Halloween was a warm day, and a warm night. Not a cloud had been around all day and only a few were placed about as the sun began to set. I'd spent most of the day either in the library or with the costumes guy going over my plan. My costume was simple and just consisted of some old clothes I had; I tore them up to give myself an effect of a scuffle and a fight and was going to let magic deal with the rest of the costume. Which was just simply a zombie. Which were apparently a real thing here, and I very much intended to stick to role play, for a good while anyway.

The guy from the costume store was a unicorn that could supposedly do some pretty good illusion magic, as well as get fake blood and other shit that'll make me look dead. The plan was to meet him, change into my costume, get magicked so it looked natural and then suddenly change into a zombie. Hopefully it would be cool. And hopefully I wouldn't get attacked. I was pestered most of the day as to what my costume was by basically everyone who knew me and cared. Leaving Diamond and Twilight to not ask what I was doing. Besides people getting on my tits all day it went by fast, I watched the outside ponies as the sun began to set, increasingly ponies started walking around in costume and the town started to pick up with random stalls and games, they all seemed to be heading towards the town hall, where most if not all of Ponyville's events seemed to take place. I couldn't exactly see the building from Twilight's, she seemed to be a good distance from the hall, but I'd been around the area enough to know where it was. Being in Ponyville for as long as I had had given me a mental map of sorts. The town wasn't actually all that big. Probably ten, fifteen minutes’ walk from one side to the other. Though there were some landmarks out of the way or spread out from the proper village. Applejack's farm for example was a few minutes away from any kind of civilisation and her apple orchard about the size of the town and a bit more. The school was close to the farm and on top of a slight hill outside the town, I'd never been inside but from what I saw from a distance it looked like it had one or two classrooms at best, and I hadn't seen many kids running around. Forty-ish, out of the population, which was somewhere between two hundred and two thousand. Which is weird but my logic there was simple: on normal days I'd see a few, but enough ponies wandering around trading to make the town look busy, and other days; like Pinkfest, the town looked overpopulated. I had asked around for the general idea of the town’s population but everyone either told me to talk to the mayor or just didn't know. I tried the mayor but she's a busy woman and I couldn't be asked with hanging around town hall to get a meeting for something I didn't care about that much.

I was sitting with Diamond when the first trick-or-treaters turned up to the door, which I had been waiting on to take my leave into town. Twilight called down from her room for me to answer it and I just glared at Diamond until he got up and did it. It was obviously kids, one was dressed as a pirate but the others I didn't see.

"Yo Twi'. I'mma ready to leave you comin'?" I shouted up to her after a minute more of waiting. I hadn't made any plans with Rainbow, in truth I'd been avoiding that topic since I wanted my costume to be a surprise, I had no idea where the others were. Rarity maybe staying indoors, Applejack would be farming, Fluttershy wouldn't be caught dead in something as spooky as this. Twilight was coming out with Diamond, Spike and I. Dash was out, potentially. Pinkie worried me the most, this kind of shit is right up her alley, and that genuinely scared me. Pinkie in her element could be apocalyptic.

After not even registering a reply I heard hooves coming down the stairs and turned in my seat to watch Twilight walk down wearing some weird robe and a fake beard. Spike was in the dumbest outfit I think I've ever seen.

"Guess who I am!" Twilight declared with a grin. I stared at her blankly.

"Twilight Sparkle." I answered. She glared at me and stuck her tongue out.

"Starswirl the Bearded." Diamond answered seriously. Twilight smiled again.

"Yes! I hand stitched these patterns in an exact replica to Starswirl’s robes." Diamond and Twilight then got into a talk about this Starswirl fellow, which I wasn't too interested in, I wanted to go party and scare the town. Spike walked over to me and looked up at me smiling.

"I'm a dragon." He declared.

"Yes Spike. Yes, you are." I replied. He was wearing the equivalent of a dragon onesie. It was fucking disgusting.

"When are you dressing up Aron?" He asked. I grinned slightly and winked.

"Soon." I answered. "Diamond, why ain't you dressed up?" I asked. He stopped his nerd talk with Nerdlight Geekle and looked at me, then opened his mouth, he had fake vampire fangs in.

"I usually do not partake in such events." He paused, looking like he was counting to ten. "But." Another pause. "Lyra convinced me otherwise. The rest of my outfit is with her."

"Awesome, surprised I didn't notice the fangs earlier, you're speaking pretty well considering." He just nodded. I clasped my hands together and made Spike jump slightly. "Shall we go?" I asked. Everyone nodded, Spike tried to recreate the clap sound I had made but it sounded, wrong. What with him having hard scales and all. Sounded more like a drum, was kinda cool.

