After leaving his cosmic-size masterpiece, Discord took a meteor floating around and cut it in two; he emptied a half and sat inside.

Calculating the distance and direction, he allowed himself to relax while he enchanted the piece of rock to take him home.

You just had to point and accelerate; the universe with its rules and constants would do the rest. Creating such a complex and changing nebula that stretched for thousands and thousands of light years was exhausting even for him.

Oh, don’t forget the seatbelt.

"You should take more risks, you know? They make life more fun."

Traveling through the universe as a mass of chaos magic is not enough risk to you, Morpheus? He said while morphing a small rock into an indestructible seatbelt.

"No."

Meh, whatever. I'm in charge, so we do what I want. Ignoring the complaints of his 'tenants'. Discord leaned back in his makeshift transport and let his mind wander.

Lots of ideas came, fought and went out of his mind, his eyes reveling in the chaos of the universe around him. Order and harmony danced and played to bring balance to the constant chaos, but there was always a change that could lead to new and wonderful things... or not.

Seeing a star explode and destroy every planet and moon around it reminded him of that: chaos was many things, and not all of them were fun. The explosion was spectacular, of course; but the amount of beings that inhabited this star system no longer existed.

If it was inhabited...

"Well, it probably was. Life is like a plague: Where it can be, it is."

"That explains why you're a vermin, Kevin. " Intervened Eris, giggling as the alluded laughed sarcastically.

"Hahaha. Laugh all you want, Eris, but compared to you, I am a gift to the world."

"Don't make me laugh; you're not even an appetizer," muttered another spirit.

" Stay out of this, queenie!"

Discord sighed. This is gonna be a long journey...

The Spirit of Chaos was about to hit his head against a planet until he split it in half to silence the others. He had had enough of their talks and discussions for the rest of eternity!

"And unless you quit, we will stay with you for the rest of eternity, dear."Eris said, seeing the direction his thoughts were taking.

Forget the planet; he would dip his head in a hellishly hot star and leave it there until not even the atoms were left.

"Discord ..."

Perhaps repeat it in an even hotter star.

"Hey, Discord..."

Or he could find one of those holes in the space-time continuum that swallowed everything...

"DISCORD!"

WHAT DO YOU WANT, SILVER?!

"We’re back."

Looking around, Discord saw that he was right. The draconequus was so deep in thought he hadn’t noticed reentering the nebula of magic around his world.

Little stars of light and magic floated around, following the moon in its turn over the lands it bathed on the night.

Unbuckling his belt, Discord jumped from his transport and let the meteor get lost in space.

Well, I'm back. Now, to search for those two.

Oh, that had been so easy!

With Twilight’s faith in the magic of friendship destroyed, the Elements couldn’t stop him anymore. This dream was proving to be very entertaining.

Not to mention that the level of detail it had was larger than that of the best videogames.

"Uh ... You should hide the Elements again, right? They could find new Bearers."

Discord considered Zero’s words. Yes, you might be right... besides, I have to get even with those stupid things for trapping me. But first I want to have fun. Moreover, it's time to show off!

With a snap, he appeared in the throne room of Canterlot; Celestia should be there.

And she was... along with Luna.

"Oh, but if it isn’t my two least favorite alicorns in the entire world! Long time no see, Luna," the draconequus greeted with false cheer.

"Discord!" exclaimed the princess of the night, charging magic in her horn and attacking before her sister could stop her.

Discord didn’t even bother to use his magic; he just leaned back and the attack passed over him, hitting a wall. He scoffed. "Luna, you cannot beat the second place in the Universal Limbo Championship with moves like that."

"Still can’t believe that human beat you..."

Shut up, Silver.

While Luna was snorting angrily, several guards surrounded him with spears and horns ready to attack.

"Go with your toys elsewhere, children; the adults are talking." Discord said, snapping the fingers of both hands.

Pegasi and earth ponies now noticed that their weapons were rubber, while the horns of unicorns were out of phase with reality; they were still there, but for the ponies it was like they had dissappeared. Any attempt to channel magic caused it to disperse in whatever frecuency of reality they currently occupied.

Discord made sure it was one without life; dealing with beings of other frecuencies that were angry at the sudden body parts/objects he sent to their homes was a hassle.

"Bah, relax; it only lasts ten minutes. Or three hours? I really don't remember how long the spell lasts on its own..." the draconequus mused amidst the cries of surprise and terror, stroking his beard thoughtfully.

"Enough, Discord! Leave my people alone! This is between you and me," Celestia said, hiding her nervousness behind all her courage and strength. That he was here did not bode well at all.

