The Grass Ain't Always Greener

by WorldWalker128

Ponyville's Outskirts - Discord

Ponyville Outskirts - Discord

This was not what he'd wanted. Quite the opposite, really. Two years ago it might have been exactly what he'd wanted. Equestria and a fair portion of the rest of the world was in a state of chaos, his greatest enemies were all but gone, any who might have stood a chance against him was dead, and the Elements of Harmony were undone- returned to the tree from whence they'd come. But this time it was all a dreadful, horrifying accident, and had it been within his power, he'd have undone it. This wasn't what she would have wanted. But not even Discord, spirit of Chaos and formerly disharmony had the ability to alter time on a scale large enough to alter what he had caused.

"'The path to Hell, is paved with good intentions'." Discord muttered the quote as he stood atop Fluttershy's old house and looked down at the abandoned site below and around him. "Fah! I paved that path with selfish intention. I wanted her back. Well guess what, Discord old chap!" He said in a mocking cheerful voice aloud and to himself. "The road is paved, painted, and well-traveled to boot!" His fake mirth fell away to reveal a face of sorrow as several undead ponies and one donkey paused in their wandering near the path from the house to the town and looked around for the source of the voice. After thirteen seconds they resumed their plodding.

A year and a few weeks ago Fluttershy had attempted to aid an injured and maddened Hydra with two heads that had tread through Poison Joke. For the first time that any could recall Fluttershy's natural powers of persuasion and soft voice could not calm the creature. It was only after it had gone on to rampage through the town and it was put down that a chemical analysis discovered what had affected it. Poor Fluttershy, sadly, had been fatally injured by the thrashing it gave her, and nearly the entire town had turned up for her funeral.

Discord had not known about this taking place because his presence had been requested by Celestia in regards to a sudden growth spurt in the populations of the Parasprites. Given that he'd been the one to create them in the first place (for the purpose of disposing of organic garbage when he was still in charge in the ancient times) she felt that he'd be the best one to deal with the situation. To that, he'd gave her a 'really?' face and then made a large flyswatter appear and presented it to her.

"Just splat them with it until you're happy with the amount of them that are left. It's not that hard to do, Celestia dear." Celestia had given him a look of disgust, and then said that though she'd laughed when Luna suggested it she'd hoped for a more practical and less icky suggestion. To that, he made a large bug zapper with a fresh apple visible inside the zap-lights and then hung it in place of a chandelier. He then placed a tarp underneath it to catch the ash that would be sure to result.

"Happy now?"

Celestia had not in fact, been happy, but allowed his methods to be used so long as he agreed to be the one to place more bug zappers throughout the farming regions outside of Manehatten. He'd agreed, and a few days later returned to his home expecting to see Fluttershy tending to several of the hoard of stray and wild animals that hung around or visited her house every day, but was surprised to see not a single animal nor sign of the house's owner. Puzzled, he knocked on the door and waited for a few minutes to no response. Snapping his fingers he unlocked the door and let himself in to discover that all the furniture have been covered over with plastic and all the indoor homes for the small rodents that lived with her deserted as well.

Beginning to feel a touch of concern he popped into Twilight's Library to inquire as to Fluttershy's whereabouts and where the animals (or noisy pests as he called them) had gone off too. Needless to say he was not happy with the answer and concluded immediately that Twilight Sparkle was trying to play a mean joke on him. One by one he visited Fluttershy's other friends and received the same answer. Finally, quite put out and slightly afraid that they might be telling the truth Discord wentback to Celestia and asked one final time where Fluttershy was. When he received the same answer that he had five other times, it finally sunk in and he was reminded why he had rarely if ever bothered to make friends with mortals in the past.

He was angry with nothing (that was to blame) to take his anger out on. He was sad without a friend (besides Pinkie Pie who was trying to keep a brave face up for the sake of her other friends. He decided to not bother her) to share his sorrow with, and his only home was a placed intermixed now with good memories that were chased by the very raw fact that the pony who'd been a part of those good memories would never return to it again...or could she? Surely even death itself was no match in the face of his chaos magic? Had not sorcerers of the past raised the dead to do their bidding? Their magic was limited to the strength and skill of mortals, but his own was admittedly the greatest outside of Tartarus! Surely he could raise up both her body and attach her soul to it!

Disocrd, atop Fluttershy's house, sighed at his naivete and arrogance. Even with all the time I have lived I still make foolish mistakes. Sometimes I think that emotion really is a curse! If I had been calmer, perhaps I would have realized the folly of such a thing before attempting it.

Though he had indeed managed to grant her corpse a sort-of new life Fluttershy's soul had apparently been at peace and was unwilling to answer his summons to return to mortality. Because he'd performed his raising ritual on the hope that she'd return of her own will he'd not made that one of the necessities in the spell-matrix. He'd wanted her to retain her free will, and so with her not being in control the resulting abomination became a new breed of monster rather than an undead servant like those sorcerers from memory that he'd been thinking of before.

