The ferocious dragon flying overhead nearly caused Fluttershy to wet herself. She cried out, hiding behind a tree once the beast let out a terrible roar, its power stretching across the burning wasteland. Trying her best to take in a breath, graciously coughing out the smoke that infested the air, Fluttershy exited from her covering, taking in every last bit of her surroundings.
Fluttershy gasped, and then coughed out more horribly than before.
The outline of the flying beast from earlier was slowly vanishing away, its form lost within the burning ash and clouds of darkness. What was left was a world for one pony to fully discover, with not a life left for her to find, but the aftermath laid out before her very eyes. Standing alone, on the edge of the world, Fluttershy stood in what remained.
Ash fell like snow. Smoke was the air. Fire and darkness plagued the clouds. Beasts beyond imagination were crying their terrible cries across the vast, open world. Mountains sat in the distance, their tips erupting flames of pure fire into the polluted skylines. For all she was worth, Fluttershy could only stare into the fire, her eyes burning, her voice strained and breath lost, for she was staring into what remained of her home and all her friends. Ponyville.
What remained.
Ash. Fire and ash.
And in the center of it all, hanging just a few miles beneath the swirling and burning vortex infected across the heavens was a throne encased in gold and jewels.
Her eyes lingered for the briefest of moments on the hovering throne, breaking off only a second to turn towards the direction of the trail she was on. It was so familiar. It was like rekindling past experiences, returning to a time where she wasn’t shivering in a cave, scared for her life as the red-eyed woman approached her. And then losing it all as her whole world faded to red.
The path she stood on led to her home, her little cottage on top of the hill.
She followed its twists and turns, arriving shortly and casting all fear aside for the flying beast that could be circling over her head with every step she took. That fear didn’t last; for how could it? When Fluttershy arrived to her humble abode, she arrived only to what remained.
What remained.
No power on Equus could hold back her cries.
She instantly fell down, hooves planted against the dirt as she resisted every shred of her being to vomit her guts all across the ash-covered dirt. Tears welded within her eyes, already streaming down her cheeks and falling to their fate below. She gasped, coughing out whimpers and mutters of incomprehensible loss and pain.
Her hoof tenderly graced the lifeless form of Angel Bunny. His white fur was dotted with ash and blood marks, his eyes that once held life now closed, never to open again. Fluttershy shut her eyes, forcing her mind to be rid of the chaos, rid of the death and terrifying images that were soon to follow. Beyond her mind’s control, she looked onwards, upwards to her cottage.
A trail of lifeless critters lined the road, the bridge, the twists and curves that led to her burning cottage, its form broken with wood scattered amongst the critters. The Pegasus fell to the dirt, crying her heart out for all the critters she failed to save, for all the lives that were lost due to the tragedy she knew not of. For everything in the world that was left for her to discover.
She lifted her tear-stricken face, noticing something lying a few inches in front of her.
It was picture of her and Discord, lying amongst the ruins, its frame still held strong despite the conditions it was forever trapped in. Fluttershy composed herself, taking notice of the smiles the two shared. It gave her comfort, a tiny shred of hope in a dying world she came to know.
A hope shattered by a cloven hoof cracking the picture in two, separating pony and draconequus.
Fluttershy’s shaken form slowly turned upwards, her eyes landing on the towering form of the one and only Discord. Her friend. He stood unperturbed, unaffected by the world and the fire burning all that was. No, to her surprise, Discord inhaled through his nostrils, exhaling a great gust of relief.
“A nice touch, wouldn’t you agree?” Discord quipped, twisting his slithering neck over to the fiery pits of Ponyville. Fluttershy followed his actions, growing more and more concerned with every word he offered.
“I personally went against the whole ‘apocalyptic inferno’, but Ultron simply insisted on it!” Discord slithered across the smoke-filled air, holding his arms out to burning vortex, to the hovering throne, to the cries of a thousand lost souls. “Though, when you let yourself adjust a few years or so…it tends to grow on you.”
Fluttershy gulped, and then fearfully asked, “Ultron?”
