The Unwilling Command

by KGBCowgirl

F*** You, That's How

I absolutely hate long distance travel. It, along with taxes and politics, is one of the great evils in the world. Why the human race had to proliferate to such a degree that I needed to travel over three thousand miles just to meet someone is beyond me. The only solace I can find in such inefficiency is the fact that I was, directly speaking, at least two and a half thousand miles from one of the craziest regions in the United States, known more commonly as New England

Anyone who asks me "How do you justify going to such a place that obviously makes you so upset?" will receive the same response.

I'm just stupid that way.

---

I was ready to severely damage something, someone, or somepony very soon.

I was in the worst possible mood since Celestia had somehow figured out how to turn her telepathy with the Equestrians and their chosen partners into a wide-scale chatroom from Hell. I had to somehow use my selective attention span to ignore the hundreds of voices in my head, ranging from the high-pitched stabbing soprano of Pinkie Pie to the resonating bass of some guys from the Midwest.

If anyone ever wants to experience the headache I had just managed to escape, beat your head multiple times with a history textbook after getting the worst hangover of your life. Following that, blare Rebecca Black's "Friday" at maximum volume at the same time as a recording of the mosquito noise. As soon as you're done, tell me so that I can call you a masochistic fool.

I'm sorry, that was mean.

Returning to the matter at hand, I was doing my best to ignore the cacophonous noise that had somehow turned into an overwhelming chorus of Pinkie's "Smile." The song was so catchy, that I almost jumped in myself, but restrained myself so I could focus on the road in front of me. This was made nearly impossible by the fact that Jay had convinced me to swap Octavia for the pink demon.

My sanity left me within the first few miles, occasionally poking its proverbial head in to wake and say "Look at what you don't have anymore!" I decided to privately watch the Skyrim video to the same song in my head. I finally gave in and started to sing along, my evil grin misinterpreted by Pinkie as enjoyment of the song. I didn't notice the fact that Vinyl had somehow "hacked" into my version of the song and was mimicking the combative motions from the game footage.

Was I going to Hell for that? Maybe, but Heaven won't take me and Hell's afraid I'll take over, so I think that I'd make Limbo interesting if the afterlife didn't just throw me back like a bad fish. Fortunately no one else had discovered my twisted humor. Shortly after the singing was finished, I tried to start the CD in my car, only for Vinyl to grab my hand and shake her head. I sighed as I put my hand back on the wheel, looking around at the scenery to figure out where we were, since my GPS seemed to think we had managed to turn towards Florida instead of D.C.

I looked to my left to see a formerly forgotten sight: that of the Gulf of Mexico. I guess we managed to take a wrong turn, since we should have been nearing Kentucky by now. Then we passed a sign that made my blood run cold.

"New Orleans 10 Miles"

I started swearing under my breath as I tried to figure out how our course had turned farther East. Then I looked in my rearview mirror to see Jay doing a small victorious fist pump from his car. I knew he was fond of the East Coast, but I didn't think he would want to visit New Orleans that badly.

'We will be taking a slight detour, Maximus. Your cousin mentioned something called Mardi Gras?'

I hated my cousin so much at that point.

Mardi Gras is a religious holiday, but I had intended to celebrate it with a tapped keg and watching television. Now I was en route to the one city that would host the biggest Mardi Gras celebration in the country, and Pinkie Pie was in my back seat. Oh, how royally fucked I was...

'Did he tell you what Mardi Gras actually is?' I asked the Princess. I hoped she knew exactly what she was getting into.

My phone rang, and it was Jay calling. I answered it and immediately put it on speaker phone. "Sei pazzo?!" I yelled. "Mardi Gras in New Orleans and you're in charge of Pinkie? What are you thinking?"

"Dude, calm down." Jay said. I wanted to slap him through the phone so bad. "Pinkie Pie! Do you want to go to the biggest party in the country?"

Pinkie Pie gasped dramatically and almost blew my eardrums out when she screamed. "Do I!"

I was going to hurt that boy when we made our next stop. I had no time to plan out my revenge, since I saw New Orleans on the horizon. The Big Easy was a lantern in the dimming evening. "Jacob Anders Cross, We are not going to New Orleans for Mardi Gras!" I thundered through the phone. I had a strong feeling he was about to hang up the phone at that moment, but Celestia piped up at the last minute.

"Discord is there, and I must speak with him."

If my blood had run cold when I saw we were nearing New Orleans, then it turned to liquid nitrogen at the mention of the Spirit of Chaos. "HE'S HERE?!" I yelled, my panicked state at the idea of Pinkie Pie getting drunk rapidly overlapped at the prospect of being face to face with the one being from Equestria who could bitch-slap logic with a rubber chicken and get away with it. "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!"

