Chapter 11
Well...this is certainly interesting.
Thorny vines sneaked into the garden, disrupting the routine cycle of cultivated growth and regrowth that had kept Discord trapped for over a millennium. Not that he was counting. But with nothing to listen to but ponies idly chatting and without the ability to do anything about it, he’d had to resort to...cheating. He would imagine the ponies into his mind, letting them view the chaos of the cosmos he kept inside his head. After a while, though, it got boring.
Negative gravity and sight as smells? Again? the pony he was currently imagining falling said, tapping its hoof in midair. You’ll have to do a lot better to surprise anyone out there in the real world. They’ve probably been preparing themselves for your return for the past thousand years. This sort of thing might get a yawn at best.
Hush, you, Discord thought, throwing the irritable pony into an imaginary black hole. Something interesting is happening.
Discord observed the encroaching vines. He couldn’t really see, or hear, or anything, but he could still sense magic, and there was magic in everything. And the magic in these vines was...odd.
Have my little seeds finally grown? he pretended to ask the plants. Took you long enough.
Discord waited for the new greenery to overtake the garden. They didn’t let off that much unstructured magic, but eventually, well, who knew? It might be enough to let him finally get rid of his second layer of skin.
The entire garden was full of plants. Discord had been steadily collecting the magic flowing through the forest for about a day by now. It was a strangely high amount, almost as high as the level of ambient magic had been when he’d been an alicorn. Maybe the Old Council had finally unfrozen themselves. Hah. As if. Their successors were determined. They’d be on ice for a long time.
Still, it was strange. As soon as he got out, he was going to investigate. Or maybe not. The world could change a lot in a thousand years.
A crack appeared on his statue.
Finally.
Finally.
The imperfections spread until the statue was a web of stone chunks held together with only a shadow of the old harmonic bonds that had held it together for so long. And with a thought, Discord dissolved those bonds.
“I’m back! Did anyone miss me?”
He looked around, then opened his eyes.
“My, that is just so much better. Magical sight is all well and good, but only having one sense gets so boring after a while.”
The plants stayed silent, so Discord snapped his fingers.
“I know what you mean,” one of the larger vines said with a voice emanating from nowhere. “I can’t see at all.”
“Well at least something appreciates me,” Discord said, folding his arms.
“Yes, yes, you are an amazing...you. Just, um, I’d feel a lot better if I could, maybe, see?”
“Oh all right then.”
With a snap, Discord gave the vine two large googly eyes. That acted as ears. And a plastic nose that it could see out of. In inverted colors, because why not.
“So tell me, what’s been going on in Equestria lately?” Discord asked while conjuring a large lemon.
“I don’t really know. I’m just a vine, you see,” the vine said, tilting its nose so it looked vaguely apologetic. “I’m just here to spread and harvest magic. You know how it is, nothing but work, work, work.”
“I do indeed,” Discord said, idly spinning the lemon on his thumb. “All the chaos I do takes quite the effort. Though since I got out of the rock I’ve been living in for the past thousand or so years, I haven’t had quite the same urge to spread my lovely samples of disharmony.”
He bent down next to one of the vine’s eyes, whispering, “You know, I think the compulsion part of that spell is wearing off. Since you’re not a pumpkin by now.”
He stood up and walked away from the talking tree, which looked a bit uncomfortable with its shape. Then he tore a hole in reality and threw the lemon in it.
“You never can be too careful with these. They’re combustible, you know. I used to burn down houses with them all the time. Then it got old.”
Discord grabbed the zipper on the hole and closed it, then whistled. A giant eagle swooped down from above and carried him into another portal in the sky, which closed after he left.
“...Huh,” the former vine said. “I’ve always wanted to be a tree.”
It wiggled its branches. “Neat.”
“Oh, good. I wouldn’t have wanted for you to dislike it. I’ve resolved to make everyone enjoy my chaos now, unlike last time,” another tree with Discord’s face on it said.
“AAH!”
“Yes, well, while I would love to scream with you, other me is being an idiot, so I have to go help him.”
The face twisted like water draining in a sink, then disappeared. He might not have liked being forced into it, but chaos was fun.
It had been an exhaustive ten-second search, but Discord’s plot-relevancy spell had finally picked up some characters with some decent metaphorical armor. After a few more seconds of consideration, he’d decided to give some to himself as well. Teleportation, duplication, immortality, and being relatively invincible were all well and good, but if he stumbled into just one plot hole or picked up a stray idiot ball he could find himself dead again. And being dead was not pleasant.
With a snap of his fingers, he teleported to the nearest targets of his spell. They were, unsurprisingly, mostly ponies. It was always ponies. Lyra, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Twilight, Radiance, Fluttershy, and finally Gilda. At least she was something else. Griffons were interesting creatures.
“Greetings! You may have thought your troubles were at an end, but worry not, for I am here!”
The griffon threw a pebble at him. “Shove off.”
“Gilda! That was very rude. Also, he used a teleportation spell, so we don’t know how powerful he is,” Twilight Sparkle whispered.
“I do like a nice bit of chaos, but dear Twilight was right. That was just rude. Think of my feelings,” Discord said, catching the pebble in a conjured hat and then turning it over and pouring out a disgruntled cat.
