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// Chapter 6: Under Attack 
// Story: Love you again? 
// by Cynthrey 
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Everything was dark... his vision had been clouded... Luna's cry echoed in his head ... he could not breathe well...

A yellowish light began to shine... it was warm... it came from...

“Where are they?” that voice woke him up from his vision. “Not six hours to go dark,” said the worried alicorn girl.

“Maybe they had some encounter with the Hunters,” he said without the least concern. Then he turned his gaze from the treetop to her, wanted to swallow his words. “Hey, do not worry! Do you really think that a few of Hunters can do something against mother and your father? It would take a hundred of them to make one of them perspire!”

She didn’t seem to react to his comment, this made him panic. It's funny how his brain was put at full speed from one second to another, in 3 seconds he had at least 15 ideas of how to distract her so she could think of something else. He was ready to suddenly invert the gravity and crash into a couple of branches of the tree above him, when she sighed smiling:

“I guess you are right.”

Those words were a relief, he wouldn’t have to break his face to worry more about his health than his parents' tardiness. On second thought, maybe that wasn’t the best idea.

Changing the subject: What had all that been before Celestia spoke?

Discord had been spinning his head for a while now, recovering his life. How much? He didn’t know. It felt like it had been days, even weeks, he just prayed that when all this madness was over it hadn’t been long enough for Fluttershy to have a family of her own, so Twilight and her friends would have to look for something more powerful than the Elements of Harmony to neutralize him.

In any case, enough time had passed for Discord to notice ‘advances’. These were memories that came before he was even in the same place where they happened, normally they were very significant events for him, like the wreath he made for Celestia. But normally they were memories very lacking of something, color, sound, sharpness, it was never the complete memory, if what had been a few minutes ago had been an advance it must have been something very important to have been able to remember so many sensations.

Now Discord was reviving his adolescence, he had just turned 15 years old just a couple of months ago. He was a carefree teenager, it might seem that this description is superfluous considering that he lived in a land where life was simply calm and perfect but is still a carefree. It didn’t help that his powers had increased and he had dominated almost everything they could offer so far. If there was someone to blame for that, it was Galaxus himself.

The story happened like this: about a month after Nebula announced that she was expecting a new child, Discord was bothering Reginald, the bull that adults bought years ago along with the rest of the animals, and this filled the patience of the animal, who rammed it. Discord tried to protect himself from the furious bull and, as by instinct, he ended up turning it into a bird, a woodpecker to be exact. It took him a while to understand what and how he had done that, when he did, he started to play with this new skill, turning the ‘Reginald woodpecker‘ even into completely impossible hybrids: a lion-rabbit, a rabbit-giraffe, an elephant-seal ; until he made the mistake of returning the animal to its original form, now even more irate than before. He would probably have been seriously injured that day if Galaxus hadn’t stopped the bull.

What followed was a sermon, which he had the good fortune to forget almost completely, about his irresponsibility with his powers and how they were the reason why they couldn’t leave Earth Heaven. Although he hated to admit it, Galaxus intimidated him very much that day, that is why in the following days he began to exploit his powers to see how much he was capable of and to silence the man's mouth. It was quite simple when he noticed that, in a way, he wasn’t as tied to the rules of reality as any mortal.

But once he handled everything he could, he rubbed it, almost literally, on Galaxus' face. The arrogance that caused him to be outside the rules of the Creator brought an ironic satisfaction to the alicorn and concern to his mother, in fact, if it hadn’t been for a pair of alicorns in that land, probably Equestria would have sunk into chaos decades before. It hurt him to remember her mother's gaze when she saw her new abilities. Why had he thought she would be proud to see how his power dominated him?

He locked himself in his room for days, excusing himself of being sick, and didn’t leave until Nebula talked to him and still felt his blood boiling every time he met Galaxus. He was sick of him. Sick of up with that eternal hatred towards him. Of his contempt. Of his mere presence.

