"And that's what happened so far, Graze," Kill finished his tale, crouching inches away from me on the cobblestone floating fortress consumed within the darkness. I just sat there, inert, silent, embracing the petrified motherly figure, not ever wanting to let go. "Joy is out there. He needs us... he needs you. That's why he sent me here."

"..." I didn't want to leave, and I didn't want to stay... I was lost for words, and the only thing I knew to say was the truth. "Nothing makes sense, anymore... why would you two stay around with me? Everypony knows I never did anything good, anyways. It's because of me that Joy is in that dilemma in the first place. I do destroy everything I touch, even myself."

Now it was Kill's turn to sit back in stunned silence. He opened his mouth in anger, but no words came out. He tried again, but spat whatever he was prepared to say into the endless void, throwing away the sense of being as caring as Joy in the matters of this. It would have only made things worse, but he had no shame in holding back.

"Look how weak and pathetic you are. You really are a lost child without Joy and I." Kill's cold harshness finally began to bleed from his words like water from a slowly collapsing dam. "The day is going to come where we won't be there. Then what are you going to do? Sit there and cry for mommy? Is that who Joy and I have been siding with? A cry baby?!"

Those words struck deep into my core, fueling something nasty to fight back and retaliate. "Y-you don't know anything that I feel! You don't know what it's like to be the blame for everything, the scapegoat for every last little thing that goes wrong! You're just a piece of my mind!" I stuttered as I choked on freshly-formed tears, muttering from the cobblestone that was my only flimsy protection from Kill's penetrating eyes.

I heard his heavy breath release his pent up rage. Only then did I realize that I had made a big mistake. "Stand up like a stallion and look at me, Graze!"

I refused to obey. "Stand up, and look at me!" he repeated with more hate in his words. "I swear to the Goddesses, if you don't move I'll break that bucking statue! It is meaningless to us!"

I knew he would do it. It was Kill—whenever he was given the opportunity, he had no shame in doing anything. I finally rose to my hooves, staring at the doppelganger before me. "What do you see?" he asked.

Candy cane mane, light cerulean coat, black jacket, red-violet irises... and that very same blotted patch of white on my snout. "I see me," I finally responded.

"Good, now that you're watching me-POW!-" Kill bucked me straight in the jaw, dropping me like a stone to the floor. "How dare you tell me in front of my bucking face that ‘I don't know anything that you feel’?! Huh?! How dare you!" His voice echoed throughout the ruins of Ponyville as well as the darkness... it took a while before the echo had come to an end, but the sheer intensity of his voice carried on for miles on end. 

I had come to realize that emotion was the strongest quality inside this seemingly endless abyss.

As if the mother scene wasn't enough, Kill had pushed me to the verge of insanity with that one. Literally—my own mind was attacking me. "Yeah, rub that cheek and listen to me well, you ungrateful, lonely brat," Kill hissed. "Do you know what Joy and I have to deal with everyday?"

I shook my head. "I thought so. Let me be so kind, for once in my life,” he rolled his eyes, “to clear your little head of this whole 'We don't know anything' dilemma.

"Every. Bucking. Day. Joy and I have to remove the 'bad thoughts'. Do you know what the bad thoughts are, Graze?"

I shook my head, once more, waiting in fear for the answer. "The bad thoughts are the mean ponies. The bad thoughts are Ponyville. The bad thoughts is your oh-so secret suicide--your escape--and the worst of all, it is her!" He pointed his clothed hoof to the statue. "Everything here is your fears--the exact same things that we do our best to repress each and every day in order to keep you sane! We are your sanity, and you have yet to realize that!"  

I was shaking now, trembling in disbelieving anger at Kill's words. "W-why would you repress the thoughts of my own mother?!" I questioned, needing the reason as to why they'd remove the one thing I was so desperate to see.

With a heavy burdened sigh, Kill paused to reminisce on that one stressful day of work.

