A Discorded Journey

‘Dear Discord,

I am so sorry, but I need to cancel our Tuesday Tea this week. Angel is not well. He has been ill the past few days. Yesterday he started to become extremely aggressive and injured several of my other little creature friends. If he doesn’t start improving soon I may have to… Well, hopefully it doesn’t come to that.

I really hope that’s OK. Please forgive me.

Your friend,

Fluttershy

P.S. I’m sorry.

‘Mydear friend Fluttershy,

That’s unfortunate. Give the little ratpestcherub my regards. I will be on vacation for a week.a month.an unknown amount of time. I will be unable to write while away and will not be able to make our tea time until further notice. If Celestia asks where I am, please tell her the truth.that I am ill.to mind her own business.

Your bestest friendin all of Equestria,

Lord Discord, Master of Chaos, Elder Draconequus, the Only

P.S. If Sun Butt asks who ate her Ruske Kape, I stole itLuna sat on itI don’t know.’

        A mound of fur and bones stirred in the back corner of the cell. Tirek turned to face me, his eyes blurry with sleep. He was but a shadow of his former self, his fur matted and his ribs protruding. I smiled and waved. He looked so confused, I could not help but let a laugh escape me. This was already turning out to be more fun than I anticipated. He frowned at me as the realization that he was not hallucinating hit him like a sock full of bits.

        “Discord? Is that you, friend?” Tirek spoke quietly, his voice hoarse and barely audible. “What are you doing here? Are you here to free me from this pathetic excuse of an existence?” He sounded almost hopeful.

        “Fat chance, T-Boy. And don’t call me friend. We are anything but friends.” I snapped my talons and a red and white popcorn container filled with small rocks appeared in my paw. I started to toss pebbles at Tirek through the bars. He glared at me, unblinking. The only noise was the soft pit-pat of the rocks bouncing off of him and hitting the ground.

        “Well, I don’t know about that,” he stated, more life coming into his voice. His face contorted into what I think was supposed to be a more friendly one. I shot a pebble at him, hitting him square between the eyes. Unfazed, he broke our stare as he rose to his hooves and brushed himself off. “I seem to remember a certain Draconequus once telling me that he had no need for friends. Yet here you are before me, allies with pitiful ponies whom you now call friends. I have known you far longer than they, embraced your true nature from the start, and offered you the one thing they cannot; power, freedom. You still crave it, and you cannot hide it from me no matter how you try. Why else would you be here?” A small, knowing smile crept onto Tirek’s lips.

        “I am here for sport.” I threw the pebbles aside and changed into my safari outfit. It even had leaves and sticks in the hat. My special poke-somepony-from-a-distance-so-they-can’t-smack-me stick materialized in my hands and I poked Tirek’s flank. “Dance, you!” I commanded, poking him again. Tirek scowled at me.

        “Ahh, I see now.” His lips curled into a snarl. He walked up to the bars and grabbed them, sticking his face through as much as he could. Poke. “You’re bored,” he whispered.

        “I am sure I have no idea what you are talking about,” I stated casually.

        “Oh, don’t play dumb with me,” he said as he laughed in my face. Poke. He withdrew from the bars and waved his hand around in the air as if shooing off a fly. “Celestia hasn’t let you have any fun, has she? All you are to her is a pathetic lap pony. Her and that filthy Princess Twilight,” he spat. Poke. “I bet her friends think you are just a nuisance since you betrayed them. They only humor your friendship because you're less of a pain in the flank as a friend than an enemy.”

        My blood started to boil in my hoof. Literally, it was boiling. I was so busy venting the steam into my other hoof that I hadn’t realized my poking had intensified.

        Tirek continued, unconcerned that he was almost being skewered alive. “What was that one’s name? That yellow mare with the pink mane?” He paused as my poking stopped and my eyes narrowed dangerously thin. “She really was a piece of work. I am not normally attracted to ponies, but the taste of her magic was especially… erotic. I can’t wait to get another taste of her.”

        Before I realized it my paw shot forward and Tirek was thrown backwards against the bars. He crumpled to the ground and gasped for breath. My eyes were aglow with raw chaos and everything around me started to darken. My body grew as I accommodated the influx of chaos magic. I towered over the cell, the Lord of Chaos about to bring judgement down on Tirek.

