45: Regenbogen-Fabrik
HOGWARTS, FOURTH EARTH
After a week, Rainbow Dash was pronounced completely missing.
"I doubt she could have left this world," Twilight said when asked about the subject. "I mean, we have enemies that travel worlds, but…well, I guess I'm just holding onto hope."
"What happens if you don't find her?" Nevile asked.
"We will find her," Applejack insisted. "We ain't leavin' until we have either Rainbow Dash or a hint about where to look for her. And that's final."
The study group continued to meet and study in the library, though they divided their time between actual studies—in tense times, tests could take their minds off things—and trying to figure out what might have happened to Rainbow Dash.
"I'm still afraid it's Voldemort," Harry insisted.
"What if it's Maleficent?" Fluttershy suggested nervously.
"What if she hasn't even been kidnapped?" Neville thought out loud. "What if she's gone because of…something else? I don't know what, but we can't just make assumptions."
"It had something to do with that laugh," Applejack sighed.
"Unless she decided to try to learn to Apparate six years early, and she landed in Peru," Luna pointed out.
"Which would not be out of character for Rainbow Dash," Rarity sighed.
Then came the day that Ron snapped.
The group studied in silence. That day, Harry and Hermione happened to be sitting next to each other. Ron slammed his book down on the table.
"So that's how it is, is it?" he growled. "You two sneaking around behind my back? I knew it. I KNEW IT!"
"Ron, what are you even talking about?" Hermione asked.
"I'm not going to stand around here and be made a fool of!" Ron insisted. "Hermione, if you want to be with Harry, just say it!"
"I don't want to be with Harry!" Hermione argued. "We've been THROUGH this! What's gotten into you?"
"So now you don't trust me?" Harry shot back. "If I didn't know better, Ron, I'd say you were jealous of me!"
"I am not!" Ron replied. "Though it would help if you didn't go prancing around, acting like king of the goddamn world!"
"Did we miss something?" Pinkie Pie asked.
"Maybe I deserve to," Harry hissed. "After all, if it wasn't for me, you'd be dead."
"So you deserve everything I can't have!" Ron shot back. "I'm not going to listen to this anymore." He got up, hastening to leave.
"Ron, wait!" Applejack got up to follow him.
"I don't want to put up with this either," Harry grumbled, getting up and walking in the opposite direction.
"Harry!" Pinkie followed him.
"I didn't want them to fight again!" Neville wailed. "This is too much! I…I can't deal with it!" He also got up to run away.
"Neville?" Fluttershy went after him.
"This…is weird," Twilight said. "I feel like that just came out of NOWHERE."
"It did," Hermione said. "These arguments are old ones that I thought Harry and Ron had already resolved. I think there has to be something going on we don't know about. Draco, you were with those three all day while we were in class. Did anything happen?"
"What makes you think I'd tell YOU anything?" Draco replied, rising from the table. "This lot is nothing but filthy mudbloods and horses anyway! I don't know WHAT I'm doing here, but I'm done acting beneath myself!" Then he left as well.
"Draco, you can't mean that!" Rarity rushed after him.
"I was wondering when the old Draco would turn up," Ginny sighed.
"No," Twilight said. "Something's wrong. Hermione, what do you mean old arguments?"
Hermione was still reeling from Draco's statement. She cleared her thoughts. "Ron and I had feelings for each other for almost as long as we knew each other. It took us a while to get over our denial. I love him because he's brave and loyal, and because he isn't afraid to speak his mind. But he can be pigheaded on his worst days, and he got jealous easily. Jealous of anyone who got close to me. It nearly caused a rift between him and Harry several times, because Harry and I have always been close…but Harry's never been anything like that for me. I thought they'd worked it out for good. I thought Ron TRUSTED me enough to know that I wouldn't go behind his back and abandon him.
"And Harry…well, it took him a while to figure out what being the Boy Who Lived actually means. He thought it made him entitled, and he held onto that when he felt like the world was against him. He was really angry at the Order of the Phoenix when they brought him to sanctuary without telling him what was going on. But I thought that was past, too.
"And Neville and Draco…Neville used to be incredibly skittish. And Draco wasn't like…that…too long ago. I'm not sure what dredged up old demons for the four of them, but…they were together while we were in class. SOMETHING must have happened then!"
"I could go knock some sense into Ron if you wanted," Ginny offered.
"I doubt that would work," Twilight pointed out. "So…nopony has any idea where they were today?"
"I do," Luna stated. "I had Potions class today, and on my way, I happened to pass them down in the dungeons. The four of them were talking about what it was like to have Snape for Potions professor in those dungeons. They were just reminiscing. Perhaps thinking about old good memories brought up old bad ones."
"But seriously, if Ron doesn't get his act together…" Ginny groaned. "I'm not going to sit back and watch him throw away good friendships because of some stupid jealousy issues."
"Throw away friendships," Twilight repeated. "You know…if someone wanted to get at us, the easiest way would be to tear up our friendships. We draw a lot of our strength from being together."
"I know you want someone to blame," Ginny sighed, "but these are problems that have been with these guys since forever. My brother's a pig, Harry's unfortunately hot-headed, Neville's not the most confident, and it was only a matter of time before Draco blew up. This is just something they have to work out."
"But…all four of them at the same time!" Twilight reiterated. "For no reason! I just…I don't understand…"
"There's no conspiracy," Ginny insisted. "Whatever happened…it's their problem."
"Why'd you do that?" Applejack asked Ron, keeping pace with him in the hallway.
"Because I know that no matter what she says, I'll never be good enough for Hermione with someone like Harry around," Ron muttered.
"And you don't think she'd be honest with you about that?"
"She pities me. That's the only reason."
"But you were fine yesterday! What's the big deal? What happened today?"
"I just realized the truth, that's all!"
"Hey," Applejack suddenly interrupted, "what's that on your neck?"
"What's WHAT on my neck?"
"Somethin' shiny. Mind if I take a look at it?"
Harry stared out the window, out at the rolling green of the grounds. Pinkie Pie sprang into position behind him, looking out the window as well. "Ooh, what do you see? Niiiice view!"
"Go away," Harry demanded.
Pinkie was taken aback, and, frankly, hurt. "I just wanted to see if I could cheer you up," she said forlornly.
"Well, you can't," Harry insisted. "Now that Voldemort's back, I'm going to have to be in charge of defeating him again. More people are going to die, and it's going to look like my fault."
"No, it won't," Pinkie tried to argue. "Everypony knows you're doing your best! And we're going to help you out as much as we can! We—"
"You can't do ANYTHING. Voldemort marked ME at birth. I'd just like it a lot better if…if you could leave me alone and let me do my job!"
"But—"
"Leave me ALONE!"
"Okay…" Pinkie started to back off. Then the sun glinted off something she hadn't noticed before. "Hey, there's something shiny on your neck!"
"Neville?" Fluttershy approached Neville as he sat against a wall, hugging his knees. "Are you okay?"
