Opposition, 12 PM – Spike (Harmony)

Spike felt very, very exposed out in the hallway. It was beginning to sink in that just pretending that he was riding on Pinkie because he was sick was not likely to fly with any of the guards; why wouldn't he be riding on the guardspony, aka Applejack? He whispered his concern to the others when they weren't in earshot of anypony. "Why would they let two prisoners out so one could ride on the other if they have a guard?"

"Because you're so very dangerous, Spike," Rarity said. "Remember, you nearly de-horned their version of Twilight. Of course nopony would risk having you ride on a guardspony; why, you might attack them! It's much safer to have you riding on a friend of yours. After all, your other friends are still prisoners, right?" She said this archly, winking at him. "So of course you and Pinkie won't risk starting anything, not with Applejack and Rarity still imprisoned."

"It's still pretty darn thin though," Applejack said. "Sooner we get out of here, the safer I'll feel."

"What if I knew a shortcut that I could get Spike and me out of the palace?" Pinkie asked.

"If you know a shortcut, how's about you share it with Rarity and me too then?"

"It's... not that kind of a shortcut." Pinkie looked down, pawing the ground with her hoof a bit, an embarrassed almost-smile on her face. "Um... I can take Spike because he can ride on me, but... it's kind of a one-pony sort of thing. I can't really open the doors up for anypony else. I tried once with my sister Maud but she couldn't get through, and Maud is super strong."

"So in other words this is a Pinkie thing," Applejack said.

"Yuppers. Totally a Pinkie thing. Which is why I can do it because I'm Pinkie!"

"Well, I for one would feel great relief at knowing you and Spike are both safely out of the palace entirely. We need to return to Ponyville as soon as possible, but we also need to maintain strength in numbers. Applejack, do you think they should go and head directly to Ponyville to help Fluttershy with Discord, or go and then wait for us at the train station so we all go to Ponyville together?"

"We all go together," Applejack said. "If they tip the other Twilight off, she'll be prepared for us, and if there's only two of them it ain't like they can fight Opposition Twilight. We need to take her on together if we're gonna have any hope, and if we're going to try to rescue Discord, that's probably what we're gonna need to do."

"Okie dokie lokie! Spike and I will head to the train station and then we'll wait for you!"

"What kind of short cut are we talking about?" Spike asked. "Because I know the palace real well, and there are some secret passages I could find..."

"Nope! Not that kind! You two go on ahead, and Spike, close your eyes tight!"

"Why?"

"Because it doesn't work if anypony can see me do it, silly billy!"

Applejack and Rarity traded looks. "All right, we'll move along," Rarity said. "And we won't look."

The two of them trotted forward. "Now, this is very important, Spike," Pinkie said. "You don't just have to close your eyes a little bit. Close your eyes and keep them closed the whole time until I tell you it's safe. No matter what you hear or feel."

"But what if something happened like, I don't know, what if you were screaming and something bad had happened to you?"

"Then still don't open your eyes. This is super duper important! I can't take you on the shortcut unless you promise to not open your eyes for any reason until I say so!"

"Um... okay, cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye, I promise I won't open my eyes unless you say I can. But what would happen if I did?"

"Baaaad things," Pinkie said ominously, craning her head backward to loom in Spike's vision.

"Like, what kind of bad things?"

"Never mind that! Just close your eyes now so we can go!"

Spike shut his eyes tightly. He heard Pinkie's hooves clopping on the hard marble floor of the palace, felt her warm body and velvety fur pressed up against him and the movement of her body as she trotted, smelled the candy-scented shampoo in her mane. All around him he could feel and hear the acoustics of the palace and its marble hallways. And then it all changed.

He could still feel Pinkie's body, but the clopping of her hooves was gone, and he felt as if he was in a place that was simultaneously far more open – no sense of walls around him anywhere – and more constricted, the air stale and flat and barely breathable, oppressive and close. There was almost no sound at all; he could hear Pinkie's breathing and his own, and could hear her heartbeat when his ears were pressed to her back, but there were no sounds anywhere else.

"Do we need to be quiet, Pinkie?" he whispered.

"I think so," she whispered back. "This... isn't like it is back home. I'm kinda nervouscared. But keep your eyes closed."

"I know, I know," he assured her.

The he started hearing voices.

Fragmentary echoes, sussurating whispers... nothing he could decipher. At first. And then far away laughter... horrible broken laughter, like something Vinyl Scratch might play at a Nightmare Night party. It scratched and skipped and repeated itself and was too fast and then too slow, like a record on a turntable being manipulated by a DJ who was deliberately trying to freak you out.

"Pinkie? Do you hear laughter?" he whispered in her ear.

"Shh! I'm trying to concentrate! Things look all different here, and I don't wanna get us lost!"

The thought of being lost in this wherever it was, without even being able to open his eyes, terrified Spike. "Okay," he whispered, and then said nothing more. The laughter was getting more and more hysterical and high-pitched. And louder. Like it was getting closer. Spike shivered.

Then the laughing voice spoke.

"yOu NoT YOu... oThER. nOT thE OnE."

The voice sounded like two or three voices together, except that one was too slow and one was too fast and all of them were hoarse and gravelly like whoever was speaking had a bad sore throat. It sounded vaguely male, but any resemblance to anything that sounded like a pony ended there. "SO rEsCUe StiLL hERo? hoW'S tHAT WoRkiNG Out?" More hysterical laughter. "kILLeR mE, YOu, buT yOu OtHeR sAvIOr mE otHEr. hILarIouS!"

"Go away," Spike whispered in a very, very tiny voice, almost inaudibly.  "I don't know what you want from me. Go away, please."

The laughter intensified, and now when the voice spoke, one of the undervoices that went along with it laughed continuously in the background. "DiDn'T yOu. sAiD gO AwAY PleAse bUt nO HEarInG sToNe foR yOU! nOt. hIm NOt yOu BuT YOu. PAraDoX!" Mad giggling from all the voices.

"Please... I don't even understand you... please leave me alone..."

"FrEe mE!" the voice howled suddenly. "fREe ThEm frEe Me FrEE tHEm fRee ME FRee THeM freE me..." The mad, broken laughter was turning into sobs as the voice repeated itself over and over again.

"Free who?" Spike whispered. "And who are you? And why should I free you?"

"BrOKe. yOu. nOT yOu bUt Him bUT useless. sO YoU. FrEE tHeM, reVerSe ENd, uNPiN Me. lET me GO. Let iT eND." The voice was openly sobbing now. "bROkEn. pIEcEs. hUrTS iT HuRTs wANt STop. eNd It. ENd. UNpIn. FReE mE."

"How would I do that? And why? I don't even know who you are."

"wHaT YOu wAnT WhAt i WAnT. tHE sIX. fREe tHEm. uNPiN mE."

"You mean the Opposition Elements? And what do you mean unpin you?"

"FREE ME! FREE THEM FREE ME FREE THEM FREE ME—"  The voice was screaming again. Now there were many voices, a fast one, a slow one, a stuttering one, one that was laughing, one that was sobbing... one, or more than one, that sounded as if vocal chords were being scraped with stone.

Through the din he could hear Pinkie whisper, "Spike, who are you talking to?" It was as if her speech was on a completely separate channel; despite the horrible crazed voice shrieking in his ear, he could hear Pinkie perfectly.

"Um... you don't hear the creepy voice?"

"SPIKE!" It was still a whisper, but undeniably managed to carry the tone of a shout. "You never talk to the creepy voices! Just ignore it!"

"Oh, so you can hear it?"

"No, but if you can hear it, don't listen to it!"

The mad giggling returned. "NOt hEr! oNLy KillER! eVeN oTHer cAn'T HEaR, CaN'T cOMe HeRe aNd vOiCE wOn't CaRRy, yOu noT Him bUT YEs yOU ArE. cOnNecTiON!"

His head was hurting from trying to understand. It was hard even to make out the words with all the distortion, and the fact that they were complete nonsense didn't help. "I don't want to talk to you."

"dIdn'T wAnT YoU hIm thE wHAt-hE-Did, but. tHiNGs tough aLL ArOunD, kId! oNLy cAn HEaR so iT's yOU. sORrY nOT Sorry!"

"Spike, you're still talking to the creepy voice... I said to stop that!"

"He can't do anything to me if he's just a voice," Spike said. "And I don't think he wants to. There's something he wants me to do."

"Then don't do it!"

"But what if it's part of the thing we came here to do? He keeps saying to 'free the six'; doesn't that sound like reharmonizing the other us? Well, other yous?"

"iN ThE FoReST. sHe dRopPed It. FInd iT. fREe theM. rEVerSe untie UNwinD. uNPiN mE. fReE tHE oTheR, yOU Came fOr, lEt mE eNd end end end end PLeaSe end please end please end please..."

The voice faded. "Please tell me we're almost out of here," Spike whispered to Pinkie.

"Are you still hearing that creepy voice?"

"No, it stopped." In the forest. She dropped it. Twilight had been carrying the cutting from the Tree of Harmony around her neck before they had fought their counterparts. When they were all on the train and the ponies were unconscious and Spike hadn't dared to make a move, surrounded by far too many changelings to try anything... it hadn't been around her neck anymore. And he hadn't even thought about it until now.

Maybe Pinkie was wrong. Maybe the creepy voice was trying to help, or at the very least, wanted them to succeed for his own reasons.

Spike didn't want to dwell on it too closely. There was a thought that had occurred to him, a thought that got more plausible the more he thought about it, and he really, really didn't want to think about it, or believe it. Because if it was true, it was terrifying. And horrible. But mostly terrifying.

"We're almost out," Pinkie said. "But keep your eyes closed!"

Every bounce Pinkie made jostled him hard, but he didn't complain. She'd sped up since he'd admitted to the creepy voice. The sooner they got out of there, the better.

And then he felt warmth, and a breeze. "Ok, Spike, you can open your eyes now," Pinkie said, her body relaxing under his.

Spike opened his eyes. They were outside the palace, in the gardens. "Oh sweet sunshine, how I missed you!" Spike said fervently. He knelt down and kissed the blades of grass directly underneath him. "And grass! And trees! And hedges! I love you all!"

"Aren't they great?" Pinkie said cheerfully, but her mane looked just a little bit flat and stringy. "That... wasn't anything like it is back home.  It's like... what if you were in a really old dusty museum that used to be taken care of really nice, only now there's just one night watch pony and he makes sure nopony breaks in but that's all, but there's still beautiful stuff all over the walls even if it's all dusty, and then you went to another museum, except all the exhibits were kicked over and smashed and there were giant spiders and creepy crawlies everywhere and holes in the walls and all the nice things to look at are gone and there's spiderwebs everywhere and they keep getting in your mane? Like that."

"I'll take your word for it, since I didn't see it, and all."

"Well! I know what I don't want to be doing again if there's any alternative! Let's go to the train station and wait for Applejack and Rarity!"

"You said it," Spike agreed.

---

Opposition, 12 PM – Fluttershy (Harmony)

She had to find Rainbow Dash. The memory of Discord's anguish burned within her, and the overwhelming horror of the fate they'd all suffer if they couldn't save him from what the other Twilight planned. Fluttershy was just barely holding the panic at bay by her desperate need to protect her friends, all of her friends. Focus on them, not on the fear.

The problem was that Rainbow wasn't around anywhere. Fluttershy had expected Rainbow Dash to remain in the area so that they could go together to wherever they were going; the original plan had been that she'd come out with Discord, of course, but now that the plans had changed and she needed a bolt cutter, it was even more critical that Rainbow be here. But she wasn't. Where would she have gone?

To take a nap? No, not with the stakes this high. To go home? But it wasn't her home, and the odds that she'd encounter the other Rainbow would be greatly increased that way. To Canterlot to rescue their friends because she got impatient? That was unfortunately somewhat plausible, but surely she wouldn't leave Fluttershy high and dry like that; she had to have recognized that Fluttershy was in potential danger of being captured by the alternates. So if she left Fluttershy... that meant she knew the alternates weren't a threat at that time. Logically, she must have followed them, wherever they went. Otherwise she'd have known Fluttershy could be in danger from them, and wouldn't have left.

Well, where would the alternates have gone? Fluttershy could see that they'd put out Carousel Boutique, but alternate Rarity wasn't standing in the ruins crying and being dramatic, so they must have gone to do something that they considered equally important. Maybe her friends had escaped from Canterlot, and the alternates had had to go deal with that? No, then they wouldn't be on their way back. She could see them now on the road, minus their Rainbow Dash, which based on what Discord had said about her in the letter seemed fairly normal, and their Applejack. Well, Applejack had a farm to deal with.

But so wait. If they were coming back, and her Rainbow Dash wasn't with them... then where was she? Back at whatever place they had gone to? Hiding? There was no way to know.

"Psst! Fluttershy!"

Fluttershy jerked, startled. She rolled her head around, looking every which way in sudden terror, before calming down and realizing that that had been Rainbow Dash. "Rainbow, where are you?" she whisper-shouted, knowing the other pegasus would be able to hear her but the ground-bounds wouldn't. Pegasi were a lot better at detecting pony voices and pulling them out of the surroundings to understand them, even though they didn't objectively have literally better hearing than the other races.

"Look up!"

Of course, look up. Rainbow Dash's head was sticking out from the side of a cloud that was much higher than Fluttershy felt safe flying to. "Oh, dear. Could you maybe come down a bit? That's so high up."

"Don't be a wimp," Rainbow said. "You don't want everypony on the ground to see us, do you?"

"Nooo," she admitted, drawing the word out to express her reluctance to say it.

"Well then come on up! We've got plans to make, right, pal?"

"O-Okay." Carefully, looking all around to make sure no grounded ponies were looking up, she fluttered up to the height of Rainbow's cloud... almost as high as the clouds had been the day of that race, when she'd fallen, and found her cutie mark.

Delicately she landed on the cloud next to Rainbow. "Do you know where we could find a set of bolt cutters?"

"Bolt cutters?"

"Discord is chained up by a leather collar and a metal chain, but Twilight's done something to him where if the collar is removed, it'll kill him. So we can't just take off the collar. We have to cut the chain."

"Sure, I get it. So what's the plan after that?"

Fluttershy stared at her. "We talked about this, Rainbow. We have to free our friends. Unfortunately the collar keeps Discord from using his magic, so we can't just ask him to do it; we'll have to go to Canterlot and do it ourselves."

"All I needed to know," Rainbow said, as if assuring her. And then without warning she leapt at Fluttershy. Fluttershy screamed, her own hairtrigger surprise threshold causing her to flinch backward and almost fall off the cloud, but Rainbow was faster. Rainbow was always faster.

"Rainbow?" Fluttershy shrieked.

The stronger pegasus was on top of her, pinning her down to the cloud, her own inborn pegasus magic treating the cloud as a solid object she could be pinned against. "That's my name, don't wear it out," Rainbow said. "Hey, listen, you did a nice job with that bitch, don't get me wrong, but technically I'm still under Twilight's orders. Also, you want to let Discord loose, and he's way too much fun to kick in the head for me to let you do that. Especially after what he did to Cloudsdale, or the way he tricked Scoots. Not that I give much of a shit about the kid anymore, but that was still a rotten thing to do."

Oh dear Celestia. It was the wrong Rainbow. The real one must have been taken captive. Fluttershy struggled. "He's not your Discord! He never did any of those things!" she cried. There was no point in trying to pretend that she was Fluttercruel; her purple mane had already given her away. Oh, why hadn't Rainbow agreed to dye her mane, or wear some sort of clothing that would distinguish her, or something?

"Eh, six of one, half a dozen of the other," Opposition Rainbow said. "Thing about stone is you can't punch it in the face, and it was Spike of all ponies who managed to get some sweet revenge. But hay, now we've got a new one and he's basically the same guy, so it's all good."

