Errant Finale

by Doug Graves

66 The Traitor

“How did this happen?” Spike exclaims loudly, waving his claws about in a probably-too-on-the-muzzle interpretation of Twilight, if he was doing it consciously. “How did…” he looks over the numbers of ponies, trying to read Celestia's shaky hoofwriting, “five dozen guards, all those on duty, simultaneously show symptoms? And the doctors?”

“Knowing Shining Armor, I bet none of them wanted to look weak in front of their comrades, and the doctors didn't want to abandon their patients until it was too late. But, their pride and devotion aside, there has to be some common thread,” Twilight says as she quills a letter to Luna, demanding every scrap of information the doctors have gathered, not only on the ponies who were drained initially by Tirek but also those who weren’t. “I want…”

She pauses, Spike waiting with a quill ready to write. “I want Celestia to be tested, too. And Cadance.” She gulps. “And myself. We need a baseline, and it should have been done yesterday.”

Spike snorts, motioning to Starswirl’s spellbook even while he composes and sends off a few letters. “Well, if you play your cards right, maybe that’s an option.”

Twilight rolls her eyes. “Please, Spike, I hardly think time travel is the right choice. Besides, if it didn’t happen already, then it won’t; I’d be sending myself to another universe instead.”

“But that’s all theoretical.” Spike lifts up Starswirl’s book, “Just because Starswirl wrote it, doesn’t mean it’s true, or the last word.” He flips to the last page, pointing decisively, a smirk on his face.

Twilight sighs, a raspberry aura gently tugging the book from Spike’s claws and putting it back on the table. “That’s right. But now isn’t the time-” Spike rolls his eyes “-to take a sledgehammer to the problem when a scalpel will suffice.”

“Hmm,” Twilight says as Spike begins belching letter after letter, growing a little worried, “maybe I should get one of those telepresence crystals Chrysalis had. Not that you aren’t my Best Assistant, but because I worry about you.”

“Urgh,” Spike says, staggering towards the kitchen and pulling out his stash of gems. He comes back as Twilight reads through the reports. “Hey, I’m playing my part, just like you.”

“That you are.” Twilight’s horn lights, soon surrounded by chalkboards and stacks of blank paper. “Oh, good, they gave me the histories of everypony as well.” Her eyes, well, sparkle with anticipation of the mathematical abstractions and analyses ahead. It takes some time, and soon the library is chock full of graphs waiting to be filled.

“Are you going to be okay staying up two nights in a row?” Spike says, concerned. “I’m just saying, I took a nap, so I’ll be good for now, but Owlowiscious can’t deliver letters.” The owl hoots, annoyed. “Okay, he can, but not as good as me!”

“I’ll be fine, Spike,” Twilight says as she gets the second round of updates, especially those of the alicorns. “I appreciate your concern.” Her eyes go wide as she reads. “Oh, no. I know who does need your concern.”

“Who?” Spike asks at the same time as Owlowiscious.

“The Princesses. Specifically, Celestia and Luna.” Twilight sets down the letter, staring blankly.

“It’s bad?” Spike asks.

Twilight grimly nods as she goes up to one of the chalkboards, writes the alicorn’s names on the bottom, and makes two marks above Celestia and Luna’s names.

“Wait,” Spike says, “I thought their powers were too high to be quantifiable with normal methods.”

“Normally, yes,” Twilight confirms. “It would be like trying to figure out the weight of a house, but you don't know how deep the foundation is. But the Sun and Moon used to be raised by five unicorns, though the strain wore on them considerably. Luna is at that level now, where she can barely accomplish that feat unaided. And she steadily gets worse. Celestia will reach that level soon, and I doubt she will make it to morning with the strength to raise the Sun.”

Spike’s eyes grow wide. “That’s… that’s bad.”

Twilight nods, no longer sorry about her role as backup to the backup. “My own power, and Cadance’s, are holding steady. Together, we might be able to raise the Sun and lower the Moon, especially with Celestia and Luna coaching us. But if we interact with them too closely, or in the wrong way, we might be affected by whatever is draining them, too.”

“Okay, so, something is draining the Princesses.” Spike gains a pensive look.

“Hmm,” Twilight says, studying the data.

“Hmm?” Spike says, his questioning response almost demanding an explanation.

“Hey, mysteries like this are often explained by a ‘hmm’ of something that doesn’t fit. In this case… why are the ponies who are close to running out, who have little left to give, not being drained more? It’s like…” Twilight starts drawing, a dozen cylinders full of liquid, all draining into a lake. “It’s like the spell is pulling their magic based on how much they are able to give up. It won’t take more from them, unless there is nopony else to draw from. And if a new tank is added…”

Twilight adds a large tank, a quick sketch of Luna’s cutie mark at the bottom. “Then it could cover for many ponies. Until it too runs out.” She adds another, truly gigantic, this time with Celestia’s mark. “But then when we run out of tanks…”

“We’ll just have to solve this before that happens, right?” Spike asks with a hopeful smile. But when Twilight says nothing he continues, “But where is all that magic going?”

