An idyllic field sprawled across the infinite plane, golden wildflowers forming a vibrant ocean across the gently rolling hills. A lone tree sat within, the sound of drums distant on the air.
“No… not again...”
Hanging beneath the tree, however, was a lone harsh note in this slice of perfection. A sickly, tumorous chrysalis spinning idly in the balmy breeze. Upon it was a sleek white face, a purple membrane above a forehead furrowed with fury and fear.
At last, the procession had arrived. A marching band of living, plush toys emerged from seemingly nowhere, soon followed by a flock of pixies, bunny girls and cherubim the size of mosquitos. It was about the most delightful, flamboyant and inoffensive display imaginable…
...and he, Lord Frieza, hated every last detail of it.
Emperor of the Universe, living terror of the galaxy. So legendary, that not even death could stop him forever.
Yet here he was. Again.
If nothing else, he was without those thrice damned cybernetics keeping him together last time. The only trophy for his squandered second chance.
Nothing. He sought his revenge, and failed to drag a single one of his enemies back to Hell with him.
Four months of the most gruelling effort he had ever put into anything, to put his old foe in his place, and he had wasted it. He had seen his new form as a sign of providence. He had focused on Goku, and never suspected Vegeta had reached similar heights.
Between the pair of them, it made sense how calm they had seemed. Between the two of them, he had never held the upper hand… they just let him believe he had.
Damn them… a thousand times, damn them!
Vegeta had not been trying to get on his good side, he struck Goku to get his turn. They treated him, Lord Frieza, like some asinine swing to sit on. A toy to take turns with!
And his vengeance could never be… not now. Sorbet was gone, along with the rest of the motley brigade of ragtags posing as his Frieza Force. If any had still been loyal to him in the Universe, they would have assembled there. No one was going to gather the Dragonballs of Earth a second time. And from what he’d been told, once was the limit on resurrections.
The only hope was New Namek, for the insult its mere existence was. When Lord Frieza ended a world, that was the final word. Anything less was heretical.
This cycle of thoughts, sifting the facts for some hope to cling to… for some escape… That was the truest torment of all. His cage might have seemed one of mockery and irritation, but his… entourage would eventually abscond for a while. No, it was the waking, ceaseless nightmare of his own mindscape that played the real cage.
In fact, It was of such sinister design and effect that he couldn’t help but find himself impressed. Imagining Vegeta in his place would have delighted him so much, he might even shed a tear.
But Goku… the fool’s lamb-hearted nature, he’d almost certainly be joyously unburdened by thought, instead braying along with the pixies’ dulcet tones like a balm to the paucity that would be his existence.
But then, as the preposterous parade continued its march, an unfamiliar sound joined the chorus.
Frieza had been here a long time, and the monotony had never changed before. He knew all the revolting creatures and their airy voices by heart.
What he heard was not so unlike his tormentors, but he was certain it was none of them.
“Oh Discord, this place is just as wonderful as you said!”
Discord? That was a name, he was certain. None of his keepers ever bothered with labels. He was convinced they had none.
And his suspicions were founded. Another voice, in note as befitting the soundscape as his title, replied.
“It’s… eurgh,” Discord heaved, “a touch saccharin, for my taste.”
Frieza waited as the breeze twisted his cocoon to face the sound. Making their way forward were two of the most unlikely beasts.
The tall one, the serpentine chimera with its yellow eyes and lone snaggletooth, took a deep breath before spitting out a mouthful of sugarcubes. “But I’ll tolerate it if it makes you happy, Fluttershy.”
‘What fresh torment is this?’ Frieza wondered, inwardly half terrified. That his surroundings were altered made for an intriguing diversion, but in a way he took comfort in the devil he knew. Could whatever powers that held sway here have opted to change his punishment in light of his recent escape? Was this a mere addition to his Hell, or was this the canary to his coal mine, herald to a new one?
It would be fitting, as the yellow, fairyfloss-haired ruminant accompanying the bizarre creature seemed to possess wings.
“I think this,” the oddity said, before popping in and out of existence to the top of his tree, the corner of a checkered red and white blanket hanging overhead, “should do for an excellent spot, wouldn’t you agree?”
