Creed: Return of the Alicorns

by bossfight1


Chapter 7: Banishment

Chapter 7: Banishment

“I suppose you had to turn up sooner or later,” Discord said as he sat up against the many pillows in his bed - he looked rather tired. “I’m eager to find out where exactly you ponies got to...”

Lily and I recovered from the shock of being ripped from one room to another, and tentatively approached Discord’s bed, unsure of what to say. “Ah, I suppose some introduction is in order,” Discord said. He prepared to make a grand introduction, but I interrupted.

“Discord, Spirit of Chaos,” I said, taking some pride in the confused look on his face; Discord always came across as the guy holding all the cards, so it felt good to surprise him. “You were recently, for the most part, reformed.” Discord, for once, had nothing to say, so I continued. “I’m Creed, and this is Lily. We were hoping for the Princesses, but I’d say you’re the next best thing.”

Discord raised an eyebrow. “How do you know...?” He stopped and reached for my head. I stood still as he removed my horn like it was never attached in the first place. In the vanity mirror I could make out a small hole right where my horn used to be. Discord peered into the hole, murmuring to himself as he observed... whatever was happening in there. After several very bizarre minutes Discord finally spoke. “Aaahh, I see...” Satisfied, he popped my horn back in its spot and sat back in bed.

I walked over to the vanity mirror to ensure my horn was replaced properly while Lily stepped forward. “We escaped from one of many internment camps in the southern lands; a great deal of alicorns are being held in each of them, guarded by a cruel order called the Somber Blade. We need your help in freeing them.”

“The ‘Somber Blade’?” Discord asked, stroking his goat-chin. “Sombra’s up to his old games again?”

“Sombra?” I asked as I spun around, but the obviousness of the whole affair made me facehoof so hard I was worried I’d put an eye out. “Som-ber. Som-bra. Christ, why didn’t we figure this out...”

Discord chuckled. “Well, like many others, you must have assumed him destroyed.”

“Yeah, but we could have at least figured the Blade followed Sombra’s example!” I argued before holding both front hooves in the air. “Fine, fine, whatever, not important; what’s important is that you can help us spring the alicorns...”

“I actually can’t.”

“...and we can whozeewhatnow?” I stared wide-eyed at Discord.

“Why not?” Lily asked. “It’s not like you’re declawed, you still have your magic! You just know to use it responsibly!”

Discord nodded. “Indeed. I expended a great deal of my magic already, however, by returning your kind home.”

Lily and I remained silent for a few moments.

“You brought us here?” Lily asked, but I was more concerned with his use of the word ‘returning’.

I slowly shook my head. “‘Returning’? No, no, no, we weren’t alicorns before...”

“I assure you, you were.” Discord said in a smug yet definite tone.

“No, no, no, never in my life was I an alicorn! I remember my childhood!” I said as I approached Discord. “I remember being three years old! I remember having a crib! I remember wearing those damn footsie pajamas!! I was born and raised a human!!

“As I intended,” Discord said. When I had nothing to add other than short, confused stammers, he continued. “See, thousands of years ago I discovered my ability to inspire wondrous, glorious chaos across Equestria... but I also had one teensy little hurdle... the alicorns. You were roughly as common as any other earth ponies, unicorns, or pegasi. Some of you were in high authority, but all of you had one hidden power, unearthed in the most dire of moments...”

“What was it?” Lily asked.

“Harmony,” Discord groaned, making a face like he’d found a hair in his food. “Harmony was present in all ponies, but you, the alicorns, were Harmony’s source. Hatred and fear were borderline mythology thanks to your kind. If you were removed from the game, however, Harmony would be undone and I’d be unchallenged. So I planned to simply... destroy you. However, I recognized that you were also highly potent in magic, so I had another idea; what if I could snuff the flame of harmony from your hearts, and replace it with beautiful chaos? It would be a long, arduous process, but I believed the payoff would be worth the investment. I would check on you every few Equestrian centuries or so, track each of you down and determine just how much hatred had filled your hearts in place of harmony.

“So, I lured all of you to the Crystal Empire, and I banished every single one of you to a world of darkness... of bigotry... of hatred.”

“Earth...” I muttered. My heart felt like it wanted to stop beating. My own legs were shaking, wanting to simply let me fall to the floor, and I couldn’t blame them. “You sent us to Earth...”

