begged, the way the living Discord did during Twilight's experiments, as he had shattered it to pieces. The guilt had nearly broken him. Mac was right, it was murder. But was he right that it had been justified, by the need to protect the ponies he loved?

This was the first time anyone had suggested to him that the answer to that might be "yes". Aside from Discord himself, who'd said that he'd have swung the hammer himself against his alternate if Spike hadn't, and Spike had put that down to hyperbole. It made him feel good, after a very, very long time of never feeling any such thing, to think that anypony agreed with him... even if he wasn't sure he agreed with his own decision himself, anymore.

He found a half-rotten apple and tossed it. Definitely bad to the core, that one. This wasn't so hard.

---

Opposition, 10 AM – Twilight (Harmony)

Celestia had just finished explaining to Twilight the sadistic game Discord had forced on her counterpart and her friends' counterparts, to retrieve the Elements after he'd taken them and done something to them. "I was imprisoned – actually, I'd been turned into a frog, and couldn't escape from the pond Discord had created to house me. All I could do was sit on lily pads and hope that when the Bearers arrived, they'd take notice. So I don't know what trials they may have gone through—"

"Didn't you get a report from the other me afterwards?"

Celestia shook her head sadly. "We had far more pressing concerns by then," she said. "What I know is that it took them five hours, though Discord raised and set the sun twice in that time, creating the illusion that it was longer. By the time they found me, the moon was high in the sky, again, and in a position that it would normally never be in our sky, pushed toward the north. He hadn't actually managed to make it rise and set someplace other than the east and the west, but he was definitely pushing it out of its standard orbit... and the sun as well. Discord knew better than to bring the sun closer, so he sent it farther, making the day cold and wintry; when he raised the moon, he brought it closer to the earth, making it appear huge in the sky and setting off violent tides and storms at sea. I didn't know that at the time, but I suspected that that would happen." She smiled wryly. "But you don't need to hear the minutia of the astral bodies' orbits. What's important is this: the moon was large, high in the sky, and powerful that night. North-leaning, it was pulling all of the magic of the earth northward, increasing the pace of the flow of magic through Equestria. This flow is a natural process, but changes to it, or to anything in our environment, generate more magic within our thaumosphere, and that gives strength to Discord. He had set things up so that my sister's power would be greater than normal, and his own greater as well.

"When I saw my sister accompanying the Bearers, all of whom were wearing their Elements, I was delighted. Of course I knew Discord would not make it so simple for us to win, but I knew his arrogance, his confidence. He wouldn't stand still and let the Elements be fired at him again, of course, and he was certain to have some trick up his sleeve, but with my sister, my student, and my student's friends with me, I thought there would be nothing we could not overcome.

"Discord had apparently given them some sort of rhyme referring to true love's kiss. Of course Rarity and Twilight both recognized the scenario as soon as they saw me; they realized that I was playing the role of a frog princess in Discord's little play. They were stymied, because none of them knew who would qualify as my true love, but Fluttershy was able to speak to me, and I knew Discord well enough to know what he had done. The spell would not be keyed to romantic love; Discord believed that romantic love was a lie, a trick played on all of us by biology. He would have keyed it such that any who loved me, who I loved in return, could break the spell. And when I told Fluttershy this – since obviously, with myself being a frog, she was the only one who could understand me – they all agreed that it should be Luna, because the love of s-si-sisters—" Celestia stopped speaking for a moment to take a drink.

Whatever had happened, it had to have been very, very bad. Twilight had only ever seen Celestia tear up twice – during her reunion with Luna, after they'd used the Elements to banish Nightmare Moon, and when she'd been telling Twilight that the great Summer Sun Celebration of this year had been the first such celebration she could enjoy, because the celebrations every three years had always been about the defeat of Nightmare Moon and the day she had banished her little sister, and this was the first where she could celebrate them as the anniversary of the day her sister was returned to her. In the course of this conversation, though, she had had to visibly get herself under control several times.

"It haunts me, Twilight. I wonder, what would have happened if they'd decided to choose you? I loved you dearly as my faithful student, and I know you loved me in return as your teacher. Was Discord's trap set for Luna alone, or would it have struck at you if you'd been the one?"

"Discord's trap?" Twilight asked.

"She kissed me, to turn me back into a pony. And in that same moment when I felt Discord's magic release me, when my own magic came flooding back – I sensed a, a trap snap closed. I don't think Luna had any time to realize what was happening. In a moment, the corruption you six had purged from her was back. She was Nightmare Moon – confused, because Discord had blocked all of her memories since her return to Earth, so she never expected to be in the gardens with me, with no memory as to exactly how she had come to be there. But it didn't matter; my sister has always been quick to react." Celestia bowed her head. "She sprang back, summoned her power, and struck at me. I was barely able to shield myself in time, and her power was strong enough to shatter that shield. If she'd struck another blow, right then – she might well have been able to kill me, or do me severe harm."

"What happened?"

"The worst possible thing." Celestia closed her eyes. "You – Twilight – reacted, immediately, to do exactly what the situation called for. You called to your friends, all of whom had put on the Elements you'd retrieved through Discord's game, and you tried to summon the power of the Elements of Harmony, thinking to purge Luna of Nightmare Moon once more." She lifted her head, looking directly at Twilight. "It was a trap, of course. Discord had guessed exactly what would happen. He knew Luna would be the one to try to free me with the power of love. He knew that once she became Nightmare Moon, she'd focus on me, despite the fact that the greater threat to her should have been the six of you. And he knew that you would immediately summon the power of the Elements to save her."

Twilight's heart was in her throat. "That's – that's what corrupted them, wasn't it. That was when they changed."

