I just laid there, sitting next to the willow tree, listening to the sounds of wind and leaves around me. I was at peace, at my zen, I was one with Mother Nature and her creatures.
Actually, I lied, I was conked out pretty hard.
"Brother?"
Even then as I lay there, I would get hounded by more of the odd images that the creature that now resided in my mind would give me. I know that she called herself Luna, but a gut feeling told me that whatever it really was, was bad news outright.
"Brother?"
And not only that, but I swear that she could also mess with my senses, like the smell of someone breathing that was similar to warm sour taffy, or the sound of an annoying buzz hanging in the air.
"BROTHER!"
My body jolted up, and soon found myself latched onto a branch of the willow tree I had been peacefully sleeping under, looking down at a lavender pony wearing a propeller hat and looking at me with swirling eyes. I had to admit, after all of the things I had already went through, the hat that made her fly AND the eyes, it was new.
"S-sorry! I'm not your brother," I attempted to say without revealing that she scared the living daylights out of me. "Just a pony that was really tired... in the Everfree Forest... with scary animals living in it." At that moment I had just realized that sleeping in the open was the WORST, POSSIBLE, THING, I could've done while I was in the Everfree Forest.
"B-But Daddy Discord said he wanted to send a message to you..." she whined, causing me to only latch onto the branch harder, this must be the 'daughter' that he talked about in the last letter he sent me.
"Alright, if you have a message from 'Ye Who Sent Me Through Time and Space To Buck With Me', then I'll need you to back up, don't want to mistakenly fall on you and break a bone or something." The pony backed away from the tree, beginning to carefully let go of the branch and use my wings to descend to the ground. Now eye-to-eye with the curious pony, I began thinking how kinky it would be to sleep with my 'sister'. "RRRAGHH!!!" I gave a loud roar before running headlong into the tree, it was getting worse, these longings were going to be the death of me.
"You're funny, brother. You have fruit punch running down your head!" The pony remarked as I tried to keep focused on the pain rather than the other thoughts. "Here you go," she handed me a VHS tape and watched me remark in confusion how this was supposed to work.
"What do you expect me to do with this thing? Whip up a TV and VHS player from thin air?!" I had gotten so sick of Discord's sick pranks that I outright threw the tape to the ground and crushed it under my hoof in frustration, greeted then by a loud boom and forceful... force that sent me through the air and do a few flips before I landed again, this time, on my hooves rather than any other body part.
"Hello again, Bait," Discord was now right in front of me, hands behind his back and head turned up as if he was staring down at me in a prudish sense. Without thinking, I had hit a fast speed and stopped in place to hit him with a right cross to his smug face, only to see it faze through him. Only after a few more failed punches and kicks, did I land on the ground and could only stare burning holes into the visage that now laughed at me.
"Aww, what's wrong? Can't hit a God? It's alright, I've never really been touched by pony hooves, it's always been that rainbow that has been able to keep me from running around." His eyes met mine, my teeth gritting in frustration that I couldn't do a bucking thing to him.
"Not yet, you son of a bitch! I'll take these hooves and shove 'em straight down your throat to make you eat your own words!" I already felt taller, more energetic, almost as if I was on fire as I burnt with hate and loathing against him. He only continued to look down at me, a bemused smile on his face.
"I can wait, I have 3 days, 5 hours, 17 minutes, 54 seconds, and I believe 1 first." Checking the watch quickly, I could see he was right, guess the run into the armory was timed to what he wanted, and that made me even more worried as to what else he could do. "Since I know you've been gallivanting around the old stomping grounds of my war room, I figured you need a brief news bulletin." With a snap of his fingers, we were all now in a staged studio, myself behind the cameras, the lavender pony working the prompter, and Discord, now wearing a pair of rectangular glasses and shuffling paper in front of him.
"Okay, we're live in 3, 2-!" The lavender pony mouthed out "1." and pointed out to Discord.
"Good day, I'm Discord, God of Chaos, Anarchy, and the best looking draconequus this side of the universe." With that, he shifted his sight to another camera to his right. "Tonight's top story, Canterlot's castle has fallen. Police and the royal guard have proof of a unicorn going by a false name has destroyed the entire castle in under an hour, this has been the fastest takeover of the castle recorded to date, previously held by myself. With that being known we now go to our Messenger on the street to talk with the suspect, Messenger?"