"No," Neville said. "Fluttershy, what if all this time, I've just been lucky? What if I'm just not good enough to make it?"
"But you are," Fluttershy tried to reassure him. "Everypony talks about how much of a hero you are. And you're wonderful with the spells we learn in Dumbledore's Army."
"I'm a failure," Neville sighed, crossing his arms over his knees and resting his forehead on his arms. "Maybe it would be best if the Death Eaters just killed me. Then no one would have to worry about me."
"Don't talk like that—" Fluttershy was suddenly aware of Neville's neck, as he'd bent his head. She took note of a mark there, and it struck her speechless.
"Wait!" Rarity yelled, chasing Draco down the hallway. "DRACO, WAIT!"
"NO!" Draco spun to face her, wand drawn.
Rarity gasped. "You wouldn't! Not to me!"
"I would!" Draco snapped. "Look what you've done to me, Rarity! You've dragged me down to your level!"
"I did NO such thing! If anything, I dragged you UP a level! And you came of your own free will!"
"I never should have," Draco growled. "In fact, I've been wondering lately why I ever left Voldemort's circle. THEY seem to be incredibly well off."
Rarity gasped. "You are NOT the Draco Malfoy I know! You are NOT the same person that faced Crouch, Crabbe, Karkaroff, and Travers and vowed to protect this school from them!"
"I DON'T WANT TO BE THE DRACO MALFOY YOU THINK I AM! Now go away. Or I WILL use this."
Rarity swallowed hard. "Well. If you insist. But if this is your idea of how things should be, you can consider our friendship OVER. And you're a HORRIBLE judge of fashion, by the by. That lightning bolt tattoo on your neck does NOT flatter your hair tone."
She turned to storm away…and then realized what she'd just said.
Twilight made her way back to the Ravenclaw common room, deep in thought. She knew something wasn't right, but she couldn't prove that Harry, Ron, Neville, and Draco were being driven by…well, whatever was driving them. She hoped that Ginny was wrong, and that the four of them hadn't simply given up.
"TWILIGHT!"
Twilight turned to look down the hall; Applejack, Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Rarity rushed toward her.
"You'll never BELIEVE what we found out!" Pinkie cried.
"Were you able to talk to them?" Twilight asked.
"Well…no," Rarity admitted. "Draco threatened me, Harry told Pinkie Pie to go away, Neville seems to believe he's better off dead, and Ron has absolutely no trust in anyone."
Twilight's gaze dropped. "Oh."
"But it might not be their fault!" Pinkie gushed. "Something else might be controlling them! 'Cause we all noticed something about them! Something that's the same on all of them! They've got a mark!"
"A mark?" Twilight looked up again.
"A quite unusual mark," Rarity explained. "It seemed to occur somewhere on the neck area for all of them. It shimmered with unnatural iridescence. And we all recognized it. It was one you'd know anywhere."
"A lightning bolt," Applejack described. "With a sort of border around it."
"Like Harry's scar," Twilight deduced.
"No," Rarity corrected. "This one was three lines thick, coming out of the base of a swirling cloud. It was like Rainbow Dash's Cutie Mark."
"Oh my GOSH!" Twilight cried. "That HAS to mean something! The way they've been acting, Rainbow Dash being gone…it's connected!"
"But how?" Fluttershy asked.
"Hmm…" Twilight thought it over. "I wonder…the mark was shaped like Rainbow Dash's Cutie Mark. But so was her amulet. And we know there's something suspicious going on about those amulets. I know there's something there, I just…need more information to put it together. I wish there was more about Mahou Shoujo in the library, or else I would know by now if that had anything to do with it. But wherever Kyubey got that term from, it sure wasn't here. And it's not like he's around to ask."
"Or that Joseph guy," Applejack added.
"Joseph…" Twilight's eyes widened. "Girls…I just realized something!"
"What?" the others chorused.
"That I…am…an IDIOT!"
"No, you're not," Fluttershy replied.
"But I am," Twilight insisted. "I almost forgot that Joseph's journal was the first place I ever read about Mahou Shoujo. I've kept on looking for other books in the library, but there were TONS of other books about the stuff he wrote about up in the Luminary Hall! WHY DID I NEVER GO CHECK THERE? Uggggh! Between me forgetting how to use sand mesmerism and this, I just feel like I'm SLIPPING!"
"But now you've figured it out!" Pinkie cried happily.
"I have to go do some research!" Twilight cried. "NOW!"
"Want us to come with you?" Fluttershy asked.
"It'll be easier if I can just hunt it out on my own," Twilight admitted. "Besides, if we're out past curfew, we'll all get points taken from our Houses. I'm willing to throw Ravenclaw under the train for this, but we probably shouldn't have ALL our Houses punished, should we?"
"Rainbow Dash is more important than Gryffindor winning the House Cup," Applejack insisted, "but I get what you're sayin' about bein' able to find it faster if you read it yourself."
"I promise to come back with at least SOMETHING we don't already know," Twilight vowed. "I'll see you later!"
She then took off for the upper tower at top speed.
"LUMOS!"
Twilight shoved through the door to the Luminary Hall, bolting down the path to the altar and swerving to take the stairs up to the room of books. The shelves looked exactly as she'd left them. She stared the books down with new determination.
"You're going to tell me something," she growled at them.
She started with a sweep of the spines, seeing if she could get lucky and find a title that betrayed all. It paid off. "Mahou Shoujo: The Good and the Bad" was easily visible; Twilight took it from the shelf and brought it to a nearby table. She set the book down, opened it, and began to read.
"A Mahou Shoujo, or Magical Girl, is a protector of the universe, aligned with light. Her primary ability is to summon light magic from within herself, causing a transformation that augments her powers enough to fight evil. The Mahou Shoujo's transformation reflects her persona, and will be displayed in the form of unique celestial weapons, as well as clothing that reflects power.
"It is essential to remember that while a Mahou Shoujo draws from the powers of light, she is only the larval form of a witch, and witches draw from darkness just as much as or more than light. Many Mahou Shoujo, particularly those chosen by benevolent gods or spirits or granted their powers from birth, reach this maturation gradually if at all. Those who were formed by contracts with Incubators, however, will always turn destructive, and Incubators seek to 'farm' witches from all Mahou Shoujo, even those who were not created by Incubators."
Twilight took this as an indication that Incubators were her next buzzword. She flipped through the chapter headings until she found one entitled "Incubators."
"Incubators are residents of a faraway world with the capacity to observe all other worlds. They seek Mahou Shoujo or those girls with the potential to become them. An Incubator's goal is to rush the maturation of a Mahou Shoujo into a witch, for a more drastic transformation will unleash a burst of energy that will combat entropy. Incubators can see the flow of entropy through the universe, and wish to counteract the end of the world by harvesting the energy from Mahou Shoujo. As explained in Chapter 3, all wizards, witches, and mages contain the ability to counteract entropy because of their unique combination of mortal emotion—the only known force in the universe to grow with age rather than diminish—with the cosmic forces known collectively as 'magic.'