---

The ensuing argument was little more than Vinyl attempting to calm me down, Celestia disregarding my fears, Jay distracting me from turning away from the city, and Pinkie cheering about chocolate rain. Before I knew it, we had entered the metro area and were about halfway to the French Quarter. I groaned when I realized how far into the city we had made it, since I was unconsciously following my GPS directions. We came to a stop in front of a hotel a few block from the French Quarter, and I had to be forcibly dragged out of my car by everyone else. I managed to lock the car as I miserably made my way inside the hotel. I barely registered the words of the man working at the desk as we checked into a pair of rooms for the next three days.

I walked outside and grabbed my backpack with the Titan out of the trunk of my car and silently followed everyone else up to the room. I didn't realize exactly what our sleeping arrangements were until I heard the rundown.

"Very good, so Vinyl and Maximus will have one bed, Pinkie and Jacob will have another, and Octavia and myself will be in the other room with our own beds." Celestia said, smiling as everyone but me nodded in assent. Well, most of the others nodded, while Pinkie did her best impression of a jackhammer with her own acceptance of the assignments.

I shook myself out of my shock and finally spoke for the first time in half an hour. "Wait..." I began. "You're going to have me sleeping with the mare in heat? Do you not remember Vegas?!" I looked over to Vinyl, who was giving me the most seductive smile she could have ever mustered. I won't lie. After Vegas, New Orleans seemed tame until I was told that I would be sharing a bed with Vinyl for three days.

"What happened in Vegas?" Jay asked slyly.

I shot him an icy glare, which shut him up quickly. Then I looked at Pinkie. "I'm assuming you and Jay have done some dirty dancing of your own?" This caused both Jay and Pinkie to blush furiously, while they managed to find everything in the room but each other interesting.

Vinyl punched me in the shoulder. "Bass Drop! Be nice!"

This caused Jay to raise an eyebrow. "Bass Drop? What's that name for?"

I looked at Vinyl, and she nodded before we both said together. "Noise complaints."

Even Celestia blushed at that comment.

---

"Oh, Princess!" Octavia screamed from the other room. "Where did you learn that?"

Celestia's giggles could be heard through the world. "When one has lived for thousands of years, she has the opportunity to learn a great many things, Miss Philharmonica."

I groaned under my pillow and felt Vinyl poke my arm. I turned over to her and let her see my expression of irritation. "Yes?" I grumbled tiredly.

She pointed to the door. "Want to beat them at their own game?" She asked with that same smile she had given me earlier that day. "I bet we could even teach your cousin a few tricks."

I turned my body to face Vinyl's and moved a bit closer. "Nah, I think I'll just use you as a pillow. At least then I'll be comfortable while I can't sleep." I laid my head on her breasts and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her towards me. "Besides," I pointed backward towards Pinkie and Jay, who were sleeping peacefully. "They found a way to sleep, I think we can do better."

Octavia's pleasure filled screams sounded through the wall again, louder than ever. Vinyl looked at me skeptically. "How can we sleep through that?"

I pulled out a couple pairs of sound-cancelling headphones and my iPod, which had a dual channel splitter already hooked up. "Wub-a-dub-dub, right?"

---

Mardi Gras hold many opportunities for revelry and debauchery, so I wasn't surprised to find out that the French Quarter was currently host to Discord. Vinyl dragged me all over that part of town until we managed to come across a pub, which I almost instantly ran into when I saw that they had German brews on tap. I made my way to the bar and sat down and called over the loud cheering of the many patrons.

"Oi! A pint of Bitburger here! And whatever the lady wants!" I saw Vinyl sit down next to me, her glasses in the dimly lit establishment serving as more of a hindrance than anything else. I reached over and snatched them off her face, pulling my own glasses off at the same time. "No way, I want to see the great Vinyl Scratch get properly drunk. That means I want to see some cross-eyed shenanigans!" The pub itself was an Irish themed place, which meant that their were a lot of patrons carrying on with poorly chorused melodies of their favorite drinking songs. I heard the clack of a mug hitting the bar in front of me. I laid down a five and raised the mug towards the bartender before taking a drink of the lager in front of me.

I savored the flavor before I noticed another person sit on the other side of me. I turned to see a man with a scraggly goatee and disheveled graying hair. His eyes were a bright, disturbing red with yellow sclera. He had a snaggletooth that seemed to accentuate the mad look in his eyes. I didn't take very long to identify the man I was looking at, and started shifting nervously in my seat. I was already out of my comfort zone being present on New Orleans for Mardi Gras, with all of the crowds and noise. I may have enjoyed working as a techie in nightclubs, but I suffered from a very specific kind of claustrophobia, which made me suffer from extreme panic attacks if I couldn't escape the group quickly. That phobia was nothing compared to sitting next to the embodiment of Chaos himself, who, with a snap of his fingers, could absolutely demolish any vestiges of logic and reason in the world.

