//------------------------------// // Chapter 9. Luke 16:13 // Story: The Ponies who Played with Fire // by A M Shark //------------------------------// Chapter 9. "No one can serve two masters."—Luke 16:13 Discord cruised through the air on his conjured motorcycle. He didn't really have any particular destination in mind so he just kept moving, letting the wind blow his ears about and enjoying the high he was still feeling from baiting those dragons. But that high was suddenly blotted out when he felt a surge of magic so strong it sent shivers running up and down his spine. This in and of itself was not so unusual for him. With all the unicorns in Equestria dying, being born, or just experiencing magical surges every day, the world's magic levels were constantly shifting, and though he felt every one of those shifts, he had long ago gotten used to ignoring them and just treating them as a sort of magical white noise. He would, in fact, have ignored this particular surge as well if it weren't for one important fact. He recognized this surge's magical signature! He had learned to identify it just a few days ago in fact! Amethyst! But what could have caused the low-level unicorn's magic to suddenly spike up so far beyond what he would have thought possible for her? Then just as suddenly Amethyst's magic plunged down to almost nothing. Without thinking about it, Discord automatically used his own magic to latch onto the tiny thread of Amethyst's magic to trace where it was coming from. Both he and the motorcycle vanished in a flash of light. He reappeared—now invisible and minus the sunglasses, jacket, and motorcycle—a moment later in the location where he had traced the magic. Scarcely had he materialized then he was knocked flat by a crowd of screaming ponies. The draconequus uttered a series of pained 'oof's as the ponies trampled over him, apparently too panicked to either notice or care about the invisible squashy mass under their hooves. Then Discord managed to fling the last few ponies off and shot into the air so fast he pancaked his body against a ceiling he hadn't noticed earlier. Prying his head away from the ceiling enough to look down, he saw that he was in a hospital waiting room and all of its occupants seemed to be scrambling away from something in the middle of the room. Looking over in that direction, he saw a battered-looking pink unicorn with the same purple hair and triple gem cutie mark as Amethyst collapsed on her side next to what seemed to be a mound of bones and internal organs snarled in pulsing blood vessels. Discord's eyes had scarcely widened at the sight when his head snapped back as he felt a new surge of magic spike just as Amethyst's had earlier. Except that this surge's signature matched Dinky's, and while not quite as strong as her older sister's had been, it was still much stronger than he would have thought the teenage unicorn capable of. The magic flared brightly for several seconds before sputtering and quickly dying down to a miniscule flicker. He started to throw a tracer out after it as he had done with Amethyst's magic, but Dinky's faint signal was suddenly drown out by the roar of much more powerful unicorn magic much closer to him. Looking back down, he saw that several doctors and nurses had swarmed around the unicorn and the gruesome bundle of bones and organs next to her. Light flared from the horns of several unicorn doctors and an almost-opaque multi-colored magic bubble surrounded the mass of organs, hiding the horrible sight from view. Meanwhile the remaining doctors were examining the pink unicorn. "We need two stretchers in here!" one of the doctors shouted, and seconds later the requested stretchers were pushed through the crowd. The bubble-encased mass was levitated onto one stretcher, while the unicorn was lifted onto the other. When she was settled on her back, Discord got his first clear look at her face and saw that it was indeed Amethyst. But she looked pale under her pink coat, her bruised face was slack, her eyes were closed, smoke was curling up from her blackened horn, and the purple hair that made up her forelock seemed to have melted! "Everypony stay here until we can get your statements!" one of the doctors ordered the waiting room's frightened occupants as the two stretchers rolled out of the room. The doctor turned and hurried out of the room after her fellow staff members, completely unaware of the invisible draconequus who had detached himself from the ceiling and was now gliding silently after them. At first the two stretchers rolled along side-by-side, but then the one carrying Amethyst veered off down a different hallway. Discord briefly debated which stretcher to follow before opting to go after Amethyst's. However he didn't intend to lose track of that other rather intriguing ... patient. He swiftly peeled one of the moth tattoos off his neck. Once it was completely separated from his flesh, the moth became visible, but all the ponies below seemed far too focused on the stretcher contents in front of them to notice the animated ink beating its wings above them. Discord quickly molded the moth's wings into the shape of ears, and smeared the patterns on its top wings into a pair of eye spots before releasing the moth. As it shot after the larger group of doctors, he continued following the ones bearing Amethyst's stretcher. Amethyst was wheeled into a room and several nurses set about transferring her from the stretcher to a bed. Once she was settled, a curly-maned nurse who looked younger than the rest approached her with a pair of tweezers. "Have you ever seen anything like this before?" the nurse asked, giving the melted forelock a tentative prod with the tweezers. "I didn't think it was possible for hair to melt." "It shouldn't be," said a unicorn stallion doctor, checking Amethyst's pulse. "But if she lost control of her magic, the backlash must have caused her hair to react to the magically-generated heat in a way that's normally impossible." At that moment the nurse accidentally bumped her tweezers against Amethyst's horn and swiftly yanked them back as their tips hissed. The doctor quickly leaned in and fired a spell at Amethyst's horn, encasing it in what appeared to be ice. "Still it's unusual. I've seen