"You don't understand!" Fluttershy squirmed as Opposition Rainbow tied her up with rope she'd apparently been keeping up here for that purpose. "If we can't free Discord, the entire world will be destroyed!"

"Nice one. Try on it someone who didn't grow up with you," Opposition Rainbow chuckled. "I know what a big liar you are, Flutters."

"I am not! Maybe yours is, but I'm not!"

"Come off it. How many colts did you tell that your parents weren't letting you have visitors, when you were living on the ground in your own house and your parents were up in Cloudsdale?"

"That – that's different. I – this isn't the kind of thing I'd lie about!"

"To rescue someone you think pooonies are being meeean to?" Opposition Rainbow sing-songed. "Oh yeah you would."

"But it's true! There's a ritual Twilight, your Twilight, wants to perform, and if she does it to Discord, the world will be destroyed!"

Other Rainbow snorted. "Like Twilight would make a mistake like that!"

"But it – it's because Discord lied to her. He told her–"

"Yeah, no, Discord can't lie. Pull the other one."

"Okay, he misled her. He said things that were true but he didn't say all the true things—"

"Flutters, if you don't shut up I'm either gonna have to tie your muzzle shut or knock you upside the head." Other Rainbow finished with her knots. Fluttershy's legs were pressed against her barrel, forelegs back and back legs forward, and the rope was wound around her barrel, legs and wings in multiple loops. She tried to wiggle free, but it was much too tight for her to have any real hope. "Now just sit tight, I gotta go talk to Twilight and the others and if you try to roll off the cloud or something... nopony's gonna catch you and your wings are all tied up."

Despairingly, Fluttershy flattened her ears in submission, but as soon as Other Rainbow had flown away, forced herself to lift them again. She needed to try to hear what was going on down on the ground. Clouds might be solid to a pegasus, but they didn't do much to muffle sound, and up in the sky, there was normally nothing but distant bird calls and maybe other pegasi having a conversation a distance away. Maybe she could make out what they were saying.

"Got her," she heard Other Rainbow say. "Just like we figured. She flew right into my trap. Didn't guess for a second I wasn't her pal until I jumped her."

"I wonder why the other Rainbow chose not to distinguish herself from you in any way," Other Twilight said.

"Probably because when you have awesome hair like this, you don't dye it."

"I'm forced to agree," Other Rarity said. "You could do more to care for it, but..." Fluttershy heard a sob escape from her. "Oh, Celestia, look at my boutique! I'm ruined!"

"Yeah, we heard you the first time you said that," Other Rainbow said.

"What about me?" Other Fluttershy said. "That bitch burned the whole thing to the ground! At least it looks like some of your stuff didn't burn!"

"Only Sweetie Belle's things. Everything of mine is ruined! Oh, how will I face her when she comes home from school and tell her we face utter destitution?"

"Rarity.  Be quiet. I want the four of you to rejoin Applejack with the other Rainbow Dash and the new prisoner, and take them to Canterlot. Check for me as to whether Princess Celestia followed my recommendations regarding the alicorn or not."

"Whatcha gonna be doing, Twilight?" Other Pinkie asked.

"Pinkie, we discussed this earlier. I have a ritual to prepare for."

"Oh, hay, just so you know, Yellow and Wussy up there knows about your ritual, so she must've talked to Discord. She was telling me all kinds of crazy stuff about it."

Fluttershy wanted desperately to shout down to them, to tell them what Discord had told her... but she knew her voice wouldn't carry. From this height it was unlikely anypony but a pegasus could hear her even if she shouted, and she knew how much difficulty she had with getting her voice to carry at the best of times.

"What sort of crazy stuff?" Pinkie asked.

"Oh, you know, the kind of crap you say when you want someone to not do something because it's meeeean, so you'll say just about anything. No big."

"So Discord knows they've come for him," Other Twilight said. "Unfortunate, but it can't be helped. I imagine he will prove more resistant and troublesome now that he's aware, but it shouldn't make a difference."

"Why don't you just let me kill her in front of him?" Other Fluttershy said, making Fluttershy shudder. "I'm sure that'll quiet down any resistance from him."

Other Twilight sighed heavily. "No. Restrain your bloodthirst for once. I don't mind if it becomes necessary to kill any of them, and I believe we will all be safer if Princess Celestia executes them, but I won't tolerate cold-blooded murder outside the rule of law. We are better than our enemies because we don't kill wantonly."

"Oh, all right." The other Fluttershy sounded frustrated. "Tell me about this ritual, then. Is there anything I need to do to prepare him? Or medical supplies for after you're done?"

Other Pinkie gigglesnorted. "What's so funny?" Other Fluttershy demanded.

"Oh, nothing, nothing, just thinking of a joke!" Other Pinkie chortled, sounding as if she was trying to get her laughter under control.

"Nothing you need concern yourself with now. We'll talk later, when the time is closer. I'll be timing it so the ritual will complete at sunset. Liminal times of day are the most appropriate for these sorts of rites."

She doesn't know, Fluttershy realized. The other me doesn't know Twilight is going to kill him. Pinkie does, and she's keeping it a secret. Maybe Rarity too, she'd normally be asking questions too.

"In the meantime, Rainbow, Fluttershy has always been a skilled manipulator. I believe you should gag her so she can't convince you or anypony else to release her."

"I'm right here," other Fluttershy said in a tone of controlled anger.

"I am aware. I didn't say anything about you that you didn't know about yourself, or that you didn't know I knew. And I called you a clever manipulator, which is a compliment, so I fail to see what you're getting emotional about."

"Look, I've got stuff to do today, and I need to make time for some serious napping at some point," Other Rainbow said, "so let's get this show on the road, okay? I'll get the Other Flutter over to Applejack's and then what, I guess we're all going to the train station?"

"That seems to be a ridiculous amount of trotting around for no good reason," Other Rarity said. "Why don't you take the other Fluttershy directly to the train station – I will escort you, of course – and Pinkie Pie can go let Applejack know to bring your alternate. Fluttershy, you should probably go with Pinkie."

"Why? I'd rather stay here and take care of Discord. Why do all of us have to go?"

Other Twilight sighed in exasperation. "Because Rainbow Dash is clever and dangerous in any universe, and I don't consider it safe to leave Applejack and Pinkie alone to watch her. You grew up with her; you know her better than they do."

"I grew up with our Rainbow Dash."

"And prior to the corruption of our Elements, they were the same person, so stop arguing with me and go."

The other Rainbow Dash appeared, soaring up above Fluttershy's cloud and descending. "So! Twilight says I need to gag you, so are you going to cooperate or do I have to knock you out?"

"You don't have to do this," Fluttershy said softly, looking up at her. "I can promise to be quiet. You know how quiet I can be."

"Yeah, but I know you're not gonna keep a promise like that if you're trying to protect a frieeeend, so no." She landed on top of Fluttershy, legs out far enough not to actually hit her body, but it was frightening enough that Fluttershy ducked her head and made a squeaking sound out of fear.

"Please, Rainbow. You don't have to do this." She looked up at Rainbow, trying to muster up the strength to Stare her down, but her confidence was badly broken by Fluttercruel breaking free from it. "All we want is to help you. We can re-harmonize you and purge the corruption from your world's Discord. Make you and your friends like they were before."

"Ha, and you think I want that?" Rainbow laughed sharply. "I was the world's biggest sucker, believing all that friendship crap. Sure, I'm loyal to Equestria, and since Princess Celestia's in charge I guess I'm loyal to her, and I'll take Twilight's orders, but I know better than to think there's any good that comes from being loyal to ponies." She shoved Fluttershy's head down against the cloud and wrapped rope around her muzzle. Rather than resisting her, Fluttershy relaxed her jaw, letting her mouth hang just slightly open, while keeping her lips shut. "Naah, the whole corrupted Elements thing sure seriously screwed up our Fluttershy, and Pinkie's just psycho now, and it turned Rarity and Applejack into total bitches, but for me, it was an eye opener. Friendship isn't even real. It's just a trick to make you give and give and get nothing back."

Fluttershy closed her eyes tightly. It hurt, to hear sentiments like that from Rainbow Dash, her oldest friend, who'd lived her entire life by her code of loyalty to her friends. This version of Rainbow must be suffering so much inside. It didn't change how dangerous she was, but it made Fluttershy all the more determined to escape, free Discord, free her friends, and re-harmonize this world.

Somehow.

Her Rainbow would figure out a way to escape. She was sure of it. Fluttershy herself wasn't strong enough to break free, and with her mouth tied shut one of the few weapons she did have was taken from her. But she might be able to work the rope loose. And her Rainbow was strong, and tough, and had outwitted this Rainbow once already. And maybe her other friends were going to escape from the palace.

She had to cling to those hopes, because if she thought about the possibility that they'd lose, and this entire world would be destroyed for Discord's mistake, it would break her.

---

Opposition, 12 PM – Spike (Opposition)

"So. What did Fluttershy mean when she said the whole planet would die?" Spike asked, making his voice as hard as he possibly could to conceal the trembling he felt.

Discord sighed. "That ritual that I told Twilight about. It won't work the way I told her it will. Well, it will, but only for a very short time. She's opening a gate to let in the Cold Ones – the Shadows, the Nightmares, whatever you'd like to call them. Their corruption created Nightmare Moon, but even though she was their dupe, Moonie still knew better than to open that gate. They'll send through a great deal of magic to establish their beachhead, yes, enough for Twilight to do anything she wants – except close the gate. And then they'll come through and devour every source of energy there is. All magic. All life. Even the sun."

Spike wasn't sure which emotion was predominant in his heart, terror or rage. "And you thought this was a good idea? You were willing to see everyone die? Everything? The whole planet?" Heedless of the potential danger, given that Discord was still much bigger than he was, he marched forward and glared into Discord's eyes, crowding into the draconequus' personal space. "I helped you! I gave you water, twice, and I cleaned you up, and I sent that letter for you, which Twilight made me pay for, you'd better believe... and you were still willing to kill me? And everyone? What did we all do to you? Why do you hate everyone just because six ponies are hurting you?"

Discord's eyes closed, and he looked down. "I don't hate you," he mumbled.

"But you wanted to see us all die!"

"I'm sure you've never in your life been in a place where you feel so much despair you think the entire world would be better off if it didn't exist," Discord said. "I didn't – I wasn't trying to hurt you. I was trying to hurt them, but I didn't think about you. Or anyone besides them. At all."

"You told me you were innocent. That you never really hurt anypony the way the Discord who we had did. Was that a lie, too?" Spike was shouting now. "How could you just not care?"

"Hate me if you want, you will anyway," Discord said wearily. "I don't know why I did it. I don't know why I didn't think about anyone other than my enemies. Fluttershy said I'm not thinking straight and that's probably true, I can't even remember the last time I actually managed to get a whole night's worth of sleep. But if you don't help me escape, then Twilight's going to perform that ritual, and she's going to kill everyone."

Breathing hard, Spike said, "I don't have to help you. I could just tell Twilight what you told me."

"Then she'll do it anyway, but she'll compensate. If she uses the power to pull the entropy out of the world within the few minutes she has – without entropy there is no time. Everything becomes frozen in a moment of perfection, forever. It's the same fate, really. Without time, there's no thought and no life. But you won't be able to convince her of that because she isn't herself anymore. That thing she wears around her neck is riding her like she's a beast of burden, a meat machine for it to use. It won't let her understand the need for the existence of entropy."

"Isn't entropy the same thing as chaos? Why does time need chaos to work?"

"It's backward, really. Entropy requires time, but it's such a fundamental principle of the universe that there is no way to eliminate it without eliminating time. She can freeze time more easily than she can actually stop entropy. She's forced me to absorb enough raw magic that what's left of Matrisse – her master, the Spirit of Order, my oldest enemy – has been able to reduce the rate of entropy, but even Matrisse can't get rid of it, even with all the magic in the universe... except by stopping time. The original Matrisse would have known better, but Matrisse went insane and tried to destroy magic, so I destroyed it instead, and now it's in pieces all over the world. One of which Twilight is wearing, so I know your Discord did the same thing."

"What if I got it off of her?"

"That's not enough. You could eat it and it wouldn't be enough at this point. She's bonded to it as tightly as she was ever bonded to her Element."

"What if I killed you?"

Discord rolled onto his back and stretched his neck out. "Go on, then. One quick swipe of your claws and it solves everything. Though personally? I'd prefer it if you went for the collar first, and gave me a few moments to teleport my friends to safety before finishing me. Not that I can allow you to do that, because I've been ordered not to let anything damage my collar, but if you moved fast I might not be able to stop you."

"If you were free of your collar you could just escape."

"Yes, just in time to die horribly. Twilight poisoned me. There's crystals in my guts now that absorb chaos magic and grow. The moment my powers aren't suppressed anymore, they'll start growing. She says it'll probably be half an hour before they've pierced me in so many places I bleed to death, but I'd really rather a quick slash across my throat. A lot faster and less painful. So do what you want about the collar, but if you want to kill me to stop Twilight from destroying the world with me, do it. Otherwise, no matter how much you hate me for putting this in motion, you have to help me escape or the world dies."

For several long seconds Spike stood over Discord, paralyzed by indecision. He'd killed Discord once. And it had been the worst mistake of his life. And he'd thought it was the lesser of two evils, at the time. Killing this Discord might be the lesser of two evils too. If Spike freed him, what was to stop him from coming back for revenge, once he'd gotten the Elements' spells broken by his friends' Elements? But if Spike killed him, then he couldn't help his friends escape, and could the alternate Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash really single-hoofedly rescue the others, particularly since Princess Celestia seemed to have some sinister purpose for the alternate Twilight? And if Spike did nothing, the world would be destroyed, unless the alternate Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy managed to free Discord themselves out from under Twilight's nose, and if Spike was going to allow that, then why not free Discord to begin with?

But he felt betrayed by Discord. He'd felt sympathy for the draconequus, he'd helped him in what very little ways he could, and he'd paid dearly for that. Twilight had taken all his gems, leaving him with nothing but a few special items that he didn't consider edible, and which Twilight would have confiscated a long time ago if she'd had any idea what they were. Twilight had yelled at him – well, not yell so much coldly and icily lecture – for hours, and had treated him like garbage ever since. And he'd endured all that to help someone who had just thoughtlessly decided that whether he, Spike, lived or died was too unimportant to worry about.

He dropped his paw, slowly. Discord had betrayed him, yes. But Spike wasn't a murderer. Not really. Yes, he'd committed a murder, in cold blood, and he'd known it was murder when he decided to do it, but it had looked and felt like destroying an inanimate object. This Discord was far too animate an object. Spike couldn't bring himself to slash someone's throat open. And he couldn't convince himself it was the right thing to do, either. He'd only made matters worse by killing a Discord with a far longer track record of harm than coming up with one omnicidal idea while powerless, tortured and suicidal. Of course it only took one omnicidal idea, but... he was so angry, so mind-numbingly angry, but at the same time he recognized that probably Discord really wasn't thinking clearly, or as clearly as he ever did.

"I don't know how I can help you," he said finally. "Twilight is right outside. And if I break your collar it'll kill you, but if I don't, how could I even help?"

"Well, I'm fairly sure this chain isn't as tough as a diamond," Discord said, tugging on it. "And I was never ordered to prevent anyone from destroying the chain that holds me. Just bite through it."

"But then where would you go? Twilight's right outside! How would you get away?"

"You could just let me worry about that," Discord suggested.

"No, I can't, because if I bite through the chain she'll know it was me! She'll see the bite marks! And if you don't get away then the whole point to sticking my neck out for you will be gone, and she won't let me do anything to help you and she won't believe me if I tell her anything!"

"Are you solving anything by standing around being indecisive?"

"I just need to know you have a plan for getting out of here!"

"Who are you talking to? I never have a plan. I was going to run upstairs and go out the window and hide. Maybe after breaking my own eardrums so I can't hear if she yells orders to me when she doesn't know where I am."

