Crimson Heart

by Starkeeper_Ponyfic

Arc 1, Part 1: Dodging Discord’s Disorderly Delight

“Chaos is a wonderful, wonderful thing!” Discord decided.

“Not as wonderful as friendship,” Twilight interrupted, stepping up proudly with her necklace-bearing friends.

“Oh, this again?” Discord sighed.

“That’s right!” Applejack confirmed with a defiant glare. “You couldn’t break apart our friendship for long.”

“Oh, Applejack, don’t lie to me,” Discord admonished, dragging her up by the Element of Honesty. “I’m the one that made you a liar.” He dragged all the others sans Twilight up to join her and taunted, “Will you ever learn?”

Twilight glared and teleported to the chaos god, encasing her friends in a bubble of magic that drifted down to the ground before popping.

“I’ll tell you what we’ve learned, Discord,” she challenged. “We’ve learned that friendship isn’t always easy, but there’s no doubt it’s worth fighting for.”

“Gag,” Discord groaned. “Fine, go ahead, try and use your little Elements, frenemies,” he mocked. “Just make it quick. I’m missing some excellent chaos here,” he complained, teleporting to his throne.

“Alright, ladies! Let’s show him what friendship can do!” Twilight declared.

“Waitwaitwait!” Pinkie called, taking a last drink of chocolate milk rain. “Okay, ready now!”

The Elements of Harmony began to glow and fire bullets in their shapes. Discord’s eyes widened and he considered. “So, you’ve managed to throw off my control enough to use the Elements, eh? Well, that’s certainly an achievement. But let’s see if you’re strong enough to fight me,” he muttered, snickering. A rainbow formed around them, and Discord prepared a blast of pure chaos magic and threw it to meet the rainbow’s light. He narrowed his eyes as the two struggled, but eventually chaos began winning. Twilight’s eyes widened as she realized what was going on and she reached for her nearest friend, Applejack, in a moment of desperation. Applejack returned the touch and extended a hoof to Pinkie, who continued the chain to Rainbow Dash, who furthered it to Fluttershy, who reached for Rarity, who completed the chain with Twilight. It was comforting, and that moment of peace stabilized the Elements’ rainbow. The two forces wrestled for a moment, and whenever Discord tried to sneak in an undercut, the Elements countered. Eventually, the air began to spark and shimmer, until suddenly an explosion knocked everyone present back.

Light poured from a focused area, hurting Twilight’s eyes. She raised a hoof in front of her eyes until it faded to reveal a very odd creature in a blue and purple striped shirt with no hair except for a small brown clump on top of its head. It looked around, clearly panicking, and stood up on two shaky legs. Twilight cautiously approached it but was beaten to the punch by a concerned Fluttershy, who darted to its side and began attempting to mother the creature. It gave a weak smile and murmured something in Fluttershy’s ear before looking around the chaos-ridden landscape. It noticed Discord and gave a noise that sounded like a snicker. Discord, for his part, was very confused at what had just transpired. Fluttershy beckoned the creature over to Twilight and the other ponies.

“Everypony, this is Frisk. Frisk, these are my friends,” Fluttershy introduced.

“Nice to meet you,” Frisk said with a nod.

Twilight bit her tongue to keep her questions in check. There’d be time for learning about this strange creature later... well, assuming Discord didn’t take over.

“Well, Frisk, y’all wouldn’t know how ta defeat a chaos god, would ya?” Applejack asked hopefully as Discord began recovering.

“I assume you’re talking about the weird amalgamation of animal parts back there?” Frisk asked. Applejack nodded. “Huh... well, I think I’ve dealt with worse before, since this guy isn’t going to give me mental scarring based on appearance alone,” they muttered with a shudder. “Uh... I mean, I can try to talk him down... or flirt him into submission if that doesn’t work,” they added with a mischievous smirk.

Rainbow recoiled. “Flirt?” she muttered disgustedly.

“Of course, gorgeous,” Frisk chuckled with a wink to Rainbow’s visible dismay. Rarity snickered. “Guess I’ve got a chaos god to fight. Oh, man, Undyne is gonna flip out when I tell her about this!” Frisk realized with an expression of awe. They reached down to touch their side before pulling out a thin gray rectangle with a few buttons on the sides. Frisk pressed one and one side lit up in an image of Frisk with various other figures of species Twilight didn’t recognise, though she vaguely placed one as some variation of a white minotaur wearing a crown and a pink sweater. Twilight had to hold her breath to keep from asking ten trillion questions, but she mentally noted a few of the more important ones to ask later...

