Chapter 2 - The Interrogation
Discord grunted in annoyance when the police stallions behind him electrocuted him once more on the behind due to his lack of walking faster. The prison keep was full of heartless criminals that the police had snatched up one by one, throwing them from the freedom of the city to the stone encasement of a cell.
Individuals walked around in their cells, murmuring words to themselves or to their imaginary friends; hiding in the shadows, rocking themselves back in forth in a fetus position, welcoming themselves to lonesome insanity. Some others, though, absorbed themselves in anger and hatred, sending hateful glares and death threats to those who walked by or are inhabiting the cells in front of beside them. Most individuals however begged for mercy; to be set free, saying how they shouldn't be there in the first place and how somepony else is to blame for their crimes.
Discord found it irritating to be put in the cells again, for he always hated the amount of noise that is emitted in it by prison mates, the looks many ponies gave, and most likely the reek of ponies who haven't bathed in ages. Yet, with one look at him, most of the ponies had already quieted down, frightened by Discord's appearance and height, the only exception to such was the ponies that were insane.
Rainbow Dash and Pansy escorted him to an empty cell that Discord always would inhabit. The cell was cemented and glowed unnaturally, showing Discord how it has a spell cast over the tiny closet sized cell. It had chalk marks on the walls, scribbled in lines in which to keep track of the days that have passed. There were dried blood stains on the walls and that of an unknown green substance growing in a corner of the cell.
Discord was nearly pushed into the cell, himself stumbling when Rainbow shoved him in.
"Well then, now I see why the prisoners here are so violent and hateful. You must sure be rubbing off on some stallions, Rainbow," Discord cheekily responded.
Rainbow Dash kept silent, only glaring on at the draconequus that stood in the other side of the cell as she began to lock it. Discord then turned to Pansy, raising an eyebrow at the emerald unicorn.
"So how long am I to be kept in imprisonment? Am I to be sent to an asylum? To be left for dead? To rot all on my lonesome while the world around me withers away?" Discord over dramatizes, choking himself sarcastically as Rainbow and Pansy stare at him in a bored like expression.
Discord then grabs at the bars in front of him and smushes his face into the bars.
"What will become of the damned draconequus!"
"Ugh, shut up will you? We don't know yet anyway so shut it," Rainbow Dash snarled.
"Besides, even if we knew, we couldn't tell you none the less without the judge's and chief's consent. Yet before anything happens, you'll be heading in about 5 hours to the interrogation room, where you will be interrogated by Chief Detective Sparkle", Pansy spoke in monotone.
"Ooohh, so Twilight Suckle will interrogate me, is that so? Let's see what she'll get out of me. That prissy alicorn is nothing but a stuck up if you ask me", Discord stuck his tongue out in disgust.
"Either way, it's going to happen whether you are to agree to it or not, Discord," Discord growled at Pansy after her statement.
He turned to sit forward towards the wall, his back to the two mares. Yet something didn't sit right in him. He felt as if something was missing.
'Is it my tooth?'
He used his serpent tongue to lick the sharp tooth that stood outside his mouth.
'Nooo... Is it my tail?'
He looked down poked at the red scaly snake tail that laid on the cold floor next to him.
'Is it my magic?'
Just as when he was about to snap his finger, pain came through his body in an instant, the shock collar around his neck glowing brightly with every pulse of pain it can send into his mismatched self.
"Ugh I hate this damn collar!"
Discord kicked at the wall in frustration. He could hear one of the mares snicker, making him even more agitated, annoyed and angered.
'Magic might be one, but it's something else. Like...a pony?'
He began to list the names of ponies he knew, very few in the least since he was very solitary and to himself most of the time. Most of them of course were officers that had always arrested him since day one.
He turned to the two mares dumbfounded, looking over them curiously.
"Hey, where's the chief? Thunderlane would usually come to arrests, especially, when my beautiful self is involved."
The mares widened their eyes, looking at each other hesitantly.
"Y-you don't know? T-the chief...he...he's-," Rainbow Dash started to sputter out, yet Pansy came forward and interrupted her.
