"Wow," Starlight will say. "I mean, I knew, but in all this time I never actually heard the story behind it. That … seems a little extreme?"
"It wasn't just that. There was yromem involved." Discord will tap his claw and paw together, then gesture vaguely. "And, you know. Other reasons."
"Yromem?"
She will simply be mishearing the word, but Discord will take it as a cue to elucidate. "Exactly. I rebmemered a conversation explaining why I wanted to do it, and how. And — especially given that it meant Star Swirl's wretched hack of order would never do any more structural damage to Equestria — the idea seemed pretty compelling."
(He will wonder whether to note that the conversation in question is this one — and then will get distracted by mentally holding up a little "Hi, Mom!" sign to his past self.)
"Compelling enough to destroy your human friends?" Starlight will raise an eyebrow. "Even back then, that doesn't sound like you."
"That's just it. The tree had just told me the world wasn't real. So the human girls weren't my friends. Weren't anyone's friends. They were just magical constructs. Walking shadows." He will have picked up something of a tendency to lecture from Twilight, but it's okay: doing so will remind him of her. "And if the thing Equestria was tethered to wasn't real, then Equestria's magic was being drained to keep the other world in existence."
"Right." Starlight will nod in an endearingly Twilight-ish way. "Basic thaumaturgy. The Axiom of Sustenance."
"Which meant it was a threat to my real friends."
"Yikes. Yeah, in your horseshoes, I could see myself reacting that way too."
"Exactly! Perfectly understandable. Completely selfless. Certainly not a thin rationalization over deeply sublimated feelings," Discord will say, then will hurriedly change the subject at her expression. "So how would you have done it?"
Starlight will hesitate for a moment, but will give in to the age-old temptation of Solving A Problem. "Well, in your horseshoes, I would have taken the simple solution," she will say. "Destroying what anchored the portal to the human world — the way you'd already done by accident on arrival, before Harmony fixed it. Like taking out the plug from an inner tube's air valve. Then the whole thing deflates as existence rushes out through the gap."
Discord will clap a paw to her shoulder. "I've always liked that about you, Glimmy. We both go right for the direct approach."
Starlight will raise an eyebrow. "Okay, but from what I remember, that wasn't your plan."
"You weren't there. I assure you it was."
"If you say so. But then why didn't you try to go destroy the statue right away?"
"I promised Fluttershy that I wouldn't try to hurt anybody real," Discord will say, "and there were other Equestrians still stuck in Star Swirl's little prison."
It takes Discord a few hours to find them. No matter where he starts from, teleport-snapping to the nearest pony just flings him into a stupid sequence of narrow escapes with Buffy Shimmer and the Scoobies. Searching for Equestrian magic doesn't help — the whole place is lousy with stolen thaums. He's finally reduced to wandering around the local mall with a giant pair of They Live truth-glasses, looking for friendlies amid the sea of propaganda and alien skull faces.
Finally, he halts in front of a group of three scowling young aquatic females, skulking in a corner near the restrooms. Their leader is cradling an unlit cigarette in one fin. "Oh, hey," he says, pointing. "You look fishy."
"Oh, hey," she snaps back. "Principal Celestia's ex finally works up the nerve to come back to town. Decided you want a sample of what you were accused of?"
Discord whips off the glasses. Cigarette Fish's human form is a floofy-haired girl with legs up to here and a neckline down to there. "I'm normally a big fan of nonsense," he says, "but Celestia's what?!"
She rolls her eyes, giving no sign she listened, and flicks her hands at him. "Don't care. Aggressively not interested, now that we can't feed. Shoo — go creep on someone else."
Discord's still for a moment. "Well," he says. "if you're going to be rude, then maybe I won't bring you with me when I destroy the world."
Cigarette girl pauses. Looks him up and down.
Then bursts into hysterical laughter.
"Sunlit depths, he's growing a spine!" she gasps, doubling over. "What's the first step in your master plan, Darrell? Ask slightly less politely for your drink at Marebuc— glrk."
That last bit comes when Discord claps his hand to her shoulder. There's a sharp snap and a flash of light, and her stunned body jerks and crumples to the ground. He unstraps the Sweet Dreams™ brand Joy Buzzer™ from his hand and pockets it again, then turns to the twin-ponytailed purple one.
"Your turn," he says. "Explain what she meant about Celestia's ex."
This is the point in the conversation at which Discord typically expects abject cowering — or, alternatively, screaming and fleeing — but these girls seem to be made of far stronger stuff than the average Equestrian. Ponytails raises an eyebrow, then pushes herself from a wall-lean to a straight stance, cracking the knuckles of a balled fist. "The hell, Darrell," she says coolly as Poofy-Hair twitches and Blue-Skin crouches down over her protectively. "Did you develop a case of amnesia along with your death wish?"
