Ponyville was under siege. The enemy looked at home in the Everfree, even though I had never encountered their like in my stay there. Thick black vines covered in thorns writhed their way through the town, moving and growing far faster than conventional plants. They wrapped around buildings, trapping panicking ponies within their homes. Those who were free to run around were no less panicked, as they scrambled to find somewhere to flee to.

Pegasi had it easiest, and used their mobility to help their neighbors to whatever safety could be found, but that was often fleeting, with the vines climbing to get at ponies on roofs and balconies.

We’d had time to change en route, so we were armed and ready when the chariot swung low, letting us drop to the edge of the danger zone before turning to regain altitude. The vines surged toward us eagerly, rushing past us to reach for the retreating vehicle. Sword slashes and fire magic made quick work of those closest, while the vines continued to surge upward, grasping after the retreating chariot.

“Don’t let them get to the chariot,” I ordered unnecessarily. The mares were already doing their best, lashing out at every vine. We all faded into the ether briefly as Pinkie summoned Diamond Dust to freeze as many vines as she could in a flurry of icy magic. That was enough to let the noncombatants get away.

Without the distraction, though, we became the priority targets. Fluttershy screamed in fear, backwinging away from one vine only to be caught by another and wrapped up painfully. Another vine ensnared Rarity, drawing both blood and fury as her needles perforated it with rapid stabs.

“Don’t give ‘em an inch, gals!” Applejack exhorted as she stomped the vines into pulp.

“Wee!” Pinkie Pie cried out, as one of the vines carried her aloft, and then tossed her across the street. She faded into the ether mid-arc, out of range to pull us with her.

Fortunately, Diamond Dust caught sight of us before she attacked, directing her magic away from the rest of us. “There’s no end to these things,” she complained. “Not that I’m complaining, but even Pinkie will get drained going on like this.”

As the windigo faded away, and Pinkie Pie reappeared in a second story window, waving to us. “I’m alright!”

“What can I do?” Fluttershy inquired. “My tranquilizers don’t work on plants.”

“Scout ahead, find where they’re coming from. The ends go still when they’re cut off, and it takes a while to grow a new head,” I observed. “If you can find a good spot, unleash your summon. Loyalty, cover Kindness.”

The pegasus both saluted and headed up, looking around before making their way off with a soft gasp from Fluttershy. Soon they were flying together toward her cottage. Toward the Everfree.

Meanwhile we pressed the attack. It helped keep the pressure off the civilians, which was reason enough. We paced ourselves, holding them off until the vines suddenly went slack, sliding off of buildings and dropping limply to the ground.

“I reckon this is going to be quite a chore to clean up, even still,” Applejack noted.

“No time to help with it. At least not much. Let’s clear a few doors, and get the ponies to start freeing other ponies while we press on,” I commanded. The ponies we freed were still scared, but a few quick words from the mares got them on task, leaving us to hurry after our airborne forces.

There was a perfectly round indentation in the road between Ponyville and the Everfree where everything from vine to rock had been utterly devoured, leaving just the pair of pegasi hovering within. Fluttershy had landed and was beating the regenerating ends of the vines back repeatedly, pulping them with the butt of her dart rifle, while Rainbow Dash looked on with a bored look from a small cloud she had gathered.

“Good job Kindness, Loyalty,” I praised as I arrived. “Let’s keep the zone clear for now. Loyalty, get Twilight and Spike down here. We need to confirm the direction to the princesses, and ideally find a better way to keep these things down.”

“Why should I?” Rainbow asked.

“Because you’re the fastest one here, especially heading for a flying target,” I pointed out, annoyed that I even had to explain it.

“No, I meant-”

“Now, Dash!” She recoiled a bit from my yell, but zipped off to get the job done.

“I know Rainbow can be lazy at times, but that was just plum unlike her,” Applejack noted.

“And Fluttershy’s being weirdly aggressive as well,” I noted. “Kindness! Take a break, we’ll cover them.”

“I need to check on my animals,” Fluttershy called back. She flew ahead the short distance to her own cottage, hacking her way past the motionless vines there to get inside.

We waited a few minutes before Twilight appeared in a flash of light, Spike and Rainbow Dash at her sides. “You sent for us?”

“We need Spike to send another letter, to locate the princesses, while you try to figure out how to keep these plants from getting back up once we cut them down,” I explained, before going into more details with her.

Spike quickly verified the direction of our quarry: deeper into the Everfree forest. “That looks like the way to the Castle of the Two Sisters,” Twilight said. “Where you found the Elements of Harmony in the first place.”

“Then we’re going in.”

That said, we spent another hour doing science to determine how to keep the vines from regrowing their ‘heads’. Massive crab-shaped leaves topped the ends of the vines, and seemed somehow key to their ability to get up and move. Cutting, or eating, the vine let it grow a new head near the wound. But we found fire, ice, and table salt all were effective at keeping the wounds sealed and unable to regenerate.

