‘Nothing interesting has happened in months.’ Discord sighed to himself, ‘And now that I’m reformed I can’t just alleviate my boredom.’
The Draconequus looked mildly pleased with himself as an idea occurred to him: he could go help his friend Twilight Sparkle — surely she’d need something done… and if she didn’t then one of her friends would — and if the embodiment of Chaos upon the mortal plane couldn’t find enough ‘leeway’ in help then he’d be better off retired.
With the merest of thoughts Discord teleported himself straight to Twilight’s new castle — this was going to be so much fun, he just knew it.
…And Twilight Sparkle was engrossed in a book, typical.
Well, Discord had been imprisoned as a stone statue for years and years; he could wait… well, maybe not.
“Ahem!” Discord cleared his throat, trying to get Twilight’s attention.
The purple alicorn gave a startled jump and gasp, which was fairly amusing.
“Don’t surprise me like that!” Twilight said, “And Discord… how long have you been there?”
“Oh, eons and eons.” Discord replied before remembering that he didn’t want to annoy her too much, “Wait, you meant here here… just a few seconds.”
“Okay, why are you here?” Twilight asked, obviously leery from her tone of voice.
“Well, I was bored.” Discord said, twirling his tail around an arm.
“Bored.”
“Yes.” Discord answered her non-question. “I thought you might have something you wanted done, some wish I could magically fulfill perhaps?”
“I’m sorry but I have to finish this book, Discord.” Twilight indicated the tome she’d been reading, probably lying about how much she had to get it done immediately, but certainly a tactful way of saying ‘no’ and stymieing his plan.
“I was hoping it might be more festive with you, my friend. I’m really bored.” Discord said before plucking his tail off and placing it atop his head like one of Pinkie Pie’s party-hats. “Please!”
Twilight gave him a blank stare for a few moments before saying something: “If you want a party Pinkie’s throwing a birthday party for someone at two this afternoon.”
“Oh, then I guess I’ll go help her instead!” Discord said gleefully as he plucked one of the tufts off of his tail-hat and blew into it as it became one of those party noisemakers.
Discord snapped his paw and disappeared just as the town’s clock struck the half-our chime.
“Wait! Did I just send a bored Discord to a Pinkie Pie Party!?” Twilight yelled to herself as the realization dawned on her just how utterly, horribly, disastrously wrong things could go… and she only had thirty minutes to find out and get there!
If he’d been there, Discord would have found her panicked scramble to try to remember the who and where of the party quite amusing.
● ● ● ● ●
Discord appeared just outside Pinkie Pie’s door, tail still being worn as a party-hat, and knocked.
“Com~~ing!” Pinkie called out in a sing-song in the moments before she opened the door, her features shifted instantly from happy to suspicious when she saw who it was, “Discord.”
“Yes! Discord!” the Draconequus replied, then proceeded to preempt the obvious, and inevitable, ‘why are you here’-question, “I was bored, so Twilight Sparkle sent me to help you with your birthday party, and what better help than me?”
“Okie-dokie-lokie!” Pinkie replied, instantly going back to her cheerful and carefree self, “You can carry these!”
The pink mare reached just inside her room and pulled out a pile of party supplies that had to have been at least twice her volume and handed them to Discord. “Follow me and I’ll get the cakes!”
Discord shrugged before pulling his tail-hat off and opening it like a bag to put all the supplies in before following his bouncing guide like some sort of Frankensteinian Santa Clause.
— — — — —
“Happy Birthday to yo~~u!” Everyone sang as Pinkie brought out the cake and set it before a green unicorn mare and began lighting the candles and ponies began saying “Make a wish, Lyra!”
“Okay, I got it!” Lyra said, sitting in her odd upright style she took a breath and leaned forward… only to be interrupted by Discord.
“Hup-up-up!” Discord, who was wearing his tail as a party-hat again, interrupted. “You have to tell me what you wish for if you want me to grant it; I don’t read minds… too boring.”
