Django: Discord's Wager

by Fussan

Chapter 2

Luna was wandering the Dreamscape, keeping it safe from nightmares and other such horrors that plagued the minds of the ponies of Equestria. She was having a rough day, to say the least. Even though it was early evening, there were still quite a few ponies sleeping. Those who worked late hours, those who had partying issues, the list goes on. But still, they needed to be safe, and making sure they stayed safe was her duty.

She was in a teenage mare's dreams at the moment. She was... disturbed... to say the least. The mare whose dream she was in was from Ponyville, a small town in the valley below the mountain. She was dreaming of a particular Human dancing in a bar. Her first question was, of course, why she was in a bar at such a young age. But the very next one was what in Equestria was Django doing working as an... entertainer.

She was always fond of the rowdy Human, even before the... happenings with him, Celestia, and herself. Those few weeks just made the fondness grow. A lot.

She realized that she'd been staring for a few minutes now at the dream and forcibly stopped herself from continuing to do so. She changed the dream of Django dancing, to that of the mare's mother catching her, well, fantasizing, about the Human.

That should teach her, Luna thought to herself as a small, lopsided smile appeared on her face. She always enjoyed a good prank every so often. But she didn't do it for herself. Or even her sister. She did it instead for him. He loved Derpy. More than life itself, as he proved before. But he wasn't really that strongly willed, and if a particularly attractive mare put enough pressure on him... Actually no, only a little pressure was enough. A simple "Would you like to hang out?" was usually enough for him when he was bored, tired, or... anything else, really. But no matter what he did, Derpy knows that he would kill for her without hesitation. Literally.

Luna walked out of the mare's head, entering the Dreamscape once more... and was greeted by laughter. Her eyes widened slightly in surprise. Nopony alive had the power to enter this place except for her, her sister, and... Discord. "Show yourself, Discord!" she shouted at the air.

The laughter only got louder. It sounded... off. It was the usual maniac laugh of Discord, but it sounded... colder. More... sinister. It sent a small sliver of ice up her spine. "Did you like what you saw?" it asked her sweetly.

For a moment, she thought that the voice sounded like... No, that was impossible. "Do not make us ask again!" she commanded.

"Oh, little Lulu, do you really have to shout?" the voice asked her mockingly. She stood there, frozen in shock for a moment. It wasn't Discord's voice, she now confirmed it. But she knew it. She could never forget it. "After all, we're inside your head, so why do you have to use your outside voice?" it asked, practically sneering.

"H- how are you here?" she asked in shock.

"Oh, my dear, little Lulu, how oblivious you are," it said in mock sympathy. "I don't think it takes a genius to figure out that I used magic."

She blinked from the confusion. "But... how did you get magic?"

The laughter came again, echoing off of the very nothingness that was made up of the Dreamscape, making it sound like it was everywhere at once."If I were you, I would blame Tia," it said slowly. "After all, she was the one that made all of this possible."

Luna blinked again. "Tia gave you magic? But, why?"

She could almost feel the contempt in the snort that followed her question. "As if she would ever be so kind," it said. "She is nothing but a tyrant, ruling this country with an iron fist... Well, hoof, in her case," the voice said, chuckling slightly at its own humor.

"Tia is not a tyrant!" Luna screamed, using the royal Canterlot voice for emphasis. It didn't matter who she was talking to, if you insulted her sister, she would make you sorry. "She is kinder and more caring than anypony could ever hope to be!"

The voice tutted at her ignorance. "If she if so benign, then why did she banish you?"

Luna's eye twitched in anger. "She only did that to save the country from us! There was no other way!"

The voiced laughed softly, almost pityingly. "She could have used the elements to free you, but she didn't," it said to her, softly, almost as if she were an angry child and it was her parent.

Luna fumed. If she found him, she would hurt him. "That is not the way the elements work!" she argued.

"Are you sure?" the voice asked from right behind her, whispering in her ear.

She turned and sent a bolt of magic so strong that even a dragon would have been killed by it in the direction of the voice. But all she hit was the nothingness and emptiness of the Dreamscape.

