The Infestation of Canterlot High School

by Bonster

Thirteen - Walk

Thirteen - Walk

“As in, the Discord?” Sunset asked, narrowing her eyes.

“So you have heard of me!”

“As in, the Discord that reigned during the Chaos Era? Who made life a living hell for everypony?”

Discord scoffed. “Oh, please, that’s blowing it way out of proportion. History books these days are hardly accurate. Everypony loved me as a ruler!”

Sunset just stared.

“Okay, so maybe it was closer to distant admiration, but I had to do something! The tribes had stopped fighting, the windigoes had ran away to bother the zebras (the cowards), the changelings were keeping the Sirens busy, Starswirl and his apprentice had started banishing rogue creatures to Tartarus or alternate dimensions; it was all far too harmonious! I saved Equestria from a mundane existence.”

“You terrorized the country for years!”

“Semantics.”

“Huh,” Applejack said, “That’s a lotta history t’ pack into one lifetime.”

“Not when you’re immortal,” Sunset muttered.

“What?” Rarity screeched. “Is—is he a god?”

“Well, not to brag, but…” Discord produced a book that read ‘The Holy Bible of Discord’. His face was on the front, and it moved in concert with his real one. “I’ve been pretty popular throughout the years.”

“He is not a god,” Sunset corrected, throwing the Bible out of Discord’s claws with a jolt of telekinesis. “If immortality were all it took, then Twilight would be a god too.”

“What?” Rarity screeched, again.

“Why must you be so hostile, Sunny?” Discord said. “Haven’t you heard the news? I’m reformed now! The lovely if not particularly bright counterparts of your friends here have been teaching me the wonders of friendship.” His voice dropped to a whisper that was still just as loud, and he cupped a hand around his mouth. “Just between you and me, though, I think Fluttershy’s the only one who truly appreciates me.”

“You, the spirit of chaos, are friends with the elements of harmony?” Sunset asked, incredulous.

Discord smirked. “Such wonderful incongruity, am I right?”

“Why should we trust you?” Rainbow barked, still fumbling to stand up straight.

She yelped as Discord suddenly appeared next to her. He twisted his body around hers, and she shivered. “Now, Rainbow Dash, whatever suggests that I don’t have your very best interests in mind?”

“Cause you’re a creepy snake monster!”

Discord clicked his tongue. “I’m a draconequus, Rainbow. Don’t be racist.”

“I—what?”

“Now, let’s examine your position, shall we?” He spoke to Rainbow Dash, but his eyes drifted towards Sunset. Surprisingly metaphorically. “Five of you have never been a pony before, yet you rushed after Chrysalis through the portal. And I don’t care how weak she was at the moment, you wouldn’t have been able to fight her on her home turf. Fortunately for you, I’m the epitome of kindness, and sent you here instead.

“Now, I could be lying about all this, but let’s face it, the only way you have any chance of beating the changelings is if I’m not, so, therefore, no matter what, you have no choice but to assume I’m telling the truth.”

Rainbow’s face screwed up in concentration, but all she produced was a confused “What?”

“Makes perfect sense to me!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“I mean,” Fluttershy started, “he seems nice enough. A bit strange, but nice.”

Discord beamed at her.

“Now hold on just a minute!” Applejack stalked forward shakily, tripped once, got up like nothing had happened, readjusted her hat, and poked Discord with a hoof. “A lie’s a lie, and there ain’t nothin’ you can say t’ change that. I don't appreciate ya tryin’ t’ trick us with yer fancy logic.”

Sunset sighed. “Discord. I’ll talk to you in private.”

“Oh, I knew you’d come around,” he said. A gentlemanly suit poofed into existence around his body. He offered a hooked elbow to Sunset, tipping his new fedora. “Let’s take a walk, shall we?”

Sunset, tragically lacking her favorite finger, resolved to simply ignore him as she trotted deeper into the cave.

---

“If you’re so nice now, why didn’t you, I don’t know, stop Chrysalis?”

Sunset and Discord were a significant ways away from her friends by now; the cave system seemed to stretch on forever, and it appeared that Discord used it frequently. They had passed a swimming pool, a gym, a grocery store, two rooms that were just jacuzzi bathtubs, and a small closet-sized hole in the wall that housed about eight Discord body pillows. (Sunset had no intention of asking.)