Horrified at what he'd wrought he raised a hand with poised fingers but was unable to bring himself to snap them. He knew this wasn't his friend. This was a mindless free-willed golem, but it looked too much like her for him to bring himself to harm it. Discord lowered his hand and sighed.

Leading Golemshy into her house using a bit of concentrated magic Discord shut the door behind it and drew shut the blinds. Once it was all the way in the house he shut the door and locked it to keep not-Fluttershy inside.

A week of trying to convince himself to go through with destroying it later found him inside of Twilight's library reading up on cases of successful cases of reanimating loved ones. Maybe I can find a spell to allow me to talk to her directly and convince her to come back... He thought as he turned a page. Suddenly he heard a scream outside. This in and of itself was nothing out of the ordinary in Ponyville, but it was the way it sounded and that it grew louder by the second that drew his attention from the book. Setting it down on the small table next to him for the moment Discord walked over to a window and stuck his head out to see what was going on. Two houses down the local mail Pegasus, Derpy, was chomping down on the hindquarters of the town bodybuilder that most local ponies jokingly called Roid Rage. This on its own was nothing really worthy of note, as Derpy had bitten others before when they made her angry enough, but the fact that she herself had several bloody bites on her body as well as a particularly lethal-looking one on her throat and was being assisted by Golemshy, who was tearing away at the poor stallion's barrel made Discord's eyes widen and his calm demeanor shatter.

Several other ponies nearby ran to put a stop to the mindless violence, not knowing of the real danger while others panicked and ran around with no clear destination in mind. Two stallions wrestled Derpy away and pinned her to the ground while another stallion and mare pulled Golemshy away for a moment, then froze for a few seconds when they recognized her.

"It can't be!" The mare whispered.

"What in the bu- Yeeaarghuurrl!" the stallion said before being tackled and having his face torn into. At this the three remaining would-be heroes fled the scene while RR limped weakly away on three legs while holding his barrel from a once-more pursuing Derpy and the third stallion was gradually murdered.

From there things had gotten steadily worse until the town was in the state it was today. There were still a few surviving townsfolk that had stuck around and were doing their best to survive, as well as nearly a quarter of the population that fled to other places. Discord had seen the state of some of those 'other places' however, and concluded that among the 'survivors' from Ponyville had been others that had been bit.

At first he'd been confused as to why the living were turning into more Zombies, but after a bit of research in Twilight's library he discovered that it was an effect of the particular ritual he'd chosen to use. In his rush to bring Fluttershy back he'd chosen a ritual that was meant to create an undead army bound to the original caster. A little saliva into a bleeding injury or bit of blood tainted with the same magic used in the ritual and over time the spell would corrupt the natural magic within the infected, and gradually convert them to the same state as the original. The only known ways to permanently stop them was the ever-popular cliche of destroying the brain, or to kill the original caster. Because (as far as he or anyone else knew) Discord was immortal the second option was impossible, and the few times he'd tried to destroy the Zombponies with his magic he only succeeded in making them a little stronger as the spell that animated them fed on his magic.

"Now there's little I can do to stop them." Discord bowed his head in shame as thunder boomed in the clouds above him

So far as he knew, no one knew that this Zombpony-pocolyose was his fault, and considering how many had died he wasn't about to inform Celestia or Luna (or Twilight, if she was still alive) anytime soon, guilt or no. He could not die, but that did not mean that he could not feel pain, and eternally inflicted pain wasn't a fun thing to experience. So he remained in the place where it all begun, wallowing in his own punishment of self-loathing.

It was true, he'd done things of unpleasantness to Ponykind and the world in general in the past, but he'd never killed any of them. Now he'd probably indirectly killed more ponies and others than the last four wars to take place on this planet.

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Author's Note:

This chapter was actually the second one that I wrote, but I intended to use it only when I ran out of ideas. Truth be told I'm not completely out of ideas, but simply cannot find the motivation to write them anymore. Or to write fiction at all, for that matter. Should I finish some of those I've got mid-way done I'll post them as well, but for all intents and purposes, this fic is complete.

Originally it was only meant to be a collection of one-shots that all took place within the same universe involving diferent characters, but I wanted to see Apple Bloom and Zecora make it somehow. Problem is, I have no real idea how to end something like this. At any rate thanks for reading it.

Comments

[WorldWalker128]

Ooookay? I wonder why?

[ILoveAppleJackAB]

Nooooooo discord ugh I like discord I don't want him to feel bad oh well nice story by the way

[WorldWalker128]

5122389
Thanks. I originally had two other chapters planned but I've had writer's block for the last several months.

[ILoveAppleJackAB]

5122461 hey np good luck with your writers block