Duskfall was wandering around Ponyville with no particular goal in mind. Ever since Shining and Cadence had told her that they had a baby on the way a week ago, she had taken to solitary strolls. A part of her was tempted to kill herself a time or two to get her mind off things, but she had zero interest in freaking out her friends. Duskfall was familiar enough with Murphy’s Law to know the second she tried to become a Manticore snack or something, someone would spot her and she’d never have a moment’s peace.

“Princess Duskfall, there you are!” Only one person called her that.

“Hello, Pharynx, why are you looking for me?” Duskfall asked.

“My brothers have discovered and captured a highly suspicious pony!” Pharynx reported dutifully. Suspicious pony? Who could they possibly mean? Unless…

“Take me to them,” Duskfall ordered. A few minutes later and Duskfall spotted a pile of about 20 Changelings or so. The only thing betraying the fact that there was a pony underneath was a single pale pink front hoof. Centuries of scheming and plotting came to the forefront of Duskfall’s mind. Her Darkness demanded retribution while her Insanity lovingly described how to go about getting what was due. With an effort of will, Duskfall shut them both down. She was in control, not the other way around.

“At ease, boys. If you’d be so kind as to gather up the others?” Duskfall requested and a moment later, she was alone with Starlight Glimmer while the Changelings went to fetch the whole crew. The Unicorn was still dazed from the dogpile, but Duskfall wasn’t in the mood for any surprises. A brief moment of focus and Duskfall shrouded Starlight’s horn in Darkness. By the time Starlight figured out how to cast around the Darkness, it wouldn’t matter one way or the other.

Soon everyone was gathered. The general atmosphere was almost murderous. Even Fluttershy seemed to want to give Starlight a piece of her mind. There was no nice way to say it; Starlight had violated people on a fundamental level. That included the Element Bearers. Duskfall sent a quick jolt to Starlight’s system to snap her out of her daze.

“What happened? Where- oh…” Starlight gulped audibly as she realized she was being stared down by almost a dozen ponies, three of which were Alicorns, a Changeling Queen, and a Lord of Chaos. They all looked quite upset with her. Starlight’s first instinct was to teleport away, but found her magic unresponsive. She wasn’t dumb enough to try and run either. Starlight realized she was well and truly screwed.

“Starlight Glimmer, I must say, you have quite a lot of nerve showing your face in Ponyville of all places,” Princess Luna commented. The Night Princess’ eyes promised much suffering. Duskfall stepped forward.

“You are guilty of practicing Soul magic without a license and performing what might be the most heinous act one pony can do to another. You will not be charged for the residents of Our Town, as you did receive their permission to do what you did, even if they were misinformed. However, you forcefully removed the Cutie Marks of myself and the other Elements of Harmony. This also resulted in the destruction of my own Cutie Mark. You owe a great debt to society, Starlight. I will personally be taking that first payment out of your flesh,” Duskfall snarled.

“Don’t hurt me!” Starlight squealed.

“Hurt you? Perhaps, but I’m not a savage. I’ll even give you a chance to defend yourself. I’ll just-”

“If I may?” Discord interrupted, “Instead of worrying about collateral, why don’t we stage this in my home of the Chaos Dimension? No worrying about hurting anything as you avenge yourself on Starlight as you see fit.” Starlight did not like the wicked grin that Discord and Duskfall now shared.

“An excellent idea, Discord. Let’s move there then, shall we?” Discord snapped his talons and they were all relocated to the so called Chaos Dimension. Discord was even kind enough to whip up a level field about the size of a football field for Duskfall and Starlight to do combat on. Duskfall dispelled the Darkness around Starlight’s horn.

“On 3, agreed?” Duskfall asked calmly. Starlight nervously nodded, “One. Two. Three!”

Both ponies shot bolts of raw magic at each other to gauge the other’s strength. In normal circumstances, Duskfall’s bolt would have overwhelmed Starlight’s. Not by much, Duskfall wasn’t looking to kill Starlight, but enough to send a message. The Chaos Dimension is not normal circumstances. In a flash of light, both Duskfall and Starlight were gone.

“Maybe holding this contest in the Chaos Dimension wasn’t my brightest idea…” Discord said sheepishly.

“Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck!” Duskfall had been swearing for the last two minutes, ever since she had awoken somewhere in the Everfree with no one around, “I knew I should’ve just killed that bitch! FUCK!”

On her last expletive, a burst of Wild Darkness escaped from her. It was completely uncontrolled and lashed out at everything around Duskfall. Her anger only grew when she cast out her sense for Harmonia’s Tree, but felt nothing. Either she was so deep in the Everfree that she couldn’t risk teleporting for fear of getting more lost or she had been dumped someplace that was not the Equestria she knew.

“Starlight, when I get a hold of you, I’m going to wring your neck!” Duskfall swore then sighed, “Now what? Wait for Discord to find us and bring us home? Who knows how long that’ll be and as mad as I am at Starlight, I can survive with little to no food. She can’t. So my top priority is to find that sociopath and maybe ask the local Discord for help, assuming there even is a local Discord. I just got back! Did someone just make it their life’s mission to fuck me over?”

“I don’t know about fucking you over, but definitely fucking you~” Duskfall nearly jumped out of her skin. How stupid could she be to let something sneak up on her in the Everfree?! She whirled around and came face to face with Nightmare Moon.

Author's Notes:

My original plan was to make this one long uber chapter. Then I realized it might wind up being over 10k words just on this arc alone. I have to cover the Nightmare Timeline, the Crystal War timeline, the Changeling Timeline, and a random spat or two between Duskfall and Starlight in the middle of all that. Then there's the final confrontation between Duskfall and Starlight. So that's like, 3 or 4 chapters easily. I'm not going to make you guys wait weeks for an update just because I'm a lunatic.

I'm not going to half ass it like the show. Duskfall isn't allowed to leave a Timeline until she's contributed in some major way to fixing it, if not fixed it outright.

---

In other news, I've gone and traumatized myself again. I thought about just leaving it at that, but since I'll be discussing politics on Romancing the (Martial) Artist sooner or later anyway, you might as well hate me sooner rather than later.

I watched a documentary named The Red Pill. It cause me to cry. Not just like, shed a tear or two, but to out and out weep. It was like I was trapped in the solitary confinement of my own mind with propaganda pouring in to my cell at all hours. Then suddenly I realize for the first time IN MY LIFE that my cell isn't in solitary after all! There are people who are in idea jail with me who share some of my opinions!

It's like, do I agree with everything they say? Fuck no! But they're approaching me as an actual person and not a living strawman. Even if I disagreed with everything they said, which I don't, the fact that they had an open and honest discussion about these topics that I have been wrestling with my whole life just blew my mind. How sad is that? I have to go to people who have been, wrongly, called a hate group to hear a calm and measured conversation that doesn't devolve into yelling at the top of their lungs in the hopes that volume makes them right.

So yeah, I spent all night crying instead of sleeping. People I have been told to hate over and over again have indirectly treated me better than every single adult in my life. I don't know about you, but I think that's fucked up.