"All but my Twilight," Celestia confirmed. "The summoning fell apart instantly, because the Element of Magic could not harmonize with the other five Elements. Each had been corrupted by its opposite; only another Element that contained its own opposite within it could harmonize properly with the five.  But it had lasted just long enough for the five of them to connect with the core of what should have been their Element – and in doing so, let the corruption within the Element infect their very selves."

As hateful as her counterpart had become, Twilight still felt for her, empathy making her guts twist, because she knew she would have done the exact same thing. She and the others had recovered the Elements from Discord's game? The others weren't discorded, were all working together with her, their friendship strong and unassailable? And then to see Luna – somepony they'd rescued, who'd then been an ally to them and had helped them save Celestia – suddenly transform into Nightmare Moon and strike down Celestia? Of course she would have tried to use the Elements. Of course she wouldn't have thought for a second about why Discord would have let them recover the Elements in the first place if he hadn't done something to them, because who could predict how Discord thought or what he'd do? All considerations would have fallen away in the face of the immediate need to save Celestia from Nightmare Moon, and save Luna as well. It wouldn't have entered her head to fight Nightmare Moon, magic to magic – she'd been a mere unicorn. How could she take on an alicorn powerful enough to strike down Celestia, and even if she could, how could she hurt Princess Luna? Not when she had another weapon in her hooves, something that could have saved both Princesses at once.

Except, of course, it hadn't, because Discord had predicted that.

"When Discord used illusions of their Elements to lure them in, and then turned them with his magic, he was working on them, directly," Celestia said. "It's – it was – an easy magic for him, one he'd performed many, many times, but it never lasted. They would have been themselves again within a few months at the longest, and of course, as you know, anything that reminded them of who and what they truly were had the power to break it. What he did to the Elements, he intended to last. It didn't alter their memories, it didn't turn them against their Element – it altered their natures, their very personalities. They remembered being friends with my Twilight, they remembered the power that that friendship had given them, and they knew Discord had done something to them. They tried, as hard as they could, to remain their original selves... but the corruption ran too deep."

"I... I didn't know they knew about it. Or that they'd tried to fight it."

"Oh, yes. Pinkie and Fluttershy tried the hardest, the poor dears. Who they'd become was so much at odds with who they had been, they could perceive the difference. But they just couldn't resist it. Pinkie had come to see death and blood as funny, every bit as funny as party cannons and silly jokes. Her desire to bring joy and laughter into the hearts of ponies became matched by an equal desire to bring fear and anguish. At first none of us could even tell how she had been affected; she took no action on it at first. She struggled to hide it from everypony. But when the Cakes were attacked by brainwashed supporters of Nightmare Moon, Pinkie cut the attackers to bits with bread knives. We found the Cakes unconscious – they'd fainted – and Pinkie covered with blood, decorating the bakery with her victims' body parts."

Twilight put her hoof to her mouth, suddenly nauseous. "Who – who found her?"

"My Twilight did, of course," Celestia said softly. "By then, we'd seen the effect on the others. Rainbow Dash had grown more distant, less trusting and less trustworthy, missing appointments because something more important came up, or so she would say. Rarity was never so bad as when Discord had struck at her the first time, but she became noticeably greedier and more ambitious, hiring assistants, paying them little, working them hard and then firing them out of paranoia that they were stealing from her. Applejack lied frequently when it suited her to, and would tell three different ponies three different things in order to play them against each other so they'd do as she wished. Fluttershy would respond to statements she took offense to with vicious insults, and often flew into screaming rages – similar to her behavior at the Gala, but far, far worse. But we'd thought that perhaps Pinkie had managed to fight the corruption off."

"When did – did you ever find out about – the other things Fluttershy was, was doing because of--?"

"No. Not until Discord had been defeated. He knew. He saw her behavior toward her animals in private, and he seduced her, or she seduced him... she tells the story differently every time she's asked. It was some months before any of us learned she had become Discord's lover. Twilight chose to believe that Fluttershy was being coerced or controlled, that Discord was forcing himself on her in some way, because she couldn't understand how Fluttershy could be her friend and could help ponies in the battle against Discord and then turn around and share his bed with him, but I... knew better." Celestia sighed deeply. "Discord would never force himself on a mare. But he would, indeed, look for an emotional vulnerability and exploit it. And Fluttershy... may have chosen to seduce him, thinking she could influence him. She, too, can find and exploit emotional vulnerabilities, perhaps even better now that Discord has changed her, and Discord did have some. Among them, the fact that sleeping with the enemy was something of ... an interest of his, let's say. It wouldn't have bothered him to share his bed with a mare who'd sworn herself to his destruction; it might even have been his preference. It wouldn't even have been the first time."

Twilight remembered what her own Celestia had said, of her relationship with Discord. "Princess... did you—"

Celestia held up a hoof. "I believe I know what you wish to ask me," she said. "Do not. I have – I had a past with Discord, once, that presumably your own Celestia shared, and shared with you, but I can barely remember it any longer. I gave up all of the emotions I ever felt toward Discord, permanently."

"It's hard to give up emotions permanently," Twilight said. "At least that's what I've read."

"No, I think you misunderstand. I gave them to Chrysalis, the Changeling Queen. A Changeling Queen can feed on a specific emotion for a specific individual, and drain it from them so completely that even their memories are devoid of that emotion. I asked her to do it, so I could do whatever I needed to do against Discord with an undivided heart."

Twilight's eyes widened in shock. "Chrysalis? You... you let Chrysalis feed on you?"