“Well, funny story, that. You see, silly old me didn’t realize she was invading until all three in-country princesses were goners.”

“Yakshit. Chrysalis has been practicing dark magic; I saw it myself. There’s no way she beat Celestia without using it, no matter how much love she had, and you”—she stuck a hoof out at Discord—“should’ve sensed her casting.”

“Ah, yes. That.” Discord cleared his throat. “I promised not to tell anybody about this, but you’re forcing my hand.” His eagle claw morphed into a very realistic human hand. Sunset wretched a bit. “You must understand that Princess Luna’s temper tantrums can involve an awful lot of powerful and illegal magic, and last time I showed up at Canterlot Castle to deal with whatever fiend was attacking only to find Luna complaining about how it wasn’t ‘just a phase, Celestia,’ they almost turned me back into stone then and there. I didn’t wish to repeat such an emotionally taxing encounter for our dear royal sisters.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, I was also in the middle of a very good book, and I wanted to finish it,” Discord said. “Even if you’re alone, it’s rude to get up in the middle of a meal.”

“A mea—you know what? Nevermind.” Sunset sat down and rested her head in her hooves. “I suppose that’s all… plausible. One more question: if you’re the lord of chaos, shouldn’t you be able to kick Chrysalis to Tartarus no sweat?”

Discord, for once, became a bit more serious. “Chrysalis isn’t to be taken lightly. She may be a bumbling idiot, but she packs a punch.” He paused for a second to gather his thoughts. “Are you familiar with Sirens?”

“All too much. They tried to take over my school.”

“No, not those three. I’m talking about the Minstrels of Oratorio. Awfully pretentious, sat on a hill, made people go mad.”

Sunset’s eyebrow arched skeptically. “I think my Equestrian History course might have skipped over that.”

“Remember what I said earlier about history textbooks?” He didn’t wait for a response. “The sirens you battled were exiled from their home because they disagreed with the Siren policy of seclusion. Those three really were a great bunch—always stirring up trouble and spreading chaos wherever they went. It’s a shame Starswirl went and ruined it…”

Sunset’s eyes were wide. “Are you saying there are more sirens?”

“Oh, no, not anymore. Did you know that Canterlot was actually the second city to be built on Mount Canterlot? The sirens lived there first, at the very top, up above the alpha cloud layer. They would sing from there constantly, whispers in the back of everypony’s mind, spreading their influence unnoticably thin across the surrounding lands and feeding on the resulting negativity. A bit too subtle for my tastes, but it got the job done. It’s what caused the three tribes to be so bull-headed, and what attracted the windigoes in the first place. It was a great strategy, really, and nopony ever realized what had been going on. It allowed me to take a vacation, in fact.”

“But?” Sunset prompted.

“But Chrysalis,” Discord said with a scowl. “She was so fed up with the sudden drop in love that she managed to get up off her insufferable plot and do something about it; and thus began the Changeling-Siren War of the Starswirl Era. Chrysalis won—she personally fought at the front lines, against sirens and charmed changelings alike. She won, and that’s when I had to step in to make sure things stayed chaotic.” Discord paused for a moment to elongate his neck until his face pressed against Sunset’s muzzle. “So when I say that I can’t beat Chrysalis, I mean it.”

Sunset took a step back. He was worse than Pinkie when it came to personal space. “But you kept Celestia and Luna busy for years! Surely you could take Chrysalis!”

“Well, I might not like to admit it, but my magic is pretty terrible against shapechangers. I could try brainwashing or something, but Chrysalis is the best glamourist there is. Number one rule of enchantments: you can’t charm a charmer. The best I could do is drop a piano on her or something. It’d be a stalemate. That’s where you come in.”

“Huh?”

---

Sunset returned with Discord to find her friends practicing basic locomotion. Rarity and Fluttershy were wobbling around in circles, Applejack and Rainbow were racing each other and falling over constantly, and Pinkie had found that bouncing worked more consistently than walking or trotting.