"Between him and us, sister." Luna corrected her, standing next to Celestia and casting a defiant look at Discord. The Spirit of Chaos teleported to the beginning of the stairs leading to the throne, walking up towards them.

"True; after all, you two were the ones that caught me in stone."Discord said, before dropping the mask of false joy and continued with a seriousness unknown to the alicorns. And it wasn't pleasant at all.

Discord's gaze was cold and cruel, his voice serious and without a hint of mischief or joke. The princesses could almost feel the anger and hatred hidden beneath.

A fear they had not felt in a long time pressed their hearts; despite the many battles and conflicts theyhad previously faced, something in Discord weakened the strength that allowed them to face any threat.

After all, he had utterly defeated them in the past, in their last attempt to fight him before being forced to search of the Elements. They had been so close to dying back then...

But so had he.

"Not bad, dear; you really know how to instill fear."

"Well, what do you plan to do? Fight? Trap them as they trapped you?"

"Devour them?"

"Why do you always insist with that, Nidhogg?!"

"Because I want to eat something delicious! Also, I want to get rid of them in a painful and humiliating way."

"For once, I agree with Nidhogg."

"Silver, don’t encourage him.

I won’t devour them. Discord thought, annoyed.

"Awwww, but I want meat! " Nidhogg said, sounding like a child who was not allowed to eat cookies.

Returning to that carefree, joking attitude, Discord looked away from princesses, pretending to gaze into the horizon while watching them out of the corner of his eye.

"What I don’t know is how long my handsome figure was trapped in that singing pose."

"Almost 1300 years." Celestia replied cautiously after a few moments, watching for any reaction from Discord.

The draconequuus just looked at the princess of the day, surprise clearly visible in his expression. What? It felt like an eternity ... oh, right. Asleep. No idea how long it's really been…

Ignoring the snickers of the other spirits, Discord cleared his throat before continuing.

"You really aged well; I don’t notice a single gray hair on your heads. Of course, with so much magic in there, it would be impossible to notice if you wanted to. Does the stress made them gray already? What about wrinkles? Or arthritis?" He joked as he showed a smile full of sharp teeth, circling in the air around them too close for their comfort.

Celestia and Luna seemed to age rapidly, to the dismay of the guards and servants present. But with a simple glow of his horns, the princesses broke Discord’s illusion.

"For your information, Spirit of Chaos, we are still in the fullness of youth," Luna replied, clearly offended.

"Well, well; it seems that even alicorns don’t like being told they are old. All females seem to share that. Of course, not all of them are as ancient as you."

As the guards listened slack-jawed as the draconequus mocked the princesses, Celstia tried to calm Luna.

"Huh, how strange. Wasn’t Celestia the first to attack and Luna who used violence as a last resort?" he murmured to himself, pretty sure the roles were inversed centuries ago.

" Things change over time, Discord..." Celestia replied.

"We know that better than anyone..." muttered Eris.

"... But it seems that you're still the same threat you were a thousand years ago."

"Well, you can’t change much when you're a rock. The truth is, you don’t change at all." the draconequus’ voice only showed annoyance, but the princesses knew that much stronger emotions were below.

Imperceptibly, both were preparing to fight; although they could not defeat Discord in direct combat, they would not let the draconequus hurt any of their subjects.

But he simply shrugged.

"Meh, but who cares? Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to my fun capital of chaos. I think you call it... Ponyville."

The draconequus conjured a hand mirror, through which the princesses saw the chaos that was the villagethe vilage had turned into.

"You won’t get away with this, Discord!" Luna promised. One way or another, she would find the way to stop him.

"But I already did! Only the Elements of Harmony can stop me; and I already took care of them. So no more 'Discord the lawn ornament' for youuuuuuu"the draconequus sang while hopping around. "By the way, if you're going to force me to be a permanent guest, at least you could be good hosts and clean my statue in winter. Do you have any idea the cold that I must endure?"

The words of Discord and the uncertainty of what had happened to Twilight and her friends generated some passing fear in Celestia, which was replaced by cold anger and resolution.

"What did you do to the Bearers?"

It was clear that Celestia was ready to face him at that moment, but Discord didn’t want to fight. The dream was too funny to ruin it.

The Spirit of Chaos transformed the mirror into smoke, which then turned into a small cloud of cotton candy which he quickly devoured. Oh, how he missed that sweet taste.

"I just destroyed their friendship." Discord wished he had taken a picture of her face; Celestia tended to hide her emotions well beside that mask that most politicians and leaders that weren't uncaring tyrants, mad kings or funny people like Puddinghead or himself wore. Seeing her expressions flicker from one position to another as her brain went through every possible thing he could have done and trying to discern if he was being honest or not was something he wished to capture for posterity. But alas, the moment passed.