"That'll never work! She'll find you in minutes with magic! She can scry for you, you know. She had a spell to find the original Discord; she knew where he was, all the time, and that was before she got the Diadem." Spike's ears pricked up. "Oh ponyfeathers, she's back."

"Great," Discord mumbled. "Thanks. Whole lot of help you were."

Twilight entered the room. "Spike. We have preparations to make. Go get me the runic ink."

Spike hesitated. If he got Twilight the ink, he was colluding in the potential destruction of the world. If he didn't, she'd just go get it herself, but she'd know he was being uncooperative, and then she might demand to know why and then it might come out that the rite would destroy the world and then if Discord was correct, Twilight would just destroy the world a different way, and she wouldn't believe him if he told her about it because she didn't really believe anything she hadn't come up with herself, anymore.

"Hey, does the condemned prisoner get a last meal?" Discord asked. "I'm hungry and Fluttershy isn't here."

Twilight turned and looked at him. "No. You will be fasting until the ritual."

"Oh, come on! Now you're not even trying to make up an excuse. I told you about that ritual; I know very well it's not affected one way or the other by whether I eat or not."

"True, but the sanitary disposal of your body might be facilitated by making you fast."

"No, it won't. I ate last night. There is literally no possible purpose served by making me fast except to make this whole thing more unpleasant for me than it needs to be, as if exsanguinating me and letting entities from beyond feed on my life force isn't bad enough."

"This was your idea, Discord."

"Yes, I said I wanted to die. Not to be starved before it happens."

Twilight seemed to have completely forgotten the request for runic ink. Spike stayed, watching the interchange between her and Discord, rather than going.

"I wonder, is death still your preference?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Is there some reason you think it would have changed since this morning?"

"Don't be disingenuous. I know you met with the Fluttershy of your world. I know you're aware that the alternate Bearers did in fact cross over to try to rescue you. Since you expressed that your wish for death was largely due to your belief that you have no friends, I'm expecting you to have changed your mind and be trying to sabotage this ritual. Are you?"

Discord laughed. "You seriously think they came to rescue me because they're my friends?" he chortled bitterly. "I told you... Celestia wanted me released because she had a use for my magic. Do you really think that if Celestia has a use for me, the other you would hesitate to come get me so they can put me back to work? Or that her friends wouldn't follow her?"

"I asked you if you had changed your mind."

He looked directly at her. "If my so-called 'friends' were lying to me to keep me under control and obedient to Celestia, then it doesn't matter to me if they came to rescue me or not. They wouldn't have done it for my sake if they're not really my friends."

"And are they not really your friends?"

"I tried to choke Fluttershy to death when she came in here," he said casually. "Does that sound friendly to you?"

Spike stared. He'd been told time and time again that Discord couldn't lie... but here he was, lying. How was he doing that?

"She seemed to think you still believe her to be a friend."

He sighed. "Fluttershy has every reason to keep up the pretense, if she's trying to control me by tricking me into thinking she's my friend. They were told to rescue me by Celestia, I'm sure. But if they bring me back to my world and I know they're not my friends, there's not a whole lot they can do to control me. So of course she's going to keep it up; she wants me to believe it, and so if it's an act that's going to work it has to be completely consistent, and she can't drop it, ever. I've been Fluttercruel's prisoner for two months." He shuddered. "I know how manipulative she is. The Fluttershy of my world is much, much kinder... but her talent for manipulation is probably either the same or even greater. And if I can't believe I really have any friends, because I know how good Fluttershy would be at lying to me... then I don't want to live. So no. I'd only change my mind if she convinced me she really did care about me, and good luck with that after two months of Fluttercruel's tender care."

He wasn't lying, Spike realized, as he listened to Discord's words much more carefully than usual. Nearly everything he said had a qualifier on it, or implied something rather than stating it. "If she's trying to control me." "If I know they're not my friends." "If I can't believe I really have any friends." He'd even managed to slip in the actual state of affairs, and made it sound like he was saying the exact opposite. "I'd only change my mind if she convinced me... and good luck with that..." Discord had never said Fluttershy hadn't convinced him. He'd implied it, but he'd never said it.

The only thing he'd outright stated, aside from that Celestia had a use for him, was that he'd attacked Fluttershy. As far as Spike knew he literally couldn't tell a bald-faced lie, so he probably had done that. Given that he'd nearly attacked Spike himself earlier that day, and his utter refusal to believe that Spike telling him his friends had come for him wasn't a cruel trick on Spike's part... yeah, that had probably happened. But clearly she'd talked him down, because she'd been fine when she left.

Twilight studied him. "I see. So you still sincerely wish to die?"

Discord looked down. "I... care enough about her, still, that I told her to get her friends and clear out of this universe. Don't rescue me. Just leave me here. But if I don't have any friends, then all I want is to die."

Abruptly Spike remembered what supposedly happened when Discord said things that were misleading. "I... I'm going to go get a mop bucket. For cleanup later."

"Fine, Spike. Go do that. In fact, I want this entire area scrubbed and disinfected before we begin." Her horn lit up, and two of the chains from the posts lifted up and attached themselves to Discord's pegasus wing and goat leg. "That should secure you tightly enough if they should somehow manage to come back."

"You do realize you've just made it impossible for me to avoid making an unsanitary mess at some point, unless you're planning on killing me in the next few hours, because now I can't possibly reach that washroom over there."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Bring an extra bucket for effluvia, Spike. Preferably not the one you took already, unless you've cleaned it."

Well, that was convenient. Spike started toward the door, and then stopped. Discord was asking, "Just out of curiosity, how long before the main event, anyway?"

"Such rites are always best conducted at moonrise, which is several hours away."

"Then go away. All the prep work you need to do is looking up runes and you know that. I want to sleep."

Twilight took a deep breath. "You do not give me orders, Discord. It is quite the other way around."

"You're already going to kill me. Don't you have any compassion at all? I barely got any sleep last night and it's not as if I'm looking forward to the moment you start playing with knives. Let me sleep the rest of my life away, if I'm going to die tonight."

Twilight sighed. "You're correct. I need to go look up runes. And find the runic ink. Spike is useless; he never found it." She turned on him. "You haven't even gone for those buckets yet."

"Sorry!" Spike quickly ducked out of the room, gathered an empty bucket and a bucket full of cold water, and pulled them in. He was going to have to use hot water and soap for the disinfecting procedure, but right now, it wasn't as if he intended to use either of them to mop.

When he returned, moments later, Twilight was grilling Discord on some of the runes involved. Discord shrugged. "I'm not an expert on runes and I've told you everything I know about how to set up the ritual. You're the genius. Look up whatever you need to."

"I intend to. But first." She walked over to him. Despite the sarcastic and defiant tone he'd been taking with her, Discord shrank down to the floor as she approached, plastering himself against it as if he didn't even realize he was doing it, or how frightened it revealed him to be. "Here are your orders. You may not let anyone destroy your collar. You must use lethal force to stop them if needed. You may not let anyone destroy the chains that hold you, nor may you unlatch them, nor allow anyone else to unlatch them. You must use lethal force to stop them if needed. You are forbidden to go out that door for the rest of your life." She pointed at the exit to her workroom. "You are forbidden to allow anyone else to drag you or carry you through the door. You must use lethal force to stop them if needed."

Spike swallowed. He'd missed his chance to help. He couldn't bite through the chains if Discord was under a compulsion to kill him if he tried, and if Discord wasn't allowed to go out the door anyway... there were no windows in the workroom, which had been their book-sorting room once upon a time. There was no way out except through the door.

Oh dear Celestia. Was he going to have to do something to Twilight to stop the ritual? Oh, please, no. Don't make me have to hurt Twilight to save the world. Please, please don't do that.

Besides, he wasn't quite sure she trusted him enough that he'd be able to.

Twilight wasn't done. "You are not permitted to engage in sexual activity with any pony, or any other being. You are authorized to refuse any such orders given to you by anyone who isn't me. As the Element of Magic, I outrank all of the other Bearers of Harmony and my orders supersede theirs. Any order which would result in sexual contact between yourself and any other being is an order you are free to refuse, as my orders countermand theirs. You are free to tell them so."

Spike winced inwardly. Discord had told him about that, a couple of nights ago when he had tricked Spike into sending that fateful letter, but Spike hadn't wanted to believe it, or understand Discord's hints. Not Fluttershy. She couldn't. She wouldn't. But tears formed in Discord's eyes.

"Really?" he said hoarsely. "Twilight... that's the only kindness you've ever granted me ever since you imprisoned me. I still hate you, but... thank you. Thank you. I – you didn't have to do that for me."

"I did not do it for you. I find the thought of you engaging in sexual activity with anyone repulsive, but I deferred to Fluttershy for her strategy to bring you to obedience. That strategy is no longer needed."

"I don't care who you did it for or why you did it. You just protected me from being raped again for the rest of my life. Whatever your reasons, thank you." He was choked up, sounding as if his voice was on the verge of breaking.

"You... had a point, this morning. Rape is disgusting." Twilight turned away from him. "Even you didn't deserve such treatment. My experiments on you had a purpose; I took no pleasure from causing you pain. I only wanted to use your power to make life better for all ponykind. Fluttershy has claimed that... that using you in such a way would break down your defenses and make you obedient sooner, and evidence suggests she may have been right, but... still. She did it because she enjoyed it, not solely for higher purpose. It nauseates me. I suppose... I'm not completely without compassion, even for you."

"Th-thank—" A sob escaped him. He stopped talking, and curled into a ball on the floor, pressing his paws to his muzzle and breathing deeply, the picture of a draconequus trying to get his runaway emotions under control.

"Spike. Disinfect the room. I am going to go make sure I have a perfect understanding of these runes and how to emplace them. And to find the ink that you couldn't be bothered with."

"Sorry, Twilight." He wasn't sorry, but her accusation still stung, even though it was absolutely true; he really had deliberately dragged his feet on it.

As soon as Twilight had left, Discord gasped, one paw still on his muzzle. "Spike – Spike, bucket, please—"

"You don't have to tell me twice," Spike said, dragging over the empty bucket. He turned away, trying not to listen to the sound of Discord dry-retching, and got the water bucket, dragging that over too. "I figured you would need that. And a drink."

"I'm sorry – I'm so sorry – I wasn't thinking, and I screwed everything up, and – and you should run. They got Fluttershy. They wouldn't have any way of knowing she visited me unless they got her. Go rescue them – I think they're all in Canterlot – and they can bring you to the portal. You can get out of here before tonight." He was still crying as he spoke, alternating with more empty vomiting. Nothing was coming up but mucus and blood, and not very much of either, but he couldn't seem to stop.

"Discord, take a drink. Maybe it'll help."

The first drink didn't; he spewed it right back up again immediately. The second drink, he managed to hold down for maybe 30 seconds. The third, maybe a bit longer than that. But the fourth drink stayed down, and after that, he drank the entire contents of the bucket. Spike carried the vomit bucket to the washroom, dumped the tiny amount of actual fluid in it into the toilet, rinsed it out, and then filled it with hot water and bleach.

"Drink all the water. That one's gonna have to be your bathroom bucket if you need one."

"I did, actually. Drink it all. Already." Discord had slumped on the floor. "You have no idea. I was coming so close to losing it; I had to pretend to start crying so I'd have an excuse, because if I didn't do something to physically hold it in, there was no way I could have, and she knows what it means when I throw up. She'd question me to find out where I was, uh, being creative and leaving things out."

"You were pretending to cry?"

"I, um, actually it wasn't pretending, but I did deliberately let myself do it." He shuddered. "You have no idea what it feels like to be grateful to someone who has brutally tortured you twice a week and is planning on slaughtering you like a cow in the Griffon Empire, because they've shown you the smallest, tiniest, literally least bit of mercy possible. I wanted to grovel at her hooves in thankfulness because she won't let Fluttercruel touch me again. How pathetic is that?"

Spike chose his words carefully. "I, um... I'm really sorry Fluttershy has been... well, you know. I just thought she was, was training you. Like she trains other animals. I knew the experiments hurt you—" he could hardly have avoided knowing that; during the experiments, there'd never been anywhere in the library he could go to escape the sound of Discord's screams—"but I didn't know about the whips. And, and other things."

"It's all right, Spike," Discord said tiredly. "You killed me. And you trusted your friends and family. I knew all along you weren't going to stick your neck out for me."

"But I should have – I mean you kept being all bloody and I never thought about where was that coming from. I mean, besides the holes Twilight's wires kept poking in you."

Discord shuddered again. "Don't remind me. But it's over. No more of that, either. Either someone sets me free or I'll die tonight. Either way. No more experiments and no more of Fluttercruel's twisted ideas about 'love.'" He smiled weakly. "I don't want to bring down the rest of the world with me. If it gets to that point – if they can't rescue me – please, kill me. She didn't order me not to let you."

"I don't have that hammer anymore. Princess Celestia confiscated it."

"Oh my, no, I wouldn't want that anyway. That hammer shatters souls, that's why it can kill a god. I am fairly sure that right now I'm mortal enough that a claw slash to my throat would end it pretty quickly."

Spike's eyes widened. "Shatters souls?"

"You didn't know? Oh dear. The other Discord doesn't exist anymore. Which is just as well for you, because he might just have decided to come back from the dead if you'd killed him in some more mundane way. But you broke his soul into pieces."

"I – I didn't even know for sure that souls existed! I mean, they're theoretical, and supposedly you can do necromancy to bring back the dead and that wouldn't work if there were no souls, except it usually results in zomponies or some kind of abomination and not the pony at all so maybe there aren't any souls, but—"

"No, souls exist. And are much harder to destroy than bodies. But it can be done. You did it."

"I – I didn't mean to – I just – I didn't even want him dead, I just – it was the only way to make sure he couldn't come back—"

"And you succeeded. Bravo for you." Discord looked as if he was, actually, on the verge of falling asleep. "But promise me. If she actually gets to the point where she's about to start that ritual. Kill me. If you could kill me once to save the world, you can do it again. I think I'm mortal now; you won't destroy my soul, but the ritual would. I've always wondered what will happen when I die and stay dead. What there is to see in the Shadowlands beyond the depth I've explored."

"I – I don't know if I can, Discord."

"Well, you missed your chance to save the world by biting through my chains. So unless my friends come to the rescue, which sounds unlikely given that they've been imprisoned too, or unless I can think of something else, that might be the only option to stop the ritual you'll get."

"What if I knock you unconscious, and then bite through the chains?"

Discord pointed at the door. "Were you there when she ordered me to not go through that thing?"

"Uh... yeah."

"Unless you're strong enough to drag me, stealthily, without Twilight noticing what you're doing, then no. I still can't leave the room on my own power, and I can't allow anyone to take me out of it without resisting as much as I can." He sighed. "She didn't tell me to use lethal force to prevent anyone from ripping my collar. So if you go for that I have to try to stop you, but your reaction time might be better than mine, in my condition. I'd still die, but I'd have my magic back long enough to make sure my friends were safe."

"I don't want to kill you."

"I'd rather not die, not now. But I'm not sure I'm going to get another option." He closed his eyes. "Wake me up when you need to move me so you can mop under me. I'm going to sleep."

"How can you sleep at a time like this?"

"Given how tired I am, and how much all that not-lying and then upchucking took out of me? Easily."

He was right. Within minutes after he closed his eyes, his breathing evened out, becoming deep and regular. Spike continued to mop, racking his brains. There had to be a way out of this that didn't involve making him a murderer again. There just had to be.

---

Opposition, 12 PM – Applejack (Harmony)

When Applejack turned back to look and see if Pinkie and Spike were gone, they were. Which didn't make a darned bit of sense, because she hadn't heard Pinkie's hoofsteps going anywhere, and there were no doors in the corridor anywhere near there, but she knew better than to question the ways of Pinkie Pie.