“Indeed,” Discord affirmed. “Of course, I couldn’t just drop you there, I needed to truly make you... human. I removed your physical forms and bound your spirits, your souls, to be reborn as humans.” He chuckled to himself. “Humans are always attempting to overcome their very worse attributes- hate, bigotry- but in the end, every human alive falls victim to the most profound hate. Mind you, sending you to Earth was no small task; I was practically comatose for roughly two hundred years, but afterwards I was free to do with Equestria as I pleased! The world was blanketed in an amazing sheet of chaos!” Discord had risen in his bed, his eyes sparkling with nostalgia. His spirit diminished as he continued. “At least until Celestia, Luna, and a few other alicorns returned. I underestimated the will of an alicorn... Their love of Equestria was far too powerful to be simply forgotten. I’m not sure how exactly they returned, but when they did I took measures to ensure they would be the only ones to return.”

“What did you do?” Lily asked, though she sounded like she was dreading Discord’s response.

“Well, I needed to snuff any desires held by the reborn alicorns to return to Equestria,” The draconequus explained. “I believed the best method would be to portray Equestria as a world that, in human culture, would be unbearable, asinine, would make a normal human feel ill at the thought of being trapped there. I learned of your ‘television’, and came up with a plan; I would plant the idea for a program depicting the false Equestria into the heads of the right people.”

“The first gen...?” I muttered. It all made sense. “You created the first generation of My Little Pony?”

“Is that what they called it?” Discord asked, snickering. “Yes, I did. I understand they planned to make- what were they called, ‘reboots’?- of the franchise, but in the end, my little safety measure was set, and I did not feel the need to stay on Earth to ensure the depiction of Equestria remained... distorted. The alicorns would not wish to return to Equestria, at least not the one I envisioned. Sadly, by the time I returned, I was promptly stamped out by the Princesses.”

Lily looked crestfallen, but she looked a lot better than I felt. I fell to my knees, breathing slowly. I began to recall every time I had felt hatred; pure, blind hatred, towards someone who had done me wrong, who I had wished harm upon... and I was once able to never experience such hate? Never capable of bringing serious harm to another? And all that had been taken away from me when I was sent to Earth? A world where horrible people attempt to take advantage of the pain of others for their own personal gain... Where greed and corruption managed to cheat their way past honest and legitimately good people... Where things like genocide and slavery were considered bad things in hindsight?

I lived a life in one of the most wonderful worlds imaginable, and someone decided to sacrifice me, along with thousands, thousands of others, just for himself?

Now, I enjoyed Discord as a character in the show, but with all this... Knowing what he did? The hatred he had intended to fill each and every alicorn with suddenly and violently flared up within me, directly at him. I thought I would just be angry, but I remembered too late that, in magic-users, emotions that are strong enough can have a physical manifestation.

I felt... something clouding my eyes. My vision became green, but I barely noticed as my thoughts became clouded, focused only on one thing; Hurt Discord. My horn became white hot again, but this time because I wanted it to. I flew straight up to Discord in his bed and stood right on top of him, pinning him to the bed with my horn right in his face. For the first time since I’d ever seen him, in the show or in person, he looked legitimately scared; not like when the Elements were unleashed upon him. This was a fear he felt for his very life.

You son of a bitch!!” I roared, a rather demonic-sounding distortion somehow finding its way into my throat. I pressed my horn into his eagle-chest, singing the feathers and causing him to mildly gasp in pain. “You RUINED us!! You damned us to one of the worst worlds IMAGINABLE!! And all because you wanted to make FUCKING CHOCOLATE MILK RAIN!?!”

“Creed, please!!” Lily pleaded. She reached up to pull me away from Discord, but I turned to look at her with a snarl, and she immediately shrunk away under the green haze of hatred clouding my eyes.

I turned back to Discord. “Celestia should have killed you!! She should have shattered you when she made you into a statue! You should never have been allowed to hurt anyone else again!! YOU SHOULD BE DEAD!!!

“If she did that, I wouldn’t have been able to bring you all back!!” Discord cried.

The heat surrounding my horn diminished somewhat. “What?” I asked, the green haze not yet fading away from my vision.

“When I became... reformed... I began to feel something I’d never felt before... It was... happiness... Not just the giddy feeling I got from causing chaos, but a true, contented joy... From having a... friend. But I started feeling something else... Something bad. It ate away at me for days until I finally spoke to Luna about it. She said it was...” Discord trailed away, looking ashamed of what he wanted to say.

“She said it was what?” I asked harshly.

