> Chaos and Darkness
>  by Paleo Prints
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1: The Prisoner
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chaos and Darkness
By Paleo Prints
Chapter 1: The Prisoner



Secretly, every parent in Ponyville appreciated the location of the Everfree Forest.  The unnatural landscape played havoc with the weather ponies, and the occasional alien monster would sometimes intrude into civilized lands. Hydras were only a moderate concern.  After seeing what a wild bonnacon did to his fields after only five minutes, farmer Rusty Gates renounced all claim to his land and became a janitor.  Still, the intimidating forest served a purpose.

After all, it stood between their children and Tartaurus.

If a pony spent two days travelling directly through the forest (or perhaps one day if you were incautious and obsessive), that unfortunate would find a gigantic hill of cracked boulders and smoldering crevasses.  In these fissures could be glimpsed channels of magma that raised and lowered by some arcane rules of pressure, occasionally spurting out in a destructive spray that could eliminate at least a whole wagon.

The people (for they were not ponies) of this grim place marked the outskirts of their territory every other mile with a single signpost. The signs were universally soot-encrusted, burnt, and regularly replaced.  They said only one statement: Use Caution.

The minotaurs of Tartaurus thought that was enough.

The rocky hills of Tartaurus could not exist in their present state forever. Either the fires would burn out one distant day or the pent-up energy would release, engulfing the surface, warrens, and prison in an explosive end. Being minotaurs, the citizens of Tartaurus keep a long tally of cheerful bets on the outcome.  Parents would often arm wrestle to see which of them got to personally tell their offspring about their city's impending demise.  Every lucky mother or father would watch the youngster carefully for their reaction.  The appropriate one was taken to be not dissimilar from, “Huh. That'll look cool.”

Iron Will did not react appropriately.

On the most important moment on his coming-of-age day, Iron Will broke with minotaur tradition by asking, “So, what are we going to do about it?”

His mother (who had always been able to overpower his father both physically and verbally) squinted at him in confusion.

“We die.”

Iron Will had waited patiently for further elucidation. His mother only stared at the simmering of a caldera, chucking ominously.

He scratched his head.

“But we could probably do something about it!”

Constance Guard looked down at her son.  She had gone through the same ritual at his age.  When informed of her society's fate she had only giggled, informing her father that Grandpa Steady Hoof would look funny running from the lava on his wooden leg.  She remembered how her father swelled with pride.

She sat down on a nearby rock, gesturing for Iron to sit down.  He dutifully responded, which set her further on edge.

“Son,” she said with trepidation, “why would we want to do that?”

The young teen scratched his head as a light began to grow behind his eyes.

“Mom, if we solve it someone has to pay us, right?”

Shortly afterward his mother shuffled into the family grotto with heavy heart and footsteps.  Her spouse briefly looked up from the pile of iron ingots he was hand-bending into manacles.

“Your son,” she began, “is clearing away rocks from the prison gate entrance until he learns his lesson.”

With that pronouncement she walked toward the larder with heavy hooves.

“Of course, dear.” Iron Will's father peered at the latest link he had squeezed into form.  Suddenly he raised his eyebrow.  “Honey, what lesson is he supposed to learn?”

“When he knows,” she screamed, “he'll come and tell me!”

Knowing his wife's temperament, Strong Bonds nodded. “Yes, dear.”

Hours later, a thoughtful young minotaur arrived at the grotto.  Strong looked at his son with an appraising eye as Iron Will slumped onto the granite sofa, dejected.

“So, how'd the rock stacking go?”

Iron sighed, holding up a stack of precious mica, obsidian, and basalt coins.  “I managed to convince some of the guys that they were professionally sculpted throwing rocks.  They paid me to cart them away.”  He scratched, listlessly.  “I just killed some time at market checking out the young cows.”

“Huh.”  Strong Bonds felt a tugging inside his brain.  He knew instinctively that he was supposed to cast his paternal wisdom before his son. It was time to steer him right.

“So Iron, my young micky, pride of my warren, did you learn something today?”

The young minotaur turned toward his father. He cast cautious looks about the grotto.  Finally, he leaned over toward his father.

“Don't tick off Mom.”

Strong Bonds considered this response momentarily before nodding. “Glad to have helped.”





Years later, these events settled like volcanic ash over Iron Will’s mind as he dragged his cart over the uneven Tartaurus ground.  A few of the open pits had collapsed.  Some new crevices belched smoke into the open sky.  Despite some minor geological additions, it was Home.  One thing Home could be relied on to avoid was changing, especially if it had sent you running away in the first place.

The trio of guards at the front gate regarded him with interest.  They had long since become bored with the traditional minotaur game of “Punch the Small Guy,” especially since the guy in question happened to be winning.

“Who goes there?” bellowed the Lead Bellower.  He had recently been promoted to his position, and was in a hurry to practice.

The traveler's shoulders slumped.  “Iron Will, son of Strong Bonds and Constance Guard, grandson of Heaving Horn, requests you get out of the way.”

The Bellower regarded him skeptically.  “That’s a mighty large cart for you to pull on your own.”

Iron nodded.  “Yeah, I usually have goats to help carry my stuff for me.  I seem to have run out.”

The Small Guy, high on his winning streak, giggled at the much larger minotaur.  “What happened, you eat ‘em?  Did they fall into lava?”

Iron scratched behind his ear.  “No.  They’re union.  Mandatory vacation time.”

The three guards laughed.  Iron gripped his wagon handle tightly.

The third guard picked up a scroll and quill.  “Okay, buddy.  What should I put in the rolls for occupation?  You a mercenary?  Maybe a guard in some kinda complex?”

Iron Will flashed a smiled.  In a second his entire posture changed.  He stood up with confidence, spinning his arms in a circle before pointing at the scribe.  “Iron Will is the greatest motivational speaker in Equestria!”  He clapped his hands loudly, then raised his fists in the air.  “Iron Will is here to make Tartaurus the best it can be!”

The guards stood speechless as the energetic minotaur bounded up to the Bellower and hooked an arm around his shoulder.  “Hey you!  Do people ever hassle you at this gate?  People try to avoid the gate tax?”

The Bellower looked at his co-workers nervously.  “Um.  I guess so.”

Iron Will stepped back, hands on his hips.  “Well then, when someone tries to sneak, show them that they’re weak!  Iron Will is going to make you confident and assertive!”  He suddenly pulled some papers out of his cart, his voice dropping to normal tones.  “Here, these are free passes for my upcoming lecture.”  He patted the Bellower on the shoulder.  “Arrive early.  I want to see you in the front row.”  He winked.

The shocked guards squinted at their passes while Iron Will rolled inside, whistling.  The Short Guy was the first one to recover.

“He’d make a great bellower.”

The current Bellower nodded, clearly recognizing greatness in the field of shouting.  He suddenly squinted at his comrades.

“Wait a second.  Did that guy pay the gate toll?”





Scarcely an hour later, Iron knocked inside the archway of his family house.  “Mom? Dad?  Are you here?”

An older minotaur with graying hair and a pipe pulled Iron inside with a handshake.  “Iron! Great to see you boy!  How goes the shouting business?  Do the ponies of the world run from my terrifying child?”

Iron parked his cart in a corner of the apartment.  “Uh, not really Dad.  I tell them the things they want to hear and they feel better about themselves.”

His mother stepped into the room, eyeing him curiously.  “Iron Fire-Forged Stanley Will, did I hear that right?  You’re shouting nice things at people?”

Iron nervously hugged his mother.  She punched him in the side of the head, traditionally and affectionately.  “Yeah, Mom.  They pay me to do it.  I have employees.  Oh, I also point at people.”  He waved his arms around and pointed at his mother with both fingers.  “Iron Will is going make you the person you want to be!”

His parents stared at him silently for a moment before his mother snorted and walked into the kitchen.  Strong Bonds took his son by the arm.  “Your mother’s made dinner!  Let’s talk over it in respectful tones.  I’m so glad you were able to make your Pilgrimage back this year.”

Following him to the table, Iron had hope rise into his eyes.  “So, Dad, did you put up the flyers that I forwarded?  Most of my bits just got invested into sound equipment.”

His Dad smiled, flipping a newspaper over a stack of neglected papers in a corner.  “I’m pretty sure I did it!  Now, let’s talk about the nice job I got you with Warden Oubliette.  You’re here for a month, after all.”

Iron blinked.  “Muleta? Muleta Oubliette?  Oh, Minos.  I haven’t seen her since school.  Come on, Dad.  Tell me she’s coming to one of my shows.  I really want to look good in front of her.”

His father smiled.  “Son, we just shopped around one of your natural talents.”





Twilight Sparkle grinned with excitement as she trotted over the uneven gravel of Tartaurus.  She stepped with purpose as she spotted the pitted iron gates of the city.

“Look at that, Spike!  The Gates of Tartaurus.  They were forged with the aid of the legendary Sea Pony King Foamrider, you know.  At least, you would know if you did the reading I assigned, that is.”

On her back a small dragon baby shrugged.  “Okay, those pieces of rusted metal have a history.  Are we almost there?  I’m hungry and this place has a high open-lava-pit level.”

She threw a questioning look at him as she slowed down.  “You’re a dragon.  Why are you worried about lava?”

Spike shrugged.  “Well, climbing out’s a hassle.”

Twilight rolled her eyes with a smile as she stepped towards the gate.  A burly minotaur rose with an irritated sigh to meet her.  “Halt,” he said with little motivation.  “Who goes there?”

“Okay, Spike.  Get out the... ”

“Already got it.”  He held a scroll out into her peripheral vision.

She nodded, levitating the scroll in front of herself.  “I am Twilight Sparkle, Officially Deputized Representative of Equestria and Ambassador of Princess Celestia!”

The minotaur blinked.  He smiled, sensing opportunity.  

“Iron Will welcomes you in the name of the Minoan Holdfast!”  He threw his arms wide.  “Welcome to the sturdy prison of Tartaurus.”

Iron Will took a step forward, flexing his right arm.  “Not a single soul leaves Tartaurus Prison early!  If you escape, we’ll break your face!  Iron Will hopes... ”

A minotaur still seated on a rock coughed into his fist.  “Two bits, please.”

Twilight frowned.  “Sir, please don’t interrupt the traditional minotaur gate greeting!  My diplomatic responsibility is to partake of all local customs.  Additionally, my assistant here needs whatever culture he can get.”

Spike stared at Iron Will in awe.  “Was that culture?  Can culture be cool?”

The seated guard laughed.  “This maverick, traditional?  Lady, you gave your name and job.  You pay the two bits and you’re in.”

He turned to Iron Will.  “Come on, new guy.  You’re her escort.  Grab your battle-axe and take her to Oubliette.”

The interrupted speaker nodded.  He hoisted his weapon and straightened his shoulders, refusing to break character in front of the audience.  “Iron Will will take you to the Warden, Miss Sparkle.”

Iron walked ahead, putting himself several paces in front of Twilight Sparkle.  Once safely in front, he let his facade fall for a brief second, a weary look crossing his features.  He instantly stepped back into his role as Twilight cantered up to his side.

“Well, I thought you were impressive.”  She grinned.  “Thanks for adding to the ambiance of the experience.  Now let’s meet Miss Oubliette.  Secret Object Number Twenty-Three needs a check-up!”

Spike scratched his head.  “Twilight, should you really be talking about something with the word ‘secret’ in the title?”

Iron smiled genuinely for the first time in days.





Under the twisting warrens of the minotaurs sat Tartaurus Prison.   The minotaurs may have thought of the front entrance as the “Gates of Tartaurus,” but to the rest of the world that phrase conjured an image of the huge spiked portcullis below and the three-headed dog that lay in front of it.

Past the armory and barracks sat the prison proper, host to the fiends, tyrants, and schemers of a hundred lands.  Elaborate hourglasses dominated a wall outside the cellblock, some enchanted so that only one sand grain fell each century as the villains inside waited for pardon or release.

In the front of the prison was the community room.  Here inmates were allowed under heavy magical suppression to mingle.  At the moment, titans who had terrorized nations were passing away their days.

Sitting at the front of a table, a fat bipedal thing with bat wings and a goat head idly examined its hand of cards.  Using a skull-tipped wand to draw his tankard close, it looked appraisingly at the creature to its right.

“Got any threes?”

A scaly body supported two baboon heads on long necks.  They peered at a hand held in limbs like tentacles.  One head shrieked incoherently, drawing a reproachful glare from the other head.

“Oh, for Venger’s sake please don’t be a spoilsport," said the second head.  "Hand them over.  It’s a perfectly fair move, you know.”

Further down the table a muscular red-skinned creature seethed.  Two rage-filled eyes were framed by a black beard below and steer-like horns above.  His upper body was red-furred and muscular, shaped liked those of the protagonists in the popular “Humanworld” novels.  This torso rested on the body of a great black stallion.

Tirek the Necromancer threw his cards at the table.  “Pah!  How can you all get so worked up over such an idle amusement?”  He gestured to the baboon creature.  “How can a general of the Blood Wars care about mere pieces of paper?”

The two heads regarded each other.  The right one screeched loudly.  The left nodded.  “Yes, we were actually about to attempt a similar tactic.”

Tirek groaned, covering his face with a hand.  The table’s attention was drawn by the sound of the door opening.  The goat-thing, baboon-thing, and the contemplative silent fourth player stared at the prisoner who was ushered in by two unconcerned guards.  Tirek’s gaze was held spellbound by the sight of a statue the guards were moving across the hall.

It’s here.  By the Stars, they were foolish enough to bring it here!

A hooded figure floated into the room.  Two red eyes and a pair of bluish eyebrows stuck out from the darkness inside his cowl.  He raised a clawed hand and gestured at the assembled prisoners.

“Which… of you… ” boomed a theatrical voice, “… would like… some refreshments?”

The card players gave each other embarrassed looks as the cloaked prisoner dragged in a cart of multi-colored drinks in novelty mugs.  With a gesture he levitated a steaming mug with a head of whipped cream over to the two-headed reptilian.  As the twin baboon heads sniffed the mixture appreciatively, Tirek noticed the mug had writing on it.

The Necromancer cocked his head to read the nearly illegible scrawl.  Grabbing up the cup drew a chirp of disapproval from the monkey-monster.  Tirek paid no heed, reading aloud the mug’s label with growing anger.  “‘Best Tyrant in the Abyss’?”

The hooded sorcerer offered a bony thumbs up.  “I thought we could use some personalization around here.  A little bit of flair makes the centuries pass like decades.”  He immediately ducked as the thrown mug shattered inches from his head.

“What have you become, No-Heart?”  Tirek shrieked.  The centaur’s fist slammed into the table again and again.  “What have all of us become?  We played the game of realms and worlds, and now we should sit like spinsters as we waste our hard-won immortality?”

No-Heart stepped backwards, hands up in front of him.  “Tirek, I’ve told you.  I’ve accepted Harmony as my guiding principle.  You’d be a lot happier if you came to the meetings.”

Tirek quivered for several moments.  The goat-thing turned to Tirek and cleared his throat.  “Um, Tirek?”  He gestured to the cards spread along the table.  “Do you have any fives?”

Tirek reared back, kicking the table over.  It tipped onto the drink cart, spilling beverages and shattering mugs.

“I have no remaining patience!”  He pointed at the shaking No-Heart. “I have no worthy comrades!  Search for yourselves for my fives, for I care not!”

No-Heart nodded, then walked toward the door silently while pausing briefly to pick up the sole remaining intact mug.  The side read “Best Prison Caterer.”  He carried it out of the room with as much dignity as he could muster.

A horned hooded figure, previously silent, turned to the raging centaur. Its yellow eyes peered out of pure darkness.  “Okay Tirek, that’s enough.  Go tell him you’re sorry.”

Tirek stomped.  “No, Quellor!  You can just sit on those hopes!”  He smirked.  “Perhaps if you hold onto them long enough they just may turn to gold.”  Tirek left the room, the guards giving him a baleful glare.

Quellor crossed his arms and look at his fellow inmates with irritation.  “This never happens when we play Bridge.”





Tirek stepped out into the main tunnel of the prison, drawing baleful glares from the patrolling minotaurs.  The curving corridor displayed dozens of cells.  Some of them had bars, whereas others were sealed by shimmering fields of magic.  Tirek moved with purpose toward the back of the prison.  Passing his own open cell, he stopped in front of a magically-sealed room.  No prisoner was visible, only a roiling field of tempestuous blue clouds.  A illusion of warning was laced into the restraining field spell.

DO NOT OPEN. MONSTROMURK.

The guards started to realize that Tirek was out of bounds, and he saw them stand and reach for their axes.  Nonchalantly, he tapped onto the magic field, drawing crackling sounds and the smell of ozone.

“It is time, my friend.  They’ve stupidly brought the object here at last.”

The cloud inside quaked and thundered as lightning played across it.

Tirek nodded.  “Do as we discussed and I will give you a land of your own to play with.”

Sparkles of light rippled across the cloud.  Tirek sighed in irritation.  Turning behind he saw the jailers were seconds away.  He leaned toward the cell door. “Very well. I will also ship my disloyal subjects to you as a favor to replenish your stock.”  He gritted his teeth. “On occasion.”

The cloud gave a great peal of thunder.  Two gleeful eyes were momentarily visible.

“Hey, Tirek!  Get back in your hole!”

The Necromancer turned to his jailer with growing impatience.  He threw out his hand, pointing at the offending minotaur.

Nothing happened.

The guard smirked.  “You see that, boys? He tried to cast.  Take ‘im to the Warden.  Roughly.”

A dozen hands roughly grabbed the former Lord of Midnight Castle.  He struggled, and was rewarded with blunt axe sides smacked against his head.  As the guards pulled him to the front of the prison, Tirek allowed himself a secret smile as he was dragged towards destiny.





“Yeah, The Flim Flam Brothers’ have a good idea without proper branding.  Now, Hidden Bits has this great book about all the programs where Celestia will send you free money.  It’s got market share written all over it.”

Twilight nodded as the minotaur led her out of the maze-like civilian quarters.  She exited a torch-lit tunnel into a huge scarlet-gleaming cavern.  A rocky bridge jutted out over a flowing river of magma.  At the far end, she could just make out the enormous gate.

“That’s... fascinating,”  she said with effort, sweat dripping from her coat.  “I had no idea minotaurs were so involved with economic theory.”

Iron Will shrugged.  “Well, we don’t get many who are, honestly.  That’s why I had to take my show on the road.  Ponies pay for Iron Will’s help far and wide!”

As he struck a pose, Spike looked up from his comic book.  “Wait a second!  You’re the monster that Rarity talked about!  You’re the one that bothered Fluttershy!”

Iron Will covered his eyes with his hand.

Twilight stopped, taking a moment to renew her taxed personal temperature spell.  “Wait, what?  What did this guy do to Fluttershy?”

“Iron Will remembers dealing with a Fluttershy.”

Spike jumped down onto the group and stuck a finger at the much larger minotaur.  This drew an amused look from Iron Will. 

“You’re the one who turned her into a monster!”

Twilight’s horn started to glow.

“Yeah, he gave her assertedtivenessy lessons!”

Twilight’s horn went dark.  “What.”

Iron shuffled from one hoof to another.  “I did do some business in Ponyville.”

Twilight turned to her assistant.  “Spike, that doesn’t sound like turning someone into a monster.”

The dragon snarled.  “She refused to pay, didn’t she?”

Iron Will crossed his arms.  “Some ponies cannot handle the awesome responsibility of being like Iron Will.”

Twilight leaned in toward Spike.  “So, Fluttershy refused to pay, and then... ”

Spike snarled.  “He made her not pay!”

Twilight’s gaze moved from the dragon to the minotaur several times.  It finally settled on Iron Will with a serious look.

“So, is there any place to get water around here?”

He smiled.  “Oh, probably in the guard’s break room, I think.  Come on, we’re almost to the gate.”

The two walked off, leaving Spike to follow.  He shook a tiny fist at Iron Will and sighed.

“It sounds better when Rarity tells it.”  He moved to keep up.

Two of the prison staff waited for Twilight at the gate.  One lifted three canine heads and bounded over toward the pony, flipping her over onto her back.  The gigantic hound began licking her face as she giggled.

A slimmer but athletic minotaur with a bell around her neck chuckled as she approached.  “Cerberus must remember you.  I’m Muleta Oubliette.  Welcome to Tartaurus Prison, pony.”  She grabbed Cerberus’ collar with both hands and pulled off the massive dog.

Spike turned to Iron Will, covering his mouth with his claw.  “She’s kinda strong, huh?”

Iron made no reply, his mouth open, hearts visible in his eyes.

Spike rolled his eyes.  “Yeah man, I’ve been there.  Tell me about it.”

Twilight stood up, shaking the slobber from her coat.  “Greetings, Warden of the Walls of Woe, Mistress of the... ”

Muleta waved a hand in the air.  “Skip the titles.  Let’s go inside.”  She patted Cerberus on each head carefully.  “Stay.”

Twilight shrugged as she followed behind the Warden.  “Iron Will tells me that I can get a drink at the break room?”

The warden froze, turning to the minotaur behind her.  “Iron Will?”

He swallowed right before she started giggling.  Oubliette leaned down to Twilight, gesturing toward her guard with a thumb.

“You’re in good hands with this guy.  He was the biggest class clown I’ve ever seen!  Hey Iron, didn’t you become a stand-up comedian?”

Spike and Twilight turned to the blushing minotaur.  Iron Will struck a dramatic pose.

“Iron Will travels from Equestria to the Griffon lands, teaching all how to assert themselves!  If they step on you, Iron’s gonna make you like new!”

The group silently stared at him for a second until Oubliette broke out into laughter.  Twilight gave him a sympathetic look as the Warden walked off.  He nodded and followed.

Inside the main hall of the prison, a crowd of guards held a snarling scarlet centaur and waited.  As the tour group approached, Twilight gasped.

“Tirek!  That’s Tirek, Lord of Midnight Castle!”

Warden Oubliette shrugged.  “He’s one of the crew.”  She stepped towards the highest ranking guard and gave Tirek an amused look.  “So, Hardhorn, how’re things with your family?”

He smiled as Tirek grunted in irritation.  “Oh, pretty good. I get to take my kid out to see the mountain for his Doom Day soon.”

“If you could see it fit to release me,”  Tirek snarled.

Oubliette tapped her cheek thoughtfully.  “Oh, are the prisoners okay on level two?”

As Tirek squirmed, Twilight leaned close to Iron Will.  “Are they deliberately trying to tick him off?”

Many explanations came to his mind.  He settled on the simplest one.  “Minotaurs,” he said while shrugging.

Hardhorn nodded.  “Tiamat and Lolth are finally getting along again.  Oh, hey,” he said while throwing a thumb at the struggling Necromancer, “This guy tried to cast a spell on me.”

Oubliette nodded.  “Really?”

