Author’s Note: I don’t own MLP or A:J
THE ORB’S DARK POWER.
“Red alert..” said the Spirit of Chaos just before he fell face first onto the table, everypony at the table either stood up with shocked exclamations or sat with their jaws hanging open.
“Discord?!” cried Fluttershy, leaping onto the table and going over to her friend, she turned the draconequus over and began to inspect his serpentine body for injuries.
She didn’t have to look long.
The Chaos god was so bruised she could barely see any of his original skin-tone, his paw, talon and lizard claw were covered in filthy bandages that, upon closer inspection, seemed to be made out of rags, his normally grey fur was matted and filthy, his goatee was gone and he smelled like mud and sweat.
Fluttershy gently lifted Discord’s head up and felt for a pulse.
“Well? Will he be alright?” asked Celestia, the concern in her voice bordering on fear.
Discord’s eyes opened, “Aw Tia, I didn’t know you actually cared.” he said in a raw and raspy voice that made him sound like he had recently contracted strep throat.
Celestia was about to give one of her usual “dealing-with-Discord’s-nonsense” retorts when she saw his eyes, the link between her mind and her brain regurgitated her witty repartee as “What the Hay happened to your eyes!?!”
Celestia clapped a hoof over her mouth the instant the words left her mouth, she blushed furiously, embarrassed by her sudden and severe lack of composure, and ashamed at how accusing her words sounded. Discord’s smile vanished and his ragged ears pinned back, “What do you mean?” asked Fluttershy, worry written on her face.
“Are his eyes… missing?” asked Alois.
“No” said Luna, who was now looking at Discord’s eyes with shock, “His eyes are… blue?”
“And that is an issue because…? asked Alois, feeling completely out of the Loop.
“His eyes are yellow and red.” said Luna.
“I’m. Right. Here.” said Discord, pouting like a 5 year-old whilst trying to avert his now baby-blue eyes.
“What’s the big deal?” asked Rainbow Dash, “ Couldn’t he be changing his eye color? He can shapeshift ‘n stuff, right?”, Celestia shook her head, “No, that’s one of the very few flaws he has, he can shapeshift, but his eyes and his tooth are always there, now that I think about it, that little flaw was integral to us defeating him- aaaand I am getting off topic. In short: No, Discord cannot change his eye color.”
Discord sighed and looked down, “I can tell you’re all just dying to know…” he turned and looked Celestia in the eye before continuing, “Do you remember the reason why you sent me away?”
Celestia’s jaw clenched before she replied in an even tone, “Yes: I wanted you to scout out other worlds so that we Equestrians could increase our knowledge of the universe.”
Discord scoffed, “So, in other words: you wanted to get rid of me.” he held up a paw just as Celestia was about to protest, “But that’s okay, because it doesn’t matter anymore, because I did find a new world. A world of creatures just like him.” here the draconequus pointed at Alois.
There were gasps from everypony at the table, Luna noticed that Alois was now leaning in to listen intently, “You found more Humans?” asked Celestia, sounding torn between interest and unease. Discord nodded, “Oh yes indeedy, my dear Sun-Butt. A whole world of hairless apes who ride ponies- sorry Horses, who also love to fight and say words that make me blush. They’re all quite a… chaotic race.”
“Soooo... does this mean that you’ve found a new vacation spot?” asked Rainbow Dash.
Discord shook his head, “I’m afraid not. They didn’t seem to deal in the kind of chaos that I deal in, I deal in the ‘turning ponies into rabbits and making it rain chocolate milk’ kinda chaos, the humans are more like ‘Kill lots of people, mate, gain power through lies and murder, spread plagues on purpose and wear silly hats’.”
Alois flinched as if struck, but he didn’t say anything to defend his world, Discord was right about his race: they really were quite chaotic and-
“So what you said really was true..” said Fluttershy, Alois could hear the sadness in her voice; it was a painful thing to hear.
“It is.” he said after swallowing to wet his suddenly-dry throat, “My species has…. quite the bloody history.”
“I’ll say.” said Discord with absolutely no mirth in his voice, “Could you even go to the market without getting pummeled?”
Celestia loudly cleared her throat, sparing Alois from answering, “Discord, I know that you’re a bit frazzled, but-”
“Oh, a bit frazzled? My dear Sun-Butt I am so far beyond anything even remotely resembling frazzled, I am angry!” he bellowed this last part and slammed his paw into the table, knocking a chunk of the marble loose with a deafening CRACK!!