"Chrysalis came forward to help me when I had no other allies. Was Princess Cadance your foal-sitter and your brother's fiancée in your world as well?"

"Yes, yes she was..."

"She was murdered by Discord, here. He took her wings and her alicorn invulnerability, dropped her from a great height, and then allowed a building to collapse on top of her. Your brother has never fully recovered. With Luna turned into an enemy and Cadance dead, I had no alicorn to assist me in battle, and Nightmare Moon was more powerful than I was. The Elements of Harmony could not synchronize, and I couldn't send them against Nightmare Moon – she would have killed them if she'd noticed what they bore. I could send them to distract Discord, on occasion – he was very pleased with his handiwork, and enjoyed tormenting and taunting them, enough that on occasion he'd lose track of whatever he'd been trying to do and switch to playing games at their expense, instead." She shuddered slightly. "He would make feigned romantic advances to my Twilight, forcing her to dance with him, holding or even kissing her, in front of Fluttershy, largely because it disgusted Twilight and infuriated Fluttershy, and upset all of the others. Though he never took it farther than that, I lived in fear that he would someday, that he'd step over a line he'd never before crossed, because he'd become so much more cruel and vicious than he'd ever been in the past... and yet, I still sent them, because if he turned them into birds or trees or talking flowerpots, he'd be sure to turn them back. They entertained him when they were free to fight him. Other ponies... there was much less certainty. He did not deliberately kill, but he was capable of turning a pony into a speaking, rolling tomato with the ability to move, slowly, and then leaving and forgetting that he'd left them vulnerable to rabbits and other forest animals who would devour a tomato, even one that talked."

"That's horrible," Twilight said, feeling even sicker. "Why – do you know why he turned so monstrous?"

"I do," Celestia said softly. "He told me. Every step of the way... Excuse me." She stood up, as a scroll materialized in front of her in a burst of dragonflame. "I must read this."

"That's from the other Twilight, right?"

"It's actually from Spike, it seems." Celestia stepped out of the room, carrying the scroll with her.

While she was gone, Twilight looked around herself. Celestia had never actually explained why Twilight's wings were bound or why there were cuffs on her legs. It was as if they wanted to cut off every possible avenue of magic. Was this just because alicorns had all three forms of pony magic? If they'd captured the others, had they bound the earth ponies with cuffs on their hooves as well? Had they captured the others? She'd meant to try to find out from Princess Celestia what had happened to her friends, but had foregone it to try to find out more about what had happened to this world and maybe be able to negotiate with Princess Celestia for Discord's release.

What she'd been hearing was horrifying, and explained a little bit about why these ponies could act the way they did. She couldn't believe that Discord, any version of Discord, could really have murdered Cadance. Could there have been a horrible mistake? A prank gone wrong? Come to think of it... Cadance had told Twilight that she'd been taken before she could attend the Grand Galloping Gala, which she'd planned to go to with Shining, and that had happened shortly before Discord's escape. In this world, had Chrysalis decided not to kidnap her, ironically leading to her death at Discord's hooves (paws?) Or... if Cadance had been taken before the Gala, had she gotten away in this universe, only to run straight into Discord? And why would Discord have killed Cadance? Unless he was very different from their Discord, which was possible given the quantum multiverse theory; if Discord's timeline had split before he was turned to stone, maybe he'd become genuinely malevolent. But if that was true... why was Princess Celestia alive? Why would he have killed Cadance, who was a lot less of a threat to him than Celestia, while sparing Celestia?

She thought of what her own Celestia had said about her past with Discord, and what this one had confirmed. Maybe Discord hadn't killed Celestia because he'd loved her, once. But then, why would he kill her niece? Or maybe he'd just turned completely evil. She supposed it would depend on what Celestia had been about to tell her, as to why Discord had turned.

Celestia came back. "I apologize, Twilight," she said, seating herself where she had been before.

"If that was from Spike, I hope it wasn't anything bad." Or, she hoped it was. Something like "Help, our twins from another universe knocked Twilight unconscious and freed Discord!" It would be really nice if that had been the message, but from the fact that Celestia was calmly returning to their conversation, she guessed that hadn't been it.

"He simply needs reassurance from time to time," Celestia said. "Now, what were we discussing?"

"You said that Discord told you why he'd turned into such a monster."

"Oh, yes. When he captured Luna and myself, he said to me that all of this would be on my head, that I'd driven him to this by sending you six against him to stone him again, and that he was never going to let himself be returned to stone no matter what he had to do. Later, after the initial riots where half of Canterlot was destroyed, where Chrysalis came to me and offered her help, and Cadance died... he came to me and accused me of blaming him for things he hadn't done – though he never said what – and that if my new ally Chrysalis and I wanted to – I believe his term was 'play hardball' – that he could oblige. When I begged him to restore Luna, he told me that he'd begged for death while he was imprisoned in the statue, and I had been prepared to let him rot there forever, so why should he listen to me when I'd never listened to his pleas? Never mind that while he was in stone I couldn't hear him pleading; I never even knew for sure if he was conscious in there until he broke out and told me so. Some of Chrysalis's daughters, her Changeling Princesses, struck powerful blows against him, and hurt him. He retaliated by making at least a fifth of Chrysalis' own hive magically repulsive to all. Other Changelings couldn't bear to share love they'd collected with them, and no matter what form they took, ponies were disgusted by them. He said he would release them from the curse if Chrysalis begged. She never did. They died, of starvation."

