Disclaimer: None of the authors own any of the referenced properties.

[Nocturne], [SMT IV]
Christmas DLC!
Author: Gamerex27

"What in the nine layers of hell am I looking at?!"

"Wellll," Pixie said, passing the binoculars to Naoki, "you know how pretty much everything from myth and legends is real in our Loop?"

"Yeah," Naoki replied, "but...shouldn't that be Santa Claus there, and not..."

"Bwhohohoho!" chortled the massive spiked demon, hauling the sack across its back. "Sanat Claus is on his way to give presents to all the good little demons of the Mantra! And you, pawns of Nilho, are on the naughty list!"

"You know," the Demi-Fiend remarked as Father Christmas (?) beat the demons to death with his sleigh, "that thing is sometimes...me. In the future, I mean. Sometimes, the Magatama keeps on growing and growing, and I end up as that thing. Probably the Gaia Rage spell-Yggdrasil makes weird connections like that."

"So, he's not giving a present to us? Shouldn't we be on the naughty list?" Dante asked, grabbing the binoculars from Naoki and taking his turn to stare at Sanat. "I mean, we kill God's avatar and all..."

"You really don't get it yet?" Naoki asked. "Sanat's the Chaos King, and considering all the stuff we do in baseline..."

"Bwhohohohohohoho!" Stepping over the bodies of the Nilho demons, Sanat hopped over towards the group. "Little demons, it looks like you're on the 'Nice' list this year!"

"...Yeah, I guess that makes sense," Dante said.

"For you, Mr. Hunter, the blade Sanat Kumara!" the demon declared, handing Dante a sword crafted from red-tinted iron. "You find any angels, this'll cut them to ribbons!"

"Nice. Always wanted to try the sword in the teeth thing that pirate did," the son of Sparda said, putting the sword in his Pocket.

"And for you, little fairy, a few new spells!" Sanat handed an ancient spellbook to Pixie. "I hope you enjoy the Severe Thunder: you Pixies always like the fireworks!"

"Coooool!" Pixie squealed, flipping through her new grimoire. "Thanks, Mr. Sanat Claus!"

"And for you..."

"I think I already got what I wanted," Naoki remarked, rubbing at the phantom scar near his heart. "A change of pace. And that'll hold me over for a few quadrillion years, I think."

"Nonsense!" Sanat said, handing a small package to the Demi-Fiend. "You deserve a reward for all you've done for Chaos! Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to find that Chiaki girl! Merry Christmas!"

Hopping back in his sleigh, Sanat Claus laughed, and flew into Kagatsuchi's new phase, his bloodred spines slowly vanishing into the horizon.

"Speaking of that, don't you usually scramble to find your friends by this point?" Dante said, motioning to the Mantra's headquarters. "I mean, that's all you did in half the Loops I've known you."

"Haven't met the real them for trillions of years." Glaring at the HQ, Naoki turned his back on it, then grinned at the unfamiliar Pokemon title in his hands. "Whoever they are, they're not my friends anymore."

…

"Flynn," Isabeau said slowly as her friend emerged from the Samurai barracks, "do not look directly at the square."

"And a good Loop to you, too," Flynn said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "Isn't it Christmas morning, according to Tokyo's calan-GOOD LORD!"

"Thou who hast faithfully followed The Lord's commandments," said the massive blue figure in Aquila Plaza, "you have earned a boon from Heaven. For Satan Claus rewards the worthy!'

"Gah...I thought Satan was a man!" Flynn swiftly covered his eyes, trying to burn the image of Satan out of his brain.

"I doubt that gender applies to demons," Isabeau remarked, "and the angels have always been fliud with their sexuality, from what I have learned across Amala."

"But...the bosom. Is that truly necessary?! And shouldn't this be the actual Father Christmas?! Santa Claus!"

"I believe that it is one of those 'Single Letter Displacement Errors' the magus Potter mentioned when we met," the Anchor said, as she watched Satan give out presents to the Luxurors (but only out of the corner of her eye). "I do agree, however, that this is not a pleasant thing to see."

"May I suggest that we quit this sight?" Flynn said, pointedly looking away from the crowd and the angel towering over them.

"I suppose...but I would wonder," Isabeau thought aloud. "Were we still faithful Samurai, what would our gifts be?"

"Now, I believe I would ask for our comrades to begin Looping," Flynn remarked, as the pair headed back into the Barracks. "As my own Awakening was due to a 'freak accident' as they put it..."

"Fear not," Isabeau reassured him, a small smile sneaking onto her face. "Now that we are aware of exactly what our problem is, we stand a better chance of overcoming this hurdle. No matter how long it takes..."

"We'll find a way," Flynn agreed. "Now, I believe you agreed to teach me how this new camera works last Loop..."

[Nocturne], [My Little Pony]
Naoki loses it – parts 7 and 8
Author: Gamerex27

"Oh buck, buck, buck, buck!" Fluttershy screamed internally. "I should have...what have I..."

"And you know what?" The Fiend said, casually leaning against the edge of the stage. "Why waste time gloating, or telling you my eeeeevil plans? Actions speak louder than words, after all. And I never got any warning."

It raised its forehoof, sweeping it across the terrified crowd of fairgoers. "I think I'll start with...you!" it exclaimed, pointing directly at a terrified Diamond Tiara.

Shakily, the Unawake bully backed away as the Fiend glided over to her, primal fear overriding her usual haughty attitude.

"G-get away from my daughter!" From seemingly nowhere, Filthy Rich sprang into the air, tackling The Fiend in an attempt to save his beloved filly. Even though the two were roughly the same size, he only managed to push the thing several meters to the left.

"Hm?" The Fiend stretched out its wing, twisting it in unnatural directions to seize the buisnesspony in its skeletal grip. "Ah. I get it. The dotting daddy, desperate to save his little girl from the big ol' monster, huh? On second thought, this works better. Shibaboo!"

The stallion went rigid in the monster's grip. Gently, it plucked the pony from its wing with its forehoof, somehow managing to carry Filthy Rich's entire weight on one limb.

