If You Gaze into the Sausage Factory, the Sausage Factory Gazes into You
Dan's Comments
DISCLAIMER: My Little Pony is the property of Hasbro, Inc. , Harry Dresden is the
property of Jim Butcher, Carl Kolchak is the property of ABC/Universal Television, Ranma
Saotome is the property of Rumiko Takahashi, Sailor Jupiter is the property of Naoko Takeuchi.

Nightmare had never seen a mindscape like this one. Rather than the mirrors, or an actual person to confront, she was in a forest. The weirdest forest I've ever seen, she thought as she looked at the trees around her that rose up and nearly blocked out the sky, Are there leaves on those branches? At least nothing is trying to tear me to pieces like the other two.

She had no intention of flying, not after she'd seen an apparently abandoned spider web easily a dozen paces across. She shivered at the thought of having to fight that kind of monster, then was nearly thrown to the ground.

It's safer, but not safe. With what's happened before, the spider web I saw would be a child's, and I'd encounter the full-grown mother. Then there are the earthquakes, she thought as she relented and lifted into the air to move forward at a running pace, What kind of insane world do these creatures come from?

The building appearing directly in her path forced a frantic evasive action. "How adorable, a building that looks like a shoe, how fairytale," she complained, then looked up, at the structure coming out of the shoe-building, and up as a second similar structure disappearing elsewhere in the forest appeared, and up at the two columns joined, and up at the skirt that would dwarf any circus tent ever made, and up at the face so large to couldn't be carved to scale on the Canterhorn without removing Canterlot first.

The roar, as if every contrabass to ever exist were being played with a leather glove instead of a bow, blew Nightmare back, and nearly blew off her fur and feathers. Only her lack of a digestive tract kept the Equestrian bogeymare from voiding her bowels and bladder.
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Makoto looked at the tiny, fleeing creature. The invader who tried to manipulate her dreams. "Did you think that Nehellenia and Helios wouldn't have taught us about dream manipulation?" she asked as she walked across the lawn.

She snatched the tiny creature out of the grass. "Now, I'm all for giving people another chance. But we're going to set some ground rules. And if you don't behave, I've been living with two gentlemen who are experts at breaking things without permanently damaging them, and I am an avid student."
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Celestia was glad to be back in the palace and was actually looking forward to the opening of the Court. She saw the early-arrivers kibitzing among themselves. She smiled that even Blueblood seemed to have opened up a little. His rather uncharacteristic defense of the court and his Auntie had gotten him some of the respect he assumed was simply due him by his station.

He's learning that the most valuable things are earned, she thought happily, Not given.

"He's grown up," Cadence said from across the tea trolley on the dias, "Even Shining was stunned that he stood alone."

"Reportedly his words were 'if we are all to die, then mine shall make you remember it'," Luna added, stifling a yawn as her shift had ended with the lowering of the moon, but conversations about the chess dream had Luna thinking, "Backed into a corner, with no way to retreat, he did what many of more martial mien utterly failed to do."

"Preparing to die well?" Cadence said and shuddered, "I can think of things I'd rather have Shiney doing."

Celestia smiled at Luna coughing into her tea. "I'm sure she didn't mean that."

Luna mastered herself. "I am sure she did. But it does reveal another thing, about our newcomers, and that the dream together, as my -"

The sudden arrival of 'Lightning' in a cloud of black smoke stopped all conversation.

"There is a time for everything," the black clad female announced, and laughed.

Celestia and Luna recognized the laughter instantly. "Nightmare Moon."

"Now is the time for you to vacate the throne," Lightning said, "So speaks Eternal Dark Sailor Jupiter! You want defense. I grant it."

She gestured, and Twilight and her friends appeared around them.

"Jus' fi' mo' minut'," Rainbow said.

"You have chosen your own fate, so be it!" Eternal Dark Sailor Jupiter said and the throne room and the ponies faded from view.
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Makoto looked at the three guards restraining the lead guard. "Let him go!" she ordered, "The fate of your princesses rest on your heads. You behave and no harm shall befall them. You do not, and it is the darkest of all fates, prolonged forever." She gave off a villain's laugh she was sure was better, read more creepy/disturbing, than anything Beryl ever managed.

