Welcome the Unknown

by Equestria Buck Yeah

Chapter 19

Discord laughed as the battle for control of the human seemed to have come to a close. Matt was his puppet now and with each of them having an enormous amount of power, nothing was going to stop them from destroying all of Equestria. At least, Discord had believed this to be the case.

Matt stood in front of the god, his right hand glowing by his side, and his left toward the Spirit of Chaos. His eyes no longer beamed and he was as still as a statue for several minutes. Discord stood there limp, unmoving. Matt's magic had encompassed him and left him seemingly catatonic.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Discord said as if in a fog.

"Who's he talking to?" Pinkie wondered aloud.

"What in the hay is he doin'?" Applejack asked. "Either of 'em. They're just standin' there."

"It looks like he's in a trance or something." Fluttershy observed Discord's eyes. He looked like he was half between being awake and asleep. The pupils of his eyes were also glowing as brightly as the rest of him.

Pinkie jumped in front of Discord and waved her legs frantically in his face over and over. "Yoohoo! Anypony home? Hellooooooo!"

"Pinkie! Don't distract Matt, whatever he's doing," Twilight scolded.

He smiled coyly. "It's okay. I've got this under control."

"Yyyyyyes! I don't know why I never thought of that. Magnificent!" Discord mumbled. "Alright Matt, go ahead and amuse me now. This should be fun!"

"What in the world is he talking about?" Rarity asked.

Matt explained, "It's what he's seeing."

The girls looked at each other befuddled. "What do you mean, dear?"

Matt knew he needed to go into more detail. "When Discord gave me that tiny sample of power, I felt...something...inside me. I had no idea what it was, but it felt exactly like what he just gave me. So, I figured he had to have something to do with it. I used that tiny bit of power to quietly get it out of my system without him noticing. When he started telling you about why I was here, I heard everything he said, and I kinda figured out what it had been that I had gotten rid of."

"What was it?" Twilight asked.

"It was that bit of him that pulled me here in the first place. I had severed our connection and didn't even realize it till then. It's a good thing too, otherwise...well, what I'm showing him would probably have been a reality," he said grimly. "I don't know why he felt the need to monologue. Probably thought he had control over me at the time or something, I don't know. If that little bit he attached to me had that much influence over things..."
1
"Hm! This isn't bad so far," Discord said quietly.

"What're you showin' him?"

He was unsure he should answer that question, but still felt he had to somehow. "Maybe I'll tell you all some time, but not right now. Trust me–" he shook his head, "–you don't want to know."

The draconequus continued in his trance, "Oohohoh, I've got to get me one of those!"

"I don't get something. How'd you get him to start seeing things without him noticing?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"I was watching him. He closed his eyes when he threw his head back. That's when I conjured up my little illusion." He smirked, all proud of himself.

Twilight walked up to get a curious, closer look at Discord. "So, what are you going to do with him now? Leave him trapped in this fantasy world?"

He shook his head. "Too risky. Always a possibility he could get free from it, and he'd still be just as strong as he is now. Noooo, for him, I'm doing something far, far worse. He took everything away from me–" his eyes narrowed, remembering what was gone, "–so now, I'm taking everything away from him."

"What do you mean?"

He sneered over the memories that would never be thanks to the freak in front of him. "I'm taking every last bit of power away from him, including his essence; everything that makes him what he is. Have been since my little illusion began. There'll be nothing left of him but a bunch of random parts."

"Goodness, Matt! How devious! I would normally frown upon such things, but given the circumstances, that's just so... ooooo!" Rarity shuddered in delight.

"The weather I understand. The rest...is this a sample of what your people can do? Okay, I admit it. I'm impressed."

Discord's hypnotized rant piqued their interest. "Okay, I really gotta know what you're showing him if it's able to impress him, even if it is just a dream," Rainbow Dash pouted.

"What are you up to now, kid?" Discord babbled.

"How much more do you have to go?" Fluttershy asked.

"Almost done. I just don't want to rush this and risk him coming out of this early by accident." He turned around and smiled at his friends. "Patience, girls."

"Okay, that's pretty cool," Discord said to nopony.

Applejack looked over the Spirit of Chaos as he stood helpless in Matt's grip, crinkling her nose. "Just wish we didn't have to hear 'im. Blabbermouth."

Matt neared the end of his task and struggled briefly after he had finished claiming all the magic. Discord's spirit itself was stronger than he anticipated and it took a little extra pull to steal it away. Fortunately, Discord was so engrossed by Matt's trickery that he didn't notice.

"Hahaha! Ooh, Matt, this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship!"

Matt chuckled at what would be his last line in his current state. "Hmph! How ironic. He's going to hate me in a minute. Girls, we're all set."

"I can't wait to see his reaction to all this," Twilight mused.

"It probably would've been even more priceless if we knew what he was watching," Rainbow insisted.