"The chief is on an important business trip to Baltimare, and will not be back for several months. You don't need to know anything else other than that."
She glared at him with cold eyes, his eyes firing back as well. Discord rolled his eyes, spotting the chalk he had had last time he was in the cell underneath his metal bed.
"Whatever, I didn't really care much for the damned pegasus anyway. Always trying to corrupt me...so to hell with him," Discord drew one line on the wall, sucking in a breath of cold air.
Silence spread throughout the cell, Discord not even noticing that the two mares left him to himself. Yet he didn't mind. Not at all. He's always been a lonesome creature, always talking to his own reflections, for with his magic or imagination, could even talk back. In his mind he'd welcome to being alone, for that's when he could spread chaos for his own amusement. He could get lost in his own thoughts, his own little world where nothing could bother him whatsoever. And for that, Discord sat in silence, waiting to be called back to his horrid reality.
Fluttershy gazed up at the clock hesitantly, waiting for it to strike to five o'clock. She watched quietly as Twilight read over a few more details in the portfolio she had in her hooves, memorizing as much as she could in order to get even more information from the draconequus.
"Twilight? Are you sure this will work? I mean, b-by what you've t-told me, about...him, you make it so sure that h-he's difficult", Fluttershy stared at the ground, stuttering wile speaking.
"Don't worry, Fluttershy. I know what I probably said was kinda over exaggerated, but I know if I can't get to him, you will."
"B-but-"
"Flutters," Twilight softly smiled, "you don't need to be worried. We're at and we work in a police department. I'm sure if he were to pull any tricks the other officers would control him. Besides, he can't really do anything, mostly magic, with the Element Collar he's wearing."
Fluttershy looked at her curiously and confused, for she has never heard of such a shock collar.
"Element Collar?"
Twilight nodded in a gleeful way, excited to always explain something she knew to others.
"Yes, Element Collar. It's an interesting artifact that the elites in Canterlot invented, actually. The gems that surround the outside of the collar have a repel against chaotic and dark magic, so to whoever is wearing it cannot use their magic at all! So once we got a handle of it from my sister-in-law, I suggested that we use it on Discord."
"And what is to happen when that, um, user tries to use chaotic magic or any powers exactly?"
Twilight shrugged and replied nonchalantly, "It's the same as any shock collar. It senses when you're going to use magic and electrocutes you, except it's to an extreme. Luckily the only power Discord can use is his healing powers, but the Element Collar is the only way to prevent him from using most of his chaos against us."
The door to the shadowed room the two mares were seated in opened to show Pansy and Rainbow Dash walking in, followed by Roseluck, a light orange mare with a curly orange mane, and a light gold mare with a grayscale mane and deep fuchsia eyes.
Rainbow rose her head up to Fluttershy, immediately smiling at the sight of her kind friend.
"Flutters! Hey kid, I missed ya", Rainbow Dash friendly punched her shoulder teasingly, Fluttershy wrapping her in a warm embrace right after.
"You can have your sappy get-together later. Sparkle, the criminal is in the room", Pansy snapped.
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and sat down on a chair. She pushed a button, allowing the window in front of the remaining mares to lighten up and show the draconequus sitting in the chair, making faces at the window.
"The insane bastard can't take anything seriously can he", groaned the light orange pony, whose ID says 'Carrot Top'.
"I personally don't see why he can't belong in an asylum. He's nearly insane", Rainbow agreed.
Fluttershy just stared wide eyed at the creature. Now up close, she can see every little detail on the creature, from the tips of his horns to the red scales on his tail. His distorted body frightened her, yet she felt an allure to it. A wicked feeling that confused and frightened her even more.
Twilight entered the room, looking over at Discord with a confident expression.
"Do you think he'll even listen or focus for two seconds? That bastard barely pays attention to a simple law", Rainbow Dash muttered under breath.
"Dash, silence. We need to listen up, so keep all thoughts to yourself and only yourself", demanded the light gold pegasus.
Rainbow Dash nodded respectively. "Yes Chief Yearling, I mean Do. Sorry", Rainbow apologizes.
