Chapter 49: The Night Blah Went Crazy

The Canterlot sculpture garden was silent, and yet hot with the accusatory glares of 6 ponies - Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and even Princess Celestia. Seraphina stood profesionally in the back, not quite as tense as the ponies, but watching Discord carefully nonetheless. Discord, on the other hand, put on as innocent a face as he could.

"Why hello, my little ponies," Discord greeted, feigning ignorance, "What a surprise, running into you here! I'm sorry for wandering off like that, you see, Pinkie and I-"

"We already know what happened!" Rainbow Dash furiously interrupted. "We found her in your room. Dead!"

"D... Dead?!" Discord clasped his hands to his face in an expression of shock, but it was impossible to tell whether or not that was genuine. "Oh my! How did that happen?"

"Most everyone here is fairly certain that you killed her," Seraphina calmly stated.

"Me? Murder Pinkie?" Discord scoffed. "I know I'm not the most benevolent of gods, but I wouldn't sink THAT low... you of all ponies should know that, Celestia."

"You have yet to prove your innocence, Discord," Celestia replied, indifferent. "Until then, you are the prime suspect."

"How absurd!" protested Discord. "What about Blah? Surely he'd agree that the best pony isn't capable of such an evil crime!" He tapped on Sera's head a few times. "And I know you're in there, I heard about what happened."

"Blah is currently unconcsious," Sera responded. "I tucked him away in a recessive corner of my mind, giving him some space to meditate and calm his nerves. He was hit pretty hard by the discovery of Pinkie's death, you know. Anyway, without further ado, let us begin our interrogation with a simple question. Where were you in the past hour?"

"Well, we weren't going to tell you this, buuuuuut..." Discord began. "Pinkie and I snuck out to hit the town. Not literally, of course, but we checked out a few places. She wanted to show me that Canterlot wasn't completely posh and boring."

"You went out in public?" gasped Rarity. "That should have raised quite a fuss. I was also out on the town, you see, and if anypony had caught sight of you, I likely would have heard about it before long."

"But they didn't, because I was in disguise!" explained Discord. He snapped his fingers, and with a quick puff of smoke, his mismatched form was replaced with that of a black-maned, brown unicorn stallion in a light gray suit. His sudden, rather dashing appearance caught Rarity off-guard. "Ta-daa!"

"I see... you would have blended in quite well," observed Sera. "All right, then. When did you and Pinkie separate?"

Discord casually transformed back into his old self, once again startling Rarity. "Oh, I'd say about..." He checked his wrist, which suddenly had a watch around it. "Ten or fifteen minutes ago."

"Aha!" snapped Applejack. "We found Pinkie about half an hour ago. You must be lyin'!"

Discord was taken aback. "What? Half an hour?!"

"Ah, but time may not necessarily matter in this context," Sera suggested. "It has already been established that time travel is possible. The body we found may be from the future, planted here and now to spark conflict."

"And even if Discord could travel through time," added Celestia, "it's doubtful that he would do such a thing knowing that he was alone with Pinkie at the same time. It would only draw suspicion towards himself."

"Well..." Twilight spoke. "There's also the fact that he already influenced the past by giving Blah the Sonic Screwdriver using some kind of proxy. If he can transport objects across time, what's stopping him from doing the same thing with Pinkie? And you know, he could always be trying to use reverse psychology on us."

Rainbow Dash seemed lost at the term. "Uh... reverse what?" she repeated.

"Reverse psychology. It's the act of saying or doing one thing to make someone believe the opposite. He would be trying to make us say 'It's too obvious that he's the murderer, so he couldn't be.'"

"I don't see how that could work on anypony," Rainbow said, still confused. "If it's that obvious, it HAS to be him."

"That certainly sounds like a tactic Discord might employ," Sera agreed with Twilight. "But we still have yet to hear why Pinkie separated from Discord. Perhaps that will make things clearer."

There was silence. "Oh, is it my turn to talk again?" Discord asked sarcastically. "I couldn't tell, what with all of you talking up a storm like that."

"Just answer the question," demanded Applejack.

"You didn't even ask a question!" Discord refuted with a snarky grin, which was only met with impatient stares. "But I'll tell you. You see, Pinkie was... kidnapped!"