"She didn't care that you were angry. Only that she could control the ponies of Equestria."

Luna let out a low growl as she searched harder for the voice.

"She might have tried talking, but if it only lasted a day or two, then how hard could she really have tried?"

The lack of his presence seemed to mock her everywhere he wasn't. It was infuriating her even more than he was.

"She took away your freedom so she didn't have to worry about having to deal with you later on in life, when you would have surpassed her."

She shot out seeking rays of magic everywhere she looked, but they came back with nothing.

"She was scared of you Luna. She knew you were a monster. A beast. She knew that she couldn't hope to best you, so she sent you away before that ever happened."

Luna was nearing her breaking point now. Her rage and hate were building up inside of her like a great inferno.

"She stole your night away from you, Luna. She wanted its unmatched beauty for herself, and you know it."

She looked around desperately for the location of him, but couldn't find him in the void of her surroundings.

"She sent you away so you could watch as she bent the stars to her will, controlling them."

Luna felt the sharp sting of tears behind her eyes, but she forced them back, with difficulty.

"She put you on the Moon so you could watch, helpless, as she mocked you with her power. Your power. Your special talent."

A single tear rolled down Luna's cheek as she searched for the voice's origin, but to no avail.

"She stole your talent Luna. She made you useless. She made you worthless. She was better at it than you could ever be, and ever will be, and you know it."

She shut her eyes in an attempt to stop the flood of tears that she had been holding in for centuries upon centuries, but they still came. She screamed a harsh, animalistic sound as a wave of her magic swept over the Dreamscape, obliterating everything in its path. She instantly regretted it, as she felt the intense pain of every living thing that was dreaming come back at her from having their minds destroyed by her magic. This caused new tears to join the old ones as they fell. She had failed. She had failed in fighting off his presence. Failed in keeping herself together. Failed as a princess. Failed in her duties as the Goddess of the Night. Failed as a sister. Failed at everything! She was a failure, and everypony in Equestria and beyond knew it.

The voice came from right in front of her this time. "Don't cry, little Lulu. It's not your fault," it said soothingly.

Luna looked up at him, a mixture of pure rage and endless sorrow on her face.

He smiled at her. A genuine, pleasing, loving smile. An understanding smile. "It's not your fault," he repeated as he walked up to her, his cloak billowing out behind him in an invisible breeze.

She blinked at him, not understanding.

He put his arms around her gently, pulling her in for a hug.

She was hesitant at first, but gave in and hugged him back as his comforting presence warmed her, made her feel whole.

"It's not your fault," he whispered into her ear.

She listened. She knew what he was going to say, but she listened anyway.

"It's her fault. She did this to you. She made you into what you are. She made me into what I am. It's her fault, and hers alone," he told her, never rising his voice above a whisper.

She didn't say anything. She didn't dare to break the silence for fear of him leaving her. She needed him there with her, right where he was. She stayed like that for a long time. Longer than she'd even realized. Finally though, she nodded. "I know," she whispered to him.

She couldn't see it, but the smile that graced Django's face made the Dreamscape shiver in horror. Literally.

***

Celestia was sitting in the throne room holding court. Another noble was whining about how he didn't have enough land, or something like that. Honestly, after an extremely enlightening conversation with Django, she learned how to tune them out. She knew it was wrong to ignore these ponies. It was her duty to help and protect them after all. But by Equis they were boring!

Celestia's eyes widened almost imperceptibly as she thought that. Django was having a pronounced negative effect on her.

She smiled, just enough so that nopony could notice it.

"... And that's why I should be granted more land, your highness," the noble finished with a small bow.

Celestia mentally shook herself out of her thoughts as he finished. "So, why do you believe that you would be so entitled to more land than others who have more pressing needs are wanting the same thing?" she asked calmly.

The noble flinched at her question. He obviously thought that she would simply give him the land he asked for. She always had in the past.

Celestia smiled when she saw him flinch at her question. Before she met Django, she would have agreed to it without much explanation. But having him around made her see things in more ways that a "benign ruler" would usually be able to.

