//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: Held Captive by Chaos // Story: Doctor Hooves: An Unusual Filly // by Anime PJ //------------------------------// Laughter was all that rung into Discord's ears as his torture of the delicate teacher pony commenced, the twelve giant feathers he had tickling her were almost certainly not going to get any information out of her Oh well it'll be fun for me anyway he thought to himself. Cheerilee was in hysterics, not because it was funny but because the feathers were getting her in all of her most sensitive spots, one of them began brushing against her neck and her laughter grew louder. "Tell me what I want to know and the tickling will stop." Discord told her in an almost comforting voice. "Ne... he... ver" he said struggling to speak through the tickling, she was starting to wonder if he was willing to hurt anyone at all. Her thoughts were interrupted with "There's worse to come you know. Well worse for you but more fun for me, you can hold out as long as you want but eventually I'll have to pull off the feathers and bring on the pain." he said, more viciously this time. "No." she told him, still laughing. "As you wish" he said, speeding up the feathers. *** After a full two hours of being tickled Cheerilee was returned to the dungeon and re-shackled to the wall with the others, Discord's voice came ringing all around them "Bring me the big red one next, oh I'm gonna have some fun with you." it mocked. The guards unshackled Big Mac with keys that had been attached to their hooves and the moment he was free, Big Mac violently swayed his head at one of the guards and buck kicked the other, knocking them both out in an instant. If it weren't for the fact that Discord was watching they probably would have escaped but he magically bound Big Mac's hooves together and let out three long tuts before appearing. "Now now, you're not a very polite guest are you? Just for that I'm going to torture you good and proper, and who knows maybe if you tell me the truth I'll make you a funny hat!" he said cackling all the time. He telekinetically lifted Big Mac and carried him upstairs and dropped him on the carpet of the main hall "Tell me," he said "how resistant are you to pain?" As if on cue a group of at least a dozen guard ponies walked into the room and surrounded Big Mac. "Because you're going to be feeling a lot of it in a moment." he smiled, and evil smile, he was definitely going to enjoy what he watched. Before Big Mac could so much as curse at Discord all of the guard ponies in the room began pummelling him, over and over they head-butted, bucked, hit and all over his body he felt overwhelming waves of pain as the guards laid into him as if they were making an attempt to beat him to death. At the end of the beating all of the guard ponies left the room and Big Mac had the metallic taste of blood in his mouth, he had to broken ribs and he was bruised so badly that he looked as if he was a tint away from being completely purple. Discord hopped towards him, clearly having a good time he said "Now I'm going to ask you a question, what happens to me in the future? Because if I'm defeated by something I'm going to be in a rather unpleasant mood and that'll mean I'll be wanting more fun with you. So go on, out with it." Big Mac shook his head slowly. "Very well then, oh by the way what exactly does your family do?" Discord smirked, suddenly Big Mac felt another stab of pain coming from the back of his head. He turned around to see who had thrown what at him and he saw around thirty apples floating in a circular formation, another of the fruits came flying towards him and because he was too weak to dodge it hit him clean in the jaw and soon all of the others followed. Discord was laughing crazily throughout all of it, the irony of the situation was not lost on him. Once there were no more apples to throw Discord slithered over to Big Mac once again and asked the same question "I haven't got all day, as much as I wish I did I have to ask you now. What happens in the future? Eventually I'll break one of you and who knows, maybe I'll track down this time travel contraption to go and look for myself, leaving you behind to be slaughtered by my guards. That is if you don't answer my question of course." Big Mac wasn't going to give in to this monster, he weakly lifted his head and raspily said the words "Screw you." as Discord chuckled again. "Maybe the third time will be the charm then, about time for some psychological torture wouldn't you agree?" he said as a cloud of smoke enveloped Big Mac. Big Mac looked around dazed and confused until the smoke cleared and... he was on Sweet Apple Acres. He could see across to the orchard where Applejack and Apple Bloom were bucking apples, well it was