Starry Skies: Shadowbolt Agent

by Hopeful_Ink_Hoof

Thief of Chaos

Discord was inside a giant bubble that was more than half filled with what looked like dozens of miniature bathtubs. On his head was a shower cap, in his paw he held a brush with some dark substances on it, and in his eagle claw was a rubber Fluttershy. Opening his eyes, he looked around.

With a snap of his lion paw, the bubble and tiny bathtubs disappeared, leaving Discord standing with a towel around his chest.

"What's the meaning of this?" he growled out. "I was in the middle of a bubble bath for crying out loud."

"Sorry," Pumpkin said, "but they threatened my brother if I didn't."

"Oh, really?" Raising one eyebrow, Discord turned around to look at the crowd. "Who are they supposed to be?"

"Now!" Sleep Thief bellowed.

Several horns lit up, causing the room to become bright with multi-hued light. Instead of firing the magic directly at Discord, it was channeled downwards, causing the markings to glow. At the same time, Sleep Thief was picking up the two wands and the white rope.

"Okay," Discord sighed out, "I think we've had enough of this." Tossing the brush aside, he snapped his digits.

Nothing happened.

Blinking in confusion, Discord looked at his paw. He then snapped it again. There was a flicker of magic, but nothing else happened. He then tried it again, and again, and again still. Each time, nothing happened. With a snort, he raised his claws and slashed the air. Still, nothing happened.

"Fine," he huffed out. "We'll leave the old fashioned way."

He then floated up and started toward the door, only to slam into something. Magical chains shot up from the markings on the floor, wrapping around the draconequus and pulling him down to the ground.

With a wave of one wand, Sleep Thief vanished from sight, only to reappear inside the circle. Her eyes narrowed as a vicious grin spread across her lips.

"After much planning, we The Children of Discord -- of the true Discord -- have caught the weak impostor."

"Who are you calling an impostor, you little brat?" Discord growled, trying to get up. The magical auras grew brighter as more magic poured into the markings, the chains then pulling him back down hard.

"We have been waiting and working on this too long to let you get away easily," Sleep Thief stated. "And now, with these" -- she held up the wands and rope -- " we will be able to take the magic from you. Then we will be able to restore a true being of chaos to Equestria! And with, we The Children of Discord will be able to take control."

There was a cheer from several of the gathered ponies. From the corner of her eye, Starry Skies was able to notice that the flutter pony was not one of them. Maybe the idea was no longer appealing to her as much as it used to?

"Take my magic?" Discord asked, raising an eyebrow. "And how, precisely, are you going to do that with a piece of costume jewelry, two rusty antiques, and a cheap piece of rope?"

"I'm so glad you asked," Sleep Thief replied with a grin. She held up the rope. "You see, this isn't simply some 'cheap piece of rope' as you call it. It is actually a rope woven from the hair of Tirek."

Starry Skies tensed at the name, remembering the stories she heard about the creature. Then she saw something she never imagined that she would: Discord was scared. Star may have heard the stories, but Discord had lived through it. He had even been betrayed by the creature and had been stripped of his magic before. Granted it had been after he had betrayed The Elements in the first place, which made it a little poetic, but it looked like it was still traumatizing to the draconequus. He started to kick and thrash, tugging at the magical chains as hard as he could.

"With the 'piece of costume jewely' and 'rusty antiques' combined with my own power," Sleep Thief continued, "it should be enough to use some of the residual magic still in that hair, allowing me to drain your chaos magic." She then leaned down, eyes narrowing. "And if you were the real Discord, you would have been able to get out of all this, you faker."

Star decided she had heard enough. She did not know if the plan would work or not, but she did not want to take that risk. Letting a mentally unstable pony obtain reality warping powers and an insanity inducing artifact had to be the top of the list when it came to dangerous and bad (and if it was not, Star did not want to face whatever was above it).

Dropping to her stomach, Star got below the edges of the weapons pointed at her. Turning her attention to one of the guards, she kicked out with a leg, driving her hoof hard as she could into the tarsal joint of the front leg. There was an audible pop as the joint was dislocated, making the leg unable to support the pony's weight. Combined with the fact the other leg had been lifted to hold the weapon, and the pony had no front end support. As he dropped, Star raised her leg to drive her hoof into his jaw.

