//------------------------------//
// Chaos Incarnate 
// Story: The Spy who Ran 
// by Fluttershy Auditore 
//------------------------------//

“He’s living here?”
“Yeah.”
“Manehatten?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s him, just taken a mugger into his house?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that all you can be bothered to say?”
“Yeah.”
“I hate you sometimes, you know that?”
“Yeah.”
…
“You sure he’ll come back to us?”
“Yeah.”
“Like, really sure?”
“Yeah.”

Flaming Sapphire showed Mandarin to her room again and bid her goodnight before trotting quietly back downstairs. The candles and fireplace were dispatched quickly with a single flick of his horn. His horn… Oh Celestia, not now! He put his hoof up to the cone of bone protruding from his scalp. It was different, the horn suddenly a length to rival Celestia’s horn, curving in the middle to form a razor sharp scythe-like formation. Not good at all, why was his magic failing now? Only two ponies could control his magic, one was himself and the other was… not important, he reminded himself. His past was not here. No, his past was a long way away…

The blast sent him flying across the room. He stood once again, facing the other him. He didn’t like this, and he was chaos and trickery given form, how could a simple pony be manipulating him so much? He found himself smiling. The one opposite him would make an excellent general in his army.
“Well done. You have fought well against Discord. I’d like to offer a position in my… army for you. A high-ranking Official position, if you were interested,” began the Draconequis. “General perhaps. It is up to you what you choose.”
“Sounds delightful,” the Discord-That-Was-Not-Discord twisted and reshaped his entire body, a black stallion standing before Chaos Incarnate, eyes white, save for the dark blackness of the pupils. “I would be glad to join your forces, Discord, now that I know that Celestia has turned her back upon me,” The unicorn knelt before Discord. “I, Icy Emerald, pledge myself to your cause.”

Flaming Sapphire snapped back to the present, swiping at the insubstantial memories that clouded his mind. And body, he realised. His coat was black, his horn was curved and sharp, his Cutie Mark, what was once a sparkling blue gem surrounded in flames, was now a harsh green colour, encased in shards of ice. He caught a reflection of himself in a mirror, even in the minimalistic light he saw his eyes, perfect white orbs, broken by black circles. He growled and focused on what he was doing. Slowly, colour returned to his body, his horn shrank and twisted, his eyes bloomed into colour. Flaming Sapphire was back, for now.