Fuel the Eternal Flame | A DOOM MLP Crossover

by NotAnEditor

No Rest For The Living

Twilight Sparkle awoke to pure, unbridled pain. Every inch of her neurons struck with the same stinging feeling. Every muscle felt sore and torn, every bone felt shattered in billions of atomically tiny pieces, each hair on her coat felt as if it was violently ripped out before half-hazardously being sewn back into her hide.

Her mind had given up on trying to resemble a feeling that was her body. To her, it felt like her head was attached to some amorphous blob, weak and wobbly. Just numb enough to keep her from screaming in pain but just so unbearable that she couldn't keep herself from the occasional groan.

The purple pony was so engulfed by it, that her mind could hardly jump to the realization that she was finally conscious again. She looked around the stone gray walls and colorful tapestries in a fit of confusion. Where am I? Her hazy thoughts pondered, wincing as she lifted a hoof to stare at the bandaged limb. Why does everything hurt so much?

Her thoughts were broken by an ear-shattering shriek. A harsh EEEEEEEEEEEEEE echoed in her mind as she witnessed her vision slowly double, her hooves splitting into another hazy copy to her eyes.

Twilight placed a hoof to her head, rubbing her sore ear. She felt her muzzle twitch painfully, a feeling that gave the pony the sensation that her snout was just hanging on by a thread. At the echoing of her concussion, she gave up her struggles to acknowledge her surroundings, collapsing on the old and springy bed under a blanket of violet colors.

She didn’t want to think about it, the nearest thought felt as if it took ages to form and stung every nerve in her head. Twilight slowly let her eyelids fall before her vision, letting sleep consume her…

“TWILIGHT!” a voice shouted, forcing the confused alicorn back to the waking world. She stared, wide-eyed at a bright pink pony who had shouted her name. It seemed familiar, the frizzly hair, the worried yet hopeful look, the cheery way she tried to reassure the other candy-colored blobs in the background. She just couldn’t place her hoof on it…

Memories were a funny thing in this state. They were certainly there, but a layer of fog hung over it, just like most things in her mind. It felt like it would consume massive amounts of strength to pull away the visage of mist from them, strength she didn’t have.

Comprehension was a distant thought to the mare in her concussed state, and all she could do was observe the strange beings muttering incoherent words she couldn’t understand.

Still, that multi-colored group that was so visible against the dark gray backdrop sparked some sort of thought in her mind. She felt safe here, safe around them. Safe enough to not crawl out of her bed at least.

In the comfort of the familiar figures, she felt herself finally drift back off to the dreamscape, searching for rest among the pain. Maybe when she woke back up again, Twilight could explain to whoever they were what was going on?

~

Everypony gave their now unconscious friend a disappointed look. Four ponies in total stood in the room, excluding Twilight. Pinkie Pie at the bedside, Nurse Redheart nearby the bed keeping observation on the heavily injured alicorn, Rarity, and Fluttershy.

Pinkie’s eye’s lowered a little, however the awakening of their friend brought hope into the pink mare. “Well, everypony! This is better than nothing.” She turned to the group, earth pony perking up. “At least she woke up, even if it was just for a moment!”

Fluttershy sat on the ground, shaking in worry. “T-That doesn’t mean all too much! I’ve had animal friends who got hurt really bad before wake up only to end up-”

The white unicorn stepped up. “Calm down, Fluttershy dear! This is a much better homage to have her wake up then stay unconscious her whole recovery.”

Before the yellow pegasus could speak up to express more of her worries, the nurse interrupted. “Rarity has a point.” she soothed, feeling at Twilight’s neck for her steady pulse. “Her body has been recovering well so far, but her awakening signifies a mental recovery, especially just a week after the cause of it.”

“Exxx-actly!” Pinkie Pie agreed. “We have nothing to worry about! At this pace, by the end of next week she’d be good as new!”

