//------------------------------// // This is Terrible // Story: The Fugitive Draconequus // by Ironskull //------------------------------// "It's alright everybunny!" I declare as I walk back into the home of my minions. Strangely, they respond in a way that I never would have expected. They ignore me completely. "Hey!" I shout, trying to draw their attention. "Did you hear me?" They continue to ignore me completely. "Look, I didn't do anything wrong!" I cry out in anger. "You're supposed to listen to what I say!" Ignored. "What in Equestria did I do?" I huddle down in front of the nearest jackalope and stare her in the face. She doesn't seem concerned in the slightest. The sheer audacity! This is intolerable! "HEY!" I scream at her loud enough to knock her over. She scrambles to her feet and looks around wildly. "Don't you dare pretend that I don't exist!" I scream. All of the jackalopes are looking confused now. I can't believe this. Well, if she refuses to acknowledge me, I have no choice but to force her to do so. I pick her up in my paw and lift her into the air and in front of my face. The critter immediately becomes terrified and starts struggling. "WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?" I scream at her. She lets out a wail of despair, and suddenly all of the others are looking all over the place. Completely ignoring the fact that she is in plain view within my grasp. "ARE YOU ALL DAFT?" I scream. This is useless. I drop the jackalope back to the ground. All of the sudden, the others apparently notice her, finally, and rush to her side. And she is just hugging the ground as though afraid that she is going to unexpectedly leave it again. Something is definitely wrong here. If they were ignoring me on purpose, they wouldn't be acting like this. I can't help but feel that I know what might be behind this madness. But why in Equestria would the magic target my jackalopes, of all creatures? What did it do? Did it turn them into blind dummies? And more importantly, is anyone else affected? I have to find out. "If anybunny cares," I say aloud in frustration, "I'm leaving now." I crawl out of the burrow and into the Everfree Forest and then attempt to use my sensory ability to locate the nearest living animal that isn't in the burrow. I find a target. A big one. I run urgently to find it. I don't have to go terribly far before I close in on the magical signature. It's an ordinary bear, taking a nap under a rock outcrop. "Hello? Hellllloooooo?" I cry at it. "Anyone home?" To my immense relief, the bear stirs from its rest. It lets out a yawn before opening it's eyes and looking round. It doesn't spot me. I'm standing right in front of it! The bear starts to put its head back to the ground to doze off again, but I decide that I cannot allow that. I grab its face and force it to look me in the eyes. "I'm talking to you!" I shout at it. "For the love of chaos, don't tell me that you're affected too!" The bear starts to freak out and struggle within my grasp, looking panicked. "Stop that!" I shout in annoyance. It doesn't change its behavior in the slightest. I'm pretty sure it can't hear me. With a sigh, I release the creature and it jerks away from me instantly. It starts looking wildly in every direction, looking for any signs of whatever it was that happened. This is definitely very bad. If this is widespread... I have to check Ponyville. If the ponies have also been affected by whatever this is, then they will be useless to me. I'm out of the forest now, but I'm a little reluctant to just run into Ponyville. After all, if it happens that they are not being affected by this, I probably would be turning myself in. I take a moment to consider my options, and then decide to search for nearby living creatures once more. There is a whole group of them nearby. I run in their direction. As it turns out, I happen upon a large group of cows grazing on grass. That will do nicely. If they can see me, then I can escape from them easily, and if they can't, then they will actually be able to say something when I get in their face and confuse them. I step out into the open and lift my claw into the air in preparation to announce myself. "Behold, you now stand in the presence of the master of bedlam! My name is Discord, king of chaos! Look on my works, ye mighty bovines, and despair!" I observe the group, waiting for a reaction. There isn't one. No, wait. There is one brown cow that has stopped grazing and is now looking around. "Is everything okay?" asks one of her fellows. "I could have sworn I heard something just now..." answers the brown cow uneasily. "I didn't hear anything. What did it sound like?" "I- I don't remember!" answers the brown cow, sounding even more confused. "It must have been your imagination." The two cows lower their heads once again and resume grazing. I stare dumbfounded. And then I walk closer. I don't stop until I'm standing right in front of the pair of cows who had spoken. "I don't understand how this happened!" I declare out loud. "You should be quaking with fear right now, but you can't seem to even realize that I exist at all!" I reach out with my paw and, ever so gently, poke one of them in the cheek. She shakes her head in slight annoyance. Frustrated, I shove her backward. "MOOOOOO!" she cries out in alarm. This manages to draw the attention of the entire group, all of whom look at her in alarm. "I- I apologize, I'm fine!" she assures them uncertainly. "I don't know what came over me! I was just minding my own business, and then... something strange happened!" "Are you sure you're okay?" "How did this happen?" I repeat out loud. "How? How now, brown cow?" Of course, she offers