“It…” Twilight stares at her graphs showing dozens of ponies and their gradual deteriorations in how much magic was in their bodies. Her eyes suddenly light up. “Of course! With everypony else, we caught that they were being drained too late, and there wasn’t enough magic to follow properly. But with the Princesses, we can get a heading!”

“A heading? Like a direction?” Spike frowns. “What will that tell us?”

“It will tell us where the magic is going! Assuming their magic is going to the same spot.” Twilight writes out another quick pair of letters, Spike sending them away.

Spike coughs up two letters almost instantly. “Wow, that’s a lot of numbers after the decimal place.”

“They’re just being exact.” Twilight pulls out a map, marking their locations. “Now I just need to go to where my reciprocal matches up with theirs.” Spike finds himself on Twilight’s back as she takes off, heading west at first, then correcting her route. Color drains from her face as she realizes exactly where she is going: straight for Sweet Apple Acres.

Twilight opens the door to the Carrot House, revealing Doug laying on the couch with Rainbow Dash at his feet and Applejack at his side. The other four mares are with the four little ones and playing games. All eyes turn to her.

“Twilight?” Doug asks hesitantly. “What’s up?”

“It’s you,” Twilight says, her voice shaking. “All the magic is going to you.”

“It is?” Doug says, immediately fearful. “How?”

“Everypony that Tirek drained, they…” Twilight gasps as she realizes. “It’s everypony they touched. Or everypony that you touched. You must have touched Celestia.” Her horn flares at Doug's delayed nod, involuntarily taking a step backwards at the revelation. She points a hoof at every pony in the room. “All of you are being drained, right now!”

“We are?” Rainbow Dash demands, though her angry expression quickly fades. “Now that you mention it, I am a little tired, and having some trouble flying. Only a little, you know.” The other ponies nod; Twilight notices a light tint of gray on each of them, barely noticeable. It's more visible on the fillies, and Lemon's cutie mark is slowly fading.

“I’m not saying you’re behind this, Doug,” Twilight says reassuringly, the human starting to panic. “But I think I know who is.”

“Who?” asks the ten ponies in the room.

“Discord.”

The ominous sound of claw clapping paw reverberates through the house, Discord appearing in all of his terrible glory, though the manifestations of chaos seem to be on hold for now. “Bravo! Bravo! Well done, Twilight! I thought you’d never get it.” Discord bows slightly, tipping a non-existent hat to her.

“Isn’t there supposed to be a ‘but’?” Twilight asks, unamused.

“Is there? I thought you were going to have to resort to cold blooded murder before you got it. Color me pleasantly surprised.” Discord smiles as he grabs one of the filly’s markers, drawing all over himself.

Twilight stamps a hoof, shaking the timbers of the house. “That’s enough, Discord! How can we fix this?”

“Don't you want to know how I did it?" Discord says, though none of them say anything. “It…” Discord tries to start talking but can’t, doubling over in laughter. “It was so easy!”

“What was easy?” Applejack asks with a glare in her eyes, though her breathing is more labored than normal.

“What I had to do!” Discord disappears briefly, reappearing next to Doug wearing a blue shirt with a red, yellow, and blue band that stretches from shoulder to shoulder. He explains in the obnoxiously conceited voice of a teenage boy, “All I had to do was reverse the polarity!”

“The what-now?” Twilight Sparkle says, everypony just as confused. Doug looks unimpressed.

“The… the polarity of his spell? I reversed it? So Tirek, instead of draining magic from Doug, made it drain to him instead?” Discord makes little motions with his claws that don’t really mean anything. “Get it?”

“Perhaps we tire of your petty games,” Doug says flatly.

Discord shakes of his head disapprovingly. “You remember our little deal, don’t you?”

“Deal?” demands Rainbow Dash, taking flight but only barely able to keep herself aloft. She spins to lock eyes with Doug, the human glancing away. “What deal?”

“You…” Doug starts, suddenly finding it awfully difficult to breath, his heart hammering in his chest. “I would stop calling you Alarak.”

“Yes,” Discord confirms with a stretched out word, his smirk growing just as wide, a building anticipation as if he has a thousand party cannons ready to go off the moment Doug reveals the truth.

“And in return, you would only betray me the once.” Doug barely turns his face to the side as explosions fill the room with confetti, weathering the storm of paper with a look of despondency. “This is you betraying us.”

“Ding Ding Ding!!” Discord shouts, waving his arms in the air like he just doesn’t care. “Remember me saying that?” Discord pulls down a section of reality, revealing Doug talking to Discord in the statue garden. Then Discord thrusts his claws to Doug, the human reluctantly shaking them. “See?!” Discord exclaims, “I did say that!” He grins, though no pony reacts. “We have a winner! And what have you won?”