"They're off," she said to Rarity.

"Good. I'm sure Pinkie will keep Spike safe. Now to find our own way out." Rarity trotted forward confidently.

"You know where you're goin', sugarcube?"

"Well, unlike Twilight, I didn't grow up in this palace, but I did once spend an entire summer memorizing all the publicly available information on the castle architecture." She smiled wistfully. "I had an ambition to sneak into the palace and find Princess Celestia's rooms, so I could take measurements of her existing dresses. Then I was going to create the most beautiful dress any princess has ever worn and request an audience with her so I could show it to her, and she would be so amazed and thrilled with the dress that she would appoint me as Royal Dressmaker."

Applejack snorted. "And to think I thought I was overreachin' myself when I had fantasies of gettin' all the noble folk to buy my apple concoctions at the Gala."

"Oh, no, that was a perfectly reasonable idea." Rarity laughed slightly. "Even I didn't realize how strong the prejudices of the nobility would be against 'commoner' food, and I read all the fashion and lifestyle magazines from Canterlot. My idea, of course, was ridiculous, which is part of why I never actually did it; by the time I felt confident that I was skilled enough to make the princess a dress, I realized that all I'd likely accomplish by breaking and entering into her private rooms was a stay in the dungeons." She turned down another corridor. "We should avoid going out the front door. I'm a doctor and you're my escort, so what we really want is to head for the servants' entrance. Since I planned to sneak in via the servants' entrance, I'm fairly sure I know the route. Assuming things haven't been drastically rearranged in this version of the palace, which, sadly, is a possibility, considering how long Discord was running amok here."

"Let's not go borrowin' trouble. When we zapped Discord everything he did went back to normal, so you'd figure the same would've happened here. Aside of the folks that died or got hurt bad, of course, but you know what I mean."

A lone guardspony approached them, near the far end of the corridor. "Uh-oh."

"Just follow my lead," Rarity whispered.

The guardspony's eyes narrowed as he came closer. "Private, report. Who is your companion?"

"I'm Doctor Sure Stitch," Rarity said, her affected pseudo-Canterlot accent gone. Applejack raised an eyebrow. Of course she could imitate a Manehattanite accent herself, but she'd practically forgotten that Rarity was raised in Ponyville and her accent was just a put-on. "I came to the palace today for a job interview with the palace medical staff, and Private Stronghoof here was kind enough to offer to show me out after my interview. Why, this palace is practically a maze."

"Private Stronghoof? Can't say I've seen you before, soldier."

Applejack stood straight, adopting a military bearing. It wasn't hard. When they were little she and Mac used to play Royal Guardsponies, and Mac, who had fantasies of being a soldier at the time, actually knew a lot about how they were supposed to stand and salute and all that. Of course, all those dreams went up in smoke when Ma and Pa died and Mac had to be the stallion of the house, but she still remembered. "Sir, I've just enlisted last week, sir," she said in the gruff version of the Manehattan accent that Rarity had suggested to her earlier.

"Makes sense. Let me ask you, though, Private, were you actually there at the doc's interview?"

Applejack knew better than to even try to lie about that. She could lie if she carefully prepared what she was going to say ahead of time and rehearsed it, and she could say things that were misleading and partway true if she had to, like in a situation where lives were at stake – like before, when she'd told Shining Armor he could trust Rarity, not because Rarity was telling the truth but because Rarity wanted what was best for this world and everypony in it just like Shining did. But she couldn't tell a bald-faced lie if she was caught flat-hooved, not and not get caught out in it. "Sir, no, I can't say I was, sir."

"Well then. Dr. Stitch, you wouldn't mind showing me your cutie mark, would you?"

Applejack's heart sank. The lab coat was covering Rarity's cutie mark, and they'd hoped that with the color change to her mane and the glasses, that she wouldn't attract enough attention that ponies looking for Rarity would notice her. But this guardspony was clearly suspicious, and of course Rarity couldn't pass a cutie mark check.

"Of course not, Sergeant, but can I ask why? That seems like an unusual request."

"Security reasons. I can't go into details." Probably they'd discovered the empty cell, Applejack figured.

"Oh dear! Well, of course I'll cooperate! Let me just – get – this coat – oh, it's so tight." It wasn't, having been made for a stallion, but Rarity was demonstrating a great deal of difficulty shrugging out of it. "I'm sorry, Sergeant, my magic is really best optimized for cutting and stitching – that's my special talent. I'm not so good at getting this terrible thing on and off, it's such a chore. Private, would you assist me? I'm going to have to rear up to get it back off my withers." There was a slight tapping on Applejack's back legs, on her fetlocks right above her hooves.

Applejack sure hoped she was reading Rarity's signals right. All of them had heard plenty of the plots of adventure dramas from Spike's eager willingness to recount the plot of his comic books to anypony who dared ask what he was reading, and from Rainbow Dash's desire to read her favorite Daring Do parts out loud regardless of whether anypony encouraged her or not. And Applejack had been to a few adventure movies, and she figured Rarity had too, even if her preference was for romance and drama. So she hoped she knew what Rarity was setting up.

She interposed her body between Rarity and the sergeant. "Here you go, Doc, you can lean on me."

"Oh, thank you." Rarity reared up and bent her forelegs awkwardly to try to push the coat off her withers. Her mouth moved in a silent word. Now.

Applejack shifted her own balance in a second, leaning forward on her forelegs so she could put full force into Bucky McGillicuddy and Kicks McGee. They slammed into the jaw and withers of the guardspony, who'd come up behind her in his eagerness to see the "doctor's" cutie mark and confirm her identity. He went flying backward, wings flapping as he tried to right himself, but Applejack had hit too fast and with too much force, and he couldn't get enough wingpower into play in time to keep from falling backward to the floor. Rarity leaped, landed next to the fallen guard, and before he could get his wings out from under him, she kicked him in the side of the neck in what looked like a very precise strike, hitting with just the edge of her hoof. He slumped back down to the ground.

"That should stun him for a few minutes, at least," Rarity said, breathing heavily. "Oh, I'm so glad you figured out what I was suggesting, Applejack. That could have gone much worse."

"Still could. Your disguise ain't workin' and I just blew my cover. Let's run for it."

"That may be the best strategy now," Rarity agreed, and the two of them started galloping.

They passed a couple of groups of guards in pairs as they ran for the servants' entrance. Rarity avoided being challenged by yelling "Excuse me, mare in labor, I'm a doctor, let me through!" It worked because they were heading for the servants' wing.

Once they were in the servants' wing – which was slightly shabbier than the rest of the palace, but still shiny and rich-enough looking to make her Orange aunt drool, Applejack thought – Rarity picked the lock to a supply closet and ran in, gesturing at Applejack to follow. It was a large supply closet for supplies, but uncomfortably small for two grown mares. Applejack pressed up againat Rarity in the darkness of the closet as they heard the clopping of hoofsteps out in the hallway, heavy hoofsteps like the sound of stallions in armor. "They were headed this way!"

"Must be heading for the servants' entrance! Let's go!"

"They'll block it off," Applejack whispered to Rarity. "Now what?"

"Now we hope the color change spell I practiced actually works," Rarity whispered back. A light flicked on in the closet.

"You sure it's wise to have the light on like that?"

"I'm sure I can't cast a color spell in the dark," Rarity retorted. "I can't see to your other side, are there any maids' uniforms?"

"Yeah, but tiny ones. Ain't no way they're gonna fit me. You're dainty, they might do, but what's a maid doing with a guard?"

"Is there more than one?"

"Yup, looks like three or four."

"Oh, excellent. Give me just five minutes."

"Just five minutes" turned into at least fifteen, as Rarity used her emergency sewing kit to cut and slice and stitch two of the uniforms into one larger uniform and a lot of scraps, which she shoved into a mop bucket. She was doing the work above their heads, because there wasn't room to do it anywhere else. When she was done, she shuffled off her lab coat and helped Applejack remove her armor, and then, carefully because they were still tightly squashed together, used her magic to help get the maid's outfits on the both of them.

It turned out there was another problem. "That ain't coverin' my cutie mark," Applejack whispered urgently. Not that she could see – in the cramped quarters she couldn't really turn enough to see her own flank – but she could feel the air on her haunches. "Not yours neither, I'll warrant."

"A lady never leaves home without her makeup kit."

"You got a sewing kit and a makeup kit in your mane? You been taking lessons from Pinkie there?"

Rarity giggled. "It does involve something of the art of knowing how to pack very tightly."

Her horn shone, brighter than Applejack had ever seen Rarity's horn glow, her face pinched with concentration and sweat coming to the surface of her coat, everywhere. As Applejack watched, Rarity's coat turned solid light grey – including her cutie mark – and her mane, previously dyed light blue, went to a slate color. When Applejack glanced at herself, she saw that her own coat had turned a solid vermilion, almost the same color as Mac's, and her cutie mark was barely visible, having turned the same color. Her mane was now a dark orange.

"I'm glad I have you to work with, Applejack, and not Twilight or Rainbow. Getting the different color strands of the mane would be so difficult."

"You did okay with the cutie marks. Except now we're blank flanks. That's gonna stand out."

"Don't worry. I needed our cutie marks to fade so I could draw new ones on." Using mascara, she drew a yin-yang symbol on her own coat, and a wheel with spokes on Applejack's. "I haven't the faintest what these mean so hopefully nopony will ask about our cutie mark story."

"You can't just draw on cutie marks. The natural cutie mark magic fights that," Applejack said. "That's why Apple Bloom and her pals ain't never been able to fake it."

"I know. The cutie marks will break through the color spell first, and they'll do it in about fifteen to twenty minutes at best. So we don't have very much time."

"Servants' entrance is gonna be guarded."

"And that's why we will be carrying vases!" Triumphantly Rarity put a saddlebag harness on each of them, from a set of about nine or ten hanging on the wall, and crystal flower vases from an entire rack of crystal flower vases. "One of the important duties of the maids in Canterlot Palace is to keep all the vases full of fresh flowers, all the time. So if we head out the door with vases, it's unlikely anypony will even question us. We're now the entirely wrong colors to be Applejack and Rarity and we even have different cutie marks."

"For now."

"Yes. I'll hold it as long as I can but I'm no Twilight. We just have to do our best. And move quickly."

Applejack couldn't hear anypony outside. "All right, then, let's get to movin'." She pushed the door open and trotted out, checking quickly to make sure her fake cutie mark hadn't smeared as she slid past Rarity. "Still looks good."

"No-smear mascara. It's so expensive but so worth it."

Applejack had to admit she was real nervous about this plan. Depending on Rarity's magic to sew two maid's uniforms together to make a larger one that looked exactly like the real thing? That was fine, that was Rarity's thing. But Rarity doing actual spells, even color change ones? Covering a mark took serious magic, or a ton of really thick actor's makeup; she'd never much thought about it before, but ever since Apple Bloom had gotten obsessed with her cutie mark, Applejack knew more than she wanted to about the damn things, including how hard they were to fake. And Rarity's magic was all about precision, not power. Not spells, either, aside from her special gem-finding spell.

But she didn't have a better idea. "If it comes to it," she said as they trotted, as quickly as they could trot without shifting to a gallop, "can you break those vases and use the glass as weapons?"

"I can, but..." Rarity hesitated. "What lengths are we willing to go to? These stallions are loyally serving Princess Celestia, just like the ones at home. I'm quite comfortable with knocking them out if we have to, but... glass cuts. And these guardsponies don't deserve that."

"I get that, I wouldn't want you to actually cut them up. Can you bluff?"

"Not if there's another unicorn there. Nearly any guardsunicorn will be stronger than me and be able to shield."

"You just leave that to me," Applejack said. "The unicorns always underestimate the earth ponies. Not so much guard to guard, but the unicorn guards think they've got everything all tied up, dealin' with civilian earth ponies. Don't think as they'll see it coming, if they're all looking at you."

"You know that if there are very many of them, or if there are Changelings among them..."

"Then we're well and truly hosed, Rarity. You know it, I know it. But let's not borrow trouble. All we can do's the best we can do."

---

Opposition, 1 PM – Rainbow Dash (Harmony)

Rainbow opened her eyes blearily, feeling the movement of clacking wheels below her. I'm... on a train.

She tried to jerk to her feet, but failed. Her wings were tied to her sides, and her forelegs were four-hobbled, ropes tying each leg to its two closest legs so the ropes made a rectangle. Or they would, if they weren't folded under her, and she couldn't get up onto them because she couldn't stretch them away from each other far enough.

Fluttershy – her Fluttershy, the one with the dyed mane – was lying on the floor across from her, tied even more tightly. She had a rope around her muzzle – Rainbow experimented with trying to open her own mouth, and discovered that so did she – and her legs were tied to her body the same way her wings were, making it impossible for her to move without being carried. And the others – her own alternate, Fluttershy's alternate, and the alternates of Applejack, Rarity and Pinkie – were sitting on the benches of the train. They were in the two L-shaped areas directly near the doors, Rainbow and Fluttershy lying on the train floor in the space directly in front of the 1-pony wide sideways seat and the 2-pony wide long seat.

Really, that was just them being jerks. The way the benches were laid out, a single pony could lie all the way across one, or two ponies could sit on them (three if they were foals, or very friendly). There was no good reason they had to put her and Fluttershy on the floor except to be jerks.

She considered her situation. If she tried to do anything with the wind or weather in here – which would be real hard anyway with her wings tied up – the other her would notice. They hadn't, however, noticed her waking up; they were bickering with each other. If she could only use her legs... but she couldn't.

And with her mouth tied shut, she couldn't use her teeth... unless she could scrape the muzzling rope off. Which she totally could. Because unlike Fluttershy, she hadn't been tied in such a way that she couldn't use her legs at all. Probably because they knew that if they tied her in a way where they'd have to carry her, they wouldn't be able to hold her because she'd wiggle and whack them in the faces with her tail and stuff. Being an awesome stunt flyer meant being really flexible and acrobatic; she was sure she could have hurt their counterparts if they'd tried to carry her, and she was pretty sure they knew it, and that was why they tied her up so that if they helped her to her hooves, she'd be able to walk.

Which meant, if she could just roll a little sideways so she could get one hoof out from under her, she could pull off the rope on her mouth while her head was tucked down as if she was still sleeping.

So far so good. The rope was tied pretty tight, but Rainbow had a perfectly marish muzzle, short and slender like most mares had, and it was hard to get a rope to stay on a mare's muzzle unless you also tied it like a bit in her mouth, which they had not done to her. Mainly, Rainbow supposed, because they figured that even in her sleep she'd bite them. By scraping her head against the floor and her hoof against the rope, she was able to work the rope off her face.

She cracked an eye open, checking to see if her counterpart, or any of the others, had noticed. Didn't look that way. Good.

Rainbow commenced with the chewing through the rope binding her two forelegs together. First she'd get her forelegs free of each other. Then the rope on her left and right sides that bound the foreleg on that side to the hindleg. That way she'd have her forelegs free. She couldn't see how to get her mouth or her hooves down to her hindlegs without anypony noticing, but that wasn't what was important; with her forelegs free she ought to be able to pull the rope around her wings close enough to her head that she could reach it with her mouth, and if she chewed through that she was golden. Yeah, it was going to be something of a challenge to fight off replicas of four of her friends, when the fifth replica was of her and had all of her abilities, but Rainbow figured if she had the element of surprise she could take them out fast. Her other self, for starters, and then Pinkie. Rarity and Fluttershy wouldn't be as big of threats, but Applejack could be a serious concern, particularly in a train car where Rainbow couldn't maneuver as easily. So she'd just have to take all three of them out super fast.

And then a hoof yanked her head back by the mane.