Tirek grumbled.  “I was only trying to get to No-Heart’s enclosure.”  Suddenly he gasped as he saw Twilight.  “A unicorn? Here?”

Twilight stepped up.  She chewed her bottom lip.  “Greeting, Tirek.  My name is Twilight Sparkle.”

He smiled, leaning down as best as he could with a cloud of burly arms restraining him.  “Little one, do you know what your family did to me?  Not just your kind, but the Sparkle clan?”

She slowly shook her head, drawing a grin from the Necromancer.  “One day, you will.”  He turned to the Warden.  “I need to see a… friend.”  He offered a diplomatic smile to Twilight. “Your kind understands friendship, I hear?”

“I want to… ” Tirek turned his face out of Twilight’s view as a look of hatred filled twisted his features. An immense will projected calmness as he turned back to Twilight and the Warden.

“I… need to apologize to No Heart for something I did earlier. Yes. I need to do it.  I’m sorry I gestured with the Power, but you know the wards prevent that from doing anything.”  

Spike shivered.  Tirek’s smile reminded him of too many adult dragons.

Twilight gave the Warden a pleading look.  “He seems to really understand what he did wrong.  This place is about redemption instead of punishment, after all.”

Oubliette rolled her eyes.  “All right.  Take him to No-Heart.  In fact, have Iron Will take him.  It’ll be a good tour of the prison for our guest.”  She stared at Iron Will with a serious expression.  “Oh, and take her to see Object Twenty-Three.”

The guards released Tirek.  He straightened himself, giving Twilight a calculating look.  She shivered as Iron Will led them on.

Twilight and Spike stared in awe at the cells they passed.  A horde of multi-colored ghosts floated behind a force field, and one of them tipped a blue hat to her.  A nearby cell held a red two-headed creature that look like a collection of random parts.  He constantly reassembled himself as one head argued with the other.  A giant frog in a fine suit regarded Twilight with curiosity as he pet a fluffy white caterpillar from behind a desk.

“Twilight,” Spike said with a quavering voice.  “These are the bad guys.  Can we go home now?”

Twilight shivered as she watched Tirek.  At each tunnel turn the Necromancer would spare a momentary glance at her, especially her rear.  Normally Twilight would blush if someone kept staring at her cutie mark that often, but now she felt small and threatened for reasons that remained opaque to her.  Tirek would furrow his brow, grit his teeth, and occasionally reach out and crush stone outcroppings in his fist.  She began to avert her eyes.

With the last member of his escorts distracted, Tirek grinned.

As they approached No-Heart’s enclosure,  Tirek moved to the side of the corridor.  He surreptitiously knocked on the Monstromurk’s barrier.  The cloud flashed once, then disappeared.

“What is this?”  Tirek tried to emote appropriately.  “The Monstromurk has escaped!”

Iron Will looked at the empty cell with wide eyes.  “Hang on!  If he broke out, it’s gonna be a rout!”  

He fumbled for a large metal key hanging on his belt and shoved it into the field, causing it to explode into sparkles.

Oubliette grabbed her axe with shaking hands.  “No, you idiot!  It can change the color of anything! It’s invi-- ”

Blue smoke poured out of the opened jail cell and filled the corridor.  Spike clung to Twilight as lightning crackled around him.  She was already concentrating, purple magic pouring out of her horn as she scanned the area.

The Warden ground her teeth together.  “You shouldn’t have done that, rookie.  We’re all in terrible danger, now.”

Iron Will raised his eyebrows.  “What’s he going to do, make me purple?”  A laughing mustached face appeared through the fog.  “If you break and run, I’ll ruin your fun!”

Twilight gasped.  “No, don’t!  If he controls color… ”

Iron’s fist hit something hard in the blue cloud.  Warden Oubliette fell unconscious to the floor.

Twilight gave him a withering look.

“Oh.”  He hit his forehead.  “Colors. Vision.  Okay. Covered.”

Twilight nodded as she swept the area with magical light.  Spike had climbed onto her, nervously casting glances all around at the threatening cloud.  Iron Will turned around, standing-back-to-rump with the determined unicorn.

No one noticed Tirek’s absence.





No-Heart looked up from his crocheting as his force field dropped.

“Hello?  Is it time for the Harmony Circle, sirs?”

Tirek pulled himself inside the cell, grinning with anticipatory delight.  “No-Heart.  It’s time for you to be, very finally and very briefly, useful.”

The terrified wizard dropped his knitting needles and started backing up.  “Tirek, my friend.  I forgive you for the mugs.”  His hands shook.  “Please leave.”

Tirek shook his head and picked up the fallen needle.  He briefly shook his head at No-Heart.  

“This was a weapon, wizard.  You could have easily stabbed me with this to defend yourself.”  Tirek closed his fist, shattering the needle into twain.  “You’ve gone soft.”

No-Heart knelt in a corner, shaking as he held his head in his hands.  “We’re… we’re friends, right?”

Tirek trotted over to No-Heart, looming over him.  “There is only one being on this miserable planet I care for.  I intend to see her this day.  For that, I need you.  Well, some of you at least.”

The Necromancer grabbed No-Heart by the throat.  The wizard’s eyes went wide as he gurgled out pleadingly.

“Would that be fear in your eyes, No-Heart? I recognize that flavor. It’s the terror of knowing what this world is about. You forgot.”

Tirek’s hand moved quickly and deliberately.  No Heart stopped struggling.

“I just reminded you.”  He nodded as he lowered No Heart and raised a wet mass for examination.

“Hmm. Misnamed.”





What Tirek carried out of No-Heart’s cell dripped as he wandered through the nearly empty high security wing.  With the main force occupied with the Monstromurk, Tirek saw no guards as he walked past tanks of animated sea-weed.   Inside a cell where “Tunnel Snakes” had been graffitied everywhere a leather-jacket-clad purple snake gave him an appraising look.

He walked with purpose into the cursed item storage area, past a large labeled staircase that read “Danger: Metlar Suppression Area.”  Counting off rooms, he smiled in triumph as he walked into number Twenty-Three.  In the center of the cavernous room was a single statue surrounded by protective runes.

“At last.  The Prankster Lord.  The Chaos Master.  The Terror of the Plains of Dream Valley.”  

As he approached the statue of the frozen Draconequus, Tirek snorted.  “The greatest waste of potential this planet has ever seen.”

Surmounting the dais, the necromancer squeezed his rubbery memento of No-Heart with both hands.  He wet his fingers in the liquid that poured out.  “We were all disappointed with you.  You were no petty alicorn or conjurer of cheap tricks.  You had the stuff of unmitigated creation in your claws and used it to make candy.”

Tirek shook his head, sighing.  “You still carry a torch for the pink-haired shadow of a tyrant, don’t you?  You never could recognize true quality.  No matter.”  He drew dark patterns on Discord with his fingers.  “You failed, my old friend.  You failed not only to overcome them, but yourself.”

Discord’s statue began shaking as glowing cracks formed under Tirek’s drawings.  It nearly tipped from side to side as it hopped in place.  Tirek laughed, clapping as an explosion of glowing dust showered the room.  A long, limp form collapsed onto the floor.  As the barely conscious draconequus started to blink, a muscular red hand held him aloft by the neck.

Discord mumbled as his blurry vision made out  a horned head.  “What to the buh-whoody?  Tired? Tie-dye? It’s a t-word, I’m sure. Can I buy a vowel?”

The hand tightened, drawing a gasp.  Glowing energy crackled around Discord, flowing out of him, up over Tirek’s arm and finally into his chest.  The Lord of Midnight Castle breathed deeply with satisfaction.

Discord’s eyes widened. “Okay! Solving the puzzle! Tirek, old buddy!  I’m so glad to see you.  Why don’t we have a long conversation with no hint of physical violence?”

The glowing tyrant responded by casting the terrified trickster against the far wall.  He threw back his head and roared, shaking the foundations of Tartaurus.

Tirek fixed Discord with a glowing stare that forced him to avert his eyes.  “I find myself oddly merciful toward you, Fallen One.”

The draconequus nervously giggled. “Really? Let some Harmony into your heart, then?  Shall we get a guitar and sing ‘Celestia Loves the Little Fillies,’ maybe with optional campfire?”

Tirek’s headshake left light trails from his eyes.  He gestured at the far door, causing it to explode into fragments.  “No, you simpering jester.  I merely wish for you to see what your true potential was.”

Two minotaurs rushed into the room wielding battle-axes.  With an irritated wave of his hand, Tirek turned both of them into stone. Discord pressed himself against the wall in fear as Tirek reared on his hooves, laughing in triumph.

“I now possess the power you squandered, Discord.  I bring the storm that shall flood Equestria, and it will be neither chocolate nor water that flows through its streets.”
> Chapter 2: The Bloody Rage of the Titans
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chaos & Darkness
by Paleo Prints
Chapter 2:  The Bloody Rage of the Titans


Twilight had always liked rainbows.  They represented order.  As reliable as the Canterlot Weather Patrol making the rain, the Cloudsdale Rainbow Factory churned out the sign that the worst was over.  Except for the wild ones in the Everfree (mystery number sixty-four on her “To Be Researched” list), rainbows represented order.

Rainbows weren’t meant to bleed.

All around Twilight a shimmering cloud whipped around, hammering at her protective magic bubble.  As the threatening wind hit the side of her barrier it bled away into trails of different colors, clashing shades melting into each and out again as they circled her.

Inside the bubble a terrified Spike surveyed the chaos, shaking slightly as he used one claw to hold onto Twilight’s mane like a safety blanket.  Behind her was Iron Will, bent over on his knees as his horn scraped the top of the protective bubble.

“Miss Sparkle?”  Iron Will said with a grimace.  “Is there any way to get a little more space in here?”

Twilight spun around, eyes on the bubble wall.  Light flared out of her horn, pouring into different parts of the bubble as intricate geometrical patterns played along the inside.

“I’m having enough trouble keeping it stable at this size!”  She grit her teeth as giant fists of blue smoke hammered at her shield.  “This spell was made for ponies, not a whole party!”

“You did do it that time over the whole library,” Spike reminded her.  Iron Will’s ear perked up hopefully.

Twilight gasped as the bubble started to bulge from outside pressure.  “This guy requires a little more structural reinforcement to fend off than the Cutie Mark Crusaders!”

Iron Will's eyes were drawn to Muleta, hovering into the side of his vision.  He swiveled his body to face her, knocking over Spike.  Pushing his hands against the shield, he could see her levitating six hooves high off the ground.

“She’s out there!  We have to get her in before he tears her apart!”

Twilight turned and swallowed.  “Mister Will, whatever she’s doing is out of her control.”

Iron blinked.  Looking again he noticed that Muleta’s arms dangled limply, as if someone was supporting her forearms but letting her hands swing freely.  Her unconscious head turned to him grotesquely.

Iron Will growled.  “Come on, cloud!  If you dangle my girl, I’ll rock your world!”  He smashed his fist on the bubble wall.

“No!”  Twilight’s eyes widened.  “Punching the force field is a no-no!”

The entire cloud convulsed as it giggled.  Muleta’s hands were raised in a mockery of a friendly wave.  

Spike shivered.  “Okay, t-t-that’s genuinely creepy.  B-but why would it waste time doing that?”

The unconscious minotaur was suddenly lifted into the air over the bubble.  She slowly rotated and was shortly pointed straight down.  Everyone inside the bubble held their breath in suspense as Muleta Oubliette was slowly lowered until one horn touched the top of the bubble.

Muleta then began to spin.

“Oh boy,” Spike said, summing up the reaction of his two companions.

The horn spun downwards, drilling a much larger bulge into the bubble.  Iron Will pushed his hands against the ceiling, muscles straining to force the penetrating horn back outside.

Twilight’s eyes closed as sweat poured down her face.  “Spike, I need you to listen to me.”

Spike nodded, offering a trembling salute.

“When this thing drops the field, you run into a cell and hide.  He can’t focus on all of us.”  She swallowed.  “I’ll handle this.”

Iron Will stared into the cloud as the horn poked through the shield.  There was a sound somewhere between screeching iron and a popping balloon.

He leapt off of the ground into the cloud.

As the vapors curled around him, Spike gave a wink and a thumbs-up.  “Count on me, Twi!”  The dragon pulled a wrapped-up sandwich from out of his belt-pouch, swallowed it in one gulp, and belched out a torrent of smoke that smelled faintly of pickles.  The cloud recoiled, allowing him the time to slip away.

Twilight allowed herself a brief smile of pride as Spike disappeared down the hallway.  The smile instantly disappeared as she felt an gaseous hand smack her flank playfully.

“Hands off, Mister!”  She scattered bolts of force into the unseen ceiling of the prison corridor, and she only heard the explosion of rock.

Iron Will screamed from somewhere outside her vision.  “Get ready, Sparkle!  Brace yourself!”

Twilight cocked her head in confusion.  She threw her forelimb around a prison bar and mentally thanked Celestia that not every inmate required a force field.

Surprised voices screamed in shock as the cloud was thrown back by a great wind.  Twilight squinted and looked into the gale.  The prison was dark, the torches having long since blown out in the windy battle.  Increasing the light of her horn revealed the outline of the warden.  Muleta had been placed on the ground with apparent care.  Next to her stood Iron Will, holding a gigantic table with both hands and waving it up and down with immense strength.

“Come on, Monstromurk,” he bellowed.  “If you wreck my day, I’ll blow you away!”

The again-wholly-blue cloud was hovering in the middle of the prison hallway, drawing dozens of tendrils of smoke back into itself.

Iron Will dropped the table and leaned against the side of a force field, panting hard.  On the other side of the field a green blob of slime hammered at the barrier, driven into a frenzy with the possibility of freedom.  Iron Will turned to it and stared.  The crud creature very gingerly backed away.

“Okay,” he said.  “I stunned it.  How do we put it down, magic mare?”

_____

Discord rubbed his aching neck as he stood up.  “Tirek, Tirek, Tirek.  My dearest, oldest friend.”

The necromancer raised an amused eyebrow.  “You may continue digging your hole, Discord.  You will indeed lie in it.”

The draconequus swallowed.  He waved to Tirek genially.  “Why don’t you throw just a teeny bit of the power back here?  Let me have just a smidgen this way and I’ll show you how to put it through its paces.”  He smiled hopefully.

Tirek lashed out toward him with a hoof.  Discord threw his hands in front of his face and closed his eyes.  After a second, he cracked one open to risk a glance.  Tirek’s leg was inches away from kicking Discord’s face.  With a triumphant sneer, the centaur lowered his hoof.

“Really?  Should I re-establish the connection?  Should I risk you finding a way to reverse the conduit?”  Tirek slowly walked forward, pressing one hoof against Discord’s chest until the trickster was forced against the wall.

“I am neither an idiot nor salivating at the chance to be your plaything.  Sit down, shut up, and I just may not change my mind about sparing you.”

Discord was gasping as Tirek ground his hoof into the draconequus’ chest.  He stared in horror and confusion at Tirek.

“That feeling is pain, Discord.  Get used to it.  Once the word gets out that you’ve been neutered . . . ”

Tirek walked back out into the hallway, ignoring the moaning draconequus.  He scrutinized the cells, eyes playing over the warning placards.  Behind one field a single book sat on a lectern, a female face poking out of the pages and staring back at him.  A much larger containment cell held a gigantic spasming green tentacle, whipping back and forth against the reinforced walls.  An animated flaming axe followed it around the room, chopping off and incinerating the end of the continually regenerating tendril.

Tirek scratched his chin thoughtfully.

This place is filled with weapons and allies.  An army of this nature has never been fielded in the history of the Many Realms.  If I were to free them...


“Let me loose!”

Tirek turned to regard the prisoner addressing him.  A living shadow with a green face and burning eyes looked at him hopefully.

“Let me loose and I shall cast your enemies into time!  I will rework the world for you!  I also happen to make excellent jasmine tea.”

Tirek stared at him thoughtfully.  He slowly shook his head.

“No!”  The shadow loomed closer until it filled the cell.  A now gigantic face sneered out from the blackness. “You will not deny the shape-shifting master of darkness!  I will unleash unspeakable evil upon you for this rebuff!”

Tirek sighed.  “If I free everyone here, do you know what kind of army I could have?”

The shadow nodded with a gleeful grin and calculating eyes.

“I would have the greatest assembly of cowardly, backstabbing, self-serving fools in the Multiverse,” Tirek concluded.

The shadow screamed in anger as Tirek snapped his fingers.  A flash of light flew out from his hand and fled out into the hallways of the prison.  Where the wave passed animated books closed, tendrils ceased to struggle, and shadows retracted into inert orbs of darkness.

Tirek turned around and walked into Discord’s cell.  The draconequus had curled up into the fetal ball.  The necromancer laughed.

“A strange position for one who was never truly born.”  Tirek snapped his fingers again.

Discord’s eyes opened slowly.  “Wha?  No, Megan, I don’t wanna go ta school.  Celly’s comin’ over.”

Tirek’s front hooves kicked out, slamming Discord against the wall.  The groaning trickster rubbed his eyes and sighed.

“It was too much to hope that this was the dream, wasn’t it?”

Tirek nodded and crossed his arms.  “I doubt you could create a nightmare such as this.  Discord, I have woken you for a purpose.”

The draconequus smiled widely.  “You need a professional cringing ‘Yes, Master!’ hench-thing?”

Tirek sighed.  “Ever the weakling, Discord.  Leave this place.  Tell them who I am.  Tell them what I am.  Make them suitably afraid.”

The necromancer snapped his fingers and disappeared.  Discord sighed and rolled his eyes.

“What is it about omnipotence that turns some people into such drama queens?”

----

Unaware of the swiftly approaching wall of light, Twilight narrowed her eyes at the Monstromurk.  

“Over here, Iron.  I’m going to need your help for this one.”

Iron Will ran to Twilight’s side and dropped into a linebacker’s crouch.  “What’s the plan, coach?”

Twilight grinned.  “You know what condensation is?”

Iron turned to her in confusion.  “No.”

The cloud started to reform.

Twilight’s horn glowed as the air around the two began to solidify into cold, blue glass.  “I happen to find science education works best with a little demonstration.”

Iron Will raised an eyebrow as he found himself inside a large, freezing sphere.

“Push!”

The minotaur threw himself against the wall of the orb, running toward the Monstromurk.  Two eyes briefly solidified inside the cloud.  The color creature froze in confusion as the world’s largest hamster ball barreled into it.

Unseen by the combatants, a wall of light flew down the corridor over them.

The ice sphere plunged straight through the angry tempest, barreling through out the other side.  Hitting the curved end of the hallway the ball cracked, rolling slowly backwards until it fell apart.  A panting unicorn lay on her back next to a minotaur groaning on his stomach.

“If that didn’t work,” moaned Iron Will, “I hope it kills me quickly.”

Twilight pulled herself off the ground.  She was beaming as she tugged on Iron Will’s shoulder.  “So, what happens to molecules of gas when they get significantly colder?”

He sighed.  “You know what,  I’m a gentlebull.  It could kill you first.  Just make sure it gets me before I feel worse.”

He felt his skin tingle as a purple glow lifted him and spun him toward the “cloud.”  The prison floor was coated in a sickly-sweet-smelling blue liquid.  Iron Will rubbed his eyes in disbelief before turning to Twilight as she clapped her hooves on the floor in triumph.

“Explain.”

Twilight cantered down the hallway, calling back in a practiced lecturing tone.  “It’s why you get droplets on the outside of a cold cup.  If you freeze a gas, you get a liquid!”

Iron smiled as he painfully pulled himself upright.  He stopped after a second.  Something was yelling at him on the edge of his brain.  Iron Will always listened to those voices, as they usually sounded like his mother.

He realized it was the only voice he heard.

Iron Will walked over to a nearby jail cell.   The metallic fake minotaur inside had never ceased spouting annoying nonsense for Iron’s entire visit at the prison.  The stream of mumbo-jumbo had ceased.  The bullish automaton lay silent and inert on the floor.  A quick scan of the prison confirmed Iron’s suspicions. 

“Twilight, why are the prisoners all asleep?”

She stopped as she considered the question, slightly skidding in the pool of Monstromurk.  A moments concentration sent violet sparks jumping from her horn and floating down the hallway.  They settled on the different torches, bating the jail in a lavender light.

She spied a snoozing pile of minotaurs at the opening of the cell block.  “It’s not just the prisoners,” she said to the approaching hoofbeats behind her.  “I’d guess some kind of sleep spell was cast during the riot.”  

The lone conscious minotaur scratched his chin thoughtfully.  “So, why are we awake?”

“Simple spell-casting superiority, silly! There was a basic protective ward in that ice sphere!”

Iron Will gently coughed as he cast skeptical eyes to the bouncy spellcaster.  “Yeah, I felt protected when we hit that wall.”

Twilight gave an embarrassed smile and looked away.  “Well, I think the caster or casters assumed that everyone would be running through the hallways  . . . magically unprotected.”  Twilight started to hyperventilate as she turned around. 

“Spike!”
 
She found him in front of a snoozing bipedal mantis-thing’s cell.  In front of its field was the little dragon, curled up as if he was safe at home.  He snored deeply as a greenish bubble flickered out of his nose.
 
Twilight stood silent for seconds.  Iron Will carefully approached her.  “Um, Miss Sparkle?  Should we... “

Her horn exploded with power, the light nearly blinding Iron Will.  Her eyes became pupilless silver screens and her hair whipped around in a sudden wind as purple energy played over the little dragon.  Runes appeared on his scales and vanishes, and violet electricity crackled over his body.  The smell of ozone filled the air, and all of the hair on Iron Will stood up (a most uncomfortable thing for a minotaur).

The magical mayhem stopped as suddenly as it began.  As the pupils returned to Twilight’s eyes, Spike was still peacefully snoring.

Twilight’s voice was soft as she turned to Iron Will. “Mister Minotaur?”

“Iron Will,” he said gently.

“Could I . . . ,” she paused, wiping her eye with a hoof.  “Could I have the key?”

He nodded, holding it out towards her.  She levitated Spike into the empty cell of the Monstromurk.  Twilight leaned him gently against the wall and kissed him on the forehead, then bit her lip for a second as she tried to find the words.  “Spike, take a letter.”  She sniffled.  “I’m going to go find out what I have to do to wake you up.  You’ll be safe in here.  I promise I’ll be back for you, Number One Assistant. “

Twilight gently kissed him on the forehead.  “Sincerely, Twilight Sparkle.” Spike turned his head, mumbling.  Iron Will stood outside until Twilight slowly walked out of the cell and used the gold key to reestablish the field. 
 
Twilight turned to Iron Will, a look of determination on her face.  “Alright, let’s tell the minotaurs who’re still awake to . . .”

Iron stood her with a raised palm.  “Hold on before you go barking out orders, lady.  As much as I love how your plan saved our tails, I see a problem with this one.  If there was any hope of a fight happening down here, we’d have half of Tataurus with us by now.”
 