unicorns with their forelocks burnt off as a side effect of their horns overheating when they try to do too big a spell, but I've never seen one manage to melt her hair before." He turned back to the nurses. "I need you to cut that melted section of her mane off, and to treat any burns it might have given her, while I run some tests to find out how badly she's overstrained herself." Despite their efforts to remain professional, several of the nurses couldn't help grimacing as they used fresh tweezers to pull the sticky clumps of melted hair off Amethyst's forehead, revealing painful-looking burns underneath. As they cleaned and bandaged said burns, the unicorn doctor felt all four of Amethyst's legs, then lifted each of them one at a time as if weighing them before carefully lowering them back onto the bed. He fired up his horn and swept the beam that emanated from it up and down Amethyst's body. Frowning, he hurried out of the room, and returned a few moments later with a clipboard of papers that he kept checking as he swept the beam from his horn over Amethyst's body a second time. Amethyst remained deathly still through the whole ordeal; only the minute rise and fall of her chest indicating that she was still alive. Finally the doctor stepped back and the nurses—who had finished treating Amethyst's burns and were now tending to her bruises—looked up to hear his verdict. "It seems she tried to do a teleportation spell," said the doctor. "That fits with what the receptionist told me. Apparently everything was business as usual in the waiting room when Amethyst and that mass of organs just flashed into existence right there in front of everypony." He looked down at a chart on the clipboard. "Normally I wouldn't consider a coma fortunate, but considering how low Amethyst's magic levels have always tested out during her checkups, it's a wonder she's still alive." "She's not the only one," said a unicorn mare doctor as she stepped into the room. Right behind her came a third unicorn wearing a tech-pony's vest. "What do you mean?" asked one of the nurses. "We've got that blob of organs as stabilized as possible for now," said the female doctor. "She's hooked up to a life-support system, and we've replaced that earlier emergency bubble with a stronger one that will protect her from outside elements." The young curly-maned nurse's eyes widened. "You mean that ... that ... thing from earlier was still alive?!" The female doctor nodded. "I know, ordinarily that should be medically impossible but the spell that turned that pony inside-out kept her magically alive through the process." "That's not all," said the tech-pony. "I checked that spell against the information Princess Twilight gave us earlier ... and it's identical to the spell that was done on Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie." Discord wasn't sure what they were talking about, but he noticed a definite chill seemed to sweep through the group at these words, and several of them raised their right front hooves, looking uneasily at pink heart-shaped charms they all seemed to have pressed into the undersides. "Still," said the female doctor, lowering her hoof and inhaling deeply as if to settle herself. "We're fortunate we got that pony hooked up to that life-support system when we did, because the life-sustaining part of that inside-out spell was wearing off. I really think if we'd gotten to her even just five minutes later ... she'd have died on the stretcher." "So ... that's good isn't it?" the curly-maned nurse asked, her voice cautiously hopeful. But the female doctor didn't smile. "Unfortunately none of us know any spells to safely turn her right-side out again. It's a delicate enough operation just keeping her alive as it is. If we tried the wrong spell by mistake, it could end up killing her." "Are you saying...?" The doctor nodded grimly. "She could be trapped in that inside-out state forever unless we can find the right spell to reverse it." "You keep saying 'she'," said a nurse with a white coat and a pale pink mane and tail. "How can you tell it's a mare?" "We took blood and tissue samples for DNA testing and found a match." The doctor hesitated a moment before going on. "That inside-out pony is Muffins." The curly-maned nurse gave her a puzzled stare. "Muffins?" "Derpy," said the male doctor. "Oh!" said the nurse, stretching out the syllable in realization as her eyes darted back toward Amethyst. The male doctor nodded. "Yes, she's Muffins on her birth certificate and official records, but apart from that, everypony seems to call her 'Derpy' for some reason that's never really been explained to me." A nurse with a light blue coat and an aqua green mane and tail shuddered. "Oh, that poor thing. She let that draconequus stay at her house, and this is how he repays her?" What?! Discord could not have been more flabbergasted if one of the ponies had suddenly leapt up and kicked him in his invisible face. What in the world had prompted them to think he had done that to Derpy?! Granted turning ponies wrong-side out might prove to be an interesting, if overly gruesome way to toy with them, but— He was snapped back to reality when the tech-pony suddenly spoke up. "He must have tried to murder Derpy, but before he could actually make her explode, Amethyst must have managed to teleport her mother away from him." "And then collapsed from trying to use such a powerful spell," the male doctor added. "But then ... what do you think happened to the younger daughter, Dinky?" asked the curly-maned nurse. "I'm not sure I want to know," said one of the older nurses, lowering her gaze. Humph! You might not, but I do! Discord mentally muttered as he teleported to Derpy's house. He had lost track of Dinky's signature in the confusion of earlier, and unless she produced another equally powerful surge, he would be unable to find it again, so he felt checking the house for clues to her whereabouts was his best bet. He appeared floating in front of the house. By then it was well into evening but he still took care to keep himself invisible. Once his eyes had adjusted to the dim light, he noticed that both the house's front door and one of its second story windows were wide open. Then as he glided up to the house, he saw that the