Twilight puts down the portfolio and opens it, pulling out a paper with text typed all over it. She slid it on the table so it was right in front of Discord, his eyebrows raised in curiosity.
"What do you know about the Shadowbolts Inc.?" Twilight gestured to the paper, the title written to be 'Shadowbolts Inc.' with symbols of purple tornadoes right under it.
"Getting right into it are we? Well, what is there to know? They're a company that sells dark magic to unicorns and those who can wield magic. Even pegasi and earth ponies can have control with it. Biggest illegal company in the market. What is there else to know?" Discord rolls wrist in the air for emphasis, difficult for him since he has cuffs on.
Twilight started walking from wall to wall, thinking of all the interrogation tactics that may work on the difficult prisoner.
"Well there are plenty more to know. I mean, by your status on your...", she pauses to look over at Discord,"...criminal expertise, you would be the better candidate to—at least—have a handful of their dark magic spells or potions."
Discord raises a bushy eyebrow, smirking at Twilight's outlook on the case.
"And do pray tell, if I were to gain access to such magic, how and what would I possibly gain from it? I can conjure anything from the tip of my own fingers-"
"Yet to an extent, must I interlude", Twilight interrupts.
"Why yes, of course! For not many magic bearers can produce as much chaotic magic as I can. But of course, no one can handle the magic I possess, for it is disharmonious and out-of-control. Especially fatal in the wrong hands. Or should I mean hooves."
Discord glanced over at Twilight.
"But still, why would I ever be so stupid enough to have the ownership of dark magic? I mean, to study even a little bit of it would be illegal. Don't you think so, Twily?"
Twilight glowered at him suspiciously.
"And what are you getting at exactly?" Twilight asked through closed teeth.
"Well, if I must say, that the highest degree of illegal activity would be to study the "illegal-ness" of dark magic. Don't those in Canterlot, especially the elite, have many a many of books that have the wills of dark possessions to cause even the weakest of ponies to become stronger than that of I?"
Discord clasped his hands together, a dark grin forming on his face.
"Are you to infer that I study and control dark magic just because of my class in society?" Twilight's pupils shrunk, a gasp escaping her lips.
She shook her head, for she knew Discord was trying to wrap his way into her head. To confuse the the interrogator rather then the interrogated. She slammed her hoof on the table.
"Don't get off topic, Discord. Who do you work for? How long has the company's shipments gone for? How many members are in the business? Who are in the business? How many shipments has there been? Who has gotten those shipments? What-"
And Twilight listed down hurriedly question after question. It all slurred and sounded like complete noise to Discord, yet he still kept a straight face, knowing of Twilight's little tactics to get him to talk. Surely not working at all.
"My, remember to breathe when you speak that quickly. You wouldn't want to die a sorry death now would you?" Discord spoke in the middle of Twilight's spiel.
Twilight's eyes twitched, her head aching. Why wasn't it working?
"Would you like me to go over your criminal record once more with you? Or would you like to tell me anything that would actually be useful, enough to get you off your sentence?"
"Ooooh, story time!"
Twilight opened up the portfolio that laid on the desk in front of Discord. The light in the room dimmed down in the room, the only light being projected is the magic emitting from Twilight's horn and the lamp that is nearly blinding Discord, yet he still kept a smug grin upon his face.
"You have arrested for the following felonies for past times: four attempts of bank robbery, six tries on disturbing the peace with chaos, another twelve tries with such; kidnap; selling things you've stolen, stealing things you have stolen before, injuring several ponies with magic outbursts, stealing multiple filly toys-", Discord snickered at that one, yet Twilight continued,"-kidnap once more, multiple cases of sex with prostitutes, and finally the case you've done now: murder."
Twilight slapped down the paper before flying up in the air and went with her face only a few centimeters in Discord's face.
"You're a sick, sick bastard."
Discord didn't reply, his smirk diminishing for only a few seconds before he grinned wildly in Twilight's direction.
"Oh, my dearest Twilight, I've been called much, much worse. And yet you only assume the worst. The only thing I've ever have done is disturb the peace. The rest are only filly play."
