Nice Job Breaking It, Hero
Twilight felt good. She felt a sense of wholeness and completeness, a feeling that she had always pursued in everything she did. It a feeling that told her that she was good. That she was very good, not to mention wiser, as well as a guiding light for those who didn't know better. A "guiding Twilight" she could say.
Twilight was glad that she had exposed Trixie's deception, although seeing Starlight run off crying was an unfortunate consequence of the revelation, but she felt that Starlight would get over it evenutally, and realize that she, the Princess of Friendship, and her teacher, was right, as usual.
Twilight hardened her gaze on Trixie, making her tone serious as she said in a chastising tone, "Well, you won. I hope you're happy!"
Twilight waited for Trixie's angry response and vows of vengeance, but was taken off guard when the show-mare sighed and said, "Looks like the Great and Powerful Trixie is back to a solo show."
As Trixie put a hoof to her forehead, Twilight felt herself becoming confused, unable to comprehend this strange subdued reaction from this trickster. Unsure what to say, as Twilight could get out was, "Trixie?"
Trixie then immediately composed herself and turned to face Twilight, saying in a bitter tone, "...Which is exactly she likes it! Thank you, Princess Twilight, for getting rid of that annoying pony who wanted to be my first friend!" Twilight walked down the stairs out of reflex as Trixie pushed past her. The show-mare turned around and said with anger in her voice and tears in her eyes, "I am not sad at all! I definitely don't feel as if my heart is breaking into a million pieces!"
Trixie closed the curtain with her magic, leaving Twilight to turn away, not really sure of what happened. She looked down at the ground as she tried to make sense of what occurred. Trixie was angry, as Twilight knew she would be at having her plot foiled, yet something didn't seem right. Twilight couldn't figure out why Trixie was crying like that.
"She was acting almost like. . . she regretted loosing Starlight," Twilight said to herself, "But that doesn't make any sense. Trixie never wanted friends in the first place. It just couldn't be, so. . ."
Twilight's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of slow clapping approaching her. She looked up and saw Discord walking over to her, smiling and clapping just as he did back when he first broke free, only this time his clapping sounded normal and not replaced by random sounds.
"Well played, Princess of Friendship," Discord said in an overly respectful tone, "That was an excellent performance, if I do say so myself!"
Twilight growled, her mind already buzzing with confused thoughts and certainly not begging for me. "Discord, please. I'm not in the mood for-."
"Oh, come, come, now, Twilight!" Discord said as he slithered over to the alicorn's side and threw his lion arm around her, "Don't be so modest. Your technique was exquisite! so much better than anything I could have done!"
Discord teleported in front of Twilight and hung down five puppets from his fingers. One puppet was of Applejack looking at a pile of talking apples, the second was of Pinkie Pie being surrounding by smiling balloons, the third was of Rarity lugging a boulder on her back, the fourth was of Fluttershy with hypnotic eyes, and the fifth was of Rainbow Dash staring into a swirling cloud with rainbow lighting bolts jolting out of it.
"I mean, seriously," Discord said in a more cynical tone, as if criticizing himself, "The lengths I had to go through in order to temporarily break up your friendships! I had to use fake visions, illusions, tricks, blatant lies, and brainwashing to split you girls up!"
The puppets suddenly all disappeared in flash and were replaced with puppets of Starlight and Trixie laughing together.
"But lo and behold. . ." Discord said with an adoring smile.
A puppet of Twilight appeared in between the two puppets, and they both turned away from each other and starting crying actually tears and dripped onto the ground below them.
". . .you shatter their friendship without casting a single spell!" Discord said with a gleeful chuckle.
The puppets disappeared and Twilight suddenly found herself reclining on a couch. Discord sat in a chair next to her wearing a pair of thick round framed glasses, holding a pad and pencil in his hands. "Now tell me," Discord said, "How did you do it?"
Indignant and furious, Twilight got up quickly and asserted, "I didn't do anything! Trixie said-."
"Oh yes, I heard the whole conversation," Discord remarked nonchalantly as he took the lenses out of his glasses, stacked them on top of each other, and put them into a portable CD played he suddenly had in his hands in place of the pad and pencil. He pushed play and the conversation played out once again.
"This is exactly why I didn't want you to make friends with Trixie."
"A-ha! You still don't trust me! But guess what, princess? It doesn't matter if you want to give me a second chance or not. Starlight had to choose between you and me, and she chose me! Your pupil chose me, so ha! I win!"
"You win? That sounds like you just made friends with me to beat Twilight."
"Exactly! . . . Wait! I mean, no! I got caught up in the moment. I like you. Beating Twilight is just a bonus. *gasp!* Saying that didn't help, did it?
"I should've known. Nopony else in Ponyville wanted to be my friend. Why would you?"
