Are You In or Out?

by nabrixwrites

The Teenagers

The heat was really getting to Discord. So much so that he decided to take his cloak off. He didn’t think he was going to get caught. The cloak probably wasn’t necessary. It would have also probably made his mission harder, seeing as it might give the characters he was trying to recruit the wrong impression. Recruiting ponies was easy, but now he has to recruit dragons. An unpredictable bunch, they are, especially when the ones you’re trying to recruit are teenagers. Teenagers and dragons. The worst combination. Discord may be part dragon, but he sure as hell didn’t know how dragons acted. He also didn’t know how teenagers acted. He hadn’t been one for over 3000 years. “Yo, dawg, I heard you like lava!” he practiced. No, that was terrible. “‘Sup dudes? Wanna go catch some gnarly lava waves?” He was obviously out of his element here.

He just decided to go with his gut. Climbing over the ledge, he saw several large and majestic dragons flying overhead. Down below, he saw a lava spring that several teenagers were using as a hot tub. That must be them, Discord thought. He slid down the rock and approached them. “Hey there! What’s up? I’m sure you know me. Discord. Lord of Chaos.I come with a proposition. A proposition of revenge.”

Without even pausing, the dragons all start laughing. “Who the hell invited Grandpa here?” the red one with two girls leaning on him said. “Get outta here, gramps, and go find dragons more your speed.”

One of his friends gave him a fist bump. “No I’m serious,” Discord said. “You’re aware of a baby dragon called Spike, are you not?”

The dragons suddenly stopped laughing. “Spike?” the same dragon said. “That little shit humiliated us AND got us stuck in a tree. Literally! Inside the trunk!”

“It took us forever to get out of that damn thing!” said a pudgier brown dragon.

“So whaddaya say, boys?” Discord asked. “Are you with me?”

The dragons all look at each other. A skinny, purple and green dragon with blonde hair covering his eyes spoke up. “I think he needs to pass the test first.”

The one who had girls leaning on him stood up. “Yeah, that’s a great idea!”

“Wait. What are you talking about?” Discord asked. “What’s the test?”

“It’s simple!” the red dragon said. “You just need to prove you’re enough of a dragon and cool enough to be with us. Then we’ll join you.”

“Ha!” Discord boasted. “This’ll be easy! I’m forty percent dragon!” He proudly beat against his chest. “I’m also twenty percent cooler than all of you combined!”

“Ha ha!” the red dragon laughed, standing up. “All right, gramps, time to put your money where your mouth is!” He took a deep breath. “KING OF THE HOOOOOAAAAAARD!”

“What’s King of the-” Discord began. He was suddenly pushed to the side by a dragon he could not see. When he stood back up, wind knocked out of him, he looked up to notice a giant mound of gems at least thirty feet high, as well as about ten dragons trying to throw each other off. It didn’t take Discord long to piece together that the goal of King of the Hoard was, well, to be king of the hoard. “Hey, you wanna play dirty? You get dirty!” He called out to the dragon who blindsided him, a white dragon with a pink belly. Said dragon was about halfway up the hoard now. Discord snapped his fingers and a small boulder appeared over the dragon’s head. The dragon barely had time to look up before the rock came crashing down on his head.

Discord couldn’t help but laugh as the dragon fell down the gem pile and landed on his back, not out cold, but extremely dizzy. He saw his chance, and moved in. He kept his body low, close to the pile, and slithered up quickly, similar to how a caterpillar or a centipede would. He kept his eyes open for any more dirty tricks. When he was about three quarters of the way up, he felt something grab his tail and pull him down. Discord slid halfway down the mound, but quickly regained his footing. After catching an eye of the dragon who pulled his tail, he slithered up underneath him and lifted his head, jabbing his deer antler into the dragon, knocking him off balance, and sending him down to the ground, where he was out for the count, too.

More and more dragons fell off the pile, and Discord didn’t notice when it was just him and the red dragon left. He was almost at the top, about to use his trick from earlier to topple the red dragon. Game set match. Discord grinned. But his plan was foiled, however, when he saw a red blur flash by his vision. He nearly dodged what he assumed was a claw coming at his face. Standing up, he realized he was at the top of the hoard. Quickly taking inventory of his surroundings, he noticed most of the dragons were sitting on the ground around the pile treating minor head injuries. The only ones left on the mound were him and the red dragon. The dragon lunged at him, and now they had their hands locked, in an awkward dance trying to throw each other off the hoard. Sometimes Discord had the upper hand, leaning over the other dragon, about to throw him off, but then suddenly the tides would turn and the dragon would be leaning over him.