Armed with the knowledge, as much suitable materia as we could gather, and all of Fluttershy’s supply of tablesalt, we set off into the dark of the woods once more. Although, it wasn’t as dark as the last time we were here. Despite the late hour, the sun was still hovering near the top of the sky, a testament to the importance of the princesses. Night was well overdue, and the length of the day was dragging on us, but at least we could see where we were going.

The trek was even more treacherous than usual this time. More of the black vines attacked us from time to time, flanking us and assaulting us from surprising angles. Rainbow Dash proved entirely unreliable, defending herself when necessary but offering no help to others unless I demanded it of her. Fluttershy picked up the slack, slashing the vines with her chef knife from her kitchen and sealing the ends with salt.

The vines came in from opposing flanks, ripping away Rarity and Twilight Sparkle. I made the call to rescue our researcher first, so the rest of us struck fast and hard, slicing the vines a safe distance from the unicorn, before untangling her. “Thanks. But what about Rarity?” she said.

We rushed back in the other direction as fast as we could, and the vines there seemed less intent on keeping her than the ones who had captured Miss Sparkle. Less reinforcements, less stalling tactics.

“Miss Strife,” the white unicorn said, “we need to renegotiate the terms of our contract with the princesses. Considering their own mortal peril, do you think we could manage nine, maybe ten times our usual rate for this month?”

“Now’s not the time, Generosity. In fact, I’d say our paycheck may be in danger of being cut off if we don’t succeed here,” I pointed out.

She gasped in alarm at that. “I hadn’t considered that. Let us make haste then. Speaking of; Loyalty, would you mind using that wonderful materia of yours to speed things along.”

“Use it yourself. I don’t know why I’m even tagging along with you ground pounders anyways. I should just dart ahead and rescue the princesses myself,” Dash suggested.

“Because if you get too far ahead and the vines get you, no one will be in a position to rescue you right away,” I said. That seemed to forestall her going solo for the time.

A minute later, she was snagged by vines, and we rushed in to rescue her. All but Applejack. When the farmer’s absence was noted, we quickly backtracked to find her. Sure enough she had been captured by the vines from behind.

“I was just fine the whole time,” she said when we freed her. “These vines don’t hurt a lick.”

“Are you sure,” Twilight asked. “I can see you’re bleeding in a few places.”

“No, I’m not,” Applejack insisted.

“We don’t have time for this,” I said, hurrying us along.

“We’ve got all the time in the world,” Applejack said. “Just rest against that there apple tree and set a spell, and everything’ll be hunky dorie.”

“Thanks, Applejack, don’t mind if I do,” Pinkie Pie said before quickly approaching the tree AJ had pointed out. She came up to a stop moments before touching it, examining it closer. “Wait a second… this isn’t an apple tree. It’s poison oak! Were you… were you pranking me?! That’s great! You almost got me,” the mare said before breaking into a giggling fit. The fit was cut off by vines wrapping around her and dragging her off. Before we could respond, Spike yelled out in fear, another vine dragging him off much more quickly.

“Loyalty, help me get Spike, the rest of you, rescue Laughter!” I said, pouring Mako into my muscles to rush after the small dragon. The vine was able to move him much faster, and we might need his flames again to find our destination.

It was easy enough to cut the vine once I caught up to it. But Rainbow hadn’t followed. I turned to follow Spike back toward the others, when a quartet of vines ambushed me, snagging me by a limb each and pulling me off the ground.

“Spike, get the others!” I called out, before a fifth vine wrapped around my head, covering my mouth, but not my eyes or ears. They pulled me farther back into the forest, while more vines criss crossed the path to slow my allies’ approach.

“Well, well, well,” a voice said before its owner stepped into view. It was a crazy mishmash of pieces from different animals. “It was quite obvious what the opposites of all of the others would be. I wonder what the opposite of Magic will prove to be.” He snapped his fingers, looking into my eyes, and I stared back.

I felt layers of myself peeling away, fading into the background. It was hard to tell what was missing exactly. I felt a hardness. Ironically, a firm confidence. Like all of the distractions were gone from my mind. Nothing left but the cold, hard, calculating core of who I was as a former SOLDIER.

“Any last words before I show you how complete my victory is?”

I nodded as best I could with the vines wrapped around my head. They parted from my mouth, letting me speak clearly, so I used the opportunity to the fullest. “Gamma seven! Double pay this month,” I managed before the vines silenced me once again.

“Oh, you are a cleve-OW!” the creature said, before looking at the dart stuck in his arm. He snapped it open and we saw table salt pour out of the broken dart. Fluttershy must have traded out the contents. “Well now, that’s just unreasonably cr-OW! Stop it!” He snapped his fingers and Fluttershy screamed in fear as the bush she had been hiding in became a snake, already coiled around her.

He looked about to say something else when a lightning bolt struck him, followed soon by another. He snapped his fingers again, and the cloud Rainbow Dash was using turned into something else, a ball of sticky substance, brightly colored like taffy, that the pegasus’ hooves got stuck in when she tried to buck another lightning bolt out of it.

Applejack’s lasso wrapped around the creature, pinning him in place for the moment. “You think that will be enough to contain Discord, the Avatar of Chaos?!” he asked imperiously.