The nag giggled from her spot on the ground, unmoved… always with the damn giggling.
Frieza took note of his captors, and their response to these intruders. Indeed, the fey blankness that for them passed as confusion or interest took root solely in the tea party now in progress in the quaking violet canopy overhead. It seemed they were as unknown to each other as to him.
“Oh but Discord, how could we share with these flightless critters?” the one called ‘Fluttershy’ chided, currently being encircled by the teddy bears. “That wouldn’t be very fair.”
“Oh, when you’re right you’re right,” Discord conceded, snapping his fingers as one of the thousands of yellow flowers turned back into a massive checkered blossom, before exploding once more into their blanket and tea set. He then extracted himself from the teapot, as though removing himself from an ill-fitting pair of pants. With this same teapot, he filled the cup in Fluttershy’s hooves as she marveled at the wondrous creatures surrounding them in a swarm.
“Oh, I thought these were some kind of fireflies, but look! They’re like the breezies, but even tinier!”
“Angels, I believe,” Discord answered, suddenly wearing a beekeeper’s veil. Tilting his head back, he let his tea fall through the mesh and into his open mouth.
“Oh, this one has bunny ears!” Fluttershy laughed gaily. “Oh no offense, little miss. You see, I have a bunny whose name is angel! It’s a funny world, isn’t it?”
“Angels… bah!” Frieza seethed.
“Hmm?” Fluttershy intoned. “Did you say something Discord?”
“The wind, perhaps?” he replied, gorging on a cucumber sandwich.
“But it’s barely a murmur,” she argued, hoof held to the air.
Frieza’s teeth ground into each other, curiosity giving way to something he tolerated very little.
“Don’t ignore me, you unenviable ungulates!”
Frieza’s cocoon turned away from them by the time the pair looked over, but clearly they had heard the sound.
“That was definitely a voice!” Fluttershy declared, having caught the high-pitched growl. “Oh, we weren’t ignoring you, Mister… um…” She paused, considering. “...Sir. We just barely heard y—”
“If you’re playing dumb as an agency in my torment, you’ve done an exemplary job of it,” he commented. “But let’s say I play along for the time and indulge your ignorance.”
At last, the breeze turned him around in his pod, facing the pair.
“My name is Frieza. Lord Frieza, cosmic prince, son to the King Cold, now passed. Heir supreme to the very Universe, and single most powerful being therein.
“Feel free to tremble,” he added, closing his eyes, “Far greater have wept.”
There was silence as the tyrant smiled, unaware of the blank faces meeting his auspicious introduction.
“Oh,” Fluttershy said at last, “Nice to… meet you?”
“You’ll forgive me, of course,” Discord told him, “if I question what his most esteemed illustriousness is doing hung from a tree like a doused paper lantern. And I suppose you’d also forgive me for saying my position is far from unenviable. Why we were setting up for a nice meal in this little other-dimensional glade.”
“Indeed, I have eyes,” Frieza retorted. “Keener than you fragile things can understand.”
Discord ignored the boast. “Also, I take umbrage with being referred to as an ‘ungulate.’ ”
Discord’s left leg popped smartly off and began hopping in circles around him, as Frieza’s eyes cracked open to glare, nose up in a sneer.
“Only one of my limbs is hooved, you see.”
Frieza eyed the spectacle with what seemed legitimate surprise, as the leg reattached with a sparkling pop. “A fair point. I am something of an ‘expert’ in loss of limb, and while I’ve beheld rapid healing at least once before, it’s never been what one might call ‘casual.’
“Very well then, what would you call yourself exactly?”
Discord stood up, a lime green skirt materializing around his midsection as he gave a curtsy. “Discord, reformed Spirit of Chaos, at your service! And this is my dear friend and confidant, Fluttershy.”
“Hello!” she greeted, teacup nestled between her hooves.
“At my service indeed,” Frieza muttered, the ghost of a smile taking his innate paleness. “You made mention of other worlds. Tell me, do you know exactly where we are?”
Discord made a number of exasperated plosive sounds before taking a bite of his teacup. “Oh context is for the boring. All I take is a quick glimpse of a place and hope for the best. I do so love surprises!”
