Canterlot, Five Years Ago. When the End was Ending
Lord Tirek felt a sense of glee and fulfillment rise in his - pleasingly powerful, after the magic he had absorbed - chest, as he stood on the blasted precipice of Canterlot Castle. The throne room was a blasted out shell, and the city beyond full of boarded up windows and empty streets. Only a cold wind gusted from skies consumed with grey clouds.
The sense of satisfaction he felt was almost palpable as he looked out on the victory that was within inches of his grip. He looked back to his co-conspirators, sneering as he spoke.
“Every prisoner is safely in their cells. Now we can hunt down the rest of the” he paused as unearthly wails reached his ears, and something, blazing with ethereal, ancient power coursed through the skies, brewing a storm as it moved high above. His yellow eyes squinted toward the clouds.
“ — Windigos?”
Somewhere that’s nowhere, in no time
The void was endless.
Infinite, numbing nothingness, stretching entire. It was everything, and nothing. There was no time, no age, no anything.
Just the void
There was no darkness, no light, no colour, no sound. It’s substance was the absence of substance, the absence of anything
It just was; and within it, they were nothing as it was.
Time did not pass. Nothing happened, it simply… was.
This was their prison, their existence. All they had was their hunger, and their rage.
Then the unthinkable happened. Something changed.
A crack. A sliver of the different intruded. And through it radiated power, and life and energy.
They howled into the void of nothingness in their fury and surged toward it, flailing in their rage and hunger, driving toward the glimpse of that other world
Canterlot, Today
“I can promise you, I didn’t exile him, and he hasn’t been turned to stone. You checked yourself in the hedge maze, Fluttershy. It was the Royal Gardeners who got me to come and see you after you started scaring them.”
The yellow pegasus gave a soft sigh and bowed her head apologetically, the fall of her long, thick pink mane hiding her bashful blue eyes.
“I know, Twilight. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare anypony; I just got a little anxious, and then my imagination got the better of me”.
Princess Twilight Sparkle gave a warm smile and a knowing roll of her eyes to her long-time dear friend, and trotted a few steps closer, curling one wing over her friends’ back.
“Believe me, Fluttershy; I know more about that than anypony. Or have you forgotten the time I enchanted a stuffed toy and had half of Ponyville fighting the other half? Or the time when I drove myself crazy because of a message I sent myself about driving myself crazy?” The alicorns’ pretty face scrunched into a frown momentarily as she thought on that.
“Actually, that one still gives me headaches,” she admitted quietly to herself, before resuming her smile and coaxing Fluttershy to walk with her through the ornamental rose gardens around the palace.
“You’re right Twilight,” the buttery yellow pegasus answered after a moment, lifting her head and smiling to her friend. “I suppose we all let our imaginations run away with us once in a while. I just can’t help thinking that something really strange might have happened for Discord to miss our afternoon tea for two days in a row - and especially without letting me know”.
Twilight smiled and nodded sympathetically.
“I know, Fluttershy. It is unlike him to miss out on doing anything with you. For as much as he can be a pain in the flank, he does really care about you - and about all of us, really. It does surprise he hasn’t let you know. But… being strange is his thing. I mean, he is the avatar of Chaos after all.” She glanced to her friends’ face, seeing worry still evident in Fluttershy’s big blue eyes.
“...But I’ll tell you what; if he still hasn’t got in touch or said anything to anypony by tomorrow, then we’ll find some way to get in touch with him, I promise!”
Fluttershy smiled and hugged Twilight, the purple alicorn returning the gesture.
“Oh, thank you Twilight! I wish I’d come to you first; I should have spoken to my friends before letting myself get so carried away.”
“That’s fine, Fluttershy,” the Princess replied with a smile and a soft laugh. “If there’s anything else you need, just ask. I’ll do my best to help you, you always know that.”
“Of course,” the yellow pegasus replied with a warm smile. “I’m going to go and see the animals in the garden, Twilight. They always help to calm me down. But would it be all right if we met for tea later?”
“I insist, Fluttershy,” she replied with a grin, waving as her friend took wing and gently flapped away to another area of the garden.
