Full of Regret and Thinly Veiled Contempt
This story is a sequel to BEDLAM II: Heart of Glass
Ed Bedlam's quest for world domination has finally been halted, hopefully permanently. And yet, his allies and servants are still at large and willing to cause trouble. But at least the worst of his evil is over.
Right?
The final part of the BEDLAM trilogy.
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A heck of a start. And a good distraction for a Monday morning.
I see you tapping that harmony/destiny glass. Wondering where your going with that
Which jail incident is it that she's flashing back to? Pre or Post Emperor Bedlam?
Also, Replacement is not something Bedlam ever called Twilight. So letter is likely intended for the petrified Bedlam. That laugh seems vaugely familiar :P
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Jail scene was in Tartarus, and the addition of just two words has clarified that.
Thanks for the Jury background. Its unsurprising but sad to see what direction she's heading.
Interesting that Discord hasn't popped up again yet. I have a thought or two on that but gonna hold them in for now.
The crystal mind turning back on smells like a trap. But by who to catch who?
Did I miss some context on what war might be happening in the minotaur lands?
Guessing they won't hold back anymore
Huh. Lots of actors at play. Extremely curious to see where exactly your going with this.
Most curious about Flurry in particular. She's simultaneously right and wrong. Some of it defo is from Cadence being foolish about teaching her. Just banning anything to do with Bedlam and not talking about isn't going to help Flurry understand the subtle and not-so-subtle bits about Bedlam's rule.
And I am even more certain that is not our Bedlam. For all of his quirks, he was "affectionate" with his more sentient creations.
Delightful chapters so far. All the actors are arriving at the stage, but what will we see when the lights turn on?
Poor Flurry Heart. Given what we saw earlier Jury is not the safest pony to have encountered right now, thought certainly safer than some of the others at play. Not 100% certain Tempest would go with something particularly cruel, but she seems to be floating around amoral at the moment.
I have to admit, I'm absolutely dying to get to the big mystery/s you have it play here. It's made focusing a bit difficult. Needless to say, as sad as I'll be to see this story end, I can't wait till I see how you plan to end it.
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How dare you make me feel like a drug-dealer.
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If your gonna keep feeding me cliffhangers every chapter, you only get to act so indignant over the feeling :P
As I suspected, an alternate Bedlam. The one he was communicating with I assume. And from a much less friendly timeline. With Sunset being the prized pupil, I can't even begin to imagine how different that timeline was. That Celestia was the one to pull out Grogar's bell to seal Discord's power is telling all on it's own.
Assuming my interpretation of first part as being a flashback and not something else is correct:
I wonder if "our" Bedlam realized his alt-universe counterpart had become a Discord stand-in?
Where is our Bedlam?
Given what little we saw from that flashback last chapter, of the alternate Mane 6, Rainbow seemed to have interacted with Bedford the most. Makes what happens here at the end make the most sense.
Was it supposed to be Twilight that nodded?
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Nah, it was Bedford. Followed by continuing his spiel with a sarcastic 'Super' at their inability to keep up with his yammering. He's even more impatient, violent, and condescending than Bedlam is, due to the simple fact he never had a Twilight. More on that to come, however.
The construct which brought the alt. character to the setting may imply the possible inclusion of other alt. characters from the same alt. Bedford or otherwise different conditions.
The addition of such a premise may undermine the magical boundaries between realities, a possibility often discussed and occurring across the community of fiction.
Coupled with the statue of Bedlam being placed within the chambers housing the construct capable of transmigrating the characters from an alt. timeline to the present designated timeline.
A level of confusion and possible hostility when the Twilight of the present reality showcases the evil and good of Bedlam, compared to Bedford.
The passage thou had concluded the idea the 'a corpse may wither, legacies are not of matter but of word'
Now the stakes are set. Gonna admit, I don't think I've read an mlp fic that has a "feck all that was, is, and will be" plan of this scale. Worse part is, given the variation of Equestria he ended up in? I can't totally blame him for ending up a super-villain. I'd accuse him of giving a skewed view, but ignoring Sunset being the Alicorn, Celestia popping a limb off like that... that's a more than mild difference between verse's.
Yay! I wasn't completely crazy noticing all the nods to Harmony being an active element with Bedlam!
And we finally get one very biased view of Harmony and it's role and impact. I didn't fail to notice that he was "convinced", not that he had evidence. Not to say that he's wrong, but I don't trust him to be completely right either. I wonder if this plays into why Discord hasn't poked his head out yet...
Now the real interesting part is, once this is laid out to Bedlam, what will his goals shift to? I can state with some confidence they won't match Bedfords. But for all of progress he made right at the end of the last story, I'm not convinced he wouldn't try and take control again. Especially given his previous suspicions about Harmony and destiny.
Damn. Nice to see Tirek and Chrysalis help like they did, and I had my suspicions it'd go this way.
Hope our adventure party gets its shit together and starts working together soon or they are going to wipe so hard against this
JRPG protagnistsuper villain as he revs up his quest to kill god.WTF.
This isn't something Twilight would do intentionally. I don't think Bedford gives enough of a fug to do this, but wouldn't put it past him either.
I'm prone to pointing a finger at Harmony, but it sounded like the stone spell is unrelated to the elements of harmony.
This doesn't bode well for when they un-stone him.
Edit: And then the inherent tragedy of this dream: Despite everything, this is still what he dreams about.
I wonder... did Bedlam create the disrupting wands specifically to counter Bedford?
