//------------------------------// // True Ending: Chaos's Bliss // Story: The Madgod's Freedom // by _No_One_Remains_ //------------------------------// Steel. He could smell it. He could taste it. He could almost see it. He could feel it. Pressing against his throat. The sharp edge of a blade. When his brain finally registered what it was, his eyes jolted open. He was in an arena; columns sprang up in the middle, with silhouettes flooding the stands above them. Blood painted the walls of the arena like blue on the sky, with grates that seemed to lead to pitch blackness taking in the excess life force. Discord was in a coliseum, one he probably wasn’t meant to survive. Above him, in the orange light of the sunset, stood Sheogorath, eyes filled with insanity, a steel blade fully extended. With a large grin he chuckled, “I see you went to sleep. That’s quite rude!” Fear paralyzed the beast. For the first time in his life, he was staring death in the face…literally. He stammered, “Wh-where are we, Madgod?” “I dunno. Looks like an arena. All I know is they gave me a blade. They told me to kill you, so I think I will!” He lifted the blade with frightening speed, sending it downward to decapitate the abomination. With barely a second to spare, the beast regained his senses and warped away, safe from the blade’s reach. He scoffed, “I thought you had at least a shred of honor. Or does honor mean nothing to Daedra?” Discord took the time to examine the arena more closely. Where a normal coliseum would hang banisters, a grotesque sight waited for him. Certain ponies were hung throughout the top of the stonework. They were held in place by chains wrapped around their torsos. Alive, capable of breathing, but most definitely in pain. They were the crowd from the throne room. The Elements and Princesses, much to Discord’s horror, were being tormented by being forced to watch the battle. Even the dead ponies were there, as if they hadn’t suffered enough. Sheogorath laughed maniacally, “Honor means nothing if you can’t live to tell about it!” He launched his sword at the opponent, causing yet another teleport. “How did we get here?” the fleeing beast asked. “How indeed?! I don’t care much! I just want you dead!” Magic burst from the Madgod’s hands, threatening to swallow the abomination with ease. Chaotic magic rejected the Madness, parrying the blow. Discord sighed, “I take it only one of us will make it out of here?” “Alive, yes.” “Then it must be me!” Discord summoned a large rock golem from the ground, a puppet as tough as the earth itself. Sheogorath chuckled, “Impressive. I can do that too. Except mine’s electric!” He held true to his claim. A beast double the size of Discord’s appeared in a cloud of black smoke, electricity coursing through its joints. It blasted the smaller golem into dust. The ponies up top began to stir, waking from whatever sleep they were in, permanent or otherwise. Down below, it was obvious who had the advantage. Discord directly blasted the Madgod’s golem, hoping to dispel it. It worked, but with a sad side effect. Debris from the golem, propelled by wind, smashed into some of the innocent bystanders above. Cries of intense pain erupted from each one as the chains tightened, crushing them closer to the wall. Sheogorath flinched, “This is a sick arena!” Then he laughed, “Maybe I can make this my new Xedillian!” “Shut it, you sick monster!” A blast of green pierced the Daedra’s stomach. Rolling his eyes, he sighed, “That’s it. I’ve had enough of this. No more games.” What happened next was horrifying. Everything stopped. The ponies froze in place, their previous shrieks of pain echoing around the arena. The dust settled. The silhouettes in the stands stopped moving. Everything literally stopped around them. Discord watched it all. He could hear everything, yet he couldn’t move. Sheogorath slowly stepped toward him, his hand emanating a deep black aura. He chuckled grimly, “You tried to stop me. You really shouldn’t have done that. Enjoy the view of your own death.” The aura slowly reached out toward him. Crippling nausea found its way to the draconequus’s stomach. A splitting headache blinded him. The black aura swallowed his body, an eerie cold washing over him. Just when he felt as if he was falling into the realm of the unconscious, a golden light washed away the black. Vision returned just in time to see Sheogorath turn around in disbelief. He screamed, “Impossible! No one’s ever survived my Daedric Soul Trap!” No voice would come to the beast’s throat. His muscles were still paralyzed. He managed to look up and see Celestia’s horn glowing, obviously the source of the golden warmth that had saved him. As soon as it faded, the chains tightened. Discord could almost see the bones shatter. If there had been a shriek, his ears didn’t let him hear it. “No