'Those who escape Death's grasp always lose a piece of themselves to it; whether for the better or worse depends on if that piece was their ignorance of life's fragility.'
Razalon The Lizardman

"Don't be held back by someone else's bullshit in fake memories.The one path you chose for yourself is the truth of your universe."
Kamina, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Marcus' Nightmare

Not for the first time, Discord wished that Luna was around.

Saying that he was the sledgehammer or dockside sawbones to Luna’s precise surgery would not only be a cliche, but unfair… to him, anyway. Nightmares were quite wonderful in creating chaos and he had to be precise in the exact emotions and responses they evoked, so he had enough grasp of what he was doing that he wouldn’t be completely lost.

But not quite enough that he could do this easily. The door led into what was, at first glance, an empty black void. Yet, as he stepped through the door, he realized that it wasn’t a void - it was a thick, tarry covering. So thoroughly did it cover Marcus’ mindscape that he could barely see anything that indicated his friend’s consciousness. Shapes were forming, and he could see the jagged, angular outlines of what looked like black crystals, but other than that there was simply nothing inside.

He heard a child’s scream.

Though he had no idea where to start, it was the first sign of… well, anything in this twisted mindscape. Besides, screams of terror inside of somebody’s mind were usually a sign of something significant. He dashed over the blackness, not quite muck, tar, or smoke, but some inexplicable mind-material that broke several laws of physics. The crystal-like protrusions grew green and red eyes as he rushed in its direction, though he ignored them. He had far more important things to worry about.

Finally, he came across a door which didn’t seem to exist on the other side. He peeked through the keyhole, and - yeah. That was the place.

He flung it open. Far off in the distance, he saw a mass of newfoals of all three races rushing at a small tent, held off by a massive army of humans and PHL ponies with assault saddles, armed in rather contemporary gear instead of with magically enhanced weaponry. They were firing madly into the newfoal army, their rifles spitting lead into the mass of newfoals. Somewhere in the tent, he could hear Marcus screaming and cursing, begging inarticulately.

Wherever the rifles hit a newfoal, it would explode and die, but ten more would take its place. Again and again, as the tide of newfoals surged like the surf of the ocean.

It had to stop. Who knew what tortures Marcus was going through in that tent? He had to stop them in their tracks.

Discord rushed through the tide of newfoals. It was like walking through very thick oil - even though he could pass through them, it wasn’t easy. Luna could dispel them with a mere word, and she was unlikely to tell him how to do so.

“NO!” Marcus yelled from inside the tent. “I have to help them! I have to save them!”

“There’s no time!” Discord heard someone else yell, as he pushed through yet another newfoal. As he stomped on a white unicorn with gold-rimmed glasses, golden eyes and a frizzy pinkish-orange mane, blood spattering his leg, he got his first glimpse of the inside of the tent. It looked bigger on the inside than the outside, so he wasn’t sure how he could see so much of it, but what he saw shocked him.

The inside of the tent was covered in blood, with several surgeons operating on Marcus. All of them seemed… off, somehow. They were too tall and thin, almost like hunched-over birds, and they were wearing red-tinted goggles that were far too tight, almost set into their eye sockets.

“I have to… do something!” Marcus yelled, wheezing. “I can’t… let them…”

“You have to!” one surgeon yelled. “Otherwise we lose you!”

“NO! We need... to retreat!” Marcus yelled at them, struggling. And, to Discord’s shock, he realized that Marcus had none of his characteristic runes. He was incredibly weak, clearly suffering from internal bleeding and broken bones. If he went out like this, the newfoals would have surely overwhelmed him. He was screwed no matter what.

No.

Discord knew how these things typically ended. It was clearly a metaphor for Sombra’s presence overrunning Marcus’ defenses, while making him feel weakened so it would be just that much easier to take him over.

It had to be stopped before the short-sighted and self-important fool doomed this universe, and, in all probability, all existence. Argh! While he appreciated his ever-so-sexy counterpart’s work to send Marcus back before the corrupted Equestria took over Earth, couldn’t it have happened at a better time?!

“I’m coming!” Discord yelled, manifesting a football helmet and jersey, and barreling through the crowd of newfoals, even as the relatively flat newfoal-filled plain between him and Marcus seemed to slope upwards, as the horizon grew further and further away, and he suddenly felt himself turning upside down, and struggling to keep himself going in the same direction as his friend’s tent.

“Have to… have to… save them!” Marcus wheezed. “Too many people… dying!”

“Oh come on, Sombra!” Discord yelled, as he pushed through the mass of newfoals. “Is that the best you can do?! Did you forget I can do THIS?!” he jumped off the ground, insofar as ground really existed in Marcus’ mind, and flew at the tent. Pegasi, both newfoals and natural-born ponies, flew at him, trying to drag him down, but he barreled through them all the same.

“Get out of my friend’s head!” he yelled, alighting beside a machine-gun nest, landing in a trench full of human and PHL pony soldiers of every description - short, fat, tall, thin, male, female, each with a different weapon or a different uniform from various nations and other resistant groups around the world. Some barely looked old enough to hold their weapons. Behind them, soldiers manned great machine guns, firing at pegasi as planes and helicopters fought the Imperial ponies overhead.

Something exploded behind him. He had just enough time to think no, no, no, no! as a helicopter fell to the ground behind him, its rotor digging a trench in the grass.

Newfoals spilled out, almost hungrily rushing at the humans. ‘The pony shaped meat-bags jumped into the helicopter and ponified the crew, then the ones that couldn’t fly steered it into the trench, killing themselves,’ Discord realized. The worst part? From what Marcus had said, that wasn’t too far outside the realm of possibility for newfoals.

The humans and PHL roared as one, turning their weapons on the newfoals, killing them. But the damage had been done - the helicopter crash represented a large hole in the human lines, and blocked at least one machinegun.

He ignored it - fighting Sombra one on one, inside a possessed man’s head wouldn’t be the smartest course of action. Ignoring the humans that were fighting madly, he rushed into the tent, hoping to find Marcus…

Only to see that the tent’s inside had turned into a labyrinthine mess, full of humans with raggedly amputated limbs, staggering around almost zombie-like in their confusion of what to do. There were buckets of what was presumably their severed limbs, in all shapes and sizes. They were twisted, neither human nor pony, with irregular patches of fur, muscle so irregular that it seemed to bubble underneath the skin, and sometimes the deformed beginnings of a hoof. The buckets were full of blood.

“Let me help them!” Marcus cried, still wheezing. From the sound of it, his mind-self probably had a rib piercing a lung. “Please! L-let m-”

“We can’t!” one surgeon yelled.

Discord sprinted in the direction of his friend’s voice through the increasingly twisted mess that the tent had become. He took off down a dark hallway that seemed to last forever, skidding and turning down another one, only to find…

Oh Mother, no wonder Celestia hadn’t taken his memories well. Before him was a hallway full of hospital beds, with even more soldiers. A squad of ponies from the Empire had made their way in, and ponified virtually everyone in there. They’d been killed, thankfully, but the damage had been done. Every human on the beds, possibly amputees who’d lost limbs to the potion, had been potioned once more, stuck in the process of changing. Faces had lengthened, with the cartilage of the nose reduced to powder, hooves had exploded outward within shoes, half-pony half-human eyes were grotesquely oversized, half-pulped as they edged against the eye sockets. The beds were stained red-brown with half-dried blood.

And every one of the humans on a bed had a bullet hole in their heads. At the end of the hallway, Discord saw a trembling red-headed woman holding a familiar 10mm Steiner-Bisley Zenith with an extended magazine. The slide was locked back, and she had it under her chin.

She squeezed the trigger, but there was no bang. The slide simply slid forward with a click, even as she frantically tried to fire. She’d ran out of ammo killing everyone on the beds.

‘It’s not happening!’Discord kept telling himself. ‘None of this is real. It’s all a nightmare-’

Discord looked away as it became clear that one of the soldiers who had been shot with the 10mm was only fifteen. Same with the Native Equestrian “Salvation Army” pony that had also been shot in the head after ponifying him. ‘Salvation army,’ Discord thought to himself. ‘What an ironic and disgusting term to use for erasing an entire species.

Right. The sooner he found Marcus, the better. Passing through the suicidal woman, who parted before him like mist, he made his way down yet another hallway, lined with bloodstained beds. He reached another room-but this tent was a different texture. Judging by the pine needles on the tent’s floor, this was in a forest somewhere. He peered through a wall, half on instinct- a great forest surrounded the tent, and there were streets of other tents, shanties, and small prefab buildings nearby. It looked to be near an old railroad grade, long since torn up. A pony, brutalized to the point that she barely looked like one, lay on a stolen hospital bed, tied with belts to the edges.

