//------------------------------// // Irony of betrayal // Story: Buck My Life // by JasontheDemon //------------------------------// Irony of betrayal I had done it... I broke the strongest bond I had in this world. I was going to get my wish fulfilled and get back to my life where it mattered the most... so why did I feel like this? Why did I feel a tug on the beating organ in my chest? Why did I feel just as empty as when I was in middle school? What was it that made me wonder if I had done the right thing? I never told anyone that I was staying, so why did I feel like I lied to them? My heart felt empty and my head felt full... never a good combination. I simply sat in my seat on the train, staring off into empty space while Discord kept himself amused. I wasn’t in the mood to play games, but that didn’t stop him. At one point I looked over to him and saw he was playing poker with himself... literally with himself. There were four identical copies of Discord seated at a table. They were all wearing different outfits that looked like they were out of an old western film. There was one extra clone that was dressed up as a woman with a fan and everything. I just glared at the cartoony antics before me. After a few hands one of the Discords said that another was cheating and confronted him. I thought the whole thing was stupid since he was basically saying he was cheating against himself and it didn’t matter because in the end the winner would still be him no matter how it played out. I turned away and continued to brood over my decision to shatter Twilight's feelings for me. However I quickly looked back when I heard a gunshot next to me. The two Discords that were fighting dueled each other and the suspected cheater was shot. He wasn’t dead though and the only thing that hit him was a cork, but he sure acted like he was dying. I merely grunted in annoyance and rolled my eyes. The Discord in the frilly pink dress snapped his fingers, making all the other versions of him vanish and walked up to me. “You could at least crack a smile here! This is my ‘B’ material and you are brushing it off like its nothing!” He whined, upset at my disinterest. “Well I’ve seen it all before, although I’ll admit the replica trick you used was a new turn, but I digress... it's old used up jokes that weren’t even new to my grandparents.” Discords expression dropped and he looked at a loss for words, but as you can probably guess he is never really speechless. “You’re in a crabby mood all of a sudden. What eating you sport?” he asked as he donned a more fatherly looking set of clothes (oddly similar to the dad from Dexter's Lab) and sat next to me. “I’m not sure if I did that right. It feels... wrong. I don’t know how to explain it.” I said as I continued staring at the floor as if it was the source of my troubles. “Another thing is that Twilight told me that she loved me a while back and I think I went too far. I didn’t want to hurt her, I just wanted her to have a reason to forget me so my departure wouldn’t make her sad, but I think I might have done something to make her feel worse than if I hadn’t said anything...” Discord placed his paw on my shoulder and said, “Don’t worry about her, she’s tough and can handle it. I know you did the right thing. The others will forget you on their own, but Twilight was a different matter and she would have remembered you throughout her life. You helped her by taking that burden off her shoulders. She may feel bad now but one day she will be better off.” For some unexplained reason, his little speech made me feel better. I knew Twilight was tough and a born leader, so there was no way what I did would scar her for life. For being the embodiment of chaos Discord had a very good head on his shoulders... at least it was on his shoulders most of the time. * * * * * * Once we reached the Canterlot station, I got up to exit the train but Discord sat me back down and explained that we weren’t going to the castle because it would cause Celestia to become suspicious and possibly stop us. Seeing as how I was still upset with Celestia's irresponsible behavior and disregard for the safety of her subjects, I trusted Discords decision to avoid her. About fifteen minutes after the train left Canterlot, I saw some ancient ruins at the top of a cliff. Discord told me that was our destination and wanted me to teleport to it. I was almost positive that I wouldn’t be able to make it but I tried anyway since Discord kept rushing me. Surprisingly I was not only able to do it, but I also didn’t feel drained or dizzy like I normally would. All the time I had spent using the space distortion spell must have given me a gigantic reservoir of magical energy. Discord appeared by unzipping a tree and stepping out of it... show off. The ruins were obviously from some old castle and they were actually in pretty good condition. The only signs of age seemed to be a few cracks here and there coupled with some vines and moss covering it in scattered patches. “Ah... home sweet castle.” Discord said as he walked in with his head pointed high and arms stretched out as if he were getting ready to hug the stone structure. From what I could tell this was his home at one point, and knowing his history, it must have been before he was imprisoned in stone the first time around. This was most likely the fortress he lived in when he ruled over everything before Celestia and Luna. The inside was in even more pristine condition than the outside, the stone floors and walls were accented by what appeared to be marble columns. There was even a red carpet that extended down the hall. The whole thing seemed almost untouched by time and looked like a place where I would love to live. It was wickedly dark, yet majestic and immaculate. It almost