//------------------------------//
// Part 1, Chapter 9 
// Story: The Discordian's Daughter 
// by Pumpkin Patch 
//------------------------------//

	Ataxium may add another benefit as well. You see, in order to make a pony resistant to magic, I had to make a formula that was very magic-like in nature. So in addition to protecting a pony from magic, it may also grant them some “magic” power of its own. Exactly how that power would manifest is anypony’s guess. In fact, it may be different for each pony that the Ataxium is given to. It will be very interesting to see...

Fluttershy made a right and flew down yet another street in her effort to get away, but this one was her last. As soon as she made the corner, she slammed head-first into and shop sign. She was sent spinning through the air, ultimately landing on the ground hard, her body splayed. 
Despise stopped in front of Fluttershy and pressed her hoof down firmly onto Fluttershy’s hair, pinning her in place. “That was fun,” Despise snarled, “but I want to play a different game now. I call this one ‘Splatter-shy’!”
“Ooo! Can I play?” a perky voice spoke up just ahead of them. 
Despise looked up to see who was speaking, but then she got hit in the face with a pie. 
“Go for it, Twilight!” Pinkie shouted.
Twilight, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Applejack pulled around the shop behind Despise and Twilight quickly levitated a syringe and fired it towards Despise’s exposed backside. 
But right before it the syringe made contact with the stunned mad pony, there was a loud snapping sound like the crack of a whip. Despise’s tail had twitched at the last minute and deflected the incoming needle, sending it flying out of sight. The tail’s response to the projectile was instantaneous, almost as if it had acted on its own.
Despise angrily shook the pie’s contents off her face and turned around. “Nice try, nerd!” 
As soon as Despise turned around something about her began to change, something that made Twilight and her friends jump back. The pony’s long green hair began floating, as if Despise was underwater. It lifted up and scattered around her head like branches of a tree and began to sway in a non-existent wind. 
Then Twlight’s eyes shifted down as she saw something forming on Despise’s rear thigh. She gasped. It was Despise’s cutie mark — a wreath of thorns. 
Suddenly, before anypony could react, strands of Despise’s hair shot out all directions and wrapped themselves around each of the six ponies, hoisting them off the ground and pulling them towards the maniacal pony’s face. Each of the six struggled to escape the grasp of the lock of hair holding her, but it was useless. It may have looked and felt like hair, but it was stronger than steel. 
“Let us go!” yelled Rainbow Dash staring defiantly into Despise’s eyes as she wrestled to get her wings free. 
“Oh I’m going to let you go,” said Despise deviously. “I just wanted all of you where I can see you. Now that I do see you though, I think you would look better over here!”
Despise turned around and her hair whipped back and threw its six captives down the street and towards the center of town faster than a slingshot. All six of them almost collided with the west side of city hall, but at the last second Twilight put up a barrier to catch them. The ponies made contact with the much softer magical wall, then fell to the ground. 
Hitting the solid ground was better than smashing through city hall, but the hit was still heavy. Twilight groaned as she tried to get back on her hooves after the impact. “Is-is everypony okay?”
“C’mon Twilight!” said Applejack in a surprisingly casual tone. Twilight turned to her and saw her get up without any trouble. “I work on a farm. I’ve had a lot worse hits than that!”
“Yeah! And I’ve flown into things way faster!” said Rainbow Dash confidently as she got up. However, she soon put her hoof to her forehead. “Ugh. Still doesn’t make it hurt less. How’re you doing, Fluttershy?”
“Oh, um, I’m fine,” Fluttershy said as she tried to join the other three on-hoof. After struggling with her balance for a second or two though, she collapsed back onto the ground. 
“I lost an eyelash!” Rarity screamed, not even trying to stand up.
“Is this it?” asked a completely unphased Pinkie Pie next to her. She was sporting a new mustache that looked curiously like Rarity’s lost eyelash.
Twilight’s ears perked up. There was an ominous sound, like a heavy object being hurled through the air. 
She turned around and saw a lamp post heading straight towards them. Quickly, she used her magic to cover all six of them in a barrier as the post came crashing down. It bounced off the barrier and landed with a loud thud a few hooves in front of them. 
They looked up to see the projectile’s source. Despise was staring at them in the distance. Ponies on the street were running scared in every direction that didn’t lead to her. Her empty eyes and malicious grin looked like they were glowing in the dark. The hair from her mane and her tail was still floating all around her, like the waves of a flame.
