Group therapy gone wrong
“You have any fours?” Luxure asked Fluttershy, sitting across from her and staring at the cards she had floating in her magic.
Fluttershy giggled a little. “Go fish” she replied.
Luxure groaned in annoyance and picked another card from the pile in front of them. “Did I do something to piss off the powers that be who are in charge of ‘Go Fish’, because I don’t think I would wish these accursed cards on even my worst enemy.” She pouted grouchily.
“You’re just having a bit of bad luck, that’s all.” Fluttershy said reassuringly. She diverted her attention to Angel who was down at her side, holding cards of his own. “Now Angel, do you have any twos?” she asked him. This earned her a grumpy nod from him, causing him to fork over a card to Fluttershy.
“Remind me again why I’m playing cards with a rabbit? Aren’t they, you know, too stupid for this?” she asked. This resulted in Angel loudly and angrily squeaking and throwing his entire hand of cards in Luxure’s face before stomping off to fester in his rage. “Ooooh you are so lucky I’m basically on probation you little cotton ball.” She growled, eyes slightly glowing the familiar shade of green.
“Luxure that was very rude of you! I’ll have you know Angel is very intelligent!” Fluttershy raised her voice slightly in a scolding manner.
“He’ll get over it. I didn’t even know rabbits where capable of being offended in the first place, throw me a bone here.” She said, using her magic to summon another glass of cider and drank from it.
“And quit it with the alcohol for a minute please! Did you not learn anything from last time?!” Fluttershy shouted again.
“No. Just keep me in the dark on my drunken escapades and I’ll be golden.” Luxure said, continuing to drink it before Fluttershy swiped the alcohol out of her hooves. “Hey, that’s mine!” Luxure shouted in anger.
Fluttershy, having a stern demeanor about her, took a deep breath. “Getting yourself as drunk as you possibly can won’t keep those bad thoughts at bay forever. I’m supposed to be helping you change for the better, I can’t just watch you do this to yourself!”
Luxure growled in frustration. “You don’t get it, so quit pretending like you do. If you were in my horseshoes you’d be doing the same thing. But I’m sure no mortal pony can understand my situation, not really. None of the GOOD ponies anyway.”
Fluttershy stayed silent for a moment, the tension in the words coming from her new “friend” . If Luxure was going to succeed in changing herself then she’d need to talk to ponies that can actually understand the terrible realization that she’d had while imprisoned. Ponies that even while having that same realization, were able to change and be happy in spite of it. That unfortunately was not something Fluttershy could provide for her on her own.
Though she did have a pretty good idea about what could be done about that.
“I think I should have you talk to a couple of ponies that might be able to give you some different perspectives on problems like yours. They should be meeting together today at Twilight’s castle. Maybe you could join in their discussion? Might be good for you.” she asked.
Luxure’s eyes narrowed. “That depends on a lot of things. Are any of said overly obnoxious, annoying, aggravating, or all of the above?”
“Um…those all mean the same thing.” Fluttershy replied.
Luxure lightly snorted a bit of hot air out of her nostrils, a sign of her impatience with Fluttershy. “Answer the question damn you.”
Fluttershy nervously rubbed the back of her neck, still hesitating to answer her. “Weeeeeeeell…”
“PFFFAAHAHA! WHO SURRENDERS THE SECOND THEY ESCAPE?!?!” Discord chortled, tightly holding his own stomach and gasping for breath from his laughter.
Twilight, who was sitting across the meeting room table in her castle face made a grimace at the sight of this. “Discord, how can you find something like this funny?...actually no, no don’t answer that. I don’t know why I should be surprised.”
In Twilight’s castle, the meeting herself and Discord attended consisted of a few ponies that had been known to cause a lot of trouble for Equestria in the past but have since made attempts at changing their ways. In the long run, Twilight thought it would be good to have them come together and discuss their problems. Those in attendance were Discord (Who had still not stopped laughing), Sunset Shimmer, who had come from the human world temporarily; Starlight Glimmer, and Princess Luna. Directly at Twilight’s side was Princess Celestia to help her oversee the whole thing.
“I’m quite sure we are relieved that Luxure has agreed to not cause any harm. No question about that. But from the way you’ve described her Twilight, it sounds like she is a very troubled mare.” Celestia said, looking down at her former student at her side.