As Fluttershy flew away, Twilight continued on her path. She’d wanted to get out of the throne room as it was; holding court was something she still, even after the hooful of years she’d been in charge now, still didn’t enjoy, nor find much relief in doing. Princess of friendship she may be, and sorting out friendship problems for ponies - or other creatures - was something she was more than adept and keen at doing. Or even solving magical problems, mathematical problems, or scientific ones. But discussions about land agreements, trade, defence or other matters were best left to the ministers of the council, rather than ending up in her lap.
She gave an equine snort and rolled her eyes as she trotted along the elegant brickwork of the garden path. In truth, Fluttershy’s worries about Discord’s disappearance concerned her more greatly than she let on. What she’d said to her friend was true; Discord had been, in the past especially, a gigantic pain in the flank for all of Equestria, let alone her and her friends. But, for all his ridiculous and frequently life-threatening mistakes or slip-ups, they were often made out of misguided good intentions, and he had put himself on the line for all of them on many occasions. And his adoration and admiration for Fluttershy was beyond compare. That made the fact he hadn’t so much as dropped a peep to her in a couple of days and had missed appointments with her all the more worrisome.
Lost in her thoughts, and letting her hooves follow their own course had taken Twilight off of her path, and she looked up as she realised she’d taken a wandering route. And, almost immediately, felt a sour taste at the back of her throat. Her ears flattened back and her dark-maned tail swished as she looked on the visages frozen into stone in front of her. They were a reminder above all else of the havoc Discord had wreaked unintentionally.
Cozy Glow, the tiny pegasus filly with the heart and mind of a villainous would-be tyrant. Queen Chrysalis; former regent of the former Changelings, and consumed by nothing but bitter revenge and a lust for power. And Lord Tirek, the centaur of mysterious origins, who lived only to siphon magic in order to increase his own physical and magical prowess, with no regard nor care to any other beings’ life or well-being.
Her muzzle pursed into a thin line, and one forehoof pawed the tiled path leading around the statue before her. Though, it was of course no simple garden monument. The trio themselves had been immobilized into stone, placing themselves by their own actions as irredeemable.
Discord had lost his powers when that happened. And before, he had had no power or ability to control his magic in the face of other villains. The lord and master of reality, yet he had been rendered powerless in the face of events.
And it was my friends and I that rose to the challenge, and won each time, because of our friendships, or those of the creatures we have met along the way. Even in the darkest of days, we still found a way.
She looked down at herself, looking at how her shadow now fell taller across the statue. She’d begun to change over the last five years; lengthening in leg and neck, wings getting wider and thicker with feathers, and her mane and tail had taken on an… ethereal quality. Not quite flowing in an invisible breeze like Celestia or Luna, but certainly more of a… thickness and a sheen to them than her younger years.
Their greatest foes had bought out the greatest strengths of Equestria, and of the bonds of friendship shared between her and her friends. If something was the matter, if Discord was in trouble - she had no doubt that the magic of friendship and the power of harmony within all of Equestria would be enough to put it right.
With a rushing flash and a pop of reality, Discord reappeared elsewhere on the material plane of existence. He grimaced inwardly; linear reality was so… tediously three-dimensional and logical. But, it was where all of his friends lived, and their lives, despite being lived in a logical and three-dimensional way, were so much more… involved and had much more depth than he would ever have imagined. And that was why he’d ended up here.
Intimately connected with the force that held Equus itself together and reality beyond it, he had felt his senses twitch and tingle, a crawling sensation rising through his awareness from somewhere in the world of Equestria, something that did not belong, in a way that even his grasp on Chaos did not gel with. Something had poked its way into reality from elsewhere. And this close to it, whatever it was, it didn’t feel right.
The avatar of Chaos drifted through the loosely forested landscape, his serpentine body slinking between tree trunks and high grass as he ignored gravity and it’s boring rules. Idly, the Draconequus noted that the trees here were not like the ones at Fluttershy’s animal sanctuary. They had no healthy, strong trunks, no thick green canopies that her animals would like to live among, or eat. Their trunks were gnarled, grey wood and branches twisted like crippled arms. No leaves, or in the least, a few pathetic specimens hung on the branches, with upthrust croppings of dark, splintered rocks breaking up the dismal landscape.
