The Last Crusade
Chapter 17:
The Last Crusade
FLASH!
When my vision cleared, we were no longer in the cavern. We were now on a grassy plain, away from the forest in front of a large, derelict structure. The wind was blowing in strong gusts, and chillingly, the swirling clouds above had turned blood red. Large booms of thunder were occasionally heard, only to be followed by ominous forks of lightning.
I took a few steps forward, squinting at the building. “I know this place…”
It was enticingly familiar, like so many things I’d seen so far. It was desecrated, and reeked of dark magic like almost everything else, but there were still hints of things here and there that I recognized. I shivered in the wind and wracked my brain, trying to recall where I’d seen it before.
Apple Bloom recognized it first.
“Canterlot Castle…”
Indeed it was, or at least, what was left of it. Discord had defiled the thing like everything else, and now the once-proud structure was a mockery of what it once was. The walls had been replaced with moldy swiss cheese. Grotesque eyeballs were sprouting out of the entire western half, blinking and leering at everything they saw. The portcullis gate was spinning around like a revolving door. The moat was filled with bubbling tar. The statues had been replaced with pillars of salt that spewed multicolored liquid out their tops like geysers. On, and on, and on. The more I looked at the place, the more I wanted to be sick, and I could tell the others felt the same way.
Babs fell back on her haunches. “By the Sun…”
“Can say that again.” Scootaloo wrinkled her nose and looked around, grimacing at the sight of a shredded corpse by the entrance. “Dash and the others are inside, I take it?”
“They are,” the Elements said. Shmangie pressed her lips into a thin line. “Though we dare not take you further. The Mad One has your friends trapped in a dreamworld, and we believe that he intends to try and use them as hostages.”
“Oh, for crying out loud.” Daring threw up her hooves. “I freaking hate these kinds of situations! So what do we do, then?”
Shmangie turned to her. “We have observed that the Mad One enjoys gloating over his victims when it seems victory his is assured. If you can lure him into a false sense of security, we believe he will lower his guard. That will be the time to strike.”
Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “In other words, you want us to make the sadistic chaos monster think that we’re helpless, then blast him with the Rainbow Hadoken when his back’s turned. I think I’ll put that under, ‘Plans That’ll Definitely Get Us Killed’.”
“Yeah, that’s not a good idea,” I said. “Discord likes to play with his food, but if we try something like that, he’s gonna know that something’s up.”
The Elements were about to reply, but then, they suddenly fell silent. Shmangie stood as still as a statue, her eyes unfocused and blank. Her lips moved silently in some kind of exchange, but none of us could tell what was she was saying. She was like that for almost a minute, until finally, she nodded and stepped over to me.
“Your sister says that you’re an experienced actress. Is this true?”
I felt my stomach drop. “Uhhhh…”
“She kinda is, yeah,” Babs spoke up. “She once fooled a whole group of people into thinking that she was a distraught nine-year-old girl who’d lost her parents.”
“Hey, that was an extenuating circumstance!” I said, taking a step back. “We were halfway changed back into our pony bodies!”
“What about all your involvement in the school drama program?” Apple Bloom added. “Three leads and a bunch of supportin’ roles, or somethin’ like that? That ain’t nothin’ to sniff at.”
My ears pinned back against my head. “The high school drama program, Apple Bloom. Not exactly the pinnacle of achievements, there.”
“Oh, don’t act like you don’t wanna do this.” Scootaloo smirked. “I bet secretly, you’ve been hoping this whole time that we’re gonna have some kind of big, grandiose showdown with him, haven’t you?”
“Well, okay, you’ve—argh! that’s not the point!” I shot dirty looks at my friends. “You can’t compare any of that to this! Discord’s a super-powerful spirit of mischief and chaos! He’ll see right through anything I try!”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Sweetie,” Daring said, a knowing glint in her eye. “Bad guys love to monologue. If you give them the opportunity, they’ll jump on it like a fat kid on a candy bar.”
“And Discord’s certainly got a massive ego,” Apple Bloom said darkly. “Just take a look around. There ain’t a place around he hasn’t remade in his image.”
I felt my ears redden. “I… you… that... oh, come on! You can’t be serious! We’re talking about a guy who likes to pick his enemies off one by one! He’s gotta be paranoid as all get out! You really wanna risk everything on something flashy, and over the top?”
Babs came over and sat down beside me. “There wouldn’t be anything flashy about it, though. Or at least, there doesn’t have to be. You just have to keep him distracted so we can get a clear shot at him.”
“You don’t even have to do it for very long,” Apple Bloom said. “We just need to set a trap, and out of all of us, you’re the only one that he’s seemingly had any interest in.”
I fidgeted. “I get that, but aren’t I needed to help, um…” I made quotation marks with my hooves. “‘charge’ said shot? I can’t very well do both at the same time.”
Shmangie’s eyes glittered. “Even when not unified, we can still channel a portion of our power through our respective Bearers, as we demonstrated in the Everfree. We will be able restrain the Mad One without your aid… albeit briefly.”
I raised an eyebrow. “How briefly?”
“No more than a few seconds.”
I groaned and hung my head.
“I know you can do this, kiddo,” Shmangie said, her voice going normal. “This is right up your alley. You really can put on a convincing show when you have to, and… well, I hate to say it, but right now, you kinda have to.”
I didn’t reply to that. I fiddled with the Element of Magic around my neck, which suddenly seemed to be very uncomfortable.
Babs patted my back. “Nopony’s expecting you to be enthusiastic. We know it’s dangerous, but it’s better than just charging in there, Elements blazing. That won’t get us anywhere.”
“Oh, it’ll get us somewhere.” Scootaloo ran a hoof across her throat. “Just nowhere pleasant.”
Daring snickered. “Hey, you never know. The afterlife may not be so bad.”
“We have very few other options, Sweetie Belle,” the Elements said. Their hawk-like gaze bored into mine. “Your feelings are understandable, but we believe that this is our best chance to succeed. Are you up to the task?”
It felt like my heart was trying to leap out of my throat. A black, churning pit was roiling in my gut, and it was getting hard to think straight. I was flattered that they all had confidence in me, but they essentially wanted to use me as bait. I wasn’t even sure that I had what it took to fool him out in the first place! I mean, I was smart, sure, but I wasn’t going to pretend that I matched up to an immortal chaos spirit.
I reached up and rubbed the metal sheath around my horn. It’d been feeling kinda tight the last few days, and I’d been meaning to talk to Rarity about getting it adjusted. Fat chance of that happening now. At this point I may as well just take the damn thing—
Oh.
Ohhhhhhhh...
Ohhh-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho...
“Sweetie?” Babs said. “How about it? Do you think you can do it?”
An odd smirk crept up on my face. A low, sly chuckle escaped me, one that made Babs flinch beside me.
“Uh-oh.” She slowly backed away.
“Oh, boy. I know that look,” Scootaloo said, grinning herself.
“Ho, nelly.” Apple Bloom rubbed her temples and sighed. “Here we go again...”
Shmangie’s expression was unchanged at first, but then, a moment later, her expression twisted into a grimace..
“We do not understand,” I heard the Elements murmur softly. “What is this ‘duct tape’ that you speak of?”
Daring was the only one who was clueless. “Hey!” She walked up to me and waved a hoof in front of my face. “ Talk to us, girl! What’s with the moodswing?”
I turned to her, my eyes wide and devious. It was still there, of course—the blankness in her eyes that frustrated me so.
Perfect.
I chuckled again and rubbed my hooves together. “Prepare... for shenanigans.”
***
Ten Minutes Later-
“AUGH!”
The spark immediately leapt off my horn and hit Daring square in the forehead. She gnashed her teeth and fell to the ground, and I backpedaled away to avoid getting hit. I winced as I watched her shudder and spasm, suddenly very thankful that I only had to experience that once.
I turned to Shmangie. “You’re sure you can hide the others?”
“Have faith,” the Elements said calmly. Shmangie turned and looked up at the castle. “Hmph. It seems you were not mistaken. He is on his way.”
“All right!” I shooed away the others. “Go, then! Wait for my signal!”
“Gotcha! Break a leg!” Scootaloo said.
“Stay safe,” said Babs.
Apple Bloom nodded. “See ya in a bit.”
The light suddenly left Shmangie’s eyes. Before I could react, she stepped forward and gave me a fierce hug, squeezing me tight against her shoulder. She kissed my cheek and whispered two words in a tight voice.
“Don’t die.”
She unclasped my Element, and with another FLASH, all five of them were gone.
I let out a long, slow sigh. I was now alone on the far edge of the castle moat, staring up at the malformed parapets with the wind whistling in my ears. I adjusted my mane and gripped my rapier tightly, scanning the building for any sign of my foe.
The place was like a graveyard. The windows were all dark or shattered, without so much as a flicker of light within. Idly, I wondered if Discord usually spent a lot of time here, or if he’d chosen this as the place of the final battle for other reasons. The longer I thought about that, though, the less I cared. In the end it was just another plaything to him, another trophy that he kept simply to flaunt over all of us.
There was a lot of sound coming from behind me, though. Not that I needed to see what it was, mind you. Discord liked to keep all his toys in one place, apparently, because not a mile away were the ravaged outskirts of Ponyville, currently under siege by an amalgamation of horrors.
Oddly enough, the ponies there were doing a pretty good job of holding them off… though I suspected this less thanks to them, and more to the dragons dominating the skies.
Yes, I said dragons. Reptilian, bat-winged, fire breathing, ferocious dragons. They were of all shapes and sizes, ranging from smaller than a pony to nearly the size of the town. I had no idea where they’d come from, or why they were on our side, but I wasn’t about to second-guess a miracle. They were kicking flank and taking names, to be certain, but Discord’s forces still outnumbered them. It was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed, unless somepony cut off the head of the snake.
“My, my, my,” a low, silky voice said. “Isn’t this a surprise.”
Speak of the devil...