“I want to meet a human!” Lyra instantly responded, then continued in an indecisive rush, “A boy-human; no, a girl human! A soldier, or hero; no, someone with a job that shows their cleverness!”
‘Oh, how deliciously contradictory!’ Discord thought to himself as he snapped his fingers causing a pair of oversized dog-bowl’s to appear, one containing water and hot-dogs in the other. “But you have to realize that feeding, watering, and taking care of its messes is your responsibility, young lady.”
Then Discord began searching the universe, then multiverse, for someone that fit that description, his eyes becoming black orbs with spurts of static across them as he delved further and further away… One spot, a ‘collision’ between several universes caught his attention as a promising place, certainly one with a lot of chaos — and an instant later he found his target.
Discord smiled as he opened a portal, reached in, and pulled the human through. It was insanely draining to pull something across dimensions like that and he’d be lying if he said he could do it again very soon, but for now… for now, there was this wonderful new pile of contradictions and craziness to keep him entertained for a while.
● ● ● ● ●
Lyra was dumbfounded.
Her wish, to meet a human, was granted before her very eyes and she couldn’t help but take in the scene: he was lanky, tall, dark brown hair, and clothed wrist-to-heel in a strangely mottled and splotchy gray pattern… so unlike most ponies, with their bright colors, the human seemed very earthy — and hands! — they were so different than hooves and one was… covered in blood?
Then the human fell to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut and, at virtually the same instant, the front door was flung open by Twilight Sparkle’s magic as she charged into the room looking wildly about.
Honestly, Lyra didn’t care what was happening, her dream of learning about humans was finally going to be a reality! ‘Wait, I should take notes. Preliminary observation!’
She levitated her quill, ink, and notebook to her with a speed that would be considered rude and borderline dangerous as she stepped closer to the human and began taking notes on the human form: arms, legs, hands, their range of motion, illustrations, and hypotheses.
He looked slightly worse for wear, with cuts and bruises forming, but it didn’t look like any broken bones. Still, it wouldn’t do for her to lose the chance to study a live human because she misjudged the wounds… but who could know enough about humans, or creatures in-general, to say if he was healthy?
“Erm, does anypony know first aid?” Lyra asked, looking up into the rest of the room… and apparently interrupting the argument that was threatening to break out between Discord and Twilight.
“First aid?” Twilight repeated, ear twitching in concern as to why somepony would want it… then she saw the prone figure lying on the floor, bleeding. ‘Oh, that would be a good reason.’
“Oh! I know!” Pinkie Pie interjected as she bounced toward the door, “I’ll get Fluttershy, and the Doctor! They both have experience with all sorts of creatures, and I’m sure the Doctor knows about humans.”
After Pinkie’s interruption, Discord took the opportunity to replace his tail in the proper spot, “As I was saying, Twilight, I was just giving the birthday-girl her wish… though I’ll admit, it was a stroke of good luck that she wanted to meet such an interesting human.”
“You mean you saw an opportunity for mischief.” Twilight retorted.
“Oh, come on now… I’m reformed, not boring.” Discord said defensively, as he tried to lead Twilight outside. “Besides, aren’t good ponies supposed to do something nice for someone when they have a birthday?”
Twilight shut her eyes in frustration, this was getting nowhere.
“Discord, you need to return, er, him to wherever you got him.” Twilight said, indicating the prone body on the floor, after taking a slight moment to collect her thoughts; chiding herself mentally: ‘No, I can’t just return him without getting him to a doctor.’
“Oh, I can’t do that.” Discord said, somewhat smugly, “Do you know mow much magic it takes to transport between worlds?”
“It didn’t seem all that difficult —” Twilight replied, picking the human up in her magic, “— there was that mirror that Sunset Shimmer used last year to go to another world.”