“Well,” he muttered to himself in a superior tone. “Isn’t this a cheery corner of Equestria. Perhaps I should suggest to Twilight that she let me do some redecorating of the landscape. It certainly looks like it could do with a bit of… tidying up”.
In a flicker of a moment, the Draconequus had clad himself in a Prench Maids’ outfit, and with a swipe of a feather duster trees…
...Stayed exactly the same.
Discord blinked slowly, one eye after the other, and raised an eyebrow, raised it so far, in fact, it lifted off past his head and somewhere past his rams’ horn.
“Well, that can’t be right”. Snapping the fingers of his eagles’ talon, he glared intently at a rock outcrop. On a whim he’d pictured a delightfully disrespectful and lewd statue of Celestia, but the rock petulantly decided to remain a boring rock, of decidedly non-pony appearance and proportions. But this time, he noted something, a pull on his magic from deeper into the trees.
His senses, reaching and connected deeply with the magic of Equus and with Harmony itself, could feel the pull of something, from deep within that shadowy, dark place. The Draconequus blinked closer, teleporting at a whim-
-As he reappeared, it was like a blade being driven into his side, and something being pulled out. Startled, Discord staggered. Pain was not a sensation that he was accustomed to, nor fond of, but it ached in his body like what he imagined an illness must be. It threw unpleasant memories back to when Tirek had drained his magic, and more recently when he and his other members of the evil trio had torn his magic away from him with Grogar’s bell. In both instances, he had been left weak; this time felt similar, he could feel his power slowly draining away, like fatigue setting in, a deep weariness settling over his body.
Shaking his head and gathering his wits, the atavistic being drew the reins of his power tighter, shifting the strings of reality to suit him and tying his physical form together more strongly… or trying to. No matter what power he exerted and how much of it, he could feel more of him bleeding away, like mortal creatures’ blood spilt from their wounds. He reached out, needing to support himself on a tree, much to his own shock, and glanced around himself with panic.
Ahead, there was some kind of construction; ancient ruins crafted from stone. Finely carved, but millenia-worn into soft imitations of what they once were, they were strewn like so many of the towering bluffs around a scar in the earth itself, above which was the source of his pain, and of the tingle of his senses. As he looked at it, Discord felt the tingle blossom into a full-blown blare to his very essence. It was enough of a disturbance that it further ruined his concentration and focus, and his very link with the plane of this reality.
His body became fuzzy at the edges, colour warping and image dancing and splitting into things it was hard to pin a name on, let alone focus on. His shadow inverted and turned negative, his eyes flickered into pools of infernal fire and five-dimensional flickers of substance as he studied the… mishap in reality before him.
It was hard to describe - and he was the lord of Chaos. It was like a burn in camera film, an ashy nicotine-stained boil on the air in front of him. It was vaguely circular in shape, and looked almost like a sore, or a squeezed pustule, like some painful blemish on reality itself.
“Nurse,” he growled to himself, as he clad himself into a flickering and badly-realised surgeons gown that had almost soft or no texture and looked like a half-formed thought. “Prep the patient for surgery…”
Something was there! On the other side, something with so much power. What meager morsels that could be sucked through from the other side were like the sweetest of ambrosia, the sweetest nectar that could be imagined. They were bliss, and they promised more, more on the other side, more life, more energy, more sensation, more strength, more!
More
More
More
More
More
More
MOREMOREMOREMOREMOREMOREMOREMOREMORE-
The chorus screamed it’s song of rage and hunger; the morsels of power they had gathered giving them enough strength to do what was needed, what they had hungered for so long. The crack they had prised open, widened with pedantic, endless effort was forced rudely wider, torn into a prolapsed, bleeding gash in the fabric of the world. Ragged, rough and broken, the wound in reality spilt over into other worlds, other existences.
This didn’t concern them, they surged forward, ignorant of all else except the presence before them, the burning light of energy/food/life that existed in that bright world, full of sensation and reality, a beacon compared to this absence of reality.
They gathered themselves, feeling the beginning, familiar sensation of form taking hold once more as they surged toward the gap, blasting it wide as they charged through. Anything and everything that stood in their way had no choice: it was going with them, no matter where it came from.
