Celestia and Luna arrived at Twilight's castle the next day.

"I'm so glad you came, Princess," said Twilight. "I'm good at solving friendship problems, but this isn't really a friendship problem."

"No, this is a 'I am my own father' problem," said Pinkie. "Or is it a 'two ferrets stuck in one body' problem?"

"Poor Veil, lost and alone out there in the Everfree Forest," said Fluttershy. "What if he gets eaten by a hydra, or a dragon, or a timber wolf? We need to find him!"

Luna snorted. "Poor Veil? What about everypony else? If you ask me, the best thing to do when we find that vermin is kill him! I already warned him once not to come back here."

"No, don't kill him!" Fluttershy cried. Then she realized who she was speaking to. "I'm sorry, Princess, but Veil's changed now. He said he doesn't want to be bad anymore. It's only Swartt that's bad."

"I don't know," said Rainbow Dash. "That's what Veil always said when he got caught doin' something wrong."

Luna stomped her hoof. "When rocks have crumbled to dust, vermin will still remain vermin!"

"Enough of this talk, sister!" Celestia cried. "We will not kill Veil. Veil and Swartt must be looked upon as two separate entities. Two personalities sharing the same body. One good (ish), one evil. It's a classic Jekyll and Hyde situation."

"You mean a Heckle and Jekyll situation," said Pinkie.

"Luna, you used to be evil when you were Nightmare Moon, but you changed and became good again," Fluttershy reminded her.

"Yes, but I only became evil in the first place because I was corrupted by Discord," said Luna. "Ferrets are born killers."

"I have a theory," said Celestia. "Swartt Sixclaw emerged after Veil lost his memory and Nightshade found him. That wicked fox molded the ferret in her own evil image. All Veil's criminal urges found an outlet in Swartt Sixclaw. I think that all the badness in Veil has gone into his Swartt Sixclaw persona. Veil's real self remains underneath, and the two sides are fighting for control. He's been separated into his good and evil halves."

"Yeah, but he never turned back into himself when he was the Warlord," said Rainbow Dash. "Why is he suddenly doing it now?"

"And how did he come back to life?" added Twilight. "No magic can raise the dead!"

Celestia frowned. "I don't know the answers to those questions, but I do have an idea of how we can deal with the Sixclaws. Obviously Swartt must be destroyed, but maybe we can do that without harming Veil. We must make a serum, a potion that separates the personification of inner darkness from one's body."

"What does that mean?" Fluttershy asked.

"It means we have to mix up a potion and inject it into Veil. Then, his good and evil sides will finally separate, and Veil and Swartt will become two separate ferrets."

"Do you really know how to do that? Are you sure it won't hurt Veil?"

"Don't worry, Fluttershy. I know exactly how to create the serum, and it will not hurt Veil," Celestia reassured her. "Twilight can help me make it."

Twilight saluted the princess. "Yes, ma'am! I can do that. Scientific stuff is no problem for me."

"The rest of you must find Veil," Celestia said. "There's no time to lose!"

Luna, Fluttershy, Rainbow, Pinkie, Applejack and Rarity left Twilight's house immediately and set out to search for Veil.

All week, the ponies combed Equestria, but they couldn't find Veil and Swartt anywhere. In truth, the ferret did not know where he was himself, either half of him. Neither of them had any memory of what his other side had done, so whenever they switched back and forth, the one regaining control would always find himself in an unfamiliar location. They would wander around and get even more lost.

Finally, one day, Swartt discovered the edge of the Everfree Forest. He stumbled out of the dark woods and found himself on a farm. He had never seen this place before. "At least if it's a farm dere'll be somethin' ta eat," he thought. "An' maybe da creatures livin' dere know da way to dat place I'm s'posed ta go."

He went up to the farmhouse and banged on the door. A gray pony opened it. She was Pinkie Pie's sister, Maud Pie! "Hello," Maud said dully.

"Do ya know da way ta Redwall Abbey?" Swartt demanded.

"No. Never heard of it."

"Isn't dis Mossflower Country?"

"No, this is Equestria."

Swartt shook his head. "Ain't dat da luck! Don't dat just figure? I've been stumblin' around in dat jungle for days an' I ended up right back where I started. Well, as long as I'm here, gimme some grub!"

"Grub?"

"Are ya deaf? Don't ya know what grub is? Food, I want food!"

"Um, all we have are rocks."

Swartt got a greedy look in his eye. "Rocks, huh? I know guys dat'd croak deir best friends for a rock." He thought she was talking about diamonds.

"Not this kind of rocks," said Maud. "These rocks are for eating."

"I ain't never hoid o' rocks you could eat," said Swartt, "but I'm hungry enough dat I'll try anyt'ing!"

Maud led him to the kitchen and served him some rocks. The rest of her family was out buying farming tools. The ones they had kept breaking because they kept using them on rocks.

