The choking was getting bad. Nightmare Moon's power was crushing my lungs against the ceiling and my lunch was trying to escape through my throat. I kept a hold of my staff and hoped that my arm could be released so I could throw the staff. Picturing in my mind, I had thrown the staff and it struck her directly in the horn.
A burst of light and loud bang shot down towards Nightmare Moon, striking her horn directly. The look of confidence that Nightmare Moon had was changed to fear before her magic let go of me. I attempted to keep control of my fall with my wings, gliding uneasily back to the floor. I crumpled up and tried to stop shaking, breathing and attempting to recover from my pain.
Nightmare Moon was doing the same, trying to ease her head and not hit her horn into anything. The end of her horn was blackened and smoking from the unknown strike that I was able to perform. Her eyes locked on mine as we tried to steady ourselves back up.
"It can not be possible!" She screamed in frustration. "How can you bring down a lightning bolt from no cloud at all from nothing but a stick?!"
My best bet about my staff was that it had once again saved me from complete destruction and I didn't know how. Keeping a look over at Marian, I got worried that she may get hurt if we stayed near her.
"You don't know? Good." I taunted, moving away from her. "All you need to know is that it's my secret weapon that'll shift everything in my favor."
Nightmare Moon began to follow me, ignoring Marian as she lit up her horn again. "Ha! A likely story. Do you realize who you face? What I am? I am your repression, your secrets hidden under the shadow of my moonlight!"
"Overdramatic bitch," I groaned. "I'll give you a chance to get out of here before I take this stick and beat you silly."
"You don't believe," she whispered before a beam of magic struck my forehead. "I know your secrets, and I'll tear them open and bring you into my fold!"
***
I was held captive by a man that was running from the police. He came into the outside lot of the school where we were having recess and wrapped an arm around my body before putting a gun to my head. Many of the children had run off, fearing for their own lives.
The man was someone that had been arrested previously for breaking a restraining order. After his release, he managed to find the woman that had placed the restraining order and murdered her in cold blood. She had a husband as well, newly wedded. He too fell victim to the man's madness and the murderer began his chase with the police into where the incident happened with me.
"No! I'm not going to jail again!" He yelled out to the cops. "She deserved to die! DIE! If she wouldn't have me, then neither should he!"
I kept screaming out, the gun pushed into the side of my head, shaking in the unstable man's hand. I only heard a shot and the gun hitting the ground. Hitting the ground, I was facing the gun and looking up was the officer, unmoving and bleeding out. The man kept pulling me away, trying to escape now into the school with me as a hostage. His gun was close to my chest now as he pulled and without thought, I had managed to pull the gun away and aimed it at him.
The man yelled out in anger and caused me to pull hard on the trigger, fearing now that the large man was going to crush me. He stood there, the bullet wound in his chest, blood pouring out to me before finally collapsing on the ground.
I stood in shock, the gun held tightly in my hands as the officers surrounded the man and called out the medical team that had just arrived. Despite being comforted and told that I had done the right thing, I knew that I was a murderer.
The pain continued until I was brought to court and declared a child that had only performed self-defense against the man that held me hostage. The family of the man was enraged, saying that justice wasn't served at all, claiming that the courts were wrongfully withholding punishment because I was just a child.
I was kept out of sight from the public for many years by my parents and eventually was moved out into a different state with them, hoping to escape the persecution that I had wrongfully killed someone. The move was the beginning of the block I placed into my past. I wasn't a killer in my new home, I was a strong willed teenager that stood up for others that were being humiliated or picked on.
I never wanted friends because I felt I was undeserving of any at all. Until I had met Richard, I had no intention of having anyone get to know me.
***
I kept standing in the dining room, feeling the recoil of the pistol in both of my hands and the sight of the man's head blowing apart from my shocked actions. I had dropped my staff and let it hit the floor as old tears began to flow again.
"Oh how the righteous truly are," Nightmare Moon jeered. "Always showing how pure and wonderful they really are until they're shown their shadow."
My vision had blurred horribly from my half-closed eyes and watery tears, but I knew Nightmare Moon was right in front of me.
"Let it out," I heard a familiar whisper. "Let us out."
I pushed both forehooves into my temples and pressed into the floor. "I'm- I'm innocent. I was too young to understand!"
"Don't you dare give me that excuse!" Nightmare Moon snapped. "For one thousand years I suffered from a decision because somepony was 'too young to understand'!" She gave a small hum. "Although, I at least have the pleasure of getting my rightful reward, unlike the man you killed."
The memory refused to go away, not this time. The old questions I asked myself came back all over again. Did you purposely want to kill him? Why didn't you just run? Shouldn't you have felt anything when you pulled the trigger?
"Don't worry, little boy," Nightmare Moon crooned. "Your existence is just as worthless as it was then. Now, it's time for fate to deal its final blow and end your nonsensical fight against the impossible."
Despite the complicated memory coming back, the staff was brought up and broke the stream of magic between myself and Nightmare Moon. Moving away from her, my mind continued to whirl with thought and had made me wobble uneasily. My vision was interjected with images of the man, Nightmare Moon, and an alicorned version of me, all prepared to strike.