"Wait, it's not like that! I am your friend. . ."
"There! You see!" Twilight said with a grin.
"Sure! You got Trixie to say just right thing to make Starlight feel betrayed!" Discord said cheerfully.
Twilight's jaw dropped, "What!? No, that's not true! It. . . it was all a trick! Trixie admitted it!"
"-no! I got caught up in the moment."
"Stop playing that!" Twilight demanded.
"Whatever for, Princess of Friendship?" Discord said in wide eyed innocence, "Everything turned out exactly the way you wanted. Starlight and Trixie are no longer friends."
"No because of anything I did!" Twilight said defensively, standing firm on all four hooves and she stared up at the draconequus, who was no chuckling and shaking his head with closed eyes.
"Oh, Twilight, my dear. You need to stop teasing me! We both know that lifetime of always being second rate would lead to a very competitive nature. So, you simply capitalized on that nature in order to make it look like Starlight was just a trophy Trixie wanted to win from you." Discord leaned close to Twilight, and with a malicious grin, said, "All you had to do was say this:"
Discord pressed play on the CD player.
"This is exactly why I didn't want you to make friends with Trixie."
"And you turned it into yet another Magic Duel, one that Trixie refused to loose, and perhaps even felt she already won. You just needed to get her to put it into easily misunderstood words while Starlight was in earshot. So you set the trap, and Trixie took the bait. Hook, line, and sinker!"
As Discord spoke on and on, Twilight felt heart sink lower and lower. Her mouth was open slightly and her eyes were widened with horror.
"Did I really. . .NO!"
Twilight both thought the word and said it out loud as she flew up to Discord's eye level and said, "NO! That's not what I did, Discord!"
Discord's eyebrows were raised as he stared back at Twilight. Then he frowned and said, "Well then. . . what did you do."
Discord pressed the button again.
"This is exactly why I didn't want you to make friends with Trixie."
Twilight actually moved back in shock as Discord suddenly crushed the CD player to powder in his eagle claw. He dusted his palms off and said, "Ugh! That line sickens me Twilight. Absolutes sickens me. And do you know why, Twilight Sparkle? It's because there are two things in the multiverse I hate more than anything. Order. . ." Discord then glowered at Twilight with a look he had only given to one other person, Lord Tirek, and then he said in tone filled with loathing, "and hypocrisy."
Twilight landed back onto the ground, taking a step away from Discord as he growled with his fists clenched and at his sides and said, "I. Hate. Hypocrites. I hope I never hear anyone say that hypocrisy is a kind of disharmony or chaos, because it isn't. Chaos is freedom and randomness and an escape from rules. Lies can sometimes be truths and vice versa. But to swear by something or preach about something or to claim you have some kind of values, and then just turn around and go completely against them. That is something far worse."
Discord put his lion paw over his chest and said, "I told Celestia that I don't turn ponies to stone. Why? Because that goes against who am I. There is nothing chaotic about being turned to stone, held completely still and unchanging in a petrified state. Harmony and friendship, however, are thing I can better identify with, seeing as friendship is often chaotic, and Harmony requires a balance between order and chaos. So I can honestly say that I am no hypocrite."
Discord shoved his face close to Twilight's so that their noses were nearly touching, and he said in a low tone, "And that's a little more than you can say, Princess of Friendship. Oh by the way, how is Princess Luna doing? How is Sunset Shimmer doing? How is Gilda doing? How am I doing?"
Twilight had a look of complete mortification and shame on her face as Discord backed off and gulped down a carton of chocolate milk, leaving the chocolate milk behind, of course. After sucking down the cartoon, he let the milk splash onto the ground, which didn't explode this time. Rather, it just mingled with the tears of the puppets in a murky pull.
Discord smacked his lips and sighed, "Ahhh. I needed that. I was in a really not so good mood just then, as you could probably tell. I actually wanted to comment on how you lied to your precious Princess Celestia's face about those three 'friends' Starlight made, and how all you saw in this whole situation was a way to make yourself look good in Celestia's eyes. . ." Discord took out a large golden pocket-watch with Trixie's Cutie Mark on it, looked at it, and said, "Buuuuut, Trixie's career is going to end real soon if someone doesn't do something, so how about I just tell you how things are gonna be. I'm gonna stick here and wait in the wings so that if somepony doesn't step in, I'll just snap Trixie out of the Manticore's mouth myself. That way, you'll be free to just walk out of here and forget all about Trixie without worrying about her fate. Perhaps her success will get her some friends who aren't yours."
Discord tossed the pocket-watch up and down a few times, grinning as he said, "Or. . . you can stop being a hypocrite. . ." Discord caught the watch deftly, and he shook his head, saying, "But it's not my place to judge. It's all up to you."
And with that, Discord teleported away in a flash of light.