Before the party pony could get her hopes too high, Nurse Redheart started her correction. “More like by the end of the month.” she gave the crooked and horribly cut wing an unsure look. “Unless alicorns have quicker recovery processes, it will still take a while for her to get back to full faculty.”

Silence echoed throughout the room as they stared at the gravely injured alicorn in solace. Pinkie Pie smiled smally. “Well, I have a get better soon party I need to plan for Twilight! Could you help, Rarity?”

The unicorn nodded. “Why, I’d love to, Pinkie!”

The pink earth pony’s smile widened. “Great!” She hopped out of the room, Rarity following behind her. Fluttershy watched the two leave, that same sad and worried look constantly plastered over her face.

Once they were out, Nurse Redheart spoke out. “Fluttershy?”

The yellow pegasus looked over. “Mhm?” she hummed.

“Could you watch Twilight for me? I need a break, some fresh air in the garden.” the nurse stated. “If anything seems wrong, come and tell me.”

The pegasus nodded smally as the nurse removed her cap and started out towards her break, leaving Fluttershy alone in the room with the hurt alicorn. Alone with her cavernous thoughts.

Fluttershy felt that somehow, all this was partially her fault. The monsters, the wounds across her friends, having to hideout in this dinky castle. Perhaps if she told everypony about those dreams, no, visions she had experienced, then maybe they wouldn’t be here? Maybe the princesses would have done something?

Her deep, thoughtful eyes shadowed over as she took a couple steps toward her friend. And what about Discord? That was a big question haunting her mind since the incident. Where was this god-like being to help them? Please, Discord. Where are you? We need you now more than ever! She urged to the ceiling.

A particular anger surged in her, her thoughts converting into speech. “Where are you Discord? D-Do you need me to say it outloud?! I thought this was why you even agreed to help Equestria! To stop something like this!” Her ears pinned to her head as she seethed. “Why don’t you say anything?! Are you even a good friend if you let all your friends suffer through this?!”

Her angered voice echoed through the room, waiting for some kind of response. However, soon silence consumed her heated exclamations. Unsatisfied hate sludged on her face, before it hung back to sadness.

Her hooves echoed in the small, old room as she turned and hoofed off. Fluttershy reached a hoof to the doorknob, ready to leave. She couldn’t bear seeing Twilight in this state, ready to request another pony to watch over her. However, just before she could, a voice spoke up.

“I’m not sure you understand.” the voice echoed from a corner in the room. It very clearly resembled Discord’s, the usual tricky nature to his speech absent, replaced with one that sounded rather dire. He remained out of vision however, just speaking to his pegasus friend.

Fluttershy’s ear flicked at the sound of him. “Discord? Are you there?”

She felt her fur bristle at the feeling of a talon gripping the ankle of her back left hoof. Fluttershy felt herself fall to the ground, being dragged away. Fear struck her as she turned to see the source, the fear turning to confusion as she saw his friend’s talon arm receding back into a chaotic purple and black vortex.

Fluttershy didn’t resist as she let her friend drag her into his homely realm. She felt the warm, tingly sense fly over her as she was drawn through, many beautiful, randomized colors flashing before her vision before she blinked them away.

“I’m terribly sorry for the sudden transport, Fluttershy.” Discord apologized as she looked about the homely cabin he called home. The strange architecture, mis-matching colors and randomly placed plants really fit the draconequus' theme.

“Why couldn’t you tell me at the castle?” Fluttershy asked, getting up to her hooves.

The chaos god scratched the back of his head nervously. “About that, I’m not sure I can even go into Equestria anymore. Even interact with it! Just talking to you like that and pulling you into my dimension would have alerted them.” he explained.

“Alerted them?” Fluttershy asked. “Who’s them?” she hoped it didn’t have to do with the monsters.

Discord sighed, setting a hand to his goatee, crossing an arm below it as he went to one of the windows. He stared, uneasy into the chaos dimension he called home. “I… I’m not sure how to say this.” he began.

