Old Mare Luna

by Leondude

Chapter 23 - The End Of The End

Discord stared in shock at his former acquaintance from back when he plunged Equestria into a state of unhappiness. She looked...different. She was wearing a set of golden armour with the star gems responsible for her release embedded into it.

"How is this possible?" Discord asked, "I saw the founders of Equestria and the other rulers of their time banish you into the stars!"

"Oh, did you really think I would be locked away forever, darling?” Cosmos replied, “I had someone on the outside help me."

"Who?"

"Remember your cousin, Eris? She just happened to stumble upon one of my star fragments and, after recognizing my voice when I told her to find the rest, gladly teamed up with me. She mostly wanted revenge on Luna for defeating her all those years ago but, truth be told, I couldn't care less about what she wanted. So once she freed me, I stabbed her in the back."

Cosmos snapped her fingers to conjure up a blade made of platinum.

"I thought this would do the trick but, by the time I decided to check out where I left her, she was nowhere to be found. I suppose that's what happens when you try to make a godkiller sword of your own. Only does half of the job in comparison to the real thing."

"Wait. If you're Grogar, and you knew where I lived, why didn't you reveal yourself sooner?" Discord asked.

"Because 'Grogar' is an idea that inspires fear, darling. He was the first emperor of Equestria and the father of monsters, after all! I don't know about you but I considered that the role of a lifetime."

Cosmos strutted towards Discord and slowly caressed his beard, twirling it around in her draconic fingers.

"I knew the remaining ne'er do wells like Tirek, Chrysalis and Cozy Glow wouldn't listen to me since all mention of me was stricken from history. But if I came to them in the form of a legendary foe that would make the inmates of Tartarus itself tremble with fear, I knew they would listen to me. And as for Sombra, I heard stories about how his rule over the Crystal Empire was an unpleasant time and how his heart was as black as his mane. Even though the stallion had more edges to him than bismuth, I thought he would make a great asset to my little club. And boy, did he not disappoint! It's a pity he got too full of himself though. Oh, what am I doing telling my plan to you, darling? After all..."

Cosmos leaned in towards one of Discord's ears. "It was you who gave me the idea," she whispered.

Cosmos snapped her fingers again, conjuring the crystal ball Discord intended to use when he was planning on pretending to be Grogar.

"All seeing, all knowing crystal ball, who is responsible for it all?" she said.

The crystal ball showed Discord drawing on a whiteboard his plan to prepare Twilight for becoming the next ruler of Equestria.

"Using your chaos for good? That, I cannot abide, darling. Personally, I prefer you use it for evil. After all, what goes better with malice than chaos?"

The crystal ball showed Fluttershy's charred corpse in the coffin and the corrupted Flurry Heart, much to Discord's horror and heartbreak.

"Then again, even when you tried to be good, you still put ponies in harm's way. You know, for someone that doesn't like killing things, you still manage to cause a lot of death and destruction, which is a bit amusing when you realize there's nothing chaotic about a literal dead horse. Have you ever considered that your 'friends' would have actually lost for once? Or that the bad guys might have actually learned from their mistakes? So many flaws in your little confidence trick, so little time to count them all."

Discord knelt down in shock and despair. He stared despondently at the floor. Cosmos was right. It really was all his fault. He thought of the plan he made all those years ago. He sat back and watched as all Tartarus broke loose. He was responsible for killing Fluttershy. But worst of all, his negligence turned an adorable baby filly into a cynical mare that wanted to watch Equestria burn. Cosmos knelt down and whispered in Discord's ear again.

"Face it, darling. You're a slave to your nature, like me. When you were wreaking havoc without a care in the world, you were happy. But then you insisted on using your chaos for good when that miserable pegasus entered your life! And look how that turned out!"

Cosmos conjured the box containing Fluttershy's remains and held them right into Discord's face.