As we left the house I saw a couple of kids running around in varying degrees of costume, there were at least three just wearing white blankets to be ghosts, there was always one in a group with a ghost outfit. I also noticed Pinkie Pie in one of the larger crowds dressed as what I thought was a chicken. I decided against wondering why Pinkie was with a large group of unsupervised children and carried on into town.

There wasn't much conversation on the way into town and Diamond spotted Lyra and walked off to join her at some point. Spike likewise got distracted and pissed off, Twilight quickly after him, leaving me alone in town looking for my drug dealer costume designer. I quickly spotted him, unsurprisingly where we had decided to meet, he was wearing what looked like a Darth Vader suit, but instead of the Vader helmet he had a large tube helmet sitting in the grass next to him, resembling that of a long bucket. It looked pretty rad whatever the fuck he was trying to be.

"Nice outfit." I muttered as I reached the guy.

"Thanks Aron, the helmet is far too hot though." He replied. Before I could ask who, he was trying to be he continued. "Want to do this now?" I nodded, he smiled and gestured for me to follow, which I did. Down some alley he had been standing near between some shop I'd never been into and some house. The sign was in Equestrian so I had no idea what the fuck the shop was. So much for signs being in English for tourists. There was a bag laying in the dirt around a corner, out of view of anyone.

"Alright, I'll go back to where I was, you change and call me over when you're done." The guy said when we got to my shit. I never did catch the dudes name.

"A'right. Wanna go over the plan?" He nodded.

"You change, I'll put your makeup and illusions on, I'll run out screaming about a zombie then you follow."

"Yee." I muttered, he nodded again and walked off. Man of few words.

It didn't take me long to strip down and change, I just bagged my old clothes up and made a mental note of picking them up after this show. There was a bag of fake blood and some flour inside the bag as well. Once I was done I called the guy over and he used magic to make me look like a zombie. I hoped. He spent about five minutes doing all the shit he needed to do then flashed up a mirror. Or a spell resembling a mirror, one of the two.

"Good?" He asked. I looked fucking badass. My eyes were bloodshot and red, part of my cheek was missing and blood poured out of it, as well as various other places around my body, my whole skin looked dead and pale, a maggot was sitting on my shoulder, which felt weird since it wasn't actually there. My legs were covered in dirt, blood and grass and my top was completely fucked.

"This is amazing dude." I answered, smiling.

"Glad you like it. I'll run now." He said and turned and sprinted off out of the alleyway.

"Zombie! Zombie! Aron's been bit!" The guy shouted. A couple of replies came from ponies and I started to limp out of the alley into town. I started to make loud groans and moans as I walked. A couple of ponies gathered around the opening and looked puzzled about what was happening. Until I stepped into the light that was.

"Grrr! Errrrr!" I cried. A couple of ponies genuinely pegged it, a few stood their ground, one unicorn in particular looked ready to throw down. I made the mistake of aiming for him and his horn started to glow. At first, I thought I'd fucked up and would be killed like Bill Murray in Zombieland. The dude took a second longer of casting some sort of spell and then dropped it and ran. The town was thrown into chaos after that, all the ponies gathered ran in all sorts of directions, knocking over barrels and stands, tipping over buckets and bins. It was brilliant. Me and the costumes guy just stood in the center of the path in stitches. I'd never laughed so hard in my life.

We ended up sitting down as the chaos slowed and ponies left the area, laughing quietly, and picking up whenever a scream echoed out or something got damaged.

"Silly Aron, zombies don't laugh." I heard Pinkie say from somewhere. I looked around and finally spotted her alone standing proud to my left.

"Oh right, shit. Err... Graaarrr?" I said, deliberately unsure of myself. She giggled slightly.

"You're a terrible zombie Aron." She muttered.

"I scared the town din't I?" I asked. She shrugged and laughed slightly.

"I guess I gotta go find Twilight or something and explain all this huh?" I asked. Pinkie nodded slightly. I started to get up. "Well bro, as funny as that was, I'm in trouble now. I'll catch you around yeah?" I asked, the dude just nodded and Pinkie walked closer to me. "I gotta pick up my old clothes, be a dear and go into that dark, foreboding, claustrophobic alley and get 'em for me?" I asked, Pinkie just bounced off into the shadows making chicken noises. She quickly came back with a cloth bag in her mouth. I took it off her and flinched at the handles being slightly wet. I'll live. I thought. I'll also just dump this on Spike if Twilight bitches.

Turns out Twilight didn't bitch that much, thought it was quite funny. But I did have to apologise to the ponies who nearly had a heart attack. Weirdly didn't have to pay for any damages, either people didn't know I was sitting on a dragon horde or nobody cared enough to make me pay.

"You do look pretty good in that costume Aron, although I can see through a lot of the magic, who did you get to do your makeup?" Twilight asked, we were walking through town together, a group of children had been following us for some time and I kept making faces at them to stepping forward quickly like I was going to charge them if they got too close, was good fun.