He was so sick of the alicorn and so afraid he would break his mother's heart again that he decided to leave Earth Heaven, but another alicorn gave him back the sense: Celestia. How did alicorns always convince him or take him the right way? Genetics? Nebula and Celestia were like mother like daughter, so it was a possibility. Anyway, Celestia made him see that if he left the only one in that land that would be happy in some way would be Galaxus. Galaxus, Galaxus, Galaxus, always Galaxus. Would there come the day when he is a bastard, wouldn’t make his life be bitter?

Celestia made him understand that no matter how much Galaxus hated him, she needed her friend and her mother needed her son. Celestia couldn’t have been older than 12 when that happened, but she was very mature and sensible for her age. That characteristic of her had been increasing and showing more as time had passed, but she didn’t notice it clearly until that night.

“Those Hunters,” the girl spoke again with some frustration. “By Exodo! Sometimes it seems that they do not rest. What do the equestrian earn with which our mother and father free them from this new evil? Another will come and then another, there will always be a new problem to face, they cannot wait for a man and a woman to help them always. They did it once without their asking or thanking! Cannot them let them live a quiet life now that they have fulfilled their purpose?” she fell against the grass next to the small Luna, who was sleeping peacefully lying on the ground.

“That is the way people is: once they find something effective, it does not matter if they are aware that this entails a risk, they will use it over and over and over again until it is something everyday for them.”

“Says the young man who performs all his tasks of the day with a snap of his fingers,” she commented jester, making all the solemnity of his comment meaningless.

“Thanks, Tia,” he said sarcastically as he got up. “I say something sensible for once in life and you ruin it. Then do not complain if I make nonsense,” he crossed his arms comically.

“Do not get mad at me,” she laughed. “It is not in you to be mature, you are too spontaneous for that.”

“And you are too boring!”

“Hey!”

“What? It is the truth, you look like a grown-up woman cursed and doomed to stay in the body of a girl for the rest of eternity,” he put his hands to his forehead in exasperation and dragged them along his face. “Even since you got in your head that idea of ​​becoming a knight!” began to cry false tears. “I had hopes that the new child could give me someone to have fun with again But I can not even hold Luna without her crying! The universe hates me!” he shouted at the sky, dropping to the ground before raising an arm pointing to the sky to finally scream. “Your grandfather hates me!”

By saying her ‘grandfather’ he was referring to Exodo, although Celestia never liked using that term. It's funny: her parents had been created directly from the hand of the Creator, but she never felt very attached to the great divinity, even seemed she didn’t have it any faith. And he was the illogical?

With respect to the Hunters, they were a group of ‘mercenaries with class,’ as the Council of the Three Races called them, although with time the royal guard was also employed to find the divine saviors and bring them before the rulers. Discord often wondered how they didn’t replace them after almost half a decade searching for the alicorns without success.

Of course, lately between both failure and failure they seemed to have gained experience and each time it was more difficult for Nebula and Galaxus to avoid them.

“Do you really think I have changed since I decided I wanted to be a knight?”

“If there is someone on this earth who knows you, that is me, or I believe so, and, yes, you have changed. You have become very boring with those things of ‘follow the footsteps of your parents as a warrior and guardian’, or that ‘as soon as we leave this land you will look for a Lord or Lady who deserves to be protected to provide your services’. Would not it be easier dedicate yourself to something else? I can not think of an instrument you do not know how to play and you have a very good voice, you could be a world-known artist,” at that time he didn’t notice his words, but Celestia did.

“Oh, shut up!” that was embarrassing. He barely noticed that Luna was beginning to wake up, unlike her sister, who took her in her arms.

“Alright, Discord,” she said after a giggle. “I had no idea that he had changed so much. And, yes, I know it would be easier, and accessible to me, to dedicate myself to entertaining people but that is not what I want to do,” she looked at the baby in her arms. “It is just...” then looked at the horizon. “... there are so many people out there that can not protect themselves, there are people with great power and a good heart whose lives end prematurely at the hands of those who want to use that power for selfish purposes,” she turned to see him, he wasn’t sure, but it almost seemed like she was about to cry. “My parents were warriors, they were under orders from the Exodo itself! I could never find a Lord who would compare to that, but at least I want to follow in their footsteps and protect everyone who deserves to live,” at that moment, Discord could almost swear he saw her dressed in armor and with a sword in her hand.