A shadow separated itself from the polka-dotted castle wall. Lazily, the silhouette swam through the air and made its way over to me, staying pure black and indistinct despite it being the middle of the day. The air seemed to drop in temperature, and a chill ran up my spine as the dark thing rose above me and circled like a vulture, examining me with red, mismatched eyes.
“I seem to recall telling you what would happen if you freed anyone else.” The voice made a tsk-tsk sound. “Apparently, somepony isn’t very good at following instructions.”
The spike of adrenaline almost overwhelmed me. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to scream, cry, run, or charge headlong with sword and song. Every fiber in my body was telling me to do something other than just casually stand there, but that’s exactly what I did.
I kept my voice even and continued to stare straight ahead. “I had to get your attention, somehow.”
The shadow’s reply was a laugh. “You did that to just get my attention? Aren’t you the ballsy one.”
There was a whip-like CRACK, and then he was in front of me, looming over my filly body with a mad grin. Discord was as terrifying I remembered him, with ugly, mismatched parts and wickedly sharp teeth. There was an aura of foul power about him as well that made my horn feel tingly and strange, and every inch of him oozed malevolence and spite.
“Actually, I take that back,” Discord said with a wicked grin. “You don’t have balls anymore.”
I clenched my jaw so hard it hurt. Fantasies of turning him into a pincushion ran through my mind, but I pushed them aside. I continued to stare calmly at him, my expression stone-faced and stoic.
Discord waited a few seconds to see if he’d gotten a rise out of me, but when it was clear he hadn’t, he threw up his claws and shrugged. “Meh. I never could get the whole ‘inspire fear and dread’ thing down. Maybe I need to make myself bigger, or give myself spikes? What do you think?”
I rolled my eyes. “Still trying new things, I see.”
“Well, hello to you too, Magellan,” Discord said haughtily. He reached down and ruffled my mane, much to my chagrin. “Not in the mood to play, are we? That’s a shame. Your sister and friends certainly were. They were all full of piss and vinegar, trying to rain fire and brimstone down on me.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Are they still alive?”
“For the moment,” Discord said with a haughty sniff. “Though I must tell you, I’m positively hurt! Hurt, I say! That they’d attack me after I gave you all such a nice soiree in the human world?! I gave you all the chance to experience life through new eyes, and this is how you repay me? For shame!”
My limbs were shaking. Though whether it was from fear, or rage, I couldn’t tell. “Is that really how you see it?” I asked.
“Pfft. Of course not.” Discord examined his claws with a bored look. “I wanted to make you all suffer, my silly little pony. Would’ve defeated the purpose if any of you had enjoyed it.”
Okay, it was definitely rage. It felt like something was trying to claw its way out of my chest, and the fringes of my vision were going blurry. Briefly, I wondered how many shots I could get in before he took me down. There was a certain romanticism in going down swinging—
Focus, Sweetie.
“It was all just an act from the start, wasn’t it?” I said, looking up at him. “You never really were reformed at all. You were just biding your time.”
Discord burst out laughing. “Oh, and it was so easy, too! You seriously thought that spending a few days with Little Miss Wallflower would suddenly make me see things in a new light? I can’t believe you all fell for it!!”
I narrowed my eyes. “And let me guess—the whole thing with Tirek was an act, too.”
A shower of confetti exploded all around me. “Ding, ding, ding!”
He snapped his fingers, and his eyes lit up like light bulbs. Suddenly, I was sitting on a movie theater chair in front of a big screen, and a video began to play on it, playing from his eyes like a projector.
“Tirek was a patsy,” Discord said. “An absolutely clueless, perfect patsy. He played his part better than I even hoped he would, let me tell you. I loosened the bonds on his cell, allowed him to escape from Tartarus, and lo and behold, he immediately starts going gung ho with stealing magic! Never mind the idea of fleeing somewhere safe to regroup and plan, oh no. He absolutely had to get his revenge right then and there!”
I sat up straight in my seat. “Wait, YOU were the one who released—”
My mouth abruptly turned into a zipper and zipped shut.
“Ah, ah, ah.” Discord waggled a claw at me. “No talking while the movie’s playing. Honestly, Sweetie Belle, you’ve such terrible manners! Whatever would your sisters think?”
I seethed and seethed. I tried tugging at the zipper, but it was stuck. I growled and began pulling harder, trying my hardest to get it free.
“As I was saying, Tirek was an idiot,” Discord continued. “Most centaurs are, truth be told. I let him get out thinking he might be a good distraction sometime down the line, but apparently, patience isn’t one of his strong suits. I was trying figuring out how to make the best of the situation when out of the blue, Celestia herself puts me in charge of recapturing him! I couldn’t have planned that better if I tried!”
The movie screen was now showing scenes of Discord performing nefarious acts. He bribed Cerberus with a bone laced with sleeping powder, then snuck in into the depths and fiddled with Tirek’s cage when nopony was watching. He then flew out, silent as a ghost, steepling his fingers and grinning devilishly all the while.
“Oh, and that wasn’t even the best part!” Discord said, roaring with laughter. “As soon as I find the old goat, he tries the old, ‘let’s be partners in crime, I swear I won’t betray you’ trick! It was so pitiful that I was tempted to throw him back in Tartarus just out of spite! But no, that wouldn’t do, no, no, no, no. You see, I was curious about Tirek’s ability to steal magic, which I hadn’t known much about, and it’s not exactly polite to just go up and ask about such things. So, I thought that maybe if I watched him work, I might learn by example.”
Finally, I managed to free the zipper. I tore the stupid thing open, and it vanished with a pop!
“Seems like that one backfired on you,” I snarked, crossing my hooves. “Seeing as he then went and stole your magic, too.”
“Hmm, he did, didn’t he?” Discord said coyly. “I wonder why I’d fall for something as obvious as that?”
He snapped his fingers again, and an instant later, my theater chair had turned into a school desk, and the big screen was now a chalkboard. Discord was now wearing an ugly tweed jacket and burgundy pants, intently staring at me through a pair of thick spectacles.
“Think.” He conjured a ruler out of midair and tapped it against the chalkboard. “If you recall, Tirek took everypony’s magic for his own and stored it inside himself. Now, even with your limited knowledge of magic, do you think he stored each creature’s power separately—”
Discord leaned in close and gave me a mad, toothy smile. “—or do you think that it all might’ve gotten… mixed together?”
All the blood drained from my face. My eyes went wide as the realization hit me, hard and fast like a hammer.
“You didn’t.”
Discord grin reached to his eyebrows. “I did.”
“Impossible,” I said, suddenly feeling sick. “There’s no way that somepony wouldn’t have noticed!”
“There are ways to camouflage magical signatures, my dear,” Discord said smugly. “And I know several.”
I felt violated. Dirtied. All this time I’d thought I’d had a grip on what was going on, but I hadn’t had a clue. I closed my eyes and took deep breaths, trying not to let the revulsion show on my face.
“That’s how you were able to cast such a powerful spell so quickly without being detected,” I said. “Your chaos was already inside us from when Tirek stole everypony’s magic. You just had to activate it on with some kind of trigger.”
Discord took a sweeping bow. “Brilliant, wasn’t it?”
“That’d also explain how you messed with our destinies,“ I muttered, raising a hoof to my chin. “I’ve talked to a fair amount of ponies the last few weeks, and no matter what any of them tried, or did with their lives, they always felt miserable and incomplete. Even if they followed their special talents and gave it their all, there was always something that got in their way. That something was your chaos, interfering in subtle ways and steering us all towards disaster.”
Discord began to clap, his teacher clothes dissolving into smoke. “Well done, my dear! I do believe you’ve got it! You really are something of a Sparklebutt Lite, aren’t you?”
I glared at him. “Whenever I tried to pursue singing, I found my pathway blocked. In high school, it was my social life or extracurricular activities, but in college, it was my academic studies.”
“Oh, so you’re an egghead because of me?” Discord made a dismissive noise. “Well, I assure you, that wasn’t my intent. Probably had something to do with your sister’s interference when I tried to activate your curse. She put up quite a fight you know, by the way, both then and now. Wouldn’t have thought someone like her knew such powerful magic, but hey, live and learn.”
I held up my rapier, critically examining its hilt and engraving. “You’ve done terrible things, Discord. You made us all forget our lives. You tore apart families and stole our country. You’ve killed, stole, pillaged, and worst of all, you’ve just admitted to all of it being premeditated. Wars have been fought over less.”
“And again you reveal your ignorance.” Discord shaded his eyes and looked past me towards Ponyville. “I don’t know if you’ve looked behind you recently, but there actually is a war—HRK!”
I stabbed him. I stabbed him again, and again, and again. My rapier was a vengeful frenzy as I impaled every part of his body with relentless force. I poured everything into my strikes, determined to run him through for every life he’d disrupted.
Memories of the past twenty-five years fueled my assault—the frustration of being denied a life of music, the strange friction between me and my friends, the pointless brooding, the endless, lonely hours of questioning why, the stress of this whole ordeal, anything and everything. It all combined together to push my righteous advance, and while I knew my power wasn’t much by myself, I prayed that it would be enough.
Discord’s body fell to the ground a bloody mess, but I didn’t stop. For good measure, I decapitated him, lopped off his stupid horns, gouged out his foul eyes, picked up his head and stuck it on one of the castle spikes, then chopped his patchwork body into its respective segments. I then scattered the segments across the field, throwing one in the moat, another across the field, and a third up on the castle wall, and the fourth—
“Well. That was gruesome.”
I spun around. Sitting there on a polka-dotted couch was Discord, unharmed, sipping at a soda and munching popcorn. He was wearing a pair of 3D movie glasses, and looked thoroughly amused as he watched me eviscerate his clone.
“Seems like somepony’s got some anger issues.” He slid the glasses down his nose and frowned. “You might want to keep that little temper of yours under control, missy, or we’ll have to change this story’s content rating.”
Panting, I wiped off the bloodsplatter and spat at his feet. “Rat bastard… you deserved that… and you know it.”