“Wait! What are you doing?” Lyra asked, with perhaps a bit more volume than she had intended, and following up with a jumble of questions, “Is it safe to move him? Or will that aggravate his injuries? Why does he have to go back so soon? And how do you know it’s a ‘him’?”
Twilight, unprepared for the bombardment of questions, but used to Pinkie Pie’s rapid-fire talking, was caught off-guard and answered without thinking about it: “When I went to the other world, it was populated by these people —” Twilight nodded at the still-floating human, “— I should know the difference between a male and female.”
“What!? You saw humans and didn’t tell me!” Lyra exploded at Twilight, angry that nobody had told her of this.
“Well, it’s not like I knew they were humans…” Twilight said defensively “it’s not like they were wearing shirts that said ‘HUMAN’ right across the front.”
Lyra crossed her forelegs and stared accusingly at the alicorn.
Twilight raised a hoof to pinch between the eyes, “Look, shouldn’t we be getting him to the hospital?”
Lyra trotted out of the building, following after Twilight, apparently off to the hospital, only to be stopped a moment later when Twilight turned around.
“You should stay here and bring Fluttershy and the doctor when Pinkie Pie gets back.”
“Fine, just don’t steal my human!” Lyra replied, looking past Twilight to the suspended form.
● ● ● ● ●
‘A human!’ The Doctor thought with an jubilant smile plastered to his face as he trotted to the hospital, ‘Here in Equestria of all places! Certainly much better than a Dalek… oh, I wonder what his name is… what if it’s John Smith?’
‘Would that be a paradox, or not? I don’t know!’
Upon entering the hospital, the Doctor proceeded to the operating room where the human had just been deposited… it wasn’t hard to find, what with the gawking orderlies and nurses all staring in that direction.
The Doctor quickly commandeered a lab-coat, stethoscope, and surgical mask before continuing into the operating-room — only to be confronted by the doctor there; one Dr. Horse who, for some reason, the doctor thought should really be two days unshaven, walk with a cane and a limp, and be generally grouchy.
“Time Turner, what are you doing here?” Dr. Horse asked, at least living up to the irritableness that the Doctor thought should be present.
“Have you ever operated on a human? Have you even seen one before?” The Doctor asked in reply, “I have… well seen, mostly; though I’ve done a little first aid, too.”
Dr. Horse grumbled a bit but given that he had no experience handling human anatomy any experience there would be helpful. A quick, but thorough, examination along with an x-ray showed that the main thing he needed was his cuts cleaned and stitched, there were no broken bones, and there appeared to be no internal bleeding — the main thing that concerned them after they finished stitching him up was the lack of response to any stimuli — there was no way to tell if there was a concussion or other traumatic brain injury.
— — — — —
Dear Princess Celestia,
I am sorry to trouble you but I have what could be urgent news, possibly connected to the alternate world I traveled to when Sunset Shimmer stole my crown. Discord has brought one of the creatures (called humans) that populated that world here — though it might not be from that specific world — at the behest of Lyra Heartstrings, with whom I am only passingly familiar. (Discord claims that this wish-granting is not a violation of his reform but I am not so sure.)
I remember you warning me about the possibility of disrupting events in an alternate world, which is why my friends couldn’t join me on that journey, and so I have concerns with the human’s presence here.
In any case the human is being treated in Ponyville’s hospital as I write this, he had many cuts and bruises and immediately collapsed on his arrival, the doctor says that he is has unusually weak vitals and is in an “intriguing coma-like state” — though I’m puzzled as to how he could know about a human’s normal vitals in the first place.
Always your student,
Twilight Sparkle
Twilight sighed as she finished her letter; it wasn’t her finest work, but there were so many unknowns in play here. She hesitated for a minute before allowing the quill to fall to a rest on the small table in the waiting room.
“Spike.” Twilight said, rolling the letter into it’s scroll-shape and floating it over to the baby dragon.
“I got it, Twi.” he said, incinerating it with his dragonfire and sending it off to the princess.