"I've got a bad case of 'I'm-not-actually-Darrell-because-I'm-a-visiting-god-of-chaos-from-Equestria'-itis." Discord crosses his arms and scowls at Ponytails. "I'm trying to give yromem a chance here, but if you do anything stupid, that's not bad luck, and you don't have a promise protecting you."
That stops Ponytails cold. "Wait, does that make you Discord?" she says, eyes widening. "Because he's hardcore."
Discord, mollified, straightens his collar and grins. "Flattery will get you everywhere, my dear."
She opens her fist, sticking it out for a handshake. "Aria Blaze. That's Sonata. Adagio's the one you tasered."
"And stalling won't, but I'll pretend to care about the names." He twirls a finger in midair. "Celestia?"
"Yeah." Aria shrugs, retracting her hand. "So, in this world, you two shacked up a few years back. Principal Celestia has always had a soft spot for people that need a gentle touch, and frankly, your native self is the world's biggest wuss."
"I've gotten that idea." Discord takes a moment to check in on him via Equestria-sense —
"— decided to destroy the world," Darrell Ichabod Slater-Cords says, his serpentine chimera-body balling up on Rarity's couch as the three senior princesses listen with shocked expressions.
Celestia steps forward, radiating maternal calm. "Darrell," she says with a voice of liquid light, cracking her wings open to subtly brighten the room. "I know he must be upset from Sunset's unprovoked attack —" she glances at Fluttershy, weeping off to one side — "but that's still a terribly grave accusation, and I don't want to leap to conclusions. Is it possible this is … some figment of chaos magic we're misinterpreting?"
He shakes his head numbly. "No. We're … linked, somehow. He even said so. What I saw were some reverse memory things he calls 'yee-roh-mem'. It was really clear from context that he was remembering conversations from the future."
"What will happen, then?" Luna says. "Spare no detail."
Darrell stares down at Discord's gorgeous true form — a body he somehow, inexplicably, seems to loathe — and swallows. "I'll tell you what I can," he says, voice shaky. "I can't control it, and I've only gotten the two fragments so far. But what I did hear is as vivid as if I was there —"
Discord scowls. "A dangerous wuss," he mutters to himself. "A dangerous wuss with just enough knowledge to create exaggerated comical misunderstandings. The worst kind."
"— which is when we showed up at your wedding," Aria finishes. "When both of you stormed out at once and the guests started throwing punches, we were stuffed for weeks." She pauses, tilts her head, and waves a hand near his eyes. "Reality to Discord? Were you even listening?"
"New plan," Discord tells them. "I need to keep the timetable moving, or soon I'm going to have two sets of trigger-happy jewelry models trying to stop me."
Adagio finally, shakily, gets to her feet. "Huh. So you are serious about destroying the world." A wild grin starts to spread across her face. "And then we team up to take over Equestria?"
Discord fidgets. Fluttershy was extremely disappointed in the Tirek thing. "Not … as such."
Adagio's eyebrow raises. "What's next after blowing this joint, then?"
(A ticker-tape parade? Apologies? Dodging rainbows? Nerding out with Princess Checklist over the way he just saved them all? Boy, Discord thinks, this would be a brilliant time for yromem. … Nothing. Of course.)
"I … haven't quite thought that far ahead," Discord says instead, then tries to pivot with a dismissive gesture. "That's not my style."
Aria raises an eyebrow, too. "You've at least thought through how we're getting back to Equestria, right? Because we sure can't, and that's not a problem we can solve after you destroy the world."
Well, Discord thinks, that's an interesting dilemma. The single known portal between the two worlds is currently in tiny pieces on the far end. Discord's magic can't interact in the slightest with Order — except to blow apart the thing anchoring it here. And the only source of Harmony able to kludge it open from here is in the hands of Sunset Shimmer.
"Still working on that bit," he says lightly.
Aria and Adagio exchange a lengthy glance.
"Uh," Sonata says, "maybe we should talk for a little bit about why we're destroying the world?"
"Oh, it's very simple," Discord says, gesturing around them. "None of this is real."
He had been hoping for a better reaction than awkward silence.
"An unreal which is hurting Equestria," he adds. "And I happen to like Equestria."
"Okay, girls," Adagio says slowly. "New plan. We all take off running in different directions. I don't think he can stop us all from reaching Sunset."
Discord angrily flings his arms wide. "As real beings yourself, I'd think you would understand!" he shouts. "Okay, fine — you know what? Convince me this world is real. I can change my mind. Change is my whole thing."
"Sure, whatever." Adagio rolls her eyes and thumps a nearby wall. "That good enough for you?"
Discord shakes his head and pulls a little cube of concrete from his pocket. "Magic can create objects. This place steals magic from Equestria. The Q. is E.D."