“I suppooooose I have been a bit of a stinker.” He tossed another kernel into his mouth. “But still, that’s no reason to go all Jack the Ripper on me. I swear, it’s always the quiet ones with the vicious streaks.”
I glowered at him, but then, I felt my skin prickle. There was a sudden chime in my head, followed by a subtle change in the air. I glanced out the corner of my eye, and I caught a prismatic glint.
“Tell me why you really came here, Sweetie Belle,” Discord said. “I know it wasn’t just so you could scold me. The ponies in town aren’t surrendering, and you’re certainly not dumb enough to think that a sword would do anything. I think it’s time that you fess up—”
There was a crackling sound, like frost forming. There noticeable shift in his posture, from relaxed to suddenly tense. His manic eyes suddenly went wide, and before he could do anything, he became frozen in place.
“You’re right,” I said with a wide, shit-eating grin. “I didn’t come here for any of those reasons, Discord. All of that was just for me.”
The shimmering air flickered, and to my left, the illusion hiding the others lifted up like a veil. The Element of Magic appeared around my neck in a white flash, and I felt the wellspring of power again, building up inside me like a raw conduit of electricity. I felt the others this time, as well, like five colorful stars burning in the cold, dark night.
I felt my Element reaching out to theirs, connecting them, joining them, forming a glittering web of harmonious light. I could feel them all now. Scootaloo’s power was bright and happy, Babs’ was soft and comforting, Apple Bloom’s was strong and steady, Daring’s was hot and pulsing, and Angie’s was cool and sharp. Alone, we weren’t much, but together, we could accomplish so much more. We could move mountains. We could cross oceans and soar the skies. We could right all wrongs and restore balance to all things.
We could save our stolen world.
A beautiful song began to play in my mind and heart. I felt myself rising up into the air, and the others followed suit beside me. I reached out and touched their hooves, and a prismatic aura of light formed around our bodies. The earth rumbled, the castle walls shook, and the very air around us crackled and sparked as our power grew exponentially.
It was so amazing right then, being alongside my friends in that moment, working together to right a grievous wrong. We were the avatars of harmony, and its power shone brightly in our hearts. We were the dispensers of justice and retribution. We had suffered, fought, fled, bled, but it was all worth it, because it all led to this.
The Elements reached their apex. The feeling was indescribable in that moment, joined together with the others, wielding such amazing power. My vision became tinged with white again, and I looked down without pity at the treacherous, tyrannical trickster.
“This... is for Equestria.”
A rainbow of light erupted from the six of us with a colossal VWUM. With terrifying speed, it flew forth and nailed the ensnared Discord, who couldn’t even cry out in alarm. The force shattered the ground, and created a mighty shockwave that went out for hundreds of yards, as well as throwing up a huge dust cloud that obscured our vision. The sound of the explosion was deafening, causing several of the castle windows to shatter. The outer walls began to crack and crumble as well, and the entire building shook ominously.
We nuked him for about half a minute before we backed off. We all gently floated to the ground together, the Elements’ power waning and returning us to normal.
“Whoa…” I staggered as a wave of fatigue suddenly struck me, like I’d just done a full day’s worth of manual labor. I heard murmurs of surprise and stumbling hooves beside me, as well.
Babs coughed and squinted into the smoking crater. “Did we do it?”
I covered my mouth and stifled a sneeze. “Not sure. We might need to—”
“APPLE BLOOM?! Is that you?”
I swear, that voice scared me so bad I nearly crapped myself. All six of us whirled around in a flash, and there a short ways away stood Applejack, looking at us all with wide, incredulous eyes.
But she wasn’t alone, either. There beside her was Twilight, Fluttershy, Pinkie, Rarity, Dash, Big Mac, and Shining Armor. They all had various scratches and bruises, but none of them seemed worse for the wear.
My jaw dropped. “No way…”
“APPLEJACK!” Apple Bloom galloped over and locked her in a bear hug. Babs was close behind, and together they actually knocked the wind out of the poor mare and made her fall over.
“OOF!”
Dash stepped forward. “How did you guys... and where did you guys find...?”
Error. Error. Does not compute. SweetieBelle.exe has encountered a critical error. A system restart is now required. Press any key to continue.
“Ah… hey there, Dash!” Daring said, noticing my freeze up. She trotted past me and went over to her. “Glad to see you’re all right! It was a group effort, you know. Sorry for using it without you. I know it’s yours... er, the Element, I mean.”
Meanwhile, Rarity ran past them and rushed over to Shmangie and me. “How on earth… are you both alright?”
“Buh?” I blinked several times, still somewhat dazed.
“She’s fine,” Shmangie said. She put a hoof on my shoulder. “We all are. How about all of you?”
Rarity opened her mouth to reply, but then, she noticed the glittering Element around Shmangie’s neck.
“Oh, my...” She held it up to examine the engravings in the light. “Heavens above... it’s beautiful, darling...”
Dash looked Daring over, then glanced at the still-smoldering crater. “Hey, no worries about the Element! I’m honestly glad that you used it! I kinda had my hooves tied with other things.”
“Oh, we used them all right!” Scootaloo said. She ran up to Dash and gave her a hug. “Blasted him straight to hell! You should have seen us!”
“Ah?! Oh! Heya, squirt.” Dash returned the hug half-heartedly, her attention never leaving the smoke cloud. “We, erm... actually did see you all from the… uh, throne room... hey, um… sorry but, can you hold on a sec? I’ll be right back.”
She abruptly stepped away from Scootaloo and Daring to go back over to Shining and Twilight, who were also still staring into the thick smoke. In her wake, Scootaloo and Daring cocked their heads in unison.
“Eh?” Daring said.
“That was weird,” Scootaloo said.
Shmangie drug a hoof along the ground, not meeting Rarity’s eyes. “I, uh… hope you don’t mind. We didn’t have a lot of options.”
“Mind?” Rarity echoed, her tone quizzical. “Whatever do you mean?”
Shmangie did a double-take. “Wat.”
“Well, it’s not like I ever had a true claim to it,” Rarity said with a dismissive air. “From what I understand, we just found the Elements of Harmony in an old castle, right? Not much of a title to ownership, there. It’s not like I’ve any reason to complain.”
I looked between the two of them, unsure what to think. Rarity’s words seemed earnest, but her eyes told another story. I glanced over at Shmangie, and could tell she was thinking the same thing.
“Rarity…” Shmangie began.
“And Sweetie! Look at you!” Rarity abruptly said, turning to me. “Is that the Element of Magic you’re wearing?”
I let out a nervous laugh. “Funny story about that...”
“Uh-uh,” Shmangie said. “Don’t hide this and pretend like it doesn’t mean anything to you. Talk to me.”
Each of them took a seat on either side of me and began talking. Meanwhile, my attention was drawn over at Dash and Twilight, who were still staring into the smoky crater. They were talking with Shining, who still seemed to be on edge.
“...wish we could… all that smog,” I heard Shining say. He was speaking too softly for me to hear all of the conversation. “...no way… him off. You… any spells… smoke, do you?”
Twilight tapped her chin and looked up at the sky. “Remember… spell… you laughed… learning?”
A moment later, her horn lit up and a breeze began to pick up. The smoke slowly began to dissipate, clearing enough for us to see. One of us began to clap their approval.
Pinkie tilted her head. “Wait, who’s clapping?”
I looked around. It didn’t seem to be anyone I could see, and we were all… sitting… down…
“Oh... fuck,” Dash said.
“My, my, my. You ponies are full of surprises today,” Discord said, his voice floating out from the crater.
Everyone stopped dead. A moment later, the smoke cleared enough to show him standing there, unharmed, giving us the slowest of golf claps.
My breath caught in my chest. “No!” I ran forward. “That’s impossible! You got a direct hit!”
“That I did, my dear,” Discord said lazily. He casually inspected the nails on his claw. “Stung something fierce, too. Rather pathetic, really—you must’ve gotten a defective set of Elements. Can you still take them back and get a refund? Maybe store credit?”
Twilight rubbed her chin. “The Elements probably got weakened after decades of being abandoned. But still, they should have at least hurt him.”
I grit my teeth. “No! We beat you! It should be over!”
Discord’s mocking laughter filled the air. “Sorry to disappoint, but you failed again! You always do, and you always will. You can’t win.”
Attack him, the Elements whispered in my mind. Attack him now...
I grit my teeth and shut my eyes. Fat lot of good that’ll do! You saw what happened when I tried, earlier! Is it true, Elements? Are you too weak from those monsters to finish the job? Are we screwed?
We have evened the odds, the Elements’ waning voice said. The rest is up to you. We must rest now... Strike true, Sweetie Belle…
Wait, what?! No! Hold on!
Strike true…
And then I was alone.
So close, and yet so far. We were at the finish line, and then, like always, we tripped over our own hooves.
“No…”
My seething anger resurged. It boiled up inside me, than overflowed and erupted like a mighty volcano.
“No!”
My vision went red. My rapier appeared beside me in an emerald flash.
“NO! JUST DIE ALREADY!” I swung my sword at him with all my might.
Discord rolled his eyes. He held out his eagle’s claw to block the sword...
...except his magic didn’t work. My rapier kept going and sliced right through the claw, severing off two of his talons in the process.
His eyes went wide. He spat out an expletive I didn’t recognize. “What in the... ARGH! That actually hurt!”
Everypony was speechless. We all stared dumbstruck at Discord, who was clutching his bloodied arm. Dash immediately turned to Twilight, clearly expecting an explanation, but it was Shining who figured it out first.
“He’s mortal…”
Discord’s head snapped up. “W-what? No! I'm always immortal! I’m a god!” He looked down at his bleeding hand, but nothing happened. It wasn’t regenerating or healing itself.
Twilight gave a low whistle, “Looks like the Elements weren’t entirely useless, after all. Ready to surrender now, Discord?”
