PONYHAMMER 40,000. The Warp Incursion.

by Duskrunner

Chapter Two - Starscape

THE GREAT EXPANSE

"Golly... is this where you went when you vanished on us Twilight?" Applejack asked as she took in everything around her.

Fluttershy glanced nervously down, where an endless star filled expanse stretched on farther than she could see. She tried to flap her wings in response to the lack of visible flooring but they refused to cooperate. She squeaked in surprise and fright, and continued doing so each time she snuck a look at her surroundings.

"Oh... oh dear. Twilight. How are we standing when there's nothing to stand on?"

"You get used to it." Pinkie Pie cheerfully replied as she pranced along obliviously. "Oh? Look at that, that star's different from all the rest."

Pinkie was right. Alone in the expanse of shining blue-white stars, a single source of violet-pink light burned ominously in the sky.
At that moment Celestia faded in, walking into their present reality, bringing Luna and Cadance with her.
"It is,” She confirmed for Pinkie and the group in general, “and it is new to this sky. Several days ago it was but a speck of light. It has grown since then and I have seen nothing to assure me that it will stop."

Behind them a zipper pushed out from thin air and opened downwards. Blueblood and Shining Armor stepped out with Discord. Celestia turned to him.
"Discord,” She began, “of all the creatures in Equestria you are the one whose magic this resembles the most. We are all here now, it is time you showed us what you can of this menace."

"Well, since you ask so nicely." Discord snarked as he approached the dismal star, playing with their depth perception as he circled it. Instead of beginning a presentation, and to the amazement of all he opened his mouth wide and swallowed the orb whole where it stood with an exaggerated gulp.

Everypony's mouths fell open as they watched, Pinkie joyfully declaring, "Problem solved!"

Unfortunately, it wasn't. Discord's eyes widened. The star refused to let him swallow it, refused to be moved even a smidgen. Instead of casually plucking the jewel from space he found his tugging his body towards it, the muscles in his esophagus dragging him slowly along.
He pushed his hands against the empty sky, formed a surface to lean on and pushed pack, failing to stop the unnatural movement. Hawking the star back out didn’t seem to be working for him either.
Discord, suffering visibly, panicked and blacked out. As he fell forward the bleak star tore out through the back of his neck.

Discord hit the arbitrary ethereal “floor” that served as the ground face-first and upon impact his skull shifted into his tail and vice-versa, leaving his body topsy-turvy.
He lay there and for so long that the girls stared at him incredulously, as if this was some cruel newprank. Only Fluttershy thought to approach him and see whether he was okay or not.

Discord turned on them with a swift, angry leap up that left him on all fours, almost feral looking, tail lazily undulating from one side to the other ready to swing, smash or whip it into something, his elongated neck coiled like a snake prepared to snap.
The red pupils were gone and with them all hint of prior mischief or wit, all he had were yellow eyes that glowed white with excess power.
His body began to grow, the junction between his neck and arms began to distinguish themselves into a proper muscled torso. The wiry arms grew biceps that swelled to the size of his skull. Steely, corded muscles sprouted through the length of his legs until they were thicker than his chest. Both of his wings bulged out and sprouted sharpened pinions at their tips.
His lion paw sprouted enormous retractable claws and his eagle talons sharpened, his lizard leg thickened into a crocodile's leg with a hind claw, and his dragon tail's red scales thickened into dense plates up the length of his spine.

"Celestia's beard..." Twilight uttered.
Discord's jaw unhinged and he shoved his mouth at them.
For all intents Discord looked as if he were roaring but there was no sound and no sensation of air either. Out of the corner of her eye Twilight noticed her mane was waving.
She turned quickly to look at everypony else. Manes and feathers fluttered as if in a strong breeze.

"No!" Twilight saw it then. The Element of Harmony necklaces, the colors of their gemstones faded to black. "The Elements! He's cut us off from the Elements!"

"BACK!"

Nopony recognized the roar as they heard it. Twlight blinked and then realized it was Shining Armor.
The stallion was already away from her and moving quickly.
Unbelievable, I was captain of the royal guard, protector of Canterlot and the princesses. My wife and sister are here and I didn't think to bring an honor guard, a spear or even my armor? What was I thinking?!

It took a supreme effort of will but Shining had formed a large magical barrier behind him surrounding everypony else.
"Form a long narrow cylinder, make it longer...point it at the tip, come on..." Shining was berating himself even as he sweat buckets. He’d never attempted to shape a magic shield this way before. In sheer desperation he managed to form an energy spear.

"Shining no! Wait, everypony no, wait!" Twilight pushed forward but was repelled by the walls of the magic sphere. He'd made it solid to make it strong; nothing could simply push its way through it.

Shining Armor charged forward even as Discord swiped with his talon.
Canterlot's military tradition had a healthy appreciation for the martial arts developed through the study of animals. Shining was prepared to counteract even as he tried to reassure himself that even though Discord's approach was lateral -and not a typical eagle's overhead swoop- it wouldn't affect his strategy.
Once he saw Discord's body was committed in motion Shining exhaled heavily and sped up to full gallop, leaping before the claw hit him.

