Interviews With Equestrians

by Jmaster49

Subject 266: Chaotic Wakeup

The next morning….

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

I was severely startled and hit the floor of my bedroom. Someone pounding at my door nearly caused my heart to jump out of my chest.

“God...dammit, I need a doorbell,” I muttered to myself as I stood up, “Hang on! Don’t break my door off!”

Once I became fully cognitive, I shook off the dull pain that came from hitting the floor, and went to answer the door.

“Hello?” I grumbled as I opened it, “Who--”

Discord was at my front door, with a rather disturbed grimace on his face. “...Vestige. This may come across as cliche, but there is absolutely no time. We need to hurry.”

I desperately wanted to question him, but if what he said was true, then there was truly no time to mess about. However, I didn’t want to leave at random without the kid.

“What? Okay, sure--but hang on. We can’t go and just leave Cozy--”

From behind him, I heard her voice. “...I’m right here, Pale. Discord has already told me everything.”

“Wait, really?” I peered my head around the goat-like creature, “Are you absolutely sure you comprehend what he’s told you? He didn’t say anything suspicious, did he?”

Cozy shook her head, and trotted up between us. “What? Not at all! Discord just told me about what he and Fluttershy found.”

Surprisingly, Discord chose not to reply to my question of his character. “It’s rather important, so we need to leave immediately--”

I stepped outside of my home, and shut the door. Me and my infinite concern couldn’t help but ask another question. “But what about--”

Cozy grabbed ahold of my hoof, and started to pull me. “Come on!” she insisted, “I’ll explain everything else on the way there!”

Well with that in mind, it looked like I didn’t have much of a choice. So I simply followed them both out to where they had wanted to take me.

True to her word, Cozy Glow did in fact explain what I had been missing. To put it simply:

Apparently Fluttershy disappeared somewhere near the Castle of The Two Sisters. And Discord had decided to come to us first. From what else he said, apparently Cheerilee, Mayor Mare, and Spoiled Rich were hard at work discussing funding plans to repair the damages to the town. Since 6AM no less. At the very least, I knew they were safe.

Which left us with Cozy being the one to accompany us. And if we found any signs of trouble, we would signal for our force of--well, army. It was an army at this point. One that I hoped that I could maintain proper control of.

Once I got the gist of it, I replied. “...alright. So everything back home is fine. Good. So what did you manage to uncover before Fluttershy vanished?”

We had walked up a hill that overlooked the Castle. About 100 yards away....

Discord pointed to the castle. “...Nothing. That’s the strange part. And before you ask, no. I can’t just poof in there, turn the castle inside-out, or shrink it to the size of a classroom diorama.”

I looked at him with bewilderment plastered on my face for a second before I responded. “Wh--I actually wasn’t going to ask that. Mainly because I can already tell what the problem is from here.”

“You can?” he asked.

“Indeed. The Castle has been reinforced with magic-reversing runes. If you tried to cast any of your spells on it, they will most certainly fire back at you, and deal even more damage.”

Cozy stepped forward, and sniffed the air. After a moment, she recoiled out of disgust. “Yeesh...with magic like that, it’s no wonder he was so feared. What do you think we should do, Pale?”

There were various approaches that we could take in a situation like this. The best one was always something along the lines of a slow, and carefully planned infiltration to gauge what exactly we’d be up against. However, we were in no position to fully storm the castle just yet, so we had to be cautious…

That’s when I had an idea. “Alright, Discord. Can you do me a favor and make us all invisible--except to each other of course.”

“Hm? That’s simple enough, I suppose.” With a snap of his fingers, we were all hit with a blast of magic.

I checked a nearby puddle, and couldn’t see my own reflection. Nor theirs. It worked!

“Perfect,” I turned towards the old castle. “What we’re going to do is sneak up, and see if we can find anything from the outside. Any clues, any odd bits of evidence--anything that can lead us to where Fluttershy currently is. But you all have to follow me, and stay quiet. Understood?”

Both Cozy and Discord looked at each other before nodding. The latter pantomimed the act of zipping his lips shut to boot.

I tried not to roll my eyes at such a gesture, and led them down the hill towards the castle. It was a fairly uneventful walk that led us through the open field and up to the ruins. The sound of cold winds brushed against, and echoed upon the broken rock that it was composed of. It was almost beautiful, in a way. Like elegant flute music.

With Cozy and Discord behind me, I led them to one of the castle’s ramparts. We knew that the new Tree of Harmony existed in the epicenter of the wreckage, but dared not approach just yet.

As we turned the corner, I felt something. “Hm?” It was something fuzzy beneath my hoof. I took a look down, and realized that it was a pink strand from a mane--or tail? It was difficult to tell. But what wasn’t difficult to tell, was who it belonged to.

“...I’d recognize this color anywhere,” Discord whispered with bated anxiety, “Fluttershy’s close. I can tell. If that dastard has done anything to her...”

I could have sworn I heard him growl under his breath. Wait, was Discord actually angry?

No. No matter which way one sliced it, that was something I wasn’t prepared for. I tried to calm him down so he wouldn’t do anything foolish. “Hey, psst. Let’s not--wait!”

But before I could say anything...he rushed into the ruins.

“Enough with the theatrics, Grogar!” he shouted to the heavens, “I know Fluttershy is--!”

Cozy and I gazed into the castle where we heard a loud TICK followed by a set of beeps…

I didn’t know what was about to happen next, but the expression of utter horror as Discord stared at his hands said it all. They started to crack, and those cracks spread to every other part of his body. He started to mumble something to himself--something along the lines of...

“...Why now? I didn’t even get to say goodbye…”

Comments

[Neo4K]

'To Where and Back Again, Part 3' is what I would call this chapter based somewhat on the familiarity of those episodes. And is Discord turned to stone or is he falling to pieces bit by bit out of existence?

[Jmaster49]

10824973
That is a very good comparison and I'm annoyed I didn't think of it.

And no. Not stone. Something worse...