ground around the front door looked churned up as if several ponies had been rolling about on it. And there also seemed to be ... small spots of dried blood here and there... Shrinking himself down so that he wouldn't accidentally brush up against anything that might be a possible clue, he glided through the open door. Once inside, he noticed a trail of damp patches that looked like hoofprints leading from the kitchen to the front door. Too small to be Derpy's or Amethyst's, he mused. Must be Dinky's. He followed the trail into the kitchen where he found a bowl of half-finished veggie loaf getting stale on the counter, and a large pot of drained beans scorching on the still-warm stove. They must have been in the middle of getting dinner ready... He moved silently through the house, carefully examining each room but finding neither Dinky, nor any signs of a struggle that would result in the kind of bruises he had seen on Amethyst. Finally he came to the last room and flashed himself inside without opening the door. He found himself in the bathroom which also turned out to be the room with the open window. The bathroom looked as untouched as the rest of the house, except for a couple of damp wadded-up towels tossed carelessly on the floor. There were several long blonde hairs stuck to the towels, and Discord wondered if they might be Dinky's. He snapped his talons and the towels instantly smoothed themselves out as wrinkle-free as if they had been flattened by an invisible iron. With them spread out like that, he noticed that there was also a good deal of short gray hair stuck to them, and decided that the blonde hairs must belong to Derpy rather than to her daughter. He snapped his talons again and the towels quickly re-wadded themselves into their original shape. The draconequus allowed himself to drift backwards out the open window, toying absently with the ring in his lower lip as he mulled over what he had seen in the house. Dinky must have run to the front door, but why? It looked like there had been some sort of scuffle, but had that happened before or after Dinky had run to the door? And what about Amethyst and Derpy? He still had no idea why those ponies at the hospital had seemed so convinced that he was behind that attack on Der— Wait a minute! The tech-pony had mentioned something about a spell identical to the one that had turned Derpy inside-out ... also being done on Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash! Discord promptly teleported himself back to the hospital, intending both to retrieve the tattoo he had sent to trail the patient he now knew to be Derpy, and to see if he could find out more about these alleged attacks on the other ponies. Fluttershy soaked a washcloth in cold water and pressed it against Dinky's forehead, taking care not to let it brush against the young unicorn's still burning-hot horn in the process. It was past midnight by now, and she had spent the last several hours bathing Dinky's forehead in hopes of breaking the unicorn's fever, taking only occasional short breaks to check on the two sleeping wrestlers. Now she moved to check on Screwjob once again. She had covered him with a blanket earlier but somehow he had managed to get most of it stuck underneath him when he had rolled over onto his back. She gently tugged the blanket out from under him and covered him with it again. She had just finished tucking it in when she heard a low groan come from her bedroom. Highflyer? There was a pause, then another groan. Another pause, then another groan. As the groans got louder and louder with shorter and shorter pauses between them, Fluttershy padded quickly but quietly to her room. "Highflyer?" she asked, peeking around the door. The lump under the blankets halted mid-groan. "You heard that?" The end of the lump closer to the head of the bed twitched, and let out another groan. Fluttershy hurried over to the side of the bed. "What's wrong?" "I'm stuck," said the blanket-covered lump. Fluttershy frowned. "What do you mean you're stuck?" Grunting and groaning, Highflyer tossed his head until he managed to shake the blanket off it. "I mean I'm stuck. I can't roll over and I can't make my limbs move. They've been stiff when I've woken up before but never this bad." "Hmm." Fluttershy moved around the bed so that she was behind him and lifted the blanket, studying his bandaged back and splinted wings. Highflyer tried to look over his shoulder at her, but couldn't seem to turn his neck that far. "What are you—? Ahh!" Highflyer cried out as Fluttershy suddenly rammed her hooves into his back right between the shoulder blades and the wing joints, forcing him to roll onto his stomach in the process. He cried out a second time as she pulled his forelegs back behind him and he felt something pop in both shoulders. If anypony else had tried doing this to him, he would have gotten his hind legs up (never mind the pain) and kicked that pony into the far wall. But the fact that the normally gentle Fluttershy was doing it left him too stunned to fight back. She suddenly let go of his forelegs, and wrenched his neck about as if she intended to twist it clean off—when he suddenly felt his cramped muscles loosen. As Fluttershy released his neck, Highflyer's cry of pain immediately turned to one of relief, and he rested his masked forehead against the mattress, breathing hard. "Ooooooh, I don't know what you did, but thanks." He sat up, carefully turning his head from side to side. "Ooh, that feels so much better." He rolled each of his tattooed forelegs about in their sockets, enjoying the easy movement. "Where'd you learn to do that? A chiropractor?" "Helping out a couple of bears actually." Highflyer's eyebrows went up so high they made visible creases in his mask. Fluttershy quickly changed the subject. "Um, do your back and wings still hurt?" He squirmed about experimentally for a few seconds before answering. "Yeah, but I can live with that now that I can move again. By the way, how are Screwjob and the kid doing?" "They were still asleep when I came in to check on you." Highflyer's limbs trembled as he got them under him, but when he jumped off the bed, he landed solidly. "I want to see them." The unicorn and the earth pony both seemed to still be