"It is highly debated, however, whether the Incubators' methods are necessary. All Incubators claim that entropy decreases at such a rate, traditional magic will eventually fail to combat it, and the only way to truly restore the balance of existence is to farm the magic that comes from the rushed transformation of Mahou Shoujo to witch. Some have said that this is Incubator propaganda, as their methods are most unethical, but as no entity that is not an Incubator has seen entropy in the way Incubators see entropy, there is no way to know."
Twilight took a moment to be relieved that this author seemed much more impartial and free of bias than Joseph St. Aelphege.
"If a Mahou Shoujo's transformation is rushed, instead of merely becoming a witch, she will turn into a destructive monster with all the abilities of a humanoid witch, but magnified. This is caused by the pressurization of grief.
"When a Mahou Shoujo or potential Mahou Shoujo forms a contract with an Incubator, her powers are either created or augmented further through the creation of a Soul Gem, which contains the soul of the Mahou Shoujo, outside of her body."
Twilight paused to beat her head on the side of the desk. With every thud, she groaned a word: "Why! Didn't! I! Find! This! Book! EARLIER!"
"This has the advantage of protecting the soul of the Mahou Shoujo, but the disadvantage of pressurizing the emotions inside a tiny container. In order to facilitate the transformation, an Incubator must tip the balance so the Soul Gem contains more negativity than positivity. The Incubator must cause grief. As known Incubators have put it, the Mahou Shoujo will transform when she 'curses the world.' The Soul Gem will also become more pressurized with negativity as it is drawn upon more and more for power.
"In order to increase grief, Incubators use the contract to trade Mahou Shoujo powers for a wish. However, the wish will eventually be corrupted in such a way that, if the Incubator has played correctly, will cause the Mahou Shoujo to be overcome with grief. Her Soul Gem will turn into a black Grief Seed, and from this Grief Seed will hatch a new body, the witch. The witch will come in the form of an inhuman monster.
"Witches of this type create their own labyrinths in which to hide. To keep balance, they must, as known Incubators have said, 'curse as many as they have helped' with their talents as Mahou Shoujo. Those who pass a witch's labyrinth and not realize it will be cursed with a Witch's Kiss, a mark that appears on the body in the form of the witch's particular insignia. The Witch's Kiss interferes with mental and emotional processes, causing victims to grieve without reason, cause harm to others without provocation, and other negative actions.
"Inside the labyrinth, the witch is powerful and deadly, and will kill any that fight her. The only way to destroy a witch of this caliber is for Mahou Shoujo of any type or situation to enter her labyrinth and slay her. The discarded Grief Seed can be used to purify Soul Gems of those under contract with Incubators, extending their time before they become witches."
Twilight's heart pounded. There, before her, was the entire answer. Rainbow Dash's wish had brought her grief…somehow. Whatever had laughed and drawn her away, it had corrupted her wish. Something had happened to make Rainbow Dash sad enough to "curse the world," especially since she'd used her amulet's powers so much already.
"She's turned into a witch," Twilight muttered. "She's hiding her labyrinth somewhere in Hogwarts…and the guys are acting weird because they picked up her Witch's Kiss!"
"So you figured it out."
Startled, Twilight turned to see Kyubey sitting atop one of the bookshelves, giving her his usual sweet, nonchalant smile. "YOU!" she cried. "You lied to us!"
"I did not lie," Kyubey said. "When did I tell you a lie?"
Twilight thought it over. "Okay, so you didn't lie. But you didn't tell us the whole truth, either! Rainbow Dash didn't become a real witch! Just some kind of monster!"
"She is a real witch," Kyubey said. "She has the same powers now. If she could inhabit the body of a pony, human, or Kentauride again, and if she could control her mind and heart, she would have the same powers as your friend Hermione Granger."
"But you made it so she doesn't have that body and she can't control her mind. You did that to get her energy transformation!"
"I must admit you six were strange cases. I do not like to form contracts with Mahou Shoujo as old as you because younger girls emit more emotional energy. However, you all had plenty of emotion to spare. You are all strangely childlike in that respect."
"I'm going to let that one slide because I'm mad at you about other things," Twilight grunted. "So where is she?"
"I do not know where her labyrinth is," Kyubey stated. "I know she released her transformation energy into the universe, which is good. It will keep entropy stable. Twilight Sparkle, the transformation into a witch is what I have to keep secret from most Mahou Shoujo. They hate the idea. Most of them form contracts with me not only to have their wishes granted, but to have enough power to fight things like witches. Especially witches that drop enough Grief Seeds for them to purify their Soul Gems and keep on fighting. You know, if you killed Rainbow Dash, you could use her Grief Seed to take the grief from your own gem and replenish your power."
"I WOULD NEVER DO THAT!" Twilight cried.
"But it is the only thing you can do," Kyubey said.
The two were surrounded by darkness; Kyubey wanted to show Twilight another picture. The blue haired girl who had wished for her male friend to be healed watched as this friend held and kissed another girl, with green hair. The blue haired girl cast her gaze downward, depressed. Her body began to shimmer.
Then she collapsed into a small, dark sphere, the size of a marble shooter. The sphere broke open, and from it burst an enormous monster, a humanoid creature with a mermaid tail and an armored, helmeted upper body. It waved a sword to conduct an orchestra of instruments that appeared before it. Three other girls—one with red hair, one with pink hair, and one with dark hair—rushed in to combat it, yelling at it, bursting into tears. In the end, the monster was destroyed, leaving behind a black sphere.
"No," Twilight whispered as the vision faded.
"Rainbow Dash will keep cursing people from her labyrinth unless you destroy her," Kyubey said. "Now, she is making people angry. But it will grow. Draco-kun will return to Voldemort."
"NO."
"Harry-kun will separate from his friends. Ronald-kun will become his enemy. Neville-kun will wish only to die. And others will become cursed."
"NOOOOO!"
"In fact," Kyubey clarified, "she is no longer truly Rainbow Dash. Her mind is overtaken by her grief, and that makes her dangerous. Her happy memories no longer exist, or her other emotions or memories. She is Regenbogen-Fabrik, a creature of grief."
"Well, I don't believe you," Twilight growled. "There's a way to bring our Rainbow Dash back. To save her. After all, that's what the Elements of Harmony are for, right? To fight grief?"
"If there is a way to defeat her without destroying her, I do not know it."
"Well, there are some things I want to know if you DO know," Twilight pressed. "Rarity and I are already witches. Are we safe?"