matter. There might be a use for you yet, Chaos.” Sheogorath lifted the beast up in one hand by the throat. He stared deep into the helpless creature’s eyes. “I still need a body. You have enough power to be acceptable. But I can’t use you if you’re consumed with morals.” The draconequus couldn’t look away. The Daedra’s eyes were mesmerizing. They held a type of charm that couldn’t be found in Equestria. They were definitely demonic. The Madgod continued with a growl, “Submit to me, Chaos! Denounce your putrid reformation, and serve the Madness wholly!” A violent shake accompanied the words, stressing the intensity of this situation. Discord’s muscles were freed from the demon’s spell. His vocal cords were functional again. But now was the time for an ultimate decision. He could live as a puppet or die as a helplessly free monster. He could betray his friends and save himself, or he could hold on to his new values and die. He desperately looked up at the ponies hanging around the arena. Celestia, Luna, Fluttershy, Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash all stared down, their eyes flooding with tears and pain. Whether this was real to them or not, the sight disgusted the abomination. Even though he had been evil not too long ago, he felt as if everything he’d witnessed the last few days went beyond evil. If he turned back to his old ways and let the monster possess him, he would be responsible for doing these atrocities to countless other ponies. “No,” came the beast’s response. Simple and blunt, all he needed to get the point across. Sheogorath did a double take. “Excuse me? I’m offering you your life, Chaos! Don’t be a fool!” His grip tightened around the beast’s throat, a black aura beginning to form. Discord chuckled through the suffocation, “I’ve been alone my whole life. Life is worthless if you have to spend it alone. And a monster like you would always be lonely. I don’t want that. I’d rather die knowing I have friends than live knowing I would kill them.” And that was that. He had nothing more to say. He’d been reformed one month. After roughly two-thousand years of chaos, he changed. Because somepony decided they wanted to be his friend, he changed. He valued that friendship. It was good to feel wanted. That’s why he couldn’t turn. He couldn’t go back to the lonely, chaotic beast he once was. Friendship truly was magic. So the Madgod ended his resistance. One swift flex of his muscles, and the draconequus was down permanently, swallowed instantly by a magical aura that not even Celestia would be able to dispel. “A shame, really. We could have been ‘bestest friends foreverest’!” the demon mocked. As Discord lay smothered and lifeless on the stonework, the chains around the ponies above tightened, an audible cracking sound echoing throughout the arena. Before long, everypony that had opposed him would be dead. All because he won a single fight. If you had asked Sheogorath what being victorious felt like right then, he would’ve answered ‘swimming in an endless ocean of cheese’. He was quite content with his brutal victory. He would just need to find a body to possess. Perhaps he could salvage Celestia’s after everything was said and done. Something uncanny happened as he pondered this. Six white lights fell around him like two-ton weights. A star, an apple, a diamond, a butterfly, a balloon, and a lightning bolt. Curious little shapes glowing with white light. He could’ve sworn they looked familiar. Of course, it hit him about a moment too late. The Elements of Harmony were reacting to something, despite their owners dying up above. Everything happened too fast for even the Madgod to process. A rainbow beam of light burst from the Elements, swallowing him whole. A branch of the magic wrapped around the lifeless draconequus, while still other branches connected to the bound ponies. The chains shattered, the wounds healed, and the abomination began coughing up a storm. All the while, the Madgod was smothered by the light, mute and invisible, preferably being sealed away. The ponies landed softly on the ground, all the trauma from the battle having been healed. Discord was back to full power, albeit still mentally scarred from his fight. When the Elements’ magic finally faded, the Madgod was there, on the ground, a black aura surrounding him. He stammered, “How…can this be…possible?! I was…winning! And now…this!” He stared into his opponent’s eyes, his serpentine pupils revealing fear. Discord tittered, “There was a time when I thought I was the best. But I was wrong. The power of the Elements defeated me, even after I had turned them against one another.” He waved a claw at the ponies behind him, “They gave me a chance to redeem myself, and I took it. It’s because I took that chance that you didn’t win. As much as I long to use my chaos how I want, my friendship