“Oh, Discord. You know that you can tell me anything.” the shock of meeting this friend had overwritten some of the trauma of seeing her home destroyed. Talking to Discord almost made her forget about it.

He took a deep breath. It wasn’t exactly like him to be so serious. “You know those strange creatures? The things you’ve been seeing in your dreams and the things that attacked Ponyville?” he began.

Fluttershy’s eyes widened a little. “Yes?”

“I-I know them.” Discord confessed. “They are… old colleagues of mine.”

“C-Colleagues? Discord, what are you saying? Those monsters are nothing like you.” Fluttershy assured.

Discord shook his head seriously. “No, Fluttershy. I worked with them!"
he shook his head, the memories of all that the demons had done rushing back. The things he had to do. “And I’m in major trouble.”

“How? They can’t possibly get you in here.” Fluttershy looked through his home. “Nopony could.”

“And that's exactly why I haven’t been speaking with you.” Discord explained. “The more interdimensional trickery and chaos magic I perform the higher the odds will be that they track me down!” he was majorly stressed, pupils dilated in fear.

“And that’s why you never helped us out?” there was a small bit of hope in Fluttershy that her friend could swoop in and fix all of this. However that was crushed now knowing that he too was afraid of these demons. “Why would they do anything to you? You said that you used to work with them, right?”

“Used too!” Discord emphasized. “Long ago I used to dwell with them in their dreadfully boring caverns and caves. They’d throw me some poor chum who disobeyed the local archdemon and told me to take care of him.” he recalled the many memories of him casting countless spells of chaos magic on his fellow demonkin, torturing and punishing them as well as he knew.

Fluttershy listened closely as he spoke, the draconequus walking over to one of his large sofas and laying down. “I’d do that for a millenia. A solid millenia before it really got old.” he explained. “So boring that the next couple decades felt like more millenia’s! So, I heard this news. Simple rumor and word of mouth.” he flapped a talon to his story.

He considered utilizing his chaos magic to visually describe the explanations, then he recalled the more gruesome details and decided it would be best to be kept at words.

“They explained how some man. Like, a human, not some ever-powerful demon, was prowling the surfaces of hell!” he laughed. “Could you believe that? A human, taking on demons within hell itself?” Discord looked at Fluttershy, a confused look on her face. She didn’t exactly know what a human was.

Discord sighed. “I forgot, you don’t know what a human is. Whatever, just imagine them as smart hairless apes. As smart as a pony but without the magic.” he explained briefly, Fluttershy giggling a little at the thought of a hairless ape with a big head. A lot of his tales were nonsensical like this.

“Next thing I know, my name gets spread around the nine circles and the major bigshots of Hell ask me if I’m interested in invasion work.” he shook his head. “I almost refused. I wish I did! Even if I worked with those monsters that doesn’t mean that I was one. For most beings beside demons I wouldn’t dare go beyond intense mental stress.” Discord looked disappointed in himself. “But this was beyond simple tricks and traps. I would’ve said no, but then they explained to me the things that the hairless ape would do to me if I hid out in Hell.”

“Would you mind if I ask just what that is?” Fluttershy queried.

Discord stared at the pegasus. She’s too innocent. “It’s not important. Just something really bad.”

“So, I was set to command a strong legion of demons on the western hemisphere on some place called Earth.” he continued. “It's one of the places where humans live.” Discord added. “You don’t want to see what I had them do.” he shivered regretfully. “Especially the rabbits, ugh!”

Fluttershy decided to keep what the demons did to the local rabbit populations unquestioned.

“It was all going smoothly. The humans were on the back leg and most of them were already in Hell fit for the transfer.” Discord said. “Until we had reports of that same human. A mortal that just crossed between Hell and Earth like they were two different rooms in a house.”

“He was a massively savage beast! More so than the demons in my horde. He’d blast his boomsticks at the demons, tearing them in half with his bare hands and with chainsaws! It was like watching lamb to the slaughter when I commanded my demons through the human cities when he was around.”