"No. Incubators can make contracts with those who are already Mahou Shoujo or even those who are already witches. Anyone with the power to undergo the transformation is a candidate. You and Rarity will both have your days. Pinkie Pie-chan is safe, though. She wasted her wish and has already undergone the consequences. She may draw upon her Soul Gem as much as she wants, and when it is in overdrive, it will have no negative effects. I do regret that she wished for something as simple as cake. That is not a wish that can be corrupted so one will curse the world. Pinkie Pie seems to be the sort who will not find that sort of grief. It is a pity. She has so much emotion within her and so much potential for darkness that her transformation would be incredibly great, and she would become a very wicked witch. In the end, she will be the one who has to destroy you all."
"And you don't think THAT will cause her grief?" Twilight screamed.
"I hope it does. That way, we can harvest her energy."
"Are you doing this to anypony else?"
"There are many Mahou Shoujo all around the multiverse. We Incubators—"
"Kyubey," Twilight interrupted. "It's short for Incubator."
"Quite perceptive. We Incubators have the goal of taking all Mahou Shoujo into our contracts in order to gather their energy. When the Old Ones reign again and the new age of chaos is upon the multiverse, we will be able to harvest it even more easily."
"What do you mean by THAT?"
"It is complicated. It is something Rainbow Dash figured out before she met her fate."
"What DID happen to Rainbow Dash's wish, anyway?" Twilight pressed. "You granted it. You know what happened."
"She defeated her villain. It was not satisfactory."
"Who was the villain?"
Kyubey simply stared at Twilight.
"I KNOW YOU KNOW. WHO WAS IT?"
"Someone she probably thought she would be glad to defeat."
"You're not going to give me any more answers, are you?"
"I can give you plenty of answers."
"But only if they're the ones you want to give me," Twilight clarified. "If you can't tell me where Rainbow Dash is, I don't have anything else to say to you."
"I do not know where she is," Kyubey repeated. "I did not keep that close of a watch on her. However, it would be best if you figured it out soon. Regenbogen-Fabrik will curse and destroy everyone in Hogwarts if you do not." He turned and walked along the side of the bookshelf until he came to the end; he jumped off, landing lightly on the floor, and walked into the shadows, disappearing.
"Okay, Twilight," Twilight muttered to herself. "You can figure this out. She's in some kind of labyrinth she's hidden. And everypony who passed it…got the kiss. That's right! Luna saw Harry, Ron, Neville, and Draco hanging out in the dungeons today! She might be down there! Actually, if Rainbow Dash figured out what she was turning into…she would have wanted to get really far away from us so she couldn't hurt us! So she WOULD have gone down into the dungeons! Unless there's a better place than that to hide…" Twilight gasped. "Or a better place to hide IN the dungeons!"
She galloped out of the reading room at top speed.
"Password?" the Fat Lady asked.
"I don't know!" Twilight cried. "Caput Draconis! Fortuna Major! Godric Gryffindor! Albus Dumbledore! Open sesame! PLEASE!"
"You won't find it by just yelling random words," the Fat Lady stated calmly.
"Yeah, well, I need to talk to somepony in there," Twilight growled. "So I'm going to keep trying until SOMETHING happens!"
The portrait of the Fat Lady swung aside.
"'Until something happens'?" Twilight guessed. "That was the password?"
However, the opening was caused not by anything Twilight said, but by Applejack coming through from the other side. "Couldn't sleep," she said. "Heard you yellin' from all the way out here."
"Applejack!" Twilight cried in relief. "You're exactly the pony I needed to see! I figured it out! Everything that's going on with Rainbow Dash! I need your help!"
"Want me to go get Ginny?" Applejack asked. "Or Hermione?"
"No. This has to be something the five of us do ourselves. It has to do with our contract with Kyubey. I think we're the only ones who can even find her!"
"Find who?" Applejack's eyes widened. "Rainbow Dash? You know where she is?"
"Yes. I do. But it's not good news. I want all of us together before I tell."
"Got it. I'm gonna go get Pinkie and Fluttershy. Pinkie's such a blabbermouth, she done told me exactly how to get into the Hufflepuff common room. You could probably stand outside the Slytherin wall and yell like you were doin' and Rarity would hear ya."
"Let's meet up in the classroom where we tested out the range on our amulets."
"I'm there!"
Twilight and Applejack split up.
The moon shone brightly into the abandoned classroom. Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie waited.
"Sorry I came burstin' into the common room like I did," Applejack told her friends. "But accordin' to Twilight, this is an emergency."
"It's okay," Fluttershy said.
"The other Hufflepuffs did seem strangely okay with me bein' there."
"Hufflepuffs aren't really that competitive," Pinkie Pie stated. "We've all talked about it, and we don't mind if people from other houses come to visit, or even compete with us for points. We just like to have fun with everypony else!"
"That's pretty Hufflepuff," Applejack admitted. "Gryffindors are a little more sensitive about havin' the common room burst in on. And I can't even imagine how Slytherins take it."
On cue, Twilight and Rarity walked in. "I see Twilight got your attention," Applejack pointed out.
"She was making such a fuss in the outer hall," Rarity said. "I didn't even know you COULD hear through that wall. Luckily, I wasn't very tired anyway. To tell you the truth, I was up late worrying about Rainbow Dash."
"I think we all were," Fluttershy said.
"We're all here now," Applejack pointed out. "Twilight, you wanna tell us what's goin' on?"
"I know where Rainbow Dash is," Twilight stated. "But…it's not good news."
She tried to tell all the important parts as quickly as she could. That the Soul Gems would become Grief Seeds and turn them all into witches, and that Rainbow Dash had already undergone that fate, becoming something Kyubey called Regenbogen-Fabrik. That Kyubey himself had shown up to deliver the news. That the wishes were all doomed to corrupt, and that Pinkie Pie's already had, with the rotten cake. That Rainbow Dash, or Regenbogen-Fabrik, was so consumed by grief that she'd left marks on Harry, Ron, Neville, and Draco, causing the earlier outbursts. That supposedly, the only way to fix everything would be to kill Rainbow Dash.
"I KNEW something was wrong with the way those boys were acting!" Rarity cried.
"So…this is going to happen to all of us?" Fluttershy's voice shook.
"Now, hang on," Applejack said. "We can worry about what happens to the rest of us AFTER we figure out what to do with Rainbow Dash. Twilight, you've got some kind of plan, right?"
"I…might," Twilight said. "Kyubey said if there was a way to transform a witch out of a monster grief form without killing her, he didn't know it. Well…we've already transformed a witch overtaken by negative emotions back into her old self, haven't we? We turned Nightmare Moon into Luna. I don't know if Kyubey really knows that much about the Elements. Maybe they can do what all other powers have failed at and bring Rainbow Dash back. But there are a couple problems with that. One is that this…this is probably a whole other level than whatever was going on with Nightmare Moon. Already, she's turned Harry, Ron, Neville, and Draco to thoughts that are downright dangerous. Nightmare Moon just kept trying to spread darkness and make ponies sad. The other…is kind of obvious."
"We only have five Elements," Applejack clarified.
All five looked downward, feeling defeated already.
"I won't kill Rainbow Dash," Fluttershy insisted. "No matter what she's turned into."
