It had been his first day back from the Unity Games, and Brazen had already finished his first day of work and filing away the documents for his next project. He had decided to go through his ritual of walking through the Royal gardens whenever he visited Canterlot. Everything had gone normally, everything had been quiet with exception of the birds and critters as Brazen regarded each statue fondly, until he came across the one of Discord.
This statue in particular always had an eerie code to it, for a very obvious reason, it contained the lord of chaos himself, and from the first time Brazen laid his eyes on it, he knew of what it contained, even as a foal. Though today, today he looked different, like Discord’s code was looking at him, and at that point, he spoke. For the first time, of many other visits, Brazen heard, or rather saw him speak.
“Hello,” Discord mused, his statue almost grinning.
“You, you spoke? Why now? I’ve been here many times before, why not one of those times?” Brazen’s inquisitive tinkering mind taking over and wanting answers.
“Oh, now is that any way to greet someone? Most of all a poor soul trapped in stone,” Discord said, dancing around the question.
“Oh? Well excuse me for questioning why I can talk with a statue. Anyways, hello,” Brazen returned, sarcasm evident in his greeting.
“That’s better,” Discord chuckled, “Now to answer your questions, which are all really just one question, I will ask you one in return. What is different with you now, then all those other times?” He asked, thinking the answer was obvious.
Brazen pondered a moment, his mind turning inwards, he remembered, no felt, the spell he cast to contain that damnable coin that Mammon left in his head. “I see, you mean my encounter with another of your kin,” he said tapping his skull with his still intact left hoof.
“Ding ding ding! We have a winner! As for one of my kin, hardly, I despise my brothers. I know you’ve met one of them regardless, and from what I can tell, you brought it on yourself, and Mammon was the one to do it. Am I right?” Discord asked, with a cocky voice, well cocky code.
“Yes, but why would that make you talk to me?” Brazen asked.
“Simple, we have a common interest… maybe. You want that gone, and I want to have some fun. Look, I’m not all bad, so how about this, since you have the advantage in this whole thing, you can name the terms and I’ll be more lenient with accepting it,” Discord said, and if he could his expression would be a mix of pleading and guile.
“So, you remove this thing from my mind, and you let me name what you can do, as long as you have fun, eh?” Brazen smirked, “This could be fun then.”
“Oh? A pony with some imagination? Not afraid to invite some chaos into your life?” Discord mused, his code very jovial.
“I’m a tinkerer, we invite chaos into our lives regularly, it’s organized chaos, but it’s still chaos. Now for what I will say you can do, is this. How do you feel about being a pony, or at least in body?” Brazen asked, his mind darting left and right, pulling plans from different, and often forbidden projects that each branch of R&D was allowed to dabble in as of late.
“What are you planning? You know you can’t free me from this,” Discord said, though still obviously intrigued.
“Simple,” Brazen said, pacing back and forth now, luckily, no one was around to witness him being mad and talking to a statue. “I build you a robotic body, it won’t be as powerful as an Earth pony, but it’ll function well enough. Then, I use a soul transfer device, well, a weaker method of it to only transfer part of your soul. We can’t have you fully free, not yet,” Brazen chuckled. He may have been a good pony by many standards, and he enjoyed the peace, but when the opportunity would arise to do something new, he would jump on it.
“You’re willing to free me to be rid of Greed’s coin? You are an interesting pony, I like you,” Discord chuckled.
“One more thing, the power of this body can only hold what a normal unicorn could hold in magic, so you would be able to be chaotic within the limitations of an average unicorn. Also, if the body fails from your foolhardy nature, I will not fix it and you will be returned in full to this prison. Deal?” Brazen asked his face serious and fully willing to fulfill this contract.
“Deal, and I’ll add another benefit, because you’ve piqued my interest, call it a gift of chaos and a shield against the Vices,” Discord chuckled one last time before the contract appeared.
Brazen understood the gift’s meaning as he pulled a quill out of his saddlebags and signed his name on the contract only visible to him. In an instant, he felt the coin disappear, “Call that a down payment on the body,” Discord chuckled. With that, Brazen sighed in relief and smirked before heading on his way to make the new shell for Discord…