The shallow grave has yet to be filled.
Do not wait, be with the dirt that had consumed all before you.
Bedford
Rambling below, not really expecting a response.
I was kinda teasing at the idea of Harmony wanting him to be a villain in my last comment on 2nd story. But 500+ years of living the same dream over and over again, while the dream itself attempts to deny its a dream? If he didn't come out of the stone a frothing nutcase, I strongly suspect he would be a Bedford tier villain. We can already see that whatever progress he made before being stoned has been shoved inside again. Repeatedly making steps forward only to immediately be met with either strong temptation or a stick to encourage him backwards.
But to what end? Is it a case of Harmony needing some sort of villain and since they've reformed every other one it needed to create a new one? Is it a case of an alien god not truly comprehending mortals and attempting to hammer square shape through round hole? Applying sentience to Harmony is a call that Bedford made, so is it even aware enough to make it a conscience action? Or is it that people of that universe unconsciously slot themselves into their place and Harmony enforces it?
Of course, given that Bedlam is an outsider, what's to say it wasn't his own brain applying the whip of guilt and desire to himself, forming the dreams?
Another random possibility is that Luna decided to be spiteful and tossed a spell on him. Dream magic is her domain and is quite a bit more experienced than Twilight...
Edit: More Ramble
The dictatorship that the pig people from first story lived under. The inherent unfairness of Minos society that drove/encouraged Silver Lace to her ends. Paradise Equestria, frozen and unmoving in technological or societal development, possibly leading to gen 5 setup. For anything to change, even bad things, means the destruction of order. Is Harmony inherently order, thus its conflict with Chaos? Or is it a balance of the two? Thus perhaps why it might be driving Bedlam to be a villain. Or perhaps Chaos instead? Might explain why Discord is missing.
If nothing else, I can amuse you with how far out in left field I am from where your aiming.
I see you countered a couple bits in my rambly comment, though I suspect you didn't need my rambling for most of them. I do like Luna's reaction to both the accusation and that Twilight was checking for that. I suspected and delight in the confirmation that Twilight was checking on him. That his dream state was undetectable is most interesting. Leaves open who could have done it, though I have two suspects in mind.
Bedlam's reaction to Celestia's horn is delightful and another separator between him and Bedford, as well as his hesitation to Jury's little admission at the end. Next chapter should be fun as I suspect they're gonna have a little chat about that on the way to this bunker.
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Bedlam's twisted and hypocritical morals were fun to figure out once he got older. He's always been fine with murder, and when angry enough he's fine cursing an entire species. Despite that, he finds physical disfigurement and transforming living things into machines abhorrent and to be avoided if he can manage it.
And at the same time, it helps as a framework for Badlam(literally his name in my source doc.) Since if Bedlam wouldn't do something, Bedford absolutely would. Especially the more needlessly cruel and petty it is. For that reason he's the perfect antagonist for the final BEDLAM. He's just Eddy at his worst being thrown back in his face. Here's hoping he puts two and two together by the end.
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Baring things not shown or I've forgotten about, Bedlam seems generally unwilling to do his worst against those that haven't directly moved against him. Most of citizens in Canterlot are safe, but that cop that ignored him when Starlight was taking Bedlam to Twilight? That guy was headed for a bad time if Bedlam hadn't gotten stoned.
EDIT: That said, this is an extreme under/over simplification of it. And it certainly doesn't give him any moral high ground. And he certainly has never communicated his do's and don't very well since Jury and Tempest seem both seem quiet willing to trod into what he considers unallowable territory.
This Chapter:
I'm not shocked he had something like Balefire stashed away. MAD might not work so hot in the modern world, but Equestria wouldn't be used to such a tactic.
Getting some hints of Bedford/Badlam from Jury, which I imagine is more than a bit of why Bedlam is feeling upset at the moment.
You've got some ugly hints floating in here. That bit about scraping away all machinery, that bit at the very end. Got me pondering some end points you might take this that are giving me some bad feels.
This is a curious side(?) bit you have going on with the dreams. It's very clear that alternate Bedlam's exist, thus Badford. Badford even mentioned finding a happy Bedlam. Is it the same one that is in Bedlam's dreams? Is it the alt history of Bedlam making a different choice back in book 1? At this point, I have to question if these are really dreams or something else. In either case, I am deeply suspicious of the source being Bedlam's own brain. Or perhaps, this Bedlam. Seems to subtle for Badford though...
...con-...verges detected!
Tra-...dimensional-...anomaly inbound!
3
-
2
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1
--Harmo-...ny destabilized
Interesting. An uncontrolled sideways step. Uncontrolled by Bedlam at least, Interesting that there was a faint tune he associated with it.
I'd assume that the effect disappearing when he was away from Canterlot having to do with proximity, but can easily think of several things he's close to there that could be root cause, intentionally or not.
And Badlam continues to impress with how bad he is.
Inconclusive perception acquired.
Interesting that once again, Bedlam is pulled in to deal with a threat and then isn't needed to actually deal with the threat. That said, its not like Badford has really been dealt with yet.
Be curious to see how interactions between Flurry and Bedlam go when he gets back from his trip. That bit at the end just cements in my mind where he's ended up. Though the interesting bit will be whether he really listens to himself.
And against Twilight a bit, I think Bedlam, Jury, and Tempest fed off of each other more than realized. Certainly not in a healthy way given how out of sync they seem to be now. And I strongly suspect that it is Jury and Tempest that won't listen to Bedlam when/if he tries to shift things.