Login

Pound and Pumpkin Tales 2

by Never2muchpinkie

Chapter 92: 11-16:Rant

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Nega was staring at Mayhem. Inner strength was pouring off of him. “How… how are you doing this? You were at the brink of surrendering. Where is all this coming from?”

“I told you already I was never going to surrender!” said Mayhem, taking a step forward. “Just as Sombra did you’re underestimating the power of friendship. Just as Flurry discovered at the end all it takes is one light to dispel the darkness. And the more lights that come together the stronger that light becomes.

“I have every one of my friends on my side, giving strength to my heart. That’s all I need to know.” Mayhem smirked. “And you, Nega? Who do you have on your side? You’re just some useless thing that’s overstayed its welcome, and it’s time for you to go, loser!”

Mayhem saw tears coming down his eyes, but the hurt on Nega’s face didn’t bring sympathy to him.

“Now you want to cry?” Mayhem said angrily. “After everything you did? You keep acting like you’re so superior, but you’re no better than me.

“You hate me, huh? Well, that’s fine, because I hate you too.” He gave Nega a kick, sending him flying.

Twilight winced. This wasn’t going to end well.

Almost as soon as she thought that she could feel a change in Nega.

He grabbed his head with both hands, gritting his teeth and moaning. “Hurts! Hurts! It hurts!”

Dark magic began pouring off of him.

Almost faster than Mayhem could see Nega charged, punching him in the stomach and then teleporting above him and slamming him towards the ground.

Mayhem crashed into the shield hard enough to shatter it before slamming into the ground hard, making a small crater.

The impact stirred the other children, making them look up and break apart. Mayhem was unmoving.

In a panic they all ran over.

“Hey!” Masky said. “Are you okay, Mayhem?”

Pumpkin pulled him to a sitting position, giving him a few gentle slaps. “I think he’s unconscious.”

“Oh, no!” said Peppermint.

“Twilight!” Spring said urgently. “You have some of Mayhem’s magic, right? Can’t you heal him?”

Twilight didn’t answer, staring up fearfully at the display above.

Nega’s claw was up in the air, and it was almost an exact replication of his initial actions. There was dark energy and electricity swirling around him, his eyes crazed and a large ball of energy formed.

“The shield!” Flurry said, looking around. “It’s gone.”

“And it looks like Nega is about to attack,” said Plum, gulping.

Nega was shaking with rage. “Kill! Kill him! Have to kill him. Kill, but friends… friends there too. Won’t kill friends. Just him. Can’t… can’t control. No! I can. Just him. But can’t. They’ll get caught up in it.”

Nega kept going back and forth, but he finally reached his limit. He couldn’t hold himself back any more. He swung down, the ball of energy flying towards them at first.

Nega forced himself to swing his claw, changing the trajectory of the attack so his friends didn’t get caught up in the explosion.

Twilight put up a shield regardless, and it was a good thing she did. The explosion itself was far from them, but shrapnel and rubble crashed into the shield.

Flurry let out a horrified yell as her parent's castle was destroyed. “Mom! Dad! Starlight! Everyone!”

Nega let out a scream of frustration, the darkness growing in intensity. "IT HURTS!" he yelled, and then began continually shooting down blasts of energy all around, reducing large parts of the empire to dust. None of the blasts came around the area where Mayhem and the rest were.

Flurry felt like her mind was breaking apart. Everything was going wrong.

Pound gave her a gentle slap to get her attention. “Hey, Flurry! This is just an illusion, remember?”

She was gasping for breath as she turned to him, and as her mind caught up with her emotions she calmed down a little.

Even though she remembered now it wasn’t the real thing she couldn’t stop crying. It might have been just a model of the real thing, but it was close enough of a replica that it still pained her heart seeing her home destroyed.

“He’s destroying everything,” she said sadly.

“He’s too much,” said Plum. “How… how are we supposed to beat him?”

“I guess a fake Crystal Heart wasn’t enough to wipe out the real darkness,” said Sweet Pea.

Mayhem groaned, stirring.

“Oh, good,” Chocolate said with relief. “You’re alive.”

Mayhem put his paw to the back of his head, rubbing it. “Owww,” he moaned. “Everything hurts.”

After a moment he took notice of the rumbling shaking the ground, and jerked as he noticed what Nega was doing. “Darn it. It feels like he just keeps getting stronger and stronger.”