My sight now focused on the TV screen beside me, showing an image of Marian, her eyes completely black and unholy to look at directly and not think that you were actually staring into her skull. Beside her was a yellow unicorn, his eyes also black and unfeeling. "I'm here with R-R-" Marian was trying to say his name, but it looked like she was having difficulty, however I knew what she wanted to say.
"Richard!" I found myself yelling out, wanting to help Marian against the force that held her now. After some ill silence, Marian finally looked back into the screen.
"Conquest," she said the name dejectedly, only making me feel worse that Discord now had Linda's sister under his control. "Both of us are currently in Ponyville hospital, hiding from the authorities and beginning to prepare ourselves for the next sign of the Aponylypse." My head turned to Discord, looking for answers, then turning back to the screen, because I knew he wouldn't give me any.
"C'mon Marian, give me a clue, give me something I can use," I thought, making sure that even if Discord could read my mind, it would be hard to hear.
"Conquest, what would you like to say to the audience that is watching right now?" Marian turned her attention to Richard, my heart already breaking that I knew he had to have been the first one that had to get wrapped up in Discord's plan.
"This resistance that you're making, Bait, it won't work, it will only serve to annoy our leader," Richard spoke, but I knew it wasn't his words, I was only looking at a fake. Much like the pony that looked like Marian was a fake. Discord had the real ones, locked in a cave, restrained in a warehouse, in a SAW movie, wherever they were, I knew that who I was looking at wasn't the real thing. "Give up now, and you can join in on this power."
I shook my head, tears forming unconsciously, "Damn it, Richard! That isn't you!" My wrath had been growing since I had entered this imaginary room and I had begun tipping over cameras in anger, kicking power boxes, struggling against wires that had managed to wrap around me, only to tear them from their walls. After it all, I pulled myself with half of the room now entangled on me in front of Discord and his desk.
"Give them back," I coughed out, trying my best not to show my exhaustion. Discord only laughed. "Give them back," I spoke louder, my second wind now rising up in my soul. His laughter continued permeating into my mind, teasing it, mocking my efforts. "GIVE THEM BACK!" I jumped up to tackle Discord but was stopped in place by one of the cameras catching on the floor, making me fall down in front of him.
He went out to touch me with a claw, thinking perhaps I didn't have any fight left in me. I responded by biting down on the eagle claw and letting the sweetening sound of Discord yelping in pain echo out, making him instinctively teleport away. With him teleported, both myself and the lavender pony were back at the willow and lake, she didn't look happy about what I had did. I only gave a smile of my own and held out a hoof, wishing I still had fingers so that I could show her the middle one. "You can tell daddy, to kiss my ass and I'll see him at the family reunion to tear his house down."
The lavender pony huffed and flew off, leaving me to the grass and peaceful surroundings again. I was getting tired too easily, if I was going to fight against Discord, I needed to make sure I could last longer than fifteen minutes in battle, otherwise, I'd be dead the moment I would step in. My ears twitched slightly to the sound of gruff voices from afar.
"Ouch! Watch where you're putting the stone!" I could tell that they were somewhat close to where the bridge was, so getting myself up from the ground I decided to do some espionage on what was going on. Poking my head from the bushes, I could see a few Diamond Dogs moving rectangle pieces of rock and trying not to cause much damage to it. The largest one, a dog with blue-gray coat and wearing a diamond collar, was trying to balance a rather lengthy piece and was trying not to have it slam down on the other side making it break, The medium sized one, a dog with a gray coat wearing a diamond collar and an orange jewel hanging from it, had apparently been plowed into the ground with the excessive weight as he tried not to get crushed by the immense thing. The smallest one, a dog with a light brown coat and wearing his own diamond collar, was hanging on the other end where I was, hoping to get down and not hurt himself. Each of them also wore vests that had a small variety of gems stuffed in the pockets.
Figuring they were like Tyrone, I stepped out into the open. "Need some help, gentlemen?" The dogs attention shot over at me, in an instant, the stone was dropped. The three dogs on one end, myself on the other.
"What are you doing over there, pony?" The middle dog growled out, letting me know he wasn't exactly friendly. I gave a shrug and took a seat on the ground, not answering. "Are you mocking us? How dare you!"
I kept quiet, something about not saying a word and watching the dog try to figure out why I was staring at him actually made me chuckle a little. He seemed easily agitated about it though...