"But there's always been enough magic here to power our necklaces," Aria interjects. "If the only magic here was stolen from Equestria, they would fail when they were farther away from the portal."
"That just means this place has stolen way more from Equestria than we thought," Discord counters. "If anything, that makes the blowing of the upping more urgent."
Aria looks frustrated. "You asked for proof the world is real. It doesn't exist less if you get farther away. That's your proof."
"Ah, but there's plenty of impossible that goes on forever," Discord says. "You should visit my infinite library sometime."
"That's bull," Adagio says. "Stop turning this into a philosophy problem. Philosophers are things you eat."
At this point, Discord's just enjoying tweaking her. "Philosophers are emotions?" he says with a cheeky grin.
Sonata gasps. "Emotions!"
The others look at her. "Hmm?" Discord says.
She reflexively grasps at a necklace which isn't there. "Magic, like, can't make emotions. It can make people feel angry, or move anger around, but you can't just magic anger into being. We've tried."
Aria catches on. "Right! If humans here were magical constructs instead of real beings, they couldn't feel the emotions that we eat."
Discord has to think about that one. It does seem pretty convincing.
"So what's the deal with this place, then?" he stalls. "Why is everyone a duplicate of somepony in Equestria?"
"It's a prison, remember?" Adagio cuts in. "Old Beardy wanted it to 'teach us a lesson'" — Discord can hear the spite in the air-quotes — "about ourselves. So he found a mirror universe parallel to our own where everyone here is what we're most afraid of becoming."
Aria nods and crosses her arms. "Like you, for example. Darrell's a complete pushover, led around by the nose." (Discord inwardly winces and tries not to think of Fluttershy.) "Those arrogant alicorns? School bureaucrats. More valuable to the world for being a cog in the system than for anything they'll ever accomplish."
"And us? We feared we were weak." Adagio grins, and somehow her flat monkey teeth look predatory. "But we took care of that."
Discord's considering admitting that Sonata's got a point when a tickle at the back of his senses reminds him of a fundamental gap in their argument.
"There's a problem with that," he says. "Magic can't create emotions, but it can create people. Darrell didn't exist a few hours ago."
They stare at Discord like he's grown a third arm. And not in the good party-trick kind of way.
"You weren't listening," Aria says. "We preyed on him years ago. We were at his wedding."
"Seeing as how he is literally part of me," Discord says, "and I can see through his senses, and I know the exact moment I felt him clump off and achieve independent thought, I can assure you that would have been difficult."
The sirens look back and forth at each other uncertainly.
"Hang on," Adagio says, eyes slowly widening. "Are you serious? Are we just … in some sort of simulation of Star Swirl's?"
"well were u?" Flurry Heart, Alicorn Princess of Communication, will think into the uplink port of her skulljack, spawning an instant message several microseconds later in Discord's HUD.
Discord will send back a :rolleyes: emoji. "Obviously, that was not the case," he will type onto his physical keyboard, entirely because he will love needling her by forcing her to slow down and think in needlessly long-winded sentences at meat speed. "If so, the simulation would have been a construct of pure Order created by his original spell. Therefore, I would have irrevocably crashed the system and corrupted its memory the instant I got injected."
"yeah lol i remember u visiting my vr mmo beta launch," she will respond microseconds later.
Discord will grin at the memory and start typing.
A beep will indicate a new incoming message as he's four words in — which, for Flurry, is an exceptionally significant pause:
"plz dont do that again"
"Nah," Discord says dismissively. "Whatever Star Swirl did, he was working with pure Order, which this place isn't. Which raises all sorts of questions about free will, memory, and agency, given that this parasitic existential shadow hellscape overwrites its own reality at a whim — but on the bright side, it's torturing you for its own reasons instead of his."
The three of them are looking more ill by the second.
"And on that note — good try, but no dice. I'll swing by to grab you once I've pulled the plug." Discord holds up a hand, readying a snap. "If Baconhair doesn't blast me with rainbows again." He cups his chin in the other hand. "Offer void in the state of Stone."
Sonata steps forward. "Wait."
Discord pauses, then points a finger-gun at her. "I liked your emotions thing. You have ten seconds."
She takes a breath. "So, this place, like, isn't all bad," Sonata says. "I mean, most of it sucks, so I totally get why you want to destroy it, but even if it's just here to torture us, it gave us Taco Tuesdays." She shrugs. "Maybe there's supposed to be something cool here for you, too? Maybe you should go find out Darrell's deal and see what he likes."
As the other two sirens look at Sonata in disbelief, Discord digests that for a moment. The idea is insane on its face. Darrell is utterly irredeemable. Anything he likes is, by definition, worthless.
But Discord does have a soft spot for humoring other people's insane ideas. And he is curious about one specific thing.
"Thank you for the reminder, my dear," he says, and snaps, and vanishes.