reminded me of the castle from one of my favorite fanfictions, Past Sins. The gloomy atmosphere felt perfect for what was about to happen. I suppose you could say I felt sad that I had to leave, but that wasn’t quite all there was to it. I had bonded with Equestria on a real emotional level and experienced parts of myself that hadn’t been present before I came. As much as I hated to admit it, my time here was like a dream come true and I would miss it. Discord eventually led me to a room much like Celestia's throne room, but more ancient and sinister in appearance. He snapped his fingers and a table with a wine glass on it appeared in the middle of the dimly lit room. “Now before we get started, you must be thirsty, am I right?” Discord asked as he walked up right in front of me. “I guess so...” I responded quietly, shrugging slightly. “Of course you are! Now I know you love this stuff called ‘Code Red’, so I took it upon myself to create some.” Discord said as he pulled a metal flask out of thin air. He continued to pour the contents into the wine glass. As he said, the liquid appeared to be Code Red Mountain Dew, both in color and scent. As I levitated the glass to me, I looked at my reflection. The one I saw staring back was somebody I didn’t recognize. The defeated and pathetic expression was something my previous self would have slapped me for. I would have told myself to suck it up and grow a pair but after all that I had been through, I didn’t feel wrong for acting the way I did. It was kind of funny that the one place I thought would be paradise was the place to break me. Tired of looking at myself, I tipped the glass back and drank the contents. Something about it felt a bit off though. Normally Code Red would give me a small boost of energy but this time it felt like I was being drained. My thoughts started to feel clouded and suddenly the glass fell to the floor, shattering into a million pieces. As soon as it broke Discord snapped his fingers and the table in front of me sprang to life, coiling around my body and pinned me to a wall. The draconequus let out a roar of wicked laughter. I tried to teleport but found that nothing happened. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!” I yelled, struggling against my restraints. “I PLAYED YOU LIKE A HARP!” he said strumming empty air yet still producing the sound of a harp. “I couldn’t have you try to stop me with your new power so I put a little something in your drink... Hydranious Floraitis, a.k.a. the power stealing rose! It blurs your thoughts and makes it impossible to perform magic!” Out of all the questions I could have asked, only one could break through my shock and be heard. “Why are you doing this?” I asked, shooting him a glare that... well if looks could kill he would have been long gone by now. Discord laughed at my confusion of his betrayal, “HA HA HA! Come on now, you’re a clever lad! Surely you must have figured it out by now!” I just growled and continued to give him a ‘death stare’. “Very well, since you are so curious, I’ll tell you.” He said, smirking as he leaned up against the wall I was stuck to. “I wanted a protégé... a pupil like Celestia. You see she was only able to stop me because of her star student, so one day I thought, ‘why can’t I have one as well’? I began my search for a promising individual... but I couldn’t find one here in Equestria. The ponies here were too kind, too innocent... too perfect. I needed one who knew what chaos was and had a darkness that rivaled my own." “I expanded my searches to other worlds and even other dimensions. That's when I came across your species. Oh the promise they showed! I couldn’t believe such wicked beings existed, but none of them were right. I needed one who was smart, creative, and well... like me. I found hundreds of thousands that were creative, but they were not smart or not cruel or something else clashed to make them useless. I started to think it was a lost cause but that is when I came across you. You were smart, you thought outside the box, and you were exposed to the darkest parts of your kind! You were perfect... at least until I found out about you blasted moral code of yours! “That one little tidbit made you unbreakable! Your strong will and ideals made you into the opposite of what I wanted. I was in need of one who could be molded and shaped in the image of chaos, not a brick wall of self-discipline and personal rules! I was about to give up on you, but the most wonderful idea popped into my head... I could change you the same way I changed Fluttershy and the others to be the opposite of themselves.” I felt my heart skip a beat when he revealed his intentions. He wanted to flip my personality! I knew that meant I would change from being anti-chaos to pro-chaos... he had planned this from the start. I could potentially be more evil than him... I knew that true chaos wasn’t chocolate rain and ballerina buffalo. No, true chaos was destruction and disorganization of the natural order... something that was beyond Discord's personality to do. That was probably why he was so fixated on getting an apprentice from Earth, we knew how to devastate on a completely different level. “So I was so bad I was perfect, huh? That's why you wanted me?” I said with a dark underlying rage. “Well you weren’t entirely perfect... even with your mind being superior to those around you, you still didn’t have limitless knowledge like I wanted. That is where your cutie mark comes in!” I looked down at the mysterious mark on my flank like I had done so many times before. “My cutie mark? What about it?” “Ooh I’m proud of this one! You see cutie marks stand for the skill of the pony they belong to. For example if you have a cutie mark that stands for baking it gives you amazing unrivalled skills