He realized at the last second the distance of his leap wasn't going to be enough.

He dropped his spear and refocused his magic. The timing he had to raise a shield was going to be close.

Discord's claw hit the pony in a bubble and sent it spinning, bouncing far into the distance.
The rest of the ponies watched as Shining was sent flying. One moment later they all screamed.

Discord's tail had snapped at the exact moment he had batted Shining away. The dragonscales were tough but the body beneath was very lithe.
When the white tuft on his tail snapped it lanced the magic bubble and created a sonic boom that flattened everypony within it. Shining Armor had never thought to make his magic shields soundproof.
Most of the shield remained intact even as its roof was pierced.

"Discord! Discord stop this! You're not a mindless brute!" Fluttershy screamed. She was stunned into silence by his reply, a supersonic noise that combined a roar, bray, hiss and shriek all in one.

"Princess, I can't reinforce the shield!" Twilight shouted, barely able to be heard over the ruckus. As powerful as her magic was she had never created a force field as strong as Shining's and it took all her skill merely to keep it from collapsing. She could neither rotate it to present an undamaged face to the threat nor could she repair it.

"Let it break! Do not falter!" Celestia commanded.

Applejack and Big MacIntosh were both bucking at the shield, their wild instinct to break apart the structure that kept them penned in to Discord's wrath. In the heat of the moment AJ didn't even register that something was off when she saw her brother out of the corner of her eye.
With expert precision Twilight allowed the force field to fracture along controlled lines and caught the largest sections with her levitation. Where once there was a cage Twilight now held up a phalanx of magical shields.

Celestia stepped forward from her student's protection and projected a beam from her horn that was neither force nor heat, only bright as the sun itself into Discord's eyes.

Against all odds his eyes burnt back with their own fire as he glared into the light, not for one moment the least bit discomforted. Discord moved again but it's single-mindedness had cost him.
In the bright of the light he failed to notice gathering shadows. Without a word Luna's dark splotches of night formed into anchoring tendrils that fastened hard about the goat and crocodile legs and the dragon's tail. Dragging forward with his free limbs Discord began to tear himself free.

At that moment Applejack stopped having reached the talon first, turned in place and bucked with both hind legs with more power than she would ever apply to her beloved apple trees.
A second later, huffing through his nostrils the entire time, Big MacIntosh barreled into the lion's paw with a shoulder tackle that would have sent a hundred ponies flying.

Their efforts were mighty but to all appearances Discord suffered no injury to either of his limbs. He raised his arms to smash down on both earth ponies when Twilight, deciding there was no greater need for her phalanx than what she saw before her now, drove every last remaining shard of Shining's spell between the two.

Discord hammered at the shield wall. Once, twice and the last fragments of Shining's magic shattered into non-existence. Mac and AJ had both moved back, ready to dodge out of range.

More than enough time had passed. Shining Armor had galloped the full length of the empty space Discord had knocked him across and charged into him, shattering his reformed magic spear as he thrust it into Discord's side.

Shining fell over: he'd hit a brick wall at full speed. Loopy as he was, he nevertheless tried to see if he'd done it, if everypony was now safe.
The fragments of the spear he'd conjured had faded into nothing but no wound pierced Discord's torso.

Applejack rushed in front of Shining's vision, standing between him and Discord even as she bucked the spot of impact to exploit whatever tender spot might be left.
Big Mac dug his head under Shining and hoisted the prince onto his back. The two apples turned tail and ran as fast as they could before they felt a pull as Cadance snatched their hooves with her magic and yanked them all from Discord's range.

Nopony was left near him now.
Nothing was left about him beyond the pony sisters' magic.

The distance was immense, the vastness of space in this realm was incredible.
For a moment she thought that if she went just far enough, she could reach one of those distant stars, pluck it from the firmament, and take it for herself to keep or give away to some special somepony.

A whip wasn't an unusual device in Equestria: Rarity's coachmen had one, Applejack's family likely had several. To lance the shield and create a sonic boom within it meant Discord’s tail had struck at supersonic speed. The force of a blast wave like that was due to Discord's mass as much as his speed.
Given his size, optimistically speaking, Rainbow Dash calculated Discord's tail whip could only just reach Mach One.

She dove.

She’d traveled a great distance and hadn't yet reached her best speed.
At this height everything seemed so tiny, so insignificant. Even the distance Shining Armor had just galloped across seemed small.
She looked beneath her, remembering what she faced, remembering who she faced.
He did this to me before, giving me an impossible choice. After what I saw when he changed me, what I did- No! I didn't do it, it wasn't me! It was me but it wasn't!

She stopped her train of thought, held the tears from her eyes and focused again.

