It was amusing how some of earth's remaining military might thought their guided missiles or even their miniature charges hidden within 'gestures of good faith' could harm, or even scathe the chaos god that ruled the land. Even more amusing were those who didn't oppose him, or even cower in fear, but rather worshiped their draconequus overlord. While it flattered Discord, he couldn't help but view them as completely mad. He supposed they just couldn't handle the chaos that came with his reign, and could only find solace in the very one that turned their world upside down. Not that he minded it, it was just curious to behold, as his previous reign only held ponies who despised him, with not much deviation outside of collective pleas for mercy.
None of it mattered however, as long as he could continue skating along soapy roads, watch food fall out of the sky and attack those that would try to devour them, and enjoy the occasional chocolate milk of glass. With each act of chaos, big or small, he felt a lovely surge of ecstasy. He was fulfilling his purpose in life, and enjoying it immensely. Yet still, he felt as though it wasn't as satisfying as it could be. When this thought would crawl into his head, he would fight off a creeping sense of dread as he pondered it momentarily, before abruptly distracting himself with other matters. It was uneasy, like the observing Advisors which then vanished, but felt more personal.
Today another peace offering came in the form of a small Japanese girl holding a platter of homemade cake. It all seemed innocent enough, a sincere though slightly nervous smile plastered upon the child's face as she approached Discord on his throne. Arriving at his mismatched feet, she held up the pastry with shaky arms. Discord nonchalantly scooped up the platter and examined it, fully expecting it to blow up in his face. A glance below told him the girl hadn't run off. In fact she remained in place, swinging a sandaled foot about her as she anxiously waited, as if to be dismissed by his greatness. This was odd, as the last explosive cake he had been given had leveled the entire city block in which he resided. This girl was not taking any measures to preserve herself. Giving her a suspicious scowl, he slowly took a bite of the cake. No explosion. A rich chocolatey taste washed over his taste buds. No explosion. The girl gave him a reassuring smile. No explosion.
With no potent aftertaste from the cake presenting itself, he gobbled down the rest of it. It was quite delicious. "Your king is pleased with your offering. For this your home town may be exempt from gravitational distortions and altered wildlife for up to a week.." he began, the girl ever non responsive to his declaration. She only responded to his sudden coughing. Discord shrugged off the unexpected outburst, and opened his mouth to continue speaking, but it was followed by even more coughing, this time more violent. This was like.. the neurotoxins. In panic, he glared down at the girl, who had a wide grin on her face. She then pressed a finger to her ear.
"He's taken the bait, compound is taking effect." she spoke (Discord took interest in Japanese culture, and made it a point to become fluent in their language.) with utmost clarity and confidence. That little witch, Discord thought as his lungs felt as though they were shriveling. To combat this, he immediately changed his form. Now standing a few feet from the girl was a tall man dressed in an ornate brown coat, with a green boot on one foot, and a brown one on the other. His ears were pierced with jewelry that represented an antler, and a unicorn horn. Overall he was highly unfashionable, yet he terrified the child, for he was no longer affected by the poison, and was grinning madly.
"Child, do you have any idea what I could do to you? You could spend the rest of your life as a toaster, or with hands for feet, or as an extra in a very bad movie!" Discord barked, then raising a yellow gloved hand to snap his fingers, intending to make gigantic golems to scare the girl. Chunks of earth rose around the now panicked girl, but as they began forming into rocky automatons, they suddenly fell apart into large mounds of dirt. Discord rose a bushy eyebrow in question of this. He snapped again, resulting in the mounds of dirt making some effort to reform, but falling even shorter than before. Once more, nothing. As Discord stomped the ground in frustration, the girl took the opportunity to run away. Biting his lip, Discord decided to let her go. He had realized he had bigger matters to attend to.
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Several miles underground near Huangshan Mountain, Dr. Kleiner stacked his notes on the makeshift podium of a folding table top affixed to a camcorder stand as people gathered in the room. Many of them were unfamiliar faces, unnerving still were Combine grunts among their ranks. Kleiner found comfort however in the faces he had grown to trust who stood by the entrance as the others sat. While Gordon remained silent as ever, it was heart warming to see him hold the hand of the Alyx Vance that he had known to only rarely be solemn. But Eli's death had effected all of them. Barney perhaps remained the most resolute, keeping a firm and alert mentality as he guarded the entrance. In the left corner was a young woman that Kleiner thought he recognized, but couldn't place a finger on how he remembered her. All he had to go off of was that she wore a tank top bearing the Aperture logo. Kleiner had thought that Aperture had faded into obscurity long ago, but then again Black Mesa didn't fare too well either, and now here he was, preparing to address an audience.
He cleared his throat as he fired up the projector, showing images of former Black Mesa relays. "So, I've called you into meeting today because of a curious finding. Our scout teams have reported that our relays outside of the main compound, which we've discreetly put back into service five months ago, recorded a temporal anomaly building up over North America."
"Yeah? So? There's plenty of that with Discord tampering with the laws of physics every passing hour." one scientist in the audience boldly interjected.
"Mind you, that Discord's authority got pushed to this side of the globe.. and half of Europe, excluding former City 17. GLaDOS would not permit this sort of thing on her territory." Kleiner pointed out. "Besides, Discord's... erm... ah..." Kleiner struggled, at odds with his explanation for the draconequus's strange power. "His spells have a distinct energy to them, one that I have not been able to classify. The energies surrounding this particular anomaly are more reminiscent of well, dark energy. And on the level of the super portal we put a stop to years back."