"We're all thinking the same thing, sugar cube," Applejack agreed. "But what can we do?"
"We can try the one plan we do have," Rarity said. "Twilight, you said witches of this sort had…labyrinths? Couldn't we go in, try using the Elements, and then leave if things didn't work out?"
"Things not working out could be really dangerous," Twilight pointed out. "Rainbow Dash is in a state where she won't recognize us. She'll try to hurt us. I don't even know what happens in the labyrinths or how much they're…space out of space. I'm not sure if we can leave them once we've entered. But…" She looked up, her face set in determination. "I'd rather try than give up."
"Tonight?" Pinkie Pie asked.
"D'you really think any of us are gonna be able to wait much longer?" Applejack replied. "I'm thinkin' we go as soon as possible."
"Me too," Fluttershy agreed.
"As do I!" Rarity added. "Twilight, you never told us where Rainbow Dash's labyrinth even was."
"Oh, I forgot!" Twilight cried. "Okay, so it has to be somewhere near the dungeons, right? That's how it could have infected Harry, Ron, Neville, and Draco when the four of them were down there! I thought that if Rainbow Dash figured out what was going on, she'd go down below and hide where she thought she couldn't hurt anybody. I think she's somewhere in the Demigod Hall."
"The dungeons are even creepier at night," Rarity moaned.
"Shh!" Applejack hissed. "D'you wanna get caught and sent back to the dorm?"
"They have to give us passes for this," Twilight pointed out. "Right? They wouldn't take off House points for us trying to save a friend, would they?"
They turned down the hallway, nearly dark to the point of blinding, that led to the wall beyond which lay the Demigod Hall. Twilight, Rarity, and Fluttershy pointed wands at it. "Spongify."
The five moved through the softened wall, then beheld what was there. Everything looked as it had the first time they'd been there…except for one major difference. A wall just before the first alcove was embossed with a shining fresco, iridescent in the same way the Witch's Kisses had been. Bordered with a square, it contained an all too familiar design: a lightning bolt, three lines thick, protruding from a swirl of cloud.
"It's a portal," Twilight realized. "That's the entry to the labyrinth."
"We just…walk through?" Rarity asked. "I'm not sure we're prepared!"
"When are we gonna be more prepared?" Applejack asked her.
"CHAAAARGE!" Pinkie Pie cried, galloping straight at the portal. She barged right through it and was gone from view.
"Well, now we've got no choice," Rarity sighed. "Come on, girls."
One by one, they entered the portal. Fluttershy, the last to pass through, gave a last longing look at the dungeons. Dank and creepy as they were, she had a feeling she preferred them to whatever was waiting for her on the other side of the portal.
The labyrinth was, as Twilight had put it, "space outside of space." It was like stepping into a completely different world. The five found themselves in what appeared to be the corridor of a dark factory. The only lighting came from the machines…machines to either side, with silver blades that glinted as they raised in the air to chop at clouds, with spouts that poured the colors of the rainbow in dull sludges, with steam engines that puffed out clouds and made creaking noises as though they were at any moment about to explode. Tiny lights in rainbow colors flickered on and off as different functions were performed.
Fluttershy whimpered and moved in close to Pinkie Pie; Pinkie put her arm around Fluttershy's shoulder. "Don't worry, Fluttershy! None of this is going to hurt us! It's just cutting up clouds and rainbows and weather stuff!"
"But…look," Fluttershy moaned. "Clouds and rainbows are supposed to be happy and pretty! This all looks…really scary!"
"You just gotta laugh at it, remember?" Pinkie replied. "I think it's really funny that all these scary machines are just here for clouds!"
"And I think it's horrifying that something as innocent as clouds can look so…terrifying!"
"Remember, this is a reflection of Rainbow Dash's mental state," Twilight said. "It's weather machines because that's what features most prominently of her memories, but it looks dark and intimidating because she's filled with grief and hardly anything else. I don't think any of this can actually hurt us, but…it's a bad sign when it comes to what we're going to find when we run into Rainbow Dash for real."
"What did Kyubey call her again?" Rarity asked.
"Regenbogen-Fabrik," Twilight answered. "I guess that's what her name is when her emotions are flipped around like this. Come on. She isn't here. We need to find her."
Pinkie Pie let go of Fluttershy to spring ahead, leading the party by hopping at a fast clip. The others were forced to walk at a fast pace to keep up; nopony wanted to be left behind in the strange labyrinth.
They passed other machines. A glass ball in which lightning swirled round and round, connecting at a metal core. An enormous fan that blew out chill winds through its rapidly spinning, rusty blades. Giant devices like shower heads that gave noises like not-well-oiled hinges swinging open before they emitted a collective puff of dust and snowflakes. Sun-shaped lamps that turned on and flickered briefly, bathing the path in light, before they shorted out and left the lighting to the smaller lights on the machines.
The path occasionally branched out, but it seemed to stick to one main road, so the five continued in that direction, hoping that would lead them wherever they needed to go. They twisted and turned, finding new off-putting weather machines, until at last, bright light shone through an archway at the end.
"I don't know if I want to know what's there," Fluttershy said nervously.
"We have to go," Applejack insisted.
"ME FIRST!" Pinkie Pie went bounding off again towards the arch.
"Pinkie Pie, no!" Fluttershy squeaked.
"Yes," Twilight insisted. "Now let's hurry!" She galloped after Pinkie, heading through the archway. Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy hurriedly followed.
Beyond the arch was something incredibly different from the strange and disturbing machines. A bright blue sky shone down over a courtyard with a ground made of white clouds, just like one might see in Cloudsdale, and the entire courtyard was ringed by white pillars. A puffy white cumulus cloud floated twenty feet off the ground, dominating the sky space.
"I thought it would be scary," Fluttershy sighed.
An ominous rumble came from the cloud.
"I wouldn't talk just yet about what's scary and what ain't," Applejack cautioned.
The cloud shuddered; its white darkened to gray. The entire sky shifted from blue to a soupy green, the color seeping through and staining. The cloud doubled in size, twisting into different shapes; lightning bolts forked from the bottom. Rarity's sharp eye noticed that the bolts were tinged with red, blue, and yellow. The cloud wrung itself out into a wormlike shape, and for a moment, it seemed that it was actually looking at the five Kentaurides.
"Girls?" Twilight said nervously. "I think I figured out what that cloud is!"
An enormous thunderclap rocked the courtyard; pillars cracked and fell over. The cloud sailed toward the five Kentaurides at an alarming pace.
In a flash, Twilight wore the gear of the Mahou Shoujo, readying her staff. "I'd transform right now if I were you!" she barked.
"But why?" Pinkie Pie asked.
"Because that cloud," Twilight answered, "is Rainbow Dash!"
Regenbogen-Fabrik saw five living targets. In her memory, she knew that they were significant…that somehow, she knew them. But that was overwhelmed by her desire to spread her grief, to not have to suffer alone. Whatever had happened between them in past days didn't matter. She just wanted—needed—to attack anyone that entered her domain.
