The Drake Six

by JNKing

Episode 61: The Chaos God's Paradox

“I still think this is a risky idea,” Twilight bemoaned. “We literally just repaired the damages Jackknife made to the window.”

Despite her fears, Spike was rather excited. After Yona’s Yakyakistan clog dance got vetoed, he was rather interested to see how the dance worked.

“Dance make mountains safe for yak!” Yona was explaining. “We challenge cold snow to come down and challenge us, then endure brutal avalanche so that mountain will be snow free and safe for yaks to settle.”

Smolder and Diamondback glanced at each other. “And, just to clarify,” Diamondback noted. “Avalanches are like rockslides…”

“...but with this… snow stuff instead of rocks?” Smolder replied.

“White rock!” Yona agreed. “Cold rock! Dragon likely think white rock will melt with fire breath. But dragon not encounter big sweeping white rock slide. Yak not blessed with fire breath, but yak have big fur coat. Means yak must endure. Yak must remain steadfast; or be swept away to icy cold end. Be stubborn, or be buried! That is the way of the Yak!”

Gabby hummed. “But… couldn’t you guys just get out of the way of the avalanche?”

“Nonsense!” Yona insisted. “Yaks must show strength. Must be stubborn. If Yak can survive avalanche, yak can survive anything!”

“Maybe,” Swift said, “But if you’re too stubborn, you might miss out on other solutions.”

“Bah! Our solution works. Yona will show!” Not giving them anymore time to argue, Yona began her dance; though Spike realized Twilight’s worry was not unfounded: Yona’s ‘dance’ seemed more like an attempt to break the floor, as she pounded and stomped the ground, barking and booming in a yakyakistan tongue, and repeatedly looking up at the ceiling, grinning every time it trembled.

“Um, Yona,” Twilight cautioned. “We’re not on a mountain, so there’s no need to bring the ceiling…”

Right as she spoke, a massive amount of drywall got knocked loose from the ceiling, and plummeted right for the young yak.

“YONA!” Twilight and even Silver Stream and Ocellus yelled in warning.

But Yona merely laughed and wrenched her head up, head-butting the drywall into dust. She stood tall, even as Twilight, Swift, Ocellus, Silver Stream and a young filly - Cozy Glow, Spike remembered from the roster - surrounded her.

“Not to worry - not to worry!” Yona insisted, even as Twilight looked over her horns with worry. “Yona endure two avalanches before coming here. Take more than wimpy ceiling to bring Yona down!”

“Don’t think you need to be tough for your country’s sake,” Twilight told her. “We’re all friends here; you can let us know if you’re hurt.”

“I hope you don’t expect us to try head butting debris,” Gabby noted. “Not all of us have as hard heads as you.”

Yona laughed at that, but before Spike could hear more about it, he heard the rapid footfalls and panicked breathing of Fluttershy. He turned just as the yellow pegasus entered the room.

“Um… c-can someone help, please?” Fluttershy asked worriedly.

“What’s wrong?” Spike asked.

“It’s Discord.”

##

Spike managed to grab Swift and Star Wing before racing to Fluttershy’s cottage. There, they found the Lord of Chaos… not looking too lordly.

His eyes had a strange bluish tint to them, with faint white lines striking through them, and he was clutching his head like he had a migraine. Parts of his body were see through, and the parts that weren’t were glitching and spasming into a variety of odd colors.

“Whoa!” Star yelped. “What happened to him?”

“I don’t know,” Fluttershy admitted. “It started happening shortly after the fight with the Storm King.”

“I wasn’t even sure why it was happening,” Discord noted. “I got an actual headache, and I didn’t know how. I mean, it was the Storm Guards getting anvils dropped on their heads. They should’ve been the ones having… ARGH!” He clutched his head again as his entire body spasmed, turning purple and black and blue before re-stabilizing.

Fluttershy yelped and hesitantly felt at his head. “He was why I couldn’t help at the School of Friendship,” she added.

“I’m terribly s…” Discord tried to say again, only for another burst of static and glitchy colors to send him into a fetal position.