asleep when the two pegasi padded back into the main room. Highflyer watched as Fluttershy checked the cloth she had left on Dinky's forehead. "She's still feverish, and her horn's still too hot to touch," Fluttershy reported, tucking a blanket in more firmly under the unicorn's unmoving chin, before she and Highflyer both went over to examine Screwjob. "I'm surprised my hollering didn't wake him up," Highflyer muttered. "If it had, he probably would have made some crack about it being music to his ears." The tiny stallion tried to keep his voice light, but it came out sounding tense and forced. "Highflyer ... what's wrong? Are you worried about him?" Highflyer looked up at Fluttershy. "You saw the way he was stumbling about earlier. How out of it he seemed. What if Chrysalis gave him a concussion? A really damaging one? I mean this," he gestured to his own bandaged torso and splinted wings. "This is nothing. It can heal and I can go right back to wrestling, but the brain damage you can get from a concussion..." He looked away, shaking his head. "I've seen so many wrestlers who are still in great shape physically forced to retire because they've been concussed one too many times. I've even heard of some dying from it." "Now, Highflyer, let's not get too worked up about this," Fluttershy said quickly. "After all, he was walking and talking under his own power earlier. I don't think he would have been able to do that if he'd been concussed very badly." At least, I hope not, she added in her thoughts. She couldn't really blame Highflyer for being concerned as she had privately been having similar feelings, but she also knew that anxiety wouldn't do the tiny stallion any good at the moment. "Let's give a doctor a chance to look at him before we start worrying about something we can't control." "I know, it's just..." Highflyer suddenly reached out and stroked Screwjob's black forelock with surprising tenderness. "The idea of Jobs having to retire like that... He's not just any old wrestler, Fluttershy, he's ... he's..." "He's your friend?" Fluttershy suggested as he struggled to put his feelings into words. "Oh, he's more than that, Fluttershy." Highflyer turned to face her more fully, allowing his hoof to slide off Screwjob's head. "When I was first trying to get into wrestling, no company would take me. It didn't matter how many times I whopped ponies three or four times my size, every manager took one look at me and laughed at the idea of me being a wrestler. "But not Screwjob. Somehow he saw potential in me that nopony else did. And you gotta understand when it comes to wrestling: Screwjob's got it all. Good looks, great technical skill, big enough to work a brawling-style match, but also agile enough to work a high-flying one. Every company wanted him and was ready to start handing him championship titles on diamond-studded silver platters. But instead he urged them to take me on. Practically told them he'd quit if they didn't give me a chance." "I had to get you in there and established as a face, or those companies would have tried to bill me as a face. Blech!" "Jobs!" The two pegasi looked back toward the couch to see Screwjob sitting up and blinking his one visible eye at them. The earth pony yawned and stretched. "High, as much as I like hearing how wonderful I am, I refuse to let you spread propaganda. I pushed for them to take you on because it would allow me to maintain my heel status. No more, no less. And as for that alleged brain damage..." His head dropped back onto the pillow and he let out a second yawn before continuing. "Son, haven't you realized by now that my handsome head is solid bone?" His visible eye drifted shut as he murmured "You can't damage what's not there." "Well, his mouth came through unscathed if nothing else," Highflyer muttered as Screwjob seemed to fall back asleep. Then he glanced over at the clock and frowned. "Fluttershy, have you gotten any sleep?" "Not really," she admitted, fighting a sudden urge to yawn. "Hmm, I don't really want to go back to sleep just yet, since my muscles will probably start cramping up again if I do. Why don't you try and squeeze in a few hours of sleep before morning? I can watch Jobs and Dinky." When Discord reappeared in Amethyst's room, he noticed that it now seemed to be empty save for the unconscious unicorn in the hospital bed, and a burly security guard sitting in a nearby chair. Though Discord had made sure to stay invisible and to omit the usual flash that accompanied his teleportation, the guard's head still snapped up at his arrival. The tough-looking pony peered suspiciously around the room, as if some sixth sense was warning him of the unseen intruder. Discord was not intimidated by the guard's size or appearance, but he didn't want to risk alerting anypony to his presence until he could find out why they thought he had attacked Derpy. So he phased his invisible body through the nearest wall and found himself in a dark room that was empty apart from a vacant hospital bed and a couple of bedside chairs. He glanced over at the door and it promptly locked itself. Satisfied that he wouldn't be disturbed, he snapped his fingers and an ink moth the size of a serving platter appeared fluttering on his paw. Realizing he had forgotten to de-shrink himself from earlier, he hastily corrected this, and plonked his behind into one of the available chairs. "Alright, let's see what you got," he muttered to the moth, which was now its usual more manageable size. Rolling the tattoo up into a cone, he stuck the tip of it into his ear, and smacked the wider end several times as if it were the bottom of a ketchup bottle. Then he unrolled the cone and stretched the tattoo's wings across his face like a mask, lining the wings' eye spots up with his own eyes. Immediately his ears were filled with the cacophony of several ponies shouting directions, and through the eye spots he saw the doctors from earlier racing down a hall with the stretcher bearing the large opaque bubble. Every now and then the bubble's membrane would flicker from opaque to translucent, giving a brief glimpse of the gruesome sight inside, but each time a unicorn would swiftly lean in and fire magic into the bubble, returning it to its opaque state. However none