Twilight slowly drank in the implications.  “Everypony’s asleep.”

He nodded, grinding his teeth.  “Yeah.  ‘Everybody’ is asleep, my whole family included.”

Twilight nodded.  “Do you want to look for them?”

He sighed.  “Yeah, I really do.  And if I do, when they wake, my Mom will ask me if I did look in on them.”

Twilight smiled.

“So when I say ‘yes,’ she’ll gore me.”  Iron shook his head as he turned and walked away from the prisoner entrance, leaving a wide-eyed Twilight behind him.  He picked up an axe and turned briefly.  “Whatever happened started inside.  You coming?”

Twilight stammered out words as best as she could.  “But . . . But shouldn’t you check on them?” 

Iron Will sighed.  “They’d say ‘no.’ Minotaurs.”  He shrugged.

---------------
Ponyville was as renowned for its splendid atmosphere as its unimaginative writers.  On the walls of Miss Cheerilee’s schoolhouse was the phrase, “It was a beautiful day in Ponyville, and...”  The whole thing had a red “X” written over it, with the words “DO NOT USE AGAIN” scrawled beneath.

Regardless,  it was a pretty nice day when Tirek teleported to Ponyville.

He appeared in the marketplace in a flash of light.  The centaur turned up his nose at the chirping, cheerful throng.  He walked down the street, ignoring the sounds of business as he scanned the village with glowing eyes.

The Ponyvillians were less focused.

Screams broke out as the strange monster strolled amongst the villagers.  More than twice as big as a pony,  most witnesses fled shrieking from the sight of him.  Several others stood in shock, unable to process the sudden change.  Three of the town flower-girls fainted immediately.

Tirek paid them little heed.  He reached out his new senses among the houses.  Opening himself to Discord’s powers felt like eavesdropping on a large chatty crowd, and he worked to distinguish the noise (seventy-five ponies slept within three blocks of him, and he could name their dreams in order) from the useful intelligence.

He stepped over a prone pony while careless treading over another unconscious soul’s mane.  Thoughts of vengeance filled his head as he opened his consciousness to the heartbeat of the cosmos.

___

Inside the Carousel Boutique, Rainbow Dash welcomed the screams of terror.  Anything was better than being Rarity’s model.  Her teeth worked furiously to undo the largest train of her dress as Rarity moved to the window.

“Wuh es et,”  she growled through a mouth of scintillating silk.

Rarity gasped as she peered at the town.  She threw a hoof across her forehead, and Rainbow wondered (not for the first time) if Rarity acted that way deliberately.

“My goodness!  Rainbow, it’s some kind of monster!”

Rainbow hurried to the window as fast as her corset would allowed, although not careful enough to keep the hat and wig in place.  Her face lit up with delight at the sight of the necromancer.

“Ah, sweet!  That’s Tirek!”

Rarity blinked.  “Dear, you know I’d never wish to impugn your education,  Still, where did you pull that particular knowledge from?”

Dash rushed to her saddlebags, carefully stepping out of enough lace to make a particularly racy (and somewhat ineffective) ship’s mast.  She drew a pair of bronze-rimmed flight goggles out of her bag and clicked them into place with glee.  “Rarity, the only time I ever paid attention in history class was the parts about Firefly’s adventures.  She’s not just awesome, she’s a Cloudsdale national hero!  And now, I get to follow in the wingbeats of the pegasus who took Tirek down to funky town.”

Rarity drew in her breath.  “Oh, my.  You simply can’t be serious!  Rushing that thing on your own would invite disaster!  It looks so dangerous.”

Rarity expected a disappointed glare from the eager warrior-to-be.  She was shocked at the cheerful response thrown her way.

“On my own?”  Rainbow snorted.  “Heck, I’m bringing back-up.”  Her grin made Rarity shrink back.

“No, no, no!  I could never resort to such hoofticuffs.  What good would I possibly be, dear?”

Rainbow pushed open the windows.  “Gee, I dunno.  I just thought the mare who rushed and bucked a manticore, kung fu fought AJ, and nag-smacked changelings with a grin would have my back.”  She turned to Rarity, hope written across her face.

The reluctant mare sighed.  “Very well.  At the very least I could try a diplomatic approach.”  As Dash flew out of the window, Rarity muttered under her breath.  “Thanks for the mandatory athletics, Father.  If you could see me now, you would have let me take ballet.”

____

A quivering Fluttershy sat behind a garbage can.  As her teeth started chattering the rabbit next to her covered her mouth and shook his head.  She nodded, tears rolling down her cheek.  He offered a smile as he removed his paw.

“I-I know, Angel.  I’m just so scared.  Wherever could that monster have come from?”

Angel shrugged as he hefted a nearby board-with-a-nail and swung it experimentally.

Fluttershy gasped.  “Oh, no.  We couldn’t possible confront him.  Why don’t we slip out the back of town?”

Angel gave her a withering look.  He suddenly kicked her into a pile of trash and lifted his club as powerful hoofsteps entered the alley.  

“I sense something,” Tirek said as he reached out with mental feelers.  “A presence I’ve not felt in . . . ” 

Rainbow Dash slammed into the ground on three hooves, keeping the fourth at the requisite jaunty angle pointing away.  The shockwave shook the alley, sending garbage cans rolling and Fluttershy into a exposed faint.  Dash looked up from the ground with a practiced grin.  Inwardly, she hoped all those weekends spent honing the “Three Hoof Drop” paid off.

“You’re not going anywhere, Tirek!”

Rarity ran into the alley with enough time to see Rainbow’s opening salvo.  Panting, she rolled her eyes and leaned against the wall.

“To think they call moi melodramatic.”

Tirek stepped closer toward the ponies.  He smiled as Angel took up position beside Dash.

“After all this searching I have finally found you.  The scion of my old nemesis lies before me.  Blood of Firefly, you will kneel before Tirek.”

Rainbow gasped as Angel Bunny charged.

“Really? Blood of Firefly? Me? Oh, this is going to be so... ”

Tirek raised a hand and telekinetically flung the starstruck pegasus and charging rabbit down the alley.

“Cease your meaningless prattle.  I have no business with you.”

As Fluttershy stared into the sky shaking, she saw a grinning crimson face peer down at her.

“Greetings, scion of a worthy foe.  Today is the day you were born to suffer through.”

Rainbow Dash pulled herself out of a garbage pile with burning ears.  Her brain almost refused to deal with the sight in front of her.

“FLUTTERSHY?  No way!  Come on, Tirek.  You’re joking, right.”

The necromancer spared an irritated glance at the pegasus.  Snapping his fingers made a garbage can leapt into the air and twisted around Rainbow’s mouth, legs, and wings.  She stared at Tirek in impotent fury.  Next to her sat Angel Bunny in a dumpster-derived bird cage.

“I am not to be addressed so familiarly, pony.  Be still. Be silent.  The destiny that transpires here is above those as common as you.”

He sighed in exasperation as Rarity stepped towards him.  “What is it now?”

She stamped her hoof, lowered her head and growled.  “Good sir, if I may use that title for one such as you, please remove yourself from our presence!  If we can’t find a common diplomatic ground, let me assure you that no claw shall be laid on my friends!”  She leapt onto her rear hooves into a fighting stance.

Tirek laughed as he craned his head down toward Fluttershy.  “I like this one.  There is fire in her.  Is there nothing you will say in her defense, my enemy?”

Fluttershy quivered and stammered.   “P-please leave her alone.”  She narrowed her eyes.  “L-leave us all alone and go away.”

Tirek considered her before looking at Rarity and Rainbow Dash again.  He shrugged as he snapped his fingers.  Fluttershy disappeared in a blink of energy.  Rarity roared (or possibly screeched) as she jump kicked toward Tirek.  He snapped again, freezing her in the air.  Her limbs refused to respond, but her rage-filled eyes followed Tirek as he calmly walked around her.

“Is it possible that ponies have grown a backbone?  Unicorn, your friend will suffer in anticipation until I have time to deal with her at length.  After some more pressing business I may just return to take your mettle.”  Her rubbed a claw along the underside of her chin.  “It may prove a most amusing diversion.”

Tirek vanished as Rarity fell to the ground.  Dash and Angel exchanged worried looks inside their metal prisons as the wrathful seamstress smashed her hooves against the pavement and screamed incoherently.  
_____

As Twilight Sparkle and Iron Will passed a seemingly endless supply of sleeping evil, the magic-user wracked her brain over the entire incident.

“Okay, sleep spells are magic spells. The prisoners can’t do magic.  How does that work?”

Twilight rubbed her chin as she looked upward.  She briefly wished for a chalkboard to work on.

“Alright.  Iron Will, every prisoner in here has a magic suppression spell on them, right?”

Iron shrugged, drawing an exasperated breath from Twilight.

“Mister Will, its your city-complex!  Don’t they teach this in school?  I had to do a report on it in Canterlot!  Well, more like I handed in an extra credit paper, but the principle is the same.”

His hands tightened on the axe.

“Lady, I don’t even live here anymore, and you can be sure that when I did no one cared about drumming any civic pride into me.”  He drew a long breath and straightened his shoulders.  “Iron Will says that you need to focus on solutions, not problems.”  

“Okay,” Twilight said while cocking a hoof at him, “I know I’ve heard you use personal pronouns before.  What’s up with that?”

Iron shrugged.  “I slip into character when I’m flustered.”

He rolled his eyes at her incredulous look.

“Look, if you wanted a minotaur wizard go talk to a fire mage at Hurloon Academy.  You’ve got a motivational speaker with an axe, and it’s worked so far.  Let’s not focus on our limits . . . ”

“Limits!  Iron, that’s genius!”

“Of course,” he said cheerfully without comprehension.  A career in show business had taught Iron Will to never looked flustered when the customer is having a happy moment.  He considered how to goad her without giving away his ignorance.  “So, obviously . . . ”

Twilight was now bouncing around the minotaur.  “The suppression spell has to have a limit!  If a prisoner could suddenly gave a boost to their magical power, they could overcome the suppression limit.  It’d be simple enough to push the dweomercraft until . . . ”

Twilight stopped as Iron put a hand in front of her mouth.  Using his axe he gestured to an opened cell marked “NO-HEART.”

The minotaur lowered himself to Twilight’s level.  “Okay, I’m going to go in.  You stay out here.”

He suddenly stared into the eyes of a very angry mare.

“I’m not some helpless ambassador,” she whispered forcefully.  “I’m the student of the Princess!  I’ve bravely beaten boasting baddies before.”

Iron made incomplete gestures with his hands as he tried to spin this problem.  “Look, I know.  I’ve read your file,” he lied.  “But if something jumps us, I can take the beating well while you send a rescue spell.  Let’s optimize our skill sets.”

Twilight reluctantly nodded at Iron’s disarming grin.  He turned and stepped towards the cell.

“Besides,” he whispered, “the guards say that this guy’s a pushover.  I hear he’s reformed so well the guards relaxed the anti-magic wards on him.”

Twilight’s mind raced as Iron tipped-hoofed inside the cell.  Long seconds passed in silence.

“Iron, is everything okay?  I’ve been thinking... ”

A moment passed.

“Uh.  I can deal with this on my own, Twilight.  You don’t need to come in.  One question, though. If an inmate had his magic ward relaxed, say just enough so he could run the prison drink cart, could someone else steal his magic?”  Iron Will paused.  “Think about it outside.”

Twilight nodded, then blushed as she realized no one was looking.  She peered at the small text on the “No-Heart” sign.  “His information says this prisoner’s a wizard, right?  A mortal’s magic is normally tied to their life force.  You can’t take it while they’re alive.”

More silence intruded.

“Well, what if that didn’t matter to someone?”

Twilight gasped.  “What’s inside that cell, Iron Will?”

“Nothing,” he shouted.  “Just a . . . sleeping wizard.  He’s in Slumberland.  I’m just putting his cute little green teddy bear in his arms, now.”

Twilight broke the silence first.

“You said he had reformed before . . . “

There was the sound of hooves being wiped against the wall before Iron Will walked out and nodded.  “Yeah, he was their big success story.  Accepted Celestia as his Lady and Guidance.  I guess someone has his power now.”  He paused and saw a unicorn about to cry.  “Before he fell asleep.”

Twilight swallowed.  “Let’s find out who took his power.”  She walked forward without casting a glance inside No-Heart’s cell.  The pair stayed in silence for moments until a distressed voice called out from the corridor ahead.

“Help me!  Oh for Chaos’ sake would someone please help me!  I’m just going to die!”

“No,” said Twilight Sparkle.

Iron Will moved towards the sound.  “Maybe we should investigate?”

“No,” she repeated with rising anger.  “It’s a trick. Get an axe.”

Iron Will’s eyes shifted uncomfortably as he lifted his prison standard issue double-axe.  Twilight giggled nervously.

“Okay, you’re prepared! Good.  Now be ready to use it.”

The voice drew closer.  “Oh, someone please help me!  I fear my legs are going to fall off.  I haven’t used them this much in centuries!  How do mortals deal with putting them one in front of another endlessly?  What I wouldn’t give for my powers back.”

An exhausted mixture of parts dragged himself into view.  Twilight stared in hatred, but Discord was staring too intensely at his own wings to notice.

“Useless little things.  I mean, their handsome and striking, but being able to fly would be useful.”

Discord screamed as a blast of magical energy knocked him off of his feet.  He gasped as four hooves settled onto his chest.  Looking up revealed a lavender horn glowing with a blinding light and two merciless eyes just beneath them.

“Oh.  Hello, there!”  Discord flashed the “Don’t Hit Me Grin” that had mostly worked for him that day. “I’m kind of in a mess right now, so if you can help me it’d be great.”

“Discord.”

The pinned draconequus shivered.  “I’d never forget that timber of righteous indignation.  Twilight Sparkle!  How good of you to come rescue me.”

Iron Will stepped to the side of the two.  He marveled at the change that had come over the intellectual dignitary; she was channeling a rage that would have gotten her invited to Iron’s mother’s girls-night-outs.

“Twilight, is this guy a problem?”

She looked up with hair that had suddenly become frazzled and a wide grin.  “Nope, nope, nope!  Didn’t you hear?”  She turned her terrifying glance towards the draconequus.  “He’s fine and vulnerable and powerless, didn't you hear?  Why, he’s totally at our mercy.”

Discord threw an arm over his forehead.  “Oh, now we see the violence inherent in the system.  Please spare me, Miss Sparkle.  I’m the victim here.”

Iron Will gently put his hand on Twilight’s shoulder.  She sighed as she stepped off of the groaning trickster.  He pulled himself to his feet with great difficulty and grinned at the steaming unicorn.

“Twilight, my dear, let’s be reasonable,” Discord said as he wiped grime off of his coat.  “There’s no reason to be frightened.  I may have been temporarily AH!”

Discord grabbed his side as Twilight withdrew the tip of her horn.  Iron Will gave her a disapproving look.

“What?  I didn’t even draw blood.  Besides, his claim to have lost his powers is an extraordinary one, and requires replicable empirical evidence.”

The minotaur was about to respond when Discord threw himself at Iron Will’s feet.

“Please, good sir!  Please help me.  I’ve always been a fan of your people and their incessant lack of a fear of immolation.”  Discord started sweating as he saw Iron’s eyes widen.  “I beg you as a minotaur to help me, and in deference to you upbringing I’ll even use small words as I do so.”

Iron Will considered this.  “How much evidence, Twilight?”

The draconequus drew himself up and crossed his arms.  “Really?  Ladies and gentlethings, behold the heroes of the piece: Mister and Misses Random Violence.”

“Hey, I am trying to do serious research!”

“And we are not a couple!”

Discord smiled.  The age old trick of putting others on the defensive had worked.  Having the least amount of control he had possessed in centuries, Discord relished mastering the conversation.  

“Well, the heroes have vanquished my confidence.  I seriously doubt you’ll have any luck even finding the one who stole my powers.”

The gleeful trickster spun away from Twilight and Iron Will.  He mouth the words silently as Twilight asked, “Who stole them, Discord?”

So predictable, he thought.  Better play to it.  Heroes feel like they’re in change when they’re asking questions.

“Well, his name is Tirek. He’s a Sagittarius, of course.  He happens to like eternal darkness, thrones of skulls, and long walks on the beach.”

Discord turned to his audience, but his gloating expression quickly disappeared.  He expected the frumpy librarian to pepper him with questions, not charge him with her horn.  He threw his arms in front of him, but lifting his feet to hover away only succeeded in connecting his rump with the floor.  It was a sensation that had occurred recently so often he was starting to become bored with it.

Twilight hesitated within a few inches of Discord, stopping sudden with a pained squeak.  Behind her the prone prankster saw Iron Will, his gruff savior, holding Twilight’s tail at the base.  Discord blew out a breath and giggled in hysterical nervousness.

“Just a little joke, Twilight! Try to have a sense of humor about these things.  It was funny!”

The furious librarian advanced on Discord. Staring nose-to-nose with a unicorn became especially uncomfortable as Discord angled his head to avoid impalement.

“I don’t trust your assessment of ‘funny,’ Discord.”  Twilight paused to slowly breath in and out several times before continuing. “I remember the worst moment of my life.  Not many ponies can say that.  Usually, they’re exaggerating.  I actually remember it, and you were right next to me, laughing in enjoyment the whole time.”

The powerless draconequus shrugged.  “Did I? My condolences. Was it at least slightly amusing?”

Iron Will averted his eyes from the blinding flare-up of Twilight’s horn. 

“You . . . don’t . . . REMEMBER?”

Now backed into a corner, the trapped trickster held his head high. “Please, Miss Sparkle. The day I amused myself in your tiny hamlet may have been the worst moment of your miserable dull existence.”  He pointedly examined his fingernails. “For me . . . it was Tuesday.”

Iron Will whistled, drawing an irate look from Twilight.  She turned to him with a scowl.  “By the way, mister,” she angrily whispered, “you may be ignorant of pony customs, expressive gestures, and social mores, but trust me on this one point.  If you grab my tail like that again, you better have put a ring on it!”

Discord chuckled at the tirade that had gotten progressively louder with each sentence.  “Well, this little outing may turn out to be more amusing than I thought.  Shall we go?  I warn you, I may need the burly bull to carry me.”

Twilight laughed in disbelief.  “Why, do you want us as bodyguards? Good idea.  If I were you, I’d be scared of how many ponies will line up to take a shot at you! Heck, you made Pinkie Pie mad! Pinkie! That’s almost disallowed by physical law!”

Iron Will scowled.  He stepped toward Discord and leaned down.  Twilight couldn’t help trying to calculate the draconequus to minotaur body mass ratio.  It wasn’t very equal.

“Listen to Iron Will, funny guy, and listen good.  Hear Iron Will now and understand him later, for he will use small words for your benefit.”

Twilight smiled.  I could get to like that “in-character” thing.

“Why should Iron Will drag your miserable carcass out of here, you feckless pile of hydra dung?”

Discord smiled.

“Because I’m in control here.  Sure, you can run over hill and dale chasing a teleporter with omniscience.  It’ll amuse me to contemplate while you tiny, provincial world falls apart.  But I . . . ”

Discord breathed in their anticipatory attention as he stretched out his sentence.

“ . . . I know where we need to go.  I know how to get there.  Also, just a minor point, I’m one of less than a dozen remaining beings who know how to ring the doorbell.”

___

Tirek regarded the Canterlot gardens as he walked toward the castle.  A bevy of exotic animals hid from him, quivering in dark corners.  This had already put him in a good mood.  Approaching the nearest door to the castle brought him to the border of the statutory area.  Stopping near a fountain, he folded his arms behind his back and regarded a recently restored alicorn statue.  Minutes passed with the only sound provided by the flowing water and Tirek’s recollections.

Whether cruel fate or an uncaring universe, it was the worst possible moment for Prince Blueblood to walk his poodles in the garden.

Four tiny fluff-balls barked angrily at him.  Their leashes lay upon the ground, no longer held by the now-dim horn of their terrified master.  Prince Blueblood stared in shock with his mouth open, unable to form words at the sight of the grinning necromancer.

Tirek regarded him for long moment with a smile.  He sardonically nodded to Blueblood.

“So, noblestallion of Canterlot, I assume you have been educated as to who I am?”

The only answer was a strangled whimper.  Tirek stepped closer and leaned close to Blueblood.

“I couldn’t quite make that out.”

The only change in the whimper was one of volume.  Tirek shrugged and turned to the noisy poodles.  He looked back at Blueblood with eyebrows raised in amusement.

“Shall you set your hounds upon me?”

Blueblood licked his lips as his brain restarted.  “Oh, please don’t touch my babies!  They’re not bred for confrontation.”

“And neither are you,” Tirek concluded as he walked around the prince.  “I wonder what your forefathers who claimed this land would have thought.  You caught me pausing to think here before the true difficulty starts, but I sense no threat from you.”

Tirek glowered at the withering Blueblood.  The shivering noble started walking backwards toward the castle.

“Or . . . do what you want to them!  They’re just dogs, after all.  I’ll be in the castle . . . the one a few countries over.”

Tirek stared disbelieving as Blueblood turned and ran.  Casting his eyes down, he thoughtfully regarded at the pack of yapping poodles.  One of them leapt forward and began to gnaw ineffectually on Tirek’s leg.

“To think, in your master flows the bloodline that claimed Dream Valley.”  Tirek snapped his fingers as Blueblood disappeared behind a shrubbery wall, and the prince reappeared in front of him.  Blueblood quaked as Tirek regarded him.  The centaur pointed a finger at the poodle trying without success to sever his ankle.

“Do you know what is the single difference between you and these useless, thin-blooded, pompous show dogs?”

Blueblood swallowed.  Faced with the first important decision in his life. his brain froze and screamed for help.

Tirek’s mouth remained in a thin, disappointed line.  “These scrawny things still possess the will to fight.  You are more domesticated than they.”  He suddenly smiled.  “And I have a habit of collecting domesticated royalty . . . ”

Tirek snapped his fingers, and Blueblood’s body broke.  The prince screamed as his coat fell off of his face and his teeth reformed.  His hooves pushed into the ground in pain before splitting into claws.  He looked at them in shock as the flesh of on his back exploded, the sounds of leathery flaps coming to his ears as he scrunched his shoulders.

Tirek nodded in satisfaction.  “Stand up, former prince.”

Blueblood sobbed as he tried to wipe the tears away.  “What have you done?”  He flinched in pain as one of the pointy things at the end of his ruined hooves poked him in the eye.

The centaur smashed his hoof into the ground.  His fist balled at his side, Tirek bellowed at the ruined unicorn.  “I command you to stand!”

Only two beings ever dared to yell at Prince Blueblood, and both controlled heavenly bodies.  He had long since developed the instinct to respond with immediate servitude when screamed at.  He willed himself to stand.  He lifted his front half off the ground and twisted upright at an impossible angle.

Tirek nodded and crossed his arms.  “Good.”  He cast an amused finger towards the fountain. ”Now, look at yourself.  See the inside of you painted upon the outside.”

