//------------------------------// // Prelude: War // Story: The Hatchling // by Dafaddah //------------------------------// In a blur of limbs Discord rolled to a stop, flat on his back. Through separate crenelations of the tower, an arm and a mismatched leg dangled high above the Everfree. Smoke rose from the parts of him not covered in scales. Sitting up, he began slapping the patches of his hide that were aflame. “Well, that might have been a tad bit less focused than I intended!” he remarked laconically. A nearby movement drew his attention. Twilight sat in a heap a short distance away. She stumbled as she tried to rise onto all fours. Looking down, her eyes grew wide with shock as she saw the smoking stump where her left foreleg used to be. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air. His usual sardonic grin died. My blast hit Twilight! he thought and groaned in disbelief. “But what about...” He jerked his gaze up to the sky. No! It’s still there! A black miasma swirled over the partially restored ruins of the Castle of the Two Sisters, casting a sinister shadow over the Everfree Forest as far as the eye could see. It continued to pulse and shower sickly green lightning onto the land below it. It was as if his beam of pure chaos hadn’t even touched it! All around the castle, large swaths of the Everfree burned where the green bolts of energy had previously struck. Ashes rose from the holocaust, feeding the hungry dark cloud above, while lightning set still more of the forest aflame. “It can’t be, Flutterbear!” he whispered. “I put everything I had in that blast. How could they just... shrug it off?” A voice echoed from within the cloud. Three pairs of disembodied eyes focused their evil glare on him. “Hah, ha, ha, ha, hah!” chortled the Chorus of Lost Souls.   The voice of Tirek spoke. “You were a fool then, Discord, to seek satisfaction outside of yourself. And you are only more the fool now!” The chorus laughed again, its three voices in dissonant union. “I was a fool to have listened to you once before, Tirek!” shouted Discord as he painfully arose. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” He crossed his arms over his smoking chest and tried not to cough. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw that Twilight had sunk to her haunches shivering, her face pale and her mouth open in a silent scream. Chrysalis’ voice spoke. “There is no point trying to distract us with your silly games, trickster. But we will enjoy tasting the sweetness of your despair, as you witness the final defeat of that miserable pony who has ruined so many of our plans.” A ball of green light appeared in the heart of the cloud and inflated rapidly in size. Discord’s heart felt like a lead weight in his chest.  He was going to fail her, and them. Again! This time it was Sombra’s voice that called out. “Look up, Twilight Sparkle, and prepare to face the doom you wished on all three of us!” It was as if hearing her name broke Twilight's paralysis. The mare shook her head and turned it towards the voice. Her eyes narrowed, and her face regained some of its color. She gritted her teeth. “You cannot thwart the power of Harmony for long,” she called out to the sky, her voice gaining in volume with every word. “In the end, you will fail!” she concluded with a snarl. “Enough words!”  the chorus shouted angrily. The ball of green energy suddenly compressed and surged towards the tower. Discord had watched the exchange, too drained to so much as cast an illusion. His worst nightmare had returned, paralysing both magic and thought. So he didn’t think. He acted. He shot towards Twilight, and pushed her out of the way just as the enormous energy discharge struck where she had stood. Fire enveloped him. His body arched and he howled as pain beyond any he had ever known coursed through every fiber of his being. A tiny corner of his mind watched as the energy blast consumed his material body from the outside in. His agony grew until finally it burnt itself away, leaving impressions of yellow and pink, butterflies and bunnies, and familiar kindness more pure and true than anything else he had ever known, a kindness so great it could forgive even his own greatest sin and claim the heart of chaos. That didn't hurt as much as having betrayed you, he thought, satisfied that this time, he had remained true to her and her friends. I love you! The thought echoed brightly in the fading remains of his consciousness. And then he died.