From the ground, Discord could hear the other dragons cheering on their friend. “You can do it, man!” “Yeah, kick his ass!” “Show that old geezer who’s boss!”

“You hear that, old man? Yeah, I’m gonna win! I’m stronger than you!” the red dragon said.

Discord was in a very sticky predicament. The dragon was right. Every time the dragon had him leaning back, he was finding it harder and harder to turn the tides back on him. If he didn’t think of something quick, he was going to lose. He could feel the sweat breaking on his brow, as the dragon leaned more and more forward, causing Discord to lean back farther and farther, bending his back in an unnatural way. Then he remembered. It worked on the yeti, but he wasn’t sure if it would work on the dragon. It was all he had, though. His arms and legs just about ready to buckle under the pressure, he did the only thing he could do. He teleported.

Before the dragon could make sense out of what happened, he began to lose his balance. He was still leaning forward, despite having nothing to lean forward onto. Sure enough, he couldn’t pull back in time and he fell forward and tumbled down the mound. Discord reappeared on top of the mound behind the dragon. He turned around and saw the dragon rubbing his forehead. Discord couldn’t help but wear a big grin on his face. “Ha! Guess that makes me,” he materialized a throne on top of the pile and sat on it, “King of the HOOOOOAAAAAARD!” he yelled, mimicking the dragon’s announcement from earlier. He began laughing as hard as he could. That was...fun! Discord hadn’t had pure, unadulterated fun like that in eons.

Back on the ground, the red dragon is brushing himself off. “Dude, are you all right?” the purple dragon asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Get the fuck off me.” He looked back up at Discord, who was laughing maniacally in a throne. “Don’t get cocky yet!” he called. “The test isn’t over! There’s still more to do!”

“Bring it!” Discord called back, feeling content with himself.

“All right then,” the dragon said. He pondered for a second. “Hey, who’s up for a little belching contest?” he yelled. All the other dragons cheered.

Discord poofed down beside the dragons who had already formed a line. “Belching? That’s it? Piece of cake.”

“We’ll see about that,” the red dragon said. Discord was on the far end of the line, so he was the last to go. As he looked down the line, he noticed something that would make this next test difficult for him. The dragons were belching fire. Now while Discord was the lord of Chaos, he didn’t breath fire. He could do a mean belch, but not a single flame would become of it. The belches were getting closer. He had to think of something, quick. He could make some magic fire. Nah, he had to belch the fire. Only three dragons left before him. He was starting to get nervous. But then, when the last dragon was done with his display, Discord grinned. That’s it! “All right gramps, show us what you got,” the red dragon said, with a cocky, triumphant grin on his face. Oh, it ain’t ogre ‘til it’s ogre, boy, Discord thought. He conjured a match in his hand and lit it on one of his scales. Holding it in front of his mouth, Discord let out the biggest belch he could, fueling the tiny flame to a scorching inferno, sending the fire into the red dragon’s face.

The belch lasted for several seconds, and when it finally faded, the red dragon’s face was black with soot. Discord couldn’t help but laugh at the sight. “Better out than in, I always say, eh, Fiona?” He continued is roaring laughter. “Oh, you should see your face! HA!”

Wiping off his face, the dragon said, “All right, gramps, I’ll give you credit. That was pretty clever.” Discord bowed at the compliment. “But this next challenge isn’t something you can beat with cleverness.”

“Well,” Discord said. “We’ll see about that won’t we...”

“Hey!” the dragon called. “Let’s get our new friend here a tail wrestling opponent!”

Discord stopped at hearing that. Friend? These dragons really considered him a friend? He felt...well, he didn’t really know how he felt. So far, he’d just been recruiting allies, people to help him in his attack. Assets, nothing more. But a friend? If he was honest with himself, it felt the same way it did when Fluttershy had said she considered Discord a friend. It felt good, but a bad kind of good. You really love it but deep down it eats you up inside. Bah! Discord hated himself for being so sensitive. He was a man! And he was getting all choked up by the fact that a random dragon just called him a simple six letter word. Get over it, you pussy, Discord thought to himself. You’re about to tail wrestle! Pussies can’t tail wrestle. Only men tail wrestle. Are you a man, or a pussy? Discord shook his head and tried to focus on the task at hand. A moderately sized dragon, only a couple of inches shorter than him, had stepped up to volunteer. He was looking around, proud, lifting his arms generating applause from the crowd. The red dragon came up to him and put his hand on his shoulder.