“I . . . ”

“Walk.  Now.”

The blubbering thing that was once royalty turned and fell over on unfamiliar legs.  He felt Tirek’s hand grab the back of his neck as he was lifted into the air.  Blueblood was dangled over the fountain.  He screamed as he looked down, beholding a creature with a naked, fanged muzzle topping the body of a clawed ape with bat wings.  It screamed back in his own voice.

Tirek laughed deeply, dropping Blueblood into the water.  Blueblood stared out into nothing until Tirek’s voice drew his attention back to the pain of reality.

“You are now my gargoyle, noble.”  Tirek snorted.  “You are now and forever my Scorpan.  You will serve me.”

The thing in the fountain stared at his ruined and split hooves wriggling in front of his face.  “Serve . . . you?”

Tirek rolled his eyes.  “Of course, idiot.”  He turned to the poodles.  “After all,” he said with a grin, “I need someone to look after my dragons.”

Tirek snapped his fingers.

.____

Minutes later a small crowd of nightmares disappeared from the Canterlot gardens.  Tirek walked into the nearest castle door and beheld a busy kitchen.  Ponies rushed back and forth around him, decorating cheesecakes, transporting platters of cranberries, and producing minor towers of dishes and utensils that were unceremoniously dropped into a huge bathtub that could be regarded as a sink.  

“Do I still need to eat, I wonder?”  Tirek mused aloud as he examined the edible fineries around him.  “If so, should I cure myself of that particular habit?”

The kitchen workers stopped to stare at the ominous voice.  The wait staff was inured to midnight snack runs by demigods. They didn’t run at the sight of the necromancer.  An agitated head chef, showing that civilization does indeed dull the instincts hard won by natural selection, trotted up to Tirek irately.

“What is the meaning of this?  I demand to know!”

Tirek smiled.

“Historians would debate the meaning of this moment, perhaps.  That is, if I intended to leave any of them around.  You’ll know, I suppose.”

His brain finally noticing his instincts’ screaming, the blood quickly drained from the attendant’s face as Tirek stepped closer to him.  The rest of the kitchen staff watched, spellbound.  Tirek laid a hand on the quaking pony’s shoulder in a gesture that only the pathologically hopeful would interpret positively.

“One day in the future, when you foolishly assume I cannot hear you, you will whisper to your grandchildren that this was the moment Equestria as you knew it died.  On that day, no matter where I am, I will hear you.  I will laugh.  I will remember you, little pony.”  Tirek’s grin widened.  “Do hope that I am in a good mood on that day.  Pray to me for indulgence.”

He removed his hand, taking time to gently pat the pony’s shoulder.  It sent the attendant to the ground in front of Tirek as his knees gave out.

Tirek cocked his head at the sprawled pony.  “That is not an inappropriate gesture.”  He turned away, dismissing the wait staff with a wave of his hand.  “Now, go.  Tell her I am here.  I am certain she can sense me by now, but I want her to remember the day her terrified subjects ran to her to herald me.”

Tirek was quickly alone in the kitchen.  He idly picked up a platter of cake and stared at it in contemplation before shrugging and returning it to the counter.  The centaur waited for a space of minutes until the screaming had subsided.  Assuring himself of his fairness in this, Tirek stepped out into the empty castle, making his way to the throne room through hallways he once knew well.

He stopped just outside the throne room door.  Tirek stared at the wall and seemed to consider something.  Nodding in decision, he snapped his fingers, prompting the throne room to fill with a tinkling sound.  Momentarily, he stepped in.

The great hall of Canterlot Castle had barely changed over the centuries.  Tirek noted the familiar boasts of victory immortalized in stained glass.  He smiled at the turns of destiny as he noticed one familiar window, finally recognizing a handful of mares he had met only that day.  Past the windows and the dozens of armed and armored pony warriors trapped up to their neck in glass cubes was Princess Celestia.  She stood upon her dais,  hair whipping more than he recalled, wings outstretched.  He felt the hate radiating off of her and smiled.

Stepping forward casually, Tirek chuckled as his gaze passed over the squirming, trapped guards. “Really, you still have soldiers here?  Do you now hide behind your troops, Celestia?”

“I relieved them of their duty,” she answered with an unwavering gaze. “They stayed, regardless.”

“Hmm.”  He scratched his neck, and yawned, reveling in the visible aggravation that bubbled to Celestia’s face at his disdain.  “Is that loyalty to be commended or insubordination to be punished?  How do you judge that act, Solar Tyrant?”

Celestia’s eyes narrowed.

“Let them go, Tirek.  You quarrel is with me.”  She stepped towards the front of her platform.  “Such cruel acts ill suit beings of power like us.”

Tirek laughed.  “My little tyrant, being capable of such acts are the only true justification to obtain power.  They stay.  They bear witness to this for future generations.”

He stepped toward her, slowly and nonchalantly.  “Where would your sister happen to be?  If she’s unoccupied, I would . . . ”

Celestia kicked off the floor with her rear hooves, wings carrying her forward as she swept her horn into Tirek.  From behind Tirek, a trapped guard felt hope as he saw the front horntip disappear into black armor.  The necromancer grabbed the base of the horn with his hands and yanked her head out.  Celestia stood on her hind legs as her front hooves flared with light, leaving heated marks on Tirek’s chest as she pummeled him.

He grimaced as he held Celestia’s horn with both arms.  His hands twisted in opposite directions, sending a cloud of sparks flaring around the room.  The princess gasped in pain as she placed her hooves steadily on Tirek’s shoulders.  She strained forward, lowered her head towards Tirek by inches.

“Yield . . . tyrant.”  Tirek grunted with effort as he struggled to keep grasp of Celestia.  He strained with effort, a spurt of magic blasting the ceiling as the slight sound of alabaster cracking filled the silence.  “Yield, lest I make a wish.”

Celestia snorted and whipped her head back, flapping with both wings.  Tirek was flung into the air behind her, the castle wall behind him shattering as his back impacted it.  A cheer raised from one of the trapped ponies.  Tirek lifted himself onto his knees and gave the imprisoned guard next to him a withering glare.

“You . . . ”  Tirek breathed in and out slowly.  “You still have faith in her?”

A determined nod answered him.

Tirek placed his hand on the cube and used it to help himself stand up from the pile of scattered dust, broken masonry, and dark droplets.  “That will make this all the sweeter.”

He turned to Celestia, noting with satisfaction that amongst the flaring mane of colors a trickle of red ran down the horn.  Her hair streamed wildly around her as she stared at him, unafraid.  He chuckled.

“Now I understand how a trickster of such simple tastes could find himself smitten with such equally simple glory.  Tell me, how did the Faery Queen manage to best such a spirit?  I was incredulous when the news came to Tartaurus.  You once slew three of her ilk at once with only horn beams.”

Celestia’s eyes narrowed.  She lowered her horn, spread her wings, and reared back while lifting her front hooves into a still position.  A modern sculptor would have assumed she was posing classically for intimidation purposes.  Only beings such as the one she faced now would recognize a stance in the ancient martial art that stained the ground at the Battle of Dream Valley.  Tirek subconsciously moved into a defensive posture.

“It was true love, Tirek.  She stole the power of true love for her own purposes.”

He laughed, circling Celestia.  “In that case, I offer you the chance to relent.  You shall certainly have no chance against me.”
        
As he drew closer to her, Celestia turned to keep her horn pointing at him.  “Stand down, Tirek.  Lavan approached me in this way, and he was shattered in turn.”

Tirek chuckled as he slowly drew closer.  “The Magma Demon was a fool.  I am not.”

Celestia’s gaze never wavered.  “He was confident because of his stolen power.  Perhaps that sounds familiar?”

In response, Tirek galloped across the castle floor, cracks appearing where his hooves smashed the ground.  Celestia fell forward effortlessly, like a leaf blown by the wind.  In that single movement, her horn glowed as it swept sideways.  Parts of Tirek disappeared, and nearby parts blackened.  

He gave a low growl as both of his hands grabbed Celestia’s mane.  Grunting with effort, he spun away from her while pulling upward, sparks playing along his hands.  Celestia was dragged off of her hooves and into the air.  She spread her wings and flapped with all her might to attain control.  Barely slowing, the princess screamed wordlessly as Tirek slammed her into the ground.  

Tirek released her mane and smiled as he approached the fallen alicorn.  She struck with her back leg, connecting with Tirek’s right foreleg and forcing it to bend unnaturally.  He snarled as he took ahold of her wings, and Celestia kicked out in defiance as she was lifted off of the ground.  The princess gasped in pain as his fingers tensely clenched her feathers before hurling her across the room.  Trapped ponies screamed as their ruler was pitched through a castle wall.  The marble bricks scattered like kicked children’s blocks as the side of Canterlot Castle shivered, its foundations starting to crumble.

Tirek pushed his hand into his wet side as he limped outside.  He paused to regard a horrified captive guardspony.

“Do you . . . think any less of her . . . now that her blood is smeared across her throne room?”

The paralyzed soldier gritted his teeth.  Tears he was unable to wipe away ran down his face.

“She bleeds for me.  She bleeds for us all, monster.  We would do the same for her.”

Tirek raised an eyebrow.  “Hmph.  Ponies.  Stronger than I thought.”

He leaned against a jagged wall and pulled himself outside.  Celestia was dirt-covered, bleeding, and already standing.  Heavenly parents, she thought, I thank you for giving me enough strength to get on my feet before the beast saw me.  Let it get no satisfaction from me.

Tirek half-collapsed as he pushed himself through a fence, bending the painted purple iron before throwing it aside.  “You don’t look good, Celestia.  No one would immortalize the wretch in front of me in statuary now.”

Celestia suppressed a cough, swallowing something warm.  “You look worse.”

He nodded.  “I concede the point.  The question remains as to which of us will be standing in several minutes time.  I confess that in spite of the danger, I find myself too curious to stop.”

“STOP!  FOUL BEAST, LAY NOT ANOTHER TOUCH UPON MY SISTER!”

Tirek smiled as Celestia’s eyes widened in fear for the first time that day.  “She’s noticed my presence, tyrant.  She’s coming.”

Celestia began pulling herself towards the necromancer.  “I can end you before she arrives.  Whatever the cost, you will never see her.”

He raised a hand toward the advancing alicorn.  “Hold your . . . prattling.  I never tested the extent of Discord’s power . . . but I assume this will work.”

Clouds pulled across the sky, racing at a breakneck pace.  Lightning flashed, striking around the perimeter of the gardens.  Tirek paid the weather no heed, focusing on his own efforts.  Celestia closed her eyes and ran at the necromancer, horn pointed at his heart.

I don’t care what happens to me now now.  Luna’s strong enough.  She’ll nurture Equestria.  Only please, Lord of Galaxies and Lady of the Nebulae, please let me kill him before she arrives.


Celestia flung herself forward toward the chest and into the hands of Tirek, closing her eyes for what she assumed was the last time.

Tirek disappeared in a flash of light.  Celestia smashed against the castle wall, sending cracks rippling through the marble.  She drew labored breaths as she turned around.

A fully healed Tirek stood a dozen paces away.  He was politely clapping as he smiled at Celestia.  The wind around them both whipped into a frenzy as four hooves landed on the rubble like thunderclaps.  A determined voice whispered behind Celestia.

“I am here, sister.”

Oh, Luna.  I’ve failed you.  I failed to spare you this.

Princess Luna’s eyes glowed with power.  Electricity crackled along her dark-blue coat.  She stepped into front of her sagging sibling and stared at Tirek.	

“THOU DARES!  THOU DARES TO RETURN MY GAZE UNAFRAID AFTER LAYING THY FILTHY CLAWS UPON MY SISTER?”

Tirek stood stiffly, breathing in the sight of Luna.  He dropped to one knee, lowered his head and swept his hands outwards.

“Indeed, Queen of Stars and Shadow.  All this I do and more,” he said in a careful tone.  “I would do anything to give you the glory you truly deserve, my Lady of the Night.  My heart and soul is yours, Nightmare Moon.”

The power left Luna’s eyes as she gasped in shock.  Celestia’s heart leapt into her throat.

Please, Luna.  This time, please don’t listen to him.
> Chapter 3: The Crimson King
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chaos and Darkness
By Paleo Prints
Chapter 3: The Crimson King


Discord was hungry, and this nauseated him.

From a purely intellectual level, Discord understood the concept of food.  He realized there were things that ponies needed to put inside themselves every-so-often.  If not, they tend to fall over and stop being entertaining no matter how much you shake them.  They seemed to get up again after you gave them something designated as “food.”  He had always assumed the inside of a pony resembled something like a stove, and had never been curious enough to waste his omnipotence checking.  After all, he’d have to break a pony to do it, and broken ponies don’t scream.

After a day of travel outside Tartarus, his insides had started to hurt.

“Something’s wrong inside of me,” he told Iron Will.  “There’s bubbles and things.  Do something about it.  It’s . . . inconvenient.”

Iron nodded as he continued walking through the forest.  A full minute passed.  Discord immediately felt a shiver of impatience.  This was affecting him, and that made it the group’s top priority.

“I don’t think you understand,” Discord said as he grabbed Iron Will’s shoulder.  “This ‘being mortal’ thing is causing me pain!”

Iron Will regarded Discord silently.  He nodded.

“Good.  That means it's working.”

Discord snorted.  “Twilight!  Iron Will’s being mean to me!”

Twilight Sparkle looked up from the old minotaur map she was pouring over.  She briefly glanced at the two near-identical overgrown forest paths in front of her and sighed.  “All right, boys,” she said, resigning herself to another stop.  “What is it now?”

Discord huffed as he walked up the hill toward Twilight.  “I’m in pain, and he doesn’t care,” he said as he threw an accusing claw at Iron Will.

Twilight paused, looking at Iron Will.  “Is this true?”

Iron leaned against a tree and looked up, holding his chin in hand.  After a second of contemplation, he nodded.  “Yup,” he said with a smile.

Twilight returned the grin.  “Okay, since everything’s going according to schedule, let’s move on.  This lead better pan out, Discord.”  All levity disappeared as she said, “I’d have much rather headed straight to Ponyville.”

“Oh, it’ll work.  Believe me, Tirek’s brain is like a rolling boulder.  You can predict the path, and it leads straight to Canterlot through your little town.”

Twilight blinked.  She approached Discord, her hooves making clouds of dust as they slammed into the ground.  “I thought that you said there’d be no reason to go to Ponyville?”

He nodded.  “Of course not.  He’s undoubtedly already neutralized your little Elemental Harmony Squad.  I’m betting on him imprisoning the angry little blue one.  What was her name, Firefly?”  He giggled as Twilight felt the ground drop out from under her hooves.  “We’re going to the only thing he wouldn’t think of.”

Twilight’s wet eyes whipped away from Discord as she turned back onto the trail.  Iron Will quickened his pace to walk to place a tentative hand on quivering shoulders.

Discord snorted.  “All right, we’ve reassured ourselves that listening to me is the best plan.  Now, can someone please assist me,” he said as he clutched his stomach.  “I . . . I think I need something in me.”

His reluctant companions did nothing, sharing a look as they were suddenly paralyzed by imagination.  Taking out the map, the pair mutually decided to find it more riveting than Discord.

Discord deflated as he saw them continue into the dark forest.  He threw back his head and screamed to the wind.

“Will nopony think about what’s really important here?”

As Iron Will looked in his direction, Discord suddenly knew what it meant to be a tree:  stuck in one spot and terrified of axes.  He stayed rooted to the spot as the axe moved closer; possibly there was a minotaur connected, but some details were trivial.

The axe stopped in front of him as a voice spoke to him in a cheerfulness usually reserved for spiders asking a trapped fly about the weather.

“All right you sad pile of whining and whinging, do you think there’s something wrong with your insides?”

Discord swallowed and nodded.

Something attached to the axe snorted.  The knuckles around it turned light gray.  “Well, if you keep whining about it, I’m going to take a close look.”

As the axe turned back to the trail, Discord kept a respectful distance from it.

___

The shattered side of Canterlot Castle offered a view onto the red-stained grounds of the garden.  From his paralyzed position inside his conjured clear block, one of the guardponies had a full view of the imminent battle.  With the injured Celestia joined by Princess Luna the beast had apparently surrendered, dropping onto its knees in supplication.  Despite all this, the guard wished her could explain the internal chill he felt that had nothing to his glassy prison.

Had he been outside his trepidation would only have been worse.  Hearing Tirek’s voice would have been one thing.  Seeing the stunned shock in Princess Luna’s eyes would have been another entirely.

“What . . . What did thou darest call us?”

Tirek opened his eyes but kept them respectfully downcast.  As he did so, Luna searched his countenance for any hint of the sarcasm that so many would-be conquerors had leveled at her over the millennia.  It’s absence was more terrifying than raw power.

“Nightmare Moon,” said Tirek.  “I pay homage to the beautiful creature who fully embraced her own glory, and humbly beg your indulgence to remain in your presence.”

Celestia threw a wing over her sister and pulled herself into a standing position.  She grit her teeth as she whispered into Luna’s ear.

“Don’t listen to him.  Strike.”

Luna felt the world fall out from underneath her as she turned to Celestia.  Tirek noticed how she turned her attention off of him in the heat of combat.  He resolved to speak to Luna about this weakness to her after the fight.

“Sister!”  Luna breathlessly spoke to Celestia.  “Sure you have not forgotten the second chance you offered to me, to Grogar, and even to Discord?  Where has your famed mercy gone?”

Celestia coughed.  “Spread across the throne room floor.”

Tirek raised his eyes to Luna.  “If I may speak?”

“No!”  Powerful hooves beat an irregular rhythm as Celestia pulled herself between Luna and Tirek.  “You may not!  My sister has heard enough of your lies and flattery to last an eon!”

“That is for her to decide.”  Tirek’s eyes flared like angry comets.  “That is, unless you now command her as well as pass judgement, tyrant.”

Luna placed a restraining feather touch on Celestia’s mane.  “Sister, he is prone.  I have never known you to strike a yielding foe.  In your condition, perhaps we should indeed parley.”  Luna leaned closer to Celestia’s ear.  “Do not think for a moment I have forgotten who caused that condition.  My restraint does not shield my eyes.”

In Celestia’s life, she had committed three actions that she regretted above all others.  The first was an inappropriate comment let slip at a diplomatic dinner during her formative years.  Instead of a soothing word creating understanding, her words lead to decades of internecine war between dragon clans.  In her second moment she said nothing, only stepping away in moonlight from a misshapen creature she still wonders if she could have helped.  The highest of all was the path that lead to a millenia of lonely self-doubt and second guessing.

Looking into Luna’s eyes and seeing her loss again raise its head,  Celestia committed her fourth.

“No, Luna.”

Celestia lowered her horn towards Tirek.  “This creature is not to be trusted, nor his words entertained.  Judge me as you will, but-”  

And then she was gone.

----

Throughout the history of Equestria, legends spoke of the romances between flesh and the divine.  Many a tale spoke of a love that lit the world between beings of vastly different natures.  In the climax of such tales,  the immortal often forsakes their divine power, accepting the burden of mortality to be with their beloved.

Discord never realized how stupid that was until now.

Take itching, for instance.  What rational being could bear the weight of an existence that promised a discomfort like itching?  Also, whose bright idea was it to wire bodies with an automatic reaction that just made things worse?

Discord’s misery was only manageable by focusing on all the better ways mortals could be built.  He almost felt like doing something about it;  perhaps a stern letter could be written.  He reflected on the futility of legs that became tired as he pulled himself panting onto a promontory of rock.  

“Really, I have no idea how you both manage to live like this.”  He pushed onto an elbow to give Twilight and Iron the most pitiful look he could think of.  “I mean, to think of the monotony of placing one foot in front of the other!”  His eyes focused on unseen possibilities.  “Has anyone considered using the left one more, for variety?”

Iron Will considered this statement and filed it with Discord’s eighty-seven previous suggestions on mortality.  This was a part of his brain that neurologically resembled a flaming trash bin.  Still, this one actually had a good point buried inside.

“Twilight, are you holding up all right?”  Iron scooted closer to her along the ground.  “If you need to rest, I can dragon-horsey-thing-sit for a while.”

Twilight pulled a hoofkerchief out of her saddlebags and wiped her brow without taking her attention off of the map.  She gave Iron Will an appraising eye.  “That’s very considerate of you, Mister Will.  I’m not sure I’d be as composed if all of Ponyville were asleep.”

Discord dragged himself into the conversation.  “Which may very well be.”

Iron Will cast a baleful eye at Discord, who shrugged.  “Just trying to be helpful.”

Twilight rolled her eyes.  “That’s a new experience.”  She sighed.

Iron Will nodded.  Standing up he picked up the protesting Discord by the scruff of the neck and deposited him behind a large rock.  Returning to his seat he flashed Twilight a grin.  “I’m just keeping your morale in mind.  We’re counting on you to stay your sharp self.”

Twilight smiled.  “That’s very . . . Wait.”  She squinted at Iron Will.  “You’re doing that thing, aren’t you,” she said with an accusing hoof.  “That motivational thing.  You’re trying to support my sagging spirits with sensitive sympathy!”

Iron Will shrugged.  “Hey, you have to play to your strengths.  It’s either that, or discuss economic theory.”

“You certainly can’t rely on your axe skills,” Twilight replied with a giggle.

Iron Will’s stony countenance reflected his offended national pride.  “What’s wrong with my axe technique?”

Twilight snickered.  She placed the map to her side while pulling herself closer to the offended minotaur to critique his axe-skills.  Her brain’s self-preservation area realized that this was equivalent to offering helpful suggestions about a dragon’s decorative money arrangement capabilities, but it was too curious to say anything.

“Okay, let’s try using physics.”  Twilight smiled, levitating a nearby stick to point at the haft of the axe.  “If you actually swung that with your hands there, you’d probably end up throwing it.”

Iron Will sighed, inwardly telling his national pride to be a good sport try and harder next time.  “I yield to your superior stick-handling, oh wise fingerless one.”

Twilight rolled her eyes, stepping onto her feet.  “Look, I’ll show you how to do it.  It’s a simple matter of fulcrums and forces.  Stand up and I’ll give you some advice.”

Iron Will played along, taking up a position that to his mind emulated a noble minotaur about to bisect an obnoxious ball of yarn.  He gave her his most impressive speaker face.  Unruly audiences quieted in awe at the first look at this stony countenance.  “Like this?”

Twilight chuckled.  “I wish I had a camera.  If you ever needed a new job, you could pose for the covers of my friend Rarity’s favorite novels.  Look,”  she said as she pointed her stick at the weapon,  “lift your grip up higher.”

Iron Will raised his eyebrows.  “Okay, like this.”

Twilight ducked under his arms, lifting herself up with a steadying hoof on his knee.  “Okay, let’s do this earth pony style.”  She grabbed the inside of his right wrist with her teeth, using the other hoof to push the axe head up.