"I – I can't believe he would—"

"At first, I couldn't believe either. But every time we struck a blow against him, every time we succeeded in any endeavor, he came back at us harder, and colder, and more willing to kill. I don't know what Cadance did to him to make him kill her outright. She must have hurt him very badly." She sighed. "He broke this nation, Twilight. Chaos, everywhere. No commerce could be carried out as normal when bits would grow wings and fly away, or spontaneously grow on trees. We tried maintaining ledgers of credit. He unleashed literal bookworms, insects that in their larval form devoured paper. More than half the books in Equestria are gone, Twilight, damaged beyond repair. No food grew naturally, for a year. Ponies didn't starve, but Discord would flood a skyscraper with pudding and laugh and say that if ponies were hungry enough, they'd eat enough of it that nopony would drown. And nopony did drown, but some went to hospitals with abdominal ruptures, and the hospitals couldn't be kept sterile any longer except by unicorns perpetually casting health bubbles. Thorned vines like tentacles erupted all over the Everfree, and Ponyville, and Saddle Lake, and every other town near the Everfree. Twilight was able to save the towns with parasprites, magically compelling them to eat the vines, and then Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy worked together to lure the sated parasprites into the maw of a dragon, but until the vines finally died and withered it was impossible to even enter the Everfree. And now most of it is dead, as you have probably seen."

"I have," Twilight whispered.

"Families were separated, only finding each other now. Some still have not. Towns were wiped off the map. Not all of it was Discord's doing directly. Nightmare Moon raised armies against me, and those who would not join her armies usually fell to them. I couldn't maintain order. I could barely keep my ponies alive. I had to let Discord do as he wished with the sun and the moon, and when he did allow me the control of the sun, it meant that Nightmare Moon would be fighting with me to push it under the horizon and keep it there. And – and in the end—"

She took another drink, but it didn't seem to help. Tears welled in her eyes. "With the last of my strength I cast a spell on her to push back the darkness, to save her, but Discord's power had amplified Nightmare Moon's control and Luna couldn't keep herself free, she begged me to do it, she told me she was slipping and she would lose control, I refused but she told me Nightmare Moon would kill me and then slaughter the ponies I'd sworn to protect, she said Nightmare Moon knew how important Twilight was now and could I trust Discord to keep Twilight safe, and of course I couldn't, and Chrysalis might mean well but in the end her strength is too variable and all Nightmare Moon would have to do would be to kill Shining Armor, whose love had been feeding her, and Chrysalis wouldn't have the strength to save anyone anymore, and – and I had no choice, Twilight, I had to—" She was openly weeping now, tears falling from closed eyes onto the smooth floor, her ears down and her withers shaking with occasional sobs that broke free. "—I had to—k-kill—my little sister—"

Despite knowing that this was not her Celestia, that this Celestia was possibly an enemy, Twilight found this too heart-wrenching not to react. She went to Celestia's side and put a hoof around her neck and withers, pressing her own head against the white alicorn's. "Princess Celestia, I'm so, so sorry," she said, her own voice choking up. "I—I can only imagine—"

Celestia's horn lit up, and a sudden stillness descended upon her. Her tears disappeared as if they'd never been, and the sobs that had racked her were gone, replaced by calm and steady breathing. She pushed Twilight away, gently. "Thank you, Twilight. I knew you would understand, once it had been explained to you," she said. "Equestria now is beset from within and without. Our infrastructure is heavily damaged or destroyed; there's still a train to Ponyville, but many of the other train lines were destroyed, and few have been repaired yet. Our economy is in shambles. Ponies suffer food insecurity all over Equestria; so much of not only our crops but our farms themselves were destroyed. I... I personally can barely maintain the strength to raise and lower the sun, any longer. The buffalo are hostile; we've had to deal frequently with raiders from Griffonstone or Yakyakistan; dragons have been emboldened to raid us as well, kidnapping cattle and sheep out from under our protection. Chrysalis' aid has been invaluable, but her changelings can only do so much."

"All of that sounds awful," Twilight said. "And I wish there was something I could do to help. But... I'm sorry, Princess, but I still don't understand how any of this justifies torturing an innocent pony. Our Discord didn't do those things to you. Or to us, either. He's... he's even been helpful, with the vines – our Everfree is still thriving because he helped us figure out how to get rid of them."

"His own creation," Celestia said.

"Yes, I know, but that just makes it even more meaningful that he helped us get rid of them. And he's been doing work for our Princess Celestia to close off dimensional gateways so we won't be invaded. He isn't the one who did so much damage to your Equestria."

"Oh, I know that. But that doesn't change the need." Princess Celestia got to her hooves. "A Discord ruined our nation. Another Discord would have the power to repair it. He could restore our train lines with a thought. He could rebuild destroyed cities, he could purge farmlands of taint and magical corruption. But of course, since his primary allegiance is to Chaos, he would never voluntarily do such things even if he were willing to help at all. I am weakened and need somepony to take over the sun for me, for a time, so I can rest and recover. Discord has the power to move the sun and the moon on his own, easily. But he would never keep to their proper schedule, or even their orbits, of his own free will." She knelt down again in front of Twilight directly, looking down on her with a soft smile like the other Celestia had in the days when Twilight was a filly, learning from her. "I know you believe the treatment he has been receiving here is harsh, and it is, I will admit that. I have no great love of using such tactics. But it is necessary, in this case. We need Discord to assist us, and we need him to do so in the correct way, not relying on his own chaotic whims, but submitting to the needs of harmony. What he has been undergoing is training, to break him of his obsessive need to be contrary and resistant, to make him genuinely able and willing to obey instructions."

Twilight swallowed. "But... if you have to torture somepony to make them do something... it doesn't matter how much you need that something, it's still wrong."