Upon Twilight's request, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie all induced their Mahou Shoujo transformations—and not a moment too soon. A web of lightning cracked through the air, aiming for them. Twilight gripped her staff, diverting the lightning through will. Pinkie Pie fired a pistol shot directly at the bolt intended to strike her, causing it to go off course. Rarity did the same with a crystal arrow. Fluttershy slashed at the bolt intended for her with her katana, causing it to splinter.
Regenbogen-Fabrik shook with anger. She swirled round and round, shifting shape into a cone with the point touching the ground. She became a great tornado, pulling her five targets closer to the vortex.
"WE HAVE TO USE THE ELEMENTS!" Twilight cried over the howl of the wind.
With a shriek, Fluttershy was sucked into the whirling tornado.
"FLUTTERSHY!" Applejack cracked her whip, and the length of golden cord snapped right into the dark whirling mass. When she pulled back on the grip, the cord retracted; it had wrapped around Fluttershy, pulling her back.
"How are we going to use the Elements when we can't have a moment to prepare?" Rarity cried, digging her heeled hooves into the ground. Her hat flew into the vortex. "You…did…NOT!" she growled. "THAT HAT HELD THE ENTIRE ENSEMBLE TOGETHER!"
Regenbogen-Fabrik changed tactics. The tornado retracted, reforming into a cloudy mass. The cloud then emitted hail, ice pieces sharpened into tiny arrowheads.
"NO!" Fluttershy called up the flower shuriken, sending them to collide with the ice particles.
Rarity met a cloud of frost face first. Twilight saw her become frozen over completely with a layer of ice. A quick casting of a fire spell from Twilight's staff turned the ice to water.
Another thunderclap rocked the courtyard. "We're gettin' nowhere unless we find a way to slow this cloud down!" Applejack yelled.
"Let me try!" Pinkie Pie cried, firing a round of energy shots directly at Regenbogen-Fabrik. The cloud merely shuddered. Then it darkened to black.
"I think you've made her angry," Rarity observed.
From the center of the cloud descended a shining black sphere. It erupted into a shockwave identical to that of a Sonic Rainboom. Twilight, Pinkie, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack were thrown against the white pillars at the courtyard edges. No sooner had they gotten their bearings than another sphere descended and erupted.
"Think, Twilight," Twilight murmured to herself as she was thrown against the pillars for the third time. Her senses were growing fuzzy. "What would get Rainbow Dash to stop? Being beaten in a contest?"
The next shockwave knocked her over, and she felt incredibly weak. She tried to get up; she faltered.
Fluttershy watched as all around her, her friends encountered trouble with Regenbogen-Fabrik. Applejack was frozen over by another hail of ice. Pinkie Pie dodged lightning bolts, occasionally letting out a small shriek when one grazed her. Rarity's hair was blown askew by a chilling wind.
"No," Fluttershy said, drawing her katana. "Rainbow Dash…THAT'S ENOUGH!"
She spread her wings, taking off into the air. She cut her way through a rainbow shockwave, sliced a network of lightning bolts, and dodged a hail of pointed icicles. She circled round and round the cloud, pulling it toward a gravitational center.
"Why don't we just use a finale move to subdue her?" Rarity cried—the winds lessened.
"NONONO!" Pinkie shrieked. "That might destroy her!" She did notice, however, that the lightning was striking at her less frequently.
Regenbogen-Fabrik was stunned. Fluttershy was not only cutting through her attacks—the pull from her quick circling was hindering her ability to make offensive strikes.
"Applejack!" Rarity yelled. "Keep her still!"
"I'm on it!" Applejack cracked the whip, which roped around and around the cloud. Regenbogen-Fabrik struggled against it, trying to break out. Applejack dug her hooves into the ground. "I'm tryin'! Anypony wanna give me a hoof here?"
"Rarity!" Pinkie yelled. "Double-fire!"
"Double-WHAT?" Rarity cried. Then she saw Pinkie draw both pistols. "Ohhhh!" She drew back an arrow.
Regenbogen-Fabrik felt the puncturing of energy bullets, fast and loose, from Pinkie Pie, and crystal arrows, slow but deliberate, from Rarity. She thundered in anger, but could barely make a move. She tried swirling in a counterclockwise direction from Fluttershy's pull to make another vortex.
Twilight stood, seeing an opportunity. She rushed beneath Regenbogen-Fabrik, standing beneath the eye of the storm. She raised her staff, crying out, "VERDIMILLIOUS!"
A halo of light burst from the star atop the staff; Regenbogen-Fabrik recoiled at its touch, shrinking down. The ropes tightened.
"FLUTTERSHY!" Applejack commanded. "GET DOWN HERE!"
"What are you doing?" Twilight asked Applejack.
"She's as subdued as she's gonna get," Applejack grunted, keeping a firm hold on the whip. "We gotta try your Elements plan now or just split!"
Fluttershy landed. "Get in close to me!" Applejack barked. "Elements! NOW!"
Twilight, Rarity, Pinkie, and Fluttershy all rushed to Applejack's side. The sphere of light formed around them; their amulets glowed.
At last, Applejack chanced letting go of the whip. The ropes loosened. Regenbogen-Fabrik struggled to work her way out of the bindings.
By that time, the sphere was complete, and the rainbow of elements burst forth—but it was incomplete. Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy could all see that their rainbow completely lacked redness.
Doubt struck Twilight for a moment. It wasn't going to work with only five. Rainbow Dash was lost forever.
But when the rainbow struck Regenbogen-Fabrik, a small red center glowed within the cloud. It reflected back at the five. They braced themselves, thinking this an offensive attack, but instead, it joined the light they emitted. It completed the rainbow.
Twilight realized what was happening. The Loyalty that still remained within Rainbow Dash, Regenbogen-Fabrik, or whatever she was had been activated when struck with the other elements. It was completing the set.
Regenbogen-Fabrik was bathed in rainbow light. Three great rainbow shockwaves exploded from the cloud in succession, knocking Pinkie, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Twilight to the ground. Horrified, they struggled to their hooves, fearing the worst.
However, the rainbow waves were merely signifiers of release. Wisps of white cloud peeled away from Regenbogen-Fabrik. The sky overhead turned blue. The cloud descended, wisp after wisp floating off, until the cloud was as tiny as any of the Kentaurides. Then the final layer drifted away, revealing its center.
Rainbow Dash stood before them, panting, out of breath, wearing her Hogwarts uniform and her amulet, now bright red and sparkling.
"Rainbow Dash," Fluttershy ventured. "Is it you?"
Rainbow Dash looked to her friends, stunned. Then she gave a nervous smile. "Hey…I nearly thought I'd bought it there. Thanks."
Reality shifted. The six stood not in the midst of a labyrinth, but at the top of the staircase in the Demigod Hall.