Fluttershy was more than a little shocked, she had seen the Chaos Spirit get frustrated before, especially when he had failed to corrupt her during their first encounter, looking back on it, it was a bit funny how annoyed he had been with her, she had always liked to think that his failure at corrupting her was a prequel to her being the one who was chosen to reform him.
But she had never seen him actually angry before, plus there was the fact that Discord, the Spirit of Chaos itself, had found a type of chaos that he didn't like was a very disconcerting thought.
“I was trapped in that-that damned place for over a month, something took my powers AND my eyes and just left me to rot in some dark, cold dungeon! After I got out I had to go slithering around in the garbage like a snake, Celestia, do you know how utterly humiliating that was?!” shouted Discord, his paw and talon clenched so hard that the knuckles were white.
A deafening silence fell upon the room, making it feel to Alois like he was at a funeral, the words that Discord had said made his mind reel, Something took his eyes? He mentioned being in a dark dungeon AND he was the one talking to me in my head, coupled with the fact that Trixie dreamed about Malo in connection to the burning of Neighagra Falls leads to an obvious conclusion, but I need to confirm my theory. Alois looked at the spot where he guessed Discord was and asked, “What took your eyes?”,
“Some giggling monster with a seriously nasty bite.” said Discord, appraising the human with his replacement eyes. Alois’s face sagged and he placed a bony hand to his brow, “No…” he muttered as he withdrew his hand and began to rock back and forth, “Not him… please not him…” he whimpered, Discord raised a brow.
“Why are you acting like this all of a sudden?” asked Rainbow Dash, “Didn't you know that it was Malo?”
Discord was about to add his own comment when he smelled it: the sour stink or carrion, the metallic sting of blood and the fiery burn of potent dark magic, the draconequus turned his head and saw the Orb lying not five feet from the human, Why didn't anypony notice it before? he thought, it took him barely a millisecond before the obvious answer came to him, It didn't WANT to be seen, oh sweet Faust just how powerful is this thing?!
The Orb was emitting a soft red light that seemed to move and undulate in unnatural ways: almost as if the Orb was changing shapes or even growing. As Discord watched the Orb began to slowly roll forwards towards Alois, who was now whimpering like a whipped dog, Yeah, I definitely don’t like where this is going. Quick as a whip Discord snatched up the Orb before it could get any closer to the human, the unnatural artifacts impossibly rough surface immediately scratching his palm and drawing blood.
“Discord…. what is that thing?” asked Celestia, who was now looking at it with an uneasy expression.
“It’s the thing that took me back here,” explained Discord “it’s some kind of arcane thing that I found in the mansion. It’s power is incredible.”
“And unnatural.” said Luna, who was looking slightly ill, “Sister, cans’t thou feel it? It feels almost like… like it is watching our every move, what ever this loathsome thing is, it seems to emit a powerful darkness the likes of which I have not ever felt before.”
“I can feel it, too.” said Twilight, pinning her ears back.
“As can I.” said Rarity.
There was a pained gasp from the left of the table, Trixie was clutching her horn and her entire body was shivering violently, “I-I can f-feel it too.” she said in a strained voice, “It feels so… so powerful I can’t-” a single rivulet of blood trickled out from her nose, staining her blue fur red, Fluttershy and Twilight both let out gasps, Trixie wavered and then fell forwards, Twilight just barely managed to catch her.
Fluttershy went over and laid a hoof on Trixie’s head, “She’s burning up.” she said, looking at her friend with tears in her eyes.
“Discord, get that thing out of my throne room and dispose of it!” shouted Celestia, Discord nodded and slithered upright, he had just started to turn to leave when the Orb went from icy to white hot, Discord yelped and dropped the accursed object.
The instant the Orb hit the table all Tartarus broke loose.
There was a sound like a tornado and the ground shook, a shockwave of ice-cold air engulfed the room, bringing with it the smell of dusty death and rancid vanilla, the Orb levitated off the table and began to spin, the crimson light grew brighter and brighter, until it had eclipsed all other light in the room, the shadows lengthened in ways that couldn't be logically described and then they began to separate, splintering off and forming new shapes.
Celestia and Luna charged their horns, but the twin lights seemed much dimmer than usual, Discord grabbed a hold of Fluttershy and floated to the two sisters, Alois backed up, feeling for any of his friends and feeling a surge of relief when his hand brushed Applejack’s hat, Rainbow Dash and elected to carry Trixie as far away from the shadows as possible while Twilight and Rarity moved next to the princesses and charged their horns as well.