        “YOU THINK I’D LET YOU GET NEAR HER AGAIN?” My voice shook all of Tartarus. “WHERE YOU ARE GOING YOU WILL FIND NO RESPITE FROM PAIN OR AGONY!” I grabbed him by the throat with my magic and lifted him in the air. I slashed my claws forward and a portal opened in his cell. Black tendrils reached through it towards Tirek. His legs kicked frantically as he fought for breath, his eyes were bloodshot and his hands grasped at his neck. I grinned maniacally and relished in the power I had over him. The option was there and he knew it. I could end him.

‘Discord...  I believe in you…’

        Before I could toss Tirek’s flailing body to the monster, her voice echoed in my mind. I wasn’t that Draconequus anymore. If she were here right now, she would be disgusted with me. My eyes cleared and my senses returned. I dropped Tirek and closed the portal, the explosion defused by the sound of her in my mind. My body returned to normal and I sighed, exhaling any lingering excess magic.

        There was no reason to continue this portion of my vacation. We were done. I turned away from the cell and sauntered down the path. Tirek scrambled to his hooves and charged the bars, though he gasped for breath.

“Discord,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. Clearly my hold on him had done more than just cut off air. “I have information… that you may… find relevant,” he wheezed.

        “Oh please, I doubt that,” I said over my shoulder, waving a dismissive talon in the air.

        “Even if… it is… about… your precious… marefriend?”

        My gait slowed, but only just. I wasn’t about to let this trickster into my head. Playing the fool more than once was not my style. However, if Tirek knew about something that could harm Fluttershy I would need to do some investigating, just to make sure.

“You cannot save them! It’s too late!” he shouted at me, laughing hysterically. His voice echoed in my ears as I materialized at the entrance of Tartarus, just before the archway. Cerberus lay between the pillars, his backside turned to me, his attention elsewhere.

I closed my eyes and concentrated. Though time was of the essence, I needed to get a better idea of who or what we could be dealing with. I poked at the chaos field that enveloped all of Equestria. The vibrations I created sent ripples through the field. I examined the returning vibrations as they bounced off of large clumps of chaos tangles. The Everfree Forest, which was the whole area rather than a clump, seemed normal. There was a clump in Canterlot and another in The Crystal Empire. Strange. I prodded the Canterlot clump to get more detail. Nothing happened. My brow furrowed. I moved my attention to The Everfree Forest and prodded a small clump there. A static filled image appeared beneath my closed eyelids. It was clear enough to see general shapes, outlines, and colors. Pretty normal. I prodded it again and it came into focus. Timberwolves digging a den, a snake strangling a mouse. Yup, normal. Moving back to Canterlot I poked the clump again, with more force. It shook violently but remained a jumbled mess of tangled chaos.

‘This… This can’t be possible. How can my manipulation of chaos magic be blocked?’ I thought to myself as I opened my eyes. Something was very, very wrong.

As I moved forward Cerberus’s ears twitched and he spun around, two heads inspected me while the third tried to look menacing. The middle head had an object in its mouth and drool dripped from it. He must have found it when he ran off and brought it back with him. Once he recognized me he bounded over, drool flying everywhere. He dropped the item at my feet. I stepped over it and made a shooing motion with my hands.

“Get out of my way, you foul-breathed beast,” I spat at him. I was in a terrible mood and had no time for games, as much as I usually enjoyed them.

Cerberus blocked my path completely. He hunkered down, his butt in the air and tail wagging. I stepped left, he moved left. I stepped right, he moved right. We did the shuffle several times before each of his three heads barked at me.

“Oh for buck’s sake, HERE!” I turned on my heel and grabbed the object. It was a round, disc-shaped stone, green pearlescent in color, and about the size of a hoofball. The fact that Cerberus hadn’t swallowed it was mystery. The moment I touched it I felt order magic rush into my body. I tried to let go but it was glued to my paw. I forced as much chaos magic as I could towards it in an attempt to force the order magic out of me. It burned my veins as it overtook the chaos and traveled up my arm.

A white light erupted from the disc. There was an increase in the order magic’s power and it swept through the rest of my body. I felt like I was on fire, which I normally enjoyed, but this was agony. My paw shrunk and morphed into a strange, spider-like appendage. I was screaming and shaking and writhing as my magic was replaced with the essence of everything I hated. The last thing I remember was being pulled into the disc, the light engulfing me as I lost consciousness.