He glared at her with venom. “You little shits are NOTHING! I still have more power in one limb than any of you could even dream of!”
“Why don’t we test that, then?!” Shining cried out. “BATTLE FORMATION!”
At this, Rarity and the others fanned out to attack. The rest of us took the hint and spread out, as well.
Discord sneered. “As if I’m stupid enough to fight all of you at once. Take those damn Elements and rot in the space between worlds! Begone!”
He made to snap his fingers, but before he did, a multicolored orb of light suddenly hovered out of Shmangie’s body. It floated above her for a few seconds, spinning faster and faster like a kaleidoscope before splitting into six parts. Each one of the parts went sailing towards one of us and disappeared into our necklaces, and a prismatic glow surrounded Discord’s body.
There was a whip-like CRACK. It felt like something yanked me backwards by the scruff of my neck, and I went sailing backwards through the air, the grassy plain gradually greying out and fading into nothingness.
***
All was dark. I was blind, clueless, without any knowledge of what was going on around me. I couldn’t hear anything, either, but after a few seconds, I began to make out a dull series of muted bangs and thuds, as if from underwater.
Slowly, my vision cleared, and my hooves touched down on something solid. I looked around to get a sense of where I was.
What I saw didn’t make a whole lot of sense. I was in a blue, hazy void filled with stars and wispy clouds that lazily drifted past me. It stretched on and on in every direction without end, and there was no ground or sky to speak of.
“What in tarnation?!” I heard a familiar voice say behind me. “The hay just happened?”
Now, I say ‘familiar’ because the voice wasn’t quite the same. It was Apple Bloom’s, for sure, but... different. It was lower, clearer, and more mature sounding than I recalled. I turned around to look at her, and when I did, my eyes almost bugged out of my head.
“BUH?!”
Apple Bloom was a filly no longer. She was a full-grown mare in her prime, with a strong, muscular frame and long, crimson locks that were tied up in a sleek braid. Her tail was done up in the same fashion, and she was rubbing the back of her head with a slight wince on her face.
“Dang Discord musta hit us with some kinda spell,” she muttered to herself. “We gotta get back before—AHH!”
Apple Bloom jumped about a foot in the air when she noticed me.
“Stars and garters!” she exclaimed. “Look at all’o ya!”
“All of us, cousin,” a motherly voice said behind me. “You might wanna take a look at yourself.”
I got goosebumps. Slowly, I turned around and beheld Babs, who had undergone a similar transformation. She was similar to Apple Bloom in size and muscle tone, though her back legs weren’t as well defined. Her two-toned mane was arranged in a complex zigzag pattern, and her once-prominent freckles were now faded. Standing beside her was Scootaloo, an adult as well, with a slim and wiry body, short mane and tail, and broad, angular wings.
Finally, it was with trepidation that I looked down at myself. I was an adult, too, thin and lithe, with a naturally curly mane and a sharp, slender horn. I was the tallest of the four of us, my coat was a soft, greyish-white, my tail was done up in a simple coiffure, and my magic was fully developed.
I stumbled on my longer limbs. “What is this…”
Scootaloo snickered. “I don’t know, but I like it!”
“Where are we?!” I said. Even my voice sounded alien—it’d shifted from an adolescent chirp to a silvery soprano. “What’s happened to us? Why are we like this?!”
“Shmage!”
My ears twitched. I looked to my left, and there, two figures came running out of a passing cloud. Shmangie and Daring ran up, smiling as they came close, taking in our new appearances with approval.
“Good, you’re awake.” Shmangie looked me over and ran a hoof through my wavy curls. “Dios, you’ve got such a good mane... we’re gonna have fun with that later… and Dylan, your wings! Oh gosh, I’ll bet you can fly now!”
I warily eyed Shmangie and Daring. They both looked relatively the same, though there was something about Daring that caught my eye. She looked more confident, more relaxed, and there was an air of wisdom about her that hadn’t been there before.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“We don’t have a lot of time.” Shmangie gestured to the void around us. “The Elements told me a bit about this place—it’s basically where the spirits of mortals and immortals are on an even playing field. Recognize it at all?”
I chewed on my lip. It did seem familiar somehow, but I had no idea why. I’d think I’d remember if I’d ever been to mystical space land! Unless maybe it was somewhere from the show? That was a possibility. There were lots of crazy places that Twilight—
I flinched and tensed up, stiff as a board.
“Seems like she does,” Daring observed. “Though I wouldn’t get too excited. I doubt any of us are gonna be sprouting wings or horns anytime soon.”
I fell back on my haunches. “I… I don’t understand. Why are we here? And what do you mean, ‘even playing field’?”
“The Elements made it so that Discord’s spirit got taken along with us when he sent us here,” Shmangie said quickly. “Dash and the others are fighting his physical form in the physical world as we speak, but we need to keep his spirit here. If it escapes, he’ll be able to restore his immortality.”
I tried to digest that, but I was still a little dazed. I just looked at her with scrunched eyebrows, my mouth twisted into a grimace. Behind me, the other’s reactions were much the same.
“Uh, you might wanna break that down a bit more there, Angie,” Daring said, noting our confused looks. “Maybe start with explaining how you know all that in the first place.”
“Or how about why we’re all adults!” Apple Bloom said crossing her hooves. “How about you clue us in on that!”
“I’ll explain later,” Shmangie said, her voice still rushed. “Right now, we have to hurry the hell up, because like I said, Dash and the others are fighting Discord in the physical world as we speak! They’re not gonna hold out for forever!”
“She’s right,” Daring said grimly. “We’ve already wasted enough time waiting for you all to wake up. We gotta haul ass.”
I grit my teeth. I was at a loss for words, but I could definitely read the mood of the situation. “Okay! Okay!” I unsteadily stood back up and gave my head a shake. “But you better explain things later!”
“I will!” Shmangie said. She tugged me forward and gestured for the others to follow. “Let’s go!”
“Where?” Babs called. “Where are we going?”
“To where Discord is!” Shmangie replied. “Daring can track him down like she did with the Elements!”
“But how do you know—”
“LOOK!” Shmangie yelled over her shoulder. “The Elements told me some things before they split off, all right?! They injected a crapload of random info into my brain, and I’m still trying to make sense of all of it! Thanks to that, my head hurts like hell, my legs feel like jelly, and I’m still hearing random musical notes for some rewason! I’m not in the mood to play twenty questions with you! Just shut up and FOLLOW US!”
“Eep.” Babs fell silent. With a bowed head, she fell into step beside Apple Bloom and awkwardly ran in her new body, trying not to trip.
Scootaloo chuckled. “Somepony got yellllllllled aaaat.” She spread her wings and took to the air.
“I hope it’s not far,” Apple Bloom muttered. “This place gives me the creeps.”
“It’s not,” Daring said as she flew on our left side. “He’s hiding just a little ways away from us, but he’s been ignoring us. I think he’s more concerned with trying to get out of here.”
“Are you able to tell what he’s doing?” I said. I was getting the hang of running now, and I was impressed at how fast I was able to go.
“I wish,” Daring said with a snort. “All I can tell is where he is. I do know he’s not moving, though.”
“We got a plan of attack?” Scootaloo asked. “Or we just winging it?”
“I think Angie does,” Daring said. “She hasn’t told me what it is yet, though.”
“It’s not complicated!” Shmangie narrowed her eyes and lowered her head. “Shmage said it best back at the farm! To hell with ambushes, drawn-out fights, or trying to take him on one at a time! Let’s blitzkreig the bastard!”
Oh, for crying out loud. Me and my big mouth.
“Oh, HELL yes!” Scootaloo crowed. She let out a loud whoop and flipped in the air. “Finally! We’re gonna take it to him!”
Babs groaned. “We’re gonna die.”
We ran for a few minutes in silence, the odd humming filling our ears. The clouds were ice-cold as we ran through them, making me shiver and wince. I had no idea where we were, or how far we’d gone, or even what we were running on. There was no way to tell where we were going, or where we’d come from, as everything looked the same in this strange place. Twinkling lights shone brightly above and below us, messing with our depth perception and making it hard not to stumble.
The Element of Magic bounced awkwardly around my neck. I had no idea whether it was usable now, or whether it was just a piece of jewelry. I did see that something had happened with them right before Discord zapped us, but as to what that was, I didn’t know. I concentrated and tried to see if I could feel anything, but no dice.
I looked around at the others. Scootaloo as flying along gleefully, an energetic air about her. Apple Bloom was stone-faced and all business. Babs’ expression was pensive, but she kept pace with the rest of us. Daring was tense, her eyes darting around for any sign of danger. Shmangie’s face I couldn’t see, but if I had to take a guess, I’d say that she was just as nervous as I was, information from the Elements or no.
“He’s close!” Daring suddenly barked. “Get ready!”
“Get ready?” Babs said with wide eyes. “How?! We don’t even know—”
Suddenly, dark, spiked chains erupted from below us with a loud grating sound. They were large and numerous, with each link being larger around than one of my legs. The spikes on them were curved and barbed like fish hooks, and they whipped around us viciously, intent on snagging our flesh.
“WAUGH!” We all dived out of the way. Half of us to the left, half to the right. The chains rose high into the air, then split off and pursued both our groups with terrifying speed. Scootaloo and Babs were beside me, and we abruptly found ourselves running for our lives as the murderous links pursued us.
“Oh, dear me!” Discord’s mocking voice said from all around us. “It seems you’re all in quite the pickle! I’d love to play with you more, but I’m afraid I’m a little busy at the moment. Do me a favor and just DIE, will you?”
I no longer had my rapier. It hadn’t been brought to this place along with me. I tried to use some magic, but even though I was stronger, I didn’t know any spells. One of the chains cut us off and dove down on Scootaloo, intent on rending her flesh.
“RAAAGH!” I did the only thing I knew. I magically grabbed the chain and yanked it away with all my might. The thing kept coming, but I managed to deflect it enough to allow her to dodge. She tried to go higher to try and divert some of them away, but there were too many swarming all around us. She was forced to land, and all our escapes became cut off as we became surrounded on all sides.