"Eh I dunno the guy's name. The dude who runs the costume shop. Though I think it's something else the rest of the year." I shrugged.

"Yes, I know of him, nice stallion, I get my quills from him." Twilight replied. Looking back, I realised I never actually described the guy; he had a light brown coat, and a long brown hairdo, the tail resembled that of a shit, he usually wore a shirt and blue coat of some kind, which seemed pretty good damn weird to me, but I figured it was due to working in a store, a uniform per se. Bright green eyes and a fairly short horn. Like, I'm surprised he doesn't overcompensate it's that small, although I wasn't sure on the thoughts of horn sizes in Equestria. Alicorns had the longest, at around a foot or so. Normal unicorns seemed to vary from about three inches to seven, I'd never measured one so could be off, but that's what it seemed like to me. This guy was closer to two inches to three, poor bastard.

"Quills and Halloween shit huh. He sell anything else?" I asked.

"Sofas when it isn't Nightmare Night." Twilight replied.

"Christ." I muttered.

"What does that mean?" She asked.

"Christ?" She nodded.

"On Earth, we have a concept called religion, it's the belief of a higher power, or higher powers. Depending on the religion. One has a character in it called Jesus Christ. His name is used in vein a lot as basically a curse or like a swear. A more mundane and common swear, only really looked down upon by the people who believe in Jesus."

"How many religions are there?"

"Thousands, four thousand, three hundred? Two hundred maybe."

"Why so many?"

"People grew up differently, or cultures believed in other things. There is an old, now dead religion that came from an area called Greece, which made a god for every aspect of life. So, a god of thunder, god of the sun, and so on. There's also people, like me, who don't believe in any religion for one reason or another."

"I see. I'd love to learn more."

"I'll tell you as much as I know, and answer whatever questions you got later alright?" I asked, she nodded and grinned. "Y'know Halloween, or Earth Nightmare Night came from a religion. Celtic I believe." After a few minutes of silence and wandering around Ponyville Twilight stopped in her path and bowed, I immediately rolled my eyes and looked around to spot which Princess had arrived, turned out it was Celestia.

"Princess, what a pleasant surprise." I said; smiling smugly, I started to fold my arms and flicked a maggot off my arm that wasn't there, my finger just gracefully phased through the illusion like some sci-fi hologram thing.

"Aron, I am surprised you actually went through with dressing up tonight." Princess Celestia replied, looking me up and down, smiling slightly.

"I told you I was going to. I spoke to some pony in town a couple weeks back and he suggested I do this, I think I look pretty sweet."

"Unfortunately, much of your outfit is lost to me, illusion spells of this calibre are so easy to break through, but the effort is there and for many you appear terrifying I'm sure." She said that incredibly passive aggressively, it sounded strange coming from her but I never did find out why she was so neutral suddenly, she even lost her smile for a few seconds like she was thinking on something deep.

"Well I didn't have a Princess at hand to do my makeup, and as you warned me I wasn't to go too overboard with this." I replied, spreading my arms out slightly and smiling. Celestia did make a point of looking me up and down and nodded slightly.

"Twilight could you leave us." Celestia commanded, I didn't look at the named pone but did hear her start trotting away. "Now, Aron." She began glaring at me. "Would you like to talk about what happened at the Gala?" She asked, neutrally.

"It was a lot of fun and Luna and I had a nice chat." I replied quickly with little emotion.

"You and my sister, my little sister abandoned a public party and got drunk. The first event Luna has been to since she returned from the moon. She was supposed to interact with ponies, the lords. Not run away with some... Some..." She paused.

"Commoner?" I asked. Celestia just rolled her eyes.

"I do not mind if you spend time with my sister Aron, or even spending time with me casually. But you can't just... Leave like that."

"We ended up talking about our pasts. Mainly, taking lives." I replied. Celestia froze somewhat at that and stepped forward slightly. I raised my hands and just stood away more. "It's alright." I added. She nodded.

"I wasn't aware, when Luna came back completely out of it she could barely lower the moon. I was afraid of letting her try." She took a deep breath. "But she was as happy as I have ever seen a pony Aron." She added.

"We talked, a lot that night Celestia and she is hurt and grieving for whatever she did in her early years. A lot of it was cryptic and she outright and avoided a lot of questions and personal lore."

"Can I take you to the wasteland?" Celestia asked. This time I froze up, if people still hadn't guess by now I fucking hated teleporting. I just shut my eyes, clenched my fists, and nodded. The sound of her horn glowing started and the next thing I knew I was going through my usual pain and coughing fit.

"Fuck." I grunted after a few seconds. The night was much colder away from Ponyville so I could only imagine we were far north or something. Although this being a wasteland and just dry sand and dust it might work like desert laws. Hot during the day and bastard level of cold during the night.

"I had expected you to have gotten used to that by now." Celestia dryly said, not helping me as usual.