"I thought I heard a munching noise!" Pinkie announced. "Look, Dashie, the other you is eating the ropes off! Hey, Other Dashie, are they yummy? Rope is made of hemp and if you put some kind of hemp in the brownies it makes you all giggly and weird and hungry but I don't know if rope hemp is the same kind! Are you going to get all giggly and weird and hungry?"

"Sounds like you eat that kind all day long, Pinkie!" the other Rainbow laughed.

"Nah, it just makes me jumpy! Which is not the same as bouncy! I like being bouncy but I don't like being jumpy!"

Her head was turned, talking to the other Rainbow. Rainbow slammed her head backwards, trying to head-butt Pinkie. Except that Pinkie noticed, even though her head was turned, and dodged it. "Woo! Gotta be careful there, Other Dashie, you almost bashed your noggin on my head!"

The other Applejack knelt down in front of Rainbow. "Look here, I know my Rainbow well enough to know you've got all kinds of crazy unrealistic fantasies about fighting your way out of here single-hoofed," she said. "So let me explain something to you plain and simple. Rarity's got a knife on your Fluttershy. You give us any grief, we slice her throat. You got that?"

Rainbow glared at her angrily, but said nothing. She was trying to think of a witty retort, but all that was coming to mind was really lame things like "You'll never get away with this" and "Oh, you think you're such a big mare," and stuff like that. Daring Do would know what to say, but Rainbow wasn't Daring Do.

"I think we should kill both of them," the other Fluttershy said. "They burned my house down! And probably they were the ones who got yours too, Rarity! Don't you agree we ought to kill them?"

"I'd love to," other Rarity said, "but it will hardly bring back my house, and if Twilight thinks they should be sent to Princess Celestia to deal with, then that is what we should properly do."

"But if you agree, and I agree, and I know Pinkie would like to try them so I'm sure she agrees—"

"This ain't a democracy, Fluttershy, shut it. We got our orders from Twilight and that's that." She tilted Rainbow's chin up painfully. "So. You understand that if you give us trouble, your Fluttershy dies? Better say yes or no, I don't take kindly to folks clammin' up when I ask them a simple question."

"Sounds to me like you're not supposed to kill either of us," Rainbow said, having finally thought of something to say. "Aren't you worried you'll get in trouble if we don't make it alive to Canterlot?"

"Hmm. That's a good point, there. Rarity, that knife of yours strong enough to saw through a wing bone?"

"Mine isn't, but I'm sure Pinkie would lend me hers."

Rainbow's eyes went wide. "So there we go, change of plans," Applejack said. "You give us any grief and we saw off your pal's wings. Ain't like she can fly worth anything so she won't be missing them too much, right?"

"Applejack, I spayed one bitch on your farm. Shut your mouth about my flying or I could go for two," the other Fluttershy said.

"Oh, like we don't all know the song. Fluttershy/can barely fly! Ain't like it's a secret, sugarcube. Besides, I'm talking about her, not you."

"If you cut off her wings can I eat them? Pegasus wings are yummy! Fluttershy's won't have a lot of meat to them like Dashie's but I'll bet they have a really delicate flavor!"

"Sure, Pinkie, if this Rainbow gives us grief we'll cut off her Fluttershy's wings and then you can have 'em to eat."

Fluttershy was hyperventilating, eyes white with terror. Rainbow said, slowly and angrily, "Fine. I'll cooperate." If they were being handed over to Celestia, then maybe they were being put with the others. And if they were going to be put with the others, then maybe it made more sense for Rainbow to lie low anyway. Let that happen, and then once she and Fluttershy were with the other four, plus Spike, well, then the fireworks would start. She could bide her time.

"Thought you'd be reasonable," Applejack said. "Now it's just another quarter hour or so before we're to Canterlot, so you lay quiet and behave yourself, and Princess Celestia will decide what's to be done about you. Who knows, maybe she'll send you home. We all know your Princess Celestia sent you here to get Discord 'cause he's useful to her for something or other; we can't fault you for doing what your princess says. We'd do the same, right girls?"

"More or less," the other Rainbow said.

"You ain't helping, Rainbow."

"I agree," the other Fluttershy said primly. "We would do the same. But that's why we have to kill them! If they're on a mission to rescue Discord, they're not going to just give up because we ask!"

"It don't sit right with me to kill mares who are just like us, just because it's convenient," Applejack said. "Maybe we toss 'em back through whatever gate they came over in and then we tell Discord to seal it up. He ain't much for listenin' to me or doin' a job right but my understanding is you've got better control over him than that, or were you lyin' about that?"

"No, I can get Discord to do anything I tell him to."

"Then there ain't no reason to kill them. But it's up to Princess Celestia."

Rainbow laid her head back down, glowering. It made more sense to stay down and let these guys hand them over to Princess Celestia, which almost certainly meant being reunited with the others, because when the six of them worked together there was no stopping them, and she'd rather fight a bunch of Changelings or Royal Guards than the opposites of her friends and herself. But the idea of lying still and letting herself remain captive burned her... and the truth was, she'd still be fighting back if it weren't for the threat to Fluttershy, and that enraged her. These mares were enough like her friends to know what a rotten move it was to threaten Fluttershy, especially when she was completely tied up and couldn't even try to defend herself. She really, really wanted to kick them in the flanks, just for that.

Well. If they could just get everypony together and escape and rescue Discord and have him do whatever smashing of chaos he was supposed to do for the whole using a tree branch to reharmonize everypony meant, that would be like kicking their flanks, except better. Like it had been better to zap Nightmare Moon out of Princess Luna and get Princess Luna back than it would have been to send her to the moon again or something. The best revenge was when you could turn the bad guys into good guys. She was still kind of iffy on how well that had worked with Discord, but for her other self and her friends' other selves, she was sure it would work.

Except wait... Twilight had had the tree branch, and Twilight had been defeated and taken captive. There had been saddlebags all over the place. Did Twilight even still have the tree branch?

Eh. No way to know. They'd have to worry about it later.

---

Opposition, 1 PM – Twilight (Harmony)

Twilight had been in Celestia's chambers for what she was fairly sure had to have been a few hours – in fact, considering that Celestia's chambers had a view of the sun in every possible position, and the tiny shadows from the near-noon sunlight had shifted to the opposite direction, she was certain of it. Celestia had ordered a great deal of food brought for lunch, and then had barely eaten any of it, whereas Twilight had hardly been able to stop herself. She was painfully stuffed now, and suspected the food had been bespelled to make her crave it, since her reaction to life-threatening stress was usually the opposite of hunger. She also thought probably the food might have been drugged to make her sleepy, but someone had underestimated the dosage needed for an alicorn – she'd had a profound urge to take a nap, at what she thought had probably been over an hour ago, but she'd kept eating, munching on the sugary sweets and the chocolate pastries to force herself to stay awake, and now the urge had passed completely. If it had been carb coma, she should be even sleepier now, but she wasn't. Celestia's poker face was too good for Twilight to be able to tell if she was disappointed or upset that Twilight hadn't fallen asleep, but she had offered Twilight a few huge plush, royal pillows with satin coverings and said that if she was feeling drowsy from her big meal, she could take a nap there. And Twilight had been tempted, but she'd also known that going to sleep in the chambers of someone who was planning to kill her was a terrible idea, so she'd laughed and said that the desserts were too good for her to nap right now.

She felt strongly that she had to pretend that she wasn't as scared as she was, that she wasn't on the alert for a chance to escape the way she was. She wanted to play the role of someone not just resigned to their fate but accepting, fully comfortable with the notion that she was supposed to die to bring Luna back. Twilight had no idea if it was working – Princess Celestia knew her better than any pony alive, better than her own mother. Only Spike, who wasn't a pony, could read her as well. Surely this Celestia could see that she was faking? But she had to do it anyway, because any tiny little bit helped, and if Celestia knew how hard Twilight was thinking about how to escape, she'd probably take some kind of steps.

But Celestia seemed to be distracted. She kept leaving the room to go talk to ponies outside, behind the thick door where Twilight couldn't hear. This had left Twilight time for experimentation. She had tried to pull her horn ring off by hoof, but it wouldn't go; the way they were designed, you needed to be able to press a thin band in the center of the ring inward to make the hooks release, otherwise you'd tear bloody furrows in the skin on your horn and quite possibly scrape the bone inside, and nearly anypony would be unable to perform magic through the pain that would cause. Hooves didn't have the dexterity to do it, and especially not with heavy metal cuffs tight around the fetlocks, disrupting her tactile telekinesis so that it was an effort to hold a teacup. Usually it would require magic to get a horn ring off; in Twilight's case, Spike could do it for her in thirty seconds or less with his delicate claw tips, but Spike wasn't here. Rarity could get it off of her also, or any other unicorn, but Rarity wasn't here either and she doubted she'd find a unicorn in this world willing to disobey Celestia.

By concentrating on the feel of the magic in her body, she'd figured out why it was there were binders on her hooves, aside from them limiting her tactile telekinesis, and why the binder on her wings was iron and not mere rope. All she'd managed to do with her wings since getting them was fly, and she hadn't done anything with earth pony magic aside from notice the magic in the Everfree a different way than before, but by trying different things in her desperation every time Celestia left the room, Twilight had figured out that without the binders on, she might be able to cast actual magic spells from her wings or hooves. It would be hellaciously difficult, almost as hard as using her hooves to remove the horn ring would be... but she could see how the principle would work, how she could slowly and carefully weave a spell with organs that weren't designed for it by holding the magical construct in place with a projection from one wing or hoof and adding more threads to the construct with the other. Just one horn could do that, of course, and could do it very quickly, but just one magical projector that wasn't a horn wouldn't be enough... but all of her limbs came in pairs, and she had six of them. If only her horn had been bound, she could have woven a spell to remove the horn ring, or maybe even to teleport.

Celestia, however, being an alicorn herself, obviously knew alicorns could do that, and had taken steps to prevent it. So Twilight had tried removing one of her cuffs, any of them. That didn't work. Her hoof wasn't compressible. If she had a really sharp sword, and the nerve to do it to herself, maybe she could cut off her hoof, slip her leg out of the binder, and rely on alicorn regeneration to restore it... except that firstly, she didn't have a sword, secondly, she wouldn't be dexterous enough with the hoof binders to cut off one of her hooves with a sword, thirdly, she'd need to do it to two hooves to be able to project magic, and fourthly, how would she ever have the concentration to weave a spell through an organ that was completely not designed for it and that she had no training in using if she was in agony from her hoof being cut off? Plus, just because her wing had healed after the other Twilight had burned a hole in it didn't mean she would heal back an entire hoof; she'd never been injured badly enough to test the extent of alicorn regeneration, and she'd never seen Celestia or Luna get hurt that badly either. And even if she had it wouldn't have mattered because they were much more powerful than she was, and for all she knew she wasn't even the kind of alicorn they were. Celestia hadn't explained much about it to her, and she'd been frankly too scared of the answer to ask if she'd suddenly become immortal.

Her wings were compressible, but that wasn't going to help; they were folded at her sides and held down with an iron strap. It wasn't unbroken iron, obviously, since that wouldn't be flexible; it was made of tightly woven, small, chain links, like chain mail armor. To pull them out from under the strap would break them, and Twilight didn't have the leverage to do that even if she could endure the pain. She tried pushing the horn ring off, reasoning that if her wing regenerated, damage to her horn would too, and that she might be able to cast even through a damaged horn since her life was at stake... but she couldn't do it. The tiny steel hooks inside the ring were just slightly itchy when she didn't move it, resting against her flesh; they were designed to bend upward, so when the ring was pushed downward or wasn't being moved at all, they only touched the skin on her horn. As soon as she started to push it up, though, the friction caused them to dig in, and the pain was blinding. Horns were very sensitive. Twilight was fairly sure she would literally pass out from the pain before she could get the ring off; just pushing it up a couple of millimeters had caused a stabbing agony, and then another millimeter or two and it had felt like she was being skinned alive. She'd stopped, suddenly nauseous and shaking, waves of hot and cold washing over her from shock for a few minutes before she'd recovered. If she had a friend with her who wasn't Spike or Rarity, and their lives were at stake, she could ask the friend to rip the ring off her horn and depend on her ability to regenerate to heal the damage, but she'd probably faint while her friend was doing it. By herself, the fact that she couldn't do it without fainting meant she couldn't do it at all. It would be different if she were alone in her cell, where she might have time to do it bit by bit, but then, that was probably why Celestia was keeping her in here.

So none of that was going to work. She considered jumping off the balcony. The height was dizzying, sickening, but she was more likely to survive the fall than she was to survive a ritual that pushed her soul out of her body in order to draw a dead mare's soul in. On the other hoof... if it killed her, then her death would go to waste. Twilight was fairly certain that Luna would be horrified at what this world had become, and would take steps to right the wrongs of this world... including separating the other Twilight from the Diadem of Order, because it would be obvious to her that the other Twilight was as possessed by the thing as Trixie had been by the Alicorn Amulet. If Twilight had to die... dying to restore Luna, who would help her friends get home and free Discord and do all the other things this Celestia should have done but couldn't because she'd been driven over the bend by having to kill her sister, was not the worst way she could go. And besides, even if being an alicorn meant she could survive a fall from such a height, there was no reason to believe she'd be done healing quickly enough to help her friends.

Now, as Celestia ducked out of the room yet again, Twilight got to her hooves and began searching Celestia's desk. She was fairly sure Celestia wasn't careless enough to leave the key to the shackles where Twilight could reach them, but fairly sure wasn't 100% certainty, and if Celestia was distracted enough to make a mistake like that Twilight intended to exploit it.

A letter from Spike caught her attention. She'd recognize his pawwriting anywhere. "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."

There was a lump in her throat. That was the alternate Spike. Who was still himself, or enough of himself that he wasn't a monster. Twilight had worried, knowing what Discord had said in the letter, that the alternate Spike had killed the alternate Discord... and everything else about this world seemed to be evil inversions of her own, with her friends actively corrupted and Celestia turned monstrous just from the horrors she'd been through. But this Spike knew that torture was wrong, and that killing innocent ponies was wrong, and was willing to stand up to the alternate Twilight to plead with Celestia to do what was right.

This must have been the letter that had arrived while they were talking, the one that Celestia had said that Spike just needed some reassurance. Twilight wondered what she'd sent back to him. "Don't worry, the only one I'm going to kill is the alternate Twilight, because that will bring Luna back to life?" No. She'd probably lied, or said something misleading.

Twilight swallowed again. She had to get free, save her friends, and rescue Discord, so they could re-harmonize the Opposition Bearers. If for no other reason than for the sake of this Spike, who despite having killed somepony, was still, clearly, Spike. Discord had mentioned that Spike obviously felt guilty and that he thought he could use that guilt to send the letter, and the letter had been sent, so presumably it had worked, but Twilight hadn't dared to hope that this Spike was still so much Spike. Discord would have to do whatever the smashing chaos thing was, if he was well enough, and then they...

...they didn't have the tree branch.

Frantically Twilight checked behind her and around her neck, but of course she didn't have her saddlebags anymore. Had she even had them when she'd fled the Everfree so she could fight her opposite out in the open, or had they slipped off her during the fight in the Everfree? Had Celestia confiscated them? Was the branch back in the Everfree or did this Celestia have it? Or had this Twilight taken it from her? Did they even know what the Tree of Harmony was? They hadn't stopped the plunder vines from destroying the Everfree – they'd had to stop them with modified parasprites-- and Twilight hadn't had a chance to see Ponyville proper, though the alternate Fluttershy's home had seemed unaffected. They certainly hadn't returned their own elements to the Tree. Was the Tree even alive, here? Was it possible to reharmonize those Elements if the Tree was dead?

