Hollow Victory

by orangealley

Chaos Reigns

He'd done it.

Okay, that was a cliched way of putting it, and it wasn't entirely his doing - if the Element bearers hadn't had that huge argument just the other day he doubted he'd have been set free for another thousand years at least.

But the fact remained - he was free once more, and unlike that brat of a princess he'd actually done his homework.

Discord had listened to culture changing throughout his imprisonment; Winter Wrap Up was founded, the pegasi were entrusted with scheduled weather; Luna was banished, fillies' dresses got shorter, the Royal Canterlot Voice was abolished; and - closer to home, and much to his chagrin - vines began to creep up the plinth on which he stood.

And yet there was one thing that remained constant - somepony, always, would clear them away. Had to be a unicorn - they never walked in front of him, where he could see them; always removed the vines with a quick burst of magic, and then left. It was after the first two centuries passed that he realised, well, it had to be Celestia. Nopony else would live long enough, and dragons didn't have that kind of magic.

He put this out of his mind quickly, and focused on the information he could glean from conversations going on around him. He'd need it, after all, when he got loose (and he would get loose, because nothing could keep a spirit chained up forever, Elements or no Elements).

And, for a brief moment, he had been free, and it had all ended so quickly he'd barely had a chance to really enjoy it.

But this time... this time, he'd had to wait only a year.

The Element bearers argued. He could hear them, sometimes, when he listened closely; the Elements of Harmony were so closely linked to the spirit of Disharmony, after all, and if he'd wanted to, he could have eavesdropped on Celestia for all the years he was trapped the first time around. Not that it would have done any good, he told himself.

But no - he could feel the last bit of restricting stone ebb away from his feet and his tail, and (just like last time) he toppled backwards with a sigh and a laugh and a complete loss of balance. You tended to lose a few things, when you were trapped in the same position for aeons and aeons. Your sense of balance was one of them. He'd get it back in good time.

And that deserved a laugh, too. He'd played games with them the last time. That was his first mistake. And Discord planned to learn from it. This time, he would trap them first. And Celestia. And, to avoid any loose ends, Luna too!

Discord shakily picked himself up and dusted himself off, shaking out his wings and testing his powers with a snap of the fingers. The gravel path before him turned to lava.

Yikes. He made a point of never using a lot of sense, but he didn't kill anypony. Discord tried again. Lava to ice. Good - ice would do. And what better way to get his balance back than to fit in some skating practice?

It was five minutes later that he remembered he had never had a very good sense of balance. That was okay. His powers could fix it. Discord tried another spin on the ice path and, this time, cheated gravity. Wonderful. Now that was a pirouette.

No more time to spend wasting on the small things, though. He was not about to be trapped for another thousand years just because he spent too much time messing about with some ice...

---

Canterlot became a fortress. Walls sprang up, impossibly high, and the invisible ceiling over the city made it hilarious to watch the bearer of Loyalty fly straight up only to smack into a barrier and drop like a stone.

He'd caught her, before she hit the floor. It was higher than that first time in the maze. Somepony could really get hurt.

"What are you planning to do, Discord?" the bearer of Magic demanded. Discord just laughed, strong and loud.

"Freedom is all I want, Twilight Sparkle. And if that means stripping you of yours to ensure I stay free, so be it. Enjoy the sights of Canterlot, ponies. You'll be seeing nothing else for some time."

They would probably try to dig their way out, if it came to it; ponies were nothing if not determined. Which was why he encased the castle in a bubble and lifted it to Cloudsdale's height, heaving the city upwards with clawed motions and a hiss.

That reminded him. He still hadn't paid Cloudsdale a visit; when he'd first been trapped in stone, it hadn't even existed, and after that he simply hadn't had time...

"Excuse me, ladies. I have a world to improve." The relieved looks on their faces as he teleported away! Really, did they think he was going to hurt them?

First, though, he had some important business to attend to. The Princesses were somewhere in the castle, too. Powerless as they were against him without the Elements, they still had to be dealt with.