“Like this?”  Iron Will lowered his arms, letting Twilight rest a hoof there.  “You seem a little unbalanced there, Little Miss Physics.”

“Mmph Mmph!”  Twilight released her mouth-grip and swiveled around, rearing onto her hind legs.  “You have to assume that its a third class lever and-- “

And as Twilight turned inside his arms, her back resting against his axe-gripping hands while her hooves bumped against his chest and her nose nearly touching his, she quite forgot the differences between the lever types.

“Um.”

“Um.”

“Pardon me,”  Discord said as he examined his nails.  “Am I interrupting some mortal ritual?”

Iron Will’s hand released in surprised, dropping Twilight unto her back with a thump.  She had enough presence of mind to enfold the axe in a levitation field as her rump hit the ground.

“Oops,” said Iron Will.  “Guess I, um, needed a better technique.”

Discord sighed as Twilight stared off into the distance.  “My body is hurting over every inch.  Can we please get back onto the road toward my ability to levitate?”

Twilight swallowed, staring up into Iron Will’s eyes.  “Sure.”

Discord clapped slowly.  “Wonderful.”  He stared at the still-levitating axe.  With complete ignorance of biological functions, Discord turned away and said, “Now release his shaft and let’s go.”

This time, Iron Will had the presence of mind to catch the axe as it fell.

----
Luna stared for the briefest of moments at the spot where Celestia had momentarily stood.  No one could fault her for being confused.  The only pony who had ever witnessed a similar disappearance now had suffered it.

“I apologize, but she gave me no choice,” Tirek said with the closest thing to genuine sympathy he had shown for a thousand years.  Almost instantly, he found the tip of a horn pressed against his forehead.  His lower half's light coat stood on end as the air itself charged in expectation.

Luna’s voice was tightly controlled, and could have given a griffin mercenary company pause.  “You apologize for tact.  Yet, you take my sister from me.”  Her pupils disappeared into clouds of silver.  “My. Sister.  Return her now.”

Tirek smiled.  “I would do anything for you, my love. Unfortunately, I can’t do that right now.  We require privacy.”

Two forehooves slammed into Tirek’s chest, sending him flying while turning an ornate birdfeeder into a dusty cloud.  Tirek wipe the grime off of himself as he stood.  “I forgive you for being emotional.  Your loyalty is one of your most admirable qualities.”

He saw two silver eyes ignite inside the settling dust.  “Tell me where my sister is, fiend!”

Tirek coughed.  He snapped his fingers and the cloud disappeared, reformed into a statue of Luna covered in spiked armor.  Nodding with satisfaction, he turned to his model.  “Look up.”

She did.  The scream was heard in Ponyville.

Luna had been too distracted by Tirek to noticed the change that gripped the world in a panic.  Ponies across Equestria lifted their eyes to record a sight that would live in their cultural nightmare forever.  Dragons of the Northern Eyrie had their skepticism of the importance of Equestria’s ruler shaken.  Seapony explorers returned from the ocean’s surface, claiming that it was now far too dangerous to ever seek their land-dwelling cousins.

Celestia’s face was on the Sun, frozen in a silent scream.

Luna shook as she beheld the writhing field of white flares across the Sun drawn in the image of her sister.  Celestia’s eyes were wide, a massive black sunspot making a small, terrified pupil.  

Luna’s turned to Tirek, her voice steady.  “You.  You had the temerity to do this.”

“And I do nothing that she did not do to you.”  He spread wide his hands with a regretful smile.  “I believe that I am being more merciful.  After all, your heinous punishment was unprecedented.  I, at least, know that she will survive and the act can be reversed, which I will do in time.  All those years ago, can you really say the same of her?”

The ponies of Canterlot had the sight of the solar abomination mercifully obscured as dark clouds pregnant with lightning formed over all the city.  Those closer to the castle grounds saw lightning strike after lightning strike hammer into the castle garden.  

Somehow, Tirek kept smiling.  Tongues of white energy lashed down at him, pinning him to the ground.

“I will destroy you,” Luna said as she stared at Tirek with pitiless eyes bereft of pupils.

“As you wish,” he offered.  He screamed in pain for her benefit.

“Whatever is left, I will personally tear into pieces.  Hooves, horn, and teeth.  Nothing shall remain.”

Tirek pushed himself onto his knees.  It was difficult to do.  The area around him had become baked glass.  “As you wish.”

Luna charged into him, pitching him into a tree.  “Thou art mocking me!”

Tirek’s eyes open fully.  He pulled himself onto his hooves as the rage of the storm coursed through his body.  The lightning flashes illuminated a grim, serious face.

“No, Princess.”  A flaming tree limb crashed onto his shoulder as Tirek stood impassively.  “After all I saw happen in the olden days, that is one thing I would never do.  I will never mock you as others have.”

The air crackled, smelling of ozone.  The lightning stopped, though.   Cloud pulled together without releasing the crackling potential that flashed above the two immortals.  Luna stood still, unreadable eyes scanning Tirek’s for understanding.

She stepped forward, white glare slowly being replace with blue eyes.  “Why did you do this, Tirek?”  Luna asked in a quiet voice.

He stepped forward.  Tirek’s arm gently lifted towards Luna, but was pulled back at the last second.  Her eyes watched it as it made its hesitant path through the air.

“The armies and might of Canterlot were thrown against me,” Tirek said softly.  “I only came to see you.”

Luna stamped a forehoof on the ground, the aftershocks collapsing the remaining garden trees.  “Thou art trying to trick me.  I will not allow myself to become possessed by your power of darkness again!”

“That is a lie,”  Tirek said with a snort.

Luna took a step back.  She started to stammer something briefly.  

Tirek lowered himself onto his knee to look Luna in the eyes.“Is that what ponies tell themselves in order to sleep at night?  Do they speak of how you became possessed by some force?  I can just see Celestia nurturing that story to bring sympathy to her ‘poor sister.’  We both know that the choice was always yours.  Whatever the result of that decision, it was the pony in front of me who made that choice, not some tempting spirit.”

Luna stepped forward, gritting her teeth.  “I am no longer that pony!” 

Tirek nodded. “I concede that point.  Well then, we could step inside and renew our acquaintance.”  He gestured to the castle.  “Shall we go inside, then?  I believe heads of state meet with their guests in the Grand Table Ballroom.  If I’m not mistaken, you usually took your breakfast there at this time.”

He snapped his fingers.  As Luna’s mouth fell open a squad of guardsponies poured out of the cracked wall.  They assembled into ranks behind their ruler.  Tirek gave a respectful nod to the one he talked to earlier, who now approached Luna.

“Your majesty,” he said while keeping his eyes on Tirek,  “we are ready to strike at your command.”

Tirek crossed his arms behind his back.  He smiled and cocked his head as he made eye contact with the Princess.  She was always the greater strategist of the pair,  he recalled.  I hope she makes the correct tactical decision.

Luna grimaced.  She raised a hoof between Tirek and her soldiers.  “No, brave warriors.  The necromancer allows himself to be taken into our custody.  If he perishes, so does the knowledge of how he has spirited away Celestia.  Surround him, and take him to the dungeon.”

Tirek gave a nod, stepping forward as eight guards took up position around him.  “After all these centuries you remain ever impressive, my Lady.  You are always full of surprises.  I await our next conversation alone.”  He chuckled as he allowed a pair of manacles to be clapped upon him.

Luna turned her back on Tirek, slowly walking away.  “You seem confident of my mercy for one I have not seen in a thousand years,” she said.

Tirek bristled.  “That is the second lie you’ve spoken this day.  They ill fit you, like dung spread across a flawless tapestry.  Stop lying to the both of us, Luna.”

She turned, seeing confusion on the faces of Tirek’s guard as they passed her.  “Halt,” she said.  As the guards paused, Tirek stood next to her.

Luna noticed the increasing swarm of ponies on the periphery of her vision.  On the parapets, at the windows, and around the walls of Canterlot Castle her subjects peered at her.  My subjects, she realized.  I must make my sister proud.

She scowled at Tirek.  “You have the temerity to insult me?  You, after attacking my kingdom, people, and family?”

Tirek looked up for a second.  He nodded his head side-to-side in an exaggerated contemplation that drew a snort from Luna. “I admit this, dear Luna,” Tirek finally said.  “I have imprisoned your sister.  I will bring her back in time.  I have assaulted your guards.  However, I have killed no pony, and I will never lie to you.”

Luna stood still as Tirek permitted himself to be escorted away.  Applause and cheers raised from the gathering audience.  Luna allowed a smile for her subjects to inspire a confidence she did not feel.

Let the crowd believe I have won,she thought.  Tirek could shatter those manacles and the dungeon at a thought.  If he is imprisoned, it is only because he allows himself to be.  She sighed, realizing that she could shares her concerns with no one in Equestria.  Tirek is in control, and whether or not the people realize it a crimson king now reigns in Canterlot Castle.

___

The trio from Tartaurus had crossed rivers, navigated the darkest woods, and scaled steep hills.  They had come upon their greatest challenge yet.

Discord had finally asked Twilight Sparkle about the rumbling in his belly.

Rolling her eyes, Twilight had started to explain.  Iron Will had smiled as he saw confidence on her face for the first time since leaving the prison.  Lecturing was something she knew well.

So Twilight explained to Discord about digestion.  She carefully detailed the path of food through the digestive tract.  She compared and contrasted the mechanical digestion of the teeth and the chemical digestion of saliva, drawing comparisons with the workings of the stomach.  She drew diagrams in the ground with a stick, and fully detailed the differences between her herbivorous organs and the workings of a carnivore.  Finally, she mentioned various ailments that could befall the digestive system, noting certain fascinating parasites.

Twilight allowed herself a smile at her silent and attentive pupil took in everything she said, then levitated an apple out of her saddlebags to offer to him.

Minutes later, Discord was still vomiting.

Iron Will giggled as the sounds of Discord retching on an empty stomach came to him from behind a tree.  Twilight stared daggers at him as she chewed on the untaken apple.

“Well,” he offered with a smile, “Discord at least perfectly understands what he’s going through.  Good work, Teach.”

Twilight sighed.  “I don’t want to hear it.”

Discord’s sounds grew louder, and Iron shuddered.  “No, I don’t want to either,” he admitted.

Twilight dropped the apple and lowered her head.  Iron turned and almost said something before noticing her face.  Twilight was crying.  Her shoulders convulsed as she bit her lip, tears pouring out of closed eyes.

“Twilight?”

She opened her mouth and tried to make words with it before closing it again.  She dropped onto her knees, and Iron heard her softly whimpering.

He nodded to himself.  He knelt down next to Twilight and wrapped an arm around her neck, resting his hand on her shoulder.  She raised her head to him.

Iron smiled.  “Come on, Is that any way for the Heroine of Equestria to act?”

She snorted wetly.  “Some heroine I am.  I should be home with the girls, or taking them to Canterlot to plan.  Instead I’m on a wild goose chase with a spoiled demigod and . . . and . . . ”

Iron poked her nose.  “Come on.  Iron Will has to be riding your nerves by now.  Give Iron Will what he deserves.  Insult Iron Will!”

Twilight shook her head as she sobbed.  “I can’t.”

He blinked.  “Well then.  Iron Will is going to bring back our patchwork annoyance.  When he comes back,” he bellowed, “Iron Will expects to see the pony who defeated Nightmare Moon and imprisoned Discord!  He wants the unicorn who sniffed out a changeling queen and dared the dungeons of King Sombra!  Iron Will’s going to walk away, and when he comes back he want to see Twilight Sparkle, Heroine of Equestria!  Is that clear?”

Twilight chuckled.  She smiled at Iron Will, saluting with a shaky hoof.  “Aye-aye, sir.”  She squinted.  “You read my file, huh?”

He nodded, giving her two thumbs up and picking up the apple before walking off into the bushes.  She stared at him thoughtfully as a booming voice reached her ears.

“You! Yes, Iron Will is lowering himself to speak to you, and he thought he was talking to a Lord of Chaos and Misrule, not a feckless pile of amphibian dung!  What is your magical malfunction, boy?”

Twilight started giggling.

“Iron Will doesn’t care about your relative power level!  Iron Will doesn’t need an insipid, cringing sack of horse-apples!  Iron Will needs a dark demigod of delight, and that is what Iron Will is going to get!  When someone steals your magic, you make their fate tragic! ”

Three minutes later Twilight saw Discord walk out from behind the copse with and apple in hand.  He grinned evilly before biting down on the fruit, swallowing it whole.  “Apples for lunch,” he said with a chuckle, “now let’s serve Tirek for dessert.  Let’s get a move on, Miss Sparkle”

Iron Will nodded approvingly behind him.

Twilight shook her head in disbelief.  “All right Mister Will, you’ve earned your motivational speaker cutie mark.”

He snorted and crossed his arms.  “Iron Will has no cutie mark.”

She laughed.  “I know, I’ve checked.”  She half closed her eyes.  “Thoroughly.”  As he sputtered, she turned to Discord.  “You’re sure we can make a portal at the Forgotten Monastery?”

“Oh, is that what they call it now? My my, ponies have such short memories.  Back when I walked the face of Equestria-- “

“I doubt you ever walked anywhere,” said Iron Will, drawing a giggle from Twilight.

Discord crossed his arms.  “Whilst I wandered, in this place was kept one of the Bells of World Walking.  The symphonies played on it brought ponies into contact with quite a few of your inmates, Iron Will.”

Twilight scrutinized Discord’s face.  She had a hard time reading ponies at times, and a harder time getting a read on a Draconequus.  “This isn’t one of your jokes, Discord?”

He theatrically sighed.  “No, because it isn’t funny.  Get me to that bell, dearest Twilight, and I promised you and your ogre a sight which has been kept from pony eyes for centuries.”

“Minotaur,” she corrected instantly.  

Iron Will had already raised a finger and opened his mouth to say something.  At Twilight's quick response, he stopped.  Raising an eyebrow, he shrugged and  with a smirk leaned on his axe.

“Whatever.”  Discord grinned.  “Let me play a little tune and I’ll open up the path we need.  I’ll get us to Tamberlon.”

Twilight nodded.  “Well then, let’s go.”  She trotted off.  Iron Will turned to Discord and punched his fist into an open hand.  Discord copied the gesture, grinning.  The two ran after Twilight.

The group made good time until the treeline cleared at the edge of a cliff.  Discord smiled at the crumbling structure beneath them.  “See that bell tower?  That’s exactly what we need.”

Twilight couldn’t speak.  Her mouth was open, bottom jaw quivering as she looked up at the sun.  Iron Will followed her gaze and silently placed a hand on her shoulder.

Discord blinked.  “What? What is it, you astronomy-obsessed--”  He looked up, noticing for the first time the pained face of Celestia across the Sun.

“Oh, no,” he said with narrowed eyes.  “Bad form, Tirek.  There’s going to be a penalty assessed for that illegal move.”

Twilight and Iron Will were still spellbound at the sight of Celestia.  Discord was the only one who noticed when a dozen furry being with spears jumped out of the underbrush and surrounded the three.

He sighed.  “I’m captured again?  Great.”

“Oh, yeah,” said the largest of the furry things.  He wore a red jacket, some kind of gem-studded amulet, and a crown-like green felt hat with a bell at the end.  "I'll tell you one thing; it's a cruel, cruel world."

> Chapter 4: The Quest for Tambelon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chaos & Darkness
Chapter 4: The Quest for Tambelon 


The darkness of Tirek’s dungeon fell away as a rosy aura glimmered down the stairs.  Tirek himself took little notice; he had recently changed his eyes to make all forms of darkness as transparent as a summer’s day.  The gentle subtleties of differing lights mixing was lost to his drive for utility.  Still, he heard the hoofprints.

The heavy tread followed a muscular unicorn in royal guard armor.  The withering look the soldier cast made Tirek smile.  It was more than the look of an offended Equestrian loyalist.  If Tirek was responsible for that much personalized hatred, he knew he must be doing something right.

‘Sit, scion of Twilight.”  Tirek gestured to a stone bench outside the cell.  “Join me for conversation.  I myself am more than comfortable.”  In the hours since his capture, he hadn't sat down or wavered a muscle.  It’s amazing how much different you can be when the snap of a finger can change you.

The guard’s training mostly kept his shock hidden.  “How do you know my bloodline, monster?”

Tirek smiled.  Two sentences in, and I already control the conversation.  This diversion may prove fleeting.  He took a step toward the bars in order to see the youth bristle.  He was not disappointed.  Tirek grabbed the bars and pretended to slightly slump.

“I remember the first Twilight so clearly.  I see on your medals the purple stars of her bloodline.  I swore to end it once.”  He examined his fingernails as the stallion seethed.  “It just seems so pointless now.  I could do it with a gesture, but why should a warlord stamp on ant hills?”

The stallion advanced, nostrils flaring.  “Well, this ant bites back!  Where is my sister?”

Tirek achieved full understanding instantly.  Still, the act of staring neutrally at the guard for several seconds brought him much joy.  

“Pardon?”

“I want my sister!  Her name’s Twilight Sparkle.  She--“

Tirek sighed.  “She’s slightly lavender, carries around a dragon hatchling, and is a mewling intellectual with an over-inflated sense of fair play.”  He grinned in what he hoped was a friendly manner.  “And you are?”  How long will he actually answer my questions?  These over-entitled children in uniform really do need to be attacked again.

The guardspony breathed out.  “I’m Captain Shining Armor of the Canterlot guard.  There, are you happy?  Answer for answer.  Fair deal.  Where is she?”

By the Darkness, he’s negotiating with me.  Is this what passes for an Equestrian warrior?

“Last I saw her, she was in Tartaurus.  The Monstromurk had broken free.  I’m sure axes were flying.  Hopefully she was able to keep her head about her, or at least attached.  She’s one of the Elements of Harmony, is she not?”

Shining Armor sat back.  Tirek was gratified to see that he at least keep his horn out of the reach of the bars and his head cool at dire news.  At least they still taught them some things.

Captain Armor thought for a space of time.  “How could you know that?  You’ve been locked away.”

“They are pictured in the seventh window into the castle on the right-hand side.”

“I’ll say this for you,” Shining Armor said with a snort.  “You’ve got a good memory.”

Tirek inclined his head politely. “Gave it to myself this morning, as a matter of fact.  I wanted to remember my triumph over the unfaithful, short-sighted tyrant in perfect detail for eternity.”

Captain Armor pawed at the ground.  “I’ll make you hurt for those words.  Enough dancing around.  What happened to my sister?  I don’t think you’re telling the whole truth.  When the Elements of Harmony arrive, they’ll want to know as well.  They don’t ask as politely as I do.”

He was greeted with laughter.

“Bluster all you want, boy.  The white one has a backbone, I’ll admit.  The mewling disappointment that is Firefly’s heir sniveled behind her rabbit.”

Captain Armor ran against the cage.  He’s eyes bled murder.

“What did you do to them?”

Tirek shook his head and paced the cell.  This was becoming too easy.

“The other unicorn acquitted herself well.  With training, she may be a leader to my warriors.  I don’t think you have the backbone to even be part of her harem.  Still, perhaps breeding the two of you will produce stock with both muscle and courage.  I'll consider it.”

Shining Armor’s face gave a tic.

“You disgusting piece of filth.  I'd have never thought you capable of-- ” 

Shining froze as Tirek moved.  He didn’t walk, jump, or trot.  He simply suddenly was at the very edge of the bars.

“Boy,”  Tirek said with impatience,  “when I lead the armies of your nation, I will have much less pleasant orders for you to follow.  Besides, thinking for yourself is how you allowed your horn to come within my reach.”

Shining Armor rolled his eyes.  “Try it, you- ”

A cascade of scarlet sparks filled the room as Tirek’s hand smashed through the previously invisible forcefield.  Tirek tapped the tip of Shining Armor’s horn with a single finger before withdrawing, then started clapping.

“Well done!  You’re good at looking strong and dim, my young defensive strategist.  Perhaps my future war mare may want you at her flank after all.  You wanted me to hurt myself, didn’t you?”

Shining Armor stepped back from the bars, waiting.

“Your sister,” Tirek began with a sigh, “witnessed the end of the Monstromurk’s captivity.  She has undoubtedly either been cut down accidentally by those sworn to protect her, or waits unconscious on some floor for either a wandering predator or starvation to finish their work first.  There’s no concealment in my words.  She just honestly does not matter.”

“I’ll kill you,” Shining Armor stated softly.

Tirek nodded.  “You can try.  As for the yellow coward, she is in my custody.  I am nothing if not merciful.”

Shining Armor walked around the cage, staying out of reach from the bars.  “Where is she?”

“Safe,” said Tirek.  “Safer with me than any creature in Equestria.”

---

There are many demoralizing aspects of a jail cell.  The rusty iron bars shows the prisoner the apathy level of their jailers.  The cold stone symbolizes the uncaring treatment to come.  Fluttershy had never tried to imagine imprisonment, having been horrified enough by the thought of slow elevators.  Even if she had, most terrifying thing she would never had consider (and she was a professional at considering terrifying things) was the silence.

“H-h-h-hello?  I-is a-anybody there?”

She sagged as she leaned against the bars.  Fluttershy had promised herself that she wouldn't cry.  It had started to hurt after awhile.

Her head lifted at the sound of the distant voice that answered her with "Hello?"

Using her grasping feathers, Fluttershy's wings lifted her onto her hindlegs as her forehooves rested on the bars.  Hope crawled into her chest and with a timid whisper asked her heart if it could come in, if that wasn't too much trouble.

"Is somepony there?"

Something shuffled into the enchanted torchlight of the cell.  A hunchbacked furred gargoyle regarded Fluttershy with sorrowful eyes as it walked, dragging a short crafted stick along the floor.

"You're not screaming like the others," it said as it cast a quizzical look with its bleary and bloodshot eye.

Fluttershy responded with a headshake.  "Oh no, Mister Monster.  I'd never be afraid of something that sounded so sad.  Why, you may just be caught in a bad situation.  You seem like such a nice beast."

Fluttershy gripped the bars tighter as the thing’s hands reached towards her.  They rested on the outside of her cage, the creature sagging as sobs wracked its body.

"You have no idea," it said as it wiped a tear from its eye with a clawed hand.  "I'm trapped here like you.  That dastardly thing turned me into this."  A purple tongue licked misshapen fangs as its voice dropped to a whisper.  "Would you believed I lived in Canterlot Castle before this?"

It (Fluttershy mentally corrected herself; "it" was a "he") dropped his head forward against the bars.  She slowly reached out a trembling hoof, placing it on the crouched-over monstrosity’s left shoulder.

"There, there," she said.  "Please don't cry.  What's your name?"

The blubbering stop as his eyes met hers.  "It's Scorpan now.  I doubt I could even say my previous one with a straight face."  Very carefully, Scorpan cupped his right hand around her small, extended hoof.  "Thank you for your kindness, Miss."

