Chapter 33: When plans don’t go as expected
Rarity was freed from the group hug a few seconds later. She took a few more seconds to regain her breath and to see where she was.
“Can somepony tell me what happened?” she asked. “The last thing I remember is that I blacked out in the middle of the battle against that human.”
“Well...” started Spike; unsure about how she should approach the topic. “You kinda turned into a bloodthirsty monster that started to destroy everything... You were cut in two...” Spike shuddered a little, “and then you were a floating blue, err... thing?” he finished, unsure about how to describe the X.
Rarity’s reaction was one of shock, disgust and disbelief. She grumbled some insults to the culprit of all of this problem, and with a determined face she turned to her friends.
“I know that all of you are far too innocent to think about this, so I’ll be the one to bring up the topic.” She gathered her thoughts and then continued. “We must cheat, and by that I mean capture Discord before all of this ends.”
“B-but Rarity,” started Fluttershy nervously, “we agreed to play along, and cheating is wrong!”
“Yeah, that would just make us some big meanies, just like him!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie.
“Remember who we’re talking about,” responded Rarity with her eyes narrowed. “The spirit of chaos. The same one that turned us against ourselves. The same one that almost conquered Equestria. The same one that despises anything that has to do with harmony and being trustable is surely something related to harmony.”
“But we wouldn’t be any better than him then,” Fluttershy tried to reason with her.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures, darling,” Rarity responded coldly “Besides, don’t you want a little payback for what he did to you?”
Fluttershy actually stopped to consider this. The idea of revenge was something she wasn’t accustomed to, but right now it was really tempting. She looked over to Pinkie, who looked as insecure as her, but with a mutual nod they both turned to Rarity for a decision that they were sure would make them feel guilty.
“What do you have in mind?”
“It’s simple, really,” Rarity said with a smile. “We convince Spike,” she gestured to the dragon that was still by her side, “and Lyra over there,” she pointed to Lyra, who was busying herself with the map, “to send Twilight against Fernando. That creature is probably the luckiest one in Equestria, but luck has it’s own limits. Even if he manages to defeat Twilight there’s the backup plan.”
Pinkie interrupted Rarity by lifting her hoof as if she was in the school.
“What’s the backup plan?” she asked intrigued “And more importantly, why doesn’t the main plan have a cool name like Plan A or Plan C?”
“Pinkie,” Rarity began a little annoyed by her pink friend antics, “a name right now is the lesser of our predicaments. Besides, why would there be a Plan C without a Plan B?”
“Don’t be a silly filly,” Pinkie giggled “Plan C is for Plan Cupcake!” she finished with a smile.
Rarity facehoofed, but she dared to ask anyway.
"Okay, I'll ask. Why Plan Cupcake?"
"Becasue if everything else fails," Pinkie took out a diagram that detailed every step of her Plan C, "we can make a giant cupcake and put it as bait for Discord to capture him. Otherwise we can drop it on him and capture him in its delicious fillings!" Pinkie finished and stored away her plan.
Pinkie’s friends stared at her with a deadpan expression for a moment, though a certain white unicorn thought that dropping a giant pastry on Discord would be a rather pleasant look. After that, Rarity continued.
“Anyway, to answer your first question, the backup plan consists in Twilight communicating with Princess Celestia. Twilight probably knows how, and she is more likely to have the power to do that than me or Lyra”.
With their plan established, they turned to Lyra, who was busy tracing lines in the map of Las Pegasus.
Back at the city, Fernando was resting atop of the casino that was the battlefield for his and Rarity’s fight. With almost all of his energy, the armor and weapons of one of his favorite characters and only eight hours remaining he was optimistic with the situation.
“Only eight more hours and all of this nonsense will end,” he thought with a big smile, which was replaced with a look of confusion as he looked around him. “That’s odd. It should be dark by now, but the sun is still on the sky... In the exact same position from hours ago.” He then realized that his prolonged presence in Equestria had more to it than just ‘chaotic fun’. “But what would that other reason be?”
While pondering this, there was a shift on his surroundings. First of all, there was a sudden quake that made the building fall apart. Fernando landed safely thanks to his reploid boots, but his robotic nature didn’t prepare him for what he saw.
Right there in front of him was a clear path that cut through the city all the way to where a lone red and purple figure stood. It was Twilight, who was as confused as him, but was quick to react to the strange phenomenon and teleported right in front of Fernando.
