Discord's Fantasy Island Sim · 2:03am Nov 29th, 2015
- - - - -
I approached the Fantasy Island sim, hands in my pockets. I stopped short, and raised my hand up briefly. It shook, and I withdrew it.
"Problem, Captain Monkeyshines?" Asked Discord. I started, and looked over my shoulder at the chaos god. I shrugged.
"Yeah..." I looked back at the field, at my subtle reflection in it. "Nightmares..."
"Hm..." Discord looked up at the star lit night with a nod. "I guessed that..." He chuckled. "So... What do you want to know?"
I wanted...
"I want to know... If I'd still have made the same decisions if..." I took a deep breath. "If I thought I lost them... Any of them."
Discord hummed. "Sure you want to give that a whirl? Might not be pretty."
I steeled myself. "No... But... Ya know... Since I'm here and all... Seems a shame... Probably won't be that bad..." I didn't meet his eyes. Discord nodded.
"Of course... Go right in," he said with a smile.
I nodded, and stepped into the simulation field...
- - - - -
"Andrew!" Twilight cried as she galloped into the chapel. "Andrew! Everypony, listen! Chrysalis is-!" She stopped short as she beheld the scene. Changelings were being laid out, and covered with blankets as were ponies. In the center of it all was Chrysalis... Or what was left of her. She'd been smashed, burned, blown to pieces. She could only tell it was her by... By...
She heard Cadence throwing up behind her, and she couldn't blame her foalsitter. She stepped uneasily into the chapel, and looked to the nearest guard. His eyebrows shot up.
"Miss Sparkle! You're alive!" He cried. "We all thought-He said you were-!"
"Who? Who said I was... I was..." She saw the bullet holes in Chrysalis's carapace, and she knew. "Where is he?"
- - - - -
It took some time, but she found him. He was sitting on the roof, tears running down his cheeks. When he saw her, his jaw dropped and his eyes lit up.
"Twilight!" He cried as he wrapped his arms around her desperately. "Oh thank God, I thought-I thought-!"
"I-I know... I know," Twilight said softly. "I'm not... But..."
"But?" Andrew asked, drawing back. Twilight frowned.
"Those Changelings... Did you... Did you have to...?"
Andrew slowly looked out at the horizon. At the damage done to the city. He clenched his fists. "I..." He bowed his head. "Twilight... If I lost you..." He looked up slowly with a fearsome gaze. "If someone... Took you from me... They wouldn't live long enough to regret it."
Twilight said nothing. She just rested her head against his shoulder, and tried not to shiver when she thought of his eyes.
- - - - -
The threats grew more numerous to Equestria every day, it seemed. The elites in Canterlot demanded protection. Demanded that the Demon Slayer, Andrew the Human, be unleashed. And so he was, sent to destroy raiders, and monsters, and hostile beings. Each time Twilight argued with him, each time she petitioned Celestia, but the invasion had made them all frightened. Celestia was reluctant to get Twilight any more involved-She didn't want her beloved student to see that darkness...
Each time she nevertheless waited for him. Carrying his child, she greeted him with a smile. And each time, the coldness in his eyes lasted a little longer. The battles waged stayed inside him, the horrors...
"I'm fine," he insisted each time. "I'm a human... We slay dragons and monsters... It's what we do..."
Then he came back... And it wasn't him at all. And she didn't realize it, too late, until the carapace was exposed and the bomb set off. The Changelings took revenge for their losses, and Andrew came back to Ponyville to a crater in the ground and weeping friends and family.
And on that day, Andrew E. Shepherd asked the grieving Princesses for the power to keep this from happening again. And they, in their grief, granted it.
The Dark Shepherd rode, all of Earth's old technology made available to him. All of Equestria's magitech. He destroyed the Changelings. When the Dragons threatened Equestria, he slayed them to the last and enslaved the survivors. The Everfree Forest was burned and brought down, all the creatures and wonders within destroyed. The Diamond Dogs did not escape his wrath, nor did the Griffins when they failed to rein in their raiders and barbarians.
Equestria became an Empire, built on peace and strength. Ponies prospered, under the sword and gun of their human Lord. Whom even the Princesses seemed unable to say no to.
And Equestria was peaceful. The ponies learned to ignore the haunted looks on their neighbors when they had been taken by the Shadowbolts. They learned to salute every poster. They learned to keep their complaints to themselves. And they learned that the greatest kindness they could know from Lord Shepherd was to be left alone.
For it was safer for anyone, ANYONE, to throw themselves into the jaws of a dragon than it was to arouse the fury of a Human.
- - - - -
I staggered out of the sim, pale, sweaty, and trembling. Discord watched me with a little smile.
"So... How was it?" He asked.
I responded by throwing up on the ground in front of me, and passing out.
- - - - -
And that is why one can argue that Cadance is the scariest princess. Love is a great and terrible force in every meaning of the word.
The Emperor Protects.
"We poison our air and water to weed out the weak! We set off fission bombs in our only biosphere! We nailed our God to a stick! Don't fuck with the human race!" -- Humanity: Fuck Yeah!
...Damn, that took a dark turn.
3576236
And that's why it's a blog post and not in the fic itself.
Well, that was something.
3576233
Don't forget us drinking piping hot cups of neurotoxins in the morning. We all drink coffee eventually.
Well, yikes. Are you sure that was an accurate simulation, and not just Discord messing around?