"You're very welcome, Scorpan."  Her smile could have melted windigoes.  "You need kindness more than fear right now."

"Oh, don't worry.  You're not to be touched."  His eyes flew towards the small hoof he held.  "Well, not in that way.  I have to deal with the other ponies he sent here, though."

Fluttershy straightened.  "Other ponies?  From Ponyville?"

"No," Scorpan replied with a shake of his head.  "Some small, podunk out-of-the-way town the Master teleported here.  I'm to look after the Master's things while he's away."  Gently patting Fluttershy's hoof, he stood up straight.  "It's probably time for me to see the other ponies, Miss Fluttershy."  He turned to leave.

As she dropped back onto four hooves, Fluttershy called after the retreating back of Scorpan.

"Wait!  What are you going to do with them?"

Scorpan spared her a brief look as he brandished the wand he'd been holding.  "Why, turn them into dragons, of course."

"No."  Her eyes grew wide.  "No, Scorpan.  You can't do that."

He snorted.  "I have to.  Otherwise, he's going to yell at me, for one thing.  He's very scary when he yells."

Scorpan did his best to ignore Fluttershy's pleading screams as he walked down the hall, willing the wand to flare up into life.

__

The Monastery of the Tone of Transversal was a wonder to Twilight's eyes.  Bas reliefs centuries old should scenes of history now long faded into mythology, inscribed with ancient languages.  As she passed under archways of long forgotten architectural styles, she wished she had more time to inspect everything.

Not being lead at spearpoint would have been a start.

“Get a move on,” grumbled one on the several dozen furry creatures as it poked Twilight’s rump with her spear.  She gave out a high-pitched whinny as she sprung forward automatically.  The walking hairball laughed as Twilight’s group was lead into a large ruined concert hall and unceremoniously deposited into the sealed orchestra pit.

At her side, Iron Will gave her an appraising eye.  “If you want, I could noogie that thing into its component molecules.”

Twilight shook her head, drawing a giggle from Discord.

“Come now, Mister Moo.  This is Twilight Sparkle.  She could level this place with just a thought and a long-winded, patronizing lecture.”  He threw a clawed finger at her.  “You wanted us to get captured, didn’t you?”

Her irritated shrug distracted Iron from the hootings and hollerings above them as the furry things filled the concert hall’s seats.

“Twilight?  Is he right, or is that more of what he thinks are jokes?”

“Hey!”

“Yeah,” she said.  “I want to see who’s running this place.”  Twilight’s face brightened a bit.  “I mean, in control of this monastery are a completely unknown race of-- ”

“They’re grundles,” Discord said as he reclined on the ground.  “Stupid little things.  Their entire culture used to be based on proving they weren't as scary as they look.  Now... ”

Discord gestured to a large dais constructed out of pews and tables.  Several grundles were there, and Twilight noted the incredible variation in facial bone structure between the race.  Some of them had snouts, whereas others had beaks.  While she watched, the group poured a barrel of grape jelly onto the ground.

The room went silent as two figures stepped onto the dais.  One was the small, pot-bellied grundle with the bell-covered hat and red jacket from earlier.  The other was a towering and muscular, easily the size of Iron Will.  As the auditorium held its breath, the apparent grundle leader stepped in front of his huge companion and began stomping of the pile of grape jelly.  Pieces of purple flew into the air, drawing applause from the mob.  Twilight could make out the repeated phrase, “Death to Smoozy!”

“ . . . now I think they want to be scary.  Or maybe just stupid.”  Discord shrugged

The short grundle motioned for the auditorium to be quiet.

“All right, everybody.  Grundle King here.  You know what I’m about.  You just saw me stomp the Ancient Evil.  Everybody on board so far?”

As he exaggeratedly held an open hand to his ear, the audience bombarded him with cheers and applause.

Iron Will chuckled.  “That guy?  Good stage presence.”  He tapped Twilight on her shoulder  and pointed to the King's gigantic cohort.  "What I want to know is, who's got second billing at this show?  If he was just the help, he wouldn't be on stage."

"Mister Will, is that a plan I see forming?" Twilight asked with smirk.  

He shrugged.  "Ancient evils are out of my depth.  Analyzing a public speaker?  This I know."

“Anyway,” the Grundle King continued, “we caught some people trying to break into our monastery.”  And exaggerated gasp flew out of the assembled grundles.  “Some dirty, ruthless people trying to wreck our way of life here.”

Twilight snorted.  “Iron?  Pick me up over your head so I can address him.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”  He gingerly lifted her into the grundle’s line of sight.

“Okay, good.  Hands stay right there.  Gentlecolt hands, please,” she whispered in his ear while aloft.  

Iron Will pointedly looked away while Discord snickered.

The grundles’ attention was captured by the violent burst of purple light flared from Twilight’s horn.  Even the Grundle King waited for her to speak, temporarily thrown off his game.  His larger companion stepped forward as if to shield the Grundle King with his body.

“Assembled grundles,” Twilight began with a smile, “I am only here to use your bell for a teensy-weensy time in order to save all of reality.  Surely there’s nothing wrong with a little bit of neighborly help?”

The Grundle King recovered quickly.  “Oh, come on, lady.  We’re not idiots.  We've seen who we've caught.”

Twilight and Iron will shared a glance.  

“Who do you mean?”  Twilight grinned as innocently as she could.

Discord hopped off the ground, sweat pouring off of his forehead.

“Wait a minute,”  he screamed out of the pit.  “You gotta understand, grundle.”  Discord pointed at Twilight and Iron.  “I’ve never even saw these plotholes before.  You've got the wrong draconequus!”

The Grundle King blinked.  Slowly he point to a giant bas relief on the back wall where an artist had masterfully carved a terrifying beast.  It was all made the more impressive for the sense of sinister malice being evoked by a carving of Discord.

“Yup,” Iron Will said.  “They got your good side.”

Discord rubbed his eyes.  “Oh, yeah.  There was that time.”

“Discord,” Twilight said out of the side of her mouth.  “What do those carved runes say around your image.”

Discord sighed.  “Please refuse service to this entity.”

Hoarse screaming echoed around the chamber as the Grundle King raised his arms.  “Get these miscreants into the dungeon cells!  I am the Grundle King, and I speak for the grundles!”
 
Twilight sighed.  “Good work, Discord.”

“Yeah.  Never hassle a service rep.  You never know how they’ll make your life difficult.”  Iron gently placed Twilight on the ground.  

Discord had collapsed into a heap against the back wall.  For once, he had nothing to say as he stared at his feet.

“Okay, we’re going to have to think our way out of here,”  Twilight said to Iron hurriedly as spear-toting grundles surrounded the orchestra pit.  “We have to reach Tambelon as soon as possible.  You saw the Sun,” Twilight said with a shudder.  “Who knows how Luna is doing struggling with Tirek on her own?”

The two turned as Discord gently coughed into his claw.  He wiped his nails on his coat while avoiding eye contact.

“Yes.  Ahem.  Ah.  Struggling.”  He gave out a low whistle before sighing.  “Twilight, I wish I had time to give you a juicy little history lesson.  ‘Struggling’ is most likely the last thing on those two’s minds.  Well,” he said as he avoided eye contact, “that is unless they’re into that kind of thing . . . ”

___

Luna sat at the head of Equestria's royal feast table.  At times the representatives from over a dozen nations occupied the seats, feeding on the royal repast and each other's political weaknesses.  There was certainly enough food for such a party now, but the Princess was the only dinner guest in sight.  The only other souls presents were the motionless servants and the guards-flanked elderly Royal Councilor, standing watch quietly in the archway of the room.

The councilor grit his teeth as Tirek was lead into the banquet room.  My dear Lady, he thought, I hope this works out the way you want it to.  

"A meal set out?"  Tirek spared Luna a smile.  "Ah, Princess.  Seeking to lull me into complacency?  You were ever the shrewdest mare at this bargaining table."  He ran his hand along the table as he walked to the seat at Luna's side.  "How many wars were won right here by you glimpsing into the darker parts of the soul over a napkin setting?"

Luna returned his leering stare unemotionally before looking to the crowd of terrified servants standing frozen in place around them.  Making eye contact with a nearby shivering servingmare, Luna casually asked, "Could I have the cheesecake brought out please?"

"Buh-buh-buh- "  The servant raised a trembling hoof towards Tirek.  

Luna's not unmerciful glare silenced her.

"Yes, my child,"  she said while giving the girl a gentle feathertap on the shoulder.  "He is a terrible monster who wishes to destroy our way of life.  I have not forgotten for a second.  Still, he is not the first, and we must not show him fear.  We are Equestrian."

The girl carefully straightened herself to attention.  "W-will Your Majesty require the strawberry or cranberry toppings?"

The Princess gave her a brief smile.  "Cranberries, as always."

The serving girl curtsied, turning to the rest of the staff.  "Y-you heard her.  Back to work, everypony.  We're not paid to lollygag."

As the dining room hummed back to life, Luna regarded Tirek sardonically.

"Elegantly and poetically spoken, Tirek.  'Shrewdest mare?'  That would be just the kind of thing I would say to a captor to flatter them into lowering their guard."  She levitated a spoonful of pie into the air, chewing on it thoughtfully.  "If indeed, I am the captor here."

Tirek nodded with admiration.  "Do I have permission to sit?"

"Whom," Luna said with the raise of an eyebrow, "at this table truly has the power to grant permission, I wonder?"

Tirek sat down without answering.

Across the room, the Royal Councilor watched the entire exchange with rapt attention as he noted the give and take between the two verbal combatants.  A young guard leaned towards the bearded old unicorn and whispered in his ear.

"Sir?"  The guard swallowed.  "Forgive my rudeness, but-- "

"Ask your questions, boy, and quickly."  The Councilor's gaze never wavered as he watched Luna guardedly converse with Tirek.

"Well . . . what's going on over there, sir?"

"Are you familiar with chess?"

The guard bit his lip.  "I was third on the barrack's score list this month."

"Well, then," the Councilor said as turned to him with a smile.  "I always respect a pony with a mind for the Great Game."  He gestured towards the banquet table.  "Here's the best comparison I can make.  They're each playing on three boards, both of them switching colors, and on the bottom board the shoe just landed on Board Trot, making everypony wonder if that means Minty did it with the Iron Shoes in the Conservatory."

The guarded nodded after a second of contemplation.  "Deep games."

"Yes," agreed the Councilor.  "I just wish I knew what the stakes really were."

The guard’s wing patted the aged stallion on the shoulder.  "You better be comfortable, Sir.  If I may say, it's going to be a long one."

The Councilor carefully removed the guard's familiar touch and through a glare filled with ice and questions his way.  "And why might that be, my young . . . 'friend?'"

The guard swallowed.  "I may not know games like you, but I know players.  Did you see his face?  Anyone looking at a mare like her in that way would be more than willing to give her the best two out of three."

___

“Best two out of three?”

Discord sighed, his head in his claws as he stared through the bars of his cage.  It takes an innovative race to turn balcony seating rooms into a prison cell, he noted.  Turning the room into a prison cell, pickling room, and compost storage was probably a bit much.  If he still had powers, Discord would have sent his nose off running and told it to never look back.

Between the stench of the room and the repetitive sounds of the guards playing cards, he kind of missed being a statue.

“Best five out of four?”

Discord swiveled at the sentence, staring at the two out-of-shape grundles in piece-mail armor that evoked the late historic Kitchenwear Period.  A mess of dirty, mismatching cards lay sprawling across a table top supported on compost barrels.

“Do you two imbeciles mind giving me some silence for my existential angst?”

“Nope,” said one as he picked the deck back up.  “Exist all you want, Mister Elder Evil.  I’m down thirty-seven games today, an’ I’m gonna make it up.”

The other grundle at the table, a hairy mass of fat, let his skepticism at the request be known with a loud burst of flatulence.

Grabbing the metal bars, Discord shook them to little effect.  He slunk down to the ground while holding on, staring in impotent fury as the pair continued playing.

“Well, at least I know a bigger loser than me,” he said as he eyed the disproportionate chip piles.

The grundle spun on his stool.  “Between you an’ me, buddy, youse about as screwed over as the new sun thing.”

The draconequus was still and silent for a space of seconds.  If Twilight was there, she would have petitioned Canterlot to declare a holiday.

“Care to explain yourself?”

“Dang it.  Smoozing lost again.  Thirteen out of fifteen?  Look, buddy, it doesn’t take a genius to know that the Stallion in the Sun must have gotten royally plugged.”

Discord’s fingers swayed, sharpening his claws on the metal cage.

“Let me say this slowly,” he began, “and I’ll use small words.  If you think that that shining countenance is a ‘stallion,’ you’ve probably been staring at the sun for years now.  That mare in the sky may be a crashing bore as of late, but she is the craftiest, canniest, and most manipulative being on this planet aside from moi.”  He poked his snout through the bars as he hissed out, “She beat me twice.  So, I’d stop discounting her.  Any moment now some ancient plan of hers will pop, and you’ll all see.”

The victorious guard burbled incoherently.

“Yeah, I agree, buddy.  You’re girlfriend’s hot, now keep it down so we can play.”

Discord’s mouth fell open painfully.  He was used to the kind of control that allowed you to drop a jaw to the ground and let a ten-foot long tongue roll out.  He resolved to never try it without magic again.

“Girlfriend?  L-l-look, you’re completely misunderstanding the whole platonic nemeses dynamic here.”

A spurt of amused burbling drew laughs from the other guard.

“Yup.  ‘Protest too much’ is the right phrase, Clem.  Back to the game.”

The game continued for a few minutes as Discord watched, reflected, and thought.  Finally, he shrugged and asked in the best innocent voice he could imitate, “Could I play?”

Clem shrugged.  The other guard turned to Discord.

“Y’know, we could push the table against the bars.  D’you know Nineteen Claw Pick-up?”

Discord grinned as the deck was placed in front of him.  His nimble, clawed thumbs began flipping through it expertly.  

“I’m slightly familiar, but that’s a kids game.  This is the favorite game we played back in Dream Valley with the Magne and her siblings.  Ladies and germs, the game is Fizbin.”  As he dropped the shuffled deck in front, he pointed at Clem.  “You, cut the deck.”  Turning to the other grundle, he smiled.  “You lose a turn.”

“What?”  The guard sat up in his chair.  “Why?”

All of Discord’s teeth shone through his smile.  “Because it’s Thursday, and you’re sitting to the dealer’s left.  Try to keep up with the rules, please.”

The grundles looked at each and shrugged before straightening in their chairs.  “‘Kay.  So, what’re we betting?”

Discord clicked his tongue and looked upwards as he dealt out nine card hands before throwing a card on the floor.  “We’ll discuss that later.  No one gets to pick that card up until the third hand or until someone says the secret word, by the way.  The next card is turned up, except on Tuesdays.  So the trick is to get a Royal Fizbin . . . ” 

___

As Iron Will paced the perimeter of his cell, his grundle guard reflected on the wisdom of stealing the shift leader’s girlfriend.  Surely, he thought, karma couldn't solely explain why he was in this dangerous situation.

Iron Will stopped, crossed his arms behind his back, and stared into the grundle’s eyes.  The guard shrank back.

“What are you looking at, Pipsqueek?”

The grundle flinched at the strength of the bellow.

“Y-y-you, Sir.”  

Iron Will worked hard to stifle a giggle as the guard saluted.

“Sir!  Did you just call me ‘Sir?’”

“Y-y-y-yes?”’

Iron Will stuck his head as close to the bars as his horns would allow, lowering himself onto one knee to stare at the level of the petrified guard’s eyes.

“Well, stop it!  A fearsome warrior like you needs to show some pride.”

Straight face, Iron.  It’s just another role.  Straight face.

The grundle took an experimental step forward.  He nervously pointed at himself.  “Are y-y-you talking to me?”

Iron slowly stood up to his full height.  “You've been assigned the job of guarding the most dangerous prisoner in your race’s history.  You’re good at your job, aren't you?”

“W-well, yes.”

Iron pointed at him while striking a pose.  “You deserve this position, right?”

“Yes, S-sir!”

This time, Iron Will let it slide.

“Well, then, Iron Will knows that you deserve to be treated better in your nation’s service.”

The grundle scratched his chin, thoughts whirling around his head at geologic speeds.

“You know, I do.”

“You deserve a promotion.”

The grundle punched his open palm.  “I should march down to Sweeney and get one right now.  After all, if I’m good enough for minotaur duty . . . ”

Iron Will unleashed the full motivational fury of the simultaneous double point.  “You’re going to drag him right back here right now and give him a piece of your mind!”

The guard straightened and snapped to attention.  “Sir, yes, sir!”  He saluted and turned on his heels.

The moment he was out of sight Iron Will breathed out, turning around to take in his balcony seat prison.

“Sometimes,” he said to no one in particular, “it’s so easy I’m ashamed of myself.”

___

“So, this is a unicorn-proof cell?”

The lanky grundle turned back from his table toward Twilight, putting down the twig he was playing with.  “Yup.”

She turned around in a slow circle, taking in the rusted bars, wooden floor, and compost barrels.  “So, this cell is made to hold unicorns, huh?”

“What?”  He shrugged.  “Um, no unicorns have ever escaped, y’know.”

Twilight arched an eyebrow.  “Is it ‘grundle-proof’ by any chance?”

The grundle turned back to something fascinating on the table.  “Yup, unicorn proof through and through.”

While he looked away, Twilight disappeared in a flash of light, appearing behind the bored guard.  His attention was completely captivated by the beetle on the table.  Its legs twitched continuously as it attempted to escape the tabletop, ever foiled by the gently-wielded stick the grundle used to steer it back to the center of the table.

Overall, it seemed like a good day for the guard.  Today’s beetle was lively, the stick was firm, and the prisoner wasn't bothering him.  For him, excitement was an optimistic beetle.  If he turned around at that particular moment, excitement would have been discovering the failure of the Unicorn-Proof Cage, followed by him getting bucked him in the face.  Luckily enough for him, he cared more about entomology than responsibility.

By the time Twilight reappeared inside the cell, he was honestly considering a nap.  After all, nothing ever happened on prisoner duty.

Well, the boys should be okay, Twilight thought with a nod as she moved around some of the least-rotten hay in the cell into a pile.  They’ll have little opportunity to kill each other locked apart.  Now, to think quickly and use the time I have well.  Celestia, I’m getting you out of there!  Now I just need to spring Iron Will.  

She snorted. It’s going to be embarrassing when I spring him.  I mean, he should be able to tear those bars apart with those gigantic, muscular arms, straining his mighty thews with . . .

Twilight sighed, lowering herself onto the ground with her hooves.  She would have traded her current thoughts for simpler and comfortable ones of jailbreak and world-saving any day.

___

“Okay, Larry,”  Iron Will said with patience,  “That’s an excellent point.  So, who are the best squad of prison guards and also best latrine cleaners in Grundleland?”

A dozen hairy fists thrust into the air as the grundle soldiers cheered.  

“I mean,”  Larry said as he leaned on his combination spear/shovel, “we’re good at both, so . . . ” 

Iron Will clapped.  “Larry is right.  Be proud of yourself!”  His eyes narrowed.  “So, is everyone here?”

One of the grundle’s raised his hand enthusiastically.  Iron Will pointed at him.

“Okay, you in the back.”

“Ooh, ooh, I know this one!  Clem and Plato are playin’ cards with the Elder Evil, and Stuart has duty shift on the Perfect Record Unicorn Containment Cage!”

Iron Will took on this information and nodded.  “All right, we'll take minutes and script a memo to make them aware of how awesome you are!”

He flexed his arm and all of the grundle’s mimicked the gesture, creating a result that Iron Will would remember with a chuckle long after his teeth fell out.

“So,” he said with gravity, “what does the Seventeenth Squad need to do?”

“Show off our awesomeness, Sir!”

“And who should we bring here?”

“The grundles in charge, sir!”

Iron pumped his fists into the air, shouting “If you rock and they don’t know . . . ”

“Go out there and tell them so!”  As one, the grundles turned to leave.

Okay, Iron thought.  I got this in hand.  Discord’s out of my hair.  Twilight should be able to handle herself.  After all, if she can’t get out of this one, then-- 

With a groan of frustration, Iron Will slammed his hand into his forehead as he slumped to the floor against the bars.

“Oh, Mom,” he muttered to himself.  “You did this to me.”

The last grundle guard out of the door turned back.  “Did you say something, sir?”

Leaping to his feet, Iron flexed dramatically.  “Only how proud I am that you can kick out the bad thoughts that are holding you back!”  

Better than me, at least.

As the grundles choked the hallways and began high-spirited session of backslapping and high fives, Iron grabbed his head.

 Well, Mom and Dad, you almost raised a 'proper' gentlebull, Iron thought with a snort.  No wonder our population density is lower than Monday morning ticket sales in Appleloosa.  Tell you what, Mom, when we get out of this mess, I’m actually going to . . .

Iron stared out at the bars, working on the end of his sentence to little avail.

___

In terms of mixed messages, the nobility of Canterlot were having a truly unique day.

The nation of Equestria had, except for a period of a few hours known only to one small village, never undergone a regime change in thousands of years.  They tended to mock and belittle other people who actually had to change their rulers.  To a pony, the instability of places like Saddle Arabia, who changed rulers every few decades, seemed absurd, to say nothing of the madness of the Griffon Clans.

All of this came down like a psychological hammer as the nobles around the palace were lead into the dining room one at a time.  Confusion slipped into their minds as, before Luna and Tirek, they were all reassured that nothing had changed and everything would continue running as normal.

Unfortunately, this seemed to have the opposite effect  on a group of gossipy aristocrats with a sense of entitlement.

“B-b-but, how can we have the Garden Jamboree Party without Celestia?” asked the last in a long line of knock-kneed nobles who spent the better half of an hour being paraded through the dining hall.

Luna sighed inwardly, maintaining the calm, controlled smile that long hours of regular practice obtained.

“We would love to attend your event.  I will ensure that my sister is notified of your invitation when she returns.”

The noble’s face turned pale.

“W-w-we?  As in . . . ”

“As in the royal ‘we,’ of course.  We only mean ourselves.”

“And, n-n-not . . . ”

“What?”  Luna look around in an exaggerated cast of her head.  “Of whom else do you speak?”

He cast a trembling hoof at Tirek, who had remained silent through the whole panicking panoply.  Leaning forward on the table with his hands folded, Tirek had spent the last hour only staring at Luna.

He kept quiet and attentive.

Luna giggled into her hoof in a perfectly executed maneuver, rehearsed over years under harsh tutors to give the right amount of levity and control.  She casually levitated a tea cup to herself before responding.

“The Beast is a prisoner being allowed breakfast, nothing more.  He is of no import to any of you.  Go about your business now.”

The noble adjusted his collar.   