“Ha! You can’t escape now!” She exclaimed as she tried to levitate him, but she wasn’t able to do so because his body and armor were able to shake it off with ease.
With a mocking wave of his hand, Fernando turned his back to Twilight and tried to dash away, but he impacted with a magical wall that was created by the same magical pony that was right behind him. The orange timer that counted how much he had to escape before losing appeared and again started to count down from thirty seconds.
“Crap!” Fernando thought as his circuits processed everything that was happening.
In a desperate measure, he brought out his saber and slashed through the magical barrier as if it was made of butter, but Twilight was quick to put up another one. Fernando continued to slice at the magic walls, and each time he destroyed one the orange timer started over again.
Twilight was getting herself exhausted with all the magic she was using, and she was taking more time to set up Fernando’s prisons as he continued to take care of them.
When Twilight started to get dizzy, Fernando was able to dash out of Twilight’s magical dome and run away from her, but Discord appeared out of nowhere and blocked his path.
“Hello again, Fernando. I just came by to remind you, in case you forgot, that if you get out of the area of effect of the Random Power UpDown, you’ll lose whatever power you had,” he said with a smirk.
Fernando paused and gave him a stare so intense that would have burned holes through steel. Looking back at Twilight for a second, he confirmed his suspicions, because she too had a smirk on her face and her horn was starting to give off a really bright glow. Returning his glare to Discord, he even tried to choke him with the Force, a sign of the highest level of hate that you can have directed to someone, but since the RPUD didn’t give him the powers of a Jedi, it was fruitless.
“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” His mental words were dripping with basilisk venom.
“Of course I did” Discord responded with the same cocky smirk.
Just before being victim of a teleportation spell, Fernando pointed his Buster Shot at Discord. However, just before pulling the trigger, he disappeared in a purple flash.
On the other side of the city, Twilight and Fernando re-appeared in a flash of the same color as the last one. They were in front of what appeared to be the campus of a school of some sort and, as Discord said before, Fernando lost his Reploid armor and his body returned to that of a normal human.
Fernando looked at himself and sighed.
“That was probably the only thing left for me that could help me win,” he thought.
The sound of hoofstep came from behind him and he turned his head so fast that his neck ached in response.
“At least now... My friends... Will have an easier time...” Twilight managed to say before collapsing on the ground and losing consciousness.
Fernando wiped the sweat from his forehead in relief. He had managed to escape from four ponies now, and unknowingly to him, he didn’t even have to worry about them anymore... Or should he?
Deciding that he had better already be on his way, he turned around, but he came face to face with Discord.
“YOU!” was his first thought. “Why, just why do you have to mess with every good thing that happens to me?” He was suppressing the urges to assault Discord because at this rate the next thing that would be taken away from him would be his dignity... Wait, forget that last part.
“You know as well as I do that you cheated to get that. Don’t whine about not having your shiny body anymore” Discord responded.
“You know damn well that this is your game, and if I managed to do that it’s because of you, so give me back that armor and weapons, because that was practically my ticket home,” Fernando said.
“I don’t care. You create almost as much chaos as I do, and since those six ponies decided to seal away my powers with a rainbow colored laser of death, you’re my indirect way of creating chaos.”
“What?” Fernando asked confused.
“What I mean is,” Discord said as he spontaneously changed into an Uncle Sam style outfit, “I want YOU,” he pointed at the human, “for the chaos.”
“Yeah... No. Why the hell do you think that after everything that I have gone through while being in this world I would like to stay here any longer?”
“Because you would be able to have your revenge on those ponies!”
“Well, that sounds a little tempting, but if history repeats itself, I would end up just like you.”
“Turned to stone?”
“No, as a crazy individual with an existence so empty that he fills the void with the suffering of others.”
“Well, at least I’m not a smartass that can’t talk!”
“Are you deaf? I’ve been talking almost this entire conversation!” And that’s when they both noticed it. Fernando, for the past two minutes has been talking.
“Wha-what?”
“What, you didn’t hear me? Let me repeat it to you. Ehem... I’ve been talking almost this entire conversation!”
“But... but...” Discord was at a loss of words. He couldn’t believe that just like that, Fernando returned to normal, and he refused to think that it might be because his magic was less powerful than he initially thought. “Well, well, well. You might be able to talk, but it’s nothing that I can’t fix,” he stated as he snapped his fingers.
“NOOOOOO- wait... I’m still talking?”
“You’re still talking?”
“Woohoo!”