It would definitely not be possible to reharmonize the Elements if they didn't have the branch. As little as she wanted to, she was going to have to ask Celestia about it. Surely, if this Celestia saw torturing Discord as a necessary evil and not a delightful revenge the way the Opposition Bearers seemed to, she could understand that the Opposition elements were wrong, and that they should be returned to harmony. She'd called them corrupted, she'd described the changes that had happened to them in negative terms – she had to be willing to let them be reharmonized. Of course, Twilight was going to have to lie to her and claim it could be done after she, Twilight, wasn't around anymore... and Celestia might know better. She'd borne the Elements too.

Abruptly a voice outside the door caught her attention. Shiny?

Twilight's ears perked up. She had definitely heard her brother's voice. She trotted to the door and pressed one ear against it. It wasn't actually bespelled to be soundproof, it was just large and heavy.

"...not allies of... cord... see why... many resources... mitted... recap... better things..."

"...ning... trust... my reasons... come clear... time..."

"...course I... princess... sis... friends. Why... committing... fort... capture... doesn't make sense."

Celestia's voice raised just slightly... which was just enough for Twilight to make it out fully. "If you trust me, Captain, then trust that I know what I'm doing. I have very good reasons to want them recaptured, by any non-lethal means necessary. Whether or not they are allies of Discord, they have admitted to coming here to rescue him. If they free him... do you truly believe he could be friends with their Fluttershy? Or that that friendship could be enough to stop him from taking revenge?"

"Why would they even come here if they didn't have some means of forcing him to come home with them? My sister isn't stupid, Your Highness, not in any universe. And I can't believe that you would be stupid in any universe, either. Why would their Princess Celestia have sent them here if they don't have some means of stopping him from taking revenge?" Shining's voice raised as well. "If they take him to their universe, then we get rid of him! And that's good! Have you seen how obsessive my poor Twiley has gotten over this? She won't come home for a visit, she says she has to guard Discord and make sure that she and her friends don't lose control over him. If he wasn't even here that would be a good thing! She might be able to start to get back to normal!"

"Shining, I very much doubt Twilight will ever be normal again," Celestia said. Her voice had gone quieter again, but now Twilight had picked up the thread of the conversation and could follow it properly. "She's suffered too much. You had Chrysalis to support you. She had no one but Spike. She is damaged in ways you can't imagine."

"Well, it can't be helping that she's obsessed with controlling Discord. It's like she's given up everything else that mattered to her. She doesn't even do research or experiments anymore."

He doesn't know, Twilight realized. Shiny doesn't know that his version of me is experimenting on Discord, that she's committing torture. But if he thought Discord had murdered Cadance, would he even care about that? And had Discord, the one from this world, murdered Cadance?

Chrysalis had gloated in private about how evil she was, how little she cared about Shining and how much she just intended to use him. How could someone who thought so highly of herself for being so terrible change enough to actually become a loving partner? It seemed to Twilight more than likely that Chrysalis was just using him again... this time without overt magical control, because she didn't need it. She just had to manipulate him the mundane, magicless way.

And then, as if summoned by Twilight's thoughts, she heard that voice again. It didn't have the chilling, insectoid reverberation that she remembered – it sounded like a normal pony voice, except that nothing about Chrysalis would ever be normal.

"You know why Twilight is obsessed with Discord, dearest," she said in a cloyingly sweet tone. Twilight's hackles stood. She was right. Chrysalis was totally fake, and Shining didn't know it. "It's all about having backup for the sun. Poor Celestia here can't manage the burden all on her own... and as wonderful as your love for me is, it doesn't make me strong enough to help her. Only one thing would do that."

"You aren't Luna," Celestia said. "You'll never be Luna, and I know that. I can't give you the love I felt for my sister, even if it would make you strong enough to help me, because you're not her and you never will be."

"And you see, Shining? That's exactly why your sister has to sacrifice herself to try to contain and control Discord. If she and her friends can make him obedient, they can make him move the sun and moon, and give Celestia a chance to heal. If he is allowed to simply return to his home... well, if Celestia can't give me the love she gave Luna, I could never have the power to move the sun myself. Or even the moon. So since Celestia is certain she can't do that, we have no choice but to use Discord."

Shining, she's lying. Everything that comes out of her mouth is a lie. She just wants power, Twilight thought. And then an idea occurred to her, a hope she could barely believe in. She banged on the door with all of her strength. "Shining! Shining, it's me, Twilight, your sister! I'm a prisoner, Shining, Celestia's going to kill me! She wants to kill me, that's why she wants you to capture my friends!"

"...suppose you're right," Shining was saying, showing no evidence of having heard anything. "I'll find them, then. Though I really don't like this."

She heard his hoofsteps clopping on the floor, leaving. Then Chrysalis' voice. "What are you planning with her?"

"Thank you, Chrysalis. I should have realized she'd try to call out to her brother."

"I hate to do that to him. I love him." Twilight sincerely doubted that. "You owe me now for blocking his hearing. What are you planning with her?"

Celestia sounded very, very tired. "There's a third alternative."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I need you to keep this from Shining, no matter what. He... wouldn't react well to the news, I fear. Even though this isn't his sister. This is an extra Twilight, from a different universe."

"An expendable Twilight, is what I think you're saying. What are you planning, Celestia?"

"I'm going to bring Luna back. Tonight. That's why I need her friends, to be hostages. It has nothing to do with Discord; he'd never be trustworthy, and I'd rather give him a clean, swift death than what Twilight and her friends are doing to him... not so much for his sake, but for theirs. They're monsters, Chrys, and I've had to let them be monsters, because I'm not strong enough to stop them. But if I bring Luna back... she'll support me. She'll help me."

"And what becomes of me, then? And my Changelings?" Chrysalis' voice was angry, edging into shrill.

"Chrysalis. Calm yourself. With all that you've done for me and for this kingdom, I know Luna will honor and respect you as a dear friend and ally, just as I do. You are Queen of the Changelings; you will always rule over your own kind, and even with Luna, we'll still need Changeling help to rebuild, and we will for the foreseeable future. No one is shutting you out of anything."

"Would Luna have the power to walk in the dreams of Changelings, I wonder?"

"Yes, she certainly does. Why? Do you have nightmares?"

"Oh, yes. I dream of what Discord did to my hive, all the time. Even Shining's love isn't enough to save me from those memories. I would love it if Luna could help me with them."

She was lying. Why couldn't Celestia hear that? Her voice when she'd asked about Luna's abilities hadn't been hopeful, it had been the sound of somepony musing. Scheming. Her response to Celestia had been too fast, and while there was emotion in it – maybe she really did have nightmares about what Discord did to her hive – the Chrysalis who had held Cadance prisoner for months, gloating the whole time about what she would do to Cadance's love, who had taunted Cadance and Twilight both after defeating and imprisoning Twilight... that Chrysalis would be far too proud to tell Celestia she wanted help with her nightmares.

But maybe she's changed. If she's genuinely befriended ponies... if she really is in love with Shining... I don't know what happened to her, what Discord put her through. Maybe she changed. Maybe she really is sincere.

And maybe she was using the same power she'd used to keep Celestia from realizing how out of character she'd been when she'd played Cadance to keep Celestia and Shining from realizing how false she sounded. Or maybe it was just that they'd never known the dark side of her. Sure, maybe she'd changed, but why had she sounded so cloyingly sweet, far more than Cadance ever had even when she'd been at her most lovey-dovey? Why had she sounded as if she was plotting something when she talked about Luna?

She'd kept Shining from hearing Twilight's cries. All by itself, Twilight decided grimly, that qualified her as still evil. If she loved Shining, why was she collaborating with Celestia to hide things from him? Why wouldn't her first thought be for his desires and his welfare, not Celestia's?

'I'm sure she'd love to. But that's why it's so important that he recapture them. I need her cooperation; her magic has to be unbound when I perform the ritual. I have to have her friends as hostages before moonrise tonight, or I won't be able to bring Luna back."

"Why wouldn't you simply be able to do it tomorrow, if it takes that long?"

'How long before Shining realizes I'm going to sacrifice a variant of his sister? How long can Twilight keep Discord under control when her connections to her friends fray more every day, and the spells that bind him depend on those? How long am I going to have to wait, Chrysalis? I've waited so long – so very long – I knew Discord could do it, if they can break him far enough that he can be trusted with the Sun, then I could have offered him his freedom in exchange for his bringing Luna back. He wouldn't have needed to use an alicorn – any pony would do."

"You'd have given him his freedom?" Chrysalis sounded coldly angry again.

"Of course not. The ritual he'd have used would have involved using himself as the ritual sacrifice, and then bringing himself back with the pony he's restoring. He'd have been at his weakest, nearly drained of magic, when he returned. I'd have executed him cleanly, then... and by that point, considering what they're doing to him to make him obedient, he'd probably consider that a relief. Chrysalis, don't be afraid. I will never, ever let Discord wreak havoc in this world again. I promise you."

"He made five hundred lings think the Stone of Shielding was going to explode and destroy us all. They smashed themselves on it in waves, destroying our protection and killing themselves to save the hive from a threat that didn't exist. He told Nightmare Moon where we were, after I first helped you, and she brought a storm that flooded the hive and drowned dozens. When we moved, he convinced another hundred of my children that an active volcano was the new location of the hive, and they flew into the lava and died. He made a full fifth of my Changelings starve to death slowly, because even I couldn't look on them without disgust and repulsion any more, and I couldn't bring myself to let them share in the love, and neither could any other Changeling."

That was real emotion in her voice. Twilight realized she couldn't make the mistake of believing Chrysalis was completely evil. She really did care about her changelings. Just not anypony else.

"I know all this, Chrysalis."

"So you will understand this, Celestia. If you allow Discord to get free, I will not help you. I will not save you. I will not fight for you. This Discord doesn't have any history of conflict with us. He doesn't know we are enemies. I will withdraw all of my Changelings and watch as your nation falls to chaos, and I will do nothing."

"That... is understandable. Even advisable. If you needn't make an enemy of Discord, then don't. But he won't get free again. I promise." A rustling sound. "I need to return to my guest. She's Twilight; I can't underestimate her cleverness. I need to keep watch over her, personally."

"All right. I won't let Shining know."

Quickly Twilight sat back down and stuffed another pastry into her face. The door opened. "I'm sorry I was called away for so long," Celestia said.

"This is so good, Princess," Twilight moaned. "Could you get somepony to bring me some potions for digestion or something? I'm sooo full but I can't stop eating, it's so good!"

"Of course I will," Celestia said, her smile turning genuine, even tender. It was working, Twilight thought. She had no idea that Twilight had been listening at the door.

"As I'm sure you just heard, two of your friends did manage to trick our guards and escape. Shining Armor is putting all patrols on alert to recapture them, and Chrysalis is lending us changeling troops to assist, so I fully expect them to be recaptured within an hour," Celestia said, and Twilight's heart sank. Stupid! Of course she knew Twilight had been listening at the door, because Twilight had banged on it and yelled, and Shining Armor was the only one who hadn't heard. "However, we still have two in custody, and I've just been informed that the two pegasi have been captured near Ponyville and are being brought here. So if a few of you do manage to get away, please do remember that the others are still here. I would certainly rather not harm them, and I hope you don't force me to."

Twilight sighed deeply, dropping the pastry. "I already said I'd cooperate. I understand why you need to bring Luna back. As long as you honor our bargain and let my friends take Discord home. I know you had to tell Chrysalis you'd kill him because the other him really did some terrible things to her and her Changelings, but I know you were lying to her, because you promised me and you won't go back on your promises. I know that."

Celestia nodded, smiling. "That's exactly right, Twilight. I'm always impressed by how clever you are. Yes, once I let your friends go, I'll also have Discord released into their custody."

She was lying. Twilight knew that. Her own Celestia never lied, not to her, but she'd seen Celestia's expression stiffen into a mask before, as she dealt with nobles with idiotic requests and diplomats who postured as if ponies were weak, in front of the immortal mare who raised the sun. It was a very, very lifelike mask. If Twilight hadn't grown up with Celestia it might even fool her.

But then, Twilight was lying too. She'd said what she'd said about knowing Celestia would keep her promise precisely so she could see Celestia's face when Celestia answered her. And also because she knew Celestia would know that if she overheard everything else she overheard Celestia saying she would kill Discord. She had to lull this Celestia into complacency by making believe she was more or less willingly cooperating with the plan, and so she had to make Celestia believe that she believed that her cooperation would win Discord's freedom as well.

"That's all I needed to hear," Twilight said. "I don't want to die, but... it's not fair for Luna to be dead, and she's more important than I am. And my friends are everything to me. So I'll cooperate."

She said it while looking down, picking at her pastry, so that if she herself had any tells, Celestia wouldn't see them and know she was lying, too.

A knock came on the door. Celestia sighed. "I'm sorry, Twilight. I wanted to spend more time with you, but it seems duty calls." She went to the door again. "Yes, officer?"

"The ponies that you said you wanted to see as soon as they arrived are here, Your Highness."

"Very good." Celestia looked back at Twilight. "Why don't you take a nap, Twilight? You must be sleepy after all the stress."

Twilight yawned. She was actually tired enough that as soon as she started faking the yawn, the actual need to yawn took over. "I might. I am kinda tired. We got up early this morning."

"I'll be back soon," Celestia said, smiling in a way that almost, almost looked like her own mentor's sincere smiles, and it made Twilight want to cry. "Get some rest."

The door shut. Who were the ponies that Celestia had said she wanted to see as soon as they arrived? Celestia's conversation with Shining Armor, and then what she had told Twilight, suggested that two of her friends had escaped, two were still here, and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had just been recaptured. So this might be the recapture of her escaped friends, or it might be the delivery of Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. But without any way to invoke magic, or fly, or get the door open, what could she possibly do?

Runes! Rune magic didn't require that the user have magic, not all the time! Celestia had bookcases in here; maybe she had something about runes? Twilight got up and began frantically searching through the books, forcing her slightly numb hooves to flip through them even though it required using the edge of her hoof because her tactile telekinesis was stiff and barely responsive. If she could find something... anything...

But there was nothing. Eventually Twilight slumped in despair, and then started putting the books back so Celestia wouldn't know what she'd done. Of course Celestia wasn't stupid enough to leave Twilight alone in a room with any books that might help her escape. She's so much older and wiser than me, and has so much more knowledge. Even if she's been driven crazy by Princess Luna's death. How can I ever hope to beat her?

But she had to. She just had to. Somehow.

---

Opposition, 1 PM – Rarity (Harmony)

The trip through the servants' quarters and out the door was almost anticlimactic, Rarity thought. She'd been terrified of a sudden challenge at any point, but no guard did anything other than smile and nod at them, perhaps say, "Have a nice day, ladies," or "Pick some red ones!" This was great, especially since she didn't know how long she could hold the spell.

Rarity didn't do spells. Her gem-finding spell had appeared to her, unbidden, and while she might have somewhat exaggerated the facts when she described her cutie mark experience to Sweetie Belle and her little friends – she hadn't been literally dragged by her horn, for several gallops and an entire day -- it had certainly felt that way. The compulsion to follow her horn and where it was guiding her to – and she'd known it was guiding her to something, something that would be beautiful, just not exactly what – had overwhelmed her, and she'd practically had to run the entire way. By the time she'd gotten to the huge geode obelisk, she'd been exhausted beyond measure... although the Rainboom (and maybe her own frustrated repeated punches and kicks to the thing) causing the obelisk to shatter, revealing the inside full of beautiful crystalline gems, had perked her up considerably. But she hadn't built that spell. It had come to her in a sudden blinding moment of inspiration and had seemed to have a life of its own. She could do it now without even thinking about it, summoning it the way she could pull up her favorite blanket when she snuggled into bed with an eyemask on, just from the feel of the fabric in her TK.

