//------------------------------// // The Choice // Story: The Life and Times of Flix the Hippogriff // by AlaskaIsCold //------------------------------// The Life and Times of Flix the Hippogriff Chapter 6 – The Choice It was late, but nobody in the castle was sleeping. Free was busy taxing every one of his drones, while Luna and Twilight were scrying their hardest. The entire family was on high alert, the tension was thick, everyone was on edge, and it was all because their son, Flix, had been missing for a week. Ever since he had stomped out of the gallery in Canterlot, he seemed to have just disappeared. Rose was beyond consolation, and she had barricaded herself inside the den room. Path was looking over report after report when he saw Fluttershy arrive with Discord. “Have you heard anything, Discord?!” Path asked, clearly desperate. “No, nothing at all…” He was tapped hard by Fluttershy and she stared at him. Discord hastily revised his words. “I mean – while I can’t figure out where he is because he’s blocking me as hard as he’s been blocking you, I can show you what he’s seeing.” That got everyone’s attention, and all eyes fastened on him. “Do it! Do it now!” Twilight yelled. “Don’t you even want to know how it works?” Discord asked with a slight grin. “No! Do it now!” she growled out. “Okay! Okay! Okay!” Discord hit himself on the back of the head lightly, and his eyes spun around. One came up its normal yellow and red, but the other came up the same colors as Flix’s eye. A beam of light shot out of it and onto a wall, and soon the sound of the click-clack of a train’s wheels on rails was heard coming from it. The eye’s view moved around until it focused on an orange changeling. “Flix, you know that you can’t keep running, right? They have four or five alicorns on their side! Eventually they will find out,” Orlonda said before her expression turned quizzical. “Why is your right eye the chaos colors again?” They heard Flix speak. “Ah, it’s just the chaos in me. I’m not as good as the professor, so sometimes it slips out. Does it really bother you that much?” The orange changeling looked closely at the eye. It almost seemed like she was staring through it and at the people watching her. Her eyes widened slightly and she smiled for almost a second before she hid it and let out an irritated huff. “Aren’t you at least sorry for doing that to Celestia? I mean, she is kind of the leader of your home nation, after all.” Orlonda said earnestly. Flix looked away and got to his feet. “Honestly? No, I’m not sorry. They let my brothers and sisters get away with a lot of crap, but the moment I do something that might be controversial, I get slammed down hard. I mean, it’s not like I turned her into a balloon doggie even though I could have,” Flix growled out. “You don’t mean that, Flix!” Orlonda chastised from out of the audience’s view. “Ah… you know that I don’t. But you also know about how I’m sensitive to that kind of thing. I mean my moms and dads never even pay attention to me. Do you know how many shows they have attended of mine? All of them as a group? None! I’ve done like twenty shows just this year alone. Discord has shown up to almost all of them! Twilight has shown up to two; Path, Free, Rose, just one. And the only one Luna went to was this one!” Flix turned to face Orlonda again. “If it wasn’t for my last name, they would have no association with me at all!” “But they still love you, Flix! Surely you know that, right?” She seemed to be looking right at the group when she said that. “I don’t know, Orlonda. I honestly don’t know.” His view changed as he moved and looked outside. The scenery was shrouded in darkness, but the lights of a huge city could be seen in the distance. “We should be in Manehattan soon. Let’s see if we can’t drum up a few bits before we move on, okay?” The view shifted again as he lay down in the hay and Orlonda snuggled up next to him. “You can run for now, Flix, but eventually you will need to resolve this. Letting hard feelings and negative emotions fester is never a good thing,” she said as she closed her eyes. “Eventually… but not anytime soon.” Flix sighed and closed his eyes. Discord’s eye returned to normal, and he looked at the dumbstruck family. “Now, what are you going to do?” Twilight cried, “We need to get him! We need to explain ourselves!” Twilight’s horn started to glow, but before she could cast anything, Discord snapped his fingers and the herd disappeared, only to reappear behind school desks and wearing dunce caps. Even Roseclaw was there, rather confused as to what was going on since she had been in the den nest crying only moments ago. “No,” the draconequus said sternly, “what you need to do is listen before you act.” They really had no choice but to sit down as Discord walked over to the front of the ‘class’ in the unicorn professor guise that he often used in Ponyville. He lit up his horn as a chalkboard appeared, and the colored chalk sticks moved up to draw on the board. Little versions of their kids appeared – Blue Streak, Lucida Path, Destined Path, Epiphany Path, and finally Flix Path. After a few moments, the Lucida chalk-drawing waved to them all. Discord looked at his ‘students’ and pointed at Long Path. “Describe Blue Streak to me.” Path thought for a moment and then said, “He is our first son; he’s smart and strong; Warfist plans to hand the House military management responsibilities to him in a few years.” A bar appeared under Blue Streak and pushed him up a bit. “Did you go to his class graduations… his milestones… his birthday?” Discord asked. “Of course we did!” Luna barked out. “And did you do that with Lucida, Pif, and Destined?” “Yes!” The bars all lifted up the cardboard versions of their kids as they did a dance. “And we all know that Destined is growing into his own as an alicorn, and is favored by both Luna and Celestia.” The bar under Destined lifted him up even higher. “Lucida is being groomed to be the new head of House Path. Pif is being trained to be the new Queen of the Chrome Hive.” Her bar moved up as well. “What is the meaning of this, Discord?” Free growled lowly. “Oh, I am sorry. So what can you tell me about Flix?” Discord looked from one parent to the next, as did the caricature on the chalkboard. “Well... he's an artist… and he's our son… and he's Flix!” Roseclaw said. The bar moved barely at all. “Do you even know what kind of artist he is? Did you go to any of his other showings, or