Demi-beasts, nowhere children and half-thought maybes and could-have-beens that twinkled like likes on the edge of consciousness or half-seen on the edge of a dream or nightmare were swept along with the charge from nothingness into reality, their essence further folded into the mass of hunger, consumed to fuel the charge. Among them, on the border of one pocket world, another took note, feeling the twinges of hunger as a familiar pang, and much stronger; the emotions of rage, of jealousy and hatred and fury. And of darkness, all-pervading, all fulfilling and consuming darkness. Willingly, he submitted himself to the masses, feeling their familiar presence submerge around him, becoming one with him as he blasted onward, released from his prison.
Discord staggered back, his costume evaporating into abstract strands of light and mana, words lost to him as the pull from beyond the rupture in reality and his thoughts slipping away. The rupture opened to a hole, then a gaping maw, tens of feet wide. The other side was a void, a mind-number, soul-sapping absence of anything; not the blackness of space, not glaring white, just crushing, infinite nothing-
And then it was full of blackness, all endless eyes and teeth and indeterminate shapes. Like the form of many things as one, surging forward in a thunderous pillar that engulfed his body.
Discord asserted his control on reality; he was the Lord of Chaos, nothing would stand against him. And he was a guardian and protector of Equestria. Whatever this new threat was, it would not faze him.
He snapped the lion’s paw that formed his right hand, pulling on his magic with… effort. He thrust the shock deep inside him and maintained his normal air of amused detachment, despite the all-pervading ache that was now gnawing in whole at him with pain.
The swirling blackness that had consumed him and roared through the air around him was drawn in a swirling mass into a sphere at the centre of his palm, no bigger than an eight-ball.
“Now then,” he announced smartly. “We’ll have no more from you, you little-” He grunted and made a noise of annoyance as he tried to close his paw around the sphere. Tried to squash it down, intending to flick it away, or into his muzzle, or over his shoulder. But it bulged and twisted, struggled against his grasp. It forced his paw open, growing larger and larger until he was forced to drop it and back away. The black mass grew, larger and larger and larger, becoming more like smoke or oil, splitting and subdividing as it grew, forming more distinct forms; becoming more like… creatures. Quadrupedal, but with jagged, harsh edges; darkly chitinous and armoured with smouldering multiple eyes and jagged mandibular maws. He was chaos incarnate, and they were creatures that even to him, looked chaotic and disordered.
His eye was drawn back to the figure that formed directly in front of him, growing into a large, powerful bulk. It was pony-like in shape, but more massive than even a yak in stature with a wreathing mantle of smoke-like substance that curled up into massive powerful wings, and a razor-pointed horn. The angular muzzle split into a fanged maw, and a pair of luminous, glaring yellow eyes narrowed down at him.
“The Lord of Chaos,” its’ voice said in a tone that slipped with thick, silky depth and dismissive bravado. “How… delicious,” the gigantic, shadowy pony intoned. “What a feast for my friends and I… and how fitting that one responsible for chaos should bring it to this world”.
“Oh please,” the Draconequus said, rolling his eyes and folding both arms. It felt strange to not literally roll his eyes away for once, but he could feel his magic dwindling, despite the shield he’d managed to erect a barrier between himself and whatever it was pulling on his magic; though even that was rapidly being drained away, along with the ache that, if he had them, would be in the depths of his bones. “Make all the threats you like, I’ve heard them all before, and from much more original tyrants than whoever you are. And I’ll have you know, all that chaos you find so delicious is hard to control. The last few who tried, well… they had some complications. I have no doubt you’ll find my power no more controllable, mister… smoky pony or whoever you are”
“The Pony of Shadows,” the towering figure corrected with a low rumble, leaning closer to Discord and narrowing his eyes in amusement. “And I think you are sorely mistaken, Discord. Because you see, my friends here-” the Pony of Shadows gestures with one forehoof in a sweeping gesture, indicating the mass of creatures that had surrounded Discord, their smouldering embers of eyes all locked on the Draconequus.
“They - or I - don’t want to control your power, Discord. Nor even to use it… just to consume it. It’s a process already started. You can feel it, I know; the ache deep inside you. The growing weakness sweeping over you, leaching out your energy, your ability to move, every feeling you have, draining slowly away, and your power… fading away… into nothing…”
Discord found himself eye to eye with the Pony of Shadows, the bright, blank yellow eyes inches from his face. There was no breath to smell, and the creature was, up close, as lacking in depth and detail as it had been from further away, seemingly a mass of inky blackness and nothing more. He looked around himself; on every side were more of the creatures. Orange, ember-like eyes faintly smouldering orange-red. Bodies a dull, smooth black mass with vaguely hexagonal patterns to their surface, jagged edges, and all-consuming shadows with no brightness. They surrounded him on every side, the faint glow of their eyes the only light.