“What happened here?” Discord whispered out loud. His memories and knowledge of Marcus’ world were rather patchy, but-

”If humans insist on treating us this way, so be it!” the impostor of Twilight Sparkle yelled, standing before a large crowd of ponies, a disturbingly large amount of them newfoals. The pony that had been Jacob Renee aka Stalwart Heart stood next to her, an expression only slightly more intelligent than that of the average newfoal on his face. If Discord remembered correctly, she’d used him as little more than a toy, taking advantage of his passiveness and indulging in acts that even Discord shuddered to think of. “If any of you disagree with how Equestria is run now, know that Celestia does this all for love!”

Superimposed over her, he could see Twilight - the real one, not the homunculus Celestia had forced into her - silently begging, pleading, screaming for someone to stop it, to kill her, or just not to listen. She had no success.

“Know that every human supports what happened to Sutra Cross, and those that don’t, well… Some ponies say only to hate the Human Liberation Front. I ask, who isn’t the HLF?! As long as they are bipedal, as long as they have hands, they are HLF!” a sickly-sweet smile spread across Twilight Sparkle’s face, and Discord wanted to vomit at the sight of it. “Know that in Equestria, you are happy. You are the happiest you could ever be and you will find none of that warmth or happiness on Earth.”

The smile widened. No, that was not a smile! That was more like someone following a guide to facial expressions for those who did not, could not comprehend them. Step one: separate your lips. Step two: use facial muscles to pull back corners of mouth. Step three: widen your eyes. This is how to be happy.

“Until we turn it into a new Equestria and experience the Second Magical Renaissance, of course,” the fake Twilight joked.

And the newfoals laughed. They laughed hysterically as the real Twilight stood there trapped in her own body, trying desperately to cry but unable even to-

The sudden flashback rippled, like a rock dropped into a pond, and Discord had the sudden sensation of Sombra reeling back, groaning in pain.

“Damned cheap shot,” Discord growled as he forced the nightmare to dissolve through sheer force of will, and passed into another section of the tent.

“They need my help!” he heard Marcus yell. “They-” and at that point, it turned into a glottal, wheezing cough.

Excellent! His voice sounded closer than ever. Discord rushed down yet another hallway, sighing at how improbably huge this tent was getting, and found himself in a field hospital. A great wind, carrying the scent of death that blew behind him. And-

He peeked behind him. “Oh, come on!” he yelled. Behind him he could see those defending Marcus, still firing-it was as if the great labyrinth had never existed. Though he knew little about firearms, and he prided himself on not having much need for them, except the scores of Bullet Bills he 'appropriated' in his journey, they seemed to be firing somewhat more… sparingly. Bursts were shorter, and there seemed to be a longer period of time before they expended their ammo.

“We can’t hold em off forever!” one soldier yelled from outside the tent. “Get him out of there!”

Before Discord’s eyes, it was becoming harder and harder to defend the tent from newfoals because so many humans were becoming newfoals as well.

“Why do you destroy us?! We are your flesh…” one newfoal screamed, before a gray PHL unicorn with a short brown mane drowned her out with a scream of her own, tears in her eyes. Her horn glowed green as she telekinetically picked up a pearl-handled .44 Magnum revolver, then least eight other weapons, and madly fired them all in the direction of several newfoals, screaming.

And no one would ever know her name, Discord reflected.

He turned around, and saw that the surgeons were wheeling Marcus out the other end of the tent.

He rushed after them, only to see them loading his stretcher onto a military helicopter.

Some part of him thought, “Well, that’s good.” But another part of him disagreed - that was stupidly easy. Since when did problems just solve themselves like that?

He followed them to the helicopter. ‘No,’ he thought. ‘This is far too easy.’

Cheerilee was on the helicopter as well, but like Marcus, she had no runic enhancements. This wouldn’t end well. There was no way this would end well.

“Marcus!” Discord yelled, subtly altering his body so he fit inside the helicopter, only barely avoiding its spinning blades. “I’m here to get you out!”

Marcus completely ignored him, reaching past him to grab Cheerilee. "No! Cher, you have to get out of here. Leave me here. Escape, please!"

"No Marcus. You have to live!" Cheerilee shouted over the blades, she waved her her hoof to the pilot. With tears filling her eyes she paused to look at him one last time. "I love you," she said softly to him as she leaned forward to give him a deep kiss before pulling away and shutting the door closed.

"No!" Discord watched as Marcus struggled out of his stretcher, attempting to grab the pilot. "Take me back! Take everyone you can carry out of here! Save someone other than me!"

"I can't do that, sir. You're too important," the pilot answered as he pushed the machine to fly, spells flying everywhere as it pulled away from the ground. Discord watched out the window to see Cheerilee along with a scant few survivors get overrun.

Marcus screamed as he watched the humans forcibly changed while the corpses of PHL members were paraded above their heads, sometimes on great pikes, but Marcus' focus was on the purple earth pony, being dragged by rope around her neck to a tree before she was hoisted onto a low branch and hung. The newfoals spat and beat the dying mare with little remorse, shouting… Discord would never care to understand what their oaths meant, but he trusted that they were horrendous.

And it was at that moment that he realized something truly disgusting about the newfoals. This was one of the only times that the mangled, deformed ruins of the souls inside of them were allowed to have anything close to actual, non-programmed emotions. Because they were happy beating Cheerilee. They could have killed her easily, stomped on her throat, but no, they were dragging out the pain.

Discord’s eyes widened as Marcus yelled out in fury, ripping apart the restraints, knocking several of the medics back in the small space, pulled the doors open and jumped out. Discord was still stunned by the nightmare that he failed to react, watching as Marcus fell rapidly to the ground, into the heavy packed bodies of new foals. All of them raising their hooves towards him, almost as if they meant to catch him.

“NO!” Discord yelled. “Marcus, you-”

He fell silent as Marcus was captured, struggling against the dozens of hooves as they latched onto him to hold him down. "No more! No one dies for me! Just make it stop! Make it all stop!"

It struck Discord just now that this was Marcus' greatest fear.

Thanatophobia. Fear of death. But it was not his own death he feared, but the death of others for him when he didn’t feel himself to be worth it.

It finally dawned on him that Marcus had fought and bled for the people he cared for. He saw it as a soldiers' duty to defend those who could not and try to live to keep that defense up. If not, then to die in defending them. Marcus wouldn’t allow anyone to die for him, it was in his nature to do everything physically possible to do so.

This was his nightmare. A nightmare consisting of everyone dying for him and him alone. A crippling fear that he lived with everyday since this war started.

“No!” Discord yelled, running at the newfoals. “Marcus! You can’t!”

“Don’t worry,” a familiar minty-green unicorn said, smiling. “He’ll like it as one of us…” and Discord saw, to his horror, that her eyes had become as wide and glassy as a newfoal’s.

He rushed for them once more, desperately trying to stop Marcus from being consumed by the newfoals, watching in horror as they doused him in potion.

Except suddenly that didn’t happen.

What?

He was back at the edge of the battle, watching it happen all over again. Sombra could have easily crushed the remains of Marcus’ mind, or consigned it to leaving him trapped within his own mind. Why do this?

Fear.

Discord ears perked as he heard Tia’s voice floating into his 'ears'.

Sombra is feeding off his fear... despair... hatred… runic magic... he is taking it all for himself, growing more powerful and shaping Marcus to be his toy, his weapon. You must break Marcus free before there isn’t enough of him left to save!

"How exactly am I suppose to do that? I can't exactly talk to him, he can't see me either," Discord growled as he stomped on the same unicorn with the glasses.

No... but you can still affect this 'world'. You just need to do something so crazy that Marcus will finally figure out that none of this is real.

"Crazy huh?" Discord muttered as he looked at the horde of newfoals rushing towards Marcus and his army once more. He watched as several spears flew at Marcus. A grin spread across his face. "Now you’re speaking my language! I can definitely do crazy!"

Marcus raised his M240 and unloaded everything he had on the tide of bodies. He watched as several spears were thrown at him, traveling so fast at what was essentially point-blank range that there was no way he could have dodged. He waited for the pain of being skewered through, only to see a flash of red and black jump in front of him.

