//------------------------------// // Getting Drunk and Making Friends // Story: Chaos Incorporated // by DontTreadOnMe777777 //------------------------------// “Ricky.” Ricky had finally left the meeting and was now digging into some of the food in the dining room of the giant temple, before Discord, much to Ricky’s annoyance, interrupted the filling of his starved stomach. “What is it now?” He turned around in his seat, to face Discord, who was towering over him. “I have something for you,” Discord started, but was cut off by Ricky. “Sweet! What is it!?” “I wasn’t done,” Discord said, slightly annoyed, “First, however, you need to do three things. A: You need to actually listen to the lecture I give when I give you it, 2: You need to find some worthy subjects before you get it, and D: You need to make some friends among our members.” Ricky sighed. “Right now?” “Yes,” was the reply. Ricky sighed again. “Fine.” Directing his attention back to the food arrayed on the table, he said a solemn vow. “I will return for you, sometime.” That all done, he turned back to Discord. “Where is everybody?” “Sombra and Tirek are playing chess, and Chrysalis is outside.” “Ok, I’ll hit the group first,” Ricky decided. He stood up from the table, slowly sauntering out of the banquet hall. He guessed that the best place to start looking was back at the meeting room, and he was not disappointed. Tirek sat on one side of the narrow middle of the table, while Sombra sat with his back to Ricky, hunched and focused on his pieces. Tirek noticed him, waving him over with a slight movement of his hand, and Ricky complied, mostly out of fear induced by the memories of Tirek in his prime. He pulled another chair up, next to Sombra. Sombra nodded curtly before returning his attention to the game. Sombra was currently winning, yet not by much, with one of his white bishops, both of his knights, and most of his pawns laying of Tirek's side of the board. It was still a formidable force though, and easily capable of checkmating the old centaur. Tirek's force was considerably smaller, but even more powerful, having retained his black bishops and his rooks, along with the queen. As the game went on in silence, Ricky noticed that Sombra would play his pieces in a way to be a juggernaut, steamrolling everything in his path. But, his every move was calculated, like a smart Goliath fighting against David. Tirek, by comparison, played like a lightweight in a boxing ring. He used his pieces' mobility to get in lightning strikes on Sombra, before pulling back before his pieces could be killed. He was waging blitzkrieg on a chessboard. Finally, Sombra put his best man, or girl, in this case, into the fray, moving forward his queen into a commanding position on his right side of the board. It also was the perfect position to get to Tirek's king, as Sombra quickly stated. "Check." Tirek had two choices to break the check: A: move his king, or 2: move his queen to the side in order to block Sombra's path. Thinking for a minute, Tirek made his choice. He moved his king over more to the right, as his left was blocked. He had not done the castling maneuver earlier, leaving him almost entirely defenseless. Sombra saw the opportunity and exploited it fully, bringing in a rook to reinforce his queen, as well as to get another "Check." Only one move remained for Tirek. He had to move his king again. His queen and rooks, a carefully coveted reserve for Tirek, were now too far away to do anything effective. Moving even further to the right, Tirek backed himself into a corner. Sombra was in control now. Moving his queen again, he sprung the trap. "Checkmate." Tirek didn't respond at first, staring at the board. Finally, he stuck out his hand across the board, which Sombra shook with his own black, shadowy hoof. "The last time someone beat me at chess was almost 100 years ago. Some pony came in, talking the talk. Turned out that he also walked the walk. Good game," Tirek said, remembering past memories. "You too," Sombra said, a small smile on his face. It was then that Ricky spoke, as Tirek stood from the table to leave. "You know, I've never seen a king like you, Sombra." "Oh? Do explain, Ricky," Sombra said, beginning to clean up the pieces from the game. "Only legendary kings of old could be so gracious, so easygoing, and so courteous. Most kings - or princesses, for that matter, - are stuck up, only looking after their own agenda, and always quietly scheming to better their own position.” Sombra laughed a bit at Ricky’s obvious jab at the princesses, before settling back into his chair. “Thanks, Ricky. You really don’t know how much that means to me. But it comes with practice. I’ve been exiled for, oh, 1,000 years, give or take.” Sombra said thankfully. “Oh, god, that’s gotta suck. I’m sorry. What happened?” “Well, part of it is because I was partially a “tyrant”, according to the Princesses, and the other half was because…” Sombra’s explanation was suddenly cut off as Discord appeared