"Humans aren't made for teleports apparently. Just another way our species disappoints." I spat on the ground and wiped my mouth. I wasn't sure if what I spat out was zombie bile, blood, or just generic spit. Must've been a weird sight for anyone passing by to see a huge white Alicorn talking to a humanoid zombie.

"When Luna and I were born the world was in total chaos. Our mother was an incredibly powerful being and brought the world into creation. She left us for reasons I've never understood and has only returned twice since. Once to defeat a demonic race thousands and thousands of years ago. And again, to bring us into the world. Discord had been ruling with an iron fist over the world for over two hundred years and we were the last, best hope for ponykind. My mother trained us, taught us and cared for us as best she could but before the uprising she left." Celestia stopped. She was crying slightly.

"She explain why?" I asked.

"No. One night she was with us, then the next morning she was gone."

"You don't have to tell me thi-" she raised a hoof to silence me. I did.

"We defeated Discord with the Elements of Harmony, he turned to stone and was frozen in place, our prisoner. We became the rulers of Ponykind and that has been so ever since."

"How long ago was this?"

"Nearly six thousand years ago." I gulped. "Alicorns are truly immortal Aron, you must understand this. We have outlived everyone. Seen generations pass."

"Must take a toll on you." She nodded.

"It did. Lonely, even with each other it was lonely. The boredom we face is indescribable." She paused again and sniffed. "Any-, anyway. We didn't live in total peace, our home was destroyed, turned into an icy wasteland. The griffons tried to destroy us and the Changelings tried to feast on us. Both times Luna lead our troops. She didn't like it but it had to be."

"One of you had to lead..." I muttered. She nodded.

"I was the oldest, the one everypony looked up to. Luna was my adviser, a nightling and incredibly magically talented. It was natural for her to be the warrior princess. At first, she enjoyed leading troops, was a natural. But war takes a toll on everypony. I understand why she came to you now Aron. You are such an unknown to this world and she has never managed to fit in."

"You need to help her then."

"How do I help her. I have already lost her once."

"I don't know. I'm no therapist."

"How did you help her that night?" I paused again, that was a good question. We didn't do shit.

"We went out and got drunk. We had fun with the common folk I guess." I said, shrugging.

"Do you think I could help her by, drinking with her?" I shook my head.

"You could help her. Temporarily. I drink to avoid my problems, it's unhealthy and the worst thing you can do. I wouldn't ever recommend you drink with her constantly so she forgets her problems. Just, talk with her and be with her. Maybe stop that day-night bullshit you do and both be up and ruling during the day. Let some lackey or lord rule the night if you truly need to do so."

"Do you have siblings Aron?" She asked, seemingly suddenly.

"If I did do you think I would have come here so willingly?" I asked.

"I have seen a lot of families, they are all different."

"I suppose...No, I don't have any siblings." I answered. Not subtly enough because Celestia's next question was:

"Have you ever had siblings?" I didn't answer for a time, and avoided her gaze. Debating on what to say.

"I don't want any pity." I said, almost whispering.

"Of course." She answered far too fast.

"Celestia." I grunted.

"You shall have none unless you ask." She replied. Looking honestly concerned.

"I had a sister. A long time ago I had a sister." I muttered. Breathing heavily. "Older one, a half-sister really. We shared dads but that was it. Her mother died, I never met her. My dad met my mum and they made me. Life was great for my first few years. Then they broke up and I ended up with my mother most of the time. My sister made a point to come with me and in her words. Keep me safe. She failed, but fuck did she try and keep me safe." I paused again. "My mum was- is- whatever. My mum is a horrible woman and my childhood was beyond horrible. I've told a few here about it and I won't repeat myself. But my sister was there everyday, comforting me and taking abuse for me sometimes. She was the best thing in my life and one day she just... Went. She got internal bleeding one day and the next she was gone. Twenty-three years and her life went. That was the last time I saw my mother and the last time I spoke of my sister to anyone." As soon as I finished Celestia pushed forward and hugged me. I wanted to fight it, scream at her for giving me pity and love. But after only a second I gave up and just wept into her shoulder. I don't remember how long we were there but I made a point to ask to make a grave somewhere for my sister. She didn't deserve to be forgotten and pushed away anymore.

I woke up in a panic and in a lot of pain around a month later. I immediately knew I was in Canterlot but couldn't remember why exactly. I was sitting up slightly and could tell I was in a bed. Ponies in white overalls, all unicorns were either staring at me or wandering around casting various spells on what looked to be my clothing. Celestia and Luna were both standing at the foot of my bed glaring at me. Luna had a spear floating next to her and as soon as she noticed I was awake she aimed it down at me. I tried to squirm or move but found myself tied down by something.