"We've been over this, Rainbow." The pegasus pouted.

Matt's left hand ceased its glow as there was nothing left to take from Discord and he lowered it down. His right hand slowly faded and Discord's eyes became clear again. His laughter turned to confusion as his personal show began to disappear in front of him.

"Wait, what's going on? Where's...what...?" He blinked as his vision finally cleared, showing Matt and the girls together, unharmed. "You?! What's going on here? How is the town still standing? Where are those mechanical things you had everywhere? How are you still alive?! You're supposed to be dead!"

"Dead?" The girls eyed him suspiciously.

"...Hey, I had to sell it." They smirked at his response but decided to let it pass.

Discord tried to zip over to Matt to give him a piece of his mind but fell onto his face instead. He lifted his head up, completely baffled. He concentrated briefly, wanting to vanish and reappear standing again. Nothing happened. "I don't understand. What's happened to me?!" He glared at Matt, who was looking back smugly. He got to his mismatched feet, annoyed that he had to stand up like a common mortal. "You! What did you do to me?!"

Matt's smugness suddenly switched to anger. "You took everything away from me. I'm just returning the favor."

It took a moment but Discord eventually realized what he meant and started backing away. Matt magically grabbed him by the throat and lifted him a foot in the air. The former god grasped at the invisible hands choking him and kicked frantically with his stubby legs.

"Ready to finish this, girls?" Twilight proposed.

"No."

They looked at the human when he spoke up. "Matt?"

"Fluttershy, sweetheart?" He popped next to her. "Um...well..." He whispered in her ear for a few minutes, waving his hand occasionally to emphasize what he was saying to her.

"Uh huh...oh...oh dear...I see." She smiled at him when he was finished.

"Is that all okay with you?" he asked jokingly, playing on how they made up after their fight.

"Um, yes." He took her by the cheeks and planted a big, loud kiss on her forehead. She let out a little giggle as Matt stood up and marched toward Discord.

The rest of the gang wore their befuddlement. "What did he say to you?" Rainbow asked.

"You'll see."

Matt stopped several feet in front of a struggling Discord and let him go. The draconequus gasped for air and looked up at the human staring right through him. Matt stretched out his shoulders and cracked his neck. His forearms burst into fiery magic.

"I know that you're immortal, Discord. It's the only thing I left with you. Which means I'm going to enjoy every...second...of this."

Rainbow Dash saw in Matt the little motions she would go through to get loose before most of her flying routines' practices. She knew exactly what was coming and grinned wickedly. "Get 'im, Matt."

"W-what are you going to–" Discord started to say before being rocketed into a building with a lightning fast right cross. In an instant, Matt reached out and grabbed hold of his limp body while it flied through the air and yanked him back. He lifted himself into the air and balled his fists together over his head. When Discord was in range, Matt connected, snapping his enemy into the ground with enough force to split it open.

Matt picked the monster's already damaged form up and reached across to the stone statue at the fountain. He spun the statue around in the air and smashed it into the right side of his enemy's bruised face, splintering the stone with a loud crunch. He swung the large piece he still controlled back around and reconnected, breaking it further. He lifted the last bit overhead and brought it down hard on Discord's head while he was reeling, knocking him down again.

The girls watched the display with eager fascination. Fluttershy, knowing what his intentions were in the first place, was floating in the air, imitating Matt's ferocious actions in her own little way.

Yellow light encircled Discord's chest as Matt lifted him back up and tossed him lazily away. The demigod rolled over onto his back as Matt walked methodically to his new piñata. Scrapes and bloody lacerations decorated his body. "H-how did...how did you get free from my control? It's not possible," Discord said between gasping breaths.

A jacket popped onto Discord as Matt turned down his magic to a minimum. He wanted the tactile pleasure of punishing the manipulative freak. He walked up and stood over top the chaos spirit.

"I broke your bond with me. Now I'm going to break you."

He grabbed the jacket and pummeled Discord's face repeatedly. Matt gritted his teeth, getting lost in his rage, slowly flaring his magic again. He held Discord head in place and, with his magic behind his punches, released enough force to shatter windows nearby. By now, his eyes were blackened and his cheeks were puffed out. Several rivers of blood ran out his mouth and down his chin.

The jacket popped out of existence and Discord's battered body flopped to the ground. His deer antler caught the corner of Matt's eye and he got a horrible idea. He lifted Discord's head and grabbed the antler, snapping it off like a dead twig on a tree. The draconequus yelled in unimaginable pain. Matt let his head go and stabbed him in the shoulder with it, making Discord scream even louder. Matt floated away a step and admired his work. Discord weakly ripped our his headpiece and let it slip from his hand. He had called himself a masterpiece earlier but now was literally being torn apart.

"Oh, sorry, let me help you with that," Matt added sarcastically. He picked up the antler and drove it back into his head upside down. Discord shook in agony, barely having the strength left to squeak out a scream.

