Brother's Lament

Chapter 18: Rise of Discord

“I want to start our field trip here, in the world famous Canterlot sculpture garden” Spoke a cheerful Cherilee as she walked with the young fillies and colts of Ponyville, she looked towards a statue of three ponies “That one over there represents friendship.” Three little fillies bumped into each other when one of them stopped to look at the sculpture “Alright my little ponies! This one represents victory” Spoke Cherilee as they approached a statue of a pony wielding a flag “How cool would it be to have that for a cutie mark!” spoke Scootaloo as she stood with her friends gazing at the statue Applebloom rolled her eyes “Cool. If you were actually victoryful at something” Sweetie bell decided to speak up at that moment “That’s not a word!” Scootaloo frowned at the unicorn “What are you a dictionary?”

Cherilee looked back calling to them “Girls!” The three young fillies jumped a little before galloping to catch up “Now this is a really interesting statue, what do you notice about it?” she gestured a hoof towards a statue of a strange creature who seemed to be made up of several animals the Cutie Mark Crusaders put forwards their observations “It’s got an eagle claw! And a Lion paw! And a snake tail!” Cherilee looked back towards the statue “This creature is called a draconequus, he is the head of a pony and a body made up of all sorts of things, what do you suppose that represents?” she asked as three of her students spoke up “Confusion! Evil! Chaos!” all three began to break into an argument none of the ponies noticing the sudden beating in the statues chest, Cherilee walked towards the group of fighting ponies.

“In a way you are all right, this statue represents discord which means, a lack of harmony between ponies, in fact you three demonstrated discord so well that your each going to write me an essay explaining it” The three fillies lowered their heads in embarrassment before the group moved on not noticing the several cracks forming on the statue, a dark laugh slowly emanating from it.

***

Warsong walked the halls of Canterlot, the last week has been mostly cleaning up and repair work from the Grand Galloping Gala incident, the Royal guard assisting in the work, not exactly what the Lunar Guard wanted for their first assignment but they didn’t complain. The Lunar guard and their captain were asleep right now to prepare for the night shift Warsong figured though that using Ponies for the Lunar guard would have to be a temporary option. Nopony can become nocturnal so naturally, the only other option was to find the Nega-ponies but nopony has seen them for one thousand years, not since the war ended and they went into hiding.

A sudden pain struck Warsong’s mind like a headache but the feeling was much worse as he placed a hoof against his forehead gritting his teeth in pain “This can’t be right…This only happens when a divine being steps onto a mortal plain, it’s only happened once…When I got my powers from the goddess…The only other whose capable of doing this…Discord” His eyes visibly darkened before he closed them when he opened them he had a grave look on his face “Perfect…”

He made his way to his quarters and laid on his bed “I’ve been waiting to use this spell, the only one that can tell me where and when my brother will return is the god of chaos himself.” Grunting and gripping his forehead at the sudden pulse of pain he unsteadily closed his eyes as red magic began to glow from his horn and he visibly calmed as sleep embraced him.

***

Snow blew in the wind around Warsong as a mountainous region welcomed him to his dreams standing within the halls of an ancient looking castle of ice and stone he began trotting down the hall, his bands becoming his armour once more covering him from head to hoof, his eyes being the only thing that could be seen, his sabre at his waist once more, entering the throne room, the wall on the far end was missing showing a grey sky and mountains surrounding the region with only mist far below.

Sitting on the throne was Discord himself with his legs crossed and a smirk on his face “Oh it’s so good to see you again Warsy how is my favourite killer doing?” Warsong remained silent as he approached the throne before speaking up, his voice having a metallic echo while inside the armour “God of Chaos…I need your help.” Discord leaned forwards, with an innocent smile but his eyes showed a deep evil “What can I Discord do for you Apocalypse Pony?” Warsong held up a hoof towards the creature “Careful Discord I’m not a Pony of the Apocalypse, not yet” Discord stood from the throne stepping towards the Pony “Yes of course as was the contract you made with the Goddess. ‘In exchange for power, upon death thee will become a Pony of the Apocalypse, to gallop when the end of days comes.’ You’re to become War no? What of your brother? I hear he is to become Death when he dies but…He’s not on this plain of existence is he? Nor is he in the afterlife.”