Fluttershy backed up, covering her mouth. “A-And I don’t know what to do. None of my medicines are working.” She turned teary eyes to the dragons. “Please. Do you know what could help?”

Spike and Swift looked to Star, who immediately started checking over Discord, rubbing her chin with a hum.

“What were you thinking?” Star asked.

Discord managed to glare up at her. “Pardon me?”

“I mean, like… what is your thought process,” Star asked. “Specifically about defending Equestria?”

Discord scoffed. “I don’t know about Equestria. I’d say it was more about protecting the things Fluttershy… GAH!” He clutched his head again as another spasm rushed through him.

Fluttershy winced again. “Discord…” she whimpered.

“Hang on - hang on,” Star said, checking Discord with a glowing aura from her horn. She sucked through her teeth. “Yeah, his chaos magic is on the fritz.”

Swift hesitantly stepped forward. “What does that mean?”

“Even at the percentage he’s got,” Star claimed. “It’s still chaos magic. It’s meant to be unpredictable. Untamable.” She grinned up at Discord. “Kinda like you, big guy.”

Discord managed a small grin, but it faded. “Except…” he noted. “I have been tamed.” He glitched again, taking a more canine form with a leash. “I’m a dog on a leash.”

Star nodded, glancing at Fluttershy. “Chaos magic isn’t meant to be contained. It’s supposed to be free; that’s the main aspect of chaos, is that it isn’t bound by laws or order.”

Fluttershy stepped closer. “W-Well, then, what can we do?” She looked at him. “It looks like the magic is destroying him!”

At that moment, Star got a very worried look. “Well… there is one thing, but…”

Fluttershy’s eyes narrowed, and Spike backed up, getting a vague sense that she was about to use her Stare. “Say it,” she said firmly. “What can we do to help him?”

Star herself backed up under Fluttershy’s glare, but Discord spoke for her.

“I have to go back.”

Fluttershy blinked. “W-What?”

“I have to go back,” Discord said. “Back to what I had been. I wasn’t supposed to be the… lap dog to the princesses. I am a creature of pure chaos! I’m supposed to be wild and untamed!”

He glitched, and Spike jumped back as Discord’s head split into two separate heads.

“But Fluttershy’s my friend,” one of the heads insisted. “I would do anything for her!”

“I’m not supposed to save cities!” the other head snapped. “I’m supposed to send them into anarchy! Why did I help beat the Storm King?”

“Because it saved our friends,” the second head insisted, causing more glitches.

“The battle was fun, but we let it end too soon!” the first head growled. “We just showed we’re just as pathetic…”

“We’re not pathetic!” the second head cried out.

“No, you’re not!” Fluttershy agreed, racing to his side. “Discord… you’ve been a wonderful friend…”

The first head gagged. “And that’s the problem; chaos isn’t strengthened by friendship; it’s strengthened by conflict. All these species getting along now? I’m not supposed to approve of this!”

The second glitched but forced itself up. “Fluttershy approves and that’s what matters!”

“Oh, will you stop!” the first head snapped. “Just because you want her doesn’t mean you have to appease her! Take her if you so wish; that’s conflict! That’s chaos!”

Spike grabbed Fluttershy and pulled her back, but Discord seemed more interested in arguing with himself than making any hostile movements towards her.

“No!” the second head insisted, trying to pull away, as Discord started to stammer and writhe.

“Help him!” Fluttershy pleaded, looking to Star, who was backing away and making several signs of protection. “Help him, please!”

“I don’t know how I can,” Star said. “He’s a creature of pure chaos, and he’s suffering a paradox; he wants to help, but that’s not in his nature.”

“Exactly,” the first head agreed. “I’m supposed to cause chaos and conflict wherever I go! I’m supposed to test and strain friendships, not strengthen and indulge in them!”

“But straining and testing friendships was a miserable existence,” the second head bemoaned, gazing at Fluttershy. “With them… we were finally happy.”

Both heads cried out and spasmed as the glitching continued. Spike and Star looked at each other hopelessly, while Fluttershy began to sob for her friend. But Swift, who had been looking down in thought, suddenly gasped.

