"That," groaned Sparks, "is a wall."

Twilight wheezed as she clambered back onto her hooves. "I am both so glad that we're out of the throne room and seriously confused as to how you keep doing that."

Sparks grunted from where she lay against the unyielding stone, waving a hoof above her head in a dismissive fashion. "It's magic, I don't have to explain crap."

Twilight glared at the dark purple unicorn. "Sparks, I know that you know that I know that that is not an acceptable answer, or even close to an acceptable answer!"

Sparks sighed, and firmly fixed her gaze just slightly to Twilight's side, over her left shoulder to be exact. "I know, I know. I'm sorry, I just have this wicked headache and hornache going on right now, and kinda hoped to avoid the whole magi-babble shop talk dealie."

Twilight shook her head and smiled. Part of her still wanted to chew Sparks out for her flippant attitude and lack of social tact, but it was a very small part. "Okay Sparks, but once this is all over we are going to talk shop and maybe do a few tests to figure this out."

Sparks nodded, still not quite looking at Twilight. "Sure sure, you got it Twi."

Twilight paused, and looked over her shoulder, curious as to what may have captured Sparks attention so. But aside from a few lackluster painting of long deceased aristocrats and one spectacularly ugly vase, there was nothing of note down that hall. Twilight cocked an eyebrow at Sparks, "Uh, idle question, what are you looking at Sparks?"

Spark's ears twitched and she adjusted so she was looking right at Twilight. "Oh, sorry. Uh, my vision is still a bit fuzzy from the teleport. Hey, do you know the way back to our room? I wanna get the girls before we make our next move."

Twilight nodded and moved over to Sparks to help guide her. "Good idea Sparks. I think this way leads back to the rooms."

Sparks smiled and fell into step with Twilight. "Awesome, cause I'm totally lost right now." Sparks laughed sheepishly, "Never mind the blurry vision, I wasn't really paying attention when we went to the throne room in the first place."

Twilight smirked and threw her counterpart a look. "Oh? What had you so distracted?"

Sparks blushed and studiously kept her eyes forward. "O-oh, you know, just thinking about stuff. And, uh, things."

"Things?" chirped Twilight.

Sparks nodded and set her mouth in a stoic frown. "Yup. Things."

"Ah, well, I'm sure Mocha will be flattered to know that you're thinking of her." giggled Twilight.

Sparks squeaked in shock and promptly tripped over her own hooves. The dark purple unicorn, typically so brash and self assured, looked up at Twilight (or thereabouts) with teary, pleading eyes. "Please don't tell." she whimpered, like a filly who had been caught with her hoof in the cookie jar.

Twilight smiled, and embraced the fleeting joy with everything she had. Slowly back peddling from where Sparks lay, Twilight let her mirth seep into her voice, "I would never dream of telling Mocha. At least not conventionally. Hey, what's your favorite color anyway?"

Sparks quickly got to her hooves and began to trot after Twilight. "What? Uh, dark red, why?"

Twilight turned back around and started to gallop down the hallway. "Ooh, lucky. I'm glad to hear that Mocha already has something to wear for your first date."

Sparks almost tumbled again, "No! No no no nonono!" Laying on the speed, she tore around corners with reckless disregard, chasing after Twilight.

Twilight laughed loudly as she led Sparks through the palace, her horn flickering to help nudge obstacles out of the way, or keep Sparks' own telekinetic grip off of her tail. Deep inside her, Twilight knew what she was doing was just a distraction, a delaying tactic to keep herself from thinking about what she and the girls had to do. About what she had seen in the throne room, and her part in Prince Hazard's ascension.

But for the moment, it was enough to laugh at Sparks' desperate pleading, and race against her own dark thoughts.

* * *

Sparks was frantic in her pursuit. On some level, she knew that Twilight was just teasing her, and that she wouldn't intentionally do anything to spoil Sparks' budding romance. Sparks felt her face flush at the thought, and poured on some extra speed.

But as she rounded the corner to another freakishly long hallway, a painting caught her eyes.

"Twilight, hold up!" Sparks shouted. Without checking to see if her other self had really stopped, Sparks slowly walked over to the painting. Twilight quickly brought herself up short and trotted back to see what Sparks was looking at, and almost gasped in horror for her troubles.

It was an ancient thing, the paint chipped and cracked, the frame itself dusty and tarnished. But the image captured on canvas held Sparks spellbound. Poised regally on a throne of skinless ponies, minotaurs, griffons, and other sapients was a figure clad in yellow silk robes. His eyes, despite the faded nature of the artwork, still glinted malevolently. The same sneer that Twilight still saw in her nightmares graced his lips, and the fine crystal goblet of chocolate milk was raised in a toast to the painter.

"Discord..." Twilight hissed, her good mood fading away.