Discord sighed defeat and, somehow, also happy, he stood up using his powers so as not to have to move a single muscle and said:

“Well, maybe it is your destiny to become a knight, you do not have a cutie mark that proves otherwise” she didn’t have a cutie mark at all.

“I do not have cutie mark...” she repeated to herself lowering her eyes.

“If you are going to start getting depressed about the fact that you do not have one of those marks you better do not keep talking,” he said with a tone more bored than severe. “We have been all our lives trapped in this land without interacting with anyone else, repeating the same routine day after day. You can not expect that living the same day over and over again for years will give you a clue as to what makes you special,” he meandered around in circles around her while she looked at him incredulously and confused. “Someone's destiny is always designated by the world who surrounds them and the people they know,” he finally stopped and stood in front of her. “So instead of worrying about the fact that you still do not get that stupid mark, you should consider all the opportunities it could offer you.”

“I know, but still there is no guarantee that my cutie mark indicates that my dream and my destiny are the same.”

“And so?”

She looked at him confused by that question. He could see that she was trying to formulate an adequate response to that question but she herself ended up asking herself that question.

“It is just a magical tattoo that reaches all eqeans sooner or later, why does it have to tell you how to live your life? It is yours after all, is not it? You can do what you want with it, or are you a mere puppet of fate?”

She looked at him with very bright and open eyes, full of hope.

“You are right!” she finally said with great encouragement.

“Always,” interrupted boasting mockingly, finally he could get a smile of her.

“I... I do not even know why I worry,” she said animated and smiling. “I will barely be 13 years old in a few months, most of the eqeans do not get their cutie mark until after 15 years of age. And I do not even have to follow it blindly! I do not have to be a puppet of destiny as you said, I will live my life as I want.”

A puppet of destiny.

It was ironic that he had told her that when he was practically one. The Eye of Exodo, the cave where the omen of his madness was recorded, was proof of that. He couldn’t escape from the destiny that the Creator had written for him and, sadly, he knew that Celestia couldn’t achieve her dream. He felt bad for giving her hope at that moment.

“Thank you, Discord.”

“I am at your service, My Lady,” bowed in a jocular and exaggerated manner.

He heard her slight laugh and his self-imposed work was done. He raised his head without leaving his pose to admire his work when something in the distance caught his eye. A dark spot was moving on the horizon, too far to distinguish what it was.

“What is wrong?” Celestia asked.

“Someone is coming,” he barely noticed that he was already standing a few steps from where he had made his false reverence.

“Do you think they are mother and father?” she tried to see what he did.

“I would not be so sure.”

It wasn’t them. He knew when part of the spot raised in the air. It wasn’t the adults.

“Run!” he took her hand and made her run as if her life depended on it, and it did.

“Discord, what is wrong?!” Celestia asked scared as she tried to keep up with him while keeping Luna safe.

“It is not them! I do not know who they are but they are not!” he ran without looking back.

“Get down!” she threw him to the ground and quickly covered Luna as much as she could.

Before he could ask why had she done that, he heard a rumble coming from the tree and when he looked at the origin of this sound, what he saw was a green flame torch where the tree had been before and what little was left of it. I found flying with dangerous speed towards them.

Like Celestia to her little sister who was now crying inconsolably, Discord covered Celestia when he saw the pieces and tree branches flying towards them. Instinctively he made them less dangerous to them: cotton, big balls of cotton.

He took a second to recover from the shock, thanks in part to Luna's constant crying. He picked up Celestia and they ran again.

“By Exodo, who are they?” Celestia said running.

“I do not know and I do not care! They almost killed us! We have to hide!”

“If they find the house they will look for us there as soon as they see it! Let's go to the tunnels! They can not find us...! Aaaaahhh!” Celestia screamed when she saw strange creatures approaching quickly.

“Tia!”

“Get away!” she yelled at the strange being who was coming closer and closer as she threw a magic beam that pierced its body. Killing it.

Both were totally blocked seeing the dead creature in the tall grass. He was in shock but could only vaguely imagine what Celestia was feeling. The poor girl, the snow would almost look black as coal compared to her expression. She had just killed something or someone! She needed time to process it! And time was just something they didn’t have at that time. He looked up to find that at least a dozen of those beings were flying towards them.