"Uh... Well... Really it-"

"That's not much of an answer, Grape Vine." she told him with a stern expression. She knew this pony. He always wanted more land to "expand his business" or so he said. She had a sneaking suspicion that he was really just bartering off the land she gave him to other nobles for large sums of money. Of course, this wasn't exactly illegal, but it made her angry nonetheless.

He bowed his head to hide the deep scowl he was wearing, but she could see it in the way he stood that he was furious with her. "Of course, your highness. Forgive me for wasting your time."

"Don't worry Grape Vine, I'm sure you'll find a way to improve you harvest enough so that you don't need any more new land," she told him in a pleasant voice.

The noble stiffened from her words and she could practically see the rage radiating off of him as he left the room. Yes, Django was having severe effects on her.

The guard next to her laughed. "Your highness, with all due respect, I think that sense of humor that you got from the Human is going to be the end of you."

She looked down at him and smiled sweetly. "I haven't the slightest clue of what you speak of Ray."

"Neither do I Ray," said a voice from the very air around them. "Tia's excellent sense of humor is her own doing, not mine." With the end of his sentence, Django flashed into existence in front of them with a smile on his face that made the guards shiver and Celestia blink.

There was a stunned silence that filled the room after he arrived, broken by him after a few seconds.

"My, my, my Tia. I thought you'd be surprised, but this is quite extraordinary. I've seemed to shock even the solar goddess herself into silence!" he exclaimed, laughing loudly.

Celestia shook herself, physically this time. "Django, how are you wielding magic?" she asked him, half in shock, half in fear.

"Why, your sister gave it to me of course!" he replied happily, making a glass full of red liquid appear out of thin air and rest in his open hand.

"Luna?" Celestia asked with a raised brow.

Django nodded sagely. "So you do know who she is," he said slowly. Then he burst out in a fit of giggles.

Celestia's eyes narrowed at that. Django never smiled this much. He never spoke with so much happiness in his voice. And he most certainly never giggled. Not unless he was with Derpy. And she wasn't here. "Django, what's the matter with you? How are you able to do this?" she asked him, a tone of worry creeping into her voice as she spoke.

Django downed the drink in one go and let out a satisfied breath. "Well, I would go into details, but that would be boring. So instead, I think we should play a game," he said in a cheery voice.

The guards all coughed, drawing Celestia's attention.

"Now, the game is called Liar's Heart. The rules are very simple. I ask you a question, and if I catch you in a lie, then something close to your heart gets hurt. Then you ask me a question and the same thing happens," he explained the rules to her while her eyes grew wider as she stared at her guards. The seemed to be choking on nothing but the air around them.

"So, first question!" Django yelled happily.

"Stop this!" Celestia told him. "You're hurting them!"

Django tilted his head in confusion at her, but kept his ever-present smile plastered onto his face. After a few seconds, he answered her. "Oh, I get it. You want to go first. Okay then, my answer is this. No, I'm not hurting them." He held out his arms as if waiting for something to strike him, but nothing happened. He smiled wickedly. "Good try, but you'll have to do better next time."

Celestia stood now, her ethereal mane and tail growing brighter, looking more like flames now than a peaceful rainbow of colors. "I said stop this at once Django!" she yelled.

He just raised his hand as if to silence her. "Ah, ah, ah, it's my turn. So now, where are the Elements of Harmony at right now?" he asked, widening his smile.

"I will not play your game, Django!" she yelled, stomping her hoof hard enough to crack the marble of the floor.

He only shook his head. "You have to play, or I win by default. And when I win, things'll really get fun," he said with malicious glee.

She was about to protest again, but the rasping breaths of her guards made her stop. If she didn't play along, they might be in danger. Great danger.

She sighed softly as she thought. "The Elements of Harmony are where they are safest," she said as she glared at the Human she thought she knew before her.

Django smiled at her, showing his newly-sharpened teeth. "You're a liar," he growled out with a maniac tone in his voice.

At once, Celestia felt the building shake, and then as suddenly as it happened, it stopped. She looked at Django with a mixture of terror and rage clear on her face. "What was that?" she asked with a venom in her voice.