Twilight gasped. “How do you know—”
“Your name?” Discord gave her a flat stare. “You’ve only been the main character for five chapters. Give someone else a chance.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Your party is more boring than I expected. I think you need a dragon. That would make things more exciting.”
Twilight looked at the sky and tapped on the ground with a hoof. “A dragon could be a huge help. Their fire is extremely unique and completely unreproducible. Against the Everfree, who knows—wait, no. No dragons!” she said, suddenly looking panicked.
“Oh, relax. I’m not giving you a dragon. At least not until your little adventure is over. It would be a huge help for you, I admit. But since I’m not letting you have one, you’ll find you’ll have a very hard time convincing one to help you.”
“Look bud, we don’t know who you are. You seem pretty cool and all, and if you want to help us that’s great, but if not, what do you want from us?” Rainbow Dash said, dropping into one of the more subtle guarding positions from an earth pony martial art.
Discord still noticed it, of course.
“Help you...you know, that thought never occurred to me,” Discord said, rubbing his goatee.
Understandably, the little group looked nervous. Radiance started to bring out a package from his saddlebags.
“Oh, are those what I think they are?” Discord said, extending his arm to a ridiculous degree and snatching the package out of the professor’s mouth. He bounced it a couple of times as if to get a feel for its weight. It was just for show. He knew what was in it.
“Interesting...I didn’t think there were any earth ponies who still used these. I’d have thought by now you lot could either do just fine without, or would have forgotten about that kind of thing entirely.”
Discord slipped the package back into Radiance’s saddlebags. “Not to worry, though, your secret is safe with me.” He gave the professor an exaggerated wink. “But you have given me an idea, Rainbow Dash. I’ve never played the part of the wise old sage before.”
Discord made his goatee into a ridiculously long beard, then conjured a large rock and sat on it in a cross-legged pose. With a snap of his fingers, a droning hum filled the air.
“Now young ones, hear me well: on your journey you will encounter many things. Some of them will be big. Some of them will be small. Some of them will be the size of the breadbox. If you can guess the number I’m thinking I’ll grant you one wish.”
“What?!” Rainbow Dash said.
Gilda just growled, while Twilight started pacing nervously. The other unicorns and Fluttershy seemed to be trying to blend into the grass. Only the professor seemed calm.
“Is there a purpose to this, or do you just want to foster disharmony?” Radiance said.
“Oh, heard of me, have you? The answer is yes.”
“The answer to—”
“Both of them. But I am serious. Even if it ends up causing harmony, I think they’ll let me. The trick is that it has to be sufficiently random.”
“Fourteen,” Gilda said.
“Gilda!” Twilight stomped over to the griffon. “There was probably a clue, or something! Now we—”
“Correct! Except not really, I was just kidding,” Discord said. “It was the square root of two. Have a chaotic adventure, don’t die, all that good stuff. And if you want to call me, do something you would never do otherwise. I won’t promise to help, but I will make things interesting.”
A flying saucer flew down and stopped right above Discord, then emitted a beam of light from the bottom. Discord started rising into the air.
“Until next time! I’m very busy following a whim right now, so I’ll have to meet you all later after you’ve either saved or destroyed Equestria. If you want to know more about me, ask your mysterious professor who’s actually not really that mysterious and should just get over himself.”
Six ponies and one griffon looked at each other.
“That was weird.”
“I’ll say!”
“Yes, he was a bit...odd. Still, at least he didn’t attack us.”
“Yeah. Wonder what his deal is.”
Discord’s head popped out of the ground. “I heard that!”
“AAH!”
Discord shook his head with mock-disappointment, then shook it again. Then it started spinning, slowly gaining speed until it rose off the ground.
“Again, love to chat, but I’ve got a UFO to catch.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.023 seconds
Total duration
1,039 users online
1,566,302 hits today, 2,280,440 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.®
...... I'm a bit nervous about what to expect going in...... normally something like this I'd hop in and just read away and have that be it..... but..... one of your character tags is Gilda, one of my favorite side characters..... I'm a bit...... unsure of how to proceed on the matter.
8374091
I see. Mind telling me what you're unsure about? I tried to capture Gilda's character as well as I could. If you see any inconsistencies tell me and I can go back and edit the chapters she's in. It'll play hell with continuity, but I'm trying to make a quality piece of work.
8374095
I'm unsure that like most authors you play her as just the brash arrogant bully who doesn't really move past that. I know she's been given a bit more of a positive viewing recently but I got here way before the Griffonstone episode showed up and..... it still leaves me a bit on edge.
>>Oh, that's it? You'll be happy, then. She's not like that at all. :)
8375628
Honestly I find it quite hard on eyes, but the author always has the last word. It might also be a matter of culture, just like some languages use hyphen in place of em dashes. You're welcome!
Heh... Discord and fourth wall lying in splinters. It was unexpected, but a fun to read
8382958
Thanks!
8383043
Welcome to the story! Your comments make me happy. :D Sorry for the confusions in the earlier chapters.
That Portal 2 reference.
8592592
Yep. I've also got a few others. Discord's fun. :)