"...Kidnapped." Twilight reacted dully. "And you couldn't stop them. Yep, I see no problem with that story at all."

"I'll have you know I was distracted when it happened," Discord defended.

"Don't be ridiculous!" The shouting voice was Blah's. At some point, he had woken up and taken control of Sera's body again, and he was approaching Discord threateningly. "If you weren't aware that she had disappeared, what makes you so sure she was kidnapped? There is no situation in which you could have seen her and not done anything about it. So just admit it already! You killed Pinkie!"

Discord cowered at the ferocity of Blah's accusation. "Et tu, Blah-te?" he uttered. "I thought you trusted me..."

"You thought I trusted YOU?" Blah snapped, raising his voice further. "The only reason I agreed to that deal was because I thought there was no way you could betray us with your freedom at stake! But NO, you had to go and sink lower than you've ever sunk before, beyond what even I thought you capable of!"

"Sera, did you wake Blah up on purpose...?" Twilight asked cautiously. "'Cause it looks like he needed more time to himself..."

"His emotions are too strong," Sera responded telepathically. "I cannot stop him from assuming control..."

"Can ya really blame him?" Applejack asked. "He's only sayin' what's at the back of all of our minds..."

"Listen, Blah," Discord quickly argued, "Don't you realize this is exactly what Charge wants? If you lose your trust in me, I'm no longer a threat to them!"

"And you're just hiding behind that excuse," Blah snapped. "But I can see right through your trickery, Discord. I don't need your help to beat Charge and you know it!"

The panic on Discord's face showed like a blemish on otherwise flawless skin. It looked very out of place. But Blah didn't seem to care. To him, it only incriminated him further.

Twilight, on the other hand, wasn't so sure. "Discord has a point..." she whispered to herself. "Charge would have a lot to gain by framing him with Pinkie's murder."

"My thoughts exactly," Sera replied. "We have little chance of convincing Blah of that possibility, however. And unfortunately, I cannot detain him."

"I can win this entire game all by myself if I have to!" Blah roared, paying no attention to Twilight and Sera's conversation.

"...and, left to his own devices, Blah could very well go on a rampage,' concluded Sera. 'We must find some way to silence him, for his own good. At least until we have more definitive evidence as to the true culprit."

"What about the body that Eggman and Tails are working on?" Twilight suggested. "He can't actually use it until it's finished, right?"

"...a Knight of Space is practically DESTINED to work alone!"

"Perhaps..." Sera considered. "Not even Blah in his current state could activate a machine without a power source. Getting him there will be a challenge, though. Blah is all but blocking me from using psionics."

"I can teleport you to Eggman's lab," Twilight offered. "Maybe that'll be all that you need..."

"...just wait until I hit God Tier, then I'll wreck EVERYTHING!"

"It is worth a try," Sera hastily agreed. "Whenever you are ready."

Twilight closed her eyes, and her horn started to glow. In a flash of purple light, Sera disappeared, bringing an eerie yet comforting silence to the area.

"...ok, try it now."

Click. "INITIATING FLIGHT TEST PROGRAM ALPHA." Whirrr.

"Hmm... still a little off-balance. Must be the weight distrubution."

"It's probably that big head of yours."

"Still not as big as your gut, eggy!"

"I thought we were supposed to be working together... come on, let's shut it down and tr-"

"-don't even care WHO you are, YOU'LL be next!"

Blah froze mid-threat, the target of his finger-pointing no longer present. His surroundings had changed abruptly to that of Eggman's lab, where the two engineers were in the middle of testing Metal Tails's flight program while Sonic watched from atop a small stack of boxes serving as a makeshift chair. All three of them stared at the new arrival.

"Sera, what are you doing," Blah angrily questioned.

"I apologize for interrupting," Sera explained to the inventors, ignoring Blah, "but we are in dire need of a new home for our friend Blah."

"Why, is he feeling ok?" Sonic asked with concern, standing up.

"There is no time to explain. We need to deposit Blah into the robot early and give him some time to rest."