"What?! That's impossible."

"You're wrong, Celestia; in fact it was very easy. I just had to show them the opposite of the Element that each of them possesses. Honestly, it was entertaining."

Suddenly, the throne became three, puffy theater seats and the alicorns found themselves sitting in them, with Discord in the middle. They were unable to get up.

A giant screen appeared in front of them, showing his game in the maze.

"I showed Applejack how the truth would drive her friends apart... without telling her that it would be due to me bringing their less desired traits to the forefront and they driving each other crazy."

"Twisting things to your favor?" muttered Luna with comtempt.

"Guilty as charged; but hey, I was right about one thing: sometimes a lie is easier to take. With Pinkie, I'm sad to say that I took the fun out of her with the true fact that sometimes people laugh at you, not with you. A shame, really; it's hard to find people that can see the beauty and fun of my chaos."

"Not everyone shares your definition of beauty and fun, Discord," said Celestia, pained of seeing her faithful Bearers twisted into the worst parts of their selves.

"And not everyone shares your methods of teaching; you two sure opposed all my attemps to educate ponies back in the day; but never mind that. Now, to Fluttershy." he took a pause to sip on a drink before continuing.

"That cowardly yet sickeningly kind pony was so conscious and accepting of her faults... and her lack of self-esteem may have helped... that my trickes weren't working, so I had to bring all her repressed rage and ressentment out directly. Too blunt for my taste, but I couldn't afford to lose to them."

"You will return to your prison, draconequus." Luna assured him, wishing with all her might to strike the draconequus messing with her subjects and tormenting her saviors. It'd be useless, but it would at least feel good...

"I'm dreaming I'm out dear, so it's a given. But let's go to the next while we have time," he said. Before they could try to understand what he was saying, Rarity appeared in the screen.

"The elegant Bearer of Generosity is as greedy as a dragon. I just made her believe that rock was a diamond, and she's become completely obsessed with it. She calls it Tom (it looks more like a Jerry to me), and even fell in love with it!" he cackled, trying his best to breathe as he was dying of laughter. As it subsided, she noticed that both alicorns were glaring at him, and frowned "Oh, come on! That's hilarious! Seriously, where's your sense of humor?"

With a snort, he continued. "I made Rainbow believe her hometown was in danger, and that only she could save it. I let the conflicting loyalties do the rest, and she left her friends behind. And Twilight, seeing how her friends were now, lost her faith in friendship. Your subjects are too emotional sometimes," Discord then noticed the corcern in Celestia's eyes as she looked at her downtrodden student. "Relax, Cellie, she'll get over it eventually and maybe she'll learn to enjoy her new home."

In a flash, the screen was gone, and Discord was floating in front of them. "So, as I said, entertaining."

"That was a nice short film, dear."

"You think that destroying such bonds is entertaining?" Luna snorted angrily as she charged her horn. Discord simply blew air on it like it was a candle and, to the princess' surprise, the magic vanished.

"Hey, I had to make sure they couldn’t use the Elements. It was either that, or killing them." He got between them and threw an arm around them bringing them close with surprising strength. "And we know I don't like that last one. Life's where the fun and emotion is. I mean, I' would love to tear you apart..."

He let them go and floated lazily in a circular fashion, relishing the tinge of fear in their eyes while sending the guards trying to sneak up on him to the other end of the room in a flash. They were confused; he didn't even looked at them.

"Do it! Do it! Do it!" Chanted the spirits eagerly.

"... but if I do, I would become the kind of Spirit I don't want to be."

"Awwwww..."

"And speaking of fun, I better go back to my capital; who knows what I'm missing. It wasn’t a pleasure to see you both again." Taking off a purple hat he wasn’t wearing a second ago and doing a mocking bow, Discord disappeared in a blinding burst of light.

Luna looked at her sister, worried.

"What do we do now, sister? If Discord truly ended the friendship of the Bearers, and with the Elements no loger responding to us, I don't know how we could use them to solve this."

Celestia sighed; she had hoped that, with Luna healed and the friendship between them restored, the Elements would accept them again. But they didn’t; for some reason, they no longer considered them worthy.

"The Elements respond to the bond of friendship between Twilight and her friends. If we restore it..." An idea suddenly appeared in Celestia’s mind. "Luna, come with me. I think I know what to do. Their bond is stronger than Discord thinks; we just have to make them remember that."

Author's Note

Well, here's the second chapter.

Don't forget to leave your comments and any questions you have; I'll do my best to not spoil too much when answering them.