Warsong began to speak before Discord held up his paw to stop him before taking a seat back on the throne “I know why you’ve come, you don’t know when or where your brother will return, my question to you is, why I should care? I’ve been released and I’m going to wreak so much beautiful chaos on this world.” Warsong took a step forwards toward the draconequus “Because you, the God of chaos will know where and when he will return, the dimension I sent him too is filled with chaos and when chaos is involved, anything can happen he could return in an hour from now or another thousand years later.” Discord laughed loudly at Warsongs attempt to convince him “To look through the thousands of dimensions to find the one he is in and then even go so far as to predict his return? It’s utter madness.”

Warsong shook his head as he slowly walked up the steps towards the throne “If it’s madness, then who better to show me the way?” Discord’s smile disappeared slowly as he seemed to be in thought “If you must really know where he will return…It will be where you fought him last.” Warsong’s eyes widened behind the armour “The ruins of Old Canterlot! When will he arrive?” Discord raised his paw once more “This is a two part deal Warsong, I let you know where Bladesinger will return out of good faith, but you must give something to me for you to know when” Warsongs eyes narrowed behind the armour “What do you require?” Discord looked around slowly as if he were in a shop before looking at Warsong with a dark look “Oh nothing important just…Your soul.” Warsong’s eyes narrowed further to slits before he drew his sabre, his magic surrounding the blade “Tell me when he will return.”

Discord chuckled before he waved his hand a sudden invisible force sent Warsong flying backwards when he landed on his hooves he slowed himself down by digging his blade into the floor and holding on with his hooves “Do you really wish to become a Pony of the Apocalypse so soon? What of your brother? Are you willing to actually kill him? You were hesitant the last time you fought” Warsong gritted his teeth behind the armour “I will kill him this time!” Discord slowly floated up from his throne into the air “Are you so certain?” Discord dissipated into mist, the sound of metal hooves walking towards him forced Warsong to turn around, his eyes widening at the sight of his brother Bladesinger in his full black armour, his broad sword sheathed on his back and a black tattered cloak flowing in the wind behind him with the hood up over his head, his red eyes glowing out of the shadows of the hood.

Warsong stood in a combat stance as the pony approached his eyes fixed on Warsong as he approached, the ancient warrior slowly stepped out of his combat stance, lowering his blade, seeing that Bladesinger hadn’t drawn his blade yet and may not be hostile, but it wasn’t until Bladesinger was close enough that he drew his blade and slashed at Warsong, forcing the pony to dodge to the side bringing his blade to bare against Bladesinger side but was blocked quickly by the broad sword, the speed of the blade playing its weight as an illusion as it moved with the nimbleness of a short sword, the two warriors danced in a deadly battle, attacking and defending with Warsongs blade gaining heat as the battle waged on, it didn’t take long for it to burn white hot.

Bladesinger forced Warsong back with a block that caused a shockwave strong enough to stagger Warsong before the black armoured unicorns horn glowed a bright blue, his sword becoming enflamed as it stabbed it into the ground causing a sudden explosion of fiery rock to explode from the ground, forcing Warsong to jumped backwards for fear of being stabbed by the razor sharp spikes when the pony removed the blade from the ground the fiery rock retracted back in the ground leaving large cracks behind.

The fiery spell remained on the blade and now with each attack that missed Warsong, hit the ground causing explosions of fiery spikes to explode from the ground, this forced Warsong on the defensive, dodging and avoiding the deadly spell “You learned some new tricks!” he called but Bladesinger remained silent as Warsong dodged and weaved, he spotted a hole in Bladesingers defence, his back was always open when he stabbed the sword in the ground to create a shockwave of spikes, Warsongs horn glowed red as he applied wind magic to his body to make him more swift and nimble.

