I withdrew from the princess’s mind 15 minutes ago, yet here she is still, a shivering, drooling shadow of her former self. The mind was a fragile instrument and like all instruments, required expert craftsmanship and fine tuning to work effectively. What I have done, was cannibalize her mental structure and add it to my own. Her memories and magic are now mine to use.
Princess Luna on the other hand, looked utterly spent. Her coat and dress were burned in places and tattered in others. She stared blankly with hazy eyes towards the afternoon sky. She was not dead, but at this state she might find it preferable. It would take months in mental rehabilitation to recover from my treatment, and possibly years to recover physically.
The alicorn physical structure was impressive though, so she will no doubt make a quick recovery. As for myself, her knowledge, though plentiful, was hardly as satisfying as I predicted. She has spent the great majority of the last 1000 years on this planet’s only moon. While it did pique my curiosity as to the universal mechanics of this world, I diminished them for a later date.
I expanded my awareness to the castle and sensed that the wedding service was commencing. It was a major inconvenience. If I were to execute my next target in the next 48 hours it would surely cause an uproar. It appears I have to wait, but it doesn’t mean I have to spend this free time idling.
I scanned my surroundings for pockets of magical energy, casting a soft purple glow from my eye like an ethereal scanner. As efficiently as I fought, my mana reserves were frighteningly low. I hesitated to take some from Luna. I could sense a malevolent presence within her, and opted to avoid it if possible. The next largest source of mana was a statue, not too far from here.
Bonding myself with Annie yet again, I trotted towards the source. It was a hideous statue of the most badly constructed chimera I’ve ever had the displeasure of seeing. It was a serpentine creature with the disproportionate face of a goat with mismatched horns, limbs and wings, the all of which looked far too small to serve any purpose. The statue was reeling back in fright, permanently positioned for fear.
I looked up at it quizzically. There was plenty of magic inside this statue, but it was of a kind I’ve never seen. It was pure and utter chaos in magic form. The energies within held incredible potential but also a serious danger. It travelled up and down the statue’s length sending ripples in the sub-existential plane. I was tempted to take it, but was also reviled by the amount of effort it would take just to contain it, let alone use it.
First, I wanted to test it. While in Annie’s body, I lit my horn and placed it gently on the pedestal on which the statue stood. I searched for footprints in the ethereal plane, just beyond physical recognition. I sought thoughts, memories, past events, anything that would give me a clue as to the nature of this magic.
“Why don’t you ask me yourself?”
I took a step back in surprise, severing my connection to the pedestal. The creature remained in its stony state, but somehow communicated telepathically.
“Why the long face my little pony?” it goaded “Scared of little old Discord?”
Discord. The name brought up a wealth of data from my memories. Discord was the embodiment of chaos, I tyrant that ruled Equestria for his own amusement. I suddenly understood his magic, it was the ethereal embodiment of chaos, and he its physical one.
“I sensed chaos in you,” he continued “I had no idea how much, but now that you’re here…”
He chuckled
“You have too much of it in you to be a pony, a real one anyway. Not that I’m ungrateful, your magic would speed up my eternal imprisonment by a couple decades. So I was wondering, if we could make a deal?”
I balked
“A deal? With you?” I laughed, a sweet girly sound from Annie’s lips “Not likely. I know enough about you Discord, enough to know that you cannot be trusted,”
“Aw, I’m hurt, really. What have I ever done to you?”
“Nothing, but your presence could impede my investigation,”
Discord was till a statue, but he managed to communicate a smirk.
“A private eye are you? An odd cutie mark to have for a detective. The ‘eye’ is quite plain but I don’t see any ‘private’ in there,”
“My purpose is not of your concern,” I muttered dryly “I came here for your magic, and I’m going to take it,”
“Really now? The only way you could access my magic is if I was back in my real body. Woe is me, but the only thing that could
break me out is the Elements of Harmony, and seeing that you are not Twilight Sparkle and you’re all alone, I guess we…”
I got very tired of his pointless banter. Readying a spell in my horn, I reversed the petrification algorithm from the cockatrice and aimed it at the cowering statue. The stone sculpture was enveloped in a blue glow, quickly revealing traces of fur, feathers and scales and Discord’s body. Soon his whole body was free from the stone prison.
“FREE AT LAST!” he cheered
He took a step forward, but oddly didn’t move an inch. He looked at me with a quizzical expression, then took another step. His whole body moved, but he stayed on top of the statue, making no actual progress. He was stuck, in layman’s terms, an invisible omnipotent hamster wheel.
“Now this is perplexing,” he thought
The quizzical draconequus snapped his fingers and in a flash of white light, nothing happened.
“Yes, very peculiar, what have you done to me, my little mare?”
I gave him an irritated huff.
