//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 // Story: Discord's Pride // by AkumaKami64 //------------------------------// A change of scenery was good. The sea floor rumbled as great krakens and immense crustaceans fled in terror, shockwaves resounding at the very bottom of the Fathomless Trench, great screeches bellowing out of it. Chunks of the cliff sides began to give way and fall down into the blackness, disappearing where even Alicorns dared not tread. With a great roar in his ear, Discord was thrown out of the trench, through the lip of a cliff. He stopped in mid-water, shaking off the dust. A change of scenery was very good…new places, new people, and new enemies. Fighting in water was very different from in the air. Discord smirked and popped his neck. "Come on, Cippy, I know you got more in you than that," he called out in the waters. A deep, rumbling growl reverberated in the waters, before his foe answered his challenge, pulling its head over the edge as it crawled out from the bottomless pit that was this being's home. Its form was massive, easily the size of an Ursa Major. This one, Discord decided, was easy to explain to mortals, but it'd be so hard for them to understand. It was a deformed, lanky crocodile...with a body made of more crocodiles. Not like a swarm of them, no. This behemoth creature was made of hundreds of different sizes of crocodile HEADS. Not only each limb, but each section of each limb, even the "claws" were in fact crocodile heads. Even its own head was made of three separate heads. This was Teo Cipactli, Hunger incarnated; a divine monster that never stopped eating, because it was never satiated. Its belly would never be full. If given the chance, it would devour the whole world, and even itself. "My, your dental bills must be a nightmare," Discord remarked idly as the many, many eyes leered at him. "Let's see if I can't add a few more zeroes to it." With that threat given, the crocodilian horror lunged forth, with far more speed than any aquatic behemoth had the right to and with every single mouth opened. Discord snapped his fingers, prompting the entire ocean to turn into...gelatin…red cherry gelatin, to be exact. The God of Chaos smirked as he watched his foe struggling in the thicker substance, obviously eating every bit it touched. The smirk vanished as Discord saw that the jelly was slowly turning back into water. "So, I was right," Discord muttered in thought as his work was slowly undone, "leaks" of water sprouting forth from the shaky substance. "You're not magic-resistant at all. You just eat literally everything, including magic." Cipactli stopped its feasting to look in Discord's direction. Did that collection of heads just smirk at him? Discord thought so, but was he more interested in the fact that Cipactli's main head opened its mouths. With a roar, the monster unleashed a ball of angry red energy from its maw, barreling through the red jelly and into Discord. He saw it coming a mile away, but he still only barely managed to catch and hold it back. It was actually fighting against him rather well, this raging ball of... "Wait a minute! This is my magic!" he said with a scowl, head-butting the attack and sending it to the sea floor. It erupted on impact, returning the entire seascape to normal "Oh, you right twat, you vomited my own magic at me?!" Cipactli roared in response, lunging at Discord once more. Discord snorted, deciding to meet him head-on. He flew between the fingers, and the mouths of the fingers, landing on the forehead of the wrist. The mouth of the forearm lunged forward in an attempt to bite him. In that instant, Discord knew he could end it. All it would take was a bit of Discording to corrupt the mind of one head. It wouldn't last, but it wouldn't need to. He'd just need this head to take one bite of itself and Cipactli's limbs would start to eat each other alive. But that would defeat the point of challenging this one in the first place. Discord leaped up to meet the jaws, slamming his talons into the mouth. The head let out a roar of pain as Discord swam back beyond its jaws, smirking up at the "main" head of the beast. Cipactli growled and shot the other hand forth, the smaller heads forming the digits that were all trying to snap and bite at the chaos lord, who dodged them with ease. "You're not used to putting this much effort into a small morsel," Discord mused knowingly, dashing by a strike from the middle finger. He grabbed this finger-head and began to bend and pry it off, his draconic foot on the snout of another head desperately trying to bite at him. With several heads screaming in pain, he ripped his target off and tossed it aside. Without another instant wasted, he "tossed" himself a fair distance from his foe, observing Cipactli holding his injured hand. Discord watched on keenly, half expecting the hungry god to simply reattach the limb. Instead, he saw Cipactli...shift, for lack of a better word, its many heads moving about, if only slightly. The severed fingers of smaller heads turned to coral as it floated down to the sandy floor, while Cipactli leered at the devious-looking Discord. "Oh, I'm sorry, did that hurt?" Discord asked mockingly. "Here, have a hug to make it all better~" With a great clap of his hand, and a shockwave echoing through the sea, Cipactli could sense that something was about to happen. It turned around and saw a great stone giant rising up, in a crude likeness to Discord himself. The stone serpent lunged forward. The great crocodile roared, ready to meet it with a raised fist, but found said limb caught in the grip of another stonecord rising out of the ground. It tried to bite into the second, but a third sprung up, its tail wrapping around Cipactli's largest mouths and holding them shut. The first arrived as a fourth and final emerged, converging and wrapping around the beast. They turned bright as they began to turn into lava and fuse together. Cipactli snarled, devouring the magic of the constructs binding it. Discord smirked as he poured more of his magic into the stonecords, the four slowly fusing together as a great bond around the great devourer. "You want my magic? Choke on it!" Discord called out viciously. Cipactli struggled in vain as more and more of its mouths were covered by lava and then, once devoid of magic, the substance rapidly cooled and hardened…pinning the mouths closed and binding him down. Discord raised an eyebrow as Cipactli's struggle weakened. "Is that it? I expected this to last a bit longer," he said with