As Discord explained more and more, a small distaste for her friend began forming. Had Discord commanded the same fate Equestria was facing now to another world? “Imps, Hell Knights, human zombies, Mancubi, my own Barons! Nothing would work against him! He’d just kill them all. It was totally unfair.” he spoke about it like it was some game of chess.

“Do you know what an Archvile is, Flutts?” Discord didn’t take note of her angry look. “I locked that man in a maze of twenty or so Archviles and he made it out in fifteen minutes!” the draconequus shook his head. “After that he went and killed the head honcho of the invasion and I was lucky enough to be sent back to my usual job. Even if it was dreadfully boring.”

“Another millenia passed of doing that, where I had to pester and annoy beings that could hardly comprehend speech.” he scoffed. “Where’s the fun in making beings ‘suffer’ when they’ve known suffering their whole life!”

The mis-matched chaos god continued to explain his story. “I heard news that even thousands of years after my army got demolished, that that human was still alive! In Hell pulling the same stuff he had done so long ago. I said to myself that I had to meet this fellow! I'd been wanting to blow the whole Hell place and leave. And hey, he was doing my job so much better! So I tracked this human down, threw him some extra-cool armor and weapons to beat up my former colleagues and I headed off for Equestria. You know the rest of the story by now.” Discord finished.

“I.. think that’s everything. Oh, do you want to hear what Hell calls me now?” he asked.

Fluttershy tilted her head. “Sure?”

“The Wretch That Shall Not Be Named!” He formed a mock, overly deep voice. “HA! Isn’t that so dreadfully ominous?” Discord laughed.

“So, if the demons find out that you’re here, what will they do to you?” Fluttershy questioned.

“Kill me.” he answered. “Or worse, use my magic against everypony.” Discord sighed. “If I’m in Equestria for too long and they find me, I don’t know what they’ll make me do.”

The pegasus expelled her disappointment in a hardy sigh, feeling sorry for her friend. She had to forgive him for what he did so long ago. If she could forgive him for what she knows he did, she could forgive him for the millenia old deed.

“Look, I’m sorry Fluttershy.” he returned to sincereness. “I would love to help you and your friends with this situation but I fear that if I do then the demons could take over my mind and do Celestia knows what to Equestria with my powers.” he pointed out. “It would be far worse than cotton candy clouds and chocolate rain.

Fluttershy nodded. “Don’t worry, I understand.”

“You do?” Discord replied.

“Yes.” she responded, looking about his home for a moment or two. “How about some tea?” Fluttershy tried to swap the topic to something less stressful. She really needed some calm time. “While I’m here.”

Discord nodded, a smile forming. “Of course!” he got out of the sofa, starting towards the kitchen.

“Oh, a-and do me a favor. Please make sure you have your eye on Twilight.” she asked of Discord.

Discord nodded. “Don’t worry, Flutts. I’ve been watching over you and your friends since this whole thing kicked off.” she assured.

A bit of that statement warmed the pegasus. Even if something terrible did occur, the odds of the Draconequus coming to save her was high. Even if Equestria was being plunged into doom, at least Discord and her could spend some quality time together. Chaos realm or not.

Comments

[Mr_Losos]

“ The Wretch That Shall Not Be Named! ” He formed a mock, overly deep voice. “HA! Isn’t that so dreadfully ominous?” Discord laughed.

I knew it

[NotAnEditor]

11353023
I can respect your knowledge of the lore. Fantastic prediction.

[AgentKorpsman]

“So, I was set to command a strong legion of demons on the western hemisphere on some place called Earth.” he continued. “It's one of the places where humans live.” Discord added. “You don’t want to see what I had them do.” he shivered regretfully. “Especially the rabbits, ugh!”

Oh yeah discord your fucked of doom slayer finds you and gets his revenge for daisy

[BoneMareOh]

Nice Plutonia Experiment hunted reference