"Enough!”he thought before snapping his fingers and converting those creatures as soon as an insect occurred to him."You are quite similar, you sure feel comfortable," then he grabbed the catatonic Celestia by the shoulders and teleported them to the deepest part and intricate he knew from the tunnels of the Hollow Hill.

Celestia was right to choose that place as their hiding place while all that madness was developing. The tunnels of the Hollow Hill extended and branched for long distances and, according to something that Nebula told them when they were younger, past a certain point, the earth under Earth Heaven faded into an eternal void. If these creatures dared to enter and ended up taking a wrong turn at some point they would spend the rest of eternity trapped in nothingness.

Of course there was no problem for them, they had spent their lives touring those underground dirt corridors. They were the best place to play hide and seek. Now they were their refuge.

Who knows how long they were in there? He didn’t have the slightest idea, he just knew that it was enough for Celestia to get out of shock enough to form coherent sentences.

“Are you okay?” he asked worried.

“Yes...” she barely managed to say. She clung to her little sister now calmer as a small child to their favorite toy when are is afraid. Silent tears ran down her face, she herself hardly seemed to have noticed.

At another time he would have mocked her for being so shocked to kill someone minutes after saying she wanted to be a kind of soldier. But making fun of something like this at a time like this would have meant the end of their friendship and, probably, of his life and Celestia’s sanity.

“In the name of Exodo: What were those things?” she said in frustration as she dried his tears.

“Who knows? They had horns at the same time that they had wings, but they did not look like you, they looked more like some kind of insect,” they were changelings.

The creatures that attacked them that day were changelings. Somehow they managed to find the entrance to Earth Heaven and they entered that land. Of course, back then he was only sure of the latter.

“One thing is for sure:” he continued. “: they were not common equestrians.”

“And they are someone to reason. They attacked us just seeing us! We would have died if we had not run. Thank you, Discord,” she gave him a look and a smile full of gratitude.

“Thanks to you too, Tia, that insect would have caught us if you did not kill him first...” just say that he bit his tongue so hard that he almost ripped it off. What an idiot! She was just coming out of shock and he was pouring salt on the wound! “I am sorry! I am sorry!” he repeated again and again.

“It is fine...” were her words but everything else in she said otherwise, her voice, her eyes, nothing was right.

“It was not my intention to bring up the subject, Tia, I swear it for my life,” he still wondered if that was a good choice of words.

“Discord, please, let's not give it more laps,” she said frustrated while the tears reappeared. “I can not believe I did that!”

“You did it to protect us, it is not your fault,” he sat down next to her.

“But still...” that sentence was unfinished when Discord placed a hand on her shoulder and looked at her to calm her down a bit, strategy that worked. “I am a shame, right? I say that one day I will protect a Lord at any cost and when we protect ourselves, it affects me to take someone's life.”

“I should worry more about not affecting you.”

She looked at him confused.

“A soldier who is not afraid to kill fifty men in his first combat and after a hundred deaths by his hand without remorse does not hesitate to look for another hundred, and even finds it pleasurable, does not kill for his people's sake but for the simple pleasure of decide which lives end up as if they were Exodo. On the other hand, the soldier who in the first combat does not consent to the unnecessary loss of enemies and after the tenth honor to the enemies that he believes fought with more fierceness and honor, that is a warrior worthy of a king.”

She looked into his eyes for a second, there was a special brightness in her eyes, a glow of joy and confidence both in him and in herself. She snuggled closer to him with a silly smile and he returned the gesture, it was a way for them to say ‘Thank you’ and ‘It was a pleasure’.

They stayed like that for a few minutes until their optimistic smiles faded away as they came to the idea of ​​a reality: They couldn’t stay there for who-knows-how long just waiting for these creatures to leave. Hunger and thirst weren’t so much a concern, Discord could make a banquet appear if he wanted, but that was no excuse to stay to live underground as hermits for the rest of their lives. They had to go out and see what was happening outside, they couldn’t leave both because of Luna but at least one of them had to check the terrain. That was Discord.