One of the shadows, which was shaped somewhat like a rather large bat, cascaded over the table and onto the floor as smoothly as an oil slick, it headed towards them with surprising speed, when it was close enough Luna fired at the shadow, she expected it to wither away, or to turn into mist, she even imagined it splitting into more, smaller shadows, she most certainly didn't expect the shadow to peel itself off of the floor and fly right at her.
Luna backed away as the shadow-bat swooped down at her, it arched its two-dimensional back and revealed an underside that was dominated by a single, vertical mouth filled with silvery fangs, time seemed to slow down for Luna as she watched the mouth open wide, revealing a writhing mass of shadows, Perfect timing. thought Luna with a smirk as she fired a bolt of energy that flew down the shadow-bat’s throat and erupted out the back, the shadow-bat disintegrated into nothingness.
Luna’s brief feeling of relief at seeing the beast destroyed vanished as several more shadow-bats erupted from the pool of darkness, Luna blasted them as they whirled around her, in the old days, before she became Nightmare Moon she had prided herself on her speed during combat, she had worked on maintaining her speed and stamina when she returned from the Moon, but there were too many of them.
She cried out as she felt a set of tiny fangs tear into her lower back, followed by another, then two more, she teleported in an attempt to rid herself of the shadowy creatures, but they clung to her like ticks.
“Luna!” cried Celestia, she lowered her horn and cast a sheet of light over her sister, the light caused the shadow-bats to disintegrate, though they were destroyed the damage that they inflicted had been done, Luna’s legs folded and she slumped to the floor, breathing heavily and leaking blood from several nasty-looking bite wounds.
Celestia turned and looked at the torrent of shadows with pure rage behind her eyes, raining herself to her full height she shouted, in her Royal Canterlot Voice, “ I WILL NOT LOSE MY SISTER AGAIN!!!”
Then she lowered her horn and a beam of white fire shot out, the fire roiled and cascaded over the shadows like water, burning them to nothing and pushing the rest of the shadows back until they had been reduced to nearly a third of their original size, Twilight moved next to her teacher and added her own magic to the blast, trapping the rest of the shadows in a massive, purple bubble and allowing Celestia to finish the remaining shadows off.
In their death throes the shadows gave one last surge that destroyed the shield and sent several small, sharpened pieces of what would later be identified as hardened shadow, much like the crystals used by King Sombra.
Most of the pieces were harmless and only caused a few minor scratches, but they were scratches that would throb with pain well after they should’ve healed.
Celestia turned away and trotted to her sister, Luna was lying on her side, her breathing was normal, but her fur was soaked with sweat, Fluttershy was tending to her wounds and looking at the princess of the night with eyes full of concern.
“Well? How is she?” asked Celestia impatiently, Fluttershy sighed and looked up at the solar princess, “She has a fever, which isn’t normal, fevers usually don’t develop this fast, which means that she’s been-”
“Poisoned.” finished Celestia in a horrified voice, she got closer to her sister and knelt by her head, Luna’s face was scrunched up in agony and she was whimpering in a way that broke Celestia’s heart to hear, the sounds reminded her of Luna’s cries in the night shortly after she had been cleansed of Nightmare Moon’s influence; those nights had been some of the longest nights of her immortal life.
“Oh, sister.” said Celestia sadly, leaning down to nuzzle her sister’s flushed face, Luna moaned low in her throat before giving a small cough.
As Celestia began to levitate her sister to the infirmary Fluttershy noticed Alois sitting with his back to the group, she began to approach him, “Alois?” she called, “Are you alright?”
As if in answer to her the human coughed violently and doubled over, clutching at his stomach, Fluttershy hasped and ran to him, when she turned him towards her so that she could check to see if he was poisoned as well she nearly screamed: Alois’ pale skin was covered in a latticework of fine, black veins that raced from the corners of his lips, his nostrils and his eye sockets, which were now uncovered, Fluttershy watched with horror as the veins twisted and slithered beneath his skin.
“Heeelllpppp…. Meeeee…” said Alois, he doubled over in a coughing fit and Fluttershy felt her heart stop when she saw the tiny droplets of red sprinkle across his upturned palm.
Then Alois fell in a heap and kept on coughing, Fluttershy turned and screamed for help, within seconds Rarity and Twilight had raced to where they were and enveloped him in their combined magical auras. They lifted him off the ground and took him to the infirmary.
Nopony noticed the single shadow that slithered out from a corner and writhed its way out a nearby window.