"Leave us." Celestia commanded, the ponies all immediately evacuated the room, shutting the door behind them. The spear tip was worryingly close to my face. It took me a moment but I suddenly noticed how I couldn't see through my left eye, at all. And the area around it was burning.

"What the-" Luna pushed the spear forward and cut into my cheek. The blade was freezing and the cut started to hurt almost straight away.

"You will not talk demon." Luna commanded in a booming voice. Was spooky. I tried to move again but couldn't, I was panting heavily and could feel sweat pouring down my face. Luna pulled the spear away but left it aimed at me.

"What are you?" Celestia asked, horrified. I opened my mouth to speak and saw Luna almost growl at me and move the spear about more. I shut my mouth and just stared at Celestia, pleading with her. "Luna, look." Celestia muttered looking at me.

"We are looking dear sister. Why are we not removing this creature?" She barked back, not looking away from me. Celestia suddenly looked worried and galloped round the bed and looked at my cheek.

"Look at the wound!" Celestia cried. Luna looked to her right for a split second then went straight back to me. Her soul rendering glare dropped for a second and she looked back at my cut. She immediately dropped the spear and her magic cut off.

"What is this?" She muttered.

"A-Aron?" Celestia asked. I looked to her and raised a hand slowly up, and only my cheek to wipe the blood dripping down. My index and middle fingers were dyed with blood.

"Celestia what the fuck?" I cried out. Celestia's horn started to glow and the pain on my face subsided.

"Aron what happened to you?" She asked.

"What the fuck are you talking about? It's me. I was asleep in my bed in Ponyville and I woke up in pain here!" I shouted. Still panicking a lot.

"Aron." Luna said quietly. I looked to her. "Look me in the eye." I did, carefully. "Tell me you have no memory of what happened." She muttered.

"Luna, I have no idea why I am here, why my clothes are away from me and why you STABBED ME WITH A GOD DAMN SPEAR." I shouted, she flinched and stepped away slightly. Then looked to Celestia.

"Celestia." She grunted.

"Aron. You're human." Celestia said next to me.

"No shit." I said, and paused to calm down. "Can you tell me what the fuck is going on?" I asked. Celestia walked back to Luna and teleported a round wooden board into the room.

"Aron what do you know of The Void. Has anyone told you about that yet?" Luna asked. I'd heard of that, but where?

"I've heard that word, or that phrase. But I can't recall where." I answered truthfully.

"Perhaps in your books?" Celestia asked. "I haven't read them in a while myself so can't be sure."

"Those things are pretty damn big. Potentially." I replied. "Why Luna?" I asked, looking back at her.

"The Void is where all Taint comes from, a dark and dead realm that sits next to our own realm. Beings like the demons originally came from there and it is a horrible place. The only things that can survive are evil creatures hellbent on total domination and destruction of our world." Luna answered.

"And you landed in the middle of the throne room covered in liquid Taint speaking Demonic through a Void Portal." Celestia finished.

"What."

"Aron, we thought you were a demon, or being of the Void. How are you here, how are you... Alive?" Luna asked.

"I seriously don't know. Last thing I remember was going to bed. I'm not entirely sure if this isn't just a sick dream or something." I'd been having weird dreams since I got here, my mind trying to not go insane I presumed.

"This is no dream. But you shouldn't be here. Should be impossible." Celestia muttered.

"Indeed." Luna agreed.

"Have you checked Twilight's? Because if y'all think I'm your enemy then the best thing to do is just check if 'Aron' is where he last was." I suggested.

"You are okay now Aron, nothing from The Void bleeds red. Few creatures there even bleed at all." Celestia replied. I shrugged.

"Alright. So why can I only see through one eye?" I asked.

"That's what the mirror is for." Celestia replied, floating the board over to me and laying it on my lap.

"Whenever normal creatures, ponies, birds, dragons, anything gets in contact with Taint their bodies sometimes, change." Luna started to explain. "You were in the Void, where nothing lives or can survive. So, the Taint there came into contact with you." She paused as I looked in the mirror. My left eye was, in a word, fucked. The usual green colour to it was a dark purple, purple veins had appeared around the edges of my eyeball like I was bloodshot, a lot of skin around my eye was purplish, my eyelashes and eyebrow were gone. Thick, throbbing purple veins dotted the left side of my face, going up towards my hairline and almost touching my ear. I screamed a little bit I won't lie.

"We think we can treat the infection, stop it from spreading any further. But we don't know how far it has already gone. Your eye will most likely stay the colour and keep the look it has. The veins will eventually, hopefully, subside but we cannot promise anything." Luna explained after my second panic attack.

"How could you cure this?" I asked.

"Painfully." Celestia answered.

"I expected as much. Do it." The sisters shared a look.

"Get the tools." Celestia ordered, Luna vanished in a wet fart teleport. I giggled slightly.

"That will never get old." I whispered.

