Alternate POV Series: DWW 3, Honesty part 2

Alternate POV Series: Discord World War.
Written by James Sylar (myself).
Translated by Drake Epsilon
Idea original by Alex Warlorn.
MLP: FIM is owned by Hasbro (?).
Every other character or reference belongs to its respective owner.

Chapter 3. Honesty’s Crown. Part 2
*Unofficial Opening Song: Brightdown by Tamaki Nami

++++AJ++++

While Ah was unconscious, Ah dreamed of somepony uncertainly playin’ the piano. Ah was abruptly awaked shortly after that, only to find meh in front of… myself.

“Applejack! You don’t have an idea of how glad it makes me to see you alright, deary!”

“Wait, are yah…” Ah couldn’t believe it, but she was right in front of meh, and it wasn’t an illusion, “Orangejack?”

“Well, who else could I be?” She said with a smile, but her face showed signs of exhaustion, “I’m just glad I found you before the others did.”  

“The others? What are yah talkin’ about? More importantly, how did yah ended in this reality?”

She sighed, “Applejack, I will explain it, but you need to hear it all before you take any decision, because what I will say can be misunderstood very easily.”

Ah didn’t felt like she was bein’ dishonest, so Ah nodded.

She breathed deeply, “Discord brought me here; I am one of his harlequins.”

I kept  ma mouth shout, avoidin’ a gigantic “WHAT?!” form escapin’.

“W-what do yah mean?”

“Well, I do not know precisely how he did it, but he snatched me from my home in my reality and brought me here. Then, he tried to make me work from him, but I told him that I will never obey him! He threw me here with the others harlequins anyway, but that was his mistake, because I’m not going back to his side!”

Again, Ah didn’t felt like she was lyin’.

“So, are yah goin’ to betray him?”

“You could say that, but I was never one of his allies to begin with. Anyway, we need to find your friends and get out of this place; the whole city is a giant trap!”

“Wait, here is the second holder of the honesty, we can’t leave without her!”

“Haven’t you saw or read any of those stories when the bad guys send a fake distress call to lure the protagonist? That’s what your radar detected!” She paused, “And yes, Discord knows about your radar, and your plan too. The only reason you have got this far is because you will shoot him with the rainbow the moment he shows his face.”

“So he is afraid of us, heh.”

“Don’t get to cocky; his harlequins are what he is doing to deal with you all without having to get closer.”

“Got it. So, how many harlequins are there? The others were brought from alternate realities like yah?”

“I would prefer to explain everything once we are all together, other way I will have to repeat the same again and again…”

And with that said, we start the search of  ma friends.

++++Fluttershy++++

We fell inside of a pool, and we almost drown, but we managed to pull ourselves out of that pinch.
However, we just enter into another one…

“R-rainbow?”

She didn’t say a word, she just jumped towards us, and only thanks to Cruel reflexes, we avoided her sharp wings.

“She isn’t our Rainbow, mom!” Cruel yelled, holding the wood sword with one of her wings.

“How do you dare?” She whispered with anger, “How do you dare to call her like that?!”

In a couple of seconds she was right in front of us, and Cruel barely managed to defend ourselves with the sword. Immediately, we were thrown against a wall.

We smashed against it very hard, with our bones almost breaking and us barely holding to conscience.  

We felt to the ground, coughing blood. Our body felt numb and pain at the same time.

“H-how... can she so strong…” Cruel said, trying to raise our head.

She was there, looking at us with hatred.
“You are nothing but a parasite… and a weakling… you both are worthless…”

She was going to kill us, that was surely her intention. But, just like in a cool anime, something stopped her at the last moment.

She was hit, with enough force to send her flying against a wall too, by a pink hoof attached to our favorite party pony.

“YOU AREN’T GOING TO HURT MY FRIENDS!!”

++++Lightning Arrow++++

“Wow! That was intense!” I yelled, after I have landed in my hooves.

“Trixie doesn’t share your excitement!” The light blue magician angrily said, while she was still hanging from a lamp post.