“How long is it going to take?” Lyra muttered to herself as she paced back and forth, obviously worried about the human.
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll be ok.” Fluttershy said, attempting to comfort Lyra.
“How do you know?” Lyra responded, wheeling on the poor pegasus, “Do you know how to treat a human? Do you know what kind of missed opportunity this will be if he dies?”
“N-no...” Fluttershy responded as she flinched back from the questions, “but I’m sure he won’t die.”
“Come on, calm down Lyra.” Twilight interjected into the conversation, “Fluttershy hasn’t done anything to deserve you yelling at her — you should apologize.”
Lyra looked abashed for a moment before almost mumbling an “I’m sorry.”
“No, I… y-you… you’re just worried.” Fluttershy said, offering a shy half-smile, “I know I would be worried if one of my animal-friends got hurt and there was nothing I could do but let the vets take care of them.”
Lyra deflated even more. What was with this pony? How could she be so kind, even to those who didn’t deserve it?
— — — — —
Princess Twilight,
Thank you for relating this important event to me. The presence of a single human does not warrant any rash actions; as such, we will treat the human with proper respect and hospitality unless and until he proves himself hostile or otherwise a danger to the citizens of our country.
As to Discord’s reform, this is not technically a violation; however, this does not mean that he bears no responsibility: he and Lyra will be obligated to provide room and board for our guest — it seems that this is the most appropriate response and will hopefully instill in both of them a respect for the consequences of actions.
Luna will visit the human’s dreams tonight or tomorrow to investigate and try to determine the human’s disposition and perhaps learn about our visitor.
Your friend,
Princess Celestia
Author's Note
Comments and Criticisms Welcome
If you criticize, please be constructive — I cannot improve if I don't know what I'm doing wrong.
(If you upvote or downvote, please tell me why, even if it's something as simple as "I did[n't] like the style", thanks.)
The dreamscape, Luna noted, was relatively uninteresting: somewhat rolling hills, some bushes, a few trees, and a stream gave it an almost pedestrian look. The first thing she noted was the flavor was more memory than dream; the second, was that what was interesting about it was the presence of four of these humans — in that initial instant.
The first was running at two of them, holding lightning in his hand. His hair was black and spiked, he wore what appeared to be an armored leather vest and long shorts with many pockets… but the most striking thing was his eyes — they were black and red, and looked somewhat like a red flower bounded by the black of the rest of the iris.
The second was turned away from the first but appeared to be in the middle of turning; he was dressed in gray-splotched clothing that seemed an odd mishmash despite being uniform over everything he wore excepting his shoes which were a tan color and looked very sturdy. His eyes, while obscured by a hat whose brim encircled the whole item, were also red like the first human’s, but it didn’t resemble a flower — instead three comma-like dots floated in the iris.
The third was obviously a different sort of human, with soft curves instead of the hard lines of the first two. Her mouth was opened in a shout, though whether exclamation or warning was uncertain. She had longer brown hair, and green skin. Her outfit was black and red; basically it was a body-suit with red accenting trim along the wrist and collar, in addition to a large X across her chest, and was coupled with a blue cape. Her eyes were red as well, but the whole eye glowed like red lanterns.
‘Strange, are red eyes common among humans?’ Luna thought, as she noticed the final human.
The fourth was also curved like the third, but moreso; also like the third, her hair was long, but dark. She wore a pair of blue pants and a long-sleeved red shirt that were both somewhat loose but not baggy. Unlike the others her eyes were a light violet, almost white, color — instead of red — they were nonetheless disconcerting due to the lack of a pupil.
‘Human eyes certainly are strange,’ Luna thought to herself, noting that none of the eyes had anything in common with all of the others. ‘And if they’re strange, does that mean they have strange souls?’
All that happened in a frozen instant, and when the next instant came everything changed as the chaos of action took hold, appropriately accompanied by the sound of a flock of birds wildly chirping.
