Daring Do and The Turquoise Serpent

by Time Pony Victorious

Chapter 10

X

MARE DO WELL

Vacation At The Sea of Chaos

Things were going great so far! Xiuhcoatl had swallowed the sun leaving Equestria at the mercy of Danus; if left unchecked Equestria would probably freeze over soon. No, that wouldn't happen. Felicity looked up and saw Xiuhcoatl in the sky but she was able to see the sun glow inside his mouth as well. The sun is too powerful to be taken down so easily, it would be able to warm the world for a bit, but they are definitely on a schedule at this point.

Xiuhcoatl began to coil himself around the sun, very slowly but as he wrapped himself it got darker and colder. Felicity figured that by the time his entire body was wrapped around it, the sun would be forever blocked.

But, she had a plan! Granted, a reckless plan inspired by those books that spoke about obscure pony magic and could potentially backfire and, if the book was correct, she would lose her very existence.

But it's still a plan!

Felicity glanced down at her hooves; thank Celestia that she managed to touch Danus as fast as she did. Her boots were beginning to burn off, if she continued using Lightning Blitz's magic her boots would've blown up. Optimistically it would have left a few burns; unfortunately, Felicity wasn't that optimistic.

She found an alley a good distance away from Danus; it would take a while for the changeling to find her but just in case. Her horn glowed and a force-field bubbles around the alley; it glowed more intensely and the bubble shrank, only protecting Felicity's body.

She sat down, sitting upright, and looked at her right foreleg. Under her boot was a trail of writing, it was only three inches long and it was written in ancient pony language. This small sliver of text held the key to Xiuhcoatl. Literally.

Felicity had guessed that Danus used a sealing spell to control Xiuhcoatl, because releasing a powerful god like that would be incredibly dangerous because of how unpredictable he would be. With this spell, he would be forced to do her bidding.

When Felicity tackled Danus earlier she charmed her hoof and stole that key; now she was in control of the snake god.

Well, not really. She may have had the key, but she needed to break the connection that Danus had to him and to produce a connection with her. That was the more dangerous part.

Her horn glowed and the words on her hoof began to light up as well. Then suddenly they literally jumped off her hoof and began to float around her. She felt cold, yet warm at the same time, content yet terrified, happy yet depressed. She wasn't going insane; it was the magic filling her body, numbing it.

The words continued to spin around her body but she couldn't get distracted; this was too important. She had to focus on the spell. Suddenly, the words stopped in front of her and jumped right on her forehead.

The force jolted her so much she felt like she was flying. No, wait, she was!

Opening her eyes, Felicity was floating above a beach, except… this wasn't Las Pegasus. In fact, she was sure this wasn't Equestria! The sky was red and the sand looked like rust. The water was pitch black and a huge tornado was off far into the ocean. It looked like was miles away, but it was powerful, Felicity felt like she was being sucked in.

She landed on the sand and looked at the ocean.

Okay… this wasn't what she planned.

She took a tentative step forward; she wanted to test the water. It didn't move like water it moved like it was alive.

"Ah, ah," a voice called out, "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

She looked over at the source of the voice and gasped. Felicity thought she had seen enough weird things for a lifetime but this guy took the cake! He had the head of a pony but his body was a mix of everything else. He had a deer antler and a goat horn on top of his head; his pupils were different sizes making it weird and almost hypnotizing to look at.

He had a goat beard and when he smiled she noticed a single long fang jutting from his mouth. His right arm was that of a lion's, his left claw was an eagle's, right leg was a lizard's and left was a goat's and even his wings were mismatched; one was of a bat's and the other of a pegasus.

He reminded her of a chimera, but something was telling her that this guy was a lot more dangerous.

"Well, then again," he continued with his smug smile, "If you were me and I were you, I would definitely go in and push you in as well, or is it the other way around? Ah! Whatever!"

He laughed as though he made a really good joke but it just confused her.

She walked toward him, wary but infinitely curious, when she got close she noticed he was fishing! He was sitting, in the air, with a fishing rod and a line out into the black ocean. Something bit his bait but with a single pull, he yanked the creature out of the water.