“So… you can leave this place when you wish. To anywhere?”
Fluttershy took a dainty sip. “Is there somewhere you need to go?”
Before Frieza could answer, Discord materialized by his side, the point of a claw lightly tapping the idly bobbing cocoon. “I believe your next line will be, ‘anywhere but here,’ wouldn’t it?”
Frieza stared at the draconequus with his cheshire smile. A vein in his sleek temple throbbed as he was gently prodded and bounced.
“What do you know?” he demanded as gently as he knew how.
“Oh, nothing you haven’t already told us,” Discord answered. “Gabbing on about your might and titles while so clearly held against your will. I’m more than a touch acquainted with such things.
“And unless you fancy gardening…” He began trimming Frieza’s tree with a previously absent pair of shears. “...I doubt ‘loss of limb’ speaks to the reputation of a benevolent ruler.”
Discord chuckled as Frieza’s expression soured. “‘Limb’, you see?!” he managed, pulling down a supple bit of branch before letting it whip back into place.
“Whatever you ask, you shall have in return,” Frieza promised. “The world doesn’t exist where I hold no sway! Free me, and you will be rewarded beyond the fevered depths of your reckonings.”
It was at this point that the steady swarm of tiny angels put their full attention to Discord, and slowly surrounded him, tiny agitated voices of dissent on the breeze.
Discord ignored them, but to snap his fingers as a great floating glass bulb drew their attention, hypnotized. They insisted on floating listlessly towards it as it hovered, bumping ineffectual into it with light tapping sounds.
“Well, if you so insist, then we have a deal!” Discord told the feared emperor, whose face had blanked.
“Y-you’ve made a wise choice, my friend! Very well then, name your price.”
Discord’s snaggletooth grin only widened. “I’ll free you on the condition that you undergo reformation therapy, courtesy of my friend Fluttershy here.”
The mare, who had been watching the exchange rather idly, was picked up beneath the shoulders and lifted before Frieza. “What?!” she squeaked, staring Frieza in the eye.
The lord’s eyebrows raised and knit simultaneously. “R… ‘Reformation?’ Do explain.”
“Well,” Discord said, dragging the word out and visibly trembling with excitement, “I would say it were under the condition that you abandon your evil ways. But knowing from experience how difficult it is to give it up—”
With a flash Discord appeared on Frieza’s branch above, as a pale blue, icicle-billed bird. “—cold turkey...” Discord let himself fall forward, talons still gripping the branch as he hung upside down, beside the dead despot he was eye to eye with.
Another flash left him standing in his usual form before Frieza, whose glistening teeth were slowly grinding with a force to erode mountains. “... I thought it might be better to wean you off over time.”
Between Frieza’s lilac lips, a glass baby nipple popped into being.
It hung limply as he registered this new imposition. ‘What fresh hell is this?’
Understanding, and a glare sharp enough to perform a heart transplant filled his features. More of his teeth showed as his eyes bulged, until the milky formula within began to bubble. The rubber end caught fire, and the glass itself turned red hot and lost its shape until the whole thing flopped onto the ground to sizzle into a lump on the grass.
“And what if I were to tell you,” Frieza shouted, vaguely wondering whether he preferred the halcyon hell over this active humiliation, “that your offer and company could languish in the blazes of the nearest sun?!”
“Oh that’s the spirit!” Discord guffawed, swiftly snipping the thread Frieza hung from with a gesture of his lion paw. He fell but a few inches before being caught in a magical field, floating beside them.
“What?! Keep your pestilential paws off me!”
Frieza felt a pang of terror in his outrage. Something primal, something beaten into him from years on this same branch.
Fluttershy eyed the pupa uncertainly. “He doesn’t seem to want to, Discord. Is it really okay to—”
Discord scoffed. “I don’t remember my reformation being a voluntary affair.”
“I don’t remember you refusing.”
What if this really was just a new twist in his punishment, disguised as a false hope for escape? Was it really better, the devil he knew?
Having hung and spun in that spot, with that same view for over a decade, seeing his perspective change as he moved freely through the air was surreal. Shocking, even.
