The Curse of Discord

by Creative Charmer

Chapter 14: Jump-starting the Princess 2/2

"Isn't there any way to snap Twilight outta this?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Do you think you could do something, Discord?" Fluttershy asked her draconequus companion.

"Is this really a matter calling for the use of my powers?"

"Hey! Your job is to fix anything none of us can!" Rainbow vociferated as she flew right up in Discord's face.

"Rainbow Dash!" Fluttershy said in a mildly upset tone as she flew between her two friends and faced Rainbow. "You know better than to make such forceful demands of others!"

"She does?" Discord inquired, eliciting a glare from the cross pegasus.

Rather than prolong this hostile altercation betwixt her two friends, Fluttershy elected to ask Discord herself if he could aid the others in bringing Twilight back to her conscious state.

"Well, I'll give it a shot, but don't blame me if it doesn't work this time, either," he replies as he begins walking over to Twilight.

"Don't worry, none of us will do anything of the sort," Fluttershy turns her head back to her friends. "Will we?" she asks sweetly, receiving several nettled "no's" from a few of her friends.

"Well, even with that outpouring of encouragement, are my powers really necessary for this particular situation? Waking someone from what I'm going to call brain-lock? Surely you ponies have some way to remedy this problem yourselves—or, of course, if nothing else works, you can always rely on your 'Elements of Harmony', since those always seem to magically solve any problem you have—pun partially intended."

At the instant the name was uttered, a noticeable stirring transpired with Twilight's eyes. Her pupils budged, her eyelids shifted to a slow blink, and barely audible words began to emanate from the draconicorn's mouth.

"...elements..."

Nobody could hear her speak.

"...elements..."

Applejack, whom was standing right next to Twilight, turned towards her reawakening friend.

"...the elements..."

"Hey, guys! Ah think Twilight's comin' around!" This declaration immediately shifted everyone's attention back to Twilight, whose speech was now becoming loud enough for everyone to hear.

"...the Elements of Harmony!!" Twilight exclaimed in a sudden outburst, surprising everyone into backing away from her(and making Fluttershy fall down herself, though Discord caught her).

"Oh my gosh! The Elements of Harmony!" Twilight slapped her face in disbelief. "How could I not have thought of that at the beginning??" the draconicorn stated in a fraught manner, now having her face in the palms of both her hands. She wasn't alone in these feelings of foolishness, as her friends felt almost as distraught as Twilight did.

"You know, I'm rather surprised none of you thought of that sooner."

Twilight's reflecting of her folly halted as she turned her head to face Discord, as did everyone else.

The draconequus reached down and took out a pocket watch from nowhere and flipped it open to check the time. By the looks of it, it took...quite a bit of time to do so."

"Woah! Hold on!" Rainbow flew right up to Discord, now face-to-face with the draconequus. "Are you telling us you'd already thought of using the Elements of Harmony to fix Twilight and you didn't tell us?!?" the apoplectic pegasus shouted, having moved her face closer to Discord's during her entire tirade, her eyes now adjacent to his.

"Well, I can't always be the one to solve your problems for you," he replies nonchalantly. "I simply wanted to give you ponies the chance to figure out solutions for yourself."

It was taking every ounce of Rainbow Dash's strength and willpower to prevent herself from going completely mental from Discord's "lesson". It looked as if she may need to be held back so nopony could get hurt—but luckily for both her and Discord, Fluttershy stepped in as peacemaker once more, defending Discord's unintentionally tough teaching methods, saying how he's doing the best he can to help his new friends in the way he thinks is best, and that they all need to understand Discord can't be expected to behave like everyone else in every way. Needless to say, Fluttershy's other friends were none too pleased to see Fluttershy side with Discord over them, and they could see she was quite adamant in her position(at least, for Fluttershy standards).

Luckily, before the quarreling could be prolonged, Celestia put in a word herself to stop the bickering, "Listen, everypony. It matters not that Discord did not give us his information before, because now we know the Elements may be our key to restoring Twilight to her former self, and that is to be our focus from this moment forward."

It was difficult to argue with the princess, as she was right: Twilight's well-being was what mattered most to her friends, and they intended to get their friend back to the way she was. With that, everypony and Spike agreed unanimously with the princess, and the mattered was settled.

"Now all we gotta do is go an' retrieve the Elements of Harmony from the library in Ponyville."

"That shouldn't be so hard," Fluttershy said, turning her head towards Discord. "Discord will be able to get them faster than anypony."

"Why, yes—I do believe that I can," Discord said, rubbing his hand on is chest in a smug manner.

"Well then, you'd better hurry before you make us do any more waiting," Rainbow Dash proclaimed spitefully.

"Still cross about earlier, are we?" Rainbow responds to him with simply her dirty gaze. "...I'll just take that as a yes and be on my way; toodle-oo!" Just as the draconequus was about to teleport away, a voice had suddenly spoke up amongst the group, causing Discord to stop and turn his attention towards said voice.

"Thanks, everyone," Twilight said, having calmed down thanks to Celestia's statement and the support of her friends. "Though I still wish we could have thought of this plan before all of the chaos I had caused, I'm just glad my friends are with me no matter what, and have stayed with me through these difficult times."