“Plundervine version 2.0,” Scootaloo muttered. “Any ideas?”
My mind was a blank. I tried to think of a way out, but nothing came to mind. We were trapped.
“Uhh…”
The chains rushed towards us...
BANG!
Shmangie appeared beside us in a hazel burst. She grabbed all three of us before we could react...
BANG!
...and we were suddenly far away from the chains. The starry void pulsed softly at us, featureless and serene.
“What…” I said.
But were weren’t safe yet. Sensing us, the deadly chains disentangled themselves and gave chase, intent on catching their prey.
“Going to be difficult, eh?” Discord clucked his tongue. “Naughty, naughty! No matter, though! I always did enjoy a good chase.”
“Shmage!” Shmangie took by the shoulders and looked me in the eye. “This place isn’t like the real world! There are practically no limits here! Think of it like being in a lucid dream!”
The chains flew closer, closer, and closer. A few of them had sprouted wolf-like mouths and let out bone-chilling howls. The air was becoming frigidly cold, and I could now see my breath.
“Wait, what?!” Scootaloo did a double-take. “You’re saying we can do anything we want?!”
Shmangie stepped past us towards our oncoming attackers. Calmly, she raised a her hoof—
SHTIIIIING!
—and a hazel forcefield erected around us. The chains struck it viciously, but as they did, they immediately dissolved into rose petals. The air exploded into a flurry of crimson, and just as quickly as the chains had come, they were now gone, with us standing in the heart of a flowery blizzard.
Shmangie turned back around and grinned. “Try it.”
Wasting no time, Scootaloo squared her stance and focused. At first, there was nothing, but then…
It began at her hooves. Joints of interlocking indigo armor pieces began creeping up her limbs like a second skin, covering her in the blink of an eye. A helmet resembling a falcon skull completed the ensemble, and attached to her left forehoof appeared what could only be described as a mix between a minigun and a jackhammer.
“Not bad!” she said. Admiring the getup. “Not bad at all!”
The chains were reforming around us. Links of them were snapping together, reforming and reorienting themselves. Scootaloo took aim at them with her weapon and fired, and with a shrill pricking sound, a salvo of glowing projectiles shot forth and homed in on Discord’s chains. Each one of them detonated with a strangely muffled explosion, and once they were hit, they did not reform.
“No way!” Babs exclaimed, gawking at her. “I wanna try!”
“Be my guest!” Scootaloo said, laughing. “Might wanna hurry, though! I doubt we have much time!”
The air around Babs pulsed. “Oh, I won’t need long.”
Her body began to shift. It went from solid to transparent, than flickered back and forth between states like a living flame. A series of multicolored orbs appeared around her like tiny flowers, darting back and forth to guard her from every angle. Her eyes glowed with sudden light, and I had an immediate impulse to look away. I could still sense the power in her gaze, though, woeful and terrible to any who dared threaten her.
Scootaloo whistled. “Fancy.”
“Fancy, indeed!” Discord taunted, his voice sadistic with glee. “You look so menacing, my dear! I’m practically abuzz with fear!”
The air began to darken. It started as a minor thing, at first, but it slowly built up until it filled our vision. I realized that the very air was now alive with clouds of insects, innumerous and deadly beyond measure. Centipedes, scarabs, mosquitoes, cockroaches, ants, beetles, flies, and countless others crawled around us from all sides, and the swarms pressed in on us with hungry intent.
Babs crouched and snarled out two powerful words.
“BE STILL.”
The insects stopped—every single one of them. It happened in the blink of an eye without a sound, where there had once been legions of creatures, there were now grains of sand. They all fell to the ground like rain, and sheer the amount of them made the area around us now resemble a waterside beach.
But it wasn’t over yet. Before we could react, Discord attacked again. A swirling group of clouds gathered above us, and with an ominous sizzling, thousands of gallons of boiling lava poured down on us in deadly, steaming sheets.
“NOPE!” Apple Bloom said.
She dashed up from behind us. Floating at her side was an enormous shield, gold in color and shining with a polished, mirror-like surface. She held it up in the air, and the entire oncoming mass became sucked towards it, becoming absorbed with an eerie hum. In mere seconds the lava was gone without so much as a trace, and only then did Apple Bloom lower the shield and scan the horizon.
“Ya’ll ain’t gettin’ roasted on my watch!” She let go of the shield to let it hover beside her, silently maintaining its vigil. “Not if I can help it!”
I bit my lip, assessing the close scrapes we’d just had. “Discord’s really not playing around, is he? He’s really trying to—”
“—kill you, yes,” Discord said acidly. “And here I thought you were the smart one? Pathetic. Well, no matter, if you really are that dull-witted, then maybe I should enlighten you, and pull back the veil.”
Terrifying visions suddenly assailed our minds. Glimpses of alien worlds from beyond the pale wracked our psyches, filled with god-like creatures beyond our meager understanding. The fabric of reality threatened to tear asunder, revealing landscapes filled with ravenous maws and endless nightmares. There were things there that shouldn’t exist, horrors, that defied the very laws of the universe, and we were laid helpless before them, naked and helpless as newborn babes, as the things that lurked in the shadows turned towards us—
Light. Blessed, purifying light. There was a sound like glass mending itself, and the walls of existence resealed themselves. My vision cleared, and I saw Daring standing in front of us, holding a multi-faceted gem humming with power high above her head.
“HA!” She let out a whoop. “Suck it, Caballeron! Suck it hard! Hot damn, I love it when I’m right!”
We all stared blankly at her.
“Daring…?” I said uncertainly.
She looked back at us and winked. “And here everypony told me that the Voidwarden’s Eye is just a myth! My flying, feathery arse it is! This’ll get me into the history books, for sure!”
“The Voidwarden’s…” Discord spluttered, momentarily lost for words. “How do you even… that gem was lost along with the Couatl Empire! Nopony’s supposed to know about it!”
Daring spat on the ground. “Now who’s the dull-witted one, huh?! And you better believe I know exactly what I can do with it! Try that shit again, asshole! See who the Ancient Ones take notice of! Go on… I dare you.”
I shook my head clear. I had no idea what I’d just seen, but I immediately decided that I was perfectly content in my ignorance. I suppressed a shudder and edged closer to the gem, trying to scrub the images from my mind.
“Enough of this crap,” I muttered. “So I just need to think of stuff, eh? Fine by me.” My horn shone brilliantly, and my hair stood on end. I felt something running through me, scanning, searching, trying to sense for something. I could tell that it spread out into the ether for as far as I could see, and then I both felt and heard something click.
“Gotcha,” I murmured.
There was a loud tearing sound, and unceremoniously, the air to our right was sliced open by an unseen force. Someone inside the tear let out a yell of surprise, and by the scruff of their neck, An ethereal Discord was dragged out of the hole and thrown roughly to the ground. He looked up at the six of us in surprise, licking his lips nervously.
“Uh… hi.”
“GET HIM!” I shouted, charging at him.
But Discord was too quick. He glared at us all with venom, then scrambled to his feet and sped away.
“Oh, no you don’t!” Shmangie said.
BANG! She teleported after him in a hazel flash. She appeared right above him, and shot out a wave of force that barreled down onto him, slamming him to the ground again.
“OOMPH!” Discord fell flat, the wind knocked out of him. Snarling and gasping, he whirled on her and shot a chaotic, violet blast at her.
BANG! Shmangie teleported again, this time re-appearing right in front of him, her glowing horn just inches from his face.
“Burn,” she whispered.
VRRRMMMM! She blasted him point-blank with an energy beam the size of a barn. He went sailing through the ether, careening off for yards upon yards, finally landing over by Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, who immediately levelled their weapons at him.
“Oh, hey there,” Apple Bloom said, her shield glowing cherry-red. “Ya dropped this.”
FSSSSSSS! A torrent of lava erupted from her shield in a mighty fireball. Discord narrowly dodged by jumping over it and into the air, but he flew right into a smirking Scootaloo.
“GET SOME!” The whizzing sound of magical bullets filled the air. She emptied clip after clip, the deadly projectiles hitting him several times as he tried to get away. He finally managed, but it cost him dearly. Now wounded, his progress was slower as he tossed a few potshots and made Scootaloo and Apple Bloom scatter.
“Persistent little...” Discord snapped his fingers and conjured a blinding flash of light to try and cover his escape. It worked fairly well, as he managed to get some distance away from all of us. He zipped away as fast as his magic would carry him, speeding through the empty space and gaining distance on us as he plotted his next move.
“Not much longer,” he muttered. “Almost through… just need a little more—”
And then he ran smack into Babs.
She floated up out of the ground, casual and unrushed, as if she’d been waiting for him for hours. She had changed herself more—she was larger, with longer legs and an imposing aura of power. She had a timeless look about her, as well, and the multicolored orbs from before now danced in her mane like stars.
Discord nearly jumped out of his skin. He tried to go around her, but with ghostly enchanted eyes, she caught him in her gaze and held him still.
“Do you feel remorse, Discord?” Her ethereal voice sounded both loud and soft at the same time, echoing all throughout the plane. “Do you even realize all the terrible things you’ve done? Thousands of lives disrupted, shattered, and lost. A land desecrated and despoiled. An entire way of life, thrown into chaos. For what? A desperate grab at power? Some ill-nurtured need for revenge? You could have had friends. You could have been happy. Instead you threw it all away—all for ashes and ruin.”
Discord couldn’t move. He couldn’t turn away, couldn’t cast a spell, he couldn’t even blink. All he could do was stare into Babs’ empty eyes, lost in their depths as the poignant words hit home.
“You gloated about it,” Babs continued, her voice sad and morose. “We all heard you. You considered your atrocities an accomplishment. Sweetie and the others may be mad at you, but me? All I feel is pity… pity that someone could be alone for so long, and feel the need to lash out at others.”