I helped her get to the ground, since she was still too dizzy to use her magic. After a couple of seconds, and tumbles, she seemed to be ready to walk on her own again.

“We should look for your friends.”

“Trixie agrees, and I have learned a spell that will show us our way! …probably.”

“Probably?”

“I haven’t had the time or chance to actually use it, I only read about it!”

“Well, that sounds promising.” I said with sarcasm.

“Do you have a better idea?”

“I could fly over the city and look around!”

“That will separate us!”

“I can carry you!”

“I don’t need you to carry me, I can carry myself!”

“What does that even mean?!”

“SHUT UP!” That was a new voice, and after glancing towards its origin, we jumped away form a cart that was about to crush us.

There was, running toward us, an angry harlequin. And she was throwing anything that she came across to our direction.

“Trixie will like to call a truce.” She said as she used her magic to repel a vending machine.

“Deal, now shall we do?” I used my talent to deviate a mail box.

“Trixie propose a tactical retreat!”

"Do you happen to have the cleverest ideas?" I said with an arrogant smile, and we both instantly flew from that thing that was still throwing us random things that I didn’t think the city would even have.

++++Blinkie++++

After the city started spinning like crazy, my sister and I held up each other and we didn’t let go no matter what. We ended up flying through the windows of the third floor of a hospital, crashing right into an empty nursery room.    

“Where is everypony else?” my sister said.

“They should have crashed in other places, but I don’t think they are too far. Let’s get out of here first.”

And so, we walked towards our improvised entrance, but we found that we were on a third floor.

“It’s too high to jump, let’s go back and finds some stairs.”

My sister nodded, and we started to traverse the hospital. I was expecting it to be totally creepy, like those you see in movies, but this one was pretty nice and clean. It was empty though, not a single doctor, nurse or even patient.

We could hear someone singing thought the speakers, but it seemed like an old record.

“Hush now… quite now… it’s time to lay your sleepy head…”

The singer had a sweet voice, but there was something in her pacing or tone that gave me shivers.

We didn’t pay attention to it, since other electronics, like the radios, were still turned on.

“It this way, I think…” Neither I nor my sister had ever been in a building that big before, so we got lost almost immediately.

Then, we found an aisle covered in graffiti; the heart symbol and love phrases written all over the walls, floor and ceiling.

That was weird, but the phrases become more and more obsessive, and I was very suspicious of the red liquid that was used to paint them.

“Don’t you think that that song is more clear-cut here?” my sister pointed, and she was right.

It sounded almost as if the sound wasn’t coming for the speakers but from the pony that was standing on the doors at the other side of the hallway.

She was wearing a mask that covered her eyes, but that showed us her smile. She would have look like a kind and nice pony, if she wasn’t holding a HUGE knife that was dripping that mysterious red liquid.

“HAY NO!” I yelled as I grabbed (and practically carried) my sister and run on the opposite direction.

++++Rainbow++++

So I was tied, unable to move, turn away, or even blink, because the harlequin that looked kinda like Pinkie had put a strange device in my head, holding my eyelids open.

“Are you enjoying the movie, Dashie?” she said with a haughty smile, while she was moistening my eyes with a small dropper.

“Of course, this is the best movie I have ever seen in my life!” I sarcastically said.

“The best movie you have seen so far, because I have a little ace under my sleeve!”

She then pulled out a literal ace from under her sleeve. I don’t think it’s necessary to mention that she wasn’t wearing anything with sleeves until a few seconds before.

After that, she showed me the rest of her collection, with titles like "Bambi 4: The Revenge of the return of the adorableness in space" and "Carebears: The next generation".

Then we felt a tremor, and the walls shook a little.

"Give me a moment ..." The Harlequin said pausing the video and walking towards a crack that had formed on the wall in front of us.

"I told them to play away from this area because I did not want to be disturbed when I-" she murmured somewhat annoyed, just before a large part of the wall was torn down and fell on it, covering her with rocks, debris, and a medium sized golem.