"One day, because Joy felt sorry for you, we decided it would be a bit healthy to allow one memory to flow by... what a terrible idea that was, considering how much of a raging, hormonal juvenile at the time. Things escalated quickly, and you turned into a nervous wreck in no time, randomly breaking down in tears for hours upon hours-- just like you are right now! That is why, vessel, we repressed those memories; because it doesn’t only hurt you, it hurts us!" Kill had answered every single question, keeping his cool until now. I heard the pain and malice in his voice. His voice! For the first time ever in my life did I hear Kill sob.  

"A-and you know what's the worst part?" he shuddered angrily, forcing down the heavy lump in his throat, trying his best not to give in to the emotions. "You have no faith in us... that's why all these are your fears! Faith is the only one thing that can defeat fear, and you're just here, waddling in your own self pity! I now know why Joy was so desperate for me to come here."

Through the moments of silence that followed, Kill's words had sunken deep into my skull. "Why is that? Why was Joy so desperate?" I wondered out loud.

It took Kill a moment to muster the strength in order for a proper response. I  trotted to his side and laid a comforting hoof over his shoulder, a guide to tell him that everything was going to be okay.

"Because, my brother had the ability throw away the common sense and believe in me, no matter how much of a screw up I am. And I had faith in him to be alive when I get back, to fight as I would. Right out there in the real world, Joy is risking his life to keep a secret safe for a pony who he knew had no faith in him. But guess what? He always had faith in you, and I now know what Joy knew... once those fears kept on showing up, I realized that you never had a single solitary ounce of faith in us."

Kill, still trying to sort this whole mess out as much as I was, sucked in a deep breath and shook the imaginary weight of all this unsettling emotional drama off of his shoulders. He was never good at this sort of thing. "That's why you needed us working overtime, to fight your fears for you. He really is the saint of the three of us, that brother of mine,” he spoke in his regular voice. “I would've dumped you right then and there, as I can right now," Kill chuckled with a slow shake of his head. "But, do you know what's stopping me?"

"...Choice?" I guessed.

"Aren't you a bright stallion?" Kill answered with his expected sarcasm. "You're correct. At the beginning of everything is the choice of a pony. And later on, that affects his or her’s life. But, do you want to see what choice and faith can do to something to a wreck of a place like this?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. I opened my mouth in response, but was quickly hushed by the stallion. "Don't even bother answering me, I am going to show you anyway. You need to see this... my happy place."

The stallion rose to his hind legs, his wings aiding his balance as he rooted himself to the floor with his forelegs aiming towards the heavens in this hellhole.

The place was no longer a dark, empty void. Blocks cascaded far and wide from beneath and above, bringing life to the place as water sprouted from the earth, forming a river over the sea-blue brick-laid bridge to a colorful, lively town known as Ponyville. Ponies painted with many vibrant colors and life escaped their stony imprisonment and went along their usual business, happily trotting with friends and families. My acquaintance, the water fountain,  once again poured water from her lips as ponies gathered around her, sitting on her concrete rim for that refreshing breeze alongside the water that drizzled against their backs.

"It's so beautiful... and the ponies, they are so happy," I muttered, trying my best to nitpick at their exact detail while in a sense of shock and awe.

"You, Joy, and I all knew that ponies said bad things about us, but it was your choice to focus on them. Grim's spell reinforced the worst of all that abuse, and when it came to that, you were a bit... lost," Kill admitted, standing on the fully laid out cobblestone path, watching as a playful group of foals laughed their way in steadfast gallops straight through us.

"Wow! What's going on?! Are we ghosts or something?" I said in shock as it dawned on me that I couldn't be felt or seen by other than Kill.

"You could say that, since we don't actually exist in this time period—well, not our older selves, at least." I tilted my head, dumbfounded at Kill's expanded knowledge on the topic. These consciences seemed to have known more about the mind than I ever would.

"We're in the past, Graze, the foundation of everypony's lives, which soon comes back to haunt us for our terrible choices," he explained, observing  the happy, joyous ways of the citizens of this small town. "Everypony regrets one thing, and this right here is yours. You shouldn't be too fixated on what other ponies say about you, ya know?" He turned to me with a smile before turning his attention back to the fillies and colts. "They're not the ones putting you to sleep at night, bro— that is only done by you. Please, don't forget that."