Grabbing the dropped spear, she shot up and threw it at Sleep Thief.

There was a clang and a hum as the metal spear tip struck a magic barrier and bounced off.

Before she could fully process what had happened, something slammed into Star's back and and knocked her to the ground. Something sharp poked into her flank, causing her to wince and clench her jaw.

"Try something like that again," a voice growled out, "and not only will we make you regret it, but the others will pay as well."

Eyes narrowed, she turned to look at the pony that spoke.

"When we get out of this," she said in a low voice, "I'm going to rip your throat out with my teeth." She then bared them, showing the razor sharp fangs. A part of her took pleasure in how the mare turned pale at the sight.

The rest of her was mentally kicking herself. They were using multiple spells to keep Discord trapped. Of course it would not so easily be penetrated by something. If she wanted to take it out, she would have to take most -- if not all -- of the ponies that were powering the containment spell. If she did that, then Discord would be free and able to use his magic, so the spear would have been needless. Alternatively, maybe it would have been enough to take out one pony charging it. If she had thought of that, then she could have gotten one free shot before being taken down.

After being yanked up onto her hooves, Star was once again surrounded and stuck doing nothing but watch what was happening.

In the ring, Sleep Thief's horn was growing brighter with her golden aura of magic, engulfing the wands and the rope of Tirek hair. The three items floated above the mare, with a wand on each side. Slowly, they moved closer to each other. The hair touched the two wands, then wrapped around the handles.

There was a flare of the magic aura as it shifted from golden yellow to more of a molten orange. The flare passed and the aura grew smaller, and smaller, pulling in around the now combined three objects. Before long, the aura had nearly vanished, the only sign it was still there was the items still floating, and the tint of burning orange to them.

A beam of energy shot out from the woven Tirek hair and struck Discord between the eyes. The magic then spread out, working across his face and down his body as it engulfed him completely. As it did, he went limp and his eyes glassed over. Then his jaw opened wide.

Sleep Thief grinned widely before opening her own mouth as well.

A strange beam of energy shot out from Discord's mouth. It was nearly black, with streaks of deep red and swirling bubbles of blue and purple. As the magic pulled away from Discord, his eyes glassed over as the color faded from his body.

Sleep Thief's eyes went wide as the power struck her, forcing her jaw open wider to the point that must have been painful. Her body glowed with magic, the white coated form engulfed in the molten light. There was a pulse of energy, which faded to reveal a larger, leaner version of Sleep Thief.

When the magic stopped, the items fell to the floor as the two of them collapsed. The horns of the ponies around them stopped glowing, dropping the containment spell. Marionette ran forward, hood dropping from his robe to confirm his identity. One of the dressing dummies moved with him. Getting beside the fallen Sleep Thief, the stallion reached down to pull her up.

"Are you okay, boss?" he asked.

"I..." the mare started. "I... I need..."

Her eyes opened wide as she lunged at Marionette.

"MORE!"

Pinning Marionette down, Sleep Thief's horn lit up as she opened her mouth again. The stallion tensed, eyes wide as his own horn lit up. The power shot from Marionette's horn to Sleep Thief's mouth, disappearing. As it did, the dressing dummies collapsed to the floor.

When the magic stopped, Sleep Thief let the unconscious stallion drop to the floor. She then turned to look at all the ponies in the room, her eyes glowing red.

"This is incredible," she said, looking around. "I can feel it, the little bits of chaotic magic in all of you." Her eyes and the amulet flared with red energy. "And I want it all!"

There was a massive pulse of energy that slammed into everypony, knocking them back. Not enough to even wind them, but enough that it would take a second to get up and moving. Some of the ponies collected cried out as they got up, running for the doorways. There was a thump as they slammed into a wall of magic. More and more moved toward it, pressing against it the barrier, but it was no use. It refused to budge.

They were trapped.