"Ow!" Marcus blinked as he saw a masked man wore some sort of red tights on, various weapons adorning his body. The man took a step back before looking back to Marcus. "At least they could take me out on a date before penetrating me! Heh, get it? Cause of the spears?"

"W-what?" Marcus watched as the man laughed before pulling out his guns to fire madly and ignoring his punctured body with little care. A shout of surprise and cheer came from his flank and he was absolutely floored by what he saw.

Marcus’ eyes widened as he saw various unusual figures slaughtering the new-foals in droves. He had absolutely no idea who any of them were.

There was a Japanese man with short black hair, tied with a topknot. He appeared to be a samurai from the feudal age of Japan, wearing a white kimono. The katana blade he wielded glowed with a bright light. He was like poetry in motion, as he jumped into the fray and used his katana to gracefully slice his opponents apart, their bodies splitting apart as he passed by them. He landed among a group of new foals, his sword flashing in a blink of an eye before sheathing his blade. The new foals slowly fell apart, blood dripping from horrific gashes the moment the blade was fully sheathed.

Another man appeared beside him, rushing at a group of new foals. He was covered head to toe wearing large gunmetal grey armor. There was a flag attached to his back, covered by paper and wax written in an unknown language, and he wielded a massive flaming sword, blasting apart his own enemies. This stranger simply exuded a sense of invincibility, jumping into the middle of the entire fight not caring of the attacks the ponies gave. Their attacks were worth nothing whatsoever, doing little more than either breaking upon his armor or just clanging uselessly. His sword went through them as if they were paper and an odd purple lighting came out his hand, like on star wars but this had a much more sinister look and results of those came into contact with the lighting turned into nothing but charred bodies. The newfoals closest to him began to targeted the man as an obvious threat. At first Marcus thought he was going to be overwhelm a man with too much bravado. But something happened as soon as all the unicorns discharged their spells at him. He just kept walking to them, as an odd purple barrier absorbed all the damage the unicorns unleashed. The man smiled viciously as the barrier glowed violently and unstably, before releasing it all in a shock wave of power, leaving a trail of gore and death.

A young man, spiky blond hair with a black headband tied around his head wearing a red and black cloak appeared within a group of newfoals. He held up his hand, forming a strange hand sign before a burst of smoke exploding around him, dozens of copies of himself appear. All of them lashing out with kicks and punches that sent the new foals flying. He smiled as his entire body glowed with yellow light, his clothes changing and giving the appearance of a powerful adversary. His smile morphed into a feral one as something large appeared behind, a giant fox-like being looming over him with a mocking smile on its face before giving an ear shattering roar before they both vanished, leaving a trail of bodies behind as they carved through the horde.

A shirtless man, not so much tall as he was simply large, huge in every way. His chest was a meter wide, if not more, his upper arms were the size of tree trunks. His dreadlocks struggled to be contained by his red bandanna. His mustache was huge, even, and he wore a pair of aviator sunglasses and headphones. He carried a massive silvery four-barreled shotgun with a barrel that looked like a V8 engine, decorated with red paint and black and white checkerboard patterns. He was pumping it as he fired into the newfoals, laughing madly. They were simply reduced to red mist as his shotgun ravaged them, as every pellet was apparently explosive.

“MEEEDLYMEEEDLYMEEEEAWWOOOWWACHOOWEOOWWWW!” he yelled, trying to make a sick guitar solo just by yelling. A newfoal flew at him, and the man simply headbutted it, crushing its skull. “I JUST KILLED A UNICORN AND I DON’T GIVE A FUCK!”

A man wearing an odd set of clothes and wielding a small stick appeared within a group of newfoals, laughing heartily while he threw spell after spell at the groups. He vanished as they attempted to take him down, only to appear at another point, release a torrent of spells before twisting and vanishing once more. He appeared once more, a devious smirk on his face before shifting into a large, black feral-looking dog and tearing throats out of the new foals.

A young, blonde woman in blue, dress-like armor appeared from nowhere. Holding what appeared to be nothing but air, she cut apart the newfoals in front of her with contemptuous ease, before shouting and releasing a violent scything blast of wind, slicing apart a large swathe of the newfoals around her. Doing so, revealing the ‘air’ to be a beautiful golden sword, she charged into the oncoming horde of newfoals like a tank, splitting them apart with bursts of energy and flashing steel. She gathered glowing energy into the blade, before swiping the sword sideways with a fierce shout, unleashing the stored energy in a golden blast-wave of destruction that left a good portion of the horde vaporised.

Marcus watched as people of all kinds had formed around him, until one took her place before him.

Golden hair hung on her back, familiar clothes he had seen her wear whenever she worked with the horses, her favored Marlin Model 1894 rifle in hand as she lined up a shot and squeezed the trigger on her rifle. Marcus’ jaw dropped as she turned back to him, her warm smile gracing her face as she faced him.

"Mom…?" Marcus whispered as she gave him a beaming smile.

"No one messes with my boy," she said in a steely tone. "Not if momma has something to say about it, but I think it’s time for you to wake up, honey. You don't belong here. You have friends that need your help."

"What the?” Marcus started only for the ground to shake, nearly knocking him off balance.

“Pssst. Honey - cover your ears!” his mother whispered, smiling as she looked behind her and fired her rifle again.

He did so, only to find out how absurdly ineffective it was. There was a great roar so loud it seemed as if the world was splitting in two. He stared up as a large scale-covered foot slammed into the ground, crushing the horde with ease. Marcus slowly looked up to see a large reptile with vicious looking dorsal fins on his back, which glowed slightly before it breathed a devastating flame attack on the rest of the horde.

Sounds of explosions ripped from behind him, turning him to see another giant beast, or in this case, machine, striding towards him.

“...What?” Marcus breathed.

It was humanoid, and easily the height of a skyscraper. Its visor glowed in the dark. He’d seen it in movies back when he was a lot younger.

“No way,” he said, though he could hardly resist the onset of the almost childish glee he felt at seeing something like this. “No way.”

His mind rebelled against the insanity that had taken him. It couldn’t be real, it couldn’t be! He was still back at the battlefield, being airlifted, while Cheerilee…

In retrospect, this made more sense. Now he remembered! The false memories of the dream washed away like debris in a flood, as it became clear to him what was going on. What had to happen.

None of this was real. He wasn’t on Earth, he was in the real Equestria, an Equestria untainted by the Bag of Tirek, untainted by madness. He was here to save the universe.

“NO!” yelled an image of Queen Celestia, somehow too tall, and too grayish to even remotely look like her. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be!” behind her eyes, Marcus saw a flash of lime-green and red. “I AM KI… KI...QUEEN CELESTIA, AND YOU WILL-”

Out of nowhere, a semi truck rammed into her.

“Freedom is the right of all sentient beings!” something yelled, as the truck… unfolded. That was the only way Marcus could think of to describe it. Parts expanded out wildly, into arms, legs… even a head? And it was carrying an axe? Where did its trailer go?

Before Marcus’ eyes, the humanoid robot that the truck had formed itself into dashed over the landscape, grabbed the poor imitation of Queen Celestia, and rammed her into the ground.

It stared up at the two skyscraper-sized titans above.

“Kill this genocidal murderess,” it said.

The “battle” that followed, if it could be called a battle, was the most gloriously one-sided thing Marcus had seen against Equestria in quite some time. The giant robot that dwarfed the semi-truck looked at the giant lizard standing next to it, almost quizzically, as if it didn’t quite understand what to do.

“...Pulse check?” the skyscraper-sized robot suggested, its voice somehow audible without shattering Marcus’ eardrums.

The giant lizard opened up its mouth, puffing up its chest as it swallowed immense volumes of air. A semblance of a grin formed across its face.

“I like the sound of that!” the smaller robot said, turning back into a semi-truck and peeling off into the distance.

“E-enough…” the fake Queen Celestia breathed. “I am Queen Celestia, and all magic is at my command! The fires of-”

The giant robot’s arm reconfigured itself into a massive cannon, and the lizard exhaled. Then the two of them unleashed hell on the fake Queen.

Evidently, she hadn’t been talking about the fires of the giant lizard’s breath or the robot’s plasma cannon. The two of them bombarded her with energy from their respective weapons, for at least a full minute.

Marcus stared at the onslaught in awe, his jaw hanging open at the pure absurdity of what he just witness.

Discord appeared next to him, a smile on his face as he slapped his paw on Marcus shoulder and led him to the crater that the two of them had formed, pointing down as the smoke cleared.