of the sounds were matching up with the images and Discord had to spend several moments twisting the ends of the tattoo's wings back and forth to get the sights and sounds synchronized. By the time he had succeeded, the doctors were wheeling the stretcher into an operating room. Deciding to hurry things on a bit, he pulled the tattoo tighter across his eyes and the images sped up while the sound turned squeaky. Unicorns darted to and fro, shooting their magic into the bubble surrounding Derpy, while the remaining ponies maneuvered pumps, tubes, and bags of liquid into position. Several long syringes were jammed into the bubble's membrane, and presumably into the blood vessels pulsing beneath it, judging by the crimson liquid that shot up into them. The syringes were swiftly withdrawn and replaced with tubes attached to various machines. Soon the doctors were joined by several tech-ponies who began running their own tests and spells on the blood samples the doctors had collected. Then as the activity seemed to die down slightly, Discord thought he heard his name mentioned amidst the high-pitched chatter. He quickly rewound the scene enough to hear that bit at normal speed. "—contacted Princess Twilight, and she's looking for a spell to turn Derpy right-side out again," said a tech-pony to the doctors. "In the meantime you just focus on keeping her alive." "But what if Discord shows up before then to try and finish the job?" asked a nurse fretfully. "In that case, don't hesitate to set off your alarm charm." The tech-pony paused, as if a new thought had just occurred to him, then added, "You do have one right?" "Of course," said the nurse, and briefly raised a hoof to reveal a heart-shaped charm identical to the ones Discord had seen earlier on the other ponies' hooves. After that little exchange there were several moments of silence—broken only by the beep of a heart monitor, and the hiss of a pump feeding oxygen straight into the lungs now outside Derpy's body—before a tech-pony examining a blood sample spoke up. "You know the only thing I don't get is why would Discord go after Derpy in the first place? I mean Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash I can at least understand, considering they're two of the Element Bearers that could apparently turn him back to stone. With them out of the way, he's free, and who knows when those two Elements will choose new Bearers?" "What ponies would even agree to be new Bearers if it meant Discord might try to murder them?" a doctor muttered, and Discord bristled. You honestly think I'd stoop to something as mundane as murder to take out my opponents?! Well, I for one am insulted! I'm much more creative than that! "But Derpy," the tech-pony went on just as if the doctor hadn't spoken. "She's just kind of a nopony who can't see straight. Why would he consider her a threat?" The ponies pondered this before a pink-coated nurse spoke up tentatively. "You don't suppose he attacked her just to make a point that it doesn't matter even if you invite him right into your house, he'll still cheerfully murder you when he's through?" Oh, honestly—! Before Discord could finish this scornful thought, he was interrupted by a yellow-coated nurse. "Is it really that surprising considering how easily he tossed Fluttershy aside last year?" Easy! You think that was easy?! I—! Suddenly a new realization snapped into place, causing him to halt mid-rant. Fluttershy! Fluttershy was an Element Bearer just like Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash, and she had allowed him to stay as her houseguest just as Derpy had! Tuh! Coincidence! he tried to convince himself. Mere coincidence! But what if it's not? It is! And even if it isn't, who cares?! She's just one easily disposable pony in a whole world of them. I don't care about her. I don't need her! I don't, I don't, I ... I... He tried to continue, but his moth tattoos were swarming up and down his neck and his dragon tattoo was twisting itself so wildly over his body, he could barely think. I ... don't... At that moment his dragon tattoo reached up and dug its claws into the back of his head. Suddenly the image of the operating room in the moth tattoo's eye spots was replaced with another one: Fluttershy lying on the ground with fresh noose marks digging deep furrows in her throat. He saw his own hand gingerly shaking her by the shoulder, and heard his own voice desperately urging her to breathe, but she just continued to lay there, limp, unbreathing, lifeless. Then after what was probably only seconds but felt much longer, he saw his trembling hand lift away from her shoulder. A moment later his other hand came into view, and both hands gently scooped up his former partner, cradling her close. No! That's not what happened! Discord ripped the tattoo away from his face, scarcely noticing or caring as it slipped out of his grasp and lighted on his neck where it melted back into his skin. The draconequus squeezed his eyes shut but it did nothing to block out the image in his mind of Fluttershy lying dead in his arms. That's not what happened! She survived! I know she did! At that moment the pony in his arms moved but not in the way he had been hoping for. Her limbs were slowly starting to contort, to fold back and turn inside— No! As his eyes snapped open, the dark room around him vanished, and he suddenly found himself floating in front of Fluttershy's cottage. He shot toward the nearest window, but it was shuttered tight, preventing him from being able to see inside. He darted about, checking the rest of the windows but found them all covered as well. Not that that would stop him from seeing inside. A pair of x-ray glasses flashed into his upraised paw, and he quickly slipped them over his eyes as he pulled to a stop next to Fluttershy's bedroom window. Peering in, he felt his chest tighten when he saw Fluttershy lying in bed, looking just as horribly still as she had been in his imagination. Whipping off the glasses and tossing them aside, he teleported into the room, touching down right next to the bed. As he lowered his head to get a closer look at Fluttershy, he now noticed that her closed eyelids were twitching minutely but constantly, indicating that she was deep in a dream. It was such