a head tilt, watching as Cipactli's form started to glow ominously. "...Oh, he actually is choking on it," Discord realized in surprise. A great explosion wracked the sea, the burst spreading for at least a mile before Discord neutralized the kinetic energy and any potential tsunamis. He watched as the bubbles cleared to reveal...nothing. Nothing but a sea of crocodile heads, all turning to coral as they fell down to the depths. Discord narrowed his eyes as he saw a green tail vanish into the canyon, but made no move to go after the creature. He didn't come here to slay anything, just test the mettle of the great devourer. Satisfied, he decided to savor his victory for the moment. "Discord the Draconequus." The moment was short-lived, it seemed. The God of Chaos looked toward the voice and found a creature that looked like a mixture of a fish and a lion, with green scales and a red mane, along with two horns atop its head. Surrounding the regal creature were a dozen merponies in armor pointing spears at him. "Do I know you?" Discord asked uncaringly. "I am Leo, King of Aquastria," he introduced sternly. "Now tell me why you have disturbed the crocodile?" "I was bored and he sounded like a good spar," Discord answered with a shrug. "Oh, right, you're Celly's 'cousin,'" he recalled, remembering some political marriage or another between nobles in Equestria to merponies of old. Leo snarled, horns glowing with great power. "You endangered the lives of all below and above the seas, just to satisfy your boredom!?" "Unless you can provide a better challenge," Discord offered bluntly. "Or one of your soldiers, perhaps?" More than one stiffened at that. "I know Celestia gives you a rather long leash in Equestria, but her-" Leo started, only to find his mouth filled with foam. "If you think I'm on a leash, you're wrong. I've just agreed to play nice with most of the world," Discord said, feigning a yawn. "But please, DO go whining to Celestia. Go ahead and tell her how I made it so the great devourer won't be a threat for hundreds of years," Discord suggested dismissively. "...What?" Leo asked with a confused look, his soldier sharing surprised looks as well. "Cippy will need at least fourteen hundred years to get that form back. Still, he'll probably be a problem again by...I want to say six hundred? Let's say six hundred," Discord gave off with a twirl of his claws. He didn't need to look to know that the merponies were feeling somewhat relieved by that. "Anyway, I'm done here. I suggest leaving though. I'm sure the rest of the megafauna will start fighting over this area soon, once they realize Cippy isn't a problem right now." Without another word, he left, shooting up and out of the water faster than a cat out of a bath. He ascended into the sky. "Well, that was a wonderful way to eat up some time," Discord joked to himself, looking at the dark and clouded sky. "I wonder how everypony is doing? And how bucking long was that festival supposed to be again?" "Hey!" Discord grunted as he glanced just over his shoulder to spy the fleet of airships that were floating just behind him, crewed by large grey creatures with white manes, covered in dark armor with a blue insignia. The lead ship was mere feet away from him, and on the bow of the ship stood a large white satyr adorn with a crown, glaring at him. "What?" Discord asked bluntly. "You know which way to Equestria!?" the figure bellowed. "Some winds got us all turned around." Discord was fairly sure that was his own doing. "And what are a satyr and a pack of yetis flying to Equestria for?" Discord asked conversationally, examining his claws. "They call me the Storm King. And what I want is conquest and power. You know, the usual," the Storm King answered with a chuckle, holding up a staff that split into two points with a crystal held between them. "I've been looking for a new commander, and you look like the strong type." Tirek at least had the respect to make it seem like a partnership. This one was actually trying to recruit him as a petty minion. Still, Discord decided it would be rude not to answer. Discord floated forward, and the Storm King backed away to give him room to land. Discord's tail casually flicked him aside, knocking the staff into the air as the king went tumbling over the deck and into the sea below, screaming in terror as he flailed helplessly through the air. Discord caught the staff effortlessly, paying no mind to all the warriors pointing weapons at him. He tilted his head, hearing a distant splash of water as the screams silenced. "I wonder if the krakens or the crabs will get him first?" Discord asked idly before he looked to the yetis. They flinched, and one of them fell back in surprise. "Don't worry, I won't kill any of you weaklings," Discord assured before nodding over the edge. "But I can't say the same for the sea monsters." They were wavering, but they didn't give in yet. "I'll give you one chance to give up after this," Discord said as he snapped his talons. Nothing happened, but that only made them all more on edge. Then, they started floating off the deck. No, even the ships were floating as if gravity was gone. The entire fleet was weightless in the sky, some starting to tip upwards at impossible angles. The yetis grabbed onto what they could, using their spears to pull themselves to something, anything stable. His point made, Discord snapped his talons again. Gravity returned and the ships lurched back into a proper balance, swaying dangerously as they settled. Many of the crew were flung off the edge but found themselves safely teleported back on deck. They got their feet again, stupefied and terrified by the display. They no longer had the nerve to attack. "Good," Discord said as he turned to take a step onto the edge, about to fly off. "Wait." Discord paused to regard a lone yeti that walked up to him, braver than his fellows. He reached up and removed his mask. "Who are you?" the yeti asked, bewildered and amazed as he gazed up at the chimera. He was almost annoyed he even had to tell them. "My name is Discord." "Discord," the yeti repeated the name, and Discord was at least pleased to hear the respect mixing in with the fear. "May I ask...why?" Discord regarded him with minimal interest. "Today is important to a friend of mine in Canterlot. I'd rather it not be ruined." Their nervousness grew, and Discord frowned in suspicion. "There is something you should know then," the yeti said carefully. "He sent a ship ahead, didn't he?" Discord predicted, sighing. "Of course he did."