He smiled even wider at her. "I know how much you love your little guards, so I sent them on a vacation to help them... relax a bit. And if they're smart enough they might even survive," he said, finishing with a slight shrug of his cloaked shoulders.

"Where did you send them?" Celestia almost growled the question at him.

He smiled. "I sent them somewhere that every man stops at when he passes," he said simply.

She stormed down the throne's steps and stood in front of him, glaring daggers. "You're a liar," she told him. "There are no men among my guards, only stallions and mares," she finished with an almost twisted smirk at him.

His smile lessened at that as he fell into thought for a brief time. Then he smiled again. "Well, I use the term 'man' loosely. It simply means male, which I'm guessing they mostly were."

Celestia's smirk turned into a scowl at his words.

He laughed loudly at her anger. "Good try Tia, you almost had me there. But now for the consequences of your actions," he said as he snapped his fingers together.

The Celestia felt a cold wash over her as he did this. She thought she had him, but she messed up. She could have ended it there, but she failed. Sh-

She shook her head. She knew what was happening. "So, you're trying to influence me? Why? What are you planning Django? If that really is you."

The Human's smile almost completely left his face at this. "So, you figured it out, did you?" he asked in a bitter voice. "Well I get to ask one more question, then I'll leave your little guards alone," he said, gesturing to the gasping guards, who were now laying on the floor, barely conscious.

"Ask it then, and be gone!" she shouted.

His smile slowly crept up his lips as he thought about the question. "If I killed the Elements of Harmony, and you, what would stop me from burning all of Equestria to the ground?" he asked it slowly, so she would hear the lust for destruction in his voice.

She was shocked. More so than she had been when she saw him use magic. Even more so than when he started to act like this. She was so shocked that she didn't even feel the tendrils of green energy wrap around her mind and plant their seeds of chaos inside of her. "I- you woul-"

"Careful princess, you wouldn't want to get the answer wrong, now would you?" he asked mockingly.

She closed her mouth and didn't speak. She thought. She thought hard, and for a very long time. She had the feeling that she got when it was time to lower the sun, but she couldn't do that right now. She needed to answer his question, and she had to do so correctly. Luna couldn't help her. If she was dead, then he would easily overpower and destroy Luna. Discord couldn't help. If she was right, then Discord might not even be alive anymore. And if killed the elements... then all was lost if she was dead. There would be nopony left who could match him in power or skill... Nopony had the power he had... And nopony had the skill... But what if somepony didn't have to beat him in power or skill...? She knew her answer. She looked up at him with a small, sad smile on her lips.

"Well?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. "Are you going to tell me or just stand there looking pretty?"

Her smile widened slightly at his compliment. Even though it might not be him, it still felt nice to hear him say things like that. "Yes, I have my answer," she said quietly.

He laughed. "Oh, this should be good. So, who's the hero of this pathetic little story your mind has cooked up?" he asked her in a scathing voice, almost making her flinch from the venom his words carried.

She looked him straight in the eye. "She will stop you Django, and you know it."

The silence that followed her words could have consumed them both. It lasted for minutes. Hours even. The whole time her gaze never left his.

Then, after all that time, he stopped smiling, and a bitter expression replaced it. "You're nothing compared to me!" he screamed so suddenly she flinched away from him. "You've always been a simpering little bitch as long as I've known you! After I kill those clueless little whores you call the 'Elements of Harmony' I'll come back here and cook you alive with your own precious fucking sun!" he was raving at this point, and it scared her more than his words did. "And when I'm done with you I'll show your blue-cunted sister what it should mean to be 'Mistress of the Night'! After I'm done raping her on your bed while forcing the guards to watch I'll let her go free just so she can live with the shame for the rest of eternity!" He finished screaming and stared at her with such intensity that she doubted he could anything else in the room. After a second of holding his glare, he snapped his fingers and vanished.