a simple little thing, those tiny muscle movements around the eyes, but at the sight of them, Discord quickly let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding until then. Yes, maybe the similarities he had noticed between her and the victims were just a coincidence, but still... He shoved the thought away. She was alive, and that was what mattered. Now, as he gazed down at the pony he hadn't seen in over a year, he found himself wishing he could just drop his invisibility, wake her as casually as if he had never left, and they could pick up things right where they had left off. But deep down he also knew it couldn't be that way. She would doubtless want to know why he had left, and if he told her he had thrown their whole relationship away for what now felt like the flimsiest of reasons... He let out a soft half-groan, half-growl of frustration at this current conundrum. That he could be so close to this pony he loved—not just a dream version of her, but the real flesh-and-blood deal—and yet still feel so completely cut off from her. He slumped dejectedly, unconsciously putting his invisible hands on the edge of the bed for support. This caused that side of the mattress to shift down and as it did, Fluttershy's foreleg on that side slipped off her blanket to dangle over the edge of the bed. Discord caught a glimpse of something pink on the underside of that hoof, and the sight of it hit him like a punch in the gut as he realized it was a charm identical to the ones carried by the ponies at the hospital. His eyes slowly rose from the charm to Fluttershy's sleeping face. Does this mean you think I'm as guilty as they seem to? Learning that the ponies at the hospital viewed him as a murderer had been a shock but it hadn't hurt the way it did when he thought of Fluttershy holding that view. He looked from her face to the charm and back again, feeling torn between wanting to wake her up and declare his innocence to her, and terrified of the accusation he might see in her eyes at the sight of him. You ... you can't really think I killed your friends. Can you? Of course there was no reply from her except soft breathing broken occasionally by a soft moan or snuffle. Her eyes were still darting about under their closed lids and he wondered what she could be dreaming about. Then a new idea occurred to him; a way that he could find out both what she was dreaming about, and whether or not she thought he was guilty, both without her ever being any the wiser. He gently slid his invisible fingers over the sides of her head, willing himself to dive into her dream. When Fluttershy had gotten into bed earlier, she had shut her eyes and tried to sleep. But her brain refused to settle down. So much had happened since that day when she had waited at the post office for Skywishes ... four days ago? And the information Highflyer had given her hadn't so much answered earlier questions as it had added new ones. Where had these apparently new changeling hybrids come from? Why had they waited so long to strike? Why had they gone after Derpy's family? Did that attack clear Discord? Was the attack even connected with him? What had happened to Derpy and Amethyst? How much of Twilight's information could be trusted?! Couldn't the eye-witnesses have somehow been mistaken?! Could the changelings take Discord's shape or couldn't they?! Fluttershy began to feel as if all the questions were physically crowding in on her, all shouting to be heard. Oh, how she longed for the aid Discord had given her with Applejack's disappearance! She tried to cower down, but it felt as if there were ropes wrapping themselves around her body and limbs, trying to pull her in every direction. As he appeared in Fluttershy's dream, Discord found himself surrounded by darkness. He felt a wave of déjà vu as he heard a chorus of disembodied voices coming from all directions and shouting so many different things it was impossible to focus on any one of them. Looking down, he saw Fluttershy just a short distance away, writhing on the ground as flaming ropes wrapped around her, all trying to pull her in different directions. Though he knew it was all a dream, the sight of her trapped like that galvanized him into action. Allowing his invisibility to slip away, he gave his talons a particularly loud snap. Suddenly the voices around Fluttershy died down, and she felt the ropes binding her loosen and slide off. She opened her eyes, blinking against the bright glow of the flame-like ropes as they coiled on the ground around her. Then a scaly tail with a tufted end suddenly emerged from the darkness, slid between her front legs and lifted her onto her feet. She looked up in the direction the tail had appeared from and noticed that the flaming ropes had started slithering toward that spot. As soon as they reached the spot, they began floating up into the air where they coalesced into a ball. And below that ball Fluttershy saw the beckoning fingers of a hand being held palm upward. A very familiar scaly hand with a barbed tattoo around its wrist. Fluttershy's eyes widened as the ball of fire grew larger and more pieces of the draconequus became visible. Looking further up to where his head should have been, she couldn't make out his facial features but she could see his yellow eyes glowing in the dark, fixed on her. At the sight of them, Fluttershy suddenly felt self-conscious. What a mess she must be. She quickly brought her hooves up to wipe at her face and push her mane back. But as her hooves reached her temples, they encountered something that shouldn't have been there. Fingers! Short furry ones on her left side, and long scaly ones on the right! The fingers flinched at her touch and the taloned hand holding the ball of fire jerked. What—?! Suddenly Fluttershy's eyes snapped open and she was back in her bed. And above her was—! As Fluttershy ran her hooves over her temples, Discord felt something unseen bump his fingers, and seconds later the dream around them suddenly dissolved. He was floating above Fluttershy with his fingers pressed against the sides of her head, and her hooves covering those fingers. Her eyes were staring up at him, so wide he could see his reflection in them. His reflection...? He must have accidentally dropped his