“I don’t think I’ve heard of a case quite like this. She says that the good will always triumph over the evil, and yet that depresses her?” Luna asked with a questioning tone to her voice.
Twilight nodded slowly. “You could say that. I can tell she was once a mare of ambition, and using that drive unfortunately to do bad things. But said ambitions have been foiled for her to the point where she can’t be bothered anymore. You really should have seen the look on her face when she first came out of the Crystal Heart. Her depression seemed almost contagious. But if it’s one thing I’ve learned in my studies, it’s that no one is beyond change. And if she does, everyone will be all the happier.” Twilight said, gently patting Starlight Glimmer on the back.
Starlight smiled a little at her teacher and nodded. “Besides, no way she could have done things worse than the rest of us...especially me” she said, her smile slightly faltering a little.
Sunset Shimmer frowned a little bit at that. “Starlight, we’ve all talked about this. It’s not a competition to see who’s done the most damage, this is a time for healing.”
“Buuuut if I did have to cast my vote on who’s the biggest sociopath, Starlight maaaaay just take the cake. Congratulations! ” Discord snickered a little, snapping his fingers and putting an oversized crown on Starlight’s head that was so big to the point it covered her eyes.
Starlight took a deep breath of frustration. “I really shouldn’t be proud of this.”
“Not really no. Buuut you may be right by saying this new mare couldn’t be worse than the rest of us.” Discord replied with confidence.
“OOoh ya don’t think so do ya, ya misshapen bastahd?” The voice of Luxure emanated from the mare herself’s mouth as she trotted in, stumbling over her own hooves and talking with incredibly slurred language. Not far behind was Fluttershy, with an ever nervous look on her face.
“I-I’m so sorry everypony. S-She drank herself silly on the way here, I-I couldn’t stop her.” Fluttershy whimpered.
Everyone in the room stared at Luxure in shock, Discord, who had a tendency to not be surprised easily included. “Oh my…I didn’t think there existed a pony that could actually swear until now. I believe I can die happy now.” Discord now wore a huge, ear to ear grin.
Completely ignoring that comment, the very intoxicated lust goddess used her magic to float up in the air right in front of Discord’s face. “Ya think I ain’t the most evil bitch alive do ya? Youuuu got noooo idea how terrible I am.” Luxure slightly growled, her speech barely comprehendible. This didn’t faze Discord much, considering the sight of a former villain acting almost just as immature as himself was really relieving and hilarious at the same time.
Everypony in the room awkwardly looked at each other, all of them thinking the same thing. This was the goddess of lust that staged the hostile takeover of the Crystal Empire before the time of Sombra? At that moment, she proceeded to try and teleport her way into an empty seat, but just missed it by a couple of feet and ended up falling right on her rump. “Oooowiieeeee.” She whined.
Twilight took a very deep breath and tried to calm her nerves. “Discord, can you please do us all a favor and use your powers to sober her up? I don’t think any of us want her to be doing this drunk.”
“But it’s so funny just watching her try to stand up, just look!” Discord said gesturing to Luxure attempting in vain to get off her flank. Occasionally she also stumbled into one of the nearby crystal walls as well.
“Discord please, she’s never going to get better if we can’t talk to her coherently.” Twilight added. “Not to mention with the amount of magic she has, her being intoxicated is not a good thing if we want to keep Ponyville from being turned to dust.”
“Oh fine your highness.” Discord grumbled and pouted a little before snapping his fingers. A blue light encircled Luxure’s head. Somehow this made her vision refocus and her body overcome the effects of the vast amounts of alcohol she’d ingested.
Luxure quickly shook her head to compose herself. “Ugh. I didn’t say anything I’d regret later did I?” She asked, looking at the other ponies in the room, all of them responding by shaking their heads.
“You DID say something along the lines of you being the most evil bitch alive though.” Sunset replied with a frown of concern. “I get that you’re still in the early stages of your reformation. A low sense of self-worth usually comes with it when you’re first starting out. Believe me, I know.”
Luxure snorted a little bit, crossing her forelegs. “And who are you to say you know anything about me miss ‘prom queen from hell?’”