“Where are you going?” Celestia asked when she saw him moving towards the exit.

“If mother and your father have returned, I must tell them that these things must be in our house. Stay here with Luna.”

“Have you lost your mind?! If those things already wanted to kill us just seeing us, now that we have charged one of their own they will not hesitate to tear your head off.”

“They can not kill me if you do not recognize me,” he smiled mischievously and winking his eye turned into a snake. “Do not worry, Tia, I will just go to the entrance of Earth Heaven and if I do not see a mother and your father will come back to here.”

She didn’t seem very convinced by this idea but it seems that after considering the options, stay there until who knows how much or face the creatures, she finally had to yield. She let out a sigh, kissed the tiny head of the snake and begged:

“Be careful, please.”

“Do not worry, I will be back soon.”

And he left quickly, partly because he didn’t want her to see his blush, that was the first time she showed such a gesture to him and it was a little embarrassing.

It took him a few minutes to get out of the tunnels and more than half an hour to reach the limit of Earth Heaven where this and Equestria connected. He saw no sign of the adults in the whole journey and he didn’t see them appear in the limit after several minutes.

Why did they take so long? And why at a time like that? Maybe if they had run into hunters, dammit, that was the worst synchrony of life! He couldn’t even take the risk of going out to look for them because I did not have the slightest idea of ​​what blessed part of Equestria they were in and he couldn’t just leave Celestia and Luna to find them!

As frustrated as he was, he ended up undoing his transformation and pulling his hair until it was a few inches longer. His tantrum passed in a matter of minutes giving way to a feeling of disappointment and concern. What if his mother and Galaxus had been captured by the Hunters? Would they have to leave Earth Heaven and live in Equestria on their own? In those moments, Discord wanted to remember a little more about the history of Equestria to get an idea of ​​what might happen next but had never been interested in any kind of history, not even his own.

Feeling defeated and seriously considering leaving Earth Heaven with Celestia and Luna, he prepared to return to Hollow Hill and tell his friend about it when something happened to him. If those creatures got there to plunder, because he did not think those things were Hunters, then maybe they would have gone already. After all, the poorest villages of Equestria were more looting than a land with only one house and family. He smiled to himself when he thought that all he needed was to snap his fingers and transport himself to the house to check his theory and his and the alicorn girls’ safety. Of course Celestia would hate him if she found out that he went to the wolf's mouth when he promised to come back after see if the adults had returned or not, but he was too confident to worry about that now.

“AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”

That distant cry, that voice, was none other than Celestia.

“No,” he said to himself, astonished. “No, no, no...!” he repeated terrified again and again as he flew up and headed faster than his wings should allow him to head for the Hollow Hill.

Even so, he knew that the scream didn’t come from there. He preferred to deceive himself thinking that his ears were wrong and that that scream came from where he wanted but when he was there, when he reviewed every corridor that he was able to remember in that moment of hysteria and proved his fear, he had only one place to go: the source of the scream, his house.

He didn’t even need a snap of his fingers to transport himself and there he was. He saw Celestia with Luna tied behind her, floating in the air, held by all her limbs by bonds by the magical bonds of a woman like those creatures: dark skinned and pierced limbs, a long twisted horn, translucent insectoid wings green, a tail that looks similar to iher wings. A complete stranger at that time, someone more familiar than he would wish now: Queen Chrisalys.

“Tia!” he shouted without thinking when he saw her, he needed to step forward to find something that added to his horror.

When they were young, he and Celestia used to go barefoot so it took him barely a second to notice the pool of blood he had just stepped on and not far from that puddle was the decapitated body of Clara, their cow. Terrified, he fell backward and his hand plunged into another pool of blood. A part of him shouted at him not to look up and he still did not know why the hell he did it but when he looked around he saw only all the animals animals, the pigs, the chickens, all were lying on the ground coloring the emerald grass of crimson.

He didn’t have the stomach to bear that vision, the closest he had been to a massacre had been war stories that he ventured to read from time to time.

“A draconequus?” he heared Chrisalys saying and when he looked at her again he saw her watching him with remarkable curiosity. Then she smiled with some malice. “Interesting.”