next to us. “Heard you beat Tirek at chess. Didn’t think he was serious, until now.” Discord stated, before he patted Sombra on the back. Sombra just stood there, just thinking, before he smiled. “Thanks. It wasn’t easy, I’ll say that.” “Well, Ricky and I have to scram for a minute, so see ya later,” Discord said, pulling Ricky along with him. Sombra smiled and waved goodbye to Ricky. He knew in that instant, that they were already friends. Discord led him back to the main hall, before turning around and giving Ricky a positively beaming grin. “Good job! I could tell as soon as you walked in,” he added. “One down, two to go,” Ricky muttered, before setting off again. His target this time: Tirek. It took a considerably longer amount of time to find Tirek, mostly due to the fact that the first room did not contain him, thus, Ricky had to go and actually look around the hall and its adjacent rooms for the elusive cloaked centaur. He finally found him just where he himself wanted to be: the dining room. Tirek sat on one of the benches, sipping on a cup of tea held by a saucer, surrounded in a faint orange glow. ‘Wait, there it is again! That glow! Actually, there was a red one when Sombra was playing chess, too!” Ricky walked up to the bench across from Tirek, saying “Is this spot taken?” Tirek simply shook his head. Ricky took his spot across from the centaur, grabbing some bread, before getting up again. “Where’s the damn liquor cabinet?” He thought aloud, before a clunking diverted his attention back to Tirek. To his surprise, there was a bottle of Seagram’s Gin and two glasses floating next to him, also enclosed in that orange aura. Ricky slowly sat back down, grabbing the bottle of gin and one of the glasses out of the air, making the orange glow disappear, before pouring himself a glass. “What exactly is that orange glow thing?” “Magic.” That was all Ricky got. “Really?” “Yes. It usually picks a color similar to its owner, like my orange, for instance, or Sombra’s red, or Chrysalis’ green. it helps us do many things, like fight, teleport, levitate things, just to name a few,” Tirek explained, to which he got a slow nod from Ricky. “What about Discord? From what I can tell, he has… magic too,” Ricky asked as he took a swig of his gin. “He doesn’t have a way to actually manifest his magic, like my horns, or Sombra and Chrysalis’ horns. He just wills things into existence, being a god and all.” “Ah, I get it now. Anyways, what kinds of magic are there exactly?” “Well, there’s normal magic, like mine, then there’s Chaos magic, of which Discord is the sole wielder. There’s also a taboo kind of magic, called runic magic, using runes. That is useful for people like zebras, as they have no innate magic.” Tirek listed off the kinds of magic, while Ricky smiled. He was finally getting some useful information from one of his collegues. “Thanks. That helps a lot for someone with no knowledge of magic,” Ricky thanked Tirek. “In fact, I propose a toast. To your wisdom, and, hopefully, our friendship!” Ricky said, holding up his gin glass. Tirek just sat there for a minute, before his magic enveloped his glass, lifting it up to meet Ricky’s. “I can toast to that. To both of those,” he amended. The two glasses clinked, and then Ricky chugged another third of his gin, before slamming it back down onto the table. Two Hours Later… “So, they ask, “What is it, oh mighty Tirek?” And I says, “I need to remove some things from your house,” and they say, “Oh, thank you for letting us live, oh mighty Tirek!” And then, right, I said, “Who said that? The things I want to remove are you and your family!” Raucous peals of laughter echoed throughout the dining hall, caused by two very drunk figures. Ricky poured his 5th glass of gin - he had lost count after 3 - and downed half of it immediately. “Hey, though, promise me one thing.” Ricky said, as serious as he could be, as drunk as he was. “What is it, oh mighty Ricky?” Tirek responded, which sent the two back into laughter fits, before Ricky regained his wits enough to speak without laughing. “I want you to swear to me that we’ll always be friends,” Ricky said, before taking another gulp of Seagram’s. “I swear to you on Celestia that…” Tirek started, before being cut off by Ricky. “Don’t swear on that evil creature, else I might not take it seriously,” Ricky laughed, soon joined by Tirek. “Okay, okay,” Tirek said, calming down again, “I swear on my life that we’ll be friends forever!” A clink of the two glasses sealed it, and Ricky and Tirek both downed their glasses. A sudden sound of slamming doors grabben their attention, and, through their drunken haze, both of them could see a fuming Discord, glaring at them with narrowed eyes. With a snap of his fingers, the gin was gone, much to Ricky’s anger. “Oi, mate! That was mine! Why, in God’s good name, would you rob a man of his liquor?” Ricky complained, just to be ignored by Discord, who was in no mood to play games. “I’ve been looking for you for almost two