"You all came here to see a show, didn't you?" The Fiend said, in the same tone one would use to tell a stranger the time of day. "My first trick! Tearing this man in half!" He grabbed Rich's neck in one hoof, and his tail in the other. "Are you watching, daddy's little bitch?!" It sneered, as it began to pull. "I'm gonna make daddy dissapear-forev-"

Mercifully, the demon was cut off by a colossal bolt of lightning slamming into its barrel, sending it flying across the fair grounds. Its concentration finally broken, the aura of terror it had radiated dissapated, leaving the ponies to finally grasp what had happened.

As prey species are wont to do when faced with danger, the entire crowd proceeded to scream at the top of their lungs, fleeing in unison from the fairgrounds in a massive stampede.

"As much as I really don't want to do this," Pixie said, stepping over the still paralyzed body of Filthy Rich, "I'm not going to let you hurt all these dem-peop-ponies, Naoki."

She was met by chuckling from the distance, as the Fiend flew back towards the stage. "Should've known it'd be you," it snarled. "Always killing my fun! 'Naoki, help me rescue my people! Naoki, you can;t fight all four Archangels at once! Naoki, you can't obsess over saving those humans every Loop! You have to move on!' Bah!"

"Looper or not," Applejack declared, stepping forwards to stand with her fellow Looper, "we ain't gonna just let you kill everypony here."

"If you expected us to be froliking, brainless, and helpless morons like the G3 ponies," Rarity added, her horn shining with power, "you are sorely mistaken."

"Heh. I'm still getting what I want, you realize?" the Fiend said, as it leisurely took another worm-shaped creature out of its Pocket. "I wanted a fight-some good old fashioned violence. Whether the poor assholes I'm beating can actually throw a punch doesn't really matter."

"We need to find a way to stop this-without ponies getting hurt," Fluttershy whispered to the other Elements of Harmony. "He's an Anchor, and he's...snapped. Killing him would mean he'd just rampage in other Loops!"

"No party cannon, then," Pinkie Pie said glumly. "But hey, I did feel an Element of Magic Awake earlier! Maybe we could use the Elements to-"

She was struck by a fireball mid-sentence, sending her sprawling across the ground. "Owie! Okay, no more Ms. Nice Pony!"

The Fiend laughed. "This is hilarious!" it declared. "You-peaceful, harmony-worshiping p-ies think you can actually fight me?" It swallowed the Magatama, then continued." What happened to that precious 'Friendship above all else' crap?!"

"Just because we don't want to fight," Nyx declared, "doesn't mean we can't! I'm gonna make you pay for hurting Mommy!"

"Dashie," Fluttershy said, "do you remember where you felt the Magic Ping from?"

"I think so," the Element of Loyalty replied. "Be back in a few minutes."

With that, she took off, blazing away at speeds that far surpassed Rainboom levels. Fluttershy sighed. "Naoki, we want to help you! We don't have to-"

"Don't have to fight?" The Fiend finished. "Guess what: too bad! I want to fight! Bring it on, bitches!"

…

"Now," the Fiend said, "who do I kill first? The fun-loving, vacant, mindless pink one? The shallow, wimpy white one? Or the blue-"

Whatever he was about to say was cut off by slash to the face from the Celestial Brush. Grunting in pain, it fell out of the air and landed right on its haunches.

"You're a bloody idiot," Gilda snarled, readying another swipe of holy energy. "You think you can threaten to rip a stallion in half and get off scot-free?"

"Course I can!" the Fiend gloated, firing back at her with a gargantuan fireball. "I mean, it's not like it'll matter: he'd just be back next Loop. Don't you get it? NONE of this matters! NOTHING matters! NO ONE matters at all!"

"Non-Loopers are still people too!" Nyx shouted. Covering herself in a cloud of darkness, she emerged in a shrunken version of her Nightmare form, gathering the remaining dark magic around her horn. "I don't care if me-the Nightmare Force is making you do this! You have no right!"

"Nightmare what?" the Fiend asked, sounding puzzled as it lunged at the filly, ignoring the pulse of dark magic she had used on it. "Oh, those bugs on the Moon. You really think they're pulling my strings?!"

"If there's any part of you-" Nyx paused to dodge the massive by comparison pony flying at her, "that can hear me in there-"

"I just told you, dumbass! There're ain't no strings on me!" The Fiend laughed as it whirled back around, grabbing Nyx's wing in its hoof. "Everything I'm doing is 'cause I want toACKGH!"

It flipped head-over-hooves in the air, catching itself on its wings right before it hit the ground, or the pillar of stone that had launched it in the first place..

"You wanna fight?" Applejack asked, cold steel in her voice. "Then shut up and stop talkin', ya varmit!" she declared, sending more and more spikes of earth at the abomination. "You ain't gonna listen to a darn thing we say, so what's the point in big speeches?"

"That's the first thing any of you said that's made any sense!" Howling with laughter, it dodged every one of Applejack's strikes, then slammed its forehooves down on a pillar. Activating the spell, the fairgrounds shook, as the dirt and soil turned a lifeless red. "Try that again, bitch!"

Rolling her eyes, Applejack leapt up onto the stage, and tapped her forehoof against one of the metal support pillars. Ripping the still-forming Gatling Gun out of place, she pointed it at the Fiend and cranked the handle. "Metalbending's a thing, y'know!"

"So, you said I was shallow, did you?" Rarity bellowed, channeling the Royal Canterlot voice as she ascended to Alicornhood. "I've got all the depth I need right here in my Pocket!" She yanked out a dress made of solid light, slipping it on in a split-second. "Elegance does not mean weakness!" With that. she channeled the magic of the dress, sending twin beams of light out of her eyes.

"Two can play at that!" The Fiend countered with its own Freikugel spell, its eye lasers clashing with Rarity's own. "You're not gonna beat me at my own game!"

"She won't have to, silly!" The Fiend broke off the attack in surprise, only to be hit by the twin blows of Rarity's spell and Pinkie Pie's cream pie. "I never wanted to use that acid pie," she muttered, ducking behind a rock and reappearing from the branches of a nearby tree for another blow, "but waste not, want not!"

Hissing in pain, the Fiend clutched at its face, trying in vain to scrub the acid out of its eyes. "So you-geeeehhh-got a few tricks up your sleeves," it growled, leaping into the air to avoid the combined magical blasts/secondary volley of bullets/swipe of divine magic from its assailants. "You think you can beat a man who took out one of the Great Will's avatars itself?!"

"We don't think we can," bellowed a voice from behind it, as a massive shadow fell over the monster. "We know we can."