A figure ventured into the room at the newly created entry, and as my eyes adjusted to the light, I could recognize that it was Twilight, followed closely by Night Gale.

"Rainbow!" The unicorn shouted seeing me with concern, teleporting himself in front of me and cutting whatever kept me tied.
It truly felt good to be able to flap my wings and blinking on my own.

“Are you okey? Twilight asked, and I replied in the most natural way I thought of, I gave her a hug.

“I’m fine, but I’ll need some therapy to get all the adorableness out of my system.”

Twilight laughed a little, “I know three ponies who would be happy to help you!”

We joined with Night and we left the place immediately, not stopping to see how the harlequin was.

++++Cruel++++

Pinkie hit the fake Rainbow directly on her face, but she took it pretty well, and returned it punching our friend in the stomach.

Pinkie then gave her a head-butt followed by a kick, but the harlequin managed to block their impacts!

Sparks were flying every time they crossed hooves, as if it were an excessive anime! It was amazing!

“Cruel, this is not the time to say things like that, we need to help Pinkie!” My mother said, but even then it cost us quite a lot of effort to move.

I also doubted that Pinkie would need our help, until I realized that she was running out.

Pinkie was not using only her strength, but also her ability to break the 4th wall, whatever that means, and apparently that's exhausting too.

The Harlequin, on the other hand, seemed to have infinite stamina.

“Gomu Gomu no Party Rifle!” Pinkie shouted after having his arm twisted in a way that only she could do it, and then she struck the fake Rainbow so strong that she created a crater by crashing into the ground.

++++Octavia++++

When I finally stood up, I found myself in a very peculiar place. There was no wall or roof, only shadows and darkness as long as one could see. However, I was able to see well enough around me.
There was not too much to see anyway.

The floor seemed to be made of ice, I even saw my reflection in it, but it was not slippery at all.
I felt cold, but I didn’t feel too uncomfortable with it.

I was more bothered with the silence, I could only hear silence. Even my steps didn’t made noise at all.

Then, out of nowhere, I began to hear something in the distance.

I couldn’t identify what it was at first, but I started walking towards it. It wasn’t too hard, since it was the only source of sound in there.

I ended up finding an old radio that was broadcasting someone vigorously playing the piano, though now and then the signal was lost and replaced by static.

The melody seemed oddly familiar, but I was unable to recognize it.  

The radio went off by itself, and the light in the room changed a little bit. I began to hear whispers, and when I looked up I found a group of ponies sitting around a campfire, very close to where I was.

I approached them, and with surprise I discovered that they were my friends, the holders of the element of harmony, but… they weren’t themselves.

Twilight was stoically observing the fire in front of her, and she didn’t reply to anything i said.

Rainbow was chained to the ground, that being the only thing that prevented her to fly away.

Rarity was hording a huge rock that she insisted was a sentient diamond.

Pinkie and Shy were arguing, the latter was being cruel and insulting the previously pink pony, while she was growling angrily at her.

And Applejack was just sitting there, spouting obvious lies and very unlikely facts.

“The color red is a combination of orange and purple. Half-life 3 will be released this summer alongside of Portal 3. There are at least three species of aliens fighting a war just outside of our planet. All of this had happened before, and all will happen again. The forerunners are no more than shadows, but what they left remains under the cold ice. Polar bear’s skin is actually black. The last air bender movie was such a success that it will have two sequels and a TV series adaptation, and Shay-mane-lan received an Oscar for Best Director.”

They were all gray, just as they have told me they ended up when they first meet Discord.

I couldn’t believe that they had fallen for the same trick twice!

Then, I realized that there were three more ponies:

Trixie had makeshift wings glued on her back, and she was flying and yelling how ponies will love her and despair.

Cruel now had a body to herself, but she looked like a small filly, which was afraid of everything, even her own shadow.

Inkie was aside form everypony else, minding her own business and not caring about what was happening to her friends.

“It’s not my problem.” she said.

I felt cold. Was I really the only holder who hadn’t been turned into a twisted version of us?