A loud screech whizzed by my ear and into Nightmare Moon, cutting any remainder of the illusion out of the way.
"What manner of trickery is this?!" Nightmare Moon growled, trying to pry a white object from her face. Pulling it away, she threw it away, only for it to circle behind her and letting me see what it was. The white face from the room had returned and was circling Nightmare Moon, laughing out continuously at her frantic swipes.
"Never let him go, never let him go, never let him go," it repeated, still swinging around Nightmare Moon.
With a grunt of frustration Nightmare Moon faded into her dusty form and retreated from the white face, passing through me as she did. In an unfortunate moment, I had breathed in some of the dust and began coughing heavily. I began to hear the whispers of what formally possessed me again, but it sounded very simplistic in its instruction.
"Make us whole," was all it whispered in my mind.
Looking up to the white face, I had felt little fear of it now. It had chosen to protect me instead of continue the torture I was undertaking. It followed every movement of my own head, tilting itself like I would and rocking back and forth when I did like a child imitating an adult.
"You are like me," it sadly moaned. "Watching, observing, forced to live with scars."
"Who... are you?" I asked, confused as to what this smiling white face was.
It gave its short laugh and began floating away.
"H-Hang on a second, where are you going?" I asked it, trying to catch up to it. The face had long since passed my field of vision and left me in the dining room with no exits. Knowing that I needed to think differently like I did in the last room, I started thinking about where any hidden latches or pressable brick could be. The large windows served as a reminder of how backwards everything outside must be.
One end was dark and let out a soft white glow, the other was bright and gave its yellowed shine. An idea formed in my head as I moved to a chair. Keeping careful and checking if I would hit anything, I gave a swing with the chair and hit the window, cracking it open and giving me an open space to get out. Taking a look outside and to the sky, I made sure that there wouldn't be any other flying Pegasi.
Stepping out and beginning my flight, I pulled away from the castle, seeing it shift around. It was clear that picking the right room where Discord would be was going to be impossible, or at least a very slim chance. The cloud cover was unusually thick, prompting my curiosity as to if something was above its cover.
Without warning, bright circles began forming in the air and moving in erratic jumps. One jumped towards me, making me throw my hooves up in defense. The circle phased through and I heard a yell that continued alongside the circle. "It's time for an Equestrian Death Battle!"
Looking up from my block, I jolted around to see what sort of attack was coming for me. For the tense moments, I slowly let down my guard and watched a small circle go by, this time showing a fight between myself and a blue pegasus. The battle looked intense, but the clarity was foggy at best. Were these circles a vision to the future? I tried to avoid getting near the circles, but was forced to endure some of the odd visions and sounds coming from it.
Reaching the edge of the clouds, I began to notice the circles were making a line toward a building. The line was twisting around a tower and slowly continuing its spiral upwards. These circles had to do something with Discord's continued plan in some way, but I was unsure as to what.
A series of circles had then encapsulated me, trapping me in midair. Each circle held a face of Discord, some different from others.
"Figure it out yet?" The Discord's simultaneously asked, each a smug grin on their faces.
"How impossible we can make this for everypony?" One cockily asked.
"Why I want to have so much fun with you?" Another giggled.
"When you realize the truth about who I really am?" Another still taunted.
I let them continue spinning around me, ignoring each question given to me. Instead, I gave my own.
"How do you plan?" I asked, silencing each of the Discord's. "You could do this at any time, so why make a plan this complicated?"
The circular Discord's blew away and revealed the real Discord floating in front of me, his focus on me more intense than smug.
"That's the question, now isn't it?" Discord huffed. "How can I, God of Chaos, make a plan that has no fault or error? Or maybe, the better answer is, who really made the plan?"
Keeping to the air, I kept a hoof to my staff, readying for any attack. "What are you talking about?" I asked. "The underground base is yours, the message in it is yours, the kidnapping, the corrupting, every action has been yours. You had to have planned this."
Discord gave a smirk, "Those are all the actions, but not the planning. Don't you recall what I told you in the asylum? Through a world of complete disharmony, we can make a world of pure harmony. And all I need is her help."
I did recall he mentioned something about a 'her' and she was called God while he was named Satan. I kept ready, thinking on what he was proposing to be the truth, or at least his version of the truth. He was saying God had made the plan already and he was acting on it.
"Look's like you understand," Discord quietly crooned. "I can see it in your eyes, that little shine was all I needed to see."
Turning his back to me, he looked to the spiraling circles. "With the help of every point of time, past, present, future and every choice that has and has not been done, the dark rainbow will fly across the sky and tear off the final piece of string in a line of my mistakes." His head snapped to me, his back still turned and his expression angry. "No more humans, no more imprisonments, and no more of me. I've had enough of being the butt of jokes and mockery of mortal ponies. In one resounding pound of ultimate chaos, all of us will go up in smoke."
As he said this, he vanished, leaving a smoke doppleganger hanging where he was that began blowing away.
I checked the watch to see how much time remained and cringed.
11 hours 53 minutes 11 seconds