"What have you done to them?" the guard captain screamed in her face, clearly wanting to tear Makoto limb from limb, but his love-interest's fate holding him back.

"Where does Celestia hold private, diplomatic audiences?" Makoto asked and smiled, infuriating the stallion further. She turned to the team who were a hoof-step away from tackling their captain if he raised more than his voice against her.

"Not now Shiney," a more elegantly dressed, blond unicorn, the one from the musical number, whispered.

She conjured several hoof-cuffs and lengths of chain. "Guards, find the Cadence-imposter in Shiney's quarters, bind it and bring it to the -?" She stared at 'Shiney'.

"The Sun Room," he ground out.

"Lead the way," she told him and grinned at him, she looked at the guards, "Go."

They scurried away at her grinning countenance.
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Applejack felt the world form around her, although it was a vastly different place than she had left. This looks like a Manehatten hotel, she thought on glancing around.

"Ah yes, Contessa Solaris, Contessa Selene, Contessa Credenza and friends," the stallion who was almost as pretty as Rarity approached, "I do wish you'd reconsider a full week at the Spa Mareiveles, but your minotaur major domo said you could only spare three days."

"We're only here three days?" Applejack asked.

"Yes, regrettably," the stallion said, "Your animals also arrived at the beach house so if you'll follow me, I can assure you the utmost discretion."

"Doth thou not know whom you address?" Luna asked.

"You are the Contessa Selene, your major domo was quite clear about that, and the customer is always right," the stallion said.

"There is a time for everything, and someone decided it was time for a vacation," 'Contessa Solaris' said.

"They've got a beach volleyball net!" Rainbow shouted excitedly.

"Yes, and a horseshoe pit," the stallion sighed.

"Wow! Any of you wanna take on the champ?" Rainbow asked Applejack.

"Since I'm 'only' a Contessa," Celestia said, "I think I'll go first. But you'll need some help."

Rainbow glowered, then instantly remembered who she was glowering at.

"My animals?" Fluttershy asked.

"Our dieticians and chefs are at their service as well," the stallion said, "Although I must say, that rabbit is a more fearsome major domo than Pr - Contessa Solaris' was."

"Oooo! They do eggplant body wraps! Twilight you must try one of those!" Rarity said as she read a brochure.

"This is a weirdest 'vacation' I've ever heard of," 'Contessa Credenza' said, "I hope Shiney doesn't do something rash."

"Why aren't you all thinking about -?" Twilight began.

"Can you teleport?" 'Solaris' asked.

Twilight concentrated, vanished, and reappeared down the hall.

"Nor can I, I think we need to adapt, and I'm certain that our ponies can handle a few days without us," 'Solaris' said, "Then there will be a reckoning."
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Makoto reached over and shut Shiney's mouth as he stared at the scrying pool in the middle of the Sun Room.

"Wha?" he asked.

Makoto grabbed his ears and swung his head to face her. Her expression sobered him up immediately. "Listen carefully. Your nation has been infiltrated. There is going to need to be a house cleaning. Shocking everyone will cause the infiltrators and their traitorous allies to be careless if not panicky. You are going to form two resistance networks. The first full of ponies who are well connected but not exactly on Celestia's side. The second full of people you know you can trust. You will employ a canary trap on both groups. Give slightly different 'facts and goals' to each group. When they betray you to me, we'll know who did it by what comes to my ears. Understood?" She released his ears.

He gulped and nodded.

Makoto ignored the whistle of admiration from Nightmare. Hey, I lived with a master schemer for 18 months in dreams, she told the entity, You think I didn't listen and learn?

"Now, on a practical note. Yes, Nightmare and I have an arrangement, and it has made me a bit . . . impulsive. I need a good chancellor, a good yes-pony to my face, but who'll creatively interpret my orders. Say I order someone's head on a platter, they'll get the royal jeweler and carpenters to make a table and collar so they roll the table in with the head on the platter, and the rest of them still attached in the table below. Understood?"

Shiney nodded, and she saw realization was dawning.

"Ah, the lead infiltrator approaches," Makoto said, "And Shiney, that's not Cadence arriving."