The rest of us managed to catch up, and when we did, we beheld quite the sight. Babs was a giant ghostly goddess… thing, and she was looking down at a thoroughly-cowed Discord like a disappointed mother.
“It’s over,” she said softly. “You’ve lost. Dash and the others will defeat your physical form, and when they do, they’ll make you answer for your crimes. You’ve burned all your bridges. You have no more allies. The only thing you can do now is accept your fate, and allow balance to be restored—”
Discord roared. With a titanic effort, he wrenched his gaze free and swiped at Babs’ incorporeal form. His claw passed through, naturally, but it was enough to disrupt whatever she was doing.
He leapt away, lightning crackling from his fingertips as he charged up a spell. Murder and madness raged in his eyes, promising doom and destruction to all.
“I am Chaos,” he hissed. “I am Disharmony, I am Entropy, I am Anarchy incarnate. So long as there is order in this world, I shall be there to oppose it. So long as the laws of reality exist, I shall defy them. You think you’re trying to restore balance, but in truth, you and your precious Elements are disturbing it more than I ever have. You dream of a world of where everything is pathetically peaceful and predictable, easily controlled, conformed to how you think things should be! I dream of a world of war and disarray, broken into endless fragments of every combination possible! Only one of us can have their way at a time, and Harmony has been in control for TOO LONG! I will tilt the scales in my favor by any means necessary, and I’m not about to let YOU, a group of insignificant mortals, get in my way!”
He rose up into the air, laughing insanely. He curled up into a ball, and with his magic at a fever pitch, he made to detonate his spell.
“NOW, DIE!”
There was a sound like rushing wind...
SPLORTCH
...and then a long, emerald blade burst through his chest.
Discord blinked. He looked dumbly down at the sword, his lips parting slowly.
“Oh…”
HIs spell powered down and petered out. He staggered in the air, clutching at the sword, trying to get it free.
“N-no,” he fell to the ground, bleeding and gasping. “I c-can’t… I w-won’t...”
“Give it up, Discord.”
He looked up to see me walking towards him. I wore no fancy armor, nor did I look any different from before. My expression was calm as I approached him, grim-faced and stern.
“Don’t act like you care about balance,” I said. “All you know is death, destruction, and sorrow. Chaos doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but if you had your way, this world would spiral into oblivion. Your madness has twisted what was once pure, and it’s time that it came to an end.”
Discord’s mouth twisted. “You…” He fell to his knees, his eyes blazing. “You… little worm…”
With a fierce motion, I wrenched the sword out of his chest and left him to fall to the ground. The bloody blade floated beside me now, aimed right at his throat.
“How does it feel?” I asked, watching as Shmangie and the others surrounded him. “Being powerless and weak; unable to do anything as everything you value gets stripped away from you, little by little.”
Metal, glowing shackles appeared around his limbs. A hazel cage became erected around him, which then glowed with a prismatic hue.
“You brought this upon yourself,” I said, my eyes cold and hard. “We offered you harmony, and you turned your back. We gave you friendship, and you betrayed us.”
“You made us all suffer, and you enjoyed every minute of it,” Daring said flatly. “No more. It ends here, and we’ll see to it that Equestria is restored to its rightful state of harmony.”
The air was filled with Discord’s enraged screams. He tried everything he could to try and break free, but nothing he did worked. He thrashed and banged against the walls of his cell, but they held strong. He cursed us and yelled out endless threats, louder and louder until it made our ears hurt.
Shmangie flattened her ears. “Okay, that’s enough of that.” Her horn glowed, and his cage became soundproof. All was suddenly as silent as before, and we were left with blessed peace.
“Uh…” Scootaloo coughed, clearing her throat. “Did… did we really do it? Is it over?”
“Over for us,” Shmangie said, nodding. “We played our part. It’s up to Dash and the others, now.”
“Finally.” I slumped to my knees, exhausted and spent. “Please be safe, everypony. Please, please, please be safe…”
“You think they’ll do it?” Daring asked, her eyes still on the enchanted cage. “You think they’ll actually have a chance?“
Shmangie didn’t answer. She was staring far off into the ether, lost in her own thoughts.
“I believe in them,” Babs spoke up. She was now back to her normal self. “They’ve been up against all kinds of things before. They’ll do whatever they need to win.”
“Yeah,” Apple Bloom agreed. “They got this. We just gotta hold tight for now.”
“Think we’ll stay like this once we get back?” Scootaloo flexed her wings with a giddy grin. “I’d really, really like it if we did.”
I laughed. “Doubt it.” I conjured up a mirror and admired my adult self. “Our luck’s not that good.”
“Speaking of which, how do we get out of here?” Babs looked all around, inspecting the plane. “I don’t exactly see an exit.”
“The Elements will be able to bring us out in a bit,” Shmangie said, coming out of her reverie. “They just need to recover right now.”
I looked over at my friends. They all looked as tired as I was, and none of them seemed to mind the idea of doing nothing for now. I was right there with them, of course, and more than anything, I was just relieved that none of us had been hurt.
Groaning, I got to my hooves and went over to Shmangie. I sat down beside her and rested my head on her shoulder, closing my eyes with a sigh.
“Welp, we didn’t die,” I said.
Shmangie laughed. She put a hoof around me and rested her chin atop my head.
“That we didn’t, kiddo. That we didn’t.”
“We’re gonna have to explain all this at some point,” I told her. “There are so many people we’ve left out of the loop—Mom and Dad not the least of them. They’re gonna blow a gasket when they hear about this.”
“Probably,” Shmangie said. She closed her eyes as well and hugged me tight. “A lot of things have changed, and that trend’s probably gonna continue. We’re gonna have a rough time.”
“Hey, don’t act like you’re all alone,” Babs said. She sat down on the other side of me. “You’ve got us, remember?”
“Cutie Mark Crusaders for life!” Scootaloo said. She flew over and joined the group. “Shenanigans are our specialty! We can handle anything!”
“Er, mostly anything,” Apple Bloom chimed in beside Shmangie. “We don’t do well with energy drinks.”
“I’ll help, too,” Daring said. She smiled broadly as she looked on at the five of us. “Seriously, in any way I can. You girls have been great to me, so it’s only fair I return the favor.”
We all looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to say or do something else. She didn’t move. She just stood there nervously, her wings twitching at her sides.
“Yo!” Scootaloo finally said. “This is group hug time! Get over your fuzzy butt over here!”
Daring was taken aback. She was reluctant, at first, but then she eventually acquiesced. She awkwardly joined the hug, and together we stayed there in an embrace, watching the wispy clouds drift by.
“Yeah,” I said. “We really can do it, can’t we? So long as we’re together.”
Shmangie smiled. “We’ll try, at the very least.”
***
A Few Hours Later-
“Discord,” Shining Armor said. “By the order of Equestria, you’ve been sentenced with treason against the highest order, as well as crimes against humanity and ponykind. You’ve been found guilty, and will now be sentenced in an appropriate manner. Do you have any last words?”
Discord groaned. His crumpled body was lying atop a flat stone in the center of a clearing outside Ponyville. Shining, Dash, Twilight, Rarity, Pinkie, Applejack, Mac, and Fluttershy all stood guard around him, watching his every move. They’d kicked the ever-loving crap out of him, and I was surprised that he was still alive at all. I was present, as well, a filly once more, standing in the crowd beside Shmangie and the others as the trial played out.
“So it’s decided, then?” Dash said, wincing. She was in really bad shape at the moment; apparently she’d suffered the brunt of Discord’s wrath in the battle, and had only just barely gotten out alive. “We’re going to sentence him for that many years?”
Shining waved a hoof at the crowd around us. Thousands of ponies and other creatures were present, all watching in tense silence. “If you combine all the years of everyone’s lives that he ruined, it’s the right amount.”
Dash bit her lip, but finally nodded her ascent. The other seven did the same, and Twilight stepped forward and cleared her throat.
“Let’s administer our justice, then,” she said in a loud voice. “Discord, by our verdict, the only fair punishment is to make you suffer through the exact same curse you put on us.”
I raised my eyebrows. They could actually do that? They’d really had figured out the curse well enough? I looked over at my friends, and found they had similar reactions. Apparently this was news to them, too.
Twilight exchanged some words with the others in the circle, then finally, as one, they all turned to Discord with their heads held high. Twilight lifted her hoof, and in the dead silence, she began the somber incantation.
“For Five Score… to the power of four,” she said.
“Your powers removed, your mind marooned,” Pinkie said.
“Your treason and crimes we cannot forgive,” Rarity said.
“Be sentenced to a life of a worthless captive,” Shining said.
“A million lives lived as a common workhorse,” Mac said.
“You’ll serve mankind endlessly, without remorse,” Applejack said.
“Reflect on your sins and heinous actions,” Fluttershy said.
“While enduring dull work for generations,” Dash said.
All eight of them bowed their heads, and the ground quivered began to quiver and shake. Discord’s ragged body lifted into the air, and the air shimmered and split as the magic danced around him. There was a final flash of blinding light, and in the blink of an eye, his body disintegrated into the void.
All was quiet for a moment, and then…
The crowd erupted into cheers. All around us, thousands of ponies were celebrating, crying, screaming in joy. I let out a loud whoop and raised my hoof in victory, giving my friends hoof bumps and hugs. I danced in place and looked up at the sky, which was losing its technicolor hue and was slowly returning to normal.
“I can’t believe it,” I said, my voice lost in the din. “We’ve won.”
I watched Rarity and the others hug each other, their attitudes more subdued, but the joy still clear on their faces. They were careful with Dash, especially, and after they broke their embrace, Twilight immediately took her and teleported them away in a lavender flash.
Shmangie and I went over to Rarity and Shining, who were leaning against each other and catching their breath.
“It’s kinda hard to believe,” I said to them. “How do you feel? Now that he’s gone, I mean.”
Rarity smiled at me. “At the moment, darling? Tired. I could use a good nap.”