"Humour is good Aron. We will need to magically freeze the corrupted flesh and take the top layer away. This will be difficult so close to your eye but a lot can be done with magic. It will require time and-" I raised a hand.

"I don't want to know." I muttered, she nodded.

A few minutes pasted and Luna appeared with a worrying number of knives, what looked like a bowl of wet cement and some bottles of colourful lotion. To put a long story short those next few hours were the longest and most painful hours of my life and it was that day I learned to never fuck with Taint ever again if it could be helped. It goes without saying they had to restrain me again and rumours went around the castle that the two Princesses had decided to torture a demon. Something considered to have no fear.

The next time I woke sirens were blaring somewhere outside of the castle. At first, they didn't bother me, just background noise. But the more I thought about it the more the alarms started to panic me, I was in the relaxed state between awake and asleep but after some thought I got up in a panic. I threw the covers off me and looked around the room, light poured through the window and I finally noticed I wasn't in my usual room, it was more like a hospital, marble floors and white everywhere. A long table had a fresh pair of clothes on it, my crossbow without any bolts and my sword. I slowly reached a hand up to my left eye and felt a ball of cotton and some cloth keeping the patch in place where my left eye was. I could feel the throbbing come from beneath my eye patch. I flinched at that slightly but tried to ignore the pain.

After a few seconds I tried getting up, and found the process much easier than I expected, a drop of blood fell onto the ground from my eye patch and again I flinched. Getting dressed as fast as possible and arming up I walked to the door to find Celestia. Turns out she was looking for me because the door burst open with me not three feet away with a worried looking Alicorn running through.

"Aron, good you're up. Are you okay?" She asked. I kept my distance from her, seeing her standing over me with a knife cutting into my flesh was still a rather fresh memory.

"Bleeding a little I think. What's with the sirens?" I replied. She was quiet for a while before answering.

"It would be best if you just looked outside." She replied, then started to trot out of my room and down the hall. I walked out to follow and saw three other ponies flank the princess. They were a lot more armoured than usual, with full face guards on rather than helmets. Two were unicorns with full on halberds down instead of spears with a variety of knives and swords dotting their bodies, the other was a Pegasus likewise armed. None of them even gave me a side wards glance but one of the unicorns fell back and walked next to me when I caught up with Celestia. I didn't dare talk to him. We walked through the castle, that was worryingly empty; the alarms were still ringing and I'd yet to pinpoint whereabouts the noise was coming from.

We made it to some side door at the back of the castle that lead into the gardens, guards littered the halls and as Celestia passed they joined our convoy, we had a small army behind us by the time we got outside. I spotted Luna standing at the edge of some kind of circular canopy surrounded by guards, she was staring out into the sky. It only took me a second to see why. There was a ghostly outline of a planet sitting still in the sky much like the moon or sun does. But Equestria only has one moon or sun, and the silhouette was too big to be the moon. It didn't help that I could clearly see the outline of America from here.

"Earth." I muttered, as soon as it clicked in my mind.

"Are you sure?" Celestia asked.

"Of course, we're looking at America right now. What the hell is going on?" I replied. I hadn't noticed Luna walk over, nor did I notice the statue of Discord being moved over to us.

"Originally my sister believed that in my absence Nightmare Moon opened a portal between your world and ours, with the intent of destroying Equestria. When I, she was defeated the portal was believed to be closed. However, it wasn't-." Luna started.

"Yeah Celestia sent me a letter about that, at the time I thought nothing of it. As long as it wasn't causing any issues." I interrupted.

"Well Aron." Celestia began. "It's now a problem." She added. I was fixated on Earth, just sitting there, in its ghostly form.

"Recently another theory has come up." Luna said.

"How recently?" I asked.

"When you appeared in the throne room through a portal from the Void we knew two things could have happened. The Void spat out a demon of Aron to attack us. Or..." Luna answered.

"Something took you into the Void and spat you out as a warning or threat." Celestia finished, then they both looked to my left, I joined them and saw a large, stone statue of some... Creature? A goat head and miss-matched horns, a fang sticking out, miss-matched wings and was just all sorts of fucked up. A tail was wrapped around a pedestal and the thing looked like it was singing.

"Discord, the lord of chaos. Equestrian spirit previously known as Perdito. God of destruction, chaos, entropy." Luna said.

"He was believed to have been defeated long ago. We spoke of him during Nightmare Night. During his imprisonment, he should have been powerless, apparently this is not the case." Celestia explained, I started to walk over to the statue, all the guards had made an almost circle around him, aiming spears and crossbows at the statue all un-moving. They left just enough room for me to get close to the statue.

"Is it safe to touch?" I asked, not sure why I asked that. I just felt drawn to the statue.

"We believe so. He cannot escape that prison, the Elements of Harmony made sure of that." Celestia replied.

"Have you got the Elements here?" I asked.

