Chapter 4
The area surrounding the train station was rapidly filling with a foreboding aura. Ponies were galloping for their lives as fast as they could and birds were taking to the sky. On the platform, three humans and eight ponies stood unmoving. Two of the humans and seven of the ponies were staring in horror at the remaining human. The last pony stood behind him, trying to hold back her tears.
“Wha-what’s going on?” Steven asked.
“Fluttershy’s crying,” Twilight said with a hint of anger in her voice.
Steven and Barbara looked at her in confusion. Celestia clarified for them.
“Chris is fiercely protective of her and anyone makes her cry, he loses control of his Alicorn Instincts. Worse yet, there is only one pony who can reach him when he gets to this point.”
The magical pressure being put out from Chris was starting to affect the area physically. Boards were being ripped up from the platform and flung meters away. Rail spikes launched like rockets into the sky. The rails themselves coiled like snakes away from the epicenter.
“Get behind us,” Luna shouted at Steven and Barbara as she, Twilight, and Celestia raised shields.
“Rainbow!” Twilight called, but she didn’t need to finish her order.
“On it!” Rainbow Dash scooped up Rarity and Pinkie and raced back to town for cover with Applejack hot on her hooves.
Fluttershy looked around her with dead eyes. She sat in the middle of the miasma that acted like the eye of a storm around her and Chris. “What was I thinking?” She asked herself. “How could I ever think I could deserve him?” She looked up and saw the pain within him. He didn’t want to do this. Chris didn’t like hurting anyone who didn’t deserve it.
Chris stood there, fists clenched and teeth bared. His eyes glowed and stared at nothing. The three alicorns, though shielded, were being pushed back by the sheer force of his rage. Celestia didn’t know what to do. If he were any other threat to Equestria, she wouldn’t hesitate to put him down, but this was her baby. The little boy who clung to her and begged for help when he first arrived. The man who made her proud every day and went out of his way to make her, and everyone around him happier. The child she begged at Death’s feet to give back to her. She couldn’t hurt him nor would she allow anything else to do so. Unfortunately, she also knew that there was nothing she could do to reach him.
“How do we stop him?” Barbara asked.
“We cannot,” Luna answered, sweat dripping down her forehead. “When Christopher reaches this point, there is only one who can calm his ire.”
“I can hardly breathe,” Steven complained.
“It’s his power. If we can’t stop it, we can all be in serious trouble,” Twilight explained.
“Christopher! You need to stop this, right now!” Steven ordered. The response he got was several planks slamming into the barrier directly in front of him. “What’s wrong with him?!”
“I’ve already told you, it’s his Instincts!” Celestia yelled over the storm of anger. “No! None of us can stop him now! We’ll be lucky if this platform is the only thing destroyed!”
All eyes turned back to human floating in a whirlwind of his own making. The only one of the seven not affected by the torrent was also the only one who could stop it.
A buttery hoof slowly reached up and pressed on Chris’s fist. His head jerked down to see who had touched him. The moment his eyes made contact with hers, his energy receded. Debris rained down around them and the pressure lessened. The three princesses dropped to the ground, gasping for air. Barbara and Steven stood, staring in horror at their child.
What had happened to their sweet little boy? How could he do these things? Where was the child that clung to his mother’s leg when meeting people he didn’t know? Where was the kid that begged to ride on his father’s shoulders? Why was he so angry at them that he would be willing to destroy this whole structure to get at them?
Chris knelt down before Fluttershy, arms spread open toward her. She somberly climbed into his arms and rested her head on his shoulder, eyes shut to hold back tears. Chris stood and spread his massive wings.
“I’ll be taking Fluttershy home now. Do not follow me,” he growled.
They watched him fly off toward Fluttershy’s cottage in stunned silence. Slowly, Princess Celestia got to her hooves. She looked around her at all the damage caused by her son. She sighed and thanked her sun that he normally has a much tighter grip on his Instincts. Celestia fired a magical flare into the sky, summoning her guards.
“Sergeant, bring my chariot and escort the LeChances back to the palace. Luna and I will be along shortly after we clean this mess up.”
“But, your highness…”
“Do not argue with me right now, please. I appreciate your concern and dedication to your duty, but we can handle this.”
“As you wish, your highness,”
As soon as the guard was gone, Barbara and Steven walked up to Celestia, Barbara asked, “Why are you sending us back to the palace and why aren’t we going after my son?”