“What are you doing here?!” Celestia yelled at him, pulling him out of his shock.

“Me?! What are you doing here? I told you not to go out of the tunnels, stupid girl!”

“As if you had not thought to do the same! Come on, deny it!”

“Silence!” Chrisalys cast a spell that covered Celestia's mouth, preventing her from speaking.

“Tia!”

“So that is her name?” she said, keeping her smile as she walked towards the teenager. “Thank you, young man, your friend did not deign to give us that simple information when she introduced herself to me. I am Queen Chrisalys, sovereign of the changelings and, soon, supreme ruler of Equestria. Tell me boy: What is your name?” she spoke in a… seductive way? The only thing he was sure of that behavior was that he didn’t like it in the least.

After taking a few seconds to regain his composure, Discord got up, forced a confident smile on his face.

“My name is Discord, your majesty,” he bowed mockingly. “And you already know Tia and Lulu.”

“Tia and Lulu? I expected names more worthy of beings like them,” ‘Someone does not know nicknames,’ thought Discord. “They are your friends, am I wrong?”

“The smallest, I do not think so, the eldest, is my best and only friend,” he looked at her with a nervous smile.

Celestia gave him a furious gaze. He had to free her and Luna but he had his hands tied, that woman and her people had killed all their animals, they had neutralized her, she was a prodigy in combat and he hardly knew anything about combat. The best option for him was to wait and get them out of there when Chrisalys let her guard down, if they had to flee to Equestria then they would.

“How long have you known her? If it can be known.”

“Since she was born. Not even in dreams could I forget that day,” pure irony.

“Then I suppose you have meet her parents?” she asked even more interested, moving closer to him with a look that disturbed him. Maybe she considered that being Discord a teenager would have the typical ‘needs’ of one, and that she could use that in her favor but the effect was completely the opposite, he was each second more uncomfortable.

“O-Of course, Majesty,” he trembled.

“They would not be, by any chance, a dark-skinned man and a white-skinned woman, would they?” that question caught Discord's attention.

“How ... you know that?” the only response he received was silence, then the insect queen crouched until her face was at the same height.

“And tell me, young Discord, where are they now?” she stroked her face, Discord felt as if he was been touched with a corpse. Her skin was cold, smooth and covered with animal blood. He noticed then the other changelings around him, all emitting a gloomy buzz in their intrigue.

“I-I... I do not...” he swallowed and finally spoke clearly. “I do not know, Majesty.”

Chrisalys’ smile faded, the buzz died, that response wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Chrisalys got up, unraveled the spell that held the girls and at the same time ordered:

“Hold the older one, do not let her escape... and bring the baby to me.”

“What?!” exclaimed the young ones in unison, they knew that she didn’t mean well with Luna.

“No, no! Luna!” Celestia cried when her sister was snatched from the back, four changelings pinned her to the ground.

“Majesty, I beg you...” Discord grabbed her arm in a futile attempt to stop her but she immobilized him as she did with Celestia. A second later she already had Luna in her arms, the poor girl had not stopped crying.

“Did not you say that the name of this girl was Lulu?” she said while somehow managed to calm a little Luna. “Then, why her sister has called her by another name? What else have you lied to me, young man?”

“I have not lied!” he said desperately.

"Please, let her go!" Celestia struggled.

"Then can I trust that you do not know the whereabouts of the warriors of the Creator, either?" He ignored Celestia’s pleas.

“I swear I do not know, Majesty!”

“Pray to the Elysium that your words are true, young man, because otherwise...” she used her magic to hold the baby by each wing and pull them out spreading them. Doing that for a baby as young as Luna was back then could, in the best case, delay that she could fly, and in the worst, leave her wings completely unusable, but Chrisalys didn’t seem interested in the physical development of the little baby alicorn.

“I swear I do not know where they are! Please, let her go! Both of them!” rectified

Chrisalys didn’t seem convinced and continued to pull Luna’s wings harder, intensifying her crying.

“Please! I do not know! I just do not know!”

Chrisalys stopped, this gave the young people a little hope. But that hope died when the insect queen said:

“What a pity,” she smiled wickedly before beginning the final pull.