Confronting Bladesinger at his front once more the black armoured pony caused another shockwave that staggered Warsong and as he prepared to stab his sword in the ground, Warsong shot to the side as a blur, lunging out of the way of the attack before shooting forwards with a strike of his own, scoring a slash across Bladesinger’s side but the armour both warriors wore was of obvious magical nature and instead only caused a dent across the surface Bladesinger spun around with his sword striking at Warsong sending him skidding backwards before using the momentum built by the sword to lunge and strike at him again sending him skidding backwards even further before Warsong counter attacked and lunged at him. Both blades clashed and held as their owners pushed against each other Warsong gaining the upper hand as he forced Bladesinger back.

“If I can’t break the shell then I can just break what’s inside” Warsong thought to himself before he pushed their blades to the side opening Bladesingers defence as he slashed at Bladesinger a few times to keep him off balance before slashing upwards and sending him flying up. Using wind magic he jumped upwards towards Bladesinger before delivering a devastating attack with his blade sending his brother flying skyward before landing on the ground his brother soon hitting the ground hard a guttural yell of pain being heard from the black armoured pony before he rose to his hooves once more, Warsong saw a considerable dent in the ponies front caused by the fall, both ponies charge at each other, Warsong spinning his blade around to throw Bladesinger off from where he will attack but his brother didn’t seem to care making a suicidal charge at him.

Both brought their swords back to stab as they approached, driving their swords at each other, after their swords stabbed they stared into each other’s eyes, Bladesingers eyes seething with hatred before he leaned forwards, blood flowing from his chest where Warsongs blade pierced through the weakened armour. Bladesingers sword missed Warsong who moved a mere inch to the side to avoid it using wing magic. Warsong withdrew his sword, flicking it to the side to remove the blood of his brother as the pony collapsed, a dark aura surrounding him as the illusion dissipated to reveal Discord laying there with a wound, but still alive.

“I was lucky…Your power hasn’t fully awakened yet so I had a chance…Now tell me when he will arrive!?” Warsong sheathed his blade, his magic lifting the god of chaos to his feet roughly, Discord simply began to laugh, the wound healing quickly “He will be arriving very soon, don’t you worry” he placed his eagle claw against Warsongs forehead causing a bright white flash, forcing the ancient warrior awake.

Warsong yelled as he awoke panting heavily as he awoke from the dream encounter with Discord, looking outside he noticed pink clouds pouring brown rain, he his frown deepened as he made his way out, the halls were completely empty of the royal guard, perking his ear at the sound of hooves galloping towards him he turned to see Bass Rhythm in his black captain uniform “Where is Everypony Bass?” His student didn’t slow and galloped past him “Every guard is in the streets trying to bring order to the chaos! Even the Lunar guard have been called in! Luna’s still asleep per Celestia’s request” he called back to him, his voice rising higher to a yell as he got further away from Warsong.

The crimson unicorn galloped after his student, skidding to a halt when he spotted Princess Celestia “Princess have you sent for the elements of harmony?” he asked, the Princess nodded “My student and the other elements have made their way down into the labyrinth” Warsong looked towards the Canterlot labyrinth, grinding his teeth he figured Discord would come for the elements of harmony and send the ponies who have the elements on a wild goose chase.

“So all we can do is wait and hope?” asked Warsong to which Celestia sombrely replied with a nod “I’m going to see what I can do to help the royal guard” Warsong’s horn charge and he disappeared in a flash of light.

***

Hours passed by and in the throes of Discords defeat Warsong and Bass Rhythm attended the award ceremony for the elements of harmony that broke through Discords efforts to stop them and turned him back into stone, the statue being moved to the lowest reaches of the palace into the treasury.

What Warsong was turning over in his mind was Discords words on the return of his brother not knowing that deep in the Everfree forest where old Canterlot sat in ruins with only a rickety bridge to connect the castle to the forest, red lightning began to erupt within the confines of the castle as the ground seemed to swirl like a whirlpool, a red light shimmering from its surface as a black hoof slowly extended forth “Finally” came a dark voice as the hoof slammed onto the ground to help lift its owner out of the swirling mess.