“You don’t frighten us, you horrid creature!” said Rarity boldly as she stood up and quickly fixed her eyelash. She stepped out in front of the others and lit up her horn. It produced a large ball of light that she immediately fired at their enemy. A strand of Despise’s hair deflected it, inches away from the mad pony’s face. Rarity stepped closer and fired another one. The hair blocked it again. Rarity continued to march forward, delivering an onslaught of light projectiles as she went. Despise blocked one after the other. It didn’t matter how fast they were going or how close Rarity was getting. Nothing went through, but Rarity persevered. 
“Rarity! Stop! Magic doesn’t work!” Twilight cried out, but Rarity continued her assault, firing one light ball after another like a pitching machine. As Rarity closed in, Despise’s hair kept deflecting her attacks with ease. A twinge of fear began to show in Rarity’s eyes as she got closer to her target. 
But then, when she so was close to Despise that she could feel the wind generated by the flailing strands of hair, a single ball of light made it past the barricade, hitting Despise in the lower leg. The pony let out a short but screeching scream and her hair quickly covered the area of impact. 
Twilight gaped in shock. Rarity managed to hit her, and with magic noless. How? Twilight’s mind went back to the first night the creature had appeared, when it charged straight through her magic barrier with no resistance. She tried to remember anything that was different about that situation, anything at all. Then, a revelation suddenly came to her: Despise’s hair was covering her face when she charged. 
After so many failed attempts, Rarity was just as stunned as Twilight when one of her attacks actually succeeded. However, her surprise broke her focus and interrupted her barrage of magic. And that was just enough time for Despise’s hair to counter. A lock of hair shot out at Rarity and wrapped around her like a snake. It hoisted her off the ground, whipped her around and threw her back towards her friends. 
Rarity screamed as the hair released her, but her scream was cut short by a sudden, unexpected, and strangely soft impact. 
“Gotchya!” said Rainbow Dash as she intercepted Rarity’s flight by catching her with her forelegs. Then she circled around and followed Twilight, Applejack and the others from the air. The group was falling back.
Fluttershy and the two Earth Ponies ran across a nearby bridge and down a hill towards a small set of cottages while Rainbow Dash followed them in the sky carrying Rarity. The group darted around to the farthest side of the largest cottage and out of Despise’s view. Rainbow Dash landed and placed Rarity back on the group. 
“Are you okay, Rarity?” asked Twilight.
“I’m alright, dear,” said Rarity in a trembling voice that said she wasn’t. She cleared her throat and attempted to resume a braver, more dignified tone. “I think the important thing is that I managed to hurt her.”
“Well, she almost did worse to you there,” said Applejack. 
“I know,” Rarity admitted, “but I was just so angry at seeing that horrible brute terrifying those townsfolk that I lost my reason.”
“I think you were just mad because she made you lose an eyelash,” said Pinkie Pie.
“Well at least you’re okay now,” said Twilight. “And like you said, you were finally able to find a weakness.”
“Yes. It’s only her hair that’s invincible,” confirmed Rarity.
“That makes sense. Otherwise those needles wouldn’t work,” said Applejack.
 “Um, but how do we get past her hair?” asked Fluttershy.
“That is a tall order,” said Applejack. “It’s like it’s got a mind of its own.”
“Well, you saw how Rarity did it, right?” said Rainbow Dash. “We just have to keep the hair busy. If one pony can do it by herself, then all of us together could do it no problem! The five of us will just keep attacking it over and over and that’ll leave her body open so Twilight can stick her with that needle!”
Twilight thought for a moment, then conceded “It’s risky, but it’s all we’ve got. We don’t have any more time.”
“That’s right!” said a chilling voice coming from nearby. “You don’t!”
The ponies turned around and saw Despise. The hair of her mane was wrapped around the branch of a tall nearby tree and she was hanging from it like a demented monkey. She stared down at them, her wide grin almost literally glowing. 
All of the ponies jumped back in surprise, but Rainbow Dash quickly overcame her initial shock. “That just makes it easier! Let’s get ‘er!” she shouted as she took off and flew straight towards their adversary. 
An unprepared Twilight began to cry out “Rainbow, wai—”
But she was too late. While still hanging by her mane, Despise’s tail stretched out and in the blink of an eye formed into a thin wall. Rainbow Dash hit it at speed head-on and the collision sent her crashing back to the ground. 
Despise swung herself back and forth to gain momentum. Once she had enough, she released herself, flipped in mid-air, and began to descend hooves-first straight onto Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash still had enough will in her to get back into air and out of the way faster than Despise could land. Despise fell past her, landing on the open ground which shook with the impact.
Twilight, Rarity, and the Earth Ponies backed away from their opponent, but kept their eyes fixed. Fluttershy took to the air to join Rainbow Dash. 
