//------------------------------// // Chapter 15: The Age of Bedlam 1/3 // Story: The Curse of Discord // by Creative Charmer //------------------------------// It seemed unreal. It...it just happened so fast...nobody could believe what they were seeing with their wide-eyed countenances. The one who called herself "Bedlam" stood upright, examining the fingers of her dragon and bear arms, all the while holding onto that same sinister smile that now seemed permanently glued onto her face. "...T—Twilight...?" Bedlam turned her head towards the soft-spoken Fluttershy, and now that their eyes had met, Fluttershy had actually become even more uneasy—and then Bedlam began to talk. "Oh, I'm sorry; Twilight isn't here at the moment," Bedlam bent over backwards as she spoke, eyes still locked with the disconcerted pegasus. "Please leave a message after the beep," Bedlam opened her mouth as the aforementioned "beep" was produced, her eyes flashing in conjunction with the sound. "Oh! Well...umm...if you could tell me where Twilight is, that'd be nice." "Message received!" Bedlam exclaimed, her eyes reverting to their normal, insane appearance as Bedlam stood upright again. "Let me just transfer your message over to Twilight so I can transfer her reply back to you, alrighty?" "Umm...okay; if you say so." "Fluttershy!" Rainbow exclaimed, surprising the pegasus. "She's just messing with you! She's not actually talking to Twilight!" The attention of the pegasi was swiftly drawn to Bedlam who had seemingly started talking to herself, saying things like "yep" and "mm-hmm" repeatedly. "It looks like she's given Twilight my message. Maybe now we'll hear back from her and see she's all right," Fluttershy said to Rainbow before turning her gaze back to Bedlam, not seeing Rainbow smack her hoof to her own face in aggravation. "Uh-huh...yeah...okay then—so! Twilight has just given me her response, and I'm happy to say she won't be coming back ever again!" Bedlam stated with a satisfied smile on her face. Fluttershy gave a sigh of relief, "Thank you; that's good to—excuse me??" "What's that? Need to hear it again? Might want to clean out your ears!" she shouts before poofing away, then reappearing a second later, only now smaller and sticking out of Fluttershy's ear. "Looks like you've got a bit of me blockage in here! she stated, following up with another one of her trademark chortles. Bedlam's tittering was ceased when she felt herself pulled out of the pegasus' ear by Rarity's magic, and the draconicorn was pulled right up in front of the cross unicorn's face. "Now see here, you foul creature! You listen now and you listen well! I do not know what it is you want with our friend Twilight, but I insist you stop using her body as your own puppet for harassing her friends and relinquish control of our friend's mind and body back to her at once!" Bedlam placed her hand to her chin and began cogitating Rarity's suggestion, so she could adequately formulate the appropriate response. "Hmmmmmmmmm—no." "No?? What do you mean 'no'??" "Please: allow me to put it in a way you'll apprehend," Bedlam poofs out of Rarity's grasp and reappears right next to her, now normal sized. Right when Rarity turns to look at her, Bedlam quickly withdrew a megaphone and yelled directly into Rarity's eardrum: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" Rarity was only able to hold her ground for mere moments before the amplified holler through the megaphone blew her away, slamming Rarity right into the others behind her who were also unfortunate enough to be caught in the path of the sonic bellow, with all being sent crashing into the wall next to the doorway and collapsing into a pile on one another afterwards. Bedlam poofed away the megaphone and surveyed the exiguous level of chaos induced by her doings. "Was that clear enough for you, my dear? Or do you need to make it even more clear?" she inquired, which garnered a profusion of "no"s from the pile-up of ponies. It still couldn't be believed by anyone that this had really happened: that Twilight could be overtaken by this malevolent being. She was here, but now she was gone..and Bedlam had taken her away—away from her friends; away from everyone she cared about, and everyone who cared about her... "Well, now that we've got all that squared away," Bedlam says as she creates a large black-lined square with her hands, following up by tossing it over to Spike who catches the two-dimensional object, which turns out to be heavier than it looks and ends up making Spike topple over onto the floor with a crash. "Howsabout we really get down to business...?" Bedlam said menacingly as she rubbed her hands together in a typical supervillain fashion. "Wha...what are you going to do...?" Fluttershy asked, overcome with pure, unadulterated fright. "Such a difficult choice; there's so much to do, but I haven't the faintest where I should start—oh, what's a girl to do?" she says as she leans backwards whilst placing the back of her hand to her forehead in an overly dramatic manner while using her other hand to fan herself with a fan she magically conjured up. "Here's a suggestion," Rainbow says as she pulls her way out of the pony pile. "How about you say your prayers, because in case you forgot, you're not the only draconequus around here!" Rainbow asserted as she motioned Bedlam to look over at Discord. "Oh; I see," Discord asked agitatedly. "You never want me around when you're all having fun, but when a super-powerful creature with near-limitless powers of destruction and chaos shows up, then I'm suddenly your best friend!" Discord turned his head away, simultaneously crossing his arms in an expression of contempt for the discourteous pegasus. "Now is not the time," Rainbow whispers irately into Discord's ear. "It never seems to be," he responds flatly, refusing to look the pony in the eye. "Come on, don't start this now!" "I think it's pretty clear who started it." Rainbow growled as she pulled at her bangs, and was just about to continue their contretemps when an odd sound entered her ears. She and Discord both looked over to see Bedlam sitting in a movie theater-style chair while eating out of a bucket of popcorn and watching Rainbow and Discord's argument. "Don't mind me! Keep going!" she requests before shoveling another talonful of popcorn into her gaping maw, the pegasus and draconequus staring back at her without a reaction to be had.