"Matt, stop! He's beaten. Let it go!" Twilight begged. They started looking worried that Matt was letting his anger get the better of him once more. They couldn't blame him for being so, but they didn't want him to go overboard. Even Fluttershy wasn't expecting this much out of him, and he told her a preview of what he was about to do.

His snake tail glowed and Matt took to the air a few feet overhead, ignoring his friend's request. He swung Discord around and whipped him into the dirt. Matt brought him around and onto the ground again and again, leaving small craters in the ground where Discord's face had hit. Having enough, Matt launched his enemy's limp body skyward and winked away. He appeared thousands of feet overhead in Discord's trajectory. A comically oversized baseball bat blinked into existence. Matt readied for the inevitable and smashed his foe with everything he could muster, splintering the bat into pieces and sending Discord rocketing back toward the earth.

"Uh, we need to get out of here, y'all," Applejack suggested. They took off, away from the eventual point of impact that was the middle of town.

The missile that was Discord collided with the ground, leaving a rather large crater. The force with which he landed shook the area. High in the air, Matt put a protective shield over himself and took aim. He hurtled himself at where Discord fell, moving at full speed. He crashed down into the center of the massive hole, causing it to widen so much it swallowed up the buildings surrounding the square, including Town Hall. The girls had just barely made it away in time. The cloud of dust that kicked up blanketed the rest of Ponyville.

Once the air cleared, the girls cautiously went back to where the small war had just happened. Matt was floating over the crater, unharmed, holding up a motionless but still-living Discord. He saw them approach and floated down near them. He also saw the fear in their eyes at what he'd done but didn't seem concerned himself. In spite of his terrible beating, Discord weakly laughed at him.

"What?" Matt demanded.

"You...you really are just...haha...just like me," he struggled to say. "You were...s-so intent on beating me to a pulp...t-that you'd...destroy everything to do it...hahahaha!"

Matt's rage calmed and he pulled Discord in close. "I'm nothing like you. You do what you do for kicks. Everything I did, I did to protect my friends," he said calmly. "I've only been here a handful of months and they've been better friends to me than some of the people I knew back home for half my life. I may not be able to go home again–" he looked at the girls and smiled, "–but I wouldn't have it any other way." Discord hung his tongue out in disgust.

All but Twilight beamed at his sincerity. "But Matt, the town is still in ruins. What are we going to do?" she wondered, ever the voice of reason.

His vengeful attitude was replaced with almost snarky one. "That? Oh, I can fix that," he said and raised a hand skyward. It glowed brightly and, little by little, all the damage that had been to the town while he mercilessly beat Discord was restored. Buildings, pipes underground, windows, trees; everything was as good as new.

The girls looked around happily at their beautifully restored home. "Well...okay then."

Discord watched through swollen eyes as everything was repaired and growled at Matt. His whole elaborate plan had fallen flat on its face thanks to this nopony.

Matt saw his enemy's reaction and grinned impishly, "And you sir need a change in attitude, and I know just how to go about doing that. But first, let's clean you up a bit. You can barely see and you I can't let you miss this."

Matt reduced the swelling on Discord's face until he looked passably normal again. He levitated the freak show several feet in front of him and spread his arms and legs apart.

"Girls, could I ask you to turn around or cover your eyes or something? It's a surprise for everyone!" They looked at each other with amused curiosity and did as he asked. "Especially for you, pal. Here, let's fix that." Matt created a blindfold and wrapped it around Discord's eyes.

"Hey, what are you doing? What are you doing?!"

Discord still glowed all over as Matt did his thing. He hummed and hawed to himself as he worked away at his task. After a moment, he surveyed what he had done and congratulated himself. "Ah ha! Magnifique! Girls, you can look now."

They opened their eyes and were flabbergasted at what they saw. Pinkie and Rainbow Dash tried and failed badly to hold in gut-busting laughter. Even Matt eventually gave in to the giggles and almost dropped the draconequus.

"Oh my..."

"What in...?"

"What did you do? Why are you laughing? Stop laughing!" Discord ordered.

Twilight finally fought through her speechlessness, "What in Equestria did you do?"

Matt shrugged. "I think he looks better this way."

"Matt, I don't remember telling you any of my design secrets!" Rarity joked.

"Eh, must've picked up a few things along the way."

"What did you do to me?!" Discord hollered.

"Alright, alright, you big baby. Here you go," Matt mocked, creating a full body mirror and removing Discord's blindfold.

"Gah! What...! Agh! What have you done to me?!"

In place of his head was his bat wing. Where that wing used to be was his lion's arm. His arms were replaced by his head and goat leg, and his other arm was now his new leg. He wiggled his new limbs around helplessly trying to figure out his new appearance.