In the middle of it all, Sombra stood, wobbling on at least three legs, clad in Queen Celestia’s ostentatious gold jewelry and the remains of her royal finery. Though, somehow it didn’t look real. It wasn’t the regal gold that Discord or Marcus had come to expect, it was more like gold-painted plastic. Costume jewelry.

“Hmmm,” Discord said, staring down at him. “I don’t think he can quite pull off that look. Rarity? What do you think?” Immediately, a hand-puppet of Rarity appeared on his lion’s arm, and, seemingly autonomous of Discord, it turned its head towards Sombra. Its felt eyes widened. “SWEET CELESTIA! KILL IT WITH FIRE!” it yelled in Rarity’s voice, though you could plainly see Discord moving his lips as it spoke.

“You heard the creepy hand-puppet!” Discord laughed. “Marcus? Would you do the honors?”

And for the first time in awhile, Marcus smiled. “It would be my pleasure.”

“I can give you power! Fame! Human women! Anything you desire!” Sombra yelled, growing more and more desperate as Marcus ran at him.

“Ask him if he can give your mother back, or your family, or your friends!” Discord called over. “They can never do that one!”

“I want my world back, you son of a bitch!” Marcus yelled, kicking the king in the face, knocking him over.

He was far from done, of course.

Pouncing on the downed figure like a proverbial fist of god from on high, Marcus began to tear into the slave king with a flurry of blows. “USELESS!” he yelled. “USELESS USELESS USELESS USELESS!” Discord smirked before feeling something over his head.

“Ah ah ah ah!” laughed a small purple puppet in a cape, popping out from behind Discord’s head. It clearly was based off of a vampire, but didn’t seem nearly as malicious as vampires generally seemed to be. He seemed more kindly and wise than anything.

"How many hits does it take for the wraith to be cast away? Let us count, shall we! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven! Seven hits! Ah ah ah ah!" Lightning flashed and thunder roared in unison as Marcus lashed out with one last punch to Sombra’s face, knocking him through a portal and quickly following after him.

Discord smiled before grunting, looking down to see a smoking hand gripping his body. He looked back to see a wall of smoke with red and green eyes glaring at him. "Oh..." was all Discord could say, along with a look of alarm, before he found himself being yanked backwards.

Discord blinked as he found himself back in the real world, only to find himself lacking air as Sombra was squeezing his throat shut with one of Marcus’ hands while a jagged crystal formed over the other.

"I will take great pleasure in gutting you slowly," Sombra growled with rage as he held onto him. He pulled his arm back to run him through, only to pause. Discord blinked as Sombra’s crystallized arm shook, grunts of frustration emanated from his throat. "S...stop.... Fighting... me... Slave."

Discord watched Marcus' face began to twitch uncontrollably causing Discord to smile. He managed to pull Marcus' hand off his throat and shove him away. "Wrong choice of words, Sombrero."

"I... will...kill... y-ARGH!" Sombra gritted out as he held up his free hand, dark magic gathering in his palm before a blast of magic caught him in the gut, which sent him flying into a crystal home, causing the wall to crater and fall apart.

He was clearly struggling to control the magic. Marcus was doing a lot more damage than he thought, diverting enough of Sombra’s control of his magic to controlling his body that it was becoming almost a herculean task to manifest spells. It was like pouring a bucket of water into a small funnel, as most of the water would soon spill out onto the floor before it could even be used.

Sombra’s control was little better than a young unicorn filly or colt’s at this point. The only reason he was still a threat was because of how much power he had.

"Discord!" The draconequus coughed as he looked behind him to see Celestia landing close by, the Crystal Heart in her magical grip. "Are you okay? Why was Marcus trying to kill you?"

"Not...*cough* Marcus. Sombra is in control. Learned a new trick in his wraith form while he was away." Discord looked at the floating heart, amusement gracing his face. "I take it you found the treasure?"

"We must hurry. Stephan is surrounded by crystal monsters and Luna is being tortured by a trap. The Crystal Heart is the only means to purge the dark magic that has tainted the castle!" Celestia explained as she took a quick flight back to Cadance and the Crystal Ponies.

"And expel the wraith-Sombra from within Marcus," Discord added as he followed. He stood before the group, his arms out and claws ready. "Do your thing, Celestia. I will slow him down if he comes for another round."

Celestia smiled at him before nodding. She placed the Heart in its proper place. Almost instantly giant crystals grew from the ground and ceiling above, holding the Heart in its position. Cadance looked around, only to see nothing had changed.

"Why is nothing happening?" Cadance whispered, fear lacing in her words. "We have the Crystal Heart... Something should have happen once it is placed."

"The Crystal Heart can only work if the Crystal Ponies are filled with positive emotions; love, happiness, peace," Celestia whispered, watching as the ponies around them began to panic. She then turned her gaze towards her niece, her voice turning serious and firm. "Cadance."

"Yes, Auntie?"

"These past few weeks have been trying, both on my body and mind. I have come off as weak-willed and fragile. But no more. It is time for me to be the leader that I always claimed to be. This will be a true test of my capabilities as a leader instead of a hoof holder. It also helps that Marcus' memories have a plethora of speeches I can fall back on," Celestia said with a smile. She looked out to the many ponies surrounding them, Discord standing guard and ready, and in the distance she saw Marcus slowly stumbling about in an apparent daze. She gave a small huff before she began to speak.

"Citizens of the Crystal Kingdom. You know me as Princess Celestia, Leader of Equestria, and the aunt to Prince Tempo Di Mezzanotte, your true King. While it has been a short time for you, it has been a millenia for me. But I still remember you all. I wept when you all vanished, I had thought of it as a failure on my part... One of many in the years that followed," Celestia's Royal Canterlot Voice echoed throughout the area. "But I still remember all that you have done. Not just for Equestria, but for all the world. In the beginning, this place was but a school for learning made by Starswirl the Bearded. It soon became a kingdom that colored the very skies with your love and compassion. For years, the Crystal Kingdom was a place of both learning and beauty, producing some of the finest works of art and magic. Then... you all were cruelly taken away from us. I ask you not to be frightened of this new age, but be filled with love. Not to live so deep in the past with those you’ve lost that you can’t see the true joy of life, but to cherish the friendships and loves you will make in our Equestria! To not shy away but welcome a new world with open hooves and minds! Remember who you are! Before Sombra. Before all the heartache and misery. You are citizens of the Crystal Kingdom, not some despotic slave pit where you are forced to mine crystals for a deranged tyrant! You are ponies, not slaves! You were once happy and full of love, and it is that love that will cast the darkness away!"

An elderly stallion stared at her before bowing. "I remember a time when I loved to wake up, feed my grandchildren, and play games with them."

"I remember singing to all who came to visit us. To see the smiles on their faces."

"I remember-"

"We used to-"

"I brought the horns for-"

Celestia smiled as the ponies began to bow, and the Crystal Heart started to glow with a heavenly light, its magic floating into her horn. She turned to see Discord looking back at her with a knowing grin and Cadance smiling with excitement and hope.

"NO! THE CRYSTAL HEART BELONGS TO- URK?!" the crystal ponies ignored the cry of rage as the ground beneath them lit up. The duo looked to see Marcus jerking about, struggling with himself.

“It belongs to no one pony, you Tyrant! As long as a pony is happy and passes that joy onto another, it belongs to them and whatever ponies they choose to bring happiness to! Remember who you were, the joy you felt, and strive to feel that once more!” Celestia yelled, the magic charging within her horn. “And know that Equestria will welcome you with real smiles on their faces!

And the world became bright.

The second Marcus felt his arm was under his control again, he proceeded to punch himself in the gut to cut off Sombra. He felt the pain of hitting himself, but it shut the wraith up.

'Stop fighting me, slave!'

'Shut the fuck up, and go back to the nothingness where you belong!'

Marcus felt his legs turning to escape the light, but forced himself to trip and fall. He heard Sombra give a roar of frustration, feeling more and more of his body falling back under his control.

'I'll be back. I have all the knowledge I need from you. I will be more powerful than those foolish alicorns and draconequus. I will even destroy your so called Tyrant!'

It was a stupid, presumptuous, egomaniacal idea, and yet somehow it gave Marcus strength to fight Sombra off. He managed to turn his head, seeing the light glowing as bright as the sun, he felt Sombra recoil from its touch and soon felt Sombra trying to leave. Marcus wasn’t sure if Sombra could escape the blast, but with the way he was struggling, he was awfully sure that he could.

Marcus knew if Sombra would escape with this new knowledge of runic magic, things would go bad to worse. Marcus closed his eyes and focused himself.