“Same.” Shining nuzzled her and let out a sigh. “We can’t rest for long, though. We’ve got an entire country to rebuild.”
“Can we help?” Apple Bloom asked abruptly. She gestured to me and the others. “We all want to. We’ll do anythin’ and everything we can, really! Whatever you guys need, we’ll be happy to do.”
“Yeah!” Babs said. “We wanna do our part!”
“Just say the word,” Daring said.
“Oh, you’ll all certainly be helping,” Shining said, eyeing me and my exposed horn. “Especially you, Sweetie. This’ll be your time to shine.”
I blinked. “Eh?”
“You’ve got quite a task ahead of you, dear,” Rarity said with a playful wink. “You finally get to remove the curse from everypony and restore their memories! Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
I paled. I looked around at the thousands of ponies surrounding us, all of them still with the blank, clouded look in their eyes. I fell back on my haunches as the realization came crashing down on me like a ton of bricks.
“Dios mio,” I muttered.
Scootaloo almost fell over from laughing so hard. “Hope you like zapping ponies in the forehead, girl, ‘cause that shit’s gonna take days!”
I facehooved and hung my head. “Think we can bring Discord back for round two? I wanna beat him up some more.”
Everypony laughed. Shmangie and Rarity both hugged me, and together we all stood in the center of the clearing, looking up at the evening sky.
“You can do it,” Shmangie said to me. “If anypony can, it’s you.”
“I know,” I said, nuzzling her side. “I’ll do my best.”
The moon was just rising, and the stars were gradually beginning to reveal themselves. Behind us, somepony was setting off grand, multicolored fireworks that exploded brilliantly in the night sky.
I smiled softly. “Let’s rebuild our home.”
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Holy shit, it's finally over? Been waitin' to see the ending. And what an ending it was. I'll be countin' on that epilogue, Cyborg.
or to put it bluntly nice job with this story, it was great
It's been so long since I read five score. This makes me want to read it all over again.
YAAAAY! IT'S DONE!
Well, almost done anyways.
*nods about the part where Discord planned everything with Tirek, and tainting all the magic with his own* THAT is more along the lines of what I'd expect from an ancient god-like trickster. Even if he had actually been 'tricked' by Tirek, I'd have expected him to have an ace in the hole... something like his chaos magic not working properly for Tirek or something.
Every time I watch it, I think of new ways Discord could have trolled Tirek with just the slightest effort of forethought... which always makes me sniff haughtily that'd I'd make a MUCH better spirit of chaos!
But anyway, evil psycho Discord must now be a horse for a bajillion years and get molested by zoophiles repeatedly and get eaten by Anthony Bourdain at least twice. Works for me!
I get it that this is a mlp story and they are ponies so people feel that the whole killing is always wrong no matter what thing has to be emphasized but did Discord really have to live? He has already had two extra chances at peace and yet he threw them both away and caused an ummersurable amount of suffering in two sesperate generations. Now he is going to have "Five Score… to the power of four" to break a curse that he designed and plan his revenge or possibly just wipe the ponies from existence so there will be no chance of him being defeated again. And I'm not sure how long five score to the power of four is but what I am sure about is that it sounds like long enough for the ponies to forget about him and not expect his return. This is all not mentioning that each and every pony now carries a piece of his magic with them, I'm sure even a weak god of chaos could figure out a way to make them all suffer from a couple of universes away. I was also a bit disappointed that Sweetie's rage was let loose on a clone but totally non-existent when facing the real deal with a chance of actually causing some damage.
In conclusion, my personal feeling is that Discord's punishment is nothing less than a collosal waste of effort that will do nothing but give an advasery that finds nothing but pleasure in the suffering of others yet another chance to cause misery. I have yet to come up with a reason I find valid for letting him live beyond that fact that it leaves the gate open for a sequel for when he inevitably returns.
"He did" what?
Paragraph or two missing there, i think.
6139199
Stupid Google Docs is doing a weird thing where it's omitting random paragraphs for some reason. I missed that one on my initial passes, but I just fixed it now. Thanks for pointing it out.
6139163
Five score (5*20) to the power of four is 100 000 000 years.
I'm not too worried.
6139163
It's the same punishment administered in the original Five Score, Divided by Four story. Cyborg Samurai is simply sticking to the 'verse canon.
That said, his punishment "marooned" his mind, which seems like it would make it rather difficult to work on a crack in the curse.
A "score" is twenty, so five score is 100. (Remember Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: "Four score and seven years ago..." meaning 87 years.) 100 to the power of four is 100,000,000 (one hundred million). Consider that flowers only evolved about 130 million years ago, another hundred million years before Discord can do anything but whinny and pull a plow seems pretty safe.
Epic ethereal battle mages, hooray!
We were totally digging the Green Lantern feel that sequence had.
Keep going! ;)
I love it when things come together. Except when those things haven't actually been mentioned in the story up to the point that they're used.
I read this story straight through in the first sitting. Well done. Have a fukkin fav.
I'm imagining the rapier stab thing like the first time that kaneki used his kagune in Tokyo ghoul
All I feel is pity… pity that someone could be along for so long, and feel the need to lash out at others.”
Pretty sure that's supposed to say alone
Loved the update and look forward to the next
6139450 6139435
I was assuming that his mind would be returned when the time is up, meaning even if he couldn't break his own curse he would have his mind back along with his hatred of the ponies for what they have done to him, this would mean that no matter how long the curse is set for he would still be able to come back once it is over. That not to mention that his base personality will survive the curse so he will still take pleasure in others torment, imagine how much damage even a normal man like that could cause in human society, especially one as crafty as Discord.
I imagine him to be the type who would go out and commit any crime he wanted but still make sure that he has the perfect cover story and a scapegoat so it wouldn't matter or he may use his millennia of experience to make so much money that he can just buy a court house so it doesn't matter. In the end he will either be functionally immortal in his human form to be able to serve his entire sentence meaning he has 100000000 years to learn and bend a human world to his will or be reborn every time he dies. Once he has learned how human technology works and he gets his mind back he could build an atom bomb set it up in Equestria then then tell them to get on their knees and wait for their punishment or he will make their world a wasteland of radioactive ash.
Yet again the universe suffers because the ponies lack the balls to do what is required and the cycle repeats, I wonder if that's the reason that Discord focuses on the ponies when he has the whole universe to play with. None of the have the balls to kill him so he knows that he can play around while still giving them a chance of winning just to make it interesting because none of them have the balls to kill him. I have to wonder if he has been at this game for longer than we know, maybe the dominant species before ponies was his previous play thing but they tried to kill him so he remade them into ponies that wouldn't be able to end him if they won.
now that was and is a story to be remembered.
the battle is worthy of the original story.
supper good work CyborgSamurai it makes me happy to see a 5s story that is completed as there are so few of them.
Harts Fire
6139961
Discord wasn't turned into a human. He was turned into a workhorse. He has no higher intelligence to work with.
6139961
He doesn't have 100 million years as a human to cause havok, he has that long as a common horse. I'm not worried.
6139973 6139971
Opps, my bad, well that point is gone but the point that he will still come back once it is over still stands, and whats stopping him from destroying the human world in a fit of rage when he find out what they have been doing to him for that long? Assuming he gets his powers back of course, the ponies have still put themselves and world that has nothing to do with their problems in colossal danger, if they want to take stupid risks like that then they can make him a stupid workhorse on their world if you ask me.
6139994
100 million years is a long time. As I said before, flowers evolved 130 million years ago. Can you really imagine what the state of humanity will be like in another 100 million years? Hell, Warhammer 40,000 takes place just 38,000 years in the future, and that setting is a dystopian sprawl with humanity stretched across millions of planets. In the 40k setting, the Imperium of Man occasionally loses track of entire populated planets, and they don't even bat an eye. (The Imperium is also perfectly willing and able to obliterate an inhabited planet with billions of people if it is deemed too corrupted by disease, heresy, Chaos, etc. to allow it to continue.)
Pulling back to more real-world predictions about the state of Earth:
In 10,000 years, the oceans will rise by 4 meters
In 50,000 years, the day will be an extra second longer
Within 100,000 years, Earth will suffer from a supervolcano eruption with 400km^3 of magma
In 250,000 years, there will be a new Hawaiian island (Lōʻihi) above the ocean
Within 500,000 years, Earth will likely be hit by a 1km asteroid
Within 1 million years, Earth will suffer from a supervolcano eruption with 3,200km^3 of magma
In 1.4 million years, Gliese 710 will pass within 1.1 light years of the Sun, peturbing the Oort Cloud and increasing meteor strike frequency
In 10 million years, Africa will be split into two continents by the Red Sea
In 80 million years, Hawaii will sink beneath the ocean
Within 100 million years, Earth will likely be hit by an asteroid comparable to the one which caused the K-Pg extinction (the one the killed the dinosaurs)
Presumably, the curse placed on Discord reincarnates him, because a normal horse doesn't live for 100 million years. If that's the case, he'd better hope that the curse doesn't force him to reincarnate on Earth (as opposed to some other colonized planet). By the time his curse is breaking down, there won't be anything for him to reincarnate into (as there won't be any living horses on Earth to give birth to him).
6140076
All those scientific predictions are nice and all but are completely irrelevant. I am arguing that he should have been killed, you are arguing against me so I assume you think that his punishment was the correct thing to do, you have given me a load of scientific theories and the settings for a fictional universe with no association to the universe in this story what so ever.
The curse is stupid and is just giving him another chance, if they are going to put the curse on him in the hope that he dies then they might as well have killed him, if they put the curse on him in the hope that he lives enough of a MINDLESS life to become nice then they might as well have killed him. There are no upsides to the curse, none, nada, zilch. All the curse does is give him the chance to return and cause more havoc, no matter the current state of the universe. If ponies and humans have gone extinct, he will find someone else to torment, if ponies and humans have evolved to energy beings on a higher plane, he will find someone else to torment, if the universe is barren of life, he will find another one to torment and the ones he will torment have done nothing to deserve it and will have to suffer the consequences of the ponies repeated blunders. He will in total have suffered 100001000 years of punishment at the hands of the ponies, you really think he's going to be calm and collected after that?
