The chapter begins with the interviewers greeting Shining, he has finally reached the decisive moment. He thinks this must mean that all the interviews were just a near death experience or that it was all in his mind. But his mind isn't messed up enough to think up something like Makarov. The three have trouble to explain themselves to the mortal who is able to realize that they are there. And amusingly Shining is able to understand them since he had encountered much worse.
But that was the easy part. Explaining the situation of the unicorn is much harder. This timeline is a mess. There is a version of Shining that was enslaved by the Changeling Queen at the time shortly after Discord got released yet again. It is hard to argue which Shining is in a worse situation considering all the messed up things the Changeling impersonating his love could do this him. Because of Makarov's interference, events seem to happen differently in this timeline but that will likely get corrected once the imagination thing gets erased from existence. Now the interviewers want to solve this paradox and while Shining's past and backstory did work out fine, his future doesn't seem to move forward at all as long as Solomon exists. Everything is incomplete and now it is HIS CHOICE how events will play out from here.
The unicorn sees that he is wearing a magic inhibitor and Makarov is right next to him. This can mean only one thing: He will torture Shining and the reader with a monologue! The unicorn suggests the imagination thing to wear the bag himself but honestly that wouldn't prevent him from talking. He needs a gag instead. Makarov's comeback is actually not entirely horrible, surely a 2 out of 10, which is still a HUGE improvement over his previous banter. Then Solomon congratulates him for being such a great nemesis but at this point Shining openly wonders WHY the imagination thing chose to be a monster. The Hooviets wanted a super soldier but he could have just as well have turned this concept into being a “soldier of peace” that uses his mind control powers to prevent wars. It is not like they want to be turned into his respawning cannon fodder minions. Unfortunately now that the imagination thing could actually say something interesting about his relationship to his mother and creator Pandora or WHY he is doing all of this, nothing comes out of him. Such a golden opportunity to actually say something interesting and we only get another disappointment from Makarov.
Then he instead goes into a different direction and complains that just like all villains Shining lost because of his weakness, his caring for his friends. On the other side his own heroism boils down to arrogance and greed. Should he win, the story would be so utterly boring and dull that no shadow would want to read it. He can't even tell his origin story in an interesting manner, he surely can't handle the entire story of this series on his own. For now reality rejects Makarov's more extreme attempts to influence everything. To show Shining what it is like, he shows the unicorn the battle that ranges on outside as his allies try to rescue him. It isn't going that well for the Hooviet forces. But it seems that the allies will not be able to reach the helicopter as Makarov's forces die like respawning videogame monsters. On the other side it makes sense that Solomon's battle strategies completely suck as he can just make up whatever he wants. He never learned to actually work with limited resources as he just brings them into existence as needed.
He keeps forcing the most suicidal tactics on his own troops just to have the chance to show off. His fighting methods are so over the top that you almost expect him to jump on the rotating helicopter blade to summon a shark with a laser on his head to shoot down his enemies next. This soon becomes what you expect Discord to do... when he is totally drunk. Then a dragon appears out of nowhere, gets defeated in another over the top way and then explodes for no reason. Apparently Makarov ate Jaws 4 before coming into this ridiculous battle, never expected to see another living being explode for no reason. For reality and fate however this was far too much and the remains of the battle gets erased by the wolf.Unfortunately the unicorn cuts off Makarov before he can talk more about Pandora. It would actually be more interesting to hear what he thinks of his creator and mother but since he is constantly lying anyway, we likely wouldn't have gotten something interesting out of him. So the imagination thing continues to monologue about how he will not allow Shining to be erased so that everybody will remember his role as a villain and how he can even reveal his entire plan to the unicorn to show how unstoppable and great the master plan is. So here is the “unbeatable” master plan: At first Makarov will go to the place where his powers are the strongest, then he will kill all dragons on the world (except one), then the entire world will unsurprisingly attack the Hooviet Empire, then he will pull out an insanely large number of troops out of his rear, then the Alicorns will attack the entire world instead of just the obviously evil enemy and finally Makarov will counter with his secret weapon.
At no point does Shining believe Makarov's nonsense but the biggest hindrance is that the opinion of the imagination thing doesn't really matter in this scene. It is possible to have a lesser villain get disturbed at an act of evil that he wouldn't commit, this can go as far as a murderer being disturbed by a torturer or rapist. But a pure villain like Makarov who has already done a genocide and is just preparing another complaining about Celestia's rule means literally nothing.
Then he claims that Celestia is ignoring Cadence's letters asking for help while showing that he himself is stealing them... If reality wouldn't be so incredibly screwed by now, one of the countless allies would have likely gotten the smart idea to simply call the Alicorns in another way. Then the two Goddessed could just appear behind Makarov to mercifully cut short his endless monologue. Unfortunately we are not so lucky and we get another very long lecture how EVERYTHING went according to Solomon's plan. His head could be cut off and he would still rant how everything is going according to plan. By this point Shining is so utterly bored by these monologues that he predicts what the imagination thing will say even before he can really begin his sentence. This finally stops the endless rants and Makarov just kicks the unicorn unconscious when he runs out of prepared speeches.