Frisk rolled their eyes and walked over to the so-called chaos god, snapping a picture and then pulling the Worn Dagger and the Heart Locket out of their phone’s inventory to equip them. They really didn’t want to attack if they didn’t have to– memories of their fight with Asgore before Omega Flowey still kept them up at night sometimes– but they wanted to be ready just in case. A SAVE point greeted them at the bottom of the hill the chaos god was planted atop. They gratefully took the opportunity to heal and keep a fallback to test different paths if they couldn’t reason their way out on the first try.

"So the heroines send a child to battle," Discord guffawed. "How delightful!"

Frisk put on an unimpressed expression. Their battle menu popped up.

ACT: COMPLIMENT

"Well, gotta say you at least look the part of a chaos god. This whole anti-normality aesthetic is your doing, I assume?" Frisk asked.

"Naturally!" Discord proclaimed. "You know, I don't believe you and I have been acquainted. I am Discord, Lord of Chaos!" he added, sending some flying pigs and other oddities out for dramatic effect.

ACT: TALK

"Frisk. Just, uh, just Frisk. Um... Well, I was gonna ask if maybe you could... move the chaos to somewhere it won't bother anyone? The ponies over there don't seem to like it and I kind of doubt they're in the minority since this is probably recent," Frisk explained.

"I suppose I could do that..." Discord pondered for a moment. "Oh, but it's so incredibly boring without anyone to share the chaos with! But... why don't we play a little game?"

ACT: TALK

"Well, how would we play if I were to agree?" Frisk carefully phrased.

"I know a few things about your home. It's a simple numbers game. If your HP drops to 0 before my turn ends, you lose! If it doesn't, you win, and I'll stop with the chaos near any living being!" Discord promised.

ACT: QUESTION

"When will your turn end?" Frisk asked, picking up on the potential loophole. Sans had lawyered his way out of too many things for them to not have learned already.

"Clever, I'll give you that," Discord admitted. "How about... ten minutes?"

ACT: TALK

"Ten minutes with one break to let me heal halfway through," Frisk stipulated.

"Fair enough," Discord decided.

ACT: AGREE

*You wonder briefly if this might be a bad idea.

"Well, Discord, I agree to your rules," Frisk decided. "If you win, well, I'll be dead, so I'm not really gonna be able to do anything. If I win, you'll get rid of the chaos here and not use chaos near anybody who would bear negative feelings toward it." They heard a worried gasp from the ponies behind them.

Discord offered a handshake to seal the terms. "Let's play."

What followed was only the fourth most grueling battle Frisk had faced, behind Asgore, Asriel, and Omega Flowey.

Now that Frisk thought about it, the Dreemurrs were really hard as far as dodging their attacks. They supposed the gauntlet of spears through Waterfall before they fought Undyne was tougher to dodge but it wasn't really part of their actual fight with her.

Discord's attacks weren't terribly hard to dodge, but Frisk never let their guard down. They ducked and weaved through all manner of wacky magic and weird creatures. They were slightly grateful for the half-time break they'd stipulated, using the moment to greedily gulp down a Starfait, maxing out their HP. Fluttershy was hyperventilating at a safe distance and Applejack was very obviously having a hard time not charging in.

After the rest period was done, it was back to dodging. Discord was clearly worried now, throwing his attacks a lot more quickly and sporadically to try to catch Frisk off guard. Frisk had only ten seconds left when Discord pulled out the biggest, most powerful attack yet and hurled it at the glowing heart encased in their body. Frisk smirked and decided to finish it off strong. They raised the dagger and slashed the magic away in a spin that ended in a pose. The time was up before Discord could recover and the ponies ran up and cheered for the hero.

"YOU WERE AMAZING!" Rainbow Dash cheered. "TAKE THAT, DISCORD!"

"More like Miss-cord," Frisk ad-libbed cheekily.

Pinkie Pie burst into laughter.

Discord frowned and sighed. "Very well. I suppose we had a deal," he muttered. He snapped the fingers of his paw and the chaos capital returned to its normal state. "If I am allowed no other virtues, I do follow my agreements."

"Don't feel too bad," Frisk smiled. "I had a lot of fun! How about a picture?" they offered, holding up their phone. "Can't leave without something to remember this by."

"Oh! Well, I suppose..." Discord shrugged. Frisk held up the phone for a selfie and Discord posed, snapping a pair of sunglasses on. Frisk got an idea and used the face-swapping filter and the results left them both howling in laughter.

"Maybe come by sometime?" Frisk asked after they recovered. "My friend Sans would love to meet you. He's a pretty... humerus guy."