“You won’t win, you know”. Discord said quietly. “This world has heroes, and they’ll stop you, just like they stopped every other would-be tyrant and small-minded villain who’s ever come before you. I should know, I used to be one of them. And I’ve seen them do things you couldn’t imagine.”
The Pony of Shadows laughed, a deep, mocking, full-bodied laugh and his eyes glowed brighter. Around him the things, hollow as they were of any life, any emotion, any reaction. Just hollow, all the way through, opened their mouths and Discord felt that pull tear him in every direction, his essence unravelling as every thread of the chaos magic that formed his being being unpicked and consumed, taken and pulled away to the numerous, endless number of creatures around him. Every bit of him being taken was less of him that remained, his thoughts, feelings, emotions and powers being torn asunder in agonising pieces.
A pang of fear and anguish rolled through the remnants of what he knew as himself as he felt his being slowly being flayed apart by endless mouths, his power being consumed and fed to the creatures around him, feeding their strength, building their power, ability, presence and influence in the world, pulling more of their number through from the portal to wherever it was.
The creatures would keep coming, he realised; they would flood through, consuming magic from everything, growing stronger and stronger with all they consumed, magic used against them only feeding them further and increasing their strength.
And he had given them the foothold they needed.
Oh Fluttershy, he thought sadly, as he summoned up the last ergs of his power, struggling to form his thoughts into power and use it. I’ve done it again, I’ve put you and your friends, and all of Equestria in danger, because of my own selfish ego. I only hope this time I can warn you all.
In a blinding flare of magic, he blasted out a last effort. A tiny, clockwork Rainbow Dash blasted into the air in a blinding plume of rainbow fireworks, arcing up into the skies at absurdly fast speed, heading towards the stratosphere in an arc that would take it Canterlot.
He raised the last vestiges of his form, the goat-like face and yellow eyes rising to meet the jeering face of the Pony of Shadows looming over him. Discords’ muzzle split into a smile.
It was a sad smile. A proud smile.
And then he was gone.
The Pony of Shadows let out an earth shattering roar of triumph, feeling new power course through his form. He felt his body grow with power and energy, tearing through him like fire. It felt like he could do anything. Stygian had given him power, a link to this world. But this, this consumption of magic and power whole, to improve and increase his powers, it was like a shot of godhood.
He gazed at the army arrayed around him; their bodies had grown and shaped further too. Taking on greater and more powerful forms, their smooth shell-like bodies growing larger, more defined, more armoured and powerful. Appendages and accessories hung from them, machines or devices that in his head now had names and purposes, words and thoughts swam in his head, confusing and overlapping. Memories and thoughts collided, crossing over with what he remembered and what he knew, It was all too much to comprehend at this point. But he knew one thing; the things around him, had only one thought, only one drive. There was no mind like his behind it. Nothing but the overwhelming burn of two things, an incandescent rage against all that lived around them, a rage that could only be quelled by taking what was needed from things that lived around them, that ran and scampered away from the wrongness they felt in the depth of their souls from the horde that poured through the rupture in reality, the Well of Darkness that had held him prisoner for so long, that had now become a conduit to the Absolute Zero of limbo.
That thing that drove them was hunger. Hunger for magic. Hunger for the energy of life itself. It filled the darkness inside them, the emptiness that drove them, and made their bodies more real, made their hold on this world more real and more total, allowed them to shape it to their whims.
The thrill of it surged through him, and he spread his inky-black wings wide, their ethereal feathers stark against the greying skies and shadowed mountains around him.
“Go forth!” He roared. “Go forth and raze this world of everything you find, tear it all to the ground and feed on all you find, take all you need, and feed, my Hollow Things!”
With an unearthly chorus, they threw their heads back, opening segmented maws wide and in a symphony of bellowing, distorted roars, shook the earth with the cry of their hunger.