“Hey Sunset!” Rainbow greeted as she faceplanted into the ground.

“Hey, Rainbow. So, how’s being equine for your first time?”

“HARD!” Pinkie yelled, bouncing up to Sunset. She tried to take a step and missed. “I mean, bouncing is fun and stuff, but it isn’t very fast, and my center of gravity feels all wrong and there might be changelings and how can I run if I can’t run?”

“Um… Keep practicing?”

“That’s what we’ve been trying, dear.” Rarity eyed Rainbow and Applejack, who had just crashed into each other, and lay groaning on the floor. “Well, some of us.”

“Ah don’t suppose you could teach us a thing or two ‘bout bein’ a pony?” Applejack asked, nudging her hat off her eyes.

“…Not right now. We have something to do.” Sunset gesturing somewhat grudgingly towards Discord.

“Can we help?” Fluttershy offered.

“I doubt it. I don’t even know what it is yet,” Sunset grumbled, shooting Discord a look.

“It shouldn’t wait is what it is,” he said, his body morphing into a grandfather clock. “Time is ticking, you know.”

Sunset took a deep breath, and tried to suppress her desire to zap Discord in his stupid face. “Right. We better get going, if it’s so very important.”

“Now you’re getting it,” Discord said, snapping his fingers. His body turned back to normal (well, as normal as it gets) and a red carpet unrolled itself across the room and through a different tunnel, knocking Pinkie off her hooves as it unraveled. Discord motioned to Sunset. “After you.”

She shot him a nasty look, but started trotting nonetheless.

“And one last thing for you ponies,” Discord added. He snapped, and vanished, a book falling to the ground where he had been. The carpet started to roll up again, wrapping Sunset between its furs and taking her yelping with it until the book was the only evidence that Discord had been there in the first place. The Rainbooms stared at where Sunset had gone in dumb silence for a few seconds before forcing it out of their minds.

The book sat invitingly on the ground.

Rainbow stumbled over to it. “The Tale of the Three Tribes? Is this a children’s book?”

Soon, all five of them were standing in a circle around it. “Well, we are new to this world, so that would make some sense,” Rarity surmised.

“Ooh! Ooh! Can I read it?” Pinkie asked.

She didn’t wait for an answer before she sat on her haunches and nudged the picture book towards her. It couldn’t have been easy to flip the pages with hooves, but with a few tries, Pinkie managed.

“The Tale of the Three Tribes!” She paused to turn the title page over. The second page had a picture of a pony with wings, a pony with a horn, and a pony with neither. “There were three tribes of ponies before Equestria was founded. Earth ponies, pegasus ponies, and unicorn ponies!”

The next page showed an earth pony tending to a farm. “Earth ponies were gifted with the magic of the earth. They could borrow its strength, and were great farmers! Hey, that’s just like you, Applejack!”

“I guess. Don’t know nothing ‘bout borrowin’ the earth’s strength, though.”

Pinkie flipped to a page with pegasi flying through the sky and pushing clouds around. “Pegasus ponies were gifted with the magic of the sky. They could fly and control the weather!”

Rainbow grinned. “Control the weather? Sweet! None of my games would be rained out ever again!”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “Rainbow, it’s a story book. You can’t control the weather.”

“We’ve seen some really strange things lately,” Fluttershy said. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Well, I probably would be, but maybe not as much as I should be?”

Pinkie didn’t stop, and continued on to the next page, which depicted a ring of unicorns, horns glowing, at sunrise. “Unicorns were blessed with the magic of the cosmos! They could cast spells with their horns, and before Princess Celestia took over, it was their job to raise and lower the Sun and Moon!”

“Now, I ain’t no Twilight, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works,” Applejack said.

“It’s embellishment! Of course that’s not how it works!” Rarity insisted.

“I dunno,” Pinkie said, cocking her head to the side. “It’s talking about Celestia doing it and I don’t think they would do that if Celestia didn’t really raise and lower the Sun and stuff because we know Celestia’s a real person in this world.”

“Yeah, but the Celestia in our world’s a sad woman who’s scrambling to look like she knows what she’s doing even though everybody knows she’s a mess!” Rainbow argued, lifted a hoof demonstratively. “Why would anybody put her in charge of raising the freaking Sun and Moon?”