Before it could twist around to deliver a blow to the new foe, it hissed in pain as a colossal, clawed hand clenched around its entire body.

"I'll make this quick: it's better than you deserve!" Fluttershy's Tarrasque form boomed, clenching its fist tighter and tighter. With a sickening crunch of bone, she fractured nearly every bone in the Fiend's body.

"Not...bad..." it wheezed, as Fluttershy loosened her grip enough to let it fall to the ground. "But, you don't have the balls to finish-"

It was cut off by the giant beast slamming its foot down on it with its full weight.

"I don't want to, but I can, I will...and I did."

Even with countless years of experience, shapeshifting into a form as complex, gigantic, and mighty as the great and terrible Tarrasque demanded more magical energy per minute than Fluttershy was willing to burn at the moment. In a matter of seconds, she had shrunk back to her normal, albeit alicornified, size.

"Something tells me..." Gilda said, staring at the twitching abomination's body, "that he's still not dead yet. We should finish him off now!"

Drawing a circle right above the impact crater Fluttershy's foot had left, she unleashed the full might of the sun. Or, rather, she would have, if Nyx didn't force the makeshift star to vanish with her innate magic. "Hey!"

"Fluttershy said," the other Nightmare remarked, "killing him won't fix this."

"I'm afraid she's right, dear," Rarity said. "Maybe you could draw some Fuinjutsu instead, and trap him in a seal...at least, until Dashie comes back with whoever the Magic is."

"I'd argue with you about using the Elements on this guy," Gilda muttered, "since the Bureau's brainwashing started this whole mess, but we kind of have to."

"S...s..."

"Oh, you have got to be buckin' kidding me," Applejack groaned, as the Fiend shakily stood on broken, ruined legs, supported only by adrenaline and raw magic.

"So, you can defend this world, huh." Suddenly grinning with malicious glee, it pulsed with an absurd amount of power. "Then I'll just make my own."

Stomping its hooves on the ground, huge fleshy vines began to sprout from the ground, covering the Fiend in a cocoon of demonic magic. "Let's see if you holier-than-thou asswipes can beat me with the home-field advantage. In my Domain."

[Strange Journey], [SMT IV], [The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy]
Damnit, Billy!
Author: Gamerex27

As Langdon Alder entered the Red Sprite, he heard the sadly familiar klaxon of an alarm sound. Quickly stuffing the nuke into his Pocket, he ran into his ship, pushing aside fleeing crewmen to find a terrified Dent struggling to pull open a sealed door with several other crewmen.

"What happened?" Langdon demanded. "Did some idiot let out their demon in the middle of the ship?"

"Worse!" Grunting from the exterion, Dent struggled to lift the metal screen covering the door to the...wait, the mess hall?

"Crewman Alder," Arthur chimed in from the comms system, "the anomaly known as 'Billy' has stolen the Cosmic Eggs from the cargo hold. However, some sort of liquid is currently covering the cameras in that room, so I cannot tell you what he is doing."

"Th' varmit who walked outta the dang Schwarzwelt an' started ruining everyone's day?" Irving asked, the metal exosteketon he had built to modify the DEMONICA helping to slowly edge the screen up. "Didn't Gore say he wasn't helpin those Wise Men or Mem Aleph?"

"You are correct," the AI replied. "However, given how Commander Gore advised us to keep watch on him before he gave Crewmen Alder his Brilliance, I fear what may happen if he is permitted near the Cosmic Eggs."

"Stand back." Motioning for the southern scientist and engineer to step back, Langdon keyed in some commands on his Gauntlet. "Shiva, Doppelganger, Samedi! Help me lift that door!"

Crackling with energy, the DEMONICA's Gauntlet sent out a pulse of power, sending the three demons out of Langdon's Pocket. AT once, they proceeded to grab the door's handle, lifting the screen door with ease.

At first, the men and demons stared at the kitchen, not fully understanding what they were seeing. It looked like a mess: flour spilled all over the floor, globs of cookie dough covering the cameras, and cartons of long-spoiled milk lying haphazardly on the oven.

And, in the center of it all, Billy was casually using an egg beater to mix the cookie mix with milk, vegetable oil, and stranger yet ingredients, like pickles, chicken, and...demon meat?!

"Billy!" Dent yelled as the boy reached for one of the Cosmic Eggs lying on the table, "don't touch that! You'll break it!"

"Well, duuuuuuh!" the boy said. "You gotta break a few eggs to make a cookie? Or...was that a brownie?" he asked himself as he somehow lifted the egg taller than he was in one hand, and held it over the comically tiny bowl.

"Stop!" In one fluid motion, Langdon grabbed his Noisy Cricket out of his holster and aimed it at Billy's head. "Drop the egg now, or I swear to Go-swear to someone I will shoot you!"

"Oh you don't have to help me cook it, Mister Alder!" Billy said, holding the egg ever closer to the bowl's rim. "The oven's hot enough to do it on its own!"

Time seemed to move in slow motion. Langdon pulled the trigger on the boy, as did his two comrades, shooting what was obviously a demon in disguise, and not a human child. Before the bullets and bursts of energy got anywhere near him, however, Billy bashed the egg against the rim of the bowl and cracked it open.

The last things Langdon saw before the Loop came to a sudden end were the other eggs glowing in eldritch resonance, and Billy licking his lips. Then, everything went black, and he Awoke in what he shortly recognized s Aquila plaza.

"Wha...What just happened?" Shaking his head to clear his mind, Langdon struggled to reorient himself. While he had been to Isabeau's Branch many times, he had never been directly behind her in line.

Upon hearing his Ping, she whirled around in place, fear evident in her eyes. "Langdon! Listen to me: we have to run!"

"Angels going crazy again?" the soldier asked, putting his soul-bonded DEMONICA instantly from his Pocket.

"Worse." Isabeau removed her favorite sword from her Pocket, then cautiously stepped out of the line for the Gauntlet Ritual. "Have you seen a small boy with a nose bigger than Igor's?"

"Yeah...he actually just crashed my last Loop."

"Look around you!" his fellow Anchor cried.

Langdon glanced at where Hope would be to oversee the ritual...only to see Billy.

He looked behind him in line...only to see a row of Billys behind him, whooping, making disgusting noises, and other horrid things.