"I'm perfectly fine, Sera," Blah urged. "I just need to get into the game and start my quest, and for that I need Metails." He looked up at the flying robot, failing to notice its wobbly course. "Looks like he's already operational, great! Sera, do your thing."

"But we only just started..." Tails interrupted. "We still have a lot of tes-"

"I said DO IT!" yelled Blah. "I don't have any time to waste, I need to get into the medium NOW!"

"Ok, I see what you mean..." Sonic backed off.

"First, shut down the robot and remove its power source," Sera instructed. "We cannot risk setting Blah loose in his current state."

"What." Blah obviously was not happy with this idea. "Don't you dare."

"Do what Sera says," Sonic ordered Eggman, who cooperatively held up a remote control in preparation.

"Put that down!" cried Blah as he lunged for the remote, but he felt something hold him back. Sonic's reaction time was far superior, and he was able to grab onto both of his arms and keep him restrained. Physically weaker than he was used to, and without the ability to utilize Sera's telekinesis, Blah was helpless, but that didn't keep him from struggling. "Let me go... LET ME GO!"

"Yeesh," Eggman commented, landing and shutting down Metal Tails. "The sooner we can shut him up, the better."

"But if Blah is in control of the robot, how will we finish testing it without waking him up?" Tails asked, afraid to approach either the robot or Blah.

"Once the soul is contained within a digital medium, transportation of it becomes a simple matter," Sera explained. "You will be able to move Blah to a safe location, replace the robot's internal computers, and continue development without a hitch."

"I can't do anything from inside a box!" Blah shouted, continuing to thrash wildly in Sonic's grip. "I have... to avenge... Pinkie Pie...!"

"Avenge Pinkie Pie, eh?" Eggman repeated. "That just about explains everything. I'd be livid too if something happened to my dear, sweet Rosalina..."

"Why haven't I heard of either of these people...?" Tails muttered.

"Tails, the power source!" Sonic reminded him, finding it more and more difficult to keep Blah from going anywhere.

"O-oh, right, sorry!" Tails grabbed a screwdriver and leaped at Metal Tails, unhinged the back, and carefully removed a sizable power cell. "Got it!"

"Preparing for transit," announced Sera.

Blah's struggling intensified further. He was practically willing to dislocate his own arms to get free. They wouldn't be his for long, after all. "Stop! I order you to stop!"

The Kadabra's eyes glowed purple. The air grew heavy. The lights flickered. In an instant, a pulse of high-pressure atmosphere escaped from Sera's being, headed in the direction of Metal Tails. Papers and loose parts were scattered violently about the room.

The pressure was enough to give everyone a headache. Sonic lost hold of Sera, who fell to the ground. Tails was knocked off his feet. Eggman stumbled backwards, clutching his head.

Sera stood, calmly brushing herself off. "The deed is done..."

Sonic went straight for Tails. "Are you ok, buddy?"

"Ugh, my head..." groaned the fox as Sonic helped him to his feet. "I think I'll be fine... I probably shouldn't have stood so close to Metails, though..."

"Yeah, I certainly wasn't expecting such a violent process..." Sonic stood back to make sure Tails would be able to stand on his own. "I'm just glad you're ok!"

"Hang on..." Eggman cut in, his head starting to clear up. "Did you really just call him Metails...?"

"Yeah, so what if I did?" Tails questioned, scratching the side of his head. "It's a pretty clever blend of words, really." Sera stared at him. "What?"

"You seemed quite adverse to the idea the last time it came up," she observed.

"Why is this a big deal all of a sudden...?" Tails questioned as Sera stepped closer. "It's just a play on words. Now, we should really get back to finishing up Metails as quickly as possible..."

"One moment," Sera hushed, closing her eyes. Tails suddenly felt rather claustrophobic.

After a few moments, Sera suddenly opened them again, a look of worry playing across her face. "I was afraid of this..."

"Afraid of what?" Sonic asked, unamused.

Sera stepped back. "During transit, there was a bit of turbulence. Blah's will was so strong, his spirit must have veered off course and targeted the next nearest vessel. In short... we hit the wrong Tails."

"What?!" Sonic looked over at Tails, both of them equally flabbergasted. "Blah, is that you in there?!"