Pound glared at Flurry. “Come on, now. You can see that Nega is completely out of control and destroying everything at random. He even knocked Mayhem out cold. Even you have to agree that it’s too dangerous now to send Mayhem in alone.”

Flurry bit her lip. “Well… yeah. But what are supposed to do here? This is just like when we fought Mayhem. We made it through mainly because he was only playing very roughly. Even when Masky decked him off his throne he was only pretending to be mad and about to lose control.

“It seems too dangerous for any of us to out there. We’ll die for sure.”

Pumpkin tapped her hoof on the ground. “Well, emergency situations call for emergency actions. If Mayhem gives each of us some of his magic like with Twilight then we’ll have the strength to protect ourselves.”

“If all of us team up with chaos magic then we’ll win for sure,” said Masky.

Mayhem snapped, healing his injuries. “I’m down.”

A loud growl nearby caught their attention. “For crying out loud!” Twilight said angrily. “Every one of you is clueless! I can’t stand it!”

All of them looked at her, confused by her reaction.

“W-what do you mean?”

Her horn flashed, and the sounds of destruction faded into the background. She rounded on them, her glare terrifying all of them. It was the same look she had given to Nega earlier when he refused to protect Mayhem and they had their stare-off.

“What it all comes down to is all of you wanting to get rid of Mayhem.”

Flurry was the only one brave enough to speak. “B-but we don’t. We were… trying t-t-to-”

Silence!” Twilight said viciously, making them all flinch. “You don’t understand anything! Why do you think the two of them are affecting each other’s emotions? It’s because they’re connected at the core.

“Nega is the embodiment of all of Mayhem’s negative feelings made into a living being. You seem to be trying to separate them, but the truth is that they’re only one being. That’s why I called him Mayhem’s reflection, and the only reason a reflection stops appearing in the mirror is because of the disappearance of the one looking inside it.

“The more you despise Nega the more you’re showing that your feelings for Mayhem are conditional. Even assuming you could defeat Nega how is Mayhem going to feel about that? It might feel like a victory at first, but then he might get to thinking about how you were so adamant about getting rid of something that looked so much like him and acted like he had in the past. This time, though, there was no forgiveness. And maybe he’ll be next. Maybe next time there won’t be any extra chances.

“Far from reassuring him of your sincerity as friends you’ll only cause him to feel more anxiety over his future actions.”

Now that Twilight had said it Mayhem was thinking about it, and he was getting uncomfortable.

“All of you obliviously went along, trying to fight, because I guess you’ll only accept a perfect friend who doesn’t make mistakes.”

“No!” said Pound, trembling as Twilight glared at him.

“If Nega is just a piece of Mayhem, then anything you do to him is reflected in how you feel about Mayhem.”

“B-but,” Pumpkin started, but then drifted off.

“You kids just chose to ignore everything I said because it was too bothersome to try to win him over, even though I’ve always advocated converting others to good with love and friendship.

“When Nega first came out he was angry and destructive, but when I talked to him and showed him kindness I even convinced him to give Mayhem a chance to prove himself, holding himself back from his murderous impulses. And he kept that calm attitude throughout the entire adventure, never once singling Mayhem out.

"And WHY did he do that? Because I showed him affection and told him he could come to me if he got overwhelmed, just as it always has been for you. The affection I showed him kept him tame. Sound familiar, Mayhem?"

“What have you done for him, hmm? What have you done to try and help him? What have you done at all besides wishing he’d just go away? Instead, Pound socked him in the face and the rest of you all shared the sentiment that you disliked him and wanted him gone.”

The question stung, all of them looking away awkwardly.

She pointed hard at Mayhem, and he jerked, backing up a step. “You wanted to create a Sombra and let all your inner feelings come out to the surface to fight against, and you got that.

“Do you remember how you told me you didn’t always want to play the villain when I came up with the plan for granting wishes? Didn’t Nega say the same, about how he really didn’t want to do it, but he did it anyways? He did it for you and Spring, knowing it would be painful and lonely, and yet you were ungrateful.

“The moment you saw he still existed after beating the adventure you immediately assaulted him with new horrible feelings, and for what? From the very beginning Nega has done nothing except what you wanted him to do. He didn’t ask to be ‘born,’ but unintentional or not you created him to treat you horribly and attempt to get rid of you. You forced him to bear all of your inner trauma, forced him to suffer horribly, and you have the nerve to want to destroy him for lashing out because of it?”