As Fernando made an incredibly stupid happy dance, and Discord tried his hardest in snapping every articulation of his body to activate his magic, Twilight started to levitate.
Discord was the first one to notice her, but he didn’t want to ruin the surprise for Fernando, so he kept his mouth shut.
Twilight was keeping her eyes shut the whole time she was standing up, and for some reason, she was taking way too long doing that.
A few minutes later, Fernando finally noticed her and he stopped his ridiculous attempt at showing his happiness and tried to run, but his feet were held tight by an unknown force.
“I can’t enjoy anything, right?” he commented before looking down at his feet, expecting a slight glow to cover them, but instead, he saw nails... Well, nailed on the front of his sneakers. “Wha- But- Ugh...”.
Fernando started to get a little green, but he managed to keep his breakfast inside when he noticed that instead of going through his feet, the nails passed in between his toes.
“You know... This is darker than the usual magic trick”
Looking back at Twilight, he noticed that she had finally opened her eyelids, and he also noticed that she had a lack of eyes on her face... Also, she was crying blood.
“Don’t tell me. Twilight was possessed by that psychic psycho girl, right?” Fernando asked much more calmed than he expected
“Well, judging by the current circumstances, I must agree with you,” Discord said before sipping from a cup of tea that he materialized from nowhere. “Although she shouldn’t be able to since that character was quite powerful and that shouldn’t leave enough magic to emulate her mind, but maybe Twilight’s already powerful magic had something to do with that.”
“Oh, ok. Can I have a little bit of tea too?”
“Sure, here you go” Discord gave him a cup with steaming tea.
“Thanks” Fernando thanked before taking a sip.
Fernando was running bare-foot, his sneakers left behind along with his socks, while screaming like mad, being closely followed by Discord who was doing almost the same thing, only that he was actually mad and he was floating. Twilight didn’t even try to follow them. She just stood there, watching them.
The duo continued until they hid in the first dark alley they found. While catching his breath, Fernando noticed that Discord was doing the same, and that’s when he noticed too that Discord was doing the same.
“What… Are you doing?” he asked perplexed.
“What does it looks like? I’m trying to steal all the oxygen of the world,” he snapped back.
“No, I mean, what are you doing following me here? Can’t you just teleport away or something?” He snapped his fingers to mock the way Discord usually liked to disappear from the scene.
“Well, buddy, if you haven’t noticed it,” Discord crossed his arms indignantly, “I can’t use what little is left of my magic. Right now I’m just a very handsome chimera.”
“Not to mention scaredy cat,” our human returned with a smirk.
“Yeah, uhuh.” Discord wasn’t falling for Fernando’s taunts.
“Well, you have always decided to escape when things start to get hairy. You never face anything head on and you’re basically like a bird that broke his wing without your magic.”
“Don’t talk as if you were a psychologist. You would never understand a complicated mind as mine that is overrun by chaos.”
“Ha ha! Don’t make me laugh you-” he was cut short when he felt the presence of somebody, or rather somepony, that was coming from the alley.
“Oh, don’t mind me” Applejack’s muffled voice came “I’m just passing by!” Slowly, Applejack emerged from the darkness, pulling the overly large knife that came with her character. “But I think I’ll need the two legged fella for a minute or two!”
“Sorry, I’m busy doing… that thing” Fernando said before darting out of the alley, but his attempt at an escape was deemed a failure when Discord grabbed him by the collar of his t-shirt and then threw him against Applejack
“HE’S YOURS! LEAVE ME ALONE!!” and instead of a human, it was a draconequus the one running for his life.
“Looks like I can understand a chaotic mind just right, huh?” Fernando thought with a chuckle while watching Discord retreating.
A pair of orange hooves reminded him that he wasn’t that safe himself, but he wasn’t fast enough to escape, because as he started to stand up, he was tackled back to the ground by Applejack, who held him in a bear strong hug.
“HA! I wanna see ya get outta this one!” Applejack exclaimed victoriously, however, Fernando didn’t move or react. He even stopped moving altogether. “I said, I wanna see ya get outta this one!” the cowmare accentuated her sentence this time. “If this is another one of your tricks, it ain’t working anymore!”.
At first, Applejack didn’t move and she held Fernando there for several minutes, but nothing happened. Realizing that something wasn’t quite as it should, Applejack slowly let go of Fernando and stood up, looking around completely confused about what she was supposed to do now.
“So… Did I win or what?” she asked to nobody in particular.