"RAINBOW DASH!" Pinkie Pie screamed, lunging forward to squeeze Rainbow Dash in a tight hug. "You're back you're back you're back!"
"Yeah!" Rainbow Dash replied, hugging Pinkie in return. "I'm really sorry, though. When I was…that THING…I recognized you, and I tried to remember who you were. I don't wanna hurt you, but…"
"But you became something else out of grief," Twilight explained. "You had no control. It was like a magic hypnotism. That wasn't your fault."
"But that stuff…it's in me," Rainbow Dash stated as Pinkie Pie stepped away from her.
"Hon, we've all got dark sides," Applejack reassured.
"We're just glad you're okay," Twilight stated. "But we wanna make sure you stay okay. What happened, anyway? We know your wish was corrupted, and it made you feel like everything was hopeless. You have to tell us!"
Rainbow Dash shivered. "It was Discord," she burst out. "Discord's back, and he's going to ruin EVERYTHING!"
QUADWRANGLE MANOR, THE FLUFFY HEAVY SLOW-MOTION UPSIDE-DOWN WORLD
Discord and Kyubey sat in fluffy armchairs, watching the battle on a giant rabbit-ears television set Discord had conjured up. While Kyubey didn't show surprise at the outcome—it was probably physically impossible for him to—Discord knew he was at the very least confused.
"There is not supposed to be a way to confine the witch to a rational form," Kyubey stated. "What they have just done is impossible."
"As far as you knew," Discord said.
"Did you always know they had the power to do such a thing?"
"Well, as a matter of fact, I did. Do you really think I would have made you forge the contracts if it was a dead-end for them? It's all a test for them, and I wanted to see if they would pass."
"That is very interesting."
"But keep in mind," Discord said, "the Elements of Harmony are the ONLY thing that can do that. Celestia and Luna have actually 'saved' quite a few witches that way. I can think of at least four that are walking around today…anyway, they can use the Elements of Harmony to confine any Incubator-formed witch they want into a rational form, but any they DON'T meet are still doomed."
"I will have my energy harvest either way," Kyubey said. "The energy from Rainbow Dash's transformation did not dissipate after they transformed her back from Regenbogen-Fabrik."
"How does that make you feel, to know you can have your cake and eat it too?"
"I do not care what happens to the witches so long as they release the proper energy. To think that all this can be done with only honesty, loyalty, kindness, laughter, generosity, and magic. Of those, magic is the only one that is not a mortal concept I have never found necessary."
"Yes, but it seems those 'mortal concepts' are the most effective thing against our plans," Discord pointed out.
"Can they use the Elements to revert the Soul Gems now?"
"No. The gems are impenetrable, but they'll be figuring that out on their own soon enough. You'll get all your energy bursts soon enough. And I'll have the fun of watching them all go through their little test!"
HOGWARTS, FOURTH EARTH
The study group met again, not in the library, but in the abandoned classroom on the upper floor.
"I wanted to say I'm sorry again," Harry offered, "for the things I said."
"No…I should be the one who's sorry," Ron argued. "I was even worse."
"I'm sorry too," Neville added.
"No," Draco insisted. "The one who has the most to apologize for…is me. I considered betraying you all for Voldemort." He did indeed look the most repentant, as he hadn't yet been able to look anyone directly in the eye.
"Guys," Rainbow Dash interrupted. "I'M the one who should be sorry. You guys only said and did that stuff because my evil magic made you do it. You weren't even in control."
"In my defense, she's right," Ron pointed out. "I didn't want to say things like that up until the moment that I did, and it never really did feel like my own decision!"
"I suppose that's the power of the contract of the Incubators," Hermione concluded.
Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie had brought Harry, Ron, Neville, Hermione, Draco, Ginny, and Luna up to speed on all that had taken place.
"So what happens now that you know your enemy…Discord…is back?" Harry asked.
"We get ready to fight him," Applejack replied. "Same way we fought Voldemort."
"I'm ready to fight him too," Harry admitted. "Knowing he was the one who led Voldemort directly to us."
"And he did it for fun!" Ron spat.
"That's Discord," Twilight sighed.
"That's why I felt so…hopeless," Rainbow Dash sighed. "We can't get rid of him. He's got to be doing things like this all over, bringing old bad guys back, turning places to chaos…and he told me that of all the Old Ones, he's the nice one. I can't see what he meant by that. He tried to kill me by turning me into a cloud witch thing!"
"But he had to have known the Elements would work," Twilight pointed out, "and Kyubey didn't."
"It's another game to him," Fluttershy added.
"But what do we do now?" Rainbow Dash asked. "It's never going to end."
"That doesn't mean it's hopeless!" Pinkie Pie pointed out. "Whenever bad things have happened, we've been able to face them! We stopped Voldemort from taking completely over, and we sent Jafar away from Agrabah! We even outsmarted Chrysalis in Corona, and we KNOW now that Discord was helping her! We always ended up having the help of new friends, and we've also always had each other, the six of us, wherever we go! Sure, we run into really bad stuff on every new world! But we also see GOOD stuff, and we make friends!"
That made Rainbow Dash grin. "Y'know…it did do a lot, knowing that you all refused to leave without me, even when they told you the only way you could move on is if I was dead."
"And we're happy to help you with whatever you're facing," Ginny pointed out.
"We've been really lucky to know you here," Applejack told her.
"Is there anything in particular you'd like us to do," Luna said, "now that you have a greater foe on the loose?"
"Nothing besides what we planned," Twilight stated. "I mean, I'm not ordering you all to do nothing, but you've already got your hands full with Dumbledore's Army, S.P.E.W…"
"And the Order of the Phoenix, when McGonagall contacts them," Harry added.
"That all helps us out so much," Twilight concluded.
"Not to mention that just being our friends gives us incredible moral support," Rarity added.
"So…what about the amulets?" Ginny asked.
"Twilight had us run some preliminary tests last night," Fluttershy said. "We can show you what happened." She took off her amulet and lay it on the table. She, Rarity, Pinkie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight concentrated. From the latter five's amulets, beams of light radiated, piercing Fluttershy's amulet and causing it to be bathed in a rainbow glow. However, when the glow subsided, the gem still looked cloudy—not sparkling like Rainbow Dash's.
"The gems are tough," Twilight admitted. "They're resistant to having the Elements used on them. Probably because they either house or conduct the Elements in the first place. The only way to fix this is for one of us to undergo the transformation so we can stop it. But there are some ways I've thought of to prevent that. For one, transformations are started when we get overcome with grief. If we all just look on the bright side, we can probably avoid it!"
"I like that plan!" Pinkie cried.
"Uh, I think that plan might be easier for some of us than…others," Applejack pointed out, her eyes flicking momentarily toward Rarity.
"You can't expect to control your emotions completely, especially when the cosmos has them stacked against you," Hermione added.