Sleep Thief then reached out with her power and grabbed the hippogriff. A squawk escaped him as he was pulled forward, yanked directly in front of the power hungry mare. Grabbing him, Sleep Thief opened her mouth and started to drain him as well.

This time, something strange happened. As the hippogriff was drained of magic, it started to change. Where the two halves met, the feathers began disappearing, being replaced by fur of his coat color. The change continued up along the body as it continued. The wings remained the same, but at the forelegs, the lower half grew thicker as the talons shrank down to give way to hooves. Reaching the head, the beak softened and turned into an equine muzzle.

Where once there had been a hippogriff, there was now a pegasus.

When the power had stopped, Sleep Thief dropped him. One of her forelegs had turned into that of a bird, ending in a set of black talons.

"So tasty," she moaned out. "Now, who's next?" She then grabbed another pony, an earth mare this time.

Considering everything that was currently going on, it seemed safe to assume that none of the ponies stuck there were very concerned with the hostages. Pushing her way from the would-be guards, Starry Skies took off and flew toward Princess Flurry Heart, keeping as much space away from Sleep Thief as she could manage. As soon as she landed, Star grabbed the ring on Flurry's horn and pulled it off.

"Thanks," Flurry said, her magic flickering for a second.

"No problem. Now we need to get the Cakes and come up with a plan."

"Stay close to me," Flurry said before lighting her horn up fully. There was a flash of pale yellow light and a popping sound as the two of them were teleported to where The Cake Twins were.

None of the ponies around them seemed to care at the moment, meaning there was no reason to fight.

"That was convenient," Starry Skies said. "Can you teleport out of here?"

"I don't know where here is," Flurry Heart answered, "and I don't know Ponyville very well either. Without that, I have no way of knowing where to teleport to. We don't even know how far below ground we are."

"Pumpkin?"

"Sorry, but summoning Discord drained most of my magic. I could maybe teleport us to the other side of the door, but that would be it." Pumpkin looked around. "Although, I don't know if we can teleport through this barrier to begin with."

This was not what Starry Skies wanted to hear. She wanted them to say that yes, they could teleport. Easily, in fact, and with multiple ponies. That way, the two of them could get Pound Cake, Discord, and a bunch of the other ponies out and away from the now insane and (literally?) power hungry Sleep Thief.

"We still need to try," she said. "Flurry, see if you can teleport with Pound to the outside of the doorway."

"Hold on," Pound said. "I wanna help."

"You're already injured," Star replied, "and we can't get too close to Sleep Thief, or she'll feed off us."

There was a scream as another pony was grabbed. Sleep Thief wrapped the eagle talon around their neck, newly developed muscles tensing. A single feathered wing stuck out from her shoulder.

"This would be interesting if it weren't so scary," Pumpkin mumbled.

"Flurry," Star repeated. "Now. Please."

"Right." Flurry closed her eyes and lit up her horn. There was a flash as she and Pound Cake disappeared, only to reappear a second later in the same spot. The two ponies wobbled a moment, their eyes unfocused and spinning.

"No good," Flurry Heart said, her words slightly slurring before she gave her head a hard shake. "It's blocking the way out."

Star's jaw clenched as she bit down on her frustration. They had to do something.

Before she could come up with at least part of a plan, a molten orange aura wrapped Princess Flurry Heart. A yelp escaped the alicorn as she was yanked off her hooves.

"FLURRY!" Star cried out, grabbing onto one of Flurry's legs. Tensing, wings flapping hard, she tried to pull her cousin loose of the mad mare's grasp. Hooves quickly wrapped around her flank, and she was soon engulfed in a pale blue magical aura.

The Cakes were trying to stop it too.

"Pumpkin, ca--"

There was a snapping sound as Flurry Heart was yanked from their grasp and brought before Sleep Thief. A smile spread across the mare's face, revealing multiple sets of fangs.

"I forgot we had a princess among us," she said. "I wonder how much stronger your power will make me." Her wings -- one feathered and the other insect-like -- flickered in excitement. Reaching out with her eagle talon, she grabbed Flurry Heart by the throat and opened her mouth wide.