“Why isn’t it possible to have both?” he asked.

Discord paused, his heads turning to Swift.

“Yes, you are a creature of chaos, but chaos isn’t restricted to just being bad,” Swift said. “You can still have friends and do good deeds for others, as long as you don’t do it within the boundaries of what’s considered ‘orderly.’”

Yona’s argument with Gabby came back to Spike, and he grinned. “That’s right; if you focus too stubbornly on one path, you lose sight of the other alternatives you could take.”

Star gaped and face-palmed herself, but Discord seemed to have locked onto what she was saying.

“So…” the second head hesitantly noted, glancing around Fluttershy’s cottage. “It wouldn’t be out of place to… ‘redecorate’?”

Fluttershy perked, realizing what they had to do. “Not at all.” She ran to her nearest desk. “Like this? Furniture on the ground? So predictable. Let’s put it where it doesn’t belong!”

She wrenched her desk up, and with Swift’s help, stuck it to the ceiling, with Star making sure it stuck with a spell.

“Oh, and what about ginseng that could sing!” Fluttershy noted.

“I’m on it,” Spike said, racing to Fluttershy’s cupboard and pulling out some tea bags.

The second head locked on them, and managed to snap his fingers, causing the tea bags to begin singing.

“And serve them on a floating table,” Fluttershy added. “We never talked about it, but I’m pretty sure Discord hates gravity.”

“Oh, I do!” both voices cried out, slowly merging back into one. “Who wants to be tethered to the ground when you can do this?” He snapped his fingers, and the entire room spun.

Spike was nearly flung onto his face, but Star and Swift managed to catch him, holding him up as the entire room spun around them.

Fluttershy laughed as Discord’s head solidified, the glitchy colors began to fade from his body and the intangible parts became fully solid.

“Now this is the Discord I was hoping to see again,” Fluttershy said happily.

“Really?” Discord asked in intrigue. “But it’s the complete opposite of what happens when we usually meet for tea.”

“Of course not,” Fluttershy assured him. “We’re different. We always have been.”

“I know,” Discord noted, the grin he had gained upon reforming fading. “I was afraid that… since more and more of my power is coming back… I was afraid you’d start to see how different we really are. And that…”

Before he could even say it, Fluttershy hugged him. “Discord,” she said firmly. “I would never think that.”

“But you and I…” Discord looked to Swift, Spike and Star. “We don’t make sense to others.”

Star winced, but flew forward. “It doesn’t matter what others think,” she said. “Especially when it comes to matters of the heart.”

“She’s right,” Fluttershy insisted. “We make sense to me.” She touched Discord’s chest, where his heart was. “I like you because you’re so different.”

“You do?” Discord asked.

“Of course,” Fluttershy promised. “Besides, what’s discord without a little chaos?”

As the two chortled, Spike glanced at Swift and Star.

“I think we’ve overstayed our welcome,” Spike noted.

“Yeah,” Swift agreed.

“Alright, let’s give the love birds some privacy,” Star noted.

“Love birds?” Discord yelped. “Where?” He snapped his fingers, and a group of colorful parrots (actual lovebirds, Spike realized), chased the dragons out of the cottage as laughter echoed from inside.

Dusting themselves off, Spike, Swift and Star headed back for the School. But one last thing stuck in Spike’s mind.

“I’m surprised at you, Star,” Spike noted.

“What d’you mean?” Star asked.

“Well…” Spike noted. “Didn’t you say once that you spent most of your foal hood trying to prove you weren’t Nightmare Moon or something like that?” Swift gave Spike a worried look, but Spike continued. “Why would you think that Discord ‘had’ to be evil?”

Star winced and looked away in guilt. For a moment, she was quiet. When she spoke… she normally didn’t sound her age, but in her words, Spike could hear the weariness of a thousand year old alicorn.

“I guess… I envy him,” she noted. “When I got exiled from Equestria, I had no hope that I would ever be welcomed back.” She looked back. “Discord’s part of a system; he does good deeds, and he gets his power back in exchange. And from the way he’s going, he’ll definitely be accepted even once he has all his power back.”