He twisted around to see the Samurai guards and Luxurors watching the ritual. All of them-each and every single one of them-were Billy.

And that is when Langdon and Isabeau ran screaming from the plaza, knowing that this would be a truly awful Loop indeed.

…

[Bar Loop]
Damnit, Billy! – part 2
Author: wildrook

Dante and Naoki looked at Langdon as they were in the Looper Bar.

"And the worst part was," Langdon said, "he wasn't AWAKE. He wasn't AWAKE!"

Naoki looked at him. "I wasn't that bad, was I?" he asked Dante.

"No, you weren't," Dante replied. "Not even during THAT time. Hell, he did more damage in the Pony loop than you did."

Naoki cringed. "The sad part is I'm still not as relieved, and I still have to apologize to Flu-Yellow," he said. "I mean, I lost control that time. I've gotten better, so I can control that. But...what happened here was Criminal Stupidity. Kind of makes me wonder if there's a patch to keep idiots like that from Looping."

"If there is," Squidward said, catching them by surprise, "then I'm going to thank the Admin in charge of my branch to keep Spongebob and Patrick from becoming Awake. I can handle two idiots just fine, but three at ONCE? I'd crash the Loop and endure Eiken, thank you very much."

[Nocturne], [My Little Pony]
Naoki loses it – parts 9 to 12
Author: Gamerex27

"Faster, faster…come on, Dashie, this is important!" Rainbow Dash mentally repeated to herself as she streaked across the countryside towards the Magic Ping. Since Twilight was Unawake (and probably dead at that plothead's hooves, or worse), and Applebloom was nowhere to be seen, there was only one candidate left.

Flapping her wings rapidly, Dash came to a sudden stop along the dirt road, where Trixie's wagon was parked for the night. Idly, her militaristic pegasus instincts wondered why she was in such a vunerable spot for an attack by robbers, then remembered that even Unawake Trixie would have been able to handle a threat like that.

"Hey! You Awake in there?!" Rainbow Dash demanded, pounding on the door with both forehooves. "C'mon, Trixie! I need to talk to you!"

Slowly, ever so slooooooowly, she heard the clip-clop of four hooves on wood. The door swung open, and a tired-looking, baggy-eyed Trixie met her at the door.

"Can this wait for later?" Trixie asked, yawning after she spoke. "Trixie needs to take a vacation. No booms, no fireworks, no preformances…She just got out of a Gurren Lagann Loop, and is exhausted."

"No, it can't!" Yanking Trixie out of the wagon, Rainbow Dash looker her in the eye. "We've got a big problem. An Anchor's in this Loop, but he refused our help, and lost it. If we can't stop him, he'll kill every living thing on Equis!"

"…And we require the Elements of Harmony to stop him," Trixie concluded. She leusurely pulsed a hissing tea kettle out of her Pocket with one hoof, pouring the caffeinated liquid into a thermos with the other. "Why did you come to Trixie for this? Can't Twilight do it?"

"Twilight's dead."

Freezing up, Trixie dropped both the kettle and thermos, spreading perfectly good tea everywhere across the grass. "What?"

"The Anchor's been compromised by the Nightmare Force," Dash explained, urgently pulling Trixie away from the wagon. "He murdered Luna, threw Celestia into a black hole, made Twilight vanish to somewhere, and nearly ripped Filthy Rich in half."

"I…" Grabbing the dropped thermos, Trixie quickly drank what little was left of the tea, assumed her Alicorn form in a flash of light, then nodded. "Alright. Trixie is ready to rumble."

"Fairgrounds," Dash said, preparing for takeoff, "as fast as you can. Which means now." Faster than the naked eye could see, Dash took off and made her way to the fairgrounds in a matter of seconds, with an Alicornified Trixie close behind.

…

"What'd that moron buck up now?" Dash asked, as she landed next to a pacing Rarity.

"We managed to beat him down," the Element of Generosity said, "but he opened up some kind of pocket dimension-not his Subspace Pocket."

"And it's still growing," Gilda added, making a celestial net out of her brush skills. "It was the size of a tree when he started…"

"And now it's the size of the stage," Superpixie said, backing away from the mass of fleshy vines and tendrils. "I know what that is: That's a demonic Domain."

"Can ya tell us how to deal with it, then?" Applejack asked, pulling up another steel wall from the stage to block off the Domain's advance.

"If a demon is powerful enough-like, say, me…" Pixie said, "they can make a pocket dimension. It's kinda like a spider's web: humans walk into it, get trapped by the shifting landscape, and the demon who made it devours them for lunch."

An unholy screech came from the direction of the Domain, as it broke through the sun and steel laid by the Equestrians after a delay of mere seconds.

"And…do they expand to be this big, usually?" Fluttershy asked.

"Not really, ho," Hee-Ho told her. "Domains can draw stuff from the outside world into them and grow, but usually most demons don't bother expanding on it. They're fine with it just being a small trap and diner for visitors. And the visitors are the cuisine, hee-ho."

"He said he'd have the home field advantage," Rarity said. "This must be what he meant. And if he can draw ponies into there, then…there'd be no way to stop him from torturing them!"

"Can't we just blow up that unsightly…weed-like…thing, then?" Trixie said, already grabbing a hydrogen bomb from her Pocket and setting up the detonation sequence. "It'd stop him."

"Yes, that would work in the short term," Fluttershy said, pulling Trixie away from the bomb with her forehooves. "But he'd still be berserk in the next Loop, and the Loop after that, and the Loop after that…"

"Then we could just resurrect him after he's dead, and take precautions from there." Rainbow Dash suggested, keying in the codes to abort the launch sequence.

"But he's the Anchor," Applejack pointed out. "We kill him, and the Loop ends. No chance ta help him, no way ta stop him…We kill him, and we lose."

"…And if we leave him alone, he'll do unspeakable things to everypony and everyone we love," Dash grimly concluded. "We fight him and subdue him, but that runs the risk of making it worse. Kobayashi Maru."

"Huh?" Hee-Ho asked, looking back from the wall of ice he had conjured to slow the advance of the Domain.

"A no-win scenario," Dash explained. "It's from a Star Fleet program that pushes prospective captains to their limits-to see how they would handle a scenario in which they and their crew are completely doomed. With no other way out."