"Is it? By sacrificing Discord's happiness and well-being – not even his life, simply his enjoyment of life – for a relatively short time period in comparison to the fullness of his lifespan, we can save millions of ponies from suffering, and hundreds or thousands of ponies from an early death. My Twilight sacrificed her own happiness to defeat our Discord – she researched and located an item called the Diadem of Order, on the logic that Magic, which makes things happen in accordance with the user's will and emotion, is opposite to Order, which makes things happen in accordance with rules that bend for nopony. When she combined it with her Element of Magic and opened herself to it, allowing it to change her as the others had been changed, she achieved the ability to harmonize with them, and thus to be able to use the Elements once again – at the cost of most of her emotions. I do not think she can feel joy any longer, and very little love. Little is left for her but grim determination to set our world to right. If she was willing to make such a sacrifice for herself, is it so evil to demand a sacrifice from Discord – who may not be the same Discord who destroyed our world, but who in mind and soul and heart had the same potential to be? It has been thousands of years since Discord could possibly be described as 'good', even if he is no longer fully evil. One being with tremendous potential for evil, versus all the ponies of Equestria who will suffer if we cannot make him help them. Is that really such an unfair trade?"

For a moment Twilight wavered, because maybe Celestia was right. Maybe the suffering Discord was enduring wasn't pointless or simply malicious; maybe it was justified, if the end goal was to help so many ponies. And then she remembered the letter.

diamond studded rope. My skin's in ribbons right now, Twilight... she makes me use my own magic to let her rabbit rape me.... I am hoping the other me caused the sadistic dominatrix parts of Fluttercruel to come into existence, not that they are suppressed within her... Once Fluttercruel revived me and transfused enough blood into me that she could release some of my magic to me and I wouldn't be too weak to use it, I was able to regenerate the limbs Pinkie took...

"Maybe there's a justification for harsh training and discipline," Twilight said. "But there can never be any justification for... for rape. Or for whipping somepony until their skin's in ribbons. What Discord's been going through goes far beyond training."

"Are you so sure?" Princess Celestia asked. "I know he sent you a letter, Twilight, but did it ever occur to you that Discord will freely lie and exaggerate if it suits him to?"

"I checked," Twilight said. She didn't want to give the details of how she'd checked; she knew that if she told this Celestia too much, the princess could use it as a weapon. She'd brought Twilight close to the verge of agreeing with her that torture was acceptable, without any knowledge other than her own experience with her own Twilight, and that shook Twilight more than being taken captive had. "He's telling the truth."

"Ah. Well, I've left the details of the training protocol to my Twilight, and I agree with you that those things do sound particularly cruel. And there is an alternative, but it wasn't a possibility until you came here. I might be able to authorize Discord's release back into your friends' custody, if you can help me."

"Like I said, I'm eager to help. It's not like I don't understand your position and sympathize, Princess, it's just... torture is wrong no matter what. If there's something I can do that would help you enough that you could stop torturing Discord and let him go home, without leaving you in the lurch because everything is wrecked and there's no one to help you... I'd be happy to."

"I doubt you will be happy to. But you are a good mare, Twilight. Everything I would have hoped for my Twilight to become, someday. And you still have your heart. So... I believe you might be willing, even once you hear what it entails." She took a deep breath. "With my sister beside me I could do anything. She could have raised the sun and moon for long enough that I could rest and recover. She could have gotten our ordinary pony soldiers into shape to take on threats from outside our nation. She could have walked the dreams of the ponies here to find those who plot sedition; she could have added her magical power to mine, so the two of us could directly assist in the recovery of our nation. It would be harder than if I could simply order Discord to fix everything, but it would have been worth it."

"I... definitely think that would have been better, yes," Twilight said cautiously. Where was Celestia going with this? If Princess Luna was dead, why bring her up? "Do you think I could do those things? Princess, I'm not nearly as powerful an alicorn as your sister was. I can't raise the sun or the moon, I can't walk in dreams, I don't know anything about military tactics or training an army."

"Oh, I know," Celestia said. "But there is a spell that can restore a dead alicorn to life, and I have the power to cast it, but only with the help of a second alicorn. With Luna and Cadance both dead, and my Twilight never likely to ascend, I would never have had that second alicorn to assist me if you hadn't come. Now that you're here... if you're willing to make the necessary sacrifice, I can bring Luna back to life."

---

Opposition, 11 AM – Spike (Harmony)

The plan wasn't complicated.

Royal Guardspony armor cast a glamour around the pony wearing it, making all Royal Guardstallions look identical aside from racial variation and a scant few who were much larger than the others. Guardsmares under the glamour looked similar enough that from a distance it wasn't obvious that they were mares, although anypony getting close to one would see the Guardsmare's gender clearly enough. The ceremonial duties were generally performed by stallions, because there were a lot more of them in the Guard than there were mares, and because old prejudices from earth ponies and unicorns against mares going into battle if there were any available stallions around to do it instead meant that most mares who joined the Guard had to prove themselves tougher, better fighters and more disciplined than any of the stallions in their cohort... which meant that once they actually got in, their skill set kept them in the corps that did real work rather than ceremonial duties. There wouldn't be many of them in the Palace today, if things worked the same here as they'd worked back home – but there would be some, and they wouldn't be questioned much. Guardsmares were assumed to have something important they were doing.

All they had to do was get their hooves on a set of armor. And after Shining Armor had been willing to talk to them, the stallions actually guarding them were less primed to treat them as mere criminals, and more like valuable hostages who might be released pending negotiations.

Spike rattled the bars of their prison. "Somepony! Anypony! Help! Rarity's really sick!"

A guardstallion, not the one who had originally gotten Shining Armor for them, came to the door. "What's the trouble?"