hours now! And, of course, I find you drunk as all hell, downing gin like it’s water!” Discord ranted. Unfortunately, Ricky had already zoned, not listening anymore. Discord, quickly realizing this, simply grabbed Ricky’s ear and pulled him off the bench and into the hall, leaving behind a very wasted Tirek. Once in the hall, Discord snapped his fingers again. Instantly, Ricky’s eyes refocused, and his brain was able to think again. “Woah! What the hell?! What did you just do?!” Rcky said, confused and slightly panicked. “I just got rid of all of the effects of your liberal dose of gin, including the later hangover.” Discord said, irritated. “Now, I expect that…” he started a lecture, only to get interrupted. “Dude, it’s fine. I made Tirek swear on his own life that we’d be friends forever, so that’s done,” Ricky tried to calm Discord down. Thankfully, it seemed to work, as Discord finally dropped his glare. “Well, that’s good. I don’t think that Tirek’s ever broken a promise when he swore on it.” Discord said, sounding relieved. “Well, one more. Chrysalis.” Ricky said, resolved to his task. Discord pointed down the hall, out towards the entrance. Ricky began to walk down the hall, beginning to look at the slightly worn marble. Finally, he reached the main door, stopping to prepare himself before shoving them open. Chrysalis sat outside, just on the front porch of the building. She didn’t even seem to notice Ricky until he sat down just next to her. Only then did she even send a quick glance at him. Ricky sat down next to her. He knew that this one was going to be the hardest, as Chrysalis seemed to just… well, she represented Hatred. Not exactly the kind of person to make friends with easily. ‘If only I had my gin, this would be way easier,’ Ricky lamented. “Hey. What’cha doin’ out here?” Ricky asked. “Sitting. What are you doing out here?” Chrysalis retorted. Ricky cringed silghtly at the tone in her voice. This was definitely not going to be easy. “Well, I’ve been sent on a challenging quest for our greater good. Make friends with you.” Ricky said sarcastically, ignoring the glare he received from Chrysalis. “Thanks.” Chrysalis shot right back. “Honestly, what did you expect from the person whose defining trait is Hatred?” “I dunno, at least a bit of hospitality? Maybe?” Ricky said. Chrysalis sighed deeply. “Sorry, it’s just that being nice isn’t one of my things.” “It’s fine, I understand.” Ricky comforted her, and Chrysalis gave the barest hint of a smile. “Well, in that case, I guess I can speak my mind. This whole talk has the same bad vibe like I felt back in that one campaign against the zebras in ‘93. Didn’t even know they were there, just felt them.” “Wait, you’ve led armies before? Like, in battle?” Ricky asked, intrigued by Chrysalis’ past now. “Well, duh! I’m the leader of the most hated nation in the world. I’ve led armies more than anyone else on this planet. In fact, I’m the only one of our group that has led armies.” Chrysalis stated, like it was obvious, which it was to an extent. “Well, your knowledge and expertise will certainly prove useful later when we break out of here. You’re probably going to be the most valuable asset to me later.” Chrysalis blushed slightly at all of the praise that Ricky was showering her with. Before either of them could say anything else, a flash was suddenly going off to their right, and they both turned to see Discord standing there, a small smirk on his face as he glanced over the two. “Well, Ricky, it seems like you’ve done it. Let’s go and get your new toy. You’ll need it later,” he said. Ricky sat up off the porch, giving a small nod to Chrysalis before turning around to follow Discord back through the giant doors that marked the entrance to the… temple, basically. He was nervous, but he was also ready. Whatever Discord was about to give him would probably be crucial later. After all, it wasn’t a question of if they got out, it was when… Meanwhile in Canterlot… “Now that that’s done, we can relax once again, my dear sister,” was what Celestia had said right after the portal to Tartarus had been closed. But right now, standing on the veranda of the tallest tower in Canterlot, Princess Luna was far from relaxed. All she could see in her head was the expression on Ricky’s face as he finally broke down, and his words kept bouncing around her head like balls in a pinball machine. She sighed deeply as she finished replaying the scene in her head for the umpteenth time that night. ‘Something’s not right here. We’re missing some information in this, or else I wouldn’t feel this much guilt,’ Luna thought. Staring out upon the stars that she husbanded, she came to a very crucial resolution. ‘The next time he’s on Equestria, I’ll go into his dreams and memories. I’ve got to figure this out the next time he’s among the land of the living,’ she decided. After all, she thought while gazing out at the splendor of a peaceful nighttime Equestria, it wasn’t a question of if he broke out, but when...