"You have done not only drugs, steal, and use others for amusement purposes, but also dark magic. You have forced magic spells on mares and colts to do your dirty greeds, even having the will power to go over and kill a mare in the process!"
Twilight knew she wasn't getting anywhere. Yet what could she do? All Discord was ever good for, for the police, was making them agitated, anxious, and frustrated; all three appearing to Twilight. And Discord knew that.
"Yet how would you know that was me? How would you know if any of those accusations was I? You ponies only assume the worst of criminals because you ponies don't have anywhere else to go, only to assume that beings who're different, who are not to belong, are to blame for these incidences. Just like your little brother, am I correct?"
Twilight's spine went cold, her body stiffing up. What is going on? How is he getting into her head like this?
Fluttershy kept on watching silently, the fur on her neck sticking up. She'd never seen Twilight become so agitated, frustrated, angry, and...vulnerable? She only heard tidbits of the conversation, and so far nothing is to be answered on the case at all. In truth be told, it seems that Discord had switched it off. By annoying Twilight, he had gotten and buried himself under her skin, allowing himself to wriggle his way into her thoughts and letting the little pieces she's gathered up fall apart.
And Fluttershy couldn't take it any longer.
"Get her out", Fluttershy ordered.
Rainbow's eyes widened, taking a glance at Fluttershy hesitantly.
"B-but Flutters-"
"Rainbow, you need to get her out now!" Fluttershy raised her voice, but only by a minimal. Yet enough to get the point across.
Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash looked over to Chief Do, waiting for approval. Once the the chief nodded, Rainbow left and went to open the door to the Interrogation Room.
The door opened, the light reaching up to the two inhabitants within the room. Twilight angrily blew air threw her nostrils, stomping her hoof on the concrete flooring. She narrowed her eyes at Discord, himself in return giving a sly grin.
Fluttershy grimaced at the amount of yelling and vulgar words Twilight spoke once they entered the viewing room, the pegasus quietly staring up at the monster that was seated in the other room.
How was she to get anything out of him now? Not even Twilight dealt with him. How could she deal with him?
The lavender alicorn sat down on the chair next to Fluttershy, a cup of heated coffee levitating next to her. She looked over at the shivering pegasus, her annoyance now turned to guilt.
"Fluttershy, I-I'm sorry. You didn't need to hear that. I... I was...", Twilight trailed off.
"I... I understand. He shouldn't of gone to far", assured Fluttershy, eyes glued onto the window.
The buttercream pegasus heard her name being called and stood up to face the chief.
"Chief, maybe Fluttershy shouldn't-" began Rainbow, yet Pansy interrupted her.
"Chief, if Twilight can't get anything out of the fiend in the other room, how in the world is 'she' to do so as well?"
Chief Do looked at Fluttershy expectantly, waiting for any sign of anticipation from her. Yet, just as she thought, Fluttershy stood up straighter and opened the door of the viewing room and left to the interrogation room door without a single sound to come from her mouth.
Fluttershy hates being pitied. Hates being put down, stooped to a lower level. Her trying to prover herself is one this that arrogantly came from her mother for certain.
But trying to prove of herself now is about the chance as finding a bag of hundred bits on the sidewalk. And she knew that. She may never have heard of such a creature of Discord, but seeing how Twilight handled him, she would probably be worse.
She sighed shakily, her eyes glued to the door.
'Just breathe. In and out. I-In and out.'
One the officer stallions opened the door for her and she walked through.
The door to the room opened, making Discord look up. His eyes glued to a beautiful mare in front of him on the other side of the table. He nearly gawked at the sight of her once more. It had been the mare he'd seen when entering the police station. And now that he has a closer look, she wasn't at all bad to look at, not at all.
She was a pegasus, with a coat the color of sweet buttercream and a long mane and tail of rose silk. Her teal eyes glowed radiantly, showing innocence and yet determination. She wasn't as thin as all the other mares he'd seen. She has a plump body, her white long sleeve blouse loose, her black skirt tight on her curved hips.