Seeing the hurt expression on Sunset’s face, as well as the somewhat angered look on Celestia’s at her former student being addressed as such, Fluttershy chimed in before things could get any more out of hoof. “Please have some courtesy with them. They’re in the same boat as you. Maybe if you share your feelings with ponies you can relate to, it’ll help you feel better.” Fluttershy spoke softly to Luxure in an attempt to get her to be less rude.
“She’s right you know. We’re trying to help ourselves get better, and that includes you too.” Starlight added, attempting a smile.
Luxure inhaled deeply to help herself calm down. “You wanna know my feelings do you? Well I’ve had waaaay too much time to dwell on those and trust me, you’re not gonna like them.”
“If we are to make any progress, it is important that you be honest with us.” Luna replied.
“Well if you insist on putting it that way, then allow me. I FEEL that the majority of you are dumb pieces of shit for trying the villain shtick.” Luxure said with confidence, her nose turned up to the rest of them, the tension in the room all of a sudden growing to unmeasurable levels.
“…Dear me, that was just plain mean.” Discord said, scratching his chin with a shocked expression on his face.
“Luxure, that’s not what Luna meant!” Twilight said, somewhat panicking and really hoping to diffuse the situation.
“No no, I’m gonna speak my mind here. This has been a long time coming, and I think I’ll start to lose brain cells if I keep it in. Look, knowing what I do when it comes to villainy, the way I see it, any reason any of you could have had to make the shit choices you did are void. Except for maybe Discord, he just kind of did because he can.” Luxure said in a scolding tone and pointing to everyone in the room who had at one point been villainous.
Discord, still somewhat surprised, only folded his arms. “I can neither confirm, nor deny that last part.”
Luna was now visibly irritated. “My feelings of inferiority and jealousy, Starlight losing her friend, and many others…you imply that none of that even matters?” she said in a low and unsettling tone in her voice.
“I’m not implying anything. I’m TELLING you it doesn’t. You’re victims of a formula. Good triumphs over evil every time, no exceptions. Not here. If any of you were smart you’d bottle your feelings up and NOT face certain humiliation and defeat. Because in the long run, it’s not worth the effort.” Luxure growled a little, trying to look just about anywhere now but the group.
“Well, if our feelings are so incredibly worthless, that would mean yours don’t hold meaning either. It won’t mean anything to you if you explain why you did anything you did right?” Sunset asked her, desperately hoping to get some information out of her about why she would think this way.
For several seconds, no one in the room spoke a word. Everyone expected Luxure to talk but it seemed like she never would. All she did was sit there in silence and look at everyone else. She looked like she was feeling some combination of uneasiness and anger.
After she felt that this had gone on for too long, she still said nothing but stood up out of her seat. “Sorry, but we all wasted our time here. Mostly mine. Hope you’re proud of yourselves for making me feel stupid.” She said a she quickly trotted out of the castle.
“Oooh no no, Luxure wait!” Fluttershy shouted, chasing her out the door, leaving everyone else in shock. Everyone in their mind tried to contemplate what just happened, and if any of it was their fault to begin with.
“It’s worse than I thought Twilight. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but certainly not that.” Celestia said with a sigh.
“I know. I’m sorry everypony. She’s really not in a good place right now, but she really should not have talked to you like that.” Twilight said with her ears folded to the side of her head.
Sunset closed her eyes and shook her head. “I understand Twilight. It’s obvious she’s not ready to talk about herself; she kept trying to keep the topic off her.”
“It…really hurt…but I guess I can see where she’s coming from too.” Starlight added.
Luna, however, didn’t even seem to notice that Twilight spoke to her. She just looked down at the floor in complete and utter disbelief at what she’d heard from Luxure only moments ago. “How dare she…my feelings don’t matter…” she mumbled quietly to herself.
Discord, not saying much of anything either only watched at how everyone else had reacted to Luxure’s sudden leave. He couldn’t help but smirk a little to the point where nopony could see.
‘Oh that poor mare. I remember when I’d thought the same way. But, I suppose that’s the price of self-realization after all. Don’t have many other options but to join the heroic effort at the point of realization I’m afraid.’ He thought to himself. ‘But happiness is subjective I guess. One pony’s dream could be another pony’s nightmare.’
A lot of this has been written for a while, but I only managed to get around to finishing this chapter until recently. Sorry about that. 