more like Applejack was bucking and Apple Bloom was moving buckets to where Applejack needed them. A smile spread across Big Mac's face as he walked over towards them. As he got close however their expressions turned to that of terror and their eyes widened in shock, Big Mac turned around to see what they were gazing at and was greeted by the site of the farm house up in flames. He could hear Granny Smith's terrified screams as Big Mac's blood turned to ice, then something caught his eye; a grey pony with black armour looks like one of Discords guards he thought wait a minute, Discord's guards couldn't be here in this time period, this is all in my head. Once the thought occurred to him it was impossible to shake, he knew this was an illusion now and we was turning around to tell his fake family he knew they weren't real, hoping that it would make this horrible illusion end, when he turned around he saw Applejack was impaled on the end of a Unicorn pony's horn. The streams of blood gushing from his sister's neck was enough to send the shock he'd gotten from Granny Smith into overdrive "No!" he screamed through streams of tears "This ain't real, none of this is real!" As the fake Apple Bloom tried to run away a Pegasus flew down and snatched her up, her screams getting more and more distant as she was carried up to just below the clouds and dropped. Big Mac saw his little sister's terrified form hit the floor and explode into rivers of blood and flesh, the sight of his entire family, fake or not being butchered like this caused him to crouch down and continue denying it to himself "It's not real," he whimpered "none of this is real." With that the smoke wall reappeared and he was back in the colour changing hall of Canterlot Castle, and he was greeted by the view of Discord still standing and still smiling exactly how he was before. "You know the question, give some answers." Discord said, getting bored of Big Mac now. "No, y'all can show me as many of those damn illusions as you want and I still won't tell y'all wanna know." Big Mac said sternly, Discord had really pissed him off now but in with that anger there was still the pain in his heart inflicted by what he'd witnessed. As if they'd been called in the guards marched and surrounded Big Mac "Take him to the dungeon and bring me the girl next, she'll break easy and I'm growing impatient." Discord growled at them. They vanished into the dungeon and re-emerged carrying Sugar Hooves by her hooves, they dropped her down and left the room, knowing that Discord would want to be alone to do this. "Ah, well well well, if it isn't the little brat with the brains of an Alicorn. I'm sure you can tell me what I'm looking for." he said in a very calm, soothing voice. When she shook her head, too terrified to speak his face grew dark "Now see here, I'm normally fun to be around but since you and your friends aren't telling me what I want I'm starting to assume there's something that I ought to hear about and I'm also assuming it has something to do with me, am I right?" Sugar remained completely silent. Discord smiled once again okay he thought I know how to put a good scare into naughty children. "You know what I'm gonna do don't you? I'm gonna take your big red friend and break every single bone in his body, I'm gonna take that lady you're travelling with and I'm going to get my guards to do things to her that her boyfriend hasn't even done to her yet and as for your grand daddy..." she looked disturbed, he noticed but nowhere near breaking "I'm gonna snap his neck and fling his body out of the window to show everyone and while I'm doing this little one, I'm going to make you watch." As Discord looked to see the results of his torment he heard a chuckle and a small, soft voice "Even if you do all of that, including killing grandfather I can guarantee you'll still lose." Sugar said, still chuckling. Discord fumed, children were always scared by threats to their friends and family, why wasn't she? No matter he thought "Take the brat back to the dungeon" he commanded as his guards re-entered the room "I'll see to the old man later, they've angered me enough for now." *** Back in the dungeon, all four of them sighing and Doctor Hooves had to admit that for simple ponies they could really hold out against Discord's attempts at torture. "We need to escape some how," Cheerilee said to them "because he will get the information out of one of us sooner or later and I'd rather be out of here before then." "I can help you with that," came a voice from the shadows. Out of the darkness stepped a young blue Uni... no she had wings to, it was an Alicorn, an Alicorn with a moon surrounded by black for her cutie mark. "Allow me to introduce myself, I am Princess Luna and I am here to help you all escape..."