Celestia rubbed her forehead. “Please, stop talking. We have all used too much magic protecting you and doing so causes a splitting headache and we’re about to use more to repair this platform. I cannot deal with any more distractions at this time.”
“But-”
“Stop! You two are going back. We are fixing this,” she stomped her hoof and a plank that had curled upon itself. “Chris is going to tend to his fiancé and he will do so undisturbed.”
“He is our son and you-” Steven started to defend his wife.
“I am the ruler of this nation, the commander of the sun, the oldest being on this world, and the one who has raised your son for the past fifteen years! I and my sister have literally sacrificed centuries of our lives to keep him alive!” Celestia loomed over their heads. “I also know him better than any other creature in any world and I am warning you, back off or he will push you away forever.”
Barbara opened her mouth to argue, but she was cut off by Steven. “Fine, but when you get back to the castle, we are going to talk.”
Celestia glared at him. “Yes, we will.”
*****
Chris had flown all the way back to Fluttershy’s cottage with her cradled in his arms in silence. He walked through the door, careful to make sure there were no critters underfoot. Chris set Fluttershy on the couch, scooped up Angel Bunny and placed him in her forehooves, then succumbed to his exhaustion while she clutched her favored pet. He had used up a lot of his stored magic during his tirade and needed to shut down.
As Chris snored softly with his back against the couch, Fluttershy stroked his hair. She had been shunned, belittled, and shamed her whole life for one reason or another. As a filly, she had Rainbow Dash there to back her up. Then, she came to Ponyville and had five more friends to defend her. However, never had she had somepony protect her to such extremes as Chris was, and he wasn’t even a pony. He loved her and she was head over hooves for him.
But what would their lives hold for them? Their relationship had been questioned, critiqued, and shunned. Every time it happened, Chris would lash out, sometimes verbally, other times physically, and that was not good. If only there was a way that she could change that.
“Discord, I need your help.”
*****
Chris was awoken from his recharge by the sound of clopping hooves. In a world filled with equines, clopping is a very common sound, but these were… different. For one thing, the timing was off, another thing was that they sounded heavier than normal, lastly, there seemed to be only two. A loud thump and a soft whimper of pain pulled Chris fully into the world.
“Fluttershy,” Discord said, “take it from someone who shapeshifts for fun, being something other than yourself is… wrong. It’s fun at first, but then it just feels,” he shuddered, “Weird.”
“I don’t care,” Fluttershy rebutted as she cot up from the floor. “I’ll do anything to make him happy.” Fluttershy lifted herself back onto two legs and tried to walk some more.
Sadly, she lost her balance and fell again. Luckily, she was caught by Chris. He drew her into his chest and cradled her. “Don’t you dare think for one second that I’m not very happy with you exactly how you are. I don’t care what anyone else thinks about us either.” He kissed her on her forehead. “I will go up against anyone on Equus who tries to stop us from being together, even it’s both my moms.”
Fluttershy looked into his eyes with tears forming in her own. “R-really?”
“Try and stop me.” Fluttershy latched onto him and nuzzled his chest, crying softly and happiness.
Tiny Discord poked out from Chris’s hair, “I think you two need some time alone. I’ll see myself out.” He then proceeded to literally watch himself walk out the front door before his tiny self spiraled into itself and disappeared.
“He can be a good friend,” Chris said before a chair he hadn’t noticed stopped floating near the ceiling and crashed to floor, “sometimes.”
At the same time in the palace, Celestia’s horn was powering down and a crystal on a pedestal in the center of the room dimmed as the sconces came back to life. The crystal, when combined with a certain spell, displays the selected memories of the caster for others to see.
Luna approached the LaChances and spoke, “I hope this has allowed you to see why Christopher was so upset earlier.”
“I suppose it does… shine some light on the situation,” Steven said.
“Still,” Barbara added, “It doesn’t help us accept that he is marrying what, on our world, would be an animal.”
“Is that so?” Discord’s menacing voice came from nowhere. “Allow me to show what you’ve done to that ‘animal’.” He stepped out from behind the smaller pedestal, snapping to his full height, and snapped his fingers. The crystal practically exploded with light, overwhelmed by the amount of magic being pushed into it.
The room became the main room of a small cottage. Luna recognized it at once as Fluttershy’s home. The pony in question was sitting on a green sofa, stroking the hair of a sleeping Christopher and holding a white rabbit to her barrel. Her once vibrant aqua eyes were dead and rimmed in red.