'W-what?!'

'Oh, you’re not going anywhere Sombra. You are going to stay right here with me!'

’No! I had so much to do! I COULD HAVE DONE SO MUCH! HOW DARE YOU TAKE THAT FROM ME! I AM KING SOMBRA OF THE CRYSTAL EMPIRE! ITS MAGIC IS MINE TO COMMAND, AND I AM-’

'Got news for you, Sombra,' Marcus said. 'We never saw you as a serious threat, unless we got really unlucky. You were just an inconvenient obstacle. You weren’t even a player.'

'YOU…. YOU… YOU!' Sombra screamed. 'HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO ME THIS WAY?!'

Marcus watched as the light pulsed once before it began to expand with a brilliant show of magic. Sombra began to force his way out of Marcus, jets of black smoke shot out of Marcus' body as he struggled to keep him held within.

'No! Stand aside! Release me!'

'Fuck you. Let me tell you something. I have dealt with the Tyrant, I’ve seen and done things you couldn’t scratch the surface of… you haven’t even traumatized me. You’ve just pissed me off.'

The Crystal Heart pulsed once more before a wave of magic burst from it. The wave covered over everything. The dull coats of the crystal ponies began to shimmer with a brilliant shine; even Celestia, Cadance and Discord found themselves being 'crystallized', much to Discord's amusement.

Marcus watched as the wave of magic rushed towards him, so similar to the Barrier and yet he stood his ground unafraid. He heard Sombra scream in defiance of the fate he found himself in.

'You lose, Sombra.'

Marcus spread his arms as the wave of magic slammed into him. He’d taken plenty of hard hits in his lifetime, especially during the war, but this was by far the worst-it was as if he was being hit by a semi-truck from every angle, while somehow also on fire. He heard the screams of Sombra as he was destroyed within, but Marcus also felt all the magic within him being purged as well, no doubt corrupted by Sombra’s presence.

As the wave of magic passed through Marcus, clouds of vile dark magic burst from every pore, wisping into nothing on contact with the light. His mouth was open in a silent scream, his face twisted in pure agony of the magic being expelled with pure force out of his body. It was the worst thing he had ever felt, the runes flared angrily as they were forced to expel every ounce of magic at once. However, it was not just the runes that burned; his entire being felt like it was on fire. Every inch of his body cried out in agony as he felt like melting on his own two feet. It was as if everything in his body was splitting apart, then putting itself back together.

He wanted to die just to end the pain.

The last of his magic within the runes drifted out, and Marcus realized something was very wrong as blackness began to creep at the edges of his view. His body began to feel numb and heavy.

'I... what is... happening?' was the last thought running in his head before his mind shut down. ‘Can’t… die… here…’

Then, blessedly, silence.

Locked in the darkness at the top of the tower, Stephan had dodged the sharp claws of a Crystal Monster just in time before it could rip off his head. The creature wasn’t as lucky, as Stephan then shot him a new breathing hole in its chest, and cut off the head just to be sure.

He looked down at the HK USP pistol in his hand and noticed the slide being held by the slide stop. That told him that his magazine was empty again. Twelve 45. bullets roared out again and twelve bodies fell to the floor. Some more if he counted the ones he killed with his sword. He let the empty magazine drop out and jammed the next one in, released the slide with his thumb, and was ready again for the next wave. In fact, it wasn’t a wave. It was more like a flood, since every time he killed one, a new one appeared. Some of them bigger than the ones before, others smaller and way more mobile. The darkness inside the tower wasn’t helpful at all either. He already used all of the glow sticks he had to give him a bit of light, and it still wasn’t very much.

A sharp pain exploded in his back as he flew forward and landed on the ground. Another creature sprouted from the ground like an absurdly fast-growing plant, right behind him without a sound.

“Ah, sch-”

Its fist rammed into Stephan, in a blow that would have pulped the gut of a lesser man with worse armor. He grunted in pain as he rolled around to face his attacker. The attack didn’t get through his light bullet and knife resistant enchanted body armor under his clothes, something he used to wear even off missions, since you could never be sure when and where a portal could pop up near your location back on earth. But it pushed out the air in his lungs, and a probably cracked a rib as well. It added some more pain to his body, already pushed far past its limits.

His pistol wasn’t in his hand anymore. Thankfully, it was connected with him with a elastic wire on his belt, so he didn’t have to look far. He pulled at it and in less than a second the pistol was back in his hand, aimed at the creature. He stared down the iron sights, into a crystal structure vaguely analogous to a head and fired two quick shots at it.

Its head exploded, sending crystal shards everywhere.

Stephan stood up and looked over to Luna’s cage. She was still out of the game, and there was nothing he could do to change that. The black crystals around her weren’t what held her. It was the spell which pulled her back inside if she tried to flee. If there was a way to get out of it, or a loophole in the spell, he didn’t know of one.

The sound of crystal claws stepping on the ground made him focus back at the creatures which now surrounded him again in the dim light. He swallowed a lump of spit and blood that gathered in his mouth. No reason to waste it by spitting it on the ground.

The creatures began to rush him and Stephan prepared himself for the attack, pistol and sword at the ready, but it never came. The creatures stopped in the middle of their assault, in mid-run, somehow… duller. The shine of magic had gone out of them, turning them from magically charged golems into nothing more than rocks - he’d seen that effect before when a runic weapon or royal guard’s armor abruptly ran out of power. He sighed in relief, relaxing as they began to fall apart, along with the wall of dark crystal around the tower, revealing purer, blue crystal behind it, so bright compared to the room’s previous state that the light was blinding. It was a few moments later, and as he looked around, he found the room in its old shape again. The light filled the entire place and outside was a bright day. No sign of the snowstorm which hid the old Empire. All around, he could see steam rising from the grass, as the snow melted. A temperate kingdom was pulling itself up from deep under the snowpacked tundra of the Frozen North.

How about that? Magic creating something so beautiful… just like the old fairy tales.

He took a deep breath in and out, and felt every aching part of his body again, realizing that there wasn’t a single inch of his body that didn’t hurt like hell. ‘Okay… next stop, doctor. I probably won’t survive a third time. Fears about magical fields be damned.’

‘Still,’ he reminded himself, ‘at this point, they’re more along the lines of superstition.’

He walked over to Luna who tried to stand up. Stephan kneeled down and wrapped his arms around her and pulled her up, much to her surprise. She thanked him anyway.

“Can you walk?” he asked her, visibly exhausted.

Luna nodded and stood on her own, a bit unsteady but it became better as her healing power kicked in. “Yes, I can. Thank you.”

It was this moment that Stephan actually noticed her new look. Her entire body seemed to be made out of crystals, her coat shiny and her mane somehow done up in prim, regal looking curls befitting a princess. She noticed it as well as she looked at her hooves and wings.

“Wow. What happened to you?” Stephan asked curiously.

“That is the power of the Crystal Heart. It changes the appearance of everypony in the Crystal Kingdom,” Luna then looked at Stephan who seem to be affected by the magic as well. “It gives them a crystalline appearance, and changes their hair as well. I suspect that whatever queen or king placed that particular part of the enchantment was not well-liked among the hairdressers of the Crystal Kingdom…”

He noticed her stare and looked himself over. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me...” He was glittering in the light because of his new crystal form. ‘I look ridiculous. Like those stupid Twilight vampires… ’ “Please tell me this is temporary,” he sighed in resignation. Thankfully, he didn’t have a silly hairstyle - his own hair was cut far too short for that.

“I’m not sure, actually,” Luna said. “It probably won’t last outside the kingdom though?”

They both walked slowly to the next balcony to check the situation of the city. Luna eyed him with a worried look as she noticed the bruises and cuts all over him. All just to keep the crystal creatures away from her and trying to free her somehow. The fact that he was still able to walk, let alone stand up, was like a miracle to her. But soon she saw him waver a bit and she got closer at his side to keep him steady. He thanked her with a nod and placed a hand on her neck to keep himself steady. She heard him whisper he was about to go to the hospital as soon as this is over. They made it to the next balcony and looked over the city.

Stephan whistled, impressed as he saw that some of the empire’s crystalline buildings were in ruins. “Damn, that must have been one hell of a fight.”

Luna nodded. “It was, but buildings can be rebuilt, and we have more important things to worry about. At least the threat of Sombra is over now.” Her eyes wandered around until they fell unto a spot near the castle. “There’s my sister, Cadance, and Discord, and… Marcus? What is happening there?”