The unicorn awakens in the obviously evil interiors of the Oversized Flying Golden Brick that Makarov calls his home. He has no idea where his friends are and even worse Makarov is here to give even more monologues! This time about his flagship, the Daedalus, the biggest phallic symbol in existence. Somehow he gets the details about its own armor wrong or maybe it now even works like Makarov claims it does. After all his messing with reality it becomes harder and harder to tell right from wrong. This oversized thing shouldn't even be able to fly and the Hooviet Empire shouldn't even be able to afford building the armor of this bizarre construction. Outside the battle is not going well for the Hooviets, they have lost more then the allied forces but the flying brick seems invincible. Soon enough they arrive at the bridge which looks like it belongs onto a spaceship and has a rather huge blue sphere in it.
Then the imagination thing sits down on his throne and changes clothes into something more obviously evil. No, he doesn't undress before Shining's eyes, he isn't into that... it is more like an instant change. The Makarov reveals the most shocking thing of all: Shining's friends are not here but trapped in the main fortress. Savor the one smart move Solomon will make in this entire chapter... it won't happen again. Because now he explains his plan in song! And not any song but a variation of the villain song of Quest for Canterlot. Even Shining is not able to follow the lyrics when they finally move on to the important part. As a pony working under the Goddess of Music he is used to hear MUCH better songs. And there are worse things that Makarov could have stolen from the movie like “the ogre's butt” line, the axe-chicken or the music number of the two headed dragon.
Meanwhile the battle continues outside and the death toll rises higher and higher. Countless Hooviets have already fallen but the imagination thing doesn't care at all for their loss. In fact Makarov boosts about the loss of civilians and is looking forward to more dying in his insane slaughter. Then again what else would you expect from somebody who has already genocided an entire species. The Hooviet air fleet in the area was defeated but the ground forces remain strong.
Then he shows Shining more bloodshed and apparently Unit Metal and Gilda are in the middle of it. Then again the unicorn is not able to recognize the griffin anyway. But Makarov is far from done with his exposition. He reveals his fortress which contains two secret weapons. One is the Iron Curtain which is basically a giant forcefield that allows nobody to get in or out and even blocks out the wolf. It also weakens all magic besides the areas protected by another shield: his fortress and his Flying Golden Brick. The second one is Icarus/Project Skyfall which literally takes down all flying beings like pegasi or griffins and all airships. Somehow it doesn't work on helicopters and the Flying Golden Brick is protected again. It sounds good on paper but there is a very huge glaring flaw in this entire concept.
Meanwhile Cadence keeps sending futile letters and unfortunately even the death of thousands doesn't motivate her to unlock her full potential to try to save those who are still alive. With the situation this dark Makarov demands Shining to surrender but with the support of the interviewers he is able to reject this. In turn Solomon activates his second nonsense weapon which lets everybody and everything flying fall out of the sky no matter how little sense it makes. The griffins and pegasi should have been able to glide to the ground and even the ships have security systems which doesn't even seem to get activated as they drop. Within the shield there is no logic and should the imagination thing be victorious, the effect would spread over the entire world. It wouldn't last of course. Makarov can hardly keep this little space together and once reality is corrupted enough, Entropy would just erase this universe like she has done so many times before. And the mortals would likely joyfully embrace the endless silence of nothingness if it would mean that they won't have to listen to Solomon's rants any longer.
Makarov also reveals that the huge sphere is actually a paradox engine, likely a construct that just like the imagination engine before it also harms his mother Pandora by its very use. This machine allows him to create paradoxes all over the planet and rewrite reality to a certain extend. Currently the genocide of the dragons begins and he forces Shining to watch a dragon die a horrible death from the deadly poison and apparently it is also extremely harmful to the ponies as well. His attempt on Ponyville however doesn't work out as the wind blows the toxic into the wrong direction. Apparently his control over reality outside the Iron Curtain is still imperfect.
But then Solomon makes one of his biggest mistakes yet: He targets Twilight Sparkle. The entire time the unicorn is struggling more and more with his past. Painful memories begin to push themselves to the surface. Here Makarov just keeps mocking Shining about how he could kill his sister. Now this is finally too much and Shining breaks the anti-magic necklace and uses his shield magic to crush the paradox engine. The entire time the moments of the past keep flashing before his eyes when he cut the Diamond Dog that was attacking him apart with his shield. Only the death of somebody close to him had motivated him to go this far the last time but this time he will strike before somebody he loves has to die.
Makarov seems to recover quickly but that falls apart completely when he realizes that he can't repair his paradox engine now. Instantly he switches from demanding complete surrender to trying to offer Shining power but the unicorn is obviously not interested in listening to him any longer. Eventually the imagination thing is able to start the repair but Shining is able to overpower him by using his power over shields to drop the magical barrier around the flagship. It does weaken the unicorn as well but the imagination thing looses much more and is overpowered. By the way is Project Skyfall still running? If it is, then this ship will drop out of the sky like the giant golden brick it is. After all the only thing that kept it airborne when every other airship was brought down was its own protective shield. It would be pretty ironic if Makarov accidentally took down his own flagship with his secret weapon. In the end the glaring flaw is that Solomon relied on something that others have a far better understanding then him. Simply stealing a lot of ideas from others is not the same as actually mastering them by yourself.
Soon enough Shining wrecks the paradox engine and Makarov is helpless to do anything about it. His troops don't do anything either, instead they try to save their own lives, after all none of them felt any real loyalty towards the imagination thing. This time the arrogant fool will no longer be able to claim that this was all part of his plan.