I replied with a smile to the stallion, "But I have one question." Kill rose an eyebrow, taking interest of what it possibly could have been. "If everything and everypony here is restored... where is my mom?"

"Why don't you look to where the foals went?" Kill pointed towards an open park past the bridge, where the rushing water beneath was linked directly to my old friend, the streaming fountain.

Colts and fillies gathered round a golden manned mare, her hooves reaching out toward the sky as did her statue from before, singing a tune for the young ones that gathered around. I heard no sound from her, no song, no melody, no voice. And yet, she watched me... those red-violet eyes watched me. Something must have caught her attention to make her smile so, with open hooves as she came to her knees.

Did she notice me? Was I... actually visible to her?

"M-mom?" I called out to her in my slow trot, hoping that she'd have heard, or at least seen me.

"Graze!" I read her lips call out my name.

"Mom!" I called her out, my slow-paced trot turned into a gallop. But as quickly as it started, it faded with another passing colt, phasing right through me at a quicker pace. That little colt was... me.

It was too good to be true. I knew it.

"Why so down in the dumps, Graze? Shouldn't you be happy?" The conscience questioned my emotions. "Just look at them! Mother and son, the unbreakable bond!" Kill rested his shoulder on my back as he watched the touching scene before him.

The snow-white mare coated her son within her scarlet magical grasp as he ran toward her, picking the cerulean pegasus up and into her hooves, embracing the colt, spinning a circle before sitting on her haunches. Finally, she kissed the snowy-white patch of fur on his snout.

I could've only laid my hoof on mine as the moment passed, remembering the feel of a mother's love as I relived the moment. The young colt flailed around in his mother's cradling hooves in laughter, tickled from her kiss.

His laugh was once mine... and that was something I haven't heard in a long, long while.

For the first time in my life was I at peace, knowing that everypony else was wrong, and that my mother was indeed happy to have me. That I wasn't a burden.

"It's time to go, Graze," the conscience spoke to up. "Are you ready to leave your fears behind?" 

"This is not a fear, my friend. I fear nothing else anymore. This is heaven," I took a breath of Ponyville's fresh air, capturing the moment in the process.

"But, I don't deserve this yet! Not when I have my brother to save!" I wiped away the sadness, the memories of Ponyville, and the past with a motivated shout. Only Kill and I, returned to the darkness. There were no blocks, no ponies, no statue and no Melody... nothing more, nothing less.

"Don't you mean 'my brother'?" Kill smiled, knowing well in mind where I was going.

"No! He's mine as well, and you are too! And together, nothing shall stop the three of us! The Three of Me!" I stood on my hindlegs, raising my forehoof skyward with clenched teeth, bringing it back down to earth with a forceful punch. A glimpse of white light pierced through the darkness as I shattered a piece of Grim's Paranoia.

"No pony to doubt me!" POW! I bucked the shadows once more, the light growing brighter and brighter, illuminating the enclosed box that we were trapped in. "No fear to stop me!"

"No pride to judge myself!" One more punch!

"And no shame to hold me back!" I fluttered my wings and jumped, using the momentum for an extra boost as I bucked through the darkness.

The spell shattered like glass around us as it brought Kill and I into a familiar environment. I ignored the fatigue that my physical body experienced as I momentarily laid to rest on the school's welcoming concrete compound.

What did Joy do to my body? It felt so... wrecked!

In the background stood the four story high facility, its width stretching miles onward, curving symmetrically, nearly meeting at their ends and once again only to continue in a straight line. Whoever designed the school to look like a hoofprint was a bucking genius.

In charge of my body once more, Kill was reunited with his brother, a half-beaten Joy, who only laughed in delightful relief to see two other similar faces. "Ha...ha! I told you that I'd make it!" Joy boasted with a forced, ‘horse’ laugh in the face of Kill. "I was actually starting to doubt you, brother," the conscience exhaled deeply, smiling with a black and blue eye as he brought his brother into an embrace.