Fluttershy’s gaze wandered. “It did say she was a princess, not a principal. Also, we know Twilight’s a princess in this world, and, not to be rude, because she’s really very smart, but our Twilight isn’t nearly that important back on Earth.”

“I still find it a rather hard sell,” Rarity huffed. “I suppose we’ll have to ask Sunset. After all, she’s the only… unicorn around here.”

“You mean besides you!” Pinkie said, gesturing to Rarity’s horn.

“What?” Rarity lifted a hoof to her forehead, and her eyes widened considerably when it bumped into something. “What?”

Applejack, ignoring her, leaned over the book again. “What’s next, Pinkie?”

She only pointed; every other page in the book had been ripped out (it looked like somebody had bitten off the pages, but that was ridiculous) and on the inside of the back cover, a message read ‘Experiment!’ with a little picture of Discord giving a thumbs up and winking. Actually winking—his eye was opening and closing on the page.

Applejack blinked once. “Huh. Does he mean practice magic?”

“Probably!” Rainbow said. “Flying always was my dream superpower!” With that, she pumped her wings, and started to climb through the air in erratic spurts, the very picture of an electric helicopter on dying batteries.

“I’m not sure I want to try that just yet…” Fluttershy mumbled into her mane.

“I can cast spells, no?” Rarity sat, poking her horn with her hoof. “How is this thing supposed to work?”

“You have it easy,” Applejack said. “I don’t even know what in the hay they mean by ‘borrowing the earth’s strength’. At least you know you gotta mess with your horn.”

“Hrmmm…” Rarity imagined shooting a laser beam, and nothing happened. She imagined creating a beautiful dress out of thin air, and nothing happend. She really concentrated, and imagined forcing Rainbow’s wings to lock; nothing happened. She pouted. “Oh, this is never going to work.”

Pinkie was punching the cave wall repeatedly, yelling at her hoof to be strong. It was working no better than one would expect.

“Woohoo!” Rainbow was flying around the cave in fast, tight circles, throwing the occasional twist and roll in. It felt like hang gliding, or what Rainbow assumed hang gliding felt like. (It was still on her bucket list.) She pumped her wings and jolted upwards, then transitioned into a downward corkscrew. “Aaaaaaawesooooome!”

Rarity was getting frustrated. What am I even supposed to do? Think, ‘oh, hey, let’s shoot some magic out my horn!’ and will magic through it like it’s some sort of hose? This is impossible! Even as she was thinking it, a strange tingle began in her forehead and traveled upwards, and a laser suddenly shot out of her horn. She yelped, trying to reel the magic back in; Rainbow, who was on course to become roasted pegasus, made a sharp turn, and lost control.

“TURN OFF THE HOSE TURN OFF THE HOSE!” Rarity squealed, and her beam thinned and flickered.

“Look out!” Applejack called.

Rarity jumped as she saw the pegasus barrel towards her. “What—Rainbow! Slow down!” Her concentration wavered, and the final spark of white light idled at the tip of her horn.

“I caaaaaaan’t!” Rainbow screamed, flapping her wings every which way and only managing to make herself dizzy. She squeezed her eyes shut as she smashed into Rarity, and everything went white.

---

A minute later, when Sunset returned, the first thing she noticed was the stench. She had botched plenty of spells in her time, and knew the smell as well as she knew that of coffee; smoke, excess mana discharge, and the faintest hint of spoiled milk. The second thing she noticed was the thaumic scorch marks in the center of the cave, still smoldering, and the litter of blue feathers scattered around it. Finally, she saw her friends. They were all lying groaning against the walls of the cave; the stone was cracked where they had, supposedly, smashed against it.

Sunset sighed. This might be tougher than she thought.

Author's Note:

Hey everyone! It's good to be back.

Updates will be back regularly, with a new chapter every 4-5 days. Intermissions, as they are now much more important than in part 1, will count as full chapters with respect to updates; they will still come between every three numbered chapters.

Thanks for reading!

--Bonster

Comments

[michaelb958]

Oops. Better find a good magic tutor. Fast.