"We thought she was okay, but it turns out the injuries she got in her fight were worse than we thought. We think she's got internal bleeding," Spike lied, while Applejack busied herself wiping down Rarity's brow with the water jug and her own ponytail, and Pinkie rattled off an endless series of suggestions as to what might make Rarity feel better.

"Do you need us to elevate your hooves? Elevate your head? Oh, should we pull your mane up off your forehead, maybe you'd feel better! What if I rubbed your belly, would that help? A tickle?"

"Don't go tickling her, Pinkie, that's plumb stupid," Applejack said.

"Ohhh," Rarity moaned dramatically. "Ooooh, the pain! Oh, my insides! Applejack, please, tell me honestly, am I dying?"

"I figure you probably won't die," Applejack said dryly.

"Can't you do anything?" Spike asked the guardstallion. "She's in so much pain!"

The stallion sighed. "I could go get a doctor."

"Please, this could be a matter of life and death!"

As soon as the guard left, Spike turned back to the others. "So far so good, guys," he said. "He's gone to get a doctor."

"Okay," Applejack said. "You be ready, Spike. Everypony in the guard knows to watch out for an earth pony's hooves, but I reckon they're never told to watch out for a baby dragon. Remember what I told you 'bout chokeholds and the veins in the neck."

Spike nodded.

Rarity continued to moan. Applejack looked down at her. "Rarity, you gotta keep doin' that?"

"Who knows who might be listening?" Rarity hissed quietly, and then cried out loudly. "Oh, it hurts! It hurts so much, please! Help me, or I may die!"

"Ain't you layin' it on a little thick?" Applejack whispered.

"Not if their Rarity's anything like our Rare-rare and they've ever met her," Pinkie said quietly. "She faints when her mane gets messy! Who'd ever think she wouldn't cry and yell if she was really hurt?"

"I have never swooned because my mane was messy," Rarity whispered.  She quickly followed this up with a shriek. "Aah! The agony of it! Help, please!"

Spike leaned against the wall next to the door, on the hinge side. In a few minutes the guard returned with a doctor in tow. He unlocked the door and escorted the doctor inside.

There was nopony else out in the hallway. Spike moved, digging his claws into the ceremonial golden armor to pull himself up. The guard was a unicorn, and probably a fairly powerful one if he was in the Guard – Spike felt the stallion's power yanking at him, trying to pull him loose. He dug in hard enough with his claws that blood welled. And then the guard screamed, buckling to his knees, his hooves going to his horn. Spike disengaged his claws from the armor and grabbed the fellow on the sides of his neck, pinching the jugular veins, careful not to apply enough pressure to cut the skin. There was protective armor on the back of the Guard's neck, part of his ceremonial helmet, but it was designed to block spine-breaking blows and decapitation strikes from above, and did nothing to shield his vulnerable veins.

In several seconds, the guard keeled over entirely, unconscious. His horn was bleeding slightly. "Rarity? Did you do something to him?"

"Well, I couldn't have him pull you off and attack you the way Twilight's evil counterpart did," Rarity said, breathing hard as she sat up. "My saddlebags may be gone, but I never travel without a small packet of needles and thread for an emergency."

"Yeah? Where were you hiding that stuff?" Applejack asked, sounding impressed. For the first time, Spike realized that the doctor, also a unicorn, was also out cold on the floor.

"My mane may be a somewhat less versatile hiding place for necessities than Pinkie's, but it is more than sufficient to conceal a very small sewing kit."

"So... you poked his horn with a sewing needle?" Spike asked.

Rarity nodded. "I got the idea from you, Spike. When you threatened the evil version of Twilight, I realized how very vulnerable a unicorn horn is to something sharp. Of course, a sewing needle can't do any real damage to a horn – it could never penetrate the bone, only the skin. But the skin on our horns is very sensitive, and I thought that if a unicorn is poked with a needle in the horn while he's trying to use magic... well, at the very least he'll redirect his magic to deal with whatever is damaging his horn."

"And look, Rarity! A whole doctory kit full of needles!" Pinkie said enthusiastically, going through the doctor's saddlebag.

"Those are... really not the sort I'd prefer to use, Pinkie," Rarity said.

"All right," Applejack said. "Ain't no way of knowing how long Sleeping Beauties here are gonna be catching their z's, so let's get a move on. Spike, Rarity, help me get armored up here? We gotta do this fast."

"Sure thing, Applejack." Spike started stripping the armor off the guardstallion. Within moments, as Spike pulled the helmet free, the stallion's gray color turned to bright blue, and his mane came free, a pale lemon yellow. As he unbuckled the belts holding the armor on and pulled the pieces off, Rarity grasped them in her magic and fastened them onto Applejack. As soon as the helmet went on, Applejack became recognizable only by her cutie mark – her mane was hidden under the helmet, and her color changed to the same slate gray that the stallion had appeared as. Even her eyes and facial structure changed slightly, turning just a trifle more masculine. She could probably pass for a stallion if she could deepen her voice enough, now. Once the rest of the armor went on, her cutie mark disappeared, making her no longer recognizable at all.

Until she spoke. "How do I look?"

"You look great! Totally not even one tiny bit like Applejack!"

"But you sound like yourself, darling. Is there any way you can feign a different vocal style?"

"Do you mean, perhaps, a style similar to yours?" Applejack said in the accent of a wealthy Manehattenite. "Because I have had extensive training in the art of speaking as if I hail from the penthouses of Manehattan. My Aunt and Uncle Orange were quite adamant that I learn to speak like a wealthy gentlemare, while I resided with them."