“Fluttershy, what can I help you with? Please tell me you need revenge on whoever made you cry,” Discord said as he rung his hands together as a fanged grin spread across his face.
“No, please don’t do that.” Discord looked a little saddened at that. “I want you to change me into a human.”
Discord’s face became completely placid and he slowly floated down to the floor. “No,” he said with a slight growl.
“Please,” Fluttershy pleaded with watery eyes.
“You’re fine the way you are. Why would you want to be a… oh,” Discord said as he glared at Chris’s sleeping form. “It’s for him isn’t it?” he asked with a raised claw.
Fluttershy shielded Chris by throwing her hooves around his neck and nuzzling him. “Don’t blame him. He’s been nothing but a perfect gentlecolt to me.” Begrudgingly, she released her grip on his neck. “It’s just that, he deserves the perfect mare. And the perfect mare for him is a female human. So, please, change me.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea, and I don’t think you would like your new body,” Discord argued.
Fluttershy pushed herself up onto her hind legs, wobbling as she did. “Look, I can do it.” A few seconds later she tumbled backwards onto her haunches. She then stood up again. “See, I… can…” she fell forward onto her knees, whimpering slightly. She tried again.
“Fluttershy, you need to stop this,” Discord nearly begged.
The image faded back into the room they were all standing in before. Discord stood before the Lechances, glaring at them. “Luckily, the young prince was able to cheer her up again, otherwise this meeting would have gone in a completely different direction. Now, explain yourselves.” The humans could only stare up at the draconequus in terror.
Celestia stepped in to help. “I believe the issue comes from the fact that, on their world, ponies don’t talk and… beings such as yourself do not exist. Chris told me before that there isn’t even real magic on Earth.”
Luna stood beside her sister. “Perhaps, since young Christopher came here as a child, he was more open to the idea of thinking, speaking, loving animals.”
“Ah, so you’re saying that the issue simply comes from the shape of your son and his love. Am I correct?” Discord didn’t wait for a reply. With a smirk, he raised his talon and snapped his fingers. “There, would this be better?”
Steven and Barbara stared wide-eyed at the two tall human women standing before them wearing nothing but large necklaces, shoes and tiaras, none of which fit. Then they both lost their balance and fell to the floor. They looked at each other and screamed when they realized what had happened to them.
“Now, you are the ponies and they are the humans. Do you feel any less valuable than you were before?” He received no answer. “Stop screaming!” With a snap of his fingers, they were both frozen in place and silent.
“Discord! Stop tormenting them!” Celestia ordered while clinging to her sister for stability.
“Why? They are just animals, after all. Just silly horses. Why should humans, such as yourself, care about how a stupid horse feels?” Discord snapped his fingers again and the LeChances were free again. They huddled together in fear. “Well, answer my question.”
“N-n-no, we are n-not any l-less valuable,” Steven managed to respond.
“Oh-ho, so then the princesses here must be more valuable than they were before. Is that it? They’re human now, so that means you are beneath them.”
“Um…”
“That’s what I thought.” Discord snapped his fingers again, and everyone went back to their original species. “You value the container over the contents. That little pony is so kind that she managed to get me, me, to give up on controlling the world when I easily could have. Again. She makes your son endlessly happy. She has helped save this land many times. You should count yourselves lucky to have even met her.”
“Discord,” Celestia said in a warning tone.
“If I were Christopher, I would send you back to your crumby world and be done with you forever.”
“Discord! That is enough!”
“Just making a point, Princess.” Discord spiraled into himself and vanished with a pop.
Celestia walked over to the humans, who were still huddled on the floor, and offered her hoof. I apologize for his… everything. Discord is a being a chaos and still hasn’t gotten the hang of tact. Although, while I can’t say I agree with his methods, I can’t help but agree with the point he has made.”
Luna agreed, “You do seem to have trouble seeing past our shapes to see the personality within. You would not be alone in this. In the past, we have been forced to go to war with several species that, though they shared our values, they couldn’t see us as equals due to our differing species.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Steven said as he helped Barbara up off the floor. “Our own history has many similar tales.”
“Look, we get it, alright. We’re sorry we were being… racist or… speciest or… whatever you want to call it,” Barbara sighed deeply. “We are very sorry. This is all new to us and we haven’t adjusted to intelligent hor- *ahem* ponies yet.”
“We understand,” Celestia bowed slightly. “However, it is not our forgiveness you should be seeking.”
“Yeah, we know,” Steven put an arm around his wife’s waist. “This isn’t going to be fun.”