“Sure it will. It has nothing to do with setting her up for the shot,” Applejack said, as Pinkie Pie brought her confetti cannon into alignment.

“And am I supposed to be afraid of a little confetti? Let the party begin. This will be funny.”

“I’m not in a laughing mood,” Pinkie Pie said flatly as she fired the cannon, a spray of metal shrapnel tearing into the creature.

Crying out in pain, he lifted his hand to snap his fingers, only to have a pair of needles fly into them, prying them apart with telekinetic force. He tried with the other hand, only to achieve the same fate. As Rarity stepped into view, I could see she was straining to keep all four in place, fighting back his strength to prevent the gesture that seemed to be the key to his magic.

Meanwhile, Fluttershy cut me free of the vines, while her new friend, the snake, ensnared Discord instead.

“Any last words?” I asked, as I pressed my sword against his throat.

“How?! Your minds were all… discorded. How can you still be so competent, so unified?”

“Our motives changed, but you only made us more purely the mercenaries we always claimed to be,” I said. “The biggest difference, as far as you’re concerned, is our true selves can be merciful.”

“Wait!” he begged. “Let me change you all back. I’ll reverse this, all of it!”

I glanced around. I suspected a trick, but I felt I needed to take the risk. Leaving my fellow Elements the way they were… no, my friends. Friends? That was what was missing. Friendship. Our bonds were stripped, leaving only the comradery of fellow soldiers, if even that.

I lowered my blade from his throat to his belly and nodded to Rarity. “Do it.”

As soon as his fingers were released, he snapped them. Light shone in my friends’ eyes but I barely had time to register it. My life began to flash past my own eyes.

I remembered. Clearly, for what seemed like the first time. I had left Nibelheim as a child, hoping to become a member of SOLDIER, the elite fighting force of Shinra Corp. But I had failed. I never was a member of SOLDIER. I had been a mere grunt in their army, barely even a soldier in the conventional sense.

I had been sent back to Nibelheim on a mission. Sephiroth was there, the greatest member of SOLDIER, along with another SOLDIER. Zack Fair. I finally remembered his name. His face. My face I had kept hidden, ashamed to let Tifa and the others of my hometown learn the truth. Was that why I had lied about being in SOLDIER? NO, that wasn’t all of it.

We had gone to investigate the mako reactor in the mountain above the town. The massive, aged facility drew mako from the lifestream to condense it into materia and usable electricity. But this place was being used for more than that. Experiments. Humans were locked into pods and doused with massive amounts of mako until they mutated, became hideous, pitiful monsters. That was terrifying enough, but Sephiroth found something else in the very back. A monster that had never been human.

He became obsessed with it, calling it ‘mother’. It drove a wedge between us, between Sephiroth and all of humanity. He attacked us. He nearly killed Tifa. He beat Zack in a one on one fight. And then he stabbed me through the gut with his massive sword, lifting me off the ground with it…

Which brought my mind back to the present situation. Discord’s magic hadn’t just reversed what he had done to our minds, it had reversed the direction of my blade, and with a quick thrust he had impaled me on it before I could react.

“Not going to lie, that doesn’t look like you’re long fer this world, partner,” Applejack told me sadly. “Not that we’re faring much better.”

Fluttershy was cowering, paralyzed with fear once again. Pinkie Pie was digging into her collection of props, trying desperately to lighten the mood. Rainbow Dash was crawling her way toward me, half devoured by the taffy that had begun to move on its own and had claimed her wings along with her hind legs. Rarity and Applejack were fending off the next wave of vines, barely holding out.

I dropped my weight to the ground, contorting to lift Discord from the ground with the handle of the blade he held, much as I had done to Sephiroth all those years ago. There was no lifestream to hurl him into, so instead I slammed him into the trunk of a nearby tree, repeatedly, until he was stunned enough to let go of the sword. I closed the gap, gripping him by the neck.

“How- Wha- Buh?” he said, trying to formulate a response, before the red light glowed, as a new summon materia formed in my hand.

Yet, Discord wasn’t gone. He still stood before us, so we still needed to finish the job. “Attack Plan Alpha One,” I called out, focusing my power into the tiara on my head, the Element of Magic. The necklaces around my five friends’ necks glowed brightly, and a rainbow of power crashed into Discord’s body. I didn’t know what to expect. Would he become a good guy somehow? Perhaps a light hearted whimsical creature like Pinkie Pie?

No. Stone. His body hardened into a statue, one whose face was etched in fear.

“Well. That happened,” Discord’s voice said, though I couldn’t tell from where. “Of course, just because you beat me doesn’t mean the plunder seeds will stop.”

I looked down at the red materia in my hand, then around, expecting to see a translucent image of Discord nearby. But I saw nothing.

“Discord?”

There was no response from the voice. The ponies looked up at me expectantly, joined soon by Twilight Sparkle and Spike.

“Maybe we should fall back, get you to the hospital?” Twilight suggested.

“Yeah…” I agreed, feeling weak as the urgency of battle faded. I managed to twist as I fell to the ground, to avoid landing on the handle before I blacked out.