Stats
Page generated in 0.029 seconds
Total duration
1,104 users online
2,143,158 hits today, 2,328,677 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Well this was awesome, and emotional. I'm happy to see this continue. Fluttershy is such a patient mare
7878518 Glad you enjoyed it
Thanks for the chapter
Please say you have one hell of a rant for Luxure to go on when she does really opens up and unloads how evil she really was. I kind of see her evil plan as something that would make Fall of Equestria look like a bunch of pre-schoolers compared to her, maybe she's a pony version of slaanesh from warhammer 40k.
7879188
She's more of the tyranical/"homewrecker of the last few millennium" kind of mare. And given that the Crystal Empire values true love above a lot of things, the latter makes her out to be a special kind of horrible in the eyes of the empire.
And obviously tyrants are never really a good thing.
Is it odd that I feel the Luxure kinda has a point? She says their feelings don't matter, and while that's wrong, it also seems that it's important, consider practically everyone there is there because they FELT they deserved something and FELT like they had the right to do anything to get it.
Their feelings do matter, but their situations were created because of the focus on them.
Hahahaha
I feel the same Discord, I feel the same.
An awesome chapter well done, nice to see this updated!
7880025 Discord is shown to live in his own home in the same episode you're talking about. And seeing that this takes place a while after that episode, he's learned the lesson of having multiple friends already.
As for your first comment, to her that'd be years worth of wasted effort. Remember that Luxure is aware the MLP world runs on kid's cartoon logic, evil never triumphs. If she were to do that, she knows it'd be pointless because then someone else would just come along and kick her ass.
The title isn't misleading.
I'm curious what they will try next.
I like this approach with Luxure. its obvious here that she doesn't really want to be a good guy. She clearly liked being evil, but she now knows that being evil will always fail. The things she loves, the things that bring her happiness will now always fail and all she has left is friendship and love, which she hates.
If they try to make her stop drinking, I suspect somepony will end up dead.
Missing a comma at the end.
Because if it was, Discord would win. Hands/hoofs/paws down.
Hmm. Taken seriously, this is an interesting question. It's not Luna - she turned Nightmare because she cared too much. Discord was just trying to entertain himself. Between Starlight and Sunset, clearly Starlight was the more successful, but I don't know about the biggest. Also, extra space before the end quote marks.
Comma, not period.
And again.
Knowing Discord, probably literally ear to ear.
I'm now waiting for Discord to ask Luxure out. (No, not vice versa - that wouldn't be as entertaining.)
Comma, no capital.
If? Twi, what's with the sudden ambivalence towards your home?
Comma. ... Ok, you do this a lot, and I'm not going to call out every single one after this. Unless you ask me to.
Hey, Sunset almost went full Carrie. That's nothing to scoff at.
"Don’t have many other options but to join the heroic effort at the point of realization I’m afraid."
Oh god please be wrong, Discord
She didn't even really 'lose' him. Seriously, she could have mailed, visited on a train, brainwashed her parents to move... Or maybe done like most other kids and GET THE HELL OVER IT AND GET NEW FRIENDS! My god, I've had DOZENS of friends move away over my lifetime! I've had friends DIE!! Not one single event of that sort has made me want to brain-wash the world in some bizarre revenge against destiny!
Starlight had the WORST motive of all.
Sombra = Evil dictator who wanted to rule the world...
Huh... anyway, totally understandable! He was Pony Hitler/Stalin/Saddam Hussein/Pinochet... name your fav dictator.
Chrysalis = Needed 'love power'...
Uhm... ok... to rule the world... (Nostalgia Critic rushes in, "SHUT THE HELL UP BAD MOVIE M. BISON!!")... thank you, NC. Understandable. Invasion and take-over is also pretty the central driving force in most of history.
Tirek = Wanted lots of power to... rule the world (NC glares at Bison and raises his handgun in warning). Same deal. We get it.
Luna/NMM = Felt angsty over being ignored, gave in to the Dark Side. Pretty classic story there.
Discord = He's a mad god with insane aspect archetype powers based on chaos and disharmony and pretty crazy to boot. So his take-over desire and methodology fits him perfectly.
Starlight = My friend moved away! Waaaaaaaahhh!! (So lame...)
That's not how you help a person. You shouldn't drag her feelings out forcefully, or she will lash out, like we saw. Best option is just keep her company, and help her take her mind off things as she sorts stuff out herself. She will talk when she feels like it. Not before.