The first human winked at the green woman and she was suddenly engulfed by black flames; he then continued to rush the second human, thrusting his lightning-filled hand through his chest and causing him to disappear in a puff of dun dingy gray smoke. Then he turned to the last one and charged.
Luna gasped as she realized what this was: a violent fight against an existential threat; it could only end in death. She was no stranger to violence, or death even — she had so fiercely fought to bring peace to Equestria that she had been feared more than her elder sister, despite the lesser amount of raw power — but even those tumultuous times were over nearly two hundred years before her exile.
The woman tried to counter her attacker, arms quickly swinging about in a protective sphere just as a multitude of needle-like bolts shot out of the aggressor’s lightning-covered hand. For a moment it seemed like she might be overwhelmed, but that was only a moment and she expertly hit all the bolts, and when her hand met them they shattered into nothing.
In a sidestep so quickly executed it seemed to be teleportation the man attacked, again sending a volley of the bolts into the woman’s defenses. It ended in the same manner, but when he drew his hand back a third time something different happened — he summoned a sword of light from the midst of the writhing lightning and lunged forward to execute a series of rapid strikes.
The sword’s strikes seemed to do nothing, and when there was a slight break in his attack the woman jumped back, disengaging to catch her breath — it was then that Luna saw that the woman hadn’t been successful in defending against all the attacks: the tatters of her shirt’s sleeves tried in vain to cover that her palms and forearms were covered in small, pin-scratch cuts.
Her breathing, too, was less steady than it had been moments ago, and there was a light quiver on her lip in the moment she spoke — “Why, Sasuke?”
“Because you helped him.” the man — apparently called Sasuke — spat out, particular distaste evident on the last word from the tone alone, but the sneer that accompanied it was terrible and showed that there was no hope for him, whoever that was, to find forgiveness.
In an instant the blade of light winked out of existence, and the man hopped back a pace as he performed a quick series of contortions, almost too fast for eyes to see, with his hands and exhaled a giant fireball at the woman.
While the woman tried to escape the fireball, Sasuke performed more of those contortions and lightning once more appeared in his hand as he jumped through the fireball and thrust his hand into the woman — there was a frozen moment as Luna realized that he’d used his hand as a spear to kill the woman.
Luna watched in horror as the man used his leg to violently push the body off his arm, the almost-white eyes staring at her from where the corpse came to rest.
Suddenly there was a loud crack, like thunder but without the multiple reverberations — and Sasuke raised a hand to his shoulder which came away bloody.
A purple glow suddenly surrounded Sasuke, forming a spectral warrior whose form was truly monestrous; simultaneously a noise like “schklikt-klikt” sounded, far enough away that it was not loud at all, but close enough the distinctive sound easily reached Luna.
Again that single peal of not-thunder rang out, there was a spark of movement at the edge of the spectral warrior and a deformed metal slug fell to the ground, its velocity spent uselessly on the defense provided by the spectral warrior. — Inside the warrior Sasuke adopted a look of stoic concentration.
Three times more the schklikt-klikt/not-thunder pair sounded, each doing the same amount of non-damage as the first.
Then the spectral warrior drew forth a bow and, drawing back, loosed it in the direction the metal slugs had come from.
Just as the arrow reached the bushes, the form of the gray-clad man jumped out — as he was airborne he swung both his arms in Sasuke’s direction letting fly multiple projectiles: six small knives, trailing little paper tails as if they were kites, and four round balls.
The balls began to emit smoke, even before they’d reached Sasuke and his spectral warrior, while the small knives impacted the warrior’s armor before clattering to the ground and instant before their ‘tails’ exploded. — Using the distraction/cover of the smoke and explosions, the gray-clad man unlimbered a boxy looking weapon and, thrusting his hands to grab through the oddly shaped holes he lunged into it as he brought it to his shoulder and more of the not-thunder cracks issued forth… many more, and much quicker, as the gray-clad man advanced on Sasuke.