"They are yes. Twilight Sparkle and her friends are on their way here right now. Should be here in a matter of minutes." I looked up at Earth again, it was obviously bigger.

"Do we have minutes?" The two princesses shared a look.

"Yes." They both answered with little assurance. I stepped away from the statue and stood between the two of them, Celestia put a wing around me and kept it there.

Less than a minute passed and the six ponies I'd gotten to know so well over the months appeared through the door we had used. All wearing their necklaces and for Twilight; wearing her crown, they all looked horrified and for good reason.

"Aron! What in Tartarus happened to your eye?" Rainbow Dash shouted, running over to me. I hugged her and shrugged slightly.

"I pissed someone, somewhere off." I answered, she stepped back and bowed before the princesses.

"Rise Elements." Celestia said, the six of them did. "Twilight do you have Aron's bolts?" She then asked, the named pony nodded and teleported a quiver of bolts into existence. I just grabbed them from the air and put them on my back, making sure my sword was reachable since I'd yet to master putting my weapons on my person.

"Princess what is going on?" Twilight asked.

"My little ponies-" Despite everything, I cringed. "The portal between Equestria and Earth has opened and through it-" She paused for dramatic effect and pointed her head towards Earth. "Has come Aron's home world, Earth. Our planets will collide soon if Discord is not stopped."

"Ah don't understand half of that Princess." Applejack muttered.

"Earth and Equestria are going to hit each other soon because statue boy is a cunt." I replied, the orange pony just nodded.

"How do we defeat him princess? He looks pretty... Defeated now." Rainbow Dash asked. This is where I come in. I thought.

"We will release Discord from his prison, hold him here and convince him to stop." Celestia replied.

"And... If he doesn't?" Twilight asked. I gripped my sword and looked at Celestia.

"Looks like Aron already knows what to do. You don't have to." She said sadly.

"Someone has to." I said, walking forward, and drawing my sword. "Ready when you are." I added. I heard a horn start to glow and after a few seconds a rainbow light, much like the one during the whole Nightmare Moon thing. The rainbow hit Discord and the guards around him eased off a little to give the blinding light some room. I could see cracks in the statue whenever the flashes stopped enough for me to see. Laughter started to echo from the light and eventually the rainbow stopped, and the light turned dark, and into a cloud. Discord was covered by a layer of dark mist or something.

"Finally, someone let me out of my prison." A voice echoed around me, dark, foreboding voice. Was pretty badass. I looked around to the others and my heart almost stopped. Everyone looked totally, frozen.

"Discord I presume?" I asked the mist. More laughter. I felt a cold presence behind me but when I turned to look there was nothing, I looked back but the mist was gone; and so was the statue. All the guards completely still.

"Now Aron don't presume anything. We've already met." The voice replied.

"If you say so. You need to stop this." I called.

"Now why would I do that?"

"You'll kill billions."

"And how chaotic would that be?"

"That's not chaos, that's evil."

"From your point of view. But we have had this conversation before. Lots of times actually."

"What do you mean?" I asked. Suddenly the God appeared in front of my, much taller than myself and glaring down at me with an evil grin. His yellow eyes burning into my very soul. I almost let go of the sword.

"Let's go on a journey, shall we?" He asked, clicking his fingers. Everyone around us unfroze and the guards immediately started to charge Discord. I heard Celestia cry my name before he clicked his fingers again and I was on ankle deep in snow, a second later and I was on my knees coughing up blood into the snow. The air was scarily thin and bitterly cold, around me was just snow and rock, with not much room to walk around. It was clear we were up high somewhere but I didn't instantly know where. I stopped coughing and stood again, wiping my hands on my top to try and warm up, but on top of a mountain in a long sleeve shirt and nothing much else is a horrible idea if one were to keep warm. I looked off the side of the mountain and could see the towers of Canterlot below, we were on top of the huge ass mountain Canterlot was hanging from. I stepped back as soon as I knew where I was.

"The Tip of the World, the tallest mountain in Equestria and the... Third tallest on Equus." Discord said from behind me. I turned to him and aimed my sword at him. I couldn't feel my crossbow or bolts at all. "Interesting." He muttered, looking at the sword blade. "No matter." He added.

"Discord you need to stop this." I grunted at him, shivering already. I could see my breath as I spoke and my courage was very quickly falling.

"Now now Aron, in due time." Discord replied, clicking his fingers again and teleporting into a rather plush looking chair with his legs crossed and some glasses on that were far too small for his face. "Do you wish to know what happened to your eye?" He asked.

"I guess this is thanks to you?" I asked, not lowering my sword. Discord just rolled his eyes and smiled slightly.

"Taint is a magnificent gift is it not? Why have dull, green eyes. When you could have a piece of me?" He said.

"I don't want to fight you, you can end this peacefully." I grunted, stepping forward. Again, he rolled his eyes.