Stephan looked at her confused for a bit as she sounded surprised when she said Marcus’ name. He pulled out his binoculars and checked it for himself. There was Celestia, Cadance and Discord. And they all looked worried at the unmoving body of Marcus. Stephan couldn’t help but notice how the two princesses seemed to stop and step back every time they tried to get near him. Discord didn’t seem to have as much trouble, but he looked incredibly dizzy and nauseous when he got close.

Stephan whispered, “Shit… we should go down there.”

“Yes. Stay close.” Luna charged her horn and Stephan found himself blinking as he was teleported out of the tower, followed by reappearing with a flash on the ground near the group.

Celestia looked at Luna for a few seconds until she recognised her. “LUNA!”

“Celestia, wha-ugh!” Luna got tackled by her sister in a tight hug.

“I’m so glad that you are okay!” Celestia nuzzled her younger sister and felt like crying. She released her again and smiled at her.

Luna smiled back as she felt her lungs again which have been almost crushed by Celestia. “You should thank the Major. Without him, we would be at the mercy of the crystal creatures.”

Stephan waved a hand at that. “Nothing to mentio-argh!” More didn’t come out of his mouth as he got tackled by Celestia as well, nuzzling his neck.

“Thank you Stephan,” he heard her say. In that soft voice of hers.

“No… problem… ow, ow, my everything hurts!” he gasped. Celestia let go of him as she heard him wince in pain from his wounds. Few of them appeared to be serious, but he just had so many of them...

“Sorry…”

Stephan took another breath in and out. “No harm done. Well, not that there can be any more harm done anyway…” He focused his attention on Marcus. “What’s wrong with him?”

Celestia looked over at Marcus. “We don’t know for sure. He is breathing, but we can’t get close to him.”

“What do you mean?” Stephan asked, confused.

“Everytime I try to get close to him… I feel my strength leaving me. Like every bit of magic is been sucked out.”

“And it seems to affect me too, though not as much as Celestia. I can’t stay close to him for a very long amount of time,” Discord added, suddenly donning a lab coat and glasses. He turned to Stephan and said, “But maybe you can.”

“Why?”

“Humans don’t have magic in their bodies like we do. Maybe you won’t be as affected as we are.”

Stephan thought about it for a moment before he turned to Marcus and walked over to him. He even knelt down beside him and checked Marcus’ vitals. “He’s still breathing and I feel a weak heartbeat. Nevertheless, he needs to get to a hospital, and fast.” He turned back at Discord. “Discord. Go back to Canterlot and get a medical team. Only humans, as much earth-made equipment as possible, and get them here as fast as you can. We need to stabilize him before we can move him.”

Discord nodded and with a snap of his finger he was gone. Luna, Cadance and Celestia eyed Marcus with a worried look.

“Is he going to be okay?” Cadance asked, her voice shaking slightly.

Stephan shook his head, and even though he tried not to show it much, the princesses could easily see how worried he was. “I don’t know…” Stephan admitted, “I just hope he will be, and soon.”

Canterlot Castle

"Where do you think they’ve gone to?" Lyra asked while she was sat on a wooden crate as Trixie paced the room.

The small circular room had white marble stone lining the walls and floor like most of Canterlot Castle. The room appeared to be used as a store room. A very untidy storeroom, with piles of crates scattered everywhere at random. Twilight and Applejack sat next to Lyra on a large wooden crate. Both silently watched Trixie pace around the room with concern etched on their faces.

A few minutes ago, Discord appeared and began to gather human medics and the few doctors they had on hand.

Trixie demanded Discord to bring Stephan back to her at once, but she was completely ignored by the draconequus before he vanished once more with the crowd of humans.

"I don't know nor do I care," Trixie growled. 'We will show him the moment he gets back.'

'With handcuffs and ropes'

'Mmm...tied to the bedposts?'

'Yes... Wait! NO! He needs to be punished.'

'Mm... Yes. Punished.'

"Shut up!"

"I didn't say anything?" Twilight leaned back from Trixie, eyes wide in surprise. Trixie blinked before her face flushed with embarrassment.

"Sorry," Trixie murmured as her ears flattened against her skull.

"Ah know you’re worried about your coltfriend and all, but ah’m more than certain he can take care of himself," Applejack said reassuringly.

“He is my ‘boyfriend,’ Applejack. You will learn soon that some humans prefer it when you use their words for colt-, or fillyfriend. And everyone instead of everypony. And he is more of a stallion than a colt.” She giggled to herself but stopped as she saw Applejack’s confused look. Trixie’s face flushed again before she continued.

"It’s just... When Discord began to round up all the medics and doctors... I... " Trixie trailed off, her face filled with fear. "I just can't stand not knowing what is happening."

"I think it will be best if we get out of this storeroom," Twilight stated as she got off her seat. "Staying here and doing nothing will not help anypony. Maybe you can show Lyra and myself some of the magics you learned while you were on earth."

"Yeah, maybe some of them fancy fighting styles while you are at it," Applejack added with a smile.

Trixie looked at both of them before she laughed a bit. “Sure, I can show you. But mastering them took me months. And before we do any of that, you have to go through the basic training Stephan is giving you.”

“Why can’t you just teach me?” asked Twilight confused.

“Because you and the others lack the same thing I did, before I had the chance to become more. And that is military discipline,” Trixie answered, her eyes drifting off in a way that looked like she was lost in her own world. “And there is no one who can better teach you that as Major Bauer,” she said in an almost dreamy tone. She pulled herself together after a short silence and shook her head. “Anyway, we should-”

A loud pop rang out, signaling the arrival of Discord. Trixie and the others shared a short look before they ran out in the garden.

Discord grunted as he took one step before collapsing, Stephan and some the humans with him barely managing to catch the draconequus before he hit the ground.

"OUT OF THE WAY! MAKE WAY, MAKE WAY!!" a medic shouted at the group, several humans holding the prone form of Colonel Marcus Renee as he laid on the stretcher. Trixie and the others had barely walked into the garden, just having enough time to take in the view before they felt their legs buckle underneath them, the magic in their bodies vanishing.

“Wha’.... What’s.. going…” Twilight said, before abruptly losing the energy to do even that.

"Damn it! You two, go ahead of us and clear the hall to the hospital wing! Get every pony out of there! I want this place quarantined to all ponies until he stabilizes!"

"Sir! I can barely feel his pulse now!"

"Give him a shot of adrenaline, damn it! I want all non-magical medical equipment on hand, we are not losing him here!"

Stephan grunted as he held onto Discord, watching as the group left them. He gave a small frown as he saw Trixie laying on the floor with Twilight, Lyra, and Applejack. Trixie gave a small whimper as Marcus was carried away, feeling her strength slowly return to her.

"Stephan..." Trixie groaned as she took in his appearance. "Why do you look worse than before you left? What happened?"

Stephan grimaced as he thought on how to answer. He gave a tired sigh before giving her an answer. "Oh, regicide, fighting against impossible odds, being beaten within an inch of my life, saving the world. You know. The usual."

"....ho-....."

"Co-..."

"....statu-..."

"I don't know .... he will be..."

"Don't give me that! Figure out a way to wake him up!" Marcus’ eyes fluttered as the voices finally began to make sense in his mind and not be a jumbled mess.

"Keep it down," Marcus muttered softly. "For fuck's sake, people are sleeping."

"Yeah, like I was!" Marcus opened his eyes to find Stephan and a medic standing at the foot of his bed. "Man. You were in a coma. Sombra and the Heart did a number on you."

"What?" Marcus sat up. "How long? Is the war over? Hah! I knew you guys didn't need my sorry ass!"

"Sorry sir," the medic said quietly. "It’s been two days since you were placed on medical watch.”

"Medical watch? What the hell happened?" Marcus sighed and muttered something quietly under his breath in anger.

“We were watching your vitals to make sure nothing-" the medic started, only for Stephan to cough loudly.

"You're fine. Don't worry about it," Stephan cut in, giving the medic a long look. The medic grimaced and saluted once before leaving, causing Marcus to look at Stephan with some concern.

"What was that about?" Marcus asked as he laid on the bed. He felt... wrong. The closest thing he could think of was if he had been suffering chronic pain all over, and it had suddenly, abruptly vanished. Like something was off but wasn't sure what it was.

"Nothing," Stephan said, a little too quickly.

"Bauer, don't bullshit me," Marcus growled. "Am I missing my legs or something?"

"I think it will be best if the an actual doctor explains it to you instead of a medic," Stephan replied as he turned to leave, adding, “I still don’t quite understand it myself.”