any of his class presentations, other than the ones you were grading, of course?!” Discord demanded as the group fell silent. “Did you go to any of his graduations?” Discord paused. “He's an experimentalist artist by the way.” He crossed his arms. “Did you even ask him how his day was?!” “...He's always in his studio!” Twilight said softly. “He always seemed most annoyed when we bothered him,” Luna whimpered. “I wanted him to be free to experience all that he could,” Path said. Discord slammed his pointing stick on the ground. “You all forgot his last birthday! While he was alone in his studio, you were all in voluntary meetings!” The herd flinched. “You're mad at him? He's furious with you! His lashing out is a perfectly normal response to being trivialized by those he loves the most! History is repeating itself and you are too blind to even realize it! Pop quiz – what happens when one member of the family is ignored and disempowered? Anyone? Do you need a clue, Luna?” Discord hissed. “We need to get him and talk to him!” Twilight started to speak before Discord cut her off. “No, no you don’t. It’s far too late for that. I’m going to go to Manehatten, and I’m going to give him a choice. You might see him shortly afterwards, or you might see him years from now, but if you love your son, you will stay here until I am done talking with him!” Discord stomped his hooves as he disappeared, clearly infuriated at the treatment of his favorite pupil. Fluttershy looked over the herd and shook her head sadly. “I can’t believe that your whole family could overlook your son so easily. I’m especially disappointed with you, Twilight; the Princess of Friendship should know better. And it took Discord to show you how you were failing Flix so badly! I think his teacher has been a better parent lately, don’t you?” Everyone hung their head in shame. None could argue with the quiet pegasus because they all knew that they were just as guilty as the draconequus had accused them of being, and although it had been unintentional, it did not mitigate their failure. # # # Manehattan was a large place if you were looking for one pony who didn’t want to be found. The task would be impossible without an extraordinary amount of pony-power on the streets searching. However, Flix was a unique case; with his skill in chaos magic, he shone like a beacon to the Chaos Lord now that he was close to his student. If Flix had more skill in chaos magic, he might have been able to continue to hide himself from Discord, just as he had managed to elude his teacher’s detection up until now. The pair was on a street corner; the hippogriff was playing his guitar and Orlonda was on the drums. Quite a few people were surrounding them as he acoustically rocked out, and the energy in the air was almost visual as he performed, The orange 'ling was synching up with him beat for beat, creating a strange kind of resonance that the crowd loved. Orlonda was busy absorbing all of the emotional energy she could before the song ended and the crowd dispersed. A few bits here and there were being tossed into Flix’s guitar case. “So – my student decides to take his music on the road, hmm?” Discord smiled, still in his unicorn teacher guise as he walked up to the pair and sat down. Flix flattened his ears. “Great! Are you going to tell me how much I messed up as well?” “Nope! Actually I think you did good. You stood by your ethics, and struck Celestia down… well, you didn’t really strike her down. You just erased her filter. You should have seen her after you left!” He chuckled as he recalled the events. “Luna was barely able to keep her in check. Let’s see… she claimed the biggest stallion in some club, then beat the other mare courting him. A pity she was still in her Sunny Skies alter ego though or else she’d still be trying to fix the political damage. Oh! You’ll love this!” Discord pulled out a photo of Celestia full body-hugging a multiple-layer cake. Her ears were pinned back and she was snarling at the camera. Flix started laughing, as did Orlonda. It took them a few minutes to calm down and they looked back up at a grinning Discord. “Wow! Okay, I wasn’t expecting that. I kind of wish I’d been there for that.” Discord grinned. “Luna tried to get her off the cake, but Celestia bit her.” He snapped his fingers as the picture faded away. “Now on to the serious part. Your moms and dads really want me to bring you back home so that they can talk to you, because they somehow think that words will undo them ignoring you for a greater part of your life. However, I’m not going to do that. Instead I’m going to give you a choice.” Discord held out his two front hooves. “Pick the left hoof and I make you happy. You love your moms and dads. There is no conflict. You are the perfect little son. On top of that you will also have no memory of this decision. You will think you came to this all on your own. Instant. Happy. Ending.” He glared at Flix. “Or you can pick the right hoof, and see what happens.” He grinned, his normally disguised eyes revealing their chaotic nature. Flix looked at Orlonda who was slowly starting to smile. He looked back to Discord and slapped his right hoof. “As if you had to ask!” he declared with a laugh. Discord grinned and clapped his hooves, causing Path’s bag to appear in front of them. “In this bag is everything you need if you really want to explore. I mean more than your dad. Try going south – there is another half of the globe waiting for you. Welcome to the final year of my class!” Discord then disappeared, leaving the bag. Flix blinked a few times, looked down and opened it up. In there he found a comm, a return crystal, bits, and a letter from Discord. He read it aloud for the benefit of Orlonda. “Think of a family member, tap the comm, and you can talk to them. If things gets too bad, hit the return crystal. You won’t go to Luna or Twilight – you will return to me. Put your hand in the bag and grab out bits. It works every time, but best not to think about where the bits come from. Check in with your parents from time to time. I really don’t want to have to listen to their whining all the time. They apparently do care about you or something. –D.” Flix grinned at Orlonda as he put his guitar in his case and put on the satchel. “Look like we're going south.” “Okay. How are we going to do that?” Orlonda asked. Flix started to walk down the street as Orlonda followed him. “No idea!” he answered happily.