"You just don't listen do you. Here, let me show you." He said, clicking his fingers, and appearing in front of me and touching my forehead with a claw. There was a flash of light and suddenly total darkness surrounded me.

"This, is your past." Discord said from next to me. I noticed I wasn't cold anymore, and my sword was gone. I saw myself laying down on a black floor with Discord standing over my body. I saw how both me and Discord from the present were ghostlier and slightly blue, whereas the other us were solid. "I brought you here to show you my power." Discord added. I looked to him with little emotion. "And send a warning to Celestia of course, no fun in this being a totally bias fight. I always give my enemies a trump card to play." The other me, or OM, stood up slowly and the other Discord, OD vanished somewhere. OM called out something but I couldn't hear what he said. OD reappeared behind OM and kicked him, making him fall to the ground with a thud. I heard OD shout his name but not much else. "You believed this to be a dream, wanted to know who I was." Discord explained. I crossed my arms.

"How do I know this is true, and not your magic?" I asked.

"I would never lie to you Aron." Discord replied, most likely all I was going to get. I saw OD vanish again and OM stand and look around in the darkness. OM mumbled something and after a second OD appeared again and grabbed OM by the throat and lifted him up above the ground. "This bit is good. Let's watch, shall we?" Discord asked, and we started to move forward. It felt beyond strange to move without any self-prompt but I knew I was along for the ride and would most likely die here. I could see the fear in OM's eyes and the obvious begging for release and air. I was being choked out in front of myself.

"You tell you dear Celestia. That I'm coming and your worlds will BURN." OD screamed at OM. I actually flinched at that, almost in time with OM.

"Fear is a wonderful thing." Discord whispered, giggling. With OM's lion paw gripped onto me he lifted his clawed arm to OM's face, one claw was glowing purple with purple goo dripping down from it.

"Have a taste of my power mortal." OD commanded and touched my left eye with his claw. OM screamed out and at the same time my left eye shot out a shock of pain and I fell down screaming, mirroring OM. I felt blood dripping through my hand as I held onto the patch, tears fell down my good eye and my teeth were clenched, hard.

"Beings like me Aron." Discord began, I was barely listening, my eye was on fire. "We are what you would call Inter-dimensional. We can change the laws of physics and mould the universe as we see fit." He added. I was full on crying now and fell onto my side rather than my knees. My cries echoed from OM and Discord's speech echoed from OD. "You and I have fought and talked billions, trillions of times already and shall do so until the end of time itself. Every action you take opens the doors to an unlimited number of universes. All born from choice. Every being and every creature has a doppelganger in every dimension." He paused. "Some however, like myself. Can see ourselves. What we do, how we do it." Another pause. "That is why Equestria and Earth will die today. Because seeing everything as it happens is boring. We have to mix it up. I will kill billions yes, but billions out of a billion, billion universes where life continues is nothing." I barely noticed the cold creep up on me and the weight of Spiritus come back to me as we entered the real world again.

"There was one version of you I do like though. A younger version, went by a different name. Hey, believe it or not he chose to live his life on Equestria as a pony. Light Gaze or something close to that. Made some very different choices that you have. Even defeated me. Somehow." He giggled slightly, laughing to himself, I was trying to stand by slipped on the snow, blood dripping into the ground. "His journey came to an end somewhere north of here. In some fort surrounded by friends and allies. Fought and died against a threat you will never meet." He paused and seemed to be in deep thought. "This doesn't really affect you I'm sure. Gaze was a renown warrior before his universe burned, it is a shame really. He defeated Nightmare Moon, me, countless other enemies that tried to kill him. But in the end, he fell like all the rest." Discord seemed too preoccupied telling me about some dead guy to notice I'd finally stood and was inching towards him. "Tell me Aron. Do you think Haze could have saved the world had he not been too late?" Discord asked, looking away from me. I was praying to every god imaginable that I could get this strike into Discord.

"Doesn't matter, does it? He died." I answered.

"I suppose. When we're done here I shall have to visit a universe where he succeeds." Discord muttered. I lunged forward.

"We're done here." I grunted. Spiritus was sticking out of Discord's chest, covered in blood that constantly shifted colour. Discord tensed up a little bit before raising his hands and looking down.

"Well played." He said. Spiritus started to suck a blackish mist out of Discord and just as the memories of the ageless God of Chaos started to play in my mind I shut my eyes and smiled.

The last thing I remember was being thrown to the ground by an explosion and passing out.

Author's Notes:

Arc 1 is over
hopefully future arc endings won't be as split as this one.

also on a side note. although most of you are new to my writing a while ago I did write a series of fics that went under the title of The Nightmare Saga, revolving around the pony Bright Haze. There was a pretty big reference to the 'old' series as well as a canon ending, this is mainly for y'all who read the first series. Dragon, Sithjjf, couple others.