Not even his revival had offered him a different experience of this place. He had simply appeared on Earth, horrifically bound to a body that was diced to pieces. It had been bewildering. Terrifying. He couldn’t even scream.
So once the time came, once his rescuers had him alive and whole again, he felt little conflict in spacing the weak simpleton among them who dared attempt belaying his revenge. Gratitude only went so far, and he gave it grudgingly.
“Fluttershy, take it from me,” Discord argued. “I only accepted because I was free to move as I wished, and I fully intended to make a mile out of that inch of trust and break free.”
As they spoke, the angels had broken from their revery to contest Frieza’s extrication. A hundred tiny voices, on the air, barely a whisper.
With barely a glance, a tiki torch appeared in Discord’s paw, and a single scrape of his claw against a tree branch left a flickering flame attached to it. He lit the torch, whose fumes forced the flittering fairies out like a forcefield. “I assure you, if I were in his position, I’d have opted to remain in stone too.”
The pegasus leered. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
Discord gave an exasperated cough of laughter as he turned his back to her, a face materializing in the back of his head.. “My point is, with the benefit of ‘hindsight,’ that opportunity may have ended differently than I intended… but better than I’d planned. I wouldn’t change a thing!”
Fluttershy stared, unsurprised and unamused as the rest of Discord’s body melded to face her. “So we should just force him because we think we know what’s best for him?”
“My dear dear friend, what prospects are left to him here? At least with us he has some opportunity for redemption. We’ll give it a trial run. A month perhaps! And if we’ve made no headway, we can return him here any time.”
“Well,” Fluttershy said, looking at Frieza’s bewildered face, “I suppose if he’s not going anywhere anyway...”
“Rrrright-o!” Discord cried, slashing the air without another word and opening a shimmering tear in reality.
“Wha… What is this?!” Frieza demanded, staring into the void. “You think you can fool me with this paper-thin charade?! Lord Frieza?! I know what this is, yet another layer in the brick and mortar of my incarceration!”
“Well drat, you’re too clever for us,” Discord droned, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I suppose that means you can stop us?”
Frieza’s teeth were on full display as he choked back his mounting fury. Before he could ultimately reply, the three were whisked away, the tear closing behind them.
The angels flitted to the space they vanished, in a panic-fueled tizzy. The teddy bears turned their button-eyes to each other, their instruments silent.
Finally, the crash of cymbals filled the air as one of them tried to break the tension.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Frieza found himself in the company of his new captors, staring around at his new Hell.
They were indoors, in the foyer of the warmest, coziest little home he had ever seen. And he had been invited (and not) into several in his time, often preceding its destruction, or a good old warning beating.
Everything was either cobblestone or finely lacquered oak, with furnishings right out of an old widow’s home. He would know, he’d produced several. And yet, it smelled halfway between a bed and breakfast, and a barn. Not helping was the presence of several indoor bird houses.
“How very… quaint.”
“Um… thank you?” Fluttershy said, sitting awkwardly as Discord looked around the ceiling for something.
“You’ve insulted and abducted the crown prince of the Universe itself,” Frieza retorted. “That’s the closest thing to a compliment you’re going to receive.”
“I’ll take it,” Fluttershy said, beaming.
“Ah, this will do splendidly!” Discord sighed at last, the thread of the cocoon affixing to the underside of a small hanging lantern by the window. “I’d have gone with a birdhouse, but they might have mistaken you for a convenient snack.”
“And you have such a nice view of Ponyville!” Fluttershy added, before she made a tiny gasp. “Oh, speaking of birds, I need to check on the chickens! It’s just about lunchtime!”
“And I’ve got a few cobwebs to hang up in my attic,” Discord said, summoning an ancient, filthy-looking broom onto his talon. “You two have fun now!”
Frieza nearly called after the two as they walked and warped off accordingly, but quickly thought better, instead savoring the newfound silence.
Or he did, until he heard an obnoxious patter somewhere below him. He looked down to find some verminous, long-eared rodent glaring up at him as though he’d been caught pilfering its pantry in the dead of night.
The sound was the steady tap of its long feet, as if in impatience, its stubby front paws crossed.
“And what precisely do you want?”