Swartt put a rock into his mouth and started to chew it, but it was too hard. He broke a tooth. "What is dis? Are ya tryin' ta poison me?"

"This is what my family eats all the time, sir," Maud said nervously.

"Gimme somethin' else!"

"I don't have anything else."

"What? What kinda farm is dis?"

"A rock farm, sir."

Swartt cursed and leaped up from his chair. "If I had my switchblade wit' me, I'd carve my initials into ya throat!"

He continued to demand some other food, but Maud didn't have any to give him. So he began to choke her and beat her up, just as he had done to Fluttershy.

Suddenly he stopped. Maud dropped to the ground.

Swartt had turned back into Veil. Veil looked around confusedly. "Where am I?" He saw Maud lying injured on the ground. "Are you all right? What happened to you?"

"You know what happened. You're the one who did this to me. Get away from me." She still spoke in the same flat monotone even as she scrambled away from the ferret, holding out her hooves to protect herself.

"I never did anything to you!" Veil protested. "Life's hard and cruel for a poor ferret that's all alone in the world."

"Get out of my house, vermin."

Just then the door opened and Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, and Princess Luna came in. Pinkie Pie let out a cry when she saw her sister's state. Maud had a black eye and bruises on her face. She had choke marks just like the ones on Fluttershy's neck.

"Maud! What happened?" Pinkie said.

Maud pointed at Veil. "He broke in, demanded food. When I said I didn't have anything but rocks, he started choking me."

"I don't remember any of that!" Veil cried. Then he saw Fluttershy. "Fluttershy, where did you get those marks on your neck? Has somebeast been choking you? If I catch the dirty vermin who dared to hurt you, I'll give him a good beating!"

"Ya best give yerself a blame good thrashin', then," snapped Applejack. "Cause yore the one who did this. Look at the marks on Fluttershy's neck! Look at the marks on Maud's neck! They match yore fingerprints awfully well, don't they?"

Veil looked. It was true. "But I don't remember anything!" He started to cry.

Fluttershy put her arm around him.

"I wouldn't get too close to him," said Luna. "He could turn back into Swartt at any moment."

"What? What do you mean?" Veil asked.

Fluttershy wasn't sure what to say. Of course Veil was entitled to learn the truth about himself, but how was she supposed to tell him?

Rainbow Dash, in her typical blunt fashion, delivered the news. "Veil," she said, "you are your father!"

"Huh? How can I be my own father?"

"Do you remember when you went back in time and got shot?" Rarity asked. "You lost your memory and got stuck in the past. You took the new name Swartt Sixclaw and became an evil warlord."

"Like my father?"

"No," Luna said. "Not like your father. You literally were your father. The ferret we thought was Swartt Sixclaw was really your own future self. Then you married another ferret named Bluefen and had a son, who travelled back in time to become you, creating a time loop."

"Now you're caught between your good and evil sides," said Rainbow. "You know how you have long periods of time where you can't remember what you've been doin'? That's because you become your father, Swartt Sixclaw, during that time. You don't remember what he does, and when he's in control, he doesn't remember what you do."

Veil's mouth hung open. He was struck dumb.

"I'm sorry, Veil, but it's true," said Fluttershy, hugging him.

"So I really did hurt you," said Veil. "And that other pony over there. No matter how hard I try to be good, I just end up doing more evil. I should just kill myself right now."

Fluttershy gasped. "Veil, don't talk like that!"

"There ain't no call to go offin' yoreself, just cause you've done a few bad things," said Applejack.

"But how else can I put an end to my evil father? I mean me. I mean my father. I mean me."

"We have a plan for that," said Luna. "We can take you back to Ponyville, where my sister Celestia and Twilight Sparkle have been working on a magic potion. If we inject it into you, your good and evil halves will separate, and then we can deal with the evil half. Does that sound good?"

But before she'd even finished speaking, Veil had turned into Swartt, and Swartt caught enough of Luna's words to grasp the situation.

"No, dat don't sound good!" he snapped. "I've got a job ta do, an' I'm gonna do it! An' no unicorn, Pegasus, or dirt pony is gonna stop me."

Pinkie giggled. "Silly! We're called earth ponies!"

Luna tried to do a spell, but Swartt pushed past her and bolted out the door. He ran back into the forest.

Everypony rushed outside, but the ferret was already out of sight.

"Aw, horsefeathers! He's gone again," Applejack groaned.

"He said he had a job to do," Fluttershy said. "What do you think he was talking about?"

"I don't know," said Maud, "but he was asking me the way to some place called Redwall Abbey."

"Redwall Abbey? Why does he want to go there?" said Rainbow Dash. She had never been to Redwall herself, but she had met some creatures from there when they came to help her and her good friend Sunflash the Mace defend the mountain of Salamandastron.

"Whatever the reason, it can't be good," said Luna.