Felicity yelped and jumped back as a kraken was pulled out of the water. The line was comically diminutive in that huge kraken's mouth; it was supposed to snap but the line must have been magic as it literally tethered the kraken there.

It roared and splashed, trying to break free and this chimera thing frowned, "Tsk, not good eating."

He snapped his fingers and the beast exploded into a fine mist. No, it didn't explode, the mist fell to the ocean and flew away… he turned it into flies!

"Who… who are you?" Felicity asked, more and more scared of this reality-warper thing.

"I am Discord, Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony. But, the better question is, who are you?"

Felicity stopped, Discord? No, this isn't the Discord; he should be encased in stone as a result of the princesses' efforts to stop him.

"You… you can't be Discord, aren't you encased in-"

"Yes, yes, after those infernal mares defeated me with the elements of harmony I was, and still am, encased in my stony prison. Please, ask less obvious questions, the readers will get bored."

"Okay, why and how are you here?" asked Felicity.

"First, my dear, you have to know what this place is!" He gestured broadly to the beach and grinned, "Oh? You don't know? I thought you would, you know, being an egghead and all."

She looked at the black ocean, the red sand, and gulped, "The Sea of Chaos, right?"

"Correct!" Discord teleported beside Felicity, placed an arm around her and pointed at the sea, "This is the place where everything begins and ends. This is where magic was first born, and this is the creator of balance and harmony!"

She shrugged his arm off and glared at him, well, as best she could with her mask, "You just said the Sea of Chaos; it is oxymoronic to say that this place maintains harmony."

Discord wagged his finger, "Tut, tut, tut, my dear. You may think of chaos as a bad thing, but in reality chaos is the thing keeping everything from falling apart."

"Right, because we need krakens in this world to function, right?"

"Your thinking is too narrow. Think about what order is, order is a homogenous categorization of everything and anything. It keeps everything neat, familiar, and, well, orderly."

"Frankly, I'm not seeing the downside."

"You're supposed to be a detective, detect! If everything is the same, if everything is so pathologically organized then there is no room for innovation, no room for change, no room for something different! Imagine, for example, if you ponies managed to evolve into a highly function, efficient race. Without a little disorder, everypony would become that eventually."

"Wow, that sounds terrible," deadpanned Felicity.

"But, if something is at the very pinnacle of perfection then what's the point of anything? You know those products that say it kills ninety-nine percent of germs? Like, it somehow can't snuff out that one percent? If it could effectively kill one hundred percent of germs there would be no need for newer brands, which means no competition, which means a stagnating economy, which means that your little egalitarian society would crumble under the weight of faux-equality."

"Can't say I want to listen to somepony like you about equality."

"Okay, okay, think about this then. Back to my highly functioning pony example. Say, those types of pony no longer needs to eat because they are so efficient. What would happen to the food grown for these ponies?"

"Well, they wouldn't be used or farmed anymore, what's your point?"

"If the food suddenly stops coming in, what happens to the animals that eat that food as well? They starve, but I suppose there is some consolation considering you don't really need those animals anymore for things like milk and eggs. What happens to starving animals? They die off, what happens if they continue to die off they go extinct. And what happens if one species of animal goes extinct? It creates a chain reaction which cripples and destroys entire ecosystems!"

"This is all presumptuous! You're basing all of this on conjecture, things you think might happen."

"No, it will happen my dear; hello, I am the spirit of chaos I am pretty much the residential expert here."

Felicity bowed her head, trying to think; this Discord couldn't be right, all of this was crazy talk!

"So, what are you trying to say, you're responsible for keeping us all alive?"

Suddenly, Discord extended his neck quickly and was instantly nose-to-muzzle with her, his beady eyes bore into her mask and pierced her very soul, "What I am saying is you need to give chaos a chance dearie. That everything you hold near and dear to you will fall apart if it wasn't for me and that the very least you can do is answer my initial question, 'Who are you?'"

"The Mysterious Mare Do Wel-"

"Don't lie to me!" the ground rumbled as thunder groaned throughout the beach, "You may hold this fake identity so close to you that you even managed to maintain it in the wake of the Sea of Chaos, but you and I both know who you really are."

"F-Felicity… Peridot."

Discord smiled, "Good, now you're finally being honest with yourself."