"No! Or at least, I don't think so!" Tails cried hysterically. "What's going on?!"

"The souls of Blah and Tails are now both occupying the same body," Sera explained. "Their consciousnesses should have effectively merged."

"But I don't... FEEL any different," Tails argued, looking down at his hands and body. "I'm still Tails... there's no doubt in my mind."

"The soul does not contain the memories," Sera simplified. "I still have all of his memories in my own brain, as an additional failsafe. Blah has nothing to go on at the moment, and so he believes he is you. Or that is my best guess, at least. I have little experience with this sort of thing... but if I am correct, the only current difference is a minor change in personality or thought processes. It could be much worse, though."

Tails gulped. "How much worse?"

"If there is ever a situation in which your personalities contrast wildly enough, the souls may become aware of each other and try to separate. In an attempt to distinguish each other, they would divide amongst themselves what little resources are available. At that point, you would become mentally unstable. Perhaps even suicidal."

"So what do we do?" Sonic prompted. "This sounds like a ticking time bomb... we can't just leave them like that."

"We could try creating a separate space for each soul to occupy," Sera suggested. "I cannot separate the two souls myself at this time, as I have no influence over them when they are not in the open. However, I believe Tails has the mental capacity to keep them apart; all he will need is a jump start. If I download Blah's memories into Tails's brain, he will become reacquainted with his identity in a controlled and probably harmless manner."

"Ok, but that sounds like a temporary solution at best..." Eggman pointed out. "We need to get Blah back into a body of his own at some point, and I'm not letting all of our hard work go to waste."

"Correct, but it will buy us enough time to figure out how to do that."

"What if it backfires?" Tails protested. "If Blah gets his memories back, we might end up right back where we started..."

"I will have to leave out everything about his relationship with you-know-who," Sera concluded. "We should not say any more. Blah is technically still listening."

"I think he might have a right to know..." Sonic disagreed. "She sounded like she was pretty impo-"

"Shush," Sera interrupted. "If it means retaining our friend's sanity, I would prefer withholding those memories from him. We can return them later when the time is right."

"Well... it seems like our only option," decided Tails. "Let's do it."

"Prepare yourself," warned the Psychic type, and Tails closed his eyes as another flood of images and scenes filled his mind. It was almost too much for one person to process, which was lucky for him because he was actually two people. Or so he tried to believe. He still wasn't quite sure about it, but as the memories piled up, they began to fade almost as fast as they arrived.

'Aha... hahahaha...' A voice echoed in Tails's head. 'It makes so much sense now!'

'Blah...?' Tails echoed back.

'...Tails?' The voice sounded exactly like Tails remembered. It was definitely Blah. He seemed surprised to hear Tails's thoughts. 'What are you doing here? Where's Sera?'

'You really don't remember what just happened...?' Tails questioned.

'I guess not... I feel like I just woke up from a dream. How long was I out?'

'Uh... what's the last thing you remember?' tried Tails.

'I'm not even really sure. Everything feels like it happened yesterday. Let's see, there was Discord... and Bob... Metails... after that, it's just blank. Where am I?'

"Blah, you are now sharing a mind with Tails." It was a third voice, belonging to Sera. Tails opened his eyes, having nearly forgotten where he was. "While you were unconscious, I attempted to relocate your soul to Metal Tails. However, I missed."

"Just like that...?" Tails heard himself say. His head tilted downward, as if of its own accord. "Oh my God I am Tails. And I think that was Blah," Tails added himself, as he reached behind himself and brought forward one tail in each arm, hugging them. "So fluffy... Please stop. I'm sorry, I can't help it..." He went back and forth with himself, burying his face in his tails. Sera, Sonic, and Eggman looked on in bewilderment.

Eggman gave a sarcastic chuckle. "Heh. Called it."

"Please tell me he's not always going to be like this now," Sonic complained.

"Try to be respectful of each other," Sera told them. "Tails cannot restrain you like I could, so you will have to cooperate and share."

"You sound like you're teaching kindergarten," Tails spoke, in a comment that probably came from Blah. It was difficult to tell at this point.

"I am sorry for any inconvenience my mistake may have caused," apologized Sera.