“One, I am not a mare. Two, I localised the spacial coordinates of that scrawny piece of flesh you call a neck and bound it to the pedestal on which you stand. Should you somehow escape, you would only manage to hang yourself from mid-air. Finally, I nullified your magic by using my own, need I say more?”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind, but need I inquire, why free me if your only intention’s to keep me here until you drain me dry?” he smirked
His positive behaviour was unnerving, but I did not let him show it. I put a stoic expression on my face and pressed forward.
“I know you’re up to something, draconequus,” I scowled “And if you don’t tell me what…”
“You’ll what? Kill me?” he pouted “One does not simply kill the concept of chaos, let alone it’s embodiment,”
I gave him my fiercest glare. He did have a point. An idea, once thought, can never really be put to rest, even in the death of the thinker. Things always find themselves to me, always. At the same time, that nagging feeling in my gut only grew. Something was wrong.
Then, it hit me, literally.
A bolt of glowing green plasma emerged from nowhere and struck my pony body clean through the side. Fierce lances of pain threatened to steal away my consciousness as what seemed to be hundreds of changelings rained down from the sky. The huge purple dome collapsed as the insectoid army dove through the cracks like a living meteor shower.
“I do believe I was stalling,” Discord grinned “Have a good one!”
He then changed himself back to stone, just as he was before I freed him. Oh how I loathed that creature.
“Capture the purple one!” a changeling hissed “Leave no pony free!”
It took a few seconds for me to clear my head enough to realise that the purple one was me. I lay there struggling on the ground, my lifeblood pooling around me. I didn’t have enough concentration to lay a spell, but there was one thing I could do.
I separated from Annie and shot a fierce beam of energy at her. The purple mare was encased in a deep purple crystal, preserving her for stasis. Now that she was safe, I rounded on my assailants. Several ran in fear at my mere presence but some bravely stood their ground.
“ATTACK!” They all yelled
How foolish can these creatures get?
I evaporated the first wave with a neutron pulse, radiating it out from my eye. A wave of purple magic disintegrated the leading group, leaving nothing, not even soot or ash. More stood at a distance and fired at me with more magical projectiles. I quickly waved them all away with an arm and returned fire. A rapid progression of lasers seared right through their changeling flesh. The smell of cooking meat and burning blood begun to hang thickly in the air, deterring anymore direct assault from my opponents.
“Retreat!” one screamed
This one wore armour and spoke in a superior tone, he must be the leader. I focused in on him, a harmless laser pointer centred on his forehead, right between the eyes. In a flash of pink, a volatile globe of energy spiralled towards my marker and blew his head clean off his shoulders, showering his fleeing comrades in blue-green blood. I caught the severed head of the changeling in a soft magical field and studied it.
“Hard exoskeleton, resistant to magic and blunt force, but easily penetrated by focused pressure,” I mused “Hardly the right equipment for a race priding itself on lasers and blades,”
I carelessly tossed the hollow skull away and turned my attention to the surrounding chaos. Changelings travelled in droves, strafing the ground with their green magic. Ponies ran to and fro, where ever they could to escape. Some equines were held captive in a bright green sludge. Making my mind, I tore a wound in space-time and travelled to the captive’s side.
“AAAAAAH!” they all screamed.
They were silenced by a fierce glow of purple energy, reducing them, and their cages to ash. The captors were similarly dealt with.
“Biological phlegm,” I shuddered “Not the best form of capture, but an efficient one,”
These changelings intrigued me. Why would such numerous hive-minded creatures risk this assault all for ‘the power of love’? Ludicrous, love is no more tangible than hope or fear, let alone used as an energy. Yet somehow, they are. Their bodies could hardly sustain themselves with this kind of energy yet they crave it with lethal voracity. I must find out more.
I retrieved the decapitated body of a guard I’ve recently slain and studied it further. The wings for flimsy and holed, making for an inefficient flying tool. If they used magic for assistance like the pegasi do, it would burn through their supply quickly due to their high metabolism. It almost seemed like they were built specifically for the their own torture. Almost, like a punishment. To feed on love but never be loved. It can’t get any crueller.
Then, something most profound occurred.
My hearing vanished, like all the air in the world was replaced with vacuum, but I knew it was not so, since conflict still erupted around me. Then, my vision was filled with a brilliant pink light. A vast approaching field of energy that quickly consumed my surroundings, and soon myself as well. The sound came back to me in a rush of expanding air. The wall hit me as solidly as a tidal wave, propelling me high into the air. I went for my magic, but for some unknown reason it fizzled and sparked harmlessly across my body as if short circuited.
I could see all changelings across Canterlot be flung high into the air the same way, but curiously all the ponies were completely unharmed. All thoughts were lost as a particularly strong gust propelled my company higher and higher, the ivory castles of Canterlot quickly vanishing from sight.
A new landscape rushed to meet us, and with unintentional force, I complied.