He backed off, stretching and looked out to the sea, "Now I can answer your question. I am the spirit of Chaos and, despite my current condition, I am omnipresent. My presence is beckoned whenever chaos is near, and, considering this is the Sea of Chaos, it is strongest here."

He looked at Felicity with his Cheshire grin, "As to why I'm here, I am here to give you a little friendly advice."

"Advice… from you?"

"Yes, you see, I know of your plan to stop Xiuhcoatl and it is, frankly, suicidal unless you know what to do. That, is something I know and you don't. You see, to control Xiuhcoatl you just have to give up your life."

As expected, the advice was as insane as her plan. She considered turning around but something made her stand there and listen.

"Look."

He pointed at the sea, to the tornado out there, "There is Xiuhcoatl."

Felicity nearly had a heart attack. The tornado was sucking up everything in the sea and was a million times bigger than her, bigger than the form out on the surface world!

"Or, rather a more accurate description would be that is Xiuhcoatl's shadow. I told you that this place is where everything begins and everything ends, to be more accurate, this is the life force of everypony and everything in existence. And the 'shadow' of everything and anything swims in this sea, and those shadows control everything about you. For example."

He stuck his hand in the sea and pulled out a black wispy sheet, wringing it out, he showed it to Felicity. It was her shadow. Her shadow was transparent and the color of pure darkness, it looked exactly like her except it was sleeping.

"This is your shadow Felicity," he said, stating the obvious, "Look at what happens when I do this."

He pointed one sharp eagle claw at her shadow's butt and poked it. A sharp pain shot up from her butt that caused her to jump up and yelp.

"If one manages to obtain the shadow of a pony, they would be able to control them. The same goes for gods and monsters like Xiuhcoatl."

"Right… so, what I have to do essentially is swim out and poked Xiuhcoatl's shadow?"

"Not exactly," he smiled as if he was getting to the good part, "When I told you not to touch the water, I was serious. Only creatures of chaos or Tartarus can manipulate the water freely, things you are not. If anypony tries to touch the water, much less swim in it, they will be torn apart and lost forever in the sea of souls."

"Oh." She squeaked, "That would be bad."

"Danus was able to do it because she is, technically, a creature of chaos. But even she cannot control Xiuhcoatl entirely."

"What do you mean?"

"In order to control a shadow, you have to pour your entire soul into the shadow and overwhelm it until you are able to absorb it. Changelings do this all the time but Xiuhcoatl isn't a pony, as you know. A god is harder to control, unless you're me of course. So, even if she and a thousand changelings try to absorb Xiuhcoatl's shadow, they will be assimilated into his soul."

"And you couldn't let that happen?"

"Oh dear, where's the fun in that? No, I didn't let that happen because they already knew what to do. Danus simply separated a part of her soul, attached it on Xiuhcoatl's shadow and that piece is keeping him anchored on this world, restricting the amount of control he has and giving Danus more control."

She looked at Xiuhcoatl again and noticed that it wasn't trying to destroy the sea, it was trying to escape. There were huge black chains wrapped around him and he struggled against them, trying to break them but to no avail.

Danus had essentially put Xiuhcoatl in a bear trap while using his mouth to bite off any intruders, there is no need to control the entire body; all she needs is his mouth.

"So, what you have to do is simple, going up to Xiuhcoatl's shadow, relinquish Danus's control and substitute your own."

Easy enough.

"But, the first things first. In order to actually swim in the sea, you need to give your life up. Relinquish the illusion of control, only then will you become a creature of chaos."

That didn't sound reassuring. To be honest, it sounded like a trick, something to give Discord a chance to have a little fun. He obviously wasn't interested in helping Equestria, he was the type of pony to enjoy mindless insanity.

She couldn't trust him.

"I will be overseeing your progress, but, for now, ta-ta!"

He turned flat, like literally two-dimensional, and then folded up like a card before poofing away.

Felicity stood before the sea and its swirling destruction. She took a deep breath, though she didn't need to, and jumped right in.

Comments

[Xerzes]

This is a good plan. Only good things cane result from it.

[redmar]

Discord was very much himself and utterly unpredictable. He's certainly right about what must happen though.