"I know," Twilight sighed. "But it's worth a shot. Besides, I know that I in particular am not expecting anything really that good to come from my wish except that it comes true in some way. The other thing we can do is hold off on using our Mahou Shoujo powers unless it's absolutely necessary."
"I just have one more question," Ron said. "Does this mean Rainbow Dash really is a witch now?"
"I…didn't think of that," Twilight admitted. "I just kind of assumed all her powers came with the territory of being Regenbogen-Fabrik. The use of the Elements would have undone all of that."
"Hmmm…" Rainbow Dash thought it over. Then she flicked her wand. "LUMOS!"
The end of the wand burst into light. Rainbow Dash's eyes widened.
"You couldn't cast that one before!" Luna cried happily.
"Spongify!" Rainbow Dash yelled, pointing the wand at a section of floor; she stomped on the board to find that it was soft and springy. "INCENDIO!" She drew rings of fire in the air. "I'm really a witch! I'M REALLY A WITCH! YEAAAAAAAH!"
"You don't suppose she's become an alicorn, do you?" Rarity asked Twilight.
"No," Twilight replied. "I think we could tell if that happened. She's just…got full magical powers now as a pegasus. Okay, Rainbow Dash, when we get back to the Starlight, I am going to need to run a LOT of tests on you to figure this out."
"Tests," Rainbow Dash repeated smugly. "Speaking of tests, it looks like my powers came in just in time for finals!"
Chapter 45
· I wanted to pick specific character flaws the guys already had from canon in order to exploit with the Witch's Kiss…partially for being realistic, and partially to poke at how stupid things like Ron's recurring gripe with Harry over Hermione are.
· The story just wouldn't be as interesting if Twilight remembered all the stuff she was supposed to. I originally planned to have one more scene with her browsing the Restricted Section to find information, but it just wouldn't have worked. I have more stuff I want to bring up about the Restricted Section, but I'll have to do that in another visit.
· Pretty much all of the explanation is taken word for word from PMMM, except for a few things. For one, in PMMM, Mahou Shoujo are ONLY created by Incubators, and ALL of them are created by Incubators. And in canon, humans are supposedly the ONLY beings in the cosmos with that kind of emotional range. Anyway, the way things work in PMMM: human emotion is the only energy source that grows with time instead of diminishing. Incubators (which "Kyubey" is canonically short for) pick preteen girls, because they're the most emotional (that's probably stereotyping but I know that when I was a preteen girl, I was really freaking emotional), and trade magical powers to them for granting a wish. The wish gets corrupted in a Faustian way, causing the girls to go into despair so great, they "curse the world." Their Soul Gems become Grief Seeds. Witches hatch from Grief Seeds and also drop them when they die; the only way to clear out a Soul Gem of grief is to use a Grief Seed obtained from killing a witch (so they have a cycle of killing their own and becoming what they fought). They turn into witches; that makes them release counter-entropy energy.
· So now you see why I chose to use PMMM, especially so early on: because I now have an excuse to do a witch transformation for EACH OF THEM. Except, apparently, Pinkie Pie…or do you think that perhaps I've thought of a way to get around the fact that her wish won't cause her enough grief?
· Also, Witch's Kisses literally hypnotize passerby into doing bad things. In PMMM, there's a canon instance where a group of people Kissed, who were theretofore happy and mentally stable, decided to forge a suicide pact en masse.
· The scene Kyubey shows Twilight is of Sayaka Miki canonically becoming the witch Oktavia von Seckendorff. She wished for her crush Kyosuke to heal from a horrible accident, but he ended up getting together with her best friend Hitomi (one of the things I used to HATE about PMMM to the point of it making me quit the show was how Sayaka decided life wasn't worth living because a guy she never really had a chance with didn't date her, and he wasn't even rude about it, but then I realized I used to be the exact same stupid way at that age). So Sayaka transformed. Kyoko, Madoka, and Homura entered her labyrinth in order to destroy her.
· I REALLY had fun designing the labyrinth. PMMM is created by the SHAFT anime studio, which is famous for "What Do You Mean, It Wasn't Made On Drugs?" The labyrinths there are all really scary and trippy, so I was excited to do one of my own. I wanted to play a certain binary with it. The machines are not DANGEROUS. They don't hurt living beings. But they're just plain creepy. I wanted to test my skill at making something scary without it being harmful in the beginning stages of the labyrinth. I also had an idea to base it around a certain theme that inspired the name I picked for Dash's witch form. And you know what? This DOES mean I get to make creepy labyrinths for ALL OF THEM.
· In PMMM, when a Mahou Shoujo goes witch, she gets a new name that's put up onscreen in a cipher. I was clueless as to what it even was until fan translations cropped up of all the names (it's a cipher from made-up runes into GERMAN). All the new names are German, which is probably a shout-out to Faust (the original story about making wishes and being corrupted by human weaknesses and Literal Genies). Sayaka becomes Oktavia von Seckendorff. Madoka would potentially become Kreimhild Gretchen. So I had to come up with a German name for Rainbow Dash just for her witch form to keep in the spirit and to also have more fun with this concept. "Regenbogen-Fabrik" is German for…Rainbow Factory.
· "Rainbow Factory" is the name of a certain MLPFIM fan phenomenon. It started out as a fan song by WoodenToaster about how the Cloudsdale rainbow factory is secretly a front for something more horrifying, but it's never made explicit. Fanvids and an infamous fan fiction made it about Rainbow Dash running a factory where she grinds up living ponies to make the colors. Now, I'm not a huge fan of the grimdark reboot (it's not that I don't think it should exist; it's just not how I usually roll). But the song is damn catchy, and listening to the Flutter Rex remix in particular inspired the labyrinth and my theme for the whole of this chapter. So, while I've removed the murder aspect (which isn't to say that Regenbogen-Fabrik didn't try to kill her opponents out of anger and despair), this chapter was VERY much influenced by Rainbow Factory because it had so much fuel in it.
· It should be fairly obvious why Regenbogen-Fabrik is a cloud. And it's canon to PMMM that she wouldn't recognize her friends or hold back against them; Oktavia von Seckendorff sure didn't.
· Fluttershy's cyclone move was a call back to the ep "Hurricane Fluttershy," where she's supposed to help the Ponyville pegasi create a water funnel for the real (and non-murderous) Cloudsdale weather facilities to make rain, but she almost doesn't join in because she isn't as strong as the others. Turns out her wing power, small as it was, was absolutely necessary to form the funnel.
· My actual thought process: "Oh, I introduced Verdimillious as an important thing earlier. I'd better bring that back before I wrap up."
· So…is using the Elements to save Rainbow Dash cheating? Probably. Is it shitting on PMMM canon? Probably. But for one, it worked on Luna in MLPFIM canon. And for another…SNAPE WAS NEVER DEAD. I DO WHAT I WANT.
· And with the label of "witch," I couldn't just hold out on giving Rainbow Dash a Level in Badass. Look out, worlds. Rainbow Dash now has magic powers.