"But we gotta stop him!" Pinkie Pie sent a blast of entropic power at the Domain, eroding some of the progress it had made in consuming the world. "No-fun scenario…"

"No win scenario," Dash corrected.

"No-fun scenario or not, we have to fight him! If Candy Cane doesn't want parties, I won't give him parties! If Mister Clef ruins our Sanctuary, we won't give him Sanctuary!"

"She's right," Gilda said, pulling Amarateratsu's famous Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi blade out of her Pocket. "The bastard's lost any right to a Sancutary here by causing all this havoc. If the only way to stop him is to beat him at his own game, then so be it."

"Slavequestria, Molestia, Bureaus, CelestiAI, Tirek, Mandy, the Imperium of Man, the Gods of Chaos, and even Kyubey," Dash listed off, cracking her neck from side to side. "We beat every single one of those: why's one crazy stallion any different?"

"It's good you're all confident in this," Pixie said, pulling out her fey knife from her own Pocket in preparation for battle, "but Naoki's different. Every single Loop, he's been fighting and fighting demons. Even if we pull out all the stops, I don't know if all of us at once could stop him."

"Maybe, maybe not," Rarity told her, putting on her special mithril dress for the battle ahead. "But we have no choice but to try, darling. Buck the Kobyashi Maru: there's always a Loop-hole to exploit. There's always another choice in the wardrobe, always a way to patch a tear in the fabric…"

"Always a time for really dumb metaphors, hee-ho," the Black Frost muttered.

"..and always a way to win," Rarity finished, ignoring the snowman. "Is everyone ready?"

"Ah think so. Ah got enough rocks in my Pocket ta build the Great Wall of China, and enough to bash his buckin' head in!"

"Yep! I was wondering when I would ever get a chance to try the Muffin Shotgun I made a while back, and this looks like the perfect time!"

"I've always wanted to punch his creepy-looking face in, so count me in, ho!"

"He's my friend, so I have a duty to stop him from tearing himself apart. I'm going with you."

"No one kills Mommy and gets away with it! I'm gonna give that nightmare some real Nightmares to be afraid of!"

"You know, I've had it up to here with these grimdark morons, always whining about how their life sucks. About time I get to take it out on one of them."

"I'm with Gilda on this one. Let's see if we can't beat my record for a total curbstomp fight! Somewhere around 20 seconds flat, I think…"

"This is our mistake to bear," Fluttershy said, concluding the sound-off, "so we'll have to clean it up. If a helping hoof can't fix it then we'll just have to buck the evil out of him."

"You do realize I can still hear you idiots, right?"

For a moment, everyone was silent. Blushing, Fluttershy glanced at the other Loopers, embarrassed to have done all this within their enemy's earshot.

"Plans, no plans, I'll still get my way in the end. Trillions of years of learning, suffering, and sorrow. And it's about time I got karma for everything I've been through," the Fiend's voice echoed from the Domain.

Slowly, the air before the Domain began to distort, as a white hole in the fabric of space appeared before the group of Loopers.

"Naoki," Fluttershy said, all trace of kindness and empathy gone from her voice, "you've just signed your own death warrant. We're coming in there, and we will kill you, Sanctuary or not."

"Heh. Finally pushed those peace-loving morons to the only real solution to problems. Violence. Then come in, and see how your love and friendship fares against reality."

Fluttershy rolled her eyes, and transformed into an Owlbear in preparation for what was ahead.

"The realtiy is that you're a dangerous psychopath," she continued. "Anchor or not, we won't tolerate someone burning Equestria to the ground just because someone had a few bad days."

She was met by only one thing: laughter.

"Right, we're not getting through to him. Let's go and stop him before he turns Equestria into the Eleventh Circle of Hell." Nodding, the assorted ponies, griffons, and demons followed the druid into the gateway, as it shut behind them.

…

"Aloha, my little ponies!"

Kicking open the stage door on the ruined ampitheater, Discord sauntered into the fairgrounds, wearing a tacky Hawiann shirt and very expensive sunglasses.

"Sorry to keep you all waiting," he drawled, "but traffic was stone cold! So, who's ready for some good, old fashioned wait what?"

Discord blinked, looking at the utterly empty fair. "Did everypony start a round of Hide and Go Seek when I wasn't looking?" he asked himself. Pulling out a telescope, he swept it across the landscape, then frowned when he still found nothing. "Geez, I know she was a bad queen, but those two really ran this place into the ground!"

"They have to be somewhere," he muttered. He walked forwards, holding a mismatched paw to his forehead as he kept looking. "Celly and Luna should be right-"

He tripped over something soft and squishy, and promptly fell to the ground with a girlish shriek.

"Ah, not bad!" he complemented no one in particular. "You get one free shot, though: judging by the time, I'd say it's...Luna!"

Beaming, he looked around. And then his gaze happened to fall to the floor.

Discord's smile abruptly froze in place. "Okay, the playing possum?" he told Luna's corpse. "Not really a good joke."

"C'mooooon!" he yelled prodding at Luna's barrel to no effect. "Wake up so we can have some fun!" Pulling an air horn our of nowhere, he proceeded to blast it right into Luna's face. Still no response.

"Sheesh, don't tell me I gotta give you CPR! I'm terrible at that!" Kneeling down, Discord held his paw in front of Luna's face.

"You're...not breathing?" his smile finally fading. "Wait a second...you're dead?!"

"Booooooooo!" he hissed, pulling a red card out and slapping it on Luna's body. "That's...no fun at all! There's no fun in a game when the other player's not even playing the big game of Life anymore!"

"It's...almost like one of those guys did this," he said, brushing some residual chaos magic out of Luna's mane. "Like him."

"And what is your point?"

Discord visibly flinched. "You. Of course, it had to be you."

For the first time, Discord's face twisted in annoyance. He turned around to see exactly who he had expected: an old mare and her charge. The mare was black-coated, and a veil obscured all of her features, save the Cutie Mark of a jeweled crown on her flank.

He was, however, speaking to the charge: a colt with a blood-red coat and blond mane, and piercing golden eyes. He looked at Discord, with no sense of intimidation, fear, or even any kind of respect. He seemed, of all things, bored. Unperturbed, he tilted his head slightly, his horn wobbling slightly and wings flickering, as if it were some kind of demon's failed attempt to look equine to hide their true nature.

