Oh, how the mighty had fallen.
Once upon a time, Tirek had been the unquestionably most powerful creature on the planet. He had defeated Discord, the God of Chaos. Then he was, in turn, defeated by a small purple horse, of all things.
Years later, the Legion of Doom was formed, and they looked unstoppable... only to be defeated by several small colorful horses, with the purple one among them.
Having been forced to split up after such a humiliating defeat in order to avoid detection, the once mighty centaur found himself running errands for a shady businessperson of some sort in return for tools that would ensure the Legion of Doom won a rematch... and his partner throughout all of it was the most evil foal to ever walk the face of the planet, and by a huge margin, the most irritating member of the Legion: Cozy Glow.
Try as he might, Tirek had never acquired the ability to tune out the pegasus filly’s inane chatter, and he swore he could feel himself lose a little bit of his sanity every day because of it. At some point, he started wanting the Legion of Doom to succeed for no reason other than it meaning that he wouldn’t have to see Cozy Glow ever again.
As was inevitable, the foal-sized ball of endless energy’s chattiness resulted in her and Tirek getting caught by authorities, but somehow, Cozy Glow managed to talk her way into a much lighter punishment. It was probably done intentionally, but the centaur had a gut feeling that the little pegasus filly was just that oblivious.
And now here he was, alone and chained to a metal table in an interrogation room.
He had managed to maintain a stoic façade through stonewalling all of the authorities’ interrogation attempts. Even when they played a song about how “I’ve got you, babe.” Even when they played sickeningly, excruciatingly happy monstrosities of songs, songs that the evil centaur loathed almost as much as he did being in the general vicinity of Cozy Glow (and that was saying something).
Oh, how the mighty had fallen...
... Still, this beat listening to Cozy Glow all day.
Meanwhile, in the Briefing Room...
“For the last time, Sierra, you are not going to try and get him to talk by assaulting him,” Zoey, a zebra, said. “We’d have to write you up for police brutality.”
“Just give my suggestion a chance, that’s all I ask!” The pony-griffon hybrid mare in question exclaimed angrily.
The one odd creature out rolled his eyes with an annoyed sigh.
“I’m starting to regret my decision to take a temp job here when you all spend half of your time being boneheads.” He deadpanned.
“Oh come off it, Q,” Sierra said, pointedly not addressing the snarky unicorn by his actual name. “You’re the one who wanted to get, and I quote, ‘firsthoof experience in this environment so I could write my characters more believably.’”
“True, but all that you lot have done so far is give me pointers on how not to write them.” Q flatly stated.
“You’re a reclusive author who doesn’t know the first thing about how things work around here. Unless that somehow gives you the knowledge and wisdom of a law enforcement veteran, you’re not exactly qualified to complain about our conduct.” Marco, a teal changeling, shot back.
“...”
Having no response, Q groaned irately and laid his head on his desk.
Suddenly, Plasma Spark, a cerulean unicorn, sat up straight as an idea came to him.
“I’m gonna go take another crack at him.” He declared while making his way to the Briefing Room’s exit.
“You’ve been in there five times.” Q deadpanned. “What are you going to do, annoy him into talking?”
“Oh ha ha.” Plasma replied in an equally sarcastic tone.
In Tirek’s Interrogation Room...
Tirek, as usual, kept his expression neutral as the cerulean unicorn he had seen five times before entered the room a sixth time, but for some reason, this time carrying an acoustic guitar and a water bottle with his magic.
Taking a sip from the water bottle, he started tuning the guitar while sitting on the table in the same strangely biped position that he had the first five times he interrogated the evil centaur. After he finished tuning, he placed his hooves in a playing position... then broke into a smile.
“Two three four!”
Plasma started playing his guitar—or more accurately, loudly and badly strumming it in a very un-musical manner.
Then he also started screaming.
“Aaaaaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—!”
The evil red centaur responded with a silent flat stare.
“...”
Five minutes later...
Tirek wasn’t sure whether this pony was determined, stupid or both.
Plasma had been loudly and badly strumming his acoustic guitar for five minutes, only pausing his screaming to take a sip from his water bottle.
“Aaaaaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—!”
The evil red centaur’s silent flat stare remained unchanged.
“...”
Twenty-five more minutes later...
Tirek never thought there would be anything in his life that grated on his nerves more than listening to Cozy Glow rambling.
Until today.
Somehow, SOMEHOW, the cerulean unicorn named Plasma Spark had managed to keep loudly and badly strumming his acoustic guitar while screaming for the past thirty minutes straight, and successfully gotten the evil red centaur’s walls to come tumbling down.
Tirek’s fur was now matted with sweat, his jaw was clenched so tightly it could have made his teeth crack, his muscles were so tense that punching them would have been like punching a solid concrete wall, and if his eyes were larger than the two yellow dots floating in black pools that he had, they would be shrunk to his pupils’ normal size.
The screaming and loud strumming drilled through his ears and into the pain center of his brain, and he futilely pulled at his restraints in an attempt to cover his ears and block out the grating noises being made by the puny pony in front of him.
Before long, he could stand it no more.
“WILL YOU SHUT UP?!” Tirek roared while furiously reaching for the cerulean-colored living noisemaker, only for said noisemaker to levitate itself out of reach and respond by screaming louder.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—!”
Tirek started slamming his head on the table to try and render himself unconscious so he could get away from the noise assaulting him.
“Got him. He’s ready for one of you to take his statement. You’re probably gonna want to be there for this.” Plasma proudly declared while reentering the Briefing Room, directing his last sentence towards their temp worker.
“Why doesn’t he want you to do it?” Q questioned while gathering up his parchment, quill and inkwell.
“You’ll see why soon.”
Author's Note
Also, to the owner of “Q”: if you ever read this, I hope you don’t mind me giving your character a minor role in this story.