"Trust me, you won't have made it, Kill—five against one is terrible!" Joy quickly noted in his chirpy ways, releasing his welcoming hug. "And look at you, Graze! You seem to be a whole new stallion!" Joy commented as he watched me struggle to stand on all fours in my body's half-beaten state. "I made sure to save you some wingpower, Graze..."

I was about to respond to Joy when a certain grave pony and his company of clones interrupted me. "You pegasi really are stubborn ponies," Grim stated on the other side of the field, displeased to see his opponent rise once more. "You may have taken out one of them—I congratulate you on that—but you won't be doing that again anytime soon. With everyone you destroy, the others get stronger, until you have to face me!" he explained.

"It's too late for any pegasus surprise attacks. You haven't a ghost of a chance!" he exclaimed, laughing manically as he swiped his hoof through the air. "Give up!"

"I've faced every trick up your rotten sleeve, Grim! And you haven't won just yet!" I retaliated with a shout, swiping away his negativity. "Give up on trying to make me... give up!"

He seems different than before, the Grave pony thought to himself. Just what did he see in Paranoia?

"Alright, since you want it to be done that way, so be it!" Grim bluffed, anchoring his hooves onto the floor, charging his horn with a click-click as if he was reloading the magical ammunition. That could not have been anything good. "Tell me when you're ready."

"We're on our last stand! Let’s make every hit count!" Kill exclaimed to his brother, perched on my left shoulder. The two were more than excited for this--in fact, they seemed downright enthusiastic about this battle. "Joy, are you ready for this?!"

"You bet I am!" Joy replied, perched on my left.

"Resonate!" The two consciences shouted simultaneously. "Conscience over conscience!"

Resonance Mode has been activated. Only when under 25% of health can you activate this mode.

Note: Every character has different effects. Experiment, for science. You Monster.

Switch between Kill and Joy for the ultimate offense and defense! Note, you cannot equip both at the same time... use them wisely!]

Even through my worn out status, wincing and gritting my teeth to ignore the pain, I felt a strange force flow through me, rejuvenating me despite the obvious bruises dotting my body. 

I stared skyward, basking in the heat of Celestia's sun and dropping my face towards Grim, allowing my mane to flow with a powerful gust that surrounded me from a hearty beat of my wings, pitching dust and dirt throughout the field and around me. The air resistance--through which every pegasi has to force themselves through--felt a bit weaker, immensely cutting down the intervals between the synchronized beats.

Resonance: Wingpower!

Speed/Attack/Magic +33%

“Ohoho yes, I can get used to this!” I deviously smiled, allowing the magic to course through my veins,

Argh! What is this?! His magic... I can feel pegasi magic? Grim rummaged through his thoughts in doubt. I-Impossible! The air around him seemed to thicken, clinging to his skin like a wet rag and pushing him down into the dirt. He stared down angrily at me, changing his stance to more of the offensive stature. Never mind that, all I have to do is clip those wings.

Primary Objective: Defeat Grim with 25% of your health

Secondary Objective: Defeat Grim with a Pegasus based move

High in the clouds, watching over the school’s weather condition, one lone mantis-green pegasus rested upon the drifting cotton clouds as he observed two ponies, unicorn and pegasus alike, prepare for battle. He leaned over the edge, allowing his black ponytail to wave freely in the wind as he peeped attentively. “Hmph, things are about to get a bit interesting from here on out... my bits are on the pegasus.”

“Now why would you say that, Chaser?” Another voice entered the skies, more stern and gruff than the other associate.

“Ugh,” the appointed Chaser grunted in disgust. “What are you doing here, Charge? Don’t you have a class to teach or something?”

“Why, I’m here for the same reason you are, Chaser,” the suited, alicorn-built stallion stated.

“For the entertainment.”

Next Chapter: Chapter Seven: The Hazmat Vs The Grave Pony Estimated time remaining: 45 Minutes