“Blaze here may not talk much, but he’s never lost a tail wrestling match ever.”

The dragon called Blaze grunted with pride and snorted smoke into Discord’s face, which didn’t bother him in the least. “Oh is that so? Well then I’ll say it’s an honor to be your first.”

“Gettin’ cocky, are we?” the red dragon said. “I like that. All right, everybody get ready for a tail wrestle!! 3, 2, 1, GO!” Before Discord could think, he felt a sudden tug on his tail yanking him backward, attempting to pull his feet out from under him. Oh, no ya don’t! Discord thought, furiously flapping his wings to keep him upright, while also digging into the ground with his claw. Discord was a bit stronger than he looked, so as much as it looked like he was struggling, he was actually doing perfectly fine. Balanced once again, Discord tried to take the offensive. Now while Discord was stronger than he looked, he certainly wasn’t Superman (in that regard, anyway) and he found himself unable to topple Blaze. Both equally strong, they found themselves locked in a tug of war. Discord contemplated doing a similar trick to the one on the hoard. He could possibly just relax and let Blaze fall on his face. He decided against it though, because the teleporting trick caught the red dragon off guard. Seeing as how Blaze had never lost a tail wrestle before, he doubted relaxing would surprise him. If he didn’t think of something quick, his strength would give first, he was sure.

Discord was running out of ideas. He needed a miracle to win this fi-“KRAEH!!” The hell was that? “KRAEH!!” The unknown screech came again. “Oh shit!” the red dragon said. “Krakel’s on another one of his fits!”

“Wait, what?” Discord said. “What’s going on? Who’s Krakel?” Discord got his answer immediately. A very disproportionate green dragon with colorful spots flew down next to Blaze and started kicking wildly. With one accidentally well placed shot to Blaze’s gut, knocking him over, Discord was rendered technically victorious. “Ha! I win! Who’s undefeated no-OOF!” … His victory was short-lived. Krakel’s tail wrapped around Discord’s leg and pulled him to the ground, knocking Discord on his face. If that wasn’t bad enough, Discord was pulled back in the air before he could collect himself. Thrown in an arc and slammed on the ground, Discord couldn’t breathe. You know that moment when you’re about to get the shit beat out of you and there’s nothing you can do about it? And you’re like, “Well...shit.” That’s what Discord went through at that moment. Krakel proceeded to throw Discord back and forth, smashing him into the ground every time. The other dragons were hiding away at a safe distance, watching as their new friend was getting pummeled.

After what seemed like forever to Discord, Krakel decided he’d had enough of his fit, and walked off, scratching his back with his hind leg. Very dizzy, Discord started getting up. The dragons all ran up to him to help him. When Discord decided to speak, all that came out was, “I...uh...uh...sorry?”

“No, dude, that was awesome!” the red dragon exclaimed.

“R-really?” Discord stammered.

“Yeah! No grandpa could survive a beating like that! You’re one tough dragon.”

Regaining his composure, Discord asked, “So, you guys still wanna take me up on my offer?”

“What? OH, yeah! Sure. But first, I think we should have another soak. You’ve earned it, dude.”

Yeah, a hot tub soak sounded good to Discord right now. That’s just what his beat up muscles need. But he was more relieved with the fact that they said yes. Looking at his mental checklist, Discord noticed he only had two more left to recruit. He relished in the belief that none of them could be as hard as what he just went through. That was hell. But by George was it worth it.

Author's Note:

Here it is. I was sitting at my computer for the past 24 hours, just trying to get this thing done. Sorry it's been so long. A whole month. But I've just been really busy this month, especially with being in Mexico the last two weeks. Also this is the scene I was trying to pay homage to in the last challenge, probably unsuccessfully. Krakel is the Hulk and Discord is Loki, if that wasn't obvious:

Well... I'm here now, and I promise the wait for the next chapter will not be as long. In the meantime...listen to the song I've been listening to on repeat for about 24 hours. God, what is wrong with me...

Also, have you guys noticed just how much of a pain in the ass it is to post youtube videos and shit into author's notes? If you haven't, well, it's a pain in the ass.

Comments

[Deletethis22]

Nice chapter cant wait for more

[nabrixwrites]

2994530 Thanks!

[nabrixwrites]

The lack of feedback on this chapter is unsettling.