Sparks cocked her head to the side. "Uh... are you sure about that?" The dark purple unicorn held up her hooves in a forestalling gesture. "I mean, not saying you're not, but I don't see him. I see something else entirely in the painting."

Twilight blew out a frustrated breath. "Of course you do. I can quite easily imagine that jerk to hide a few 'jokes' in a painting of himself."

"My, my, my, aren't you two just precious." Twilight and Sparks both froze. Swallowing heavily, the two unicorns slowly turned to look at the ancient painting, and the creature talking to them from within it.

The draconequus sneered at Twilight, drank his goblet and threw away the chocolate milk, and slowly stepped down his throne and dias while pointedly not looking at the explosions going off behind him.

Twilight began to quietly hyperventilate. "No, you can't be here, you're trapped in Canterlot! Get back to your statue! Get out of here!" she whispered to herself. Whatever aura of levity Discord had wrapped around him when they had last clashed was gone, and Twilight was forced to face the uncomfortable truth that Discord wasn't natural. He wasn't supposed to be, in much the same way the shoggoth she had summoned was undeniably wrong.

Sparks, in a notable contrast to Twilight's spiral down into panic and sorrow, spiraled down into panic and fire. Screaming at the top of her lungs, Sparks pulled a vast globe of raw magic from herself, set the whole thing alight with flickering, eldritch purple flames, and then launched it at Discord at an appreciable fraction of the speed of sound.

Twilight watched in grotesque fascination, as Discord's maw seemed to unhinge, stretching and warping with the sound of crackling bone and tearing sinews. Fangs and razor sharp teeth tore their way out of his gums in a welter of blood and ichorous black fluids, and the draconequus drew in a deep breath.

"Du Lah Rii!" screeched Discord, and before Twilight's eyes the ball of unstable plasma broke apart into many thin ribbons of dark purple light, which Discord took to slurping out of the air like spaghetti.

Discord smacked his lips together and patted his stomach. "Mmm, spicy." The draconequus gave Sparks an appraising look, complete with comically huge jeweler's loupe.

"You know, if you weren't still bleeding mana from those pesky psychic wounds darling little Able gave you, you'd be able to see me properly, prophet." Discord discarded his appraising look in favor of a truly wicked grin. "If you'd like, I could always fix you up right now. No charge even," Discord's smile stretched past the physical confines of his face, and drool began to dribble form one horribly distended corner of his foul maw. "Honest." he leered.

Sparks growled in inarticulate rage, and Twilight marveled as a new orb of sorcerous fire began growing at the tip of Sparks' horn. Even Discord looked mildly impressed right before his lion arm stretched out and slapped Sparks hard enough to send the dark purple unicorn sprawling on the ground, her latest magical attack sputtering and dying out.

Twilight choked back a scream as she bolted over to her downed doppelganger. Taking a wide legged stance over Sparks, Twilight glared up at Discord, her fear momentarily subsumed by righteous anger.

"Oh don't give me that look Twily." sneered Discord. "It was at least partially for her own good. She's never going to get her cutie mark unless she stops burning so much mana."

"How on earth would you know that?" spat Twilight. In spite of her bravado, Twilight could feel her knees shaking, and beads of sweat working their way down her neck. Being this close to Discord was wrecking havoc on her nerves, and it was all Twilight could do to keep her tone level and face stoic.

"Pu-leeze, don't insult me so Twilight." trilled Discord. Twilight blinked a droplet of sweat from her eyelashes and in that refracted, watery image saw another body where Discord stood. He (it?) stood on three thick, sinewy legs, each tipped with an odd number of wickedly serrated talons. Arms grew and withered from the wide, tree trunk like chest of this horrible figure, lashing and grasping at the empty air, whilst faces contorted in unthinking agony bloomed like flowers on its dark, rubbery skin.

Twilight began screaming and in a desperate bid to get away from the horror all but tripped over Sparks. Even though she could now only see Discord, the other creature was burnt into her mind's eye, that gaping, cavernous maw situated in it's head tendril laughing at her mockingly.

"Oh my." drawled Discord, "It seems like you got a look at what I truly am." The draconequus slithered over to the pair of prone ponies, his sibilant snickers slipping past Twilight's hooves to squirm inside her ears. "For all your knowledge, for all you magical strength," Discord hissed, coiled up around Twilight and Sparks like some unholy serpent, "before a true master of the arcane arts you are naught but a feeble minded child."

Discord sighed as Twilight quietly gibbered to herself. "Welp, I suppose you're done with this conversation, so I'll move onto what I bothered to show up for; the tender, fresh soul of a prophet." Looming over Sparks, Discord's talon and paw elongated, stretching and deforming into cruelly hooked tendrils, the ragged edges of his new digits glistening wetly with spirit scarring acids. His jaw unhinged, and for the second time that day, fresh teeth and blind, groping tentacles erupted from his gums. "After all," Discord slurred, "if shhe's not going to ushe her talent, why let shuch a delicacy rot with her?"