invisibility in the real world as well as the dream one! Realizing this, he promptly vanished in a flash of light. Fluttershy flinched as the sudden flash of light seemed to punch her hard in both eyes. She was still blinking rapidly when there was a series of quick knocks on her bedroom door, causing her to flinch a second time. "Fluttershy?" Highflyer asked, easing the door open enough to poke his masked head around it. "Hey, sorry to bother you, but Jobs woke up again, and he and I are feeling kinda hungry, so I was wondering if—?" "Oh," Fluttershy stammered, blushing. "Y-yes. Sorry, I didn't think about that earlier. Th-th-there's food in the kitchen. Just help yourselves to whatever you want." "Thanks. Oh, you don't have to get up," he added as Fluttershy moved as if to do so. "We can take care of ourselves." At that moment Screwjob demanded loudly from the main room, "High, where the hay are my pants?" "They're drying on the stove," Highflyer called back over his shoulder before turning back to Fluttershy. "Thanks again," he said before shutting the door. Fluttershy lay back in the bed, but didn't shut her eyes. Instead she stared up at the ceiling. Just about where she had seen Discord earlier. Had she really seen him? Or had it just been the remains of her dream? It must have been the remains of the dream. Yes, that knock at the door had woken her up, and... But no. She had been awake before that knock on the door... Then she remembered the way his fingers had flinched in the dream at the very same moment she had felt those fingers on the sides of her head. Was it possible that...? She scrambled quickly but quietly out of bed and found a pencil and paper. Discord, she wrote, but she was trembling so hard, it was difficult to keep the pencil steady. We need to talk. It's urgent. Pinkie and Rainbow have been murdered and ponies think you're behind it, but I think something else is going on. She proceeded to describe what Highflyer had told her about his and Screwjob's trip to visit Derpy, their encounter with the changelings, and how they and Dinky had ended up at the cottage. She finished up with: I think these attacks are connected but I'm not sure how. I don't know what happened between us, but I desperately need your help now. Please. Signing her name, she folded the paper and labeled it For Discord. She climbed back into bed and lay there with the letter in her hooves, trying to will herself to sleep. But a nagging voice in the back of her head prevented that. What are you hoping for? That you'll take that letter into your dream and he'll be waiting there for it? That he'll come back and read it while you're asleep? You're desperate, Fluttershy. And you know it. She raised the letter and stared at it through a haze of growing tears. She had been taken in by her dreams so many times before, and this was just one more time. She rested the letter on her chest, and let out a shuddering breath, fighting not to cry. "Where are you, Discord?" she murmured toward the ceiling, wondering at the same time why she insisted on torturing herself with that question when she knew full well she would never get an ans— "I'm right beside you, Fluttershy." The voice was a gentle whisper in her ear, but Fluttershy reacted as if a bomb had gone off, flinching away with a loud gasp that was close to a scream. But the sound hadn't even gotten fully out of her mouth before an unseen paw quickly closed it. "Shh!" the voice hissed urgently into her ear. "Don't—" No! No, this wasn't possible! She was imagining it! She was dreaming! Dropping the letter, Fluttershy pinched her foreleg hard enough that it forced tears from her eyes, and she sobbed into the paw covering her mouth. Oh, she was most definitely awake now! But then ... why did she still feel that paw on her mouth?! "Please," his unmistakable voice pleaded. "D-don't be afraid. I'm not here to hurt you." Discord could feel Fluttershy's breath sucking rapidly against his paw pad as she fought not to hyperventilate into it. His eagle claw began stroking her mane in what he hoped would be a calming way as he mentally cursed himself for ending up in this unplanned position. He hadn't intended to reveal his presence, but when he had heard the pain in her voice he had felt a sudden urge to ease it, and the words had slipped out of his mouth before he had even realized what he was doing. Fluttershy raised her hooves toward her face, and he felt them press against the back of his paw, but not as if she was trying to pull it away. In fact she seemed to be trying to press it even closer to her face. Fluttershy tried to steady her crashing heartbeat, but it refused to cooperate as her hooves traced the shape of the invisible paw pressed against her face, relearning the texture of its fur. Then she noticed the taloned fingers running gently through her mane, lightly scratching her scalp but taking care not to break the skin. Just as those same fingers had done over a year ago in a small cabin at Sweet Apple Acres! He was here! Her former partner had finally returned! Then she thought of the wrestlers downstairs. Had they heard her? Had they heard Discord? What if they used those charms on their hooves to set off the alarm before she could get a chance to talk with Discord?! She strained her ears to hear what was going on below. "High, are my tights done yet?" This question was greeted by a snort. "Done? Are you kidding, they are done to a crisp. Good luck trying to shimmy into these." This was followed by the rustle of spandex, and Fluttershy relaxed slightly. Then she felt Discord's hand slip away from her face and she tried to cling to it. "No, don't go!" she whisper-shouted. "I'm not, I'm not," he whispered back, a moment before his paw suddenly vanished from her grasp, and his talons just as suddenly vanished from her mane. Fluttershy's chest went painfully tight, (He's left me again!) but then the letter she had dropped on the bed flipped itself open. There was a flash of light and an illustration of a draconequus walked into view across the paper. He looked up at the words written above him, and Fluttershy wondered if he had had a chance to read them earlier. "Discord," she whispered. "Do you know—?" He turned back to her, keeping his own voice low