"That's absolutely marvelous, darling. But in this case, it doesn't really scream 'Royal Guardsmare', does it? Can you try, perhaps—" She cleared her own throat. When she spoke her voice was much more gruff than Spike had ever heard from Rarity. "Sir, I was instructed to bring these prisoners to the Princess." She was still speaking in something like her usual accent, but clipped and sharp at the edges, and she'd deepened her voice so it had a bit of a rasp to it, like Rainbow's.

"I believe I can do that, ma'am," Applejack said, imitating the clipped style and deepened voice Rarity had adopted, and still using the Manehattanite accent as her baseline rather than her natural farmpony drawl.

"Excellent." As she had been coaching Applejack, Rarity had been stripping the doctor. "Unfortunately he's a stallion, so this shirt is a trifle loose, and I haven't time to tuck it up. Let's see if I can conceal it under the lab coat – ah yes, I think this will work well. Spike, how do I look?"

"You're beautiful."

Pinkie giggled, Applejack rolled her eyes, and Rarity coughed. "Yes, well, be that as it may but I was actually asking if I look like a respectable Canterlot doctor, and not like myself."

"Oh! Um... you still look like Rarity."

"Try these!" Pinkie hoofed over a pair of thick, enamel-rimmed glasses.

"Hmm." Rarity put them on. "I am sure I look positively ridiculous."

"Yep! But doctory ridiculous!"

"I think they're cute," Spike said. "I mean, everything you wear makes you look cute. I mean... uh, okay, I'll shut up now."

"Good enough, ain't like we've got costumes in the barn right here to do better," Applejack said. "Let's get movin'. Spike, ride on Pinkie and act sick if anypony stops us."

"Right."

"Remember, the goal ain't to rescue Twilight, much as we'd like.We get back to Ponyville, we help Fluttershy and Rainbow rescue Discord, and he can help us get Twilight. With all those dang cuffs they had on her, she's not likely to be able to run too fast, and we don't even know where she is anyway, so Discord's probably the best option for busting her loose."

"And if he's not, we'll have far more options once Fluttershy and Rainbow are back with us," Rarity agreed.

The three ponies and Spike left the room and headed down the hallway.

---

Opposition, 10 AM – Rainbow Dash (Harmony)

The problem with flying into Ponyville was that there were other pegasi in the air today. It wasn't painfully early in the morning anymore, so the weather team would be out and about.

Rainbow did what she always did with supplies she wanted to stash; she found a tree with some sap, plucked a few feathers – not enough to affect her flight, just ones she'd have probably shed the next time she preened anyway – and used the tree sap to glue them to the bottoms of the accelerant bottles, the matchbox, and the dry scarf she had all the other ether-soaked scarves wrapped up in to carry them. Once they'd reached the border of Ponyville proper, Fluttershy had gone to ground and taken to her hooves. Somehow, even in bright morning daylight, something about the way Fluttershy moved just made most ponies fail to notice her. Her purple-dyed mane was covering her face to the point where Rainbow could barely see her eyes, her head was lowered and her whole body shrunken in on itself like she was apologizing to the air for bumping into it. Normally Rainbow hated to see her that way, but right now she knew it wasn't shyness but stealth.

On the other hand, Rainbow was utter crap at stealth, and knew it. Oh, sneaking up on a sleeping dragon or a bunch of malicious Diamond Dogs or something, or if there was night cover, yeah. But go through the center of the town she lived in, and not have anypony notice? She could fly at top speed, but if anything was gonna attract her counterpart's attention, it would be that. Other Rainbow was hopefully off with the Wonderbolts or something and wasn't even in town anymore, or maybe she'd gone to bed or something. But if she was anywhere in the area, she'd feel the ripples through the air if Rainbow pushed her wings to the limit like that.

So she piled all of her stuff on top of a cloud, after making sure each had a feather attached so they wouldn't fall through. Then she got under the cloud, shaped it to have a roughly pony-sized indentation in the bottom with room for her wings, lifted herself into the indentation, and started pushing. Clouds naturally floated, caught by breezes or in the ripple of a distant pegasus' magic; nopony would be surprised to see a cloud. The pegasi flew above this level, mostly, and when they were flying below they usually had their eyes on the ground. The unicorns and earth ponies generally didn't look up. It was the best she could do for going unnoticed.

And then, to her horror, she heard a familiar voice call out to her. "Rainbow! Rainbow Dash! Oh, awesome!"

Scootaloo. Great. Rainbow turned to see the small orange filly behind her, flying up toward her, with... Rainbow goggled at the sight. Scootaloo's feathered filly-sized pegasus wings were gone. Instead, she had purple batpony wings, adult-sized and way too big for her small frame. She was also wearing goggles and a hoodie.

Rainbow opened her mouth to ask what was up with the wings, and closed it again just in time. If whatever had happened to Scootaloo had happened a while ago, Rainbow would be totally giving herself away as not belonging here if she asked about it. "Oh, hey, Scoots," Rainbow said, trying for a casual tone. "What's up?"

"I am!" Scootaloo said, and giggled. "I've been up since 4 pm yesterday and I'm kinda wasted, but I'm real glad I didn't go to sleep yet, or I'd've missed you! Whatcha doing in Ponyville? You got a mission with Twilight or something?"

"Why have you been up so late?" Rainbow asked, trying to avoid having to answer any questions.