Celestia stood there, dumbstruck as she let everything that he just said hit her. He said things that she never thought capable of leaving is mouth. He said things that she knew he never would have said. Even when he was drunk and angry, he would never have talked about her or Luna like that. She knew now what she had only suspected before. Django was sick from the magic in his system. It twisted him, making him into something he's not. But the things he said... Those things had to be there in the first place to be brought out like that. That's what scared her. And even as she turned to help her guards, she couldn't help but feel a deep fear for what was going to happen next. And she had no idea why.

***

Django flashed into existence at the edge of Ponyville. He had failed in his task. Damn that sun-humping prig and her guards to hell! She had ruined his plans! Now he had to make new ones! That was time he could be spending causing mayhem in town! But nooooooooo~ she just had to resist!

Django took a large breath to calm himself down as he gazed at the stars.

Not everything was a bust though. Luna took more work than he'd originally thought, but he had her now. He knew this by the large, blood red moon that hung ominously over the small town before him. Yes, even the stars seemed to twinkle with murderous hate as he looked at them.

He smiled at that.

Even though Celestia had fought him, he did manage to plant those seeds into her subconscious. It might take a long time, but eventually, they will break her. Hard.

Discord wasn't a problem, he had made sure of that.

Now the only thing he was worried about was the Elements of Harmony. But even they would bend to his will... or they would break.

He started walking towards the town. He needed to be rid of them. He only needed one to die for him to be safe, but he might have to kill them all, just to be sure of it. He would have to kill Twilight, that he knew. She was powerful. Even more so now because of her recent alicornification. He might be able to force Rainbow Dash and Applejack into backing down if he put on the pressure. Rarity? She's as useless to anybody as her dresses are to the ponies that wear them. Fluttershy will back down when threatened. And even if she didn't, he could always cook that little ball of hate that she calls Angel. Pinkie Pie though... that might be hard. He'll probably have to kill her as well.

He was deep within his planning when the giggling of two mares snapped him back into reality. He looked over to see a familiar pair of mares sitting under a large tree, gazing at the stars. It was Flitter and her sister Cloudchaser. His smile widened considerably and took on a twisted look. He snapped his fingers once and his body changed. He was no longer a Human, but a large unicorn pony with a blackish-green coat and a black mane and tail. His eye was still the same brown-nearly-black that it always was, but his dead eye healed and looked like the other one now. He looked back and saw that his Cutie mark was a red spiraling vortex going down into a black abyss of pure nothingness. How appropriate. Now, for all intents and purposes, he was a pony. He looked back to the two mares under the tree and approached them.

When they saw him, they quieted and waited for him to come nearer.

As he reached them, he nodded at them in greeting.

"Hey big guy," Flitter said flirtatiously.

He smirked at them. "Hey yourself," he said in the same tone of voice.

They both smiled at him and gestured for him to sit down, so he did so with a nod of thanks to them.

"So, what are a couple of cute little fillies like yourselves doing out here so late?"

Cloudchaser snorted at him. "If you think that it's so late, why aren't you back in bed with your wife?" she asked him mockingly.

He shook his head. "Maybe I'm looking for two little fillies to suit my perverted needs?" he suggested.

They both laughed at him.

He smiled wider as his horn lit up in a bright green color. "Actually, forget the fillies. You two'll do just fine," he said as he released the spell, causing both of them to freeze up for an instant, then go limp as a wet noodle the next.

They flopped to the ground, unable to stop themselves from falling. They couldn't move. Couldn't even open their mouths to call for help. All they could do was watch as the strange unicorn that they had never seen before got up and slowly walk over to them.

"Oh yes," he said, mostly to himself. "You'll do just fine."

To hell with making plans. Fun comes first. Fun will always come first.

Author's Note:

Yeah... sorry that this story kinda sucks. I really did think that it would come out better. But I'm not a professional writer. I'm hardly even an amateur writer. But either way, this story will get finished. But I am removing the comedy tag. I thought that this story would be funny, but... it kinda took a really dark turn and now I doubt there'll be any redemption for comedy in here other than Django's sick, twisted humor. So sorry to anybody I disappointed, but instead of just disliking the story, tell me what's wrong with it and I'll see if I can improve upon that. Well, that's all I have to say. Hope you keep reading.