me no answers. I decide to leave them to it. There is nothing more for me here. That does it. I'm marching into Ponyville right now. Unfortunately, there are no screams of fright as I stroll down the streets of Ponyville, in supposed plain sight for everypony to see. "Hey, you! Quick question! Can you see me?" I shout at a random pony. They ignore me completely. "Anypony who acknowledges me will be awarded with a lifetime supply of chocolate truffles!" Even this isn't incentive enough to receive any responses. By now, I'm standing in the middle of the town square. "I can say whatever I want right now!" I scream into the air. "Princess Celestia is a bloated tyrant who locks away threats to her rule!" This incredible blasphemy doesn't so much as turn any heads. "I'm not wearing any pants right now!" Nothing. "Chaos rules, harmony drools!" Nothing. "The wolf pony is headed this way and wants to know if he can borrow somepony's comb!" Nothing. "The first pegasus was created when I glued wings onto an earth pony!" I lie. Nothing. "I am a GARGANTUAN MORON!" Nothing. "Rainbow Dash is the lamest pony in history!" To my dismay, no rainbow blur comes charging at my face. "Still not talking, eh? Did you know that Twilight Sparkle has the craziest sock collection? She has socks with math equations written all over them! What a nerd!" Nothing. This is really starting to get old. "I'm going to make you all see me if it's the last thing I do!" I scream. I run toward a certain eating establishment and barge through the door. Not to my surprise, nopony notices. I walk right up to the counter. Mrs. Cake is standing behind it, a content look stuck on her face. "I would like to buy a cake." She ignores me request, as expected. "Hmm. I see. So, you won't mind if I just help myself then, right?" Ignored. "If you have a problem with me taking that biggest cake in the display behind the counter, you will say something now. Otherwise, I'm taking it." She doesn't respond. "Alright then!" I cry in frustration. I put my hands on the counter and leap over it, and nopony in the whole bakery bats an eyelash. Nor do they react when I pull the doorway to the display open and snatch a giant pink tower cake out. I am literally walking out the front door with my stolen cake now. Nopony cares. But I care. This is horrible! I just stole something in front of everypony and they're acting like there is nothing wrong! They should be acting like something is wrong! Now standing outside, I turn back and look back into the bakery through the window. All of those ponies just sitting there, acting like there's not a thing in the world wrong. Suddenly, I plunge both of my hands into the giant cake and seize handfuls of gooey confectionary, and then pull them out. And then I fling the pink stuff against the window. It splats against the glass and sticks. And still nobody notices. "GRAGH!" I cry in despair, and I reach into the cake once again to grab more. I begin to smear the icing across the window, slowly spelling out a phrase in giant pink letters. It doesn't take long to finish. I step back and look at my handiwork, not caring about my slimy appendages. 'DISCORD WUZ HERE' it reads. "There!" I scream. "You can't see me, but there's no way that anypony can miss that!" And yet, missing the giant pink message is exactly what everypony around me is doing right now. "Forget it!" I cry out, and I lift the remains of the cake above my head and slam it into the ground with an almighty 'splat'. If I wasn't so upset right now, it would have been satisfying. I storm away. I don't wander too far though. I turn back to Sugar Cube Corner, daring the ponies to suddenly discover the message still written in the window. And eventually, something does happen. Mrs. Cake herself has suddenly come outside and is staring at the messy remains of the cake on the sidewalk. "What in Equestria?" she wonders aloud. Inside, I am celebrating. Somepony actually managed to acknowledge something that I did! Instantly, I feel a pit in my stomach and feel stupid for getting so happy about something so meaningless. How far have I fallen that I am satisfied with something so pathetic? I watch as the mare cleans my mess up. Eventually, she finishes cleaning the ground and goes back inside. It takes me a few minutes to realize that she isn't coming back. SHE DIDN'T SEE THE MESS IN THE WINDOW! ARGHHHHHH! I feel almost ready to explode right now! What am I, a ghost? I can't be a ghost! I can touch stuff! And I can't float through walls or anything! I turn away and leave, feeling utterly defeated right now. Defeated by my own stupidity. I maybe should have paid that one zebra more mind when she tried telling me to not upset the balance of nature so much. Hang on. Pinkie Pie at Twelve O' Clock, and Twilight and Spike too. What are they up to, I wonder? They're just sitting on a bench, watching as ponies walk by. I approach them. I know they won't see me anyway. "Yo, wassup wassup wassup? How yall is? How yo' day been? Mine sucks!" Both Twilight's and Pinkie's faces change to confusion. Spike's doesn't, but that isn't as important right now. Whoa! Hang on a moment! Don't tell me that they can see me! "Twilight?" says Pinkie in confusion. "I think I just heard a weird noise just now." "Yeah..." Twilight answers uneasily. Suddenly, Pinkie Pie gasps. "I bet it was one of those ninjas! You see? I told you!" "I don't think that noise came from a ninja, Pinkie," mutters Twilight. "It did!" Pinkie insists. "You don't believe me just because you can't see them, but I know that they're here! Some-pony... told me so!" "I for one am hoping to catch a glimpse of a ninja," remarked Spike. "Pinkie," says Twilight, "I