"You will answer us, pony, or we'll... we'll..." The leader of the group gave a pause, trying to think of a suitable punishment. Feeling sorry, I figured I'd throw him a bone... of sorts.
"Build the bridge to come over and pummel me?" I offered up, watching the dogs eyes glisten angrily at the idea.
"No! We'll build a bridge to come over to the other end and pummel you!" The middle dog barked back, making me roll my eyes, how dumb was this mutt? The dogs ran off and came back with more stone, each of them on a different bridge duty. The biggest one was placing out the stone and placing in supports by digging underground and then placing them underneath the walkway.
As the big dog would hold up the support, the smallest dog would run over to the other end and carry his own stone with him. He had... cement duty? It's the best I could reason, he would go underground, poke out near the end of the support beam and chew the stone. After some time, he would hock it out and spread the gunk around the beam.
The middle one seemed to have supervisor duty and was directing the effort on the other end, I knew that it would take them some time in order to get a working bridge made so I just laid down on the ground and watched the clouds above me. Unlike the other clouds that seemed to be controlled by pegasi, these clouds were like back home, slowly moving, no control of their own. I remarked on how long it had been since I just looked up at the clouds and just relaxed, my body needed it after all of the effort that I had already done.
I gave a look in the direction of where I left my bag of goodies that I left at the willow tree and started going off in the direction, hopefully no ants figured out that I had my lunch-now-dinner inside it.Bringing out the bag back out in the open to the dogs, I could see they were eying the meal I was revealing piece by piece. Slice of bread, a piece of lettuce, tomato, and something that resembled bacon, made of hay. Beggars can't be choosy. Folding the bread in half, I had made a BLT fit for a pony. Giving a satisfying munch on it, I gave a wave to the shocked dogs that noticed my lack of caring at them.
They returned to their work, leaving me to my dinner, I had noticed I hadn't ate a lot today, but really I never came across a situation where I was just hungry, as if I thought about it only made me realize that it was time to eat. I guess another thing I had to chalk down for this world as a positive, because to be hungry while worrying about what was going to happen next would be a terrible thing to experience.
***
Tyrone awoke in an instant and started to panic, he was hungry, he was in an unknown room, and he still needed to find Marian for Quentin. He tried to move, but found that he was in a large jacket that tied his arms to his back and couldn't allow him to get out.
"Hey, Chestplate. The dog is awake," A young mare was speaking behind the door that Tyrone could see was rather unsure about what she was looking at.
"Let the doc know," the other voice was male, tough, experience easily told from it. "I'll stick beside the door until you come back."
Tyrone's ears then perked up when he heard barking. He hadn't heard a single bark since he was here, and he knew now that there was another dog in this prison. "Let me out! Need to play!" The barking was from a female was all that Tyrone could tell, but something seemed off about it in someway.
"And get that freak a bone or something to shut her up, I'm getting tired of listening to her bark!" The male yelled out, making Tyrone bark back in defense for the female dog.
"You shut up! Get us out!" Tyrone bashed against the door and watched a small square open near the middle, green eyes peering out at him.
"Oh, you want to bark too? How about I tell the doctor that you don't deserve food?" The stallion kept his eyes on Tyrone, up until Tyrone bashed his face into the square and spoke up.
"She wants to play! Let her outside and run around at least!" Tyrone yelled at the startled stallion, making him pull out a long prod. The stallion shoved the prod into Tyrone's face and shocked him, causing Tyrone to yelp in pain and try to rub the now sore spot that he received.
"You don't tell me what to do Diamond Dog!" The stallion screamed back, Tyrone only forced to look at the square of freedom being blocked by the bully. "We'll make sure that you're put down appropriately and then you're clan won't try bothering Ponyville again!" The stallion shut the window forcefully, leaving Tyrone to his pain and worries. Moments passed until he heard the soft growling from the female dog he heard before.
"It hurt?" Tyrone heard concern in her voice, and he could only cry softly in response.
"Yes." Tyrone whimpered, the spot on his cheek beginning to swell up where he was poked at. "Where are we?"
"Ponyville Asylum," the response came, still trying to remain hushed. Tyrone could only assume that the guards were too preoccupied with their own business to know what was happening. "They say you're going to die, tonight."