Rainbow Dash looked down at Despise. “Ha!” she yelled. “You missed m—”
Her gloating was cut off when a strand of Despise’s hair lashed out at her, wrapped around her neck and yanked her to the ground. Rainbow Dash had already blacked out, but Despise still pushed her hooves into the Pegasus's torso. She smiled. “No. I didn’t.”
Rainbow Dash’s defeat drove the rest of the ponies to attack at once. 
“You. Leave. Her. Alone!” screamed Fluttershy angrily as she dived toward the evil pony that had incapacitated her friend. Before her assault got anywhere near Despise, though, a large part of the pony’s mane split down the middle and formed two propellers, propellers that spun faster than the wheels of a wagon rolling downhill. The transformation was so instantaneous that Fluttershy couldn’t react. Like a bird that didn’t see the windmill, she dove straight into the vortex. The spinning hair trapped her and forced her to take a hit from each and every one of its rotations. Her body tumbled through the tornado, taking blow after blow from the blades until finally one revolution knocked her downward. She hit the ground hard and joined Rainbow Dash in unconsciousness. 
“Somepony needs a good kick in the behind!” declared Applejack as she circled around Despise. Once she reached the mad pony’s backside, she got into position to give Despise the hardest mule kick she could muster. But as soon as she extended her legs, Despise’s tail wrapped around her hooves, picked her up and slammed her on the ground. Then it lifted the stunned pony again and slammed her down a second time. It did this over and over again, putting more force into it each time. Applejack had already blacked out by the time the hair stopped pounding her into the ground and threw her into a nearby tree. 
“Yoo-hoo!” Pinkie Pie called out to Despise. The monstrous mare’s eyes shifted over to her where they saw another pie heading straight towards them. Despise’s left bang split in two. One lock of hair shot out directly underneath the airborne dessert, then reached up and grabbed it by the pan, stopping it inches from Despise’s face. The other strand stretched out even further and wrapped itself around Pinkie Pie like a cobra. 
“The joke’s old,” said Despise as the part of her hair holding the pie turned it around and drove it into Pinkie Pie’s face. The lock holding Pinkie then turned her around and tossed her into the wall of the nearest cottage. Pinkie hit the wall so hard that it cracked. She toppled backwards onto the ground unconscious, the pie and its pan still covering her face.
“Are you ready for round two?” said Rarity as her horn lit up to deliver yet another onslaught of light. 
“This time, yes!” said Despise as she removed her eyes from Pinkie Pie and focused them on the attacking unicorn. Her right bang shot out and wrapped around Rarity’s horn right before she could fire the first shot. With nowhere to go, the light magic exploded on Rarity’s horn, sending searing pain tearing through her head. She screamed as Despise’s hair released her and she collapsed on the ground, her hooves holding her head in agony. 
Within the short amount of time it took Twilight to levitate a needle out of the satchel she was carrying and get it into position to fire into Despise’s body, the demented pony had taken down each and every one of her friends with relative ease. With all of her other rivals defeated, Despise turned her menacing stare over to Twilight. Twilight kept her eyes fixed on her while keeping the syringe she intended to use hovering in the air, trying to appear unafraid of the pony in front of her. However, her body was visibly trembling.
Before Twilight could even flinch, a strand of hair darted out and snatched the blue needle from the air and held it in front of Twilight’s face. “Out!” Despise screamed and her hair flung the antidote backwards and out of sight. 
The hair immediately followed up by reaching around Twilight’s neck and ripping the satchel off of her like a poorly-sewn patch. ‘And you don’t need these either!” 
The force of the hair’s grab yanked Twilight forward, almost causing her to lose her balance. Once her hooves stabilized, she looked up and saw the strand of hair that had grabbed her satchel swinging it around like it had done with Fluttershy earlier. It whipped back and sent the bag of syringes flying back towards the center of town, near where Twilight and the others were before falling back to this area. 
Twilight’s friends laid all around her and her enemy and that enemy’s only known weakness was just sent soaring into the distance. Twilight had stood against this pony before on her own and failed. There was only one choice left. Quickly turning to face the direction that the satchel was thrown in, Twilight galloped away and didn’t look back. 
“You ponies sure love to run!” said Despise mockingly. “Well, that’s fine by me.” The hair of Despise’s mane and her tail each split into two parts that looked like large bent blades. Each of them stuck their tips into the ground and instantly grew longer, hoisting Despise’s body into the air. Then the front-right blade lifted itself out of the ground and took a step forward, followed by the front-left blade, then the two rears. The motions repeated, creating a complete walk cycle. They were like giant spider’s legs, crawling towards their prey at a frightening pace while Despise herself dangled at the top of them like a ragdoll. Each step shook the ground and crushed anything that happened to be beneath it.