He found them in the highest tower.

Even as the door creaked open, they were standing ready to face him; a confrontation, as it always had been.

"Don't try anything, Discord."

"If thou thinkest thyself wise," Luna added, pawing the ground. She was always the rash one. Pity the effect was lost when she was so much shorter than her sister.

Discord merely stepped forwards with his hands where they could see them, raised in the air like some kind of peaceful surrender. They understood, of course, that it was anything but.

"Ladies, ladies. I want nothing from you but what I should have taken a long time ago.

They were both in a fighting stance, sharp and powerful unicorn horns angled towards him and wings outstretched. It would have been threatening, once upon a time.

As it was, however, Discord knew their limitations. And so he took away both.

"Discord!" Celestia jolted, glancing behind her at her now-bare shoulders. Luna blanched at the sudden lack of horns on them both, and skittered to the side as she realised she was wingless, too. "Give them back!"

"My, but you look funny without those," he pointed out liesurely, a calm smirk on his face. "You'll get them back when you come to see my rule for what it is: better than yours." It had always been somewhat of a competition, really.

"Your rule is an unrighteous one! You cause misery and steal away joy - all for your own twisted humour!"

Discord stuck a finger in his ear and waggled it, the Royal Canterlot Voice all but blowing his wings out of order. "My advice, Luna, is to stop running your mouth before I take that away, too." That shut her up. Discord held out his arms, and undid the brickwork that held the tower room together in a spiral motion that left plenty of space to move. The bricks then arranged themselves into a floating staircase, leading all the way down to the barrier.

The draconequus spread his wings and stepped forwards, clearing his throat for added effect.

"Luna and Celestia, raisers of the sun, stars and moon: your services are no longer needed, and your continued defiance causes me to banish you from Equestria." His perfect imitation of the Canterlot voice only cemented their resentment. "The door is over there, ladies. You may leave the game." The triumphant grin on his face was almost painful. "Keep moving. The path will take you right to the border. It's a long walk, but I find it fitting that your last steps in Equestria will be on Canterlot brick, don't you?"

With the princesses seemed to go the last bit of hope Equestria had. Their walk of shame, with Discord's deliberate intervention, took them right through Ponyville. Any talk of the Elements that had once resided there died down when confronted with the sight of two princesses, stripped of their crowns, their horns and their wings, stepping hoof by hoof onto brick by floating brick above the main street of the small town.

Even with their heads held high, their defiant eyes promising there is hope, the fire in their eyes only dimmed upon seeing their message wasn't getting through.

Ponies who had turned to look amidst the floating pieces of landscape and drifting practical jokes simply turned away, bowing their heads and seeming to accept that from now on, there was nothing anypony could do. After all, without the Elements who had lived their lives in Ponyville, without the Princesses who had given their gifts of night and day - who was left to fix what had been done?

Discord stood alone in the wall-less room, the roof tiles slowly falling to pieces above him. For the first time in aeons and aeons, he felt truly victorious. The world was his again. He'd learned from his mistakes and now he had nothing left to stop him from going on an all-out chaos spree the likes of which Equestria had only once known.

With a soar of his dark heart and a beat of his mismatched wings, the draconequus leapt into the air and left Canterlot behind him.

---

It was a full season later, as the leaves should have turned gold and red and dropped from their trees (and instead turned cyan and magenta polka-dot, broke up into colourful bubbles and burst against the sky), that Discord found himself back where he'd started.

The shocked looks on the ponies' faces as he burst open the huge oak front doors of the Canterlot palace were amusing in their own right. The pastel-yellow Kindness bearer froze in place, a feather duster in her mouth, and promptly whisked behind the vase she'd been dusting. The unicorn buffing the floor, Rarity, dropped what she was doing and stood valiantly where she was, merely glaring at him as he strolled casually past.

"And what, exactly, are you back for?"