Then I heard something falling in the ground behind me. It was branches, to be precise, brought to feed the fire by Vinyl.

“Octavia!” she said with tears flowing out of her eyes. Half a second later, she had tackled me and was hugging me as if her life depended on it.

“It was horrible, everypony started acting weird, and I didn’t know what to do! I thought I have lost you too!” she said between sobs, “I’m so sorry, this is my entire fault!”

“Your fault?”

“Yes, it is all her fault, isn’t it?” another voice said, and with the sound effect of an old but cool Sci-Fi’s show, Discord appeared in front of us.

I was too shocked to comment anything, but I instinctively put myself in front of Vinyl.

He didn’t seem to care or to be planning to attack.

“If only she had been a good girl and stayed with everypony else during your little expedition, I wouldn’t had the chance to split your group”, he theatrically said, “And thanks to that, the elements of harmony are not more!!”

“You are wrong! I’m still here!” I said, charging against him, but he just grabbed me with his tail, leaving me hanging in the air from one leg.

“You too need to know to behave.”

“Wait! I helped you! Leave us out of this!” Vinyl screamed, and Discord seemed to have an idea.

“Yes, you helped me, and since I’m a generous god, I will grant you both immunity and salvation from my world of chaos!”

He snapped his fingers and a giant metallic door materialized in front of us. The word Holodeck was written over it, on the air.

“Enter to this room and you will live joyfully and peacefully ever after, you won’t be able to differentiate that from the real world, and I will never dare to bother you two!”

“Don’t listen to him! This must be some kind of trap!” I said.

“I promise in the name of my mother, no small letter, no double meaning, no consequences. Just go away.”

Vinyl was smiling, with tears on her eyes, and locking directly at me, “This is alright, isn’t it? We can forget about all of this, and keep leaving as if nothing had ever happened!”

I took a step backwards, “No, I… I can’t go…”

“But this is our only escape!”

“I can’t leave my friends when they are this damaged!”

She hugged me again, “I am your BEST friend! Please, don’t abandon me!”

I didn’t know what to do. No, I knew what I had to do, but it wasn’t the same as what I wanted to do. Priorities… which one is more important, responsibility or desires?

My heart was about to broke in the indecision, when I catch a glance of the icy floor. I saw my reflection, but not Vinyl’s and not Discord’s either. I could feel her breathing, her heart beating, and her warm, but she wasn’t there.

I felt the cold again. Now I was now able to think clearly and rational.

“I see now, this is all and illusion and you two are fakes…” I said, and they both jumped surprised. I think the other ponies did too. They tried to counter this fact, but they soon vanished as if they have never been there.

At the end, only one of the others had remained the one who was supposed to be Applejack. Now I could see her true face, figuratively, since she was wearing a mask. She had kept the hat, though.

“Let me guess, you are another of Discord’s harlequins, and you have trapped me into some kind of Lotus-eater machine, but for some reason you can’t affect mirrors...”

“You don’t understand!” she said, shivering because of the cold, “You and your friends are going to get hurt if you fight us! They will be defeated, it is the inevitable truth. Isn’t the most reasonable reaction to find comfort on sweet kind lies?”

“I don’t care! Even if the destiny says that we are going to be defeated we are going to fight against it, and defeat it!!”

I tried to kick her just like the REAL applejack would, but I just hit air, and fell in the snow. When had started to fall snow?

“Your fight is futile, but you are too stubborn to realize this yet…” she said, but I couldn’t find where she was.

I blinked, and I was in the real world, apparently I had fallen into a music store. A radio was on, with someone playing the violin on it. I heard it and I felt calm once more.

Now, what I wanted to do and what I had to do were the same, find my friends.

++++Vinyl++++

“Hey, are you alright? That place doesn’t look too stable… maybe you should come out, please.” I said to the little girl who has hiding in the gap between two buildings.

She was scared, so i though it was a bad idea to use telekinesis to pull her out of there, and that place was too small to reach her physically.