““N-now, Your Majesty, about the unrest on the G-griffon lands . . . ”  He shuffled nervously from one hoof pair to the other.  “Since Celestia is missing, and the Treaty is specifically negotiated with her-- ”

Tirek looked up from Luna for the first time.

Luna’s hoofed waved away both the noble and his concern.  “Our nation is in good standing with all neighbors.  Please leave . . . ‘me,’ dear friend.  I think I will eat in solitude for awhile.”

Tirek watched the sputtering unicorn go, scratching his chin once the pony disappeared around a corner.  The breakfast table stayed suspended inside a bubble of quiet tension until the Royal Councilor gingerly approached Luna.  He gave a sympathetic look to the stiff-necked guards who had watched Tirek tirelessly through the confusing morning and bowed low towards the Princess.

“My Lady, your Royal Hoofservant asked me to remind you of your pressing appointment in room seventeen ‘C.’  He said your attendance was required.”

Luna hid her mouth behind a napkin as she regarded the councilor.  Volumes of information passed between their eyes.  Watching the display, Tirek briefly considering granting himself the ability to read minds before deciding it was unsporting and neurotic.

“Very well,”  Luna said as she stood.  “I will deal with this alone.”

“I could come with you.”

Luna ground her teeth together as she turned to Tirek, whose disarming smile was still enough to give small children nightmares.

“I would hate to do anything to inconvenience you,” he said.

She shook her head slowly before responding.  

“Yes, you really believe that, don’t you?”

Without waiting for a reaction, Luna turned left the dining room.  Two guards stepped into her wake to block the door she left through, drawing an amused laugh from Tirek.  

In her position as the Lady of Dreams, Guardian of the Sleep of Equestria, Luna was very familiar with nightmares.  She could recognize all of the common types within seconds of entering a mortal’s sleep.  She could also recall many unique personal terrors, such as a seamstress of her acquaintance who suffered a positively unponylike fear of being naked in front of a crowd.  Luna assumed that she was acquainted with all of the numerous shapes of fear.

She had thought that her own worst nightmares had come to pass.  As she trotted through the hallways of Canterlot Castle, Luna recognized a terror she had never allowed herself to consider consciously being given voice around a corner.

“ . . . sitting at the Royal Table.  It’s a sign.  Come nightfall, the bat-winged divisions will swoop in and salute the new King and Queen.”

“Something should be done.”

A silver-clad hoof stepped stepped slightly louder than normal down the corridor, and the four Royal Guards ended their conversation as Luna stepped into view.  They stood at attention immediately, but the long roll of centuries had taught Luna the different moods of a salute.
Walking between them, she stopped.  The five ponies waited there in silence and immobility for a space of time before she turned to one of them.

“I need your service, soldier,” she said, receiving the neutral nod and salute expected in that situation.  Luna drew a nearly imperceptible breath before continuing.

“While I attend to other things, guard the Beast.  Remember that he is cunning, and give him no further information than he already possesses.  Remember that he is powerful, and that drawing his ire would put innocents in danger.  Above all, know that any wrong move made lessens the chance that our beloved sister is returned.  Act carefully, and look for a sign of its weakness at all times.”

She gave the guard a few moments before asking, “Are we on the same page, soldier?”

His neck was slightly straighter when he replied, “I believe we are, Your Majesty.”

Luna offered a smile.  “Thank you, soldier.  I would appreciate you sharing this perspective with your fellow guards.”

Only a princess would have been able to feel the change in the guards’ salutes as she left them.

Luna soon came to the appointed room.  She had no idea why her Hoofservant had called her here, and the presence of a Royal Hairdresser outside an abandoned servant’s quarters gave her no further clue.  Luna approached the well-dressed unicorn, who stood at attention next to a briefcase of tools and make-up.

“Thou hast been asked to be here?”  Luna regarded the hairdresser quizzically.

He shrugged.  “Your Majesty, I was only told to hurry up and wait.  They said I’d know what to do when it happened.”

Luna inclined her head, knowing the value of giving the impression of comprehension.  She swung open the door, shutting it close behind her.  The nearly-empty room inside was clear of dust, a testament to the devotion of the castle servants.  What caught Luna’s eye were the washbasin, towels, pillow, and envelope that had been left in the middle of the room.  On top of the envelope was a small hourglass, most likely the five minute variety.  Curiosity temporarily overcome the tension of the day as Luna levitated the envelope against her horn and unfurled the note inside.

Your Majesty,
        I thought you could use a place where nopony was watching you for a short time.

                                                I Remain Your Devoted Hoofservant,

                                                                Nightlight

Luna placed the note onto the ground with care, her wings dropping to her side for the first time in hours.  Picking up the hourglass in her teeth, she gently flipped it over and heard the inexorable march of time.  Her knees buckled and she dropped her head nearly to the ground as the first choking sob in an imminent parade washed over her.  A quick burst of telekinesis pulled the pillow over her face, and the first muffled scream rang out as her knees hit the floor.

Less than ten minutes later, Princess Luna returned to dining room, looking no less immaculate than when she left.  She noted the dozen guards that surrounded Tirek around the table.  He paid them little heed as he spoke softly through a cruel smile to a shaking member of the kitchen staff.

“Tirek,” Luna said as she resumed her place on her cushion.  “I noticed that you have not yet consumed anything.”

He patted the head of the terrified waitress before shooing her off.  As he returned his attention to Luna, Tirek folded his hands in front of himself. 

“I require food no longer, My Lady.”  He offered Luna a proud smile.  “I eliminated many constraints upon this body when I inherited the Power I now wield.”

Luna shook her head as she sipped a nearby decanter. “You could order a feast for a king, yet can’t even enjoy it.  Is this the meaning of power to you, Tirek?”

Tirek’s fingers scratched a frustrated mark across the table.  “I would be making myself weaker.”

“I find your definition of weakness amusing,” Luna said jovially.  She gently lifted a pastry into her mouth and chewed slowly, allowing Tirek to stew in silence before continuing.  “After all, by that definition I am weak.  Surely you are not fond of weakness?”

“One day,”  Tirek said as he lifted a goblet experimentally, “you will see my side.”

“I hope you can wait patiently for that,” replied Luna as she pulled more desserts toward herself.

Tirek’s thumb pressed against edge of the goblet, pushing into it as if it were cake.  With a snort, he dropped the bent metal onto the table and swept it onto the ground.

For a moment, Luna’s gaze turned to the Royal Guard behind Tirek.  She swore she saw approval in their eyes.

“I am used to waiting,” Tirek began.  “My . . . temporary setback only discorporated me for a few decades.  I spent nine centuries in Tartaurus waiting for you.”

He stood up, drawing every soldier in the room forward two hoofsteps as he pressed his open hands down on the table.

"But you know this."  Tirek spread a grin of victory and reproach.  "I saw you in my dreams over the past year. Despite all of your sister’s words, you still checked on me. Why?”

____

"Vhy haff you called on me, Little Bull?"

Iron Will scrutinized the larger grundle.  He was the size of most minotaurs, muscular and stocky.  His muzzle opened at such an angle that while talking he appeared to be perpetually screaming.  Despite the natural tendency to stop analyzing past the bulk, Iron noted the calculating look in his eyes.  He was surrounded by grundle bodyguards.  Iron Will supposed that, if attacked, the mass of fur and muscle could potentially use them as hand weapons.

“Well,” Iron said nonchalantly, “I merely wished to see one of the rulers of this powerful nation.”

The grundle crossed it’s slab-like arms.  “You haff found him.  My brother and I are the two kings of Grundle.”

“Really,”  Iron Will said with a snort.  “You’d never know it from the way he acts on stage.”

The Grundle High King (so-called because he stood higher than anybody else of grundle descent) growled.  The bodyguards stepped backwards.  In case the High King saw battle, it was the job of the bodyguards to guard whatever bodies he left in his wake until he was done.

“Hear me now,” he said, “and understand me later, little cow.  I deserve your respect as co-ruler of this realm.”

Iron Will worked hard to stifle a giggle.  I love that line.  Is that a grundle saying?  Tartaurus, is this guy quotable or what?

Iron Will bowed.  “Yes, Your Majesty.  You've an crowning achievement of the grundle race.  It’s just a shame you don’t get it from your co-ruler.”

“Vhat are you saying about my brother?”

Iron Will started to pace the area of the cell, buying himself some thinking time.

“Well, he was really impressive on stage today.  You’re really impressive, too.”  Iron furrowed his brow theatrically as he turned to the High King.  “Why aren't you on stage?”

The High King thought for a second, drumming his fingers idly into a bodyguard’s helmet.  “Vhy do you care?”

“Your Impressiveness,” Iron said with a bow, “I’m a motivational speaker.  It’s hard for me to see someone with such talent in the background.  Also, I wished to discuss the possibility of our release . . . ”

This drew a laugh from the assembled group.

“You’re not being released,”  the High King said with a smile.  “You’re not going to be held here very long, though.  Did you call me over so that I could ask my brother for mercy?”

Iron Will cracked his knuckles.  “Nope.  Aren’t you the King as well?  Why can’t I ask you?”

The High King laughed.  “Well said.  You know, I like you, Little Bull.  I’ll execute you last.  I’m going to go discuss things with my brother.”  He leaned slowly towards the bars of the cell until his face was almost touching Iron’s.

“I’ll be back.”

Iron Will exhaled as the High King left the cell.  With little else to do, he settled in for a long wait while his plans unfurled.

An hour later, a flash of purple light illuminated his cell as a triumphant Twilight began skipping in place.

“Yes,” she squealed with glee, “I got the math right!  I knew the cells would have similar floor-plans.  Glad I didn't bamf into a bar! Okay, Iron, let’s get you out of . . . ”

She stopped as the saw Iron Will on the other side of the open cell door.  He was sitting at a table of fruits and vegetables, a tiny napkin wrapped around his throat.

“Hey, Twilight!”  He waved away a grundle waiter as he motioned toward a nearby cushion.  “I was about to come get you.”

Twilight blinked. “You . . . escaped.”

He shrugged.

One of the grundle guards stepped into the room, bowing at the minotaur.  “Master Iron, the High King wishes you to be present at his meeting with the High Enough King shortly.”

Twilight laughed nervously.  “I guess escape is kind of an understatement.  How’d you . . . ”

“I know how to tell people what they want to hear.”  He shrugged as he pushed forward a plate of carrots to Twilight, who dug in enthusiastically.  While she devoured the food, he continued.

“Ever read The Dragon Prince by Markraliasti the Red?  ‘When surrounded by enemies, play them against each other.’”

Twilight was quiet, eyes wide.  In the silence, Iron Will scratched his head nervously.

“I admit, it’s not an easy book to get through, but as a motivator I kind of had to . . . ”

“I have a three-hundred-year-old copy in the library if you’d want to see it,” Twilight said in a verbal torrent.

Iron blinked.  “Three hundred!  Tartaurus, that’s one of the ones with the green fake binding made to scare people, right?”

Both of them suddenly turned as a lanky, jangling figure entered the room.  Discord walked with as much swagger he could muster while wearing three helmets, two breastplates, and innumerable baubles and bangles.  From his shoulders streamed a regal cape of stitched-together underpants.

"Hey, everypony!,” he said with a noisy wave.  “Ready to go?  I think I won our freedom.”  He looked upward in thought.  “And maybe the deed to this place.  Quite possibly also a bridge in Manehattan.”

Iron Will looked at Twilight with a raised eyebrow.  “Do you want to ask, or should I?”

Twilight sighed.  “Discord... ”

“I won it all in a game of Royal Fizbin,” he exclaimed with a spread of his arms.  “Fair and square!”

Iron Will gave a low whistle.  “You ran a Fizbin con?  Wow.  There’s some prisoners in Tartaurus who tried running one in the prison.  They were lucky enough to only get an extended sentence.”

Twilight chewed a carrot thoughtfully.  “Lucky?”

Dark amusement ran across Iron Will’s face.  “Yeah.  I heard the guards almost gave them to the other inmates.”

Discord sauntered up to the table, grabbing several bananas and juggling them into the air.  “Ah, Fizbin.  The ultimate game really.  Used to run it on the Magne’s family back in Dream Valley all the time.  Never lost a game, and I never will.”

Twilight crossed her legs across the table.  “I’ll bite, Discord.”

“Make a note of that,” the leering Draconequus said to a suddenly reddening minotaur.

Twilight took a deep breath.  “How could you play a game and never lose?”

“My dear Twilight Sparkle,”  Discord announced as he sat down in a chair, kicking his legs onto the table.  “The only important rule in Fizbin is that the dealer makes up all the rules as he goes!”

Iron Will stood up, gesturing to the door.  “As much as I’d like to bathe in your smugness, we have an appointment.  Miss Sparkle, if you would come with me?”

Twilight narrowed her eyes at Discord as she hissed out the whispered warning, “Not a word.”  He chuckled to himself as he followed the pair into the auditorium, where the family fireworks had already begun.

“You are being ridiculous!”  The High Enough King stomped around the stage, waving his hands wildly.  “I’m not discussing this!  I get to make the speeches.  We had a deal, here.”

The High King rolled his eyes as he crossed his arms, standing against an ancient pillar.  “Ve made that deal when ve vere six.  A stuffed animal is not worth sovereignty.”

The High Enough King’s eyes flashed as he spun on his fellow monarch.  “Don’t you dare dismiss Moogy!  Don’t you involve her.”  At that point, he managed to catch a glance of the three outsiders and covered his face with his hands.

“Oh, not in front of the prisoners!  Don’t hash this out in front of the prisoners.”

“I haff freed them,” corrected the High King. “They are dignitaries, brother.”

The High Enough King grabbed his hat and try to pull himself inside it.  “That’s worse!  You can’t execute dignitaries if you get embarrassed in front of them!  This conversation is over!”

Iron Will stepped forward, in an instant stepping into character.  “Not a chance, Your Majesty.  He’s has some things he has to get off his chest, and he’s not stopping until he’s done!  He’s gonna take you to task, or he’s gonna-- “

“I get it,” The High King interrupted.  “I get it.  Look, you wanna play like this in front of the subjects?  You don’t actually think you’ll win, do you?”

Twilight inched over to Discord, whispering out of the side of his mouth.  “Okay, if this goes south, I have something to try.”

“Really,” Discord said as his head perked up.  “Teleporting Shrimpy into a cell?  Mind control magic?”  He rubbed his claws together.  “I want to know!”

“Um,” she began.  “I was going to point out how brothers are the closest friends, and-- ”

“Bored now,” Discord said as he moved off to rummage through the empty auditorium, leaving a steaming Twilight in his wake.

Back on the stage, the Kings were screaming in each other’s faces.  Iron Will stood at their side, trying in vain to get their attention.

“You!”  The High King stab his finger through the air at his brother’s bell-topped hat.  “You  jingle all the way around here vith your little bells ignoring me!  I’m not going to take it anymore!”

“Uh, gentlegrundles,”  Iron Will said as he tried to interpose himself.  “Could we just-- ”

Steam was coming out of the High Enough King’s ears.  “You’ve been crazy for weeks!  This here mood swing?  This is why I had to take charge!  You sure you ain’t going crazy?  Maybe got some kinda head tumor?”

“It’s not a tumor!”  The High King screamed  “I’m pregnant!”

“Of course buh wow ho wah?” concluded Iron Will.

The High Enough King’s eyes went wide.  “Whoah.”  He took a few steps backward.  “Julius, when were you going to ever mention that?”

Around the perimeter of the room poked the heads of grundles too enthralled by the Kings’ conversation to bother pretending not to eavesdrop anymore.

“What?”  Twilight’s eyes spun in their sockets.  “I mean, as in what the whatting what?”

“Grundles,” said Discord across several rows, shrugging as he examined a club made of hay, carrots, sticks and frog legs.  “It’s like another world.”

“How, uh,”  the High Enough King tried to control his voice.  “How long have you known?”

The High King smiled with pride.  “A while now.  I’m having twins.”

“Just like us,”  said the Grundle King wiped a tear from his eye.  

As the Kings embraced, Iron Will blinked and stepped backwards as he looked from one grundle to the other.  Shaking his head and throwing his hands in the air he stepped back to Twilight.

“So,” he said.

“Yep,” she replied.

“It’s Plato’s baby,”  The High King said through a cascade of tears.  “He’s going to marry me.”

“All right, that’s it,” Discord shouted as he raised himself to his height. “This really is getting into a whole weird area here, so hey!  Remember us?  Dignitaries and family counselors?  Can we just go upstairs and use the bell?””

The two kings stopped embracing as a quick, whispered conversation took place.  At a nod from the High Enough King, the High King gave Discord a thumbs-up.

“Get your ahss to Tambelon.”

___

Minutes later found the trio on top of the monastery's crumbling stone tower.  A gigantic iron bell covered in elegant patterns hung from the top of the room big enough for dragon calisthenics.  The sides of the tower held a spiral stairway to the bell proper along with faded murals, the remaining scenes suggesting an epic struggle between ancient ponykind, goblins, and a dark horned figure whose face had long since been scoured away by the elements.

“Whoah,” summed up Iron Will.  “Twilight, do you see . . 0000. ”

He noticed that Twilight was skipping under the bell in circles, in no mood for conversation.  “Wow.  Can you feel the magic?  This place is just bristling with enchantments.  Discord, do your thing, and I’ll go through while you two wait here.”

Iron Will pawed the ground with a hoof.  “No way!  I’m not staying with the twerp.”

Discord looked back from Iron Will to Twilight.  The two of them were locked in a wordless conversation of glares.  Shrugging, he stepped between them to play the voice of reason.

“Look,” he said with a tone of diplomatic rationality, “‘twerp?’  Really?  I mean, I’m a head taller than you.  Everybody sees this, right?”

“Twerp’s a state of mind,” growled Iron Will.  “Back off.”

Twilight stepped in front of him, staring upwards.  “The magic-user is going into magic place, Mister Big, Burly, and Bellowing.”

Discord giggled.  “Wow, this brings me back.  Just like the old tiffs with Celly had with Woo-Woo right before she went all emo world-conquering on everypony.”

Twilight blinked, turning to the chuckling draconequus.  “I thought you were stone then.”

“Magic stone,” corrected Discord.  “For a while I still had some senses, and royal arguments were one of the few things that made the centuries pass faster.  After Luna got planet-punted, Celestia would visit to berate me, occasionally.  Then she’d visit to berate herself.  Very thoughtful letting me have my senses for a bit, I might say.  Thinking back on it, it might also explain my irrational hatred of pigeons I had the moment I was freed.”

Twilight frowned.  “What’s a pigeon?”

“Yes, quite,” Discord’s said as his eyes flashed with triumph. 

Iron Will stepped in front of Twilight, giving a weary look to Discord.  “Look, we should leave you here to the grundles.  They’ll take care of you.  Maybe you could deal a few hands of Fizbin.”

“No!”  Discord gestured frantically.  “Twilight, I swear that I am a melting pot of friendship!  I’ll be helpful.  Believe me, I want this over as much as you do.  Besides,”  he said with a sigh.  “You can never run so much Fizbin at one time.  Things starts to get boring if you always win.”

Twilight pawed the roof cobblestones with her hoof.  “We-eell, I could let you come.  But you’d just be a hindrance.”

Part of the roof collapsed as Discord stamped on the ground in indignation.  “I bring experience, Miss Sparkle.  I have centuries of it.  You’re going to need it, considering he’s got true love on his side.”

“Blech,” Twilight said as nauseating thoughts popped into her head.  “True love?  Get serious.  Tirek is unmitigated, unredeemable, unyielding . . . ungood!”

“Indeed,” Discord said with a lift of his eyebrows, fingers wiggling in the air for effect.  “Well, true love happens to be an equal opportunity employer, dearie.  You’d be surprised what kind of miscreants get to have it.”

Twilight chewed on her bottom lip.  She turned to Iron Will.

“Don’t look at me.”  He crossed his arms.  “If you keep him, I’m not cleaning up after him.”

“All right,” she said.  “You can stay with me.”

“Us,” corrected Iron Will.

“Fine, us!  Just . . . both of you wait while I give the bell a once over magically.”

As Discord perched on a parapet, bouncing in anticipation, Iron Will sauntered over and leaned onto a destroyed pillar.

“So since you know,” he asked Discord, “what does a monster see in a Princess?”

“Well, I don’t have a clue,” Discord replied with an exaggerated shrug.   “A being that thrives on conflict might be drawn to someone serene and majestic who’s not a total softy, perhaps?  Someone overly dramatic might require an intelligent audience?  I mean, Tirek might--”

“I wasn’t talking about Tirek.”

Iron Will knelt, pretending to take a pebble out of his hoof as Twilight passed by.

“Discord . . .” he said without emotion.

Discord looked at the axe.

“ . . . and Celestia.”  Iron Will flashed his eyebrows. “In a tree.”

Discord kicked his legs up, nearly falling off the roof.  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, and I I make flying sharks with candy-corn teeth.  She’d never-- ”

“Oh, you don’t mean ‘we’d never,’ do you?”   Iron Will’s eyes sparkled with amusement.  “You’re right.  It’s ludicrous.  Why, when I tell Twilight, I bet she’ll laugh until-- ”

“Don’t tell Twilight.”  Suddenly on his knees, Discord held his claws together in a begging posture.  “Please don’t tell Twilight.”

“Tell me what?”

There are moments when you see your life flash away.  As Discord looked into Iron Will’s eyes, the dark mirth he say made him realize who was really dealing the Fizbin cards at the moment.  He took a deep breath and prepared to debate, distract, jump off the roof, or all three.

“Oh,” Iron said nonchalantly.  “Nothing.  Big Boy here . . .”

As his teeth chattered, Discord snapped his fingers repeatedly to no visible effect.

“ . . . just left a few pranks for the grundles downstairs.  Nothing to be concerned with.  Harmless stuff.”  Iron Will flashed a smile at her.  “Tell you what, Twilight, I think he’s afraid of you.”

With an irritated wave of her hoof, Twilight shook her head.

“Distractions.  Discord, can you get this thing up and running?”

He blinked.  “What? Me? What? Oh, yes, indubitably.  How wonderful of me to be of service.”  His swagger returned as he approached the bell up the spiral stairs.  “I was present at this baby’s forging.  Even had a little claw in it’s combination.”

“Great,” Twilight said as she stared curiously and the still chuckling minotaur.  “Well, let’s get a move on.  I don’t know how long this will-- ”

And as Discord wrapped out “Shave and a Haircut” on the bell, the three of them disappeared into wisps of mist.

___

Somewhere that was nowhere, a muscular blue ram sat atop a cobwebbed throne.  On a raised platform of stone and surrounded by skull-topped pillars, enchanted torches eternally illuminated the ruler of a quiet castle.  They cast shadows along his craggy face, which now lifted in response to a noise.

A group of rats had crawled into the throne room.  Grogar’s eyes opened, gleaming like red suns as he watched the creature move around discarded bits of armor and weapons.  Two groups circled each other, each pack leader testing the other’s resolve with cry and tooth.
Grogar ground his fangs together as he noted the smaller one was female.  The females were always the more dangerous kind.