"Bauer,” Marcus growled. “We’ve been friends since the start of the war, and I’ve had your back when you’ve had mine. I trust you more than damn near anyone. So,” he said, as he gripped the metal rails of his bed to lift himself up. “What the fuck is wrong with-

There was a screeching, yawning sound, not entirely like something shattering.

Stephan stopped and closed his eyes, giving a small sigh as he turned to see Marcus staring at the metal rails within his grasp.

At least what used to be rails, now nothing more than crushed metal.

"Wh.....what the fuck?" Marcus stared at his hands in utter confusion. "But I... I didn't activate my runes..."

"Wait for the doctor, Renee," Stephan said as he walked out. "Try not to move around too much. We had to replace a wall after you accidentally kicked Discord through one."

"Wait, what?!" he blinked in confusion before he looked closely at the wall closest to him. 'Huh. So THAT was why that patch of wall was so discolored.' But thoughts like that were quickly overridden by more pressing concerns along the lines of ‘how did this happen?!’ Then, ’What the hell happened?!’

"Marcus Dwayne Renee. Hero of Earth, I might add."

"I hate my middle name..." Marcus muttered under his breath as the Doctor read off his file, causing the stocky suntanned man to chuckle. He didn’t quite look like a doctor - short, rather squat, bald stubbly head, with squared-off hands devoid of the delicate look you expected from a surgeon. His accent was rather muddled, bearing traces of Turkey, various European countries, and Brazil.

"Of course, sir. Who doesn’t? My yakın arkadaş, Isaac… the other Isaac, oh his middle name, his parents must’ve hated him!” he chuckled. “Or this one HLF guy I had to treat back in Turkey. That guy’s middle name, filha de puta.... Oh, the memories. You are thirty-three years old. Brown eyes. Light brown hair. Height: 71 inches. Weight: 235 lbs. Probably need to weigh you again since your are now several billion dollars heavier." The doctor checked off as he read the list.

"Hey, can we skip this part and get down to what the fuck is wrong with me?" Marcus growled out, causing the man to sigh.

"Yes sir. My name is Doctor Isaac Dan Der Grimnebulin, medical professional attached to this bloody adventure by Crowe’s R&D, by the way. And this, Colonel, is your X-ray photo that was taken three months ago," he said as an assistant placed it on the whiteboard, showing Marcus all the runes he had on his body along with his skeleton. Marcus nodded his head as he followed. "Fascinating work, by the way. Always liked runes-ilginç, so interesting, they have so many applications! This was taken a few hours before you woke up. We had to take multiple scans with the magical X ray machine, but it kept dying before we could finish, just like my ex. Ha! This is the end result."

Marcus stared at the photo, his eyes wide with shock. His entire body was lit up like a beacon. Clusters of nerves spread out through his body, his own brain outshined his skull.

"W...what?!"

"What you’re seeing here is some sort of crystal lacing throughout your entire body. It is centered and over laying around your nerves and spread evenly through your organs and muscles. It’s like…. kind of like a secondary nervous or circulatory system, essentially. It appears to perform similar functions to both, and I’ve never seen anything like it. What little samples we managed to get show something remarkable." Doctor Grimnebulin took a moment, trying to find the right words to describe it before he said, "It’s a living crystal, though how that works, I have no idea. They are extremely pure, like magical diamond kind of pure, so it has a lot of special properties, most of which are yet to be determined. So far, after careful examination of our few tissue samples, we’ve determined that they can hold magic to a ridiculous degree and can pass with extreme ease."

He rubbed his eyes, taking a short break to breathe in. "Not only that, but your nerves and even parts of your brain have what Equestrian doctors call alicornal tissue. The same thaumaturgon-infused tissue that allows unicorns to use and channel magic, pegasi to fly and shape the weather, and earth ponies to tend and shape the land."

“Does this mean I’ll… get ponified? Manipulate weather? What?” Marcus asked with some concern.

"I don't know, but trust me when I say it’s highly unlikely… and even if you did, it’d still be you in there. No hands, hard to get used to cause the Queen Bitch won’t be horn-fucking your mind straight through your ear, but hell. Small comforts. Although given what we just witnessed, I’d say you have Earth pony strength down." Grimnebulin gave a pointed look at the rail.

"I don't think this is normal earth pony strength kind of deal, doc." Marcus stared at the crushed metal.

"No, it doesn’t look like it. Of course, this is a first in whatever new field of thaumic science we have just invented, so every moment we talk is making history. Believe me, there will not be anything that can be called normal in this field for years!" Doctor Grimnebulin exclaimed. “Anyway, details. Whatever Sombra did, it changed everything about what we knew of runic magic, or magic in general, and what notes we have from Ms. Heartstrings. It’s also the possible reason why your mind placed yourself in a coma - to protect you from the pain of this rapid change. You only woke up because it finally finished whatever it was doing."

He stroked his beard, an overgrown, uneven curly beard profile that poorly concealed a number of nodules and scars. “I would be ecstatic for the chance to test some tissue samples! But… I’m guessing you’re not in the mood for that.”

"No. No I’m not. How... how is this possible?" Marcus wondered out loud in total shock. The doctor only shrugged, he had no answer to give him. He was just as lost as Marcus.

A light knock coming from the doorway gain both mens' attention as they turn to see who it was.

"May I come in?" Marcus turned to see Celestia at the doorway, staring at him with concern.

"Do you feel any draining sensations?" the doctor asked, which Celestia shook her head to the question.

"No. He stopped draining all the ambient magic sometime ago. He is safe to be around."

"Okay then. Colonel,” said Grimnebulin, “I suggest you lay off the magic throwing for sometime, until your control gets better. Whatever Sombra did, he has literally tied your entire being to the runes and these new crystals. You were on Death's doorstep for an entire day until your vital signs began to stabilize, and that was only after draining the entire area you were in of magic. Film gibiydi, trying to stabilize you, everything going wrong, equipment failures left and right, me having to rush here and there… it was an interesting two days, though not the usual kind of interesting with explosions. Your body still needs food to function properly, but your body needs magic to run off now. If you run out... you will not be feeling a burning of the runes. You'll be dead."

"So let me get this straight, Doctor Grim - I’m like a living battery that needs constant charging?" Marcus asked, clearly not liking what he was hearing.

"Marcus. You just drained all the ambient magic in the surrounding area of this room on Canterhorn," Celestia told him, looking at Marcus right in the eye. "A nexus of ley lines pass through here and I can not feel a single iota of magic in the air while you were here. You hold as much magic within yourself as myself, Luna, or Discord. Your body only needs a small minuscule amount to function compare to the ocean you have. However, if you are to overuse the magic within your body, then yes, you will die. Your control of magic is also rather worrisome. Tell me… how often is it before you run out of energy to fuel your spells?”

“If I can get enough charge, I can blast the hell out of newfoals for ten minutes straight. If I don't use that and only use the runes to enhance my abilities, I can sustain it for several hours. If I push it… well... let’s just say that it was fortunate that we stopped fighting at Twilight’s library or I would be nothing more than a smear on the floor."

“I’ve known enough unicorns to know that ain’t good,” Grimnebulin said. “I mean… maybe with the average unicorn, yes, but with the power you have... or... Had? We need to rethink on how much power you have now after this change. Though I think she could explain it better.” He gestured to Celestia.

“Indeed,” Celestia said. “Before your drastic change, you're…” she searched for an analogy, something she remembered from one of the comics that Marcus read when he was younger. “If your magic was a sword, you were swinging around a semi-sized weapon with the density of paper. Most of it will break off mid-swing, though it still did considerable damage. Twilight's own magic is similar to her wielding a claymore-size one that is made of some super-dense metal. While her control is good, she still lacks finesse. We need you to be at least her level of control if you wish to survive. Whatever Sombra did, he wanted you to survive long enough to fight for him. Which is why he did what he did to your body."

"How is that possible?" exclaimed Doctor Grimnebulin, who Marcus would forever think of as ‘Doctor Grim’. "To change the body like that is unheard of, even with magic! Vallahi, I’ve seen magic pull off some crazy stuff before. A permanent change is dangerous - we all know what happens when you force that - and what happened here just flew in the face of every rule of magic we know. I’m surprised Colonel Renee is not rolling around in agony right now."

"Maybe with normal magic it is. Dark magic does bend or break the rules, the ponification potion being the main result. But I believe this may not be Sombra’s doing... I think he was just helping something along. He was well versed in runic writings and excelled in modifying what he was able to get his hooves on." Celestia said quietly. "Marcus. That rune on your chest. Do you know what it is and what it does?"