"Pffft! You kidding? That's what buds are for!" Rainbow replied with a wink.

"Ah can't imagine it any other way, Twilight."

"And that goes double for me!"

"And double-double for me!!"

Many a tear of joy was born from Twilight's eyes at that moment. Surly, she could not ask for better friends than these— she even looked like she was about to cry, as was shown by her sudden twitching, as if she was trying to hold back from crying. However, the twitching did not let up: it continued to increase in rapidity, and Twilight's eyes changed from a look of jubilation to one of shock. Soon enough, the twitching spread from just her head to the rest of her body, and once her entire body had begun convulsing, her head alone began jerking around harder than ever, and everyone was naturally filled with shock and horror in seeing this.

"Oh no! not now!"

"She's changing again!"

"Really? So now I'll be able to see how this looks for myself." Discord stated inquisitively.

Twilight's head slowed down to a quiver, and her mouth opened up, revealing a bright glow emanating from the roof of Twilight's mouth. Her jaw opened wider until it reached its maximum, and in just a matter of moments, a colossal flash burst from the draconicorn's maw, with everyone blocking the light like before(with Discord using sunglasses, as one would expect).

The light having faded away, the friends of Twilight once more turned their collective gazes towards the changed Twilight, and now saw what the latest inclusion to her transmogrified appearance was: a pair of long, deadly, and quite frankly terrifying snake fangs. Such a sight was shocking for some, though more frightening to others(mostly Fluttershy), and then there was Discord, who was quite fascinated now that he has seen for himself exactly how the curse affected Twilight.

Twilight herself was still attempting to regain her composure after her transformation, though it was not coming as easily as before. Twilight could feel the protruding incisors with her mouth, but could not see them. She gradually reached up with her hands and felt the fangs with her fingers, the hair raising on the back of her neck in alarm at these horrible new appendages.

"Twilight? Are you okay?"

Twilight looked towards those standing in front of her. She uttered not a single word, and her eyes did not shift from their forward gaze. Her arms remained locked in their current position and the same look of terror hung on her face this entire time.

"Twilight? Is something wrong?"

Again, no dialogue was spoken. The draconicorn did nothing but stand absolutely motionless in the middle of the throne room—until, suddenly, Twilight's eyes began to glow; from a faint dim to a bright light that blocked out all features of her eyes, Twilight was changing once more, but this time was different—her body had yet to convulse, and had remained immobile. Twilight's friends were unsure how to react to this occurrence, not knowing what else could be done other than simply watch.

But these feelings of uncertainty did not last long, as just then, a ring of darkness formed around the draconicorn's still body. The ring of light swirled around Twilight, and her body started to rise upwards into the air just as a pillar of darkness came up from the ring below, surrounding the motionless Twilight. Not only was this an entirely new event, but it induced more fear than ever into the fries of Twilight, as it was clear something significant was about to happen to their friend, and it may just be the worst change yet...

What can only be described as a "dark light" shone from the pillar of darkness, fading out all real light present in the throne room. This truly was dark magic at work, though its work had yet to complete.

The same darkness surrounding the draconicorn now shone from her eyes, doing away with the white light contained there previously, and the dark light shone with greater and greater intensity, until at last, a burst of darkness erupted from all around Twilight's body, the entire room now black as pitch.

Right before the room went dark, a single scream was heard for just a second—and the scream came from Twilight.

"Twilight!!" rang out above the darkness, having come from the voices of all the draconicorn's friends.

It had taken a bit of time, but eventually the darkness faded away, and natural light returned to the throne room. Nobody had needed to cover their eyes this time, due to darkness being what had coated the room.

Everyone had kept their eyes on where Twilight had been until the darkness had dissipated, and now Twilight's placement had back down on the floor, though now she was on her knees and hands, her face turned towards the floor.

"Twilight!!"

"Are you okay??"

"What the heck happened??"

Though she said nothing, Twilight was clearly conscious, as she had lifted up her body a bit from the floor, though she was still facing down.

"Is everything all right, Twilight...?" everyone looked on in nerve-wracking anxiousness, awaiting any kind of response to let them know their friend was okay.

Just then, Twilight lifted up her head a bit and began to speak, "...there is no Twilight...only—Bedlam!!" the draconicorn exclaims as she lifts up her face towards everypony, revealing her eyes to have changed to a shade of yellow with purple pupils in the center of each, and revealing the expression of a truly insane entity.

The curse had done its job: Twilight's transformation...has reached its zenith...

Comments

[ivord]

only—Bedlam

Not a fan of that name, maybe it's because i'm accidentally reading it with an extra «c».

Still, nice job on the new chapter...

And now, to wait for the next one.

[Creative Charmer]

6037783

I just wanted a name synonymous with "Discord" that sounded like it could be for a female.

[Omnishifter]

6038685 I like it, and I still want to see how Twi-(ahem) I mean, Bedlam reacts to Discord.

[MLP Fangirl]

I definitely want to see how this plays out. You've got my attention.

[Creative Charmer]

6111891

Well, the rest is coming, so stay tuned!

[Creative Charmer]

6104959

And how Discord reacts to Bedlam...