The spitting image of the Alicorn of Love arrived, chained to a busboy's cart, and growling through the chains around her muzzle. She instantly changed demeanor and mewled at Shiney, who started trotting towards it.

Makoto removed the disguise and all the ponies reeled back from the revealed creature. "This is Queen Chrysalis, leader of the army poised to attack Canterlot on Shiney's wedding day. Of course she'd be the bride, the real Cadence . . . disposed of, shall we say."

She watched their expressions turn ugly as Chrysalis struggled to escape her bonds, to no avail.

"Everyone drop!" she shouted, and did herself, turning her fuku white and green again as she covered her head.

The wall didn't explode as she'd expected, but the sudden addition of Patrick, Ranma and 'Bruce' would have had the same effect in other circumstances.

Here it comes, she thought predicting Patrick's instant reaction to two groups of allies seemingly at each others' throats.

Patrick's cast spell stunned everyone in the room save himself, Ranma and Bruce.

"Guessd i-," Makoto slurred as she let herself slump to the floor. She languidly pointed at Chrysalis, "Teki!" calling out the changeling in Japanese as English seemed to have slipped through her fingers.

Why do I love these two? she immediately wondered.

"That's no beefsteak," Ranma announced, "That's what Akane would get cooking gingerbread men."

"Holy hamburger source Mantab!" Patrick added, "If I bless it, it's a wholly Holy holey hamburger source."

Chrysalis managed to achieve a pre-stun level of struggling. That sparked a thought, all alone in the dark. "She can hear you?" Makoto managed.

"Oh good, universal communication!" Bruce added, "Your colors are too bright. Your ponies are not. Who are you pack of maniacs? And I want to go home!"

Shiney stood up, something Makoto was not yet capable of. "I just want to make sense of what's happening here."

"Make sense, where's the fun in that?" came a voice, which galvanized all the ponies.

What materialized in the middle of the room over the writing desk was a complete creature of totally mismatched parts.

"Youma," Makoto said of the creature as she sat up.

It was too busy looking from ponies, to humans, to the Elder Thing, and back again, its head kept rotating clockwise, winding the body up like a spring. Finally it unwound spinning the creature violently back the other way.

"Why does he sound like John DeLancie?" Patrick asked.

His name is Discord, Nightmare told Makoto.

"Okay, even I know when I'm being trolled, " Discord said, cracked his knuckles, and the six mares of the assault force appeared, making the room a trifle crowded.

"Necklace, necklace, necklace, necklace, necklace and big crown thingy," Discord said, and on realizing the jewelry's markings didn't match the wearer's marking, rearranged the owners, several times until they did match, leaving them slightly dizzy, "Care Mare Stare s'il vous plait. I never want to see you things again." He said and blew a raspberry at Patrick, a potato at Ranma, a glob of something gelatinous at Bruce and a rose at Makoto.

The ponies powered up their heavy weapon, lifting into the air as Makoto, Patrick and Ranma scrambled to be nowhere near the blast radius. Bruce reached over with a 'foot-tentacle' and dragged Chrysalis directly behind Discord. A moment later, the creature was turned to stone.

"Weird critter, but a good cook, this actually tastes like something," Ranma said as he munched the potato, then noticed the mares were swinging around towards Makoto.

"Has she really done anything warranting a death sentence?" Bruce asked, "Because that's what you're giving her."

The light gray and indigo unicorn with the gold and rose pegasus depowered and returned to the ground. "No, we cannot," the unicorn said.

Makoto acted fast, and returned the mares to the spa, as their devices floated down to the ground. "Okay, someone can explain all that later," she said, as she turned to Shiney, "You have your assignment, go."

She focused on Ranma. "There are these creatures in the castle, they're shapechangers, find them and put them in prison." She faced Bruce. "Elves and these things, we need to flush them out, they have an army somewhere. We have today, tomorrow and the next day to find and neutralize them."

Bruce made a complicated tentacle gesture and said, "On my way."

Patrick looked around. "What about me?"

Makoto decided to really disgust Nightmare, while channeling her at full strength. "I'm going to have you stripped, washed and brought to my bed."

Patrick's utterly surprised expression was almost as wonderful as the mental voice of Nightmare piledriving the dry heaves.