If I was a pony in this story I would be ashamed of the horror that the decisions of my species will cause in the future.
Roll credits.
*Ding*
6140103 Well, there is always that tiny concern of whether they are capable of killing him at all.
Or, for that matter, if it's even possible. It is quite possible that killing him will simply destroy Equestria, or Earth, or both (similar to how it works for Old Gods of Azeroth).
I always love it when amazing stories have amazing endings.
Excited for the epilogue!
6140103 I happen to agree with this point, to a degree. When I first read Five Score, I thought it a bit odd and shortsighted to deal with him like that (100 million years notwithstanding). On the other hoof, 6141166 might also have a point, especially if you take the events of This story and consider them to be the TRUE CANON to Five Score-verse (which I do). If that's the case then there are several things to consider and work around. Granted, before this chapter most of this wasn't available, so all I ask is patience because I'm working this out as I type and I have a tendency to ramble...
First take into consideration the nature of Discord's immortality. Before he was Zapped he was in effect unbeatable, because he could either regenerate form anything thrown at him, or if he was bored, screw with causality to make it so he was never actually there and they were wailing on a simulacrum. That changed when he was made to Taste The Rainbow (Sorry, I'm having too much fun with a BBCode generator I found. I'll stop now).
His Spiritual form, and most of his powers were separated from the physical plain and sent to what I'm just going to call the Incipisphere (And whoever gets that gets a cookie). Sweetie, Angie, Daring, Scoots, Bloom and Babs followed his spiritual body to the Incipisphere, defeated him there, but didn't kill him. Possibly because he wasn't "Entirely" there and killing him there would only mean his spirit could regenerate back in the physical plane later-on. Possibly because his spirit is truly "Immortal", and therefore could be injured, but not killed (like how he didn't actually die when Sweetie stabbed him. A Spirit is an infinite entity, and though you can fragment it infinity persists regardless). The Neo-Element Bearers could still be killed though, either because the elements took them wholly into the Incipisphere (Mortal and Spiritual Bodies fused together as one, hence their apparent age advancement due to their souls being "Older", and explaining their god-like powers as an extension of their spiritual presence upon the corporeal manifestation of the Incipisphere), or because they were mortal to begin with, power of imagination notwithstanding. So they do the next best thing bind him in a prison forged from the most unpredictable thing of all; The Human Imagination. This is only tempered by Daring's use of some sort of Lovecraftian Artifact (Which I would guess could be used to trigger an alarm of sorts, and Chaos-god or not, I don't think Discord wants Cthulhu paying him a visit) and wherever Babs got her "Freaky Goddess Powers" from (which I'm having trouble memeing, but were apparently potent enough to stun-lock him for about a minute with with only a glance and no apparent effort on her part)...
Meanwhile in the Physical world, his now mortal physical body is defeated by the Mane 6, and can theoretically be "Killed", but to what end? His spiritual body still exists, so he would still be "Alive" in a sense. What's more, I think me might still be connected to the essence of himself still in it somehow. "Killing" him here may only make his escape from the Incipisphere easier. He could likely find some way to reincarnate his physical body (Albeit would still be considerably weaker than the whole) and then work on his spiritual prison from the outside. The Neo-Bearers still have to tell somepony about what happened on their end of the fight, and that somepony will likely be the Princesses, who can then work on finding a way to either ensure he can never escape from his prison (unlikely and would probably end in Trope levels of Pure Fail) or find some way to end him permanently, making his final reincarnation at the end of his 100 million year banishment that of a true mortal, with no powers of any description.
Of course, this is pure speculation, so I could very likely be wrong.
Shmage stabbed Discord through his soul.
That's awesome.
6140103
If I was a pony in this story I wouldn't give a flying flip, because even if Discord were to return, any creature he were to interact with has about as much relevance to me, my family, and my friends as I have to a rock floating around Betelgeuse. 100 million years is such an astoundingly long time, he might as well be dead. It is unreasonable to concern oneself with events that far flung into the future, and it is difficult if not impossible to envision what the species would be like at that point, to say nothing of (the lack of) individuals I actually care about by that point.
The monkeysphere is a real thing, and it doesn't include anyone alive 100 million years from now.
6141888 So you don't care that in the future the decisions made now could cause untold suffering? I know the scale and topic are drasticly different but this is why no one cares about climate change.
6141898
It is actually biologically impossible for me to truly care about people 100 million years from now.
6141898
It's quite unreasonable to assume that any of the current life forms will be around 100 million years from now (since the scant few we know to be that old are more of an exception than a rule). Therefore, in best case scenario horses will be long gone at the time, and therefore, Discord along with them, since the curse is strictly limited to the common horse.
Even if that is not the case, remember, that getting the curse off does not return the memories, former intelligence or, pretty much, any trait of the pre-cursed form, save from the body itself. So, Discord that awakens after the curse is due to fall, would not be master trickster god of chaos. He'll be a common horse in draconequus body. And, let's be honest, horses are not the brightest bunch out there. If whatever civilization will be around won't be able to handle a vengeful horse, it doesn't deserve to live anyways. The first bunny stampede will wipe it out.
Now, even if that's not the case either, remember, that since he's working as a horse all that time, he have no chance to improve, but everyone else does. Many of the characters in MLP are immortal or close to it. By that time at least some of them are bound to become much more powerful than current Discord, and when he'll emerge, will just stomp him out without even trying. After all, even the Elements are quite powerful enough for that already, and that's weakened by 25 years of constant torture, or (in show's canon), by being torn from their source for more than a millenia.
So, Discord has to be unbelievably lucky to be a threat after such a long time, so for all that matters, he's dead.
Great Job with the finale! I hope Sweetie Belle can safely restore her family and friends' memories so that the Mane 6 can remember all their adventures with their friends. Perhaps have Princess Celestia and Luna stop by to invite the ponies to the newly rebuilt Canterlot Castle and dedicate some stained glass windows to the CMC and Mane 6 for their efforts.
Well. Another great story going over the finish line.
It was a wonderful ride and as with many stories before, I'd hoped that it would go on for far longer. Anyways. I feel honored that you allowed us a trip with your imagination train and hope to see maybe a sequel or something equally capturing as this story was. My kudos,
Dragon san
It's almost as if he knows...But that would be crazy. Also, there is a mature version of 5 score.
Wow, what a finale. Amazing from the start until the end. Though that also means that the story's over now
It was a great ride though. All the way. Thank you for that, and can't wait for the epilogue
So... will she learn more magic?
6139778
I imagined it more like this
6153573 If you're talking about a sport fencing rapier, then yes, they generally don't have an edge and the tip is blunted. Both are safety features. However, when talking about a rapier intended for real combat then most actually Do have an edge, especially the ones molded after older designs (which I suspect Mage's/Sweetie's is) as they were forged in much the same way as larger swords only much, Much narrower. The shape of a rapier simply lends to Thrusting being the more effective tactic, but they are still dangerous slashing weapons.
6143301
6141888
"A millions lives..." don´t need to be consecutive in linear time. Discord could be forced to reincarnate in a million horses in the same era, one after another. It may even create the paradox of two Discord-hores interacting which each other.
Also, neither the year of his return needs to be 50 million years on the future... he could return for Winter Wrap up
6167949 yes, maybe not a million lives, but regardless he's banished for "five score to the power of four", IE (5*20)^4, in other words, 100,000,000 years.
Excessive but effective.
6145327
Yeah, but what about everyone else in earth?
Goddammit, the end of this story has been a nonstop ride of ridiculous awesomeness. XD It's so dumb and so cool, I love it.
You might wanna fix "rewason" and "HIs", tho.
6186232 I caught that too. The note I wrote while reading was:
"random musical notes for some rewason" Rewason?
Well, very enjoyable indeed. Though was a little disapointed by how little the ponies utilized what they coudl've done. i mean, they'd lived in our world for years. Surely some of our ideas for movies and anime coulda been used against discord. i can think of several that woulda had him wetting himself
Also, noticed a few things that stood out to me that you might want to fix.
I was not aware Shmagie had Mr. Fantastic's stretching abilities.
i think that first over should not be there. it's just odd wording with it there
You've already stated a quivering, why say it happens, then starts happening?
Aww, I really wanted to see Rarity reunite with Sweetie once her memory returned!
5x20 to the power of four. If I calculated right, that's eight hundred thousand years. Dayum
Edit: I'm dumb. Its even WORSE! Ten million years.
6747064
If I did my own math correctly that means there were about 400,000 ponies if each 25 years equals 1 pony.
Did Discord really pick them out one by one? That sounds tedious for him.
Also were so many ponies really outnumbered?
6806915 Actually, five score to the power of four is one hundred million years. That is a one with eight zeroes after it. Divide that by twenty-five years per individual sentence, and you get four million Equestrians (likely a rounded number) banished. If he had to do them all one at a time, that would get tedious even for Discord. In fact, at a rate of one pony every three minutes and seventeen seconds, that many individual curses would take him the entire twenty-five year duration of the spell to complete casting. Even at just thirty seconds to a pony, he wouldn't be done for nearly four years. That's a long time to hold Chaos Incarnate's limited attention span. Within this story's logic, it's more likely that he was able to simply trigger the curse throughout all of Equestria at once by activating the chaos Tirek spread for him as soon as he'd singled out all of the ponies he especially wanted to suffer.
Man alive, I'm a nerd...
- Headwind
This reminds me of a story i read called Flyte By (Get this) Angie Sage.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/0a/Flyte_by_angie_sage.jpg/200px-Flyte_by_angie_sage.jpg
In this story there are certain relics here and there, and it's implied heavily that, while these relics do bond with their bearers, they are never truly "owned" as such. they are semi-sentient and have a will of their own.