"Scathing," he remarked, and gave the floor a light dusting of soot with a flick of his claw. Rarity made a horrified noise and leapt onto the cloth she'd dropped. "I expected better manners from you, Rarity. Especially since you seem to have seen fit to assign yourself as my castle's royal housemaid of your own accord."

The unicorn stomped, kicking up clouds of black dust. "This is not," she growled through gritted teeth, "your castle. Besides, you can hardly trap us here and expect us to let our own living quarters turn to ruin. It would be dreadful of us not to keep it tidy for when the Princesses return."

Discord stopped in his tracks, halfway up the steps, and grinned at her over his shoulder. "They aren't coming back, Rarity. I suggest you come to terms with it. And they're not Princesses any more."

With that, he snapped his fingers, and the two familiar crowns appeared on his head, looped over each horn like a mockery of their rightful places. "You can go ahead and start calling me Princess if it makes you feel any better. But I expect a dress to go with the title." Snickering, he left them in the entry hall and headed upstairs.

"Very funny." Rarity stomped again. "Oooh, the nerve! Fluttershy, we simply must not let him get the better of us."

"Um - you're getting yourself dirty again," the nervous pegasus pointed out. Rarity gave a short, sharp squeal of disgust and winked out, reappearing moments later on the relatively clean carpet.

"Well. If Discord is here, we are going to take advantage, Fluttershy. I don't know what we're going to do - but we're going to do... something." She paused for thought, tapping her cheek thoughtfully with her front hoof and unwittingly leaving an arc of black soot behind. "Go and find out which room our house guest is staying in, will you? He wouldn't be coming back here if he didn't plan on staying the night." She paused, as the sun set rapidly outside and then wound back up into the middle of the sky and flashed a few times. "...However long that night may be."

Fluttershy nodded, and obediently squeezed out from behind the vase. With a few soft beats of her wings, she took to the air and slipped outside, quietly beginning to gain altitude to try and find the right window.

"Oh, and Fluttershy!" Rarity waved away the puffs of soot the pegasus' wings had kicked up. They'd given her an idea. "Fly low through this hall when you come back, would you? I'd have our dear friend Rainbow Crash clear the hall much faster, but she's sulking again."

"Put a sock in it, Fussyhooves!" came a resentful cry from somewhere overhead. Rarity spared a withering look for the pony reclining on the chandelier.

Comments

I loved it, magnificent story-line. and well written too. it has all the makings of an epic story so far, i hope to see more.

you suck

[Netaro]

As much as I like the idea of Discord escaping again and learning upon his past mistakes, you didn't give any explanation as to why exactly mane 6 were fighting between themselves. I hope you'll expand this.
Other than that, it looks like a solid story. Curious to read more.

[orangealley]

19201
Thanks a bunch! I'll try and write more ASAP :>

19243
Yeah, that explanation will be forthcoming in a later chapter. Mystery and intrigue ooooh. /waggly hands

Thanks for the interest you guys! :D

19238
0/10

[Meta Knight]

♫♥I look forward to reading what happens next in your story♥♪

[Pata-K]

nice story, here. I'll track it and get back whenever you give us more

who cares about why they fought, it was a plot device that i quite frankly don't want to hear about.

[Squid Squidy]

Interesting and well -written... I love Discord in fics, he always makes them fun. The possibilities in the upcoming storyline look very attractive...

Also, what's up with that guy? He didn't even give a reason or think up anything inventive for an insult. (His name was very obliging here.)

[orangealley]

19258
19262
Thanks guys! <3 It's encouraging to hear stuff like that.

19336
Weeell you're gonna hear about it anyway! I'll try and make it interesting though, so uh - don't dread it or anything haha.

19353
Thank yoooou :D I haven't written anything in ages so breaking into this fic was kind of iffy for me. I was like oh god what if they hate it and then I was like.... oh nvm they like it yaaay. |D thanks!
And don't pay any attention to that type of commenter, it's just a troll looking for a response. :>