"Right, was this you?" Discord demanded. "It's just like you to do something like this! 'Oooh, let's kill the oppressive tyrant who wanted to bring eternal night and dominate everything in an unchanging world!' And not even have fun with that! Honestly, you have no sense of fun at all!"

"And you remain little better than a newborn," the woman replied, "too pre-occupied with playing games to do anything productive for the cause of Chaos."

"Right, formalities are over. Why are you here?"

The alicorn colt leaned over towards the mare, whispering softly into her ear.

"Is there something you'd like to tell the class, Morning Star?" Discord grumbled.

"My master says that he arrived here to examine an anomaly in the fabric of the physical plane," the mare in black said. "He took a personal interest in some distortions in reality around this area-"

"The same kind of 'personal interest' where you lie back and give a few ponies advice on what to do while a mad queen bans fun?" Discord mumbled under his breath.

"-And wished to see it for himself," she finished, ignoring Discord. "As the personification of Chaos-"

"A job I still can't believe you got over me."

"Enough," the colt finally spoke, in a much deeper voice than he should have had. "I doubt that you were preceptive enough to notice," he said, finally speaking directly to Discord, "but time itself is broken. It has been twisted into a never-ending loop, like a serpent trying to eat its own tail."

"And it centers on there," he said, pointing a forehoof at the rapidly growing Domain. "I sense the presence of a Fiend."

"One the master has said he had not yet created," the mare added.

"But beyond that," Morning Star continued, "madness. The hate of a being pushed to their breaking point and beyond it. And beyond that still, a flaw."

"Flaw?" Discord echoed. "There's cracks all over reality, most of them caused by stuff like us. Why would you care about that?"

"While I suspect that this Fiend would be unable to destabilize this universe on a planar level," the demon prince replied, "it may cause deep harm to reality if left alone. And, as I am tied to its timeline-I suspect that even this is not my native place in reality-the boy needs to be stopped."

"Then just go already!" Discord said, flinging his paws in the air. "This is why I hate you!" he declared. "Too obsessed with your schemes to get out there and do any real Chaos?"

"Are you aware of the master's contempt for ponykind?" the mare asked Discord, seemingly out of nowhere. "They are herd animals: marching in lockstep, clinging to their precious harmony like a child to their mother."

"Which makes their fight against the Fiend so fascinating." Walking forwards, Morning Star jumped onto his hind legs, gesturing with both forelegs at the Domain. "To abandon their slavish adherents to harmony they have held for thousands of years, and to finally enter a fight willingly?" He grinned, as the Cutie Mark of a goat's head engulfed in flame began to glow. "I want-no, need to see how this ends. Can they defeat a demon I planned on molding into my own general?"

"We will see," the colt said, his wings flapping as he fell back onto all fours. "And I will not let you interfere."

"I...urgh, you killjoy!" Conjuring a lawn chair, Discord flopped down onto it, pulling out a tub of popcorn and munching on it half-heartedly. "Fine. Can you at least put up a scrying mirror or something? Let me see the action, O Lord of Chaos," he said mockingly.

"As you wish," Morning Star-whom the ancient griffon folk also named Lucifer-said. "As you wish."

…

It was...trippy.

That was the first word that came to Fluttershy's mind as the blinding light all around them faded, to reveal the inside of the Domain. Trippy.

They were in a hallway, twice as tall as they were, but barely wide enough to fit all of them in a three-by-three formation march. Everything was comprised of the fleshy vines from the outside: the floor, the ceilings, and the walls. The hallway extended several dozen meters into the distance, branching off into several different paths.

"Great," Rainbow Dash groaned. "As if the bucker hasn't been annoying enough, he made a maze."

"Well," Pixie said, as she pulled a rolled-up scroll from her Pocket, "all Domains turn out like that, to be fair. Remember, they're like spiderwebs."

"Oh, you're kidding me." Face slightly green, Rarity held a forehoof to her mouth as she pushed back onto her hind legs and tapped the wall with her free forelimb. "I would say this is the worst decoration I've ever seen, but at least these...things aren't squishy," she noted, poking it again to demonstrate the lack of disgusting sounds. "They're more like...metal. Still horrific, but not as bad as-"

"Shhh!" Pinkie Pie popped out from between the folds of the tentacles, scaring Rarity back onto all fours as she yelped in surprise. "You Pinkie Promised never to speak of it again!" she hissed, as Rainbow Dash went pale and nodded in affirmation.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good, ho!"

The mares were cut off from the oncoming argument by the incantation. Turning around, they saw that Hee-Ho had snatched the map from his fellow demon, and had used the magical keyword to activate it.

"Well, this sucks," he complained, turning the map over so that everyone present could see the layout of the maze. While it did indeed show a fairly straightforward representation of the Domain, there was no central chamber while Pixie said Naoki would be waiting. Nor, Fluttershy noted, did it show an exit.

"That's weird." Yanking the map back from the Black Frost, Pixie stared at it. "If he didn't want us to find him, he could do that thing where all maps break down in a Domain."

"But he wanted a fight, or something," Gilda added. "So why didn't he just write 'plothead here, need talon to face?'"

"I thought you'd like it!" The Fiend boomed, its voice echoing off the walls as the more skittish members of the team jumped in surprise. "I mean, you're stuck in the same place over and over and over and over and-"

"WE GET IT!" Gilda and Dash yelled in unison.

"Over," it finished. "Take some time to enjoy the new sights! Take some pictures! Buy some local ramen! Go to the hot springs! Recruit some wandering demons for your personal army! Get disembowled by your little horsie friends roaming the hallways for some nice, juicy ass-tattoo meat!"

Ignoring him, Fluttershy glanced at Pixie's map, then motioned for the others to follow her, her face set in an almost-unheard of scowl.

"Did any of y'all see that dot there?" Applejack asked, as the team rounded the first hallway to their left on Fluttershy's lead. "There's a dot there. I can't tell what language that is, but it's got somebody;s name above 'em."

"But who is it?" Rarity asked. "It's an Arabic letter system, and the first and last names are different sized from what Naoki's name is spelled in Equestrian, so it can't be him."

"That ain't the half of it, sugarcube." Applejack checked the map again, then shook her head. "I plain can't tell what language that it. I speak 'bout as many as Uhura these days, and I ain't got a clue."