"And even when she was dead, you insisted on helping ponies out. I honestly thought you were going to accept my deal to resurrect her in exchange for Flurry Heart but you didn't TAKE IT!"
Cosmos grabbed Fluttershy's head and crushed it into dust, with the rest of Fluttershy's body crumbling away into nothing. This was enough to snap Discord out of the anguish Cosmos put him through with her words. Instead, he felt nothing but rage. Any fear he had of Cosmos was now gone, replaced with a burning desire to make her pay for everything she did. He swung a fist right into Cosmos' nose, causing her helmet as well as herself to fall onto the floor. Cosmos stared at the blood dripping from her nose onto her hand.

"You dare?" Cosmos snarled, "You dare?!"

Cosmos attempted to throw a wild haymaker Discord's way, to which Discord grabbed, pushing her with all his might straight into the cabinet. He quickly grabbed Cosmos' helmet, ripped the star gem clean off and threw it onto the floor, shattering it instantly.

"No!" Cosmos cried out, "What are you doing?!"

"Something I should have done a long time ago."

Cosmos grabbed one of the unicorn horns from her now broken cabinet and lunged at Discord with it, managing to stab him in the jugular. Discord gurgled as blood spilled everywhere and he tried to pull out the horn in his neck. When Cosmos tried to swipe at him, he pulled out the horn and stabbed it right through one of Cosmos' eyes. Cosmos screamed as Discord dug the horn even further into her eye before thrusting it out, eye attached.

"My eye! You treacherous knave, I’ll see you slain!"

Cosmos rapidly swung and clawed near Discord's direction. But try as she might to slash him to ribbons, he kept dodging. Fully healed after pulling the horn out, he kicked her heels, which contained the other two gems, and destroyed them with little to no effort. As Cosmos crawled around with no idea of her surroundings, Discord manifested a gargantuan mallet and smashed her into a pulp as the gems on the rest of her armour broke into tiny little pieces. Cosmos, with her one good eye, stared at Discord in a pitiful manner.

"Discord, please," Cosmos pleaded, "We can talk about thi-"

Discord grabbed Cosmos by the throat. He was in no mood to listen to any more lies and monologues from her. He squeezed Cosmos' throat with all his might and yanked it out from the rest of her neck. Cosmos tried to scream in agony but all that came out was blood and gurgling noises. Discord punched the bloodied throat back into her mouth with enough force to make her fall onto the floor. Not satisfied, Discord knelt down and began pounding Cosmos' face in with his bare hands. He unloaded half a millennium of unbridled agony onto her until there was nothing left of the top of Cosmos' head but a red mushy paste. When he was done, he looked to his side and saw Luna, Sunburst, and the others stare at him in open-mouth horror. Discord then looked at his own hands. They were red with the blood of who he once considered a companion.

He had never taken a life before. He used to be willing to dangle ponies over pits of fire for the fun of it but he made sure they would never suffer any burns of any degree. He did drive ponies insane and occasionally mutated them as well as other creatures but he knew deep down the effects wouldn't last. It was just fun and games to him at the time. As far as he knew, it only stopped being a game when somepony got hurt. He shivered as he tried to stand back up, horrified that in the first time in his very long life, he actually killed someone. Was this how Luna felt when Sombra made her kill Fluttershy and her friends? What would Fluttershy have thought knowing Discord did this? Was he a monster like Cosmos? He fell to his hands and knees and let out a scream of anguish. He sobbed as the guilt of all the things he had done as well as the things he didn't do crawled up his throat and into his head. Luna slowly trotted over to the pained draconequus and placed her forehoof on his shoulder in sympathy.

"It's okay, Discord."

Author's Note:

Holy shit, I nearly forgot to update this!

Imagine me forcing you guys to wait for an emotional moment like that! Anyway, the story is near its end. Only two more chapters to go.

Comments

[Alyarin9000]

Well that was a fast shift in the balance of power! "Grogar" dead, and a major opening in the villians' power with it.