“LUNA!” Celestia yelled loudly before a beam of magic hit Chrisalys’ left arm, almost cutting it.

“AAAGGHH!” she agonized, her concentration broke and Discord and Luna were free, the first caught the second before it touched the ground and then took off.

Celestia screamed again. This was more a war scream than a prayer. When Discord looked to where his friend was and saw her shoot magic right and left hitting one or other changelings and almost him and Luna. This attack served to intimidate those in charge of immobilizing it, two of them fled almost immediately and the other two could barely contain the furious girl, leaving her then a hand, a wing and a free foot.

Celestia’s hand then caught fire, terrifying one of the changelings who still held her and all that remained was to hit her face with her burning hand to the last one left. He fell to the ground writhing in pain from the fire in his face, but soon his fight stopped just like his life, while Celestia stood up. She didn’t find it easy to recover his posture, when she did she looked at Chrisalys with a defiant face.

“Kill her!” Chrisalys ordered with anger. “Kill that stupid bitch!”

Discord was terrified to hear those words and without thinking he flew to Celestia looking to take her away.

“Tia!” he shouted when she saw the remaining changelings approaching her, but she recoiled when she noticed Celestia's gaze: there was so much rage and thirst for revenge in her eyes, he barely recognized her best friend. Those eyes just weren’t hers.

Her horn lit up and the magic that came out of it mixed with the flame of her hand and formed a sword of fire and aura. She placed herself on guard and as soon as the first changelings approached her she cut off they head in a quick movement, without flinching. The next she cut was from the collarbone to the stomach, the one that followed that one was pierced in the chest by that magic sword. A couple of them tried to attack her at the same time and Celestia had to go from attack to defense using her sword to block her attack.

“Go back to Tartarus, you damn demons!” she shouted full of rage as she shot him between the eyebrows, if it can be say so, to one of them and draw from his other hand a dagger of fire with which the other stabbed the side. Once the latter was on the ground, Celestia pierced his head with her sword.

Discord was terrified but he didn’t know what made him feel the most: That that killing lack of blood because the blood coagulated instantly by the heat of the weapon? Or that all this killing was running by the hands of her best friend?

Was that demon really the peaceful princess so revered in all of Equestria?

One by one the changelings were falling, each one as savage as the last, until it was left alone: ​​the queen. The rage in Celestia's eyes burned with more force when she saw who would be her next victim, but not only rage burned in her eyes, so did pleasure.

She railed against Chrisalys with obvious intent to kill her and would have done so if he hadn’t intervened.

“Celestia, stop!” he wrapped her arm around hers while keeping Luna from falling of the other.

“What are you doing?!” she struggled opening her wings in an attempt to get rid of that grip “Let go now! This monster deserves no more than death and she will have it by my hand!”

“Are you even listening to your own words! This is not you, Celestia!

She turned to see him and again he had to meet those unknown eyes. He hesitated a second before regaining the strength of his grip, then said:

“She no longer has allies, you already snatched her arm, she is helpless.”

The anger in her eyes began to fade but was still latent.

“You have done enough,” she was placating her attack, he didn’t need to apply so much force now that she was calmer. “Please, do not cross that line that separates the hero from the murderer, Tia,” prayed almost with tears in his eyes.

Deep down, he was afraid that everything would be in vain and that such a line would no longer exist for her. To his joy, the hatred in her eyes continued to extinguish until finally only a confused look remained.

“Discord…?”

“Heh” Chrisalys released and when they turned to see her they saw her smiling and her horn shining and vibrating.

In an instant a beam of magic came from behind them and through Celestia's wing.

“AAAAAHHH!” Celestia yelled falling to her knees on the floor with Discord.

“Stupid kids!” Chrisalys laughed getting up. Or at least that's what he thought.

Actually everything around Discord seemed to fade after seeing the wound in Celestia's wing. Maybe that hole in her friend's wing didn’t secrete any blood, but the simple vision of that missing part of Celestia's limb, seeing her tremble with pain in the ground, the smell of burned flesh, knowing that the cause of all this was a few meters away from him. All this filled him with hate, more than he had felt in his entire life.