Mayhem bit his lip, his stomach hurting.

“And the rest of you aren’t getting off the hook either for how much you’ve gone off track.

“Pound and Pumpkin, I guess you don’t remember when you ran away from home because you felt unwanted.

“Or you, Peppermint. How you felt your parents didn’t care about you anymore with your new brother, and you got so jealous you slapped him.

“Or how about you, Flurry? How you were teased about your oversized wings and couldn’t make friends because it seemed like they only wanted to use you for your status or were afraid of you.

“And let’s not forget about Masky, who felt like he came second to his parents jobs and compensated by putting on an invincible, confident act.

“I guess all of you have just forgotten how much it hurts to be treated like something lesser, huh? Forgot the cold sting of loneliness and being shunned.”

As the memories came back to them all of them started crying a little, guilt flowing through them.

“I kept my conversations with him secret because I thought you could figure things out on your own, but clearly that’s not happening. Take a look.”

Her horn flashed, letting them see her memories.

“You see it now?” Twilight said angrily. “You see how much he’s suffering? You see how much he wanted to let things end peacefully if it was possible?

“In the end, all he ever wanted was for his pain to stop. Yet you just piled more pain on him, and now we’re seeing the results. And seeing how angry and upset he was your brilliant plan was to attack him? Are you nuts? For goodness sake, Pound, I thought you of all ponies would remember how attacking others instead of seeking peace only leads to bad things.

“Flurry, I’m especially surprised by you.” The filly squeaked. “Wasn’t that cutie mark of yours supposed to represent wanting to give others a light in the darkness? To show them that no matter hopeless things seemed that there was still light to be found? I guess that thing on your flank is only for your friends, and anyone else doesn't matter.”

Flurry’s eyes clenched shut.

“Arrogance!” she said contemptuously. “Adamantly convinced you’re on the side of right when it couldn’t be any further from the truth. “I told you just what to do in order to win Nega over, but not a one of you paid attention to me.

"You may have been the heroes in a pretend game of no consequence, but when it comes to the real world you’re the villains, hating on someone when all they really needed was some comforting and love.

“I expected so much more after your past performances in friendship. I’m very disappointed in all of you!”

With that she turned her back on them.

The weight of guilt and shame drove most of them to their knees. All of them broke down crying.

It brought Twilight no joy to go after the children so savagely, but Nega was rapidly becoming a genuine threat. It was only a tiny thread of light that was stopping the draconequus from fully submitting to the darkness.

The time was quickly approaching where she would have to step in herself. If it came to that…

She began crying too, a miserable expression on her face. As a princess she couldn’t put any one individual above the safety of Equestria. If they couldn’t settle Nega’s feelings then she would be left with no choice but to destroy Mayhem to break the link between them. Just locking him away wouldn't do it, since Mayhem could still feel emotions inside of Discord which Nega would feed off of.

She glanced behind her, hating all the pain she had caused, but it had to be done. She had to call them out before they ruined their only chance of still having Mayhem around by the end of the day.

‘What are you going to do from here?’ she thought, wiping her face. ‘Are you going to let my words break you, or will you come together and do the right thing this time?

‘If you can start trying to walk down the right path then I can be a guide to make sure you stay there this time.’

She looked up at Nega, still causing mindless destruction. ‘One way or another your pain will come to an end soon. I only pray that it doesn’t have to come at the cost of Mayhem.’

Author's Notes:

Twilight being a straight savage, calling out the children for their feelings about Nega.

I really enjoyed writing Twilight here, but I wonder how you think about her. You could say she was being a dog of the female variety, but they WERE about to endanger themselves and everyone else by attacking Nega. His power and anger would have only grown from that assault. They were on the wrong track, and nothing good would have come of it. She needed to bring them back to reality that this wasn't just a game anymore of defeating an irredeemable villain. This was a real person with real feelings that need to be worked through.

As has been stated several times, you CAN'T beat hate with hate. Flurry tried it during the Sombra fight, and found her hatred didn't match up. And since Nega gets his fuel from hate Mayhem will never be able to defeat him that way.

Next Chapter: 11-17: Unbreakable promise Estimated time remaining: 3 Hours, 47 Minutes
Return to Story Description

Login

Facebook
Login with
Facebook:
FiMFetch