"Only what was written down in Lyra's notes." Marcus said quietly. "She said it would connect magic to the user and they would control the magic within the runes through their will."

"I don't think that is all what it does," Celestia frowned as she stared at his chest. "It is far more complicated than that. It is the most complicated rune I have ever seen. Which leads me to question where Ms. Heartstrings could come by such a rune. I’ve personally never seen this rune before in my life. I doubt the Tyrant has seen such a thing either."

"Maybe she created it... Okay, that sounded stupid even as I said it out loud," Marcus sighed to himself, remembering how complicated the runes were in the first place. Just trying to improve a simple fireproofing rune for personnel body armor was already an arduous task, and there was a very good reason that higher-powered rune-enhanced weapons were often given to specialists. Namely, runes were hard to make.

"Not to make light of Ms. Heartstrings’ contribution, but I believe I know the source of her information." Celestia said as she stood up. "It’s just not that rune either; a score of them on your body, particularly that one on your cheek that looks like Hebrew writing, are something entirely new. I have no idea what they do."

“I was wondering why you had the Hebrew lettering on your cheek,” Doctor Grimnebulin mused. “Kinda incongruous, that one. Honestly, I thought you were just taking the piss. Still, I assure you that the word is very meaningful. Maybe not quite in the way that Lyra hoped… but it’s one way to translate the word for savior, and you did redeem ponies for most people. Point to her, though.”

"That is a good question - where the hell did Lyra get them?" Marcus asked as he looked at his hand. "She said she got the rune writings from a book in a destroyed Bureau in London. It was meant to enhance the defenses of the building."

"That is a lie. These runes are far too advanced to just be kept in a Bureau. If they weren’t, every Royal Guard would have them. And I believe I know where she got it from. I just have to confirm it with my... estranged teacher." Celestia said before she turn to leave. "Marcus. It would be prudent if you begin to practice. To see the limits of your enhanced body. It might be best if you stay some distance from the others, if only to keep them from harm. You don’t know your own strength, magically-”

“Or physically,” Marcus sighed, noting that the railing he’d grabbed was still a ruin.

“Right. Practice your control, though. I believe that Lyra, and my student Twilight Sparkle will be happy to do so with you, maybe even Trixie in between lessons from Stephan. Though there will likely be others willing to help when the two of them aren’t around, because I don’t want to overstrain them.”

“Am I going to have to unlearn anything about magic control?” Marcus asked, adopting a thoughtful look. "Maybe joining the Elements when they train their own magic might be easier."

“Perhaps. It’s very likely that you have mental shortcuts or ways of constructing spells that are far too inefficient,” she said. “I don’t think it will be too hard, though, you strike me as a quick learner.”

"Thanks?" Marcus rubbed his head before looking to Doctor Grimnebulin. "Anything else?"

"Just a few more tests and a physical." Doctor Grimnebulin said with a smile, causing Marcus to groan. Celestia gave a small giggle and nodded her head to the two as she left, silently closing the door behind. But she was still able to hear more of the discussion. “Don’t worry, totally painless. Well, except for the emotional pain of realizing what’s happened, but that’s not on me.”

Celestia stood in the hall before finally speaking. "You worry a great deal," she said out loud, causing Stephan to grunt as he looked up from his place on the wall.

"Someone has to. Cheerilee would trample me if something happened to him," Stephan groaned as he stepped out of the shadows. “She’d probably use her runes too...” Stephan trailed off, looking at the ground for a moment before talking again. “There’s something that is bothering me...”

"I doubt Lyra knew the full extent of the runes. If she did... Well.... There is no doubt she would have many humans lining up to get them on," Celestia answered, giving him a long look. "Perhaps you wish for a set of your own?"

Stephan sighed and shook his head. "Hardly. If my entire life ends up tied to the runes, and magical energy, I know I’d be dead within weeks.” A few moments of silence. “So... estranged teacher?"

"An issue we had long ago," Celestia said quietly.

"Hah! You and Scribble did more than butt heads from what she told me!" Stephan turned to see Discord’s face appearing on a painting, his face replacing Celestia’s. “Never could quite agree on... anything really.”

“I know, I know,” Celestia sighed with more than a hint of exasperation in her voice. “We’ve been over this, but I know she’ll agree with us here.”

"Oh, don’t think I am riding on you, we’ve all had enough of that. If I learned anything trying to find Earth, sometime following a set path is never a good choice. It blinds you to other paths." Discord pulled himself out of the painting, pausing for a moment and reaching through and pulled out a rather confused Princess Luna.

"W-where?" Luna staggered a bit in confusion, but Discord just patted her head.

"Now that all the children are here, it’s time for us to take a road trip to a gooood old fashioned family reunion!” Discord exclaimed as he wrapped himself around the two alicorns. "It’s time to bury old hatchets anyways. We’ve all agreed by now that we have more important things to deal with."

Celestia gave a tired smile and nodded her head. "Yes... it is time old pains finally be laid to rest."

"Right then. See you later, Major. Don't wait up for us." Discord said as he snapped his fingers and the trio vanished before his eyes.

Stephan shook his head. ‘What a crazy family.’ He then remembered what he wanted to do when Marcus finally woke up and open the door to look at Marcus. “Hey, you hero of Earth!”

“God damn it, don't call me that! What the hell do you want?”

“What was it like to have a guy inside of you? And is he gonna call back?”

A piece of crushed railing flew past Stephan’s head that ended up embedding itself into the wall behind him. “FUCK OFF!”

‘Aah, yup. It’s nice to have him back.’ Stephan walked away with a big grin on his face.

Everfree Mountain Range

"Aaaaaand we're here!" Discord announced, the sheer mountain wall standing before them. However their eyes trained on the destroyed rubble scattering the entrance. "Oh. Right. I knew I forgot to clean up after your little tiff with Scribbles."

Celestia frowned, her ears flattened against her skull. Luna said nothing as she walked through, followed by Discord as he floated behind her.

Celestia looked at the entrance with regret, the memories of the past flooded back.

"Scribe! Open the entrance! You must tell me how to stop Discord! He’s out of control, he’s causing so much suffering!"

Silence was the only response, frustration mounting as the Scribe blocked her ability to simply teleport within the facility. A feeling of inarticulate negation emanated from behind the rocky Barrier.

"Scribe! Please!"

Nothing.

"I knew you never approved of myself and Luna leading the ponies. Please believe me that I only want to have Harmony with everypony!"

Celestia seethed as she got no response from Scribe. Her wings snapped open and her horn glowed with power.

"PLEASE! ANSWER ME! I CAN’T SIT BY AND LET THEM LOSE THEIR WAY! DO NOT FORCE MY HOOF!"

Celestia shook her head before stepping through, the darkness slowly melting away as the interior soon glowed with life. Crystals that were shaped and smoothed over, runes glowing softly within as they did their intended duties. Words in hundreds of languages began to flash to life, hovering in mystic light as they projected themselves before the group.

Luna and Discord were standing before a small platform, Celestia stepping behind them. The crystal platform glowed before shining brightly. The magic condensed together and a figure appeared before the three. She was a mare so radiant that before her, Celestia and Luna looked like little more than dirty cart-pulling mules in comparison.

Pure ivory white coat, an ink bottle and quill pen cutie mark on her flank, with deep maroon mane on her head, blue eyes filled with an eternity’s worth of ancient knowledge and wisdom. She gazed upon the three, first at Discord, then Luna, before centering on Celestia.

Her eyes narrowed to slits, either in weariness, anger, disappointment, sadness, or some combination of the four.

Celestia flinched, feeling those ancient eyes that had seen countless millennia rake over her. Some part of her wanted to turn and go back to commanding the new armies of Equus against the Solar Empire, but she forced herself to stand. No matter what the Scribe said or told her and Luna, no matter how true they were, she had to stand tall, look her in the eye, and ask.

Celestia took a deep breath before speaking. "Hello Scribe. It has been too long."

Author's Notes:

Finally done.

Enjoy the final chapter of the Crystal arc.

We should be running on all cylinders soon enough for the training chapters. They will be short but informative on what the Elements, Marcus, Armies, and scores of other things.

Hopefully this chapter will sate some of your thirst as I will be busy in the coming month with work. But I will have time to write.

Also, Doctor Fluffy will be posting a new story called Calm before the Storm. So keep a look out for it in the future.

Have fun guys!