The spectral form bounded forward and in a quick swing of its arm backhanded the assailant who flew several feet into the air before popping into a din-gray cloud again, leaving the boxy weapon and several of the knives to fall to the earth.
“Damn bunshin!” Sasuke yelled, gasping slightly for breath.
Luna didn’t know what a ‘Bunshin’ was, perhaps the name of the gray-clad man? In any case, she could see that the defense Sasuke had mounted had drained him of a lot of his magical-powers, enough to start to manifest as physical weariness at the least.
A sudden explosion wide afield drew attention from both Sasuke and Luna, and a second later another ‘Bunshin’ fell from the sky, wielding a sword of light similar to the one Luna had seen Sasuke using except for its red hue and rough, jagged look that suddenly jumped to crisp, clear lines.
As the red sword struck the ethereal warrior encasing Sasuke, there was a bright flash of light before the blade stopped its course, embedding several inches into the spectral warrior’s armor.
Sasuke staggered back even as the spectral warrior swung at the new assailant — only to impact against a red shield that had sprung into existence betwixt them. The shield held for a fraction of a second before it was overpowered and shattered.
However, that split second was enough time for the gray-clad man to cross the first two fingers of each hand forming a plus-sign figure… and causing two more of himself to appear.
Sasuke stared at the central figure, the one that had summoned the copies, and suddenly black flames surrounded hie figure… but they were held at bay by another red shield that sprang into existence.
“You’re as annoying as the blockhead with that technique, Joey.” Sasuke said, even as he turned his gaze to one of the duplicates… who was slapping a paper on the ground near the raging black inferno, just as he himself was covered in the black flame.
The duplicate flashed through a series of hand-contortions slapping the ground just as he disappeared in the now-familiar gray-dun smoke.
“I’ll take that as a complement.” the second duplicate said, even as the black flames started consuming his peer and the first duplicate’s technique triggered, a reminder from the training that their teacher put them through, the remaining duplicate was pulled underground even as the flames ripped off of Joey’s shield swirling into the paper seal on the ground.
Sasuke glared at Joey, preparing to trigger another Amaterasu, who whirled around and scooped up the paper on the ground and throwing it high and to the right of Sasuke— it didn’t make it past the spectral warrior, but when it contacted it the black flames were released onto apparition.
“Hn. Nice try.” Sasuke smirked, glancing up at the black flame, then back. “You’ll be dead before that Amaterasu can damage my Susano.”
“Spirit Wave!” Joey interrupted, ramming a fist into the spectral warrior and releasing a massive wave of energy across Sasuke… even through the protection of the spectral warrior he felt it.
Susano, the ethereal figure protecting Sasuke, flickered out of existence even as there was the distinctive pop of a shadow clone from the ground below; the loss of his ultimate defense stunned him for a moment, and in that moment he saw Joey’s eyes turn red, comma shaped tome appearing and spinning angrily, as Joey ran through a series of familiar hand-seals.
Luna watched as the one called Joey rushed toward Sasuke, lightning appearing in his hand accompanied by the sound of a thousand angry birds. Joey leapt and twisted int the air, clocking Sasuke across the face with his right hand before locking it behind Sasuke’s shoulder even as he locked his legs around the opposite arm and plunged his lightning-filed hand into Sasuke’s torso... even as Sasuke had done to the woman earlier.
Sasuke’s lifeless body collapsed taking Joey to the ground with it — Joey got to his feet, staggered weakly for a few steps.
For a brief instant he was tempted to feel victorious, but the knowledge that his friends had died because of his stupid quarrel between himself and the now-dead Uchiha heir stripped that away, leaving only a weary emptiness.
“I’m so sorry,” he sobbed, “I’m sorry, Hinata… Megan… I’m sorry.”
Author's Note
This chapter was mostly an exercise on writing fights — I'm not particularly good at it, but hopefully I'll improve.