Other spells were hard. She had no idea how Twilight did it so effortlessly. The color spell was simple, one that according to Twilight, gifted unicorns learned in magic kindergarten. But for Rarity, holding all the component together was nerve-wracking and was giving her a migraine, because she couldn't feel the pieces. With telekinesis, you could feel everything you touched, and you could know exactly where everything you were holding in a telekinetic field was in relation to everything else you were holding, because you didn't have to look at any of it. It was all feel. But to maintain a spell, you had to be able to see it. You had to be able to hold the warp and weft of it in your head, and there was nothing to be felt; it was all as intangible as color itself was. If you wove something out of thread, you could feel the threads, but if you wove something out of nothing but magic, you had to do everything by sight.

Of course, unicorn magic vision wasn't like ordinary vision. Rarity could see magic if it was behind her head. She didn't have to look with her eyes, only with her horn. But even still, it was incredibly tiring to have to keep "looking" at the same magic pattern, never letting her attention be drawn away too much by anything she saw with her eyes, so she could see where to poke and snip and re-weave it where it frayed and unraveled. And tiring to hold it, too. The utterly intangible threads of magic were somehow infinitely heavier than actual physical objects she picked up with her telekinesis ever were.

By the time they got to the door, she knew she couldn't hold it much longer. If they were challenged, if they were delayed, that would be it – the game would be up, and they'd have to run. So it was with immense gratitude that she trotted out the door with Applejack, after the guards had simply waved them out the door with a "Have a nice day".  She didn't have to hold it much longer. Just until they got off the palace grounds. That was all.

They passed another group of guards as they headed in the direction of the gardens – which also happened to be the direction of the exit from the palace grounds, from here. "Morning, ladies," one of them said.

"Morning, gents," Applejack said. Rarity just curtsied, her head pounding too much to try to talk.

"We're looking for some ponies. Three mares – a white one with a sky blue mane and three diamonds for a cutie mark, a pink one with a curly blonde mane, a light blue tail, and yellow and pink balloons for a cutie mark, and an orange mare with a blonde straight mane and three apples for a cutie mark. If you see them, please notify us."

"We surely will," Applejack said. Rarity just smiled and nodded.

And then one of the guards said, "Wait, are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

Rarity focused on the color spell. With horror, she realized her cutie mark was breaking through.

"Three diamonds! Halt, you, in the name of the law!"

A very unladylike unicorn curse came to Rarity's lips. "Blast!" she snarled, furious at herself for losing the spell and at the guards for noticing. "Applejack, run!"

And then, taking her own advice, she ran.

There were more guards at the exit to the grounds, but they had to chance it; if they tried to lose their pursuit somewhere like Canterlot Gardens, the fact that some of the guards were pegasi would make short work of that. The hedge maze was only a maze on the ground, not from the air – it was the main reason, she assumed, that Discord had taken the pegasi's wings when he'd lured them into the hedge maze that time. She galloped as hard as she could for the palace grounds exit.

Applejack ran alongside her. That made no sense, Rarity thought. She was pushing herself to the point where her coat was lathering, but Applejack could keep pace with Rainbow Dash on the ground, and had won the Running of the Leaves competition several times. Rarity knew herself to be very fit for a unicorn with a sedentary job – part of her morning beauty routine was an aerobics workout and set of martial arts katas in the small gym she kept in the basement of the Boutique – but she couldn't possibly be a match for Applejack. "Applejack... run..." she gasped. "I know... you're... faster... than this..."

"Ain't leavin' you behind," Applejack said. She wasn't gasping. "'Sides, you know Canterlot better'n I do."

There were pegasi coming up behind them in air, overtaking them. "Halt!"

Rarity grabbed one of her vases in her TK, smashed it on the ground – her power was more for dexterity than strength, and they were thick crystal vases, nothing she could crush just with telekinesis. She scooped up the glass, glanced behind her once to fix the position of the various pegasi's legs and wings, and then sent the glass shards flying backward, striking at upper legs and wing bases. The pegasi reared back, flapped upward, or crashed to the ground, to be almost-but-not-quite trampled by the oncoming earth pony guards.

More guards in front of them, moving to block them from the gate. "Halt right—"

Rarity leapt and spun, kicking two earth ponies in the face, knocking them backward. Applejack skidded under a telekinetic force bolt, came up right in front of the unicorn, and uppercut him in the jaw, then bucked another unicorn preparing to blast her from behind. A pegasus who'd gotten around Rarity's glass cloud dive-bombed Applejack and got a hard buck to the face for his troubles; another one successfully landed on Rarity, pinning her, but she shrieked so loudly he recoiled from the sudden pain in his ears, and when he did she brought her sewing kit out of her mane and poked him in the belly with multiple sewing needles. That made him rear back all the way, allowing her to roll over, get her back legs under his chest, and kick, hard. Then she was scrambling to her hooves, scooping up her sewing needles and her glass shards.

Two unicorns had Applejack immobilized, floating her off the ground where she had no leverage. Rarity used the trick of sewing needles to the horns again. One of er them dropped Applejack; the other shielded his horn, while still holding Applejack, but he sang another tune entirely when she poked him in the rear end. He yelped, dropped Applejack, and got a buck to the head. The other one blasted at Rarity, misidentifying her as the bigger threat, because Rarity dodged his force blasts and then Applejack kicked him in the head too.

An earth pony caught up with Rarity and leapt onto her, obviously planning on pinning her. He was big, almost as big as Big Mac. So Rarity flattened down against the ground and scooted herself backward, under his wide-spread back legs, with a short disabling telekinetic slam against the very sensitive bits of him hanging over her head as she did. He howled and collapsed to all four knees, moaning. That's what you get for trying to pin a lady with your body, Rarity thought with vengeful satisfaction, but didn't have the breath to say.

Applejack had taken out two more guards that had tried to pile on top of her. The gate was clear, for a moment. "C'mon, Rarity, you can do it!"

She put on an enormous burst of speed, feeling as if her legs were turning to gelatin and her ribs were going to break and her head was going to explode but she had to do it, she had to get clear. Once they were in the city they could disappear into the city and its large population.

Maybe.

But the road leading up to the palace was almost clear, nothing but trotways leading to the tall mansions of the nobles. There was nowhere to veer off to; they wouldn't be down to the level of the actual streets for some time. Rarity felt a keen sense of despair. How would she and Applejack possibly outrun all of those trained palace guards, on a meandering but otherwise straightforward road that intersected with nothing but private trots, in broad daylight? The stitch in her side was screaming at her, and she was sure she couldn't keep up this pace much longer, and part of her wanted to just stop and surrender. The main reason she didn't was that she knew Applejack would stop with her.

Then Applejack knelt down on the ground. "Rarity, get on!"

"Wh-what?"

"Just do it! I trusted you and you got us through that door. Time you trust me."

Awkwardly Rarity climbed on Applejack's back like she was a foal. "Good heavens... this... never going... work. Too... heavy."

"After all that dietin' and workin' out you do? Naah. Hold tight."

Applejack stood up, charged forward, and galloped, putting on an incredible burst of speed despite the fact that she was burdened with a pony on her back. Rarity's eyes went wide. She knew Applejack was strong, but this was ridiculous. How could this possibly be working?

And yet it was. Rarity had to cling to Applejack's neck with her forelegs awkwardly wrapped around it, clasping each other at an angle that would be painful if she had to hold it very long. Her mane was being ruined by the wind of Applejack's speed whipping through it, but at the moment she couldn't spare the attention to complain. Behind them the guards retreated into the distance, though there were still airborne pegasi who could obviously see them, since Rarity could see them if she tilted her head back. One of them wheeled around and came into a dive, obviously planning to meet Applejack head on. Applejack just charged forward, and when the pegasus slammed into her, she kept going, throwing him aside, the momentum of her charge greater than the momentum of his dive. Another one was coming in straight down toward Rarity. Rarity frantically dredged up a strobe spell, used for making a light to shine on something she wanted to show off, and poured all the power she had left into it, creating a blinding strobe flash in the pegasus' face. He veered off, shouting about his eyes, and crashed into a water fountain.

Then they were down to the main street, and Applejack threw herself down the nearest dim alley she could. "Ge'off," she panted, collapsing. Rarity did so with alacrity.

"What was that? Applejack, how did you ever pull that off? You were faster than trained guardsponies, with me on your back! I'm proud to say I'm far from the heaviest of ponies, but I admit I'm far from the lightest, either. How did you do that?"

Applejack was still gasping, foam on her muzzle and her coat lathered enough that she was going to be miserably wet when she cooled down a bit. Rarity stripped the maid uniform from her, taking it apart. Applejack smiled weakly as the fresh air met her coat instead of sweat-soaked cloth. "Thanks," she panted. "Jus'... gotta... get... breath."

"But quite seriously how did you do that?"

"How'd you hold... a spell... for several minutes? How'd... you fight off... a bunch of guardsponies with... glass and sewin' needles?"

"Well, my magic may not be ideal for spellwork, but I'm not wholly incapable of it. And I suppose I was putting a great deal of determination and concentration into my magic."

"That's how." Applejack was still breathing hard, but she could talk normally now, more or less. "Earth pony magic. We aren't just ponies without wings and hooves. We got our own magic and it ain't all about growin' things, though that's a big part."

"You can use magic to make yourself stronger and faster?"

"Yup. But you pay the price after, same as you do with your horn when you overwork it, I guess. Land sakes, but I'm gonna be sore in the mornin', assuming we live that long."

"They're still chasing us, you know. We can't rest here any longer."

"I know. Just needed to catch my breath. Let's go."

They trotted down the alley. And then, to her total shock, Rarity saw guardsponies chasing herself and Applejack down the street. And the "Rarity" running down the street had the same sky blue mane Rarity had dyed her own to, not the lovely indigo that was its natural color and that the alternate Rarity still sported.

"What in tarnation...?" Applejack murmured.

A voice from the other side of the alley, where they'd first come in, called to them. "Wait for all of the guards to pass before you leave."

Rarity turned, and gasped. There was a Changeling standing there. An unusual-looking Changeling, taller than most though nowhere near Chrysalis' size, with a longer horn, and pupils, but no whites. "A Changeling!" she cried, and only after it was out of her mouth realized how redundant that was. Applejack could see that it was a Changeling, and the Changeling already knew what it was.

She spun around again, preparing to run, but now there were two ordinary Changelings at the exit to the alley, blocking her and Applejack in. In Applejack's exhausted state, they might not do nearly so well against Changelings as they had in earlier fights. "What do you want?" she asked, trying to make her tone as fierce as possible.

The unusual-looking Changeling strode forward. "My mother wants the two of you to escape. Twilight Sparkle is being held hostage to your good behavior; my mother cannot be seen to be moving against Celestia, but Celestia has a plan that my mother does not want to see succeed, and she needs Twilight Sparkle to accomplish it."

"Your mother? Didn't know Changelings had mothers. Less'n you're referring to the Queen," Applejack said. "And why would the Queen care one little smidgen what happens to Twilight?"

"She doesn't. She wishes to stop Celestia's plan, so Twilight Sparkle needs to go free."

"How do we know you're not lying to lure us into a trap of some kind?" Rarity demanded.

"When we've lured the guards away and they're too far away to find you, you go to the train station. You and your friends can escape, and then Twilight Sparkle can be freed, and Celestia's plan will not happen."

"What's Celestia plannin', then?" Applejack asked.

"My mother hasn't informed me. I'm only a Princess Changeling; it's not my duty to know the details of my mother's plans, only to carry them out."

"You got a name, Princess?"

The tall Changeling nodded. "All royals have their own names. I am Antennae."

"Well, Princess Antennae, we're right grateful to you, and I suppose to your mother as well, for helpin' us out here. But if we knew what Celestia's plan was, we'd be better able to stop it. So maybe next time you talk with your ma, let her know that fact, and that maybe we'd be willing to help her out with stoppin' it, depending on what it was. I gotta figure if it needs us for hostages against Twilight and for her to be a prisoner then it ain't nothin' good, anyhow."

"I'll convey that," Antennae said.

One of the Changelings spoke. "Your Highness, they're out by the art district now. We've swapped in Team Three already."

"All right." She looked at Rarity and Applejack. "Go now. The guards are out by the city edge. You can reach the train station safely."

Rarity looked at Applejack, silently asking her Are they telling the truth? Is it safe?

Applejack had no mind-reading powers, but Rarity supposed her question was obvious, given their situation. "Let's do it, then," she said. "If they wanted to sell us out they'd've done it."

"You have a point," Rarity said. "And it isn't as if we have much choice. All right, then."

They trotted off toward the train station, hoping to meet Spike and Pinkie there.

---

Opposition, 1 PM – Fluttershy (Harmony)

Fluttershy's legs had been untied, but she was still gagged and her wings were still bound as they led her in to see Princess Celestia. Next to her, Rainbow's wings were tied down, and all four of her legs were tied to each other in a rectangle of hobbles, so she could walk but only slowly and awkwardly. The terrifying alternates were circled around them, Pinkie giggling at the thought that she might get to eat one of their body parts, the other her glowering with hatred and jealousy, and the other Applejack, Rarity and Rainbow alien in how much they just didn't care how wrong what they were doing was.

Princess Celestia met them in the throne room, where she usually met with them. The same stained glass windows hung on the walls. No new ones had been added, not like home where they'd replaced a kind of generic image of Princess Celestia raising the sun – there were three or four of those – with Twilight's alicorn ascension. "Hello, girls. Why is the other Fluttershy gagged?"

"Beggin' your pardon, Your Highness, but we figured her mouth's the most dangerous part of her, just like our Fluttershy. We don't need her to be callin' for help and gettin' a bear to attack us or something like that."

That was ridiculous, Fluttershy fumed to herself... which she probably would have done even if she hadn't been gagged, honestly, but the fact that she couldn't speak if she wanted to hurt. They had never been in a place wild enough that she could have called out to anything large enough to make a difference, and she wasn't going to call small friends to attack ponies who she knew were capable of killing.

"That was wise of you. Well done, Applejack."

"Fluttershy there kept wantin' to kill her, but I was pretty sure you wouldn't want that."

The other Fluttershy's glare got even hotter as she turned on Applejack. "Looking for more concessions from the Crown to line your pockets with, or are you just so used to sucking up you do it by habit?"

"I'm sure it must be very upsetting to be confronted with another version of oneself," Princess Celestia said diplomatically. "But it's best that you brought them both intact. I require this alternate Twilight for a ritual I need to perform tonight, and I need her cooperation. It's best to get it by making sure all of her friends are healthy and comfortable as long as she cooperates." The words sent a chill down Fluttershy's spine, especially in light of Discord's warning. She longed to be able to ask Princess Celestia, but she couldn't talk; she'd deliberately made sure her gag was a little bit loose when it was tied on to make sure she could breathe properly and in hopes that with a little bit of play she could wiggle it off, but the latter idea hadn't worked out. "Unfortunately, her friends have all escaped. So the fact that we have two more of them here is ideal. One can be held here at the palace as hostage to Twilight's cooperation; the other can be used by the five of you as a hostage to recapture the others."

Rainbow Dash's eyes lit up. "Our other friends got away from you? Awesome."

"They did," Princess Celestia said. "You should feel proud of them; they are intelligent and resourceful mares, just as mine are. But now that we have you and Fluttershy, I'm sure we'll recapture them quickly. They're probably going to the train station, since without anypony who can fly in their party it's the fastest way back to Ponyville. I've already ordered that there be no departures until we have a chance to retake them."

Fluttershy's heart sank as she realized it was probably true. The roads that led to Canterlot were wide, long, and meandering, spiraling up the mountain to make it easier for ponies pulling heavy loads to get up and down them safely. The train, magically protected from derailment, could handle a much steeper slope, and went faster than any but the fastest ponies could run, anyway. She wondered if her friends would remember how intelligent Celestia was, and how obvious it was that the train would be the best route back to Ponyville, but to her sorrow and fear she thought probably not. Twilight was the only one of them who really thought about such things. Maybe Fluttershy herself would have figured it out, because she was a little bit better than her friends at thinking through what other ponies would think about something, so she might have realized Celestia would immediately see that as a possibility. But maybe not. She wasn't as smart as Twilight, after all.