He had let go of his tails and was wagging them experimentally. "Accidents happen. We'll be fine. I hope... I can imagine how confusing this must be for you. So why don't we come up with a cool fusion name? That way, you'll be able to address both of us as one entity when you need to! Yeah, that might not be a bad idea." He had engaged in another one-on-one with himself, changing inflection as if he were actually carrying out both halves of a conversation.

"Oh... kay...?" Sonic said with a shrug. He decided to just give up. "Sure, why not."

"Alright, from now on..." began the fox excitedly. He pre-emptively groaned before continuing. "I'm not Tails. I'm my original character, Blails!"

"...Blails." Sonic repeated dully. "You seriously want us to call you Blails?"

"I don't see anyone else coming up with anything better!" Blails smugly stated. "Although, we're certainly open to suggestions..."

"Knight," Sera said after a few moments of pondering. "For some reason, the word 'knight' sticks out in my mind, as though it would fit Tails as well as it would Blah."

"I don't know about that... but I'm ok with it!" Knight seemed quite satisfied with his new nickname. "Genius meets willpower, a tag team of two powerful minds, it's Knight the Fox! Including 'the Fox' at the end makes it sound authentic," he added. "Yeah, that was pretty much all Blah."

"Since that is out of the way," Sera addressed, "there is something important I must tell you, Blah." Knight snapped to attention. "While you were asleep, we found the deceased body of Pinkie Pie. She had apparently been murdered, and the primary suspect is Discord."

Sonic and Eggman flinched at the bluntness of Sera's statement after all that build-up about keeping her a secret, but Blah's reaction (at least, they were pretty sure it was Blah) was not quite what they expected - it was confusion rather than anger. "What?" He blinked. "Sera, I appreciate you trying out some humor for once, but jokes aren't usually that morbid."

"It was not a joke," Sera stated. "Pinkie is dead. The other ponies are investigating her murder as we speak. Most of them are positive that Discord is the culprit."

"Ok, that can't be right," Blah denied. "I mean, it's not like you can trust the guy as far as you could throw him, but Discord would never resort to MURDER..."

"Which is one of the reasons I believe it may not have been him," Sera continued. "Charge, or one of his accomplices, could have easily done it in order to frame Discord and prevent us from willfully siding with him. At this point, however, both suspects have equally logical motivations."

"Man... Why Pinkie though...?" The news had finally sunk in, and he stared off into space. "She was always so cheerful and optimistic..."

Blah seemed to be treating the tragedy as if Pinkie were an acquaintance or a relatively new friend rather than a love interest, which was a relief for everyone else.

"It is obvious that whoever killed her, they wanted to cause as much chaos as possible," Sera pointed out. "Unfortunately, that does not make the killer any more obvious. Causing chaos would be the perfect way to establish Discord as the most likely suspect, as would be Charge's goal..."

"Ugh, I wish I could help with the investigation," Blah said, "but that'd mean keeping Tails from working... Hey, that's up to you. All that work is for you, after all, and it's not like we can get you into the robot now without first figuring out how to remove your soul from my body... yeah, that's true. Maybe Sera can work on that while we're out. And having you around can't be a bad thing. Two heads are better than one, even if it's still technically one head! What do you mean 'having me around'? You're the one who's borrowing, here. You know what I mean! Give me a break, I'm still getting used to the concept of mind-sharing. I think I'm starting to understand how Omega Blah felt."

"Knight's arguing with himself again..." Sonic sighed.

"I will teleport you to Canterlot so you can focus on the investigation," offered Sera, approaching Knight.

"Actually... can we fly there instead?" the fox begged. "Why would we ever fly when we can just teleport? You can have your joyride later... Jeez, Tails, so impatient. Just because someone was murdered doesn't mean we can't stop and smell the roses once in a while. Wow, whose jokes are morbid now?"

Without saying another word, Sera hastily grabbed Knight's hand and blinked out of the lab. She was slightly starting to regret giving Blah his memories back.

You have no idea how happy I am that I was able to find an actual appropriate context for that line.

Please suppress your urges to hunt me down and inflict physical harm upon me until after I finish the story. :L