Discord snickered before snapping off to some corner of the world. Suddenly, a brilliant light streamed as Celestia and Luna came in by pegasus chariot. Frisk gasped softly when they saw Luna. Even the Elements were surprised, as Luna’s coat had darkened to a rich navy since their last meeting, and her mane shared Celestia’s flowing quality, except rather than a morning sunrise, it was the night sky streaming from Luna’s head. Twilight thought the change fitting. Luna’s cyan eyes never strayed from Frisk once she noticed them.

“Princesses, this is Frisk,” Fluttershy introduced after a period of awkward silence. “They just saved Ponyville from Discord,” she added. “Frisk, this is Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. They rule Equestria.”

“Oh!” Frisk allowed a startled look for only a moment before bowing their head.

“Well, if thou triumphed over the likes of Discord, thou need not–” Luna was interrupted by Celestia’s gentle prodding. “Yes, Celestia?”

“Luna, it’s, um, ‘you,’ not ‘thou,’” Celestia explained. “We’ve been over this multiple times.”

“Oh. Well, at least We– er, I hath– I mean, have– made progress past the point of the Royal Canterlot voice,” Luna reasoned. “Ahem, as I was saying, if you triumphed over the likes of Discord, you need not bow to my sister and I. How powerful must you be?”

“Not that powerful?” Frisk shrugged. “I’m just good at dodging and sealing metaphorical loopholes. Also I’m a master of flirting and cheesy pickup lines but those two are irrelevant to this particular situation.”

“Sister, what is a ‘pickup line’?” Luna whispered.

“Um... it’s a sentence or phrase usually used to obtain a special somepony,” Celestia whispered back. “Often involving puns of some kind.” Frisk giggled. “In any case, as Luna said, there’s no need to bow,” Celestia promised, addressing Frisk. “Though... what, ah, well, what are you?”

“I’m a human,” Frisk shrugged. They could almost hear the gears screeching in Twilight’s head. “Problem with that?”

“Well, not necessarily a problem, just that humans are entirely MYTHICAL CREATURES OH MY GOSH THIS IS–” Twilight was cut off when Fluttershy stuck a hoof in her mouth.

“Thank you,” Frisk whimpered, releasing their hands from their ears.

“If you’re not very powerful, how did you...” Celestia trailed off.

“Made a deal with him. He threw ten minutes worth of attacks at me, and if I was still alive at the end of it, then he’d leave and keep his chaos away from anyone who wouldn’t like it,” Frisk explained.

Celestia blinked. “So... you’re alive, and that means... Discord is free?”

“Is... there a problem with him being out and about if he’s not gonna bother anyone?” Frisk asked.

Celestia replied with only an uncomfortable look.

“My point stands, then,” Frisk decided. “Um, but, if it isn’t too much trouble, could I get a picture with you all? I’ve got some friends... well, one in particular, who’d absolutely love to see them once I get home.”

“I guess?” Twilight shrugged. “You gonna use that gray rectangle that made you and Discord laugh a bunch?”

“I take it you don’t have cell phones?” Frisk chuckled as they gestured for the ponies to get into position. “Okay, three, two, one, snap!”

They smiled and slipped the cell phone into their pocket. “You know... Now that I think about it, how am I gonna get home?” they asked suddenly.

“Uh... not... sure... maybe we should have thought of this earlier,” Twilight commented, glancing at the princesses.

“Like before I got pulled here by whatever magic shenanigans were going on with Discord?” Frisk quipped dryly.

“Well, I’m sure Twilight wouldn’t mind you staying with her in exchange for answering a few questions, would she?” Celestia smiled wryly, glancing at her student.

“Oh, I’ve practically been able to hear her choking on the questions she wants to ask me,” Frisk grinned. Twilight blushed fiercely in her embarrassment, only extending Frisk’s grin and drawing chuckles from her friends.

Twilight levitated the Elements away from her friends. “Princess, what do we do with these?” she asked Celestia.

“Luna and I will take them back to Canterlot,” Celestia replied. Frisk let out a snicker. “Hm?”

“Okay, how many of your city or town names are... equine puns?” they asked.

“...Yes,” Celestia eventually sighed. Luna grinned.

“And who named them?” she teased.

“Me...” Celestia groaned.

“At least you’re better at naming than my dad,” Frisk quipped. “There’s this underground magma chamber back home that he named... Hotland. And at one point they moved the capital, and he named the place he was going to live New Home.”

Celestia chuckled. “Well, I certainly am better than that,” she decided.

“Okay! Questions! Let’s go!” Twilight gasped, throwing Frisk onto her back and galloping to the Golden Oak Library.

Frisk’s face nearly burst with a startled expression. They only managed to get out a confused “What–” before Twilight slammed the door to the library shut behind them. The others burst into laughter and the princesses began the trip back to Canterlot.