Discord turned back, a certain twisted pleasure seen in his crooked gaze. Fluttershy flinched back, still lying in the dirt, finding every bit of Discord’s stare to be as discomforting as the toothy grin he offered.
“But of course, my dear!” he exclaimed. Even his voice sounded different. Whatever it was, it wasn’t how Fluttershy knew him. Her friend. It was as if she was speaking with a complete stranger. And it was all the more terrifying to not know which was which.
He continued, landing on the dirt and kicking up ash. “It wasn’t difficult for the world to fall prey to Ultron’s brutality. Some might say it was quite the spectacle, but there aren’t many left to say that. Come to think of it, there aren’t many left regardless.”
“W-what h-happened?” Fluttershy meagerly pushed forward, eyeing the burning vortex swirling across the skies.
“What had to happen, my dear, sweet Fluttershy. We simply had to…evolve.” His arms fell behind his back, paw and talon intertwined. His eyes faced the spewing mountains, his smile joining, and he said, “Ultron has shown me the light behind the dark, the true meaning of friendship…that there was none of it.”
Fluttershy couldn’t respond, too terrified once the dragon from before appeared in the distance.
Discord sighed, still standing with his chest out and arms behind his back. “I was blinded behind the falsehoods you and your friends covered across my vision, and it only came to me once Ultron offered me something I simply could not refuse! Do you want to know what it is?”
She shook her head.
“A trade,” Discord muttered, his smile vanishing, replaced only with a frown. For some strange reason behind the dark, Fluttershy found his frown to be even more discomforting than his smile.
He rambled on, now moving from side-to-side, blissfully kicking up dirt and ash with each stride of his cloven hoof. He said, “It seemed that Ultron’s allies appeared fruitless in his vision. So with them tossed aside, Ultron turned to me with a simple trade. ‘Return me back to my home,’ he said! ‘I will give you the world,’ he said! ‘And then some’…”
Shooting upwards, Discord stuck out each of his limbs, showcasing the burning world before him. “And would you look at the purity of all! The sights, the smell,” he breathed in, exhaling pure, black smoke, “it is simply to die for; wouldn’t you agree?”
“Discord…” Fluttershy gasped, shaking her head back and forth. “I can’t believe w-what I’m h-hearing. We’re friends. How…h-how could you d-do this?”
And just like that, Discord’s smile died. He slowly levitated back to the earth, approaching the meager Pegasus one slow step at a time. Fluttershy tried to crawl back, but lost all the strength in her limbs, all the fight in her heart after the words Discord carefully chose next.
“Ultron told me that friendship was never magic in the first place,” he began, every word a cut deeper into Fluttershy’s chest. “Friendship was never magic. It was a sickness. And I, Discord, the Master of Chaos and Disharmony…” his eyes burned red, his voice deepening a thousand times, “cured it.”
It was at that moment did Discord take an entirely new, terrifying form. His body tore apart, increasing in size and verticality. Fluttershy watched from her frozen position, wings snapping to her sides, ears falling flat, and heartbeat slowly increasing, threatening to break from her ribcage.
Two pairs of razor-sharp claws impaled the earth, the head of a ferocious dragon leaning down and breathing its steam onto the crying Pegasus. Fluttershy curled up closer together, as if expecting some kind of shield to cover her and hide away from all the terror entrenched on her home and her friends. Mostly her friends…and what they’ve become.
Slowly, she opened her eyes, staring into the face of a dragon ten thousand times her size. What was even more horrific was how it held similar facial features to that of her lost friend, to that of Discord. Its red eyes narrowed, each slit glowing with more fierceness than ever before.
“You see it now, my dear, sweet Fluttershy?” the dragon asked, its tone a mixture between Discord and the foulest creatures of the Underworld. “Equestria is the sickness. I am the cure.”
It, whatever it was, leaned its towering neck back, its chest burning brighter than the fires consuming Equestria. And it unleashed that fire onto the crying Pegasus, every tear in her throat amplifying to the flames covering her body.