“The slow, agonizing death of an entire race,” Doug says to nopony in particular, his low voice carrying across the otherwise silent room.

“Oh, please, don’t be so melodramatic about it.” Discord huffs, shaking his head and pulling out a human skull. He pantomimes it talking, then tosses it behind him.

“But you said you didn’t do anything!” Applejack says accusingly, snorting as she gears up to fight, a hoof going to her necklace.

“OBJECTION!!” Discord shouts as he slams his leonine paw on a nearby table. He waits about half a second before raising his arm to point accusingly back at Applejack, his mouth opening but not moving as words come out. “I never said I would do nothing until this had already happened. And, from my promise before, I highly doubt any of you would call what I did here ‘helping’. And after that I kept my word and did nothing at all.”

“OBJECTION!!” shouts Twilight Sparkle, mimicking Discord’s motion as she slams a hoof onto a table, pointing at Discord a moment later. “You’re helping us learn a lesson.”

“Overruled.” Discord wears a judge’s wig and robes, wielding a gavel more properly termed a giant two-hooved hammer. “Anything could be construed as anything else when you twist the terms like that. Besides, you don’t think I actually want all of you to die, do you? The world would be so boring then!”

“After this, I don’t know what to expect from you.” Twilight sighs heavily, moping. “I never thought it would be nothing, and it turned out to be even less than that.”

“Oh, come now, why the long face?” Discord, back to normal, pouts as he inspects Twilight’s mournful face. “Is it because you’re a little horse?”

“Petty insults?” Twilight says, slowly shaking her head from side to side. “I thought better of you, Discord. But I guess I was wrong.”

“You are wrong on a great many things, Twilight Sparkle,” Discord says sternly, “including my apparent vengeful streak against you ponies. If I truly wanted your destruction, then why would I have installed this?”

Discord vigorously motions to Doug. The human merely glances down at his bare chest, nothing out of the ordinary.

“What are we supposed to be looking at?” Rainbow Dash asks, everypony sharing her confusion.

“This!” Discord says, twisting a claw through the air. A very confused Doug spins around to reveal a giant light switch sticking out of his back, easily as large as a foreleg. The top and bottom are labeled with blurred out four letter words.

“How in the hay did you miss that?” Twilight Sparkle demands, looking at her six herdmates. They don’t do much besides exchange sheepish looks, none meeting Twilight’s eyes.

“Well, we were kind of focused on a different rod sticking out of him along the train ride,” Rarity admits when nopony else says anything.

“I’m getting pregnant for sure,” Fluttershy confides with a cocky grin and rub of her tummy, despite her heat having ended a month ago.

"Trixie... may feel the same way."

“That’s…” Twilight says, letting out a loud sigh as her hoof meets her head, though she doesn’t actually confirm or deny Fluttershy’s suspicion. “I don’t even.”

“Putting aside peculiarities of pony procreation,” Discord says, motioning towards the light switch like he is playing a game show, “all we need to do is change Micro Man here from ‘Suck’ to ‘Blow’!”

With a flick of his claw Discord flips the light switch from up to down. Everypony takes a deep breath, glancing down as if expecting their power to return immediately.

Nothing happens.

“Maybe he needs time to boot up?” Twilight Sparkle suggests, smirking.

“Never a problem when I was with him,” Rainbow Dash proclaims, every mare nodding along.

Discord inspects Doug with a frown. A long, “Hmm,” is accompanied by him flicking the switch up and down a few times.

Then Discord’s eyes go wide, his attempt to snap his claws resulting in not even a burst of sound.

An inhuman - and inequine - scream of agony fills the room as Discord’s mouth is wrenched open. Torrents of dark blue, purple, and black energy visibly course through the air like a river, the draconequus powerless to stop as every last ounce of chaos magic is drained into Doug, leaving a dull gray and brown body writhing on the floor.

Comments

[badninja]

Well it was who well all probably expected. Now I wonder how they are going to fix it and if that Time Travel spell is going to get used? Also that was quite the poetic justice if I do say so myself.

[chibilink]

Whelp uhh... now what? Would the only way to stop this to be somehow ending Doug?

[DarkPhoenixx]

What the hay?!

[PirateLord93]

I was waiting for Discord's magic to be drained.

[f0st3r21]

Looks like turning the switch counted as ‘contact,’ and Discord caught himself in his own trick.

Blast Doug with the Elements?

[Poparakelis]

An inhuman - and inequine - scream of agony fills the room as Discord’s mouth is wrenched open. Torrents of dark blue, purple, and black energy visibly course through the air like a river, the draconequus powerless to stop as every last ounce of chaos magic is drained into Doug, leaving a dull gray and brown body writhing on the floor.

Oh? Finally something interesting