as well. "About the murders of Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie? Yes. And the attempted-albeit-unsuccessful murder of Derpy." "Wait, why do you say unsuccessful?" Fluttershy asked, scarcely daring to hope. "Do you know what happened to Derpy and Amethyst?" "I saw them both in the hospital just a few hours ago." "H-how are they? Are they all right?" "Oh, Derpy's on a life-support system so she's reasonably stable considering her whole body is currently inside-out," he said with studied casualness. "And Amethyst?" "She's in a coma," said Discord, studying the claws on his paw. "Overstrained herself doing a teleportation spell." Fluttershy felt a mixture of relief at the news that Dinky's mother and sister were still alive, and worry at their current medical conditions. Discord glanced up at her sidelong, the expression on his illustrated face difficult to read. "You know, all the ponies at the hospital seemed under the impression that I tried to kill Derpy and Amethyst. Just as I apparently did with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie." "Discord..." He turned to face her fully. "What would you do if it was me?" Fluttershy hesitated. Why would he ask something like that? "Do you ... mean if you were behind the attacks?" He gave her a single deep nod. "I ... I don't believe you did it, Discord." She looked down at the charm attached to her hoof before balling her hoof into a fist to hide it. She turned back to the illustrated draconequus. "I know for a fact that you didn't go after Derpy, and I don't believe you killed Rainbow or Pinkie either." The conviction in her voice strengthened. "I believe you're innocent." This whispered proclamation was met with a patronizing chuckle. "Oh, my dear girl, you of all ponies should realize I am far from innocent." Fluttershy felt her breath catch at this. Was he saying that he—?! "But no," he went on, all amusement now gone from his voice. "I didn't kill Rainbow Dash or Pinkie Pie. You can rest easy on that account." I didn't kill Rainbow Dash or Pinkie Pie. As those eight words replayed in her mind, Fluttershy felt as if a weight had suddenly fallen away from her. It had been one thing to feel in her heart that Discord was secretly innocent, but to hear her former partner come right out and say he didn't do it... "Oh, Discord, you don't know how much it means to me to hear you say that..." She quickly wiped at her eyes and sniffed to hold back relieved tears. "But we don't really have time for that just now. You're being framed. I don't know how much of my letter you read, but I think the changelings who went after Derpy's family are behind it. I'm not sure how, but they've figured out some way to make it look like you murdered Rainbow and Pinkie in front of eye-witnesses." "Hmm, I see," the illustration murmured, stroking his beard pensively. "And who exactly were these witnesses?" "Mr. and Mrs. Cake said they saw you murder Pinkie Pie, and a retired Wonderbolt called Haystings said he saw you murder Rainbow Da—" "That's all I wanted to know! Now if you'll excuse me, I have a lead to check out." "What—?!" You're leaving?! "Stay put and don't let anypony in the house—your current downstairs company excepted—until you hear from me, I'll be back soon." "No!" she choked out. "Please, don't leave me!" The last time he had left her, she had not heard from him for a full year! "I'll only be gone a couple of hours at the most this time, Fluttershy." The illustration leaned forward. "I promise I'll come back." "But—" "Au revoir, darling." With that the illustration blew her a kiss and vanished in a flash of light. "Wait, Discord!" But it was too late. He was gone. Fluttershy stared at the blank portion of the paper that the illustration had occupied just seconds ago. She began to wonder, no, to fear that she had just imagined the whole encounter, when— "Fluttershy, who are you talking to?" Screwjob suddenly asked, startling her as he poked his bandaged head around the door. Fluttershy scrambled for an answer. "Oh, uh, nopony." "Then how come I heard a guy's voice in here?" Fluttershy's heart skipped a beat. "Y-you did?" "Correct-o. And—" Suddenly Fluttershy lunged off the bed, and pulled the wrestler into a tight hug. She hadn't imagined Discord was there! She couldn't have if Screwjob had heard him as well! She suddenly felt giddy enough she could have kissed Screwjob right on his bearded mouth, but quickly checked herself when she saw the terrified expression on his face. "Woah! Hold it right there! Halt! Stop!" he shouted. "Off! Off! Off!" She released him, and he—looking decidedly shaken at receiving such an affectionate gesture from the normally shy pegasus—set about straightening the black shirt he must have reclaimed when he had collected his wrestling tights. "Look, honey, you're a nice pony and all, but I prefer blondes." He glanced at her coat. "Oh. I guess you're kind of blonde... Uh, what I meant was—" Fluttershy had to smile at his fumbling. "You're still holding out hope for a certain country mare?" "Ah, yes, as a matter of fact I am. So what's the idea of jumping all over me like that?" Now it was Fluttershy's turn to be uncomfortable and fumble for an answer. "Oh, I, um, I'm just glad that you're up and about, since Highflyer and I were both worried about you. Say, how come you're over here instead of in the kitchen?" "I came to ask you if you have any sports tape." He raised a bare foreleg. "I can't go around with naked forelegs. It's indecent. So I marched myself over here, and I hear not just your voice but some guy's voice as well. Now who were you talking to?" "Um, couldn't you tell who it was by what we were saying?" she stalled. "No, you were both mumbling and it was all muffled through the door," said Screwjob, leaning down to peek under the bed. "Um, well, that other voice was, um ... that was probably just me talking in my sleep." Screwjob's head came up fast, and whipped around to face her. He arched his intact eyebrow, but the effect was spoiled a bit by the fact that the other one was hidden under bandages. "You expect me to believe that decidedly masculine voice came out of your mouth?" Fluttershy blushed, remembering an incident long ago involving some poison joke. "You'd be surprised."