He watched the female tear the heart out of the male, as he knew would happen.  The rats turned to the colonization of Grogar’s throne room.  Several crawled within his reached, and with glee his forelimbs moved swiftly each time.  Eventually, the rats learned in their primitive brains not to approach Grogar’s throne, and his passing entertainment ended.  Silently and thoughtfully, he beheld the rats’ struggles for sixty-seven generations of the creatures before the last aged, pathetic rat king died alone inside his own filth inside a rusted piece of plate mail.

Grogar sighed.  He kept his eyes open for a year after that, just to see if any of the rats returned.

Some time after that Grogar’s eyes reopened.  He heard a bell ring.

Grogar stood quickly, surveying the area.  Bray had wandered back into the throne room, he noted.  With a smile he reflected on this fortuitous coincidence as he regarded his donkey jester, sitting in a position of submission he had long ago learned to use around Grogar.
 
“How long you have you been here, Bray?  An entertainer should wake their Lord when approaching.  Without your diversions, I grew bored.”

Bray the Jester stayed silent.  His life had been a string of learning to be quiet when his master took that tone.

Grogar stared into Bray’s eyes.  Seeing no hint of defiance, he looked away with content.

“Intruders come to Tambelon.  Intruders, here!  I wonder what opportunities await me now?”

Grogar’s long chuckle was the only sound in the throne room.

“I go now to survey these intruders, Bray.  Stay here until I return.”

As Grogar left his chamber imperiously, Bray stayed as still as possible.  His jester bells did not jingle, and the long silence of his vigil was only broken by the scratching of a spider crawling up from his rib-cage and into his skull.

___

Luna breathed in deeply before considering her answer.  

“I wanted to know ‘why,’ Tirek.  Why did you approach me so long ago?  What compels this unending loyalty?  Whether now or then, what draws you to me time and time again?”  She slowly walked around the table towards him.

“I behold many stallions dreaming of me,” she said with a chuckle, pretending not to notice the guard in the corner shaking, “but you always thought of me with reverence and respect.  What did I do to bring your worship upon me?”

Tirek leaned back for a second, and for the first time after his return Luna saw him hesitate. After a second of visible consideration, he leaned forward.  Placing his elbows on the table and leaning his chin onto his fists, he locked eyes with Luna.  The ruthless demeanor that streamed from eyes softened, but his determination remained.

“Because this world is terrible.  There are things in this world that are truly beautiful, not just in form, but in potential, action, and influence.  The world looks at beautiful things with envious eyes.  It grinds them down because it cannot aspire to be like them.  After eroding them for far too long, it finally wipes away everything unique and wonderful about them.”

As Luna stood stunned in the silence, Tirek reached for a goblet.  He hesitated at the last second, hand closing in irritation.  Sighing, he turned back to the Princess.

“To preserve something truly beautiful I would burn the rest of this unworthy world and salt the ashes.”

Luna’s heart leapt in her chest as she stepped backwards, her mouth moving noiselessly.  Without a word she turned and ran from the room.

Tirek stared at the empty archway until No-Heart walked out of the wall next to him. 

“I don’t know,” No-Heart said as he surveyed the dining table.  “I think you could be more considerate.  I mean, they went to all the trouble of cooking this food.  You know there are starving children somewhere, right?”
> Chapter 5: Somewhere Far Beyond
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Iron Will almost wished the mists would clear, but decided that would be unfortunate since he was walking on them.

It unsettled him to have his hooves sink into condensation and find purchase and solidity. As he walked along the cloudy road, his hooves made both the sounds of stepping in mud puddles and trotting down a brick path. Some would go mad, he thought, if forced to travel along contradictions for too long.

But he found listening was better than looking.

The unyielding mists of the path were visually identical to insubstantial fog that twirled around them. The hard, foggy road was constantly evaporating into the obscuring mists the group walked through. After contemplating it for more than a space of seconds, Iron Will understood what his mother meant by “thinking too much.”

Just once, Iron dared to step by the side of the road and peer into the gloom. Carefully staying on the visible path, Iron stuck his head into the misty boundary. He saw blackness, star, and a door hanging onto nothing. 

Iron Will did a double take as he looked through the open door. There was a room there, its confines stretching outward into what seemed to be from his vantage point nothing but void. Standing there regarding him back was a smiling chestnut brown earth pony in a trench-coat and tie. The pony waved, and Iron leaned in a little closer to make sure he wasn’t seeing apparitions in the smoke.

“Twilight,” he said as he fondled his axe, “I think someone’s watching us.”

Feeling a hoof tapping on his back, Iron gave a last glance at the impossible pony before stepping back onto the road. Twilight Sparkle regarded him with the eyes librarians normally reserve for patrons with bath-drenched books.

“Don’t do that, okay?” Twilight breathed out as she looked at the shifting walls of their fog tunnel. “I’m not entirely sure how this is going to work, and . . . Discord, stop waving at it!”

“Was that someone’s kitchen?” Discord pulled himself out of the mist wall, wiggling his eyebrows.

As Twilight sat down, ready to speak on the dangers of diverging from the path between ethereal realms, Iron Will quickly grabbed Discord by the arm and firmly pulled him onto the path, saying, “It never happened.”

Twilight blinked, lecture aborted. “But . . . but . . .”

“Ah, come on!” Discord tried to dig his tiny, disproportionate heels into the ground to little avail except for a sucking sound. “They had a kitchen! That means food! Or do you keep that in the garage? I’m trying to pay attention, at least!”

Iron Will kept his grip firm as he stared straight ahead. “Trust me, it never happened.”

“Well, can that have happened?” Discord’s free claw pointed up the path. “Will happen? Whatever tense mortals with a linear understanding of time use, I suppose.”

Iron Will stopped, and pitched an inch forward as he felt Twilight skid into him from behind. The fog tunnel had opened up onto an island in the void, revealing a place that made Tartaurus look like a vacation spot.

It couldn’t be described as a fortress, any more than a devouring carpet of army ants could be called “bugs.” It was many fortresses, their pointed towers rising into the air like the spiked back of a dragon. The fortress city was surrounded by a gigantic wall, discolored by unknown aeons of erosion.

Looking down, he saw hope and wonder play across Twilight’s face. Grunting, he took his axe off of his shoulder.

“Wow,” she finally concluded. “I wonder what kind of magic keeps it here.”

Iron rested his axehead on the ground, leaning onto the haft. “I wonder what kind of prisoner needs walls like that to keep contained.”

The two stood staring at the city a while until Discord snapped his fingers in front of Twilight’s face, drawing a jump and high pitched noises from her. 

“Come on, Twilight, don’t be a tourist.” Discord clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Let’s see if the old bell is up and running.”

The three walked on to the fortress in the nothing.

___


Madness was a weakness. Logically then, Tirek knew that he couldn’t be going mad. Still, the thought was a tempting explanation for the specter that had just walked out of the wall.

Bushy green eyebrows rose in disappointed curve over red glowing eyes. He looked into the darkened hood behind those eyes and shivered. Tirek pointedly kept his stare above the figure’s neck level, in order for his brain to plausibly deny the reality of the dark-stained wizard robe the figure wore.

“No,” he stammered. “No . . . Heart.”

“Well, that’s a rude thing to say.” No Heart crossed his arms in disappointment, granting Tirek’s denial a merciful temporary reprieve. He threw a thumb through the door the princess had recently absconded through. “I mean, Luna's obviously got one, considering how you affected her.”

Tirek leapt away, smashing through a nearby stool. He drew in a deep breath from lungs he had hours ago made redundant as No Heart walked through the furniture fragments as if it wasn't there.

“Look, Tirek, you gotta change your tactics. Try singing her a song. She’s Equestrian, for Harmony’s sake. I mean, if you love someone you understand their culture, right? She’ll eat it up. I know she likes the ‘bad boy’ acts, but it only gets you so far.”

Tirek snapped his fingers, and found successive flash of light and magic did nothing to halt the advancing figure.

“You’re . . . you can’t . . .” 

“Yeah, I know,” No Heart said with a shrug. “After all, ‘I’m probably just indigestion,’ right? The cell block did that play for Hearth’s Warming. I was the director.” He tapped his unseen chin thoughtfully. “Although, in hindsight, casting DeCompose as the second ghost was a mistake.”

The only thing holding Tirek back from teleporting was the shame of retreat. Looking for an opportunity, he quickly scanned the area. He realized that, except for himself, the room was dead silent. The counselor was scrutinizing him quietly, and even the proudly unemotional Royal Guards looked a little confused.

“Only I can see you,” he said softly as he crossed his arms. He snapped his fingers, as his bewildered audience found themselves in a far tower of the castle. Nodding to himself, Tirek turned a cool gaze to No Heart. “Why do you trouble me, phantom?”

"Heh. You did read that play." No Heart grabbed at a particularly large apple, his hand passing right through. He rolled his eyes. “You know, being dead would be better if you could just live a little.” He straightened up as he turned to Tirek. “Say, could you eat that, buddy? I’d love to just watch.”

“I cannot,” Tirek said as he stared back.

No Heart shrugged. “Huh. Weird diet, Horsey-Boy. Not a good fit for Equestria. Anyway, you need some help, buddy. I didn’t want to let you get into trouble, so here I am.” He drew himself up with pride. “I’m your guardian angel, Tirek.” He scratched the side of his hood. “Or at least, your guardian ex-wizard.”

“Spare me. I have no need--”

“I have this cool trick where I show you what the world would be like if you weren’t born. Would you want to--”

No Heart’s words died as quickly as he himself had under Tirek’s withering stare.

“Nah. Better not.” He snapped his fingers. “Anyway, let’s work on getting your Lil’ Woona and you together. You need to be a little more princely and less conqueror-of-worlds, Tirek.”

No Heart pointed both hands at Tirek, wiggling his eyebrows. Tirek didn’t move a muscle.

“Perhaps... ” Tirek fingered his chin, eyes cast downwards in thought.

“Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees?” No Heart's eyebrows raised to stratospheric heights.

“Perhaps accepting that the power of Chaos is driving me mad is preferable to admitting you exist.”

No Heart levitated into the air and started to circle around Tirek. The necromancer tensed, expecting an attack. The last thing he expected was No Heart’s voice deepening into a booming baritone.

“I look at you, and soon I fiiiiiiiiiind...”

“No,” Tirek said as he smashed his face into his palm. “Please no. If I am not mad, I will be soon.”

“You’re murderous with quite a bloody miiiiiiiiind...”

By The Enveloping Dark, Tirek thought, he really has converted to Harmony. He walked off, trying to ignore the singing specter hovering behind him.

“But now you’re dear, and so . . . Ah, come on, Big Guy, we haven’t even reached the chorus yet!” No Heart shrugged. “I get no respect,” he muttered as he zipped through the air after Tirek.

___

The gates of Tamberlon were open. Iron Will studied the vast iron portcullis spread wide before him he shuddered, suddenly imagining a hungry manticore hoping for an innocent meal to walk into its mouth. Even Discord seemed pensive, whispering jokes to himself the way some ponies whistle in the dark. The only one untouched by the architecture was Twilight.

After all, she saw the body first. 

Sprawled in front of the gate was the remains of an ancient warrior pony. She (Twilight assumed it was a she because of Equestrian grammatical standards) was covered in head to hoof in ornate black armor, crowned by a horned helmet. A crimson cutie mark was engraved onto the armor’s flank, showing a circle of arrows pointing in every direction. The pony itself was almost totally a skeleton except for wisps of pure white mane clinging to the ancient scalp.

Next to the body lay an ancient sword with red runes running up and down the black blade. Twilight could feel the magic inside it, pulsing like the heartbeat of a sleeping dragon. For the first time in her life, she felt no curiosity about the strange arcane thing she had stumbled on.

Iron Will stopped at her side. “Huh. Wondered what happened to him.”

“Her,” Twilight corrected. “When in doubt of a gender, assume a pony’s female.”

He clicked his tongue. “That’s not minotaur grammar.” He shrugged. “Then again, you guys have more girls than we do.”

Momentarily quivering, Twilight turned to him. “Iron, that sentence’s gender agreements give me a headache. Discord, back me up on this.”

Discord stared at the body, shivering as his own mortality jumped out from its cosmic hiding spot at him and said “Boo.”

“Twilight, firstly I don’t think my kind even has females. Secondly, can we ignore the grammar and think on what killed this pony who was armed for Ursa Major?”

“He became lost.”

All three travelers jumped as a muscular ram stepped out of the gate. His wild blue coat was unbrushed and matted, but his red eyes commanded silence and his bearing brooked no disrespect. He held his horns high, and tusks peeked out of the bottom of his strong jaw.

Twilight spoke first, her irritation at grammatical disagreement overcoming her fear. “What happened to . . . ’him,’ Sir?”

Grogar inclined his head with a grin. Already, she calls me “Sir.” “He ended up on the wrong side of the cosmos, my dear. I believe this created a philosophical disagreement with his traveling companion, leading to angry words and the state you see him in now.”

“So, his partner,” Twilight paused to swallow, “killed him and left?”

He grinned. “One of those things is correct. Left? Heh. Don’t touch the sword.” He walked forward, and Iron Will instantly stepped in front of Twilight, drawing an amused snort from the ram. “But I forget myself. I am Grogar, the Hornlord, King of the Black Walls, Master of the Iron Houses, at your service.” His eyes flashed as they ran over Twilight, and she shivered. His look reminded her of Spike as he examined Rarity’s gem collection. “Happy am I to see a unicorn again,” he continued. “It’s been too long since your like graced my corridors.” 

Noting Iron Will with amusement, Grogar sidestepped the glaring minotaur and bent his foreknees to Twilight. A lifetime of bookwormery couldn’t erased a Canterlot upbringing, and as she reflexively raised a hoof Grogar kissed it and straightened his posture.

Twilight, confused and nervous, vaguely heard the sound of splintering wood from where Iron Will gripped his axe.

Grogar peered around the speechless unicorn, and his grin spread. “Do I spy a familiar trickster hiding behind this lady’s bodyguard?”

Iron tapped his axe on the ground. “The name’s Iron Will, and I’m this lady’s motivation speaker. If dummies threaten, I'm gonna wreck'em.”

“My amused apologies,” Grogar said with his eyes still on Discord. “Is that who I think it is behind this lady’s boastful, blustering, presumptive bodyguard?”

Iron Will snorted as Discord stepped out from behind him, weakly waving.

“Heh,heh. Long time, no see, old buddy. Have you redecorated?”

Grogar snorted. “What do you seek here, Lord of Lies?”

“Lord . . .”

“ . . . of Lies?”

Baking in the amused gazes of Twilight and Iron Will and Grogar’s glower, Discord severely reconsidered the final downside of mortality.

“Yes, wonderful. I'd love you to slander me, on top of everything else. ” He unconsciously started snapping his fingers as he stared at the cobblestones. “Can this trip get any worse?”

___

“Man, this trip sucks.”

Rock after rock was kicked down the path, propelled by Rainbow Dash’s frustration. They skipped through the tall grass once or twice before disappearing. The only thing worse than kicking a stone to pass time is running out of stones to kick. With a frustrated growl, she took to the air, hovering just above the swaying sea of green that spread toward every horizon. Relief filled her as she broke the confining chains of gravity.

At least, until the bite on her tail yanked her to the ground.

"Rainbow, I done told ya' to stay low!"

Grinding her hooves into the mud in frustration, Rainbow lifted her eyes to Applejack's disapproving stare. Dirty, scuffed up by spike grasses and burs, and weighed down with full saddlebags, she still had offered not a single complaint for the past six hours. Rainbow had honestly started to get a little jealous about how good AJ was making out. The glimmer of a stoic pony competition burned in Dash's mind.

Respect for AJ aside, Rainbow was still bored.

"I can't believe we found a dull way to get to Canterlot. I wish we had some excitement!"

Applejack shook her head before walking off.

"I left fields and family at the drop of a hat to help out, and I'd appreciate you takin' this seriously. We all know what's at stake . . . and who."

Leaving a blushing Dash in the dust, Applejack pushed through the underbrush to find Rarity and Pinkie staring out of the cover of the grass. Pinkie had a gigantic pair of binoculars with pinwheels on the side, whereas Rarity levitated a pair of opera glasses in front of her. They gazed across an open field to a gleaming white road, watching crowds of ponies upon it streaming in the opposite direction.

"Darling," Rarity whispered, "I know you had everyone's best interests in mind, but did you have to be so hard on poor Rainbow Dash?"

Applejack sat down, grabbing a long dry stick of grass with her mouth, and started chewing.

"I'm honest, so I told her. She's loyal, so she'll snap out of it. I don't run herd on her harder than she can handle. You notice anything?"

Rarity nodded, slightly sparkling in her sequined safari outfit and pith helmet. Applejack wondered if she understood the point of camouflage.

"It seems that the number of poor dears fleeing Canterlot are increasing. I do believe we're almost there." She lowered her glasses. "I hope we reach it before I collapse. If only the trains were still running."

Applejack rested a hoof on Rarity's shoulder. "Hopefully Twilight will be there with some answers. Pinkie, see anything important?"

"Ooh, ooh, I got this one!" Pinkie Pie's smile flashed like a friendly picket fence. "I see a big, nasty bug!"

Rolling her eyes, Applejack watched Rarity shrug as she went back to her opera glasses.

___

A simple stone hall opened up into room that could have swallowed cathedrals. Twilight’s breath caught in her throat as she saw rows of stone pews inlaid with silver-filigree stretching far into darkness. At the other end of the chamber, Grogar stepped onto one of a pair of entwined staircases and tried to wave the group upward, but Twilight only had eyes for the house-sized artwork of stained glass that stood between the stairs. Most of it was covered in a fine sheet of dust, but a few patches where air currents had disturbed the powdery coating glimmered in the light of her horn, like forgotten jewels in a trash heap.

“Huh,” muttered Iron Will. “This would be a great place to book an engagement.” He started as he saw Twilight’s horn flare. “Twi? What are you-- ”

Her eyes glowed with power and curiosity, and at the moment, neither would be denied. 

As energy streamed out of Twilight, Grogar turned and stopped. He watched, his look inquisitive, his mouth shut.

Iron Will stepped towards Twilight, blocking the glare with a raised arm as a gigantic cloud of dust lifted itself into the air. Shining brightly purple, the dust flew towards him, dragging out a deep cough as it passed Iron Will entirely, flying out of the gate behind them and into the mists of uncreation.

Discord sneezed into his claw, wiping it on a nearby pew. “Show-off,” he concluded as he stared at his palm, fascinated by the colors his nose could produce. After a moment he raised his eyes, and promptly forget all about his own secretions.

The gigantic mural shone in the light of Twilight’s horn. On either end of the mural were two cities. On the left white towers gleamed, topped with crenelated battlements that owed more to the whimsy of art than the architecture of defense. The city reclined like an artist’s model, drawing in the viewer’s eye in peaceful curves.

On the opposing side of both philosophy and the mural was the gray city, bricks clamped together tightly and with regularity under spiked platforms. Every door was shaped as a padlock. It squatted, more a fortress than a metropolis, sharp angles daring any to raise arms against it.

Atop of each city rested a bell tower. Between them, worlds floated.

Twilight’s eyes widened in wonder as the jewels, most no bigger than her hoof, were revealed to her vision to be a field of worlds spread out between the cities. Where they gathered in groups, she noted some similarities. A cluster of them were illustrated with the same red-and-blue bipedal armored knight. Though his shape and proportions changed greatly from world to world, he was always near a representation of some kind of closed chariot. Monsters, ponies, and things she couldn’t quite place spread out in front of Twilight, a sea of stories glowing in her eyes.

In places they touched. Twilight had just noticed one of the bipeds walking to a pony world on a rainbow when she felt Iron’s hand on her shoulder. Looking up, he gave her an indulgent smile.

“Go on.”

“Guh.” Twilight managed to squeeze sounds out of her throat. “Go on what?”

Iron Will rolled his eyes. “Explain it. I want to know, and you want to tell me.”

She jumped into the air with a squeak. “Really?”

He nodded, and Twilight closed her eyes and laid her hoof on her chest like a performer preparing for a song.

“It’s the Many Realms,” she said with breathless enthusiasm. “Worlds of living steel and planets of tyrannical plants, knights of light and cities of snakes. All the worlds of the Sea of Creation, anchored by the Twin Eternal Cities: Tanelorn, City of Freedom, and Tamberlon, City of Tyranny.”

To improve his craft, Iron had traveled to distant lands in order to hear from the great speakers of his day, from zebra story-chanters in carved auditoriums to griffon 'warhawks,' inciting crowds in the streets outside their parliament. Now that she was in her element, Twilight had an enthusiasm and easy confidence equal to any presenter he'd ever seen.

He kept watching her. He could watch her forever.

Grogar cleared his throat, and as Twilight jumped she noted that the once quiet goat had somehow managed to silently step within reach of her. “Baseless propaganda. I’ve always heard them referred to as the Cities of Chaos and Order.” He turned away. “By the way, that was quite an impressive display. I had no idea that you capable of such things, my dear. I’ll remember that.”

Fool, Grogar named her in his head.

Discord stepped behind Iron Will, whispering into his ear, “Is that bad guy talk? I’m familiar with bad guy talk, and I think that’s bad guy talk.”

Iron turned and shushed him.

“Such moral abstracts bore me,” continued Grogar as he walked out of view. “Let us away, my new friends.” A smile spread across his face while he ascended the stairs. “I bet there are three facts that we can definitely agree on.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow as she followed him, reluctantly tearing herself away from the expressive artwork. “And that would be?”

He spun on her, looking down over the railings. The pointed teeth of his grin glimmered unnervingly in her horn’s light.

“You need to go somewhere. I have the Bell. You need me in order to get . . . ” He left the sentence hanging with a tilt of his head.

Leaning onto Twilight's shoulder, Iron whispered, "Don't tell him. No free samples."

Twilight swallowed as she stared at Grogar's impassive face.

"A bag. We need a bag."

Eyes spreading wider that Twilight thought possible, Grogar laughed as he turned, trotting up the stairs.

Iron Will gave a low whistle as he stepped into pace beside Twilight, following Grogar. “Why do I get the feeling this guy going to try to sell us a pitch?”

Lingering almost last in the cathedral, Discord's claw delicately touched the glass mural. Underneath his finger was a rainbow, connecting a world of bipedal creatures to a world of ponies. In between the two, a blond feminine-looking biped knelt next to two familiar young alicorns. He ran a nail carefully down the side of the pink-haired filly. 

“Well,” he concluded. “They certain captured your good side.” He sighed. “I suppose that’s the benefit of having one.”

As Discord stepped onto the stairs, the thing that was truly lingering last briefly stepped out of the shadows, metal limbs moving silently and gears grinding slowly as it followed the party up the stairs.