Tyrone hit the back of his head against the padded wall, tears already coming down his face. "I don't want that. I want my Beta." More silence came between the two conversationalists, Tyrone's heart breaking from the sadness of dying alone.
"We can escape." The female dog determinedly barked making Tyrone open his eyes in surprise as he began barking as well.
"How?"
"Dinner, the door gets opened, if one of us can get out of the room and knock out the bad ponies, we can make a break for it!"
Tyrone thought carefully about what she was saying, if she was a Diamond Dog as he was, how come she knew what the procedures of when the feeding times came? Was he just unlucky? As he continued his thoughts, he heard the click of the door in front of him. Springing to his legs, he charged forward and managed to jump from the wall beside the door and kick it open, shocking the pony that had a tray of food in his hooves.
With another kick, the pony was knocked across the hall and slammed against the wall, making the guards move to the alerts. Not caring about making a mess, Tyrone took a large bite from the tray itself and rushed out trying to listen for the barks so he can open the door for the female dog.
"The Diamond Dog is out! Open fire!" The male stallion called out, the sound of compressed air being released alerting Tyrone that he was getting attacked. Moving back into his room, he took notice that the 'bullets' were needles filled with liquid, no doubt a sedative to knock him out. If he could get out of the suit, perhaps he could use the door as a shield. The needles however gave him an idea. Being careful not to be noticed, he leaned his head to pull one of the needles from the wall and kept to the corner, waiting for a pony to enter.
The mare he had heard, in an instant, turned from the door and pointed the needle gun at him, before getting a needle of her own being thrown by Tyrone's mouth. It hit the target, making the mare briefly lower the gun in pain, Tyrone using his strong legs to kick it away from the now woozy mare. Again, using his mouth, he gripped the pony's uniform in his teeth and began to use her as a shield against the stallion on the other end.
"In here! In here!" The female dog barked out, letting Tyrone know where she was and slowly work his way to her position. When he reached the door, the stallion began approaching him slowly, the gun still trained on him.
"Don't even think about it, Diamond Dog!" The stallion screamed over the sound of the alarms, only prompting Tyrone to kick open the door, revealing a light blue pony, her mane and tail a tangled mess. Tyrone gave a look behind the pony into the dark room behind her.
"Where's the dog?" Tyrone politely asked the pony, seeing a look of confusion cross her face.
"I am the dog," she growled. She stepped from the room, only covered in a medical garb and stood behind Tyrone, trying to untie the binds the wrapped his arms. The stallion broke out in a run, throwing the gun on the ground and pulling out his shock prod. When he jumped, Tyrone felt the wrappings loosen as he raised his large arm to swat the pony down to the ground, making him slide far away from them.
Tyrone let go of the mare he had been using as a shield and turned back to the pony that had helped him, only to see her running down a flight of stairs. Tyrone began running after her and followed her through winding passages, several circles, and finally outside the building. The alarms were still going off as Tyrone managed to finally reach the light blue pony as she was barking happily.
"We need to hide from the bad ponies! Come with me!" Tyrone barked at the light blue pony, trying to lead her towards the Everfree Forest to his Beta.
"This is fun! I am Screw Loose!" The light blue pony howled, making Tyrone smile as he had begun to notice that the sun was going down on one end, and the moon was beginning to rise in the other.
***
"Gasp, hah, We've, phew, made it," The large Diamond Dog had managed to utter out before collapsing.
"Mah jaws hort," the small Diamond Dog attempted to say.
The medium dog looked at both of his companions and then over at me in unease, "Uh, can you excuse us for a moment?"
I kept on the ground, waiting for them to turn so I could pull out a sword. It was more of a lengthy dagger, really, but a pony probably didn't need great length in comparison to humans, and the way it felt was exceptionally light as I opted to just toss it once in the air to see what would happen before seeing it impale on the ground between my open legs and just letting it sit there. The medium dog looked over at me and my now revealed sword and tried to pull the group further away.
Maneuvering around the sword I gave a frustrated sigh, "Oh come on, aren't you gonna fight me? Or are you just too scared to go against me without your boys?"
"I said, give us a moment, you impatient pony!" He snapped back, prompting me to only creep up behind him and listen in on the conversation.
"We can't back down now, we need to establish our dominance over this pony. Curse that Rarity, after tricking us and embarrassing us, all of our soldiers left us for another clan!" The medium dog tried to lift up the big dog from the ground and seemed to struggle against his weight.