"Oh, well, since I went nocturnal I don't get to hang with my friends as much, you know, so I got up early so we could hang out after they got out of school. Then I had tutoring with Cheerilee in the early evening, which, boring, but at least I don't hafta deal with that stuck-up Diamond Tiara anymore." For the first time Rainbow noticed that Scootaloo had a cutie mark. It was a pair of bat wings in psychedelic colors that seemed to change and shift as Rainbow looked at them. "You'd think she'd be less of a jerk, but she says my cutie mark isn't even real 'cause of how I got it... well, you know all this stuff!" She laughed. "Then it was night, so of course, I'm gonna be up at night, and then when the sun rose I guess I just couldn't get to sleep."

The filly was surprisingly graceful, despite the fact that with huge wings like that she had to be completely off-balance. "You're flying pretty good today, squirt. Especially if you've been up all night – I mean, up late." Rainbow Dash didn't know much about batponies; they'd kept to themselves to the point where she'd never even met one until it turned out that Luna's Royal Guard was all batponies. Wait, the politically correct word was "thestrals", right. Whatever. She did know that they were nocturnal, light hurt their eyes and that they got sunburned ridiculously easily, which was probably why Scootaloo was wearing that hoodie. Somehow she'd gotten turned into a batpony – with massively oversized wings. Rainbow smelled Discord's involvement. This world's original Discord, obviously – if their own Discord had done this to Scoots, the other team would have forced him to fix it. She kind of wondered why they hadn't forced him to fix it anyway.

"Thanks!" Scootaloo beamed. "You're in a good mood today! Do you, uh, wanna hang out or something?"

"Maybe tonight, but I've got stuff I gotta do and you need your rest. Can't be awesome if you don't get enough sleep!"

"I could help you out! Whatcha doing?"

Rainbow thought fast. "Yeah, actually you could help me out. I had to get up, like, mondo early this morning and I didn't have a chance to feed Tank. Can you go to my house and make sure he's got food and water?" That would get the filly out of her mane. "You can crash there for the day if you want."

"That'd be awesome! But, uh, who's Tank?"

Internally Rainbow facehooved. She'd gotten Tank after Discord had broken loose the first time, which meant it probably hadn't happened here. "He's my pet tortoise."

Scootaloo frowned in disbelief. "A tortoise? How come you of all ponies have such a slow pet?"

"'Cause he's got a lot of moxie and determination, and he's tough, and he's ambitious. He wanted to fly, which obviously tortoises don't do, but I got him a magic propeller he can operate that's strapped to his shell, and it's awesome. He flies with me around the house, and sometimes we go to Cloudsdale together."

"Huh." Scootaloo smiled. "Don't – um, don't take offense, but, it, uh, it sounds like maybe you're getting kinda back to your old self? A little?"

Rainbow shrugged. "I dunno. Weirder things have happened. Go check up on him for me, okay?"

"Okay, will do!" Scootaloo flapped off, looking more like a condor than a pony with her absurd wingspan twice the length of her small body.

She was almost to Carousel Boutique. Rainbow looked around Ponyville from her high vantage point, and caught a glimpse of yellow and purple perched in the library tree. She gave a hoof up, and saw Fluttershy return the gesture.

So Fluttershy was ready. She just needed Rainbow to create the distraction. Grinning, Rainbow reached through the cloud and grabbed her stuff, then rapidly descended and flew in through what had to be Sweetie Belle's window, because the room was all done in pinks and purples and had a poster of an ambiguously-gendered probably-stallion-or-more-likely-colt, an orange earth pony holding a guitar, with the slight build of a pegasus, and a long blue mane, and... wait, horseapples, that was Flash Sentry. The pony from Cadance's Royal Guard whose human counterpart had helped Twilight beat Sunset Shimmer. Flash Sentry was a pegasus, and solidly built for one, the way you'd expect a Royal Guardspony to be. This one looked just like him, down to the cutie mark, but he had no wings, he was a lot skinnier, and he was made up like a pop star.

Okay. That wasn't important. Though if that was really Flash Sentry, he was the second pegasus she'd seen today whose wings had obviously been messed with. That was chilling to imagine. But not what she should be focused on. Sweetie Belle was probably at school – Scoots had confirmed they did still have school in this weird world, though nocturnal batpony Scootaloo didn't attend it with her friends – but Rainbow needed to check that, and also find Opal and get her out of here. Personally Rainbow thought the cat was smart enough to flee a burning building, but Fluttershy had made her promise to find the cat and make sure she wasn't hurt.

A few minutes of searching found Opalescence on a gaudy, over-decorated cat bed. Rainbow snagged her, taking care to hold her out from her body as the cat yowled and struggled, and flew out the back window, depositing her in the upper branches of a nearby tree. Some pegasus would likely see her up there, meowing her head off, and get her down, but the Boutique would be on fire by then. Rainbow made certain to cover all the outfits Rarity had in her workroom, in various stages of completion, with the accelerant. And the models on display on ponyquins. And Rarity's bed. She didn't spread the stuff into Sweetie Belle's room; honestly, she felt sorry for the kid, and hoped her stuff didn't burn too much. To help with that, she shut Sweetie Belle's bedroom door. This bitchy version of Rarity, however, wasn't getting any mercy from Rainbow. She and her own counterpart had been going at it too hard for her to see much of the fight the others were having before they'd drifted away from the original arena, but she'd seen and heard enough to feel really good about destroying this version of Rarity's stuff.

Especially since she knew Fluttershy didn't know enough about gems, and being a pegasus, wouldn't have been able to drill holes in them, to make that whip that Rainbow's Fluttershy had said the other one had been using on Discord. This Rarity had to have made that thing.

There was enough accelerant poured all around now. Grinning, Rainbow pulled a match, lit it – and flew at her highest indoor speed up and out of the room before the thing hit the ground, because when it did –

BOOM. Fireball. Oh yeah. This was gonna be good.