This statement triggered concerned comments and hushed arguments among the crowd. Eventually, Gordan Freeman stepped forward. The crowd was pacified in anticipation of what he'd do.
"Impossible. Without the use of a Citadel, the Combine could not establish such a link to their leaders. GLaDOS has done little to rebuild the one in City 17, and the others are in similar disarray." he stated, his posture ever heroic as though he was ready to cut through a horde of antilions on Kleiner's command. The indescribable voice that resonated through the room was near euphoric, and made nearly every female in the room begin to swoon, most of all Alyx.
"That's what concerns me Gordan. And I'm afraid we cannot do anything about this until we know more."
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Two pairs of feet clad in Aperture long fall boots ran aside each other, as gunfire rang through the halls. One of the test subjects held a companion cube over he and his partner as a makeshift shield against the turrets. His partner was concentrated on rapidly placing portals in foresight of the gauntlet before them. When it came time to jump through the one she had place just ahead, she had to pull her preoccupied partner in with her, just barely keeping the moment to clear the gap which they were sent over. It was both a miracle and testament to the female test subject's planning and timing that they made it, as the chamber they were in was constantly shifting, with platforms and even walls periodically hovering about, all while an overwatch of turrets kept the pair on their toes. GLaDOS couldn't help but be very impressed by her. The man, not so much. If anything he was dead weight, but his survival was crucial to the woman, for he was her 'love'. The sentiment was absurd, but GLaDOS noticed that it seemed to give them great strength in times of desperation. Strength which held uncanny similarity to Chell's irritating fortitude. That reminder had pushed GLaDOS to rethink many chambers in hopes of throwing the pair off. She had even modeled the ever shifting chambers after the chaos she had observed in Discord's territory.
"Exceptional job you two. In fact, Oddy took far less bullets in this chamber than expected." GLaDOS commented as the pair successfully passed the Material Emancipation Grill. This led to Penelope tending to her beloved's wounds. He had taken one bullet to the right shin, and had a ricocheting round graze his left arm. Despite this he displayed great resilience, which only seemed to increase as Penelope reassured him while using strips of her shirt to bandage up his wounds. Her constant self sacrifice for him was most intriguing as it progressively left her with nothing. GLaDOS had come to expect all humans to be so endeared to material possessions and wealth, but that had all changed when she took over. Not that there weren't the occasional people who somehow lived like rats in the maintenance tunnels of the expanded Enrichment Center, who hoarded what they could even as they constantly moved about. She would let them go about without punishment however, as ultimately they couldn't do anything to upset her established order. In fact, most of them ended up crushed among the shifting panels and walls. Nothing a cleaner bot couldn't fix.
GLaDOS was about to goad on the duo, but an unexpected knocking rapped upon the hangar door of her headquarters. "Oh, who could that be?" she muttered, readying several turrets and remotely opening the door. There stood a raggedy looking man who looked like one of the refugees that GLaDOS hunted intensely. Except... there was something oddly familiar about him.
"Greetings Glady!" the unmistakable, unwelcome voice called out. "Just came to check in on your progress... you know," Discord stated, his initial expression of cheer dissolving into pure malice. "The portal back to Equestria. I've noticed that after two years you've barely got over half of that tower constructed. Have you been distracted?" GLaDOS contemplated Discord's presence as well as his attitude. He looked ready to tear her apart.
"Why didn't you just... appear? You're not one to knock." GLaDOS commented, suspicious as to his sudden politeness and his rather humble new form. Discord shot her a glare.
"I won't lie. I am feeling the effects of the power drain more and more. It's come to a point where I don't want to exert myself unless necessary." he stated glumly. This was not working out for him. He would need to return to Equestria soon. "But don't get any ideas." he stated, eying the turrets around him suspiciously. "I still possess more than enough power to reduce you to the form of a flower, so you can spend the rest of your artificial life withering under chocolate rain."
GLaDOS whirred as she reeled back as though to attack, but changed her mind and instead calmly descended to meet him face to face. "Fine.. but if I'm to run the necessary trials for Citadel portal technology, I will need more conversion gel, and for that I need moon rocks. I do not possess the capability to harvest them."
Discord scoffed. With a click of his fingers, a portal gun appeared in hand. He nonchalantly aimed up at the part of the sky encased in moonlight on parallel with sunlight. Lining up the device with the moon, he fired, and squinted to confirm the landing. He then placed a portal by his feet, instantly causing a vortex of vacuum to start pulling at him. He resisted it and glared at GLaDOS. "Watch." He hopped through, and in half a minute was back with some rocks in one hand and...
"What? Who are you? Where am I? Oh... oh..." the voice in his hand whined, but then stuttered into a slight whimper upon sight of GLaDOS. "So you.. you brought me here so she could finish me off? Is that it?"
"I have NO idea what you're talking about!" Discord said with a grin before tossing the orb over his shoulder. GLaDOS sighed as the imbecile rolled off, the volume of his muttering gradually decreasing as he gained distance. GLaDOS would see to it that the insufferable core is disposed of later. "So, what's the real reason you're taking your sweet time?" Discord interrogated, throwing down the moon rocks as a scowl came across his face. "Is it because of your precious tests?"
Before GLaDOS could retort, an earsplitting, distorted sound tore through the building. GLaDOS rushed outside with Discord to investigate. Off in the far distance a tear in space had been opened, and Advisors were pouring through.
"Well, this may complicate my plans.." GLaDOS dryly stated.