"He's noot worph ih," the little dog spoke up, still trying to massage his jaw.
"Can't we just rest? I'm tired," the biggest dog whined, making the medium dog shake in anger.
"I think you all deserve a break," I said, managing myself into the small circle they had tried to create. "Tell you what, I've got a place where you can crash for awhile, you can rest up and THEN you can proceed to challenge me so I can embarrass you, sound cool? Sounds cool." I pulled away and put the sword back in the bag, leaving it again by the willow tree.
***
Twilight and her friends had all reached Ponyville again, now filled with Canterlot's population that lined the streets, hoping to get an answer as to what they should do. Princess Celestia stepped from the train and the entire crowd went silent, each of them in awe and surprise.
"Citizens of Canterlot and Ponyville," Celestia started, hoping to get as many of the worried populaces ears to hear her. "This is a dark time for all of us, the castle is gone and the town of Canterlot is in shambles. We will all need to work together now to live together, as a new threat has made it clear that he will not stop until all of Equestria is torn apart."
Celestia started to hear the worried mumbles as she took a breath for her next segment of speech, "We however will not be frightened of this evil, for we can all trust in the Elements of Harmony to bring this unicorn to justice as they have in the past with Nightmare Moon and Discord. Until then, we will all need to sacrifice a little more, a spare bedroom, food from the cabinets, some of our own privacy and dignity, and when the threat is over, I can only hope that this won't be a disparaging experience, but rather a new and wonderful experience as we all learn to be together in unity."
"OR YOU CAN FIGHT!" A voice called out, causing the crowd to rabble louder and shift away from who said the bold claim, a lime-green pony with a bob in her mane. "We all know this isn't the end of the attack, it's only going to continue! So why wait for it? Why hide in your homes and pray that it will go away? I and my good friend Quick Fix can get this town prepared for battle! There is an entire store of weapons and useful items in the broken down castle in the Everfree Forest!"
This statement made the crowds begin to shift over to Celestia, looking for a comforting word. The green pony was then approached by the zebra, Zecora. Some of the town was still uneasy of her presence, and the sound of windows closing would occasionally echo across the audience. "We cannot let him come back fully restored. I regret to let you all know, it is the draconequus, Discord!" The mention of the name made the group all start worriedly mumbling.
"We've stopped him before," Applejack intruded. "Even if Discord is really behind this, I and my friends can put him down easily!" She looked over at Zecora, slightly hurt, "Don't you trust us?"
"This is bigger than the six of you can handle, we all have to work together to avoid this scandal!" Zecora cried back, some of the ponies in the crowd seemingly agreeing. "We won't ask with force, but with your help we can alter Discord's course!"
Zecora whispered into Limonade's ear, "Let us go back, even without a pony, we can still ready ourselves for his attack."
"The Great and Powerful Trixie will go with you!" All the ponies turned to the yelling unicorn, on her mobile stage, ready to head out. "Such things like draconequus are nothing to myself!" Twilight gawked at the sight of Trixie even considering going against something like Discord. Soon Trixie was pulling her cart to Limonade and Zecora, her ever confident smile plastered on her face. "Lead Trixie to the Everfree so that she can help lead this rebellion against the fowl beast!"
With Limonade leading the way, a small group of ponies began to follow her towards the Everfree, each of them unsure as to what they could do, but knew that action had to be taken as soon as possible. Within the small bunch of followers was Lyra Heartstrings, still carrying her sword and her own twisted smile on her face.
Derpy looked over at the Elements of Harmony, showing concern to them. "He's trying to trick them! Please, you got to come with me to see what he's doing!" The six friends looked up at Celestia and Luna, hoping to get an answer.
"We all need to rest and think on what we need to do," Celestia finally spoke, her mind still abuzz at the concept that a pegasus was willing to risk lives of her ponies and himself in order to stop Discord. "Perhaps, the answer can come to us by tomorrow, and we can all create our own plan to stop this madness."
Celestia began moving towards the Mayor's office, the only place now that she could maintain her authority and perhaps sleep. Luna looked over at the yellow bubble that covered the side of the mountain and frowned as she began her control of the moon for the night. Each of the Elements began to go on their way home, Twilight in particular the most conflicted. This entire incident had shocked even the princess of the sun, and her own doubts began to form. Perhaps... they would need help.