Discord didn't even hear her at first until she called his name once more. He coughed into his paw and sat up straighter, blinking his eyes twice. And once he got a sense of his surroundings, he decided to toy the mare.
"Hellooo hot stuff."
Fluttershy squeaked at Discord's choice of words, her body shaking at now being up close to the draconequus. She took another deep breath, trying to get her determination back into her system.
"Sir, if I could ask a couple of quick questions-"
"Discord," Discord interjected. "You may call me Discord."
Fluttershy paused and looked at Discord, the breath sucked out of her. She breathed out his name, the name itself causing her to shiver in uneasiness. She cleared her throat.
"Sir, as asked before, what do you know about the Shadowbolts Incorporation?"
"As said once before, my dear. I know as much information as you have received from the case at all."
Fluttershy then looked him straight dead in the eye. Right into his very soul. Discord felt a cold sweat run down his back, feeling her eyes dig deep into his head, having the complete silence and awkwardness of the situation unnerving to him. He jumped slightly when she stood up suddenly, grabbing at the portfolio and going her way towards to door.
"And to where, may I ask, are you going?" Discord asked, perplexed.
"Well, it's just what you have said. You have absolutely no detail of information of the business, so why should I waste my time with you if you have nothing to even offer?"
It was as if something spark inside of Discord, and he didn't like it. He couldn't keep a focus of whatever the feeling was, but it was mixed with the feelings of annoyance, confusion, shock and...interest? He's never had such feelings stir within him, but something about this mare intrigued him... Something he wouldn't like to find in the first place. So when she rounded to the statement of saying he was worthless to the case, well, he didn't take kindly to being told off for his arrogance.
"Are you calling me a lost cause? Is that it?" Discord hissed.
"No, all I stated was that it was no use to ask you easy little questions about a simple illegal business if you don't have answers to them. Never once have I called you a lost cause. But now that I were to think about it..." Fluttershy turned her head towards Discord, giving him a sly grin.
Discord's lips raised in a snarl. How dare she make fun of him? Didn't she know who he was?
"And do, pray tell; tell me of this information you speak of. What more information do you know that I don't?"
The portfolio was opened and tossed into his direction, various pictures and articles scattering all over the metal table.
"Stallions and mares alike work directly for the incorporation. Majority of them being unicorns, yet of course with the exception of the transporting ponies of the air, pegasi, and of the ground, earth ponies. Many of the members, numbers of which I can't say, are about close to the thousands in number. One thousand, maybe two-"
"Maybe about four hundred off the point at the first. And having the unicorns have most of the dirty work in magic is very magistist, don't you think? Zebras can also conjure up some spells from potions and concoctions. I mean look at me, I'm not no damn unicorn, now am I?"
"Oh, but I only assumed-"
"Assuming will get you no where, my dear", Discord replied. He was so distracted by her big teal eyes. He was entranced by them until he blinked away.
"Assuming is what makes us ponies. Alive. And assuming will get us to some of the answers we need in life. Which you had gladly have given me today", Fluttershy replied gleefully.
The door opened, two stallions in police uniforms coming in and grabbing at Discord. Yet Discord was too stunned to react. She didn't even try, and yet she still got a few smidgens of information from him. What effect did she have on him to do such a thing? All he did was stare into her teal eyes and...
He smirked at the buttercream pegasus, Fluttershy now crippling under his intense gaze.
"My, my, my. Looks like the sly fox was outsmarted. Whatever you did, it worked for now, my dear..." Discord inched closer to Fluttershy's face, now that the investigation was over and her determination was extinguished, shook and flinched by the closeness of their faces.
"But when I see you again, getting anything outta me would be even more difficult then getting anything out of your skirt."
The officers dragged him down the hall towards the cells once more. Fluttershy blindly looked onward at Discord, her pride and work now washed away by fright as he was whisked away. She may have done the job at hand, but at what cost on her?
The only thing registered in her mind in that moment, with everything and everyone blurred around her and Discord, is his masculine chuckle: low, dark, ominous, and chaotic.