I thought that singing will calm her down, but she apparently didn’t like my rendition of Hush now, quiet now, since she tried to go even deeper in her little refugee.  

Then, I remembered a song I had heard somewhere…

“Oh Mother! You are the giver of life,
Remover of pain and sorrow,
Bestowed of happiness,
Oh Creator of the Universe,
May we receive thy supreme light,
May you guide our minds in the right way.”

In retrospect, I think that was supposed to be sung in her original language. But that managed to get the girl to walk for herself to the entrance of her hiding.

“Y-you are not a monster, are you?” she timidly but irreverently said, “Who are you?”

“I am Vi--”

“Vinyl!”

Rarity appeared up behind us, with a look of relief on her face.

“Thank Celestia and Luna you are alright!” she said, walking towards us, “I barely avoid a fight with another of those pesky harlequins and…” she went silent at the very moment she saw the filly, still in the opening of the gap.  

The girl was also surprised, and tried to return to her place, but I managed to hold her before she could escape. She started struggling almost immediately.

“Diamond… Diamond Tiara…” Rarity whispered.

“You know her?”

The little filly stopped fighting, and instead just shut her eyes tightly, but tears started to flow from them.

“Miss Rarity, I am very sor--”  

The holder of generosity put a hoof gently on her mouth. Some tears were also flowing from her eyes.

“It’s alright darling, I’m just glad that you are safe now…”

Rarity hugged the little filly, and even though she was scared at first, soon she was hugging her back.

Then… we noticed her scars. She had a lot of scars, most of them were small and will vanish in short time, but she had bruises and burns too. Just what kind of beast could do that to a filly?

And she had a particularly big and recently made scar going over her right eye, but her eye on itself seemed to be unharmed.

“We need to get everypony else and get out of here.” Rarity said after a short while.

I agreed, but when we were about to leave, there was somepony blocking our way.

“You are leaving us so soon?” she said, a harlequin who looked like the Flutters, but with her hair short and burned.

++++Rarity++++

I realized that this one wasn’t going to leave us alone until we kicked her flank, and as much as I hated to fight and get my hooves damaged and dirty, I wasn’t on my own, I needed to protect Diamond and Vinyl.

“Wait!” Vinyl said with a determined look on her eyes, “I’ll get her distracted; you go and get Eureka and the Puffing Tom!”

“What are you talking about? She is too strong to be fought alone!”

“Leave her to me and go!”

Vinyl’s eyes seemed to glow for a second. Then, I was distracted by the harlequin laughter.

“Do you want to play the hero, little DJ?” she smirked, “Fine, let’s play, but don’t get angry if you get hurt.”

She propelled herself against Vinyl, so quickly that I wasn’t able to do interfere at all. She threw a hoof against her, with enough sheer will to raise a cloud of dust, and threw me and Diamond aside a couple of meters.

The harlequin’s smirk, however, started to vanish when she saw those red eyes glowing through the dust.

“Then I’ll say the same; don’t get angry at me if I hurt you…” Vinyl said, in a tone of voice that actually scared me a bit.

And before the harlequin could do anything, the DJ jumped towards her and punched her in the stomach.

This, at first didn’t seem to affect her, but then the effects appeared and she was launched against the floor, rolling and tumbling on it until the force was lost.

Diamond and I dropped our jaws.

The harlequin stood up in a couple of seconds, looking angry, but then she calmed herself, and even smiled.

“You took me by surprise, DJ girl, I never expected you to have a toy like that!”

“It is nice, isn’t it?” Vinyl said with genuine pride, showing the device she had attached to her hoof.

To me, it looked like a metallic cylinder with some lights and vacuum tubes plugged to it.

Could it be some kind of hoof-held, weapon zed party cannon?

Then I noticed that the Dial Fossil was plugged into it sides, almost as if it were a shield.

“This is the Dial Cannon that Eureka build to allow me to fight alongside my friends! Everything that you threw at me, I will take it and threw it back at you!”

The harlequin grinned, “This will be interesting.”