with the Elements protected us.” “Beaten by gemstones! Dagon would have a field day!” The dark aura around the Madgod continued to grow, as if swallowing him. In a flash of red light, the walls of the arena disappeared. The objects and silhouettes within vanished as well, leaving nothing but a dark red void. The void gave way to the pastel colors of the Canterlot throne room, where familiar air graced the ponies. Still Sheogorath knelt on the ground, the darkness pouring from his body. Celestia sighed, “I won’t pretend to understand how it was done. Despite not being connected to the Elements, Discord was still able to summon their power and use it to defeat you. No matter the circumstances, it’s time you left our realm, monster.” She turned toward Twilight and added, “Would you care to do the honors?” With obliging smiles, the Elements retrieved their jewelry from the ground and summoned forth one final blast of magic. Discord kicked back and watched as the rainbow beam erased all traces of the foreign demon from the room. But as the Madgod disappeared, everything around him seemed to stop once more. The Elements’ energy spread throughout the room, swallowing every square inch. Everything disappeared until the beast was floating in a blank white void. Just in front of him, as if nothing had happened, Sheogorath stood with staff in hand, a wide grin on his face. The Madgod’s purple outfit seemed to glow in the whiteness of the void. He chuckled, “I suppose I’ve been beaten. I’m a man of ambition, Discord. And I can’t stand wasted ambition. I’ll leave your precious world be for now.” He snapped his fingers, summoning a large lion’s head statue behind him. Discord scoffed, “You shouldn’t have underestimated the power of the Elements. That was my first mistake.” A smug grin covered the abomination’s features, knowing he had beaten impossible odds. “Don’t think it wasn’t luck to save you, Chaos!” the Madgod snapped back, a scowl replacing the grin. “If we had battled before your damned reformation, it would have been no competition!” “If we’d met before I changed, I would’ve helped you rule the world!” the beast chuckled. Relaxing a bit, Sheogorath scoffed, “I suppose that’s true. I can still do that, y’know. I could go back and meet you before your change.” He considered the option for a few moments before laughing, “But I’ve had enough with pastel ponies and ‘friendship’. I’m going home to torment my Champion!” Despite everything that had happened over the last few days, Discord couldn’t help but feel sad to see the demon leave. After all, he had added entertainment to an otherwise-boring stay in Canterlot. He sighed, “Perhaps if you visit again, you can bring a body to control that Dementia?” “Sounds like a plan to me!” He turned toward the statue, a bright blue light swirling within its mouth. As he walked toward it he chuckled, “Have fun being the only Equestrian with memory of me!” “I’ll try…” Discord started, until he fully registered what had just been said. “Wait, what?” With a laugh, everything disappeared from the void. The previous scene appeared around him again, the way it had been just before his conversation. Suddenly, disorienting and painful, everything around him began to shift with motion blur. Ponies appeared, disappeared, scenery changed, and magical energies shifted around him. The feeling of being spun in a centrifugal style filled the beast’s body, and he plummeted to the ground as if a million pounds had crashed onto his back. Suddenly the motion blur stopped. The weight lifted. He was in a room different from the throne. A familiar room… The spinning sensation ceased just in time for the beast to watch two guards exit through a small door on the far side of the room. A wheel of cheese had mysteriously appeared in his claw, almost completely consumed. The apparent dining hall was a mess. It dawned on him just exactly when this was. The moment before he had met the Madgod for the first time. The room was the same. The cheese was the same. The time was the same. The only difference was…there was no maniacal laughter this time. Discord looked down at the wheel of cheese in his claw. Taking a tiny bite, he chunked the dairy out the window, nausea settling on his bowels. He stared out the window toward Canterlot Castle. Inside were the ponies that had helped him survive the battle. In a few hours he would be summoned back to the throne room to answer for his ‘poisoning’ of the guards. And after that he would be sent to his chambers for the evening. The following day would bring Parasprites and cries for assistance. The beast chuckled as he considered that the Parasprites would be the final similarity between the two timelines. Something about the last few hours made him feel optimistic. I suppose there’s always time for some controlled chaos now and again!