Not me. This is me, this is who I am. And he's making me choose again, between myself and my friends. Between everything I dream and everything I have. Well not this time. He's not going to win this time. This time I know what really matters!

She dove, falling hard, not thinking about the environment but realizing that if she were flying in real air her eyes would be burning with tears. No matter.
Three seconds to impact. He's moved a little, compensate. It's just a hoop to go through, a cloud to land on, even at these speeds. Ready... steady... Two seconds. Don't think about the consequences. Accelerate to full throttle at the last second, you need the boom as much as the impact Dash. Don’t think about the consequences. Lucky here means you'll only never walk again. One second…

In that last moment she couldn’t help but think of her friends. I love you all so much.

There was a strange whistle in the void, the thing that wasn't air but resembled it so much made a shriek that give away her advance. A shriek that was altered so much no one recognized it for what it was.
Rainbow Dash fell from the sky like lightning, accelerating to full speed at the last second and rolling over to drive both her back hooves into the center of the X she imagined at the center of Discord's head.
The sonic rainboom she produced at the epicenter was created by accelerating to Mach Two.

If there had been any dust it would all have been blown away.

But there wasn't.

There was no ground, no dirt, no dust. Nothing to even hint that a sonic rainboom of that magnitude had been unleashed as an offensive weapon.
There was only a brief flash of rainbow light and a dozen fallen ponies.

The rainbow shockwave should have been harmless. By Twilight's estimation they were well past the minimum safe distance. At most only their teeth should have rattled, maybe an eardrum popped.
Their on the fly plan had been perfectly executed: three different, powerful attack waves, each of which would serve as a focal distraction for the next one if it happened to fail.
They’d thought the alien power had reduced Discord to a mutated beast, they’d gambled that he had forgotten his nature-changing magic and they had lost.

The rainboom that hit them was a wall of force that hit them as powerfully as a cerberus.

At last, Discord found his voice.

"THIS IS THE REALITY OF THIS NEW WORLD. FORGET THE POWER OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; IT WILL BE FORGOTTEN, NEVER TO BE RE-LEARNED. FORGET THE PROMISE OF PROGRESS AND UNDERSTANDING, FOR IN THE GRIM, DARK FUTURE THERE IS ONLY WAR. THERE IS NO PEACE AMONG THESE STARS, ONLY AN ETERNITY OF CARNAGE AND SLAUGHTER. PUT AWAY YOUR LOVE, FRIENDSHIP AND MAGIC. HERE THERE IS ONLY THE LAUGHTER OF THIRSTING GODS!"

His thunderous voice echoed across all of creation and his laughter promised an eternity of madness and torment.

They had been broken, crushed... and yet, one pony still stood.

"You're wrong you know." Pinkie’s voice called.

She was scared, terrified beyond belief. She didn't think she could reach him. Fluttershy was the one who reached his heart, not her. Everypony else had been defeated, and yet...

"You know. I'm not Applejack, I don't know truth the second I hear it, but I think I'm an expert on this particular subject."

She stepped around a groaning pegasus, avoiding the fallen Ranbow Dash.

"Shh. Easy Dashie, everything's gonna be ok."

Pinkie Pie walked all the way up to Discord, well within the reach of his snacking jaws, and stood. In spite of all the odds her mane was still poofy: she still had hopes that had yet to be deflated.
"In fact, I didn't really want to admit it, but a lot of times looking back I told myself, 'Now Pinkie, don't be so judgmental and be honest with yourself: under any other circumstances, all that Discord does looks like it'd be a hoot!'
So I know what I'm talking about. Waterskiing, ice skating, seeing you grow popcorn and cotton candy clouds and raining chocolate milk. I remember what you used to be like, and it's really really hard to do that looking at you right now.
But I can, and I do. So I've gotta remind you, this, is how you laugh."

Pinkie closed her eyes, forgetting the fear and trying to push past the despair, thinking of everything she had been so thankful for in her life, and with supreme effort she laughed.
It wasn't a giggle, and it didn't travel very far, but that single note pierced the world, falling into it like a drop of water breaks the stillness of a pond. And it didn't take a single bit of magic from the Element of Harmony on her neck.

The laughter echoed deep within Discord, and he echoed it, mimicking it, changing it as it lowered from a vile, cruel cackle to the heartfelt laughter of mischief and joy.

The pink star's humors began to boil over, steaming out from Discord's body like gas until all the transformed flesh began to shrink and fade leaving only the original shape of a draconequus.

"Discord?" Pinkie asked, wide pupils in her eyes.

"Pinkie?" He asked back, bewildered and completely disoriented.

Their eyes locked.

He grabbed her, bringing her into his arms. "I'm sorry... I'm so, sooo sorry!"

He sobbed and she dropped her chin onto his shoulder and began to sob with him.

Author's Note:

original lineart "Discord MLP" by GUN1GRAVE
colored "Chaos" by Miradge

Comments

[treegrowth]

Shit...

[Duskrunner]

7641757 ha ha, shit got real eh?