"Either way, it's close to where we're going!' Pinkie Pie said, grinning from ear to ear as they turned right. "I know he's all 'rargh, I'm a party pooper and I'm here to keel you all!', but it gives me a chance to test the new model of Candy Cane Pylons!" She reached into her Pocket, pulling out a thinner and taller model than the prototype she had used before. "It runs off sugar, so we're not pumping all that awful junk into the sky, and-"

Suddenly, Pinkie Pie found her hoof far, far lighter than it should have been.

"Huh?" Confused, she brought here forehoof to eye level. Where a tall candy cane-themed machine should have been was a pile of ashes.

"No fair!" she whinnied. "Those are expensive to make! I spent thousands of...some kinda money, don't remember what...to get the parts!"

"You're in my Domain," the Fiend replied, "you fight by my rules."

"Right," Fluttershy said, coming to a sudden halt.

"Nope," Nyx said. "We're supposed to go on straight ahead, then take a left-"

"Not that," she replied, shifting uncomfortably in place. "Do you remember what he said about our 'friends?'"

From beyond the corner of the closest hallway, a purple mane poked into view.

"Oh, hi Mommy!" Nyx waved. "How are you! Feeling Loopy at all?"

Slowly, Twilight stepped out from beyond the corner. And Nyx's good cheer vanished from her face in a split-second at the sight ahead of her.

"No, not particularly," the Sleeping Anchor said, dropping into an aggressive stance, hoofing at the ground. "But I am feeling..."

She opened her mouth, and Fluttershy's heart sank. The mangy coat and incensed look in here eyes were bad enough. But the fact that every single one of her teeth had turned to razor-sharp fangs was, as humans said, the third strike.

"Hungry," Twilight purred, drooling as she spoke. "And you, sweetie, look positively delicious! Why, I could just gobble you up!"

"What. Did you. Do," Fluttershy said, in a low and surprisingly menacing voice.

"And I think I will!" the mad version of her friend howled, foaming at the mouth as she spoke. She slowly crept towards them, hunger in her eyes and pure malice on her face.

"What. Did you. DO?!"

…

"Oh, no, what to do?" The Fiend said mockingly as Twilight crept ever closer. "Your precious little friend hungers for your flesh! And you've got no choice but to-"

Rolling her eyes, Fluttershy thrust her paw forwards. "Paralyze."

Green gas billowed forth from her arms. Upon reaching Twilight's snout, she twitched, and promptly fell over, frozen in place.

"Fight...her." it finished weakly. "Wow, you're that much of a p***y, are you?"

"You...okay, mister, you're going down!" Switching back into her Nightmare Moon form, Nyx angrily stomped down the hallway. "Right, where the hay are you?!"

"Trixie seems to remember a rule about always sticking to the left side of a maze," the backup Element of Magic chimed in, as she followed the stuffed pony down the hallway. "If we just stick to there, we should be OUCH!"

Squealing in pain, Trixie tried desperately to shake Twilight, moving far earlier than she should have been, off of her leg to no avail.

"You're not getting out of this," The Fiend plainly stated as Twilight bit even deeper, managing to draw blood this time. "I won't let you."

"Sorry 'bout this!' Turning around and rearing up on her forelegs, Applejack proceeded to buck Twilight in the face, forcing her to release Trixie and stumble backwards.

"Heeheehee, not a bad appetizer!" she said, still drooling. "But I won't be full 'till I'm full, which means eating all of you!"

"Don't you have a bunch of cages in your Pocket for animals, Shy?" Dash asked, as she flapped her wings rapidly, creating a freakishly strong gust of wind to blow Twilight back. "You could put her in there until-"

"I can't," Fluttershy said, sniffing at the air. "There's something wrong with her. Some kind of...supernatural virus affecting her."

"Is that why she's cukoo for Cocoa Puffs right now?" Pinkie Pie asked, pulling a cream pie out of her Pocket, only for it to dissolve the second she tried to throw it.

"If I put her in my Pocket-my soul-then I'll get infected too," Fluttershy answered.

"Maybe I can hold her back..." Applejack said, yanking a massive cube of adamantium out of her Pocket and shaping it into a solid metal wall. "That should stop-"

There was a sickening splat of flesh-against steel, followed by another mad giggle. Then, Twilight flung herself against the wall again, which proceeded the sound of another disgusting, squishy thud.

"Oh, for-" From under a pocket of her dress, Rarity pulled out a spool of thick thread. "Just...hold her down," she told it, flinging it over the wall. "Did that work?" she asked the resident geomancer, as the thread unfurled and wrapped itself around their mad friend.

Applejack tapped her hoof against the floor-vines, and nodded. "Yep," she said. "she's hogtied good. Still tryin' ta move, but she's down for-"

But from beyond the wall, Twilight kept laughing, which eventually turned into short gasps for breath. Followed by yet more laughing from the Fiend.

"Uh," Applejack stammered, turning pale, "didja mean to wrap it around her neck?"

"What?!" Rarity demanded, relief vanishing from her face, "I told it to go around her legs!" Her horn glowed, and her eyes widened. "It's not working! It's...just getting tighter!"

"Hahahaha...nice...job...ha...ha...ha" Twilight gasped. Slowly, her breath grew softer, and softer, before falling silent.

For a few moments, everyone was quite. And then, Fluttershy suddenly turned into a dragon.

"Is THIS what you want?!" she boomed. "THIS is what you're doing? Forcing us to kill our friends?!"

"Finally," the monster replied, the vines pulsing with power as it spoke, "they get it."

"WHY?!" she screamed. "WHY?! WHAT THE BUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!"

"Why, little girl, don't you get it yet?" it simply said. "To prove a point."

Howling in rage, Fluttershy tore at the wall to her side, shredding a vine to pieces. "You want to fight?! FINE, THEN! I'LL RIP OUT YOUR GUTS AND SHOW THEM TO YOU, YOU SON OF A-"

"Hey, Shy! SHY! CALM DOWN!"

Fluttershy froze when she felt a forehoof slowly touch her scaly hide. Taking a few moments to calm herself down, she finally turned to face Rainbow Dash.

"I'm sorry...but...even I've got my limits," she apologized. "I...he made us..."

"We can just bring her back-revive her-after all this is done," Trixie added.