think something very strange is going on." "Does a group of performing ninjas secretly visiting Ponyville count as strange?" "No! It has nothing to do with that! Don't you feel like, maybe, you've... forgotten something?" "Hmm..." Pinkie said aloud as she put a hoof under her chin to contemplate. "Nope! I don't remember forgetting anything! But, then again, if I did forget, how could I remember that I forgot to remember?" "Princess Celestia came to visit Ponyville recently. Do you remember that?" "Of course I do!" "Do you remember why?" "Uh, didn't she have a really really important job for us to do?" "Yes, she did, but what was the job?" "She wanted us to- uhh... Hmm... I can't remember! That's the second time in three days that I've forgotten something important!" Pinkie's face rapidly changed from excited to slightly panicked. "Twilight, I think there's something wrong with me! I never forget things this important! No, wait, I do remember something. Something about... Chocolate milk!" "You're not far off the mark," I declare to them sadly. "I believe what you are searching for is "reform Discord", but I can't say that I'm surprised that you can't remember. Nopony in town can acknowledge that I-" "I wonder how close the nearest ninja is to us, right now!" Pinkie blurts, interrupting me. "Nopony can acknowledge I exist!" I continue. "This is almost like being in the statue all over again! I had to try like crazy to get anypony to even notice the chaos I was causing, and they never did figure out that I had anything to do with it! This is the second worst thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life, only this time I accidently did it to myself because I'm so incredibly stupid!" I cease my ranting and take a few moments to breath, trying to calm down. Neither pony in front of me says anything. After all, why would they? "How the heck was I supposed to know that that stupid magic node would surge out of control?" I cry. "It's not like I wanted this to happen! And now there's something wrong with every living creature I've run into today!" Suddenly, a new thought enters my head. One that, surprisingly, leaves me even more disturbed. "Or maybe there isn't anything wrong with everyone else at all!" I cry out. "Maybe there's something wrong with me! After all, I was the one touching the blasted thing! And there doesn't actually appear to be anything else wrong with everyone other than the fact that they can't realize that I exist!" I let out a giant sigh. In doing so, I look down at myself and realize that I still have a lantern attached to my side by a cloth strap. A weird idea enters my head. Sure, why not. Maybe something will actually happen. I pluck the lantern off of the cloth belt and then hold it out toward Pinkie Pie. She doesn't see it, but that's no suprise to me. With my free paw, I grab onto her front hooves and press the lantern into them. And she actually grips it! I feel a surge of excitement. I am still able to at least affect others in indirect, small ways! I let go of the lamp and pull away from Pinkie, studying her carefully. She looks down at the object in her hooves in complete bafflement. "Whoa! Where did this thing come from? Twi, Spike, did you see where this came lantern from?" "Don't you know?" asked Twilight in confusion. "No! I've never seen this lantern before!" Pinkie let out another giant gasp. "I'll bet that one of the ninjas slipped it to me without me seeing! That's incredible! Whoa, they must be crazy good! THANKS MYSTERIOUS NINJA!" she finished, shouting out the last phrase for everypony around to hear, which caused her to earn some funny looks. "Whoa," said Spike simply. "I. Just. Gave it to you." I said in deadpan. "I was right in front of you. I wasn't trying to be sneaky or anything." Pinkie doesn't respond, although she looks strangely happy. "This is ridiculous! I don't know how to fix this! I just don't! Even if I had my powers back, I don't know how to do something like this! This is crazy! It's like the universe itself is just broken or something, and I'm scared out of my mind that I'm going to live out the rest of my days as if I'm a ghost! What kind of life would that be? Sure, I can do whatever chaos I want and nopony can know that it's me to stop me, but that just makes it worse! Where's the conflict? Where's the tension? I didn't want this!" "Hey, Twilight. Didja get a response from Princess Celestia yet?" asked Pinkie. "No, I haven't. She might just be too busy to answer. Although, she doesn't usually take this long to send me a response." "I'm not complaining," said Spike. "We get to watch the ninja parade while we're waiting." "Ninja parade," said Twilight skeptically. "Right." The trio fell silent once again. "But I am going to have to learn to live with this, aren't I?" I mutter in despair. "I'm don't know how to fix this! I don't normally have to deal with problems like this! I'm powerful, not smart! I don't even have a clue how I could even begin to fix this! "I wish you were here to help me, Twilight. I bet you'd be able to figure it out." ... "If you want my help so badly, all you have to do is ask, Discord." My body instantly becomes stiff as a board and my hands involuntarily clutch at my chest in shock and embarrassment. I look down at the purple unicorn. "You... you can sense me..." "Uh, Twilight, what was that that you just said?" asked Pinkie Pie in confusion. "Who were you just talking to?" asked Spike. "Whatever you just said... sounded really weird. Were you speaking in another language or something?" "Yes, I can sense you, Discord," says Twilight. "Although, it appears as though nopony else can, and I haven't the faintest clue why."