“...Guilt,” Discord finished. “I was feeling guilty... Guilty for all the pain I had caused, not the least of which for you. I suppose she would know guilt better than most, wouldn’t she?” He looked up at me sadly. “I had been given a chance to change my ways, a chance to be brought back into pony society, but as long as you remained banished, my happiness would be sullied knowing nopony knew about the greatest injustice I had done...” Discord’s eyes were watering now. He buried his face in his talon and paw, sighing heavily.

At this point I suddenly felt like I was watching myself from an outside perspective, and was horrified at what I was doing. The green haze faded from my eyes and my horn cooled off as I took shaking breaths. I stepped off of Discord and off of his bed. Lily kept her distance from me, and I didn’t blame her. I was doing exactly what Discord had planned... I’d become a weapon of hate... I sat in the corner faced away from them, resting my head against the wall.

“So, about a month ago, I confessed my sin to the sisters,” Discord continued. “Of course, Luna was absolutely vivid, reacted in a manner... well, not unlike that,” I couldn’t see him but I knew he was gesturing towards me. “They had assumed I’d merely took an opportunity with the alicorns’ disappearance, never assuming I was behind it all along. But I wished to make it right... I told them that I knew how to bring you all back. So we made some preparations and convened at the Crystal Empire and used its powers to return you all... We’d intended for you all to appear there, but, as you know, you didn’t... I’m unsure why, and I would have worked to locate all of you had the ritual not drained most of my powers. I was thankful the sisters allowed me use of the Empire, or they’d have lost me for another two hundred years.”

I remained silent; the hatred that had flared up within me was steadily falling. I still felt... angry with the draconequus, but I also felt I could move on. Something I could write Celestia about.

“So you were weakened after the ritual and sent back here?” Lily asked, breaking the silence.

“Yes, I was to return and regain my strength while Celestia and Luna used the Empire’s powers to track all of you down... I’ve heard nothing from them, nor would I; that barrier that encompasses the city blocks communications, even by dragon’s flame. But I’d assume they’re having little luck in finding all of you, if they haven’t found you already...”

I stood up from the corner and withdrew the map from my saddlebag. “Well, we know where they are,” I said. I laid the map out on Discord’s bed. “The camps are spread out in the Badlands, the Hayseed Swamp and the San Palomino desert. With this knowledge the princesses can stage a rescue.”

Discord wasn’t looking at the map, but at me. He looked truly concerned. “Why don’t you two stay here for the night, first?” Discord asked. “You two seem to have had a long journey, and the accommodations here are... mostly sufficient.”

I opened my mouth to deny his offer, to say that we should keep moving, but I suddenly realized just how tired I was. With a sigh, I nodded.

A knock at the door made Lily and I jump; Discord, however, seemed used to it. “Enter,” he called.

The doors swung open, giving way to three guards as well as Sky Bolt. “Lord Discord, the guards reported shouting up here, is everything alright?” She asked; I gave an embarrassed cough.

“Yes, yes, everything’s fine,” Discord said, dismissively. “Actually, it’s good that you’re here, can you arrange for a couple rooms for these two?” He pointed at us. “And get them tickets on the first train to the Crystal Empire tomorrow morning.”

Sky Bolt’s eyes flickered towards us for a second before she nodded. “As you wish, sir,” she said before departing, the guards shutting the door behind her.

Discord settled into his bed. “It’s nice to see they’ve taken the Princess’s word that I’m not here to cause a great deal of havoc...”

“No, just the occasional bit of mischief,” I remarked. Discord chuckled. The three of us kept chatting it up for a while; Discord turned out to be pleasant company with people he considered friends. He preferred to keep the conversation centered on Lily and I, what we did on Earth; I guessed he either didn’t want to talk about his own life, or didn’t even remember it. I made efforts to keep friendly with him, but knowing what he did kept me from truly considering him an ally, let alone a friend.

After about ten minutes Sky Bolt returned. “Your rooms are ready,” she said as she turned to lead us down the hall. We made to follow her, but Discord held his talon and paw on our shoulders.

“I know I did something truly horrendous to all of you...” he said to us. “But I will do whatever it takes to make it up to you.”

I looked at Discord, my face clear of emotion. I was unsure of how I should feel towards him. Lily, however, wrapped her forelegs around Discord’s neck and hugged him. “Thank you,” she whispered in his ear. Discord, awkwardly at first, returned Lily’s hug, a warm smile spreading across his face that seemed to stretch onto my own. Regardless of how I would regard him from this point, it felt good to know he had found true happiness.