Swift nodded. “So, you think he could be cheating the system?” he noted. “Just doing good deeds so that he’ll get his powers back.”

Spike shook his head. “I don’t know guys; you saw the way that second head of his looked at Fluttershy, right?”

Star nodded. “Yep. And while part of me thinks he started off just doing good deeds so he could get his power back… I don’t think he’d suffer a split personality like that if we weren’t rubbing off on him.”

“It’s like Gabby and I were saying,” Swift said. “Sometimes, stubbornness won’t get you through every conflict. You have to be willing to be flexible.”

Star nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind the next time flexibility will come in handy.”

Spike grinned. “Like one of your meetings with your Dragon Lord?”

Star yelped. “YOU’RE TOO YOUNG FOR THAT!”

“Star…!” Spike groaned, but Swift couldn’t help laughing. And as he laughed, Star and Spike eventually laughed along as well.

##

Unaware of a certain pair of villains nearby, who watched - Sombra with a grim smile, Shade with a neutral expression as a certain filly returned to them with a single gold feather and a strand of purple fur.

“Excellent,” Sombra whispered, turning gleefully to Shade. “Now, Lord Shade Fang, witness the first step to both our revenge and glory.”

Turning back to his prizes, Sombra hit both strands with a dark spell. Shade watched on in shock as the feather and strand of fur glowed and grew, slowly molding into familiar shapes.

Comments

[Comickook]

Absolutely loved this spin on "Discordant Harmony". The dialogue, characterizations, general wrap-up and future chapter set-up are all beautifully done. Definitely liked the lead-off with the discussion of how stubbornness can sometimes blind somebody to other/better solutions before Fluttershy and the Dragons talked to Discord about his conflicting feelings as he has been getting more and more of his power back - particularly the point out that chaos doesn't have to be evil and the Visual Pun concerning "lovebirds". Of course, then there's the lead-off to Sombra and Shade creating the evil clones to the Mane and Drake Sixes.

I am most definitely looking forward to more of this.

[nightshroud96]

Looks like Shade and Sombra are making clones I see.
They better hope it won't backfire like Chrysalis did with the Mean 6 in the show.

[SpikeSmolder fan]

Wasn't expecting *Discordant Harmony* to be adapted this late into S8 per say but I like your take here!
Seems like Shade/Sombra are going for the clones move like Chryssy did, let's see if they can do worst than she did!

[JNKing]

11857351
Really happy you enjoyed.

Also glad you liked the lead-off; I was planning on incorporating that into each of the Season 8 episodes I've got planned, where we start off with one of the non-pony species explaining something about their culture that ties into the conflict ahead.

In this case, Yona's discussion about stubbornness leading to Discord's conflict and whether or not he's truly living up to his mantle of a chaos spirit.

And in the meantime, Sombra and Shade are indeed building an army of evil clones. Swift and Twilight were first, and more will be coming soon.

I look forward to sharing more eventually.

Until then, thanks for reading. 👍

[JNKing]

11857476
Things will definitely turn out different from how they went with Chrysalis.

I never liked how the Mean Six only got one episode to shine before the Tree of Harmony took them out, so I'm hoping to give them a little more screen time, along with getting the chance to show the evil sides of my own dragon characters.

Though Sombra and Shade will need to watch out for Mean Twilight; I loved how she had been planning to betray Chrysalis at some point - it's a great inverse to how Twilight's usually very loyal to her authority figures - so that trait is definitely coming back once I figure out how to implement it.

It'll be a challenge, but we'll see what happens.

Thanks for reading. 👍

[JNKing]

11857513
Yeah, I meant for Discordant Harmony to be adapted back in my Season 7 equivalent, but I forgot about it. So, this is admittedly a case of 'better late than never', but I'm glad you liked my take on it.

And yep, Shade and Sombra are going to be the ones that make the Mean Six in this version. We'll see if they have better or worse luck than Chrysalis did in canon.

Until then, thanks for reading.