"What if they figured that out and they're not at the train station?" the other Applejack asked.

"I have guards posted on all the roads. But I strongly suspect they'll be at the train."

Abruptly, Rainbow – Fluttershy's Rainbow, though they looked identical so she had to go by body language and who was tied up to tell them apart – made a scissoring motion with her forelegs, and back legs, snapping the ropes that held her. She bucked Applejack, hard, and then rounded on the other Fluttershy, punching her. "Fluttershy, run!" she shouted.

Before Fluttershy could even consider doing any such thing, Princess Celestia's horn lit. "Sleep," she said, and Rainbow slumped to the ground, with a final mumble of "hate unicorns..."

She looked down at Fluttershy, and Fluttershy quailed. There was cold anger in her gaze, nothing she had ever seen in her own Princess Celestia. She thought of Discord's letter. "Her eyes are so cold..."

"Will you cooperate, and accompany my little ponies to the train station to rejoin your friends, or must I punish your friend Rainbow?"

She couldn't speak with the gag, so Fluttershy nodded, frantically and repeatedly.

"Well, technically that was not a yes or no question, but I believe you've made your answer clear. You will cooperate, am I right?" More nodding. "Good. Girls, take her to the train station, find her friends, and tell them to surrender or you will harm her. Do not kill." This was aimed at the other Fluttershy. "But you may break her wing or harm her in any non-fatal way you need in order to make her friends stand down and accept recapture."

"We certainly will, Your Highness," the other Rarity said, curtseying. "We won't disappoint you, I promise."

As guards carried the limp form of Rainbow Dash off and the Opposition group led Fluttershy away, she silently prayed to whoever or whatever might be listening that her friends hadn't gone to the train station. Please. Oh, please...

---

Opposition, 1 PM – Spike (Harmony)

"Rarity!" Spike yelled across the plaza, as he saw an exhausted-looking Rarity, and equally exhausted Applejack behind her, trotting toward the train platform.

Her ears perked up. "Oh, Spike! I am so very glad to see you!"

"And I'm glad to see you! And you're glad to see me! And Applejack, you're glad to see me too, and I'm glad to see you! And Spike is glad to see you both! And we're all glad together!" Pinkie babbled, bouncing over to Rarity and Applejack.

"How long were you waiting for us?" Rarity asked.

"Just about five minutes or so! I stopped to get cookies! All the cookies I had before I lost when I had to fight the other me, and if we're going to rescue Discord we should have cookies to bring him!"

Spike, embarrassed slightly, said, "I couldn't talk her out of it."

"Well, that would've been bad if it left us stuck at the train station too long without you, but since you still got here ahead of us, I reckon there weren't any harm in it," Applejack said. "Any of 'em good cookies? I could maybe use a pick-me-up right now."

"Let's get our tickets first and get on the train," Spike said. "I don't know about you guys but there really aren't a whole lot of young purple dragons around in Canterlot, so I kinda feel exposed here?"

"Good point," Applejack said. "Pinkie, if you got cookies I'm guessing you have bits?"

"I sure do! I made sure to pick all old ones from before Discord first woke up when I decided to bring them, so there'd be no way anypony could tell where they came from." She started to bounce toward the ticket station.

"I don't think you're gonna get real far with that, just saying," a voice overhead said.

"Dash...ie?" Pinkie's excited exclamation died as she glanced up, and Spike knew why, his heart sinking. The Rainbow Dash hovering in air was visually indistinguishable from their own, and sounded the same... but she was holding up a bound and gagged Fluttershy, who was in a net attached to Rainbow Dash's waist by a harness. And the bound and gagged Fluttershy had a lavender mane, not a pink one. So she was their Fluttershy, which meant that that was the Opposition's Rainbow Dash.

"So, Princess Celestia ordered that the trains aren't even gonna run until we recapture you four," Opposition Rainbow said. "My team's on their way here, but since I'm, like, the fastest pony in Equestria, I decided to come here first."

"You brute! Release her right now!" Rarity demanded.

"Naah, I don't think you want me to do that. She's got her wings tied up, you know, so if I tip this net over? Ouchie. I mean, no big, it's not like falling from this height's gonna kill her. Course, if then I land on her, that might break a few bones, but..."

"Where's our Rainbow Dash?" Applejack asked sharply.

"We left her back at the palace. Princess Celestia figured this would work best if we had one hostage at the palace to make sure your egghead does what she's supposed to, and one hostage here so I can get you guys to surrender nice and easy. I mean you could fight, I'm up for that, I'm just saying I'm supposed to break your friend's bones here if you do."

The others arrived, sans Twilight, the other Fluttershy flitting up to Rainbow Dash as the three other ponies trotted in. The plaza was clearing, ponies who realized that something was going on backing away and making themselves scarce.

There was no Twilight, Spike thought. So it was five to five, with no unicorn – or alicorn – to bring major magic into the fight. But he personally was no match for Rainbow Dash. His only weapons were his claws and his fire breath. She could fly. For the millionth time, he felt a short stab of resentment because dragons were supposed to be able to fly, so where were his own wings? For the millionth time, he forced it down. He was still young. Twilight thought they might grow in, later.

And there was the fact that their own Fluttershy was a prisoner, a hostage. And they had no one who could fly to her rescue if Opposition Rainbow dropped her. Pegasi's light bodies and flexible bones made them pretty resistant to fall damage; Fluttershy might be fine. Opposition Rainbow was only hanging about three pony heights over their heads, maybe twelve heads in the air, and Fluttershy was dangling a bit lower than that. But the other Fluttershy was there, Fluttercruel, looking at Fluttershy with a vicious expression. Spike shuddered, remembering what Discord had written, what that version of Fluttershy was capable of. And if she attacked her helpless counterpart the way that all of the others had attacked their own counterparts, in the fight in the woods... it wouldn't be the fall that broke all of Fluttershy's bones, it would be attacks from her cruel counterpart while she was tied up and in a net and couldn't dodge.

"Guys, I... I think we have to do this," he said weakly.

"Nuh-uh! There's gotta be a way!" Pinkie said frantically. "We can't go down like this!"

"If it makes you feel better," the alternate Applejack said, "Princess Celestia's guaranteed your safety, long as you cooperate."

"Are we supposed to believe that's the truth?" Applejack said. "'Cause my understandin' is that you've turned your back on Apple Family honor and turned into a liar, and a good one, a long time ago, so how're we supposed to believe you?"

"You can believe me!" the alternate Pinkie said, with a scowl. "Because I'm very very disappointed! I wanted to eat you but Princess Celestia won't even let me take one little taste, because she says we have to keep you safe so Twilight will do the thing Princess Celestia wants her to do!"

"Really? What thing is that?" Pinkie asked.

Opposition Pinkie shrugged. "I dunno, it was a secret!"

Pinkie bounded forward and grabbed her counterpart. "IT WAS A SECRET AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN TRY TO FIND OUT? WHAT KIND OF A PINKIE ARE YOU?!"

Everypony on both sides stared at her. Pinkie seemed to realize this, and smiled weakly with embarrassment. "Ah... heh, heh... I'll just back up to my corner then," she said, trotting backwards, rather rapidly, until she rejoined the rest of them.

Rarity said softly, "I agree with Spike. I don't see a way to rescue Fluttershy and fight off our counterparts. If Applejack and I weren't so exhausted, maybe..."

"She's right. We're tuckered out. I could fight if I had to, but truth is, I'd lose and I know it."

"But I just have an awful feeling!" Pinkie said. "If we can't hurry up and rescue Discord and Twilight, and now Dashie and Fluttershy, something terrible's going to happen! I just know it!"

"Well, you got any ideas for getting Fluttershy out of there safe when the other her looks like a mean old badger ready to bite out her throat if she moves funny?" Applejack asked. "'Cause I sure don't."

"No," Pinkie said, and slumped to the ground. "No, I—I can't see any way to do it." She straightened up. "We're just gonna have to try again after we're with our Dashie."

"What's it gonna be, losers?" Opposition Rainbow shouted.

Applejack turned toward her. "Set Fluttershy down on the ground and get that net off of her, and we'll surrender."

The other Applejack considered. "All right then. Fluttershy, you stay with the other you. Be ready to knock her lights out if they try anything funny."

"With pleasure," Fluttercruel hissed.

"But don't do a single darned thing to her if her friends don't try anything funny."

"I know that! Do you think I'm stupid? I heard what Princess Celestia told us!"

Opposition Rainbow lowered Fluttershy to the ground, and Opposition Applejack opened the net and helped her out of it. "Hopin' you understand," she said to Fluttershy, who was still gagged. "We gotta do right by our world and our princess, no matter what. You'd do the same."

Fluttershy glared at her with the most hate-filled expression Spike had ever seen on Fluttershy... which didn't mean too much, as the only times he'd ever seen Fluttershy hate anything were when she'd been discorded and when she'd taken Iron Will's training too much to heart. But it was still startling. And then Spike remembered what Discord's letter had said this Applejack had done to him.

Their own Applejack said, "We would not. If Princess Celestia ordered me to torture somepony, I'd reckon she was messed up in the head or she was possessed like Nightmare Moon or it was a Changeling or something. I wouldn't blindly follow orders if I knew they were wrong."

"Ain't wrong to teach Discord a lesson or two," Opposition Applejack retorted. "He's got it coming."

They had to do nothing as a ring was placed on Rarity's horn, making her wail. "Oh, my head, it aches! It aches so much! Oh, this is torture!"

"Well, perhaps you should have thought of that before using your magic to wound so many loyal Royal Guards," the other Rarity snapped. "Nopony who matters cares what you think in any case."

All of the ponies' forelegs were tied together, with enough rope that they could still walk but not enough that they could run. Nopony tried to bind Spike, though. "Come along now. We don't want to keep Princess Celestia waiting," the other Rarity said.

Spike used his claws to cut Fluttershy's gag loose. "Boy, you guys can't even be bothered to ungag her? You're so scared of Fluttershy you can't even let her talk?"

"Thank you, Spike," Fluttershy said, spitting the remains of her gag out. "I do have something important to say, though."

"Oh, as if anyone cares," Fluttercruel spat.

"I think you'll care a lot," Fluttershy said. "If you knew Twilight was going to kill Discord in a ritual, tonight, and all your friends knew about it but you."

Fluttercruel's eyes went wide. "You're lying."

"Gag her again," Applejack said. "Fluttershy, you know she'll say anything to get her own way."

"Don't gag her!" Fluttercruel snarled. "What you mean is that I'll say anything to get my own way, right? You've never respected me! Tell me the honest truth for once, Applejack, is she lying?"

"She's not!" Pinkie said. "I've been getting twitches and pinches and premonitions of doom for a long time now! That must be why!" She turned to the alternate Pinkie. "And that must be why you don't feel it! Because you don't care if Discord dies or not, so it's not a bad thing for your Pinkie Sense to warn you about!"

The other Pinkie said uneasily, "I have been getting kind of a bad feeling, though..."

"Discord tricked your Twilight," Fluttershy said. "He told me, when I went to him. He wanted to die after you told him I wasn't his friend, so he tricked Twilight into doing a ritual that will destroy the world. But she thinks it will give her the power to save the world."

"Discord can't lie," Opposition Rainbow Dash protested.

"He can mislead if he wants to," Opposition Applejack said. "Question is, who's he misleading, Twilight or the other Fluttershy?"

"Why would he need to mislead me?" Fluttershy said. "If all he said was that Twilight was going to kill him tonight, I'd still try to rescue him. Telling me that his death will also destroy your world won't make me try any harder, because I would have already done my best. But don't you think he'd have very good reasons to mislead Twilight? Like, um, maybe revenge? On all of you? For hurting him?"

The Opposition team all looked at each other. "We'd better consult with Princess Celestia," Opposition Applejack finally said. "She wanted us to take these guys in, so we can do it when we do that."

"Fat, stinking, bloody turds on that," Fluttercruel snarled, and glared at Opposition Rainbow. "You knew they were going to kill Discord and you didn't tell me?"

"I didn't! And I don't owe you anything anyway, considering you called me a whorse the last time we talked, but I didn't know! That little runt over there who thinks she's you said something like that to me, but I thought she was just lying to turn me against Twilight!"

"Well, we can't take the risk," Fluttercruel said, still holding Opposition Rainbow's eyes with her own. "They can bring the prisoners to Princess Celestia, since they can get Royal Guards to help them. We are going to Twilight's and we are going to get some answers. And by that I mean you, and me, Miss Supposedly Fastest Flier. Now, are you with me or against me?"

"Fluttershy, you can't do this," Opposition Applejack said. "We need you and Rainbow to keep these prisoners under control!"

"No, I need to make sure Twilight isn't preparing to kill my prisoner! Get Rarity to get some guardsponies to help, all she'll need to do is wiggle her flank, like she always does. Rainbow!" She hadn't taken her eyes off Opposition Rainbow once. "Are you with me or against me?"

"I... guess I'm with. This time," Opposition Rainbow said, trying to sound casual, but Spike knew his own Rainbow well enough to hear the unease in her voice.

The two pegasi blasted off. It couldn't even be described as flying. Fluttercruel took off like a shot, her wings a hummingbird blur, and Opposition Rainbow right behind her.

"Right great friends you have there," Applejack said to Opposition Applejack.

"Shut up. Pinkie?"

"What? What?" Opposition Pinkie asked eagerly.

"You walk next to their Fluttershy. They give us any trouble at all before we hand them over to the Princess, cut her throat. And if she says one more word, take her ear."

"Which ear?"

"Either of them."

So that was bad. They couldn't try to break loose, even though the odds were a lot better now, with the threat to Fluttershy in the way. On the other hoof – or paw, in his case – nopony had thought to tie him up, and Spike knew how to get a horn ring off, and could cut ropes. As long as they didn't try to separate him from his friends, he knew how they were going to manage their second escape attempt. Just as soon as they were reunited with their own Rainbow Dash, and there was no longer a cheerfully vicious knife-wielder trotting next to Fluttershy with all of Pinkie's abilities and none of her kindness.

And now that he knew that this Princess Celestia was preparing to do some sort of ritual on Twilight, a ritual that Twilight plainly didn't want to cooperate with and had to be forced into by a threat to her friends, Spike knew the second escape attempt had to work.

---

Opposition, 1 PM – Twilight (Opposition)

She had enough ink to draw the initial set of runes. She'd checked and rechecked. The second set would be drawn with Discord's blood, which he had plenty of. The initial runes could be amplified somewhat if she cut off some expendable and flammable part of him, for instance the feathers on his wings or the tuft of fur at the tip of his tail, burned them, and added the ashes to the runic ink. But that should be done late afternoon so none of the power would have a chance to fade. Now Twilight was practicing drawing the runes, out of sequence of course and with regular ink, over and over and over. They had to be perfect. The slightest deviation in a rune, and she could inadvertently change its meaning, and ruin everything.

She could smell bleach from the workroom; Spike had left the door open. He was immune to the fumes of lava, but apparently not to bleach, so he needed ventilation. Twilight didn't care. The smell reminded her of cleanliness and things being neat and tidy and orderly and perfect. He couldn't have picked a better scent for improving her mood. And Discord was bound both physically and by her orders. Even if his chains were loose and the door was wide open, he couldn't walk through it. Despite what he'd said, she had to assume he would take an opportunity to escape if he saw one... so she had made sure there were none.

Twilight was still tired – she'd had nowhere near enough sleep from her nap to compensate for being awake all night. But it didn't matter now. After moonrise tonight, perhaps she'd never need sleep again.

Over and over she practiced the runes, engraving their shape in her mind. Over and over. There could be no mistakes. Over and over.

---

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