Matt said between laughing fits, "I deadened your nerves and pulled you apart to...well..." He dropped Discord onto the ground. As much as tried to maintain his balance, he quickly failed to stand up straight and collapsed. Matt walked over and gave him a final, degrading slap before popping his mirror away and walking back to his friends. "Girls, blast this asshole back to hell and let's go home."

"Now, that's what I'm talking about. Ready, girls?" Twilight asked.

"Ready!"

The Elements went live and their signature rainbow fired into the air and turned down at the defeated foe. "I'll get you for this! I'll get you if it's the las–!" The blast overtook him, turning his amalgamated body back to stone once again.

The girls cheered and celebrated their improbable victory. Ponyville and the rest of Equestria was safe again. As the jubilation died down, Matt glanced over the new statue with unease. It was the first time he'd seen what the Elements did and to someone who was supposed to be all-powerful no less. But it was also said that this wasn't the first time they had to do this to him either. That wasn't sitting well with him.

"So what do we do with him now?" he finally asked.

"Celestia typically kept him in the royal gardens to keep an eye on him," Twilight replied.

It wasn't really an answer he was hoping to hear. It didn't make sense to him that someone like Discord would be just left out in the open, even if he was just stone at the moment.

"That didn't seem to turn out so well, did it?"

"Did you have something else in mind?"

He thought deeply and an idea formed slowly. He looked toward the sky and went through various outcomes in his mind before grinning. "I think so."

"What did you want to do?" Pinkie asked.

He magically grabbed hold of Discord and flew off into the air as high as the oxygen would let him. He held onto the statue with both hands and began spinning faster and faster until he felt he had enough momentum before letting go, launching the menace into the cold darkness of space. His job done, he winked back down to his friends.

"So, where's Discord?" Twilight questioned.

"I sent him into space."

"But what happens if he lands on some other world?" Applejack inquired.

"I don't know if that could even happen," the magical mare said. "There's mostly empty space out in the universe, at least that's what I've seen through my telescopes."

"You mean...Discord might actually be gone for good?" Fluttershy asked hopefully.

"Alright, Matt!" Rainbow cheered, giving him a hoofbump.

"Come on, girls. What do you say we–" Matt cut himself off suddenly. A soft pulsing sound and faint purple glow began to emit from his chest.

Comments

[ombranox]

Uh-oh.

[The Poster]

OH COME OOOOOOOOON! I WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO HIM GETTING SACKED i guess space will have to do at least maybe hell fall into a sun or something

[Skyler Walker]

Did he just scam Discord?

[dakingofmuffins]

i wonder what is happening to matt now

[APS]

HUH!... Jacket?

A jacket popped onto Discord as Matt turned down his magic to a minimum. He wanted the tactile pleasure of punishing the manipulative freak. He walked up and stood over top the chaos spirit. "I broke your bond with me. Now I'm going to break you." He grabbed the jacket and pummeled Discord's face repeatedly.

do you mean a wikipedia.org/Jack_(device)
or did he pummel Discord with a baked potato.

wikipedia.org/Jacket_(disambiguation)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A jacket is a relatively tight-fitting garment for the upper body.
Jacket may also refer to:
Jacket (software), the GPU engine for MATLAB
Jacket (magazine), an online poetry magazine
Jacket Lake, Nova Scotia, a community in the Halifax Regional Municipality
The Jacket (2005), an American film directed by John Maybury
Dust jacket, the detachable outer cover of a book
Jacket matrix, a square matrix that is a generalization of the Hadamard matrix
Jacket potato, a baked potato filled with other ingredients
Jacketed vessel, a container designed for controlling the temperature of its contents
Bullet jacket, the plating/covering of a bullet's core with metal to give it a higher velocity
The supporting legs and lattice framework of an offshore fixed steel oil platform

[Rhulain]

GAYYYY!

The ponies, ESPECIALLY FLUTTERSHY, would NEVER let Matt do something like that to anything, not even Discord.you had me with the beating up, but the stabbing and such? Yeah sorry no. That's just a no.

[damnaion]

nice lol

[Tome Turner]

And Fluttershy lets him do this yet the cockatrice strangling is too far?
...
Eh..? Wat..?

[Muet]

3852893 Is gay still an insult?

[WorldWalker128]

The girls watched the display with eager fascination.

Welp, they've gone full OOC. They'd be horrified. Justice or not, brutality is still brutality, and even when Canterlot was being invaded, and after Celestia had been beaten, they still did not use lethal force on the Changelings (Which they should have from the start).

rivers

I think you're thinking of the word 'rivulets'. I mean either one works considering the damage Gary Matt did to him, but I can't really see 'rivers'.

[Therisinghero]

MEANWHILE IN SPACE

[Forrest_Pine]

"Discord never returned to the Earth. He became half-mineral, half-animal and drifted forever through space. And though he wished for death, he was unable to die. So eventually, Discord stopped thinking."