Even as Discord ran his tongue over his newly kitted out fangs, a faint buzzing started to emanate from within his goatee. "Oh come on!" groaned the chaos spirit. "Can't I get even one little shweet shnack?! Ugh." Sitting upright, Discord reached his mutated eagle's talon into his beard and pulled out a set of earbuds. Holding the tiny microphone up by his mouth, "Ahem. Dishcord here, how may I shcrew with you today?"

"Uh huh."

"Sheriously?"

"Are you shure? Yesh, yesh, I know I owe you a favor or two."

"No, I don't recall the 'Asshes of Fire" incident, shounds like shomthing I'd do though. Yesh, yesh, I owe you more than two favorsh, point made, pleashe get on with it."

"Shpare her?! And kickshtart her cutie mark? You're calling in an awful lot of chipsh here..."

Discord groaned, slapping his face with his lions paw and shaking out the extra teeth and tentacles as his mouth shrunk down to a more reasonable size. "Okay, okay, fine. You've made your point. I'll do it your way. Yes, yes, scouts honor. Thanks, bye."

Sighing, Discord gently pushed the earbuds back into his goatee. "Well if I'm going to do this, might as well do it right," he groused. Gently his paw against Spark's cheek, Discord suddenly drew it back, creating a loud cracking noise. Sparks lept to her hooves, and skittered a few steps, the bruise that had been forming on her face vanishing as she looked around wildly.

Upon seeing Twilight, and how Twilight was still rocking back and forth quietly crying to herself, Sparks whipped around and once again began charging up her horn to blast Discord with magic. "Third time's the charm, monster." she snarled.

Which made it kinda anti-climatic when a bored looking Discord licked his talons and pinched the end of her horn, disrupting her spell with a faint fizzling sound. "Yes yes, you're very angry at me for not just killing you to eat your sweet, delectable soul, and not showing Twilight the absolute truth of my form and thus permanently ruining her mind, I get it."

While Sparks grabbed a nearby tapestry to rub the spittle off her horn, Discord took the time to pace around her, setting a pair of half-moon spectacles on the bridge of his nose. With a serpent's speed, he seized Sparks by her tail and hoisted her up to his level like the catch of the day.

"Oh you are so freaking dead!" roared Sparks, lashing out with her hooves in near mindless rage.

"Hush prophet, it's not very becoming for one of the Chosen to resort to such childish threats."

"Stop calling me 'prophet' you abomination! I remember what you are! You lie, you manipulate others for your own sick amusement! I refuse to listen to you!"

Discord gave an exaggerated sigh, shaking his head sadly. "Ah Sparks, so full of life, so full of energy." Tossing the still flailing unicorn into the air, Discord's hard bird-like talons encircled her neck and drew her face up against his own. His every word rustling the fur of her face, Discord sneered, "I suppose we'll just do this the hard way then."

Discord's paw began to shift in shape, fingers ripping apart to make way for dark, chain like tendrils of necrotic green energy. His eyes fractured like some ancient mirror, and Sparks saw dozens, even hundreds of herself within that feverish gaze.

"Closhe your eyesh and think of Equeshtria." slurred Discord, his maw once more holding too many teeth and tiny grasping arms to clearly form words.

"Can... can I think of Mocha instead?"

Discord huffed out a breath, and Sparks ineffectively tried to shy away as she was spattered with drool, blood, and other less identifiable fluids. "Shmart aleck. Shure, whatever, just keep it to yourshelf."

"Why are you doing this? Why are you acting like you're on our side?!"

Discord let loose a snicker, and then threw his head back as the floodgates opened up. He giggled, he howled, and when he was done Sparks wanted to somehow squirm out of her own skin. Some of the noises Discord made in the depths of his laughter would surely haunt her to her grave.

"Oh shweet little Shparks. While you're right to think that I'm rooting for you and your cadre of fellow poniesh, I am mosht shurely on my own shide." Discord set his feet again and raised Sparks above his head. "If it were up to me, I'd be picking my teeth with your bonesh right now. But a certain pony called in a whole shlew of favorsh, and now I'm giving you a little push in the right direction."

Discord tapped his chin with the hand made of sickly green magic. "Well, moshtly anyway. Thish ishn't an exact shcience after all." The draconequus raised his magically glowing hand up to Sparks's face and it was all she could do not to scream at the mere proximity to the unholy appendage. "Now be a dear and hold shtill, this will hurt."

And Sparks knew no more.

Author's Note

Sorry it's a bit short, but some news is better than no news I hope. Next chapter to happen eventually. Please give constructive critiques or just general praise. I know it's a long wait between chapters, but ... uh, actually I don't have any excuse. Ah, at least I'm honest? Yay?

Also, if anyone knows of any groups I could add this story to for some extra exposure, that'd be swell if you'd tell me. Thanks!