In that part was when everything became strange. One second he was next to Celestia and the next Chrisalys was lifting him off the ground holding him by the neck. What the hell happened? It was what he asked himself back then and he kept asking it today. The only difference between the first time that question was asked and the following ones was that in none of the later occasions was it pierced in the stomach by the insect queen. Unlike the murdered changelings, Celestia's wing and Chrisalys’ arm, he did bleed, a lot.

He wasn’t able to utter a cry at all, just a muffled sound as Chrisalys muttered triumphantly:

“And this is the end of the life of the last draconequs,” and she let him fall.

He was sure that it must had hurt, a lot, but he really wasn’t able to remember it. He was completely blocked, he was only sure that in front of him he saw hundreds of celestial bodies and that on his back was the ground covered with grass.

So that was it. The moment he had remembered when they were under the tree. It was that moment. When his life hung by a thread by the invasion of the changelings to Earth Heaven when he was young. Of course, there was still a detail missing so that the memory was complete, and a certain alicorn girl known for everybody was going to take care of that.

“Discord...” he saw her crawling over him crying and pulling him out of his shock.

“Tia...” he could barely say. “...run...” he wanted to tell her more, to calm her down, to lie to her about that he would be fine, but barely had the strength to say the few words he said. Anyway, he knew she wouldn’t listen to him.

“Never,” still crying her voice showed determination. She placed Luna next to him, the little girl must have had a serious sore throat after so much crying today.

Celestia then stood up and re-formed the sword of fire, or rather, the swords of fire. Discord knew what she was going to do, on that occasion he just wanted to avoid at all costs to commit the madness she was about to do. Now he was very happy that the battle he feared didn’t happen.

The earth trembled and shone. Celestia seemed to see something and quickly teleported the three of them to a point farther from the house. He turned his head faintly to the spot where they had been a second ago and saw how the earth shone and from it came large columns of white light that caught Chrisalys and his changelings who had left the cave, the few who managed to get away they were soon caught in smaller pillars. When all were trapped, one pillar shone with a blinding intensity and the changelings within disintegrated. Soon the process was repeated little by little with the others.

“What is the meaning of this?” he heard Chrisalys scream.

“I thought you capable of a lot, Chrisalys...” a voice came from behind the young ones and both turned to see where the voice came from.

“You!” Chrisalys said.

“... But, attack children? I begin to doubt if you are the work of the Creator or Armageddon,” the bearer of that voice passed by them and continued to walk until facing the insect woman “At least now you will give more problems,” there were fewer pillars left, a couple more and Chrisalys would have gone.

Or so he believed then.

Chrisalys let out a laugh:

“You underestimate me, old man! You always do it!” she cast a spell and the pillar changed color from white to green, a second later it exploded.

“Chrisalys!”

She was free and was flying towards them. He would have attacked them if Celestia had not shown her face and fired. Then she left, finally there was calm. Especially for him.

Discord's vision had been darkening since Chrisalys wounded him, now everything was very blurry and his eyes were struggling to stay open. He wasn’t sure then if that stranger was an unconditional ally or a temporary ally, maybe a bounty hunter looking for his prey. If he didn’t turn out to be a friend he wanted to be focused enough to teleport Celestia and Luna away from there.

Then he felt a warm light on him and that the pain was going away, it was Celestia, she was using a little healing spell. Actually it was only a spell to alleviate the pain, there were no spells with very powerful healing functions at that time, even in the actuality the magic medicine was a field very little explored. It was better than nothing.

“It is not common for a girl of your age to have such skilful abilities,” they heard the old equestrian say.

Celestia left her attention to Discord, and placed herself on guard between him and Luna and the stranger threatening him with their swords. The old man stepped back.

“Easy, young lady! I have no intention of hurting you. Death rather than hurt the children of the Creator's guardians,” he said calmly.

“How, you know my parents?” she asked with a tone between anger and distrust. “Who are you, sir? How did you get here?”

The bearded old man removed his weeping hat, bowed and opened his blue cloak and said:

“Allow me to introduce myself, young lady,” he got up later. “In Equestria I am known as Star Swirl the Bearded.”