Remember opening theme music. I liked that thing
Remember opening theme music. I liked that thing
It was late, and the bakery had long since closed when the knock on the door came. Surprise resisted the urge to dart to the front door at top speed. Instead she took a deep breath and reminded herself that the former human she was expecting wasn’t the same as the friend she had left behind to travel to the human world. In the end that had been the last time she had seen him or any of her friends. This wasn’t the human she had sheltered and comforted and playfully called “Charlie”. This was a copy of her friend who had never met her before last night, when she pulled him out of the time stream to keep him from reverting to the corpse that he was in this world when Starlight Glimmer’s time loop had reset itself.
So Surprise walked to the front door of her bakery with an uncharacteristic trepidation. As expected she was met by a softly glowing eldritch horror of a pony, standing nervously outside the glass door of Just Deserts. When he saw her he gave his own nervous smile and a clumsy wave of a hoof, still a little unstable in his unfamiliar four legged stance.
“You came,” the green mare smiled awkwardly as she unlocked the door and let her guest inside, “I was starting to wonder if you would…”
“It was… a trying day,” the creature sighed, a single tazzle snake slinking out to rub the back of his head, “Discord dragged me of to the freakin’ royal court to show off his ‘accomplishment’. Of course all the ponies were like, ‘It’s a monster!’. And then I had to answer about a million questions from the princesses themselves. I got lost three times trying to find my way here, and every time I’d try to ask directions from some pony they ran off screaming.”
“Well there’s no pony in here who’s going to call you a monster, Charl…” both ponies winced a little as Surprise caught her mistake, “I mean Ki. I’m really sorry, I meant Ki… I guess the Army Pinkie liked that nickname too…”
“It was Pinkamena,” Ki laughed sadly at the memories, “Only fresh out the words humans ever called her Pinkie, and they never made that mistake twice. Is it still okay if I crash in your basement? They offered me a room at the palace, but that just seemed kinda… I don’t know… weird..”
“Of course silly!” Surprised giggled a little, “I wouldn’t have said you could if it wasn’t okay. So, what did you think of this universe’s Celestia? Personally I think she’s a lot nicer than the Celestia from my my world… actually my world wasn’t really very nice at all. My friend Silver went there once. He called it a dream, but in a lot of ways I think it was more of a nightmare. To me it was just the world, and I never thought about it because to me it was always just the world and I just thought that was how Equestria was SUPPOSED to be…”
An awkward silence fell between the two, finally broken by the tazzle-corn, “Why are you so okay with… the way I am now. I know you were there when discord made me into this, but… I don’t know… you just act like it’s not something weird that you’ve never seen before. I think that’s a big part of the problem ponies seem to have with me. A friendly dragon or griffon they maybe could accept, but I’m a complete unknown. I’m a what-the-hell-is-that to most ponies.”
“Well,” Surprise started then paused unsure how to proceed, “I told you back in the time loop that I had some experience with time travel and alternate universes… and let’s just say I’ve been somewhere… you’re not the first human I’ve known who turned into a pony like you. I- I’ll tell you about it one day, but for now is it enough to know that I’ve seen this happen before, and I want to help?”
“Yeah,” Ki nodded, “That’s okay. There’s just so much I don’t get. Like why am I glowing? I wasn’t glowing to start with.”
“Well,” Surprise said thoughtfully, “Discord basically said that he was gonna make you into a combination of three different types of chaos ponies. On the world where they originally came from, Tazzle Ponies could drain other ponies with their outer tongues and hold the energy like a magic battery. You must have drained the changeling guards you fought with this morning. You’re not glowing as much now as you were then, have you eaten anything?”
“Now that you mention it, I haven’t,” Ki cocked his head to one side, “I really should be hungry, right now, but I’m not. I guess I hadn’t noticed because I’ve been so busy dealing with princesses all day.”
“Let’s get you something to eat,” Surprise bounced towards the kitchen, “Whether you feel hungry or not, you’ve got a big engine to run, buster. Do you like banana bread?”
“I absolutely LOVE banana bread!” Ki perked up immediately, “But what about this energy I’m storing? Will it just drain away on it’s own? Do I need to syphon it off? What if I get overcharged?”
“Hmmm, well, ponies like you weren’t super common so I’m not really sure,” Surprise looked thoughtful, “Discord didn’t tell you anything?”