"Ah, Bitburger." Discord said in his unsettling voice. "A good choice, though I would have expected you Russo-Americans favored that potato liquor, vodka." I watched as a bottle of absinthe appeared out of thin air, as well as a glass, which Discord promptly filled with the green liquid. "I personally prefer these supposedly hallucinogenic substances you humans have created. A creation after my own heart, this drink." He quickly drank the whole glass before pouring another drink.

"Yo, Discy! How you doin'?" Vinyl yelled from behind me. "Been a few months since I saw you!" I looked over to see Vinyl drinking a large glass of what looked like a radioactive fluid, which smelled strongly of Triple Sec and Hpnotiq. "This is Bass Drop, he's my coltfriend!" At this she grabbed my face and turned me so she could kiss me. I didn't resist, since her mouth now tasted like Jolly Ranchers and orange juice. She released my face, only to wrap an arm around my shoulder.

I looked over to her. "Uh, Vinyl, I keep telling you, my name is Max... And how much of my Sobieski did you drink before we left the room? I only had a quarter of the bottle." I tried to gauge how drunk Vinyl was, but she and I now had about the same tolerance. The side effects from the magic pill Celestia had given me had finally worn off in the last couple of days, so I could drink again, but not as much as I used to. I knew that I was pleasantly buzzed by now, but Vinyl seemed like she was liable to go into "party girl" mode at any moment.

"Ah, Maximus! You must be the human that Celestia told me so much about." Discord's smile only grew more unnerving by the minute as he studied me. I turned away before hearing one of my favorite songs come onto the pub's speakers. I started bobbing my head to the beat and grinned evilly at Vinyl before chugging my whole mug of beer and stood on one of the tables, stomping out the rhythm and receiving cheers from the other patrons.

'Fuck stage fright, I hope this goes online.'

Finally the guitar went into full volume and I headbanged for a bit before singing along to the lyrics. When the first verse finished, I pulled Vinyl up with me, and she squealed loudly. We started dancing and singing until the last note played. The entire pub was cheering as we jumped off the table. Then, in front of Discord and everyone else, I grabbed Vinyl by the waist, leaned her back, and kissed her for a good thirty seconds. When we both finished, we were gasping for air and Discord was clapping while grinning at the two of us. I checked myself to see exactly how drunk I was by taking a few steps forward into the limited empty space.

I had to catch myself on almost every table when I only walked about ten feet. I turned back around and sat at the bar, turning my attention to the Spirit of Chaos that had just cheered on my drunken antics. "So, Discord..." I began.

"Oh, please. You already know why I came to you." I drunkenly giggled at his statement.

"Hehe, I didn't know you swung that way, dude." I slurred before pulling Vinyl's barstool closer to me and putting an arm around her shoulders. "But I like my Scratchy." I could feel Vinyl heat up from my use of a nickname.

Discord chuckled, understanding my drunk humor. "I'm sure you do. However, I have another reason for being here." His tone turned serious, which caught my attention a bit more than usual, so I listened closely. "I'm not allowed to help any you that are preparing for the counterstrike against Chrysalis, but that doesn't mean I don't have a vested interest in your success."

I released Vinyl and crossed my arms, focusing on Discord. "Your point being?"

"Chaos is great, but without anypony to enjoy it, I have become rather bored with the dictatorship that Chrissy has put in place." He took another drink of the absinthe before offering me a glass.

I waved it away. "That stuff tastes like bad licorice. It'll make me sicker than tequila." I raised an eyebrow before asking. "Unless you have some rum?"

I saw a bottle materialize near my hand on the bar, which was filled with a dark brown liquid. My eyes widened as I saw the Captain Morgan label on the side.

Discord set both glasses down before pouring drinks for both of us. "Now, I believe you and I have things to discuss. I've already spoken to the other paired groups, and you are the last one."

I raised my glass in a toasting fashion. "Mister Discord, you have my full attention." We clicked glasses before we started talking.

Author's Note:

Night one in New Orleans. I'll probably put one more chapter up before I get to work on my other piece of War for the Worlds. There is a purpose behind the three days, other than the obvious discomfort. I hope have Max develop his new powers alongside Jay, who has his own magic. I will probably let this chapter sit for a bit before I update again, since I'm not really sure how everyone feels about the overall story.

Also, if you want to see what happens with Pinkie Pie during Mardi Gras, I'll be getting to work on the other story soon. It may be a few weeks before I get to New Orleans, but I promise to do my best.

Sei pazzo?- Are you insane?

Please review!

Comments

[Stone Cold Steve Buscemi]

Lovin this story :D

[KGBCowgirl]

2508908 Thanks!