"All we need to do is stop him, and we can patch all of this up," Rarity said, still shaking a little from what she had just (even accedentally) done.

"Uh...girls," Pixie interrupted, "Naoki just showed himself on the map. But...it's beyond your wall...so..."

"Just close your eyes or something, ho!" Hee-Ho said. "It's a corpse! You must have seen tons of them by now!"

"We're not pushovers," Dash growled. "I mean...yeah, she's dead, but we've seen it happen before."

"Don't mean we have ta like it." Applejack muttered, tapping her foreleg against the wall and putting it back in her Pocket.

The band of Loopers marched on, trying to avoid Twilight's sprawled corpse right in their path.

"Up there," Nyx said, sounding much less chipper and more beaten down than usual. "There's a door."

"No knob, though, ho," Hee-Ho said, as he stepped mere inches away from the door. "Stand aside: I'll get this!"

Hee-Ho leaned back, cracking his neck from side to side and winding his fist up for a punch. He leapt forwards, fist craned at the door...

And promptly fell to the floor as the door swung open a second before impact."Yow!"

"Well, don't just stand there!" the Fiend said. "Come on in! Wipe your shoes first, though: don't want blood getting all over the floor!"

But by now, every single one of the ponies had gone beyond the point of banter, comedic or otherwise. They walked through the door.

It was much less than they had expected. It was a simple, if large, circular chamber: about as big as Twilight's library was, but totally devoid of anything but the walls and ceiling. The only feature of note was a staircase leading up to a door at the other side of the room.

"And the moment finally arrives!" The Fiend cackled. Rather than sounding from throughout the Domain as before, however, it sounded faint, as if coming from all across the massive room. "I'm surprised you actually went through with killing your friend! I thought you'd just sit there, whimpering until Twilight Sparkle tore your throats out!"

"No more surprises, and no more games," Fluttershy hissed, smoke billowing from her nostrils. "Come out here. Now."

"Oh, if you insist," it huffed. "But, you know what surprised me most of all?"

And before any of them could react, two things happened.

The first was that all of them felt that familiar pressure on their minds and hearts: the feeling of an oncoming Heartsong. But unlike every other tune they had sung, this one felt...wrong. Less of a friendly compulsion, and more of a voice screaming into their ears to sing and dance.

And the second thing was a hoof slamming the door open, and the thing that was once Naoki Kashima walking through the door.

And the moment he emerged into the room, Rarity had to physically stop herself from losing her lunch. "You...you..."

"You skinned Princess Celestia!" Rainbow Dash said, too stunned and horrified to really do anything else.

The Fiend laughed, the pelt that had once belonged to Princess Celestia shifting and rippling as the mirth shook through its body. And, as it moved, some other things became apparent throughout the room. Tiny strings, no wider than a strand of hair, extended from the exposed parts of its body, attaching to various lumps and tendrils spread all over the room.

Except, as the growths started screaming as the strands moved throughout their bodies to make totally out of place, beautiful music, they weren't just lumps. Faces emerged form the folds of flesh. Faces that were all too familiar to Rarity.

"The...Nightmare Force?" she whispered. "You...did this to them?!"

And before the Fiend could answer, the compulsion to join in the Heartsong became too much for them, as they were all herded into the melody by a will stronger than anything any of them had ever felt before.

The Fiend gave them one final laugh, twitched the wires to make the bones grind in a similar way to a piano and began to sing.

"Yooouu followed me here! That's amazing! You actually followed me here! To this dungeon of despair!"

"That's hi-la-rious!" it mocked, coming ever closer to the group as they were frozen in place. "I challenged, you followed! The show spirals on, but kids better take care!"

"Cause I don't fo-llow your reasoning, kiddoes! I honestly don't un-der-staaaaand!"

"What could ever be gained?" it asked as it circled the group, glaring at it in unison. "By taking a stand against little ol' me? The pawn of gods, Naoki?"

"But that's," it sang, shrugging its shoulders, "how it's got to beeeeee!"

It danced around the room, moving to the tortured tempo of the instruments made from the Nightmare Forces's living bodies, as it moved faster and faster to the haunting minor-key melody.

"WHY?!" Nyx demanded, finally freeing herself from the trance. "Why did you kill Mommy? Why are you trying to kill everypony? Why are you doing this?!"

In response, it just laughed, and started the next verse. "Cause I COULD! Cause it's FUN! Do we really need a Reason? Like dead gods and de-mons! To prove we can KILL!"

"They were there, begging, laaaaame!" it sung, making a mocking expression of Celestia's smile. "Those self-righteous bitches, those stupid old witches! All it took," it bragged, "was a small bit of wiiiiilllllll...to kiiiiiillllll."

"To set off! This show of disdaiiiiin!"

"But why did any of you come here at all?" it asked, as the tempo sped up even more. "You realize this is all pointless: your friends will be here next Loop, and I'll be gone! Don't you see! You can't save anyone! You can't, because nothing sticks! Nothing matters!"

"That's why you needed me," he continued. "You needed some excitement! Some blood pumping in your veins, to break the ever-crushing stillness! How long until the boredom and pointlessness takes it's toll! How long until you end up like me?!"

"NEVER!" Fluttershy roared. "We'll never be like you!"

Once again, the Fiend seemed to ignore her as it launched into the next verse. "In the end, does it even matter?" it asked them, holding a forehoof to its chin in thought. "Am I the monster you craved?"

"When the eons still come, your hearts will grow numb! So tell me...just who have you saved..."

"So bring on the fire, the roars, and the shouts!" it goaded. "But know you'll be twisted as your...souls...just...give...ouuuuut...oooooouuuuut!"

And suddenly, everything made sense to them. Why Naoki had snapped, why he was doing this, and what exactly they were talking to.

Because, the moment before it sung its final verse, its eyes shifted. In a second, they had gone from alien reds to ordinary black schlera.

Ordinary, except for the piercing, sickly yellow eyes.

"For I! Am a Shadow! And I! Am the true self and Iiiii'm you! and you'rrrrrrre me!"

"So," Shadow Naoki concluded, "DIE with me! DIE with me! DIE! WITH! MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

"We're NOT YOU!" Fluttershy roared again as the trance finally wore off on the other Loopers. "We're nothing like you!"

'Then bring it on!" the Shadow bellowed. "Come at me!"