He said my tongues, or ‘tazzle snakes’ as he called them were smarter than a unicorn horn and could do tricks,” the blue monstrosity shrugged, “I gotta admit I’ve been using them more or less like hands all day without giving it much thought. Also when I fought the changeling guards, they really did most of the work. Same with my hooves. If I’m not thinking about it they work just fine, if I try to really pay attention to what I’m doing, I do good not trip over myself.”
“Have you tried you wings, yet? It seems like flying would be super-fun!” the green pony asked as she cut two slices from a loaf of banana bread, a large slice making up nearly a quarter of the loaf for her guest and a smaller one for herself.
“Nope. No way. Not flying,” Ki stamped a front hoof for emphasis, vibrating the floor, before hastily adding, “Sorry about that, I guess I don’t know my own strength. Doesn’t it seem odd that Celestia would just let me leave that easily? I mean, I’m kinda a loose cannon. Discord clearly intended me to be his equivalent of an alicorn. He even suffixed “corn” for no better reason than to rub it in. I took out a squad of changeling guards mostly by accident, and I have no idea what I’m even capable of. And I basically told her that I was a suicidal madman before I came to Equestria and got for real military training.”
“Maybe she can just see that you’re really just lonely, but deep down you’re super nice and just need somepony to remind you of that,” the green mare bopped him on the snout, “Like I do.”
-=-=-=-=-
“Hiya Sun Chaser,” a Lunar guard landed on the roof-top behind a bright yellow and orange unicorn mare, “Can I assume we have the same orders?”
The mare raised an eyebrow, “Good evening Dream Catcher. I see the sisters are of the same mind.”
“Trust but verify?” the dark grey stallion nodded, “Mind the company?”
“Hell anything to ease the boredom,” the mare laughed, “If he’s a monster he’s the dullest one I’ve seen yet. Hell, I’m betting you would have decked somepony by no if they kept screaming monster in your face.”
“Don’t forget, he took out a full unit of Princess Fast Change’s Royal Guard without even breaking a sweat,” he lunar guard shook his head, “Admittedly the Princess says he acted strictly in self defense, and that her guards were in the wrong…”
“And that he showed remarkable restraint,” Sun Chaser pointed out.
“Still, just because he’s a nice, well-behaved monster, doesn’t mean he’s not a monster,” Dream Catcher argued, “Discord himself acknowledged that he was a creature of chaos, even when he was still human. We should remember that. Somehow, while in a coma, trapped in a changeling pod, this former human managed to snag the interest of the embodiment of entropy himself. I’m willing to bet Discord didn’t even tell ‘prize creation’ what he’s capable of. What happens when some poor pony panics and tries to drive off the ‘scary monster’?”
“That’s what worries me too,” the warlock sighed, “Look how you lunars get treated. What if Discord just did this to show the happy ponies who the monsters really were… and rub our faces in it.”
“What do you mean?” the lunar guards face screwed up in confusion.
“I was there when Discord came to court today,” Sun Chaser’s tone was grim, “He actually went to the trouble of announcing himself. Then he very carefully described exactly what he was going to show us all. The moment he summoned his creation the first reaction of the guards was, ‘It’s a monster!’. Do you know how that creature responded?”
“How?” the guards curiosity was peaked.
“He rolled his eyes and said, ‘not again’, you should have seen the smirk on Discord’s face,” the mare sighed, “But maybe his look of disappointment when Celestia gave the order to stand down was more telling.”
“Well, he is the spirit of chaos and disharmony, maybe he was just disappointed that he didn’t get to see his new pet bust a few heads,” the lunar stallion shrugged.
“No,” Sun Chaser bowed her head grimly, “The warlocks have studied Discord for generations. His history when he was trapped in stone, and his actual behavior since his liberation. His greatest weakness is, oddly enough, his twisted sense of morality. HE never hurts ponies… at least not physically. He never turns ponies to stone. I think this whole stunt is some twisted form of atonement. He helped save a helpless, wounded soul. Then he gave his creation the face of a monster and threw him into Equestria, to Canterlot of all places, the most judgemental corner of the entire kingdom, just to show all the ponies up on their high and mighty pedestals that ‘you're no better’.”
“On the other side of Princess Luna was Nightmare Moon,” Dream catcher bowed his head, “I can’t help to wonder what is the other side of the card for Discord’s ‘prince’. We have studied her fall for a thousand years, I promise, and this is where it starts.”