in baking! Some cutie marks are more specific and rule bound than others, while some are vague and give a broad spectrum of talents in a certain area...” “Get on with it already!” I shouted, cutting Discord off. “Okay, okay, keep your pants on... well if you had any that is! Ha ha ha ha! But now to the point... your cutie mark, that strange black mark on your rump, riiight there... it stands for cognition!” “What?” I said stunned by the simplicity of it. “Cognition! Making you better than you could have ever imagined through imagination!” Discord said in a way that sounded like a commercial for some sort of pill. “Cognition is a group of mental processes that includes, but is not limited to, attention, memory, producing and understanding language, learning, problem solving and decision making. Please do not use cognition when you are mentally retarded, stupid, may become stupid, or an idiot. Side effects for cognition include: helping the spirit of chaos take over the known universe, becoming my pawn, and destroying all that you ever cared about! Cognition! Making you better than you could have ever imagined through imagination! Buy it today!” “Wait so when I stopped that dragon... I was using my cutie mark?” Discord smiled wickedly. “You better believe it! When you release your cognitive power you can learn complex things just by observation, you can remember everything you have ever learned or could learn by putting your collective knowledge together. And that's not all... the dragon was my little test to see what you could do. Remember how none of the guards knew about the dragon until it was pounding on the front gates? Didn’t it strike you as odd that such a tight security system could miss something so gigantic? I was the one who summoned it, and then all I had to do was sit back and see what you could do. “I must say, you surpassed even my expectations. I knew you were going to be a force to be reckoned with but I never would have guessed that you could give me a run for my money! Seeing you in action I knew that I needed to make sure you didn’t turn on me, but I also saw how easily you tired and you needed to be trained. So I lied to you, promising you everything you wanted... and you fell for it!” “What are you going to do with me?” I asked, knowing my time as myself was growing shorter by the second. “Well first we are going to change this nauseatingly bright land into something a bit more chaotic, and then I thought we might want to get rid of the Elements one by one, and then-” “Celestia won’t let you get away with this...” I said in a deadly serious tone. Discord looked at me and broke out laughing. I didn’t know what was so funny until he told me, “You actually believe Celestia has any power herself?! That is priceless! For a brainiac, you sure are a blind fool! Celestia's power only resided in the Elements of Harmony, they were a part of her, and now that she no longer controls them she is only able to raise and lower the sun! I would bet even Rarity has more power than her! Why do you think she never fights for herself?! Fear!? We immortals don't have anything to fear! WE DON’T DIE! HA HA HA HA HA HA!” So that was why she didn’t save Twilight... she couldn’t. Her strength was taken from her along with the Elements. Now that I knew the truth I felt horrible for what I said... she must have been just as scared for Twilight's life as I was, if not more so. I always said that judging others without knowing them first was wrong, but I judged Celestia in an instant and didn’t even think to find out more about her. I was being a hypocrite without even realizing it. A horrible, cruel, stupid, hypocrite... and all of this was my fault. Why did I trust Discord? He was the living, breathing, embodiment of chaos and I trusted him! Right now I felt like the dumbest person in the universe and I just gave up my struggle... I had lost. It wasn't like me to throw in the towel, but it also wasn't like me to keep struggling against the inevitable. I closed my eyes and let Discord have his victory without a fight. I couldn’t do anything in my position. I was physically weak just like on Earth so now without my magic to help me, I was powerless. Before I was turned, my mind strayed around like it often did, but unlike before when my thoughts would be seemingly random and unfocused, this time I only saw Twilight. All the things we went through together ran through my mind like a slideshow. It was as if my life was flashing before my eyes but it skipped over everything that didn’t involve her. Right before Discord's claw touched my forehead, I recalled what Octavia had said on Hearts and Hooves Day... ~There is a pony out there for everypony. Just give it time. Who knows? Maybe you have found that special somepony already and just don’t know it yet.~ Suddenly it all made sense... and then just as quickly, I felt a pain resonate through my head. It felt like somebody had poured acid in my brain and then threw it in a blender. It hurt far worse than any headache I had ever had and I could feel my mentality changing. Everything I believed in was changing. Good became bad, bad became good... and chaos became perfection. I don’t remember much after that. It was like a dream... hazy and fragmented. One thing stuck out however. I distinctly remember going to the edge of the cliff outside, throwing my 'useless' glasses over the edge, and changing everything to what I believed was right... chaos, darkness, hate, and death. I created giant speakers and hooked them up to my MP3 player, then after choosing a song, I got to work. I remember that I felt everything was ugly and out of order so I was going to fix it. Everything else is too jumbled to understand, but one thing's for sure... I was bringing Equetria to it's doomsday.