Twilight turned her head just enough to see the monstrous form that was chasing her. Her eyes widened and she gasped. Quickly she whipped her head back faced forward again, as if hoping that not looking at Despise would somehow make her vanish. 
The sounds kept getting louder and louder to Twilight. Despise was closing in, but the satchel was in sight now. As soon as she was in range, Twilight lit her horn and began to levitate the bag of needles, but her magic was interrupted. One of the giant legs came bearing down on the satchel, landing between the strap and the bag with a heavy thud. 
Twilight was startled, but not stopped. She began to change her course to move around the giant blade of hair to get to the bag of the satchel itself. This was futile. Just as she was about to go past it, the hairs of the blade spread themselves out in both directions, forming a curved wall that Twilight hit head-on. Twilight grunted as collision with the wall knocked her to the ground. Quickly she rolled over and got back on her hooves. She saw that she was surrounded in every direction by green hair. Each of the four legs had spread itself out like the one she had collided with. She was now inside a dome. And dangling from the top of the dome and glaring at her much like she was in the tree before, was Despise. 
“Welcome to the big top!” Despise quipped. “I can’t wait to see what act you’ll do for me next!”
Twilight’s eyes shifted back and forth, looking for a way out or something to aid her. They found none. She could see the strap of the satchel still wrapped around the hair that had pinned it, but unfortunately the bag itself was outside of the dome. 
Twilight began to tremble as she looked up at her captor. “Wha-what do you want from us?”
“I want you to suffer!” Despise exclaimed.
“Wh-why?” asked Twilight anxiously. 
“I hate you. I hate your friends. I hate every pony I’ve met, and every one that ever will exist.”
“..but why—” Twilight tried to ask.
“—because I do!” screamed Despise. “I live for your pain. The sound of ponies suffering is the greatest gift they can give me. It’s music to my ears.”
Twilight was shivering with fear at the words said by Despise’s screeching voice. Willow seemingly found something to love about everypony, but Despise was her opposite and therefore only found things to hate. It was that simple. There was no negotiating and no way to change her mind. Twilight’s eyes started to water as she began to accept her fate.
But then her ears perked up. She heard something coming from outside the dome. It sounded like scratching, like somepony trying to get in. More curiously, the sound’s source kept rising. Was someone climbing Despise’s hair? The entire dome started to twitch and vibrate, but it quickly returned to its hardened state. It was as if the hair itself was trying to react to whatever was climbing it, but its master didn’t allow it. 
“Anyway,” continued Despise. “Like I said, this is the circus and it’s time to tame the lio—”
        Despise suddenly cut her speech off and began to scream. It echoed throughout the dome she had created and Twilight feared going deaf. As she covered her ears with her hooves though, the scream faded and she looked up to see Despise slowly being lowered to the ground by her own hair. Her eyes were shut and she hung motionlessly until her body softly landed on terra firma. 
        The dome of hair was loosening and began to deflate like a balloon. Soon it gently landed on Twilight, covering her completely. Twilight shook it off and found that she was outside once again. 
Despise’s hair was not only flattening, but receding, retracting to its original dimensions. Twilight looked towards the center of the hair at the pony’s body. It was then that she saw what had saved her. In the pony’s back was a syringe containing a familiar blue liquid. It was planted firmly in a very narrow part in the middle of her mane.  Even for a needle it would have been a small target, but outside of the dome the pony had created it would have been the only part of her exposed at the time.
More importantly though, lying on the pony’s back just below the syringe was the one who had administered the Antaxium. 
        “Spike!” Twilight said excitedly as she made her way over to him. As soon as she was within reach she wrapped her forelegs around him and held him tight against herself. 
        “Ow-ow-ow!” Spike exclaimed. “Watch it. I’m still a little sore.”
        “Oh, I’m sorry,” said Twilight letting go of him. 
        “I took him back to your place but refused to stay,” said Mrs. Cake as she emerged from behind the building where she had apparently been hiding. “He demanded over and over that I bring him back to you. I finally gave in.”
        “Well, I wasn’t going to get much rest anyway,” said Spike in a weak voice that said he still wasn’t in good shape. “Too many screaming villagers. Besides, it was my job to keep Willow in check, right?”
        “Yeah, well, you’re very late,” said Twilight sternly. But then, she smiled and gently placed her hoof on his shoulder. “But at least you’re here now.”
        Spike returned her smile. “I’ll always be here, Twilight.”
        “That’s very sweet, you two,” said Mrs. Cake sincerely, “but, um, what do you suppose we should do about Willow?”